VLVL(7):Annotations, questions, &c pt2

[David Casseres]

At 12:15 -0800 1/6/99, keith woodward wrote:
>VLVL(7) Annotations cont.

>230.25:  "Chi-com style":  Chinese command?  I've located a rifle that's
>named "Chi-com," but haven't found the manner in which this star is
>worn. ???

"Chinese Communist."  Phrases like this were part of the Cold War's
elaborate pretense that the Communists were not really the government of
China.

>238.35-6:  "the famous worms of song":  "The worms crawl in / The worms
>crawl out / The worms play pinochle / On your snout / 
"  Does anyone
>know the entire song?

I suspect there is no single version of "the entire song."  Here's my
fragmented recollection:

Did you ever think when a hearse rolls by
That you might be the next to die
...
They throw in the dirt, they throw in the rocks,
They don't give a damn if they break the box
...
The worms crawl in the worms crawl out,
The worms play Pinochle on your snout,
Your liver turns a ghastly green,
The pus runs out like thick rich cream,
You wipe it up with a piece of bread,
And that's wht you eat when you are dead
...
The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
They eat your guts and they spit them out
...

That whole scene is one of Pynchon's most perfectly realized
hallucinations, or gags, or flights of fancy, or whatever the hell they
are.  I had to read it over three or four times on the spot.

>247.28:  "Blue Cheer concert":  Rockers from 1968-1972.  "Taking their
>name from an extremely potent batch of LSD, Blue Cheer took the world
>(or at least San Francisco) by storm in 1967 when the trio of
>self-confessed drug addicts took their penchant for brutally loud music
>to a new level, earning them the title of "World's Loudest Band" and
>originating heavy metal."

I don't know about "by storm."  I remember they were severely criticized
for being so clueless about actual blues music that they sang "Parchment
Farm," apparently not knowing that Parchman Form is a real place with a
heavy significance for Southern black, being the most notorious
penitentiary in Mississippi.

>254.35:  "Hasta la proxima, querida mia":  ???

"See ya next time, baby."

>258.14:  "Noticias":  ???

News.

>261.19:  "Las Suegras":  ???

"The Mothers-in-Law."  Satire on romantic-sounding California Spanish
place-names.
Cheers,
David