Watts article

[jbor]

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_watts.html

The descriptions are specific. For example, Pynchon observes the ruins of
the police command post with "pigeons now thick and cooing up on its
red-tiled roof". That "now" implies a direct first-hand experience on the
part of the writer. There are direct quotations throughout the article, all
of them attributed to Watts locals. He describes the low-rise housing and
grass yards, noting the suburb's physical difference from other urban
ghettos like Harlem. And he describes Watts Towers: they're in Watts, not
Newark or Detroit. Everything about the article confirms an assumption that
Pynchon physically went to Watts, spoke to the locals there, and wrote down
what he observed, what they told him.

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