BtZ42Read

Tue Mar 15 16:30:16 CDT 2016

Yes. The rocket's fins were fixed; they stabilized it only once it had
reached several hundred mph (and had no effect once the air was too thin or
absent entirely). But it also had gyroscope-controlled graphite vanes that
could pivot into the exhaust and deflect part of it, providing corrections
to keep it upright as it launched, and on course until brennschluss.

On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 4:13 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Don’t air drag and crosswind affect V-2s as soon as they are airborn?
>
> Good reminder of the context of the term in the novel.  I do think Pynchon
> was using the Von Braun quote, which could have been about ballistics
> instead, to point us to a metaphoric aspect  of this ballistic arc.
>
> > On Mar 15, 2016, at 1:44 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Very acute, Laura. Strictly speaking, a missile (or any other
> projectile) is "ballistic" only when gravity is the only force acting on it
> -- so the V-2 met that definition only from engine shutdown until it came
> back into atmosphere thick enough to affect its motion. (There was no
> active guidance in that phase, contributing to the gross inaccuracy). To be
> truly pedantic, a spear launched by a Roman _ballista_ wasn't ballistic,
> because air drag and crosswind affected it all the way.
> >
> > Pirate's interpretation is a hair off: the V-2 would have continued to
> gain altitude for a little while on momentum, so the high point of the
> parabola is not at brennschluss, but a bit later. This rainbow belongs to
> Control part of the way, to Gravity (or nature) the rest. Which is at work,
> and when history or conspiracy might be disguising one as the other, will
> be in question throughout the book.
> >
> > Kinda like natural selection -- or as Jacques Monod put it, "chance and
> necessity" --  vs. intelligent design, eh?
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 1:09 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> > Pynchon's writing sends each reader off on their own tangents (sometimes
> multiple ones, in a single sentence). But I prefer to read a little closer
> to the text. "The white line, abruptly, has stopped its climb. That would
> be fuel cutoff, end of burning, what's their word … Brennschluss. We don't
> have one. Or else its classified." The zero point is the top of the
> parabola, the rocket-arc that Pirate sees from his rooftop. At the top of
> the parabola (symmetrical in theory, at any rate), the slope is zero.
> >
> > So there are two "beyond the zero" points. "Their" side - the Nazi
> rocket-launchers and "our" side (too classified to even name the zero
> point?). An interesting thing happens at the zero point. The first half
> (rising) is engineered, man-made; but in the descent, gravity (Nature)
> takes over. Von Braun: "Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is
> transformation." Or, as per the Tom Lehrer song: "'Once the rocket goes up,
> who cares where it comes down? That's not my department,' says Wernher von
> Braun.
> >
> > Laura
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> >
> > From: Keith Davis
> >
> > Sent: Mar 15, 2016 12:21 PM
> >
> > To: Joseph Tracy
> >
> >
> > Cc: P-list List
> >
> > Subject: Re: BtZ42Read
> >
> >
> >
> > This could link to Slothrop's final scene, or state, as well.
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 12:20 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Beyond the Zero...beyond nothing, to everything?
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 12:19 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I was thinking of it as beyond this life, as well. The behaviorism angle
> is also very insightful. Why not both, and possibly more?
> >
> > On Tue, Mar 15, 2016 at 11:55 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> > I think so. Behaviorism is such a central theme. The screaming also has
> an echo later in the screaming children in the secret behaviorist
> experiments, which reinforces this thinking.  There is also a sense in
> which Beyond the Zero refers to crossing the boundary between life and
> death. Von Braun describes ’the continuity of “our spiritual
> existence”after death'. Pynchon seems to me to be asking what kind of
> spiritual existence comes out of Von Braun’s choices. Is there a sense in
> which this kind of thinking leads to a lust for self annihilation as a mad
> alchemical experiment. Bliss Zero.
> >
> >
> >
> > It is going to be very hard not to leap around here in the text.
> >
> > > On Mar 15, 2016, at 5:46 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
> >
> > >
> >
> > >
> >
> > > On 15.03.2016 09:39, Ian Livingston wrote:
> >
> > >
> >
> > >> Then there is this pe-orgasmic pause:
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >> “There is no way out. Lie and wait, lie still and be quiet. Screaming
> holds across the sky. When it comes, will it come in darkness, or will it
> bring its own light? Will the light come before ar after?
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >> But it is already light," GR 5.
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >> Are we beyond the zero at this point? What, exactly, is the zero?
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >
> >
> > >
> >
> > > Could it be that the zero refers to behaviorism? Pavlovian thought is
> via Pointsman very present in this first part of the novel. In this
> context, - please correct me if I'm wrong! - the one (1) refers to the
> successful conditioning, manifest in a concrete behavior. The zero (0)
> refers to the state where the conditioning is extinguished and the behavior
> is not shown by the test subject anymore.  The formulation "beyond the
> zero" then, perhaps, indicates a new phase in human history where the
> thanatoid forces of society start, metaphorically speaking, to go beneath
> our skin. Where science becomes "big science" (and data "big data"), and
> even political mass murder, so very common to history, enters a
> qualitatively new level with the Holocaust, as well as with Hiroshima.
> Sentences like "It is too late", or "It has happened before, but there is
> nothing to compare it to now", would fit such a reading. What do you think?
> >
> > >
> >
> > >
> >
> > >
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >> “Astrologically the beginning of the next aeon, according to the
> starting-point you select, falls between A.D. 2000 and  2200. Starting from
> the star “0“ and assuming a Platonic month of 2,145 years, one would arrive
> at A.D. 2154 for the beginning of the Aquarian Age, and at A.D. 1997 if you
> start from star “a 113.“ The latter date agrees with the longitude of the
> stars in Ptolemy’s Almagest“ CGJ, Aion, 1959, 94n.
> >
> > >>
> >
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > -
> >
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > www.innergroovemusic.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > www.innergroovemusic.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > www.innergroovemusic.com
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20160315/e089300c/attachment.html>