More Vineland: Takeshi, Vato & Blood, Weed Atman, 7th River, 24fps

[J Tracy]

The argument between giri and ninjo in Japanese culture is a thing with its own spin in the west. DL argues for giri even though it is hard to see how it has particularly benefitted her or freed her from a lot of whining , Takeshi seems to ignore the question and find more of an obligation to make the most of the moment. He has not benefitted from giri; his wife left him his boss sent criminals after him. They both see and talk with the angry ghosts of the thanatoid village. If they want to remain undiscovered surely this is the place. He sees opportunity for meaningful work . She does not. ???

Most of the time he couldn’t believe she’d really Done It to him, because even this long way down the line he still had trouble believing in his own death. If she’d killed him, why stick around? If she hadn’t, why put him, a complete stranger, through all this? It was driving him toward what, in fairly close to it now, he could detect as some state of literally mindless joy. There was no way he knew of to experience such joy and at the same time keep his mind. He wasn’t sure this might not be her real mission—to make of his life a koan, or unsolvable Zen puzzle, that would send him purring into transcendence.

At first I found it hard to tell if Vato and Blood, both Vietnam Vets,  are angry ghosts( thanatoids) themselves or if they just remember Ortho Bob from the war but survived themselves.The fact of their dealings with the Thanatoids may place them in between the living and dead, like DL and Takeshi.  Maybe they are psychopomps shuffling people and cars between worlds and also “Out to kick some ass”. Their fear of the Vietnamese lady who works for them is weird and hard for me to understand. (When I lived in Arcata there were a fair number of Vietnamese people living in the area and working at a place where  I worked carving redwood sculptures and they furniture).   
  The next episode with Vato and Blood conjures older ghosts along this (non-existant) 7th River where tales of small beings called Woges were told .Woges were  spirit -like beings who lived there before the Yurok came. For more on Yurok and other local cultures, the outsider anthropology of Jaime DeAngulo ( who knew 6 indigenous california dialects from Big Sur to Northern Cal) is powerfully insightful. I would chharacterize the role of V&B as indigenous presences within the colonial world, still connected to the older pre-colonial history, but confused  as they try to fit in to their world and time. Also in this scene along the 7th river we get a sense of the destructive power of water along the desolate stretches of the California Coast referring to real historic and ongoing incidents in the region.  This time V&B recover both a car trapped in an apple tree, and its thanatoid driver who turns out to be Weed Atman, a serious player in Dl and Frenesi’s past. Weed wants to find Takeshi, having heard about the Karmic adjustment business. V&B offer a ride.. There is a reasonable jump to T&DL’s office and then weirdly and in an unexplained temporal and locational shift Prairie, still at the Kunoichi retreat is overhearing DL and Takeshi tell this story about Weed. I guess readers  have to assume Takeshi and DL went back to the Ninjette retreat center.  The center suddenly comes under attack with Helicopters and machine guns. They get away via elevator and trans-am to LA where Takeshi has a previously unmentioned office with high tech stuff. Prairies wants to know more about her mother and is taken to Ditzah Pisk’s suburban house to watch film from her 24fps film archive. 
  It is intriguingly prescient that Pynchon saw the power of who is recording events, telling the story. The cell camera and  has become a major battleground of political activism and public response to police and mainstream political and media narratives. Tremendous effort to shut down Tik Tok, Julian Assange, Gary Webb, Telegram and censor youtube facebook Twitter etc. Today’s major search engines make it almost impossible to get contrarian historical or political viewpoints.  An early example of this was the TIME purchase and reluctance to reveal the Zapruder film of JFK’s murder. Many see it in the differing 9-11 narratives.

Notes to self- 1) theme of betrayal- 24fps betrayed, Howie? Frenesi betrays Weed, Frenesi betrays and is betrayed, Brock betrays Frenesi, is betrayed after College of surf.  DL betrays comittment to limited personal self defense, but reluctantly pays price to heal the damage,  Vond /Oliver North  betrays law and constitution preparing concentration camps & martial law. Reagan betrayed film union movement , Caught in secret deals with Iran, then Contra lies, Savings and Loan scandal, 

24fps got involved in the attempted “rebellion” at College of the Surf where Weed Atman taught math. The literary zoom-in to the College of the Surf is a classic Pynchon combination of the ominous and hilarious,