Today is the most momentous day in my life. All my hard work has paid off. Ludwig traveled to Ithaca and hung with Cornell philosophers. My cup runneth over. I am so overjoyed that my grandparents can be put in a group of writers and thinkers – forever! I can remove my sister Christine from the literary hell she was thrown in hours after she died. My relationship with the woman I married, is redeemed. We believed in each other.
Here are the first words I read this morning.
PETER SHAPIRO: stand tall, fair sir
Here are the first words I wrote.
JOHN PRESCO: I am fishing deep for the fair firmness of the world. Nothing is fair.
PETER SHAPIRO: we have it so much better than most
There it is – THE TORAH!
As I lie in bed this morning, I went fishing for a bi-line that may lead me to authoring the obituary of David Seidler. I studied the environment I was in. I no longer wake-up with feelings of radiant genius. I wake up by a dark murky pool polluted with other people’s trash – and my own! How do I sort it out? I understand I am at the Window of Honesty, and I have five minutes to plumb the depths of how I really feel about – life. Do I really have the right to connect my life to the life of David Seidler who died Saturday. A reporter wonders if he was fly fishing.
Then – I GOT A HUGE HIT – and my pole bent to the breaking point.
“My God! I didn’t invite my father to my wedding! He might have died not knowing I married Mary Ann Tharaldsen, the Muse of several writers – including Thomas Pynchon. Why didn’t I invite \Captain Victim to my wedding, or, bring my new bride to his home to meet him?
FLASH forward to 1988. I have a year of sobriety and am at my father’s house showing him the manuscript for my first (unfinished) novel. He is drunk. We used to drink together. He looks, at it, takes aim – and splashes Bourbon on it – with a growl!
Wow! A Christening. I would find out he used Wolf Larsen as a role model on how to raise his two sons, Vic was a Jack London freak in High School. He never grew up. I was The Father – at four! We got a fishing story! David and Vic go fishing, because they are kin, in the same family tree! And now they are in the same boar, off to an island of no return.
As I chummed the deep pool with my waking conscience, I brought up my ex-friend, Mark Gall, a Jew who called me a “Nazi”. One of Vic’s secretaries called David’s kin “Vic The Nazi. When I first went fishing with Mark, the head of the Department of Education at the University of Oregon, he put on waders. I wondered (silently) if Jews knew how to fish. And, is it is allowed, like a black person in a all white public swimming pool. Did I just admit I still have Anti-Semitic Racist – thoughts! Call the Kosher Thought Police.
I stuttered, too, because I could not get a word in edgewise. Both my parents were raging narcissistic Neo-Nazis, like my brother, Mark Presco. I got it from them – my elders! This is the hottest topic – today. Anti-Semitism is hotter than it has ever been! Did David die with NAZI THOUGHTS looking in a pool of deep water – for a fish? Was he clear of any resentment – all Jews have the right to own?
While waiting for my coffee water to boil, I had a stroke of genius. I need a young compute expert to graft Netanyahu to Allen Ginsberg – reading Howl. This is Orwell’s Big Brother, opening up – and expressing himself in his epic poem…….
“I’m not a Banana Republic!”
I am sure many Jews believe Bibi is having a – Nazi Moment – and want to say “He speaks for himself!”
Then I had an epiphany. Life is good for all of us, then it goes belly-up when we realize we are not immortals and none of us are going to live forever. What a great betrayal. We look too our parents for answers to this very embarrassing THOUGHT. How, shameful you came up with it – as a imponent child. Immediately I came up with two squeals to ‘Waiting for Godot’.
PLAY: Mark Gall and David Seidler go fishing in Nazi Purgatory. They wade into a heavenly stream in the waders their Jewish mother made for them. They look around, and there are a dozen fine looking Nazi fly fishermen, everyone of them about 6ft. 3inch with blond hair and blue eyes. These Nazis were given last rights by a Catholic Priests as they lay dying in a basement in Berlin. They were shot up by Russian troops. They made a confession. They admitted they had sinned – by hating The Jews.
