Back to Vineland for some vibrato psalms

[The Great Quail]

I got this in the mail a few days ago from a Pynchon fan, and I 
thought it was interesting given our recent VLVL. I did ask 
permission to pass it on, by the way, so here it is:

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You might be interested in some background on the "vibrating palm of death"
which DL puts on Takeshi. In the book, Pynchon says that this technique
originated with the Malaysian Chinese, who developed it centuries ago.
Coincidentally, I've spent a few months in Malaysia over the last couple of
years studying traditional martial arts with the Chinese there (yes,
really!). I'm not going to sell myself as a "master" here, because I'm
definitely still a student, but I've trained and talked a lot with several
people who certainly can be described as such. I don't know which sources
Pynchon used, but they seem to have been reasonably sound (as one would of
course hope!). Generally speaking, many of the Japanese martial arts seem to
have been derived in more recent or more distant centuries from Chinese arts,
and especially from various arts established in Fukiyen Province which is the
nearest bit of the Chinese mainland to Japan. Jiu-jitsu and ninjitsu (of
which I have no direct experience) have been around for many centuries in one
form or another (although what you get under the label nowadays may have been
heavily "gene engineered", so caution is required), jiu-jitsu being the
traditional repository of samurai empty-hand battlefield skills. Karate-do by
contrast is a much more recent development, not reaching the Japanese
mainland before the 1920s. "Kara-te" originally meant "Chinese hand", but
when the Sino-Japanese war got underway this was changed for political
reasons to "empty hand", which was pronounced pretty much the same but
written differently. Before that it was an Okinawan art ("Karate Kid",
underneath the layer of kitsch, is not pure baloney) and appears in turn to
be derived from elements of Fukiyen White Crane, an indigenous Chinese
internal/external marital art. With each step of the way from White Crane to
karate-do the art has been simplified and, say some, degraded. Which is not
to say there aren't excellent practioners who have karate as their foundation
art. Fukiyen, with its many different dialect groups, is also the main origin
of the Malaysian Chinese. Actually, the Chinese have only been in Malaysia in
significant numbers since the early 19th century, although trading outposts
had been established earlier in such towns as Malacca and Singapore.
Back to the vibrating palm. As far as my own understanding goes, the
situation in which DL does the dirty deed is actually rather credible. One of
the people I have trained with, and a master of my (originally) English
main-man out there, is a practitioner of Chinese medicine and also, shall we
say, a respected member of the 'executive arm' of a certain well-established
business, charity and self-help organisation. 'Nuff said. He confirmed the
theoretical possibility of messing up someone's health very seriously simply
by touching them in the right places, and also that the time of day is an
important element as to what will do what, where and when (circadian cycle).
As Pynchon indeed writes, also quoting the correct (Cantonese) Chinese term
of Dim Mak. Due to this time factor, said the master, the value of such
techniques in a fight is virtually zero, because in a real combat situation
with a serious opponent you do well to get in any strikes at all with serious
stopping power. Even a skillful exponent will hardly have time to consult his
watch, see what time of day it is and figure out whether a touch to point x
would be deadly or whether point y would be more effective right now. As I
say, the person who said this has plenty of experience in both the TCM and
fighting fields. There are actually several "Dim Mak" books on the market but
the people I know and respect take a very sceptical attitude towards these
(but then again, who knows everything?). Anyway, the kind of situation in
book, where the "murderer" has plenty of time to plan the deed, knows the
time of day and has (for a while) unlimited and unresisting access to the
victim, is a situation in which, probably,  Dim Mak really could be used to
kill someone in a delayed fashion. And expert acupuncture would then be a
preferred method to reverse the damage to the body.

_________________ ~~~_________________ ~~~_________________ ~~~

Best,

--Quail
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth:
http://www.libyrinth.com

A book is more than a verbal structure or series of verbal structures;
it is the dialogue it establishes with its reader and the intonation it
imposes upon his voice and the changing and durable images it leaves
in his memory. A book is not an isolated being: it is a relationship,
an axis of innumerable relationships.
      --J.L. Borges