EPISODE 10 - BO BUTLER

Young Southpaw chats with Pynchon In Public Podcast mastermind, Bo Butler, about Thomas Pynchon of course, the pre-sequel to 'The Empire Strikes Back', mechanical ducks in 'Holiday Inn' and 'Boogie Nights', what Mr. Pynchon might think of Canadian power trio legends Rush, and much more.

 

Listen to the PIPcast at https://pynchoninpublicpodcast.com/

 

Follow the podcast on Twitter at 

@PynchonPod and follow Bo at @TheRealBoButler

 

Young Southpaw: You’re a big Rush fan, right?

 

Bo Butler: This is true.

 

YS: What do you think Tommy P (Thomas Pynchon) makes of Rush?

 

BB: That’s a really good question. Almost impossible to answer. But...my guess is, we talked about Inherent Vice, there’s a lot of songs mentioned in Inherent Vice, and my guess is that those songs are what Thomas Pynchon listens to, for the most part. Or at least of those genres. There’s some crossover, in a weird way. Their drummer, Neil Peart, his dad listened to a lot of Sinatra and those kind of things, and you see some of that come up in Inherent Vice, but I don’t know that Thomas Pynchon has ever listened to Rush. But I think since I like Thomas Pynchon and I like Rush, I think Thomas Pynchon would also like Rush.

 

YS: Like the transitive property. Though we all know how him and mathematics works, I can’t guarantee it.

 

BB: I think it works the same way.

 

YS: And Neil Peart you mentioned, he was a big reader. I was thinking like what if ‘Tom Sawyer’ was originally called ‘Tom Pynchon’? Scans the same. And ‘catch the mystery’ would certainly apply.

 

BB: That is true. Honestly, I think the whole thing would still apply. But...it would be hard to sing. “Today’s Thomas Pynchon, mean mean pride...”, it just doesn’t work.

 

YS: Yeah. That’s probably why they changed it, ya know?

 

BB: Yeah, probably. Just went with a different character.

 

YS: Cause Tom Sawyer has never really made sense to me in that song either. ‘Modern-day warrior’.

 

BB: Me either. I’ll be honest.

 

YS: Now are you holding out hope that Pynchon will write a Rush biography one day?”