CoL49 (1) San Narciso/Echo Courts [PC 13/16]

[Robin Landseadel]

	She left Kinneret, then, with no idea she was moving toward
	anything new.
	CoL49, 13

The greater Los Angeles basin is full of Spanish names for newly  
sprung towns—the region has a history of ongoing expansion of bedroom  
communities. The creation of new suburbs was in full swing back in  
1964. "San Narciso" is derived from Saint Narcissus:	
	One year on Easter-eve the deacons were unprovided with oil
	for the lamps in the church, necessary at the solemn divine
	office that day. Narcissus ordered those who had care of the
	lamps to bring him some water from the neighboring wells. This
	being done, he pronounced a devout prayer over the water;
	then bade them pour it into the lamps; which they did, and it
	was immediately converted into oil, to the great surprise of the
	faithful. . .
	http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=791

	San Narciso lay further south, near L.A. Like many named
	places in California it was less an identifiable city than a
	grouping of concepts—census tracts, special purpose bond-
	issue districts, shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to
	its own freeway. But it had been Pierce's domicile, and
	headquarters: the place he'd begun his land speculating in ten
	years ago, and so put down the plinth course of capital on
	which everything afterward had been built, however rickety or
	grotesque, toward the sky; and that, she supposed, would set
	the spot apart, give it an aura. But if there was any vital
	difference between it and the rest of Southern California, it was
	invisible on first glance. She drove into San Narciso on a
	Sunday, . . .
	CoL49, 13

Pierce's center of power in San Narciso is attached to the gift of  
turning water into oil. All those real-estate deals of L.A.'s youthful  
expansion turned the fantasy of living near Sunny L.A.'s beaches—1964  
was a stellar year for the Beach Boys, "I Get Around" was a number one  
hit for them that year—into the sales of oil for the gas guzzlers of  
the era. There seemed to be new freeways spreading out everywhere at  
the time, & the delicious grab of your car's tires on newly laid-out  
virgin asphalt.

The Saint's legend also includes the act of losing one's sight from  
crying:

	Some of this miraculous oil was kept there as a memorial at the
	time when Eusebius wrote his history. The veneration of all
	good men for this holy bishop could not shelter him from the
	malice of the wicked. Three incorrigible sinners, fearing his
	inflexible severity in the observance of ecclesiastical discipline,
	laid to his charge a detestable crime, which Eusebius does not
	specify. They confirmed their atrocious calumny by dreadful
	oaths and imprecations; one wishing he might perish by fire,
	another, that he might be struck with a leprosy, and the third,
	that he might lose his sight, if what they alleged was not the
	truth. Notwithstanding these protestations, their accusation did
	not find credit; and, some time after, the divine vengeance
	pursued the calumniators. The first was burnt in his house, with
	his whole family, by an accidental fire in the night; the second
	was struck with a universal leprosy; and the third, terrified by
	these examples, confessed the conspiracy and slander, and by
	the abundance of tears which he continually shed for his sins,
	lost his sight before his death.

	http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=791

Of course, San Narsico also points to Narcissus:

	In the tale told by Ovid, thought to have been based on
	Parthenius' version but altered in order to broaden its appeal,
	Echo, a nymph, falls in love with a vain youth named
	Narcissus. . .

	. . .Narcissus left Echo heartbroken and she spent the rest of her
	life in lonely glens, pining away for the love she never knew,
	until only her voice remained.

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_(mythology)

. . . setting us up for the Metzger/Oedipa tryste, & the image of  
Metzger gazing into the Tube, entranced by Baby Igor. Our expectations  
are that this particular fairy tale isn't about to end well, that  
Metzger—a perfect narcissist—is bound to leave & probably soon. Note  
that in the legend all we are left with is Echo's Cry.

	A representation in painted sheet metal of a nymph holding a
	white blossom towered thirty feet into the air; the sign, lit up
	despite the sun, said "Echo Courts." The face of the nymph was
	much like Oedipa's, which didn't startle her so much as a
	concealed blower system that kept the nymph's gauze chiton in
	constant agitation, revealing enormous vermilion-tipped breasts
	and long pink thighs at each flap. She was smiling a lipsticked
	and public smile, not quite a hooker's but nowhere near that of
	any nymph pining away with love either.
	CoL49, 16

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3041/3012108735_458c1b716d.jpg

	Narcissus and Oedipus represent, in general, the psychotic and
	the neurotic way of existence, dicotomy that matched with the
	time when psychoanalysis was born . . .

	. . . the narcissistic punishment of Oedipus, who wanted to
	answer what should be repressed. . .

	http://tinyurl.com/on7aze