Fw: BEER - chapters 7 and 8, notes and questions

Mark Kohut markekohut at yahoo.com
Mon Nov 11 14:21:50 CST 2013




On Monday, November 11, 2013 7:55 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
  
That " they don't do metaphysical" is, to me, a fine line about a self-chosen elimination of the possibility of Mystery in life...pure logical positivism...." The world is all that is the case".....
Pure American " pragmatists"----in the narrowest use of the word, which is pervasive. 

Sent from my iPad


On Nov 10, 2013, at 4:45 PM, Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:

> 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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> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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