authors under the influence

[Henry Musikar]

One morning while my wife was pregnant, we were awakened by the clock radio
playing the Allman Brothers' instrumental "Jessica."  It's a joyous piece,
and the sun was bright and warming us.  I had wanted a J name in memory of
my grandfather, and so we chose "Jessica" as the name if we had a girl, and
so my daughter is named Jessica, but

I never thought of the GR connection.  Not for years!  Not until we
discovered that there are a great number of Jessicas about that same age
(21, almost 22) and that a number of parents of Jessicas with whom I have
talked had also named their Jessicas after the same piece of music.  Just as
my parents did not name me after any other Henry David, and I discovered the
parents of a very young Henry David who was also not named after Thoreau.
Hmmm...

Speaking of naming, musicians and being under the influence, is anyone
familiar with my relative Sam Musiker, a premier klezmer leader and also
musician and arranger in Gene Krupa's band.

Henry Musik 
 
How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy --
Nietzsche.  So...
For most eclectic music on the WWW and a list of my favorite 50 movies,
check out my media page: http://www.urdomain.us/scuffling.htm 

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-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Paul Mackin
Sent: Friday, October 20, 2006 1:41 PM
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: authors under the influence


On Oct 20, 2006, at 11:56 AM, Chris Broderick wrote:

> Paul Mackin asked:
>
> What reason is there to think  either Pynchon or the
> Gateses had the English lyrics in mind in naming the daughter?
> It was the NAME of the song in all its exoticness that would have
> been on their minds.
>
> So I sez:
>
> What reason is there to think that Pynchon ignored the lyrics?

None probably. By the time Vineland was written it  was easy enough  
to  research oldies. He was only about 3 of course when the vocal  
versions were playing constantly on the jukeboxes.




>   Sure, they don't seem like any deep insight in to Ms. Gates, but  
> they do seem to fit with her character.  I can't imagine that he  
> wouldn't have at least found out what they were (at least in the  
> English version, the Spanish tune is actually quite a bit  
> different), just to make sure that they didn't fuck things up.  I  
> do agree with you that the Artie Shaw version is probably the one  
> that the Hub & Sasha referred to.
>
> Then he sez:
>
> Shaw actually considered Goodman the better
> clarinetist but himself the better musician
>
> So I say:
>
> I'd agree with that.  Goodman was a more comfortable improviser &  
> certainly swung a lot harder than Shaw ever did, but Shaw was a  
> better arranger & much more harmonically adventurous (Bird was a  
> fan...).  Shaw's autobiography is one of the best jazz  
> autobiographies out there.  It's a shame that he quit playing so  
> many years ago.
>
> -Chris