BEg2 chapter 17 factual summary

[Joseph Tracy]

Am I right that this encounter in the passsage from Ice's cellar is the first time Maxine has seen something that may be a ghost or spirit? We know she has some fairly reliable sensitivities and extra-logical modes of getting information like the writing on bathroom walls. Mostly she seems down to earth, a careful observer, and not likely to let her imagination so completely take over. Later she has other encounters which also imply other dimensions. 
  My thinking is that Pynchon includes these coexisting dimensions as matter of fact parts of his constructed world and lets the reader decide what they mean.  What he doesn’t do is restrict such encounters to flaky characters. He seems to present them more as common experiences, not easily dismissed as completely imaginary or unreal.  
   The idea of depth seems important to Pynchon and is heavily used in all his work. This encounter takes place in a cellar facing down some stairs in the depths of Ice’s world and his potential connections to military secret projects.  Earlier we have a smilar encounter between Eric and Ice as Eric is searching the dark web and is warned with threats. 
  One obvious reason for this limit on how deep one is allowed to go as writer/reader has to do with the secretiveness of what is hidden from public view. They represent real limits on what we can know in the the US today. Pynchon chooses money as one of the trails into hidden doings but money has to do with motive and that gets even murkier. It has to do with what we hide from ourselves and the overlap between what the leaders of a society hide and what the members of the society prefer not to know about what their money and government and bosses do. 
 How much of this secrecy can co-exist with political freedom, informed choices, fair economic competition, international policies? 
   Part of the obvious problem being outlined concerning the role of communication tech is the imbalance of power between the watched and the watchers, the deciders and those for whom things are decided.  
   Any other thoughts on the 2 kinds of spooks or this particular scene?

> On Feb 4, 2022, at 12:29 AM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Starts on pg 190 of 470 (Nook pagination)
> At the 40% mark in the book
> 
> Ends on pg 201, 43% in
> 
> People
> - Maxine
> - Randy, a guy in the bar
> - Westchester Willie, a guy from the video
> - Bethesda, a young woman in the bar, wearing painter’s overalls and
> Chinese tats
> - something in a child-size fatigue uniform
> - Heidi
> 
> Places
> - the LIE in a rental Camry
> - Junior’s Ooh-La-Lounge (barroom, ladies’)
> - the burned ruins of Shae, Bruno, and VIP’s old playhouse
> - Montauk Point Lighthouse parking lot
> - Gabriel Ice’s summer retreat (“Fuckingham Palace”)
> - the house thereof, swarming with contractors
> - the wine cellar for Randy to loot in an attempt to recover unpaid
> invoices for his materials, let alone labor
> - a spooky underground passage behind a coded-access door in the corner of
> the wine cellar
> - a dream landscape
> - a deli around the corner from Tail ‘Em and Nail ‘Em
> 
> Action
> - Maxine gets teary eyed over a country song while driving, about a couple
> who forgot to ground their Airstream trailer & kept getting shocked off the
> walls
> 
> - Maxine following clues from the video to get that boots on the ground
> look at its setting
> 
> - stopping at Junior’s Ooh-La-Lounge when she figures she’s near her goal,
> for directions from
> locals
> 
> - Maxine charms Randy, a contractor to whom Gabriel Ice owes big money, he
> gives her more info about Bruno and Shea (like, the playhouse burned down!
> Though no bodies were found)
> 
> -Maxine and Randy agree to go together both to the scene of the video, and
> to Ice’s place, pretending to be on an assignation
> 
> - There’s a friendly conversation among the tavern guests about the
> tribulations of the contracting business
> 
> - Bethesda, another tavern guest, takes Maxine aside in the ladies’ room
> and treats her to a Montauk makeover, with abundant hairspray, so she will
> be less conspicuous on her sortie with Randy
> 
> - Bethesda and Randy both think that Gabriel Ice torched the playhouse,
> likely because he was also using it for sex & was getting blackmailed.
> 
> - at the playhouse’s burnt remnants Maxine opens her purse for her digital
> camera to photograph it, and Randy sees her Beretta. A little gun badinage
> - he says he has a Bersa 9 millimeter & perhaps excited by the armaments
> talk, advances his palm to her rear. She’s pleased to note that he removes
> it when challenged.
> 
> - she leaves her car in the visitor parking at the Montauk Lighthouse so
> they can discreetly drive together to Ice’s house.
> 
> - Randy grabs a bag of grout and a cup of coffee to walk them unnoticed to
> the wine cellar thru the throng of workers at the house.
> 
> - he chooses with a discerning eye some wine and explains he might sell it
> on eBay to recoup some of the costs that Ice hasn’t bothered to pay him for
> 
> - while Randy takes that load to his truck, Maxine opens a key-code door in
> the corner of the cellar, using one of a list of Hashslingrz codes she got
> from Eric Outfield via Reg Despard
> 
> - the corridor behind the door is spooky, with many doors on its sides, and
> she begins to hear weird military-type call signals and such. Her notion is
> that the lacquered coiffure Bethesda gave her is picking up these
> transmissions. But she is daunted, no question
> 
> - she believes she is heading toward the urban-legend secret Montauk
> installation
> 
> - when she comes to a stairway leading down and sees a child-size figure in
> fatigues coming up, she turns tail and runs (“All right, Air Jordans, do
> your stuff!”)
> 
> - back in the wine cellar, Randy also seems nervous enough to be less picky
> about his second load of wine. They return to his truck; he returns Maxine
> to her rental Camry, and after a friendly invitation to meet up at a
> shooting range in Yonkers called “Sensibility” (‘Men always welcome’) which
> Maxine tentatively accepts without actually specifying when, and after she
> decides to let him keep the burgundy she had selected after all, he leaves
> her to it.
> 
> - “it” being the drive back to Manhattan, accompanied on the radio by the
> vocal stylings of Droolin’ Floyd Womack on the subject of his throbbin’
> brain.
> 
> - Maxine’s throbbing brain that night treats her to a dream that sort of
> recaps all that’s been going on, but skewed of course
> 
> - next day Heidi comes by the office & they get some salads at the corner
> deli. Maxine asks for Montauk lore, which, as we know, Heidi is an SME
> (subject matter expert) on, teaching a course in fact.
> 
> - However, Heidi is less informative than meta: she talks about the
> relationship of urban legend to truth and to the popularization of wild
> tales. Few deets!
> 
> - what Maxine already knows, however, and her “throbbin’ brain,” cause her
> to lose her appetite. Heidi is glad to help her finish the meal, and Maxine
> finally teases back ( when I saw no riposte for Heidi’s earlier, “Maxi,
> earnest Maxi…” I was worried, but though she’s lost her appetite, she
> hasn’t lost her complete quiver of quippage) - “Fress, Heidi, fress please.
> I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”
> --
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