172 - THE CRYING OF LOT 49 === [00:00:00] Book Excerpt: No hallowed skein of stars can ward I trow, who's once been set his tryst with Tristero things, then did not delay in turning Curious. [00:00:26] Matthew: Hello and welcome to another episode of the IMMP, the Inter Millennium Media Project podcast. My name is Matthew Porter. [00:00:34] Ian: And I'm Ian Porter. [00:00:36] Matthew: I'm his dad. He's my son. And every episode of the IMMP, I introduce Ian to some piece of media from way back in the 20th century, a whole other millennium. [00:00:47] Ian: Oh my goodness. [00:00:49] Matthew: Often it's movies or television, but this time it was a book. [00:00:53] Ian: It was a book from From 1965. [00:00:56] Matthew: Yes. [00:00:59] Ian: Oh my goodness. And a book that you've tried to suggest that I read before it. This has been one of those like looming things that has been on the horizon of podcast dom for a long time. [00:01:12] Matthew: Yes, yes. We sometimes refer to this podcast as a, a misuse of parental authority. Maybe this is an example of that. I finally got you to read this book. [00:01:20] Ian: Oh, [00:01:21] Matthew: Thomas pynchon's, the crying of Lot 49. [00:01:27] Ian: Father, father, what have you done? What in the world was this book? [00:01:35] Matthew: And I do not recommend this book lightly because it had a very big impact on me and my reading habits and my worldview and so many things. [00:01:44] Ian: This had a big impact, really. [00:01:47] Matthew: I'm sure you're shocked to hear that. [00:01:49] Ian: Absolutely. I, I understand how each of us work well enough that the moment I like partway into this book, I'm like, oh, oh yeah, this is something on my dad's bookshelf. This absolutely lines up with it. I didn't know a lot about Thomas Pynchon and I didn't know a lot about this book. I know it had been one of these pieces of literature that comes and goes and is in kind of the, the popular zeitgeist, but not in the center. It kind of orbits the edges and influences the weird. Mm-hmm. And, once I started listening to this audio book, it really clicked that this is a, a book whose style of speech is as much its impact as anything else. It's got a lot of interesting discussion, but the way it plays with language is so powerful. [00:02:48] Matthew: And that's one of the things about Pynchon in general. It's, it's not just his worldview and his storytelling, but also his use of language is so distinctive and so interesting. And so it is both complicated and smooth at the same time. Mm-hmm. It's the best description I could come up with. And. There, there are other Thomas Pynchon books that I might subject you to at some time. I'm gonna have to find a time when you have literally nothing to do for six months before I make you read Gravity's Rainbow. But I thought, uh, crying of Lot 49 was a pretty good introduction here. Okay. [00:03:25] Ian: That's, that's a terrifying thing. I will say I was surprised with the size of crying of lot 49. It's, it's short, it's kind of, yeah. Swift in its subject. [00:03:36] Matthew: What I've heard, I, I I, if I'm remembering this correctly, that while he, he was writing the, his enormous tome, gravity's Rainbow, he like took a break at one point to write the crying of Lot 49. [00:03:49] Ian: Oh goodness. That, that makes sense. [00:03:52] Matthew: And usually towards the end of, of an episode, I'll talk a little bit about how I came to, uh. Particular piece of media that we're talking about. I'm wondering if it's worth talking about that upfront here. [00:04:05] Ian: I think you need to, [00:04:06] Matthew: because long before your time, but I'm sure you have heard about the, all the, the anti d and d panics of the 1980s [00:04:18] Ian: Yep. [00:04:18] Matthew: And how Dungeons and Dragons was going to ruin our children and, and lead them astray in all, all these different ways. Um, that might have been correct in some ways. [00:04:33] Ian: What in the world, [00:04:34] Matthew: in my case at least, and here's why. I, of course, I played d and d since the, the white box in the 1970s, very into it middle school and, and high school. And that meant that I would a couple of times a year at least, go and hang out at a. The Compleat Strategist, the store in New York City, and I still visit when I can, when I'm in New York. But I used to be there in college in high school, going there with your, your Uncle Jim and I did that because I wanted to buy d and d stuff, but one of those trips to the complete strategist, I bought a copy of the, the Steve Jackson games, the first edition of Illuminati. [00:05:24] Ian: Oh boy. Which [00:05:25] Matthew: was their game with little cards. And you would create the, the, each player would be creating a network of conspiracies by linking these cards together in front of them on the play area. So you would end up with these conspiracy networks where. The Boy Scouts controlled the international Swiss banking system who in turn controlled the orbital mind control lasers because of their influence on professional wrestling and all these wild conspiracy networks. Fun game. Really liked that game, especially the original version of it. Some cards didn't age well, but still in the notes for that game in the rule booklet, it had like recommended reading. [00:06:15] Ian: Oh no. [00:06:17] Matthew: Because it was all about weird networks of conspiracy. So it's recommended reading included things that I then read and which had an enormous impact. Things like, uh, Wilson and Shea's Illuminati Trilogy. Things like, uh, some of the sub genius stuff, and of course the crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. So I started reading Thomas Pynchon because of a game that I picked up at the complete strategist, and I was in the complete strategist because I'd been playing d and d for years. So, you know, when, when people complained or, or, or warned that d and d was gonna change the minds of our children, they were right. Sort of in this weird conspiracy network kind of way. [00:07:03] Ian: So wait a dang minute. You as a kid play Dungeons and Dragons and it gets you reading weird books like this. And I, as a kid, play Pokemon and it gets me reading weird books about ancient alchemy and mysticism because I'm trying to understand the cultural references that game makes. I can understand so deeply right now, [00:07:28] Matthew: you know, it's games and reading. If we just