The right preposition? (np)

[David Morris]

Oops!
Correction:
As "off," so "on?" Or as "above-on," so "below-off?"
(There is not much logic in the secondary pairings.  But both pairs are
spatial.)

On Sunday, September 21, 2014, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> As "off," so "on?" Or "above-on" vs "down-off?" We could do thi all night,
> right? Let's not.
> I don't think it matters where U R when U go there.  These are all Spatial.
>
> "To" implies, maybe, another dimension: Temporal.  "To" might mean
> simultaneity.  But simultaneity implies a parallel space in said time,
> right?
>
> Q:  What was the first thing Creation needed to create?
> A:  Space, for everything else to follow.  Then Time, so it could follow.
>
> David Morris
>
> On Sunday, September 21, 2014, Quizael <quizael at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','quizael at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>
>> Youre email was so long and I kept getting interrupted, for example I am
>> now on my way to Ikea against my will, but I think you mentioned being gay.
>> Which, I know how offensive this is, but I cant help it, ive always thought
>> you are gay.  But youre also the most brilliant contributor to this absurd
>> list, if that helps.
>>
>> Is "off" a presupposition?  I mean preposition.  Whats the difference,
>> jeez. Because really, one jerks off, not masturbate upon.  If youre jerking
>> off to an image, whether it be in ones head or on screen, same thing, then
>> it's to.  If you jerk off on, then to would have to be on something,
>> preferably a nice set of titties.  But it could be a quality set of balls
>> too.  And obviously, you can jerk off with someone, to something, on each
>> other.  Probably not while standing on line, though in some very specific
>> areas of this country you could.  Lets see, youre in Orlando, so probably
>> not, although there are probably dudes who jerk each other off standing on
>> line to watch Tiger Woods tee off. If im wrong and youre more to the east
>> coast, obviously everything is admissable on the east coast of Florida.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent on the new Sprint Network
>>
>>
>> -------- Original message --------
>> From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>> Date: 09/20/2014 10:38 PM (GMT-06:00)
>> To: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
>> Cc: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>, Qui Zael <quizael at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: The right preposition? (np)
>>
>> 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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