grgr (34): kreplach

[Otto Sell]

----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Mackin <pmackin at clark.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2000 4:27 PM
Subject: Re: grgr (34): kreplach


>
>
> On Sun, 27 Aug 2000, Lorentzen / Nicklaus wrote:
>
>
> > little square, and now i fold it over into a tri---' 'g a a h h h h !'
>  screames
> > the kid, in absolute terror --- 'k r e p l a c h!'" (737)
> >
>
> >  ... no weisenburger comment on that ... what seems safe to say is that
>  there is
> > a phenomenon of  e m e r g e n c e ... the qualitative jump, which
>  cannot be
> > traced back to the single qualities of the involved elements on their
>  lower
> > level of aggregation ... unintended consequences, spin-off effects ...
the
>
> > emergence of horror, the horror of emermergence ... but what, the hell,
>  does it
> > mean here?! anyone? ... kfl ...
>
>
> Emergence is OK. It's another of those critical mass situations with all
> the 1945 implications of the term and idea?  Like in the Hell sequence:
>
> " . . . DEVIL'S ADVOCATE's what the shingle sez, yes inside is a Jesuit
> here to act in that capacity, here to preach, like his colleague Teilhard
> de Chardin, against return. Here to say that critical mass cannot be
> ignored. Once the techinical means of control have reached a certain
> size, a certain degree of BEING CONNECTED one to another, the chances for
> freedom are over for good. The word has ceased to have meaning. It's a
> potent case Father Rapier makes here, not without great eloquence, moments
> when he himself is clearly moved . . . no need even to be there, at the
> office, for visitors may tune in from anywhere in the Convention to his
> passionate demonstrations, which often come in the midst of celebrating
> what hep humorists here are already calling "Critical Mass" (get it? not
> too many did in 1945, the Cosmic Bomb was still trembling in its
> earliness . . . ) . . . "  (p. 539)
>
> In other words kreplach could be, among other things, Hiroshima.
>
> P.
>
>

Okay, but what is  k r e p l a c h  ?
Cabbage? Spinach?
Otto