The Year of the Metal Tiger
As the children of Zwölfkinder could feel when drinking soda water with
their head deep inside the fanged mouth of the drinking–fountain beast,
the sparkling tiger gave them a thrilled sense of momentary danger parallel to
pissing on the Eisenkröte at Putzi’s, the ultimate test of manhood.
In all the five elements of Chinese Astrology the Tiger is the sign of
initiation.
With its 12/10 binary system the Tiger is the third sign of the Chinese Zodiac
but the first sign of their solar–lunar new year, the “TET.”
2010 is the Year of the Metal Tiger which begins on Sunday, February 14th at
10:51 CCT (Chinese Costal Time) – on Valentine’s Day!! In other zones
this time converts to 3:51 MEZ, 2:51 GMT/UT in the Eastern Hemisphere. From
Iceland throughout Europe and Asia as far as to New Zealand one may “kiss
the Tiger!”
Sort of like Mucho Maas never having been in a war confronted by Krauts in
Tiger tanks, this symbolic or actual initiation of kissing the tiger will be
denied those living in the Western Hemisphere (tough luck – no kiss, no
danger) as the time zone conversion from CCT corresponds to Saturday, February
13th at 23:51 BZT, 21:51 EST, 20:51 CST, 18:51 PST and for those of you in
Alaska or Hawaii please calculate your Time Zone.
The new year’s first month from February 14th to March 15th is the month
of the Earth Tiger, thus 2010 will be off to an extremely fast and
tiger-typical start with a militant economy and an economic militancy –
budget and funding–fighting!
We all know, recognize and can trace/track Pynchon’s love of dogs and pigs
in all their five element variations (by the way, how many of you have saved
all my Chinese New Year’s greetings with Marca’s artistic
interpretation?), furthermore he pens many references to rats and buffalos;
while tigers – as far as I’ve researched and can recall – are
really lacking in all his works. The tiger which receives the most attention in
his various novels is the King Tiger or Königstiger, the notorious German
tank in WW II!
Being the Year of the Metal Tiger, 2010 is the year to either put a tiger in
your tank or put a tank in your tiger, push down the gas pedal (Toyota or
otherwise) and drive head–on with the quietest engine on the road to the
ultimate test of manhood. Take a closer look at Marca’s drawing: a young
tiger fearlessly leaping directly forward towards initiation. For those of you
who have passed, survived and gathered experience from this test, it might
well be a year on the strategic defensive, building cylindrical blocks to
cripple the silent on–rolling King Tigers of fiendish insurgents whether
European, Mexican, Uyghur or invisible trespassing forces.
It is the military; or the Tiger Boys of the Triad, Yakuza, street gangs and
other criminal bands in transition from childhood to manhood expecting no loss
along the way. A dead King Tiger may serve as a guard to the entrance of a cave
or safe house, blown away rock or ceiling, keeping the enemy away: Die
Wände haben Ohren, aber der Feind hört jetzt NICHT zu! Depending upon
where you pull duty, will you, Like Gottfried, love the Königstiger as
much as a horse without the guarantee of avoiding the rocket? Metal over flesh!
A Metal tank or not, the tiger is still an animal and as Padzhitnoff explains
to the crew of the Inconvenience all animals have names in the part of Russia
where he grew up, all except one that is. Unfortunately he gave no specific
names. I have none myself, so each and every one of us is free to name our own
tiger, like pilots and captains name their planes and ships. As many of you I
once had a dog, named him NEO – way before that film Matrix.
Whether true or not, the Chinese consider the tiger, any tiger, as a possessing
a special potency–enhancing substance in their ground bones and those who
can afford it will pay anything to get a hold of this remedy thus supporting a
poaching industry and placing the tiger as extremely threatened on the
WWF’s endangered species list. If it’s not
“Buck–the–Tiger” sex, than it is fashion that further
threatens the natural habitat of the tiger, like Fleetwood Vibe wearing a
broad–brim hat with a hatband of Siberian tiger skin. On the other hand if
not for Siberia the tiger might already have been extinguished in nature.