keep our kids away from those two things [00:07:31] Ian: Oh no, of course. Well, and okay. The fact that we have already gotten into it. Yeah. This is a book about conspiracies is such a unexpected thing, honestly. Oh, I did not see that coming. And I, the fact that I knew so little actually helped. [00:07:51] Matthew: Oh, that's good. I, I wanted to encourage you to read this, but not give anything away. [00:07:56] Ian: And yet the fact that I knew so little meant I didn't know. If I would like it or if it would be my thing. Ah, and so there's this weird split between like, you've gotta know whether or not you like this kinda weird, but you've gotta not know what of that kinda weird is in the book. But there's the, the way this connects things, the way this flows from moment to moment, because the story itself is kind of simple. Of course, like any of our podcast episodes, this is gonna be a spoiler discussion of this story. It's a story about a person at a very difficult time in their life, making not the right choices at all the times as she tries to deal with an, uh, an ex romantic partner's estate and finds an entire conspiracy network while doing so. That's a simple explanation. That's actually kind of blunt, but the way it goes about telling you all this is so fascinating [00:09:08] Matthew: and it, it does that better than so, so many stories that are about secret societies and conspiracies and the like, because it is so smooth and so subtle in that it starts out with a, conflict, something that this woman has to deal with. She's in her, her late twenties, her marriage is not especially happy and now she's gotta go to another town, to perform her duties as the executor of the estate of her ex. And that's, there's enough of a story right there in many ways. Yeah. But then little bit by little bit things related to. This estate and, and her ex was a millionaire who had lots of different real estate and corporate holdings and it was a complicated, uh, estate, so it would take a long time to deal with. And it, it's so little piece by piece things that don't seem like they would necessarily lead anywhere. Like his, he has an investment in a company that was making charcoal filters for cigarettes, and that's like the little crack that leads into this whole world beyond the wall of what we think is normal. [00:10:21] Ian: Yeah. It, it does a great job of the fact that every single thing is described with this weird combination of depth , and interconnectivity in relation. No item is just this thing. It's always got descriptors added. But that means that once it starts telling you a story about all these weird interconnections, that that bit of language and that insistence that it not speak plainly, becomes an asset. As every little thing in her room, every little thing she sees becomes a potential connection and it draws you into the same sort of paranoia. [00:11:07] Matthew: And there there's also a functional thing there too. Something that you notice with mysteries. Mysteries are sometimes referred to as wonderful time capsules of when they were written. Because you have to describe everything so well. You can't just describe the important things, or you're giving away what the clues are. [00:11:23] Ian: Mm-hmm. [00:11:24] Matthew: In a similar way, because this is a mystery of a, it's not a murder who done it, but it is a mystery. You have to describe everything as if it is filled with import, because some things are, and you don't wanna give away which ones. [00:11:38] Ian: Yeah. And there is murder. [00:11:39] Matthew: There is murder, yes. [00:11:41] Ian: But it's not a murder mystery. [00:11:43] Matthew: Right. That's more of a consequence than the the, the instigating event. [00:11:47] Ian: And it's one of those mindsets. It's one of those things that'll seep in as you listen to the story, and its dset tones become ubiquitous in your surroundings as you walk and your everyday objects start becoming more lucid and more tangible than they once were. Small things in your life will become focused and shift, and suddenly you'll find yourself searching up the book to see more and falling upon old Wikipedia articles of Thomas Pynchon and Wikipedias for the entire of the book itself, the. HTMLs dulce blue tones in the background lulling you into a sense of security until you realize that you've not listened to more book in half an hour, and you're just thinking in that mode now, and that's what's going through your brain. I literally found myself on my lunch break at work finding the Pynchon Wiki, and somehow the fact that it's this old, outdated thing fits so well. My mind was, I, it threw me for an absolute loop. Because if you, the same way that listening to a whole lot of Shakespeare, you'll start feeling the iambic pentameter of your language. [00:13:05] Matthew: Oh yes. [00:13:06] Ian: Listening to a lot of this at once will start to affect your language centers of the brain. [00:13:12] Matthew: Oh, that's really interesting. And this is why books are so, interesting when we talk about these, because you'll often read these as audio books. I'll more often go to the, the text and it's a, it is a different experience. I might have to listen to this audio book. I listened to just a tiny bit of the audio book to get some clips. Do you happen to know if that was the same? Did it sound like the same one that you've listened to? [00:13:33] Ian: Because that's, it's the same one I did because that one seems to be kind of, that's the easy to obtain narrated by George K. Wilson. edition is out there, in a lot of different locations and it's quite nice. [00:13:46] Matthew: Yeah, and a lot of books just have the one audio edition. I thought that was good, but, and he's good reader, but it's not the voice that's in my head when I read this book. Ah, and I'm not sure in what ways they're different, but in some ways he has a very 1972 TV news anchor sort of voice, which works remarkably well for this. Yeah. 