Ch 15

[Robin Landseadel]

On Apr 14, 2009, at 5:37 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:

> . . . part of what I sense is that feel good flow that Huxley is  
> talking about. A kind of upbeat rhythm and jaunty riffing.  
> Dangerous? OK but I love it.

I get the feeling that Gravity's Rainbow was more like Wagner yet  
contained Saure Bummer's beautiful argument for music as a great  
"mindless pleasure", with Rossini as a prime example. The pacing and  
plotting and the "happily ever after" ending of Vineland strikes me as  
much more like Rossini than Wagner.

> Certainly both of these cultural forces of TV and Music are  
> competing for the attention of youth in VL.  P seems to show the TV  
> as more sinister, corrosive, in league with  the powers but...?

. . . in league with the powers—yes. And by the affection and humor  
which Tubal content is displayed it's a safe bet that OBA's hooked by  
the stuff. Note as well how the cultural roots of the Tube—serialized  
tales, new networks for distributing messages & programs, the "ray-rush 
— are all over "Against the Day."

Wonder how much Tube the author soaked up in those 17 years between GR  
& VL? There's very few years in my life where TV was absent from my  
life, how about yours?