Re: RARA-AVIS: Pynchon according to Washington Post

From: Steve Novak (Cinefrog@comcast.net)
Date: 10 Aug 2009

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    No some people don¹t watch TV or at least not the crap you describe...but another type of crap, from a differentnt ¹script¹ than the Œcomplexity¹ of what passes for popular culture...the only things I/we watch here is abysmal merde of the following type: rugby, soccer, tennis, car racing and TV5 who has sometimes decent films and the Western Channel where two days ago they were playing again The Tall T....No local or national news, no CNN, no games, no infantile series....For news I/we (in this house) do all on the Web: Guardian, TimesUK, Libé, Le Monde, El Periodico (Barcelona), El Clarin
    (Argentina), NYT...and that seems to be largely enough for the crap that passes as popular politics anywhere...oh, I forgot...when we hear, read...(on Rara for example) of good series we borrow or buy the DVD¹s like for Deadwood for example...but in general we do about 3 or 4 Netflix fims
    /week... All this crap described above makes us I gather totally unsuitable for entry in your bible: Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter. Sorry mate, we don¹t do religion...
    ...but we are friends for 25 years with leading anthropologists at U of Michigan and they seem to have some interaction with us too despite the fact that they have written, researched and published more books than you can think of about Œpopular culture¹...

    Have a good day...

    Montois de bonne humeur...

    PS: found recently a good website about big game hunting (I hunt too, small game though): http://www.nitroexpresssafaris.com/ where the author Mark Sullivan promotes his new book ³Fear No Death²...is that you Mark...???

    On 8/9/09 10:22 PM, "Mark Sullivan" <DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net> wrote:

    >
    > What a bunch of elitist crap.
    > Who is this "average American" you're talking about that expects "the temporal
    > element of be consecutive"? Guess you don't watch TV. Your description of
    > Pynchon's time shifts and tangents sounds like a description of Lost, or 24,
    > or ER, or West Wing, or daytime soap operas, or reality shows, or Seinfeld, or
    > Dungeons and Dragons, or video games like Zelda or Grand Theft Auto, or daily
    > internet surfing, all of which are intensely inter- and intratextual. In
    > fact, Steve Johnson wrote a whole book on the increasing complexity of plots
    > on TV and in video games and its impact: Everything Bad is Good for You: How
    > Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter. Yes, he stacks his
    > deck somewhat with how he defines "smarter," but it's an interesting argument.
    > Also, if popular, bestselling writers like Vonnegut or Adams or, my addition,
    > Stephenson are "niche writers," who qualifies as mainstream?
    > Mark

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