MUSIC IN PHASE SPACE

Tag: Thomas Pynchon

  • Potemkin Villages

    Dimitri, adrift in a post-Tsarist Odessa, pulled the collar of his peacoat tighter against the greasy wind whipping off the Black Sea. The city, once a bustling port adorned with the whimsical flourishes of Czarist excess, now resembled a haphazard collage of faded grandeur and revolutionary scrawl. Crimson banners with Cyrillic pronouncements of the new…

  • Rewind

    Alocatia Avenue adjusted the starched gingham dress clinging uncomfortably to her ample curves. The humidity hung heavy in the California air, a shroud threatening to unravel the picture-perfect facade of her suburban nightmare. Her neighbor, Woody Stuck, a man whose perpetually furrowed brow rivaled the deepest trench in the Marianas, ambled over, a checkered-print apron…

  • The Damaged Portions of Returning Planes

    Frankie “The Wrench” Fritsch wasn’t exactly Army material. Sure, he could strip down a Packard in under ten minutes flat, eyes closed, fueled by a cigarette and a lukewarm cup of joe. But ordnance manuals and parade drills? Not his cup of tea. Except, these days, tea was a luxury reserved for officers and their…

  • The White Whale/The House of Usher/VITRIOL

    THE WHITE WHALE I inhaled the tang of brine and decay that clung perpetually to the Spalding Yard, the LAPD’s maritime branch moored in the belly of San Pedro. “I’m Captain Scotland of the Spalding Yard,” I rasped, my voice seasoned by harbor dust and nights spent chasing down leads that evaporated like the morning…

  • The Lightbulb Conspiracy

    A Tale of Lumens and Lucrative Larceny The Illuminati of Lumens: “A light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence.” Marshal Mcluhan Deep in the Californian night, a lone bulb pulsed with an unnatural defiance. Byron, they called him – an incandescent anomaly, a deviant filament flickering long past his assigned expiration. In the…