Monk's motto or: Is Against the Day in favour of the Night?

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

            Kai:
            .... krch krch krch ... Is this thing on? 

Yes, and judging from the squealing feedback around 5k, I'd gather it's a SM 57.

            OK, here we go once more:

            "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light" (Thelonious Monk)

Speaking ex cathedra from his customized Batmobile:

http://www.alwaysontherun.net/coltrane/monkmusic.jpg
http://tinyurl.com/2gfab4

"Monk's Music"---the LP featured in the link---was the first Jazz record I 
bought, at the on-campus bookstore for College of the Sequoias in Visalia. 
It was an ABC reissue of the Riverside original, and featured cover art 
consisting of photos of John Coltrane and T.S. Monk, not the original, 
iconic image of Monk in his little red wagon---one of Monk's "colorful 
quirks" that went along with other wacko behaviors. The pressing of this 
$1.99 cut-out was slightly off-center such that the final, nearly solo, 
track---Crepuscule With Nellie---was off-center on the beat, so that it 
appeared that Monk had a fourth pedal on his Steinway that bent the notes 
like a whammy bar on a flying "V". It fit right in, that essential 
"off-centered-ness" is the quality that defines Monk's art. Pynchon is drawn 
to Monk because he was always drawn to Monk. But there's something 
intensely satirical about making the first voice [in a book filled with many 
different sorts of voices] be that of a well-known madman throwing us a koan. 
Kinda like having Prof. Irwin Corey or Lord Buckley as your stand-in at an 
awards ceremony.

This. . . .

http://tinyurl.com/2wmvap

. . . .re-discovered recording of Monk & 'Trane, a mono tape from Carnegie Hall,
was "the event of the season" a year or two ago. Monk's hierarchical position in
the starry firmament of Jazz Giants continues to ascend, even as legends of his 
insanity continue to diminish. But no ifs ands or buts, there's black humour in 
OBA's choice of Monk's paradoxical statement as the first voice we hear in 
Against the Day. This little radio show should give you a clue or two:

http://kafm.powweb.com/notes_blog/archives/73

            From the beginning on I had the strong impression, 
            that Monk's motto and the novel's title must be closely 
            connected (not only because they follow immediately 
            after another). Yet I have to admit that I do not quite 
            get it. [I know there's a lot about the title itself on 
            pynchonwiki but, as far as I can see, nothing on the 
            relation to Monk's statement; nor did I find anything 
            at all about the quote in the archives.] Let me ask 
            you a couple of questions:

Ok, but first: the word we're looking for right now is "And".  Pynchon's
writings are full of "Ands"---"Against the Day" is a statement of opposition
And a photographic term for shooting a source of light with the central
figure/object blocking that light. And those "Ands" naturally multiply, it is
one of those aspects found in his writing that makes it "Pynchonian". The 
notion of polarity is also implicit in the title as well as the notions of 
holding off or delaying, like delaying the day of judgment. My sense was that
the muted posthorn, in addition to being a sly reference to "Miles" [Davis,
contemporary of Monk and equally radical, musically speaking], was a sign
[sigil, really] against revelation, a charm for delaying that last sounding of 
the trumpet. Constantly throughout Pynchon's writings we find ourselves in 
the company of those who love the dark and shun the day, in particular 
the day when they will be found out.

            If there's "always night", where would be the need to 
            do anything "Against the Day"?

            And: In Monk's saying light appears kinda positive. 

To a chronic depressive, it's always night.

            But in the book itself --- take photography, the destructive 
            potential of electricity, the birth of mass media, in total: 
            industrialization --- light leads to developments that tend 
            to bring the world out of balance. Is this supposed to be 
            dialectics?

Maybe. I think Pynchon actively seeks paradox, knowing there's always 
magic and potential one-liners in paradox[es]. There's also a hidden 
character tucked away in these books. Einstein is hiding in plain sight 
in Against the Day. Light is the central source for this book's metaphors 
and math and magic. And there's an intensity in the focus on the technical 
details of music in AtD, greater than in any other book by Pynchon. Monk's 
there for all sorts of good reasons, not the least of which being Monk's 
compositional voice, reminiscent of Bartok. There is a Pythagorean relation 
between music and number, one that is cited frequently in AtD. So there are 
many potential points of reference here.

