VL-IV Poe quote dragged in / Ch 4 Timeline Effort / Pg 35

[Michael Bailey]

>keep, ie, preserve, ie save...
like, saved as in "save to disk"; a secular concept of salvation that
makes sense to me.
We go through life and some things we want to hold onto.  "We'll
always have Paris."  Others may have similar feelings towards us.
Though as bandwraith pointed out our efforts to save something or
somebody are limited and temporary, still they are often efficacious
and additive.

-- ok fellow Gold Bugs (Poe fans) - a good glass at the Bishops Hostel...
"A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat twenty-one
degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main branch
seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the death's-head a
bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet out."

"But," said I, "the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as ever.
How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon
about'devil's seats,''death's-heads,' and 'bishop's hostel'?"

and how indeed can we derive comfort and joy from Vineland?  I believe
treasures are hidden in its pages and its restful font (Penguin
paperback - it's very soothing.)

Pg 35 - "Elvissa up the hill's blown head gasket"
Who says Zoyd isn't a good neighbor?  How many of us would loan
anybody their car? Okay, I've done it, but I'm widely regarded as an
insanely soft touch and people chortle at me.
I guess it isn't that rare, honestly, but it is rarely done without
some bidirectional affection.
A-and he's up at 6am to help her out.

"...a Datsun Li'l Hustler pickup, belonging to his neighbor Trent,
with a camper shell whose unusual design gave the vehicle some
cornering problems.  "Long as you don't try it with the tank anywhere
between empty and full," Trent suggested, he thought helpfully.  But
it was actually the camper shell, covered all over with cedar shakes
in some doper's idea of imbrication and topped by a pointed shake roof
with a stovepipe coming out, that seemed to be the problem."

So Zoyd is able to find another person sucker enough to loan a vehicle.
a) de facto communism among friends?
b) Trent may be gently hinting about how he'd like to see the tank
full on its return...
c) Little bit o' repetition here (not as much as that paragraph in AtD
where the word "Massachusetts" comes up 5 times, or was it
"Connecticut"?)
d) and an oddball sentence order - well isn't it? He squeezes Trent's
suggestion in between what would be the topic sentence and its
elaboration.
But we get the idea, he's got this groovy Li'l Hustler and having to
drive carefully.

"a sideline in crawfish" -
we dig a little deeper into Zoyd's past.  Progressive elucidation,
yeah that's the ticket!

Timeline effort: Chapter 1 and 2 were the same day, Chap 3 the next day
Chapter 4 is yet another [consecutive - probably] day
Now - he's driving the truck

A Little Earlier - neighborhood mutual aid

Now- Anticipating doing some crawfish business, which entails a visit
to RC and Moonpie

Now - This makes him think about RC and Moonpie and how they met

Flashback - to "the early seventies" at the Lost Nugget
lachrymo-cervezic over his divorce

Ongoing (Transitional) - recurrent scheme to win back F with late-nite
TV ads and music

Major Flashback Flicker - "Frenesi had ridden into his life like a
whole gang ot outlaws"
Immediate cutaway to reminiscence of how he was living back then
Details of courting death in a 409 seguing smoothly into the wedding
Major Flashback - returning in full glory

Earlier This morning - Telling Prairie how he astral travels to
wherever Frenesi is

Now - at the farm with Moonpie

"The other night at the Steam Donkey" - perhaps this was the night
before the morning of the book's opening and his drinking with Van
Meter is why he woke up "later than usual"

Flashback from his booth at the Steam Donkey to his and Frenesi's
early days, the pregnancy, and the breakup

Now - "all the rest of the day" including Rick & Chick's auto shop,
phone call to Prairie, picking up pay envelope at the Marquis de Sod,
finding out his house is occupied, Hector's aria and farewell to the
van full of kids including Prairie

Obviously flashbacks are a great way to do exposition, but plotting
considerations aside, Zoyd is a dude who thinks about the past a lot.
Not so different from you and me? Me for sure...

page 35 --
"a bush vet and his family" - apparently by "bush vet" is meant a
person who served in the infantry in Vietnam. I'm sorry, I don't mean
to think Bubba Gump...
but it does make me wonder: how did Zoyd avoid the draft?  Deponent
saith not. (afaik)

"some doper's idea of imbrication" - why the subtle pejorative tone?
Zoyd's a doper himself; the camper's a gift horse; some dopers' ideas
of beauty are pretty well developed and realized (Kelly-Mouse posters,
etc etc) -- Maybe he is an old hippie gone mean

"depraved yuppie food preferences" - again the pejorative tone, not so
subtle, but probably not serious as the text indicates the preferences
for this non-kosher food are shared by the characters and probably the
narrator as well

"real names left back along their by now erased-enough trail since the war"
erased-enough indicating to me (ymmv) that they really don't have that
much to hide, but they're retreating from the socius that sent him to
war

Twenty-penny nails - big freakin' nails





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"Feliz Navidad"