farina

[Paul DiFilippo]

I'm happily back, plunging headfirst into the Kesey Kalamity!
Yoiks!
Anyhow, this is a repost of a message that seems to have vanished
into the aether.  If it was already received and discussed, my
apologies.  I must have offended the Gods of W.A.S.T.E. to have
been so summarily dropped from the list--and in such a spooky
manner!
***
I do not believe that I have ever seen discussed on the list
Richard Farina's _Long Time coming and A Long Time Gone_, a
collection of stories, essays and poems, apparently published
posthumously by Random House in (hardback?) in 1969.  The edition
I stumbled on the other day is first paper, Dell, 1970, 95 cents.
I've qucikly scanned just the nonfiction entries, and can report
the following:
1)  In a short piece entitled "THe Writer as Cameraman" Farina uses
Plastic Man as an icon, and wife Mimi adds that this character was
important to him.
2)  The essay "The Monterey Fair," originally published in 
_Mademoiselle_ is arecounting of what happened to RF and friends just
prior to his wedding.  AND it involves TRP as a character, without
any dialogue to be sure.  The basic thrust is that RF & Co. go to
a state fair and have a run-in with John Birchers.  Here are the 
parts involving TRP:
a)  "Thomas Pynchon, the best man, had come from Mexico City, after
dodging a team of _Life_ photographers who would not tolerate his
requests for privacy.  The mysteries implicit in _V_ [sic, no
period], his novel, were causing the literary public to demand
counterparts in his day-to-day life."
b)  "Pynchon interrupted his _Scientific American reading..." [in
order to go to the fair].
c)  "We moved into the midway and bought tacos and beer, Pynchon
coming to life with the tacos, not having had Mexican food in a 
couple of weeks..."
d)  "Pynchon was hunching his shoulders, as if for protection
from an overhead blow..." [when confronted with hostile Birchers].
e)  "Pynchon had borrowed my old red hunting jacket" [to wear].
f)  "Pynchon made a grunting sound..." [in reaction to what a
Bircher said].
So--be on the lookout for a red-jacket-clad, hunching, grunting
taco-eatin', _Scientific American-totin' guy, and you've found 
TRP!

--
Paul Di Filippo/2 Poplar St/Providence, RI 02906/401-751-0139
"I _am_ Providence."  H. P. Lovecraft
"A heart that hurts is a heart that works." Juliana Hatfield