Horst-Maxine-Windust; tell me who do you love?

[Joseph Tracy]

I made an argument earlier that Horst can be seen as a kind of cypher for the banality of a certain kind of evil. I understand what Alice is saying but does human niceness and being a good father/provider justify a life lived in a kind of tubal oblivion? Not denying the attraction of beer and the Simpsons or a good Olympic curling match. Nuthin like 'at. But there is  in my  entangled mind a  direct connection between Horst's money making and his  pleasantly numb tubal disconnect and Windust's SS like service to the American empire. It's just hard to dream the impossible dream without  certain idealists being quietly sailed without parachutes out the windows of airplanes.  

Windust is connected to the Nixon/Reagan wave  of neo colonial US imperialism, and somehow manages to conjure enemies everywhere who are threatening the homeland and our way of life. He is  the JohnWayne side of our self image. If he occasionally gets frisky, rapes a nun or a 14 year old and splatters her brains on some primitive dirt floor, hey, war is hell: only someone who hates the flag would make make a big deal. Just move on and keep the good stuff on the TV.

 Horst is the fulfilled dream of a college education that is the current stuff of Democratic politics. If you are good looking, and work hard, and study hard, and love ice cream and sex and TV, and are smart enough to know which way the numbers are headed then the magic will kick in and nothing will threaten a life of excellent Pizza, ball games  and TV, with occasional community service to keep the dream alive.  And if you are bright and know a thing or 2 and have troubling questions, well, it's ok to mention them but don't get all worked up and push it.  Just be glad that  both John Wayne  and Sterling Hayden has your back.   

Max is the prize. The sexy( oh those taxes, yes mama!!!) confused hard-working american people who without constant supervision may drift into doing the math, asking questions and exploring the ins and outs of paranoid foot fetishists, troubling film footage,  old radicals and dead small time money launderers who knew too much and pinched a wad.   Thank God she always comes to her senses come election time.   

I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,
I use a cobra-snake for a necktie,
I got a brand new house on the roadside,
Made from rattlesnake hide,
I got a brand new chimney made on top,
Made out of a human skull,
Now come on take a walk with me, Maxlne,
And tell me, who do you love?

Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

Tombstone hand and a graveyard mine,
Just 22 and I dont mind dying.

Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

I rode around the town, use a rattlesnake whip,
Take it easy maxine, dont give me no lip,

Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

Night was dark, but the sky was blue,
Down the alley, the ice-wagon flew,
Heard a bump, and somebody screamed,
You should have heard just what I seen.

Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?

Maxine took me by my hand,
And she said ooowee, you know I understand.

Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?
Who do you love?


  




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