CoL49 Chapter 4

[Michael Bailey]

1) Why does Oedipa connect understanding Tristero to finding Meaning in
Pierce's testament?

Good question!
- what if Pierce didn’t leave enough to cover his debts - like that guy in
_A Man in Full_ maybe the whole empire was a house of cards
- maybe they are liquidating (selling the stamp collection, eg)
- anyway, if that’s the case, maybe she seeks meaning in non-financial
terms and follows her liberal arts training to pursue the alternative post
phenomenon
- or, maybe she sees Tristero as a/the wreaker of Pierce’s downfall, and is
trying to figure out which of his activities brought on their wrath

 - if Pierce represents JFK - but his shtick is totally different - but if
he somehow does anyway, maybe her efforts are linked to the idea of trying
to keep the New Frontier vision alive?


2) Why does the Yoyodyne stockholder meeting and location have so much
mundane military terminology? (quonset, gunboats, platoons, etc.)

- of all the Pynchon songs, imho, “Glee” is the least clever. It’s not bad,
but it’s more MAD Magazine than it ought to be. However, it does display
not just hardware names but company names as well, and positions Yoyodyne
at the back of the line. Did Pierce bet on the wrong horse in the arms
race?

- How about those preparations for the lavish feast, apparently a typical
lunch for employees, going on in the background (“Around them all, Negroes
carried gunboats of mashed potatoes, spinach, shrimp, zucchini, pot roast,
to the long, glittering steam tables, preparing to feed a noontide invasion
of Yoyodyne workers.”)

Paternalism?  Another demonstration, like the songs, of company esprit de
corps?

Bigcos are still pounding out corporate anthems, but (as you probably know)
IBM had them going way back, and on a Yoyodyne-tier scale (article first
lists a bunch of 21st century ones)

https://blog.kickresume.com/worst-corporate-anthems/

OK, let's now shake off all you think of contemporary corporate anthems and
time travel a bit to see what it was originally like to sing a song about
your company.

Back in the days — in the first half of the 20th century — corporate songs
were *meant to be sung on daily basis* and with all solemnity. And that's
what was happening at the beginnings of IBM:

*“For 37 years, the gatherings and conventions of our IBM workers have
expressed in happy songs the fine spirit of loyal cooperation of good
fellowship which has promoted the signal success of our great IBM
Corporation in its truly International Service for the betterment of
business and benefit to mankind.”*

And then Harry Evans, a man who “loved to sing and enjoyed setting his own
lyrics to popular songs” took it to another level in 1925. His love for
singing was so contagious that he literally made the whole IBM sing:

*“If Watson sang, IBM would sing. As with the dress code, Watson did not
order IBM to sing. That bit of corporate culture started with Harry Evans.
Outgoing, attention-seeking, good-natured, wired with energy and shorter
than every other man in the room, Evans was always the guy with a joke, or
the guy willing to laugh at a joke. Watson liked him and promoted him.” *
The IBM songbook

Evans went on to print a booklet of his IBM songs to make it easier for the
employees to sing them at company sales conventions and other gatherings. The
songbook, a thin paperback volume of 54 pages, entitled Songs of the IBM -
Fellowship Songs of International Business Machines Corporation
<https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/songs-of-the-ibm.pdf>
served
as a bible that packed all company songs.

The songbook included masterpieces such as “March On With IBM”, “To Our
I.B.M. Girls” or “Our President's Motto: THINK”. If you want to get a gist
of what the music sounded like, check out a tinny recording of Ever Onwards
<https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/wav/everonward.wav> and Hail
to the IBM
<http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/wav/hailtoibm.wav>.