Manson Cult; was Golden Fang

[Bekah]

Very true,  Laura.  I think there was a sudden polarization on the  
matter of hippies and Pynchon shows this very very well in the  
attitude of Bigfoot.   Prior to Manson the "establishment folks"   
thought the hippies were mainly dirty freaks who either didn't want to  
work,  or campus radicals fomenting revolution.   After Manson a  
darker side was more visible and they were considered to be very, very  
scary on a personal basis - they were a threat to personal safety.    
BUT,  to those of us who knew the truth,   Manson was NOT a hippie -  
he was just a  thoroughly disgusting and ignorant druggie creep.

August 8th article in NBC LA:  (interviewing someone who was there but  
looks back on it)

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/Manson-Murders-Showed-Dark-Side-of-Hippie-Generation-52799157.html

Manson Murders Showed Dark Side of Hippie Generation
By H.B. KOPLOWITZU
updated 5:30 PM PDT, Sat, Aug 8, 2009

It was 40 years ago Sunday that America's worst fears of the hippie  
generation crystallized when Sharon Tate and four others were  
slaughtered by Charlie Manson's "family" in her rented Benedict Canyon  
home.

On Aug. 9, 1969, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Voytek Frykowski, Jay  
Sebring, Steven Parent and Tate -- who was 26 years old, eight months  
pregnant and married to film director Roman Polanski -- were slain "to  
instill fear into the establishment," one of the killers, Susan  
Atkins, later told a grand jury.

A day later, Manson's followers struck again -- slashing to death  
grocery store chain owner Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, in  
their Los Feliz-area home.

The murderers left bloody messages at both crime scenes, including the  
title of a Beatles song, "Helter Skelter," in what authorities believe  
was an effort to start a race war.

Following a nine-month trial in 1970-71, jurors convicted Manson,  
Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkel -- and Charles "Tex"  
Watson in a separate trial -- of first-degree murder and recommended  
they die for their crimes. In 1972, however, the California Supreme  
Court invalidated the then-existing statute for capital punishment,  
and their sentences were commuted to life in prison.

Manson's brief reign of terror is four decades ago, but it continues  
to have a hold on America's psyche.

Sandi Gibbons covered their trial for City News Service. Today, she is  
a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office,  
which prosecuted the case.

What Charlie Manson meant to America was "the death of the hippie  
movement," Gibbons told CNS.

The Manson family was "the dark side of the peace, love and  
brotherhood movement," she said. "These were still the '60s, with  
flower children, love- ins ... peace-loving druggies ... but Manson  
was another side altogether. This was murder. This was killing people."

She said that from the moment Manson's family was uncovered at their  
commune in Death Valley a couple months after the murders, "people  
looked at hippies in a different light."

She added that the commune movement also "started shrinking."

But Gibbons said she never considered Manson a hippie. Rather, she  
said, he was simply a "con man."

She said he knew "how to get people to do his bidding through drugs,  
spouting a bunch of philosophy to a bunch of drugged-out kids,  
promising them a home -- sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. The main thing  
was that Charlie was never a hippie."

She noted he had been institutionalized for most of his life since he  
was a child and that he discovered the hippies in the late '60s after  
he got out of prison in Washington state and "wandered down the coast  
to the Haight Ashbury District of San Francisco."

She said he played the guitar and gathered a small following, and that  
"his visions didn't turn dark until he got rejected in Los Angeles on  
the music front."

"The bottom line is that Charlie was a con man, and he's still conning  
people," she said. "I was raised in the South, and Charlie to me was a  
redneck Southerner who did not like women -- they were something to  
use, and he used them well."

Manson has repeatedly been turned down for parole, as have the so- 
called Manson women, even when one of them became terminally ill with  
brain cancer.
When asked for her personal opinion on whether the women should be  
paroled after 40 years, Gibbons said that as a spokeswoman for the  
District Attorney's office she couldn't discuss that.

"So far, this office has opposed parole," she said.

Gibbons noted the Manson women were in their mid 20s when they  
committed their crimes, and that she wasn't much older at the time.
"I could easily have been them -- but I wasn't," she said.

She said she sat behind Manson during some of the trial, and did not  
consider him to be charismatic in the least.

"He was like 5 feet 2 inches, a little redneck Southerner. I did not  
find him charismatic, or fascinating or interesting. He was a little  
creep."

Bekah



On Sep 27, 2009, at 11:36 AM, kelber at mindspring.com wrote:

> What Pynchon omits is often as important as what he includes.  The  
> starkest omission from IV (he does, after all, mention Vietnam a  
> number of times, even if he doesn't focus on it) is Woodstock (and  
> its flipside, Altamont).  There are lots of references in IV to the  
> "good hippie" archetype (someone posted a list recently, if I'm not  
> misremembering).  Like the Holocaust and Hiroshima in GR, like JFK's  
> assassination in COL49, Pynchon doesn't overtly mention that which  
> he mourns.  Woodstock was the epitome of the sweet hippie ethos,  
> Altamont was the anti-Woodstock.  They haunt IV, but only Manson  
> comes to the foreground.  As Bekah says, that's all anyone was  
> talking about.  Manson was just news at the time, scary news at  
> that.  It took some distance to see him or Altamont as "the death  
> of" the sweet hippie thing.
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Bekah <bekah0176 at sbcglobal.net>
>
>>
>> First,  I think the Manson murders are frequently referenced in IV is
>> because media coverage and gossip/talk were so much a part of
>> setting,  LA and nation,  at the time.
>>
>> The LA Times,  and other papers as well as the network news sources
>> were full of the murders,  investigation and trials on a daily basis
>> from August 1969 to April, 1971  and beyond,  even unto today.
>> Actually, IV takes place directly in middle of that period,   Manson
>> and company were in jail and awaiting trial (pre-trial stuff?) .    I
>> think if TPR did any research to refresh his memory he came up with
>> Manson, Manson,  Manson in all the papers and old TV news footage.
>> And I think just realistically,  that's what the cops, detectives,
>> street people etc.  would talk about.   Actually, there was talk that
>> Manson didn't get fair trial in LA because of the publicity,  but the
>> fact is that the media coverage was nation-wide.
>>
>> Re GR,  I don't think that the events of the Holocaust were so well
>> known during the time and place of GR (by Slothrop and company) -  
>> they
>> became very, very well known later.
>>
>> Manson was about 35 years old when the murders occurred.   How old is
>> Doc?  About 30?  (Don't trust anyone over 30.)
>>
>> Second,   and I'm not so sure about this part,   I think there's  
>> are a
>> couple themes to be explored regarding Manson.   There's the  
>> "inherent
>> vice" of US society and what it will make people into - especially
>> relating to the US as a whole and to Manson as a primo example.  And
>> there's the related idea of the ending of the
>> American Hippie Dream - peace and freedom.
>>
>> Also reminds me of the old adage,  "The next time you're in trouble,
>> call a hippie."  This  was said by straights but the thougth gets a
>> new twist from Pynchon -   (Very trite - I know - but someone had to
>> say it.)
>>
>> Bekah
>>
>>
>> On Sep 26, 2009, at 1:52 PM, David Morris wrote:
>>
>>> Has anyone noticed how often the Manson murders have been referenced
>>> in IV?  Isn't this contrary to his usual absence of the huge  
>>> elephant?
>>> Holocaust in GR?...
>>>
>>> The Manson Murders in IV have been pushed to the front in IV many
>>> times without any obvious story-relevance.
>>>
>>> Just sayin...
>>
>> http://web.mac.com/bekker2/
>>
>>
>

http://web.mac.com/bekker2/