"The rent's too high"

Sun Jan 8 01:47:53 CST 2017

There are dances and dances.

2017-01-08 2:43 GMT+01:00 Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>:

> He values the strain of non-violent anarchy everywhere we can find it. I
> never speak of any Ideal Anarchy in ATD, if that is implied, and we've been
> thru this wrong turn before. The " ideal anarchy" in ATD is the scene where
> one is told to pick a T-shirt from a pile of everyone's.
>
> I wrote TRP never tries to build a civilization with his visions of
> anarchy but I do think he offers
> Some subculture of a very tender anarchic community in the dancing scene
> in LOT 49.
> And, of course, he implied meanings to dance that McNeil's historic
> generalization does not refute.
>
> I
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Jan 7, 2017, at 7:54 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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> 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> 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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