Professor Irwin Corey (7/29/1914--2/6/2017) and Thomas Pynchon's National Book Award

I was surprised to hear today that Professor Irwin Corey, "The World's Foremost Authority" and an absolutely unique comedian, has just passed away. Most of my surprise springs from the fact that I thought Professor Corey was 80 years old when I first saw him on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1966, more than fifty years ago. So, needless to say, I was more amazed that he had still been alive earlier this week, and only 102 years old, than long gone and 130 years old.

I immediately thought about the Professor's greatest moment (at least for someone whose favorite book is Gravity's Rainbow). The following video (with oddly appropriate German subtitles) even includes the audio of Irwin Corey impersonating Thomas Pynchon, or "Richard Python," at the 1973 National Book Awards ceremony and video of him reading the novel's opening lines.



Rest in Peace Professor.

Turning 70 Today

Not only is it one of my major yearly observances, #PynchonInPublic Day, for which I'm re-reading Gravity's Rainbow on the MetroNorth train to and from work in honor of Thomas Pynchon's 78th birthday, but it's the 70th anniversary of VE Day -- May 8, 1945 -- the day on which Keith Jarrett was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I'll listen toThe Köln Concert to celebrate later tonight, but here he is with Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette playing "Autumn Leaves."



Happy Birthday Keith!

My Bold Day-After-The-Oscars Prediction

Within ten years, when people look back at the celebrity worship and backslapping convention held at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre last night, they'll ask, "Did they really overlook Inherent Vice?"

As a diehard Thomas Pynchon fan I had been waiting for Paul Thomas Anderson's film adaptation for months before and after its release. However, the vagaries of feature film distribution haven't brought it to a theatre within a hundred miles of my home yet. But on Oscar weekend I was able to pay to watch Inherent Vice on demand and did so twice. I've never seen a film that benefited so much from rewatching (just as Pynchon's books are all better and richer on second and third readings), and my prediction is that it will quickly become a classic as more people are able to see and share it.

Check back with me on this prediction in 2025 so that one of us can say, "I told you so."

Kurt Andersen talking to Paul Thomas Anderson about Thomas Pynchon and Inherent Vice

If you have a spare 40 minutes, or if you want to listen to something interesting while watching football with no sound, you can do worse than listening to this extended interview that was condensed to 13 minutes on Studio 360:

This might actually be good.

I hate to get my hopes up, but is it possible that Paul Thomas Anderson may actually succeed in bringing a Thomas Pynchon novel to the screen?
Here's the trailer released today:



And here's an interesting discussion on WNYC's Soundcheck in which John Schaefer and Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield talk about the music in the novel:

Joe Biden's prestige just rose inestimably in my eyes.

Joe Biden, at an event for Nuns on the Bus in Des Moines on Wednesday, quoted  from my favorite author's greatest novel, the most famous of the Proverbs for Paranoids that appear in Gravity's Rainbow -- number 3:

Proverbs for Paranoids:

1. You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his creatures.

2. The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the immorality of the Master.

3. If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

4. You hide, they seek.

5. Paranoids are not paranoid because they're paranoid, but because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations.

--The Proverbs never appear in one place in Gravity's Rainbow, so these are collected from pages 237, 241, 251, 262,and 292

If I hear that he has started quoting Proverb 1, I'll turn TrueBlueLiberal.Org into a full-time dedicated Ready For Joe 2016 website.

The Quote of the Day Is About Thomas Pynchon

There is a brilliant review by Michael Chabon of Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge in the new issue of The New York Review of Books. There's a lot in his commentary on this book I finished reading a week ago that makes me want to drop what I'm reading now and go back and start reading Pynchon again immediately (and when you do read Bleeding Edge, I highly recommend turning around immediately and reading the first paragraphs as soon as you've let the final page sink in).

But here's Michael Chabon's sentence that caused me to drop The Review and fire up Blogger:

Everything means something, or nothing means anything, and as in every Pynchon novel what can be found is not solution but the grace of moments spent suspended between those certainties.

Pynchon's books are the only ones that I religiously buy and start reading on the day they appear, but I've never seen the appeal of these novels summed up as well in a single sentence.

And the Chabon review will give you a slightly better idea of what you're in for than the official Penguin promotional video...


