Difference between revisions of "ATD 273-295"

Revision as of 23:36, 7 January 2007

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

Page 273

the electric
The Denver Tramway Company, beginning in 1886, operated electric railcars between central Denver and outlying communities. Citation

Page 274

Arapahoe
Since Frank is at the moment in Denver, "on Arapahoe" would mean on Arapahoe Street. From the native tribe. Also a county in eastern CO and a scattering of places in US.

drygulched
Ambushed, betrayed.

after Repeal in '93
Refers to the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which required the U.S. government to purchase an additional 4.5 million ounces of silver bullion every month with notes that could be redeemed for either silver or gold. Repealed by Congress after the Panic of 1893 to prevent depletion of the country's gold reserves. Wikipedia entry.

Lake County
Colorado county of which Leadville is the county seat.

Haw Tabor
Horace Tabor, a prospector, businessman, politician, and one of the wealthiest men in Colorado in the 19th Century. Tabor moved to Denver in 1859, later settling in Leadville in 1877. With the wealth he accumulated from his silver mine, Tabor established newspapers, a bank, and an opera house in Leadville (which still stands), and the Tabor Grand Opera House and the Tabor Block in Denver. In 1878, Tabor was elected Lieutenant Governor of Colorado and served in that post until January 1884. He served as U.S. Senator from Colorado for two months in 1883. Tabor ran unsuccessfully for Colorado governor in 1884, 1886, and 1888. In 1893, the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act devastated Tabor's fortune and his far-flung holdings were sold off. He died from appendicitis in 1899, and his legend still persists in Colorado.Wikipedia entry.

Matchless
The Matchless Mine in Leadville, formerly owned by Horace Tabor. Oscar Wilde visited the Matchless in 1882. The "widow" is Elizabeth Bonduel McCourt Doe, a/k/a "Baby Doe" Tabor, Horace Tabor's second wife (and his mistress before he married her in 1883). Baby Doe and her stubborn retention of the Matchless Mine is another Colorado legend. When Horace Tabor fell ill with appendicitis in 1899, his final request of Baby Doe was that she "hold onto the Matchless." This she did, with tragic results. After living in a shack beside the mine for 36 years, she froze to death one night in March 1935 after she ran out of firewood. Her body was found frozen with her arms crossed peacefully across her chest. After her death, 17 iron trunks that had been placed in storage in Denver were opened, as well as several gunny sacks and four trunks that had been left at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Leadville. All that was left from the Tabor fortune were several bolts of unique, untouched and exquisite cloth, several pieces of china, a tea service and some jewelry, including a diamond and sapphire ring. Baby Doe's story has inspired numerous works, including a movie and an opera by Douglas Moore, The Ballad of Baby Doe. More on Baby Doe Tabor, including pictures of the Matchless and the shack she lived and died in, can be found at these links: Baby Doe Tabor.com; BabyDoe.org

Zinc Rush
Leadville had "rushes" on gold, silver, molybdenim, zinc...

some bright engineer
???

Page 275

Molly-be-damned
Molybdenum, which is still mined outside of Leadville.

Wren Provenance
Let's not forget that one manifestation of V. was Victoria Wren. One could see this as the "provenance of wren?" There appear to be many allusions to V. in ATD.

heaps
slag heaps. For their picture see Wikipedia.

Sons of Heaven section
This is a term for the emperors of China.

Page 276

Jennie Rogers's House of Mirrors
Jennie Rogers (1843-1909) was a notorious Denver madam who built the "House of Mirrors" at 1946 Market Street in Denver in 1889 and ran it until her death in 1909. The House of Mirrors embodies the Romanesque architecture of the era, and was specifically designed as a bordello. It was later taken over by the even more notorious Mattie Silks (1846-1929), who operated it until 1915, when it fell victim to so-called "reformers." The House of Mirrors still stands, and today operates as a bar and restauant. (This contributor has been drinking there many times.) More on its history, including pictures, and on the history of Denver's Market Street red-light district, can be found at this website.

dress cavalry helmet
A collection of pictures of various dress cavalry helmets can be found here: cavalry helmet pictures.

Page 277

Aztlán
Legendary or historical homeland of the Aztecs. Northwestern Mexico up to Utah in some reckonings.

