Thomas Pynchon

I'd love to read a good bio of Crowley...what a nut!

I recommend this one

a lot of books written about him have some agenda and/or axe to grind (which is totally understandable - dude left a trail of destruction that was pretty sizeable), this is one that was both well-written, well researched, and pretty even-handed in its approach

lol Andrew WK recommends!

“Aleister Crowley–what a man. I've read several Crowley biographies, and this one takes the prize for most enjoyable and intimate. Mr. Kaczynski has the personal understanding and experience necessary to paint an accurate portrait of Crowley, with all the exciting context in place. Mr. Kaczynski's passion for his subject makes for an informative and potentially life-changing read. Why wade on the shores of such a vast man, when you can dive in? I think Crowley himself would have welcomed such a loving penetration."
–Andrew W.K., musician

sorry for thread derail...

loving penetration, eh?

he was into that kind of thing

Hmm, Kaczynski? wonder if there's any relation to the guy who was framed for pynchon's bomb making.

Far Right: https://a2-images.myspacecdn.com/images03/31/ee964c367771422d897e6cb11b924aa5/600x600.jpg

sorry for thread derail...

not possible to derail a Pynchon thread tbf.

The Crying of Lot 77

this pynchon jr stalker stuff is a tad creepy, unless it can be shown beyond doubt that it's his very self in the trailer

it wasn't not his uncreepiness that irked his very self so much as the lack of his hypothetical uncreepiness not actively demonstrated to have been beyond the recognition of stalking a junior "self".
"Your shot, Crowley", he smirked.
Carom billiard cues have specialized refinements making them different from the typical pool cue with which many people are more familiar. Such cues tend to be shorter and lighter overall, with a shorter ferrule, a thicker butt and joint, a wooden joint pin (in high-end examples) and collarless wood-to-wood joint (for a one-piece cue "feel"), a fast, conical taper, and a smaller tip diameter as compared with pool cues. Typical cues are 140–140 cm (54–56 in) in length and 470–520 g (16.5–18.5 oz) in weight—lighter for straight rail, heavier for three-cushion—with a tip 11–12 mm (0.43–0.47 in) in diameter.[9] The specialization makes the cue significantly stiffer, which aids in handling the larger and heavier billiard balls as compared with pool cues. It also acts to reduce deflection (sometimes called "squirt"), which may be defined as displacement of the cue ball's path away from the parallel line formed by the cue stick's direction of travel. It is a factor that occurs every time english (side) is employed, and its effects are magnified by speed. In some carom games, deflection plays a large role because many shots require extremes of English, coupled with great speed; this is a combination typically minimized as much as possible, by contrast, in pool.[10]:79, 240–1 The wood used in carom cues can vary widely, and most quality carom cues are handmade

Ah, so we're zinging DFW now?

zing zong
tokin' on da bong
wearin' out ma flip flop
listen to the hip hop
sich vorstellen neue Lieder
rhymin' & stealin' w/ a bhagavad gita
me and my horsey & a paul mosquito

you're fucking atrocious at this

i find the hagiography around DFW creepier than any Pynchon stalking....

Wait, linking a picture publicly posted by a band on their MySpace page is creepy stalking...?

apparently

it's meant to be atrocious - it's pynchon

imago ✓

massaman gai ✓

http://themodernword.com/pynchon/The_Kenosha_Kid_text.pdf

reading all the books in order, up to Mason & Dixon...someone tell me not to be scared of it

Mason & Dixon is really fun! I think it's his most approachable bighuge book

i couldn't get through it and I've read gravity's rainbow twice.

there's a robot duck, what's not to love

i'm rereading it now & i think it's his best. it's definitely the funniest

Gonna second Mason & Dixon as being lot of fun. Though it may partly be the lowered expectation? Anyway, email from the publisher saying Bleeding Edge has been released and should be on the way.

m&d has, like, resolutions and shit. most of the balls that are up in the air are caught or left to actually drop in the viewer's sight. but it feels weird because structurally it's not really 'tighter' than g's r, even though the contract it has w/ the reader makes it feel like in some sense it ought to be.

the protagonists & frame narrative give it a greater sense of focus than GR, and it's less randomly allusive -- the jokey anachronisms aside everything is specific to its time & setting (eg the duino elegies i suppose are thematically relevant to GR, i haven't read them closely, but they've always seemed like a kinda undergrad-heavy thing to carry into a wwii story)

iago if you've made it through v. you will have no trouble whatsoever with m&d, it is way more fun

Thanks for the sage advice, everyone...yeah I loved V. and wanted to start GR all over again as soon as I finished it, so I guess it should be alright. Also, I use the online wikis for each book if there are a lot of references flying over my head and those are enormously helpful. Thanks again!

I recommend this one
― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, September 4, 2013 5:06 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
a lot of books written about him have some agenda and/or axe to grind (which is totally understandable - dude left a trail of destruction that was pretty sizeable), this is one that was both well-written, well researched, and pretty even-handed in its approach
― what's up ugly girls? (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, September 4, 2013 5:07 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Never thanked you, Shakey...so thank you very much for the rec!

http://www.mclemee.com/id38.html

I believe it was finally confirmed that he did not write those Tinasky letters. They used to be available as a book though and it was often filed with Pynchon books, at least in the Bay Area

yea, this is p interesting nonetheless esp w/ the murder-suicide tie-in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hawkins_(writer)

weirder and more depressing than we thought :-(

“You one of those right wing nut outfits?” inquired the diplomatic Metzger.
Fallopian twinkled. “They accuse us of being paranoids.”
“They?” inquired Metzger, twinkling also.
“Us?” asked Oedipa.

our beloved author's "big" novels as themed around conic sections:

http://webusers.imj-prg.fr/~michael.harris/Pynchon.pdf

V: V (duh)
GR: Parabola (duh)
M&D: Ellipse (the orbit of venus as it transits across our star)
AtD: Hyperbolic

convergence and divergence, characters in chaotic orbits and themes casting off to the infinite

that's great & serves especially to reconfirm Against The Day as arguably Pynchon's (second) greatest masterpiece

fonctions automorphiques

heh

Is the cone itself a conic section?

fonctions automorphiques

heh

― j., Thursday, April 9, 2015 11:49 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to the tune of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI9fS5WMRo0

http://i.imgur.com/k8dSF26.png

http://i.imgur.com/Muj7vDO.png

lollllllll

I'm reminded of the rumor, during the long silence between The Recognitions and JR, that Pynchon was a pseudonym for William Gaddis: http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/01/24/mistaken-identity/

Can this article be turned into a film somehow please?

Pynchon must be tired of telling customer support people he doesn't want to be recorded whenever he calls CS?

I got Vineland for Christmas. Maybe I'll finally read it this year.

Good piece on Vineland and the protests.

https://bostonreview.net/arts-society/peter-coviello-pynchon-and-coming-police-state