Rilke & Page 666 in my text ;-)

[Robin Landseadel]

		Yumsy-numsy 'n' poopsie-poo
		If I'm a degenerate, so are you. . . .

On Oct 22, 2010, at 2:01 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> Now that's on page 666! Transformation!


I pulled out my handy-dandy Kaptain Kabbalah Midnight Decoder ring,  
which decodes midnight -- no, no -- wait . . .

Actually it was my handy-dandy "A Gravity's Rainbow Companion",  
sec.ed. It has all cited pages of GR indexed by the pagination of  
three different editions, the original Viking QP -- "Quality  
Paperback, " but I'll bet your first thought was Qlippoth -- which has  
the same pagination as the first edition hardback. There's also the  
Bantam mass-market paperback, and the recent Penguin QP. I wish I had  
that Viking QP before me. You have no idea -- I have no idea -- how  
many copies of that low-cost doorstopper I've systematically  
destroyed. And yes, it's pretty much all there on the page, yet  
another demonstration of the World Turned Upside Down. There it is,  
right in front of your eyes, some sort of super-screwed Gnostic  
Nightmare of a new religion. I know a hunk of this has to be on page  
666 of the Viking . . .

		"Nobody lives here but us." A solid figure, a whispering silhouette,
	charcoal-colored, has materialized in Thanatz's path. "We do not harm
	visitors. But it would be better if you took another way."

		They are 175s-homosexual prison-camp inmates. They have come north
	from the Dora camp at Nordhausen, north till the land ended, and have  
set up
	an all-male community between this marsh and the Oder estuary.  
Ordinarily,
	this would be Thanatz's notion of paradise, except that none of the  
men can
	bear to be out of Dora -- Dora was home, and they are homesick. Their
	"liberation" was a banishment. So here in a new location they have  
made up a
	hypothetical SS chain of command-no longer restricted to what Destiny
	allotted then for jailers, they have now managed to come up with some  
really
	mean ass imaginary Nazi playmates, Schutzhaftlingsfuhrer to  
Blockfuhrer,
	and chosen an internal hierarchy for themselves too: Lager and  
Blockaltester,
	Kapo, Vorarbeiter, Stubendienst, Laufer (who is a runner or  
messenger, but
	also happens to be the German name for a chess bishop ... if you have  
seen
	him, running across the wet meadows in very early morning, with his red
	vestments furling and fluttering darkened almost to tree-bark color  
among the
	watery downs, you will have some notion of his real purpose here  
inside the
	community-he is carrier of holy strategies, memoranda of conscience,  
and
	when he approaches over the reedy flats of morning you are taken by  
your
	bowed nape and brushed with the sidebands of a Great Moment-for the
	Laufer is the most sacred here, it is he who takes messages out to the
	ruinous interface between the visible Lager and the invisible SS).

		At the top of the complex is Schutzhaftlingsfuhrer Blicero. The name  
has
	found its way this far east, as if carrying on the man's retreat for  
him, past the
	last stand in the Liineburg Heath. He is the Zone's worst specter. He  
is
	malignant, he pervades the lengthening summer nights. Like a cankered  
root
	he is changing, growing toward winter, growing whiter, toward the  
idleness
	and the famine. Who else could the 175s have chosen for their very  
highest
	oppressor? His power is absolute. And don't think he isn't really  
waiting, out
	by the shelled and rusty gasworks, under the winding staircases,  
behind the
	tanks and towers, waiting for the dawn's first carmine-skirted runner  
with news
	of how the night went. The night is his dearest interest, so he must  
be told.

		This phantom SS command here is based not so much on the one the
	prisoners knew at Dora as on what they inferred to be the  
Rocketstructure
	next door at the Mittelwerke. The A4/ in its way, was also concealed  
behind
	an uncrossable wall that separated real pain and terror from summoned
	deliverer. Weissmann/Blicero's presence crossed the wall, warping,  
shivering
	into the fetid bunkrooms, with the same reach toward another shape as  
words
	trying to make their way through dreams. What the 175s heard from  
their real
	SS guards there was enough to elevate Weissmann on the spot-they, his  
own
	brother-elite, didn't know what this man was up to. When prisoners  
came in
	earshot, the guards stopped whispering. But their fear kept echoing:  
fear not
	of Weissmann personally, but of the time itself, a time so desperate  
that he
	could now move through the Mittelwerke as if he owned it, a time  
which was
	granting him a power different from that of Auschwitz or Buchenwald,  
a power
	they couldn't have borne themselves ....

		On hearing the name of Blicero now, Thanatz's asshole tightens a  
notch.
	Not that he thinks the name was planted here or anything. Paranoia is  
not a
	major problem for Thanatz. What does bother him is being reminded at  
all-
	reminded that he's had no word, since the noon oil the Heath when 00000
	was fired, of Blicero's status-alive or dead, powerlord or fugitive.  
He isn't sure
	which he prefers. As long as the Anubis kept moving, there was no  
need to
	choose: the memory could have been left so far behind that one day its
	"reality" wouldn't matter any more. Of course it happened. Of course  
it didn't
	happen.

