SLPAD - 66

[Michael Bailey]

Little Buttercup is as interested in Levine as he is in her - though he
Pooh-poohs her “Buttercup” reference (thanks, Mark, for the context), in
fact points her at Rizzo as the type of college boy who’d appreciate that
kind of badinage.

https://youtu.be/AoWxp4cJKLk

Rizzo ignores Levine’s commandeering of Little Buttercup’s attention on his
behalf, volunteering, for her benefit, instead, a thumbnail description of
Levine.

So she figuratively plants both feet and grabs at Rizzo’s appellation of
the “plow boy” standing before her, in order to pull him in.



She brightened. “And how do you like plowing?” she said.

            “Later,” Levine said and slurped coffee.

            “Later indeed,” she said. “See you around the quad.”



 Levine’s ready with a quip - umm, no, he buries his nose in the coffee
cup, but does manage to offer a workable suggestion, which she grasps and
escalates.

(Nothing about him seems particularly attractive, but he must have what
Kramer on Seinfeld described as “the Kevorka” - or maybe it’s a visible
willing-and-readiness like that later seen guiding Slothrop, a-and once in
awhile in Benny Profane…like Buttercup has a hetero- gaydar - seems she’s
in search of that kind of adventure the way Rachel Owlglass is)

Rizzo makes with another cultural reference, “Betty Coed”
https://youtu.be/y75gedLXDZQ

& sez, “ Boy you’re fighting it, ain’t you?” Rizzo said.


            “Who’s fighting?” Levine said.*

Rizzo’s attuned to his crew, or thinks he is, so he may mean that what
Levine is fighting is college nostalgia, but what Levine denies fighting is
the urge towards casual sex…


Levine accepts Douglas’s invitation to ride along to the pier - not to
linger mooning about, over either campus memories or Buttercup - leaving
Rizzo to twit Baxter about the latter’s inexperience with the fairer
gender. Baxter only scowls - the lack of a prompt comeback does seem to
point to the veracity of this supposition. Rizzo’s not particularly helpful
here - ijs. But what does one do or say to guide a love-starved youngun?

Actually, the college experience Baxter disparaged may have been where
Levine found his Kevorka (-;


* anachronistic cultural reference:
https://youtu.be/XBd4mXjAOlU