belated End of CH 14 315-322

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joseph Tracy" <brook7 at sover.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2009 7:22 PM
Subject: belated End of CH 14 315-322


> Summary with personal comments
>
> Zoyd and Prairie ride the bus north.
> ”headin for nothing but trees, fish, and fog, Slick, from here on in…
> …she looked at him with a wide smile ,“Fiss.”
> He wakes in the bus in the rain with Prairie talking to the giant 
> redwoods they pass . Soon a bunch of fellow travelers are playing  music 
> from rock to Motown, folk, fifties stuff and finally a guitar &  harmonica 
> playing the blues. ( There are some great radio stations  from Santa Rosa 
> on and it was part of why  I always felt a lot better  driving north by 
> the time I was getting close to Arcata. ) Zoyd  catches up toVan Meter in 
> Eureka; VM is driving Z’s Dodge Dart. They  pick up Prairie and go to 
> Vineland. The Journey is over and the  remainder of the chapter is about 
> the geography, and culture and  history  of Vineland.  I lived in Arcata 
> for most of a decade and  paid closer attention this time to see if 
> Vineland was a specific  place in this region . It isn’t. P borrows 
> details from Eureka,  Arcata, Trinidad, Blue Lake, Mckinleyville,  and 
> Crescent City and  blends them.  There are six rivers there and his 
> Vineland is on the  7th. It is most like Eureka which has a long spit 
> connected by an art  Deco bridge to the mainland, 101 passes through it 
> with regular  street traffic, and it has a community college called the 
> College of  the redwoods, but it’s a blend.
>
> The swap meet is real, the land developers, the ornate victorians, 
> surfers,flower children, there were daffodil fields 300 yards down  the 
> street from our house, the Finnish Country Hot Tub(Shangri La)  and Sauna 
> is in Arcata, the Bigfoot stories, the L.A. people adapting  to the local 
> economy, the live music and theater,the powerful  presence of the Yurok 
> and Tolowa culture, spirit world and people,  the ghost towns and 
> abandoned houses in the hill-country. He gets it  right along with the old 
> school Logger lefties, grangers etc. Pynchon  obviously loved it and so 
> did I. The beaches are beautiful and  uncrowded and the rivers are the 
> greatest place in the world to white  water raft, the summers provide an 
> endless supply of wild  blackberries, and the Redwoods surround you with 
> the spirits of the  ancient Forest. I remember taking a 2 person 
> inflatable Kayak along  part of the Trinity with my son  and  beaching for 
> a while and  finding ripe concord grapes  on a wild vine. Vineland the 
> good is  still real in some places.  Definitely shared that feeling with 
> Zoyd  of having chosen right, for a change.

It all looked quite idyllic in the movie Humboldt County, which was filmed 
in Arcata .

The exUCLA professor who had moved to Northern California.

And there was the girl wearing the tee shirt saying "Nietzsche is peachy."

Nice personal touch to an exellent write up, Joseph.

P.


>
>  Stuff to talk about
>
> Thoughts on Van Meter?   Zoyd reminds me style wise of Ry Cooder, one  of 
> my favorites, who once played with Don Van Vliet, aka Captain  Beefheart.
>
> I feel like the Thanatoids (along with some more metaphysical 
> implications)  in Ch 14 are a stand in for the invasion of suburbia.
>
> Anyone know anything about Elizabeth Claire Prophet? That’s who I  thought 
> of with Cousin Claire the paranormal.
>
> Sorry about cutting this so close to the official beginning of CH  15 , 
> tomorrow,  Robin. Am looking forward to the wild conclusion of  our 
> literary ride.
>
>
> ‘Preciate the chance to host  a chapter, and think about a good  book. 
> This chapter was personal, so kinda nice. This is the first  Pynchon novel 
> I read, and it hooked me like a happy Fiss.
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