Re: AtD translation: Kit gazed at, or perhaps into, the tie’s ultra-modern design

[Joseph Tracy]

Don’t really see a conflict.  There being several varieties of visual layering, it is hard to be sure about what exactly P had in mind, but that seems a good guess and a fairly universal reference that fits with the “nothing from the natural world line.. The reader won’t get it from the text in any sure way but the shift from flat to  multi dimensional  or back, the inner and outer conflicts over maps, the refractions, reflections and changing perspectives are a refrain throughout the book.

> On Aug 7, 2021, at 6:12 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I think the following:
> 
> “the tie’s ultra-modern design, in which its disturbed artist had failed to include much of anything encountered in the natural world—yet, who knew? maybe if you studied it long enough, familiar shapes might begin to emerge, some in fact what you might call, what was the word, entertaining”
> 
> sounds *exactly* like one of those Magic Eye posters.
> 
> <image_6483441.JPG>
> 
> David Morris
> 
> On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 4:24 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com <mailto:mark.kohut at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Ends on the word 'entertaining' which casts meaning of course...
> 
> Also. all of us now remember the wild ties in *Inherent Vice, *right?
> 
> On Sat, Aug 7, 2021 at 3:23 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net <mailto:brook7 at sover.net>> wrote:
> 
> > To my thought the most obvious difference is that 'gaze at' implies a
> > surface, like the surface arrangement of shapes colors on the tie material
> > perceived fundamentally as a plane, and 'gaze into' implies perceiving the
> > painting  as a 3 dimensional space, a world. This shift in perception is
> > fairly common. There are no actual planes, points or lines, they are
> > imaginary dimensional shifts and mathematical models yet one cannot imagine
> > sight without planes. Our relation to these dimensional shifts of
> > perception are a major concern of the novel. Later we look into gelatin
> > silver prints via Merle and friend’s special process and the space becomes
> > 4 dimensional to include time.
> >    There may be an implication in this that Einstein’s spacetime or
> > something with even more dimensions is the only knowable and realistic
> > understanding and all gazes ‘at’ are a narrowed abstraction, a mathematical
> > trick, a limited view, the position without velocity or direction, the
> > limits of what we can see or perceive due to the relativity implied in
> > measurement.
> >
> > > On Aug 6, 2021, at 10:40 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com <mailto:gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > P623.35-624.6   . . . and a vivid necktie in fuchsia, heliotrope, and
> > duck
> > > green, a gift from one of the patients, as the Doc presently explained
> > in a
> > > voice hoarse from too much cigarette-smoking, “Hand-painted, as therapy,
> > to
> > > express, though regrettably not control, certain recurring impulses of a
> > > homicidal nature.”
> > >       Kit gazed at, or perhaps into, the tie’s ultra-modern design, in
> > > which its disturbed artist had failed to include much of anything
> > > encountered in the natural world—yet, who knew? maybe if you studied it
> > > long enough, familiar shapes might begin to emerge, some in fact what you
> > > might call, what was the word, entertaining—
> > >
> > > What exactly is the distinction between "gaze at" and "gaze into" here?
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>