direct hit! GR style

[David Casseres]

Brian McCary sez
>...I dinna find the hardon thing weird.  Surely, one reaction to impending
>and inescapable death is the decision to pursue personal gratification for 
>the breif lifetime left?

That's a very good point.  I'm suddenly reminded of a comic strip from 
the 60's, possibly by Crumb, about things to do when you hear the 
30-second warning.  One suggestion showed a man masturbating frantically. 
 Generalizing the idea, the whole Cold War period was the time when the 
U.S. went on an economic spree based on reckless consumption of all 
available natural resources, and the 60's -- right in the middle of the 
Cold War -- saw the beginning of the sexual revolution, which surely did 
have in it an element of Let's Have Our Fun Now While We Can.

I'd still like to find more in the way of the Story Behind the Story of 
Slothrop's hardons.  Can someone who knows some tarot lore tie the 
legendary erection of the hanged man to the Hanged Man?

>Seems to me that one reasonable explanation for the
>increase in hedonism and decadance which seemed to peak in the late 70's was 
>in reaction to the perception that we could all die tomorrow.  It was only 
>after the threat of total anihilation became less believable that people 
might 
>consider postponing, perhaps indefinitely, all those guilty pleasures.

It's interesting that since the 80's the far-right types, who vigorously 
denied the likelihood of getting vaporized in an atomic attack, have been 
going through their own apocalyptic episode where we're all going to be 
destroyed by gays in the workplace, new math in the schools, women's 
rights, multiculturalism, postmodernism, bilingual education, and 
affirmative action.  But they aren't scared by it 'cause they've got The 
Answer, so they don't get no hardon.  I'll sure be glad when they're as 
tired of it all as my friends and I were at the end of the Vietnam War.



Cheers,
David