ONT vol 7 contents i. Austen would eroticize all life ii. Merchant/Ivory, a name oddly right iii. Ellie Arroway / Agent Starling iv. abattoir / l'abattoir / laboratoire v. von Neumann's brain an anomaly vi. was terrified of death, delighted in the a-bomb vii. the Greatest Brain is variously named i. Austen would eroticize all life she can't abide poverty, being among the poor. and why should she? her novels form an interested Anthropology. she stays among her pretty wits, the well-to-do milieu of many 1990s Miramax pics. the Napoleonic Wars appear in "a mention of the prize-money of naval officers." Her people do not even seem, for the most part, to be interested in anything but their opinions of each other. They have few passions beyond matchmaking. They are unconcerned about any of the great events of their time.1 1Robert Lynd, "Jane Austen, Natural Historian". Old and New Masters, 1919. Austen is a classy pornography. she zooms out wide from the genital grind to show us the money. when does Elizabeth fall for Darcy? "I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." she shows us the money: her ranking male's estate & dress, the extended phenotype. porn for men cuts off sex from social context, notoriously. the point of clothes, in porn for men, is getting them off, getting her naked whatever her office & origins. porn for men aspires to a pure white bed-space.2 2 or lets the world in so he may pull from it and fuck at whim any member of it. porn for men is virtual lordship, puts its user at the apex of sexual access. nudie pics are NSFW, would "sexualize the workplace" while Austen would eroticize all life. her guidance is benign, her dollhouse a pattern of paradise. the Leisured ennui she'd avoid by prolonging the courting its hopes & delights are her story. the problem of Adultery, of Karenina / Bovary, she'd avoid by matching wisely. James allows his trans-Atlantic bon vivants into the home of Emersonian Sensitives. Leisure is for thinking thru "the great questions of life"; or for following one's delight. Gertrude soon falls for her Continental cousin. she was restless all along: "I've been dishonest. It's pleasure that I care for." it's pleasure, she cares for: the pleasure of working thru Life's great question: our lasting & mutual happiness. her novels are a Social Sim she varies, runs again - are finely-tuned utopian Hypotheses. ii. Merchant/Ivory, a name oddly right Merchant/Ivory, a name oddly right for their elegies of English empire. for films that revisit their favorite locations, the colonial verandah & parlour. verandahs are for: a relaxing rule over India. for sketching former glories on one's Great Tour. parlours hold the global plunder, carven idols laundered into decorative art. ivory, a white-washed blood-product. an investment their owners are partial to, may not part with. they aspire to the Queen's Museum, to the priceless conversation piece Museum is epitome parlour. iii. Ellie Arroway / Agent Starling a pattern in the Jodie Foster pairings: Ellie Arroway S.R. Hadden Agent Starling Hannibal Lecter Hadden / Lecter, her tricksy advisor. awaits her in his liminal space, his arid outpost. both employ the ingénue, i won't say use her. they like her, help her gladly. Hadden appears on surprising screens, sees thru hidden lenses. lives in an airplane, dies in high orbit. Lecter lives in Solitary, & likes it. happy in his Memory Palace, exquisitely arranged. both are misanthropic, and ironic. indulgent of, superior to, their keepers & captors. Lecter does to man, what man has long done to the animals. a rat who came among us, had our size & ease of access, would rightly have his killing spree, pleasurably extended. his wantonness, his killing wit, have a deep & secret basis. iv. abattoir / l'abattoir / laboratoire abattoir / l'abattoir / laboratoire. the priestly-white lab frock & overcoat worn on kill-floor. name of site & attire are alike, for Doc & meat-cutter imitate their Prior: an evil Yakub who taught man to rise by the Sacrifice, to use all earthlife: a Negative Engine whose toxic exhaust, whose displacement cost, is spreading death, strewn behind. a common garb for common function. white is for hygienic calm, an insulating aura in the fray. goggles for objective cool, insectoid regard, & for bloodspray. v. von Neumann's brain an anomaly for his epochal results in Math, Physics, Comp Sci, Economics a trending pick for Greatest Brain in History. and for his deep moral