GRGR(20) 1904 revisited

[Tiarnan]

Nice to have wisdom from the thoroughly habituated. Not to the dangerous,
damaging
and violence promoting drug-an-sich, rather to its equally stupefying
hinter-discourse.
Baloney bein' a kinda sausage, right?

Is not tensor analysis as logical and internally coherent a guidebook as any
other
series of language games you choose to throw at such a sidelong business as
history?

T
----- Original Message -----
From: jporter <jp4321 at idt.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 4:28 AM
Subject: GRGR(20) 1904 revisited


> In Hank Adams mode, "the narrator," offerring a little solace to the
> water-closeted Achtfaden:
>
> "Look at it this way, Achtfaden....If tensor anaysis is good enough for
> turbulence, it ought to be good enough for history. There ought to be
> nodes, critical points... ...1904 was one of them-...it was the year the
> American Food and Drug people took the cocaine out of Coca-Cola, which
gave
> us an alcoholic and death-oriented generation ideally equipped to fight WW
> II..." (p451-2)
>
> Not sure if the narrator is speaking for P. here, but this is baloney. Not
> only is the premise of tensor analysis applied to history a narrative load
> of crap, but with hindsight, cocaine, especially in the form of crack, has
> turned out to be one of the most damaging and violence promoting
> substances, ever.  Irrespective of any CIA involvement in trafficking, if
> this passage doesn't make today's P. wince, I'm ducking for him.
>
> P. is a slick writer, but he can be an arrogant s.o.b., and when he's bad,
> he can stink up even the Rucksichtslos.
>
> jody
>
>