MJJG what is Jes Grew - 2 cognates? / long, might be boring

Sun Nov 1 04:41:50 UTC 2020

Hey, good point! Time frames.

 Pynchon referred to himself as a historical novelist, and hasn¡¯t written a future-set book, has he? He pours his effort into seeing established events in new ways, I wonder how he would take up a task of flat making up a ¡°wholebunchash*t¡± - technical term - like Stephenson does in _Anathem_ (sort of a long, nutty _Canticle for Leibowitz_) or _Seveneves_ (which I couldn¡¯t make myself read because he blows up the Moon in the first chapter, & I would miss it) or _Fall_ where he brings the full power of Moore¡¯s Law to bear on recapping the Bible and mythology with a bit of The Matrix.

I¡¯m sorta with Mr P on that, reality is plenty weird enough, but I will read the occasional sf anyway.

I like you too! How do you like MJ so far?

(Also, nice tune, always liked that one)(liked Sun Ra link also, never heard of that other one, Khruangbin.)

The zombieish peons on that weird flotilla in _Snow Crash_ are still working out of a 3 ring binder propagated by their leadership - (Stephenson being consistent, I think he made the same point in an essay somewhere about how it isn¡¯t genetics but customs that inclines a people or subspecies toward progress or poverty) - (made me think of the autobiography of the dude who wrote ¡°If you¡¯re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair,¡± in which he retails riding a helicopter to play in some huge festival and seeing acres and acres of roiling squalor which made him recoil against some of the implications of the hippie philosophy) - even that Inuit dude with the obsidian harpoons had a 3-ring binder, only his was tattooed on his forehead: ¡°lacks impulse control¡± (or words to that effect)

________________________________
From: Cagliostro_the_Impossible <Cagliostro_the_Impossible at protonmail.com>
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2020 8:55 AM
To: Raphael Saltwood
Cc: pynchon-l
Subject: Re: MJJG what is Jes Grew - 2 cognates? / long, might be boring

Raphael...In the spirit of the Partridge Family...I think I love you (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wJYSu2OVCGM)...Not to make things weird...but thanks for your post...In addition, there is the aspect of Past, Present, and Future...MJ ostensibly takes place in the 1920s, Illuminati! in contemporaneous to when it was written, and Snow Crash is sometime in the future...not to suggest a temporal linearity... but the notion of ¡°Freedom will cure almost anything¡± in Snow Crash is basically a Zombification... especially as Tech dominates... very groovy!

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On Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:52 PM, Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:

> Shea and Wilson¡¯s Illuminatus!, besides (mis)quoting Ishmael Reed about secret societies, describes the SNAFU principle of communication only being possible between equals, so that hierarchy breeds miscommunication.
>
> Coupled with another concept they detail in the trilogy (I haven¡¯t seen it elsewhere, but they did a lot of borrowing,) that of ¡°biogram vs logogram¡±
> in which the biological person has nonverbal creative impulses that often conflict with trying to act out socially-imposed actions received through words, the characters and action in Illuminatus! grope towards a freedom like that of Jes Grew, which cuts across class lines, eliminating the SNAFU principle, and allowing people to act in accordance with their individual sensorium and physicality.
>
> The 60s-70s AS Neill Summerhill ¡°freedom will cure most anything¡± optimism animates Shea and Wilson¡¯s vision, and they share with Ishmael Reed an iconoclasm against hierarchical structures and unreasonable strictures. (¡°The name of sin is restriction,¡± as Aleister Crowley wrote - or words to that effect)
>
> Mr Reed, otoh, in MJ draws upon African and African-American traditions - and, for gosh sakes, with impressive credentials for doing so - but not exclusively. Like Shea and Wilson, he shows powerful reactionary forces trying to suppress the manifestation of his notion of freedom.
>
> Shea and Wilson appear to have been moved and inspired by MJ and it shows.
>
> Another cognate is in Neal Stephenson¡¯s Snow Crash where the paradigm of rationality is the 3-ring binder with written instructions, devolved from ancient Sumerian cuneiform tablets which he claims to be the equivalent instruction set, and also quite similar to computer programs. In Snow Crash, customs in a locality depend upon the instructions in the three ring binder its inhabitants use.
>
> Within Snow Crash the major consideration seems to be the content of the 3-ring binder. There will ineluctably be an instruction set, so -
>
> perhaps because it was written after some well-publicized flaws appeared in the ¡°freedom will cure most anything¡± paradigm -
>
> utopia spontaneously arising isn¡¯t on the table in Snow Crash_, whether libertarian/technological/Thelemic like Shea-Wilson, or spiritual/dance/music/poetry oriented as Reed projects ¡ª- but his vision is compatible with the others and builds on the idea of various types of social control.
>
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