Difference between revisions of "ATD 397-428"

Revision as of 21:51, 4 May 2007

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

Page 397

syntonic wireless
syn·ton·ic (sĭn-tŏn'ĭk) adj.Psychology. Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment. Electricity. Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency. [From Greek suntonos, high-strung, intense, attuned, from sunteinein, to draw tight : sun-, syn- + teinein, to stretch.]

street-Arab
a homeless boy who has been abandoned and roams the streets. wordnet.

some koindt of a sailboat pitchuhv on it
The reverse of the coin (next entry) shows Columbus' flagship Santa Maria (the obverse has the navigator's portrait).

Columbian Half-Dollar
The 1892 Columbian Exposition half dollar was the first commemorative coin authorized by Congress. [1]

"ten yeeuhz ago"
Places this action in or around 1903.

Page 398

nuncio
Casually, a messenger; more formally, a permanent official Papal representative at a foreign court.

Evening Quarters
"at evening quarters the guns are cast" ... A Sailor's Story

Whatever that may mean. A muster of the ship's company at the end of the day.

H.G. Wells
Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), one of the 19th Century science fiction writers whom Pynchon is both emulating and parodying in ATD. H.G. Wells was an English novelist, sociologist, journalist, and historian. He wrote series of fantastic scientific romances The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897), etc. In combination with scientific speculation he developed a strain of sociological idealism in The War of the Worlds (1898), First Men on the Moon (1901) and many others. He also wrote the well-known Outline of History (1920). For more see Wikipedia entry.

jeu d'esprit
French: play of wit.

National Imprest
An imprest system is a system using loans as control against fraud and theft. The most common imprest system known is the petty cash system. Wikipedia. Interesting that the Chums' petty cash system goes under the rubric National, not International?

"Plug" Loafsley
Plug-ugly loafer/oaf?

Lollipop Lounge
Lollipop is vulgar slang for an underage girl. There is at least one 'pornographic' magazine called Lollipops featuring supposedly underage girls.

Tenderloin
2) A city district notorious for vice and graft. [After 'the Tenderloin', an area of New York City (from the easy income it once offered corrupt policeman). Cf p.334. From the American Heritage Dictionary.

squalid empire
Cf Alan Parker's 1976 movie "Bugsy Malone". IMDb

Page 399

indigo... yellow
Clashing-colors motif.

dicer
???

opopanax and vervain
Two fragrant, medicinal substances derived from flowering plants. They bloom yellow and violet, respectively. Wikipedia pages for opopanax and for vervain.

Though Wikipedia prefers the spelling opoponax, the OED suggests Pynchon's.

contrabass saxophone
A spectacular piece of hardware, somewhat taller than the person playing it. Pitched in E-flat—if you are keeping track—two octaves below the alto sax.

slide cornet
A brass instrument with the voice of a cornet but using a slide instead of valves. Very, very rare.

mandola
An eight-stringed instrument shaped like a mandolin but tuned the same as a viola. It is originally an Irish instrument.

"tin pan" piano
A reference to New York's Tin Pan Alley. Probably, the tag means to indicate that the piano was out of tune or sounded 'cacophonous'. Wikipedia entry

anchored by . . . piano
It's hard to imagine the sound of the ensemble: big reedy bass, lots of rhythm from the mandola, the abandoned wailing of the cornet, fuzzy arpeggios on the piano. Like a children's Fourth of July parade, plus hallucinogens.

houris
According to the OED, a "nymph of the Muslim Paradise. Hence applied allusively to a voluptuously beautiful woman." According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "houris" is the plural of 'houri', as defined above.

Darby
Over 21yo, if he's aged.

Page 400

paillettes
2. a spangle used to ornament a dress or costume. [from Old French,diminutive of paille,straw]. American Heritage Dictionary.

louche
of questionable taste or morality. From Old French, losche= squint-eyed, ultimately from Latin, luscus = blind in one eye. Source: American Heritage Dictionary.

"jazz"
The OED suggests that the spelling here was always more popular than jass, as used on p. 370. It makes sense that a musician like "Dope" Breedlove might use a less conventional spelling, as he would be familiar with the term before common usage had regularized its spelling. By contrast, within the "dime novel" idiom of the Chums of Chance narration (dime novelists not necessarily being, especially in those days, the swingin'-est of cats), while jazz still registers as a slang term, its spelling has already been regularized.

Dey high-hats us uptown
They scorn or snub us.

Dey low-balls us downtown
They underestimate us.

Missus Grundy
Mrs. Grundy, proverbial looker-askance at any improper activity. "[A]n extremely conventional or priggish person" after a character alluded to in the play Speed The Plough, by Thomas Morton (1764-1838), British playwright. Source: American Heritage Dictionary.

'ying'
"Yen"? And play/contrast with yang?

Page 401

Angela Grace
I.e., Angel of Grace

Gophiz... Hudson Dustuhs
Gophers, Hudson Dusters. New York street gangs.

bushwahs
Bourgeois.

slickin up
Gentrification.

Mr. Mawgin
J. Pierpont Morgan. Dr. Zoot has funding from the same source that supported Tesla earlier.

stanchion
Upright structural member, here part of the El trestle.

find it
(Small-penis joke.)

time-corroded
Actually, on p. 154 we learn that when these structures were erected, they were intentionally antiqued, "deliberately burned, attempts being made to blacken the stylized wreckage in aesthetic and interesting ways," a description that applies also to Pynchon's historical fiction with its antiquated language and its generally favorable view of all things black. Though, of course it's been a decade since the shrine was erected, and some actual time-corrosion may have occurred.

seeming to date from some ancient catastrophe, far older than the city.
When, what is that catastrophe in ATD, pages 149-170?

There's more than a hint in the geography. From Central Park to the Tenderloin, on a street where you can smell the waterfront; west and south till you hit (literally) the Ninth Avenue El; south on the El line. Eventually you get to the World Trade Center site.

I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY
Italian: "Per me si va nella città dolente". Phrase first appears on p. 154, where it is inscribed over the shrine that the citizens erect to the Destroyer. It is a quote from Canto III of Dante's Il Inferno, where it is emblazoned over the gates to Hell.

triatomic
I.e., ozone or O₃, which is a molecule composed of three bonded oxygen molecules. Wikipedia.

