Chabon on BE

[Fiona Shnapple]

You've left out a very important element: uncertainty, the hope that
almost anything might happen, even something magical, in religious
terms, a miracle, in P's Catholic tradition,  the real presence of G-d
in human affairs. The Romantic and Puritan belief in the divine
presence is anathema to the Enlightenment, but in Pynchon, doubt is
the essence of faith, of belief. The crackpot conspiracy theorists and
anarchists are not cut from the same cloth.

On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 6:56 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> But Pynchon's main point about all these Zones is their brief existence.
> Small temporary places beyond the reach of enslaving power.  Always to be
> briefly enjoyed before those spaces are colonized or reclaimed.
>
>
> On Sunday, October 20, 2013, Rich wrote:
>>
>> As I've said before Pynchon has left preterite somewheres
>>
>> On Oct 20, 2013, at 3:21 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> It is an analogy, and only one of many possible zones.  Not that I espouse
>> this kind of zonal paradise.  It just seems Pynchon repeated model.
>>
>> On Sunday, October 20, 2013, Rich wrote:
>>
>> But what good is it if only accessible by the well connected (haha)?
>>
>> Hardly a paradise, no?
>>
>> rich
>>
>> On Oct 20, 2013, at 2:22 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think DA is supposed to be internet Zone, anarchy, a place w/o rules or
>> rulers. Pynchon Paradise. What is it "for?"  Wrong question. What for do you
>> want to make it?
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Saturday, October 19, 2013, John Bailey wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, I'm a bit confused about DeepArcher too... as far as I can tell,
>> it's a program lodged in the deep web, which as you say is basically
>> the "place" where IP addresses aren't connected to DNS so won't show
>> up on any search engine, and you need a direct link or knowledge of
>> the specific IP address to access it.
>>
>> So that kind of makes sense - DeepArcher is a program with Second
>> Life-like aspects that can't be accessed unless you have the key. And
>> later on the security of the fortress is compromised, and then the
>> gates are just thrown open and it basically leaves the Deep Web and is
>> accessible from the surface.
>>
>> What I really don't get is what the *hell* the program is for. A
>> Second Life that only a handful of people can get into? And do what?
>> The descriptions of Maxine's early journeys around the place make it
>> seem like a point-and-click adventure game with no mystery to it or
>> reason to play further. Except it has stunning graphics, for the
>> era...
>>
>> At first I thought it was a navigation system for travelling through
>> the Deep Web but that doesn't really seem right, since it would
>> basically be a search engine with graphical interface for finding the
>> IP addresses of places that aren't meant to be findable. Which would
>> be exactly the thing that would pose a threat to the entire meaning of
>> the Deep Web, even if you could erase your footsteps the way DA
>> promises.
>>
>> Anyway, maybe that's the point - that this supposedly subversive
>> method of total anonymity itself provides the architecture for control
>> and surveillance and some sweet home shopping.
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 20, 2013 at 2:04 PM, Michael Bailey
>> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > On Oct 19, 2013 7:09 PM, "Monte Davis" <montedavis at verizon.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Chabon is careless there. Ernie's capsule history is not *historically*
>> >> baseless: yes, DARPA did fund some of the IT research leading to TCP/IP
>> >> and
>> >> packet switching. And yes, the Cold War justification for that funding
>> >> *was*
>> >> to develop a network technology that could "work around" servers
>> >> knocked
>> >> out
>> >> by enemy attack, so that government could keep communicating.
>> >>
>> >
>> > One of my other favorite authors, John Crowley, in _The Translator_
>> > made the female protagonist's dad a darpa dude and evoked those times
>> > wonderfully.
>> >
>> > If we were gonna get crazy and do a non-p group read like we did a few
>> > yrs
>> > back - I guess I finally thought of the one I'd suggest (-:
>> >
>> > But getting back to BE, I sort of have a question about this deep web
>> > where
>> > Deep Archer resides - does that correspond to anything nonfictional?  I
>> > mean
>> > are we talking about using a browser to navigate to some bare IP address
>> > known not to dns at all but only to the cognoscenti? Afaik there were
>> > bbses,
>> > ftp and gopher, and then all of a sudden there was yahoo and aol and
>> > urls
>> > but nowhere was there anything like deep archer which is sophisticated,
>> > ambiguous - nothing like the games I'm aware of - plus it's more and
>> > less
>> > than a game, possibly even a place that responds to users' emotional and
>> > spiritual states of mind and even a place where a person can be said to
>> > reside while accessing it.  Maybe a mmorpg or a Second Life type
>> > environment?
>> >
>> > A development of the angelic realms alluded to at the beginning of
>> > Vineland
>> > and the amazing things computers - the ideal readers with the ideal
>> > insomnia
>> > - can do with mere 1s and 0s by stringing enough of them together.
>> >
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l