            Moreover: The gnostic Manichaeans (pp. 437f) are in 
            their uncompromisingly spiritual search for the light 
            characterized rather critical (and Pynchon is, as Eddins has 
            shown convincingly, anti-gnostic in general). But then again: 
            The neverending night, Monk speaks of, would be 
            unbearable for any kind of unfolded human culture. And 
            doesn't Monk's motto in itself sound a little gnostic? I mean, 
            the natural sunlight we're perceiving day by day most def, 
            would --- taken the saying for granted --- have to come from 
            an evil archontic entity, no?

The Manic State, the Gnostic State, the Illuminated State---a gordian knot of
psychological maladies and psychic gifts, an essential paradox.

            So many questions and no answer at all. Can you help me?

There's koans-a-plenty in this book, I suggest going on a joke-by-joke basis
until the fog clears up.

            And now some 'technical data' concerning my reading process: 
            I've got problems to make my way through this novel. In my 
            linear read I'm on page 464, read a dozen of other books, and 
            did put the fucking thing on a far-away-shelf more than just once 
            or twice. You know, neither for Westerns --- except for 
            singularities like Blood Meridian (btw, read "The Road" and 
            found it very good) or Little Big Man (the movie) --- nor for 
            boy-adventure-stories I have any special affection. 

And now some 'technical data' concerning my reading process:  I'm on page
270 of the recent translation of Marcel Proust's "The Prisoner', the fifth book
of "In Search of Lost Time". It's tough, right about now.  I stopped to read 
Against the Day a couple-two-three times, and looked at all the other books 
that were picked up for background on AtD, and all those other books that 
cross my path during my seventh year as a worker bee at a Borders. So I've 
got distractions a-plenty. Right now, M. de Charlus is being an insufferable 
bitch, and I never really went for full-tilt costume docu-drama before anyway. 
Proust's got a thing for mauve---dare I say that he adopts a precious turn of 
phrase, from time to time and sometimes altogether too, too much?  But I 
persevere, because there were unexpected payoffs in the previous four and 
really, truly the man is an exquisite author, particularly on the subject of 
music and the heart.

            "Over the ranges" I still read fast (love Webb Traverse and his 
            political thirst for justice). . . . 

I like how blantantly and obviously anti-Bush Webb is in these passages.

            . . . .but "Iceland Spar" found me clueless. Was the man left 
            by all good spirits when he wrote this? Especially the pseudo-
            Lovecraftian beginning turned me off profoundly. 

I hear echos and derivations of similar voices used in similar scenes in 
Gravity's Rainbow.

            But then I am perhaps just missing something crucial. 

Perhaps it's the essential "Black Humour[s]" that inform[s] all of Pynchon's 
writing?

            Anyway, I spend so much lifetime with Pynchon's books that I don't 
            think I can afford not to read the whole novel at least once. And 
            since the text seems to get better now, I hope to make my way 
            through. Your mails help me to always again take the book into my 
            hands. Checking out the favourite passages you people name. . . .

Pages 666, 757, 779, 978-979, 1080-1081 and that's off the top of my head. . . .

            . . . . (I don't believe in 'spoilers') helps me to get a feeling 
           for what I might be liking about "Against the Day" some day. 
           If Heaven allows. Up to now --- Don't stone me! --- there isn't 
           much. I don't like the ethnic  jokes, I don't like the view on 
           women, I don't like the M&Dish humour. I haven't learned, up 
           to now, new things about Anarchist theory. . . .

. . . .but give the man credit for pointing us in the direction of so many 
historical specifics. And here allow me yet another plug for "Murdered 
by Capitalism", the essential companion volume for archiving AtD's 
anarchistic excesses.

            . . . .the Tarot. . . .

Go from pages 219-242 of AtD to the opening of GR. There's a lot of backstory
for "The White Visitation" in this section.

            . . . .the functional differentiation of science. . . .

Huh? Anyway, there's always a demarcation of a transitional phase of 
Science/Math located in all of Pynchon's books, and quantum mechanics 
is coming in as Alchemy goes further underground. So that's a bigtime 
theme/thread in AtD.

            . . . .or Shambhala. . . .

Take three big bong-hits, read pages 757 and 1080-1081 and call me in the 
morning.

            . . . .(issues about I, perhaps, know one or two things). 
            So I would be grateful for any hint that keeps me hanging on.

Well, the mayonnaise scene is a classic. Kinda slippery, though. . . .

            Best wishes to all,
            Kai

Na zdrave,
Robin