AtDDtA(15): Alonzo R. Meatman

Fri Aug 10 21:00:44 CDT 2007

Alonzo Jackman and his 'vision" HAS to be behind Alonzo Meatman, yes? Great Find, great.
  And that visionof the new resurrection?

  The Promis of Science this time?

  Which Miles knows is Bad...

Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
  On 8/7/07, Dave Monroe wrote:

> "Time did not so much elapse as grow less relvant. At length Chick
> saw the recently vanished 'contact' reappear from vacant space, now
> bathed in hues of apricot and aquamarine.
> "'You again.'
> "'Little trick of the trade. Had to see how serious you were,'
> said Alonzo Meatman (for it was he)." (AtD, Pt. II, p. 412)

>From Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about
Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (New York:
Oxford UP, 1988), Ch. 5, "Annihilating Space, Time and Difference:
Experiments in Cultural Homogenization," pp. 191-231 ...

"The most admired feats of the telephone, cinema, electric light
photograph, amnd wireless were their wonderful abilities to extend
messages effortlessly
and instantaneously across time and space .... But wherever these
extraordinarily sensitive new nerve nets extended, there was little
genuine sense of cultural enconuter and exchange.... Those who
controled the new electrical technologies not infrequently dismissed
vastly different cultures as deficient by civilized standardsm lacking
even the capacity for meaningful communication." (p. 191)

"An early prophet of transoceanic telegraphic communication, Alonzo
Jackman, offered a more explicit cultural vision of the salvation of
the world through instantaneous long-disance communication in a 'new
era' of evangelism. 'Heathenism would be entombed, and the whole
earth would be illuminated with the glorious light of Christianity.'"
(p. 192)

Citing ...

Alonzo Jackman, letter to the editor of the Woodstock (Vermont)
Mercury, Aug. 14, 1846, in "Some of the Early History of Telegraph
Cable Manufacture," Electrical Review, Nov. 23, 1889, p. 2 (p. 259, n.
2)

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/?view=usa&ci=0195063414

Alonzo Jackman

In a letter to the Vermont Mercury in August 1846, American academic,
engineer and soldier Alonzo Jackman claimed that through the advent of
a Transatlantic
Telegraph between England and America, 'all the inhabitants of the
earth would be brought into one intellectual neighborhood.' ...

http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/training_skills/publications_resources/summaries_brochures/linking_thinking.htm

Gen. Alonzo JACKMAN, LL. D., was born in Thetford, Vt., March 20,
1809. He was the son of Joseph and Sarah (WARNER) JACKMAN. Alonzo's
father, a worthy farmer, died when he was only three years old, and
left his mother in destitute circumstances with three small boys,
Enoch, Alonzo, and Joseph. Young JACKMAN's early life was spent in
hard labor for his support, and with but little opportunity for
schooling. In 1820, at the tender age of eleven years, he and one
brother left home never to return again, with this parting admonition
from their mother: "Go for yourselves and remember there is a God."
She had married Eli CLARK in 1816. At the age of twenty-one Alonzo
received from his employer the munificent sum of $4, and two days'
provisions for six years' hard labor. The contract with his employer
was that he should have three months each year at school, which he
received only in part. He passed the next three or four years at
labor, with an occasional term at school. About December 1, 1833, he
entered Franklin Seminary, at Norwich, with the determination of
pursuing a regular course of study. While he was pursuing his own
studies in the academies he taught mathematics, his favorite branch,
to pay his way. Norwich University had been opened in 1834, and in
December, 1835, he entered the senior class of that
institution, and graduated with the degree of A. B. in August, 1836.
He was the only graduate that year, and the first from that
institution. Soon after he accepted the chair of mathematics in the
"N. U.," and remained in connection with the university, with the
exception of two periods of about three years each, until his death,
February 24, 1879. He wrote and published an article on the subject of
a submarine oceanic magnetic telegraph, in which he gave detailed
plans for the construction and the method of laying the cable across
the Atlantic. The same year (1846) Hon. Amos KENDALL, president of a
telegraph company at Washington, D. C., communicated through a
Philadelphia paper the difficulties of crossing large bodies of water
with a telegraph. Mr. JACKMAN wrote Mr. KENDALL how all difficulties
could be surmounted, and sent the article to periodicals in
Washington, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, but the editors
refused to publish it as too visionary. He procured its publication in
the Vermont Mercury, of Woodstock, Vt., in the number issued August
14, 1846. He sent copies of this number to scientists and prominent
men in the United States, Canada, England, and France. Thus he secured
the credit to himself of being the originator of the plan of this
gigantic and beneficent enterprise.

