just a bit more re Playboy Japan interview

[barbara100 at jps.net]

Doug! No! Not "You go, girl!"  Are you crazy?!  He's an Aussie. He's never
gonna get our 'you go, girl!'  It's gonna come off sounding so insulting.
To a proud man like him--I can't imagine!--the indignation--his very
manhood!......Oh, maybe you knew that.   In that case,  Ha!


----- Original Message -----
From: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 10, 2002 5:54 PM
Subject: just a bit more re Playboy Japan interview


> "jbor"
> "I made no offer to seek out the authenticity of the "interview"
>
> You haven't done anything to support your knee-jerk assumption that it's a
> hoax, either -- you're still out there with "circumstantial" evidence and
> your romantic myth of Pynchon's "forty-year silence."  What was that
> circumstantial evidence again?  It was so lightweight it seems to have
> evaporated.
>
> Despite your continued efforts to rewrite what I've actually written, my
> position has been, keep an open mind until the Playboy Japan interview is
> demonstrated authentic or not.
>
> I've also suggested that if it is Pynchon, his dig at Bush and critique of
> the war are worth noting in the current militaristic climate that seems to
> have overwhelmed most Americans, that this skepticism of yet another
> American holy war is of a piece with what we read in his novels, essays,
> book support quotes, etc., and that the comments might make some of the
> Pynchon-L supporters of Bush's war uncomfortable. Others have used the
> interview to support their own interpretations of Pynchon, so that seems
to
> be OK to do, or is it just not OK if I do it?  I mean, you've been arguing
> for months now that Pynchon is a supporter of Bush's war on Afghanistan
> (one of the funniest assertions I've seen yet in 5 years on Pynchon-L --
> you and Mackin with the jokes!),  obviously you feel it's OK to use
> Pynchon's words to support your political agenda, so I guess I'm a little
> confused about why you're so hard on people who don't read Pynchon as a
> supporter of US militarism and war profits for multinational corporations.
>
> Of course you're free to interpret the remarks in the Playboy Japan
> interview any way that you choose, and I know you will -- one of the
things
> I like best about you is the tenacity with which you hold your opinion,
> until you see a need to change them, and then I admire how quickly you're
> able to adopt a position you formerly opposed. Such agility!
>
> Don't worry -- I won't let your harsh words turn me against you, "jbor" --
> I suspect you're a lonely soul, and I'm sending lots of good thoughts in
> your direction.  This is going to be a turn-around year for us all, I
> believe -- I mean, look at you, with that article coming up in Pynchon
> Notes (where you'll finally be published alongside Charles Hollander and
> the rest of the real Pynchon scholars), things are looking good for you,
> and nobody's happier for you than I am.  You go, girl! We have so much to
> be thankful for in 2002 already, don't you think?