Fax machine and Clark bars (photo by Michael Dashkin)

May 6, 2008
The faxes went through without a hitch. Around 15 personal messages were tele-transported to Mr. Pynchon around 5:15 pm, Sunday afternoon. Or is that early evening? Either way, it was a beautiful day to hang out in the recently reopened back yard at Freebird. Tony Antoniadis (caught in the photo on the left by Lindsay Beyerstein, fretting in front of our store) helped orchestrate the big birthday shout.

For the first few hours Paul Steiner served up hot dogs, hamburgers, and Italian sausage to the crowds, and Mary Catherine Muir kept the banquet of Slothrop "vomit" food well stocked on a borrowed table from the Greenway. Home fries (made fortunately by local restaurant Mazzat, and not in our kitchens), salted nuts, and Clark bars accompanied the meat. Moxie Soda stayed chilled for most of the day, as most visitors preferred to bypass the acquired taste for a beer or limonatas. We solved that problem later in the evening by successfully experimenting with Moxie cocktails (a dash of bourbon for example) and, better yet, Moxie floats.

Charles Hutchinson rushes out to give Tony Antoniadis an important message from Tom

Milton Puryear spoke for a few minutes about the status of the Greenway project, whose progress we witness on a daily basis from our windows--already a bike path and early landscaping is visible along Columbia Street. And then the big moment. Dragging our Brother Fax-575 out back with the 50-foot telephone cord, Tony offered a few introductory words. Charles rushed up with an urgent message scribbled on the back of a Chinese menu. Confused, Tony began reading off the specials ("Kung Pao Chicken, $5.95?"). Like the vaudeville pro Charles is, he shook his head and turned the page over. It read:

Dear traitors:

I wouldn't come even if Salman and I didn't already have plans to catch the early-bird special at Balthazar. The last time I was on Columbia Street was to oversee the planting of those saplings now beginning to bud. My editors at Penguin were looking for something to do, and I told them I'd be needing reams of paper for my memoir, so...

By the way, try the Kung Pao Chicken. It's a bargain!

Yrs, Tom

We cannot speak to the veracity of said note, but we do have suspicions that Mr. Pynchon was roaming the party in one disguise or another. A chihuahua, who nobody laid claim to, was seen snooping in strange corners and eavesdropping on conversations. I may have caught him lifting his short leg in our military history section (everybody is a critic).

The faxes ranged from worshipful ("Thanks for being born!" "You are a genius") to disgruntled ("You lowered my otherwise average GPA. I'm not inclined to read further") to downright strange ("Balloons and ponies to you, Thomas Pynchon"). We were impressed with the penmanship of the well-wishers, and many included lovely illustrations. We'll hopefully post those soon and display in our back hallway.

Thanks to all who attended, kept their sense of humor and wits about them and, most of all, had a good time. No real word back from Thomas Pynchon or his lawyers, but we hope he enjoyed the joke on the other end of the telephone cord. Perhaps something to add to his Gravity's Scrapbook.
--Peter Miller and Charles Hutchinson