Tainted by AOL?

[Thomas N. Dennis]

>X-UIDL: 807735322.000
>From: <WKLJAZZ at aol.com>
>Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 14:02:04 -0400
>To: pynchon-l at sfu.ca
>Subject: Tainted by AOL?
>Sender: owner-pynchon-l at sfu.ca
>Precedence: bulk
>
>  A happy and relatively new member of the pynchon-l, I download my e-mail
>and eagerly await the continuing discussion of TRP, SF, Hiroshima, Gaddis and
>other recent topics.  Wow!  What a flattering comment from one message --
>that the members of the pynchon-l are the sharpest foax on the net!
>
>  But then, just a message or so later, I discover that my status as an AOL
>accesser of this list makes me one of the "untouchables" of the crew, a
>participant of suspect lineage, an otherwise anonymous voice that is
>sentenced to bear not one but THREE scarlet letters after his @ symbol!
> (Speaking of Puritans, if I admitted to a weakness for pigs, might I even
>claim some link to the hymn-writer and ancestor, William Slothrop?)
>
>  And the ultimate dis -- Pynchon himself would NEVER be part of AOL!
>
>Preteritely yours,
>
>Will L. (also bald and, uh, maybe about ten pounds pudgier than necessary
>a-and -- I confess -- a HIGH SCHOOL English teacher rather than a professor
>or some sort.  USED TO BE a lawyer, if that makes it any better {??}.  And --
>can't believe I'm owning up on this one -- I actually knew AOL kingpin Steve
>Case in college.  There . . . I've confessed.)
>
>