Pavlov and the Book

Craig Clark CLARK at SHEPFS2.UND.AC.ZA
Tue Nov 5 09:07:37 CST 1996


I asked:
>...mebbe Pointsman is meant to be a parody of Skinner? Just how did 
>BF spend the war anyway?

David Casseres replied
 
> Hoo hoo!  Wasn't it Skinner who did the work on conditioning pigeons to 
> peck at high-contrast spots on a screen so that they could be suicide 
> pilots in glide-bombs to be launched against enemy ships at sea?  Or am I 
> imagining that it was Skinner?  In any case, now that I think of that, 
> it's amazing Pynchon's Pavlovians didn't do any work with a Pigeon Pyotr 
> (or pouter).

I vote we petition TRP via his agent to produce a sequel to _GR_ 
oriented around this fact...

Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"



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