BEg2 Chap 8: Supernatural Intrusions

Mon Dec 13 19:52:18 UTC 2021

Hey I’m right there with you pal. Anything that can’t take a couple thousand hydrogen bombs ain’t worth thinking twice about.

> On Dec 13, 2021, at 2:39 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> But Joseph (between you and me so I can't be accused of being performative here), the PLANET isn't going anywhere. Even if you increased the full existing nuclear payload's destructive capacity by an order of magnitude or two and set it off all at once, it would be as a fart in the wind compared to some of the stuff our little blue marble has gone through and come out the other side intact, after a period of healing.
> 
> In fact, far from an evil, I suspect that the wiping out of our all-devouring species could easily be seen and argued as a GOOD for the planet. 
> 
> On Mon, Dec 13, 2021 at 2:29 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net <mailto:brook7 at sover.net>> wrote:
> Some people , especially those america lasters are probably just not getting those subtle dstinctions of anglo colonialism. 
>   The BOMB. Only destructive. Not really evil at all. Sheeesh why didn’t I think of that. Just a planet with green stuff and animals and shit. Imean I’mgoing to die, … maybe, so why shouldn’t billions of years of evolution be burnt to a crisp to keep America First. Damn fuckin straight. Don’t you love straw men? I do. Just a match, a quick breath  and whooosh.
> 
> > On Dec 13, 2021, at 1:25 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com <mailto:jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com>> wrote:
> > 
> > Jeez-whiz, and it's not just China!
> > 
> > I'd give this list's cohort of America Lasters some homework re: the
> > Empire *Upon
> > Which the Sun Never Set (among others) throughout the *19th century and
> > beyond, out both ends, from slave ship to cotton field to diamond mine to
> > the killing fields of drug war and strategic famine and applied racial
> > "science" to etc, etc, etc, before they spend another moment in that state
> > of blessed easy leftish innocence that sees the USA as the be all and end
> > all of EVILE in world history...
> > 
> > With the caveat that they DID (in many ways) produce The BOMB, which is the
> > point upon which our species' ending may ultimately pivot, some day soon.
> > But I would argue that, technically, while destructive, that's not really
> > "EVILE" per se... unless you see Imperial Japan and Fascist Germany as the
> > Good Guys.
> > 
> > On Sun, Dec 12, 2021 at 9:29 AM Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <mailto: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 <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>
> >> 
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
> 
> 
> 