Not P but DFW: Richterish-looking sound wave

[Mark Kohut]

I will detail my case if no one else changes your mind....I do not think
anything I say will change your mind anyway, so
I'll hold and fold later....

On Mon, Feb 16, 2026 at 12:03 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Upon further reflection, I'm all but convinced that Gerhard Richter is
> indeed the intended reference here. What's being talked about here is a
> picture or waveform of a soundwave, showing its amplitude vs. time,
> displayed on a computer screen by audio editing software. Although it looks
> very similar to a seismogram, I find it odd to describe it as
> "Richterish-looking", because although a seismogram is closely related to
> the Richter scale and thus to its namesake and co-creator Charles Richter
> the seismologist, it's not quite the same as the relation between an artist
> and his work. For one, the seismograph/gram was not actually invented by
> him, nor does it hear his name. This is where I think the use of
> the name-derived adjective breaks down. It's far more likely the
> "Richterish" here actually refers to an artist, in this case a painter, due
> to the visual nature of the comparison. In fact, a google search of
> "Richterish" yields several results that refer to Gerhard Richter the
> painter.
>
> Furthermore, Gerhardt Richter had a good deal of play in the early 2000s,
> and many in art circles raved about his work. A writer like Wallace was
> likely exposed to his work. And this particular essay was published in the *Atlantic
> Monthly*, whose readership may very well be more knowledgeable in such
> matters than the general public. So it's not out of the realm of
> possibility. Actually, I think it's quite probable, for the reasons given
> above.
>
> What do you think?
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 2:07 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> That's what I went with originally, and I was going to reject the
>> suggestion out of hand due to the simple fact that I've never heard of the
>> artist or his work. Then I looked him up and it turns out he is sort of an
>> important figure in contemporary art, so I thought I'd better ask in case
>> it was my own personal ignorance.
>>
>> Thanks for replying, Mark.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 2:54 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> It refers to the Richter scale....jagged sometimes earthquake-like
>>> size....
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 1:18 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> The following excerpt is from David Foster Wallace's *Host*:
>>>>
>>>> NexGen (a Clear Channel product) displays a Richterish-looking sound
>>>> wave,
>>>> of which all different sizes of individual bits can be highlighted and
>>>> erased in order to tighten the pacing and compress the sound bite.
>>>>
>>>> It was suggested by a proofreader that the Richter here refers to
>>>> Gerhard
>>>> Richter, a German painter, and the picture of the sound wave displayed
>>>> by
>>>> the NexGen software looks like some of his abstract paintings. I've
>>>> never
>>>> heard of the artist before but it does sound plausible, and the word
>>>> "Richterish" is similar to "Picassoesque". Does anyone care to confirm
>>>> or
>>>> refute this?
>>>> --
>>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>>
>>>