V - 2 - Your answers questioned

[Robin Landseadel]

On Oct 12, 2010, at 6:12 AM, Robin Landseadel wrote:

Kurt Mondaugen is nothing more or less than a reflection of the young  
author's worst fears of what could happen if things just kept  
continued drifting in the same direction

On Oct 12, 2010, at 12:25 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

To own the power of feminine sexuality, fertility, beauty,nurture,  
mystery of birth, of continuity.  Men plotting to make the feminine  
serve some new, though as yet  unstated revolutionary adjustments of  
power. To hide Venus for awhile in the Judas tree to shamelessly  
connect again the goddess to betrayal, the age old scheme- Eve the  
culprit -and Eve the mother of a thorny exit from paradise.

On Oct 12, 2010, at 2:58 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> Right on, brother!
>
> A Poem and some analysis of it.
> http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/a_f/frost/gold.htm


And what is Colonialism, anyway? Look it up and you'll see the word's  
"Dominance" and "Exploitation" in there, the acknowledgment of an  
unequal relationship—tops 'n' bottoms. What is going on here at one of  
the outposts of what used to be Deutsch-Südwestafrika is S & M on a  
global scale.

I realize that citing a left-wing Witch may be considered hors  
concours, but what we have going on here, as background noise,  
constant as the sferics that surround them, is what Starhawk calls  
"Power Over." The exploitative nature of the relation between  
colonizer and colonized extends through all relationships. Of course,  
there's always the possibility that 'great minds think alike', that  
Deleuze 'n' Guattari, Norman O. Brown and Miriam Simos all look at the  
continuum of sexual relations from the strictly personal to the global  
because those thoughts were in the air, particularly among the Radical  
Left.

Here we are in the mirror time of South-West Africa, centered by a  
young German engineering student who doubtless will one day be an  
enthusiastic supporter of Adolph Hitler and most likely one of the  
select few at the design level of the A4. It's name will be vengeance,  
but we must ask -- Vengeance for what? Kreplach? Mutti's kiss just  
wasn't good enough?

On Oct 12, 2010, at 1:04 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:

> P. 234 "Tonight we enter a state of siege"...Cf. the line Life is a  
> State of
> Siege that occurs in  Against the Day...
>
> And, another party ala "Entropy", in which the outside world is sealed
> out..............

On Oct 12, 2010, at 6:34 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:

> Roony's party; Gory Gnahb's party; the party in Vineland of the bikers
> who took reds and became somnolent and that was basically the party...
>
> hey, are there any parties in IV?  (The whole thing is kind of a  
> party...)

The Belgian Casino? The Anubis? Doc Sportello's nervous system? -- the  
24/7 buffering of constant stone-age makes his nervous system a party  
onto itself.

On Oct 12, 2010, at 6:29 PM, Michael Bailey wrote:

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

Most important detail, the Hereros were the victim of the first mass  
genocide that just happened to be German, all that high-quality German  
technology you know. Interesting detail, the Hereros were one of those  
tribes where the homosexuals were usually assigned magical duties and  
treated openly as social equals. When the folks talk about what was  
happening back in 1904, that's what they're talking about. The Hereros  
were/still are herders of cattle, African Cowboys, as it were.  
Disputes over land rights -- Pynchon v. Sterns anybody? -- leads to  
stealing land, leading to wars, leading, ultimately, to genocide.

	Well, the whole thing started at 3 o’clock fast
	It was all over by quarter past
	I was down in the sewer with some little lover
	When I peeked out from a manhole cover
	Wondering who turned the lights on

Pynchon's got genocide on his mind, he's been focusing on handling  
doomsday devices as a gig, then sprinkles on the ambient paranoia of  
the scenes of the times and the company he kept, no question that  
"When did this start? Who started it?" would come to mind. The concept  
of "Karma" in Pynchon's books works at all sorts of different levels  
but most of the time it's in the usual California sense of "Whoa --  
bad Karma dude!" But Pynchon is always looking at the detritus, the  
waste left behind in the wake of war. I'm sure the slow dance between  
"The Waste Land" and the Waste Laws was on his mind when he started  
writing and never really left his thoughts as he grew up.

I've never delved all that hard into the specifics of this chapter  
before, but by the time I really got around to reading "V.", I had  
read and re-read Gravity's Rainbow a couple-two-three times so the  
character names had all become familiar. Reading it now, I see that  
the connections between this chapter and Gravity's Rainbow are much  
closer than I remembered, "Moundagen's Story" could have been shuffled  
into GR much as "Under the Rose" was slipped into "V."

	All right…However, I want to thank Mr. Guinzburg, Tom Guinzburg
	of the Viking Press, who has made it possible for you people to be
	here this evening to enjoy the Friction Citation – the Fiction  
Citation.
	Gravity’s Rainbow – a small contribution to a certain degree, since
	there are over three and a half billion people in the world today. 218
	million of them live in the United States which is a very, very small
	amount compared to those that are dying elsewhere…


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