He had a passing acquaintance with the Mancos and McElmo country...
This is a clear reference to Mesa Verde [1], on the Mancos River between Mancos and Cortez, CO, southwest of Telluride. Pynchon has taken considerable liberties with the history of the area, as recounted by Wren Provenance, although perhaps not with what was known for certain at the time, to perhaps heighten the area's mystery. The Mesa Verde inhabitants had been building pueblos on the mesa from the 7th and 8th centuries, building cliff dwellings from the 9th to the 13th centuries, ranging far to the north and west for game and firewood. The surface ruins were known from the 1870s; the famous Cliff Palace (shown in [2]) was discovered by local ranchers in 1888, and archaeological activities were underway by 1891. By the time the area was made a national park in 1906 it was clear that the cliff dwellings had been relatively rapidly abandoned in the 13th century. It has never been clear exactly why; theories include drought leading to loss of water and loss of essential firewood (the area is quite cold in winter) to overlogging or fire. Pynchon is accurate in noting evidence of intense fighting among the last cliff dwellers, even cannibalism, in the ruins.

images of creatures
The ancient Puebloans of both the Mesa Verde and Chaco centers left numerous images, called petroglyphs [3], many of which are as eerie as Pynchon suggests here (the Wikipedia article shows Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands National Park in Utah). They include figures of humans and other creatures, and of comets and the 1054 supernova now known as the Crab Nebula (there are more than 14 pages of pictures of Pueblo Petroglyphs on Google Images: [4]).

Page 278

If they were the same ones who made the exodus...and became the Aztecs
The earliest interpretations of the Pueblo ruins, from those found first, was that these were Aztec ruins, as at Aztec Ruins National Monument in Aztec, NM ([5]). The Puebloans were in contact with mesoamerican civilizations, as indicated by findings of trade goods like parrot feathers, but these were probably traded through intermediaries. In fact, the Mesa Verde inhabitants were the ancestors of the modern Rio Grande Pueblos, e.g. Taos Pueblo ([6]).

the report
???

Albany... bar mirror
???

Booth Virbling
This seems to be one of Pynchon's made-up names. As a crime reporter at the time, he was probably given to a heavy use of verbs...warbling verbs, one might say. Booth---staid place where 'crime reporters' work?

Page 279

Bulkley Wells
???

Ice Saw murder
I saw murder?..eyewitness. ???

sparking
v. tr. "to court or woo". intr. "to play the suitor"

Page 280

South Pacific islands
Cf Margaret Mead. She was just being born in this time period. Her first book, Coming of Age in Samoa was published in 1928, though. Some of the most famous first anthropolgists studied the South Pacific islands. See Bronislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, a "masterpiece' [Wikipedia]. He went to Melanesia first in 1914, according to Wikipedia. He first wrote about "reciprocity" in culture there: Malinowski argued that culture functioned to meet the needs of individuals rather than society as a whole. He reasoned that when the needs of individuals are met, who comprise society, then the needs of society are met. To Malinowski, the feelings of people, their motives, were crucial knowledge to understand the way their society functioned:

Page 281

first city
The first extensive use of the alternating current was in arc lighting, the kind used in street lighting ... transmission of power in America was established in 1891 at Telluride, Colorado. ...Although there is some dispute in histories as to which city was first. Colorado history site says Telluride was.

This Telluride chapter seems to express overtly part of Pynchon's key themes: when electricity hit the streets, it was Hell. Passim 280-281, "the end of the world remained a possibility" to explain the unholy radiance [of the arc lighting]. Only a 'lunatic' argued it was not too late to turn back. And Telluride is where the "owners" who had Webb killed, live.

"Beside the tracks at one bend stood a local lunatic"
Like starting a Disney land ride.

how so? Bleakhaus 14:46, 4 December 2006 (PST)

Page 282

level of hatred
Cf capacitance?

vagging bee
Neologistic phrase for "bagging vagrants", maybe. A competition as in a spelling bee? See next line in paragraph: 'troopers..ran them in for vagrancy'

OED mentions vagging as a dialect of fagging which amongst other things can mean a beating.

Page 283

"joven"
Young fellow (Spanish).

Ellmore Disco
Elmore = (H)ell More, i.e. More Hell?

