Re: GR translation: dithering between executioner’s silence and the Big Time

[David Morris]

Yes. Michael's take is better, though if the Anubis  really is humanity,
the The Big One/Big Time pairing does make sense.  But specifically here
the Big Time is paired with an Anubis Affair, an international debut.

On Monday, December 9, 2013, Michael Bailey wrote:

> I read it a little differently, as there's a bifurcation or alternation of
> events and attitudes on the part of those watching the Anubis.  We get the
> singling up of lines after the seduction of the Soviet guards, so they are
> sailing into Poland, right?
>
> And Those watching, aka They, are sending each other messages about the
> Anubis in plaintext one day, code the next.
>
> So rather than the executioner's silence and the Big Time being one thing,
> how about they are the 2 possible states of a finite-state machine!
>
> it seemed to me that They are dithering between just blowing up the little
> boat, letting it sink unnoticed, or letting it go until someone finds it
> and decides to very publicly object to its presence.
>
> The somebodies who will find it (or re-find it) will most likely be the
> Soviets, who run Poland, and they will loudly claim Anubis to be spies,
> capturing international headlines (thus the Big Time, as in, "the formerly
> insignificant little craft suddenly made the Big Time")
>
> They - which I take to be in GR in general the Allied military-industrial
> complex with complications, ramifications, in stereo, on steroids and with
> adenoids - are dithering between terminate-with-prejudice mode and watching
> for usefulness ("we may be able to turn this weirdness to Our purposes")
>
> Which is where the whole world stood even then in 1973 when GR came out,
> and, of course the author himself - this weirdness Gravity's Rainbow, will
> They let it continue and cause a stir or, well, we all know the kind of
> stuff They can do...
>
> Mutatis Mutandis, the Anubis is humanity itself, e.g. and the situation
> continues to this day: the Anubis, c'est moi!
> On Dec 9, 2013 1:25 AM, "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com<javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'fqmorris at gmail.com');>>
> wrote:
>
>> This is almost as difficult as your crackling towers question.
>>
>> Are you familiar with the phrase, "The Big One?"  It means the A-bomb.
>>  So the "Big Time" would be the time of the Big One's use.  The
>> "executioner's silence" would be what the person waiting for the order to
>> push the button experiences before the Big Time.
>>
>> On Sunday, December 8, 2013, Mike Jing wrote:
>>
>>> V489.27-38   How probable is the Anubis in this estuary tonight? Its
>>> schedule has lapsed, fashionably, unavoidably: it should have been through
>>> Swinemünde weeks ago, but the Vistula was under Soviet interdiction to the
>>> white ship. The Russians even had a guard posted on board for a while, till
>>> the Anubian ladies vamped them off long enough to single up all lines—and
>>> so the last long reprise of Polish homeland was on, across these
>>> water-meadows of the north, radio messages following them in clear one day
>>> and code the next, an early and shapeless situation, dithering between
>>> executioner’s silence and the Big Time. There are international reasons for
>>> an Anubis Affair right now, and also reasons against, and the arguments go
>>> on, too remote to gather, and orders are changed hour to hour.
>>>
>>> What does "the Big Time" imply here?
>>>
>>
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