GR:The stoned reading

[Monte Davis]

GH >> I thought I recalled reading a section in "Food of the Gods" where
McKenna posulated a remote European village where the three drug scourges
of the 17th century, refined sugar, tobacco and caffeine all occurred at
once. Reading the Philadelphia section of M&D, the coffeehouse scenes
brought this to mind, with the tobacco smoke, the doughnuts and the coffee.
Alas, when I went back to "Food of the Gods", I could find no trace of it,
perhaps it was on a web page. A-and I thought I had tracked one of TRP's
influences down.<<

Your source might be traceable to CompuServe a few months back, when I was
talking about -- guess what? -- to a friend there:

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 S15/Readers' Corner  (CIS:CANOPUS)
  05-Jun-97  15:19:19
 Sb: #817368-Pynchon: M&D
 Fm: Monte Davis (sysop) 75102,3422
 To: Chuck Ebbert 76306,1226

Mason and Dixon put in a lot of time in the coffee houses of the American
colonies... where there are usually some sinister "Sons of Liberty" types
skulking in the back room, plotting all manner of evil against His
Majesty's authorities. M&D also do their share of drinking and assorted
smoking (whole lotta hemp in George Washington's south forty), but it's
those devil beans that drive them to their best and worst excesses.  

For years, every time I see or hear a discussion of drugs, I've thought
about the era when coffee, tea, tobacco, chocolate, distilled liquors, and
cheap sugar all became widely available over the span of a few generations.
I'm convinced the impact dwarfed anything we've had to deal with in this
century. And I've fantasized that with the vagaries of trade there must
have been one place, some small town in Central Europe perhaps, where they
all arrived more or less at once... Talk about a BUZZ!

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If so, small (and circular) world -- not a Pynchon influence, just another
preterite influencee.

If not, maybe it isn't all that original a speculation...

-Monte <off to refill his cup, pipe, glass, etc>