(In)Convenience
David Morris
fqmorris at gmail.com
Thu Feb 19 21:29:47 CST 2015
Of course a more sarcastic play on inconvenience would include ANY
obstacles to one's pleasure.
On Thursday, February 19, 2015, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> The root meaning is simple. Convenience is that situation, or object, or
> ? which is easy, that which works without work.
>
> Inconvenience would be therefore any obstacle to laziness. A more active
> or serious obstacle would warrant a harsher term.
> *Convenience*Etymology
>
> From Middle English <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_language>
> *convenient <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/convenient#Middle_English>*,
> from Latin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_language> *conveniens
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/conveniens#Latin>* (“fit, suitable,
> convenient”), present participle of *convenire
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/convenire>* (“to come together, suit”);
> see convene <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/convene> and compare covenant
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/covenant>.
> Pronunciation
>
> - Audio (US)
> (file <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/File:en-us-convenient.ogg>)
>
> Adjective
>
> *convenient* (*comparative
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary#comparable>* *more
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/more#English> convenient*, *superlative
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary#comparable>* *most
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/most#English> convenient*)
>
> 1. Of or pertaining to convenience
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/convenience>; simple
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/simple>; easy
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/easy>; expedient
> <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/expedient>.*Fast food might
> be convenient, but it's also very unhealthy.*
>
> Antonyms
>
> - inconvenient <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/inconvenient>
>
> Related terms
>
> - convene <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/convene>
> - convenience <http://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/convenience>
>
> Translations
>
> On Thursday, February 19, 2015, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','bekker2 at icloud.com');>> wrote:
>
>> I’ve got 14 uses of the word “inconvenience/ Inconvenience” within Mason
>> & Dixon coming up - Page 28 is the ship HMS “Inconvenience,” which I think
>> was mentioned prior. The others may or may not have anything at all to do
>> with AtD.
>>
>> Pages - 28, 53, 57, 103, 241, 325, 370, 395, 408, 585, 609, 628, 679
>> and 741.
>>
>>
>>
>> 53 - “… but for the inconvenience of it”
>> 57 - “… though not without Inconvenience,” (italicized) - this is the
>> major one -
>> 103 - “… T’was Inconvenience which provided the recurring Motrix…”
>> 241 - “… inconvenienced”
>> 325 - “… too soon will equal Inconvenience befall …
>> 370 - “… to recite his Iliad of Inconvenience.”
>> 395 - “… no longer minor Inconveniences”
>> 408 - “… past the Inconveniences of New-York.”
>> 585 - “… any pretext, any least scent of Inconvenience, will do.”
>> 609 - “… the mildest of inconveniences - "
>> 628 - “… in their early Careers an Inconvenience, ”
>> 679 - “… and you are the minor inconvenience from which…
>> 741 - “...fought with peril and inconvenience from armed bands of
>> Vegetable …”
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Feb 18, 2015, at 12:51 PM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
>> >
>> > The Transit seems to me to be one of those occurrences (treated here
>> almost like a very miniature Civil War, followed by a quick Reconstruction,
>> etc...) of disturbance, like when a kicked anthill goes chaotic for a
>> minute (the whole world of Gravity's Rainbow?). The Colony soon enough
>> finds its form, but it's never quite the same, somehow.
>> >
>> > I get the sense here of a White colonial world so suspended between
>> science and religion that even the gradual supplanting of God by Science is
>> seen in religious terms, as something grand and awesome to behold. To see
>> the light of Venus cast a shadow, so become corporeal like us, if only for
>> a short time every long time... with one's own eyes, through the
>> cooperative magic of Science... I think the same awe is there; it's being
>> transferred (or Converted, yes! Like energy!) to Science.
>> >
>> > How's about the idea that the name Tenebrae, to a Christian of the
>> period, familiar with the ritual extinguishing of candles during Holy Week,
>> might imply a 'light-into-shadow' sort of thing? A Venus, transitting...
>> thing?
>> >
>> > Or (for something really insubstantial), did anyone else get the sense
>> from the last paragraph of chapter 10 that we were being loosely visited by
>> the skyship Inconvenience? The subject matter (Aunt Euphrenia's saucy
>> stories of harems among the Domes and Minarets); the fact that
>> Inconvenience is mentioned by name, as an entity, as the substance of her
>> exploits; and even the shape and tone of the thing (the whole Perils of
>> Euphrenia thing feels way more 1900 than 1760 to me...)...
>> >
>> > As to the meditation, I don't think Mason ever gets anywhere near
>> Quiet, and I think Dixon shows himself to be just a little full of sh*t in
>> this regard, and not quite as spiritually groovy as he'd have us believe.
>> I think they both behave like Us.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Feb 18, 2015, at 10:56 AM, Becky Lindroos wrote:
>> >
>> >> Again:
>> >> Chapter 10 -
>> >> P. 100 (in Kindle)
>> >>
>> >> ** After a few weeks to regroup from the “Catastrophe of the Passions”
>> (p. 99) things go back to “normal” and some young writers show up at False
>> Bay but without enough money to draw the interest of the Vroom sisters -
>> but plenty to get Johanna’s attention for Austra (or someone).
>> >> False Bay - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Bay
>> >>
>> >> ** Johanna is "Monomaniackal in her Pursuit” - like Ahab seeking the
>> Great White Whale? And Austra along to help pick a “Sprig.” (Like a
>> sprig of thyme.)
>> >> From
>> http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_10:_94-104#Page_100
>> >>
>> >> ** Mason - “… had the Town undergone some Conversion? Had I, without
>> knowing it?" and that reminds Dixon of John Wesley at New Castle. —
>> >>
>> >> ** John Wesley, founder of Methodism. The scene on following page
>> relates that Wesley tried to come up with a "method" to where anyone could
>> understand and reach an experience providing them with the truth of his own
>> religious experience and awakening.
