Kekulé's Serpent

[See this picture at a larger size in the Dead Things section of the gallery.]

Okay, so in lieu of anything properly new here’s a variant of the shot from a few posts back, from a stray roll just discovered at the bottom of my bag. Think I prefer this one.

Now, onto important things – a few words about Thomas Pynchon (“oh here he goes again” cry people who know me too well). Here’s the most recent sighting.

I’ve just started on Against the Day, which the lovely Katherine gave me for Xmas – a slightly daunting prospect, not just because this is a long book even compared to Gravity’s Rainbow and Mason & Dixon, but because entering a Pynchon novel is like going on an expedition to the foothills of an unknown land. Luckily this time I have the Pynchon Wiki as a guide – wish such a thing had existed 10 years ago when M&D came out!

And if that wasn’t enough – out recently is Zak Smith’s illustrated Gravity’s Rainbow, due to a legal dispute now rather amusingly called Pictures Showing What Happens on Each Page of Thomas Pynchon’s Novel Gravity’s Rainbow – catchy! 750 illustrations, paintings and (look – on topic!) photographs – a colossal undertaking. (See it online here). They’re often verging on the abstract, but just turning through a few pages now I spot: the banana breakfast (pg.10) at which “it is not often Death is told so clearly to fuck off”, the Pavlovian dogs (pg. 78), Grigori the Octopus (pg. 113), Mrs. Quoad’s Disgusting English Candy Drill (pg. 118) and so on and so on. I’ll probably have to re-read GR again now…