Book of Revelations

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

             Mr Haney:
             a narrowminded interpreter (single vision & 
             Fig Newton's sleep) might guess that you were 
             trying to relate the Chums nups and pre-nups 
             to the relinquishment of financial primacy -- 
             leaving the male-dominated world of empire 
             and embarking on a closer walk with "die 
             ewige Weibliche" -- however, that is just 
             something that I noticed fluttering by,  I venture...

Me, I was thinkin' Rossini.

             Grandma Haney used to call it "Merrill Lynch 
             Pierce Fenner and Bean"...her sister was a 
             pioneering female stockbroker...
             back in the day...

Also true.

             ok, quite possible...also, artistic possibilities 
             (assuming a certain artistic distancing?) in 
             "downfall brought on  thru the movies"  
             "video killed the radio star") details quite likely 
             fascinating... ie, in general with this sorta thing
             a) there might be a tragic flaw or vulnerability
             b) somebody might have pissed somebody off
             c) maybe even romantic triangles?
             my interest is piqued...
             please keep expatiating and expounding!

             now, is there a direct, left-brain connection between
 
             a) the House of Pynchon trying to invest in motion pictures
             and apparently getting their Ars Longa handed to them
             and 
             b) the Waste Doctrine?

Yes, read page 95 of this

http://tinyurl.com/2gb8aa

             SECTION 49. WHO MAY COMMIT WASTE. 
             Waste can only be committed by a person rightfully 
             in possession of the property. Under the early 
             common law only tenants of legal estates as distinguished 
             from tenants of conventional estates, were liable for 
             waste.28 But the common law was changed . . . .

Please understand---I know Our Beloved Author is first and foremost an 
Author of Fiction, lots of people appreciate him for his humor, his style, 
his commas. . . . 

Right now, I really don't know how the author's family history ties in with 
the novels, but I know it does, and having read [and re-read] all the 
novels I know what Echo Courts sounds like. The William Pynchon
story is a big part of Gravity's Rainbow. Early talkies are a big part
of Gravity's Rainbow. But it's not ordered in some trail of breadcrumbs
that leads to a single answer, I know the author shakes out all sorts of
potential scenarios. It's just that the more I shake out of the family tree,
the more family history parades itself in his novels. Like those on and off
impressions of 'Jack' Kennedy, knowing how Papa Joe is as close to 
Gatsby as makes no difference and how it all ended up being about 
money, power and shit in the end. Joe reached hard for his piece of 
the action in talkies. As far as I can tell, Pynchon views Joe Kennedy's 
success in context and knows the source of the Kennedy Family 
start-up money. 

"Who can commit Waste" is the person [or more likely corporation]
holding that deed with all those tricky tax stamps. And the Waste 
Doctrine [represented on a number of pages in this book] is 'Pynchon 
v. Stearns', a law that goes back to 1846, involving John and Susan 
Pynchon, descendants of William Pynchon. That law comes into play 
when Pynchon & Company is taken out---seemingly as an afterthought
---as movie mogul William Fox is taken down. Not too many good 
guys to report in this epic hunk of a tale, but plenty of explanations 
as to why films and film making play such a large role in Pynchon's 
novels.

Our Beloved Author is telling big tales---sometimes sea tales---that
speak of 'American' ideas & ideals. It appears that a very large part 
of his source material comes from family history. Not that there's
anything wrong with that. . . .