About BE's cover art

[Mark Thibodeau]

Up until this morning, I thought that the hardcover artwork for
Pynchon's latest novel was kind of underwhelming, especially when
compared to the beautiful work that went into the hardcover editions
of Mason & Dixon, Against the Day and (to a somewhat lesser extent)
Inherent Vice.

Mason & Dixon had that beautiful transparent overlay/interplay thing
going on, as did Against the Day, with its replicating of the visual
peculiarities of Icelandic Spar. Inherent Vice had a beautiful (imo)
Darshan Zenith painting that reminded me of later day Frank Zappa
releases (Make a Jazz Noise Here, Them or Us). So, in comparison to
these, the cover for Bleeding Edge kind of left me cold.

Until this morning.

Yesterday was warm, so last night I opened my window and the drapes to
let a maximum amount of cool air in overnight. This morning, I woke up
to a particularly intense sunbeam streaming into my room and directly
onto the spine of my copy of Bleeding Edge, causing it to virtually
explode in a super-intense rainbow of dazzling colors. The effect was
so intense, it took my breath away. I have never before seen such a
stunningly executed example of camouflaged color in commercial
artwork.

Quite a nice way for this Pynchon fanatic to wake up this morning, let
me tell you! Hats off to Evan Gaffney for his stellar work on
Pynchon's behalf.

Cheers!
yer old pal Jerky
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l