Not Dick but Genius (76) Girl Swallows Whale

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David Bowie – China Girl Lyrics | Genius Lyrics
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On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 2:29 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> And maybe I did not express myself correctly.....I meant that the
> 'breaking' was
> of the mould as they sat together...if we want to explicate with a
> realistic action
>
> But maybe I just got too literal and the breaking of the mould was like
> breaking bread metaphorically.
> Sorry.
>
> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 1:44 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Maybe I did not word it properly, but I thought it was obvious that it
> > should not be taken literally.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 1:35 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> And maybe not for bread as food as even Mike’s quoted explication
> allows.
> >> Which is where I came in.
> >>
> >>
> >> Sent from my iPhone
> >>
> >> On Feb 28, 2024, at 1:30 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> 
> >> Of course it's a metaphor, and not just for the unpalatability of mould.
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 5:55 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> okay.....I would still argue it is a metaphorical associative allusion
> >>> to 'breaking bread'.....
> >>> since there can be little meaning to "green damp mould" as edible....
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 3:06 AM Mike Jing <
> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> It seems I'm not the only one who thinks so. I found this as the first
> >>>> hit in google books search for "green damp mould":
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> https://www.google.ca/books/edition/Pen_of_Iron/kDKrkyn-1DkC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22green+damp+mould%22&pg=PA61
> >>>>
> >>>> The peculiar final gesture of this paragraph is another instance of
> >>>> Melville’s propensity to introduce jocular half-notes into dark
> >>>> meditations. The person who skirts around the ineluctable reality of
> death
> >>>> and despair is unsuited “to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the
> green
> >>>> damp mould with unfathomable wondrous Solomon.” This is, I think, a
> kind of
> >>>> macabre joke. Solomon was the wisest of men, not for the legendary
> reason
> >>>> given in the Book of Kings, but because he wrote Ecclesiastes and the
> >>>> gloomier verses of the Book of Proverbs. Spiritual conviviality with
> >>>> wondrous Solomon would be a meeting in a graveyard, where instead of
> >>>> breaking bread together with him one would break green damp mould.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 1:39 AM Mike Jing <
> >>>> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> I agree, but I thought "break the green damp mould with" was
> fashioned
> >>>>> after the phrase "to break bread with" as a humorous way of saying
> it. I
> >>>>> could be totally wrong though.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 7:03 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> >>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> I think that "break the green damp mould" means to sit with
> >>>>>> Solomon...it repeats with
> >>>>>> this real image that man is not fitted to sit down on tomb-stones
> >>>>>> [even some] so old
> >>>>>> as to have green damp mould on them....
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 6:49 AM Mike Jing <
> >>>>>> gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> From Chapter 96:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> But he who dodges hospitals and jails, and walks fast crossing
> >>>>>>> grave-yards,
> >>>>>>> and would rather talk of operas than hell;  calls Cowper, Young,
> >>>>>>> Pascal,
> >>>>>>> Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men;  and throughout a care-free
> >>>>>>> lifetime
> >>>>>>> swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore jolly;—not that
> >>>>>>> man is
> >>>>>>> fitted to sit down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould
> >>>>>>> with
> >>>>>>> unfathomably wondrous Solomon.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> What does "passing wise" mean here?
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Also, I assume "break the green damp mould with" means to "break
> >>>>>>> bread
> >>>>>>> with", but since Solomon is long dead, so there's only mould on the
> >>>>>>> grave,
> >>>>>>> is that correct?
> >>>>>>> --
> >>>>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>