"Or shall we say ten? How many times," continued Lindsay Noseworth, second-in-command here and known for his impatience with all manifestations of slack, "have you been warned, Suckling, against informality of speech?"
* * * * * * * * * *
Oh boy doody how I dislike Lindsay Noseworth! My bong is practically bristling at his smug attitude! Or it would be if I owned a bong. The only time I ever smoked pot and it really affected me was with a bong. This was for two reasons: 1. I apparently don't know how to inhale; 2. I didn't know how to operate the carburetor. (Interesting fact about the word carburetor: it's way easier to spell than you'd initially think! Just don't get all fancy with it and Boom! Nailed it!) By not knowing about the carburetor and placing my hand over it, I was sucking on this two foot long bong without anything happening. So all this goofy smoke was building up in the bong but none of it could actually transfer to my lungs due to physics or something. Probably not chemistry. Chemistry took place later after my friend Karl smacked my hand off the carburetor as I was sucking and suddenly Dixie whistled! Oh my!
Anyway, I wasn't really into pot. But Lindsay still would have narced on me because I was into mushrooms and LSD. He would have been giving me demerits left and right and center! And I would have laughed and laughed and said, "Wait. Lindsay. Wait! Lindsay! Do you know, hee hee, how much, haw haw, your nose is worth?!" Then Lindsay would have said something which I totally wouldn't have argued with at all; he would have called me an idiot.
So Lindsay loves to enforce rules and won't tolerate fun and shenanigans. If Satan's lawyer were to present a case for Lindsay, just to, you know, get the debate going because Satan's lawyer is always the smartest guy in the room and believes nobody else ever thinks about anything or comes to their beliefs and decisions through thoughtful self-reflection based on lived experience and ethical considerations, I might—MIGHT!—agree that goofing around hundreds of feet in the sky could be dangerous. And that maybe somebody needs to be mature enough to yell "Settle down!" every now and again. But even if I might agree to that hypothetical argument from a patronizing hell-bound advocate, I'd still rankle at every interaction I had with Lindsay.
Oh! But then I'd realize that Lindsay doesn't seem to have a problem with Suckling hanging dangerously over the side of the airship (which we'll get even more proof of in a sentence or two!). Lindsay is concerned about "informality of speech"! After that, I'd feel a little bit ashamed of how much Lindsay might reside in me because while I didn't shame Darby for his comment "I can't hardly wait," I was awful critical of it! I suppose even the most chaotic of us need to realize that there's always going to be a small percentage of lawful in us. But I don't have to like it!
Fifteen to sixteen lines in and I don't think I've commented on how much I love the way Pynchon communicates things. Sure, sometimes he says something that makes me think I just lived through the ending of the movie Pi. But sometimes he says things like "known for his impatience with all manifestations of slack" and I think, "I can't believe nobody every talks about how humans orgasm from reading mere words."
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