The Disgusting English Candy Drill

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Damn, you're inspiring! Great passage from GR (I'd 
probably want some of that Megazone shit, sound's like
that's right up my alley), I've always had some sense
that Pynchon's writing was encoded at some other level,
from which the author has been quite deliberately 
mis-directing us.

Always wondered what a Menippean Satire really was, 
then noticed that three of my all-time favorite books were 
name-checked on the Wikipedia, one particular favorite
being "The Golden Ass", and my favorite moment in that
wonderful novel happens to be up on the web:

            Dave Monroe:
            The disintegration of the hero is a characteristic of one of the
            types of dramas set out in Northrop Frye's discussion of various
            genres, the Menippean Satire as you might have suspected.  So there
            are many threads combining in this section, itself being quite as
            dense as any similar section in the novel. 

Menippean Satire:
. . . .Contemporary scholars including Frye classify Swift's 
A Tale of a Tub or Gulliver's Travels, Thomas Carlysle's 
Sartor Resartus, François Rabelais' Gargantua and 
Pantagruel or Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland as 
Menippean satires.

Later, Menippus' tradition can be recognized in portions 
of Petronius' Satyricon, in the banquet scene "Cena 
Trimalchionis," where epic, tragedy, and philosophy 
are combined in verse and prose. It is also seen in 
Apuleius' Golden Ass, a combination of Menippean satire 
and the comic novel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menippean_satire

When I had ended this prayer, and made known my needs 
to the Goddess, I fell asleep, and by and by appeared unto 
me a divine and venerable face, worshipped even by the 
Gods themselves. Then by little and little I seemed to see 
the whole figure of her body, mounting out of the sea and 
standing before me, and so I shall describe her divine 
appearance, if the poverty of my human speech will allow 
me, or her divine power give me eloquence to do so.
First she had a great abundance of hair, dispersed and 
scattered about her neck, on the crown of her head she 
wore many garlands interlaced with flowers, just above 
her brow was a disk in the form of a mirror, or resembling 
the light of the Moon, in one of her hands she bore serpents, 
in the other, blades of corn, her robe was of fine silk 
shimmering in divers colors, sometime yellow, sometime 
rose, sometime flamy, and sometimes (which sore troubled 
my spirit) dark and obscure, covered with a black robe in 
manner of a shield, and pleated in most subtle fashion at 
the skirts of her garments, the welts appeared comely, 
whereas here and there the stars peaked out, and in the 
middle of them was placed the Moon, which shone like a 
flame of fire, round about the robe was a coronet or garland 
made with flowers and fruits. In her right hand she had a 
timbrel of brass, which gave a pleasant sound, in her left 
hand she bore a cup of gold, out of the mouth whereof the 
serpent Aspis lifted up his head, with a swelling throat, her 
sweet feet were covered with shoes interlaced and wrought 
with victorious palm.
Thus the divine shape breathing out the pleasant spice of 
fertile Arabia, disdained not with her divine voice to utter 
these words unto me:
"Behold Lucius I am come, thy weeping and prayers has 
moved me to succor thee. I am she that is the natural mother 
of all things, mistress and governess of all the elements, the 
initial progeny of worlds, chief of powers divine, Queen of 
heaven, the principal of the Gods celestial, the light of the 
goddesses: at my will the planets of the air, the wholesome 
winds of the Seas, and the silences of hell be disposed; my 
name, my divinity is adored throughout all the world in divers 
manners, in variable customs and in many names, for the 
Phrygians call me Pessinuntica, the mother of the Gods: the 
Athenians call me Cecropian Artemis: the Cyprians, Paphian 
Aphrodite: the Candians, Dictyanna: the Sicilians , Stygian 
Proserpine: and the Eleusians call me Mother of the Corn. 
Some call me Juno, others Bellona of the Battles, and still 
others Hecate. Principally the Ethiopians which dwell in the 
Orient, and the Egyptians which are excellent in all kind of 
ancient doctrine, and by their proper ceremonies accustomed 
to worship me, do call me Queen Isis. Behold I am come to take
pity of thy fortune and tribulation, behold I am present to favor 
and aid thee. Leave off thy weeping and lamentation, put away 
thy sorrow, for behold the healthful day which is ordained by 
my providence, therefore be ready to attend to my commandment

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/lucius-assa.html