'cause he's just reporting things. They're, they're described in weird, intricate detail, but he's presenting the language in a very straightforward way, which I like. [00:14:22] Ian: Oh, yes. [00:14:22] Matthew: And in even reading this text now, and, and of course years ago when I was a bunch younger, it, it's seeped into the way you see the world. You start to notice things or look for things. And that's something that is, is a factor in the book as well, is at the, the point at which you stop noticing weird coincidences and you start looking for weird coincidences. Mm-hmm. And it's really hard to tell, have I always been doing this? Did I start noticing , because I was looking for them and have they always been there and I just wasn't looking? Or are they not really there? And I'm only seeing them because I expect to see them. [00:15:08] Ian: And there's an element to the story about the fact that like there's that midpoint where you can actually be aware. And the safest place , , for the unknown and the manipulations of the world is to push past that. It's either not seen or it's so ubiquitous you don't notice it. But let's move you across that. Oh wait, what's that? As fast as we can get, you get you beyond it if we can. [00:15:31] Matthew: And it is, even before I read this, I had a certain attraction when I was a kid for any stories about the world is not what we think it is. The world is not as, it seems there is some, there's something either supernatural or secret that is, is within our reach if we just knew about it. Yes. And this, and I mean we see that in everything from. 101 dalmatians to all kinds of things. And I'll love to talk about that at some point. [00:16:00] Ian: Oh boy. [00:16:01] Matthew: But, but this book made that concrete in a way that I hadn't seen before, so it really affected the way I looked at the world for a year, probably after I read [00:16:11] Ian: it. Oh, I can imagine. [00:16:13] Matthew: And on top of that, the conspiracy that it deals with is an interesting historical conspiracy, interweaving some fact with a lot of weird Pynchon fiction. [00:16:26] Ian: Honestly, it was hard to search some of his stuff to find out where the fact is and what what isn't. But there's definitely stuff about old stamp collecting and the like, that it starts from place of reason and then runs off in a different direction. [00:16:40] Matthew: Right. Because the al the, the underlying conspiracy in this book, it has to do with postal systems in Europe. Which seems so mundane. Yeah. And we've played the game Thurn and Taxis. [00:16:57] Ian: And Taxis, exactly. [00:16:58] Matthew: So, and it involves the, the Thur in Texas Postal Monopoly in Europe, starting in I think the 16th century and this revolutionary alternative postal surface that wanted to usurp and disrupt the Thurn and Taxis, monopoly. The Tristero. Yes. And they are the conspiracy. And it turns out that they did not completely succeed in over overwhelming or taking over Thurn and Taxis, but they persist and they came to America. And even in America there are people trying to use alternate postal systems. And that's an area in which reading this in the year of our Lord 2025 is so different from reading it in like 1983. [00:17:48] Ian: Yes, [00:17:48] Matthew: for a couple of reasons. One is, it is so much more a period piece, even 1983, the world was rather different from 1965, but not that different. I understood their description of a tube television when they talked about, they referenced Huntley and Brinkley. I, they had not been on the air for a long time, but at least from cultural osmosis, I knew. Yeah, they used to be the co-anchors of the nightly news on one of the network, news broadcasts. So I knew what they were talking about. And I'm wondering how much of that was just alien to you in terms of the cultural references, [00:18:20] Ian: the cultural references. A plenty were alien, plenty just slipped right past me. But they did a good job of not only having the cultural, but also having the. Tonal references. Yes. So even if I didn't understand the, what they were referencing, I understand the, what they were referencing in the reference. Mm-hmm. If that makes any sense. Yeah, [00:18:41] Matthew: that's a good point. He doesn't just throw things out. He talks about how they impact the, the character. He's seeing them. Mm-hmm. Through, [00:18:48] Ian: I, if, if he was talking about the modern day, I'm gonna, I'm gonna use Pokemon again as a reference. He wouldn't just say, uh, Pikachu flashed upon the screen. He would say, as Pokemon played the small creatures of collectible nature, uh, skidded across and brought, brought delight to a child who was watching this television. He would explain with that extra layer. Yes. In order to add that detail of weirdness, that helps those connections. But it means that if you've never heard what Pokemon is, you get a rough idea from other contexts. [00:19:17] Matthew: Right. It's some cartoon game, what he's talking about. [00:19:19] Ian: Exactly. And that helped a lot because those references. It the, honestly, more of the, the time period stuff was what was just, I mean, I could tell how this was definitely subversive and was poking fun at every single person it could in some ways, but some of its references, some of its language and some is definitely outdated in an I was uncomfortable at Times Way. Yeah. There's, there's definitely elements of we've gotten better. Mm-hmm. This, this was probably not great at the time and is worse now. Yeah. And some, and I don't know, [00:19:56] Matthew: and sometimes that is he's using horrible language in the, uh, as dialogue for a person to show that this is a horrible person. And in other places it's just, this is, this was the common language in 1965. Mm-hmm. Uh, in the narration. Uh, and, you know, not as much of that as in some of the old movies and things we've watched, but you're right, it's, it is there. And, uh, but one of the other things that I mentioned, oh, uh, be, I was laughing before, now that you've referenced it twice, if there's some artistically capable listener out there, I really want a deck of Pynchemon cards. [00:20:30] Ian: PYNCHEMON would be amazing! [00:20:33] Matthew: Thomas Pynchon's take on Pokemon Yes. [00:20:35] Ian: Oh, goodness. [00:20:37] Matthew: But the other thing that makes this so different, reading this in 2025 versus the early eighties is the importance of mail. [00:20:46] Ian: Yeah. [00:20:46] Matthew: Even in 1983, the United States mail was still a very important way of keeping in touch among individuals. People wrote letters more and people sent postcards. And the, the ubiquity of the mail, the reliability of the mail, the, uh, the accessibility of the mail was an important part of keeping families together, keeping cultures together, keeping the country together. That is not