buckaroo, frenesi

[erik burns]

As a big fan of Buckaroo Banzai - caught it often at the friday nite double
feature with Repo Man at the University theater in Berkeley when I lived
there - I am heartbroken to hear it called both a "pynchon ripoff" and
"vapid and juvenile".  But I understand.  

Nevertheless, it's more than a kids movie and the Yoyodyne bit is a homage
(pronounced hoe-maaahhhhhje) to TRP rather than a ripoff. Imagine all the
kids (like me) who first saw BB and then read GR ... that's the kind of
"resonation" English professors the world over struggle to define.  Icy
chills on the spine and that sort of thing.

Just like the time a friend of mine said "You know what the lyrics to
'Dancing in the Dark' are really about, don't you?"  He was talking about
Springsteen, fer chrissakes!  And when I later saw more or less the same
phrase in GR, I freaked.

These are books that write us.

As for Frenesi, it is also a Portuguese word meaning (I quote): 1. frenzy,
madness, destruction. 2. passion, rapture, franticness. 3. raving, rage,
furor. 4. (med.) phrenitis. 5.impatience, eagerness. 6. impatience.

item: a careful reader noticed that Charles Brockden Brown's weird novel is
Wieland, not Vinland as I wrote here yesterday.  Apologies.  Still, it's
strange...

cheers, erik