BEg2 chapter 4 summary part 2

[Joseph Tracy]

Agree with Keith. Excellent summary of basic action and information. Breaking it into bits helps and fits P’s general stye. 

> On Nov 15, 2021, at 8:08 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Great work!
> 
> linktr.ee/keithdavis
> 
>> On Nov 15, 2021, at 6:28 PM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Shawn the emotherapist claims knowledge from the Far East, but Maxine knows
>> his real experience, though not expertise, is with surfing.
>> 
>> Maxine’s session with Shawn revolves around Shawn rather than Maxine.
>> 
>> Shawn is irritated at the Taliban for blowing up the
>> thousand-five-hundred-year-old Buddha statues. He lets his tongue run free,
>> conflating the fundamentalist Taliban with Islam itself.
>> 
>> In fact, Shawn apparently spends the whole session on this rant, with
>> Maxine nudging him towards calmness.
>> 
>> Looking forward to a Brady Bunch marathon, he ends the session early with
>> no therapeutic efforts other than an insincere query for her thoughts about
>> the Brady Bunch episode where Jan gets a wig
>> https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0531167/
>> 
>> 
>> Maxine picks up Otis and Fiona at the Kugelblitz School, but Ziggy is
>> headed for Krav Maga class with his classmate Nigel and Nigel’s sitter.
>> 
>> 
>> The rest of the chapter, in Maxine’s apartment, consists of
>> 
>> a)settling Otis and Fiona in to watch The Aggro Hour, with non-sugar soda
>> and health food Cheetos.
>> 
>> b) Ziggy coming home from Krav Maga with a “ haze of early-adolescent sex
>> angst” engendered by the female instructor, Emma Levin, and indulged by her
>> ex-Mossad boyfriend Naftali “who will kill anybody even looks at her sideways,
>> unless maybe it’s a kid who can’t help having some preadolescent longing.”
>> 
>> c) Maxine walking in on Fiona showing Ziggy and Otis the new first-person
>> shooter game her father has created. At first scandalized, Maxine’s lured
>> in & comes to appreciate the way it gives her an opportunity to disappear
>> ill-mannered yuppies and give their children up for adoption.
>> 
>> d) Convo with Vyrva about the latter’s meeting which was with Gabriel Ice.
>> Ice offered to buy her husband & his partner’s software, which they called
>> Deep Archer. Apparently there’s a piece of it that can enhance
>> untraceability, and that’s the piece that Ice is willing to buy the whole
>> thing to get.
>> Maxine reflects on how secure privacy inevitably leads to abuses.
>> Vyrva relates that the partners are both torn on whether to accept the
>> offer, or to release the code for free.
>> Maxine understands that choice is not a no-brainer, that money isn’t always
>> desirable: “…above a critical amount, it’s all bad.”
>> 
>> e) the last part of the chapter relates Mrs McElmo’s Beanie Baby
>> obsession/side hustle. Ostensibly collecting them for Fiona, she is much
>> more the mover in this hobby, and thinks it’s a great investment.
>> Ziggy quite maturely (and out of Vyrva’s presence) critiques the pitfalls
>> of Beanie Babies as an investment: moth and rust and wear and tear - and
>> concludes that Vyrva, at least as regards Beanie Babies, is crazy.
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l