Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 429-459

2009-04-19T14:11:01Z

Bobutler: /* Page 436 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 431==

'''metaphorical way''' and '''lateral resurrection''' 
Cf. [[ATD_397-428#Pafe 418|page 418]], where ''metaphor'' and ''lateral'' are also used in quick succession.

'''"Turkish Corner"''' 
The ''coin turquois'' or Turkish corner was an interior decorating fad ([http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197806/london.s.arab.hall.htm second half of 19th century]). Well-to-do householders had the English furniture removed from a space and put in low tables, divans, cushions, ceiling hangings, nargilehs and so forth.

'''Bactrian''' 
''Camel''. Even-toed ungulate, two-humped (twin-peaked) as compared with the one-humped dromedary.

'''Cameling''' 
Seems to mean riding on a camel, contextually.

'''light might be a ''secret determinant of history''''' 
One of the overarching themes of the book, it seems. Natural light
vs. artificial. A-and in this section the line must be more closely linked
to the Manichaeans and Light [p. 437] and Chick and Darby's remarks on 438. Light as 'Divine' light.......
Determinant also has an obvious mathematical meaning: a scalar invariant of a matrix which corresponding to its scale factor when the matrix is interpreted as a linear mapping. The determinant is non-obvious and its computation is of order n^3; hence, secret.

The [http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-38 ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas''] has a clear, readable essay on causation in history, well worth a look given that we are concerned with "determinants" and the nature of time/sequence/cause-and-effect.

==Page 432==

'''fatal word''' 
"Wife".

'''C.A.C.A.''' 
Caca; Spanish for "shit". The Chums have already begun to suspect the "shit", i.e. the malevolent organization that lies behind their boys' book heroics; the reader is now made aware of a large organization (see B.I.N., below) standing behind the massive airships and their crews. We all know what about the dynamics of large organizations, and the percentage of the time they spend in serving their purported purposes. Reminiscent of Van Vogt's Law: "90% of everything is shit (caca)".
:Not just Spanish; most western European languages. In German it's even pronounced the same as '''K-K''' (Kaiserlich und Königlich, see Max Khäutsch and Franz Ferdinand episodes).

'''Medicine Hat, Alberta''' 
A real city with a population about 56,000. It is located in the southeastern part of the province of Alberta, Canada.

'''Gamomania''' 
"Gamos" is Greek for "marriage," and mania means "mania" or "madness."

'''H.M.S.F.''' 
His Majesty's Subdesertine Frigate (p425).

'''Balaam's ass''' 
refers to Num. 22:21-34 - Balaam rides out with the princes of Moab, but the Lord sends an angel to prevent him. Balaam does not see the angel but his ass does and will not go further. Balaam smites the ass three times, to no avail, until "the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to Balaam: What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?" Balaam's ass and the serpent (in the Garden of Eden) are the only speaking animals in the bible.

'''reported as long ago as Marco Polo''' 
From Marco Polo's ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (1298-99):
:". . . When a man is riding by night through this desert and something happens to make him loiter and lose touch with his companions . . . and afterwards he wants to rejoin them, then he hears spirit talking in such a way that they seem to be his companions. Sometimes, indeed, they even hail him by name. Often these voices make him stray from the path, so that he never finds it again. And in this way many travelers have been lost and have perished. And sometimes in the night they are conscious of a noise like the clatter of a great cavalcade of riders away from the road; and, believing that these are some of their own company, they go where they hear the noise and, when day breaks, find they are victims of an illusion and in an awkward plight. . . Yes, and even by daylight men hear these spirit voices, and often you fancy you are listening to the strains of many instruments, especially drums, and the clash of arms. . . . ." 
:(page 67, ''The Travels of Marco Polo'', The Folio Society 1968 edition.) 
For Marco Polo's bio and more see Cf. [[ATD_243-272#Page 247|page 247]] and [http://www.silk-road.com/artl/marcopolo.shtml Marco Polo and His Travels].

==Page 433==

'''mutatis mutandis''' 
''Medieval Latin.'' A direct translation from Latin of mutatis mutandis would read, 'with those things having been changed which need to be changed'. More colloquially, it can be interpreted as 'the necessary changes having been made,' where "the necessary changes" are usually implied by a prior statement assumed to be understood by the reader. It carries the connotation that the reader should pay attention to the corresponding differences between the current statement and a previous one, although they are analogous. This term is used frequently in economics and in law, to parameterize a statement with a new term, or note the application of an implied, mutually understood set of changes. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutatis_mutandis Wikipedia entry].

This suggests we should view communication from the camel with the same skepticism with which we view the voices, or possibly view this communication as we would that from Balaam's ass.

'''''polygamy''''' 
Cf. Lake's conversion to (de facto) polyandry in Colorado Springs, p. 268. In both cases aquifers are the scene of the activity.

'''pan-spectral fields''' 
Well, ''pan'' means universal. As in ''panorama'', ''Pan-Am''. Another suggestion of possible worlds.

'''World-Island''' 
The phrase was coined by English geographer and geo-politician [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halford_John_Mackinder Sir Halford John Mackinder] who formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_%28geopolitics%29 Heartland Theory] (1904) in his address to the Royal Geographic Society, "The Geographical Pivot of History." "World-Island" refers '''not to the Earth''', but to the continuous landmass of Eurasia measuring more than 21 million square miles (54 million km²). This landmass contains no waterways to the ocean and is contained by the Arctic ice cap and drainage to the north, the monsoon lands along the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, the Near East or land of the Five Seas, and Europe. This landmass is remote and inaccessible to its periphery. Mackinder argued in his address that this was the strategic region of the foremost importance in the World. The Heartland theory hypothesized the possibility for a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland, which wouldn't need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to supply its military industrial complex but would instead use railways, and that this empire couldn't be defeated by all the rest of the world against it; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolitics See also '''Geopolitics''' in Wikipedia]

'''"Euphrates" poplars''' 
One of the five classes of Poplars: ''turanga''. Its scientific name is ''populus euphratica'', a subtropical poplar found usually in Southwest Asia.

'''aryq''' 
Most likely variant of Arrack (OED): name applied in Eastern countries to any liquour of native manufacture, usually distilled coconut palm sap. - Or rather arak, the Middle Eastern equivalent of ouzo, Pernod, etc., which, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arak_%28distilled_beverage%29 according to Wikipedia,] should not be confused with southeast Asian arrack.

'''B.I.N.''' 
Biometric Institute of Neuropathy, see p. 432.

As in "Loony bin".

'''seventeen-syllable''' 
Haiku - japanese poems consisting of 17 syllables, classically arranged in three lines of 5 - 7 - 5 syllables each

Brilliant! 
''Still at it, Suckling?'' 
''Insufferable little'' 
''Prick, I'll break your neck!''

==Page 434==

'''Eta/Nu Transformators''' 
Probably an imaginary scientific device. Eta is most likely a reference to the metric tensor of (four dimensional) Minkowski space. Nu sometimes symbolizes frequency.
:Alternate view 
:In classical electromagnetism, Eta is the wave impedance and Nu is the velocity of the wave; both are related to the material parameters of the medium the wave is traveling in. Specifically, Eta determines how a wave moves between different media (reflection, refraction, and transmission), while the velocity is related to the frequency and wavelength of the wave. Thus, the device probably allows the ships inhabitants to see while in the sand.

'''pari passu''' 
on an equal footing

'''Deep Blavatsky''' 
Named for Madame Helena Blavatsky (Helena Petrovna Hahn), founder of the Theosophical Society [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blavatsky]. Cf. [[ATD_219-242#Page 219|page 219]].

==Page 435==

'''Gurkhas''' 
Nepalese forces that have fought alongside British troops.

'''German professors''' 
Likely a double allusion, first to Professor Werfner of Göttingen, referenced on p. 226, and also to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schliemann Heinrich Schliemann], the German treasure hunter (not actually a professor) who first established the true historical location of Troy, the site of the Trojan War. His accomplishments are sadly underscored by his extremely amateurish excavation technique which destroyed as much as it extracted from the site.

'''"who keep waltzing out here by the wagonload, can dig till they're too blistered to dig any more, and they still won't ever find it, not without the right equipment - the map you fellows brought, plus our ship's Paramorphoscope"''' 
Could also be a nod to Steven Spielberg's 1981 film ''Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark''.

'''General Forrest''' 
Nathan Bedford Forrest, rebel leader in U.S. Civil War. Although he pioneered high-mobility tactics, he may never have uttered the famous quotation; see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest Wikipedia entry.]

Also, recognized as founder of the KKK -- see earlier episode in Colorado.

'''archiepiscopal''' 
Pertaining to an archbishop.

'''jewel-studded Victoria Crosses''' 
The VC is the highest medal for valo(u)r in the British military, about on a par with the Medal of Honor in the U.S. Created at the time of Crimean War, the VC was not awarded posthumously until 1907. Adding jewels to the award is pure fantasy.

'''Fabergé''' 
Russian jeweler. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Faberg%C3%A9 Wikipedia entry].

'''"appealing though they be or, shall I say, as they are"''' 
Captain Toadflax's corrects his grammatical mistake, an error that is partially obscured by the inverted construction he employs. If one straightens out his words into a more conventional form, e.g., "though they [secular pleasures] be appealing," the error is clearer: ''they'', the third person plural pronoun, requires ''are'' as a verb, i.e. ''pleasures are'' rather than ''pleasures be''. The ''OED'' lists many examples of ''be'' taking the place of ''are'' in similar contexts, but notes that this usage is either dialectal or archaic.
:Why Toadflax commits this error is less clear than what the error itself is. One possibility is that Pynchon is making an allusion to Captains Bildad and Peleg of ''Moby-Dick'', who speak in an archaic vernacular typical of New England Puritans.
::For more information, see the ''OED'', "be, v.," sub-entry, A.I.h.¶.
:'''It isn't an error!''' Toadflax first correctly uses the subjunctive, "appealing though they be"; the choice of mood says he is making a speculative statement, something like "however appealing they are imagined to be." Then he rephrases—changing the meaning of his statement—to the indicative mood, "appealing as they are," saying that the pleasures definitely, factually ''are'' appealing. The contrast of subjunctive and indicative is becoming archaic now, but it wasn't archaic or even odd coming from an educated speaker in the early 20th century.

'''subarenaceous''' 
arenaceous - Having the appearance or consistency of sand; sandy; largely composed of sand or quartz grains. <ref>'''Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. ed. 1989.</ref>

Hence subarenaceous 'means under the sand.'

==Page 436==

'''limen''' 
The limit below which a given stimulus ceases to be perceptible; the minimum amount of stimulus or nerve-excitation required to produce a sensation. Also called a threshold.<ref>'''Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. ed. 1989.</ref>

'''transmundane''' 
Beyond the mundane, beyond the world

'''lamaseries''' 
Domiciles of Buddhist lamas (as in "monasteries").

'''Torriform Inclusion''' 
A made-up condition from Torus==Arch.: a large convex molding, semicircular in cross section, located at the base of a classical column?
From the American Heritage Dictionary.
St. Cosmo has just seen, he thinks, a "watchtower".
'Watchtower'-Cf. the name of the magazine (and building in Brooklyn) that the Jehovah's Witnesses use.
'distinguishing man-made from God-made'...

More likely from ''turris'' (Latin), ''torre'' (Spanish&Italian) or similar meaning "tower."

'''Urban terrain''' 
(But only cities unwisely built on sand.)

'''Stilton Gaspereaux''' 
Stilton is type of blue cheese from England. 
Gaspereaux are alewives, a freshwater fish. [Alewives or "Gaspereaux" are caught fresh as the fish moves upstream our cold Canadian rivers.
www.botsfordfisheries.com/products]

'''Sven Hedin''' 
Swedish explorer, especially of the Asian countries, and excavator of ruins of ancient cities. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Hedin wikipedia] Hedin crossed Taklamakan desert in 1895 and found ruins of the sunken city [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandan_Oilik Dandan Oilik]. Today he is a controversial figure because of his complicated relations to naziism. Hitler was an admirer of his work.
:That suggests another angle for reading ATD as a novel about the genesis of the 20th century, considering the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe Nazi obsession with Tibet]. There is also an alleged [http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_shambahla01.htm subterranean Shambhala] connection; the sources are dubious but the legend ''does'' exist.

'''Aurel Stein''' 
Sir Marc Aurel Stein. Hungarian-born explorer later knighted as a British citizen. Credited with the discovery, and arguably the exploitation, of the Mogao Grottoes in China. A rock-carved repository of ancient Buddhist texts and murals, the grottoes are known collectively as 'The Cave of a Thousand Buddhas' and protected a copy of the Mahayana Diamond sutra, acknowledged as the world's oldest dated printed text. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Aurel_Stein Wikipedia entry].

'''first known maps''' 
None of Ptolemy's maps has survived the classical period. They were, however, reconstructed in manuscript and engraved on copper or carved in wood for editions of the Ptolemy atlas. In 1482, the first woodcut edition, containing the first map of the world to include contemporary discoveries, was published in Ulm, Germany. It contains a brightly handcolored map of the Holy Land....

Allusion to the Map/Territory relation—the relationship between symbol and object. Coined by Alfred Korzybski, “The map is not the territory” is a related expression meaning that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself, e.g., the pain from a stone falling on your foot is not the stone; one's opinion of a politician, favorable or unfavorable, is not that person; a metaphorical representation of a concept is not the concept itself; and so on. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory]Here, the (abstract) map itself could be a guide to a spritual quest or to conquest.

==Page 437==

'''Nernst lamps''' 
An electric lamp consisting of a short, slender rod of zirconium oxide (ceramic) in open air, heated to brilliant white incandescence by electrical current. It was developed by the German physicist and chemist Walther Nernst (1864-1941) in 1897 at Goettingen University. In 1905 he formulated the third law of thermodynamics, and in 1920 he received the Nobel Prize in chemistry. For a picture of the lamp [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nernst_lamp Nernst lamp]] and Nernst's bio [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Nernst Nernst.]]

'''range-finder''' 
Cf. 'range', passim

'''level of encryption''' 
(Cf Heisenberg?)Does not seem to allude to Heisenberg and his Uncertainty Principle so much as buried layers of meaning that can hide to invisibility.

'''Mount Kailash''' 
A mountain located in the Chinese Himalayas with great religious significance in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is seen as the residence of Shiva, God of destruction and regeneration. The mountain is visited every year by many religious pilgrims. In Buddhism, the mountain was believed to be the location of a battle between two ancient sorcerers: Milarepa (Tantric Buddhism) and Naro-Bonchung (Tibetan Bön religion). Pynchon is perhaps alluding to the population dividing nature of religions. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kailash wikipedia].

'''Shiva''' 
Shiva is the formless, timeless and spaceless Supreme God in Shaivism, one of the major branches of Hinduism practiced in India. Shiva means "One who purifies everyone by the utterance of His name" or "The Pure One". The name Shiva is the Holiest of Holy names. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva Shiva]].

'''polarize light... in time''' 
Thematic.

'''Manichaeans''' 
A gnostic sect that followed the third century Persian prophet Mani (Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page 439|page 439]]). Their main theological belief was in a stark divide between Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.

Basic to Manichaeism's doctrine was the conflicting dualism between the realm of God, represented by ''light'' and by spiritual enlightenment, and the realm of Satan, symbolized by ''darkness'' and by the world of material things. To account for the existence of evil in a world created by God, Mani posited a primal struggle in which the forces of Satan separated from God; humanity, composed of matter, that which belongs to Satan, but infused with a modicum of godly light, was a product of this struggle, and was a paradigm of the eternal war between the forces of ''light'' and those of ''darkness''. Christ, the ideal, light-clad soul, could redeem for each person that portion of light God had allotted. Light and dark were seen to be commingled in our present age as good and evil, but in the last days each would return to its proper, separate realm, as they were in the beginning. The Christian notion of the Fall and of personal sin was repugnent to the Manichaeans; they felt that the soul suffered not from a weak and corrupt will but from contact with matter. Evil was a physical, not a moral thing; a person's misfortunes were miseries, not sins. (taken from ''The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2001-2005, [[http://www.bartkeby.com/65/ma/Manichae.html Manichaean]].)

Very relevant here in ADT: one could call their theology, BINARY.

==Page 438==

'''expanded sense... Maxwell... Hertz''' 
All forms of electromagnetic radiation form a spectrum, of which visible light is a small part; all such radiation shares fundamental physical properties.
Cf. range as spectrum.

:Let us quote more fully — '''''the light we see as well as the expanded sense of it prophesied by Maxwell, confirmed by Hertz''''' — it means the ''expanded'' understanding of the nature of the visible light (''the sense of it''). In 1865 Maxwell prophesied that, base on his field equations, "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws." (Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page 58|page 58]].) In 1877 Hertz experimentally discovered that light behaves exactly as an electromagnetic wave described by the Maxwell Field Equations and is part of the full electromagnetic spectrum. Therefore, Hertz confirmed what Maxwell predicted about the nature of light. (Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 318|page 318]].)
:Regardless of how the scientific understanding of the nature of light has been expanded and changed, the Manichaean's view of light as invariant will remain, they will worship light to eternity. All other forms of matter are considered 'darkness'.
:Of course it is impossible for the Manichaens to know the dualism, light/darkness, of their theology has the reflection in the dualism of light. Light is a wave (electromagnetic wave) and simultaneously consists of particles (photons).

''''Perfects'''' 
Perfects are the priests of the Cathar, a pantheistic manicheistic sect from the middle ages.

:Since Gaspereaux (and Pynchon)are still talking about Manichaean, let's just talk about it. 
:Strict virtue for the Manichaean involved necessarily withdrawal from the world. The community was accordingly divided into two groups; the ''Elect'' or the "Perfects", the ''Primates Manichaeorum'', who embraced a rigourous rule, and the ''Hearers'', the ''auditores'',who led a more normal life and supported the ''Elect'' both by works and alms. 
A-and we know Pynchon's view of The Elect.

'''Mysteries''' 
''The Book of Secrets'' (or ''The Book of Mysteries''). The sacred Manichaean text by Mani. Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page 439|page 439]].

'''Graeco-Buddhist''' 
Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Graeco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 800 years in Central Asia in the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism Wikipedia]

'''Italo-Islamic style(s)''' 
A result of the Islamic Conquest of Sicily and parts of southern Italy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Sicily Wikipedia on the Emirate of Sicily] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islam_in_southern_Italy 2] A primary locus of the Italo-Islamic style is also Malta, a setting of TRP's novel ''V''.

==Page 439==

'''Nuovo Rialto''' 
Seems like Pynchon creating a "New Rialto" city under these sands as many
cities take the name of an older city and add New....

From Wikipedia: Rialto is an area of the San Polo sestiere of Venice, known for its markets and for the Rialto Bridge.

The area was settled by the ninth century, when a small area in the middle of the Realtine Islands either side of the Rio Businiacus was known as the Rivoaltus. Soon, the Businiacus became known as the Grand Canal, and the district became the Rialto, referring to only the area on the left bank.

The Rialto became an important district in 1097, when Venice's market moved there, and in the following century a boat bridge was set up across the Grand Canal providing access to it. This was soon replaced by the Rialto Bridge.

Pynchon seems to love Venice so Nuovo Rialto is very ironically intended given this scene.

'''Mani''' 
Mani (216-276), founder of religion Manichaeism. He was born in the province Babylon which was then under Persian rule. His family was Persian, bu this name is Aramaic. Mani had probably originally belonged to a Christian sect, now called Elkhasitts. Between the age of 12 and 24, Mani had visions where an angel told him that he would be the prophet of a last divine revelation. Around AD 240, at the Persian court of King Shapur 1, Mani established his own religious philosophy. He and his followers (Manichaeans) regarded the world as irreconcilably divided into the kingdoms of light and darkness, good and evil. They practiced extreme asceticism in their struggle toward the light. At 26 he started on a long journey as the "Ambassador of Light" travelling through the Persian Empire and reaching as far as India, where he came under the influence of Buddhism. As Mani's teaching gained ground he came in opposition to the Zoroastrian priests and the Emperor Bahram 1. From 274 Mani lost the emperor's protection, and he either died in prison or was executed. His death was retold as an incident similar to the crucifixion of Jesus.

'''the Oxus''' 
The Oxus River of the Greeks. Its present-day name is the Amu Darya (or Amu river). It is the longest river in Central Asia. For more and map location see [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amu_Darya the Oxus]].

'''Jenghiz Khan''' 
Jenghiz (or Genghis) Khan (1162-1227), born as Temujin, a son of a Mongol chief. At thirteen he was called to succeed his father, and for years to struggle hard against hostile tribes. His ambition awakening with his continued success. He spent six years in subjugating the Naimans, between Lake Balkhash (in Southeastern Kazakhstan) and the Irtish (an enormous river in Western Siberia) , and in conquering Tangut, south of Gobi desert. In 1206 he started to use the name ''Jenghiz Khan'' — "Very Mighty Ruler". In 1211 he overruan the empire of North China, and in 1271 conquered and annexed the Kara-Chitai empire from Lake Balkhash to Tibet.
In 1218 he attacked the powerful empire of Kharezm, bounded by the Jazartes, Indus, Persian Gulf and Caspian, took Bokhara, Smarkand, Kharezm and other chief cities and returned home in 1225. His lieutenants continued to expand Jenghiz Khan's empire further and further. Jenghiz Khan died on August 18, 1227. He was not only a warrior and conqueror, but a skillful administrator and ruler; he not only conquered empires stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific, but organized them into states which outlasted the short span that usually measures the life of Asiatic sovereignties. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.)

'''crystallography of the silica medium''' 
Computer-base [silicon] allusion!?
:No! The most common constituent of sand, in inland continental or non-tropical coastal settings, is silicon dioxide (''silica'') usually in the form of quartz which is very resistant to weathering.
:And computer chips are made with silicon metal, not silica.

'''clearly a thousand years more recent than they ought to have been''' 
That is, the Manichean shrines date from the fourteenth Century, not the fourth Century when Mani, the founder, started Manicheanism. Pynchon dating 'when it went bad' in history?

'''Passing of the Remarks''' 
Sounds like a humorous reification of what gets said between sailors. Modeled after Changing of the Guard?

'''Steeplechase Park''' 
Steeplechase Park, located at Coney Island, was an amusement park and collection of rides, funhouses and the like. As a child I used to visit in the late 50's.

'''The Book of Secrets''' 
''The Book of Secrets'', (''Safar al–Asrar''), Manichaean sacred text by Mani. It was also called ''The Book of Mysteries'', and Titus just called it simply ''Mysteries''. It was characterized as "polemical and dogmatic." In eighteen chapters it was written to refute the false doctrines of the established sects and creeds n the world, including the sect of Bardesain or Bardesan. The book evidently dealt with the esoteric life of Jesus. The nature of Soul and Body was defined. And it also described reincarnation. A portion of the book was in the form of a dialogue between Jesus and his apostles. [[http://essenes.net/new/maniwritings.html mani's writitngs]].

==Page 440==

'''screaming...with blood''' 
Screaming motif.

'''''chong pir''''' 
Presumably Uyghur for "big lice."

'''Uyghur''' 
Member of an ethnic group in western China. It is sometimes claimed that the Uyghurs are Indo-European in one sense or another.

'''''Pulex''''' 
Flea.

'''voiced interdental fricative''' 
The ''th'' sound, as in "the" or "with." (Bad example—many if not most speakers use the unvoiced sound in "with." Try "then, other, father.") Basically, the lice lisp. This could be meant to suggest that their speech contains static or noise.

'''skeleton rig''' 
The skeleton rig is a shoulder holster for carrying a concealed handgun. They were developed in the 1890s. A very nice looking one, as well as a description thereof, can be purchased at [http://www.holster-connection.com/html/ted_blocker/tb_Skeleton.html First American Ordnance website], which also just so happens to be my source for the above info.

'''andante''' 
Literally "going". An Italian word typically seen in notation for classical music. It denotes a moderately slow pace.

'''Sandman Saloon''' 
Tavern for the 'sandmen', without those great tavern names in the above-ground world. Negative associations to this saloon, it seems, unlike the usual saloons in TRP's world. A Neil Gaiman allusion?

==Page 441==

'''Leonard and Lyle''' 
Google comes up with mentioning Sir Leonard Lyle [http://www.parkexplorer.org.uk/park_intro.asp?ID=new16 1], sugar-magnate and heir to Abram Lyle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Lyle 2] and "Lyle‘s Golden Syrup" [http://www.lylesgoldensyrup.com/LylesGoldenSyrup/PastPresent/default.htm 3]. Thats one interesting logo, what with the dead lion/bees and the tibetan stamp on ATD, btw. Golden Syrup = oil?

'''Baku''' 
Cf [[ATD_149-170#Page_168|page 168: Baku]].

'''''teke''''' 
From this [http://home.earthlink.net/~lkritikos/glossary.html glossary on greek rembetiko music]: "teke (pl. tekedhes): A club where one could buy hashish and the use of a narghile in which to smoke it"

An American fraternity or a member thereof. Tau Kappa Epsilon. Founded in the 1890s; has had a reputation for being a bit wilder than many fraternities.

'''Spindletop''' 
From wikipedia: Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in south Beaumont, Texas (approx. 30.02 -94.07) in the United States. On January 10, 1901, the well "Lucas 1" came in at Spindletop, marking the birthdate of the modern petroleum industry. At 100,000 barrels of oil a day, the gusher tripled U.S. oil production overnight, ensuring the second industrial revolution would be fueled not by wood and coal but by oil and its byproducts. Some of the companies chartered to exploit the wealth of Spindletop are some of today's largest and well known corporations such as ExxonMobil, and Texaco.

'''Groznyi''' 
Grozny or Groznyy (Russian: Гро́зный; Chechen: Соьлж-ГIала, Syolzh-Ghaala) is the capital of the Chechen Republic in Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River....As most of the residents there were Terek Cossacks, the town grew slowly until the development of Oil reserves in the early 20th century. This spiralled development of industry and petrochemical production. In addition to the oil drilled in the city itself, the city became a geographical centre of Russia's network of oil fields, and also in 1893 became part of the Transcaucasia - Russia Proper railway. From wikipedia

'''calyx bits''' 
Bits used for taking core samples in oil exploration. Rods are screwed together to make up the "drill string," with the bit at the bottom end. After exploration, the calyx bit is replaced with a rock bit; the borehole is stabilized with a "casing string" made of pipe (tubing) a little bigger than the bit.

Presumably some kind of mining drill-related equipment. "The mining operations were unusual in that much of the mining was done through large diameter holes drilled with calyx bits." [http://www.ut.blm.gov/sanrafaelohv/explore/historicmining.htm]

'''adults''' 
Chums not adults, then? No,they do not age, it seems.

'''''ässalamu äläykum''''' 
A muslim greeting. Translates to "Peace be with you." This is the Turkic spelling.

'''anticline''' 
An underground rock structure with a shape resembling a ridge on the surface. Oil exploration focuses on "domes" (like salt domes, see Spindletop entry above) and anticlines, because either of these provides a volume where oil—ascending because it's lighter than rock or water—can collect to make a "pool" that can be exploited.

==Page 442==
'''Had it not (p440) ....someones hidden plans''' 
This whole conversation implies a coming war over oil, being sold as a holy mission... why does that sound familiar? Of course, once again, "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

'''''equine altitude''''' 
High horse.

'''allure of Veneto-Uyghur women''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriatic_Veneti Veneti] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanais Veneto] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs Uyghurs] Long distance trade (like wars and tourism in general) is very likely to enforce the intermingling of different [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_pool Gene Pools], which, more often than not, results in particularily beautiful specimens of the kinds involved. Travels of mediterrenean merchants along the various branches of the Silk Road seem to have been pretty common from at least 14th century on - see [http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/pegol.html Pegelotti‘s Merchant Handbook] (ca. 1340) which partially reads like a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonely_planet Lonely Planet Guide] of back then. During the Renaissance most of the merchants (from Florence/Venice/Geneva) set out from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanais Tana/Tanais] which some sources put as a trade-post if not colony of the "West".

'''2 percent . . . most of them''' 
Implies at least 150 in crew.

'''Marco Querini''' 
An oasis named after Marco Querini? i.e. ''Oasi Marco Querini''. In January 1571, Venetians under Marco Querini defeated Turks near Famagusta, Cyprus.

'''Terrenascondite''' 
Italian: terre (pl. of terra) = lands; ascondito, an archaic form of the past participle of the verb nascondere (archaic: ascondere)= to hide. Translation is undoubtedly "hidden lands".

'''Pozzo San Vito''' 
Italian: Pozzo means well; San Vito is a Saint. Well of San Vito. ''Oasi Pozzo San Vito.'' San Vito, according [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintv07.htm to this site], died by being boiled in oil, other sources say it was lead - a hint to the subterranean resources here? Cfr. Italian: "Ballo di San Vito", that is, Saint Vitus' Dance, a syndrome having as a consequence tics or jerks. It may be an allusion to involuntary movements or disconntected behaviour(?).

'''all that incarnation and slaughter will transpire in silence''' 
Calls to mind the silent battle scene in Akira Kurosawa's samurai retelling of ''King Lear'', titled ''Ran'', which translates roughly to "chaos."

==Page 443==

'''peterman option''' 
A 'peterman' is a slang term for a safe-blower.

'''Consommé Imperial''' 
A gingered chicken broth with julienne of carrots and leeks.

'''Timbales de Suprêmes de Volailles''' 
Chicken Supreme Pudding ? Um, Suprêmes de Volailles means the white meat of chicken prepared with a fortified white sauce. To make timbales, the meat is chopped and placed in individual molds, a little grated Gruyère cheese on top, and baked in a water bath (just like some puddings).

'''Gigot Grillé a la Sauce Piquante''' 
A 'gigot' is a leg of lamb or haunch of veal. 'Sauce Piquante' is a spicy sauce.

'''aubergines à la Sauce Mousseline''' 
Eggplants with mussel sauce. -No, the French for mussels is moules, not moussel. A Sauce Mousseline is Hollandaise lightened with a bit of whipped cream. An odd choice perhaps for eggplant, but then Sauce Piquante is more for pork or boiled beef (pot-au-feu) than lamb.

:I've never seen a dog eat eggplant, but it sounds like something one wouldn't want to miss. Only thing is, it has to be somebody else's dog.

'''Pouilly-Fuissé''' 
A white Burgundy made from the Chardonnay grape.

'''Graves''' 
Wine from the Graves district of France, a subregion of Bordeaux. Wines can be either red or white. Red Graves are blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Whites are blends of Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon.

'''Miles...extra-temporal excursions''' 
Miles is like a Trespasser.

==Page 444==

'''Oasi''' 
''Oases'' is the plural of ''oasis''. Here, ''Oasi'' is the Italian word for ''oasis''!

'''cataplexy''' 
Sudden loss of muscle power following a strong emotional stimulus.

'''Nobel brothers''' 
Robert and Ludvig Nobel, brothers of Alfred Nobel of dynamite and prize fame, co-founders of Branobel, an important early oil company that controlled a large amount of Russian output. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branobel Wikipedia entry].

'''shaft-alley''' 
Somebody check this: the channel, running fore-and-aft deep in the ship's hull, where the propeller shafts are located.

'''the balloon is up''' 
British metaphor: The action has started. A phrase also used in ''V.''

'''F.O.''' 
Foreign Office

'''''Daily Mail''''' 
London tabloid, staunch early supporters of Adolf Hitler. Today specialises in stirring up hatred of immigrants and other minorities.

'''Inspector Sands''' 
A code word used in London to alert authorities without causing panic amongst the general public. Generally the alert is raised by the fire alarm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Sands Wikipedia entry].

'''"Sands of Inner Asia"''' 
Captain, now Inspector Sands, seems to be being compared for his achievements to "Lawrence of Arabia" parodistically.

'''Taklamakan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taklamakan The Taklamakan] (also Taklimakan) is a desert of Central Asia, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. It is known as the largest sand-only desert in the world. Some references fancifully state that Taklamakan means "if you go in, you won't come out"; others state that it means "Desert of Death" or "Place of No Return".

==Page 445==

'''Kashgar to Urumchi''' 
Two cities currently on the far western border of China. Presumably in this context they were two points inside the general area within which the 'Great Powers' competed to try and find Shambhala.

'''fell into the hands of''' 
An analogy with the present-day situation in Central Asia in particular. Throughout the book, there are references to Anarchist/Terrorists, to the spread of dynamite and other kinds of phenomena. These are all technologies that allow, or cause, power to flow into the hands of the powerless to use for their own purposes.

'''World-Island''' 
[[#Page_433|See entry at page 433]]

'''those Powers . . . still competing for it''' 
And to complete the analogy, the countries/peoples who have exercised power for centuries and are now baffled to see it flow into the hands of the powerless.

'''discreet summons''' 
Eg "paging Dr Blue".
It doesn't seem to me to be a phrase that needs a gloss: a discreet summons is simply what it says and made be made in any number of ways.

'''far wicket''' 
A 'wicket' may simply be a gate; but in the context of a novel and the bomber at Headingly cricket ground and Fenners, the Cambridge cricket ground, a 'wicket' is the three stumps at one end of a cricket pitch. ("The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly" - see p.236.)
:That isn't the context here; we are in a government building where supplicants have to pass through gates—wickets—and face bureaucrats through grilles—more wickets.

'''wog''' 
''Chiefly British.'' An ethnic slur used for any dark-skinned peoples. Alleged to stand for "Western Oriental Gentleman", but mainly applied to Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, and other brown-skinned Asians.
I have heard it comes from 'wily oriental gentleman'; but the Oxford English Dictionary states that the origin is uncertain and defines a 'wog' as someone especially of Arab extraction.
Eric Partridge, in'' A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'' (8th ed., 1984), suggests that the term derives from "golliwog," the name of a black male doll character with frizzy hair popularized in Bertha Upton's children's story, The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls--and a 'Golliwog' (1895).

'''Vic removal''' 
"removing Vic" defined by Partridge (Dictionary of the Underworld, 1949) as robbing a stamp office. From the image of Queen Victoria on British postal stamps.

'''eating an explosive''' 
Cf Lew's Cyclomite.

==Page 446==

'''St Martin le Grand''' 
A street in the City of London.

'''Angel Street''' 
Another street in the City which meets St Martin le Grand at right-angles.

'''G.P.O. West''' 
G.P.O - General Post Office

'''pneumatic dispatches''' 
An extensive 'pneumatic dispatch' system existed on London during the Victorian era, started in 1851 and carrying on at least into the 1930's. By 1886 London had 94 telegram tubes totaling 34 1/2 miles and around 4.5 million telegraph messages were carried in cylinders at around 20mph. At its height the network extended some 57 miles connecting 67 branch offices via a central sorting office. See [http://www.capsu.org/history/telegram_conveyors.html] and
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm] (with illustrations).

'''drill suits''' 
Drill is a durable cotton fabric; khaki drill is used for uniforms.

'''chars''' 
Charwomen. Maids, cleaners.

'''Hundreds of telegraphers''' 
The scene described, including the pneumatic dispatches and the ostensible concern about terrorism, is very similar to one in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."

'''clicks and rests''' 
Presumably the clicks of a telegraphic system and the rests or silences in between. [[Binarisms_Discussion|Another binarism.]]

'''Northern Temple of Connexion''' 
It's in the north of the City; and the phrase suggests the religious intensity of the need to connect or communicate as well as mildly satirising it.

'''marblework''' 
Such buildings would have used quantities of marble; hence the image of a 'temple' above.

'''Bloggins''' 
An archetypal ordinary man; an everyman figure.

'''allegro vivatchy''' 
phonetic of 'allegro vivace' - a musical term for a quick tempo. If the policeman had been manhandling an English suspect, he would have said "All right then, quick march." An early instance of cultural sensitivity. . . .

==Page 447==

'''grease-paint''' 
'Grease-paint' refers to old-fashioned stage make-up.

'''cylinder of gutta-percha''' 
Pneumatic dispatches were carried in cylinders of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha Gutta-Percha] -- an inelastic latex made from the sap of the Gutta-Percha tree -- covered in felt. See [http://www.capsu.org/history/telegram_conveyors.html]. Gutta-percha crops up a number of times in ATD, possibly enough to suggest some sort of motif or connection?

Gutta percha per se is a Victorian equivalent to rubber, or rather hard rubber (they knew to use soft latex for erasers, "gum boots" and such). Discovery of the vulcanization process led to replacement of gutta-percha in many applications.

'''its "D" box''' 
The receiving mechanism on the end of pneumatic dispatch pipe.

"The somewhat complicated pattern of double sluice valve originally used at the central stations has been superseded by a simpler form, known as the D box, so named Despatching from the shape of its cross section. This box is of and cast iron, and is provided with a close-fitting, Receiving brass-framed, sliding lid with a glass panel. This Apparatus, lid fits air-tight, and closes the box after a carrier has been inserted into the mouth of the tube; the latter enters at one end of the box and is there bell-mouthed. A supply pipe, to which is connected a 3-way cock, is joined on to the box and allows communication at will with either the pressure or vacuum mains, so that the apparatus becomes available for either sending (by pressure) or receiving (by vacuum) a carrier. Automatic working, by which the air supply is automatically turned on on the introduction of the carrier into a tube and on closing of the D box, and is cut off when the carrier arrives, was introduced in 1909." From the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica entry on Pneumatic Dispatch, cited at [http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm]

'''Holborn''' 
Holborn is between the Strand (at the northern end of Waterloo Bridge) and Bloomsbury.

'''Saffron Hill''' 
is in the City, an area named Farringdon, east of Holborn.

'''''tantum dic verbo'' isn't it''' 
Might be derived from that part of the Mass where it's said: "Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed '''tantum dic verbo''' et sanabitur anima mea" ("Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but '''speak the word''' only, and my soul shall be healed")

Sands seems to be telling Gaspereaux to "just say the word".

'''''intact''''' 
(Did I miss this?)

==Page 448==

'''because I'm mad''' 
Gaspereaux brings news, in overheard fragments, of Shambala intact, able to hold sand away from itself.....which "deranged utterance" [Sands] ....succumbs to a dim local until he, Gaspereaux, can no longer
imagine anything clearly beyond Dover. 
A 'mad' vision becomes local and quotidian.

'''half-sovereign case''' 
A sovereign is old English money for one pound, i.e 20 shillings. A half-sovereign is ten shillings old money.

'''Mr. Campbell-Bannerman''' 
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836-1908) was a Liberal MP and then Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1905 to 1908. I'm not sure when he was knighted; but he's not the only character in the novel connected with Trinity College, Cambridge.

==Page 449==

'''Clarabella''' 
Clarabelle=name of the clown on The Howdy Doody Show [TV] in the fifties.

'''Audacity, Iowa''' 
Seemingly a joking oxymoron?

==Page 450==

'''DREAMTIME MOVY''' 
Misspelling is dreamlike? Or, more possibly, the spelling hadn't yet been standardized.
:The ''OED'' an cites an occurance of this spelling as late as 1919.

'''log... waterfall''' 
This passage anticipates a scene in D. W. Griffith's 1920 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Down_East Way Down East] in which Lillian Gish, stranded on an ice-floe, rushes toward a potential demise over the edge of the falls. More specifically, Pynchon is here positing this (fictional) collision between the film (i.e., the diegetic world of the film) and the breaking projector (the non-diegetic world of the film!) as the origin of the... (wait for it) -- CLIFFHANGER.
:What does ''diegetic'' mean, please?
::[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/diegetic Here.]

'''lens-brother''' 
(Like masonic sign?)(Also reminiscent of the lens (the K/kid/d) carries in Delaney's ''Dhalgren'')

'''Powers movement''' 
Around 1897, Nicholas Power improved the "Maltese Cross" used in the Geneva movement; his company sold [http://www.victorian-cinema.net/power.htm projectors] including the "Peerless" and the popular No. 5. The Power or Power[']s movement could not be adapted to sound projection.

'''Geneva''' 
A watch movement also used in film projection. "The Geneva movement is so called because of its use in Geneva watches as a stop wind. The projection on the driving disk acts as the pawl drive, and the concave projections on the lower disc act as stop pawls. This is used at the present time in motion picture machines for moving the film in front of the lens and is known as the intermittent movement."

'''Wilt Flambo''' 
Flambeau = torch (French).

'''acetylene''' 
When the flammable gas was used for illumination, it was often generated on the spot by dripping water onto lumps of calcium carbide.

==Page 451==

'''nitro in the film''' 
Cellulose nitrate was the predecessor to modern photographic films. The nitrate material might be coated with collodion, which served as the substrate to the chemistry that made the image. Nitrate film was/is notoriously flammable.

'''the tip''' 
The audience. Pynchon uses the word many times in ''AtD.''

'''strange relation''' 
Cf GR on calculus.

'''dark perplexity''' 
Cf Gen X?

'''dilapidated portals''' 
See p.406: the West Gate's "two flanking towers of rusticated stone and Gothical aspect... an aspect of terrible antiquity..."

'''queen-of-the-prairie''' 
[http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/68/index.html Meadowsweet,] ''Filipendula rubra,'' wild flower with clusters of pink blooms in midsummer.

'''Geneva''' 
[[#Page_450|See annotation to p. 450.]]

==Page 452==

'''Sempitern''' 
An archaic term meaning 'eternal', a poetic but appropriate name for a river? Echoing "Serpentine," the lake in London's Hyde Park.

'''Sicilians with equal apprehensions for the principle of the vendetta''' 
If the vendetta began when A killed B, couldn't B's son short-circuit the whole thing by going back in time and killing A first? And then who would be responsible for killing the son? Possible application to the Traverse/Vibe/Deuce relationship, too.

'''siegecraft of Time''' 
Cf Paris Commune siege, p.19.

'''to see in its vortex the fundamental structure of everything''' 
A reference to the Yeatsian conception of the gyre as the primary or fundamental form. "'The mind, whether expressed in history or in the individual life, has a precise movement, which can be quickened or slackened but cannot be fundamentally altered, and this movement can be expressed by a mathematical form’ and this form is the gyre." [http://www.yeatsvision.com/Geometry.html] 

More from wikipedia: "The theory of history articulated in A Vision centers on a diagram composed of two conical spirals, one situated inside the other, so that the widest part of one cone occupies the same plane as the tip of the other cone, and vice versa. Around these cones he imagined a set of spirals. Yeats claimed that this image (he called the spirals "gyres") captured contrary motions inherent within the process of history, and he divided each gyre into different regions that represented particular kinds of historical periods (and could also represent the psychological phases of an individual's development). Yeats believed that in 1921 the world was on the threshold of an apocalyptic moment, as history reached the end of the outer gyre (to speak roughly) and began moving along the inner gyre." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)] 
Cf. the remark, "history is a step-function" in ''V.''. Is the above an
evolution of that remark/vision? http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11

'''between Cleveland and Denver''' 
Merle's idiosyncratic choice of endpoints? This helps define where Candlebrow is, though.

'''automorphic functions''' 
Auto= self; same as in autogamy. American Heritage Dict. -morph = Form, structure, function. Self-forming, self-structuring-- or self-organizing as Pynchon says elsewhere in ADT.

The phrase has a specific meaning in mathematics, referring to a generalization of periodic functions.

==Page 453==
'''We thus enter the whirlwind''' 
God is sometimes referred to this way. Often Capitalized, but here the speaker is using it literally, but Pynchon maybe metaphorically?

'''Lobatchevskian''' 
of Nikolai Lobachevsky (1793-1856), a Russian Mathematician, co-founder, with Hungarian mathematician János Bolyai, of non-Euclidean geometry. Born at Nizhny Novgorod and a professor at Kazan University from 1814. In 1829 he published his non-Euclidean geometry paper, the first account of that subject in print.

''Abbreviated Lob''
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lob_bowling Lob bowling]: not related but as it is a cricket thing...

'''Automorphic Dispensation''' 
Self-forming, self-organizing, recurring or periodic dispensation. 
On the meaning of "dispensation" see [[ATD_119-148#Page_128|annotations to p. 128.]]

'''distressing regularity''' 
Explains dilapidation?

'''Thorvald''' 
Scandinavian name from the Old Norse name ''Þórvaldr''. It combines the name "Thor" (thunder) and scandinavian word "valdr" (ruler), to create the meaning "thunder ruler" or "ruler of the thunder". Either would be apt, in this case.

The persisting storm also occurs in ''Mason & Dixon'', in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel ''Wyrd Sisters'' and in Walter Moers‘ [http://www.amazon.com/13-2-Lives-Captain-Bluebear/dp/1585678449/sr=1-1/qid=1170090170/ref=sr_1_1/002-4941751-7235229?ie=UTF8&s=books "13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear"].

'''''thresher dinners''''' 
Hearty communal midday meals for men taking part in harvest. Here a sacrifice to Thorvald.

==Page 454==

'''"gaff"''' 
A deceptive feature like the rabbit-concealing false bottom in a magician's top hat.

'''Giant Airships of 1896 and '7''' 
An early UFO sensation. From November 1896 to the summer of '97, newspapers reported numerous sightings of [http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9607/airship.htm a large cigar-shaped airship]. The first reports came from Sacramento; the "ship" (or ships) moved from west to east, with [http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n03/illinois-ufo-mania-of-1897.html a big concentration in Illinois.] "Contacts" with the people on board the craft all proved to be hoaxes, and the speed of the ship's travel was a pretty good match for the speed of propagation of phony newspaper stories from town to town.

In the context of ''AtD'' we have to ask: In a world where airships were common by 1893, operated by a sizable community of aeronautics clubs like the Chums of Chance, why would another airship create a sensation in 1896? Who would consider it mysterious?

And ''were'' airships common by 1893? [http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/ss/airship_5.htm This brief account] of the technology in our historical context says that trials date back to mid-century, but practical airships appeared only in 1898.

[http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Mysterious-airship.jpg This artist's conception] is no less imaginative than sketches that appeared in the media in 1896-97. 

I'm guessing airships weren't as common as ''balloons''...

'''Chick''' 
First Chum to appear in non-Chums chapter? Chick is the Chum we know, besides Pugnax if we count him, to have come aboard The Inconvenience from the real world. Another meaning to Counterfly? More earthbound?

==Page 455==

'''Cleveland... trial... Bounce v. Vibe''' 
See p67 & 426

'''Somble, Strool, and Fleshway''' 
[[ATD_26-56#Page_34|See annotations to page 34.]]

''''paranoia querulans'... P.Q.''' 
[[Paranoia_Querulans|Described in the page so titled.]]

'''Hercules''' 
Allusion to Hercules Powder Company, major manufacturer of black powder and other explosives.

'''blasting agent''' 
Just a casual reference to the Hercules product. In a more technical context "blasting agents" are distinguished from "shattering explosives." A blasting agent releases its energy more slowly and produces a heaving action.

'''detonans''' 
That which is detonated - cod latin. Detonans is a present participle, roughly meaning "that detonates" or "detonating".

'''"I'm just another nutty inventor"''' 
Roswell has been discussing his plans to dynamite the Vibe Corp. which has used its power to harrass him. Throughout his work, esp. ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon has dealt with themes involving the split between elect and preterite, or to use a more simplified phrase, winners and losers. Dynamite offers the small and powerless, the "long-shot opponents of the mills of Capital" referred to earlier in the page, an expression of power of their own. In this way it is like the AK-47 today which has made it far more difficult for powers (e.g. the United States in Iraq) to exert control over populations.

==Page 456==

'''aigrette''' 
Literally an egret or aigrette (or Lesser White Heron); hence a tuft of feathers such as an egret has and hence a spray of gems worn on the head and finally luminous rays seen emerging from the moon in solar eclipses or, to quote the OED, "at the ends of electrified bodies" [[ATD_397-428#Page_405|(see annotation to p. 405.)]]

'''Pencil''' 
To mathematicians, a pencil is a family of geometric objects sharing a common property, such as a collection of lines that pass through a common point. (Of course, constipated mathematicians also find pencils useful for working out logs).

In Romance languages, a mathematic "pencil" is a "bundle" (ESP haz, CAT feix, IT fascio) and a "pencilist" a "feixista" (CAT) or "fascista" (ESP/IT). Merle is playing with something which reminds of Falange Española symbol. A intralinguistic pun or is Merle an underground fascist?

'''equivalent of a shrug''' 
Nice anthropomorphism.

'''I want to know light...take some in my hands...and bring it back''' 
More light-infatuation, but this sounds particularly Promethean to me. Everybody knows Prometheus is famous for stealing fire from the Gods and bringing it to man in his unburnable fennel, but for Pynchoniacs, Zeus' reaction to this is quite interesting. Imaginably, Zeus is pretty pissed, so "to punish Prometheus for this hubris (and all of mankind in the process), Zeus devised 'such evil for them that they shall desire death rather than life'". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus Wiki] Then he sends Prometheus "to Mount Caucasus, where an eagle (often shown as a vulture) by the name of Ethon (offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna) would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again." Talk about Eternal Return.

Finally "[t]o punish man for the offenses of Prometheus, Zeus told Hephaestus to "mingle together all things loveliest, sweetest, and best, but look that you also mingle therewith the opposites of each." So Hephaestus took gold and dross, wax and flint, pure snow and mud of the highways, honey and gall; he took the bloom of the rose and the toad's venom, the voice of laughing water and the peacocks squall; he took the sea's beauty and its treachery, the dog's fidelity and the wind's inconstancy, and the mother bird's heart of love and the cruelty of the tiger. All these, and other contraries past number, he blended cunningly into one substance and this he molded into the shape that Zeus had described to him. She was as beautiful as a goddess and Zeus named her Pandora which meant "all gifted"." And a little later on Pandora opens her eponymic box and "all suffering and despair" is unleashed upon mankind.

Some judicious readers may remember we've already been to the Pandora Works back on p.297, and we all know what those light-worshiping Alchemists will do with the metals they remove from mines just like it.

'''machinery . . . more complicated than it needs to be''' 
Merle and Roswell, as alchemists, suspect the problem of "moving pictures" may have a solution with fewer moving parts.

'''lost mines''' 
(Factual?) One of the classic "crazy old galoot" figures in Westerns is the deranged sourdough who can't stop talking about the incredibly rich lode he and his partner found and then lost.

==Page 457==

'''tourbillon''' 
A tourbillon is a type of mechanical clock or watch escapement invented in 1795 by Abraham-Louis Breguet that is designed to counter the effects of gravity and other perturbing forces that can affect the accuracy of a chronometer. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourbillon Wikipedia]

Tourbillon is French for "whirlwind" - Thorvald‘s tiny chronometer-cousin.

'''make time impervious to gravity''' 
Thematic to this book and GR?

'''patent pencils''' 
Mechanical or (British) propelling pencils. "Patent" as in patent medicine, patent leather: innovative, gimmicky, making claims of uniqueness. (But the mechanical pencil was invented by a Japanese, HAYAKAWA Tokuji, in 1915, so that these "patent pencils" cannot be mechanical pencils, or this is an anachronism.)

Ebenezer Wood "constructed the first hexagon- and octagon-shaped pencil cases that we have today. Ebenezer did not patent his invention and shared his techniques with whoever asked." from Wikipedia.

'''zephyr gingham''' 
From [http://vintagesewing.info/1920s/26-fcm/fcm-16a.html this site]: gingham: A cotton fabric in checks or stripes nearly alike on both sides. zephyr: Anything light and airy. We have zephyr yarns, zephyr gingham, zephyr tissues.

'''lawn''' 
a thin or sheer linen or cotton fabric, either plain or printed.

'''pongee''' 
silk of a slightly uneven weave made from filaments of wild silk woven in natural tan color or its cotton imitation.

==Page 458==

'''professors... engineers''' 
Theory vs practice.

'''Latinate token of prestige''' 
PhD (''Philosophiae Doctor''), summa cum laude, etc.

'''suspicious of night horizons''' 
(sunsets?)Absence of light horizons? You can't see the horizon at night unless ''something'' is flashing and flaring over beyond it. Townsfolk are traditionally suspicious of strange flickerings in the sky. Fireworks specialists give you a way out: "Oh, Luigi was just trying out a new star shell."

'''current... purity''' 
Free of noise?

'''Minkowski''' 
Hermann Minkowski was a German mathematician who made useful contributions in the development of relativity, amongst other things. Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 324|page 324]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowski] 
Developed the 4 dimensional non Euclidean geometry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_space] used in special relativity. In a very crude simplification it says that time and space are the same thing. It all depends on the velocity of the observer, how space and time are mixed. This influenced most of later science fiction on time travels!!! (Like in "Back to the future", where the DeLorean has to reach a certain speed to jump in time.)

'''Three times ten... minus one seconds''' 
Three times ten to the fifth refers to the speed of light. The square root of minus 1 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_unit Wikipedia] is also known as the Imaginary Unit or i. i is sometimes also expressed as the square root of -1, as here. Complex numbers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number Wikipedia] can be expressed as a + bi where a is the real part of the complex number and b is the imaginary part. Complex numbers were an important element of the work of both Minkowski and Einstein. Also, for imaginary number Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 133|page 133]] and complex number Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 132|page 132]].
 
The use of complex numbers to describe the relativistic space-time metric is somewhat out of fashion in modern physics, it is merely used to make the metric tensor (i.e. "that other expression") symmetrical in all 4 dimensions. So in a way one might see time as an imaginary space axis, but the modern aproach uses an symmetrical metric tensor, which makes the non-Euclidean nature of our space-time more clear.
 
''Against the Day'' takes place at the time when Newtonian physics were being supplanted, at least in theory, by physics based on Relativity. This equation touches on that. But also, the use of a real and an imaginary number returns to the theme of duality that arises throughout the book. The spacetime measured by imaginary or complex numbers would seem to be something different though co-existent with 'our' spacetime.
 
:Minkowski's lecture at Candlebrow is clearly a version of the lecture in which he first set out his interpretation of Special Relativity in terms of four-dimensional geometry, given in Cologne on 21st September, 1908. Pynchon has taken this equation, and Minkowski's description of it as 'pregnant' and 'mystic', directly from the published text of the lecture. The transcription also makes it clear that Minkowksi did indeed use blackboard and chalk. It's in a volume called ''The Principle of Relativity'' by Einstein, Lorentz, Weyl and Minkowski.[[User:SdeB|SdeB]]

'''other expression''' 
Contextually, Roswell seems to be refering to the other side of the above equation...'that other expression 'over there'...they are at a slate "blackboard."

'''he called the equation "pregnant"''' 
Minkowski used the German word ''prägnant,'' which doesn't mean "pregnant." It means concise, precise, penetrating, important.

'''astronomical distance''' 
Small-scale astronomy then: 3x105 km is about two-thirds of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 429-459

2009-04-19T14:08:24Z

Bobutler: /* Page 435 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 431==

'''metaphorical way''' and '''lateral resurrection''' 
Cf. [[ATD_397-428#Pafe 418|page 418]], where ''metaphor'' and ''lateral'' are also used in quick succession.

'''"Turkish Corner"''' 
The ''coin turquois'' or Turkish corner was an interior decorating fad ([http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197806/london.s.arab.hall.htm second half of 19th century]). Well-to-do householders had the English furniture removed from a space and put in low tables, divans, cushions, ceiling hangings, nargilehs and so forth.

'''Bactrian''' 
''Camel''. Even-toed ungulate, two-humped (twin-peaked) as compared with the one-humped dromedary.

'''Cameling''' 
Seems to mean riding on a camel, contextually.

'''light might be a ''secret determinant of history''''' 
One of the overarching themes of the book, it seems. Natural light
vs. artificial. A-and in this section the line must be more closely linked
to the Manichaeans and Light [p. 437] and Chick and Darby's remarks on 438. Light as 'Divine' light.......
Determinant also has an obvious mathematical meaning: a scalar invariant of a matrix which corresponding to its scale factor when the matrix is interpreted as a linear mapping. The determinant is non-obvious and its computation is of order n^3; hence, secret.

The [http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-38 ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas''] has a clear, readable essay on causation in history, well worth a look given that we are concerned with "determinants" and the nature of time/sequence/cause-and-effect.

==Page 432==

'''fatal word''' 
"Wife".

'''C.A.C.A.''' 
Caca; Spanish for "shit". The Chums have already begun to suspect the "shit", i.e. the malevolent organization that lies behind their boys' book heroics; the reader is now made aware of a large organization (see B.I.N., below) standing behind the massive airships and their crews. We all know what about the dynamics of large organizations, and the percentage of the time they spend in serving their purported purposes. Reminiscent of Van Vogt's Law: "90% of everything is shit (caca)".
:Not just Spanish; most western European languages. In German it's even pronounced the same as '''K-K''' (Kaiserlich und Königlich, see Max Khäutsch and Franz Ferdinand episodes).

'''Medicine Hat, Alberta''' 
A real city with a population about 56,000. It is located in the southeastern part of the province of Alberta, Canada.

'''Gamomania''' 
"Gamos" is Greek for "marriage," and mania means "mania" or "madness."

'''H.M.S.F.''' 
His Majesty's Subdesertine Frigate (p425).

'''Balaam's ass''' 
refers to Num. 22:21-34 - Balaam rides out with the princes of Moab, but the Lord sends an angel to prevent him. Balaam does not see the angel but his ass does and will not go further. Balaam smites the ass three times, to no avail, until "the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to Balaam: What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?" Balaam's ass and the serpent (in the Garden of Eden) are the only speaking animals in the bible.

'''reported as long ago as Marco Polo''' 
From Marco Polo's ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (1298-99):
:". . . When a man is riding by night through this desert and something happens to make him loiter and lose touch with his companions . . . and afterwards he wants to rejoin them, then he hears spirit talking in such a way that they seem to be his companions. Sometimes, indeed, they even hail him by name. Often these voices make him stray from the path, so that he never finds it again. And in this way many travelers have been lost and have perished. And sometimes in the night they are conscious of a noise like the clatter of a great cavalcade of riders away from the road; and, believing that these are some of their own company, they go where they hear the noise and, when day breaks, find they are victims of an illusion and in an awkward plight. . . Yes, and even by daylight men hear these spirit voices, and often you fancy you are listening to the strains of many instruments, especially drums, and the clash of arms. . . . ." 
:(page 67, ''The Travels of Marco Polo'', The Folio Society 1968 edition.) 
For Marco Polo's bio and more see Cf. [[ATD_243-272#Page 247|page 247]] and [http://www.silk-road.com/artl/marcopolo.shtml Marco Polo and His Travels].

==Page 433==

'''mutatis mutandis''' 
''Medieval Latin.'' A direct translation from Latin of mutatis mutandis would read, 'with those things having been changed which need to be changed'. More colloquially, it can be interpreted as 'the necessary changes having been made,' where "the necessary changes" are usually implied by a prior statement assumed to be understood by the reader. It carries the connotation that the reader should pay attention to the corresponding differences between the current statement and a previous one, although they are analogous. This term is used frequently in economics and in law, to parameterize a statement with a new term, or note the application of an implied, mutually understood set of changes. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutatis_mutandis Wikipedia entry].

This suggests we should view communication from the camel with the same skepticism with which we view the voices, or possibly view this communication as we would that from Balaam's ass.

'''''polygamy''''' 
Cf. Lake's conversion to (de facto) polyandry in Colorado Springs, p. 268. In both cases aquifers are the scene of the activity.

'''pan-spectral fields''' 
Well, ''pan'' means universal. As in ''panorama'', ''Pan-Am''. Another suggestion of possible worlds.

'''World-Island''' 
The phrase was coined by English geographer and geo-politician [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halford_John_Mackinder Sir Halford John Mackinder] who formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_%28geopolitics%29 Heartland Theory] (1904) in his address to the Royal Geographic Society, "The Geographical Pivot of History." "World-Island" refers '''not to the Earth''', but to the continuous landmass of Eurasia measuring more than 21 million square miles (54 million km²). This landmass contains no waterways to the ocean and is contained by the Arctic ice cap and drainage to the north, the monsoon lands along the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, the Near East or land of the Five Seas, and Europe. This landmass is remote and inaccessible to its periphery. Mackinder argued in his address that this was the strategic region of the foremost importance in the World. The Heartland theory hypothesized the possibility for a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland, which wouldn't need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to supply its military industrial complex but would instead use railways, and that this empire couldn't be defeated by all the rest of the world against it; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolitics See also '''Geopolitics''' in Wikipedia]

'''"Euphrates" poplars''' 
One of the five classes of Poplars: ''turanga''. Its scientific name is ''populus euphratica'', a subtropical poplar found usually in Southwest Asia.

'''aryq''' 
Most likely variant of Arrack (OED): name applied in Eastern countries to any liquour of native manufacture, usually distilled coconut palm sap. - Or rather arak, the Middle Eastern equivalent of ouzo, Pernod, etc., which, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arak_%28distilled_beverage%29 according to Wikipedia,] should not be confused with southeast Asian arrack.

'''B.I.N.''' 
Biometric Institute of Neuropathy, see p. 432.

As in "Loony bin".

'''seventeen-syllable''' 
Haiku - japanese poems consisting of 17 syllables, classically arranged in three lines of 5 - 7 - 5 syllables each

Brilliant! 
''Still at it, Suckling?'' 
''Insufferable little'' 
''Prick, I'll break your neck!''

==Page 434==

'''Eta/Nu Transformators''' 
Probably an imaginary scientific device. Eta is most likely a reference to the metric tensor of (four dimensional) Minkowski space. Nu sometimes symbolizes frequency.
:Alternate view 
:In classical electromagnetism, Eta is the wave impedance and Nu is the velocity of the wave; both are related to the material parameters of the medium the wave is traveling in. Specifically, Eta determines how a wave moves between different media (reflection, refraction, and transmission), while the velocity is related to the frequency and wavelength of the wave. Thus, the device probably allows the ships inhabitants to see while in the sand.

'''pari passu''' 
on an equal footing

'''Deep Blavatsky''' 
Named for Madame Helena Blavatsky (Helena Petrovna Hahn), founder of the Theosophical Society [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blavatsky]. Cf. [[ATD_219-242#Page 219|page 219]].

