ellauri067.html on line 176: 1953-59 Cornell U engineering major, took? a class w/Nabokov, met R. Fariña
ellauri069.html on line 220: Fariña, Richard: (1937-66)
ellauri069.html on line 222: Richard Fariña, to whom Gravity's Rainbow is dedicated, was a good friend of Pynchon's when they were students at Cornell University in the 50s. In 1963, Farina married Mimi Baez, a folksinger and sister of Joan Baez. Although first married under the Napoleonic Code in a secret ceremony in Paris in the spring of 1963, they had an official marriage in Carmel, California, for the benefit of the Baez family. Pynchon was the best man for the Carmel ceremony, coming up from Mexico City where he was living and working on Gravity's Rainbow. In A Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone, Farina's posthumously published collection of stories (Random House, 1969), Farina describes his and Pynchon's visit to the Monterey Fair. Richard and Mimi Farina formed a folk-music duo (Farina on guitar and Mimi on dulcimer, both singing) and released several albums in the 60s. Richard Farina was killed in a motorcycle crash following a book signing in Carmel for his newly published first (and only) novel, Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me (Random House, 1966). You might want to visit this sweet website dedicated to the memory of Richard and Mimi (who died of cancer in 2001).
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