On the Pynchon’s peaceful slapstick side we have that spud coxswain Tiger
Youngblood engaging in a cucumber/watermelon–seed spit–fight with old
Pappy Hod right outside the galley at the bottom of the ship. How much of a
Tiger Youngblood is we never find out, but Pappy Hod does become old constantly
holding Paola’s image as a prairie hare in the snow or a tiger in tall
grass and sunlight.
If tigers do become extinct old geezers in parallel universes like Pappy Hod,
Dixon and other surrealistic sentimentalists (including ourselves) can always
put their daily instruments, tools and things away when night falls and
frequent their local pub, The Tiger, seeking peers to nod and smile them into
remembering ... Perhaps someday there just might be such a tiger pub
watering-hole in every town, sort of like a miniature adult Zwölfkinder.
At every age we need our thrills . . .
Nature before profit — may we age in peace and dignity.
Collage/Art Work: Marca Merica, a/k/a Marca van Wassenaar
Text: Douglas Kløvedal Lannark, Berlin/Copenhagen (a/k/a Hopenhagen),
February 2010
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Wer hätte gedacht, dass der Meister so schnell nach "Against The Day" noch
ein neues Werk vorlegt. Aber für August 2009 wird vom Penguin–Verlag
der Roman "Inherent Vice" angekündigt. Es soll sich um einen Detektivroman
handeln, dessen Setting das Ende der Sechziger Jahre in Kalifornien sein soll.
Der
Penguin Katalog
enthüllt ein wenig, um was es auf den gut 400 Seiten geht:
It’s been awhile since Doc Sportello has seen his ex–girlfriend.
Suddenly out of nowhere she shows up with a story about a plot to kidnap a
billionaire land developer whom she just happens to be in love with. Easy for
her to say. It’s the tail end of the psychedelic sixties in L.A., and Doc
knows that "love" is another of those words going around at the moment, like
"trip" or "groovy," except that this one usually leads to trouble. Despite
which he soon finds himself drawn into a bizarre tangle of motives and passions
whose cast of characters includes surfers, hustlers, dopers and rockers, a
murderous loan shark, a tenor sax player working undercover, an ex–con
with a swastika tattoo and a fondness for Ethel Merman, and a mysterious entity
known as the Golden Fang, which may only be a tax dodge set up by some dentists.
In this lively yarn, Thomas Pynchon, working in an unaccustomed genre, provides
a classic illustration of the principle that if you can remember the sixties,
you weren’t there ... or ... if you were there, then you ... or, wait, is
it ... Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon — private eye
Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of
an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog.
Das Cover des Romans ist eine Illustration des auf Maui lebenden Künstlers
Darshan Zenith
und zeigt einen Cadillac Hearse von 1959:
"A 'Retired' Caddy Hearse Greets Daybreak at a Beach Surf Shop"
, die der Autor, so schreibt
Tim Ware
,
selber mittels einer Internet–Recherche ausgesucht hat.
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Holy cow, another New Year already! We do find a few “holy cows” in
the writings of Thomas Pynchon, most notably Audumla of Niflheim in AtD licking
awake “objects, figures” frozen in the ice for uncounted ages with
unaccountable consequences trespassed into our present century. Nevertheless
are there any “holy Buffalos” in his works and if so, what gods, what
races, what worlds would they lick to birth, especially anno 2009?!
According to the Chinese lunar calendar the Year of the Earth Buffalo begins
January 26th, 2009 at 15:55 CCT or 8:55 MEZ; 7:55 UT, 2:55 EST, 23:55 PST
January 25th; all you folks living in other time zones please interpolate the
moment yourself or look it up on the InterNet.
When aligning the twelve zodiacal signs while sitting under a tree close to an
ox plodding in a rice field, Buddha deliberately made it easy to immortalize
the Buffalo, the provider of nourishment and most Yin of all signs –
“Mother Nature” or “Mother Earth” as one could say.
The Asian Buffalo, domesticated for millenniums, has little, if anything at
all, in common with its North American relative who once freely roamed the
plains in herds of immeasurable size.
Pynchon himself was born in 1937, the Year of the majestic Fire Buffalo, the
most “western” of the five Buffalos, who once led those roaming herds
over the open ranges of the American West before becoming either exterminated
by the progress of civilization or reborn into the likes of Van Meter –
not to mention the neutered ones in Buffalo Bills’s Wild West Show!