==Page 435==

'''Gurkhas''' 
Nepalese forces that have fought alongside British troops.

'''German professors''' 
Likely a double allusion, first to Professor Werfner of Göttingen, referenced on p. 226, and also to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schliemann Heinrich Schliemann], the German treasure hunter (not actually a professor) who first established the true historical location of Troy, the site of the Trojan War. His accomplishments are sadly underscored by his extremely amateurish excavation technique which destroyed as much as it extracted from the site.

'''"who keep waltzing out here by the wagonload, can dig till they're too blistered to dig any more, and they still won't ever find it, not without the right equipment - the map you fellows brought, plus our ship's Paramorphoscope"''' 
Could also be a nod to Steven Spielberg's 1981 film ''Indiana Jones and The Raiders of the Lost Ark''.

'''General Forrest''' 
Nathan Bedford Forrest, rebel leader in U.S. Civil War. Although he pioneered high-mobility tactics, he may never have uttered the famous quotation; see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest Wikipedia entry.]

Also, recognized as founder of the KKK -- see earlier episode in Colorado.

'''archiepiscopal''' 
Pertaining to an archbishop.

'''jewel-studded Victoria Crosses''' 
The VC is the highest medal for valo(u)r in the British military, about on a par with the Medal of Honor in the U.S. Created at the time of Crimean War, the VC was not awarded posthumously until 1907. Adding jewels to the award is pure fantasy.

'''Fabergé''' 
Russian jeweler. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Faberg%C3%A9 Wikipedia entry].

'''"appealing though they be or, shall I say, as they are"''' 
Captain Toadflax's corrects his grammatical mistake, an error that is partially obscured by the inverted construction he employs. If one straightens out his words into a more conventional form, e.g., "though they [secular pleasures] be appealing," the error is clearer: ''they'', the third person plural pronoun, requires ''are'' as a verb, i.e. ''pleasures are'' rather than ''pleasures be''. The ''OED'' lists many examples of ''be'' taking the place of ''are'' in similar contexts, but notes that this usage is either dialectal or archaic.
:Why Toadflax commits this error is less clear than what the error itself is. One possibility is that Pynchon is making an allusion to Captains Bildad and Peleg of ''Moby-Dick'', who speak in an archaic vernacular typical of New England Puritans.
::For more information, see the ''OED'', "be, v.," sub-entry, A.I.h.¶.
:'''It isn't an error!''' Toadflax first correctly uses the subjunctive, "appealing though they be"; the choice of mood says he is making a speculative statement, something like "however appealing they are imagined to be." Then he rephrases—changing the meaning of his statement—to the indicative mood, "appealing as they are," saying that the pleasures definitely, factually ''are'' appealing. The contrast of subjunctive and indicative is becoming archaic now, but it wasn't archaic or even odd coming from an educated speaker in the early 20th century.

'''subarenaceous''' 
arenaceous - Having the appearance or consistency of sand; sandy; largely composed of sand or quartz grains. <ref>'''Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. ed. 1989.</ref>

Hence subarenaceous 'means under the sand.'

==Page 436==

'''limen''' 
threshold

'''transmundane''' 
Beyond the mundane, beyond the world

'''lamaseries''' 
Domiciles of Buddhist lamas (as in "monasteries").

'''Torriform Inclusion''' 
A made-up condition from Torus==Arch.: a large convex molding, semicircular in cross section, located at the base of a classical column?
From the American Heritage Dictionary.
St. Cosmo has just seen, he thinks, a "watchtower".
'Watchtower'-Cf. the name of the magazine (and building in Brooklyn) that the Jehovah's Witnesses use.
'distinguishing man-made from God-made'...

More likely from ''turris'' (Latin), ''torre'' (Spanish&Italian) or similar meaning "tower."

'''Urban terrain''' 
(But only cities unwisely built on sand.)

'''Stilton Gaspereaux''' 
Stilton is type of blue cheese from England. 
Gaspereaux are alewives, a freshwater fish. [Alewives or "Gaspereaux" are caught fresh as the fish moves upstream our cold Canadian rivers.
www.botsfordfisheries.com/products]

'''Sven Hedin''' 
Swedish explorer, especially of the Asian countries, and excavator of ruins of ancient cities. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Hedin wikipedia] Hedin crossed Taklamakan desert in 1895 and found ruins of the sunken city [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dandan_Oilik Dandan Oilik]. Today he is a controversial figure because of his complicated relations to naziism. Hitler was an admirer of his work.
:That suggests another angle for reading ATD as a novel about the genesis of the 20th century, considering the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe Nazi obsession with Tibet]. There is also an alleged [http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_shambahla01.htm subterranean Shambhala] connection; the sources are dubious but the legend ''does'' exist.

'''Aurel Stein''' 
Sir Marc Aurel Stein. Hungarian-born explorer later knighted as a British citizen. Credited with the discovery, and arguably the exploitation, of the Mogao Grottoes in China. A rock-carved repository of ancient Buddhist texts and murals, the grottoes are known collectively as 'The Cave of a Thousand Buddhas' and protected a copy of the Mahayana Diamond sutra, acknowledged as the world's oldest dated printed text. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Aurel_Stein Wikipedia entry].

'''first known maps''' 
None of Ptolemy's maps has survived the classical period. They were, however, reconstructed in manuscript and engraved on copper or carved in wood for editions of the Ptolemy atlas. In 1482, the first woodcut edition, containing the first map of the world to include contemporary discoveries, was published in Ulm, Germany. It contains a brightly handcolored map of the Holy Land....

Allusion to the Map/Territory relation—the relationship between symbol and object. Coined by Alfred Korzybski, “The map is not the territory” is a related expression meaning that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself, e.g., the pain from a stone falling on your foot is not the stone; one's opinion of a politician, favorable or unfavorable, is not that person; a metaphorical representation of a concept is not the concept itself; and so on. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory]Here, the (abstract) map itself could be a guide to a spritual quest or to conquest.

==Page 437==

'''Nernst lamps''' 
An electric lamp consisting of a short, slender rod of zirconium oxide (ceramic) in open air, heated to brilliant white incandescence by electrical current. It was developed by the German physicist and chemist Walther Nernst (1864-1941) in 1897 at Goettingen University. In 1905 he formulated the third law of thermodynamics, and in 1920 he received the Nobel Prize in chemistry. For a picture of the lamp [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nernst_lamp Nernst lamp]] and Nernst's bio [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Nernst Nernst.]]

'''range-finder''' 
Cf. 'range', passim

'''level of encryption''' 
(Cf Heisenberg?)Does not seem to allude to Heisenberg and his Uncertainty Principle so much as buried layers of meaning that can hide to invisibility.

'''Mount Kailash''' 
A mountain located in the Chinese Himalayas with great religious significance in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is seen as the residence of Shiva, God of destruction and regeneration. The mountain is visited every year by many religious pilgrims. In Buddhism, the mountain was believed to be the location of a battle between two ancient sorcerers: Milarepa (Tantric Buddhism) and Naro-Bonchung (Tibetan Bön religion). Pynchon is perhaps alluding to the population dividing nature of religions. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kailash wikipedia].

'''Shiva''' 
Shiva is the formless, timeless and spaceless Supreme God in Shaivism, one of the major branches of Hinduism practiced in India. Shiva means "One who purifies everyone by the utterance of His name" or "The Pure One". The name Shiva is the Holiest of Holy names. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva Shiva]].

'''polarize light... in time''' 
Thematic.

'''Manichaeans''' 
A gnostic sect that followed the third century Persian prophet Mani (Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page 439|page 439]]). Their main theological belief was in a stark divide between Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.

Basic to Manichaeism's doctrine was the conflicting dualism between the realm of God, represented by ''light'' and by spiritual enlightenment, and the realm of Satan, symbolized by ''darkness'' and by the world of material things. To account for the existence of evil in a world created by God, Mani posited a primal struggle in which the forces of Satan separated from God; humanity, composed of matter, that which belongs to Satan, but infused with a modicum of godly light, was a product of this struggle, and was a paradigm of the eternal war between the forces of ''light'' and those of ''darkness''. Christ, the ideal, light-clad soul, could redeem for each person that portion of light God had allotted. Light and dark were seen to be commingled in our present age as good and evil, but in the last days each would return to its proper, separate realm, as they were in the beginning. The Christian notion of the Fall and of personal sin was repugnent to the Manichaeans; they felt that the soul suffered not from a weak and corrupt will but from contact with matter. Evil was a physical, not a moral thing; a person's misfortunes were miseries, not sins. (taken from ''The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2001-2005, [[http://www.bartkeby.com/65/ma/Manichae.html Manichaean]].)

Very relevant here in ADT: one could call their theology, BINARY.

==Page 438==

'''expanded sense... Maxwell... Hertz''' 
All forms of electromagnetic radiation form a spectrum, of which visible light is a small part; all such radiation shares fundamental physical properties.
Cf. range as spectrum.

:Let us quote more fully — '''''the light we see as well as the expanded sense of it prophesied by Maxwell, confirmed by Hertz''''' — it means the ''expanded'' understanding of the nature of the visible light (''the sense of it''). In 1865 Maxwell prophesied that, base on his field equations, "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws." (Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page 58|page 58]].) In 1877 Hertz experimentally discovered that light behaves exactly as an electromagnetic wave described by the Maxwell Field Equations and is part of the full electromagnetic spectrum. Therefore, Hertz confirmed what Maxwell predicted about the nature of light. (Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 318|page 318]].)
:Regardless of how the scientific understanding of the nature of light has been expanded and changed, the Manichaean's view of light as invariant will remain, they will worship light to eternity. All other forms of matter are considered 'darkness'.
:Of course it is impossible for the Manichaens to know the dualism, light/darkness, of their theology has the reflection in the dualism of light. Light is a wave (electromagnetic wave) and simultaneously consists of particles (photons).

''''Perfects'''' 
Perfects are the priests of the Cathar, a pantheistic manicheistic sect from the middle ages.

:Since Gaspereaux (and Pynchon)are still talking about Manichaean, let's just talk about it. 
:Strict virtue for the Manichaean involved necessarily withdrawal from the world. The community was accordingly divided into two groups; the ''Elect'' or the "Perfects", the ''Primates Manichaeorum'', who embraced a rigourous rule, and the ''Hearers'', the ''auditores'',who led a more normal life and supported the ''Elect'' both by works and alms. 
A-and we know Pynchon's view of The Elect.

'''Mysteries''' 
''The Book of Secrets'' (or ''The Book of Mysteries''). The sacred Manichaean text by Mani. Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page 439|page 439]].

'''Graeco-Buddhist''' 
Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Graeco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 800 years in Central Asia in the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism Wikipedia]

'''Italo-Islamic style(s)''' 
A result of the Islamic Conquest of Sicily and parts of southern Italy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Sicily Wikipedia on the Emirate of Sicily] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islam_in_southern_Italy 2] A primary locus of the Italo-Islamic style is also Malta, a setting of TRP's novel ''V''.

==Page 439==

'''Nuovo Rialto''' 
Seems like Pynchon creating a "New Rialto" city under these sands as many
cities take the name of an older city and add New....

From Wikipedia: Rialto is an area of the San Polo sestiere of Venice, known for its markets and for the Rialto Bridge.

The area was settled by the ninth century, when a small area in the middle of the Realtine Islands either side of the Rio Businiacus was known as the Rivoaltus. Soon, the Businiacus became known as the Grand Canal, and the district became the Rialto, referring to only the area on the left bank.

The Rialto became an important district in 1097, when Venice's market moved there, and in the following century a boat bridge was set up across the Grand Canal providing access to it. This was soon replaced by the Rialto Bridge.

Pynchon seems to love Venice so Nuovo Rialto is very ironically intended given this scene.

'''Mani''' 
Mani (216-276), founder of religion Manichaeism. He was born in the province Babylon which was then under Persian rule. His family was Persian, bu this name is Aramaic. Mani had probably originally belonged to a Christian sect, now called Elkhasitts. Between the age of 12 and 24, Mani had visions where an angel told him that he would be the prophet of a last divine revelation. Around AD 240, at the Persian court of King Shapur 1, Mani established his own religious philosophy. He and his followers (Manichaeans) regarded the world as irreconcilably divided into the kingdoms of light and darkness, good and evil. They practiced extreme asceticism in their struggle toward the light. At 26 he started on a long journey as the "Ambassador of Light" travelling through the Persian Empire and reaching as far as India, where he came under the influence of Buddhism. As Mani's teaching gained ground he came in opposition to the Zoroastrian priests and the Emperor Bahram 1. From 274 Mani lost the emperor's protection, and he either died in prison or was executed. His death was retold as an incident similar to the crucifixion of Jesus.

'''the Oxus''' 
The Oxus River of the Greeks. Its present-day name is the Amu Darya (or Amu river). It is the longest river in Central Asia. For more and map location see [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amu_Darya the Oxus]].

'''Jenghiz Khan''' 
Jenghiz (or Genghis) Khan (1162-1227), born as Temujin, a son of a Mongol chief. At thirteen he was called to succeed his father, and for years to struggle hard against hostile tribes. His ambition awakening with his continued success. He spent six years in subjugating the Naimans, between Lake Balkhash (in Southeastern Kazakhstan) and the Irtish (an enormous river in Western Siberia) , and in conquering Tangut, south of Gobi desert. In 1206 he started to use the name ''Jenghiz Khan'' — "Very Mighty Ruler". In 1211 he overruan the empire of North China, and in 1271 conquered and annexed the Kara-Chitai empire from Lake Balkhash to Tibet.
In 1218 he attacked the powerful empire of Kharezm, bounded by the Jazartes, Indus, Persian Gulf and Caspian, took Bokhara, Smarkand, Kharezm and other chief cities and returned home in 1225. His lieutenants continued to expand Jenghiz Khan's empire further and further. Jenghiz Khan died on August 18, 1227. He was not only a warrior and conqueror, but a skillful administrator and ruler; he not only conquered empires stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific, but organized them into states which outlasted the short span that usually measures the life of Asiatic sovereignties. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.)

'''crystallography of the silica medium''' 
Computer-base [silicon] allusion!?
:No! The most common constituent of sand, in inland continental or non-tropical coastal settings, is silicon dioxide (''silica'') usually in the form of quartz which is very resistant to weathering.
:And computer chips are made with silicon metal, not silica.

'''clearly a thousand years more recent than they ought to have been''' 
That is, the Manichean shrines date from the fourteenth Century, not the fourth Century when Mani, the founder, started Manicheanism. Pynchon dating 'when it went bad' in history?

'''Passing of the Remarks''' 
Sounds like a humorous reification of what gets said between sailors. Modeled after Changing of the Guard?

'''Steeplechase Park''' 
Steeplechase Park, located at Coney Island, was an amusement park and collection of rides, funhouses and the like. As a child I used to visit in the late 50's.

'''The Book of Secrets''' 
''The Book of Secrets'', (''Safar al–Asrar''), Manichaean sacred text by Mani. It was also called ''The Book of Mysteries'', and Titus just called it simply ''Mysteries''. It was characterized as "polemical and dogmatic." In eighteen chapters it was written to refute the false doctrines of the established sects and creeds n the world, including the sect of Bardesain or Bardesan. The book evidently dealt with the esoteric life of Jesus. The nature of Soul and Body was defined. And it also described reincarnation. A portion of the book was in the form of a dialogue between Jesus and his apostles. [[http://essenes.net/new/maniwritings.html mani's writitngs]].

==Page 440==

'''screaming...with blood''' 
Screaming motif.

'''''chong pir''''' 
Presumably Uyghur for "big lice."

'''Uyghur''' 
Member of an ethnic group in western China. It is sometimes claimed that the Uyghurs are Indo-European in one sense or another.

'''''Pulex''''' 
Flea.

'''voiced interdental fricative''' 
The ''th'' sound, as in "the" or "with." (Bad example—many if not most speakers use the unvoiced sound in "with." Try "then, other, father.") Basically, the lice lisp. This could be meant to suggest that their speech contains static or noise.

'''skeleton rig''' 
The skeleton rig is a shoulder holster for carrying a concealed handgun. They were developed in the 1890s. A very nice looking one, as well as a description thereof, can be purchased at [http://www.holster-connection.com/html/ted_blocker/tb_Skeleton.html First American Ordnance website], which also just so happens to be my source for the above info.

'''andante''' 
Literally "going". An Italian word typically seen in notation for classical music. It denotes a moderately slow pace.

'''Sandman Saloon''' 
Tavern for the 'sandmen', without those great tavern names in the above-ground world. Negative associations to this saloon, it seems, unlike the usual saloons in TRP's world. A Neil Gaiman allusion?

==Page 441==

'''Leonard and Lyle''' 
Google comes up with mentioning Sir Leonard Lyle [http://www.parkexplorer.org.uk/park_intro.asp?ID=new16 1], sugar-magnate and heir to Abram Lyle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Lyle 2] and "Lyle‘s Golden Syrup" [http://www.lylesgoldensyrup.com/LylesGoldenSyrup/PastPresent/default.htm 3]. Thats one interesting logo, what with the dead lion/bees and the tibetan stamp on ATD, btw. Golden Syrup = oil?

'''Baku''' 
Cf [[ATD_149-170#Page_168|page 168: Baku]].

'''''teke''''' 
From this [http://home.earthlink.net/~lkritikos/glossary.html glossary on greek rembetiko music]: "teke (pl. tekedhes): A club where one could buy hashish and the use of a narghile in which to smoke it"

An American fraternity or a member thereof. Tau Kappa Epsilon. Founded in the 1890s; has had a reputation for being a bit wilder than many fraternities.

'''Spindletop''' 
From wikipedia: Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in south Beaumont, Texas (approx. 30.02 -94.07) in the United States. On January 10, 1901, the well "Lucas 1" came in at Spindletop, marking the birthdate of the modern petroleum industry. At 100,000 barrels of oil a day, the gusher tripled U.S. oil production overnight, ensuring the second industrial revolution would be fueled not by wood and coal but by oil and its byproducts. Some of the companies chartered to exploit the wealth of Spindletop are some of today's largest and well known corporations such as ExxonMobil, and Texaco.

'''Groznyi''' 
Grozny or Groznyy (Russian: Гро́зный; Chechen: Соьлж-ГIала, Syolzh-Ghaala) is the capital of the Chechen Republic in Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River....As most of the residents there were Terek Cossacks, the town grew slowly until the development of Oil reserves in the early 20th century. This spiralled development of industry and petrochemical production. In addition to the oil drilled in the city itself, the city became a geographical centre of Russia's network of oil fields, and also in 1893 became part of the Transcaucasia - Russia Proper railway. From wikipedia

'''calyx bits''' 
Bits used for taking core samples in oil exploration. Rods are screwed together to make up the "drill string," with the bit at the bottom end. After exploration, the calyx bit is replaced with a rock bit; the borehole is stabilized with a "casing string" made of pipe (tubing) a little bigger than the bit.

Presumably some kind of mining drill-related equipment. "The mining operations were unusual in that much of the mining was done through large diameter holes drilled with calyx bits." [http://www.ut.blm.gov/sanrafaelohv/explore/historicmining.htm]

'''adults''' 
Chums not adults, then? No,they do not age, it seems.

'''''ässalamu äläykum''''' 
A muslim greeting. Translates to "Peace be with you." This is the Turkic spelling.

'''anticline''' 
An underground rock structure with a shape resembling a ridge on the surface. Oil exploration focuses on "domes" (like salt domes, see Spindletop entry above) and anticlines, because either of these provides a volume where oil—ascending because it's lighter than rock or water—can collect to make a "pool" that can be exploited.

==Page 442==
'''Had it not (p440) ....someones hidden plans''' 
This whole conversation implies a coming war over oil, being sold as a holy mission... why does that sound familiar? Of course, once again, "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

'''''equine altitude''''' 
High horse.

'''allure of Veneto-Uyghur women''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriatic_Veneti Veneti] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanais Veneto] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs Uyghurs] Long distance trade (like wars and tourism in general) is very likely to enforce the intermingling of different [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_pool Gene Pools], which, more often than not, results in particularily beautiful specimens of the kinds involved. Travels of mediterrenean merchants along the various branches of the Silk Road seem to have been pretty common from at least 14th century on - see [http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/pegol.html Pegelotti‘s Merchant Handbook] (ca. 1340) which partially reads like a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonely_planet Lonely Planet Guide] of back then. During the Renaissance most of the merchants (from Florence/Venice/Geneva) set out from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanais Tana/Tanais] which some sources put as a trade-post if not colony of the "West".

'''2 percent . . . most of them''' 
Implies at least 150 in crew.

'''Marco Querini''' 
An oasis named after Marco Querini? i.e. ''Oasi Marco Querini''. In January 1571, Venetians under Marco Querini defeated Turks near Famagusta, Cyprus.

'''Terrenascondite''' 
Italian: terre (pl. of terra) = lands; ascondito, an archaic form of the past participle of the verb nascondere (archaic: ascondere)= to hide. Translation is undoubtedly "hidden lands".

'''Pozzo San Vito''' 
Italian: Pozzo means well; San Vito is a Saint. Well of San Vito. ''Oasi Pozzo San Vito.'' San Vito, according [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintv07.htm to this site], died by being boiled in oil, other sources say it was lead - a hint to the subterranean resources here? Cfr. Italian: "Ballo di San Vito", that is, Saint Vitus' Dance, a syndrome having as a consequence tics or jerks. It may be an allusion to involuntary movements or disconntected behaviour(?).

'''all that incarnation and slaughter will transpire in silence''' 
Calls to mind the silent battle scene in Akira Kurosawa's samurai retelling of ''King Lear'', titled ''Ran'', which translates roughly to "chaos."

==Page 443==

'''peterman option''' 
A 'peterman' is a slang term for a safe-blower.

'''Consommé Imperial''' 
A gingered chicken broth with julienne of carrots and leeks.

'''Timbales de Suprêmes de Volailles''' 
Chicken Supreme Pudding ? Um, Suprêmes de Volailles means the white meat of chicken prepared with a fortified white sauce. To make timbales, the meat is chopped and placed in individual molds, a little grated Gruyère cheese on top, and baked in a water bath (just like some puddings).

'''Gigot Grillé a la Sauce Piquante''' 
A 'gigot' is a leg of lamb or haunch of veal. 'Sauce Piquante' is a spicy sauce.

'''aubergines à la Sauce Mousseline''' 
Eggplants with mussel sauce. -No, the French for mussels is moules, not moussel. A Sauce Mousseline is Hollandaise lightened with a bit of whipped cream. An odd choice perhaps for eggplant, but then Sauce Piquante is more for pork or boiled beef (pot-au-feu) than lamb.

:I've never seen a dog eat eggplant, but it sounds like something one wouldn't want to miss. Only thing is, it has to be somebody else's dog.

'''Pouilly-Fuissé''' 
A white Burgundy made from the Chardonnay grape.

'''Graves''' 
Wine from the Graves district of France, a subregion of Bordeaux. Wines can be either red or white. Red Graves are blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Whites are blends of Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon.

'''Miles...extra-temporal excursions''' 
Miles is like a Trespasser.

==Page 444==

'''Oasi''' 
''Oases'' is the plural of ''oasis''. Here, ''Oasi'' is the Italian word for ''oasis''!

'''cataplexy''' 
Sudden loss of muscle power following a strong emotional stimulus.

'''Nobel brothers''' 
Robert and Ludvig Nobel, brothers of Alfred Nobel of dynamite and prize fame, co-founders of Branobel, an important early oil company that controlled a large amount of Russian output. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branobel Wikipedia entry].

'''shaft-alley''' 
Somebody check this: the channel, running fore-and-aft deep in the ship's hull, where the propeller shafts are located.

'''the balloon is up''' 
British metaphor: The action has started. A phrase also used in ''V.''

'''F.O.''' 
Foreign Office

'''''Daily Mail''''' 
London tabloid, staunch early supporters of Adolf Hitler. Today specialises in stirring up hatred of immigrants and other minorities.

'''Inspector Sands''' 
A code word used in London to alert authorities without causing panic amongst the general public. Generally the alert is raised by the fire alarm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Sands Wikipedia entry].

'''"Sands of Inner Asia"''' 
Captain, now Inspector Sands, seems to be being compared for his achievements to "Lawrence of Arabia" parodistically.

'''Taklamakan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taklamakan The Taklamakan] (also Taklimakan) is a desert of Central Asia, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. It is known as the largest sand-only desert in the world. Some references fancifully state that Taklamakan means "if you go in, you won't come out"; others state that it means "Desert of Death" or "Place of No Return".

==Page 445==

'''Kashgar to Urumchi''' 
Two cities currently on the far western border of China. Presumably in this context they were two points inside the general area within which the 'Great Powers' competed to try and find Shambhala.

'''fell into the hands of''' 
An analogy with the present-day situation in Central Asia in particular. Throughout the book, there are references to Anarchist/Terrorists, to the spread of dynamite and other kinds of phenomena. These are all technologies that allow, or cause, power to flow into the hands of the powerless to use for their own purposes.

'''World-Island''' 
[[#Page_433|See entry at page 433]]

'''those Powers . . . still competing for it''' 
And to complete the analogy, the countries/peoples who have exercised power for centuries and are now baffled to see it flow into the hands of the powerless.

'''discreet summons''' 
Eg "paging Dr Blue".
It doesn't seem to me to be a phrase that needs a gloss: a discreet summons is simply what it says and made be made in any number of ways.

'''far wicket''' 
A 'wicket' may simply be a gate; but in the context of a novel and the bomber at Headingly cricket ground and Fenners, the Cambridge cricket ground, a 'wicket' is the three stumps at one end of a cricket pitch. ("The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly" - see p.236.)
:That isn't the context here; we are in a government building where supplicants have to pass through gates—wickets—and face bureaucrats through grilles—more wickets.

'''wog''' 
''Chiefly British.'' An ethnic slur used for any dark-skinned peoples. Alleged to stand for "Western Oriental Gentleman", but mainly applied to Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, and other brown-skinned Asians.
I have heard it comes from 'wily oriental gentleman'; but the Oxford English Dictionary states that the origin is uncertain and defines a 'wog' as someone especially of Arab extraction.
Eric Partridge, in'' A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'' (8th ed., 1984), suggests that the term derives from "golliwog," the name of a black male doll character with frizzy hair popularized in Bertha Upton's children's story, The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls--and a 'Golliwog' (1895).

'''Vic removal''' 
"removing Vic" defined by Partridge (Dictionary of the Underworld, 1949) as robbing a stamp office. From the image of Queen Victoria on British postal stamps.

'''eating an explosive''' 
Cf Lew's Cyclomite.

==Page 446==

'''St Martin le Grand''' 
A street in the City of London.

'''Angel Street''' 
Another street in the City which meets St Martin le Grand at right-angles.

'''G.P.O. West''' 
G.P.O - General Post Office

'''pneumatic dispatches''' 
An extensive 'pneumatic dispatch' system existed on London during the Victorian era, started in 1851 and carrying on at least into the 1930's. By 1886 London had 94 telegram tubes totaling 34 1/2 miles and around 4.5 million telegraph messages were carried in cylinders at around 20mph. At its height the network extended some 57 miles connecting 67 branch offices via a central sorting office. See [http://www.capsu.org/history/telegram_conveyors.html] and
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm] (with illustrations).

'''drill suits''' 
Drill is a durable cotton fabric; khaki drill is used for uniforms.

'''chars''' 
Charwomen. Maids, cleaners.

'''Hundreds of telegraphers''' 
The scene described, including the pneumatic dispatches and the ostensible concern about terrorism, is very similar to one in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."

'''clicks and rests''' 
Presumably the clicks of a telegraphic system and the rests or silences in between. [[Binarisms_Discussion|Another binarism.]]

'''Northern Temple of Connexion''' 
It's in the north of the City; and the phrase suggests the religious intensity of the need to connect or communicate as well as mildly satirising it.

'''marblework''' 
Such buildings would have used quantities of marble; hence the image of a 'temple' above.

'''Bloggins''' 
An archetypal ordinary man; an everyman figure.

'''allegro vivatchy''' 
phonetic of 'allegro vivace' - a musical term for a quick tempo. If the policeman had been manhandling an English suspect, he would have said "All right then, quick march." An early instance of cultural sensitivity. . . .

==Page 447==

'''grease-paint''' 
'Grease-paint' refers to old-fashioned stage make-up.

'''cylinder of gutta-percha''' 
Pneumatic dispatches were carried in cylinders of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha Gutta-Percha] -- an inelastic latex made from the sap of the Gutta-Percha tree -- covered in felt. See [http://www.capsu.org/history/telegram_conveyors.html]. Gutta-percha crops up a number of times in ATD, possibly enough to suggest some sort of motif or connection?

Gutta percha per se is a Victorian equivalent to rubber, or rather hard rubber (they knew to use soft latex for erasers, "gum boots" and such). Discovery of the vulcanization process led to replacement of gutta-percha in many applications.

'''its "D" box''' 
The receiving mechanism on the end of pneumatic dispatch pipe.

"The somewhat complicated pattern of double sluice valve originally used at the central stations has been superseded by a simpler form, known as the D box, so named Despatching from the shape of its cross section. This box is of and cast iron, and is provided with a close-fitting, Receiving brass-framed, sliding lid with a glass panel. This Apparatus, lid fits air-tight, and closes the box after a carrier has been inserted into the mouth of the tube; the latter enters at one end of the box and is there bell-mouthed. A supply pipe, to which is connected a 3-way cock, is joined on to the box and allows communication at will with either the pressure or vacuum mains, so that the apparatus becomes available for either sending (by pressure) or receiving (by vacuum) a carrier. Automatic working, by which the air supply is automatically turned on on the introduction of the carrier into a tube and on closing of the D box, and is cut off when the carrier arrives, was introduced in 1909." From the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica entry on Pneumatic Dispatch, cited at [http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm]

'''Holborn''' 
Holborn is between the Strand (at the northern end of Waterloo Bridge) and Bloomsbury.

'''Saffron Hill''' 
is in the City, an area named Farringdon, east of Holborn.

'''''tantum dic verbo'' isn't it''' 
Might be derived from that part of the Mass where it's said: "Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed '''tantum dic verbo''' et sanabitur anima mea" ("Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but '''speak the word''' only, and my soul shall be healed")

Sands seems to be telling Gaspereaux to "just say the word".

'''''intact''''' 
(Did I miss this?)

==Page 448==

'''because I'm mad''' 
Gaspereaux brings news, in overheard fragments, of Shambala intact, able to hold sand away from itself.....which "deranged utterance" [Sands] ....succumbs to a dim local until he, Gaspereaux, can no longer
imagine anything clearly beyond Dover. 
A 'mad' vision becomes local and quotidian.

'''half-sovereign case''' 
A sovereign is old English money for one pound, i.e 20 shillings. A half-sovereign is ten shillings old money.

'''Mr. Campbell-Bannerman''' 
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836-1908) was a Liberal MP and then Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1905 to 1908. I'm not sure when he was knighted; but he's not the only character in the novel connected with Trinity College, Cambridge.

==Page 449==

'''Clarabella''' 
Clarabelle=name of the clown on The Howdy Doody Show [TV] in the fifties.

'''Audacity, Iowa''' 
Seemingly a joking oxymoron?

==Page 450==

'''DREAMTIME MOVY''' 
Misspelling is dreamlike? Or, more possibly, the spelling hadn't yet been standardized.
:The ''OED'' an cites an occurance of this spelling as late as 1919.

'''log... waterfall''' 
This passage anticipates a scene in D. W. Griffith's 1920 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Down_East Way Down East] in which Lillian Gish, stranded on an ice-floe, rushes toward a potential demise over the edge of the falls. More specifically, Pynchon is here positing this (fictional) collision between the film (i.e., the diegetic world of the film) and the breaking projector (the non-diegetic world of the film!) as the origin of the... (wait for it) -- CLIFFHANGER.
:What does ''diegetic'' mean, please?
::[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/diegetic Here.]

'''lens-brother''' 
(Like masonic sign?)(Also reminiscent of the lens (the K/kid/d) carries in Delaney's ''Dhalgren'')

'''Powers movement''' 
Around 1897, Nicholas Power improved the "Maltese Cross" used in the Geneva movement; his company sold [http://www.victorian-cinema.net/power.htm projectors] including the "Peerless" and the popular No. 5. The Power or Power[']s movement could not be adapted to sound projection.

'''Geneva''' 
A watch movement also used in film projection. "The Geneva movement is so called because of its use in Geneva watches as a stop wind. The projection on the driving disk acts as the pawl drive, and the concave projections on the lower disc act as stop pawls. This is used at the present time in motion picture machines for moving the film in front of the lens and is known as the intermittent movement."

'''Wilt Flambo''' 
Flambeau = torch (French).

'''acetylene''' 
When the flammable gas was used for illumination, it was often generated on the spot by dripping water onto lumps of calcium carbide.

==Page 451==

'''nitro in the film''' 
Cellulose nitrate was the predecessor to modern photographic films. The nitrate material might be coated with collodion, which served as the substrate to the chemistry that made the image. Nitrate film was/is notoriously flammable.

'''the tip''' 
The audience. Pynchon uses the word many times in ''AtD.''

'''strange relation''' 
Cf GR on calculus.

'''dark perplexity''' 
Cf Gen X?

'''dilapidated portals''' 
See p.406: the West Gate's "two flanking towers of rusticated stone and Gothical aspect... an aspect of terrible antiquity..."

'''queen-of-the-prairie''' 
[http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/68/index.html Meadowsweet,] ''Filipendula rubra,'' wild flower with clusters of pink blooms in midsummer.

'''Geneva''' 
[[#Page_450|See annotation to p. 450.]]

==Page 452==

'''Sempitern''' 
An archaic term meaning 'eternal', a poetic but appropriate name for a river? Echoing "Serpentine," the lake in London's Hyde Park.

'''Sicilians with equal apprehensions for the principle of the vendetta''' 
If the vendetta began when A killed B, couldn't B's son short-circuit the whole thing by going back in time and killing A first? And then who would be responsible for killing the son? Possible application to the Traverse/Vibe/Deuce relationship, too.

'''siegecraft of Time''' 
Cf Paris Commune siege, p.19.

'''to see in its vortex the fundamental structure of everything''' 
A reference to the Yeatsian conception of the gyre as the primary or fundamental form. "'The mind, whether expressed in history or in the individual life, has a precise movement, which can be quickened or slackened but cannot be fundamentally altered, and this movement can be expressed by a mathematical form’ and this form is the gyre." [http://www.yeatsvision.com/Geometry.html] 

More from wikipedia: "The theory of history articulated in A Vision centers on a diagram composed of two conical spirals, one situated inside the other, so that the widest part of one cone occupies the same plane as the tip of the other cone, and vice versa. Around these cones he imagined a set of spirals. Yeats claimed that this image (he called the spirals "gyres") captured contrary motions inherent within the process of history, and he divided each gyre into different regions that represented particular kinds of historical periods (and could also represent the psychological phases of an individual's development). Yeats believed that in 1921 the world was on the threshold of an apocalyptic moment, as history reached the end of the outer gyre (to speak roughly) and began moving along the inner gyre." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)] 
Cf. the remark, "history is a step-function" in ''V.''. Is the above an
evolution of that remark/vision? http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11

'''between Cleveland and Denver''' 
Merle's idiosyncratic choice of endpoints? This helps define where Candlebrow is, though.

'''automorphic functions''' 
Auto= self; same as in autogamy. American Heritage Dict. -morph = Form, structure, function. Self-forming, self-structuring-- or self-organizing as Pynchon says elsewhere in ADT.

The phrase has a specific meaning in mathematics, referring to a generalization of periodic functions.

==Page 453==
'''We thus enter the whirlwind''' 
God is sometimes referred to this way. Often Capitalized, but here the speaker is using it literally, but Pynchon maybe metaphorically?

'''Lobatchevskian''' 
of Nikolai Lobachevsky (1793-1856), a Russian Mathematician, co-founder, with Hungarian mathematician János Bolyai, of non-Euclidean geometry. Born at Nizhny Novgorod and a professor at Kazan University from 1814. In 1829 he published his non-Euclidean geometry paper, the first account of that subject in print.

''Abbreviated Lob''
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lob_bowling Lob bowling]: not related but as it is a cricket thing...

'''Automorphic Dispensation''' 
Self-forming, self-organizing, recurring or periodic dispensation. 
On the meaning of "dispensation" see [[ATD_119-148#Page_128|annotations to p. 128.]]

'''distressing regularity''' 
Explains dilapidation?

'''Thorvald''' 
Scandinavian name from the Old Norse name ''Þórvaldr''. It combines the name "Thor" (thunder) and scandinavian word "valdr" (ruler), to create the meaning "thunder ruler" or "ruler of the thunder". Either would be apt, in this case.

The persisting storm also occurs in ''Mason & Dixon'', in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novel ''Wyrd Sisters'' and in Walter Moers‘ [http://www.amazon.com/13-2-Lives-Captain-Bluebear/dp/1585678449/sr=1-1/qid=1170090170/ref=sr_1_1/002-4941751-7235229?ie=UTF8&s=books "13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear"].

'''''thresher dinners''''' 
Hearty communal midday meals for men taking part in harvest. Here a sacrifice to Thorvald.

==Page 454==

'''"gaff"''' 
A deceptive feature like the rabbit-concealing false bottom in a magician's top hat.

'''Giant Airships of 1896 and '7''' 
An early UFO sensation. From November 1896 to the summer of '97, newspapers reported numerous sightings of [http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9607/airship.htm a large cigar-shaped airship]. The first reports came from Sacramento; the "ship" (or ships) moved from west to east, with [http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n03/illinois-ufo-mania-of-1897.html a big concentration in Illinois.] "Contacts" with the people on board the craft all proved to be hoaxes, and the speed of the ship's travel was a pretty good match for the speed of propagation of phony newspaper stories from town to town.

In the context of ''AtD'' we have to ask: In a world where airships were common by 1893, operated by a sizable community of aeronautics clubs like the Chums of Chance, why would another airship create a sensation in 1896? Who would consider it mysterious?

And ''were'' airships common by 1893? [http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/ss/airship_5.htm This brief account] of the technology in our historical context says that trials date back to mid-century, but practical airships appeared only in 1898.

[http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Mysterious-airship.jpg This artist's conception] is no less imaginative than sketches that appeared in the media in 1896-97. 

I'm guessing airships weren't as common as ''balloons''...

'''Chick''' 
First Chum to appear in non-Chums chapter? Chick is the Chum we know, besides Pugnax if we count him, to have come aboard The Inconvenience from the real world. Another meaning to Counterfly? More earthbound?

==Page 455==

'''Cleveland... trial... Bounce v. Vibe''' 
See p67 & 426

'''Somble, Strool, and Fleshway''' 
[[ATD_26-56#Page_34|See annotations to page 34.]]

''''paranoia querulans'... P.Q.''' 
[[Paranoia_Querulans|Described in the page so titled.]]

'''Hercules''' 
Allusion to Hercules Powder Company, major manufacturer of black powder and other explosives.

'''blasting agent''' 
Just a casual reference to the Hercules product. In a more technical context "blasting agents" are distinguished from "shattering explosives." A blasting agent releases its energy more slowly and produces a heaving action.

'''detonans''' 
That which is detonated - cod latin. Detonans is a present participle, roughly meaning "that detonates" or "detonating".

'''"I'm just another nutty inventor"''' 
Roswell has been discussing his plans to dynamite the Vibe Corp. which has used its power to harrass him. Throughout his work, esp. ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon has dealt with themes involving the split between elect and preterite, or to use a more simplified phrase, winners and losers. Dynamite offers the small and powerless, the "long-shot opponents of the mills of Capital" referred to earlier in the page, an expression of power of their own. In this way it is like the AK-47 today which has made it far more difficult for powers (e.g. the United States in Iraq) to exert control over populations.

==Page 456==

'''aigrette''' 
Literally an egret or aigrette (or Lesser White Heron); hence a tuft of feathers such as an egret has and hence a spray of gems worn on the head and finally luminous rays seen emerging from the moon in solar eclipses or, to quote the OED, "at the ends of electrified bodies" [[ATD_397-428#Page_405|(see annotation to p. 405.)]]

'''Pencil''' 
To mathematicians, a pencil is a family of geometric objects sharing a common property, such as a collection of lines that pass through a common point. (Of course, constipated mathematicians also find pencils useful for working out logs).

In Romance languages, a mathematic "pencil" is a "bundle" (ESP haz, CAT feix, IT fascio) and a "pencilist" a "feixista" (CAT) or "fascista" (ESP/IT). Merle is playing with something which reminds of Falange Española symbol. A intralinguistic pun or is Merle an underground fascist?

'''equivalent of a shrug''' 
Nice anthropomorphism.

'''I want to know light...take some in my hands...and bring it back''' 
More light-infatuation, but this sounds particularly Promethean to me. Everybody knows Prometheus is famous for stealing fire from the Gods and bringing it to man in his unburnable fennel, but for Pynchoniacs, Zeus' reaction to this is quite interesting. Imaginably, Zeus is pretty pissed, so "to punish Prometheus for this hubris (and all of mankind in the process), Zeus devised 'such evil for them that they shall desire death rather than life'". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus Wiki] Then he sends Prometheus "to Mount Caucasus, where an eagle (often shown as a vulture) by the name of Ethon (offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna) would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again." Talk about Eternal Return.

Finally "[t]o punish man for the offenses of Prometheus, Zeus told Hephaestus to "mingle together all things loveliest, sweetest, and best, but look that you also mingle therewith the opposites of each." So Hephaestus took gold and dross, wax and flint, pure snow and mud of the highways, honey and gall; he took the bloom of the rose and the toad's venom, the voice of laughing water and the peacocks squall; he took the sea's beauty and its treachery, the dog's fidelity and the wind's inconstancy, and the mother bird's heart of love and the cruelty of the tiger. All these, and other contraries past number, he blended cunningly into one substance and this he molded into the shape that Zeus had described to him. She was as beautiful as a goddess and Zeus named her Pandora which meant "all gifted"." And a little later on Pandora opens her eponymic box and "all suffering and despair" is unleashed upon mankind.

Some judicious readers may remember we've already been to the Pandora Works back on p.297, and we all know what those light-worshiping Alchemists will do with the metals they remove from mines just like it.

'''machinery . . . more complicated than it needs to be''' 
Merle and Roswell, as alchemists, suspect the problem of "moving pictures" may have a solution with fewer moving parts.

'''lost mines''' 
(Factual?) One of the classic "crazy old galoot" figures in Westerns is the deranged sourdough who can't stop talking about the incredibly rich lode he and his partner found and then lost.

==Page 457==

'''tourbillon''' 
A tourbillon is a type of mechanical clock or watch escapement invented in 1795 by Abraham-Louis Breguet that is designed to counter the effects of gravity and other perturbing forces that can affect the accuracy of a chronometer. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourbillon Wikipedia]

Tourbillon is French for "whirlwind" - Thorvald‘s tiny chronometer-cousin.

'''make time impervious to gravity''' 
Thematic to this book and GR?

'''patent pencils''' 
Mechanical or (British) propelling pencils. "Patent" as in patent medicine, patent leather: innovative, gimmicky, making claims of uniqueness. (But the mechanical pencil was invented by a Japanese, HAYAKAWA Tokuji, in 1915, so that these "patent pencils" cannot be mechanical pencils, or this is an anachronism.)

Ebenezer Wood "constructed the first hexagon- and octagon-shaped pencil cases that we have today. Ebenezer did not patent his invention and shared his techniques with whoever asked." from Wikipedia.

'''zephyr gingham''' 
From [http://vintagesewing.info/1920s/26-fcm/fcm-16a.html this site]: gingham: A cotton fabric in checks or stripes nearly alike on both sides. zephyr: Anything light and airy. We have zephyr yarns, zephyr gingham, zephyr tissues.

'''lawn''' 
a thin or sheer linen or cotton fabric, either plain or printed.

'''pongee''' 
silk of a slightly uneven weave made from filaments of wild silk woven in natural tan color or its cotton imitation.

==Page 458==

'''professors... engineers''' 
Theory vs practice.

'''Latinate token of prestige''' 
PhD (''Philosophiae Doctor''), summa cum laude, etc.

'''suspicious of night horizons''' 
(sunsets?)Absence of light horizons? You can't see the horizon at night unless ''something'' is flashing and flaring over beyond it. Townsfolk are traditionally suspicious of strange flickerings in the sky. Fireworks specialists give you a way out: "Oh, Luigi was just trying out a new star shell."

'''current... purity''' 
Free of noise?

'''Minkowski''' 
Hermann Minkowski was a German mathematician who made useful contributions in the development of relativity, amongst other things. Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 324|page 324]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowski] 
Developed the 4 dimensional non Euclidean geometry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_space] used in special relativity. In a very crude simplification it says that time and space are the same thing. It all depends on the velocity of the observer, how space and time are mixed. This influenced most of later science fiction on time travels!!! (Like in "Back to the future", where the DeLorean has to reach a certain speed to jump in time.)

'''Three times ten... minus one seconds''' 
Three times ten to the fifth refers to the speed of light. The square root of minus 1 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_unit Wikipedia] is also known as the Imaginary Unit or i. i is sometimes also expressed as the square root of -1, as here. Complex numbers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number Wikipedia] can be expressed as a + bi where a is the real part of the complex number and b is the imaginary part. Complex numbers were an important element of the work of both Minkowski and Einstein. Also, for imaginary number Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 133|page 133]] and complex number Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 132|page 132]].
 
The use of complex numbers to describe the relativistic space-time metric is somewhat out of fashion in modern physics, it is merely used to make the metric tensor (i.e. "that other expression") symmetrical in all 4 dimensions. So in a way one might see time as an imaginary space axis, but the modern aproach uses an symmetrical metric tensor, which makes the non-Euclidean nature of our space-time more clear.
 
''Against the Day'' takes place at the time when Newtonian physics were being supplanted, at least in theory, by physics based on Relativity. This equation touches on that. But also, the use of a real and an imaginary number returns to the theme of duality that arises throughout the book. The spacetime measured by imaginary or complex numbers would seem to be something different though co-existent with 'our' spacetime.
 
:Minkowski's lecture at Candlebrow is clearly a version of the lecture in which he first set out his interpretation of Special Relativity in terms of four-dimensional geometry, given in Cologne on 21st September, 1908. Pynchon has taken this equation, and Minkowski's description of it as 'pregnant' and 'mystic', directly from the published text of the lecture. The transcription also makes it clear that Minkowksi did indeed use blackboard and chalk. It's in a volume called ''The Principle of Relativity'' by Einstein, Lorentz, Weyl and Minkowski.[[User:SdeB|SdeB]]

'''other expression''' 
Contextually, Roswell seems to be refering to the other side of the above equation...'that other expression 'over there'...they are at a slate "blackboard."

'''he called the equation "pregnant"''' 
Minkowski used the German word ''prägnant,'' which doesn't mean "pregnant." It means concise, precise, penetrating, important.

'''astronomical distance''' 
Small-scale astronomy then: 3x105 km is about two-thirds of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 397-428

2009-04-19T14:04:35Z

Bobutler: /* Page 422 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==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.]

Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy. [http://earlyradiohistory.us/1901ayrt.htm Ayrton Prediction]. Electrical Review, June 29, 1901, p. 820.

'''street-Arab''' 
a homeless boy who has been abandoned and roams the streets.
[http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn 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. [http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/commemoratives/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=premodern]

'''"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''' 
A muster of the ship's company at the end of the day. 
Is this at 1800 Hours?

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.G._Wells Wikipedia entry].

'''jeu d'esprit''' 
French: play of wits. Witticism.
Here, Lindsay places Wells' masterful Time Machine (see above) in opposition with the more flashy and vulgar versions ("adulterated") of time travel offered in dime novels. Interesting that this comment would be made by someone who is himself a character in a dime novel.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprest_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". [http://imdb.com/title/tt0074256/ IMDb]

==Page 399==

'''indigo... yellow''' 
Clashing-colors motif. Bright full-of-life colors.

'''dicer''' 
A hat [http://books.google.com/books?id=CUQSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=dicer+hat&source=web&ots=3K_D1BkmBP&sig=xhzWDfgmMitS2mGUzL4ee8MHzTo], perhaps of the style now known as "baseball cap"[http://www.skateamerica.com/store/KR3W-Youth-Hat-Dicer-Black-ID_P15118C62.cfm].

'''opopanax and vervain''' 
Two fragrant, medicinal substances derived from flowering plants. They bloom yellow and violet, respectively. Wikipedia pages for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opoponax opopanax] and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vervain vervain].
:Though Wikipedia prefers the spelling ''opoponax'', the ''OED'' suggests Pynchon's.

'''contrabass saxophone''' 
A spectacular piece of hardware, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone#Members_of_the_saxophone_family 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'. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_pan_alley 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." <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd Ed. 1989.</ref>

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "houris" is the plural of 'houri', as defined above.

'''Darby''' 
Over 21yo, if he's aged.

'''chanteuse''' 
A female singer of popular songs, esp. in France. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

==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.

''OED'' Oblique, not straightforward. Also, dubious, shifty, disreputable. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''"jazz"''' 
The ''OED'' suggests that the spelling here was always more popular than ''jass'', as used on [[Pages 358-373#Page 370|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone Wikipedia.]

==Page 402==

'''solenoidal relay''' 
Solenoid: a cylindrical 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 the 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) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch) 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 [[ATD_919-945#Page 934|later in ''Against the Day'']]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha 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.
Refers specifically to the "passenger seat", separated from the main saddle. Also applies to motorcycle riding where the small passenger seat is called a "pillion". Metonymically, pillion can be used to describe the passenger.

'''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 [[#Page 407|"Smegmo,"]] the "Messiah of kitchen fats" (Imperial Margarine was advertised as "The King of Margarines") [http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asmegma&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official smegma] is the "cheesy secretion" that collects atop the "candlebrow" beneath the foreskin. [[ATD 374-396#Page 374|Ewball Oust's name]] has similar connotations.

Maybe I'm pointing out the obvious, but it seems to me like Pynchon's way of saying Dickhead University. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''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?)

:Or possibly a sexual ''double entendre''...consistent with the [[The Sexual Angle|rampant sexuality]] in ''AtD''. Why, several double-dome images come to mind, almost faster than "egghead"...

:also possibly a reference to numerous "mad scientist" contraptions that connect two (unwilling?) patients, hooked together by metallic helmets (domes), in order to "switch" "souls" from one body to another. Seems far-fetched, but in a book dominated by the idea of dopplegangers created by the refraction from Iceland spar, not so much...

'''drumming''' 
Traveling salesmanship.

<div id="balinhan"></div>'''a saloon down by the river called the Ball in Hand''' 
The Ball in Hand isn't the river, it's the saloon. Still, the name does have an English ring to it. The Bird in Hand is a common pub name in Britain.

Another cricket allusion? If so, rather obvious. Surely a straightforward sexual joke.
:Oh yes. As discussed a couple paragraphs down!

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 [[ATD_26-56#Page_26|aigrette.]] Or a more carnal connotation, not anachronistic at all. Or fortunetelling. These remote connections do make cricket sound pretty good:

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 [[The Sexual Angle|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''. [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzb01800.html]

<div id="meatman">'''Alonzo Meatman'''</div>
Meatman translated to German is Fleischmann, as in [http://www.fleischmanns.com/products/index.jsp 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. [[Meat Man|Read the lyrics...]]. And there ''are'' those [[ATD 57-80#Page 73|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 [[ATD 397-428#Page 398|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imum_Coeli Wikipedia entry]

'''rusticated''' 
Of masonry, parts of buildings, etc.: Rendered rustic in appearance. <ref>Def. 3a. '''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''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.) 

Since Gideon had to testify before congress about it, said Scandal must have happened in the States. He seems to have shipped lard that was deemed too "adulterated" to be sold in the US to good old Britain, thereby, as Pynchon puts it with a good dose of mean-spirited humor, "compromising further an already debased national cuisine". What did he use to adulterate the lard? The secret ingredient in Smegmo, maybe?

In [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5#113 ''V.''] Pynchon mentions the "Great Sewer Scandal of 1955."

'''Christmas pudding controversy'''' 
Lard could certainly be used while making Christmas Pudding, aka Plum Pudding [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pudding Wikipedia entry], the quintessential British holiday treat. The traditional ingredient, though, is suet. Some families might have tried to substitute lard in the recipe, which would have radically altered the taste of the pudding, sparking bitter fights about the importance of culinary tradition. Could this "controversy" be a metaphor of the effects of American cultural imperialism? Maybe I should just do a taste test...

==Page 407==

'''"Smegmo"''' 
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma 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."
[http://www.crisco.com/about/history/1930.asp]

"Smegm"a + crisc "O" = Smegmo

:Interesting(?) sideline: Here in Denmark the slang word for smegma is 'nakkeost' -i.e. 'neck-cheese'. And of course anyone who's seen 'Red Dwarf' will know about the current British use of 'smeg' (Not smeggin'likely, get the smeg outa here! Smeg off!). What do Americans call it?

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? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisco]

Also P&G was founded as a candle (Procter) and soap (Gamble) company, making profits from the fat of slaughtered pigs in "Porkopolis," Cincinnati.

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

Cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_525-556 cottonseed oil] p. 546.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham 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 [http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/ 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine The Time Machine].

'''this year''' 
??? 1903.

'''flammivomous''' 
Vomiting out flame. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''sophomoric slogs''' 
Slog can be a forceful hit and a Cricket term. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slog Link]

'''nooky''' 
"nooky" is synonymous with "pussy" both of which are used metonymically to denote either the sex act or, in this case, women who are desirable as sex partners.

'''1925 or thereabouts''' 
Lindsay's unfamiliarity with the term "nooky" ''could'' 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'' (the ''Shorter OED'' prefers "nooky"). However, the term was certainly in the vernacular long before it made it into the ''OED'' and is speculated to be of British origin, perhaps derived from "nugging" (having sex) or "nook" which a vagina could be considered, I suppose.

Most likely a simple "chummy" joke, implying that poor old Lindsay wouldn't get to experience the pleasures of the flesh for another 25 years. Considering that the Chums don't seem to age, I really can't say how old he will be when the blessed event finally comes.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Finney 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'' [http://www.snpp.com/guides/homer.file.html#strangle], 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.

:Orson Wellesianism seems correct: The scene, an immense inventory of discarded time machines, is reminiscent of the final scenes of ''Citizen Kane'' which show Kane's enormous collection of objects in rows of stacks extending seemingly to infinity.

'''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.

transecular 
Adj "that is made through the centuries" (Portuguese) [[User:Btchakir|Btchakir]] 16:48, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Rather than troubling to search for a Portuguese word, isn't it more likely that Asimov or Pynchon coined this in a nearly trivial way? ''Trans,'' across, plus ''secular,'' ages or centuries (from Latin [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=s&p=11 ''sæculum,''] an age, a generation, 120 years; also yielding French ''siècle,'' a century).

'''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. [http://www.asimovonline.com/ Asimov Home Page] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issac_Asimov Isaac Asimov].

'''Tempomorph''' 
Tempo + morph = Time change

'''Q-98s''' 
FM station? The weapon used by Loony Tunes character Marvin the Martian is called the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

'''Flow''' 
Flow of Time.

'''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. [http://dict.die.net/packfong/ packfong].

'''The Ball in Hand''' 
[[#balinhan|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''.

Notice that at Candlebrow, the conferences converged to a "form' of Eternal Return. The almost instantaneous way the conferees can be "resurrected' and seem never to age, makes this form of the Eternal
Return a lot like Never-Never Land. 
A-and perhaps a Pynchon jape at Nietzsche's vision of history?

==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. Herein a 'parable' drawn from the flowing of a literal river, by some Candlbrow conferees.

Cf. "The River of Time" (first published in 1981 as "Coexistence" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine) 

Cf. M&D's "in America, time is a river that goes through hell"

Cf. Heraclitus's Flux and Fire Philosophy. [http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/heraclitus.html]

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

Symmes Street = Symmetry ?

'''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.

also used to describe a very large penis. Judging from the "disreputable" nature of the Ball in Hand, it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to imagine Polish comedians hitting themselves over the head with their own appendages.

'''fantan''' 
Traditional Chinese gambling game; also a card game [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-Tan].

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

'''magenta-and-green''' 
Clashing-colors motif. This combination appears in a bandana in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] (Viking p. 69 line 14). 
Life colors in Pynchon, it might be argued?, as is a bandana. 
The clashing of (anarchic) life motif, maybe? 

magenta is a color that was renamed for a battle, the Battle of Magenta!
see wikipedia.

There's something else striking about magenta and green: In the field of [http://www.rgbworld.com/color.html color mixing,] these are complementary in the sense that magenta results from filtering all the green out of white light and vice versa. Green is an additive primary (red-green-blue), while magenta is a subtractive primary (cyan-magenta-yellow). This does not hold for some other ''AtD'' color schemes (red/indigo comes to mind, but there are a dozen or so of these binary combinations).

==Page 411==

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

'''Hawaiian volcano''' 
Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, established in 1916, displays the results of 70 million years of volcanism, migration, and evolution — processes that thrust a bare land from the sea and clothed it with complex and unique ecosystems, and a distinct human culture.

The park encompasses 333,000 acres and ranges from sea level to the summit of the earth's most massive volcano, Mauna Loa at 13,677 feet. ''Kilauea, the world's most active volcano, offers scientists insights on the birth of the Hawaiian Islands'' and visitors views of dramatic volcanic landscapes. Over half of the park is designated wilderness and provides unique hiking and camping opportunities.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity Wikipedia]. Pynchon refers to the fact that this work was underway and 'in the air' at the time of the novel. [[Bohr, Mach, Einstein, et al.|History and Discussion...]]

Notice how, among this stellar cast of scientists, Wells seems to be placed above the rest (cf: "Mr. Wells himself"), as if the writer of fiction trumped "real" scientists when it came to the idea of time travel.

'''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 [http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html The Unreality of Time (1)] and other information [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time The Unreality of Time (2)].

'''the McTaggartite''' 
disciple of Mctaggart?

'''neo-Augustinian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo St. Augustine of Hippo] (354-430), in his autobiographical [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions/confessions.html ''Confessions''], is credited with reconceptualizing the notion of time in Christian terms. Throyle, on [[ATD 119-148#Page 143|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 [[ATD E|'''Eschatology''']].

<div id="pudding">'''fatal steamed pudding'''</div>
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?

<div id="stearinery">'''Old Stearinery Bell Tower'''</div>
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." [http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Procter-amp;-Gamble-Company-Company-History.html]

==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".

Hmm... maybe Chick is implying that he and Meatman are indeed of the same cloth, not bound by the earthly realm, the former spending most of his time in the air and the latter being able to travel to other dimensions.

'''other Promise... resurrected... two millennia''' 
???
:maybe this refers simply to the Resurrection (and therefore the end of Time); the Promise is that the trumpet (Chick's?) shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.

God's promise of eternal life vs. Time Travel's promise of making you immortal.

'''speaking trumpet''' 
Brass forerunner of the megaphone. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1671RSPT....6.3056M Abstract] of a 1671 paper; [http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conMediaFile.2647 photo] of a ship's speaking trumpet, 1799; [http://www.auroraregionalfiremuseum.org/giftshop/1850figure/source/horn.htm 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''' 
A penumbra is the outer and lighter part of the shadow created by an eclipse. "Penumbrae" is the plural form.

'''quiescence''' 
His name suggests a purveyor of meat, and he does "deliver" Chick to Mr. Ace.

==Page 415==

'''"Mr. Ace"''' 
This could be a nod to the 1946 film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038752/ ''Mr. Ace''] starring Sylvia Sidney and George Raft who plays Eddie Ace, the head man of a crooked political machine who intends to scuttle the gubernatorial campaign of female senator Margaret Wyndham Chase (Sylvia Sidney). He uses every dirty trick in the book to destroy Margaret, but she perseveres on the strength of sheer honesty and integrity. Through her example, Ace mends his own ways, earning Margaret's love as a bonus, and he helps her to run as an independent on a clean-government ticket.

It may, more specifically, refer to the old-time radio show called ''The Cases of Mr. Ace'' which had a very limited run mostly on WNEW in New York in the late forties. Raft played Eddie Ace, the sole owner of Ace Detective Agency on 6th Avenue. In the episode from June 25, 1945, Ace described one gangster thus:

:"The face of a small fragile old man. His hair was glossy and deep black. His eyes were glossy and deep black."

Compare this to Pynchon's Mr. Ace: "Glossy black eyes, presented like weapons in a duel."

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

'''Those of us who spoke this truth were denounced as heretics''' 
Yes, the old Pynchon theme of those in control, the oligarchs, silencing the counterforce.

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''' 
Cf. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Brooks_Adams Henry Adams], author of ''The Virgin and The Dynamo''. Pynchon has written of being influenced deeply by Adams, and his ideas are particularly evident in Pynchon's [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''].

'''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.

Electrical short is certainly relevant. The mistranslation is a kind-of short-circuit, then he gets the right phrase from his data bank. Bit like C3P0 in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars ''Star Wars'']?

'''You are not aware that each of your mission assignments is intended to prevent some attempt of our own to enter your time-regime.''' 
Aha! A little peek into the True Mission of the Chums. Time to take another look at those various adventures:

* ''Chums of Chance and The Evil Halfwit'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance and The Curse of the Great Kahuna'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance at Krakatoa'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance Search for Atlantis'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance in Old Mexico'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_7|p.7]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Bowels of the Earth'' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|p.117]])
* ''The Chums of Chance and the Ice Pirates'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''The Chums of Chance Nearly Crash into the Kremlin'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth'' ([[ATD_199-218#Page_214|p.214]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Caged Women of Yokahama'' ([[ATD_397-428#Page_411|p.411]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Wrath of the Yellow Fang'' ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page_1019|p.1019]])

==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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto 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 [[ATD_219-242#Page 238|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 [http://www.entropylaw.com/ 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 [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''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.

