GRGR(1): Kristallnacht

[jporter]

If it has been mentioned before, I missed it, but "the fall of the crystal
palace" in paragraph two, in that absolute darkness, reminded me of the
infamous *Night of Broken Glass* sponsored by Hitler, et.al.

It also echoes (as has been mentioned) the presumed failure of science and
technology to account for (or perhaps avoid) the apparent tragedy which has
befallen "the second sheep, all out of luck and time." But I do not
believe, as has been suggested earlier, that these second sheep are second
to some elect, that might, at that very moment, be enjoying the light. In
fact those "nearer faces...visible...only as half-silvered images in a view
finder, green stained VIP faces remebered behind bulletproof windows
speeding through the city..." Are now in close proximity to the dreamer,
and are presently sharing his "velveteen darkness."

Their (and perhaps, his) VIP status is only a memory. Everyone seems to be
second in this que. There are no elect here.

The Crystal Palace had been shattered by the likes of Heisenberg and Godel
and cobbled together in its place out of the ruins was a make-shift
Carpenter's Gothic, promising only symmetrical uncertainty and
incompletenes; thus the death of the 19th century "Newtonian" reality on
scientific grounds. But well before that, Dostoyevsky's *underground man*
denied 2+2=4 on human grounds alone: i.e., the love of suffering, the need
for uncertainty and incompleteness, an undeniable urge for humiliation, and
yes, preterition. Fyodor learned these darker truths in the Czarist
Siberian Gulag, and he put them to good use. God knows where Pynchon picked
them up.

Remember, the dreamer is dreaming, and I think it fair to accept at least
the possibility of a certain amount of wish fullfilment in the generation
of the dreamscape. Pirate is tired and he is guilty. He is sick of the
collective depravity of the true owners of the fantasies he has been forced
to "manage" for the past two and a half years. It has gotten to him. In
dream he envisions (hopes for?) the inevitable annihilation of the species.
Awake, he allows himself the satisfaction of becoming a parody of Newton,
with a certain death wish twist. This is the reverse of the ascent of
technology portrayed in 2001: death club morphing to waltzing space
station.

This is Eve's cum Newton's apple transformed by Pirate's needs into a
horrible steel banana dropping out of the sky directly onto his head. And
as he hunches his shoulders and evolves down the corkscrew ladder toward
warmth and culture, I get the feeling there will always be some part of him
that longs for the thrill.

Jody