Despite his fondness for other animals – notably pigs and dogs –
buffalos, oxen or even cows hardly appear at all in his six novels. When they
do it is usually on the short end of the stick leading right to death: Russian
cavalry on the Kurfürstendamm driving a herd of cows to slaughter; cows
ganged in open fields by dog packs from the Hundstadt; herds decimated by
buffalo hunters from New Mexico; the rationally designed slaughter houses of
Chicago's stock yards signalling the End of the Retro-West and, not to forget,
Emerson’s plate of traditional 18th century English Ox-Tail.
Whatever/however, a buffalo is not a cow: cows say “moo,” Buffalos
don’t. They hardly say anything at all, just snort when necessary. Crazy
Sue Dunham might ride a cow at twilight, but not a Buffalo. The Egyptian Water
Buffalo paces its daily tracks round and round the sakieh keeping the triangle
above Cairo green and the population fed. Why certain English gentlemen even
style their white mustaches after this Water Buffalo.
Holy cows and sacred buffalos do exist, as in Icelandic mythology the mythic
Audumla of Niflheim, the primeval Mother of Creation; or Gefion, sacred Buffalo
of *that* Denmark, who ploughed the channel between Sjaelland and the mainland
of Sweden. The Earth Buffalo is the primal power of Yin, Mother Earth or Mother
Nature; space, birth, devotion: the complement, not opposite of the heavenly
Dragon, creator of the Universe.
Basically 2009 will be a year of the female, the working woman to be more
precise. As in the Earth Rat year before it, the Earth Buffalo has much to do
with food and finance; however far more practical, purposeful, persistent,
persevering and patient; repairing much of the recently sunken ship.
On the other hand the Earth Buffalo is also the sign of inertia. When set in
motion, unleashed, this explosive energy can cause massive Earthquakes or other
natural disasters. Mother Nature is calling . . . What natural forces will be
in play in 2009, and where?
The Earth Buffalo year is well suited for definite measures and special
projects designed to combat the ongoing climate change. This brings to mind the
European Winter of 1985, the last truly deep-freeze winter and a year of the
Wood Buffalo. With temps still freezing in early April a close friend and Astro
buff said to me: ‘hey, this is the Year of the Polar Bear, not the Forest
Buffalo!’ Without realizing it then – and for you materialists out
there, if any left at all – symbolically, the Bear and the Bull are
financial binary opposites.
So how will the Polar Bear and the Prairie Buffalo face off in 2009, the first
fully established Pluto-in-Capricorn-year of a sixteen year cycle? Pluto, no
longer considered a planet by some astronomers, is alive and well already
karma-toppling one speculating Plutocrat after the other from their
self-deceptive pinnacles.
Or is it all as Enzian often expressed, “Outase,” just a newly laid
large cow turd, not Bull but “Bitch Shit” if you prefer. Well then
– depending on size and odour – it’s time to straddle up the
trusty old ox-cart, put in the family and head North; yes, some do travel North!
Ploughin’ right on through . . . Holy Shit!
Artistic Interpretation: Marca van Wassenaar
Text: Douglas Kløvedal Lannark
PS: 2009 is a lunar year of 13 months with a double Metal Horse month in
June/July. The Buffalo and the Horse are secret enemies . . . so who needs
horse-power when a trusty old ox-cart will do?!
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The Year of the Earth Rat
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In the Heavens on February 7, 2008 at 11:44:21 CCT (China Coast Time or Beijing
Time) there will not only be a New Moon triggering a “Tet” or Chinese
New Year but also a partial Solar Eclipse, an annular Eclipse over the
Antarctic visible in SE Australia and New Zealand.
In other Time Zones this event takes place at 15:44:21 in New Zealand; 13:44:21
in SE Australia; 4:44:21 CET; 3:44:21 GMT; 0:44:21 BZT. In the United States
and most of the Western Hemisphere on February 6th at 22:44:21 EST; 19:44:21
PST -- for further Time Zones cf. GR pp. 695-96!
