Soft Monuments

Thinking about things that other people will not

boris-vianA wonderful thought from Boris Vian, quoted in A half-century homage to France’s master-prankster, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the author / jazz musician / artist’s death:

[Vian's] heightened sense of the absurd reached its apotheosis when he joined the Collège de pataphysique, a prestigious circle of French writers and academics studying pataphysics, a virtual science invented at the end of the 19th century by the author Alfred Jarry.

They held absurd honours ceremonies with strange decorations. Vian was promoted to Transcendent Satrap, in charge of the Extraordinary Commission on Clothing. Along with illustrious French names like Raymond Queneau, Eugène Ionesco and Jacques Prévert, they engaged in serious, scientific discussion of stupid ideas, such as crossing Paris using land tides in a boat made of small holes.

“I am applying myself to thinking about things that I think people will not think about,” Vian said in a radio recording…

Emphasis mine, because it’s a great credo to live by. Thanks to Tosh Berman for the tip on this article and for turning me on to Boris Vian. We should all be so lucky as to cross Paris using land tides in a boat made of small holes.