IVIV (1) Shasta

[Dave Monroe]

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 2:43 PM, Dave Monroe<against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Tonight she was all in flatland gear" (IV, Ch. 1, p. 1)

Cf. ...

   "We had a hell of a time with this one girl," a Youth Training and
Employment Project counselor recalls. "You should have seen those
hairdos of hers -- piled all the way up to here. And the screwy
outfits she'd come in with, you just wouldn't believe. We had to take
her aside and explain to her that employers just don't go for that
sort of thing. That she'd be up against a lot of very smooth-looking
chicks, heels and stockings, conservative hair and clothes. We finally
got her to come around."
   The same goes for boys who like to wear Malcolm hats, or Afro
haircuts. The idea the counselors push evidently is to look as much as
possible like a white applicant. Which is to say, like a Negro job
counselor or social worker. This has not been received with much
enthusiasm among the kids it is designed to help out, and is one
reason business is slow around the various projects.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/18/reviews/pynchon-watts.html
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_watts.html
http://acompulsivereader.wordpress.com/2009/08/21/a-journey-into-the-mind-of-pynchon/