V-2nd - 2: At the V-Note

[kelber at mindspring.com]

"The usual divisions prevailed: collegians did not dig, and left after an average of one and a half sets.  Personnel from other groups, either with a night off or taking a long break from somewhere crosstown or uptown, listened hard, trying to dig.  "I am still thinking," they would say if you asked.  People at the bar all looked as if they did dig in the sense of understand,approve of, empathize with: but this was probably only because people who stand at the bar have, universally, an inscrutable look."

Young Pynchon being biographical, no doubt, and an astute observer.  He wouldn't have been one of the collegians who rudely left, mid-set, nor would he have been one of the intimidating inscrutables at the bar.   Haven't we all, at some time, struggled to fit into at least that second group?  Following this passage is an homage to Bird. Young Tom may have struggled to dig as a college kid on weekend trips to NYC, but now, writer of V., he either truly digs, or no longer cares.

Near the end of the scene, Sick Crewsman Fu makes a contemptuous gesture towards someone who compares McClintic favorably to Bird.  What's Pynchon's attitude here?  Is he with Fu in despising anyone who'd denigrate the recently passed Bird?  Or is he standing back, Stencil-like, and mocking the pretensions of would-be hipster Fu, self-appointed arbiter of jazz?

Laura