175s

[Terrance]

David Morris wrote:
> 
> http://www.holocaust-trc.org/homosx.htm

Very useful page, thanks. 

What I'm asking is, why  are  the 175s, out of Dora, their
"home," "homesick?" 

This doesn't make any sense. 

Turn back to page 289 and the narrator, not sure if it the
same one, but it seems to be,  says, 

"Lotta those *fags* (P's italics) still around, with baskets
and 175 badges out on display, staring moistly from
doorways. " 

What the hell is talking about? Why does this narrator note
that the 175 badges are out on display? Why does he describe
the 175s as having baskets and staring moistly? 

on page 665 the 175s are out of Dora. They have "set up an
all-male community" and Thanatz just out of Polish
Underrtaker's row boat walks into their community and a
"solid figure, a whispering silhouette, charc-colored has
materialized" and says to Thanatz, "we do not harm visitors.
But it would better if you took another way." 

Why would it be best if Thanatz took another way? Since they
are not going to harm him it must be some other reason, but
these could be many.  

"Ordinarily this would be Thanatz's notion of paradise." Why
his notion of paradise? 

And the narrator, and this is a very difficult narrator for
me, says, "Ordinarily this would be Thanatz's notion of
paradise except that none of
the men can bear to be out of Dora--Dora was home, and they
are homesick. Their "liberation" was a banishment." GR.665

Now, the explanation that the men, although prisoners, were
able to take some solace, felt at home, some solidarity,
doesn't explain what the narrator says. That these men would
find a prison outside of Dora because of the continued
persecution of homosexuals also doesn't make sense because
here they have set up an all-male community of homosexuals.
So why are they homesick for Dora? 

In Dora they were still subjected to the pain and suffering
they experienced outside of it, in fact it was far worse for
them in Dora.   Dora was not a place anyone would call home
or be homesick for. So what is the narrator saying here? 

He says, 

"Their 'liberation' was a banishment. So here in a new
location they have made up a hypothetical SS chain of
command--no longer restricted to what Destiny (P's caps) 
allotted then for jailers, they have now managed to come up
with some really *mean ass*
(P's italics, mean ass not BadAss) imaginary Nazi playmates,
Schutzhaftlingsfuhrer to Blockfuhrer, Kapo, Vorarbeiter,
Stubendienst, Laufer, (who is a runner or messenger, but
also happens to be the German name for a chess bishop...if
you have seen him, running across the wet meadows in very
early morning, with his red vestments furling and fluttering
darkened almost to tree-bark color among the watery downs,
you will have some notion of his real purpose here inside
the community--he is a carrier of holy strategies, memoranda
of conscience, and when he approaches over the reedy flats
of morning you are taken by your bowed nape and brushed with
a sidebands of a Great Momnet (P's Caps)--for the Laufer is
the most sacred here, it is he who takes messages out to the
ruinous interface between the visible Lager and the
invisible SS). 

What is the "Great Moment"???

The Laufer is the most sacred here. Why? Maybe because he's
at the bottom of the structure? Or is it because he carries
the message to the top? He goes to the ruinous interface
between the visible Lager and the Invisible SS. He's the
lowest of the preterite maybe? The white Anubis has gone on
to salvation. 

The Chess Bishop? The red, almost tree bark colored vestment
among the watery downs, is worn by Roman Catholics to
celebrate the Eucharist and this messenger carries holy
strategies, memoranda of conscience, and as he approaches
YOU are taken by your bowed nape and brushed with the
sidebands. Again, back on page 663 the Polish undertaker is
a digital companion. On page 663 the narrator says that
"two-toned checkerboards of odd shape and texture indeed
bloom in the rainy night around him (that would be the
Polish undertaker in the rowboat) and Thanatz. 

 A Bishop is high-ranking Christian cleric, in modern
churches usually in charge of a diocese and in some churches
regarded as having received the highest ordination in
unbroken succession from the apostles. 

In Games, the Bishop is usually a miter-shaped chess piece
that can move diagonally across any number of unoccupied
spaces. 

And, since in the next paragraph the narrator says that
Blicero is at the top of the complex and that he is
malignant, perhaps P has also,  Bishop, J. Michael. Born
1936. American microbiologist. He shared a 1989 Nobel Prize
for discovering a sequence of genes that can cause cancer
when mutated.

I'll type up the rest of the chapter with comments, so I'm
not taking anything out of context. 

TBC