VLVL Ditzah

[jbor]

>> Cf. also the Pisk sisters with "their hair in matching oversize Jewish
>> Afros" (196.18-19). Arguable, I realise, but mentioned not so much an
> ethnic
>> label as the name of the 'do. Note how the phrasing ("hair in",
> "matching",
>> "oversize") implies that it's the work of a hairdresser rather than
>> something which has grown naturally. Don't imagine those "battle fatigues"
>> they were "going around in" were cheap either.
>> 
> It's easily imaginable. As I understand it, battle fatigues were typically
> obtained cheap at Army surplus stores.

They are easily obtainable nowadays, and from the late '70s. I question
whether they would have been as easily obtainable back in '68-9. There was,
after all, a war on. Army clothes were certainly a stereotypical fashion
item for a particular type of college kid, however. The description at
194.18-22 emphasises the fact that they sought a particular image in their
look and demeanour. They were "going around in" army clothes, they wore
"their hair in" a style most commonly associated with African-Americans. The
wording implies that this appearance was studied rather than casual. Even
the Tupperware detail suggests that they were rich kids.

It seems to me that what is foregrounded throughout the chapter is the way
they dressed and talked and acted, and their focus on the sex, drugs and
rock and roll side of things. There is nothing specific about their supposed
political motivations and agenda, which suggests to me that the image was by
far the most important part of it for them.

> Jewfros--especially those of the "oversize" variety--are typically the
> product of avoiding hairdressers as long as one can bear.

Possibly. It's also possible that they had these "matching" hairdos created
at the salon.

> As far as Danish being a type of pastry (and therefore a confection of
> privileged class), they're as much a type of pastry as donuts.

They're a type of pastry. If you're accustomed to buying a Danish for
breakfast and shopping at ritzy department stores then you're not on the
breadline.

> In other
> words, they're not at all associated with privilege. They're a common
> breakfast pastry--at least they are in New York City.
> 
> In the passages under discussion there is no indication that the Pisks
> purchased expensive new television sets.

They "liked to" work with two or three television sets and a radio on. I
assume they learnt their craft back in NYC, and this is the environment they
were accustomed to. It's a fair enough assumption.

> Much of the equipment used by the
> Pisks is among the assets of the Kollective (p. 197). However, some of their
> own tools (paper clips, Scotch tape, their own teeth and nails) are clearly
> low-budget.
> 
> Also note that the Pisks specifically remember "apartment living" in NYC as
> "warm and neighborly." That's different from remembering the whole of NYC
> that way, or perceiving it through the eyes of an outsider. It's quite
> possible that kids growing up in an apartment building in the 1950s and
> 1960s would recall their apartment building as being a warm and neighborly
> environment and find the less intimate living conditions in California to be
> "cold and distant."

You've rewritten the text to make your point. "They found West Coast people
'cold and distant' .... " (196.24) This is the context of the comparison
they are making.

> The Pisks carp about the West Coast world of cars, pet therapy, I. Magnin,
> and the "easy-come easy-go" sex lives of surfers. Between the two of them,
> they miss Danish, warmth and neighborliness, a standard of big and bustling
> NYC department store set by the middle-class Macy's, and New York City as a
> sentimentalized whole: "California's only reality for them was to be found
> in the million ways it failed to be New York."

Yes. They are parochial, as I noted. (Though, where is "middle-class Macy's"
mentioned in the text? Zipi's complaint is that Magnin's is "no major
store", though it is perhaps comparable to some suburban "shopping center,
somewhere on Long Island perhaps"; the implication being, I think, that Zipi
has a wealth of shopping experience back in NYC to draw on.)

> Overall, the Pisks seem rooted in a cherished middle-class (even lower
> middle-class) NYC background. Politically committed middle-class sisters
> might well have traveled cross-country to a California city that was a
> hotbed of radicalism. They wouldn't have had to be privileged to do that.
> 
> There was a mention on this listserv that the sisters were from the Bronx.
> Is there anything in the text that supports that? Does it specify the
> neighborhood?

I don't imagine that teenagers from the Bronx, or from a working class
background, would have the same attitudes, appearance, interests, or points
of comparison, as the Pisk sisters. The accumulation of details in the text,
the way the descriptive phrases are worded, and the comments they are
reported as making, suggest to me that they are the products of a privileged
upbringing, and the chapter throws some doubt on the reasons for and the
context of their so-called "political commitment", both then and now.

As there is more to come on Ditzah and Zipi in the novel, I'm sure we'll be
able to test further our respective impressions of the way Pynchon has
characterised them. What I am already certain of, however, is that Porter's
contention that Ditzah and Zipi are merely "goofin' on them ... well aware
of how they're being stereotyped", isn't borne out by the text.

best