Frivolous literary note

[Joe Varo]

On Wed, 14 May 1997, dennis grace wrote, regarding Henry Musikar's use of 
"Keep Cool, But Care" in his .sig and attributing it to TRP:

> [...]
> Bottom line, the quote should probably more
> appropriately read:
>        
>         >Keep cool, but care. -- McClintic Sphere 
> [...]

I dunno, Dennis.  I think this idea gets a bit too po-mo/meta-fictional
for me.  Kind of like what one might get from Derrida-on-speed.

If you were to cite "keep cool, but care" in a paper or book, and had to
footnote it, would you then attribute it to Sphere or Pynchon?

In this world, the world in which the phrase is cited, Pynchon *wrote* it.
In the fictional world of V., Sphere *said* it.

I think that were we to begin attributing words in works of fiction to the
fictional characters who "said" them, well, things could get a bit more
confusing than they need to be.  Slippery slope and all...?

Also, you said that attributing "kill all the lawyers" to "Old Bill S."
(I'm assuming you mean William S. Burroughs) is an error of like kind to
attributing "keep cool, but care" to TRP.  I've never heard this line
attributed to WSB, but even if it were, it's awfully different from
attributing it to a fictional character.

Joe