BE group read: CH 2

[Joseph Tracy]

I will delay one more day on votes about the rate of our group read, but it looks like the long haulers have it. 4 days per chapter with an extra day for the chapters over 13 pages. Vote now if you want a faster read.
Today is the last of 4 days for this chapter, but I will post the chapter 2  summary now because tomorrow I will be away til late.  No rush if you have more thoughts on CH 1. Any early volunteers for Ch 3 Nov 11-14? I will post general chapter schedule  and invitation to host by Monday.

Bleeding edge Ch 2 summary

at end of Ch 1 Reg Despard arrives at Maxine’s office and  is brought in with warmth, affection
and curious anticipation. “Do get your ass in here. Long time.”
CH 2 BE
Reg Despard’s name -  Reg by itself derives from latin for ruler/king/queen The only historic Despard I found was Edward Despard ( 1751-18030 famous for contending for equal teatment of races, right to buy land in Carribean, for marrying a black woman, for accusations of sedition that, though unproved, bankrupted him and later for accusation and conviction for  questionable plot to kill king George 3, for this he was drawn and quartered long after that horrifying practice was in use. He was a social reformer/revolutionary Influenced by Tom Paine.            Reg Despard first met Maxine on a carribean cruise.

Reg looks considerably hammered by interval of a couple years( this would fit life of Edward Despard, but why hammered?). He is a video documentarian who began as movie pirate making camcorder videos of first run movies, duplicating and selling for a dollar or 2. He got drawn into academic scene by professor who says he is on leading edge ”“with your neo-Brechtian subversion of the diegesis.”  Soon he is shooting his own pictures and has a business making documentaries. Maxine asks what he’s there about and …
“It’s this company I’ve been shooting a documentary about? I keep running into . . .” One of those funny looks Maxine by now knows better than to ignore. 
“Attitude.” “Access issues. Too much I’m not being told.”
Reg thinks info is hidden in Deep Web, Maxi says maybe you want a techie. He already has one named Eric Outfield.
The firm who commissioned the documentary is called hashslingerz, does computer security , reputed to be expanding , making big money….

R “ I have this tiny advance the company’s kicking in, plus I’m allowed total access, or so I thought till yesterday, which is when I figured I’d better see you.” “Something in the accounting.” “Just like to know who I’m working for. I haven’t sold my soul yet—“

The firm is owned by Gabriel Ice, Maxi recalls  photo of boy billionaire in white, makes Bill Gates look charismatic.
“That’s only his party mask. He has deep resources.”
“You’re suggesting what, mob, covert ops?” “According to Eric, a purpose on earth written in code none of us can read. Except maybe for 666, which tends to recur.
Reg asks maxi if she still has concealed carry permit and if whole set up is too paranoid.
“Not me, paranoia’s the garlic in life’s kitchen, right, you can never have too much.”

In  the course of  a talk about pay Reg suggests she looks like  film star Rachel Weisz.This leads into 5 pages of flashback to a budget cruise Maxi went on at suggestion of her sex, cop, pop culture obsessed best friend Heidi Czornak. The cruise was Heidi’s  attempt to break Maxine’s post divorce depair which was causing her to drink too much and cry a lot. The passengers are mostly from“AMBOPEDIA Frolix ’98,” a yearly gathering of the American Borderline Personality Disorder Association.” 
She meets Reg on this cruise, continues to drink heavily, meets duck stamp collectors and other amusing folk, gambles  and talks with Reg using Jujubes under the influence of “Generic Undiagnosed James Bond Syndrome, whole different support group.She meets Joel Weiner ( the real??? J Weiner was  an unscrupulous real estate mogul indicted many times) Occasionally forgets about Horst. This trip the budget cruise line is headed for borderline of Haiti and Dominican Republic. Her and Reg start drinking Mamajuana, a jar containing a vine soaked in rum and red wine with voodo love spell. They find room in abandoned luxury hotel and misbehave on moldering bed amidst vines and lizards.

Back in novel’s real time Maxine asks Reg if they… He politely or memory fogged by mamajuana says no. We find out somehow Weiner indirectly caused Maxine's license to be revoked when she “cut him too much slack” not following evidence of fraud and offering him some “tricks of the trade out of “friendship”.
  “Friendship?” Reg is puzzled. “You didn’t even like him.” 
 M “A technical term.”
We get more details of license removal, possibility of appeal which Maxine does not pursue.  Not sure she wants to be   “the one incorruptible still point in the whole jittery mess, the atomic clock everybody trusts.”
…………………………………………………………….

Hope that isn’t too long or too short for  a summary, but still lots of room for details and questions raised.  Summaries help me see the acton as a whole, since Pynchon writes so engagingly in the digressions. 

comic issues- Ambopedia, academic media criticism, duck stamps, James Bond Syndrome, cheapo luxury cruises, 

serious issues- divorce; secretive powerful tech firm tagged 666/Ice/apocalyptic angel Gabriel; deep web; real estate fraud abuse; fraud investigation;  moral and job independence.

comico-serious-why hashslingerz ?