Work

[joeallonby]

on 7/21/03 10:19 PM, Don Corathers at gumbo at fuse.net wrote:

> If the question is, is there a connection between Zoyd's "working for the
> government" and the fact that television news is entertainment with a huge
> appetite for content, I'm willing to argue that yes, there is.
> 
> Certainly in the 1984 described in this novel, as in the real one and the
> real 2003, it suits the government's purposes for reporters to turn their
> attention from substantive stories to entertaining but meaningless crap. The
> natural order of things is that the bad stories force out the good, because
> they're cheaper to produce and they don't piss anybody off. This is a
> principle of journalism that anybody who has worked for a small-town
> newspaper, or any newspaper or television news program, will be able to
> recognize.
> 
> The government is obliged to provide bread and circuses. In Zoyd's case,
> they are distributing bread and getting a little circus in return.

Remember, this is Reagan's America. We didn't have a President, just an
actor who played one on T.V.
> 
> Not that I think any of this is consciously acknowledged or even understood
> by the participants. But in the ecology of power described in Vineland,
> Zoyd's annual performance is a little piece of the government's pacification
> strategy.

And this is perhaps why Zoyd is starting to feel guilty. He isn't a welfare
cheat. He, Frenesi's ex, has accepted a deal with the devil. His disability
is a buyout. In the past he could rationalize it because of Prairie. Now
it's starting to feel like blood money. Re-enter Hector.

> 
> Don Corathers
> 
> 
 
> 
> 
> 
> By requiring Zoyd to do something "publically crazy,"
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ecology of power
> 
> 
> 
> The news becomes the circus
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard Fiero" <rfiero at pophost.com>
> To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 8:38 PM
> Subject: Re: Work
> 
> 
>> I've gotten a little crazy with my delete key but as I recall,
>> Terrance's assertion with respect to work was that Vineland is
>> about work. I never bought the shtick that GR was about
>> religion but I can dig VL being about work. The thread has
>> explored various imaginary work ethics without touching on
>> whether VL has anything to say about work or whether notions of
>> work seem to dominate VL.
>> The last I looked, the List had decided that TV news is
>> entertainment and that Zoyd was actually working for the
>> Government. These reminiscences do add up to our usual foggy
>> definitions of work.
>> Is there something unexplored here?
>> 
>> 
> 
>