The crying of Ned Beatty.

Love this tidbit at Maud Newton's blog today, where she discusses yesterday's Laurie Anderson concert in Seattle:

During the show, Anderson reportedly mentioned that her plan to write an opera based on Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity's Rainbow “was nipped in the bud when he stipulated that the orchestra must be comprised only of banjos.”

True or not -- well, it should be true. JJ and I, through some friendly intermediaries, got a copy of our proposal to Pynchon; we wanted to ask him to write a forward. Odds: slim to none. Response: none. Overall feeling of tagential connection to literary greatness? Not so much. Next up: Thurston Moore, the Pynchon of alt-rock, given the difficulty we've had tracking down contact information for the guy.