music

[Gary L. Thompson]

Posts about music and first editions reminded me of something in my 
antique drawer. Back about 1975, I was browsing in an odds-and-ends store 
in Houston and found a copy of _The Fool_. Archives didn't turn up 
anything very recent on this, so I thought I'd pull it out.

Slothrop's last appearance (742 in the Viking ed.):

Some believe that fragments of Slothrop have grown into consistent 
personae of their own. If so, there's no telling which of the Zone's 
present-day population are offshoots of his original scattering. There's 
supposed to be a last photograph of him on the only record album ever put 
out by The Fool, an English rock group--seven musicians posed, in the 
arrogant style of the early Stones, near an old rocket-bomb site, out in 
the East end, or South of the River. It is spring, and French thyme 
blossoms in amazing white lacework across the cape of green that now 
hides and softens the true shape of the old rubble. There is no way to 
tell which of the faces is Slothrop's: the only printed credit that might 
apply to him is "Harmonica, kazoo--a friend." But knowing his Tarot, we 
would expect to look among the Humility, among the gray and preterite 
souls, to look for him adrift in the hostile light of the sky, the 
darkness of the sea. . . .

I've always found this very evocative, a suitable farewell for poor 
Tyrone. Pynchon's adaptation of details is probably a key to how he uses 
history in _M&D_. To begin with, the cover is definitely not "arrogant" 
like "early Stones" there are two men, two women, in bright orange and 
blue costumes, floating in the air above a dachshund. The cover and 
inside have a definite Peter Max feel to them. The back cover names the 
musicians as "Seemon, Marijke, Josje & Barry": Seemon (!) holds 
candy-store-colored bagpipes, Marijke a decorative tamborine, and Barry 
some sort of small drum. Below and behind them is a greenish 
landscape--no visible French thyme; it's not so particularized as that. 
Behind that is a mountainous landscape with a rising sun--in the middle is 
what (with Pynchon's prompting) we can imagine as a rocket site.

The record was produced by Graham Nash--released by Mercury records, and BMI 
has publication rights. Cut 3 on side one is called "Rainbow Man," and 
cut 1 on side two, "Reincarnation." That's all the relevance I see.

Any fools yet in _Mason & Dixon_ (besides the astronomer-surveyors, 
possibly)? I'm only up to 100 so far--spoil me!


Gary Thompson