Page 402

solenoidal relay
Solenoid: a coil of wire hollow in the center. To make a relay, stick an iron rod partway into the middle. Turn the current on, and the magnetic field pulls the iron in. Attach the rod to the bolt on the gate and you can unlock it by pushing a button.

Dr. Zoot
homage to Zoot Sims, jazzman?
Most often combined with Suit, as in Zoot suit - Wikipedia. Often zoot suiters wear a felt hat with a long feather (called a tapa or ... By their dress, Zoot suiters expressed defiance, at a time when fabric was ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_suit There is a contemporary "zootsuit" radio station devoted to old radio shows. Historically, much later than the period of ATD here, there were riots in Los Angeles called the Zoot Suit riots (alluded to in, wasn't it The Crying of Lot 49?).

pale
Even tough-guy Plug fears time machine. Pynchon's perspective on artificial light, "already harsh illumination".

dynamo
Electrical generator. Converts any rotational motion to AC or DC power.

Grandmother's day
Pre-Civil War.

Breguet
A distinctive fine watch of French design, usually with open circles ('moons') near the ends of the hands. (See also p.140) Wikipedia entry

shimming
Insertion of thin material to make two parts line up. Think of the matchbook under the table leg.

revenue diverted
(Why not no-revenue?)because revenue was spent---very cheaply: in only "the simplest upkeep."

Page 403

gutta-percha gasketry
Gutta-percha (Palaquium) is genus of tropical trees native to southeast Asia and northern Australasia, from Taiwan south to Malaya and east to the Solomon Islands. It is also an inelastic natural latex produced from the sap of these trees. One use of gutta-percha was the "guttie" golf ball with a solid gutta-percha core, which appears later in Against the Day. Wikipedia

coaming
Bodywork. Panels concealing frame, wiring, etc.

undog this hatch
Nautical: disengage whatever is holding the door shut.

faith
(Blind, not humble.)

nervous organizations
Cf drugs. Cf. sympathetic vibrations, a physical kind of empathy.

pillioned
Riding two to a horse.

horses
Cavalry?

arrays of metallic points
Bayonets? Appears to be a depiction of the (still future) Great War, WWI

Page 404

shockwaves of the Creation
Anachronistic Big Bang theory?
I must say that in the Big Bang theory, stars were first created out of the bang; here the metaphor seems to accept that the stars already exist and "are blown through by the shockwaves of the Creation", capitalized, a common Pynchon touch, as in a Biblical allusion.

chamber shook
(It didn't on p403.)

not beasts
Airplanes? Or Missiles/rockets? 'A screaming comes across the sky'....

smell
Cf GR on Passchendaele.

Page 405

latest Oldsmobile
(Dates.) 1903.

Candlebrow U.
So what is a "candlebrow"? Consider those phallic ex voti candles offered up to St. Cosmo. The head of the candle-phallus, brow shaped, sits atop the cyclindrical candle-shaft and is, metaphorically, the candle's brow. And, natch, Gideon Candlebrow made the bucks necessary to fund Candlebrow U. with the miracle product "Smegmo," the "Messiah of kitchen fats" (Imperial Margarine was advertised as "The King of Margarines") — smegma is the "cheesy secretion" that collects atop the "candlebrow" beneath the foreskin. Ewball Oust's name has similar connotations.

double-domes
'dome' is slang for the human brain, of course. [Amer Heritage] and seems to mean, in humorous context, two-headed or double-brained thinkers...(more doubling motif--as joke?)

drumming
Traveling salesmanship.

The Ball in Hand isn't the river, it's the saloon. Still, the name does have an English ring to it.

Ball in Hand might refer to the "orb," an emblem of sovereignty held in the monarch's left hand in many state portraits; the orb is a small globe usually surmounted by a cross. Or a physics allusion, though anachronistic by some 30 years: the dome of a Van de Graaff generator. The museum visitor places her hand on it, the docent cranks the machine, and the victim's hair flies into an aigrette. Or a more carnal connotation, not anachronistic at all. Or fortunetelling. These remote connections do make cricket sound pretty good:

Another cricket allusion? From Wikipedia: When a batsman attempts a dangerous run, he could be run out by any of the fielders who just need to hold the ball in hand and land their feet on the stone at the bowlers end (hence run out by 'conduction', as opposed to hitting the stumps at the bowlers end).

A term used in pocket billiards (especially 9-ball) when a player has scratched (sunk the cue ball) and the player who follows is allowed to place the cue ball wherever he/she wants.

Given all the other sexual references in AtD, this definitely has a sexual ring to it. Consider that the Oxford English Dictionary defines "ball" as "5. Any rounded protuberant part of the body." It is thought that "ball" is derived from the Indo-European word bhel, meaning to blow, swell; with derivatives referring to various round objects and to the notion of tumescent masculinity. Derivatives include boulevard, boulder, phallus, balloon, ballot, and fool. [2]

Meatman translated to German is Fleischmann, as in Fleischmann's, makers of yeast, margarine, and assorted spreads.

Yes, perhaps a cheesy spread, like that smegmo! In 1973, Jerry Lee Lewis recorded an homage to his oral talents entitled "Meat Man" in which he brags of having "a maytag tongue with a sensitive taste." This fits in with The Sexual Angle in AtD. Read the lyrics.... And there are those great balls of fire known as ball lightning.

they don't like to cross running water
A preference shared by witches, vampires and in some accounts the Devil.

Page 406

counterfeit of the Timeless
Thematic. Whole sentence seems the sharpest indictment of 'the Academy' as exemplified by Candlebrow U.

fatal discovery
Note the contrast with "fateful discovery" on p.398.

Imum Coeli
Latin for "bottom of the sky." In Astrology, it is the point in space where the ecliptic crosses the meridian in the north, exactly opposite the Midheaven. Wikipedia entry

Gideon Candlebrow
made-up founder whose scandalous fortune underlay Candlebrow U?

Grossdale
a gross dale?

great Lard Scandal of the '80s'
Real event? (There were a couple of 'Lard Scandals" in last ten years but in countries other than Great Britain.)

Page 407

"Smegmo"
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals Wikipedia.

The word derives from a transliteration of the Greek word σμήγμα for soap.

