On-line interview with ?

[Jules Siegel]

Tom Stanton wrote:
> 
> >MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu wrote:
> > ... (if it is Mr. Siegal I am addressing) the source of that infamous statement
> > about his writing GR while being totally wasted?  I don't think I have ever read
> > P. himself attest to this anywhere...But the idea that Dangerous Drugs actually
> > --wrote--Thomas Pynchon, well, it's downright Rushdian.
> 
> I have always chuckled at what sounds like indignation over the fact TRP
> might have smoked a little pot to fuel the writing process, and the
> gullibility
> of anyone who believed the brag "I was so fucked up I dunno what I was
> doing, but
> it was brilliant when I did it..." Let's get real folks, writer, poets,
> painters,
> et. al. have abused "substances" & created great work, whether on the
> substance
> or as an after effect. People who make their living critquing these
> works don't
> usually want to brag to their peers that the subject of their thesis or
> book
> is a confirmed pot head (although I find the insider drug jokes funny &
> one
> of GR's more endearing qualities). Conversely, anyone who has done more
> than
> "skimmed" GR cannot dismiss it as the ravings of a paranoid pot head,
> except from
> pure meaness. GR is a heavily crafted work of art that you may like or
> dismiss
> on its own merits. The art world is full of alcoholics, addicts, wife
> beaters,
> and other abusers, but the one quality they posessed was the ability to
> create
> great work in spite of (or as a consequence of) their respective
> afflictions.
> If TRP's only crime was rollin' up a splif to loosen up his Puritanical
> up-
> bringing, he would be no worse than millions of us who did precisely the
> same
> thing during the 60s & beyond.
Hear! Hear!
-- 
Jules Siegel Website: http://www.caribe.net.mx/siegel/jsiegel.htm
Mail: Apdo. 1764 Cancun QR 77501 Mexico
Street: Green 16 Paseo Pok-Ta-Pok Zona Hotelera Cancun QR 77500 Mexico
Tel: 011-52-98 87-49-18 Fax 87-49-13 E-mail: jsiegel at mail.caribe.net.mx