Photo by Elaine Glusac
By OZ FRITZ
Special guest blogger
"But the games Joyce played – and the games played by Welles, and M.C. Escher, and Borges, and Pynchon, and a lot of our current post-modernists – while just as cute as Doyle's games, have a serious side, just like cutting-edge science and philosophy, which also have encountered Uncertainty. A Final Answer seems impossible, to post-modern artists ... Ergo, the post-modern artist now offers us, not the Problem Solved, but the Problem as Puzzle." – Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger Vol. III.
Hector Zuñiga, Sylvester the cat to Zoyd's Tweety bird, experiences this great uncertainty with his career as described at the top of page 25. His uncertainty with life gets compared to the labyrinthine Casbah topography. The Casbah describes the old, fortified part of a North African city. I know the Casbah of Tangier, Morocco which proved extremely easy to get lost in with its narrow, winding streets and high walls. We were strongly advised not to enter that area without a guide. In Tangier, multilingual kids with 5 or 6 languages hang around the hotels hoping to get hired as a guide. Casbah architecture makes a good metaphor for Pynchon's writing, in general.
Last week I got some sense of the Vineland locale when I went there to record a Queer Country show in Mendocino. I arrived the day before at the house of their drummer and bassist Reyna Cinnamon Coupe and her partner Cynthia Coupe who generously put me up. Reyna met me at the door and we talked for about an hour about the area before I left to record another show in Fort Bragg. I don't recall how we got there but when she mentioned the bombing of Earth First! activist Judi Bari in 1990 and the apparent collusion of the FBI with said bombing, it started sounding like the same violent and fascist tactics employed by law enforcement in Vineland. With all the humor, satire and parody Pynchon uses in his story it's easy to regard the over-the-top police tactics as fiction, but after hearing about some of the things that went down in that era, I realized this shit really happened; Pynchon isn't making it up. We returned to the subject at a later time.
Reyna herself had been an Earth First! type of activist in a former lifetime engaged in non-violent civil disobedience with the intention to protect the environment from destruction by the thoughtless, careless and destructive tactics of the timber industry. In an interview in The New Settler, issue 68, July 1992, Todd, as they were known at the time, details step by step their protest method of tree sitting and how to go about doing it. He even describes how to monetize climbing trees by collecting seeds for the California Department of Forestry. Cinnamon reports that at the time, "they paid $35 a bushel for Douglas fir seeds, $45 a bushel for incense cedar, $20 for Ponderosa pine, and $45 for Redwood. You can get three or four bushels in an hour." After the bombing, Reyna became Judi Bari's virtual bodyguard for the next few years. Darryl Cherney was in the passenger seat when the bomb exploded, but fortunately had relatively minor injuries. He made a low budget film called Who Bombed Judi Bari which is available on You Tube. Along with Bari, they sued the F.B.I. and the Oakland Police Department for negligence (they didn't conduct an investigation), false arrest, illegal search and seizure, and falsifying evidence. "A predominantly conservative jury awarded Judi's estate and Darryl Cherney $4.4 million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages." Quoted from The Ghost Forest - Racists, Radicals, and Real Estate in the California Redwoods by Greg King.
Though not central to the story, the malfeasance of the logging industry plays in the background in resonance with the war on drugs. The first American edition of Vineland shows a black and white photograph of a massive pile of dead trees. It's the same image used in the introductory post for this group. It was taken by Darius Kinsey known for his photographs of the logging industry. This one shows a logging camp with the title "Crescent Camp Number One." It makes a great visual metaphor for the struggles and battles in Vineland. Trees, in general, play their part in Vineland, especially at the end.
I asked Reyna and Cynthia if they recalled anything about the war on drugs. They said all through the 1980s it was like a war zone. Choppers were constantly flying overhead. The CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Production) program as it appears in Vineland was a real thing operated by the California Department of Justice from 1983 - 1996. A multi-agency task force, it comprised one of the largest conglomerates of law enforcement at the time. Now we have Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the top of the American fascist heap. Coincidentally, Gabriel ICE, a tech billionaire, shows up as the evil and antagonistic character in Pynchon's Bleeding Edge (2013).
The third chapter describes the relationship between government agent Hector Zuñiga and Zoyd starting with when they first met. The cartoon duo Sylvester and Tweety seems an apt comparison. Hector brings various Spanish words and phrases into the novel. According to Christine Wexler, Pynchon's lover at one point, he knew enough Spanish to read in it. Looking at the Spanish spoken by Hector in this chapter, it starts with an exclamation, "Caray" (p. 28) = Wow in English followed shortly by ése = that; next we see "Ay se va" = Oh it's gone; then "¡Ja ja!" = ha ha; finally "¡Madre de Dios! = Mother of God. The Spanish in this chapter reiterates the theme: Wow, that, oh it's gone ha ha Mother of God.
