Weapon-mention as political statement?

[Mark Kohut]

Here, I say, Pynchon ALSO shows how, in American culture, 'violent women' became a motif, a pop cultural 'fact', an historic sea change.
I REMEMBER noticing it-----in the 90s, when it was so obvious. All over book and magazine covers. Like the first use of 'shrink' [as psychiatrist, in a book--L49] according to the OED, TRP noticed it much earlier like the artist he is.

 Josephine Hendin's 2004 book, "Heartbreakers", which I have cited but do not have to hand at the moment to quote from, explores this phenomenon.

THAT is one textual meaning of the "Vineland" joke, yes? 

Mark






Some stuff in Vineland seems to be thrown just to be funny.

I'd say the big joke, and a thread that pays off in seeing echos of Vineland in Against the Day, is karma, a rilly big theme in Pynchon as the Dude would tell you.

I can see "I'm just a floozie with an Uzi, just a girlie with a gun" being the bastid offspring of "Yibble, Yibble."

Would I be stating the obvious in pointing to the Monty Python/SNL/Firesign Theater/Bonzo Dog Band echos in the "sound" of Vineland's jokes? And that sometimes classic stoner humor of the 60's/70's is purely onomatopoeic?

There's probably a political statement in there somewhere, give me a chance to look that one up in the Deleuze and Guittari fakebook, maybe I'll pick up a copy of Anti-Oedipus this weekend.

On Dec 11, 2008, at 4:56 AM, Michael Bailey wrote:

> Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>> 
>> So now I ask you, Michael:  Do you really think that Vineland's mentioning
>> of the Uzi
>> is an anti-Muslim statement?
>> 
>> Personally I do not think so.
>> 
> 
> no, certainly not.  In fact, I had forgotten the context and just
> remembered the yibble. . .
> 
> "He who laughs has not yet been told the terrible truth" - Kafka by
> way of Salinger