VLVL(12) pgs 248-261

[Bekah]

And now back to 1969:  the  aftermath

(pg 248)   The campus is pacified although there are many injuries.    
some escape, some are arrested and some are taken hostage but no  
reported deaths.   Hard telling how many were really missing because  
it was "unthinkable that any North American agency would kill its own  
civilians and then lie about it."

At his news conference Vond  speaks of the reasons for the  
disappearances and humorously suggests  "rapture."

** Rapture is a prophesied event in Christian eschatology, in which  
Christians are suddenly taken from the earth to participate in the  
Second Coming of Christ.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture

Vond goes on to say many  have "gone underground."

**  Fwiw,  the Weather Underground branched off the SDS in 1969 in  
order to quit the non-violent resistance and start attacking the  
institutions to finally stop the war by bringing down the government.
Dylan 'You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind  
blows.'  from the 'Subterranean Homesick Blues'' cut on the "Bringing  
It All Back Home" album.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_(organization)

* Of course Vond may simply mean "gone into hiding, " like DL did,   
but I think OBA knew what he was writing.

Vond  somehow gets those attending his news conference to keep  
"asking the wrong questions"  (and the guy with the right one is  
escorted out).

Meanwhile,  Frenesi is taken via "Federal Emergency Evacuation  
Route,"  (FEER) to a bunker somewhere in the coastal range.
Totally great Pynchonian  acronym.

That route is there just in case there's  "...some urban evacuation"   
due to "the last round-up"?  or due to something far more serious  
(the unspoken bomb?).  And then there's that little "planned"  
community at the end of the JEEP road in the north coast redwood area.

"The bunker from which DL rescues Frenesi is modeled on a COG  
complex. For a description of the complexes, as well as the Joint  
Emergency Evacuation Plan (JEEP), which provides for the evacuation  
of sixty-three key officials..."
http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/lpop/etext/okla/thoreen24.htm
(note # 108 - scroll way down)

  Try the Hamilton Air Force Base at:
http://www.militarymuseum.org/HamiltonAFB.html
if you're interested - it's about 10 miles north of San Rafael.

It was decommissioned in 1973 and closed in '76.  It was  never  
converted to civilian use and vacated in '96.

****
(pg 249)   DL springs into action and gets to Berkeley where she  
joins  Howie and Sledge in a seriously souped 1957 Chevy Nomad (a two- 
door station wagon!).
http://www.chooseyouritem.com/classics/files/94500/94906.html

They head to San Rafael (across the Richmond Bridge - about 20  
miles)  and then into the mountains to where they'd heard she'd been  
taken .

****
(pg 250) Rumors in Berkeley point to the FEER highway where there is  
a remote community along with some "ruins from Camelot"

Try the Air-Force base again and the  Kennedy days?

Apparently DL, red hair and all,  can turn invisible somehow, at  
least that's what she told them and what they all "believed."  They  
assume that Vond has kidnapped Frenesi - can't believe she'd go on  
her own.   So they wind back into the mountains and manage to slam  
through the fencing of the compound.

******
(pg 251) -  Then it's  up and up to the "Mesopotamian highway - level 3.

And now there are medallions on the poles alongside the road with the  
mug of one Virgil ("Sparky") Ploce on the face.   Sparky,   
1923-1959,  was an American martyr in the "Crusade Against  
Communism"  apparently dying while attempting to assassinate Castro  
with the old  exploding cigar trick.

"The CIA allegedly plotted to capitalize on Castro's well known love  
of cigars by slipping into his supply a very real and lethal  
'exploding cigar.' "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_cigar

  But Castro didn't take over Cuba until December 31, 1959 or maybe  
January 8, 1960  - perhaps after Sparky there was already dead?  So  
Sparky could be a thanatoid,  perhaps?  And  is the name "Sparky"  
indicative of the fact his cigar went off a moment too soon?  (duh?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro

The Nova is being tracked along its tortured journey...

*******
(pg 252)  - the eyes of Sparky track them which could be very eerie,  
but with a silent "Be groovy or B movie,"  DL slips out of the car  
and into the compound.  She later realizes that she is not living up  
to her selfless Sensei beliefs - her own selfish passions are  
involved and there is a foreshadowing that springing Frenesi  might  
not be such a hot idea.

****
**** WARNING - this Kunochi/ Kasumi stuff is totally foreign to me  
and a lot of the names are now associated with computer gaming and  
anime.