As an "artificial substitute for everthing in the edible-fat category" pronounced kosher by an "eminent Rabbi of world hog capital Cincinnati, Ohio," Smegmo may be a code name for Crisco, a Procter& Gamble creation invented in Cincinnati in 1911 -- an anarchronism or time shift in the text -- and marketed through various ethnic cookbooks, including a Yiddish/English kosher cookbook published in 1933 with the "Hechsher (or certificate) of a prominent Orthodox rabbi, "denoting that Crisco contained nothing animal-based." [3]

"Smegm"a + crisc "O" = Smegmo

Smegmo and Candlebrow: "The initial purpose [for Crisco] was to create a cheaper substance to make candles than the expensive animal fats in use at the time. Electricity began to diminish the candle market, and since the product looked like lard, they began selling it as a food." Yet another Lard Scandal? [4]

Also P&G was founded as a candle (Procter) and soap (Gamble) company, making profits from the fat of slaughtered pigs in "Porkopolis," Cincinnati. That P&G also produces "Crest" syn. with "brow" may yield "Candlebrow."

Finally, the stock ticker for P&G is PG which is pretty close to one of Pynchon's favorite animals -- PIG.

margarine
1887 saw the introduction of the Margarine Act in Great Britain, which required margarine to be labeled as such. This was in response to the adulteration of butter by oleomargarine (made from animal fats).

Candlebow + margarine reminds me of Camille Paglia on Renee Zellwegger as "margarine-browed" (which I don't really understand).

four thousand years
Refers to the time believed to have elapsed since Abraham and the foundation of Judaism Wikipedia. Under kosher laws Jews are not allowed to mix milk and meat products in the same meal. The rabbi's proclamation about having waited 4000 years refers to the arrival of Smegmo as a non-milk substitute for butter that can be eaten with meat dishes.

"you kept hearing different stories about exactly what was in it"
Refers to wide range of urban legend-like attributions as to the origins and/or makeup of smegma that exist especially among children.

There's a resonance with Coca-Cola, too: exaggerated secrecy about the formula, fanatical market development, endowment of a university (Emory in the case of the Woodruff and Candler fortunes).

First International Conference on Time-Travel
MIT students held a Time Traveler Convention on May 7, 2005. The organizers did only modest publicity, claiming that the event would be reported and people in the future would read about it and decide to attend. One of the principals pointed out that only one such convention would ever need to take place. Vanderjuice's reasoning is almost a mirror image of that.

The Time Machine
A short novel by H. G. Wells, written as a series of articles in 1888 for The Science Schools Journal, and published as a book in 1895. The central character, Time Traveller, tells a group of friends that he has invented a machine which can travel through time, enabling him to investigate the destiny of the human species. In the year 802,701, where he is temporarily stranded, he finds the meek and beautiful Eloi ling in apparently idyllic circumstances, but discovers that they are the prey of the degenerate Morlocks, descendants of laborers who have lived underground for centuries. In later eras he sees the life-forms which survive the extinction of man, and thirty million years hence he is witness to the world's final decline as the sun cools. (Taken from The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English, 1988 Edition.) For more information from other source see The Time Machine.

this year
??? 1903.

flammivomous
Vomiting flame. (definition) by Webster 1913 (print), Tue Dec 21 1999 at 23:41:04. Flam*miv"o*mous (?), a. [L. flammivomus; flamma flame + vomere to vomit.] ...

nooky
attractive women.

1925 or thereabouts
Lindsay's unfamiliarity with the term "nooky," here used to refer to attractive women and not to a sex act, its most common present day usage, will likely continue until it becomes an accepted part of the English language, which occurred, according to the OED, with its first substantiative written usage in 1928. The OED, by the way, prefers the spelling nookie.

Randolph
(Has he been absent?)

Page 408

telegraphic messages
(Why at night, particularly? Email parody?) Seems many telegraphic messages were delivered at night, perhaps because they could be picked up during the daytime and many came after evening began.

When telegrams were a customary means of communication, you could send a "straight wire," which would go right on the wire and get delivered promptly, or a "night letter," which would go into a queue for transmission in low-traffic times and be delivered the next morning. The rate for night letters was lower than that for straight wires.

"Goes with everything"
Cf Al Capp's Shmoos?

a million uses for Smegmo
Tracing out just one parallel: Coke—foundation of the Candler fortune and the Emory U. endowment—is a beverage, a sweetener and flavoring agent (Coca-Cola Cake a Southern favorite), a solvent (best thing for removing bugs from windshields) and a cleanser (MythBuster-tested for polishing automotive chrome). In an emergency you can fill your radiator with it, and used with care it will raise bread dough.

Tracing out another parallel: Crisco, not only the first but also emblamatic of all synthetic shortening, is "ubiquitous in the cuisine and among the table condiments..." It is found in baked products (breads, cakes, muffins, etc.), salad dressings, soups, potato chips, mayonnaise, cheese spreads, peanut butter, cake and biscuit mixes. Raisins are sometimes coated with it. You will find them in most processed foods.

in the way that certain odors can instantly return us to earlier years
Recalls Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu in which the taste and smell of a madeleine cookie summons a collection of childhood memories.

"There's a seminar on that tomorrow ... Or do I mean day before yesterday?"
Are all the folks at Candlebrow time travellers? Unlikely. This remark seems to be a typical collegiate witticism about classes. Seems about everyone can STUDY time travelling at Candlebrow.

Finney Hall
Probably a Hall/Auditorium/Room in Candlebrow U. named after American author Jack Finney (1911-1995), who wrote a famous time travel novel, Time and Again (1970). See Jack Finney for more.

florescent
flowering, blooming.From florescense. Amer Heritage Dictionary

Page 409

Gibson Girls
From illustrations of a kind of woman first made by Charles Dana Gibson. Besides certain physical features--see wikipedia---such women were thought to be 'independent', often college girls, although not suffragettes.

"Why you insufferable little --"
This line, paired with St. Cosmo's observation at the end of the following paragraph: "And might I add, Mr. Noseworth, that these constant attempts to strangle Suckling do our public image little good," seem a fairly direct reference to a well-worn trope from the Simpsons [5], in which the splenetic Homer, as played here by Noseworth, expresses his no-longer-controllable frustration with Bart, here the increasingly smartalecky Suckling.

Pynchon, as has been widely reported, has appeared on The Simpsons a couple times.

More than even "Vineland," it seems, this book is fraught with pop culture/low comedy asides.

