Pataphysica is a scholarly journal for pataphysics.
CALL FOR PAPERS PATAPHYSICA V: The Fifth Issue of the International Journal of all things Pataphysical.
We welcome submissions in virtually any genre on topics directly related to the study of pataphysics.
Please familiarize yourself with pataphysics before submitting by looking at any one of the previous issues of Pataphysica. You can buy copies of Pataphysica I, II, and IV at Amazon.com. You can buy a copy of Pataphysica III at Lulu.com. All submissions must be emailed as a word document in MLA style to Dr. Aaron Parrett at aparrett@ugf.edu. Feel free to email with inquiries or proposals.
Pataphysica 4: Black Arts
2007
Pataphysica 4 presents the strange "conclusion" to Alfred Jarry's 1907 Symbolist novel The She-Dragon, Part 1 having appeared in Pataphysica 2 (iUniverse, 2004). It also holds the central, pivotal chapter of the novel, which describes a battle that, while entirely modern, reads like ancient myth, conjuring such texts as the Bhagavad-Gita and Homer's Iliad. Annotations highlight Jarry's alchemical symbolism (among other things), alchemy being the ancient "art and science" studied in secret by such modern scientist/philosophers as Gottfried Leibniz and Isaac Newton. Pataphysics is the science of imaginary solutions, and for Jarry, although there is no other imagination than the scientific, modern science has simply failed to keep up with the scientific imagination. Rounding out this otherwise rectangular issue are the works of several returning authors as well as some new ones. They provide additional musings on such themes as Jarry's alchemical/cosmological play The Pope's Mustardmaker, an amorous veteran of an internal war, microcosm and macrocosm, a fugitive writer apparently obsessed with conspiracy theories and baseball, a peculiar Grimoire on a new set of "Glorious Mysteries," and a terrifying invocation of the Thelemic Law of Rabelais (Jarry's literary "master") as adapted by Crowley. Strap on suitable eye protection and enjoy! (Can be purchased at Amazon.com)
Pataphysica 3: Some Machines of Pataphysics
2006
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Editor's introduction: Each article published between these covers is a treasure. Let me show you how. Eric Basso discusses an invention that protects the knob of one's walking stick from one's dirty hands. These hand coverings that fit neatly around each finger may be worn constantly, impeding any further inquiry as to whether one's hands are in fact dirty or clean. That idea, attributed to Ubu, qualifies his article as most worthy of your attention--and yet it is just one of many concepts that he explicates. I always wondered what was wrong with the world until I read the statement by mIEKAL aND, herein reproduced for your benefit. It turns out that the world has been badly copied as part of the massive-Xerox-world machine's desire to get rid of its ink. You must read aND's poem at least five times over, each time under the influence of a different "visquestionary practice." I tried it with different brands of bottled water: VERY ILLUMINATING. It is rare that you get a chance to really identify with the hero of a film, a TV show, or a poem. Benjamin Pryor gives us just this chance. His protagonist Carl Eubanks can't help but win your heart. His thoughts! His actions! He is like a soul mate, the older brother I never had. I even tried looking him up on Google in hopes that he was real. You never know. I can't see myself as Harrison Ford, but as Carl Eubanks? Most certainly! (Note that PryorŐs drawing also graces our cover.) |
(Introduction, continued)I once rode on a Ferris wheel at Coney Island and it is true--it really does stop at the very top while they load more people down below. Those are grand moments, when the wheel of life is held still, offering a panoramic vision of the carnival down below. Christy Wampole takes hold of this concept and cycles it through the literature of Fernando Pessoa and Alfred Jarry. This is scholarship at its poetic best.
Brisbane di Milo contributes to Pataphysica yet again, this time with a tour de force on murder devices and death wheels. We place this essay in the center of the issue since di Milo forms the spine of our pataphysical body.
Now, due to instruction and inspiration from Megan Volpert, my workshop is littered with chindogu, the literal translation of which is "weird or unusual tool." I love the way her article adheres to strict pataphysical organizational procedures.
Heather Wagner states that the number of Raw Angels (known "both through empirical evidence and speculation") is sometimes thousands or millions per acre. Woah! I didnŐt know there were that many. And yet it turns out that they are of no use until deflowered. She has designed a device for just that purpose, the plans for which we present to you in this issue of Pataphysica.
According to Anthony Enns, a thing and its opposite are both the same, since nothing can be compared. Simultaneously, a real machine and an imaginary one are both fully present for the same reason. This leads him to speak of a boat punctured by a million holes that nonetheless floats, as well as other machines brought into being by famous pataphysical experts.
