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Post by muzzleofbees on Mar 10, 2021 15:58:12 GMT -5
I'm not sure a footnote is the right place for a 20,000-ft take on what's happening with all of this hot-off-the-presses material, or that it isn't too early in the thread to make this point. But I hope it begins to be evident that there truly is a "very simple story" underlying everything we're seeing here. The expanding THS universe, heaped to the heavens with modernities and superpowers and vaguenesses and scrambled sketches, is, all of it, the product of obsessive meditation on a prosaic original tale of specific, concrete things that happens to a couple of ordinary people. It's the story of Lifter Puller, and it's the lens that's going to bring everything else into limpid focus. I kind of like how it's dropped casually in a footnote, pages deep into another wild ride of a thread. Cause this is what I've become increasingly sure of too: There is this core story here, that everything not only revolves around, but who is as itself hidden in so many more ornate lines, verses and songs. And it's almost chilling to go back to that "a really simple story about three persons" thing, which sounds like Craig is taking the piss, at least putting on several layers of modesty, but actually is saying it straight up as it is.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 11, 2021 8:45:51 GMT -5
A MESSAGEThe Narrator's untimely entrance is unwelcome; one of the four pushes him back out and blocks the door. The conversation goes something like: -- where you going, kid? -- in there -- you can't. -- but my girlfriend -- yeah i'll give her the message that you're looking for her. ***We know this is what happens, because a description to this effect follows immediately after the MTape line about the guys in the bathroom: and the guys in the bathroom wanna meet my girl in the backroom they said they've got some message from someone who's been tryin to get through [MTape] This same attempt to get through is memorialized in various places in the lyrics: the callgirl stalls and lets her voicemail take it [Viceburgh] Note the pun on "stalls," confirming the context of the message: Juanita's in the bathroom. now we're prayin that you'll pick up the phone return all these pages yeah this party's outrageous [NN] prayin that your princess would pick up her pager [Viceburgh] For Juanita as the "princess [with the] pager" perched atop her throne, compare "princess phone" [C&N] and "princess on the payphone" [CitM] in THS. i've been tryin to meet you, dyin to reach you [LPvtEotE] The original killer party is getting into gear. ***There's a further line about this attempt to get through that's important for other reasons as well: all i'm really asking for is open up the bathroom door [Emperor] This is key evidence showing that Emperor, one of the five early tracks, and superficially a description of a scene back at Boston College (see GEOGRAPHY: FIRST FIVE TRACKS above), is in reality about the same Twin Cities story that begins with Party Zero. [*1]There is more to uncover here; from what little we already know of Party Zero, plus the superficial evidence of Emperor lyrics repeated in later songs, we can see that the bathroom door is just one item in a list that will eventually include the drugstore/junk store dress, the fifteen beers, the dance floor, the fact that the Narrator ends up bleeding, etc. But we'll pick these up as we get deeper into the story. [*1] Note too that Emperor's first pass at "open up the bathroom door" is "open up the window and let down your hair"; assuming that Craig was involved in the selection of Dylan's "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" for a THS cover, it seems likely that the choice was motivated by its relevance to this theme.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 12, 2021 11:37:42 GMT -5
SMASHED HER HANDJuanita's serviced the gangsters. Now it's time for her reward. She's been promised the "strong stuff" [SPayne], "something new" [LGI, MINTS], something that's "going to get [her] the highest" [HH] (see WALKED IN above); we have reason to believe that that's specifically meth (see DRUG LANDSCAPE above). For reasons that will appear later (although we can point to the derivative scene of Mary being given her first injection by Gideon [ASD] as reflected evidence, and see the second 4Dix passage below), we can conclude that when she's finished with the horsemen, and while she's still seated on the throne, Dwight gives her an injection of methamphetamine. ***The next event is the one described in 11th Avenue Freezeout: juanita thinks she's a roller rink we're on the brink of financial disaster wants to feel just a little faster smashed her hand on the mirror in the bathroom [11AF] If we didn't know the backstory to what Juanita was doing in the bathroom, we might suppose this meant that she punched the mirror, for example. But we do know, and that's not what happened. What happened was that she took the injection, came out of the stall in a state of all-consuming, unstoppable euphoria, and got cut pounding her hand against the glass while being fucked from behind. (Compare "lined up against the wall" on the gangrape "dancefloor" in Solid Gold Sole; see DANCING above.) ***A second mention of this injury appears in The Candy Machine and My Girlfriend: she says i'm scratched up on glass and i'm so strapped for cash it goes through me so fast [TCMamG] The same broke-and-drug-seeking context of the 11AF lines above (for broke, compare "brink of financial disaster" [11AF]; for drug-seeking, compare "feel just a little faster" [11AF]) is present here as well: she's "strapped for cash," and the stuff that "goes through [her] so fast" is alluded to with the pun on "glass"=meth (see LISTED above). ***Solid Gold Sole tells us that the bloody injury occurred in the bathroom *outside* the stall, on the same occasion when Juanita had been giving blowjobs to the crowd *inside* it: the bathroom looks like wounded knee, the bloodshed and the ecstasy everyone was crowded in the stall [SGS] (This line is parallel with "lined up against the wall" [SGS], cited above.) ***Manpark describes Juanita as hurt when she's high (which is to say, she gets the drugs first) and being fucked ("lubrication"), as opposed to when she's giving blowjobs: angel's hurt and high in exaltation slip slidin on the lubrication [Manpark] ***4Dix opens with Juanita giving blowjobs in the bathroom, and ends with her (as Death personified) stumbling out onto the dance floor, bloodied: and death came in a bloody mess with a left arm on the treble clef and the right arm on the crystal meth seizured on the dance floor and slithered from her party dress [4Dix] That's five pieces of evidence; we'll see more backward-looking confirmation of this reading from HaRRF and RtF shortly. ***This injury is the LP source of Mary's stigmata in THS ( heregoes). Note, in THS, how the holy mystery of Almost Everything: Remember the sessions. How we made a connection. With the lambs from my dreams looking up at your hands. And your hands pointing up at the lights [AE] is still connected to her bloody-handed return home from the party in Cheyenne Sunrise, and with sex: I came to bandage up my hand [CSunrise] on dirty mattresses, bleeding through the bandages [Spectres] Making love to the girls with the wrapped up wrists [SK] But it's the LP background that brings these elaborate echoes together in the clarity of a single, concrete event, stripped of all of its vague habitual and supernatural qualities. [*1]***Who exactly fucked Juanita? We're still extrapolating from the last point we established with certainty, that it was Dwight who administered the roofies in the first place (see MAGICIAN above); but it does in fact appear that it was Dwight. 4Dix ends by identifying Death with Juanita herself (see "death came in a bloody mess" above); but before that, it's one of the four guys in the bathroom who's called Death: famine, war, and pestilence were sucking off their cigarettes death was just watching, getting off on all the coughing he said sex makes you smart but the drugs make you dumb cued the record up to comfortably numb licked his fingers, rolled them on the mirror and rubbed them on his gums [4Dix] Death, the guy who's goading Juanita to sex ("sex makes you smart"), is the same one who's telling her "the drugs make you dumb"; this is the voice of Dwight, who spiked her drink. He "cued the record up to comfortably numb" in the same way one literally cues a record up: by setting the needle, i.e. to Juanita's neck. The image of Death with "fingers ... rubb[ing] ... gums" on the mirror [4Dix] is strongly suggestive [*2] of fucking Juanita against the mirror [11AF, TCMamG, SGS], and is consistent with the description of the *other* three horsemen getting sucked off, while he "was just watching" [4Dix]. ***A plausible account of the details we have so far, then, is the following: - Dwight led Juanita into the stall with the three gangsters, and oversaw the terms of their deal while she blew the gangsters, but not him.
- As the only one of the four not immediately occupied with Juanita, Dwight was the one who intercepted the Narrator when he walked in.
- After Juanita finished with the gangsters, Dwight gave her the shot of meth, led her out of the stall, and fucked her against the mirror.
We'll see how this squares with the rest of the Party Zero evidence as we keep going. [*1] Mary's stigmata are linked with her cough as a coincident plot point, as well as through the superimposition of St. Catherine and St. Therese of Lisieux ( heregoes): Bandaged hands and your hacking cough [A&H] Here again, it's the LP background that peels back the curtain of mystery to ground everything in a simple point of origin: like her bloody hand, Juanita's cough comes from fucking in the bathroom, going multiple rounds on the toilet with cocks and cum in her throat: famine, war, and pestilence were sucking off their cigarettes death was just watching, getting off on all the coughing [4Dix] yeah your tonsils must've taste like the pine-sol in the back mackin pack after pack of twenty menthols coughin up that new york city kool [KNYC] Here "kool"=PCP (see LISTED above; for drugs=cum in a blowjob context, see CASH MACHINE above). Note that this crude reality makes appearances in the THS oeuvre, too. We see it framed somewhat delicately in Milkcrate Mosh: Nervous cough, nervous cough, nervous cough and now we're off. Went down on the Denver slums and she woke up in the Rocky Mountain dawn [MM] When applied to the Narrator, the framing is less delicate. "I did everything they'd give me/ I'd jam it into my system" [MPADJs] tells us what "Ingested every offering" [BSam] means, which in turn lends a graphic construction to the CitM lines: There's something funny about the place that all the money goes. Coughing up the offering and in between his toes [CitM] More on "something funny," that really ain't that funny, later (see YOUR LAUGH below). [*2] For "finger"=dick see "The singer put his finger in my mouth ... Our knees were shot from way too many prayers" [HCovenant].
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 15, 2021 9:03:31 GMT -5
STEREO SOUNDManpark's description of Juanita "slip slidin on the lubrication" is not the only direct evidence of her getting fucked vaginally (in addition to giving blowjobs); there's also the fact that she's characterized as making loud vocal noises during sex. ***We recognize this noisemaking as a characteristic of Holly in the THS story (see THS CHARACTERS IN LIFTER PULLER? above): you on the streets with a tendency to preach to the choir, wired for sound and down with whatever [CatCT] she said that she was coming but she mostly just made hard fast noises [GLS] Charlemagne, still hung up on Holly in Southtown Girls, is down about the fact that she's been loudly fucking gangsters at parties (note the LP shadow in "party city," a reference not just to parties in general, but to The City specifically, see THE CITY above): party city ... got a bad case of noisemaker blues [SG] Holly's cruising of Charlemagne in Crucifixion Cruise also comes with a vocal performance (it's a blowjob offer, but the loud talking is a stock part of her act): And talking loud over lousy connections, she put her mouth around a difficult question [CC] Finally, there's the essential pun on sex and noisemaking banging [BCamp, MINTS, HJ] which reveals that Gideon murders Holly because, withdrawing into her awkward silences, she withholds sex ("I can't stand it when the banging stops" [BCamp]; heregoes). ***Having reviewed this sketch of Holly, it's plain that Juanita is characterized in the same terms: and she's proud of her sound-proof bedroom it gets so loud, there's like thirty threesomes [SCity] little sister with your stereo sound crash at my place but you can't make a sound [TGatSD] makin love to your stereo equipment [RfLB] But where Holly is described as doing this habitually, long before we come to hear about specific incidents, Juanita's career in noisemaking dates concretely from the bathroom at Party Zero. It is, namely, while she's being fucked from behind against the mirror that she gets loud enough --- actually yelling that she's coming, according to the GLS reflection of the event --- for the trying-to-get-through Narrator to hear her clearly on the other side of the bathroom door. ***One indication that this is happening now, during Party Zero, is in the first verse of Slips Backwards, which begins with the Narrator addressing a girl with "bedroom eyes" at a downtown party and disapproving of her "dancing" (see DANCING above). At some point before he starts shaking, he comments on a loud noise coming through: girl you know this party's just a compromise between these boardroom suits and your bedroom eyes and don't you think the dancin is a waste of time ... nothin gets me down now, man it's gettin loud out i'm shaking in the downtown, here's a little shoutout, yeah [SBackwards] That "loud" is the girl, Juanita, yelling in the bathroom. ***Consistent with the inference that this happens in the Party Zero bathroom is the fact that *the Narrator flees to the far corner of the bar so he doesn't have to hear her fucking.* In the Most People Are DJs reflection of the event, his desperation to avoid this is expressed in the same register as his desperation to avoid sucking the dealer's cock: [*1] She got me cornered by the kitchen I said I'll do anything but listen [MPADJs] To this compare also the line from Banging Camp, which describes a THS plot event in an actual theater ( heregoes), but which now resonates with the darkness of its Party Zero shadow: [*2] Listen to the back of the theater, I think they really love one another [BCamp] [*1] "Kitchen"=where the Scene gets together (see THE KITCHEN above; for "cornered" see CORNERED above). [*2] "Theater"=where the Scene gets together (see NIGHTCLUBS above), and "back"=bathroom (see BATHROOM STALL above).