PLAY: Chigurgh and Ludwig Wittingstein have become the Best Fishing Buddies Austria has ever known. They get along famously. Ludwigs friends and family wonder why he owns love for a Dangerous Psychotic, who keeps challenging them to a Deadly Coin Toss. Ludwig has no fear. He throws fake punches to his beloved psychos ribcage. Then they throw their arms around each other, and walk whistling to their favorite fishing hole.
Only writer can do this, shit – and get away with it! They understand each other. They were once innocent happy boys. Then they were traumatized by Their Pending Death. Ludwig became the foremost philosopher of our age. And Chigurh became a Coin-Tossing Serial Killer who is adroit at recreating the trauma he will never recover from.
I conclude with this question…Do any of you fellow fisherman, have strange fishing thoughts?
PLAY: The Life of Big Brother Before He Went Completely Over To The Dark side …by John Presco
This is for you, David.
Play both vieos at the same time, with the Netneyahu volume turned off.
James Bond and Gravity’s Rainbow: A Possible Connection
Author:
Robert L. McLaughlin
Abstract
Pinpointing the origins of ideas in a writer’s work is an often difficult task with not always relevant results. Nevertheless, much excellent scholarship has been devoted to discovering and explicating possible sources for motifs and episodes in Pynchon’s work. Pynchon himself, in both his fiction and the few published remarks he has made about his own work, has indicated some of the most important influences on him, some serious, others pop cultural. In the introduction to Slow Learner, for example, Pynchon admits he “had grown up reading a lot of spy fiction, novels of intrigue.” And in apologizing for the “racist, sexist, and proto-Fascist talk” in “Lowlands,” he explains, “The best I can say for it now is that, for its time, it is probably authentic enough. John Kennedy’s role model James Bond was about to make his name by kicking third-world people around, another extension of the boy’s adventure tales a lot of us grew up reading” (11). Pynchon’s familiarity with Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels may account for how a specific idea in one of them, Moonraker, found its way also into Gravity’s Rainbow.
How to Cite: McLaughlin, R.L., (1989). James Bond and
About the author
Robert L. McLaughlin, Professor of English at Illinois State University, earned his Ph. D. at Fordham University in New York City. He is the author most recently of Stephen Sondheim and the Reinvention of the American Musical (UP of Mississippi, 2016). With Sally E. Parry he wrote We’ll Always Have the Movies: American Cinema during World War II (UP of Kentucky, 2006). He has published many articles on postmodern fiction, especially the work of Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace. He has edited a fiction collection, Innovations: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Fiction (Dalkey Archive Press, 1998). From 1993 to 2005 he was editor of the Review of Contemporary Fiction. With Sally E. Parry, he is currently completing a study of Broadway plays during World War II.
Fishing With Pops’s Pole West of The Water Tower
Posted on June 1, 2021 by Royal Rosamond Press
Here are two stories I improvise. I am the new Will Rogers and Mark Twain. I own a special contract as a minister, where all my recorded words, and telephone conversations are Copyrighted. Me – and the late Doctor Gene Scott? I need my own T.V. Show!
Jake Soda Pop
Old Man’s Fishing Pole
West of the Water Tower
(47) Wes Of The Water Tower – YouTube
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Country_for_Old_Men
In 1980, hitman Anton Chigurh is arrested in Texas. He escapes by strangling the sheriff’s deputy and steals a car by killing the driver with a captive bolt pistol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Seidler
Seidler arrived in Hollywood at the age of 40, and his first job there was writing Tucker: The Man and His Dream for Francis Ford Coppola.[citation needed] For some years he was a member of the Feather & Seidler writing team with Jacqueline Feather.
Always wanting to write about George VI, and being a stutterer himself, Seidler started researching in the 1970s. After finding the surviving son of Lionel Logue, Valentine Logue, a brain surgeon, he wrote him in 1981. In turn, Logue was keen to talk with Seidler and even share the notebooks his father kept while treating the King, but on the condition that he received “written permission from the Queen Mother” first. Upon writing to her, Seidler received a reply from her private secretary, asking him not to pursue the project during her lifetime. Consequently, Seidler abandoned the project in 1982.[citation needed]
Black Mau Mau’s Killed Our Friend’s Family
Posted on August 4, 2019 by Royal Rosamond Press
Joan Corbett was a good friend of my ex-wife and myself. She suffered from severe alcoholism due to her PTSD she acquired after coming home for Thanksgiving, and finding her family slaughtered. These latest shooters have targeted people of color. The Mau Mau Murders should be be labeled a ‘Hate Crime’.
