On Wings of Song/Part Three - Revision history

Eb: /* I'm a temp myself */

2025-11-25T02:56:31Z

I'm a temp myself

Eb: /* at Lieto Fino and La Didone */

2025-01-29T19:52:19Z

at Lieto Fino and La Didone

Eb: /* phoneys */

2025-01-27T05:57:03Z

phoneys

Eb: /* phoneys */

2025-01-27T05:55:24Z

phoneys

Eb: /* phoneys */

2025-01-27T05:54:58Z

phoneys

Eb: /* Adonis, Inc., across Seventh Avenue from the doughnut shop */

2025-01-27T05:53:22Z

Adonis, Inc., across Seventh Avenue from the doughnut shop

Eb: /* Adonis, Inc., across Seventh Avenue from the doughnut shop */

2025-01-27T05:52:55Z

Adonis, Inc., across Seventh Avenue from the doughnut shop

Eb: /* Chapter 11 */

2025-01-27T05:52:26Z

Chapter 11

Eb: /* Chapter 11 */

2025-01-27T05:48:04Z

Chapter 11

Eb: /* No one was quite sure what marked the commencement of this brighter era */

2025-01-26T21:00:51Z

No one was quite sure what marked the commencement of this brighter era

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 === I'm a temp myself ===
-In ''[[334]]'', Disch used "temps" somewhat vaguely to describe people who had nowhere to live, having apparently fallen through the cracks in the city's welfare system, which otherwise generally provides at least basic necessities. Here, it seems to mean something more like being an immigrant who's still waiting for a green card, able to work but not much else. The harsher future New York in ''On Wings of Song'' either never had the socialist features of ''334'', or abandoned them after the series of economic and social injuries that are mentioned later in the chapter, so being a legal resident doesn't really get you much anyway except being allowed to rent an apartment.
+In ''[[334]]'', Disch used "temps" somewhat vaguely to describe people who had nowhere to live, having apparently fallen through the cracks in the city's welfare system, which otherwise generally provides at least basic necessities. Here, it seems to mean something more like being an immigrant who's still waiting for legal status, able to work to some degree but not much else. The harsher future New York in ''On Wings of Song'' either never had the socialist features of ''334'', or abandoned them after the series of economic and social injuries that are mentioned later in the chapter, so being a legal resident doesn't really get you much anyway except being allowed to rent an apartment.
 === Reichian therapist ===

@@ Line 87: / Line 87: @@
 === at Lieto Fino and La Didone ===
-''Lieto fine'' is Italian for a happy ending—a common term in describing 18th century opera. The restaurant's name here is written as "Fino" in every edition of the book I've seen, but given that there are other spelling errors also present in every edition, that's likely just a typo.<ref>Thanks to translator Johanna Bishop for her opinion that "fino" was very unlikely to be meant as a pun—or that if it was, it would be one that only a person not fluent in Italian would try to make.</ref>
+''Lieto fine'' is Italian for a happy ending—a common term in describing 18th century opera. The restaurant's name here is written as "Fino" in every edition of the book I've seen, but given that there are other spelling errors also present in every edition, that's likely just a typo.<ref>Thanks to translator Johanna Bishop for her judgment that "fino" was very unlikely to be meant as a pun—or that if it was, it would be one that only a person not fluent in Italian would try to make.</ref>
 The full name of the second restaurant is given later as ''La Didone Abbandonata'': "the abandoned Dido". {{wp|Didone (opera)|''La Didone''}} is a 1640 opera by Cavalli based on a story from the ''Aeneid'', except that when Dido is abandoned, instead of killing herself she finds love.

@@ Line 61: / Line 61: @@
 <blockquote>Happily I wasn't a ''faux noir''. But in a way I was, because I was a supernumerary at the Met ... In ''Spartacus'' I was a black slave, in body paint. And I was also a black slave, face paint only, in ''Don Giovanni''.<ref name="atkins-interview">{{cite article|author=Atkins, Elliot|date=September 11, 1999|title=New York Gothic|publication=Foundation|pub-date=#80, Autumn 2000}} Cited by [https://web.archive.org/web/20180714223441/http://www.ukjarry1.talktalk.net/owos.htm Matthew Davis].</ref></blockquote>
-(Note: in 1979, "African-American" was not yet common usage, and "black" or "Black" was standard—with no clear consensus as to whether it should be capitalized or not. Disch in this book frequently uses "black"/"blacks" as a noun rather than "black people", which is jarring, certainly wouldn't be considered respectful today, and wasn't great in 1979 either, but was very typical for white writers.)
+(Note: in 1979, "African-American" was not yet common usage, and "black" or "Black" was standard—with no clear consensus as to whether it should be capitalized or not. Disch in this book sometimes uses "black" as a noun rather than "black person", which is jarring, certainly wouldn't be considered respectful today, and wasn't great in 1979 either, but was fairly typical for white writers.)
 === You didn't say what the position was ===

