The Fool Cover

[Dave Monroe]

Got my copy of The Fool ... Plus (SEECD 496), and it
sounds exactly like it looks.  So you can imagine ...
well, nothing to rush out and get.  Starts with some
promising scifi space noises, but ...

Fey flower children not unreminiscent of those "gently
grooving" in the very great Peter Cook/Dudley Moore
Bedazzled (Dir. Stanley Donen, 1967).  Perhaps more
competent than, say, The Shaggs, but not, like the
Shaggs, brilliantly, endearingly lame ...

A recurrent, shambling Bo Diddley beat.  Don't know
about Pynchon, but "Rainbow Man" is almost certainly
the source for They Might Be Giant's "Particle Man"
("Ranibow Man, Rainbow Man, color your days as only
you can," right down to the melody) ... 

The instrumental, "Keep on Pushin'," is a kind of
freak-out, rumoured to feature Graham Bond on Hammond,
and with an  uncharactersitically abrasive "Eastern"
sax line, but ...

But it was produced by Graham Nash, and now I know why
I should have known these guys ... 

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_music_fool.html

Not only did the two girls design the Hollies' very
wonderful Evolution album sleeve, as well as that of
the first Move album, but they were adopted by The
Beatles' Apple Corps as house designers, painting not
only the Apple boutique ...

http://www.strawberrywalrus.com/applestore.html

http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/manicstreet/526/apboutique.htm

But John Lennon's Rolls Royce as well ...

http://www.cci-icc.gc.ca/frameset_e.asp

http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/beatles/rolls.html

So, no, my guess is, Pynchon DIDN'T have them
particularly in mind in Gravity's Rainbow.  "The
Fool," of course, resonates with GR's tarot motifs,
which is no doubt why the name was chose, but I
suspect they are posed "in the arrogant style of the
early Stones" (GR, Pt. IV, p. 742) because The Fool
sounds not unlike The Who or The Move or any number of
other British R&B/Mod/freakbeat/pop/whatever bands of
the time ...

--- Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe@[omitted]> wrote:
> 
> http://www.holeintheweb.com/drp/drpfool.htm
> 
> --- Otto <o.sell@[omitted]> wrote:
>
http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellturne/thomaspynchon.htm

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