BE group read: CH 2

Mon Nov 8 07:25:38 UTC 2021

Everyone is entitled to their own feelings.

You work your side of the street and I'll work mine.

On Sun, Nov 7, 2021 at 7:32 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> We never get filled in on Reg’s ‘early work’. Maybe some experimental
> music videos were the least commercial.  But I get the feeling that he
> wanted to make 2 documentaries with the Hashslingerz material, one for
> them, and one his shot at something serious, an expose’ . Just a feeling,
> no textual evidence but he seems pretty driven to find out what is hidden
> and he gets some disturbing footage that he wants to preserve despite the
> threat; at least for awhile.
>
> On Nov 7, 2021, at 7:02 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Uh, maybe, if that means the idea of bootlegging from the screen, but
> Seinfeld got it from NYC life....
> ....in the nineties at least, people were doing this and selling lots in
> the streets of New York and other cities.
> Openly enough on the streets of Jersey City where I lived when I wasn't in
> NYC, very smilingly perky attractive Chinese-American woman in my neck of
> JC....
>
> I also think TRP is satirizing academia and supposed film-makers as well.
> Reg is just doing commercial film, everything is now commercial in late
> capitalism.
> As well as satirizing postmodernism and its labels.
>
> Sounds right to me.
>
> David: Have never watched much TV so have no ideas on that topic. Pynchon
> sounds like a mild tube freak though, so ???
>
>
>
> On Sun, Nov 7, 2021 at 6:32 PM David Elliott via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
>>   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
>>
>>
>> |
>> |
>> |  |
>> 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...
>>  |
>>
>>  |
>>
>>  |
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     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 ?
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > 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
>>
>
>