Bleeding Edge German Publisher trailer. Have we ever seen this? I hadn't. It cannot be HIM, of course.

Thu Feb 20 09:28:52 UTC 2025

On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 4:44 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sure.
>

Thanks, Mark! Okay then. Here ‘tis:

Pynchon, who has never been away, who is always present, is back. The
Pynchon with an edge who pisses people off. Like the Pulitzer Committee
which called Gravity's Rainbow obscene. Like lots of publishing
professionals who didn't like Professor Irwin Corey as his spokesman at the
National Book Awards. Like a couple otherwise superb readers who hated,
morally,---not aesthetically---Against the Day.

And I'm not talking about Bleeding Edge. I'm just talking about his
brilliant five minute Vimeo trailer for it. Have you seen it? ow.ly/owP2O
<http://t.co/qxfYH8AMRd>
<http://search.twitter.com/search?q=#ImThomasPynchon>

Which has gotten heavy dissing all around the Shallow Web (Pynchon takes us
into the Deep Web in his newest); which has been disliked heartily by many
of his most obsessive fans. "So badly done". " meh" " Guess I gotta read
the book" [See Twitter. See the Pynchon listserve: "W.A.S.T.E."] Why? Why
am I reminded of Dylan when he got booed at Newport by his proud fans for
going electric? Dylan turned to his band and said, "Play it fuckin'
louder". Pynchon might have decided to one-up some recent negativity
including  New York Magazine which ran this  piece on him
http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/48268/ .

Watch that trailer again (“There is no reading, only rereading”-- Nabokov)
ow.ly/owP2O <http://t.co/qxfYH8AMRd>
<http://search.twitter.com/search?q=#ImThomasPynchon>

Who IS that guy? I mean within the video? First, he’s good. Ironically
perfect. He is not from the novel.  He sez he  is an Upper West side '
macher', a word already self-mocking when used, the dictionaries say. He
wears a T--shirt that says “I Am Tom Pynchon” but we  know he isn’t. But as
we watch, P’s sly genius emerges. The macher talks as if he might BE
Pynchon, perhaps IS him narratorily, the semi-omniscient,
character-blending narrator often called an “all-seeing eye" a phrase of
the macher's AND one used in Against the Day in the macher’s way. Macher
says he is not into “the power hierarchy thing" but works “in the margins”
as is said of lifelong Pynchon themes and stances. " Like Karl Rove", as we
LOL, that mind at max influence during the years of BLEEDING EDGE, as we
remember  Pynchon’s reputation for paranoia, especially social control.
“Only if Karl Rove were a liberal Jew", ROFL...as the ‘pastrami mafia’
trope has Pynchon sending up the stereotypes of Jewish control of the media
and New York. We gotta love it when SLEAZUS uses a word--which we get
defined!---that he doesn’t know. (In Slow Learner, the middle-aged Pynchon
said he didn’t even know what the word “tendril’ meant in an early
story--since: never again)

 “Information flows from here to there, from there to here"...INFORMATION,
one of the earliest thematic handles about Pynchon’s work. Look up
“entropy” [ “entropy is the amount of additional information needed to
specify the exact physical state of a system”], perhaps the first solo word
meme around Pynchon. And Bleeding Edge is about the physical state of New
York in a certain time and it is about the flow of information and money.

There's Tom, back in Not-Tom character saying, " I don't know how the story
ends", --not just a poke at busy New Yorkers who don't need to finish
books, or on another layer a comment on the near-contemporaneity of Bleeding
Edge but perhaps a sly anticipation of some responses to the deaths in Bleeding
Edge. As  Raymond Chandler, a Pynchon fave, responded when asked whether
the chauffeur in The Big Sleep was murdered, “Damned if I know."

Then SLEAZUS gets satirically knifed with a video riff on the class
privileged ‘perfectionism’ of shopping for food...."little thinner, little
thinner" ... just ‘a sample, a sample”..hilariously, as we are laughing,
asking almost righteously about the nature of the soil the cows roll around
in. And more. Pynchon's " hysterical realism" skewers the indulgent
well-off everywhere, maybe "not  too close to the head" and maybe
especially in that foodie city, New York, New York.

An homage and joke for Philip Roth: "He's everywhere"---publicly the
anti-Pynchon? -- and an over-the-top ending, a little fish as eyeshade,
“exfoliants”, something the " moisturizing conglomerates"--perfect or
what?---don't tell you.

