How Pynchon once mistook a virus for a metaphor

[Mark Kohut]

Why am I the only party farter who thinks that opening is as strained as a
sore neck?

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020 at 6:57 AM Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
wrote:

> Re "The Mirror and the Light".
>
> I haven't yet started reading in earnest but the opening --
>
> "Once the Queen's head is severed, he walks away. A sharp pang of
> appetite reminds him that it is time for a second breakfast, or perhaps
> an early dinner."
>
> -- sounds promising.
>
>
>
> Am 18.03.2020 um 20:08 schrieb Becky Lindroos:
> > 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
> > --
> > Pynchon-L:https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>