VL-IV 38, 39

[Michael Bailey]

Page 38

"Frenesi Margaret, Zoyd Herbert, will you, for real, in trouble or in
trippiness, promise to remain always on the groovy high known as
Love?"
ah, just nice vows.


"War in Vietnam, murder as an instrument of American politics, black
neighborhoods torched to ashes and death, all must have been off on
some other planet."
- LIke the surf/car comparison on pg 37, this gives one pause.  Well
for me anyway.  See, I know he could write a more "textbook"
comparison than cars to ocean.  And here, he could come off a lot
smoother, more erudite.  But (and again, ymmv) for me this gives a
more perfect union of word and image, expresses the subject matter
better...conveys that for the moment of the wedding party, his
happiness took over the whole world, still it didn't eliminate those
bad things - it just pushed them over to some other planet (and
eventually they came back)


Page 39

again with the schoolmarm simile:
page 37 - "Frenesi had ridden into his life like a whole gang of
outlaws.  He felt like a schoolmarm."
and now again on page 39: "He smiled, squinting back, like a
schoolmarm who still couldn't believe her luck."

and I guess the whole reminiscence, maybe the whole chapter, really
centers on this one particular moment where they are sitting on a
bench, under a fig tree...the band's on a break...
she's got this family heirloom wedding dress on and asking him about
her cousin Renee...wondering if Renee is having an okay time...
and instead of answering this question he asks this other one:
"Frenesi, do you think that love can save anybody?  You do, don't
you?"  which is actually two questions, or the same question phrased
two different ways.

It might not  be that stupid of a question, but apparently - going out
on a limb here - the way I like to picture it is that here is where
things started to go awry...that he realized marriage too was a kind
of fog you could ride into speeding...and I suspect that her answer
might not have been what he expected...and his schoolmarm persona
sorta vamoosed never to be seen again (it had to have simply cropped
up, a biker/surfer/guitarist isn't gonna cultivate a schoolmarm
smile)...except in these ubiquitous recollections of his for lo these
many years...





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"Feliz Navidad"