"How Crit Finally Won Out Over Lit"

Swing Hammerswing hammerswingswing at hotmail.com
Sat May 19 07:43:39 CDT 2001



>From: Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: "How Crit Finally Won Out Over Lit"
>Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 02:09:21 -0700 (PDT)
>
>This just in, on the (forthcoming, now, apparently)
>Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism ...
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/19/arts/19NORT.html
>
>And note those "last-minute snips."  Sheesh ...


When I was just a kid, eighteen-years-of-age, I already had
a three-years-old daughter and I was already a sophmore
at XXXXX. I didn't have a driver's licenseand I couldn't afford to live very 
close to the campus. They have, and they had then
a very good public transportation system, but I had to
drop my dauhget off at Mrs. Toscano's house (I'll never forget her
or her house, as soon as you stepped into Mrs. Toscano's
home you stood at attention, both her boys were MIA, she had
newspaper clippings of the Kennedy boys and MLK hung on
the walls like stations of the cross, but she took good
care of my daughter, better than me, and she was kind....)...
And one morning driving my bike to Mrs. Toscano's house,
my knees stickin out of my faded jeans, my ass not hanging
out for the whole world to see cause I patched the seat
with an American flag, my Norton Critical in a paper sack
dangling from the handle bars below Divinity's feet, suddenly the
bag swung out as I swerved to avoid a bottle on the road
and when I straightened the wheel that Norton critical,
thick as any NYC phone book, thin, nearly translucent the pages,
delicate articles, dainty and dignified phrases, well-crafted poems,
gods and men, women too, was fed like toilet paper on the fork
to the shreading spokes and momentum of the turning wheels, it
didn't slow the bike anymore than playing cards, confetti whirling,
my daughter giggling, I soaked  the perspiration from my forehead
with the back of my right and then the left forearm,
dabbing at the involuntary tears on my cheek bones.


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