A 'Picture Book' of GR.

[Dave Monroe]

On 11/23/07, Page <page at quesnelbc.com> wrote:

> I am relevantly new here, and I am sorry if this is old business. I ran
> across a book, "Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas
> Pynchon's Novel 'Gravity's Rainbow.'" It is by Zak Smith, and was published
> in January of 2007 by Tin House Books. I found it on the Chapters.indigo.ca
> site, but it must be on amazon.com, as well. Any info about the book would
> be appreciated.

Old business is only old to those who were here when first it came up.
 So, of course, no problem.  List members Doug Millison, Charles
Hollander (a.k.a. The Dude) and I convened in NYC a couple/three years
back when the original illustrations were included in the 2004 Whitney
Biennial (His Duditude and I even weaseled into the press preview in
the guise of intrepid reporters covering the event for Pynchon Notes,
thanks again, Prof. Krafft).  I was the guy there first thing every
morning for a few days straight thereafter going through it page by
page with a copy of the then-current V-2 blueprint cover Penguin GR
pbk, if anyone noticed ...

I was pleasantly surprised to see the piece again earlier this year in
a recent acquisitions show @ The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis
whilst visiting the Twin Cities for the first time on a record digging
junket with DJ friends (I'm in Milwaukee).  Museums generally display
works on paper sparingly, for fear of fading and/or discoloration, so
my timing was serendipitous.  Bu it seems to have held up well, and
I'd recommend that, if anyone here has the opportunity, do see it in
person, it's almost as overwhelming as the book itself.

I've corresponded (briefly, occasionally) with Smith himself, nice
guy, check out his other work as well (and if you Youtube "Benny
Profane" and/or "Zak Sabbath," you can catch relatively worksafe
snippets of his porn career ...).  He even kindly signed a copy of the
book for me when a Brooklyn-based friend attended an in-store
appearance on my behalf (Doug, Dude, you met Marie).

Anyway, Dr. Daw and O Mighty Quail's Modern Word "Spermatikos Logos"
Pynchon site (though do check out TMW's other authors as well, it's a
helluva collection) has a particular good selection of online info, up
to and including scans of the work itself in its entirety.  Q.v. ...

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/zak_smith/title.htm

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://www.zaxart.com/

http://www.zaksabbath.com/

http://www.myspace.com/zakzsmith

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zak_Smith

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2280859/

http://esposito.typepad.com/TQC_5/Zak_Smith.html

http://pynchonoid.blogspot.com/2004_06_20_archive.html

http://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/artists/smith/index.html

http://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/artists/smith/press/index.html

http://www.fredericksfreisergallery.com/artists/smith/press/press_03.html

http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/honigman/honigman6-7-04.asp