Professor Irwin Corey

[Dave Monroe]

A freind of mine recently sent me an image file I
couldn't open under the heading "Professor Irwin
Corey," with the message "with unidentified man." 
Unfortunately--except, of course, for my friend--said
man was easily identified as said friend, rather than
someone else notoriously reluctant to be positively
identified and/or detained ...  

However, did send me back to the, er,
unabstemious-minded Professor's acceptance speech for
Pynchon's National Book Award, conveniently online at
...

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/corey.htm

... --thanks, Otto!--where I couldn't but help notice
a certain overtone, viz. ...

Not only "the missiles which he has contributed"
(e.g., the V-2s of GR), not to mention "the MAIN
dterrent," but also "the great fiction story is now
being rehearsed before our very eyes, in the Nixon
administration," "Solzinitski," "a very, very small
amount compared to those that are dying elsewhere," "a
society where sex is a commodity and a politician can
become a TV personality," "Kissinger--acting President
of the United States" ...

The Cold War, the Nixon administration, the fictions
(i.e., lies) thereof, dissidence, a persecuted
dissident, death "elsewhere" than the United Sattes
(Vietnam, for starters), politicians as TV
personalities (again, mediation), Kissinger as "acting
president."  That is, definite references to the
politics of the day.  Not to mention "[t]he time will
come when religion will outlive its uselfulness" ...

"[H]e told me so himself ...."  Question is, just how
much DID Pynchon tell Corey, just how much of Corey's
(improvised or otherwise ...) speech revelas at least
an interference pattern with what Pynchon might have
said, had he chosen to say it.  "[H]e could ... in
other words, have been more specific, but rather than
to allude [to] the mundane, he has come to the
conclusion that brevity is the importance of our
shallow existence."  That brief delta-t (?) ...

Anyway, many, many resonances here.  And, again, my
copy of the Pynchon-introduced 1984 is allegedly on
its way to me, so ...








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