Pynchon's fondness for the letter "v" comes out in this chapter. Van Meter, one of the Corvairs hopes to score from Hector. The latter uses the phrase "Vaseline of youth" later on. My favorite in this week's offering (p.28): "there's gonna be some local person about your age come runnin' up, two fingers in a V, hollerin, 'What's your sign man,?' or singíng 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' note for note.
Two fingers in a V symbolized peace in the 60's. In the 40's Winston Churchill used it to represent V for victory. Some say it also presented a semiotic weapon to counteract the swastika, a symbolism of fascism in Nazi Germany. A well-known story in the music biz holds that the song "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly was originally supposed to have the title and lyrics "In the Garden of Eden" but the singer got too stoned to sing that properly so it became as we know it now. Whether true or not, Bart Simpson used it for a joke on an unsuspecting congregation.
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The bit on p. 25 where Hector plays with his food to sculpt something meaningful only to him recalls a scene from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This foretells the UFO scenario coming up, but it also qabalistically connects with Hector giving Zoyd news about his ex-wife Frenesi. I believe this marks the first mention of her in the story.
I'll end with a statement by Hector that can be heard in at least two different ways (p. 30):
"'The Lord, as they call him around my office, created all of us, even you, with free will. I think it's weird you don't even want to find out about her.'" The "her" refers to Frenesi whom they've been discussing, but it can also refer to the Lord in that sentence. This seems another possible link to E.J. Gold who wrote a two person play called Creation Story Verbatim featuring the Lord God Herself and the Archangel Gabriel.
Next week: please read chapter 4, pages 35 - 55.
8 comments:
Great background material, Oz!
I love the idea of Aleister Crowley inventing the "V for Victory" sign as a magical foil to the swastika, even if not necessarily historically accurate, just the fact that he makes that claim gives the "V" symbol some extra semiotic juice!
Oz, so good. Many thanks, appreciate all the writing and hard work!
“Zoyd was living down south then, sharing a house in Gordita Beach with elements of a surf band he’d been playing keyboards in since junior high called the Corvairs, along with friends more or less transient.” (p.22)
This connects to Pynchon’s own later Inherent Vice, Gordita Beach being the area where the main character Doc Sportello lives. We also find a communal house inhabited by a many-membered surf band, although there are then called the Boards. The relationship between Zoyd and Zuniga in Vineland reminded me of the relationship between stoner Doc Sportello and detective Bigfoot Bjornsen in Inherent Vice. Their exchange in Vineland is in parts about Frenesi, Zoyd’s ex-wife, while Doc Sportello spends a large portion of Inherent Vice looking for an ex-girlfriend of his.
There was at least one sixties band called the Corvairs, although in real life there were a doo-wop act rather than a surf band.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bmWm_Fofzk
“Situations back then, relationships, sure got tangled up in that house, with more and also less temporary love partners and sex companions.” (p.25)
This, together with “What's your sign man?” that Oz quoted from p.28, made up for a small synchronicity with the film Summer Lovers (1982) which I saw a few days ago. It features a young couple spending their vacation in the Greek equivalent of a ‘Casbah topography’. They soon meet another woman, and quickly start relating together as a throuple. Upon meeting, one of the first exchanges goes:
“Do you want to know my sign?”
“Not particularly.”
“Good.”
“Just in the privacy of your thotz, Zoyd. As a exercise, li’l kinda Zen meditaton.” (p.29)
I counted at least two instances of ‘thoughts’ being written this way in this chapter, the other one being on p.31: “out in the sun thinkin ‘em happy thotz.” This, to me, suggests the Thoth tarot, which can be used as material for meditation.
About the Thoth Sun card, Crowley say: “He is the Lord of Light, Life, Liberty and Love. This Aeon has for its purpose the complete emancipation of the human race.”
The card shows two children dancing above the zodiacal signs of Gemini, Cancer and Leo, the three summer months, which appear to be the setting in time of Vineland. The children “represent the male and female, eternally young, shameless and innocent. They are dancing in the light, and yet they dwell upon the earth.”
