Pynchonian Rorschach

[Steven Maas (CUTR)]

That *other* coach ride, the tessaract or whathaveyou when the Rev'd is
returning to Phila. with Mr.  Edgewise and his bottomless Thermos bottle,
seems another time machine of sorts.  Interesting novelistic technique, if
such it be. I'll have to read both passages over more carefully.

	Steve Maas

David Casseres wrote:
> If somebody wants to twitch and fidget over an *interesting* anachronism 
> or maybe it's one of those rohrschach things, how about that *coach ride 
> to Mt. Vernon,* eh?  The ride's madness and discomfort are greatly 
> emphasized and exaggerated; it's worse than a sea voyage.  Why?  The 
> passengers are given sandwiches by the coachman, and they throw the 
> plates out the windows.  They do?  What plates, did the sandwiches come 
> on *plates*?  Were they *paper* plates???  It's hard for me to imagine 
> Mason & Dixon in the late 18th century throwing away plates of metal, or 
> china, or earthenware.  If they were wooden, they wooden be called 
> "plates," they'd be trenchers.  Have I caught Our Encyclopedist in a 
> sloppy, senile error?
> 
> Nah.  He's up to something.  The coach is a time machine, is why it's so 
> weird.  The plates are paper.  M&D throw them out the windows 'cause it's 
> the American thing to do, on their way to the 1990's to talk with Bill 
> Clinton and Sammy Davis Jr.  But it could all use a
 little more 
> examination than just noticing, hey hey, that they wind up smoaking a 
> lotta dope and Bill/George makes a lame Yinglish joak.