Right: And what about the biggest trespasser of all - the author himself. After all, he's the one who can offer them immortality.

'''I see them ''pointing something'' back at me not exactly a weapon an enigmatic object.''' 
Hmmm. Could this have anything to do with the [[Q-weapon_and_Photography|Q-weapon]]?

— – – mmm... does anyone think that it might be just a remote control, and that the window through which the trespassers and the Chums see each other might be just a TV set? [[[User:Sonni|Sonni]] 09:19, 21 February 2008 (PST)]

==Page 418==

'''Trespass''' 
With a capital T.

'''evidence... everywhere''' 
Cf [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Crying of Lot 49''].

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

'''contracts''' 
With Devil.
More specifically, like Faust with Mephistopheles.

'''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.
Clearly it's mutable, a kind of mirage. And surely there's a resonance with 'laughing academy'? And a hint of the Hogwarts train in 'Harry Potter'?

==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"''' 
[http://hetzler.homestead.com/NBCakeWalk.html A cakewalk song] written in 1899.

'''consecrated''' 
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/consecrate] "1. To declare or set apart as sacred: consecrate a church."

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Romanesque 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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism]

'''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"''' 
???

'''Yippy dippy dippy, doo!''' 
cf. ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (p. 66) where Slothrop goes down the toilet after, appropriately, a harmonica.

'''Now, it ain't that I wouldn't, 'cause I can but I won't,''' 
'''And I would if I wasn't, but I am so I don't''' 
This sounds very similar to a lyric from Frank Zappa's 'Stink-Foot:'

He said:
"IT DOESN'T, 'n YOU CAN'T!

I WON'T, 'n IT DON'T!

IT HASN'T, IT ISN'T, IT EVEN AIN'T

'N IT SHOULDN'T . . .

IT COULDN'T!"

He told me NO NO NO!

I told him YES YES YES!

I said: "I do it all the time . . .

Ain't this boogie a mess!"

'''difficult vocal feat''' 
???

'''segueing''' 
A deejaying term for moving from one song/track to another with no noticeable break if done correctly. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow,''] Viking p. 70, line 36, where the phonetic spelling "segway" appears.

'''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. [http://www.hohnerusa.com/hchromatic.htm Examples].

'''Pitch Integrity Guard''' 
To prevent tampering with the notes in the ways described below - i.e. monitoring any tendency towards the 'Negroid'. 
= PIG - pigs long have held a fascination over Pynchon. 
A-and a Pitch Integrity Guard is a kind of cop, right? 

'''harmonica-reed files''' 
Filing the reeds would alter the notes slightly, allowing you to get 'in-between' notes that aren't in the normal major or minor scale.

'''sucking the tonic chords...Negroid sound''' 
Standard technique for playing blues harmonica ('harp'), also known as cross-blowing. The sucked notes are easier to 'bend' and wail with, so you can get the blues 'third', not quite minor, not quite major. Another technique that helps you get the 'Negroid sound' is soaking the harmonica, which gives the reeds a rougher, more bendable quality. That's probably the point of the 'late night visits to the latrine'. Compare with GR, where Slothrop (at college!) loses his harmonica down the toilet (he finds it much later in a stream in Germany! Gone back home, so to speak). There's a harmonica-soaking scene in Pennebaker's Dylan film 'Don't look Back'.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of folk wisdom that piss is even better than water for soaking the harp. Pee-culiar.

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Offenbach Jacques Offenbach] (1819-1880). 
The lyrics of which are not entirely irrelevant: 
And if we meet a helpless woo-o-man 
Or little boys who do no harm 
We run them in, we run them in, 
We run them in, we run them in 
Because we are the bold gen-darmes! 

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

'''dentifrice''' 
A powder or other preparation for rubbing or cleansing the teeth; a tooth-powder or tooth-paste; also applied to liquid preparations.<ref>'''Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. ed. 1989.</ref>

'''vapor bearing...minerals''' 
Rows of mirrors facing each other (thus creating regular patterns, "chaining away for uncounted leagues") have been stained with images formed by regular use: breath, tiny bits of toothpaste or powder ("atomized dentifrice"), "shaving preparations," and mineral deposits from tapwater.

'''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==

'''revisit places where destinies took a wrong turn, or revisit in dreams the dreaming body of one loved more than either might have known...''' 
As far as we know, none of the Chums has actually experienced this. Sounds to me like an allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust Faust] and Gretchen/Marguerite, since this actually happens in several of the Faust versions. Especially in the context of the Faustian bargain they have made with Mr. Ace.

'''None of them...''' 
Cf [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi#The_butterfly_dream Chuang Tzu's dream]: is he a man dreaming he's a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he's a man? On the rhetorical level of the story, this passage reiterates the dreamlike, near-delusional nature of the Chums' latest escape from what seems to have become their most dangerous foe. (418: "As if in a dream...").

'''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''' 
Songs and humor in which African-Americans were stereotyped (as lazy, immoral, stupid, vain, etc.) and held in contempt. The most popular coon song, though, was written by an African-American, Ernest Hogan; titled "All Coons Look Alike to Me," it has an ''AtD'' resonance. Coon material was extremely popular between about 1880 and 1910; stripped of the word "coon," a diluted form still appears nightly on your TV. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_song Wikipedia] has a strikingly good article. For a partial list of coon references in ''AtD,'' [[ATD_26-56#Page_48|see annotation to p. 48.]]

'''isotropy''' 
the quality or condition of being equal along all directions. For more technical information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotropy isotropy].

'''presently''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb R. Crumb] did a comic like this: [http://crumbproducts.com/prints_images/sha.gif pic] 
Nice find. That comic succintly summarizes TRP's view of the effects of railroads and "civilization."

'''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"''' 
Music and lyrics by Charles K. Harris. This number was interpolated into the score of the hit musical ''A Trip to Chinatown'' (1892) during its record-setting Broadway run. It was introduced by J. Aldrich Libbey. When Kern and Hammerstein wanted to add period flavor to ''Show Boat'' (1927), they used "After the Ball" in the Trocadero scene where it was performed by Norma Terris. [[After the Ball|Read the lyrics...]]

See also the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_174-177 pantomime song] in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (pages 174-175):
<blockquote>"And the lamps in the stairway are dying, 
It's the season just after the ball . . ."</blockquote>

'''Bukhara''' 
Either the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Bukhara Emirate of Bukhara], a former country in Central Asia or its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara capital]

'''T.D.Y.''' 
Abbrevation for Temporary Duty. [http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r614_11.pdf 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxaul Wikipedia] [http://www.pbase.com/william_sokolenko/image/68724037 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 [http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/weedfeeders/toadflax.html invasive plant species]

'''Hypopsammotic... Hypops''' 
''Hypo-'' (under) + ''psammot-'' (sand, from Greek ''psammos'') + ''-ic.'' Pynchon explains the device's function on the next page (426).

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality dual (wave/particle) nature of light].

==Page 427==

'''temporarily lapsing into English''' 
Contrasts with the technical jargon the Chums have been steeped in over the past few days, including lectures by Roswell Bounce (they're only boys, after all). Often, mathematicians, physicists, and their students fail to explain their theories "in English." This little phrase can be taken as a professorial joke, aimed at both the author (for always coming back to obscure or difficult theories) and the reader (for never understanding them). 
I thought it was contrasting with Miles' frequent babbling habit. 

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

'''X.O.''' 
The Executive Officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the Commanding Officer (CO).

'''legalistic''' 
Yes, Darby is now Legal Counsel.

==Page 428==
'''ill-starred Bell Tower''' 
Referring back of course to the [[#stearinery|Old Stearinery Bell Tower]] and the [[#pudding|Fatal Pudding]], and in turn to the [[Campanile]].

:The Campanile picture has me wondering. According to the sources, the old picture of the collapse of the Campanile is actually a fake. And it doesn't have the airship. It's a fun picture, but what is its status? There doesn't seem to be an appropriate place for this information in the wiki, or have I missed something?

:The Campanile picture is an illustration. Doubtful that anyone had their camera all set up for the awesome event. The airship was photoshopped in for, um, color...

::See also last paragraph of page 255.

Cf. Renata's tarot reading on [[ATD 243-272#Page 253|p. 253]], the last card of which is The Tower.

Cf. ''The Bell-Tower'' by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville Herman Melville], a famous short story from ''The Piazza Tales'' (1856) 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. [http://www.melville.org/belltowr.htm Full text of ''The Bell-Tower'']

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 397-428

2009-04-12T13:05:42Z

Bobutler: /* Page 407 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==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.]

Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy. [http://earlyradiohistory.us/1901ayrt.htm Ayrton Prediction]. Electrical Review, June 29, 1901, p. 820.

'''street-Arab''' 
a homeless boy who has been abandoned and roams the streets.
[http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn 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. [http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/commemoratives/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=premodern]

'''"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''' 
A muster of the ship's company at the end of the day. 
Is this at 1800 Hours?

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.G._Wells Wikipedia entry].

'''jeu d'esprit''' 
French: play of wits. Witticism.
Here, Lindsay places Wells' masterful Time Machine (see above) in opposition with the more flashy and vulgar versions ("adulterated") of time travel offered in dime novels. Interesting that this comment would be made by someone who is himself a character in a dime novel.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprest_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". [http://imdb.com/title/tt0074256/ IMDb]

==Page 399==

'''indigo... yellow''' 
Clashing-colors motif. Bright full-of-life colors.

'''dicer''' 
A hat [http://books.google.com/books?id=CUQSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=dicer+hat&source=web&ots=3K_D1BkmBP&sig=xhzWDfgmMitS2mGUzL4ee8MHzTo], perhaps of the style now known as "baseball cap"[http://www.skateamerica.com/store/KR3W-Youth-Hat-Dicer-Black-ID_P15118C62.cfm].

'''opopanax and vervain''' 
Two fragrant, medicinal substances derived from flowering plants. They bloom yellow and violet, respectively. Wikipedia pages for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opoponax opopanax] and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vervain vervain].
:Though Wikipedia prefers the spelling ''opoponax'', the ''OED'' suggests Pynchon's.

'''contrabass saxophone''' 
A spectacular piece of hardware, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone#Members_of_the_saxophone_family 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'. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_pan_alley 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." <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd Ed. 1989.</ref>

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "houris" is the plural of 'houri', as defined above.

'''Darby''' 
Over 21yo, if he's aged.

'''chanteuse''' 
A female singer of popular songs, esp. in France. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

==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.

''OED'' Oblique, not straightforward. Also, dubious, shifty, disreputable. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''"jazz"''' 
The ''OED'' suggests that the spelling here was always more popular than ''jass'', as used on [[Pages 358-373#Page 370|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone Wikipedia.]

==Page 402==

'''solenoidal relay''' 
Solenoid: a cylindrical 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 the 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) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch) 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 [[ATD_919-945#Page 934|later in ''Against the Day'']]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha 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.
Refers specifically to the "passenger seat", separated from the main saddle. Also applies to motorcycle riding where the small passenger seat is called a "pillion". Metonymically, pillion can be used to describe the passenger.

'''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 [[#Page 407|"Smegmo,"]] the "Messiah of kitchen fats" (Imperial Margarine was advertised as "The King of Margarines") [http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asmegma&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official smegma] is the "cheesy secretion" that collects atop the "candlebrow" beneath the foreskin. [[ATD 374-396#Page 374|Ewball Oust's name]] has similar connotations.

Maybe I'm pointing out the obvious, but it seems to me like Pynchon's way of saying Dickhead University. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''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?)

:Or possibly a sexual ''double entendre''...consistent with the [[The Sexual Angle|rampant sexuality]] in ''AtD''. Why, several double-dome images come to mind, almost faster than "egghead"...

:also possibly a reference to numerous "mad scientist" contraptions that connect two (unwilling?) patients, hooked together by metallic helmets (domes), in order to "switch" "souls" from one body to another. Seems far-fetched, but in a book dominated by the idea of dopplegangers created by the refraction from Iceland spar, not so much...

'''drumming''' 
Traveling salesmanship.

<div id="balinhan"></div>'''a saloon down by the river called the Ball in Hand''' 
The Ball in Hand isn't the river, it's the saloon. Still, the name does have an English ring to it. The Bird in Hand is a common pub name in Britain.

Another cricket allusion? If so, rather obvious. Surely a straightforward sexual joke.
:Oh yes. As discussed a couple paragraphs down!

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 [[ATD_26-56#Page_26|aigrette.]] Or a more carnal connotation, not anachronistic at all. Or fortunetelling. These remote connections do make cricket sound pretty good:

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 [[The Sexual Angle|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''. [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzb01800.html]

<div id="meatman">'''Alonzo Meatman'''</div>
Meatman translated to German is Fleischmann, as in [http://www.fleischmanns.com/products/index.jsp 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. [[Meat Man|Read the lyrics...]]. And there ''are'' those [[ATD 57-80#Page 73|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 [[ATD 397-428#Page 398|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imum_Coeli Wikipedia entry]

'''rusticated''' 
Of masonry, parts of buildings, etc.: Rendered rustic in appearance. <ref>Def. 3a. '''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''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.) 

Since Gideon had to testify before congress about it, said Scandal must have happened in the States. He seems to have shipped lard that was deemed too "adulterated" to be sold in the US to good old Britain, thereby, as Pynchon puts it with a good dose of mean-spirited humor, "compromising further an already debased national cuisine". What did he use to adulterate the lard? The secret ingredient in Smegmo, maybe?

In [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5#113 ''V.''] Pynchon mentions the "Great Sewer Scandal of 1955."

'''Christmas pudding controversy'''' 
Lard could certainly be used while making Christmas Pudding, aka Plum Pudding [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pudding Wikipedia entry], the quintessential British holiday treat. The traditional ingredient, though, is suet. Some families might have tried to substitute lard in the recipe, which would have radically altered the taste of the pudding, sparking bitter fights about the importance of culinary tradition. Could this "controversy" be a metaphor of the effects of American cultural imperialism? Maybe I should just do a taste test...

==Page 407==

'''"Smegmo"''' 
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma 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."
[http://www.crisco.com/about/history/1930.asp]

"Smegm"a + crisc "O" = Smegmo

:Interesting(?) sideline: Here in Denmark the slang word for smegma is 'nakkeost' -i.e. 'neck-cheese'. And of course anyone who's seen 'Red Dwarf' will know about the current British use of 'smeg' (Not smeggin'likely, get the smeg outa here! Smeg off!). What do Americans call it?

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? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisco]

Also P&G was founded as a candle (Procter) and soap (Gamble) company, making profits from the fat of slaughtered pigs in "Porkopolis," Cincinnati.

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

Cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_525-556 cottonseed oil] p. 546.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham 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 [http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/ 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine The Time Machine].

'''this year''' 
??? 1903.

'''flammivomous''' 
Vomiting out flame. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''sophomoric slogs''' 
Slog can be a forceful hit and a Cricket term. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slog Link]

'''nooky''' 
"nooky" is synonymous with "pussy" both of which are used metonymically to denote either the sex act or, in this case, women who are desirable as sex partners.

'''1925 or thereabouts''' 
Lindsay's unfamiliarity with the term "nooky" ''could'' 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'' (the ''Shorter OED'' prefers "nooky"). However, the term was certainly in the vernacular long before it made it into the ''OED'' and is speculated to be of British origin, perhaps derived from "nugging" (having sex) or "nook" which a vagina could be considered, I suppose.

Most likely a simple "chummy" joke, implying that poor old Lindsay wouldn't get to experience the pleasures of the flesh for another 25 years. Considering that the Chums don't seem to age, I really can't say how old he will be when the blessed event finally comes.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Finney 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'' [http://www.snpp.com/guides/homer.file.html#strangle], 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.

:Orson Wellesianism seems correct: The scene, an immense inventory of discarded time machines, is reminiscent of the final scenes of ''Citizen Kane'' which show Kane's enormous collection of objects in rows of stacks extending seemingly to infinity.

'''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.

transecular 
Adj "that is made through the centuries" (Portuguese) [[User:Btchakir|Btchakir]] 16:48, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Rather than troubling to search for a Portuguese word, isn't it more likely that Asimov or Pynchon coined this in a nearly trivial way? ''Trans,'' across, plus ''secular,'' ages or centuries (from Latin [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=s&p=11 ''sæculum,''] an age, a generation, 120 years; also yielding French ''siècle,'' a century).

'''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. [http://www.asimovonline.com/ Asimov Home Page] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issac_Asimov Isaac Asimov].

'''Tempomorph''' 
Tempo + morph = Time change

'''Q-98s''' 
FM station? The weapon used by Loony Tunes character Marvin the Martian is called the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

'''Flow''' 
Flow of Time.

'''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. [http://dict.die.net/packfong/ packfong].

'''The Ball in Hand''' 
[[#balinhan|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''.

Notice that at Candlebrow, the conferences converged to a "form' of Eternal Return. The almost instantaneous way the conferees can be "resurrected' and seem never to age, makes this form of the Eternal
Return a lot like Never-Never Land. 
A-and perhaps a Pynchon jape at Nietzsche's vision of history?

==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. Herein a 'parable' drawn from the flowing of a literal river, by some Candlbrow conferees.

Cf. "The River of Time" (first published in 1981 as "Coexistence" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine) 

Cf. M&D's "in America, time is a river that goes through hell"

Cf. Heraclitus's Flux and Fire Philosophy. [http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/heraclitus.html]

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

Symmes Street = Symmetry ?

'''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.

also used to describe a very large penis. Judging from the "disreputable" nature of the Ball in Hand, it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to imagine Polish comedians hitting themselves over the head with their own appendages.

'''fantan''' 
Traditional Chinese gambling game; also a card game [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-Tan].

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

'''magenta-and-green''' 
Clashing-colors motif. This combination appears in a bandana in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] (Viking p. 69 line 14). 
Life colors in Pynchon, it might be argued?, as is a bandana. 
The clashing of (anarchic) life motif, maybe? 

magenta is a color that was renamed for a battle, the Battle of Magenta!
see wikipedia.

There's something else striking about magenta and green: In the field of [http://www.rgbworld.com/color.html color mixing,] these are complementary in the sense that magenta results from filtering all the green out of white light and vice versa. Green is an additive primary (red-green-blue), while magenta is a subtractive primary (cyan-magenta-yellow). This does not hold for some other ''AtD'' color schemes (red/indigo comes to mind, but there are a dozen or so of these binary combinations).

==Page 411==

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

'''Hawaiian volcano''' 
Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, established in 1916, displays the results of 70 million years of volcanism, migration, and evolution — processes that thrust a bare land from the sea and clothed it with complex and unique ecosystems, and a distinct human culture.

The park encompasses 333,000 acres and ranges from sea level to the summit of the earth's most massive volcano, Mauna Loa at 13,677 feet. ''Kilauea, the world's most active volcano, offers scientists insights on the birth of the Hawaiian Islands'' and visitors views of dramatic volcanic landscapes. Over half of the park is designated wilderness and provides unique hiking and camping opportunities.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity Wikipedia]. Pynchon refers to the fact that this work was underway and 'in the air' at the time of the novel. [[Bohr, Mach, Einstein, et al.|History and Discussion...]]

Notice how, among this stellar cast of scientists, Wells seems to be placed above the rest (cf: "Mr. Wells himself"), as if the writer of fiction trumped "real" scientists when it came to the idea of time travel.

'''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 [http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html The Unreality of Time (1)] and other information [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time The Unreality of Time (2)].

'''the McTaggartite''' 
disciple of Mctaggart?

'''neo-Augustinian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo St. Augustine of Hippo] (354-430), in his autobiographical [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions/confessions.html ''Confessions''], is credited with reconceptualizing the notion of time in Christian terms. Throyle, on [[ATD 119-148#Page 143|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 [[ATD E|'''Eschatology''']].

<div id="pudding">'''fatal steamed pudding'''</div>
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?

<div id="stearinery">'''Old Stearinery Bell Tower'''</div>
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." [http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Procter-amp;-Gamble-Company-Company-History.html]

==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".

Hmm... maybe Chick is implying that he and Meatman are indeed of the same cloth, not bound by the earthly realm, the former spending most of his time in the air and the latter being able to travel to other dimensions.

'''other Promise... resurrected... two millennia''' 
???
:maybe this refers simply to the Resurrection (and therefore the end of Time); the Promise is that the trumpet (Chick's?) shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.

God's promise of eternal life vs. Time Travel's promise of making you immortal.

'''speaking trumpet''' 
Brass forerunner of the megaphone. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1671RSPT....6.3056M Abstract] of a 1671 paper; [http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conMediaFile.2647 photo] of a ship's speaking trumpet, 1799; [http://www.auroraregionalfiremuseum.org/giftshop/1850figure/source/horn.htm 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''' 
A penumbra is the outer and lighter part of the shadow created by an eclipse. "Penumbrae" is the plural form.

'''quiescence''' 
His name suggests a purveyor of meat, and he does "deliver" Chick to Mr. Ace.

==Page 415==

'''"Mr. Ace"''' 
This could be a nod to the 1946 film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038752/ ''Mr. Ace''] starring Sylvia Sidney and George Raft who plays Eddie Ace, the head man of a crooked political machine who intends to scuttle the gubernatorial campaign of female senator Margaret Wyndham Chase (Sylvia Sidney). He uses every dirty trick in the book to destroy Margaret, but she perseveres on the strength of sheer honesty and integrity. Through her example, Ace mends his own ways, earning Margaret's love as a bonus, and he helps her to run as an independent on a clean-government ticket.

It may, more specifically, refer to the old-time radio show called ''The Cases of Mr. Ace'' which had a very limited run mostly on WNEW in New York in the late forties. Raft played Eddie Ace, the sole owner of Ace Detective Agency on 6th Avenue. In the episode from June 25, 1945, Ace described one gangster thus:

:"The face of a small fragile old man. His hair was glossy and deep black. His eyes were glossy and deep black."

Compare this to Pynchon's Mr. Ace: "Glossy black eyes, presented like weapons in a duel."

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

'''Those of us who spoke this truth were denounced as heretics''' 
Yes, the old Pynchon theme of those in control, the oligarchs, silencing the counterforce.

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''' 
Cf. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Brooks_Adams Henry Adams], author of ''The Virgin and The Dynamo''. Pynchon has written of being influenced deeply by Adams, and his ideas are particularly evident in Pynchon's [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''].

'''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.

Electrical short is certainly relevant. The mistranslation is a kind-of short-circuit, then he gets the right phrase from his data bank. Bit like C3P0 in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars ''Star Wars'']?

'''You are not aware that each of your mission assignments is intended to prevent some attempt of our own to enter your time-regime.''' 
Aha! A little peek into the True Mission of the Chums. Time to take another look at those various adventures:

* ''Chums of Chance and The Evil Halfwit'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance and The Curse of the Great Kahuna'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance at Krakatoa'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance Search for Atlantis'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance in Old Mexico'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_7|p.7]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Bowels of the Earth'' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|p.117]])
* ''The Chums of Chance and the Ice Pirates'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''The Chums of Chance Nearly Crash into the Kremlin'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth'' ([[ATD_199-218#Page_214|p.214]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Caged Women of Yokahama'' ([[ATD_397-428#Page_411|p.411]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Wrath of the Yellow Fang'' ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page_1019|p.1019]])

==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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto 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 [[ATD_219-242#Page 238|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 [http://www.entropylaw.com/ 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 [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''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.

Right: And what about the biggest trespasser of all - the author himself. After all, he's the one who can offer them immortality.

'''I see them ''pointing something'' back at me not exactly a weapon an enigmatic object.''' 
Hmmm. Could this have anything to do with the [[Q-weapon_and_Photography|Q-weapon]]?

— – – mmm... does anyone think that it might be just a remote control, and that the window through which the trespassers and the Chums see each other might be just a TV set? [[[User:Sonni|Sonni]] 09:19, 21 February 2008 (PST)]

==Page 418==

'''Trespass''' 
With a capital T.

'''evidence... everywhere''' 
Cf [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Crying of Lot 49''].

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

'''contracts''' 
With Devil.
More specifically, like Faust with Mephistopheles.

'''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.
Clearly it's mutable, a kind of mirage. And surely there's a resonance with 'laughing academy'? And a hint of the Hogwarts train in 'Harry Potter'?

==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"''' 
[http://hetzler.homestead.com/NBCakeWalk.html A cakewalk song] written in 1899.

'''consecrated''' 
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/consecrate] "1. To declare or set apart as sacred: consecrate a church."

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Romanesque 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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism]

'''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"''' 
???

'''Yippy dippy dippy, doo!''' 
cf. ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (p. 66) where Slothrop goes down the toilet after, appropriately, a harmonica.

'''Now, it ain't that I wouldn't, 'cause I can but I won't,''' 
'''And I would if I wasn't, but I am so I don't''' 
This sounds very similar to a lyric from Frank Zappa's 'Stink-Foot:'

He said:
"IT DOESN'T, 'n YOU CAN'T!

I WON'T, 'n IT DON'T!

IT HASN'T, IT ISN'T, IT EVEN AIN'T

'N IT SHOULDN'T . . .

IT COULDN'T!"

He told me NO NO NO!

I told him YES YES YES!

I said: "I do it all the time . . .

Ain't this boogie a mess!"

'''difficult vocal feat''' 
???

'''segueing''' 
A deejaying term for moving from one song/track to another with no noticeable break if done correctly. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow,''] Viking p. 70, line 36, where the phonetic spelling "segway" appears.

'''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. [http://www.hohnerusa.com/hchromatic.htm Examples].

'''Pitch Integrity Guard''' 
To prevent tampering with the notes in the ways described below - i.e. monitoring any tendency towards the 'Negroid'. 
= PIG - pigs long have held a fascination over Pynchon. 
A-and a Pitch Integrity Guard is a kind of cop, right? 

'''harmonica-reed files''' 
Filing the reeds would alter the notes slightly, allowing you to get 'in-between' notes that aren't in the normal major or minor scale.

'''sucking the tonic chords...Negroid sound''' 
Standard technique for playing blues harmonica ('harp'), also known as cross-blowing. The sucked notes are easier to 'bend' and wail with, so you can get the blues 'third', not quite minor, not quite major. Another technique that helps you get the 'Negroid sound' is soaking the harmonica, which gives the reeds a rougher, more bendable quality. That's probably the point of the 'late night visits to the latrine'. Compare with GR, where Slothrop (at college!) loses his harmonica down the toilet (he finds it much later in a stream in Germany! Gone back home, so to speak). There's a harmonica-soaking scene in Pennebaker's Dylan film 'Don't look Back'.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of folk wisdom that piss is even better than water for soaking the harp. Pee-culiar.

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Offenbach Jacques Offenbach] (1819-1880). 
The lyrics of which are not entirely irrelevant: 
And if we meet a helpless woo-o-man 
Or little boys who do no harm 
We run them in, we run them in, 
We run them in, we run them in 
Because we are the bold gen-darmes! 

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

'''vapor bearing...minerals''' 
Rows of mirrors facing each other (thus creating regular patterns, "chaining away for uncounted leagues") have been stained with images formed by regular use: breath, tiny bits of toothpaste or powder ("atomized dentifrice"), "shaving preparations," and mineral deposits from tapwater.

'''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==

'''revisit places where destinies took a wrong turn, or revisit in dreams the dreaming body of one loved more than either might have known...''' 
As far as we know, none of the Chums has actually experienced this. Sounds to me like an allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust Faust] and Gretchen/Marguerite, since this actually happens in several of the Faust versions. Especially in the context of the Faustian bargain they have made with Mr. Ace.

'''None of them...''' 
Cf [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi#The_butterfly_dream Chuang Tzu's dream]: is he a man dreaming he's a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he's a man? On the rhetorical level of the story, this passage reiterates the dreamlike, near-delusional nature of the Chums' latest escape from what seems to have become their most dangerous foe. (418: "As if in a dream...").

'''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''' 
Songs and humor in which African-Americans were stereotyped (as lazy, immoral, stupid, vain, etc.) and held in contempt. The most popular coon song, though, was written by an African-American, Ernest Hogan; titled "All Coons Look Alike to Me," it has an ''AtD'' resonance. Coon material was extremely popular between about 1880 and 1910; stripped of the word "coon," a diluted form still appears nightly on your TV. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_song Wikipedia] has a strikingly good article. For a partial list of coon references in ''AtD,'' [[ATD_26-56#Page_48|see annotation to p. 48.]]

'''isotropy''' 
the quality or condition of being equal along all directions. For more technical information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotropy isotropy].

'''presently''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb R. Crumb] did a comic like this: [http://crumbproducts.com/prints_images/sha.gif pic] 
Nice find. That comic succintly summarizes TRP's view of the effects of railroads and "civilization."

'''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"''' 
Music and lyrics by Charles K. Harris. This number was interpolated into the score of the hit musical ''A Trip to Chinatown'' (1892) during its record-setting Broadway run. It was introduced by J. Aldrich Libbey. When Kern and Hammerstein wanted to add period flavor to ''Show Boat'' (1927), they used "After the Ball" in the Trocadero scene where it was performed by Norma Terris. [[After the Ball|Read the lyrics...]]

See also the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_174-177 pantomime song] in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (pages 174-175):
<blockquote>"And the lamps in the stairway are dying, 
It's the season just after the ball . . ."</blockquote>

'''Bukhara''' 
Either the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Bukhara Emirate of Bukhara], a former country in Central Asia or its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara capital]

'''T.D.Y.''' 
Abbrevation for Temporary Duty. [http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r614_11.pdf 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxaul Wikipedia] [http://www.pbase.com/william_sokolenko/image/68724037 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 [http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/weedfeeders/toadflax.html invasive plant species]

'''Hypopsammotic... Hypops''' 
''Hypo-'' (under) + ''psammot-'' (sand, from Greek ''psammos'') + ''-ic.'' Pynchon explains the device's function on the next page (426).

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality dual (wave/particle) nature of light].

==Page 427==

'''temporarily lapsing into English''' 
Contrasts with the technical jargon the Chums have been steeped in over the past few days, including lectures by Roswell Bounce (they're only boys, after all). Often, mathematicians, physicists, and their students fail to explain their theories "in English." This little phrase can be taken as a professorial joke, aimed at both the author (for always coming back to obscure or difficult theories) and the reader (for never understanding them). 
I thought it was contrasting with Miles' frequent babbling habit. 

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

'''X.O.''' 
The Executive Officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the Commanding Officer (CO).

'''legalistic''' 
Yes, Darby is now Legal Counsel.

==Page 428==
'''ill-starred Bell Tower''' 
Referring back of course to the [[#stearinery|Old Stearinery Bell Tower]] and the [[#pudding|Fatal Pudding]], and in turn to the [[Campanile]].

:The Campanile picture has me wondering. According to the sources, the old picture of the collapse of the Campanile is actually a fake. And it doesn't have the airship. It's a fun picture, but what is its status? There doesn't seem to be an appropriate place for this information in the wiki, or have I missed something?

:The Campanile picture is an illustration. Doubtful that anyone had their camera all set up for the awesome event. The airship was photoshopped in for, um, color...

::See also last paragraph of page 255.

Cf. Renata's tarot reading on [[ATD 243-272#Page 253|p. 253]], the last card of which is The Tower.

Cf. ''The Bell-Tower'' by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville Herman Melville], a famous short story from ''The Piazza Tales'' (1856) 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. [http://www.melville.org/belltowr.htm Full text of ''The Bell-Tower'']

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 397-428

2009-04-12T12:58:57Z

Bobutler: /* Page 406 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==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.]

Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy. [http://earlyradiohistory.us/1901ayrt.htm Ayrton Prediction]. Electrical Review, June 29, 1901, p. 820.

'''street-Arab''' 
a homeless boy who has been abandoned and roams the streets.
[http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn 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. [http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/commemoratives/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=premodern]

'''"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''' 
A muster of the ship's company at the end of the day. 
Is this at 1800 Hours?

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.G._Wells Wikipedia entry].

'''jeu d'esprit''' 
French: play of wits. Witticism.
Here, Lindsay places Wells' masterful Time Machine (see above) in opposition with the more flashy and vulgar versions ("adulterated") of time travel offered in dime novels. Interesting that this comment would be made by someone who is himself a character in a dime novel.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprest_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". [http://imdb.com/title/tt0074256/ IMDb]

==Page 399==

'''indigo... yellow''' 
Clashing-colors motif. Bright full-of-life colors.

'''dicer''' 
A hat [http://books.google.com/books?id=CUQSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=dicer+hat&source=web&ots=3K_D1BkmBP&sig=xhzWDfgmMitS2mGUzL4ee8MHzTo], perhaps of the style now known as "baseball cap"[http://www.skateamerica.com/store/KR3W-Youth-Hat-Dicer-Black-ID_P15118C62.cfm].

'''opopanax and vervain''' 
Two fragrant, medicinal substances derived from flowering plants. They bloom yellow and violet, respectively. Wikipedia pages for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opoponax opopanax] and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vervain vervain].
:Though Wikipedia prefers the spelling ''opoponax'', the ''OED'' suggests Pynchon's.

'''contrabass saxophone''' 
A spectacular piece of hardware, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone#Members_of_the_saxophone_family 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'. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_pan_alley 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." <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd Ed. 1989.</ref>

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "houris" is the plural of 'houri', as defined above.

'''Darby''' 
Over 21yo, if he's aged.

'''chanteuse''' 
A female singer of popular songs, esp. in France. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

==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.

''OED'' Oblique, not straightforward. Also, dubious, shifty, disreputable. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''"jazz"''' 
The ''OED'' suggests that the spelling here was always more popular than ''jass'', as used on [[Pages 358-373#Page 370|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone Wikipedia.]

==Page 402==

'''solenoidal relay''' 
Solenoid: a cylindrical 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 the 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) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch) 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 [[ATD_919-945#Page 934|later in ''Against the Day'']]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha 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.
Refers specifically to the "passenger seat", separated from the main saddle. Also applies to motorcycle riding where the small passenger seat is called a "pillion". Metonymically, pillion can be used to describe the passenger.

'''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 [[#Page 407|"Smegmo,"]] the "Messiah of kitchen fats" (Imperial Margarine was advertised as "The King of Margarines") [http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asmegma&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official smegma] is the "cheesy secretion" that collects atop the "candlebrow" beneath the foreskin. [[ATD 374-396#Page 374|Ewball Oust's name]] has similar connotations.

Maybe I'm pointing out the obvious, but it seems to me like Pynchon's way of saying Dickhead University. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''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?)

:Or possibly a sexual ''double entendre''...consistent with the [[The Sexual Angle|rampant sexuality]] in ''AtD''. Why, several double-dome images come to mind, almost faster than "egghead"...

:also possibly a reference to numerous "mad scientist" contraptions that connect two (unwilling?) patients, hooked together by metallic helmets (domes), in order to "switch" "souls" from one body to another. Seems far-fetched, but in a book dominated by the idea of dopplegangers created by the refraction from Iceland spar, not so much...

'''drumming''' 
Traveling salesmanship.

<div id="balinhan"></div>'''a saloon down by the river called the Ball in Hand''' 
The Ball in Hand isn't the river, it's the saloon. Still, the name does have an English ring to it. The Bird in Hand is a common pub name in Britain.

Another cricket allusion? If so, rather obvious. Surely a straightforward sexual joke.
:Oh yes. As discussed a couple paragraphs down!

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 [[ATD_26-56#Page_26|aigrette.]] Or a more carnal connotation, not anachronistic at all. Or fortunetelling. These remote connections do make cricket sound pretty good:

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 [[The Sexual Angle|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''. [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzb01800.html]

<div id="meatman">'''Alonzo Meatman'''</div>
Meatman translated to German is Fleischmann, as in [http://www.fleischmanns.com/products/index.jsp 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. [[Meat Man|Read the lyrics...]]. And there ''are'' those [[ATD 57-80#Page 73|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 [[ATD 397-428#Page 398|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imum_Coeli Wikipedia entry]

'''rusticated''' 
Of masonry, parts of buildings, etc.: Rendered rustic in appearance. <ref>Def. 3a. '''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''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.) 

Since Gideon had to testify before congress about it, said Scandal must have happened in the States. He seems to have shipped lard that was deemed too "adulterated" to be sold in the US to good old Britain, thereby, as Pynchon puts it with a good dose of mean-spirited humor, "compromising further an already debased national cuisine". What did he use to adulterate the lard? The secret ingredient in Smegmo, maybe?

In [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5#113 ''V.''] Pynchon mentions the "Great Sewer Scandal of 1955."

'''Christmas pudding controversy'''' 
Lard could certainly be used while making Christmas Pudding, aka Plum Pudding [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pudding Wikipedia entry], the quintessential British holiday treat. The traditional ingredient, though, is suet. Some families might have tried to substitute lard in the recipe, which would have radically altered the taste of the pudding, sparking bitter fights about the importance of culinary tradition. Could this "controversy" be a metaphor of the effects of American cultural imperialism? Maybe I should just do a taste test...

==Page 407==

'''"Smegmo"''' 
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma 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."
[http://www.crisco.com/about/history/1930.asp]

"Smegm"a + crisc "O" = Smegmo

:Interesting(?) sideline: Here in Denmark the slang word for smegma is 'nakkeost' -i.e. 'neck-cheese'. And of course anyone who's seen 'Red Dwarf' will know about the current British use of 'smeg' (Not smeggin'likely, get the smeg outa here! Smeg off!). What do Americans call it?

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? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisco]

Also P&G was founded as a candle (Procter) and soap (Gamble) company, making profits from the fat of slaughtered pigs in "Porkopolis," Cincinnati.

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

Cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_525-556 cottonseed oil] p. 546.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham 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 [http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/ 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine 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.] ...

'''sophomoric slogs''' 
Slog can be a forceful hit and a Cricket term. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slog Link]

'''nooky''' 
"nooky" is synonymous with "pussy" both of which are used metonymically to denote either the sex act or, in this case, women who are desirable as sex partners.

'''1925 or thereabouts''' 
Lindsay's unfamiliarity with the term "nooky" ''could'' 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'' (the ''Shorter OED'' prefers "nooky"). However, the term was certainly in the vernacular long before it made it into the ''OED'' and is speculated to be of British origin, perhaps derived from "nugging" (having sex) or "nook" which a vagina could be considered, I suppose.

Most likely a simple "chummy" joke, implying that poor old Lindsay wouldn't get to experience the pleasures of the flesh for another 25 years. Considering that the Chums don't seem to age, I really can't say how old he will be when the blessed event finally comes.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Finney 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'' [http://www.snpp.com/guides/homer.file.html#strangle], 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.

:Orson Wellesianism seems correct: The scene, an immense inventory of discarded time machines, is reminiscent of the final scenes of ''Citizen Kane'' which show Kane's enormous collection of objects in rows of stacks extending seemingly to infinity.

'''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.

transecular 
Adj "that is made through the centuries" (Portuguese) [[User:Btchakir|Btchakir]] 16:48, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Rather than troubling to search for a Portuguese word, isn't it more likely that Asimov or Pynchon coined this in a nearly trivial way? ''Trans,'' across, plus ''secular,'' ages or centuries (from Latin [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=s&p=11 ''sæculum,''] an age, a generation, 120 years; also yielding French ''siècle,'' a century).

'''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. [http://www.asimovonline.com/ Asimov Home Page] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issac_Asimov Isaac Asimov].

'''Tempomorph''' 
Tempo + morph = Time change

'''Q-98s''' 
FM station? The weapon used by Loony Tunes character Marvin the Martian is called the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

'''Flow''' 
Flow of Time.

'''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. [http://dict.die.net/packfong/ packfong].

'''The Ball in Hand''' 
[[#balinhan|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''.

Notice that at Candlebrow, the conferences converged to a "form' of Eternal Return. The almost instantaneous way the conferees can be "resurrected' and seem never to age, makes this form of the Eternal
Return a lot like Never-Never Land. 
A-and perhaps a Pynchon jape at Nietzsche's vision of history?

==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. Herein a 'parable' drawn from the flowing of a literal river, by some Candlbrow conferees.

Cf. "The River of Time" (first published in 1981 as "Coexistence" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine) 

Cf. M&D's "in America, time is a river that goes through hell"

Cf. Heraclitus's Flux and Fire Philosophy. [http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/heraclitus.html]

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

Symmes Street = Symmetry ?

'''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.

also used to describe a very large penis. Judging from the "disreputable" nature of the Ball in Hand, it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to imagine Polish comedians hitting themselves over the head with their own appendages.

'''fantan''' 
Traditional Chinese gambling game; also a card game [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-Tan].

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

'''magenta-and-green''' 
Clashing-colors motif. This combination appears in a bandana in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] (Viking p. 69 line 14). 
Life colors in Pynchon, it might be argued?, as is a bandana. 
The clashing of (anarchic) life motif, maybe? 

magenta is a color that was renamed for a battle, the Battle of Magenta!
see wikipedia.

There's something else striking about magenta and green: In the field of [http://www.rgbworld.com/color.html color mixing,] these are complementary in the sense that magenta results from filtering all the green out of white light and vice versa. Green is an additive primary (red-green-blue), while magenta is a subtractive primary (cyan-magenta-yellow). This does not hold for some other ''AtD'' color schemes (red/indigo comes to mind, but there are a dozen or so of these binary combinations).

==Page 411==

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

'''Hawaiian volcano''' 
Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, established in 1916, displays the results of 70 million years of volcanism, migration, and evolution — processes that thrust a bare land from the sea and clothed it with complex and unique ecosystems, and a distinct human culture.

The park encompasses 333,000 acres and ranges from sea level to the summit of the earth's most massive volcano, Mauna Loa at 13,677 feet. ''Kilauea, the world's most active volcano, offers scientists insights on the birth of the Hawaiian Islands'' and visitors views of dramatic volcanic landscapes. Over half of the park is designated wilderness and provides unique hiking and camping opportunities.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity Wikipedia]. Pynchon refers to the fact that this work was underway and 'in the air' at the time of the novel. [[Bohr, Mach, Einstein, et al.|History and Discussion...]]

Notice how, among this stellar cast of scientists, Wells seems to be placed above the rest (cf: "Mr. Wells himself"), as if the writer of fiction trumped "real" scientists when it came to the idea of time travel.

'''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 [http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html The Unreality of Time (1)] and other information [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time The Unreality of Time (2)].

'''the McTaggartite''' 
disciple of Mctaggart?

'''neo-Augustinian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo St. Augustine of Hippo] (354-430), in his autobiographical [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions/confessions.html ''Confessions''], is credited with reconceptualizing the notion of time in Christian terms. Throyle, on [[ATD 119-148#Page 143|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 [[ATD E|'''Eschatology''']].

<div id="pudding">'''fatal steamed pudding'''</div>
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?

<div id="stearinery">'''Old Stearinery Bell Tower'''</div>
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." [http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Procter-amp;-Gamble-Company-Company-History.html]

==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".

Hmm... maybe Chick is implying that he and Meatman are indeed of the same cloth, not bound by the earthly realm, the former spending most of his time in the air and the latter being able to travel to other dimensions.

'''other Promise... resurrected... two millennia''' 
???
:maybe this refers simply to the Resurrection (and therefore the end of Time); the Promise is that the trumpet (Chick's?) shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.

God's promise of eternal life vs. Time Travel's promise of making you immortal.

'''speaking trumpet''' 
Brass forerunner of the megaphone. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1671RSPT....6.3056M Abstract] of a 1671 paper; [http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conMediaFile.2647 photo] of a ship's speaking trumpet, 1799; [http://www.auroraregionalfiremuseum.org/giftshop/1850figure/source/horn.htm 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''' 
A penumbra is the outer and lighter part of the shadow created by an eclipse. "Penumbrae" is the plural form.

'''quiescence''' 
His name suggests a purveyor of meat, and he does "deliver" Chick to Mr. Ace.

==Page 415==

'''"Mr. Ace"''' 
This could be a nod to the 1946 film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038752/ ''Mr. Ace''] starring Sylvia Sidney and George Raft who plays Eddie Ace, the head man of a crooked political machine who intends to scuttle the gubernatorial campaign of female senator Margaret Wyndham Chase (Sylvia Sidney). He uses every dirty trick in the book to destroy Margaret, but she perseveres on the strength of sheer honesty and integrity. Through her example, Ace mends his own ways, earning Margaret's love as a bonus, and he helps her to run as an independent on a clean-government ticket.

It may, more specifically, refer to the old-time radio show called ''The Cases of Mr. Ace'' which had a very limited run mostly on WNEW in New York in the late forties. Raft played Eddie Ace, the sole owner of Ace Detective Agency on 6th Avenue. In the episode from June 25, 1945, Ace described one gangster thus:

:"The face of a small fragile old man. His hair was glossy and deep black. His eyes were glossy and deep black."

Compare this to Pynchon's Mr. Ace: "Glossy black eyes, presented like weapons in a duel."

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

'''Those of us who spoke this truth were denounced as heretics''' 
Yes, the old Pynchon theme of those in control, the oligarchs, silencing the counterforce.

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''' 
Cf. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Brooks_Adams Henry Adams], author of ''The Virgin and The Dynamo''. Pynchon has written of being influenced deeply by Adams, and his ideas are particularly evident in Pynchon's [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''].

'''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.

Electrical short is certainly relevant. The mistranslation is a kind-of short-circuit, then he gets the right phrase from his data bank. Bit like C3P0 in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars ''Star Wars'']?

'''You are not aware that each of your mission assignments is intended to prevent some attempt of our own to enter your time-regime.''' 
Aha! A little peek into the True Mission of the Chums. Time to take another look at those various adventures:

* ''Chums of Chance and The Evil Halfwit'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance and The Curse of the Great Kahuna'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance at Krakatoa'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance Search for Atlantis'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance in Old Mexico'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_7|p.7]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Bowels of the Earth'' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|p.117]])
* ''The Chums of Chance and the Ice Pirates'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''The Chums of Chance Nearly Crash into the Kremlin'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth'' ([[ATD_199-218#Page_214|p.214]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Caged Women of Yokahama'' ([[ATD_397-428#Page_411|p.411]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Wrath of the Yellow Fang'' ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page_1019|p.1019]])

==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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto 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 [[ATD_219-242#Page 238|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 [http://www.entropylaw.com/ 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 [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''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.

Right: And what about the biggest trespasser of all - the author himself. After all, he's the one who can offer them immortality.

'''I see them ''pointing something'' back at me not exactly a weapon an enigmatic object.''' 
Hmmm. Could this have anything to do with the [[Q-weapon_and_Photography|Q-weapon]]?

— – – mmm... does anyone think that it might be just a remote control, and that the window through which the trespassers and the Chums see each other might be just a TV set? [[[User:Sonni|Sonni]] 09:19, 21 February 2008 (PST)]

==Page 418==

'''Trespass''' 
With a capital T.

'''evidence... everywhere''' 
Cf [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Crying of Lot 49''].

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

'''contracts''' 
With Devil.
More specifically, like Faust with Mephistopheles.

'''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.
Clearly it's mutable, a kind of mirage. And surely there's a resonance with 'laughing academy'? And a hint of the Hogwarts train in 'Harry Potter'?

==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"''' 
[http://hetzler.homestead.com/NBCakeWalk.html A cakewalk song] written in 1899.

'''consecrated''' 
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/consecrate] "1. To declare or set apart as sacred: consecrate a church."

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Romanesque 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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism]

'''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"''' 
???

'''Yippy dippy dippy, doo!''' 
cf. ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (p. 66) where Slothrop goes down the toilet after, appropriately, a harmonica.

'''Now, it ain't that I wouldn't, 'cause I can but I won't,''' 
'''And I would if I wasn't, but I am so I don't''' 
This sounds very similar to a lyric from Frank Zappa's 'Stink-Foot:'

He said:
"IT DOESN'T, 'n YOU CAN'T!

I WON'T, 'n IT DON'T!

IT HASN'T, IT ISN'T, IT EVEN AIN'T

'N IT SHOULDN'T . . .

IT COULDN'T!"

He told me NO NO NO!

I told him YES YES YES!

I said: "I do it all the time . . .

Ain't this boogie a mess!"

'''difficult vocal feat''' 
???

'''segueing''' 
A deejaying term for moving from one song/track to another with no noticeable break if done correctly. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow,''] Viking p. 70, line 36, where the phonetic spelling "segway" appears.

'''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. [http://www.hohnerusa.com/hchromatic.htm Examples].

'''Pitch Integrity Guard''' 
To prevent tampering with the notes in the ways described below - i.e. monitoring any tendency towards the 'Negroid'. 
= PIG - pigs long have held a fascination over Pynchon. 
A-and a Pitch Integrity Guard is a kind of cop, right? 

'''harmonica-reed files''' 
Filing the reeds would alter the notes slightly, allowing you to get 'in-between' notes that aren't in the normal major or minor scale.

'''sucking the tonic chords...Negroid sound''' 
Standard technique for playing blues harmonica ('harp'), also known as cross-blowing. The sucked notes are easier to 'bend' and wail with, so you can get the blues 'third', not quite minor, not quite major. Another technique that helps you get the 'Negroid sound' is soaking the harmonica, which gives the reeds a rougher, more bendable quality. That's probably the point of the 'late night visits to the latrine'. Compare with GR, where Slothrop (at college!) loses his harmonica down the toilet (he finds it much later in a stream in Germany! Gone back home, so to speak). There's a harmonica-soaking scene in Pennebaker's Dylan film 'Don't look Back'.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of folk wisdom that piss is even better than water for soaking the harp. Pee-culiar.

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Offenbach Jacques Offenbach] (1819-1880). 
The lyrics of which are not entirely irrelevant: 
And if we meet a helpless woo-o-man 
Or little boys who do no harm 
We run them in, we run them in, 
We run them in, we run them in 
Because we are the bold gen-darmes! 

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

'''vapor bearing...minerals''' 
Rows of mirrors facing each other (thus creating regular patterns, "chaining away for uncounted leagues") have been stained with images formed by regular use: breath, tiny bits of toothpaste or powder ("atomized dentifrice"), "shaving preparations," and mineral deposits from tapwater.

'''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==

'''revisit places where destinies took a wrong turn, or revisit in dreams the dreaming body of one loved more than either might have known...''' 
As far as we know, none of the Chums has actually experienced this. Sounds to me like an allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust Faust] and Gretchen/Marguerite, since this actually happens in several of the Faust versions. Especially in the context of the Faustian bargain they have made with Mr. Ace.

'''None of them...''' 
Cf [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi#The_butterfly_dream Chuang Tzu's dream]: is he a man dreaming he's a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he's a man? On the rhetorical level of the story, this passage reiterates the dreamlike, near-delusional nature of the Chums' latest escape from what seems to have become their most dangerous foe. (418: "As if in a dream...").

'''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''' 
Songs and humor in which African-Americans were stereotyped (as lazy, immoral, stupid, vain, etc.) and held in contempt. The most popular coon song, though, was written by an African-American, Ernest Hogan; titled "All Coons Look Alike to Me," it has an ''AtD'' resonance. Coon material was extremely popular between about 1880 and 1910; stripped of the word "coon," a diluted form still appears nightly on your TV. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_song Wikipedia] has a strikingly good article. For a partial list of coon references in ''AtD,'' [[ATD_26-56#Page_48|see annotation to p. 48.]]

'''isotropy''' 
the quality or condition of being equal along all directions. For more technical information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotropy isotropy].

'''presently''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb R. Crumb] did a comic like this: [http://crumbproducts.com/prints_images/sha.gif pic] 
Nice find. That comic succintly summarizes TRP's view of the effects of railroads and "civilization."

'''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"''' 
Music and lyrics by Charles K. Harris. This number was interpolated into the score of the hit musical ''A Trip to Chinatown'' (1892) during its record-setting Broadway run. It was introduced by J. Aldrich Libbey. When Kern and Hammerstein wanted to add period flavor to ''Show Boat'' (1927), they used "After the Ball" in the Trocadero scene where it was performed by Norma Terris. [[After the Ball|Read the lyrics...]]

See also the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_174-177 pantomime song] in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (pages 174-175):
<blockquote>"And the lamps in the stairway are dying, 
It's the season just after the ball . . ."</blockquote>

'''Bukhara''' 
Either the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Bukhara Emirate of Bukhara], a former country in Central Asia or its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara capital]

'''T.D.Y.''' 
Abbrevation for Temporary Duty. [http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r614_11.pdf 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxaul Wikipedia] [http://www.pbase.com/william_sokolenko/image/68724037 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 [http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/weedfeeders/toadflax.html invasive plant species]

'''Hypopsammotic... Hypops''' 
''Hypo-'' (under) + ''psammot-'' (sand, from Greek ''psammos'') + ''-ic.'' Pynchon explains the device's function on the next page (426).

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality dual (wave/particle) nature of light].

==Page 427==

'''temporarily lapsing into English''' 
Contrasts with the technical jargon the Chums have been steeped in over the past few days, including lectures by Roswell Bounce (they're only boys, after all). Often, mathematicians, physicists, and their students fail to explain their theories "in English." This little phrase can be taken as a professorial joke, aimed at both the author (for always coming back to obscure or difficult theories) and the reader (for never understanding them). 
I thought it was contrasting with Miles' frequent babbling habit. 

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

'''X.O.''' 
The Executive Officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the Commanding Officer (CO).

'''legalistic''' 
Yes, Darby is now Legal Counsel.

==Page 428==
'''ill-starred Bell Tower''' 
Referring back of course to the [[#stearinery|Old Stearinery Bell Tower]] and the [[#pudding|Fatal Pudding]], and in turn to the [[Campanile]].

:The Campanile picture has me wondering. According to the sources, the old picture of the collapse of the Campanile is actually a fake. And it doesn't have the airship. It's a fun picture, but what is its status? There doesn't seem to be an appropriate place for this information in the wiki, or have I missed something?

:The Campanile picture is an illustration. Doubtful that anyone had their camera all set up for the awesome event. The airship was photoshopped in for, um, color...

::See also last paragraph of page 255.

Cf. Renata's tarot reading on [[ATD 243-272#Page 253|p. 253]], the last card of which is The Tower.

Cf. ''The Bell-Tower'' by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville Herman Melville], a famous short story from ''The Piazza Tales'' (1856) 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. [http://www.melville.org/belltowr.htm Full text of ''The Bell-Tower'']

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 397-428

2009-04-12T12:52:27Z

Bobutler: /* Page 400 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==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.]

Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy. [http://earlyradiohistory.us/1901ayrt.htm Ayrton Prediction]. Electrical Review, June 29, 1901, p. 820.

'''street-Arab''' 
a homeless boy who has been abandoned and roams the streets.
[http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn 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. [http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/commemoratives/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=premodern]

'''"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''' 
A muster of the ship's company at the end of the day. 
Is this at 1800 Hours?

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.G._Wells Wikipedia entry].

'''jeu d'esprit''' 
French: play of wits. Witticism.
Here, Lindsay places Wells' masterful Time Machine (see above) in opposition with the more flashy and vulgar versions ("adulterated") of time travel offered in dime novels. Interesting that this comment would be made by someone who is himself a character in a dime novel.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprest_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". [http://imdb.com/title/tt0074256/ IMDb]

==Page 399==

'''indigo... yellow''' 
Clashing-colors motif. Bright full-of-life colors.

'''dicer''' 
A hat [http://books.google.com/books?id=CUQSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=dicer+hat&source=web&ots=3K_D1BkmBP&sig=xhzWDfgmMitS2mGUzL4ee8MHzTo], perhaps of the style now known as "baseball cap"[http://www.skateamerica.com/store/KR3W-Youth-Hat-Dicer-Black-ID_P15118C62.cfm].

'''opopanax and vervain''' 
Two fragrant, medicinal substances derived from flowering plants. They bloom yellow and violet, respectively. Wikipedia pages for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opoponax opopanax] and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vervain vervain].
:Though Wikipedia prefers the spelling ''opoponax'', the ''OED'' suggests Pynchon's.

'''contrabass saxophone''' 
A spectacular piece of hardware, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone#Members_of_the_saxophone_family 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'. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_pan_alley 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." <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd Ed. 1989.</ref>

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "houris" is the plural of 'houri', as defined above.

'''Darby''' 
Over 21yo, if he's aged.

'''chanteuse''' 
A female singer of popular songs, esp. in France. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

==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.

''OED'' Oblique, not straightforward. Also, dubious, shifty, disreputable. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''"jazz"''' 
The ''OED'' suggests that the spelling here was always more popular than ''jass'', as used on [[Pages 358-373#Page 370|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone Wikipedia.]

==Page 402==

'''solenoidal relay''' 
Solenoid: a cylindrical 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 the 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) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch) 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 [[ATD_919-945#Page 934|later in ''Against the Day'']]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha 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.
Refers specifically to the "passenger seat", separated from the main saddle. Also applies to motorcycle riding where the small passenger seat is called a "pillion". Metonymically, pillion can be used to describe the passenger.

'''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 [[#Page 407|"Smegmo,"]] the "Messiah of kitchen fats" (Imperial Margarine was advertised as "The King of Margarines") [http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asmegma&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official smegma] is the "cheesy secretion" that collects atop the "candlebrow" beneath the foreskin. [[ATD 374-396#Page 374|Ewball Oust's name]] has similar connotations.

Maybe I'm pointing out the obvious, but it seems to me like Pynchon's way of saying Dickhead University. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''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?)

:Or possibly a sexual ''double entendre''...consistent with the [[The Sexual Angle|rampant sexuality]] in ''AtD''. Why, several double-dome images come to mind, almost faster than "egghead"...

:also possibly a reference to numerous "mad scientist" contraptions that connect two (unwilling?) patients, hooked together by metallic helmets (domes), in order to "switch" "souls" from one body to another. Seems far-fetched, but in a book dominated by the idea of dopplegangers created by the refraction from Iceland spar, not so much...

'''drumming''' 
Traveling salesmanship.

<div id="balinhan"></div>'''a saloon down by the river called the Ball in Hand''' 
The Ball in Hand isn't the river, it's the saloon. Still, the name does have an English ring to it. The Bird in Hand is a common pub name in Britain.

Another cricket allusion? If so, rather obvious. Surely a straightforward sexual joke.
:Oh yes. As discussed a couple paragraphs down!

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 [[ATD_26-56#Page_26|aigrette.]] Or a more carnal connotation, not anachronistic at all. Or fortunetelling. These remote connections do make cricket sound pretty good:

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 [[The Sexual Angle|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''. [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzb01800.html]

<div id="meatman">'''Alonzo Meatman'''</div>
Meatman translated to German is Fleischmann, as in [http://www.fleischmanns.com/products/index.jsp 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. [[Meat Man|Read the lyrics...]]. And there ''are'' those [[ATD 57-80#Page 73|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 [[ATD 397-428#Page 398|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imum_Coeli 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.) 

Since Gideon had to testify before congress about it, said Scandal must have happened in the States. He seems to have shipped lard that was deemed too "adulterated" to be sold in the US to good old Britain, thereby, as Pynchon puts it with a good dose of mean-spirited humor, "compromising further an already debased national cuisine". What did he use to adulterate the lard? The secret ingredient in Smegmo, maybe?

In [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5#113 ''V.''] Pynchon mentions the "Great Sewer Scandal of 1955."

'''Christmas pudding controversy'''' 
Lard could certainly be used while making Christmas Pudding, aka Plum Pudding [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pudding Wikipedia entry], the quintessential British holiday treat. The traditional ingredient, though, is suet. Some families might have tried to substitute lard in the recipe, which would have radically altered the taste of the pudding, sparking bitter fights about the importance of culinary tradition. Could this "controversy" be a metaphor of the effects of American cultural imperialism? Maybe I should just do a taste test...

==Page 407==

'''"Smegmo"''' 
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma 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."
[http://www.crisco.com/about/history/1930.asp]

"Smegm"a + crisc "O" = Smegmo

:Interesting(?) sideline: Here in Denmark the slang word for smegma is 'nakkeost' -i.e. 'neck-cheese'. And of course anyone who's seen 'Red Dwarf' will know about the current British use of 'smeg' (Not smeggin'likely, get the smeg outa here! Smeg off!). What do Americans call it?

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? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisco]

Also P&G was founded as a candle (Procter) and soap (Gamble) company, making profits from the fat of slaughtered pigs in "Porkopolis," Cincinnati.

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

Cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_525-556 cottonseed oil] p. 546.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham 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 [http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/ 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine 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.] ...

'''sophomoric slogs''' 
Slog can be a forceful hit and a Cricket term. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slog Link]

'''nooky''' 
"nooky" is synonymous with "pussy" both of which are used metonymically to denote either the sex act or, in this case, women who are desirable as sex partners.

'''1925 or thereabouts''' 
Lindsay's unfamiliarity with the term "nooky" ''could'' 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'' (the ''Shorter OED'' prefers "nooky"). However, the term was certainly in the vernacular long before it made it into the ''OED'' and is speculated to be of British origin, perhaps derived from "nugging" (having sex) or "nook" which a vagina could be considered, I suppose.

Most likely a simple "chummy" joke, implying that poor old Lindsay wouldn't get to experience the pleasures of the flesh for another 25 years. Considering that the Chums don't seem to age, I really can't say how old he will be when the blessed event finally comes.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Finney 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'' [http://www.snpp.com/guides/homer.file.html#strangle], 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.

:Orson Wellesianism seems correct: The scene, an immense inventory of discarded time machines, is reminiscent of the final scenes of ''Citizen Kane'' which show Kane's enormous collection of objects in rows of stacks extending seemingly to infinity.

'''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.

transecular 
Adj "that is made through the centuries" (Portuguese) [[User:Btchakir|Btchakir]] 16:48, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Rather than troubling to search for a Portuguese word, isn't it more likely that Asimov or Pynchon coined this in a nearly trivial way? ''Trans,'' across, plus ''secular,'' ages or centuries (from Latin [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=s&p=11 ''sæculum,''] an age, a generation, 120 years; also yielding French ''siècle,'' a century).

