atdtda: 31 - pg 880

Tue Apr 29 09:05:45 CDT 2008

Moving right along with page 880 and this little section is pretty  
interesting -

880.1-2   "... a strange dull shine on the Piazza, less a reflection  
of the sky than a soft glow from regions below."

** What is this,  "as below,  so above?"   As in the Tunguska event?

(She queries a lot in these posts,  eh?)  (heh)

********************
880.4 - A party:
Where?   an outer island of the Lagoon -  seems to be way beyond  
Lido  (with the big old mansions)  or Torcello?  (which once had a  
very large population, now gone)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/europe/italy/venice/726943/Venice- 
Islands-of-reflection.html

** No - they are going further than any of those islands ** (see below)

When?  midnight between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday
Why ?   for the secret Counter-Carneval known as Carnesalve - a kind  
of celebration of the end of Lent - a celebration of the flesh - if  
Carnevale is,  "Goodbye things of the flesh,"  then Carnesalve is,   
"Hello, things of the flesh!"

********************
880. 6-.10      "Here at midnight between Holy Saturday and Easter  
Sunday began the secret counter-Carnevale known as Carnesalve, not a  
farewell but an enthusiastic welcome to flesh in all its promise.  As  
object of desire, as food, as temple, as gateway to conditions beyond  
immediate knowledge."

Flesh as the object of desire
Flesh as food
Flesh as a temple
Flesh as a gateway to conditions beyond...

Against the Day abounds with heterotopic, carnivalesque spaces
within the “urban unmappable” (Pynchon 2006: 38) where the dispossed,  
dislocated and haunted find
temporary refuge, like the Chicago World Fair of 1893, a surreal  
university for time-travel theorists
called Candlebrow University, the Volks-Prater in Vienna and even an  
Italian “counter-Carnevale”
known as “Carnesalve”, “not a farewell but an enthusiastic welcome to  
flesh in all its promise”. (Pynchon
2006: 880)
(Conference paper by Timon Beyes - pdf file)
http://www.essex.ac.uk/AFM/emc/novelconference/beyes_paper.pdf

********************
880.13-.23 -    The whole dang paragraph is incredible but ...  if  
you wear a mask for long enough does it become your identity?   If  
others are wearing masks are the identities understood as "real?"     
Is this the "life of Masks"   (.17) in the "Mask-world (.18)  and   
"dreams of Masks" (.20)   (caps as in the book)
Sometimes the word "masks" is capitalized and other times no.  What's  
the distinction?

********************
880.22-.24  "The Mask's desire was to be invisible, unthreatening,  
transparent yet mercilessly deceptive, as beneath its dark authority  
danger ruled and all was transgressed."     -

** Does the word "as" there mean "because" or does it mean "as if"?    
Maybe,  kind of, sorta important.

********************

 From Michael Silverblatt's review at:
http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Stimuli/ 
michael_silverblatt_on_books_003
(it's been posted before [thanks Ya Sam] but it's worth rereading)

"Pynchon, ever the dualist, knows that fantasy can mask deception,  
fantasy camouflages the real. In Against the Day, every time a  
scientist has a hypothesis, a capitalist smells the possibility of a  
merchandisable weapon and potential ownership of the world’s future."

and

"Every dream masks a dangerous dreamer, and every wonder cabinet  
conceals a chamber of horrors."

and on Pynchon's use of masks:
from:  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2342/is_3_34/ 
ai_70396388/pg_13

"Sandra Gilbert uses a similar distinction to distinguish between how  
male modernists and female modernists use costume imagery (394); in  
her distinction, Pynchon's treatment of masks and disguises seems  
more like Virginia Woolf s than James Joyce's, for like the female  
modernists Pynchon treats costumes as representing fluid selves. For  
him, unlike Gilbert's view of male modernists, the change of costume  
marks shifts in fashion, for any chosen costume projects of a true  
self (405). Because the masquerader or crossdresser wants to hide an  
appearance that belies his or her true gender, when any subject dons  
a mask, the mask reveals both desire and repulsion. Representing both  
an escape from one self and the adoption of another self, the  
"costume" allows the masquerader to manipulate the gaze of the Other  
to make it "see" the appearance the subjects want it to see."

********************

880.26 - "Ca' Spongiatosta"   Casa Spongiatosta

********************

880.27 (while traveling across the Lagoon)  "... Cyprian had the  
disorienting sense that they had ascended, high above the Lagoon, the  
sky smudged wilderness of illuminated smoke, colors everywhere more  
brilliant than expected, and from the perilous altitude he thought he  
saw far below merchant ships getting up steam, produce-boats on the  
way back out to Torcello and Malamocco, vaporetti and gondolas....  "

** Where is this party anyway - beyond time again?

********************

880. 34   the Prince:   "It must have been like this a hundred years  
ago... off San Servolo with all the lunatics screaming."

**  At one time San Servolo was a hospital for the mentally ill.  But  
it wasn't closed until 1978 so I imagine that not only has the group  
traveled to some island but they have traveled into the future - or  
into a parallel universe's future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Giorgio_Maggiore

  (even more in line with that bizarre Cyclic Christ thing -  NOT  
that I'm going to bite that one - I found it on a conspiracy forum  
where it was hotly disputed.)
http://www.angelfire.com/goth2/henchen/cult.htm

********************

880.38 - "Doge Gradenigo"
** yes,  a real guy - not a nice one:     http://en.wikipedia.org/ 
wiki/Pietro_Gradenigo

Pietro Gradenigo was the 49th Doge of Venice, reigning from 1289 to  
1311. During his reign Bajamonte Tiepolo led a plot, put into effect  
on 14 June 1310, to overthrow the Grand Council of Venice and  
Gradenigo. During the failed rebellion, the Rialto Bridge was burnt  
down. Tiepolo surrendered and was exiled to Istria. He was later  
permanently banished for allegedly contacting the enemies of the  
Republic.
********************
880.39  Signori di Notte   Lords of the night.

They have gone back in time (doges)  and forward (San Servolo  
reference ) -  they are now "beyond time."

Bekah

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