TPPM "Togetherness"

Dave Monroe monropolitan at yahoo.com
Sun Aug 22 17:28:02 CDT 2004


Pynchon, Thomas H. [sic].  "Togetherness."
   Aerospace Safety 16:12 (December 1960): 6-8.

http://www.vheissu.org/bio/eng_togetherness.htm

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/together.html

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_together.html


Main Entry: to·geth·er 
Pronunciation: t&-'ge-[th]&r
Function: adverb
Etymology: Middle English togedere, from Old English
togædere, from tO to + gædere together; akin to Middle
High German gater together, Old English gaderian to
gather
1 a : in or into one place, mass, collection, or group
<the men get together every Thursday for poker> b : in
a body : as a group <students and faculty together
presented the petition>
2 a : in or into contact (as connection, collision, or
union) <mix these ingredients together> b : in or into
association or relationship <colors that go well
together>
3 a : at one time : SIMULTANEOUSLY <events that
happened together> b : in succession <was depressed
for days together>
4 a : by combined action : JOINTLY <together we forced
the door> b : in or into agreement or harmony <the
soloist and the orchestra weren't quite together> c :
in or into a unified or coherent structure or an
integrated whole <can't even put a simple sentence
together>
5 a : with each other -- used as an intensive after
certain verbs <join together> <add together> b : as a
unit : in the aggregate <these arguments taken
together make a convincing case> c : considered as a
whole : counted or summed up <all together, there were
21 entries>
- to·geth·er·ness noun ...

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=togetherness


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/20001218024500/pynchonfiles.com/Boeing,Boeing.htm


Thomas Pynchon's Unseen Writings for Boeing May Get
Published

Thomas Pynchon--author of Gravity's Rainbow, The
Crying of Lot 49, Mason & Dixon, and other works--is
universally considered one of the greatest post-war
novelists. Given that his output is not prodigious,
his legions of fans have meticulously tracked down
every word he's ever written, displaying the same zeal
as Elizabethan scholars hunting for anything that came
from Shakespeare's pen. They have located his
introductions and cover blurbs for other authors,
essays, album liner notes, a letter to the editor, an
uncollected short story, and other bits and pieces.

But one portion of Pynchon's work has almost
completely eluded capture. From February 1960 to
September 1962, Pynch was employed by Boeing, where he
wrote technical articles that were only circulated
within the company (and perhaps to some of Boeing's
clients, which, in this case, would be the US and
Canadian militaries). Both of his positions were in
nuclear missile programs--first with the Bomarc
Service Information Unit and later with the Minuteman
Field Support Unit. The only one of these articles
that has ever surfaced is "Togetherness," because it
was reprinted in the Air Force magazine Aerospace
Safety.

The rest of the articles remain in Boeing's archives
and are the intellectual property of that corporation.
Hoping to find out more, I emailed Boeing's historian,
Michael J. Lombardi. This was his reply on 25 February
2003:

"Here is all we know on Pynchon.

Thomas Pynchon did write articles for a monthly Boeing
field service publication that ran during the 50s and
60s. Unfortunately there is no documentation or
by-lines, so it is very difficult to determine which
articles were written by Pynchon. 

Recently we allowed a literary researcher to aquire
copies of the publications in an effort to determine
which articles are Pynchon's. The researcher was going
to write a book - so you might want to keep watch for
it."

I wrote back to Lombardi, asking him for the name of
the researcher, but he replied that he no longer has
that information.

We can only hope that this literary sleuth can
identify Pynch's articles and drag this unseen work by
a literary master out of the memory hole
 
http://www.thememoryhole.org/lit/pynchon-boeing.htm


Wisnicki, Adam.  "A Trove of New Works by Thomas
   Pynchon?  Bomarc Service News Rediscovered."
   Pynchon Notes 46-49 (2000-2001): 9-34.

http://www2.ham.muohio.edu/~krafftjm/contents.html


And can anyone shed a little light on this (below) for
us here?  Kai?  Kurt-Werner?  Otto?  Thanks ...

http://www.schreibheft.de/docs/inhalt_61.html


		
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