VLVL2 (9) ruff Looks and rough glances

[Terrance]

1. In every chapter of VL, the characters (Characters can be human,
human-terminal or human-reverse-terminal, animal, machine,
inanimate-anthropomorphic) use body language, facial expressions;
signals voiced and unvoiced intonations, etc., to communicate. 


Zoyd and Desmond

For example, in Chapter One (page 4) Desmond gives Zoyd "an inquiring
look."   Zoyd meanwhile, is "shaking his head" and complaining to
Desmond because he can see the chocolate crumbs on Desmond's face and he
knows that Prairie fed the dog his Count Chocula breakfast. As Zoyd
leaves the yard, the dog wags his tail "to show no hard feelings."  



Do dogs have minds? 
Stephen Law enjoys Raimond Gaita's attempt to get inside
the heads of animals, The Philosopher's Dog

2. In every chapter of VL characters communicate and watch other
characters or themselves with the use of technology. 

In Chapter One Zoyd wakes up and reads a note from his daughter Prairie. 


"Dad, they changed my shift again, so I rode in with Thapsia. You got a
call from channel 86, they said urgent, I said, you try waking him up
some time. Love anyway, Prairie." (VL.3)

We notice several things here. 


Notice that Prairie uses an ancient communication technology (writing)
to transcribe communication via modern technology (telephone). 

After reading the note, Zoyd picks up the Telephone (a communication
device) and calls the TV station (producer and transmitter of images). A
TV Station is produces and transmits  television broadcasts,. Their
business is the transmission of visual images of moving and stationary
objects, generally with accompanying sound, as electromagnetic waves and
the reconversion of received waves into visual images.


 Prairie and Zoyd have been rescheduled by THEM or THEY. Who are THEY?
Why do THEY schedule and reschedule people's lives? Does everyone work
for THEM? Is everyone owned  by &  working for THEM? 
Is this what Ralph Wayvone tries to explain to his son? Does Ralph Jr.
discover a way out of THEIR bondage? Ralph Jr. will try to be a
comedian. In "The Secret Integration"  80-N's father tells his son that
only comedians can work outside THEIR  automated world. It's a coomon
enough complaint that in VL there is not THEY/THEM. This is another
common misreading of the novel. 


Thapsia is one of those Botanical names. DEADLY& RESTORATIVE

The 86 joke. 


3. In every chapter we notice that the characters judge others by their
hair cuts, their clothing, shoes, accessories and so on.

Why does Ralph look like he just got a hair cut from GR's famous barber?
Is he trying to look stupid? 


In Chapter Two Prairie complains that I-24 is being judge by Zoyd
because of his hair cut. Funny.  And Pynchon likes to pile joke on top
of joke. I-24 has painted his hair in Zoyd's favorite colors. He's 
pitching  him on the violence theme park business plan. He hopes that
Zoyd will secure the financing. When Zoyd gets busted one of his
neighbors tells him to get a hair cut, his mother-in-law's advice too,
get a hair cut, get a job, he gets one from Hobbes, an 80's cut that
makes him look like everyone else but Hector can ID just the same. 

4. This chapter has more eye movement body language. This chapter is
focused on vision (or the lack of vision). The palimpsest and the use of
doubles is also more pronounced in this chapter. 




It's possible, on occasion, to view human beings as mere physical
objects, and their words as just sounds in the air (it's a pretty
disturbing experience, of course, and one that, if we are not insane, is
impossible for us to maintain for very long). When we switch back to
seeing others not as physical objects but as beings with minds who make
meaningful utterances, we are viewing them, as it were, in a different
conceptual dimension, a dimension that, according to Wittgenstein,
cannot be reduced to or understood in terms of the merely physical.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,6121,904936,00.html



If we fail to formulate an intelligible account of how we can and do
make a unique and subtly nuanced sense to each other in a way which
allows us to appreciate more explicitly our own part in the process,
then that can only be due to the difficulties we face in making use of
the linguistic means available to us, not in the visibility of the
relevant phenomena - for, as Wittgenstein (1953, no.435) adds, "nothing
is hidden."

RESPONSIVE UNDERSTANDINGS IN LIVING ENCOUNTERS: RE-FIGURING INTELLECTUAL
INQUIRY 
John Shotter

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~jds/NewPaltz.htm




 



















Look me in the eyes and tell me the truth, that you love me, that this
used car I'm buying isn't a lemon, that I'm not being set up here, that
we're on the same side on this one .... 

Is Ralph pitching DL or is she pitching him? 

If I-24 is pitching Zoyd a business plan how come he (the Vomitones) end
up working for Ralph? Zoyd hooks up RC & Moonpie with Yuppie
Restaurants. Zoyd works for both sides. He goes into the Log Jam dressed
as a women to mess with hard working men. But the guys hanging out there
are all rich and yuppified now. If he wants to get men pissed off he
needs to go mess with the mill workers, but there all unemployed, have
left town, or out working, as he is, for Hobbes. 

He comes to her with the plan. But she thinks he's looking to buy here
skills.  He can see it in her eyes, she wants a crack at Vond. 
And, he has seen what she can do, on the circuit, but more importantly,
in her FILE. 
He shows up with a file on Brock Vond. A salesman has got to have a
dream, a shoe shine, a smile, and if he can't carry his products, he
should carry samples, photos. 





That invisible robot is ignored by the plane passangers and has only a
bit part so I can't connect him to M&D's duck. To Disneyland? Sure. 
One of things that Pynchon has done here, and he does this throughout
the novel and in all his novels, is to mix up worlds (see Brain McHale).
Is the plane a toy? Is the scene of the giant foot print a movie set? 
Is the robot no one can see even there? In the next chapter Prairie will
get a drink from Takeshi's robot. 

Another  double. Invisability and Blindness make a pair. And P puns and
doubles all over that shit. Blind date, for example. Anyway. 



focused on the eyes, no-contact-eyes,
lenses,  shades, cameras, computer screens, video game screens, film,
TV, scannings, ID-ing, images in mirrors and magazines (cartoons of,
decoys, lookalikes, stunt double, double, disguises, double mistaken
fake identities) eye-catching, eye-to-eyes, eye make ups, invisibility,
blindness (zero,  clouded visabilities), looks, gazes, look-ups, x-ray
vision, eyeballings, dead eyes, eyes of the dead, technological
observations, raisings of brows, rollings of eyes, eye-flitations ...
and so on, ....

http://www.criticism.com/da/


Dave Monroe wrote:
> 
> To quote local 60s garage fave raves, The Shag,
> "Everybody's watchin', everybody's lookin'" ("Stop and
> Listen," 1967).  Tres panoptique, non?  "Later than
> usual one summer morning in 1984" ...
> 
> --- Tim Strzechowski <dedalus204 at comcast.net> wrote:
> > Nice, man!  This is excellent, and an image / motif
> > that I hadn't "noticed" before.
> >
> > As always, I question: is this something which has
> > been going on throughout the novel up to this point,
> > but we hadn't really drawn attention to?  and if
> > it has, what is the significance?
> 
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