And with Bleeding Edge shortlisted for this year's National Book Award, I'd love to see it win just to see who (if anyone) would accept this year. Would that person be able to match Professor Irwin Corey's acceptance speech in 1973 in place of Richard Python?

Birthday Wishes to Thomas Pynchon...

...who was born in Glen Cove, New York on May 8, 1937.

... Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. ...

--Gravity's Rainbow (p.122 in the 1974 Bantam mass market paperback edition; note the interesting capitalization)

My Luddite Resolve Is Weakening

I may finally have to get an e-reader.

I've been lugging the heavy hardcover version of Mason & Dixon in my computer bag lately. Its rewards are worth the effort, but I'd love to be able to carry all of Thomas Pynchon's novels at once, and all the time, without a wagon.

"... a Goddess descended from light to Matter." Happy Transit Day!

I'm celebrating the Transit of Venus taking place on the 5th and 6th of June 2012 by reading the essential fictional account of the Transit of Venus observed and measured by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in Cape Town on the 5th and 6th of June 1761 (a few years before they drew the line across America that symbolically separates us from our less-liberal brethren).
Turn the first hundred pages of Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon for more reading pleasure and information about tangency, parallax, and the movement of heliocentric bodies, but here's a short paragragh from that long book to whet your appetite:

"Ladies, Ladies," Mason calls. "--You've seen her in the Evening Sky, you've wish'd upon her, and now for a short time will she be seen in the Day-light, crossing the Disk of the Sun, -- and do make a Wish then, if you think it will help. -- For Astronomers, who usually work at night, 'twill give us a chance to be up in the Day-time. Thro' our whole gazing-lives, Venus has been a tiny Dot of Light, going through phases like the Moon, ever against the black face of Eternity. But on the day of this Transit, all shall suddenly reverse, -- as she is caught, dark, embodied, solid, against the face of the Sun,-- a Goddess descended from light to Matter." (page 92 of Henry Holt hardcover)

No Pulitzer for Fiction Reminds Me That It's Only 3 Weeks Until Pynchon in Public Day

In 1974 the three members of the Pulitzer Prize's fiction jury (Elizabeth Hardwick, Alfred Kazin, and Benjamin DeMott) unanimously recommended Gravity's Rainbow only to be overruled by the full 14-member board, which couldn't make it through the book (except for the pages they had dogeared and re-read to make sure they were "obscene").  The result was that no 1974 Pulitzer Prize for fiction was awarded even though they had one of the greatest novels of the century in their hands.

It will be interesting to hear why the Pulitzers couldn't agree on a fiction prize this year between David Foster Wallace's The Pale King, Karen Russell's Swamplandia, and Denis Johnson's Train Dreams, but mostly the news of the unawarded 2012 award makes me want to finish what I'm reading now so that I can start on Gravity's Rainbow again as soon as possible.  If I procrastinate enough, I might be caught reading it on Pynchon in Public day, May 8.  (Not only is May 8, 1937 Thomas Pynchon's birthday, but May 8, 1974 is the date of the New York Times article, "Pulitzer Jurors Dismayed on Pynchon".)  What will you be reading in public on that Tuesday?

Browsing by here because you're having a rough day at work?

Here's your literary quote of the day from my morning's reading on the train.

". . . In the early '60's a Yoyodyne executive living near L.A. and located someplace in the corporate root-system above supervisor but below vice-president, found himself, at age 39, automated out of a job. Having been since age 7 rigidly instructed in an eschatology* that pointed nowhere but to a presidency and death, trained to do absolutely nothing but sign his name to specialized memoranda he could not begin to understand and to take blame for the running-amok of specialized programs that failed for specialized reasons he had to have explained to him, the executive's first thoughts were naturally of suicide.  But previous training got the better of him: he could not make the decision without first hearing the ideas of a committee. ..."

-Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
(p.83 of the Bantam mass market paperback) 

Having a better day at work now?

___________

*Despite the look of the word, eschatology has absolutely no relation to the verb romney or the noun santorum.  It is, however, true that Yoyodyne was one of the companies that was eventually bought and destroyed by Bain Capital under Mitt Romney's watch.   

If the remaining GOP Presidential candidates were characters in novels.

