GR translation: demolition man

[Bled Welder]

You weird labrytine miracle people, who are you people?  Who am I?  May I
swim into your divine labrynth?

On Sun, Nov 11, 2012 at 2:00 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net>wrote:

>
> 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"?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20121111/f6b9a90c/attachment.html>