ripostes to past posts RE: Grand Cohen, orange tabs/pink tabs, tarot wandering

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

"Michael Lee Bailey" [a known alias]:

     On Tue, 2007-07-03 at 20:28 +0000, robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:

 
     I think that Against the Day probably, in some form, was on his mind all 
     along. In an odd way, The Crying of Lot 49 can be regarded as a waste 
     product of the realm explored in Against the Day. 

      oh, oh, oh - Arrrgghhh - hee hee!

The way I'd used to go was: "What would Pynchon Do?"
But I've smartened up, so now it's "What would Pynchon's characters do?"

Picture, if you will, a Pynchonian exegesis from Emory Bortz:

          "He looks like Kirk Douglas," cried Bortz, "he's wearing 
          this sword, his name is something gutsy like Konrad. 
          They're meeting in the back room of a tavern, all these 
          broads in peasant blouses carrying steins around, 
          everybody juiced and yelling, suddenly Konrad jumps 
          up on a table. The crowd hushes, 'The salvation of 
          Europe,' Konrad says, 'depends on communication, 
          right? We face this anarchy of jealous German princes, 
          hundreds of them scheming, counter-scheming, 
          infighting, dissipating all of the Empire's strength in their 
          useless bickering. But whoever could control the lines of 
          communication, among all these princes, would control 
          them. That network someday could unify the Continent. 
          So I propose that we merge with our old enemy Thurn 
          and Taxis' Cries of no, never, throw the traitor out, till 
          this barmaid, little starlet, sweet on Konrad, cold-conks 
          with a stein his loudest antagonist. 'Together,' Konrad is 
          saying, 'our two systems could be invincible. We could 
          refuse service on any but an Imperial basis. Nobody 
          could move troops, farm produce, anything, without us. 
          Any prince tries to start his own courier system, we 
          suppress it. We, who have so long been disinherited, 
          could be the heirs of Europe!' Prolonged cheering." 
          COL49,135

Now apply that intensity of color to the author hisself. Let's propose a
life from the author that could make certain passages read less like
fiction and more like some sort of mutant memoir. Let's propose that 
there's a Pynchon out there who did something along the same moral 
lines as Slothrop's big score [and near bust] out in Potsdam. So some
college student supplements his income and becomes a go-between
to folks indulging in his psychotropic wares, many of whom turn out to
be far more radical than he.

[somehow this reminds me of the time Michael Crichton spoke to
my High School (Hollywood High, it's a long story. . . .) science fiction
class. The Andromeda Strain came out recently, so did "Dealing: Or 
the Berkeley-to-Boston Forty-Brick Lost-Bag Blues", co-written with 
brother Douglas Crichton; published as Michael Douglas. So I asked 
him how much research he personally put into that particular project,
and he kinda turned, and he kinda grinned and said his brother did
most of the research on this rather well documented book on dealing
marijuana, which really made me wonder as the Author's body 
language was so far off.]

          "He looks like Michael Douglas," cried Bortz, "he's wearing 
          this skull-fuck t-shirt, his name is something trippy like "Miles". 
          They're meeting in the back room off the Longhaul*, all these 
          hippychicks in peasant blouses carrying pamphlets and joints 
          around, everybody juiced and yelling, suddenly Miles jumps 
          up on a table. The crowd hushes, 'The salvation of the world,' 
          Miles says, 'depends on Acid, right? We face this anarchy of 
          jealous black-ops intel, hundreds of them scheming, counter          
          -scheming, infighting, dissipating all of the CIA's strength in 
          their useless bickering. But whoever could control the lines 
          of distribution, among all these narcs, would control them. 
          That network someday could unify the Globe, or from San 
          Diego to Seattle at least. So I propose that we merge with our 
          old competitor Owsley." Cries of no, never, throw the traitor 
          out, till this accupressure therapist, little yogini, sweet on 
          Miles, cold-conks with a bong-hit his loudest antagonist. 
          'Together,' Miles is saying, 'our two systems could be 
          invincible. We could refuse service on any but a karmically 
          immaculate basis. Nobody could move keys, sheets of 
          blotter, anything, without us. Any Bozo from the 'burbs 
          tries to start his own dealership, we roll right through it. 
          We, who have so long been disinherited, could be the 
          heirs of Hollywood!' Prolonged cheering."

What we see in The Crying of Lot 49 are little glimpses of anarchism in action
via a stamp collection. We also have one of "Literature's" first uses of LSD.
There is much, much more philatilic weirdness in Against the Day than in
the Crying of Lot 49, and the sorts of distortions in communication 
demonstrated as buds in COL49 bloom into something rich and strange
in AtD. This demonstration of a medium of communication's distortion:

          Outside, as a number of nervous patrolmen approached Hilarius, 
          holding up strait jackets and billy clubs they would not need, and 
          as three rival ambulances backed snarling up onto the lawn, 
          jockeying for position, causing Helga Blamm between sobs to 
          call the drivers filthy names, Oedipa spotted among searchlights 
          and staring crowds a KCUF mobile unit, with her husband Mucho 
          inside it, spieling into a microphone. She moseyed over past 
          snapping flashbulbs and stuck her head in the window. "Hi." 

          Mucho pressed his cough button a moment, but only smiled. It 
          seemed odd. How could they hear a smile? Oedipa got in, trying 
          not to make noise. Mucho thrust the mike in front of her, 
          mumbling, "You're on, just be yourself." Then in his earnest 
          broadcasting voice, "How do you feel about this terrible thing?" 
          "Terrible," said Oedipa. 

          "Wonderful," said Mucho. He had her go on to give listeners a 
          summary of what'd happened in the office. "Thank you, Mrs 
          Edna Mosh," he wrapped up, "for your eyewitness account of 
          this dramatic siege at the Hilarius Psychiatric Clinic. This is 
          KCUF Mobile Two, sending it back now to 'Rabbit' Warren, at 
          the studio." He cut his power. Something was not quite right. 

          "Edna Mosh?" Oedipa said. "It'll come out the right way," Mucho 
          said. "I was allowing for the distortion on these rigs, and then 
          when they put it on tape."

. . . .we get every conceivable form of distortion [alternatively, encryption]
in Against the Day---Gas Transmissions, Paramorphoscopes, highly 
cultured pearls. OBA had a "headful of ideas" that were driving him insane,
needed the cash and played with some of these questions concerning modes of 
communication and the distortions introduced by those modes and in the 
process cooked up a little novella out of stuff that wouldn't appear in a fully 
realized form for another 40 years.

Whereas Oedipa's perigrinations in San Narcisco and environs are single
minded in their focus on a unifying and overdetermined "plot", the polyphonic
riot of plot in Against the Day insures that such an all-embracing "Plot" 
would be impossible. At the center is an enigma, a paradox, a Koan. Plotlines
in AtD run ashore powered by their various degrees of "fictionality",
their varied degrees of improbability.

*The Longhaul, right across the street from La Pena in that strip of DMZ twixt
Berkeley and North Oakland, was Food Not Bombs weekly meeting place in
the East Bay. We usually had David Gans' Grateful Dead show on KPFA
in the background, in a quiet atmosphere of Bohemian squalor. 24fps would 
feel right at home here.

http://www.gdhour.com/