Against the Blog: A Dose of Pynchon

*****

So, it's been a few years since I picked up Gravity's Rainbow and became obsessed with Thomas Pynchon. Since then, I've read V. and loved it (Thank you, Jennifer!), but I couldn't quite say it was "another Gravity's Rainbow." It's sort of like reading James Joyce's Ulysses and then reading Dubliners. I mean, Dubliners was a great. Each story introduced a cultural texture that absolutely defined several independent literary genres to follow. Alas, though, it wasn't Ulysses. Just the same, V. was a lot of fun and captured all of the great post-modern, hyper-intelligencia of Pynchon and it was centered around parts of Virginia that I grew up around, such as Newport News...it just wasn't 'Gravity's Rainbow.'

When I picked up a copy of Against the Day, Pynchon's 2006 release, this winter, I thought to myself "Hmmm....I wonder if this is as good as V."

Little did I know, some several months later I would be wondering "Is this 'As Good As' or (oh, dare I say it?) 'Better Than' Gravity's Rainbow?" Now, I'm just not sure you can rate the two like that. It's certainly a neck-and-neck race between the two, but the difference is more one of quality than quantity.

Against the Day, much like Gravity's Rainbow, requires that the reader have a certain amount of curiosity and lust for knowledge, because there's almost no possibility that any given reader will understand more than a particular portion of the occult references that are made. The internet is truly the reader's best friend as (s)he seeks to figure out what Pynchon is talking about at some points. Again alikening the book to Joyce's Ulysses, there are nested references to obscure texts and belief systems whose basic tenents are required to be at least somewhat understood in order for the reader to follow the text.

Luckily, a cult of Pynchon readers have come together to produce Pynchonwiki - a collective internet resource for documenting and questioning exactly what in tarnations Pynchon may be talking about in any given passage. So, since we don't have to wonder what his meanings are, we can, instead, focus on the worlds that he is creating.

So, my friends, I bring to you: Balloon-Punk. Much like cyberpunk or steampunk, there is a rapid-paced trickster-tricks-the-trickster sort of back-drop, but against it there is a late 19th- and early 20th-century backdrop instead of the typical late 20th or early 21st century storyline that you would find in a William Gibson (see Neuromancer) or Bruce Sterling (see Schismatrix) story. And, instead of a 21st-century-in-the-20th sort of storyline, there is an accelerated and particular story of things that actually happened during WW2 taking place against a backdrop of "Around the World in 80 Days."

Oh, plus there some weird-ass technology that allows people to "SCUBA" through the desert. Don't ask me, I don't know. Just read it. I swear. To clarify, I'm not talking about a "Steampunk" sort of backdrop (again reference Gibson and Sterling, this time in the "Difference Engine"). No, instead, this is a bonified story of kids against the day, much like "Around the World in 80 Days," except now they are running into such surreal nonsense as talking dogs, "SCUBA" gear that takes them under the sands in the desert and all other sort of oddities. Yes, Pynchon does it again.

Much like "Gravity's Rainbow," we now have a story of one or two dozen odd characters thrown up against one or two even odder worldscapes.

Don't expect to finish this book and feel like you finally understand what Pynchon is trying to get across. If Pynchon succeeds in his quest, you will feel far more confused about what in Hell he might have been talking about. The characters portray a convincing troupe and the world they live in so very much like our own. The difference, in the long run, is that whatever it is you think you understand about Chick, Deuce, Traverse or Nikolai Tesla will (at one point or another) be proven to be absolute horsesh&!@.

Cheers!

There once was a caveman named Dave....and other stories from the trenches

Five Stars (*****)

I've never been to war.

I'm glad for that.

I'm so happy that I have never been in a battle.

That said, two major figures in my life - my grandfather (with whom I share the same name: a wonderful man with a wonderful name) and my surrogate father, Blair Stutz, both Navy radio technicians - filled my childhood with such vivid and wonderful/horrible war stories that I sometimes have dreams from the trenches.

