Difference between revisions of "ATD 976-999"

Revision as of 13:14, 24 March 2007

Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.

Page 976

the coalfield troubles in southern Colorado
The United Mine Workers called a stike in Colorado's coalfields north of Denver in 1910 winning a 10 percent wage increase for ten thousand Colorado miners. The union's real target was the larger southern coalfield. A state-wide coal strike was called in September 1913 and lasted 14 months resulted in the Ludlow Massacre of April 20, 1914, in which 20 people were killed.

Madero revolution
in 1910, out of Mexico, led by Madera. Ramifications felt in El Paso, where a Senate Committee investigated in 1912 and found Standard Oil partly responsible.
Relevant?--a Mormon settlement was investigated as part of the investigation.
The Madero (Mexican) Revolution was brought on by, among other factors, tremendous disagreement among the Mexican people over the dictatorship of President Porfirio Diaz. Madero was one of the strongest believers that Diaz should renounce his power and not seek re-election in 1910. He was jailed by Diaz but was able to escape on October 4, 1910, to the US. In San Antonio, Texas, he issued his Plan of San Luis Potosi proclaiming the 1910 election null and void and called for an armed revolution on November 20, 1910 against the "illegitimate" presidency of Diaz. Madero also promised agrarian land reforms to attract Mexico's peasants to his cause. The revolution spread, the Maderista troops defeated the army of Diaz within six months, and Diaz resigned on May 25, 1911. Francisco Madero was elected President on October 1, 1911 and assumed power on November 6.

Page 977

Majolica
A particular type of white colour glaze for earthenware ceramics that was known for its ability to mimic (poorly) historically expensive porcelain. Its name comes from the practice of importing it into Europe through the ports of the Balearic island Majorca from the Mid-east.

I'm Going..Salome
Stanley Murphy, lyricist, written before 1909.
"I'm going to get myself a black Salome"
Composer: Wynn, Ed 1886-1966 Lyrics: Big Bill Jefferson a railroad man (first line of text) Contributors: Murphy, Stanley 1875-1919 Publication Date: 1908 For voice and piano. Cover ill.: African American man watching a belly dancer. Photo of Ed. Wynn.

Page 978

'Tá bien, no te preocupes, m'hija
Spanish: It's all right, don't trouble yourself, my dear.

Galluses
a pair of suspenders for trousers. "Braces" in British English.

Czolgosz
Cf page 372: Anarchist Czolgosz had assassinated McKinley.
Leon Frank Czolgosz (January 24, 1873 – October 29, 1901) was the assassin of U.S. President William McKinley. In the last few years of his short life he was heavily influenced by anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. From Wikipedia

President McKinley
Cf page 372: Anarchist Czolgosz had assassinated McKinley.
William McKinley, Jr. (January 29, 1843 – September 14, 1901) was the 25th President of the United States. from Wikipedia

One thousand Fast Lake Navigation, 158 Fast Express, and 206 Automobile Inverts
Here is a page with images of the stamp. Also, an interesting little online tidbit which references this stamp with the inverted center to which this page refers.

These misprinted ("alternate") stamps, associated with Anarchism, and the philatelically-named Jenny Invert with her similar association to the Anarchist collective at Yz-le-Bans, inevitably call to mind the subtly altered stamps of the anarchist (or at any rate anti-government) Trystero in Lot 49, postage in an alterntive, underground communication system. We have, then, the theme of underground, alternative communication introduced.

Page 979

Hanna's miserable stooge
Mark Hanna (September 24, 1837–February 15, 1904), born Marcus Alonzo Hanna, was an industrialist and Republican politician from Ohio. He rose to fame as the campaign manager of the successful Republican Presidential candidate William McKinley in the U.S. Presidential election of 1896, in what is considered the forerunner of the modern political campaign, and subsequently became one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate. From Wikipedia. Obviously, the stooge refers to McKinley.

henriettia
Weave: Twill
Characteristics: Originally consisted of worsted filling and silk warp. Today, it can be found in a variety of blends. It has excellent drapability. It's weight and quality vary with fibres, however, when created with silk and wool it is lustrous and soft. Uses: Dress goods. Textile Dictionary

Oedipal Spectacle
From the myth of Oedipus Rex, about a returning son killing his father, rendered infamous through Freud's interpretation of its significance to men.

And perhaps a Pynchon in-joke of sorts. The protagonist of Lot 49 is Oedipa Maas (it has been suggested: "More Oedipal"), also in trouble over stamps; in fact "Lot 49" refers to the auction lot of Trystero-altered stamps in the collection of Pierce Inverarity (it has been suggested: "Inverse Rarity"), for whose estate Oedipa is executor. A few pages from here the issue of alternate communication forms will be introduced; these references to the issues in Lot 49 could serve to alert the experienced reader of Pynchon to their importance in AtD.

