The February issue of Le Scat Noir awaits you! This one contains the latest page of my musical instrument drawings, my story “The Snowman Three Doors Down,” and many other delights by other people! You can find it here.

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 two figures sat,
Renowned in myth and fable.
The forest was their habitat,
Their odor like a stable.

They couldn’t help it that they stank,
And that the smell was numbing.
They lived without a water tank,
Bereft of basic plumbing.

These creatures were the Great God Pan
And his assistant Kettle.
They bore those names since time began,
Though they were flesh, not metal.

The Great God Pan was tall and hale,
A mix of goat and human,
But Kettle was anemic, frail,
And looked like Harry Truman.

When Kettle went to gather grubs,
As was his master’s order,
Pan settled back against the shrubs
To practice his recorder.

Here, as an appetizer, is the beginning of “The Royal Touch,” from my upcoming collection The Snowman Three Doors Down. Our story hinges on a dilemma: which is better, leprosy or scrofula?

THE ROYAL TOUCH

King Theobald hobbled to the throne, and, setting aside his crutch, sank slowly onto the cushions. Stroking his beard with his stumps, he looked inquiringly at his prime minister.
“You have no obligations today, Your Majesty,” Prime Minister Oxthrall informed him.
“None?” the king asked, surprised.
“The page is empty,” Oxthrall replied, holding up the appointment book.
“But today is St. Forrester’s Day,” said Theobald. “Today my subjects line up to receive the royal touch, along with a nice little medallion.”
“The people don’t want you to touch them, sir,” Oxthrall explained.
“But it cures scrofula,” said Theobald.
“True,” said Oxthrall, “but they don’t want your leprosy.”
“Scrofula is more contagious than leprosy,” said the king. “I’m more likely to catch their disease than they are to catch mine. Especially if they cough or sneeze without using their handkerchiefs, as they often do.”
“Several people caught leprosy last time,” Oxthrall reminded him.
“Just a few,” said Theobald. “Did they like the medallion?”
“They were upset about the leprosy,” said Oxthrall.
“Those medallions were expensive,” groused the king.
“I know,” sighed Oxthrall, “and many of your subjects complained about the cost.”
Theobald shifted on his throne, absently fingering his lesions. “Leprosy’s not so bad when you get used to it,” he remarked. “In fact, I think it looks good on me. It gives a man character.”
Bishop Felix sauntered into the room. “A peaceful and joyous St. Forrester’s Day to you both,” he cried, beaming and gesticulating. “God go with you.”
“The people don’t want the royal touch,” complained Theobald.
“Of course not,” said the bishop. “You have leprosy.”
“Let me show you something,” said the king, picking up a book.
“I can see it from here,” Felix replied.

To whet your appetite, here’s the beginning of the title story from my upcoming collection, The Snowman Three Doors Down. It entwines several subplots, and is the only story I’ve written that uses prosopagnosia as a comic device.

THE SNOWMAN THREE DOORS DOWN

“What’s that picture doing here?” Brick asked, indicating a photo on the wall.
“That’s Hermes, the messenger of the Gods,” his sister Graciana replied.
“No it’s not,” Brick objected. “It’s Mr. Redbean from the hardware store, with a hippie wig.”
“Men wore their hair long in Bible times,” Graciana said.
An hour later, Brick and his parents huddled in the crawlspace under the porch.
“It’s uncomfortable here,” papa complained.
“It smells like mice,” added mama.
“Quiet,” whispered Brick, “or she’ll hear us.”
“What if she did?” papa snapped.
“We have no secrets,” mama said.
Even as she spoke, Graciana’s voice wafted from the back yard.
“I hear voices,” she said.
Her hidden family immobilized, fingers at lips, holding their breaths.
“That’s odd,” Graciana continued, her voice fading as she wandered off.
“She put a picture of Mr. Redbean in the hall upstairs,” whispered Brick.
“From the hardware store?” papa asked.
“He’s a nice young man,” mama said.
“He’s older than I am,” papa objected.
“Age isn’t everything,” simpered mama, squeezing his arm.
“Do you think they’re serious?” asked papa.
“It’s not that,” whispered Brick, “it’s that Hermes business again.”
“Not again,” mama sighed.
“Last month it was some kid from the supermarket,” papa remarked.
“You shouldn’t have bought her that wig,” Brick said accusingly.
“We didn’t get her that,” mama said.
“Then where did she get it?” Brick asked.
Three doors down, Chicky and Chalky lounged on the back porch, snacking on sugar clots and cocoa pickles from a paper bag, and gazing up at the blue August sky.
“I’m bored,” said the latter boy.
“We could throw baseballs at the tree,” suggested Chicky.
“We only have one ball,” objected Chalky.
“We could throw it, pick it up, and then throw it again,” Chicky said. “Taking turns, of course.”
Chalky swallowed another sugar clot. “That sounds boring,” he said.
“I thought you liked boring things,” riposted Chicky, rooting in the bag for another tidbit.
“Often I do,” Chalky replied. “I enjoy repetitive music, for example, and formulaic movies. In the former case, I find the predictability soothing, particularly if I’ve had a trying day at school. And in the latter case, I can identify with the hero without worrying that he’ll do something unexpected that might compromise my sympathy. But in both cases, my role is passive. If I’m performing an activity myself, I prefer more stimulation.”
“I hear you,” answered his confidant. “Well, we could build a snowman.”

