inherent vice metaphor, maybe

[John Bailey]

Speaking of art, I was recently thinking about the Japanese aesthetic
concept of wabi-sabi which is another great way of thinking about
inherent vice (and I'm SURE Pynchon would have come across it).

Hard to describe simply but it's to do with beauty's connection to
inherent imperfections in the object, and also its transience
(existence in time rather than outside of it).

Pynchon certainly has a poet's eye when it comes to the impermanence
of all good things, I reckon. I think Japanese readers would really,
really get his work too. Have there been any translations?

On Sat, Oct 3, 2009 at 12:07 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> I just came from an art gallery crawl visiting one new
> French artist's exhibits--because he wrote of 'projecting a world"
> which meant ALSO showing his work through a projector.....
>
> But the neatest was a work that needed a helper to "perform", which
> one could watch straight or with the 'action' blown up a bit
> through said projector onto a screen..
>
> The work was some kind of wet, black harder-than-sand-like substance (with silver specks)......helper did not knwo what the substance was......
> which, when shaped into a sphere, 'fell' apart, fell as if in slow motion----but faster than mud or dough.......................
>
> Yes, I know it's just me, but it looked like a perfect symbol of some major
> meanings of inherent vice....when perfectly shaped yet inevitably to come apart slowly....
>
>
>
>