Kenosha

[David L. Pelovitz]

Aaron Yeater <AYEATER at ksgrsch.harvard.edu>
 
> I am wondering what TRP's parsing experiment with the phrase "You 
> never did the Kenosha Kid" is all about--Is it an exercise in 
> literary teasing, as Joyce often does in Ulysses, or part of the 
> amytal dream (or both, i guess...)  The question is--what do people 
> think  pynchon is attempting to do with the variations in parsing of 
> that phrase?  Is it possible that "You never did the Kenosha Kid" is 
> 'just a phrase,' that the real action is found what he does with the 
> presentation of the phrase...

I tend to think it is linguistic play on the idea that a word
as a unit of information may contain less than a words worth
of information.  Almost every one of those six words comes
to hold a different meaning in at least one of the constructions
TP offers in that sequence.  Is the Kenosha Kid a person,
a dance or a baby goat?  
                                                          
The point is not simply that no word has absolute
meaning, but that the entire statement does not have
an absolute meaning.  Which would seem to question both
analog and digital communication
	
David Pelovitz - PELOVTZD at Acfcluster.nyu.edu