An illustration from an 1844 issue of Punch magazine.

It's a Retroactive Lifetime Goal* for us to have captured in a single photograph the look and feel of California environmental quality. Thanks, Los Angeles Conservancy, for featuring our wide-angle view of Los Feliz as your masthead.

*The phrase "Retroactive Lifetime Goal" appears courtesy of Jonathan Caws-Elwitt.

Thanks to Geeks2point0 for featuring our photo of our books arranged by color in a piece about how "geeks hatch from bookworms."

We're honored by this piece by Gary Barwin.

Thanks to the Working Harbor Committee of NY/NJ for featuring our photo of the tall ship El Galeón.

A pro said the children's book I'm writing is 130 pages too long (& nearly referred me to a shrink), unaware I specialize in the impossible.

Here we are catching some rays in a tucked-away little place some folks will recognize.

A self portrait of Prof. Oddfellow.

To our utter delight, Dr. Menachem Feuer analyzes our Franzlations according to Schlemiel Theory.  Here's just a snippet:

They have created a book that speaks to anyone who is interested not just in reading Kafka but in, so to speak, taking his work as the basis for new texts, images, and interpretations that "open” up the text to play and new meaning. Moreover, this book speaks to people who are well versed in what is called "intertextuality.” And by this I mean the textual practice of moving between texts which, in effect, offers new meanings (I will return to this below).

But I would argue that since Franzlations also includes images, one text doesn’t simply translate into another; it also translates a text into another image (or rather a set of images which harken back to the early 20th century). By doing this, this book takes the work of Kafka into a wholly other sphere of meaning with an entirely different register of connotations. And for someone like myself, who loves textual play, this is doubly exciting. It brings us into the zone where Walter Benjamin, in his book Berlin Childhood around 1900, wanted to go; namely, to a space where the imagination can be freed by virtue of the play of images, text, and history. In this space, one becomes like a man-child, interpreting text, images, and history while at the same time playing with them. This touches on depths by way of traveling across different surfaces.

I’d like to take a look at the interplay between text and text and text and (historical) image to illustrate how these texts open up horizons that I have not experienced in any previous academic readings or fictional plays on Kafka’s novels, short stories, or parables (as in Phillip Roth, Paul Celan, or Aharon Appelfeld’s work—to mention only a few examples of writers who engage in intertextuality with Kafka’s work).

Here's the secret of dying happily, courtesy of E. V. Lucas, Windfall's Eve (1930):

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook, for a Tumblr acquaintance:

If only all terrible reviews could be of this caliber, fewer authors might be driven to drink.  Dr. Thomas Hodd, of the Université de Moncton, reviewed our Franzlations (a guide to the imaginary Kafka parables) for the Journal of Canadian Poetry, Volume 28.  Long story short, our book is worse than cancerous poetry (quite literally, he says it compares unfavorably to a specific book of poems about cancer that should have been left on the hospital bed and not published).  Franzlations, he says, is "more like an artifact than a book of poetry" — criticism we will take on the chin with a British stiff-upper-lip (as it were).  Our "images and phrases begin to resonate, although for what purpose is unclear since the esotericism implied within these pages feels contrived, and ultimately fails to extend beyond the pages of the book" — to which I retort, "That's what they said about The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus!"  But in all seriousness, esoteric is defined as being intended for a small number of people with a specialized knowledge, so if the esotericism of Franzlations were to be unleashed from the pages of the book, it would transmute into exotericism (intended for the general public), an idea that causes our corrosive juices to reflux.  As we meditate upon Dr. Hodd's scathing conclusion, we have to smile (enigmatically, to be sure), because to be "neither poetry nor art," neither words nor images, is very Zen.  Dr. Hodd has inadvertently acknowledged that we've attained enlightenment.

