Queer Theory & Futurism

[Joseph Tracy]

On Feb 20, 2010, at 8:58 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> Damn good question I say, and damned if I, quick draw no matter  
> what, have an opinion.
>
> Quick second thought: prolly. After the modernists created into the  
> modernity they, and TRP, hated, and said that....most art after  
> that was compromised by being part of modernity.........???
I would like more to go on before buying into the premise, though  
perhaps it is mostly a semantic issue.  I see a hatred of the  
colonial mentality, and of that same presumption as it is manifested  
in technological imperialism. But Pynchon likes a lot of modern  
stuff, giving positive reviews to contemporary writers and musicians,  
psychologists ...  The problem with futurism wasn't that it offered  
no aesthetic appeal or new artistic terrain . The problem was that it  
called for an abandonment of moral and aesthetic discrimination in  
favor of rocket-like momentum and thus embraced the violent speed and  
aggression of fascism.
The question of whether modernism, technological evolution and  
fascism are separable is the dark question that haunts Pynchon's work  
and the collective psyche of out time.
>
> Which may be why 1) the modernists (and earlier) seem to matter  
> most to TRP
> and 2) why some low artforms---mystery novels, cartoons, movies  
> before they were 'films', etc. matter most later to TRP.
>
>
>
> --- On Sat, 2/20/10, Phillip Grayson <phillip.grayson at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
>
>> From: Phillip Grayson <phillip.grayson at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: Queer Theory & Futurism
>> To: "Monte Davis" <montedavis at verizon.net>
>> Cc: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>, "pynchon -l" <pynchon- 
>> l at waste.org>
>> Date: Saturday, February 20, 2010, 8:44 PM
>> Obvious I guess and prolly well explored
>> already, but with all the pastiche and such, is there the
>> possibility that AtD mocks an artistic deterioration since,
>> say, _Ulysses_ along with a cultural one since WWI?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 8:40 PM,
>> Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Mark Kohut sez:
>>
>>
>>
>>> you will recall that marinetti's futurism is
>> savaged big time in AtD...
>>
>>
>>
>> Indeed it is, and the rush of wind that the Futurists
>> loved (re-read the dive-bombing, sport with the flying
>> girls) blows straight into hair-straight-back, Rockwell
>> Kentish, wind-tunnel Nazi aesthetic:
>>
>>
>>
>> "Roland too became conscious of the wind, as his
>> mortality had never allowed him. Discovered it so . . . so
>> joyful, that the arrow must veer into it. The wind had been
>> blowing all year long, year after year, but Roland had felt
>> only the secular wind . . . he means, only his personal
>> wind. Yet . . . Selena, the wind, the wind’s everywhere .
>> . . ."
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>