Fwd: BEg2 ch33 section 2 brief summary

[Joseph Tracy]

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> Subject: Re: BEg2 ch33 section 2 brief summary
> Date: July 31, 2022 at 10:06:44 PM EDT
> To: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> 
>> So she’s seen Marvin the rapper and also now this woman in a new light -
>> the DeepArcher is like an archetype, “humanity poised on the way to the
>> stars” or something, which once it’s impressed on your sensorium, you begin
>> to see it everywhere?
>> 
>> Or maybe the nameless woman is actually the DeepArcher in another guise?
>> 
>> No:
>> 
>> “You’re—”
>> 
>>         “The Archer? No. That one is silent.”
> 
> In Astronomic constellations the Archer is Orion, bow drawn and pointed at the Bull, sword hanging from his belt. Perhaps in his darkest  modern aspect  we might think of him as  targeting the profits flowing red from the bleeding edge of his cyber arrows,  after finding the heart of  a bull market: oil, tech  and weapons sales spurting like the proverbial gusher.  
> At any rate the bleeding edge is a powerful metaphor. After all a cutting edge is bound to lead to bloodshed and skilled or unskilled butchery.  But there is something about the dark underbelly of the information beast that despite Ice's pursuit of fill spectrim dominance remains fertile with hard questions  and revolutionary possibilities; ghosts, pirates and pirate gold, tomes of truth, prayers for deliverance and light. We may consider also  that the bull of nature pictured in the constellation is still alive and horned and the stars do not reveal the end of the story. 
> 
> 
>      
>    
> 
>> On Jul 31, 2022, at 3:09 AM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com <mailto:michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> In bold is “Maxine continues to wander”
>> 
>> Leaving Lucas, she wanders the big ship looking at & having conversations
>> with different passengers.
>> 
>> She thinks some are veterans - or phony veterans as part of some con game -
>> of 9-11. No reason except how they look and a sense that such folks might
>> have more reason than most to hang in DeepArcher.
>> 
>> [brief sidebar - DeepArcher is shaping up as a metaphor for the Web.
>> 
>> Sliding into that interpretation, the sharing of information allowed by the
>> Web attempts to be so comprehensive  you can get almost anything you want
>> there, (like Alice’s Restaurant) - and its scale is vasty enough that it
>> can seem like its own world, though you’re continually reminded that it’s
>> not. Like speech or text, or pictures, the Web includes all those but it’s
>> still a map & still explicitly inside a territory.
>> 
>> Sliding out of that interpretation, Maxine’s experience involves her to the
>> point that we aren’t actually getting any narration of her getting those
>> reminders, it’s all about the virch as I think William Gibson called it?
>> Realer than a metaphor for the WWW needs to be.]
>> 
>> After absorbing the impression of WTC survivors, with whom she seems not to
>> have had words, her attention turns to avatars and mementos of deceased
>> persons posted by family.
>> 
>> These artifacts, with varying levels of complexity, all seem to be wanting
>> to communicate - she does try - but they are stopped by their limitations.
>> Kinda spooky. And sad. A reminder is better than nothing for a loved one;
>> Maxine isn’t really a party to that aspect, though (fortunate she!)
>> 
>> As in Manhattan, there are corner cafes - Maxine stops at one & is treated
>> to a woman’s description of her quest to the edge of the known universe -
>> walks with her to an observation deck outside the ship, where the woman
>> assumes a pose like the DeepArcher himself on the original splash page.
>> 
>> So she’s seen Marvin the rapper and also now this woman in a new light -
>> the DeepArcher is like an archetype, “humanity poised on the way to the
>> stars” or something, which once it’s impressed on your sensorium, you begin
>> to see it everywhere?
>> 
>> Or maybe the nameless woman is actually the DeepArcher in another guise?
>> 
>> No:
>> 
>> “You’re—”
>> 
>>         “The Archer? No. That one is silent.”
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l <https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l>
>