VLVL 24fps and the "Movement"

[jbor]

on 9/1/04 5:59 AM, Terrance wrote:

> DL and Sledge? The ass kickers. Not college
> kids, right? 

Right. Details on Sledge Poteet are a bit shady, but he's an African
American man, a driver (196.3, and note that many of the members of 24fps
crew own cars 194-5), and he admonishes the Pisks and Mirage (and Howie)
when they get caught up in frivolous "bickering" which both travesties and
trivialises the Civil Rights movement (198.4).

> How about Howie and Mirage?

And Krishna, the peacemeaker. Howie is the surfer dude who provides dope.
Mirage is the "unit astrologer".
 
> PS    I've  got the SDS book.

I'd be interested to hear whether you think Pynchon has taken his lead from
it in his (satiric) representation of various manifestations of "the
Movement" in _Vineland_.

It does seem to me that the PR3 incident recounted at the heart of the novel
is meant to symbolise or exemplify the collapse (or fragmentation) of the
Movement.

The article I linked before is a very good one, and it provides references
to a lot of stuff written by people who were there and who were actively
involved in SDS and some of the other organisations -- like the War Veterans
Against the War movement, and the Student anti-war league (SMC), from which
SDS disaffiliated itself -- which tended to be overlooked by people like
Sale and others writing about the '60s:

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m2005/1_33/56027322/p1/article.jhtml?term
= 

best