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lit reviews the ancient past

Reflections on my Pynchon obsession

Book­fo­rum recent­ly pub­lished a trib­ute to Thomas Pyn­chon called "Pyn­chon from A to V," writ­ten by crit­ic and Pyn­chon mani­ac Ger­ald Howard. Most Pyn­chon fans dis­cov­er that their love dare not speak its name because when it does, it instant­ly labels one as a lit­er­ary snob and smar­ty­pants. Like expe­ri­ence in armed com­bat, love of Pyn­chon and Gravity's Rain­bow is best deliv­ered in the for­mat of mem­oir, and Howard's affec­tion­ate tale of his own Pyn­chon obses­sion inspired me to recon­sid­er mine.Let's first get the unavoid­able and unfor­tu­nate real­i­ties out the way: Gravity's Rain­bow is dense and unfriend­ly. Pynchon's char­ac­ters appear from nowhere, have biz­zare names, and dis­ap­pear with­out a trace. Poof! Gone. Most vex­ing of all, read­ing Pyn­chon in gen­er­al, and GR in par­tic­u­lar, requires wran­gling zil­lions of intri­cate con­spir­a­cies with­in con­spir­a­cies, many of which seem to have no bear­ing on the Point of the Book, what­ev­er the heck that may be.Howard's GR expe­ri­ence was sim­i­lar to mine, a kill-or-be-killed, fin­ish-or-die-try­ing affair. I read GR when I was 23. It was a time of con­fu­sion, blus­ter, dis­trust, cut with con­fi­dence that my recent­ly-acquired BA in Eng­lish had giv­en me unique insight into the world; in oth­er words, I was GR's ide­al read­er. It could be argued that few read­ers who aren't young, male lit majors would sub­ject them­selves to a 760 pages of pun­ish­ment thin­ly masked as intrigue. Who else would have the faith, or time, to read and re-read page after page, mem­o­riz­ing seem­ing­ly point­less details because any detail may sud­den­ly become some­how rel­e­vant? At the time I read GR, I had just moved to a big city that seemed pop­u­lat­ed by the very peo­ple who pop­u­lat­ed Pynchon's pages — shad­owy peo­ple with sin­is­ter secret lives. Per­haps their shad­owy, sin­is­ter appear­ance was a result of the fact that I didn't know any­one, had a ter­ri­ble job, no girl­friend, no band and very lit­tle mon­ey. More­over, I didn't know what I want­ed to be doing, who I want­ed to be. Like the pro­tag­o­nist Tyrone Slothrop, I was filled with unease and con­cern. And yet at the same time I was hav­ing TONS of fun. Doing absolute­ly noth­ing except mar­veling at the mys­ter­ies of every­thing around me. I loved it, but I want­ed it all to end, and I want­ed to fig­ure it out — all at the same time. And the book! The book pro­vid­ed a very faint hope of actu­al­ly under­stand­ing some­thing, any­thing. Immersed in the world of GR, all of life was a puz­zle to solve, a knot to unrav­el, a refined and glam­or­ized ver­sion of my own world. Slothrop was me: a con­fused mix of unease, hope, and good times. Of course, vast sec­tions of the book near­ly crushed me. I often com­plete­ly for­got what had hap­pened on the pre­vi­ous page, or who a char­ac­ter was. I must have re-read enough pages to read the book twice.But I was pro­pelled by the illu­mi­nat­ing, invig­o­rat­ing pas­sages that laid bare the ele­ments that so many recent bach­e­lors of arts seek to under­stand — the imper­son­al forces at the heart of civ­i­liza­tion, the greedy cor­po­ra­tions gov­ern­ing our dai­ly lives, the evil truth behind the hap­py facade. Pyn­chon brings these things to life in pas­sages of over­whelm­ing, all-encom­pass­ing knowl­edge (nowa­days imi­tat­ed by the likes of JFranz, DFW, etc), and with­in them exists a char­ac­ter quite famil­iar to my younger self — a hope­ful, curi­ous guy who wants to know the answers but can do no more than uncov­er mys­ter­ies of greater magnitude.Readers rebuffed by its com­plex­i­ty might argue that GR's great­ness is a col­lec­tive delu­sion of the few read­ers will­ing to endure the pun­ish­ment, the end­less parade of biz­zare­ly-named char­ac­ters, the nar­ra­tive digres­sions lead­ing to fur­ther digres­sions that ulti­mate­ly become the nar­ra­tive, the prob­lem of the pro­tag­o­nist dis­ap­pear­ing some­where around page 500 — the list goes on. To them I say this: You real­ly need to make it to the end to under­stand. Bet­ter yet, don't expect to real­ly under­stand any­thing. Then you'll be ready to start. 

