GR translation: Snake the remittance horse

[J Tracy]

Just wanted to throw in that oil is referred to by native North Americans as the black snake ( whether this was circulating in 1970s ???). ( Oil-  black as midnight,  and uncontrollable; a toxic  snake lethal to homicidal. I think of both the dyes derived from coal oil and the color spectrum sheen of oil as gravity’s rainbow. Oil is made via gravity acting on organic material. Actual rainbows are circular , not parabolic, and their only relation to gravity is the role of gravity   on rainfall and mist. They are primarily a function of light and translucent material like water, ice, silica, glass.

 I think Michael is entirely right on the Midland Oilman’s motivation and the implied allusion . The Bush forbears had large investments in WW2 era German industries. ( Brown brothers Harriman prewar loans to German industries during their support for National socialists, )and later( post war) were involved in money laundering for the same  industries and their US investors.

Mike:
 Crazy thought;  If Pynch’s work has a significant audience in China, you may maximize your chance of publication with some translations of P criticism, especially of GR. 



> On Jan 24, 2025, at 2:21 AM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> He consistently demonstrates a high level of awareness of past and present
> goings-on
> 
> So I don’t want to read too much in, but I’m pretty sure there’s more going
> on than I ever catch
> 
> On Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 2:12 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Well, didn't Thomas make it clear in those words he wrote as jacket and
>> catalog copy that similarity to
>> real events it WAS NOT, wnk, wink, showing us to look for the
>> associational linkages?
>> 
>> On Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 2:09 AM Michael Bailey <
>> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Maybe Midnight was owned by the oil man or his cronies, and they didn’t
>>> want the competition from Snake on the circuit?
>>> 
>>> According to Wikipedia, Midnight’s peak years were the 1920s & ‘30s -
>>> mostly retired in 1933 due to “ringbone disorder” and perished in 1936.
>>> 
>>> Which fits with Tchitcherine’s Kirghiz posting during “early Stalin days.”
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Midland, Texas triggers a reflex reference:
>>> 
>>> There’s a historic home in Midland, Texas where Bush 41 & family lived
>>> from
>>> 1951-55 even though that may not be super relevant.
>>> 
>>> He was an oilman…but not during the 1920s
>>> 
>>> From Wikipedia, he doesn’t seem to’ve been super high profile either,
>>> during the likely writing time of GR but ¿quièn sabe?
>>> 
>>> “Following an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate in 1964, he
>>> was
>>> elected to represent Texas’s 7th congressional district in 1966. President
>>> Richard Nixon appointed Bush as the ambassador to the United Nations in
>>> 1971 and as chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973.”
>>> 
>>> I couldn’t find a Midland, Texas oilman from the ‘20s but I didn’t look
>>> very hard…
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sun, Jan 19, 2025 at 11:24 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
>>>> 
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> V342.10-18, P347.11-19   Tchitcherine’s horse is a version of himself—an
>>>> Appaloosa from the United States named Snake. Snake used to be some
>>> kind of
>>>> remittance horse. Year before last he
>>>> was in Saudi Arabia, being sent a check each month by a zany (or, if you
>>>> enjoy paranoid systems, a horribly rational) Midland, Texas oil man to
>>> stay
>>>> off of the U.S. rodeo circuits, where in those days the famous bucking
>>>> bronco Midnight was flinging young men right and left into the sun-beat
>>>> fences. But Snake here is not so much Midnight-wild as methodically
>>>> homicidal. Worse, he’s unpredictable.
>>>> 
>>>> What's the rationale behind the Texas oil man's desire for Snake to stay
>>>> off of the U.S. rodeo circuits? And what does it have to do with the
>>> famous
>>>> bucking bronco Midnight? I'm just trying to get a better understanding
>>> of
>>>> the underlying logic here.
>>>> --
>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>> 
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>> 
>> 
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l