"The rent's too high"

Sun Jan 8 02:00:01 CST 2017

Mark do you mean the deaf-mute dancers miraculously waltzing in sync in
CoL49? I don't recall sub-bridge dancers... Although I'm thinking about the
Anarchist's Miracle in the book and how skeptically it's treated (if
mournfully so). I don't think Pynchon's use of anarchism is any more
positive than the Wobbly stuff, the Quakers, the hippies, the unionists,
the vegetarians... although there's obviously a lot more fondness there
than for the plutes and deathdealers.

On 8 Jan 2017 8:49 pm, "Jochen Stremmel" <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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