"Bin Laden May Not Exist"

Tue Jun 24 08:00:51 CDT 2014

And, yes, I do see moments of grace ( in the AtD meaning) in BE as in every work. 

Sent from my iPad

On Jun 24, 2014, at 6:05 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:

> So, Mark, is BE another "jeremiad against TV's corrosively negative
> influence on American public life" (McHale, Zapping on Vineland, in
> Constructing Postmodernism p.123)?
> 
> I don't think it is.
> 
> The irony is the thing. And the ontological plumbing, the
> pluralization of mediated family life. This critique is not focused on
> the corrupting power of the Tube, though we all seem in need of
> Tubal-detox, now mobile devices etc. Feed, but on the community and
> family, the core or heart of resistance, and how it fails against such
> overwhelming odds and how it might, perhaps, not succeed, but have
> moments of Grace.
> 
> On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 9:20 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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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