BEER - chapters 7 and 8, notes and questions

[Fiona Shnapple]

Another great essay here:
Cultural Trauma and the "Timeless Burst": Pynchon's revision of
Nostaligia in Vineland.
By James Berger

The discussion of ghosts, again.
Back on BE 32 we see Fiona and a first person shooter. Yeah, so it is
trauma and catharsis. What haunts these kids? What or who haunts them?

On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 3:12 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I see the violent video game-playing as some kind of "corrupted catharsis",
> if that makes sense.
>      1) have you ever seen kids identify with the action heroes.......so,
> here I see P embodying their
>          adolescent 'rebellion' in the games...........
>      2) partly because THIS is a/the major way so many kids get to 'act out"
> aggression and
>          violence pervades our modern Western world....reminds me of the
> Chainsaw (and other) slasher
>          movies P noticed fro Vineland....
> In some way, no wonder violence comes.........
>
>
> On Sunday, November 10, 2013 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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