Kenosha Kid's Progress

[Paul Mackin]

A look at

http://kenoshakid.wikispaces.org/

reveals that Erik and his volunteers have made a huge amount of progress 
digitizing  "The Kenosha Kid." Once a discovery is made p-people waste 
no time. I got to thinking of  malignd a while back expressing wonder at 
the fact it took so long to bring  the 1931 story under Pynchonian 
scrutiny.  So many people had for so long been combing  the libraries of 
the world--online and otherwise--for  possible  origins of the mystery  
phrase.  In any case, the two crucial events leading up to revealing the 
story--for whatever its value  and interest may turn out to be--did at 
long last occur. For those who may not know,  the two events were as 
follows:

1.  A dealer of magazine collectibles put up for auction on ebay a copy 
of the August 1931 issue of Western Rangers magazine,  including by way 
of promotional material  the customary listing of story titles in the 
particular issue;

2.  Someone perusing the ebay pulp magazine offerings made the  
connection between a story title and the famous phrase.

We might well wonder what the result would have been if only event #1 
had occurred.

The story title would, of course, have quickly gotten included in the 
online fictionmag index (which uses ebay offerings as an important 
source) (See http://users.ev1.net/~homeville/fictionmag/s1046.htm)  In 
theory, knowledge of the Parkhill story would have been available to the 
world. But practice might have been a different matter.

You can do a little test by googling  "kenosha kid" with a logical NOT 
pynchon. You find that reference to the Parkhill story doesn't show up 
until the 84th hit.  (At this late date "Kenosha kid" has become such a 
very popular phrase.) With prior knowledge of what to look for you can 
pinpoint a reference that far down quickly and easily.  But I doubt if 
many people going in cold would have the persistence to wade through 83 
web pages without finding  what they needed to know.  Remember, they are 
ALL about the Kenosha Kid. Without Paul Di F's sharp eye  the Parkhill 
story--again for whatever it turns out to be worth--might have taken 
another couple lifetimes to become known to the World of Pynchonalia.