SLSL "TSR" Fort Roach; Frogs

[pynchonoid]

somebody:
>I don't know how you can surmise that from a name.

A reader can't know with absolute certainty, of
course, but  authorial irony makes it pretty clear in
this case, I think.  The story's protagonist loves
Fort Roach, but the author gives the place a name with
loathsome connotations.  (Having lived in south
Louisiana for many years, I can say with certainty
that the place is rife with roaches -- the great
equalizer they say, found even in the best houses, and
despised in all.)

http://yucky.kids.discovery.com/flash/roaches/
Yucky Roach World

(Anachronistic, I know, but I don't know that roaches
have ever been considered fuzzy and amiable.)

>When I think of Roach, I think of the burnt butt end
>of a marijuana cigarette.  I kinda think Pynchon is
>alluding, in a hip sort of way, to T.S. Eliot. 

That may be an anachronism -- was "roach" used in this
way in '59? Certainly it was by the  mid-60s. It means
a different drug now, apparently:

http://www.anytestkits.com/drug-slang-roach.htm
"benzodiazepines such as diazepam, flunitrazepam, etc
- hypnotic and calming effect induced"


Dave Meury:
>Also, there was a Fort Roach.  The military took over
the Hal Roach
>studios in California to make training and propaganda
films.  Ronald
>Reagan worked there (now that ought to ring the old
Pavlovian bell for
>some listers).

Thanks, sorry I missed that. It rings a _Vineland_
bell, for me at least.

http://artarchives.si.edu/oralhist/mcinto99.htm
Interview with Harrison McIntosh
Conducted by Mary MacNaughton
At the Artist's home/studio in Claremont, California
February 24 & 25 and March 3, 1999

Preface
The following oral history transcript is the result of
a tape-recorded interview with Harrison McIntosh on
February 24, 25 and March 3, 1999. The interview took
place in Claremont, CA, and was conducted by Mary
MacNaughton for the Archives of American Art,
Smithsonian Institution. [...]

I received my draft notice and told the draft board
that I was -- I had plans. I was just about to get
married. And they said, AOh, that's all right. You
just go right ahead because we don't want to interfere
with your plans. So we did get married and we rented a
small apartment that was just a short distance from my
parents' house where I could make use of the studio to
continue making the ceramics. Well, of course, only a
matter of very short time afterwards I did receive the
notice to appear from the draft board for service. And
so I was enlisted into the Army for which I had no
skills or preparation whatever to be useful in any
means. My brother was very fortunate in that when he
was drafted, while he was working at Disney's, he
received a uniform at Ft. McArthur and came home, and
the next day went to work at the old Hal Roach Studios
which they referred to as Ft. Roach because this had
been taken over by the Air Force. And his work was
very valuable in making training films for the air
pilots, which is what he did all during the war. [...]




On another topic, Aristophanes' Frogs, I expect ol'
jbor would be singing a different tune if he had
spotted the possible connection and brought it to our
attention first.  Within the context of Pynchon's
evocation of Greek myth, the "chorus of frogs"
allusion repeated, and the intertextual link back to
Buttercup's song -- I don't think you have to go out
on a limb at all to see the link.  I smell  sour
grapes on jbor's part here.

Meanwhile, all of those allusions to frogs that jbor
pulls up can be put into play in a reading of "TSR" --
some will reflect better than others what the French 
call "les enjeux du texte", and digging into them
might reveal who knows what?  I mean, if the Buttercup
reference to Gilbert & Sullivan had been dismissed out
of hand as irrelevant because the play's name or
authors' names didn't appear in the story, it's clear
that a reader would be missing something interesting
and important.  Foreclosing a particular path of
investigation just because it doesn't appear likely at
first may save some steps, but it may also mean
missing a vista worth seeing.

-Doug










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