The Feminization of American Culture: Ann Douglas: 9780374525583: Amazon.com: Books
Paul Mackin
mackin.paul at verizon.net
Sat Sep 29 11:48:41 CDT 2012
On 9/29/2012 12:26 PM, Bled Welder wrote:
> I know LA. You're not so old, Paul. Gods never die.
>
> Why does my front right tooth hurt?
There was a 50s British movie where the working class lass puzzling at
the mouth of the upper class twit whom she had just kissed asks, Am them
your own teeth.
P
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 9:19 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net
> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> On 9/29/2012 11:49 AM, Bled Welder wrote:
>> I would think that it does. One might almost go the way
>> of....how or why did Wallace end it, and certain gods live? On?
>>
>> Paul, am I hallucinating?
>>
>> Am I?
>>
>> Or I AM.
>
> Once as a child I sat through an I AM meeting. Theosophy. Back in
> the 30s. It was in an old residential hotel in downtown L.A.
> where my ancient Great Aunt and her husband lived. I think it was
> that building you still see in movies and TV with the Big Neon
> Sign on top. It seems so real.
>
>
> P
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 8:31 AM, Paul Mackin
>> <mackin.paul at verizon.net <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>
>> On 9/29/2012 11:19 AM, Keith Davis wrote:
>>> This discussion leads naturally to questions of P's
>>> substance use...
>>
>>
>> And the difference between alcohol and hallucinogenic substances.
>>
>> Alcohol can be hallucinogenic too but by that time you're so
>> far gone it doesn't matter.
>>
>>
>> P
>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 10:47 AM, Bled Welder
>>> <bledwelder at gmail.com <mailto:bledwelder at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I hate to break this to you, but the gods gave us booze.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 7:35 AM, Ian Livingston
>>> <igrlivingston at gmail.com
>>> <mailto:igrlivingston at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> "Whiskey don't make liars, it just makes fools
>>> So I didn't mean to say it, but I meant what I said"
>>> --James McMurtry
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 7:19 AM, Paul Mackin
>>> <mackin.paul at verizon.net
>>> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 9/29/2012 7:41 AM, alice wellintown wrote:
>>>
>>> The big three of the 30s and 40s,
>>> Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner were
>>> all heavy alcohol users. Was this
>>> mainly to fight inner demons, or was it
>>> integral to their creative powers?
>>> Their writing was so different. What
>>> were the common elements? Where was the
>>> "family resemblance"?
>>> (Wittgenstein)
>>>
>>> Looking back, from Wittgenstein, we might
>>> say that the idea, a family
>>> resemblance, is one that, if only when we
>>> look back, peep in the
>>> public record, open the old photo albums,
>>> watch those old home movies,
>>> generates memories and defeated desires,
>>> so Nihilism...
>>>
>>> and, like the phrase about family
>>> resemblance, American Nihilism,
>>> while not fathered by Nietzsche, looks a lot
>>> like the mustached
>>> European madman.
>>>
>>> We might also photoshop into the portrait,
>>> Mr Eliot, who is, after
>>> all, as much a part of this American
>>> generation of nihilists as the
>>> others, though he does find a dead tradition
>>> to bury his individual
>>> talents in.
>>>
>>> And there are lotz of others, though not as
>>> famous as these members of
>>> the family.
>>>
>>> But what kind of nihilism? There are so many
>>> in American fiction.
>>>
>>> And, we might say that Pynchon, with his
>>> early works, V., and Lot49,
>>> is much in the family; no conclusion or
>>> final illumination, no Joycean
>>> epiphany. The heart is darkness, the bomb is
>>> pushed from its precipice
>>> by the boys, the island burns, the beasty is
>>> in us and we are
>>> metaphysically and aesthetically lost;
>>> sometimes in the pun house,
>>> sometimes in the labyrinth, sometimes in the
>>> mundane stranger's
>>> murdering meaninglessness under the
>>> indifferent sun , sometimes in the
>>> grip of Them.
>>>
>>> Does Booze make this nihilism more intense,
>>> release the aesthetic from
>>> the metaphysical sickness unto death? Camus
>>> talked of suicide and
>>> rolling a stone; perhaps this is what the
>>> booze soaked nihilism
>>> afforded?
>>>
>>>
>>> I kind of think it might. For example Proust
>>> and Joyce weren't big drinkers, and both In
>>> Search of Lost Time and Ulysses ended quite
>>> affirmatively.
>>>
>>> I wonder if Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights) and
>>> Samuel Richardson (Clarissa) might not have
>>> taken a drop or two to get them into a darker
>>> view of things. They were quite the exceptions
>>> to their respective eras.
>>>
>>> On a personal note I've observed that watching
>>> the PBS nightly news in a semi alcoholic haze
>>> makes the very serious discussions appear
>>> slightly absurd.
>>>
>>> P
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> "Less than any man have I excuse for prejudice; and
>>> I feel for all creeds the warm sympathy of one who
>>> has come to learn that even the trust in reason is a
>>> precarious faith, and that we are all fragments of
>>> darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about
>>> the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the
>>> streets." -- Will Durant
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> www.innergroovemusic.com <http://www.innergroovemusic.com>
>>
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120929/3596c53d/attachment.html>
More information about the Pynchon-l
mailing list