BEg2: Chapter 19 Summary

[Mark Kohut]

Some other good wit in this chapter.....

"Pretty touchy"....."Yep, and feely too"

"once you've tried cop, you never want to stop".....the form of "once
you've done/gone black, you'll never go back" which was an attempted
pick-up line on an old minimalist girlfriend of mine.....contra maximalist
in the spirit of the Baroque....

I want to finish Chazz Larday's name as Chazz Lardass but that's just me,
I'm sure.

So, Maxine's almost-open mouth wonder whether Tallis is (just) a mule to
move money secretly to Darklinear Solutions would seem
to be affirmed here as an ESP bypass....

"Not as if it has a conscience, DeepArcher, it's just there".....I get
resurrected thoughts of the amorality of technology, value-free was the
claim, argued
against in full books by one we think Pynchon knew and respected somehow,
Lewis Mumford and lots of others....added to the almost inhuman
immateriality
of the internet...."her click history vanishing behind her like footprints
in the air"...."Like free advice unheard"....'whatever's finally on the
term sheet" .
I say immateriality is a NOT GOOD in Pynchon everywhere.

Venture capital financing is the next paragraph of this wikipedia article
on 'term sheet'.

It's all about money, BE is.

The paragraph before this one I will offer as more circumstantial evidence
that the Maxine of this novel would never leave that LIMO with all that
money. "there's a point where it
all rolls in on them and they go under"...No one with that insight would
have.

A *term sheet* is a bullet-point
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet-point> document outlining the material
terms <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materiality_(law)> and conditions of a
potential business agreement, establishing the basis for future
negotiations between a seller and buyer. It is usually the first documented
evidence of possible acquisition
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mergers_and_acquisitions>.[1]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_sheet#cite_note-1> It may be either
binding or non-binding.

After a term sheet has been "executed", it guides legal counsel
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_counsel> in the preparation of a
proposed "final agreement". It then guides, but is not necessarily binding,
as the signatories negotiate, usually with legal counsel, the final terms
of their agreement.

Term sheets are very similar to "letters of intent
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_intent>" (LOI) in that they are
both preliminary, mostly non-binding
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-binding> documents meant to record two
or more parties' intentions to enter into a future agreement based on
specified (but incomplete or preliminary) terms. The difference between the
two is slight and mostly a matter of style: an LOI is typically written in
letter form and focuses on the parties' intentions; a term sheet skips most
of the formalities and lists deal terms in bullet-point or similar format.
There is an implication that an LOI only refers to the final form. A term
sheet may be a proposal, not an agreed-to document.

On Mon, Feb 14, 2022 at 12:03 PM Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
wrote:

> I am sorry this is late, and forgive me for it being hasty! I hope this
> puts the ball back on the track. (I am the goddamn KING! of mixed
> metaphors!)
>
> Chapter 19
>
> Part 1
>
> Heidi, back from San Diego Comic Con, has been visited by an NYPD
> detective interested in her old fiancé, Evan Strubel. This detective is
> named Carmine Nozzoli. This leads to a great Pynchonian set-up/pun:
>
> Maxine: “You two were romantically involved?”
>
> Heidi: “Not romantically. Baroquely maybe. Years ago.”
>
> Ratcheting herself firmly into a particular socket shaped by numerous
> Pynchon heroines before her, Heidi extolls the virtues of dating men in law
> enforcement. Both women spend some time communicating in the language of
> shopping. Seems the detective bought Heidi a Monica Lewinsky original
> purse! [God forbid I link to the Daily Beast, but here we go:]
>
>
> https://www.thedailybeast.com/monica-lewinsky-had-a-handbag-line-20-years-ago-i-set-out-to-find-one
>
> The women order some dubious Chinese food, and various NYC in-jokes follow
> about the mysteries of said Chinese food, as well as the proliferation of
> take-out menus in the pre-Seamless/Grub Hub days. This leads to a
> stereotypical “Asians eat dogs!” comedy routine, along with the gloriously
> named “Twelve Favors Drunken Squid.” The conversation ends with Maxine
> duping Heidi into a drawn-out joke with a PUNchline: “I have always
> depended on the kindness of stranglers.”
>
> Part 2
>
> Now connected with Detective Nozzoli, Maxine has him “run a quick make on
> Tallis’s fiber-salesman BF.” Chazz Larday checks out as an “average
> lowlife” from Florida(?) possessing a rap sheet filled with minor scams;
> though he has loose ties to the Dixie Mafia.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Mafia
>
> He’s done some minor jail stints, nothing major. [Then again, he hasn’t
> encountered Raylan Givens!]
>
> Maxine calls Chaz Larday’s phone and pretends to be from hashsligerz
> accounting, “trying to clear up one or two details about some arrangements
> you have with our company comptroller, Mrs. Ice.”
>
> Chazz responds, “Mizzis Ice,” then pauses, just long enough for Maxine to
> realize he should have played dumb. Maxine then asks whether the
> arrangements are actually for “MISTER Ice.”
>
> Having overplayed her hand, Maxine is rewarded with an empty threat about
> tracing phone calls, and Chazz hangs up. Maxine intuits that Tallis is not
> entirely innocent; but furthermore, Gabriel Ice probably doesn’t just know
> about their illicit affair; he may be bankrolling it! She asks herself,
> “Has he also been using Tallis as a mule to move money secretly into
> DarkLinear Solutions? And why so secretly, for goodness’ sakes?”
>
> Part 3
>
> Vyrva returns from Defcon in Las Vegas, not as tan as expected, and acting
> weird. Seems “everybody’s after DeepArcher…the NSA, the Mossad, terrorist
> go-betweens, Microsoft, Apple…” and hashsligerz, too.
>
> Indeed, Gabriel Ice was at the convention, at a “Black Hat Briefing, some
> kind of security conference they hold every year the week before Defcon.”
>
> As the two women enjoy an ice coffee, things become more interesting:
>
> Vyrva: “See—there’s a chance of some money […] Honestly, should it matter
> who gets to own the damned old source code? Not as if it has a conscience,
> DeepArcher, it’s just there, users can be anybody, no moral questionnaire
> ‘r netheen? it’s rilly only about the money. Who ends up with how much?”
>
> Maxine: “Except that in my business, what I see a lot of is innocent
> people making these deals with the satanic forces, for money way out of
> scale to anything they’re used to, and there’s a point where it all rolls
> in on them and they go under, and sometimes they don’t come back up.”
>
> Narration: But Vyrva is far away now, the summer street outside, the
> cumulus piling up over Jersey, the rush hour bearing down, it’s all country
> miles from wherever she is, rambling some DeepArcher of the unshared
> interior, her click history vanishing behind her like footprints in the
> air, like free advice unheard, so Maxine supposes it’ll have to keep,
> whatever it is, whatever’s finally on the term sheet.
>
>
>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>