'Pataphysical science in the home

Some of you may be puzzled by the title of this blog, so here’s a brief explanation for the curious.

‘Pataphysics (‘Pataphysique in the original), is a term coined by Alfred Jarry in 1893. It is to metaphysics, as metaphysics is to physics, AKA the science of exceptions.

Ubu done in Pongo

I became enamored of Alfred Jarry in college after having been recruited to play a bit role in Ubu Roi. I had never heard of him before and was awestruck by its rawness, its power, its vehemence and the modernity of the piece. It premiered in 1896. I could go on at length about Jarry’s take no prisoners artistic position, but suffice it to say he remains a seminal figure for me.

I recently discovered that the word ‘Pataphyics was written into Maxwell’s Silver Hammer by Paul McCartney – “Joan was quizzical, studied ‘pataphysical science in the home…” and immediately loved the image and decided to adopt it here. First, because my train of thought runs on a ‘pataphysical track (Eadem mutata resurgo: “Although changed, I shall arise the same”) and second I am always attracted to the esoteric and ambiguous. The song itself is no great shakes, but I couldn’t resist the Jarry reference.

It will certainly take me a few weeks (months??) to get back into blogging and to dress the blog up with appropriate widgets, decent blog roll and all the other doodads. This is my experience with a self-hosted WordPress blog. So far, so good and this K2 template is the cat’s meow.

Over and out.

Tags: pataphysics

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 10th, 2009 at 17:47 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.