Billy the Mountain in Vineland

[Otto]

Not to forget that they both have an affection for the Wizard of Oz:

(...)
Yes, it was about three o'clock in the afternoon when little Howard Kaplan
was sitting on his porch ( "Toto...!") just playing ( "Come here, Toto
...!") and having a nice time with his little accordion, ("Toto...!") and
this weird wind came up, direct from Glendale, blowing those terrible germs
in his direction ... and all this caused by huge mountain ("Aunty Em")
somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly, sucking up two-thirds of it (
suck, suck, suck) for an ultimetly dispersal over vast stretches of ...
WATTS!!!
(...)
http://www.science.uva.nl/~robbert/zappa/albums/Just_Another_Band_From_L.A./
01.html

Otto, recovering too

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hunter Felt" <uglatto at hotmail.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 2:18 AM
Subject: Re: Billy the Mountain in Vineland

>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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