Big Up the P-List, yo!

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Carvill John" <johncarvill at hotmail.com>
To: <mackin.paul at verizon.net>
Cc: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 6:53 PM
Subject: Big Up the P-List, yo!


>
> I've been on and off this list for years now. It's a bit like smoking, 
> which you're expected to give up eventually. Ach, lets face it, it's more 
> like smoking dope, which we're expectd never even to take up, but  you get 
> the point. A pleasurable habit which sometimes has its down sides, and 
> which in any case your wife would rather you knock on the head for good. 
> But, as possible Pynchon mate Bob Dylan said, in the course of his last 
> truly great album 'Love & Theft' (the only Dylan album title to have 
> included inverted commas in the title, how Pynchonian), "Sometimes someone 
> wants you to give something up and, tears or not, it's too much to ask".
>
> What I really like about Paul's post, below, is that he says he's 
> concurring with me - and he *is*, I think - his comments could just as 
> easily be marshalled to make a case against me. Not that I had an argument 
> to argue against in the first place.

Know what you mean. A lot of times a person thinks they are taking your 
point but really has something pretty different in mind. But yes the p-list 
is an addiction. I've tried to break it numerous times but always come back. 
Met my first live p-listers about 13 years ago. They were Henry, Will 
Layman, and David Fischer.  I remember David bringing regrets from Chris K 
that she couldn't  make it to DC. Later I met Rich, David, Ruthsing, Chris, 
Henry and Susan on the M&D line in Deleware. And there have been other 
meetings as well.

P

>
> But what I really mean is that I appreciate this forum for the opportunity 
> it gives to a lot of multiply diverse people to discuss such a range of 
> matters, either related to TRP or not. It doesn't get said often enough - 
> and if it does it's by p-list stalwart and all-round Voltarian good egg 
> Dave Monroe - but we would all, surely, be the poorer for the loss of this 
> list. Which seems like small potatoes in the 'my latest pearl of wisdom' 
> stakes; but which also means we would all be the poorer for the loss of 
> each other, dunnit?
>
> So - big up y'self, all merry p-lister folk. A-and, ask 
> y'sel'.............

Again I concur.


>
>
>
>>
>> I would very much concur with the above.
>>
>> IV is a pastiche combining the hardboiled detective story with the doper
>> genre or flick. The author has to be selective, so that one form doesn't
>> detract from the other. The detecive has to maintain his mental acuity a
>> good deal of the time or what would be the point. On the other hand, what
>> would be the 70s without a lot of drug participation and talk.
>>
>> Or, another way of looking at it, the hardboiled detective is a decendent
>> of the pulps. Writers got paid by the word. so of course there is a lot 
>> of
>> filler. But more importantly action packed writing has to be 
>> paced--slowed
>> down in other words. The reason Marlow seems to be reaching for the rye 
>> so
>> often is the same reason he keeps reaching for a lucky (or whatever he
>> smokes)--that being to pace the action. Not to get him drunk, but to give
>> the reader a chance to absorb the story at a manageable pace.
>>
>> Come to think of it, Doc reaches for a Kool almost as often as he reaches
>> for a joint.
>>
>> P
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