@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 === phoneys ===
-Out of the novel's relatively few visibly futuristic touches, this may be the most deliberately uncomfortable: white urbanites have started making themselves look black—not exactly to fool anyone, but out of some mixture of ironic fashion, boredom, and paranoia about the fact that whites have become a minority group in the city.
+Out of the novel's relatively few visibly futuristic touches, this may be the most deliberately uncomfortable: white urbanites have started making themselves look Black—not exactly to fool anyone, but out of some mixture of ironic fashion, boredom, and paranoia about the fact that whites have become a minority group in the city.
 The idea of doing this via a medical technique was probably inspired by John Howard Griffin's notorious work of undercover journalism ''Black Like Me'' (1961) (and a similar project by Ray Sprigle in 1948). But whereas Griffin's purpose was to highlight the oppression of African-Americans in the South, Disch's "phonies" have an opposite view, since they believe—or at least act like they believe—that it's now easier to get ahead with dark skin.

@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 === phoneys ===
-Out of the novel's relatively few visibly futuristic touches, this may be the most deliberately uncomfortable: white urbanites have started making themselves black—not exactly to fool anyone, but out of some mixture of ironic fashion, boredom, and paranoia about the fact that whites have become a minority group in the city.
+Out of the novel's relatively few visibly futuristic touches, this may be the most deliberately uncomfortable: white urbanites have started making themselves look black—not exactly to fool anyone, but out of some mixture of ironic fashion, boredom, and paranoia about the fact that whites have become a minority group in the city.
 The idea of doing this via a medical technique was probably inspired by John Howard Griffin's notorious work of undercover journalism ''Black Like Me'' (1961) (and a similar project by Ray Sprigle in 1948). But whereas Griffin's purpose was to highlight the oppression of African-Americans in the South, Disch's "phonies" have an opposite view, since they believe—or at least act like they believe—that it's now easier to get ahead with dark skin.

@@ Line 17: / Line 17: @@
 === Adonis, Inc., across Seventh Avenue from the doughnut shop ===
-<mapframe align="left" text="approaching 7th Ave. from Sheridan Square" width="350" height="300" zoom="19" longitude="-74.002766" latitude="40.733405" /> This is one of the few New York settings in the book that's located very specifically. Daniel stopped for a doughnut on Sheridan Square, which doesn't quite touch 7th Ave. because there's a little triangular traffic island with a subway stop in between, at West 4th and Grove. Crossing the avenue would mean that the Adonis gym is on the west side of 7th between Grove and Christopher. This tiny block is best known for the cigar store that was on the corner at Christopher for more than 100 years (last known as Village Cigars, it closed in 2024)—but the neighborhood in general is a historic center of LGBTQ life in Manhattan, especially in the '60s and '70s; the {{wp|Stonewall Inn|Stonewall}} and {{wp|Julius (restaurant)|Julius'}} are close by.<ref>{{cite article|author=Brechtel, Evan|date=November 8, 2018|title=Vibrant Queer Histories: Ever Present in the Village|url=https://www.wussymag.com/all/vibrant-queer-histories-ever-present-in-the-village|publication=Wussy|accessed=January 25, 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite article|author=Weigle, Richard Eric|title=Pre-AIDS Greenwich Village: A Time Of 'Free Love', Open Sex And Tolerance|date|October 3, 2017|url=https://imfromdriftwood.com/story/pre-aids-greenwich-village-a-time-of-free-love-open-sex-and-tolerance/|publication=I'm From Driftwood: The LGBTQIA+ Story Archive|accessed=January 25, 2025}}</ref>
+<mapframe align="left" text="approaching 7th Ave. from Sheridan Square" width="350" height="300" zoom="19" longitude="-74.002766" latitude="40.733405" /> This is one of the few New York settings in the book that's located very specifically. Daniel stopped for a doughnut on Sheridan Square, which doesn't quite touch 7th Ave. because there's a triangular traffic island with a subway stop in between, at West 4th and Grove. Crossing the avenue would mean that the Adonis gym is on the west side of 7th between Grove and Christopher. This tiny block is best known for the cigar store that was on the corner at Christopher for more than 100 years (last known as Village Cigars, it closed in 2024)—but the neighborhood in general is a historic center of LGBTQ life in Manhattan, especially in the '60s and '70s; the {{wp|Stonewall Inn|Stonewall}} and {{wp|Julius (restaurant)|Julius'}} are close by.<ref>{{cite article|author=Brechtel, Evan|date=November 8, 2018|title=Vibrant Queer Histories: Ever Present in the Village|url=https://www.wussymag.com/all/vibrant-queer-histories-ever-present-in-the-village|publication=Wussy|accessed=January 25, 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite article|author=Weigle, Richard Eric|title=Pre-AIDS Greenwich Village: A Time Of 'Free Love', Open Sex And Tolerance|date|October 3, 2017|url=https://imfromdriftwood.com/story/pre-aids-greenwich-village-a-time-of-free-love-open-sex-and-tolerance/|publication=I'm From Driftwood: The LGBTQIA+ Story Archive|accessed=January 25, 2025}}</ref>
 === New York had reduced its (legal) population to two and a half million ===

