Perhaps,

[Mark Kohut]

Jonson famously said of Shakey: "He was of his time, and for all
time"...meaning, sorry to overexplain, that he as you put it 'fit the
temper of his times".....yet I will add, "defined a central change in
them" timelessly.....the counterculture was born in the sixties. He
captured it in his "story marketed as a novel".

And, now, after the level of puzzle and mystery in the book is felt
and accepted, I love the timelessness of his chosen postal symbols.

On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 11:07 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at gmail.com> wrote:
> It was grist for his mill. Resurrecting a bit of little remembered
> communications history, recycling it as a mysterious secretive underground
> alternative culture. It fit the temper of the times perfectly.
>
> On Sat, Jan 2, 2016 at 9:42 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> in thinking about the Trystero and Oedipa's
>> quest and a changed historical text, we haven't given enough
>> attention to why TRP chose an alternative mail
>> delivery system in his book.
>>
>> I think it was a perfect way of saying what the
>> wonder of US Mail delivery was--and had been--
>> to unify the US with democratic communication..
>> (now endangered, needing an alternative system)
>>
>> In his History of the US, Henry Adams wrote
>> that in 1800 there could be seven--7--mail deliveries
>> a day within Philly and NYC. 7!!
>>
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/why-the-post-office-makes-america-great.html?smid=fb-nytopinion&smtyp=cur&_r=0
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
>
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