BEg2 Chap 8: Supernatural Intrusions

[Mark Kohut]

Some major Empireists (sic. Neologism) see it as hollow and make the case.

https://www.defensepriorities.org/explainers/phantom-empire-the-illusionary-nature-of-us-military-power
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On Sun, Dec 12, 2021 at 2:18 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> I just could not come up with an equally humorous response of my own and I
> do know I was being hyperbolic but for all the victims of the current
> failures to stand by constitutional process,  and all the lack of defense
> it is effectively suspended. I mean it is only real if it's there when
> someone the state doesn’t like because they got their ete up to the
> peephole and decided to publish needs it and I’m not seeing near enough of
> that.  I did laugh about the redcoats. As to controlling citizens, all the
> empires seem to be good at this, but the US is also controlling a whole
> slew of other nations. Got the full spectrum dominatrix thing going, Fuck
> Yea!
>   I just want to point out that without Nazers  and those rare individuals
> with the gifted shnozz the entire science and history of the olfactory
> dimensions of the Third Reich becomes a deleted footnote in the pages of
> history yet to be written. Hardly a laughing matter. Science will not be
> stopped! It’s like trying to take away dental work from the CIA. No no no.
>
> > On Dec 12, 2021, at 9:28 AM, Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Joseph,
> >
> > Heh—this ain't my first rodeo, pardner! I wasn't taught debate by Mr.
> Farkas just to fall for the ol' Motte-and-Baily trick! I tilted a humorous
> joust towards your bailey: "The Bill or Rights was suspended," not some
> indefensible motte: "Extradition and torture don't matter." Of course I
> believe that Western rights can be, and have been, infringed, subverted,
> and perverted, and of course I believe torture matters. I was teasing you
> about your hyperbole, the same I would expect someone to do if I said
> something like "Rush is the greatest band ever." Just with less, you know,
> moral high ground? And also, if you genuinely believe that China needed the
> United States to develop a surveillance state dedicated to controlling its
> citizens, I urge you to read about Imperial China long before the Canton
> system. It's pretty grim stuff. (The first Opium War is one of favorite
> historical subjects. It's like: "Oh, oh, oh, you are *all* so terrible!")
> >
> > But on to the heart of your post—thank you for clarifying your ideas. I
> understand you much better now, and I really appreciate your "layers"
> analogy. It offers a nice vocabulary to discuss Pynchon. For instance, I
> agree with you that the third, mythic later is detuned in "Bleeding Edge"
> compared to many of his other books. And there's some weird interplay
> between the second and third layers: the Naser? I mean....come on? Which
> creates a strange tension in the novel for me.
> >
> > For instance: I accept mechanical ducks in "Mason & Dixon," and Godzilla
> in "Vineland." I can even accept ghosts in "Bleeding Edge." But stiff like
> the Naser raises my eyebrows: if this is *real,* if the Naser and people
> fleeing from it are meant to be taken literally in the world of the book,
> how seriously are we meant to take the characters? It feels different than,
> say, "Against the Day," which clearly operates in a magical space. Or the
> time travel in "Bleeding Edge"—but I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll wait
> until those chapters to raise those questions. Some good stuff coming down
> the road in the novel, once you clear all these opening chapters. (Which I
> still enjoy.)
> >
> > And I just wanted to pull this quote out, because I really like it:
> "Whether Pynchon believes M&D’s line was really a colonial violation of
> telluric patterns or just a means of land theft, we know he has M&D wrestle
> with the ethical dimensions of what they are doing and uses supernatural
> stories to amplify such issues." <--yes! Well said.
> >
> > Anyway, thanks for taking the time to clarify. And I would be interested
> in reading your essay, if you send it along!
> >
> > —Quail
> >
> > On 12/11/21, 10:07 PM, "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> >
> >    easier questions first- Pynchon readers seem less enthralled with BE
> as a whole, and I think this is part of why. We like the weirdness and the
> sublime quality of hanging out for a few days or weeks with Ball lightning,
> talking across that usually unbridgeable gap.  I think the confrontation
> with the abyss combined with 9-11 and ithe loss of privacy is also
> uncomfortably close to home. Throw in the weird scene and video  with the
> shoulder fired missile, and who wants to think about it all. Look what it
> stirred up here.
> >    Abyss- all of the above with the full impact of all that we do not
> know.
> >    I don't think you could take things any more seriously than GR.
> >    China's system was born here, but they have caught up.
> >    The redcoats have not come to my house directly but they are turning
> over Julian for more torture and that matters.
