I've convinced the wonderful folks at Skylight Books in Los Feliz to have a midnight release party for Pynchon's "Against the Day". The official release date is November 21st, so the evening of November 20th, Skylight will stay open until past midnight to sell copies and have a little pynchon-fest. If it's good enough for Harry Potter, it's certainly good enough for Pynchon...



For more information on Skylight--the best independent new books store in L.A.--go to www.skylightbooks.com





-Mandel

After more than nine years, the new novel by Thomas Pynchon, entitled "Against the Day", will be released this December.



Giddy hallelujahs!!!!!!!!!



Here is the description written by Pynchon himself and posted on Amazon.com on his behalf:



"Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen, Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly speaking on the map at all.



With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.



The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.



As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.



Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction.



Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck."



--------------------------------



Read MSNBC's article:





MSNBC.com

New Thomas Pynchon novel to be released

Mysterious author's first novel in almost a decade comes out in December

The Associated Press



Updated: 5:15 p.m. ET July 20, 2006



NEW YORK - Thomas Pynchon fans, the long wait is apparently over: His

first novel in nearly a decade is coming out in December.



But details, as with so much else about the mysterious author of such

postmodern classics as "V." and "Gravity's Rainbow," have proved a puzzle.



Since the 1997 release of "Mason & Dixon," a characteristically broad

novel about the 18th-century British explorers, new writings by

Pynchon have been limited to the occasional review or essay, such as

his introduction for a reissue of George Orwell's "1984." He has, of

course, made no media appearances or allowed himself to be

photographed, not counting a pair of cameos in "The Simpsons," for

which he is sketched in one episode with a bag over his head.



This much is known about the new book: It's called "Against the Day"

and will be published by Penguin Press. It will run at least 900 pages

and the author will not be going on a promotional tour.



"That will not be happening, no," Penguin publicist Tracy Locke told

The Associated Press on Thursday.



Like J.D. Salinger (who at one point Pynchon was rumored to be), the

69-year-old Pynchon is the rare author who inspires fascination by not

talking to the press. Alleged Pynchon sightings, like so many UFOs,

have been common over the years, and his new book has inspired another

round of Pynchon-ology on Slate and other Internet sites.



Late last week, the book's description — allegedly written by Pynchon

— was posted on Amazon.com. It reads in part:



"Spanning the period between the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and the

years just after World War I, this novel moves from the labor troubles

in Colorado to turn-of-the-century New York, to London and Gottingen,

Venice and Vienna, the Balkans, Central Asia, Siberia at the time of

the mysterious Tunguska Event, Mexico during the Revolution, postwar

Paris, silent-era Hollywood, and one or two places not strictly

speaking on the map at all.



"With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a

time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic

fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the

present day is intended or should be inferred."



The description was soon pulled from the site, with Penguin denying

any knowledge of its appearance. According to Amazon.com spokesman

Sean Sundwall, Penguin requested the posting's removal "due to a late

change in scheduling on their part. We expect the description to be

reposted to the book's detail page in the next day or two."



Locke declined comment on why the description was taken down, but did

reluctantly confirm two details provided by Sundwall, that the book is

called "Against the Day" (no title is listed on Amazon.com) and that

Pynchon indeed wrote the blurb, which warns of more confusion to come.



"Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur," Pynchon writes. "If it is

not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment

or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of

fiction. Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck."

Aside from the last few days, I've been a working machine lately. Same things as when last I posted: Sartre and dissertation proposal, Sartre and dissertation proposal. But sometime late last week, by the time the weekend began, I decided I felt burned out and depressed, and so have been idling a little time away trying to cheer myself up. I think it started, strangely enough, with having seen Belle and Sebastian play live with the L.A. Philharmonic Orchestra...maybe the beauty of this event made the daily routine I've been keeping seem dreary and banal by comparison. Among the things I've been doing:



--Watching "Cowboy Bebop", which rules...



--Going on long-ass bike rides: yesterday and today I biked down to the LAX area and back via the South Bay Bike Path. It is a beautiful path that goes through trees, past the Marina, and down the beach for miles and miles, past empty beaches and crowded beaches, power plants, piers and hang-gliders' hills...



--Reading essays from William H. Gass and Maurice Blanchot...both write heartbreakingly wonderful prose, the kind of prose that just makes you want to shoot yourself because you aren't and never will be worthy to use words when such worthy word-wielders have graced the world...



--Movies, including Akira Kurosawa's "Madadayo" (his last film, finished when he was 89) on DVD and "A Scanner Darkly" (a faithful and wonderful adaptation of the Philip K. Dick novel) in the theater...



--Going to the Getty with a couple of friends and seeing some really amazing African pop music...the free concerts at the Getty are--in contrast to the ordinary, dinky free summer concerts you get at most museums--elaborate productions, with two two stages, lots of carts selling alcohol and food, beautiful lighting, and hundreds upon hundreds of people...I'll definitely be going again...



--Writing, including a revived interest in keeping a diary as a complement to the daily regimen of creative writing I've been keeping to...



--And, despite my best efforts to be playing hookey, reading about Sartre and meticulously constructing the first few lectures for my class in my head.



Tomorrow, I must begin my routine anew. I can only hope the sadness from which I've been laboring to free myself will evaporate in the face of something wonderful coming my way...

Today I had two meetings--one with my advisor Barbara and another with another member of what I presume will be my dissertation committee, Pam. After angsting a great deal about the messy first draft of my dissertation proposal and the (justifiably) poor reception Barbara gave it, both she and Pam had great things to say about my re-write. Barbara told me it will require relatively minor revisions, and that my next task is to write the bibliographical essay for it. Pam told me she thought my project is exciting and that it intersects very closely with things she wants to be thinking about in the near future. Now, being prepared to take my oral exams by the beginning of Fall quarter looks not only possible but nearly certain--depending on what Tyler Burge has to say about the present draft of my proposal.



Sigh of relief...I knew those weeks on end of 12-hour days 7 days a week would get me somewhere.



Meanwhile, I can focus on the next big hump in my academic career: trying to put together a course on Sartre. But I've already written about that at length... Ah yes, and the quest for physical fitness enters a new phase tomorrow, when I'll add wieghtlifting to the running and bicycling I've already been doing.



Ah, it certainly feels good to be getting shit done...

Courtesy of "Critical Mass"...



Shelley Jackson has a survey posted in conjunction with her new novel "Half Life" (which sounds fascinating)...Take it, and it will tell you what your mutation is and what mutants you are related to. This one's a hoot...



http://www.ineradicablestain.com/MUTT.html