IVIV (8): Charlie the Fucking Tuna, Man

[Dave Monroe]

   "'Ahh ...' collapsing on the couch, 'Charlie the fucking Tuna,
man.'" (IV, Ch. 8, p. 119)


"Charlie the fucking Tuna"

http://www.starkist.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_the_Tuna


"good taste"

Main Entry: de gus·ti·bus non est dis·pu·tan·dum
Pronunciation: \dā-ˈgu̇s-tə-ˌbu̇s-ˌnōn-ˌest-ˌdis-pu̇-ˈtän-ˌdu̇m\
Function: foreign term
Etymology: Latin

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/de%20gustibus%20non%20est%20disputandum

De gustibus non est disputandum is a Latin maxim. It means “there is
no disputing about tastes”, and is essentially equivalent to the
English expression "there's no accounting for taste". The implication
is that opinions about matters of taste are not objectively right or
wrong, and hence that disagreements about matters of taste cannot be
objectively resolved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_gustibus_non_est_disputandum


dyslexic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyslexia

This phrase is famously misquoted in Act I of Anton Chekhov's play The
Seagull. The character Shamrayev conflates it with the phrase de
mortuis nil nisi bonum, resulting in "de gustibus aut bene, aut
nihil", "Let nothing be said of taste but what is good".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_gustibus_non_est_disputandum

The Latin phrase de mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est is usually
shortened to de mortuis nil nisi bonum or sometimes just nil nisi
bonum. It is variously translated as "No one can speak ill of the
dead," "Of the dead, speak no evil," or, more literally, "Let nothing
be said of the dead but what is good."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_mortuis_nil_nisi_bonum


"this, like, obsessive death wish!"

http://nosubject.com/Death_drive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_drive

DEATH DRIVE:  The bodily instinct to return to the state of quiescence
that preceded our birth. The death drive, according to Freud's later
writings (Beyond the Pleasure Principle, "The Uncanny"), explains why
humans are drawn to repeat painful or traumatic events (even though
such repetition appears to contradict our instinct to seek pleasure).
Through such a  compulsion to repeat, the human subject attempts to
"bind" the trauma, thus allowing the subject to return to a state of
quiescence....

http://www.cla.purdue.edu/academic/engl/theory/psychoanalysis/definitions/deathdrive.html

Cf., e.g., ...

   “Don’t you see?  This siege.  It’s Vheissu.  It’s finally
happened.” Godolphin is beyond such romantic daydreams of death:
Godolphin laughed at her.  There’s been a war, Fraulein.  Vheissu was
a luxury, an indulgence.  We can no longer afford the likes of
Vheissu.”
   “But the need,” she protested, “its void.  What can fill that?”
   He cocked his head and grinned at her.  “What is already filling
it.  The real thing.  Unfortunately. [. . .]  Whether we like it or
not that war destroyed a kind of privacy, perhaps the privacy of
dream.  Committed us like him to work out three-o’clock anxieties,
excesses of character, political hallucinations on a live mass, a real
human population.” (V., p. 230)

http://allegoriaparanoia.com/pynchon/early_stories/chapter3.html

Empty Ones

316; "Otukungurua"; faction of Hereros who want negative birthrate
("tribal v. Christian death"), 318; aka "Revolutionaries of the Zero"
317; See also Hereros

http://www.thomaspynchon.com/gravitys-rainbow/alpha/e.html

The simplest and most fundamental difference of opinion between
critics of Thomas Pynchon is whether his work is ultimately
pessimistic or positive....

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1207906


"deep parable of consumer capitalism"

The title  Gravity’s Rainbow  provides a similar example. Much as
Pynchon leads readers from items in the text to nearly adjacent items
in extra–textual sources, he also leads us from English to other
languages — in this case German, then to German Synonyms or homonyms
(usually thematically loaded ones), and back to English. If "rainbow"
is  der regenbogen  and "gravity" is  gravitat,  then "Gravity’s
Rainbow" becomes  Der Regenbogen von Gravitat:  not too gripping. But
it happens that an idiomatic synonym for "rainbow" (according to
Cassel’s  ) is  parabel,  as in "parabola"; and  schwer  is also
"gravity," as in  schwer–punkt,  "center of gravity." It seems we are
getting somewhere, except  Parabel von Schwer  is not exactly
arresting — until we substitute for  schwer  its alternative meaning,
"grave, serious, weighty ," and find that  parabel  also means
"parable." So for  Gravity’s Rainbow, in–and–out–again of schwer
parabel, we get A Grave Parable.

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/ppolitics.htm


"we want them to do it"

"You're chicken, she told herself, snapping her seat belt. This is
America, you live in it, you let it happen. Let it unfurl." (Lot 49,
Ch. 6, p. 150)


"Why is there Chicken of the Sea, but no Tuna of the Farm?"

Huh?  Huh?


"also named Charlie"

American soldiers referred to the Vietcong as Victor Charlie or VC.
"Victor" and "Charlie" are both letters in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
"Charlie" referred to communist forces in general, both Vietcong and
PAVN.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong#Names