AtDDtA(15): A Perfect Record of Doing as You are Told

[Dave Monroe]

On 8/18/07, mikebailey at speakeasy.net <mikebailey at speakeasy.net> wrote:

> (sent to Dave's email first, in error, and with
> even more problematic wording (sorry, Dave))

No problem, I constantly neglect to hit "Reply All" ...

> In fact, maybe the HMBA is the hallucinatory version
> of the Chums High Command...Alonzo's "sheep" comment
> (remember Dr Zook's "hook") - may be revealing him
> as the shepherd with the crook, pulling them back into line

Well, of course, EVERYTHING here is fictional, even when there are
real referents (whether generic or specific), but even diegetically,
within the story @ hand, the Chums' "reality" is already problematic,
introduced as they are as characters whose exploits have not only been
published, by an author who addresses the reader as the reader of yet
ANOTHER such published account, with reference to "dime novels" et al.
 Even for a Pynchon novel, they interact with the most outre
characters/situations therein.  And THEN there's the Harmonica Band
Marching Academy (or whichever permutation of that combination is most
stable--that's interesting in and of itself, by the way, the various
permuations through which those words are put, that instabiility more
than anything makes me thing maybe that WAS all "just a dream" or
whatever, but ...).  Maybe that's what I'll do these last couple of
days, comb back through, but ...

Well, I generally try to get as much out for yr consideration as
possible before attemtping any conclusions myself ...



I'm curious if anyone can with any significant degree of confidence
attest to the Chums'