'''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. [http://www.asimovonline.com/ Asimov Home Page] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issac_Asimov Isaac Asimov].

'''Tempomorph''' 
Tempo + morph = Time change

'''Q-98s''' 
FM station? The weapon used by Loony Tunes character Marvin the Martian is called the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

'''Flow''' 
Flow of Time.

'''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. [http://dict.die.net/packfong/ packfong].

'''The Ball in Hand''' 
[[#balinhan|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''.

Notice that at Candlebrow, the conferences converged to a "form' of Eternal Return. The almost instantaneous way the conferees can be "resurrected' and seem never to age, makes this form of the Eternal
Return a lot like Never-Never Land. 
A-and perhaps a Pynchon jape at Nietzsche's vision of history?

==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. Herein a 'parable' drawn from the flowing of a literal river, by some Candlbrow conferees.

Cf. "The River of Time" (first published in 1981 as "Coexistence" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine) 

Cf. M&D's "in America, time is a river that goes through hell"

Cf. Heraclitus's Flux and Fire Philosophy. [http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/heraclitus.html]

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

Symmes Street = Symmetry ?

'''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.

also used to describe a very large penis. Judging from the "disreputable" nature of the Ball in Hand, it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to imagine Polish comedians hitting themselves over the head with their own appendages.

'''fantan''' 
Traditional Chinese gambling game; also a card game [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-Tan].

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

'''magenta-and-green''' 
Clashing-colors motif. This combination appears in a bandana in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] (Viking p. 69 line 14). 
Life colors in Pynchon, it might be argued?, as is a bandana. 
The clashing of (anarchic) life motif, maybe? 

magenta is a color that was renamed for a battle, the Battle of Magenta!
see wikipedia.

There's something else striking about magenta and green: In the field of [http://www.rgbworld.com/color.html color mixing,] these are complementary in the sense that magenta results from filtering all the green out of white light and vice versa. Green is an additive primary (red-green-blue), while magenta is a subtractive primary (cyan-magenta-yellow). This does not hold for some other ''AtD'' color schemes (red/indigo comes to mind, but there are a dozen or so of these binary combinations).

==Page 411==

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

'''Hawaiian volcano''' 
Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, established in 1916, displays the results of 70 million years of volcanism, migration, and evolution — processes that thrust a bare land from the sea and clothed it with complex and unique ecosystems, and a distinct human culture.

The park encompasses 333,000 acres and ranges from sea level to the summit of the earth's most massive volcano, Mauna Loa at 13,677 feet. ''Kilauea, the world's most active volcano, offers scientists insights on the birth of the Hawaiian Islands'' and visitors views of dramatic volcanic landscapes. Over half of the park is designated wilderness and provides unique hiking and camping opportunities.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity Wikipedia]. Pynchon refers to the fact that this work was underway and 'in the air' at the time of the novel. [[Bohr, Mach, Einstein, et al.|History and Discussion...]]

Notice how, among this stellar cast of scientists, Wells seems to be placed above the rest (cf: "Mr. Wells himself"), as if the writer of fiction trumped "real" scientists when it came to the idea of time travel.

'''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 [http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html The Unreality of Time (1)] and other information [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time The Unreality of Time (2)].

'''the McTaggartite''' 
disciple of Mctaggart?

'''neo-Augustinian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo St. Augustine of Hippo] (354-430), in his autobiographical [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions/confessions.html ''Confessions''], is credited with reconceptualizing the notion of time in Christian terms. Throyle, on [[ATD 119-148#Page 143|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 [[ATD E|'''Eschatology''']].

<div id="pudding">'''fatal steamed pudding'''</div>
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?

<div id="stearinery">'''Old Stearinery Bell Tower'''</div>
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." [http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Procter-amp;-Gamble-Company-Company-History.html]

==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".

Hmm... maybe Chick is implying that he and Meatman are indeed of the same cloth, not bound by the earthly realm, the former spending most of his time in the air and the latter being able to travel to other dimensions.

'''other Promise... resurrected... two millennia''' 
???
:maybe this refers simply to the Resurrection (and therefore the end of Time); the Promise is that the trumpet (Chick's?) shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.

God's promise of eternal life vs. Time Travel's promise of making you immortal.

'''speaking trumpet''' 
Brass forerunner of the megaphone. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1671RSPT....6.3056M Abstract] of a 1671 paper; [http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conMediaFile.2647 photo] of a ship's speaking trumpet, 1799; [http://www.auroraregionalfiremuseum.org/giftshop/1850figure/source/horn.htm 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''' 
A penumbra is the outer and lighter part of the shadow created by an eclipse. "Penumbrae" is the plural form.

'''quiescence''' 
His name suggests a purveyor of meat, and he does "deliver" Chick to Mr. Ace.

==Page 415==

'''"Mr. Ace"''' 
This could be a nod to the 1946 film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038752/ ''Mr. Ace''] starring Sylvia Sidney and George Raft who plays Eddie Ace, the head man of a crooked political machine who intends to scuttle the gubernatorial campaign of female senator Margaret Wyndham Chase (Sylvia Sidney). He uses every dirty trick in the book to destroy Margaret, but she perseveres on the strength of sheer honesty and integrity. Through her example, Ace mends his own ways, earning Margaret's love as a bonus, and he helps her to run as an independent on a clean-government ticket.

It may, more specifically, refer to the old-time radio show called ''The Cases of Mr. Ace'' which had a very limited run mostly on WNEW in New York in the late forties. Raft played Eddie Ace, the sole owner of Ace Detective Agency on 6th Avenue. In the episode from June 25, 1945, Ace described one gangster thus:

:"The face of a small fragile old man. His hair was glossy and deep black. His eyes were glossy and deep black."

Compare this to Pynchon's Mr. Ace: "Glossy black eyes, presented like weapons in a duel."

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

'''Those of us who spoke this truth were denounced as heretics''' 
Yes, the old Pynchon theme of those in control, the oligarchs, silencing the counterforce.

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''' 
Cf. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Brooks_Adams Henry Adams], author of ''The Virgin and The Dynamo''. Pynchon has written of being influenced deeply by Adams, and his ideas are particularly evident in Pynchon's [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''].

'''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.

Electrical short is certainly relevant. The mistranslation is a kind-of short-circuit, then he gets the right phrase from his data bank. Bit like C3P0 in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars ''Star Wars'']?

'''You are not aware that each of your mission assignments is intended to prevent some attempt of our own to enter your time-regime.''' 
Aha! A little peek into the True Mission of the Chums. Time to take another look at those various adventures:

* ''Chums of Chance and The Evil Halfwit'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance and The Curse of the Great Kahuna'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance at Krakatoa'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance Search for Atlantis'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance in Old Mexico'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_7|p.7]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Bowels of the Earth'' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|p.117]])
* ''The Chums of Chance and the Ice Pirates'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''The Chums of Chance Nearly Crash into the Kremlin'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth'' ([[ATD_199-218#Page_214|p.214]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Caged Women of Yokahama'' ([[ATD_397-428#Page_411|p.411]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Wrath of the Yellow Fang'' ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page_1019|p.1019]])

==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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto 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 [[ATD_219-242#Page 238|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 [http://www.entropylaw.com/ 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 [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''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.

Right: And what about the biggest trespasser of all - the author himself. After all, he's the one who can offer them immortality.

'''I see them ''pointing something'' back at me not exactly a weapon an enigmatic object.''' 
Hmmm. Could this have anything to do with the [[Q-weapon_and_Photography|Q-weapon]]?

— – – mmm... does anyone think that it might be just a remote control, and that the window through which the trespassers and the Chums see each other might be just a TV set? [[[User:Sonni|Sonni]] 09:19, 21 February 2008 (PST)]

==Page 418==

'''Trespass''' 
With a capital T.

'''evidence... everywhere''' 
Cf [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Crying of Lot 49''].

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

'''contracts''' 
With Devil.
More specifically, like Faust with Mephistopheles.

'''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.
Clearly it's mutable, a kind of mirage. And surely there's a resonance with 'laughing academy'? And a hint of the Hogwarts train in 'Harry Potter'?

==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"''' 
[http://hetzler.homestead.com/NBCakeWalk.html A cakewalk song] written in 1899.

'''consecrated''' 
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/consecrate] "1. To declare or set apart as sacred: consecrate a church."

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Romanesque 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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism]

'''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"''' 
???

'''Yippy dippy dippy, doo!''' 
cf. ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (p. 66) where Slothrop goes down the toilet after, appropriately, a harmonica.

'''Now, it ain't that I wouldn't, 'cause I can but I won't,''' 
'''And I would if I wasn't, but I am so I don't''' 
This sounds very similar to a lyric from Frank Zappa's 'Stink-Foot:'

He said:
"IT DOESN'T, 'n YOU CAN'T!

I WON'T, 'n IT DON'T!

IT HASN'T, IT ISN'T, IT EVEN AIN'T

'N IT SHOULDN'T . . .

IT COULDN'T!"

He told me NO NO NO!

I told him YES YES YES!

I said: "I do it all the time . . .

Ain't this boogie a mess!"

'''difficult vocal feat''' 
???

'''segueing''' 
A deejaying term for moving from one song/track to another with no noticeable break if done correctly. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow,''] Viking p. 70, line 36, where the phonetic spelling "segway" appears.

'''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. [http://www.hohnerusa.com/hchromatic.htm Examples].

'''Pitch Integrity Guard''' 
To prevent tampering with the notes in the ways described below - i.e. monitoring any tendency towards the 'Negroid'. 
= PIG - pigs long have held a fascination over Pynchon. 
A-and a Pitch Integrity Guard is a kind of cop, right? 

'''harmonica-reed files''' 
Filing the reeds would alter the notes slightly, allowing you to get 'in-between' notes that aren't in the normal major or minor scale.

'''sucking the tonic chords...Negroid sound''' 
Standard technique for playing blues harmonica ('harp'), also known as cross-blowing. The sucked notes are easier to 'bend' and wail with, so you can get the blues 'third', not quite minor, not quite major. Another technique that helps you get the 'Negroid sound' is soaking the harmonica, which gives the reeds a rougher, more bendable quality. That's probably the point of the 'late night visits to the latrine'. Compare with GR, where Slothrop (at college!) loses his harmonica down the toilet (he finds it much later in a stream in Germany! Gone back home, so to speak). There's a harmonica-soaking scene in Pennebaker's Dylan film 'Don't look Back'.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of folk wisdom that piss is even better than water for soaking the harp. Pee-culiar.

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Offenbach Jacques Offenbach] (1819-1880). 
The lyrics of which are not entirely irrelevant: 
And if we meet a helpless woo-o-man 
Or little boys who do no harm 
We run them in, we run them in, 
We run them in, we run them in 
Because we are the bold gen-darmes! 

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

'''vapor bearing...minerals''' 
Rows of mirrors facing each other (thus creating regular patterns, "chaining away for uncounted leagues") have been stained with images formed by regular use: breath, tiny bits of toothpaste or powder ("atomized dentifrice"), "shaving preparations," and mineral deposits from tapwater.

'''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==

'''revisit places where destinies took a wrong turn, or revisit in dreams the dreaming body of one loved more than either might have known...''' 
As far as we know, none of the Chums has actually experienced this. Sounds to me like an allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust Faust] and Gretchen/Marguerite, since this actually happens in several of the Faust versions. Especially in the context of the Faustian bargain they have made with Mr. Ace.

'''None of them...''' 
Cf [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi#The_butterfly_dream Chuang Tzu's dream]: is he a man dreaming he's a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he's a man? On the rhetorical level of the story, this passage reiterates the dreamlike, near-delusional nature of the Chums' latest escape from what seems to have become their most dangerous foe. (418: "As if in a dream...").

'''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''' 
Songs and humor in which African-Americans were stereotyped (as lazy, immoral, stupid, vain, etc.) and held in contempt. The most popular coon song, though, was written by an African-American, Ernest Hogan; titled "All Coons Look Alike to Me," it has an ''AtD'' resonance. Coon material was extremely popular between about 1880 and 1910; stripped of the word "coon," a diluted form still appears nightly on your TV. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_song Wikipedia] has a strikingly good article. For a partial list of coon references in ''AtD,'' [[ATD_26-56#Page_48|see annotation to p. 48.]]

'''isotropy''' 
the quality or condition of being equal along all directions. For more technical information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotropy isotropy].

'''presently''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb R. Crumb] did a comic like this: [http://crumbproducts.com/prints_images/sha.gif pic] 
Nice find. That comic succintly summarizes TRP's view of the effects of railroads and "civilization."

'''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"''' 
Music and lyrics by Charles K. Harris. This number was interpolated into the score of the hit musical ''A Trip to Chinatown'' (1892) during its record-setting Broadway run. It was introduced by J. Aldrich Libbey. When Kern and Hammerstein wanted to add period flavor to ''Show Boat'' (1927), they used "After the Ball" in the Trocadero scene where it was performed by Norma Terris. [[After the Ball|Read the lyrics...]]

See also the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_174-177 pantomime song] in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (pages 174-175):
<blockquote>"And the lamps in the stairway are dying, 
It's the season just after the ball . . ."</blockquote>

'''Bukhara''' 
Either the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Bukhara Emirate of Bukhara], a former country in Central Asia or its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara capital]

'''T.D.Y.''' 
Abbrevation for Temporary Duty. [http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r614_11.pdf 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxaul Wikipedia] [http://www.pbase.com/william_sokolenko/image/68724037 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 [http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/weedfeeders/toadflax.html invasive plant species]

'''Hypopsammotic... Hypops''' 
''Hypo-'' (under) + ''psammot-'' (sand, from Greek ''psammos'') + ''-ic.'' Pynchon explains the device's function on the next page (426).

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality dual (wave/particle) nature of light].

==Page 427==

'''temporarily lapsing into English''' 
Contrasts with the technical jargon the Chums have been steeped in over the past few days, including lectures by Roswell Bounce (they're only boys, after all). Often, mathematicians, physicists, and their students fail to explain their theories "in English." This little phrase can be taken as a professorial joke, aimed at both the author (for always coming back to obscure or difficult theories) and the reader (for never understanding them). 
I thought it was contrasting with Miles' frequent babbling habit. 

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

'''X.O.''' 
The Executive Officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the Commanding Officer (CO).

'''legalistic''' 
Yes, Darby is now Legal Counsel.

==Page 428==
'''ill-starred Bell Tower''' 
Referring back of course to the [[#stearinery|Old Stearinery Bell Tower]] and the [[#pudding|Fatal Pudding]], and in turn to the [[Campanile]].

:The Campanile picture has me wondering. According to the sources, the old picture of the collapse of the Campanile is actually a fake. And it doesn't have the airship. It's a fun picture, but what is its status? There doesn't seem to be an appropriate place for this information in the wiki, or have I missed something?

:The Campanile picture is an illustration. Doubtful that anyone had their camera all set up for the awesome event. The airship was photoshopped in for, um, color...

::See also last paragraph of page 255.

Cf. Renata's tarot reading on [[ATD 243-272#Page 253|p. 253]], the last card of which is The Tower.

Cf. ''The Bell-Tower'' by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville Herman Melville], a famous short story from ''The Piazza Tales'' (1856) 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. [http://www.melville.org/belltowr.htm Full text of ''The Bell-Tower'']

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 397-428

2009-04-12T12:46:57Z

Bobutler: /* Page 399 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==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.]

Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy. [http://earlyradiohistory.us/1901ayrt.htm Ayrton Prediction]. Electrical Review, June 29, 1901, p. 820.

'''street-Arab''' 
a homeless boy who has been abandoned and roams the streets.
[http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn 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. [http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/commemoratives/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=premodern]

'''"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''' 
A muster of the ship's company at the end of the day. 
Is this at 1800 Hours?

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.G._Wells Wikipedia entry].

'''jeu d'esprit''' 
French: play of wits. Witticism.
Here, Lindsay places Wells' masterful Time Machine (see above) in opposition with the more flashy and vulgar versions ("adulterated") of time travel offered in dime novels. Interesting that this comment would be made by someone who is himself a character in a dime novel.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprest_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". [http://imdb.com/title/tt0074256/ IMDb]

==Page 399==

'''indigo... yellow''' 
Clashing-colors motif. Bright full-of-life colors.

'''dicer''' 
A hat [http://books.google.com/books?id=CUQSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=dicer+hat&source=web&ots=3K_D1BkmBP&sig=xhzWDfgmMitS2mGUzL4ee8MHzTo], perhaps of the style now known as "baseball cap"[http://www.skateamerica.com/store/KR3W-Youth-Hat-Dicer-Black-ID_P15118C62.cfm].

'''opopanax and vervain''' 
Two fragrant, medicinal substances derived from flowering plants. They bloom yellow and violet, respectively. Wikipedia pages for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opoponax opopanax] and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vervain vervain].
:Though Wikipedia prefers the spelling ''opoponax'', the ''OED'' suggests Pynchon's.

'''contrabass saxophone''' 
A spectacular piece of hardware, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone#Members_of_the_saxophone_family 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'. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_pan_alley 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." <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd Ed. 1989.</ref>

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "houris" is the plural of 'houri', as defined above.

'''Darby''' 
Over 21yo, if he's aged.

'''chanteuse''' 
A female singer of popular songs, esp. in France. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

==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 [[Pages 358-373#Page 370|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone Wikipedia.]

==Page 402==

'''solenoidal relay''' 
Solenoid: a cylindrical 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 the 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) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch) 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 [[ATD_919-945#Page 934|later in ''Against the Day'']]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha 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.
Refers specifically to the "passenger seat", separated from the main saddle. Also applies to motorcycle riding where the small passenger seat is called a "pillion". Metonymically, pillion can be used to describe the passenger.

'''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 [[#Page 407|"Smegmo,"]] the "Messiah of kitchen fats" (Imperial Margarine was advertised as "The King of Margarines") [http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asmegma&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official smegma] is the "cheesy secretion" that collects atop the "candlebrow" beneath the foreskin. [[ATD 374-396#Page 374|Ewball Oust's name]] has similar connotations.

Maybe I'm pointing out the obvious, but it seems to me like Pynchon's way of saying Dickhead University. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''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?)

:Or possibly a sexual ''double entendre''...consistent with the [[The Sexual Angle|rampant sexuality]] in ''AtD''. Why, several double-dome images come to mind, almost faster than "egghead"...

:also possibly a reference to numerous "mad scientist" contraptions that connect two (unwilling?) patients, hooked together by metallic helmets (domes), in order to "switch" "souls" from one body to another. Seems far-fetched, but in a book dominated by the idea of dopplegangers created by the refraction from Iceland spar, not so much...

'''drumming''' 
Traveling salesmanship.

<div id="balinhan"></div>'''a saloon down by the river called the Ball in Hand''' 
The Ball in Hand isn't the river, it's the saloon. Still, the name does have an English ring to it. The Bird in Hand is a common pub name in Britain.

Another cricket allusion? If so, rather obvious. Surely a straightforward sexual joke.
:Oh yes. As discussed a couple paragraphs down!

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 [[ATD_26-56#Page_26|aigrette.]] Or a more carnal connotation, not anachronistic at all. Or fortunetelling. These remote connections do make cricket sound pretty good:

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 [[The Sexual Angle|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''. [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzb01800.html]

<div id="meatman">'''Alonzo Meatman'''</div>
Meatman translated to German is Fleischmann, as in [http://www.fleischmanns.com/products/index.jsp 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. [[Meat Man|Read the lyrics...]]. And there ''are'' those [[ATD 57-80#Page 73|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 [[ATD 397-428#Page 398|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imum_Coeli 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.) 

Since Gideon had to testify before congress about it, said Scandal must have happened in the States. He seems to have shipped lard that was deemed too "adulterated" to be sold in the US to good old Britain, thereby, as Pynchon puts it with a good dose of mean-spirited humor, "compromising further an already debased national cuisine". What did he use to adulterate the lard? The secret ingredient in Smegmo, maybe?

In [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5#113 ''V.''] Pynchon mentions the "Great Sewer Scandal of 1955."

'''Christmas pudding controversy'''' 
Lard could certainly be used while making Christmas Pudding, aka Plum Pudding [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pudding Wikipedia entry], the quintessential British holiday treat. The traditional ingredient, though, is suet. Some families might have tried to substitute lard in the recipe, which would have radically altered the taste of the pudding, sparking bitter fights about the importance of culinary tradition. Could this "controversy" be a metaphor of the effects of American cultural imperialism? Maybe I should just do a taste test...

==Page 407==

'''"Smegmo"''' 
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma 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."
[http://www.crisco.com/about/history/1930.asp]

"Smegm"a + crisc "O" = Smegmo

:Interesting(?) sideline: Here in Denmark the slang word for smegma is 'nakkeost' -i.e. 'neck-cheese'. And of course anyone who's seen 'Red Dwarf' will know about the current British use of 'smeg' (Not smeggin'likely, get the smeg outa here! Smeg off!). What do Americans call it?

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? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisco]

Also P&G was founded as a candle (Procter) and soap (Gamble) company, making profits from the fat of slaughtered pigs in "Porkopolis," Cincinnati.

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

Cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_525-556 cottonseed oil] p. 546.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham 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 [http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/ 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine 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.] ...

'''sophomoric slogs''' 
Slog can be a forceful hit and a Cricket term. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slog Link]

'''nooky''' 
"nooky" is synonymous with "pussy" both of which are used metonymically to denote either the sex act or, in this case, women who are desirable as sex partners.

'''1925 or thereabouts''' 
Lindsay's unfamiliarity with the term "nooky" ''could'' 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'' (the ''Shorter OED'' prefers "nooky"). However, the term was certainly in the vernacular long before it made it into the ''OED'' and is speculated to be of British origin, perhaps derived from "nugging" (having sex) or "nook" which a vagina could be considered, I suppose.

Most likely a simple "chummy" joke, implying that poor old Lindsay wouldn't get to experience the pleasures of the flesh for another 25 years. Considering that the Chums don't seem to age, I really can't say how old he will be when the blessed event finally comes.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Finney 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'' [http://www.snpp.com/guides/homer.file.html#strangle], 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.

:Orson Wellesianism seems correct: The scene, an immense inventory of discarded time machines, is reminiscent of the final scenes of ''Citizen Kane'' which show Kane's enormous collection of objects in rows of stacks extending seemingly to infinity.

'''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.

transecular 
Adj "that is made through the centuries" (Portuguese) [[User:Btchakir|Btchakir]] 16:48, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Rather than troubling to search for a Portuguese word, isn't it more likely that Asimov or Pynchon coined this in a nearly trivial way? ''Trans,'' across, plus ''secular,'' ages or centuries (from Latin [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=s&p=11 ''sæculum,''] an age, a generation, 120 years; also yielding French ''siècle,'' a century).

'''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. [http://www.asimovonline.com/ Asimov Home Page] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issac_Asimov Isaac Asimov].

'''Tempomorph''' 
Tempo + morph = Time change

'''Q-98s''' 
FM station? The weapon used by Loony Tunes character Marvin the Martian is called the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

'''Flow''' 
Flow of Time.

'''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. [http://dict.die.net/packfong/ packfong].

'''The Ball in Hand''' 
[[#balinhan|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''.

Notice that at Candlebrow, the conferences converged to a "form' of Eternal Return. The almost instantaneous way the conferees can be "resurrected' and seem never to age, makes this form of the Eternal
Return a lot like Never-Never Land. 
A-and perhaps a Pynchon jape at Nietzsche's vision of history?

==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. Herein a 'parable' drawn from the flowing of a literal river, by some Candlbrow conferees.

Cf. "The River of Time" (first published in 1981 as "Coexistence" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine) 

Cf. M&D's "in America, time is a river that goes through hell"

Cf. Heraclitus's Flux and Fire Philosophy. [http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/heraclitus.html]

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

Symmes Street = Symmetry ?

'''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.

also used to describe a very large penis. Judging from the "disreputable" nature of the Ball in Hand, it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to imagine Polish comedians hitting themselves over the head with their own appendages.

'''fantan''' 
Traditional Chinese gambling game; also a card game [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-Tan].

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

'''magenta-and-green''' 
Clashing-colors motif. This combination appears in a bandana in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] (Viking p. 69 line 14). 
Life colors in Pynchon, it might be argued?, as is a bandana. 
The clashing of (anarchic) life motif, maybe? 

magenta is a color that was renamed for a battle, the Battle of Magenta!
see wikipedia.

There's something else striking about magenta and green: In the field of [http://www.rgbworld.com/color.html color mixing,] these are complementary in the sense that magenta results from filtering all the green out of white light and vice versa. Green is an additive primary (red-green-blue), while magenta is a subtractive primary (cyan-magenta-yellow). This does not hold for some other ''AtD'' color schemes (red/indigo comes to mind, but there are a dozen or so of these binary combinations).

==Page 411==

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

'''Hawaiian volcano''' 
Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, established in 1916, displays the results of 70 million years of volcanism, migration, and evolution — processes that thrust a bare land from the sea and clothed it with complex and unique ecosystems, and a distinct human culture.

The park encompasses 333,000 acres and ranges from sea level to the summit of the earth's most massive volcano, Mauna Loa at 13,677 feet. ''Kilauea, the world's most active volcano, offers scientists insights on the birth of the Hawaiian Islands'' and visitors views of dramatic volcanic landscapes. Over half of the park is designated wilderness and provides unique hiking and camping opportunities.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity Wikipedia]. Pynchon refers to the fact that this work was underway and 'in the air' at the time of the novel. [[Bohr, Mach, Einstein, et al.|History and Discussion...]]

Notice how, among this stellar cast of scientists, Wells seems to be placed above the rest (cf: "Mr. Wells himself"), as if the writer of fiction trumped "real" scientists when it came to the idea of time travel.

'''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 [http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html The Unreality of Time (1)] and other information [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time The Unreality of Time (2)].

'''the McTaggartite''' 
disciple of Mctaggart?

'''neo-Augustinian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo St. Augustine of Hippo] (354-430), in his autobiographical [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions/confessions.html ''Confessions''], is credited with reconceptualizing the notion of time in Christian terms. Throyle, on [[ATD 119-148#Page 143|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 [[ATD E|'''Eschatology''']].

<div id="pudding">'''fatal steamed pudding'''</div>
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?

<div id="stearinery">'''Old Stearinery Bell Tower'''</div>
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." [http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Procter-amp;-Gamble-Company-Company-History.html]

==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".

Hmm... maybe Chick is implying that he and Meatman are indeed of the same cloth, not bound by the earthly realm, the former spending most of his time in the air and the latter being able to travel to other dimensions.

'''other Promise... resurrected... two millennia''' 
???
:maybe this refers simply to the Resurrection (and therefore the end of Time); the Promise is that the trumpet (Chick's?) shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.

God's promise of eternal life vs. Time Travel's promise of making you immortal.

'''speaking trumpet''' 
Brass forerunner of the megaphone. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1671RSPT....6.3056M Abstract] of a 1671 paper; [http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conMediaFile.2647 photo] of a ship's speaking trumpet, 1799; [http://www.auroraregionalfiremuseum.org/giftshop/1850figure/source/horn.htm 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''' 
A penumbra is the outer and lighter part of the shadow created by an eclipse. "Penumbrae" is the plural form.

'''quiescence''' 
His name suggests a purveyor of meat, and he does "deliver" Chick to Mr. Ace.

==Page 415==

'''"Mr. Ace"''' 
This could be a nod to the 1946 film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038752/ ''Mr. Ace''] starring Sylvia Sidney and George Raft who plays Eddie Ace, the head man of a crooked political machine who intends to scuttle the gubernatorial campaign of female senator Margaret Wyndham Chase (Sylvia Sidney). He uses every dirty trick in the book to destroy Margaret, but she perseveres on the strength of sheer honesty and integrity. Through her example, Ace mends his own ways, earning Margaret's love as a bonus, and he helps her to run as an independent on a clean-government ticket.

It may, more specifically, refer to the old-time radio show called ''The Cases of Mr. Ace'' which had a very limited run mostly on WNEW in New York in the late forties. Raft played Eddie Ace, the sole owner of Ace Detective Agency on 6th Avenue. In the episode from June 25, 1945, Ace described one gangster thus:

:"The face of a small fragile old man. His hair was glossy and deep black. His eyes were glossy and deep black."

Compare this to Pynchon's Mr. Ace: "Glossy black eyes, presented like weapons in a duel."

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

'''Those of us who spoke this truth were denounced as heretics''' 
Yes, the old Pynchon theme of those in control, the oligarchs, silencing the counterforce.

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''' 
Cf. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Brooks_Adams Henry Adams], author of ''The Virgin and The Dynamo''. Pynchon has written of being influenced deeply by Adams, and his ideas are particularly evident in Pynchon's [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''].

'''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.

Electrical short is certainly relevant. The mistranslation is a kind-of short-circuit, then he gets the right phrase from his data bank. Bit like C3P0 in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars ''Star Wars'']?

'''You are not aware that each of your mission assignments is intended to prevent some attempt of our own to enter your time-regime.''' 
Aha! A little peek into the True Mission of the Chums. Time to take another look at those various adventures:

* ''Chums of Chance and The Evil Halfwit'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance and The Curse of the Great Kahuna'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance at Krakatoa'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance Search for Atlantis'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance in Old Mexico'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_7|p.7]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Bowels of the Earth'' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|p.117]])
* ''The Chums of Chance and the Ice Pirates'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''The Chums of Chance Nearly Crash into the Kremlin'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth'' ([[ATD_199-218#Page_214|p.214]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Caged Women of Yokahama'' ([[ATD_397-428#Page_411|p.411]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Wrath of the Yellow Fang'' ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page_1019|p.1019]])

==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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto 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 [[ATD_219-242#Page 238|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 [http://www.entropylaw.com/ 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 [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''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.

Right: And what about the biggest trespasser of all - the author himself. After all, he's the one who can offer them immortality.

'''I see them ''pointing something'' back at me not exactly a weapon an enigmatic object.''' 
Hmmm. Could this have anything to do with the [[Q-weapon_and_Photography|Q-weapon]]?

— – – mmm... does anyone think that it might be just a remote control, and that the window through which the trespassers and the Chums see each other might be just a TV set? [[[User:Sonni|Sonni]] 09:19, 21 February 2008 (PST)]

==Page 418==

'''Trespass''' 
With a capital T.

'''evidence... everywhere''' 
Cf [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Crying of Lot 49''].

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

'''contracts''' 
With Devil.
More specifically, like Faust with Mephistopheles.

'''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.
Clearly it's mutable, a kind of mirage. And surely there's a resonance with 'laughing academy'? And a hint of the Hogwarts train in 'Harry Potter'?

==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"''' 
[http://hetzler.homestead.com/NBCakeWalk.html A cakewalk song] written in 1899.

'''consecrated''' 
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/consecrate] "1. To declare or set apart as sacred: consecrate a church."

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Romanesque 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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism]

'''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"''' 
???

'''Yippy dippy dippy, doo!''' 
cf. ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (p. 66) where Slothrop goes down the toilet after, appropriately, a harmonica.

'''Now, it ain't that I wouldn't, 'cause I can but I won't,''' 
'''And I would if I wasn't, but I am so I don't''' 
This sounds very similar to a lyric from Frank Zappa's 'Stink-Foot:'

He said:
"IT DOESN'T, 'n YOU CAN'T!

I WON'T, 'n IT DON'T!

IT HASN'T, IT ISN'T, IT EVEN AIN'T

'N IT SHOULDN'T . . .

IT COULDN'T!"

He told me NO NO NO!

I told him YES YES YES!

I said: "I do it all the time . . .

Ain't this boogie a mess!"

'''difficult vocal feat''' 
???

'''segueing''' 
A deejaying term for moving from one song/track to another with no noticeable break if done correctly. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow,''] Viking p. 70, line 36, where the phonetic spelling "segway" appears.

'''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. [http://www.hohnerusa.com/hchromatic.htm Examples].

'''Pitch Integrity Guard''' 
To prevent tampering with the notes in the ways described below - i.e. monitoring any tendency towards the 'Negroid'. 
= PIG - pigs long have held a fascination over Pynchon. 
A-and a Pitch Integrity Guard is a kind of cop, right? 

'''harmonica-reed files''' 
Filing the reeds would alter the notes slightly, allowing you to get 'in-between' notes that aren't in the normal major or minor scale.

'''sucking the tonic chords...Negroid sound''' 
Standard technique for playing blues harmonica ('harp'), also known as cross-blowing. The sucked notes are easier to 'bend' and wail with, so you can get the blues 'third', not quite minor, not quite major. Another technique that helps you get the 'Negroid sound' is soaking the harmonica, which gives the reeds a rougher, more bendable quality. That's probably the point of the 'late night visits to the latrine'. Compare with GR, where Slothrop (at college!) loses his harmonica down the toilet (he finds it much later in a stream in Germany! Gone back home, so to speak). There's a harmonica-soaking scene in Pennebaker's Dylan film 'Don't look Back'.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of folk wisdom that piss is even better than water for soaking the harp. Pee-culiar.

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Offenbach Jacques Offenbach] (1819-1880). 
The lyrics of which are not entirely irrelevant: 
And if we meet a helpless woo-o-man 
Or little boys who do no harm 
We run them in, we run them in, 
We run them in, we run them in 
Because we are the bold gen-darmes! 

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

'''vapor bearing...minerals''' 
Rows of mirrors facing each other (thus creating regular patterns, "chaining away for uncounted leagues") have been stained with images formed by regular use: breath, tiny bits of toothpaste or powder ("atomized dentifrice"), "shaving preparations," and mineral deposits from tapwater.

'''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==

'''revisit places where destinies took a wrong turn, or revisit in dreams the dreaming body of one loved more than either might have known...''' 
As far as we know, none of the Chums has actually experienced this. Sounds to me like an allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust Faust] and Gretchen/Marguerite, since this actually happens in several of the Faust versions. Especially in the context of the Faustian bargain they have made with Mr. Ace.

'''None of them...''' 
Cf [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi#The_butterfly_dream Chuang Tzu's dream]: is he a man dreaming he's a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he's a man? On the rhetorical level of the story, this passage reiterates the dreamlike, near-delusional nature of the Chums' latest escape from what seems to have become their most dangerous foe. (418: "As if in a dream...").

'''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''' 
Songs and humor in which African-Americans were stereotyped (as lazy, immoral, stupid, vain, etc.) and held in contempt. The most popular coon song, though, was written by an African-American, Ernest Hogan; titled "All Coons Look Alike to Me," it has an ''AtD'' resonance. Coon material was extremely popular between about 1880 and 1910; stripped of the word "coon," a diluted form still appears nightly on your TV. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_song Wikipedia] has a strikingly good article. For a partial list of coon references in ''AtD,'' [[ATD_26-56#Page_48|see annotation to p. 48.]]

'''isotropy''' 
the quality or condition of being equal along all directions. For more technical information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotropy isotropy].

'''presently''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb R. Crumb] did a comic like this: [http://crumbproducts.com/prints_images/sha.gif pic] 
Nice find. That comic succintly summarizes TRP's view of the effects of railroads and "civilization."

'''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"''' 
Music and lyrics by Charles K. Harris. This number was interpolated into the score of the hit musical ''A Trip to Chinatown'' (1892) during its record-setting Broadway run. It was introduced by J. Aldrich Libbey. When Kern and Hammerstein wanted to add period flavor to ''Show Boat'' (1927), they used "After the Ball" in the Trocadero scene where it was performed by Norma Terris. [[After the Ball|Read the lyrics...]]

See also the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_174-177 pantomime song] in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (pages 174-175):
<blockquote>"And the lamps in the stairway are dying, 
It's the season just after the ball . . ."</blockquote>

'''Bukhara''' 
Either the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Bukhara Emirate of Bukhara], a former country in Central Asia or its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara capital]

'''T.D.Y.''' 
Abbrevation for Temporary Duty. [http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r614_11.pdf 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxaul Wikipedia] [http://www.pbase.com/william_sokolenko/image/68724037 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 [http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/weedfeeders/toadflax.html invasive plant species]

'''Hypopsammotic... Hypops''' 
''Hypo-'' (under) + ''psammot-'' (sand, from Greek ''psammos'') + ''-ic.'' Pynchon explains the device's function on the next page (426).

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality dual (wave/particle) nature of light].

==Page 427==

'''temporarily lapsing into English''' 
Contrasts with the technical jargon the Chums have been steeped in over the past few days, including lectures by Roswell Bounce (they're only boys, after all). Often, mathematicians, physicists, and their students fail to explain their theories "in English." This little phrase can be taken as a professorial joke, aimed at both the author (for always coming back to obscure or difficult theories) and the reader (for never understanding them). 
I thought it was contrasting with Miles' frequent babbling habit. 

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

'''X.O.''' 
The Executive Officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the Commanding Officer (CO).

'''legalistic''' 
Yes, Darby is now Legal Counsel.

==Page 428==
'''ill-starred Bell Tower''' 
Referring back of course to the [[#stearinery|Old Stearinery Bell Tower]] and the [[#pudding|Fatal Pudding]], and in turn to the [[Campanile]].

:The Campanile picture has me wondering. According to the sources, the old picture of the collapse of the Campanile is actually a fake. And it doesn't have the airship. It's a fun picture, but what is its status? There doesn't seem to be an appropriate place for this information in the wiki, or have I missed something?

:The Campanile picture is an illustration. Doubtful that anyone had their camera all set up for the awesome event. The airship was photoshopped in for, um, color...

::See also last paragraph of page 255.

Cf. Renata's tarot reading on [[ATD 243-272#Page 253|p. 253]], the last card of which is The Tower.

Cf. ''The Bell-Tower'' by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville Herman Melville], a famous short story from ''The Piazza Tales'' (1856) 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. [http://www.melville.org/belltowr.htm Full text of ''The Bell-Tower'']

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 397-428

2009-04-12T12:44:48Z

Bobutler: /* Page 399 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==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.]

Syntonic Wireless Telegraphy. [http://earlyradiohistory.us/1901ayrt.htm Ayrton Prediction]. Electrical Review, June 29, 1901, p. 820.

'''street-Arab''' 
a homeless boy who has been abandoned and roams the streets.
[http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn 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. [http://www.usmint.gov/mint_programs/commemoratives/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=premodern]

'''"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''' 
A muster of the ship's company at the end of the day. 
Is this at 1800 Hours?

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.G._Wells Wikipedia entry].

'''jeu d'esprit''' 
French: play of wits. Witticism.
Here, Lindsay places Wells' masterful Time Machine (see above) in opposition with the more flashy and vulgar versions ("adulterated") of time travel offered in dime novels. Interesting that this comment would be made by someone who is himself a character in a dime novel.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprest_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". [http://imdb.com/title/tt0074256/ IMDb]

==Page 399==

'''indigo... yellow''' 
Clashing-colors motif. Bright full-of-life colors.

'''dicer''' 
A hat [http://books.google.com/books?id=CUQSAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=dicer+hat&source=web&ots=3K_D1BkmBP&sig=xhzWDfgmMitS2mGUzL4ee8MHzTo], perhaps of the style now known as "baseball cap"[http://www.skateamerica.com/store/KR3W-Youth-Hat-Dicer-Black-ID_P15118C62.cfm].

'''opopanax and vervain''' 
Two fragrant, medicinal substances derived from flowering plants. They bloom yellow and violet, respectively. Wikipedia pages for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opoponax opopanax] and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vervain vervain].
:Though Wikipedia prefers the spelling ''opoponax'', the ''OED'' suggests Pynchon's.

'''contrabass saxophone''' 
A spectacular piece of hardware, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxophone#Members_of_the_saxophone_family 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'. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_pan_alley 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." <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd Ed. 1989.</ref>

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 [[Pages 358-373#Page 370|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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 [[ATD 149-170#Pages 154-155|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone Wikipedia.]

==Page 402==

'''solenoidal relay''' 
Solenoid: a cylindrical 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 the 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) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch) 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 [[ATD_919-945#Page 934|later in ''Against the Day'']]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha 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.
Refers specifically to the "passenger seat", separated from the main saddle. Also applies to motorcycle riding where the small passenger seat is called a "pillion". Metonymically, pillion can be used to describe the passenger.

'''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 [[#Page 407|"Smegmo,"]] the "Messiah of kitchen fats" (Imperial Margarine was advertised as "The King of Margarines") [http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asmegma&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official smegma] is the "cheesy secretion" that collects atop the "candlebrow" beneath the foreskin. [[ATD 374-396#Page 374|Ewball Oust's name]] has similar connotations.

Maybe I'm pointing out the obvious, but it seems to me like Pynchon's way of saying Dickhead University. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''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?)

:Or possibly a sexual ''double entendre''...consistent with the [[The Sexual Angle|rampant sexuality]] in ''AtD''. Why, several double-dome images come to mind, almost faster than "egghead"...

:also possibly a reference to numerous "mad scientist" contraptions that connect two (unwilling?) patients, hooked together by metallic helmets (domes), in order to "switch" "souls" from one body to another. Seems far-fetched, but in a book dominated by the idea of dopplegangers created by the refraction from Iceland spar, not so much...

'''drumming''' 
Traveling salesmanship.

<div id="balinhan"></div>'''a saloon down by the river called the Ball in Hand''' 
The Ball in Hand isn't the river, it's the saloon. Still, the name does have an English ring to it. The Bird in Hand is a common pub name in Britain.

Another cricket allusion? If so, rather obvious. Surely a straightforward sexual joke.
:Oh yes. As discussed a couple paragraphs down!

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 [[ATD_26-56#Page_26|aigrette.]] Or a more carnal connotation, not anachronistic at all. Or fortunetelling. These remote connections do make cricket sound pretty good:

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 [[The Sexual Angle|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''. [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzb01800.html]

<div id="meatman">'''Alonzo Meatman'''</div>
Meatman translated to German is Fleischmann, as in [http://www.fleischmanns.com/products/index.jsp 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. [[Meat Man|Read the lyrics...]]. And there ''are'' those [[ATD 57-80#Page 73|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 [[ATD 397-428#Page 398|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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imum_Coeli 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.) 

Since Gideon had to testify before congress about it, said Scandal must have happened in the States. He seems to have shipped lard that was deemed too "adulterated" to be sold in the US to good old Britain, thereby, as Pynchon puts it with a good dose of mean-spirited humor, "compromising further an already debased national cuisine". What did he use to adulterate the lard? The secret ingredient in Smegmo, maybe?

In [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5#113 ''V.''] Pynchon mentions the "Great Sewer Scandal of 1955."

'''Christmas pudding controversy'''' 
Lard could certainly be used while making Christmas Pudding, aka Plum Pudding [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_pudding Wikipedia entry], the quintessential British holiday treat. The traditional ingredient, though, is suet. Some families might have tried to substitute lard in the recipe, which would have radically altered the taste of the pudding, sparking bitter fights about the importance of culinary tradition. Could this "controversy" be a metaphor of the effects of American cultural imperialism? Maybe I should just do a taste test...

==Page 407==

'''"Smegmo"''' 
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma 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."
[http://www.crisco.com/about/history/1930.asp]

"Smegm"a + crisc "O" = Smegmo

:Interesting(?) sideline: Here in Denmark the slang word for smegma is 'nakkeost' -i.e. 'neck-cheese'. And of course anyone who's seen 'Red Dwarf' will know about the current British use of 'smeg' (Not smeggin'likely, get the smeg outa here! Smeg off!). What do Americans call it?

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? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisco]

Also P&G was founded as a candle (Procter) and soap (Gamble) company, making profits from the fat of slaughtered pigs in "Porkopolis," Cincinnati.

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

Cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_525-556 cottonseed oil] p. 546.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham 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 [http://web.mit.edu/adorai/timetraveler/ 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine 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.] ...

'''sophomoric slogs''' 
Slog can be a forceful hit and a Cricket term. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slog Link]

'''nooky''' 
"nooky" is synonymous with "pussy" both of which are used metonymically to denote either the sex act or, in this case, women who are desirable as sex partners.

'''1925 or thereabouts''' 
Lindsay's unfamiliarity with the term "nooky" ''could'' 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'' (the ''Shorter OED'' prefers "nooky"). However, the term was certainly in the vernacular long before it made it into the ''OED'' and is speculated to be of British origin, perhaps derived from "nugging" (having sex) or "nook" which a vagina could be considered, I suppose.

Most likely a simple "chummy" joke, implying that poor old Lindsay wouldn't get to experience the pleasures of the flesh for another 25 years. Considering that the Chums don't seem to age, I really can't say how old he will be when the blessed event finally comes.

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Finney 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'' [http://www.snpp.com/guides/homer.file.html#strangle], 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.

:Orson Wellesianism seems correct: The scene, an immense inventory of discarded time machines, is reminiscent of the final scenes of ''Citizen Kane'' which show Kane's enormous collection of objects in rows of stacks extending seemingly to infinity.

'''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.

transecular 
Adj "that is made through the centuries" (Portuguese) [[User:Btchakir|Btchakir]] 16:48, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Rather than troubling to search for a Portuguese word, isn't it more likely that Asimov or Pynchon coined this in a nearly trivial way? ''Trans,'' across, plus ''secular,'' ages or centuries (from Latin [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=s&p=11 ''sæculum,''] an age, a generation, 120 years; also yielding French ''siècle,'' a century).

'''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. [http://www.asimovonline.com/ Asimov Home Page] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issac_Asimov Isaac Asimov].

'''Tempomorph''' 
Tempo + morph = Time change

'''Q-98s''' 
FM station? The weapon used by Loony Tunes character Marvin the Martian is called the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

'''Flow''' 
Flow of Time.

'''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. [http://dict.die.net/packfong/ packfong].

'''The Ball in Hand''' 
[[#balinhan|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''.

Notice that at Candlebrow, the conferences converged to a "form' of Eternal Return. The almost instantaneous way the conferees can be "resurrected' and seem never to age, makes this form of the Eternal
Return a lot like Never-Never Land. 
A-and perhaps a Pynchon jape at Nietzsche's vision of history?

==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. Herein a 'parable' drawn from the flowing of a literal river, by some Candlbrow conferees.

Cf. "The River of Time" (first published in 1981 as "Coexistence" in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine) 

Cf. M&D's "in America, time is a river that goes through hell"

Cf. Heraclitus's Flux and Fire Philosophy. [http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/heraclitus.html]

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

Symmes Street = Symmetry ?

'''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.

also used to describe a very large penis. Judging from the "disreputable" nature of the Ball in Hand, it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to imagine Polish comedians hitting themselves over the head with their own appendages.

'''fantan''' 
Traditional Chinese gambling game; also a card game [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-Tan].

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

'''magenta-and-green''' 
Clashing-colors motif. This combination appears in a bandana in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] (Viking p. 69 line 14). 
Life colors in Pynchon, it might be argued?, as is a bandana. 
The clashing of (anarchic) life motif, maybe? 

magenta is a color that was renamed for a battle, the Battle of Magenta!
see wikipedia.

There's something else striking about magenta and green: In the field of [http://www.rgbworld.com/color.html color mixing,] these are complementary in the sense that magenta results from filtering all the green out of white light and vice versa. Green is an additive primary (red-green-blue), while magenta is a subtractive primary (cyan-magenta-yellow). This does not hold for some other ''AtD'' color schemes (red/indigo comes to mind, but there are a dozen or so of these binary combinations).

==Page 411==

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

'''Hawaiian volcano''' 
Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park, established in 1916, displays the results of 70 million years of volcanism, migration, and evolution — processes that thrust a bare land from the sea and clothed it with complex and unique ecosystems, and a distinct human culture.

The park encompasses 333,000 acres and ranges from sea level to the summit of the earth's most massive volcano, Mauna Loa at 13,677 feet. ''Kilauea, the world's most active volcano, offers scientists insights on the birth of the Hawaiian Islands'' and visitors views of dramatic volcanic landscapes. Over half of the park is designated wilderness and provides unique hiking and camping opportunities.

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koan 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_relativity Wikipedia]. Pynchon refers to the fact that this work was underway and 'in the air' at the time of the novel. [[Bohr, Mach, Einstein, et al.|History and Discussion...]]

Notice how, among this stellar cast of scientists, Wells seems to be placed above the rest (cf: "Mr. Wells himself"), as if the writer of fiction trumped "real" scientists when it came to the idea of time travel.

'''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 [http://www.ditext.com/mctaggart/time.html The Unreality of Time (1)] and other information [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time The Unreality of Time (2)].

'''the McTaggartite''' 
disciple of Mctaggart?

'''neo-Augustinian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo St. Augustine of Hippo] (354-430), in his autobiographical [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions/confessions.html ''Confessions''], is credited with reconceptualizing the notion of time in Christian terms. Throyle, on [[ATD 119-148#Page 143|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 [[ATD E|'''Eschatology''']].

<div id="pudding">'''fatal steamed pudding'''</div>
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?

<div id="stearinery">'''Old Stearinery Bell Tower'''</div>
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." [http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/The-Procter-amp;-Gamble-Company-Company-History.html]

==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".

Hmm... maybe Chick is implying that he and Meatman are indeed of the same cloth, not bound by the earthly realm, the former spending most of his time in the air and the latter being able to travel to other dimensions.

'''other Promise... resurrected... two millennia''' 
???
:maybe this refers simply to the Resurrection (and therefore the end of Time); the Promise is that the trumpet (Chick's?) shall sound, and the dead shall be raised.

God's promise of eternal life vs. Time Travel's promise of making you immortal.

'''speaking trumpet''' 
Brass forerunner of the megaphone. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1671RSPT....6.3056M Abstract] of a 1671 paper; [http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/conMediaFile.2647 photo] of a ship's speaking trumpet, 1799; [http://www.auroraregionalfiremuseum.org/giftshop/1850figure/source/horn.htm 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''' 
A penumbra is the outer and lighter part of the shadow created by an eclipse. "Penumbrae" is the plural form.

'''quiescence''' 
His name suggests a purveyor of meat, and he does "deliver" Chick to Mr. Ace.

==Page 415==

'''"Mr. Ace"''' 
This could be a nod to the 1946 film [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038752/ ''Mr. Ace''] starring Sylvia Sidney and George Raft who plays Eddie Ace, the head man of a crooked political machine who intends to scuttle the gubernatorial campaign of female senator Margaret Wyndham Chase (Sylvia Sidney). He uses every dirty trick in the book to destroy Margaret, but she perseveres on the strength of sheer honesty and integrity. Through her example, Ace mends his own ways, earning Margaret's love as a bonus, and he helps her to run as an independent on a clean-government ticket.

It may, more specifically, refer to the old-time radio show called ''The Cases of Mr. Ace'' which had a very limited run mostly on WNEW in New York in the late forties. Raft played Eddie Ace, the sole owner of Ace Detective Agency on 6th Avenue. In the episode from June 25, 1945, Ace described one gangster thus:

:"The face of a small fragile old man. His hair was glossy and deep black. His eyes were glossy and deep black."

Compare this to Pynchon's Mr. Ace: "Glossy black eyes, presented like weapons in a duel."

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

'''Those of us who spoke this truth were denounced as heretics''' 
Yes, the old Pynchon theme of those in control, the oligarchs, silencing the counterforce.

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''' 
Cf. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Brooks_Adams Henry Adams], author of ''The Virgin and The Dynamo''. Pynchon has written of being influenced deeply by Adams, and his ideas are particularly evident in Pynchon's [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''].

'''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.

Electrical short is certainly relevant. The mistranslation is a kind-of short-circuit, then he gets the right phrase from his data bank. Bit like C3P0 in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_wars ''Star Wars'']?

'''You are not aware that each of your mission assignments is intended to prevent some attempt of our own to enter your time-regime.''' 
Aha! A little peek into the True Mission of the Chums. Time to take another look at those various adventures:

* ''Chums of Chance and The Evil Halfwit'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance and The Curse of the Great Kahuna'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_5|p.5]])
* ''Chums of Chance at Krakatoa'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance Search for Atlantis'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_6|p.6]])
* ''Chums of Chance in Old Mexico'' ([[ATD_1-25#Page_7|p.7]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Bowels of the Earth'' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|p.117]])
* ''The Chums of Chance and the Ice Pirates'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''The Chums of Chance Nearly Crash into the Kremlin'' ([[ATD_119-148#Page_123|p.123]])
* ''Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth'' ([[ATD_199-218#Page_214|p.214]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Caged Women of Yokahama'' ([[ATD_397-428#Page_411|p.411]])
* ''Chums of Chance and the Wrath of the Yellow Fang'' ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page_1019|p.1019]])

==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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto 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 [[ATD_219-242#Page 238|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 [http://www.entropylaw.com/ 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 [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''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.

Right: And what about the biggest trespasser of all - the author himself. After all, he's the one who can offer them immortality.

'''I see them ''pointing something'' back at me not exactly a weapon an enigmatic object.''' 
Hmmm. Could this have anything to do with the [[Q-weapon_and_Photography|Q-weapon]]?

— – – mmm... does anyone think that it might be just a remote control, and that the window through which the trespassers and the Chums see each other might be just a TV set? [[[User:Sonni|Sonni]] 09:19, 21 February 2008 (PST)]

==Page 418==

'''Trespass''' 
With a capital T.

'''evidence... everywhere''' 
Cf [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Crying of Lot 49''].

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

'''contracts''' 
With Devil.
More specifically, like Faust with Mephistopheles.

'''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.
Clearly it's mutable, a kind of mirage. And surely there's a resonance with 'laughing academy'? And a hint of the Hogwarts train in 'Harry Potter'?

==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"''' 
[http://hetzler.homestead.com/NBCakeWalk.html A cakewalk song] written in 1899.

'''consecrated''' 
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/consecrate] "1. To declare or set apart as sacred: consecrate a church."

'''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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Romanesque 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. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_realism]

'''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"''' 
???

'''Yippy dippy dippy, doo!''' 
cf. ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (p. 66) where Slothrop goes down the toilet after, appropriately, a harmonica.

'''Now, it ain't that I wouldn't, 'cause I can but I won't,''' 
'''And I would if I wasn't, but I am so I don't''' 
This sounds very similar to a lyric from Frank Zappa's 'Stink-Foot:'

He said:
"IT DOESN'T, 'n YOU CAN'T!

I WON'T, 'n IT DON'T!

IT HASN'T, IT ISN'T, IT EVEN AIN'T

'N IT SHOULDN'T . . .

IT COULDN'T!"

He told me NO NO NO!

I told him YES YES YES!

I said: "I do it all the time . . .

Ain't this boogie a mess!"

'''difficult vocal feat''' 
???

'''segueing''' 
A deejaying term for moving from one song/track to another with no noticeable break if done correctly. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow,''] Viking p. 70, line 36, where the phonetic spelling "segway" appears.

'''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. [http://www.hohnerusa.com/hchromatic.htm Examples].

'''Pitch Integrity Guard''' 
To prevent tampering with the notes in the ways described below - i.e. monitoring any tendency towards the 'Negroid'. 
= PIG - pigs long have held a fascination over Pynchon. 
A-and a Pitch Integrity Guard is a kind of cop, right? 

'''harmonica-reed files''' 
Filing the reeds would alter the notes slightly, allowing you to get 'in-between' notes that aren't in the normal major or minor scale.

'''sucking the tonic chords...Negroid sound''' 
Standard technique for playing blues harmonica ('harp'), also known as cross-blowing. The sucked notes are easier to 'bend' and wail with, so you can get the blues 'third', not quite minor, not quite major. Another technique that helps you get the 'Negroid sound' is soaking the harmonica, which gives the reeds a rougher, more bendable quality. That's probably the point of the 'late night visits to the latrine'. Compare with GR, where Slothrop (at college!) loses his harmonica down the toilet (he finds it much later in a stream in Germany! Gone back home, so to speak). There's a harmonica-soaking scene in Pennebaker's Dylan film 'Don't look Back'.
It wouldn't surprise me if there was some kind of folk wisdom that piss is even better than water for soaking the harp. Pee-culiar.

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Offenbach Jacques Offenbach] (1819-1880). 
The lyrics of which are not entirely irrelevant: 
And if we meet a helpless woo-o-man 
Or little boys who do no harm 
We run them in, we run them in, 
We run them in, we run them in 
Because we are the bold gen-darmes! 

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

'''vapor bearing...minerals''' 
Rows of mirrors facing each other (thus creating regular patterns, "chaining away for uncounted leagues") have been stained with images formed by regular use: breath, tiny bits of toothpaste or powder ("atomized dentifrice"), "shaving preparations," and mineral deposits from tapwater.

'''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==

'''revisit places where destinies took a wrong turn, or revisit in dreams the dreaming body of one loved more than either might have known...''' 
As far as we know, none of the Chums has actually experienced this. Sounds to me like an allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust Faust] and Gretchen/Marguerite, since this actually happens in several of the Faust versions. Especially in the context of the Faustian bargain they have made with Mr. Ace.

'''None of them...''' 
Cf [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi#The_butterfly_dream Chuang Tzu's dream]: is he a man dreaming he's a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he's a man? On the rhetorical level of the story, this passage reiterates the dreamlike, near-delusional nature of the Chums' latest escape from what seems to have become their most dangerous foe. (418: "As if in a dream...").

'''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''' 
Songs and humor in which African-Americans were stereotyped (as lazy, immoral, stupid, vain, etc.) and held in contempt. The most popular coon song, though, was written by an African-American, Ernest Hogan; titled "All Coons Look Alike to Me," it has an ''AtD'' resonance. Coon material was extremely popular between about 1880 and 1910; stripped of the word "coon," a diluted form still appears nightly on your TV. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coon_song Wikipedia] has a strikingly good article. For a partial list of coon references in ''AtD,'' [[ATD_26-56#Page_48|see annotation to p. 48.]]

'''isotropy''' 
the quality or condition of being equal along all directions. For more technical information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotropy isotropy].

'''presently''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crumb R. Crumb] did a comic like this: [http://crumbproducts.com/prints_images/sha.gif pic] 
Nice find. That comic succintly summarizes TRP's view of the effects of railroads and "civilization."

'''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"''' 
Music and lyrics by Charles K. Harris. This number was interpolated into the score of the hit musical ''A Trip to Chinatown'' (1892) during its record-setting Broadway run. It was introduced by J. Aldrich Libbey. When Kern and Hammerstein wanted to add period flavor to ''Show Boat'' (1927), they used "After the Ball" in the Trocadero scene where it was performed by Norma Terris. [[After the Ball|Read the lyrics...]]

See also the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_174-177 pantomime song] in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (pages 174-175):
<blockquote>"And the lamps in the stairway are dying, 
It's the season just after the ball . . ."</blockquote>

'''Bukhara''' 
Either the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Bukhara Emirate of Bukhara], a former country in Central Asia or its [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara capital]

'''T.D.Y.''' 
Abbrevation for Temporary Duty. [http://www.army.mil/usapa/epubs/pdf/r614_11.pdf 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxaul Wikipedia] [http://www.pbase.com/william_sokolenko/image/68724037 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 [http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/biocontrol/weedfeeders/toadflax.html invasive plant species]

'''Hypopsammotic... Hypops''' 
''Hypo-'' (under) + ''psammot-'' (sand, from Greek ''psammos'') + ''-ic.'' Pynchon explains the device's function on the next page (426).

==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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave-particle_duality dual (wave/particle) nature of light].

==Page 427==

'''temporarily lapsing into English''' 
Contrasts with the technical jargon the Chums have been steeped in over the past few days, including lectures by Roswell Bounce (they're only boys, after all). Often, mathematicians, physicists, and their students fail to explain their theories "in English." This little phrase can be taken as a professorial joke, aimed at both the author (for always coming back to obscure or difficult theories) and the reader (for never understanding them). 
I thought it was contrasting with Miles' frequent babbling habit. 

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

'''X.O.''' 
The Executive Officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the Commanding Officer (CO).

'''legalistic''' 
Yes, Darby is now Legal Counsel.

==Page 428==
'''ill-starred Bell Tower''' 
Referring back of course to the [[#stearinery|Old Stearinery Bell Tower]] and the [[#pudding|Fatal Pudding]], and in turn to the [[Campanile]].

:The Campanile picture has me wondering. According to the sources, the old picture of the collapse of the Campanile is actually a fake. And it doesn't have the airship. It's a fun picture, but what is its status? There doesn't seem to be an appropriate place for this information in the wiki, or have I missed something?

:The Campanile picture is an illustration. Doubtful that anyone had their camera all set up for the awesome event. The airship was photoshopped in for, um, color...

::See also last paragraph of page 255.

Cf. Renata's tarot reading on [[ATD 243-272#Page 253|p. 253]], the last card of which is The Tower.

Cf. ''The Bell-Tower'' by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Melville Herman Melville], a famous short story from ''The Piazza Tales'' (1856) 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. [http://www.melville.org/belltowr.htm Full text of ''The Bell-Tower'']

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 358-373

2009-04-09T16:16:43Z

Bobutler: /* Page 369 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 358==

'''Camp Bird''' 
Camp Bird Mine, Ouray, Ouray County, CO, is a gold-zinc-silver-lead-copper mine operated from 1896 to 1990. It located six miles south of Ouray and produced yearly 1.5 million ounces of gold and 4 million ounces of silver until 1990. [http://www.mindat.org/loc-8702.html Camp Bird].

'''Archie Dipple''' 
???

'''". . . camel herd imported years ago . . ."''' 
Camels were imported in 1855 for use by the U.S. Army as pack animals. They were quite capable, but the Army eventually abandoned them around the Civil War. Those that escaped became a feral population that survived in the Southwest until 1941. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Camel_Corps Wikipedia]

'''kids in cylindrical hats''' 
hotel pageboys. [http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=hotel+pageboy pix]

==Page 359==

'''bunco-steerer''' 
A con man or fraudster, but the use here seems less malicious than usual.

'''Macking for a mack''' 
Pimping for a pimp. Mack: a pimp (from English ''mackerel'' or French ''maquereau'').

