Hi MRB, Finally an avatar that appreciates WSB. I read most of his stuff back in the '80's and tried to keep up. He has an interesting way of putting things. He's a little paranoid, but that may be why he tried to hide behind some soporific medicince.
Alan Watts may or may not have had an unhappy life. I think he was happiest when he was entertaining. Through his view, however, it did not really matter what one did, whether it be drink or exhault. I like his lectures since he paints a picture I can see. Neal Stephenson has tried to promote postmodernism as written by such people as William Gibson. While Don Dellilo is different, it is similar. On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 4:16 PM, Michael R. Brown <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, 118 - > >> In my opinion, one of the great analogists for Western Tao was Alan Watts. > > Watts was a lovely guy. Unhappy life, happy writer. Underrated breath of > fresh air. Hope someone takes him seriously as a philosopher - he deserved > it. His musings on cybernetics and control systems/loops in general are > pregnant. Interesting overlaps with William S. Burroughs. WSB: "If the > universe is pre-recorded, the one thing that can't be is the recordings > themselves." (Quoting from memory.) When I was little I took to writing > little BASIC programs - "it pleased" me to create programs that looped, yet > terminated after a *set* number of loops; infinite loops distressed and > repelled me at age eight, little Apollonian that I was. Found them ugly, > annoying. Yes, DO loops, they were my downfall when I was studying Fortran. I dropped computer languages then in the early 80's. Had I known how popular it would get... > >> It is interesting that Pirsig considers himself to be Classical, while >> Phaedrus was Romantic. > > It's a lovely "In Search of Lost Time" note in his work. The ox he seeks is > himself, yet not himself. (Not his empirical, conscious self - yet he has to > become present to something in him, so he can become present to his son. > Phaedrus must *speak* - not just isolatedly think or isolatedly write. A > *male* voice must be recovered; that's a twist on feminist memoirs and > narratives. Any feminist takes on ZAMM/L? The Z-narrator is tough and rough > on Chris, unsympathetic. I was a bit shocked at the hardness. So honest! Is > Chris Phaedrus' son? The Z-narrator's? Both? Whose? Where's Mom? The Z-world > is as female-absent as the L-world is female-centric. Who'd think that > Phaedrus' re-emergence and reintegration would create a connection? Yet it > does.) ZAMM is Classic+Romantic, while L is maybe Impressionist+Modern. Or > Modern+Post-Modern? There's a Post-Modern fragmentation to L. The watery > element dominates. I'll need to reread, but it struck me on first go as > having a notebook'ish quality. (A logbook?) I felt lurched about. (Choppy > seas?) There wasn't the same smooth continuity, the beautifully controlled > contrapuntal architecture of Z. But I think L will fit better when I reread > now. (It's been ages, and I've matured.) Mark: Well, you lost me with the Zs and Ls, so I will have to reread that and research it. The Wtery world is the antithesis of the Air world. Yin is considered Air, and Yang is water. I am much more comforable using those symbols. > >> In this way, RMP is able to refer to himself in the third person past >> tense. > > I need to read everything over again to find where this literary artistry > came from. Has anyone ever found Bob's technical writing? : ) And one really > must find his paper on Freshman Composition. It's the Ur-text. > Well, according to ZMM he was an English teacher. I am not sure if it was English literature, but what else is there? I would love to analyze his handwriting. >> While at the end of ZAMM he claims that Phaedrus is back (written in the >> present first person) > > Isn't that a lovely thing? I can't speak too highly of the ending's > inspirational quality. A *full* satisfaction, rare in writing. The author > gives all, and it only makes sense (and draws the requisite power) from > everything that preceded. A triumph of design, maintenance, care. The > journey really is a long downhill ride, and at the end we're going to either > fall off the cliff or hit smooth riding on the Bridge. Does the Z-narrator > mention that to get that final, hopefilled view of S.F., you have to go - on > the unified Route *1* and, simultaneously, the digital-suggesting Route > 1-0-1 - through a final tunnel? Yeah, the ending still gives me goosebumps. The ride seems to be uphill at first then on the high plains, and then downhill. Of course the terrain matches his tale of Phaedrus and his downfall. > >> the subsequent publication of Lila belies this possibility. > > Isn't that like life, though? We have breakthroughs, we feel everything's > cleared, we are *released* - and then after a while life gets a little more > horizontal and some stuff comes up again, both old and new, and we have to > fight again. The ox-herder has to descend and enter the marketplace with > helping hands. "I’m a fighter. It's bad luck to wish me peace, unless it be > a fighter's peace." - D.H.L. (Quoting from memory.) I hope the ox doesn’t > get slain in the eleventh or twelth picture? The ox is stubborn. I think our > author is, and has to be, stubborn to get done what he had to do. Contrast > the ox with Plato's cave and Zarathustra's "down-going" and D.H.L's Rupert > and Gerald falling in love up in the Swiss mountains, then coming "down to > earth" and