ST ch 19 French 75s, Greasy Thumb Guzik

Mon May 11 15:31:02 UTC 2026

But it’s Anderson’s movie.

And, even as so much gets said here recently about pynchon’s early books
which I do not agree with, I do agree pynchon finds the thematic patterns
throughout America’s history.

I think this is as much Pynchon on violence As Anderson. The Traverses thru
all the books they are in and most especially AGAINST THE DAY.
And in our history this theme from she haymaker anstchists on.

On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 11:17 AM Laura Kelber <laurakelber at gmail.com> wrote:

> *Saw One Battle After Another a couple of days ago. "French 75" appears to
> be a group modeled after the SDS or Black Panthers but set in the present
> tense rather than the late 1960s/early 1970s like 24fps.*
>
> French 75 appears to me to be modeled after more violent groups like The
> Weathermen and BLA, and Perfidia clearly referenced Assata Shakur, who died
> about a week (if I remember) before OBAA had its theatrical release. The
> violence of these groups was a response to the FBI's assassination of Fred
> Hampton and the excesses of the Nixon administration and COINTELPRO. To set
> a similar group ahistorically in the tepid years of the late Obama period
> seems politically tone deaf to me. It's not something that Pynchon would
> ever do, and certainly didn't do in Vineland. That's one of my many
> objections to the movie.
>
> Laura
>
> On Mon, May 11, 2026 at 9:57 AM Robin Landseadel via Pynchon-l <
> pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:
>
> > Do ya think Thomas Pynchon and Paul Thomas Anderson might've had a couple
> > two-three phone conversations?
> >
> > " . . . Champagne Cocktails, Sidecars, French 75s, Jack Roses, and Ward
> > Eights flow without interruption. Staircases grand and otherwise being
> left
> > unpatrolled by ship's security, allowing different classes of passenger
> all
> > to shuffle together . . . "
> >
> > ST 134
> >
> > French 75:
> >
> > " . . . There are very few cocktails that have the same level of prestige
> > as a Manhattan, Old Fashioned, or Cosmopolitan, but a French 75 is one of
> > them. The classy boozy drink, which dates back to the early 1900s, is
> > typically made with one part gin, three parts champagne, lemon juice, and
> > simple syrup or sugar (via Liquor.com). If you're impressed by the amount
> > of alcohol content in this spiked concoction, just wait until you hear
> the
> > cocktail name's bizarre origin story.
> >
> > According to Difford's Guide, the French 75 cocktail is named after the
> > French army's weapon of choice during World War I: the French
> 75-millimeter
> > light field gun. The outlet reports that over 20,000 guns of its kind
> were
> > made and fired during the war, along with 200 million shells. A soldier
> was
> > able to fire 15 rounds of ammo per minute, making it one of the deadliest
> > on the market. As news of the war spread in 1914, one French bartender
> > decided to create a specialty WWI-inspired cocktail coined
> > "Soixante-Quinze," otherwise known as Seventy-Five. The drink immediately
> > started being compared to its namesake gun, being referred to as "the
> most
> > powerful drink in the world" and "hits with remarkable precision."
> However,
> > the Seventy-Five back then is not exactly the French 75 we drink today .
> .
> > . "
> >
> > Read More:
> >
> https://www.tastingtable.com/645640/the-bizarre-origin-story-of-the-french-75-cocktail-name/
> >
> > Saw One Battle After Another a couple of days ago. "French 75" appears to
> > be a group modeled after the SDS or Black Panthers but set in the present
> > tense rather than the late 1960s/early 1970s like 24fps. Obviously there
> > will be many parallels, in this case I'd say that both 24fps and French
> 75,
> > for all their bluster, simply didn't have the firepower to take down "The
> > Man", both have people with differing agendas, some of which were
> > incompatible with the goals of their respective organizations, sometimes
> > with each other. The seeds of their destruction might well be the
> Inherent