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 16, 2021 11:28:06 GMT -5
STUMBLING & RESURRECTIONMath is Money describes the Narrator (the "slumming" rich kid from the suburbs, see TENNIS COURT above) as "stumbling, gettin lost in his eyelids" [MiM] in the runup to getting double-teamed. The MPADJs rework of this material confirms that the THS Narrator too is "stumbling" right before he gets cornered in the kitchen. [*1] This stumbling is accounted for by the fact that he's been roofied. By that logic, we would expect to see Juanita stumbling also, and we do: in Lonely In A Limousine, we get she stumbled up sideways don't know how she got so high before she got to the airplane double's just a dollar more when you're living in an airport bar and i got everything i need at the duty-free peter panned into nyc took the non-stop night into gay paris [LiaL] Here Juanita, too, "stumble(s) up" sideways. The context is vague, but we note that it describes her reappearance after getting unaccountably high in an offstage part of the "airport" bar (see AIRPORT & LBI above), at the same time that an all-night party is hurtling the Narrator toward a "double" (a double-teaming) in "gay paris" --- context that we recognize as reflective of the present moment in the Party Zero story. ***The image of Juanita stumbling in wasted from offstage recurs in SH1999: and she was bombed on the bass and the bombay gin she stumbled in [SH1999] The "sideways" [LiaL] aspect of her stumbling further connects to she came out of salon and she was walking sideways [PSunglasses] The implication that the "salon" (with thrones along the wall) is the blowjob bathroom is confirmed by several THS describing the same exit: Then she blows blasts of static into music from the big pink. Stumbled into the foyer and pulled the bookshelf over [TMIT] In other words, first she blows them; then she stumbles back out (out of the "confession booth" rear of what the THS world metaphorically calls a "dirty storefront church"; see NIGHTCLUBS above) into the "foyer." Or again: She stumbled down Landsdowne, she lost her left shoe [FB] Landsdowne is the Nice Nice, where the kids "get with every guy" etc. [LDoL] (see LANDSDOWNE STREET above); she's stumbling in the aftermath, having lost her left shoe. ***All of these things --- the left shoe, the reappearance from offstage, the metaphorical church, the stumbling, and the broken glass from the mirror on which she smashed her hand --- combine to bring us around to HaRRF: She crashed into the Easter mass with her hair done up in broken glass She was limping left on broken heels When she said, "Father, can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?" [HaRRF] Juanita's stumbling reappearance from the Party Zero bathroom is the original "high as hell and born again"; it's the concrete foundation at the root of all the resurrections in all the stories thereafter. [*1] Recall that the Narrator is the "new guy" [MPADJs] (see ORIGINS OF IMAGES above). It's worth comparing his verse (the "Phil Lynott" new guy) with Charlemagne's (the "Rocco Siffredi" guy with the big dick: heregoes), to which it is parallel. Charlemagne's verse: They're jamming jetskis into the jetty now With some guy who looks like Rocco Siffredi And I've heard he's been dead once already [MPADJs] The Narrator's verse, with the "stumbling": They're slipping soft rock into their setlist now They got some new guy that looks just like Phil Lynott Who was stumbling but I think was still in it [MPADJs] Both verses frame "they" with metaphoric allusions to the gangsters: - Charlemagne: "jet-/jet-" (see SHARKS & JETS above)
- Narrator: "slipping soft rock into their setlist": see descriptions of the gangsters as "rock and roll promoters" [SM], "messed-up musicians" [SPayne], etc. (and see detailed treatment of this topic in THE TUNES and ON THE FLOOR: MUSIC below)
Both verses allude to rape: - Charlemagne: "jamming jetskis into the jetty now" (see THS REVISITED above)
- Narrator: "soft rock" alludes to the Lifter Puller album, and thus to the Narrator as the band man; he's being "slipped" into their "setlist" (see SLIP AND TRIP above).
Both verses arguably allude to meth: - Narrator: the "rock"=meth offered by the gangsters (a double meaning; see LISTED above)
- Charlemagne: this is too tenuous to stand on its own, but I think the consistent parallel between these two verses justifies a link of "jetski" [MPADJs] to "waterski" [SH], which we've already linked to "water"=meth (see DRUG SLANG above).
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Post by muzzleofbees on Mar 16, 2021 11:38:17 GMT -5
All of these things --- the left shoe, the reappearance from offstage, the metaphorical church, the stumbling, and the broken glass from the mirror on which she smashed her hand --- combine to bring us around to HaRRF: She crashed into the Easter mass with her hair done up in broken glass She was limping left on broken heels When she said, "Father, can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels?" [HaRRF] Juanita's stumbling reappearance from the Party Zero bathroom is the original "high as hell and born again"; it's the concrete foundation at the root of all the resurrections in all the stories thereafter. Wow!
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 17, 2021 7:14:37 GMT -5
THE KISSSo Juanita stumbles in from the bathroom, high as hell, disheveled, bleeding, and heads toward the Narrator, who's retreated to the far corner of the bar. We recognize in this the original of the "you came in dressed like a train wreck" image from the Weekenders; what happens next is a psychological train wreck of the first order, too. ***Like Holly in the moment of *her* resurrection, Juanita, in the euphoria of her first experience of the strong stuff, comes out of the bathroom looking for the Narrator in the corner: Father, can I tell your congregation how a resurrection really feels? [HaRRF] She stumbles up sideways, gives him a kiss, and presents him with a little bit of meth which she's stolen from the bathroom, so that he can try it too. There's a lot to substantiate here; let's start by reassembling the evidence for the kiss. ***We've already identified the passage in The Mezzanine Gypoff that describes the Narrator in the corner (see CORNERED above); according to this description, that "situation" begins with a kiss: now i've gotta eat my way out of it now i've gotta suck myself away from this now it always starts off with a kiss now it always ends up with a fist [TMG] ***Roaming the Foam puts the kiss at the end of her stumble-up ("came on" is parallel with "staggering drunk" [RtF] in the previous verse), after getting fucked in the bathroom: she came on like she wanted a kiss, now she's kissin like she already came [RtF] ***To set up the next point, note that the closing lines of Solid Gold Sole, which appear to describe Juanita from the perspective of another person, are in fact expressed from Juanita's own perspective (we'll explain why shortly, but for superficial evidence that this is a real phenomenon in Craig's world, compare "He hates how Shannon talks about herself/ Like she's a whole separate person" [Terrified Eyes]). Accepting for the moment that this is the case, we observe that these two lines one week ago she wouldn't have missed, she saw juanita blow a kiss saw the dj blow a fuse, she slips the shade inside her shoes [SGS] link five events: event | text | notes | (1) Juanita blows gangsters in bathroom | "saw Juanita blow" | suggested second meaning of "blow" | (2) Juanita kisses the Narrator | "saw Juanita blow a kiss" | "blow a kiss" meaning to kiss from a distance in farewell, with a secondary suggestion, via "blow" in the sense of "screw up," that the kiss went wrong: compare "easiest to kiss ... up to you not to blow it" [TL], "thought Judas might go for the mouth" [BCrosses] | (3) The Narrator got angry | "saw the dj blow a fuse" | "blow a fuse" meaning to explode with frustration or confusion; the "dj," like the THS "band," is the Narrator. His frustration under the circumstances is understandable; the ensuing confrontation is documented in MPADJs (note the DJ reference) and RP accounts of their meeting in the corner (see FEELIN SMALL below). For confusion, compare the "soundman" and all-but-explicit blowjob context in "he knelt before the sword/ There was feedback in the speakers and the soundman fried the board" [ABlues]. | (4) The Narrator sucks a dick | "saw the dj blow a fuse" | suggested second meaning of "blow"; he's in the corner where the "situation" is about to "go down" (in the sexual sense: "go down"=blow) | (5) Juanita steals a little bit of drugs | "she slips the shade inside her shoes" | "shade"=drug reference (see LISTED above) |
***There's a good deal more evidence for the kiss in the LP lyrics, but we'll wait to introduce it in connection with other details. In the THS world, we see that Juanita's kiss is reflected in two entirely separate episodes: 1) As the accompaniment to Juanita's act of betrayal of the LP Narrator, it's the original of THS's Judas kiss, with all its rich elaborations in that story. Much more on this to come, but note to begin with that her betrayal isn't merely sexual; even RtF follows up its description of the kiss with an explicit statement of the Judas implications: she came on like she wanted a kiss now she's kissin like she already came ... you know where you are, you're in the jungle baby, you're gonna die [RtF] 2) As the ecstatic accompaniment to a gift of drugs which she's obtained from the gangsters at the party, and after she "already came" [RtF], it's also the original of Mary's kiss in The Swish (and BBlues): I got some hazardous chemicals So drive around to the window ... I came right over the counter just to kiss you [Swish]
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 18, 2021 8:33:02 GMT -5
A LITTLE BITWe know that Juanita's incredible high comes from something new, evidently meth, that she got in the bathroom stall. We know that she's so locked in on the high that the sex is basically incidental: without discounting the effects of the roofies, it's the drugs that are important to her, not the sex. No surprises so far. What *is* surprising is that, at the very time that she's in there fucking and being fucked, she *also* has a thought for the Narrator, to the extent that she steals a little bit of Dwight's drugs to bring back to him. ***Her motivations for doing this are deeply ambiguous. There's evidence that she feels guilty about what she's done and wants to make it up to him (see CONTRITION below). There's also evidence that she feels no guilt at all, but simply and earnestly wants to share her new high with him (see SINCERITY below). Either way, she presents her gift without any particular consideration of how it will fuck him up. The Narrator thinks of her, or wants to think of her, as *his* girlfriend, with the usual bonds of jealous love and sex ("did you sleep with that hippie? ... I wanna fuck you / I wanna fuck you" [NC]); the fact that she's reciprocating that love with a kiss and a little gift of drugs after she's just done a bathroom full of gangsters is something that he's going to have a really rough time getting past. ***The evidence for Juanita's theft starts with Jeep Beep Suite, in which the Narrator describes taking a "girl that's a friend of mine" to the nightclub, going straight for the bathroom, and at the end hearing her say: brought back just a little bit baby let's get rid of it [JBS] This "a little bit" is something measured in uncountable quantity that she's brought back for the purpose of consumption (compare "if we go and do the rest of this" [HH]): it's clearly drugs. [*1] ***We've just taken notice (see THE KISS above) of the Solid Gold Sole lines one week ago she wouldn't have missed, she saw juanita blow a kiss saw the dj blow a fuse, she slips the shade inside her shoes [SGS] which also make reference to a theft of drugs, in conjunction with Juanita's kiss; but in fact this is only one of three passages referring to the theft in that song. The other two are: she only goes to check her bag and bring it back into her southside hardwood floor apartment stashed in the battery pack of her boombox [SGS] southside hardwood floor apartment stuck in the cut that you made in your mattress [SGS] It's too early to look at literal referents for the boombox and mattress: for now, it's enough to note the sexual innuendo in "battery pack of her boombox" and "cut that you made in your mattress" to see that both are references to having concealed the drugs on her person during sex (the mattress as a sex metaphor is straightforward; the boombox refers to her drug-fueled noisemaking, see STEREO SOUND above; more on the literal sense of both, and on the "southside hardwood floor apartment," to come). The key thing to observe here is that she's furtively collecting the drugs in order to "bring [them] back" --- the same words used in Jeep Beep Suite, from which we understand again that she is bringing them back *to the Narrator*. ***Candy's Room has more, specifically calling her a "thief" as she leaves the bathroom ("lipstick"=drugs, see PHARMACY GOODS above): livin large and feelin small (livin large, livin large) gettin nice with night club dwight in the bathroom stall, he got the margin call now let's get a little marginal she's small and sweet but she's a straight up thief she puts the lipstick in her pocket and then she casually leaves [CR] ***Sangre De Stephanie gives us a fleeting look at the moment when she pulls the drugs back out of wherever she's concealed them (see SGS passages above) to give them to the Narrator: her tongue it turned blue from the tropical drinks after the discotheque, before she got sick in the sink put on the paint it black, shrugged off her shoulder straps pulled out a plastic bag woke up in heat stuck to her red rubber sheets [SdS] In other words: after the roofies ("tropical drinks") at the end of the party ("after the discotheque"), she did meth ("paint"=meth, "black"=meth; see LISTED above), started to get naked ("shrugged off her shoulder straps"; for more on this line see CONTRITION below), and in the moment of confrontation in the corner, right before the gangrape ("heat") --- all pointing to the present moment in the story --- she "pulled out a plastic bag." So "check her bag" in SGS refers not to a handbag at all, but rather one of the "cellophane bags" [BiB] in which meth is packaged for sale. There are more appearances of this "little bit" in LP, which we'll come to later. ***Though there's no actual analogue for Juanita's theft in the THS story, the "little bit" motif is everywhere in that world, [*2] *to the extent that we get an entire song named after it in The Smidge.* In The Smidge, it's again the girl (Jesse, in this case) who's the special vehicle of the "little bit" in question: She touches every table in a total eclipse It costs an awful lot for just a little bit [Smidge] ***You Did Good Kid appears to be talking about Mary rather than Jesse, and about a different situation than the one described in The Smidge. But a host of elements from the original LP account are there: we were sleeping on the shuttle on the way to the club ... she came around the corner with a diplomat's shake and some kind of crystal container yeah mutually assured destruction's often times a no-brainer [YDGK] Consider: - The Narrator's encounter with this girl takes place in the "club," by the "corner."