David Seidler And Our Ex
Posted on September 1, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
David Seidler was married to my ex, Mary Ann Tharaldsen, and thus is in my and Liz Taylor’s family tree. Maybe he can author a Bond movie?
I see a play based upon The Misfits, and Bus Stop, where Tom and Mary Ann Pynchon, end up on the bus to Mexico with Lee Harvey Oswald. What was said, or not said, to detour Oswald from ending Camelot, or, what made up his mind to end the life of JFK, would be the Story of their generation? Belief in dialogue and philosophy was at its peak. If JFK had lived, there would be no Brexit and Trump. The bond between the U.S. Canada and Britain, would be strong. I suspect my ex was recruited by the CIA.
“I did not like it in Mexico…” The writer’s introspection also bothered her. “He wasn’t very present as a lover or a person. I wanted a relationship with someone who wanted to have children, and it became apparent to me that he really didn’t want to do that. He wanted to focus more on his writing.” After some time, the couple moved from Mexico to Texas, where they lived in separate houses. The novelist worked all night and slept all day. “So that isn’t very conducive to a relationship,” Tharaldsen recalled, laughing.”
John Presco 007
| THARALDSEN, MARY ANN married a groom named DAVID SEIDLER in the year 1961 on license number 4200 issued in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, U.S.A. Special thanks to RECLAIM THE RECORDS. Now you may also check Archives for MARY ANN THARALDSEN. |
https://sortedbyname.com/pages/t114815.html
Mary A Presco
in the California, Divorce Index, 1966-1984
- Add Alternative Information
- Report issue
| Name: | Mary A Presco |
|---|---|
| Spouse Name: | John G |
| Location: | Alameda |
| Date: | 24 Mar 1980 |
http://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/materia/the-fake-hermit/
Supposedly, Outsider Stacey Pierrot, had an agreement with Carrie Fisher to author the biography of my late sister, Christine Rosamond Presco, the sister-in-law of, Mary Ann Presco, who was married to David Seidler, who won an academy award for his screenplay in the movie ‘The King’s Speech’’. David and Mary Ann will be in the Rosamond Family Tree I am compiling. Rick Partlow will be there because he was married to Christine. Rick won an Emmy for his foley work in the series ‘Battlestar Galactica’. Mary Ann was married to Thomas Pynchon, and he will be in this rosy tree, as will Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, who was married to Eddy Fisher. Garth Benton did some acting and was married to Allee McBride. Benton did murals in the homes of the Stars.
This is a Starry constellation that I hereby title ‘The Royal Rosamond Space Academy’. As a descendant of the Master of the Falcon Art College in Holland, who commissioned Hieronymus Bosch to execute his otherworldly painting, I am going to teach young people how to get Out There – without drugs! Science Fiction Author, Daemon Knight, wrote a book on Bosch.
Jon
Oakland Tommy
Posted on March 4, 2016by Royal Rosamond Press
I just found out my ex-wife lived on College Avenue – IN OAKLAND – with Thomas Pynchon. They lived in a big apartment building located next to ‘Ye Olde Hut’ where I did a lot of drinking with my friends, including Paul Drake who Mary Ann encouraged to take up acting. Paul claims he based his tough-guy persona on watching me drink, but I believe he is speaking of Richard Swartz who was a bodyguard for Dederich of Synanon. Richard held the world’s record to the fifty yard dash – on his hands!
Mary Ann did illustrations for a rare book about the Symbionese Liberation Army. Her best friend, Joan (who lived right off college) came home for Thanksgiving and found her whole family blown away by the Black Mau Maus. Her father was a CEO of Standard Oil. Patty Hurst was kidnapped from 2803 Benvenue, which is about ten blocks from the Hut. I thought Mary Ann and I were going to be Facebook friends, then she prohibited any more drama. Maybe I will get an Oscar someday – late in my life – when most of my peers are dead, leaving a thousand writers to guess what became of Pynchon? What about Patty? What us olde ones don’t realize, is, that every seven years you get a new generation, thus withholding information from them – is futile!
