P's P's Please

[Paul Mackin]

Yeah, the burden of proof for defamation of character or invasion of
privacy is higher for a public figure, even a public recluse.  I did enjoy
the piece. Would have liked more indication of how the author knew so much.
There WAS some vague sourcing (so and so has said, or friends have said),
but was any interviewing done by Kachka or did he just hear it someplace?
There are a lot of rumors out there.

On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 4:24 AM, matthew cissell <mccissell at gmail.com>
wrote:

> A big court case? no. A letter, yes - but maybe saying a bit more than
> 'Keep trying'. I mean that fit with the Wanda Letters, but remember when
> CNN got too close?
>
> At any rate it sounds like Boris is a respectful fan and a decent
> journalist, so I suspect he knows that it is delicate territory and one
> would do well to walk right. Christ, just the weight of the Pynchon
> scholarly community calling someone out on a naff piece of print is enough
> to make anyone with a brain think twice.
>
> ciao
> mc
>
> On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 10:15 AM, John Bailey <sundayjb at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20160222/6ce8640d/attachment.html>