Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 177 (1159)

 So the night went on, spent mostly washing things in different solutions and then waiting for them to dry.

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I keep mentioning photography simply because that's the language with which Pynchon has chosen to discuss the actual problem. Here, night is history or civilization. History goes on. Society continues to bumble along. Washing things in different solutions is probably two-fold: trying to correct the problems we, as a society, care about and have the ability to solve; and "washing" away those with which the men in power don't want to deal. "Waiting for them to dry", of course, means observing if efforts were successful (either to fix the problem or hide/get everybody to ignore the problem).

Sometimes the "washing things" part of the equation, when it's people in power doing it, becomes "making up a problem" as the solution to whatever they're trying to hide, or whatever power they're trying to grab. So they go on and on and on about immigration and how terrible it is and make it into a problem in the eyes of scared, xenophobic morons. This has been part of the playbook for the entirety of civilization, this othering to control the masses. It has the added effect of causing problems that wouldn't exist without the "solution" and soon the new problems need a new "solution" that's even worse than the first "solution" that caused all the problems.

Also the main thing currently being washed and hoping to dry into forgetfulness, of course, is The Epstein Files. Surprisingly, the conspiracy theorists were right for once: it's pedos all the way down. Except the reason they were right isn't as surprising as one might think. If you're a pedo, you accuse other people of being pedos not just because you're projecting but because you think what you do and enjoy must be what other people also enjoy. So you figure that if you love CSAM, everybody else must love it too! So you accuse people you dislike of being into it. What you don't realize is that people not into CSAM (meaning, hopefully, most people?) is that they don't really think about it all that much until it's brought up by either some conspiracy theorist or their local priest gets nabbed for it.

What I never would have understood if all of this QAnon weirdness hadn't cropped up in the world was how much of a language and experience in the world these CSAM pedos shared. They knew what they were up to so figured everybody else was up to it too. But more so, whenever you hear about one of them getting caught, they have so much CSAM material. People don't usually know how to find that stuff and yet there are people all over the world networked into this marketplace. They speak a common language and live in a shared world. They also believe that world is the normal world! They are living in the negative and assuming the rest of us see it too. But, like Merle, most of the world has never seen it, never thought much about it, and certainly wouldn't have believed in how deep-rooted this shit is.

This idea that a person lives their life in such a way that they automatically assume other people live the same way brings to mind something slightly off-topic but maybe still having to do with "washing history". My theory is that Donald Trump believes the 2020 election was stolen for a number of reason. One of those reasons, a simple one, is that he doesn't understand how votes are counted and how Democratic majorities reside in large urban centers while Republican majorities are usually many, many rural localities. So when voting begins, if all votes come in at the same pace, one per minute per precinct, say, after one minute, a state with 9 strong Republican rural precincts and 1 strong Democratic population dense center, the vote would be 9 Republican to 1 Democrat. This would keep going: 18 to 2, 27 to 3, 36 to 4, and so on. It would look like a rout underway! But soon enough, the small rural populations would run out of votes while the large Democratic population center would just keep on, minute after minute, ticking up one vote after another. Right up until it overwhelms the other votes and takes over. Which would happen much later that night, possibly in a day or two. So a dumb person who doesn't understand anything, like, say, Donald Trump, would think something was fishy.

But! The more pressing reason I think Trump believes his opponent cheated is that he cheated as well. And if he cheated and still lost, obviously his opponent had to have cheated to win! But he obviously can't use that as his explanation: "How did Biden win if I cheated? Well, he must have also cheated!" So instead, he just proclaims, without any proof, that Biden cheated. Because he must have, right?

Anyway, Fuck Trump. Fuck ICE. Fuck Republicans. Read a book, you violent dimwits!

Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 43: Lines 197-198 (779-780)

 "Don't know. Too much of the modern economics for me, for there's surely more to life than just wages."

