For John Mascaro

[jporter]

Well John, I worked all day, and when I came home and logged on last night,
there were maybe 50 or 60 posts from this list, and yours kinda stood out:

>I don't know what the fuck is going on on the list.  I don't know if it's
> worth bothering to spend hours scrolling through insane/inane messages.
> So much wasted beauty?

A riot of chaotic threads a'streaming, and not a euphroe in sight, except
my own brain, tired now, like that Oedipa's, to keep them sorted out...

>Can't even
> keep up with the war-threads let alone the Pynchon ones.  On this chaos
> thing, did no one mention the explicit passage where the fish jumping
> somewhere upstream causes all sorts of cascading effects up to deluge or
> something?  Bad memory as to specifics but it's an unmistakeable *butterfly
> wing flapping* analogy.

Jumping to spawn, John, to breed new eddies, of confusion, but from our
limited perspective, like an Escher print: worlds bent on providing the
essential outlines of realities beyond their own conception.

>I am betting things will soon calm down, and all the cool beauty of this
>list will
>blossom back in fragrant remembrance.  There will be wit and humor
> a-plenty.  Some flirting between boys and boys or girls and girls and
> maybe boys and girls.  Somebody will make a great pun.  People will
> arrange get-togethers, talk about conferences . . .

Well then, since you've mentioned it, Johnny, I would like to report on a
little adventure I had not long ago....

 It'd been a hellish day (no, make that week) in the office- I was burnt
out, frayed, an easy target for paranoia...when I decided, at about 9:00
p.m. on Friday evening, last: What the Hell, I'm going to do it. So with
setting sun at my back, and no rest whatsoever, I was up in the saddle
again- riding Eastward, toward Flannery's, W. 14th Street and the N.Y.
P-List. The anticipation of finally being reduced to a certainty, after all
my loopy postings, tingled in my fingertips. God, was I just exhausted, or
was this really happening? Was I really going off to meet these foax face
to face?

Filtering in from the Northeast Suburbs, I half fantasized being dragged
off to watch a hanging in the east Village, possibly a regular diversion
for these NYPL'rs, perhaps being called upon to make a medical
determination of tumescence, or something. Negotiating the riot of the
street I was becoming wild with excitement, but my fear subsided, somewhat,
when I stumbled through the door of Flannery's, and beheld a dive of
sublime perfection. There, at the far end of a not quite narrow room
several ambiences long, set klieged against a brick bandshell, wailed The
Shanghai Love Motel. That was Bill Millard, I assumed, with an enormous
electric bass, centered and singing lead, flanked on either side by Messrs
"Stratocaster and Les Paul," and anchored by the beat of a flailing
drummer. They were rockin'!

Having entered mid-set, I scored a Killian's from the bar, and found an
unoccupied seat. In the ambient lighting of the audience I tried to look
nonchalant while furtively scoping the crowd, for a sign. Several tabled
groups presented themselves as likely candidates, but how could I tell?
Late by more than hour, I worried, maybe they'd already split. There were
no specific signs of things Pynchon, no fluted post horns, or conspicuous
V's. Could this all be joke? I assumed what I thought to be the posture of
a regular and started gulping red brew.

Thank God for the SLM. Steady waves of reasurring rock rolled out over the
tables and down the bar- where exuberant young women Dixon might have
called Doxies, stomped and cheered and segued "DON'T STOP NOW!" and "KEEP
IT UP!" Millard responded in kind, until band and crowd were brought
finally and happily together into one prolonged and tumultuous crescendo.
We were JUMPIN'!

With the set done, however, the tables again became distinct, and now what
was I to do- a round of the room? "Hi, I'm jody, are YOU the foax on the
P-list? Ah God, I thought, maybe I should just sit here and suck beer.
Maybe I could approach the band, I thought. That is Millard in the
spotlight, isn't it? I weighed my one certainty. But what if he starts
talking to me through- THE MIKE- for the benefit of the crowd? Am I ready
for that? What if he thrusts it into my hand and steps away? My soul
careened with paranoid excitement.

Luckily, a band operative was making the rounds of the tables, with a
clipboard and pad, signing up fans for the SLM mailing list. I printed as
clearly as  possible: JODY PORTER...and watched as he moved next to a table
that seemed, I thought, quite likely. Then I watched as a women took the
pad- at first it seemed like she wouldn't be bothered- and then the pen.
FINALLY she looked down, studied a second, and then back up, and right at
ME, smiling...Yes!

Virtual no more, and able to appreciate the rare pleasure...Here was the
intelligent, well-spoken and poised, David Fischer (davemarc), and next to
him, the even-keeled, but sensitive and perceptive, Richard Romeo.  And
finally, presiding with that smile, she to whom we were especially
indebted, the charming and charismatic, Chris Karatnytsky. Pynch ME, I
thought, they are real, and friendly, too.

 Bill and the crew had it broken down by then, and there were hand shakes,
hale and well met, all around. It was too soon over, and then we were off,
into the night. There may have been jasmine, I don't recall, but we found a
cafe and had several hours, not nearly enough, of the good talk. [mostly
about ALL of YOU!]

I was to make home and bed by three, be back up by eight, and to the office
by nine-  hoping, the while, not to kill anyone with misjudgement, before
making it home again by evening...Whew!..it had all been pretty intense.

Later, after a nap, as I watched the words appear on the monitor, something
had changed. It wasn't the same. It occurred to me that sitting here
pecking out these messages, punching Send, and waiting for a  response or
two, just might not be enough anymore...

jody, of the NYPL