VLVL Ditzah

[jbor]

>> See 198.15-22 for a description of the content of a considerable portion of
>> that 24fps footage, and of what Ditzah and Zipi most typically turned their
>> technical talents towards, their frustration "at the impossibility of
>> getting any of these hippie chicks to do anything on the beat".
>> 
>> Is Ditzah showing the film ("reel after reel" of it, pp. 197-8) primarily
>> for Prairie's benefit, or so that she and DL can reminisce (see 196.4-10 in
>> particular)? What evidence is there in the text of Ditzah's supposed
>> "warmth" towards Prairie? Seems to me that she and DL become so engrossed in
>> their indulgent nostalgia trip that they forget that Prairie's even there.
 
on 2/1/04 2:08 AM, Terrance wrote:
 
> Yeah, that's what happens. All these folks have compiled "scrapbooks"
> of their glory days.
> 
> bottom of  page 262,  another example
> 
> "Ever since she'd computerized and built a database, it had been no
> problem, nostalgically now and then, to progress the charts of everyone
> in the old 24fps gang, see how their lives were going and, if it was
> really critical, to try to get in touch."
> 
> Notice that this nostalgia is computerized and that a file of BV's chart
> is also maintained.
> 
> at the bottom 264 DL admits that the computer & film narratives have
> been a form of reminiscing.  She advises  Prairie to go to a library and
> read up on Nixonian repression and Reagan's current policies or policy
> proposals. Ditzah, we gather, hasn't given up her politics or film
> making and DL has learned to think outside the ring, historically that
> is.

I haven't read ahead just yet, but I seem to recall that it all comes as a
bit of a shock to them. I have an impression that they hadn't been keeping
up with politics much at all -- a bit like Justin knowing more than Frenesi
and Flash about Reaganomics because he watches "MacNeil and Lehrer" (88).

Obviously the novel isn't an endorsement of Nixon or Reagan, but it's
equally obvious that it's not a glorification of the '60s counterculture
either: it's a stinging critique. In fact, the general thrust of the novel
seems to be to demonstrate how the counterculture, sometimes willingly as in
Frenesi's case (and Van Meter's), and sometimes unintentionally or
blunderingly, through narcissism and self-indulgence (24fps),
disorganisation (PR3), and apathy and selfishness (Zoyd), actively advanced
the conservative cause.

best