		"We think he's out there," the town spokesman is telling Thanatz,  
"alive
	and on the run. Now and then we hear something-it could fit Blicero  
easily
	enough. So we wait. He will find us. He has a prefabricated power  
base here,
	waiting for him."

		"What if he doesn't stay?" pure meanness, "what if he laughs at you,  
and
	passes by?"

		"Then I can't explain," the other beginning to step backward, back out
	into the rain, "it's a matter of faith."

		Thanatz, who has sworn that he will never seek out Blicero again, not
	after the 00000, feels the flat of terror's blade. "Who is your  
runner?" he cries.

		"Go yourself," a filtered whisper. "Where?"

		"The gasworks."

		"But I have a message for--"

		"Take it yourself .... " 	

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

		Where do rumors come from ? Usually, the origin of a rumor is a
	mystery. Studies have been made on this subject, but there seems to be
	no explanation for the fact that the same rumor will suddenly and
	simultaneously appear in wildly separated areas
		A case in point is that story that "happened" in several places when
	automatic transmissions were introduced. There was this fellow with a  
new
	car with hydramatic drive who couldn't get it started. He flagged  
down a
	woman driver and asked if she would give him a push so he could get the
	motor going. He explained to her that she would have to push him at 35
	mph before his engine would turn over fast enough for ignition. The  
woman
	backs down the street about half a block, and with a running start  
she piles
	into the rear end of his new car at 35 mph. Remember that one?
		Some rumors are downright cruel and seem to be perpetuated by a
	relentless sadistic force. A story that has been labeled a "cruel  
hoax" by
	the Better Business Bureau, makes the rounds yearly. . . .to the  
effect that
	if smokers save the colored cellophane ribbons from cigarette packs and
	turn a stipulated amount of them in to a certain (usually unnamed)  
agency,
	the cigarette company will supply a seeing eye dog to a blind person.  
This
	malicious rumor is a lie. . . .but in spite of the fact that the  
national and
	local Better Business Bureaus continually fight the story, women's  
clubs all
	over the United States are still being hoodwinked into collecting  
cellophane
	ribbons.
	Bomarc News Services (BSN 31: 3)

On Oct 22, 2010, at 2:01 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> Blicero's reading of Rilke is so warped that he  takes his
> mission as "transformation" of Earth into the Kingdom of
> Death. He longs, Weissmann longs, but he longs to part with
> humanity and nature. He will become the apotheosis of
> gnostic alchemy, a cult that seeks nothing less than a
> surrogate order that will dominate natural cycles through
> artifice and stasis. The term transformation, I'm sure,
> caused the hair on the back of those readers familiar enough
> with Rilke's use of this term back in 1973 that several
> early reviews of the novel claimed that the most important
> cultural figure in Gravity's Rainbow was Rainer Maria Rilke
> and that the book could be read as a serio-comic variation
> on Rilke's Duino Elegies and their German Romantic echoes in
> Nazi culture.  Weissmann's transformation is infrahuman,
> demonic, a Qlippoth in gnostic terms.  In fact, Enzian, who
> speculates that Blicero has become a "fabulous monster",
> explicitly connects his fate with the gnostic hierarchy.
> Enzian says, "If he is alive," he may have changed by now
> past our recognition. We could have driven under him in the
> sky today and never seen. Whatever happened at the end, he
> has transcended. Even if he's only dead. He's gone beyond
> his pain, his sin-driven deep into Their province, into
> control, synthesis and control [GR.660-61]. These terms
> (synthesis and control) are exactly those used by the ghost
> of Walter Rathenau to describe the gnostic principles that
> actually drive history, as opposed to surface illusions of
> cause and effect.  As an adherent to the Cartel, Blicero
> joins in encouraging the proliferation of "structures
> favoring Death." Look high, Death, death which is a
> pornography, Death which impersonates life. One of the
> reasons I insisted on the LSD as chemistry of METAPHYSICAL
> control, determinism during GRGR is that in GR the stakes
> are high. The Faustian Quest is for Earth's HOLY GRAIL, HER
> VIRGINITY and PROCREATIVE MYSTERY, and the Jive Ass
> Mother-Fucker's Formula for  SIN is Control  of the secrets
> in "the hearts of certain molecules" that will give them
> Power to synthesize an alternative to natural processes of
> Life itself  and to control the unfolding of all events,
> thus fulfilling the gnostic nightmare of stasis and
> omnipotence. It is this gnosis that has enabled Blicero to
> lose his last vestiges of moral responsibility in the
> transcendental labyrinths of control. The result of this
> divestiture is an aura of absolute and disembodied
> evil, of Qlippoth spirituality, that causes the band of
> homosexual prisoners-the "175'S" from the Dora camp-to
> choose Blicero as the head of an "invisible SS" that will
> carry beyond earthly bounds the principles of Nazi
> oppression: "He is the Zone's worst specter. He is
> malignant, he pervades the lengthening summer nights. Like a
> cankered root he is changing, growing toward winter, growing
> whiter, toward the idleness and the famine. ...His power is
> absolute. "
>
> Now that's on page 666! Transformation!
>
>
>
> March 11, 1973
> One of the Longest, Most Difficult, Most Ambitious Novels in Years
> By RICHARD LOCKE
> Gravity's Rainbow By Thomas Pynchon
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-rainbow.html