green and magenta- no more spoilers

[Chris Broderick]

Well, he's certainly a fan.  A quick Amazon search
shows that "Magenta" shows up in every one of his
books since GR (though you won't find the one in
Vineland, since the word "magenta" breaks across a
line), usually with green, and a couple of times it is
referred to as "reliable", as well as "often
observ'd".  It's often, but not always (at least not
in any explicit way) a drug reference (see M&D pgs.
328 & 719), but it's certainly a color combo that
Pynchon loves as much as Zoyd.

-Chris



--- Carvill John <johncarvill at hotmail.com> wrote:

> I always assume it's a drug referemce. Lots of
> magenta (often with green) in 
> Gravity's Rainbow. Couple-three examples:
> 
> 
> "Whappo also sports a bandanna of the regulation
> magenta and green 
> (Crutchfield is supposed to have a closetful of
> these silken scarves back 
> home at "Rancho Peligroso" and never rides out into
> the rock-country and 
> riverbed trails without a dozen or two stashed in
> his saddlebags. This must 
> mean that the one-of-each rule applies only to forms
> of life, such as little 
> pards, and not to objects, such as bandannas). "
> 
> "some mashed pulp all magenta with pomegranates or
> something . . . "
> 
> "Come on." They proceed outside to a eucalyptus
> grove, where Jean-Claude 
> Gongue, notorious white slaver of Marseilles, is
> busy white-slaving. "Hey 
> you," hollering into the trees, "you wanna be a
> white slave, huh?" "Shit 
> no," answers some invisible girl, "I wanna be a
> green slave!" "Magenta!" 
> yells somebody from up in an olive tree.
> "Vermilion!" "Think I'll take up 
> dealing dope," sez Jean-Claude.
> 
> "The Heath grows green and magenta in all
> directions, earth and heather, 
> coming of age— No. It was spring."
> 
> ...and my absolute favourite:
> 
> "Of course, of course," sez Osbie, with a fluid
> passage of fingers and wrist 
> based on the way Bela Lugosi handed a certain glass
> of doped wine to some 
> fool of a juvenile lead in White Zombie, the first
> movie Osbie ever saw and 
> in a sense the last, ranking on his All-Time List
> along with Son of 
> Frankenstein, Freaks, Flying Down to Rio and perhaps
> Dumbo, which he went to 
> see in Oxford Street last night but midway through
> noticed, instead of a 
> magic feather, the humorless green and magenta face
> of Mr. Ernest Bevin 
> wrapped in the chubby trunk of the longlashed baby
> elephant, and decided it 
> would be prudent to excuse himself. "No," since
> Pirate meantime has 
> misunderstood whatever it was Osbie said, "not 'of
> course you've gone mad, 
> Prentice,' that wasn't it at all. . . ."
> 
> 
> 
> >
> >And lest we forget this bit from VL (p. 17-18):
> >
> >"...and out of another dimension, where he'd been
> >waiting in orbit, emerged Isaiah Two Four, who
> today,
> >Zoyd noticed, had his long Mohawk colored a vibrant
> >acid green, except at the tips, where some magenta
> >shade was airbrushed on.  Now these happened to be
> >Zoyd's two all-time favorite colors, and Prairie,
> who
> >had given him enough T-shirts and ashtrays in the
> >quaint sixties combo, knew it.  Was this some weird
> >effort to be nice?"
> >
> >Damn, that's a lot of commas.
> >
> >-Chris
> >
> >From: "Jordan Fink"
> >
> >does anyone have any ideas about what
> >magenta/mauve/violet versus green
> >symbolizes for him.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
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