BtZ42 48-54: Foxes once more

[Monte Davis]

John Gardner:

"I dreamed I awakened in a valley where no life stirred, no cry
Of a fox sparked up out of stillness: a night of ashes."

(The Dantean opening lines of Jason & Medeia. Interesting choice out of all
possible embodiments of life...)


    "‘Jailer, I’ll tell you an interesting fact. Everything we study, we
modify by our study of it. Hence truth eternally eludes us.’
   He did not look convinced, just held out his hand for the plates.
   'Take crabs, for example,’ I said. ‘We poke them with a stick to find
out how they behave, and they behave as if poked by a stick.’"

(The Wreckage of Agathon)

Gardner became a crank, but was no fool.

On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 8:58 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> Thanks Monte. These quotes got me thinking about this last chapter.
> A suggestion. Maybe the fox, dog contrast is a pre-existing metaphor,
> firmly bound into the myth and language of humans, for 2 mental archetypes.
>
> The dog: obedient, trainable for many uses,domesticated, dedicated to a
> master, noisy, protective of territory and loved ones, smart but not
> independent( fed by the master), likes to sleep and work a bone.
>
>  The fox: wild, small in size but large in effectiveness, a thief admired
> for cunning, dedicated to itself and its family, silent, without
> boundaries, smart and independent( fed by hunting), likes to kill more than
> it can eat.
>
> Most humans are a mix of these traits though whole populations can become
> more dog-lke or fox-like depending on circumstances. Trying to take the fox
> out of the mind and turn it into a  child seems to be the imagined project
> at St. Veronica’s. That the sounds associated with this projects are moans,
> the visions dark and fearful, is not surprising.
>
> Along with these thoughts comes the question of whether behavioral
> evidence from experiments with pigeons or dogs tell us more about pigeon
> and dog minds intereacting with binary choices than human or animal minds
> in the their real complexity of interaction with the world?
> > On May 9, 2016, at 9:47 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > SPOILERS (if that matters to you)
> > I like Laura's brown fox and lazy dog, but GR is going to recycle both
> in more complex configurations than just Slothrop vs lab dogs... not least
> because, as noted before, both dogs and foxes can appear as prey or
> predators depending on context (remember Mike Jing's recent query about the
> imagined "personal Rockets" that will track each of us like hounds).
> >
> > A few of the later fox references that seem especially salient (Viking
> edition pagination):
> >
> > 53.30
> > the snow tracked over by foxes, rabbits, long‑lost dogs, and winter
> birds but no humans.
> >
> > 58.28
> > A skulk of foxes, a cowardice of curs are tonight’s traffic whispering
> in the yards and lanes.
> >
> > 131.19
> > The true king only dies a mock death. Remember. Any number of young men
> may be selected to die in his place while the real king, foxy old bastard,
> goes on.
> >
> > 138.19 They gather, thicker as the days pass, English ghosts, so many
> jostling in the nights, memories unloosening into the winter, seeds that
> will never take hold, so lost, now only an every-so-often word, a clue for
> the living—”Foxes,” calls SpectroE across astral spaces, the word intended
> for Mr. Pointsman who is not present, who won’t be told because the few Psi
> Section who’re there to hear it get cryptic debris of this sort every
> sitting—if recorded at all it finds its way into Milton Gloaming’s
> word-counting project—“Foxes,” a buzzing echo on the afternoon, Carroll
> Eventyr, “The White Visitation”’s resident medium, curls thickly tightened
> across his head, speaking the word “Foxes,” out of very red, thin lips
> >
> > 242.24
> > [General Wivern:] “Slothrop, there are no ‘SG’ documents.”
> > First impulse is to rattle the parts list in the man’s face, but today he
> >  is the shrewd Yankee foxing the redcoats.
> >
> > 450.16 [re the facilities of the toiletship Rucksichtslos]
> > “Crew morale,” whispered the foxes at the Ministry meetings, “sailors’
> superstitions. Mirrors at high midnight. We know, don’t we?”
> >             The officers’ latrines, by contrast, are done in red velvet.
> The decor is 1930s Safety Manual. That is, all over the walls,
> photograffiti, are pictures of Horrible Disasters in German Naval History.
> Collisions, magazine explosions, U-boat sinkings, just the thing if you’re
> an officer trying to take a shit. The Foxes have been busy. Commanding
> officers get whole suites, private shower or sunken bathtub...
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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