The Goddess, the Universe & Jung

[Cal Godot]

My point about the goddess is: it seems to me that while certain things
derive from the goddess-archetype (especially in regard to fecundity), not
all things derive from that source. An ancient mound of earth, certainly if
constructed by humans, would suggest roots in fecundity symbols. The mound
cultures of North America (I'm thinking especially of the Ocmulgee culture)
certainly held some sort of belief that entering the mound was akin to
entering the womb of the earth. Note that the operative word here is
"ancient." Not all mounds refer to fecudntiy symbolism; some are just
*there* -- accidentally, through random forces of nature, etc.

I suppose you could make a point that inadvertant mound-building -- for
example, when someone is not intending to build a fecundity symbol, but
only trying to get the pitcher higher than home plate -- results from the
archetypes buried deep in our psyches. Especially since it is the pitcher
who stands on the mound and not the hitter, the pitcher being the one who
initiates (i.e. gives birth to) the game [I think this is the point Lindsay
is making].

But if you make this kind of connection, I believe you're really stretching
the bounds of reason and I can see why Freud used to get so annoyed with
Jung. As the old man said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." And
sometimes, pals o' mine, a pitchers mound is just 18 inches of dirt.

And as far as the pitcher *controlling* the game, Lindsay, I'd have to say
you're off base on that on: there are rules in place to keep the pitcher
from delaying the game or acting in such a manner as to stall the game. You
can't just stand there on the mound with the ball in your hand, refusing to
play. Managers (and catchers) go out to the mound because, as I recall, the
pitcher is not allowed to leave the mound unless relieved. (Can't find my
bible, so I'm not sure if this is an official rule... but I'm pretty sure
it is.)

It is, however, no secret that the single most important player (DeNiro's
monologue in The Untouchables notwithstanding) is the pitcher: a great
pitching staff can make up for lousy hitting, but lousy pitching will lose
the game for ya... even if you're playing the Red Sox. So, Lindsay, you're
straight on about the pitcher being the *center* of the game. It is also,
of the big American games, the only game with an actual geographical center
that is important -- center court in basketball/hockey is not nearly as
important as the goal or the boundary of the court and football just goes
all over the place. So it is the only game that Pynchon could use in
reference to "Holy-Center-Approaching." Also, the phrase "number one Zonal
pastime" certainly takes weight from the basbeall allusion, as baseball is
"America's pastime."

Sinister things aside, I think Pynchon had no choice but to use baseball as
a source for allusion: with its locatable center, its lack of a time frame
(other than nine innings/chapters), its odd lingo, its body of
superstition/lore, its deep history, and its location in the American
psyche (i.e. as American as apple pie), it is the obvious choice for a
sport allusion. Resonant.

Of course, this is coming from the author of an article titled "The Zen of
Pitching..." who is also one of Nolan Ryan's biggest fans... who thinks
that The Brothers K. (by Duncan, not Dostoevsky) is a wonderful book... who
read "Why Time Begins on Opening Day" and in his review of it hailed it as
"the greatest book since the Bible (Official Rules of Baseball, that
is)"... a guy who's owned six different editions of The Baseball
Encyclopedia... who will allow (and often agree with) all sorts of bad
things said about Kevin Costner EXCEPT when it comes to Field of Dreams...
who thinks that Robert Coover, W.P. Kinsella, Merritt Clifton and Charles
E. Van Loan have been vastly underrate, should be reassessed critically and
given their proper place in the literary pantheon... and who once turned
down sex with a cheerleader because "the Braves game starts in five
minutes." (No, she didn't understand; she was a damn football fan, a sport
in which the only important part of any game takes place in the parking lot
afterward.)









Cal Godot       JAZZ FLAVORED COFFEE
     e-mail:  godot at wolfenet.com
WWW: http://www.wolfenet.com/~godot/
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What is most appealing about young folks, after all, is the changes,
not the still photographs of finished character but the movie,
the soul in flux.  -- Thomas Pynchon