AtDTDA: [38] p. 1073: Seduced into the Futurist Nosedive

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

There is family discussion, continuing Dally and Yashmeen's coy little dance:

          "But you're the one he fought a duel over." 
          "Almost fought a duel. What did he tell you anyway?"
          "I may have exaggerated," Kit said. . . .

All haul into 'Ristorante del Cambio—you remember, the spot Kit 
first attempted a nosedive, right over Dally and Clive? Seems 
like he feels bad about that, wants to make up. Or maybe he's 
just gloating. The Cambio is known locally as "the old lady." '

There's no veal—wartime shortages, but the meal described:

          Agnolotti (pronounced anneeolottee) are Piemontese stuffed 
          pasta, and come in a great many different varieties, some filled 
          with cheese, others meat, and others still meatless. They are, 
          in any case square and small, about 3/4 of an inch to an inch 
          on a side, and are made using very thin sheets of pasta. They 
          also are often made from cooked meat, in other words, leftovers. 
          Recycling can result in something both elegant and very tasty.

http://italianfood.about.com/od/stuffedpasta/r/blr0748.htm

          . . . .and risotto, and mushroom stew, and tagliarini, 
          and it was truffle season. . . .

. . . .and if you're a vegetarian [like me] you realize that you could make 
a feast out of the described meal and go vegetarian and use up the 
leftovers and be green as all get-out. And eventually this thread gets
warped into a silly, silly tango. Sigh. . . .

But please to remember that Pynchon's comedy is frequently bi-located,
with deliberate anachronisms galore.

Oh and by the way, according to "Winegeeks" Nebbiolo is

          Possibly the greatest of Italian grapes and certainly the 
          longest-lived. 

          Although attempts have been made to grow Nebbiolo in 
          California success has been fleeting at best.

A cozy scene of kindred spirits sharing a meal, but what has 
happened to the lighting?

          The city was full of acid-yellow light and black and precise 
          shadows back inside the arcades. Searchlights stroked 
          the sky. 

Futurism as Hell—our modern hell. The visuals are straight out 
of Tullio Crali paintings. 

http://www.simultaneita.net/tulliocrali.html

. . . .the futurist nosedive. . . .

          . . . .with its aesthetics of blood and explosion. . . .

. . . . the aesthetics of "Dark Knight" and Iraq. The meanings in 
this section are not ambigious, like wands tightly bundled into 
a giant SUPERSTAFF! ! ! Futurism is a very specific vision, one
that applies quite well to such movies as Dark Knight and
Iron Man, seducing the masses with the aesthetics of fascism,
the glory of blood and explosions.

          ONE DAY CLIMBING down out of Renzo's Caproni who 
          should reappear from the olden days but Kit's old Yale 
          classmate Colfax Vibe. . . .

Somehow I'm getting a flash of George Herbert Walker Bush in
flack jacket and helmet. No matter who, it's still corporations from 
the U.S.A. strengthening fascism throughout the world with cold, 
hard, American cash. And like TRP mentions in Gravity's Rainbow, 
technology develops a life of its own, creates an agenda of its own, 
sometimes takes over its host, like a possession or a spell.

Ah, but I'm getting away from myself.