terror,paranoia,hilarity and calculated madness on the way to the transit of Venus- tone in chapters 456

[Mark Kohut]

Quote of the Day. week:

"Our dwelling is handicapped by the housing shortage"---

That Heidegger, what a card....

On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 3:33 PM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>  When all else fails speak in poetic measurements and reveal essences.
>
> A semantic trick. As for D&G's Plateau blah blah..., , unreadable scribbling.
>
>
> But I do like the mapping analogy for M&D.
>
>
> ".. . . POETICALLY MAN DWELLS . . "
>
> http://timothyquigley.net/cont/heidegger-pmd.pdf
>
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 10:35 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>> So how did we go from seeing the power of wind revealed in a windmill
>> to transforming the meaning of that power by putting it in a modern
>> framework, where it is stored, and used when needed? A Luddite's
>> question and surely a waste of time because the modern enframing is so
>> pervasive, so comprehensive and complete, that we can't conceive of
>> its limits from inside its frame. Technic now embodies its own purpose
>> and can not see meaning outside its own purpose, its own needs.
>> Technic has trapped us in its purpose and so we can't see the world
>> apart from its potential to be manipulated.
>>
>> Fitzgerald captured the loss of this in his famous description of the
>> Long Island the Dutch Sailors spied from their ships, a beauty
>> commensurate with their sense of wonder.
>>
>> What happened to a sense of wonder?
>>
>> Ah, the Tools, Nick was the son of Hardware wealth and the West, but
>> he came East to Wall Street and Abstractions, Bonds and Derivatives.
>>
>> And so, in M&D we trace Gatby's trail back to the West, and see how
>> the lines were framed.
>>
>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 10:19 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> But in getting to know Nature with Technic,  we take on enormous
>>> risks. We are no longer simple tool makers, homo faber, but modern
>>> exploiters of the energy of Earth, energy we extract, store, and
>>> harness. Earth is our resource. And America, that most pragmatic
>>> people, children of Bacon, frame the Earth with our democratic dreams
>>> of opportunity for all.
>>>
>>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 10:07 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> One of the oldest conflicts in the Technology and Nature debate
>>>> revolves around the idea of a natural order, an existing one, one that
>>>> some say humans transform or manipulate, while others contend that
>>>> humans reveal it.
>>>>
>>>> One way to view all those folks in M&D who came to America and
>>>> expanded West is as manipulators of Nature.
>>>>
>>>>  Do they manipulate an existing and natural order?
>>>>
>>>> Are they part of this natural order or is it better to contrast them with it?
>>>>
>>>> Of course, we'd need a definition of Nature and that's no easy job.
>>>>
>>>> Nature, one might say, is everything in the universe. But humanity is
>>>> such an insignificant spec in this definition that the actions of
>>>> humans seem mundane and unworthy of investigation.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Nature, another might say,  is the order, the existing order and the
>>>> processes without human alternation. But if we take this second one we
>>>> can't say much about humanity and the technologies of humans.
>>>> Moreover, if Technology is at odds with Nature, a contradiction of
>>>> Nature and the order of Nature, we are given a place in Nature but
>>>> prevented from improving our place in it.
>>>>
>>>> If one argues that the West is just there, present, with a Natural
>>>> order, one must admit that this is not its state when Mason and Dixon
>>>> set out to put a line through it. The West, the mystery of America out
>>>> there has been proclaimed useful, or potentially so, and the
>>>> technology the men carry is an expression of this state of nature. As
>>>> Heidegger explains with clocks and lamps in Being and Time, the tools,
>>>> the tecnics reveal purpose in Nature.
>>>>
>>>> Of course later on Heidegger expounded, and tools and technic were
>>>> given greater weight than the mere announcements of their purposes
>>>> upon Nature. Technology circumscribes our efforts to live and know. To
>>>> be and to know.
>>>>
>>>> Being, Knowing, and Meaning.
>>>>
>>>> Back to the meaning of Nature. Full circle, so to speak.