Wellesianism
Typo, unless he means Orson. Should be Wellsianism. On page 412 the term 'Wellsian optimism' was used.

Asimov Transecular
Interesting to find one of Isaac Asimov's time travel machines on the pile of "picked-over hulks of failed time machines." Of course, it would have to have been deposited there from some time in the future.

to transecular adj "that is made through the centuries" (Portuguese) Btchakir 16:48, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Asimov
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), Russian born American biochemist and science fiction writer. His family emigrated to the US in 1923 and he was naturalised in 1928. He graduated from Columbia University and had been Professor of Biochemistry of the University of Boston since 1979. He began contributing stories to science fiction magazines in 1939 and his first book Pebble in the Sky was published in 1950. Many others followed. The Foundation Trilogy (1963) made an international reputation as the master of science fiction. Since 1958 he had published few novels, preferring to concentrate on text books and works of popularized science such as Intelligent Man's Guide to Science (2 Vols. 1960). And he also wrote Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare (1970). In his life time he wrote over 500 books that spanned the realm of human knowledge. Asimov Home Page and Isaac Asimov.

Flow
Flow of Time.

Tempomorph
Tempo + morph = Time change

Q-98s
FM station?

vulcanite
Star Trek allusion? A kind of mineralized rubber.

a hard, readilly cut and polished rubber, obtained by vulcanizing rubber with a large amount of sulfur or some sulfur compound under a moderate heat (110-140 degree C), used in the manufacture of combs, buttons, and for electric insulation.

Heusler's alloy
any of various alloys of manganese and other nonferromagnetic metals that exhibit ferromagnetism. Named after Conrad Heuslet, 19th-century German mining engineer and chemist.

bonzoline
Synthetic ivory, used to make billiard balls.

electrum
An alloy of gold and silver, presumably not the same as argentaurum.

lignum vitae
The very hard heavy wood of any of several tropical American guaiacum trees. In Latin, literally "wood of life."

platinoid
An alloy of copper, nickel, tungsten and zinc, formerly used in elecric coils.

magnalium
Magnesium-aluminum alloy.

packfong silver
A Chinese alloy of nickel, zinc and copper, resembling German silver. packfong.

The Ball in Hand
See annotations to p. 405.

safe harbor
Paradoxical, I think.

automorphic
auto = Self,same. Morph = to change. The theory of automorphic functions concerns a generalization of periodic functions such as the Earth's revolution.

Eternal Return
A fascinating interpretation of history in which Time is a single cycle and once it has reached its conclusion begins anew, and each repetition of the cycle is utterly identical to the first. Perhaps originating in The New Science by Giambattista Vico, though made most famous by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who used it as the basis for his moral philosophy. Cf. Nietzsche, The Will to Power.

Page 410

revenance
Related to revenant, a ghost, a returner from the dead.

River of Time
cf "the invisible river, the flow of Time", p.252

Symmes Street
possible reference to the Symme's Hole which leads into the hollow earth, i. e. a street on the extreme fringe ???

gaslit
Lightfuel motif.

St. Louis Fair
1904.

Also "Pygmy boyfriends escaped from the St. Louis Fair" - in the book Ota Benga, about a pygmy who appeared in the St. Louis Fair, there is a reference to pygmies escaping from their exhibit and disappearing into neighborhoods of St. Louis, never to be found

kielbasa sausage
Often referred to as Polish sausage (which is uncooked), Kielbasa sausage is a precooked, smoked, traditionally made of pork that is highly seasoned with garlic.

fantan
Traditional Chinese gambling game; also a card game [6].

"preserver"
Or "life-preserver": slang, a blackjack or cosh.

magenta-and-green
Clashing-colors motif.

Page 411

Finding of Unusual Circumstances Questionaire
Also, presumably, known as the "F.U.C.Q." or "fuck-you," for short.

Hawaiian
???

Zennist
Practitioners of Zen Buddhism.

Caged Women of Yokohama
Possible: Yokohama was one of the first Japanese cities with the heaviest industrialization...wherein many young women from the surrounding rural areas came to work in dreadful working and living conditions? "The early 20th century was marked by rapid growth of industry. Entrepreneurs built factories along reclaimed land to the north of the city towards Kawasaki, which eventually grew to be the Keihin Industrial Area. The growth of Japanese industry brought affluence to Yokohama, and many wealthy trading families constructed sprawling residences there, while the rapid influx of population from Japan and Korea also led to the formation of Kojiki-Yato, the largest slum in Japan at the time." Wikipedia.
Misc. Like Telluride in the U.S., Yokohama had the first gaslit streetlamps in Japan. Wikipedia.

Page 412

koan
Japanese. A ko-an is a story, dialogue, question or statement in the lore of Zen Buddhism. koan.

"Does a dog possess the Buddha-nature?" [...] "Yes, obviously"
According to the Zen parable the answer to the question is "Mu", which is both "No" and the sound of a dog's bark, thus neither simply yes nor no. See the explanantion given by the Learned English Dog in Mason & Dixon (Ch. 3, p. 22).

apricot and aquamarine
Clashing-colors motif.

F.I.C.O.T.T.
As Alonzo Meatman goes right on to explain, F.I.C.O.T.T. is the acronym for the First International Conference On Time Travel, but readers of Gravity's Rainbow will recall also "Fickt" from the line "Fickt nicht mit dem Raketemensch," or "Don't f--k with the Rocketman."

hootnanny
Typo? Should be hootenanny, an informal performance by folk singers, typically with participation by the audience. The OED says that it can be spelled either way, and also hootananny.

Bohr... Mach... young Einstein... Spengler... Wells... McTaggart
All of these people did work involving either speculation about time (Wells) or other subjects that reached their highest expression in Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which had implications regarding the nature of time and spacetime Wikipedia. Pynchon refers to the fact that this work was underway and 'in the air' at the time of the novel.

Niels Bohr (1885-1962), Danish physicist, born and educated in Copenhagen, received his Master's degree in 1909 and his Doctor's degree in 1911. He became Professor of Physics there in 1916 after working under J. J. Thompson at Cambridge and Lord Rutherford at Manchester, England. He greatly extended the theory of atomic structure when he explained the spectrum of hydrogen atom by means of an atomic model and the quantum theory (1913). During World II he escaped from German-occupied Denmark to Sweden and England. He eventually assisted atom bomb research in the U.S., returning to Copenhagen in 1945. He was founder and director of the Institute of Theorectical Physics at Copenhagen. He was awarded Nobel Prize in Physics 1922 for "his sevices in the investigation of the structure of atoms and of the radiation emanating from them."

