VL-IV 1: Time for the kissoff story pgs 14/15

[bandwraith at aol.com]

Nicely done. Great perspective on the amazing way Pynchon invokes
a world in which his characters become almost inevitable manifestations.

I would add only this, which I think is key, but which Pynchon does
his level best to shroud by saturating the setting with all the
distractions we have come to take for granted (know and love?)
in our own existences:

Whatever else Zoyd is doing, he is primarily obeying the law.

In fact, he is obeying two laws- the law of The Man, which may
or may not be just, and, the second law of thermodynamics, which
may or may not be ultimately true. And yes, it's all about work.
Whatever Zoyd gains by his efforts- which tend as much toward
avoiding pain as obtaining pleasure- he will pay the price. Reading
novels is much the same thing. When were done, I guess, we
can decide if it was worth the effort.

 "I'm workin' on it"



-----Original Message-----
From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 11:58 am
Subject: VL-IV 1: Time for the kissoff story pgs 14/15


Zoyd & Prairie in a state of tubal ecstasy. Zoyd’s annual act of 
transfenestration gets the treatment reserved for “silly news”, like 
Countdown’s “Oddball” or Kent Jones “Just Enough”, a subset of news 
slipped in at the end of the broadcast that you’re just supposed to 
laugh at. The name “ Skip TromblayE2—skip and tremble, a fey name just 
on the edge of stuttering—underscores Zoyd’s act as a a ”silly season” 
item, slapped on the end of local news and sports to fill in just 
enough time to for the broadcast to bump right up against the edges of 
the ad-buys. 
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU4RHNUlydY 
 
“local laughing-academy outpatient” hints at Ronald Reagan’s 
dismantling of the mental health system in California during his tenure 
as Governor and extending into his presidency. 
 
From—Ronald Reagan and the 
Commitment of the Mentally Ill: 
Capital, Interest Groups, and the 
Eclipse of Social Policy 
by Alexandar R. Thomas: 
 
  The concerns of the general public 
  were also mobilized in the context 
  of fear over the possibility of a patient 
  committing a violent or otherwise 
  anti-social act. Media attention paid 
  to the problems of the mental health 
  system tended to concentrate in two 
  areas: the growing homelessness 
  problem of the early 1980s and the 
  possibility of criminal acts committed 
  by deinsitutionalized patients. Throughout 
  the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of 
  thousands of mentally ill people 
  concentrated in the inner cities. With t 
  he rise of gentrification during the 1980s,

  many of them became displaced from 
  their relatively affordable housing and 
  were unable to find new 
  accommodations. Many of these patients 
  had lost contact with family members and 
  were unable to work, and many did not 
  have health insurance. Thus, they were 
  unable to receive mental health services 
  in the private sector. Media coverage of 
  the growing homeless problem helped 
  to pressure legislators in many states to 
  rewrite commitment laws to extend the 
  net and make the streets "safer. 
 
http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html 
 
From: Cultural Trauma and the "Timeless Burst": 
Pynchon's Revision of Nostalgia in Vineland by James Berger 
 
  The figure of Zoyd at the Log Jam brings together parodies 
  of feminism, gay activism, and senseless 80s violence all 
  as progeny of the old 60s hippie. And this is precisely 
  the Reaganist view of the 60s: a source of political and 
  especially sexual violence and chaos. As this opening 
  scene of “Vineland” suggests, Reaganism had (and the New 
  Right continues to have) an overriding interest in 
  subsidizing and perpetuating the memory of the 60s in these 
  terms. And so the 60s enter the 80s in “Vineland” as 
  the Reaganis
t 80s would want to see them, as an aging 
  hippie wearing a dress hurtling through a window for the 
  local news. 
 
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.595/berger.595 
 
“TV 86 Hot Shot News” repeats the theme of being “86’d” or tossed out. 
Its etymology is lost in the mists of time: 
 
  To get rid of, originally for killing someone. 
  The phrase "80 miles out and 6 feet under" 
  was reserved for someone who had to dig 
  their own grave 80 miles from civilization 
  and then get shot execution-style. All 
  terms for 86'd originated from this, be it 
  alcohol or eliminating. 
 
  It's supposed that Jimmy Hoffa was 86'd 
  under the endzone of Giants Stadium. 
 
  Chumley's, a famous and OLD New York 
  speakeasy, is located at 86 Bedford St. 
  During Prohibition, an enterance through 
  an interior adjoing courtyard was used, as 
  it provided privacy and discretion for 
  customers. 
 
  As was (and is) a New York tradition, 
  the cops were on the payroll of the bar 
  and would give a ring to the bar that they 
  were coming for a raid. The bartender 
  would then give the command "86 
  everybody!", which meant that everyone 
  should hightail
 it out the 86 Bedford 
  enterance because the cops were coming 
  in through the courtyard door. 
 
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=86'd 
 
That “ Alerted by a mystery caller” repeats the theme of “snitching”, a 
theme we’ll see a lot of in these parts. 
 
  “ Wheeler's deed, which last 
  year was almost featured 
  on 'Good Morning America’ ” 
 
. . . underlines out how media saturation via The Tube now controls the 
dialog, much as Republican talking points in the age of Karl Rove, 
Blackberries and Fox News controlled the political dialog for the last 
decade or two. As ‘Cultural Trauma and the "Timeless Burst" ‘ points 
out, funds taken away from government sponsored mental health programs 
are now funneled into propaganda, supplanting the Left’s history of 
activism and union/community organizing with a revisionist history of 
crazed, violent sexual perverts. Out with Woody Guthrie, “Saint 
Stephen” and Wavy Gravy, in with Charles Manson, Mark Chapman and the 
right-wing’s dark fantasies regarding William Ayres. 
 
I’m not sure how Zoyd would pick up San Francisco TV up in the greater 
Garberville/Crescent City/Trinidad area so Pynch might stretch 
plausibility here, but: 
 
  . . .in Tubal form he was pleased to 
  see that the dres
s, Day-Glo orange, 
  near-ultraviolet purple, some acid 
  green, and a little magenta in a 
  retro-Hawaiian parrots-and-hula-girls 
  print, came across as a real attention- 
  getter. Over on one of the San 
  Francisco channels, the videotape 
  was being repeated in slow motion, 
  the million crystal trajectories smooth 
  as fountain-drops, Zoyd in midair with 
  time to rotate into a number of 
  positions he didn't remember being in, 
  many of which, freeze-framed, could 
  have won photo awards someplace. . . 
 
. . .if nothing else, points to how much of an ego investment Zoyd has 
in this stupid, self-destructive game he’s been playing for so many 
years. Prairie gives a big thumbs up to this year’s performance: 
 
  "Give you a nine point five, Dad, 
  your personal best - too bad the 
  VCR's busted, we could've taped it." 
 
  "I'm workin' on it."