IVIV IV & Playboy article

[Robin Landseadel]

	`I don't know what you mean by "glory,"' Alice said.

	Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I  
tell you. I
	meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'

	`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument,"' Alice  
objected.

	`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,  
`it means
	just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

	`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many
	different things.'

	`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - -  
that's all.'

On Nov 1, 2009, at 3:11 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> That conflict, betwixt Return, to a time when things were not so as
> they now are, a Romantic longing, AND the political project of return,
> to a time when Ronald Reagan understood America, is rather important
> in those California works, but far more important and far better
> developed in the Romances.

Ronald Reagan was a tool from the get-go. Ronald Reagan understood the  
U.S.A. the way a three-card-monte dealer understands a mark.

It's only in the sequestration of an tenured ivory tower that one can  
get away with calling Pynchon a conservative. When you tell us that  
these themes are "far more important and far better developed in the  
Romances" all you're indicating are your personal prejudices. Go ahead  
and be Humpty Dumpty, go ahead and feel empowered to tell me that I  
don't really understand these books because I do not share your  
blinders, see what good that does.

PS: Thanks for the Raymond Chandler essay.