CoL49 group reading ch6 part 1

[Michael Bailey]

1) The Paranoids burst into song with a lament - Metzger has stolen one of
their “chicks”


“Miles, Dean, Serge and Leonard” scans like “John, Paul, George and Ringo”

I couldn’t find an album cover with musicians & instruments arrayed
around a diving board, but it would make a good photo imho

One almost compulsively thinks, doesn’t one, of:

Miles - Miles Davis, edgy like John

Dean - Dean Martin, a crooner like Paul

Serge - Serge Gainsbourg, attractively louche like pre-Krishna George
(plus both names end in “rge”)

But

Leonard - ?

Or not; never mind


I haven’t yet come up with a hummable song this could be a parody of…

Has anyone?

& I cannot recall any song specifically on that theme of “older men,
younger women” although “These Boots are Made for Walkin’” touches on
it (“what he knows you ain’t had time to learn”) & there’s a country
song with a chorus that goes “faster horses, older whisky, younger
women”

“Serge’s Song” is a reductio ad absurdum on that theme - like The
Paranoids are a reductio ad absurdum of the British Invasion-inspired
bands beginning to proliferate in 1964?




2) Metzger breaks up with Oedipa with no notice, just a fait accompli

“No word to recall that Oedipa and Metzger had ever been more than co-executors.

“Which must mean, thought Oedipa, that that’s all we were. She should
have felt more classically scorned, but had other things on her mind.”

It was just one of those things…

Sex - especially the first time - with Metzger was a landmark of
moving away from Mucho, affection-wise. Now, any potential for
something between her and Metzger recedes in the aftermath of her SF
sojourn. It’s hard to say who means less to the other.


Is it meaningful that Metzger leaves the note on the TV? As being
someplace she’s bound to see it right away?