M&D Deep Duck 4-6: Equator

[kelber at mindspring.com]

I missed the meaning of Rutabageous Anemia on my first read, but caught it this time. Another glorious example of Pynchon's wordplay. Second only to "feco-ventilatory collision," from Vineland.

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jan 23, 2015 8:04 AM
>To: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: M&D Deep Duck 4-6: Equator
>
>Whim-wham | Define Whim-wham at Dictionary.com
>any odd or fanciful object or thing; a gimcrack. 2. whim-whams,
>Informal. nervousness; jitters: He had the whim-whams after the
>accident.
>
>Is Rutabageous Anemia really a pynchon joke meaning 'Can't get blood
>out of a turnip" as the wiki suggests?
>
>On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 7:56 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Ethelmer gets money from weapons-dealer Uncle LeSpark (just got the name, d'oh)
>> just as --Kit in AtD got it from Vibe?
>>
>> Ethelmer, already able to exploit with the ladies his lost but
>> projected innocence.
>> This is who Tenebrae crushes on. When he sez (on p. 30) he 'should have prayed'
>> Tenebrae is 'astonished'---astonished that he hadn't?
>> He goes on to say that they are surrounded by the pious, who want
>> nothing to upset them
>> ---but she already feels her Blood racing...
>>
>> Another woman attracted, involuntarily, to a 'bad boy'?
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 7:43 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> p. 31. Ethelmer sez "'Ev'ryone 'knows'".....and whenever I hear that
>>> line I think of the Leonard Cohen song:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Everybody knows - Leonard Cohen - YouTube
>>>
>>> www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lin-a2lTelg
>>>
>>>
>>> LEONARD COHEN LYRICS - Everybody Knows - A-Z Lyrics
>>>
>>> www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/leonardcohen/everybodyknows.html
>>>
>>> Lyrics to "Everybody Knows" song by LEONARD COHEN: Everybody knows
>>> that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
>>> Everybody know.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 9:31 PM, Mark Wright <washoepete at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The practice acknowledged the ancient reality/custom/conceit that officers
>>>> were serving honorably as gentlemen of property--"The Aristocrats!"--and not
>>>> as paid labor. They drew their authority from God through the regnant person
>>>> of king or queen, and discharged lethal justice on the paid men in name of
>>>> God King and Country. That they were not paid gave them more "moral" right,
>>>> too, in a share of valuable seizures held in trust for the monarch.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thursday, January 22, 2015, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> p. 32.Hey, I've been trying in the easy online way to learn
>>>>> if---how---why Captains in the Royal Navy had to pay for their
>>>>> own victualing. Anyone, Anyone, Blinky, Blinky?
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Jan 22, 2015 at 3:43 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> > NP just Misc.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > "and to this day, ask her what the Equator was, and she did not
>>>>> > know"---Mrs. Dalloway, p.122
>>>>> >
>>>>> > On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 5:41 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>>> >> Found this paper (no notes or bibliography attached, so take its claims
>>>>> >> with a grain of salt):
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>  Medieval Western maps represented the east at
>>>>> >> the top because it was seen as the allegorical direction in which
>>>>> >> Jerusalem lay (the rising
>>>>> >> sun as locus of the "Son of God": pun intended). Ancient Chinese maps
>>>>> >> showed the south at the
>>>>> >> top, ostensibly because the map represented the Empire as seen from the
>>>>> >> perspective
>>>>> >> of the Emperor, who was seated in the north facing south. It is not
>>>>> >> clear just when
>>>>> >> Chinese maps adopted the convention of north-at-the-top. The
>>>>> >> China-centered world
>>>>> >> map Matteo Ricci introduced to the Chinese mandarins around 1600
>>>>> >> depicted the north
>>>>> >> at the top, but its influence is hard to assess.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/ncta/pdfiles/MappingEthnocentrismexcerpt.pdf
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> And, for the record, we NYC snobs wouldn't describe Ohio as "Out West."
>>>>> >> It's strictly in the "fly-by zone." Definitely, the excluded middle!
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >> Laura
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>>>On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com>
>>>>> >>>> wrote:
>>>>> >>>>> But not everyone has the same idioms we do.  Maine is known as Down
>>>>> >>>>> East.   "Mix up" or "mix it up"  is a totally English idiom - try
>>>>> >>>>> translating it into Spanish - lol - the "up" is not translatable.  WE use
>>>>> >>>>> the word "up" for lots of things - "look it up," for instance "look it up in