'''Karl Marx''' 
Karl Marx (1818-83) German socialist and economist, founder of modern international Communism. Based on study of the French Revolution, together with fellow exile, Friedrich Engels (1920-95), they wrote the [http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html ''Communist Manifesto''] (1848), a masterpiece of political proganganda. In 1867, Marx published [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital ''Das Kapital''], an extensive treatise on political economy, in German. The book is a critical analysis of capitalism and its practical economic application and also, in part, a critique of other related theories. Its first volume was published in 1867. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx Wikipedia entry]

==Page 360==

'''Sean O'Farrells''' 
"The popular Shawn O'Farrell was created in Butte, Montana, a straight shot of whiskey followed with a glass of cold beer; it gave birth to the boilermaker." From this [http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/old_west/102390 website]

'''army "A" tents''' 
A-Frame tents are canvas tents supported by a vertical pole at either end and a cord or horizontal pole between the two along the top. When viewed from the entrance end, they form a triangle, hence the name.
[http://coonriver.com/tent.jpg Image of Civil War era A-Frames.]

==Page 363==

'''the Wall''' 
Death?

'''''chavalitos''''' 
Kids (Spanish).

'''calico recital''' 
I.e., wife's conventional plea.

'''side o' beef''' 
She is both rhyming on his name and comparing him to something that one ''hangs.''

'''. . . want to do nothing but be down at them famous little feet''' 
Like any self-respecting foot fetishist. Pynchon's use of the foot fetish trope goes back to [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2 ''The Crying of Lot 49''] ("I Want to Kiss Your Feet" by Sick Dick and the Volkswagens), but is most [[F#footfetish|panoramically displayed]] in ''Against the Day''.

==Page 364==

'''Denver''' 
Actually mine school at Golden, 15 miles west?

'''purple... orange''' 
(Clashing colors keep turning up as a motif.)

'''January colt''' 
From the Racecourse Association:
All racehorses are given the nominal birthday of January 1st. Thus a "two-year-old" born in June and one born in January of the same year are considered to be of the same age for the purposes of satisfying the conditions of some races re: weight carried. In reality, the January horse may be considered to have a significant advantage in terms of physical development at this early stage in its career.

'''Borrasca''' 
Borrasca in Spanish means storm, squall, depression, or area of low pressure. But apparently it can also mean an exhausted mine, and 'Going borrasca' means "becoming mined-out". Interestingly, this is very close to the English word 'borassic', ie. out of cash. This comes from Cockney Rhyming Slang: 'boracic lint' meaning 'skint', ie without any money.

==Page 365==

'''Bridget McGonigal''' 
a slide in the San Juans named after a mine owner's wife.
:A real feature?

'''to fill the day''' 
(Day motif.)

==Page 366==

'''sled''' 
(Cf Dally and Frank.)

'''Jake''' 
Okay (slang).

'''dead and gone, and therefore born again''' 
Several characters in ''AtD'' have a similar experience—Lew Basnight on page 185 is an example.

==Page 367==

'''Thrapston Cheesely III''' 
???

'''Madame Aubergine''' 
"Aubergine" is French for eggplant. Cf. p. 67, "'my little eggplant.'"

'''Ruperta Chirpingdon-Groin''' 
???

'''Yup Toy''' 
Expensive yuppie gadget, eg iPod.

'''naphtha-light''' 
Obscure fuel-into-light motif variant.

==Page 368==

'''$3.50-a-quart''' 
About $75 today.

Compare to p.92 where $3.50 is given as a day's wage.

'''an exquisite''' 
one who is overly fastidious in dress or ornament.

'''Monsieur Peychaud''' 
Antoine Amadie Peychaud, a Creole apothecary who moved to New Orleans from the West Indies and set up shop in the French Quarter in the early 1800s. [http://www.gumbopages.com/food/beverages/sazerac.html weblink]

'''Sazeracs''' 
A New Orleans cocktail. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sazerac Wikipedia entry].

'''Bob Stockton''' 
???

'''Absinthe Frappés''' 
Read about absinthe in America at [http://www.oxygenee.com/absinthe-americas.html The Virtual Absinthe Museum].

'''...some form of zombie powder''' 
the most common ingredients of Haitian "poudres zombi" [http://science.howstuffworks.com/zombie1.htm according to this website] are [http://amphibiaweb.org/cgi/amphib_query?rel-genus=like&rel-species=like&rel-common_name=like&rel-family=equals&rel-ordr=equals&rel-isocc=like&rel-description=like&rel-distribution=like&rel-life_history=like&rel-trends_and_threats=like&rel-relation_to_humans=like&rel-comments=like&query_src=aw_search_index&max=200&orderbyaw=Family&where-genus=Bufo&where-species=marinus&where-common_name=&where-family=Bufonidae&where-ordr=Anura&where-isocc=any&rel-species_account=matchboolean&where-species_account=&rel-declinecauses=equals&where-declinecauses=any&rel-iucn=equals&where-iucn=&rel-cites=equals&where-cites= Canetoad] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine DMT], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bufotenin Bufotenin], heart [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid steroids]), [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pufferfish Pufferfish] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin Tetrotodoxin]) , [http://www.amphibiainfo.com/gallery/anura/hylidae/osteopilus/dominicensis/ Hispaniolan Common Tree Frog] (?) and "Human Remains"(?).

In Colombia the effects of an intoxication with [http://earthops.org/burundanga.html Burundanga] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopolamine Scopolamine]) are described as those of a [http://www.brugerforeningen.dk/bfny.nsf/0/A6CA2207359E19AFC12568C4005E94C8?OpenDocument&K=International%20News&S=UK Zombie Powder]

'''bengaline''' 
A fabric having a crosswise ribbed effect made of silk, wool, or synthetic fibers [http://www.bharattextile.com/dictionary/118 weblink].

'''Medici collar''' 
Medici collar is a flared, fan-shaped collar with a V-opening at the front popular in the 1540s and 1550s after similar styles seen in the portrait of Catherine de Medici in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_de%27_Medici Wikipedia].
:[http://www.bharattextile.com/dictionary/118 a few samples here] can't see any collar samples!

'''bastard chinchilla''' 
A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinchilla chinchilla] is a rodent with thick, valuable fur. Bastard here means 'false', so the cuffs resemble chinchilla fur but are not truly chinchilla.

'''glissandi''' 
Glissando (plural: glissandi) is a musical term that refers to either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another. 
''(in fact, "glissando" should not be declined in the plural, so "glissandi" makes no sense at all. "glissando" would be the right word)''

'''whorehouse professor''' 
Just as it was for aeronauts, "Professor" was a customary title for pianists in low surroundings.

'''voodoo''' 
A polytheistic religion practiced chiefly by West-Indian Negroes, deriving principally from African cult worship and containing elements borrowed from the Catholic religion.

==Page 369==

'''cheurice sausage''' 
spelled "chaurice",[typo or variant?],it is a spicy Cajun pork sausage. See "POCHE'S, Smoked Chaurice" at Cajungrocer.com. There is
a Portuguese variant, a garlic sausage with another spelling yet: ''Chouriço.'' The Mexican equivalent is "Chorizo."

'''gumbo''' 
A spicy, hearty stew or soup, found typically on the Gulf of Mexico in the U.S. and very common in Louisiana and the Lowcountry around Charleston, South Carolina. It usually consists of rice and soup, the latter can contain seafood (shrimp, crab or crawfish), fowl (duck, chicken) and other meats.

'''étouffé''' 
Also, étouffée, literally means smothered, choked off. It is a Creole [[ATD_26-56#Page_29|seafood dish—see annotation to p. 29]]—a tangy tomato-based sauce, typically served over rice, similar to gumbo, very popular in New Orlean. The usual staple of an étouffée is crawfish, whereas shrimp or crabmeat are more often found in gumbos.

'''sassafras''' 
A genus of two species of deciduous trees in the family Lauraceae. It's root, bark, wood and leaves have many usages: perfumes, insect repellent, soft drink (root beer), dye, drugs and many others. The leaves are used for thickening sauces and soups, and when dried and ground are known as filé powder, a spice used in Cajun, Creole and other Louisiana cooking.

'''Italian Troubles''' 
The Mafia first gained American attention via New Orleans at that time. In 1890, a New Orleans Police Superintendent was killed. Nineteen Sicilians were indicted and aquitted (bribes and jury tampering were rumored). After the acquittal, a lynch mob dispatched most of the defendents.

'''''Va fongool-a''''' 
The original Italian phrase is "Va' a fare in culo" (usually shortened in "Vaffanculo", which in a southern italian pronounciation would in fact sound more or less "Vafangool'!" - Pynchon ear at its best!) meaning literally "go do it in the ass", or simply "fuck you."

'''Maman Tant Gras Hall''' 
Mama-So-Fat Hall.

Earnest, albeit slightly imprecise translation from the French (Mama So Fat would translate as "Maman Si Grasse" or "Maman Si Grosse"). I'll give you that it's hard to imagine it means anything else than "Fat Mama's Hall" but even in Cajun, it sounds a little off, because of the masculine form of the adjective "Gras", which clashes with the feminine "Maman". Just a little nitpicking from this French-speaking contributor...

'''''guignette''''' 
A [http://www.ornitho-digiscoping.tramelan.ch/pages_des_especes/chevalier_guignette.htm guignette] is a bird, a sandpiper. A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinguette guinguette] is a cabaret. Looks like another printing error.

'''"Dope" Breedlove and his Merry Coons''' 
Dope breeds love? Maybe Pynchon is lampooning the vicious stereotyping of the whole act, i.e. Those who named them consider them dumb,happy,love breeding black folk. For a partial list of coon references in ''AtD,'' [[ATD_26-56#Page_48|see annotation to p. 48.]]
 
:On the name Breedlove: the Breedlove family are the (African American) central characters in Toni Morrison's ''The Bluest Eye''. There's also a line in Tom Waits's song 'Cold, Cold Ground' that goes 'Call the cops on the Breedloves...'

'''cataplexy''' 
Sudden loss of muscle power following a strong emotional stimulus.

The temporary paralysis or hypnotic state in animals when 'shamming death.' <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd. Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''traps''' 
Equipment, gear, luggage. Trappings, as in dress, ornamental equipment or decoration.

==Page 370==

'''Ramos gin fizz''' 
Another New Orleans cocktail. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramos_gin_fizz Wikipedia entry].

'''Anarchist theory''' 
At the core of anarchist thought lies the contention that all forms of domination are hateful, that government is not just unnecessary but harmful. Early believers in England and France held that the workers should avoid involvement in parliamentary politics, and should liberate themselves by direct action on the streets and in the factories. As a result of an extreme reaction against the extreme autocracy of the Russian Empire, two famous Russian anarchists, Mikhail Bakunin (1814-76) and Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), proclaimed that anarchists organize in order to destroy states. German anarchist Max Sirner (1806-56) stressed the absolute rights of the individual to freedom from institutional control. This principle ruled out any chance of an effective anarchist organization. Anarchism inspired the birth of modern terrorism. The idea was that sensational acts of murder or destruction would publicize injustice, break the resolve of government policy, and shatter the nerve of the ruling elite. (taken from Norman Davies' ''Europe: A History'' (1996).)

[[image:Benjamin-Tucker2.jpg|thumb|right|Benjamin Tucker|150px]]'''Benjamin Tucker wrote of the Land League [...] in such glowing terms ...''' 
From 1881-1908, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker Benjamin Tucker] (1854-1939) published the anarchist journal ''Liberty'' with the telling subtitle ''The Mother, not the Daughter, of Order''. Tucker was an ardent defender of Individualist Anarchism. In an issue of ''Liberty'' he wrote:

:'''Ireland's true order: the wonderful Land League, the nearest approach, on a large scale, to perfect Anarchistic organization that the world has yet seen.''' An immense number of local groups, scattered over large sections of two continents separated by three thousand miles of ocean; each group autonomous, each free; each composed of varying numbers of individuals of all ages, sexes, races, equally autonomous and free; each inspired by a common, central purpose; each supported entirely by voluntary contributions; each obeying its own judgment; each guided in the formation of its judgment and the choice of its conduct by the advice of a central council of picked men, having no power to enforce its orders except that inherent in the convincing logic of the reasons on which the orders are based; all coordinated and federated, with a minimum of machinery and without sacrifice of spontaneity, into a vast working unit, whose unparalleled power makes tyrants tremble and armies of no avail. [Emphasis added]

[http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/tucker/tucker.html Courtesy of flag.blackened.net]

[[Benjamin Tucker|Read more about Tucker and the Land League...]]

'''Land League''' 
The Irish Land League was an Irish political organization ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Land_league Land League]) founded by Michael Davitt in 1879. Its aim was to abolish the abuse and excesses of absentee landlords in Ireland and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on. The period (1870s, 1880s and 1890s) of the Land League's agitation is known in Ireland as the Land War, actually not a "war" but rather a prolonged period of civil unrest
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_war Land War]).

'''a Fenian''' 
The Fenian Brotherhood was initially founded in 1858 as the Irish Republican Brotherhood's American branch by John O'Mahony, James Stephens, and Michael Doheny, to overthrow the oppressive British Rule in Ireland. In the face of nativist suspicion, it quickly established an independent existence, although it still worked to gain Irish-American support for armed rebellion in Ireland.

Initially, O'Mahony ran operations in the USA, sending funds to Stephens and the IRB in Ireland, disagreement over O'Mahony's leadership led to the formation of two Fenian Brotherhoods in 1865. The U.S. chapter of the movement was also sometimes referred to as the IRB. After the failed invasion of Canada, it was replaced by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_na_Gael Clan na Gael].

"Fenian" became a denigrating term for any group against British Imperialism in Ireland, and as the Irish are wont to do with the language forced on them, it was turned around to become a badge of honor, still used in the North (Unrepentant Fenian Bastard!) on t-shirts, mugs, and as the title of a song by Chris Byrne. The word is derived from the name of the warriors (''Fianna'') who protected the ''ARD RI'' (High King) of Eire.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian Wikipedia]

'''Jass''' 
An article in the OED on the etymology of the word Jazz by a Bob Rigter traces the word to French "Chasser" and says the word "jass' was in use in New Orleans around 1900!

:"The Grand Larousse de la Langue Française (1971) derives CHASSER from Classical Latin CAPTARE. It provides two related meanings: 'chercher à prendre' and 'pousser devant soi, obliger à avancer ... faire avancer rapidement'. Clearly, the first can be related to the sexual connotation, and the second to the rhythmical connotation of the word JASS as it was used in New Orleans round 1900."

"Ken Burns Films on Jazz"
Has anyone seen the Ken Burns film series on Jazz? According to this excellent film series the word Jass was actually derived from the word Jasmine. Jasmine was the favorite fragrance of the prostitutes in New Orleans. But what happened was that certain people would have fun with the Marquees. For example: A marquee would say "John Doe and his Jass Band". Someone would knock off the 'J' and it became "John Doe and his ass Band". For this reason they changed it from Jass to Jazz. I'm pretty sure this is covered in detail in the first or second volume of the Jazz film series.

[[Jazz / Jass|Discussion...]]

'''Wolfe Tone O'Rooney''' 
Although there is speculation that Pynchon had in mind [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobald_Wolfe_Tone Theobald Wolfe Tone] (1763-1798), an Irish revolutionary who is considered "the father of Irish Republicanism," it may also be a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slim_Gaillard Slim Gaillard] (1916-1991), an early and eccentric jazz musician. [[Wolfe Tone O'Rooney|Read the discussion...]]
It isn't really a matter of speculation. The point is that O'Rooney comes from a family that has given him the names Wolfe Tone in honour of the Irish hero Theobald Wolfe Tone. Thomas Kenneally's Book 'The Great Shame' tells the story of the Irish revolutionaries who came to America and there are a few Wolfe Tones among them.

Wolf tones appear in music as well, as unwanted resonances in stringed instruments ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_tone Wikipedia]) and as artifacts of [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament]. It is also the name of a famous Irish Traditional Music Group.

'''boycotting''' 
The word boycott arose in the autumn of 1880 to describe the action instituted by the Irish Land League towards those who incurred its hostility and is derived from the name of Captain Charles Boycott (1832-79), an English estate agent of an absentee landlord, the Earl Erne. Captain Boycott not only refused the protesting farmers' demand of rent reduction but also ejected them from the land. But in retaliation, the Land League engineered his social ostracism, proclaiming "Let every man in the parish turn his back on him; have no communications with him; have no dealings with him". His workers stopped working in his fields and in his house. Local businessmen stopped trading with him and the postman refused to delivery his mail. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott Wikipedia].

'''"Sligo and Tipperary"''' 
Known as "Rebel Counties" in the agitation against British rule in Ireland. Wikipedia pages for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sligo Sligo] and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipperary Tipperary].

'''. . . a metaphorical device whose tenor . . .''' 
Refers to I.A. Richards' identification of metaphor as two discrete elements, "tenor" and "vehicle." In "my love is a rose," "my love" is the tenor, "a rose," the vehicle (see the Wikipedia entry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor Metaphor] for more). The reference to tenor is a reminder that metaphor is itself a doubling, refractory device.

==Page 371==

'''Red Onion''' 
New Orleans night club on Rampart Street. In the "Back o Town" district, also called the "colored red light district," it was in its day quite a dive. Still in operation.

'''the Deux Espèces''' 
French: the Two Species. In Roman Catholic liturgy, ''la sainte Communion sous les deux espèces'' is "Holy Communion under both kinds," that is, when the communicant receives both the wine and the Host.

'''Flaco''' 
Skinny man (Spanish) or, as a ''nom de guerre,'' "Slim."

==Page 372==

'''"the more repressive the State is, the closer life under it resembles Death"''' 
An allusion to the theories of Mexican-American psychoanalyst Norman O. Brown, whose works, [http://www.amazon.com/Life-Against-Death-Psychoanalytical-Meaning/dp/0819561444/ref=pd_sim_b_1/002-6565825-6477661 ''Life Against Death''] (1959) and [http://www.amazon.com/Loves-Body-Reissue-Norman-Brown/dp/0520071069/sr=8-1/qid=1168179129/ref=sr_1_1/002-6565825-6477661?ie=UTF8&s=books ''Love's Body''] (1966) were an important influence on ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Brown, elaborating on and radicalizing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud%2C_Sigmund Freud's] theories of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_drive death drive] as discussed in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_and_Its_Discontents ''Civilization and Its Discontents''] (1930), argues that all submission to the state necessarily constitutes a form of psychic repression. Brown saw this repression as resulting from a desire for and ultimately being tantamount to death.
:Those interested should seek out Lawrence C. Wolfley's excellent article "Repression's Rainbow: The Presence of Norman O. Brown in Pynchon's Big Novel," first published in ''PMLA'', Vol. 92, No. 5 (Oct., 1977), pp. 873-889, but reprinted frequently.

'''the bombing of the Teatro Lyceo during a performance of Rossini's opera ''William Tell''''' 
On November 7, 1893, the opening night of the season, an anarchist dissident threw two bombs into the Barcelona opera house; only one bomb exploded, killing twenty and injuring many more.

"Lyceum" (Catalan ''liceu,'' Spanish ''liceo'' or ''lyceo,'' French ''lycée,'' etc.) varies in meaning from country to country. [http://www.apologetics.org/glossary.html The original Lyceum] was the Athens garden where Aristotle taught. In some places the word refers to a secondary school, in others a cultural institution. Lyceum is among the most popular names for theaters in the English-speaking world.

Wikipedia has possibly redundant entries for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Teatre_del_Liceu the Opera House], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona Barcelona], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gioacchino_Rossini Rossini], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tell_%28opera%29 ''William Tell''], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatori_Superior_de_M%C3%BAsica_del_Liceu Barcelona's Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu], the musical conservatory for which the Teatro was built.

'''Montjuich''' 
Catalan for "Hill of the Jews," a broad hill overlooking Barcelona, atop which a 17th century fortress sits. The fortress shelled the city in 1842 following a popular uprising and was used through the reign of Franco to hold political prisoners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montjuich Wikipedia].

'''latifundios''' 
Spanish landed estates, a remnant of the Roman social order. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latifundios Wikipedia].

'''Anarchist Czolgosz had assassinated McKinley''' 
Leon Czolgosz, the son of a Polish immigrant in Detroit, MI, shot and mortally wounded President McKinley on September 6, 1901 in Buffalo, New York, at the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exhibition, a World's Fair held in Buffalo because it could be powered by electricity from Niagara Falls. McKinley died on September 16. Czolgosz was quickly found guilty and was executed by electrocution October 29, 1901. Wikipedia entries for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Czolgosz Czolgosz], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley McKinley], and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-American_Exposition Pan-American Exposition].

'''the Paris Commune''' 
The "socialist government that briefly ruled Paris from 18 March (more formally from 26 March) to 28 May 1871," cited from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_commune Wikipedia].

==Page 373==

'''a single point . . . upon the next''' 
That is, a place that is beyond time, where the movement of the meridians (lines of longitude) have no effect. The only part of the earth where this is literally true is the axis. See, therefore, the Chums' journey through the Telluric Interior," pp. 114-18.

'''''Despedida''''' 
Goodbye (Spanish).

'''beignets''' 
New Orleans-style square, holeless doughnuts usually sprinkled with powdered sugar, famously served at Cafe Du Monde. [http://www.cafedumonde.com/ Website].

'''Bakunin''' 
Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876), Russian anarchist and revolutionary. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakunin Wikipedia entry].

'''Kropotkin''' 
Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), Russian prince and anarchist, author of ''Mutual Aid.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin Wikipedia entry].

'''Eusebio Gómez''' 
Wolfe Tone takes a historic name. In 1815 Eusebio Gómez received a royal land grant that included now-prosperous Jupiter Island, Florida. The land was later subdivided and, around 1900, a British development company acquired it.

'''''a sus órdenes''''' 
Sp., "at your service."

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 336-357

2009-04-04T12:47:59Z

Bobutler: /* Page 348 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 336==

'''R-girls''' 
Rail girls?

Makes me think of b-girls, or bar girls [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=B-girls]. Seems appropriate, given the context, to imagine r-girls are the rails' equivalent.

'''White City''' 
The neighbourhood of extravagant buildings made for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. (First mentioned on [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_3 page 3]).

'''Jackson Park''' 
The site of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_Park_%28Chicago%29 Wikipedia]

'''"hoping for some glimpse of her White City, but saw only the darkened daytime one"''' 
"The White City... impressed everyone who saw it (at least before air pollution began to darken the façades) that plans were considered to refinish the [alabaster] exteriors in marble or some other material. These plans had to be abandoned in July 1894 when much of the fair grounds was destroyed in a fire. The fire occurred at the height of the Pullman Strike; since the strikers set other fires that very week, it is possible the fire was set by disgruntled Pullman employees." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbian_Exposition_of_1893 Wikipedia]

Pynchon has mentioned the decay of the White City earlier in the novel.

==Page 337==

'''Mrs. Dragsaw''' 
??? Speculation: dragsaw [http://www.webshots.com/explains/home-and-garden/dragsaw-case.html (pic)] is a real word [http://www.answers.com/topic/dragsaw (definition)] and certainly a funny name, especially for a woman hiring waitresses in a restaurant that serves lunch. Pynchon has a penchant for funny, if not outrageous, names.

'''Chillicothe''' 
City in Ross County, Ohio. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chillicothe,_Ohio wiki]

==Page 338==

'''grubstake''' 
funds or supplies advanced to a mining prospector (or a person starting a business) in return for a promised share of the profits.

'''Maude Adams''' 
American actress, 1872-1953. First to play Peter Pan on the American stage (1905). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maude_Adams Wikipedia article.] '''Not to be confused with Bond Girl Maud Adams!'''

'''Mock Duck's boys''' 
In the era of soysage, sunburgers and seitan, Mock Duck has just about dropped from public consciousness. A gluten-based vegetarian substance with at least an imagined resemblance to roast duck. Oriental grocers sometimes still carry it.

Actually, Mock Duck was a Tong leader in New York City, most active 1900
through 1912. Sai Wing Mock, aka "Mock Duck" was renowned for his eccentric
combat style; while hatchets, clubs and knives were standard weapons in
street-gang warfare, Mock Duck's method was to sow chaos and fear by crouching
in the center of the street, putting his head down, drawing two .44s and firing
wildly in all directions. (He was reportedly a terrible shot.)
(While Pynchon does add a lot of goofy names and implausible characters to his
fictions, it's the inclusions of the real ones that hold the history
together.)[[User:Infanttyrone|Infanttyrone]] 16:10, 11 December 2007 (PST)

==Page 339==

'''''en deshabille''''' 
partly dressed in a loose manner.

:more precisely, in this case, the French word for what Americans call a "négligée" (strange to translate a French word with another French word!). Very light indoor garment that one would never wear outside the house. "En déshabillé" literally means "in a déshabillé" or "wearing a déshabillé".

'''Modestine''' 
A 19th century first name. Perhaps a pun on the fact that she has not been modest.

'''let's say a ''short vacation''''' 
Maternity leave.

'''Hop Fung''' 
Not sure, but "wing hop fung" supposedly means "together forever prosper" [http://www.winghopfung.com/about.html]. Anyone?

: Wing=Forever, Hop=Together, Fung=Prosper

'''Celestial''' 
Chinese. "Celestial Empire" is a translation of one of the native names for China.

'''lobbygow''' 
"A hanger-on, go-between, or message runner, particularly one involved in the drug traffic—the speculation being that such persons usually hang about in lobbies" [http://mouthfulsfood.com/forums//lofiversion/index.php/t15.html cite]

'''"Chop Suey stories!"''' 
The Chinese in America making an industry out of fulfilling the natives' fantasies. Both the white-slavery dramatizations ("comediettas") and the dish chop suey itself are inauthentic but expected by Anglo tourists.

'''On Leong''' 
One of the many Chinese-American societies originally created for mutual support and protection (a ''tong'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tong_%28organization%29]) that became a criminal organization. The On Leong were influential in many major American cities around the turn of the century.

Also known as the On Leong Laborer and Merchant Association [http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/Archive_Index/Chinese_Criminal_Enterprises.html]

==Page 340==

'''Hip Sing''' 
Like the On Leong, an influential Chinese-American criminal organization [http://usinfo.state.gov/eap/Archive_Index/Chinese_Criminal_Enterprises.html].

Perhaps also a "hip" parody of the cook in ''Bonanza'', Hop Sing.

'''Bloody Angle''' 
Site of 20 hours of sustained combat at the Battle of Spotsylvania, 1864, thought possibly the most severe sustaned engagement of the American Civil War [http://www.cr.nps.gov/hps/ABPP/BATTLES/va048.htm].

'''Word had gotten around''' 
Dahlia's experiences on Broadway play out like a perverse parody of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. Like Dahlia, Dreiser's heroine is a small town girl who makes the transition from bit-part player to star. Furthermore, Dahlia arrives in New York City in 1900, the same year that Sister Carrie was published.

'''morning-hat''' 
Not sure if it refers to a specific hat or a family of hats, but It was used in the title of a fashion article published in the New York Times on Feb. 23rd, 1908 [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F0CE3D81F3EE233A25750C2A9649C946997D6CF].
Most likely a casual girl hat, opposed to evening wear.

==Page 341==

'''highbinders''' 
Members of a Chinese-American criminal gang. (The word later came to apply to corrupt politicians.)

'''day club''' 
??? Speculation: what Pynchon is humorously calling a [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/nightstick nightstick] used in the daytime.

'''''Glans penis'''''-'''shaped helmets''' 
[[Image:glans-penis-shaped-helmet.jpg|thumb|''Glans penis''-shaped police helmet|right]] The odd, short-brimmed helmets worn by police officers in New York around the turn of the century and still worn by English police today [http://policehelmets.homestead.com/].

'''Mock Duck...firing two revolvers at a time in all directions''' 
Incredibly, Pynchon seems to be referencing the Hong Kong films of John Woo. The image of the Chinese gangster firing two guns simultaneously is a Woo trademark, first popularized in the 1986 film ''A Better Tomorrow'' and repeated in subsequent Woo films such as ''The Killer'' (1989) and ''Hard-Boiled'' (1992). The image was so closely associated with Woo's favorite leading man, Chow Yun-Fat, that it was even reprised for Chow's subsequent films in Hollywood.
According to Woo, the image of the outlaw firing two guns simultaneously was inspired by the final scene of ''Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid''. This is interesting in light of the Butch Cassidy references in the Telluride section of ATD. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Woo#Trivia [wikipedia]]

There is an actual Tong leader being referenced here; Mock Duck was known for his two-gun style, but his methods were much different than Chow Yun-Fat's. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mock_Duck Wikipedia Entry]

==Page 342==

'''Tin Pan Alley''' 
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City-centered music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Pan_Alley Wikipedia]

'''acid magenta''' 
Acid dye is a member of a class of dye that is applied from an acidic solution. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_dye]

'''Con McVeety''' 
Investigation of the origins of family names on the North American continent has revealed that early immigrants bearing the name Veety or a variant (Veety has been written as MacVittie, MacVittye, MacVittae, MacWittie, MacWitty and many more) include: Alan MacWittie who settled in New England in 1685; Duncan McVittie arrived in Philadelphia Pa. in 1775. [http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.fc/qx/veety-family-crest.htm]

'''worst acts''' 
Itself a cliche, ''e.g'', Woody Allen's ''Broadway Danny Rose.''

==Page 343==

'''..seven-fifty a week..silent discussion.. "Ten?" and the deal was done.''' 
Curious deal here inluding the oxymoron but surely not cents nor dollars. 
Ten dollars in 1900 has the purchasing power in 2005 of
: $239.93 using the Consumer Price Index
: $205.36 using the GDP deflator

'''dime museum''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dime_museum Wikipedia]

'''absquatulate ''' 
to leave quickly or in a hurry. The phrase "in some haste to absquatulate' seems a bit redundant.

Found this interesting piece of knowledge on Freedictionary.com [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/] which explains the origins of a lot of the words used in AtD:
"In the 19th century, the vibrant energy of American English appeared in the use of Latin affixes to create jocular pseudo-Latin "learned" words. (...) Absquatulate has a prefix ab-, "away from," and a suffix -ate, "to act upon in a specified manner," affixed to a nonexistent base form -squatul-, probably suggested by squat. Hence the whimsical absquatulate, "to squat away from."

'''Olio''' 
A random collection (very roughly equivalent to the Spanish word ''zarzuela''). In music halls and variety theater an olio, here an act or acts unrelated to the "real" show, would go up in front of the curtain during long scene changes.

'''australian cockroach''' 
It is very unlikely that it was an Australian Cockroach (Periplaneta australasiae), which has a length of 3.0cm - 3.5cm (approx 1 1/4"-1 3/8"). Most likely refers to another (unwinged) species, called the Rhinoceros Cockroach or Giant Burrowing Cockroach (Macropanesthia rhinoceros) which is indigenous to Australia and can weigh up to 35 g (1.2 oz) and measure up to 3.15 in (80 mm) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinoceros_cockroach] Still a far cry from "the size of a sewer rat".

'''Bogoslaw Borowicz''' 
Borowicz is a polish name, patronymic from a pet form of Borowy, or from Borzyslaw, Bolebor, or some other personal name formed with the element bor ‘to fight’.

Found a reference to a Bogoslaw Borowicz in a scientific paper entitled "During Latency, Herpes Simplex Virus Type 1 DNA Is Associated
with Nucleosomes in a Chromatin Structure" (!), published in 1989 in The Journal of Virology. [http://jvi.asm.org/cgi/reprint/63/2/943.pdf]

'''Floor show''' 
A Floorshow is a series of acts at a night club. That anyone could take this literally as "a display of floors" is both hilarious and very Pynchonian.

==Page 344==

'''strange tilings...mathematical issues''' 
This passage alludes to aperiodic tilings [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperiodic_tiling Wikipedia] such as the one discovered by Roger Penrose [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_tiling Wikipedia]. See "The wallpaper in particular presented not a repeating pattern at all" [[ATD_171-198#Page_182|in annotations to p. 182.]]

'''Dr. Ictibus''' 
The Latin word ''ictus'' is from the past participle of īcere, to stike, blow, stab, wound; it can also refer to the wound itself. ''Ictibus'', is the ablative plural case for ''ictus'', thus we have Dr. Took-away-the-wounds.

'''Safe-Deflector Hat''' 
Dave Garroway supposedly had a hat that calculated the angle to be safe from falling bricks, if I recall correctly. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Garroway Wikipedia]

'''Odo''' 
Something to do with [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/sainto26.htm Saint Odo], patron saint of rain?

Perhaps a reference to ''Star Trek'': Odo was the shape-shifting security officer of the space station ''Deep Space 9''. [http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Odo Star Trek Wiki]

Or to the anarchist Odo in Ursula LeGuin's novel ''The Dispossessed.''

In any case, Odo's onstage speech reflects the Mad Scientist's lab assistant in dozens of horror movies.

'''''figurante''''' 
a dancer; a ballet girl.
:also the (feminized) French term for "extra"

'''a coon revue''' 
Musical entertainment with African-American performers—or just as likely white performers in blackface—doing skits and singing songs that perpetuated a range of stereotypes: step-dancing, exaggerated dialect, lax morals, etc. Coon material was extremely popular in New York and elsewhere in the Jim Crow era (and it hasn't disappeared yet). For a partial list of coon references in ''AtD,'' [[ATD_26-56#Page_48|see annotation to p. 48.]]

'''Williams and Walker''' 
Bert Williams and George Walker, well-known vaudevillians who sometimes billed themselves as "The Two Real Coons." Williams was first to cross the color line as a headliner in the Ziegfeld Follies. [http://www.si.umich.edu/chico/Harlem/text/williams_walker.html Here] is a good account of their careers.

'''Calpurnia... Mrs. Caesar''' 
Calpurnia was the wife of Julius Caesar and is a minor character in Shakespeare's play. She's a model of rectitude and courage, not someone who would like the subordinating title 'Mrs' which is thus a joke.

==Page 345==

'''Liu Bing''' 
One of three approaches to exegesis are possible here. 
:1) The name is a Chinese pun on English sounds and meanings. 
:2) The name is a reference to someone with this name. 
:3) The name is a reference to Chinese meanings in a Chinese or English pun. 
An example of the first approach: 
:Lubing? Like Lew Basnight as Lube-ass night [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_26-56#Page_36 see notes for page 36]. 

Two examples from the second approach: 
:Here, it is a woman, but in history Liu Bing was 
:1) The birth name of Emperor Chong of the Han Dynasty (143-145) who became emperor at the age of 1, and died a year later. 
:2) A high-ranking official of the Song Dynasty, (lived 433-477). 

Third approach: mix and match meanings for "Liu" and Bing". 

Liu can mean:
:lovely; beautiful; tassel; pomegranate; to flow; to spread; to circulate; to move clear; deep (of water); swift; precious stone; leave (message); to retain; to stay; to remain; to keep; to preserve; tumor; sulfur; bessemerizing of matte; lutetium; pure gold; sewing of wind; bay horse with black mane; large horned-owl; willow; skein; tuft; lock; creel; fish basket; the number 6; a clod of earth; land; the sound of the wind; to soar; to stroll; walk a horse; to stroll; to linger; dripping of rain from eaves, reheat by steaming

Bing can mean:
:soldiers; a force; an army; weapons; arms; military; war-like; ice; arrow-quiver; Trachycarpus excelsa; '''arecas'''; the third of the ten heavenly stems; the third position; third; number three; get rid of; put aside; reject; keep control; hold back; sad; mournful; bright; glorious; authority; handle; hilt; bright; brilliant; luminous(surname); to grasp; hold; maintain natural property or endowment; report to (a superior)bright ; shining, splendid(surname); ancient city name; happy; plate; scabbard; round flat cake; cookie; cake; pastry; furthermore; (not) at all; simultaneously; also; together with; to combine; to join; to merge amalgamate; combine; nightmare; start to sleep; ailment; sickness; illness; disease; fall ill; sick; defect.

So, Liu Bing might mean '''"lovely arecas,"''' "six cookies," "gold handle," "six soldiers" etc.

'''''Courage,'' Camille''' 
''Coo-RAZH,'' of course. The play ''Camille'' was adapted from ''The Lady of the Camellias'' (''La dame aux camélias,'' 1848) by Alexandre Dumas the Younger. In all French versions the character's name is Marguerite, so this gag only works in English-speaking countries.

'''Lillian Russell''' 
American actress and singer (1860-1922) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Russell Wikipedia entry]. Yes, she generally did wear a hat in her photos.

'''Verbena''' 
Continuing Pynchon's running joke of naming AtD's women after flowering herbs.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbena Wikipedia]

'''I.J. & K. Smokefoot''' 
Speculation: Smokefoot is the name of a song written by Bobby Keys, Jim Gordon, and Jim Price. It appears on the 1972 album "Bobby Keys." [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:wjfixqw5ldae~T1 Bobby Keys] was a very much in demand session sax player, appearing on many well-known albums, including the Stones' "Sticky Fingers" where he plays an extended solo on "Can't You Hear Me Knockin." While this is not at all related to what's going on in AtD at the moment, it is a way that Pynchon comes up with names and Pynchon surely knows who Bobby Keys is.

:''Along with speculation,'' the name Smokefoot has some nonmusical grounding. There's a fairly numerous and widespread American clan named Rauchfuss. Their surname, obviously, is German—like those of some nonfictional department store magnates (Gimbel, Bergdorf, Saks). If the first immigrant Rauchfuss had translated his name into English it would have come out Smokefoot. Although a moderately large Google search does not turn up a Rauchfuss or Smokefoot in the business, it is '''not''' irrelevant that one form of this name is current in the population.

Quaternions based on 'i * j * k'.
:Not too sure about this connection: the choice of ''i'', ''j'', and ''k'' in the definition of quaternary space is arbitrary, as are ''x'', ''y'', and ''z'' in more conventional definitions of three-dimensional space. Could just be that Pynchon just wrote a little three letter sequence in alphabetical order. Is there anything in the text that would support the connection between the department store and quaternions?
::Well, ''x, y'' and ''z'' are just as arbitrary—but when you see the sequence you think "coordinates, 3-space, vectors." So ''i j k'' in the book's context does suggest a link to quaternion notation. This merits a closer look.

'''Ladies' Mile''' 
Broadway from 9th to 23rd Streets, Gilded Age location of all the most fashionable shops [http://www.preserve2.org/ladiesmile/]

==Page 346==

'''sussurant''' 
Whispering, making a low continuous indistinct sound [http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=susurrant].

'''Jachin and Boaz''' 
The two pillars on the porch of Solomon's Temple. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaz_and_Jachin Wikipedia entry]. They also appear on the Tarot card of The High Priestess in the A.E. Waite Rider deck, whose designer, Pamela Colman Smith, is mentioned in ''ATD'' at p. 186. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Priestess Wikipedia entry].

'''just a kid''' 
Dally was born c1889, so 14 or 15?

'''newly introduced''' 
Paris 1900? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escalator Wikipedia]

==Page 347==

'''Yosemite Falls''' 
For pictures see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yosemite_Falls Wikipedia].

'''"Her Mother Never Told Her"''' 
"Her mother never told her the things a young girl should know. 
About the ways of college men, and how they come and go, (mostly....go). 
Now age has taken her beauty, and sin has left its sad scar; 
So remember your mothers and sisters, boys, and let her sleep under the bar" [http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=2332 Lyrics]

'''the Tombs''' 
NYC prison.

==Page 348==

'''Saturday night in Kipperville''' 
Most likely a reference to the story ''Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel'' by Virginia Lee Burton, wherein Mike and promises to dig the cellar for Popperville's new town hall in one day using his steam shovel Mary Anne. The citizens from Kipperville and other nearby towns all come to watch. [[Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel|Read the Amazon description]].

'''arecas''' 
Areca is a genus of about 50 species of single-stemmed palms in the family Arecaceae, found in humid tropical forests from Malaysia to the Solomon Islands. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areca wikipedia]

'''demimondaine''' 
A [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/demimondaine woman] belonging to the [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/demimonde demimonde]; a woman whose sexual promiscuity places her outside respectable society.

'''soubrettes''' 
Lady's maids; maid-servants. <ref>Def.2. '''The Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd Ed. 1989.</ref>

'''Perrier Jouet''' 
Brand of expensive Champagne.

'''ticker-tape machines''' 
Before the crawl at the bottom of the screen, you could get a Dow-Jones ticker installed in your home or office to bring you the latest from the market. Other ticker services delivered news, sports scores, etc., all printed out on a narrow paper tape. On days of special celebration, New York City allowed people to throw ticker tape from buildings—which on any other day would be a misdemeanor—hence the fossil expression "ticker-tape parade."

==Page 349==

'''Oomie Vamplet''' 
??? Pure speculation: [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=oomie oomie]. Vamplet has a [http://onlinedictionary.datasegment.com/word/vamplet definition], but also sounds like a vamp (a woman who uses her sex appeal to entrap and exploit men) who is small. Also, to vamp in music is to improvise simple accompaniment or variation of a tune.

'''Kate Chase Sprague''' 
Kate Chase Sprague was the daughter of Civil War era cabinet member Salmon P. Chase and wife of Rhode Island Governor William Sprague. She was accused of having had an affair with New York Senator Roscoe Conkling. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Chase wikipedia]

'''Congo violet''' 
evidently a real color: Violet dyes: trisulphon violet 2B, Congo violet;
from a patent application, # 4025164. www.patentsonline. A quite dark violet, I think, is implied...lots of associations to Congo.

'''"Funiculi, Funicula"''' 
A very popular Neapolitan song composed in 1880 by Italian composer Luigi Denza (cf p.353) to commemorate the opening of the first '''funicular''' (inclined railway) on Mount Vesuvius. The song's huge success made the Neapolitan songs spreading all over the world. In the '50s Mario Lanza made this song popular in the US but with slightly changed English lyrics. For the lyrics in its original Neapolitan dialect and English see [http://www.vesuvioinrete.it/funicolare/e_funicolare_funiculi.htm].

At least three times in ''AtD'' we have an instrumental tag to identify the nationality of a person entering the scene. Here it's the Italian one (never mind that Zombini's family comes from northern Italy, not Naples); there's also a four-note plinka-plinka to announce a Chinese person (on page ???) and an alphorn solo to cue a Swiss person (page ???).

==Page 350==

'''Chinchito''' 
"Little Bug." (Wasn't Herve Villachaise supposed to be well endowed?)

'''in the wallpaper''' 
Cf Lew on cyclomite.

'''Mickey Finn''' 
Mickey Finn in the punch is a drug-laced (clasically chloral hydrate) knockout drink. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey_Finn_%28drugs%29 Wikipedia].

==Page 351==

'''Sweet Caporal''' 
A [http://www.adclassix.com/ads/55sweetcaporal.htm brand] of cigarette.

'''came for me''' 
On page 69 Erlys left this note: "I'll be back for her when I can."

'''"French flat"''' 
A category then used for buildings that fell between single-family dwellings and boardinghouses - see [http://www.arch.columbia.edu/hp/studio/2005-2006/resources/resources_primary1.html here]

'''Pitti Palace''' 
The Palazzo Pitti is a vast mainly Renaissance palace in Florence. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palazzo_Pitti Wikipedia]

'''''grattacielo''''' 
Italian: skyscraper.

'''Bria''' 
Daughter of Erlys Mills and Luca Zombini.

==Page 352==

'''''Little Nemo''''' 
A full-page color cartoon [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Nemo_in_Slumberland Wikipedia] by Winsor McCay, started on October 15, 1905. Published in the New York Herald until 1911.

'''melted icebox ice''' 
(How nasty would this have been?)

'''majolica''' 
Tin-glazed earthenware [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majolica wikipedia]

'''Fletcher's Castoria''' 
A patent medicine composed of senna, sodium bicarbonate, essence of wintergreen, taraxicum, sugar and water, used as a laxative. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castoria Wikipedia entry].

'''three-cent pieces''' 
The U.S. minted three-cent coins until 1889.

'''''La Forza del Destino''''' 
Literally, the "force of destiny." An opera by Verdi [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Forza_del_Destino wikipedia]

'''''cretino''''' 
Cretin

==Page 353==

'''Luigi Denza''' 
Luigi Denza (2846-1922) was an Italian composer. In 1898, he moved to London and became a professor of singing at at the Royal Academy of Music.
Among the hundreds of songs he wrote, the most popular one was the Neapolitan song (1880) ''Funiculi, Funicula'' (cf 349). [http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Denza Wikipedia].

'''Psyche knot''' 
The knot in which Psyche kept her hair, as shown in ads for White Rock mineral water during this time frame. [http://www.whiterocking.org/pwc.html Pictures here].

Here are instructions on how to prepare a [http://frazzledfrau.tripod.com/titanic/psyche.htm Psyche knot].

==Page 354==

'''''"bella"''''' 
sweetheart; beauty.

'''Friuli''' 
an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friuli Wikipedia]

'''donkey salami''' 
Italian sausage-makers do use donkey meat; look for ''salame d'asino'' or ''mortadella di asino.'' It is not imported into the U.S. 

From Robert Musil's ''The Man Without Qualitites'' p. 939 of the 1995 translation by S. Wilkins. Musil and his lead character Ulrich had both served in the Austro-Hungarian army.

:''Considering the window display of German intellect, Ulrich was reminded of an old army joke: "Mortadella." This had been the nickname of an unpopular general, after the popular Italian sausage, and if anyone wondered why, the answer was: "Part pig, part donkey."''

'''like Austria, with gestures''' 
:One of the finest news films ever shown on TV concerned a regional election in this part of Italy. The candidates spoke excellent German but used their arms and hands in a highly un-German way.

'''platinum black''' 
"a fine black powder of platinum; used as a catalyst in chemical reactions" [http://www.answers.com/topic/platinum-black cite]

Pynchon may also have had in mind a black hole or "Black Body Radiation," which was discovered around 1900. In physics a black body is an ideal body that absorbs without reflection all of the electromagnetic radiation (light is one of them) incident on its surface. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbody_radiation Wikipedia].

'''''affondato, vero?''''' 
Italian for "Sunk, isn't it?" as in the battleship game.

'''bloody horror shows''' 
A reference to the Grand Guignol theater in Paris, which opened in 1897, known for its gory shows. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_guignol Wikipedia entry].

==Page 355==

'''Doubles the image...''' 
Suggestive of quantum doubling, i.e. universe splitting in one version/solution of the Multiverse problem.

'''''capisci?''''' 
Italian: you understand?

'''Houdini''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Houdini Wikipedia]

'''''Porca miseria''''' 
All-purpose Italian expletive, not too crude. Translates into English as damn!

'''Teatro Malibran''' 
The 900-seat theather was built in 1677 for drama, opera and classical concerts. It was originally named Teatro di San Giovanni Crisostomo and later changed to Teatro Malibran to honor Maria Malibran, a well-known soprano of the early 19th century. During its long history the theather has been refurbished and rennovated numerous times, most recently in 2001. It is a beautiful landmark theather. It's doubtful Teatro Malibran is a proper venue for magic shows. For the beautiful indoor and outdoor pictures [http://www.noehill.com/med/med2002/malibran.asp Teatro Malibran].

==Page 356==

'''''Stupendica''''' 
Example of Pynchon's marvelous ship names (e.g. ''USS Scaffold'' and ''Susannah Squaducci'' in ''V.''); perhaps a play on ''Titanic''.

'''Chinese Gong Effect''' 
???

'''East Rumelian''' 
East Rumelia was an autonomous Bulgarian province, fomerly an Ottoman dependency south of the Balkans. After the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 it was to be ruled by Turkey but with a Christian prince as part of a complex territorial power-balance agreeable to all Powers at the 1878 Congress of Berlin. Interestingly, an area in which the Glagolitic alphabet was propounded (see P.252).

==Page 357==

'''Bert Snidell''' 
Bert Snidell was first mentioned on page 75.

'''Hindoo shuffle''' 
Hindoo, or Hindu, shuffle is one of numerous ways of shuffling playing cards. For a description [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuffling_playing_cards#Hindu_shuffle Wikipedia].

'''French drop''' 
A well-known vanishing act of a small object involving sleight of hands. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_drop Wikipedia].

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 318-335

2009-04-04T12:34:59Z

Bobutler: /* Page 323 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 318==
'''Tengo que get el fuck out of aquí''' 
"I have to get the fuck out of here."
Just a literal translation of the English phrase. The Spanish equivalent could be "Tengo que salir cagando de aquí" ("I have to go shitting out of here").

'''Yale... how little the place was about studying and learning''' 
Pynchon's sustained attack on Yale follows his treatment of Harvard in GR -- "'Harvard's there for other reasons. The "educating" part of it is just sort of a front'" (GR 193).
:I wonder if Pynchon's skewering of the Ivies is tied to both his admiration for ''The Education of Henry Adams'' (Adams said that at Harvard, he got little from his professors and less from his classmates) and Pynchon's autodidacticism. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 20:55, 10 May 2007 (PDT)

'''Kabbalah''' 
Jewish mysticism. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Wikipedia]. Also see p.227: 'Kabbalist Tree of Life' tattooed 'below Madame Eskimoff's bared nape.'

'''latent in the Maxwell Field Equations years before Hertz found them''' 
Physics lore says that Maxwell's Equations, written to illuminate processes in fairly slow systems, were at first regarded as having fantastical solutions that predicted undetectable waves in the æther. No one until Hertz connected the equations with observed electromagnetic vibrations (and ultimately with light waves).

'''Hertz''' 
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz (1857-94), German physicist, born at Hamburg, studied under Kirchhoff and Helmholtz, and ultimately became professor at Bonn in 1899. In 1887 he realized Maxwell's predictions, by his fundamental discovery of electromagnetic waves, which, excepting wavelength, behave like light waves. The wave frequency unit, ''hertz'', cycle per second, was named after him in 1930. A crater at the far side of the Moon, just behind the eastern rim, was named in his honor. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Rudolf_Hertz Hertz]].

'''Shunkichi Kimura''' 
Shunkichi Kimura is mentioned in [http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~ve3m-snd/japan.html this] article on Tesla's relationship with Japan. Cf [[ATD_26-56#Page 29|page 29]].

'''war with Russia''' 
Started 10 February 1904. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War Wikipedia].

'''Gibbs had died''' 
28 April 1903. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Gibbs Wikipedia] Pynchon's interest in Gibbs may stem from Gibbs's work in thermodynamics, particularly entropy, a theme that pervades Pynchon's work.

'''high-hat''' 
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/high-hat High-hat] is an adjective in this context and so means snobbish; haughty.

==Page 319==

'''"he [would later ask] why did I want ''that'' so much?"''' 
Similar to a comment by Siegel in his Playboy article: (to paraphrase from memory) Pynchon was disappointed that he was not admitted to a fraternity at Cornell, but he lacked the crude sociability for that.

'''eyes in leafy ambuscade''' 
eyes behind a bush (with leaves) waiting in [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ambush ambush], (a bit of a pun) in the sense of the hiding place used for the surprise attack (no surprise attack in this context).

==Page 320==

'''Kit dreamed''' 
[http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2007/03/we-shall-pretend-to-know-nothing-pp-318.html Chumps of Choice] sez, "Just like Reef and Frank before him, now Kit has a conversation with his father -- though unlike the others, he does not yet know that Webb is dead."

'''scout''' 
In British universities, a housekeeper/valet. At Yale too?

'''Proximus''' 
Latin; means nearest, closest, next. It also is the name of, among many other things, a computer code performing a non-orthogonal matrix transform based on recursive partitioning of a data set.

May refer to Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star, part of the Alpha Centauri star system and the nearest star to the Sun at a distance of 4.22 light-years. As the name suggests, it is located in the constellation of Centaurus.

'''Quincke''' 
Georg Hermann Quincke (1834-1924) was a German physicist. He was a physics professor at the Univeristy of Berlin between 1865 and 1872. As from 1875 he was the professor of physics at the University of Heidelberg until he retired in 1907. One of his many research works was to investigate experimentally the reflection of light, especially from the metallic surfaces. (Not sure whether this was done at Berlin or Heidelberg.) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Hermann_Quincke Wikipedia].

==Page 321==

==Page 322==

'''Moriarty's''' 
The unofficial Yale club, founded circa 1861, nicknamed Mory's, incorporated into the "Whiffenpoof Song" about 1909. The "Louie" in the song is Louis Linder, not to be confused with next entry.

'''Louis Lassen''' 
Founder of Louis' Lunch in New Haven, CT, still in operation today. Founded in 1895 and claims to have served the first hamburger in the US. [http://www.louislunch.com/ Website]. 

'''West Rock''' 
One of two prominent natural features near New Haven, CT. Reported to have been the location of a cave where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regicides_of_Charles_I officials who presided over the execution of Charles I] took refuge when the Restoration reversed their political fortunes. West Rock is also the subject of [http://www.arttimesjournal.com/art/reviews/04church_frederic_copy.jpg a well known painting by Frederick Church] and sits over today's Wilbur Cross Parkway.

[[Image:wardenclyffe.png|thumb|right|200px]]'''trusswork tower''' 
Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower (1901 – 1917) also known as the Tesla Tower, was an early wireless telecommunications aerial tower intended for commercial wireless trans-Atlantic telephony, broadcasting, and to demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wires. The core facility was never fully operational and was not completed due to economic problems. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower Wikipedia]

'''ten years before''' 
The meeting between Vibe and Vanderjuice in Chicago in 1892.
:1893?

==Page 323==

'''"apizza"''' 
A style of pizza common in New Haven, CT, distinguished by its white sauce and clams. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apizza Wikipedia entry]

'''tropism''' 
The turning of an organism, or a part of one, in a particular direction (either in the way of growth, bending, or locomotion) in response to some special external stimulus, as that of light (''phototropism, heliotropism''), heat (''thermotropism''), gravity (''geotropism''), etc. <ref>'''Oxford English Dictionary''' 2nd Ed. 1989</ref>

'''at the far edges of his visual field, a glimmering winged object''' 
Unusual imagery.
:Possibly a reference to Yeats. Yeats: "I began to imagine [around 1904], as always at my left side just out of the range of sight, a brazen winged beast which I associated with laughing, ecstatic destruction", noting that the beast was "Afterwards described in my poem 'The Second Coming'". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)]

:Or the word 'glimmering' may be key in understanding that the peripheral winged object is none other than the famous firefly of the song "Glow little glow-worm, glimmer, glimmer" written circa 1908 and re-recorded by Pynchon's beloved Spike Jones in 1946. In addition to the glow-worm being a glimmering winged object, the song makes multiple references to electricity and lightning, all very much in context with this section in particular and the novel in general. [http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/g/glowworm.shtml Lyrics]

:Both of these seem a stretch. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]]

==Page 324==

'''P.G. Tait on Quaternions''' 
Peter Guthrie Tait, a Scottish physicist and mathematician, wrote two books on Quaternions, "An Elementary Treatise on Quaternions" and "Introduction to Quaternions"

''''lamp' this''' 
"Look at this" ; "Check this out".

'''Grassman's ''Ausdehnungslehre''''' 
A treatise on the foundations of linear algebra (including vector spaces) by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Grassmann Hermann Grassmann].
:Literally, ''Ausdehnungslehre'' means Theory of Extension.

But in context, the statement that "Grassmann's ''Ausdehnungslehre'' can be extended to any number of dimensions you like" indicates that we are talking about a mathematical theory, not a book. The word Ausdehnungslehre has actually been borrowed in English, but the subject is more often referred to as "exterior algebra" or "algebra of the exterior product." It relates to an antisymmetric operator that acts on "differential forms." It is definitely a Vectorist pursuit.

'''That Göttingen Rag''' 
Reminiscent of [http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/vatican.htm The Vatican Rag] by American singer-songwriter, satirist, pianist, and mathematician [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer Tom Lehrer].

'''Dr. Hilbert''' 
[http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hilbert.html David Hilbert] (1862-1943), German mathematician. Hilbert's work in integral equations in about 1909 led directly to 20th-century research in functional analysis (the branch of mathematics in which functions are studied collectively). This work also established the basis for his work on infinite-dimensional space, later called Hilbert space, a concept that is useful in mathematical analysis and quantum mechanics. He studied mathematics at the University of Königsber and received his doctorate in 1885. One of Hilbert's friends was Minkowski who also was a doctoral student at Königsberg. He became professor at Königsberg (1893-1895) and Göttingen (1895 to retirement), made important contributions to the theory of numbers, the theory of invariants and the application of integral equation to physical problems. His work in geometry had the greatest influence in that area after Euclid.

'''Minkowski''' 
[http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Minkowski.html Hermann Minkowski] (1864-1909), German mathematician. He was born near Kovna, Russia (now Kaunas, Lithuania) to German parents. When Minkowski was eight the family returned to Germany and settled in Königsberg. He entered the University of Königsberg at 1880 and became close friend with Hilbert. He received his doctorate in 1885. He was professor at Bonn, Königsberg, Zürich (where Einstein was his student), and Göttengen. He wrote on the theory of numbers and on space and time (1909). Minkowski developed a new view of space and time, and laid the mathematical foundation of Einstein's the Theory of Relativity.

'''Spectral Theory''' 
Introduced by Hilbert. In mathematics, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_theory Spectral Theory] is an inclusive term for theories extending the eigenvector and eigenvalue theory of a single square matrix.

'''''infinite'' dimensions''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilbert_space Hilbert space] can be of infinite dimensions.
In Pynchon's paramorphoscope, the physics of 1900 (the mathematics revealed multiple dimensions beyond the 4 of space and time) is concerned with the same issues as the physics of 2000 (in which string theory requires multiple dimensions). The relation of physics and mathematics to centers of political and economic power are echoes as well, here drawn together in Kit's life.

'''Eigenheit''''' 
A term used in some of David Hilbert's mathematical and logical systems, it appears to have several disputed meanings, including something like "peculiarities" or "unique values or characterizations" (eigenheiten) [http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Talk:Eigenvector].

But Eigenheit also means :"Own-ness" or "Self-Ownership" [http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/stirner/theego9.html], a concept of the German individualist-anarchist Max Stirner (Johann Caspar Schmidt)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stirner], an issue of real concern to Kit, both in his immediate situation vis a vis Scarsdale Vibe, and perhaps also because of Stirner's radical individualist concept of trade union activity.

'''Hamburg Amerika Line''''' 
Transatlantic shipping company established in Hamburg, Germany in 1847 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_America_Line Wikipedia]. By 1872 the company was making weekly passages to New York from Hamburg via Southampton.

==Page 325==

'''problem-set''' 
A set of physics problems to be worked out as homework.

'''th' Four-Color Problem's just a Stu-dent prank''' 
How many colors are necessary to color a map so that no adjacent regions have the same color? The theorem was first stated as a conjecture in the mid-1800s; a number of faulty or incomplete proofs were published around the turn of the century.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem The Wikipedia entry] gives an account of the 1976 proof and the controversy surrounding it. 
The conjecture, now theorem, is that you can color any map in a plane with four colors. Regions are adjacent if they share a boundary but not if they share a single point. The Four Corners is familiar in ''AtD,'' so paint New Mexico red, Arizona green, and Utah beige. What color does Colorado have to be? Green works (no boundary with Arizona), so this map takes only three colors. But imagine the state of New Colozontah, a one-mile circle centered at the Corners; no matter how you assign the first three colors, now you have to have a fourth. And you can't draw a map that takes five, not without cheating (e.g., folding the paper).

'''wanted to trust 'Fax''' 
Suggests that he also wanted to trust "facts." 'Fax also suggests
a copy [of his father]?

'''good skate''' 
A good guy.

==Page 326==

'''all but careened''' 
The boat is nearly turned on its side by the force of the wind. You careen a boat on purpose (on dry land) for cleaning, caulking, or repairing areas well below the waterline.

'''McKim, Mead, and White''' 
Architectural firm established by Charles McKim, William Mead, and Stanford White. Introducing the Roman and Italian Renaissance style to public architecture and urban planning on the east coast around 1900. Asscociated with the "American Renaissance", "Beaux Arts" and the "City Beautiful" movement [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKim,_Mead,_and_White Wiki].

'''Granitza''' 
In various Slavic languages: boundary.

'''Curl''' 
In vector calculus, curl is a vector operator that shows a vector field's rate of rotation.

'''Laplacian''' 
In mathematics, Laplacian, or Laplace operator, is a differential operator. It is widely used in areas of wave propagation, heat flow, electrostatics, quatum mechanic, etc. It is named after French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827). ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace Laplace].)

'''Velebit''' 
A ridge near the Adriatic coastline of Croatia. The terrain is limestone karst, characterized by eroded cavities and channels.

==Page 327==

'''one day''' 
???

'''Parthian''' 
from Parthia, 'an ancient country corresponding to modern northeast Iran,however, Parthian also means "delivered in of as if in retreat", according to the American Heritage Dictionary. The use cited comes from Bret Harte, American writer about the West of this book's time: "a Parthian volley of expletives from Uncle Billy".

The full expression "Parthian Shot" comes from the Parthian cavalryman's ability to fire arrows over their shoulders while retreating.

'''''morra''''' 
It is a hand game played for points by two people. Both players show either one or two fingers and simultaneously call out loud the number of fingers the other player will show. A correct call wins the number of points. [http://www.frontier.net/~grifftoe/morra.html morra].

==Page 328==

''''North Hempstead Turnpike'''' 
New York State Route 25A. 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_State_Route_25A Wikipedia]

''''North River jibes'''' 
In sailing, to jibe is to shift a fore-and-aft sail from one side of a vessel to the other while sailing before the wind so as to sail on the opposite tack. This means the boom, a long spar extending from the mast to hold or extend the foot of the sail, shifts from one side of the vessel to the other, since the sail is attached to it. One does not want to get hit with the boom during a jibe (kind of like getting hit by a big baseball bat): it will hurt, if not kill, you and most likely knock you out if the boat. Apparently, 'Fax jibes a lot in the North River.