“When he finished college, Pynchon was dating a girl named Lilian Laufgraben. Her family was Jewish and preferred that their daughter marry a dentist with the same religion. Heartbroken, the writer turned to some friends for comfort, Mary Ann Tharaldsen and David Seidler, a couple living in Seattle. Tharaldsen worked for Boeing and arranged a job at the company for the young friend. At the time Pynchon was writing his debut novel, V. In the book there’s a Jewish girl, Esther, who gets a nose job. When the surgery was about to start, the character was still awake: “She felt passive, even (a little?) sexually aroused.” Later, “Esther’s eyes were wild; she sobbed quietly, obviously beginning to get second thoughts. ‘Too late now,’ Trench consoled her, grinning. ‘Lay quiet, hey.’” Pynchon takes several pages to describe the mutilation of the girl’s face, without sparing metaphors of sexual penetration. Many of his friends interpret the passage as the novelist’s revenge on Lilian Laufgraben.
As soon as V. was published in 1963, the author quit his job at Boeing and moved to Mexico City, where he believed he would spend less money. He hated Seattle. “It’s a nightmare. If there were no people in it, it would be beautiful,” he wrote in a letter to an old college friend. During a brief trip back to the United States, he started a relationship with Mary Ann Tharaldsen, which led to the end of her marriage.
I called David Seidler, the ex-husband. “Thomas Pynchon? I’d rather not talk about it, thanks,” he said sarcastically. He’s now a theater and film writer and won an Academy Award in 2011 for The King’s Speech. Like George VI, the film’s protagonist, Seidler was born in England and stuttered in his childhood.
Tharaldsen, a technical writer, now 80 and living in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, told me a few details about their relationship. “Pynchon didn’t want to really communicate with anybody, except at that time I was the person that he would communicate with.” She agreed to live in Mexico when the two began their relationship. “I did not like it in Mexico…” The writer’s introspection also bothered her. “He wasn’t very present as a lover or a person. I wanted a relationship with someone who wanted to have children, and it became apparent to me that he really didn’t want to do that. He wanted to focus more on his writing.” After some time, the couple moved from Mexico to Texas, where they lived in separate houses. The novelist worked all night and slept all day. “So that isn’t very conducive to a relationship,” Tharaldsen recalled, laughing.
Pynchon’s Catholicism manifested itself mainly in his strict habits. In their five years together, Tharaldsen never saw her boyfriend smoke marijuana (there are reports that he took up weed later on). The author once got annoyed at his girlfriend when she said she wanted to have a drink during the day. “I will not tolerate midday drinking,” he shouted.
Some people guarantee that Tharaldsen served as the inspiration for Oedipa Maas, the protagonist of The Crying of Lot 49. The housewife ditches her husband, disc jockey Wendell “Mucho” Maas, and ventures to California chasing leads on an underground organization. The more she gets caught up in the search, the more she’s egged on by her own paranoia. Countless critics have claimed that Pynchon composes unidimensional and overly ludicrous characters. It’s certainly not the case with Oedipa Maas.
The novelist and Tharaldsen parted ways for good in the late ’60s, when the writer was finishing Gravity’s Rainbow at a house near the ocean in Manhattan Beach, a town near Los Angeles. Retired Army officer Jim Hall, Pynchon’s neighbor at the time, was dating a girl that the writer also knew. “When I met him for the first time, we were drinking wine at his house. Pynchon was very much into thermodynamics and there were stacks of Scientific American magazines in his apartment. My girlfriend said he didn’t want to read anything anybody else had written because he was afraid he’d write it into his work. Since I’d just gotten back from Vietnam, Pynchon asked me several questions about it.” Some of the critics claim that although Gravity’s Rainbow takes place in World War II, the book is about how Americans viewed the Vietnam War. I asked Hall if the novelist had shown paranoid traits at the time. “A little,” he replied. “But considering what we know today about the government’s covert operations at the time, he was right to act that way.”
