Ch 15, pages 367/368 [345, 351]

[Robin Landseadel]

On Apr 16, 2009, at 11:50 AM, rich wrote:

> --the co-option of expressions of love for children bu
> corporate whores does not make that expression a bad
> thing

Of course not, and that's not what I was pointing to. Kaia singing  
". . . all the lonely people. . ." [she rarely gets past that] is  
cuter than anything, always will be. If it wasn't Beatles tunes it  
would be something else—Carter Family tunes, Child Ballads, Tuvan  
throat singing—whatever her home life threw at her she'd sing back,  
she's a born musician and comes from a long line of them.

And yes, I'm sure that Pynchon has more than a touch of fondness for  
certain TV series—Star Trek is a well he keeps returning to.

My parents found it very cute when I would sing "from the land of sky- 
blue waters." I'm sure it was.

But a whole lot of Vineland is concerned with the drip-drip-drip of  
TV, that theme is brought out in chapter 15 in particular. I Started a  
list of TV/Film references in chapter 15 of Vineland. I got twenty  
pages in and found 30 citations/references/carom shots off of Tubal  
enterprises. Realized that it would be nearly as long as the chapter  
itself. Much of Vineland shows people who—over and over again—mimic  
Television, create their self definitions from Tubal models:

	Here came some sentimental pitch, delivered deadpan—cop
	solidarity, his problems with racism in the Agency, her 59¢ on
	the male dollar, maybe a little "Hill Street Blues" thrown in, plus
	who knew what other licks from all that Tube, though she
	thought she recognized Raymond Burr's "Robert Ironside"
	character and a little of "The Captain" from "Mod Squad." It was
	disheartening to see how much he depended on these Tubal
	fantasies about his profession . . .
	VL, 345

Note how much of chapter fifteen reads like a soap opera?

	"Listen to me!" screaming through his lower teeth like a lounge
	comic doing Kirk Douglas.
	VL, 345

	. . .The smartest kid Justin ever met, back in kindergarten, had
	told him to pretend his parents were characters in a television
	sitcom. "Pretend there's a frame around 'em like the Tube,
	pretend they're a show you're watching. You can go into it if you
	want, or you can just watch, and not go into it." The advice came
	especially in handy when they got to McCarran International
	and found some service workers out on strike, and a picket line.

	"Uh-oh," said Frenesi. Uh-oh, went Justin to himself. His mom
	didn't cross picket lines—she told him someday he'd
	understand. . . .

	 . . ."Telling me to do what, now?" his tone and volume enough 	
	to bring some pickets out of the line to have a listen, along with
	a few passengers from the waiting area who were forsaking the
	daytime dramas on their coin-operated TV sets for this free
	episode. . .
	VL, 351


Ain't no accident.

I'd say OBA's got a love/hate relationship with the Tube, like so many  
others.

> sounds like yr equating gilligan's island or the brady bunch with
> truimph of the will-- that's pretty deranged

 From a technical angle, it isn't. And it's well worth repeating that  
G. Gordon Liddy had a big hand in developing the use of Television as  
a "Crime fighting tool" [read: anti-drug  propaganda.] In terms of  
things like shot placement and use of music, Leni Riefenstahl is in  
there somewhere. At least in G. Gordon Liddy's mind.

http://tinyurl.com/d8wm82

Don't forget the author's concern that humans were giving up their  
human-ness and becoming more like machines. Entropy entered into this  
equation. "V." was quite concerned with that theme, as I recall.  
Vineland's concerned with it as well. And still, it's funny.  
"Vineland" is more like the work of a self-recognized human than  
"Gravity's Rainbow." But there's still the same—one might even say  
paranoid—themes.