smoke-puffs - definition and meaning

[Markekohut]

Real. Artillery/guns were smokier then. 

Sent from my iPad

On May 19, 2013, at 5:36 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for taking the time to respond. That certainly is an interesting argument.  And I don't pretend to understand Pynchon better than anybody here, or anywhere, for that matter.  That's why I was asking in the first place.  In any case, this further complicates things.
> 
> So are you suggesting these are actual puffs of smoke from weapons discharge, or some metaphorical smoke-puffs acquired through the handling of ordnance?  Or something else entirely that I am not aware of?
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 10:16 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Actually, bored from my work editing, I am taking a break to pile on despite the estimable opinions of others, including yourself. 
>> 
>> I think that thinking of so,etching involving insignias is what occurs to many--most--readers in this scene. It is the word " sleeve" perhaps...
>> 
>> But then read it again and, maybe, yet again. Think of Pynchon's verbal precision, in all his work 
>> (Except, even I, great fanboy, will admit it flags  a bit in Against the Day) but especially think of the precision of every word in Gravity's  Rainbow. 
>> 
>> Ask yourself, Why, why would Pynchon, with military and weapons use meanings to the wonderfully compressed phrase Ordnance smoke-puffs be vaguely---that is key here; you said yourself you could find nothing as symbol, especially over a couple armies that " smoke puffs
>> Might refer to symbolically. Pynchon, like Shakespeare---learned to be precise with every perspective and metaphor. 
>> 
>> And I ask further, from someone who knows almost nothing about military insignia---purposely
>> Rejected that romanticising of war---( and I'm not even going to Wikipedia for this) ---but aren't they, one cannot help learning, full of bars, lines, angles, Predator birds like Eagles, stars, etc...
>> All of that angled linearity which Pynchon knows shows the narrowing of the curved, wavy, modulating, human folkways. such as natural boundaries, human-made paths and, in some natural way the curls of smoke? 
>> 
>> anyway, I will bet there are almost no symbols on soldiers' uniforms much like " smoke-puffs""
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> On May 19, 2013, at 3:50 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Well, seems clear to me that many/ most are all also the same kind of flickering smoke from military discharges....see esp My Early Life...shrapnel, etc...
>>> 
>>> I think your logical concern that there are all kind of different insignia coupled with the impossibility of them all flickering, to me rules  out that meaning.
>>> 
>>> So, I'll stop.
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPad
>>> 
>>> On May 19, 2013, at 1:40 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Well, I did see those.  But it seems clear to me that Pychon is not talking about the same thing as the others.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 9:27 PM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>>> See some examples here...
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>>> 
>>>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>> Date: May 18, 2013, 9:24:03 PM EDT
>>>>>> To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>>>>>> Subject: smoke-puffs - definition and meaning
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> http://www.wordnik.com/words/smoke-puffs
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sent from my iPad
> 
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