Another Pynchon theme manifesting again in the real world.

Wed Sep 6 21:50:14 CDT 2017

What a wonderful book! Thanks for bringing it up. I always thought the
movie (that I saw some years after reading the book) much inferior.

2017-09-07 1:46 GMT+02:00 ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com>:

> Yeah, carnival can be one person's anarchy or silly.
>
> Ever read Cuckoo's Nest? Maybe that was a long time ago. And, well,
> with the film, most readers forget most of the details, so... and,
> well,  the book, KK's attempt to pay tribute to Melville and M-D, and,
> while at it,  write a GAN,  a counter cultural carnivalsque satire
> about work in America... the boys in the hospital decide to have a
> carnival. It's a break from the routine, the chores, the work. RPM is
> out to organize the boys into men, American men in a radical
> democracy. Now the Big Nurse, others might see a carnival as
> dangerous. There is something akin to anarchy in RPM and the boys when
> they become aware of their exploitation, of their potential to make
> meaningful play. What, with a homosexual, a half Indian, and the rest
> of the whole sick crew, their not exactly a labor force.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivalesque
>
> On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 8:40 AM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> > I hear what you are saying, Anarchy seems llike a crazy goal. I hear a
> difference between anarchy and anarchism. Anarchy is more frequently used
> to describe a disorderly state than to describe a community without rulers.
> Old growth forests have no rulers but they are rarely seen as anarchy.
> >
> > As far as human societies or times with no clear rulers or where power
> is shared equally, it actually happens a lot, but mostly on a local level.
> There are neighborhoods, towns, urban and rural communities where harmony
> is stronger than tyranny, anyone can have a say if they are respectful to
> others, and people cooperate to solve problems  and make their community
> sustainable.. Often in these places there are obvious leaders , but they
> are leaders because they are respected and generous , not because they
> domineer in a hierarchical power structure.
> >
> > The issue of sustainability seems to me to go to the heart of all failed
> systems. Is capitalism sustainable? Is fossil fuel based technology
> sustainable? Is the rule of 51% sustainable? Oligarchy has endured for a
> long time but is it sustainable?  Is american empire sustainable.
> >
> > The anarchist golf game may have seemed silly to you but it reminded me
> of good times with crazy friends being goofy. Mardis Gras looks silly to
> some but I can tell that for you it allows powerful self-liberation.  Most
> people have times in life of liberating rituals of rule -breaking and
> mockery of sacred cows. The discussions that take place in the golf game
> are really funny and actually rather subtle and intellectually lively.
> > When it came time to do something   at Yzles-Bains the anarchists at the
> center of the story ended up with the unlikely focus of song-gathering in
> Thrace looking for remnants of neo-Pythagoreans identifiable because they
> favor the Phrygian musical mode.  We can’t entirely tell if it is a cover
> story or simply a wacky pursuit that opens doors of synchronicity and puts
> our merry band in the right place to see hope in the midst of horror and
> discover their unexpected inner strength and heroism. Part of the goal is
> to show readers more aspects of how the battle lines of a world war were in
> place  before it began . For Reef, Cyprian and Yashmeen this gathering
> leads them toward a period of profound transformation. To me the point is
> that each person is very limited in what they can do, but there are avenues
> that emerge from friendship and bold exploration that can effect powerful
> change.
> >
> >
> >> On Sep 4, 2017, at 5:35 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> I only push this because Pynchon does, and it needs context.  For P,
> Anarchy goes back to GRs Zone, a place of crazy freedom in wake of total
> collapse, which can't be sustained.  It is not a model of sustained living,
> despite AGD's silly golf game.  It is a very short-lived thing.
> >>
> >> David Morris
> >>
> >> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 4:16 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> So your anarchism jag isn't a real proscription.  It is a plaything.  A
> Pynchon fanboy thing.
> >>
> >> David Morris
> >>
> >> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 3:57 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Anarchism as I wrote about it here is working with whatever, jumping in
> spontaneously before or with  FEMA HELP and FEMA is goddam necessary OR
> ELSE. ...More incalculable deaths and reams of suffering and hurt.
> >>
> >> I wrote " part" of....not as a guiding political philosophy, like
> libertarianism, which is  perhaps the exact opposite of helping ANYONE but
> oneself. ...anarchism allows selflessness.
> >>
> >> I just read a decent piece about the horrible tornado in Kansas,
> killing more than Harvey has, and the gist was FEMA was invaluable for
> money (paid 90% of clean-up cost) and worked best when "spontaneous groups"
> --like churches-- local leaders and Orgs were the go-to ones for advice and
> disbursement.
> >>
> >> And I'm a big Govt " liberal" myself. Who loves selfless helping and
> dancing. Esp in musicals.
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPhone
> >>
> >> On Sep 4, 2017, at 1:59 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Anarchism is akin to Libertarianism: freedumb from guvmint!
> >>>
> >>> Imagine a world in Houston without FEMA!  Such a dream!
> >>>
> >>> And no interstate highways!  And no EPA!  And no Medicare or Social
> Security!
> >>>
> >>> You may sat I'm a dreamer, but they're about to be deported.
> >>>
> >>> David Morris
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Sep 4, 2017 at 11:48 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>> Anarchism. Pervasive as we know (and been written about).
> >>>
> >>> Anarchism, not as any kind of policy or new government notion but
> >>> precisely as getting shit done without government, outside of it.
> >>>
> >>> The natural way hundreds of thousands of simple citizens
> "self-organized"--
> >>> this is the key,-- like the deaf-mute dance under the bridge where
> everyone
> >>> dances together without bumping with no one having to direct the
> dancing--
> >>> like the search and rescue and help operation in Houston after Harvey.
> >>>
> >>> Since a guy named Prince wrote about the "spontaneous groupings" of
> volunteer
> >>> help after the Halifax explosion disaster , it has always been a part
> of every disaster
> >>> since. They say.
> >>>
> >>> Spontaneous groupings = self-organizing= equal apolitical, non-violent
> anarchism in
> >>> the real world.
> >
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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