"straightworld", a bit of glossing

[Mark Kohut]

No, not bent cops.......being cops trumps any bent metaphor.....

Bent as in the way Rob J. posted re hip, if I got it right.

--- On Mon, 8/24/09, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: "straightworld", a bit of glossing
> To: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Monday, August 24, 2009, 11:25 AM
> He likes natural curves, the rounded
> walls of old European cities in ATD,
> of course, the bent and broken.
> ________
> not bent cops that's for sure. I think Bigfoot is one
> despite
> Pynchon's grudging respect for the street code of 'watching
> yr buddies
> back' by everday policemen on the beat and the fact that
> he's too much
> of a loose cannon for the higher echelons of the LAPD (very
> similar in
> that way to Brock Vond and the upper reaches of the
> Justice
> Dept/FBI--I think that's all we can sympathize about these
> guys,
> within the elect (the secular version being law
> enforcement) they are
> preterite so to speak--that they don't realize it makes
> them pretty
> pathetic)
> 
> Rich
> 
> On 8/24/09, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> > First, as I posted, the meaning at the time of IV is
> more than just those
> > who smoke pot.....it was the word for the dominant
> culture, not the
> > alternative, 'counter-culture".....suburbia, office
> jobs, etc. [see Google
> > Book Search, if interested]
> >
> > I will get to an OED in the fulness of time, if no one
> has access, for their
> > usage detail.
> >
> > As early as 1972, it seems to have started to have the
> meaning of
> > 'not gay/lesbian"---[Again see Google Book Search, if
> interested]
> >
> > It seems there are more citations for England/London
> than the US, for
> > whatever that means, but it may have been used more in
> LA than many places
> > around the time of IV. [hard to know since the
> internets [joke] do not have
> > most from then].
> >
> > Stephen Fry, actor/writer of an age still used it in
> this countercultural
> > sense in a recent blog posting...
> >
> > But I am also going to add this from what I call
> Pynchon's poetic/notional
> > associations, lifelong.   He often
> mocks straight lines (and grids and right
> > angles) especially in Against the Day (and GR, I
> think: Tore? )as in the
> > layout of Chicago streets, for example. 
> Linearity is usually NOT a positive
> > in his work.....so this word straightworld resonates
> with his whole oeuvre,
> > not surprisingly. ....
> >
> > He likes natural curves, the rounded walls of old
> European cities in ATD,
> > of course, the bent and broken.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>