Watts and its publication - the importance of relations

[matthew cissell]

     Does anyone know if it has been noted somewhere, that is in the
research and whatnot, that when Pynchon wrote his Watts piece it was
published in the New York Times Magazine where Kirk Sale was working
as Editor at the time? It was published on June 12, on the tail of a
month of reviews of his then most recent novel, CL49.

    It would be intersting to know if this just happened as such or if
there was some more calculated release.

  We know that CL49 appears first in Esquire Dec. 1965 and then the
fragment "The Shrink Flips" in Cavalier in March, only to be published
as a book ("short story with glandular problems") a few months later.

But what about the Journey? We know it looks back to the events in LA
in Aug 1965, but it starts by mentioning the murder of Leonard
Deadwyler on May 7th 1966. This is while reviews are coming out about
CL49. (Richard Poirier gave a positive one on May 1 in the NYT.)

  I don't see it as very calculating in terms of sales. In fact, it
strikes me more as something from one who has come of age in terms of
a critical regard toward society and has decided to express that
concern in an essay that, given his contacts and platform (that's the
word they use now), was easily and rapidly published.

   What's more, it's interesting to me that so many of what appear to
be significant events in Pynchon's social and political development
were in relation to Kirk Sale. First the student protests at Cornell
in '58, then his Journey essay in '66, and finally signing the
anti-war letter that Sale also signed. These constitute public
expressions of a growing political consciousness. Is it not an
argument for the importance of the relation of subjects in a given
field?

ciao
mc otis
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