Commonplace Book Journal #2

Thomas Ammon
Prof. Catherine Kroll
English 379
22 February 2016
Inside McClintic Sphere was swinging his ass off. His skin was hard, as if it were a part of his
skull: every vein and whisker on that head stood out sharp and clear under the green baby spot:
you could see the twin lines running down from either side of his lower lip, etched in by the
force of his embouchure, looking like extensions of his mustache.
He blew a hand-carved ivory alto saxophone with a 4 reed and the sound was like
nothing any of them had heard before. The usual divisions prevailed: collegians did not dig, and
left after an average of 1 sets. Personnel from other groups, either with a night off or taking a
long break from somewhere crosstown or uptown, listened hard, trying to dig. I am still
thinking, they would say if you asked. People at the bar looked as if they did dig in the sense of
understand, approve of, empathize with: but this was probably only because people who prefer to
stand at the bar have, universally, an inscrutable look.
V. pg 59, Thomas Pynchon
This description of jazz musician McClintic Sphere gets to fractalizing. These colons
serve as a for example. His skin was hard. . . (Heres his head) every vein and whisker. . . (heres
an aspect of his head), you could see the twin lines. . . (heres an aspect of his veins in relation to
his whiskers) deeper and deeper into description, and then back out to his head in the next
paragraph (He blew a hand-carved. . .). V. is not only the woman Herbert Stencil is pursuing, but
also the shape of the letter V shows up throughout as a motif. Id argue that this zoom-in-andback-out description is V-shaped.
Pynchons use of numeric fractions in describing the reed Sphere uses (not to mention
when the students get up to leave) is intended to remind the reader that music is a mathematical
pursuit. His use of parallel structure as to who tried to dig and who could not dig: mixed forms
w/r/t the collegians (did not dig, and left. . .) carry across to the reader that these folks couldnt
dig, while the personnel from other groups do accomplish a bit of parallel structure (listened
hard, trying to dig). This use of parallel structure is hammered in with how people at the bar
looked when our narrator describes what dig is supposed to mean (understand, approve of,

Commonplace Book Journal #2

empathize with) before noting the possibility that its just in facial expression with an odd jutting
modifier, possibly an awkwardly bandaged split infinitive (have, universally, an inscrutable
look.) dissipating the digging capacity of the bar patrons. Theres that zoom-in colon again, so
we can get a good look at their faces.