It's about music!

Fri Apr 1 11:19:01 CDT 2016

Speaking of which, I hope to be spending time this weekend working on my
video project, which you can find on my YouTube page;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksPzbUrtIuw&list=PLBn_lAGIk4FHANm9doCVZRGSS1_0-aOFn

I earn infinitesimal amounts of money if you check out my solo piano
videos, so, ready, set, go...!

kd

On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 8:06 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de
> wrote:

>
>
> > ... Pynchon's phrasing as a writer follows the musical criteria of flow,
> he's the auditive type of writer (- in contrary to more visually orientated
> authors like, for example, Ernst Jünger or Claude Simon) ... Especially
> obvious this becomes with the incorporation of songs into the novels, which
> is, on this world-literary level, as far as I can see unique ... <
>
> While Homer could write his 'novels' still in verses ("Versepen"), modern
> writers have, even if they're poets like Rilke ("Die Aufzeichnungen des
> Malte Laurids Brigge", 1910), to write their novels in prose. The quoted or
> - like most often in Pynchon's case - created verses respectively song
> lyrics thus are a) poetry in prose, b) graphic interludes and c) music in
> literature. All three aspects play a role in Pynchon's use of songs.
>
> The idea to turn his texts temporarily into a jukebox Pynchon must have
> had early on. Already in "Low-Lands" this becomes obvious. This early short
> story not only contains three lines from a Noel Coward song - "Is this Noel
> Coward or some shit?"(GR, p. 709) -, but also, later on, four lines of a
> song Pynchon himself seems to have written (at least the lyrics of it):
>
> "*A ship I have got in the North Country*
> *And she goes by the name of the* Golden Vanity,
> *O, I fear she will be taken by a Spanish Ga-la-lee,*
>
>
> *As she sails by the Low-lands low."  *Note the "Ga-la-lee" which
> emphasizes the actually musical dimension. In other cases, Pynchon also
> gives hints about the way how to arrange the songs, which gives the reader
> the opportunity to intuit the musical details. Like in the third song
> ("Yes---I'm---the---/Fellow that's ha-ving other peop-le's fan-tasies ...")
> of Gravity's Rainbow which appears on page 12 and where it says in between:
>
> "[Now over a lotta tubas and close-harmony trombones]"
>
> Can you hear them?
>
> By the time of V, Pynchon was very sure about this special style feature
> of his and already used it with a certain self-evidence. The first chapter
> of V contains four songs on 34 pages. No song appears in the first chapter
> of The Crying of Lot 49, but in the second there are no less than three on
> just 14 pages. "The Secret Integration" has drunken soldiers singing "Mine
> eyes have seen the misery of the coming of the draft,/ And the day I got
> the letter ...". (I was a Kriegsdienstverweigerer and did Civil Service
> instead of going to the army, taking care of seniors who were still able to
> live alone in their condos. It was twice the time it would have been in the
> army, 20 instead of ten months, and thus rather long when you're young, but
> it was an experience - actually I had a client, her condo contained a
> samovar and an incredible number of books, who had experienced the
> Bolshevist revolution as a teenager and had stories about it to tell - I
> wouldn't like to miss.) In Vineland, the first song appears on pp. 43-44,
> the second on page 51, and the third on pp. 78-99; Mason & Dixon offers the
> first song on pages 18-19, the second on pages 27-28, and the third on page
> 34; in Against the Day the first two songs appear on pp. 15 and 49-50; in
> Inherent Vice the first three songs can be heard on pp. 43-44, 51 and
> 78-79. Although Pynchon seems to have grown a little tired of song writing
> by the time of Bleeding Edge - after the initial five lines from the
> fictional Leonard Bernstein musical (pp. 55-56) where Robert Moses sings
> "Throw those Puerto/Ricans out in the/street---It's just a/slum. Tear it
> all/do-o-own!", the reader has to wait until pp. 152-153 before he gets to
