(In)Convenience
Mark Kohut
mark.kohut at gmail.com
Tue Mar 10 16:39:27 CDT 2015
just found THIS QUOTE on inconvenience...
When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to his
account the inconvenience he thereby causes us. --Friedrich Nietzsche
On Fri, Feb 20, 2015 at 8:10 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> It seems that THAT meaning is often one of Pynchon's associative meanings.
> See how he uses it to describe Dixon having to handle a 'relationship' with
> one of the women he just wants to fuck and move on from.
>
> In AtD, we know, the Chums pure traveling fun ship has to descend to
> handle certain 'inconveniences".
>
> On Thu, Feb 19, 2015 at 10:29 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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>
>>> 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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