BEg2 chapter 1 3rd pass - Vyrva!

[Keith Davis]

Very cool. Thanks.

linktr.ee/keithdavis

> On Nov 5, 2021, at 11:13 PM, Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> —-—
> Handy link for the pynchonwiki BE page, suitable for bookmarking:
> https://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
> ———
> 
> 
> The mix we are adding Vyrva to:
> 
> Maxine walks her 2 sons to school and from there she “continues her
> commute” by walking to her fraud investigation office, where she starts her
> working day with phone messages and a call until Reg arrives without an
> appointment.
> 
> It’s kinda meh, kinda bland without Vyrva.
> 
> Lacks verve!
> 
> Vyrva - there’s an Anton Vyrva who’s a painter from Belarus. Darn near
> photorealist, seems to me.
> 
> https://www.saatchiart.com/vyrva
> 
> 
> Per forebears.io, Vyrva is the
> 
> 495,028th Most Common
> surname in the World
> 
> Most common in Ukraine
> 
> 
> 
> 1% first name found once in Russia
> 99% surname found at least 95 times in at least 8 countries (per
> namespedia.com)
> 
> Vyrva is a Ukrainian village with about 185 inhabitants. Also, Vyrva is a
> stream there (small river) or to stretch a point but little, a “rill.”
> 
> Thanks, gomapper.com & mapcarta.com !
> 
> So there “rilly” is a Vyrva…to segue into her Valley persona…and evoke a
> bit of Vineland.
> 
> 
> Vyrva sez, “Maxi, hi?”
> Which you could see as annoying tic that accesses and then disappoints
> non-Valley speakers’ expectation of a question.
> 
> Or could it be the beginning of a cultural influence from tonal languages,
> what with all the migration into California of speakers thereof?
> 
> 
> Cross-cultural East and West Coast influences certainly figure in Vyrva and
> Maxine’s friendship.
> 
> Which, to hazard a guess, probably began with a recognition like the one
> between Zoyd and van Meter in Vineland, where he looks into the next car
> over and sees himself.
> 
> Slight age difference, but kindred spirits.
> 
> “This morning Maxine notes a change from the normal weekday throwtogether,
> what Barbie used to call an Executive Lunch Suit instead of denim overalls,
> for one thing, hair up instead of in the usual blond braids, and the
> plastic monarch butterfly earrings replaced by what, diamond studs,
> zircons? Some appointment later in the day, business matters no doubt, job
> hunting, maybe another financing expedition?”
> 
> Nice Iceland Spar double image with 3 points of comparison, and a surmise
> about Vyrva’s plans.
> 
> Vyrva was graduated from Pomona - isn’t that a Pynchon hotbed?
> 
> Her husband, “Justin and a friend from Stanford have a little start-up that
> somehow managed to glide through the dotcom disaster last year, though not
> with what you’d call irrational exuberance. ”
> 
> (Greenspan, 1996)
> 
> Vyrva and Justin live in a brownstone on Riverside Drive, wowing Maxine on
> her first visit.
> 
> “Magnificent residence,” she pretended to kvell, “maybe I’m in the wrong
> business?”
>   “Talk to Bill Gates here,” Vyrva nonchalant, “I’m just hangin out,
> waitin for my stock options to vest? Right, honey?”
> 
> Kvell - Yiddish for “to be extraordinarily proud; rejoice” - in this case,
> vicariously.
> 
> 
> She wishes Vyrva well a little more meaningfully  than usual, suspecting
> games afoot deeper than Vyrva’s usual, “California sunshine, snorkel-deep
> waters, most of the time anyway.”
> 
> And watches Vyrva’s West Coast acknowledgement of the insight, “noting a
> slow California double take”
> prove her right.
> 
> 
> Per nameslook.com, the numerology of the name Vyrva is 7.
> 
> Also, I was going to hit send, but then the image of Vyrva with “California
> plates on [her] butt,” breaking the ice between her and Maxine, who’d been
> serving her herbal tea rather than the coffee Maxine herself was drinking.
> 
> So we know there are “klatches” whether kaffee- or tee- between them.
> Vyrva’s offhand reference to her butt is maybe tantamount to using “du” in
> German.
> 
> California car license plates in 2001 were white with blue letters:
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/222047440735
> 
> 
> 
> Completely irrelevant:
> 
> Not nearly as cool, imho, as the blue and yellow one Cheech and Chong’s
> Impala sported in Up in Smoke:
> 
> https://www.bluescentric.com/p-1929-cheech-and-chongs-up-in-smoke-muf-dvr-license-plate.aspx
> --
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