Lotion and Pynchon

[Phil Wise]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Corathers" <crawdad at one.net>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2001 4:34 PM
Subject: Re: Lotion and Pynchon


> Partly amused, partly appalled by how easy it is to get an argument going
in
> this climate, I will say only that my library and record collection
contain
> evidence to the contrary. And that, in the case of Farina's writing,
Pynchon
> agrees with me.
>
> Hoffman, btw, also overlooked Bob Dylan, whose "novel" Tarantula is
perhaps
> the most outstanding example of literary crap produced by an important
> musician.

Yeah, I couldn't read that one either.  One exception that occurs to me,
though, is Leonard Cohen.

phil

>
> Don
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "mike j" <michaelmailing at yahoo.com>
> To: "Pynchon List" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 10:49 PM
> Subject: Re: Lotion and Pynchon
>
>
> > oh please, farina couldn't write *or* play!
> >
> > ps - recall somewhere Sam Shepard saying he'd rather
> > have been in the Velvet Underground.
> >
> > -----
> >
> > Mr. Hoffman has apparently never heard of Richard
> > Farina.
> >
> > Don
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Richard Romeo" <richardromeo at hotmail.com>
> > To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 2:18 PM
> > Subject: Lotion and Pynchon
> >
> >
> > > fyi.  rich
> > >
> > > Copyright 2001 The Hartford Courant Company
> > > THE HARTFORD COURANT
> > >
> > >
> > > October 14, 2001 Sunday, STATEWIDE
> > >
> > > SECTION: ARTS; Pg. G8
> > >
> > > LENGTH: 988 words
> > >
> > > HEADLINE: GOOD ROCK STARS WRITE BAD BOOKS;
> > > SWITCH FROM COLLABORATION TO ISOLATION THEIR UNDOING
> > >
> > > BYLINE: WM. FERGUSON
> > >
> > > BODY:
> > > I had a dream that Rick Moody, the author of "The
> > Ice Storm," was in the
> > > band Jethro Tull. Now, this dream is ridiculous on
> > many levels. First of
> > > all, Moody would have been about 10 years old when
> > Jethro Tull released
> > > "Aqualung," the band's defining moment. Second, Rick
> > Moody is a cunning
> > and
> > > successful novelist. And, as everyone knows, no
> > musician ever wrote a good
> > > book.
> > >
> > > This may sound impossible, but I think it might be
> > true. I challenge
> > anyone
> > > to name a serious writer who first made a mark in
> > music. I came up with
> > Paul
> > > Bowles, who wrote "The Sheltering Sky" and still
> > considered himself a
> > failed
> > > composer. There's also John Barth, a founding father
> > of the postmodern
> > novel
> > > who supported himself by drumming in jazz bands. (I
> > spoke with Barth, and
> > he
> > > seemed to recall that Ralph Ellison might have
> > played trumpet and that
> > James
> > > Joyce once considered a career as an opera singer.)
> > But shouldn't there be
> > a
> > > whole pantheon of these guys? It isn't for lack of
> > effort. In 1993, Pete
> > > Townshend outraged the British publishing world when
> > he was granted a
> > > position as editor at Faber, which put out his book
> > of short stories,
> > > "Horse's Neck." Townshend has since returned to
> > writing rock operas. More
> > > recently, Graham Parker, Ray Davies, Mike Nesmith,
> > Greg Kihn, Steve Earle,
> > > and Nick Cave -- all respected rock figures-- have
> > published works of
> > > fiction. The reviews have been hostile: Earle's book
> > is "clumsy, mawkish,
> > > and preachy," Parker wallows in "self-pity and
> > curdled fancy," and,
> > compared
> > > with his work with the Kinks, Davies' book is simply
> > "superfluous."    Why
> > > do good rock stars write bad books? For one thing,
> > they're not exactly
> > > encouraged to write at all. John Lennon, the first
> > of all rock-star
> > authors,
> > > was allowed to publish only under the broadest
> > qualifications. Lennon's
> > > first
> > > book, "In His Own Write," came out just before the
> > Beatles released
> > "Rubber
> > > Soul." This witty homage to Lewis Carroll is
> > hamstrung not only by its
> > dust
> > > jacket -- "The writing Beatle!" it helpfully
> > suggests -- but also by the
> > > Library of Congress, which files the book under
> > "Nonsense Literature,
> > > English." The border between music and literature is
> > poorly guarded, but
> > > those who take this as invitation to sashay back and
> > forth do so at their
> > > peril. Literary tourism, it turns out, isn't cool.
