MJJG 24-33 -

Tue Nov 24 12:00:17 UTC 2020

Back to this: 
On Nov 23, 2020, at 12:02 AM, Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:

> 1) how interested was Mr Reed in the Koran - enough to read it in Arabic? Big dialogue coming up at the rent party including Koran commentary.
> 
Just another thought -  speaking of Arabic -  what about the Arabic numerals scattered throughout?  -  I’d wondered about that since I picked up the book and got to page 2.  

I really want to read this whole thing but the first pages are what caught my attention about the numerals.  

"Black Writers, White Publishers: Marketplace Politics in Twentieth-Century African American Literature" by John M. Young; 2006; pages 81-92. 

https://books.google.com/books?id=zGIZnC95G6sC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=mumbo+jumbo+numerals&source=bl&ots=r32gEoP7Wr&sig=ACfU3U3MiubQwGC06C29bKNylcbmARDwfA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiUlLPEi5vtAhW8RDABHVUEBGQQ6AEwHXoECAcQAg#v=onepage&q=mumbo%20jumbo%20numerals&f=false

Becky 

> On Nov 24, 2020, at 5:29 AM, Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> Oh yes -  I think Reed is interested in all things which come out of an atmosphere or milieu unrestricted by atenist thinking,  This includes New Orleans jazz scene and the Harlem Renaissance and probably whatever is going on in Oakland.  
> 
> It’s certainly not emphasized but Jes Grew would contaminate sexuality as much as any other aspect of human life and behavior where something creative blossoms. “It is an anti-plague.” And  "It won’t stop until it co-habits with what it’s after.”  How could it not affect sexuality?  But that’s not a major point in any way.  (my o - )
> 
> I’m slowly getting through the book as fast as I can - (true).   I’m under isolation orders per doctor and my focus gets messed up sometimes. I had got up to page 46 when I realized that I had no idea what I’d just read.  Back to point A and onward.   
> 
> Bekah/Becky   
> 
> On Nov 24, 2020, at 2:44 AM, Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I do think he’s interested in the Harlem Renaissance and the cultural mixing that occurred there and elsewhere -
>> 
>> Would it be fair to say that non-hetero desires are a contributing factor to Bohemian scenes in general, or at least part of the mix?
>> 
>> Reed I think is not dogmatically hetero-normative, but more concerned with other aspects such as the art, the traditions embodied in the art, different “races” working together as you mentioned, and the opposing forces and/or allies such a movement encounters.
>> 
>> I think it all builds up to PaPa LaBas’s lecture at the close of the novel, which takes the building blocks from preceding chapters & builds a fine structure.
>> 
>> Hope that isn’t a spoiler!
>> 
>> —————————-/
>> 
>> I also meant to ask you, Becky, does your Kindle edition also have the “Jew Grew” phrase on page 19 that I took for a misprint?
>> 
>> Get Outlook for iOS
>> From: Becky Lindroos <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
>> Sent: Monday, November 23, 2020 8:33:54 PM
>> To: Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com>
>> Cc: pynchon -l <Pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Subject: Re: MJJG 24-33 -
>> 
>> Thank you, Raphael.  I checked some more too.  And I found the footnote on page (ta-da) 15 of the Kindle.  It makes sense now - or at least some.  
>> 
>> It looks to me like Reed might have been around some people who did read the Koran in English/Arabic form - notably Muhammed Ali (?) and Marvin X (old Black Panther current writer, poet). And Reed wrote the newish biography of Muhammed Ali (2015).  
>> 
>> https://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/2015/06/marvin-x-interviewed-by-ishmael-reed.html
>> 
>> “In America, this literary tradition continued under the wretched conditions of slavery with the English/Arabic narratives of Ayub Suleimon Diallo, Ibrahima Abdulrahman Jallo, Bilali Mohammad, Salih Bilali, Umar Ibn Said. (Note:There is some suggestion that David Walker, Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington and Benjamin Banneker may have  been descendants of Muslims.) In 1913, Noble Drew Ali, established his Moorish Science Temple in Newark, New Jersey, later Chicago, and created his Seven Circle Koran, a synthesis of Qur’anic, Masonic, mystical and esoteric writings. 
>> 
>>> 3) by linking the Mu’tafikah with the Sodomites and Gomorreans (?) and both with the Bohemians, is he disparaging them? Or - since he seems to be sympathetic - is condemnation of the “cities of the plain” not part of his program?
>> 
>> No - not to me.  Not in 1972 (1920) . I can’t imagine that Reed would be sympathetic to the Mu’tafikah or the Bohemians  while getting all judgmental about their sexuality. 
>> 
>> Becky 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Nov 23, 2020, at 12:02 AM, Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> The Nook book has a footnote on pg 15
>>> 
>>> “Mu’tafikah - According to the Koran, inhabitants of the ruined cities where Lot’s people had lived. I call the inhabitants “Mu’tafikah” because just as the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah
>>> 
>>> were the Bohemians of their day, Berbelang and his gang are the Bohemians of the 1920s Manhattan.”
>>> 
>>> 
>>> While the serendipitous sound of the word didn’t make it *less* likely for him to use, he didn’t make it up:
>>> 
>>> https://books.google.com/books?id=t-bBAwAAQBAJ&pg=PR13&lpg=PR13&dq=meaning+of+tafikah+arabic&source=bl&ots=I3DQtM7CWD&sig=ACfU3U0old7s2N0CfjKRfVrY1NpXAxd3Zg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRmP-j-ZftAhXXTTABHfOpACcQ6AEwDnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=meaning%20of%20tafikah%20arabic&f=false
>>> 
>>> “Al Mu’tafikah” - overthrown cities
>>> 
>>> 
>>> This prompts a slew of questions:
>>> 
>>> 1) how interested was Mr Reed in the Koran - enough to read it in Arabic? Big dialogue coming up at the rent party including Koran commentary.
>>> 
>>> 2) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lot_in_Islam
>>> 
>>> Slightly different take as noted in article.
>>> 
>>> 3) by linking the Mu’tafikah with the Sodomites and Gomorreans (?) and both with the Bohemians, is he disparaging them? Or - since he seems to be sympathetic - is condemnation of the “cities of the plain” not part of his program?
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Spoiler alert - sort of - in MJ,
>>> 
>>> It’s probably important that
>>> 
>>> monotheism is (like the excluded middle) bad sh*t
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Becky wrote:
>>> 
>>> In the book, Berbalang is the head of the “Mu’tafikah”which is busily trying to liberate cultural artifacts from museums and centres of “Art Detention” in order to return them to their originating cultures.
>>> 
>>> Best I can think is that Mu’tafikah is a slang deterioration of “mutha-f’ker.”
>>> 
>>> Apparently within Mu’tafikah, Berbelang represents the Black race, Thor Wintergreen represents the White race , Yellow Jack is a Chinese American and Jose Fuentes is a Mayan seaman.  They are all part of Mu’tafikah.  (More references are coming up.)
>>> 
>>> Becky
>>> 
>>> 
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>> 
> 
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