- She leads off with a physical overture that, like Juanita's kiss, is a gesture of apology, but not love ("a diplomat's shake," with a pun on both drug- and sex-related senses of shaking: "shaky but still trying to shake it" [BCamp]).
- It's noted that this too is going to "cost an awful lot," i.e., to lead to something especially bad ("mutually assured destruction").
- At the center of the encounter is Juanita's "plastic bag," described literally as "some kind of crystal container," i.e. a bag with crystal meth in it.
***Multitude Of Casualties' handling of the same encounter is spectacular. Disregard for a moment the car that's been bolted on to the image with the "she drove it like she stole it" lead-in, and consider the following lines in isolation: She stole it fast and with a multitude of casualties She said I shipped it out from Boulder Packed in coffee grounds and wrapped around in dryer sheets ... Kids come around the corner to a multitude of casualties [MoC] It's the same stolen goods brought around the same "corner," leading to the same "mutually assured destruction" described in YDGK. It's the shadows of Juanita and the Narrator who are speeding toward a multitude of casualties. ***There are even post-LP references to the kiss and "a bit" (and to a laugh; see YOUR LAUGH below). The girl in Tracking Shots tells the narrator of that song: She kissed him hard and they laughed a bit She said baby don't get hurt for this It's not worth it now and it probably never was [TShots] We know that the LP Narrator is going to get hurt, worth it or not. ***And we know, cued by the hedging "pretty much," that Dwight and the dealers *aren't* over the loss of their "bit," and that they're going to make him pay: Yeah, I've known those guys for a bit. And it's sounding like they're pretty much over it [TS&tT] [*1] We appear to have fresh evidence of her desire to share her "something new" [LGI, MINTS] with him in Riptown: She said, "Do me a favor, let me order for you? You should really try something different" [Riptown] [*2] Two other THS examples are worth mentioning as an aside. A whole lotta drinks and a little bit of sleight of hand [40B] This line is about Jesse at a different party. But, in light of the shadow cast by the spiked drinks and the "little bit" theft of LP, we see the strong suggestion that Jesse "slept" because she was roofied, and that her "[not] all that famous yet" [40B] conquest was not-famous specifically in the sense that he was an "anonymous" sexual partner (see THS REVISITED above. For a fuller treatment see TWO TWENTIES below). Jesse's conquest is from Birmingham, and there's another THS Alabama reference that's relevant here: I know we made plans to meet in Spokane But the way I make plans you gotta take it with a grain of salt. Got jammed in Alabama and I was trying to get all of it resolved [Star18] It's too early to look at Spokane closely (see THE WEST below), but with what we now know about "jam" (see THS REVISITED above), "a grain of salt" ("salt"=meth; see LISTED above, and compare Mary's margaritas) definitely looks like an allusion to Juanita's "little bit." Relatedly, "plans" is coming into focus as a term meaning 'plans blown up by parties turning bad' ("I know we made plans" [Star18], "That's not how he planned it" [BBlues], "I started out with the best-laid plans" [MMitL], "oh man this wasn't what you planned" [YDGK]).
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Post by star18 on Mar 18, 2021 15:16:28 GMT -5
Nothing super substantive to add here, except that it's fascinating how even a relatively simple line can be interpreted in so many ways.
I always interpreted "those guys" being "pretty much over it" as the speaker in Stove/Toaster saying "the chef & the chauffeur are tired of working this business (they're "over" this gig)" -- and that's the justification for why they're going to help the main characters break in.
Your read is just as valid, it's just fascinating how many avenues open up with this kind of close reading.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 18, 2021 23:35:10 GMT -5
Nothing super substantive to add here, except that it's fascinating how even a relatively simple line can be interpreted in so many ways. I always interpreted "those guys" being "pretty much over it" as the speaker in Stove/Toaster saying "the chef & the chauffeur are tired of working this business (they're "over" this gig)" -- and that's the justification for why they're going to help the main characters break in. Your read is just as valid, it's just fascinating how many avenues open up with this kind of close reading. Well, he does it on purpose, and it really never ceases to amaze me how he can slip in multiple meanings unnoticed. That "shake" [YDGK] with three relevant senses is pretty nuts. I didn't say more about "I started out with the best-laid plans" [MMitL], but if you stop and look there's a very awkward but funny joke there about Seth Meyers' kid's conception: planned, and "best-laid." And so on. Anyway, there are a lot of reads within reach, and they're all valid, but what makes me propose this one in preference to others is the one thing it has that goes way beyond a locally close reading: namely, its consistency with an account of the story that includes the evidence from pretty much the whole of the rest of the LP and THS corpus (and a decent chunk of Brokerdealer and the solo stuff too). As it turns out, we know kind of an insane amount about the "little bit" --- we know its exact measure; its street value; the fact that it changed hands four times; the words that were said over it; where it ended up ... in other words, that sentence you quoted only opens the door. So, looking back from the end of the arguments that we're now in the process of piling up, it's hard for me to imagine a reading that doesn't fit all of that, and the reading that does fit all of that is hard to unsee. I'll be curious to know whether or not it looks that way in retrospect to others as well. We'll see!
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 19, 2021 9:17:46 GMT -5
FEELIN SMALLDetails of the Narrator's emotional reaction to Juanita's gift are recorded in several places. ***There's "feelin small" in Candy's Room, quoted above in connection with Juanita's thievery (see A LITTLE BIT above): livin large and feelin small [CR] ***This is echoed in "made me feel so smalltown" [DStraps], which describes the same moment: she came with some jack of diamonds she's standing right beside him somewhere she climbed into my bunk bed put ashes on my forehead and the way she touched my eyebrows made me feel so smalltown she said keep this in your backpack carry it with double straps keep these wings beneath your baseball hat you look so cute like that, i want your autograph [DStraps] In "keep this in your backpack," we recognize Juanita bringing the Narrator her little gift of drugs ("wings"=cocaine/heroin; see LISTED above); most of the rest of Double Straps is about the effect the gift has on him: - From the end of the song, we know that he's in the kitchen corner, that is, cornered by her and the jack-of-diamonds drug dealer ("diamonds"=meth; see LISTED above) who's about to ask him if he really wants to get his problem solved.
- "Bunk bed," "smalltown," carrying a backpack with "double straps" like a schoolkid, "baseball hat," and "cute" all testify to the fact that she's suddenly made him feel foolish, like a little kid in the sophisticated world of grownups: his naive ideas about love are now being ripped away.
- "Bunk bed" has a second meaning too; like "double straps" itself (see PARTY ZERO above), it's an allusion to the double-teaming about to happen.
- She wants his "autograph" because the gangsters are about to make him a star, both in the sense documented in the ONDCP document: "Rock Star -- Female who trades sex for crack or money to buy crack" (ondcp; compare "guys drive by and shoot at me cause I'm a star" [SBackwards alt lyrics], where "shoot"=ejaculate), and, as we'll see soon, in a more literal sense.
- She puts the pipe ashes on his forehead because, like the priest on Ash Wednesday, she's giving him the message that he's going to die ("you're gonna die" [RtF]; see THE KISS above and HALF DEAD below).
***A third appearance of the "feelin small" theme is in "Unsure, Hunted, Small," the original title of Sangre de Stephanie ( youtube). Finally, underneath the hurt and indignation, this desperate confession of feeling small is the essence of the confrontation that the Narrator and Juanita have in the corner, somewhere in the moments before everything truly goes to hell. In the THS retelling, he tells her: It's a big world, girl, and I can't understand it We're tiny white specks in a bright blue planet [MPADJs] And when, in the Rock Problems account of this same confrontation, she responds: She said I just can't sympathize With your rock and roll problems [RP] he concedes: Rip me out of my little world [RP]
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Post by muzzleofbees on Mar 21, 2021 2:04:01 GMT -5
This is equally intriguing and creepy, just as expected.
I guess you don't need it to build this argument, but the more I think of it, the more I feel Hot Fries is a pretty good link between the LP version of the story, and the reframing in the THS world.
And I think it just struck me that it has a line going "your head howling like a haunted house", which makes me hear several ODP lines in a different light (but that's for another thread).
