GR's Chipco Stomp Preview

[davemarc]

> From: Steelhead <sitka at teleport.com>
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: GR's Chipco Stomp Preview
> Date: Friday, February 07, 1997 2:12 PM
> 
[Siegellian self-dramatizing section]
> 
[lengthy sniping at Mascaro]
> 
[namedrops Charles Larson]
> 
[Back to Mascaro, catches a misquote then resumes categorical attack on
postmodernism]
> 
[Pynchon references followed by a Tinaskyan "discursion" on Albensians]
> 
[Praise for Dinn followed by an attempt to show that tenured profs aren't
terribly hard up for cash by comparing them to penny-pinching Pynchon, of
all foax...]
> 
>"tenured profs are not nearly as low budget as Pynchon
> has been for most of his writing life--at least until that MacArthur
> Award--which he had the good sense enough to accept.
> 
> In Oregon, for example, the average salary of a tenured professor at a
> state university is $48,000. And Oregon ranks in the bottom tenth of
states
> in terms of renumeration for college professors. By comparison, Pynchon's
> annual income in the early 80s is reported at around $10,000. 
> 
By whom?  Is it gross or net income, etc?
> 
> This means
> that college professors who are teaching TRP's work are earning 4 to 5
> times what TRP received for writing his three major (and most
> (over)written
> about) books: V., Col 49, and GR. Multiply the annual salary by the
> number
> of professors teaching Pynchon, using his writings to earn their PhD's,
> and
> you are quickly into the millions of dollars a year. Why shouldn't he
> receive a cut of this massive hemorrhage of money? Isn't it an
> infringement
> (and in many cases a debasement) of his intellectual property rights?
> 
Yah.  Uh-huh.  Somehow I doubt that Steely has started correcting matters
by paying royalties every time he refers to Pynchon and all the others he
quotes (including Mascaro).  What a strange little world, where an average
salary of about $48,000 (following years of investment in undergraduate and
graduate schools) is presented as some sort of astronomically high income. 
Steely apparently wouldn't bother with stealing from the rich, just from
intellectual shlubs who make just slightly more than the national average. 
Meanwhile, there are plenty of publishers, lawyers, MBA-holders,
politicians laughing their ways to the bank.  And of course, all of them
are unanimously brilliant and competent.  They're the ones who deserve to
keep their moolah.
>
[Added remarks about the high cost of a higher education with no
recognition that academics pay more than anyone on the way to earning
not-so-high salaries]
>
davemarc