Re: VLVL2 (1) Zoyd's WORK

[Don Corathers]

Sorry, Tim, didn't mean to repeat something you had already posted. I think
my intention was a little different: that, as Terrance says, Zoyd may be
"working" for the government, but as a transfenestrator his role in the
Vineland economy is to give the video-hungry broadcasters something to
shoot. He's a content provider. It's the back side of the Tube's pervasive
penetration into daily life: with (at least) 86 channels on 24 hours a day
there's a lot of airtime to fill, which is why we get TV movies like Pia
Zadora in The Clara Bow Story and news that consists of a guy in a dress
jumping through a sugar-glass window.

By the way, did anybody notice that Zoyd answers the question posed on the
second page of Pynchon's first novel?

"...here were your underage Marine barfing in the street, barmaid with a
ship's propeller tatooed on each buttock, one potential berserk studying the
best technique for jumping through a plate glass window (when to scream
Geronimo? before or after the glass breaks?)..."

V., p 10

"Zoyd eyeballed himself in the mirror behind the bar, gave his hair a shake,
turned, poised, then screaming ran empty-minded at the window and went
crashing through."

Vineland, p 11

D.C.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Strzechowski" <dedalus204 at comcast.net>
To: "Pynchon-L" <pynchon-l at waste.org>; "Don Corathers" <gumbo at fuse.net>
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 11:49 PM
Subject: Re: VLVL2 (1) Zoyd's WORK


> > It's not too early, is it, to begin talking about the role played by the
> > media in this pop culture-drenched novel. Zoyd may be paid by the
> > government, but he really works for the local and regional television
> > stations. His gig is to do a five-minute shock-reality-comedy TV show
> every
> > year, helping broadcasters satisfy their viewers' enormous and
insatiable
> > appetite for video diversion. He was twenty years ahead of "Jackass,"
but
> > his clips would have fit in seamlessly. Nor is what he does
fundamentally
> > different from the work of performers on today's "Survivor," "The
> Bachelor,"
> > or "Fear Factor" (strong 1984 vibe there, too).
> >
> > Not only does Zoyd shop carefully for a dress that will look good on the
> > tube, the role of broadcast "news" in his annual stunt has become so
> > institutionalized that the stations have people who are paid to schedule
> it
> > and make arrangements. This year they've even replaced the window with
> prop
> > glass, so the talent won't get hurt (probably on the advice of the
> station's
> > attorneys). Zoyd is a demi-celebrity, recognized by people on the street
> and
> > idolized by his daughter's friends.
> >
> > Zoyd's an artiste in the entertainment business. If the disability money
> > dries up, there's always the NEA(for a few years yet, anyway).
> >
> > Don Corathers
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> I agree, and your post simply gives a more well-supported and eloquent
> rendition of my previous post: at the point we see Zoyd in Chapter 1, the
> news crews and government seem to be dictating how the "show" should be
> done.
>
> At this point, Zoyd is officially an "employee."
>
>
>
>