chapter 10 - notes and questions 1

Fri Nov 22 15:31:10 CST 2013

Some observations from my second reading. First, a disclaimer: I may 
know a thing or two about, say, Tav Falco's Panther Burns, but 
everything I know about opera I have learned from Spike Jones. Some of 
the things I had to look up will therefore be painfully obvious to many 
of you.

Also, I do not have the time to work on the English. So this is off the 
cuff:

p. 96: "Guys and Dolls" -- didn't know anything about this. After 
perusing Wiki I know a lot more, especially about Frank Loesser (p. 97) 
and Damon Runyon.

p. 97: "Nessun Dorma" = "None shall sleep" -- famous tenor aria from 
Puccini's "Turandot"

I looked up Jussi Björling and Deanna Durbin, but there seems to be no 
further significance attached to them being mentioned here.

p. 97: squillo - "Squillo is a technical term attached to the resonant, 
trumpet-like sound in the voice of opera singers." (Wiki)

p. 97: "tramontate stella" = "Fade, you stars!" -- from "Nessun Dorma"

p. 98: Ziggy likes Verdi, Otis Puccini, "neither of them caring that 
much for Wagner."

Which reminds me of the discussion between Gustav and "Säure" Bummer in 
GR about the relative merits of Rossini and Beethoven. I always thought 
the (implied, the pedant in me says) author was on Rossini's side, but 
rereading the passage I realise that I may have been mistaken. And 
certainly Beethoven is not Wagner, or Wager is no Beethoven. In any 
case, rereading it, the prose here is so wonderful that I begin to 
wonder whether the detractors of BE might perhaps have a point:

-- Gustav is a composer. For months he has been carrying on a raging 
debate with Säure over who is better, Beethoven or Rossini. Säure is for 
Rossini. “I’m not so much for Beethoven qua Beethoven,” Gustav argues, 
“but as he represents the German dialectic, the incorporation of more 
and more notes into the scale, culminating with dodecaphonic democracy, 
where all notes get an equal hearing, Beethoven was one of the 
architects of musical freedom—he submitted to the demands of history, 
despite his deafness. While Rossini was retiring at the age of 36, 
womanizing and getting fat, Beethoven was living a life filled with 
tragedy and grandeur.”

“So?” is Säure’s customary answer to that one. “Which would you rather 
do? The point is,” cutting off Gustav’s usually indignant scream, “a 
person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to 
Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man 
didn’t even have a sense of humor. I tell you,” shaking his skinny old 
fist, “there is more of the Sublime in the snare-drum part to La Gazza 
Ladra than in the whole Ninth Symphony. With Rossini, the whole point is 
that lovers always get together, isolation is overcome, and like it or 
not that is the one great contripetal movement of the World. Through the 
machieries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power, love occurs. All 
the shit is transmuted to gold. The walls are breached, the balconies 
are scaled—listen!” It was a night in early May, and the final 
bombardment of Berlin was in progress. Säure had to shout his head off. 
“The Italian girl is in Algiers, the Barber’s in the crockery, the 
magpie’s stealing everything in singht! The World is rushing together….” --

Then Webern dies, and I could quote on and on, but back to BE...

Aretha Franklin filling in for Pavarotti -- yes, it happened. Turns out 
that the greatest American soul singer is also the greatest American 
opera singer. See and listen here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6WW6TXPdPw

frosk -- ???

Space Ghost Coast to Coast -- I had never heard of this. Interesting 
concept. Ziggy and Otis are some smart-ass kids, no? I need to watch 
some episodes on Youtube, if possible.

p. 99: Ernie about Avram: "Software to kill Arabs." -- it will soon 
become clear that this is about the PROMIS software and its derivatives. 
Here it comes out of the blue but announces Nicholas Windust, and with 
him Cold War history.

Nicholas Windust -- agent for some secret service or other or the FBI, 
located in D.C., Special Case Officer.

p. 100: "Very nice shoes." -- this is, as Richard Wagner would not have 
said (he didn't use the term, according to Wiki), a leitmotif attached 
to Windust.

