BEg2 chapter 14 slight return immersed in nightclub fun

[Mark Kohut]

my reading suggests that this episode is presented as discontinuous, as an
aberration out of time and therefore life. ...by "pulses of
forgetting'...and "borrowed time"......from AtD we know, I think that
TRP found magnificent ways to show that real earthbound ---not
McTaggart---time is how humans live, what humans live in, how, yes, they
should live and mostly do.....those who don't are out of life in some
important way....

On Wed, Jan 26, 2022 at 11:03 PM Michael Bailey <
michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:

> “While for some the night is growing blurry, for Maxine it’s turning
> staccato, breaking up into small microepisodes separated by pulses of
> forgetting. She remembers looking at the sign-up sheet and seeing she has
> apparently, not fully knowing why, called Steely Dan’s up-tempo ballad of
> memory and regret, “Are You with Me Dr. Wu.”
>
> “Next thing she knows she’s up at the mike, with Lester unexpectedly
> stepping in to sing harmony on the hook. During the saxophone break while
> Koreans holler “Pass the mike,” they find themselves doing disco moves.
> “Paradise Garage,” Maxine sez. “You?”
> “Danceteria mostly.” She risks a quick look at his face. He carries a
> furtive fantasizing gaze she’s seen too many times before, an awareness of
> living not only on borrowed money but on borrowed time also.”
>
>
> A) Maxine’s gotten dolled up in a Dolce & Gabbana dress she plucked at 70%
> off in Filene’s basement from the grasp of a Collegiate mother whom it
> wouldn’t have fit anyway (there’s additional scurrilous talk directed at
> Collegiate elsewhere in this book, which is written by a Collegiate father)
> but why is she blanking out? - no word on what she’s drinking afaict. Maybe
> the excitement of it all. Maybe flashbacks to her clubbing days?
>
> B) are you with me Dr Wu - the Koreans presumably  object to the anti-Asian
> overtones of the song?
> - the song contains the line, “just when I’d spent the last piaster I could
> borrow,” playing into the look Maxine sees in Traipse’s eyes.
>
> C) Maxine’s clubbing history comes into the narrative & not for the last
> time.
> She cites Paradise Garage as her disco move alma mater
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Garage
> Tim Curry had a song about it.
> Apparently it was quite a place; they didn’t serve liquor, so they could
> stay open all night, and they emphasized dancing. Madonna performed there.
> So did Diana Ross.
>
> Traipse cites his previous stomping grounds as Danceteria, also a famous
> New York discotheque. Madonna’s first public performance was there,
> according to Wikipedia:
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danceteria
>
> https://youtu.be/YpHXQqFO9sMj (clip of the appearance)
>
> It was not unknown to a laundry list of performers including The Rolling
> Stones.
>
> Both places were famous for what David Foster Wallace (requiescat in pace)
> might have characterized as “too much fun.”
>
> Maxine however is made of sterner stuff, having managed to survive - the
> look she “risks” at Traipse being a precursor to survivor’s guilt, maybe a
> feeling that as a veteran of that scene she is not unfamiliar with?
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>