Man in Hightower Netflix

Tue Dec 8 17:50:08 CST 2015

The quote you sent around about Benjamin's Arcades Project seems pretty
relevant here.

On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 4:50 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> As in my short follow-up Goethe quote, I say "No, In Thunder".
>
> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 5:26 PM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the quotes, guys. The latter half of the Geertz one is really
>> important. The novel erects a system of meaning that does not strive to be
>> true of or exactly mimetic of anything other than itself (that's kinda
>> slippery, I know...). It attempts not exactly to find and translate the
>> truth of the world but rather to just be one true thing, one true world
>> itself. Its gifts and insights are as much osmotic as they are cerebral.
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 4:22 PM, Steven Koteff <steviekoteff at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Kind of typing on the go but I feel like a lot of people hold to the
>>> view that something in the collective western consciousness changes in
>>> early to mid twentieth century (as literature they call modernism
>>> transitions to postmodernism). I mean a huge amount of academic brainpower
>>> is spent studying when and why that change happens. Obviously I have no
>>> idea but the art seems to be as good a record of that sort of thing as any.
>>> Gotta think war and weapons on the scale of both world wars but especially
>>> the latter (rockets, war suddenly becoming not only total or societally
>>> ubiquitous but atmospherically ubiquitous, physically/literally global)
>>> leads to a psyche that grows up profoundly different.
>>>
>>> I mean I feel like a lot of preceding centuries post-dark-ages lend to
>>> greater feelings of understanding toward the world, more feelings of
>>> control over it, maybe primarily: it feels more knowable and thus more
>>> controllable/utopiable. Renaissance. Ages of Reason/Enlightenment. Lots of
>>> good humanistic stuff in there. Then westward expansion, the new world, and
>>> (hugely) the industrial revolution all take this in horrifying new
>>> directions. There are other mixed things: the rise of globalism,
>>> journalism, the rise of the academy, scientific method, Freud... The
>>> machinery and logic involved in the horrors of the world wars, genocide, so
>>> forth, I think must have some rug-pulling effect on the human mind.
>>> Suddenly everything we've been working for/toward is revealed to have
>>> possibly been not only for nothing but for evil. Suddenly our belief that
>>> we can understand, control, improve the world, etc., is shown to be an
>>> utter fallacy. And for those of us who have built our lives on our faith in
>>> that notion--what do we have left? What can we really believe in?
>>>
>>> This is one of the things academics whiff on regarding what you might
>>> call postmodernism--how human it is. How much it's a desperate, rock-bottom
>>> response to the inability to trust or believe anything. We have food, we
>>> have ourselves, our communities, but what do we have to make sense of the
>>> world? The art, maybe. The world of the novel, the right novel, which makes
>>> no claim to objectivity, and which strives for no truth other than to
>>> itself, to the experience of itself...
>>>
>>> Sorry to ramble. I know I can get really wind-baggy.
>>>
>>> On Dec 8, 2015, at 2:07 PM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> The making sense of it, I'm wondering, for the less younger, when did
>>> that sense of friction reconciling the current events of childhood with the
>>> less triumphant view of it, like in GR, occur? I mean, for me there were no
>>> triumphs of society growing up. My generation was born into the same world,
>>> still pre-Internet, but post-Vietnam and political scandal and such. We
>>> were already stained. Or is my thinking flawed in that sense, that it was a
>>> more innocent (or just ignorant) time back then?
>>>
>>> On Tuesday, December 8, 2015, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> oops, that shoulda been "dream and nightmare" in the last sentence
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 1:32 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Perry: The dominant recent-history / current events memes of my 1950s
>>>>> and early 1960s childhood were, as you'd expect, mostly Cold War, post-WWII
>>>>> US triumphalism, and space. All became problematic as the 1960s went on,
>>>>> creating the perfect setup for GR as "where it all began" when I was 23.
>>>>> I've been unpacking them (and their successors) ever since, with Pynchon as
>>>>> constant reassurance that burlesque and pastiche, dream and pastiche, make
>>>>> more sense of it than the historians do.
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I don't doubt that a lot of the tradecraft in The Americans is
>>>>>> inspired by former spy consultants but at the end of the day, like all
>>>>>> historical dramas on the tube, it's pastiche. Doesn't mean it's a bad
>>>>>> thing, it's a good thing, would be boring otherwise. George Smiley though
>>>>>> makes the boring bits of espionage entertaining too and I like that. It's a
>>>>>> cut above I agree but even he is pastiche.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The meme thing Monte was talking about does make me wonder too. The
>>>>>> television news of my childhood plays back like the opening credits
>>>>>> montage. Big wall being hammered, princess being murdered, white Bronco
>>>>>> speeding on a highway, separatists being killed and buildings blowing up. I
>>>>>> was a junior in high school on 11 sep. I might not be remembering this very
>>>>>> accurately but I recall the adults being much more traumatized than me and
>>>>>> my peers that morning. Could just be that we were jaded teenagers, don't
>>>>>> know for sure.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Tuesday, December 8, 2015, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I do like the Americans, too. and I agree some plots seem
>>>>>>> far-fetched but when you hear about what went on/does go on in the
>>>>>>> intelligence community in real life you do wonder sometimes. both leads are
>>>>>>> wonderful.
>>>>>>> I would place George Smiley a cut above Bond and the rest. There's a
>>>>>>> new bio out on LeCarre which I hope to start soon. Knowing a bit more about
>>>>>>> places like Oxford and Cambridge really helped me understand alot about
>>>>>>> British intelligence during the Cold War and  the cast of rogues and odd
>>>>>>> ducks in LeCarre's books. The British series is of course peerless TV
>>>>>>> unlike the recent movie which was utter crap.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> rich
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I can tell you that myself and my friends who were born in the 80s
>>>>>>>> are well aware that The Americans is utter fiction. To me it's
>>>>>>>> like Bond or George Smiley.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, December 8, 2015, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I wonder about the demographics for The Americans -- i.e., how
>>>>>>>>> many 20- or 30-somethings are getting their "historical" view of the late
>>>>>>>>> Cold War from it? I'm thinking of meme complexes such as the Wild West,  or
>>>>>>>>> "Untouchables" crime in the Roaring Twenties (both quite limited and
>>>>>>>>> transient in fact, but huge in cultural weight)... or for that matter "24"
>>>>>>>>> and some other post-9/11 portrayals of the Global War on Something or Other.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I think I was paying attention in the 1980s -- and I don't
>>>>>>>>> remember 1% of The Americans level of espionage-related violence in and
