SLPAD - 126 ?Low-Lands? - 37

[Michael Bailey]

Good question(s), thanks

- I gathered the formative Kopfschmerzen weren’t very frequent, but
meaningful when they occurred

- why he brought it up? He talked the whole time, one of my most
well-spoken hitchhikers ever - he spoke interestingly on many topics but
never went meta as to why he was telling me any particular thing

Did we discuss “Low-Lands”?

- at that point in 1976, _Slow Learner_ was yet to occur, and I hadn’t read
any of the short stories in their original settings either

- insufficient data for the next few questions but he did have impressive
hirsuteness - it was well-groomed, clean, and profuse.

- there’s a Sri Aurobindo ashram in Mt Tremper NY (still there
https://m.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100064645000972 )

- Auroville, in India, https://auroville.org , is an intentional community

- there’s a great big domey structure, the Matrimandir,
indicative of sustained dedication

[not something I learned from the hitchhiker, but from following up later:
curiously, there’s a disputant regarding the dimensions of the Matrimandir,
claiming the way it was built didn’t follow the true vision of Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother

- this author’s name is “Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet” which enfolds itself so
readily into a mantra that I’m silently repeating it as I type…it’s the
iambic pentameter, isn’t it?]

- Sri Aurobindo turned from violent political action to a spiritual
orientation after a prison term.

- the Mother grew up in France and joined in the cluster of metaphysical
movements around the turn of the 20th century; made her way to Algeria and
then to India; she said she had seen Aurobindo in her dreams before meeting
him



Preterition - big topic / no meta statements from TRP on that but he uses
the concept frequently.
Not explicit in “Low-Lands” but the details of Nerissa and apparently
Flange’s new direction in life are not those of “the Elect” (the dump, the
rats, the sub rosa nature of their community)


- Why does Pynchon return to that theme?

Is he manifesting the Protestant ethic - he knows it needs to be worked on,
& if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself?




On Sat, Feb 10, 2024 at 3:04 PM O G <octogonalyoyo at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm curious about this hairblessed hitchhiker, this non-internalizing
> itinerant.  Traveled the world, absorbed nothing.
>
> Considering the significance of headbumps.
>
> Was this a frequent occurrence with this fellow, being bonked on the
> bonger?  Why did he bring it up?  Were you telling him about this
> tiretumbling scene in Lowlands?  Do you suppose his headbumps were related
> to his massive waves of hair?  Was it a coverup?  A covert combover?  A
> covering?  Or were his brainbashings perhaps related to all the bumps *in*
> his
> head, if you catch my drift?
>
> It might depend on the significance of the bump.  Of sufficient magnitude,
> all right, there will be a bump in your life.  Coma.  Did he mean that the
> only way for him to change his life was to be nailed in the noggin?  Good
> reason to keep blowing the bumps.
>
> What was something interesting the hitchhiker said about Sri Aurobindo and
> The Mother?
>
> In Pynchon's terms, who are the Preterite and what is their place in the
> world, and why does Pynchon keep returning to that theme?
>
>
>
> > It?s not like Nerissa is a solitary phenomenon, easily fobbed off as a
> > delirium tremens consequence of Dennis?s prodigious wine-bibbing.
> >
> > - I remember picking up a hitchhiker with an amazing array of facial and
> > head hair back in the ?70s who told me some interesting stuff about Sri
> > Aurobindo and The Mother, his life as an itinerant, and how he dealt with
> > coke freaks (basically by not internalizing their speeded-up mindset) -
> one
> > of the things he said was, ?Every time there?s a significant change in my
> > life, it?s preceded by a bump on the head.? (Or was it, ?Every time I
> get a
> > bump on the head, there?s a significant change in my life??)
> >
> > I?ve never heard either version of this theory anywhere else, but it
> seems
> > semi-valid, or at least worthy of consideration.
> >
> > Dennis receives such a thump from a stack of snow tires which falls on
> him
> > whilst he?s trying to follow Nerissa thru the dump. Knocks him out.
> >
> > He awakens to her ?cool fingers on his forehead and a coaxing voice:
> ?Wake
> > up, Anglo. Open your eyes. You?re all right.? He opened his eyes and saw
> > her, the girl, her face, floating wide-eyed and anxious over him, and the
> > stars caught in her hair.?
> >
> > So presumably it?s not the wine - or, not only the wine -
> >
> > And she?s got a legitimate place in a community, she?s known, tolerated,
> > most likely also protected, cherished, and loved - they?re already being
> > watched (but not interfered with)
> >
> > ?On top of the pinnacle of bank run stood a human figure, watching them.
> > Other shapes hovered and flitted in the darkness; from somewhere came the
> > sound of guitar music, and singing, and a fight in progress.?
> >
> > Not only that, Gypsy Nerissa has a gypsy woman of her own who told her
> > fortune:
> >
> > ?The old woman with the eye patch who is called Violetta read my fortune
> > many years ago,? Nerissa said. ?She told me a tall Anglo would be my
> > husband and he would have bright hair and strong arms and??
> >
> >
> > On the way to her place - reached via a tunnel commencing with a backless
> > GE refrigerator thru which Flange overcomes his dubiety to fit his
> > portliness - she explains some of the social facts of the dump.
> >
> > The gypsies had found tunnels ready-made by a would-be terrorist group in
> > the 1930s called the Sons of the Red Apocalypse. Fortunately for all
> > concerned, even - maybe especially - the SotRA members themselves, ?the
> > feds? had ?rounded them all up?
> > leaving their infrastructure for the gypsies to adapt for their own needs
> > and purposes.
> >
> >
> > - this all speaks to 3 recurring Pynchon themes:
> >
> > The Preterite and their place in the world
> >
> > The contrast between revolutionary violence and the efforts of people to
> > live their lives
> >
> > And (this shows up in BE, and CoL49 the most) the idea of Waste and trash
> > heaps
> >
> >
> > Nerissa is cognizant of the history and the current workings of her
> > community, in which she has secured, one might say, an enviable place:
> >
> > ?They reached a dead end finally, with a small door set in the gravelly
> > soil. She opened it and they entered. She lit candles, whose flames
> > revealed a room hung with arrases and paintings, an immense double bed
> with
> > silk sheets, an armoire, a table, a refrigerator. Flange had all kinds of
> > questions. She told him about the air supply, and the drainage and the
> > plumbing and the power line that had been run in without Long Island
> > Lighting?s ever suspecting; about the truck which Bolingbroke used in the
> > daytime and which they drove out at night to steal food and supplies;
> about
> > Bolingbroke?s half-superstitious fear of them and his reluctance to
> inform
> > anyone in authority about all this lest he be accused of alcoholism or
> > worse and lose his job.?
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Subject: Digest Footer
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Pynchon-l mailing list
> > Pynchon-l at waste.org
> > https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> >
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > End of Pynchon-l Digest, Vol 73, Issue 8
> > ****************************************
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>