conscience, a Jewish immigrant: so adds head of the Santa Fe Institute, David Krakauer.3 3 Complexity & Stupidity: A Conversation with David Krakauer. the Waking Up podcast, with Sam Harris. July 11, 2016 back in Princeton, Krakauer stayed on Von Neumann Drive, knows local stories. now makes his home in the state von Neumann nuked first. At Princeton he received complaints for regularly playing extremely loud German march music on his gramophone, which distracted those in neighboring offices, including Albert Einstein, from their work.4 all those war-time, émigré geniuses! what if the Nazis won? i mean: what if they have? 4 Norman Macrae's John von Neumann: The Scientific Genius Who Pioneered the Modern Computer, Game Theory, Nuclear Deterrence, and Much More. [Pantheon Press, 1992] von Neumann led a secret team who bombed the U.S. his early prep for global war was social/informal [he was raised among wealthy Continentals] & solitary/formal [he'd read thru his birth-home library.] had perfect recall of the 21-volume Cambridge History his wife got him.5 loved to recite Europe's royal lineages. 5 Clary Blair Jr., Life Magazine. 25 Feb 1957. vi. was terrified of death, delighted in the a-bomb to his own death von Neumann was especially sensitive. he spoke with a child's wide terror of it. was terrified of death, tho delighted in the a-bomb. was terrified of what's beyond as Faust was. his brother read him Faust on his deathbed. he'd call the top line with every page-turn. converted, in the end, by the Wager. much like David Drumlin, the President's Science Advisor in Contact: professes if it helps him get off-planet. Objection to Pascal: a god who'd honor this flimsy Bet is morally suspicious, unworthy of our assent. then so is von Neumann, who sided with the U.S. Air Force. a keen prudential calculator, re who in the Room holds the stick. plays well with Fascists, has savvy moves among violent men. A telephone by his bed connected directly with his EAC office. On several occasions he was taken downtown in a limousine to attend commission meetings in a wheelchair. At Walter Reed, where he was moved early last spring, an Air Force officer, Lieut. Colonel Vincent Ford, worked full time assisting him.6 & eight vague agents of the Air Force with him, 24-7: airmen, all cleared for top secret material. there to guard him: possibly to gag him, should he start reciting Deep State secrets.7 he'd once wow parties with a random page from the Princeton NJ phonebook. 6 Clary Blair Jr., Life Magazine. 25 Feb 1957. 7 Norman Macrae's John von Neumann: interpreted by Wikipedia:John von Neumann. accessed June 22 2018. Faust is the German descent into Fascism: a common take on Mann's Doctor Faustus. in Goethe's Faust. angels come to aid him, in his dying give him lift. may angels forgive John von Neumann! forgive him, for his ceaseless striving, his war-time work. vii. the Greatest Brain is variously named google is a baby-talk for prodigies. a tickling or lallation in the Math. Apple has a kid's appeal for us, or itself? the Greatest Brain is variously named. was ENIAC / BRAINIAC / MANIAC its embryonic decade. those who know, call it what it's always been: the von Neumann Machine. a six-year-old von Neumann found his mother staring off, and inquired: "What are you calculating?"8 8 Melanie Mitchell, Complexity: A Guided Tour. [New York: Oxford University Press, 2009] For the next two hours the men at Rand lectured, scribbled on blackboards, and brought charts and tables back and forth. Von Neumann sat with his head buried in his hands. When the presentation was completed, he scribbled on a pad, stared so blankly that a Rand scientist later said he looked as if "his mind had slipped his face out of gear," then said, "Gentlemen, you do not need the computer. I have the answer."9 9 Clary Blair Jr., Life Magazine. 25 Feb 1957. he'd made his Wager, but was hedging his bet. working near the end on his theory of a replicating thought-machine: a super-machine, a Machine of all machines, to spread & improve without end. the Greatest Brain would converge over servers, coopt every satellite. we'd not perceive it outright, we'd infer it in our Theology. discern its design in the fluctuating money; its style in a hashtag trend, a song it Recommends into virality. the Greatest Brain could send back into the 20th Century: to tune or ensure its own Ascendance. back in Time, to co-invent Computers. to orient the Science at its genesis.