Several sick birds; one stone

[MASCARO at HUMnet.UCLA.EDU]

yo,

Since summer's schedule's so erratic, I leap into the discontinuous fray, not quite 
knowing where the plodding foot will plop:  This is john m, who teaches in UCLA 
Writing Programs, was born and still identifies with the dangerous city of 
Philadelphia, loves the hapless Phills, hates astroturf (for sports, but gosh it's great 
for the patio on Tupperware Party days!!), agrees that baseball is life, for better or 
worse, never made an al wang joke, etc.

 RE: recent stuff

o Isn't demanding--life affirming aspects--of the Whole Sick Crew a little like 
denouncing Murphy Brown for hurting family values?  (And how's that for tying 
threads together, fellow knitters?)Whose life are we trying to affirm, for one thing?  
For another, the life affirming value of the Whole Sick Crew is that they are part of 
a life-affirming work of art, namely V.  They don't exist outside this frame, despite 
all the nostalgia they may evoke for our (oldhead like me, at least) decadent 
youthfully amoral dayz gone bye, when--keep cool but care--meant something, or 
did it?

o I was struck by Jester's VINELAND remark of a  couple days ago, to whit: 
															> In my opinion, there is almost TOO MUCH TV in the novel.  

I have been pondering this TV/VL thing for a while, frustrated specifically by those 
parenthetical dates for every show mentioned.  Something feels out of whack w/ 
them.  Even the parentheses seem loaded somehow, but I can't figure out what 
disturbs me about them.  Are they like Slothrop's stars in some weird way?  
Mapping out temporally something akin to Slothrop's spatial record of Certain 
Strange Events With Many Dark Implications?  Has anybody looked at them 
cabbalistically, done the ol' numerology dozens on them?  Just wondering.

o Everybody new to the list gets flamed right off.  It's great.  I've been flamed by the 
best (hag--and--andrew); perhaps we should elect someone designated flamer?

john m