Rambling around plague topic (what would Pig Bodine do?)

[gary webb]

I don't mean to suggest a 1 to 1 comparison but we should also understand
that the US Navy wasn't the sophisticated or triumphant engine of war
during Pig's service, or more explicitly TP's service during the Suez
Crisis in 55-56... read Rick Atkinson's (An Army at Dawn: The War in North
Africa, 1942-1943) depiction of Norfolk before North Africa departure:
"Naughty Norfolk catered to those looking for sin before shipping out,
notwithstanding the occasional sign that read "No dogs or sailors allowed."
The towns iniquity grew with the arrival of each new regiment. Every night,
thousands of men swarmed down East Mai Street, described as "the largest,
most solid block of beer joints in the world." Taxis became rolling
brothels, and fleets of "girlie trailers" served the concupiscent. On
October 18th, arrested 115 people, in the "largest morals raid in local
history." His jail cells bulging, Norfolk's police chief asked the federal
government to "give me a concentration camp...a camp large enough to handle
two or three women...""

Norbert Wiener published *Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the
Animal and the Machine* in 1948. The Pentagon didn't exist yet. The complex
weapons system that became the US Navy didn't exist yet. It could afford to
absorb someone like Pig, or Dean Moriarty for that matter... I don't want
to push the point too far, but Pynchon is, among other things, a master
satirist... and Pig's bellicosity shouldn't preclude him, especially since
he's frequently AWOL...

On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 2:13 AM Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>
wrote:

>
> Thanks for the kind words!
>
> Neil Cassady somewhat in terms of houndishness in the sexual dept, but the
> way Kerouac portrays him anyway he’s a working man, a brakeman, a factory
> hand, a washer of dishes (though concupiscently “googing around” - which I
> just now got that it might have been a typo for “goofing“ in my high school
> paperback - with Mary Ann in the dishwashing scene) relishing the rhythms
> and movements of manual labor - and a would-be thinker/poet, who doesn’t
> convert homo-erotic urges into violence; although he does a lot of car
> thefts I can’t think of any altercations involving Dean Moriarty and
> anyone, the closest even to a disagreement is the urinal scene in _On the
> Road_ and he gets sad, not mad...though his abandonment of Sal Paradise in
> Mexico is pretty passive-aggressive...
>
> Pig Bodine might accommodate a niche in a military, but it’s hard to
> picture him in a civilian role due to said bellicosity (which I still think
> is a key theme in V., Pig at home in the Navy but a menacing outsider in
> civilian life, and Benny oblivious and slightly uncomfortable in either) or
> in an intellectual one despite his quoting Sartre on identity.
>
> But Bannon, yeah, might not be a perfect analogue. He’s more of a Goebbels
> media guy type though.
>
>
> ——————————————
>
> 350.org is building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate
> crisis. Our online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public
> actions are led from the bottom up by thousands of volunteer organizers in
> over 188 countries. Sign up for important movement dispatches.
>
> https://act.350.org/signup/join
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Gary Webb <gwebb8686 at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Sunday, March 15, 2020 1:59 PM
> *To:* Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>
> *Cc:* Pynchon-l at waste.org <Pynchon-l at waste.org>
> *Subject:* Re: Rambling around plague topic (what would Pig Bodine do?)
>
> I love this!
>
> Viruses are stultifying and mysterious...as dominant in our knowledge
> we’ve become in the 20th - early21st century, there are still these weird
> things that exist outside the established five “kingdoms” of life...
>
> The problem with statistics is who does the counting and how they do it...
> as the 2008 mortgage backed securities as well as 2016 national polls
> showed... its easy to propagate error, and incorrectly measure reality...
> computers, while big data shows promise in this field, still are just Rain
> Man counting pennies in a preset jar...
>
> I love that Tim Leary quote! And it might have manifested itself in the
> sense that Japan’s Corona numbers are mysteriously low...
>
> Lol I’ve always thought of Bannon as less as Pig Bodine and more of like
> “Bloody” Chiclitz or Marjor Marvy... Pig, in my opinion, is more like the
> old Non-PC Counter Culture. I see him as something of a Neal Cassidy
> type... Bannon is an old Goldman guy, after all...
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Mar 15, 2020, at 1:30 AM, Raphael Saltwood <
> PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:
> >
> > 
> >
> >
> https://www.longdom.org/scholarly/viral-immunity-journals-articles-ppts-list-1099.html
> >
> >
> > First line of defense is one's own immune system - zooming out, isn't it
> true (I think I read somewhere) there are more viruses wandering around all
> over the place than all the critters put together and viruses predate them
> all.
> >
> > So like logically in a scientific sense, they are proto-life, little
> strings of genetic material not yet hopeful monsters - aspiring to be
> hopeful monsters - "idiots studying to be morons" - no offense, viruses and
> virus-lovers.
> >
> > Like, the creation abounds with chemicals and energy - well, anyway it
> seems like a lot to me but after listening to Khan Academy videos about
> astronomical distances and time frames, it's clear that there's a whole lot
> more nothing (as Crowley once wrote, "nothingness with twinkles. But oh!
> such twinkles!")
> >
> > But in this fortunate solar system with a solar power source and then
> all the chemicals being subjected keep combining in different ways to
> constantly change and at this point we, the people, the crown of creation,
> exist as exemplars of many of the interesting things that can be made of
> stuff...
> >
> > But human cells are outnumbered even in a human body by other organisms,
> and even human DNA contains long sequences that originated when pre-primate
> life forms incorporated viruses and passed them on, and although this
> accretion has slowed way down in terms of viruses earning or inveigling a
> special place in the genome, we never actually got rid of a bunch of them.
> >
> > So, virus qua virus is not an unfamiliar element in the environment; and
> Mother Nature will probably keep popping them out - it's human life that's
> relatively new and unfamiliar on this globe. One of the givens of human
> life is that there are more and less desirable outcomes for the individual,
> and large scale apoptosis is firmly in the "undesirable" column.
> >
> > Since the same biological co-operative logic that led to human creatures
> also led to a social order that has spawned the ability to study various
> phenomena, including the apparently ceaseless cascade of new viral
> varieties, I for one would like to take a moment to be grateful for the
> opportunity to incorporate reasonable precautions suggested by those in the
> know (a new form of hepcat) and to learn more about these things we share
> the planet with.
> >
> >
> > The goal would seem to be to avoid becoming overwhelmed by the virus,
> but it's pretty inevitable to encounter it eventually. As I view
> statistics, even more than economics, as the dismal science, it's with some
> reluctance that I take and recommend measures that keep one out of the
> groups most likely to succumb -- wouldn't it be great to be the one who got
> exposed, developed immunity, and passed it on? But the way to do that isn't
> so clear. Until one has a greater probability (darn statistics!) of success
> it's probably best to take reasonable  precautions, eh?
> >
> >
> > That said, wondering about various Pynchon characters and their immune
> responses.
> >
> > Would Pig Bodine have become a prepper? Would his Harley now be garaged
> in a complex in Idaho, near a stockpile of vitamins and canned food? Or
> would he still be heedlessly scouting the gene pool and social milieu for
> one night stands and picking fights? In "Lowlands" he appears to have
> either demobbed or gone AWOL long term. Pushed into theory, I might opine
> that he's an archetype of that place and time with interesting
> applicability to this day & age - "what shall we do with the drunken
> sailor?" The human characteristics of bellicosity and promiscuity, the id,
> fitting in a certain way into Benny Profane's circles of friends, the
> military and the civilian world. Pig himself is ensconced within V., but a
> character *somewhat like* Pig, well, Steve Bannon springs to mind. He's a
> phenomenon, but clearly not a role model.
> >
> > The other Pynchon character that springs to mind is of course Takeshi,
> who even mentions his "immunity" as a trait that helps him in his quest,
> his career, of karmic readjustment. Why does he have immunity, and from
> what? Bear with me, please: I think that his mostly positive outlook allows
> him to travel among the glum and revenge-obsessed Thanatoids and turn their
> thoughts into more positive channels. His resemblance to Brock Vond, the
> standard-bearer for official repression, is no accident. His
> commercialization of redress-seeking fulfills the need better than law
> enforcement. (As W.E.B DuBois noted, the best way to change culture is to
> use economic power.) Although Timothy Leary once called Japan the most
> advanced culture on earth, shows like "Babies of Wackiness" militate
> against taking that undiluted: it's not only his nationality, but his
> enlightened Boddhisattva approach that earns him his immunity, IMHO.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ——————————————
> >
> > 350.org is building a global grassroots movement to solve the climate
> crisis. Our online campaigns, grassroots organizing, and mass public
> actions are led from the bottom up by thousands of volunteer organizers in
> over 188 countries. Sign up for important movement dispatches.
> >
> > https://act.350.org/signup/join
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>