Possibly also an allusion to Elwood Blues, Dan Akroyd's character in The Blues Brothers.

when it was still Leadville
where 'lead' is exchanged in gunfights, as here? Map of Leadville, CO.

Seven-Toed Pete
Seven Card Stud

Page 284

battered 'from the day'"

thunderstorm-proof mayonnaise.....mayo is a Pynchon leitmotif. There is a folk belief that mayonnaise spoils and becomes toxic when a thunderstorm occurs.

jaconet... tartalan... crepe lissé
jaconet 1.a soft, white, lightweight cotton textile 2. cotton cloth glazed on one side and dyed

Liberty's of London
A famous department store in Regent Street, London, notable for its prints and fabrics. Opened in 1875 in a mock-Tudor building.

Grand Rapids style
A simple, non-ornamental design style of furniture, with heavy emphasis on office furniture. Mostly oak, it seems. From the 1860's, the office furniture was "mass-produced", whatever that means for the times. A kind of furniture allowing no "moral turpitude", as one online remark has it. (see Time.com use in 1978 below!) Grand Rapids was a furniture center and major location for regular furniture exhibitions for decades before and after the time of ATD. Source: Grand Rapids Public Library catalog, passim.

"The rooms are furnished in Grand Rapids style. The beds have pallets, but no springs, no Western-style mattresses, no top sheets; maid service consists of dumping a clean sheet and a blanket on the bed, to be made up by the guest."

---Time.com...1978...on certain hotel rooms in China.

Four Corners Boys
Deuce and Sloat. Nicknamed so after what they did to Lake on page 269, it seems. "They took her down to the Four Corners...."

Page 285

million apiece
From 1900, a million dollars would have the value of @20 to 23 million in 2005, depending on ways of measuring purchasing value. It would have over $100 million dollars in value, measured against the worker's average wage at the time. See Measuring Worth site.

...it's out with that wackyzacky...
The 'wakizashi' is a Japanese sword - 12 to 24 inches - often worn by a Samurai together with a Katana - another sword - and the two together are then called a Daish or somesuch. Although it would appear that this sword would have sometimes been used during Hari Kiri it is not the normal Hari Kiri weapon. That is usually a short - 6 to 12 inches long - double edged knife/sword called a Tant.'

hari-kari
Japanes: belly cutting. Properly harakiri, but the distorted rhyming form has been in colloquial English for a long time. What became a ritualised form of suicide in Japan chiefly amongst the nobility. It was sometimes offered to a nobleman as an honorable alternative to execution. A short knife or sword is plunged into the abdomen, drawn through and across the bowel laterally, with a small upwards twist at the end. Now extremely rare in Japan. More commonly referred to by the Chinese name for belly cutting - Seppuku - because eventually the Ritual was seen as being somewhat distastaeful, even dishonourable

Cal Rutan
???

Page 286

Loomis
Loomis Disco.

lowland alkali
Any of various soluble mineral salts found in natural water and arid soils. And 'lowlands' are good places in Pynchon's vision.

hardpan
A bedrock, foundation. Hard,,unbroken ground. A layer of hard subsoil or clay, also called caliche.

Page 287

chicharrones
Fried pork skins.

Ristras
Strings of dried red chiles.

sixty-degree wedges
One-sixth of a pie.

"Por poco te faltó La Blanca"
Translates to "You just missed La Blanca."

Page 288

Montrose
A city on Colorado's Western Slope. Wikipedia entry.

popcorn snows
???

vanning
???

comal
???

Page 289

half a cubic foot
12" by 12" by 6".

Page 290

miner's gad
According to the OED, "1. a steel wedge, 2. a small iron punch with a wooden handle used to break up ore."

McBryan's
???

trick animal
???

Page 291

Cosmopolitan
Cf p260.

Mr. Edison's scheme... static electricity
???

Wetherill's magnet
If electric, that's Kit's domain.

Page 292

pocket Kodak
Possibly the "No. 3 Folding Pocket KODAK Camera" produced by Eastman Kodak from 1900 to 1915.