According to the Chinese lunar calendar 2008 is the Year of the Earth Rat, also
known as the Garden Rat. From the five Chinese elements this is the weakest
rat, like almost a mouse. The rat, any rat for that matter, doesn’t really
get the fair deal it deserves in Western Culture. However, they the true
masters of survival, mutating along with the predominate holistic environmental
conditions.
It is widely agreed that there are at least two - - if not more -- rats for
every human being. Except as pets for certain adolescents or laboratory
experiments rats are basically despised and usually serve as negative metaphors
like: leaving sinking ships, snarled in one’s hair, the rat race, ratting
on someone or simply a dirty rat. I could go on for a few more paragraphs and
I’m sure you all have your own favorite proverbs.
Pynchon does too, even going so far as to let Father Fairing proclaim that rats
were going to take over after New York City died and have him set up a parish
in the sewers, eventually hoping to become the spiritual leader of the
inheritors of the earth. Although rat meat didn’t agree with him, his
journal is still preserved in an inaccessible region of the Vatican Library.
From the spiritual sewers of the 1930s in NYC the congregation of rats mutated
to indifferent teenage-girl consumers now roaming aimlessly through suburban
California malls of the 1980’s. However, they didn’t get there
without passing through “The White Visitation” and dancing the
Pavlovia (Beguine) along with that giant rodent-chorus and orchestra.
Or shall we now enjoy Expedition Chef M. Allègre’s world-famous
_Queues du Rat aux Haricots?_ Fond of rats? Not Snake, that Cumberland
dog who is more fond of killing rats than eating them, thus leaving rat ghosts
to haunt the wilderness.
If we go Against the Day for a section or two there are those rat-infested
labyrinths of Venice corrupting children and the rat-infested pockets of old
California money in Santa Barbara, a relentlessly unacknowledged past.
Then there is the Hour of the Rat (23:00h -- 01:00), the midnight hour, the
first double hour of every new day crossing the Nadir where it is said the body
sleeps deepest even if awake. Not sure if I agree with that as it is also the
hour where DL executes all kinds of ninja spells while rescuing Frenesi from
the “National Security Reservation” or, on the other hand, Reef being
lushly entertained in some steamy hydropathic swimming tank with an
undetermined number of erotomanic tourist ladies. Midnight at its best!
What will the Midnight Hour have in store for us over the coming 50 weeks (a
short lunar year) in the year of its own significator: society converted, from
what to what; continued consumer conditioning; caravan capitalism; some
spectacular cosmic convergence; sweet seductiveness or the whole sick rat-pack
crew leaving the sinking White House ship?
Keep your tail brushed, nails filed and whiskers whirling: one step ahead of
“The Man” and two steps ahead of “The Mob,” the secret of
survival.
Y’rs, and not ratting on anybody. . .
Douglas Kløvedal Lannark
Original drawing by Marca (van Wassenaar) Merica
"If our world survives, the next great challenge to watch out for will come
– you heard it here first – when the curves of research and
development in artificial intelligence, molecular biology and robotics all
converge. Oboy."
Thomas Pynchon 1984 (Another Year of the [Wood]Rat)
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Happy Birthday, Thomas Pynchon
Etwas verspätet, aber auch von dieser Seite die herzlichsten
Glückwünsche zum 70. Geburtstag. Wie erwartet, hat auch dieses Datum
eine ganze Reihe von Artikeln zu und über Thomas Pynchon generiert, ohne
dass deshalb Neues zu erfahren gewesen wäre. Wenn man (wie ich) mitten
in seinem neuen Roman "Against the Day" steckt und dazu noch mit
anderen Projekten
befasst ist, kann so ein Datum schon mal in den Hintergrund geraten,
zumal ich davon ausgehe, dass Geburtstage nicht zu den wichtigsten Tagen
Pynchons zählen, dafür spielen sie in seinen Romanen eine zu
untergeordnete Rolle.
Der große Unbekannte
überschreibt Burkhard Müller seinen Artikel in der
Süddeutschen Zeitung:
"Die Welt hat Raum für genau eine Zelebrität, die ausschließlich
durch ihre Abwesenheit präsent ist; und zwar für Thomas Pynchon.
(…) Wie ist er an diesen Part, an dieses eigenwillige Non-Logo gekommen?
