The Pataphysical Lyfe

Is that a bird, a plane? No, it's Alfred Jarry's absinthe bottle.

Alfred Jarry drank no water, only absinthe, and lived on fish he caught in the murkiest parts of the River Seine in Paris. He was an intellectual, an artist, but also an outcast and a champion weirdo and troublemaker. He lived in squalor and rode around on a bicycle he couldn’t afford and was still making payments on up to the day he died. Which was in 1907 at the age of 34.

Jarry is known for creating the theatre of the absurd, transforming the theatre arts for all time. But that’s only a footnote to his other creation, the world’s most powerful scientific theory: Pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions.

Unlike Einstein, Curie, or Feynman, Alfred Jarry never achieved the notoriety as a scientist he deserved. A spoof, they called his work. A mere trope. A sideshow in literary esotericism. Hardly a contribution to science at all! They said.

And they were right, of course.

But part of the joke is for the joke not to be a joke.

And despite this, it is indeed very serious. Pataphysics inspired Dadaism, which led to Surrealism. The science of imaginary solutions also played a notable role in the development of postmodernism.

In some alternate timeline, pataphsyics—I like to imagine—not only “contributed” to this thing or that thing, or not only “led to” this way of thinking or that way of knowing, but it also worked. Like, worked worked.

Picture it:

Alfred Jarry, upon discovering this new theory of science, calls upon all the fish in the Seine to fill his belly for once and for all without ever having to bother catching them. And he then immediately achieves his perfect state: a bottle of the most rare variety of absinthe, always filled to the brim, intoxicating anyone who gets near. Those who dare take a sip get their name written forever upon a bathroom stall in Heaven’s wildest rock and roll club.

In this alternate timeline, Jarry is still alive today. Anytime you hear stories of UFOs, chances are it’s his absinthe bottle zipping from one drunken soiree to another.

Ah, if only it were so. If only pataphsyics did, in fact, work work!

At the very least, we do know this: pataphsyics still works powerfully as a tool for creativity, for dream-making, for living. No one is stopping you from living the pataphysical lyfe today.

Here’s to lovely squalor, absinthe-induced reveries, and the pursuit of being not merely a great scientist, but a brilliant pataphysician.

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For more on Alfred Jarry and pataphysics, check out my book Apocryphal Pataphysics.