smoke-puffs - definition and meaning

[David Morris]

Cartoons, like this:

http://www.fordesigner.com/pic/zip/20091199474299977801.jpg

Sometime bomb smoke puffs are cartoons, prefacing the mushroom puff.

David Morris

On Sunday, May 19, 2013, Markekohut wrote:

> Ordnance refers to all kinds of military "stuff"....take Morris's bombs as
> real not insignia....
> I see an image of soldiers with smoke surrounding.....the smoke of war....
> But I dunno....I just can't imagine any ' smoke puffs" that are metaphoric
> or symbol insignias
> That would work here....
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On May 19, 2013, at 6:28 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Right.  But if they were real, shots must have just been fired, a lot of
> them even, which does not seem to be the case here.
>
>
> On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 6:11 PM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Maybe. But to me then they wouldn't be Ordnance smoke-puffs....
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On May 19, 2013, at 5:53 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> It has just occurred to me that it could be the "beer fumes" from the
> beers they are holding, puffs of water vapour that looks like smoke.
>
>
> On Sun, 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
>
>
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