The Onomastics of Control

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/3/05 12:58:23 AM, Bandwraith writes:
> 
> 
> I think, as well, that his use of "Kenosha" can be analyzed from
> the same perspective of his special concern for the act of naming.
> 
> Like Chicago and Milwaukee and a hundred other place names strung
> along the shores of the Great Lakes, "Kenosha" is indigenous, not
> European. But these names, like the landscapes they stand for, have
> been appropriated, occupied, and so, dominated and controlled by
> white euros. Indigenous naming is much more analog- process/
> context oriented- than the white euro obssession with digital abstraction
> and control. In the Slothropian "guided" dream following induction
> by Na+ Amytal, prn, Tyrone seems to be seeking refuge in the
> typical white american appropriation of native mystery andi nnocence,
> albeit, unconsciously:
> 
>      Follow? "Cherokee" comes wailing up from the
>      dance floor below, over the hi-hat, the string
>      bass, the thousand sets of feet where moving
>      rose lights suggest not pale Harvard boys and
>      their dates, but a lotta dolled-up redskins. The
>      song playing is one more lie about white crimes.
>      (GR, p. 73, PL)
> 
> Indians that are not Indians. The riff that follows this passage,
> describing the inversion of the tendency of white adoloscents
> to appropriate "Indian-ness"  to soothe their own alienation,
> by Charlie Parker's incredible artistry-
> 
>      to gainsay the Man's lullabies, to subvert the
>      groggy wash of the endlessly, gutlessly over-
>      dubbed strings... So that Prophecy, even up
>      here on rainy Massachusetts [Indian Name]
>      Avenue, is beginning these days to work itself
>      out in "Cherokee,"...
> 
> But, alas, Slothrop's  reflexive attempt to hide amongst
> "The Indians" is doomed to failure. Navajo may be the
> perfect code to confuse the Japanese, but Slothrop cannot
> deny his own racial origins. This sets the stage for his plunge
> into the toilet-wonderland, away from "Red" but not before Red's
> "true name" comes to Slothrop halfway down the toilet.
> 
> 


"He explained the name he chose by saying,
     
     To take one's 'X' is to take on a certain mystery, a certain
     possibility of power in the eyes of one's peers and one's 
     enemies...   The 'X'', aanouced what you had been and
     what you had become: Ex-smoker, Ex-drinker, Ex-Christian,
     Ex-slave.

The 'X' also stood for the unknown original surname of the slaves   from whom
Malcolm-X descended in preference to continuing to use a name which would
have been given by the slave owner." 

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_x

Bandwraith


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