acting all manly and indifferent to one another. Ain't it all one > big story? I love DHL too. Him and TS Eliot. I can read the Wasteland over and over again. At one time I memorize the "Love song.." but that was years ago. I will have to reread Zarathustra, all I know is what Nietze had to say about him, or maybe it is that music at the begining of 2001. > > I did find the difference in narrators curious. I wonder what happened in > the space between books? Will someone write sequels or prequels, 200 years > from now? Mark: It is my humble belief that Lila was forced out of him by his publisher. We was much happier writing anthropology books. That and fame and the need to be rich. Well, we all have to make tough decisions. > > I find it ongoingly fasciating how Lila brings Chris' and the narrator's > mental-health challenges again to the narrator. Chris could only be healed > by the Z-narrator becoming present and whole. What does Lila require the > L-narrator to do? Assuming a substantial continuity of narrative between the > two books - which is not as simple as it appears - what further challenge > does Lila present? She and the L-narrator have no biological tie, no > history, and it’s not even clear they should be together. Their relationship > is sort of like a Zen teacup - beauty is found in the imperfections, the > incompleteness. And it all gets poured out (for the love of the world). > Verily, "Lila" takes places in The Floating World! Well certainly there must be continuity since it was created by the same mind. However, it moves from a truly personal experience, to one which appears to be projected simply to keep the reader interested. His agenda is different with the second. > >> Lila is highly analytical despite the attempt to provide the adventure >> narrative presented in ZAMM. > > Here's a comparison: "Rocky Horror Picture Show" - a great myth, in my > opinion, a tragic myth, religio-poetic. The little-known sequel, "Shock > Treatment" (an obvious relevance re. Phaedrus) shows Brad and Janet quite > forcibly and obviously brought to Earth and forced to make choices based on > what they've learned from Frankie. I privately title it as "The Last > Temptation of Janet Weiss." In other words, the lesson has been delivered - > so what the hell do you do with it? How do you live, day by day, once the > Revelation has been delivered? > I never read shock treatment, and I got tired of getting wet at the RHPS movies. In my opinion, once the Revelation has been delivered, one works for Redemption. > After all, if Phaedrus post-ZAMM had stuck around, all powerful, or there'd > been a perfect fusion between Phaedrus and the Z-narrator and the > L-narrator, what would we have had? A plaster saint. Someone sitting around > mechanically applying a perfectly recovered MOQ and coming out on top. The > writer *had* to make the L-narrator "imperfect" to give L its open, fluid > quality. He has to be there, still working to recover and make real the MOQ. > That makes it dynamic and interesting. That engages us. If he'd sat on a > Quality throne dispensing wisdom, he'd have lost. The fact that the > L-narrator "loses" at the end of L - and loses Lady L to another man - how > naked is the writer in doing that? How honest and vulnerable? I like the fact that RMP is very self deprecating. That kind of humility makes him easier to read. > > I feel intuitively that we are called on to help. L is an appeal, of sorts. > And look what happened - "Lila's Child"! > >> As such, the views of the original Phaedrus are lost due to the electrical >> "normalization" of his brain. > > I'm delighted to see the word in quotes from you. I play piano, and > something that drives me crazy is how dynamic levels get normalized in so > many video recorders and old cassette recorders. Flatness! They even did it > to Horowitz: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki5ur78jdUQ - then it takes my > digging to find the un-normalized recordings - > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDsGExHHSuw . > > I see "normalization" of peaks and valleys happening all over in culture, > and it drives me nuts. Flatness isn’t good. Do you know that kids now prefer > the sounds of lossy MP3s to lossless high-Quality sonics? Not to mention the > popularity of the Autotune sound, which does something similar: > http://www.hometracked.com/2008/02/05/auto-tune-abuse-in-pop-music-10-examples/ > - "If you’re unfamiliar with Auto-tune, and especially if you listen to much > pop and rock, you might not hear it initially. When overdone, the effect > yields an unnatural yodel or warble in a singer’s voice. But the sound is so > commonplace in modern mainstream music that your ears may have tuned out the > auto-tune!" Well, some links there to follow. I have been converting my vinyl to digital. There is always something lost there, from cold to warm. Me? At one point in my mispent youth I played percussion. Now, it is easier to synthesize it. It is alway easy to tell since each drum beat or symbol in a real percussion has an accet which follows the song. The simulated stuff is emotionless. > >> Do you know when the sequel to the Rand movie is due to premier? > > The last word from the production team is September 2012. DVD of Pt I will > be out shortly - 20th Century F. is distributing. I might get to help a bit, > but shhhh - don't tell. Keep up the good work, your writing is indeed enlightening. Mark > > > MRB > http://www.fuguewriter.com > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
