Swedish Pancakes (was Re: NP but old lace)

[bandwraith at aol.com]

..
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, Dec 7, 2010 4:10 pm
Subject: NP but old lace

The arsenic bacterium story is under heavy fire (also news about the
cyclic
Universe story): http://is.gd/img1p
----------------


Hey. Like Judy sez : " It could happen...."

And you know what they say, if you can't stand the arsenic
get out of the salt flats, or, Necessity makes for strong
Mothers. Speaking of which, I seem to distantly recall an
incident, back in the day, when Zappa and Lennon
crossed guitars at the Fillmore East- Zappa, with his
Hagstrom Viking, still made in Sweden at the time. Yoko
was there, but she's still around.

Thing about those Hagstorms, they are really stable. The
Viking is cool, but I prefer my more compact Super Swede
It's a great "Aks." If I lost  an oar, I could probably paddle
across the North Atlantic with it, or now, the China Sea.
Apparently, in the early '80's, when the company was
looking for a new labor pool,  there were a few Japanese
prototypes made, but they didn't quite measure up to
"Swedish" standards. China was eventually selected as
the new fabrication site.Translation: "Give me money-
that's what I want!" But I'm not really sure why they left
Sweden. Maybe they'll return someday. In the meantime,
I have to settle for a Chinese Super Swede. That's fine.
I like it.

All of which leads my syrupy brain to wonder about the
Japanese-made Swedish Pancake scene in IV-  A set
up, if not a set piece. What is it that Pynchon is coding
into that one, I "aks" all  you set-piece theorists?  A few
things jump right out- The "Axiom of Choice" and the
technique of "forcing"  seem to be referenced, although
I can't quite decode why. I think he's hinting, again, about
math/logic gone wrong, ala- the excluded middle- and
other foundation of math issues- which seem to haunt
all his texts, and, via the secular miracles of metaphor,
metonym, meronym, analogy, etc.& etc., he usually
parallels with issues regarding the foundation of America.

The "Aksiom" of C is an abstraction. Actually, it's an
abstraction of an abstraction, singled up by Zermelo,
in 1904. Before that, it was an implicit part of set theory,
used, but not consciously, by set theorists. Zermelo
brought its logic to light.

"Forcing" is a technique invented by Paul Cohen, in the
60's, used, initially, to prove the "independence" of the
AC from Zermelo-Fraenkel Set Theory.

For more than that, you'll have to go back to community
college and aks the experts. The only boneheaded
question I'll pose is, is If there are different types of
infinity, infinite sets of different "sizes"- or cardinality,
as the pro's say- different, relative to what?

And then, of course, there's Big Foot's mom. I can't see
"pancakes" in an Anglo text without hearing echos of
Jemima and lil' black Sambo, & etc. But in this case,
implicitly, there is Gertrude. We saw her standing there,
in Vinland, staring blankly into the space where the
Skraelling Gertrude might have been, a continent
opening before her, longing for her steel, axes and
straight lines- not to mention guns and germs. Back
then, it was mostly the steel.

So what if the current products are Asian copies?
Big Foot doesn't seem to mind. Doc is still droolin'.
I dig my Chinese Super Swede. It's the recipe that
counts, isn't it? I'm still trying to piece it all together,
conveniently.

One more thing. About infinities... You can fit in mine, or
not, as you wish.

Happy, Happy