Thomas Pynchon TV

Debuting tonight at bookstores around the country, Thomas Pynchon‘s new novel explores 1970s California, documenting the collapse of the hippie revolution and the early roots of Internet culture in a surreal cultural snapshot.

After reading an advance copy of the novel, this GalleyCat editor stitched together vintage footage of 1970s California, private detectives, old-time computers, and some choice passages from Pynchon’s new novel, “Inherent Vice.”

While Pynchon maintains a famously low profile, we uncovered some vintage footage exploring key themes from his book. This essay borrowed from three public domain films: a National Institute for Mental Health newsreel about hippies and drugs, an IBM film about early computers, and a classic commercial that used a private detective to sell deodorant.

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