MDMD(4) p.123 Talking Clocks & the Sea

[Eric Alan Weinstein]

"What they feel is an Attraction, more and less resistible, 
to beat in Synchrony with it, regardless of their Pendulum-
lengths, or even the divisions of the Day."

Although no-one has talked much about it, I very much enjoy
the two clocks talking to each other. They comically mirror Mason 
and Dixon, I suppose. The way Pynchon ends the Clocks
conversation with each other with Dixon speaking to one of the
clocks in what he thinks of as a self-conscious bit of humour played
upon the pathetic fallacy is deftly handled.

Also, I think the image of  *the clocks unspoken inward desire
to follow the beating of the Sea*  is one that goes to the very 
heart of "Mason & Dixon," the very heart of what Pynchon
is trying---not what he is 'trying to say', for Pynchon is
in a Heideggerian sense, trying to "let Being be"----to allow
to unfold in his work. 

This also made me think of a Tom Stoppard play, Arcadia,
in which one of the principal characters dreams of a math
complex enough to explain real-world forms---a tree, a flower,
a hillside----instead of the geometry of squares, rectangles,
etc. which dominates her late 18th, early 19th C. world.
*************
an aside---
I'm *almost* sure that that Colm Meany and Pat Stewart
(who reads for the M&D tape) have also been in this play. In any
case, I know that Stoppard has used several actors from ST: TNG 
during his touring runs before.

Has anyone on-list bought the M&D tape? In the 6-hour version?
I've promised myself that I'm going to listen to it while driving
from London to Antwerp next time.

Eric  

Eric Alan Weinstein
E.A.Weinstein at qmw.ac.uk