>>>>
>>>> The Tools, or equipment, Zeug is expanded to Ge-stell, to Enframe our
>>>> modern existence.
>>>>
>>>> We can't now know Nature outside of technic.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 8:36 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> KFL> "The Rocket as such would have come anyway... People...are welcome as
>>>>> customers, but the Ge-stell would work without them too"
>>>>>
>>>>> Will the Dichter explain which elf or wraith or World-Spirit or deep
>>>>> carbon-rich stratum would have built Kummersdorf and then Peenemunde, and
>>>>> then the Soviet and US  factories? would have allocated resources to
>>>>> airframes and turbines and bodenplattes, managed their assembly and
>>>>> integration, trucked the rockets to launch sites? would have talked the
>>>>> legislatures, voters, Party committees into spending money on those
>>>>> activities rather than others?
>>>>>
>>>>> It's hard to understand why Pynchon clutters M&D with Penns and Calverts,
>>>>> Royal Societies and land-jobbers, Londoners and Geordies and Philadelphians.
>>>>> After all, the Visto would surely have cut itself even if no European had
>>>>> ever set foot in North America, right? Axes swing themselves, chains stretch
>>>>> themselves, Obs write and reduce themselves, marker stones embed themselves,
>>>>> yes?
>>>>>
>>>>> As a reader, I do feel and respond to -- really, I do -- the poetic and
>>>>> rhetorical power of such abstraction, personification, and reification. But
>>>>> when I close the book, there I am as a person on the cold hill side of
>>>>> history, and I look around and see only people, doing what people do... and
>>>>> that includes hallucinating Great Capitalized Motrices. On occasion, those
>>>>> hallucinations are great literature. Much more often, they're cop-outs.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Jan 26, 2015 at 7:11 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
>>>>> <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 26.01.2015 00:52, David Ewers wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yes, that's the stuff!
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I sort of get the impression that the presence of these Forces or Things
>>>>>> in the Saddle (good stuff!) does some purposeful magic to Pynchon's
>>>>>> perspective; it broadens the lens beyond the human in a way that makes us
>>>>>> humans look sort of ridiculous, clownish in even our darkest aspirations,
>>>>>> but more lovable and easy to root for for it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It reminds me a bit of the relationship between the Greeks and their gods,
>>>>>> except these these Forces aren't humanized (so treated more reverently in a
>>>>>> way, fewer presumptions regarding behavior beyond the human?) and there's
>>>>>> any rarely clear, direct communication between Us and Them (by the way, ever
>>>>>> notice that there's no remembered conversation between Cherrycoke and either
>>>>>> Mason or Dixon in Cherrycoke's account, even though they often found
>>>>>> themselves in similar straits?).  So unlike the Greek gods these Things are
>>>>>> just beyond us (to varying degrees, maybe? they do seem to have their
>>>>>> allies...) but like a couple of those gods they do appear to involve
>>>>>> themselves directly - if only dimly viewed through our lenses - in some big
>>>>>> arc of human technological novelty.  Or something...
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Pynchon is the poet ("Dichter") of the Ge-stell.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> > Heidegger applied the concept of Gestell to his exposition of the
>>>>>> > essence of technology. He concluded that technology is fundamentally
>>>>>> > enframing. As such, the essence of technology is Gestell. Indeed, "Gestell,
>>>>>> > literally 'framing', is an all-encompassing view of technology, not as a
>>>>>> > means to an end, but rather a mode of human existence".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The point that Heidegger was attempting to convey with Gestell was that
>>>>>> all that has come to presence in the world has been enframed. Thus what is
>>>>>> revealed in the world, what has shown itself as itself (the truth of itself)
>>>>>> required first an enframing, literally a way to exist in the world, to be
>>>>>> able to be seen and understood. Concerning the essence of technology and how
>>>>>> we see things in our technological age, the world has been framed as the
>>>>>> "standing-reserve." Heidegger writes,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Enframing means the gathering together of that setting-upon which sets
>>>>>> upon man, i.e., challenges him forth, to reveal the real, in the mode of
>>>>>> ordering, as standing-reserve. Enframing means that way of revealing which
>>>>>> holds sway in the essence of modern technology and which is itself nothing
>>>>>> technological.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Furthermore, Heidegger uses the word in a way that is uncommon by giving
>>>>>> Gestell an active role. In ordinary usage the word would signify simply a
>>>>>> display apparatus of some sort, like a book rack, or picture frame; but for
>>>>>> Heidegger, Gestell is literally a challenging forth, or performative
>>>>>> "gathering together", for the purpose of revealing or presentation. <
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestell
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In the current age science is a part of technology, not vice versa as the
>>>>>> myth of modernity has it.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Now, at this point - Winke, Winke! - usually someone comes along quoting a
>>>>>> famous sentence from Gravity's Rainbow:  "Go ahead, capitalize the T on
>>>>>> technology, deify it if it'll make you feel less responsible--but it puts
>>>>>> you in with the neutered, brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem of
>>>>>> our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless hardons of human sultans, human
>>>>>> elite with no right at all to be where they are--" (p. 521).  Impressive
>>>>>> quote, nicht wahr? But when you look at it in context you will realize that
>>>>>> it is not the author's perspective which is given words here. The sentence
>>>>>> before goes like this: "Yes but Technology only responds (how often this
>>>>>> argument has been iterated, dogged and humorless as a Gaussian reduction,
>>>>>> among the younger Schwarzkommando especially), "All very well to talk about
>>>>>> having a monster by the tail, but do you think we'd've had the Rocket if
>>>>>> someone, some specific somebody with a name and a penis hadn't wanted to
>>>>>> chuck a ton of Amatol 300 miles and blow up a block full of civilians?"
>>>>>> First, do note the the argument is ascribed to younger members of the
>>>>>> Schwarzkommando "especially". Then the argument is being "iterated, dogged
>>>>>> and humorless as a Gaussian reduction." Neither youth nor humorless
>>>>>> repetition are indicators of truth in Pynchon. And of course we would have
>>>>>> the Rocket without "some specific somebody with a name and a penis" who
>>>>>> wants to "blow up a block full of civilians." How could anyone deny this?
>>>>>> Modern societal machination ("Machenschaft" in Heidegger's sense) goes back
>>>>>> to the  mathematization of science and the corresponding closing of the
>>>>>> modern mind. "Monads don't have windows," as Leibniz says. Method is ruling
>>>>>> more and more, and by the 1950s Heidegger saw even (academic) philosophy
>>>>>> replaced by cybernetics. The sentence quoted ad nauseam here to argue
>>>>>> against a 'structural' reading of technology in Pynchon is not directed
>>>>>> towards the reader, it is - do note the address "brother"! - part of the
>>>>>> inner debate of the Herero Schwarzkommando and formulated from a specific
>>>>>> character perspective, not from the author's general one. And although there
>>>>>> are reasons for the members of the Schwarkommando, the younger ones
>>>>>> especially, not to subscribe to a 'structural' view of technology but to
>>>>>> develop instead a rhetoric of self-empowerment which makes themselves feel
>>>>>> more male and "responsible," it is not at all something which would make us
>>>>>> understand technology better. Neither von Braun nor Hitler were responsible
>>>>>> for the Rocket as such. The Rocket as such would have come anyway. The logic
>>>>>> of enframing, manifesting itself also in the unfolding economization of all
>>>>>> things on earth, leaves out nobody and nothing. And that's a leitmotif in
>>>>>> Pynchon. The author's own perspective in context of the passage in question
>>>>>> is most definitely closer to the one formulated in the paragraph before: "It
>>>>>> means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theater, all
>>>>>> just to keep the people distracted ... secretly, it was being dictated
>>>>>> instead by the needs of technology ... by a conspiracy between human beings
>>>>>> and techniques, by something that needed the energy-burst of war, crying,
>>>>>> 'Money be dammed, the very life of [insert name of Nation] is at stake,' but
>>>>>> meaning, most likely, dawn is nearly here, I need my night's blood, my
>>>>>> funding, funding, ahh more, more ... The real crises were crises of
>>>>>> allocation and priority, not among firms----it was only staged to look that
>>>>>> way---but among the different Technologies, Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft,
>>>>>> and their needs which are only understood only by the ruling elite ..."
>>>>>> People with names and penises who wanna blow up a block full with civilians
>>>>>> are of course welcome as customers, but the Ge-stell would work without them
>>>>>> too.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> With Bleeding Edge, Pynchon takes his Songs of the Ge-stell to the digital
>>>>>> dimension.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (On the War Machinery do also see chapter 12 of A Thousand Plateaus by
>>>>>> Deleuze & Guattari, who are, mockingly or not, mentioned by Pynchon in
>>>>>> Vineland, p. 97. Since the English edition was available since 1986
>>>>>> (chapter) bzw. 1988 (whole book), Pynchon perhaps had a look at it while
>>>>>> writing parts of Mason & Dixon. That his interest in French philosophy
>>>>>> hasn't stopped becomes obvious by the appearance of Lacan in Bleeding Edge.
>>>>>> Whether you like this or not.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 25, 2015, at 2:31 PM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> To your point:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> p. 39 "the emprise of Forces invisible yet possessing great Weight and
>>>>>> Speed, which contend in some Phantom realm......"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As in that build-up of 'forces' in AtD before WW1, TRP sees war as a
>>>>>> Force of its own. As Emerson was to write with broader meaning a
>>>>>> century later, "Things are in the Saddle and ride Mankind".
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 4:36 PM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Guernica didn't occur to me directly when I was reading, but now that you
>>>>>> mention it I did get a 'Guernica Feeling'.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Rambling of lessons more abstract...(or just difficult for me to
>>>>>> effectively
>>>>>> put into words):
>>>>>> Again, to me this scene was filled with suggestions that the Affaire des
>>>>>> Frégates was exactly that: an affair between two ships, with their
>>>>>> respective personalities, proclivities, reputations etc. as prime
>>>>>> movers...
>>>>>> and the humans almost as components of rigging and guns.  It's as if we
>>>>>> humans create the conditions (the machinery, and all its philosophical
>>>>>> underpinnings...), but things have ways of taking on lives of their own
>>>>>> (as
>>>>>> in taking on board, while we build the ways?).
>>>>>> And the Invisible Gamesters, are they (all, or all still) human?  Or am I
>>>>>> just being paranoid?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 25, 2015, at 9:25 AM, Mark Kohut wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> just a couple more "associations' when one reads a genius.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> p.38. "the Ship's hoarse Shrieking, a great sea-animal in pain, the
>>>>>> textures
>>>>>> of its Cries nearly those of the human Voice when under great Stress"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 'hoarse Shrieking of The SEAHORSE...i cannot be the only one who sees
>>>>>> the screaming Guernica horse here, amiright? ....
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A--and if this is War--it is--and it brings the nearness of black
>>>>>> Panic and bowel
>>>>>> evacuation, we get a hint of shattered nerves, which had lots of names
>>>>>> down
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> post-traumatic stress disorder. sometimes, way back, it was called, linked
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> Homesickness (in the West) as soldiers got hit far from home and
>>>>>> wanted to go back.