So far, I’ve written eighteen string quartets, although some are still not quite finished. Here are some descriptions.

<1: AH YOUTH. A few pieces from my teens that I thought worth saving.

1: EDDIE UNCHAINED. A suite drawn from my ventriloquial musical of that name.

2: ROUNDS. Four rounds.

3: ARETINO IN SOLRÉSOL. Five erotic sonnets by Piero Aretino translated into the universal musical language Solrésol.

4: CHORALES. Fourteen brief chorales.

5: TROWIE TUNES. Harmonizations of five “trowie tunes” from the Shetland Islands.

6: PALINDROMES. Palindromic rounds, with added bass lines, descant parts, and other embellishments.

7: VIOLAS. A chorale, round, and finale for four violas.

8: THE MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. An extension of a brief realization of the music of the spheres by Athanasius Kircher.

9: VIOLAS AND CELLOS. Four movements for two violas and two cellos.

10: SONGBOOK. Arrangements of songs from The Doug Skinner Songbook.

11: IN THREE PARTS. A revision of a quartet I wrote back in 1988.

12: MOZART’S HARLEQUIN. Mozart wrote music for a Harlequinade, but only the violin part remains; I provide the rest.

13: OPEN STRINGS. Music for retuned open strings.

14: ‘CELLOS. Four movements for four cellos.

15: ON MELODY IN SPEECH. Harmonizations of 19th century transcriptions of speech.

16: PIANO PIECES. Arrangements of some of my piano pieces.

17: LOCKDOWN. Two movements written during the pandemic.

18: BARON AARON. Based on interstitial music for an album of readings.

You can now purchase the latest issue of Le Scat Noir, that being #231 (the Encyclopaedia counts as #230). It contains many funny and delightful things, including my drawings of imaginary musical instruments. It’s over here. A good way to start out the new year!

For The Black Scat Encyclopaedia (see previous post), I contributed several entries on poetics. Here’s one of them:

IAMBIC CENTAMETER: A line of a hundred iambic feet:

Beloved, when I saw you standing there beside that picturesque gazebo by the crumbling garden wall, as bluebirds gaily sang their hearts out high atop the willow tree that spread its branches over the azalea bush, and breezes played around your silken petticoats and ruffled your unruly chestnut hair, I contemplated the expression on your blushing features, shaded by that large but inexpensive hat, adorned with all those garish multicolored feathers dyed with such a startling lack of expertise, and couldn’t help but wonder if you even heard the cheerful warbling of the feathered songsters as they offered their improvisations to the sultry summer morn, or if you stood there lost in some reflection, reverie, or waking trance, and if you even noticed I had fallen down and hurt my leg.

Le Scat Noir Encyclopædia offers “All human knowledge in a single volume.” It contains entries from Acrostic to Zwine, and features contributors from around the world—some of whom are distinguished professors at prestigious universities. Others are Nobel Prize winners, while a few have been arrested on felony charges. Discover rare factoids, flash fiction, nubile moon spew, mythological arcana, cabalistic pathogens, pataphysical detritus, scatological schemata, crypto-heuristic scripture, and radical homomorphism. Over 100 pages of profusely illustrated weirdness.

Featuring contributions by Mark Axelrod, Jeff Bagato, Jacques Bekaert, Doktor Bey, Paulo Brito, Adam Levon Brown, Theodore Carter, Brendan Connell, Norman Conquest, Sean Coolican, Catherine D’Avis, Farewell Debut, Edith Doove, Paul Forristal, Ryan A. Forsythe, Peter Gambaccini, Eckhard Gerdes, Amelia Gorman, Thomas Gresham, Charles Holdefer, James R. Hugunin, Harold Jaffe, Richard Kostelanetz, Rachel Kushner, Terri Lloyd, Harry McCullagh, David Macpherson, Opal Louis Nations, Andy O’Clancy, Peter Payack, Caleb Puckett, Jason E. Rolfe, Paul Rosheim, Stephen Silke, Mercie Pedro e Silva, Doug Skinner, Seth D. Slater, Yuriy Tarnawsky, Robert Wexelblatt, Tom Whalen, Gregg Williard, Carla M. Wilson, and D. Harlan Wilson. Edited by Norman Conquest.

My contributions include entries on asemic acrostics, iambic centameter, inflatable prosthetics, quadratic syllogisms, oxymoronic onomatopoeia, and other subjects. It’s published by Black Scat Books, and available on Amazon!

Some more piano music. The opening arpeggio kept nagging at me, so I finally spun it out further.

Long Live Life is now available! It’s my seventh translation of the peerless French humorist Alphonse Allais, a favorite of Surrealists, ‘Pataphysicians, and astute readers everywhere!

This is the first publication in English of the master’s 1892 collection, Vive la Vie! — stories culled from the pages of the legendary Bohemian paper Le Chat Noir, packed with madcap (and bawdy) tales of love, adultery, the supernatural, military life, and fake news. These texts are quintessentially Allaisian, spiked with absurd digressions, parenthetical asides, footnotes, puns, jokes, military jargon, Parisian slang, neologisms, dog Latin, literary quotations, and other unmentionable forms of wordplay. This special Black Scat edition features four additional short stories not included in the original French volume, as well as a lively introduction, illustrations, and fascinating notes on the text by Doug Skinner. Explosions of laughter guaranteed.

You can find it on Amazon, or from Black Scat Books.