Saturday, January 6, 2007

Galloping Gasbags

We finally get to Tesla, having been properly warned by the only AtD post on the Pynchon forum (what’s that all about?). But first we run into some more characters (thankfully), and nefarious ones at that (thankfully), including the Mahdi Army (p.29) and various war profiteer/ robber baron types, who go about in private trains like The Juggernaut (p.31) and private elevators.

Arrayed against them are Prof. Vanderjuice and colleagues. We have Gibbs, of Free Energy fame, that thermodynamic troublemaker (see this page for a hilarious dialog pitting the forces of ignorance against an instructor who says things like, “No way, no mystery. Let’s give it the full court press – you’ll be amazed at how neat everything comes out (because now that 'fight' between enthalpy and entropy will make sense!”) and Lee De Forest, about whom the IEEE Virtual Museum notes:

Before going to Yale in 1893, De Forest traveled to the Chicago World’s Fair. When he ran out of money soon after arriving, he worked as a strikebreaker for the grounds crew, pushing the wheelchairs of disabled or exhausted tourists. He had little sympathy for either the workers on strike or his customers, whom he overcharged in order to make enough money to prolong his stay. De Forest eventually arrived at Yale and remained there until he received a doctorate in physics for his work on radio waves.

Clearly noble men of science, all.

The conflict shaping up would seem to be free energy vs. the free market. Place your bets (and remember, this is taking place essentially on the University of Chicago campus home of unbridled admiration for unrestrained Capitalism, the first sustained chain reaction, David Brooks, and other disasters).

My favorite exchange, between Scarsdale Vibe (the Mr. Burns/ Dick Cheney type) and Ray Ipsow (the Slothrop/ reader surrogate type) at the Palmer House (of course):

“You are a socialist, sir.”

“As anyone not insulated by wealth from the cares of the day is obliged to be. Sir.” (p.32)

Oh, yeah, and at stake is (cue Michael Stipe)

the end of the world, not just ‘as we know it’ but as anyone knows it. (p.34)
Who you gonna call?

3 comments:

Chris Titan said...

SteelR,

I am just sort of a kook.

It was a FNORD that I had just created that Tesla book the day I discovered he was to appear in the new Pynchon book. I was reading gravities rainbow for the first time.

It is the cowboy appearance of Tesla in the rare photo from the archives of Borderland Sciences Research Foundation that really turned on the lights.

I am glad you felt warned and slightly disturbed by the single post in the pynchon forum...I am not the only one...hahaha

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Anonymous said...

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