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Fw: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3567
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----- Original Message -----
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 11:09 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3567
>
> Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 23:53:47 -0700
> From: Mary Krimmel <mary@krimmel.net>
> Subject: NPPR: Commentary Line 137 Lemniscate
>
> At 03:18 PM 9/24/03 -0700, sZ offered a number of pertinent remarks:
>
> >Accomplishing a figure-eight in wet sand on a bicycle is a rigorous test
of
> >balance and steering control while changing directions. Stands in stark
> >contrast to Shade's awkwardness.
>
> If there really is a figure eight, could it have been made by a unicycle?
> That too would be a challenge and I don't know whether it would be easier
> or harder than using a bicycle. At least the problem of getting the rear
> wheel to follow the front wheel's track would be eliminated.
>
> The miracle could be either the perfection of the figure or the vision of
> infinity in Shade's mind. No mention is made of a track leading into or
out
> of the lemniscate. But the next paragraph starts "A thread..."
>
> Isn't it reasonable for us to take the "lemniscate" sentence as a whole
and
> assume that the miracle occurred in sleeping dreams while young Shade
> played with other chaps? That would eliminate all difficulty of how the
> track was made, why we are apparently on a beach, etc. Bicycle tires often
> leave interesting double tracks which are sometimes not easy to explain
> when we try to reconstruct the cycle's route. Miracles are pretty common
in
> dreams, waking or sleeping.
>
> Mary Krimmel
>
>
> >Bicycle tracks on wet sand
> >
> >pheasant tracks pointing back
> >
> >Sherlock Holmes: reversing shoes
> >
> >Sherlock Holmes: switching animal shoes in a story which also
investigates
> >the pattern of bicycle tires
> >(The Adventure at the Priory School)
> >
> >the Shade shoe mystery stamp/impress on damp turf
> >
> >quartic = 'of the fourth degree' -> Jack Degree
> >
> >Lemniscate of Bournoulli (involves Ex and Wye squared)
> >Lemniscate of Gerone
> >http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/Texts.Folder/Lem/Lemniscates.html
> >
> >The boy was picked up at a quarter past/Eight in New Wye
> >
> >You scrutinized your wrist: "It's eight fifteen.
> >[And here time forked.]
> >
> >The curving arrows of Aeolian wars.
> >You said that later a quartet of bores,
> >Two writers and two critics, would debate
> >The Cause of Poetry on Channel 8.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 07:19:16 -0700
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: Commentary Line 137 Lemniscate (+ cloutish query)
>
> >>>If there really is a figure eight, could it have been made by a
unicycle?
> That too would be a challenge and I don't know whether it would be easier
> or harder than using a bicycle. At least the problem of getting the rear
> wheel to follow the front wheel's track would be eliminated.<<<
>
> The poem says 'Bicycle tires,' and the way those words are tossed in
> after the ryhme is sloppy, like a lemniscate made with a two-wheeler.
> A lemniscate can be made in the sand without the wheels being in the
> same track. The line would be wider, but repeating the path enough
> times would result in a large, thick lemniscate.
>
> By the way, what does 'cloutish' mean? One of the definitions of
> 'clout' is a powerful baseball hit, so it's an intriguing descriptor for
> Shade. I just realized I had been reading it as 'loutish.'
>
> From hourglass with gravity-pulled grains of sand
> To the infinity of stars
> To gravity-fighting bi-cycle lemniscate on grains of sand
> To tin toy clock-work
> To boy-pulled uni-cycle barrow
> To bi-hemispheric sunburst
> To shadow distribution through space and time
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 10:48:51 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPR "fainting fit": lines 146-156
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of Michael Joseph
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 11:26 PM
> > To: Pynchon-L
> > Subject: RE: NPPR "fainting fit": lines 146-156
> >
> >
> > From Mircea Eliade's "Autobiography. Vol I: 1907-1937" p. 4-5.