> > Vice of the very sort of people who would be committed to such high-risk
> > anarchistic causes such as these. A lot of FAAFO going on. Hugh Romney
> > became Wavy Gravy because being a clown made it less likely the cops
> would
> > beat the holy crap out of him.
> >
> > Think of the craziness of the SDS era, like the raising of the Pentagon
> in
> > 1967:
> >
> > " . . . Midway through 1967, Hoffman was looking for ways to push the
> > mostly apolitical hippie movement toward explicitly political ends. A
> > veteran of the Civil Rights Movement through the Student Nonviolent
> > Coordinating Committee, he found one way when he became involved with the
> > National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, an affiliated
> > group of organizations also known as “the Mobe.” At the time, the Mobe
> had
> > begun planning the largest protest yet against the war: a two-day
> > demonstration in Washington that organizers hoped would draw 100,000
> people.
> >
> > The Mobe had recently hired the renowned anti-war protestor Jerry Rubin
> as
> > the Washington demonstration’s project director, and the first thing the
> > Berkeley radical did was inject a little West Coast logic into the East
> > Coast radicals’ plans.
> >
> > The initial conception of the protest had been to occupy the Capitol, but
> > that, Rubin suggested, might send the wrong signal to the public,
> > suggesting that the marchers wanted to shut down the democratic process
> and
> > thus were offering only more political negativity. His friends behind the
> > Be-In, he told his Mobe colleagues, had an idea for a different stage on
> > which to perform their dissent—the Pentagon.
> >
> > Even before the Be-In, Bowen had spoken to Rubin, and anyone else who
> > would listen, about the occult significance of the five-sided pentagram
> and
> > the significance that might be inscribed for it as representing evil
> forces
> > at work in the world.
> >
> > More than the Capitol, Rubin now agreed, the Pentagon was a natural
> symbol
> > of the war. As such, it would serve as a far more resonant target.
> >
> > Apprised of this new plan, another voice from the original Be-In, the
> poet
> > Gary Snyder, contributed the idea that what was needed at the Pentagon
> was
> > not just a protest but an exorcism.
> >
> > Like a mystical arms race, Bowen went one better than Snyder and
> suggested
> > that the exorcism should include a ritual that would actually lift the
> > Pentagon off American soil and into the air.  Time magazine later
> reported
> > the intention of the proposed ritual would turn it “orange and vibrate
> > until all evil emissions had fled” and the war would come to an immediate
> > end . . . "
> >
> > Fifty Years Ago, a Rag-Tag Group of Acid-Dropping Activists Tried to
> > "Levitate" the Pentagon
> >
> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/how-rag-tag-group-acid-dropping-activists-tried-levitate-pentagon-180965338/
> >
> > 24fps drops right into this mise-en-scène, while French 75 is very much
> of
> > our era. One might say the French 75 is more realistic in their goals, at
> > least on the surface. The French 75 demonstrates its youthful folly
> > somewhat differently than 24fps. But in the end both counterforces are
> > overwhelmed by a far greater force.
> >
> > “ . . . the mostly apolitical hippie movement . . . ”
> >
> > Thanks to good old American know-how, brought to you by good old
> Americans
> > like Dr. Albert Hoffman.
> >
> > A tip of the Hatlo Hat to the CIA's MKULTRA program.
> >
> > The creature "appears" to have escaped from the lab. Or maybe not.
> >
> > Because the reference to sticky toffee pudding goes over my head, that
> > will have to be left on the burner for a bit, hope it doesn't collapse.
> > Seems that SticToPud is a rather fragile concoction.
> >
> > Greasy Thumb Guzik:
> >
> > Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik (March 20, 1886 – February 21, 1956) was the
> > financial and legal advisor, and later political "greaser" for the
> Chicago
> > outfit.
> >
> > Jake Guzik - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Guzik
> >
> > " . . . By one account Guzik ingratiated himself with Capone by reporting
