BEg2 chapter 14 slight return immersed in nightclub fun

[Allen Ruch]

I love this first paragraph—it really captures the end of a long night of partying! I used to frequent the local karaoke bar every Friday night, usually until 3 am, so this line hits home for me. BUT this is the first time I have ever considered that Maxine may NOT have been drinking. I mean—who doesn't drink at karaoke?  So I have always assumed she was just a bit drunk?

As for "Are You With Me Dr. Wu." 

1. The lyrics have no anti-Asian overtones. They are about a love triangle between a man, a woman, and a dope habit, personified as "Dr. Wu." Although Fagen has insisted the song does not actually refer to the real Dr. Wu, a famous celebrity rehab doctor, it certainly could be the origins of the name. But I think that calling it "anti-Asian" is a bit of a stretch. 

https://genius.com/Steely-dan-doctor-wu-lyrics

2. Having seen many Koreans sing karaoke in K-town, it's rare to see much political engagement with lyrical content! But nice catch on "the last piaster."

3. So why—"Not fully knowing why?" Well, this could refer to the incontrovertible fact that Steely Dan is an over-rated, over-produced, lethally boring example of Yacht Rock, and despite the high levels of musicianship and some admirably proggish tendencies, should be banned from all respectable locations and situations where yachts are not, in fact, in attendance. 

—Quail


On 1/26/22, 11:03 PM, "Pynchon-l on behalf of Michael Bailey" <pynchon-l-bounces at waste.org on behalf of 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.”

   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