BEg2 chapter 4 summary part 2

[Joseph Tracy]

Emotherapy.  Introduction to Shawn, a therapist from the Brady Bunch Branch the TVeda school of Buddhism ,  a rare Pynchon character with many scenes and no last name. The thing we wonder is why Maxine is going to Shawn at all, especially after this chapter. He later gets more therapeutic or at least responds to Maxine in ways that get her thinking, and that allows her to talk about some of the weirder experiences which she begins to have as she enters Ice World. But at this point we don’t know any of that so my suggestion is that it is his very overemotional respose to the Taliban attack on the Buddha monument that may hold the reason. He is kinda the opposite of Horst, emotionally- expressive and able to release tension around a safe and rather deserving target. True he also reveals a kind of spiritual hypocrisy but when challenged doesn’t get tangled in self recrimination, his pretentions and self image doesn’t go that deep. Together with his love of the Brady Bunch he is an open relatable human for Maxine.
  This is the 3rd major invocation of therapy and psychological issues. NYC has a reputation for therapy as a kind of religious practice. In the summer arts program for adults I sometimes teach at, there have been years when about a 4th of the students were NYC psychotherapists or counselors or engaged in therapy, which may be random, but makes an impression. Trauma is a major theme in the novel and while treating the topic of psychology lightly, at least at first, there is a movement toward deeper issues and the theme is worth following.
   

> On Nov 15, 2021, at 6:27 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.
> --
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