BEER -- chapters 10 and 23 (possible spoilers) -- PROMIS 1.5

[Fiona Shnapple]

When Maxine sees the shoes, she thinks the shoes are Elain's "idea of
nice" (102), midnight-brown. Indeed, Elaine did like the shoes, she
describes them as "very nice shoes" (100). So whose right? Or is it a
mattr of taste? Taste in shoes? In men? Maxine's playful shoe fetish
games suggest that she knows her shoes and shoes generally. But does
she? Does she even know how to shop for shoes? Find a good fit? Get a
good price? She is Jewish, right? The shopping trip that she aborts
for a shooting range complicates things, as her shopping partner, who
is keen to learn all things Jewish, and who is, a once upon a time if
ever wasp, turns this shaggy dog round and round after its own
tale/tail till it shits on the ....nope, cause here comes another
toilet. In any event, the polyester content in the trench coat,
mentioned in the description Maxine provides on 102, where Maxine
distinguishes her idea of nice shoes from her mother's idea of nice
shoes, suggests that Windust is Fiftyish Rodney Raincoat, Chester THE
Molester, the kind of man everyone, including herself has warned her
to avoid like teen pregnancy and herpes, but borderline personality
that she is, she can't stop, she has to make nice with the creep, it's
compulsive, she's as desperate as Heidi says she is, maybe more so.
Why does she do lunch, coffee, the nasty, doggie with torn hoes down
on the filthy carpet with this guy? Need for parental approaval? Is it
her Mom's OY? Her Pop's hatred for Hoover and his clones?

She can't say yet. All she can do is look at the shoes. It's NY. The
shoes are the man. He tries to hire her. She dreams of him. so on.

Shoes. Hector's shoes were they Elaine nice or Maxine nice?

There was a time when shoes were real important in NYC. Back before
Benny, when you could tell a man's trade, his union by his shoes. His
firm maybe. WHite shoe firms and all that wing tip bs, but what's up
with the shoes? Nice shoes big dick. Great fuck?

The man gave me the news, he said you must be joakin son, where did
you get them shoooooooooooz, where did you get them shooooooz

what are those days that are gone forever?

On 12/11/13, Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> It gets complicated here. Note that Windust, torturer and murderer in
> the services of Empire for all we know, sets himself apart from his
> colleagues by being in the dirty business for strictly ideological reasons:
>
> "To be motivated only by raw ideology--besides greed, what else could it
> be--made him weird, almost dangerous." (BE, 109)
>
> Can this be related to the fact that he always scrounges money off
> Maxine? To his choice of shoes?
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l