(pg 253)   She sneaks by a guard who is reading - DL is using Kasumi  
Mist techniques including wiggling her fingers in his face. She then  
jimmied the lock with a long thin Sensei needle:

Sensi acupuncture needles?
http://www.acuneeds.com/needles/needles.aspx?l=l&area=Needles&cat=NSU

DL gets inside the barracks and finds a face she recognizes - they  
talk but then she makes even his memory of her disappear.

****
(pg 254)  She has a brief but erotic encounter with one of the girls  
on the floor, gets her information and gives the girl the Kunoichi  
death kiss  (?)   but  DL gets into invisible mode (GR,  CoL49, AtD,  
M&D) and taking her own good time after that,  snatches Frenesi out.

"Hasta la proxima, querida mia"   -  Until we meet again,  my  
love.    -  ?

DL ventures into the compound and subdued a marshal on watch with  
Yukai na,   to make him behave himself and guide her down (and down  
quickly) to "a subterranean complex known as the office."

* Yukai means "amusing, funny,  interesting"  in Japanese but the  
"na" is a negative so the phrase "Yukai na" means NOT amusing, funny,  
interesting.   But then the word "fun" is added after the comma - so  
I don't know if she's doing fun or not - perhaps she's doing not  
funny things which are fun.   (heh)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10412286/A-Guide-to-Learning-Japanese- 
Grammar-Tests
also "fun:"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGLo9I9ocb0

The pair arrive at a "Cold War Dream" of "unwatchable events in the  
sky,"  where there are hatchways and "Sleeping compartments, water,  
food, electricity, an extension to life in a never-ending hum of  
fluerescent light and recycled air."


http://techpaul.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/sac-computer-room.jpg
(What were the old movies where there was an underground control room?)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057012/

"And right now,  just this side of the Unimagined,  also offering  
deep rprivacy for whatever those in command might wish to do to  
people they brought down here. "

This is immediate - "...right now..."  (for 1969 or 1984 or in the  
reader's time frame?),  and where, pray tell,  is "the Unimagined?"

The guard-guide brings DL to Frenesi and she apparently springs her.

*****
Page 255 -256
As DL wakes Frenesi  up from her "Dream of the Gentle Flood"  in  
which a up-scale California beach town is inundated by a huge tidal  
wave which resets its shore-line and the residents adjust to it and   
go on as usual with a lot of loss but the promise of restitution.   
The incredibly beautiful dream lasted quite a long time,  days, and  
is apparently drug induced being compared to a song.

*Is this the Reagan promise?  Is this the hippie promise?  What is  
Frenesi dreaming and is it from her own subconscious or is it from  
the Cold War control room people?  (more later,  I think.)

Frenesi recognizes DL and remembers some of what brought her here and  
tells DL that "He's not here.  He left hours ago."

I suppose she's referring to Vond because DL says,  "Too bad, I was  
hoping for the pleasure at last, another time perhaps ..."

***
(pg 257)
DL grabs a jeep, gets away from the main complex,  dumps the marshal  
(who has asked for a date and DL's secrets) and heads for safety.

"We could have turned the Pentagon into a dove ranch"  (meaning they  
could have turned the military into peace-people.)

  Frenesi isn't particularly happy or grateful about being released.   
She's in tears and looks back "trying not so much to see the marshal  
as just to look back the way they'd come."  (from the compound.)

An allusion to about Frenesi's attraction to the military, etc. ...

And  the pair make it down to Mexico VERY quickly now in an older  
Camaro - mainstreaming their ID's:

"After a rendezvous with Howie and Sledge she hightailed it over to  
I-5 blasting on southward to I-80, dropping off the boys  at the  
University Avenue exit, ending up with a monosyllabic and distant  
Frenesi at last in the not-yet-trendy Mexican fishing village of  
Quilbasazos, on the Pacific coast, down a brief but challenging few  
miles of dirt road from the coastal highway.

That is some quick travel - Novato to Tijuana is 534 miles.  There is  
no town by name of Quilbasazos  and I have no luck trying to  
translate it.  Something about giant gay kisses, perhaps, but that's  
a real long shot.   Besazos  (note the "e" instead of the "a") are  
giant kisses - so what is Quil?  -

So back up and try Ensenada which was quiet and nice in 1969 - I may  
have been there then.   Anyone familiar with Hussong's?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDlDL-wWjrw
It looks about the same except there were no tables and chairs or  
food when I was there - pretty bare but very active on the weekends  
with frat boys from UC San Diego.

