IVIV page 144

[Michael Bailey]

"For Riggs it's always like, not that he should get it, but that some other
asshole shouldn't."

Huh?  Our idealistic zome visionary is that kind of prick-bastard?
How can that be?  Is Luz inaccurate?
"Riggs said" (get that?  Riggs said!) "it wasn't so much that he got to
fuck her as that Mickey didn't."

Now, maybe, he just said that about Sloane because he
was in love with her and wanted her for himself.
It's only one data point, after all.  Maybe it's a good,
wholesome possessiveness (I'll allow as how monogamy
might not always be good or wholesome...), maybe
it's the kind of love that sees how he could be
better for her than Mickey...

but here, Luz says: "Riggs...couldn't keep from jerking
himself off anytime Sloane was in the room..."
which doesn't indicate the kind of self-control that
leads to lasting happiness with one partner (does it?)

I'm getting a picture of Riggs as a genius with minimal
social skills, somebody who might thrive in a cloistered
or academic environment, somebody who doesn't fit
Mickey's business model.

And of course Mickey chose him because he wanted
to change his business model, but the business model -
emphasizing profit over quality (as lamented in Gaddis)
has infected Mickey's soul to the point of commoditizing
love for display (those neckties), equating loyalty with a "leash",
putting up Shasta in the most expensive part of town --
all these things revolve around having lots of cash,
and where is that going to come from if he switches
to "pro bono" work?

It's an interesting dilemma.  Or trilemma, if you go along
with me in detaching the giveaway, the innovative housing,
and the concupiscence into three modular units...

Kinkier still: "Riggs would have never gone near Sloane's
pussy if Mickey hadt'n encouraged him."
(our old friend dt'n from Vineland!)

This squares with Riggs maybe actually loving Sloane,
to the extent that his poor Asperger self can love another...

oh, here's something:
"Him and Riggs worked together on different projects."

ok, so the guy is a contractor, and has been building the
schlocky developments with Mickey, and probably got his
ear often enough to lay down the Zome idea...
it's just his bad luck that Mickey is going thru the guilt
trip and has lost his business acumen.  Because if you
introduced those zomes in a high-end development, if they
are as cool as they look, people would flock, I say, flock...

-0---0----0----0----0-
oh, one last point:
"These English chicks, they get to Califas they don't know how
to behave.  They see these people, man, all this money
and real estate and none of them with any idea what to
do with it.  First thing anybody hears when we get
across the border - esta gente no sabe nada."

so, Luz suggests, there is a social order in England
and one in Mexico that offers more..hmm..practical
sustenance and guiding worldview than is prevalent
in the cultural landscape of the USA

and Luz segues right from how an English "bird"
feels this way on reaching these shores, to how
Mexican immigrants feel - like they have more in
common being "not-USAn" than they have differences
from each other.  As if coming from any other place
one immediately notices the ignorance...

(there's something funny about that in the movie
Barcelona, too, can't remember it right now but
it's a great movie...)




--- ...one of the "sounds of the sixties" evoked in IV
is that of the coffee percolator, which is simply a far, far groovier
sound than any drip coffeemaker has ever made