AtdTDA: [38] pgs. 1082, 1083 Vegetariano

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

One final "silly" song:

Vege-tariano ... 
                  No ifs ands or buts- 
                  Eggs and dairy? ah no, 
                  More like roots, and nuts—
 
                  Pot roast prohibido, 
                  Tenderloin taboo, 
                  why should my heart bleed o-
                  ver the likes of you? 
                                             Never known-to-be 
                  Fond ... 
                  Of Chateaubriand ... 
                  Nor particularly close 
                  To chipped beef on toast—steaks and 
                  Chops, a-di-os!-Vege- 

                  -taria-no ... 
                  Outcast Argentine, 
                  Never could've gone "O-
                  le!" for that cuisine ... 
                  Gauchos curse your name, 
                  Still you haunt my brain
                  Somehow I'll carry on, oh ... 
                  Vegetaria-no! 

In all of Pynchon's writing, we find an overlay of anachronism 
embellishing these recovered alternate histories. Modern day
anarchist activities, like Food not Bombs, comes to mind:

http://www.foodnotbombs.net/

                  In addition to the collection and distribution of surplus 
                  food to help solve this problem, Food Not Bombs 
                  encourages vegetarianism. If more people were 
                  vegetarian and demanded organically grown, locally 
                  produced foods, this would encourage organic farming 
                  practices and support smaller farms. This in turn would 
                  make it easier to decentralize the means of food 
                  production and to create democratic control over the 
                  quality of the food produced and the stewardship of the 
                  land. More people can be fed from one acre of land on 
                  vegetarian rather than meat based diet. The current 
                  meat-based diet eaten by our society allows for huge 
                  "agro-businesses", dependency on chemical fertilizers 
                  and pesticides, results in the declining nutritional value
                   of the food produced, and destroys the environment. 
                  All massed produced meats in this country are full of 
                  chemicals, drugs, enhancers, and preservatives and 
                  all milk is contaminated with radioactive fallout. 
                  Vegetarianism would be better for the environment, 
                  consume less resources, and be healthier for us.

http://www.foodnotbombs.net/bookwhy.html

. . . .of course, in real life we have occasionally handed out
milk/eggs based foodstuffs, like cakes & cookies. We're 
anarchist enough to avoid being that rigid.

Seeing how often Buddhist ethics and practices are invoked in 
Against the Day, I turn to Buddhist ideas around vegetarianism:

From: On Stopping Killing!

An Essay By
Great Master Lianchi Zhuhung 1535-1615:


          People who eat meat often make the excuse that it is 
          natural to do so, that people were meant to eat meat.  
          They promote this idea, and then freely indulge in taking 
          the lives of their fellow creatures, thereby creating extensive 
          hatred and enmity-karma. 

            Over time, as their killing and consuming becomes a habit, 
          meat eaters no longer feel their killing is unusual.  They do 
          their evil deeds unknowingly, unaware of the consequences 
          of slaughter and the resentment it evokes.

            As somebody in the past said, "It is a cause for tears and 
          sobbing, for wails and cries, for deep regrets, and mournful 
          cries."

          In order to recount our confusion and point out our 
          attachments, I have formulated seven categories, and will 
          explain them below. . . .

          . . . .PART SEVEN:  
          IT IS WRONG TO KILL FOR ONE'S OCCUPATION.

          It is wrong to kill to make a living.  For the sake of clothing and 
          food, and in order to sustain their livelihood, some people go 
          hunting or fishing, or slaughter cows, sheep, pigs, dogs, and 
          the like. 

          Yet as I observe, those people who do not work at these jobs have 
          clothes to wear and food to eat all the same.  I've never seen them 
          die of hunger or freeze to death.  To kill a life in order to sustain 
          a life is something that gods most abhor.  You won't find one 
          person out of a hundred who becomes prosperous because of 
          the act of killing.  All those people who kill, however, do deeply 
          plant causes for rebirth in the hells, and surely will receive the 
          evil retribution in their future lives.  There is no heavier offense 
          than  this.  Why don't we simply find another way to make a living?

http://online.sfsu.edu/%7Erone/Buddhism/BuddhismAnimalsVegetarian/onstoppingkilling.htm

More on Buddhism and Vegetarianism:

http://online.sfsu.edu/%7Erone/Buddhism/BuddhismAnimalsVegetarian/BuddhistVegetarian.htm

These Ideas around mass slaughter and industrialized 
killing are found throughout Against the Day, most 
memorably early on [p. 53], with the Professor's and
the Chums eye's view of the narrowing tracks carrying 
cattle towards the abattoirs:

          "Yes here," continued the Professor, nodding 
          down at the Yards as they began to flow by 
          beneath, "here's where the Trail comes to its 
          end at last, along with the American Cowboy 
          who used to live on it and by it. . . ."

          ". . . .the only weapons in view being Blitz 
          Instruments and Wackett Punches to knock 
          the animals out with, along with the blades 
          everybody is packing, of course, and the 
          rodeo clowns jabber on in some incomprehensible 
          lingo not to distract the beast but rather to heighten 
          and maintain its attention to the single task at hand, 
          bringing it down to those last few gates, the 
          stunning-devices waiting inside, the butchering and 
          blood just beyond the last chute-and the cowboy with 
          him . . . ."

. . . .on the other hand, that "Grace" the chums are flying 
towards—another abattoir?