'''Sunny Jim'''
"[..] was a cartoon character created in 1902 in the United States by writer Minnie Maud Hanff and artist Dorothy Ficken for an advertising campaign designed to promote Force cereal, the first commercially successful wheat flake." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_Jim Link]

==Page 329==

==Page 330==

'''Neofungoline''' 
??? Speculation: A fungo, baseball jargon (origin unknown), is a fly ball hit for fielding practice by a player who tosses the ball up and hits it on its way down with a long, thin, light bat, called a fungo bat. This is the only use of the word so possibly neofungoline is more Pynchon inventiveness and cleverness. 
I read this as a spoof of an anti-fungal or anti-biotic product like Neosporin (as "Smegmo" is a spoof on Crisco).

'''have that long''' 
Vibe is about 60 years old.

'''trying not to speak too carefully''' 
Cf phony Yale posing.

==Page 331==

'''forward of the stacks''' 
Preferred cabins located upwind of soot and smuts from the ship's funnels.

'''one of those negative results with resonance far beyond itself''' 
Like the Michelson-Morley experiment.

'''Grand Central Station''' 
This was called Grand Central Terminal until the "new" Grand Central Station opened in 1912, which was after this episode occurs. [http://grandcentralterminal.com/pages/getpage.aspx?id=75133219-5FAF-40D2-B946-D3A6693EFF32 History of Grand Central Station]

==Page 332==

'''how mighty are the wings we shelter beneath''' 
Wings of God, thinks Vibe. There have been hints this is not so. 
Compare p. 211, where the Rev. Lube Carnal says, "We like to think of Jeshimon as being under God's wing," to which Reef protests, "But wait a minute, God doesn't have wings—" And Carnal replies, "The God you're thinking of, maybe not. But out here, the one who looks after us, it's a kind of winged God, you see." 
Maybe wings of power?

'''the bloodline of my enemy''' 
Interesting phrase. Not the blood of his enemy. Vibe says his own seed is cursed, and he is seeking by adoption to make the Traverse bloodline his own. See also [[ATD_149-170#Page_158|"it was desire," p. 158.]]

==Page 333==

'''I didn't have my war then''' 
Vibe saying his time to fight was not 1862 but in the 1890s.

'''headquarters in Pearl Street''' 
In Manhattan's financial district; on [http://www.mustseenewyork.com/maps/nyc-lower-manhattan-hotels.html this street map] it runs northeast from the ferry terminals. [http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/nycolonial/index.html Fraunces Tavern] (built 1719) stands at the corner of Pearl and Broad Streets.

'''a ruler isolated in self-resonant fantasy''' 
Perhaps speaking to the furniture and hearing the echo agree with him. "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

==Page 334==

'''the moderate American tradition of Massachusetts Bay or Utah''' 
Benign, homegrown theocracy contrasted with deranged foreign theocracy.

'''Cooper Square''' 
Cooper Square where Fourth and Third Avenue merge into the Bowery in New York City.

'''Tenderloin''' 
A district of vice in New York City (''American Heritage Dictionary''). The West Side from about 27th Street to about 62nd Street. Gave its name to a very funny musical (1960; music by Jerry Bock, book by George Abbott and Jerome Weidman, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick).

'''Nellie Noonan or Anna Held''' 
Anna Held was a popular stage performer of the 1890s and 1900s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Held wikipedia]. Nellie Noonan may be a reference to the title character in ''Little Nellie Kelly'', a George M. Cohan musical made into a film starring Judy Garland in 1940 ([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032718/ imdb]), but Cohan wrote the musical in 1922.

==Page 335==

'''the Wilderness''' 
A Civil War battle in May 1864, just before the battle of Cold Harbor. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Wilderness Wikipedia]

'''Cold Harbor''' 
Where Foley Walker, acting as Civil War Substitute, "took a Reb bullet" for Scarsdale Vibe - see p.100/101.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 243-272

2009-03-28T13:45:53Z

Bobutler: /* Page 250 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 243==

'''The Chums return''' 
When were the Chums last seen in AtD? As far back as page 142?

A brief reminder of who the Chums are and what we know about them so far:
:'''Randolph St. Cosmo''', commander.
:'''Lindsay Noseworth''', Master-at-Arms and second in command, hates slackers and slang.
:'''Miles Blundell''', handyman, awkward, with an "ample waist" (11), also ship's Commissary, whose cooking ranges from pure cordon bleu to inedible. (110)
:'''Darby Suckling''', the baby of the crew, served "as both factotum and mascotte". By page 141 or so, has transformed from spirited youth to bomb obsessed, (111) sneering, snide cynic. Because of hitting adolescence?
:'''Chick Counterfly''', the newest member of the crew, picked up by the Chums in the South while on the run from the KKK. At last appearance, had become Dr. Counterfly, knowledgeable Science Officer aboard the Inconvenience (141). Reliably humorous. (110). Chick's style of speech here seems intermediate between the country boy of the early chapters and the sophisticated Dr Counterfly who met the Vormance expedition. Are we also at an intermediate point on the timeline?

[[image:fumaioli.jpg|thumb|150px|Fumaioli in Venice|right]]
'''''fumaioli''''' 
Italian: ''funnels''; fumaioli are large wide-topped chimneys, common to the rooftops of Venice.

'''''certo''''' 
sure, certain.

'''''Seccatura''''' 
Italian: ''Inconvenience''

==Page 244==

'''''ragazza''''' 
Italian: ''girl''.

'''Picardy thirds''' 
The use of a major chord at the end of a musical section in a minor key. Miles seems just as moved by them as Lew. [[ATD_26-56#Page_50 | Cf p50]]

The gondolier is singing harmony with himself, or else Miles is imagining the accompaniment.

Picardie is also a region in northern France and "during the Middle Ages... included the Dutch speaking Flanders." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy] The region was a hotbed of action along the Western Front in WWI and played host to the Battle of the Somme, which totaled more than a million casualties and was "one of the bloodiest battles in human history."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme]

'''''stabilimento''''' 
Italian: establishment.

==Page 245==
'''Garibaldi''' 
Famous Italian leader, major figure in the Italian Unification. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garibaldi Wikipedia]

'''''"Ehi, sugo!"''''' 
"Hey, sauce!" Does this make sense to anyone?
It does not make any sense in Italian. 
To a good approximation, this is what the Fonz used to say in the TV series ''Happy Days.'' People mostly understood his melodic "Aaayy" as a variant of "Hey," but maybe instead it was something his Uncle Pio brought from the old country.

'''twentyfold''' 
5 chums times 4 suspects each. (Randolph suspects Lindsay, Miles, Darby and Chick of being the leak; and so on around the crew. And that assumes no one suspects Pugnax!)

'''''osteria''''' 
tavern.

'''San Polo''' 
The smallest district/area in Venice, and among the oldest. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Polo Wikipedia]

'''''rio''''' 
narrow waterway in Venice.

'''against the night''' 
OK...

'''''calli''''' 
Venetian 'street' or 'lane'.

==Page 246==

'''''sotoporteghi''''' 
passageways. See picture for one example [http://www.dialetto-veneto.it/images/FotoComano/Comano-Cattognano.jpg].

'''''"Sa stai, O! Lungo, ehi!"''''' 
It does not mean anything in Italian or in the Venetian dialect. One possibility is mimicking the callouts of gondoliers. ''Lungo'' could be someone's nickname. 
Other possibility is a wrong lettering of: ''Xa star, oh! Lungo, ehi!'', meaning ''Ehi, Lungo, let it be and let's go!'' or something similar.

'''''cameriere''''' 
Italian: waitresses (plural of ''cameriera'').

'''''pallonisti''''' 
(fake-)Italian: balloonists.

'''''Ehi, macché, Pina! ''''' 
Italian: Ehi, Giusep(Pina), what are you telling me?

'''''giadrul''''' 
Again, doesn't mean anything in Italian or Venetian dialect. Seems to be a [https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0007&L=irtrad-l&D=0&T=0&P=94630 term of insult], variously described as American-Italian only (see previous link) and southern Italian (see next). One source gives one meaning as "[http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070318034908AAem49X zuccone]" - this appears to mean "[http://notes.tranq.com/archives/2004/01/23/zuccone/ pumpkinhead]". I guess we're looking for something phallic, given the context. 
(''as far as I can see, it is an American-Italian deformation of the correct italian word "citrullo", which in fact is some sort of "dumb ass", and is derived from neapolitan for "cetriolo", that is, "cucumber" '')

'''"with all the spaghetti-joints in this town to choose from, are you saying those dadblame Russians have come in ''here''?"''' 
reminiscent of a similar line from the film ''Casablanca'', spoken by Humphrey Bogart: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

==Page 247==

'''tacchino in pomegranate sauce''' 
turkey in pomegranate sauce and, presumably, the "Purple Thanksgiving" to which Miles refers above.

'''''Dum vivimus, bibamus''''' 
While we live, let us drink. Paraphrase of "Dum vivimus, vivamus".

'''vini frizzanti''' 
sparkling wine (plural).

'''SANGUIS RUBER, MENS PURA''' 
Latin: Red blood, clean mind.

'''''Serrata del Maggior Consiglio''''' 
Great Council Lockout, 1297. Link to the "Maggior Consiglio" entry on Reference.com [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/Maggior%20Consiglio]

'''Napoleon's abolition''' 
1797. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia]

'''Polos' return''' 
Marco Polo together with his father and uncle returned to Venice in 1295 from their travel to China started in 1271. 

''Marco Polo'' (1254-1324), a Venetian traveller. Was born of a nobel family at Venice, while his father and uncle had gone on a mercantile expedition by Constantinople and the Crimea to Bokhara and to Cathy (China). The Mongol prince commissioned them as envoys to the Pope, a commission they tried in vain to carry out in Italy (1269). The Polos started again a new trip to China in 1271, taking with them young Marco,
and arrived at the court of Kublai Khan in 1275 by way of Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan to Lop Nor, then across the Gobi desert to Kansu and Shang-tu. Marco Polo entered the diplomatic service of Kublai Khan and was sent on missions to various parts of the Mongol empire. The Polos left China on 1282 and returned by way of Sumatra, India, and Persia to Venice (1295). In 1298 Marco was in command of a galley at the battle of Curzola, where the Venetians were defeated by the Genoese, and he was a prisoner for a year at Genoa. Here it was thought that he dictated to another captive an account of his travels, published under the title of ''Divisamemt dou monde''. (English title: ''The Travels of Marco Polo''.) ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo Marco Polo].)

''Kublai Khan'' (1214-94), Mongol khan, emperor of China, grandson of Jenghiz Khan. He completed the conquest of northern China and became the first foreigner ever to rule China. An enegetic prince, he suppressed his rivals, adopted the Chinese mode of civilisation, encouraged men of letters and made Buddhism the state religion. But his attempt to invade Japan ended in disaster. His dominions extended from Arctic Ocean to the Strait of Malacca, and from Korea to Asia Minor and the confines of Hungary. The splendor of his court inspired the graphic pages of Marco Polo. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.) 
Jack Weatherford, in ''Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World'' (2004), calls him Khubilai Khan and makes rather different statements about the extent of his realm and his treatment of religion. 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1816 poem "Kubla Khan" uses yet another spelling. Weatherford identifies "Xanadu" as Shengdu.

==Page 248==

[[image:doge.jpg|thumb|100px|Doge by Giovanni Bellini|right]]'''Doge's hat''' 
For some thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge, a rare but not unique Italian title derived from the Latin Dux, as the major Italian parallel Duce and the English Duke. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia entry]

'''''Attenzione al culo''''' 
Italian: watch your ass.

'''Shambhala''' 
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a mystical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas. Shambhala is believed to be a society where all the inhabitants are enlightened. During the 19th century, Theosophical Society founder H.P. Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult enthusiasts. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala Wikipedia entry]

'''cicerone''' 
A guide who shows and explains the antiquities or curiosities or a place to strangers. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989.</ref>

'''Professor Svegli of the University of Pisa''' 
The fictional professor's name comes from the Italian ''sveglio'' for "clever, dextrous, skillful."

'''"try to forget the usual picture in two dimensions"''' 
Cf. page 220, the idea behind the ''Tetractys'' as explained by Nigel and Neville.

'''an episode of intentional blindness''' 
Echoes the "denial of ordinary vision" that Lew sees when he meets Professor Renfrew (p. 240). Might these "blind spots" in sense evoke Iceland Spar?

==Page 249==

'''"Those whose enduring object is power in this world are only too happy to use without remorse the others, whose aim is of course to transcend all question of power. Each regards the other as a pack of deluded fools."''' 
Over time, Pynchon appears to have come to a belief in a massive conflict between cultures "valuing analysis and differentiation" and those valuing "unity and integration". The two alternate maps of Asia could be a reference to these disparate worldviews.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. Wikipedia entry on V.]

'''The problem lies with the projection''' 
(a) Projection by each group of its own obsession onto the other group. (b) Cartographic projection, i.e., how the round world gets imaged onto a flat sheet of paper.

'''Imaginary surface''' 
Presumably meant to mean (or at least allude to) imaginary in the mathematical sense: involving the square root of -1.

'''paramorphoscope''' 
AtD is itself a paramorphoscope; satire and science fiction typically hold up a distorting mirror to the world in which they are written, and present worlds "set to the side of the one we have taken". In the end the correct paramorphic "mirror" shows the world clearly.

'''"a certain percentage of them went mad and ended up in the asylum on San Servolo"''' 
Cf. the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum with its light-obsessed inmates at [[ATD_57-80#Page_59|page 59]].

'''the asylum on San Servolo''' 
First established as a military hospital in 1715, later became a mental asylum. Seems that San Servolo is to Venice what Bedlam is to London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Servolo Wikipedia]

'''Clifford's term''' 
W.K. Clifford, (1845-1879): an English mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford Wikipedia]

==Page 250==

[[Image:stmarks.jpg|thumb|200px|right|St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) in Venice]]
'''Dr. Cantor''' 
Georg Cantor (1845 - 1918), German mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_theorem Cantor's Theorem] is what is most relevant to his mention here.

'''the plano-convex designs of Griendl von Ach''' 
For a brief history of the compound-lens microscope, and the roles played by the Italians and the Dutch, including Griendl von Ach, see:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Microscope

'''prophetic vision of St. Mark''' 
Mark the Evangelist (1st century) is traditionally believed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark and a companion of Peter. From [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brown-venice.html this site]: "...a prophetic dream that Mark was said to have experienced during his earlier, supposed ministry in the area of the Venetian lagoon. In it he was visited by an angel who told him that he would find his final resting place on the very site where San Marco would later be built." In the first century there was no settlement worth mentioning in the Lagoon yet. The prophecy was "fulfilled" in 828 when the saint's remains stolen on orders of Doge Giustiniano Participazio in Alexandria were brought to Venice. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_the_Evangelist Wikipedia entry] St. Mark is represented by a winged lion and is the patron saint of Venice [http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/saintm08.htm].

'''''but in reverse''''' 
Miles now takes the place of the angel. Who or what is the "Being" and what form does the prophecy take?

'''cormorant''' 
A large and voracious sea-bird, about three feet in length, and of a lustrous black color. <ref>Def.1. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989.</ref>

'''scirocco''' 
An oppressively hot and blighting wind, blowing from the north coast of Africa over the Mediterranean and affecting part of southern Europe. <ref>Def.1a. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989.</ref>

'''neither sails, masts, nor oars''' 
Not a craft that is driven by the wind or human muscle. To say more could spoil a plot point.

==Page 251==

[[Image:stmarklion.jpg|thumb|600px|center|The Lion of St. Mark, by Carpaccio]]

'''Lion of St. Mark by Carpaccion''' 
Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460–1525/6) was a Venetian painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittore_Carpaccio Wikipedia entry]

'''the vision of St. Mark, but in reverse''' 
In St. Mark's vision, an angel appeared to Mark and informed him that his remains would one day end up in his present location, which later became Venice. Here, Miles seems to assume the form of the angel (in the form of a lion?) and the 'promise' Pynchon mentions seems to be the angel's promise to Mark.

'''our own duty, our own fate... the real journey''' 
Pynchon's one-paragraph summation of human life and its meaning recalls a letter Pynchon wrote in the early 1960s, [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]], in which he also summed up the entirety of human life in a few tidy sentences. Both employ the word 'pilgrimage.'

==Page 252==

'''''sotopòrteghi''''' 
Tunnels or passageways under large buildings.

'''tenebrous''' 
Means "shadowy" but is also a link back to the previous paragraph. The Tenebrae Service is a special form that is meant to recreate the feelings of the Passion story, also represented by the Stations of the Cross.

'''Renata''' 
Note that Renata is the name of the female protagonist in Ernest Hemingway's ''Across the River and into the Trees'', set in Venice.

'''Glagolitic''' 
The Glagolitic Alphabet is the oldest known Slavic alphabet (9th c.). It originated as a tactic to lessen the dependence of the subjects of the Prince of Greater Moravia on Frankish priests, who banned it but could not suppress it; it played a similar role in preserving Bulgarian independence from Byzantium. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic] It appears to be a nexus of the kind of simultaneous temporal and spiritual tasks the Chums of Chance are now involved in. In this, it raises the issues first explored by Pynchon in the "Tchitcherine in Kyrghizia" sections of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' in which the introduction of a written alphabet causes immense political and social change.

'''Gauloise''' 
famous French cigarette. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauloise Wikipedia].

'''''scusi''''' 
Italian: Excuse me.

'''''Affascinante, caro''''' 
Italian: Fascinating, dear (addressed to a male person).

'''''ragazzo''''' 
Italian: Boy.

'''''Mattoidi''''' 
Italian: Semi-insane persons. The word was [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-mat1.htm coined by Cesare Lombroso,] the physiognomist.

'''''Prego''''' 
Italian: Please.

==Page 253==

'''Pozzuoli''' 
A city in the Province of Naples (''Napoli'') in the region of Campania. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzuoli Wikipedia].

'''The Tarocchi are much, much older.''' 
Not at all! This is one of those ideas that rarely gets questioned, especially since some "interpreters" of the tarot claim ancient Egyptian origins. The actually only [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot date back to the 15th century], as playing cards, and tarot divination was invented in the 19th century, with absolutely no historical precedent.

However, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley] in his writings and the design of his own version of the tarot, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Thoth_(Crowley) Thoth Deck], made a case for the Tarot unifying and being rooted in much older divination methods from Ancient egypt to the[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] to Greek [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology astrology]. Crowley's Golden Dawn gets a previous mention in ATD. Though work on the Thoth deck would not begin until 1938, Crowley´s assignment of the Kabbalah's [http://jktarot.com/naples Sephiroth to the major arcana] probably bears attention when considering the chapter structure of ATD: he called the correspondence "The Naples Arrangement" in honour of having worked it out there, and this passage's mention of Renata's business associate being in Naples at this moment is unlikely to be coincidence.
:Surely a robust skepticism toward Crowley and his research methods is in order? Consider, for example, this [http://www.tarothermit.com/letter.htm "open letter"] to tarot users—from a judicious scholar and believer, not a committed skeptic—making the point that if the cards embody images (of whatever origin) "speaking" to the reader or student, it isn't essential to press the further claim that they were invented by the god Thoth. The paintings lack a couple of millennia of "temporal bandwidth" but aren't necessarily voided of appeal by that, any more than Michelangelo's ''Pietà'' is a less-valid devotional object for having been sculpted 1500 years after the event.

'''''sfumato''''' 
Refers to a well known painting method which blends so subtly the colors and tones that no perceptible transition is visible, as demonstrated by Leonardo da Vince's ''Mona Lisa''. See [http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato Wikipedia]. 
The context seems to imply ''smoke'', then ''fumo'' instead should be used.
:No, the evocation of the painterly effect becomes a metaphor for the way the boat comes into sight.

:might just be a description the morning fog over the water, but the following sentence ("which would not burn off till later in the morning"), although possibly another element of the allegory, could point to actual smoke.

==Page 254==

'''''Pax tibi, Darbe''''' 
Latin: Peace to you, Darby. ''Pax tibi'' is not at all obscure—devout Catholics used it as a parting formula—but Chick has Latinized Darby's name to ''Darbus'' (vocative case ''Darbe'') and may be consciously echoing the text in [[#Page_251|Carpaccio's lion painting]] or on a [[#Page_247|pre-Napoleonic]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Most_Serene_Republic_of_Venice.svg flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice:] ''Pax tibi Marce evangelista meus,'' "Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist."

'''like some damned ''Farewell'' Symphony''' 
Franz Josef Haydn, 1772, Hungary. Musicians at Count Esterházy's court had been kept too long on duty (and away from their families). Going on strike would have been disrespectful, so in the last movement of Haydn's hinting work, the players one by one extinguish their candles and exit, leaving two violins to play the last phrases.

'''"Chums of Chance were expected to die on the job. Or else live forever, there being two schools of thought, actually."''' 
Possibly a reference to the fact that the Chums seem to live simultaneously in the "real" world of the novel and also in fictional stories within the novel.

'''Irredentist''' 
In Italian politics (after 1878), an adherent of the party which advocated the recovery and union to Italy of all Italian-speaking districts subject to other countries (OED).

==Page 255==

'''Mostruccio''' 
Italian, literally: small monster, meant as a lovely nickname.

[[Image:samoyeds.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Samoyeds]]
'''Samoyeds''' 
These nomadic reindeer herders help with the herding, pull sleds, and are sometimes called "the smiley dog" in reference to their seemingly smiling faces. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoyed_(dog) Wikipedia]

'''Bastille Day''' 
The Campanile di San Marco collapsed 14 July 1902. Pynchon Wiki on the [[Campanile]].

'''''lasagnoni''''' 
Italian, plural of ''lasagnone'': Blowhard, braggart.

A hint may come from an Italian dictionary: a ''lasagnone'' being an awkward, simple person, the kind of loafers who abound on city squares or street corners and, consequently, may appear in tourists' pictures.

==Page 256==
[[Image:Campanile.jpg|thumb|200px|right]]

'''dual citizenship''' 
They live in two places, there are two skycraft, they point a gun at one place but the shell strikes a different place. Lots of '''bi-''' somethings in this passage.

'''the little-understood enigmata of the simultaneous''' 
The concept of simultaneous events, including the accurate definition and, moreover, the very ''need'' of such a definition, played a significant role in the soon-to-be formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity Special Relativity Theory]. One of the main consequences of the theory is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity relativity of simultaneity].

'''four-brick groupings''' 
Padzhitnoff sees the Campanile come apart as a game of Tetris! The "four-brick groupings [...] begin their gentle, undeadly descent, rotating and translating in all available modes". (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_123|page 123]] for more on Tetris.)

'''the tower collapses''' 
Might have some relation to the final poem of ''Gravity's Rainbow''. The fall of the tower is foreshadowed -- foretold, actually -- in Chick´s Tarot reading by Renata (See [[ATD_243-272#Page_253|page 253]]).

==Page 257==

'''What stood for a thousand years''' 
Pretty close: Construction of the Campanile began in the year 912.

'''deciduous''' 
Something that falls, drops or is shed, like leaves from a tree or baby teeth.

'''We had the weather-gauge''' 
In the days of sail, [http://www.weathergage.com/ weather gage] described the relative position of two ships or forces. If you were downwind you could run or, if you meant to engage the enemy, tack to approach him. Every time you changed tack you lost an opportunity to shoot (because your guns pointed left and right). If you lay upwind, you could keep your guns trained on the enemy throughout the engagement. The weather gage was an often decisive battle advantage, and the phrase is common in nautical narratives.

'''Or we might send in pursuit your maternal relation...transform them all into masonry''' 
Yet another Mother joke. This time in reference to her being as ugly as Medusa and therefore able to turn the crew of the enemy airship into stone (masonry).

'''neuræsthenic prostration''' 
This is the third (at least) time Randolph has exhibited this tendency.

:This is the third time that this word has appeared so far, but in the second instance (page 188) it was used by Nigel to describe Lew Basnight, not Randolph.

:Not the word, but this reaction in Randolph occurred on pages 12 and 28. It seems to be a regular thing with him.

==Page 258==
'''Vibrational Rays... sympathetic frequency... divergent oscillation''' 

ie, what took down the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_Collapse Tacoma Narrows], the famous wobbly bridge collapse I'm sure we've all seen footage of. Same phenomenon weaponized taking down the Campanile, or at least, this is the best guess by Dr. Gerasimoff.

'''Tetralith''' 
Modern math term for three dimensional solid formed by merging three hyperbolic paraboloids in a manner that they have a common midpoint. See [http://www.tetranometry.com/#tetralith Tetralith Photo #2]. Pynchon just means a Tetris-shaped projectile, a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino Tetromino].
:A "monolith" (as in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'')means an "object made of a single block of stone". Hence "tetralith" means an "object made of four blocks of stone", which is exactly what you see on the game "Tetris".

'''Japanese character for "four" being same as that for "death"''' 
Not quite correct. The Japanese kanji (Chinese) characters for four 四 and death 死 are quite distinct, but can be pronounced in the same way, hence the taboo.

'''Ryohei Uchida''' 
Ultra-nationalist, founder of the Black Dragon Soceity (see below), a right-wing, paramilitary organization. See [http://members.tripod.com/ravenshrine/uchida.html Ryohei Uchida].

Interestingly - or, perhaps, as certain sorts of people might be inclined to say, coincidentally - the name 'Uchida' is homonymous with the Italian 'uccidere', meaning 'to kill', in several of its commonly seen conjugated forms.

'''''polny pizdets''''' 
Crude Russian: a total screwup.

'''Black Dragon Society''' 
A paramiltary, ultra-nationalist, right-wing organization in Japan founded by Ryohei Uchida in 1901. Its initial public goal was to support Janpanese expansion in Manchuria. Therefore, during the period from 1901 to the end of World War I, it aimed to help the Japanese government drive the Russian presence out of that region. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (a war fought over Manchuria, with the Russians soundly defeated) it was active in espionage, sabotage and assassination against the Russians. During the 20's, 30's and later periods the Black Dragon Society evolved and expanded its activities around the world, including the United States. It was finally disbanded in 1946 by General MacArthur after World War II. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuryu-kai Wikipedia entry].

'''''Smirno''''' 
Russian: quiet!

==Page 259==

'''''dov'era, com'era''''' 
Italian: where it was, as it was. See [http://veniceblog.typepad.com/veniceblog/2003/12/comera_dovera.html veniceblog]. On July 14, 1902 the St. Mark's Campanile in Piazza San Marco, Venice, mysteriously and totally collapsed. Under the 'battle cry' of '''''com'era, dov'era''''' it was rebuilt. The Campanile was reopened on April 25 (St. Mark's Day) 1912. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Campanile St. Mark's Campanile]. Also, Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page 256|page 256:the tower collapses]].

''''La Marangona''''' 
The largest bell in the campanile is called la Marangona. At midnight, that massive bell resounds alone from high in the Piazza, and can be heard from almost any point in the city. There are four other bells in the campanile and they each have a name.

'''"Bells are the most ancient objects. They call to us out of eternity"''' 
This chapter is bookended by references to bells. It opens, "Across the city noontide a field of bells emerged into flower."

==Page 260==

'''Deuce and Sloat return''' 
These two, it will be recalled, are the men hired by the mine owners to kill Webb Traverse. (193) It is unclear who is whose sidekick. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_195|195]]) Sloat tends to bodies, Deuce the spirit. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_197|197]])

'''Curly Dee''' 
Mathematicians call the "partial derivative" symbol "curly d." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_derivative Wikipedia shows the symbol.]

'''Big Billy's or Jew Fanny's''' 
Big Billy (or "Billie") was a madam at the Silver Bell in Telluride, Colorado. Found on the corner of Pacific Avenue and Spruce Street, the Silver Bell was situated in the center of Telluride’s red-light district. According to [http://telluridepublishing.com/articles.asp?title=112 this source], Jew Fanny was a prostitute who worked for Big Billy.

[[image:Cosmopolitan.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Interior of Cosmopolitan Saloon, c. 1905]]'''the Cosmopolitan''' 
The Cosmopolitan Saloon in Telluride, Colorado, featured all the masculine comforts gambling, plenty of bar space, tables for talk, and an assortment of saloon art. [http://books.google.com/books?id=X3hSG8xhScMC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=cosmopolitan+%2B+saloon+%2B++telluride+%2B+gambling+%2B+mining&source=web&ots=YyBLNquez5&sig=cyt612wQnVOEVU8yPrwqiQQWfw4&hl=en]

The Cosmopolitan was a sophisticated establishment located at 109 East Colorado Avenue and was frequented by merchants, lawyers, and mine officials. Its bill of fare listed "fine old California wines and champaigns." Papered walls were hung with art, and a hired hand kept the spittoon and brass rails polished. At the bar, lawman Kenneth Angus Maclean keeps an eye on things (at right). [http://books.google.com/books?id=HPNgqJI7WJoC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22cosmopolitan+saloon%22+telluride&source=web&ots=l9Zw--XiJa&sig=A_YlheB44cus8oh-n3kAOlFPAs0&hl=en#PPA85,M1]

'''"Pussy on the brain, Big S."''' 
Cf. the "Beavers of the Brain"/"Beaver on the Brain" episode, [[ATD_171-198#Page_183|p.183]]

'''inside out''' 
Optical illusion.

==Page 261==

'''Nonpareil Eating House''' 
The motto over the door was probably "None Like It!"

French, meaning "without equal". Webster's also lists other definitions, including this one, pertaining to the animal kingdom: "Marked with bright colors; as, the painted turtle; painted bunting". I have also noticed that whenever I buy capers, they tend to be of the "nonpareille" variety (at least that's what the label says). This most likely refers to their size, as nonpareil is also a printing term that describes "A size of type next smaller than minion and next larger than agate".

'''Mayva and Lake''' 
Webb Traverse's wife and daughter.

'''lard smoke''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke," and p. 216, "Just greasy ashes by the trailside."

'''biscuit-shooter''' 
I.e., a cook.

'''Cañon City''' 
Site of the Colorado State Penitentiary, meant to suggest Deuce and Sloat had done time there.

'''gong''' 
???
17:18, 1 January 2007 (PST)[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]]
 "kicking the gong around" is slang for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_the_Moocher smoking opium]. Here, Sloat seems to mean that Deuce's opium smoking has affected his judgement.

==Page 262==

'''Willis Turnstone''' 
Turnstones are members of the sandpiper family, stocky birds that use their stout bills to flip over rocks and such in search of food. There are two species: Black Turnstone (''Arenaria melanocephala'') and Ruddy Turnstone (''A. interpres''). The [http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Ruddy_Turnstone.html Ruddy's] breeding plumage is a bold calico of white, orange, and black.

==Page 263==

'''"Crazier."''' 
Cf Bonnie and Clyde.

'''Oleander Prudge''' 
A name that brings joy to the heart of any Dickensian who happens to be reading along.

==Page 264==

'''single-jacker''' 
A miner who with a hammer and spike cuts a hole into rock for placement of a stick of dynamite. A set of holes are cut for each "synchronized" blast.
(Double jackers work as a team.)
Infer (this) one as a loner, a bit crazy, single minded, silent, easily hurt or misunderstood, doesn't play well with others...

'''How I feel about Mr. Kindred...and...Webb Traverse are two different things''' 

This is an interesting exchange between Lake and Oleander Prudge. Clearly Oleander hits a nerve as Lake spills the hotcakes. Lake goes into denial, saying her love of someone she would normally hate (Deuce -- her father's killer) and hating someone she would normally love (her father Webb) are "two different things."

Oleanders rejoinder, "they can't be," has the finality of a mathematical proof.

It's as if Lake is looking at passion through an emotional lense of iceland spar and sees two sets of images (father/lover, hate/love)and wants to believe they're different, whereas Oleander sees that in fact they are one. This won't be the last time Lake gets herself a "twofer."

==Page 265==

'''backing away down the valley''' 
It's instructive to look at a [http://www.vacationtelluride.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=standard&categoryId=11&subCategoryId=0 map or satellite photo of Telluride.] You could very well lay a single track from the mouth of the valley up to the town, but no farther. So the train drives into the station, then backs out until there's room for a spur where it can turn around.

'''gullet of days''' 
Metaphor. The miners' lives "as easily (as jug whisky)disappeared down the throat of everyday life".

==Page 266==

'''white-throated swift''' 
A swift is a small plainly colored bird similar to a swallow. The [http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/187/_/White-throated_Swift.aspx white-throated species,] which breeds in the western U.S. and winters in Mexico, is less plain than some. And get the species name: '''''Aeronaut'''es saxatalis.''

'''November''' 
November 1903.

'''in January, martial law''' 
January 3, 1904.

'''nymph du pave''' 
should probably read "nymphE du pave": [http://dict.die.net/nymphe%20du%20pave/ street-whore]. Theoretically this could also translate as: (image of a) nymph on a mosaic (tesselated floor) - like the huge roman one of Ariadne in the Rue du Pavé in Avenche (Switzerland) [http://www.stub.unibe.ch/welten/texte/herzig.html german weblink]

Most likely not (the mosaic idea); this is a consecrated term for prostitute. Note: in French, pavé means cobblestone. --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:09, 3 March 2007 (PST)

'''geometric episode''' 
Vaguely reminiscent of Proust on Combray: "And on one of the longest walks we ever took from Combray there was a spot where the narrow road emerged suddenly on to an immense plain, closed at the horizon by strips of forest over which rose and stood alone the fine point of Saint-Hilaire's steeple, but so sharpened and so pink that it seemed to be no more than sketched on the sky by the finger-nail of a painter anxious to give to such a landscape, to so pure a piece of 'nature,' this little sign of art, this single indication of human existence." [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8swnn10.txt etext]

'''Engelmann spruce''' 
[http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=175 Picea engelmannii,] a light-colored, easily worked wood with fairly straight grain and slight contrast between heartwood and sapwood; [http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/boise/trees/engelmann.shtml uses include] piano sounding boards and the tops of violins and guitars, hence the association with the acoustics of the church.

A short biography of Dr. Engelmann (lit. Angel-Man) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engelmann Wikipedia-Entry], more elaborated on [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Engelmann german site]

'''albatross cloth''' 
Evidently a distinct color/design for a wedding or wedding party dress in the West at the time. I have no OED at the moment, but there are at least two online "diaries" or descriptions using the phrase. Here is one: "We were married August 6, 1896 at 7:30 AM at my folk’s residence among friends and relatives. To honor the event, my folks had our parlor decorated with many flowers including roses, myrtle and geraniums. I wore an elegant gown of white silk and albatross cloth."

==Page 267==

'''Osterbybruk''' 
Town noted for ironmaking, 20 miles (32 km) north of Uppsala, eastern Sweden, nowhere near Jämtland (next entry).

The reference is probably more to a tune than a place. Swedish folk fiddlers, accordionists etc. have lots of bridal marches, waltzes etc. called after the place where they were composed/first used. There are collections of folk tunes from Österby bruk. I would guess that TRP has probably heard a recording of this kind of music.

'''Jemt-land''' 
A Province in west central Sweden [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4mtland Wikipedia.] The hyphen is not part of the name and probably marks a syncopation in the rev's delivery.

Vintage Books paperback edition gives "Jämtland" as the name of the region.

'''Virgin bride''' 
Oh no she wasn't. See pp 190-191.

'''Child of the storm''' 
See the [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/?s=child+of+the+storm ATD Weblog entry]. And page 190.

==Page 268==

'''sideways pussy''' 
Folklore.

'''side hobbles''' 
A hobble is a device for a horse or a dog that restricts the range of motion of the legs. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobble Wikipedia entry]. 
A [http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/archive/index.php/t-67850.html side hobble or Scotch hobble] links the horse's two left or two right legs, restricting its movement. 
"Hobble" also describes a type of skirt used (apparently) in bondage, see this [http://www.darksidecreations.com/product.asp?productid=19 example (not safe for work)] in latex.

==Page 269==

'''items, nearly always stolen''' 
Cf bower-bird.

'''marmot''' 
A stout-bodied, short-legged rodent that has coarse fur, a short bushy tail, and very short ears, lives in burrows, and hibernates in winter; also: a prairie dog or one of the larger ground squirrels. Marmots are native to Colorado and live at the higher altitudes. They are about the size of a weasel.

'''''"huevón"''''' 
From huevo (egg). According to [http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2004/06/huevon_and_guey.html this blog] huevon "literally refers to the size of a mans "cojones" (another pseudo decent word that has seen a lot of mainstream play). It is commonly used to indicate how lazy someone is. The bigger the "huevon" you are, the lazier. As with "guey", however, this too has often been used to say dude or buddy."

'''''pinche cabron''''' 
fucking asshole.

==Page 270==

'''same hour, just before dawn...he even bombs by the moon''' 
I.e., he waits for a favorable phase. People who "plant by the signs," for example, associate days of the lunar month to parts of the plant and of the human body. They sow squash (vines) under one sign and lettuce (leaves) under another; they sow nothing at all when the moon is waning. Would a moon-guided bomber blow up trestles (legs) at one phase and plutocrats (belly) at another?

Here we see that Webb is "deuced" again -- first by being killed by Deuce, second by having his modus [operandi] imitated.

The time signature for the modus is given in both solar terms -- "the same hour just before dawn" -- and lunar terms. Depending on the time of year, the bombings probably happen from 4am to 6am.

It would be interesting if the anarchists had esoteric moon teachings as to which moon position is best for success.

Given that the authorities know the time of day and that the moon is the same in a relative way, they pretty much can predict the time of the next bombing, they just don't know exactly where. Sort of a variation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Since TRP is conversant with astrology and the moon seems to be signaling ideas in AtD, it may be of interest to drill down into this passage a bit more from an astronomical, astrological perspective.

In the Northern Hemisphere, in the hours just before dawn, any visible moon will be a waning moon along the full to new moon spectrum. Vedic astrology calls this the Krishna Paksha or dark half of the full lunar cycle. A waning moon 72 degrees (approx) past full (a waning moon less than 108 degrees from the sun) takes on a negative, slightly malefic tone. If you had a clock where the sun was the hour hand stuck at noon, and the minute hand was the moon, the moon turns bad at 18 minutes to the hour and reaches it nadir in badness at the hour or new moon. 

Drilling down further, Indian astrological analysis considers the tithi. A tithi does not consider the stellar zodiacal place of the moon, but the angular distance between sun and moon -- in the clock metaphor, we look at the minute. Instead of the 8 phases of standard western classificaton, there are 30 tithis, each lasting a little less than a day. Each tithi has its own interpretation. 

If there were an esoteric aspect to anarchist bombing technique regarding an auspicious time for maximum destruction, it would perhaps be in the Mars-ruled 11th tithi (Ekadasi), a time of strong, energetic conflict, fighting, explosions. Such a moon can be seen the morning of Oct 6th, 2007. At 42 to 54 degress before new moon, it's analogous to the sun at noon and the moon at 7-9 minutes to the hour. It's your basic waning crescent moon. Further, this moon can be in the 12th house (loss and secret enemies) when the sun is predawn, but only for about 2.5 hours.
In Telluride, CO, on Oct 6th, 2007, this type of moon will be in the 12th house from about 3:14am to 5:42am with sunrise at 7:15am. So one could expect an explosion probably between first predawn light and 5:42am.

==Page 271==

'''"...sufficient unto the day and so forth"''' 
Deuce is reiterating Webb's own words from Matthew 6:34 [[ATD_81-96#Page 96]]"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

'''skip''' 
In mining, a skip is "an iron bucket, which slides between guides,
for hoisting mineral and rock." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

'''ex-Danite''' 
Danites were Joseph Smith's vigilantes, "Armies of Israel", during the Mormon War 1838 in Missouri, i.e., before travel to Utah.

'''"Avenging Angels"''' 
Refers to [http://www.ugca.org/ugca1099/ugca1099main.htm Civil War-vintage Colt pistols] usually with sawn off barrels.

==Page 272==

'''the Dolores''' 
Dolores River runs through Cortez (where Deuce seems to be, next to exploding cactus p270). "We woke up in the Dolores... [VALLEY/REGION/HOTEL]"

'''a luminous face suspended''' 

Some large convex object in the sky.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 243-272

2009-03-28T13:41:31Z

Bobutler: /* Page 250 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 243==

'''The Chums return''' 
When were the Chums last seen in AtD? As far back as page 142?

A brief reminder of who the Chums are and what we know about them so far:
:'''Randolph St. Cosmo''', commander.
:'''Lindsay Noseworth''', Master-at-Arms and second in command, hates slackers and slang.
:'''Miles Blundell''', handyman, awkward, with an "ample waist" (11), also ship's Commissary, whose cooking ranges from pure cordon bleu to inedible. (110)
:'''Darby Suckling''', the baby of the crew, served "as both factotum and mascotte". By page 141 or so, has transformed from spirited youth to bomb obsessed, (111) sneering, snide cynic. Because of hitting adolescence?
:'''Chick Counterfly''', the newest member of the crew, picked up by the Chums in the South while on the run from the KKK. At last appearance, had become Dr. Counterfly, knowledgeable Science Officer aboard the Inconvenience (141). Reliably humorous. (110). Chick's style of speech here seems intermediate between the country boy of the early chapters and the sophisticated Dr Counterfly who met the Vormance expedition. Are we also at an intermediate point on the timeline?

[[image:fumaioli.jpg|thumb|150px|Fumaioli in Venice|right]]
'''''fumaioli''''' 
Italian: ''funnels''; fumaioli are large wide-topped chimneys, common to the rooftops of Venice.

'''''certo''''' 
sure, certain.

'''''Seccatura''''' 
Italian: ''Inconvenience''

==Page 244==

'''''ragazza''''' 
Italian: ''girl''.

'''Picardy thirds''' 
The use of a major chord at the end of a musical section in a minor key. Miles seems just as moved by them as Lew. [[ATD_26-56#Page_50 | Cf p50]]

The gondolier is singing harmony with himself, or else Miles is imagining the accompaniment.

Picardie is also a region in northern France and "during the Middle Ages... included the Dutch speaking Flanders." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy] The region was a hotbed of action along the Western Front in WWI and played host to the Battle of the Somme, which totaled more than a million casualties and was "one of the bloodiest battles in human history."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme]

'''''stabilimento''''' 
Italian: establishment.

==Page 245==
'''Garibaldi''' 
Famous Italian leader, major figure in the Italian Unification. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garibaldi Wikipedia]

'''''"Ehi, sugo!"''''' 
"Hey, sauce!" Does this make sense to anyone?
It does not make any sense in Italian. 
To a good approximation, this is what the Fonz used to say in the TV series ''Happy Days.'' People mostly understood his melodic "Aaayy" as a variant of "Hey," but maybe instead it was something his Uncle Pio brought from the old country.

'''twentyfold''' 
5 chums times 4 suspects each. (Randolph suspects Lindsay, Miles, Darby and Chick of being the leak; and so on around the crew. And that assumes no one suspects Pugnax!)

'''''osteria''''' 
tavern.

'''San Polo''' 
The smallest district/area in Venice, and among the oldest. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Polo Wikipedia]

'''''rio''''' 
narrow waterway in Venice.

'''against the night''' 
OK...

'''''calli''''' 
Venetian 'street' or 'lane'.

==Page 246==

'''''sotoporteghi''''' 
passageways. See picture for one example [http://www.dialetto-veneto.it/images/FotoComano/Comano-Cattognano.jpg].

'''''"Sa stai, O! Lungo, ehi!"''''' 
It does not mean anything in Italian or in the Venetian dialect. One possibility is mimicking the callouts of gondoliers. ''Lungo'' could be someone's nickname. 
Other possibility is a wrong lettering of: ''Xa star, oh! Lungo, ehi!'', meaning ''Ehi, Lungo, let it be and let's go!'' or something similar.

'''''cameriere''''' 
Italian: waitresses (plural of ''cameriera'').

'''''pallonisti''''' 
(fake-)Italian: balloonists.

'''''Ehi, macché, Pina! ''''' 
Italian: Ehi, Giusep(Pina), what are you telling me?

'''''giadrul''''' 
Again, doesn't mean anything in Italian or Venetian dialect. Seems to be a [https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0007&L=irtrad-l&D=0&T=0&P=94630 term of insult], variously described as American-Italian only (see previous link) and southern Italian (see next). One source gives one meaning as "[http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070318034908AAem49X zuccone]" - this appears to mean "[http://notes.tranq.com/archives/2004/01/23/zuccone/ pumpkinhead]". I guess we're looking for something phallic, given the context. 
(''as far as I can see, it is an American-Italian deformation of the correct italian word "citrullo", which in fact is some sort of "dumb ass", and is derived from neapolitan for "cetriolo", that is, "cucumber" '')

'''"with all the spaghetti-joints in this town to choose from, are you saying those dadblame Russians have come in ''here''?"''' 
reminiscent of a similar line from the film ''Casablanca'', spoken by Humphrey Bogart: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

==Page 247==

'''tacchino in pomegranate sauce''' 
turkey in pomegranate sauce and, presumably, the "Purple Thanksgiving" to which Miles refers above.

'''''Dum vivimus, bibamus''''' 
While we live, let us drink. Paraphrase of "Dum vivimus, vivamus".

'''vini frizzanti''' 
sparkling wine (plural).

'''SANGUIS RUBER, MENS PURA''' 
Latin: Red blood, clean mind.

'''''Serrata del Maggior Consiglio''''' 
Great Council Lockout, 1297. Link to the "Maggior Consiglio" entry on Reference.com [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/Maggior%20Consiglio]

'''Napoleon's abolition''' 
1797. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia]

'''Polos' return''' 
Marco Polo together with his father and uncle returned to Venice in 1295 from their travel to China started in 1271. 

''Marco Polo'' (1254-1324), a Venetian traveller. Was born of a nobel family at Venice, while his father and uncle had gone on a mercantile expedition by Constantinople and the Crimea to Bokhara and to Cathy (China). The Mongol prince commissioned them as envoys to the Pope, a commission they tried in vain to carry out in Italy (1269). The Polos started again a new trip to China in 1271, taking with them young Marco,
and arrived at the court of Kublai Khan in 1275 by way of Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan to Lop Nor, then across the Gobi desert to Kansu and Shang-tu. Marco Polo entered the diplomatic service of Kublai Khan and was sent on missions to various parts of the Mongol empire. The Polos left China on 1282 and returned by way of Sumatra, India, and Persia to Venice (1295). In 1298 Marco was in command of a galley at the battle of Curzola, where the Venetians were defeated by the Genoese, and he was a prisoner for a year at Genoa. Here it was thought that he dictated to another captive an account of his travels, published under the title of ''Divisamemt dou monde''. (English title: ''The Travels of Marco Polo''.) ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo Marco Polo].)

''Kublai Khan'' (1214-94), Mongol khan, emperor of China, grandson of Jenghiz Khan. He completed the conquest of northern China and became the first foreigner ever to rule China. An enegetic prince, he suppressed his rivals, adopted the Chinese mode of civilisation, encouraged men of letters and made Buddhism the state religion. But his attempt to invade Japan ended in disaster. His dominions extended from Arctic Ocean to the Strait of Malacca, and from Korea to Asia Minor and the confines of Hungary. The splendor of his court inspired the graphic pages of Marco Polo. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.) 
Jack Weatherford, in ''Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World'' (2004), calls him Khubilai Khan and makes rather different statements about the extent of his realm and his treatment of religion. 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1816 poem "Kubla Khan" uses yet another spelling. Weatherford identifies "Xanadu" as Shengdu.

==Page 248==

[[image:doge.jpg|thumb|100px|Doge by Giovanni Bellini|right]]'''Doge's hat''' 
For some thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge, a rare but not unique Italian title derived from the Latin Dux, as the major Italian parallel Duce and the English Duke. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia entry]

'''''Attenzione al culo''''' 
Italian: watch your ass.

'''Shambhala''' 
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a mystical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas. Shambhala is believed to be a society where all the inhabitants are enlightened. During the 19th century, Theosophical Society founder H.P. Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult enthusiasts. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala Wikipedia entry]

'''cicerone''' 
A guide who shows and explains the antiquities or curiosities or a place to strangers. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989.</ref>

'''Professor Svegli of the University of Pisa''' 
The fictional professor's name comes from the Italian ''sveglio'' for "clever, dextrous, skillful."

'''"try to forget the usual picture in two dimensions"''' 
Cf. page 220, the idea behind the ''Tetractys'' as explained by Nigel and Neville.

'''an episode of intentional blindness''' 
Echoes the "denial of ordinary vision" that Lew sees when he meets Professor Renfrew (p. 240). Might these "blind spots" in sense evoke Iceland Spar?

==Page 249==

'''"Those whose enduring object is power in this world are only too happy to use without remorse the others, whose aim is of course to transcend all question of power. Each regards the other as a pack of deluded fools."''' 
Over time, Pynchon appears to have come to a belief in a massive conflict between cultures "valuing analysis and differentiation" and those valuing "unity and integration". The two alternate maps of Asia could be a reference to these disparate worldviews.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. Wikipedia entry on V.]

'''The problem lies with the projection''' 
(a) Projection by each group of its own obsession onto the other group. (b) Cartographic projection, i.e., how the round world gets imaged onto a flat sheet of paper.

'''Imaginary surface''' 
Presumably meant to mean (or at least allude to) imaginary in the mathematical sense: involving the square root of -1.

'''paramorphoscope''' 
AtD is itself a paramorphoscope; satire and science fiction typically hold up a distorting mirror to the world in which they are written, and present worlds "set to the side of the one we have taken". In the end the correct paramorphic "mirror" shows the world clearly.

'''"a certain percentage of them went mad and ended up in the asylum on San Servolo"''' 
Cf. the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum with its light-obsessed inmates at [[ATD_57-80#Page_59|page 59]].

'''the asylum on San Servolo''' 
First established as a military hospital in 1715, later became a mental asylum. Seems that San Servolo is to Venice what Bedlam is to London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Servolo Wikipedia]

'''Clifford's term''' 
W.K. Clifford, (1845-1879): an English mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford Wikipedia]

==Page 250==

[[Image:stmarks.jpg|thumb|200px|right|St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) in Venice]]
'''Dr. Cantor''' 
Georg Cantor (1845 - 1918), German mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_theorem Cantor's Theorem] is what is most relevant to his mention here.

'''the plano-convex designs of Griendl von Ach''' 
For a brief history of the compound-lens microscope, and the roles played by the Italians and the Dutch, including Griendl von Ach, see:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Microscope

'''prophetic vision of St. Mark''' 
Mark the Evangelist (1st century) is traditionally believed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark and a companion of Peter. From [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brown-venice.html this site]: "...a prophetic dream that Mark was said to have experienced during his earlier, supposed ministry in the area of the Venetian lagoon. In it he was visited by an angel who told him that he would find his final resting place on the very site where San Marco would later be built." In the first century there was no settlement worth mentioning in the Lagoon yet. The prophecy was "fulfilled" in 828 when the saint's remains stolen on orders of Doge Giustiniano Participazio in Alexandria were brought to Venice. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_the_Evangelist Wikipedia entry] St. Mark is represented by a winged lion and is the patron saint of Venice [http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/saintm08.htm].

'''''but in reverse''''' 
Miles now takes the place of the angel. Who or what is the "Being" and what form does the prophecy take?

'''cormorant''' 
A large and voracious sea-bird, about three feet in length, and of a lustrous black color. <ref>Def.1. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989.</ref>

'''neither sails, masts, nor oars''' 
Not a craft that is driven by the wind or human muscle. To say more could spoil a plot point.

==Page 251==

[[Image:stmarklion.jpg|thumb|600px|center|The Lion of St. Mark, by Carpaccio]]

'''Lion of St. Mark by Carpaccion''' 
Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460–1525/6) was a Venetian painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittore_Carpaccio Wikipedia entry]

'''the vision of St. Mark, but in reverse''' 
In St. Mark's vision, an angel appeared to Mark and informed him that his remains would one day end up in his present location, which later became Venice. Here, Miles seems to assume the form of the angel (in the form of a lion?) and the 'promise' Pynchon mentions seems to be the angel's promise to Mark.

'''our own duty, our own fate... the real journey''' 
Pynchon's one-paragraph summation of human life and its meaning recalls a letter Pynchon wrote in the early 1960s, [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]], in which he also summed up the entirety of human life in a few tidy sentences. Both employ the word 'pilgrimage.'

==Page 252==

'''''sotopòrteghi''''' 
Tunnels or passageways under large buildings.

'''tenebrous''' 
Means "shadowy" but is also a link back to the previous paragraph. The Tenebrae Service is a special form that is meant to recreate the feelings of the Passion story, also represented by the Stations of the Cross.

'''Renata''' 
Note that Renata is the name of the female protagonist in Ernest Hemingway's ''Across the River and into the Trees'', set in Venice.

'''Glagolitic''' 
The Glagolitic Alphabet is the oldest known Slavic alphabet (9th c.). It originated as a tactic to lessen the dependence of the subjects of the Prince of Greater Moravia on Frankish priests, who banned it but could not suppress it; it played a similar role in preserving Bulgarian independence from Byzantium. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic] It appears to be a nexus of the kind of simultaneous temporal and spiritual tasks the Chums of Chance are now involved in. In this, it raises the issues first explored by Pynchon in the "Tchitcherine in Kyrghizia" sections of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' in which the introduction of a written alphabet causes immense political and social change.

'''Gauloise''' 
famous French cigarette. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauloise Wikipedia].

'''''scusi''''' 
Italian: Excuse me.

'''''Affascinante, caro''''' 
Italian: Fascinating, dear (addressed to a male person).

'''''ragazzo''''' 
Italian: Boy.

'''''Mattoidi''''' 
Italian: Semi-insane persons. The word was [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-mat1.htm coined by Cesare Lombroso,] the physiognomist.

'''''Prego''''' 
Italian: Please.

==Page 253==

'''Pozzuoli''' 
A city in the Province of Naples (''Napoli'') in the region of Campania. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzuoli Wikipedia].

'''The Tarocchi are much, much older.''' 
Not at all! This is one of those ideas that rarely gets questioned, especially since some "interpreters" of the tarot claim ancient Egyptian origins. The actually only [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot date back to the 15th century], as playing cards, and tarot divination was invented in the 19th century, with absolutely no historical precedent.

However, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley] in his writings and the design of his own version of the tarot, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Thoth_(Crowley) Thoth Deck], made a case for the Tarot unifying and being rooted in much older divination methods from Ancient egypt to the[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] to Greek [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology astrology]. Crowley's Golden Dawn gets a previous mention in ATD. Though work on the Thoth deck would not begin until 1938, Crowley´s assignment of the Kabbalah's [http://jktarot.com/naples Sephiroth to the major arcana] probably bears attention when considering the chapter structure of ATD: he called the correspondence "The Naples Arrangement" in honour of having worked it out there, and this passage's mention of Renata's business associate being in Naples at this moment is unlikely to be coincidence.
:Surely a robust skepticism toward Crowley and his research methods is in order? Consider, for example, this [http://www.tarothermit.com/letter.htm "open letter"] to tarot users—from a judicious scholar and believer, not a committed skeptic—making the point that if the cards embody images (of whatever origin) "speaking" to the reader or student, it isn't essential to press the further claim that they were invented by the god Thoth. The paintings lack a couple of millennia of "temporal bandwidth" but aren't necessarily voided of appeal by that, any more than Michelangelo's ''Pietà'' is a less-valid devotional object for having been sculpted 1500 years after the event.

'''''sfumato''''' 
Refers to a well known painting method which blends so subtly the colors and tones that no perceptible transition is visible, as demonstrated by Leonardo da Vince's ''Mona Lisa''. See [http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato Wikipedia]. 
The context seems to imply ''smoke'', then ''fumo'' instead should be used.
:No, the evocation of the painterly effect becomes a metaphor for the way the boat comes into sight.

:might just be a description the morning fog over the water, but the following sentence ("which would not burn off till later in the morning"), although possibly another element of the allegory, could point to actual smoke.

==Page 254==

'''''Pax tibi, Darbe''''' 
Latin: Peace to you, Darby. ''Pax tibi'' is not at all obscure—devout Catholics used it as a parting formula—but Chick has Latinized Darby's name to ''Darbus'' (vocative case ''Darbe'') and may be consciously echoing the text in [[#Page_251|Carpaccio's lion painting]] or on a [[#Page_247|pre-Napoleonic]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Most_Serene_Republic_of_Venice.svg flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice:] ''Pax tibi Marce evangelista meus,'' "Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist."

'''like some damned ''Farewell'' Symphony''' 
Franz Josef Haydn, 1772, Hungary. Musicians at Count Esterházy's court had been kept too long on duty (and away from their families). Going on strike would have been disrespectful, so in the last movement of Haydn's hinting work, the players one by one extinguish their candles and exit, leaving two violins to play the last phrases.

'''"Chums of Chance were expected to die on the job. Or else live forever, there being two schools of thought, actually."''' 
Possibly a reference to the fact that the Chums seem to live simultaneously in the "real" world of the novel and also in fictional stories within the novel.

'''Irredentist''' 
In Italian politics (after 1878), an adherent of the party which advocated the recovery and union to Italy of all Italian-speaking districts subject to other countries (OED).

==Page 255==

'''Mostruccio''' 
Italian, literally: small monster, meant as a lovely nickname.

[[Image:samoyeds.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Samoyeds]]
'''Samoyeds''' 
These nomadic reindeer herders help with the herding, pull sleds, and are sometimes called "the smiley dog" in reference to their seemingly smiling faces. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoyed_(dog) Wikipedia]

'''Bastille Day''' 
The Campanile di San Marco collapsed 14 July 1902. Pynchon Wiki on the [[Campanile]].

'''''lasagnoni''''' 
Italian, plural of ''lasagnone'': Blowhard, braggart.

A hint may come from an Italian dictionary: a ''lasagnone'' being an awkward, simple person, the kind of loafers who abound on city squares or street corners and, consequently, may appear in tourists' pictures.

==Page 256==
[[Image:Campanile.jpg|thumb|200px|right]]

'''dual citizenship''' 
They live in two places, there are two skycraft, they point a gun at one place but the shell strikes a different place. Lots of '''bi-''' somethings in this passage.

'''the little-understood enigmata of the simultaneous''' 
The concept of simultaneous events, including the accurate definition and, moreover, the very ''need'' of such a definition, played a significant role in the soon-to-be formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity Special Relativity Theory]. One of the main consequences of the theory is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity relativity of simultaneity].

'''four-brick groupings''' 
Padzhitnoff sees the Campanile come apart as a game of Tetris! The "four-brick groupings [...] begin their gentle, undeadly descent, rotating and translating in all available modes". (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_123|page 123]] for more on Tetris.)

'''the tower collapses''' 
Might have some relation to the final poem of ''Gravity's Rainbow''. The fall of the tower is foreshadowed -- foretold, actually -- in Chick´s Tarot reading by Renata (See [[ATD_243-272#Page_253|page 253]]).

==Page 257==

'''What stood for a thousand years''' 
Pretty close: Construction of the Campanile began in the year 912.

'''deciduous''' 
Something that falls, drops or is shed, like leaves from a tree or baby teeth.

'''We had the weather-gauge''' 
In the days of sail, [http://www.weathergage.com/ weather gage] described the relative position of two ships or forces. If you were downwind you could run or, if you meant to engage the enemy, tack to approach him. Every time you changed tack you lost an opportunity to shoot (because your guns pointed left and right). If you lay upwind, you could keep your guns trained on the enemy throughout the engagement. The weather gage was an often decisive battle advantage, and the phrase is common in nautical narratives.

'''Or we might send in pursuit your maternal relation...transform them all into masonry''' 
Yet another Mother joke. This time in reference to her being as ugly as Medusa and therefore able to turn the crew of the enemy airship into stone (masonry).

'''neuræsthenic prostration''' 
This is the third (at least) time Randolph has exhibited this tendency.

:This is the third time that this word has appeared so far, but in the second instance (page 188) it was used by Nigel to describe Lew Basnight, not Randolph.

:Not the word, but this reaction in Randolph occurred on pages 12 and 28. It seems to be a regular thing with him.

==Page 258==
'''Vibrational Rays... sympathetic frequency... divergent oscillation''' 

ie, what took down the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_Collapse Tacoma Narrows], the famous wobbly bridge collapse I'm sure we've all seen footage of. Same phenomenon weaponized taking down the Campanile, or at least, this is the best guess by Dr. Gerasimoff.

'''Tetralith''' 
Modern math term for three dimensional solid formed by merging three hyperbolic paraboloids in a manner that they have a common midpoint. See [http://www.tetranometry.com/#tetralith Tetralith Photo #2]. Pynchon just means a Tetris-shaped projectile, a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino Tetromino].
:A "monolith" (as in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'')means an "object made of a single block of stone". Hence "tetralith" means an "object made of four blocks of stone", which is exactly what you see on the game "Tetris".

'''Japanese character for "four" being same as that for "death"''' 
Not quite correct. The Japanese kanji (Chinese) characters for four 四 and death 死 are quite distinct, but can be pronounced in the same way, hence the taboo.

'''Ryohei Uchida''' 
Ultra-nationalist, founder of the Black Dragon Soceity (see below), a right-wing, paramilitary organization. See [http://members.tripod.com/ravenshrine/uchida.html Ryohei Uchida].

Interestingly - or, perhaps, as certain sorts of people might be inclined to say, coincidentally - the name 'Uchida' is homonymous with the Italian 'uccidere', meaning 'to kill', in several of its commonly seen conjugated forms.

'''''polny pizdets''''' 
Crude Russian: a total screwup.

'''Black Dragon Society''' 
A paramiltary, ultra-nationalist, right-wing organization in Japan founded by Ryohei Uchida in 1901. Its initial public goal was to support Janpanese expansion in Manchuria. Therefore, during the period from 1901 to the end of World War I, it aimed to help the Japanese government drive the Russian presence out of that region. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (a war fought over Manchuria, with the Russians soundly defeated) it was active in espionage, sabotage and assassination against the Russians. During the 20's, 30's and later periods the Black Dragon Society evolved and expanded its activities around the world, including the United States. It was finally disbanded in 1946 by General MacArthur after World War II. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuryu-kai Wikipedia entry].

