Tin Ear or Tinasky? I Wanda

[Brian Stonehill Media Studies Pomona College]

Hi friends,

A couple of weeks ago my parents stayed at an inn in  Mendocino, California,
and the next day they did me a favor by stopping in Boonville to pick up the
latest issue of the _Anderson Valley Advertizer_.  The new issue was about to
come out, so rather than wait they asked two punked-out local kids for
directions and drove out to the Anderson residence where the new issue was
being bundled and stacked for distribution.  There they picked up two issues,
one (July 5th) with Pynchon's old high school photograph (those of you who
haven't seen it aren't missing much...) run below a one-paragraph excerpt from
the June '94 _Stereo Review_ titled "Thomas Pynchon is Listening.."   There's
also a letter from one A. Petrich in San Francisco telling a Robert McCabe in
Paris about the Pynchon web page and even how to subscribe to _Pynchon Notes_. 
This is the issue with the very appealing above-the-fold headline, "Boonville
Bourgeoisie Revolt."  This paper, foax, is really something!

The newer issue (July 12) has Charles Hollander's Challenge Part 2
misattributed, as we've heard from the misattributee himself, to our mentor
John Krafft.

Things took an unpleasantly interesting turn, however, when my
inoffensive-looking parents pulled to the side of the road to study the map for
how to proceed.  A local sheriff pulled up and told them to get going, and go
THIS way.  They wanted to go the other way.  The sheriff told them to go THIS
way.  "Officer," said my dad, "Are you ordering me to do this?"  My mother
saved me from having to make bail for the two of them by persuading my father
it didn't matter too much.  The cop led them on the highway for 30 miles before
turning back.

Surveillance of those seen consorting with the _AVA_?  I wouldn't know.  But
the same July 12th issue of the paper that they brought back also contained,
besides the bemused Pynchoniana, an article beginning, "THE HIGHLY IRREGULAR
behavior exhibited recently by the County's law enforcement officers has
baffled many -- until now."  What follows is a satiric application resume to
the Mendocino Sheriff's Dept, clearly implying racism and a taste for
oppression.

In short, a warning to unsuspecting, always insufficiently paranoid
Pynchonites: if you're gonna deal with the _AVA_ in person, be prepared to have
to deal with the hostile local heat.

Cheers,  Brian

PS  I would add Joseph McElroy's _Lookout Cartridge_  and the obscenely
prolific William T. Vollmann to our growing list of Pynchonesque fiction. 
Vollmann (b. 1959, summa at Cornell)'s the author of _The Rainbow Stories_
(1989), _You Bright and Risen Angels_ (1987), the short _Whores for Gloria_
(1991) and the projected _Seven Dreams_, all of them long, e.g. _The Rifles_
(1994).

For the movies I would add _The Formula_ (1980), with George C. Scott, Marlon
Brando, Marthe Keller, & John Gielgud, how's that for a cast?  It's about Their
efforts to withhold the synthetic fuel formula snagged from you know who after
the War.  Dir John G. Avildsen, and unfortunately not nearly as much fun, imho,
as _Buckaroo Banzai_.

--b