Philosophers having fun
Mar 26, 2010 9:47:58 GMT
Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2010 9:47:58 GMT
Frankly, as interesting as philosophy can be, it is generally not considered to be a form of entertainment. However, the writer Frédéric Pagès has changed that in the last 10 years by creating the philosopher Jean-Baptiste Botul (15 August 1896-15 August 1947). Various “rediscovered” texts by Botul have been published, the most famous one being The Sex Life of Emmanuel Kant, which has been published in French, German and Polish. Another important work by Botul was Landru: Precursor of Feminism – selected correspondence. This is the sort of title that will make any French person do a double take, because Landru was a famous serial killer in the 19th century who seduced and killed 11 women, sawing their bodies into pieces that he burned in his stove.
Jean-Baptiste Botul obviously had a wild life himself, having had love affairs with Marthe Richard (a famous former prostitute, aviatrix and spy), Marie Bonaparte, Simone de Beauvoir and Lou Andréas-Salomé. After participating in the liberation of Alsace in 1945, he joined a hundred German families fleeing the Soviet invasion, where he helped to found Nueva Königsberg in South America. He met Zapata, Pancho Villa, Stefan Zweig and Jean Cocteau among others…
In any case, his school of thought, known as Botulism obviously, has given rise to a number of pseudo-scientific conferences where philosophers and researchers outdo each other with the most incredibly outrageous observations and anecdotes about the life of Botul.
The main challenge is to keep it all as serious as possible and to not crack up, especially when discussing such things as the Botulist theory that, according to Kant, philosophers do not reproduce through penetration but instead through withdrawal. The invention of taxi therapy, after his encounters with Marcel Proust, has also give rise to successful conferences.
Many people discover Botulism by listening to the radio after accidentally coming across a cultural program with the familiar droning voices of people-who-think-they-know-everything. It takes several minutes to understand that something is up, for example when somebody starts out with something along the lines of “this theory was first mentioned by Charles de Gaulle in his memoirs, after having a discussion with Botul at the urinals of the Folies Bergère, where they were attending a performance by Joséphine Baker…”
Since Jean-Baptiste Botul has now taken on a life of his own, he has been mentioned in serious works by other writers (who clearly were not paying attention), such as Bernard-Henri Lévy, who unwittingly quoted Botul in his latest book “Philosophy and War.”
It will be interesting to see how long Botulism will last. Already a street has been named after him in the village of Pomy in the Aude.
Jean-Baptiste Botul obviously had a wild life himself, having had love affairs with Marthe Richard (a famous former prostitute, aviatrix and spy), Marie Bonaparte, Simone de Beauvoir and Lou Andréas-Salomé. After participating in the liberation of Alsace in 1945, he joined a hundred German families fleeing the Soviet invasion, where he helped to found Nueva Königsberg in South America. He met Zapata, Pancho Villa, Stefan Zweig and Jean Cocteau among others…
In any case, his school of thought, known as Botulism obviously, has given rise to a number of pseudo-scientific conferences where philosophers and researchers outdo each other with the most incredibly outrageous observations and anecdotes about the life of Botul.
The main challenge is to keep it all as serious as possible and to not crack up, especially when discussing such things as the Botulist theory that, according to Kant, philosophers do not reproduce through penetration but instead through withdrawal. The invention of taxi therapy, after his encounters with Marcel Proust, has also give rise to successful conferences.
Many people discover Botulism by listening to the radio after accidentally coming across a cultural program with the familiar droning voices of people-who-think-they-know-everything. It takes several minutes to understand that something is up, for example when somebody starts out with something along the lines of “this theory was first mentioned by Charles de Gaulle in his memoirs, after having a discussion with Botul at the urinals of the Folies Bergère, where they were attending a performance by Joséphine Baker…”
Since Jean-Baptiste Botul has now taken on a life of his own, he has been mentioned in serious works by other writers (who clearly were not paying attention), such as Bernard-Henri Lévy, who unwittingly quoted Botul in his latest book “Philosophy and War.”
It will be interesting to see how long Botulism will last. Already a street has been named after him in the village of Pomy in the Aude.
