PATAPHYSICS-THE-POETICS-OF-AN-IMAGINARY- SCIENCE_C_Bok

--"[ tlhat is why 'Patagonia' goes so well with
'Pataphysics,' which is the science of imaginary solutions"
(149). Canadian "Pataphysics performs an agonistic
spectacle, responding to the disappearance of Patagonis with
a hyperbole of its own disappearance, as if "laIll
translations into action are imaginary solutions" (149).
Like the Futurists and the Oulipians, the
"Patsphysicians prefer the ludic speculation of the as if to
the nomic articulation of the as is.
They strive to create
what McCaffery might cal1 a "'PATATEXT" (13)--a kind of
vacuscript , whose reading eludes the instrumentalism of an
imperial semantic by putting the notion of play itself into
play.
Such a 'patatextual sensibility characterizes the
nomadic studies of "pataphysicians, who resort to the tropes
of the anomalos, the syzygia, and the clinamen, in order to
create their own forms of satirical criticism (be it the
probable svstems of Nichol, the perseus pro-jects of
McCaffery, or the natural histories of Dewdney).
As Dewdney
might imply, such criticism reveals that "[tlhe poet lis] in
the same vanguard of research as physics, molecular
chemistry, and pure mathematics" (1980b:Zl).