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 22, 2021 11:50:57 GMT -5
This is equally intriguing and creepy, just as expected. I guess you don't need it to build this argument, but the more I think of it, the more I feel Hot Fries is a pretty good link between the LP version of the story, and the reframing in the THS world. And I think it just struck me that it has a line going "your head howling like a haunted house", which makes me hear several ODP lines in a different light (but that's for another thread). Yes on Hot Fries. Obviously there's I went to your party and your party got so clever. I put a milkcrate on my head and surrendered in the corner [HF] and also They wouldn't seem so well written if you were just a little bit more well read. Jack Kerouac is dead. He drank himself to death [HF] going right back to the Kerouac reference in "these Denver slums they look so good in text" [SBackwards], which is an allusion to the difference between the LP Narrator's expectations of the glory of "slumming" [MiM] with gangsters at Party Zero, and the reality that developed. There's more in there about other reframed events too. The haunted house question is interesting, I hadn't thought about that ... we should pick that up downthread.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 22, 2021 12:29:37 GMT -5
CONTRITIONWe'd stated (see A LITTLE BIT above) that Juanita's motivations for bringing him the gift of drugs is ambiguous. Evidence that she feels bad about what she's done is found in a few places. ***Bloomington opens with her general expression of patronizing regret: even if you threw like vida blue i'd hit on you like killebrew thought that you knew that i was better than you why'd you have to try and go and join my crew [Bloomington] In "I'd hit on you" we recognize "you look so cute like that" of Double Straps (see FEELIN SMALL above). The attitude is identical: her praise of his cuteness is at the same time an assertion of her superiority to him, illustrated with a comparison to Harmon Killebrew hitting a grand slam off Vida Blue the first time he faced him on Sept 7, 1969 ( link). Blue was a future MVP and Cy Young winner, making this in fact a high compliment; but the imperative to go with whoever's going to get her the highest puts her out of his league. In short, this is the account, from *her* side, of the experience described by the Narrator in Double Straps (see FEELIN SMALL above). And even though her guilty feeling is expressed only as a regret that he didn't realize she was out of his league, it's clear that she does at least feel a little bad about what happened to him in falling into her orbit: "why'd you have to try and go and join my crew?" [*1]***Further characterization of the kiss-and-gift as a patronizing half-apology for crushing the Narrator's belief in love is found at the end of Double Straps, right before the dealer steps in: and this club is just a kissing booth and love is just an ego boost and ecstasy's an ego trip makes me feel like this is it and this is all there ever was i wish you wouldn't call me cuz i know i'm not your relative you say that it's all relative i'm in the kitchen, i'm in the corner do you really wanna get your problem solved [DStraps] Here the Narrator, his hopes of love newly dashed, dismisses the "kissing booth" and says "I wish you wouldn't call me cuz." We've already suggested (see THE KISS above) that Mary kissing Holly in The Swish/BBlues is a THS derivative of this LP kiss. In Here Goes, we worked out that the *reason* Mary greeted Holly with a kiss is because they are literal "kissing cousins" ( heregoes). "I wish you wouldn't call me cuz" here is the Narrator's complaint that he too has been on the receiving end of a cousinly greeting, not a kiss of genuine love. ***The You Did Good Kid characterization of this same greeting as a "diplomat's shake" also suggests a conciliatory, but dispassionate, overture (for "crystal container" as a reflection of Juanita's stolen baggie, see A LITTLE BIT above): she came around the corner with a diplomat's shake and some kind of crystal container [YDGK] ***There's a final important piece of evidence on Thrashing Through The Passion that needs some stitching together. Juanita is described in Double Straps as the imperious "queen of spades"; her YDGK reflection is a "diplomat"; Epaulets has a girl who "look(s) just like a general." In the same way that the YDGK girl "came around the corner" on a deliberate trajectory to deliver her dispatch (compare "stumbled up" [LiaL], "came on" [RtF]), the girl who looks just like a general texts from the exit says she's on her way over In an Ocelot coat with the epaulet shoulders [Epaulets] That is, she's on her way over from the exit of the bathroom (next to the exit of the bar; more on this in BREWERY BAR: THE LAYOUT below), wearing something that's referred to with the name of Coach's "Ocelot Leopard Short Trench Coat," a model of trenchcoat that has actual epaulets on the shoulders: It goes pretty much without saying that the coat with epaulets is metaphor of some kind. But then what's the literal significance? ***Back to "a little bit": Sangre De Stephanie links the moment when Juanita pulls out her stolen bag to something special about her shoulders: shrugged off her shoulder straps pulled out a plastic bag [SdS] Recall that we've already seen detailed evidence for "straps" as a term of sexual exploitation (see PARTY ZERO above). Relatedly, the CRoom description of a literal "[dusting] with powdered drugs"='lacing with PCP' and CSunrise's "chip"='a joint laced with PCP' both make a connection of shoulder-coverings to knockout drugs (for "dusting"='lacing with PCP' see ROOFIES above; for "powder" and "chip"=PCP, see LISTED above): [*2] you make those propositions with your sexy little shoulder shrugs you'll be covered up with powdered drugs by the end of the night if you're still at the nice nice [CRoom] wipe that chip right off your shoulder [CSunrise] We've already cataloged many examples of drugs and cum standing in for one another in formulaic contexts upthread (see CASH MACHINE above); these are more of the same. Juanita's been sitting on the toilet servicing gangsters on either side of her in the stall; the "Ocelot coat" on her shoulders is literally a coating of "cat stuff" (see RATS & CATS above), a "jack-et" of gangster jizz (see also VARIETIES OF PHYSICAL ASSAULT below). She "shrugged off" her "shoulder straps" in the sense that she kissed the Narrator and gave him the bag *as if nothing had happened, though she was dripping wet with spattered cum.* ***We are now freely reading the story of the THS "general" girl as another view of the story of Juanita, and while the connections that got us to this point are too many and too tight to be coincidence, we're going to need to account for this more carefully, which we will do (see THS CHARACTERS below). In the meantime, the link between the Epaulets scene and Juanita's gift to the Narrator is well-established. And that leads to a final assertion, in Blackout Sam, that the gift was bestowed as a gesture of apology: The General made a gesture of contrition [BSam] [*1] Like Star Wars Hips, which is a retrospective on the entire story from the Narrator's point of view, Bloomington is a retrospective on the entire story from Juanita's point of view. While these lines do apply to the events of Party Zero, they apply to other events as well, and we'll revisit them more than once (see ROUGH RIDERS below). [*2] Note the context in the CRoom quote: you get roofied and cummed on "if you're still at the nice nice" at the end of the night --- in other words, if you're stranded (see STRANDED above).
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 23, 2021 7:12:38 GMT -5
SINCERITYAnd yet with all that, the Narrator still isn't sure that the kiss isn't real. To quote another important line that never had an easy place in the THS story ( heregoes), but that fits right in here: And I'm pretty sure we kissed [PP] He can't resolve what happened in his mind. More than his date, he wants Juanita to be his girlfriend, and experiences what she's done as a betrayal; but also sees that the kiss and accompanying gift are a perfectly sincere expression of her love, such as it is, for him. She's bringing him her joy and hiding nothing. He can't argue with it or repudiate it; he can only try to deal with it. We see him later (during the Return Parties) trying to reconcile himself to these grown-up, big-city definitions of love and sex, repeating them to himself over and over: love is just keeping a tab love is just sharing a cab sex is just whispers and abdomens sex is just whispers and abdomens [BBender] Love, he tries to tell himself, isn't about sexual fidelity, that's a smalltown illusion. Love is just the experience of "sharing a cab," i.e. him and Juanita riding in Night Club Dwight's car to the party together, and of "keeping a tab," i.e Juanita saving a little bit of drugs for him from the bathroom ("tab"=LSD/ecstasy; see LISTED above). That's all love is. Sex has nothing to do with it, sex is just moving meat, whispers and an abdomen in your face. Don't get angry about it, don't get angry about it. Only, he is angry about it (see CHARLEMAGNE below). ***The word "sincere" isn't actually used in LP, but it is used in two THS reflections of this event. The first is in the backhanded assertion that the Judas kiss was sincere: I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere [Citrus] The other is the THS Narrator's description of the moment of (1) stumbling (2) experiencing speed for the first time, both of which we recognize as references to the kitchen corner (see STUMBLING & RESURRECTION above): I stumbled on some stunning new sincerity. It was the first time that I really felt the speed [TLTtSTtM] The "sincerity" here is Mary's, and it's a reflection of Juanita's. As for the LP Narrator, he's going to get his first taste of the speed in a minute.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 24, 2021 6:28:33 GMT -5
SHORT BY AN OUNCESo Juanita the "thief" [CRoom] steals from Dwight a plastic bag with a little bit of meth in it, and brings it to the Narrator. The Narrator, hurt and incredulous, doesn't actively *accept* her offering; to accept it would imply that he accepts what she did to get it, which he's far from doing. But she's got him cornered; she kisses him and stuffs the bag in his pocket [*1], and now it's on his person. The THS reflection of this event is framed, in Cattle and the Creeping Things, as the moment of "original sin" [CatCT] in which Eve picks the apple and brings it to Adam. Like Adam and Eve, we know that Juanita and the Narrator did in fact end up "naked when they got busted" [CatCT]: we were naked on a sunday afternoon [PSunglasses] But first comes the bust itself: I heard the dude blamed the chick, I heard the chick blamed the snake [CatCT] when the Lord appears to confront Adam. ***Dealers are frequently addressed as "savior" [LGI, Swish, SM, MM, HaRRF, etc.] and "lord" [4Dix, CC, SK, FFarm, etc.] in LP/THS, but it's the "lord" of the Brokerdealer "fever dream" who's of particular interest here: you cower in the corner singing sweet lord I surrender [DMN] Who exactly is the dealer in the corner? Double Straps refers to him (the one who will ask the Narrator if he "really wants to get [his] problem solved"; see PARTY ZERO above) as the "jack of diamonds" who Juanita is standing next to (see FEELIN SMALL above): the queen of spades just fucked me she came with some jack of diamonds she's standing right beside him somewhere [DStraps] The fact that "she came with" [DStraps] him identifies this "jack" as Dwight, with whom she got a ride to the party (see THE RIDE above), and with whom she "already came" [RtF] in the bathroom (see THE KISS above). The connecting scene, in which Dwight comes out of the bathroom to stand next to Juanita and confront the Narrator with the theft, is described in a few places. ***We get a first look at this sequence of events in Math is Money: slumming, stumbling, gettin lost in his eyelids tried to do a little more but he dropped it in the toilet short by an ounce that's when they pounced don't even mention the amount the crabs came crashin through [MiM] Here we recognize the Narrator (a) slumming with the gangsters at the party down in St. Paul, and (b) stumbling from having been roofied; so far so good. But the next few lines are confusing. On a first hearing, it sounds like he's being attacked by the gangsters as punishment for dropping drugs in the toilet. But that doesn't make any sense: - If he was authorized to be in possession of some amount of the gangsters' drugs in the first place, what's the difference to the gang if he dropped them in the toilet, or if he successfully consumed them?
- Alternatively, if he was only supposed to do a portion and then give back the remainder (which is what "short by an ounce" would then have to imply), but accidentally lost the whole thing, why would they give him more than he's entitled to consume in the first place?[*2]
The answer is that this is a typical Craig diversion followed by a typical Craig elision: - "tried to do a little more but he dropped it in the toilet" sounds like it's referring to drugs, but in fact it's referring to Juanita and sex. She and the Narrator 'did' each other, and he wanted to 'do' a little more, only he lost her to the gang in the bathroom stall.[*3]
- then, it's Juanita's thievery in the toilet that leaves the gangsters short by an ounce, where "an ounce ... don't even mention the amount" is that same "little bit" whose progress we're now investigating (see A LITTLE BIT above).
