<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Robin Landseadel said:</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">As we re-trace our steps through San Narciso & San Francisco [over</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">& over again, the reader seriously looking for clues, a guide post, a</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">center] we reach the stage where we realize that all the clues are pointing</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">away from the center....</div> <br></blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> Here in San Francisco, away from all tangible assets of that estate, there</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> might still be a chance of getting the whole thing to go away</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> and disintegrate quietly. She had only to drift tonight, at random,</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> and watch nothing happen, to be convinced it was purely</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "> nervous, a little something for her shrink to fix....</div> <br></blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Oedipa is blind to the center of the riddle because she is the</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">center of the riddle.</div> <br></blockquote><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <br><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On one level or another Oedipa is cracking up, losing her boundaries,</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">becoming permeable.</div></blockquote><div><br></div>OK. Well Still dropping in on the conversation, and surprised by the parallels of the psychological literary effects of CoL49 to the psychological effects within me of my own tangential re-look at the Kennedy assassination. I also just read Libra, which amplifies the effect. One thing I disagree with is the notion that Oedipa is going insane( <font class="Apple-style-span" color="#1A09FD">cracking up....</font>), though that may not be exactly what Robin means.. And I even feel that she has a pretty good handle on her degree of centrality to the things she is researching. She knows that she is central only if her sightings are delusional (or if the author really is running a mind fuck rather than a satire) . Otherwise some very big things are at issue in the estate of Inverarity and she may be in a position to have some say in their disposition. She is in fact very aware of the dangers of self delusion and keeps trying to test her own sanity and the results of her investigation. The difficulties of finding truth in a complex human drama are far more than linguistic, or even the limits of Physics. They have to do with human motivation to hide things, the energy devoted to false leads, degree of ability to hide things or destroy evidence, the potential deceptiveness of a "simple solution" which is incomplete and possibly wrong, etc... Whether this oedipal investigation is about JFK or not, it is fraught with all these motivations, and it is about big plots, bigger than killing a president or the control of the mail, because these are still means to an end. In the end it is the size and depth of what she encounters that is numbing and overwhelming, rather than the question of its existence.<div><br></div><div>For me the biggest disappointment of the Obama phenomena is the degree to which he meshes with the middle and ruling class desire for someone in charge, the paternal. What is this? Are we a nation of children? Bush was the tough love Daddy and Obama is the patient and kindly but still strict Daddy, now brush your teeth and go to war, Daddy is busy fixing the healthcare system so nothing really changes. I say this because the drama of our electoral cycle is so Oedipal. We enact the killing of the King and the "honeymoon" period in marriage to a woman who is old enough to be the new President's mother and in fact turns out to be his mother and soon realize that nothing important has happened, so look around for a horny new groom. </div><div><br></div><div>The Oedipus story pattern is some deep shit designed to shock us into self recognition . Doesn't usually work.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> </div><div><br></div><div><br><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>What does it mean <br><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><br></font></div>
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