To divide Tom the man from Pynchon the idea for biographical purposes, however, is to risk the folly in which Lane indulges in Journey into the Mind of [P.], particularly when he speculates that Pynchon was on the bus Lee Harvey Oswald took from Houston, Texas, to Mexico City on September 26, 1963,[23] about a month after Pynchon served as best man at Richard Fariña and Mimi Baez’s wedding on August 21, 1963. Lane never offers an explanation for why Pynchon would travel from California to Texas to return to Mexico rather than take a bus from Pacific Grove, to which he had traveled from Mexico City in August.[24] Lane admits that he is offering nothing more than “ridiculous rumor,” a description he quickly recasts as “ridiculous speculation,” apparently to indicate that the story is his own, but he also conjectures that Pynchon’s “secret,” his reason for avoiding the press, involves the conversation he had with Oswald. “This is the kind of fun people like me can have,” Lane then says. But the speculation isn’t simply ridiculous; it ignores the record, even as it existed at the time of the film’s making. Pynchon had already begun his famed avoidance of the media before Oswald went to Mexico, as George Plimpton, a literary journalist, and Jules Siegel, a former friend, point out in the film just after Lane’s speculation. There is no reasonable way to place Pynchon on a bus with Oswald, despite Lane’s insistence that connections can be forged even if the words we have don’t imply them, or to attribute Pynchon’s desire for privacy to a meeting between him and Kennedy’s assassin. Indeed, it has more recently been revealed that Pynchon headed further north after Fariña’s wedding, meeting up with friends from Cornell, Mary Ann Tharaldsen and David Seidler, in Berkeley, where he remained until “shortly after John F. Kennedy was assassinated.”[25] Pynchon might observe of Lane’s speculation: “Opera librettos, movies and television drama are allowed to get away with all kinds of errors in detail. Too much time in front of the Tube and a writer [or biographical researcher, it turns out] can get to believing the same thing. . . . The lesson here, obvious but now and then overlooked, is just to corroborate one’s data.”[26]
Royal Rosamond Space Academy
Posted on September 19, 2016by Royal Rosamond Press
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The Royal Bohemian Court
Posted on June 23, 2023 by Royal Rosamond Press
Friends (Photograph by Bill McCullough for The Atlantic)
119 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, S.W.3 (Photo: Google Maps)
I am seeking a team of attorneys to file a lawsuit against the owners of Bohemian Grove – forbidding them to use the word and title….BOHEMIAN!
After I raised Talitha Getty from the dead – which was an exhausting task – I go turn on the news and see three men holding fish. This is a Dadaist painting. They are – White Men – who have been caught red-handed. Here is another connection to Bohemian Grove to a Supreme Court Justice.
“What are you men going to do with those fish?”
“Uh! we’re waiting for Uncle Tom Pynchon to arrive with his Bar-B-Quer. He’s going to show us how to cook salmon – Lousiana Style!”
“He’ll be here with ‘The Black Beast’ in a hour or two. We’re flying him and his Q in on a military transport!”
Here is the most surreal headline written to date…
“US justice Samuel Alito defends fishing trip with billionaire Paul Singer“
Washington Irving would salivate over it. It has a Rumple Stiltskin feel to it. Men fishing with other men is the oldest activity known to man. Jesus gets involved, telling his disciples where to cast their net. So, what is so wrong with this picture? One answer is, Jesus, and all members of the Supreme Court are supposed to live the lifestyle of Gypsies – Bohemians! Here is a good article on Bohemian Grove that testifies the trouble real Bohemians are having with – THE SUPER RICH! Justice Alito and Thomas have been caught in Eva Braun’s home movie taken at Hitler’s wolf’s Lair. This looks very bad, unless you can exclaim…
“Here comes Uncle Tom Pynchon now – with his Quer!”
Thomas Pynchon became the King of Bohemians when his best friend, Richard Farina got killed. Mimi Baez Farina – was Queen of the Bohemians. Now that the Billion Dollar Grasp of the Royal Bohemian Court has been loosened, we Real Bohemians must choose a King – and a Queen! I am a candidate. Art immitates life. Damn -if that isn’t Uncle Tom sitting with these rich men in that Grove painting! What do you got, Mr. Presco – a Gypsies Crystal Ball?
