GRGR 31 Shit'n'Shinola

[jbor]

The joke sounds authentic. Thanks.

It's interesting how that trip down the toilet and the Whappo-Crutchfield
scenario tie in with what is happening in the ballroom just before Tyrone
goes in to vomit (62-3). There are the bartenders at the bar: "a very fair
West Indian, slight, with a mustache, and his running mate black as a hand
in an evening glove, are moving endlessly in front of the deep, the oceanic
mirror that swallows most of the room into metallic shadows". It's as if
Slothrop in the toilet has stumbled through this mirror into a
world-in-reverse like Alice Through the Looking Glass.

In the ballroom there is also the woman whose look tells Slothrop "in an
instant what he is", and the playing of 'Cherokee', "one more lie about
white crimes". Pynchon (I think?) editorialises a little, before breaking
off to eulogise Charlie Parker's playing of the tune:

    But more musicians have floundered in the channel to 'Cherokee'
    than have got through from end to end. All those long, long notes . . .
    what're they up to, all that time to do something inside of? is it an
    Indian spirit plot?

These are the questions the white boy asks, irrational fears about the
repressed races rising up against their dominators. I think.

best

----------
>From: Paul Mackin <pmackin at clark.net>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: GRGR 31 Shit'n'Shinola
>Date: Sun, Jul 30, 2000, 12:28 PM
>

>
> Shinola would be smelly in the short run and apt to run off on
> one's clothes but as you say who'd notice. Especially after a trip down
> the toilet. The shoe shining was a loss leader, wasn't it? The real
> profits were in the sale of booze and contraceptives. Probably worse
> things too but whose complaining.
>
> I would have thought that self-respecting when used on the p-list or in
> most other contexts (at least in America) could be assumed to be
> ironic--sometimes with more than one level of irony. No self respecting
> stickup man would carry less than a .38. No self respecting hooker would
> fail to look in her johns billfold while he was asleep.
>
> Joke:
>
> What's the difference between shit and shinola?
>
> I don't know.
>
> Then I'm never going to let you shine MY shoes.