'''''Smirno''''' 
Russian: quiet!

==Page 259==

'''''dov'era, com'era''''' 
Italian: where it was, as it was. See [http://veniceblog.typepad.com/veniceblog/2003/12/comera_dovera.html veniceblog]. On July 14, 1902 the St. Mark's Campanile in Piazza San Marco, Venice, mysteriously and totally collapsed. Under the 'battle cry' of '''''com'era, dov'era''''' it was rebuilt. The Campanile was reopened on April 25 (St. Mark's Day) 1912. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Campanile St. Mark's Campanile]. Also, Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page 256|page 256:the tower collapses]].

''''La Marangona''''' 
The largest bell in the campanile is called la Marangona. At midnight, that massive bell resounds alone from high in the Piazza, and can be heard from almost any point in the city. There are four other bells in the campanile and they each have a name.

'''"Bells are the most ancient objects. They call to us out of eternity"''' 
This chapter is bookended by references to bells. It opens, "Across the city noontide a field of bells emerged into flower."

==Page 260==

'''Deuce and Sloat return''' 
These two, it will be recalled, are the men hired by the mine owners to kill Webb Traverse. (193) It is unclear who is whose sidekick. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_195|195]]) Sloat tends to bodies, Deuce the spirit. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_197|197]])

'''Curly Dee''' 
Mathematicians call the "partial derivative" symbol "curly d." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_derivative Wikipedia shows the symbol.]

'''Big Billy's or Jew Fanny's''' 
Big Billy (or "Billie") was a madam at the Silver Bell in Telluride, Colorado. Found on the corner of Pacific Avenue and Spruce Street, the Silver Bell was situated in the center of Telluride’s red-light district. According to [http://telluridepublishing.com/articles.asp?title=112 this source], Jew Fanny was a prostitute who worked for Big Billy.

[[image:Cosmopolitan.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Interior of Cosmopolitan Saloon, c. 1905]]'''the Cosmopolitan''' 
The Cosmopolitan Saloon in Telluride, Colorado, featured all the masculine comforts gambling, plenty of bar space, tables for talk, and an assortment of saloon art. [http://books.google.com/books?id=X3hSG8xhScMC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=cosmopolitan+%2B+saloon+%2B++telluride+%2B+gambling+%2B+mining&source=web&ots=YyBLNquez5&sig=cyt612wQnVOEVU8yPrwqiQQWfw4&hl=en]

The Cosmopolitan was a sophisticated establishment located at 109 East Colorado Avenue and was frequented by merchants, lawyers, and mine officials. Its bill of fare listed "fine old California wines and champaigns." Papered walls were hung with art, and a hired hand kept the spittoon and brass rails polished. At the bar, lawman Kenneth Angus Maclean keeps an eye on things (at right). [http://books.google.com/books?id=HPNgqJI7WJoC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22cosmopolitan+saloon%22+telluride&source=web&ots=l9Zw--XiJa&sig=A_YlheB44cus8oh-n3kAOlFPAs0&hl=en#PPA85,M1]

'''"Pussy on the brain, Big S."''' 
Cf. the "Beavers of the Brain"/"Beaver on the Brain" episode, [[ATD_171-198#Page_183|p.183]]

'''inside out''' 
Optical illusion.

==Page 261==

'''Nonpareil Eating House''' 
The motto over the door was probably "None Like It!"

French, meaning "without equal". Webster's also lists other definitions, including this one, pertaining to the animal kingdom: "Marked with bright colors; as, the painted turtle; painted bunting". I have also noticed that whenever I buy capers, they tend to be of the "nonpareille" variety (at least that's what the label says). This most likely refers to their size, as nonpareil is also a printing term that describes "A size of type next smaller than minion and next larger than agate".

'''Mayva and Lake''' 
Webb Traverse's wife and daughter.

'''lard smoke''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke," and p. 216, "Just greasy ashes by the trailside."

'''biscuit-shooter''' 
I.e., a cook.

'''Cañon City''' 
Site of the Colorado State Penitentiary, meant to suggest Deuce and Sloat had done time there.

'''gong''' 
???
17:18, 1 January 2007 (PST)[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]]
 "kicking the gong around" is slang for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_the_Moocher smoking opium]. Here, Sloat seems to mean that Deuce's opium smoking has affected his judgement.

==Page 262==

'''Willis Turnstone''' 
Turnstones are members of the sandpiper family, stocky birds that use their stout bills to flip over rocks and such in search of food. There are two species: Black Turnstone (''Arenaria melanocephala'') and Ruddy Turnstone (''A. interpres''). The [http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Ruddy_Turnstone.html Ruddy's] breeding plumage is a bold calico of white, orange, and black.

==Page 263==

'''"Crazier."''' 
Cf Bonnie and Clyde.

'''Oleander Prudge''' 
A name that brings joy to the heart of any Dickensian who happens to be reading along.

==Page 264==

'''single-jacker''' 
A miner who with a hammer and spike cuts a hole into rock for placement of a stick of dynamite. A set of holes are cut for each "synchronized" blast.
(Double jackers work as a team.)
Infer (this) one as a loner, a bit crazy, single minded, silent, easily hurt or misunderstood, doesn't play well with others...

'''How I feel about Mr. Kindred...and...Webb Traverse are two different things''' 

This is an interesting exchange between Lake and Oleander Prudge. Clearly Oleander hits a nerve as Lake spills the hotcakes. Lake goes into denial, saying her love of someone she would normally hate (Deuce -- her father's killer) and hating someone she would normally love (her father Webb) are "two different things."

Oleanders rejoinder, "they can't be," has the finality of a mathematical proof.

It's as if Lake is looking at passion through an emotional lense of iceland spar and sees two sets of images (father/lover, hate/love)and wants to believe they're different, whereas Oleander sees that in fact they are one. This won't be the last time Lake gets herself a "twofer."

==Page 265==

'''backing away down the valley''' 
It's instructive to look at a [http://www.vacationtelluride.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=standard&categoryId=11&subCategoryId=0 map or satellite photo of Telluride.] You could very well lay a single track from the mouth of the valley up to the town, but no farther. So the train drives into the station, then backs out until there's room for a spur where it can turn around.

'''gullet of days''' 
Metaphor. The miners' lives "as easily (as jug whisky)disappeared down the throat of everyday life".

==Page 266==

'''white-throated swift''' 
A swift is a small plainly colored bird similar to a swallow. The [http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/187/_/White-throated_Swift.aspx white-throated species,] which breeds in the western U.S. and winters in Mexico, is less plain than some. And get the species name: '''''Aeronaut'''es saxatalis.''

'''November''' 
November 1903.

'''in January, martial law''' 
January 3, 1904.

'''nymph du pave''' 
should probably read "nymphE du pave": [http://dict.die.net/nymphe%20du%20pave/ street-whore]. Theoretically this could also translate as: (image of a) nymph on a mosaic (tesselated floor) - like the huge roman one of Ariadne in the Rue du Pavé in Avenche (Switzerland) [http://www.stub.unibe.ch/welten/texte/herzig.html german weblink]

Most likely not (the mosaic idea); this is a consecrated term for prostitute. Note: in French, pavé means cobblestone. --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:09, 3 March 2007 (PST)

'''geometric episode''' 
Vaguely reminiscent of Proust on Combray: "And on one of the longest walks we ever took from Combray there was a spot where the narrow road emerged suddenly on to an immense plain, closed at the horizon by strips of forest over which rose and stood alone the fine point of Saint-Hilaire's steeple, but so sharpened and so pink that it seemed to be no more than sketched on the sky by the finger-nail of a painter anxious to give to such a landscape, to so pure a piece of 'nature,' this little sign of art, this single indication of human existence." [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8swnn10.txt etext]

'''Engelmann spruce''' 
[http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=175 Picea engelmannii,] a light-colored, easily worked wood with fairly straight grain and slight contrast between heartwood and sapwood; [http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/boise/trees/engelmann.shtml uses include] piano sounding boards and the tops of violins and guitars, hence the association with the acoustics of the church.

A short biography of Dr. Engelmann (lit. Angel-Man) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engelmann Wikipedia-Entry], more elaborated on [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Engelmann german site]

'''albatross cloth''' 
Evidently a distinct color/design for a wedding or wedding party dress in the West at the time. I have no OED at the moment, but there are at least two online "diaries" or descriptions using the phrase. Here is one: "We were married August 6, 1896 at 7:30 AM at my folk’s residence among friends and relatives. To honor the event, my folks had our parlor decorated with many flowers including roses, myrtle and geraniums. I wore an elegant gown of white silk and albatross cloth."

==Page 267==

'''Osterbybruk''' 
Town noted for ironmaking, 20 miles (32 km) north of Uppsala, eastern Sweden, nowhere near Jämtland (next entry).

The reference is probably more to a tune than a place. Swedish folk fiddlers, accordionists etc. have lots of bridal marches, waltzes etc. called after the place where they were composed/first used. There are collections of folk tunes from Österby bruk. I would guess that TRP has probably heard a recording of this kind of music.

'''Jemt-land''' 
A Province in west central Sweden [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4mtland Wikipedia.] The hyphen is not part of the name and probably marks a syncopation in the rev's delivery.

Vintage Books paperback edition gives "Jämtland" as the name of the region.

'''Virgin bride''' 
Oh no she wasn't. See pp 190-191.

'''Child of the storm''' 
See the [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/?s=child+of+the+storm ATD Weblog entry]. And page 190.

==Page 268==

'''sideways pussy''' 
Folklore.

'''side hobbles''' 
A hobble is a device for a horse or a dog that restricts the range of motion of the legs. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobble Wikipedia entry]. 
A [http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/archive/index.php/t-67850.html side hobble or Scotch hobble] links the horse's two left or two right legs, restricting its movement. 
"Hobble" also describes a type of skirt used (apparently) in bondage, see this [http://www.darksidecreations.com/product.asp?productid=19 example (not safe for work)] in latex.

==Page 269==

'''items, nearly always stolen''' 
Cf bower-bird.

'''marmot''' 
A stout-bodied, short-legged rodent that has coarse fur, a short bushy tail, and very short ears, lives in burrows, and hibernates in winter; also: a prairie dog or one of the larger ground squirrels. Marmots are native to Colorado and live at the higher altitudes. They are about the size of a weasel.

'''''"huevón"''''' 
From huevo (egg). According to [http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2004/06/huevon_and_guey.html this blog] huevon "literally refers to the size of a mans "cojones" (another pseudo decent word that has seen a lot of mainstream play). It is commonly used to indicate how lazy someone is. The bigger the "huevon" you are, the lazier. As with "guey", however, this too has often been used to say dude or buddy."

'''''pinche cabron''''' 
fucking asshole.

==Page 270==

'''same hour, just before dawn...he even bombs by the moon''' 
I.e., he waits for a favorable phase. People who "plant by the signs," for example, associate days of the lunar month to parts of the plant and of the human body. They sow squash (vines) under one sign and lettuce (leaves) under another; they sow nothing at all when the moon is waning. Would a moon-guided bomber blow up trestles (legs) at one phase and plutocrats (belly) at another?

Here we see that Webb is "deuced" again -- first by being killed by Deuce, second by having his modus [operandi] imitated.

The time signature for the modus is given in both solar terms -- "the same hour just before dawn" -- and lunar terms. Depending on the time of year, the bombings probably happen from 4am to 6am.

It would be interesting if the anarchists had esoteric moon teachings as to which moon position is best for success.

Given that the authorities know the time of day and that the moon is the same in a relative way, they pretty much can predict the time of the next bombing, they just don't know exactly where. Sort of a variation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Since TRP is conversant with astrology and the moon seems to be signaling ideas in AtD, it may be of interest to drill down into this passage a bit more from an astronomical, astrological perspective.

In the Northern Hemisphere, in the hours just before dawn, any visible moon will be a waning moon along the full to new moon spectrum. Vedic astrology calls this the Krishna Paksha or dark half of the full lunar cycle. A waning moon 72 degrees (approx) past full (a waning moon less than 108 degrees from the sun) takes on a negative, slightly malefic tone. If you had a clock where the sun was the hour hand stuck at noon, and the minute hand was the moon, the moon turns bad at 18 minutes to the hour and reaches it nadir in badness at the hour or new moon. 

Drilling down further, Indian astrological analysis considers the tithi. A tithi does not consider the stellar zodiacal place of the moon, but the angular distance between sun and moon -- in the clock metaphor, we look at the minute. Instead of the 8 phases of standard western classificaton, there are 30 tithis, each lasting a little less than a day. Each tithi has its own interpretation. 

If there were an esoteric aspect to anarchist bombing technique regarding an auspicious time for maximum destruction, it would perhaps be in the Mars-ruled 11th tithi (Ekadasi), a time of strong, energetic conflict, fighting, explosions. Such a moon can be seen the morning of Oct 6th, 2007. At 42 to 54 degress before new moon, it's analogous to the sun at noon and the moon at 7-9 minutes to the hour. It's your basic waning crescent moon. Further, this moon can be in the 12th house (loss and secret enemies) when the sun is predawn, but only for about 2.5 hours.
In Telluride, CO, on Oct 6th, 2007, this type of moon will be in the 12th house from about 3:14am to 5:42am with sunrise at 7:15am. So one could expect an explosion probably between first predawn light and 5:42am.

==Page 271==

'''"...sufficient unto the day and so forth"''' 
Deuce is reiterating Webb's own words from Matthew 6:34 [[ATD_81-96#Page 96]]"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

'''skip''' 
In mining, a skip is "an iron bucket, which slides between guides,
for hoisting mineral and rock." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

'''ex-Danite''' 
Danites were Joseph Smith's vigilantes, "Armies of Israel", during the Mormon War 1838 in Missouri, i.e., before travel to Utah.

'''"Avenging Angels"''' 
Refers to [http://www.ugca.org/ugca1099/ugca1099main.htm Civil War-vintage Colt pistols] usually with sawn off barrels.

==Page 272==

'''the Dolores''' 
Dolores River runs through Cortez (where Deuce seems to be, next to exploding cactus p270). "We woke up in the Dolores... [VALLEY/REGION/HOTEL]"

'''a luminous face suspended''' 

Some large convex object in the sky.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 243-272

2009-03-28T13:35:04Z

Bobutler: /* Page 248 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 243==

'''The Chums return''' 
When were the Chums last seen in AtD? As far back as page 142?

A brief reminder of who the Chums are and what we know about them so far:
:'''Randolph St. Cosmo''', commander.
:'''Lindsay Noseworth''', Master-at-Arms and second in command, hates slackers and slang.
:'''Miles Blundell''', handyman, awkward, with an "ample waist" (11), also ship's Commissary, whose cooking ranges from pure cordon bleu to inedible. (110)
:'''Darby Suckling''', the baby of the crew, served "as both factotum and mascotte". By page 141 or so, has transformed from spirited youth to bomb obsessed, (111) sneering, snide cynic. Because of hitting adolescence?
:'''Chick Counterfly''', the newest member of the crew, picked up by the Chums in the South while on the run from the KKK. At last appearance, had become Dr. Counterfly, knowledgeable Science Officer aboard the Inconvenience (141). Reliably humorous. (110). Chick's style of speech here seems intermediate between the country boy of the early chapters and the sophisticated Dr Counterfly who met the Vormance expedition. Are we also at an intermediate point on the timeline?

[[image:fumaioli.jpg|thumb|150px|Fumaioli in Venice|right]]
'''''fumaioli''''' 
Italian: ''funnels''; fumaioli are large wide-topped chimneys, common to the rooftops of Venice.

'''''certo''''' 
sure, certain.

'''''Seccatura''''' 
Italian: ''Inconvenience''

==Page 244==

'''''ragazza''''' 
Italian: ''girl''.

'''Picardy thirds''' 
The use of a major chord at the end of a musical section in a minor key. Miles seems just as moved by them as Lew. [[ATD_26-56#Page_50 | Cf p50]]

The gondolier is singing harmony with himself, or else Miles is imagining the accompaniment.

Picardie is also a region in northern France and "during the Middle Ages... included the Dutch speaking Flanders." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy] The region was a hotbed of action along the Western Front in WWI and played host to the Battle of the Somme, which totaled more than a million casualties and was "one of the bloodiest battles in human history."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme]

'''''stabilimento''''' 
Italian: establishment.

==Page 245==
'''Garibaldi''' 
Famous Italian leader, major figure in the Italian Unification. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garibaldi Wikipedia]

'''''"Ehi, sugo!"''''' 
"Hey, sauce!" Does this make sense to anyone?
It does not make any sense in Italian. 
To a good approximation, this is what the Fonz used to say in the TV series ''Happy Days.'' People mostly understood his melodic "Aaayy" as a variant of "Hey," but maybe instead it was something his Uncle Pio brought from the old country.

'''twentyfold''' 
5 chums times 4 suspects each. (Randolph suspects Lindsay, Miles, Darby and Chick of being the leak; and so on around the crew. And that assumes no one suspects Pugnax!)

'''''osteria''''' 
tavern.

'''San Polo''' 
The smallest district/area in Venice, and among the oldest. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Polo Wikipedia]

'''''rio''''' 
narrow waterway in Venice.

'''against the night''' 
OK...

'''''calli''''' 
Venetian 'street' or 'lane'.

==Page 246==

'''''sotoporteghi''''' 
passageways. See picture for one example [http://www.dialetto-veneto.it/images/FotoComano/Comano-Cattognano.jpg].

'''''"Sa stai, O! Lungo, ehi!"''''' 
It does not mean anything in Italian or in the Venetian dialect. One possibility is mimicking the callouts of gondoliers. ''Lungo'' could be someone's nickname. 
Other possibility is a wrong lettering of: ''Xa star, oh! Lungo, ehi!'', meaning ''Ehi, Lungo, let it be and let's go!'' or something similar.

'''''cameriere''''' 
Italian: waitresses (plural of ''cameriera'').

'''''pallonisti''''' 
(fake-)Italian: balloonists.

'''''Ehi, macché, Pina! ''''' 
Italian: Ehi, Giusep(Pina), what are you telling me?

'''''giadrul''''' 
Again, doesn't mean anything in Italian or Venetian dialect. Seems to be a [https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0007&L=irtrad-l&D=0&T=0&P=94630 term of insult], variously described as American-Italian only (see previous link) and southern Italian (see next). One source gives one meaning as "[http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070318034908AAem49X zuccone]" - this appears to mean "[http://notes.tranq.com/archives/2004/01/23/zuccone/ pumpkinhead]". I guess we're looking for something phallic, given the context. 
(''as far as I can see, it is an American-Italian deformation of the correct italian word "citrullo", which in fact is some sort of "dumb ass", and is derived from neapolitan for "cetriolo", that is, "cucumber" '')

'''"with all the spaghetti-joints in this town to choose from, are you saying those dadblame Russians have come in ''here''?"''' 
reminiscent of a similar line from the film ''Casablanca'', spoken by Humphrey Bogart: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

==Page 247==

'''tacchino in pomegranate sauce''' 
turkey in pomegranate sauce and, presumably, the "Purple Thanksgiving" to which Miles refers above.

'''''Dum vivimus, bibamus''''' 
While we live, let us drink. Paraphrase of "Dum vivimus, vivamus".

'''vini frizzanti''' 
sparkling wine (plural).

'''SANGUIS RUBER, MENS PURA''' 
Latin: Red blood, clean mind.

'''''Serrata del Maggior Consiglio''''' 
Great Council Lockout, 1297. Link to the "Maggior Consiglio" entry on Reference.com [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/Maggior%20Consiglio]

'''Napoleon's abolition''' 
1797. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia]

'''Polos' return''' 
Marco Polo together with his father and uncle returned to Venice in 1295 from their travel to China started in 1271. 

''Marco Polo'' (1254-1324), a Venetian traveller. Was born of a nobel family at Venice, while his father and uncle had gone on a mercantile expedition by Constantinople and the Crimea to Bokhara and to Cathy (China). The Mongol prince commissioned them as envoys to the Pope, a commission they tried in vain to carry out in Italy (1269). The Polos started again a new trip to China in 1271, taking with them young Marco,
and arrived at the court of Kublai Khan in 1275 by way of Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan to Lop Nor, then across the Gobi desert to Kansu and Shang-tu. Marco Polo entered the diplomatic service of Kublai Khan and was sent on missions to various parts of the Mongol empire. The Polos left China on 1282 and returned by way of Sumatra, India, and Persia to Venice (1295). In 1298 Marco was in command of a galley at the battle of Curzola, where the Venetians were defeated by the Genoese, and he was a prisoner for a year at Genoa. Here it was thought that he dictated to another captive an account of his travels, published under the title of ''Divisamemt dou monde''. (English title: ''The Travels of Marco Polo''.) ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo Marco Polo].)

''Kublai Khan'' (1214-94), Mongol khan, emperor of China, grandson of Jenghiz Khan. He completed the conquest of northern China and became the first foreigner ever to rule China. An enegetic prince, he suppressed his rivals, adopted the Chinese mode of civilisation, encouraged men of letters and made Buddhism the state religion. But his attempt to invade Japan ended in disaster. His dominions extended from Arctic Ocean to the Strait of Malacca, and from Korea to Asia Minor and the confines of Hungary. The splendor of his court inspired the graphic pages of Marco Polo. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.) 
Jack Weatherford, in ''Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World'' (2004), calls him Khubilai Khan and makes rather different statements about the extent of his realm and his treatment of religion. 
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1816 poem "Kubla Khan" uses yet another spelling. Weatherford identifies "Xanadu" as Shengdu.

==Page 248==

[[image:doge.jpg|thumb|100px|Doge by Giovanni Bellini|right]]'''Doge's hat''' 
For some thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge, a rare but not unique Italian title derived from the Latin Dux, as the major Italian parallel Duce and the English Duke. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia entry]

'''''Attenzione al culo''''' 
Italian: watch your ass.

'''Shambhala''' 
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a mystical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas. Shambhala is believed to be a society where all the inhabitants are enlightened. During the 19th century, Theosophical Society founder H.P. Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult enthusiasts. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala Wikipedia entry]

'''cicerone''' 
A guide who shows and explains the antiquities or curiosities or a place to strangers. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989.</ref>

'''Professor Svegli of the University of Pisa''' 
The fictional professor's name comes from the Italian ''sveglio'' for "clever, dextrous, skillful."

'''"try to forget the usual picture in two dimensions"''' 
Cf. page 220, the idea behind the ''Tetractys'' as explained by Nigel and Neville.

'''an episode of intentional blindness''' 
Echoes the "denial of ordinary vision" that Lew sees when he meets Professor Renfrew (p. 240). Might these "blind spots" in sense evoke Iceland Spar?

==Page 249==

'''"Those whose enduring object is power in this world are only too happy to use without remorse the others, whose aim is of course to transcend all question of power. Each regards the other as a pack of deluded fools."''' 
Over time, Pynchon appears to have come to a belief in a massive conflict between cultures "valuing analysis and differentiation" and those valuing "unity and integration". The two alternate maps of Asia could be a reference to these disparate worldviews.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. Wikipedia entry on V.]

'''The problem lies with the projection''' 
(a) Projection by each group of its own obsession onto the other group. (b) Cartographic projection, i.e., how the round world gets imaged onto a flat sheet of paper.

'''Imaginary surface''' 
Presumably meant to mean (or at least allude to) imaginary in the mathematical sense: involving the square root of -1.

'''paramorphoscope''' 
AtD is itself a paramorphoscope; satire and science fiction typically hold up a distorting mirror to the world in which they are written, and present worlds "set to the side of the one we have taken". In the end the correct paramorphic "mirror" shows the world clearly.

'''"a certain percentage of them went mad and ended up in the asylum on San Servolo"''' 
Cf. the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum with its light-obsessed inmates at [[ATD_57-80#Page_59|page 59]].

'''the asylum on San Servolo''' 
First established as a military hospital in 1715, later became a mental asylum. Seems that San Servolo is to Venice what Bedlam is to London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Servolo Wikipedia]

'''Clifford's term''' 
W.K. Clifford, (1845-1879): an English mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford Wikipedia]

==Page 250==

[[Image:stmarks.jpg|thumb|200px|right|St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) in Venice]]
'''Dr. Cantor''' 
Georg Cantor (1845 - 1918), German mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_theorem Cantor's Theorem] is what is most relevant to his mention here.

'''the plano-convex designs of Griendl von Ach''' 
For a brief history of the compound-lens microscope, and the roles played by the Italians and the Dutch, including Griendl von Ach, see:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Microscope

'''prophetic vision of St. Mark''' 
Mark the Evangelist (1st century) is traditionally believed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark and a companion of Peter. From [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brown-venice.html this site]: "...a prophetic dream that Mark was said to have experienced during his earlier, supposed ministry in the area of the Venetian lagoon. In it he was visited by an angel who told him that he would find his final resting place on the very site where San Marco would later be built." In the first century there was no settlement worth mentioning in the Lagoon yet. The prophecy was "fulfilled" in 828 when the saint's remains stolen on orders of Doge Giustiniano Participazio in Alexandria were brought to Venice. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_the_Evangelist Wikipedia entry] St. Mark is represented by a winged lion and is the patron saint of Venice [http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/saintm08.htm].

'''''but in reverse''''' 
Miles now takes the place of the angel. Who or what is the "Being" and what form does the prophecy take?

'''neither sails, masts, nor oars''' 
Not a craft that is driven by the wind or human muscle. To say more could spoil a plot point.

==Page 251==

[[Image:stmarklion.jpg|thumb|600px|center|The Lion of St. Mark, by Carpaccio]]

'''Lion of St. Mark by Carpaccion''' 
Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460–1525/6) was a Venetian painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittore_Carpaccio Wikipedia entry]

'''the vision of St. Mark, but in reverse''' 
In St. Mark's vision, an angel appeared to Mark and informed him that his remains would one day end up in his present location, which later became Venice. Here, Miles seems to assume the form of the angel (in the form of a lion?) and the 'promise' Pynchon mentions seems to be the angel's promise to Mark.

'''our own duty, our own fate... the real journey''' 
Pynchon's one-paragraph summation of human life and its meaning recalls a letter Pynchon wrote in the early 1960s, [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]], in which he also summed up the entirety of human life in a few tidy sentences. Both employ the word 'pilgrimage.'

==Page 252==

'''''sotopòrteghi''''' 
Tunnels or passageways under large buildings.

'''tenebrous''' 
Means "shadowy" but is also a link back to the previous paragraph. The Tenebrae Service is a special form that is meant to recreate the feelings of the Passion story, also represented by the Stations of the Cross.

'''Renata''' 
Note that Renata is the name of the female protagonist in Ernest Hemingway's ''Across the River and into the Trees'', set in Venice.

'''Glagolitic''' 
The Glagolitic Alphabet is the oldest known Slavic alphabet (9th c.). It originated as a tactic to lessen the dependence of the subjects of the Prince of Greater Moravia on Frankish priests, who banned it but could not suppress it; it played a similar role in preserving Bulgarian independence from Byzantium. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic] It appears to be a nexus of the kind of simultaneous temporal and spiritual tasks the Chums of Chance are now involved in. In this, it raises the issues first explored by Pynchon in the "Tchitcherine in Kyrghizia" sections of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' in which the introduction of a written alphabet causes immense political and social change.

'''Gauloise''' 
famous French cigarette. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauloise Wikipedia].

'''''scusi''''' 
Italian: Excuse me.

'''''Affascinante, caro''''' 
Italian: Fascinating, dear (addressed to a male person).

'''''ragazzo''''' 
Italian: Boy.

'''''Mattoidi''''' 
Italian: Semi-insane persons. The word was [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-mat1.htm coined by Cesare Lombroso,] the physiognomist.

'''''Prego''''' 
Italian: Please.

==Page 253==

'''Pozzuoli''' 
A city in the Province of Naples (''Napoli'') in the region of Campania. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzuoli Wikipedia].

'''The Tarocchi are much, much older.''' 
Not at all! This is one of those ideas that rarely gets questioned, especially since some "interpreters" of the tarot claim ancient Egyptian origins. The actually only [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot date back to the 15th century], as playing cards, and tarot divination was invented in the 19th century, with absolutely no historical precedent.

However, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley] in his writings and the design of his own version of the tarot, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Thoth_(Crowley) Thoth Deck], made a case for the Tarot unifying and being rooted in much older divination methods from Ancient egypt to the[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] to Greek [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology astrology]. Crowley's Golden Dawn gets a previous mention in ATD. Though work on the Thoth deck would not begin until 1938, Crowley´s assignment of the Kabbalah's [http://jktarot.com/naples Sephiroth to the major arcana] probably bears attention when considering the chapter structure of ATD: he called the correspondence "The Naples Arrangement" in honour of having worked it out there, and this passage's mention of Renata's business associate being in Naples at this moment is unlikely to be coincidence.
:Surely a robust skepticism toward Crowley and his research methods is in order? Consider, for example, this [http://www.tarothermit.com/letter.htm "open letter"] to tarot users—from a judicious scholar and believer, not a committed skeptic—making the point that if the cards embody images (of whatever origin) "speaking" to the reader or student, it isn't essential to press the further claim that they were invented by the god Thoth. The paintings lack a couple of millennia of "temporal bandwidth" but aren't necessarily voided of appeal by that, any more than Michelangelo's ''Pietà'' is a less-valid devotional object for having been sculpted 1500 years after the event.

'''''sfumato''''' 
Refers to a well known painting method which blends so subtly the colors and tones that no perceptible transition is visible, as demonstrated by Leonardo da Vince's ''Mona Lisa''. See [http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato Wikipedia]. 
The context seems to imply ''smoke'', then ''fumo'' instead should be used.
:No, the evocation of the painterly effect becomes a metaphor for the way the boat comes into sight.

:might just be a description the morning fog over the water, but the following sentence ("which would not burn off till later in the morning"), although possibly another element of the allegory, could point to actual smoke.

==Page 254==

'''''Pax tibi, Darbe''''' 
Latin: Peace to you, Darby. ''Pax tibi'' is not at all obscure—devout Catholics used it as a parting formula—but Chick has Latinized Darby's name to ''Darbus'' (vocative case ''Darbe'') and may be consciously echoing the text in [[#Page_251|Carpaccio's lion painting]] or on a [[#Page_247|pre-Napoleonic]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Most_Serene_Republic_of_Venice.svg flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice:] ''Pax tibi Marce evangelista meus,'' "Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist."

'''like some damned ''Farewell'' Symphony''' 
Franz Josef Haydn, 1772, Hungary. Musicians at Count Esterházy's court had been kept too long on duty (and away from their families). Going on strike would have been disrespectful, so in the last movement of Haydn's hinting work, the players one by one extinguish their candles and exit, leaving two violins to play the last phrases.

'''"Chums of Chance were expected to die on the job. Or else live forever, there being two schools of thought, actually."''' 
Possibly a reference to the fact that the Chums seem to live simultaneously in the "real" world of the novel and also in fictional stories within the novel.

'''Irredentist''' 
In Italian politics (after 1878), an adherent of the party which advocated the recovery and union to Italy of all Italian-speaking districts subject to other countries (OED).

==Page 255==

'''Mostruccio''' 
Italian, literally: small monster, meant as a lovely nickname.

[[Image:samoyeds.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Samoyeds]]
'''Samoyeds''' 
These nomadic reindeer herders help with the herding, pull sleds, and are sometimes called "the smiley dog" in reference to their seemingly smiling faces. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoyed_(dog) Wikipedia]

'''Bastille Day''' 
The Campanile di San Marco collapsed 14 July 1902. Pynchon Wiki on the [[Campanile]].

'''''lasagnoni''''' 
Italian, plural of ''lasagnone'': Blowhard, braggart.

A hint may come from an Italian dictionary: a ''lasagnone'' being an awkward, simple person, the kind of loafers who abound on city squares or street corners and, consequently, may appear in tourists' pictures.

==Page 256==
[[Image:Campanile.jpg|thumb|200px|right]]

'''dual citizenship''' 
They live in two places, there are two skycraft, they point a gun at one place but the shell strikes a different place. Lots of '''bi-''' somethings in this passage.

'''the little-understood enigmata of the simultaneous''' 
The concept of simultaneous events, including the accurate definition and, moreover, the very ''need'' of such a definition, played a significant role in the soon-to-be formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity Special Relativity Theory]. One of the main consequences of the theory is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity relativity of simultaneity].

'''four-brick groupings''' 
Padzhitnoff sees the Campanile come apart as a game of Tetris! The "four-brick groupings [...] begin their gentle, undeadly descent, rotating and translating in all available modes". (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_123|page 123]] for more on Tetris.)

'''the tower collapses''' 
Might have some relation to the final poem of ''Gravity's Rainbow''. The fall of the tower is foreshadowed -- foretold, actually -- in Chick´s Tarot reading by Renata (See [[ATD_243-272#Page_253|page 253]]).

==Page 257==

'''What stood for a thousand years''' 
Pretty close: Construction of the Campanile began in the year 912.

'''deciduous''' 
Something that falls, drops or is shed, like leaves from a tree or baby teeth.

'''We had the weather-gauge''' 
In the days of sail, [http://www.weathergage.com/ weather gage] described the relative position of two ships or forces. If you were downwind you could run or, if you meant to engage the enemy, tack to approach him. Every time you changed tack you lost an opportunity to shoot (because your guns pointed left and right). If you lay upwind, you could keep your guns trained on the enemy throughout the engagement. The weather gage was an often decisive battle advantage, and the phrase is common in nautical narratives.

'''Or we might send in pursuit your maternal relation...transform them all into masonry''' 
Yet another Mother joke. This time in reference to her being as ugly as Medusa and therefore able to turn the crew of the enemy airship into stone (masonry).

'''neuræsthenic prostration''' 
This is the third (at least) time Randolph has exhibited this tendency.

:This is the third time that this word has appeared so far, but in the second instance (page 188) it was used by Nigel to describe Lew Basnight, not Randolph.

:Not the word, but this reaction in Randolph occurred on pages 12 and 28. It seems to be a regular thing with him.

==Page 258==
'''Vibrational Rays... sympathetic frequency... divergent oscillation''' 

ie, what took down the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_Collapse Tacoma Narrows], the famous wobbly bridge collapse I'm sure we've all seen footage of. Same phenomenon weaponized taking down the Campanile, or at least, this is the best guess by Dr. Gerasimoff.

'''Tetralith''' 
Modern math term for three dimensional solid formed by merging three hyperbolic paraboloids in a manner that they have a common midpoint. See [http://www.tetranometry.com/#tetralith Tetralith Photo #2]. Pynchon just means a Tetris-shaped projectile, a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino Tetromino].
:A "monolith" (as in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'')means an "object made of a single block of stone". Hence "tetralith" means an "object made of four blocks of stone", which is exactly what you see on the game "Tetris".

'''Japanese character for "four" being same as that for "death"''' 
Not quite correct. The Japanese kanji (Chinese) characters for four 四 and death 死 are quite distinct, but can be pronounced in the same way, hence the taboo.

'''Ryohei Uchida''' 
Ultra-nationalist, founder of the Black Dragon Soceity (see below), a right-wing, paramilitary organization. See [http://members.tripod.com/ravenshrine/uchida.html Ryohei Uchida].

Interestingly - or, perhaps, as certain sorts of people might be inclined to say, coincidentally - the name 'Uchida' is homonymous with the Italian 'uccidere', meaning 'to kill', in several of its commonly seen conjugated forms.

'''''polny pizdets''''' 
Crude Russian: a total screwup.

'''Black Dragon Society''' 
A paramiltary, ultra-nationalist, right-wing organization in Japan founded by Ryohei Uchida in 1901. Its initial public goal was to support Janpanese expansion in Manchuria. Therefore, during the period from 1901 to the end of World War I, it aimed to help the Japanese government drive the Russian presence out of that region. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (a war fought over Manchuria, with the Russians soundly defeated) it was active in espionage, sabotage and assassination against the Russians. During the 20's, 30's and later periods the Black Dragon Society evolved and expanded its activities around the world, including the United States. It was finally disbanded in 1946 by General MacArthur after World War II. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuryu-kai Wikipedia entry].

'''''Smirno''''' 
Russian: quiet!

==Page 259==

'''''dov'era, com'era''''' 
Italian: where it was, as it was. See [http://veniceblog.typepad.com/veniceblog/2003/12/comera_dovera.html veniceblog]. On July 14, 1902 the St. Mark's Campanile in Piazza San Marco, Venice, mysteriously and totally collapsed. Under the 'battle cry' of '''''com'era, dov'era''''' it was rebuilt. The Campanile was reopened on April 25 (St. Mark's Day) 1912. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Campanile St. Mark's Campanile]. Also, Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page 256|page 256:the tower collapses]].

''''La Marangona''''' 
The largest bell in the campanile is called la Marangona. At midnight, that massive bell resounds alone from high in the Piazza, and can be heard from almost any point in the city. There are four other bells in the campanile and they each have a name.

'''"Bells are the most ancient objects. They call to us out of eternity"''' 
This chapter is bookended by references to bells. It opens, "Across the city noontide a field of bells emerged into flower."

==Page 260==

'''Deuce and Sloat return''' 
These two, it will be recalled, are the men hired by the mine owners to kill Webb Traverse. (193) It is unclear who is whose sidekick. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_195|195]]) Sloat tends to bodies, Deuce the spirit. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_197|197]])

'''Curly Dee''' 
Mathematicians call the "partial derivative" symbol "curly d." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_derivative Wikipedia shows the symbol.]

'''Big Billy's or Jew Fanny's''' 
Big Billy (or "Billie") was a madam at the Silver Bell in Telluride, Colorado. Found on the corner of Pacific Avenue and Spruce Street, the Silver Bell was situated in the center of Telluride’s red-light district. According to [http://telluridepublishing.com/articles.asp?title=112 this source], Jew Fanny was a prostitute who worked for Big Billy.

[[image:Cosmopolitan.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Interior of Cosmopolitan Saloon, c. 1905]]'''the Cosmopolitan''' 
The Cosmopolitan Saloon in Telluride, Colorado, featured all the masculine comforts gambling, plenty of bar space, tables for talk, and an assortment of saloon art. [http://books.google.com/books?id=X3hSG8xhScMC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=cosmopolitan+%2B+saloon+%2B++telluride+%2B+gambling+%2B+mining&source=web&ots=YyBLNquez5&sig=cyt612wQnVOEVU8yPrwqiQQWfw4&hl=en]

The Cosmopolitan was a sophisticated establishment located at 109 East Colorado Avenue and was frequented by merchants, lawyers, and mine officials. Its bill of fare listed "fine old California wines and champaigns." Papered walls were hung with art, and a hired hand kept the spittoon and brass rails polished. At the bar, lawman Kenneth Angus Maclean keeps an eye on things (at right). [http://books.google.com/books?id=HPNgqJI7WJoC&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=%22cosmopolitan+saloon%22+telluride&source=web&ots=l9Zw--XiJa&sig=A_YlheB44cus8oh-n3kAOlFPAs0&hl=en#PPA85,M1]

'''"Pussy on the brain, Big S."''' 
Cf. the "Beavers of the Brain"/"Beaver on the Brain" episode, [[ATD_171-198#Page_183|p.183]]

'''inside out''' 
Optical illusion.

==Page 261==

'''Nonpareil Eating House''' 
The motto over the door was probably "None Like It!"

French, meaning "without equal". Webster's also lists other definitions, including this one, pertaining to the animal kingdom: "Marked with bright colors; as, the painted turtle; painted bunting". I have also noticed that whenever I buy capers, they tend to be of the "nonpareille" variety (at least that's what the label says). This most likely refers to their size, as nonpareil is also a printing term that describes "A size of type next smaller than minion and next larger than agate".

'''Mayva and Lake''' 
Webb Traverse's wife and daughter.

'''lard smoke''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke," and p. 216, "Just greasy ashes by the trailside."

'''biscuit-shooter''' 
I.e., a cook.

'''Cañon City''' 
Site of the Colorado State Penitentiary, meant to suggest Deuce and Sloat had done time there.

'''gong''' 
???
17:18, 1 January 2007 (PST)[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]]
 "kicking the gong around" is slang for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_the_Moocher smoking opium]. Here, Sloat seems to mean that Deuce's opium smoking has affected his judgement.

==Page 262==

'''Willis Turnstone''' 
Turnstones are members of the sandpiper family, stocky birds that use their stout bills to flip over rocks and such in search of food. There are two species: Black Turnstone (''Arenaria melanocephala'') and Ruddy Turnstone (''A. interpres''). The [http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Ruddy_Turnstone.html Ruddy's] breeding plumage is a bold calico of white, orange, and black.

==Page 263==

'''"Crazier."''' 
Cf Bonnie and Clyde.

'''Oleander Prudge''' 
A name that brings joy to the heart of any Dickensian who happens to be reading along.

==Page 264==

'''single-jacker''' 
A miner who with a hammer and spike cuts a hole into rock for placement of a stick of dynamite. A set of holes are cut for each "synchronized" blast.
(Double jackers work as a team.)
Infer (this) one as a loner, a bit crazy, single minded, silent, easily hurt or misunderstood, doesn't play well with others...

'''How I feel about Mr. Kindred...and...Webb Traverse are two different things''' 

This is an interesting exchange between Lake and Oleander Prudge. Clearly Oleander hits a nerve as Lake spills the hotcakes. Lake goes into denial, saying her love of someone she would normally hate (Deuce -- her father's killer) and hating someone she would normally love (her father Webb) are "two different things."

Oleanders rejoinder, "they can't be," has the finality of a mathematical proof.

It's as if Lake is looking at passion through an emotional lense of iceland spar and sees two sets of images (father/lover, hate/love)and wants to believe they're different, whereas Oleander sees that in fact they are one. This won't be the last time Lake gets herself a "twofer."

==Page 265==

'''backing away down the valley''' 
It's instructive to look at a [http://www.vacationtelluride.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=standard&categoryId=11&subCategoryId=0 map or satellite photo of Telluride.] You could very well lay a single track from the mouth of the valley up to the town, but no farther. So the train drives into the station, then backs out until there's room for a spur where it can turn around.

'''gullet of days''' 
Metaphor. The miners' lives "as easily (as jug whisky)disappeared down the throat of everyday life".

==Page 266==

'''white-throated swift''' 
A swift is a small plainly colored bird similar to a swallow. The [http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/187/_/White-throated_Swift.aspx white-throated species,] which breeds in the western U.S. and winters in Mexico, is less plain than some. And get the species name: '''''Aeronaut'''es saxatalis.''

'''November''' 
November 1903.

'''in January, martial law''' 
January 3, 1904.

'''nymph du pave''' 
should probably read "nymphE du pave": [http://dict.die.net/nymphe%20du%20pave/ street-whore]. Theoretically this could also translate as: (image of a) nymph on a mosaic (tesselated floor) - like the huge roman one of Ariadne in the Rue du Pavé in Avenche (Switzerland) [http://www.stub.unibe.ch/welten/texte/herzig.html german weblink]

Most likely not (the mosaic idea); this is a consecrated term for prostitute. Note: in French, pavé means cobblestone. --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:09, 3 March 2007 (PST)

'''geometric episode''' 
Vaguely reminiscent of Proust on Combray: "And on one of the longest walks we ever took from Combray there was a spot where the narrow road emerged suddenly on to an immense plain, closed at the horizon by strips of forest over which rose and stood alone the fine point of Saint-Hilaire's steeple, but so sharpened and so pink that it seemed to be no more than sketched on the sky by the finger-nail of a painter anxious to give to such a landscape, to so pure a piece of 'nature,' this little sign of art, this single indication of human existence." [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8swnn10.txt etext]

'''Engelmann spruce''' 
[http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=175 Picea engelmannii,] a light-colored, easily worked wood with fairly straight grain and slight contrast between heartwood and sapwood; [http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/boise/trees/engelmann.shtml uses include] piano sounding boards and the tops of violins and guitars, hence the association with the acoustics of the church.

A short biography of Dr. Engelmann (lit. Angel-Man) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engelmann Wikipedia-Entry], more elaborated on [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Engelmann german site]

'''albatross cloth''' 
Evidently a distinct color/design for a wedding or wedding party dress in the West at the time. I have no OED at the moment, but there are at least two online "diaries" or descriptions using the phrase. Here is one: "We were married August 6, 1896 at 7:30 AM at my folk’s residence among friends and relatives. To honor the event, my folks had our parlor decorated with many flowers including roses, myrtle and geraniums. I wore an elegant gown of white silk and albatross cloth."

==Page 267==

'''Osterbybruk''' 
Town noted for ironmaking, 20 miles (32 km) north of Uppsala, eastern Sweden, nowhere near Jämtland (next entry).

The reference is probably more to a tune than a place. Swedish folk fiddlers, accordionists etc. have lots of bridal marches, waltzes etc. called after the place where they were composed/first used. There are collections of folk tunes from Österby bruk. I would guess that TRP has probably heard a recording of this kind of music.

'''Jemt-land''' 
A Province in west central Sweden [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4mtland Wikipedia.] The hyphen is not part of the name and probably marks a syncopation in the rev's delivery.

Vintage Books paperback edition gives "Jämtland" as the name of the region.

'''Virgin bride''' 
Oh no she wasn't. See pp 190-191.

'''Child of the storm''' 
See the [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/?s=child+of+the+storm ATD Weblog entry]. And page 190.

==Page 268==

'''sideways pussy''' 
Folklore.

'''side hobbles''' 
A hobble is a device for a horse or a dog that restricts the range of motion of the legs. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobble Wikipedia entry]. 
A [http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/archive/index.php/t-67850.html side hobble or Scotch hobble] links the horse's two left or two right legs, restricting its movement. 
"Hobble" also describes a type of skirt used (apparently) in bondage, see this [http://www.darksidecreations.com/product.asp?productid=19 example (not safe for work)] in latex.

==Page 269==

'''items, nearly always stolen''' 
Cf bower-bird.

'''marmot''' 
A stout-bodied, short-legged rodent that has coarse fur, a short bushy tail, and very short ears, lives in burrows, and hibernates in winter; also: a prairie dog or one of the larger ground squirrels. Marmots are native to Colorado and live at the higher altitudes. They are about the size of a weasel.

'''''"huevón"''''' 
From huevo (egg). According to [http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2004/06/huevon_and_guey.html this blog] huevon "literally refers to the size of a mans "cojones" (another pseudo decent word that has seen a lot of mainstream play). It is commonly used to indicate how lazy someone is. The bigger the "huevon" you are, the lazier. As with "guey", however, this too has often been used to say dude or buddy."

'''''pinche cabron''''' 
fucking asshole.

==Page 270==

'''same hour, just before dawn...he even bombs by the moon''' 
I.e., he waits for a favorable phase. People who "plant by the signs," for example, associate days of the lunar month to parts of the plant and of the human body. They sow squash (vines) under one sign and lettuce (leaves) under another; they sow nothing at all when the moon is waning. Would a moon-guided bomber blow up trestles (legs) at one phase and plutocrats (belly) at another?

Here we see that Webb is "deuced" again -- first by being killed by Deuce, second by having his modus [operandi] imitated.

The time signature for the modus is given in both solar terms -- "the same hour just before dawn" -- and lunar terms. Depending on the time of year, the bombings probably happen from 4am to 6am.

It would be interesting if the anarchists had esoteric moon teachings as to which moon position is best for success.

Given that the authorities know the time of day and that the moon is the same in a relative way, they pretty much can predict the time of the next bombing, they just don't know exactly where. Sort of a variation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Since TRP is conversant with astrology and the moon seems to be signaling ideas in AtD, it may be of interest to drill down into this passage a bit more from an astronomical, astrological perspective.

In the Northern Hemisphere, in the hours just before dawn, any visible moon will be a waning moon along the full to new moon spectrum. Vedic astrology calls this the Krishna Paksha or dark half of the full lunar cycle. A waning moon 72 degrees (approx) past full (a waning moon less than 108 degrees from the sun) takes on a negative, slightly malefic tone. If you had a clock where the sun was the hour hand stuck at noon, and the minute hand was the moon, the moon turns bad at 18 minutes to the hour and reaches it nadir in badness at the hour or new moon. 

Drilling down further, Indian astrological analysis considers the tithi. A tithi does not consider the stellar zodiacal place of the moon, but the angular distance between sun and moon -- in the clock metaphor, we look at the minute. Instead of the 8 phases of standard western classificaton, there are 30 tithis, each lasting a little less than a day. Each tithi has its own interpretation. 

If there were an esoteric aspect to anarchist bombing technique regarding an auspicious time for maximum destruction, it would perhaps be in the Mars-ruled 11th tithi (Ekadasi), a time of strong, energetic conflict, fighting, explosions. Such a moon can be seen the morning of Oct 6th, 2007. At 42 to 54 degress before new moon, it's analogous to the sun at noon and the moon at 7-9 minutes to the hour. It's your basic waning crescent moon. Further, this moon can be in the 12th house (loss and secret enemies) when the sun is predawn, but only for about 2.5 hours.
In Telluride, CO, on Oct 6th, 2007, this type of moon will be in the 12th house from about 3:14am to 5:42am with sunrise at 7:15am. So one could expect an explosion probably between first predawn light and 5:42am.

==Page 271==

'''"...sufficient unto the day and so forth"''' 
Deuce is reiterating Webb's own words from Matthew 6:34 [[ATD_81-96#Page 96]]"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

'''skip''' 
In mining, a skip is "an iron bucket, which slides between guides,
for hoisting mineral and rock." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

'''ex-Danite''' 
Danites were Joseph Smith's vigilantes, "Armies of Israel", during the Mormon War 1838 in Missouri, i.e., before travel to Utah.

'''"Avenging Angels"''' 
Refers to [http://www.ugca.org/ugca1099/ugca1099main.htm Civil War-vintage Colt pistols] usually with sawn off barrels.

==Page 272==

'''the Dolores''' 
Dolores River runs through Cortez (where Deuce seems to be, next to exploding cactus p270). "We woke up in the Dolores... [VALLEY/REGION/HOTEL]"

'''a luminous face suspended''' 

Some large convex object in the sky.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2009-03-28T13:30:53Z

Bobutler: /* Page 236 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

:Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence

:In [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''CoL49''], TRP states at least twice that the Pacific Ocean is "the hole left by the moon's tearing-free and the monument to her exile." ([http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_3 ''The Crying of Lot 49'', p.41])

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

[[image:Ts_seal.gif|thumb|200px|right|Theosophical Society Seal]]
'''Theosophical Society''' 
The Theosophical Society was founded in New York City, USA, in 1875 by H.P. Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others. Its initial objective was the investigation, study and explanation of mediumistic phenomena. After a few years Olcott and Blavatsky moved to India and established the International Headquarters at Adyar, Madras (Chennai). There, they also became interested in studying Eastern religions, and these were included in the Society's agenda. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society Wikipedia entry]
"Its post-blavatskian fragments" refers to the schism that occured between some of the founding members after the passing of H.P. Blavatsky in 1891.

'''Society for Psychical Research''' 
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a non-profit organization which started in the United Kingdom and was later imitated in other countries. Its stated purpose is to understand "events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area" and to "examine allegedly paranormal phenomena in a scientific and unbiased way."[1] It was founded in 1882 by a group of eminent thinkers including Edmund Gurney, Frederic William Henry Myers, William Fletcher Barrett, Henry Sidgwick, and Edmund Dawson Rogers. The Society's headquarters are in Marloes Road, London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Psychical_Research Wikipedia entry]

[[image:Gdrosycross.gif|thumb|140px|right|Rosy Cross of the Golden Dawn]]
'''Order of the Golden Dawn''' 
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or, more commonly, the Golden Dawn) was a magical order of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, practicing a form of theurgy and spiritual development. William Wynn Westcott, also a member of the Theosophical Society, appears to have been the initial driving force behind the establishment of the Golden Dawn. See also the aforementioned schism within the Theosophical Society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn Wikipedia entry]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins! 
Don't know if this is of any significance, but in the Tarot the Fool (or Jester), says Wikipedia, is "often numbered 0." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fool_(Tarot_card)]

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was—at least until well up in the 19th century) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to. At the time of the action, Lew's offense against taste is not to wear tartan (see below in this entry) but to wear a tartan he isn't entitled to wear.

The previous statement doesn't quite jibe. In the late 17 cent. it was prosecutable for any '''Scot''' (read Highlander) to wear a tartan. Those tartans we see ascribed to clans were creations made to please Queen Victoria. Tartans and the Kilt are from Scottish '''and Irish''' Clans; from the oppressed. Thus, the fun in the line comes from the fact that an '''''authentic''''' tartan was false to begin with, but that doesn't keep Nigel from ''lording'' the ''fact'' that Lew's argyle sox are not up to snuff. 
Kilts came from an earlier garment which covered more of the body than today's piece, and those in plaid were called '''''Breacan''''', meaning partially colored or speckled. The plaids also came in trews (trousers), and ruanas (shawls). Many had uniformity in design, but probably because those were the colors available and thus recognized as part of a family, clan or sept. 

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

Anyone familiar with Ceremonial Magick is aware of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley]. Crowley was famously bisexual, responsible for one of the most famous Tarot Decks the "Thoth" deck and was involved in spycraft for British Intelligence and, it is rumored, was a double agent for the Germans as well. Nicholas Nookshaft is a parody of Crowley.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"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."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

'''Yashmeen Halfcourt''' 
Her initials YH are the first half of the Tetragrammaton -- YHVH or YHWH in English.

'''seventeenth degree Adept''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

On the other hand, T.W.I.T. is centered on Tarot cards, so the relationship between number and any correspondences to the Tarot would be very much to the point. In this case, the Major Arcana assigned to the number 17 is the [http://www.angelpaths.com/majors/star.html Star]. The Crowley-associated system for Tarot consists of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth Thoth ] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot Tarot] deck, along with Crowley's "explanatory" [http://tinyurl.com/yu4ye3 'Book of Thoth']:

:As has been explained elsewhere. It refers to the Zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer. The picture represents Nuith, our Lady of the Stars. For the full meaning of this sentence it is necessary to understand the first chapter of the ''Book of the Law''. . . .

The full text can be found at [http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_thoth34.htm About.com's] site on the Thoth "Star" card, albiet with the wrong card illustrated, in this case atu 18, "The Moon".

:'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzaddik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Auberon Halfcourt''' 
Auberon means royal or noble bear. 
Punning, "Au" is the chemical symbol for gold, thus, "Golden Bear", mascotte of UC Berkeley. 

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
Summer capital of the British Raj in India in the Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]. 
A terminus of the Kalka-Simla railway line (built 1906) aka the "British Jewel of the Orient." 
Named for the goddess Shyamala Devi, an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Kali.

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship. I believe the great game stands for Espionage in the Age of Gentlemen, the substance of Pynchon's '''''Under the Rose'''''. 

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year. 

This seems as good an instance as any to question the insistence of some here to pin down the exact date (and season?). Pynchon doesn't knock it to the wall, doesn't find cause to bother and I think the reason for that is obvious... the ambiguity lends a freer hand with which to paint. So don't fuck with the butterfly on the wheel. 

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. 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."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

'''kilometric guarantee''' 
Money offered by the government to building companies.
Apparently, the railroad companies fooled the Ottoman Empire building trails which were much longer than needed.
[http://books.google.es/books?id=uei7q4YCaqUC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=kilometric+guarantee&source=web&ots=fK9IVpG7Yx&sig=-7WX_2T0OPqXp2DEVAtRIRJPBQY&hl=ca&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result Google books citation]

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

All parallels between past and present are worth considering. They don't have to be direct references. The present-day Ernst August - famous for pissing on the Turkish Pavilion at EXPO 2000 - carries on the family tradition.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was founded to subvert the '''''United Irishmen''''' of Wolfe Tone by agitating against Protestant and Catholic community. It was hostile to the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence. In the 1880's it developed the Ulster Unionist Party to politically parry Parliamentary attempts at Home Rule for Ireland.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland. 
This was and still is known as "Marching Season" in Northern Ireland; the time when 'parades' are traditionally a source of fear and violence. Nearly all the parades are organized by the Orange Lodges and hence anti-Catholic.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character ([[ATD_1-25#Page 18|p.18]])

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
Make-up, cosmetics; the application of make-up (especially in heavy or theatrical fashion).<ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989</ref>

==Page 233==
'''catarrh''' 
Inflammation of a mucous membrane; usually restricted to that of the nose, throat, and bronchial tubes, causing increased flow of mucus, and often attended with sneezing, cough, and fever; constituting a common ‘cold’.<ref>Def.3. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989.</ref>

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Also, acronymically, the GBH=Grievous Bodily Harm, the British term for felonious assault.

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''adjutor''' 
A helper, assistant. <ref>Def.1. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989.</ref>

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to deepening autumn.

One of two possible explanations: 
1. The T.W.I.T. is perhaps using an ascendent or lunar based astrological system rather than the solar-based system commonly used in the West. This resolves the apparent contradiction of a Gemini in autumn since the ascendent travels through all signs every 24 hours and the moon travels through the entire zodiac once a month. For example, Vedic astrology looks primarily to the ascendent, then the moon, and lastly the sun to study respectively the body, the mind and the spirit of the native. Basnight does have a mind that operates on two planes -- hence a moon in Gemini reading. 
2. The explosion carried Lew to a place on the other side of the Sun. Deep autumn would then be November 23 to December 21th, our sign of Sagittarius.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

Check out the [[Cricket_in_Against_the_Day|"Cricket in ''Against the Day'' article]] by Peter Vernon, which is an in-depth look at, well, cricket in ''Against the Day''.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Mason & Dixon''], as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'([http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_50:_484-490 ''M&D'' p.485]) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

"Create More Dukes" has a second meaning, suggested by the odd choice of verb. ''Duke'' in Britain refers to the highest rank of nobility, and fittingly there are not many of them. At present only about a dozen people hold the title. Since sometime in the 1870s new dukes have been ''created'' (by decree of the monarch) only in the royal family. Most recently at the time of the action, Queen Victoria had promoted a run-of-the-mill marquess to the dukedom of Fife to set the stage for his marriage to one of her granddaughters. If some group of activists thought the nation needed to beef up its peerage, they might adopt the slogan found here as a graffito. 
[http://www.ukdukes.co.uk/ Here is a colorful summary] of UK dukes today and through history, although it is '''unsound''' on coats of arms and such. [http://website.lineone.net/~david.beamish/index.htm This site] has more names and fewer pictures, listing all the titles (from dukes to lowly barons) created since the year Dot.

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

:Obviously more than a little joke. Refers to Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace Wikipedia Entry], aka "the French Newton", probably the greatest mathematician and astronomer of his time. Most of the scientific principles derived from his findings are explored in AtD (from lumineferous ether to the existence of black holes). Laplace was also instrumental in the advancement of the science of probabilities.
:The ever quotable Laplace, much loved by atheists worldwide, famously replied to Napoléon, when he asked why there was no mention of God in his treatise on astronomy: "Sir, there was no need for that hypothesis". Also responsible for what is known as the Laplacian principle: "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."

:The literal translation of Laplace is "The Place".

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" could possibly be female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).

:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized, plus Renfrew himself wants to meet the Bomber. That leaves the Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas.

:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.

:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.

:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government. De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

::Alternately, there's no clear answer and not enough clues (especially considering the role of time, forces beyond anyone's control, double agents, etc.). This Gentleman Bomber can be any person from Lew's past or a deja vu from the future. The G. Bomber seems to be England's answer to the Kieselguhr Kid, a nebulous personality working against the forces of history. The important thing about this situation is not the Bomber's identity, but the fact that Lew is being thrown into an assignment much like his last one in America (and we know how that ended...) He's obviously not very happy about it, and not inclined to tell anyone what he knows, or might know.

:: For what it's worth, my take was also Webb, especially in the context of all the bilocation business. It isn't "Webb" but evil alter-land "Webb"! (no dig on ya'll Brit folk intended, although the "...''my'' stay at Cambridge" bit was just wonderful :)

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2009-03-28T13:27:32Z

Bobutler: /* Page 233 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

:Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence

:In [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''CoL49''], TRP states at least twice that the Pacific Ocean is "the hole left by the moon's tearing-free and the monument to her exile." ([http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_3 ''The Crying of Lot 49'', p.41])

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

[[image:Ts_seal.gif|thumb|200px|right|Theosophical Society Seal]]
'''Theosophical Society''' 
The Theosophical Society was founded in New York City, USA, in 1875 by H.P. Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others. Its initial objective was the investigation, study and explanation of mediumistic phenomena. After a few years Olcott and Blavatsky moved to India and established the International Headquarters at Adyar, Madras (Chennai). There, they also became interested in studying Eastern religions, and these were included in the Society's agenda. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society Wikipedia entry]
"Its post-blavatskian fragments" refers to the schism that occured between some of the founding members after the passing of H.P. Blavatsky in 1891.

'''Society for Psychical Research''' 
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a non-profit organization which started in the United Kingdom and was later imitated in other countries. Its stated purpose is to understand "events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area" and to "examine allegedly paranormal phenomena in a scientific and unbiased way."[1] It was founded in 1882 by a group of eminent thinkers including Edmund Gurney, Frederic William Henry Myers, William Fletcher Barrett, Henry Sidgwick, and Edmund Dawson Rogers. The Society's headquarters are in Marloes Road, London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Psychical_Research Wikipedia entry]

[[image:Gdrosycross.gif|thumb|140px|right|Rosy Cross of the Golden Dawn]]
'''Order of the Golden Dawn''' 
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or, more commonly, the Golden Dawn) was a magical order of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, practicing a form of theurgy and spiritual development. William Wynn Westcott, also a member of the Theosophical Society, appears to have been the initial driving force behind the establishment of the Golden Dawn. See also the aforementioned schism within the Theosophical Society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn Wikipedia entry]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins! 
Don't know if this is of any significance, but in the Tarot the Fool (or Jester), says Wikipedia, is "often numbered 0." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fool_(Tarot_card)]

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was—at least until well up in the 19th century) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to. At the time of the action, Lew's offense against taste is not to wear tartan (see below in this entry) but to wear a tartan he isn't entitled to wear.

