lemniscate and bicycling

[Mary Krimmel]

At 07:05 PM 9/29/03 -0400, you wrote:
>Mary:
> >       No. The straightness, the weaving, the repetition, the irregularity
> > are what show that such a track is not a lemniscate-like pattern.


>Maybe it's just me, but a bicylist riding in a figure-8, in the context of
>the poem, doesn't make any sense. But the pattern left by the two tires,
>while ridden in a relatively straight line, certainly resembles a chain of
>linked, if poorly drawn, figure-8's. Are you saying that, mathematically,
>these "figure-8's" don't qualify as lemniscates?

No, I didn't intend to say that mathematically the bicycle track, doesn't 
qualify. It doesn't.

I intended to say that "the pattern left by the two tires, while ridden in 
a relatively straight line" doesn't qualify as looking like figure-8's or 
lemniscates. To you and maybe to the "I" of the poem, to Shade and to 
Nabokov, they do look like lemniscates. Different aspects of a pattern may 
appeal to different people.


> > >The less "deft" the rider, the more
> > >pronounced the pattern.
> >
> >       And presumably the rider was deft, so the pattern less pronounced.


>Might "nonchalantly deft Bicycle tires" allude to the "miracle" of a complex
>pattern created by the tires without conscious effort on the part of the
>rider? My "less deft" was meant to suggest Shade as the "rider", but given
>the alternative definition I quoted, it works even better for Kinbote.
>
> > >OED deft -- 1. Gentle, meek, humble; = daft 1. Obs. rare.

Oh. It hadn't occurred to me to consider Shade or Kinbote as the rider.

This list gives me many ideas beyond some insight into Pynchon! Thank you.

Mary Krimmel

Mary Krimmel




>Scott Badger