Ernst Mach (1838-1916), Austrian physicist and philosopher. He studied at Vienna University and became Professor of Physics there in 1895. He carried out much experimental work on supersonic projectiles and on the flow of gases. His findings have proved of great importance in aeronautical design and the science of projectiles. The ratio of the speed of flow of a gas to the speed of sound was named after him: Mach number. (Mach Number.) And the angle of a shock wave to the direction of motion was called Mach Angle. (Mach Angle.) In fluid dynamics, a Mach Wave (Mach Wave.) is a kind of weak shock caused by a small disturbance in the flow. In the field of epistemology he was determined to abolish idle metaphysical specualtion. He was a strong critic of Newtonian absolute time and absolute space. His writings greatly influenced Einstein and laid the foundations of logical positivism.

young Einstein
Perhaps a reference to the 1988 movie of the same name. At the time of the F.I.C.O.T.T. (1895 at the earliest), Einstein would have already published "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields." Ironically, Einstein's special theory of relativity would later essentially invalidate theories of luminiferous aether.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was a German-born mathematical physicist, who ranks with Galileo and Newton as one of the great conceptual revisors of man's understanding of the universe. He lived as a boy in Munich but left Germany for Switzerland in 1895. He renounced his German citizenship in 1896 and completed his education at Zürich Polytechnic (1896-1900), where Minkowski was his mathematics teacher. Taking Swiss nationality (which he kept until his death) in 1901, he was appointed examiner at the Swiss Patent Office (1902-05). He received his doctorate in 1905 from the University of Zürich. While working at the Swiss Patent Office, Einstein began to publish original papers on the theoretical aspects of problems in physics, such as Brownian movement (he explained the random motion using molecular kinetic theory of heat), photoelectric effect (in which he postulated photon), special theory of relativity, all in the same year 1905 while Einstein was still young (only 26-year old). The special theory of relativity provided, by the merging of the traditionally absolute concepts of space and time into a space-time continuum, a new system of mechanics whcih could accommodate Maxwell's electromagnetic field theory as well as the hitherto inexplicable results of the Michelson-Morley experiment on the speed of light. In that year, young Einstein also discovered and formulated an equivalence of energy (E) and mass (m): E = mc², where c is the speed of light in vacuum, a conversion factor required to convert from units of mass to units of energy. This equation would overturn classical physics and lay the foundations for the nuclear age. These four papers of 1905 by young Einstein, came to be known as The Annus Mirabilis Papers, contributed substantially to the foundation of modern physics and changed views on space, time, and matter forever. In 1909 he was offered an adjunct professorship at the University of Zürich. He resigned that position in 1910 to become full professor at the German University at Prague, and in 1912 he accepted the chair of theoretical physics at the Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich. In 1914 he was invited to be the director of theoretical physics at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Berlin. Be default, as a civil servant of a German government organization, he became a German citizen again. In 1916 he cpmpleted his mathematical formulation of a general theory of relativity that included gravitation as a determiner of the curvature of a space-time continuum. He remained in Berlin until 1933 when Nazi rose to power. He renounced his German citizenship and left for the U.S. in 1934. He accepted a post at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, from 1934 until his death in 1955. He became an American citizen in 1940. While in the U.S. Einstein mainly worked, unsccessfully, on the construction of unified field theory combining the general theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. Einstein was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921, not for his theories of relativity, but "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectirc effect", the work done by young Einstein in physics' Miracle Year of 1905.

Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), Greman historicist writer. Studied mathematics at universities in Munich and Berlin, received his Ph.D in 1904, and taught high school mathematics (1908) in Hamburg before devoting himself entirely to the compilation of the morbidly prophetic Decline of the West (Vol. I, 1918; Vol. II, 1922), in which he argues by analogy, in the historicist manner of Hegel and Marx, that all civilizations or cultures are subject to the same cycle of growth and decay in accordance with predetermined "historical destiny". The soul of Western civilization is dead. It is better for Western man, therefore, to be engineer rather than poet, soldier rather than artist. His verdict, achieved by his specious method, greatly encourage the Nazis although he never became one himself. (Spengler.)

Wells Cf page 398:H.G. Wells.

McTaggart Cf page 239: J.M.E. McTaggart.

dismissing . . . the existence of Time
In a 1908 essay, The Unreality of Time, McTaggart said "Our ground for rejecting time . . . is that time cannot be explained without assuming time." For the full text of the essay The Unreality of Time (1) and other information The Unreality of Time (2).

the McTaggartite
??? disciple of Mctaggart?

neo-Augustinian
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), in his autobiographical Confessions, is credited with reconceptualizing the notion of time in Christian terms. Throyle, on p.143, summarizes what he terms "Christian time," as a "linear way of regarding time, a simple straight line from past, through present, into the future." See also Eschatology.

fatal steamed pudding
Presumably the subject of the "Christmas-pudding controversy" mentioned on p. 406. In the context of Prof. Taggart's disbelief in time and the Augustinian's presumed belief that time moves inevitably toward Christ's return, a Christmas pudding (which, one should mention, is prepared with suet or similar animal fat, though presumably Smegmo can be substituted) is a symbol, insofar as it invokes the birth of Christ, of a pivotal moment in the proper sequence of Augustinian time. The pudding, which context here suggests the neo-Augustinian dropped on the McTaggartite, at once symbolizes the Fall of Man, as well as the McTaggartite's inevitable descent into Hell. The whole arrangement is problematized, however, by the comments of the County Coroner, who describes the outcome of the event dependent on "wagering," chance being irreconcilable with Augustinian time.

vertical distance
Of pudding-drop?

Old Stearinery Bell Tower
A stearinery (probably made-up word) is a facility where stearin is made. Chemically, stearin is an ester of glycerol with stearic acid, or stearic acid itself. The name also denotes the solid component of a fat. Smegmo undoubtedly contains stearin, so the Old Stearinery was a key part of the original production process.

