p. 712 // veering off into NP commentary on Little Boxes

[grladams at teleport.com]

Inside and outside

It strikes me that one of our authors talents is to paint the seam between 
things let the descriptions hang on both sides. 
Lid as container of eye lid as shield from outside world. 

Sometimes I am rooting for the little boxes, but then, I am against the
little boxes.

One man’s valient working class is another man's bourgeoisie wannabes. If
one of the big themes is about anarchism tossing itself into the juggernaut 
of history at this time, then he's done it well by talking about the two
sides of the same thing with the characters whose interests lay both in law
enforcement, mathematics, war intelligence, etc etc. 

Jill

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Michael Bailey michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:40:21 -0600
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: p. 712 // veering off into NP commentary on "Little Boxes"


On 1/31/08, grladams
> gearing up for or going through with. I once had the "Little Boxes" opener
> to _Weeds_ stuck in my head for days. I just gave in and kep' it going.
>

that was a minor AM hit for Pete Seeger, I think -
yeah (having checked, it was in 1963)
and our family heard it on the car radio driving the blue
Ford Galaxie to Grandma's probably...
Seeger's plaintive yet winsome voice is still among my faves.

Wikipedia quotes Tom Lehrer as saying it's the "most sanctimonious
song ever written" (cf his "Folk Song Army") and I remember
my Mom playing with the lyrics and conveying partial agreement
with the lyric, and partial agreement with what Lehrer would say --
getting us to think it through: who has the right to criticize
people's whole lives? what alternative do they offer? and yet,
the damn song does make a tenable point...and the way Seeger
(and the other artists who performed it) sings "ticky-tacky" sticks
in the lyrical lobe.

Like so many things in modern culture*, the use of it in
"Weeds"  - which my fogeyish viewing interprets as trying
to celebrate how the counterculture has been completely co-opted** -
seems contrary to its original positioning as a gentle lampooning
intended to steer folk-music lovers into what was then
a (sorta) strong coalition of anti-war, anti-consumer, pro-environment
people who questioned authority and cherished diversity

* for instance, the 1964 Chevy Impala convertible that my
folks let me drive in the early 70s and was somewhat of a
"beater", a car you could throw up out the window of or
drive over a curb...has re-appeared as a model suitable for pimping***

** not that there's anything wrong with that

*** ditto

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