Hours, Towers, and Powers

[Bruce Appelbaum]

     Re 8:20 Mythical Hour:  If you look at print advertisements for 
     watches, 8:20 is one of the times that the watches are routine set to 
     for photographs so that the manufacturer's label clearly shows.


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Hours, Towers, and Powers
Author:  gstarr at management21.com (Geof Starr) at Internet
Date:    10/4/96 5:22 AM


> 3)  Why is 8:20 a mythical hour? (p 17)
     
I have always figured this to be a local variation of the old "quarter 
'til/quarter after" theory which posits that conversational activity in an area 
always tends to temporarily drop at 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after the 
hour...(a notion to which a puzzled friend of mine once responded "But it's 
always 15 minutes 'til _something_.")
     
> 4)  Who are the curious gods' offspring to whom the `provisional 
>     pyramids' (p 17) have been erected?
     
I take this to be a casual reference to the diffuse deities hanging around 
during the construction of pyramids such a Khufu's in Giza (or perhaps more 
likely the ziggurats constructed by assorted aboriginee clans of Mexico). 
Looking back on those ruins, discarded husks and moltings of gods presumedly 
long since gone, the typical Westerner might reflect on just how obscure and 
"curious," comparativley speaking, the Big Mysterious Ones of these cultures 
are...clearly second-stringers, of course, else why would the vanities of their 
mortal vessels now sit in such disrepair? So is it any wonder that what impotent
offspring surviving these beast-headed lords are patronized by diminshed 
makeshift pyramids (made of _sand_bags, to boot)?
     
> 5)  What purpose do the many lists of objects (e.g. Slothrop's deskful 
>     of bureaucratic smegma) serve?
     
In a word, I'd say "versimilitude" -- perhaps a pointedly hyperbolic form of 
versimilitude, but verisimilitude just the same.  
     
[There has been talk here of an on-going theme of "machine-ization of self" in 
TRP's stuff, wherein the human-ness is slowly becoming more object-like...I 
think there is also a theme of "self-ization of external world" wherein the 
constructs of human beings (e.g., products, organizations, conspiracies -- 
things not-man and not-nature) are slowly take on a complexity so that they are 
as much an organism as humans. (In COL49, is Oedipa at the beginning of the book
any more reified as a self than the "Trystero" system is at the end?) Such 
musing, I guess is a variation of "Individual shapes society/society shapes 
individual" theme, but with TRP, there seems to be an added element of 
contemporary products of humans, traditionally-considered soul-less and 
inanimate (e.g., rust, rockets, mathematical theorums, cigarette butts, etc.) 
reaching a point of metaphysical-mass-motility at which "they" possess as much 
affect over the self of humans as the humans do over the items 
individually...ah, I'm having a hard time here and have to get back to 
work...I'll have another stab at this later, after I personally clarify how this
links to my "reification of media" obsession.]
     
Relatedly: I'm apologize for not remembering the name of whoever made the recent
suggestion "Think film; think film;" I think he/she would be on target 
here...can't you see an Orson Welles c. "Citizen Kane" type of slow vertical pan
revealing layer upon layer in deep chiaroscuro?
     
gee out