I’ll be presenting my concert/talk on “Music From Elsewhere: the music of spirits, fairies, aliens, and other questionable beings” at the Minneapolis Institute of Art on February 20. It’s in conjunction with the show “Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art,” curated by Robert Cozzolino, which runs from February 19 to May 15. The program […]

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One of my musical preoccupations in July was a set of eleven duets for tenor recorder and viola (or other suitable instruments). Each is 33 measures long; here’s the first one.

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This little number was an occasional part of “Doug and Mike’s Adult Entertainment,” the puppet show I did for years with Michael Smith. Here I had to sing, operate a toilet puppet with my right hand, and play a small organ with my left hand.

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In this gripping tale, our hapless narrator tries to reconcile the competing demands of the cerebral and physical. Here’s the first part; the whole thing is slated for the next issue of the Black Scat Review. THE MORNING WALK It was a beautiful spring morning, so I decided to take a walk. The decision was […]

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We have here a song about urban life. When confronted with something unpleasant, simply close your eyes and make a wish. I don’t know if it works, but you might as well. It can be found on That Regrettable Weekend and in The Doug Skinner Songbook.

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Here’s another entry in my continuing search for new poetic constraints. Monosyllabic haiku contain three one-syllable words, with 5, 7, and 5 letters. And here are seven examples: moose springs forth tweak twelfth shelf cheap schlock sells bears scratch backs white wraiths whirl swill thrills swine frail scrolls crack

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I’m currently collecting my cartoons of imaginary musical instruments, which appeared in the PDF magazine Le Scat Noir, into a book. I also drew some new ones. Here are a few.  

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My talk on anomalous music, “Music from Elsewhere,” was recorded by Morbid Anatomy, and is now available on their Patreon site, here. I’ll be doing another talk, with different music, April 27 at NYU, as part of the Profane Illuminations series organized by Strange Attractor Books.

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The Muses give me some poetic advice. THE MUSES SPEAK If you write about your feelings, We will throw potato peelings. If you start to air confessions, We’ll urge psychiatric sessions. If your work becomes too earnest, We’ll suggest that it be furnaced. If your work becomes too solemn, We will turn our spinal column. […]

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Le Scat Noir, the online journal published by Black Scat Books, has suspended publication. With it, so has my regular page of musical instruments. This is the last one I drew, the 18th. That means I’ve come up with 162 instruments, which is quite an orchestra. Well, I’ll keep drawing them, and try to make […]

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