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

[Ian Livingston]

On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 8:39 AM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> "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."

The second group is my class all-too-often. You just can't dig if
you're still thinking. To really dig jazz requires that analytic
activity take place at a later time. Until Duke, few jazz musicians
could even read music, so the critical business was college-kid jive,
had little to do with jazz, really. Dean Moriarty could dig jazz.
Sometimes I do, though not often. I love listening to Monk, Billie
Holiday, Bird, Trane, Miles, Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, Ella and of
course Satchmo, etc, but I tend to think too much to really dig most
of the time.

So, I'm inclined to think the observer P. is standing back and
watching the wannabe hipsters practice their poses for the scene. I
mean, how naive must one be to compare one jazz great to another? Bix
Beiderberbecke blew hot and loud, does that mean he compares favorably
with Satchmo? Miles is a consummate musician, so is he like Duke
Ellington? Silly. Fu acts as someone who may dig the scene, the
anonymous comparer is obviously clueless, but both are pretentious, is
what I get from this moment.

Seen thus, it might stack up as one of P's many gibes at theorists / critics.


On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 8:39 AM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> "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
>



-- 
"liber enim librum aperit."