Songs after Pynchon. Manguish.
by Alex
1. Every Thomas Pynchon novel includes at least four or five songs, complete with lyrics and descriptions of what the songs sound like. When is some enterprising composer going to set them, a la Jake Heggie’s cabaret songs, to music? There would be much publicity.
2. Last night my Scarily Erudite Beloved and I were talking about language (we are professors in love. We do this. Deal.). She claimed that ‘languish’ and ‘anguish’ were the two most over-determined Elizabethan rhymes. I then ran over the possibilities and realized that L was the only letter you could stick in front of ‘anguish’ and still get a word. But no longer! The SEB reccomends ‘panguish’: the anguish of a penguin (cf. March of the Penguins) e.g. “my egg! My egg! It’s rolling away!” or “I’ve got to get out of this TUXEDO.” I prefer the more on-brand ‘manguish.’ After all, an ‘anguish’ is an anguish, but a manguish is a meal.
I think you will find that ‘Tanguish’ acurately describes the general similarity of a flavor to the drink Tang. And that ‘Vanguish’ is the warriors ache of empathy for a decimated army.
Funnily, I have developed a version of Vineland’s “Wacky Coconuts” which I use to entertain my own beloved. This needs to happen.
Howsabout: slanguish, the feeling of dread when you hear someone much younger than you say unfamiliar slang that you can’t decipher.
Manguish. Yipes. I can already see the NYT Thursday Styles Section article.
I have also been thinking about a Pynchonian musical project. Not sure I am conversant in the requisite number of genres to pull it off myself. What do you suppose TP himself would think?