The Ampersand of Controversy: Reveal'd!

[Sherwood, Harrison]

When Last We Left Our Friends:

The New York Observer article that was the subject of discussion a
couple of days ago (type on the cover scanned out of an old book, Cranky
Old Pynchon sending poor cover designer all over Hell's Half-Acre
searching for the right ampersand, TRP finally locating the _ampersand
juste_ in a dusty old octavo, etc., etc.) turns out to have been
slightly ETAION SHRDLU.

Suspecting this, and possessed by a burning desire to nail down the
facts, I picked up the phone and called Henry Holt and spoke with Raquel
Jaramillo, the designer of the M&D cover. I was expecting a degree of
reticence, perhaps mandated by her employers, but she was very
personable and seemed flattered and more than happy to talk about the
design and the methods she used. Shop-talk ensued.

The Observer article was accurate about the way she scanned from a
200-year-old book the letters that make up the words "Mason" and
"Dixon." The odd green-and-brown glow that appears around the letters
are shadows from the small indentations in the paper caused by the
impression of the original letterpress, emphasized "slightly, but not
very much" with Photoshop Levels tweaking. They became visible only
after the relatively small letters were blown up to many times their
original size. The parchment-like background is in fact the actual paper
from which the scans were taken, also blown up. 

Where the Observer seems to have wandered a bit from its usual ruthless
fact-checking standards is in the Tale of the Ampersand. Pynchon _is_
fussy about his ampersands, he _did_ reject a lot of commercial amps,
but in the end Raquel _drew_ one in Photoshop that satisfied
TRP--according to her, the bit about the "tawny old manuscript" is a
load of cobblers. The amp she drew was artificially aged in Photoshop,
and she rubber-stamped the green-and-brown "aura" around it from the
other letters. (If you look carefully at it you can tell--it doesn't
look quite as organic as the rest.)

The type on the acetate and on the inside flaps is Pabst, one of those
unholy antiqued computer faces that seem to distress Mr. Siegel so much.

Composition was done in Quark. 

And no, I didn't have the stones to ask Raquel if she'd transfer me to
Betty Lew.

Harrison