The Symposium

Mozibur Ullah

13:31

Is non-philosophy like pata-philosophy ;)?

Joseph Weissman

14:00

that's alfred jarry i think :)

Alfred Jarry

Alfred Jarry (French: [al.fʁɛd ʒa.ʁi]; 8 September 1873 – 1 November 1907) was a French symbolist writer who is best known for his play Ubu Roi (1896). He also coined the term and philosophical concept of 'pataphysics. Jarry was born in Laval, Mayenne, France, and his mother was from Brittany. He was associated with the Symbolist movement. His play Ubu Roi is often cited as a forerunner of Dada, and to the Surrealist and Futurist movements of the 1920s and 1930. Jarry wrote in a variety of hybrid genres and styles, prefiguring the postmodern. He wrote plays, novels, poetry, essays and speculative...

(deleuze has an essay on him somewhere...)

Mozibur Ullah

@JosephWeissman: Well spotted! Theres a short story by him called 'The Cruxifixion considered as an uphill motorcycle race' which had a riposte by the English writer JG Ballard titled 'The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy considered as a downhill motorcyle race' ... those pata-meta-physicians were way out on a wing somewhere ...

He had a thing for assassination...look at the first few lines of Ubu Roi!

PAPA UBU: Shitsky!
MAMA UBU: Oh! such language! Papa Ubu, thou art a big bad boy.
PAPA UBU: What stoppeth me from slaying thee, Mama Ubu?
MAMA UBU: It is not I, Papa Ubu, it is someone else who should be assassinated.

Apparently this play started something of a riot when it was first played...

Mozibur Ullah

16:47

But is apparently unprovocative here in our liberal times...

Mozibur Ullah

18:48

Here's the essay by Deleuze:

"Pataphysics (epi meta ta phusika) has its exact and explicit object the great Turning, the overcoming of metaphysics, whether in itself or outside itself, extending as far beyond metaphysics as the latter extends beyond physics. We can thus consider Heidegger’s work as a development of pataphysics in conformity with the principles of Sophrotates the Armenian, and his first disciple, Alfred Jarry.

The great resemblances, memorial or historical, concern the Being of phenomena, planetary technology, and the treatment of language..."

And there I thought pataphysics was taking the pata-piss out of physics never mind metaphysics...how wrong can a man be...

He goes on:

"In this sense, it is Ubu who represents the fat being, the outcome of metaphysics as planetary technology and a completely mechanized science, the science of machines in all its sinister frenzy. anarchy is the bomb, or the comprehension of technology. Jarry puts forward curious conception of anarchism: “Anarchy Is,” but it makes Being lower itself to the being of science and technology (Ubu himself will become an anarchist in order to better ensure he is obeyed).

More generally, Jarry’s entire oeuvre ceaselessly invokes science and technology; it is populated with machines and places itself under the sign of Bicycle. The bicycle is not a simple machine, but the simple model of a Machine appropriate to the times. And it is the Bicycle that transforms the Passion, as the Christian metaphysics of the death of God, into an eminently technical relay race.

The Bicycle, with its chain and gears, is the essence of technology: it envelops and develops, it brings about the great Turning of the earth. The bicycle is the frame, like Heidegger’s “fourfold.”

Looks like Delueze considers pataphysics as a bicycle wheeled uphill and then downhill...

Theres an English nursery rhyme which goes:

Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

Now when you're up, you're up,
And when you're down, you're down,
And when you're only half-way up,
You're neither up nor down

Who'd have thought it, a nursery rhyme that makes a play on a whole host of tautologies!

Mozibur Ullah

20:41

@PhilipKlöcking: I don't see your wearing your hat!

Philip Klöcking

@MoziburUllah: "You have not earned any hats yet." :P

Mozibur Ullah

I've got a hat - it looks like a sailors hat.

Philip Klöcking

Just carried my girl through writing her BA diss - I'm happy I'm still alive ;)

Mozibur Ullah

I think I've got glasses too...?

Well done - congratulations. What was it in?

In that case you deserve more than a hat!

Philip Klöcking

Economics - how effective the German leniency program is for destabilizing cartels

Mozibur Ullah

20:46

Sounds like hard work.

I'm suprised that leniancy destabilises.

;).

Philip Klöcking

She kinda overdid it, that's why I had to carry her through in the end...It's been like 30 papers of literature. Well, the main argument is a) If they think about breaking the cartel anyway it is getting easier for them (fewer fines) and us (more evidence, shorter court trial) and b) mistrust

Now I need more mulled wine (got some really good stuff from Nuremberg)

Mozibur Ullah

We're drinking prosecco - I think - whatever it is, its fizzy.

