Arcadia Discussion Zone

A Manual of St. Germain de Pres

http://siebethissen.blogspot.com/2007/0 ... boris.html

It’s a subjective tour of the famous Left Bank of Paris, the place where it all happened after World War II: jazz, nightclubbing, art, avant-garde, theatre, girls, drugs and alcohol, philosophy, etcetera. There are routes of psycho-geography here, hidden histories, strange and fascinating personalities and much more. And wonderful photography! It’s a fascinating book – a kind of prelude to Lettrism and Situationism

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Vian was fascinated by the intellectual activities of the Surrealists from an early age and he maintained a healthy interest in the "culture of the absurd" throughout his life. In the 1940s, besides busying himself with writing and studying for his engineering degree, Vian joined the "Cercle Legâteux" - a group of friends who got together in the pre-war years and set up a club where members could enjoy numerous activities such as playing chess, making short films and, if they enrolled in the "Section volante, déchaînée, sociale et cosmique de la science aérotechnique" (the Flying, Crazy, Social and Cosmic Branch of Aerotechnic Science), constructing model aeroplanes! The "Cercle Legâteux" combined serious intellectual pursuits with bizarre pastimes and several members of the circle were lucky enough to participate in "surrealist rhyming classes" conducted by Vian himself…”

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http://www.librarything.com/topic/41699

The college of Pataphysics was formed in 1949. Alfred Jarry of Ubu fame was a particular focus of the group. Among the members were several who would go on to be Oulipians. They included Queneau, Latis, Arnaud, Duchamp and Caradec. Among the other members of the college we have such names as Francisco Arrabal, the filmmaker Bunuel, Julio Cortazar, Max Ernst, Eugene Ionesco, Michel Leiris, The Marx brothers, Joan Miro, Francis Ponge, Joan Miro, Jacques Prevert and Boris Vian.

Queneau and Le Lionnais actually formed Oulipo but apparently the idea was Blavier's. Schmidt was the one who gets credit for naming it. Not all the members are or were novelists or poets--some are mathematicians, philosophers--some cross back and forth between one form or the other.

Influences include the medieval heretic Giordano Bruno. Mathematicians David Hilbert and Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. From literature what is described as 'anticipatory plagiarists' among whom are Lassos of Hermione, Ausonius, Ramon Llull, Arnout Daniel, George Herbert, Edgar Allan Poe, Lewis Carroll, a particularly important one Raymond Roussel and Unica Zurn.

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http://www.antiqua.altervista.org/decherisey_3.html
(babelfished from Italian)

The new adventure in surrealism the College of Pataphysics, begun in the late '40s, Gerard de Sède was not counted among its members, but one member was Noel Arnaud, and it is important in this environment that de Chérisey may have met later the actor and writer Francis BLANCHE, friend of Arnaud with whom he had attended the same school in Paris.

The Board is the creature willed by supporters of the writer Alfred Jarry. Born in Laval in 1873 had led a dissolute life and eccentric, partly by identifying with his characters, dying alcoholic and tubercular in Paris in 1907. Was successful, after the scandal following the publication of satirical comedy "Ubu Roi", originally conceived as a puppet, with whom he wanted to hit the stupidity and violence of social conventions. In 1900 further action was taken with the other play, "Ubu enchaîné ", which is taken the same character-mask, grandly negative, greedy opportunism and bullying. Among several other works, "gestes et opinions du docteur Faustroll pataphysicien", was published posthumously in 1911. On the basis of the latter work, admirers of Jarry founded a new "science", the pataphysical, only part burlesque, defined as "the science of imaginary solutions" and intended to study the "laws which govern the exceptions." Members of society, which has remained hidden for about 25 years, were also Italian writers Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco. [3]

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