BEg2 chapter 34 references

[Michael Bailey]

Maxine and Horst take the biggest wastebasket in the house and fill it with
fun-size candies of different brands, including Swedish Fish, PayDays, and
Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews



Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews?

How they are made
https://youtu.be/smY-TTfb2rc

A competing video of how they are made
https://youtu.be/WgABcn39Zzo

They were wwi rations; still made in Philadelphia.

East Coast Atlantic Seaboard thing maybe?




Maxine and Horst “retire to the bedroom, allowing Hallowe’en to develop as
it will, which out in the streets of the Upper West Side means into a
pseudopod of exotic Greenwich Village, after having had to settle the rest
of the year for being a vague sort of uptown Dubuque.”

         One of the kinds of prose that I keep coming back for.




Horst: “ I did have a little money on the Yanks, judgment call, really . .
.” About to drift off into directionless cozy talk here . . .

  “Really”? Maybe not, Horst.


She’s reading something into his use of “really” -
That he’s rooting for, and betting on, New York teams, overrides any
soft-pedaling that he might be attempting with his “judgment call, really.”
Right? He’s adopting New York, or acclimating?

And yet, even after Horst adding an unwonted effusion of affection (given
his alexithymic nature), she resists settling into afterglow, in favor of
checking out the doings at the Deseret:

“can’t say it wasn’t a blast, shoat but sweet as they say around the
pigpen, maybe I’ll just catch some highlights, then.”
    From Horst, she is aware, this amounts to a declaration of love. But
something is now focusing her out of the house, on to The Deseret, and
what’s likely to be a peculiar vertical creepfest over there.


 The twin impulses of parental protectiveness (sons are at the Deseret)
plus above-and-beyond investigative zeal propel her?




“Ain’t Never Gonna Do It Without The Fez On”

https://youtu.be/KCdKBHdPz30

Wow - Songmeanings.com unpacked a lot of things for me - felt a need to
copy some of the comments -  also, the fez as vaguely Middle Eastern
headgear could be a post-911 pseudopod of cultural reference?

https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/103354/



Fez on sounds exactly like faison in French, which means "do it", so the
song becomes "don't make me do it without the do it" - but in the
colloquial French it means permission, essentially. So there is a hidden
double meaning implying rape - which is perfectly consistent with the
entire album, The Royal Scam. Every song is about a criminal act,
culminating with the greatest criminal being the government.

And all this time, I thought it was in reference to the Shriners, and how
they open doors to success for their own members. Interesting. I think the
condom idea would be a reach if not for the fact that the band is named
after a dildo in the first place.

It *is* disco, plain and simple. And perhaps they *were* trying to cash in,
but not without a little poison in the sugar. I remember hating disco (had
a "Disco Sucks" t-shirt) at the time, but I had to like this song because
it was Steely Dan. In truth I did like disco, but as a pure-bred white boy
in a white part of the country, wouldn't/couldn't admit it...

I never knew about fez == condom until recently, so I just thought it was
"cool" to think you might have a "funny hat" on in bed.

I love how he emphatically states that no he's never gonna do it without
the fez on, and adamantly exclaims he AIN'T never gonna do it without the
fez on, but in the end he's practically begging her not to make him do it
without the fez on. Great jam.

Hahahahaha...Its steely dan doing a safe sex public service announcement.

This one always reminds me of a friend I had in high school who refused to
take his socks off during sex. lol

I think I read somewhere that Becker and Fagen did intend this to be a song
promoting condom use (and actually stated as much).... But I still like to
interpret it as a song about someone with a weird fetish and the need to
roleplay a certain way to get off ("I wanna be your holy man")--makes it a
funny song to me, and more in keeping with the band's general wry sense of
humor which I've come to love about them. Somehow public service
announcements (even subtle ones) seem out of character for them.

It's not a disco song. Disco songs of that era were characterized by a
steady 1/4 kick drum pulse -- this is anything but. Never heard the
reference to condom use, but it would make sense, ironically, given the
name of the band.

I've posted previously that this is probably about gay culture. Disco and
someone's comment that the fez was gay slang for condom.

Captain Obvious has to point out that Fagen's irony is in the line "I want
to be your holy man".

Religious views against condoms/masturbation are derived from an Old
Testament reading where someone was supposed to impregnate his brother's
wife after he died (as was the custom) but he pulled out and "wasted his
seed".

So basically Fagen is doing what he does best, besides his musical
songwriting abilities.