VV(12): Sferics

[Dave Monroe]

"'I suppose not.  Not when a barabaric and unknown
race, employed by God knows whom, even now are
blasting the Antarctic ice with dynamite, preparing to
enter a subterranean network of natural tunnels, a
network whose existence is known only to the
inhabitants of Vheissu, the Royal Geographic Society
in London, Herr Godolphin, and the spies of
Florence.'" (V., Ch. 7, Sec. vii, p. 197)

Anyone here ever see Battle Beneath the Earth (1967)?

http://ufo.simplenet.com/films/battle.html

But to continue ...

"'Staring up at me through the ice, perfectly
preserved, its fur still rainbow-colored, was the
corpse of one of their spider monkeys....'" (V., Ch.
7, Sec. x, pp. 205-6)

Judith Chambers, Thomas Pynchon (NY: Twayne, 1992) ...

"Suffice it to say that when Godolphin penetrates the
Antarctic and sees the blue-green monkey, he
represents the scientist Ernest Rutherford, who
penetrated the core of the atom, a penetration that
would lead to the Trinity test site.... The blue-green
spider monkey frozen in the ice at the heart of
unexplored territory, like Einstein's 'energy locked
into structures in a "frozen" state' tells the awesome
tale of the thrilling struggle for knowledge.... 
Godolphin sees in the Antarctic the discovery of the
properties of uranium." (pp. 71, 73)

... as cited in J. Kerry Grant, A Companion to V.
(Athens: U of Georgia P, 2001), p. 108.  Sorry, don't
have the Chambers at hand, else I'd cite the Einstein
citation as well, not to mention figure out why she
insists the "rainbow-colored" monkey is "blue-green." 
But, again, to continue ...

>From Manuel De Landa, War in the Age of Intelligent
Machines (NY: Zone, 1991) ...

"Understanding the nature of a citadel under siege,
and the accompanying logistics and organization, is
essential to understanding what happens to a nation
when the old fortress walls are extended through radar
to contintental proportions." (p. 5)

Might have fluffed a word or two there, scribbled that
on the back of my checkbook at a bookstore along my
way (wasn't carrying my De Landa either, but saw no
need to buy a copy just to cite a sentence here,
that's for sure), but that's the gist of it ...

Okay ...

Again, think, "mirror-time," South Africa/North
America, 1922/1956(1963), Antarctic/Arctic,
"subterranean network of natural tunnels"/atmospheric
tracery of technological trajectories, sferics/radar,
spider monkey/uranium, farmhouse/fortress,
ravine/walls ... 

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/6459/St12.jpg

... a siege against a background of racial unrest,
dissent, violence, even ...

--- Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at hotmail.com> wrote:

> "Mondaugen was here as part of a program having to
> do with atmospheric radio 
> disturbances: sferics for short." (V., Ch. 9, sec.
> i, p. 230)
> 
> But it occurs to me, "atmospheric radio
> disturbances," "disturbances," 
> "basic distrust of the South," "War," "mirror-time,"
> "South-West Africa," 
> "what had once been a ... colony," "he found the
> idea of defeat hateful" (p. 
> 230),  a postwar ("1922") context with yet another
> (possible, at this point) 
> war impending o'er the horizon, a steady
> undercurrent of racial unrest, in a 
> story told in 1956, in a novel published in 1963 ...
> 
> http://www.radomes.org/museum/
> 
> http://earlywarning.westgeorgia.org/
> 
> http://www.bwcinet.com/thule/index.html
> 
> And, of course ...
> 
> http://www.wmich.edu/politics/mlk/


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