***So now we can situate the confrontation. Shortly after Juanita kisses the Narrator and stuffs the bag into his pocket, Dwight, who saw her take the drugs and has followed her from the bathroom, appears. Demanding his property back, he turns from Juanita to the Narrator, reaches into his pocket, grabs the bag, and confronts him with the theft. Just as check her bag [SGS] refers to Juanita's stolen drug bag rather than a handbag (see A LITTLE BIT above), so the bags that get grabbed by the crab dudes [MiM; compare LGI] also refer to the seizure of Juanita's bag as evidence of the theft; the idea that these are handbags is a bit of deliberate misdirection created by the foregoing but in fact *strictly unrelated* line there's money in the city, but the money's in handbags [MiM] ***The Narrator tries to "blame the chick," but the Lord isn't having any of it: what Juanita did could have been overlooked, but crossed over into a real offense once the Narrator got involved. In other words, Juanita's seizure of the drugs was one thing, but her carrying them off to give them to the Narrator is another: The professor was pointing out the subtle distinctions And the difference between plunder and pillage [TV] The Narrator has taken Dwight's stuff, and now he has to pay for it. Doesn't have the money? Well then, he's going to have to earn it the same way Juanita did. From there, we know what happens. ***The song title "Touch My Stuff" is a double reference to this same confrontation: the Lord simultaneously tells the Narrator "[if you] touch my stuff, then you gotta pay" ("stuff"=meth; see LISTED above), and also "touch my stuff!" i.e. "service my cock." The Touch My Stuff lyrics further connect Juanita's kiss, Dwight's angry reaction to the theft, and the gangrape that follows: and we kissed at the flicks and people got pissed and they spit from the balcony [TMS] Like in Secret Santa Cruz, "spit" is meant to suggest ejaculation (see CASH MACHINE above); "the balcony" is like the "stadium seating" in Slapped Actress (note "flicks" and see MAGAZINES & VIDEOS below). ***Upthread (see CONTRITION above) we've connected the "gesture of contrition" of Blackout Sam to this scene in the corner. The following line reads: The General made a gesture of contrition. The law of averages says something's got to give [BSam] Again, this reflects the original LP context: Juanita's taken something; now the Narrator's going to have to give (see also TWO TWENTIES below). ***There's another THS line that never entirely made sense as a reference to the "drove it like she stole it" [MoC] car theft, but which can be interpreted clearly in the light of this LP episode: They did the "been caught stealing" into "dancing on the ceiling" And you're damn right we danced [CiS] Juanita's theft ("been caught stealing") led to the kids getting gangraped in the rooftop bar ("dancing on the ceiling"; see DANCING above). ***A further note about THS' Traditional Village: the word 'tradition' (compare the related word 'extradition') has a base meaning of 'handing over,' and is in fact the same word as 'treason' evolved via a different path through French ( link). In other words, this song too appears to include a reference to the kitchen corner betrayal, as confirmed in the final lines Yeah I saw the whole score. In the sideways smile on the thief to the left of our Lord [TV] where we recognize a thick web of links to the scene we've reconstructed: - "sideways" ("she stumbled up sideways" [LiaL], "walking sideways" [PSunglasses]; see STUMBLING & RESURRECTION above)
- "smile" ("she was slumping over smiling" [SPayne], "slumped beneath her theater seat, smiling like a nominee" [PSunglasses])
- "thief" ("she's a straight-up thief" [CR], see A LITTLE BIT above)
- "our Lord" ("Lord grant me twenty, Lord grant me ten" [4Dix], "sweet Lord I surrender" [Brokerdealer DMN]; see PARTY ZERO above)
- [standing to his left] ("she came with some jack of diamonds, she's standing right beside him somewhere" [DStraps])
Juanita looks on smiling, while the Narrator surrenders. [*1] Double Straps tells us that she gave it to him with two contradictory instructions about where to put it: keep this in your backpack [DStraps] keep these wings beneath your baseball hat [DStraps] He's not literally wearing a backpack, and whether he's wearing a baseball hat or not doesn't matter; the contradiction shows that these instructions are just framings of a moment in which the bag she brought ends up concealed on his person. There are other images (unrelated to the LP and THS stories, but impossible not to recognize) suggesting that it winds up in his pocket; see, for example, the following lines from solo song Something To Hope For: The darkness in the taverns And the boys back by the bathrooms All the nickels and dimes For once in my life I’ve got a little something here in my pocket It feels pretty sweet with a little bit of room to breathe [STHF] That emphatic reference to "a little something" and "a little bit" that "feels pretty sweet" is certainly not coincidence; the "nickels" and "dimes" refer to drug "nickel bags" and "dime bags," respectively ( ondcp); the "darkness in the taverns" and "the boys back by the bathrooms" can stand at this point without comment. [*2] This implausibility (to bring a Franz connection to bear) is the point of the joke in the name of the band Leftöver Crack ( wikipedia). [*3] It's precisely in this respect that the Narrator of Unpleasant Breakfast is described as some sailor who supposedly was murdered After losing all his treasure in the harbor [UBreakfast]
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 25, 2021 9:19:06 GMT -5
SHOT IN THE SHOULDERWe've just now said (see SHORT BY AN OUNCE above) that the Narrator doesn't accept Juanita's gift of meth, but we've also said (see SINCERITY above) that he's about to get his first taste of it. How is that possible? The sequence of events is that a) the Narrator surrenders and blows Dwight; b) afterward, while he's still kneeling, roofied and in shock, *Dwight* says: "now you've paid for it; now you get your merchandise." This, finally, is the solution to the "shot in the shoulder" mystery (see THE KITCHEN and THS REVISITED above): just as he did with Juanita, Dwight leans over the paralyzed Narrator and administers an injection of meth into a vein at the base of his neck. For the Narrator, this is in fact "the first time that [he] really felt the speed" [TLTtSTtM]. Three claims here need to be substantiated: 1) that there was an injection; 2) that it was administered at the base of the neck; 3) that it was administered by Dwight. Let's take these one by one. ***The shot isn't described directly at any point in the lyrics, but it's alluded to everywhere. To start with the obvious, the kids' experience on the THS party scene is regularly associated with meth injection (in the Here Goes discussion I'd taken these to be generic expressions of dependence on the hard stuff, but now it's clear there's more to it than that): - the kids fleeing the crucifixion are described as "speed shooters" [CiS];
- Jesse first reminded Charlemagne of Holly because she too was a "speed shooter" [SM] when they met;
- enraptured by a vision of Charlemagne's crucifixion at the parties to come, Mary is described as "shooting up in her dreams" [MN];
- having entered the world of those parties in fact, the kids are twice described as "shooting through the ceiling" [CSunrise, SM].
More specifically, there's evidence linking injection with the metal bar violence that is the THS reflection of Party Zero: Some Kennedys got shot while you were screwing San Francisco [PJ] They're shooting through the ceiling and they're bleeding on the floor [SM] In LP itself there's particular evidence that Jenny leaves Party Zero having been injected with meth ("light"=meth, see LISTED above): it's the end of the night and now jenny's creepin back to the east end shot through with the sunlight [NN] ***So there's plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the Narrator took Juanita's "little bit" by injection. But what else besides the "shoulder" of TS&tT indicates an injection in the neck? To begin with, there are several prominent references to neck veins in the lyrics (shooting up in the neck really is a thing, just like shooting up between the toes is a thing; see for example here: link): You could see all the veins in his neck when he flexed [TL] she put her fingers on my neck just like a tourniquet [Manpark] A knockoff necktie The way he wore it made it look more like a tourniquet [HM] In Slips Backwards, the Narrator describes being injected high up the arm: girl you know you're startin to really harm and your stars are shootin up and down my arm [SBackwards] There are further allusions to a shoulder injury as well: they scratched at my shoulder [Touchless] They put a hole in your shoulder [Wild Animals] That the "hole" of Wild Animals connotes drug injection is supported by Confusion In The Marketplace. CitM makes a clear allusion to the chorus of John Prine's 1971 hit Sam Stone, which begins "there's a hole in Daddy's arm where all the money goes" ( wikipedia): There's something funny about the place that all the money goes. Coughing up the offering and in between his toes [CitM] Here "in between his toes" is clearly referenced as a site of drug injection (see again the article linked above). This sense of "hole" helps to clarify why Charlemagne, in looking back on his stabbing at the hands of drug-dealer Gideon, says He burned a hole in me eventually [A&H] While linking the "insider" girl of TMG to the "insider" girl of TS&tT, the "fish hook" motif pulls in both "pretty girls all burnin' holes" in "the after hours house" of Magic Marker, and the vampire-dealer needle in the neck described in TMIT: Bram Stoker bit your neck [TMIT] ***Allowing that the Narrator took Juanita's "little bit" by injection, the question remains, who actually administered the shot --- Juanita, Dwight, or the Narrator himself? There's evidence for different answers, which has to be sorted through: Agent of shot(?) | victim | quote | notes | Gideon/dealer | Mary | "This shouldn't hurt/ But you might feel a slight discomfort" [ASD] | High-school scene from 1989, years before Gideon gets jumped into the Skins; does he figure here as a shadow of the dealer to come, or as one of the kids? | kids | themselves | "we shot ourselves out into outer space" [TSPotC] | in the "outer space" reference, we recognize the Narrator's MPADJs appeal to "tiny white specks in a bright blue planet" [MPADJs] after things get "a little bit heavy" [MPADJs] in the corner (see FEELIN SMALL above), where "a little bit" confirms that we're dealing with the aftermath of the Party Zero injection. | Narrator/dealers | Narrator | "I did everything they'd give me/ I'd jam it into my system" [MPADJs] | Same MPADJs Party Zero context as last entry. Documented meaning "jam"=amphetamine (see LISTED above) suggests that "jam into" connotes shooting speed (along with the sexual senses of the word documented in THS REVISITED above); "I did everything they'd give me" points a blurred finger at both the gangster dealers ("they") and the Narrator himself as the agent. | Juanita/Jesse/dealers | kids | "She's got a bandolero belt filled with kamikaze shooters" [Smidge] | In analogy to Juanita's "little bit," Jesse's "little bit" [Smidge] too is described as fuel for shooting, keeping the focus on her agency; but Jesse is working for the gangster dealers at the "restaurant" (see THE KITCHEN above). | Juanita | Narrator | "girl you know you're startin to really harm/ and your stars are shootin up and down my arm" [SBackwards] | Directly implicates Juanita as the source of the "stars," but not necessarily the agent of the shot. | girl/gangster/dealer | Narrator | "It's poison, first it feels like a prick and then it hits you like a jumbo jet ... she asks if you want to come in and get pinned" [FB] | The girl from BU who invites the Narrator in for (among other things) a pinprick, where he ends up getting "hit" by a "jet" (see SHARKS & JETS above)[*1] | girl/gangster/dealer | Narrator | "Set up for the slaughter and shot in the shoulder" [TS&tT] | The "chef and the chauffeur" are the gangster and the dealer who gave the kids a ride (see THS REVISITED and THE RIDE above). |
So there's abundant evidence for blame attaching to Dwight, and Juanita, and the Narrator, all three. But moral blame and direct agency are two different things, and at no point is there an explicit finger that lets us separate the one who administered the shot from the other responsible parties. Nevertheless, we know enough to say the following with confidence: a) Juanita is in no shape to administer an injection to herself or anyone else; b) the Narrator is in scarcely better shape, nor, if he were, would he shoot himself up for the first time in the neck; c) Dwight is standing in the right position with respect to the Narrator to give him a shot in the neck, and has the expertise to do so. [*2]The obvious conclusion, that it was Dwight who administered the injection, is reinforced by the wealth of terms suggesting both injection and rape; the ambiguity of "prick," "jammed," "stuck," "stabbed," "punctured," "pinned," "soft, sharp penetration," etc., is deliberate, and refers to the shot and the rape together as tightly linked aspects of a single traumatic event. [*1] "Hit" in THS means both a hit of drugs, for example "When we couldn't get a hit we used to cruise to Vancouver" [Smidge], and a bout of sex, for example "Hit it again on the south side of the gym" [YGD]. The "jumbo" dealer --- "he's big and strong" [CRoom] --- and "jet" gangster (see SHARKS & JETS above) fucked him pretty hard in both senses. [*2] Looking back to the situation in the bathroom stall, we note that Dwight was standing in the right position with respect to Juanita to give her a shot in the neck as well. Both the common characterization of the Narrator and Juanita's experience as "shooting," and the note that "she wipes the blood from her mouth with her shoulder" [TLaDiLBI] in particular, suggest that she too (see the incomplete discussion in SMASHED HER HAND above) received her dose of meth by injection at the base of the neck.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 26, 2021 10:59:43 GMT -5
THE CRASHSo the Narrator sucks Dwight's dick, takes a shot of meth to a vein in the neck, and shoots into outer space; in those last moments, he turns to Juanita with an attempt to protest (see FEELIN SMALL above): It's a big world, girl, and I can't understand it We're tiny white specks in a bright blue planet ... I said I'll do anything but listen To some weird-talking chick who just can't understand That we're hot soft spots on a hard rock planet [MPADJs] but neither of them is lucid, and neither understands the other. Overwhelmed by the trauma, lack of sleep, alcohol, roofies, emotion, and the lightning bolt of meth, he crashes, blacking out ("crash"=drug-induced unconsciousness: ondcp). Juanita crashes with him. ***Like other Party Zero events which feature again in the Return Parties and after, the crashes become habitual, something preserved even in translation to the THS story: we thought we were experienced but we were mostly crashing [LQ] There were crosses and crushes and crashes and hassles [A&H] She was pretty much crashing there [Ambassador] but the original of all the crashes happens now, in the Party Zero kitchen corner. ***We've already seen a reference to this in the song Nice Nice: everyone left and now the crash is contagious [NN] The crash comes after the other kids have left Party Zero (see KIDS START LEAVING above); "contagious" suggests that Juanita and the Narrator crash one after the other. ***The evidence that Juanita crashes at Party Zero shortly after coming out of the bathroom starts with Prescription Sunglasses: she came out of salon and she was walking sideways she got into her car and turned the steering wheel my way the lifters only pulled her into the corners of her eyes the walls fall all around her sunny skies [PSunglasses] in which - the "salon" is the bathroom (see STUMBLING & RESURRECTION above);
- she stumbles up sideways on a trajectory that's going to bring the Narrator bodily harm ("turned the steering wheel my way"; compare "the night i hit your moving truck ... now i'm bleeding too" [Emperor]), with a vehicle metaphor suggesting an imminent crash;
- she drifts off on a sideways smile ("into the corners of her eyes") while he's in the act of surrender;
- finally ("the walls fall all around her sunny skies"), she crashes.
