Billy the Mountain in Vineland

[Hunter Felt]

>From: "Richard Romeo" <richardromeo at hotmail.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Billy the Mountain in Vineland
>Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 21:02:34 +0000
>
>well, it must've been the NYC homegrown but whilst listening to 'Billy the
>Mountain' that inevitable display of blissful zappa-ian chaos, it ocurred 
>to
>my california-addled brain that some bits of that album-side long stroll
>through some strange folks in LA (w/ a dudley do-right wristwatch!)that 
>bits
>sounded liked some of the extended goofey riffs in that vineland saga.
>
>but what do I know
>
>yrs
>
>ethel


Hmm, the fight against the "do-goody" (but actually fascist) government 
agent vs. the (also satirized) hippie community.  It's certainly plausible 
that this rather trivial song could have tickled Pynchon's funny bone.  
Frank Zappa after all is namechecked a few times, if I remember, in 
"Vineland" (I don't have a copy on me...), which suggests that Pynchon has 
some passing familiarity with Zappa's music.  Zappa is a little too 
idiosyncratic of a choice simply to be an "insert random sixities musician 
here" moment on Pynchon's part.

I for one see a connection between Pynchon's "paranoia of the reader" and 
Zappa's "conceptual continuity."  (For the best example of willed listener's 
paranoia on Zappa read Ben Watson's "The Negative Dialectics of Poodle 
Play."  It's entertaining, to say the least.)  Both Zappa and Pynchon 
introduce the possibility that "connections" and "repetitions" could simply 
be an elaborate trap set up for the listener/reader/consumer.

Which is interesting and clever in Pynchon, but is kinda annoying when Zappa 
does it.

- Recovering Zappa addict,
Hunter A. Felt

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