Thomas Pynchon's Blueberry Boat

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

. . . .sorry, it's 4:20 in the morn and there is no place I'm going to.


Somehow [please don't ask how] I was transported to an office
somewhere out near Pomona, the walls outgassing the intoxicating
aroma associated with the free and easy use of acetone in the paint mix.  
There was that nagging issue of the Overlunch Estate, and 
somewhere out on the edge of suburbia an Intellectual property 
rights management lawsuit was metastasizing in better lit [and 
better smelling] offices further west and south. If you want a life 
in Hollywood, don't mess with the mouse, that Disney 
dude has some rough friends, if you catch my drift. Seeing as 
the sun had coagulated the morning's vaporous haze into something 
orange, dense and stinging, I decided to head out to hear the 
Scottsville Squirrel Barkers at the Folk Den.

You'd figure a gaslit anachronism like the "Folk Den" would be a center for
the dissemination and enjoyment of various plants and other interesting 
compounds generally frowned upon by the local enforcers of morality.
The usual suspects were collected in a darkened corner, led by a short, 
annoyed young go-getter in a black business suit accessorised with a 
nod or two towards the Mystic East. His black shades warded off any potential 
examination into his soul, assuming he had one. On his lapel was a little silver 
badge inscribed with the glyph of a smaller circle resting like a snowman's 
head on a larger circle with something like a sidewise "S" at the bottom. I 
assumed it must have been a cartoon mouse, but considering all the time 
I spent this morning unspinning the entanglements of the Overlunch Estate 
and Gengis Cohen, I figured it must be projection to a certain extant. I just 
wrote it off as another of the days expenses that never get written down 
on your expense report. The small one in shades was leading a lively 
contingent of camp followers in some sort of contest, seeing who could nasally
ingest 12 linear inches of cocaine in the least amount of time . An older 
gentleman with a gotee wearing a boni-fied Nehru jacket was jotting down 
numbers on a notepad with a stopwatch in his other hand. "MY engineer", 
explained the little one with the shades, "I don't go anywhere without him 
anymore, least since that bust in Topanga Canyon last month. Nothing 
like running with a dude who worked on the Manhattan Project to keep the 
feds off your ass."

The radioactively incandescent glow of the failing sun cast magenta light 
on the hazy contingent of musical amateurs in the den. Somehow the four 
or five gents with mandolins, banjos and guitars decided to bring various 
large pieces of sound reinforcement gear into this tiny dive. They were
working up a fluid fingerstyle rendition of the Earle Of Oxford’s March , 
but amplified in such a way as to sound just like the jet airliners descending 
to the airport runway a half mile or two down the boulevard. After a vocal 
bridge in five parts run through a tape delay, the curly headed one with the 
impish grin introduced the band. "Good evening, we're the Beef—what's 
that Chris?—OK! ! ! , tonight, for the first time, ladies, gentlemen and 
residents of North Hollywood—The Paranoids ! ! !


 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Tara Brady" <madame.brady at gmail.com>
> http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=3466
> 
> There must be learned types around these parts who might do better. No?