***Other suggestions that Juanita crashes after coming out of the bathroom are again found in the THS reflections of the event: Running out on residue and crashing through the vestibule [CC] She crashed into the Easter mass with her hair done up in broken glass [HaRRF] ***The Narrator, too, describes his crash as happening after she comes out of the bathroom onto the barroom floor ("the patio"): and she came onto the patio and we were slipping on the frozen mudslides that's everything i remember [HDaD] (Here "mud"=heroin, see LISTED above; "slipping" and "-slides" refer to sex, especially roofie-induced sex, see SLIP AND TRIP above.) ***For the Narrator, the crash is a real blackout, but he then wakes up to the gangbang thrashing: Woke up in the '20s and there were flappers and fruits in white suits It was right before the crash, we got thrashed throughout the '30s [PJ] Juanita, on the other hand, remains only semi-conscious through the gangbang. We've seen this already in the Prescription Sunglasses account: said you might remember pretty soon i hope you don't remember pretty soon [PSunglasses] but it's described in more detail in I Like The Lights, in which she can't recall what happened after she "crashed out": well hey jenny your hair looks crazy messy did you all nod off with your shoes on did you fuck and fall asleep on the futon? i can't believe you were crashed out watching some movies wake up little floozie jenny looks a little jonesy she said i don't quite know what happened woke up with my dress wide open [ILtL] Besides confirming that both the Narrator and Juanita go down in the crash, that "all nod off" is the first of many LP/THS "nod off" lines that describe or reflect this episode of Party Zero (ILtL, MoC, TMIT, CSunrise, TSPotC, EC), most notably Mary's prediction of the crash and gang rape at the metal bar party: Onward Christian soldiers We're gonna bash right through your borders I bet your next party gets sketchy I saw the new kids nodding off [CSunrise]
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Post by tableinthecorner on Mar 26, 2021 19:35:42 GMT -5
How does this tie into the Here Goes car crash? Now that you've written this out it seems like "crash" is consistently a metaphor rather than an actual car accident. Is that not part of the THS story anymore? With that all being said, I could see a scenario in which both exist simultaneously; the kids do get in a car crash, which, in a literary sense, symbolizes the original crash at Party Zero. This would be similar to Gideon drowning Holly by giving her meth (meth=water — see LISTED) and then actually drowning her (I believe I sent you my theory on that a couple months ago). So it wouldn't be uncharacteristic for Craig's plot points to have double meanings like that. Regardless, was there actually an accident at the mall?
Also, somewhat coincidentally, when I first heard "I'd been rattled by the accident/My shoulders were still sore" in Family Farm, I thought of the car crash. Now, though, it seems like there's a pretty direct connection to THE CRASH.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 28, 2021 13:48:28 GMT -5
How does this tie into the Here Goes car crash? Now that you've written this out it seems like "crash" is consistently a metaphor rather than an actual car accident. Is that not part of the THS story anymore? With that all being said, I could see a scenario in which both exist simultaneously; the kids do get in a car crash, which, in a literary sense, symbolizes the original crash at Party Zero. This would be similar to Gideon drowning Holly by giving her meth (meth=water — see LISTED) and then actually drowning her (I believe I sent you my theory on that a couple months ago). So it wouldn't be uncharacteristic for Craig's plot points to have double meanings like that. Regardless, was there actually an accident at the mall? First, there is definitely *also* a literal car crash --- not just the one in THS ("car crash" [NSheets]), but also the original one in LP out of which it's recycled ("the chappaquiddick kids" [LiaL]), which of course we'll get to. But your point about Craig framing incidents in simultaneously literal and metaphoric ways in order to create parallels or symmetries is right on the money. For example, it certainly seems like he's played with the idea of the story being bookended by one crash at the beginning (the drug crash at Party Zero): I start with a crash [SH1999] and another at the end (the car crash): Sped through the scene until the engine stalled At some suburban shopping mall [PP] Or in a different way, the "start with a crash" line in SH1999 is contrasted (by the song it's in) with Prince's 1999, the rapidly approaching apocalypse at the end of time, which happens also to be linked to a fast car ("1999 comin up like a cool corvette" [Manpark], with the double Prince reference to 1999 and Little Red Corvette). I'm going to grab something from later in the thread and paste it here because I think it makes it crystal clear that Craig really does look at shit this way all the time. Cutting out the spoilery bits:
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 29, 2021 9:21:30 GMT -5
VARIETIES OF PHYSICAL ASSAULTThe crash is immediately followed by the gang assault. Math is Money alludes to this with a different use of "crash": don't even mention the amount the crabs came crashin through [MiM] The soldiers, as Mary puts it in Cheyenne Sunrise, are going to bash right through the kids' borders. We've already provided a lot of the evidence for this under PARTY ZERO above, and don't need to repeat it all here. But a few more technical details about the physical assault bear pointing out. ***1) FistingWith the Narrator getting double-teamed etc., it's already clear this is (on his side) a homosexual rape, but we also learn that it includes something that is ambiguously a beating and a literal fisting from the gangsters: and it ain't no fun fallin 5 flights of stairs to a real fierce fisting [PR] the limpwrists always make the sweetest fists [TCMamG] the fists, the foam and the fingerless gloves they felt so right [RtF] blasting transistors, the tvs, the fisters, the 1st time french kissers [LGI] now it always starts off with a kiss now it always ends up with a fist [TMG] More on those flights of stairs shortly (see BREWERY BAR: THE STAIRS below). ***2) SpatterAnother material outcome of the assault is spattered cum. As we noted with Juanita's emergence from the bathroom drenched in her "Ocelot coat" (see CONTRITION above), there are many cases in which shoulder spatter is characterized ambiguously as drugs, especially laced drugs (starting with "wipe that chip right off your shoulder" [CSunrise], where "chip"='a joint laced with PCP'; see LISTED above). As it turns out, the more general "dripping wet" motif --- of which Juanita's appearance here is the true origin --- also makes regular, ambiguous reference to sexual service on the one hand and laced drugs on the other. For example, we have drippin wet with white wine cooler [HDaD] with "cooler"=laced cigarette (see LISTED above), and "white" suggesting cum. Or again: and we were dripping wet with pink zinc oxide [HDaD] where zinc oxide is a primary ingredient in sunscreen, explicitly used as a drug metaphor in "queen went clean yeah she ran out of screen" [Viceburgh] (see PHARMACY GOODS above). Like "white wine cooler," zinc oxide is normally white; "pink" here has an added sexual connotation, observed in "pock-marked pervs and the pink piranhas" [TCMamG], where "pock-marked" suggests venereal disease and "pink piranhas" predatory dicks. We haven't yet met Katrina, but she appears in the same song in a similar state: dripping wet with hair care drowning in designer drugs [HDaD] Here the submerging wetness is twice connected to drugs, both explicitly via "designer drugs," and implicitly via "hair care" (see PHARMACY GOODS above). Juanita's got spatter on her shoulders, Katrina's got it in her hair. [*1]Finally, hard on the heels of the "real fierce fisting" [PRock] noted above, there's dripping wet with frosting [PRock] where "frosting," in context, is also evidently cum; compare "Salted rims and frosted mugs" [Spinners], which connects THS' laced margaritas with frosting on the face ("mug"=face; gdict, and see RATS & CATS above). Barfruit Blues has Systems are all dripping wet with the gristle piss and the swizzlesticks [BBlues] which, combining "gristle"='[erect] penis' ( gdict) with "sticks"='marijuana laced with PCP' (see LISTED above), indicates that here too Mary is drugged, blowing gangsters and getting cummed on. (Like Juanita, it's from this engagement that she got the "hazardous chemicals" for the over-the-counter gifting that accompanies her kiss.) Finally, in reference to a later party, Cruised And Accused Of Cruising describes Juanita in the brewery bar ("sea-side arcade," see AIRPORT & LBI above) giving blowjobs: she had a lion-like mane, she had the jaws like a skillcrane and she was drippin wet with rum punch and hangin off the video games at some sea-side arcade you know she looked pretty played [CaAoC] Here we have - "jaws like a skillcrane": compare "this mouth's got mic skills" [LGI] and "the condescending host to the post-game interview" [BiB]; the skill in question is "condescending," i.e. "going down," and working the "mic."
- "drippin wet with rum punch": like laced "cooler" [HDaD], suggests spiked drinks ("the punch is spiked" [DStraps]).
- "lion-like mane": like the "Ocelot coat," a frosting of jizz around the head and shoulders (like other cats, lions=gangsters, see RATS & CATS and THE BEARS above).
***3) Torn clothesA last outcome of the assault is damaged or destroyed clothing. In the Plymouth Rock lines above, we note and your swimsuit gets ripped [PRock] which recalls the description of the double-teamed Narrator in The Mezzanine Gypoff: he had a red swimsuit [TMG] whose underwear is not just ripped, but bloodstained from the anal rape. Additional evidence of clothing destruction in the LP account of Party Zero is pretty thin; we get woke up in rags and wrapped in a plastic bag [SdS] But there's also the Brokerdealer song If Not For Hipster Pictures, which reflects on the Lifter Puller story as a "vision"/"fever dream" in which: i came to in the nude in the cage in the zoo blood drippin from my mouth like i was some sort of dracula wrapped in tattered taffeta this is mid-America this is mid-America wrapped in tattered taffeta we are Minneapolis passed out in a party dress passed out in a party dress well hello miss Minneapolis [INFHP] Here we recognize - the waking up naked from Prescription Sunglasses;
- the vampire fangs from Back In Blackbeard;
- the party-dress blackout from I Like The Lights;
which in aggregate clearly indicate that "tattered taffeta" corresponds to the ripped swimsuit of Plymouth Rock and the "wrapped in" rags of Sangre de Stephanie (and, looking forward, to the "tatters" of Navy Sheets as well). For the rest, coming to in the nude fits what we know of the "got my pants back" aftermath described in Star Wars Hips, and the "grab my clothes and tap my toes" of Sherman City. ***To summarize the evidence: Juanita and the Narrator are not assaulted in a merely abstract way. In pitiless detail, we're told that they're stripped, the clothes torn from their bodies; that they're cummed on; and that the Narrator, at least, is fisted, bloodied and double-teamed. [*1] We've discussed the pharmacy-goods drug metaphor in depth upthread, grounding it in the fact that pharmacy goods, like drugs, are things that you buy at the drugstore (see PHARMACY GOODS and GEOGRAPHY: SELF TITLED ALBUM above). I can't find certain proof of this in the form of mainstream advertising from the 80's/90's, but I strongly suspect that the "wet look" in cosmetics and hair care is another motivator of the same metaphor, and possibly the primary one, for which the drugstore place-of-purchase is a convenient justification.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 30, 2021 11:24:26 GMT -5
THE CENTERThe first line in that Brokerdealer INFHP quote: i came to in the nude in the cage in the zoo [INFHP] frames an important recurring image, namely, that of the Narrator waking up to find himself and Juanita surrounded by a ring of gangsters like a cage. [*1] A principal example is in the title La Quereria; discussing this song in the 2004 Cloak and Dagger interview, Craig says ( link): In fact, the word in Spanish is "la querencia," not "la quereria"; but, given the fact that it's certainly a spelling error ("quereria" isn't a word in Spanish), the fact that Craig says it's supposed to refer to "the center of the bullring where the bull goes to die after being stabbed by the matador" has to be taken at face value. Looking at MiM and YLHF, we've already hypothesized (see PARTY ZERO and STRANDED above) that "stabbed" in LP contexts means *stabbed with a dick* (see CRUCIFIXION below), and this quote supports that interpretation: the kids wake up at the center of the bullring, where they're going to be "stabbed" and killed. The bullring of LQ and the cage of INFHP are the same thing. ***We have yet to come to the carpetburn aspect of the gangrape (see ON THE FLOOR: CARPET AND HARDWOOD below), but once we do it will be apparent that this enclosing bullring/cage is also what is meant by the "fence" of Stevie Nix: And the carpet at the Thunderbird Has a burn for every cowboy that got fenced in [SN] ***In Let's Get Incredible, it's asserted that the Narrator's mouth's "mic" (dick) skills can be testified to by "the club kids as they crowded around us": this mouth's got mic skills ask the brothels and hostels that housed us ask the club kids as they crowded around us [LGI] ***The idea of the querencia as "center" of the bullring is also repeatedly referenced. The song Soft In The Center isn't part of the THS story, but like You Can Make Him Like You, it borrows a lot of imagery from the same store (which as we now know has its origin in the Lifter Puller story); it's this idea of the querencia that explains the otherwise obscure line the center is a dangerous place [SitC] ***A final line worth mentioning in this connection is the end of Massive Nights: ... the chaperone said that we'd been crowned The king and the queen [MN] This reflected image of the prom king and queen at the center of the dance floor has its origin in Juanita and the Narrator at the center of the original LP "dance floor" bullring [SGS, LGI, 4Dix]. The sudden ending of Massive Nights is darkened by the awareness of what's about to happen in the LP world which shadows it. [*1] The milkcrate on Charlemagne's head is also a cage: I put a milkcrate on my head and surrendered in the corner [HF] and is, by the same token ("surrendered in the corner"; see CORNERED above), connected to the rape.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Mar 31, 2021 8:25:41 GMT -5
THE TUNESOne of the more memorable difficulties of the Here Goes thread was the matter of the link between music, gangs, and the killer parties of the THS story. That such a link existed was abundantly clear; what wasn't at all clear was the narrative rationale for the link. - For example, the lines "we rubbed up pretty close to some rock and roll promoters/ Stayed up pretty late with some rock and roll performers" [SM] clearly follow allusions to the metal bar party, gangsters, and violence in Sketchy Metal. But even recognizing the drug references ("rock"=meth, "roll"=ecstasy, "metal"=meth; see LISTED above) that explain *one* half of the gangsters' characterization as "promoters," what about the *other* half? What's the music angle that even makes the double meaning here possible?
