BEg2 Chap 8 Summary Part 1

[Joseph Tracy]

Welcome Thomas
  Been awhile. We are back at the same old same old. Kind of boring. I seem to have roused anger among some. This was not intentional. Fortunately I only see Morris's hate mail indirectly in other member's posts, otherwise it goes in the trash.Not a bad use of email preferences.

List 
I feel bad because this is supposed to be a discussion of ch 8 and I introduced a forbidden if somewhat unavoidable topic not to push a theory but to probe at whether Pynchon’s look at 9-11 is asking any of the same questions I and so many have asked. I don’t have a clear theory, but I do have problems with the mainstream narrative as I do with some of the insider theories. I never expected agreement with my thoughts on how P is handling the topic and many of those thoughts are tentative as I suspect many of his are. But hey, maybe he is actually the omniscient God Devil author of this lost planet and just unwilling to let us in on the joke til the mortal veil is lifted. I doubt it but a person has no choice but to face whatever surprises or sudden final period life and death have to offer. 
    I came to the list years ago when Dave Monroe was a central  figure, because someone gave me Vineland  and I laughed my ass off while taking a ride through America's version of 1984. Reading and writing about Pynchon and other topics has been an exercise in critical thinking and a deepening appreciation for a unique intellect with a unique approach to fiction who, if nothing else shares a picture of plutocrats, colonialism, state violence, and social injustice that makes sense to me. He also has an appetite for the silly, playful and light filled glory of earthly existance that I love traipsing through. From giggles to horror I’m all in.  Through the sparring on the list I got used to adjusting my ideas about what I read and to holding fast to what seemed good to me. I left for a good while at the start of the Russiagate fiasco because disgreement stirred too much emotion and had earlier driven away Robin Landseadel, one of my favorite P listers. I was also getting more involved in qigong and my own art-making, permaculture efforts, teaching and nonfiction reading material.
 
Morris
Insults and social bullying are not effective forms of persuasion. The ease with which you and others are duped by these tactics was on full disply with Russiagate,  and also in your recent insults and verbal abuse to Thomas and probably myself. The trouble with binary models of reality is that both sides can be held together by a pack of lies and self righteousness just as both sides can be different ways of seeing truth. I personally think some ideas and practices are loathsome and some generate health, compassion and wisdom, so I am not a person to utterly deny the use of binary models but I try to be selective and avoid being easily categorized in the culture wars.  Trying to fit others into one of these categories is frequently dishonest and a way to conjure straw men which are conveniently easy to torch.This is far too common in current discourse.  Respectful persuasion and strong logic and evidence has a better chance of good results.

Mark
Your sentence that I quoted was mangled but I do get that you don’t like March K . This does not surprise me. I think Pynchon’s take is quite a bit more sympathetic, but hey, that could be my own sympathy. 

Maybe March is just an updated free silverite, her face tilted toward OZ, marching inwardly with Coxie’s army. I like her, partly because she is angry at the right things, though anger is its own drug and hard to tame and direct skillfully and wisely. Keep a cool head, but care, if I may paraphrase. I see in her also the same kind of sympathetic parental heart as I see in Ernie. 

My use of the f word was unnecessarily pissy. I tend to read sloppy sentences directed at me as disrespectful and can react  badly. 

 
> On Dec 11, 2021, at 10:47 AM, Huebschraeuber via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
> 
> We are the same person, which I noted when I send my first comment to
> the list from the new account.
> 
> Am 11.12.2021 um 14:35 schrieb David Morris:
> 
>> This post now has me confused.
>> 
>> Wasn’t the post below (“I am not sure about irony…”) from Thomas
>> Eckhardt?  Why is this Hueb asshole now sending it out?
>> 
>> By the way, Huebschraeuber, FUCK OFF.
>> 
>> David Morris
>> 
> 
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l