Nicholas Lowe analyzes the decorative insignia that is found on Ubu's stomach. It turns out that this spiral has an indeterminate number of functions. Lowe, consequently, intends "to give the gidouille an intricate set of double, triple or even simultaneous multiple meanings." This he accomplishes not only via the article herein printed but also in a performance, the recording of which we could not disseminate in this format.
It is a great delight to study and put into action Christopher Fritton's instructions. He defines the bachelor machine as that which places sexuality in the service of death and which, moreover, allows one to ignore demands made by family and friends. This article chills my ice-cold heart.
And then, at the last moment, an article appeared on my desk fully formed. It needed not one correction, not one drop of precious red ink... and so I relented and opened the door just a crack to let it in. In this piece Alejandro Riberi contends that all of representation is a machine. Since we live on a giant internal and external map--with a scale of 1" to 1"--we may be said to be machines living in the machine. And yet he holds that maps, representation, and language (i.e. machines) must be anchored upon the real. Such an unmechanical bedrock to cartography, however, can only be imagined. More precisely, the foundation of representation is a hair at the tip of the pataphysical beard.
Pataphysica 2: Pataphysica e Alchimia
2004
Description:
In the great tradition of Nicolas Flamel and Fulcanelli, the immortal Dr. Faustroll returns to introduce this collection of writings on alchemy, that "secret science" no less mystifying and marvelous than our own art and science, pataphysics. Opening this anthology is Part 1 of Alfred Jarry's delightful last novel, La Dragonne (1907), translated from the French as The She-Dragon, and annotated to highlight some of Jarry's many alchemical allusions. Jarry's comic genius brings to life the inhabitants of a little town in the mountains of Savoy, focusing on gaming activities at and around the local tavern, and an oddly militaristic expectant father. Seven additional writers present their research or reflections on subjects as diverse as Chaucer's Canon's Yeoman's Tale, the bizarre Voynich Manuscript, Gustave Kahn's Tale of Gold and Silence, turn-of-the-20th-century South African statesman Paul Kruger (whose portrait bust appears on the Krugerrand), and symbolic dismemberment; two of these contributors present their work in poetic form, one of them seemingly cursed by alchemy, however benevolently, the other positing seven "easy" steps to completion of the "Great Work." Perhaps you will find yourself entwined somewhere in between, like Mercury's caduceus. For all pataphysicians, alchemists, and symbolists: welcome to the other world.
Contributors include: Alfred Jarry, Brisbane di Milo, Aaron Parrett, Chris Fritton, Cynthea Masson, Ben Fisher, Robin Touchstone, Brian Parshall, and Dr. Faustroll.
Pataphysica (inaugural issue)
2002
Editor's Introduction:
Pataphysics is nothing if not practical. It was always with an eye toward the working pataphysicist, the practicing pataphysician, that I selected the pieces in this book. I had hoped to compile a set of field notes, a manual as useful as Hero's Pneumatica, or something to aid ongoing research into the human-machine. While there is nothing particularly diagrammatic among these papers, quite a few of the pieces work with sublime spatial dimensions.
This is true of the opening piece, Scott Magelssen's meditation on Witkiewicz' Pure Form stage plays. Magelssen scours his travel diaries in order to compose a partial autobiography that elucidates the tension between physical and metaphysical spaces.
Brian Parshall discusses Jarry's interest in the infinite sphere, "the circle without circumference." Throughout the article, he provides a depth that will charm historians.
Pataphysicists will be pleased to discover David Daniels' 25 principles for working with "bodies in motion."
The pataphysician MEZ offers hints for tuning the language of time machines. The relation between time-space-language is further explored in Chris Fritton's contribution.
In a telegraphic letter to Jarry, Brisbane di Milo celebrates the space of the baseball diamond at a metaphysical and mythological level.
Ric Royer shares some of the frustrations of working with higher space in an extract from the much larger Zero's Wedding.
My own piece on Duchamp's infrathin must be regarded as a gift from the gods, a triumph in pataphysical scholarship, extremely insightful, and so forth. It explores elemental parallelism, hollow paper, shadows, nocturnal illumination, and molds en route to the fourth dimension.
As a result of these readings, you may expect your everyday practice of pataphysics to be enlightened, if only by some small degree. Knowing that many of you are working on machines that generate laughter, I have included Anthony Enns' discussion of humor. Enns traces Jarry's own style of producing this outpouring not to Bergson, as is common, but to Nietzsche.
Included also are two essays on pataphysicians whom we wish to bring to your (renewed) attention. M. Alejandro Riberi's introduces Julio Cortazar. His essay has the distinction of having been written initially in Spanish, translated by the author into French, and then translated by Mark Singer into English.
Finally, I have included John van der Does' thoughts on Boris Vian.