Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow Turns 50 - by Ted Gioia:
Pynchon may still have many admirers, but few who are willing to follow in his footsteps. Even an explicitly Pynchonian novel of more modern times, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, eventually rests its fictive universe on a compassionate, humanistic foundation, one that has no equivalent in Pynchon’s worldview. If Pynchon’s books were boats, they would be ones without a sea floor on which to set anchor.
Ted is wrong about this, as I explain at some length — as in fifteen thousand words — in a forthcoming essay for the Hedgehog Review: “The Far Invisible: Thomas Pynchon as America’s Theologian.”
Trying another photo just as a test.
Another fun fact: Dalhart is closer to Cheyenne, Wyoming (and five other state capitals) than it is to Austin.
If you did what I did today, drive from Waco to Dalhart, you would swear that the whole drive was flat. But in fact Waco is 470’ above sea level and Dalhart is at 4000’. The gradient is so gentle as to be unnoticeable, but it sure adds up.
Afternoon sky over a gas station in Dalhart, Texas. Couldn’t do anything except grab a quick shot through the window. I guess it’s true that the best camera is the one you have with you.
