Black Is The New Blood

Thomas Pynchon’s Against The Day seems to be growing. Originally listed on Amazon at 996 pages, it is now listed at 1,040.

Been dealing with death…..hard as hell.  As pithy as that sounds, I don’t mean to make kight. In the last week I’ve cried, bawled like a fucking baby, had tears running down my face for hours at a time.

I’m all cried out.

Today, at work, a co-worker put her arm around me, and asked if I was ok.

Yeah, I think so. [When the end of time comes, I will love you for that]

Please forgive me for avoiding your emails. I’ll talk to you soon…

There was a funeral…the first time I stepped in a church in 20 years. And I spoke for about 20 minutes in front of a few hundred people. It was very emotional and I think it’s going to take me a long time to get over this.

I’ve publicly stated, many times, that I wouldn’t make it to 40. I still have about six months for that. Tonight, I wrote a Eulogy for someone who died way too young.

In another week, I will have outlived you. And I can’t even begin to tell you just how  that breaks my heart.

I search for words, but have none.

Tonight, I cry.

My primary email is down, and Charter is no help at this time of night. If you’ve sent me anything in the last 24 hours, I didn’t get it. So send to the address at this page, which is working fine.

Best American Band right now? Debate in comments.

So where would you expect to see video of Thomas Pynchon these days? Youtube, of course. I’ve tried for hours to get Youtube embeded into Wordpress properly, but to no avail, so you’ll hust have to follow the links.

Here’s Pynchon, nearly ambushed by CNN, from around the time of the release of Mason & Dixon

Also, The Modern Word posts a purported excerpt from Pynchon’s forthcoming Against The Day.

So, Penguin is going to release a Deluxe Edition of Gravity’s Rainbow before Against The Day comes out. Well, this has been on the net for a while. Now, it is coming to print.

“Crudely Drawn” by The Drams.

This new release flew completely past my radar.

It’s a logical extension to future Poet-Laureate Brent Best’s songwriting. Tone down Slobberbone’s country influences, crank the guitars way the fuck up, add soaring vocals, and some cool-as-shit piano. Go see them live, and be sure to tip your bartenders.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the failure of traditional media outlets…Mainly their failure to get it right. I watch a lot of MSNBC, and, to their credit, they understand blogs. They understand that bloggers are often better sources of information than the traditional media outlets. For a good example, see Blogabouttown’s timeline of how the Thomas Pynchon story broke. It took a week for a few media outlets to catch up. Several weeks for others.

So, now it seems they are poised to hijack content, and drive it to their advertiser supported sites (no advertisements here, by the way). Ed Champion reports on this very subject.

The return of the Throwing Muses.

No, were not talking “Easter, 1916″ here.

My life has changed. Changed by one item that I used to consider a ridiculous fashion accessory, just like I used to do with cell-phones.

Yes, I bought an Ipod.

I am the proud owner of a beautiful 60 Gig video Ipod.

I haven’t been a regular poster for some time, becuase I’ve been spending my nights ripping my CDs to fill this baby. Sad to say, the thing is about 3/4’s full and I am about 1/4 through my CD collection.

Generally, I’m not a big fan of the shuffle mode. But when you have over ten thousand songs to choose from, an unexpected surprise is one song away. I have rediscovered my music collection.  I’m listening to things again that I haven’t heard in years, hearing them with a new ear, and falling in love all over again.

Could I have been part of a hoax?

Well, no. Just good reportage.

Amazon lists a May 2007 release date for another non-Fiction work by Vollmann, Poor People.

It’s been a crazy week and a half, but I’m back and posting again on a regular basis.

Let’s just say that, for a little while, life became too real for my tastes.

So…what’s new….I finally finished David Mitchell’s “Number 9 Dream.” Not his best, and certainly not close to approaching the heights of “Cloud Atlas.” But still quite good.

I started “Europe Central” and I am enthralled already, even though I am only 20 pages in. Certainly there will be more on this later.

I have been looking for a copy of Branagh’s “Henry V”, which is out of print to come in at work for the nearly two years I have worked there. Until today, I’ve never seen it. Two copies came in in two consecutive DVD buys today. Weird.

Over the past month, I’ve bonded with a new co-worker. She’s a friend of a former co-worker, so I guess it is no surprise, but really, it is. We have so much in common, except perhaps, musical tastes. Yet, when I drove the other day she asked me what I was playing and I said, “Wilco…Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.” She said she liked it, and I respected her even more.

Danielson is playing in town on Saturday, and I can’t go. Their new album is really, really good. Too bad I can’t see them….but Blowfly is coming soon…that could be fun.

I promise, I’ll be more foucused soon.

I don’t think I’ve posted anything in a week. Sorry…I’ve been very busy ripping CDs for my imminent Ipod purchase. I’ve been at it for days, and I’ve only hit about 10 percent of my collection.

It has been removed from a lot of sites so far, so it may be gone by the time you read this.

View the trailer.

The Times reviews Murakami’s forthcoming Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman.

Thanks to Matt for this tip. Thomas Pynchon will return in December with a new book to be published by Penguin. Set in turn of the century (1897) Chicago it is said to be huge and very readable.

I can’t find any official info on this yet, but it looks like people are starting to talk this up in the blogosphere.

Update:

Ed has done some legwork on this and has confirmed that there willl be a new Pynchon book in December.