BtZ42 Sec 3, p 17

[Monte Davis]

> he notices about everything I do....and lots more

Yeah. I'm far looser, far readier to say "Yeah, he probably read X or had Y
in mind" for Pynchon than for anyone else but Shakespeare and Dante (maybe
Goethe by reputation but I don't know him as well as I should).

Realistically, they only had so many years and so many reading/talking
hours, so I *know* they can't have trawled the ocean of knowledge as
comprehensively as it appears.

But like *fingerspitzengefuhl* cropping up -- or like Pynchon's Baedeker
knack for swotting a place and making us think he must have lived there --
they always seem to be sitting there crocheting and filigreeing every
connection as we first make it ourselves. "Oh, hi, Mark -- you just noticed
this?"

On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 7:49 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.
>>>
>>
>>
>
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