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Oh shit, Nate! Look out! Lew might be one of them artist types and you know how socialist and communistic they can be! Something more to life than wages?! Holy Revelations, Reverend Batman!

Imagine choosing a job based on other criteria than wages? Like whether or not by taking the job you're causing more harm than good? And then imagine taking a job that causes harm in the world, not explicitly done by you because you were, I don't know, filing or something, and being judged by the rest of the world afterward and thinking, "But I was just filing papers for the guy who exterminated six million Jewish people!" Imagine not having a backbone or the sense of justice to refuse to take a job that pays well if the place of business is harmful to the world in some way? Sure, I can see filing for Hitler for a bit, thinking maybe a change is needed, and possibly letting your optimism cloud the reality before you. But to stay in that job the entire time, probably just thinking, "Well, my family and I are safe and we're doing pretty good by Adolf!"

Just imagine that! Now imagine the final sentence of that last sentence but replace "Adolf" with "Donald."

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 31: Line 107 (479)

 On the way into the lobby, an elderly woman, respectably though not sumptuously dressed, approached him, crying, "If I were your mother I would have strangled you in your cradle."

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Holy shit. I thought I was being harsh with Scarsdale Vibe just on account of his name and his wealth! Apparently I was spot on! Good for you, soon to probably be dead woman!

This woman will probably never get a name but she's my favorite character in the book. Now I'm going to sound like my super nerdy friend whose favorite character in a popular movie franchise or television show always had to be some obscure character (at least obscure before the Internet made nothing obscure at all). So his favorite character in Star Wars was Wedge Antilles and his favorite character in Star Trek: The Next Generation was Reginald Barclay. This was also my friend who ruined Magic the Gathering for everybody by bringing the first stupid Scrye magazine into the house. Suddenly everybody had a monetary value for each of their cards and they refused to play for ante. It became less a game and more of an investment in a collector's pastime.

I wish somebody had said this to Donald Trump's face. Man, what a great line. "If I were your mother I would have strangled you in your cradle." The fucking shade of it. I'm in awe. Bravo, poor woman! Hoorah!

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 31: Line 102 (474)

 Along with the obvious appeal of its thousands of commercial possibilities, the Chicago Fair also happened to provide a vast ebb and flow of anonymity, where one could meet and transact business without necessarily being observed.

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The main reason a person might do business anonymously and without being observed is because they know they're doing the wrong thing. They must hide in the shadows; they must act only in darkness. For if the world knew what they were up to, they would be vilified and shunned. At least that was the case before 2016. In 1893, decorum still ruled the day. Sure, people knew who was screwing other people over and how they were gaming the system to gain insane wealth but as long as they kept their actions secret, it was often too difficult to prove exactly how illegal and unethical they were acting.

But by 2016, something wonderful had transpired (wonderful if you're a piece of shit, that is). The biggest piece of shit ever decided to run for president. All of the other pieces of shit who were doing their piece of shit business in dark hotel rooms full of tobacco smoke and empty of potted plants stood up in the daylight and said, "No, no! We are not affiliated with this huge piece of shit. He is what is wrong with business and politics and civility and everything! He does not represent us!" But then the little pieces of shit discovered that the teeny tiny pieces of shit (the ones with no real money and no real power) seemed to love the huge piece of shit and how he acted terribly right out in the open. It was then that the little pieces of shit had the scales fall from their eyes and a chorus of heavenly angels sang down in a thunderous voice, "You can finally and truly be yourselves! The huge piece of shit has made a leap of faith and it has paid off!" Then all of the little pieces of shit began worshiping and loving the huge piece of shit because he had freed them of their self-imposed manacles. He had taught them that they did not need to hide their unethical behavior behind dog whistles and half-truths. The teeny, tiny pieces of shit would believe whatever the larger and more powerful pieces of shit told them to believe.

So for future generations who might read this line and think, "Why would anybody care about anonymity and not being observed while acting like greedy miscreants? So weird!", just know it wasn't always that way.