GR translation: Arab With A Big Greasy Nose

[Smoke Teff]

It doesn't read like 'perform a prank on' to me, exactly.

Some of the grotesque interpretations seem to possibly make sense, given
the recurrence of the grotesque throughout the book and in some of the
pages (and verses) leading up to this sentence.

Though I can imagine a translation that focuses on these possibilities
might run the risk of over-specifying, choosing one possible meaning of
many and eliminating others.

I wonder to what extent the musical sense of performance, as Monte points
out, is supported by the "all folklore broken down" line. Although this
might also support a more scatological meaning as well.

Some vagueness: who's doing the performing (PP, using/on the nose, or the
Arab, on his own nose)?, in what sense is the word *on* used?

Also, when you say someone plays a musical instrument, do you ever say they
*perform* *on *it?

To perform *on, *to my ear, suggests either a location (e.g. you perform a
musical number on a stage) or that something is a more direct physical
recipient of the performance (performance in this sense seeming to be
either more technical, as in to perform a medical procedure on someone, or
more euphemistic, as in like to jack off on, or I guess vomit on...)

I guess you might colloquially describe someone as being *on *an
instrument, e.g. "let's give it up for Craig on the keyboard," but it
doesn't quite sound right to me to say, "let's give it up for Craig, who's
performing on the keyboard."

On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 2:25 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Resurrecting this thread yet again on my third pass. I have another
> idea: could "to perform on" simply mean "to perform a prank on"? It
> seems to make sense given the context, with Gary Grant larking in and
> out and so on.
>
> 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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