Like the bears in the zoo which plod the same circle day after day, I dutifully checked the Pynchon section of the public library. The past years of habitual checking had produced nothing but it was part of my routine.

Then, one day, there was a new book in the Pynchon section. I took it home with great expectations. Memories were blurred by time but the feeling of excitement was the same.

I had read �Gravity�s Rainbow� and �V� so many years before that I had forgotten what they were about. But I had a strong feeling, took it for granted, that Thomas Pynchon was an important writer to me.

Life intervened and I never got to finish the book of seven hundred pages. It was called, �MASON AND DIXON.�

Years later when a Mark Knopfler cd came out, I bought it and listened with relish to �SAILING TO PHILADELPHIA�, the song. He does it as a duet with James Taylor.

Returning from three years in Europe, I spent $40 of the $60 with which I landed in Ottawa, on a concert featuring Dire Straits and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Mark Knopfler�s the only concert I�ve gone to see in the past thirteen years, since we moved to the country.

In other words, I am a Mark Knopfler fan. I even liked his instrumental duets with Chet Atkins.

James Taylor�s songs and voice and his connections to Apple Records and Jimmy Buffet and Carly Simon sent thoughts in another direction.

Then, suddenly, I heard the words to the song. I realized what the characters, each of whom had a voice, one of Mark Knopfler and one of James Taylor, were saying. They were sailing to Philadelphia to draw the Mason - Dixon line.

I assumed, at first, that it was a coincidence. Then, in an interview, Mark Knopfler said that he had respectfully distilled the 700 page book into a two minute song. He was exploring the phenomenon that is America and this was a part of it which he articulated in his own way.

Now, with the publication of Thomas Pynchon �s 1000 page novel, Ian Rankin writes, in a Guardian piece on the dogmatika.com website, that he is a real Pynchon nut. He was going to do a PHD on the writer.

Ian Rankin reminds me that Pynchon dedicated �Gravity�s Rainbow� to Richard Farina.

I think Richard was married to Mimi and they played folk music. For sure he wrote a book called �BEEN DOWN SO LONG, LOOKS LIKE UP TO ME� which was popular. I can�t remember anything about that book but I know that it was the source of many weird names considered for rock bands of the day.

© 2006 Laura Hird All rights reserved.