23 skidoo

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Got any more of those 'shrooms?

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>

>Okay. Sbeen a weird night. We ate part of a huge orange mushroom   
>called a " hen of the woods" tonight, with eggplant and beans from  
>the garden and local apples sauteed.. Beautiful and delicious , with  
>a texture like, well, what the fuck else -chicken. So  I do the  
>dishes and start reading Umberto Eco's recent "History of Beauty",  
>which gets me thinking about the golden mean  and then googling that  
>and then  Pi and the way irrational numbers string out into all these  
>weird  "coincidences" of digital  sequence, and follow that til I  
>really am thinking this is all some kind of cosmic joke, and  
>wondering what makes whoever the joker is think this shit is so funny? 
>and back to Eco, who  is putting me to sleep, because this is not his  
>finest writing. So I pick up chapter nine and am not disappointed to  
>be laughing my head off when the dog gives the knowing look.  So I   
>wonder if Mike has gotten backwards ways to the dog and to the Dark  
>Shadows parallel worlds. Not yet, but.
>
>I read his post above and start to chase the number 23 a little which  
>I didn't know was  some kind of a astro trip though I remembered  
>about the Mayan calender ending December 23 2012( looked it up and it  
>is also the end of the 23rd yearly cycle) . So I guess the number 23  
>is a big deal for some people and when I read that the 23rd element  
>is Vanadium, the V kinda pops and I wonder if Pynchon is onto the 23  
>trip which is about big transitions like birth and death.
>23 in  Inherent Vice
>On page 23 the last 2 sentences are
>	"Who is it ?" Doc nodding at the corpse.
>	"Was, Sportello. Here on Earth we say 'was'. Meet Glenn Charlock,
>
>The last 2 lines of page 123  are
>	" I don't think so," Penny muttered. "It's that Chucky."
>	"And dang, Doc added silently. if it ain't a resurrected tenor sax  
>player too."
>
>So then I wondered what was the last page of the novel
>
>the last page is 369  69 divided by 3 is 23
>We leave with  Doc waiting" For the fog to burn away, and for  
>something else this time, somehow, to be there instead.
>Lemuria? The end of the Mayan calender, The end of the US as he heads  
>toward mexico? Will there be a Mexican adventure for Doc?
>
>So is this 23 a regular Pynchon thing that I have been missing, a  
>weird coincidence, or is this as weird of a night as I think?