breach

[Gillies, Lindsay]

from usia.gov (my mail interface is showing all pynchon list stuff as from 
owner-pynchon-l, any suggestions?):
Alas, I think you missed the poetry here!  vB isn't saying that "nothing
ever died out," he's saying that "nothing is completely forgotten, EVEN
IF it's no longer among the living."

While many species, even genera have gone extinct, vB is saying -- or so
I construe him to say -- that the forms and content, the evolutionary
steps (faltering as they may be), are not obliterated.  New species
develop using older "technologies" in new ways.  While "ontogeny" may not
recapitulate "phylogeny," nature does seem conservative in many ways.

As another way of saying "there's nothing new under the sun," WvB may
need to work on his metaphors (he's got plenty of time, now).  But I
don't think he quite deserved this waxing.
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I think Werner is simply saying he believes in life after death.