ale // GRGR 1,8 precision and passion

[Michael Bailey]

Toby wrote:
>Dixon is a "spirits" drinker while Mason sticks exclusively to
>wine.

I think Dixon likes ale...beer is also made of grain...though, you
know, in this first shared drink, he is indicating "spirits" -
probably wanting a strong drink to help him get over the trip, and
lubricate the potential awkwardness out of this meeting on which so
much hinges

--- also, has anybody had better luck than I, in finding the rest of
the joke about the Jesuit, the Corsican and the Chinaman?

----------------------
 Dave Monroe wrote:
> A couple of 'em, at least, since the list's inception.
>  I came in midway through the last one ...
>
> --- kelber at mindspring.com wrote:
>
> > Yeah, there actually was a GRGR (Gravity's Rainbow
> > Group Read, for the acronym-impaired).
>
>

a GRGR suggested originally by John Carvill
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0510&msg=98539&sort=date
had gotten to right about here:
1,8 Penguin pg 52, ln 8-16
"He means that years ago, a colleague - gone now - told him he'd be
more human, warmer, if he kept a dog of his own, outside the lab. 
Pointsman tried - God knows he did - it was a springer spaniel named
Gloucester, pleasant enough animal, he supposed, but the try lasted
less than a month.  What finally irritated him out of all tolerance
was that the dog didn't know how to reverse its behavior.  It could
open doors to the rain and the spring insects, but not close them ...
knock over garbage, vomit on the floor, but not clean it up - how
could anyone live with such a creature?"      There's the distinction
between training and behaviorism: Pointsman's interest is piqued by
playing with the dog's responses in the lab, but not by elementary
house-training (too mundane, not special enough?)
A neat passage, giving Pointsman a past, a deceased mentor, and a lack
of warmth.  It also shows a skewing of attention into a "lab"
mentality, a diversion from  "I-Thou" into "I-It" - trying both,
Pointsman chooses "I-It" to emphasize

but, something Nabokov said in the video (with Christopher Plummer)
"Nabokov on Kafka" - "the passion of the artist, the precision of the
scientist? - No: the passion of the scientist, the precision of the
artist" - seems apropos in regard to this passage, which in turn seems
apropos in re "interpreting Slothrop"

How? Hmm, well, science, er, using inductive logic, deals with the
messy facts searching for patterns...requiring passion, Edison's 90%
perspiration...while art can proceed deductively, start from known
truth and neatly arrange to full contentment

so that Pointsman's passion leads him to approach via the clues he
thinks most important, yet ignore simple facts (thinking that
Slothrop's hardons are induced by the future impact of a rocket,
instead of the synchronous flirtations of an interested female --
unless, perhaps HER interest is drawn by the future hardon, which in
turn is induced by the V-2)
(but how big are those Poisson squares?  Big enough ones would reduce
the improbability of matching...)

and by extension, the rocketeers' passion working in Peenemunde
ignoring the simple facts of what their creation will be doing - while
the artists who could give the vision that will guide the passion
accurately have been likewise coopted into producing propaganda