CoL49 group reading ch3 - Bourbon Street bow?

[Michael Bailey]

On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 10:06 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote in
response to my question



>
>…but doesn’t it really depend on how she chooses to see it?



- Not necessarily,  Once you see someone and they become aware of your
interest, that person or organization has their own agency and may well
feel compelled to deal with you on their own terms, and those terms  may
change depending on the level of threat, interest etc.


- Example from some JFK notes - major Investigative journalist Dorothy
Kilgallen … was found dead in bed in  highly suspicious circumstances in
1965. Her files on the JFK murder were taken.


——————- to which I feel inspired to reply,

Not in any way to justify secret retribution, but that was my point - that
the more overt interest Oedipa takes, the more likely “the void will stare
back” & the type of action she takes will determine its next move.

I think that’s the narrator’s suggestion: they (a non-binary pronoun seems
appropriate here) appear to be addressing the reader, or even considering
for reasons of their own what kind of tale to spin from here -



By likening the unveiling of The Tristero to Oedipa’s own oh-so-gradual
disrobing I think the narrator is shaping expectations -

Being alert to the terms of comparison, we notice that The Tristero mystery
plays the role of the seducee here -

Oedipa is the one calling for minute disclosures and patiently lulling the
mystery even to the point of sleep while gaining the knowledge she seeks -
she’s the Metzger in this dynamic, reveling in each step. (That is, once
the fully-clad seducee has woken the would-be seducer)

I imagine them reveling, ymmv I guess, but something keeps them going at
their respective tasks.

As Metzger is with respect to Oedipa, wanting some action without
commitment, she can at best (I think the narrator is suggesting) from The
Tristero hope for

“…its smile, then, [to] be coy, and [for it to] flirt away harmlessly
backstage, say good night with a Bourbon Street bow* and leave her in peace”


Metzger, one imagines, would be mortified if Oedipa fell in love with him,
demanding he fulfill her Rapunzel fantasy and revealing more need than he
can imagine satisfying, like that movie where the lady boils the bunny.

Oedipa also quite reasonably wants (and/or the narrator & sympathetic
reader want for her) to avoid a situation where The Tristerowould
take an undue interest in her,
“…instead, the dance ended, come back down the runway, its luminous stare
locked to Oedipa’s, smile gone malign and pitiless; bend to her alone among
the desolate rows of seats and begin to speak words she never wanted to
hear”


* Bourbon Street Bow - this song on Bandcamp
https://thetorches.bandcamp.com/track/the-bourbon-street-bow
talks about somebody doing a “Bourbon Street Bow” as in bowing.
I’m unaware of what that would look like.

Google gave me a bunch of Bourbon Street “bow ties” and “hair bows” and
numerous references to this passage, but the song - I did spring for a copy
- is the only non-Pynchon reference to such an obeisance. Or maybe they got
the idea from Pynchon too.

Maybe he’s glancingly referencing the Garrison investigation?