How Pynchon once mistook a virus for a metaphor

[Johnny Marr]

Best of luck Becky (and everyone else)

On Wednesday, March 18, 2020, Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

> Hey Laura, thanks,
>
> I don’t have deliveries but I’m doing pretty well. I’m trying to look out
> after myself - keep self safe, etc.  My good neighbor/buddy took me to the
> ER and stayed there with me last night.  My cleaning lady checks on me
> regularly.  But I took myself to the market pharmacy this morning to get
> new Rx’s and a few extra goodies mostly because I was really curious about
> the situation.  I’m always pretty well stocked without being a prepper.
>
> Thank you for asking -  :-)
>
> Btw, I’m reading the new biography,  Mr Putin by Fiona Hill (of
> Congressional Hearing fame) and Hilary Mantel’s 3rd in her Thomas Cromwell
> series,   They’re both quite good although the bio can get a wee bit boring
> at times,
>
> Becky
>
> > On Mar 18, 2020, at 10:47 AM, Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Yikes, Becky. Please take care of yourself. Can you get food/medicine
> deliveries where you live?
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 12:38 PM Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
> > Gag re the Orange Pustule, Laura - yep.  I forget that I’m 72 and not in
> great health and my kids worry as they live half way across the country.  I
> also have friends here who check on me.
> >
> > Soooo…..   I was in the emergency room last night (8 hours!) and I had a
> mask because I had symptoms (BUT my symptoms were stomach flu and
> dehydration).  Most others - (the non-patients) did not have masks. Generic
> corona-virus testing was somewhere else and the tent for determining that
> was outside the hospital doors. .  ??? -
> >
> > Fwiw,  I had lung surgery in September (I don’t know if I mentioned that
> prior) and although I’m pretty well recovered I’m still weak - vulnerable.
> It was stage 1 cancer.
> >
> > Becky  - a Boomer who will not be Removed -
> > So be safe - keep me safe!
> >
> >
> > > On Mar 18, 2020, at 8:46 AM, Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > And, on cue, there goes the Orange Pustule referring to coronavirus as
> the
> > > Chinese Virus.
> > > My favorite name for it so far: the Boomer Remover.
> > >
> > > Laura, age 62
> > >
> > > On Wed, Mar 18, 2020, 9:14 AM Erik T. Burns <eburns at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> the Spanish Flu is relevant also because it didn't start in Spain; it
> was
> > >> called the Spanish Flu because Spain was one of the few countries
> that was
> > >> reporting on it truthfully, the others were hiding the pandemic to
> maintain
> > >> wartime morale. no one really knows where it started; it might have
> been
> > >> Kansas (as per *wikipedia* <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
> >)
> > >>
> > >> On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 1:06 PM Kai Frederik Lorentzen <
> > >> lorentzen at hotmail.de>
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>>
> > >>> The concrete sentence from "Entropy" goes like this:  "Not even the
> > >>> clean constant winds of Switzerland could cure the GRIPPE ESPAGNOLE:
> > >>> Stravinsky had had it, they all had had it". Oh well ...
> > >>>
> > >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
> > >>>
> > >>> " ... Though it may not be wrong absolutely to make up, as I still
> do,
> > >>> what I don't know or am too lazy to find out, phony data are more
> often
> > >>> than not deployed in places sensitive enough to make a difference,
> > >>> thereby losing what marginal charm they may have possessed outside of
> > >>> the story's context. Witness an example from 'Entropy.' In the
> character
> > >>> of Callisto I was trying for a sort of world-weary Middle-European
> > >>> effect, and put in the phrase GRIPPE ESPAGNOLE, which I had seen on
> some
> > >>> liner notes to a recording of Stravinsky's L'HISTOIRE DU SOLDAT. I
> must
> > >>> have thought this was some kind of of post-World War I spiritual
> malaise
> > >>> or something. Come to find out it means what it says, Spanish
> influenza,
> > >>> and the reference I lifted was really to the worldwide flu epidemic
> that
> > >>> followed the war.
> > >>>    The lesson here, obvious but now and then overlooked, is just to
> > >>> corroborate one's data, in particular those acquired casually, such
> as
> > >>> through hearsay or off the backs of record albums ..."
> > >>>
> > >>> Slow Learner (Introduction)
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> 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
> >
>
> --
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>