Pynchon and me

My relationship with Pynchon books has always been funny. I bought my first one in Barcelona, I was there on holidays with a friend and there was one of this street book fairs, it was 1992, Barcelona was just refurbished after the Olympics. I bought "V" because of the portrait caught my eye, it took me a good few years to read it. I did start it several times but I never seemed to pass from page 100, then suddenly, a few years later I read it twice in nearly a week.

"There is more behind and inside V. than any of us had suspected. Not who, but what: what is she. God grant that I may never be called upon to write the answer, either here or in any official report." (Thomas Pynchon, V)

My second Pynchon was "Gravity Rainbow", I bought the two volumes for 100 pesetas in Valladolid, from a store shop that was being closed (Galerias Preciados 1995). It also took me a couple of years to read it.

"But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice — guessed and refused to believe — that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the rainbow, and they its children." (Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity Rainbow")

The next one I bought, I have not started it yet, was "Slow Learner", I was in La Crosse, WI visiting a friend and she showed me this second hand library, I got an almost new copy of the book for 25 cents. This was 1996. Early in 2000 I was preparing to move to Ireland, I bought "Mason and Dixon" almost fresh from the print, I though that a such thick book would keep me busy during the rainy Dublin evenings. I started this book several times, but it was not until this year (now living in Germany) that I have really got into reading it. I have already read 700 of its nearly 1000 pages, and I was waiting to finish the book before writing this post, but...

"It is usually not wise to discuss matters of costume with people like this, — politics or religion being far safer topics." (Thomas Pynchon, "Mason & Dixon")

There is another Pynchon in my bag, "Vineland" I bought it in Dallas in 2007 and managed to read it nearly the very same year I bought it. Quite atypical from me.

"You don't die for no motherfuckin' shadows" (Thomas Pynchon, "Vineland")

Stolen From Strangers

Long time has passed since Miyake was originally recognized as a world class Jazz trumpeter, he was back in Tokyo after a few years of study in Boston and New York. Back then he recorded a few solo albums with musicians such as Michael Brecket or Ron Carter. Soon he started writing music for commercials and movies (Oliver Stone's "Any Given Sunday"). His work became so popular that he was writing over 300 jingles per year. He has not stopped working since then.

Stolen from Strangers is his 21st album. As Hal Willner, former co-producer of Miyake's work, puts it in the foreword to the record "...another audio road movie, this time directed by Pedro Almodovar". Recorded between Tokyo and Paris, the place where Jun has been living for the last few years. With collaborations in vocals from Arto Lindsay, Sanseverino, the "Cosmic Voice of" Bulgaria Choir, Arthur H., Lisa Papimeau and with the subtle but precious guitar of Vinicius Catania. What catches the ear of anyone listening to Jun's music is his capacity to blend seamlessly different styles of music while at the same being able to maintain a consistent line. This is one of these albums that can be listened from beginning to end without temptations to alter the order or to skip one song. It just flows.

Mind control

I was watching an interview with Noam Chomsky where he explains why he is not invited to night talk-shows. In the words of the producer of one of them this is because he is not concise. As a matter of fact this is true, I have watched several interviews with him and he is quite prone to argument for a long time any point he is trying to make. In the same interview he justifies himself with the following argument: you can state anything that goes inline with the current power structures and it will be immediately accepted - Samdam Hussein's was a terrorist that used chemical weapons against his own population - But what happens if instead I use the following sentence, - Samdam Hussein's was a terrorist that used chemical weapons against his own population and was widely supported by the government of G. Bush (father) -

Noam Chomsky argument is that meanwhile both sentences are probably truth, the first one won't require any argumentation to be believed meanwhile the second one will require to show a long list of facts supporting it before it gets even partially accepted.

I guess it does not scape to anybody that there is a always a big effort from the different power centers to create mainstream opinion; newspapers, think-tanks, lobbies, "intellectuals"... all shouting with a single voice and trying to gear our thoughts in the same direction. Propaganda creates those streams of thought that are useful to the power centers to steer people's opinion in their own interest. If this was not bad by itself, as I think it is a coercion of the freedom of thinking, it may get even worse when used by people with obscure intentions.

You may have receive a very popular viral email that shows pictures of massive weddings in Gaza, if you do a search in Google (link) you will find some examples. The bottom line of the email was that girls as young as 11 years were forced to get married with Jihadist and that Hamas was sponsoring the marries with $500. All normal right? The Muslims are these horrible people that when are not killing are raping girls, right?
That is the mainstream thinking, right?

It happens that the pictures are true and the wedding in question took place, but the girls in the pcitures are the daughters of Palestinian death citizens ( soldiers / fighters?, I don't know...) that were killed during the latest Israely invasion of the Palestinian territories. The brides were the mothers of the girls in many cases marrying the brother of their death husbands as it is the tradition in the Muslim word.

