Pigs might fly?

[Andrew Dinn]

Foax,

I was rereading the section of `Gravity's Rainbow' where Katje joins
the Counterforce this weekend - remember she watches a film with Basil
Rathbone Way Out West and the Midget from Freaks who may or may not
exist. The trail leads inexorably to Osbie Feel who, it appears, has a
tattoo of Porky Pig on his belly (that would be *my* question to the
putative elevator Pynchon). Osbie is contrasted with Pointsman who
thinks the midget is real, whereas Osbie *knows* he doesn't exist. In
the room where Katje meets Osbie there is a cork board full of pinned
notes, maps and `An Introduction to Modern Herero'. Sounds a bit like
our Prospero's cell in Manhattan Beach, no?

This drew me back to the earlier scene with Osbie where he is reported
as having watched Freaks and several other movies, including Dumbo.
Only that magic white feather, with the help of a little acid, turns
into the face of Ernest Bevin and Osbie decides its time to `make his
excuses' and leave. Later on Dumbo is mentioned again when Pig Bodine
says his final farewell to the rapidly disappearing Slothrop. [A
Slothrop who is earlier (the scene where he finds his Roseland
Ballroom harp) described as a plucked Albatross with only one (soon to
be lost) feather, that feather being America the Vamp who he always
believed would rescue him - and we know what colour Albatross feathers
are, don't we?] Pig presents the ghost of Slothrop/aka Rocky with
Dillinger's shirt, saying that he doesn't need it's Dumbo magic any
more. `In the Parliament of Life the time comes for a division'.  So
too, Pig makes his excuses and leaves.

I seen a Hand stand, I seen a rubber Band
But I ain't never seen an Elepha-aa-aa-aaant fly-y!


Andrew Dinn
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O alter Duft aus Maerchenzeit / Berauschest wieder meine Sinne
Ein naerrisch Heer aus Schelmerein / Durchschwirrt die leichte Luft