John Bohemian Johnny
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/harlan-crow-clarence-thomas-relationship/674092
https://www.ft.com/content/a4640200-12c1-4b3f-94ef-d71fa88b41e8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%27s_Lair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%27s_Lair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_St._Croix_Fleming
Evelyn Beatrice Sainte Croix Fleming, née Rose, known as Eve Fleming (10 January 1885 – 27 July 1964),[1] was an English socialite known for her flamboyant beauty and being the mother of James Bond writer Ian Fleming.
Life[edit]
Born in Kensington, London, Eve was the daughter of George Alfred Sainte Croix Rose (31 January 1854 – 14 February 1926), a captain in the service of the Royal Buckinghamshire Militia (King’s Own) and Justice of the Peace (J.P.) for Berkshire, son of Sir Philip Rose, 1st Baronet, by his marriage on 8 April 1880 to Beatrice Quain (1857 – 4 January 1911), the daughter of Sir Richard Quain, 1st Baronet.
On 15 February 1906 she married Valentine Fleming (17 February 1882 – 20 May 1917),[2] and by that marriage was the mother of four sons: Peter Fleming, Ian Fleming, Richard Fleming and Michael Fleming. Eve was also the grandmother of actress Lucy Fleming.
After her husband’s death in action during World War I, Eve Fleming inherited his large estate in trust, making her very wealthy. However, the conditions of the money in trust transferred it to others should she ever remarry. She became the mistress of painter Augustus John, with whom she had a daughter, the cellist Amaryllis Fleming, and later lived with the Marquess of Winchester until his death.
During the 1940s and 1950s, she resided at The Abbey, Sutton Courtenay. She died only two weeks before the death of her son Ian on 12 August 1964.[3]
In popular culture[edit]
Eve Fleming’s nickname from her son Ian was M, and Ian may have used his relationship with her as model for M, fictional head of Head of the Secret Intelligence Service and James Bond’s boss.[4]
She became the mistress of painter Augustus John, with whom she had a daughter, the cellist Amaryllis Fleming, and later lived with the Marquess of Winchester until his death
Monica de Mornay De La Croix Rose
After selling Pitt House in 1923 Fleming’s mother bought three cottages in Cheyne Walk and converted them into one dwelling. She named the three Turner’s House after the painter J M W Turner who had spent his last years at No. 119. He died here in 1851. During her time here, Eve established a Bohemian salon for artists, like her lover, Augustus John, to allow them to mingle with patrons such as Winston Churchill. The young Ian lived here during his school holidays and continued to visit whilst he was at Kitzbuhel and at Geneva University.
Then, at the age of 23, he moved in and stayed there until 1936. During this time he was sorting out his future, including abortive army training at Sandhurst, Foreign Office entry exams and unsuccessful careers as stockbroker and banker (including a period of employment by Tom Cull’s grandfather at bankers Cull & Co. Then in 1936, he acquired his final pre-war home at…
Black Pynchon
Posted on August 29, 2018 by Royal Rosamond Press
When I read they were seriously considering having a black man play James Bond, I wondered what they were going to do with all those white man clichés and stereotypes – that I was having a problem with – with my white James Bond – even though I turned him – into a woman. Then there is the smashing of a white man’s icon. Who do we got left? How about, Thomas Pynchon? Why not kill him off and replace him with a – Black Pynchon?
Most of the black people I have known, and know, have very active and healthy social lives. So, the contrast is not in the change of skin color, but, being turned from a reclusive bug hiding in a damp log – into a social butterfly! Tom had a chance to be in the limelight of the Richard and Mimi Farina show. The Baez family were very tribal, and folksy. They are Irish and Mexican stock.
Tom is in my family tree. I married his ex, who said;
“In Mexico, Tharaldsen says, Pynchon wrote all night, slept all day, and kept mostly to himself. When he didn’t write, he read—mainly Latin American writers like Jorge Luis Borges, a big influence on his second novel, The Crying of Lot 49.”
Maybe Tom will write some of the script? How about a series that opens with Tom recalling his life as a writer. He might open up if he has an alias.
http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/thomas-pynchon-bleeding-edge.html
Black Pynchon
by
John Presco 007
Thomas Pynchon wakes up to the sound of his cellphone ringing. He reaches for it on his night stand, but, it is not there. Getting up, he follows the gospel tune to his writing table.
