Watts article "you"

[jbor]

> And sorry, jbor, for my mistake re your feelings vis-a-vis the relationship
> of the article to travel pieces.

No problem. That relationship would have to be parodic, wouldn't it, if
there is one? But I do agree that one of the implicit recommendations
Pynchon offers for healing the widening rift the "two cultures" -- and he's
very specific about what those two cultures are in L.A. in 1966 -- is that
whites visit Watts and interact on a personal basis with the locals. I think
that's one aspect of the reader-address "you" -- those readers who are
open-eyed to the real causes of the poverty and anger in Watts, and who are
sympathetic to the idea of trying to promote intercultural harmony.

The other aspect of the reader-address "you" is more hard-headed and
confrontational. It's about getting up the noses of "the little man" -- the
white audience reading the article in the NYT Magazine who are prone to the
sort of patronising blame-the-victim mentality or covert racism he describes
in the article -- trying to make get them to wake up to their own
prejudices: that fantasy image of the black outlaw vigilante (à la Mailer)
they cling to, either in awe or contempt; the unflagging belief in the
superiority of their own "reality" and of how it's the black person's
responsibility to fit in with "our" culture, to fall into line etc etc.

best