BE group read: CH 2

Sun Nov 7 23:31:48 UTC 2021

  pp. 8-9 in the PB on Reg as movie pirate - "... far ahead of the leading edge of this postmodern art form" "with your neo-Brechtian subversion of the diegesis."
Do you think Pynchon got the idea from the Seinfeld "Little Kicks" episode?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Kicks

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The Little Kicks

George tags along to a company party held by Elaine. He hits on Anna, one of Elaine's employees, but she isn't i...
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    On Sunday, November 7, 2021, 03:21:53 PM EST, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:  

 Edward Despard’s life is a fascinating bit of evidence that modern ethical ideas about racial/ethnic justice are not as restricted to recent times as some argue. His complaints about the Crown's financial abuse and his administative attempt at racial justice in Honduras landed him in a narrow prison and when a fellow officer visited him he looked in bad shape.The parallels to Reg seem a bit extreme but the power and ruthlessness of Ice&co soon become evident. This is the second time in Pynchon’s novels that a person with a camera is on the frontlines of ominous cultural changes, and since Vineland in the 80s the documentary (and Docudrama) has become a major force of social critique, from Michael Moore to Citizen 4, few things so authoritative as seeing an event, though we have also learned that editing can be pretty misleading.  Reg is already shaken by what he is seeing, perhaps more than makes obvious sense. He has the documentarian’s sense that he needs confirmation, grounding, solid evidence. But what this reader feels as an overall impression is fear, which Maxine picks up as "One of those funny looks Maxine by now knows better than to ignore. “  
  The name Gabriel Ice amplifies this subtle note of fear, particularlly for the Pynchon reader, with references to ATD’s  Vormance expedition to Iceland and the Ice monster they release, but also Gabriel and the Trump-et of apocalypse.  The comic prose style that P uses gives the reader a safe distance from the drama. He is cluing us to what looks like some dark stuff but he doesn’t want to manipulate our emotions. It’s like a vampire  appearing in the Simpsons, funny, silly but not necessarily empty of meaning. 
  “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.” The use of 666, appearing only this once in the novel, and kinda offhand, has some serious implications connected to a digital powerhouse with connections to the government, or several governments. In the book of the Revelation, which is admittedly a strange piece of work, 666 has 2 meanings; it is connected to a figure called the beast or 'anti-Christ’ and implicit in his ’name’, and it is a mark instituted by the beast's rule, a number embedded in the body that allows the citizens to buy or sell and restricting those who don’t have the mark from economic transactions. This kind of system has been made dramatically more feasible with digital technology and is not without proponents among the high tech plutocrats. Some are nervous that the pandemiic and the idea of a digital passport point in this direction. Not trying to say Pynchon sees this a prophetic situation, but he is throwing out some pretty dark imagery around Ice and the implicit growth of electronic surveillance and secretiveness that got kicked into high gear after 9-11. 
  I don’t like John of Patmos’ book at all, the cruel gloating as God pours out his curses on an evil humanity does not appeal to me, but is there some possibility that the altered state that allowed this vision holds some inherent logic about the combination of economic and military imperialism that reached an early height of power in the Roman empire? Well, that is what is weird about ‘sacred texts’.  They look like superstitious nonsense one period and like uncanny prescience the next. 
 Pynchon works this territory with uncommon fearlessness and can’t easily be reduced to a skilled hypertext game player for me. My own connection to literature, to words, to images, is not without the quality of 'a purpose on earth written in code none of us can read’ but all of us want to.

> 
> 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 ?
> 
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