LISS/STPEVR Zoyd in the morning

[ish mailian]

Thomas sez:

-Zoyd as Ned Bottom.
> He’s a hardworking guy. Working class hero
> “we’ll meet at Ninny’s Tomb!”
Bottom and the other workers have vocations, trades, jobs they are
skilled at. They were once apprentices and are now masters of an art.
This skill is power for the workers.

They've no skill as Thespians. To keep their jobs they must hone their
skill, but  as actors (or writers or Playwrights or Bartlebys ... see
Pynchon's Sloth Essay), to keep  heads they depend on the fickle
generosity of magnanimous royals. Zoyd, not an actor but a musician,
has some related experience, but his once a year gig as an actor (not
bad work if you can get it), and his head (including his maidenhead)
can be kept only if he performs for his fickle and violent bosses.

While we readers of books admire the author, the playwright, the
actor, the musician, the poet, we know that even Shakespeare, the son
of a provincial glover and illegal wool trader, was an actor, a
popular entertainer, a job most people considered dishonorable.


Yeah, as the exchange with Hector you quote below suggests, Hector, of
Mexican ancestry (a Latino and usually a  target of the corrupt
police, not to mention the faux protestant work ethic of
pro-capitalism working class whites) is, ironically, spouting the work
hard and play by the rules success myth) , even as he, like Zoyd,
collects a government check. But yeah, Zoyd hustles. And Hector,
though he hectors the hippies, and has disgust for how they live,
because he half believes the false narratives about hippies and
communes, and because he is more like them than he cares to admit,
because he fears the false narratives about his people, respects Zoyd
for his industry and work ethic. The fake economy in America can not
allow the real economy, as the pandemic now has exposed it, to compete
as a narrative, people can not know that communal living, as any
economist knows, is inherently economical. The crazy commune
narratives, the murder, neglect ... narrative, the hysterical high
pitched narrative must silence the community. Americans are generally
afraid of anything cooperative. Americans consider cooperative and
communal living subversive.

>
> For one thing it’s still morning, early riser in my book. Those doves in
> the dream could be the souls of the 290 people aboard Iran Air 655,
> Thanatoids in the making.

They are carrier pigeons and I place emphasis on the word **carrier**
because, though I am not an expert, carrier pigeons don't carry
messages; though they are related to the carriers of messages, they
are not honing pigeons, but show pigeons, bred for perfect beauty.
Not a mistake Pynchon would make. If it is one. And I don't think it
is. The word carrier here seems to allude to an aircraft carrier. The
squadron of jays, to a squadron of US jests. The light under the wings
of the pigeons, like the light under the jest wings. So the text, in
dream and in history seems to be about the US war on Iraq. Yes, I
agree, that the Iranians murdered by the US are referenced here.


>
> If he sleeps later than usual, he must usually get up pretty darn early -
> the reason he sleeps in is he’s psyching himself up to pull his stunt this
> day (“he’d been planning this for weeks” (3)) - usually it’s not as hard
> for him to get up for the various gig economy stuff that he does because
> even Hector knows he’s not lazy (“it ain’t like you’re lazy or afraid to
> work, either” (28))
>
> Here are all the things he does:
>
> Drive to clothing store
>
> Gas up the chainsaw and tousle his hair and get a word to the wise about
> his plan from Prairie’s friend Slide
>
> Drive to joint up in the woods
>
> Parley with the Barman (who he played b-ball with in the 6 Rivers
> conference (7)) and the metrosexual logger dude
>
> Drive to Ralph, Junior’s venue
>
> Do the jump
>
> Then a certain amount of schmoozing and police paperwork and Hector
> Hectoring. As Rod Stewart said, “...police wouldn’t give me no peace.”
>
> All before Ralph, Junior turns on the neon lights at the Cucumber Lounge
> “early” (12)) and he goes home to dinner.
>
> But —- where does Whitman come in?
>
> &&&& oh, that first bar he goes to is called The Logjam; logjam is also a
> notional notation in Brock Vond’s mind for the anti war/pro pot/civil
> rights situations he’s tasked with floating to the mill!
>
> —- also, did you say something about a dog?
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l