Its Cava, I just looked at the bottle.

Philip Klöcking

21:17

I guess Sekt (German Cava) it's gonna be tomorrow, when it is handed in at the office

Mozibur Ullah

Its that plus listening to some swinging jazz...django rienhardt.

Philip Klöcking

21:41

Sounds fun! I've got way too few moments of recreation atm. And now the time without any training is coming -.-

Mozibur Ullah

Its Xmas. Time to relax. No training with judo?

Philip Klöcking

yep

and jujutsu

Mozibur Ullah

I did a bit of martial arts when I was at uni - it wasn't jujitsu or judo, they had some fancy name that I can't remember now.

Philip Klöcking

if they did kicks and strikes, it's not judo ;) In the UK I did some karate and dance as well at uni. Was great fun.

Mozibur Ullah

Yeah, I think it did involve strikes; I never danced at uni but I got to dance at all night raves - that was fun.

Then going home in the morning after breakfast and sleeping it all off during the day...

Philip Klöcking

21:54

I really miss the societies and clubs. That's some cultural difference at uni

Mozibur Ullah

Yeah, I didn't realise how important all that stuff was until I left. Took it for granted.

Philip Klöcking

Here, we have things like sports courses, but it's nothing like clubs in the UK. It is even less social than a normal sports club, most people just go there for recreational reasons or curiosity :(

Mozibur Ullah

I thought you were based in the UK?

Philip Klöcking

I've been there for 8 months because of ERASMUS

Want to get there again if possible

Mozibur Ullah

So you're back in Germany?

Philip Klöcking

21:58

Yeah, unfortunately

Hell, I've got closer friends from those 8 months in the UK than I have here, not to speak of people at uni here

Mozibur Ullah

I didn't realise ERASMUS was still running! I did my own 'ERASMUS' thing by inter-railing through Europe over Easter. It was just after the wall was pulled down and I picked up my own bit of wall from the rubble there.

Philip Klöcking

That's great! I guess if there were more people having had done things like that, Brexit would never have become a thing as big as it is

Mozibur Ullah

Is it a cultural difference?

Yeah, Brexit took me by suprise. I think I was in my own European bubble...

Philip Klöcking

Regarding friends and social behaviour, there are severe cultural differences imho. The Brits I came to know were overall more kind and welcoming in whatever social situation you can imagine

Mozibur Ullah

How come German universities don't have the same clubs/societies scene? I thought Germans were big on culture? I thought students are the same everywhere, wanting to socialise, drink, booze etc?

Philip Klöcking

22:09

Dunno...if so, it is mainly within the department, i.e. student associations organising stuff, or private meetings and friendships. I think one aspect of it that it is far from being as centralised as it is in the UK because you do not live on campus like...ever.

Mozibur Ullah

Ah, ok. That makes a big difference in my opinion.

Maybe its because we're an island nation - we got to get on with each other ;).

Philip Klöcking

22:40

Girl calling, I guess I have to go to bed now ;) I definitely enjoyed uni there more. Protestant working ethics is still much too prevalent in Germany. But even outside uni, I felt people being more open and warm (on average). Anyway, enjoyed the chat. gn8!

Joseph Weissman

Hundred Thousand Billion Poems

A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems or One hundred million million poems (original French title: Cent mille milliards de poèmes) is a book by Raymond Queneau, published in 1961. The book is a set of ten sonnets printed on card with each line on a separate strip. As all ten sonnets have not just the same rhyme scheme but the same rhyme sounds, any lines from a sonnet can be combined with any from the nine others, allowing for 1014 (= 100,000,000,000,000) different poems. When Queneau ran into trouble creating the book, he solicited the help of mathematician Francois Le Lionnais, and in the process...

Mozibur Ullah

@PhilipKlöcking:Goodnight. Nice to know we Brits are amongst friends here. G'night.

!

Joseph Weissman

23:29

this seems to be an online version of the Hundred Thousand Billion Poems -- x42.com/active/queneau.html?l=en&n=New+Poem

Mozibur Ullah

His cent mille milliards is made for the internet age.Cool. Its a good training ground!

Oh, The Grand old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men
He danced them up to the top of the hill
And danced them down again

And when they were up, they were down
And when they were down, they were up
And when they were all mixed up
They were neither up nor down!

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