> > a conversation he overheard between two men bent on killing the Big
> Fellow.
> > For his part, Capone earned Guzik’s undying loyalty by personally blowing
> > out the brains of a smalltime gangster who had mugged the little bagman
> on
> > his rounds.
> >
> > Guzik became Capone’s most skillful and trusted subordinate, overseeing
> > the Organization’s army of quaking accountants. He proved himself so
> > essential to the Organization’s prosperity and smooth operation that
> after
> > Alphonse went to jail, and a paranoid Frank Nitto (Nitti) began culling
> the
> > outfit of Capone’s staunchest loyalists, he never laid a glove on Guzik.
> >
> > Like Capone, he was convicted of tax evasion and received a sentence of
> > five years. But once he got sprung, Ricca and Accardo welcomed him back
> to
> > the fold. After Capone’s release from federal custody, it was Guzik who
> > told the press that his old pal was “nutty as a cuckoo” and thus no
> threat
> > to his successors.
> >
> > “Greasy Thumb”. In an era of criminal high fashion and… | by Andrew Ward
> |
> > Medium https://medium.com/@andrew_ward/greasy-thumb-2a370fc2ea1e
> >
> > "Next time you're in Chicago," Hicks amiably, "you might want to try a
> > chop house called St, Hubert's, specializes in genuine English food."
> >
> >  . . . St. Hubert: patron saint of hunters . . .
> >
> > St. Hubert - Saints & Angels - Catholic Online
> > https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=3802
> >
> > "Actually yes, we did of course, all but one's first stop in Chicago, but
> > regrettably with no better than indifferent luck, though I do recall ever
> > such a nice chat there with a Mr. Guzik."
> >
> > "Greasy Thumb Guzik? Sounds like the place, all right. But, um . . ."
> >
> > "Busy chap, corner table, constant procession to and from, not entirely
> > respectable-looking, all seemed to be carrying paper bags of one sort or
> > another."
> >
> > "He's Al Capone's chief financial adviser."
> >
> > "How marvelous and apparently quite thick as well with your Mr. Dawes,
> > savior of the German economy." . . .
> >
> > " . . . The Dawes Plan temporarily resolved the issue of the reparations
> > that Germany owed to the Allies of World War I. Enacted in 1924, it ended
> > the crisis in European diplomacy that occurred after French and Belgian
> > troops occupied the Ruhr in response to Germany's failure to meet its
> > reparations obligations.
> >
> > The Plan set up a staggered schedule for Germany's payment of war
> > reparations, provided for a large loan to stabilize the German currency
> and
> > ended the occupation of the Ruhr. It resulted in a brief period of
> economic
> > recovery in the second half of the 1920s, although it came at the price
> of
> > a heavy reliance on foreign capital. The Dawes Plan was superseded by the
> > Young Plan in 1929.
> >
> > Because the Plan resolved a serious international crisis, the American
> > Charles G. Dawes, who headed the group that developed it, received the
> > Nobel Peace Prize in 1925. . . "
> >
> > Dawes Plan - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dawes_Plan
> >
> > "The joint is right next door to the Union League Club, see, big
> > Republican Hangout, paths've been known to cross."
> >
> > " . . . The Union League Club of Chicago is a prominent civic and social
> > club in Chicago that was founded in 1879. Its second and current
> clubhouse
> > is located at 65 W Jackson Boulevard on the corner of Federal Street, in
> > the Loop neighborhood of Chicago. The club is considered one of the most
> > prestigious in Chicago, ranking fourth in the United States and first in
> > the Midwest on the Five Star Platinum Club list . . . "
> >
> > Union League Club of Chicago - Wikipedia
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_League_Club_of_Chicago
> >
> > "But Al Capone, I say—Republicans and gangsters? How can such things be?"
> >
> > Hicks blinks once, maybe twice. . . "
> >
> > ST 135/136
> >
> > Microphone drop.
> >
> > "There must be a pony in here somewhere."
> >
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>