← Older revision		Revision as of 05:48, 27 January 2025
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	Wilhelm Reich and his acolytes had a high profile in 1970s counterculture, and Disch had some personal experience; see [[334/Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire#the Lowen School\|''334'']].		Wilhelm Reich and his acolytes had a high profile in 1970s counterculture, and Disch had some personal experience; see [[334/Everyday Life in the Later Roman Empire#the Lowen School\|''334'']].
		+
		+	=== Adonis, Inc., across Seventh Avenue from the doughnut shop ===
		+
		+	<mapframe align="left" text="approaching 7th Ave. from Sheridan Square" width="350" height="300" zoom="19" longitude="-74.002766" latitude="40.733405" /> This is one of the few New York settings in the book that's located very specifically. Daniel stopped for a doughnut on Sheridan Square, which doesn't quite touch 7th Ave. because there's a little triangular traffic island with a subway stop in between, at 7th and Grove. Crossing the avenue would mean that the Adonis gym is on the west side of 7th between Grove and Christopher. This tiny block is best known for the cigar store that was on the corner at Christopher for more than 100 years (last known as Village Cigars, it closed in 2024)—but the neighborhood in general is a historic center of LGBTQ life in Manhattan, especially in the '60s and '70s; the {{wp\|Stonewall Inn\|Stonewall}} and {{wp\|Julius (restaurant)\|Julius'}} are close by.<ref>{{cite article\|author=Brechtel, Evan\|date=November 8, 2018\|title=Vibrant Queer Histories: Ever Present in the Village\|url=https://www.wussymag.com/all/vibrant-queer-histories-ever-present-in-the-village\|publication=Wussy\|accessed=January 25, 2025}}</ref>

	=== New York had reduced its (legal) population to two and a half million ===		=== New York had reduced its (legal) population to two and a half million ===

@@ Line 127: / Line 127: @@
 In dystopian fiction, it's rare for anything to improve without it being ascribed to some particular dramatic event; that's another way that ''On Wings of Song'' doesn't follow familiar genre patterns, as we see the country taking a more liberal direction, at both state and federal levels, for no clear reason except that time has passed. There's a hint here that some kind of political conflict may have happened behind the scenes ("a lot of problems had disappeared from the headlines along with a number of people"), but we never learn more about that—which is consistent with the novel's point of view being mainly limited to what Daniel, and other people who aren't very concerned with the big picture, would know.
-Besides flight being decriminalized in ''some'' of the Farm Belt, we'll hear a few more details in the epilogue: Amesville now has a non-Republican mayor, and Midwestern teenagers have started adopting "phoney" style for apparently more idealistic reasons than what we saw in New York (Daniel's niece calls it "an affirmation"). Whether those are meaningful developments or not, the culture has clearly moved on since Daniel's childhood—but not uniformly, since the undergoders are still around and hoping to regain influence. This fits with Disch's statements about how science fiction relates to time, and to his own experience:
+Besides flight being decriminalized in ''some'' of the Farm Belt, we'll hear a few more details in the epilogue: Amesville now has a non-Republican mayor, and Midwestern teenagers have started adopting "phoney" style for apparently more idealistic reasons than what we saw in New York (Daniel's brother-in-law's girlfriend calls it "an affirmation"). Whether those are meaningful developments or not, the culture has clearly moved on since Daniel's childhood—but not uniformly, since the undergoders are still around and hoping to regain influence. This fits with Disch's statements about how science fiction relates to time, and to his own experience:
 <blockquote>It's either about the present or about the historically accessible past. The plot I wanted for ''On Wings of Song'' was ... someone learning to become an artist over an historical period. In the twentieth century, you can't write about a span of twenty years and not have the historical panorama it's set against change—it just does. In my own lifetime it's changed a whole lot. So the historical pattern of ''On Wings of Song'' mirrors my growing up from 1952 to 1975 ... At the same time ... I was perfectly aware that I was portraying a future that I could see happening out of the present. History has its cycles, and one of the basic cycles is that it alternates between liberation and oppression.<ref>{{cite article|author=Galbraith, David, & Wilson, Alexander|date=July 1980|title=Taking Flight with Thomas Disch|publication=The Body Politic|pub-date=December 1981}} Cited by [https://web.archive.org/web/20180714223441/http://www.ukjarry1.talktalk.net/owos.htm Matthew Davis].</ref></blockquote>