Fwd: Re: drugs in Vineland---and drug laws

[Heikki Raudaskoski]

Please, ignore that "metaphor" word in my message... "to describe  
OBA's humor" it should be.

H

----- Edelleenvälitetty viesti lähettäjältä hraudask at cc.oulu.fi -----
        Päiväys: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:42:10 +0300
      Lähettäjä: Heikki Raudaskoski <hraudask at cc.oulu.fi>
        Otsikko: Re: drugs in Vineland---and drug laws
  Vastaanottaja: pynchon-l at waste.org


Agree.

On a slightly different note: is stoner humor, perhaps, too phlegmatic
to describe metaphor OBA's humor? Well, VL is quite relaxed,
admittedly. But GR, especially, seems more upper-informed. (Not to
forget Slothrop's digital uppers...)


Heikki

Lainaus kelber at mindspring.com:

> Because pot smoking isn't, in and of itself, an effective form of    
> political protest, doesn't mean it's a bad thing.  Back in the    
> sixties, though, the hippie image (long hair, groovy threads,    
> joint-in-hand)was often confused with genuine political analysis.  I  
>   remember my mom at anti-war demos arguing with Hipster types who   
> had  a muddled world-view:  they wanted the US to withdraw from   
> Vietnam  but didn't want the commies to win -- that kind of thing.    
> Not every  pot-smoker is politically or counter-culturally   
> enlightened (the  opposite is more likely to be true).  Neo-nazis   
> and Hell's Angels  like a toke too.
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
>> Sent: Mar 31, 2009 2:40 PM
>> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>> Subject: Re: drugs in Vineland---and drug laws
>>
>>>> Mark Kohut:
>>>>
>>>> Contentious perspective for discussion:  drug use, despite our
>>>> freedom to,  is "part of the problem" in Vineland????
>>
>>> Laura:
>>
>>> Drug use is a form of social protest in a society where it's
>>> outlawed.  But it's an easy, ineffectual, and basically self-serving
>>> substitute for real protest (strikes, demonstrations, civil
>>> disobedience, riots, organizing, alternative media, education
>>> campaigns, etc).
>>
>> And it turns a sandwich into a banquet.
>>
>> Far as I can tell, TRP is one of the all-time-greats of stoner humor.
>> Far as I can tell, he quacks, walks and talks like a duck. There's an
>> elephant in the room and he just took a toke off the bong.
>>
>> There's no red-blooded, all-American evil fascist stoner in OBA's
>> stuff. In fact, going from front to back of the dude's oeuvre you find
>> some good stoners, some value-neutral stoners but no bad-guy stoners.
>> And while Pynchon has said a lot of favorable things about weed in his
>> work, I don't recall him saying anything negative about weed.
>>
>> If you are looking for a post-modern writer that delves into negative
>> aspects of marijuana allow me to recommend the late, lamented David
>> Foster Wallace. "Infinite Jest" goes there.
>




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