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This section of Gravity's Rainbow is 97 pages, the shortest section.  Un Perm' au Casino Hermann Goering means A furlough at the Hermann Göring Casino. However, since the French noun permission, of which perm is an abbreviated form, is feminine, it should be une perm. Zak Smith's p. 181 Erotic Clausewitz (P.182): Carl Philipp Gottlieb von Clausewitz (1780–1831) was a Prussian soldier, military historian and expert military theorist. He is most notable for his treatise Vom Kriege, translated into English as On War. The scene where an octopus almost drags a woman into the water is part of the scenes I imagine in a movie. That and the topless woman in a convertible and the banana greenhouse. Fascinating article about Pynchon: Hanging with Pynchon by Bill Pearlman Previous Posts: Recent thoughts on Gravity's Rainbow Recent thoughts on Gravity's Rainbow Recent Gravity Rainbow thoughts Pirate Prentice Gravity’s Rainbow Start Thomas Pynchon

I was talking to someone and they said their high school teacher said that Marx didn't really account for the rise of the middle class. I've been reading about the  Biedermeier art tradition that celebrates the rise of the middle class in Germany between 1815 and 1848. Das Kapital (1867–1883) is after that period, so I'm not sure if saying he wasn't aware of the middle class is accurate.  But that got me thinking. If increased middle class is the antidote to socialist thinking, if you were really afraid of socialism, the way the right pretends to be, then you would work to expand the middle class, and not contract it.  And yet the opposite has been done. So they're not really afraid of a socialist revolution in the voters of a democracy. Or they want to push it as far as they can, and only when it's really being voted for will they begin to accede to the technique for killing off revolutionary fervor.  The way the middle class exploded after WW2 is through...

This tweet is so fun. Non-fiction by women.

I'm reading from page 145. There are so many references in Gravity's Rainbow, I'm constantly looking things up, even heliotrope . I know it's a flower, but what kind? They're purple, small flowers.  Philodendron have weird flowers called inflorescence that look like penises.  Pynchon mentions the canals of Mars . They thought there were some for a while. Mars has always been a projection of our thoughts and wishes.  Two Guys One Book is two guys struggling to comprehend Gravity’s Rainbow. The spin off on their ideology or politics, and I don’t really agree with them but it’s fun to watch them struggle with their terms and ways of understanding. It’s good to get listen to others struggling to understand. They say Pynchon as using a tangential style that suggest there is no larger meaning or order in the world. They had a patriotic angle about America, saying that every country does huge atrocities, but in America you can protest about them.  Pynchon mentions Ro...

The Mindy Project was from 2013-2017, and is on Netflix in 2023, where I'm watching it. The humor is packed with quirky details like when her date picks her up she's shaving her arms. There have been times when I thought the structure of the situation joke was quite funny. I'm not sure how I feel about the endless small breasts and big butt jokes, but it's supposedly OK because she signs off on them. I think what equality has taught us is that it's not really revolutionary, it's just that those being oppressed are in on it. Well, it's not that dramatic, people are one thing in public and one thing in private. Not everyone agrees to be woke, some people fight for the right to be unwoke. The show is Sex and The City at a Gynecology practice, with one focus instead of 4 women. It gives helpful health education tips to defray the lowbrow horney women narrative. I'm racking my brain for the show where women are allowed to eat. Oh yea, Parks and Recreation. An...

One of the takeaways of “Rikers: An Oral History,” a new book by the journalists Graham Rayman and Reuven Blau, is the shock inmates feel upon entering this run-down and lawless prison for the first time. It’s not just the sense of peril, the reek of toilets and cramped quarters, and the nullity of the concept of presumption of innocence — it’s an awareness, as one interviewee puts it, that “nobody cared and nobody was watching.” NY Times book review As someone who worked there, sounds true. “Alongside that shock, the rapper Fat Joe tells the authors, is the awareness that, if you grew up in the projects and attended the public schools, you know this place. “I’m willing to bet that the same architect designed all three things,” he says, having visited friends at the jail complex when he was growing up. “I’m telling you I was born in Rikers.””

I'm really fascinated to get underneath a superficial understanding of Machiavelli  (1469-1527) and understand his circumstances, and his place in the world of ideas. I started Miles Unger 's biography. He starts with Machiavelli's democracy being ousted and him losing his place as the second man in Florence Italy in the  16th century. Unfortunately or maybe with just cause, his name indicates a kind of ruthless pragmatism, a kind of going all out in getting what you want, and exercising your power. "The term Machiavellian often connotes political deceit, deviousness, and realpolitik." In my thought experiment, I wondered who is like that in all the culture I consume. My first thought was Schmidt in New Girl. Here's this guy who lived for ruling Florence, and he's been ousted by a new regime. He loves democracy, but he offers his services to the new regime who can't be bothered with him. He plays games with the local peasants and puts all his energy i...

