Back to the Future

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

           Mr Hank---er-Haney:

           (put in a kickass night's work & promised myself
           an opaque and pretentious morning post to P-list,
           here 'tis)

Kickass is good. . . .

'You want cause & effect, well alright. . . .'

The main threads I'm looking at are the Unitarian Heresy and the 
roots of satire [1]. After years of looking at Pynchon's writing through 
an Occult/Magickal philter/filter, Friend Tom's postings of last 
year turned my head:

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=113105&sort=author
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=113117&sort=author
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=113150&sort=author

My first response was:

           My understanding is that Thomas Pynchon's family tree 
           is full of heretics. My reading of the author's writings 
           indicates that Mr. Pynchon's literary output is profoundly 
           heretical, and requires understanding of some rather 
           occult goings on. Some of the pages of GR are either 
           quotes from or magical actions derived from A.E. 
           Waite's book of black magic. My advice is that you 
           should proceed with extreme caution

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=113114&sort=author

Friend Tom sent an e-mail back, thanking me for pointing that out.
So, I started looking at the Pynchon clan as heretics. The heresy is 
simplified and parodied in Gravity's Rainbow in the form of the 
Slothrop family history and in particular William Slothrop's "On 
Preterition". Note what Friend Tom has to say:

           Remember that the Lord loves you. He loves Mr. Pynchon 
           for participating in the Christian Simpsons show. we all wish 
           you a Merry Christmas, even to Jews (Christ was one!), 
           Muslims, Buddhists, transcendentalistis, pantheists, 
           agnostics, atheists, communists and so on. We are all 
           God's people.

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=113117&sort=author

Now I'm a-gonna tell you, some churches regard those kind words as heresy. 
But not the Unitarians. As I look at the Pynchon Legacy in America, I'm 
bumping into a lot of Unitarians. I've done some Wiccan stuff in Unitarian 
Churches, they've got no problem with that sort of thing, much like the 
Quakers in that regard. Come to think of it, my family history also includes a
lot of bridge-building twixt the Pagan/Magickal and the 'Christian' communities.
But that utopian impulse---that "Counterforce", those "Freaks", well that's
what we've been sold as the "American Dream", freedom of religion and so on.

Now the Unitarian vision is a lot like Faust pt 2, the notion that with 
"Enlightment", with pure knowledge we can save the world, we can 
turn this planet around. 

Like Mucho Maas and Zoyd Wheeler's vision of immortality, the shared dream 
of the Sixties was not the first or only outburst of this "An Die Freude" 
style-d world embrace. I think the Unitarians had a leg up on that one, 
and William Pynchon had a leg up on the Unitarians.

But the family tree got more complicated afterwards.

Anyway, that desire to include all in "God's Loving Embrace", William 
Slothrop's Preterite heresy, well there's your main thread in Pynchon's 
novels, ain't it? That's the 'Counterforce'. Thing is with this 
Force/Counterforce mambo, you find all sorts of differing positions once
the family gets started up in this country. But Pointsman v. Slothrop,
Zoyd v. Brock Vond, Oed v. Trystero, Mason v. Dixon [leastaways up 
until "a Brush from one of Rebekah's potent Wings" send Dixon towards 
G-d knows what. . . .] Kit v. Scarsdale, Stencil v. V., 

Pynchon v. Stearns. . . .

           . . . .At this stage of the matter, Doct. Pynchon, of Springfield, 
           arose, and from the fact that it was the first time he had attempted 
           to address the House, there was an extensive inquiry who he was. 
           Doct. P. commenced by making a most abusive, violent and 
           disingenuous attack upon the Aqueduct Company, and Mr. Stearns, 
           whose name he called out most improperly during his speech from 
           10 to 20 times, attempting to give the impression that Mr. Stearns 
           was the Aqueduct Company, and that what was asked was all for his 
           benefit, and that it was a " monopoly" that did not deserve 
           encouragement. 

           Doct. P. said in so many words, that Mr. Stearns was " the 
           body and soul, the beginning- and the end, the Alpha and the Omega 
           of the concern." That he was supplying Railroads and Steam Engines 
           and other big concerns which he had no right to do. If he 
           would cut them off, there would be water enough for the people. He 
           said he was a water taker from the Aqueduct at several places, and he 
           could not well do without it, indeed he considered it one of the 
           greatest boons he enjoyed in life! He denied that there was any 
           evidence that a majority of the people of Springfield was in favor of 
           the petition. 
           
