John, I'm only blogging....

I wrote about Matthew Cissell back in July. Matt had given a shout out to LoS in advance of a lecture he gave for International Pynchon Week. He'd written us to see if we could make contact with Tod Perry, a poet and Cornell alum who'd been a friend of Thomas Pynchon, and who we'd interviewed about Cornell in the late 50s (here).

His interest was a reference Tod made to a NYC "salon" hosted by Hans and Greta Meyerhof. That's the difference between real scholars and amateurs like us. Matt immediately saw the importance of the salon, we just kind of let it pass.  But in a way, that's our role.

Cissell has published his doctoral thesis:  Arc of the Absent Author: Thomas Pynchon's Trajectory from Entropy to Grace (full pdf). He cites LoS in several footnotes and very generously acknowledges our interview.  I really appreciated the following:

By way of introduction to this section I must start by saying first that research on Pynchon would not be what it is if it were only left to academics and their shelves of primary and secondary sources. Indeed it is my experience that many non-academics contribute a great deal to work on Pynchon and that is where one may still find new avenues to investigate; as such it is no surprise to find that many Pynchon scholars keep
an eye on the Pynchon list serve and other webpages that may offer new information. In fact that is how I learned about an interesting couple that Pynchon and his Cornell friends used to visit in New York.

It came to my attention that there was a blog called “Laws of Silence” that was investigating some photos related to Pynchon at Cornell and possibly including him.... (p. 113)

He then goes on to describe how we'd made him aware of the Meyerhof salon and put him in contact with Tod Perry.

I know it's not a super big deal, but it's rewarding to have been able to help Pynchon scholarship in even this small way. I'm glad Cissell recognizes the value of what we do. We're not academics or journalists, but we do something akin to both. Personally, I've written poetry, fiction, journalism and theater....and maintained this blog for years. I always just thought of myself as a "writer," but maybe I shouldn't be so hesitant to assume the mantle of "blogger." If not for those pesky connotations!

Plus, not all of my work is on the blog. I'm really into the physicality of things, the written word as an object, or in a manuscript.  Concrete poetry (or not) in a concrete medium.

In the end, perhaps it's all just much ado. The real goal here is, on one hand, to thank Cissell, but also recognize his appreciation for an oft-mocked medium: the blog. I write novels and poetry, but my most frequent outlet is here. It's humble, but we do have a small audience, and some posts have made small impacts; that is just what we intended. "Micro-history," small details, tempests in teapots.

And I've even made a buck or two. I don't do it for that, but it's part of the deal. I've made money blogging (very little), with journalism, and a novella.  I would write regardless, but I've often thought of this Stephen King quote whenever I catch myself being pretentious:

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”

I would add being cited in a doctoral thesis is well, maybe not a sign of talent, but that one has, at the very least, something to say worth citing. And that may be a tautology. Who cares? We're only bloggers....