"Until 1863 lard stearin was used to produce the stearic acid for candle making. With lard expensive and in short supply, a new method was discovered to produce the stearic acid using tallow. What lard and lard stearin was available was instead developed into a cooking compound. The same process was later adapted to create Crisco, the first all-vegetable shortening." [7]

Page 413

322 feet
The average acceleration produced by gravity at the Earth's surface (sea level) is 32.2 (or 32.17405 to be exact) feet per second per second. This apllies "in any direction out to the curve of the Earth, notorious locally for exerting a fascination upon minds healthy and disordered alike."

Pedantry Alert: From a height of 322 feet, you see the horizon at a distance of 22 miles.

disordered
Eg clocktower assassins?

Also people who may be moved to knock towers down.

homeopathist
One who practices homeopathy.

"the lycopodium type"... Fear
Lycopodium is a common homeopathic remedy for many disorders. Homeopathy being the introduction into the body, in infinitesimal amounts, of a possibly toxic or irritating agent that ends up stimulating the body to heal itself.

sky-brother
??? My take was that he was assuaging any hurt feelings with Meatman by placing him on the level of a fellow "Chum of Chance".

other Promise... resurrected... two millennia
???

speaking trumpet
Brass forerunner of the megaphone. Abstract of a 1671 paper; photo of a ship's speaking trumpet, 1799; catalog entry for a replica American fire brigade speaking trumpet, mid-19th century.

Page 414

purlieus
outskirts, outlying areas; also (OED) "meaner streets about some main thoroughfare; a mean, squalid or disreputable street or quarter."

This whole section is a progress into the outlying areas, the fringes (Cf. Pynchon's story Low-lands, which takes place at a town dump)

millwork
woodwork, doors, molding, wainscotting, etc, but cheap, prefabricated, not custom-fabricted on site.

penumbrae
(Is the ligatured-ae appropriate here?). Yes, it is the plural; each streetlight has its own penumbra.

interfered with
Sexually molested.

Really? I don't get that from the context: I think it means what it says.

But that is what "interfered with" means.

vacant
(So signs of occupancy are faked?)

dust
(Clear sign of vacancy.)

systematically deluded
Cf Descartes.

quiescence
(Meatman is cyborg?)
His name suggests a purveyor of meat, and he does "deliver" Chick to Mr. Ace, but a real human being can also feel used and can prefer fading into the deep background when not on a task for his scary boss. (He brings Chick to a meeting. Huh. Ideal name for a go-between.)

Page 415

"Mr. Ace"
Master race; ace of spades; mysteries; Mr Earl?

phatic
Relating to speech that serves to establish social relationships rather than to inform.

denounced
(Capitalism has failed but failure still can't be mentioned.)

Taking of refuge in a planet's past was the plot of a Captain Kirk-era Star Trek episode; the unintentionally-transported Kirk is taken to be a religious dissenter; fortunately his judge is one of the "refugees".

certain of your great dynamos
???

Fraternity of the Venturesome
Mistranslated 'Chums of Chance'.

nzzt
Electrical short?

Suggests "he" could be a holographic image. Time traveling holograms were one feature of the "Temporal Cold War" subplot of Star Trek: Enterprise; one such manifestation (complete with "nzzt's") is set in a huge dynamo station in a Nazi-occupied New York. This is two possible Star Trek allusions in a single page.

mission assignments
Pynchon seems to explain Chums backstory.

Page 416

ZZnrrt
Cf 415.

"irreversible processes"
In thermodynamics, an irreversible process is one in which the intermediate states cannot be specified by any set of macroscopic variables, and which are not equilibrium states. Since the intermediate states are unknown this process cannot be reversed.

Squanto and the Pilgrims
Squanto (Tisquantum) was one of the two Native American Indians (Samoset being the other) that assisted the Pilgrims during their first winter in the New World. Squanto.

Ironic (although Chick means it sincerley) since in this case the Chums of C are "Squanto" and their strange interlocutors from another dimension are the pilgrims. Chick innocently suggests that the strangers from the future just want help (as, like the pilgrims, they have just arrived and are low on supplies, so to speak). It is implied that just as the Indian's helping the pilgrims was re-payed with disease, genocide and war, the payback the Chums reap for helping these visitors from another dimension may not be what they expect.

entropy
A term first used in 1850s by the German physicist Rudolf Clausius (1822-1888). It is the name of a quantity in thermodynamics, statistical mechanics and information theory variously representing the degree of disorder in a physical system, the extent to which the energy in a system is available for doing work, the distribution of the energy of a system between different modes, or the uncertainty in a given item of knowledge. In thermodynamics absolut entropies cannot be determined, only changes in entropy. One way of stating the second law of thermodynamics (Cf page 238) is to say that in any change in an isolated system, the entropy increases. This increase in entropy represents the energy that is no longer available for doing work in that system. See Entropy & Laws of Thermodynamics.

"It's our innocence . . . ."
Speculation about the motives of people who come from the future claiming to need something from the past. It is a common fallacy in all ages to think back to the past as a 'golden age' and an age of 'innocence'. Lindsay elaborates further down the page: "[I]magine them... so fallen, so corrupted, that we — even we — seem to them pure as lambs. And their own time so terrible that it's sent them desparately back...." Think also of the kind of 'golden age' rhetoric often employed by certain politicians.

Page 417

"we're totally--"
...fucked.

"He is not what he says he is."
Pynchon denies Chums backstory/explanation.

In addition, his story would be plausible--almost too plausible--in terms of the thermodynamic theories of the day, i.e. the Heat Death of the Universe (about which Pynchon has written before: see V. and Entropy).

trespassers
Presumably individuals in the company of Mr. Ace and Alonzo Meatman, whose intentions toward the Chums of Chance are apparently sinister and for their own benefit. They appear to travel back through the stream of time without any kind of permission to execute their plans, thus making them trespassers (or parasites).

The idea of trespass could be thought of in another way too. Miles mentions Mr. Ace knowing him as a 'peeper' who observes the trespassers as they come to his time. We could think of the 'trespassers' as anyone in any time who looks back at a point in history. As such, they are actually 'peepers'. That these seem to have found a way not just to peep but actually to participate makes them more than peepers, in fact, it is this that constitutes their 'trespass'.

Pynchon seems to be playing with how we view history and the past, a theme common to all his work. The Chums, whose existence is, to an extent, fictional even within the work of fiction, are a nexus meant to control boundaries between points in time (e.g. the future and the present, or its past). Historians and other future observers want to use the past for their own purposes. If they become visible to the people in that past, they will appear as 'trespassers' and violators. As Miles says, they do "not have our best interests in mind".

