by ELAINE SUGARMAN-SWEET-SACCHARINE, Alternate Reality News Service Literature Writer
A wise woman once explained to me that if you want to know where a literary convention is being held, just follow the people in costumes. This past weekend, I followed people in 1960s hippie garb, the dress of a late 18th century gentleman and the uniforms of World War II soldiers to the Sheraton Braggadocio on Pavement Street, which was host to PynchCon 2011, a convention devoted to the works of author Thomas Pynchon.
Sponsored by the Wrong Questions Club of Pittsburgh (which was odd, considering it was held in Toronto), this year’s PynchCon offered an eclectic variety of panels on all things Pynchon. These included: “Benny Profane versus Tyrone Slothrop: Who Was the Better Soldier?”; “Gravity’s Rainbow: Twenty Reasons the Movie Would Have Sucked if it Ever had Been Made,” and; “Against the Day Trivia Faceoff.”
The Guest of Honour at this year’s PynchCon was James McMoira, who claimed to have shaken Pynchon’s hand in 2003. “It was at a Denny’s,” McMoira explained to a rapt hall of over 200 people. “A tall man said to me: ‘Could you please fill this cup with Diet Rock Sludge?’ There didn’t seem to be anything with that name at the soda station, so I just gave him diet cola. He seemed grateful, and shook my hand.
“Something about the man seemed awfully familiar. Then, it hit me: I had seen an old black and white photograph of him on a Web site devoted to The Crying of Lot 49! I think it was, like, his high school graduation photo or something, but the resemblance was unmistakeable. So, I said, ‘Hey! You’re Thomas Pynchon!” To which he replied, ‘No. I’m afraid you have me mistaken with the National Book Award winning author.’ To which I replied in response: ‘Yeah. Yeah. You’re Thomas Pynchon, alright! Who else would know about the whole National Book Award winner thing?!’ To which he responded in reply: ‘It was a lucky guess. Look, if you don’t go away and allow me to eat my Grand Slum Breakfast in peace, I’m afraid I shall have to call the manager and complain.’ To which I retorted in responsive reply, ‘Only Thomas Pynchon would deny that he was Thomas Pynchon! You must be Thomas Pynchon!’ To which he responded in replicative retort: ‘I can’t argue with logic like that. MANAGER! I’D LIKE TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER, PLEASE!’
“Sure, I got thrown out of the restaurant,” McMoira concluded, “but it was worth it. Man, was it worth it.” The audience at PynchCon roared its approval.
McMoira was a controversial choice. Some Pynchonistas believe that the person he shook hands with was actually infamous Thomas Pynchon impersonator Galliard “Michel” Houllebecq.
“We were hoping to get Pynchon’s first agent, Candida Donadio, to be the GoH,” admitted PynchCon organizer and Wrong Questions Club Vice President in Charge of Refreshments Derrida Defazio, “but we were discouraged by the fact that he died in 2001. So, we had to go with our second choice.”
PynchCon’s Fan Guest of Honour was Monique DeLaTerrias, who has the distinction of having had 37 different pieces of fan fiction taken down from various Internet sites under threat from Pynchon’s lawyers. DeLaTerrias read from her most famous work, “The Crying of a Lot of Forty-niners,” a flash fiction story that imagined what would have happened if V.‘s Benny Profane met and had a torrid love affair with Gravity’s Rainbow‘s Tyrone Slothrop in a seedy San Francisco hotel room.
“Pynchon’s characters really come alive for me,” DeLaTerrias explained. “So, naturally, I want to know what would happen if they had hot, male on male sex!”
Those who attended last year’s PynchCon might have been surprised that it wasn’t being held at the Radisson Not Exactly Central But Downtownish Hotel. “That…that’s a private matter,” DeLaTerrias demurred. “Wouldn’t you rather talk about the semiotics of the male erection in Gravity’s Rainbow? I…I know I would…”
Rumours, confirmed by people who attended PynchCon 2010, have it that a couple of con-goers were having sex that involved one of them being handcuffed to a pipe. In the throes of passion, the person who was handcuffed pulled the pipe free, flooding the entire floor and making the event convention non grata at the hotel for years to come.
Thomas Pynchon was unavailable for comment.