> >
> > "I think that I was four or five years old, and was clinging to my
> > grandfather's hand as we walked down Strada Mare one evening, when I
> > noticed among the trousers and dresses that were passing us a girl about
> > my own age, also holding her grandfather's hand. We gazed deeply into
each
> > other's eyes, and after she had passed I turned to look at her again and
> > saw that she too had stopped and turned her head. For several seconds we
> > stared at each other before our grandfathers pulled us on down the
street.
> > I didn't know what had happened to me; I felt only that something
> > extraordinary and decisive had occurred. In fact, that very evening I
> > discovered that it was enough for me to visualize the image from Strada
> > Mare in order to feel myself slipping into a state of bliss I had never
> > known, and which I was able to prolong indefinitely. During the months
> > that followed, I would call up that image several times a day at least,
> > especially before falling asleep. I would feel my whole body draw up
into
> > a warm shiver, then stiffen; and in the next moment everything around me
> > would disappear. I would remain suspended, as if an unnatural sigh
> > prolonged to infinity. For years the image of the girl on Strada Mare
was
> > a kind of secret talisman for me, because it allowed me to take refuge
> > instantly in that fragment of incomparable time."
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Michael
>
> I'll obligingly copy/paste the passage from Proust this reminded me (and
> probably everyone else) of:
>
> "And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to
> recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past
> is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in
> some material object (in the sensation which that material object will
give
> us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance
> whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die. Many years
had
> elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the
> theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me,
> when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold,
> offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at
first,
> and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one
> of those short, plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines,' which
look
> as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's
shell.
> And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a
> depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I
had
> soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs
> with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I
> stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An
> exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with
no
> suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become
> indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory-this new
> sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a
> precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I
had
> ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come
> to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with
the
> taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours,
> could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come?
What
> did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?" (_Swann's Way_,
34).
>
> ------------------------------
>>
>
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 10:56:57 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPR "fainting fit": lines 146-156
>
> Looking further on p 34 of Proust (p 47 in Moncrieff), I find this passage
> that reminds me of Boyd's Hazel-is-a-butterfly theory:
>
> "I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls
> of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an
> animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to
us
> until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the
tree
> or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they
> start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have
> recognized their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they
> have overcome death and return to share our life." (_Swann's Way_, 34)
>
> JF
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 08:05:13 -0700
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: NPPF Swoon
>
> Just found an interview with Habermas regarding various interpretations of
> Pale Fire:
> http://www.tln.com/program/timeline/tl2025.html
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 11:17:25 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Michael Joseph <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Swoon
>
> My browser takes me to a discussion of the swoon theory and the
> resurrection at http://www.tln.com/program/timeline/tl2025.html, no
> mention of _Pale Fire._
>
> Michael
>
>
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, sZ wrote:
>
> > Just found an interview with Habermas regarding various interpretations
of
> > Pale Fire:
> > http://www.tln.com/program/timeline/tl2025.html
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 09:11:48 -0700
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Swoon
>
> >>>My browser takes me to a discussion of the swoon theory and the
> resurrection at http://www.tln.com/program/timeline/tl2025.html, no
> mention of _Pale Fire._ <<<
>
> So when I invite you to row your hermetic driftbote gently down the stream
> you opt to row it ashore, eh, Michael?
>
> I was snooping around for swoon info and came across that swoon theory
> reference, and the list of theories about the resurrection reminded me of
> the list of theories about Pale Fire, which reminded me of the
universality
> of the problem of interpretation and how our ways of approaching text are
> mirrors of our ways of approaching everything. That one of the
interviewees
> is named Habermas adds to the fun.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
>> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.
From: "pynchon-l-digest" <owner-pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
To: <pynchon-l-digest@waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 11:09 AM
Subject: pynchon-l-digest V2 #3567
>
> Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2003 23:53:47 -0700
> From: Mary Krimmel <mary@krimmel.net>
> Subject: NPPR: Commentary Line 137 Lemniscate
>
> At 03:18 PM 9/24/03 -0700, sZ offered a number of pertinent remarks:
>
> >Accomplishing a figure-eight in wet sand on a bicycle is a rigorous test
of
> >balance and steering control while changing directions. Stands in stark
> >contrast to Shade's awkwardness.
