Not Drugs The Anatomy of Melville's Melancholy (Thoreau:

[rich]

its hard for me to feel anything but warm feelings for Denis. i think
being a tube freak does not make you an automatic thanatoid--Denis
doesn't seem to have any heavy karma hovering say like Weed Atman or
many of others so described in Vineland
he reminds of fond friends, those who are just wonderful to be around
when stoned--good weed helps but good friends and good weed is
thousand-folds better

rich

On Sun, Nov 15, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Robin writes LOLoudly:
> Denis might seem like a casualty of weed, but it's equally possible he was born stupid. After all—one does not get to pick and choose one's neighbors in an apartment complex.
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> And it is possible his stupidity is shown, enhanced?, by the constant TV watching? I mean, even Lawrence Welk (as well as the 'cool' shows.). An emerging thanatoid. TV as 'social control" when it is so uncritically total?
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> --- On Sun, 11/15/09, Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>> Subject: Re: Not Drugs The Anatomy of Melville's Melancholy (Thoreau:
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Date: Sunday, November 15, 2009, 7:40 PM
>> On Nov 15, 2009, at 4:25 PM, Mark
>> Kohut wrote:
>>
>> > I was so blinkered. I do not remember seeing our
>> soldiers on drugs on TV news. Just remember the major 'news'
>> shots and the steady drumbeat of the war and protests
>> against.
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>> I remember my uncle coming home from Vietnam around '66,
>> working post-war for an aerospace firm but also still a
>> junkie from experiences in 'Nam..
>>
>> > Discussion question:
>> > Were "addictive" drugs, as they spread out from more
>> limited circles, such as musicians' worlds, the inherent
>> vice?
>>
>> "Inherent Vice" also pretty much includes a galaxy full of
>> entropic processes including self-destruction via drugs and
>> late capitalism. I suppose the Inherent Vice of simply being
>> alive—the inevitability of death, a subject the author
>> touched upon quite eloquently in "Slow Learner—needs to be
>> figured into the mix as well. Getting old, memory getting
>> messed up or maybe even pre-messed on account of an excess
>> of Mindless Pleasures; it all comes with the territory of
>> turning 70 or so.
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>> > This question presumes pot is not addictive yet that
>> 'harder' ones are. Which might be one way Pynchon sees it??
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>> Remember that the one time Doc gets a bad trip on weed is
>> when he's dosed with PCP. Other folks throughout the book
>> get burned by a host of other drugs, but getting burnt by
>> weed is comparatively rare. Denis might seem like a casualty
>> of weed, but it's equally possible he was born stupid. After
>> all—one does not get to pick and choose one's neighbors in
>> an apartment complex.
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