The Quote of the Day about the "defectively imagined future" (and a primary difference between conservatives and liberals?)

"... Sooner or later Holytail [marijuana-growing area in Vineland County] was due for the full treatment [from the federal marijuana eradicators of CAMP], from which it would emerge, like most of the old Emerald Triangle, pacified territory -- reclaimed by the enemy for a timeless, defectively imagined future of zero-tolerance drug-free Americans all pulling their weight and all locked in to the official economy, inoffensive music, endless family specials on the Tube, church all week long, and, on special days, for extra-good behavior, maybe a cookie."

--Thomas Pynchon, Vineland, pp.221-222

The passage published in 1990 up above was one of the last I read on the train from work this evening. And while I wasn't going to write at all about Sarah Palin's July 3rd resignation (feeling that commenting on Palin, Sanford, Ensign, Boehner, Cheney, and all the other Republicans right now is like piling insults on the mentally challenged), I couldn't help thinking that this paragraph pointed out a key difference between liberals and conservatives. That picture of church-going Tube-watching Stepford families is a dystopic nightmare in Pynchon's universe, and in mine, but I can't help thinking that it's Sarah Palin's and Dick Cheney's dream, and even the dream of those like Sanford and Ensign who have recently slipped from their ideal straight and narrow and are now praying to regain their footing on that correct path with the promise, after confessing their "sins" to the world, of "maybe a cookie."

These are not views of the world that are ever going to be fundamentally reconciled by political compromises (or by any political means). Like it or not, there will always be people who feel they know the one correct way for all of us to behave (even when they don't behave that way themselves).

Possible Origins of Inherent Vice , and a belated recognition of The Recognitions

Where does Inherent Vice come from?
"Well," you might answer, "if it's 'inherent,' it doesn't come from anywhere; it's just there."
But I'm not asking about the vice itself, but about the title of Thomas Pynchon's upcoming novel. The title of his last novel, Against the Day, has a full page dedicated to its possible origins and meanings on the PynchonWiki, so I thought I'd put my thoughts about the possible origins of the next novel's title on the record before I get a chance to flip open its cover for the first time. Before anyone beats me to it.

When I first heard the title, my immediate thought was that its sound and rhythm were an obvious tribute to the major work of a younger artist who wrote in Pynchon's shadow, Infinite Jest by the late David Foster Wallace. That tribute may still be part of the title's origin, but over the last month I've had the pleasure of reading a novel (that had been on my list forever) by an older writer who helped pave the way for Pynchon, The Recognitions (1955) by William Gaddis. The phrase "inherent vice" appears throughout the book (eight times on four pages: 182, 234, 355, & 949) and the arguments about inherent vice are at the heart of the book's examination of originality and forgery.

"But of course no one will insure against inherent vice." (234)
"As you've told me, one cannot insure against inherent vice." (355)
"We cannot insure against inherent vice." (949)

So, did Pynchon read, and was he influenced by, The Recognitions? Is he recognizing its importance in the title of his upcoming novel? For me, the evidence was there and indisputable as soon as I saw the poem at the heart of Gravity's Rainbow, Rilke's "The Duino Elegies", quoted directly on page 277 of The Recognitions and become an important plot point later in the book (see pages 299, 622, 746). Even this could still be simply a coincidental regard for a great poem, but there's no coincidence that could account for the fact that the first sentence of Gravity's Rainbow is a famous echo of the beginning of the Elegies and that The Recognitions ends with a paraphrase of their ending (see the last note, 956.25, on this last page of "A Reader's Guide to The Recognitions").

I may start reading Inherent Vice on the day that it comes out in August and decide that I'm full of shit about the title, but right now I'm sure of my theory of the title's origin. Maybe this little blog entry will even find itself linked to on one of the many Pynchon fan sites one day. What an ambition!

And even if I'm not sure where the title on the cover comes from, I am sure where the cover art originated: Cruiser Art in Hawai'i. But don't ask me why (yet).


(I've also become an apostle for The Recognitions. Read it! Its rewards are tremendous and it's not as hard as its reputation suggests -- especially if you're a fan of Pynchon's -- but I do suggest that you bookmark WilliamGaddis.org and the Reader's Guide on that site before you start reading. I didn't discover it until I was about 500 pages into the book and starting to get the vast cast of characters confused. The Guide is a great online resource, if only for its translations of the foreign passages.)

