Misc. : on the American Dream & the time of Inherent Vice

[Mark Kohut]

more on the time around Inherent Vice:

In a mid-summer 1969 letter, Hunter Thompson, owner of multiple guns and rifles, lifelong NRA member, said gun sales in America were skyrocketing that year. 

On the beach, the guns.

As they were 40 years later, 2009. 

--- On Sun, 1/3/10, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: Misc. : on the American Dream & the time of Inherent Vice
> To: "P-list" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Date: Sunday, January 3, 2010, 6:54 PM
> Mark Kohut wrote:
> 
> >  In a letter, Hunter said this: in 1968, Bob
> Dylan, with the organization Eugene McCarthy had, could have
> garnered the support and votes that Clean Gene
> did........but by 1972, he would have gotten, maybe, 3% of
> the vote.
> >
> 
> but Bob himself after his motorcycle mishap thinkingly
> withdrew himself
> from consideration for that (political) type of leadership,
> and made strong,
> cogent statements to that effect
> 
> furthermore, the Events of 1968 in the United States
> including what
> happened to MLK and RFK cast a serious damper upon the
> winds of
> political change
> 
> and the rejection of "within-the-system" change by the
> radical Left,
> and the understandable but tragic rejection of patience and
> nonviolence
>   by those who valued X over King
> makes me want to write a pastiche song:
> 
> once there was a way to get back homeward,
> once there was a crop of idealists willing to work within
> the system for change,
> but the bricks were torn up from Main Street
> where the neon madmen climbed
> and the great ones fell so perfectly,
> it all seemed so well timed
> sleep pretty electorate do not cry
> Oh God, Pride of Man!  Broken in the dust again...
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> - "all is not fair in Love and Noir" - alice wellintown.
>