Page 980

Page 981

the one with the destiny
Do we learn anything about this odd Oust child?

(Presumably Ewball?). No, this one is apparently a little child when Ewball is a grownup.

tintypes
A cheap, common and durable form of black and white photographic image where a sensitised collodion is poured upon a thin sheet of soot blackened tin, exposed and developed. Often hand-coloured. The most notable practitioners and teachers of the process in the US are Mark Osterman and France Scully Osterman. The tintype wikipedia entry.

Page 982

the Madero Revolution had moved on
Madero took office as president in November, 1911. However, he was no longer the universal and unquestioned leader he once had been. He turned his back on the forces that had brought him to power. His refusal to enact land reforms caused a break with Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) and other revolutionary leaders and losing much of his popular support gained during the revolution. The rural working class, who had supported Madero, now took up arms against him.

Many were rebelling in the name of disaffected ex-minister Emilio Vázquez
Emilio Vázquez Gómez (1888-1913). An anti-Madero figure.
With the collapse of Diaz regime in May 1911 an interim government was formed and a national election was called for in October the same year. Emilio Vazquez Gomez (1888-1913) was the Interior Minister of the interim government and a leader of an important wing of initial Maderista movement. He and his followers, wth the support of several revolutionary leaders, demand the immediate adopttion of the Plan de San Luis. Vazquistas began an open rebellion to dissolve the interim government and put Madero himself in the presidency before the upcoming election. The revolt, begun at the end of June, reached a new level on August 2, 1911 when Vazquez Gomez resigned as Interior Minister. Three weeks later Vazquista presented a plan in which the interim government was not to be recognized, the command of the revolution was to be handed over to Vazquez Gomez, large landholdings were to be broken up, etc. Madero's dissolving the original anti Diaz party replaced by a new one led to the split with Vazquez Gomez. During the October elections the Vazquista rebellion created unrest in the northern states and attracted several ex-Maderista caudillos such as Emilio Campas and José Inés Salazar. After the election, the Vazquista rebellion subsided for a while but flared up again in Chihuahua City in January 1912, this time against the Madero government. Toward the end of February, however, that revolt spread to several places in the state. In early May, Vazquez Gomez proclaimed himself provisional president, with his capital in Juarez. But his "administration" did not obtain any strong support and he was forced to leave the country for the US shortly thereafter.

Magonistas
Mexican anarchists, followers of brothers Enrique and Ricardo Flores Magón (1874-1922). During the "Magonista" Revolt of 1911, a short-lived revolutionary commune was set-up in Baja California. In present Mexico, the Flores Magon brothers are considered left wing political icons nearly as notable as Emiliano Zapata, and numerous streets, towns and neighborhoods are named for them.

Page 983

Morelos
A state in southern Mexico.

Emiliano Zapata had . . . begun a serious insurrection against the government
Emiliano Zapata (1879-1919) was a leading figure in the 1910-11 Madero Revolution against the dictatorship of President Porfirio Diaz. Zapata's discontent with Madero started before the latter became the president. The Ciudad Juárez peace treaty of May 21, 1911 between the Maderistas and Porfirian force ending the military phase of the Madero revolution failed to mention land reforms at all; it turned over the power to an interim government not to the revolutionary forces, as if the fall of the Diaz government had been achieved through secret cabinet pressure according to existing laws not as a result of a revolution; furthermore, the treaty acknowledged the power of federal army and specified to disarmed and demobilized the revolutionary armed groups including Zapatistas. Vazquistas revolted as early as June against the interim government and Zapata openly did so in Morelos on November 25, 1911 against the Madero regime with an agrarian land reform Plan of Avala. The Zapatista armed insurrection was the longest-lasting of the rebellions of 1911, and would extend itself throughout Madero's term untill merging with the new insurrectional wave of 1913.

Pascual Orozco
1882-1915, importer of armaments from U.S., maderista, revolted against Madero government in March 1912.

José Inés Salazar
Fought with Orozco against Madero.

Braulio Hernández
Radical Orozquista.

Pancho Villa
Christened Doroteo Arango Arámbula, 1878-1923, Mexican revolutionary general and folk hero.

José Gonzáles Salas
Maderista general in command against Orozco; replaced by Huerta, to Madero's later discomfiture.

Page 984

a sus órdenes
Spanish: (ready) for your orders.

One prong of the government attack . . . between Corralitos and Rellano . . .
The Battle of Rellano. On March 23, 1912, in Rellano, an intermediate point between Torreón and Chihuahua, there was the formal battle between the Orozuistas and the Madero government force, with a disatrous result for the federales. Its commander, General José Gonzáles Salas, humiliated by the defeat, committed suicide during the retreat. The Battle of Rellano was the high-water mark of the Orozquista military campaign.