"at least not until they've seen 'Tosca' at least once" -- a reference 
to Baron Scarpia, I assume. Scarpia is a torturer and liar. Windust is 
at least also a torturer. And Maxine will date him. Incidentally, 
Puccini also made use of leitmotifs.

Placido Domingo and Hildegard Behrens directed by Franco Zeffirelli:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpOMVVJoiqY

Ernie about Windust: "He showed me my own dossier." Being an old leftie, 
Ernie, of course, has a dossier.

Then we are abruptly transported back to the conversation between 
Windust and Ernie.

Sam Jaffe -- blacklisted for supposed communist sympathies during the 
50s, married to an operatic soprano until her death. Despite of his 
blacklisting he was engaged for "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and 
"Ben-Hur."

Efraim Zimbalist Jr. -- His father "Efrem Zimbalist, Sr. (21 April [O.S. 
9 April] 1889 or 1890[1] Rostov on Don, Russia  – February 22, 1985, 
Reno, Nevada, USA) was an internationally known concert violinist, 
composer, teacher, conductor and director of the Curtis Institute of 
Music." (Wiki) Efraim Zimbalist Jr. was an actor. Most probably Ernie 
compares Windust to Zimbalist because of Zimbalist's leading part in 
"The F.B.I." Interesting trivia from Wiki: "Hoover and Zimbalist 
remained mutual admirers for the rest of Hoover's life."

p. 101:

Windust immediately outs himself as a prototypical, not to say 
stereotypical, cold warrior, following which Ernie tells the story of 
Sam Jaffe's blacklisting.

We return to the narrative present, with Ernie wondering why people like 
Windust haven't moved on. Maxine tells him: "You always used to say 
their time hasn't passed, it's yet to come."

Which is, of course, fodder for my pet thesis about the political theme 
of BE: The continuity between the Cold War and the so-called War on 
Terror, which meanwhile has become the Orwellianly named "Overseas 
Contingency Operation."

As has been mentioned, the passage starting at the bottom of p. 101 is 
quite beautiful.

p. 102:

"Strangers in the night, exchanging --" -- the Kaempfert/Sinatra-song, 
of course. Glances. Originally written for the adventure comedy film "A 
Man Could Get Killed." Indeed.

Now we meet Nicholas Windust in person. I have already noted that there 
is a focus on his shoes. Here it says: "Fiftyish, midnight brown shoes, 
Elaine's idea of nice (...)"

p. 103:

I am not sure what to make of the negative comparison to James Bond and 
British class signifiers.

And, of course: In New York all you have really is shoes."

No wonder she later falls for a foot fetishist, or is it?

morir sonando (yes, I know there should be a tilde) = die dreaming -- 
ironic, given Windusts personal history.

p. 104:

"a piece of software called PROMIS"

The Inslaw/PROMIS affair is real, and it is huge. The balanced must-read 
on this for me is:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1.01/inslaw_pr.html

You will find a lot on Wiki too.

A fascinating documentary from Australia:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiVIDBDWivY

For a possible relation between PROMIS and Main Core and Continuity of 
Government (now Continuity of Operations) which features prominently in VL:

http://www.christopherketcham.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/The%20Last%20Roundup,%20Radar%20Magazine.pdf

There seems to be even more to it, i.e. Iran-Contra, biological weapons, 
not to mention drugs:

Cheri Seymour, "The Last Circle"

http://trinedayauthors.homestead.com/Circle/Excerpts.html

The first draft of Seymour's book may be read and checked for 
plausibility here (Carol Marshall is a pseudonym):

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/last_circle/1.htm

(I do not link to ...0.htm because I believe that this would give you 
the wrong impression):

I browsed through the draft, checked some names and incidents, and found 
that it adhered to my perhaps lax standards of seeming veracity. Note 
that Maxine Waters turns up in the first paragraph.

PROMIS has also been linked to 9/11. Of course.

I will have to leave it at that for now.

Thomas

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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l