Beyond the zero

Sat Mar 1 10:17:32 CST 2014

Don't forget. We had no Wikipedia back in the day. You're not against the day, are you?

Who cares but you? Enjoy, talk, listen, disagree but maybe most, point. As Wittgenstein:
Often the only way to 'say' why a work of art IS art is to point and say "Look" Look at that!

First word of John Updike's first novel. That sensuous writer who loved Art, the painterly kind. 

On Saturday, March 1, 2014 10:43 AM, Doc Sportello <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:

Thanks Alice. I've resolved to read it like I do most any other novel, as you suggested, with a dictionary and Wikipedia handy. I went to the library yesterday to find the Weisenburger book but the only copy is at the central library, downtown, and I hate going downtown, especially in the rain.  
Coming back from the library I thought, "i could have spent all that time actually reading the book" 
On Mar 1, 2014 5:53 AM, "alice malice" <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:

Not sure what Companion you are looking for. There are several. You
>can access most of these, online, free, and a decent library will
>usually have copies, or, through library loan, get whatever you want.
>You could, of course, buy them used or new.  You might try the
>Pynchon-Notes too.
>
>A Companion's Companion:
>Illustrated Additions and Corrections to Steven Weisenburger's
>A Gravity's Rainbow Companion
>
>Donald F. Larsson
>Department of English, Minnesota State University, Mankato
>
>
>http://english2.mnsu.edu/larsson/grnotes.html
>
>Pynchon Wiki: Gravity's Rainbow
>
>
>
>http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
>
>I like Fowler.
>
>Another great Online Source:
>
>http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_gr.html
>
>I wouldn't mind an annotated GR. That would be nice. The companions,
>like J. Kerry Grant's very useful Companions, are not companions
>really, but compilations of critical approaches, or full length
>critical readings. As Pynchon was once the absolute darling of the
>academic madness that infected the academy and exhausted itself only
>recently,so much that calls itself a companion is hobby-horse.
>
>A good Dictionary, Wikipedia, these are far more useful to a first
>time reader. These, and of course, skill at reading imaginative
>literature. Something that is so often discounted by so many absurd
>mathematical and scientific readings of Pynchon.
>
>
>On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 5:14 PM, Doc Sportello <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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
>>
>>
>-
>Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20140301/b00c28aa/attachment.html>