"Wanda is Pynchon."

[eurydice]

Ah, then I am to be debriefed? (this may appear rather stream-of conscious,
but it is late, both in the evening, and in the century...)

These meetings took place between April of 1987 and July of 1988.

There was one letter that was a rant on the burning of the Fort Bragg
Library, and on this occasion, we discussed Rupert Brooke and A.E.
Houseman, as well as Pound, Coleridge, and Emily Dickinson.

On another occasion, we discussed Yurok Indian mythology and Pomo Indian
feathered baskets (there is a fabulous little Anthropological museum, I
think it's on Bancroft, which at the time had a lot of California Indian
material in it, and which we both discussed haunting at that time).
On another occasion I read some pages the gentleman brought regarding
non-indians being spirited over to Indian afterworlds (and there was no
mention of Brock Vond in these pages).

On a third occasion, he brought a letter extolling a new Philip Roth novel
(I am not a Roth fan, or a Salinger fan for that matter, and we went back
and forth on that, finally getting onto the subject of E. O'Neill (god
knows how) and agreeing on him at least.... this is when we discussed his
parents and the Tyrone nomenclature).

At another meeting (over those great Mary's Place burgers) we were
discussing the Scorcese cinematic rape of "The Last Temptation of Christ,"
and the gentleman said that Kazantzakis had been a great influence on him,
and that: "Tyrone is very much a Christ figure, and there is much in the
early Christian communities that can be read into the concept of the
preterite"(sic)).

He was always very solicitous about my hands shaking (I was always carrying
around countless stained cups of Peets Coffee that I would nip from the
branch of Peets up on Vine Street), though he would then share handfuls of
Callard and Bowser and other British sugar candies which made my hands
shake even more.

We talked and reminisced a lot about the Haight Ashbury and the Summer of
Love (which we both appeared to be alumni of) and also about Richard Fariña
(we both wondered aloud about "whatever happened to Debbie Green (I always
had a crush on her), who taught Jonie Baez to play the guitar, and who
later married Eric Andersen, and then vanished into the Carmel Valley or
someplace during the Summer of Love...) Several of the letters during the
summer of 88 were regarding the spirit of 1967 and how this spirit had
deteriorated and fallen apart, both in the Haight-Ashbury, ("where a cup of
coffee now costs more than a handful of 'Love Burgers' used to cost in
'67") and in Extreme Northern California (Yolla Bolly and north) where
psycho-pseudo hipsters like Jim Jones were preying on and exploiting the
innocent sixties spirit (and there were fiction pages on this that read
like stuff out of Vineland as well)...

I fear I am boring you, but if I have more time to ruminate, I can probably
remember more. Oh, and we also discussed Fup, by Jim Dodge, and "The
Klamath Knot," by David Raines Wallace...

At least this is a start.


>Dear Eurydice,
>        Your message on the Pynchon list 1/17 intrigued me:  "Wanda is
>Pynchon."  Could you tell me what time frame you were talking about?
>And can you recall anything specific about the letters your "very
>special informant" read to you?  And how did this recollection come
>about?  Did you hear the name Wanda Tinasky at the time?    Have you
>read the Wanda Tinasky letters?  And whom do you think are the hoaxer
>and hoaxee?  Involved in this project, I have had many experiences with
>Pynchon's "everything is connected"... quite a few were amazing.  But
>frankly, Eurydice, I am skeptical about your anecdote... a little too
>pat.  Pynchon ployers are always so obvious. And you ended 180 degrees
>from where you started.  However, if it's true and you can supply more
>details, it won't be the first crow I've happily eaten (rotten salmon is
>something else altogether).
>        Hope to hear from you soon...
>not TR Pynchon but TR Factor
>
>And I certainly hope that my response here won't result in the
>acrimonious flaming I hear goes on with Pynchon-L