- Or again: we know that Jesse loves the boys in the music scene [SM, 40B, JAJ, etc.], that Charlemagne's worried about her [CSongs, HH, HJ], and that the points where the boys and the worry come together are framed by references to music [CSongs, HH]. But why? We have to first connect the dots between the "musical" boys [JAJ] and "the guys along the harbor bars" [CSongs, HJ], and then between the "harbor bars" and the metal bar (near the river in the St. Paul harbor zone), before we can even be sure that the boys in question are the gangsters. In what sense are the gangsters "musical" [JAJ]?
- Or again: the killer parties are insistently presented as concerts: "no one wins at violent shows" [BBreathing], "We had those all ages hardcore matinee shows" [MN], "the crowds at the really big shows/ People touching people that they don't even know, yo" [HH], etc. But again, why?
As it turns out, this musical framing, like so many other aspects of the THS story, has a Party Zero origin. One of the most vivid impressions of the party is the music playing in the background --- not only because of its prominence in the darkness of the bar, but because, right before they attack the kids, the gangsters turn it up really loud. [*1] ***The most direct evidence of this in the LP lyrics is in Secret Santa Cruz, where Juanita's description of waking up at the gangrape is followed by thanks for the "radio," which lets her enjoy "all that fine fine music without all the messed up musicians" [SSC]: woke up at some hedonistic rodeo with cowboys kissing cowboys, trading magazines for videos yeah god bless the radio, all that fine fine music without all the messed up musicians [SSC] Taking this apart in detail: - The "fine fine music" allusion to Lou Reed's Rock And Roll ("Jenny said when she was just five years old ... She started dancin to that fine-fine-fine-fine music": link) confirms that this is Jenny, i.e. Juanita (see THE GIRLS above), speaking.
- The "messed up musicians" and the "cowboys" engaged in homosexual activity are the gangsters (compare the descriptions of the Skins as "messed up magicians" [SPayne] and cowboys [SShoes, Feelers] in THS).
- The fact that the gangsters are described as both present and then not present is explained by the intervening "god bless the radio": coming to during the terror of the gangrape ("rodeo"; see THE BEARS above), Juanita lets the music and the drugs take her away to another world.
This last point is familiar ( heregoes): we recall that Mary too drifts off into visions when she's getting high and fucking (see ILtL, SH1999, etc.), and that her visions too are variously characterized as movies, television, radio, etc. A term-by-term comparison of the two alpha girls on this point is revealing: term | Mary | Juanita | visions | YS | NC | dreams | YS | LGI | movies | Esther | ILtL | television | TL, TOT | SH1999 | video | C&N | CaAoC | radio | SiM | SSC |
*** The tunes' significance as the accompaniment to the drugs and the gangrape at the end of the party is underscored repeatedly throughout both the LP and THS lyrics. In the Soft Rock version of Lie Down on Landsdowne, there's a description of gang sex/meth exchange in which the meth is handed out by a gangster who "turns on the tunes" before distribution: sometimes we sleep with sheiks, sometimes we sleep with the straight-up freaks roll around with such tweaky creeps down by the docks we pull the rocks from their socks somebody turns on the tunes and pulls the blues from his hatband [LDoL] *** The "white druggie ravers" who get serviced at the parties ("hey savior, your soup is on") put on music in parallel with the sex: this one goes out to all the white druggie ravers, hey savior, your soup is on ... this one goes out to all the white druggie ravers that keep puttin records on [LGI] *** Lifter Puller vs the End of the Evening brings the violence of the moment into focus: love is like a battle of the bands, crank up your amps man [LPvtEotE] As noted upthread (see CONVENTIONS above), "crank up your amps" means "turn up the volume on your amplifiers," but it's also a drug reference. Per the ONDCP document ( ondcp): Cranking Up -- To inject a drug while "amps"='amphetamines'/marijuana laced with PCP' (see LISTED above). In other words, this makes a secondary reference to Dwight injecting the kids with meth ahead of the rape (see SHOT IN THE SHOULDER above). ***Another pair of lines with a double meaning ("rock"=meth; see LISTED above, and WE ALL WENT DOWN below) records how the THS crucifixion party ratchets up in intensity when the music comes on: Windows wide open to let the hard rock in Theirs was a rage that didn't need much convincing [OftC] ***Especially strong evidence comes from IHTWTDFY, where the THS Narrator's flashback terror (recalling the metal bar party, THS reflection of Party Zero) reaches its peak at the moment when the room full of dudes turn up the music: And the room full of dudes And they cranked up the tunes [IHTWTDFY] ***As we'll see shortly (see ON THE FLOOR: MUSIC below), there is evidence to suggest that the tunes are being played on an old-school boombox equipped with autoreverse, so that the same cassette plays repeatedly for hours. Records And Tapes makes reference to an identical episode of repeated playback, and includes a description of the violent ending: Over and over 'til the tape deck dies Over and over 'til the tape deck died ... Over and over until somebody dies Over and over, then two kids died [R&T] ***In short, these circumstances explain why the LP party "soundtrack" is telling the kids what it tells them: sniff and sing along with the soundtrack you know where you are, you're in the jungle baby, you're gonna die [RtF] [*1] Compare the rape scene in the movie Leaving Las Vegas ( imdb), alluded to ("Elizabeth Shue"/"bruised") in The Swish: Shoes and socks, baby, socks and shoes We spent the night last night in Newport News This chick, she looked just like Elizabeth Shue We got bruised [Swish]
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 1, 2021 7:49:36 GMT -5
MAGAZINES & VIDEOSThe "hedonistic rodeo" in the above lines of Secret Santa Cruz clearly refer to the Party Zero gangrape (for "rodeo" see THE BEARS above). But there's another fragment there that we haven't explained yet: woke up at some hedonistic rodeo with cowboys kissing cowboys, trading magazines for videos [SSC] What's that last bit about? Well, the gangsters didn't just gangrape the kids; they filmed ("videos") and took pictures of them ("magazines") while doing it. ***Let's start with the evidence for the photographs. In The Langelos, the "pretty boys"/"sidewalk stars" (suggesting male prostitution) with the "sideways scars" from being "stabbed" (raped) get their pictures taken: Tourists taking pictures of the sidewalk stars And all those pretty boys with the sideways scars All stood at attention [Langelos] While riding out the rodeo up in the mezzanine ("upstairs at the Nice Nice" [NN, 4Dix]) the Narrator realizes he knows the publications he's being photographed for: i ride it out in the mezzanine i read those magazines [TMG] If "tattoo magazines" was a class of underground magazines that published this kind of material back in the 90's, that term has been lost for search engine purposes under a mountain of newer associations. But the Lake Street Is For Lovers reference to "tattoo mags" [LSifL] suggests this might be a line of investigation worth pursuing. Juanita too is photographed: to the Narrator's "black and blue" injuries [PSunglasses], Back in Blackbeard adds and the papercut tongue from lickin on the centerfolds [BiB] in reference to his having gone down on her (see SUCKING OFF EACH OTHER above), and to the fact that she too is getting her picture taken for the magazine. ***The LP evidence beyond SSC for the videos is thin, but it's there. First, there's the opening of LPvtEotE: we hit the nightlife like deer in the headlights frozen jonesing and uptight with the stage frights [LPvtEotE] where "stage frights" alludes to a part in a production. Later, the Narrator is described as a "star": you're the star of every single afterbar the condescending host to the post-game interview blowin smoke in the post-show afterglow rubbin up against the radio [BiB] where "afterbar"=the Nice Nice (see NIGHTCLUBS above), "condescending"=going down, "interview"=with the "mic" (see VARIETIES OF PHYSICAL ASSAULT above), "blowin smoke"=bjs for drugs (see CASH MACHINE above), and "rubbin up against the radio"=gangbang with music going in the background (see THE TUNES above), etc. He's also called a "star" in the liner-note alternate lyrics to Slips Backwards: guys drive by and shoot at me because im a star [SBackwards alt lyrics] As noted upthread, this alludes to the slang sense of "star"=one who trades sex for drugs, and "shoot"=ejaculate (see FEELIN SMALL above); but now we know he's also the literal star of the movie. ***With the THS handling of this material, things get interesting. [*1] First, this background finally lets us understand the bit about the "magazine launch" in 212-Margarita: And I stayed out past dawn at some raunchy magazine launch I hit the open bar and got myself all turned on [212M] In the Here Goes thread ( heregoes), I'd worked out that "raunchy magazine launch" was a reference to the metal bar party, but couldn't explain what the "raunchy magazine" was. Now it's clear by analogy with Party Zero that pictures of that party, too, were taken for publication. (By the same token, we recognize Juanita's roofied drink in "open bar," and the bathroom stall sequel in "all turned on.") Having missed this aspect of the story completely in the Here Goes analysis, I figured that the photographs mentioned in Same Kooks and Cattle And The Creeping Things were probably Charlemagne's booking photos; but with what we know now, the sexual angle in both quotes ("kooks" [SK] and "did some sexy things" [CatCT]) makes it apparent that these are both also references to the metal bar photographs of the gangrape: [*2] it was those two same kooks from that one stupid photo shoot [SK] later on we did some sexy things, took a couple photographs and carved em into wood reliefs [CatCT] Even more indirect is the line in Meet Me In The Lobby: meet the neighbors, take some pictures [MMitL] This, like the rest of the song, is outwardly spoken from the point of view of Seth Meyers' newborn baby. But, being long since conditioned to listen for multiple meanings, and recognizing that this is after all **a song about waking up on bloody carpets in the vestibule**, we realize that "meet the neighbors" also doubles as a reference to the anonymous-sex gangbang first appearing in Party Zero, and "take some pictures" to the photos that were taken of it. (For "There was quite a crowd when I opened my eyes," see THE CENTER above.) ***What about the video? There's the movie-title evidence of Curves And Nerves: [*3] She went straight to video ... She did a movie called North Dallas Foursome ... She did a movie called Revenge of The Pervs [C&N] Knowing, now, that there was a movie *both* at the metal bar beatdown (the one taken of the gangrape) *and* at the crucifixion (the one projected of Charlemagne's ghost) does a lot to clean up the THS symmetries here. (The first C&N "movie" title refers to the metal bar incident, the second to the crucifixion: heregoes.) But the decisive evidence comes from You Did Good Kid, where the THS Narrator just comes out and says what happened: woke up in a bed with a spray-painted mattress drippin wet with the emotional weakness and every single moment gets abandoned and emptied every single speaker gets blown and now you want to go home oh dude they made a movie starring you oh man this wasn't what you planned [YDGK] There isn't actually a "mattress" in the Party Zero brewery bar (more on this later, see CANDY'S ROOM below), but the allusion to unsavory sex is hard to miss; this, "drippin wet," and "every single speaker gets blown" all fit squarely with what we know about the gangbang, in the same way that "you want to go home" fits squarely with what we know about the kids being stranded. There was a gangrape, and the gangsters made a movie of it, starring the Narrator. [*4]***There's an important sideline to this. In the Here Goes thread, we'd worked out that the blinding light of Hot Soft Light and other songs ("blind, high and scared" [HSL], "then it went white" [SShoes], etc.) was the light of Gideon's Conversion, coming from the projector he mounted on top of the water tower in the Swede Hollow crucifixion scene. But the final line "in the center there is a hot soft light" [HSL] was always a little awkward. Why the apparent emphasis on the *center of a cross*? What is the center of a cross, exactly --- the place where the beams come together? why make a point of naming it? Now that we've identified "the center" with the center of the ring of gangsters in the rape scene (see THE CENTER above), and know that there was a fill light on the video camera for shooting by, we understand that the "cross" of the crucifixion and the "center" of the metal bar are two different moments in two different lines of narration, made symmetric by the bright light shining down on each. The presence of this light as part of a film project is confirmed by Denver Haircut: The stench of death in the credits. The montage set to The Time Of Your Life. A shot in the dark in a bar that's too bright. A