JMW and MFC

[Jochen Stremmel]

 - use of “busted” repeated later, w/r/t to broken (busted) tv art
piece, rich with connotations “the revolution will not be televised” not
released till 1971 but sometimes great minds think alike

Before Scott-Heron used it as a title of his song it was already a Black
Power slogan around the time and in the mind of Watts.

Am Di., 2. Juni 2020 um 10:47 Uhr schrieb Cometman via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org>:

> So, even a cursory reading is closer than the readings I have done in the
> past of “Journey into the Mind of Watts” - unless the egotism of age
> misremembers the depth of previous reading. But I think I really do get a
> lot more out of it now.
>
> First, this came out in 1966, the year after the riots. It starts with an
> account of a police shooting, so I’ve always lumped it in with the original
> riot, even though the article repeatedly describes efforts put into place
> in response to it, which should’ve made it obvious.
>
>
> Building on that perception, I think there are two pairs of contrasting
> attitudes that shimmer throughout the article: police/poverty warriors, and
> black/white cultural attitudes.
>
> Lacking the equivalent of an electron microscope in terms of
> reading/analyzing skills, I’m limited by the wavelength of the light I can
> shine through the article, but one critiques using the skills one has, not
> the skills one wishes one had. There may be one-word descriptors for some
> effects I describe at greater length, eg.
>
> Anyhoo...CL49 had just come out, and in the middle of that event - which
> would be pretty time-consuming - he apparently found time to do some
> primary research in Watts, unless he made all that up. One thing I want to
> trace briefly is evidence of primary research.
>
> EPR
>
> 1) preachers in the community are urging calm
>
> - you could get that from the papers, like the Deadwyler details. Not that
> there’s anything wrong with that. A-and newspapers are “sort of” primary
> sources, for my purposes.
>
> Interesting lead-off, to go right to the religious leaders with respectful
> quoting, and their advice is the best of the lot imho. Is my take.
>
> 2) A Negro Teen Post--part of the L.A. poverty war's keep-them-out-of-the-
> streets effort--has had all its windows busted, the young lady in charge
> expressing the wish next morning that she could talk with the malefactors,
> involve them, see if they couldn't work out the problem together.
> - those were more innocent times - Negro Teen Post indeed!
>
> - use of “busted” repeated later, w/r/t to broken (busted) tv art
> piece, rich with connotations “the revolution will not be televised” not
> released till 1971 but sometimes great minds think alike
>
> - could’ve been in the papers, somebody talked to her next morning, either
> young Mr Pynchon had his (what kind of footwear would a prize-winning
> novelist wear to Watts? Not black shiny FBI shoes, nor likely designer
> kicks, too early for Nikes...) figurative boots on the ground, or read
> attentively the account of someone who did (now I’m trying to remember
> somebody’s quote about how it took them hours to read the paper every day,
> because they had to empathize with everyone in allthe stories)
>
> - use of the word “malefactors” subtly, and dare I say, skilfully suggests
> an underlying aversion to property damage. This will be important
> throughout, as a position established early on against which to measure
> several rationales for violence that crop up.
>
> 3) “...the panoramic sense of black impoverishment is hard to miss from
> atop the Harbor Freeway, which so many whites must drive at least twice
> every working day. Somehow it occurs to very few of them to leave at the
> Imperial Highway exit for a change, go east instead of west only a few
> blocks, and take a look at Watts. A quick look. The simplest kind of
> beginning. But Watts is country which lies, psychologically, uncounted
> miles further than most whites seem at present willing to travel.”
>
> - this polling of attitudes would be easy research. The passage also
> strongly suggests that the author did indeed “take a look” but, perhaps in
> order to avoid a self-congratulatory tone, leaves it mostly implicit.
>
> 4)” ...in the daytime's brilliance and heat, it is hard to believe there
> is any mystery to Watts. Everything seems so out in the open, all of it
> real, no plastic faces, no transistors, no hidden Muzak, or Disneyfied
> landscaping or smiling little chicks to show you around. Not in
> Raceriotland. Only a few historic landmarks, like the police substation,
> one command post for the white forces last August, pigeons now thick and
> cooing up on its red-tiled roof. Or, on down the street, vacant lots, still
> looking charred around the edges, winking with emptied Tokay, port and
> sherry pints, some of the bottles peeking out of paper bags, others busted.”
>
> - too long of a quote. Sorry, won’t happen again
>
> - again with the “busted”
>
> - could get this from photos but I’m starting to believe he set foot there
>
> 5) ...ground-breaking festivities, attended by a county supervisor, pretty
> high-school girls decked in ribbons, a white store owner and his wife, who
> in the true Watts spirit busted a bottle of champagne over a rock--all
> because the man had decided to stay and rebuild his $200,000 market, the
> first such major rebuilding since the riot.
>
> - coulda been in the paper. This reading I caught the allusion to the
> other broken wine bottles.
>
> 6) buncha unsourced quotes; coulda been ethnographic or sourced from
> interviews in the paper. Does it really matter? He’s a novelist, could be
> either one. They could even be made up, come to think of it.
>
> 7) It really does seem like he went to the Markham Junior High art fair.
> But again, he’s refined out of the text, paring his fingernails.
>
> —- so, even though it’s not that important a question, the growing
> impression throughout the piece is that he spent some time there, with a
> novelist’s gaze. But then again, a fiction writer makes up stuff. This is
> like a background issue. It’s not an account of *his* journey into the mind
> of Watts, but more like he’s offering the reader a journey into it.
>
>
>
> --
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>