A Journey Into the Mind of Watts

[Paul Mackin]

On Wed, 2004-09-29 at 01:48, davemarc wrote:
> I find it interesting to contemplate Pynchon roaming around Watts as a
> reporter, taking the risk (for him) of making himself known to his subjects
> as well as the Times
> people, and then preserving the anonymity of his subjects in the finished
> article. And then not writing any other such articles of the kind. I guess
> he decided he wasn't cut out for that kind of work. Perhaps he felt it was
> less stressful to devote himself to fiction and essays that didn't require
> as much exposure of himself or his subjects.

I guess in '66, riots or no riots, it was still possible for a white boy
to poke around a big northern city poor black neighborhood with relative
safety. By '68 and several years after we might never have had Gravity's
Rainbow.