While We Stand Aside And Look...

[RICHARD_WILSON at udlp.com]

what a priggish, troll-bait-ory thread to re-suscitate, eh? 
sorry if this re-opens any old sores...
(note - "" means that i'm paraphrasing)

--
>> (or was it >>> ?) "" (blah-blah-blah)... {comparison of TRP to 70's
glam/ozzie-rock guitar players}... GR "self-masturbatory"...""

hey - didn't those Proverbs say that WE get to tickle the Master's creatures
TOO? 
so NO - not *self-*masturbatory...
(also, i'd say TRP in GR is a helluva lot more Jeff Beck than Ted Nugent....)

> ""how many of you (males) are jealous that you aren't the guy who wrote GR?""

personally, i'm mighty, MIGHTY glad i didn't have to write GR. i'm also glad i
didn't have to paint the Sistine Chapel (even if it didn't leave me partially
blind and skeletally deformed) or compose the Hammerklavier Sonata (even if i
hadn't had to compose in total deafness), etc, usw.... though i love all of
these magna-opi things passionately, a big chunk of my appreciation for them
comes from what i think of as the  "damn - i'll bet that was difficult / i'm
glad someone else did it" principle (which i also find makes watching ballet
tons more enjoyable).

within the TRP oeuvre, if i absolutely had to be jealous and wish i had written
any of it myself, a couple of slices of _V._ would probably suffice.

(though sometimes on rainy nights, i allow myself to entertain ambitions about
writing a kind of extension to _Mason and Dixon_ ... something along the lines
of '_Lewis and Clark_' (assuming gore vidal, john jakes, or some other
pulp-meister hasn't already beat me to it)... or possibly '_Byrd-Land_' (since
HP Lovecraft is the only writer i know of who has thus far managed to set a
novel in antarctica))... 

> ""who is the most <insert loaded adjective here> member of pynchon-l""

why... tha'd be Keith  (of course)... ;-}

> ""why are sharks afraid of clowns?""
etc....

--rwilson

"woman - thy name is V(anity)." -- jehova

"and deep beneath the rolling waves
  in labyrinths of coral caves
  the echoes of a distant time
  come willowing across the sand
  and everything is green and summery" -- pink floyd