You never did the Kenosha Kid?

[jbor at bigpond.com]

On 05/09/2005 Paul Di Filippo wrote:

> My one insight into the whole Kenosha Kid Affair, offered on the list 
> years ago, is that "Kenosha" might be a pun on "kenosis", a 
> theological term meaning "the voluntary abasement of the second person 
> of the Trinity in becoming  man."  The entries for the words are 
> literally adjacent to each other in my Merriam Webster's.  How 
> improbable is it that TRP could've stumbled across this conjunction 
> and made use of it?
>
> As to how the process of kenosis applies to Slothrop, I am less 
> clear....

Wouldn't you need to have some idea about the latter to argue the 
former? I mean, if you're saying Pynchon made use of a coincidence of 
chronology (there's no etymological link between the two words, is 
there?) in the dictionary, then the interpretation ("pun") is manifest 
in the use, not the coincidence. Isn't it? Not saying it's not a 
possibility, just querying the logic.

best