  • Book­fo­rum: "Pyn­chon from A to V."
  • Categories
    cheese cheese lifestyle

    Quesadilla

    Peo­ple insist on invent­ing new pro­nun­ci­a­tions for this word, god knows why. I bet you could find entire regions in which the pre­dom­i­nant pro­nun­ci­a­tion of this word is kway-sa-dilya. "Can I get one kway-sa-dilya, and a side of ranch dress­ing, please?" To be sure, que­sadil­la is what lin­guists call a "loan" or "bor­rowed" word. In most cas­es, bor­row­ings are mod­i­fied so that they con­form to the pro­nun­ci­a­tion rules of the new lan­guage, but there's some­thing espe­cial­ly insult­ing about mis­pro­nounc­ing a word as seem­ing­ly wide­spread as que­sadil­la. I would feel way more sym­pa­thet­ic to some­one who stum­bles through "smoked trout nicoise sal­ad with hearts of romaine and dijon vini­a­grette" than a word that is on the god­dam Taco Bell menu. The tru­ly mys­te­ri­ous thing is that the peo­ple who mis­pro­nounce "que­sadil­la" are inevitably peo­ple who look like they prob­a­bly know the Taco Bell menu by heart. I can see why peo­ple are inclined to say "kweh-sa" or "kway-sa," because "qu" is "kwa" in words like "qui­et" or "ques­tion." And I can under­stand why peo­ple of French-Cana­di­an descent may be inclined to pro­nounce the "qu" as "ka" or "keh." I guess I can also under­stand say­ing "dil­la" as "dilya" or "dil­lah" rather than "diya," but I'm rel­a­tive­ly sure that these same peo­ple pro­nounce "tor­tilla" cor­rect­ly. But maybe they don't. Maybe they say "tortilya." When you string all of the mis­pro­nun­ci­a­tions togeth­er, and you get things like kway-sa-dilya, or kah-sa-dil­lah, it just makes you sad for the state of civ­i­liza­tion, for the future of lan­guage, for the like­li­hood that things that mat­ter will be fur­ther erod­ed by peo­ple who sim­ply don't pay atten­tion. On the oth­er hand, it's also a per­fect exam­ple of peo­ple vot­ing with their feet, or their mouths as the case may be. Which is inter­est­ing yet ter­ri­fy­ing, as always.

    Categories
    cheese

    Old Amsterdam

    Ahh, Ams­ter­dam. Some­times I wish there was a Gen­er­al Foods Inter­na­tion­al Cof­fee fla­vor that would trans­port me back to those gauzy days on the banks of the Ams­tel — the cool fall breeze, the Night­watch, the hazy cof­feeshop after­noons. Actu­al­ly, to faith­ful­ly recre­ate those sim­pler times, a sin­gle cup of cof­fee would have to knock me on my ass and erase my mem­o­ry for a week. Fur­ther­more, it would have to make me feel like I'd been lobot­o­mized, and send my life into a ter­ri­ble, slow-motion tail­spin. It would also have to emp­ty my bank account, force me to live on nan bread from the Indi­an restau­rant next to my crap­py Lon­don apart­ment. (If not for the kind­ness and infi­nite­ly tol­er­ant under­stand­ing of Kar­la Betts, this era of my life would have been noth­ing more than a plat­ter of cheese cubes drift­ing silent­ly past me). While it can't faith­ful­ly recre­ate the Ams­ter­dam expe­ri­ence of my vague rec­ol­lec­tion, there is a cheese which has a way of tak­ing me back to a more ide­al place. It's called Old Ams­ter­dam. It's in the gou­da fam­i­ly, and it has got a nice salty bite bal­anced with the req­ui­site gou­da creami­ness. Does it lead me to spend 72 straight hours in the base­ment lounge of a hos­tel? No. But it tastes nice with crispy crack­ers, toma­toes, and olive oil, and it doesn't give me uncon­trol­lable crav­ings for falafel that I can't afford.

