re Amerikaka (NP?)

[Henry Musikar]

It worries me that they (politicians and other media) are getting people to
believe that history is no longer relevant in these "extraordinary times."
There is, of course, historical precedent for that belief....

History is larger than individuals. If this war is a cusp, then there are
cusps every day. History doesn't get hit by lightning. The events of 11-Sep
didn't surprise the politicians whose report on terrorism was ignored by
Bush.

It's been a long time coming.
It's gonna be a long time gone.
And it appears to be a long time before dawn.
And you know, the darkest hour
is always just before the dawn.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename at tokyo.com>
To: "Pynchon List" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 11:42 AM
Subject: Re: re Amerikaka (NP?)


> On historical relevance, I think that after catastrophic events, formerly
> relevant history tends to get boxed up and stored in the attic, not
because
> it's necessarily *less relevant*, just that its context suddenly belongs
to
> a place prior to the catastrophic dividing line (in this case, obviously,
> Sept 11).  History has a way of segmenting itself in this manner
> (prelapsarian, ante and post diluvian, pre and post Holocaust, etc)
> especially to the culture-society-zeitgeist to which it's occurred.  "That
> was then, this is now."
>
> I've posted before that Sept. 11 is a dividing point for contemporary
> American history, blowing the past out of context, revectoring the future.
> I've since recalled through discussion that Pynchon talks about this in
the
> context of the lightning flare that highlights a single moment and divides
> past from future: "the ones who do get hit experience a singular point, a
> discontinuity in the curve of life" (664).  And Slothrop: "Do you know
what
> the time rate of change _is_ at a cusp?  _Infinity_, that's what!  A-and
> right across the point, it's _minus_ infinity!  How's _that_ for sudden
> change, eh?" (664).
>
> Sudden change indeed and oh-boy.
>
> Jasper Fidget
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Henry Musikar" <scuffling at hotmail.com>
> To: "Pynchon List" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 11:04 AM
> Subject: Re: re Amerikaka (NP?)
>
>
> > MalignD -
> >
> > It seems that we are destined to clash, you and I, not so much over
means
> > and ends, but rather over knowledge itself. Either everything is
> connected,
> > and therefore relevant, to various degrees, or nothing is (GR
explanation
> of
> > paranoia, except for the important addition of "various degrees"). If
> > fiction makes sense, then it why can't it be relevant? If the past can't
> be
> > relevant, then what can be?
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <MalignD at aol.com>
> > To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2001 1:23 PM
> > Subject: Re: re Amerikaka (NP?)
> >
> >
> > > <<...  it becomes easier to imagine the sort of drift that must have
> taken
> > > over right-thinking and even intelligent people in Nazi Germany.  What
> > they
> > > were doing must have seemed right and obvious every step along the
way.
> > > Pokler couldn't see it coming, let himself get entangled, he never
> really
> > had
> > > a chance the way the movies hooked him in of course, realized too late
> > what
> > > crimes he helped commit. >>
> > >
> > > And this is especially relevant to the goings-on in Afghanistan, since
> it
> > > happened to a made-up German in a thirty-year-old novel, set some
> > twenty-five
> > > years earlier.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
>