BEg2 refreshing my memory of the DeepArcher splash screen

[Mark Kohut]

I have always read this as near-Biblical, Genesis, once he writes "whatever
light was before light was invented".
We have "down the road behind"...a whole compressed history of, say, the
growth of American civilization aginst
which stands "the immeasurable uncreated", another chance, another new
frontier, another chance at full(er) humanity
and we get---? animated individuals created cheaply, with the
occasional eyeblink and lightly blowing grass....

P's vision of all that the technology of the internet brings?



On Mon, Mar 28, 2022 at 3:43 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> “A splash screen comes on, in shadow-modulated 256-color daylight, no
> titles, no music. A tall figure, dressed in black, could be either sex,
> long hair pulled back with a silver clip, The Archer, has journeyed to the
> edge of a great abyss. Down the road behind, in forced perspective, recede
> the sunlit distances of the surface world, wild country, farmland, suburbs,
> expressways, misted city towers. The rest of the screen is claimed by the
> abyss—far from an absence, it is a darkness pulsing with whatever light was
> before light was invented. The Archer is poised at its edge, bow fully
> drawn, aiming steeply down into the immeasurable uncreated, waiting.
>             What can be seen of the face from behind, partly turned away,
> is attentive and unattached. A light wind is blowing in the grass and
> brush. “Looks like we cheaped out and didn’t bother to animate much,”
> Justin comments, “but look close and you can see the hair rippling too, I
> think the eyes blink once, but you have to be watching for it. We wanted
> stillness but not paralysis.”
>
> This was created by Cassidy, the maybe-not-12 (that was a quip) but
> underage (as Maxine notes in seriousness) artist for the splash screen.
>
> It reminds me of Sagittarius, but also the Fool tarot card.
>
> & Cassidy refers to an external, unknown, source of inspiration similar to
> that cited by the woman who drew - what was it, the Thoth deck?
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>