CoL49 (3) The W.A.S.T.E.land [PC 41]

[Robin Landseadel]

I'm all for taking the author at his word, and The Crying of Lot 49 is  
as good a place to start as any.

Literary Plot—say it a couple two/three hundred times, until it sounds  
like lyrics from the Cocteau Twins. CoL49 is a novel, not a  
documentary, and I see more of the plot complications of CoL49 derived  
from [and aiming towards] literary games than documenting secret,  
revisionist histories. Mind you, both are happening all the time— 
there's plenty of revisionist history going on in there here parts.

	Laura:
	Keep in mind that Pynchon wrote (of) the Courier's Tragedy in
	the mid-60s, so he could stick any current-day allusions he
	wanted into it.

Arrabal, anyone?

http://tinyurl.com/pjogfl

	Likewise, Driblette interpreted (enhanced,
	tampered with) the "original" text in the fictional 1960s, adding
	or clarifying the role of the Trystero in the play for his own
	reasons.  Driblette's "...words, words" an echo of Hamlet.

Orson Welles, anyone?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZLrqJka-EU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1_I36qHDts

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPkBmoMfp1I

	Did Driblette stage the Courier's Tragedy with the addition of the
	Trystero assassins to catch the conscience of some watching
	king?  Who would that king be?  Oedipa?  Metzger?  Pierce
	Inverarity?  Us?

Gengis Cohen?

Did Pynchon stage our introduction to the "Courier's Tragedy" in this  
muddy lagoon for any particular reason? Significance, if any?

"Fangoso" is Spanish for "muddy." There's a resonance with Bob Dylan's  
Outlaw Blues:

	Outlaw Blues
	Ain't it hard to stumble
	And land in some funny lagoon?
	Ain't it hard to stumble
	And land in some muddy lagoon?
	Especially when it's nine below zero
	And three o'clock in the afternoon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbBkSZWnZoQ

	They came in among earth-moving machines, a total absence
	of trees, the usual hieratic geometry, and eventually, shimmying
	for the sand roads, down in a helix to a sculptured body of water
	named Lake Inverarity. Out in it, on a round island of fill among
	blue wavelets, squatted the social hall, a chunky, ogived and
	verdigrised, Art Nouveau reconstruction of some European
	pleasure-casino.
	CoL49, 41

Hieratic:

	Ancient Egyptian scripts: Hieratic script

	The Hieratic script was invented and developed more or less at
	the same time as the hieroglyphic script and was used in
	parallel with it for everyday purposes such as keeping records
	and accounts and writing letters‡. It was used until the 26th
	Dynasty, though by that time, it was only used for religious texts,
	while the Demotic script was used for most other purposes.
	http://www.omniglot.com/writing/egyptian_hieratic.htm

‡ Sounds kinda "W.A.S.T.E.-y to me.

European pleasure casinos figure seriously in GR and AtD. I recall  
something in the Secret Integration, but my copy of Slow Learner has  
dematerialized along with a significant number of brain cells, so I  
beg for your indulgence.

Pynchon was making particular points about the mob and un-buried bones  
in the process of setting us up for "The Courier's Tragedy."  My  
"Magic Eye"* reading of CoL49 points to Pynchon family history. To  
begin with, there's the historic Pynchon v. Stearns decision—check out  
page 95:

http://tinyurl.com/qzyslq

http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=duke/fs

More on Pynchon v Stearns

http://books.google.com/books?id=xgsQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA304&dq=pynchon+vs+stearns

This decision concerning a renter's additional development of the  
property they reside on constitutes America's "Waste Doctrine," a  
crucial law concerning property management.

T.S. Eliot's mother came from the Stearns clan— Stearns is the "S' in  
"T.S."  And there is Pynchon's line in "Slow Learner" about  
overworking "The Wasteland" in his early stories, the author  
indicating that he felt that he reached some sort of nadir with The  
Crying of Lot 49, what with it's hammering of the entropy theme as  
some sort of universal plot-devolving solvent, and T.S. Eliot lurking  
behind the bushes with his gorilla mask on, waiting to pounce on  
unsuspecting esthetes. Or maybe it was just too much time spent  
hanging out in the Paranoid's blueish haze of smoke. I plan on diving  
into the abyss of p-list notes I churned out while working through  
"Against the Day." There's a fair hunk of material displaying how  
family research would lead to George M's side of the family. The day- 
to-day business of Pynchon & Co. leads to multiple alternative  
explanations for all those weird stamps and the history behind them.

My "Magic Eye" reading of CoL 49 also points to the Waste Doctrine,  
noted in my first link and this line:

"Section 49. WHO MAY COMMIT WASTE."

. . . so it seems only proper that the "plot" to turn Oedipa on to  
"The Trystero" [like it's making her an acolyte to Dick Cheney's "dark  
side" or something equally sinister] would be happening on a hunk of  
land & water all tied up in the sorts of land management deals that  
the Waste Doctrine---our national W.A.S.T.E. system—AND Pierce  
Inverarity are all about. The darkness of that plot is reflected in  
the exaggerated theater-of-cruelty darkness of "The Courier's Tragedy."

The used car lot, the scarred hunk of San Narcisco now known as "Lake  
Inverarity", Oedipa's "Nighttown" episode in San Francisco, the  
despoiling/wasting of all these lands—all these lots are crying.

* I feel like I should stick a copyright label next to "Magic Eye  
View", and pay a fee.  I'm well practiced in crossing my eyes [there's  
plenty of yoga for that] and always checked out the magic eye books.  
I'm seeing some different layers than the Dude but seriously folks; no  
disrespect, I'm just seeing—looking at—different layers, that's all.

-----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>

>
> So, some dark W.A.S.T.E system from way back had a recent staging  
> alluding
> to the assassination (by more elements of that Tristero system) of  
> America's Fisher-King,
> so to speak?
>
> And how does that fit into The Courier's Tragedy? Lust, greed,  
> mutilating torture and death in a play from the Jocobean era?
>
> I am reminded of the mysterious black horsemen in Against the Day.  
> Anyone else?
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 6:01:44 PM
> Subject: Re: Inherent Good: back to Rich's work on Chap 3 COFL49
>
> Hollander's take on the three-assassin theory of the Kennedy  
> Assassination seems pretty relevant here. A hint at three shadowy  
> assassins not referred to in the official text (Warren Report).  
> Also, three is the minimum number needed for a V-shaped assault.
>
> By the way, just finished reading the great article Robin posted a  
> while back:
>
> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6750/is_46-49/ai_n28819965/?tag=content;col1
>
> about Pynchon's writings at Boeing.  He made a number of references  
> to the V2 rocket and had a tendency to use triangular bullets,  
> instead of the customary round ones, for his lists.
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>> Sent: May 21, 2009 4:20 PM
>> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Subject: Inherent Good: back to Rich's work on Chap 3 COFL49
>>
>> The 'worst' thing--darkest; morally?--- about the Tristero are the  
>> three assassins-----
>> which were brought on stage by Driblette----not by Wharfinger's text.

The worst thing—the darkest, morally—is Dominico's awful de-tongue-ing  
and fiery demise. That points to Giordano Bruno and science as heresy.  
And I'd say that Courier's Tragedy has a lot to do with heresy and the  
Inquisition in the Jacobean age, a thread that would point back to  
William Pynchon of Springfield Mass and "The Meritorious Price of Our  
Redemption."