IV 15 259-261

[John Bailey]

There was Val Lewton's great "I Walked With a Zombie" in 1943 but I'm
not aware of many others (and the kind of zombie depicted in that film
is radically different to the one we're now familiar with).

btw, recently read a fascinating article on real Haitian zombies:
http://www.mensjournal.com/into-the-zombie-underworld

No idea what this 'men's journal' site is but ended up suckered into
reading the whole essay.

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 12:15 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
>
> ----- 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.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>
>
>
>