M & D Becky posts:

[Mark Kohut]

*** Christopher (Kit, Kitty, Jack) Smart - mid-18th century 1722 - 1771
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Smart
English poet, friend of Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding,  known for
religious obsessions to the point of being hospitalized and after
release ended up in debtor's prison until death.

Another of the textual linkings of madness and religion. Seems that
Pynchon loads
the text with the notion that to have religious
beliefs/concerns/obsessions in this new
world is to risk being "mad".
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l