VLVL Count Drugula, or Mucho the Munificent

[Otto]

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 12:14 AM
Subject: Re: VLVL Count Drugula, or Mucho the Munificent


> > No talk of a drug-commune.
>
> "People came to their door at unexpected hours that could have been
> fantasies of the mind." (306)
>

Your quote isn't correct. My text says:

"People came to their door at unexpected hours looking for parties that
could easily have been fantasies of the mind." (306)

> >> and then to Mucho's place looking for
> >> drugs (306-9, at Mucho's he "searched all over the place for any
> >> evidence of a guest stash").
>

He doesn't search the whole place, only the guest room.

> When Zoyd gets to Mucho's he "searched all over the place for any evidence
> of the guest stash" and ends up having "to roll and light one of his own"
> when he can't find the stash (309.1-3). So, where did he get his "own",
> after being cleaned out while in gaol?
>

There are several possibilities:

1. on the street, somewhere on his way to the freeway exit, but we're
aren't told.
2. on the VW Bus, he could have those people his story and they gave him
some grass.
3. at the commune (your idea), but we aren't told.
4. on the way from the Sacramento Delta to San Francisco, we're not told
anything about that hitch.
5. from Trillium, but again we aren't told.

> Being able to wipe the baby's bottom away from her front and "Keep 'em
legs
> together, teen bimbo" (55) don't exactly qualify him as Father of the
Year.
>

There are roughly fifteen years between the two moments you refer
to. Given the state of mind Prairie's in when we first meet her it's these
years that have proven his qualities as a loving father who is able to bring
up a child alone, without the mother, successfully.

Fathers of the year send their kids to the church to get raped by some
clergyman or to Vietnam to die for their country.

> Back then an acid trip was more important to Zoyd than his child's birth.
>
> best

According to the text he took the quarter of the tab *because* of the
childbirth. Zoyd, at that time obviously believing in the karma concept, is
convinced that the newborn Prairie is looking at him despite the scientific
knowledge that "newborns don't see much" (285):

"(...) but at this moment, oh God, God, she knew him, *from someplace else."
(ibid)

respectfully

Otto