VLVL Ditzah

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> on 10/1/04 6:30 AM, Terrance wrote:
> 
> > All the characters in this novel are portrayed comically.
> >
> > Are the Mouth Sisters satirized to the same degree as the other members
> > of the 24fps (i.e., Sledge, Howie, Mirage)?
> >
> >
> > I don't think so.  P's satire regarding the violent "smash the state"
> > and "power to the people" bomb making wing of the collective is quite
> > harsh. Sledge, Mirage, Howie are not subjected to the same harsh satire.
> 
> Yes, there's a difference between satirical and comical which it pays not to
> gloss over. As well as playing dress-ups and kvetching about comfort foods
> and shopping, getting really stoned and laying around on the beach, the Pisk
> sisters' graffiti reads "SMASH THE STATE" (194), not "End the War". They
> think of themselves as "anarchist bombers". They're very silly.
> 
> NB also that the PR3 posters and spray-painted slogans read "CUBA WEST" and
> "WE'RE RIGHT UP THEIR ASS AND THEY DON"T EVEN KNOW IT" (209). Again, there's
> nothing whatsoever to suggest that either they or 24fps ever had anything to
> do with anti-war or civil rights (or free speech, for that matter) groups.
> 
> I'm not sure that it's a question of degrees of harshness as it is the fact
> that there's more text about Ditzah especially, and Zipi, than there is
> about Howie, Mirage and Sledge. In comparison with Ditzah and Zipi, Frenesi
> doesn't come off too badly in the 24fps chapter either, likewise DL.

I considered that and it's a good point. I think we had this kind of
problem when we discussed RC, though I still contend that all the Bush
Vets in the novel are satirized. 

I think there is enough text here to compare the core members of the
24fps crew.  I think that we need to look at the "Light" and the
political/religious ideas about Film in this chapter.  Sledge says that
you don't go out and die for no Mother-fuckin Shadows. The Pisk Sisters
are into Che, martyrs, killing and being killed for the film and the
cause. Sledge  is in the realist wing with DL. He pulls these Joan Of
Arcs out of the flames.  I think Howie and Sledge work, Mirage fits in
with the visionaries. 




> The 24fps crew includes "impatient apprentices, old-movie freex,
> infiltrators and provocateurs of more than one political stripe" (196). It's
> possible that none of them are actually enrolled in a college, though DL
> does meet up with Ditzah at Berkeley. Note also that Pynchon doesn't mention
> what the protest was about when DL rescues Frenesi, as if to imply that the
> cause itself wasn't nearly as important as the confrontation (116-7).


It's possible that they graduated or dropped out. Frenesi was born just
after the end of W.W.II, say 45-46. Prairie was born in 1970. She was a
film student at Berkeley and  that's where DL met her. Zoyd tells us she
went to Berkeley (41). . We don't know if she graduated, but we know
that she met the Pisk sisters there. We don't know if they took classes
together, but we know that they took over a college film collective and
that they still live in the area. Were the sisters Pisk   born with the
gift for film making, genuine film geniuses?