Another decade, another book?

[Aaron Yeater]

> I did find it interesting that in his Sloth essay, Pynchon chose not to
> dwell on the Puritan notions of Sloth (the Maypole at Merrymount and other
> atrocities against the pursuit of pleasure are briefly alluded to in GR)
> but to focus on Philadelphia, the Quakers and that foxy old Puritan crossover
> Ben Franklin.  That's verging on the Line--what next?
> 
i think that much of the reason he chose this focus was the relevance 
of "space" to his ideas--the planning of philadelphia, it's 
"energetic", unslothful design--i think the mason-dixon book might 
use this same trope of space:  borders, sides, zones, etc. to reveal 
his thematic concerns.

if so, i hope wash, dc comes up.  because dc is one of the few cities 
that was laid out from the start, in a completely ahistorical manner, a leap for 
alabaster transcendence, "old washington" and no "renewal."  it is 
quintessential of the america notion of itself as "ahistorical"--with 
LA showing up in the 20th century as a sort of prefab parody of this 
idea....
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"One is tempted to argue that Cubism grew out of the inside of the 
nose for, indeed, it's interior is often a cavernous, clotted, 
intricate web, full of bogs, stalactites, stalagmites, filamentlike 
hairs."

			-Norman Mailer
			"Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man
			--An Interpretive Biography"