We ourselves (readers and perhaps even more, Wiki authors) are also trespassers from the standpoint of the Chums. We read about them in the novel, which takes us to the past, to their present, and inserts us in a way that is invisible to them. We then write up entries and think thoughts about what they do. We are in their world in some way that to them is utterly mysterious and sinister because, again, we have own agendas in mind and not theirs.

enigmatic object
Plotpoint?

Page 418

Trespass
With a capital T.

evidence... everywhere
Cf Crying of Lot 49.

neuropathy
An abnormal and usually degenerative state of the nervous system or nerves.

contracts
With Devil.

Other Units
(So our five gossiped to others?)

exhaustive
Cf Trekkies.

came to recall
Cf PK Dick.

red and indigo
Clashing?

Marching Academy Harmonica Band
In this episode the academy goes by seven permutations of the name:

• Marching Academy Harmonica Band
• Harmonica Band Marching Academy
• Marching Harmonica Band Academy
• Harmonica Marching Band Academy
• Harmonica Band Marching Academy
• Marching Harmonica Band activities
• Harmonica Marching Band Training Academy

Its identity is not very securely tied down.

Page 419

"El Capitán"
Sousa march. "El Capitán" was played by a military band on the deck of Admiral Dewey's battleship as he steamed into the Bay of Manila in 1898, to "liberate" the Philippines from Spain and also, not coincidentally, achieve access for U.S. capital and goods to East Asian markets once the Philippines became a colony. Thus the references to the "intricacies of greed as then being practiced by global capitalism" a few sentences later on p. 419 is hardly out of place for TRP, particularly when mixed with comments on how patriotic bromides and marching tunes go together. The harmonicas and the comment that improvisation is definitely NOT welcome in marching band arrangements, of course, provide Pynchon's own inimitable caustic/satiric touch; cf. the kazoos in GR. On "El Capitán": see Hess, Carol A. “John Philip Sousa’s ‘El Capitan’: Political Appropriation and the Spanish-American War.” American Music (Spring 1998).

"Whistling Rufus"
???

consecrated
???

Richardson Romanesque
Style of American Romanesque architecture from 1880s-1890s, named after architect Henry Hobson Richardson, notable for use of brown stone, rounded corners, arches and cylindrical turrets. Wikipedia Entry.

modal theory
Context is suggestive of music theory, types of scales and keys of tonal music. However, Modal Realism is the view, notably propounded by David Lewis, that possible worlds are as real as the actual world. Possible worlds exist; the actual world is merely one among an infinite set of logically possible worlds, some nearer to the actual world and some more remote. [8]

chit
Piece of military or bureaucratic paperwork; context suggests "request for transfer".

Bing Spooninger
Like "Bing" Crosby, a crooner.

rack
Current military and collegiate slang for "bed"--an anachronism.

Page 420

every note
Om?

say "Wall"
???

difficult vocal feat
???

segueing
A deejaying term for moving from one song/track to another with no noticeable break if done correctly.

cakewalk
An African-American entertainment having a cake as prize for the most accomplished steps and figures in walking; also, a stage dance developed from walking steps and figures typically involving a high prance with backward tilt. From this, slang for a one-sided contest or an easy task.

draw-note
Note played on harmonica by "drawing" air through reed by sucking in rather than blowing out (insert crude sex joke here).

Page 421

popularity
Masochistic love of oppressors.

cover identity
Burden of resistance.

unannounced punishments . . . Combat-Inside-Ten-Meters
Points up the Kafkaesque nature of the Academy.

Lombardy poplars.
A large deciduous tree, reaching 30-40 m tall. They resemble large shrubs, due to their tall, slender appearance. They grow tall very quickly and usually die within 15 years of first planting.

Out the window...
The longest sentence so far in ATD.

Chromatic Harp
A harmonica that plays all notes in an octave rather than a scale in a certain key. Examples.

Pitch Integrity Guard
???
= PIG - pigs long have held a fascination over Pynchon

harmonica-reed files
???

Page 422

I.G. Mundharfwerke
Interessen-Gemeinschaft Mundharfwerke (Harmonica-works Association of Common Interests). "Mundharf" is Swabian German for "Harmonica". By analogy with I.G. Farben in GR: the Mouth-Harp Cartel.

drifted
Cf. Slothrop's desk in GR.

the sprightly Offenbach air "Halls of Montezoo-HOO-ma!"
The "Marines' Hymn" borrows the tune of the "Gendarmes' Duet" from the opera Geneviève de Brabant (1859) by French composer Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880).

into the Latrine
Cf. Slothrop's hallucination in GR.

vapor bearing... minerals
Alluding perhaps to radon gas emitted by radiation from radium eg from the granite under Cornwall, UK. There are concerns about its presence in the water and its carcogenic effects particularly. Occurs in the Four Corners region and known to cause cancer in miners there. Also consider the emission of helium-3 from the earth itself and the ability of radioactive emissions/particles to pass through matter.

A plainer reading: "ascents of tapwater vapor bearing traces of local minerals" refers to rising vapor (steam) from the sinks, the vapor formed from tap water that contains minerals derived from groundwater. Result: mineral deposits staining the walls and creating "images."

A.D.C.
Aide-de-camp, administrative assistant to a commanding officer.

but they could find no entries in any of the daily Logs to help them remember
Their situation has no precedent in any of the Chums novels. They have been betrayed, isolated and brainwashed, and they even doubt whether they are the authentic Chums. The following is not a spoiler: Any elementary handbook of plotting will tell you that they can't just single up all lines at the end of this episode and fly their ship "cheerly" on to the next adventure.

Page 423

None of them...
Cf butterfly dreaming it's monk?

volunteer decoys
Fan-meme.
Decoy = is usually a person, device or event meant as a distraction to conceal what an individual or a group might be looking for.
I think this surprising phrase has Pynchonian meaning about the meaning of fiction like the Chums': 'escape', 'adventure' fiction is a decoy from reality?

"At a Georgia Camp Meeting"
a song by a Kerry Mills originally published in 1897. Became a very popular 'cakewalk' tune.
Lyrics:
A camp meeting took place, by the colored race; way down in Georgia. There were folks large and small, lanky, lean, fat and tall, at this great Georgia camp meeting. When church was out, how the "sisters" did shout, they were so happy. But the young folks were tired and wished to be inspired, and hired a big brass band.

