Alan Watts

Alan Watts gave lectures on in Sausalito in at least January 1967. (PROSE: Wonderland)

Behind the scenes
Wonderland is so confident that the reader will know who Alan Watts is that it only casually references him. It would certainly be the case that people who were alive and aware in the 1960s would naturally know him, and perhaps even appreciate the nod to Sausalito. Younger readers, or simply those not familiar with 1960s counterculture, would possibly think that this is just a meaningless name woven into the backdrop of Wonderland to suggest a larger context — a bit of fictional "world building". As the video at right demonstrates, though, Watts was very much a real person who lived upon a grand boat called the Vallejo, moored in Sausalito, from where he gave his lectures.

Although Wonderland doesn't explain, the reference to "Maya" is not one to the Mayans, but to a philosophical concept of illusion.