Shadow Ticket Group Crawling Read. Chap 2.

[Mark Kohut]

the first example is beautiful. A talking tree and a synecdoche for
non-violent resistance.
It wasn't until after GR was published that more violent environmentalist
groups were in the news acted to save trees
and the environment but surely there was strategizing and singular actions,
no?

And impulsive Dixon, as P presents him, as P created him, is haunted by his
killing the rest of his life...



On Sat, Jan 24, 2026 at 9:25 AM Corbeau Castrum <filsducorbeau at pm.me> wrote:

> This is an interesting question. In *Gravity's Rainbow*, there's that
> line from the tree to Slothrop:
>
> A medium-size pine nearby nods its top and suggests, “Next time you come
> across a logging operation out here, find one of their tractors that isn’t
> being guarded, and take its oil filter with you. That’s what you can do.”
> (562 in penguin)
>
> This harmonizes well with Pynchon's discussion of the Luddites in the NY
> Times essay.
>
> I haven't read *Mason & Dixon*, but I was reading a review about a
> history book on the two explorers, and it referenced Pynchon's novel and
> Dixon assaulting an enslaver to allow the slaves to escape (
> https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/01/15/the-most-rancorous-line-mason-dixon-edward-gray/
> ).
>
> Would this apply equally to the frosty folks today?
> On Saturday, January 24th, 2026 at 14:46, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Pynchon is against it, I say, from all his books' evidence....
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jan 24, 2026 at 8:27 AM Corbeau Castrum <filsducorbeau at pm.me>
> wrote:
>
>> There's a book I've been meaning to check out on the history of this
>> anarchist "propaganda of the deed" in France in the 1890s (Death to the
>> Bourgeois Society: The Propagandists of the Deed, edited by Mitchell
>> Abidor, https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=732).
>>
>> This makes me think about the Weather Underground and their own bombings.
>> The question, always, is whether this stuff is ever effective, or if it
>> alienates potential supporters of the movement. Bill Ayers always asserts
>> that it's ridiculous to suggest that the WU bombings alienated anyone, but
>> I'm not so sure either way. What do you folks think? Is there anything
>> positive that comes out of propaganda of the deed? Or does it only serve to
>> offer justification for state forces to crack down upon resistance?
>>
>> I'm also thinking about Walz calling for "peaceful" protests in
>> Minnesota. On the one hand, I don't think it's really his place as state
>> governor to be actively calling for violent resistance (I'd much rather it
>> be strategic and grassroots and organized if it emerges). At the same time,
>> is he not more or less letting the frosty folks waltz in and abduct young
>> children? If you have access to state power, should you not use it some
>> capacity? Or would a standoff between local Minnesota state forces and the
>> feds necessarily produce the kind of confrontation Trump and Miller have
>> been desperately seeking?
>>
>> Contradictions, contradictions, we are never short of them.
>>
>> Best,
>> Cormac
>>
>> On Saturday, January 24th, 2026 at 13:59, Mark Kohut <
>> mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > Bombing is a constant violence in many--most?--of Pynchon's works...
>> > GR ro be too obvious but also in the Traverse family thread thru many
>> > novels...
>> >
>> > P. 13.....starting with "There's the problem,'a bomb squad old-timer
>> nods
>> > ,,,,,"typical Italo whizbang", etc....
>> > love the way it ends with "a local genius who can read this pavement
>> like a
>> > golf green"...
>> >
>> > original meanings of anarchism, self-organized fully equal, fully
>> > democratic events and states is one of the
>> > largely hidden great positives in Pynchon's oeuvre. part of his vision
>> of
>> > life and history, I say....
>> >
>> > Anarchism, defined mostly by a few Russians and others, was defined as a
>> > non-violent way of acting, way of resisting.
>> > The radical-minded in Czar-Authoritarian Russia were faced with the
>> > nihilists [see The Possessed orThe Demons, same book]
>> > arguing and trying for violent action because no other way, they
>> said....as
>> > Franz Fanon argued in the 60s
>> > ...[this is a constant paradigm in most histories of "revolution", of
>> > course] ...and all of this is a major theme in OBAO the movie...
>> >
>> > Anarchism came to America too...Many Italian immigrants, among maybe
>> equal
>> > numbers of other immigrants---self-organizsing and
>> > I'm not looking up any ratios.....but the most salient point is two
>> italian
>> > immigrants and 'anarchists' , Sacco and Vanzetti did NOT it seems bomb
>> > anywhere
>> > but someone did when S & V were involved in some direct action and
>> > BOOM!.....the media of the time made anarchism change its meaning into
>> the
>> > oppostie,
>> > "bomb-throwing anarchists" and anarchy had a new meaning.....chaos.....
>> > --
>> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>
>