PYNCHON timetraveller MYSTERY WPA Guide to Dallas ASTOUNDING but TRUE

[Lemuel Underwing]

ASTOUNDING TRUTHS are being uncovered about our Beloved Author! Namely that
he is one of the IMMORTALS left to wander ETERNALLY the RUINED EARTH,
having been CONDEMNED to such a fate by some Qlippoth or 'nother CENTURIES
AGO! Strange but TRUE as the evidence below will irrefutably PROVE!

Seems like Doc has been around in one form or another for a while-- wonder
what occupation he'd have these days?
All this because of a little paragraph from the WPA Dallas Guide and
History (1940) about Deep Ellum:

The wiser but no less wishful Deep Ellum Negro buys his philters, love
potions, lucky numbers, and incense, wooing lady luck at a fixed cost even
if vicariously. One concern, the Wish-I-Wish Company on Central Avenue,
offers choice of a large stock of incense, powders, luck bags, and mystic
oils. There is one for nearly every complication of life-- love drops to
attract the indifferent, magnetic lodestone for poker players, Van Van oil
to shake a jinx, High John the Conqueror lucky number root for general
success. New Orleans lucky bags are featured, as are similar charms
believed effective for one year. *The proprietor, a white man, is called
"doctor" by his clients, some of whom credit him with power to read the
more potent policy numbers in the smoke of incense.*

p296
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