48-54 The Problem of the Pavlovian Penis

[Mark Kohut]

I like that joke perception. I also like the gratuitous fox joke. 'Try not
to think about a fox as you run three times around
the building."..haha....why does P play on that old joke? 1) plays with the
mentioned laws of contradiction of Pavlov, however we are to understand
them? 2) plays with the return of the repressed notion in a quotidian jokey
way? What we are told to repress we simply can't. (Return of the Repressed
might have larger meanings within GR (and other works, esp AtD again, maybe
Vineland?)) 3) is sort of a joke about the impossibility of absolute
conditioning despite everything? about some inherent human freedom to
oppose no matter the conditioning? I can link speculatively albeit loosely
about the Epilogue of 1984. I think of Wm James wrestling with his
scientific/philosophical depression over the possibility that he has no
free will, his life, all life, is determined inevitably. He breaks out of
his depression by *believing* that his sure act of free will will be to
believe in free will. (a mental health preserving kind of Carteesian move,
so to analogize).

On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 10:45 AM, kelber at mindspring.com <
kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:

> Don't have the book with me right now, but isn't there some mention of a
> fast or running fox? So Pynchon is setting up a joke about the quick brown
> fox jumping over the lazy ( Pavlovian) dog.
>
> Laura
>
> *Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE DROID*
>
>
> Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>
> Kevin Spectro- a spectral presence sitting in the annulus( technologic
> ring) of ( mysterious) night , holder of Book, manager of experimental
> subjects with little apparent choice( like Von Braun’s slaves?), leader in
> the of cult of Pavlov, despiser of ethical restrictions,upholder of
> scientific method, despiser of “old” order, spiking Foxes with painkiller,
> withholding them from Pointsman’s avarice/lust, "not the devil” are you?”,
> destined for death and destruction via V2 with St. Veronica’s and therefor
> identified with the rocket( nuclear weapon) as “a ghost in the sky".
>
> Why call patients Fox? In Japan fox is trickster, in england object of
> hunt, in 70s sexy woman. But why a predator for a patient that seems more
> prey?
>
>
> > On May 5, 2016, at 7:48 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> >
> >  please feel free to jump in as you will, p-listers.
> >
> > To St. Veronica's hospital where Pointsman and Spectro (also a Pavlovian
> scientist) discuss Pointsman’s desire to have access to experiment with
> Slothrop as subject and we find with full clarity that Slothrop is somehow
> predicting the location and time of the fall of the rockets with his map of
> erections. Spectro says it can't be experimentally justified because there
> is just one subject. They wonder how Slothrop's predictive ability works,
> comparing phenoma of erection then rocket strike to  the arrival of a
> rocket first,  and then the rocket sound. We find Slothrop was also
> patient/ experimental subject of Laszlo Jamf. Pointsman wants same access
> to human subjects, reflecting Nazi medical experiments and known western
> experiments.
> > The "hospital' takes in children, apparently survivors of bomb blasts
> etc. Some odd "therapy" is hinted at, possibly shock therapy. It is said
> that a thousand children are about to leave. Alive? To go where?)
> >
> > note:
> > St. Veronica is a Catholic legend of a woman who offers Jesus a cloth to
> wipe his face on the way to calvary and the cloth bears the image( Ver I
> can = true image in Latin) of his face. This may be related to shroud of
> Turin but very sketchy what the source is. The idea though is an image
> showing the utmost in suffering and abuse born in the face of Jesus. It is
> interesting that Jesus face is traditionally almost hermaphroditic apart
> from the beard so both the feminine and masculine are conveyed.  In the
> novel St Veronica's carries a dominant sense of misery, sounds of wailing
> reminiscent of the screaming at start of novel- science in the service of
> scrying bones.-
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
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