MD Read?

[Smoke Teff]

"To rule forever," continues the Chinaman, later, "it is necessary only to
create, among the people one would rule, what we call...Bad History.
Nothing will produce Bad History more directly nor brutally, than drawing a
Line, in particular a Right Line, the very Shape of Contempt, through the
midst of a People,--to create thus a Distinction betwixt 'em,--'tis the
first stroke.--All else will follow as if predestin'd, unto War and
Devastation."

[...]

When it seems there's a Chance that someone may listen, Mason and Dixon
both try to explain about the new Planet,--but very few care. It breaks
slowly upon the Astronomers, that with no time available for gazing at
anything, this people's Indifference to the Night, and the Stars, must work
no less decisively than their devotion to the Day, and the Earth for whose
sake something far short of the Sky must ever claim them, a stove, a child,
a hen-house predator, a deer upwind, the price of Corn, a thrown shoe, an
early freeze.

[...]

There may be found, within the malodorous Grotto of the Selves, a conscious
Denial of all that Reason holds true. Something that knows, unarguably as
it knows Flesh is sooner or later Meat, that there are Beings who are not
wise, or spiritually advanced, or indeed capable of Human kindness, but
ever and implacably cruel, hiding, haunting, waiting,--known only to the
blood-scented deserts of the Night,--and any who see them out of Disguise
are instantly pursued,--and none escape, however long and fruitful be the
years till the Shadow creeps 'cross the Sill-plate, its Advent how mute.
Spheres of Darkness, Darkness impure,--Plexities of Honor and Sin we may
never clearly sight, for when we venture near they fall silent, Murdering
must be silent, by Potions and Spells, by summonings from beyond the
Horizons, of Spirits who dwell a little over the Line between the Day and
its annihilation, between the number'd and the unimagin'd,--between common
safety and Ruin ever solitary...

On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 6:00 PM, James Robertson <james at themutedposthorn.com
> wrote:

> Up for it.
>
>
> @jamesjrobertson
> themutedposthorn.com
>
> sent from iphone
>
> On 1/10/2017, at 11:30, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Fuck it. I'm game. I got about half way through the last one, loved every
> page, and for some inexplicable reason, fell away like a dead leaf.
> Literary overload is a serious threat when reading Pynchon's masterpieces!
>
> My main contribution to the last M&D read was pointing out that the & from
> the book cover looks very much like a Satanic triple-six. So I'm not
> exactly a font of wisdom. But I'm willing to give it the old (second)
> college try!
>
> Jerky LeBoeuf Esq.
>
> On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 12:04 PM, da kid <peterock86 at live.com> wrote:
>
>> Would you all be up for a group read and discussion of Mason and Dixon?
>>
>
>
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