"Bin Laden May Not Exist"

Mon Jun 23 07:53:17 CDT 2014

If we take Ernie's prognosis for the Internet seriously, shouldn't we also
take seriously the video from Reg and Eric (435-38)?

What earlier technology has given rise to such a large global cohort of
hackers, makers, Wikileakers, crypto-for-the-people advocates, et al? That
the greedheads and fearheads succeed in colonizing DeepArcher doesn't mean
there won't be more virtual communities; cyberspace, unlike the Earth's
geography, is infinitely extensible.

On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 7:36 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree with ya, Kai, that people have downplayed Bleeding Edge's
> concrete criticism of the Internet and the zero chance of its
> wholesale salvation at this point. For me, this is the novel's
> greatest strength and it hammers home my own thoughts in ways I hadn't
> imagined. It also hammers at stuff I disagree with, which you describe
> well. Pynchon's hammer is a late arrival. Best thing I took from
> Inherent Vice was a realisation that Pynchon can really overshoot the
> mark and leave this (at least) reader wholly disappointed, which is a
> great way into BE. I didn't expect to dig it after IV, and since
> Pynchon has hardly cultivated his garden of followers I imagine he
> hardly wants his readers to slavishly agree with anything his novels
> suggest. Thank fudge.
>
> While I ping-pong back and forth between Bleeding Edge's various
> assertions - and there's certainly a strong argument that both
> ambivalent and less-than are there in the book - I'm surprised that
> we've kept more cool than have cared here. All up for a restart.
>
> But why "Rest in Pussyness?" Banging your cock against your shield is
> a painful form of rhetoric.
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 8:55 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Kai restarts the BLEEDING EDGE read.
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> > On Jun 23, 2014, at 5:42 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > No, no, no ...
> >
> > There are two hot issues in Bleeding Edge that never got discussed
> > adequately. One is the Luddite perspective on the Internet which at the
> > novel's end becomes obvious in Ernie's historical excursion to the roots
> of
> > the Internet in the Cold War (pp. 417-420) and then in Eric's related
> > diagnosis:"We're being played, Maxi, and the game is fixed, and it won't
> end
> > till the Internet - the real one, the dream, the promise - is destroyed"
> (p.
> > 432). Do note that these utterances are not downplayed with irony.
> Actually
> > the opposite is the case. But nobody looks at them. This central aspect
> is
> > neglected with the same sense of embarrassment as the novel's
> construction
> > of 11 Sep ... "Foolish Pynchon, was this really necessary?!" Michiko
> > Kakutani has occupied your brains, folks. And you don't even realize it.
> > Bleeding Edge is not an anti-truther-satire. Not even in the case of
> March,
> > who is not a ridiculous yet a tragic character. And the arguments which
> > question the official version of the event come from a number of
> characters
> > in the book. Horst for example is neither hysteric nor an idiot. He
> > recognizes insider trade when he sees it because this competence is part
> of
> > his profession. So it is not at all clear - though formulations here like
> > "(t)he use of Conspiracy was examined" seem to suggest this - that
> Pynchon
> > shares the official version that the attacks came as surprise. The fact
> that
> > 11 Sep already played a role in Against the Day should make a detailed
> > analysis of its treatment in Bleeding Edge a must. But no, no, here this
> is
> > read as a merely atmospheric thriller ingredient, as if BE was fucking
> IV.
> > Same for the Luddite perspective on the Internet. "Uuh, Pynchon wants to
> > take away my toy, I rather ignore this ..." So instead of concretely
> > examining Pynchon overall major theme --- TECHNOLOGY & CONTROL - in this
> new
> > novel where we learn about the genesis of Cold War 2.0, you suckers write
> > about shelf warmers like 'Neo-Liberalism' and even 'Late-Capitalism'.
> Yeah,
> > how could one not call this a "fine job"?
> >
> > Rest in Pussyness!
> >
> > http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=1406&msg=180729&sort=date
> >
> > On 22.06.2014 17:17, Mark Kohut wrote:
> >
> > Well remembered and stated.
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > On Jun 22, 2014, at 10:03 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > I think we did a fine job with the political themes.  Neo-Liberalism
> > and Late-Capitalism were explored in depth. The use of Conspiracy was
> > examined. We discussed the family because it's impossible to ignore
> > the fact that Pynchon's politics are played out in his fictional
> > families.  In Bleeding Edge families have nice boys, good kids, given
> > a great education...who turn out to be Ice Monsters...families have
> > daughters they protect from the struggle they wage to keep their
> > neighborhoods, who, because of cultural and technological forces (Tube
> > & Co.) turn, not completely, but turn to power fascism....and so on.
> > We discussed this at some length. Unless I dreamed it.
> >
> >
> > OK, back to the game most Americans don't know is going down.
> >
> > Peace,
> >
> > Al
> >
> > On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 6:00 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > The interview sounds wrong to me in possibility and from the word '
> trendy'
> > on. It has been disavowed by Ms. Jackson.
> >
> > "Late capitalism" in BLEEDING EDGE has been discussed. And the usual
> > miscellany of other aspects, many of them 'political'. A key cultural (
> > embodied politics )aspect of BE is what made many plisters dislike it:
> pop
> > has totally won. Also pretty clear that money took NYC and in the way
> > novels write themselves larger than their literalness.....
> >
> > And the future awaits anyone on the paths less traveled now on the plist.
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> >
> > On Jun 22, 2014, at 3:01 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > What “Bleakhaus” couldn’t have known when he or she wrote this is that,
> > while Against the Day (2006) may touch on 9/11 symbolically, his 2013
> book
> > Bleeding Edge deals with it literally—it’s part of the book’s plot. <<
> >
> > Very true.
> >
> > Unfortunately neither reviewers nor plisters seem to be interested in
> > discussing the novel's construction of 11 Sep ... They discuss Bleeding
> Edge
> > as family novel and/or NYC novel. The basic political dimension of the
> plot
> > has not been analyzed by anyone so far.
> >
> > On 21.06.2014 21:22, Dave Monroe wrote:
> >
> >
> http://touch.dangerousminds.net/all/bin_laden_may_not_exist_did_thomas_pynchon_give_this_9_11_interview
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=nchon-l
> >
> >
> >
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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