"Gravity's Rainbow" is in no way an average Pynchon text, He Who Always Has Exactly Two Thoughts. I think most other Pynchon is extremely readable compared to Infinite Jest, particularly Vineland and, yes, CoL49.

You usually do.

"Foucault". Um, urrrr, duuuh, [drool]

No, Karalotz, you were in "fake suspense" for most of it - which is what i've come to call Dan Brown's technique of ending a chapter of Plot Thread #1 with "OMG LOOK AT THAT THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING LOLZ!!!1!!", and NOT TELLING YOU what "that" was, and then going back to Plot Thread #2 in the next chapter, and so on.…

See if you can get them to turn the soundtrack off & just play some Shostakovich (#10 or #11) under it - it's much better that way.

I pulled "1984" off of my dad's shelf - thought it was SciFi - and read it, when i was eight. Probably a mistake.

Evel - i have a vague memory of something like that. Ben Elton? Australians?

The proper form is "spelling checker", unless your word processor can cast spells. I've pretty much given up on this one, though.

Both taste terrible.

The fifth layer was completely predictable.

"These mouselike creatures are among the small minority of mammals […] who share humans' propensity for monogamy"
Did you even read the article? "humans' propensity for monogamy"?! Yeah, *right*…

Well, just so long as you can afford a computer and a broadband connection. Gotta keep your priorities straight, after all.

Shit - *and* the "personal of the day" is "cakegirl", with her horrible stainless-steel teeth. OK, this is getting really uncool and heavy.

Is anyone else worried about the total absence of mbs on this discussion?

"I used to be a barman." — Are there six sadder words in the English - or, let's be fair, Welsh - language?

Yes, a veritable plethora of times.

Tom Robinson's sing-along take
Might have been "singularly haunting" were it not one of the most smugly self-righteous performances ever committed to video. Noble idea, terrible execution.

NAMES NAMES NAMES dammit! It's almost Aussie Rules season again, and my rock.aussie shuffle is mostly 20th C. stuff (Screaming Tribesmen, Hoodoo Gurus, Exploding White Mice, &c.) (except for Morning After Girls) and i could use some updating, please.

I've ended up with a genre called "4AD", just 'cause it can be so tough figuring out where everything should go. (Of course, if i left it up to Gracenote, a third of my collection would be "Alternative & Punk", whatever *that* means.)

FAIL. Didn't even mention "first". OK, "one" might just technically shade it. Professor Firstie?