LA explained (who's he kidding?)

[Jhildt at aol.com]

                           first a tip of the hat to TW

Hey, Tim,

Let me start by thanking you properly for that terrific piece of work posted
on the web as "Tim Ware's Deeply Subjective & Continually Expanding
CONCORDANCE to GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by THOMAS PYNCHON" (Version 2.5).  Now I'm a
relative newcomer to TP.  (Although not to this planet.  What's been keeping
me? you might ask.  I Dunno.  Guess I'm just a slow learner.)  And I would
still be in the woods without your help.  So gracias, podna.  Muchas.

Second, let me clear the deck.  A couple of typos you might want to add to
2.6b:  

"(not only in his life, but also, heh, heh, in his chronicler's too, . . .)"
 (738)  TP actually referring to hisself, (lest I parse like an arse).
 What's missing is the pos. before the "s" in our author's noble calling.

"Mr. Tyrone Guthrie" (148)  needs a point.

And a cross-ref. here would have saved me some tiny bit of trouble:

Saure;  see Bummer, Emil  (621 is where I coulda used it)

                                  *             *             *

Now listen up in the back  of the room, I've had a flash.  (And if this is
old news to all you long-time Pynchoneers, it's still new news to me.)  
      
          Re. "rocket" and "City of Angels"

Richard M. Zhlubb drives "the black Managerial Volkswagen" (755, courtesy
Pynchon News Service).

"1995 marks the fortieth anniversary of Volkswagen of America, Inc. ... The
first Beetle arrived in the US in 1949 ... But, without someone to explain
its idiosyncrasies and present its strengths, the odd insect-shaped car
didn't make much of an impression in America. Just two Beetles were purchased
in that first year, and only a few hundred in the next. By 1955, more and
more Americans had begun to hear of the odd little Beetle."  (Museum  of VW
History @www.volkswagen.com)

and:

"Allied attempts to revive the West German auto industry after the war
centered on the Volkswagen, and _in little more than a decade_ the company
was producing half of West Germany's motor vehicles. ... because of the
 car's small size, unusual rounded appearance, and historical connections
with Nazi Germany, sales in the United States were originally slow. This
changed in 1959, when an American advertising agency, Doyle Dane Bernbach,
began a landmark advertising campaign, dubbing the car the Beetle because of
its shape, and pointing to its size as an advantage to the consumer." (E.B.)

So. . . , what does this tell us about the "LA Scene," huh?  It ain't
contemporary with Herr Gottfried's launch, that's what.

And how do I choose to take that?  My guess is that it's a first jerk to the
present, P.'s own present as he wrote - or thereabouts, and a nifty setup for
the final pulling of our collective chain, "us, old fans who've always been
at the movies (haven't we)" by sending old 00000 right back at the reader in
a cloud of ambiguity.  Gotcha!  (And he did, didn't he?)

Any takers?

                                     Jeffrey (still at the movies)