Playboy Japan interview

[pynchonoid]

I think jbor's getting things mixed up again, and
maybe not on purpose, it is a bit confusing.  

Read the message linked below, it seems to say that
Prof.Krafft *may* have said something to the effect
that somebody else, not himself, might have contacted
Melanie Jackson - talk about "nested clauses", it's a
bit difficult to establish who is saying exactly what.


Hardly the categorical "Prof. Krafft told me she
flatly denied it" 

What are you trying to claim, jbor?  Very confusing. 
Maybe you should just stop trying to put words in
absent speakers' mouths to prove your case, and show
us where Pynchon or Melanie Jackson or anybody else
has definitively denied the Playboy Japan article is
authentic. Not what you think Somebody may have told
Somebody Else but you're not very sure because this
all happened five years ago anyway....

It's not as if this were ever a transparent episode,
either - we've been through it online before, and
nobody could remember exactly who called Melanie
Jackson's office and exactly what transpired the last
time we went through this. That's why it's a bit
surprising now for jbor to claim this level of clarity
and certainty for what remains a clouded affair.


Again, absent an authoritative statement from Pynchon,
or at least from somebody credible who actually talked
to Pynchon or his agent, I see no reason to question
the authenticity of the article as published in
Playboy Japan.  

Just to clarify one thing from an earlier email, the
PJ article was not written by Pynchon, is is presented
as an article based on an interview with Pynchon,
appearing over a reporter's byline. For context, it
was one of several interviews the magazine conducted
with American artists in the wake of September 11,
2001. A Japanese journalist friend of mine sent a copy
of the magazine and a rough translation, which I
provided to Prof. Krafft and Pynchon-l at the time.
And this many years later, jbor is still trying to
prove it a hoax - understandably, since it shoots such
a big hole through the mythic and monolithic image of
Pynchon-as-above-the-publicity-fray that jbor flogs so
relentlessly.  

That's what I don't get -- why not just let Pynchon be
Pynchon?  If he wants to let himself be interviewed by
 a Japanese freelance reporter for a popular Japanese
magazine, why is that categorically impossible, as
jbor as suggested? Why the enormous effort first to
deny the existence of the interview (yep, that was
jbor's first position, which he had to relinquish when
it proved that the magazine and interview had in fact
been published and weren't a figment of my
imagtination), and since then to deny its
authenticity, even to the point, now, apparently, of
wrapping himself in the mantle of the authority of the
editor of Pynchon Notes - appropriately, or not,
remains to be seen - to support this bizarre
contention. 

Pynchon let himself be interviewed by another
journalist in recent years, with quite public results.
He's responded to questions, he even telephoned CNN to
make a statement one time. He's not an author who
*never* talks to the press, although he is one who
doesn't do it very often, and far less than many
authors.  But I guess "never talks to reporters" is
too powerful a sound byte to let go, certainly the
journalists can't let go, but it's surprising to see a
Pynchon reader as sophisticated as jbor holding on to
that simplistic view of Pynchon. 

--- Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:

> This like that denial from Penguin regarding that
> blurb?
> 
> --- jbor at bigpond.com wrote:
> 
>
http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0411&msg=95142
> 

http://pynchonoid.org
"everything connects"

http://OnlineJournalist.org

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