re Re: MDMD Washington & Gershom

[Doug Millison]

In the first P-list reading of M&D, some folks liked the idea that the
1760s in the novel might carry echoes of the 1960s.  Playing with the idea
of reading Gershom as Sammy Davis, Jr. might lead to the notion that the
dope-smoking President could be Kennedy (I believe Seymour Hersh's book
portrays him indulging in the weed), with his rat-pack connections -- via
other men, through Marilyn Monroe, a la Vineland -- to Sinatra and the Mob.
It's a far stretch, and offered as no more than an ill-formed notion to
spark the imagination in passing, but these figures are a part of the early
'60s mileu that finds its way into other Pynchon novels.