Anarchy in Colarado

To occupy the idle time spent riding the PATH and MTA trains this summer, I read the book Against the Day by Thomas Pynchon. This 1000+ page epic took me the entire summer to finish, it is still in my house as I write. Anyways, one of the more dominant motifs in the book was the ideology of Anarchism. And most of these Anarchists in Colarado (where the main characters were from) were obsessed with blowing things (people, tracks, places) up with dynamite. It was just a crazy scene.

With the Democratic National Convention in Denver during this week, the massive activity of all the protesters reminded me of the book. Though the relative magnitude of protesting was described as “mild”, one could imagine what is really going on there. Protesters of all kinds present in one area, liberals and conservatives, abortion advocates and denouncers, anti-war and pro-war, “Loose Change” conspiracy theorists, jingoist Americans, the whole shebang.

Another thing that I picked up that related the book to the current events is the concept of Iceland spar in the book. Iceland spar is a crystal that will project two images when you look through it, like 3D glasses. And this split projection is like how these conflicting protesters are all out there in Denver, in the same area, but split completely on idealisms and beliefs.