Ch 15, pages 367/368

[Paul Mackin]

Ah, the pleasures of a little bit of self-indulgence and pleasure seeking 
add a lot to life.

Reminds me of the TV comedy Two and a Half Men.

Charlie the womanizer who makes his living off writing advertising jingles 
is always being chastized by his  politically correct brother Alan. Yet it 
is Charlie who is the better human being in numerous ways--more generous, 
understanding, sympathetic, etc., when these things really count. Charlie 
does persecute dimwitted Alan unmercifully. But who's perfect?

P


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Robin Landseadel" <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 12:48 PM
Subject: Re: Ch 15, pages 367/368


> On Apr 16, 2009, at 9:00 AM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
>
>>  Did Robin become a drinker of, god forbid, Hamms?
>
> Yup. Started sipping at my Dad's beer around age 3.
>
>> Do they still make that stuff,
>
> Yes.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamm's_Brewery
>
>> why didn't the swell jingle and all those nifty bar lights get it  more 
>> market share?
>
> In its time it did, but we're all into microbrews now—aren't we? Note 
> that Hamm's Beer [the name is now owned by Miller] won an award at the 
> Great American Beer Fest of 2007:
>
> http://beerdorks.com/articles.php?article_id=47
>
>> Did music give these messages an "advantage" over experience, 
>> comparative shopping, word of mouth etc.?
>
> In their time? You Betcha! "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz—oh what a relief it 
> is!" "You deserve a break today." "Here's the story, of a man named 
> Brady, Who was busy with three boys of his own . . ."
>
>> Anyway what allows a person to break from commercial and culture and  its 
>> sloganized political equivalent and  develop critical filters  and 
>> skepticism?
>
> Unplugging from the Tube does help—spend many a year away from the  warm 
> glow of cathode rays, was better for it, honest. In fact, the  further 
> away I got from the tube, the more independent my thinking  became. It was 
> during those years that I first got turned onto Pynchon.
>
>> One thing I noticed this time through VL was a more negative feeling  as 
>> a reader about Sasha.
>
> Sasha is the Traverse one, ya know:
>
> http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Traverse_Family_Tree
>
> . . . and the Traverse family serves as a fine example of the various 
> seductions of Fascist impulses among the left—one of the central  points 
> of Vineland and Against the Day.
>
>> I really don't like her  much. The fact that she thought it cute  that 
>> her grand-daughter was being seduced by the TV equivalent of  baby talk 
>> and that it is an important memory for her that still  defines Prairie 
>> does not endear me.
>
> Me neither, and yet [remembering that I come from a family that—by 
> today's standards—is far left] our family had similar rituals. We  think 
> we are above these propaganda techniques but we succumb to them  anyway.
>
> Frenesi's like Sasha and Sasha's like Lake. As Gang of Four put it so 
> well:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z49cmltJJeA
>
>> It's like she's saying, Isn't it adorable how the TV gave us this  little 
>> island of vacuous wet dreams and replaced our real history so  we could 
>> gurgle and smile while we got screwed. But maybe this is  getting at 
>> something more primal. Maybe it is about the desire to  infantilize the 
>> people we love and even love itself. Ooh, ooh, ooh,  baby ,baby.
>
> Grandmas do have the tendency to infantilize their grandchildren. They 
> want to hang on to those precious first impressions, the promise of 
> spring, hope for the future. Thing is, many of these earliest  impressions 
> of children—the tabula rosa of a child's mind— have been  co-opted by 
> media messages, the propaganda of beer commercials and the  lifestyles of 
> the Brady Bunch. My three-year-old granddaughter Kaia is  fixated on 
> "Yellow Submarine" and charmingly sings the songs from that  movie. Her 
> parents block her from regular television, but they play  the dvd of the 
> Beatles' full length cartoon for her quite often. Cute?  Sure, but coming 
> from a similar place as Prairie's rendition of a  theme song from a 
> television show.
>
> There's a good chance that when Kaia is 15, Gail [my wife] will ask  her 
> to sing "Eleanor Rigby." There's a good chance that this will  irritate 
> Kaia. No performing seal, that one.