102-year-old literary scholar, Pynchon's prof, honored at White House - LA Times

[alice malice]

When I was just a kid, eighteen-years-of-age, I had
a three-years-old daughter and I was a Sophomore...
I didn't have a driver's license and I couldn't afford to live very
close to the campus. They have, and they had then
a very good public transportation system, but I had to
drop my daughter off at Mrs. Toscano's house; never can forget her, or her
house...faded red and white trim on battle ship grey....and as soon as
you stepped into Mrs. Toscano's
home you stood at attention, both her boys were MIA, and she had
newspaper clippings of the Kennedy boys and MLK hung on
the walls like stations of the cross....

she took good care of my daughter, better than I could/would, and she
was kind...


And one morning driving my bike to Mrs. Toscano's house,
my knees stickin out of my faded jeans, my ass not hanging
out for the whole world to see cause I patched the seat
with an American flag, and my Norton Critical in a paper sack
dangling from the handle bars below Divinity's feet, suddenly the
bag swung out as I swerved to avoid a bottle on the road
and when I straightened the wheel that Norton Critical,
thick as any NYC phone book, thin, nearly translucent the pages,
delicate articles, dainty and dignified phrases, well-crafted poems,
gods and men, women too, was fed like toilet paper on the fork
to the shredding spokes and momentum of the turning wheels, it
didn't slow the bike anymore than playing cards, confetti whirling...
my daughter giggling....

 I soaked  the perspiration from my forehead
with the back of my right and then the left forearm,
dabbing at the involuntary tears on my cheek bones...

a used copy, but I was in love with her, divinity on tissue...paper.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l