rubrics (I like that word), wrecking crews and hugfests

[Mark Kohut]

W. B. Yeats BELIEVED more than a few whacko 'occult' ideas. As above, so below, I say allusively.

T.S. Eliot's anti-Semitism has been written about. 

Celine was a neo-fascist, or maybe just a fascist. 

Bellow has been mentioned.

There's Jung's 'synchronicity' among other notions. 

And more and more. 




--- On Thu, 11/26/09, Carvill, John <john.carvill at sap.com> wrote:

> From: Carvill, John <john.carvill at sap.com>
> Subject: RE: rubrics (I like that word), wrecking crews and hugfests
> To: "malignd at aol.com" <malignd at aol.com>, "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Thursday, November 26, 2009, 5:25 AM
> Hey, malign - some of your email is
> missing, I think. I mean, where's the gratuitously insulting
> segment?
> 
> <<
> 
> <<I've often wondered how seriously Pynchon takes
> that sort of thing. 
> Tarot in GR, ferrinstance. But writing
> occult-informed/inflected works, 
> and satirising occultism, well, it's that sort of duality
> that makes 
> Pynchon Pynchon.>>
> 
> I don't know if this is a rhetorical question or not but
> isn't it a 
> given that Pynchon doesn't--couldn't possibly--take this
> stuff 
> seriously?  That Pynchon's belief system includes card
> reading and 
> Madame Blavatsky and the Rosecrusians, et al?  Does
> anyone--leave alone 
> Pynchon--in his right mind, with a proper education, with
> no emotional 
> issues, believe in this stuff?
> 
> >>
> 
> Well, what about that biographical article re. Pynchon
> living in Manhattan Beach, the one on Modern World, where
> he's referred to as Ervin...oh hell...let me look it up...
> here:
> 
> http://www.themodernword.com/Pynchon/pynchon_biography.html
> 
> Here's the section I mean:
> 
> "Once, on a rainy day at Ervin's pad, we sat crossed-legged
> and did a Tarot reading for our deceased friend Raven. This
> was during the time when Ervin was still working diligently
> on a massive novel in which he said the plot was like that
> of an octopus, the tentacles going off in every direction.
> Ervin might have learned how to do a Tarot reading from his
> live-in girl friend, Veronica, or it might have had to do
> with a working knowledge of the cards that he would insert
> in his massive new work in progress. Veronica was a very
> attractive: petite with long black hair and sizzling dark
> eyes, playing with the occult magic that permeated Southern
> California in the 70's. She was probably in her early 20's
> because I met Ervin when I was approximately that age. He
> was 33 years old when he was finishing off his third massive
> novel, after all. He spread the cards out in front of us and
> then said he wanted to see where Raven was at that time. He
> slipped a card from the deck and placed it face up on
> another card face down. The card from the deck was The
> Hanged Man. Ervin turned to me and said Raven must be
> hung-up on the other side. As we sat, the rain pelted the
> windows, but we were nice and cozy. Ervin's eyes had a
> quizzical look to them when he said this about Raven. I
> looked down and pondered the odd picture on the card: a man
> dangling upside down with his feet tied as he hung from some
> wooden scaffold. Down below Ervin's perch, the Pacific
> lashed in its fury at the shoreline."
> 
> Yes, there are a couple of provisos here - we can't be sure
> this 'biographical sketch' is genuine. But it seems so. And
> even if we accept it as genuine, we still can't say it
> 'proves' anything. But it seems to suggest an attitude
> towards Tarot, on Pynchon's part, which is not relentlessly
> skeptical.
> 
> << Hemingway said he liked Catholicism because the
> pageantry it reminded 
> him of bullfights. >>
> 
> What about Graham Greene? Was he only in it for the
> pageantry too?
> 
> Cheers
> J
> 
> 
> 
>