IVIV (1) Thinks He's Hallucinating

[David Morris]

Man!   Jane!  Alice!  Where have you gone since the old days of our GRGR?

Don't you remember "creative paranoia?"  The need for a "We-system?"
Osbie Feel?

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0411&msg=94733&keywords=creative%20paranoia

From: "David Morris" <fqmorris@[omitted]>
To: Lycidas@[omitted], pynchon-l@[omitted]
Subject: Re: "Creative" paranoia
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 11:42:58 CDT

>  "Creative paranoia means developing at least as thorough a
>We-system as a They-system--" GR.638

Salvidor Dali was a proponent of Creative Paranoia.  He actively pursued a
method of vision, which he called "systematized error," in which he grabbed
hold of "wrong" associations and built upon them, putting himself in the
driver's seat of "reality."

>From  http://cair.kaist.ac.kr/wm/paint/auth/dali/life/

"He took over the Surrealist theory of automatism but transformed it into a
more positive method which he named `critical paranoia'. According to this
theory one should cultivate genuine delusion as in clinical paranoia while
remaining residually aware at the back of one's mind that the control of the
reason and will has been deliberately suspended. He claimed that this method
should be used not only in artistic and poetical creation but also in the
affairs of daily life."

Creative Paranoia may also be linked to the notion of Film as "pornography"
in GR.  Film is essentially a Re-Creation, a substitution for primary
experience.  It is a "story-teller's" representation: analyzing, filtering,
ordering, framing "reality."  Creative Paranoia and Story-telling are
identical, and are also both "pornographies."  "paranoia" and "pornography"
(as well as "delusions") are pejorative terms, normally, but not in GR.
Paranoia, whether creative or operational, is simply the natural state of
human consciousness, "ordering" experience.  At its best it is raised to an
art-form (remember how Roger is told he's only a novice paranoid?) and can
provide a potent tool for challenging the "paranoia" of the Dominant
Power-Structure.  Roger's strength in his confrontation at Pointsman's
office comes from his embracing new frameworks for his own thoughts and
bombarding others with them.

As a general statement I know this sounds trite, but part of GR's "mission"
seems to be the laying bare of these terms "paranoia," "pornography," and
"delusions" as the universal condition, thus exposing the strengths and
weaknesses of the human-mind's creative/perceptive abilities (I guess this
is part of what makes him PoMo).  Yet, rather than collapsing into a
self-centered mindlessness or despair, he continues to seek out "Truth &
Justice, and the American Way," plumbing the depths of the condition in
search of a balance.  In this regard I would agree with Jane that Pynchon's
writings are inherently "religious."



On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 7:46 PM, alice
wellintown<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hallucinogens, like LSD, are used by characters in P's fiction,  like Mucho Maas uses it, to become babies in the candy houses of their own solipsistic minds, enjoy  mindless pleasures, and escape Death (the X ray vision), responsibility. It sucks to be a used car salesman. All those old rock stars getting young girls. I want MY MY MY MTV . . . .to be on MTV.
>
> Love & Death in the American Novel, there, Lit ill bud.
>
> Descartes!   I ME MINE !!!!
>
> It's all about ME and MY MIND!
>
> I am the measure of all things.
>
> It's the American Romantic. SONG OF MY SELF.
>
> P's novels are COOOO COOO NESTS full of men-boyz who are just waiting for RPM to show up and lift the fucking sink and set the chief free.
>
>
> Big Nurse.  Ever see the Movie? It's all about WORK!
>
> Catch that 22 ....Cuckoo.
>
>
> Babies of WAck E Nest COOO COOO
>
> And don't forget Rip Van Tinkle and Dennis Flange.
>
> This is why Melville is the Man for Pynchon. He does not, as he
> famously said, live under Emerson's transparent eyeball rainbow.
>
>
>
> and see The American Narcissus by Joyce W. Warren
>