War es eine natürliche Schüchternheit, die irgendwann unbemerkt die
Schwelle zum Spleen und zum Grundsatz überquert hatte? Oder die
Bescheidenheit eines Schreibenden, der ganz hinter dem Geschriebenen
zurücktreten wollte und plötzlich fand, dass genau das Gegenteil
geschehen war und sein persönliches Mysterium das Werk überschattet?"
Für Wieland Freund in der
Welt
ist Pynchon der
Shakespeare der Popkultur:
"Kaum ein Lebenslauf ist schneller geschrieben: Thomas Pynchon, Spross einer
uralten neuenglischen Puritaner-Familie, wurde 1937 in Glen Cove, Long Island
geboren, studierte erst Physik und dann Literatur, schrieb für Boeing
technische Handbücher und verschwand. Seit 1963 sein erster, Aufsehen
erregender Roman „V.” erschien, sind, wie es in den Klappentexten so
schön geheimnisvoll heißt, „seine Bücher die einzigen
öffentlichen Spuren seiner Existenz”. So wie Vermutungen, was
„V.” bedeuten könne, im Roman letztlich in schiere Paranoia
münden, blieb auch „P...” ein leeres Zeichen: Pynchon hatte mit
dem Roman auch gleich den Autor dekonstruiert."
Unter dem Titel
Der maskierte Messapparat
sucht Dietmar Dath in der
FAZ
Hilfe bei der Quantenphysik:
"Wer sich beschleunigt bewegt, nimmt den Hintergrund seiner Bahn selbst im
völligen Vakuum als wabernd warm wahr. Alles, was hypothetische Zeugen
dieser Bewegung beherbergen könnte, scheint für so einen
veränderlich Geschwinden eine numinose Schwarzkörperstrahlung
abzugeben, die dem allmählichen Verdampfen von Singularitäten in der
Raumzeit ähnelt. Dieser Effekt zählt zu den seltsamsten in der
relativistischen Quantenwirklichkeit; aus ihm folgt unter anderem, dass die
Bestimmung der Tatsachennatur eines Teilchens vom Bewegungszustand des
Beobachters abhängt."
Für den
Deutschlandfunk
ist Pynchon
Der unsichtbare Literat:
"Michael Naumann, "Zeit"-Herausgeber und ehemaliger Kulturstaatsminister, war
lange Verlagsleiter beim Rowohlt Verlag, wo in Deutschland die Bücher von
Thomas Pynchon erscheinen. Michael Naumann kennt den Autor persönlich.
Gerade lässt er bei Christies eine signierte amerikanische Erstausgabe von
"Vineland" versteigern. Der Erlös soll den Hamburger Bücherhallen zu
Gute kommen. Die weltweite Prominenz Pynchons speise sich nicht aus dem Mythos
des anonym lebenden Schriftstellers, sondern aus der enormen literarischen
Qualität seiner Bücher, sagte Naumann im Deutschlandradio Kultur."
(das Interview als mp3–Audiofile)
Dort, im
Deutschlandradio Kultur
wird auch der Frage nachgegangen,
Warum Hunde Henry James lesen.
Das Manuskript der Sendung steht im
PDF–Format
oder als
Textdatei
zur
Verfügung.
(Wednesday, May 16, 2007)
The YEAR of the [FIRE]PIG
As if the Year of the FireDog, the militant dog of the Hundstadt, wanted to go
on forever the transition — on this occasion "speakable" — to the New
Year occurs at almost the latest possible time when the FirePig, like Frieda,
that very fat pink pig pal with blinking long eyelashes accompanying Slothrop
westwards through Mecklenburg, shows up and chases off the dog! No offence,
Pugnax — you just showed up a little too late but will get your chance in
twelve years.
Yes, yes, the pig seems to know where she’s going and "You’ll never
go wrong with a pig!" So be it for 355 days from February 17th 2007 to February
7th 2008: "A pig is a pal, who’ll boost your morale!" Yet as we learn in
ATD there can be two sides to all things; doubles, twins, refractions,
bilocations. Then for every jolly pig there is that opposite risk of GREED,
doper’s or otherwise . . . so "when you’re out there feelin’
fine" take care of that greed or "it will turn you into a swine." Just that
Gross Suckling never satisfied, always wanting more.
