Pynchon and baseball
robinlandseadel at comcast.net
robinlandseadel at comcast.net
Thu Apr 19 11:32:32 CDT 2007
My Father on his deathbed---the last "real' conversation we had [he just found
out about that "spot" on his lung, after thirteen angioplasties spread over a
decade] says to me "There's no way the Angels can lose tonight!", just full of
himself. I mean, this is a man who would memorize baseball stats rabbinically:
as if it were his own personal Holy Cabbalah, his greatest dream would be to a
Professional Baseball Umpire or Russ Hodges or Vin Scully. I mean, about the
only Lit. connection I could make with him---illumination coming from both sides
this time--is to quote from the start of DeLillo's "Underworld" which still
strikes me as one of the most Pynchonian of non-Pynchon novels and
whatdayaknow---baseball is to DeLillo as Philatily is to Pynchon. I'd start up
with : "Bob Thompson hits into the lower deck of the left-field stands" and Dad
just takes off from there as if it was his litany of the saints or at least the
Dodgers. Dad was listening to his radio at the time, burned into his memory
but good and I wasn't even born yet, seems like Bird had to go first, so "they"
could play some weird trick on my warped little mind---just as I pop out of the
sack, christened "Robin" (a mystery girl to many looking for mystery) and
there's "Bird Lives!" on the walls and sidewalks---"
"The dead have come to take the living.
The dead in winding-sheets, the regimented
dead on horseback, the skeleton that plays
a hurdy-gurdy.
Edgar stands in the aisle fitting together the two
facing pages of the reproduction. People are
climbing over seats, calling hoarsely toward the
field. He stands with the pages in his face. He
hadn't realized he was seeing only half the
painting until the left-hand page drifted down
and he got a glimpse of rust brown terrain and
a pair of skeletal men pulling on bell ropes. The
page brushed against a woman's arm and spun
into Edgar's godfearing breast.
Thompson is out in center field now dodging fans
who come in rushes and jumps. They jump against
his body, they want to take him to the ground, show
him snapshots of their families.
Edgar reads the copy block on the matching page.
This is a sixteenth-century work done by a Flemish
master, Pieter Bruegel, and it is called
The Triumph of Death. . . .
Don DeLillo, Underworld, 49/50
So of course, the "Angel" word would signify to me Enochian calls, or Luciferian
dreams, or perhaps Dad's TV staying on Joyce Meyers for hours and hours and I
keep museing down this darkening hole as he pipes up: "They're not playing
tonight, so there's no way the Angels can lose." and I can't help but agree, and
it looks like they got themselves another half-way decent umpire in the bargain
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