GRGR Prepared text; Zipf, Nathan / 1,6 up over the downs

[Michael Bailey]

Glenn Scheper wrote:
>
> Are we having fun still...?
>

I've long wanted to read GR more thoroughly and explore some of the
background material mentioned in it.
Also, my prior conditioning has built in lots of rewards for this type
stimuli (-:

tinkering with the text, applying various filters and laws to it, like
John Cage's work with "prepared piano" - may be a little iconoclastic,
possibly offensive to some traditionalists, but on the whole,
interesting and may yield new insights (both on the text, and on the
tools used)

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The documentation on gnuplot assumes more competence than I have.
You would think it'd be the easiest thing in the world to whomp up a
little file with the convenient data points you gave...still wkg on
that

 www.jsoftware.com - J is a computer language invented by the late
Kenneth Iverson, originator of the APL language.  He spent the last
couple decades of his life working on J, a superset of APL that
doesn't require a special keyboard.  J produces splendid graphics and
is used by financial firms, among others.  If I can't make gnuplot
work for me, I could brave the longer but more verbosely documented
learning curve for J
 ---------------------------------------------

Nathan of Gaza persuaded Sabbatai Zevi (and many people worldwide)
that the latter was the Messiah (around 1666)
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I think Pynchon's use of Zipf's Laws in conjunction with the seance
scene has multiple purposes:

to introduce motivated readers to (or remind erudite ones of) Zipf,
and the field of statistics (here used by Gloaming to categorize the
channeled words, but soon to be referenced by Mexico and Pointsman)

to show the limitations of the approach: the comfort people took (and
take) in seances had little to do with numbers and much to do with
emotions. (Selena's cheeks are "mottled with previous tears" V30, 24)

period verisimilitude: WWII was abundantly statisticized, on both sides.

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1,6: "The nights are filled with explosions and motor transport, and
wind that brings them up over the downs a last smack of the sea"

This sort of sentence is why I love to read Pynchon.  Of course
explosions and motor transport are indeed noisily happening outside
the house, but the subjective correlative inside is explosive orgasms
and transports of rapture; the smack of the sea is synesthetic - the
waves' smacking sound, but also the "schmeck" or taste.  And "up over
the downs" is pure fun, implying a rollercoaster type of thrill, ups
and downs, but also geographically accurate.
the sea also ties into Roger's "my mother is the War"
expatiation...where motherhood is somehow equated with the erosive
action of the sea...
In the house, though, the sea and the noises of the war are backgrounded

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> Poet Hayden Carruth has also written several books of essays about jazz
> which are quite good, if anyone's interested.
>

cool