No wonder William Gibson called this trailer the best, for a novel, yet
made in the history of the world.

- it helped me appreciate the trailer more. I think you hit all the salient
points, plus, a nice elaboration about Sleazus saying he doesn’t know how
the book ends points in several directions

- the New York magazine link doesn’t work, but I think it’s here:
https://www.vulture.com/2013/08/thomas-pynchon-bleeding-edge.html?origSession=D250220OKT3WnLHLHU3LAUuNHWFyZHbvTzey3Jz3avdAFzPSNg%3D&_gl=1*1udvzv3*FPAU*MjY4NTk4MjU4LjE3NDAwNDI2Mzk.*_ga*MTA5MTk4NTQ0Ny4xNzQwMDQyNjM5*_ga_DNE38RK1HX*MTc0MDA0MjYzOC4xLjEuMTc0MDA0MzE1MS4wLjAuMTYzMjUwNjM2OA..*_fplc*aE1uVldrQXhXMnQ1WUElMkZ2dSUyRlVvTThMZTEzb2ZvbzZIZmVXNDBMblVxRWtBdmZZVW5xSTI3dHZ0aDhmY013YmJkOUR5bjNDS1h0S1Y2alBTRnM0SUM2ZnROaTRUNndKelV0cDlyc0x3elo5UzZhVjhNYmYyMmxrVE9LMWcydyUzRCUzRA..

- I couldn’t source the William Gibson quote but it seems reasonable from
others of his quotes

- the “terroir” question was about the cows the cheese came from in a
different store not Zabar’s
- but he did do some yoga in Zabar’s & said he went to summer camp with a
Zabar (founded 1934, so the actual TRP could have)
- it was fun to imagine the author as this sprightly dude and not take him
ever-so seriously

- resonance of fish/eyes - fisheye lens, and/or a suspicious look

> On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 4:44 AM Michael Bailey <
> michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Feb 19, 2025 at 4:13 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I think this was great, better than the IV trailer and I wrote that..
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Mark,
>>
>> Yes - you did do an essay! I had major irl problems in 2013, so maybe I
>> didn’t appreciate the trailer or the essay properly -
>>
>>
>> It’s still on my Google Drive, I’m’a have to reread it…
>>
>> Will also post it if that is okay?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> and I bet it was taken down at his son's request---he supposedly filmed it
>> > or the request of
>> > his son's friend who acted in it...
>> >
>> > On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 10:35 PM Michael Bailey <
>> > michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> That’s weird - I couldn’t find it either.
>> >>
>> >> All I remember is the guy standing at the Zabar’s meat counter asking
>> >> about
>> >> the “terroir” of the meat.
>> >>
>> >> And I guess he was on a rooftop at some point.
>> >>
>> >> I wasn’t exactly bowled over by it, but it’s kinda sad that I can’t
>> >> rewatch
>> >> it now after rereading the book
>> >>
>> >> I tried archive.org but wasn’t able to find it there either
>> >>
>> >> The IV trailer was better, but still…
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 6:22 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > The American trailer for Bleeding Edge seems to be GONE from
>> YouTube!!!!
>> >> > Even originally so much better.
>> >> >
>> >> > It is the one I got published on!
>> >> >
>> >> > On Tue, Feb 18, 2025 at 6:13 AM Mark Moskowitz <pov at ix.netcom.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > > Great
>> >> > >
>> >> > > -----Original Message-----
>> >> > > From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>> >> > > Sent: Feb 18, 2025 6:05 AM
>> >> > > To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>, Brad Andrews <
>> >> > > braden.andrews at gmail.com>, Dan Guenther <
>> >> guentherdanielbraun at gmail.com>,
>> >> > > Jeffrey Capshew <jdcapshew at gmail.com>
>> >> > > Cc: Mark M. <pov at ix.netcom.com>
>> >> > > Subject: Bleeding Edge German Publisher trailer. Have we ever seen
>> >> this?
>> >> > I
>> >> > > hadn't. It cannot be HIM, of course.
>> >> > >
>> >> > >
>> >> > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EDo38geLgo
>> >> > >
>> >> > >
>> >> > >
>> >> > --
>> >> > Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >> >
>> >> --
>> >> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> >>
>> >
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>