Grasping for V. Group Read; apochier

[Joseph Tracy]

The idea is that you are looking at the earth, not from above it's  
plane of revolution, but  outside the orbit  and aligned with that  
plane. Without the mirror this would look like a ball rising and  
falling  from the sun and then returning. So the earth would appear  
to go up and  through the sun then down and through. But with the  
mirror through the sun the earth looks like a yo-yo, going up and  
down from the half sun. It is a strained metaphor but seems to be a  
continuing theme in the sense of the splitting of time, of light, a  
splitting which energizes/fires/lights  everything and the rising and  
falling of sleep, sex, plants, life and death. It is also apt because  
of the earth's spin. Without spin there is no yo yo. The letter Y is  
also kind of  a V on a stem,  re-emphasizing the V  thing.  So Mike,  
maybe I am misunderstanding your misunderstanding but I hope that helps.

Yo-yo s were big when I was a kid and I actually competed in a  
regional yo-yo contest.  Won local, lost regional.
On Jun 12, 2010, at 10:29 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:

>  Mark Kohut wrote:
>> My way of hosting, just fyi: I will risk some reading(s)....Call  
>> me out; call me irresponsible; engage, argue with me; call me  
>> occasionally right.?
>>
>
> so far so good!  and thanks for taking it on!
>
>> The first V shape is actually the title of Chapter 1. With the V- 
>> shape ending where the apochier is: point furthest away from the  
>> yo-yo hand.
>>
>
>> "If you look from the side of at a planet swinging around in its  
>> orbit, split the sun with a mirror and imagine a string, it all  
>> looks like a yo-yo. The point furthest from the sun is called  
>> aphelion. The point furthest away from the yo-yo hand is called,  
>> by analogy, apocheir."
>
> this has always puzzled me: split the sun with a mirror?
> trying to visualize a big-ass mirror (a big ass-mirror...) through the
> middle of the sun
>
> are we talking about a plane, in which the half-sun is embedded at  
> a point,
> so that one can talk about an apo-whatever from the plane?
>
> because otherwise a planetary orbit's about the same distance from the
> sun at least in terms of not being very close at any point, whereas  
> a yo-yo
> spins right up to the hand...
>
> My inclination has always been not to unpack that imagery, but to  
> enjoy
> the "apocheir" notion, and also to see this as the first indication  
> of many,
> of an implicit sense of there being a Higher Power guiding our ways  
> and means,
> in the Pynchon body of work...the guiding hand (which becomes the  
> graphic
> "hand with extended Finger" in GR)
>
> and also an imitation of scientific lingo for artistic purpose
>
> and also sort of sets the stage for a
> "system-of-describing-the-action-as-if-it-were-movement-
> in-a-physical-continuum" which includes the geometric V-images Mark's
> describing, but
> also the sense of a person approaching or heading away from God,
> truth, the controller
> of our destiny, at the behest of external powers...
> by which my point isn't so much the externality of the powers,
> although that's an interesting notion (obviously there's no free will
> for novelistic characters, how are we different, and so forth)
> but the individual experience of closeness to or distance from God,
> truth, others, true love, etc
> which is being portrayed - and how
>
> but if everybody, or anybody, else can actually visualize this  
> splitting the sun
> with a mirror thing, please reveal a detail or two...
>
>>
>> Two reflections: 1) Another of P's novels that begins with an  
>> allusion against the sky, maybe? If you do not think this ob  
>> works, wait until I do the first line!
>
> sounds interesting
>
>> 2) In one of his letters--to Hollander, I believe---P said  
>> something like: Hey, my meaning is all there on the page. ( We  
>> know this is true and not true at once
>> overall      but taking this on its face, I want to ask how much   
>> V. as end of yo-yo hand resonates as meaning?.....the analogy  
>> comes up again in V..... V juts at straight angles from an  
>> apocheir.......sharp angles, we come to know from GR and ATD, at  
>> least,  aren't positive in TRP's vision. Operative here?
>
> Operative p38 reporting in...all is relatively well, at least for  
> the moment...
>
>
>
> -- 
> Yippy dippy dippy,
> Flippy zippy zippy,
> Smippy gdippy gdippy, too!
> - Thomas Pynchon ("'Zo Meatman's Gone AWOL")