Re; The 60's! The Mini-Series!

[Paul Mackin]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 Dictel at aol.com wrote:

> God, you're right, I'm wrong.  I've confused the listserv with the San Narciso
> Home Page, but in my defense I know of nothing tying P personally to the
> Pomona Valley (run, don't walk, to the work of Kem Nunn), some yokels claim
> General Dynamics Pomona facility is Yoyodyne which is ridiculous since while
> writing "Lot 49" P was living in the South Bay(note, of LAX and Tarantino fame
> NOT San Jose) at the time which was just swimming in Aerospace Companies, to
> the point where my dad(a colleague of P's at Boeing and no he doesn't remember
> him, among the 40,000 other people there) said they called themselves "Space
> Gypsies" and "Aero Braceros".  I think I've mentioned a trustworthy L.A.
> literati swears he heard from a bank teller, risking firing by noting P was
> living in Arcadia in '89-'90, home of the Santa Anita Racetrack.  There, now
> I've done it.


God, that Pynchon really got around. From Inland Empire to South Bay to
South Coast (Gordita Beach) to The San Gabriel Valley and Santa Anita
whose most famous resident was an equine named "Seabiscuit." This last
venue is entirely new to me but suggests something that may possibly cast
light on Pynchon's interest in DENTISTS as exhibited in both V. and
Vineland. It used to be commonly known  around Santa Anita race track and
environs (such as Pasadena where yours truly grew up) that the famous race
course  was founded back in the thirties by a "credit dentist" named Dr.
Charles H. "Doc" Strub. Doc Strub was famous in an area where you usually
need to be a winning thoroughbred or jockey to be famous and Doc Strub was
invariably referred to as a former "credit dentist" which  was considered
a very funny thing to have  been. The Strub Stakes are I believe the
only racing event named for a person. Anyway Dr. Larry Elasmo is referred
to as a "low rent credit dentist" on p. 226. I can't remember if we
discussed what a credit dentist is. Anyway  it's just the sort of
confluence  that along with Pynchon's own dental problems might have made
the topic of dentists a natural for Mr. P.

P.S. Possibly V. was written before P moved to the Southland but even so .
. .

			P.