Bleeding Edge , riffs on the title

[John Bailey]

Began thinking about the "edges" in the book and the first we come
across is that title page image of the Flatiron Building, an iconic NY
landmark with a wedge- or axe-like aspect.

Why? Maybe just because it's so dang Noo Yawk, but maybe not... it's
not in the Upper West Side, for one!

Got me thinking about property in NY, about Monopoly, about the
Flatiron playing piece that was discontinued recently, and how all of
the playing pieces in Monopoly have traditionally been divided into
Plutes (top hat, racing car, etc) and Proles (wheelbarrow, iron etc).
I think this was noted on the P-list at the time.

The class aspect of real estate trafficking, its reduction to a flat
surface/game, the general loss of historical referent for that game,
and the quiet disappearing of one of the working class' few remaining
avatars. This all sounds apt.

So, yeah, the building photo might just be a place-setter but I'm
willing to entertain alternative possibilities.

On Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 1:43 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> At first I thought the reference in the title was obviously to 2 modern phrases with similar meanings- the cutting edge and the leading edge.  Somehow I just amalgamated that into a Detective style title with blood where the cutting was and didn't think much about it. But it is rather a sinister spin on the known phrases themselves. Cutting edge has somehow become a generic reference to the borders of technology and we use it that way without any real sense that something is actually being cut, let alone something that could bleed. But Pynchon has a long history of looking at the  very bloody cutting edges of  all colonialist and all technological front lines. Where there are blunderbusses, rockets, surveyors, trains, mining, drilling, doodoes, hereroes, native north americans, electrical marvels, photos killing souls ...there will be  greed, lust, fighting, blood and mangled bodies. I didn't know that leading edge is not just a similar term but also refers to the forward edge of a wing.
>
> So even in the title there may be a hint that the cutting edge and the leading edge may be the forward momentum of something dangerous to the soft flesh of the human, something destructive and possibly something self destructive.
>
> But then I started looking up terms in wikipedia and came across the phrase itself-
>
>  Wikipedia:  Bleeding edge technology is a category of technologies incorporating those so new that they could have a high risk of being unreliable and lead adopters to incur greater expense in order to make use of them.[1][2] The term bleeding edge was formed as an allusion to the similar terms "leading edge" and "cutting edge". It tends to imply even greater advancement, albeit at an increased risk of "metaphorically cutting until bleeding" because of the unreliability of the software or other technology.[3] The first documented example of this term being used dates to early 1983, when an unnamed banking executive was quoted to have used it in reference to Storage Technology Corporation.[4]
>
>     Obviously we are seeing the downside risk of internet technology threatening to become its most pervasive political and social character as Cheney's Total Information Awareness is started under Bush and secretly finished under Obama with much help and side benefits from google, verizon, apple, microsoft  hackers, etc.
>
> Wikipedia:  The leading edge is the part of the wing that first contacts the air;[1] alternatively it is the foremost edge of an airfoil section.[2] The first is an aerodynamic definition, the second a structural one. As an example of the distinction, during a tailslide, from an aerodynamic point-of-view, the trailing edge becomes the leading edge and vice-versa but from a structural point of view the leading edge remains unchanged.
>
>     ( This  aeronautic  meaning is clearly a use  pynchon would be familiar with. Along with the obvious reference to jet aircraft in the 9-11    attack It adds a reference to GR  that suggests we are not quite in the clear from colonialist blowback.)
>
> Wikipedia: Cutting edge or The Cutting Edge may refer to:
>         • The cutting surface of a blade or other cutting tool
>         • State of the art, the highest level of development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field
>
>    Interestingly, in the Margaret Atwood trilogy I just finished , the character who kills most of humanity with a bio-engineered disease packaged in a sex drug has a scene where he goes from one part of the bio-enngineering complex he manages to another constantly referring to the work taking place as cutting edge.
>
> The leading edge has taken on a more genaric spin-
>
> The Leading Edge:  Journal of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists.
>
>   And finally just for fun -here is an actual company who works in close alliance with the Golden Fang, Goldman Sachs, The Golden Triangle and wherever else the  shiny yellow gold is: Leading Edge Alliance: LEA Global
> www.leadingedgealliance.com/  A U.S. based international association of independently owned accounting and consulting firms whose services are listed as:
> ACCOUNTING & AUDITING,  BUSINESS ADVISORY,  CORPORATE FINANCE, EMPLOYEE BENEFIT SERVICES, ESTATE & EXECUTIVE FINANCIAL PLANNING, FINANCIAL PLANNING, HUMAN RESOURCES,  INFORMATION SECURITY, LITIGATION SUPPORT, RISK, TAX PLANNING & COMPLIANCE, TRANSACTION ADVISORY SERVICES, TRANSFER PRICING, VALUATION
>
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l