Chorus: When the big brass band began to play pretty music so gay, hats were thrown away. Thought them foolish people their necks would break, When they quit their laughing and talking and went to walking for a big choc'late cake.

The old "sisters" raised sand, when they first heard the band; way down in Georgia. The preacher did glare and the deacons did stare, at the young people prancing. The band played so sweet that nobody could eat, 'twas so entrancing. So the church folks agreed it was not a sinful deed, and they joined in with the rest.

:definition within above definition: 'cakewalk'
Cakewalk is a traditional African American form of music and dance which originated among slaves in the US South. A cake, or slices of cake, were offered as prizes for the best dancers — a rare treat during slavery — giving the dance its name. The dance was invented as a satirical parody of the formal European dances preferred by white slaveowners, and featured exaggerated imitations of the dance ritual, combined with traditional African dance steps. One common form of cakewalk dance involved couples (one male and one female, with their arms linked at the elbows) lined up in a circle, dancing forward alternating a series of short hopping steps with a series of very high kicking steps. Costumes worn for the cakewalk often included large, exaggerated bowties, suits, canes, and top hats.... The dance became nationally popular among whites and blacks for a time at the end of the 19th century. The syncopated music of the cakewalk became a nationally popular force in American mainstream music, and with growing complexity and sophistication evolved into ragtime music in the mid 1890s. The music was adopted into the works of various white composers, including John Philip Sousa and Claude Debussy; the latter wrote Golliwog's Cakewalk as the final movement of the Children's Corner suite (1908).

"deps"
Dep. from American Heritage Dictionary = 1. department 2. departure 3. dependency 4. deponent 5. deposed 6. deposit 7. depot 8. deputy
barring any other allusion, I think 'deps' here might stand for 1) departures or 2) departments (given words about other Chums above.

Surrogates, decoys, escape: Surely these all make it certain that "deps" means "deputies."

route out of the past
The nostalgia trap.

We wish we could tell you about everything that's been going on, but it's not over yet, it's at such a critical stage, and the less said right now the better. But someday . . .
The Chums imagine "the real Chums" as being engaged in a secret war that demands only one sacrifice from "the people," that of their innocence.

Page 424

'coon' material
They enjoyed the jazzy parts of the routine.

isotropy
the quality or condition of being equal along all directions. For more technical information see isotropy.

presently
R. Crumb did a comic like this: pic

opposition
(Was unconscious, now conscious?)Are the Chums now able to intercede in 'human' affairs, unlike their earlier mandate?

That's exactly it, their stretch in the camp—sorry, the harmonica academy—has modified the terms of the C of C Prime Directive.

dropped from altitudes
(Cf pudding above, Padzhitnoff's four-block fragments)

Page 425

"After the Ball"
Lyric from a huge pop music hit of the time (1890s):

AFTER THE BALL
A little maiden climbed an old man’s knees—
Begged for a story: "Do uncle, please!
Why are you single, why live alone?
Have you no babies, have you no home?"
"I had a sweetheart, years, years ago,
Where she is now, pet, you will soon know;
List to the story, I’ll tell it all:
I believed her faithless after the ball."

Chorus:
After the ball is over, after the break of morn-
After the dancers' leaving; after the stars are gone;
Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all;
Many the hopes that have vanished after the ball.

"Bright lights were flashing in the grand ballroom,
Softly the music playing sweet tunes.
There came my sweetheart, my love, my own,
‘I wish some water; leave me alone.’
When I returned, dear, there stood a man
Kissing my sweetheart as lovers can.
Down fell the glass, pet, broken, that’s all—
Just as my heart was after the ball."

Chorus:
After the ball is over, . . . . . . . . .

"Long years have passed, child, I have never wed,
True to my lost love though she is dead.
She tried to tell me, tried to explain—
I would not listen, pleadings were vain.
One day a letter came from that man;
He was her brother, the letter ran.
That’s why I’m lonely, no home at all—
I broke her heart, pet, after the ball."

Chorus:
After the ball is over, . . . . . . . . .

Bukhara
Either the Emirate of Bukhara, a former country in Central Asia or its capital

T.D.Y.
Abbrevation for Temporary Duty. weblink

Subdesertine
submerge beneath the desert or sand.

Saksaul
A plant/tree native to the deserts of Central Asia, particularly the Gobi desert; it has a very hard wood and is covered with knobs Wikipedia pic

It may be significant that the saksaul tree is often planted in order to stabilize the sands. Part of western Europe's civilizing mission?

Q. Zane Toadflax
(Sounds like Douglas Adams?). Toadflax is the name of an invasive plant species

Hypopsammotic... Hypops
Pure speculation, this one: Hypops seems to be used as a short plural for hypopneoa, a medical condition described as 'shallow breathing'. "Ammotic" is used as an alternative term for 'amniotic', e.g. as "ammotic fluid". So Roswell's Hypopsammotic contraption would be a kind of protective cover which however causes shortbreathedness. So perhaps a sort of diving- or space-suit is implied? This one would be for sand-travel, of course.

That's too remote and too intricate to be plausible. Hypo- (under) + psammot- (sand, from Greek psammos) + -ic. A psammophilous plant likes to grow in sand, for example.

Page 426

beating their prices
Contradicts p. 425 "no further expenditure".

P. 425 merely says that "no further expenditure for that purpose [i.e. for Hypops rigs] will be approved." Presumably, the Chums have some additional discretionary fund from which to draw cash for emergency purchases such as these.

that medium which is wavelike as the sea, yet also particulate
Alluding to the æther theory and the dual (wave/particle) nature of light.

Page 427

temporarily lapsing into English
What language is Miles--the Chums---usually speaking?

pigs fly
Lindsay = pig. "When (or until) pigs fly" = never.

legalistic
Yes, Darby is now Legal Counsel.

Page 428

ill-starred Bell Tower
Cf. Renata's tarot reading on p. 253, the last card of which is The Tower.
Cf. The Bell-Tower by Herman Melville, a famous story with an "ill-starred bell tower" for sure. "Glancing backwards, they saw the groined belfry crashed sideways in.", a line from it which echos the picture used for the pynchonwiki home page.

Annotation Index