>>>>>> That Equator ceremony started as a marker for being for the first time
>>>>>> so far from home.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Jan 25, 2015 at 7:44 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dissolution, Noise, and Fear. Are these part of "the Lessons more
>>>>>> abstract"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> the Rev 'went on to draw' from his Encounter with 'absolute black panic'.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A Sum-up of the horrors of war
>>>>>>
>>>>>> as presented in fiction from, O, the Iliad (where it is also a Glory)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> and War & Peace
>>>>>>
>>>>>> and All Quiet on the Western Front and al the others I don't know and
>>>>>>
>>>>>> probably in a battle scene or
>>>>>>
>>>>>> three in O'Brian's Aubrey--Maturin series.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think science traveling by war machine, in your phrase, science an
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Enlightenment good, is a key Pynchon resonance/theme.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 8:01 PM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The other side of the coin (...this one works with the idea of the Line as
>>>>>>
>>>>>> another of Pynchon's War/Science-wrought projections "[o]f forces less
>>>>>>
>>>>>> visible...", I think...):
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> That the question isn't why the l'Grand eventually split so much as why a
>>>>>>
>>>>>> scientific expedition would get so bloody in the literal first place.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe, just as Science was understood to travel by war machine, so it was
>>>>>>
>>>>>> considered to be part of the war machinery itself (even Mason and Dixon,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> running messages...).  After all, does it make sense for a wartime
>>>>>> military
>>>>>>
>>>>>> to replace its guns with scientific equipment, if science isn't seen as a
>>>>>>
>>>>>> weapon?  Advantageous peace might be a military objective, but I can't
>>>>>>
>>>>>> imagine even Enlightenment generals working to replace the art of warfare
>>>>>>
>>>>>> with the art of surveying.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The laissez-passer reminds me:  I was reading a bit about the HMS Seahorse
>>>>>>
>>>>>> that sailed during the 1760s.  It was damaged during a 1778 battle with a
>>>>>>
>>>>>> French squadron led by the le Brillant (maybe why the Seahorse bucked at
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>
>>>>>> HMS Brilliant in M-&D-?).  The French squadron included the frigate
>>>>>> Sartine.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Two weeks after the battle the Seahorse captured Sartine, which
>>>>>> subsequently
>>>>>>
>>>>>> became the HMS Sartine.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Anyway, it got me thinking maybe the laissez-passer for scientists was for
>>>>>>
>>>>>> the same reasons we gave Nazi scientists jobs instead of death sentences:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> not because of how peaceful they are as people, but rather how useful they
>>>>>>
>>>>>> are as weapons, should they be captured.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> BTW, a young Horatio Nelson was assigned as midshipman to this very HMS
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Seahorse, through the influence of his uncle, Maurice Suckling.  Suppose
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maurice is related to Darby?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Jan 23, 2015, at 3:11 PM, Monte Davis wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Maybe a bit too science-specific -- before "total war" came into fashion,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> many kinds of cross-border social and cultural links continued while the
>>>>>>
>>>>>> kings and princes marched around. (Passports didn't become routine until
>>>>>>
>>>>>> WWI, remember.) But the Enlightenment definitely boosted, as the
>>>>>> Ranaissance
>>>>>>
>>>>>> had, the idea of scholarship -- and then science -- as above the fray.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 5:06 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Clearly, it seems to me, Pynchon is "saying' that if combat, war,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> killing was turned aside because science.....then he is, at least,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> showing science as a hopeful thing out of the Enlightenment here in
>>>>>>
>>>>>> the late 1700s. England and France were the Western World
>>>>>>
>>>>>> at war so...................
