Author Archive | Mark A. Rayner

Toulouse Le Grandfig’s Summer Vacation: Cochlea

Buster Keaton's inner earJanuary 12, 1932

Our first port of call was Buster Keaton’s inner ear. I think we have discovered why he is always falling down. He has a lovely — if transgendered — higher primate living in his cochlea. Perhaps if she . . . he. . . it. Lovely it! Did not spit so much like a camel while Buster danced the tango.

Pity Buster and his aural inhibitor — his perilymphatic fluid sullied by transpittle, not transducing at all like mine, or your’s, or even like all the monkeys’.

Also, it seems that I am travelling backwards in time.

Next Time: Come Fly With Me

About the Photographer: Toulouse Le Grandfig was a surrealist painter, photographer, and writer who never gave up dadaism. He was a prodigious eater of soup.

Marvellous Hairy is tomato. (And you should read it too.) Alltop is Cream of Asparagus. Originally published in July 2008.

Toulouse Le Grandfig’s Summer Vacation: Departure

Agamon and Piffles on board the PlotnikDecember 37, 1932

My voyage begins on the Ukranian Steam Ship, the Plotnik. On the first day, I met our captain. A diminutive, if stern fellow, by the name of Agamon Destroyer of Life. His constant companion was a mute who went by the name of Piffles. (Though he also answered to “Ahoy Gregor you great walloping pederast.”)

We set sail from Kiev, a week before I left Paris. The sea breeze! The flying monkeys of the Ukraine. Ah, it was a dream come true.

Next Time: Buster Keaton’s Inner Ear

About the Photographer: Toulouse Le Grandfig was a surrealist painter, photographer, writer, and a tremendous watchtower, glistening in the fetid fields of the mind. He ate truffles, magnets and things that made him feel “squingy.” Also, he was a parakeet.

Marvellous Hairy is not a parakeet. It is a dolphin. A flappy, exuberant dolphin of joy. Alltop is a cruller. Originally published July 2008.

Toulouse Le Grandfig

Toulouse Le Grandfig, with hat[From the Oxfjord Compendium of Not-So-Good Painters]

Born in Sarlat (France) in 1895, Toulouse Le Grandfig was a minor painter and surrealist writer who’s most important contributions are the dadaist works: “Le singe de vol mange le ciel,” [1922 (“Flying monkey eats the sky”)], and “Singe dans la casserole de cerveau” [1923 “Monkey in the brain pan”)]. Though Grandfig’s paintings were shockingly original, and showed flashes of technical brilliance, he never evolved as the other surrealists did. (He even refused to acknowledge that dadaism was dead, a stance that even Marcel Duchamp found ridiculous by the late 1920s.)

A stern critic of Grandfig, Duchamp once said of him: “If only he were a fucking monkey, then the roto-tiller would certainly ingest my bodily wastes.”

Grandfig’s surrealist autobiography and masterwork is “Ma batte est une cheminee.” [“My bat is a chimney” (Presse De Boue De Porcs, 1937.)] Recently, a previously unpublished collection of photography was uncovered by an aficionado of all things Grandfig, and remains safely obscure in his collection. Little is known of this work, except the title, predictably: “My monkey burns… a holiday in photographs.”
……
Ed. Note: Grandfig’s dadaist works will no longer remain “safely obscure” as The Skwib has purchased a number of his collections, including “Necrobiblia”.

Other Toulouse Le Grandfig can be found in that category.

From the Necrobiblia collection: Hand-holding | At the bottling plant | Rozie | The Pillage People | How the world ends | At the abbatoir | Gunter tries again | The love that dare not | Catholic school | Alonsy is late | Pure Lain Follies | The Team Picks a Name | The Tradition Continues | Austria, 1912

Alltop cannot be blamed for this. Originally published in 2005, or so legend has it.

Larry Miller’s Five Levels of Drinking

I love this routine by Larry Miller; it’s great storytelling, and it reminds me of my idiot friends. We went so far as to name these levels, including some names for specific drinks within them. (In fact, it is the basis for the structure of my second novel, Marvellous Hairy.) Tomorrow I’ll outline these in a fuller post, but for now, please enjoy Miller’s take:

Don’t read this until you’ve watched the video (spoiler):
I love the description of the morning-after sun as “God’s flashlight”, and yes, I too have uttered the vow (with the extra part):

“I swear I will never do this again, as long as I live. And this time I mean it.”

If you enjoyed this, and you like listening to podcasts, you should really check out Miller’s weekly rant/stream-of-consciousness storytime, This Week with Larry Miller.

Alltop always means it.