M&D - Chapter 11 pp 109-110

[Monte Davis]

I think while growing up he absorbed a lot of movie musicals and cartoons
(most of which were musical back in the day). Add in comics, advertising
jingles, TV shows, the IV playlist etc -- he makes pop culture, whether
Soul Gidget or The Ghastly Fop, as revealing as anything in Big Official
History.

On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 12:06 PM, Johnny Marr <marrja at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Sunday, February 22, 2015, Becky Lindroos <bekker2 at icloud.com> wrote
>>
>>
>> *** Okay  - someone has to ask it - what’s with the little ditties strung
>> throughout - and throughout all of PYnchon’s work - is this a nod to Joyce
>> that really touched the spirit of Pynchon and he couldn’t resist?
>> Parodies?  Parallax?
>>
>> Pynchon is a polphonic narrator. He loves writing in all its many guises,
> including Tin Pan Alley or Gilbert and Sullivan songwriting.
>
> The songs do appeal to his 'zany' sense of humour, although a more
> generous commentator might suggest they showcase his musicality and his
> ease with unusual rhymes.
>
> It's been said that Shakespeare's short sentences and epigrams contain all
> the essential action and themes of his plays - the longer passages provide
> the theoretical digressions. Perhaps Pynchon's ditties provide an
> opportunity to succinctly summarise the latest characters and plot
> developments (although from memory a lot of the ditties do seem to arise
> from tangential details) ...
>
>
>
>
>> I can’t copy anything from this source:  “Music in Thomas Pynchon’s Mason
>> & Dixon”  - it’s 36 pages long including Notes.  I didn’t have to register
>> or anything like that - just asked for .pdf and scrolled down.
>> https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/75/170
>>
>> ***********
>> "While other writers, like James Joyce, have invoked parallax as a
>> perspectival method in order to challenge univocal narrative form, Pynchon
>> works the concept more radically into his fictional treatment of
>> historiography.[4] "
>>
>> More at:  http://pmc.iath.virginia.edu/issue.903/14.1burns.html
>>
>> ****
>> Page 110:
>>
>> **  Some omniscient narrator presents the backstory of Mason takes to
>> attending public hangings following Rebekah’s death.
>>
>> "Wapping was also the site of 'Execution Dock', where pirates and other
>> water-borne criminals faced execution by hanging from a gibbet constructed
>> close to the low water mark. Their bodies would be left dangling until they
>> had been submerged three times by the tide.[2]”
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping
>>
>> Lower-situated imitations of the "Hellfire Club”
>> Hell-Fire Club -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellfire_Club  (of the
>> times in England)
>> also see:
>>
>> http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11:_105-115#Page_110
>>
>> Hangings on Tyburn - here we have the famous gallows - ended in 1783
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyburn#Tyburn_gallows
>>
>> And what a beautiful line:
>>
>> ** “To the Fabulators of  Grub Street, a licentious night-world of Rakes
>> and Whores, surviving only in memories of pleasure, small darting winged
>> beings, untrustworthy as remembrancers … “
>>
>> (a nod to the untrustworthiness of memory)
>> Grub Street:
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grub_Street
>>
>> continuing:   “… yet its infected, fragrant, soiled encounters ‘neath the
>> Moon were as worthy as any, -  an evil-in-innocence…”
>>
>>
>> (Even though untrustworthy,  memories are valuable in some way -
>> “evil-in-innocence”  because memories are like wolves in sheep’s clothing? -
>>
>> ******
>> And in a total discontinuance from the narrative although apparently in
>> response to it:
>> (“Uncle, Uncle!”… )  etc.
>> This is Tenebræ and the Cherrycoke kids breaking in, isn’t it?  Probably
>> because Cherrycoke is getting too close to subjects inappropriate for the
>> ears of children?  -  “Rakes and Whores" and what not.
>>
>> *********
>>
>> Becky
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
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