COL49 - Group Read p 139-145 (H&R)

[David Morris]

This section is focused on Oed’s return to Mucho immediately after the Dr.
Hilarious psychotic breakdown. [After this post, I will return to this
episode with Dr. Hilarious, and specifically the Freud/Jung references]

After she’s released from being held hostage at gunpoint by Dr Hilarious,
Oed Is interviewed by Mucho in the radio station mobile Van. And gives her
a new name on air.

They return to KCUF studio. Muchos boss, Caesar Funch, tells Oed That he’s
concerned about Mucho:  “Wendell is less himself and more generic. He is
[…] full of people, you know? He’s a walking assembly of man.” [not  “of
men”?] I don’t know what he means when he says, “They’re calling him the
Brothers N.”

At lunch Mucho asks her directly, “ How are you getting on with Metzger?”
 And with the Equanimity of Buddha, he says he already knows the answer.

He fixates on the sound of one violinist in a symphony playing on Muzak.
The Quality of the sound which demands his attention is its REALness. The
question of whether something is REAL is foundational in this book. Here
the “real” is contrasted with “synthetic.” Many other conceptual dualities
for questioning what is real are explored in this book and in other Pynchon
works.

Mucho tells Oed that he is able to “Listen to anything [real/heard sounds],
and process/synthesize them in his mind, break them down to their “Pure“
tones. His mind purifies the LIFE out, leaving eternally dead/preserved
basic frequencies.

****OR****

Is it possible that he is his removing his own interpretations…. His own
baggage, his own prejudices, and actually hearing what is real for the
first time?

Mucho expands “Rich, chocolatey, goodness” into a mantra, then transforms
that sound frequency, through non-dualism, into becoming ONE with the
Universe.

In short: Does the mind take “raw” input and then purify it?  or pollute it?

Then Mucho smiles, and pulls out his Magic pills, compliments of Dr.
Hilarious.

Mucho reports that he is now free of nightmares. He is now full of the
abundance of the world, and he is able to expand his consciousness, so that
he can absorb even more.

Oed believes the pills have artificially altered Mucho’s interactions with
the world. In her mind, his connection to reality has dissipated, and
“she’d seen Mucho for the last time,” as she declares she is leaving
“Tonight,”

David Morris