VLVL(6) - Ch 10 Notes & Questions 3

[Sebastian Dangerfield]

From: sdangerfield at juno.com
To: casseres at apple.com
Date: Tue, 1 Dec 1998 14:35:52 -0500
Subject: Re: VLVL(6) - Ch 10 Notes & Questions 3
Message-ID: <19981201.143603.-80005.7.sdangerfield at juno.com>

On Tue, 1 Dec 1998 10:57:29 -0800 David Casseres <casseres at apple.com>
writes:

>Meg sez
>>
>>[. . . ]
>>Pepperdine U. comes to mind.
>
>Really?  The last I heard, Pepperdine, where Kenneth Starr still hopes 
>to go hide some day, was affiliated with Bob Jones University, where 
>they still don't allow interracial dating, and I doubt the student body 
>ever showed any signs of activism in the 60's.
>
>Santa Barbara is one place that comes to my mind, particularly with
>"Gordita Beach" sounding a bit like Goleta, the Santa Barbara suburb 
>where the campus is located.  Another is College of the Pacific, which
isn't 
>on the beach but has a similar name -- and like UCSB, once had a 
>reputation as a preeminent party-school.
>
>Of course, Pynchon always makes sure to portray a fictional place, and 
>I'd say College of the Surf is a composite of maybe those two places and

>some others, and of course Our Man's imagination.

I'm gald someone mentioned Pepperdine, which is my front-runner for the
"real-world" analog.  I'm not so sure that Pepperdine is very far off,
since the account of College of the Surf before Weed-mania struck is that
it was the most unlikely of places for the campus contagion to catch on. 
I don't have the volume with me but I remember references to school
uniforms (skirts being hiked up and men doffing their jackets were signs
that the place was beginning to catch the R&R flu), as well as a general
sense of Eisenhower calm about the place.  Another possibility is Loyola
Marymount, which, when I was in California, was know on the activist
circuit as "the bubble on the bluff."  Being a Jesuit institution, I
suppose uniforms would not be out of place there.  

Though I agree entirely that the COTS is likely a composite and we would
be well-advised not to look for literal one-to-one matches.  

BTW.  The Kenneth Starr Deanship at Pepperdine (aka One Big Fat Golden
Parachute for Your Starrship's Unfailing Dedication to the Cause of
RIght) is the financial gift of Harrisburg Newspaper vulgarian Richard
Mellon Scaife, who, I believe, has other close financial ties with that
August Institution, which also boasts former Nixon Speechwriter and
current Cable gameshow host Ben Stein as part of its stellar law faculty.
 

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