Happy ’Pataphysical New Year
Today, September 8, opens the new year of the ’Pataphysical calendar: Year 153 E.P. (Ère ’Pataphysique). The date coincides with the birth of Alfred Jarry (Laval, 1873) and begins the month of Absolu, the first of the thirteen months of the ’Pataphysical era. It’s the moment when pataphysicians renew a simple pact: to look at the world through exception, fruitful deviation, and the lateral detail.
The calendar (and why it’s unlike any other)
The ’Pataphysical Calendar is perpetual: 13 months of 28 days each, plus a 29th “imaginary” day (Hunyadi) that recurs on specific dates without counting toward the weekly cycle. The months carry manifesto-like names: Absolu, Haha, As, Sable, Décervelage, Gueules, Pédale, Clinamen, Palotin, Merdre, Gidouille, Tatane, Phalle.
Each month starts on a Sunday and—mathematical delight—the 13th always falls on a Friday. The system descends from Jarry’s temporal games (the Almanacs of Père Ubu) and was later formalized in Paris after the war: it doesn’t “correct” the Gregorian calendar; it gracefully sidesteps it, proposing a parallel time.
Saints and feast days: a gallery of exceptions
In the ’Pataphysical calendar every day is a Supreme Feast (in various gradations). A few landmarks:
- September 8 — 1 Absolu: ’Pataphysical New Year and the Nativity of Père Ubu.
- November 1: Occultation of Jarry (the anniversary of Jarry’s death, lived as a presence by subtraction).
- The 13th of every month (Friday): celebration of the “perpetual Friday the 13th.”
- Hunyadi days: the imaginary twenty-ninths, out of scale, to be honored discretely.
- Vacuations: at the end of many months there is a deliberately “empty” day, a non-feast. Even nothing deserves its space.
The santorale welcomes real and imaginary figures, concepts, and literary personae aligned with the science of imaginary solutions: from Décervelage to Clinamen, and dedications to authors and inventors of possible worlds. The calendar is no fossil: it updates, welcomes new patrons, and redraws the borders of exception.
Paris and the Collège de ’Pataphysique
The Collège de ’Pataphysique was founded in Paris in 1948 to gather, organize, and relaunch ’pataphysical practices, editions, and research. Jarry (who died in 1907) was not part of it—he is regarded as a tutelary presence. From the outset the Collège adopted statutes, ranks, commissions, and the perpetual calendar.
At various times, crucial twentieth-century figures orbited the Collège: Raymond Queneau, Marcel Duchamp, Boris Vian, Eugène Ionesco, Joan Miró. In the same experimental climate OuLiPo was born (Queneau, Le Lionnais), a workshop that applies formal constraints to writing with inventive freedom. Paris remains the symbolic center of this tradition: the place where ’Pataphysics endowed itself with a lexicon, a calendar, and a shared memory—alternating seasons of public activity with periods of occultation.
Why September 8 matters (even if you’re not “in the loop”)
The ’Pataphysical New Year is not just an anniversary. It invites us to measure the year not by regularity but by exceptions—to treat the improbable detail as a compass, and to accept that a parallel calendar can tell a truth about how we inhabit time.
Note of pride (gently self-ironic)
Patakosmos is proud to map names, places, and traces of ’Pataphysics, charting routes and detours across this geography of exception. Founded by Giovanni Ricciardi, Correspondant Emphytéote and member of the Ordre de la Grande Gidouille, Patakosmos invites you to enter to find an address and stay to discover everything else.
In short: today ends yesterday’s “ordinary” year and begins a year that measures not sameness but difference. Whether feast, vacuation, or Hunyadi, the ’Pataphysical calendar invites us to take care of the possible.
Happy ’Pataphysical New Year! 153 E.P.!
