P's P's Please

[John Bailey]

Journalists don't do footnotes. It's possible a NYT piece would be
fact-checked but less likely in the arts and culture sections. It
would have been read by the lawyers though because of P's profile.

But I can't imagine Pynchon engaging in a big court case because he
felt misrepresented! At best there'd be another "keep trying" letter.

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 7:19 PM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Paul,
>
> Not sure about your evaluation. Boris Kachka wrote the piece for Vulture
> which belongs to NY Magazine, so from a journalistic point of view it's not
> exactly a rag and I'm sure they have lawyers and editors to avoid problems
> (like writing crap about an author that is as hooked up as TP - can you say
> libel suit?).
>
> We might note that Kachka clearly attributes a lot of his information to
> people that he cites in the piece. Where he does not state the source
> clearly we might reasonably assume it's because the source didn't want to be
> mentioned.
>
> Finally, a lack of footnotes in a journalistic piece like this is hardly a
> sign of lacking investigative rigour. But I'll let other journalists judge
> that.
>
> I'd say the piece looks pretty solid as far as the information provided is
> concerned.
>
> ciao
> mc
>
> On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 3:45 PM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Not very authoritative.  No footnotes probably because sources aren't very
>> authoritative either.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 3:56 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Tyler,
>>>
>>> Thanks, I had forgetten about the Kachka piece. That must have been it,
>>> but I thought I had come across something that referred to his parents later
>>> years and a reconciliation of sorts.
>>>
>>> (What is the Pyn community consensus on the piece? I know that Jules
>>> Siegel's Playboy interview is sometimes called into question on grounds of
>>> motive (self-serving, revenge, etc.), but what about Boris' work?)
>>>
>>>    Ok, wait, you deserve big thanks my man. I went back to look at the
>>> Kachka piece and not only does it have the line you mention, but it also,
>>> further on, includes that in the 1990's, "Pynchon told friends he was seeing
>>> a lot more of his parents" which following what we know about Pynchon's
>>> politics and his parent's (father a Serious Republican and mother a serious
>>> catholic and likely anti-semite) allows us to infer that there was at least
>>> a rift of sorts that was then mended.
>>>
>>>   That's what I was after. I owe you a beer, or whatever.
>>>
>>> Very Appreciatively,
>>> Matt Cissell
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 5:57 PM, Tyler Wilson <tbsqrd at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Matthew —
>>>>
>>>> Though it isn't stated explicitly, that information can be gleaned from
>>>> a couple passages of Boris Kachka's 2013 piece for Vulture:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/thomas-pynchon-bleeding-edge.html
>>>>
>>>> " . . . he and his then-girlfriend, Mary Ann Tharaldsen, were driving
>>>> through Big Sur when she complained of nausea. She wanted to stop at a bar
>>>> and have a shot to settle her stomach. According to Tharaldsen, he exploded,
>>>> telling her he would not tolerate midday drinking. When she asked why, he
>>>> told her he’d seen his mother, after drinking,  accidentally puncture his
>>>> father’s eye with a clothespin. It was the only time, says Tharaldsen, who
>>>> lived with him, that he ever mentioned his family. “He was disconnected from
>>>> them,” she says. “There seems to have been something not good there.” "
>>>>
>>>> "Pynchon and Jackson married in 1990 and had a son—first name Jackson—a
>>>> year later. Pynchon told friends he was seeing a lot more of his parents. .
>>>> . . "
>>>>
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> --
>>>> T
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Feb 18, 2016, at 3:59 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear P-listers,
>>>>
>>>> I have a problem and that is that I could swear that I read somewhere
>>>> that  Pynchon had been a bit estranged from his folks but that he eventually
>>>> made peace with them. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Where did that
>>>> come from? I can't find the source now. Was it from Phyllis Gebauer?
>>>>
>>>> Beseechingly,
>>>> mc otis
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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