No comment

[Mark Kohut]

Good one. 

Which word--Monopoly--- sets me up to post something actually quite
Pynchon-like---very Inherent Vicey---about Monopoly. 

Learned, I think, in a New Yorker piece, when i'll bet everyone
on this list was half their current age---or much, much less....

The Game was originally a free n' easy, street-played, public game
like jacks or stickball--played in Atlantic City and elsewhere, 
originated to put Henry George's econ theory into game form. 
The key idea was most fleshed-out in
Progress and Poverty and, over-simplifed, of course, could be 
put: Land (since they aren't making more of it) and its development
should bear the tax load to provide societal goods for all people
NOT by taxing foax, or goods, or services....but taxing the wealthy who will be
the ones to have Land, developed land for living or for their businesses, 
etc....

By driving other players of monopoly into bankruptcy, one was to see how owning
developed land was the means to 'destroy' one's fellow players, i.e. 
citizens.....

"Winning" the game was to show how lonely you were hoarding everything, you 
human loser. 


But Parker Brothers trademarked the game, standardized and boxed and sold
it AND created that story of the unemployed engineer in the depression who 
thought it up........

"Winning' in America is a difficult concept to turn on itself....


 


----- Original Message ----
From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Sat, January 15, 2011 8:38:10 AM
Subject: Re: No comment

Yeah, I guess after the Inherent Vice movie we'll have to face a Pynchon 
inspired Monopoly edition ...

On 13.01.2011 16:09, Mark Kohut wrote:
> GettingReviews Todd Rutherford
> by martin_eve
> When coffee meets Pynchon: Trystero Coffee was inspired by Thomas Pynchon's 
>book
> The Crying of... http://lat.ms/hlsycl via @latimesbooks
>
>
>
>
>