so much the case in 2025 where most personal communication is performed online. [00:21:25] Ian: I found it so fascinating there because, this was from 65. Yeah. [00:21:29] Matthew: Yep. [00:21:30] Ian: In 1970, there was the giant postal strike. [00:21:35] Matthew: Yeah. [00:21:36] Ian: That changed a whole lot of things for the National Association of Letter Carriers and a lot of the other elements of the postal system. When I worked for the post office, it was a lot of what I dealt with was established in, in the 1970s strike. [00:21:53] Matthew: Yeah. [00:21:54] Ian: So he's talking about a layer even beyond that, and a time when it was, it was all letters and packages were so much rarer and it's changed so much. There's this moment where I was almost like. Huh. Tristero won!. As I check my email. [00:22:14] Matthew: Yes. [00:22:16] Ian: It's like, what in the world? [00:22:18] Matthew: You could almost, I don't want this, this is getting ahead of one of our final questions. I don't want a sequel to this, but I could imagine a sequel about the Tristero creating the first online communities. [00:22:30] Ian: Yes. [00:22:32] Matthew: So this was before kind of the reorganization to the modern United States Postal Service, wasn't it? When it used to be the Yeah. The post office department. [00:22:41] Ian: Yes. [00:22:41] Matthew: So big difference. And also there was a much greater, there was a more established and enforced monopoly on mail that you couldn't just start up a company to deliver letters in the way that the post office department did back then. And some of what we see are characters. I. Knowingly or not knowingly connecting themselves with this Tristero conspiracy, finding ways around the postal service, the post office department, sending letters through corporate interoffice mail to get to other people in the country or people who have more money or wrapping letters around a brick and then putting them in, a parcel and sending it by railway express since that is a way you were allowed to ship things apart from, uh, from the postal department. [00:23:34] Ian: Exactly. [00:23:37] Matthew: It's like this weird innovation. I just, for whatever reason, I don't want to use the established system, so I'm going to figure out some way to get around it. Mm-hmm. And as much as I like the postal service, I can appreciate and enjoy that. [00:23:50] Ian: Yeah, there's, there's creativity in there and I can, I can see how that would fit in, especially the time and everything else. It was, so, it was a fascinating thing. 'cause it's, it really is a discussion of like, here's this giant organized logistical structure and here's a thousands of people trying to connect two dots at a time, and somehow the two of these systems are equivalent in size. It's like, huh, that's interesting way to look at it. [00:24:20] Matthew: Mm-hmm. Because the, uh, the, the secret one is also very, very old. It predates the United States, let alone the United States Postal System. So mm-hmm. It, it, it knew how to set these things up, either by taking over what existed already in some ways, or by creating something new or by suppressing its, uh, its rivals. There were all these throughout history and our, our main character, Oedipa Maas. Keeps learning more little bits of history. And it keeps, history keeps repeating itself in that. Tristero agents will attack the couriers of rival systems. They will attack, Thurn and Taxis couriers. They will lay waste to pony express riders. They will do everything they can to regain some kind of a hold over mail delivery, both by creating their own network and suppressing the others. [00:25:15] Ian: And that's also one of the things I really appreciate about this because it does have a point in there which was this question of is this Tristero? Is this secret postal system actually doing what it intended at first? At what point does the protection of the system become the point of the system? [00:25:35] Matthew: And that is a great question. It's one of the arises in corporations. In governments. When an organizations. Primary activity is protecting the organization. It no longer has a reason to exist otherwise it wouldn't have to protect itself that much. [00:25:51] Ian: Exactly. And that's, that is such a poignant question. Yes. That is such a powerful one that I didn't expect it to, I didn't expect this book to be able to sneak it up on me and slowly stab me with it. I'm like, ah, I know that discussion. Wait a minute. [00:26:09] Matthew: And it's, it was certainly, uh, an important question in 19 65, 66, when we're in the middle of Vietnam, uh, five or six years before Watergate, the break-ins, not the, and then, uh, about nine years from the, the hearings and Nixon's resignation, these questions about institutions and about government were really important and really in the forefront. And this is such a weird, and there were so much written asking these questions in very earnest and important ways. This was such a weird way to pose the same questions because you have to look at it sideways to realize what it's saying. [00:26:44] Ian: Mm-hmm. I am interested to see also all the cultural instances of this. Yeah. Because of that. Because it's like once you get to see it, you notice all these things and it, it requires that level of work. It seems to be a piece of media that draws people in. If it clicks for them, it clicks deep and just trying to look it up. I kept on finding more examples of other people's interpretations and modifications and references too, and all of that. And so it's like the effort it takes there to grab those extra pieces of info. It means that it sticks, right? And when it sticks, you get people trying to make a movie version or displaying the whole thing in semaphore and all sorts of things. And I'm like, what in the world? And it's weird because it kind of turns the crying of Lot 49 into its own muted post horn where it's like there's, once you start looking for all the references, they're everywhere. And it's all talking about this thing. There's this secret conversation Yes. About the book because of the book about the conversations in the book. [00:27:52] Matthew: And that's it. You gotta look for things. You find these conversations about the book, you find bits of real history that are woven into the book. Like Thurn and Taxis, real postal system in Europe. And you realize, oh, they were real. They're