C of L 49: "That's how it is..most of the time."

[Robin Landseadel]

On Jul 15, 2009, at 7:11 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:

> A-and although Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove" is nearly half a century  
> old,
> I still can't help but have to laugh my head off ...
>
> kfl
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9ihKq34Ozc

Exactly.

> ----------------------------------------
>> From: robinlandseadel at comcast.net
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Subject: Re: C of L 49: "That's how it is..most of the time."
>> Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:16:11 -0700
>>
>> On Jul 14, 2009, at 6:49 PM, Campbel Morgan wrote:
>>
>>> Political satire doesn't have any staying power.
>>
>> I guess you better inform OBA to stop doing it.

	For according to a rumor sweeping the film community, a
	federal grand jury was convening to inquire into drug abuse in
	the picture Business. A sudden monster surge of toilet flushing
	threatened water pressure in the city mains, and a great bloom
	of cold air spread over Hollywood as others ran to open their
	refrigerator doors more or less all at once, producing this
	gigantic fog bank in which traffic feared even to creep and
	pedestrians went walking into the sides of various buildings.
	Hector assumed parallels were being drawn to back in '51,
	when HUAC came to town, and the years of blacklist and the
	long games of spiritual Monopoly that had followed. Did he give
	a shit? Communists then, dopers now, tomorrow, who knew,
	maybe the faggots, so what, it was all the same beef, wasn't it?
	Anybody looking like a normal American but living a secretlife
	was always good for a pop if times got slow—easy and cost-
	effective, that was simple Law Enforcement 101. But why right
	now? What did it have to do with Brock Vond running around
	Vineland like he was? and all these other weird vibrations in
	the air lately, like even some non-born-agains showing up at
	work with these little crosses, these red Christer pins, in their
	lapels, and long lines of civilians at the gun shops too, and the
	pawnshops, and all the military traffic on the freeways, more
	than Hector could ever remember, headlights on in the daytime,
	troops in full battle gear, and that queer moment the other night
	around 3:00 or 4:00 A.M., right in the middle of watching Sean
	Connery in The G. Gordon Liddy Story, when he saw the scree
	echoing.

	"But we don't actually have the orders yet," somebody said.

	"It's only a detail," the other voice with a familiar weary edge, a
	service voice, "just like getting a search warrant." Onto the
	screen came some Anglo in fatigues, about Hector's age, sitting
	at a desk against a pale green wall under fluorescent light. He
	kept looking over to the side, off-camera.

	"My name is— what should I say, just name and rank?"

	"No names," the other advised.

	The man was handed two pieces of paper clipped together, and
	he read it to the camera. "As commanding officer of state
	defense forces in this sector, pursuant to the President's NSDD
	#52 of 6 April 1984 as amended, I am authorized—what?" He
	started up, sat back down, went in some agitation for the desk
	drawer, which stuck, or had been locked. Which is when the
	movie came back on, and continued with no further military
	interruptions.

	There was a weirdness here that Hector recognized, like right
	before a big drug bust, yes, but even more like the weeks
	running up to the Bay of Pigs in '61. . .
	Vineland, pages 338/340

If you go into the P-list's archives, you will find a recent group  
read of Vineland, where the historical events satirized in this scene  
are opened up and rendered with much more detail:

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0904&msg=134379&sort=date

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0904&msg=134380&sort=date

Pynchon picks his targets very carefully.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20090715/692bbe2c/attachment-0001.html>