Boeing manuals

[Otto]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Monroe" <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com>
To: "jordan halsey" <jhalsey at sbcglobal.net>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Thursday, May 01, 2003 11:50 AM
Subject: Re: Boeing manuals


> Sorry, none from me, but I'm assuming you've seen ...
> 
> http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_together.html
> 

There's a dead link on that site which should lead to Richard Lane's Pynchon Files (which are gone), but here's the url to find that site saved at the Wayback Machine:

Boeing, Boeing:
   On February 22 1960, Thomas Pynchon began work for the Boeing Airplane Corporation in Seattle, Washington. During his final year at Cornell, Pynchon had published "The Small Rain" in 'The Cornell Writer', (not too hard a sell since he was on the editorial board), and "Mortality and Mercy in Vienna" to the Spring issue of Epoch, also published by the University, and edited by one of his English teachers Baxter Hathaway. Finishing Cornell, 2nd or 3rd in his class, he stayed in Ithaca for the Summer, before moving to New York and staying with friends in Greenwich Village and Riverside Drive, rather than home with his parents close at hand in Oyster Bay, Long Island. 
During this time, short stories were submitted. One went to James Silberman at the Dial magazine, who did not publish Pynchon, but referred him to an agent, Candida Donadio. She represented Nelson Algren who's work was featured in the first issue of The Dial in Fall '59. With Donadio's support and name recognition, she was also agent for the still hot Joseph Heller, "Lowlands" was sent to New World Writing. Corlies Smith (who would later edit "V." and would feature in Pynchon's career until at least the eighties), and his fellow magazine editors chose to publish the story in it's 16th issue, in 1960. Smith has said, he believed it is the first story for which Pynchon was paid. On reading other stories, the publishers were offered, an as yet un-finished, un-titled novel, plot unseen for $500 advance and $1,000 on completion. The advance was to facilitate the move from New York to Seattle. 
  
   Pynchon at some point in 1960 moved into a rear  apartment at 4709 Ninth Ave., N.E. in the University district of Seattle. This meant a commute of about ten mile to Boeing Aerospace Operations at E. Marginal Way. Boeing have denied that Pynchon was ever an employee, since they can find no records. However, the Boeing internal directories, shown here for the first time, show the exact nature of Pynchon's work. 

For the year 1960, Pynchon didn't feature in any directory, being both new and probably missing the publication of the guide. The first recorded post he held was with the Bomarc Service Information Unit, which included the Bomarc Service News magazine. As described to Files, technical writing at Boeing for the Bomarc project was 'by the book'. Work was assigned, the subject studied, for example a loading-pin mechanism, then a visit was made to the on site manufacturing and application of the pin, a chat with the design engineers, then the writing up of the paper, using a Boeing style-book as reference, before editorial approval.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010611100406/http://www.pynchonfiles.com/Boeing,Boeing.htm

Otto

> --- jordan halsey <jhalsey at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> >
> > Somebody informed me that someone was to publish
> > the technical manuals Pynchon wrote for Boeing but
> > I have been unable to locate any data. Any Info?
> 
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