Re: konferenz

A little information and a few personal impressions (and some soccer)...

The title of the International Pynchon Conference was "site-specific: from aachen to zwölfkinder. pynchon/germany". It was held in Cologne. Organizers 
were professors Hanjo Berressem, head of the American studies department at Cologne, and John M. Krafft, editor of the Pynchon Notes, who teaches 
in Cologne during the summer term 2002. As I was invited to speak at the conference, I arrived on Friday afternoon. The first people I met were Thomas 
Schaub and Jim Neighbours from Madison. We talked a little soccer. I learned the term "bicycle kick" and was quite impressed by Neighbours' intimate 
familiarity with the game. Later, when he was being introduced as a speaker by Niram Abbas from London,  it turned out that he had been playing soccer on a 
national level in the US...

Other people I met: Terry Reilly from Alaska, a Shakespeare expert who cooperated with the late Steve Tomaske on a paper regarding a certain Helmut 
Schmidt, a physicist at Boeing industries who had been working on precognition machines from the late Sixties to the late Seventies. It is not known whether 
Pynchon knew Schmidt, but in the light of GR this is of course a highly interesting possible link. Vaska Tumir, whom I had a few nice discussions with 
on the P-list a few years ago (I don't know whether Vaska is still a member), Charles Hollander, Douglas Lannark, who nowadays posts rarely but told me that 
he is still a list member. I spent most of the conference with Nika Bertram from Cologne and Michel Ryckx from Antwerp, and I feel it is safe to say that we had 
a very good time. They might disagree, of course. On Saturday, when I was to give my presentation, my girlfriend joined us in order to provide me with some 
much needed support.

Friday: After the introductory statements by Hanjo Berressem and John M. Krafft, we heard a very interesting talk by Thomas Schaub on the historical 
background of the hilarious discussion of the respective merits of Rossini and Beethoven between Säure and Gustav in GR. Then the first movie was on: "A 
Journey into the Mind of P." by Fosco and Donatello Dubini from Cologne. The first thing we did on Saturday morning was to watch the soccer match 
between Germany and Paraguay on the big screen, because German Pynchon scholar Heinz Ickstadt had called off his presentation. 

As an aside: The German team played lousily but won, which is a welcome return to form, because that was how it used to be in "the good old days" (before 
they started to play lousily and, incomprehensibly, lose). Sorry to say that they repeated this feat against the US. Yet, after listening to an 
interview with a US-American citizen who did not know the first thing about soccer and made it quite clear that she would not watch the finals even if the US 
were in it, but was nevertheless certain that the US-team would quite probably become world champion, I don't feel that sorry anymore...

Back to the conference. I had a bad case of stage fright on Saturday, because it was the first time I ever was to speak in English in front of a highly 
knowledgeable community of literary critics. I presented three contemporary German novels whose authors had either acknowledged Pynchon 
as a great writer or had for good reason been assumed to be influenced by his works. One of these authors was our Nika with her novel "Der Kahuna 
Modus". I can only hope that I managed to evoke some interest in the books among the listeners. Unfortunately I missed the "Radio Cologne" talk and 
musical demonstration which Michel told me was told was great. In the evening we saw Robert Bramkamp's "Prüfstand 7", a blend of documentary and 
fiction about the rocket, which was to be the subject of heavy lunchtime debate with the director the next day. Sunday opened with a presentation by 
Friedrich Kittler, renowned professor of German literature and Pynchon expert. Kittler did his talk in German, and I was wondering how much of it could be 
comprehended by our friends from English-speaking countries. Apart from Kittler, the highlights of this day, at least for me, came when Luc Herman and Bruno 
Arich from Antwerp juxtaposed Pynchon's treatment of the Schwarzkommando and DORA with memories from former guards and survivors of the DORA-
camp, and when Bernd Klähn from Bochum, who is a physicist as well as a literary critic, took a detailled look at the mathematics in P's fictions, and made 
quite clear that he believed that the scienctific elements in Pynchon were far too often being treated as mere metaphors by literary critics. Also, Galena 
Eduardova, a 23 year old student, from Sofia in Bulgaria, presented a rather brillant take on the architecture of the Mittelwerke. These were the presentations 
I enjoyed most. I have to say, though, that this may also have had to do with the fact that, being quite exhausted, I found it exceedingly hard to follow the US-
American presentations, which were for the most part spoken and read very quickly, whereas I could follow the non-native speakers' English perfectly well.

Finally, we were treated to a great meal at the best Japanese restaurant in Cologne, and the conference ended with quite a few Kölsch at the traditional 
Cologne brewery Früh. All in all, I thought it was an exciting, highly illuminating and interesting experience. Some of the papers will be published in a special 
edition of the Pynchon Notes.

Best wishes,
Thomas