    Categories
    cheese

    Spanish Idiazabal

    I liked smoked cheese because it reminds me of the smok­ing destruc­tion often wrought by my favorite bas­ket­ball team, the Kansas Jay­hawks. Each win­ter, I ingest a healthy cross-sec­tion of smoked food — from Cyclone flambe to charred Soon­er, from grilled and skew­ered Mis­souri Tiger on a bed of greens to ten­der­ly fric­as­seed Corn­husker with a side of roast­ed Aggie. This spring's offer­ings were unusu­al­ly plen­ti­ful and tooth­some; dur­ing an epic late March week­end, I was treat­ed to slow-roast­ed Blue Dev­il a mere 48 hours before feast­ing upon seared Ari­zona Wild­cat. The Wild­cat, I must admit, was espe­cial­ly deli­cious con­sid­er­ing the cru­el, ter­ri­ble, ruth­less, unfor­get­table sur­prise grilling he had admin­is­tered on a leg­endary Jay­hawk team in the round of 16 in March 1997. In com­par­i­son to these smoky delights, Span­ish Idi­az­a­bal hard­ly mer­its men­tion. Yes, it is much nicer than many smoked Jacks and goudas that have uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly parad­ed through my lit­tle cheese draw­er, but still, com­pared to the deep, rich smok­i­ness emit­ted by a Kansas State Wild­cat torched by indis­crim­i­nate aer­i­al assault by Kansas guards, it might as well be Cheez-Whiz.

    Categories
    cheese

    Farmer Steve's Goaty Cheese Spread

    After a long sun­ny Sun­day spent assem­bling bee hives and run­ning, I sam­pled Slide Ranch Steve's lat­est cheese effort, a tangy, salty cheese spread made from adding ren­net to the milk of Slide Ranch goats. Most farmer's cheese is made with archa­ic meth­ods that often require a bit of brute force. For instance, I often made cheese by heat­ing up a few gal­lons of goat milk on a rick­ety old gas stove and adding a bunch of vine­gar just before it boiled. This method works, sort of, but you get what you pay for. The milk heats uneven­ly, so you waste lots of curd; the milk on the bot­tom often burns, mak­ing it taste, well, burnt; and the milk near the bot­tom gets too hot and makes the rest of it taste sour. Steve made his by adding ren­net to fresh goat milk and then spic­ing it with a lit­tle salt and chili pow­der. The result: a safe, sat­is­fy­ing cheese that would nev­er, ever offend. Meg Ryan in cheese form. Fluffy, creamy, easy-going. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed on nacho chips. Best enjoyed dur­ing the late after­noon of sun­ny, breezy Sun­days while sit­ting on rus­tic cab­in porch­es. Absolute­ly must be eat­en while drink­ing Black Butte Porter.

    Categories
    cheese

    Tomme d'Abondance (French raw milk)

    All those froofy-sound­ing French gruy­eres tend to inspire patri­ot­ic dis­gust for the very sin­cere self-impor­tance of every­thing French, even though they rarely dis­ap­point, taste-wise. My prob­lem with this gruyere is that it demands too much from me. I look at it in my lit­tle cheese draw­er, and it prac­ti­cal­ly demands that it be served in a par­tic­u­lar way, at a par­tic­u­lar time of day, with a par­tic­u­lar atti­tude, on a par­tic­u­lar plat­ter: "Eh! Mon­sieur! You're not going to slice me on zis cut­ting board, are you? The one on which you just sliced zat apple?" Umm, yeah, I didn't buy you so that you could make me feel inad­e­quate. What is pre­vent­ing me from grat­ing you into a fine pow­der and feed­ing you to the yap­py Amer­i­can mon­grel with which I live? Eh? Eh? In any case, I some­times appre­ci­ate the extra work involved in mak­ing this cheese hap­py. So what if it doesn't go well with Lagu­ni­tas Dog Town Pale Ale and MTV 10-Spot shows?

