So...when do we tear the shrinkwrap off the IV group read?

[kelber at mindspring.com]

Wow, such exuberance and excessive volunteering.  All by-products of the latest trendy high:  actually getting hold of a copy of IV.  I'm still languishing, copy-less, in one of the major metropoli of the world, and I'm about to embark on a ten-day, hellish family car trip which may or (more likely) may not take me near any reasonable bookstores.  In short, I'm jealous.  Maybe we could start a group read in mid-September when, presumably, even I and Ya Sam will have finished the book?

Laura

-----Original Message-----
>From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
>Sent: Aug 2, 2009 11:48 AM
>To: David Kipen <kipend at arts.gov>
>Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: So...when do we tear the shrinkwrap off the IV group read?
>
>Thanks (a bunch!) to an anonymous benefactor (I've apparently had a
>copy for days now, I just didn't know it, it was handed to me last
>night having been left @ a frequent haunt I've haunted somewhat less
>frequently of late, having been putting in extra graveyard shifts
>since being released from hospitalization), I have not yet begun to
>finish annotating the title, dustjacket, epigraph, 1st chapter, et al.
>...
>
>So ...
>
>I propose that, once we come to some sort of consensus (the only kind
>we ever really come to ...) on a start date, we take a chapter @ a
>time, a week per chapter, with maybe a fortnight or so for the opening
>salvo (meaning, I'll be happy to kick it off as well as coordinate,
>but, as always, will defer to anyone even more eager to do so, but may
>take a running head start, given the attention one can generally pay
>alone to everything BEFORE the 1st page, and certainly can here), as
>well as, of course, the usual open-ended (i.e., for bloody ever)
>wrap-up.  Given breaks/extended periods for, say, yr intervening
>year-end/year-beginning holidays et al., that'll give us something to
>concentrate on here for at least a half a year or so.
>
>So let me know.  That sound reasonable?  I'll pick up any unclaimed
>ch.'s along the way, if need be (AND I'll make an extra special effort
>not to let my life, such as it is, interfere as much as it's tended to
>in the past), though will of course appreciate any efforts to
>alleviate such eventualities (if not quite inevitabilities).  For my
>part, I'm thinking, somewhere ca. the opening of October, if not
>earlier, but the'd give us all a chance to get through (I simply
>stayed up all night, so ...) and think upon the novel (a mere 369
>pages!), not to mention kick our or our offsprings' school years et
>al.  Again, let me know.  Thanks!  A bunch!