BEER - chapters 7 and 8, notes and questions

[Thomas Eckhardt]

A few late notes and questions on chapters 7 to 8, hopefully not too 
redundant.

Chapter 7

p. 68:

Melanie's Mall - an (early?) example of pink horror for girls:

http://www.melaniesmall.50webs.com/Files/largemallscan.jpg

The site says MM was produced in 1995 and 1997 and then faded away. Was 
this huge? Was it the first of its kind?

Otis and Fiona invariably destroy the mall but the sympathies here seem 
to be with them and the action figures laying waste to the 'suburban 
idyll' (or perhaps these are only my sympathies). As with the yuppie 
shooter (p. 33-34), the make believe violence hurts no-one. Note that 
this is a different target: first Upper West Side yuppies, then a 
suburban mall.

As Monte pointed out, the destruction of the mall center (and for me 
especially the 'generic plastic bodies horizontal and disassembled 
everywhere') obliquely prefigures the catastrophe about to happen in the 
real world.

p. 70: "They (Justin and Lucas) don't do metaphysical." - interesting, 
in light of the scrying thread.

p. 71: third line from the bottom of the page: 'there might not much 
difference' - there seems to be something missing here, probably BE (no, 
I don't attach any significance to it).

p. 72: 'Who was less innocent here?' - the line between fuckers and 
fuckees blurring, as usual

'seed and angel money' - 'seed money', ok, looked it up, but what is 
'angel money'

p. 73: 'American greenhorns of a century ago venturing into the 
history-haunted Old World' - a nod to Henry James

p. 78: 'bleeding-edge technology' - first (only?) mention

Chapter 8

83: Pre-9/11-paranoia sets in heavily. First hawala, then: "'Something's 
up, (...) Maybe even something that's got to be stopped.'" "bankrolling 
something, something big and invisible---"

Hashslingrz, perhaps a front for a US-government secret service, seems 
to use hawala in order to provide secret funds to some entity in Dubai. 
It is implied that these funds may be used for the terrorist attacks on 
9/11. As Robin said, this is what is derisively called "truther" 
material. Of course, we will encounter a lot more of it later.

84: Maxine is already developing a crush on Eric, "sherpa of the Deep 
Web, faithful and maybe even cute".

86: Public Void Close - seems to be Java Script. What does it mean?

Much thanks to Monte and Robin.

Thomas




















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