M&D Deep Duck 4-6: Equator

[David Ewers]

Nice one!
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Straight down, I'll say...

On Jan 28, 2015, at 12:05 PM, David Morris wrote:

> If you sink and drain were positioned exactly on the equator, would the water spin in both directions as it went down the drain?
> 
> On Wed, Jan 28, 2015 at 12:33 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> in something else I've been reading, the Equator is referred to as
> 'that man-made line"....which it also is.......
> and I was reminded of Pynchon kinda rooting for--thematically--ye olde
> natural country boundaries in AtD.
> (by rooting for, I mean his vision seems to want to value the natural
> way,-- known geography, common language, more, etc. ---many countries
> came to be vs. the artificial Nations created by government powers
> which wrench and so often
>  lead to feuds (called wars)...
> 
> it might be symbolically appropriate that in history,  with such an
> artificial boundary, humiliation of sailors might become a
> tradition...
> 
> 
> On Tue, 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/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> 

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