Pynchon's Russia--US

Fri Feb 1 05:45:37 CST 2019

This is Ginsberg's line about the bad grammar, talking down, seemingly
Negro-parody-like lines:
"America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set."

Not too bad imho, about the vast wasteland of TV and manufactured 'foreign
policy' consent, the massest
mass media of the time. When Amos & Andy and other African-American
stereotypes filled TV. See Lil Rascals' cast as well.

I like how he writes "lookin' in", not "at'. The crystal ball of America.

On Fri, Feb 1, 2019 at 3:27 AM <jbloocher at gmail.com> wrote:

> I was actually really disappointed reading the Ginsberg. I haven’t read
> any since I was a late teenager and of course had a passion for such
> things, or rather he was on my list to ‘complete’. Reading this now seems
> hackneyed and trying. And I don’t even like the sound of the words. I do
> feel that Thomas is right in terms of him speaking with the voice of the
> uneducated (I can’t say with regards to African American lingo, as I am
> really clueless). From an emotional and personal perspective it grates as I
> can’t think of a people or place I love more than Russians and Russia (for
> reasons that would take me so very long to put down.)
>
> Blooch
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On 1 Feb 2019, at 05:58, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Re him/her: "I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
> individual
> > as his automobiles more so they’re all different sexes."
> >
> > Reading the poem I get the impression that he was high while he wrote it
> > and didn't change anything afterwards, after January 17, 1956.
> >
> > Thanks for it anyway, Thomas!
> >
> >> Am Fr., 1. Feb. 2019 um 02:45 Uhr schrieb Joseph Tracy <
> brook7 at sover.net>:
> >>
> >> OK, I’ll bite. The general impression P gives of Russians is cynical
> >> acceptance of corruption where resistance takes the form of monkey
> >> wrenching and watching out for yourself and those you care about. There
> is
> >> a certain feeling of waiting for big systems to fail even more
> completely
> >> apart, but only  the barest hints of  hope for positive revolutionary
> >> changes, and I may be imagining that. Could be interesting to look more
> >> closely at the texts themselves. There is a weird consistency between
> the
> >> Russians in GR and BE, no?
> >>  The Russians I am closest to are different. Very honest, good to their
> >> employees, believers in democracy, intensely family oriented, but lots
> of
> >> individual differences. I think P leaves out the weird influence of
> Russian
> >> Orthodoxy on many Russsians in the Russians he chooses to personify.
> >>> On Jan 31, 2019, at 3:42 PM, Thomas Eckhardt <
> >> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> And, of course, in GR...
> >>>
> >>>> Am 31.01.2019 um 21:41 schrieb Mark Kohut:
> >>>> And in AtD....
> >>>> On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 3:20 PM Thomas Eckhardt <
> >> thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de <mailto:thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>>
> wrote:
> >>>>   The ending of VL comes to mind. And, of course, the Russians in BE.
> >>>>   Could be interesting to have a closer look.
> >>>>   Here is Allen Ginsberg on the subject:
> >>>>   "America you don’t really want to go to war.
> >>>>   America its them bad Russians.
> >>>>   Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
> >>>>   The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia’s power mad. She wants
> >> to
> >>>>   take our cars from out our garages.
> >>>>   Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Reader’s Digest. Her
> wants
> >>>>   our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our
> >>>>   fillingstations.
> >>>>   That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black
> >>>>   niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
> >>>>   America this is quite serious.
> >>>>   America this is the impression I get from looking in the television
> >> set.
> >>>>   America is this correct?"
> >>>>   https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49305/america-56d22b41f119f
> >>>>   (Why the peculiar grammar? At the beginning, with "Them Russians",
> it
> >>>>   appears to be a satirical jibe at not particularly bright
> >> US-Americans
> >>>>   watching the news on the TV set, but "That no good" is Black
> >>>>   Vernacular,
> >>>>   no? And "Her"?)
> >>>>   For those in the Midwest: Keep warm!
> >>>>>   Am 28.01.2019 um 12:43 schrieb Mark Kohut:
> >>>>> First, sorry that this scan of the picture is sideways....I
> >>>>   thought I could
> >>>>> turn it right side up but I don't know how.Just turn your head a
> >>>>   little--or
> >>>>> your phone/computer, haha.
> >>>>>  Second, remember *The Realist *rag?---if you are old enough.
> >>>>> Third and most substantively, and the reason I scanned this,
> >>>>   think about P
> >>>>> and his oeuvre-length geopolitical doubling of the USA and
> >>>>   Russia-- and
> >>>>> here, in 1962, The Cold War about to have its hottest
> >>>>   moments....and what a
> >>>>> cartoon, eh?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> From a paperback of the sixties, THE NEW RADICALS, a collection.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Please open the attached document. It was scanned and sent to you
> >>>>   using a
> >>>>> Xerox WorkCentre. For more information on Xerox products and
> >>>>   solutions,
> >>>>> please visit http://www.xerox.com.
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>>>>
> >>> --
> >>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >>
> >> --
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> >>
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