yet another "alias Thomas Pynchon" hoax!

[Bill Baker]

>the perils of anonymity -
>this week the Anderson Valley Advertiser, an excellent
>small-town newspaper in Northern California, is promoting
>the fantasy that one of their regular letter-writers
>back in the mid-1980's, who signed his or her letters
>"Wanda Tinasky", was in reality, guess who?

What in high holy water possessed you to so willfully misread the AVA?
I mean, it's a little loopy that Howland is doing a thesis on these
epistles--imagine predicating your academic career on a possible Hitler
Diaries scam--but he makes a strong initial case for their authenticity,
and I caught some TRP-type strokes in the one letter that Howland didn't
cite and probably more to come.  Besides, jeez, a crackpot anonymoid runs a
series of highly literate letters in a Boonville ranter's journal prior to
the obviously Mendo-centric Vineland being published and you automatically
pooh pooh them?  Coincidence my hip einie.

Joey DeVivre, eh?  Uh huh.