not just made up for the book. Is Tristero real what's happening? Mm-hmm. And, and all of these blend together and it's, it's, it's an interesting thing that, um. Research is a thing that happens in this book and it's important. And Oedipa winds up finding these books in multiple versions of a jacobian revenge play that references the Tristero. And there are different versions of it where languages changed and she finds the academics who wrote about it. But that was research in 1965. I don't know that Pynchon could have anticipated the kind of research or sort of pseudo research that one can do in the 21st century where all of these different sources and things, they're easy to access, but they're blended together and their authenticity is very hard to gauge. And it just complicates further, complicates this kind of conspiracy thinking. Yeah. Which is both dangerous and fascinating. [00:29:06] Ian: I kind of want to know what Thomas Pynchon's thoughts are about modern ARG games. I want. Yes. Because there's an element to that in this where it's like, I've got just enough history to give you a hook. Then I've got fun, alternate stories and possibilities and a narrative for you to dive into. It's like there's an aspect crying of Lot 49 is, is reading someone else, finding an A RG instead of doing it yourself in the best way. That [00:29:33] Matthew: has always been my BA bar, my benchmark for I want an A RG that makes me feel like I am in the middle of the crying of lot 49. I've never quite found that yet, but that's what they should aspire to. Mm-hmm. 'cause it's just one weird little thing leading to more and more and tying together. Exactly. And, and having some hook, some key, like in this case it's the W-A-S-T-E system. Which is this alternative postal system, it stands for a, we await Silent Tristero's Empire. Yes. But what better way to hide a mail system where you can have a box sitting under, uh, an overpass and it just says waste on the lid. Like nobody's gonna think twice. But if you look closely, you can notice the dots in between the letters and maybe a tiny muted post horn as a symbol. Mm-hmm. And there's a great scene towards, I'd say between the, third and fourth quarter of this book where Oedipa is now just wandering around San Francisco all night and she's seeing this post horn symbol like everywhere and it's like [00:30:41] Ian: everywhere. And [00:30:41] Matthew: it's, it's that wonderful, it's that dangerous shift in ex in investigating conspiracy ideas. At what point have you gone from. Noticing what's there and noticing them to looking for them and therefore finding them. [00:30:56] Ian: Mm-hmm. [00:30:58] Matthew: And that's also where it gets very surreal. She meets these kind of dream children who have a, a nursery rhyme about the Tristero and so on. And yet part of that I think is reflecting the fact that she's now sleep deprived and half crazy and she is, what she sees is, and how what she sees is described by the, the author is reflecting her state of mind, and yet it pulls us in. It's not clearly. And now we see what her delusions are leading her to see, no, this is how the world has changed around her from her point of view. Exactly. [00:31:31] Ian: We, we, we have enough buffer to notice that shift. That whole, the whole dream children sequence is weird as anything. Yes. And I think it's supposed to be, but that doesn't make it less so. We actually haven't talked a lot about Oedpia. I gotta say, it's interesting. You feel for her and you follow this main character, but she's not always likable and I feel like that's important. [00:31:58] Matthew: Very true. She's not always likable, like, like anyone in any good story, everybody heroes, villains and everyone in between. Everyone has their reasons. Mm-hmm. But she is, she is understandable. I think she's an approachable protagonist. But you're right, she's not always likable. And I think she would probably acknowledge that she's not always likable, although again, she always has her reasons. Exactly. And, and I think in some ways she and her attitude towards life is also a. A representation of something that Pynchon was talking about relative to when he was writing. [00:32:37] Ian: Mm-hmm. [00:32:38] Matthew: She's, a woman in the mid 1960s suddenly given a, a role that she didn't ask for that had legal and financial responsibilities attached and doing her best to, to execute this. And she's a very smart person, but she feels in over her head socially as part of this it seems. [00:33:01] Ian: Yes. [00:33:02] Matthew: And you know, the first person she meets in working on this is the lawyer who is her co-executor, and she immediately takes up with him and starts an affair. Mm-hmm. And yeah, her husband has been having affairs back where they, where they live and that's. It's kind of her excuse, it's kind of her explanation, but she understands this, why does she want to do wrong in the same way that he did wrong? What does that make her? [00:33:31] Ian: Yeah. [00:33:32] Matthew: And yet even those in the book, they're surrounded by absurdity because in this motel where she's living in the, the town of, is it Sanso [00:33:41] Ian: San Narcisso? [00:33:43] Matthew: Wonderful names. We gotta talk about the names in this book too, but [00:33:46] Ian: Oh, yes. [00:33:46] Matthew: The, , hired manager for this hotel is a kid who's a member of a, a pseudo brit invasion band called The Paranoids, who, like, they, they want to be the Beatles, even though they're all from Southern California. And, they add this just layer of surrealism as they become the chorus that follow Oedipa and the lawyer Metzger all over the place commenting on what they're doing. They are absolutely, [00:34:12] Ian: and they are the Greek chorus doing that in the wildest way. And every, like, every single person she meets is characterized. Is there a caricature in some form, but they're also, I mean, I'm just thinking of like the, the image of the professor and all his students who are just sitting around very, very drunk and very, very philosophizing. [00:34:37] Matthew: Yes. [00:34:39] Ian: And that's one of those moments where the line in this book sometimes between the reality and the metaphor. Is blurry or, or it's like this, like this, this character is not just a character. They're also representing all of this other stuff, and that means that they're a little bit beyond normal in order to do