ATD 1040-1062

Revision as of 14:17, 4 February 2007 by Drpknight (Talk | contribs) (Page 1042: Chester LeStreet)

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


Page XX

Sample entry
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Page 1040

Page 1041

Dr. Ghloix
He was also the alienist of the Vormance expedition (page 132).

shadow-factories
Movie studios.

Thetis Pomidor
Thetis the Silver-Footed is a Nereid (sea nymph) in Greek mythology. Pomidor is the Polish word for "tomato" (possibly other languages too).

Page 1042

Erno Rapée
1891-1945, Hungarian-born composer for American movies. He published a book of "photoplay music" for the silents.

Shalimar
Excessively evocative name for a detective's moll; the Wikipedia disambiguation page leads to many of the meanings.

Mezzanine Perkins
Her given name suggests a physical attribute also called "balcony."

Chester LeStreet
Chester le Street is a town in the north east of England. Home of Durham County Cricket club, amongst other things.

Miss Jardine Maraca
???

Page 1043

the days just before the earthquake
The quake of June 29, 1925, destroyed the center of Santa Barbara and occasioned rebuilding to a "Mission-style" plan.

hop
Marijuana.

Page 1044

smoked a Fatima
Sometime before the mid-20th century, the cigarette brand sponsored a radio program starring Basil Rathbone.

Page 1045

glass mattes
Scenes painted on glass could be filmed along with the action, so that large or intricate backgrounds did not have to be built to full scale.

Page 1046

Olga Nethersole
British actress and producer, 1863-1941; had successful tours in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Mrs. Fiske
American actress Minnie Maddern Fiske, 1865-1932; a leading figure on the stage; made movies of two of her theatrical productions.

Page 1047

Li'l Jailbirds
Some points in common with the Little Tough Guys, Dead End Kids, East Side Kids and other movie series; see the Wikipedia entry.

one-reel comedies
A reel of film ran off in something over 12 minutes.

orthochromatic film
Film with low sensitivity to red light. Adaptations in the studio included green makeup to bring the face into highlight.

birch beer
Carbonated soft drink made with birch bark or oil, typically popular in northeastern U.S. and Newfoundland.

stuffed peppers they liked to call "mangoes"
This term for bell peppers occurs in the Midwest and especially southern Ohio.

Page 1048

a P.E. stop
???

runs through the time between the picture was taken and now in a matter of seconds
The reason this may sound plausible is that analog computers were used in just this way to generate artillery firing tables. But in the artillery case, the parameters of motion were given; photographic film does not record this information.

Page 1049

the Times bombing
October 1, 1910.

the constant term in the primitive, which differentiation has taken to zero
Last part first: differentiation is the operation of finding the rate of change of a quantity; a constant doesn't change, so its differentiation yields a result of zero. The "primitive" is the function that was differentiated; if it contained a constant term, that has vanished and must be restored. Reconstruction of the primitive therefore involves reversing the differentiation (finding the "indefinite integral") and setting the correct value of the constant term. By guesswork in this instance. No, it doesn't work, but remember that this is alchemy we're talking about.

Page 1050

his official . . . life . . . a completely different life
The reconstruction of the "primitive" (page 1049) entails fixing a value for the constant term. The operator can choose the "official" value and get Lew's "supposed-to-be" life as output, or can choose a different value and track some unofficial life. The machine can't tell the difference.

Louis Le Prince
1842-90. Inventor in 1888 of the "chronophotographe" process. Widely acknowledged to be first to photograph motion. He vanished from a train.

Page 1051

mazuma
Slang; Yiddish derived from Hebrew: money.

Page 1052

Page 1053

'em mick bastards bombed the Times
James and Joseph McNamara ultimately pleaded guilty to the bombing (see page 1049).

dago dynamiters
Deuce must have acquired this bit of alliterative bigotry somewhere and randomly dropped it into his rant.

Page 1054

Page 1055

Page 1056

it's no longer possible to go back the way they came
A situation encountered before in AtD, for example Kit's predicament at the doubling of Stupendica.

Page 1057

Page 1058

it wasn't Haymarket . . . It wasn't Ludlow. It wasn't the Palmer raids
Haymarket bombing; Colorado coal war; Justice Department campaign against American leftists under Woodrow Wilson's attorney general Alexander M. Palmer.

Gray Otis . . . the McNamaras . . . Brother Darrow
Harrison Gray Otis (1837-1917), editor and publisher of the Los Angeles Times 1881-1917. James and Joseph McNamara, identified on page 1053. Trial lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), here called "Brother" in recognition of his attachment to labor causes.

Page 1059

paradiddle
In this sense perhaps more often "taradiddle." Fiddle, finagle, wriggle. In strict pedantic usage "paradiddle" is a kind of quadruple stroke on the snare drum.

a barnstormer's Curtis JN
An army surplus airplane from the World War, bought and flown by an itinerant pilot in aerobatic exhibitions. Nicknamed "Jenny," the plane was pictured on a 1918 airmail stamp; some sheets had the center image printed upside down: the "Jenny Invert."

Page 1060

constant-term recalibration, or C.T.R.
See annotation to page 1050.

spagyrist
Alchemist, especially one seeking cures. Follower of Paracelsus.

Doddling
(1) Frequent misspelling of "dawdling." (2) Easy duty for an English bus conductor (e.g., issuing tickets but not supervising operations). (3) Sexual intercourse.

Page 1061

Page 1062

Annotation Index

Part One:
The Light Over the Ranges

1-25, 26-56, 57-80, 81-96, 97-118

Part Two:
Iceland Spar

119-148, 149-170, 171-198, 199-218, 219-242, 243-272, 273-295, 296-317, 318-335, 336-357, 358-373, 374-396, 397-428

Part Three:
Bilocations

429-459, 460-488, 489-524, 525-556, 557-587, 588-614, 615-643, 644-677, 678-694

Part Four:
Against the Day

695-723, 724-747, 748-767, 768-791, 792-820, 821-848, 849-863, 864-891, 892-918, 919-945, 946-975, 976-999, 1000-1017, 1018-1039, 1040-1062

Part Five:
Rue du Départ

1063-1085

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