JMW and MFC

[Cometman]

June 2, 2020, 5:23 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:

- 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.


Thanks for that; news to me.I remember hearing “Whitey on the Moon” and “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” on WABX-FM in Southeast Michigan in 1969-70.

And lamenting excess militancy even then - we’d had our own riots by that time.

Anyway, I put JMW and MFC in the subject line because I was going to try to compare and contrast JMW with Tom Wolfe’s “Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers.”

Mr Pynchon’s stance in his article exemplified one of the lessons of V. - keep cool but care. The coolness consists of all the things he left out - including 

a) the first person, 

b) excessive sentiment, whether sympathetic or scornful (although some scorn comes through for Yorty’s tactics)

 c) specific calls to action.

The care was evident in 

1) the emotional shadings around each encounter,

 2) the selection of Watts Towers as a focal point giving a longer, contrasting view 

3) the details on the shortfalls of remedial approaches, and exploration of attitudes

4) frequent use of the 2nd person bringing home “there but for birth privilege go I” and 

5) suggesting how easy it would be for Angelenos to visit Watts.


Wolfe’s article seemed mean-spirited in comparison. Full of colorful details, yes, equally aware of outreach going awry, but lacking a humanizing context. A Mencken-Bierce level cynicism. O-or that PJ O’Rourke (MBCPJO) 

I wouldn’t say Pynchon is devoid of MBCPJO (that Porsche action in VL, eg) but there’s a genuine sweetness frequently intermingled with it, imho. Examples abound. In JMW, the description of the preschool kids’ environment, or the aggregated evocation of the cool watering holes where Watts people sought relief, or the quote he chose from the young lady at the Negro Youth Post, incline a reader to a thoughtful consideration. (IMHO)

And I wouldn’t say that I can’t understand how the “balletic” passage and its immediate surroundings could strike some people as irritating. This is an outlier in terms of tone, albeit an important one, meant to depict the ease with which things could revert to a riot state, and - I think - an exemplar of how memories of the riot became rosy in a way that nobody’s real experience of it was.

And I wouldn’t say that there’s no place for MBCPJO in social criticism, nor would I denigrate Tom Wolfe’s talent. He had a wonderful way with words; requiescat in pace.

 I just reread MFC and it’s a wild ride, not without some pleasures and truths. One blurb I found on the web was from somebody whose inordinate pleasure in it actually sparked him to become a writer. It is hard for me to imagine reading that, nodding joyous affirmation at put down after put down, and determining to go and do likewise.

But it takes all kinds to make a world.





On Tuesday, June 2, 2020, 5:23 AM, Jochen Stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:

- 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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