LSD

[Judith A. Panetta]

Tiptoeing again...

I see the point you're making within the context of the story. It's as valid
as any. Perhaps add to it the theory that substance use/abuse is sequential
(You do pot it's going to lead to the harder stuff, blah, blah). However...

I take issue with the term "bored" housewives. Contrary to the popular
belief that labor saving devices actually saved labor, these appliances and
solutions (as in "better living through chemistry") simply raised the
standards of a well kept house. Link that with the consumer/corporate
competitiveness ("keeping up with the Jones") wrought by television (both in
advertisements and programmatic examples like Leave it to Beaver) and the
sudden demise of Rosie the Riveter (git back in the kitchen,
dammit)well...gee, boredom doesn't seem to be the word that fits.

This scenario doesn't quite fit Oepida either. But...that said, there was
another movement growing (albeit, slowly) that might reflect Oepida's
reactions and subsequent actions. That is the idea that the standards (and
we should include diagnoses/prescriptions as well) created by men were not
necessarily appropriate for women. A wave of self reflection rolling through
the culture, perhaps? Maybe the few scattered incidents of burning
undergarments? It would motivate a person to experience new things, to
question the society and their role in it.

Anxious, perhaps. Unfulfilled, maybe. Frustrated, possibly. But not bored.

Judy


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org]On
Behalf Of jbor
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2001 8:33 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: LSD


on 8/10/01 9:23 PM, lorentzen-nicklaus at lorentzen-nicklaus at t-online.de
wrote:

>
>> So the picture that is built up (for me, at least) is of a psychiatrist
who
>> prescribes "tranquillizers" to bored housewives in order to pacify them
>> emough so that they will participate in his government-sponsored
experiments
>> with hallucinogenic substances.
>
>
> "bored housewifes" do not need to be "pacified", do they? & then
> tranquillizers and psychedelica don't mix well; actually they use valium
etc.
> in clinics to get people off from trips which do not end or became
"horror".
>
> kai

Well, more often than not the boredom those housewives were feeling was
actually caused by hyperactivity and an excess of leisure time -- all those
electrical appliances and whitegoods in the home, and the supermarkets --
and so the tranq's would have helped to settle them down and resign them to
their "lot" in life. TV soapies, Tupperware parties and midday tippling
served much the same purposes as the Valium I guess, along with whatever
regular visits to the shrink, the tennis club, affairs with the gardener etc
that they could afford.

But my point was not that Herr Doktor wanted Oedipa to mix the downer with
the upper (though some hard-case users do do this, I'd add), but that the
tranq. would have slowed her down, lessened her resistance, and made her
more amenable to his suggestion that she join the hallucinogen program.

best