"Bin Laden May Not Exist"

Mon Jun 23 20:20:00 CDT 2014

I see Ernie as correct in his Internet history and early Pynchon-paranoid in his prognosis. That prognosis may be right on--as he might have said--as well. Within it,  I see P's lifelong vision that the more complex, the more abstract, the more virtual I.e. not viscerally 'real' 
we are, the closer/sooner is the Step-function that is the apocalypse of History. 

Yet, in P's incredible balance beam of ambiguity, Ernie may be--in some contextual way IS--
An irrelevant old Lefty, even if right---his analogue may be Webb Traverse in some sense---and P's deepest vision of BE is embodied in Maxine ( of course) and the kids. 

Ernie is prosaic, literal TRP ( and friends like K. Sale?) out of their depths given death & the DEEP WEB and the future where mediated reality turns more and more into game-playing simulation that kills. 

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
> 
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