vv2

[Dave Monroe]

In re: Moby Dick, Ch. 99, "The Doubloon," in re: V., Ch. 1,v, "the
golden screw," yes, indeedy.   Doubleplusgood annotation there, jbor.
Interestingly, though, that joke about the screw and the navel and the,
er, ass, was apparently in circulation (well?) before V., which I take
as another example of what I've been referring to here as "signal bleed"
between channels of reference, of referents, something which I've also
been taking as a particular, if not necessarily peculiar (sort of a
general characteristic of literary, poetic language, I'd venture, but,
Derridean that I be, I take such "bleed," such dissemintaion as sort of
the general condition of language) characteristic of Pynchon's texts.
That way of pointedly alluding to a number of possibilities all at
once.  So we've got, what, high lit'rature, low humor, and, perhaps,
that onset of the cybernetic age (prosthetics, prostheses, indeed,
reminds me, David Wills, Prosthesis) ...