>
> If there really is a figure eight, could it have been made by a unicycle?
> That too would be a challenge and I don't know whether it would be easier
> or harder than using a bicycle. At least the problem of getting the rear
> wheel to follow the front wheel's track would be eliminated.
>
> The miracle could be either the perfection of the figure or the vision of
> infinity in Shade's mind. No mention is made of a track leading into or
out
> of the lemniscate. But the next paragraph starts "A thread..."
>
> Isn't it reasonable for us to take the "lemniscate" sentence as a whole
and
> assume that the miracle occurred in sleeping dreams while young Shade
> played with other chaps? That would eliminate all difficulty of how the
> track was made, why we are apparently on a beach, etc. Bicycle tires often
> leave interesting double tracks which are sometimes not easy to explain
> when we try to reconstruct the cycle's route. Miracles are pretty common
in
> dreams, waking or sleeping.
>
> Mary Krimmel
>
>
> >Bicycle tracks on wet sand
> >
> >pheasant tracks pointing back
> >
> >Sherlock Holmes: reversing shoes
> >
> >Sherlock Holmes: switching animal shoes in a story which also
investigates
> >the pattern of bicycle tires
> >(The Adventure at the Priory School)
> >
> >the Shade shoe mystery stamp/impress on damp turf
> >
> >quartic = 'of the fourth degree' -> Jack Degree
> >
> >Lemniscate of Bournoulli (involves Ex and Wye squared)
> >Lemniscate of Gerone
> >http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/Texts.Folder/Lem/Lemniscates.html
> >
> >The boy was picked up at a quarter past/Eight in New Wye
> >
> >You scrutinized your wrist: "It's eight fifteen.
> >[And here time forked.]
> >
> >The curving arrows of Aeolian wars.
> >You said that later a quartet of bores,
> >Two writers and two critics, would debate
> >The Cause of Poetry on Channel 8.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 07:19:16 -0700
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: Commentary Line 137 Lemniscate (+ cloutish query)
>
> >>>If there really is a figure eight, could it have been made by a
unicycle?
> That too would be a challenge and I don't know whether it would be easier
> or harder than using a bicycle. At least the problem of getting the rear
> wheel to follow the front wheel's track would be eliminated.<<<
>
> The poem says 'Bicycle tires,' and the way those words are tossed in
> after the ryhme is sloppy, like a lemniscate made with a two-wheeler.
> A lemniscate can be made in the sand without the wheels being in the
> same track. The line would be wider, but repeating the path enough
> times would result in a large, thick lemniscate.
>
> By the way, what does 'cloutish' mean? One of the definitions of
> 'clout' is a powerful baseball hit, so it's an intriguing descriptor for
> Shade. I just realized I had been reading it as 'loutish.'
>
> From hourglass with gravity-pulled grains of sand
> To the infinity of stars
> To gravity-fighting bi-cycle lemniscate on grains of sand
> To tin toy clock-work
> To boy-pulled uni-cycle barrow
> To bi-hemispheric sunburst
> To shadow distribution through space and time
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 10:48:51 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPR "fainting fit": lines 146-156
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-pynchon-l@waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l@waste.org] On
> > Behalf Of Michael Joseph
> > Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2003 11:26 PM
> > To: Pynchon-L
> > Subject: RE: NPPR "fainting fit": lines 146-156
> >
> >
> > From Mircea Eliade's "Autobiography. Vol I: 1907-1937" p. 4-5.
