1968 Writers and Editors War Tax Protest

[MalignD at aol.com]

<< I realise he doesn't do it for self-promotion  ...>>

So one assumes; more likely he's just nuts.

It is wholly unnecessary--certainly in New York--and only perpetuates and 
magnifies things.  There are people who are way bigger celebrities to the general 
public than Pynchon would or will ever be and they move about in public 
without hassle.  Susan Sontag who, when she was alive, had her own cult, was always 
in public.  You couldn't go to theater without seeing her from time to time.  

<<My personal feeling about meeting (in person, as they say) famous and/or 
illustriious  persons is one of considerable disconfort.  This is  partly 
because I  never have any idea what to say that won't sound on the one hand noismely 
deferential  or on the other hand lacking in  proper respect for  the person's
accomplishments (when that is really what the encounter if about).>>

I also once had dinner with le Sontag (my former wife worked with someone 
famous who knew her).  She was very relaxed, warm, approachable, nothing like her 
tortured prose and self-serious persona had led me to expect.  There was no 
need to figure out how to act or what to say.