Pynchon anecdote

[The Great Quail]

So I have this new job, and I went out to lunch with one of my 
co-workers today. We were joking about various "New York celebrities" 
we've met, and which ones were rude and which ones were cool. So then 
she tells me that she once dated a person who invited her along to a 
funeral. Before going, her date informed her that she should be 
prepared, because "I have a famous uncle, and he'll be there."

Yup. You guessed it. The uncle in question was Thomas Pynchon. So my 
co-worker met him, and even had lunch with him. Afterwards, she was 
subjected to numerous family stories about the reclusive (and 
apparently often irritable!) relative, and even shown numerous 
childhood photos.

Of course, though quite literate in other respects, my co-worker had 
never read any Pynchon!

Sigh. Some people go to all the best funerals....

--Quail
-- 
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The Great Quail, Keeper of the Libyrinth:
http://www.TheModernWord.com

"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each
event -- in the living act, the undoubted deed -- there, some unknown
but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from
behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!
How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?"
      --Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"