Zoyd

[Michael Bailey]

John Carvill wrote:
> What a weird bunch Pynchon attracts.
> On the other hand, there are loads of good people on this list, and
> discussing Pynchon, even with heavy dollops of luncay, is still a
> worthwhile way to pass an online hour or two. Long may we run.
>

speaking as one coated with a heavier than usual dollop of lunacy
(braised and in a bed of paranoia, sharing a side of shiffafa with my wife...)
I'll drink to that (cola on ice with a packet of that buffered
mineral-rich vitamin c powder and some
cocoa powder too - yumm.  coffee's good that way too, but cola's fizzier)

Zoyd has to jump thru the window to keep Prairie!

"...long as you're pickin' up those checks, nobody'll bother you -
but if you stop for even one time, the alarm goes off and we know you're
tryin to skip" as Hector says on page 304

Because there isn't a nice honest dole in this country (hey, if somebody doesn't
want to work, it's worth a few bucks to keep them from screwing up anybody's
workplace, isn't it?  the money goes right back into the economy anyway, and
people are more than just workers, their value inheres in something superior and
anterior to what subroutines they can be paid to follow: like DH Lawrence said,
"what do you mean, what does he do?  he's a dude,  a person, a human
bean, dig it?"
(or words to that effect)) the protocols dictate he has to have some kind of
disability, so he has to do something publicly crazy.

What he chose is jumping thru
windows.  The fear he experiences on page 17 is from the realization of
the danger.  He knows he'll never do it again, now that he knows.  Not just
to jack up the price...the thing about Joey Chitwood is a sidewise reflection
of the true surplus value of the commodity he was selling cheap in his
ignorance.

But if that was the kind of thing he did, he'd have been doing it.
Just realizing that he'd been doing that kind of thing made him
"white and nauseated." page 16!

That's what makes the Joie Chitwood comment a joke coming from him.

A broader net cast might take in a parallel between
Zoyd's getting a paltry check from the government for stunt acts that
in another venue would be worth some respectable cash,

and government employees such as Hector, (and bigfoot) and RC
in his soldier days, a-and even Brock in that pot-field shootout
 risking life & limb for just a steady paycheck,
compared with guys who play characters like them in movies or tv shows
getting a lot more of the efectivo

but I can't guarantee that is where Pynchon is going...
personally I don't think that's his main point
(money isn't everything...
everything is everything!)

I've said it before: Zoyd does what he can.

The thing about it is, what alternatives does he have?
If he makes a big deal about not eating food bought with the narc-earned money
that, say, Van Meter's slip of the tongue brought in, then he is liable to
lose out on a real friendship in favor of an abstract principle,
plus drive Scott closer into the arms of Hector and possibly
set himself up to be busted that much sooner.

By himself continuing to refuse Zuniga the desired info, he leads by example,
which is the only respectable way.

Also, if he doesn't broadcast a hard line, he himself gets more info
and - knowing who the snitches are - can protect his best connections...




-- 
"No ideas but in things " - William Carlos Williams