> hear another song -, I could imagine that this, perhaps, has to do with the
> problems music itself is facing in our retromanic times. People don't read
> anymore - and certainly not in Pynchon novels like Vineland or Bleeding
> Edge! - and the music is just there to provide your mobile phone with a
> catchy ringtone or to present yourself on a Karaoke night.
>
> Here are the page numbers for the songs or fragments thereof from Beyond
> the Zero:
>
> 8-9, 11, 12, 14-15, 61-62, 66 ("Down the toilet, lookit me,/What a silly
> thing to do!/Hope nobody takes a pee,/Yippy dippy dippy doo ..."), 67, 68,
> 108 (Dutch traditional), 129/136 (Suso: In Dulci Jubilo), 163, 174-175,
> 177. This makes a song density of 14 tracks in 174 pages. The best songs
> are, imho, to come later on in the book.  Here's one from pp. 229-230, sung
> by "rats 'n' mice", which I chose because of our recent debate on
> behaviorism:
>
>
>
> PAVLOVIA (Beguine)
>
> It was spring in Pavlovia-a-a,
> I was lost, in a maze ...
> Lysol breezes perfumed the air,
> I'd been searching for days,
> I found you, in a cul-de-sac,
> As bewildered as I---
> We touched noses, and suddenly
> My heart learned how to fly!
>
> So, together, we found our way,
> Shared a pellet, or two ...
> Like an evening in some café,
> Wanting nothing, but you ...
>
> Autumn's come to Pavlovia-a-a,
> Once again, I'm alone---
> Finding sorrow by millivolts,
> Back to neurons and bone.
> And I think of our moments then,
> Never knowing your name---
> Nothing's left in Pavlovia,
> But the maze, and the game ...
>
>
>
>
> I wish you all a weekend with music!
>
>
>
>
> On 21.12.2015 12:57, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
>
>
> Or at least also about music ... One may see bigger themes in Pynchon ---
> "the century's master cabal" (V, p. 226), technology, "the fork in the road
> America never took" (GR, p. 556), or (since Vineland) family --- but music,
> though this is rarely analyzed by the academic Pyndustry,  plays a certain
> role in all of Pynchon's books ... And not just one genre of music, music
> in general ... There's an ongoing interest in classical music, from
> Stravinsky in V to Wagner and Puccini in Bleeding Edge, including, among
> other things, fictional Kazoo pieces from Vivaldi  (TCoL49, chapter 1) and
> Haydn (GR, p. 711) ... But also - from McClintic Sphere's saxophone playing
> in V over Ragtime in Against the Day to the HipHop culture in Bleeding Edge
> - in African American music ... Plus lots of other musical phenomena
> popping up in Pynchon's books ...  With Zoyd Wheeler we have, in addition
> to McClintic Sphere, another professional musician as male protagonist,
> here from Pynchon's second work phase ... And with Mucho Maas, who goes
> from DJ to record producer (and from acid to blow), there is a music
> related character as an indicator of cultural change connecting Pynchon 1
> with Pynchon 2 ... Equally relevant: Pynchon's phrasing as a writer follows
> the musical criteria of flow, he's the auditive type of writer (- in
> contrary to more visually orientated authors like, for example, Ernst
> Jünger or Claude Simon) ... Especially obvious this becomes with the
> incorporation of songs into the novels, which is, on this world-literary
> level, as far as I can see unique ... What do the musicians on the list
> say? Is Pynchon - as one could perhaps say in analogy to formulations like
> 'writer's writer' and 'musician's musician' - a, well, 'musician's writer?'
> Let me know! ... "The old man was singing, in a fine, firm baritone:/ Every
> night is Christmas Eve on old East Main,/ Sailors and their sweethearts all
> agree./ Neon signs of red and green/ Shine upon the friendly scene,/
> Welcoming you in from off the sea./ Santa's bag is filled with all your
> dreams come true:/ Nickel beers that sparkle like champagne,/ Barmaids who
> all love to screw,/ All of them reminding you/ It's Christmas Eve on old
> East Main." (V, pp. 9-10) ... Cheers!
>
>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=nchon-l
>
>
>
>

-- 
www.innergroovemusic.com
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