> >
> >    Less supernatural as in missing the third layer that is in most of
> his novels. As you know, because the story, I’m fairly certain, came from
> your web page, Pynchon once compared his writing to one of those medical
> texts with overlappable transparent layers.  As a stained glass
> conservationist I sometimes have worked with Tiffany and Lafarge Windows
> with multiple layers and the whole idea has affected my own art and the way
> I look at TP and other fiction. I see 3 fundamental layers( I have an essay
> somewhere if you are interested)with the more direct comments of the author
> himself being a kind of 4th layer and the readers a 5th in the sense that
> like all writers he wants to connect. The base , or at least fundamental to
> the 3 layers is history itself and Pynchon tries hard to make this accurate
> and full of timely details. My presumption here is not that history can be
> accurately told but that it actually happened and is a proper setting for
> writing about the  human experience and maybe some other shit too. The
> second layer I call the plausible fictive, but is also called realism
> naturalism or just fiction. This is the primary characters and their
> imagined lives along with fictional towns , bars, mayonnaise attacks etc..
> Still pretty normal stuff. The third layer is the supernatural, which
> almost always has a mythic dimension. This is why I referred to Pugnax, the
> Chums, Thanatoids, etc. These could be dismissed as silly but fun
> storytelling devices but I think there is more to it. It adds a layer that
> has always been part of human consciousness and treats it as something
> perfectly normal with real effects on other layers. Whether Pynchon
> believes M&D’s line was really a colonial violation of telluric patterns or
> just a means of land theft, we know he has M&D wrestle with the ethical
> dimensions of what they are doing and uses supernatural stories to amplify
> such issues.
> >       That was probably too big of an answer but this third
> supernatural  layer is seriously reduced in BE and a more psychological
> approach takes a central role. I think it makes the writing  just a bit
> less lively, less fun,  and less multi-dimensional but Pynchon's other
> emphasis is on the role of computer tech and the web and I am suggesting
> that maybe this forfeiting of the supernatural and mythic weird comes from
> a sense that screens  is where we have turned our attention and that in
> doing so  we may well have forfeited a vital dimension.  Not only that but
> we have forfeited it to a logic system that  easily serves  as system
> controls for a ruling class that may be socipathic at a fundamental level,
> and also  a logic sytem that is not part of biological complexity, moral
> compassion, or real joy in living . I personally doubt that biology or
> physics  or consciousness is built up from binary logic. I like computers
> as a very powerful  tool, but like you and  Cassidy certain things or
> spaces or energy systems, movies, etc. feel as you said ’colonized’ and
> while I try to face my own shadow some things I just walk away from or dig
> into my internal love mantras and wait for some light.  Is there evil? Even
> with my inclination toward Taoism I can’t dismiss it as easily as I used
> to.
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Dec 11, 2021, at 7:17 PM, Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >> The suspension of the Bill of Rights was the worst—I was shocked to
> find I had to quarter Redcoats in my apartment! They really drank me out of
> house and home. Couldn't make a decent pot ocoffee to save their lives.
> >>
> >> But kidding aside, while your post contains all the eloquence I've come
> to enjoy from your writing -- I'm a sucker for "chthonic" -- I'm not sure
> I'm following a few of your points, which is likely my fault. Just to
> clarify: You feel the book is less supernatural because Pynchon is taking
> things more seriously, because he's dealing with recent events? Or because
> he feels modern people, or perhaps his characters, have lost touch with the
> mythic? And when you say the Deep Web (via DeepArcher) draws people "toward
> the abyss that is an inevitable part of the subconscious," do you mean
> loneliness? The self? Depression? Death? All of the above?
> >>
> >> I think I get what you are saying—perhaps in a Gurdjieff/Watts kind of
> way—but here's something about the Deep Web in Bleeding Edge that still
> feels more sinister to me than the Dark Night of the Soul, perhaps
> more—colonized? Or maybe this is just one of the Pynchon things I'll never
> really "get." (Yes, I admit, there are parts of "Against the Day" that
> still leaving me scratching my head.)
> >>
> >> And finally, what do you mean by "What readers do with that is
> interesting. Pynchon fans seem distinctly less enthralled." Less enthralled
> with exploring darkness, or just less enthralled with BE as a whole?
> >>
> >> Anyway, I certainly agree with you that our "planet wars" have claimed
> enough victims, and we should treasure human contact. Well said. (Though I
> reckon that China may be offended by your claiming that the US has the
> "largest civilian surveillance system ever imagined." You should really
> give them more credit, they're trying so hard!)
