This Is Why We Fight, Lovely Rita

[bandwraith at aol.com]

Yea, that's nice. Sometimes I think the only peace
we're ever gonna have is Peace by Accident. Why
is that so hard to conceive of , as opposed to
annihilation?


-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Beshear <tbeshear at att.net>
To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>; bandwraith <bandwraith at aol.com>
Sent: Sun, Feb 26, 2012 1:01 am
Subject: Re: This Is Why We Fight, Lovely Rita


The video the group made for Calamity Song is a lovingly detailed 
depiction
of the Eschaton game scene from Infinite Jest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJpfK7l404I

----- Original Message -----
From: <bandwraith at aol.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 25, 2012 11:55 PM
Subject: This Is Why We Fight, Lovely Rita


At the unfortunate news, recently, of the US Marines
desecrating the fallen bodies of their Taliban foes, I
couldn't help but think of The Decemberists tune:
This Is Why We Fight-

       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuCElOJxaH0

  and acoustically:

       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fczvWSANXdo

Frontman Colin Meloy, who looks a little too much
like Mark David Chapman, is a product of the creative
writing program at U. of Montana, Missoula. He signals
his literary roots (and his generation) in another
Decemberists' number,  Calamity Song:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScE_d6uTAHU

wherein he channels DFW with the lyric..."in the year
of the chewable ambien tab." Besides being a rock
star, Meloy is the brother of Maile Meloy, who seems
to be more strictly into fiction, with a MFA in that from
U. of Cal., Irvine-

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maile_Meloy

She comes highly recommended, but I've only read
one of her short stories, "Lovely Rita"from her "Both
Ways Is the Only Way I Want It" collection. I really
liked it. She does young disaffected men, well.

Last year, The Decemberists played Prospect Park,
Brooklyn. I didn't go, but around the time of the
concert, a local radio station played "This Is Why We
Fight" and "Lovely Rita" (Beatles) back to back, with
no special comments about the segue. But I think the
DJ must have known about the Meloy/Meloy connection,
right? I mean everything connects, doesn't it?... at least
in my mind.

Or, maybe I've got that inverted- my mind is the connections?