The right preposition? (np)

[Michael Bailey]

Well it's a downright silly debate, anyway. But you both made some really
good points.

A little Pynchon reference, to GR where I think in a Leni passage there's
the woman's frustration about the man's tendency to avoidance by going off
and masturbating, a passage written before much militant feminist prose
about the ability of women to go and do likewise, which found its way into
Vineland and BE to be sure...

Anyway I was basically just sharing my primal word-assignment, my langue
rather than parole...as in high school before I encountered much if any
prose or conversation about masturbation (first sighting in Summerhill by
AS Neill, I thought it meant mass psychology from the context, learned
differently when trying to use it in conversation) I had a night job
cleaning offices and spotted a pinup in somebody's cubicle and thought of
it as something one might go home, remember, and "masturbate on."

"To" is universally used, so this word choice is a form of queerness, a
deviation. The old idiom, "thinking on" something may be a cognate. In many
other respects my choices are far more conventional, but in this wee way,
at least, I have a solidarity with queerness.

If that is jacks or better for playing my queer card,
I want to relate my interest in exploring this difference to the Cyprian
character in AtD, as contextually it seems to me that Pynchon's own
predilection is manifestly not a gay one, though in GR he utilizes many
forms of queerness to shock, because that's the kind of book it is,
thoughtful, sure, but sensationalist... whereas the effort to incorporate
really quite a lot of Cyprian's reality eventually brings him into a
normative reality that includes his predilection but doesn't let him rest
in it. That is, he isn't brought in as condiment but as an entree, with
Pynchon sauce. Like Pynchon's women, he is presented as a best guess Terra
incognita. And fitted into a Pynchonian schema.

That is, he didn't simply find that he had a preference different to the
majority, but was led into it by an uncle. He's capable of love, but most
strongly loves Yashmeen. His old schoolmate Ratty holds out the prospect of
marriage jokingly as something to avoid, something like, "take care you
never meet up with my wife, she'll have you married off before you can
blink." So his milieu, and Pynchon, I think, relate to his queerness as
hetero gone astray (and jovially mocked while celebrated by Ratty, a way to
remain in a boys-only domain, or in another passage related to a different
schoolmate's fondness for a horse) - while recognizing his humanity, never
able to fully understand/grok/accept his choice. If choice it is.

The culmination of all this in the 3 way love scene I really don't think is
meant to shock. It's more like Reef, not any kind of deep thinker, wants to
include him and doesn't mind a bit of transgressiveness with his
"lawbreaking hands"- while Yashmeen, who is all kinds of deep thinker,
builds a place for him in her baby's creche.

That the place includes humiliation, and to affirm his place in it he
leaves wolldly life for monasticism indicates the holiness of procreation
in AtD - to be a part of fruitfulness and multiplying changes him along the
same lines as his compassion for the dude with the broken leg, and further!

The strong suggestion that it is specifically Cyprian's mouthful of Reef's
semen that fertilizes Yashmeen - who certainly cannot be wholly satisfied
with a rounder like Reef - or at least that it's Cyprian's contribution in
some way that completes the equation for her, makes her satisfied to bring
new life into the world makes me want to mention the role of celibate
priesthood.

Not in any offensive way, but as a development in a violent world where
people with emotional or physical damage --- or whose fancy led them in a
different direction for whatever reason -- might not want to raise children
but by a Tolstoyan accunulation of individual choices, developed a
different role in which monastic communities served as places to develop
new technology, agriculture, wine, books and the art of discourse.

That non-procreative sex might be a way for people to minister unto each
other (or themselves) is gently suggested by Cyprian to Reef when he offers
a role reversal, but Reef in refusing brings up the phantom honor and
Cyprian is not in a position to press the point.

However, in the cartoon I linked to, I was bemused by the idea of Reef as
knight and Cyprian as bishop, in that it did seem that Cyprian (whose
father regarded his lifestyle choice as a failed test...but an almost
inevitable one and not very tragic, quietly accepted like Frank's failure
to mate up with the Native American Estrella) accumulated experiences
leading him closer and closer to a religious role.

That it was the "insolent mouth" of Cyprian that piqued Yashmeen so,
reminds me of the many stories in Butler's Lives of the Saints where people
refuse marriage, refuse commands, refuse comfortable arrangements in order
to do something else which they consider worth dying for.

On Sep 18, 2014 12:02 AM, "David Morris" <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Also "while."  A temporal measure.
>
> Pynchon has forever made borders, definitions, language, his playground
for existential debate.  He likes his koans, (today called postmodern, but
yesterday called a consideration on reality) on as many levels as can be
included.  His aesthetics are expansive, and still knife sharp.
>
> David Morris
>
>
> On Wednesday, September 17, 2014, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Pre-position relative to some datum, a border between things? I think it
should mean a relationship, a state of position re. things/beings, with
their relative mental/spatial locations.
>>
>> I would  love a challenge for debate while on good weed, with bear hairs
sneeky-creeping up my butt crack.
>>
>> To, for, between, with.
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>> On Wednesday, September 17, 2014, Quizael <quizael at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Not that I dont greatly admire a full blooded masturbatory discussion
of certain propositional, or positional, erectile usages, sausages (no,
no), but my personal preference, or performance, is to assuage the de-bate
with drugs on a bear rug.  Then the tugs begun.
>>>
>>> I dont even know what a preposition is.  I suppose it presupposes
something.  Or pre-positions, something.  A line, say. Then you are in to
it, on it.  And by that I mean any number of lovelinesses that presuppose
there even being a bear rug.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Sent on the new Sprint Network
>>>
>>>
>>> -------- Original message --------
>>> From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>> Date: 09/17/2014 9:01 PM (GMT-06:00)
>>> To: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>>> Cc: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>> Subject: Re: The right preposition? (np)
>>>
>>> "On" implies physical touch. "To" implies a parallel, "along
with," more separate relation.
>>>
>>> "On" might be followed with "drugs," or "a bear rug."  Something
directly felt.
>>>
>>> "To" would be followed by "porn," or "music."  Something more cerebral,
less tactile.
>>>
>>> That's my take.
>>>
>>> David Morris
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wednesday, September 17, 2014, Michael Bailey <
michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Masturbating "to" something..I guess like dancing to a song.
>>>> The usage is nearly universal, I haven't seen any exceptions.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Even though there are so many pronouns.
>>>> Above, near, toward, on, inspired by, with thoughts of...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Just, I have always thought it should be "masturbating 'on' some
entity"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "To" is like, really overstating the case. The best you could honestly
say you are masturbating with respect to someone is "towards" - am I not
right?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Whereas "on" implies on as in on/off (the upstate downstate demon),
plus the connotation of something that is perpetrated but tolerated, as in
"getting horny on [someone]" also being affected by, as in getting "drunk
(so to speak) on the mere thought of you" or the Heart song "crazy on You",
as well as "getting it on"
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Like the difference between standing on line in New York City, and
standing in line anywhere else I've ever been, I guess it doesn't matter.
Or does it?
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