First the good news:

We just noticed a lovely review of One-Letter Words: A Dictionary, courtesy of Virginia Durksen over at Goodreads: "What's not to love? I confess to being a reader of dictionaries. Not a regular reader, but a frequent browser, when the sun is shining and a word has caught my eye. Conley pulls together a list—this inspires more lists in me. I want to add things to this dictionary. The publisher should create a volume with spaces to add things, for word collectors. And, goodreads should add an option for re-reading, never stop reading, use it all the time. That would be this book."

But it's not all good news.  An unrefined person over at Goodreads ripped our dictionary of one-letter words 26 new anal cavities.  (Googling "does a book have an anus?" delivers zero results, so ours may be a world first!)  Forget the fact that our dictionary has been remaindered for years and was, in fact, dead in the marketplace before it ever debuted (see our interview with Janet Boyer for the lurid backstory).  Why condemn when you can create?  This gauche person stated that he's pretty sure he could do a better job.  So why doesn't he?  The more dictionaries of one-letter words, the better!  But actual creators and innovators are few and far between.  We don't have time to write paragraphs of derision toward other people's work -- we're too busy marching to rain on someone else's parade.

Thanks, poet rob mclennan, for saying that our Franzlations "read like an illustrated translation or even continuation of Kafka’s work. ... The three authors work absurd movement, incredible wisdom and clarity, reading nearly as an extended essay-as-response on the work of Franz Kafka."

"When the mood is in the seventh house ..." —Jeff Hawkins

Even though modern eyes might consider the young lady's skirt to be quite long (in the image below), she's wearing the "short skirt now in vogue," making her vulnerable to casting a disreputable shadow.  We generally love that one might be scandalized by one's shadow.  A true character must cast a fascinating shadow, one way or another.  Note that the tricky "witching hour" here is sunset and not midnight.

Jeff shares:

From Punch, 1868.  The caption reads, "Young ladies who affect the short skirt now in vogue, are respectfully cautioned against the witching hour of sunset!"

Unencumbered by linear time, recording artist Ken Clinger adapted and covered a song we wrote 14 years ago, "Legend of the Map."  Interestingly*, all references to Esperanto have been erased!

*Given that the song is about Esperanto, and given that Ken Clinger is a student of Esperanto.

Pictured: Prof. Oddfellow collects his thoughts.  Note the eye-shaped lens flare, courtesy of mysterious forces.

We've been keeping one of our latest publications under the radar, lest it fall into the wrong hands.  But we felt safe sharing it with Clint Marsh (of Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop fame).  From his review in The Pamphleteer:

A master of practical esoterica, Prof. Oddfellow (a.k.a. the inimitable Craig Conley) follows in the footsteps of magicians throughout history in tracing his lineage to a potent fabulous ancestor, in this case Elizabeth of York, the mother of Henry VIII and the woman immortalized as the Queen of Hearts in the familiar deck of playing cards we've all seen.  Instead of climbing the family tree back toward Elizabeth, though, Conley begins with her and comes down through history toward himself.  This approach makes perfect sense to anyone bent on establishing a blood connection to a particular figure from the past, and it seems to involve less risk of falling down the wrong genealogical rabbit hole.  ... [Heirs to the Queen of Hearts: Tracing Magical Genealogy is] a wonderful new addition to his teeming brood of bibliomantic offspring.

Here's a strange moment in the pitch-perfect Scottish comedy series Burnistoun.

"Every bubble is the product of some form of irrational exuberance."
—Matthew Bishop, Essential Economics: An A to Z Guide (2009)

"Underlying every bubble is what I call a Big Truth."
—Peter Atwater, Moods and Markets: A New Way to Invest in Good Times and in Bad (2012)

"Every bubble is coming from the atman, soul, your being."
—Paramahamsa Nithyananda, Guaranteed Enlightenment (2009)

"Most bubbles are very friendly."
—David Lewman, SpongeBob SquarePants Survival Guide (2002)

[Our illustration is from Nursery Nonsense, or Rhymes Without Reason by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, 1864.]