(1995 or So) The Law of Levity Is Allowed to Supersede the Law of Gravity
2015; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 69; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/10464883.2015.1069102
ISSN1531-314X
Autores Tópico(s)Contemporary Literature and Criticism
ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesNotes1 R. A. Lafferty, Space Chantey (New York: Ace Books, 1968), 111.2 In preparing for this issue, I asked contributor Mimi Zeiger whether she would consider taking a photograph of someone throwing a copy of S,M,L,XL into the air: not so much a 90° translation of David Letterman dropping a watermelon off a midtown rooftop, circa 1989, but rather a moment inspired by King Arthur's (Graham Chapman's) recurring conversation about the “air-speed velocity of an unladened swallow” in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975).3 Cf. Bob Dylan, “Tombstone Blues,” on Highway 61 Revisited, CBS Records, 1965, 33⅓ rpm, 180-gram vinyl (I think): “The king of the Philistines his soldiers to save / Put jawbones on their tombstones and flatters their graves / Puts the pied pipers in prison and fattens the slaves / Then sends them out to the jungle.” OK, now look at note 5.4 A not-so-veiled reference to “Person to Person,” the final episode of Mad Men, when it is revealed (kinda sorta) that Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the show's main character, came up with the famous Coca-Cola “Hilltop” ad (1971) while weaning himself out of an existential crisis in a commune on a Marin County hilltop.5 Following note 4, see Michael Herr, Dispatches (New York: Random House, 1977) and Ryszard Kapuściński, Another Day of Life (New York: Vintage, 1976). Aside from Humbert Humbert, the pathological narrator of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1955), here I am listing the main protagonists from Thomas Pynchon's V (1963) and The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), Richard Fariña's Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (1966), Walker Percy's The Moviegoer (1961), Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (1973), John Updike's Rabbit, Run (1960), and John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces (1980), respectively.6 Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (New York: Random House, 1962), 79.7 Pulp Fiction, directed by Quentin Tarantino (1994, Miramax Films).8 Laurie Anderson, “From the Air,” on Big Science, Warner Bros., 1982, 33⅓ rpm.9 Not an altogether inappropriate simile, as it suggests that the book can also be used as a doorstop. Cf. Cliff Burton, Kirk Hammett, James Hetfield, and Lars Ulrich, “The Thing That Should Not Be,” on Metallica, Master of Puppets, Elektra Records, 1986, 33⅓ rpm, especially the lyric, “Drain you of your sanity / Face the thing that should not be” (a reference to H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos that might as well apply to S,M,L,XL).10 Dean Wareham, “Sideshow by the Seashore,” on Luna, Penthouse, Elektra Records, 1995, compact disc.
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