Which (Pynchon) Pig in 2007 — or a combination and interchanging of all?:
to start with Frieda (everyone’s darling Miss Piggy?!); the aardvark,
Erdschweinhöhle, totem animal of the Schwarzkommando guarding their sacred
mandala; young (and old) Porky Pig aspirants with anarchistic bomb fantasies or
just hep Porky Pig tattoos on their stomachs; Slothrop himself (or any other
Fool) as Plechazunga holding off the Viking invaders and saving the village
— is there a Pig Hero, pig myths beside the swine herd?! — or still
in costume as Porky in the garbage bin? Rocketpig, perhaps?!
We even have our newly found Tubby, pig stage actor in Greenwich Village —
wonder what he’ll be up to further on down the line. All great candidates
for the "Pig of the Year 2007 identity", but none can outdo that freckleface
kid from Albert Lea, Minnesota, Seaman ‘Pig’ Bodine (rimes with swine
and not with spleen!) who can be both a filthy swine but also the greatest pal
on Earth: why saving Roger Mexico with wit and humour from being the
Überraschungsbraten (roast human pork, I presume) at the Kruppfest is a
true example Pig allegiance.
Let us fight off that inner swine and if not become Chums of Chance, at least
Pals of Peace in 2007. May our pink companions, human or animal, keep chasing
away all forces of danger — and now a loud grunting OIIIIIIINK to
inaugurate the year!
Card courtesy of Marca van Wassenaar
Words (for what they’re worth) by Douglas Kløvedal Lannark
(Saturday, February 17, 2007)
© Marca Merica
The YEAR of the [FIRE]DOG
Every dog has his day, and a good dog just might have two days.
-—Johnny Copeland. Epigraph to Vineland
But can a dog, even a “good” one, have his year?
Thomas Pynchon is very fond of dogs and at least one dog appears in each of his
five novels.
According to the Chinese Lunar Calendar the Year of the Fire Dog begins on
January 29, 2006 at 22:15 CCT (China Coast Time) which in other time zones
corresponds to 14:15 GMT, 9:15 EST and 6:15 PST.
Is 2006 a “Welcome to the Year of the Fire Dog”, or rather an on
guard, touché and “Beware of the Year of the Fire Dog!?”
This is not the water dog Murray, Baby Igor’s playfully protecting St.
Bernard of “just my daddy, my doggie and me.” Nor is it that drooling
St. Bernard (the same one, perhaps?) the whole sick crew got puking drunk in
their kitchen during the dog days of August. Forget also any reference to the
mythical Dog Star guiding ships at sea or sleds over ice — not even close.
This is definitely not the year of Dog Vanya, Pointsman’s prime laboratory
metal dog conditioned to perfection. Unfortunately it is not the year of the
national champion, Reichssieger von Thanatz Alpdrucken, that most hypnotically
beautiful amber–eyed metallic gray Weimaraner haunting Pointsman in his
dreams.
No tail–wagging, family friendly, children loving, yet self–sufficient
dynasty–creating wood dog year a la Chloe and Desmond either. Urban and
well–educated with human appetites and humor, earth dog Fang may be ripe
for a talk show, but the oracles of the Learnèd English Dog (L.E.D.) will
remain unheralded, koans unresolved and fairy tales forgotten in 2006 . . .
. . . for this is the year of the Fire Dog — no, not your black-and-white
Disney Dalmatian pissing on water hydrants but growling police, army, attack
and guard dogs: Dobermans, Shepherds and Rottweilers of the Hund-Stadt, trained
to kill without fear of personal safety or anxieties about encirclement yet in
private yearning for affection: not-so-komical-komikazes (sacrificial martyrs,
suicide bombers, hegemonic misfits, etc.) conditioned to slay the Dragon, yet
more often than not striking the Unicorn instead.
It will be a long year with thirteen lunar months. Yes, — of course, what
else? predestination perhaps — this year the “double” month (a
Fire Ape) falls in August during the weeks of the dog days. Hope there will be
water enough to put out the worst flames. If not; well, as everyone also knows:
“every dog needs a bone!”
Rrrrrrrfff,
Marca van Wassenaar & Douglas Kløvedal Lannark
© Marca van Wassenaar
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