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#64859 04/10/02 01:38 AM
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Jackie Offline OP
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Okay--I was looking at the old thread where tsuwm mentions Douglas Hofstadter. I decided to see if I could find a quotable source on (by) him. I got sidetracked to this intriguing site and learned about something called pataphysics, which has only been mentioned here once before, and in a thread so fine that I immediately decided to ressurrect it.
Queneau joined in 1950 the Collège of Pataphysique, the group of intellectuals and writers whose zany, tongue-in-cheek manner brought a sort of Brothers-Marxist approach to French philosophy. Pataphysics was created by poet and playwright Alfred Jarry (1873-1907), and is defined as the science of imaginary solutions, or the science which investigates not the laws of Nature, but the exceptions to those laws.

http://www.themodernword.com/scriptorium/queneau.html
I don't know anything about pataphysics or Alfred Jarry, so if anyone would care to enlighten me...


#64860 04/10/02 02:01 AM
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Dear Jackie: I tried reading that, but it snowed me under before I got half way through. I'm not fond of Joyce or Umberto Eco and their contrived obscurity perpetrators. There are other books more rewarding on which to expend my limited quota of reading capability.


#64861 04/10/02 03:23 AM
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#64862 04/10/02 03:33 AM
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"The science of imaginary solutions, which
symbolically attributes the properties of
objects, described by their virtuality, to
their lineaments" - Alfred Jarry

Joan was quizzical
studied pataphysical
science in the home...

[can you name this song/band without any clues? : ) ]


()

#64863 04/10/02 03:50 AM
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#64864 04/10/02 05:48 AM
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hev Offline
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Joan was quizzical
studied pataphysical
science in the home...

[can you name this song/band without any clues? : ) ]

No prob, bob! Easy-peasy! A cinch... oh... you want me to actually name it?

Nah... let the others have a go!

Hev

#64865 04/10/02 09:31 AM
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#64866 04/10/02 10:51 AM
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their contrived obscurity perpetrators


Just a note to say I love this phrase.


k


#64867 04/10/02 12:01 PM
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"Late nights all alone with a test tube,
Oh, oh oh oh...

MAXWELL Edison, majoring in medicine, calls her on the phone,
Can I take you out to the pictures, Jo-o-o-oan?

But as she's getting ready to go,
A knock comes on the door..."


#64868 04/10/02 01:32 PM
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The only pataphysicist I know of was Joan, but my namesake took care of her.

Light dawns on Marblehead! I have wondered for YEARS what that word was in Maxwell's Silver Hammer! Back in High School, my friend and I spent Typing class doing nothing but typing out the lyrics to Beatles songs, and we scratched our heads for hours on that lyric. I think we eventually decided it was "metaphysical", but we knew that wasn't it. I might have to look him up to let him know what pataphysical means. On a related note, is Alfred Jarry the same guy who wrote the truly bizarre play Ubu Roi?


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