banana breakfast

[Smoke Teff]

I don't mean to suggest Pirate should've (in the universe of the book or in
Pynchon's account of it) used butter. Or that he willfully endorses
margarine over butter. But I don't think the distinction between margarine
and a lot of the other things that go into Pirate's breakfast is
meaningless. Or, rather, I don't think noting categorical differences
degrees of artificiality of the food is meaningless here. We're all just
here for the food.

On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 10:52 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Umm...maybe Pirate cooks with marge simply because that's what almost
> everyone almost always *did* in London in 1944? Simply because the
> maisonette-dwellers were fortunate enough to have bananas and (rationed)
> eggs, but not (likewise rationed) butter?
>
> Sometimes a molecule is just a molecule.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 11:34 AM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Says LK: "(except for the curve, which isn't pronounced enough to suggest
>> the rocket's parabola)"
>>
>> I like this, and it feels resonant with the Zero. Is there such
>> curvature-of-the-earth type stuff in *M&D*? In the banana it's sort of a
>> bound, organic issue of parallax.
>>
>> "So even when Pynchon is talking about Nature (in this case, unnaturally
>> growing bananas), he's reminding us how easy it is for science to mimic it,
>> or to tear apart and exploit the delicate molecules."
>>
>> Even Pirate's breakfast is cooked with marge.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 9:08 AM, <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I remember my feelings about this section from my very first reading:
>>> I'd made it through that very tough, surreal first section, and, along with
>>> Teddy Bloat, had crash-landed back into reality - or so I thought. But as
>>> the roster of Pirate's comfort foods grows to unreal proportions - omelets,
>>> waffles, kreplach, flambe, etc. - I realized the footing wasn't as firm as
>>> I thought. Since I was trapped in a day-long jury pool stint (they never
>>> choose me!), I had nothing to do but plunge further into the book. I'm glad
>>> I did!
>>>
>>> Some thoughts on the bananas:
>>>
>>> They're phallic, and, therefore, rocket-shaped (except for the curve,
>>> which isn't pronounced enough to suggest the rocket's parabola).
>>>
>>> So Pirate is mashing and softening this rocketlike object into the
>>> comfort foods of all nations - though only of the allied nations, plus
>>> Jewish kreplach. He's not making banana torte or anything that could be
>>> construed as Germanic (what would the German - but not Jewish - sweet
>>> breakfast dish be?). It's an antidote or answer to the missile he just saw
>>> taking off.
>>>
>>> The musaceous odor. Anyone who's ever taken organic chemistry (did
>>> Pynchon? Anyone know?) has probably synthesized banana ester in the lab.
>>> it's a standard lab exercise, and it's easy to know if you've got it right,
>>> by that musaceous odor (I aced this one, but had a pretty poor output on
>>> the following aspirin synthesis exercise!). So even when Pynchon is talking
>>> about Nature (in this case, unnaturally growing bananas), he's reminding us
>>> how easy it is for science to mimic it, or to tear apart and exploit the
>>> delicate molecules.
>>>
>>> "though it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off."  I love
>>> this line! With his rockets-into-kreplach, musaceous breakfast, a spell
>>> against falling objects, that's exactly what Pirate is doing.
>>>
>>> Laura
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>
>>> From: Monte Davis
>>>
>>> Sent: Mar 22, 2016 8:23 AM
>>>
>>> To: gary webb
>>>
>>> Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org"
>>>
>>> Subject: Re: banana breakfast
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "Fragile" and "labyrinthine" and "complexity," especially in association
>>> with living nature, tend to be pretty reliably Good Things in GR compared
>>> to anything metallic, rectilinear, or stripped to "brute" purposefulness.
>>> What shall we do with all this useless beauty?
>>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2016 at 7:22 AM, gary webb wrote:
>>> "Now there grows among all the rooms, replacing the nights old smoke,
>>> alcohol and sweat, the fragile, musaceous odor of breakfast: flowery,
>>> permeating, surprising, more than the color of winter sunlight, taking over
>>> not so much though any brute pungency or volume as by the high intricacy to
>>> the weaving of its molecules, sharing the conjuror's secret by which-though
>>> it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off-the living genetic
>>> chains prove even labyrinthine enough to preserve some human face down ten
>>> or twenty generations... (pg.10)"
>>> In this coming together of all those who will soon have to face death,
>>> they are allowed this marginal bit of life...
>>> - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>>
>>
>
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