so. [00:34:59] Matthew: Yeah. Yeah. It's like , it goes back and forth between a novel depicting a surreal world and a character who finds herself in a surreal world because she just kind of rolls with some of the weirdest things in the book. Like it really does like this band. Or they, they, at one point, this first night that they met, she and the lawyer Metzker start playing like a, a game of strip 20 questions. Yeah. But she's goes to prepare for this by going to the closet and putting on every article of clothing she has until, as she describes, she looks in the mirror and sees a Pink beach ball. And it's, it's just described. It's not, Hey, and this was so weird. It's just this is what she's doing. This is what the result is. [00:35:48] Ian: There's an element to that that kind of makes Thomas Pynchon's work an American equivalent to Douglas Adams, British. [00:35:58] Matthew: Oh, I would definitely say there is some, some influence there. I'd be surprised if, if Adams wouldn't have acknowledged that. Just in terms of the prose style and in terms of the, yeah, let's present the weird as if it's normal, [00:36:12] Ian: but there, there's a similarity there that definitely it's like, you know Adams, Adams has some men on in there in terms of that styling. Yep. And I could just click through and try to find more in some of these wikis and some of this information. But that's the problem. Like every single thing can be do dove into, and evOedi edpa, like like individual actions of hers. She hems and haws over and the audience can hem and haw over and try to decide. [00:36:47] Matthew: And on the names, I think that, I don't know that they are all specifically importantly meaningful, but Pynchon has such weird fun with the way he names characters in this. Yes. That I think he's, I think he is just having fun because it's not as if they all are something revelatory about the character themselves, but they, they have, you know, a character named Genghis Cohen and a character named Manny Depresso. Yes. Stanley Kotex and all of these characters who it's as if the names are what are supposed to make you stop and say, oh, wait a minute, I'm reading a book. And then you dive back in. [00:37:29] Ian: Mm-hmm. [00:37:32] Matthew: And some of the names are just. Funny sounding like, professor Emory Bortz and her, her psychiatrist, Dr. Hilarious. Yes. Who turns out to have been a Nazi involved in, in mind control experiments, [00:37:48] Ian: which he might have been continuing. [00:37:50] Matthew: Yes. Trying to convince Oedipa to take part. [00:37:55] Ian: John Nefa. [00:37:57] Matthew: He was the guy, he was there talking with the, the perpetual motion machine, wasn't it? [00:38:02] Ian: Yes. The full of Maxwell's Demon [00:38:04] Matthew: on top of the weird history and, and stuff, they get into weird physics as well. Mm-hmm. Where a box that supposedly like actually instantiates the hypothetical Maxwell's Demon. Which can supposedly violate thermodynamics by sorting out high energy versus low energy molecules into separate sections of a box. [00:38:25] Ian: But the, the way that the, the name's written, the last name, that's a last name version of the actual Latin of like, A against God. Yeah. Nefa not divine law. It's like this guy is literally there. It's like, hi, I've got a demon in a box. C creates perpetual motion and breaks physics. My name is, is is John. This ain't holy. That's literally the character naming, that's the sort of stuff we're dealing with here. [00:38:54] Matthew: That's definitely an example of the, the, the name is significant. [00:38:58] Ian: Exactly. [00:39:01] Matthew: As troubled and troublesome as Oedipus character can be. Sometimes she does seem very good at just taking people at face value. Yes, making reasonable judgements. In some cases, wanting to get as far away from this person as she can once they've proven themselves to be someone she should get away from. But she'll take people at face value and listen to them and, and make decisions. She's very quick on her feet in the way she can express herself and the way she can get a read on people. Not that they don't surprise her sometimes. [00:39:33] Ian: Sometimes they do [00:39:35] Matthew: Because as she's investigating this conspiracy, she sorts of builds this network of people who have information that who they can share with her, including Metzger, including. The various, academics that she meets, including the director of a stage production of the tragedy of the courier, I think it's called this jacobian play that references Tristero. And then, [00:39:55] Ian: yes, [00:39:56] Matthew: at a certain critical turning point in the book, things start to happen to all of these other people. At one point, she realizes this and is recognizing, oh, they are taking away all of my men, all of the men that I have created any kind of a bond with, be it my husband who has fallen for hilarious mind control stuff. Or Metzker who runs away with the girlfriend of one of the paranoid band members or mm-hmm. The director who dies under mysterious circumstances. I. So on and so on. She is being, she builds this network and then it is disassembled away from her in this, this turnabout. And they never really explain to what extent is this being done to her or it is just, she is outgrowing it or moving on from it. Yeah. And yet it is real things happening to these characters. It's not just she loses contact with them. There's something happening. [00:40:54] Ian: There's something happening because some of them are doing fine and then suddenly they're not in ways that aren't correct. Right. [00:41:01] Matthew: And there is this sense of, oh, they are helping her and she's getting too close. [00:41:07] Ian: Yeah. [00:41:10] Matthew: And one of the nice little kind of hooks into the real world is the fact that this is a, about a postal conspiracy. And it seems like one of the, the many ways in which the tri or operating in the modern world has to do with fake postage stamps, these forged postage stamps with these creepy alterations, either a strange alteration in text or in the images. [00:41:35] Ian: Mm-hmm. Uh, [00:41:35] Matthew: with Tristero symbolism in them. And I have, I, uh, I collected postage stamps back when I read this. [00:41:45] Ian: Yeah. And [00:41:46] Matthew: I, I, I must admit that occasionally when I was looking at stamps, I would look at them a little extra carefully just to see if there are any, any, uh, alterations here, if that's anything different. Not because I was expecting the, thTristerost to be real, but because it fascinated me, the, the idea that a small change in such a. Common and easily overlooked thing would be a fascinating way to get a bit of strangeness into the world. [00:42:18] Ian: And it's such a simple symbol once you see the artwork. 