    Categories
    cheese

    Dutch Parrano

    This cheese is the When Har­ry Met Sal­ly of high-end cheese — white-bread, straight-for­ward, and ade­quate­ly sat­is­fy­ing for 63% of men and women between ages 27 and 46. You can bring it to a din­ner par­ty full of strangers, and sat­is­fy both the cheeserati and the cheese-obliv­i­ous. You can also men­tion its name at that same din­ner par­ty, and have an ade­quate­ly inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion per­haps punc­tu­at­ed by mild wit­ti­cisms and/or mediocre analo­gies. Many of us may have a soft-spot for Dutch Par­ra­no, and we may be ashamed of it. But at the same time most are quick to point out its unde­ni­able — though not over­whelm­ing — strengths. It's pleas­ant­ly salty. It nips at the tongue, slight­ly. One can place it on a fan­cy crack­er, or a melt it inside a que­sadil­la, or eat it by itself. It doesn't mind. It's easy. Some­times, we like easy things. Dutch Par­ra­no reminds us that it's okay to like easy things, and to freely dis­cuss them with strangers, and to save our ener­gy for the more chal­leng­ing things, like com­pli­cat­ed, demand­ing French cheeses that have been aged in caves.

    Categories
    cheese cheese lifestyle

    Humbird

    I'll be vis­it­ing here in a few hours: Humbird Cheese Mart. I'll let you know. I'm not sure I did this link right.

    Categories
    running

    Palo Alto / Cruiser

    At around 4pm, the Stan­ford cam­pus is always filled with run­ners, cyclists, and ath­letes in car­di­nal red. I appre­ci­ate this, and yet, at the same time, I feel like I'm run­ning among high­ly-intel­li­gent pod-peo­ple who have sin­is­ter inten­tions beneath benign good looks and have assumed the forms of innocu­ous, white-bread ath­let­ic types in order to Blend In. I imag­ine that they detach their low­er jaws and con­sume god knows what when my back is turned, and per­haps some­day I will stum­ble upon a fly­ing saucer deliv­er­ing giant eggs. As always, this run was sus­pi­cious­ly uneventful.

    Categories
    cheese cheese lifestyle

    Wisconsin

    Wis­con­sin researcher makes a bet­ter ched­dar — Asso­ci­at­ed Press — Pub­lished March 12, 2003 — MADISON, Wis. — A Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son pro­fes­sor says he's found a way to take the bit­ter­ness out of ched­dar — a dis­cov­ery that could save cheese­mak­ers some seri­ous bread. Food sci­ence pro­fes­sor Jim Steele said an enzyme reduces the bit­ter taste that afflicts low-grade ched­dar cheese. "It has the poten­tial to give con­sis­ten­cy to the qual­i­ty of cheese that we pro­duce, and save us a whole lot of mon­ey,'' said John Umhoe­fer, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Wis­con­sin Cheese Mak­ers Asso­ci­a­tion. Cheese­mak­ers start by mix­ing a med­ley of bac­te­ria called a starter cul­ture with warm milk. They some­times add a sec­ond batch of bac­te­ria, called an adjunct cul­ture. To make ched­dar, they mix in an organ­ism called Lac­to­bacil­lus hel­veti­cus, which smooths out the cheese's taste and reduces bit­ter­ness. Steele and his team have worked to iden­ti­fy what in the organ­ism pro­duces this desir­able effect. They hoped they could then find a way to pro­duce the effect in the starter cul­ture, which would drop the cost and improve the cheese. The researchers sequenced the 2,400 genes in Lac­to­bacil­lus in 2001, and Steele's team iden­ti­fied the desired gene with­in six months. Cheese­mak­ers can now add that gene to starter cul­tures. Paul McShane, sales man­ag­er for the small Brook­field cheese com­pa­ny Roth Kase, thinks Steele's enzyme would take the mys­tique out of cheese pro­duc­tion. "Cheese­mak­ing is an art, and you lose some­thing — a qual­i­ty — when you try to take short­cuts,'' he said. But Bill Schlin­sog, chief judge at this week's 2003 U.S. Cham­pi­onship Cheese Con­test in Mil­wau­kee, hailed the dis­cov­ery as a weapon against bit­ter cheese. "It's unde­sir­able,'' he said. "And if it can be avoid­ed, then that's great.''