M&D Deep Duck Ch. 3: Innocent merriment

[John Bailey]

"Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever I find
myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up
the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get
such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to
prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time
to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and
ball."

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 11:02 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> Makes sense to me.
>
> On Monday, January 12, 2015, Mark Wright <washoepete at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> He sees his own drop: a latent suicide steeling his nerve.
>>
>> On Monday, January 12, 2015, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> 15.10: "Mason explains, though without his precise reason for it, that,
>>> for the past Year or more, it has been his practice to attend the Friday
>>> Hangings at that melancholy place ..." (Tyburn)
>>>
>>> Anybody care to venture a "precise reason"? This first meeting is in 1760
>>> or 1761, so his habit might date to his wife Rebekah's death in 1759
>>> (although later we'll get reasons to think he had tended to the
>>> Melancholick well before that). And yes, the Tyburn hangings were an
>>> acknowledged Sight of London.
>>>
>>> Is that enough to explain it? Mason is rather gentle, neither sadistic
>>> nor vindictive; I for one don't see an obvious or direct connection between
>>> mouning and a desire to watch excutions.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l