Astrology

[Mark Kohut]

That last line wins the day! 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 1, 2020, at 7:49 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Yes, Sisyphus... the eternal recurrence phenomena, is this the true way of
> the world? Was the lama right, is it all an illusion? the samsara, or
> whatever you call it, i don't know...we do live in a vapid age, the kind
> where Maxine goes to her Buddhist psychologist, Buddhist by way of
> California btw, to talk about the Brady Bunch. The illusions are powerful
> these days, a metric called virality, that can simultaneously coexist in
> both the digital and biological worlds, and the madman's final
> question...did we make them or did they make us? Then there's that paranoia
> added into the equation too, the hidden variable buried deep in the
> equation, or the dungeon rather, like why are the days of the week named
> after Teutonic pagan gods? A-and like, the days of the week in French are
> named after celestial bodies, seem to anyone like one of those
> Conspiracies, the ones that we'd choose to ignore... An ancient cult of
> Babylon...
> 
> Maybe, there is just the eternal Will, the Will of Schopenhauer... and that
> once the veil of illusion is removed you see the true face of it, the death
> cults of Kali, then the path to Nirvana awaits to the true initiate, and it
> is only through art that it is possible to transcend to the immaculate
> cosmic forms of Plato, or descend the stairs in final madness, or to be
> reincarnated as an alchemist, whose suddenly discovered *Livre des figures
> hieroglyphiques* by Flamel... the one who has finally summoned the
> Godhead...
> 
> Maybe one day we primates will understand the phallacy (Priapism (
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapus) anyone?) fallacy of our
> logocentrism... or the drugs will finally just wear off...
> 
>> On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 6:41 PM David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> So much fun!  Do our stars rule us?  Isn’t this a question about Fate,
>> and/or Free Will?  This is both an individual and a collective question.
>> Maybe also about Sisyphus.
>> 
>> 
>> https://www.google.com/search?q=sisyphus&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS777US778&oq=sysi&aqs=chrome.2.69i57j0l3.5813j0j4&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=C_7hiDNrby23MM
>> 
>> David Morris
>> 
>> On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 4:10 PM Keith McMullen via Pynchon-l <
>> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> “Oh, don’t I remember those, Lens-brother,— ’tis our Burden. Kepler said
>>> that Astrology is Astronomy’s wanton little sister, who goes out and
>> sells
>>> herself that Astronomy may keep her Virtue,— surely we have all done the
>>> Covent Garden turn. As to the older Sister, how many Steps may she
>> herself
>>> indeed already have taken into Compromise? for,
>>> 
>>> Be the Instrument brazen, or be it Fleshen, [Maskelyne sings, in a
>>> competent Tenor]
>>> 
>>> Star-Gazing’s ever a Whore’s profession,— (Isn’t it?)
>>> 
>>> Some in a Palace, all Marble and Brick,
>>> 
>>> Some behind Hedges for less than a kick, tell me
>>> 
>>> What’s it matter, The Stars will say, We’ve been ga-zing, back at ye,
>> Many
>>> a Day,
>>> 
>>> And there’s nothing we haven’t seen
>>> 
>>> More than one way,
>>> 
>>> Sing Deny o deny o day . . . [Recitative]
>>> 
>>>> On Aug 1, 2020, at 1:43 PM, gary webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Reading C.V. Wedgwood's Thirty Years War, and came across this line
>>> which
>>>> Pynchon mentions in Mason & Dixon, the part where Maskelyne and Mason
>> are
>>>> casting each other's horoscope
>>>> 
>>>> "A pseudo-scientific interest in Astrology was the fashion. Kepler
>>> himself,
>>>> half humorously, half indignantly, averred that the astronomer could
>> only
>>>> support himself by ministering to the follies of astronomy's "silly
>>> little
>>>> daughter, astrology""
>>>> --
>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>> 
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> 
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l