I found the Monterreys...

I intentionally spelled it wrong above, as in, I spelled the name of the Spanish General correctly, but not the name of a type of Birkenstock that we thought was long out of production.

Those are the Monterey, a style of the famous hippie sandal (that Germans only wear in the house as slippers and think Yanks who wear them outside the home are a little nutty) that is slightly different from the ubiquitous Arizona.

Once shopping I unknowingly purchased a pair of the Montereys only to notice they were ever so different than the normal Birk, and fell in love with them. And then I could never find them again.

That minor difference, of course, being that the strapping covers more of the bed of the sandal. Here are some pics for comparison:

The Arizona

The Monterey

It's a slight and subtle difference, and I'm not sure the practical realities of that extra length, or why I got so obsessed over it, but it's back! And a whole c-note more expensive! So there's that...

But they do look pretty sleek:

..in a hippie sort of way...

Is This Our Man Pynchon?

In what's likely a murky legal move, someone snapped a photo of an older dude riding a bike in Manhattan of whom it suspected that it's Thomas Pynchon.

You be the judge:

There is an interesting Reddit read about someone who is pretty sure Pynchon lives in their building, and their description isn't necessarily the same as this guy, but it could be...

You can judge that on its merits here as well.

As if living through a Pynchon novel ween't enough, the world shrinks around him in a way he would have guessed.

Best Old Review of Gravity's Rainbow

I came across the best review of Pynchon's magnum opus, Gravity's Rainbow, a few days back. It's so good, and I call it "best" without the luxury of having read every single other review of the prosaic novel.

But I call it best because it says everything I've ever wanted to say about the book, but in a more collected and professional way than I've been able to do.

If you get the time to check it out the grand picture of the basic structure and the book's rhythms will be shown off.

Just click right here for the review by scholar, writer, and teacher Richard Poirier.

Whetting the Appetite

I've been finding some nifty articles lately about Pynchon, since he turned 80 this year and this world continually seems to be a fever dream of his we're just living through.

Here's one about his position as the influential Postmodernist.

There's also the cool random photo:

I'll be trying to get some of the other cool content up here, but, you know, whenever...

Some of the Pictures

I started sifting through the pictures on Corrie's camera and found a few good ones.

Bummer about not being able to see Norman's face, but here he is feeding the deer:

This one is pretty awesome:

Of course that's not how Cass truly feels, but that meltdown moment is classic.

And here's me reading to the kids before we took the Decemberween Picture:

Cass was messing with my copy of Prufrock and I eventually snatched it away from him. I found this Mr. Boffo comic strip inside:

Made me think about you...

I saw this and thought you may have liked to check it out. We didn't have time, but it was free:

This paper was an advertising false-cover to the free lifestyle and happenings magazine Time Out New York (usually abbreviated to "TONY", as in restaurants showing off their TONY-award for Best Cocktail or Best Breakfast).

They were handing them out at the train stop we used to get back to Harlem from the Bronx after the Yankee game.

Below, they show some of their displays, like the middle one, apparently Joe Dimaggio's gift watch from the Yankees owner:

This advertising supplement was specifically about Patek Philippe, but it sounded like there were other brands at the Art of Watches show...maybe I'm guessing and projecting. Wouldn't it be then just be a Patek Philippe show?

Anyway, I like watched enough to have wanted to check it out, but time constraints and travelling with a one year old put the kibosh on that.

Some Content, Part 1

I've been coming across new content and material from all over the interwebs recently about our man Pynchon.

This is a nifty piece written by a Brazilian lady about her experiences reading Gravity's Rainbow (at 13!!), about some of the ins-and-outs of the Brazilian publishing game, translating TP for Brazil, and other interesting historical Pynchonian stuff.

The article's accompanying picture, taken in 1965 and reprinted below, is pretty cool: it shows Pynchon flashing the peace sign from inside a house, while his friend Phyllis Gebauer holds a pig pinata gift she got him:

I'll start putting the other things up here as I collate them.