>>>>>>>>> around Washington, DC. I thought the whole point of superpower empire was
>>>>>>>>> that we got to offshore the dirty work to Beirut, San Salvador, Kabul,
>>>>>>>>> Luanda, etc...?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 10:10 AM, Monte Davis <
>>>>>>>>> montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 9:49 AM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com
>>>>>>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Ooh that looks good and it reminds me. I also love the TV show
>>>>>>>>>>> The Americans. It's junk television and totally preposterous at times but
>>>>>>>>>>> very very entertaining.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Tuesday, December 8, 2015, Monte Davis <
>>>>>>>>>>> montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FppW5ml4vdw
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 9:10 AM, David Morris <
>>>>>>>>>>>> fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still
>>>>>>>>>>>>> babbling away about pig-iron and the overfulfilment of the Ninth Three-Year
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound
>>>>>>>>>>>>> that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked
>>>>>>>>>>>>> up by it, moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which
>>>>>>>>>>>>> the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of
>>>>>>>>>>>>> course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given
>>>>>>>>>>>>> moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any
>>>>>>>>>>>>> individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched
>>>>>>>>>>>>> everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire
>>>>>>>>>>>>> whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that
>>>>>>>>>>>>> became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was
>>>>>>>>>>>>> overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
>>>>>>>>>>>>> From *1984*
>>>>>>>>>>>>> <http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorSpecAlphaList.asp?BkNum=143>,
>>>>>>>>>>>>> by George Orwell
>>>>>>>>>>>>> <http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/AuthorTotalAlphaList.asp?AuNum=61>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> .
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Published by Unknown in 1948
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 3:23 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
>>>>>>>>>>>>> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> THE TUBE
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Oh ... the ... Tube!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's poi-soning your brain!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Oh yes....
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's dri-ving you, insane!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's shoot-ing rays, at you,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Over ev'ry-thing ya do,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It sees you in your bedroom,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> And --- on th' toi-let too!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>             Yoo Hoo! The
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tube....
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It knows your ev'ry thought,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hey, Boob, you thought you would-
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> T'n get caught ---
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> While you were sittin' there, starin' at "The
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Brady Bunch,"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Big fat computer jus'
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Had you for lunch, now Th'
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tube ---
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's plugged right in, to you!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> (Vineland, pp.336-337)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I'm watching too much TV too, but the thread simply asked for
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> this song. And isn't it amazing how Pynchon anticipated 'Smart-TV?'
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 08.12.2015 05:14, John Bailey wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> A lot of people are loving Mr Robot (which I haven't seen). In the
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Black Mirror vein I believe.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 2:31 PM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> And oh yeah I did like Breaking bad but that was another one whose ending
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> annoyed me. The penultimate episode worked better as an ending imo. They
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> filmed the first season in Albuquerque during my final year at UNM and my
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> compatriate played the bratty kid in the first episode so it was a mandatory
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> watch. Show got harder for me to watch after moving out of Albuquerque. Was
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> like becoming the outsider and seeing the city with a different perspective.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Was a dirty place for me and it became clearer when recognizing the
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> landmarks with a sufficient physical detachment from the place. I dunno, the
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> show felt really icky. Great show though overall.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Monday, December 7, 2015, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Breaking Bad was superb. I don't know Luther.  Is on Netflix or Amazon?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Monday, December 7, 2015, Allan Balliett <allan.balliett at gmail.com>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Perry - What about Luther ? Or The Wire? You didn't like True Detective?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Or the "recent" BBC Sherlock Holmes shows? I agree about Man in the High
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Castle. Too many of the binge tv series get sidetracked into unimportant
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> character stories. (Good to see that Luther is getting a second coming as an
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> American series. If its anything like the clip I saw on Late Night the other
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> night, it's going to be a good un.)
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -Allan in WV
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Mon, Dec 7, 2015 at 7:22 PM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> When it comes to teevee, sopranos and mad men spoiled me. Nothing else
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> has really satisfied me.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Monday, December 7, 2015, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I couldn't make it through the first episode.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Monday, December 7, 2015, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Ten episodes in, and just tolerating it. Way too slowly paced and full
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> of irrelevant personal drama interactions.  I haven't read the book, but I'm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> sure the plot is more important in the book than it is in this show.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> David Morris
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
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