> > >    For example: I played bass in a band called
> > Lotion for most of the
> > '90s.
> > > We
> > > did OK, had a song on the radio for a while, but I
> > still kept my day job
> > > working for magazines. And then, through weird
> > happenstance, the band met
> > > Thomas Pynchon, the reclusive author of "Gravity's
> > Rainbow." For reasons
> > > that still aren't clear to me, he agreed to write
> > liner notes for our
> > second
> > > record. We thought it was a really funny and
> > incongruous situation, and he
> > > evidently did, too. He was so generous about the
> > whole thing, visiting the
> > > studio while we were recording and flattering us by
> > occasionally taking
> > out
> > > a
> > > note pad to jot something down, that we were
> > ignorant of our
> > transgression.
> > > We
> > > flew too close to the sun, and nobody else in the
> > world thought it was
> > funny
> > > or charming or generous. The alternative press,
> > almost without exception,
> > > lavished its derision on the 200 benign words that
> > Pynchon wrote.
> > Mainstream
> > > magazines, sensing an avenue to the great man,
> > treated the band with the
> > > clinical distaste of a doctor examining a patient
> > with just the most
> > > interesting disease. How ever was it contracted?
> > >    But more than the will of the critics preserves
> > the separation of
> > > musicians
> > > and authors. "Writing," Barth points out, "is
> > essentially a solitary act."
> > > To this day, Barth still needs to cram wax in his
> > ears before he can write
> > > (a
> > > habit that survives from when his children were
> > small).
> > >    Writing demands an intense focus, and the rewards
> > come only at the end
> > of
> > > the process. Music, on the other hand, gratifies the
> > easily distracted.
> > Mike
> > > Doughty, who was the singer for the band Soul
> > Coughing and who now
> > performs
> > > on
> > > his own and writes a column for the New York Press,
> > figures musicians need
> > > to
> > > have a lot of time on their hands. "Songwriting is
> > the sort of thing you
> > can
> > > do eight hours a day," he says. "You kind of sit
> > around waiting for that
> > > third verse to finish itself. And it does."
> > >    This is not the case with writing. Nobody ever
> > whiled away an afternoon
> > > noodling on a typewriter and staring at clouds. Even
> > the most
> > insignificant
> > > piece of prose is excruciating. Trust me. And yet,
> > we love books, and we
> > > love
> > > music. Can't we make this marriage work? I think so.
> > For one thing, the
> > most
> > > recent generation of fiction writers grew up
> > listening to college rock,
> > > literate artists like Talking Heads, R.E.M., Elvis
> > Costello and the like.
> > I
> > > can detect this very sensibility, gently out of true
> > with the mainstream,
> > in
> > > a
> > > number of recent writers. The finicky, hilarious
> > over-explication of Dave
> > > Eggers had him pegged as a fan of They Might Be
> > Giants long before Eggers
> > > actually collaborated with the band. (TMBG composed
> > a "soundtrack" to the
> > > recent issue of McSweeney's, the literary journal
> > that Eggers edits.) And
> > > for
> > > the record, Eggers claims to listen to music every
> > moment when he's
> > working.
> > > Can it be long before members of bands like Belle &
> > Sebastian or Tortoise
> > > grow
> > > disenchanted with the rock life and sit down at the
> > computer to render the
> > > human condition?
> > >    As for Barth's legend as a musician, he estimates
> > that he possessed "a
> > > not-bad amateur flair" for drumming. And yet his
> > brief career in music --
> > he
> > > hoped to be an "orchestrator" -- had a lasting
> > impact on his writing,
> > > particularly in his reworkings of mythology. "I take
> > a received melody
> > > line," he says, "and arrange it to new purposes."
> > >    See there? The seed of postmodernism itself lies
> > in a kernel of jazz
> > > syncopation.
> > >
> > >    Wm. Ferguson played bass in Lotion. His writing
> > has appeared in The New
> > > York Times Magazine, Esquire and The New York
> > Observer.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > GRAPHIC: PHOTO: (b&w), CHRIS BUCK / SPINART RECORDS
> > > PHOTO: (b&w)
> > > ; BILL FERGUSON, second from left, played bass with
> > the rock band Lotion
> > > before turning to writing.
> > >
> > > LOAD-DATE: October 15, 2001
> > >
> > >
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