Prof. JACKMAN was an excellent tactician and drill-master, and
was appointed by the governor of New Hampshire brigade drill-master
with the rank of major, and drilled the officers of the militia of
that state in 1847 and '48. In 1857 the cadets of Norwich University
were organized as an infantry company under
the malitia law, and Prof. JACKMAN was commissioned captain. In 1859
he was commissioned colonel of the Second Regiment, and the next year
the Vermont militia were consolidated into one brigade and he was its
brigadier-general. At the beginning of the late war Gov. FAIRBANKS
summoned him, with Generals BAXTER and DAVIS, to St. Johnsbury, for
consultation. The Governor offered Gen. JACKMAN any position in his
power to grant if he wished to go to the front, but wished him to
remain and prepare others for duty. In this field he was untiring. He
prepared and got the old militia in readiness, organized new regiments
and sent out cadets to drill new companies in all parts of the state,
and gave clear, precise, and thorough instruction to officers. Honor
is therefore due the
General for the good results for the state and Union.

http://www.rootsweb.com/~vermont/WashingtonNorthfield.html

The splendid service of Norwich University at this crucial period, as
well as that of General Alonzo Jackman (one of the first graduates of
the school and at this time occupying the chair of military science,
mathematics, and civil engineering in that institution), deserves
commendation.

At the breaking out of the Civil War, General Jackman was
brigadier-general of the State militia; and he was now offered the
command of the first regiment of
volunteers....

http://vermontcivilwar.org/1904history.php

Norwich University moved to Northfield from Norwich, Vermont in 1866
when the South Barracks at the older location burnt down. Jackman Hall
was the first
building to be constructed at the new site. The building was erected
in 1868, and named Jackman Hall in 1907 to honor General Alonzo
Jackman, a graduate of
1836 and a faculty member. It served as housing for cadets.

http://www.norwich.edu/about/map/ncinfo1c.html

Discovered in a box of discarded books being sold at a church rummage
sale in Montpelier, a Bible belonging to Brigadier General Alonzo
Jackman has made its way back to Norwich. The University's first
graduate and later a member of the faculty, Jackman is an indelible
part of Norwich history....

http://www.norwich.edu/about/news/2005/bible.html

Alonzo Jackman, librarian and professor of civil engineering, military
tactics, mathematics, and natural philosophy at Norwich University,
Vermont, wrote an unpublished and undated manuscript in the 1870s
entitled 'A Novel Telescope'. This paper was intended for the Norwich
U. 'Reville' campus newspaper. Jackman describes a shallow vessel or
cistern of mercury, with a diameter of twenty feet, spun at a uniform
velocity by 'suitable machinery' to produce a parabolodial surface.
The central portion of the mercury vessel was replaced by an elevating
'contrivance' with an observer's chair that could be carried to the
focus of the optical surface. This focal point could be adjusted by
altering the speed of revolution of the vessel....

http://www.europa.com/~telscope/LMT.txt

Jackman, Alonzo A Treatise on The Doctrine of Numerical Series, both
Ascending and Descending: Also the Binomial Theorem, with Integer and
Fractional Exponents. Claremont, NH, Published by the Author, 1846.
first edition, octavo, 55, [1] pp., original stiff printed wrappers,
some minor erosion on spine, some spotting, otherwise a very good
clean copy. The author could as well have titled the work "Practical
Algebra." The author was appointed as instructor of mathematics at
Norwich University of Vermont in 1836, and appointed professor of
mathematics there in 1837, he resigned his position in 1846. American
Imprints 46-3670, five locations.

http://search.abaa.org/dbp2/book61629897.html

"Sam Fleischmann" - "Meatman" or maybe "Fleshman" ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0303&msg=77296

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0408&msg=92511

Cf. ...

"For Case, who'd lived for the bodiless exultation of cyberspace,
it was the Fall. In the bars he'd frequented as a cowboy hotshot, the
elite stance involved a certain relaxed contempt for the flesh. The
body was MEAT. Case fell into the prison of his own flesh."

[...]

"Seven days and he'd JACK in. If he closed his eyes now, he'd see
the matrix."

http://www.lib.ru/GIBSON/neuromancer.txt

Emphases added. But do see as well ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112550

Originally posted @ ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=113355

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