third time's the charm RE: col49 2 pt2

[Doug Millison]

Tim Ware's web site confirms my initial post that put COL49's publication in
1966, March to be precise. The first paperback edition came out in May 1967.
So, I'm guessing that P is working on COL49 at least as early as 1965, if
not sooner.

Ken Kesey apparently encountered LSD and other such drugs beginning in 1959,
"in a government drug research program at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital,"
<http://www.lib.virginia.edu/exhibits/sixties/kesey.html>, an experience
which is said to have informed One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) and
went on to his famous Acid Test events and other Merry Prankster adventures
in the early 60s. I think it's safe to assume that Pynchon, through his
friends on the East and West coasts, would have known about this aspect of
the LSD experience. (It's been a long time since I read Cuckoo's Nest, and I
don't recall if K specifically mentions LSD, or if it's just that he uses
the LSD experience to inform his creation of the mental states of characters
therein; that's also the case in Sometimes a Great Notion, which was
published in 1964, I believe.)

Some folks believe Pynchon also may have known about the CIA's research with
LSD, looking for possible military and counter-intelligence uses, and that
this is reflected in his work, especially GR.