Shadow Ticket (!)

[J Tracy]

> "the world is restored to order once the murder is solved.” 

> It’s a powerful paradigm.  The patient is healed when cause of disease is apprehended and arrested. With quantum computing we will have access to omniscient Gods who never lie. With enough data we could have a unified field theory. It seems the 'enlightenment ‘ just sends us deeper into a mechanistic universe where truth is a meaningless puzzle, particularly if the approach is linguistic, mathematical,  the physics of symbolic ratios. But when you turn cosmic truths into hydrogen bombs , your most godlike power has become satanic. That is the theme of Gravity’s Rainbow and  Twin Peaks for that matter.

> The problem is when the world’s order is based on murderous systems of control, when your messiahs kill and abuse the innocent for the convenience of the empire.  

> Then what do you do when you apprehend yourself, when you are the one who holds the gun and pulls the trigger; what does the empire do when its power and control are  based on global annihilation? In my current  thinking,  without the mystery of repentance, mercy and transformation, beauty and truth become monstrous deceptions and only a meaningless momentary flash of absurdity and self deception  remains.    

Everybody knows the war is over 
Everybody knows the good guys lost…
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking 
Everybody knows that the captain lied...
And everybody knows that it's now or never 
Everybody knows that it's me or you...And everybody knows that you're in trouble 
Everybody knows what you've been through 
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary 
Down to the beach of Malibu 
Everybody knows it's coming apart 

Take one last look at this Sacred Heart 
Before it blows 
And everybody knows.   
              Leonard Cohen

I DO
Show me that garden in the sun 
That you saw 
Let me see the flowers and the bees 
Before they fall

I know that you said they'll always be there 
I know you're not worried and I know you care 
And I know you ask all the same questions I do 
I do 
I do

Show me that water in the stream 
That you saw 
Let me see the sparkling clean 
And the fish swimming on

I know you said they'll always be there 
I know you're not worried, I know you care 
I know you ask all the same questions I do 
I do 
I do

Why do I believe in you? 
Why do I believe in you? 
Why do I believe in you?       Neil Young
   
Having a limited appetite for running around in a maze with no exit, I increasingly see literature as hints at where  joy is, where the monsters live and where the counterforce may lie. It’s my feeling that this insight  comes to nothing without action inspired by love.


> On Apr 12, 2025, at 2:50 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> And at a simpler, Occam's Razor level: After the Enlightenment shattered our cosmic answers, but slowly like Marvell's vegetable love, because time keeps everything from happening at once,
> the detective story became ascendant because life (and death) became a mystery. ....in the basic paradigm, the world is restored to order once the murder is solved. 
> 
> Pynchon never solves the mystery, Finally. 
> 
> On Sat, Apr 12, 2025 at 1:01 AM j e l <ssnomes at gmail.com <mailto:ssnomes at gmail.com>> wrote:
>> I've always considered Pyn~chon a Fortean novelist (even his writing before SLOW LEARNER) which pretty much covers everything you outline below.
>> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fort
>>