Every word in Thomas Pynchon’s deranged dance macabre, ‘Gravity’s Rainbow,’ seems, like HTML, to link out to some other subject. The book seems for me to exist in-between worlds, barely attached to this one while trying desperately to connect us with another fuzzily glimpsed, just-hinted, vague world, suggested by pure chance connections between ideas and events here on a fractured and demented earth. I’m barely one hundred and sixty-five pages into this book and I’m reacting for it and against it in nearly equal measure. It’s a goddamn blast. It’s also a motherfucking bitch. Every page of it so far mentions some kind of rocket trajectory, launch pad, descent, explosion or blast of light. Everyone in the book seems to be living out one debauchery or another while all the time expecting to be blown away in bits, perhaps even looking forward to it. Death, for Pynchon, seems on the surface like fun. The book almost makes a mockery of dark humor, of dying. It’s as if Pynchon wants to give the finger straight into the yawning mouth of death’s favorite century.

Things I notice so far about the book: Rockets of course. Everywhere and in every mind of the characters. It’s all about predicting bomb hits and finding the rockets. People want to understand how one of the characters can possibly manage to have sex in various locations just prior to those spots being bombed into oblivion by German V-2 rockets. The books seethes with sexual excitement that’s a death-wish. I also notice that Pynchon is associating Hansel & Gretel, the forest and the witch’s oven with Germany and the events of World War II. The Holocaust is looming over this book on every page. There are constant mentions of cause and effect, how it operates and whether it might be possible to break out of its logic. Can a rocket attack be sensed before it even hits? Psychological early warning system. Brain radar. Statistical analysis for making predictions.

Imagine a missile one hears approaching only after it explodes. The reversal! A piece of time neatly snipped out…a few feet of film run backwards…the blast of the rocket, fallen faster than sound–then growing out of it the roar of its own fall, catching up to what’s already death and burning…a ghost in the sky…

Quite a few references to film in this book so far up to page one hundred and sixty-five.

What could be more paranoid than a constant worry about bomb rockets? The book seems like a grotesque exaggeration at first. But that’s the joke I think. It’s actually an understatement and proves paranoia to be the most well-placed and logical mental operation in a century during which people were dug into trenches and told to march toward each other like polite firing squads. A century in which men marched millions of people into gas chambers and pushed them through ovens. A century in which entire cities were blown off the face of the planet while the citizens were out shopping for groceries. Pynchon seems like an author who is not afraid of any of it. He’s like a guy laughing at the scene of a traffic accident. Or photographing it like Warhol did. And the book’s laugh-in-a-sort-of-half-shocked-way funny. Here’s a bit from a funny scene where a guy visits a nurse he wants to sleep with but must endure a lengthy sit-down with an older woman patient who wants to share her candy:

Under its tamarind glaze, the Mills bomb turns out to be luscious pepsin-flavored nougat, chock-full of tangy candied cubeb berries, and a chewy camphor-gum center. It is unspeakably awful. Slothrop’s head begins to reel with camphor fumes, his eyes are running, his tongue’s a hopeless holocaust. Cubeb? He used to smoke that stuff. “Poisoned…” he is able to croak.

“Show a little backbone,” advises Mrs. Quoad.

“Yes,” Darlene through tongue-softened sheets of caramel, “don’t you know there’s a war on? Here now love, open your mouth?”

It’s funny, no? But it should also set off sparks off recognition in your head that link up with gas chambers. You just can’t trust Pynchon to be genuinely funny. He’s watching you laugh and getting ready to slit your careless throat. No wonder Pynchon uses a secret identity. He’s dangerous. He seems slightly criminal. This guy loves conspiracies. He must have some really excellent ideas about who killed Kennedy. I mean he’d probably say Oswald did it, but it’s why Oswald thought he was doing that makes it interesting.

I love it when authors hide their identities. Pynchon has been effectively doing this for about fifty years now. This reminds me, as all secret identities do, of Batman.

Here’s my ancient and torn copy of a Batman giant issue from 1969. Down in the lower margin there I wrote ‘fuck.’ I’m not sure why I would have done something so charming to a Batman comic. I must have been practicing my favorite words or something. What does an old comic book have to do with Pynchon? I don’t really know but it seems to fit. In fact, comic artist Frank Miller did the cover for the recent Penguin edition of Gravity’s Rainbow. That’s the copy of the book in the first photograph above. Behind the book in that photo is a computer screen showing a drawing by artist Zak Smith who did a thing he called ‘Illustrations for Each Page of Gravity’s Rainbow.’ It’s been shown at the Whitney Museum and you can buy it in book form.