2009 Is Going to Be a Great Year (Part Three)

Thomas Pynchon and Bob Dylan seem to be working in concert lately, and picking up speed, as they continue their creative careers. I couldn't help thinking that it seems like just yesterday that Pynchon's Against the Day and Dylan's "Modern Times" were released, and now here we are (or at least here I am) anxiously awaiting their new creations.

But their parallel paths go back much further than 2006, or even 1997. In every year that Thomas Pynchon published a novel, Bob Dylan has given us a new studio album!

2009 -- TP's Inherent Vice // BD's "Together Through Life"
2006 -- TP's Against the Day // BD's "Modern Times"
1997 -- TP's Mason & Dixon // BD's "Time Out of Mind"
1990 -- TP's Vineland // BD's "Under the Red Sky"
1973 -- TP's Gravity's Rainbow // BD's "Dylan" and "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid"
1966 -- TP's The Crying of Lot 49 // BD's "Blonde on Blonde"
1963 -- TP's V. // BD's "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan"

The only year that seems a little off is 1973, where even two Dylan albums weren't enough to balance the scales. The cover versions on "Dylan" and the extended single of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" that is "P.G. & B.t.K." are no match for the weight of Gravity's Rainbow (GR would have been balanced by "Blood on the Tracks" in a more perfect world), but all the other years seem to reach a sort of equilibrium. I'm surprised that I never noticed this coincidence between two of my favorite artists before, but I'm sure that someone else has.

(I had hoped that these magical creative years might give us some financial guidance as well in these turbulent economic times, but there's no such luck: 1963, 1997, and 2006 were up years for the Dow, but 1966, 1973, and 1990 saw declines.)

2009 is Going to Be a Great Year

So, by this August your 13-inch rabbit-eared television will be dead, your total 401K retirement account balance will be less than your average monthly grocery bill, your house will be worth less than your 15-year-old Jetta, and the Chinese will have bought the brand names "Chevrolet" and "Cadillac" for 200 euros each, but on August 4, 2009 we will also be given the opportunity to shell out a mere $27.95 for a relatively short (416-page) new novel by Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice.
Here's the tag line from the Penguin catalog:

" Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon—private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog "

The first descriptions and excerpts in the catalog sound like a cross between Vineland and The Crying of Lot 49 with a dash of Raymond Chandler's style, but I'm sure that Tom will have some surprises in store for us that are brand new.

"Proverbs for Paranoids, 3"

Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

--Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

Thank you [Mr. President]. Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. Harry Reid was talking about soup lines. And Hillary Clinton was talking about the economy being on the verge of collapse. Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there's no crisis there. How are you going to work -- you've said you are going to reach out to these people -- how are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality.

--"Reporter" Jeff Gannon asks George Bush a tough question at a news conference on 26 Jan 2005 [click for more details at Media Matters for America]

How much, to continue the entry from a couple of days ago, is HE being paid to help keep us all in the dark?

-- True Blue Liberal

By the light of Gravity's Rainbow

A month ago I couldn't help quoting a passage from Moby Dick with eerie relevance to today. This morning I read this from another big encyclopedic American novel.

... Don't forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death's a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try 'n' grab a piece of that Pie while they're still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. ... [note the interesting capitalization]

--Gravity's Rainbow
(p.122 in the 1973 Bantam mass market paperback)

Thomas Pynchon didn't know about Dick Cheney & Halliburton in 1973, but he certainly catches the current tone of war as business, and war as business that can only be understood by the ex-CEOs of Halliburton & sons of privilege. The rest of us are mere pawns in their games. But I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that the preceding passage represents the dominant tone of the novel. It's as lyrical as any novel written in some passages, dense in others, and stylistically (though never intellectually or morally) silly in places like this when it lapses into song or verse:

There once was a thing called a V-2,
To pilot which you did not need to---
You just pushed a button,
And it would leave nuttin'
But stiffs and big holes and debris, too.

--Gravity's Rainbow
(p.355 in the 1973 Bantam mass market paperback)

Which is the perfect description of George the First's bloodless Gulf War I with its made-for-CNN Smart Bombs® and Patriot Missiles®.

--True Blue Liberal