Missing parts

[Terrance F. Flaherty]

Pynchon seems more interested in added parts. This interest is evident in his
early work--betwixt V. and CL--"The Secret Integration." In said story we find
the Slothrops and Carl Barrington, an "imaginary" friend and double of Carl
McAfee. Carl is made of junk and all the "possibilities turned away from." He
is a robot of ballistics theory, science and invention, and following V.
becomes Increasing an Abstraction and Increasing Inanimate, until he is
scattered and abandoned "to the old estate's other attenuated ghosts." Sort of
like our American Rocket Man!

Everything seems so out in the open, all of it is
              real, no plastic faces, not transistors, no hidden
              Muzak, or Disneyfied landscaping, or smiling little
              chicks to show you around. Not in Raceriotland.
              Only a few historic landmarks, like the police
              substation, one command post for the white forces
              last August, pigeons now thick and cooing up on its
              red-tiled roof. Or, on down the street, vacant lots,
              still looking charred around the edges, winking
              with emptied Tokay, port and sherry pints, some of
              the bottles peeking out of paper bags, others
              busted.

Along with theatrical and symphonic events, the
              festival also featured a roomful of sculptures
              fashioned entirely from found objects -- found,
              symbolically enough, and in the Simon Rodia
              tradition, among the wreckage the rioting had left.
              Exploiting textures of charred wood, twisted
              metal, fused glass, many of the works were fine,
              honest rebirths.
                In one corner was this old, busted, hollow TV
              set with a rabbit-ears antenna on top. Inside, where
              its picture tube should have been, gaping out with
              scorched wiring threaded like electronic ivy
              among its crevices and sockets, was a human skull.
              The name of the piece was "The Late, Late, Late
              Show."

              -- By Thomas Pynchon

Well if I only had a brain, heart, some courage and Home.

Terrance