GR translation: demolition man

[Paul Mackin]

On 11/10/2012 3:53 PM, David Morris wrote:
> I missed your points about Khabala and naming powers.  Reversals are a 
> staple of many curse/hex systems. And naming is defining, controlling, 
> usually miserably.
>
> For Pynchon I think "perversion" is just "thinking.". In GR he likens 
> calculus and film as pornography, because they make a meta version of 
> reality that can be .  Perversion, right?  Fetishm is also a big 
> Pynchon theme.
>
> The solutions to all of the above problems, and the multitude of 
> others he mentions was proposed in GR's lab rat Buzby Berkeley 
> production. The rats lament that Earth's and all its inhabitants would 
> be fine if mankind could forget that each will die, and instead just 
> be.  That solution is embodied by Slothrup naked at the crossroad, at 
> the mandrake root power center, when he starts his disappearance, not 
> thinking, just being.
>
> That's the unobtainable solution, like his love of anarchy.  All 
> beyond the Rainbow.

Thinking is far from an ideal way of acquiring knowledge of the world.  
It would be better if we were omniscient.  Like God, say. No need for  
crude rationality.

Seems to me having no knowledge of death would just be one more 
pornography.  A pornography of ignorance.  It would be much like the 
pornography of capitalist expression (as Leni's circle view things).  It 
would promote an unwarranted contentment.  Not least of all a 
diminished  revolutionary resolve.

P

>
> David Morris
>
> On Saturday, November 10, 2012, Paul Mackin wrote:
>
>     On 11/10/2012 11:14 AM, David Morris wrote:
>>     I don't think Pynchon is valuing rational over superstitious.  GR
>>     takes the question of both quite seriously. And he also implies
>>     that both spring from an internal mechanism that is basic to
>>     human thought.
>
>     Yes, in this case the superstitious interpretation of the coffee
>     tin correctly announces Katje.
>
>     I guess I thought that, given the framework of Kabbalistic myth
>     and the expected inversion thereof,  I saw sympathetic magic,
>     based as it is on the assumption that a person or thing can be
>     supernaturally affected through its name or an object representing
>     it, as a perversion of testing Pudding's purity at the second
>     antechamber.  Of course the thing you have to put alongside is
>     that even the very purest in another person's religion is seen as
>     a superstition from the outside. So maybe we have a perversion of
>     a perversion.  Pudding correctly accessed  his fate but by impure
>     means.
>
>     Ad infinitum.
>
>     P
>
>
>
>
>>
>>     On Friday, November 9, 2012, Paul Mackin wrote:
>>
>>         On 11/8/2012 2:02 AM, jochen stremmel wrote:
>>
>>             I think what Pynchon refers to here is more general, not
>>             only in the
>>             context of WW II or the high and low contact. It's about
>>             "a repetition
>>             high and low", low like the malignant pun a filthy,
>>             mocking scoundrel
>>             might make and high like a sympathetic magic.
>>
>>             It's about playing with words and images, similes,
>>             metaphors. Like the
>>             demolition man and the Trembler he sees in a spoon
>>             between a glass and
>>             a plate, if he has to do the dishes.
>>
>>         Going beyond the specific examples, we might want also to
>>         note that this superstitious and magical thinking is meant to
>>         exemplify impurity, the opposite of what the second level is
>>         supposed to produce or demonstrate?
>>
>>         Thinking that contact of the spoon with the cup might produce
>>         an explosion--or that a coffee brand name by mere name
>>         association will bring forth a cruel lady--are pollutions of
>>         thought. (of course in this case there IS a cruel lady)
>>
>>         And outside the Kabbalistic framework, the interrelatedness
>>         of all things for the paranoiac is suggested.  To the
>>         paranoiac everything is connected.  At least in Pynchon. Not
>>         sure how that applied to Pudding, but still . . . .
>>
>>         P
>>
>>
>>             2012/11/7 Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>:
>>
>>                 Jochen is correct about “demolition man” in  general,
>>                 but in a WWII context
>>                 I think it means Explosive Ordnance Disposal,
>>                  someone who *disarms* bombs.
>>                 A “trembler” is a vibration-sensitive switch, its
>>                 central tongue (an
>>                 electrical contact) closing the circuit if it touches
>>                 either the “high”
>>                 contact above or the “low” contact beneath.
>>
>>
>>
>>                 From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org
>>                 [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
>>                 Of Mike Jing
>>                 Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2012 2:22 AM
>>                 To: Pynchon Mailing List
>>                 Subject: GR translation: demolition man
>>
>>
>>
>>                 P234.35-235.4  In the second antechamber is an empty
>>                 red tin that held
>>                 coffee. The brand name is Savarin. He understands
>>                 that it means to say
>>                 “Severin.” Oh, the filthy, the mocking scoundrel. . .
>>                 . But these are not
>>                 malignant puns against an intended sufferer so much
>>                 as a sympathetic magic,
>>                 a repetition high and low of some prevailing form
>>                 (as, for instance, no sane
>>                 demolition man at his evening dishwater will wash a
>>                 spoon between two cups,
>>                 or even between a glass and a plate, for fear of the
>>                 Trembler it implies . .
>>                 . because it’s a trembler-tongue he really holds,
>>                 poised between its two
>>                 fatal contacts, in fingers aching with having been so
>>                 suddenly reminded). .
>>                 . .
>>
>>                 What is the "demolition man" mentioned here?  Why the
>>                 fear of tremblers?
>>                 What is a trembler anyway?
>>
>>                 Also, what is the meaning of "high and low" in "a
>>                 repetition high and low"?
>>
>>
>


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