IV, Music, Headphones, iPods, etc.

[John Bailey]

Or loves the 'working'...

Thanks for posting this.

The "our own corrupted and perilous day" chimed with me. Having been
re-reading Against the Day, I've had in the back of my mind this
question as to what "the Day" is.

For me, in AtD, "the Day" is what is the case, not just the status quo
but What Is. I think everyone in the novel is striving against the
case, the facts, the circumstance, in some cases politically, in
others personally, in the most interesting existentially (the Chums
are fictions acting against reality). The novel's only real villain is
The Day (metaphorically, Vibe is the reality that will come to
dominate the world in ensuing decades) and everyone else is either
against this or complicit with but ultimately in opposition to it
(even Webb's killers are just used and left in the dustbin of
history). Against the Day parses just as well as Against What Is, and
is a pretty good positioning of Pynchon's fiction overall.

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 6:50 PM, Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> John:
>
>> Do we think Pynhcon likes otehr types of music? Of course,
>> indisputably. But I don't think his opinion on Rock & Roll has soured
>> since he wrote the Slow Learner intro.
>
> I gotta side with John, here. If Pynchon is critical of Rock & Roll in
> IV, that criticism is surely tempered with a Whole Lotta Love, as Led
> Zeppelin always sez. Take a look at this excerpt from Pynchon's liner
> notes to Lotion's "Nobody's Cool":
>
>
> "The recording studio is half a block from the subway. Times Square is
> being vacated and jackhammered into somebody's idea of an update. Next
> door to Peepland, up in a control room out of The Jetsons, the band,
> between takes, are discussing Bobby "Boris" Pickett, on whose 1962 hit
> "Monster Mash" it turns out Rob's substitute music teacher in elementary
> school played saxophone. Everybody here knows the record, not necessarily
> the Birth of Rap, less an influence than something trying to find a pathway
> through to us here in our own corrupted and perilous day, when everybody's
> heard everything and knows more than they wish they did. It's never certain
> how these things will be carried on, but mysteriously it happens. Every night,
> somewhere on the outlaw side of some town, below some metaphysical 14th Street,
> out at the hard edges of some consensus about what's real, the continuity is
> always being sought, claimed, lost, found again, carried on. If for no other
> reason, rock and roll remains one of the last honorable callings, and a working
> band is a miracle of everyday life. Which is basically what these guys do."
>
> ...one of the last honorable callings, and a miracle of everyday life....
> One would almost think the guy actually loves Rock & Roll.
>
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