mutter and pop

[V055QRSH at ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu]

Cigars all around.  Mutter and pop just had a bouncing
baby ball.  Follow it and sing along...

There's mo' muttering going on in Vineland than there
is popping, so seeing as how motto comes from muttire
(to mutter) and word is son (yittle tommy) is like many
of us - an etymophile, let's assume for a moment that
whenever anyone in Vineland mutters they are giving us
their motto.

Flash is the only one whose motto is given straight out
(bottom of 352), 'Whine or Lose,' not anything we can
attribute to TRP as a reason for writing novels, but he
(Flash) is characterized as 'an entire adult career to
be spent as a teenager under surveillance, none of whose
'family' would ever believe in him.'  With the exception
of Sasha and I think Brock's sidekick Roscoe (both with
two), most major characters in Vineland mutter just once
(we all have just one muther - yes?).  Both Blood's and
Vato's (183) have to do with an elusive object from the
duo's V-yet-named days.  Isaiah's is quite simply 'in
the van,' a mobile object, like the spaceship earth.  As
for DL, hers is an echo of the Bible passage Isaiah 2:4,
hoping to turn 'the pentagon into a dove ranch.'  Zoyd,
interestingly, has several mutterances, all 3 within the
first 21 pages, and each showing how indiff/ambiv he is,
so why shouldn't he have more than one.  Takeshi has two
but one blows this motto theory out of the water.  But
Praire's is something special, has to do with ideals,
ice, and that Che - which reminds me of a film noir up-
date I midas well post here and now...

I thought my last noir post would've acted like a Coke
commercial, and I would've been kicking myself like its
ad exec however impressed, after several Juan Valdezes
came along with their asses, and everyone was eeeeyawing
and chortling at was originally MY snowy white pixels,
but like Jody said it seems like everyone's gone into
some kind of hibernation mode, although I did get some
individual replies I'm thankful for (secrets are safe
avec moi), and Don Larrson's list-post's send off, 'Chez
Hugh, Coventry 'Where hospitality is our motto,' is what
actually reminded me of the above motto mess (Such are
the effect of words on me), but what I want to bring up
now is a member of the animal kingdom and how it might
pertain to Pynchon and film noir.  You decide...

In the movie Sunset Boulevard, a great film noir with
all the trimmings, we find all those pictures of Norma
Desmond laying around (as Praire sought her mum in some
photos and freeze-frames), and there is the good girl,
Betty who works behind the camera (like Frenesi), and
the voice-over by the duped hero (like Takeshi taking
over the story telling of how he got into the mess he's
in - telling Praire), and car trouble (Vineland is a
virtual junkyard of abandoned autos), and Hollywood's
decadance (histoire de famille de Sasha), and then we
come to a certain phone call.  The butler did it, that
is he answered the phone.  But he didn't give it to
Norma who it was for.  It was FROM a character by the
name of Gordon Cole who in the film is a Hollywood big
wig producer/director (ironically David Lynch played a
character in Twin Peaks named Gordon Cole - looks like
this is the place one can mine some names) and this
Gordon Cole is calling Norma because he wants to use
her old car which she's just gotten out of storage cuz
he's making a film and it'd be the perfect prop, but
ya see, she's expecting a call from Cole whom she is
under the impression wants HER to star in one of his
movies, but she's dreamin and everyone knows it, in-
cluding her longtime ex-hub/prez-butler who doesn't
want to hurt the ole actress's feelings so when she
asks him who was that on the phone, he says, 'Someone
inquiring about a stray dog.  Our number must be very
similar to the number of the pound.'  Now where else
have we heard of a dog roaming around loose in sunny
California?  Of course: Desmond.  Wouldn't someone
obsessed with the word Desomnd after having lost the
symbol of 'home,' start going to extremes, maybe open
the phonebook, and calling every number listed under
Desmond, hoping the loved one will be there.

Yah, Pynchon's been to Hollywood.  But only to get a
few names and then scoot.  Perhaps Sasha's cousin,
Claire, is a Traverse.  That Claire Trevor shoy did
star in lots of fns.  And maybe that Hub Gates is
Herbert J Yates, both are credited with some great
productions.  Let's end the post here, a cute couple.
Let them live happily ever after.
With little ones aplenty.

the feWest me motto
Rick-eshi