IV and cultural assimilation

[Michael Bailey]

alice wellintown wrote:

> ...so on to read it without all the looking up. Stop reading it in
> Stenzil mode and start reading it in Benny Profane mode: don't learn a
> G-d Darn thing. Now how much merit, genius, beauty, greatness does the
> work have?

but wait, that's my usual mode.  I read Pynchon for cheap thrills and I have
never been disappointed.  Furthermore, like Benny, I'm not without a
tender side.
The sidelong glances at beauty, caring, usw, line up with my skewed
vantage point
pretty well.  For example, I'll buy Jason Velveeta slipping on ice
cream.  Those pimp
shoes are usually pretty tall. And a big slick of ice cream is
slipperier than a banana peel -
banana peels must've been slipperier in the old days or something.
 I'll also buy the one-upmanship on the dope, pot-smoking
is often full of mind games, particularly when you do it with people you aren't
particularly fond of.
Doc's parents, Shasta, the ouija board, Coy.  By the end,
I'm ready for The Deal, though the only reason probably to figure They will
keep their end of the bargain is it is actually cheaper to not break it...
In sum, these books are pretty good representations of the world as
far as I can tell.
Whatever other stuff is going on, and I don't doubt there is, doesn't
prevent a good yarn
from being spun.
I know I keep making these points - but I think they are good points.