Not P but Moby-Dick (88) - Questions for "Mike"

[O G]

Mr. Mike,

Can I ask you a few questions about the big dick (great gig) in the
waters (sky)?

Look, as Withnail once said, We went on this Pynchon list by mistake!

I just got here, obviously, and you and your tedious, insidious, insane
questions are by far the most, um, interesting, thing, about it.  Someone
once recently said here that what the author of a quote that Pynchon lodged
onto the top of one of his stories After the quote Tempers our
interpretation of Pynchon's temper toward the topic of the story, and I
thought that was intresting though I disagreed, if that's the case why not
have Dante's Third Canto temper Pynchon's feelings, but then he went away
so I am left with you.

I have a few problems, in general, about you and your cringing lifeless
questions about the Dick.  First off, I haven't read the goddam thing since
I was seventeen and I don't remember it, and I surely didn't understand the
wickedness of Melville's brilliance when I was seventeen.  That was two
years ago.  And I am certainly not going to like, look up
contextualizations when you have the infinite courtesy to go, like,
"(88)".  What am I supposed to do, read ten pages before 88 and ten pages
after 88, then answer your stupid question?  You just assume that I know
who the hell the carpenter is.  The guy who made the first leg, or the
second leg?

One obvious question I have is, something I am certain that these Bailey
and Kohut fellows have surely pointed out to you seven hundred thousand
times before I ever came around, do you understand, or get, at all,
Melville's incessant, inquenchable, indying sense of humor?  Nothing
Ishmael says is accurate.  He is a total loon.  And why he is a lunatic is
certainly the greatest possible question one can ask of the novel.

So, but then, all your questions, they're all nitpicky, like, literal,
items, about six words that Melville, obviously high and in a state of
divine comedy, threw together out of the mouth of a loon, without really
probably having a clue what he even meant by it.  By that I mean, he never
had one thing he meant in mind.  No doubt he was aware of a plenty, he
didn't care, it amused him to no end, that's why he wrote it, he wrote that
book for no other reason than for the divine comedy.

Every time you preface a question by "What did Melville mean by..." it is
automatickly a bad question.

Attempting to render a divine comedy from one language into another is,
it's not comical, nor is it divine.  When you continually goldenly fleece a
group of the greatest scholars of Pynchon on the planet into hammering out
"What Melville meant," in a wanky willy way, it's beyond absurd, and after
a few weeks embarrassing to witness.  And I fucking know what absurd is.

Plus it totally aggravates me, two things, real quick before I forget.
Damn it what were they.  I just remembered them at the end of that last
paragraph, and now have I forgotten again.  Oh!  No, damn it, spaced them
again.  The ol', in-out.  Oh one, I used to think it was quasicool, because
at first I automatickly assumed, that, you took the time and effort to type
out all the quotes that you are so concerned with.  Then I finally realized
that you simply cut and paste!  Oy, vay.  Takes you three seconds to do
something that ultimately annoys me, and no doubt everyone else chained to
your inquiries, for the rest of the day.  It's hard, you know, because,
just trying to refresh my dim memory with some of your brightest cut and
paste hit and runs,

Oh right, second, yes yes finally, wait shit I lost it again. God damn it.
Oh right it's that thing.  In every little shock and awe quote you bombard
these highly respected scholars with, and waste the world's incalculable
precious time, there are at least TEN better questions you Could have
asked, regarding the words on either side of your quote within the quote.
It's almost indemnifying, you almost have a trenchant, for asking what the
least interesting portion of the quote about, is about.

I'll show you.  I'll ask you questions about every other part of your quote
around your quotes, from now on.

I am curious what you think "Melville means".  I'll ask you questions about
your wee quotes that you don't quote. I had at least eighty eight questions
for you about the one you just sent over the waves (that's boating-whale
talk).  But here's one:

What did Melville mean when Billy Idol sang:

"With a rebel yell, she cried "mo'""?

Mo what?  And what is a rebel yell?


On Sat, Mar 16, 2024 at 3:59 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree.....did not read right...
>
> On Sat, Mar 16, 2024 at 3:49 AM Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Yeah but the guy is 50 foot high - so the arms might be up to 25 feet
> long
> > & the wrists would be correspondingly burly
> >
> > However, the scattershot nature of the measurements indicates a lack of
> > coherent plan
> >
> > Quarter acre of brains
> > 50 foot tall
> > Chest modeled after the Thames Tunnel
> >
> > The Thames Tunnel is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in London,
> > connecting Rotherhithe and Wapping. It measures 35 ft (11 m) wide by 20
> ft
> > (6.1 m) high
> >
> > I vote for 3 foot wide wrists (-;
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Mar 16, 2024 at 2:58 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > It is the length of the arms....which are, in general, up to half the
> > > height of a man....
> > >
> > > On Sat, Mar 16, 2024 at 12:03 AM Mike Jing <
> > gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > From Chapter 108:
> > > >
> > > > Hold;  while Prometheus is about it, I’ll order a complete man after
> a
> > > > desirable pattern.  Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks;  then,
> > chest
> > > > modelled after the Thames Tunnel;  then, legs with roots to ’em, to
> > stay
> > > in
> > > > one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist;  no heart at all,
> > > brass
> > > > forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains;  and let me
> > > > see—shall I order eyes to see outwards?  No, but put a sky-light on
> top
> > > of
> > > > his head to illuminate inwards.  There, take the order, and away.
> > > >
> > > > What does "arms three feet through the wrist" mean here? Is "there
> > feet"
> > > > the width of the wrist? Most of the previous translations interpreted
> > it
> > > as
> > > > the length of the arms, which doesn't seem right.
> > > > --
> > > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > > >
> > > --
> > > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > >
> > --
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> >
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