'cause I, it took me a moment to realize that every edition of the book I've ever seen posted has, like, ever, ever made seems to have that post horn image Yes. On it in some form. And so it messes with you even looking at it. But I can understand that if like, you're already collecting stamps and such, you're looking for these in there too, it's like, huh. [00:42:43] Matthew: Okay. Hmm. And it's, it's interesting, some of the alterations he described, some of them are. Changes in text, like I mentioned, where the, a postmaster is changed to pots master. Yes. Some of them are adding a little black robed Tristero figure somewhere. And one of the ones that I remembered most clearly was, it was a stamp commemorating the return of Columbus to Spain to report on his findings in the new world. And this, they, he describes that the stamp had been altered so that the courtier who were listening to this report had expressions of uncontrollable terror in hearing about this new world that was just so much meaning layered in that change. And yet we, it would be such a fascinating and unsettling thing to notice in a postage stamp. I love that. Uh, it's brilliant. And the post horn symbol too was great as a, a Tristero symbol because the, the actual. Symbol for Thurn and Taxis was a post horn, a simple, a once, you know, one loop bugle kind of thing. And Tristero's symbol was the post horn with a mute in the bell. Yes, we want to mute, we want to stop and silence our rivals turn in taxes. I love that. [00:44:08] Ian: And that just showing up still. It's so wild. [00:44:11] Matthew: And it's one of those things I could easily, I could probably, it wouldn't take me if I was really looking for them, I could probably walk around any city at some point and find one of those written somewhere. [00:44:21] Ian: Mm-hmm. [00:44:22] Matthew: But odds are, it would be by a somebody who likes this book. Right. It's, it's, it, it's like, it's like the 23 enigma, you know, there, it's a real thing going on out there. And yet, and yet it is so much more now that people know about the 23 Enigma. Mm-hmm. And intentionally use it. [00:44:42] Ian: It's, I'm trying to think of other examples. It's like, yeah, there's, there's few instances where there's secret society symbolism that outside of the story becomes the symbol for the fans of the story in the same way. Yeah. Like maybe Assassin's Creed kind of thing is the best I can think, right? Yeah. [00:45:00] Matthew: And Oh, talk, talk about something I could fold and connect into the crying of Lot 49 very well. Absolutely. [00:45:07] Ian: Oh yeah. That kind of stuff. Oh yes. [00:45:09] Matthew: That's one of the reasons I like the Assassin Creed games, especially the early ones. It gives me a certain similarity and vibe toward the, to the historical elements of crying of Lot 49. [00:45:19] Ian: Mm-hmm. I'm here like trying to figure out, it's the sort of thing where it's like, this book was fascinating enough. I wanna look up like, how do you do a muted post horn in three characters in Unicode kind of thing. Like what are the options out here? What can you do? It's the fun of it. It's weird in the right way. [00:45:40] Matthew: I'm surprised there isn't feel, or maybe there is that there's some, you know, tri uh uh, Linux distro out there that has post horns hidden in it somewhere. [00:45:49] Ian: That should be, [00:45:52] Matthew: because that's exactly the kind of thing that the Tristero of the crying of Lot 49 would've started to do in the 1990s. Exactly. Start to influence Linux distros and internet service providers and the like. [00:46:05] Ian: They would absolutely be doing that kind of thing. And I'm. I'm fascinated by that because it really feels like it was ahead of its time. Crying of Lot 49 is implying this thing about the way the in the world is connected. It's talking about stuff in this weird and interesting way, but the things it's saying about people are things that it couldn't have even, you know, Pynchon couldn't have predicted us having these opportunities later. Right. And yet we use them in such clear ways that he was able to predict. I'm like, wow, he knew this was coming, but he didn't know this was coming. [00:46:38] Matthew: And given how long this conspiracy was supposed to have persisted, even the 60 years between the writing of this book. And now isn't that long a time. Yeah. So, and I think, you know, we're, we're starting to talk about more modern influences more, I think maybe we're getting into our final questions. [00:46:55] Ian: I think we are. Yep. [00:46:58] Matthew: Okay, so, so we'll be back very soon with those, uh, final questions. Please stay tuned. But in the meantime, if you're enjoying the Inter Millennium Media Project podcast and you want more, please, go to imm project.com and that's where you will find a link to all of our back episodes. You'll find a link to our Patreon where you can both support the podcast and, uh, if you join starting at $3 a month, you get a bunch of bonus audio content. And there you'll also find a link to our shop, another way to support us and get cool stuff like coffee mugs and t-shirts, not just our, our podcast logo, but also special things for fans of stuff like Space 1999 and The Prisoner. Yes, [00:47:38] Ian: absolutely. [00:47:39] Matthew: And you'll also find ways to contact us. You can contact us on our discord. You can contact us, you can see us on, uh, on Blue Sky and Mastodon. You can reach us by email and you can con contact us by genuine, uh, United States Mail. It's the mail, I'll get used to it. Uh, we don't have a, uh, W-A-S-T-E box, so, uh, I'm afraid you'll have to use US Mail at this point. [00:48:05] Ian: Yeah. [00:48:06] Matthew: And Ian, uh, where can people find you? [00:48:10] Ian: I can be found as item crafting, be that at itemcrafting.com or item crafting live on Twitch. I stream every Thursday to, so come on, join us for some games and some crafting every single time. Wonderful. Those are fun streams. And how about you, [00:48:25] Matthew: