AtD excerpt - "got-damn pinkinroller"

[kelber at mindspring.com]

-----Original Message-----
>From: Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com>
>Sent: Aug 6, 2006 2:25 PM
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: Re: AtD excerpt - "got-damn pinkinroller"
>
>What's, in your opinion, the significance of the osteopath Willis Turnstone 
>for the plot of AD? Here are 3 possibilities based on three characters from 
>GR (maybe there are more):
>
>a. Mickey Wuxtry-Wuxtry   b. Pirate Prentice    c. Tyrone Slothrop

Willis might turn out to be nor more central to the plot than the Kenosha Kid was to GR.

Also:

WARNING: DEADWOOD SPOILER

In the last episode of Deadwood, Hearst (grandfather, I think, to William Randolph) is busy loading up the town with hired guns for the purpose of a total takeover.  A visiting theater manager, who's friends with the local powerbrokers Swearingen et. al, undertakes to get into Hearst's good graces so that he can act as a spy.  How does he do it?  By offering some sort of bogus chiropractic or osteopathic work on Hearst's aching back.

Here are two stories where back massage is used to placate/disarm a gun-happy thug.  Pynchon could not have been aware of the Deadwood script, nor vice versa.  Somehow, this specific scenario has worked its way into the current consciousness as the latest incarnation of "the pen is mightier than the sword."

Laura