186, 17 addendum Hanged Man
robinlandseadel at comcast.net
robinlandseadel at comcast.net
Tue Apr 17 15:13:52 CDT 2007
I'm playing a record by Sheila Na Gig, a Celtic sextette named
after something nasty and pre-Christian and all that. The band
includes Sharon Devlin as harper. Look her up in Margot Adler's
"Drawing Down the Moon". I'd include her among the people
I've encountered for whom a conversation that didn't, somehow,
include invoking the "tree of life" was the rarity. As offhand as
anything, they'd talk Kabballah or ancient Norse Myth, or spells
for auto maintainence---I suggested changing the oil regularly
and got a dirty look!. That auto-spell practioneer is a specialist
in Runes. And so it goes.
Got the record (no inner sleve, otherwise mint, essentially a miracle
find at a thrift shop in Jeshimon) an hour ago at Amvets.
What a world, what a world. . . .
Kind of an insider's, conspiritorial tone in this passage, a few knowing
words of caution for newbies, no reason to make a spectacle of
ourselves, now, wouldn't you say?
(after you get a little time in---whatever
that means over here---one of these archetypes gets
to look pretty much like any other, oh you hear some
of these new hires, the seersucker crowd come in the
first day, "wow! Hey---that's th-th' Tree o' Creation!
Huh? Ain't it! Jeepers!" but they calm down fast
enough, pick up the reflexes for Intent to Gawk, you
know self-criticism's an amazing technique, it shouldn't
work but it does. . . .
As in, be attentive but not agast---this is how it's done. And stop drooling,
while you're at it!
Monte Davis:
That *is* a bravura passage. That sting of reflexivity
at the end -- the quiet, catastrophic breaking of the
fourth wall -- is very Robert Musil-ish.
If you're wondering how this ties into 186.17, recall that that this
concerns the hanged man, who is hanging from the tree of life.
A card reader---if they're any good---knows the tree of life like they
know the backs of their hands.
More information about the Pynchon-l
mailing list