***
pages 258-259:
Once there they kick back and join Krishna for updates on their   
"broken collectivity."   Mirage was "shocked into silence,"  gave  
away her "stuff"  and went back to Arkansas (back to the center - the  
"silent majority),   while  Zipi and Ditzah  (the Pisks) were  
radicalized into the more violent wing of the general  movement and  
went to Oregon to make bombs.

( Anyone notice how all this happens on the "left coast"  - also as  
far as manifest destiny can take you and stay land-bound [which has  
been mentioned] ) ?

Frenesi questions the validity,  or efficacy at least,  of their role  
in the movement thinking maybe the Pisks were right and that all  
they'd been was kids playing with toys.   She questions reality and  
says,  "We might as well have been dropping Purple Owsley for all the  
good it did."

Purple Owsley
LSD is sold under more than 80 street names, including ...   Owsley  
acid, Owsley ...  pink Owsley, purple Owsley..."
http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1011615-overview

"Owsley Stanley  was an underground LSD cook, the first to produce  
large quantities of pure LSD."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley_Stanley

And then Frenesi comes to the realization that "the minute the guns  
came out, all that art-of-the-cinema handjob was over."

DL tells Frenesi about the rumors that Rex probably left the country  
and  (Sensei warnings be damned)  confronts Frenesi about the set- 
up.   Frenesi confesses defiantly.

******

(page 260)  They get loud and leave the restaurant - remember? -  (in  
the rain) to the hotel after where there is an emotional drag-out cat- 
fight and  Frenesi tells DL about all the Thorazine therapy she  
underwent (at the camp?).

* Bizarre dreams are a rare side-effect of Thorazine which is mostly  
used for anxiety reduction.
http://www.drugs.com/cons/thorazine.html

Frenesi is trying to destroy DL's exterior calm to enrage her and beg  
for  mercy :
"But at last it was mercy she'd have to plead for, reduced to playing  
helpless, blaming external drug molecules for each of her failures,  
complicities, and surrenders as indeed national governments were even  
then learning to do, with an already devastating impact on any humans  
who happened to be in their way."

And in this same sentence (pg 260 lines 28-29) :  Um...    what's  
this about the national governments learning to play helpless victim  
of drug molecules etc?   -  (No entender.)

(off topic)  Between this scene and the scene where Frenesi realizes  
she has no more options and has to take Vond's gun she's a pathetic  
thing.   Do men get into that kind of deal when they follow their sex  
and the money to the tune called by spies?   - no need to answer -  
it's a Pynchon thing for this book, I think,  reversing the sexes and  
all. )

"Frenesi with a nasalized little-girl croak then reciting her  
adventures in the world beyond the temporal vei of a drug well known  
for is antagonism to memory.l"
Stelazine is an anti-psychotic.

*****
(page 261)   "They hid it in my food, I made myself throw up, so they  
went back to shots and suppositories. They classified me as a  
Persistent Drug Evader, but I was just teasing. What happened was ...  
I got to like it. Only took a couple of days. I started looking  
forward to it.  I wanted them to come and hold me down, stick needles  
in me, push things up my ass.   Wanted that ritual. . . like they had  
to keep the two drugs out of the light till the last minute, then  
they'd mix them together, real quick, and give it to me. Shrinks  
never figured it out, but the orderlies, the workin' stiffs who  
actually had to do it all, handle me, hold me still, pull apart the  
cheeks of my ass, they knew all right, 'cause they were digging it  
just as much as I was.. .."   She waited, guttering with a small meek  
defiance, standing at the window and trembling, moonlight from a high  
angle pouring over her naked back, casting on it shadows of her  
shoulder blades, like healed stumps of wings ritually amputated once  
long ago, for some transgression of the Angels' Code."

Frenesi is more than attracted to military types,  she's a  
masochist.  Also,  she may not be only of THIS world -  life death  
stuff again, ghosts,  - etc.  she's reverting to another reality?
http://tinyurl.com/aqdqtq     )
(GoogleBooks - Constructing Post-Modernism by Brian McHale)

****************
And now we flash back to the future with  DL telling all this to  
Prairie.

Bekah