BEER chapter 9 92, 95: "Psycho"

[Mark Kohut]

I too thought of the AtD battleship, co-extensive (literarlly in that novel) with
bourgeois luxury, when I read the comparison of the towers to a 
battleship.......
Built by lotsa capital; our 'religious' spires; our war statement thrusts, so to speak.

----- Original Message -----
From: Robin Landseadel <robinlandseadel at comcast.net>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Cc: 
Sent: Sunday, December 8, 2013 8:34 PM
Subject: BEER chapter 9 92, 95: "Psycho"

Speaking of toilets, Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" [1960] is notable for  
being the first mainstream movie to include a visible toilet. Clearly  
the net of leitmotivs as regards toilets and all they entail is  
central to this meisterwerk. In any case, the apotheosis of Bleeding  
Edge in chapter 28 is also the apotheosis of the toilet in Bleeding  
Edge, if not in the author's entire canon.

The author veers off on a few Brenda Starr riffs before getting to the  
Vinelandish heart of this novel, with the easily recognizable  
communication of families long accustomed to weirdness and just happy  
to see they've managed to survive. Someone needs to extrapolate on  
"Black-orchid serum", whatever that is. Conversation is decidedly sit- 
com flavored with quips about "Jewish Asskicking" and "Wacko Hippie  
Food." If it seems like it's lightweight, maybe it's because it's  
lightweight, maybe on purpose. I dunno, keep have this urge to go to  
the can.

In any case, it's another episode [returned from 'Vineland' and  
'Inherent Vice'] of "Made for TV Movies": tonight there's a Tori  
Spelling marathon, Hugh Grant in the Phil Michelson Story and  
Christopher Walken in "The Chi Chi Rodriquez Story." Maxine, the last  
to go to sleep, watches Gene Hackman in a cameo of Arnold Palmer as  
she dozes off.

The next morning Horst and Otis and Ziggy, all dressed up, go to lunch  
at Horst's new digs at the World Trade Center. Holy premonition  
Batman! Horst's co-tenant Jeff Pimento says the tower—that manages to  
sway in the breeze mind you—is "built like a battleship." Somehow it  
makes me think of the battleship in "Against the Day", somehow  
bifurcated from a luxury liner. Somehow it makes me think of class war.-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l 
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l