What can reading Pynchon teach us about the internet?

Fri Dec 16 09:59:06 CST 2016

Point taken. 

Www.innergroovemusic.com

> On Dec 16, 2016, at 10:37 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> [copied, ironically, from a current FB discussion]
> 
> ***
> Maybe it's just me and my inertia from a past in BBSs, CompuServe, and the pre-browser internet, but I still spend much more time surfing blogs and publications' websites, and taking part in their comment threads, than I do on social media. The former does feel a lot more like scanning bookshelves and newsstands.
> 
> I also assume that anyone (of any age) for whom FB is the *primary* venue for world/national news is not someone who would have read a serious newspaper/newsmagazine, or even watched TV networks' evening news, in the Dear Dead Days of Yore.
> 
> ***
> 
> Let's see: 16 bookmarks under "Daily," 30 under "Lit/Pub," 15 under "Politics," 20 (including stuffed sub-folders) under "Science," 20 under "Media," etc.etc. All I can say is that sweeps through those give me all the breadth and serendipity I can handle, and *feels* no more restrictive than leafing through our World Book encyclopedia did (probably 1957 edition, but I have an older brother).
> 
> Confessionally: this is virtually a reflex response for me. Forgive the obvious, but it dawned on me during college that 
> 
> (1) classics of literature (and other arts) are survivors by definition, and I'll never read or even hear of 99% of the crap that was contemporary for Defoe or Austen or Dickens or Joyce... and
> 
> (2) that inevitably leads to a tunnel-vision effect, comparing the whole range of (say) fiction today to a very small, skewed sample of the past.
> 
> That, along with awareness of the universality of Eden and Golden Age mythology -- and in  many cases the airbrushing of our youth, and the crankiness of aging -- makes me suspicious of all "the culture is going to hell" memes, including those centering on IT and the internet. 
> 
>> On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 9:17 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Because of our conditioning, we click "like" or not all day, whether on the internet or not. But, I agree that the internet adds a level of luridness that Trumps (sorry) the everyday level of impressions we might be exposed to without it.
>> 
>> Www.innergroovemusic.com
>> 
>>> On Dec 16, 2016, at 8:43 AM, "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> True enough. But human nature filtered through social media takes on a particularly noxious form. So easy to click "Like" without reflection. And I was exposed to many subjects and ideas that I would never have deliberately looked up on my own in the process of leafing through my family's 1962 edition of the World Book encyclopedia.
>>> 
>>> LK
>>> 
>>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I'm not l persuaded that the "validating bubble" effects of social media are different from what I've done all my life in selecting what I read, whom I befriend, and where I spend leisure time.  
>>> 
>>>> On Fri, Dec 16, 2016 at 5:32 AM, kelber at mindspring.com <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>> Pynchon's books provide the perfect tools for navigating the internet: look for the excluded middle; parse and parse again; knot into, but go off on wild, thought-provoking tangents; and be very conscious that what you see is what "they" want you to see. Ask questions, be very paranoid.
>>>> 
>>>> But just as his books have been criticized for flat characters and lack of psychological depth, he doesn't offer much to combat the current problem of the self-curated internet that all of us -- right-wing dimwits as well as those who fancy ourselves enlightened -- succumb to. We're human, and we need validation -- of our views, our culture, our idiosyncrasies, and the greatest thrill of all: being part of the "right-minded" group. And what better place to find it than in our very own carefully-curated internet bubble.
>>>> 
>>>> Oh, sure, we can all be responsible and analytical for (increasingly) short spells. But all too soon we go for the cheap validations of retweets and Facebook likes, because they feel so damn good. Pynchon offers naught to steer us away from these irrational retreats.
>>>> 
>>>> Laura
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On Dec 14, 2016, at 10:54 PM, Lemuel Underwing <luunderwing at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> > Or what has it taught you?
