Pynchon, The Mocking Preacher (Chp 4,5,6)

After advancing in the lines of ink and paper, the mockery and jeering in Pynchon's voice, ideas and names is more and more highlighting than any of the surrounding subjects and themes in the adjacent text. The first thing that is noticed is the rock band named the "Volkswagens". This is making an allusion towards the heat of the moment in the sixties, the famous "Beatles", since a Beetle is a car made by Volkswagen. The law firm that Metzger works at. Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitscheck, McMingus. Obviously this is mocking the law firms that have three or four names and are very prestigious and expensive, often including foreign names. All of these last names are invented and Warpe comes from Warp which ironically means to distort or misshape and being a lawyers name is pretty self explanatory.

"It might be something sexual but she somehow doubted it" (38). This is one of my favorites, since after seeing the sign in the bathroom wall among "other obscenities", she doesn't consider an advertisement something sexual, either the symbol. The advertisement is obviously sexual, and has some illegal or incorrect connotation since you could only answer through W.A.S.T.E.

Names and places take over the irony and give the novel more meaning to what Pynchon wants to show.

Dead is the new unambiguous. Bipolar is the new undecided. Heavily armed is the new born again. Bald is the new head... and the new crotch. Hairy is the new face. Sheepishly admitting to having an STD is the new flirting. Purell is the new face of fear. Finding the time that's right for you is the new impotence. The smiley-face emoticon is the new "sincerely yours." Smoking is the new outdoorsy lifestyle. Looking forward to insanely expensive private schooling, thousand dollar a week nannies and soccer is the new yuppie birth control. Misinformed is the new patriotic. Veganism is the new "tastes like chicken." Serotonin uptake inhibiting is the new crowd control. Texting is the new talking. Talking is the new singing. Singing is the new hubris. Gay marriage is the new "be careful what you wish for." And finally, and only because I really need this to catch on, fifty-seven years old is the new forty-five.

Chuck Lorre Productions #260

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (TCOL49 Chp 1-3)

The first chapters of this eccentric novel already introduce the essence of it. It discusses subjects that are not normal, subjects that can make you feel uncomfortable, but as Pynchon posses them, they are able to mock the life out of any possible serious subject. It is a society of weirdness, eerie out of any thing common. But the nucleus of the novel is how the weirdness is fused with in what is natural for a character in the novel. A glimpse of it comes, with a call from the doctor (usually the other way around): "She finally, having nothing she knew of to lose, had taken it. It was Dr. Hilarius, her shrink or psychotherapist... he was helping the community hospital run on effects of LSD-25" (Pynchon 7-8).

From this quotation so much can be extracted. To begin with, Oedipa not knowing what she has to lose. No sense of health or life is present. Though, she has not taken the pills for fear but it is unclear what kind of fear, either for life or for what.

Then, the actual spelling for "Dr. Hilarius", also makes fun of the actual word, and of him having it and being a doctor. It can get to be "hilarious". He offers the hospital LSD, a common narcotic that makes you hallucinate out of reality, bringing you to a better place thanks to the "trips" this acid provides. This is like the story within a story. Rather than the unreal life of the characters is tried to be replaced to a wacky life with LSD, but their life is already weird.

Oedipa has trouble with relationships, furthermore with commitments, because she indecisive with her partners, Roseman, Mucho, and Pierce.

This is only the beginning.

King Of Show, Son Full Of Pride

A similarity is found when comparing The Selfish Gene to Macbeth, because regarding genes, they are built to compete, and to remain in the gene pool, and animals compete for the throne, as Macbeth competes for the throne too. Its the same game played over and over again. Who can rule over their own species.

Join or Die: The Ultimate Choice Within Dawkins View

I this chapter Dawkins (actually W.D Hamilton...) mentions the first or second interesting points in the book. The fact of living in a compound, in group, in society is the key and the base for human life, and at last this applies for both animals (that he bases every example on) and on humans. "You scratch my back I'll ride on yours"(166). This may very well be the essence of our civilization, because without somebody riding on our back or scratching it we wouldn't have a society, and this way we would have no way of living as single units. We are a team. We rely on each other. Society was never meant to exist-or for that matter not even flourish. We might not know it, but since birth, since the animal is conceived it is bound to co-exist with other beings, with the world. Life is not possible without the significant other, without the other 23 chromosomes (as Dawkins would like to see it put). Yes, he is correct with everything he poses, but a flaw exists on his book. A very important one, one that means the difference between understanding what the book says, and what actually is going on outside of the ink and paper. Dawkins talks about the genes, yes, but he never mentions current or actual situation of this evolving mad machine. He does not see, he omits the fact that humans actually have a social part in their lives, that is influenced obviously by what he does explain in the book. The current social condition, has interfered with the original theorem of evolution. We are forgetting we need help from other individuals, and we are isolating ourselves mentally and socially in a cocoon of doom. Our evolution, the perfect Dawkins evolution has begun its ultimate stage: retro-evolution, the fact of being so developed, that what he have built, will end up destroying us.But this is a totally separate matter that will one day be recorded by the successful beings that survive and explore the unsuccessful gene that we evolved into, into the selfish gene, the gene in its own doom cocoon.