ATDTDA (5.1) - The Etienne-Louis Malus

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

Monte Davis skepticized:
>
> Whatever we (or for that matter Al Qaeda or the conspiracy buff on the
> corner) may advance as the "causes of" or "reasons for" 9/11, I don't
> see how they map to "scientists dig up and bring home an ancient
> artifact, suggestive of pre- or non-human origin, that they should have
> left untouched."
>

yeh, I'm inclined to not map it exactly that way either, and to generalize the destruction scene as well.  But not without giving rein to some speculation in that direction: it's not that hard to temporarily set "digging up relics buried in the frozen waste" == "covert operations to mobilize the hatred of rebels against an enemy power" and arrive at something like Ward Churchill's roosting chickens. (Firesign Theater "we're bringing the war back home")

But his Eichmann comparison goes astray in maybe the same way that I think that reading Icelandic-Chthulhu in the City as 9-11 does: context.  

According to Greg Palast, Cantor-Fitzgerald didn't specialize in World-Bank-type exploitation at all, but in tax-free-munis, ie nice safe investments for grannies, helping local governments build infrastructure and public utilities (charging cost-plus rates instead of Enron-style "what the market will bear") without involving a bunch of holding companies...same kind of thing that Kucinich as mayor of Cleveland did in retaining public control of the power company...hardly Eichmann-style.

Similarly, the context of the City's destruction-scenes is set after the scenes of the Columbian Exposition, showing the White City attracting tribute from hither and yon and then going up in flames.  The myth dissolving back into real life; the end of the Exposition coinciding with a bad depression; the ephemeral nature of the illusion of progress, "oh God, pride of man, broken in the dust again"; and the City, less consciously an enclave of illusion, is revealed - by recapping and crescendoing from the burning of the "staff" structures (just wondering, there was _hemp_ in that stuff...but anyway...) to the burning of the City itself - I say, I say (Foghorn Leghorn style), the City is revealed to be just as much of an illusion and just as vulnerable - its nature being soured instead of sweetened by adversity, its mayor present only on signage, its thinkers and planners huddled inside a museum of museums with thick enough walls to also be a refuge for beggars...

With all we know is going to happen - Dresden, Tokyo (and we know Pynchon to be interested in Godzilla), Hiroshima - not to denigrate the sufferings of New York, but I think he's aiming bigger.  

That and the governor of Jeshimon - sure, there's some suckage at the picture from the vortices of certain almost-too-well-known current events, certainly not unintended or unconscious, certainly doesn't detract from the picture to refer to a certain Texan aviator (gone AWOL, like that 'zo Meatman) - that is to say, the text supports some thinking in these directions, but for goodness's sake let's not stop thinking at that point, but continue (bigging it up): Inconvenience as a Yellow Submarine; metaphors signifying all the way up the ranges to, like, "meaning of life", "survival after death", "free will v predestination", "handling disaster", Jeshimon as an epitome of misrule, and the destroyed City as the sort of ruin that Walter Benjamin conceived of as the source of his art and thinking (if I remember correctly my hasty perusal of about 2 of his Illuminations and Hannah Arendt's preface)?

Also, John, please note the White Wings in their relief effort.