OK

[Craig G. Bleakley]

{First, let's all give ourselves a big hand for not going ballistic over
Issac's appaerntly sincere effort at info gathering--are we all out of town
or something?  A-and Issac: as you may have noticed, we're a bit defensive
about our boy Tom, so don't be surprised if your somewhat loaded question
(considering its audience) meets with some disdainful responses.  Is this a
way of saving legwork on a forthcoming paper?)

Well, shoot.  It's Sunday evening and I have a short attention span.  I had
intended to reply in detail to Issac: to discuss the Virgin/dynamo motifs
and thermodynamics; to suggest that perhaps rather than being "simply about
the inability to find answers in things," V. is a survey of options in light
of this recognition, primarily focusing on our desire to create narratives;
to discuss some of the implications of "the street of the twentieth
century," in contrast to say, the road of the nineteenth; to mention
creeping dehumanization; to point out that "keep cool but care" works pretty
well as the "moral" of Gravity's Rainbow (although I prefer the even more
succinct, "be kind").

But hey--just check out Tony Tanner in the "Caries and Cabals" chapter of
his book "City of Words."  Oldie but goodie.

Sincerely, etc.,
Craig Bleakley