Hi Evrybahdy!

[John Bailey]

I like this theory. M&D is full of characters with names like Wicks
and Tenebrae ('shadows') and Lomax, which I swear is something to do
with light or electricity. And AtD virtually treats light as a
character throughout the novel, beginning with the epigraph ("It's
always night, or we wouldn't need light").
I always approached the magenta/green combo as something to do with
their complementarity, ie they're 'opposite' colours so they produce
the greatest contrast possible to the human eye. You can get a sense
of the effect just on the Wikipedia page for complementarity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_colors
It's close to an optical illusion, the effect the contrast has on the
eye. Supposedly complementary colours cancel each other out and create
white or black as a result but I don't really understand what that's
all about.

On Mon, Jun 5, 2017 at 1:00 AM, da kid <peterock86 at live.com> wrote:
> Cool thanks. Only skimmed the article so far but I like the idea of
> purple/green indicating Slothrop is a projection. It agrees with my vague
> understanding of Pynchon's "hologram style characters" that his ex-gf said
> he was trying to create. I was wowed by that comment of hers when I read it
> on some obscure blog because previously I had been a fan of an essay on M&D
> comparing it's structure to a magic eye a.k.a. auto-stereogram.
>
> I'm currently finishing up ATD so there are two scenes that have stuck with
> me that I think have something to do with this. One is the scene where the
> Chums meet the Trespassers at Candlebrow U. where they dematerialize and
> reappear. At first they have a magenta and green edge to them and then a
> blue and orange tone (he's more specific of course).
> The second is the scene when Kit is at the sanitorium after dodging Foley at
> Gottingen. This goofy scene features among other things a distracting
> necktie in magenta and green that if look at right can show entertaining
> images. I'm personally of the opinion that this scene is one of a handful in
> ATD where Pynchon rolls out his old standby themes  from his other books.
> There's a football making a parabola I believe and the jelly doughnut  guy
> who I suspect is the disguised  Eucharist - cannibalism question of Rec'd
> Cherrycoke's. Another big part of this scene is the "doctor" Dinkopf's
> anti-Semitic hangups. He is a proto-Nazi who suspects everyone is Jewish. To
> me this sounds like Docs phone call to his Aunt in the  Inherent Vice movie
> (I haven't read that one) about I think Mickey Wolfman- "He's secretly
> Jewish but thinks he's a Nazi". Dr. Hilarius too. I don't know if all these
> allusions are supposed to tie in a certain way or if it is some kind of
> Pynchon montage.
> I may be rambling too much here so basically magenta and green has something
> to do with holograms or 3d projections or perhaps television?
>
> ________________________________
> From: Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>
> Sent: Sunday, June 4, 2017 8:51:32 AM
> To: da kid
> Cc: Pynchon-l
> Subject: Re: Hi Evrybahdy!
>
> Magenta & green, etc -- "Coloring Gravity's Rainbow", downloadable:
>
> https://pynchonnotes.openlibhums.org/articles/abstract/10.16995/pn.374/
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 3, 2017 at 3:49 PM, da kid <peterock86 at live.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi I've been reading the p-list archives for a little while now and admire
>> the ideas of alot of the people here. Entries by Andrew Dinn, John Bailey,
>> Doug Millison among many others are Imho far better than New Yorker or NYT
>> essays for understanding TRP's books. I have tried to talk about Pynchon on
>> Reddit but I rarely ever encounter anyone who really wants to dive into the
>> text. So, I am excited to hopefully discuss some of the theories and whatnot
>> that have been bugging me for awhile. Pynchon's ubiqui-themes like:
>>
>>    Ourobouros through the ring
>>
>> Magenta and green specifically and his hangup with particular shades
>> pigments in general.
>>
>>   Holograms/Layers
>>   His "cartoonish" characterization that Chrissie Wexler refers to in
>> Lineland.
>>
>> Vibrating to stay invisible (CoC & Inconvenience, the revealing of America
>> in M&D)
>>
>>   The Eucharist
>>    The Holy Ghost and the Pentecost
>>
>> as well as my pet theories about the Hairy Ball Theorem in M&D and Donald
>> Barthelme as Dixon. I could keep rambling on but I'll stop for now.
>>
>> Anyways, I hope to get to the bottom of all this malarkey and reveal the
>> authors perverse schemes once and for all...
>>
>> Pete
>>
>
>
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l