window sucking up all the available light, right? [DH] It's certainly true that, here as elsewhere, there's a double meaning of "light"=meth (see LISTED above) to go with the "sucking up"; but the references to "credits" and "montage" are unambiguous, and the lighting in the dark bar is being described as a matter of literal fact. ***Obviously this adds up to some heavy and terrifying shit, but in terms of what Craig is doing with the material as a storyteller, it's breathtaking. Two points stand out: 1) On the face of it, the idea of the Pepper's Ghost film trick for Charlemagne's crucifixion scene is, and always was, insane; you could force yourself to look at all the evidence and be convinced that this was exactly what happened, but the idea still seemed wildly improbable. Now, however, we can see exactly how that idea came about: it's a motivated rewrite of the filming that took place in the original Party Zero. 2) The *point* of reworking this LP material into the THS crucifixion film is not just to enable a wild plot device; it is to change the emphasis of the story, and frame the kids not as victims, but as the authors of their own lives. The point is the one revealed in Slapped Actress: we make our own movies [SA] It's *we* who make the movies, the same lesson that is applied to the kitchen corner scene at the end of Rock Problems: this is just what we wanted [RP] an understanding echoed, with respect to the photos rather than the video, in Spectres: all we really want is to be in magazines [Spectres] There's more to be said about this in taking a holistic look at LP and THS in their entirety; we'll come back to it after we've finished laying out the story (see POSITIVE JAM below). [*1] There are a lot of references to photography and film in recent THS material, notably in Eureka, Spices, Unpleasant Breakfast, and Hanover Camera. All of these refer to a different episode, one that is *unrelated* to the Party Zero "photo shoot." A superficial indication of this is the willing participation of photographer and subject that all of them describe; even the lines in Eureka: Try not to judge me by the pictures that I take. I've always had some pretty shaky hands [Eureka] emphasize the subject's participation through a typical bit of Craig indirection (on first listen, it sounds like a photographer apologizing for a poor-quality product, but in fact it's the *subject* of the photos justifying their pornographic content on the ground of her "shaky"=jonesing drug addiction). [*2] For "wood reliefs," see COMMEMORATIVE PLATES below. [*3] For clarity, Holly wasn't at the metal bar party; her career in porn is unrelated to the filming of the gangrape, and is here only being used as a vehicle for the titles of the movies experienced by "the kids." This mashup of actual events and metaphors is easier to account for, now that we understand the THS story as a heavy remix of the LP story. The LP version of what happened to "the kids" is simple and straightforward; it's only the redistribution of these original events across an expanded cast of characters that makes "which kids exactly?" a question and a difficulty. [*4] For "wasn't what you planned" [YDGK], see the short discussion of plans gone wrong in A LITTLE BIT above.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Apr 2, 2021 9:53:55 GMT -5
DAWNThe gangrape occurs not just very late in the party (after all the other kids have left), but very late in the night, after the sun is up, on Sunday morning. ***1) Sangre De Stephanie SdS provides strong evidence for situating the gangrape on Sunday morning at dawn: and early on in the breaking dawn woke up to the sabbath song and her hair was let down but her dress was still on ... later on in the break of dawn broke up to the nazareth song and her hair was back up but her dress was all gone ... the bud and the benzedrine, fucked with the fog machine on and on in the breaking dawn [SdS] The kids' transition from "woke up" (after the crash) to "broke up," and from "her dress was still on" to "her dress was all gone," marks the hour of the gangrape; the sex is also flagged by "fucked," as are the drugs by "bud and the benzedrine." The title "Sangre de Stephanie," alluding to the expression "Sangre de Cristo" ( wikipedia), Spanish for "blood of Christ," frames Juanita (Stephanie=Juanita, see THE GIRLS above) as a bleeding Christ figure, a theme developed in the lyrics with "nazareth" and "sabbath" as allusions to Jesus and Easter Sunday; this is consistent with the original LP/THS "resurrection" being Juanita's emergence, stumbling, bleeding and high as hell, from the bathroom (see STUMBLING & RESURRECTION above). [*1] Taking this in isolation, "sabbath" might be read as metaphor, rather than a literal reference to Sunday; but there are other reasons to believe that Sunday at dawn is literally what's meant. ***2) I Like The LightsILtL fixes the time of the ganrape at 6am on a weekend morning. six six six am on the weekend she's creepin out of the east end and you said it was nothing you just slipped and missed your ride from your girlfriends [ILtL] The allusion to an injury ("it was nothing/ you just slipped") using the term associated with roofies and rape (see SLIP AND TRIP above) makes it clear that this is a post-hoc description of the violent events of Party Zero. Jenny is described as leaving the party in the brewery (for "east end" see THE EAST above) sometime around dawn. (The "six six six" reference to the Number of the Beast identifies the brewery with Hell, same as in the THS story: "We were hanging at a rock and roll club/ It was painted just like hell" [GoaH], etc.) The situation on a "weekend," i.e. Saturday or Sunday morning, is explicit. ***3) Nice NiceNN also weighs in with clear evidence for an after-dawn timeframe. Here, creepin/east-end/six-am in ILtL is translated into creepin/east-end/end-of-the-night: it's the end of the night and now jenny's creepin back to the east end shot through with the sunlight [NN] In this, "sunlight" is a drug reference ("light"=meth, see LISTED; for "shot" see SHOT IN THE SHOULDER above), but it also confirms that "end of the night" means after dawn has broken. "Shot through" makes a St.-Theresa-like suggestion of forcible/ecstatic sex ( wikipedia). The sense of "creepin *back to* the east end" [NN] is twofold, echoing "creepin *out of* the east end" [ILtL] at the same time that it foreshadows Juanita's return to the Scene for the Return Parties (following her resolution "that's when she said that we should do this all over" [TLaDiLBI]; see PARTY ZERO VS THE RETURN PARTIES above). ***4) Candy's RoomThe "end of the night" is again described in Candy's Room as the time when those who haven't left the party with the other kids (see KIDS START LEAVING above) will find themselves covered in white stuff at the hands of the gang (allusion to both drugs and sex; see CONTRITION and VARIETIES OF PHYSICAL ASSAULT above). you'll be covered up with powdered drugs by the end of the night if you're still at the nice nice [CR] ***5) The LangelosSimilarly, The Langelos identifies "morning" as the time when the all-night party is paid for with sexual service: And morning whores yourself to the night before [Langelos] ***6) 11th Avenue Freezeout11AF underlines the "freak" aspect of the sex and the hour of dawn: the sun sneaks up on the boardwalk freaks [11AF] ***7) Back In BlackbeardBiB is explicit about the gangbang at sunrise: jenny looks on the brightside she said i never saw the sunrise before i met all you guys and now i've done it on the d-line and bathed in all your basslines and i still ain't died, or have i? [BiB] ***8) Let's Get IncredibleAnother reference to "dawn" is found in LGI, which describes the "clearing" [OftC] of Swede Hollow park, with its entrance on 7th street, as the "lawn" of the brewery; the lines immediately following this make clear that the "grop[ing]" that takes place there after waking up in the speed-ing "dawn" (compare "speeding toward sunrise" [KatKH]) is indeed the Party Zero gangrape: we groped on the green golf course lawn and we sped through the 7th straight dawn and we woke up in 7th street first we got rushed and then we got crushed these tiger-striped toughs are much bigger than us first we got sliced and then we got swarmed these sabre-toothed thugs are so heavily armed [LGI] ***That's a lot of evidence pointing, in aggregate, to Sunday at dawn. But there are still some apparently contradictory details that have to be squared with this. The LGI reference to "7th straight" is one of several LP references to partying/speeding over many days without sleep, of which the most obviously connected one is the Prescription Sunglasses description of Party Zero as a "three-day rave." The PSunglasses version says that the kids "made it" until Sunday *afternoon*, rather than Sunday morning; when we compare this "made it" to the "didn't make it" of Sherman City: and outside the club is where we spill our drinks in memory of all those guys that didn't make it till the dawn [SCity] it's pretty clear that "dawn" [SCity] and "afternoon" [PSunglasses] are doing the same job of marking the time when the party ends (with "outside the club" standing in parallel to the "lawn" [LGI] and "creeping out of the east end" [ILtL], too). So, how to reconcile this? ***First: "afternoon" isn't a one-off; Oaks mentions an episode of waking up in the afternoon after a blackout: Skipped ahead to the next afternoon [Oaks] Similarly, on With The Business describes waking up on the bloody carpet (with analogy to a dirty mattress; see CANDY'S ROOM below) of the brewery bar on a morning (matinee=literally "morning movie"; link) that's actually the afternoon: Blood on the carpet Mud on the mattress Waking up with that American Sadness Afternoon matinee [OwtB] Second: Denver Haircut continues its description of the gangrape filming (see MAGAZINES & VIDEOS above) with specific mention of five hours spent on that same carpet: In five hours on the carpet He visits six different planets [DH] The math checks out: dawn at 6-something + five hours gets us to the threshold of afternoon. Third: in an interview somewhere that I've tried hard to relocate but can't find, Craig talks about the lessons of the LP/THS story, and one of the "morals" he draws is something to the effect that there's never a good excuse for getting up at noon (compare "sleeping late" [SBS]). It's a pity not to have the quote; I mention it in the hope that someone else will know where to find it. The point in any case is that the afternoon timeframe is well-attested from different angles. ***To put it all together: it appears that the early PSunglasses telling reflects the literal narrative, that the end of the party happened on Sunday afternoon, after a three-day Friday-Saturday-Sunday blowout. SdS too attests literally to the fact that the assault on the kids began on Sunday at dawn. [*2] The interval between dawn and afternoon is accounted for by the gangrape itself and by its aftermath, with the kids lying crashed out and bleeding for hours on the carpet. ILtL and NN, with their report of Jenny moving around the east end at 6am, take a more poetic view of the events of the early morning, informed by a Return Parties perspective on her willful return to the Nice Nice. To come full circle, the confirmation of the Sunday morning timeframe has an important implication with respect to Sangre De Stephanie: not only does "[Cristo]/sabbath/nazareth" [SdS] mark the first overt use of the Easter imagery that will become so important in THS [HaRRF, BCrosses], but "broke up" [SdS] marks the ending of Party Zero as the *original* Separation Sunday. [*1] We noted this already in LACED SUBSTANCES above, but with more background in hand, it's worth stating again that there's a spiked drink allusion here; "Sangre de Cristo" is a "spicier variant of the Michelada beer cocktail" ( wikipedia), served, like Mary's margarita, with a salted rim (see ROOFIES above; compare also "beer mixed with beer" [Brokerdealer INFHP], where one of the "beers"=meth, like "salt"=meth, see LISTED above). [*2] For the record, there are also several THS references to "dawn" which bear obvious similarities to the LP lines we've been looking at: Went down on the Denver slums and she woke up in the Rocky Mountain dawn [MM] This is Milkcrate Mosh's description of Holly's birthday party; the new information provided via the LP lyrics about "dawn" here, and about "lawn" as a reference to Swede Hollow behind the brewery, suggest that Holly's party (compare "lawn," "dawn" [SN]) takes place in a location modeled after the Nice Nice, and specifically in its brewery avatar, as well. And I stayed out past dawn at some raunchy magazine launch [212M] We've already looked at the "magazine launch" in this line (see MAGAZINES & VIDEOS above); now we can connect it with the dawn timeframe. Saw the dawn through the crack in the curtains [R&T] We'll take a closer look at this line shortly (see BREWERY BAR: THE CORNER below); in the meantime, "saw the dawn" is modeled on Juanita's "saw the sunrise" [BiB]. And at dawn I had to crawl back home through the quicksilver sprawl [Star18] Compare "creeping out of the east end" [ILtL]; "quicksilver" is meth ("silver splinter" and "silver metal flake" [R&T]). And everyone's sorry when they see that it's dawn [TST] for reasons which are now evident.
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