the city paranoiac

in thomas pynchon's writing, specifically gravity's rainbow (because obviously, i am currently attempting to power my way through this book), he comes up with a concept that i find innovative in its application, even though we have proven examples of it in some different areas of life. this is not to say that nobody else has come up with this concept before....i think there is a solid chance that this is, while obscure, still a running theme in many notable works of fiction. pynchon describes what he calls the 'city paranoiac'....it isn't a city-dweller who constantly checks his six either. granted this is only my first exposure to what is probably a running dialogue in this book, but i found the following interesting and would enjoy sharing what i think it meant to my mind. initial exposure:

"if the city paranoiac dreams, it's not accessible to us. perhaps the city dreamed of another, enemy city, floating across the sea to invade the estuary . . . or the waves of darkness . . . waves of fire . . . perhaps of being swallowed again, by the immense, the silent Mother Continent? it's none of my business, city dreams . . . but what if the city were a growing neoplasm, across the centuries, always changing, to meet exactly the changing state of its very worst, secret fears? the raggedy pawns, the disgraced bishop and cowardly knight, all we condemned, we irreversibly lost, are left out here, exposed and waiting."
~ gravity's rainbow

what this means, at least to me, is a conglomeration of consciousnesses. a sliver, gleamed off of each inhabitant....these spirit-structures drifting apart; committed to the person, the original owner, and yet coalescing into a collective organism which feeds off of the life bustling within it. in this way you could imagine it somewhat akin to a human body, or human mind itself. atoms, cells, distinct and yet working cooperatively and with some uncanny and not-necessarily acknowledged sense of unification. the greater consciousness, the thriving organism, the paranoiac city, scrapes biopsies from each and every one of us, building database upon mathematical database, wavelengths cluttering our airspace like radio signals, endlessly clashing with one another but, if tuned just correctly, surprisingly clear in their intricacies. these are checks and balances of a more natural order; a return to the nature of the social organism for those who still have ears to hear it. this is why cities find distinction from one another, why they are unique and their particular styles bleed into and out of the personages who populate them. our governments, governors supposedly control these equations, and allegedly speak for us. but who is to say that the city does not have a voice all of its own?

now, we know that humans do work on these levels, psychologically. we bond covalently, both giving and taking in like kind, gaining something which probably used to be shrouded in mystique but which now, thanks to psychoanalysis and such mental tools (don't get me started on using the mind to dissect the mind), has been elucidated for, ironically, our understanding of ourselves and our placement within these structures. the city gives back to us what we understand life to be; it is similar to a monastic experience. one gives their work, their money, their attention, their time and energy, their emotions.....and in return, they are initiated, accepted; they learn and experience what they find to be most relevant to their existence. but this relationship, which it could not be called anything but, assumes an 'other', a significant. this other is the relationship, it is the shire, the farm, the town, the city, the metropolis. it is the marketplace and the stranger's gum which sticks to your shoe on the subway steps. it's....

"It's the caffeine, the nicotine, the milligrams of tar
It's my habitat, it needs to be cleaned, it's my car
It's the fast talk they use to abuse and feed my brain
It's the cat box it needs to be changed, it's the pain
It's women, it's the plight for power it's government
It's the way you're giving knowledge
slow with thought control and subtle hints
It's rubbing it, itching it, It's applying cream
It's the foreigners sight seeing with high beams, It's in my dreams
It's the monsters that I conjure, It's the marijuana
It's the embarrassment, displacement, it's where I wander
It's my genre, It's Madonna's videos
It's game shows, It's cheap liquor, blunts,
It's bumper stickers with rainbows
It's angels, demons, gods, it's the white devils
It's the monitor, the soundman, it's the motherfucking mic levels
It's gas fumes, fast food, Tommy Hil' mommy's pill
Columbia House music club, designer drugs and rhyming thugs
It's bloods, crips, fives, six
It's stick up kids,
It's christian conservative terrorists, it's porno flicks
It's the east coast, no it's the west coast
It's public schools, it's asbestos
It's mentholated, It's techno
It's sleep, life, and death
It's speed, coke, and meth
It's hay fever, pain relievers, oral sex, and smokers breath
It stretches for as far as the eye can see
It's reality, fuck it , it's everything but me"
~atmosphere - 'scapegoat'

but in this spatial oddity, is there something residual left over, after all the energy has been tussled about and exchanged between us? i submit that i think, it being just on the edge of my mind, that there is. the 'city'...as pynchon describes it perhaps the 'city paranoiac', is a nebulous consciousness which is dictated in small part by each individual component, adding up to a ridiculous equation swayed at least (if in some infinitesimally small way) by each nuance that we grind into it. if something is understood even by the few, then the city could be said to understand it....the memory is in the molecules, and they are infectiously similar throughout the whole. the 'city' can be more than a mental projection....it can be considered with the instincts and attributes of a person. just as a corporation is, for all legal purposes, a concretized citizen of the united states, with rights and liberties all its own (look into it if you are skeptical), i think it is entirely possible to view a city....or for that matter a nation or world, or campfire-ringed friends, as a real, legitimate, and entirely existent collective consciousness which, in some very esoteric and self-generative way, begins to act, and desire, and fear, and think, and...well, overall the shock of the matter is that it feels, and generates its own volition.
remember that ish~

matches out.