It could have been worse...

[rich]

me, too

William Gaddis



let them have their narrow view

the pinched gaze

you laid out and wrestled with the real hydra-headed tentacles:

the law, money, revelation



from the inside

your characters, the systems themselves

embodiments of them

those who through their speech, you said

constructed a conspiracy of language against us all.



you had to work for it, of course

your ambition early was evident

you dropped a ton on them

how could Harvard understand

you were so far ahead



and hence, banished to the wilderness of corporate speak

you had a family, a daughter, to support

I imagine



you as William Holden in Network

an office drunk exec passed his prime, cynical

but human shot through and through

with simple human decency



you didn't lose

as you saw all going mad around you

strings and shining heads, pulled pols

monsignors

concerned with feeding those tentacled monsters

you knew from experience



what itook so long between missives

you weren’t part of the easy game

all they knew



you wrote ad copy for their suits

and nailed their connections at night

a birds-eye view few could emulate



characters easy to deconstruct

not so complex systems

of what knots and fancy tie look alikes.



and yet, despite all that, you were funny while doing it.



Of course, you were close to done before proper recognition

Bernhard and Oblomov brought some solace

sprinting to finish off  your life’s work, often dropped

distilled in the end into a short rant about the mechanization of the arts



if it wasn’t beautiful for someone, it didn’t exist

you once wrote long ago

you hadn’t forgotten.



The awards came but your throat was now hoarse

abiding as the artist defined as the human shambles

following the work around



you didn’t make many appearances

you wanted to be met half-way

how much more rewarding that is,  you said



than transcribing reality

and telling you everything so explicitly



nothing hidden in the margins


On Mon, Oct 3, 2022 at 5:30 PM Arthur Fuller <fuller.artful at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I think that William Gaddis is my fave writer of all time. *JR* absolutely
> slayed me, and after that I read every word he ever published. *The
> Recognitions*, wow, what can I say that hasn't been said, and the few
> others as well.
>
> On Mon, Oct 3, 2022 at 11:24 AM Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Oh my God I hope this is truly an elaborate hoax! It’s a shame Gaddis
> > isn’t around to write a book about this…
> >
> > (But you are right…at least it wasn’t Remedios Varo!)
> >
> > —Q
> >
> > From: Pynchon-l <pynchon-l-bounces at waste.org> on behalf of Erik T.
> Burns <
> > eburns at gmail.com>
> > Date: Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 3:56 PM
> > To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Subject: It could have been worse...
> > it could have been a Remedios Varo...
> >
> > A Frida Kahlo Drawing Was Destroyed to Make NFTs (vice.com)
> > <https://www.vice.com/en/article/aken7k/rida-kahlo-nft-mexico>
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> > --
> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
> >
>
>
> --
> Arthur
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>