           In short he disputed every material position taken by the members of 
           the Committee who made the counter report, and the statements to the 
           House of Mr Hull, one of the Committee, which report and statement 
           were founded on the testimony given to the Committee in their long 
           investigation, and thorough examination of the case,—indeed he went 
           so far as to say that nothing could be said that would induce him to 
           favor the passage of the bill. . . . 

http://tinyurl.com/35knjv

. . . ..Sound Familiar?

http://tinyurl.com/35knjv

http://tinyurl.com/2dfgmy

           PYNCHON v. STEARNS. 
           SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT OF MASSACHUSETTS. 1846. 
           [Reported 11 Met. 304.] 

           This was an action of waste, in which the plaintiff alleged that the 
           defendant held two parcels of land in Springfield, as tenant for life 
           the plaintiff having the next estate of inheritance — and had 
           committed sundry acts of waste thereon. Trial before Shaw, C. J., 
           whose report thereof was as follows : — 

           The plaintiff gave in evidence the last will of Edward Pynchon, 
           proved May 30th, 1830, by which he devised the two parcels of land 
           described in the plaintiff's declaration: viz., Fond Meadow and Great 
           Meadow, to his wife, Susan Pyuchon, so long as she should remain his 
           widow, remainder to his brother, the plaintiff, in fee : Also an 
           assignment of the same parcels by said Susan, to the defendant, for 
           her life, reserving a yearly rent of thirty dollars. There was 
           evidence tending to show that these parcels of land adjoined each 
           other, and together extended from Main Street, easterly, to and 
           beyond Chestnut Street. 
           
           The plaintiff relied on the four following acts of waste : 

           1st. That the defendant had destroyed fences, or permitted them 
           to fall down or decay, by means of which there was danger that the 
           abuttals and landmarks of the estate would be lost, or rendered 
           doubtful, to the damage of the inheritance. 

           2d. That the defendant had laid out a street or 
           open way, across the land, from one public highway to another, viz., 
           from Main Street to Chestnut Street, by which the character of the 
           land was changed, to the injury of the inheritance, and by which 
           there was danger that the rights of the inheritance might be lost or 
           impaired. 

           3d. That in order to fit that part of the land, so laid out for a 
           street, for travel, the defendant had ploughed furrows or dug drains 
           along the side thereof, and drawn in large quantities of earth, to raise 
           the same, and thereby had so changed the surface that it ceased to be 
           meadow and pasture land. 

           4th. That the defendant had erected several wooden houses on 
           the land, and had, for that purpose, caused some portion of the 
           soil to be thrown out from under the sites of those houses, in 
           order to form cellars under them, and to raise the land around 
           them; and had thus changed the character and condition of the land. 
           
           As to all that part of the land, nearest to Main Street, called Pond 
           Meadow, the defendant denied the right of the plaintiff to maintain 
           this  action, on the ground that the plaintiff, on the 13th of July, 
           1839, had taken of the defendant a lease thereof during the life 
           of the aforesaid Susan Pynchon, so that the defendant had ceased 
           to be tenant for life, and the plaintiff had become tenant for life, 
           entitled to the possession; and that the relation of tenant for life 
           and remainderman no longer subsisted between the parties. 
           The lease was given in evidence, and the execution thereof 
           admitted. The judge sustained the defendant's objection, 
           and instructed the jury that, as to that part of the land, the 
           action could not be maintained. 

           As to the alleged acts of waste on the other parcel of land, the 
           defendant  made several answers : As to removal or decay of fences, 
           and the loss of boundaries, he denied the fact; and the evidence was 
           left to the jury, with directions not objected to. As to the other 
           alleged acts of waste, the defendant denied that they amounted to 
           waste. And the jury were instructed that the opening of a way 
           through the land, from one highway to another, was not waste. . . .

This starts on page 658 of "Select Cases and Other Authorities on 
the Law of Property", By John Chipman Gray

http://tinyurl.com/365vdb

I don't know for certain---nailing the whole thing down as verifiable history,
if "Pynchon v. Stearns" is all wired up with Thomas Stearns Elliot's "The 
Waste Land', though the notion and spirit of the T.S. Elliot poem is all 
over the writing of Thomas Ruggles Pynchon the fifth. Not to mention the
red sands in AtD or W.A.S.T.E. in the Crying of Lot 49. But one way or t'other, 
there's a boni-fied literary mystery going on here.

Charles Stearns was a political mover & shaker in Springfield who crossed 
paths with the Pynchons and their business concerns. I'm not certain, but 
I'm pretty sure that Charles Stearns is related to T.S. Elliot and I know Eddie 
and Suzy and Johnnie were Pynchonites. Knowing this clash of famlies,
"The Waste Land" and Tommy Boy's books can be observed in a different light.

I'll continue to track down Pynchon v. Stearns. And take a closer look
at all those biblical references strewn throughout OBA's ouvre.

Stay posted.

1. http://tinyurl.com/2cpuvy

http://tinyurl.com/ywj2uh