Silver machine, teal in colour, used twice

“ I just took a ride

In a silver machine

And I’m still feeling mean.

Do you wanna ride see yourself going by.

The other side of the sky

I got a silver machine.

It flies side ways thru’ time ’’

Hawkwind — 1973

The song ‘ Silver Machine‘ was written and performed by Hawkwind in the early 70’s, lead singer — Lemmy.

‘Silver machine‘ is inspired by the writer, proto-surrealist, inventor of Pataphysics, cyclist … Alfred Jarry.

Afred Jarry

Jarry was the the first Surrealist, he was a Surrealist before the Surrealists. He was the innovator.

He pre-dated the Futurists, Dadaists and the Surrealists. Jarry was walking his his pet lobster on a leash down the Champs-Élysées 30 years before Salvador Dali made his lobster telephone and over 90 years before Bruce Sterling in his novel ‘ Schismatrix ‘ talks of a cyborg character called Lobster.

Salvador Dali

Jarry’s 1902 novel ‘ Le Surmâle ‘ (‘The Supermale’) Is about “ perpetual-motion food “ and performance. Once the “ perpetual-motion food “ is consumed, all performance was massively enhanced. So enhanced that even after death from the compound one could still race the bicycle. The racers would enhance their bodies by taking a substance, making them more part of the machine. The alchemic compound was part of becoming a ‘ Man / Machine ‘ or a Lobster.

Le Surmâle no doubt helped inspire the 1914 novel ‘Locus Solus ‘ by Raymond Roussel and Jean de la Hire’s 1908 novel ‘L’Homme Qui Peut Vivre Dans L’eau‘ (‘The Man Who Can Live in the Water’). In the novel, Hire created a character called ‘ Nyctalope’. Nyctalope had a mechanical heart and was perhaps the first literary cyborg and superhero.

All superhero’ s (good or bad) are Cyborgs. They must consume a potion, be genetically modified or become part of a machine (all apart from Superman, Superman was from another planet).

Carmagnolle brothers atmospheric // anthropomorphic diving suit 1882

Jarry was primarily a cyclist. His Clément Luxe track bicycle was a state of the art racing machine of its day which he described as ‘ That which rolls ‘. Jarry was compelled to ride ‘That which rolls‘. He wished to be at one with his bicycle. He wanted to be a Cyborg.

Jarry rode fast and hard on his fixed wheel machine. He had no to time for tourists “thinking themselves poets, and slow down en route to contemplate the view“. Jarry was known to ride ‘That which rolls‘ at full speed through the busy streets of Paris, brake-less, parting the crowds by shooting his two carbines in the air. He was obsessed with speed like the Futurists after him. He was a Motorhead, he was a Cyborg.

Jarry was not the first writer to think of ‘man / machine‘, that was Edgar Allan Poe in 1847 with “The Man That Was Used Up”. Fascinating that one hundred and fifty years later, disgraced bike racer Tyler Hamilton, would claim that while in the team of Lance Armstrong, the parlance for EPO (Erythropoietin) was “”Edgar”, “Poe” or “Edgar Allan Poe”. Were then, the racers in Tyler Hamilton’s team looking for “perpetual-motion food“, to be Cyborgs, Super hero’s?