>>>>> >>>>> the dictionary."  Why "up."
>>>>> >>>>>
>>>>> >>>>> In California the rest of the US is all "Back East" - in New York
>>>>> >>>>> I'd imagine Ohio to be "Out West."  It Texas it's all known as "Up North."
>>>>> >>>>> In Fargo it's all "Down South."
>>>>> >>>>>
>>>>> >>>>> Merriam Webster:  in or into a more northerly location; especially
>>>>> >>>>> :  in or into the part of the U.S. that lies north of the Mason-Dixon Line
>>>>> >>>>> and the Ohio River <He was educated in the South, but trained .>
>>>>> >>>>>
>>>>> >>>>> Bek
>>>>> >>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>> On Jan 20, 2015, at 9:14 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>>>> >>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>> I have had these same questions about up and down but failed to
>>>>> >>>>>> look hard enough to have any definitive answer. The erotic aspect makes some
>>>>> >>>>>> kind of weird sense just because so much instinctively comes from our body.
>>>>> >>>>>> Body language.
>>>>> >>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>> There is also that up (mountains)  equals colder. And for the major
>>>>> >>>>>> civilizations north is cold and south is warm.  This seems the most likely
>>>>> >>>>>> explanation to me of how this connection entered the language.
>>>>> >>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>> In the iconography of medieval cathedrals, derived to a large
>>>>> >>>>>> degree from biblical passages  about direction, north is equated with
>>>>> >>>>>> judgement and the cross and south with resurrection and regeneration( Jesse
>>>>> >>>>>> tree geneology windows). South also has biblical association with gold,
>>>>> >>>>>> spices, and the erotic other. So south to a Biblical people should not  be
>>>>> >>>>>> inherently negative. But then there is also the whole question of Ham.
>>>>> >>>>>> There is nothing in the bible indicating Ham's curse was black skin but the
>>>>> >>>>>> theory is widespread and may even be somewhere in the Talmudic texts.
>>>>> >>>>>> According to theTorah Moses second wife was Ethiopian, but Ethiopian jews
>>>>> >>>>>> have lower status in modern Israel.
>>>>> >>
>>>>> >>>>>> On Jan 20, 2015, at 3:09 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>>> >>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>>> A boundary ordained by the stars, by Mother Earth (slightly tubby
>>>>> >>>>>>> in the waistline, despite - because of! - all that spinning). It's a border,
>>>>> >>>>>>> but no war has ever been fought over it (though, certainly, many have been
>>>>> >>>>>>> fought across it).
>>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>>> But implicit in it are some of the things Joseph and others have
>>>>> >>>>>>> been discussing: colonialism and slavery, in particular -- the general
>>>>> >>>>>>> European colonialist attitude towards the darker people who lived "down"
>>>>> >>>>>>> there as somewhat lesser, for living at the "bottom" rather than the "top."
>>>>> >>>>>>> Is there a homoerotic metaphor here? The mapmakers make the decisions, but
>>>>> >>>>>>> when did it become ingrained in the popular consciousness that South = Down?
>>>>> >>>>>>> John Bailey, chime in, please: Isn't it specifically white Australians who
>>>>> >>>>>>> decided to get defensively cute in bragging about living Down Under - to
>>>>> >>>>>>> lure tourists across the equator?
>>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>>> It's odd, in a way, that the European colonialists who imposed
>>>>> >>>>>>> borders on the indigenous peoples of Africa and South America never thought
>>>>> >>>>>>> to use the Equator as an official national border. A nice straight line, but
>>>>> >>>>>>> no Masons or Dixons up to the task of hacking through such remote wilderness
>>>>> >>>>>>> to draw it. Still, you'd think they could at least pick a spot and call it
>>>>> >>>>>>> the Equator. Who was going to argue with them if it was a couple of
>>>>> >>>>>>> kilometers off?
>>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>>> By the way, here's a list of the countries the Equator passes
>>>>> >>>>>>> through: Ecuador [Equator - someone at least took note!], Colombia, Brazil,
>>>>> >>>>>>> Sao Tome & Principe, Gabon, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of
>>>>> >>>>>>> the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Maldives, Indonesia and Kiribati. Note
>>>>> >>>>>>> that Equatorial Guinea is not among them.
>>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>>> Ecuador actually has a tourist spot with an official line drawn to
>>>>> >>>>>>> show where the Equator is. Only problem is, it's off by a few hundred feet.
>>>>> >>>>>>> No one cares, but M&D would be appalled.
>>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>>> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/much-ado-about-nothing-at-the-equator-8514125/?no-ist
>>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>>> Laura
>>>>> >>>>>>>
>>>>> >>>>>>> -
>>>>> >> -
>>>>> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>> -
>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>
>>>>
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