You never did the Kenosha Kid?

[jbor at bigpond.com]

> while the possibility of a connection can't be ruled out, I'm sure I'm 
> not the only one having a tough time seeing how "kenosis" (a great 
> word, to be sure) relates to the actual episode, or to Slothrop, or to 
> the text in general. It might help if someone would try to explain it.

No? OK. So anyway ...

On 04/09/2005, jbor at bigpond.com wrote:

> Slothrop's sneakier resistance strategy starts to intercede when he 
> makes the decision to plunge down the toilet. Everything up to that 
> point in the interrogation has been a truthful recount of a real 
> incident from Slothrop's youth, but there's a hinge-point there on p. 
> 63 where Slothrop is deciding whether or not to "follow" his harmonica 
> into the toilet (I'm assuming he really did lose it back then in the 
> Roseland Ballroom in the way he describes, but I don't believe he 
> really dived into the toilet to retrieve it. It stayed lost.) The 
> repeated question -- "Follow?" -- interrupts the flow of the account, 
> and there's a deal of equivocation and sidetracking on Slothrop's part 
> right at this point. There's a decision to be made, both back there in 
> the toilet, but also in his drugged-out state in the hospital in the 
> present.

So, the intermezzo here, as Slothrop procrastinates and the strains of 
'Cherokee' seep in from the "dance floor below", affords Pynchon the 
opportunity to veer off on his own flight of fancy for a moment. Mixing 
sociocultural critique with musical history, Pynchon improvises a 
subversive little bebop riff of his own in the paragraph on pp. 63-4.

And the song lyrics ("one more lie about white crimes"):

Cherokee (Indian Love Song)
by Ray Noble

Sweet Indian maiden,
Since first I met you,
I can't forget you,
Cherokee sweetheart,
Child of the prairie
Your love keeps calling
My heart enthralling,
Cherokee.
Dreams of summertime,
Of lover time gone by.
Throng my memory,
so tenderly and sigh
My sweet Indian maiden,
One day I'll hold you,
In my ams fold you,
Cherokee.

http://www.lindycafe.com/_music/lyrics/cherokee.html

  * * *

Charlie Parker, "Cherokee" and the birth of bebop

"Bird moved to New York briefly in 1939. In December, while 
experimenting with different changes on "Cherokee"  during a jam 
session at a chicken shack in Harlem, Bird discovered a fresh approach 
to improvision that would later lead to bebop."

http://web1.umkc.edu/orgs/kcjazz/jazzfolk/parkc_00.htm

"Eventually, Parker emerged as a leading figure in the bebop scene. 
According to an interview Parker gave in the 1950s, one night in 1939, 
he was playing "Cherokee" in a jam session when he hit upon a method 
for developing his solos that enabled him to play what he had been 
hearing in his head for some time, by building chords on the higher 
intervals of the tune's harmonies. In reality, the birth of bebop was 
probably a more gradual process than this story reports."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Parker#Bebop

So, another of those urban myths Pynchon is so fond of. And, along with 
Malcolm X ("Red"), another "real life" figure is introduced, creating a 
third (or fourth) level of textual "reality" in this episode. (I.e. 1. 
American history - Malcolm X and Bird and JFK; 2. Slothrop in the 
hospital - Pynchon's fiction; 3. Forbes Parkhill's 'The Kenosha Kid' 
story, the fictional realm into which Slothrop soon will dive. Oh, and 
No. 4? Pynchon's own life experiences.) Recall also that Pynchon gave 
"Bird lives" a bit of a run in _V._

best