It’s strange how much I’m enjoying this book because I hated ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce. I think Pynchon snagged some stuff from Joyce. He even resorts to script format for some portions of the book the way Joyce did. But I only like the first part of Ulysses which takes place on top of a tower and has a character shaving. I also enjoy the part about Bloom in the park watching the girl’s underpants. But that book suggests to me that Joyce was mentally ill. With Pynchon I get the feeling that the world and everyone in it is mentally ill.

There’s also a definite connection between Pynchon and William S. Burroughs. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the same person. But that’s impossible. They both like secret organizations of scientists or researchers though. They share this fascination with science gone crazy and used to control minds – populations. But Pynchon is a better writer – less concerned with gimmicks. His language is a constant beauty which is the great antidote to his hilariously murderous world view. His entertaining and wildly connecting sentences indicate to me that Thomas Pynchon is an optimist. But, as with Joyce, I find myself constantly shutting the book and wondering, ‘How did he do it?’ How for fuck’s name did this guy not only maintain a secret identity but accumulate so much esoteric knowledge in the late sixties so as to be able to jam-pack every single sentence in the bloody book with some reference or other to some event or other that no sane person would ever have heard of in a lifetime? What the hell is going on in this man’s mind that allowed him to achieve Google knowledge density in 1973?

For all the good it might do anyone, I’ll keep reading the book and make a few more posts about it. I tend to relate work like Pynchon’s to my own video work. It’s something to do with the density of thought and imagery. It’s always good to read solid evidence of someone being crazier than you are so that you can get down and work at your own stuff with a little less embarrassment.

Here’s a re-post of an art game I programmed. It just makes an animated image using math and provides you with a simple drawing program that offers markers, spray paints, and an eraser. The point is for you to draw something on top of my atomic galaxy artwork and make something totally original. There’s a button for you to upload your image to the Candlelight Stories server if you want. I have received hundreds of images from artists all over the world. Below are some of my favorites. Have fun drawing!

MATURE CONTENT – NUDITY:

The great American writer, Henry Miller, walks into his bathroom in 1973 and talks about all the fascinating pictures on the walls. Here’s a guy who can kill zombies with his words. I’ve always considered him to be an antidote to the lifeless people one must engage with on a daily basis. The people who get into cars and make their way to offices, then return to relax with a television and cook at the barbecue built into the island on the patio. You can reconnect with life by reading Miller’s books. You can once again feel that the world is actually a place where art and passion exist. Miller excites imagination. He makes you want to live harder and better. Listen to him talk in his bathroom! Anyone who can be this fantastic in his bathroom has got something marvelous going on.  The film was shot and directed by Tom Schiller.

Here’s an article from I09.com about how William S. Burroughs was, for a period, fascinated by Scientology.  He joined and even used many of the group’s principals in some of his work.  But he eventually turned against the group because he recognized that they were more interested in maintaining a corporate hierarchy of secrecy than in pursuing genuine ideas.  It’s natural for a writer of Burroughs’ genius to be curious and to find the best in a group like Scientology.  It is also natural for him to see through the horse shit and ditch the idiots in a Hollywood Boulevard gutter.

Here’s a good read about Burroughs and Scientology from Dangerous Minds.

Levi Asher, the writer behind the long-running Literary Kicks site, has decided to move into the world of Kindle ebook publishing.  He’s starting the series off with a philosophical essay on the Objectivism of Ayn Rand.  Why Ayn Rand is Wrong (and Why It Matters) expands upon several posts Asher has made recently in his ongoing Philosophy Weekend discussions.  The focus on philosophy and its requirements for logical thinking and argument is especially needed right now in a political and ideological world of harsh opinion and attack masquerading as argument.  I often do this kind of attack-dog arguing myself.  It’s fun and it clears the sinuses effectively.  But it does not really serve much purpose.  Rational philosophical debate does serve a purpose and tends to foster respect between opposing parties.

