Philip K. Dick, Curtis Mayfield & The Matrix

I've been reading The Penultimate Truth by Philip. K. Dick and I was struck by a number of things.

First of all, the book's influence on the film The Matrix seems profound. Of course, I have read that PKD was an influence on the film before, but surprisingly, not one mention of PKD is found on the Wikipedia article about the film. What's up with that!!? Clearly the Tom Mix is the literary precursor of the Nebuchadnezzar. And the whole plot of the Matrix, with machines living off the generated power of enslaved humans is taken directly from the Penultimate Truth. Except that in the movie, the Yance-men are replaced with robots. But given PKD's M.O. one could argue that the Yance-men are robots. Indeed, Yancy is just a simulacrum through which the above-ground elite feed their lies to the people underground. I'm sure this has been noted before in blogland, and if so, someone point me in the direction.

On a side note, for Penultimate Truth lovers out there, check out Curtis Mayfield's classic "Underground" from his album Roots. Here you'll find PKD's influence on Chicago Soul. I have no proof that Curtis Mayfield ever read PKD, but if I were to create the soundtrack for a Penultimate Truth film, it would open with "Underground."