GRGR(4) 79.23 Bully Pulpit

[s~Z]

'rambling on from the pulpit of what was a private chapel once, back
there on the Maine-iac (ed., nod to a gathering of social Plisters) side
of the 18th century, and is now a launching platform for "The Weekly
Briefings,"'

"What could be more full of meaning? -- for the pulpit is ever this
earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in the rear; the pulpit leads
the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first
descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is
the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds.
Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete;
and the pulpit is its prow."
               --Moby Dick

Forgive me for this, and analyze me if you must, butt I keep seeing
references to anal sex in Pynchon's imagery. Ever since I read the
reference to aching prostates and then all the stuff regarding
Slothrump's Rape (real or imagined). And since I read bonechapel gate as
'anus.' Then Pudding at a no longer private chapel holding weekly
'briefings' with milky and luminous drumfire after coalboxes come down
on you, wet surfaces in shell craters, things clogged and crusted in
many shades of brown, the poor blackened stump of a tree, a Toad in the
Hole. THEN, I go check out Melville's pulpit and learn that all the rest
comes in the rear. Help me somebody. Ick Regis.