GR translation: Arab With A Big Greasy Nose

[Keith Davis]

We still want to know where "perform on" comes from, though.

Www.innergroovemusic.com

> On May 27, 2016, at 11:37 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thanks everyone for responding.
> 
> On Tue, May 24, 2016 at 3:45 AM, Kai Frederik Lorentzen
> <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:
>> 
>> And Sam Jaffe appears in Bleeding Edge!
>> 
>> "'This is me?' Ernie said when he saw the photo. 'I look like Sam Jaffe.'
>> 'A friend of yours, Mr. Tarnow?'
>> 'A movie actor.' Explaining to Efrem Zimbalist Jr. here how in The Day the
>> Earth Stood Still (1951) Sam Jaffe, playing Professor Barnhardt, the
>> smartest man in the world, Einstein only different, after writing some
>> advanced equations all over the blackboard in his study, steps out for a
>> minute. The extraterrestrial Klaatu shows up looking for him and finds the
>> boardful of symbols, like the worst algebra class you were ever in, notices
>> what seems to be a mistake down in the middle of it, erases something and
>> writes something else in, then leaves. When the Professor comes back, he
>> immediately spots the change to his equations and stands there kind of
>> beaming at the blackboard. It was some such expression that had crossed
>> Ernie's face just as the covered federal shutter fell.
>> 'I've heard of that movie,' recalled this Windust party, 'pacifist
>> propaganda in the depths of the Cold War, I believe it was flagged as
>> potentially Communist-inspired,'
>> 'Yeah, you people blacklisted Sam Jaffe too. He wasn't a Communist, but he
>> refused to testify. For years no studio would hire him. He made a living
>> teaching math in high school. Strangely enough.'
>> 'He taught high school? Who would've been disloyal enough to hire him?'"
>> 'This is 2001, Maxeleh,' Ernie now shaking his head back and forth, 'the
>> Cold War is supposed to be over, how can these people not have changed or
>> moved on, where is such a terrible inertia coming from?'
>> 'You always used to say their time hasn't passed, it's yet to come.'"
>> 
>> pp. 100-101
>> 
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASsNtti1XZs
>> 
>> Klaatu's speech sounds indeed a little bit "Communist-inspired", no?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On 23.05.2016 20:52, Simon Bryquer wrote:
>> 
>> Being ill (dracunculiasis) and to perform on is vomiting on someone or
>> something. Key :Army.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> As per the following:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Perhaps this has been answered before – we’re talking about Kipling here.
>> The ‘Fuzzy-Wuzzy’ poem of 19th  century British soldier view of Hadendoa
>> warriors in Sudan.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Gary Grant and all that refers to the movie ‘Gunga Din’ (also a Kipling poem
>> made into a movie) played by Sam Jaffe, who I vaguely recall could be
>> described in that movie as ‘Arab With A Big Greasy Nose’ though it’s all
>> about India.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> BTW Sam Jaffe was great in the John Houston movie ‘Asphalt Jungle’ ---- also
>> I believe this was Marilyn Monroe first speaking role, though she did not
>> get any screen credit. She plays a slightly mentally off babysitter --- and
>> she was extremely good.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Maybe the key words here : dracunculiasis and elephant medicine
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> A parasitic infection caused by drinking flea invested water and causes one
>> to vomit – to perform on here might be vomiting on one or many in the
>> crowded army in battle.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I would conclude to perform on is vomiting on someone or many.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
>> Of Monte Davis
>> Sent: Monday, May 23, 2016 12:30 PM
>> To: Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> Cc: Pynchon Mailing List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>> Subject: Re: GR translation: Arab With A Big Greasy Nose
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> I take the "wistful classic" to be a comic song. I don't know the song, or
>> know that Pynchon had any existing song in mind rather than a tease. So
>> "perform" is wide open to your suggested definition... or to a musical
>> performance (like squeezing a clown's rubber nose)... or to a sexual
>> performance (details depending on culture, other organs involved, and how
>> one feels about noses).
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 11:54 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Resurrecting this old post nobody replied to back in 2011. A search in
>> the archives shows that this has been asked a few times, but no one
>> had an answer. The problems is that I still have to figure out how to
>> translate "perform on". From the OED:
>> 
>> 6. intr.
>> b. euphem. Esp. of a child or a pet: to urinate or defecate.
>> 
>> Does this make sense to anyone else given the context?
>> 
>> On Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 4:19 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> P14.5-13   In 1935 he had his first episode outside any condition of
>>> known sleep—it was during his Kipling Period, beastly Fuzzy-Wuzzies
>>> far as eye could see, dracunculiasis and Oriental sore rampant among
>>> the troops, no beer for a month, wireless being jammed by other Powers
>>> who would be masters of these horrid blacks, God knows why, and all
>>> folklore broken down, no Gary Grant larking in and out slipping
>>> elephant medicine in the punchbowls out here . .. not even an Arab
>>> With A Big Greasy Nose to perform on, as in that wistful classic every
>>> tommy’s heard . . .
>>> 
>>> What is this classic with "an Arab With A Big Greasy Nose"?  And what
>>> do they want to perform on him?
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
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