banana breakfast

[Gary Webb]

Not that Osbie Feel is a particularly important character, but probably has some of the genuinely funny moments.. Not least being pummeled drinking Vat 69 singing...

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 22, 2016, at 12:03 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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.
>> 
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>>> 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. 
>>> 
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>>>> 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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