Hi Evrybahdy!

[Thomas Eckhardt]

A tattooed savage...

I detect "Arthur Gordon Pym" here, and, of course, 
"Moby-Dick".

Compare and contrast:

"And when we consider that other theory
of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues 
--every
stately or lovely emblazoning --the sweet tinges of sunset 
skies and
woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the 
butterfly
cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, 
not actually
inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so 
that all
deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose 
allurements
cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we 
proceed
further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which 
produces every
one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever 
remains white
or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium 
upon matter,
would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its 
own blank
tinge --pondering all this, the palsied universe lies 
before us a
leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse 
to wear
colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the 
wretched infidel
gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that 
wraps all the
prospect around him.  And of all these things the Albino 
whale was the
symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?"


On Thu, 8 Jun 2017 08:30:46 -0400
  Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Godolphin to Victoria Wren:
> 
> "“The colors. So many colors.” His eyes were tightly 
>closed, his forehead resting on the bowed edge of one hand. “The 
>trees outside the head shaman’s house have spider monkeys which are iridescent. 
>They change color in the sunlight. Everything changes. The
> mountains, the lowlands are never the same color from 
>one hour to the next. No sequence of colors is the same from day to 
>day. As if you lived inside a madman’s kaleidoscope. Even your 
>dreams become flooded with colors, with shapes no Occidental ever saw. 
>Not real shapes, not meaningful ones. Simply random, the way 
>clouds change over a Yorkshire landscape.”
> ​...​
>“They stay with you,” he went on, “they aren’t fleecy
>lambs or jagged profiles. They are, they are Vheissu, 
>its raiment, perhaps its skin.”
>“And beneath?”
>“You mean soul don’t you. Of course you do. I 
>wondered about the soul of that place. If it had a soul. Because their 
>music, poetry, laws and ceremonies come no closer. They are skin too. 
>Like the skin of a tattooed savage.”​"​
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l