Beyond the zero

[Rich Clavey]

You go Doc. I am getting a big kick out of your enthusiasm. By dog, it's what this list needs right about now. And it will be interesting hearing from someone who read Pynchon's books from the opposite direction of the norm.
Zoyd.




________________________________
 From: Doc Sportello <coolwithdoc at gmail.com>
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>; pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2014 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: Beyond the zero
 


The first thing I thought of was the archer from Bleeding Edge and that area between coded and codeless. That's something I missed out on by not reading Gravity's Rainbow first. 


Another theme I've picked up on so far is this idea of a sort of collective power being a product of anarchy (I'm sure there's a better way to put that). The perfect bananas growing out of that disgusting compost and Slothrop and his messy desk. The evacuees being ushered out by mute guards in the dark reminded me of the funnel-like killing floors from ATD.

I'm enjoying the book so far. I wish I had a copy of that companion but I figure since people were hittin' it raw in the 70's I can too. I can go back and read all the analyses when I'm done with the book. At least I have you guys to talk to about it.




On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 5:31 AM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

So wonderfully brilliant of Pynchon to have it mean both infinity and negative infinity. That Empsonian "ambiguity" even here...and maybe a connective link w negative numbers in ATD?
>
>Sent from my iPhone
>
>
>On Feb 28, 2014, at 8:20 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> If you could get up high enough in the sky, then you'd see that some
>> rainbows continue below the horizon. That's because when the sun and
>> rain combine to make a rainbow, they really make a full-circle
>> rainbow. We can't see all of the circle, because the horizon blocks it
>> from our view. Pilots high in the sky do sometimes report seeing
>> genuine full-circle rainbows.
>>
>>
>>
>> http://www.weatherwizkids.com/weather-optical-illusions.htm
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 2:17 AM, Doc Sportello <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> I was just thinking of an upside down parabola that comes from negative inf
>>> on x and y whose vertex has a pos y value and therefore 2 roots so "beyond
>>> the zero" is infinity. You could also say negative infinity. In real life
>>> rockets go up and down in a parabola but they start and end at the surface
>>> of the earth. If you fire a rocket with a sufficient angle and speed then,
>>> like pirate and the gang from the beginning of the book, you won't hear an
>>> explosion because it would be falling indefinitely. Not that that's what's
>>> going on in the book.
>>>
>>> I should probably finish it first then think about all this
>>>
>>> On Feb 27, 2014 8:57 PM, "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> You already knew the answer, of course. But remember the graph as it
>>>> continues on and on beyond the zero, over and over.
>>>>
>>>> On Thursday, February 27, 2014, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> If the zero is the x horizon, and the trajectory starts at zero, when the
>>>>> path returns to zero, where does the math take it next?  The answer should
>>>>> be obvious.
>>>>>
>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thursday, February 27, 2014, Doc Sportello <coolwithdoc at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm only 20 pages in but I wanted to let it be known that I've begun,
>>>>>> which is not to say I'll finish, GR. I've been told that the title, among
>>>>>> countless other things, alludes to the trajectory of a rocket and the novel
>>>>>> itself. The "Beyond the Zero" epigraph to me invokes a graph of a negative
>>>>>> parabola that has two roots or zeros (I have a bachelors in Applied Math but
>>>>>> you don't need one to solve a polynomial). Anyway the von Braun quote brings
>>>>>> up the fact that the parabola doesn't end at the zeros but goes on to
>>>>>> infinity and it reminded me of Saturn via Keats "There is no death in all
>>>>>> the universe"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyhooz I'm sure you all have discussed it to death (there is no
>>>>>> death...) but to keep myself motivated I'll update you as I move along
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>-
>Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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