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> —Quail
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 12/11/21, 6:02 PM, "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>   But I do have that question for everyone: how literal do you take
> Bleeding Edge?
> >>
> >>   Good question, especially because, as you point out, there is
> distinctly less intrusion of the supernatural or mythic weird than in any
> other Pynchon Novel: no talking ball lightning, no chasing harmonicas into
> the underworld, no Thanatoids, lovestruck mecahincal ducks, Pugnax, Vheissu
> etc.
> >>   I mean there is the cosmic bike messenger and in this very chapter a
> psychic bladder function, but these are, let’s face it, just not the same.
> Later there are ghosts but even those can be interpreted as psychological
> illusions or alternately insights.  It is as though the dreaded nuclear
> armed V2 had finally hit and the worst it could do was bring down towers
> and kill a few thousand more victims of the planet wars. Which by the time
> BE was being written had produced more planet wars and a hundred fold
> increase in innocent victims. Well innocent in that most people don’t
> actively drop bombs on other people and wouldn’t even donate to the bombers
> if the national bomb campaigns relied on volunteer donations.
> >>      The human suffering is all too real too, and other realities have
> come with it: the sudden turn to patriot act paranoia, the drone wars, the
> suspension of the Bill of Rights and the institution of the largest
> civilian surveillance system ever imagined.
> >>     Maybe TP  has brought his readers out of a world on which the
> people interact powerfully with the mythic because that is his sense of
> what is happening. I have the feeling he is not that thrilled with a world
> so severed, both from the mystical and from the multicultural, multivalent
> social hodgepodge that does not so easily lend itself to the manipulations
> of binary code and binary politics. Maxine is the most interactive human in
> P’s writings and what she is is the normal social experience of a great
> deal of human history. She gives us the big picture view that  cyberspace
> promises but can’t deliver.  Everyone is different, looking for meaning,
> respect, everyone is struggling with the effects of social isolation and
> lack of power to stop a growing plutocracy, marital and family breakups,
> predators, bad habits.
> >>      The deep web functions not so much like a balloon ride into new
> dimensions of understanding, or even a cthonic confrontation with the deep
> forces of history and myth like Slothrop’s toilet adventure. It draws
> people toward the abyss that is an inevitable part of the subconscious. It
> is lonely and we all must enter eventually.  What readers do with that is
> interesting. Pynchon fans seem distinctly less enthralled. I have mixed
> feelings. I been there plenty and the main result is I want to treasure
> every human contact.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> On Dec 11, 2021, at 4:04 PM, Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> I liked Myst. I am a hardcore video game player, and I still love open
> worlds the best. Myst was a forerunner to so many great things, even stuff
> like GTA and Skyrim. Great game.
> >>>
> >>> Which brings me to Cassidy. I keep re-reading that section, and even
> though I read "Bleeding Edge" when it first came out, maybe I just don't
> remember—what is there about the abyss in Deep Archer? It's often spoken of
> in mystical terms. I think Cassidy gives the first impression of that,
> beyond Maxine's initial "gee wow," that is. Cassidy remarks:
> >>>
> >>> “Hard to explain. It was all just coming from somewhere, for about a
> day and a half I felt I was duked in on forces outside my normal perimeter,
> you know? Not scared, just wanted to get it over with, wrote the file, did
> the Java, didn’t look at it again. Next thing I remember is one of them
> saying holy shit it’s the edge of the world”
> >>>
> >>> Pynchon loves supernatural spaces, and I think he's strongly
> suggesting that the Deep Web—or video games, or Myst, etc.—has the capacity
> to be an Other World. And not just Gibsonian cyberspace—or maybe it's just
> that after all?
> >>>
> >>> Maybe because weird fiction/horror is my favorite genre, I'm
> fascinated with the intrusions of the supernatural—or if not the
> supernatural, then the sublime?—in "Bleeding Edge." I mean, it's one thing
> in M&D, AtD, etc., but this seems to be Pynchon's most "realistic," or
> perhaps "historical," book. Sure, there are some things that suggest an
> alternate, wackier universe—the Naser, proösmia, Maxine being ok with being
> a stripper—but then again, there's something even weirder going on, right?
> >>>
> >>> Anyway, I won’t go into any future events just yet, I'll wait until we
> get there. But it's something to keep an eye on as the book develops. But I
> do have that question for everyone: how literal do you take Bleeding Edge?
> >>>
> >>> —Quail
> >>>
> >>> PS: Sorry I know this post is all jumbled with ideas and not lucidly
> written, but I'm on my third Abelour.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> 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
>
>
>
> --
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>