BEg2 chapter 12 investigative spadework

[Mark Kohut]

Maxine's principle--don't get involved in a marital---shows, again, her
intuitive, experienced smartness. Talis is faux
ditz if we pick up on the clues.

Another slam at the immature, irreal emotional life of men, the tech world
men. "Her image became conflated with those of
Heather Locklear, Linda Evans, and Morgan Fairchild, among others.”

Once again, Maxine on Horst--not young tech world but another shallow
man--and as Maxine says, something about all the men she's
dated lately. ....BE is a second wave feminism novel, among other things.


On Fri, Jan 7, 2022 at 4:32 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Joseph Tracy wrote:
>
> “She meets Tallis in  upper east side in enormous house after passing
> through boring rooms with expensive but uniterestingly collected art.
> Tallis says Gabe has weird demands, and they got to know each other at
> Carnegie Mellon when he was using her room’s computer as refuge from
> bagpiper, but they get along. Tallis says she and her mother hate each
> other, and she hated fighting between her parents. She tells how March
> is accusing Gabriel Ice of financial misbehavior larger than Iran
> Contra. Tallis  either is or is playing the ditz and doesn’t really
> want to know if finances at hashslingerz are clean Gabe Ice is evasive
> about it.”
>
>
> He probably graduated to using her room’s computer, but he was at first
> using ones in the common rooms of various dorms.
>
> “the sound was enough to drive Gabe out to the computer cluster, which
> still wasn’t far enough. Soon he was out gazing at student-lounge
> television screens or using the facilities at other dorms, including
> Tallis’s….”
>
> Also, I don’t think he was just studying comp sci,
>
> “…he quickly slipped into a tubelit clustergeek existence, often unsure if
> he was awake or dreaming in REM, which might have accounted for his early
> conversations with Tallis, which she remembers nowadays as “unusual.” She
> was his dream girl, literally. Her image became conflated with those of
> Heather Locklear, Linda Evans, and Morgan Fairchild, among others.”
>
> Which squares with libido expectations for a future mogul?
>
>
>
> CMU bagpipes major:
>
> https://www.cmu.edu/cfa/music/news/2009/carnegie-mellon-is-home-to-nations-only-graduating-bagpipe-major.html
>
> “The tradition of bagpipes at Carnegie Mellon dates to founder Andrew
> Carnegie, who employed his own personal piper, said Alasdair Gillies,
> director of Carnegie Mellon’s piping program and a world-renowned bagpiper
> himself.
>
> Mr. Carnegie’s Scottish roots are apparent throughout Carnegie Mellon, from
> the school’s mascot, the Scottish terrier, to the student newspaper, The
> Tartan, to the traditional Scottish dress worn by members of the school’s
> “Kiltie” marching band. In 1990, the school instituted the world’s first
> bagpipe degree, a major — complete with a designated need-based scholarship
> — focusing on both studio performance and the history and culture behind
> bagpiping. Mr. Hudson is just the third bagpipe major to graduate from
> Carnegie Mellon since the establishment of the program, though there are
> two other majors now enrolled behind him.”
>
>
> https://www.alexcooper.com/blog/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-cy-twombly
> Hey, he was named after Cy Young!
>
>
> “There is a Bösendorfer Imperial in the corner, at which generations of
> hired piano players have provided hours of Kander & Ebb, Rodgers &
> Hammerstein, Andrew Lloyd Webber medleys while Gabe and Tallis and assorted
> henchfolks work the room, gently thinning the checkbooks of East Side
> aristos on behalf of various causes, many of them trivial by West Side
> standards.”
>
> Kander & Ebb? Who they?
>
> https://www.theatretrip.com/musicals-by-kander-and-ebb/
> Cabaret was by them!
>
> Generations of hired piano players? Seems like either hyperbole - or, the
> piano predates the Ices with the connotation that prior to them it was
> providing background music for some other 1% couples shaking down the
> aristos for charity. For whom “Ice” would be an ok metonymy, denoting their
> diamonds and the probable temperatures of their hearts…
>
> Or maybe just the varying ages of the pianists for the different
> engagements. They came from different generations but played the same
> piano?
>
> Also - “gently thinning the checkbooks of East Side aristos on behalf of
> various causes, many of them trivial by West Side standards.”
>
> So at least for Maxine, there’s a palpable difference between Upper East
> and Upper West? Earlier in the chapter we get,
>
>  “ Maxine is no stranger to the Upper East Side, though it still makes her
> uncomfortable.As a kid she went to Julia Richman High—
>
> well, she could’ve been on the natch once or twice—“
>
> [ where else would you get this joke, with this verbiage, “the natch,”
> reminiscent of the rebooted Mucho Maas in _Vineland_?]
>
> “…over on East 67th, rode crosstown buses five days a week, never got used
> to it. Deep hairband country. Visiting over here is always like stepping
> into a planned midgets’ community, everything scaled down, blocks shorter,
> avenues less time to walk across, you expect any minute to be approached by
> a tiny official greeter going, “As mayor of the Munch-kin City . . .”
>
> Hairband country?
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>