The Pope’s Mustard-Maker is now available from Black Scat Books! Translated by Doug Skinner! Le Moutardier du pape was the last work that Alfred Jarry finished, a few months before his death in 1907. It was one of many operettas he worked on in his last years, and one of the few he finished: a bawdy three-act […]

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A five-part round, setting a French proverb on the danger of eating eggs.

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I’ll be part of the lineup for Profane Illuminations, a day of talks at NYU organized by Mark Pilkington of Strange Attractor Press. I’ll present my talk “Music from Elsewhere,” discussing and playing music attributed to fairies, trowies, banshees, aliens, spirits, and angels; as well as music from alchemists, occultists, Cathars, cryptographers, secret societies, and […]

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A setting for women’s voices of a brief prayer by Benjamin DeCasseres: Give me this day a corroding doubt and deliver me from single-mindedness and all faith that I may scan the Centre from each point on the marvellous Circle and scan each point on the Circle from the illusive Centre; and let not my […]

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A piece for brass I wrote when I was sixteen, recently recopied for legibility. It was built on fourths, seconds, and hocketing, and, as I recall, was bracing and growly.

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My upcoming collection, The Snowman Three Doors Down, also includes a few tales in verse. I should add that I write in strict verse forms simply because I like formal constraints. Here’s the beginning of “Pan and Kettle,” originally written for a nonsense issue of The Black Scat Review. PAN AND KETTLE Beneath an oak […]

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In this toxic election cycle, it’s appropriate to ponder the history of the presidency. I offer my stirring pageant, The Presidents’ Tragedy. It’s in five brief acts (with a prologue and epilogue spoken by David Rice Atchison, who was president for one day, sort of), in blank verse, and depicts all of our presidents trying […]

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A song about the universe.

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When I was a kid, I had a picture book of prehistoric animals, and was fascinated by the Paraceratherium (or Baluchitherium). It was the largest land mammal known, a long-necked ancestor of the rhinoceros that stood as high at eighteen feet at the shoulder. I finally made one into a cartoon character, named Papi. Here […]

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I played keyboard on this album by the Town Street Criers, a band composed of Doug Roesch and Ruslan Pantaev, both on vocals and guitars. We were joined by Martin Zeigler (lap steel), Marshall Wood (bass), and Vincent Pagano (drums). You can pick up a copy here.

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