BEER Ch. 5 "Korobushka"

Thu Oct 24 14:58:13 CDT 2013

"From some distant cubicle comes a tinny electronic melody Maxine
recognizes as 'Korobushka,' the anthem of nineties workplace
fecklessness, playing faster and faster and accompanied by screams of
anxiety."  (BE, Ch. 5, p. 43)

"sinister and labyrinthine"

...

"Steelcase screens and Herman Miller work-pods"

http://store.steelcase.com/products/groupwork-mobile-screen/
http://store.steelcase.com/products/functional-screen/

http://www.hermanmiller.com/products/workspaces/individual-workstations/resolve-system.html
http://www.hermanmiller.com/products/workspaces/individual-workstations/action-office-system.html

"Korobushka"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD1k_b4KsQ8

Traditional Russian song used as a musical track on Tetris. Pynchon
also referenced Tetris in Against the Day

http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5#Page_43
http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_119-148#Page_123

"shades of office layabouts"

Cf. http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_9#Page_173 ?

"plaintive folk tune"

Any connection to the passage from page 1 of The Crying of Lot 49 that
mentions "a dry, disconsolate tune from the fourth movement of the
Bartok Concerto for Orchestra"?

    I doubt it. Pynchon is pretty well-versed in classical music, and
"plaintive folk tune" clearly refers, as noted, to the Korobushka.

I see a slight connection, maybe not even intended by Pynchon, but one
that can still be made. With Korobushka, Tetris and the "plaintive
folk tune," you have the linking of something garish, a video game
theme song, "the anthem of nineties workplace fecklessness" with
something more soulful. The fourth movement of the Bartok Concerto
enacts something like this. From an online program guide to the
Concerto: The fourth movement ("Interrupted Intermezzo") plays with
clichés of "innocent" folk music, while the rude "interruption" is
often claimed to represent Shostakovich, whose Seventh Symphony (the
"Leningrad") had recently become a popular rallying cry of resistance
to the invading Germans. (The music that is allegedly being parodied
was itself intended by Shostakovich as a savage parody of the forces
of totalitarianism). Other interpretations, however, have challenged
that longstanding view of Bartók's intent.

http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5#Page_43

"half-lotus"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_position

"nerd glasses"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd#Etymology

"A peculiar acid-green plastic case"

?

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=120718

The possibility of co-option is inherent in the way Pynchon constructs
his critique. He can create color within his text only by naming it,
and he can name it only by classifying it as distinct and identifiable
hues. Similarly, we can participate in Pynchon's creation of color
only by decoding his color names, which implies that both reader and
author are implicated in reducing the rainbow's "endless streaming" to
the distinct hues of Newton's spectrum. At the same time, Pynchon's
color coding achieves its force because it utilizes Newton's rules for
color combination and refraction to creat precise transformations that
connect the color names with such far-reaching themes as racism, the
link between the dye and munitions industry, and the effect of
synthetic chemicals and drugs upon the fragmented consciousness that
they both create and control. As the color names become linked with
these thematic concerns, a pervasive ambiguity arises: are Pynchon's
acts of naming colors an escape from routinization, or an extension of
"Their" totalizing patterns?

http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Coloring_Gravity%27s_Rainbow

COLOR

eye-catching yllow, 6; acid-green, 43; electric green, 112; vivid
turnip purple, 120; indigo, 125; salmon spot, 152; "big blue eyes"
154; burnt orange and electric orchid, 155; sickly green metallic
shade, 173; acid-orange flames, 196; lurid yellow tinge, 198; pale
rasberry shirt, 200; handkerchief in deep orchid, 200; bronze-colored
cames (a came is a slender grooved lead bar used to hold together the
panes in stained glass or latticework windows), 204; verdigris (the
common name for a green pigment obtained through the application of
acetic acid to copper plates or the natural patina formed when copper,
brass or bronze is weathered and exposed to air or seawater over a
period of time), 204; wintry gray, 204; strange rarified greenish
blue, 205; red and green LEDs, 207; neon aqua, 220; indigo lighting,
221; tangerine shade 232; faded poison green, 241; "a subdued
aubergine shade" 255; "unfamiliar color processes" 259; "blue-green
mold" 259; fuschia and optical green, 275; "deep amber and Czarist
red" 280;

http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C

"'56K's a awesome speed'"

A 56k modem is a voiceband modem nominally capable of download speeds
up to 56 kbit/s (56,000 bits per second). In the late 1990s, they were
the most popular access method for personal Internet usage, but their
use has declined in the developed world as broadband Internet
technologies such as DSL and cable Internet access, along with mobile
data services such as 4G, have been more widely adopted and made
available. In other parts of the world, ad hoc wireless networks are
being more widely deployed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/56_kbit/s_modem

The upload speed is 33.6 kbit/s if an analog voiceband modem is used
(V.90), or 48.0 kbit/s using a digital modem (V.92). Due to the design
of public telecommunications networks, higher speed dialup modems are
unlikely to ever appear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/56_kbit/s_modem#Speed

"RS232 shit"

An RS-232 serial port was once a standard feature of a personal
computer, used for connections to modems, printers, mice, data
storage, uninterruptible power supplies, and other peripheral devices.
However, the low transmission speed, large voltage swing, and large
standard connectors motivated development of the Universal Serial Bus,
which has displaced RS-232 from most of its peripheral interface
roles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-232

Zorba the Greek (1964)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057831/

A while later, Madame Hortense, who apparently has contracted
pneumonia, is seen on her deathbed. Zorba stays by her side, along
with Basil. Meanwhile, word gets round that "the foreigner" is dying,
and that since she has no heirs, the State will take all her
possessions and money. The desperately poor villagers crowd around her
hotel, impatiently waiting for her demise so they can steal her
belongings. As two old ladies enter her room and gaze expectantly at
her, other women try to enter, but Zorba manages to fight them off. In
an instant of her death, the women re-enter Madame Hortense's bedroom
en masse to steal her most valued possessions. Zorba leaves with a
sigh, as the hotel is ransacked and stripped bare by the shrieking and
excited villagers. When Zorba returns to Madame Hortense's bedroom,
the entire room is stripped bare apart from her bed (where she lies)
and the bird in her birdcage. Zorba takes the birdcage with him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorba_the_Greek_%28film%29#Plot

"'the li'l goombas of Web design'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop-up_ad

a reference to Super Mario Bros.

http://www.mariowiki.com/goomba
http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5#Page_45
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l