An angle on the DC Meet

[WillL at fieldschool.com]

Date	2/3/97
Subject	An angle on the DC Meet
>From	WillL
To	Chris Abraham, Charlie Barone, A Scott Chesnick, Scott Chesnick, Susan Danewitz, Jade Eaton, Mark Harrison, Chris Karatnytsky, Pynchon List, Henry M, Paul Mackin, Dave Marc, Kathryn Medland, Robb Monn, Rick Ochoa, David Pelovitz, Richard Romeo, Rob Roy, Ted Samsel, Tom Stanton

An angle on the DC Meet

Thanks to all who showed up at the Brickskellar for the first meeting of
pynchon-l DC.

As others have said, it was great fun to talk about Pynchon and his books with a
crowd that was so eager and smart, so lively and so open.  Rarely have I spent
four hours that passed so quickly.

It was fascinating that there were a couple of folks at the meeting her were not
list members (or fanatics).  As I was one of those who brought along a
semi-Pynchoniac, I will be the first to confess that I made him tag along in the
fear that the whole thing might be a disaster; it wasn't.  However, the presence
of the others also added something to the meeting that has become, for me,
integral to my interest in Pynchon:  my self-consciousness that this interest is
viewed by most of my friends and acquaintances as totally flipped out.  In fact,
we talked about this some at the meeting, and I kept looking up at the "others"
and wondering what they were thinking as we went on and on about our best
obsession.

There was also some discussion at the meeting about what makes Pynchon's writing
(most GR) so "hard" to tackle, which led to the common conclusion that there is
a threshold about 150-200 pages into GR where many readers break through the
difficulty and start having fun -- which then actually gives you entrance to the
deeper portions of the book.  Well, that was EXACTLY what the meeting was like. 
For as much as the first hour we were all still vaguely wary, not in a bad way,
but you could tell that we hadn't opened up or really gotten started.  When we
finally "lowered" the conversation to talk about Pynchon himself -- the whole
mystery man thing -- it was easier to talk, and then the next thing you knew,
BAM, people were discussing characters and concerns, narrative voice, the bomb,
Bianca, Roger, Pavlov, entropy, calculus, the works.  Now, you can attribute
this floodgate effect to the beer if you like, but . . . .

For me, the effect of meeting these abstract e-mail names in the flesh was not
nearly the double-whammy I imagined.  If anything, I felt that the actual people
were more greatly accentuated versions of their e-mail selves:  Paul Mackin even
more gracious and thoughtful, Henry M sharper and zestier, Tom Stanton the
essence of enthusiasm, davemarc more reasonable and pleasant even than his
always civil posts, etc.  If I heard the opinions of others correctly, I was,
well, louder than my typing makes me seem.

On my way over to the meeting, I had to leave some of my high school students
with whom I was working on a musical project.  As it turns out, Paul Mackin
lives very near to one of my "kids," and one of his best friends knew where I
was going.  She said, "You know, you are about to break, like, the only rule of
the internet -- don't get together with the lunatics you meet in cyberspace."

While it is quite possible that we are all some version of lunatics, I'm glad I
went anyway.

As to the suggestion (Tom) that we meet again -- why not?  I'll be bold:  how
about Tuesday, March 4th, Millie and Al's in Adams-Morgan, 6PM for greasy pizza
and pitchers?

-- Will Layman