does squeare lead to Blockhead?

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

On Wed, 8 May 1996, JJ Jester wrote:
> Ok, I'll bite.  What happened in the year 1735?  This is getting better!
> JJ
> 
> At 04:28 AM 5/8/96 +0200, "hg" wrote:
> >> Not to mention that a squaring of the mystical number 7 brings us to 49...
> >And a squaring of 49 (minus 1735) brings us to 666....
> >hg
> >hag at iafrica.com

The number 1735 has roused endless speculations and arguments among
Pynchonologists; truth to tell, there is a legion of competent 18th
century specialists, among other numerologists, who indefatigably try
to solve the problem. The annual ASECS conference runs "numerous" 
competing panels on the question, each branch boycotting all the others.

I have always been a despised lone wolf with my suggestion:

in 1735 Alexander Baumgarten publishes his thesis, where he lays the
grounds for the distinct sphere of the science of the beautiful. He 
names this science "aesthetics", to be strictly distinguished from
"philosophy",  "history", etc. 

But the art of guys like Pynchon is art of contamination, where pure,
autonomous aesthetic spheres prove impossible, I dare say. There might
emerge a new aesthetics, but it will not be that of Baumgarten and Kant.
And the intensified possibility of apocalypse - hence 666 - is one
important factor in this wreck of pure aestheticism.

Heikki