04.37: Gravity’s Rainbow
In which we continue our discussion of The Counterforce section of Gravity’s Rainbow with a look at chapters nine through eleven. And stay tuned at the end of this episode for a special outro song created by a Pynchon fan!
Chris references “rainbow gravity” theory, which you can read about here.
Michael C wrote an essay that is somewhat germane to this episode.
Liam talks about a failed novelist turned NSA pep leader. As much as that sounds like a George Sanders story, it turns out it’s totally a true thing.
Chris mentions this essay a little bit at the end of this episode.
Here’s the Bandcamp page for the Geli song. And check out more of Ainsley Wagoner’s recent work here.
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4 thoughts on “Sixty-Four: Unfortunately, You Bring Yourself with You”
Good’un! The Enzian-Tchitcherine non-meeting “at the edge of evening reminds me of two similar richly-packed twilights. One is for Tyrone after escaping the Casino: “Just for the knife-edge, here in the Rue Rossini, there comes to Slothrop the best feeling dusk in a foreign city can bring: just where the sky’s light balances the electric lamplight in the street, just before the first star, some promise of events without cause, surprises, a direction at right angles to every direction his life has been able to find up till now…”
And one in AtD for Dally arriving in Venice: “…something began to stir as the vaporetto made its way from the train station down the Grand Canal, until, just at sunset, getting to the San Marco end, and there was the pure Venetian evening, the blue-green shadows, the lavenders, ultramarines, siennas, and umbers of the sky and the light-bearing air she was breathing, the astonishing momentum of the everyday twilight, gas-lanterns coming on in the Piazzetta, San Giorgio Maggiore across the water lit pale as angels, distant as heaven and yet seeming only a step, as if her breath, her yearning, could reach across to it and touch…”
Re the surveyor’s swinging the arms from side to front to project a rough 90 degrees: I think that may crop up in V. when Benny is doing road work. It’s a real, common trick: I saw it often during several summers’ jobs for a civil engineering company. P’s father, of course, had been town surveyor in Oyster Bay, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if P had made some pocket money as rodman or traffic flagman.
As always, thank you for the thoroughness of your response. And thanks for listening! Glad you liked this ep.
End credits music for the episode of the HBO GR miniseries with Blicero’s supervillain monologue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZXRWgKe1x8
Damn, good call. If the final two capstones weren’t already edited, I might’ve considered this for a closing song. Thanks, Jordan!