Ayn Rand, for me, is simply the author of a very readable but rather simplistic novel, The Fountainhead.  I tried to read Atlas Shrugged, but gave up after two hundred pages, finding it so belabored and filled with lunkheaded ideas that I simply couldn’t put up with another speech from one of its cutout characters.   However, Rand also has a body of philosophical writing that seems to have been very influential and is having some kind of a resurgence lately among mostly conservative-minded people.

I have always thought that Rand was basically reacting violently to the mass-mindedness she saw everywhere in the first half of the twentieth century.  That mass-mind quality led millions to death via the trenches of World War I or the concentrations camps and genocide of Hitler and Stalin.  In the face of such horror, I think I too would have found solace in elevating the individual above all else.

I have purchased my copy of the Kindle book but I have not read it yet.  When I do finish the book and if I feel competent to do so I will try to write a little review.  But since I know Levi Asher’s writing very well from his fascinating blog I can certainly recommend that you head over to Amazon and buy a copy of a book that is for thinking.

Get Why Ayn Rand is Wrong (and Why It Matters) on Amazon

My latest artwork is an image that is never quite the same twice. I worked hard on it. Framed it. Hung it in a gallery. Now you come along with your paints and markers and mess it all up. I’m curious to see what you decide to do. So when you deface my best work ever just hit the ‘upload art’ button to send your artwork to me. You can get a copy for yourself by clicking the ‘download’ button. You get 3 uploads, so try to make it count.

Have fun destroying one of my proudest creations!

B. Traven was the mysterious best-selling author of the novel, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, which was made into a classic film by director John Huston in the 1940s. But who was B. Traven? The mystery surrounding his identity remains fascinating to this day. There have been many theories about who he was, whether he was several people, whether he was an expatriate German or perhaps even the President of Mexico. People in the film world apparently thought they would have meetings with him, but were then informed that a representative would show up. But was the representative actually B. Traven?

When an artist hides his or her identity many theories develop. Modern figures who have cribbed from Traven’s playbook are the novelist Thomas Pynchon and the painter Banksy who really have no reasons for remaining anonymous beyond the artistic jolt that a secret identity personally gives them. It’s not the crooks that interest Batman after all – it’s the secret identity. A secret identity makes you better in every way because it turns you immediately into a work of art. All artists should be mysteries. At the very least, they should tell lots of lies.

I present this post and its excellent documentary as part of my preparations for an upcoming film. Getting the right mood.

Part 2

Parts 3 – 6 after the jump.

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

This is a 2007 documentary produced by Martín Florio on science fiction author Philip K. Dick.  The great author behind the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the basis for the ultimately disappointing Blade Runner film, is portrayed by his many former wives and friends as having been obsessed with images that he perceived as having a divine origin.  I detect a fair amount of condescension on display here from these former close relations, especially from fellow science fiction author K.W. Jeter.  I think the general sort of hand-waving dismissal of Dick’s ideas and visions is foolish and indicates to me that Philip K. Dick made the relatively common mistake of surrounding himself with dimwits.  Decide for yourself as you watch this interesting film.

Watch parts 2 – 9 after the jump.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Apparently, I write like somebody named David Foster Wallace. I know… it’s weird. Who would have thought? Who is David Foster Wallace? I think he’s kind of high literary serious-minded and wild sort of college professor type stuff. I should just do a Wikipedia on him, but I don’t really want to know who this person is that I supposedly write like. Below, you can see my official badge that proves the Wallace connection:

I got my writing-like-David-Foster-Wallace badge from I Write Like. It could not have been easier. I simply pasted several of my very opinionated and slightly acidic blog posts into the I Write Like form and then pressed the button. Each time, this David Foster Wallace guy popped up. One blog post that I dribbled out because I had nothing of interest to say on that day came up as Dan Brown. No surprise there because Dan Brown is so numbingly uninteresting that his brain should be transplanted into the body of Tom Hanks where it would dwell very contentedly for some time I would suppose.

I Write Like is really loads of fun. I could paste entries into it all day long and feel that I had spent my time well. That’s what I’m doing today. For the entire rest of the day I’m going to sit here dropping my blog posts into this machine to find out if maybe I really am David Foster Wallace.  I may even start to make stuff up just for this writing machine and eventually maybe I’ll see my own name pop up: I write like…

Science fiction author William Gibson (Neuromancer, Spook Country) is answering questions about writing, publishing and general work habits on his blog.

Via Boing Boing