CoL49 - 2nd section of chapter 5 - whoops, it was _Dharma Bums_

[Michael Bailey]

https://the-adventure-travel-network.com/adventure/2020/3/10/you-cant-fall-off-a-mountain

Climber breaks it down, schooling me:
A) I misquoted & misattributed
B) have been snickering at that Kerouac quote for years but I guess what he
said was sort of true:

The quote, “Ah Japhy [aka Snyder] you taught me the final lesson of them
all, you can’t fall off a mountain…” said Kerouac to Snyder on their way
down the Matterhorn in Northern Yosemite. While this quote shows the
playfulness of Kerouac trying to understand there is meaning in every
moment of life if you are willing to listen. While scrambling to the top of
the Matterhorn is a physical accomplishment, the quote takes the physical
and becomes metaphorical. Once you have reached a goal or the top of a
mountain, it can not be taken away from you.

Just for fun, I am going to poke some holes in the quote. It is true, you
can’t fall off a mountain, but you surely can fall down a cliff. Once we
reach a goal, we can choose how we share our accomplishments. There is a
right way and a wrong way, which has to do with our ego and how we
accept/reject society's norms. If one decided to leap off a cliff, they
would surely fall and… yup. Think about the people who accomplish something
and take their sharing to far, the essentially jump off the cliff. A
perfect example of the wrong way to come down the mountain. The irony in
jumping off a cliff is the quote remains true, you can’t fall off the
mountain because a mountain continues even after the cliff. Getting to the
top of a mountain is only halfway, you still need to return safely.






On Thu, Jul 4, 2024 at 2:49 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Questions:Why is it love and not capitalism that the founder of IA
> believes has ruined his life?
>
>
> The plot of his life has included career, advancement, and marriage. All
> these things have been bestowed on him and his habits have been formed
> around them, but he doesn’t really know how any of them work.
>
> Not surprisingly, his response to losing his job and wife and finding the
> posthorn is a non sequitur:
>
> “Idly, he peeled off a stamp and saw suddenly the image of the muted post
> horn, the skin of his hand showing clearly through the watermark. “A sign,”
> he whispered, “is what it is.” If he’d been a religious man he would have
> fallen to his knees. As it was, he only declared, with great solemnity: “My
> big mistake was love. From this day I swear to stay off of love: hetero,
> homo, bi, dog or cat, car, every kind there is. I will found a society of
> isolates, dedicated to this purpose, and this sign, revealed by the same
> gasoline that almost destroyed me, will be its emblem.” And he did”
>
> - a) there’s a lot about his job but almost nothing about having any
> feelings for his wife
>
> - b) confronting wife and her new lover actually perks him up
>
> - c) so how is his one mistake love?
>
> - d) he reads an arbitrary meaning into the muted posthorn, showing the
> same lack of understanding with which he used to read the specialized memos
>
> - e) he founds an organization based on a made-up interpretation based on
> *nothing*, and in reaction against a feeling of love, when in all of his
> words or actions there’s no sign of it
>
> - f) leaving unaddressed the only real fly in his life’s ointment: the
> computer taking his job, which I guess you could blame on capitalism, but
> wouldn’t it make as much sense to blame the computer?
>
>
>
>
> The question arises - is this meant to be a “scherzo” sidelong view of AA?
> - like some of the over-the-top satirical exploration around AA a few
> years later in _Infinite Jest_?
> - no, not for me anyway: yes, Oedipa does enjoy a drink and no, there’s
> not a lot of condemnation of her for it, but rather the use of brand names
> and drink names seems to imply an acceptance of drinking as a social
> ritual.
> - but there’s no denying the “scared-straight” potential of the imagery
> around the drunken sailor
> - hence I see no sign of attempts to do any kind of a take-down of AA
> - I think maybe taking AA principles and applying them to love tickles the
> same sort of mordant funny bone as putting mail in a waste can.
>
> — what it might be a takedown of, though, is specious “great moments of
> insight”
> - always reminds me of Kerouac in _Desolation Angels_ where he has the
> bogus satori “you can’t fall down a mountain”
> - patently untrue
> - unimpressive movements to this day grow up around a charismatic leader
> with some “great realization” and people retelling the tale
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 2, 2024 at 6:37 AM J K Van Nort via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
>> Greetings,
>> Sorry this is late.
>> Summary:
>> Oedipa's conversation continues with the Inamorati Anonymous gentleman.
>> He explains their purpose and also the story of the founder, who
>> contemplating suicide after the loss of his job and marriage has a
>> revelation. The story of how the muted posthorn symbol became a for the
>> group involves a Yoyodyne mid level administrator who loses his job, his
>> wife, and his reason to live and just as he is about to kill himself in the
>> same form as a Buddhist monk protesting Vietnam, he has a revelation that
>> love is the problem. The gasoline has soaked a series of letters that he
>> received (presumably) through W.A.S.T.E. which wipes the ink to reveal a
>> watermark with the muted posthorn. He forms the IA and uses the muted
>> posthorn as its symbol. The Isolate leaves her to go to the bathroom and
>> never returns. She leaves the Greek Way and wanders the city, finding the
>> posthorn symbol everywhere. She finds children dreaming that they are
>> playing together, In a Mexican restaurant, she meets Jesus Arrabal, a
>> Mexican anarchist she had met in Mazatlan with Pierce. He describes Pierce
>> as the reason he has stayed with anarchy, as Pierce represents everything
>> he despises. He describes a miracle as 'another world's intrusion into this
>> one. She continues through the 'infected city' where she sees more examples
>> of the posthorn, finally finding an old drunken sailor with the posthorn
>> tattooed onto his hand. She comforts him, and he asks her to mail a letter
>> to his wife through W.A.S.T.E., which she says she doesn't know how to use.
>> He tells her she can find a location under the highway. She helps him to
>> bed and imagines that he will die by having his cigarette ignite his
>> mattress when he falls asleep.
>>
>> Questions:Why is it love and not capitalism that the founder of IA
>> believes has ruined his life?Why would a member of the IA be getting drunk
>> in a gay bar?Why does Oedipa feel despair when she realizes that "nobody
>> around her has any sexual relevance" to her?How does the founding story of
>> the Isolate at the gay bar compare with the drunken sailor grieving his
>> wife? Why is that important?
>>
>> In solidarity,
>> James
>>
>> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>