Friday, March 30, 2007

Friday Dinner Party Conversation Stopper

"They worship it, this empty space, it's their highest form of worship. This volume, or I suppose nonvolume, of pure Akaša - being Sanskrit for what we'd call the Æther, the element closest to the all-pervading Atman, from which everything else has arisen - which in Greek obviously then becomes 'Chaos,' and so on down to van Helmont in his alchemist's workshop, who being Dutch writes the opening fricative as a G instead of a Chi, giving us Gas, our own modern Chaos, our bearer of sound and light, the Akaša flowing from our sacred spring, the local Gasworks. Do you wonder that for some the Gas Oven is worshipped at, as a sort of shrine?"

- Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day

3 comments:

MT said...

From whence we derive gasbag.

troutsky said...

I have been working out at the gym so i will be able to lift the book when I am able to afford it.I will need a whole winter to consume it as well.

MT said...

There's probably an abridged edition without the etymology.