Francisque Sarcey (1827-1899) was, for much of his career, the most powerful theatrical critic in Paris. He was the perfect model of the blunt bourgeois, championing common sense, anti-intellectualism, and traditional values. He favored light, commercial fare, and railed against Ibsen and Jarry. He was, predictably, a prime target for young artists. Alphonse Allais took […]

[Read more →]

Today is April 1, a day sanctified by the extraordinary French humorist Alphonse Allais; and I am happy to announce that it brings the release of Captain Cap, Volume 2. Allais’s stories of his absurd anti-hero, first published in 1902, have been meticulously translated and illustrated by Doug Skinner, in the second volume of a […]

[Read more →]

My translation of Isidore Isou’s Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara was displayed in the show “Manifesto,” devoted to Dada, Letterism, Fluxus, and other vanguards, and organized by Frédéric Acquaviva at Kings Place, London, 3/4/13.  Copies are still available, by the way, at Black Scat Books.

[Read more →]

These pinbacks are given to the first twelve who purchase Captain Cap, Volume 1.  I based the button on the only known photograph of Albert Caperon, the real Captain Cap.

[Read more →]

Alphonse Allais was a peerless French humorist, celebrated posthumously by the Surrealists for his elegant style and disturbing imagination.  Among other things, he wrote a series of wonderful stories about his friend Albert Caperon.  In Allais’s hands, “Captain Cap” became an adventurer and inventor, with a disdain for bureaucracy and a heroic thirst for cocktails.  […]

[Read more →]

The Fortean Times ran a series about worthwhile books from the past; my appreciation of George Jean Nathan’s New American Credo appeared in issue 147, June 2001.

[Read more →]

The first issue of Black Scat Review is now out!  Among its interesting contents is my translation of “The Man in the Iron Mask,” by Pierre-Henri Cami.  Cami is now mostly forgotten by English readers, but he once published in Vanity Fair and was lauded by Chaplin.  He specialized in fast-moving, gag-driven playlets; he’s sometimes […]

[Read more →]

My translation of Isidore Isou’s “Considerations on the Death and Burial of Tristan Tzara” is published by Black Scat Books, as the eighth in their elegant chapbook series, “Absurdist Texts and Documents.”  Isou, founder of that unusual literary movement, Letterism, describes his hilarious, often embarrassing, behavior at Tristan Tzara’s funeral.  It’s published in a limited […]

[Read more →]

Jim Moore created the character of Baron Otto von Tu, an aristocratic hermit.  The Baron, in turn, founded Club Recluse, a society for the anti-social.  I wrote the handbook, which included information about the society, tributes to great recluses, and tips for solitary living.  Jim tried to sell membership kits, containing this manual, a certificate, […]

[Read more →]

An asemic sound poem, from around 1977.

[Read more →]