Hieronymus Wheel
This may be a stretch but one of the paintings of Hieronymous Bosch is called the Circle of Hell which contains an assortment of odd creatures. As a central image there is a wheel coming out of (or going into) the mouth of a fishlike creature. The reference to hell seems appropriate for Telluride and a Japanese trade delegation in a Colorado bar may suggest the odd creatures. Just to stretch the connection a bit further, there was another Bosch, Robert, a Germany engineer who perfected a magneto ignition device in 1897 that became the standard for creating electrical sparks to start internal combustion engines. The modern Bosch Group is a leading manufacturer of automotive and industrial technology.

While there is most certainly something Boschean about Pynchon's aesthetic, nothing in the context of this passage suggests an association with either the painting described above or the machinist Robert Bosch. Instead, the passage indicates that the term describes a roulette wheel. Neither Google nor the OED recognize the term in any meaningful way, though it may be a back formation from the term "jerry," meaning to tumble, Hieronymous being the latinate form of Jerome. This etymology is still a considerable stretch, but it fits the passage better. For an example of an AtD passage that does conjure Old Master depictions of Hell (of which Bosch painted several), albeit without suggesting Bosch specifically, see p. 210-11, "the first glimpse of Jeshimon . . . . advanced the hour."

Dieter
German first name. Pronunciation: [diːtər]. Short for Dietrich. A Old High German combination of 'thioda' (ger: das Volk, engl: the nation) and 'heri' (ger: das Heer, engl: the army). Popular male name in Germany after WWII. Outfashioned today Dieter is referred to as comic and/or queer.

Since "Dieter" is "the barkeep" the English word dieter for someone who prescibes a diet comes to mind.

Possibly a reference to H. Dieter Zeh [7]and his "Many Minds" interpretation of the multiverse issue [8].Bklyn48 19:37, 1 January 2007 (PST)

bellows
pic?

Page 293

"Sumimasen... Bobusan desu... Gonnusuringaa... mottomo abunai desu"
Don't know the rest, but "Bobusan" refers to Bob and "Gonnusuringaa" is likely "Gunslinger."
Translation from e2535:
mottomo abunai desu = "he is extremely dangerous"
Sumimasen = "Pardon me" or "Excuse me"

"Anna koto"
???
literally "That sort of thing!"

fulgurescence
A neologism, I think -- it does not appear in the OED. 'Fulgur' is Latin for lightning, 'fulgurite' being, e.g., according to the OED, "any rocky substance that has been fused or vitrified by lightning. More strictly applied to a bore or tube produced by the passage of lightning into a sandy soil." In this context, "fulgerescence," refers to bright, lightening-like flashes.

"The loss of clarity . . . . in the dark"
See the note for Hieronymous wheel on page 292. This further enhances the Circle of Hell connection for the Hieronymous wheel note above. The painting includes several unknown creatures, including a barrel with legs, while “thrashed about” suggests the central fish monster image of the painting.

Cf., also, p. 221, "Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really . . . . An unscheduled Explosion, introduced into the accustomed flow of the day, may easily open, now and then, passages to elsewhere," as well as p. 230, "'Let us imagine a lateral world, set only infintesimally to the side of the one we think we know.'"

Cf., also the transdimensional travel of Buckaroo Bonzai in the Pynchon inspired film, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), especially the images of 8th-Dimensional creatures that Bonzai sees as he passes through the mountain. IMDB entry.

Cf., further, the notion of a "multiverse," that is, a physical ur-structure, comprised of many, if not infinite universes, of which ours is only one. Several contemporary cosmological theories require that a multiverse exist, though its existence remains highly conjectural. Wikipedia entry.

packing out pyrites
Mining fool's gold.

katana
Japanese samurai sword.

Page 294

Baron Akashi
A Japanese general whose career included spying, but, anachronistically, his career did not begin until 1889. He was a spy in Europe during RussoJapanese War-1900? So would he've been famous even to the lengths of backwoods CO? How much spyin' can a poor boy do if he's famous?

Squirrel and sarsaparilla
Squirrel Whiskey and Sarsaparilla Soda. Squirrel whiskey was so called because it was supposedly so strong it would drive its drinkers up a tree. Sarparilla, by contrast, is derived from the roots of the Sarsparilla tree.

Page 295

summer of '89
Butch Cassidy and his accomplices robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride on 24 June 1889 (Wikipedia)

Annotation Index