lemniscate and bicycling

[cfalbert]

COnsider, again, the lemniscate as a ribbon....the two edges never actually
cross but appear to do so.......Consider the relationship twixt Shade and
Kinbote as sun and moon, or any other "opposing pair".........now picture
them a bicycle riders leaving tracks, not directly on top of each other,
but, like the edges of the ribbon, following the same "bounded path".....


love,
cfa
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mary Krimmel" <mary at krimmel.net>
To: "Scott Badger" <lupine at ncia.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 4:14 PM
Subject: RE: Re: lemniscate and bicycling


> 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
>
>
>