Ojai

[Robin Landseadel]

On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:28 AM, Paul Mackin wrote:

> On Fri, 2009-09-11 at 09:08 +0200, umberto rossi wrote:
>> I refer to the chapter when Doc visits the Kryskylodon or
>> Chryskylodon, I mean the nuthouse in Ojai with a Greek name which
>> should mean Golden Fang, I'd like to know from listmembers in the
>> LA area if this is just a place where such sorts of insititutions  
>> can be
>> found, because the place is mentioned right at the start of one of  
>> P.K.
>> Dick's non-sf novels, Puttering About in a Small Land, and there is a
>> private school with innovative teaching methods (the novel's set in
>> the mid-Fifties, and it also talks about tv-sets).
>> _____________
>> umberto rossi
>>
>
> I remember in  my youth the word Camarillo denoted the place they  
> put a
> person with a mental condition (case of nerves). Later learned it  
> was a
> town up Ventura way where the state mental hospital was. Not too far
> from Ojai.
>
> Bird lived there a while.
>
> Both given a spanishy pronunciation.
>
> OH hi
>
> Cam are ILL oh

Relaxin' at Camarillo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqbBOPIEm7o

Camarillo Brillo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A175TP5dtP0
On Sep 11, 2009, at 7:45 AM, Keith wrote:

> Ojai is seen as an artistic/spiritual mecca. Kishnamurti taught  
> there for many years. It's a center for Theosophy as well. There's a  
> world class music festival there at Libbey Bowl every June. Caters  
> to the avant garde. Messiaen and the like have conducted there.  
> Pretty amazing actually, outside under the oak trees


My mom lived in Ojai for a while. Artsy, kinda like Mendocino but  
dryer. Pynchon plays with the Kishnamurti aspect of Ojai along with  
the way the counterculture usually shakes out in spots like Ojai and  
Mendocino. In Chandler's world such a place practically defines  
corruption. Lots of Very likely locations for those confluences of  
occult thinking and dangerous drugs are found in Chandler's books. In  
"Farewell My Lovely" there's a "psychic" who sells reefer on the side,  
has a "clinic" with a massive drug inventory and might well be a black  
ops site for the Cheneys of Bay City, the fixers and ward healers. At  
the same time, they're also like the Betty Ford clinics:

	Dope. I had been shot full of dope to keep me quiet.

	Perhaps scopolamine too, to make me talk. Too much dope for
	the time. I was having the French fits coming out of it. Some do,
	some don't. It all depends how you are put together. Dope.

	That accounted for the smoke and the little heads around the
	edge of the ceiling light and the voices and the screwy thoughts
	and the straps and bars and the numb fingers and feet. The
	whiskey was probably part of somebody's fortyeight hour liquor
	cure. They had just left it around so that I wouldn't miss
	anything.

	I stood up and almost hit the opposite wall with my stomach.
	That made me lie down and breathe very gently for quite a long
	time. I was tingling all over now and sweating. I could feel little
	drops of sweat form on my forehead and then slide slowly and
	carefully down the side of my nose to the comer of my mouth.
	My tongue licked at them foolishly.

	I sat up once more and planted my feet on the floor and stood
	up.

	"Okey, Marlowe," I said between my teeth. "You're a tough guy.
	Six feet of iron man. One hundred and ninety pounds stripped
	and with your face washed. Hard muscles and no glass jaw.
	You can take it. You've been sapped down twice, had your
	throat choked and been beaten half silly on the jaw with a gun
	barrel. You've been shot full of hop and kept under it until you're
	as crazy as two waltzing mice. And what does all that amount
	to? Routine. Now let's see you do something really tough, like
	putting your pants on."

Inherent Vice is throughly connected to Chandler's writing. If it  
weren't for the usual time constraints—yours and mine—I'd be spouting  
citations as frequent as as my OCR would allow. Alternating between  
Inherent Vice and Chandler's books demonstrates deep similarities.  
That line about Marlowe getting his pants on is echoed in:

	. . . Doc went through the wearisome chore of getting vertical
	again, followed by details to be worked out such as remaining
	that way, trying to walk, so forth.

That "scopolamine" happens to be "Truth serum. The same kind the CIA  
uses." And so forth.