BEg2 Chap 8: Adam Bombs! Eve of Destruction

[Mark Thibodeau]

Forget it, Quaill. It's Chinatown.

On Mon, Dec 13, 2021 at 4:01 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> But I thought all humans were evil sinners  and the universe would be
> better off without us. So you think Thibodeau got that wrong? I’m getting
> confused here. I don’t even know what we’re weighing against what. And who
> is going to hold the scale? There’s a lot of biomass involved.  Here I am
> trying to renounce my foolish and inauthentic America Last position for a
> more patriotic and semi- sincere, though I sometimes can’t tell, America
> First stance and I am getting corrective remonstrance from both ends. Look,
> I only have one tongue and 2 cheeks; I’ m doing the best I can.
>
>
>
> > On Dec 13, 2021, at 3:23 PM, Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > The part of me that's actually a chemist and former astronomy teacher
> has to weigh in here:
> >
> > "The planet and green stuff and animals and shit" is the last thing I’d
> worry about regarding nuclear bombs. Nature is SO MUCH MORE catastrophic
> than humans. Think about the asteroid that whacked the dinosaurs. Or long
> before that, the "Great Dying," in which rising CO2 levels possibly caused
> by volcanic eruptions caused mass extinctions the likes of which stagger
> the imagination. And there were many other "smaller" extinction events. The
> universe can behave like a hostile, indifferent place, and old Mother
> Nature has gobbled down her children wholesale on countless occasions.
> Hell, the very oxygen we breathe now was DEADLY POISON to much early life
> on earth: wiped 'em out of existence without blinking an eye. (Or a pair of
> Os.) And I have some news for you re: 5 billion years from now...
> >
> > So yeah, it's the destruction of humans I worry about more. Mother
> Nature will always cook up more animals and green stuff, but I don't want
> to be replaced by crab people. (And this isn't to argue with you, Joe—I
> know you also care about human life! I'm just putting it into perspective.)
> >
> > —Quail
> >
> > PS: On a related note—indifferent, hostile universe and all—thank you
> for the Lovecraft/Pynchon paper!
> >
> > On 12/13/21, 2:30 PM, "Pynchon-l on behalf of Joseph Tracy" <
> pynchon-l-bounces at waste.org on behalf of 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>
> 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>
> >> 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
> >>>
> >> --
> >> 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
>
>
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>