Vl-IV 1, “Love is Strange”, pgs 15/17

[Robin Landseadel]

The banter twixt Zoyd & Prairie smoothly moves over to Prairie’s  
latest scam, involving her scary punk-rock boy friend—Named by his  
Hippie Pacifist Parents “Isaiah Two Four”:

	And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke

	many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,

	and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up

	sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.



Those pruninghooks will come back to haunt us.

The conversation turns around backwards to the opening page of the  
novel:

	"All I need's the money, Trooper, I can't even keep
	enough groceries in this place."

. . . which leads to Prairie being “worried” about “fat talk” and then  
mentioning Zoyd’s stoner tendencies to have a lot of sweets and treats  
in the house, though her real point is “ the Big I”, Or maybe the real  
point is to give TRP a really good excuse to name-drop Mickey &  
Sylvia’s mind-blowing little single from 1957:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PT002Q8_rc4

. . . and all those guitar breaks. Certainly one of those weird  
adjustments for old hippie peaceniks to make was the advent of Punk  
and all of Punk’s fallout. Prairie claims that violence enthusiast  
Isaiah Two Four:

	". . .has always admired you, you know."

	"What?"

	"For jumping through all those windows. He's studied
	every inch of all your videotapes. Says you were nearly
	speared a couple of times."

	"Nearly, ah .... "

	"Glass falls straight down out of the window frame,"
	she explained, "in these big sharp spears? heavy
	enough to go right through ya? Isaiah says all his
	friends have remarked on how awesomely cool you
	always look, how unaware of the danger. . .

This leaves Zoyd all kerfluffeled, aware now that it was simply luck  
that prevented his death in all of his transfenestrative activities  
ever since making the deal that enabled him to keep Prairie after  
losing Frenesi. Zoyd wonders if he wold have been better off doing “a  
Joey Chitwood-type thrill show all this time and making some real  
money.”

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7139323017776448272

This might have been something TRP half-remembered: The dude’s name is  
spelled “Joie Chitwood.”

Of course, it all boils down to filial responsibility, and as the the  
promo film displays doing this sort of “thrill show” really is more  
about “selling out” than any big-time thrills. Prairie has no idea how  
much papa Zoyd gave up to keep his darling one around. Love is very  
Strange—Prairie may be an unintended consequence of Zoyd’s love for  
Frenesi  but Zoyd’s been risking life and limb for her from the get- 
go. Of course, Prairie is still busy making other plans:

	" ... and I think you and Isaiah could even do some
	business," Prairie had evidently been saying,
	" 'cause I know he'd be willing, and all you'd have
	to do's keep an open mind."

	Zoyd didn't know what she was talking about, but
	forced himself to think chirpy. "Long as he don't
	open it for me," having then to dodge the athletic
	shoe, luckily without her foot in it, that came
	whizzing past his ear.

Zoyd mentions the horror of encountering I-2-4 as Freddy Kruger one  
Halloween night. Prairie rightfully points out that Freddy’s an  
archetype but note:

	"Sure I was at least as heavy duty of a menace
	to the public as your boyfriend is today, but never
	did any of us in my generation show up late at night
	at somebody's door in no hockey mask, carryin'
	around all these lethal blades, even somethin'
	looked like a pruning hook?

Which brings us back to Isaiah Two Four. . .