They also are Hoor-Pa-Kraat and Ra-Hoor-Khuit, “the two opposite and equal forms of the Egyptian god Horus.” Lon Milo DuQuette asks: “why should the Sun, the ultimate symbol of unity and singularity in our solar system, be identified with this double nature? From time immemorial, the doctrine of twin suns has bubbled secretly in the sanctuaries of the mysteries.”
Return of the Jedi, which ends on the moon of Endor (shot in the Vineland surroundings), also starts on the planet Tatooine, which has two suns. If I recall correctly, the Tatooine exteriors were originally shot in Tunisia, which, like Morocco, features its fair share of casbah. Finally, the tarot Sun card also connects to the Moon as its path on the Tree of Life lies between Yesod and Hod.
“You mind if I call the Guinness Book Hot Line” (p.28)
If we take ‘Hot Line’ in a similar way than ‘Hot News’, meaning an occult transmission, then maybe the Guinness Book Hot Line could be as apt a description as many other for Finnegans Wake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QHogGcYz-I
Thank-you Bobby and Anonymous. In his Aleister Crowley in England – The Return of the Great Beast Tobias Churton examines Crowley's claim that he passed on the V for Victory sign to Churchill without coming to a conclusion. Someone else also made this claim, but we find no proof they did either. It's well documented that Crowley promoted that V sign in England during the war as a countermeasure to the swastika. He also had other, wackier ideas for helping England during the War. I find it interesting that Pynchon throws it in fairly early on because one basic theme of Vineland seems facism vs freedom.
Good catch Spookah on "thotz" and the sun meditation. I find that relevant. After all, the first sentence in the book has: "... Zoyd Wheeler drifted awake in sunlight ...". I don't interpret the two children on the Sun card as Hoor pa Kraat and Ra Hoor Khuit though I know Crowley says the whole card represents Heru-ra-ha, the name for those combined aspects of Horus. I do notice that those children have their arms upraised to look like a V.
Pynchon lived in Gordita Beach. Bigfoot gets evoked in the next chapter and there's another "big foot" moment after that though I suspect that my be Godzilla's foot.
"Make Speech and Silence, Energy and Stillness,
twin forms of thy play!"
Since Crowley connects his Sun card to Heru-ra-ha, it makes sense to me to see the dancing children as its two opposite components, active and passive forms perfectly balanced. Although I would agree that Hoor Pa Kraat and Ra Hoor Khuit are more clearly depicted in the next card, the Aeon. At first glance, the twin children might best lend themselves to an alchemical interpretation, but I do not find these two readings to be mutually exclusive.
Oz, since you brought up Tangiers, you might be interested in this book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43804390-tangier?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=vOI1gK5Azu&rank=1
I cannot vouch for it as I have not read it, in fact I discovered its existence only today. But it does look like an interesting tome.
The white and blue colors of the cover art reminds me more of the city of Essaouira, though. I visited both, but somehow seem to have little recollections of Tangiers, where I've been only once. I used to go to Morrocco regurlay during my teens, as I grew up with a Morroccan step-father. To this day, I still very much enjoy gnawa music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZsnxy7jCiw
Sepulveda Boulevard turns into Willow St. Before it hits the San Diego Freeway (the 405), at least in 2025 (pg. 22). Reading this novel and Inherent Vice I get a sense of Pynchon’s intimate knowledge of Southern California. Coincidentally, the mention of Ricardo Montalban reminds me that I found myself thinking about him saying “Corinthian leather” about an hour before reading pg. 23.
Spookah, the quote about The Sun card you opened your last comment with makes me think you're right about those children in the card. I also relate them to the children in The Lovers card which falls under the sign of Gemini, the twins.
Morocco is one of my favorite countries. I was there last in 2013, I believe. The book you recommended has an interesting title, Tangier: From the Romans to the Rolling Stones . The 2013 trip started out in Essaouira where I recorded 5 hours of gnawa music performing an exorcism of a teenage girl; their form of psychotherapy. In Tangier, I recorded in the same space where the Rolling Stones recorded the Master Musicians of Jajouka which the BBC made a documentary about. Later, I recorded in the same Roman ruins where Scorsese did some shooting for The Last Temptation of Christ so I can personally relate to the book's title. As you likely know, some of the original Star Wars film was shot in Essaouira – another slight parallel with Vineland
@Bobby and Oz, I believe that Ian Fleming also maintained that Crowley had helped innovate the "V for Victory" sign (as well as Fleming's own proposal that the intelligence branches use Enochian as a secret language by consulting Crowley.
Oz, I also was reminded of the mashed potato scene.
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