VV(11): FLASH

[Dave Monroe]

"Five bells, or FLASH" (V., Ch. 8, Sec. ii, p. 218)

"Flash message: A category of precedence reserved for initial enemy contact 
messages or operational combat messages of extreme urgency. Brevity is 
mandatory. See also precedence," it sez here ...

http://www.tacintel.com/wim/documents/acronym/acronym.htm#F

Also turned up ...

http://www.nautilus.org/nukepolicy/index.html

The five bells, not to mention the "flash" (as in "news"), seem to have been 
journalistic practice as well.  Five bells from the teletype for urgent 
incoming news.  But I'm having a hell of a time discerning if there's an 
acronym of some sort involved here.  The capitalization would seem to imply 
it, but ...

But I did note that it's '55 here, not '56.  Still, that clock stayed set as 
it was from 1953-60, so ... so, anyway, back to that "curious sea story," a 
"curious sea story" about some "curious sea stories." Now there's your 
narrative nesting for you ...

"Russian torpedoes, evil and barracudalike" (p. 218).  Appropriately 
phallic, given what's, er, coming ("No puns where none intended" --Samuel 
Beckett), no?

"Pause.  Finally the keys started clattering again" (ibid.)

"THE GREEN DOOR."  Far too early to allude to the Mitchell Brothers 
directed, Marilyn Chambers starring, trapeze featuring 70s porn flick.     
And, in 1955, it won't be 'til next year that the Jim Lowe record ("The 
Green Door") tops the Billboard chart for three weeks (although note that 
the "music includes constant 'tick-tock' clock sound") ...

http://www.summer.com.br/~pfilho/html/lyrics/g/green_door.txt

So just how did this phrase become associated with pornography?  Keep in 
mind, I do all this from work, public libraries, relatives' computers, local 
universities, online coffee shops, i.e., places I'm not so sure I want to 
leave a trail of--much less be caught accessing--certain sites.  Standard 
bordello room door color?  A little help, please ...

"One night Dolores, Veronica, Justine, Sharon, Cindy Lou, Geraldine and 
Irving ..."  An interesting list of names there.  Dolores "Lolita" Haze 
(Nabokov)?  Justine, or the Misfortunes of Virtue (de Sade)?  Cindy Lou Who 
(Dr. Seuss)?  Sharon's a bit generic for me here, it seems a bit early for 
Flip Wilson to figure here (first "Tonight Show' appearance in 1965, though 
he had been performing at the Apollo since 1960), though I'm sure we could 
go on and on about Veronica (Lodge?), but Irving ...

Irving, of course, is one of those standard comedy names, and it's no more 
comedic than when at the tail end of a list of other names, e.g., 
"Gilligan's Island"'s The Mosquitoes: Bingo, Bango, Bongo and Irving (who, 
minus Bingo, were The Wellingtons, i.e., the vocal group singing "The Ballad 
of Gilligan's Island" each and ev'ry episode) ...

http://www.gilligansisle.com/mosq.html

But it seems to loom particularly large in Pynchon's own comedic legend.  
Schoenmaker's nurse, "called, by some associative freak, Irving" (p. 45; er, 
what is that "associative freak"?).  Irving Loon in "Mortality and Mercy in 
Vienna."  But also, in re: "a series of letters, more than 120 in all, that 
the famously reclusive author wrote to his former agent, Candida Donadio, 
between 1963 and 1982" ...

"The letters also display flashes of Pynchon's baroque wit. When Who's Who 
asked him to supply a biographical note, the Times writes, Pynchon debated 
replying that his parents were named Irving Pynchon and Guadalupe 
Ibarguengotia and that he was 'named Exotic Dancers Man of the Year in 1957' 
and 'regional coordinator for the March of Edsel Owners on Washington (MEOW) 
in 1961."

http://www.salon.com/media/1998/03/10media.html

And, for M&MIV, which isn't included in Slow Learner ...

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

"an Annapolis graduate named Knoop" (pp. 218-9).  Grant (A Companion to V.) 
glosses this via (ahem) ...

Harder, Kelsie B.  "Names in Thomas Pynchon's V."
   Literary Onosmatics Studies 5 (1978): 64-80.

"His name comes from science, The Knoop Scale, 'a scale of hardness based on 
the indentation made in the material to be tested by a diamond point.'  It 
was named after F. Knoop, an American Chemist" (Harder, p. 72)

Great, now we've got the critics' names to contend with as well.  Though I 
don't think we'll need to call Mr. Hollander in on this one ...

"A DOG STORY, involving a St. Bernard" (p. 219): cf. he "saint Bernard" 
Charisma and Fu "had found in the street drooling and sick" (p. 300).  Just 
how was that dog "involved" in that "story"?  Hm ...

"WHY OUR X.O. IS QUEER" (p. 219): X.O. = Executive Officer, though I can't 
answer any further questions there ...

"LUCKY PIERRE RUNS AMOK" (p. 219): I had it in mind that "Lucky Pierre" 
might be a stick character of some sort, perhaps a variation on Pierrot, but 
this seems the most immediate possibility ...

The Adventures of Lucky Pierre (1961), directed by Herschell Gordon Lewis, 
starring Billy Falbo as Pierre.  "A Pinch of Pepper, a Nip of Ginger, a Dash 
of Mustard in as Spicy a Dish of Adult Cinema as you'll ever taste!"  See 
...

http://www.awcm.com/bbb/nr980911.htm

http://www.phillyburbs.com/halloween2000/hgl/images/lucky.gif

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0054604

http://us.imdb.com/Name?Lewis,+Herschell+Gordon

HGL also directed The Gore-Gore Girls (though the Bush-Bush Girls has its 
charm as well), Miss Nymphet's Zap-In, She-Devils on Wheels, Monster a-Go-Go 
(somebody had to), 2,000 Maniacs (+ 8,000 = ...), Boin-n-g and, possibly 
most perversely, The Magic Land of Mother Goose.  But if anybody wants to 
follow up on that Pierrot vector ...

Storey, Robert F.  Pierrot: A Critical Study of a mask.
   Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1990.

And, of course, there's also Raymond Queneau's Pierrot Mon Ami (1942), 
Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire (1912), and, clocking in just a bit too 
late for our purposes here, but a favorite nonetheless, Jean-Luc Godard's 
Pierrot le Fou (1965), which definitely comments directly on the Vietnam War 
...

"there were an even dozen, all carefully filed away by Pig under F" (p. 
219): for "FLASH," no doubt.  Eggs, apostles, hours, you name it ...

"But initial sin entails eventual retribution" (p. 219).  How's that for yr 
Christianity, and, esp, yr Catholicism?

"Potamos the cook" (p. 219): as in "Peter"?  there was an episode of "The 
Peter Potamus and So-So Show" titled "The Crossbow Incident" (cf. Operation 
Crossbow [and there's a film titled that as well]), but it aired in the 
1966-67 season, so (so) ...

http://members.aol.com/PaulEC3/peter.html

"Apparently Pig's knees had developed this odd way of locking, which if the 
Scaffold were on an even keel would enable him to sleep standing up.  He was 
a medical curiosity" (p. 219).  Well, then, so am I ...

But note also how this flash(!)back, this narrative within a narrative, ends 
just as abruptly as it began.  Even more so.  Ending not with a Bodine but 
with a Crockett ...
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