BtZ42 Sec 3, p 17

[Mark Kohut]

Nice-- so Both/And maybe?

Probably more 'mythic' per that word than catalog ads even w McLuhan behind
but I'm
gonna think P noticed the watches in Sears catalogs since he notices
about everything I do....and lots more

On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 7:35 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 8:20 not flagged in Weisenburger 2ed, but more generally "twenty minutes
> after the hour":
>
> http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/silence.asp
>
> On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 7:20 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> "(8:20 and other mythical hours)"......not in 1st edition of Weisenburger,
>> don't know about 2nd...BUT
>>
>> When I was a young tyke, looking thru Sears and a few other catalogs
>> of America's time of my time, I noticed that all of the wristwatch ads
>> had the hands set at
>> 20 minutes after eight...visualize, long hand at 120 degrees pointing
>> down,
>> hour hand at 240 degrees---a visually nicely "balanced" inverted kinda V,
>> one shortened side arc (as P describes those street lamps early in V.--)
>> and I asked my dad--who knew everything important, of course---why that
>> was
>> and he is always saying that the ad folks decided this was the most
>> visually pleasing
>> way to look at a watch face---imagine 5 after 12 or 6
>> thirty!!---so............
>>
>> that mythical time, easiest on the eyes, created by ad writers.
>> McLuhanesque part of
>> P's vision, maybe.
>> (10:10 was another time used for same reason)
>>
>> As at least two Plisters have said here and posted about
>> , P subverts mythic myths, so to be cute --and
>>  with huge achievements, thereby creates new ones...
>>
>> It is one reason he is greater than most at least of his contemporaries,
>> imho.
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20160331/73a9585e/attachment.html>