pynchon-l-digest V2 #1324

[jbor]

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>From: "Jon Clay" <clayjon at hotmail.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: pynchon-l-digest V2 #1324
>Date: Tue, Jul 25, 2000, 10:56 PM
>

> Hmm, indeed, since there are no poor, oppressed, hungry or even just working
> class white people, after all. Presley, for example, was rich before he ever
> made his first record for his Mum's birthday, and his family never shot
> squirrels for meat. And his first records never contained as much
> country/hillbilly as they did r'n'b. White people NEVER need to escape the
> factory, the checkout till, the dole queue . . .

Yeah, I like Elvis too, even 'In the Ghetto', even 'Viva Las Vegas' and all
those other B-movies, even fat in a sequinned jumpsuit in Las Vegas. But the
difference and fact of the matter is that however poor Elvis or any other
white person was in 1952 (or 1962) he or she would have a seat on the bus or
could buy a soda in the drugstore where Rosa Parkes couldn't, by law ...

What Elvis took from black r&b -- the rhythm, moves, lyrics -- were
affectations, just like the curled upper lip. The latent sexuality in that
pelvic thrust was pure Elvis. Nothin' to do with the r&b roots ...

best