VV(11): Sick Bars

[Dave Monroe]

"In came Pig Bodine and Charisma, singing a drinking song:" (V., Ch. 8, Sec. 
iii, p. 224)

"sick bars" (p. 224)
Can't help hearing a Social Distortion track here ("Sosh Dee--man, they were 
stylin'"), but ... e.g., "that Rusty Spoon" (p. 224).  As opposed to, of 
course, that Silver Spoon, or even that Tarnished Spoon ...

"sick people" (p. 224)
Such as The Whole Sick Crew (V., Ch. 2, pp. 44-60).  "Sick" = "decky-dant" = 
underground = avant-garde = Bohemian = ?  See perhaps here ...

Nordau, Max.  Degeneration.
   Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1993 [1892].

"You can screw on the floor in Baltimore" (p. 224)
'Zat true, Dude?

"Make Freudian scene in New Orleans" (p. 224)
Say it ain't so, Mo ...

"Talk Zen and Beckett in Keokuk, Ioway" (p. 225)
On the "Yen for Zen" amongst the American avant-garde, see "The Boddhisatvas 
of Cool," pp. 145-81 of ...

MacAdams, Lewis.  Birth of the Cool:
   Beat, Bebop, and the American Avant-Garde.
   New York: The Free Press, 2001

Then, of course, there's Samuel Beckett (1906-1989, Nobel Prize for 
Literature 1969).  Read 'im and weep.  Through the laughter, of course.  Not 
to mention Keokuk, IA ...

http://www.keokuk.net/history/

Which seems to have outright skipped the decade (i.e., the 1950s).  Mark 
Twain slept here ...

"There's espresso machines in Terre Haute, Indiana" (p. 225)
The Terre may be Haute, but not, apparently, the couture: "a cultural void 
if ever a void there be" (ibid.).  But I'm not so sure about the plural 
"machines" there, even today ...

http://www.terrehaute.com/restaurants.asp?Cat=Coffee+Houses

Home of Eugene V. Debs, who I've voted for in my lifetime.  If he can run 
from prison, he can run from the grave ...

"But though I've dragged my ass from Boston, Mass.
To the wide Pacific sea" (p. 225)
Which rhymes, after a fashion, with Manifest Destiny ...

"It was like bringing a little bit of that gathering-place in among the 
proper facades of Riverside Drive" (p.225).  Again, Riverside Drive, 
location, significance?  "Someone turned on the FM" (ibid.), i.e., at the 
time, at least, vs. AM, "underground," "sick" radio.  "He remembered to set 
the alarm clock" (ibid.). Whereas I apparently did not, which is why I was 
so late this morning ...

And so (unless anyone has any questions or comments) we finish our whirlwind 
tour of Chapter 8, Section iii of Thomas Pynchon's V.  Now I've got me a 
samurai film (via a hardboiled novel, and, later, a spaghetti western, et 
al.) to see, but I'll be back with our fourth and final section just as soon 
as I can get back online.  Y'all come back now ...
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com