IV 15 259-261

[Paul Mackin]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Kohut" <markekohut at yahoo.com>
To: "John Bailey" <sundayjb at gmail.com>
Cc: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 7:12 AM
Subject: Re: IV 15 259-261


Night of the Living Dead made in my old hometown. I know someone a zombie 
extra, in it.

I do not think Zombies were at all in the public consciousness.

Me: Weren't there a few (maybe a lot) of zombi movies back in the 30s or 
40s?

Vague recollection.

P

I do know another guy who is writing a book on Zombies. He has said the 
growth of them in popular culture, all forms, has been masive.

--- On Wed, 11/18/09, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: IV 15 259-261
> To: "pynchon -l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 2:03 AM
> Re: Zombies. Night of the Living Dead
> [1968] arguably redefined the
> concept of the zombie in the US, and indeed made it a
> figure of
> popular culture in a way it hadn't been before. For the
> P-listers
> around at the time of IV, were zombies really part of the
> public
> consciousness? I know there's been a massive resurgence in
> popularity
> lately but are all of the zombie refs in IV appropriate to
> the times?
>
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> wrote:
> > Fritz calls to tell Doc Shasta landed 2 days ago at
> LAX
> >
> > Fritz Drybeam- Interesting name- Given the context,
> one thinks of the noir
> > film director Fritz Lang. Drybeam made me think of a
> beam of light. Film
> > noir is all about harsh angular lighting. FD is
> using the Arpanet to look
> > into hidden things but how useful his searches are is
> not clear, and on 258
> > he tells Doc that the FBI is watching back and asking
> him why he is so
> > interested in Shasta.
> >
> > The line that jumps for me on this page is "Glenn
> Charlock is still dead,
> > but hey, who cares about the criminal element ,
> right?"
> >
> > He keeps complaining till Fritz says it's Doc's
> problem now. Fritz has
> > been spending too much time with the Arpanet and needs
> to get back to
> > chasing down skips and deadbeats. There is a constant
> tension between
> > working to address real crimes of violence and serving
> the quasi legal
> > machinery and interests of the powers that be.
> >
> > Fritz doesn't want to look into Puck; seems to know
> this is dangerous
> > territory.
> >
> > Clearly, my reading in the chapter summary of of the
> incident with the gold
> > copper traces and Noguchi was wrong. I missed the joke
> with 'calling in the
> > lab' and Doc was referring to an historic incident
> where Noguchi was
> > suspended for a month. No p-listers seem to have
> noticed or cared.
> >
> > The recurrent theme of Zombies shows up when Doc
> watches a Zombie Movie but
> > falls asleep before the part at the end that confuses
> him. Zombies seem to
> > be IV's Thanatoids, a rather darker take on the living
> dead. Still we get
> > the idea that Doc thinks about Zombies as karmically
> real and doesn't want
> > to be one. This movie is about 2 brother's rivalry
> over a woman , ending
> > when one( manipulated buy a voodoo priest) stabs the
> others wife and he and
> > she end up dead, floating in the surf. Maybe P is
> forecasting how Doc is
> > manipulated by Bigfoot into a violent confrontation
> with AP and PB.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>