AtDDtA (16): Intro

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Big hello to big John Wayne, xylophone,
And Robert Morley, guitar,
Billy Butlin, spoons,
And looking very relaxed, Adolf Hitler on vibes... Nnnnice! 

               Dave Monroe:
               Just a quick note to say, having gone back 
               and forth over this with Tim, and seeing as 
               it's a continuation of where I left off anyway, 
               I'll try to wing AtDDtA(16), but, as always, 
               everyone, feel free to chime in however 
               you'd like, however you can.  It's gonna be 
               a slow start for mr, though, so ...

It's so weird,  I WAS HUNTING DOWN MY COPY OF AGAINST THE DAY
[ahem, sorry, hate caps lock, don't you?] I was hunting down my copy of 
Against the Day, and it's hidden by another copy of Against the Day that
I intend to give to the head of the O.T.O. My copy has a zillion multi-
colored post-it tabs that I've been stuffing into the book since I started 
reading, all colored coded as to theme, some with glittering stars as well.
I often ask myself "What would Pynchon do?" or [perhaps more to the 
point] what would one of Pynchon's characters do [you might never get 
to touch the master, but you get to tickle his creatures]? Slothrop would, 
so I did. Of course the book is exploding, there's carpenter's glue all
over its broken spine, so I guess it's no longer vegan [if it ever was.]
There's a color code with the tabs and glittering stars, and there's a lot of
Purple [spiritual/mythical/religious/occult cluster] Pink [encryption, 
philataly, spy networks and spying, tristero], with a few red [literary 
reference/blood] and yellow [jokes] in this section.. 

So this is a Chums of Chance styled overview that ought to serve 
as multiple suicidal jump-off points for discussion/dismemberment 
of OBA's lastest literary franchise:

431: "A Formidable quest", noting the Pilgrimage/Crusades aspect of 
the West's occupation of the Mid-East. Further down there's 

                 ". . . .light might be a secret determinant of history. . . .", 

a line that figures huge in this book, what with so much of the physics 
name-dropped relating to light and "the light across the ranges", 
namely the wide new region for exploration and mining, the 
electromagnetic spectrum. The exploration/expansion of the realm of 
EMF by the Masters of Capital being one of many secret determinants 
of history unveiled in Pynchon's writings. No doubt about it, the man is 
a master of revisionist history.

432/433 "Incipient Gamomania" leading to a scene of Desert Sirens:

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/s/sirens.html

[Incipient Gamomania is an overwheling urge to get married, something
Lindsay needs to avert so as to maintain his youthful fictional identity.]

beckoning as "pan spectral fields full of wives". It all turns out to be
on account the well known [and highly regarded] psycotropic effects 
of the local water:

                 ". . . .much perfered, by the large population of travelers 
                 out here who knew of it, to either aryq or hasheesh, as a 
                 facilitator of passage between the worlds. . . ."

[though if someone is truly "between the worlds" then they are in mythical 
territory.This also insinuates that this locale is more than a bit like 
Platform 9-3/4]

There's that phrase that pays popping up once more [I'll probably flag 
it at each crossing] "between the worlds" which is modern day neo-pagan 
talk and really not too far from the mystical talk going 'round back then 
either, as there's a lotta Golden Dawn and affiliated types running around these 
and those days. There's a bit of tweaking in this section of the big "New Age" 
scare that came up a couple two/three decades back. Vineland has a lot of that 
tweaking too. But on an uncertain "Fictional/Historical" cusp, the CoC has 
stumbled into mythical/mystical country, with an eye-rolling camel straight out
of a Crosby/Hope "Road" movie of the forties thrown into the bargain. Plenty of 
metaphors to run 'round with in these parts. Swift's impossible discriptions of 
impossible places comes to mind:

. . .The flying or floating Island is exactly circular; its Diameter 7837 
Yards, or about four Miles and an Half, and consequently contains ten Thousand 
Acres. It is three Hundred Yards thick. The Bottom or under Surface, which 
appears to those who view it from below, is one even regular Plate of Adamant, 
shooting up to the Height of about two Hundred Yards. Above it lye the several 
Minerals in their usual Order; and over all is a Coat of rich Mould, ten or 
twelve Foot deep. The Declivity of the upper Surface, from the Circumference to 
the Center, is the natural Cause why all the Dews and Rains which fall upon the 
Island, are conveyed in small Rivulets toward the Middle, where they are emptyed 
into four large Basons, each of about Half a Mile in Circuit, and two Hundred 
Yards distant from the Center. From these Basons the Water is continually 
exhaled by the Sun in the Day-time, which effectually prevents their overflowing. 
Besides, as it is in the Power of the Monarch to raise the Island above the 
Region of Clouds and Vapors, he can prevent the falling of Dews and Rains 
whenever he pleases. For the highest Clouds cannot rise above two Miles, as 
Naturalists agree, at least they were never known to do so in that Country. . . 


http://www.jaffebros.com/lee/gulliver/bk3/chap3-3.html