>> >>
>> http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_10:_94-104#Page_100
>> >>
>> >> photos and text re Wesley’s New Castle:
>> >> http://ukwells.org/locations/displaylocations/2116
>> >>
>> >> Dixon "remembers” that Harry Clasper out-keel’d the Lad from
>> Hetton-le-Hole -
>> >>
>> http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_10:_94-104#Page_101
>> >>
>> >> Harry Clasper wasn’t even born when Dixon was relating this to Mason -
>> nor when Cherrycoke is retelling it. The question becomes:
>> >>
>> >> 1. If the narrator is Cherrycoke - how can Dixon or Cherrycoke
>> remember or even know about something which does not even happen for maybe
>> up to a century later? It would be like Cherrycoke deciding to reminisce
>> about the first time he saw an electric light bulb (patented in 1879).
>> >>
>> >> 2. Is there yet another narrator - one existing after 1812 (when
>> Clasper was born) ? - But he’s having Dixon say this nonsense so it’s
>> totally unreliable. (Perhaps he’s from an ”other world.” - next chapter).
>> >>
>> >> 3. In any case, this would be a truly “omniscient” narrator (lol)
>> but still - he’s having Dixon say it so it’s not relevant how “omniscient”
>> the narrator or the character is if the substance is inaccurate and
>> therefore unreliable.
>> >>
>> >> Bottom line, imo, this anachronism was deliberately placed.
>> (*Unless TRP simply missed by a century and then it’s authorial error -
>> which DOES happen, but usually only in 1st editions.) So as an
>> anachronism why is it there? - To further underscore how history is a
>> mess of an infinite number of tangled threads (lines?) including some with
>> unreliable narration as well as the reader (“Pynchon” - or model author -
>> making research errors) putting his own ideas into the subject and relating
>> them.
>> >>
>> >> *********
>> >> ** Then Dixon compares the changes brought by the Transit of Venus:
>> >>
>> >> “… this turning of the Soul, have tha felt it, - they’re beginning to
>> talk to their Slaves? Few, if any , beatings, - tho’ best to whisper, not
>> jeopardize it too much.” (a little superstition there - heh.)
>> >>
>> >> ** This strikes me as a good example of post-colonial lit!
>> >> so I checked that idea out and found this at the Swarthmore site
>> (bottom lines):
>> >>
>> http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/pschmid1/essays/pynchon/mason2.html
>> >>
>> >> “… just as Gravity's Rainbow proved so stimulating in the late 1970s
>> and 1980s to testing the full range of possibilities in deconstruction as a
>> theory of reading, so will Mason and Dixon be one of the crucial texts for
>> testing the resources and limitations of current "cultural studies" and
>> "postcolonial" critical theories.”
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ***********************
>> >> p. 101
>> >> Mason and Dixon talking - Mason questioning Dixon about the spiritual
>> experience of Quakers - “… but the fairly principal thing is to sit
>> quietly…” and wait for the great embodiment of the Quaker “Grace.”
>> >>
>> >> There’s a newish book out called" Pynchon and Philosophy:
>> Wittgenstein, Foucault and Adorno” by Martin Paul Eve (2014) which is too
>> expensive for me to mess with but there are little samples on GoogleBooks -
>> >>
>> >> Also of interest is Carl Ostrowski’s paper entitled "Conspiratorial
>> jesuits in the Postmodern Novel Mason & Dixon.” at: -
>> http://tinyurl.com/p7sgjg7 or:
>> >> <
>> https://books.google.com/books?id=i5BlLrcWUe0C&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=carl+ostrowski+jesuits&source=bl&ots=H10lP_s8mr&sig=cIjxEnI64uoYxD4AGtaUfgDCnXk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MdvkVIKzCNLHsQS_tYKwBA&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=mason&f=false
>> >
>> >>
>> >> So Mason sits quietly, jumping up whenever he feels a momentary stir
>> (or something) and finally falls asleep - whereupon Dixon steps out for a
>> drinkie-poo.
>> >>
>> >> ** And the great change subsides - the abuse of slaves resumes as
>> does their own Bush tongue -
>> >>
>> >> *******************
>> >> ** Finally the slaves return to their homes and
>> >>
>> >> "Riding in and out of Town now may often be observ’d White Horsemen,
>> carrying long Rifles styl’d “Sterloops,” each with an inverted Silver Star
>> upon the Cheek-Piece.” (p. 101)
>> >>
>> >> I think for Americans this “White Horsemen with Rifles” will have the
>> resonance of the KKK, and Pynchon is American and this is an American
>> novel and I suspect this is deliberate - so - why is it there?
>> >> https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/77/165
>> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inverted_pentacle.PNG
>> >>
>> >> This comes up again much later in the novel.
>> >>
>> >> ** Rifles: “Something More Than a Rifle: Firearms in and around
>> Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon“…
>> >>
>> >> “… while Freud says that sometimes a cigar is only a cigar, a rifle is
>> always something more than a rifle." – William T. Vollmann."
>> >> https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/77/165
>> >>
>> >> ("Our investigation about firearms in M&D will show us how Pynchon may
>> enforce the paradigms of realism while at the same time playing with the
>> conventions of realism, achieving a condition of ontological uncertainty by
>> putting two different stage-props on his narrative stage, but letting us
>> believe that they are one, the same weapon appearing both in South Africa
>> and in the American colonies. “)
>> >>
>> >> *******
>> >> That’s my story for the day - do with it what you will - there is a
>> WHOLE lot I can’t cover in under a couple years.
>> >>
>> >> Becky
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> -
>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>> >
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
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