V2nd - Chapter 8 - grand unified apologetics...

[alice wellintown]

The sources for those two parties are many, but that Henry Adams is,
as usual, the primary "secondary source", and Gatsby's parties, the
decadent bashes at his house, and that party that Nick goes to that
ends with Myrtle, after she is transmogrified into the dynamo,
whirling round in her party dress like a mechanical bride on a pivot
as smoke swirls about her, getting her nose broken, are obvious
sources--and, of course, the parties, especially the later one, is
built around an idea Fitzgerald got from a priest who turned him on to
Adams. Poe, Mask and Pym. The local color is Pynchon-pretzel.
Southerners and Blacks and Jews and Armenian Irish Jews...all looking
to serve or blame somebody, but this aint no native son's novel, no
protest novel.

April 9, 1967
Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White
By JAMES BALDWIN
The crisis taking place in the world, and in the minds and hearts of
black men everywhere, is not produced by the star of David, but by the
old, rugged Roman cross on which Christendom's most celebrated Jew was
murdered. And not by Jews.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-antisem.html


On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 7:45 PM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> yeah, backing away for a minute to do a meta thing (was it Eliot,
> Pound, or Kilgore Trout who said a metaphor is a sign of a lazy mind?)
>
> but, okay, why should we not abhor the party in Manhattan like the one
> on the veldt?
>
> Becaaaaause...umm, this was so clear in my mind as I sat down with my
> chin cantilevered over my lap...
>
> first of all, that party in the veldt hasn't happened in the book yet,
> but I guess that's not a great reason...
>
> how about:
>
> the colonial instinct, is just a decky-dance of the evangelistic impulse
>
> Monty Python nailed it in Life of Brian: name one good thing Rome ever
> brought Palestine!
> wine
>
> well, of course, there's the wine.  but other than the wine?
>
> roads
>
> yes I suppose.  Let's stipulate the roads, but what else?
>
> aqueducts
>
> (etc etc)
>
> (I'm inclined to think the Rubicon is crossed when the evangelist
> carries a weapon, to ring a change on the AtD pigrimage/crusade
> homily, but your Muscular Christians wouldn't draw the line there!)
>
> (one of the 2 least-favorite sayings of Jesus for me is that one about
> not peace but a sword; (the other one is when he curses the fig tree.
> What's up with that?) why'd he have to say that?  Did the freakin'
> armorers guild buy ad time from him or something.  I guess we can fall
> back to His example in not carrying weapons...)
>
>
> and the difference is that Roonie has come from the provinces (Durham)
> to the (cultural) capital and is setting up commerce there, rather
> than coming from the 1st world to the 3rd and setting up slavery and
> so forth.
> Plus he doesn't carry a sjambok.
>
> and although Mafia's tried to exacerbate his redneck prejudice, she's
> failed and he's about to sign McClintic Sphere, at least a little
> outreach across the color bar.  And in theory the party is open to
> anybody hip enough to be there, and nobody has scurvy and well you see
> the distinction, it's as good a party as can be thrown under the
> circs...
>
> which may in fact also be true of the party in the veldt!
>
>
> --
> - "After all, Salaam and Shalom are only slight different spellings of
>  a word that means the same thing in Arabic and Hebrew.
> Which translated into English means peace be upon you." - Norman Spinrad
>