two notes

[David L. Pelovitz]

David Jordan <littlcat at netcom.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 14 Jan 1996, Chris Stolz wrote:
>
>> 
>> Two things i recently noticed-- are there any comments.
>> 
>> 1)  Pynchon's writing has one enormous pop-cultural hole in it:
>> I vcan find no references to professional sports.
>> 

>I can.  In _Vineland_ he makes two passing references to Brent Mussburger,
>a well enough known sports commentator.  Brent (if I may be so familiar)
>is the sport figure Prairie Wheeler says she would most like to be (in
>answer to a teacher's question) (p. 327).  A few pages later, the narrator
>opines that Mr. Mussberger would consider the shoplifting techniques
>employed by Prairie and her mallrat companion, Che, to be "at a fairly
>easy ... level of play" (p. 331). 

In the on-going attempt at biography, I suspect TRP does watch
a lot of the tube, but he knows it's a guilty pleasure.  He
justifies this in part by watching a of sports, which he doesn't
understand the fine points or strategies of, but he loves to hear
how the commentators explain what's going on.  Probably loves
John Madden.  As to the other key element of professional sports,
the business dealings of the players, agents, managers and
ownersI can't see Pynchon caring enough to learn how that all works
just so he can make reference to it in a novel.  Though now that
American cities have gone into battle over teams like the
Browns and the Astros, he may well find a metaphor in those
stories that he likes.
	
David Pelovitz - dqp5805 at is.nyu.edu