So it seems only fitting that the newest UNKLE album "War Stories" has come screaming out of those psychological trenches the way it has. It came to me through some leaked-across-the-internet sort of way, and it, unlike very many artistic creations that pass my attention, will get some of my hard-earned cash when it is officially released on July 24, 2007. I don't care that I already have a copy. This production is bad-ass. It's just plain brilliant. It's just new in so many ways that I hadn't expected.

Every so often I think such pretentious thoughts as "Rock is done. What can rock possibly offer at this point?" For the most part, such sentiments find footing. Every now and then, though, I find an artist that defies this easy sentiment - Notwist, American Analog Set and Ladytron come to mind. Rarely, though, can any of these artists (or any other, really) give an entire dissertation on why rock should be reconsidered as a viable medium. The Doors did this with their self-titled, the Velvet Underground did it with The Velvet Underground & Nico, the Beatles did it with Sergeant Peppers, the Clash with London Calling, Pink Floyd with the Wall, Spiritualized with Pure Phase, etc. etc. I think I can actually, honestly, say that UNKLE does this with "War Stories." From start to finish, every moment of the album musically and lyrically speaks out some portion of my existence that seems to have needed to be expressed in just such a way.

Let me just take a quick step back, just a decade or two, here...a little more than half my waken life flashes by our eyes in reverse and lands you, my gentle reader, somewhere around 1990. Wow. Look at all that hair (actually, don't look too much or too long...especially not at the 13-year-old with the Dangerous Toys t-shirt). That's right, we're standing in the middle of the Richmond Coliseum and there are more Robert Smith and Ronnie Dio lookalikes than anyone will ever care to recount, and they're all within a missile's shot.

The band that's claiming center stage tonight, though, is the Cult. While now they may seem like nothing so much as a washed-up semi-goth act from the late 80's and early 90's, this band was actually far more than just a kick-ass live performance. They were Ian Astbury....who can forget "Fire Woman?" Well, I never followed Ian as a performer after seeing him live back then, but his voice takes command on two tracks - "Burn My Shadow" and "When things Explode" - in ways that the Cult never could have produced. His voice has taken a sort of uber-Jim Morrison, uber-Lou Reed tone that only time could lend it. The resulting voice and the music he puts it to just makes any self-respecting citizen take immediate attention and give respect. Beautiful, just freaking beautiful. These tracks have driven my curiosity to see what this guy has been up to in the last 17 years.

Speaking of curiosity, two bands that I have never even heard of are winning more of my old hard-earned. To be honest, that was part of the appeal of the first UNKLE album, Psyence Fiction, for me - I came to appreciate DJ Shadow, the Verve, Radiohead and the Beastie Boys for their artistic impact on the times instead of just for their singles because of that album. The difference is that I already knew who DJ Shadow, Richard Ashcroft, Thom Yorke and Mike D. were...until last week, though, I had never heard of Autolux or the Duke Spirit. Now, the only thing that's keeping me from listening to my newly purchased albums of theirs is the fact that I can't stop listening to War Stories in heavy repetition.

Since you can't activate the iPhone on the BES....

I own a BlackBerry 8100 ("Pearl"). Before this slim formfactor device, I had the full QWERTY interface of a BlackBerry 8700. I thought I would hate making the switch to the multiple-letter-per-key form factor of the 8100, but it has turned out to be a smooth transition. Because the Pearl has such great features, interface design and intelligent predictive text, I thought I would never miss the switch to the Pearl....

Today I activated a new BlackBerry 8300 ("Curve") for the first time, though, and now I think I might wish that I had waited. It's slick and feature rich like the Pearl (mp3 ringtones, a camera that renders pleasantly serviceable .jpg images, the new "nipple" scroll interface, etc.) but stills has definitive letter input. I mean, it's not an iPhone - it won't play your mp3 collection to you and there's no flashy colors and touch screen interface - but it runs on the relatively reasonable EDGE network, fits nicely into pant pockets without looking like a mammal has nested near your crotch AND (due to my profession this is nearly obligatory) can be activated on a BES for Exchange service. Hopefully future BlackBerries (and the iPhone, if it ever becomes BES aware) will be upgraded to a WLAN (such as Verizon's) instead of EDGE. Until then, though, the new round of BlackBerries are quite impressive.