>>>> 
>>>> Overall?   - with quotes which might be related to the internet in some way: 
>>>> Quote bites:    “As above,  so below.”   “Single up all the lines” because “they are all connected.”       “Fly toward Grace,”  anyway.  
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> More specifically:  
>>>> 
>>>> V.  -   me:  There’s a whole sick crew out there in cyberspace -  (really sick)
>>>> 
>>>> Quote:  
>>>> “To have humanism we must first be convinced of our humanity. As we move further into decadence this becomes more difficult.”   
>>>> 
>>>> **
>>>> 
>>>> The Crying of Lot 49 - me:    ways of communication - lots of ways to get your mail -  
>>>> 
>>>> Quote:     
>>>> “Shall I project a world?”
>>>> 
>>>> **  
>>>> 
>>>> Gravity’s Rainbow -  me:  get past the borders - into the some new frontier - being transported
>>>> 
>>>> Quotes:    
>>>> “A screaming comes across the sky.”   (across the screen?) 
>>>> 
>>>> “So generation after generation of men in love with pain and passivity serve out their time in the Zone, silent, redolent of faded sperm, terrified of dying, desperately addicted to the comforts others sell them, however useless, ugly or shallow, willing to have life defined for them by men whose only talent is for death.” 
>>>> 
>>>> "'Temporal bandwidth,' is the width of your present, your now. It is the familiar "∆ t" considered as a dependent variable. The more you dwell in the past and in the future, the thicker your bandwidth, the more solid your persona. But the narrower your sense of Now, the more tenuous you are.”  
>>>> **
>>>> 
>>>> Vineland -  they are out to get you - head for the hills and keep your Social Security in order. 
>>>> 
>>>> Quote:
>>>> “The smartest kid Justin ever met, back in kindergarten, had told him to pretend his parents were characters in a television sitcom. 'Pretend there's a frame around 'em like the Tube, pretend they're a show you're watching. You can go into it if you want, or you can just watch and not go into it.” 
>>>> 
>>>> **
>>>> Mason & Dixon -  
>>>> 
>>>> Quotes:   
>>>> "As above,  so below.”   “...the heavens and the earth ... [are] reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”    unending search for grace,  even unto the ends of the internet.  
>>>> 
>>>> “To rule forever," continues the Chinaman, later, "it is necessary only to create, among the people one would rule, what we call...Bad History. Nothing will produce Bad History more directly nor brutally, than drawing a Line, in particular a Right Line, the very Shape of Contempt, through the midst of a People,-- to create thus a Distinction betwixt 'em,-- 'tis the first stroke.-- All else will follow as if predestin'd, unto War and Devastation.” 
>>>> 
>>>> **
>>>> 
>>>> Against the Day -    
>>>> 
>>>> Quotes:    “…now single up all lines!”   
>>>> 
>>>> "But a few choosing to venture deeper into the painful corridors of their affliction (the internet) , found after a while that they could now grind and polish ever more exotic surfaces, hyperboloidial and even stranger, eventually including what we must term ‘imaginary’ shapes (which some preferred to term invisible).” 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> **
>>>> Inherent Vice -  the dark side is always present  -  it’s all unstable -  everyone is nuts or doped out or both - lost in a fog of dreams -  
>>>> 
>>>> Quote: 
>>>> “People in this town saw only what they'd all agreed to see, they believed what was on the tube or in the morning papers half of them read while they were driving to work on the freeway, and it was all their dream about being wised up, about the truth setting them free.” 
>>>> 
>>>> **
>>>> Bleeding Edge -  yup -  it’s all connected (So see if you can "single up all the lines” (networks - clues - ?? ) and find more bad guys as you go deeper and deeper.    There’s a dark underside to everything - networks of power and government and so on - they’re all connected and the whole is never completely seen - always a mystery in it -    
>>>> 
>>>> Quote:
>>>> "Paranoia's the garlic in life's kitchen, right, you can never have too much.”
>>>> 
>>>> Becky 
>>>> that was pretty fun -   
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> -
>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>> 
> 
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