Thomas Pynchon and DS

[Bette]

I don't think this has been mentioned here yet. Apologies if it has. I could not get the "search" function to work for me.

 Thomas Pynchon's newest novel "Inherent Vice" mentions Dark Shadows on page 128. This book is set in LA around 1969, and is full of 60's references, especially TV. The main characters all seem to be, in Pynchon's words, "dopers" who watch a lot of television.

In the paragraph, the narrator tells us that they are watching Dark Shadows and it is "around the point in the Collins family saga when the story line had begun to get heavily into something called "parallel time," which was confounding the viewing audience nationwide, even those who remained with their wits about them, although many dopers found no problem at all in following it. It seemed basically to mean that the same actors were playing two different roles, but if you'd gotten absorbed enough, you tended to forget that these people were actors."

Pynchon either has great researchers or he was a fan. 

[Mysterious Benefactor]

This has not been mentioned before, Bette. And thanks so much for pointing it out for us. 

[Julia99]

I find that rather amusing.