The "power" created the main line of thinking so Occident would engage in an obscure war, now it is used by wrecked people like the neocon Dr. Paul L. Williams that has no problem in twisting the truth or showing us the partial bits of his interest and then we may receive one of these emails and we may even forward it, with the best of intentions to all our acquaintances. And then a lie told 1000 times becomes the truth.

As you can see if you reached up to here, if your argument in not the main stream, it is difficult to be concise.

Shylock

I've always had a lot of sympathy for Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare Merchant of Venice. Shylock is a complex character, tormented by the dissapearence of his daughter (who runs away with a young Christian with part of his money), living in the periphery of a society that disregards the Jews, he is obsessed with increasing his wealth using the only art that he knows; money lending.

You may have heard me saying before that life always puts you in front on the same person at least twice, so that is why it is better to have a fiend in Hell than an enemy in Heaven. That is probably what Antonio (the prosper merchant of Venice) may think when he is forced to ask for money to Shylock, money that he will pay back as soon as any of his ships full of goods arrive back to Venice.

This is the part of the story I like. The same Antonio that disdained Shylock when he was the "big dog", is now the "small dog", and he gets smaller and smaller as the news from the wrecks and misfortunes of his ships arrive at Venice. Furthermore, Shylock has signed a quite unusual contract with Antonio, if the merchant does not pay back the money lent Shylock will take a pound of Antonio's flesh. So the tormented Shylock becomes the tormentor and Antonio the target of his ire, Shylock seeks revenge in Antonio for all the unfairness the Venice society imposes in him and his fellow Jews, so when Antonio can not satisfy the bond Shylock demands Antonio's heart.

Finally things end up well for Antonio and bad for Shylock. The wise Portia ( - beautiful, rich and wise - Shakespeare loved his female character's as much as Almovodar does) manages to free Antonio from his bond, leaves Shylock with nothing and furthermore he is forced to convert to Christianism.

Shylock is the ultimate loser, but he is the most human and more credible of all the characters of this play (comedy Shakespeare calls it). As all of us he is exposed by the society to that bi-polarity of sometimes being the servant and sometimes having to be the master and having to change from one side to the other constantly sometimes even without realizing at which side of the social scale we are.

In memoriam Pepe Rubiales

My new big TV

I saw that big screen TV at the local electronics store, and I fell in love. It had so many inches that I can not even remember how many. I have to buy it, I said to myself, looking at the TV from now on will be like looking through the window to a world in real scale. At that time I could not even image the ruin that love affair would cause to my life.

I went home, I prepared a space in my living room for the big TV, the price would be no problem, I can pay it in comfortable monthly instalments, just a couple of hundreds a month for a year or so, what is that, nothing really. I was ready to go to the store when I realized, that the TV will never fit in my car. How could I not have thought about that before? I wanted to have the big window to the world but I was living in a small world on my own, how could I be so blind that I did not think about that before. I rush to the car dealer and saw a big SUV of the right size for my new life, I did not have the money to pay for it, but asking for credit was so easy. I got the credit and I got the car and I drove straight to the electronics shop to pick my new TV. I know that you can get the TV delivered to your place, but my life was growing from that of a small man in a small world to a big sized life and during these processes you have to do the things by yourself.

I went home and with some help from my neighbour I got my TV installed in the living room. It was only then that I realized that there was something that did not fit. The living room was too small for such a big TV, I tried to rearrange the furniture to get better angles, but nothing I tried would work. Damm! I need a bigger living room - I thought. Well, after all were not all my acquaintances moving into bigger houses? It was even an investment, they all said. So there I was, moving into a better neighbourhood, what a house, the perfect setting for my new TV... how good did my car look parked outside. Finally my life had gone bigger. And how easy it was, just ask for credit, buy the house on a mortgage and a few months later I was even able to re-mortgage the house which left me with some cash for a very nice holiday. After all that had been a period of changes and I needed some rest.

I have no house now, I have lost my TV and my car, I owe money to a bank that is not even the bank that lent it to me (that one has disappeared). I am writing this from an Internet Cafe, listening to aged New Age music and wondering if any of my friends will give me shelter for another week... the problem is that they all live in these little apartments with almost no free space, small like the one I once had.

The fix

People listening to the latests Elbow's album "The Seldom Seen Kid", would have been surprised by the voice of Richard Hawley in the song "The Fix" (and an amazing table guitar solo at the end). The song is about two schemers planning to fix a horse and retire on the winnings, and sounds like one of those songs extracted from a Rat Pack film. Apparently both Hawley and Elbow's singer, Guy Garvey conceived the song when they shared flight to Tennessee.



The song describes how are they fixing the horse, messing the saddle and the track and finally how are they going to enjoy with the earnings once the race is finished.
And I like how this song describes that feeling of power the two men have, they are the only ones that know, the rest don't, they are creating the future. Oh how much do we like winning, and some times what a nice feeling is to feel more clever than the rest.