AtDDtA1: The Chums of Chance

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

I suppose that the familiarity of this theme in Pynchon's 
novels might render the singular import of Miles Blundell's 
entrance in "Against the Day" temporarily invisible to our whole sick crew:

"From the far end of the gondola now came a prolonged crash. . . ."

I chose to call this the first "Anarchist" act in the book, it certainly 
invokes Chaos and is coming from the one Chum of Chance who 
is, might we say, "Otherwordly"? In fact, I'd say that Miles'
relation to Pugnax is extraordinarly familiar:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8793/totems/totems.html

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2386/is_2_111/ai_69202448

And, as we find soon enough, Miles turns out to be the one member 
of the crew who is picking up on what the Shamans and other sorts 
of time travellers are trying to get across.

It seems like the themes of Anarchy and Magick are tied at the 
root in "Against the Day".

"About the paranoia often noted under the drug, 
there is nothing remarkable. Like other sorts of 
paranoia, it is nothing less than the onset, the 
leading edge, of the discovery that everything 
is connected, everything in the Creation, a 
secondary illumanation---not yet blindingly One, 
but at least connected, and perhaps a route In 
for those like Tchitcherine who are held at the edge. . . ."

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/paranoid.htm

Just because you walk into a room and think you're hearing 
a flyback transformer working away in the background doesn't 
mean you're just imagining that a T.V.'s on somewhere. Miles is 
probably picking up on some higher octave stuff, sounds which only 
Pugnax can hear among the other crew members of the Inconvenience..