> >
> > "I think that I was four or five years old, and was clinging to my
> > grandfather's hand as we walked down Strada Mare one evening, when I
> > noticed among the trousers and dresses that were passing us a girl about
> > my own age, also holding her grandfather's hand. We gazed deeply into
each
> > other's eyes, and after she had passed I turned to look at her again and
> > saw that she too had stopped and turned her head. For several seconds we
> > stared at each other before our grandfathers pulled us on down the
street.
> > I didn't know what had happened to me; I felt only that something
> > extraordinary and decisive had occurred. In fact, that very evening I
> > discovered that it was enough for me to visualize the image from Strada
> > Mare in order to feel myself slipping into a state of bliss I had never
> > known, and which I was able to prolong indefinitely. During the months
> > that followed, I would call up that image several times a day at least,
> > especially before falling asleep. I would feel my whole body draw up
into
> > a warm shiver, then stiffen; and in the next moment everything around me
> > would disappear. I would remain suspended, as if an unnatural sigh
> > prolonged to infinity. For years the image of the girl on Strada Mare
was
> > a kind of secret talisman for me, because it allowed me to take refuge
> > instantly in that fragment of incomparable time."
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Michael
>
> I'll obligingly copy/paste the passage from Proust this reminded me (and
> probably everyone else) of:
>
> "And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to
> recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past
> is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in
> some material object (in the sensation which that material object will
give
> us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object, it depends on chance
> whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die. Many years
had
> elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the
> theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me,
> when one day in winter, as I came home, my mother, seeing that I was cold,
> offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at
first,
> and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one
> of those short, plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines,' which
look
> as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's
shell.
> And soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a
> depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I
had
> soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs
> with it, touched my palate than a shudder ran through my whole body, and I
> stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An
> exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with
no
> suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become
> indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory-this new
> sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a
> precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I
had
> ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come
> to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was connected with
the
> taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours,
> could not, indeed, be of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come?
What
> did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?" (_Swann's Way_,
34).
>
> ------------------------------
>>
>
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 10:56:57 -0400
> From: "Jasper Fidget" <fakename@verizon.net>
> Subject: RE: NPPR "fainting fit": lines 146-156
>
> Looking further on p 34 of Proust (p 47 in Moncrieff), I find this passage
> that reminds me of Boyd's Hazel-is-a-butterfly theory:
>
> "I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls
> of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an
> animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to
us
> until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the
tree
> or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they
> start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have
> recognized their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they
> have overcome death and return to share our life." (_Swann's Way_, 34)
>
> JF
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 08:05:13 -0700
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: NPPF Swoon
>
> Just found an interview with Habermas regarding various interpretations of
> Pale Fire:
> http://www.tln.com/program/timeline/tl2025.html
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 11:17:25 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Michael Joseph <mjoseph@rci.rutgers.edu>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Swoon
>
> My browser takes me to a discussion of the swoon theory and the
> resurrection at http://www.tln.com/program/timeline/tl2025.html, no
> mention of _Pale Fire._
>
> Michael
>
>
> On Thu, 25 Sep 2003, sZ wrote:
>
> > Just found an interview with Habermas regarding various interpretations
of
> > Pale Fire:
> > http://www.tln.com/program/timeline/tl2025.html
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 09:11:48 -0700
> From: "sZ" <keithsz@concentric.net>
> Subject: Re: NPPF Swoon
>
> >>>My browser takes me to a discussion of the swoon theory and the
> resurrection at http://www.tln.com/program/timeline/tl2025.html, no
> mention of _Pale Fire._ <<<
>
> So when I invite you to row your hermetic driftbote gently down the stream
> you opt to row it ashore, eh, Michael?
>
> I was snooping around for swoon info and came across that swoon theory
> reference, and the list of theories about the resurrection reminded me of
> the list of theories about Pale Fire, which reminded me of the
universality
> of the problem of interpretation and how our ways of approaching text are
> mirrors of our ways of approaching everything. That one of the
interviewees
> is named Habermas adds to the fun.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> ------------------------------
>
>> with "unsubscribe pynchon-l-digest" in the message body.