Ad-man Andrew Essex has recalled his New Yorker piece of June 24, 1996, in which members of the band Lotion (what?) made a claim about Thomas Pynchon's fan status. Now the former members of Lotion claim that they met Pynchon through one of their moms. (I don't know!) But it is true that the voice narrating the book trailer above is Pynchon. We do not know what is on his t-shirt however.
I'm pretty sure that he did write the liner notes for one of Lotion's albums. It's pretty much the only thing I remember about them. Although I did interview them once and they were very nice.
I saw Thomas Pynchon at The Strand once, reading the illustrated 'Gravity's Rainbow' by Zak Smith. I was watching him, and he smiled at a certain page and I knew it was him by the teeth.
He saw me staring, our eyes locked.
I knew.
He knew I knew.
The smile faded, and he quickly turned and left.
I grew up in the same suburban Pittsburgh town as Bill and Jim Ferguson of Lotion (Bill and I were on the same hockey team!) and we also crossed paths frequently in the indie-rock scene of the 90s (50 million blog-years ago). I used to be mildly obsessed with Pynchon and so made a point of asking them about the liner-note thing: my memory/understanding is that one of the Lotion moms (I don't think it was Mrs. Ferguson though) worked at a bank where Pynchon used to do business, and like any good mom she passed along a demo, which he liked a lot and then offered to write liner notes. It was that simple, and they insisted it was true. I still believe them! I was also jealous that they appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but not too jealous because they were always very nice.
Wait, there are fucking book trailers now? That doesn't get a parenthetical (what?)?
I am now extemely anxious about his new release.
But I love this whole piece.
You should remember Lotion. That's a great album if you like 90's rock/pop. My great embarrassment was that I used to think 'Lotion' was Spanish for 'Phone' since I only saw these in the East Village.
I dreamt that Thomas Pynchon and J.D. Salinger accidently got each other's driver's licenses, but neither of them realized it.
So I guess that was him shucking and jiving on the Simpsons, too.
I only dreamt Steny Hoyer had a speakeasy in his basement.
Lotion were awesome. The album Pynchon wrote liner notes for is their second LP, "Nobody's Cool." You can read his liner notes for the album here:
http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_lotion.html
Looking at that video made me nostalgic for all the time I used to spend in Vice City, and that's pretty sad.