V2nd - chapter 11 - more examples - Step function vs snake

[Mark Kohut]

MK wrote:
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinusoidal_projection
'There is no distortion on the equator"........"


okay, I'll follow-up on myself, plist narcissism at work, with this, perhaps 
controversial, remark:

North, cold, fun emotions frozen, etc. = bad shit in P's fictional world.....
South, warm, easier (even lazier due to heat), fun...

So, P "favors" a world [history] with less "Weberian protestant ethics" needed 
to work hard 
to grow food, to make clothes, to build heavier houses, to develop logging 
industries for all
those buildings, etc.......

His vision favors an edenic history in countries around the equator, so to 
speak.


----- Original Message ----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thu, December 2, 2010 11:51:03 AM
Subject: Re: V2nd - chapter 11 - more examples - Step function vs snake

YES.......no one quotes "sinusoidal":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinusoidal_projection

'There is no distortion on the equator"........


----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thu, December 2, 2010 11:40:14 AM
Subject: Re: V2nd - chapter 11 - more examples - Step function vs snake

Fausto I wrote:
> p337: "How wonderful is this St. Giles Fair called history! Her
> rhythms pulse regular and sinusoidal - a freak show in caravan,
> travelling over thosands of little hills.  A serpent hypnotic and
> undulant, bearing on her back like infinitesimal fleas such huncback,
> dwarves, prodigies, centaurs, poltergeists!  Two-headed, three-eyed,
> hopelessly in love; satyrs with the skin of werewolves, werewolves
> with the eyes of young girls and perhaps even an old man with a navel
> of glass, through which can be seen goldfish nuzzling the coral
> country of his guts.
> "The date is of course 3 September 1939...."
>

so, there was a St Giles fair (still is...) and it was happening on or
about 3 September 1939, and it did feature freakshows.  And it says
something about Fausto I that he'd choose an English fair to compare
history to.
Is there nothing Maltese as freakish as history?  (of course, he
comments on this "bastardization" himself)

But then later, (p366) "The present Fausto can look nowhere but back
on the separate stages of his own history.  No continuity.  No logic.
"History," Dnubietna wrote, "is a step-function."

These views conflict.

However, Fausto I's view is less famous - that is, in my minimal
investigations (compared to my bloviations) I've noticed a lot of
people quote that "History is a step function" and I've never read
anybody quoting the sinusoidal curve idea of Fausto I.

My first impression of the 2 views (reserving the right to qualify,
change, or otherwise fuss with this thinking unreservedly)

History's more of a step function for schlemihls: "stuff happens" and
all of a sudden there's a state change and it's different...

Stencil, whatever his other failings, does seem to be putting together
points on a graph more like Fausto I's sinusoidal curve...