(OT) Drucker, Barcelona

[Mark Kohut]

Vienna then---another of Pynchon's perfect depth-insights. 



----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, June 14, 2011 4:09:17 AM
Subject: (OT) Drucker, Barcelona

Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
> JedKelestronwrote:
>
>> One discussion doesn't preclude ongoing deepening into Pynchon's work on
>> other threads.
>
> No doubt about this in a formal sense. In fact, however, energy and
> resources are limited.
>

In the spirit of that, somehow - offtopicness vis a vis TR,
on-topicness re Pynchon concerns that is -
I found an autobiography of Peter Drucker, the management guru.  He
calls it _Confessions of a Bystander_ --
grew up in Vienna during AtD time frame, met Freud briefly,
he sez something like: I first knew I was a bystander when, as the
youngest member of the socialist youth brigade, I was deputized to
carry the flag and march in front of the entire parade on, I think it
was May Day...

anyway, he talks about marching along happily and then coming to a
puddle -- interesting psychological development: he said he would
normally like walking through the puddle, which was narrow but deep,
but didn't want to do so in front of the parade -- but yet he felt
compelled by the momentum and direction of the crowd to walk through
it --
(he doesn't fully explicate the awkwardness -- I'm going into it
because I found it interesting, moments of awkwardness are interesting
and almost endlessly examinable)

but anyway, he goes ahead and does walk through the puddle but after
he gets through that, he impulsively turns around, hands the flag to
the brigade leader (a female medical student about whom he remembers
only her mustache) -- and commences to walk home, through the ranks of
the parade, going in the opposite direction.

When he reached home, his mother asked him why he was home so soon,
and he said something like, "today I realized I am a bystander" --
anyway, pretty cool book.  Drucker was the cat who said, "as long as
there is a human need that a company fulfills, it will continue to
exist.  Once it becomes only all about making money, it has begun to
disintegrate" (or words to that effect)

also in the movie Barcelona, the tall dude recommends Drucker to the
Bible-dancing guy at the airport, and responds to the latter's
challenge (Oh, I thought he was just all about the cult of management)
with a decisive (Oh no, he's great) --
(great movie, Barcelona, too, I thought)


anyway, I have been simply delighting in this Drucker book!  More
stories than you can shake a stick at!
That disengagement from the mass movement sort of reminiscent of The
Tin Drum, but also brings to mind the disaffected AtD character (wow,
really need to reread AtD, I've forgotten his name, oh yeah, Cyprian)
walking in Vienna and a big protest crowd and he makes that joke about
the slow return of the repressed...

A-and I think I will get the movie Barcelona from Netflix and watch it
again, maybe.  Also that other movie about Barcelona with the
gender-bending and the really great version of "Sway Me"