GR translation: Arab With A Big Greasy Nose

[Mark Kohut]

Well, I'll throw out my constant 'reading' based only on other ways P
works. I have envisioned some animated Disney cartoon with little cartoon
folk dancing, performing, on a huge cartoon character's big nose---in fact,
I've actually got a created memory in my very head--- if it isn't a"real"
image.

On Sat, May 28, 2016 at 10:05 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> > -
> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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