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".
>> 
> He also describes the command post as an "historic
> landmark," hardly requiring a trip to Watts to be
> aware of.

It isn't a tourist brochure, and that's the point. The "historic landmarks"
phrase is sardonic -- most whites prefer to live in Disneyland L.A., with
Muzak and landscaping and "smiling little chicks to show you around" the
place. But this isn't "Adventureland" or "Frontierland", or even downtown
L.A., this is "Raceriotland", and the "historic landmarks" are remnants from
the battle of the previous year, like some unreconstructed ruin of a
colonial fort. 

After the summation of the events surrounding the killing of Leonard
Deadwyler, paragraph 8 establishes what the article will detail and,
implicitly, reveals how it was researched. The end of paragraph 7 drives us
right into Watts, off the "Imperial Highway exit for a change, east instead
of west ... for a few blocks", for a "quick look". The opening sentence of
paragraph 8 then gives a visitor's first impression of Watts, describing how
on the surface it doesn't "look" any different, and then it goes on to
describe the "mood" of the Watts locals. This introduces what the bulk of
the article will present: what it looks like, and what the people are
feeling, thinking and saying in the aftermath of the recent police shooting:

    On the surface anyway, the Deadwyler affair hasn't made it
    look any different, though underneath the mood in Watts is
    about what you might expect. Feelings range from a reflexive,
    angry, driving need to hit back somehow, to an anxious worry
    that the slaying is just one more bad grievance, one more bill
    that will fall due some warm evening this summer. Yet in the
    daytime's brilliance and heat, it is hard to believe there is
    any mystery to Watts. Everything seems so out in the open, all
    of it is real, no plastic faces, not transistors, no hidden Muzak,
    or Disneyfied landscaping, or smiling little chicks to show you
    around. Not in Raceriotland. Only a few historic landmarks, like
    the police substation, one command post for the white forces last
    August, pigeons now thick and cooing up on its red-tiled roof. Or,
    on down the street, vacant lots, still looking charred around the
    edges, winking with emptied Tokay, port and sherry pints, some of
    the bottles peeking out of paper bags, others busted.

>> That "now" implies a direct first-hand experience on
>> the part of the writer.
> 
> No one is arguing that he’s not trying to imply
> first-hand experience.

I'm a bit unclear on what you are arguing then. Either he went there or he
didn't. The article is clearly implying that he did go there for the
specific purpose of writing about the place and the people in the context of
the Deadwyler shooting and the previous year's riots. You seem to expect
some breathless travelogue with quirky locals as his tour guides, museum and
souvenir information and restaurant and hotel reviews.

>> There are direct quotations throughout the article,
>> all of them attributed to Watts locals.
> 
> There are a couple, unnamed, compromised by the half
> dozen or so "quotes" attributed to "others," "they,"
> "you’ll hear," "them," "they" again, "others" again.
> Please explain how one attributes a direct quote to
> "others."  Do you suppose "they" stand on the corner
> and speak in unison?

No, but if you're talking to a group of people and one person says something
and the others all nod their heads and express firm agreement, then it's
reasonable to attribute it as a consensus statement, which is what he's
doing. I also suspect that if his informants thought they were going to be
named then they wouldn't have spoken to him.

>> He describes the low-rise housing and grass yards,
>> noting the suburb's physical difference from other
>> urban ghettos like Harlem.
> 
> The fact that the LA ghettos are typically small
> unattached suburban homes, as opposed to tenement
> buildings, is a very very common bit of knowledge.
> ...
> buy a postcard
> ...
> phoned it in etc

It seems to me that you are trying to argue that he didn't go there, that
it's a deception. 

best

>> And he describes Watts Towers: they're in Watts, not
>> Newark or Detroit.
> 
> The so-named Watts Towers are, indeed, in Watts.
> Someone notify ppetto.
> 
> Here's his "description" of the Watts Towers:
> 
> "... the famous Watts Towers, ... a fantasy of
> fountains, boats, tall openwork spires, encrusted with
> a dazzling mosaic of Watts debris."
> 
> The "famous" Watts Towers.  Buy a postcard and write
> your own description.