vineland

[Timothy C. May]

Some speculations about Pynchon, Santa Cruz, and the locales for
"Vineland." 

Paul DiFilippo wrote:

> Also, the many, many references to Buddhism and Zen in _Vineland_
> lead me (a sometime practioner) to believe that P. might very
> well have been connected with or still be connected to one 
> Buddhist organization  or another.  Anyone intent on literally
> tracking the man down could do worse than to check out temple
> memberships.

As I've written about here before, I live in Aptos, a few miles down
the coast from Santa Cruz. It is getting to be widely known that
Pynchon spend most of the 1980s, from reports by local journalists
whom he hung out with, to "other" evidence.

I didn't know this in 1990, when I read "Vineland," except that I
vaguely recalled one of these journalists (Bruce Bratton, writing for
the now-defunct "Express" weekly) mentioning contacts with Pynchon.

But it seemed pretty clear then that many of the scenes in "Vineland"
were set in this area. Now that I know he lived here for some years, I
think I even know the locale for the diner.

The Zen connection in "V." (the recent "V.") is probably the Mount
Madonna Center, a large retreat up on a mountain overlooking Aptos and
Watsonville, a fitting the approximate description of the Zen center
in "V." (Though I seem to recall mix-ins of similar centers near
Carmel...it is certainly possible that the locales formed a
composite.)

The Mount Madonna Center is active in various "spiritual" sorts of
things, with frequent visits by folks like Ram Dass, Timothy Leary,
etc. (Esalen is a few hours further down the coast, so they're part of
the of the same "lecture circuit," as it were.))

Anyone looking to carefully analyze the influences that went into
"Vineland" might want to visit the Mount Madonna Center, as well as
cruising around the redwoods of Santa Cruz and Aptos, of course.

(The Eureka-Arcata-Humboldt County area is a more obvious source of
locales, even explicitly. I've heard P. lived there for a while,
reportedly in the mid-70s, but I know nothing more about the area.)

Another link to this area is Joan Baez, known to be a friend of
Pynchon's from way back (sister Mimi Farina). You all probably know
the story better than I do...the Farinas, Monterey, etc.

Baez visits Santa Cruz a *lot*, as her son went to school here (UC
Santa Cruz, recently seen on the "Banana Slugs" sweatshirt Vincent
Vega--John Travolta wears in the *very* Pynchonesque "Pulp
Fiction"--tell me the gold watch scene wasn't right in line with
"G.R."). Her son is now in a local Santa Cruz band. She was spotted a
couple of months back groovin' along with the crowds at an outdoor
music festival in--of all places--Aptos. (Do I think Pynchon was there
at some of these events and festivals in the 80s? Yes. No, I never met
him, that I know of.)

I suspected that the party scenes set in the Kinneret-like hills were
Woodside, near Palo Alto. (The wedding scene, where characters from
"Lot 49" reappeared briefly.) Wouldn't surprise me if Joan Baez's home
was an inspiration (she lives in Woodside).

(And Baez's father was a physics professor at UC Berkeley...I used to
see his training films in high school in the mid-60s. A link to
Nefastus and entropy?  P. had been writing about entropy since the
50s, but he may have talked to John Baez through his friendship with
Joan. Just a speculation.)

My last speculation: The aforementioned "Pulp Fiction" is connected to
P. in other ways. Quentin Tarantino lived--and worked in a video
store--in Manhatten Beach, where P. wrote "G.R." I was down in Hermosa
Beach over the holidays, and saw again the "Either/Or Bookstore," on
Pier Avenue, where someone said P. used to hang out and shoot the
breeze with the owner at the time (early 70s).

Much has been written about Pynchon's New England roots and
connections, but in at least half of his novels I see the
quintessential "California experience" shining through. From his
coverage of the Watts riots, to the amazingly prescient "Lot 49" (I'm
apparently a bigger fan of it than many of you are), to the granola,
redowoods, and emergency preparedness paranoia of California of
"Vineland," Pynchon shows himself to be much more a Californian than
an Easterner.

There is the rumor that he's moved back to the East Coast, with his
family, so maybe this will be the new climatic inspiration he needs to
do a non-California sort of novel.

Sorry for rambling!

--Tim May

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