V--2nd, Chap 9, after Robin's post with a short lead-off digression (for Robin)

[Michael Bailey]

Doc Sportello wrote:

>Modern technologies, electronics, do not replace the spirit or
>> drive it out. The bond, a spiritual or religious bond, is never
>> broken. Mothers are still mothers, but like fathers, they are sick and
>> produce sick offspring. But nothing, nothing, can drive out the
>> ancient religious beliefs. Men may worship bombs or engage in rituals
>> that would break the cycle of life and death if they worked, but of
>> course, they don't work. At least not as designed, for scatterbrained
>> mother earth and the songs of men, even in a wasteland, even where it
>> is impossible to say just what we mean or where words are no longer
>> spoken, are never extinguished.
>

I'll drink to that!

>
> As far as I can tell, for the most part, the indigenous folk of the southern
> tip of Africa would negotiate with their ancestors. The dead are never
> really dead . We have different systems for that sort of thing in the west.
> The original colonists carried their own baggage concerning death and
> unloaded it all in Africa, wherever they could.
>

bell curve, maybe those people with the most of that sort of baggage
became colonists, and the rest of us aren't as radically different
from the African locals?

> But Sferics wouldn't scare the locals nearly as much as the overseers would
> hope. Stay out late on the Veldt long enough, you'll hear scarier sounds --
> perhaps you'll learn the sound of your death approaching. The sounds of
> Earth's Magnetic Field were not that of death. They were copied and mocked
> on the pennywhistle as Mondaugen abandons his post and gathers his
> equipment.
>

the bondels also apparently had a wonderful grapevine and sense of
drama, quoting (or misquoting) Sergeant van Niekerk as he arrested
Morris and spreading the news widely..."Die lood van die Goevernement
sal nou op julle smelt." (page 250-51)

Morris apparently http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondelswarts_affair
was leader of a tax revolt (the tipping point being a despicable tax
on DOGS, for pete's sake...)

ok, the mechanics for those who approach my level of TWITTITUDE (all
hail the Cohen!) and really tend to miss important details

  -- fat boy in a cart (like Godolphin in his cab at the beginning of chapter 7)

where's the cart? at a white outpost near the village of Kalkfontein South

he's picking his nose (Grob Saugling)

where's Foppl's place from here?  north, maybe?

what's he doing at Kalkfontein?  waiting for van Wijk, I guess he arrived early?

who's van Wijk?  a minor extremity of the Administration in Windhoek

what's Windhoek?  the area had been a German colony but WWI put paid
to that, was a protectorate of the League of Nations and then ceded to
South Africa, Windhoek - ah heck, lotsa history there, some dude named
Jonker Afrikaner founded the place back in the 1700s, he was an
Oorlam, which is a cross between Boers and "native women" of the
Khoikhoi people...
but it had to be refounded in the 1800s.  Now it's the capital of Namibia.

so Moondoggie - well, no: Mondaugen, "world eye" - has driven in from
his "recovery station" out in the boondocks, to this *other* boondocks
from where van Wijk administers things...

and van Wijk tells him, look to thine Arsch because the natives are restless...
so he goes back to the recovery station and packs up his antennas...
then he drives his cart to *still another* boondocks where Foppl's pad is at!

is this the Herero rebellion/genocide? I always thought so, but no -
that was a few years back.  This is 1922, and more of a hiccup.  The
rebellion is promptly crushed...
but in the light of events, it's understandable that people would be cautious.



>
> http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20African%20Musical%20Instruments.htm
>
>

also some nice smoking
pipes...http://www.ezakwantu.com/Gallery%20African%20Pipes.htm

>        But we have no paranoia, and Mr. Pynchon has attained,
>        and has created for himself serenity, and it is only the
>        insanity that has kept him alive in his paranoia.
>        We speak of the organ...of the orgasm...
>        Who the hell wrote this?
>

Roszavolgyi, perhaps?

But what you said earlier about the engineer becoming enmeshed in
these events, and more to come back in the Fatherland, which are
literally too horrible to contemplate with equanimity, rings true...



-- 
- But you can wade in the water
and never get wet
if you keep on doin' that rag (Grateful Dead, "Doin' That Rag")