In the Beatles’ song, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” they sing “Joan was quizzical, studied pataphysical science in the home…”
Also while reading one of the Bathroom Readers, someone is sued for not giving their child a name, and describe themselves as students of pataphysics. So, what is pataphysics or pataphysical science?
– Here comes sanity, here comes sanity, right down therapy lane…
Just read:
http://hamp.hampshire.edu/~ngzF92/jarrypub/no13/shattuck.html
and come to your own conclusions:D
Er, thank you. It appears to be a philosophy more than a science. or else it is a joke. Now I’m wondering how the beatles came to hear about it. But if it’s a philosophy, why do you need test tubes?
Anyone else have insights?
Yes, it’s basically a joke, a parody of science. Steve Turner’s “A Hard Day’s Write” credits “Paul’s recent avant-garde leanings,” but doesn’t explain or offer any evidence of them. My WAG: the Beatles hung out with artists, John went to art school, various members of their circle were well-educated and well-read (think Jane Asher) – ideas were around. All it would take is an offhand remark to stick in Paul’s memory, a night at an Alfred Jarry retrospective, and viola, the seed is planted. No big mystery.
Then there was that truly insane band from Cleveland: Pere Ubu. They took their name from Jarry’s plays. In the title track from their first LP, “The Modern Dance,” you could hear the chant, “Merdre, merdre.”
not no nit-pick, but it should probably be merde, merde which, as everyone knows, means ‘shit, shit’.
Got to agree with Beruang that, as McCartney went through his ‘avant-garde’ period, he probably came across the term/concept and it stuck. If asked, he would probably have been hard-pressed to give a more-than-basic explanation of the phenomenon.
and “Merde!” is the opening line of dialog in “Ubu Roi”. By my green candle, let’s get the spelling right here …
And I have to agree with others here - McCartney probably came across the term in passing, and:
a - it amused him.
b - it sounded right in the song.
it’s not as if popular songs are usually rigorously researched.
As to “merde”/“merdre”, my understanding was that the word in the script was, indeed, “merde”, but that was deemed too socially unacceptable at the time to be uttered on-stage, even in France, so it was deliberately mispronounced as “merdre”. I seem to recall a column by Cecil about this, but can’t seem to find it.
pataphysics is the rather obscure study of the duck, especially the nature of a duck with its environment as it enters, is transformed, and exits jet engines. It is a very arcane and recondite branch of aerodynamics.
de par ma chandelle verte, est-que vous croyez que je ne connais pas le français?
I have read Ubu Roi in the original French, all right? And the naughty word was indeed spelled with an extra r.
I bow to the superior knowledge of somebody who read it in the original French, though I’ll note that the translations I’ve read have an untranslated and unmodified “merde” in them. And yes, I do believe you know French, though I’ll confess to having to run the sentence through babelfish to get the gist of it.
And what a fugging silly circumlocution …
Non, en fait, je ne savais pas que vous connaissiez le francais et, bien que je connaisse Alfred Jarry et son Père Ubu, je confesse n’avoir jamais lu l’ouvrage. Un peu trop hermétique et ésotérique à mon goût!! Mais, après une simple recherche à l’aide de Google, force m’est de constater qu’il est effectivement question de merdre et non de merde dans l’ouvrage en question, sans doute pour ménager les susceptibilités de l’époque. Désolé pour cette rectification qui n’avait pas sa raison d’être.
yabob: Let’s see what babelfish can do with this!
Puis, est yabob dans la chocolate ou non? Oh et rechércer omni-not, vous dever se démener pour ne pas s’empêtrer dans le lustre.
*Spot the guy whose French is just a little Rusty
Say what???
P.S.: I’d say rusty with a capital ‘R’ is just about right…
Colin Wilkinson, ala babelfish, which doesn’t help much:
huh? Are you accusing me of pigging out on the candy? And I’m just enthralled to learn that omni-not devers demeners (don’t need no steenking accents, meaning I’m too lazy to look up the keyboard codes for them) - can’t you get arrested for that in Missouri?
omni-not’s syntax undoubtedly got strangled, but I could get what he was saying:
Hey, that’s pretty good overall. But it must be because my French was so perfect to start with: any dumb machine could have done it:D. There are several minor flaws but, yes, that’s the gist of it. Except for one sentence, the translation of which should read: I confess not to have read the work (i.e. book).
There was one translator of Ubu Roi who sought a way to render some English equivalent of merdre. He decided to add an extra letter to increase the sonority, and came up with “Pshitt!”
He had no doubt traveled to France and was aware that there is a brand of French sodapop which is named, incredibly, “Psschittt!!!” (I am not making this up). When I was one of a group of smart-aleck teenagers visiting France, we used to say to each other things like, “Please pass the Pee-Shit.”
Quizzical people often amuse themselves by studying pataphysical science in the home, late nights all alone with a test tube, so that songs about them will be easy to rhyme.