VINELAND

[maxrad at cruzio.com]

<snip>
>Anyway, while perusing my moldering record collection, I came across what
>I would like to submit as the perfect audio companion to VINELAND:  none
>other than the venerable WE'RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY, third album of
>Frank Zappa and the MOI.  I can't think of any one album that better reflects
>the mood of VL -- such tunes as "Are You Hung Up?", "Who Needs the Peace Corps?
>", "Concentration Moon", "Flower Punk', and the ever-popular "What's the
>Ugliest Part of Your Body?".... but I'm sure if one of YOU can think of a
>more representative album, I'll be hearing about it shortly.

Not "America Drinks and Goes Home"? Or "Road Ladies"? Or-- more recently-- 
"Turning Again"?

This is the second Zappa/Pynchon connection I've seen in the last few 
months, the first being over on alt.fan.frank-zappa. The AFFZ guys claim 
that while there is not evidence that FZ ever read TRP (or, apparently, much 
of anything else), there is at least once reference to FZ in GR.

I've never noticed it, personally, and no longer have the cite. But perhaps 
this reference was discussed over here (I've only been subscribing a couple 
months) and some other Zappaphile/Pynchonite could enlighten me.

To my mind, the Zappa/Pynchon connection is a hard one NOT to make: both 
masters were/are concerned with taking the forms/vocabulary of the Highbrow 
and smacking them in the face with the pie of the Low. 

Both seem keenly attuned to the complex rhythms of our time. Pynchon's 
convoluted sentences ring in my ear like Zappa guitar solos-- towering 
labyrinthical roller-coasters that careen and swoop through the funhouse 
hall-'o-mirros of your mind-- and Zappa has said, after all, that his 
cyrptotuple rhythms are derived from speech patterns...

And both have that same frustrating/delightful fractality-- the closer you 
look, the more complex they become. To paraphrase conudctor Kent Nagano, "I 
went to a Rock 'n' Roll concert and ended up studying scores you'd need a 
Master's Degree to understand". Which is exactly how I feel every time I 
re-read Pynchon...or this newsgroup, for that matter.

Just a thought...this might make a great cross-post.


--rick