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 4:58 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Here's an account of a French Transit of Venus expedition that set sail
>>>>>>
>>>>>> shortly before the Seahorse expedition. Lots of similarities, in terms of
>>>>>>
>>>>>> being undergunned and over-cargoed:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> By and large, things did not go as well for the French expeditions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Alexandre-Gui Pingre left Paris on November 17, 1760, for his
>>>>>>
>>>>>> destination of the island of Rodrigues, viewing his forthcoming voyage
>>>>>>
>>>>>> with foreboding. This despite another remarkable novelty of the times.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Although Britain and France were locked in bitter battle, the Academie
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Royale des Sciences had appealed directly to British authorities to
>>>>>>
>>>>>> grant
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Pingre a laissez-passer, a letter instructing all British naval and
>>>>>>
>>>>>> military
>>>>>>
>>>>>> personnel "not to molest his person or Effects upon any account, but to
>>>>>>
>>>>>> suffer him to proceed without delay or Interruption." This was indeed
>>>>>>
>>>>>> granted, although since sea battles tended to exchange gunfire first and
>>>>>>
>>>>>> civilities later, if at all, Pingre's misgivings were not misplaced.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The transit party sailed on the Comte d'Argenson, a warship that found
>>>>>>
>>>>>> itself with less than half its normal complement of guns in order to
>>>>>>
>>>>>> extend its cargo capacity to that needed for the expedition. (There had
>>>>>>
>>>>>> been a heated dockside argument over the baggage, Pingre arguing
>>>>>>
>>>>>> furiously that seven or eight hundred pounds was not too much for an
>>>>>>
>>>>>> astronomer!) To the horror of all on board, a group of five British
>>>>>>
>>>>>> warships was sighted only one day out from port. To allow full play of
>>>>>>
>>>>>> its remaining guns, the ship's crew tore down the temporary cabins that
>>>>>>
>>>>>> had been erected for Pingre's companions, the latter and their
>>>>>>
>>>>>> belongings being flung unceremoniously into Pingre's cabin for the
>>>>>>
>>>>>> time being. Fortunately, though, a combination of suitable winds, the
>>>>>>
>>>>>> long winter night, and the captain's skills allowed the Comte to slip
>>>>>>
>>>>>> away unmolested, and everyone settled down to the remaining four
>>>>>>
>>>>>> months of their voyage.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ttp://www.mdlpp.org/pdf/library/SeahorseMdTransitofVenus.pdf (posted
>>>>>>
>>>>>> previously)
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> From: Monte Davis
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Subject: Re: terror,paranoia,hilarity and calculated madness on the way
>>>>>>
>>>>>> to the transit of Venus- tone in chapters 456
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A bell rang when I read this Pynchon passage in 1997: I was sure I'd
>>>>>>
>>>>>> read somewhere, long before, about Napoleon himself using the French
>>>>>>
>>>>>> captain's words, or very similar phrasing, w/r/t letting some expedition
>>>>>>
>>>>>> pass, returning some naturalist's specimen collection that had been
>>>>>>
>>>>>> captured, or the like. But I've never tracked it down, nor did it turn up
>>>>>> in
>>>>>>
>>>>>> the 1997 or 2001 group readings here. (Nor do I know of any answer to your
>>>>>>
>>>>>> question about how the French captain would have known of M&D's presence,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> other than Pynchonian conspiracism about the the higher levels of Them,
>>>>>> e.g.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> IG Farben,  Shell, GE et al. carrying on despite the distraction of WWII.)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> FWIW: In 1813, when Great Britain was at war with Napoleon's France,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> English scientist Humphry Davy traveled freely on the Continent and in
>>>>>> Paris
>>>>>>
>>>>>> collected a prize and medal funded by Napoleon for the best work on
>>>>>>
>>>>>> galvanism. (While not common, such interactions were not unknown in other
>>>>>>
>>>>>> fields of scholarship as well as science.) Davy remarked to an associate:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "But if the two countries or governments are at war, the men of science
>>>>>> are
>>>>>>
>>>>>> not. That would, indeed be a civil war of the worst description: we should
>>>>>>
>>>>>> rather, through the instrumentality of the men of science soften the
>>>>>>
>>>>>> asperities of national hostility." Quoted in Gavin de Beer, The Sciences
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Were Never at War (1960).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Fri, Jan 23, 2015 at 11:10 AM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Which brings up the question of why the l'Grand turned away. Was it
>>>>>>
>>>>>> really, as Smith (filtered through Cherrycoke) reported, "France is not at
>>>>>>
>>>>>> war with the sciences?" If so, how did they eventually figure out,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> mid-attack, that this was a scientific expedition? Was Smith able to get
>>>>>> the
>>>>>>
>>>>>> letters of passage over to the other captain? Kind of seems there should
>>>>>>
>>>>>> have been some identifying marker - a sail with a sun and two crossed
>>>>>>
>>>>>> telescopes instead of the skull and bones? - to prevent attacks before
>>>>>> they
>>>>>>
>>>>>> started.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> -
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 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/?list=nchon-l
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l