Jack, Malcolm and Slothrop

[jporter]

The scene reprising the putative juxtapostion of these three: Jack and
Slothrop elevated, Malcolm below, perhaps kneeling- poppin' that rag- is
about election.

Election, in general, but more specifically, subtextually and
*anachronistically,* the election Jack would steal from Them- represented
here by Slothrop's feet, or, his white Protestant ancestory.

And while some report that it was not the ephemeral "colored" voters of
Chicago's more preterite precincts that Mayor Daley collected for Jack, but
that the good mayor actually raised and provided suffrage for the dead, in
the light provided here by Pynchon, that would amount to the same shinola.

Jack woulda shoulda coulda have had one of those immortal lightbulbs go off
over his head, allowing him, with a little help from the cinematic
shutter-popping rag of Malcolm, to see the figure of his own face reflected
back to him, but as the color of shinola, with respect to Slothrop's shoes.

The historical fact that Kennedy had autoimmune Addison's disease, causing
his pituitary gland to excrete massive amounts of
pre-melanolipocorticotropin in response to his failing adrenal glands, that
would eventually turn his face, by about the time of his mid-term, the
coppery color of a Lincoln head penny, is just one of those little ironic
twists of fate. 

By any means necessary,

jody