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

[Joseph Tracy]

Another aspect to this meeting is the initial and various impressions Mucho makes that don’t seem problematic at all.1 )His Smile ( can they hear it, not considering that he is smiling at her ) 2)His pronunciation of her name that she questions but sounds correct on the sound equipment of the mobile van 3) there is "a serenity about him she’d never seen. He used to hunch his shoulders and have a rapid eyeblink rate, and both now were gone.”  4) his directness which she has said she wants, and which direct without being judgemental. 5) His correct discernment from her voice  that her affair with Metzger is over  6) he is free of his nightmarish worries    Here is a man who is now confident, relaxed, acutely discerning concerning his craft, not cheating on her, and, albeit in some ways rather weirdly, exploring a kind of universal language he is perceiving in sound and music. I am reading a book called Zen and the Brain and Mucho Maas at this point has many resemblances to early stages of  advanced Zen meditation abilities. I like the way David Morris  put it  here about input to consciousness  and whether we hear it accurately or distorted by inner noise, and Pynchon’s interest in whether we  assess information for authenticity or fakeness.

Mucho may no longer carry the personality profile of  the person who Oedipa married but it is very hard to see how LSD has done serious damage or made it  impossible to reconnect to Mucho as the person he is becoming and to invite him into her changed picture of the world.  The main problem with Mucho as this meeting plays out is that he is so enthralled with what he is discovering that he fails to try to find out the rather darker material that she has been looking into and struggling with herself.  But my own sense is that she is also afraid of this less binary  way of dealing with the kind of complexities they both face, and going to Mike Fallopian to share her fears is far less sensible as a choice than it might have been to see if Mucho and her might have more to give each other.

Interestingly Pynchon felt interested enough in this relationship and to continue with more of where Mucho was headed that he picks it up In Vineland mentioning an amicable divorce, Mucho as a successful record producer working with the Paranoids. He recounts how Mucho  had turned down the damaging path of Cocaine use and come out of that living on “the natch” with an attractive younger woman, but also sharing a sense together with Zoyd of psychedelics freeing them both from the fear of death.  

If my sense that OM plays a dual role as herself and the conflicted post JFK soul of America here is another place where the paranoia about psychedelics unfortunately eclipsed their potential for therapy, inner exploration and problem solving. So often political battles have pushed us to the war paradigm instead of a true pursuit of understanding.






> On Jul 15, 2024, at 7:50 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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
> --
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