VLVL 24fps and "the Movement"

[Terrance]

> 
> Meanwhile, back at the text, Rex Snuvvle is described as follows:
> 
>     while being indoctrinated into the government's version of
>     the war in Vietnam, [he] had, despite his own best efforts,
>     been at last as unable to avoid the truth as, once knowing
>     it, to speak it, out of what he easily admitted was fear of
>     reprisal.  (207)
> 
> The point Pynchon is making in _Vineland_ is that, by 1969, there was no
> longer a "combined civil rights/anti-war movement". The students and
> agitators were busy bickering amongst themselves, smoking dope and playing
> dress-ups and, eventually, making bombs and breaking things, and
> demonstrating and rioting just for the sake of it. The Civil Rights and
> anti-War and free speech causes got lost along the way.

Why would P make this point? I don't think this is point at all. 

Meanwhile,  Back in the text,  Rex is obsessed with his research subject
and comes to believe that the men and women of the BLGVN are a kind of
romantic lost tribe with a failed cause.  His zealous desire to record
their history is described in religious terms (bottom 207-208). Fear of
reprisal doesn't prevent this scribe from telling Weed to preach the
good word to the Steering Committee of the newly formed ADHOC. Weed
doesn't take up the cause and Rex is frustrated. The daisy chain turns
and turns. His quoting Talleyrand has been discussed. 

Weed, more interested in life style changes than politics and lost
causes is busy listening to The Wolfman on XERB, getting hip, getting
girls. The Conservative kids at the College of the Surf, tune into to 
Johnny Come Late Late Late Show's hip-cat program, it's all innocent and
festive, nothing  defiant or subversive, nothing desperate or urgent,
"not much by Berkeley or Columbia standards, maybe,"  but Rex places
Weed in the emerging junta. 

The Conservative kids are just having a bit of fun. The 1960's are about
finished and these kids are just growing their hair a bit, checking out
the new rock and roll (Zeppelin 69 ain't exactly revolutionary),  a
little pot, some sex. But hiking up the skirt and growing facial hair so
close to San Clemente could make the locals wonder what the heck is
going on at their college. 

Meanwhile, the kids are doing research. Not like the kids at Columbia at
all they discover a real estate deal that's nothing like the one at
Columbia. The College of the Surf isn't what it seems (top 209). Their
discovery undermines their faith in the system. So the kids, not like
those radicals in NYC, but more like Ortho Bob, turn away from the usual
channels and plug into an alternative program, a program they can count
on to be there for ever and ever ...  youth without end,  amen. 

And look who comes rolling into town right after the kids have painted
the campus a paler shade of innocent white with a hint, just a hint of
pink.  Why it's the Berkeley crew. Not like the Berkeley crew at
Berkeley, not them. No, this is that band of camera wielding film
makers, well ...  one photographer with a  Scoopic and her girlfriend, a
pair of big mouth NY City Jews in army fatigues, a Black dude named
Sledge, a surfer-looking pot head with pink eyes, a hippie that does
star charts. 

Rex's martyred saints ...  jesus judas  ...  lost cost ...  lost tribe
... mary martha lazarus come back from the grave, come back to shoot you
all. 

Frenesi, following her pussy, her Mother's example, her old man's light,
has Turned. 

The boat back to America has foundered but nobody has bothered to tell
this kids at the Surf. They march onto stages and up to microphones,
clamoring confusion about a great coup or maybe just some revenue
sharing. 

Prairie could look it up, Sale's book is out of print, but she could
look it up, but she is caught up in the flashing lights of her Mother's
movie. (VL 210)

It's like a rock concert or a sporting event in another country, the
crowd calls out for WEED. 

Something is burning ... 

You guys didn't. No, no, not my plants.