BtZ42Read

Wed Mar 16 06:03:44 CDT 2016

This point, where the parabola changes direction, is called the "vertex".
... The squared part is always positive (for a right-side-up parabola),
unless it's zero.

On Tue, 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
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20160316/2a516be9/attachment.html>