Andale, muchachos
Spanish: let's go, boys.

Page 985

Page 986

Page 987

Benito Juárez Maza
Not the president of Mexico but his son, governor of Oaxaca from 1911 until his death the next year.

Page 988

chegomista
Follower of Che Gómez, identified on page 987.

"El Reparador"
Spanish: "The Fixer." Epithet of a hundred operators in crime literature.

Wie geht's, mein alter Kumpel
German: How are you, my old workmate?

Page 989

a face he recognized
Another angel modeled on Dally?

"máquina loca," "muerte" and "tú"
Spanish: "crazy locomotive," "dead" and "you."

When his eyes refocused, whoever had spoken had moved on
Frank has, at recognizing Dally's face, gone into the same kind of trance, a merger with the moment, or with the machine, that had almost taken him into the collision with the Federal train on P.985. The warning words seem to be "crazy machine", "dead" and "you". A warning from the Angel of Death, via another Alternate Communication channel.

Tu madre chingada puta
Rude, rude Spanish: Your mother's a fucking whore.

Page 990

Machine-Age nightmare...the future of coffee
Another Crazy Machine, or perhaps "Out of Control" machine (the governor on the locomotive on P.985 "no longer regulated anything"). Coffee is being industrialized, contributing to the ubiquity of outlets on P. 817, not to mention today, with overwhelming consequences for the indigenous growers.

Melpómene
Name of the Greek muse of tragedy.

Page 991

Ahora, apágate
Spanish: Now put yourself out, extinguish yourself.

Page 992

instantaneously
In violation of Einstein's special theory of relativity.
a wireless, immediate, human way of communicating.

Page 993

It is like the telephone exchange...the single greater organism remains intact, coherent, connected.
Actually not like the telephone exchange. On P. 708, Derrick Theign worries that in case of war, telephone and telegraph will become unreliable; this is his reason for creating the R.U.S.H. This telepathic network, like an unfailing cell phone network, is far more reliable.

Page 994

He knew what it was but could not find its name in his memory
Presumably the unknown menace from which Aztlan's inhabitants fled. But suggestive both of air attack and the menace of North American industrialization in 1900 and NAFTA in 2000.

Indicative world
Very potent phrase. The world of everyday reality, indicating the deepeer reality of the visions?

the Huerta coup
Against Madero, who was shot, February 1913.

Decena Trágica
Spanish: the tragic ten days.

Page 995

It was the first time he was aware of getting paid for being stupid. Could there be a future in this?

Sounds like another Pynchonian 'in-joke'. In "Vineland", Zoyd Wheeler is getting his yearly cheques for precisely that, i.e. doing something stupid.

Page 996

Since last September the mine workers' union had been out on strike
The Colorado "coal war" of September 1913 to April 1914; here is an eye-opening account.

Page 997

Pagosa Springs
South Central Colorado town in the heart of the San Juan Forest.

Page 998

...over Wolf Creek Pass, into the San Luis Valley...San Luis Basin...through Fort Garland...up the Sangre de Cristos over North La Veta Pass...the first rooftops of Walsenburg.
The route described would take them from the presumably UMW-sympathetic mining country in the San Juans, north and east along current US highway 160 (called the Navaho Trail), across the San Luis Valley and Basin to North La Veta Pass, with Walsenburg and the prairies and canyons of the coal country beyond to the east (the only safe approach to the striking mines).

The geography of this journey is as carefully described as the various characters' journeys through the Balkans (the description of the view of the Spanish Peaks and Culebra Range are absolutely accurate), and there must be a reason, something these regions have in common.

The San Luis Valley and immediately adjacent areas are the furthest northeastern reaches of the Spanish Empire in North America, part of the Province of Nueva Mexico del Norte of New Spain, later Mexico (part of which became the state of New Mexico in 1912). The area around Telluride would be the northern border of Pynchon's vision of Aztlan (it is in fact the northern border of the Pueblo settlements). These are, therefore, like the Balkans, borders between newly industrializing empires and older, tribally-organized, "pre-scientific" cultures (both with indigenous mystical/spiritual traditions, with which the characters interact). Here and in nearby Mexico, mechanization and industrialization of resource extraction are causing heartbreaking exploitation and violence, and the indigenous shamanism and mysticism and their unmediated power are being destroyed by advancing industrial civilization, exactly as described by Dwight Prance on P.777.

Niall Ferguson(The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, Penguin Press, 2006) points to three demonstrated conditions for becoming a conflict flashpoint: (1) Multi-ethnic population (2) location at the border of a failing empire (3) economic volatility (See note to P.939). Both the Balkans and the American Southwest/Mexico fulfilled those conditions.

Page 999

Annotation Index