 

The Peripheral  has an 8 episode season on Amazon Prime in the USA, probably elsewhere since they produced it. Through Reddit I have realized that each country has a set of shows on the various streaming services, and that sometimes another country will get a show that I want to watch on a streaming service I have, but not in my country. Chloe Grace Moretz  (25) is the Atlanta Florence Pugh. Not really attractive, an everywoman, even though she is a model. I don't think they were going for an everywoman, but the budget and all. She was raised in Cartersville Georgia, so she has the authentic southern accent the role requires. The town's list of famous people were obscure people in professional sports, musicians, journalists, judges, preachers and actors. Kind of quiet setting to get your bearings before you push out into the mean wide world. I don't know her brothers experience was in the small town, she has 2 gay brothers, and she's an ally.  Her father is a plastic su...

From Dickens and Prince by Nick Hornby: “I would not be a reader without the excruciating, never-ending, no-football-on-TV, shops-closed boredom that drove me toward the local library and, later, bookshops- neither open on Sunday, of course. My younger sons, both born in the twenty-first century, have never found themselves in the kind of stupor that would cause them to look upon literature as an escape, and though this is a cause for regret, I am also happy for them. Part of me wishes that I hadn't been bored enough to spend half my life with my head stuck in a book.” I've read Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch when I was getting into soccer. I haven't read anything else, and honestly haven't seen any of the movies he wrote either. This book is fun. I'm not sure if he's importing Prince to talk about Dickens or whether he's importing Dickens to be able to talk about Prince.  I listened to Prince's memoir last night. Prince lived 1958-2016. Born and died i...

George Orwell is the pen name for  Eric Arthur Blair . Seems like he was in Burma from 1922-1927, 5.5 years. Burmese Days came out in 1943. Orwell is great at observing corruption, authoritarianism, hierarchy, no basic dignity or respect, the need to other and put people down. Growing up in Wisconsin, which swung right since I left, we read Animal Farm and 1984. Right wing people can get the feels about left wing authoritarianism, and right wing people also like to call him a communist ( example ). I'm not sure I want to complete reading this novel. Lots of interesting books, and I dipped my toe in for a taste.  Links: GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE The Characteristics of Burmese Days Chomsky on Orwell

She was a poet of place in Wisconsin. Lorine Niedecker (1903–1970) didn't want her poems published in her lifetime, but she had her poems published in England and Japan. She lived most of her life in rural isolation. She was born on Blackhawk Island, not an island, outside of Fort Atkinson, off Lake Koshkonong, closer to Mud Lake. She was born May 12th 1903. Links: Friends of Lorine Niedecker Wikipedia Video about Lorine Niedecker with Ann Engelman, the president of the Friends of Lorine Niedecker. Poetry Foundation . Margo Peters (2011) did a biography ( link ) Archival research documents online My Life By Water ( YouTube ) Newspaper profile  I rose from marsh mud I rose from marsh mud, algae, equisetum, willows, sweet green, noisy birds and frogs to see her wed in the rich rich silence of the church, the little white slave-girl in her diamond fronds. In aisle and arch the satin secret collects. United for life to serve silver. Possessed. My friend tree My friend tree ...

I liked the section about the Dodo bird. And I liked the section about English candy. And a madcap drive where Jessica is topless in the car. I could see those three as movie scenes.  On 129 there are 3 musicians mentioned and I listened to the choral music all morning: Thomas Tallus  (1505–1585) was an English composer of High Renaissance music. His compositions are primarily vocal, and he occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music. Tallis is considered one of England's greatest composers, and is honoured for his original voice in English musicianship. Tallis served at court as a composer and performer for Henry VIII,[8] Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. ( Spotify ) Henry Purcell (1659–1695) Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest English opera composers, Purcell is often linked with John Dunstaple and William Byrd as England's mo...

Dark Brandon meet Dark Alex. I see her advising the republicans to stick to their guns and never compromise. They don’t want to do anything, only obstruct. So they don’t actually need to be unified. Chaos isn’t organized. This is fine. Read all about it from Heather Cox Richardson , a historian who covers current events. "As their policies threatened to lose voters by concentrating wealth upward and hollowing out the middle class, Republicans increasingly warned that minority voters wanted socialism and were destroying the nation to get it. Trump rode that narrative to power, and now tearing down the current government is the idea that drives the Republican base." While we're at it, here's another funny photo from the Onion: And then: I listened to the Times podcast about George Santos . He basically lied about, I don't know, 80% of his resume, and has a mysterious $700k in his "corporation" which has no clients. So he's a Russian or Chinese plant, o...