Pynchon in Public Documentation: Brighton Meet-Up
To kick off the documentation of the inaugural Pynchon in Public Day, here is a post about the Brighton meet-up. If others have photos/details of events in which they participated please email me (sadly W.A.S.T.E. is not available). I met with “John Dee” (@Dystopia2009) and we talked Pynchon, politics and life. We also installed several post horn insignia around the place:
There was also an article about this event in the Guardian yesterday detailing how the event came to be. Here’s a small excerpt:
“The rarity of seeing someone reading Pynchon in public prompted me to break tube etiquette and say hello, albeit briefly given that I had to get off,” says Eve. “Anyway, I tweeted about the occurrence and ‘John Dee’ (@Dystopia2009) got in touch and proposed that, on Pynchon’s birthday, we could hold a Pynchon in Public day. The appeal lies in the author’s stance on privacy; a man who has evaded the media gaze for 50 years while writing some of the most highly regarded, and most controversial, American prose couldn’t be asked to come out in public. On the other hand, his devoted following could wheel out the symbols of paranoia that pervade his books and celebrate what’s in the texts. Pynchon is worth it for the revolution he effected for American fiction . . . primarily a revolution that has reintroduced a critical Left stance into the landscape, even if this wasn’t entirely recognised at the time.”
Finally, after a long exhausting day I returned home (not so public, I know) to drink tea from this very special mug:
