More shit
Otto Sell
o.sell at telda.net
Thu Aug 3 09:17:38 CDT 2000
A L L I E D C L E A R I N G H O U S E T E C H N I C A L U N I T S
N O R T H E R N G E R M A N Y
Fits to your "devilish triumph:"
Dedicated to Lenny Bruce
About ten years ago when I was into psychology stuff, I bumped into a guy I
knew from high school days. He was an undertaker in Boston and he asked me
if I knew anything about suicide.
"Well like what?" I said, in that clinical noncommitting voice I had
mastered.
"Cause everytime we get a suicide, it's the weirdest thing but they always
got this grin on their faces. No matter how they go: hanging, gas or
whatever, they always got this certain grin."
"You sure that's true?"
"No shit, we even got a name for it in the trade it's called 'THE SHIT-EATIN
GRIN' and every one of the fuckers got it.."
"What do you do about it? Like how come nobody but undertakers knows about
it?"
"Are you kiddin? We couldn't talk about a thing like that, not in our
position. We even have to change the expressions on their face. You know,
make em look more serious. They fight like hell even if they're dead. We
have to use special needles to relax their face muscles and finally we get
em lookin serious enough for the funeral. I mean you just could never bury a
guy with a shit-eatin grin, no sir."
This story is for you, Lenny, from all the Yippies.
( Abbie Hoffman, Woodstock Nation, Random House 1969, Pocket Books, New York
1971)
Otto
-------------------------
o.sell at telda.net
http://www.itap.de/homes/otto/index.html
http://www.itap.de/homes/otto/pynchon/episode.htm
http://www.itap.de/homes/otto/pynchon/gr50.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: David Simpson <dsimpson at condor.depaul.edu>
To: <pynchon-l-digest at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 3:50 PM
Subject: More shit
> From popular slang to the Pynchon phrase book:
>
> Shit-eating grin -- a big, wide, guilty smile (as after some devilish
triumph or not entirely wholesome bit of merriment). Several of Pynchon's
characters are described as "coprophagously agrin" or by some similar
expression.
>
> When the shit hits the fan -- popular formula for any likely or imminent
catastrophe, memorably referred to in VL as a "fecoventilatory collision."
>
> Makes me wonder: have there been any recent threads about Pynchon's
neologisms or his humorous tropes on popular phrases? Two of my own
favorites are "octogenarihexation" and "43'd"--a couple of clever twists on
the standard "86'd."
> --
> "Exaggeration is a law of Nature." -- Emerson.
>
>
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