narratives

[Peter Mead]

Andersen Jesper Sparre wrote:

> TRP knowing
> that everyone in his generation knows of WWII through movies simply
> chose to present his story in the same voice as the movies which had
> conveyed the experience of WWII to his audience already.

Could be, but there is also this:

It was quite common in the sixties to smoke pot and goof on old movies
and see a sinister, hidden, absurdist or universal meaning in just about
anything.  Marx Bros. movie humor, for example, experienced when stoned,
passed beyond yuks and into the realm of zen koan. Or became cerebral
laffs. Or percolated up into a cosmic giggle which expressed the Real
Human Condition.  So did Abbot and Costello and Ralph and Norton.  And
then there was Busby Berkeley, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin.  And then
there were other musicals such as with with Fred Astair, Gene Kelley and
so forth...all available on TV in front of a bong. 

It's no stretch for me, based on TRP's text and the way he characterized
his association with Farina (and not based on any Siegal data who by the
way apparently delivered a commencement speech at MIT extolling
sunscreen from what I heard), that the above was a "familiar reality" to
him.  I always took it at face value that GR was genius filtered at
least in part, through the above medium. What I am NOT saying is that GR
was just some stoned out book. It simply employed some of the more
radical consciousness of the time.

Peter Mead