“When did I choose a gospel tune for my ringer. And, where is my computer!”
Reaching for his phone, Tom let’s out a startled cry when he sees a black hand pick it up.
“Hello!”
“Hi Daddy! Today’s the big day! Let’s go over your itinerary. Drop your mother off at the rest home, and bring your grandsons, Tyrel and Tee-Jay, with you. She won’t put up a fight if they are present. Then, drop them off at football practice. Then, pickup Willie’s bar-b-quer and drop it off at the church. Bring your truck. Then, practice your solo song with the choir. After that, pick up your granddaughter’s wedding cake, bring it home, and get ready for your retirement ceremony, at seven. You can leave the wedding early because the groom has so much family. As the chief of police of Watts, you will be swearing in new officers – before you receive your medal of heroism. Bring your speech. Did you order enough ribs for the choir picnic?
“I’m the chief of police of Watts?” Tom asks, as he checks out his great choppers he owns in the hall mirror.
‘That’s right. But, after tonight, you won’t be!” You’re 81 Daddy, time to spend more time with your 32 grandchildren who love you so much. They’re already fighting over you.
“How old is Momma?” Tom asks.
“Are you getting senile on me? She’s a 107.”
“Can I get a room next to her?”
“Oh, Daddy! You’re such a card! My warm, cuddly, clown! Oh, I almost forgot. Your nieces from Oakland want to see you and Momma do ‘The Bump’. So, get warmed up!”
“You want me to do the Bump – with my Momma?”
“No silly. I want you to do the Bump – with my Momma! Put her on. I want to see if she is done altering my dress.”
From the bathroom comes the sound of splashing in the tub.
“Is that Sharena? Bring the phone in here! I want to talk to her about the surprise party.”
“Who’s surprised party?”
“Never you mind. You don’t have to have your nose in everyone’s business. Now, get going. Go load up the seasoned hardwood for the Q-pot.”
“But, I don’t have any clothes on. Do you know where my clothes are?”
After Fariña’s wedding, Pynchon went up to Berkeley, where he met up with Tharaldsen and Seidler. For years, Pynchon trackers have wondered about Tharaldsen, listed as married to Pynchon in a 1966–67 alumni directory. The real story is not of a secret marriage but a distressing divorce—hers from Seidler. Pynchon and Tharaldsen quickly fell in love, and when Pynchon went back to Mexico City shortly after John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Tharaldsen soon followed.
In Mexico, Tharaldsen says, Pynchon wrote all night, slept all day, and kept mostly to himself. When he didn’t write, he read—mainly Latin American writers like Jorge Luis Borges, a big influence on his second novel, The Crying of Lot 49. (He also translated Julio Cortázar’s short story “Axolotl.”) His odd writing habits persisted throughout his life; later, when he was in the throes of a chapter, he’d live off junk food (and sometimes pot). He’d cover the windows with black sheets, never answer the door, and avoid anything that smelled of obligation. He often worked on multiple books at once—three or four in the mid-sixties—and a friend remembers him bringing up the subject of 1997’s Mason & Dixon in 1970.
Tharaldsen grew bored of the routine. Soon they moved to Houston, then to Manhattan Beach. Tharaldsen, a painter, did a portrait of Pynchon with a pig on his shoulder, referencing a pig figurine he’d always carry in his pocket, talking to it on the street or at the movies. (He still identified closely with the animals, collecting swine paraphernalia and even signing a note to friends with a drawing of a pig.) Once Tharaldsen painted a man with massive teeth devouring a burger, which she titled Bottomless, Unfillable Nothingness. Pynchon thought it was him, and hated it. Tharaldsen insists it wasn’t, but their friend Mary Beal isn’t so sure. “I know she regarded him as devouring people. I think in the sense that he—well, I shouldn’t say this, because all writers do it. Writers use people.”
Tharaldsen hated L.A., and decided to go back to school in Berkeley. “I thought they were unserious sort of beach people—lazy bums! But Tom didn’t care because he was inside all day and writing all night.”
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