SLSL "TSR" "It's neurotic"

[pynchonoid]

"It's neurotic" (32)

The old-fashioned coin-operated Coke dispenser, mixing
carbonated water with syrup, offers a nice period
touch.


Prices for '50s-vintage Coke machines and links to
pix:
<http://www.pickerssupply.com/privatestock/coke.shtml>

restored:
http://www.homearcadecorp.com/cokemachines.htm

more
links:http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22Coke+machines%22


Main Entry:	1 neu·rot·ic 
Pronunciation:	nu-'rä-tik
Function:	adjective
Date:	1873
: of, relating to, constituting, or affected with
neurosis
- neu·rot·i·cal·ly  /-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb 

Main Entry:	2 neurotic
Function:	noun
Date:	1896
1 : one affected with a neurosis
2 : an emotionally unstable individual 
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary



Treating the machine as an animate being, as Rizzo
does in his joke, could be seen as a precursor to the
way Pynchon picks up and develops this theme in later
works.


Coke machine in a popular 1964 movie:

<http://inflow.corky.net/scripts/drStrangelove.html>

Mandrake: 
Operator, look, ah... is it possible to make this an
ordinary... ordinary trunk call? Well, what do you
call it... you know, ah... raps on phone box with
knuckles oh, ah... station to station. counts change
in his palm Oh, blast. Still twenty cents short.
Operator, hold on one... ah... I shan't keep you a
second. to Guano Colonel, that Coca-Cola machine, I
want you to shoot the lock off it. There may be some
change in there. 

Guano: 
That's private property. 

Mandrake: 
_exasperated_ Colonel, can you possibly imagine what
is going to happen to you, your frame, outlook, way of
life and everything, when they learn that you have
obstructed a telephone call to the President of the
United States? Can you imagine? Shoot it off! Shoot!
With the gun! That's what the bullets are for, you
twit! 

Guano: 
Ok. I'm gonna get your money for you. But if you don't
get the President of the Unites States on that phone,
you know what's going to happen to you? 

Mandrake: 
What? 

Guano: 
You're going to have to answer to the Coca-Cola
Company. Turns to the Coke machine and fires into it.
Change spills from the coin return slot. As Guano
bends to collect it, coke streams from a bullet hole
and showers his face. 

Cut to: int. War Room 

"Be careful you don't tilt it." (31)

"Tilt" is what you do (used to do?  been a long time
since I played one) to an old fashioned pinball
machine, in order to skew the outcome in the player's
favor.

http://www.lysator.liu.se/pinball/IPD/
"The Internet Pinball Database is the most
comprehensive list of pinball machines that have been
manufactured. It currently contains information on
more than 4000 different machines, and includes
photographs of well over a third of the games."

"The pinball machines writhe under the handling of
fanatical servicemen and their girls [...] (GR 273)

"the board lights up TILT" (GR 583, beginning the long
passage that evokes the wonderful old pinball machines
of yesteryear...)



-Doug





=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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