AtD, p. 854 'a pitch of apprehension' at the movies

[kelber at mindspring.com]

But it's hard not to think of Vlad the Impaler, source of the Dracula legend.  He eats her heart, he drinks her blood?  Bela Lugosi will be making an appearance sometime soon (I forget if Kit and Dally run into him at a movie theater or at a local night club). Is Dracula just another misunderstood local?  Maybe there's an implication that outsiders (imperialists) shouldn't meddle in the affairs of the Balkans.

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Apr 15, 2008 11:12 AM
>To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: AtD, p. 854 'a pitch of apprehension' at the movies
>
>Vlado is out of a traditional community-a peasant He might be called a 'natural man'. Kinda like Zorba the Greek, out of tha book and movie.
>  He is the very satisfying lover of Yashmeen, almost pure sex, no intellectualizing, no self-consciousness, natural desire. A man whose mind/body seem to be one, so to speak.
>   
>  She can't help loving him---he eats her heart---but he doesn't say Love in the abstract. He just wants to be with her and he wants to fuck. 
>   
>  So, they go to see a movie, a real one---see the p-wiki. Here is commentary from someone
>  on IMDB, I think:   "To me, however, this film, a panorama of a canal in Venice, appears to be even more of a revelation, but seems to get historically lost among the Company's many filmic innovations. It is simply a single tracking shot accomplished by placing the camera, tripod and cameraman in a gondola. As they stroll down the canal, the images of buildings, fellow navigators and such shift; the image changes with the mobile framing. This film is very likely--has been credited as much by historians--the first to feature movement of the camera." IMDB
>   
>  Why is Vlado so apprehensive?...I suggest it is because of the moving camera....(Cf. that moving train and railroad-metaphysics)...as a metaphor for modernity..."All that is Solid Melts into Air" wrote Marx about the modern age.
>   
>  TRP is doing all kinds of solos, playing lots of changes, around his traditional society vs. modernity theme.  This is another. 
>
>
> between 0000-00-00 and 9999-99-99