recourse to discourse

Two amusing Pynchon posts

5 things Thomas Pynchon would never say:

1. “Thanks, Oprah. Great to be back.”


2. “I suppose they are needlessly complex, now that you mention it.”


3. “So one day Salinger and I were looking for some cheap publicity…”


4. “No harm done—I’m a bit of a shutterbug myself. Please feel free to click away!”


5. “Forgive the interruption, but perhaps I may be of service.” (Pynchon then doffs his rakish musketeer hat in a gallant, floor-sweeping bow.) “I am none other than Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, noted author and critic.”

and

Tips for reading Against the Day:

1. Learn advanced mathematics before you begin reading. Also bone up on turn-of-the-century labor disputes, optics, chemistry, amalgamation, aeronautics, tarot cards, sea mammal vocalizations, everything in the history of the world, etc.


2. When on the subway, switch the jacket with a Danielle Steel novel so that you are not inundated with the ramblings of people who suffer from “gamer’s thumb” and used to play the Theremin in a “pointillist hard-bop electro” band called “Maxwell and the Equations.”


3. Whenever you do not know what is going on in the story, drink two cups of coffee and try again. If you still don’t get it, drink some NyQuil. If you’re STILL having no luck, ask your friend with adult A.D.D. for his “concentration pills” and dissolve them in Red Bull and vodka and sit naked in a circle of scented candles with Radiohead playing in the background … and then chant the many permutations of the name of God.


4. When confronted with characters whose names are “Ellmore Disco” or “Chick Counterfly,” suppress your incredulity and remember that it’s for your own good. Approximately 3,248,390 characters will be introduced before you see this guy again and it’ll help if it sounds like he was named using an assortment of odd nouns and porn-star surnames.


5. When you are in bad neighborhoods, bring Against the Day with you. You can throw it at someone and hurt them so that they won’t steal it from you. Or you can cut a square out of every page so that you can keep your money in it, like in the movies. That way, when you get mugged, the stick-up kid will snatch the book, exclaim, “I couldn’t even get through The Crying of Lot 49,” and toss it back to you.


6. Make sure that you know the semantic nuances of all the different ways to say “dark,” including “umbral,” and “tenebrous.”


7. Don’t even think about CliffsNotes. They are longer than the novel itself. And they are written by Thomas Pynchon himself. In Esperanto. With invisible ink. And viewing them requires a special light filter used only by WWI-era Burmese cryptographer-assassins.


8. Thomas Pynchon knows every language, spoken and written. So it’s adult ed 6 nights a week for you.


9. Consult the Against the Day wiki if you don’t understand an allusion in the text. But remember that the wiki is edited by mere mortals, most of whom do not have access to ancient scrolls that are hidden in the rectums of sarcophagi-bound philosopher-kings.


10. Finally, purge your soul of all preconceptions you have about novels. This is not a novel. It is bigger and badder. You must stop wearing clothes, bathe in sour cream, and only eat lettuce and peanut butter for two months before you pick it up. Then you must read all the criticism you can get your hands on and change every word to its opposite and then read it again. After you do this burn both versions while wearing leather pants. Then you can start the book.

Sources:

http://www.yankeepotroast.org/archives/2008/03/five_things_tho.html

and

http://www.yankeepotroast.org/archives/2007/03/reading_tips_fo.html

 

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The root of politics and politeness

Polite: 1263, from L. politus "refined, elegant," lit. "polished," pp. of polire "to polish, to make smooth." Used literally at first in Eng.; sense of "elegant, cultured" is first recorded 1501, that of "behaving courteously" is 1762.

Politic: 1427, from M.Fr. politique (14c.) "political," from L. politicus "of citizens or the state, civil, civic," from Gk. politikos
"of citizens or the state," from polites "citizen," from polis "city". Replaced in most adj. senses by political (1551). The verb meaning "to engage in political activity" is first recorded 1917, a back-formation from politics.

What is the power of etymology in an argument? It gives the appearance of erudition and weighs classical civilizations on your side. Yet the supposition is that the development of language reveals something deeper about our anthropological history. Is this a false argument? To what degree does language develop as the symbolic, as opposed to the signifying?

Suppose that politics and politeness shared the same root. It would connote that our civilizations, founded upon our metro-/necro-polis were somehow entwined with a civilization of manners. Because they do not, but instead must be smoothed over, it can be argued that civilization is inherently rough.

 

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Levi-Strauss on logo-insulation

There is something very curious in semantics, that the word 'meaning' is probably, in the whole of language, the word the meaning of which is the most difficult to find. What does 'to mean' mean? It seems to me that the only answer we can give is that 'to mean' means the ability of any kind of data to be translated in a different language. I do not mean a different language like French or German, but different words on a different level.

Claude Levi-Strauss, Myth and Meaning (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 9.

 

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The prevention of riots

Today we discussed in a seminar the breaking of public space (particularly parks) into sections by fences, chicken wire etc. for the purpose of preventing people congregating and subsequently rioting.

Riots show dissatisfaction, they are feedback. Do politicians want power for the sake of power? Do doctors become doctors because they just want the salary. In both cases I'd argue (in the majority of cases) not.

Riots are violent. They involve risk to law enforcement officials (who are attempting to supress the feedback offered), property and the personal safety of bystanders. However, do riots really occur with no prior indication of dissatisfaction? I think not. Riots occur when the signs are ignored, they are the events that bestow the prefix significant to the minority.

My question is: why do governments want to prevent riots? Is any answer possible except a cynical domineering view of power? What about discursive power, in which the violent protest must feature? Why is this an intolerable form of protest?

 

comment from Fences
Hej Thomas, I am very interested to know more about this seminar - do you have the readings list for example? What evidence was shown that fences do prevent riots etc? I am doing an MSc final paper on fenced greenspaces and would very much like to discuss this idea further. All best, Trenton

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