dad? And you can, uh, find me as by Matthew Porter. So you can go to bymatthewporter.com. You can also find me as by Matthew Porter on YouTube, where you will find my movie and movie theater and travel reviews. Those [00:48:40] Ian: are always fun. [00:48:43] Matthew: So final questions. [00:48:45] Ian: Final questions. [00:48:46] Matthew: Oh, for the, for a novel. I think what we arrived at for a novel is, well, it's not revive, reboot or rest in peace, but we do have Add, Adapt, or adios. Yes. So AD would be like a, a revival. Do we want, do we want something else in this continuity? Do we want a sequel? Do we want a prequel? [00:49:06] Ian: Hmm. That's such an interesting question on this one. And it does lead me to a question for you. I don't know a lot of Thomas Pynchon's other works. Are his things interconnected or no, [00:49:19] Matthew: not really. You might be able to find some cross references among them, but they are pretty much standalone. Okay. And his, his, I'd say this is one of his most well known this and, gravity's Rainbow. But he's also written a lot of other really interesting books like, , Mason and Dixon and Vineland and okay. Inherent Vice is the one book of his that I believe had a movie adaptation. I believe it, it did have a movie. Adaptation. Might be the only one I. [00:49:54] Ian: Ah, okay. You see, I don't think this needs a direct continuation. [00:50:00] Matthew: Yeah. [00:50:00] Ian: I don't think we need the crying of lot 43 in that sense, but I definitely feel like it sets up these, this world in a way that you can have other stories, call back to it, make reference and imply potentially that they exist within the same without needing to go into it. [00:50:20] Matthew: Yes. That's, that's what I want. I don't want, uh, a, a seq war prequel or anything, but I want other novelists or other artists to just make little references. Just throw in a post horn in somewhere. Just throw in an altered stamp someplace. Throw in a reference to one of the names we hear in the crying of lot 49, just to give that little hint, oh, is this a coincidence or is this a connection? [00:50:46] Ian: Exactly. That's the sort of stuff where it's like, this has such fun potential and it can be used for that. I also don't, not sure about a adaptation on this story, though. Apparently people have tried to make a movie. Have they? It didn't. It was on YouTube for a little while and it's now gone. [00:51:06] Matthew: Oh, like they actually produced it or was it a trailer? [00:51:10] Ian: It was a, a student film. [00:51:12] Matthew: Wow. Oh, okay. Interesting. [00:51:15] Ian: But it was removed by YouTube, not by Thomas. Oh, [00:51:18] Matthew: interesting. I wonder if that was at the request of his publishers or, or anything like that, or what? [00:51:23] Ian: Yeah, I No [00:51:24] Matthew: clue. No. Or somebody else who, who has an option on the rights? I, [00:51:29] Ian: I, I don't know how well this would adapt. [00:51:31] Matthew: I've gone back and forth on this a bit and at this point I would be interested in seeing what the right people could do with an adaptation of this. I could see this being done as a film or as a limited TV series. And I could see, I could see somebody like Edgar Wright doing an interesting job with this. I could, yeah, I could see Morehead and Benson doing something interesting with this, although they tend to write their own stuff and they might go a little too dark with it, but I could see that working and being interesting. Yeah. And the one thing I have seen that is the closest I've seen as to an adaptation of this, and it's, it's definitely an homage to this is the TV series, lodge 49. Which stars Wyatt Russell. And it is about somebody who gets involved in a fraternal lodge, kind of pseudo masonic kind of thing. And it seems like it's just this social club and it's seen better days. And then bit by bit you get a more complex and weird conspiracy around it. Okay. It's fun to watch. I would recommend that for anybody who enjoyed this. It's not exactly the same tone as this, but it's, it's in the, in the same league. [00:52:52] Ian: So it definitely, it sounds like this is not like you, we could, we could see someone trying to Yeah. But it's not a direct, it's not a direct adaptation kind of project. It's a add this to the, to the, the concepts as you build your own and it will infuse it with a certain kind of wonder. Right. And I like that fact. [00:53:15] Matthew: Take inspiration from this. Don't necessarily take [00:53:17] Ian: inspiration, [00:53:18] Matthew: adapt, or expand it. [00:53:20] Ian: I think that's the right move. I think that's where this should sit [00:53:24] Matthew: and, and I also, I do recommend reading it. I think it still is a fun read. Mm-hmm. Again, it's a different experience reading it now than it was 60 years ago or 40 years ago, but I think it's always, it does now and it maybe always will have something interesting to reward, a good reading [00:53:41] Ian: I enjoyed it, but it was also just so odd. I think I'll want to read more of Pynchon's work, but it sounds like everything else is denser. [00:53:51] Matthew: Yeah, it denser than this. Not everything is Gravity's rainbow. Although I don't know if, if I wonder if Gravity's Rainbow has a good audiobook version, I could see that working. Yeah. And again, not everything in Gravity's, rainbow will have aged really well, but it's still worth reading. I. Yeah, but I'm, I'm glad, uh, you, I got you to read this, the exercise that abuse, of parental authority. [00:54:15] Ian: It was, it was interesting and fun. Think you enjoyed it. And I will say there was, we talked about the names. Yeah, we talked about the names in this and there is one name. [00:54:23] Matthew: Oh yeah. What's that? [00:54:24] Ian: There is one name that really caught my attention because I recognize that name. Oh, what's that? I recognize that name from back when you showed me other stuff and I think I know what's coming next. [00:54:36] Matthew: Oh yes. I think, yeah, there might be a connection there. Speaking of, of works that take their, some, some, some influence. Yeah. From the crying of Lot 49. Oh boy. So, uh, so we'll be back in a couple of weeks. [00:54:49] Ian: We'll be back in a couple of weeks [00:54:50] Matthew: with, with another tale from some media from the 20th century. [00:54:55] Ian: And in the meantime, go find something new to watch.