who's the evil halfwit and other random musings

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

...because it's awful quiet on the list (following links, and getting absorbed in sidetracks, at least I am)

who was President of the US in 1893?  Grover Cleveland - maybe he's a model for the evil halfwit?  He supported the gold standard (rough on silver miners) and broke the Pullman strike with Federal troops.  Opposed women's suffrage.

aligning the 5 Chums with the 5 Chapters - 
I'd place Suckling with chapter 1 -- the light over the ranges 
newness, enthusiasm, vividness
Miles for Chapter 2 -- Iceland Spar
clumsiness but mystic insight, the tragedy that puts most people into an altered state being part of this chapter
Chick - Chapter 3 -- bilocations, the fact of his adoption makes it clear he has a whole 'nother life besides the Chums (which apparently Darby doesn't) 
Lindsay - Chapter 4 - seems fitting that his punctilio would imbue the chapter eponymously named for the book (like Chihuahua, Chihuahua, etc) and a lot of the tying of loose ends
Randolph -- Chapter 5 - Rue de depart - he's busy on captaincy - not directly communicado for the reader most of the time (somewhat as the author) and takes responsibility for winding the whole thing up

that remark from http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_biography.html the "names changed to protect a genius" article, ""You know, Bruce, those high school biology texts with centerfold transparencies, first the skeleton, and then the muscles...well this is the technique I use for writing." Don't ask me to explain that statement, other than the reference to the layers. It also sounds almost like the way a wafer (silicon chip) is made: layer upon layer and each layer with encoded metallurgic pathways that spell out "yes" and "no" according to how the electrons interact on the subatomic level."

I liked that immediately I saw it -- both descriptions...

the word was that the book wasn't turned in for the final proofing till pretty close to publication, but who knows how long the layers were laid down...

hope everybody has a nice weekend.  It's frickin' chilly here in Kansas!

mikebailey

"That is that of which _I_ speak!"