"The rent's too high"

Sat Jan 7 18:54:03 CST 2017

Pynchon could lambast everything, but then he would value nothing.

His portrayal of an ideal Anarchy in ATD is absurd, surely not meant as a
model for society.  I think he knows Anarchy is a Quiote's quest, but
laments that reality.

David Morris

On Saturday, January 7, 2017, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Pynchon's 'Anarchy' is not farcical, except when he makes almost anything
> farcical, it is a serious vision---but not
> of how to build a civilization, since he is NOT doing that in his works.
>
> The dancing anarchist 'community' under the
> bridge in Lot 49 is ..a vision of how a community can be anarchist.
>
> Dance is necessary but not sufficient for civilization sez McNeill.
>
> Birth is necessary for life at all, of course, and happens in uncivilized
> groups too. So is not
> basic to civilization except in the sense life is.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 4:09 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','fqmorris at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>
>> OK, I buy that in theory, but in this real world how could WE ever
>> "return" or invent a civilization without an "Authority" that regulates
>> social interaction, and by "social" I mean global.
>>
>> Pynchon has always toyed with Anarchy, but he knows better. It is just a
>> polemic tool that is farcical at best.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> On Saturday, January 7, 2017, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com
>> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','mark.kohut at gmail.com');>> wrote:
>>
>>> Logically, it is finding one or more not built on cruelty proving he
>>> overgeneralized mostly by
>>> writing about the Western world he knew so deeply.
>>>
>>> Not too much awareness of other civilizations which anthropologists
>>> and others were finding.
>>>
>>> Or by redefining most of the shallow definitions of cruelty, which he
>>> sorta did.
>>> See self-overcoming or that "Overman" concept.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 2:38 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Didn't Nietzsche say something like all civilization is built on
>>>> cruelty?  But what's the alternative?
>>>>
>>>> David Morris
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Saturday, January 7, 2017, Allan Balliett <allan.balliett at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I didn't see this mentioned here so I'll insert it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Property taxes are another form of rent. Even when the property is
>>>>> owned 'free and clear' and the landlord or banker is vanquished, property
>>>>> taxes come due regularly with an unsentimental threat to pay or face
>>>>> confiscation.
>>>>>
>>>>> I digress...
>>>>>
>>>>> I used to spend a lot of time  checking out "homesteader" holdings
>>>>> when I was younger. I was always impressed by how thoroughly they were
>>>>> reducing the actual cash needed for survival. Most back-to-the-landers
>>>>> (better description) were well aware that they had to pull together enough
>>>>> cash each year to pay their taxes or they'd lose their holdings. Usually
>>>>> this meant some sort of  off-the-land seasonal employment (fruit picking or
>>>>> Christmas retail) but often it meant planting fine lumber trees which would
>>>>>  be sold off to lumber companies a tree at a time to make ends meet when
>>>>> the land holder got too old or too crotchety to bring in the cash. The new
>>>>> plagues of boring beetles in the US must be upsetting a lot of
>>>>> best-laid-plans coast-to-coast nowadays.(Didja know that when I started
>>>>> non-toxic farming 30 years ago that there were locust fence posts in some
>>>>> fence lines that had been standing for nearly a hundred
>>>>> years?Traditionally, locust was so innately rot-proof that it outlasted
>>>>> other hardwood fence posts at a ratio of about 4 to 1 (If your posts were
>>>>> oak you'd replace them 4 times before you would have had to replace a
>>>>> locust post.) Now, thanks to chaos in the natural order (here in WV most
>>>>> likely caused by precipitation of toxic discharges of smoke stacks
>>>>> somewhere in the mid-West acidifying the soils enough to disrupt the
>>>>> primordial soil foodweb even on 'virgin soils' enough that entropy of a
>>>>> system that had maintained itself through millennia ensued) In the past
>>>>> dozen years more and more locusts are infected with a 'heartwood fungus'
>>>>> that causes the locust to produce a wood that is essentially not rot
>>>>> resistant at all and certainly doesn't hold in the soil any longer than a
>>>>> good oak post.
>>>>>
>>>>> -Allan in WV
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 8:18 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com
>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> :-)
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 7:47 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> > Except for yours which is being raised.
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> > On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 7:33 AM, Mark Thibodeau <
>>>>>> jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>
>>>>>> > wrote:
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Every time I see this goddamn discussion thread re-appear in my
>>>>>> inbox,
>>>>>> >> I get nervous all over again.
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> Jeez with the RENT crap already!
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> ;-)
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> YOPJ
>>>>>> >>
>>>>>> >> On Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 6:35 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> >> > Or even, thinking of the lifelong power/ domination theme, all
>>>>>> about "
>>>>>> >> > structured subjugation", a phrase I like learned in an essay on
>>>>>> >> > globalization, which is not, or not just, " everything solid
>>>>>> melting into
>>>>>> >> > air" these days, something Pynchon also knew in his (only)
>>>>>> pre-modernity
>>>>>> >> > novel, Mason& Dixon.
>>>>>> >> >
>>>>>> >> > Sent from my iPad
>>>>>> >> >
>>>>>> >> >> On Jan 7, 2017, at 1:33 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> >> >>
>>>>>> >> >> Isn’t the relationship of landlord to renter a rather obvious
>>>>>> mirror of
>>>>>> >> >> the more universal Pyncon theme of colonizer and colonized?
>>>>>> >> >>>
>>>>>> >> >>> Can the relationship between renters and landlords be
>>>>>> extrapolated
>>>>>> >> >>> into a broader existential dynamic? It's worth a thought.
>>>>>> >> >>>
>>>>>> >> >>>> On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 2:25 PM, Chase Carnot <
>>>>>> chase.carnot at gmail.com>
>>>>>> >> >>>> wrote:
>>>>>> >> >>>> "[...] Crocker Fenway chuckled without mirth. ‘A bit late for
>>>>>> that,
>>>>>> >> >>>> Mr.
>>>>>> >> >>>> Sportello. People like you lose all claim to respect the
>>>>>> first time
>>>>>> >> >>>> they pay
>>>>>> >> >>>> anybody rent.’"
>>>>>> >> >>>>
>>>>>> >> >>>> When I saw PT Anderson's IV, this line jumped at me for the
>>>>>> first
>>>>>> >> >>>> time. In
>>>>>> >> >>>> the novel, it must have just washed over me. Anyway, I've been
>>>>>> >> >>>> thinking
>>>>>> >> >>>> about diving back into the novel sometime soon with an eye
>>>>>> toward
>>>>>> >> >>>> rent as a
>>>>>> >> >>>> central theme. I felt vindicated when a reading app I use
>>>>>> cropped the
>>>>>> >> >>>> IV
>>>>>> >> >>>> 'Last Supper' poster... it left the center...
>>>>>> >> >>>>
>>>>>> >> >>>> https://goo.gl/photos/zaJops8hNHUrju2u6
>>>>>> >> >>> -
>>>>>> >> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list
>>>>>> >> >>
>>>>>> >> >> -
>>>>>> >> >> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>>>> >> > -
>>>>>> >> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> >
>>>>>> -
>>>>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>
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