Farnina and Pynchon

[Mascaro at humnet.ucla.edu]

From:          andrew at cee.hw.ac.uk (Andrew Dinn)
Subject:       Re: Farnina and Pynchon
To:            dirkse at ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Attatae)
Date:          Tue, 11 Apr 1995 09:39:55 +0100 (BST)
Cc:            pynchon-l at sfu.ca

Attatae writes:

> I think that some of the Joy of Koopman is that he, in his 
> incomprehensibility, throws a twist into our fine-n-dandy academic 
> discussion.  White noise, perhaps, but does he really contribute less 
> than anyone else to our fine discussion of Pynchon?  

Well, I'm not an academic, fine-n-dandy, literary or otherwise, and
I'm not interested in `academic' debate. I am interested in reading,
thinking about and expressing ideas which relate to TRP, period. I
don't need white noise to interrupt my reading or my thinking. And if
I get it in response to anything I express I don't consider it a
positive contribution.

The answer to your question is: Koopman may not contribute less then
some people but he cannot contribute more than anyone else because his
actual contribution is zero, nothing, nada, rien, nix, void, null,
nil, 0, bottom (I'm running out of languages here, natural or
otherwise, but if you want I'll put that into predicate calculus so
you can sort out all those double negatives and embedded quantifiers).

One can only submit a urinal as an exhibit so many times before the
shock of the new becomes a shock for the few and schlock to the
many. Perhaps Mr Koopman could go piss on the Joyce list - or have
they already rejected him as a bore and a distraction.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
O alter Duft aus Maerchenzeit / Berauschest wieder meine Sinne
Ein naerrisch Heer aus Schelmerein / Durchschwirrt die leichte Luft

To respond:

Well, let me ring in here by asking non-professor Dinn if he is serious in 
his belief that  Mr. Koopman contributes "nothing"?  If so, shouldn't we see 
the Koop as perhaps even more precious?  Imagine the achievement! To 
actualize nothingness to such a degree that it can be contributed somewhere!  
Is this not, non-professor Dinn, quite a heck of an accomplishment?  Since 
the invention of 0 is a fairly big deal, then the continuing ability to 
create new zeroes must be also a positive thing.

Besides, Duchamp went on contributing urinals all of his life; one goose's 
pissoir is another's pissant, I guess.

John Mascaro