whoops

[Robert Mahnke]

Sorry: In the first line, that should be "thought Eigenvalue".

-----Original Message-----
>From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net
>Sent: Jul 23, 2008 9:55 AM
>To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: AtdTDA: Your Answers Questioned
>
>     Robert Mahnke:
>     I saw this last night and thought it had curious echoes of AtD:
> 
>     Perhaps history in this century, though Eigenvalue, is rippled 
>     with gathers in its fabric such that if we are situated, as 
>     Stencil seemed to be, at the bottom of a fold, it’s impossible 
>     to determine warp, woof or pattern anywhere else.  By virtue, 
>     however, of existing in one gather it is assumed there are 
>     others, compartmented off into sinuous cycles each of which 
>     come to assume greater importance than the weave itself and 
>     destroy any continuity.  Thus it is that we are charmed by the 
>     funny-looking automobiles of the ‘30’s, the curious fashions of 
>     the ‘20’s, the peculiar moral habits of our grandparents.  We 
>     produce and attend musical comedies about them and are 
>     conned into a false memory, a phony nostalgia about what 
>     they were.  We are accordingly lost to any sense of a 
>     continuous tradition.  Perhaps if we lived on a crest, things 
>     would be different.  We could at least see.
> 
>     V. 155-56 (1986 ed.).
>
>And strong echos of Julius Evola as well:
>
>     Modern civilization stands on one side and on the other 
>     the entirety of all the civilizations that have preceded it 
>     (for the West, we can put the dividing line at the end of 
>     the Middle Ages). At this point the rupture is complete. 
>     Apart from the multitudinous variety of its forms, 
>     premodern civilization, which we might as well call 
>     "traditional," means something quite different. For 
>     there are two worlds, one of which has separated 
>     itself by cutting off nearly every contact with the past. 
>     For the great majority of moderns, that means any 
>     possibility of understanding the traditional world has 
>     been completely lost.
>
>     "The Hermetic Tradition", Julius Evola, page 14
>
>     Mark Kohut:
>     Is it a metaphor for we readers looking at History 
>     (the past)....if we had looked at it rightly, it would 
>     have been different?.....Since we have NOT seen 
>     History correctly, it has changed the present?
>
>     a different path.....He remembers bi-location........
>     Roswell is almost annoyed when Lew questions 
>     him about the subject's possible other lived lives
>     .............Of course that is possible, knows Roswell.  
>
>Yup, Area 51 revisited: 
>"Scully said to Muldar:
>"Get me a Nun!"
>
>I mean, let us not forget the incredible wealth of cheap tricks 
>and bottom bracket puns OBA employs—bilocation* is also 
>a cheap trick, thus "Roswell." Pynchon is no mere satirist, 
>he's a satirist devoted to Road Runner cartoons and really 
>bad puns. The fabric of time [more like a chunk of Iceland 
>Spar, come to think of it] is trespassed by anachronism 
>everywhere—"Burgher King" anyone?—and on some level 
>Yashmeen, Lew and Cyprian are trespassers from our time. 
>
>*Echoing "Nick Danger—Third Eye in: 'Cut 'Em Off at the Past'", 
>where discontinunities in the fabric of time form the center of 
>the plot and the program ends with an interruption from FDR, 
>announcing the United States' complete and total surrender 
>to the Japanese. As the "NIck Danger" resumes we hear 
>Nicky-nick-nick-nick-nick say:
>
>          The great prince issues commands,
>          Founds states, vests families with fiefs.
>          Inferior people should not be employed.
>
>. . . .from Richard Wilhelm's translation from the original Chinese of 
>"The Army" from the I Ching, OBA reiterating the shared theme of 
>absurdist resistance—a hallmark of both Pynchon and the Firesign 
>Theater.
>
> 7.   Shih / The Army
>          -- --
>          -- --     above     K'un   The Receptive, Earth
>          -- --
>          -- --
>          -----     below     K'an   The Abysmal, Water
>          -- --
>     The Judgement
>          The Army. The army needs perseverance
>          And a strong man.
>          Good fortune without blame.
>     The Image
>          In the middle of the earth is water:
>          The image of the Army.
>          Thus the superior man increases his masses
>          By generosity toward the people.
>     The Lines
>          Six at the beginning means:
>          An army must set forth in proper order.
>          If the order is not good, misfortune threatens.
>     ()   Nine in the second place means:
>          In the midst of the army.
>          Good fortune. No blame.
>          The king bestows a triple decoration.
>          Six in the third place means:
>          Perchance the army carries corpses in the wagon.
>          Misfortune.
>          Six in the fourth place means:
>          The army retreats. No blame.
>     ()   Six in the fifth place means:
>          There is game in the field.
>          It furthers one to catch it.
>          Without blame.
>          Let the eldest lead the army.
>          The younger transports corpses;
>          Then perseverance brings misfortune.
>          Six at the top means:
>          The great prince issues commands,
>          Founds states, vests families with fiefs.
>          Inferior people should not be employed.
>
>http://www.religiousworlds.com/taoism/ichingtx.html
>.