Not altogether un-S-Gerat related ...

[Dave Monroe]

Just spent some time in the Presence of an "Apollo Guidance and
Navigation Servo Mechanism" or somesuch, "Handle With Care: Critical
Space Item" stickers all over the crate, and I figured, well, you all
would at least be less unimpressed than anybody else I know, so ... but
note: not merely an "Item," not even merely a "Space Item" (which is
already pretty damn impressive in my book), but a "Critical Space
Item."  I get me a few o' them stickers (NASA Form 1368-A Nov 67), and
EVERYTHING is gonna be a Critical Space Item.   Sometimes I do get a
LITTLE something out of my day ...

But, recent skirmishes aside, I would like to chip in on the "VV"
issue.  Now, I signed on this list to give me some incentive to finally
reread GR after a decade or so of aborted attempts and ultimate
neglect.  And, despite some disincentives since, having had to hit the
ground running here, esp. as I came in in medias res, esp. in re:
skirmishes already in progress, esp. having not kept up on the critical
lit'rachure since (if I ever kept up on it in teh first place), I've
largely appreciated the opportunity ...

Sorely regretting not having honed my tarot, gnosticism, kabbalah and
Rilke (as opposed maybe to my V-2 [and I just got back my Dornberger
book, which, in the Bantam ed. I have, looks not unlike--and perhaps
intentionally so--a possible sequel to the Bantam ed. of V.]) fu in the
meantime, but, in particular, Terrance and, what the hell, jbor, as well
as offscreen interlocutors (a friend picked up on interesting anomalies
in Weissmann's tarot also noted here, for example), have been quite
helpful in those regards.  In the meantime, slowly hunting and pecking
my way through Waite, Jonas, Scholem, Rilke, so ...

Now, the Crying of Lot 49 I seem to reread ever few months these days
(for the reason I saw Pulp Fiction a dozen times, I just always enjoyed,
was always surprised by it).  Vineland I really SHOULD reread, but you
seem to have done that recently.  Ditto Mason and Dixon.  Slow Learner,
well ... well, keep in mind, I son't eat, breathe and sleep this stuff,
as much as I'd love to.  I certainly don't have the tiem to devote to
posting the way some do here, and, well, if you've got THAT kind of
tiem, I'm guessing you have far more time to read as well.  But V. ...

V. I read AFTER TCOL49 and GR, and I never went back.  Which has NOT
helped in rereading GR, given the intertextuality of all of Pynchon's
texts.   Now, obviously, I have my Opinions about--if not quite my
Reading of--Gravity's Rainbow, but V., well, have at best some Inklings,
and ever since it seemed as if you (we?) all would be doing V. next,
I've been really looking forward to it.  Esp. boning up on my automata
fu (on that technology tip, me).  Do hope we'll do it here, but ...
well, as if my opinion matters for anything, so ... in the meantime,
Happy Birthday, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (today), Corneliu Codreanu
(yesterday), and Juscelino Kubitschek (day before yesterday) ...