The previous statement doesn't quite jibe. In the late 17 cent. it was prosecutable for any '''Scot''' (read Highlander) to wear a tartan. Those tartans we see ascribed to clans were creations made to please Queen Victoria. Tartans and the Kilt are from Scottish '''and Irish''' Clans; from the oppressed. Thus, the fun in the line comes from the fact that an '''''authentic''''' tartan was false to begin with, but that doesn't keep Nigel from ''lording'' the ''fact'' that Lew's argyle sox are not up to snuff. 
Kilts came from an earlier garment which covered more of the body than today's piece, and those in plaid were called '''''Breacan''''', meaning partially colored or speckled. The plaids also came in trews (trousers), and ruanas (shawls). Many had uniformity in design, but probably because those were the colors available and thus recognized as part of a family, clan or sept. 

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

Anyone familiar with Ceremonial Magick is aware of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley]. Crowley was famously bisexual, responsible for one of the most famous Tarot Decks the "Thoth" deck and was involved in spycraft for British Intelligence and, it is rumored, was a double agent for the Germans as well. Nicholas Nookshaft is a parody of Crowley.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"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."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

'''Yashmeen Halfcourt''' 
Her initials YH are the first half of the Tetragrammaton -- YHVH or YHWH in English.

'''seventeenth degree Adept''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

On the other hand, T.W.I.T. is centered on Tarot cards, so the relationship between number and any correspondences to the Tarot would be very much to the point. In this case, the Major Arcana assigned to the number 17 is the [http://www.angelpaths.com/majors/star.html Star]. The Crowley-associated system for Tarot consists of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth Thoth ] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot Tarot] deck, along with Crowley's "explanatory" [http://tinyurl.com/yu4ye3 'Book of Thoth']:

:As has been explained elsewhere. It refers to the Zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer. The picture represents Nuith, our Lady of the Stars. For the full meaning of this sentence it is necessary to understand the first chapter of the ''Book of the Law''. . . .

The full text can be found at [http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_thoth34.htm About.com's] site on the Thoth "Star" card, albiet with the wrong card illustrated, in this case atu 18, "The Moon".

:'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzaddik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Auberon Halfcourt''' 
Auberon means royal or noble bear. 
Punning, "Au" is the chemical symbol for gold, thus, "Golden Bear", mascotte of UC Berkeley. 

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
Summer capital of the British Raj in India in the Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]. 
A terminus of the Kalka-Simla railway line (built 1906) aka the "British Jewel of the Orient." 
Named for the goddess Shyamala Devi, an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Kali.

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship. I believe the great game stands for Espionage in the Age of Gentlemen, the substance of Pynchon's '''''Under the Rose'''''. 

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year. 

This seems as good an instance as any to question the insistence of some here to pin down the exact date (and season?). Pynchon doesn't knock it to the wall, doesn't find cause to bother and I think the reason for that is obvious... the ambiguity lends a freer hand with which to paint. So don't fuck with the butterfly on the wheel. 

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. 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."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

'''kilometric guarantee''' 
Money offered by the government to building companies.
Apparently, the railroad companies fooled the Ottoman Empire building trails which were much longer than needed.
[http://books.google.es/books?id=uei7q4YCaqUC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=kilometric+guarantee&source=web&ots=fK9IVpG7Yx&sig=-7WX_2T0OPqXp2DEVAtRIRJPBQY&hl=ca&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result Google books citation]

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

All parallels between past and present are worth considering. They don't have to be direct references. The present-day Ernst August - famous for pissing on the Turkish Pavilion at EXPO 2000 - carries on the family tradition.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was founded to subvert the '''''United Irishmen''''' of Wolfe Tone by agitating against Protestant and Catholic community. It was hostile to the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence. In the 1880's it developed the Ulster Unionist Party to politically parry Parliamentary attempts at Home Rule for Ireland.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland. 
This was and still is known as "Marching Season" in Northern Ireland; the time when 'parades' are traditionally a source of fear and violence. Nearly all the parades are organized by the Orange Lodges and hence anti-Catholic.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character ([[ATD_1-25#Page 18|p.18]])

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
Make-up, cosmetics; the application of make-up (especially in heavy or theatrical fashion).<ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989</ref>

==Page 233==
'''catarrh''' 
Inflammation of a mucous membrane; usually restricted to that of the nose, throat, and bronchial tubes, causing increased flow of mucus, and often attended with sneezing, cough, and fever; constituting a common ‘cold’.<ref>Def.3. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989.</ref>

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Also, acronymically, the GBH=Grievous Bodily Harm, the British term for felonious assault.

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to deepening autumn.

One of two possible explanations: 
1. The T.W.I.T. is perhaps using an ascendent or lunar based astrological system rather than the solar-based system commonly used in the West. This resolves the apparent contradiction of a Gemini in autumn since the ascendent travels through all signs every 24 hours and the moon travels through the entire zodiac once a month. For example, Vedic astrology looks primarily to the ascendent, then the moon, and lastly the sun to study respectively the body, the mind and the spirit of the native. Basnight does have a mind that operates on two planes -- hence a moon in Gemini reading. 
2. The explosion carried Lew to a place on the other side of the Sun. Deep autumn would then be November 23 to December 21th, our sign of Sagittarius.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

Check out the [[Cricket_in_Against_the_Day|"Cricket in ''Against the Day'' article]] by Peter Vernon, which is an in-depth look at, well, cricket in ''Against the Day''.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Mason & Dixon''], as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'([http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_50:_484-490 ''M&D'' p.485]) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

"Create More Dukes" has a second meaning, suggested by the odd choice of verb. ''Duke'' in Britain refers to the highest rank of nobility, and fittingly there are not many of them. At present only about a dozen people hold the title. Since sometime in the 1870s new dukes have been ''created'' (by decree of the monarch) only in the royal family. Most recently at the time of the action, Queen Victoria had promoted a run-of-the-mill marquess to the dukedom of Fife to set the stage for his marriage to one of her granddaughters. If some group of activists thought the nation needed to beef up its peerage, they might adopt the slogan found here as a graffito. 
[http://www.ukdukes.co.uk/ Here is a colorful summary] of UK dukes today and through history, although it is '''unsound''' on coats of arms and such. [http://website.lineone.net/~david.beamish/index.htm This site] has more names and fewer pictures, listing all the titles (from dukes to lowly barons) created since the year Dot.

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

:Obviously more than a little joke. Refers to Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace Wikipedia Entry], aka "the French Newton", probably the greatest mathematician and astronomer of his time. Most of the scientific principles derived from his findings are explored in AtD (from lumineferous ether to the existence of black holes). Laplace was also instrumental in the advancement of the science of probabilities.
:The ever quotable Laplace, much loved by atheists worldwide, famously replied to Napoléon, when he asked why there was no mention of God in his treatise on astronomy: "Sir, there was no need for that hypothesis". Also responsible for what is known as the Laplacian principle: "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."

:The literal translation of Laplace is "The Place".

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" could possibly be female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).

:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized, plus Renfrew himself wants to meet the Bomber. That leaves the Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas.

:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.

:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.

:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government. De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

::Alternately, there's no clear answer and not enough clues (especially considering the role of time, forces beyond anyone's control, double agents, etc.). This Gentleman Bomber can be any person from Lew's past or a deja vu from the future. The G. Bomber seems to be England's answer to the Kieselguhr Kid, a nebulous personality working against the forces of history. The important thing about this situation is not the Bomber's identity, but the fact that Lew is being thrown into an assignment much like his last one in America (and we know how that ended...) He's obviously not very happy about it, and not inclined to tell anyone what he knows, or might know.

:: For what it's worth, my take was also Webb, especially in the context of all the bilocation business. It isn't "Webb" but evil alter-land "Webb"! (no dig on ya'll Brit folk intended, although the "...''my'' stay at Cambridge" bit was just wonderful :)

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2009-03-28T01:21:05Z

Bobutler: /* Page 232 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

:Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence

:In [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''CoL49''], TRP states at least twice that the Pacific Ocean is "the hole left by the moon's tearing-free and the monument to her exile." ([http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_3 ''The Crying of Lot 49'', p.41])

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

[[image:Ts_seal.gif|thumb|200px|right|Theosophical Society Seal]]
'''Theosophical Society''' 
The Theosophical Society was founded in New York City, USA, in 1875 by H.P. Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others. Its initial objective was the investigation, study and explanation of mediumistic phenomena. After a few years Olcott and Blavatsky moved to India and established the International Headquarters at Adyar, Madras (Chennai). There, they also became interested in studying Eastern religions, and these were included in the Society's agenda. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society Wikipedia entry]
"Its post-blavatskian fragments" refers to the schism that occured between some of the founding members after the passing of H.P. Blavatsky in 1891.

'''Society for Psychical Research''' 
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a non-profit organization which started in the United Kingdom and was later imitated in other countries. Its stated purpose is to understand "events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area" and to "examine allegedly paranormal phenomena in a scientific and unbiased way."[1] It was founded in 1882 by a group of eminent thinkers including Edmund Gurney, Frederic William Henry Myers, William Fletcher Barrett, Henry Sidgwick, and Edmund Dawson Rogers. The Society's headquarters are in Marloes Road, London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Psychical_Research Wikipedia entry]

[[image:Gdrosycross.gif|thumb|140px|right|Rosy Cross of the Golden Dawn]]
'''Order of the Golden Dawn''' 
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or, more commonly, the Golden Dawn) was a magical order of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, practicing a form of theurgy and spiritual development. William Wynn Westcott, also a member of the Theosophical Society, appears to have been the initial driving force behind the establishment of the Golden Dawn. See also the aforementioned schism within the Theosophical Society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn Wikipedia entry]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins! 
Don't know if this is of any significance, but in the Tarot the Fool (or Jester), says Wikipedia, is "often numbered 0." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fool_(Tarot_card)]

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was—at least until well up in the 19th century) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to. At the time of the action, Lew's offense against taste is not to wear tartan (see below in this entry) but to wear a tartan he isn't entitled to wear.

The previous statement doesn't quite jibe. In the late 17 cent. it was prosecutable for any '''Scot''' (read Highlander) to wear a tartan. Those tartans we see ascribed to clans were creations made to please Queen Victoria. Tartans and the Kilt are from Scottish '''and Irish''' Clans; from the oppressed. Thus, the fun in the line comes from the fact that an '''''authentic''''' tartan was false to begin with, but that doesn't keep Nigel from ''lording'' the ''fact'' that Lew's argyle sox are not up to snuff. 
Kilts came from an earlier garment which covered more of the body than today's piece, and those in plaid were called '''''Breacan''''', meaning partially colored or speckled. The plaids also came in trews (trousers), and ruanas (shawls). Many had uniformity in design, but probably because those were the colors available and thus recognized as part of a family, clan or sept. 

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

Anyone familiar with Ceremonial Magick is aware of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley]. Crowley was famously bisexual, responsible for one of the most famous Tarot Decks the "Thoth" deck and was involved in spycraft for British Intelligence and, it is rumored, was a double agent for the Germans as well. Nicholas Nookshaft is a parody of Crowley.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"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."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

'''Yashmeen Halfcourt''' 
Her initials YH are the first half of the Tetragrammaton -- YHVH or YHWH in English.

'''seventeenth degree Adept''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

On the other hand, T.W.I.T. is centered on Tarot cards, so the relationship between number and any correspondences to the Tarot would be very much to the point. In this case, the Major Arcana assigned to the number 17 is the [http://www.angelpaths.com/majors/star.html Star]. The Crowley-associated system for Tarot consists of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth Thoth ] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot Tarot] deck, along with Crowley's "explanatory" [http://tinyurl.com/yu4ye3 'Book of Thoth']:

:As has been explained elsewhere. It refers to the Zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer. The picture represents Nuith, our Lady of the Stars. For the full meaning of this sentence it is necessary to understand the first chapter of the ''Book of the Law''. . . .

The full text can be found at [http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_thoth34.htm About.com's] site on the Thoth "Star" card, albiet with the wrong card illustrated, in this case atu 18, "The Moon".

:'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzaddik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Auberon Halfcourt''' 
Auberon means royal or noble bear. 
Punning, "Au" is the chemical symbol for gold, thus, "Golden Bear", mascotte of UC Berkeley. 

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
Summer capital of the British Raj in India in the Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]. 
A terminus of the Kalka-Simla railway line (built 1906) aka the "British Jewel of the Orient." 
Named for the goddess Shyamala Devi, an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Kali.

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship. I believe the great game stands for Espionage in the Age of Gentlemen, the substance of Pynchon's '''''Under the Rose'''''. 

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year. 

This seems as good an instance as any to question the insistence of some here to pin down the exact date (and season?). Pynchon doesn't knock it to the wall, doesn't find cause to bother and I think the reason for that is obvious... the ambiguity lends a freer hand with which to paint. So don't fuck with the butterfly on the wheel. 

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. 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."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

'''kilometric guarantee''' 
Money offered by the government to building companies.
Apparently, the railroad companies fooled the Ottoman Empire building trails which were much longer than needed.
[http://books.google.es/books?id=uei7q4YCaqUC&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28&dq=kilometric+guarantee&source=web&ots=fK9IVpG7Yx&sig=-7WX_2T0OPqXp2DEVAtRIRJPBQY&hl=ca&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result Google books citation]

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

All parallels between past and present are worth considering. They don't have to be direct references. The present-day Ernst August - famous for pissing on the Turkish Pavilion at EXPO 2000 - carries on the family tradition.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was founded to subvert the '''''United Irishmen''''' of Wolfe Tone by agitating against Protestant and Catholic community. It was hostile to the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence. In the 1880's it developed the Ulster Unionist Party to politically parry Parliamentary attempts at Home Rule for Ireland.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland. 
This was and still is known as "Marching Season" in Northern Ireland; the time when 'parades' are traditionally a source of fear and violence. Nearly all the parades are organized by the Orange Lodges and hence anti-Catholic.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character ([[ATD_1-25#Page 18|p.18]])

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
Make-up, cosmetics; the application of make-up (especially in heavy or theatrical fashion).<ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989</ref>

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Also, acronymically, the GBH=Grievous Bodily Harm, the British term for felonious assault.

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to deepening autumn.

One of two possible explanations: 
1. The T.W.I.T. is perhaps using an ascendent or lunar based astrological system rather than the solar-based system commonly used in the West. This resolves the apparent contradiction of a Gemini in autumn since the ascendent travels through all signs every 24 hours and the moon travels through the entire zodiac once a month. For example, Vedic astrology looks primarily to the ascendent, then the moon, and lastly the sun to study respectively the body, the mind and the spirit of the native. Basnight does have a mind that operates on two planes -- hence a moon in Gemini reading. 
2. The explosion carried Lew to a place on the other side of the Sun. Deep autumn would then be November 23 to December 21th, our sign of Sagittarius.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

Check out the [[Cricket_in_Against_the_Day|"Cricket in ''Against the Day'' article]] by Peter Vernon, which is an in-depth look at, well, cricket in ''Against the Day''.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Mason & Dixon''], as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'([http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_50:_484-490 ''M&D'' p.485]) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

"Create More Dukes" has a second meaning, suggested by the odd choice of verb. ''Duke'' in Britain refers to the highest rank of nobility, and fittingly there are not many of them. At present only about a dozen people hold the title. Since sometime in the 1870s new dukes have been ''created'' (by decree of the monarch) only in the royal family. Most recently at the time of the action, Queen Victoria had promoted a run-of-the-mill marquess to the dukedom of Fife to set the stage for his marriage to one of her granddaughters. If some group of activists thought the nation needed to beef up its peerage, they might adopt the slogan found here as a graffito. 
[http://www.ukdukes.co.uk/ Here is a colorful summary] of UK dukes today and through history, although it is '''unsound''' on coats of arms and such. [http://website.lineone.net/~david.beamish/index.htm This site] has more names and fewer pictures, listing all the titles (from dukes to lowly barons) created since the year Dot.

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

:Obviously more than a little joke. Refers to Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace Wikipedia Entry], aka "the French Newton", probably the greatest mathematician and astronomer of his time. Most of the scientific principles derived from his findings are explored in AtD (from lumineferous ether to the existence of black holes). Laplace was also instrumental in the advancement of the science of probabilities.
:The ever quotable Laplace, much loved by atheists worldwide, famously replied to Napoléon, when he asked why there was no mention of God in his treatise on astronomy: "Sir, there was no need for that hypothesis". Also responsible for what is known as the Laplacian principle: "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."

:The literal translation of Laplace is "The Place".

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" could possibly be female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).

:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized, plus Renfrew himself wants to meet the Bomber. That leaves the Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas.

:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.

:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.

:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government. De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

::Alternately, there's no clear answer and not enough clues (especially considering the role of time, forces beyond anyone's control, double agents, etc.). This Gentleman Bomber can be any person from Lew's past or a deja vu from the future. The G. Bomber seems to be England's answer to the Kieselguhr Kid, a nebulous personality working against the forces of history. The important thing about this situation is not the Bomber's identity, but the fact that Lew is being thrown into an assignment much like his last one in America (and we know how that ended...) He's obviously not very happy about it, and not inclined to tell anyone what he knows, or might know.

:: For what it's worth, my take was also Webb, especially in the context of all the bilocation business. It isn't "Webb" but evil alter-land "Webb"! (no dig on ya'll Brit folk intended, although the "...''my'' stay at Cambridge" bit was just wonderful :)

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 199-218

2009-03-28T01:17:32Z

Bobutler: /* Page 214 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 199==

'''headed for Nevada''' 
From Denver or Golden the boys travel westward. Do they reach Nevada or just point in that direction? The scenic description may fit parts of Utah (between Colorado and Nevada) or Nevada proper. It's some 250 miles from Denver to the Utah-Nevada line; we learn that Jeshimon is a day's ride (say 100 miles?) from Nochecita, and also that you go south from Jeshimon to get to Telluride. And there's more: In Nochecita some visitors are identified as "Utahans," which suggests the town is not in Utah. 
The geography seems to work only if Nochecita is in western Colorado, not Nevada.

==Page 200==

'''Nochecita''' 
Spanish: little night. We saw earlier [[ATD_1-25#Page_22|(see annotations to p. 22)]] that bright light is not a source of comfort while darkness can be; Nochecita should be a place of shelter.
 The online dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines [http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=nochecita nochecita] as "Crepúsculo vespertino", i.e. evening twilight.

'''Estrella''' 
Spanish: star. In New World Spanish the middle syllable is pronounced just about like "Stray."
:and in Old World Spanish too 
She is a star in the "little night."

The name of a character in Dickens' ''Great Expectations.''

==Page 201==
'''natatorium''' 
''(originally and chiefly North American)'' 
A swimming pool, esp. an indoor one; a complex containing one or more such pools. Occasionally also: an area of a sea, lake, etc., suitable for swimming.<ref>(The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989)</ref>

'''stand literally ''in a circle'' around the couple as if enforcing the choice and allowing them no other''' 
Weddings in many places and times feature circles (circular ring, guests dancing in a circle, ribbon encircling the couple). A confining circle of guests does not seem to be a custom anywhere. Are these newly made "friends" pursuing some end we can't recognize—for example seeking to ensure a lineage?

'''Family idiot... some emergency drooling done''' 
Frank the self-professed Frankenstein of the Traverse family. 
Frank will not be the last ''AtD'' character to hold himself out as an [[Idiots and Idiocy in Against the Day|idiot]].
 The original Frankenstein, in Shelley's novel, however, is anything but an idiot, as he reads Milton and can express himself eloquently. The depictions of Frankenstein as an "idiot" didn't come until at least 1910 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(1910_film)] and surely Pynchon knows this.

==Page 202==

'''Cooper''' 
In the spirit of Icelandic Spar doubling, is it possible that the description of 'young gent Cooper' is Pynchon writing himself into ATD? Pynchon is reportedly shy and one of the supposed reasons given for why he never wanted his picture taken was that his upper teeth protruded and he did not like his portrait. Cooper sits astride a black and gold V-twin (!), produces a "Cornell" model Acme guitar, 'which now and then found strange notes added into the guitar chords, as though Cooper had hit between the wrong frets, only somehow it sounded right,' a pretty good analogy of Pynchon's bizarre but powerful prose style. Cf. Pynchon and his music connections and the trope (from Homer on) of musicians as the archetypal artists. Pynchon reportedly played the ukulele, so perhaps he also plays guitar. Perhaps this Cooper is an amalgam of himself and his great deceased school friend, Richard Farina?

:Scaled down just a bit, striking blue eyes, blond hair, "motor-wheelman," "injury . . . in his past." Everything but the name comes out [http://www.stevemcqueen.org.uk/ Steve McQueen] (1930-80). Not an identification but a distant resonance.

:Yeah, too much of a stretch to think it's Pynchon writing himself in. There was speculation that the character Osbie Feel in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' was just such an instance, and this one a bit more plausible. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Osbie_Feel Check it out...]

:[[image:V-Twin.jpg|right|thumb|Mesa V-Twin Preamp & Stompbox|175px]]Also, could be a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Cornell Chris Cornell], singer, guitarist & songwriter for Soundgarden and Audioslave. He's got that blond(ish) hair, that lip, was in a motorcycle accident, collaborated with Alice Cooper (on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation ''The Last Temptation''], a 1994 "concept" album), &c &c. And here's the kicker: Chris often uses the [http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Out_of%20_Production/V-Twin/v-twin.html Mesa Boogie V-Twin Preamp] which, by the way, has rubber tires, er, I mean, feet. So, in this context, I think Cornell's a good bet. And check the V-Twin logo which riffs off the Harley-Davidson logo. And, hey, this Cooper sings, writes songs and plays the guitar!

'''V-twin with white rubber tires''' 
A V-twin is a two cylinder internal combustion engine where the cylinders are arranged in a V configuration, most often seen in motorcycles. The first motorcycles available for purchase were made in 1894 by Hildebrand & Wolfmüller, but the V-twin layout did not come to market until ca. 1902 (Zedel, Switzerland). The first U.S. V-twin was apparently made by [http://www.ianchadwick.com/motorcycles/triumph/time01.html Indian] (1903). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley_Davidson Harley-Davidson] got a V-twin motor into production in 1910 or 1911 (prototype 1907).

:More to the point, it's ''also'' a rocking preamp and stompbox, as noted above. A great example of Pynchon's setting up multiple resonances with names, here having "V-Twin" do multiple-duty as a guitar preamp, a motorcyle, twinning/doubling, and his ubiquitous V's.

'''notes... rang like schoolbells''' 
Recalls the lyrics from the famous 1958 Chuck Berry song, "Johnny B. Goode": "But he could play the guitar just like a-ringin' a bell."

'''"the music, which now and then found strange notes added into the guitar chords, as though Cooper had hit between the wrong frets, only somehow it sounded right."''' 
In Pynchon's first novel, [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#sphere ''V.''], saxophonist McClintic Sphere played "all the notes Bird missed" which itself was a nod to jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman whose raw, highly vocalized sound and penchant for playing "in the cracks" of the scale led many Los Angeles jazz musicians to regard his playing as out-of-tune." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornette_Coleman]

==Page 203==

'''Cooper, cont'd'''

If Cooper ''is'' meant as some kind of parallel of Pynchon, note that Cooper waits "for faces there, or a particular face, to be drawn by the music," and one is-- Sage, who exits the house wearing gray and puts her arm up Cooper's sleeve. Could this be Pynchon's loving memory of meeting his wife?

This is all far too tenous and speculative, surely?

==Page 204==

'''Linnet Dawes''' 
The linnet is ''Carpodacus mexicanus,'' most often called house finch. The species originated in the western U.S. but got spread through the east as a result of releases by bird smugglers. Also a European finch. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnet Wikipedia]

So far we have women as a wren and as a finch.

She is named for two birds. The daw or jackdaw is an Old World bird somewhat resembling the crow in appearance and the grackle in behavior.

Jackdaw in Czech is "Kafka" --[[User:jackmw|jackmw]] 18:28, 04 April 2007 (PST)

'''plagal cadences''' 
Designating or having a cadence in which the chord of the subdominant immediately precedes that of the tonic. <ref>Def.2. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989</ref>

'''reading the ''Police Gazette'' or, actually, looking at the pictures''' 
[http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1330925 The ''National Police Gazette''] (published 1848-1980s) was the biggest men's magazine in the U.S. at the turn of the century, selling some 150,000 copies. Printed on pink paper, it contained sports reporting as well as crime stories, often with drawings of rumpled female victims. Photos of burlesque performers were a regular feature by the time of the action.

==Page 205==

'''against the daylight''' 
A direct example of ''against the day'' as ''against the light''. Significantly, Frank's attempt to discern Stray's true facial expression is thwarted by the daylight behind her. An object positioned against the daylight, or, in general, between an observer and a light source, is shadowed or silhouetted -- in Pynchon's words of the same sentence, "veiled by its own penumbra". This is suggestive of the idea that light does not always illuminate.

This is also an echo of the 'dorsal finality' framing of Constance Penhallow in Hunter's portrait back in Iceland.

'''"faro boxes"''' 
Card game with anti-cheating mechanism that can be fixed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faro_(card_game) Wikipedia.] In fact, faro was a big moneymaker—for the house—because rigging the shoe or box was so common.

'''ol' Buck-the-Tiger''' 
"Bucking the tiger" is an old euphemism for playing faro. [http://www.bcvc.net/faro/history.htm bcvc.net]

==Page 206==

'''soul-to-soul''' and '''down Mexico way''' 
Possible allusions to blues-rock guitarists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, respectively. The first phrase was the title of a Vaughan album and the second is a phrase used in the song "Hey Joe," most famously recorded by Hendrix.

Pynchon must be laughing his tits off at some of this stuff. "Soul to soul" and "down Mexico way" are just expressions - that's how they found their way into songs. TRP is a bright guy and if he'd wanted for some reason to allude to Stevie Ray and Jimi at this particular point (why, for god's sake?) he'd have found a more satisfying way of doing it.

'''everything . . . proceeded down Mexico way''' 
A triple metaphor: (3) to proceed to Mexico from Colorado, you go south. (2) "Go south" evokes "Go west." (1) To go west is an expression from the World War meaning to die. 
The vast system of trenches in the war ran mainly north and south, with the Allies on the west. Going west meant getting finally withdrawn from the never-ending trench war. Soldiers would later say "go home in a bag." [http://www.worldwar1.com/heritage/wordswar.htm ''Gone west'' for "dead"] apparently predates ''gone south'' by a little. 
[http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/26/messages/584.html ''Gone south'' for "deteriorated"] is influenced by the preceding but also relies on customary map orientation: south = down. 
So ''everything proceeded down Mexico way'' means it all came undone, turned to disaster.

'''both sounders and inkers''' 
Two types of telegraph machine. Inkers turn telegraph signals into marks along long ribbons of paper, while sounders only made sounds through a speaker, requiring a human to write down the message.

'''one day it rang while Reef happened to be right next to it''' 
Someone who knew Pynchon in the 60s described their final meeting in the article, [http://theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/pynchon.html Thomas Pynchon and the South Bay]: "I was walking down the street and he was walking toward me. Our paths crossed right in front of a pay phone, our eyes met and we recognized each other. I asked how he was and at that moment the telephone rang. He looked at me and looked at the phone, then turned around and ran down the street, and I never saw him again."

At the 70s pot-commune 'The Farm' in Tennessee, their first phone system (called 'Beatnik Bell') was legendary for working this way (by ESP). [http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/albertbates/akbp1b.html more]

'''a turbulent bath of noise that could have been fragments of speech or music surged along the lines''' 
A possible imagistic allusion to the work of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, specifically their 1948 book ''A Mathematical Theory of Communication''. Shannon and Weaver were engineers working for Bell Systems who posited that information traffic through telephone systems could best be described in mathematical terms normally reserved for the flow of ''turbulent fluids''. Their work, along with that of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener Norbert Wiener], founds the basis of the American branch of information theory. Wikipedia citations for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon Shannon] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Weaver Weaver], and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory information theory].

We know from the introduction to ''Slow Learner'' that Pynchon read (some--two books mentioned) Norbert Wiener while still in college.

==Page 207==

'''"Bob Meldrum"''' 
1920s outlaw. [http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35 cite]

'''Jeshimon''' 
Jeshimon is typically rendered from Hebrew as desert or wasteland. It appears in the Bible, 1 Samuel 26:1, "And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon?"

Apparently not the name of a real town. Utahans are known to name towns with words from scripture, though. In the Mormon book of 1 Nephi, the patriarch Lehi is reported to have migrated with his family through a wilderness. D. Kelly Ogden ("Answering the Lord's Call," ''Studies in Scripture,'' vol. 7, Salt Lake, Deseret Book, 1987) notes that the remotest kind of wilderness would have been called jeshimon. In ''God and the American Writer,'' Alfred Kazin quotes the Puritan preacher Increase Mather (in "The Mystery of Israel's Salvation") as saying, "God hath led us into a wilderness, and surely it was not because the Lord hated us but because he loved us that he brought us hither into this Jeshimon." He may, however, have been referring to Massachusetts.

There seem to be differences between commentators as to whether Jeshimon refers to a specific place or not (although the broad consensus is that it doesn't, but see for instance [http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Jeshimon NetBible]). So Jeshimon may or may not be an actual place but is certainly not pleasant to be in, befitting the mysterious, anarchic town of death in AtD

==Page 208==
'''Mortalidad''' 
Spanish for mortality.

==Page 209==

'''"every telegraph pole had a corpse hanging from it"''' 
very reminiscent of the heads on poles in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, an important text for GR.... "worst town Reef ever rode into". And the Belgian Congo, the setting for most of Conrad's novella, is mentioned in "AtD" in terms of the cruelty and exploitation of colonialism. The image of the corpses on telegraph-poles reminds me of a similar image in Stephen King's "The Stand".

'''Towers of Silence''' 
The Towers of Silence (also dakhma or dokhma or doongerwadi) are circular raised structures used by Zoroastrians for exposure of the dead. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_of_Silence Wikipedia]

==Page 210==

'''leave it to hang there by its one foot''' 
The Governor shoots malefactors, then exposes them in this way, which calls to mind the Hanged Man in the Tarot deck.

'''Second Lutheran (Missouri Synod) Church''' 
A small town with ''two'' LCMS congregations really is covered up with churches. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is a traditionalist body with no bishops. Its heritage is strongly German, and half its members today live in the Upper Midwest.

'''more churches here than saloons''' 
A comment on the utility of organized religion in maintaining civilization.

:All those churches don't seem to have much effect on civilization... 

'''blue laws''' 
Laws created during the American colonial period to enforce strict "morality." Some of these remain to this day; for example, in Indiana, you cannot purchase alcohol on Sundays. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws Wiki]

'''accommodations''' 
Decent burial.

'''subornation''' 
The act of inducing (a person) to commit an unlawful or evil act.

Reef learns that for a price even the "laws" here can be bent.

== Page 211 ==

'''arnophilia''' 
A word invented by Pynchon. According to this [http://www.basarchive.org/sample/bswbBrowse.asp?PubID=BSBR&Volume=19&Issue=6&ArticleID=5 website] the greek word ''arnos'' generally refers to a lamb or sheep, but occasionally to a goat, too. Suffixes with the common part -phil- (-phile, -philia, -philic) are used to specify some kind of attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-phil- Wikipedia]

Given Pynchon's penchant for low humor, this is also likely to be a reference to a very old joke: Salesman blows into remote Western town, asks bartender, "What do you do for, um, amusement hereabouts?" Bartender says "We fuck sheep". Salesman after a few days finds a sheepfold and soon finds himself surrounded by (in different versions) (1) laughing locals, who say "You picked an ugly one"; (2) deputies, who arrest him saying "That's the Sheriff's girl." This joke was ancient when I heard it in the late 1950s.

Also recalls the episode with Gene Wilder as Dr Ross who falls in love with a sheep in Woody Allen's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_You_Always_Wanted_to_Know_About_Sex*_(*But_Were_Afraid_to_Ask)_(film) ''Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)''].

'''ovine''' 
Resembling or reminiscent of (a) sheep in appearance, behavior, etc., sheeplike; sheepish; esp. lacking in initiative, thoughtlessly following the leader. <ref>Def.A1. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989</ref>

This word is textually nearby the word arnophilia. As such, the first part of its definition gives credence to the supposed definition of arnophilia. Additionally, the second part of the definition is appropriate to the behavior of the denizens of Jeshimon.

'''Lourdes''' 
city in France of Blessed Virgin appearances in the late 1800s to a youth and supposed miraculous cures since. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes Wikipedia entry]

'''a kind of winged God''' 
in various depictions, Satan appears as an angel/godlike-creature with huge wings. One of the most famous examples would be Milton's "Paradise Lost", especially Books 1 and 2.

Also, Satan is depicted as winged in the Rider-Waite Tarot

==Page 212==

'''The upside down star''' 
The upside down star, also known as the ''inverted pentagram,'' (with "two horns exalted"), is an emblem of the Devil.

In ''Mason and Dixon,'' the upside-down star is a symbol of two things that are connected: 1) when M&D are trying to find true north, they look at stars in their telescope to measure when they reach the peak of their arc arcoss the sky. In the telescope the star is upside down. Thus, upside down stars symbolize points which cut through distortion. 2) The star is seen again and again on rifles of both Dutch and American design. They pop up around slavery, a massacre, and an Iron refinery used for making impliments of slavery and war. The rifle is much like a telescope, but differs in that it shoots lead rather then huge sweaping cuts across the landscape. But they are both acts that are branded by evil.

'''apelike trudge''' 
If you suspect someone is the devil, you watch their gait. Cloven hooves inside his boots?

Plus, surely it can't remain unmentioned, this a spot-on piss-take of George 'Dubya' Bush, leader of the Free World (versus the 'Evildoers'), and a former execution-loving Governor.

'''Flagg''' 
In several Stephen King novels, including The Stand, Randall Flagg is an evil antichrist-like character.

Also, in The Stand, the character Flagg sometimes manifests himself as a weasel.

It is probably a stretch, but if going with the Bush interpretation, we can't help but read Rove into the Gov's "cringing weasel" of a clemency secretary.

==Page 213==

'''''Quieres un cloque''''' 
Spanish: You want a grapple.

'''dusk's reassembly of the broken day''' 
Broken by heat, reassembled as it cools. Or, dusk
bringing darkness, night--"it's always night"--after
another broken day...another 'against the day' allusion?

==Page 214==

'''stole a horse''' 
Reef probably he left in such a hurry, rapelling down "the blood-red wall", that he did not try to find his own horse or felt the Marshall might have gotten to it. Possibly, but unlikely, that TRP 'forgot' about the horse Reef came in on. 
He traveled to Mortalidad by train and must have rented a horse to get to Jeshimon.

'''the McElmo''' 
Watershed territory in Utah and Colorado.

'''gravid''' 
Pregnant, heavy with young. Also figuratively. <ref>'''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989</ref>

'''an ancient people whose name no one knew''' 
No one knows what the Anasazi or ancient pueblo people called themselves. The name Anasazi is Navaho, ''anaasázi'': enemy ancestors, but most Anglos think it means something like "ancient ones."

'''shouldn't somebody ought to carry on the family business—you might say, become the Kid?''' 
The comic strip ''The Phantom'' stars something like the 22nd inheritor of his family business. The Queen of England is another parallel. 
Also Cf. The Kids in the Hall sketch about the Cincinnati Kid and the Toronto Kid. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuvPpzPiIec YouTube]

'''"Each explosion was like the text of another sermon"''' 
Cf. "That gun will replace your tongue, and your poetry will be now written with blood" - Nobody towards William Blake, from 1995 movie ''Dead Man'' by Jim Jarmusch ([http://imdb.com/title/tt0112817/ IMDb], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man Wikipedia])

'''voice of the thunder''' 
Twelfth Song of the Thunder

The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice above,
The voice of the thunder
Within the dark cloud
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.

The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice below,
The voice of the grasshopper
Among the plants
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.

[From Washington Matthews, The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony, 1887]

Voice of the Thunder is also the title of a book by Laurens Van der Post
championing the life of the Australian Aborigines.

And the fifth and final section of T S Eliot's poem 'The Waste Land' is entitled "What the Thunder Said".

'''''The Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth''''' 
Not to be confused with ''The Chums of Chance in the Bowels of the Earth'', mentioned at the end of Part 1 ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|page 117]]). The cover illustration suggests that the events in ''Ends of the Earth'' follow ''Bowels'' directly.

'''[the book], already dog-eared" 
A contributor has mentioned a possible connection to Pugnax, but Pugnax was a neat reader, unlike Reef.
The book was "dog-eared" when Reef got it and I think the connection is to the word and the meaning of reading dogs like Pugnax and the one in Mason & Dixon.

Or, simply, that the book was dog-eared. (One doesn't always need to create connections where they may not exist.) --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:27, 24 February 2007 (PST)

==Page 215==

[[image:bridalveilfalls.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Bridal Veil Falls (c) [http://www.stevegarufi.com/bridal-veil-falls-colorado.htm ColoradoGuy.com]]]

'''"running a game of chance without a license" 
The use of the word 'chance' here is probably no accident. Perhaps this implies that only the Chums of Chance can run a game of chance? Only the author of the Chums books has "[poetic] license? Cf. 'Great Game'and chance.

Or it is simply a game of chance (ie, gambling).

:It seems to be simply tapping on the irony that Reef's being busted for running an unlicensed game of chance is what leads him to discovering a book about the Chums of Chance. Does he just discover the book on the floor of the cell? Ha. [[User:Greenlantern|Greenlantern]] 17:21, 28 February 2007 (PST)

'''North Cape and Franz Josef Land''' 
North Cape, Norway, is one of the northernmost points of Europe. Franz Josef Land is an archipelago in the Arctic Circle that was discovered in 1873 by Austrian polar explorers and named in honour of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. Today it belongs to Russia.

'''While reading, "he enjoyed a sort of dual existence"''' 
Spar and splitting theme? Pynchon on fiction and readers of? The magic of reading fiction and how it can transport you to other worlds?

Much like the boy Bastian in mid-80's children's fantasy film ''The Neverending Story'' [http://imdb.com/title/tt0088323/ IMdb entry]

'''he thought he saw something familiar''' 
Sensitized by the (cleverly planted?) book, he sees ''Inconvenience'' conducting surveillance.

'''Sleeping Ute''' 
Ute or Sleeping Ute Mountain is near Cortez.

'''Bridal Veil Falls''' 
Waterfall near Telluride, Colorado. At 431 feet, Bridal Veil Falls is Colorado's tallest. The historic structure between the two falls is the former Smuggler-Union hydroelectric plant, which provided Telluride's electricity from 1904 until 1954. [http://www.jeffblaylock.com/window/2004/06/bridal_veil_fal/index.php source]

==Page 216==

'''"Just greasy ashes by the trailside."''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke."

'''disrespect''' 
Corruption setting in?

'''Joe Hill''' 
1879-1915, immigrant from Sweden, labor organizer and Wobbly ideologue, executed (after being framed) in Utah. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill See the Wikipedia article.]

 Note that this is probably an anachronism. Franklin Rosemont's book on Joe Hill quotes a friend of Hill's, Alexander MacKay, stating he was "pretty damn positive" Joe Hill joined the IWW in 1910. [p. 46 of "Joe Hill - The IWW and the Making of a Revolutionary Working Class Counterculture".] The IWW wasn't even formed until 1905.

==Page 217==

'''in country you don't know how to get back in from''' 
A recurring idea, that you can go somewhere and not be able to get back.

'''Confederate Colt''' 
Webb's Uncle Fletcher's revolver; [[ATD_81-96#Page_88|see annotations to page 88,]] where it is first mentioned.

==Page 218==

'''God . . . laying on tells''' 
"Tell" is poker slang for any signal a player gives that other players can exploit.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 199-218

2009-03-28T01:14:12Z

Bobutler: /* Page 211 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 199==

'''headed for Nevada''' 
From Denver or Golden the boys travel westward. Do they reach Nevada or just point in that direction? The scenic description may fit parts of Utah (between Colorado and Nevada) or Nevada proper. It's some 250 miles from Denver to the Utah-Nevada line; we learn that Jeshimon is a day's ride (say 100 miles?) from Nochecita, and also that you go south from Jeshimon to get to Telluride. And there's more: In Nochecita some visitors are identified as "Utahans," which suggests the town is not in Utah. 
The geography seems to work only if Nochecita is in western Colorado, not Nevada.

==Page 200==

'''Nochecita''' 
Spanish: little night. We saw earlier [[ATD_1-25#Page_22|(see annotations to p. 22)]] that bright light is not a source of comfort while darkness can be; Nochecita should be a place of shelter.
 The online dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines [http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=nochecita nochecita] as "Crepúsculo vespertino", i.e. evening twilight.

'''Estrella''' 
Spanish: star. In New World Spanish the middle syllable is pronounced just about like "Stray."
:and in Old World Spanish too 
She is a star in the "little night."

The name of a character in Dickens' ''Great Expectations.''

==Page 201==
'''natatorium''' 
''(originally and chiefly North American)'' 
A swimming pool, esp. an indoor one; a complex containing one or more such pools. Occasionally also: an area of a sea, lake, etc., suitable for swimming.<ref>(The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989)</ref>

'''stand literally ''in a circle'' around the couple as if enforcing the choice and allowing them no other''' 
Weddings in many places and times feature circles (circular ring, guests dancing in a circle, ribbon encircling the couple). A confining circle of guests does not seem to be a custom anywhere. Are these newly made "friends" pursuing some end we can't recognize—for example seeking to ensure a lineage?

'''Family idiot... some emergency drooling done''' 
Frank the self-professed Frankenstein of the Traverse family. 
Frank will not be the last ''AtD'' character to hold himself out as an [[Idiots and Idiocy in Against the Day|idiot]].
 The original Frankenstein, in Shelley's novel, however, is anything but an idiot, as he reads Milton and can express himself eloquently. The depictions of Frankenstein as an "idiot" didn't come until at least 1910 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(1910_film)] and surely Pynchon knows this.

==Page 202==

'''Cooper''' 
In the spirit of Icelandic Spar doubling, is it possible that the description of 'young gent Cooper' is Pynchon writing himself into ATD? Pynchon is reportedly shy and one of the supposed reasons given for why he never wanted his picture taken was that his upper teeth protruded and he did not like his portrait. Cooper sits astride a black and gold V-twin (!), produces a "Cornell" model Acme guitar, 'which now and then found strange notes added into the guitar chords, as though Cooper had hit between the wrong frets, only somehow it sounded right,' a pretty good analogy of Pynchon's bizarre but powerful prose style. Cf. Pynchon and his music connections and the trope (from Homer on) of musicians as the archetypal artists. Pynchon reportedly played the ukulele, so perhaps he also plays guitar. Perhaps this Cooper is an amalgam of himself and his great deceased school friend, Richard Farina?

:Scaled down just a bit, striking blue eyes, blond hair, "motor-wheelman," "injury . . . in his past." Everything but the name comes out [http://www.stevemcqueen.org.uk/ Steve McQueen] (1930-80). Not an identification but a distant resonance.

:Yeah, too much of a stretch to think it's Pynchon writing himself in. There was speculation that the character Osbie Feel in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' was just such an instance, and this one a bit more plausible. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Osbie_Feel Check it out...]

:[[image:V-Twin.jpg|right|thumb|Mesa V-Twin Preamp & Stompbox|175px]]Also, could be a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Cornell Chris Cornell], singer, guitarist & songwriter for Soundgarden and Audioslave. He's got that blond(ish) hair, that lip, was in a motorcycle accident, collaborated with Alice Cooper (on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation ''The Last Temptation''], a 1994 "concept" album), &c &c. And here's the kicker: Chris often uses the [http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Out_of%20_Production/V-Twin/v-twin.html Mesa Boogie V-Twin Preamp] which, by the way, has rubber tires, er, I mean, feet. So, in this context, I think Cornell's a good bet. And check the V-Twin logo which riffs off the Harley-Davidson logo. And, hey, this Cooper sings, writes songs and plays the guitar!

'''V-twin with white rubber tires''' 
A V-twin is a two cylinder internal combustion engine where the cylinders are arranged in a V configuration, most often seen in motorcycles. The first motorcycles available for purchase were made in 1894 by Hildebrand & Wolfmüller, but the V-twin layout did not come to market until ca. 1902 (Zedel, Switzerland). The first U.S. V-twin was apparently made by [http://www.ianchadwick.com/motorcycles/triumph/time01.html Indian] (1903). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley_Davidson Harley-Davidson] got a V-twin motor into production in 1910 or 1911 (prototype 1907).

:More to the point, it's ''also'' a rocking preamp and stompbox, as noted above. A great example of Pynchon's setting up multiple resonances with names, here having "V-Twin" do multiple-duty as a guitar preamp, a motorcyle, twinning/doubling, and his ubiquitous V's.

'''notes... rang like schoolbells''' 
Recalls the lyrics from the famous 1958 Chuck Berry song, "Johnny B. Goode": "But he could play the guitar just like a-ringin' a bell."

'''"the music, which now and then found strange notes added into the guitar chords, as though Cooper had hit between the wrong frets, only somehow it sounded right."''' 
In Pynchon's first novel, [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#sphere ''V.''], saxophonist McClintic Sphere played "all the notes Bird missed" which itself was a nod to jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman whose raw, highly vocalized sound and penchant for playing "in the cracks" of the scale led many Los Angeles jazz musicians to regard his playing as out-of-tune." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornette_Coleman]

==Page 203==

'''Cooper, cont'd'''

If Cooper ''is'' meant as some kind of parallel of Pynchon, note that Cooper waits "for faces there, or a particular face, to be drawn by the music," and one is-- Sage, who exits the house wearing gray and puts her arm up Cooper's sleeve. Could this be Pynchon's loving memory of meeting his wife?

This is all far too tenous and speculative, surely?

==Page 204==

'''Linnet Dawes''' 
The linnet is ''Carpodacus mexicanus,'' most often called house finch. The species originated in the western U.S. but got spread through the east as a result of releases by bird smugglers. Also a European finch. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnet Wikipedia]

So far we have women as a wren and as a finch.

She is named for two birds. The daw or jackdaw is an Old World bird somewhat resembling the crow in appearance and the grackle in behavior.

Jackdaw in Czech is "Kafka" --[[User:jackmw|jackmw]] 18:28, 04 April 2007 (PST)

'''plagal cadences''' 
Designating or having a cadence in which the chord of the subdominant immediately precedes that of the tonic. <ref>Def.2. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989</ref>

'''reading the ''Police Gazette'' or, actually, looking at the pictures''' 
[http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1330925 The ''National Police Gazette''] (published 1848-1980s) was the biggest men's magazine in the U.S. at the turn of the century, selling some 150,000 copies. Printed on pink paper, it contained sports reporting as well as crime stories, often with drawings of rumpled female victims. Photos of burlesque performers were a regular feature by the time of the action.

==Page 205==

'''against the daylight''' 
A direct example of ''against the day'' as ''against the light''. Significantly, Frank's attempt to discern Stray's true facial expression is thwarted by the daylight behind her. An object positioned against the daylight, or, in general, between an observer and a light source, is shadowed or silhouetted -- in Pynchon's words of the same sentence, "veiled by its own penumbra". This is suggestive of the idea that light does not always illuminate.

This is also an echo of the 'dorsal finality' framing of Constance Penhallow in Hunter's portrait back in Iceland.

'''"faro boxes"''' 
Card game with anti-cheating mechanism that can be fixed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faro_(card_game) Wikipedia.] In fact, faro was a big moneymaker—for the house—because rigging the shoe or box was so common.

'''ol' Buck-the-Tiger''' 
"Bucking the tiger" is an old euphemism for playing faro. [http://www.bcvc.net/faro/history.htm bcvc.net]

==Page 206==

'''soul-to-soul''' and '''down Mexico way''' 
Possible allusions to blues-rock guitarists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, respectively. The first phrase was the title of a Vaughan album and the second is a phrase used in the song "Hey Joe," most famously recorded by Hendrix.

Pynchon must be laughing his tits off at some of this stuff. "Soul to soul" and "down Mexico way" are just expressions - that's how they found their way into songs. TRP is a bright guy and if he'd wanted for some reason to allude to Stevie Ray and Jimi at this particular point (why, for god's sake?) he'd have found a more satisfying way of doing it.

'''everything . . . proceeded down Mexico way''' 
A triple metaphor: (3) to proceed to Mexico from Colorado, you go south. (2) "Go south" evokes "Go west." (1) To go west is an expression from the World War meaning to die. 
The vast system of trenches in the war ran mainly north and south, with the Allies on the west. Going west meant getting finally withdrawn from the never-ending trench war. Soldiers would later say "go home in a bag." [http://www.worldwar1.com/heritage/wordswar.htm ''Gone west'' for "dead"] apparently predates ''gone south'' by a little. 
[http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/26/messages/584.html ''Gone south'' for "deteriorated"] is influenced by the preceding but also relies on customary map orientation: south = down. 
So ''everything proceeded down Mexico way'' means it all came undone, turned to disaster.

'''both sounders and inkers''' 
Two types of telegraph machine. Inkers turn telegraph signals into marks along long ribbons of paper, while sounders only made sounds through a speaker, requiring a human to write down the message.

'''one day it rang while Reef happened to be right next to it''' 
Someone who knew Pynchon in the 60s described their final meeting in the article, [http://theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/pynchon.html Thomas Pynchon and the South Bay]: "I was walking down the street and he was walking toward me. Our paths crossed right in front of a pay phone, our eyes met and we recognized each other. I asked how he was and at that moment the telephone rang. He looked at me and looked at the phone, then turned around and ran down the street, and I never saw him again."

At the 70s pot-commune 'The Farm' in Tennessee, their first phone system (called 'Beatnik Bell') was legendary for working this way (by ESP). [http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/albertbates/akbp1b.html more]

'''a turbulent bath of noise that could have been fragments of speech or music surged along the lines''' 
A possible imagistic allusion to the work of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, specifically their 1948 book ''A Mathematical Theory of Communication''. Shannon and Weaver were engineers working for Bell Systems who posited that information traffic through telephone systems could best be described in mathematical terms normally reserved for the flow of ''turbulent fluids''. Their work, along with that of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener Norbert Wiener], founds the basis of the American branch of information theory. Wikipedia citations for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon Shannon] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Weaver Weaver], and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory information theory].

We know from the introduction to ''Slow Learner'' that Pynchon read (some--two books mentioned) Norbert Wiener while still in college.

==Page 207==

'''"Bob Meldrum"''' 
1920s outlaw. [http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35 cite]

'''Jeshimon''' 
Jeshimon is typically rendered from Hebrew as desert or wasteland. It appears in the Bible, 1 Samuel 26:1, "And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon?"

Apparently not the name of a real town. Utahans are known to name towns with words from scripture, though. In the Mormon book of 1 Nephi, the patriarch Lehi is reported to have migrated with his family through a wilderness. D. Kelly Ogden ("Answering the Lord's Call," ''Studies in Scripture,'' vol. 7, Salt Lake, Deseret Book, 1987) notes that the remotest kind of wilderness would have been called jeshimon. In ''God and the American Writer,'' Alfred Kazin quotes the Puritan preacher Increase Mather (in "The Mystery of Israel's Salvation") as saying, "God hath led us into a wilderness, and surely it was not because the Lord hated us but because he loved us that he brought us hither into this Jeshimon." He may, however, have been referring to Massachusetts.

There seem to be differences between commentators as to whether Jeshimon refers to a specific place or not (although the broad consensus is that it doesn't, but see for instance [http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Jeshimon NetBible]). So Jeshimon may or may not be an actual place but is certainly not pleasant to be in, befitting the mysterious, anarchic town of death in AtD

==Page 208==
'''Mortalidad''' 
Spanish for mortality.

==Page 209==

'''"every telegraph pole had a corpse hanging from it"''' 
very reminiscent of the heads on poles in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, an important text for GR.... "worst town Reef ever rode into". And the Belgian Congo, the setting for most of Conrad's novella, is mentioned in "AtD" in terms of the cruelty and exploitation of colonialism. The image of the corpses on telegraph-poles reminds me of a similar image in Stephen King's "The Stand".

'''Towers of Silence''' 
The Towers of Silence (also dakhma or dokhma or doongerwadi) are circular raised structures used by Zoroastrians for exposure of the dead. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_of_Silence Wikipedia]

==Page 210==

'''leave it to hang there by its one foot''' 
The Governor shoots malefactors, then exposes them in this way, which calls to mind the Hanged Man in the Tarot deck.

'''Second Lutheran (Missouri Synod) Church''' 
A small town with ''two'' LCMS congregations really is covered up with churches. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is a traditionalist body with no bishops. Its heritage is strongly German, and half its members today live in the Upper Midwest.

'''more churches here than saloons''' 
A comment on the utility of organized religion in maintaining civilization.

:All those churches don't seem to have much effect on civilization... 

'''blue laws''' 
Laws created during the American colonial period to enforce strict "morality." Some of these remain to this day; for example, in Indiana, you cannot purchase alcohol on Sundays. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws Wiki]

'''accommodations''' 
Decent burial.

'''subornation''' 
The act of inducing (a person) to commit an unlawful or evil act.

Reef learns that for a price even the "laws" here can be bent.

== Page 211 ==

'''arnophilia''' 
A word invented by Pynchon. According to this [http://www.basarchive.org/sample/bswbBrowse.asp?PubID=BSBR&Volume=19&Issue=6&ArticleID=5 website] the greek word ''arnos'' generally refers to a lamb or sheep, but occasionally to a goat, too. Suffixes with the common part -phil- (-phile, -philia, -philic) are used to specify some kind of attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-phil- Wikipedia]

Given Pynchon's penchant for low humor, this is also likely to be a reference to a very old joke: Salesman blows into remote Western town, asks bartender, "What do you do for, um, amusement hereabouts?" Bartender says "We fuck sheep". Salesman after a few days finds a sheepfold and soon finds himself surrounded by (in different versions) (1) laughing locals, who say "You picked an ugly one"; (2) deputies, who arrest him saying "That's the Sheriff's girl." This joke was ancient when I heard it in the late 1950s.

Also recalls the episode with Gene Wilder as Dr Ross who falls in love with a sheep in Woody Allen's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_You_Always_Wanted_to_Know_About_Sex*_(*But_Were_Afraid_to_Ask)_(film) ''Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)''].

'''ovine''' 
Resembling or reminiscent of (a) sheep in appearance, behavior, etc., sheeplike; sheepish; esp. lacking in initiative, thoughtlessly following the leader. <ref>Def.A1. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989</ref>

This word is textually nearby the word arnophilia. As such, the first part of its definition gives credence to the supposed definition of arnophilia. Additionally, the second part of the definition is appropriate to the behavior of the denizens of Jeshimon.

'''Lourdes''' 
city in France of Blessed Virgin appearances in the late 1800s to a youth and supposed miraculous cures since. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes Wikipedia entry]

'''a kind of winged God''' 
in various depictions, Satan appears as an angel/godlike-creature with huge wings. One of the most famous examples would be Milton's "Paradise Lost", especially Books 1 and 2.

Also, Satan is depicted as winged in the Rider-Waite Tarot

==Page 212==

'''The upside down star''' 
The upside down star, also known as the ''inverted pentagram,'' (with "two horns exalted"), is an emblem of the Devil.

In ''Mason and Dixon,'' the upside-down star is a symbol of two things that are connected: 1) when M&D are trying to find true north, they look at stars in their telescope to measure when they reach the peak of their arc arcoss the sky. In the telescope the star is upside down. Thus, upside down stars symbolize points which cut through distortion. 2) The star is seen again and again on rifles of both Dutch and American design. They pop up around slavery, a massacre, and an Iron refinery used for making impliments of slavery and war. The rifle is much like a telescope, but differs in that it shoots lead rather then huge sweaping cuts across the landscape. But they are both acts that are branded by evil.

'''apelike trudge''' 
If you suspect someone is the devil, you watch their gait. Cloven hooves inside his boots?

Plus, surely it can't remain unmentioned, this a spot-on piss-take of George 'Dubya' Bush, leader of the Free World (versus the 'Evildoers'), and a former execution-loving Governor.

'''Flagg''' 
In several Stephen King novels, including The Stand, Randall Flagg is an evil antichrist-like character.

Also, in The Stand, the character Flagg sometimes manifests himself as a weasel.

It is probably a stretch, but if going with the Bush interpretation, we can't help but read Rove into the Gov's "cringing weasel" of a clemency secretary.

==Page 213==

'''''Quieres un cloque''''' 
Spanish: You want a grapple.

'''dusk's reassembly of the broken day''' 
Broken by heat, reassembled as it cools. Or, dusk
bringing darkness, night--"it's always night"--after
another broken day...another 'against the day' allusion?

==Page 214==

'''stole a horse''' 
Reef probably he left in such a hurry, rapelling down "the blood-red wall", that he did not try to find his own horse or felt the Marshall might have gotten to it. Possibly, but unlikely, that TRP 'forgot' about the horse Reef came in on. 
He traveled to Mortalidad by train and must have rented a horse to get to Jeshimon.

'''the McElmo''' 
Watershed territory in Utah and Colorado.

'''an ancient people whose name no one knew''' 
No one knows what the Anasazi or ancient pueblo people called themselves. The name Anasazi is Navaho, ''anaasázi'': enemy ancestors, but most Anglos think it means something like "ancient ones."

'''shouldn't somebody ought to carry on the family business—you might say, become the Kid?''' 
The comic strip ''The Phantom'' stars something like the 22nd inheritor of his family business. The Queen of England is another parallel. 
Also Cf. The Kids in the Hall sketch about the Cincinnati Kid and the Toronto Kid. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuvPpzPiIec YouTube]

'''"Each explosion was like the text of another sermon"''' 
Cf. "That gun will replace your tongue, and your poetry will be now written with blood" - Nobody towards William Blake, from 1995 movie ''Dead Man'' by Jim Jarmusch ([http://imdb.com/title/tt0112817/ IMDb], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man Wikipedia])

'''voice of the thunder''' 
Twelfth Song of the Thunder

The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice above,
The voice of the thunder
Within the dark cloud
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.

The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice below,
The voice of the grasshopper
Among the plants
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.

[From Washington Matthews, The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony, 1887]

Voice of the Thunder is also the title of a book by Laurens Van der Post
championing the life of the Australian Aborigines.

And the fifth and final section of T S Eliot's poem 'The Waste Land' is entitled "What the Thunder Said".

'''''The Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth''''' 
Not to be confused with ''The Chums of Chance in the Bowels of the Earth'', mentioned at the end of Part 1 ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|page 117]]). The cover illustration suggests that the events in ''Ends of the Earth'' follow ''Bowels'' directly.

'''[the book], already dog-eared" 
A contributor has mentioned a possible connection to Pugnax, but Pugnax was a neat reader, unlike Reef.
The book was "dog-eared" when Reef got it and I think the connection is to the word and the meaning of reading dogs like Pugnax and the one in Mason & Dixon.

Or, simply, that the book was dog-eared. (One doesn't always need to create connections where they may not exist.) --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:27, 24 February 2007 (PST)

==Page 215==

[[image:bridalveilfalls.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Bridal Veil Falls (c) [http://www.stevegarufi.com/bridal-veil-falls-colorado.htm ColoradoGuy.com]]]

'''"running a game of chance without a license" 
The use of the word 'chance' here is probably no accident. Perhaps this implies that only the Chums of Chance can run a game of chance? Only the author of the Chums books has "[poetic] license? Cf. 'Great Game'and chance.

Or it is simply a game of chance (ie, gambling).

:It seems to be simply tapping on the irony that Reef's being busted for running an unlicensed game of chance is what leads him to discovering a book about the Chums of Chance. Does he just discover the book on the floor of the cell? Ha. [[User:Greenlantern|Greenlantern]] 17:21, 28 February 2007 (PST)

'''North Cape and Franz Josef Land''' 
North Cape, Norway, is one of the northernmost points of Europe. Franz Josef Land is an archipelago in the Arctic Circle that was discovered in 1873 by Austrian polar explorers and named in honour of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. Today it belongs to Russia.

'''While reading, "he enjoyed a sort of dual existence"''' 
Spar and splitting theme? Pynchon on fiction and readers of? The magic of reading fiction and how it can transport you to other worlds?

Much like the boy Bastian in mid-80's children's fantasy film ''The Neverending Story'' [http://imdb.com/title/tt0088323/ IMdb entry]

'''he thought he saw something familiar''' 
Sensitized by the (cleverly planted?) book, he sees ''Inconvenience'' conducting surveillance.

'''Sleeping Ute''' 
Ute or Sleeping Ute Mountain is near Cortez.

'''Bridal Veil Falls''' 
Waterfall near Telluride, Colorado. At 431 feet, Bridal Veil Falls is Colorado's tallest. The historic structure between the two falls is the former Smuggler-Union hydroelectric plant, which provided Telluride's electricity from 1904 until 1954. [http://www.jeffblaylock.com/window/2004/06/bridal_veil_fal/index.php source]

==Page 216==

'''"Just greasy ashes by the trailside."''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke."

'''disrespect''' 
Corruption setting in?

'''Joe Hill''' 
1879-1915, immigrant from Sweden, labor organizer and Wobbly ideologue, executed (after being framed) in Utah. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill See the Wikipedia article.]

 Note that this is probably an anachronism. Franklin Rosemont's book on Joe Hill quotes a friend of Hill's, Alexander MacKay, stating he was "pretty damn positive" Joe Hill joined the IWW in 1910. [p. 46 of "Joe Hill - The IWW and the Making of a Revolutionary Working Class Counterculture".] The IWW wasn't even formed until 1905.

==Page 217==

'''in country you don't know how to get back in from''' 
A recurring idea, that you can go somewhere and not be able to get back.

'''Confederate Colt''' 
Webb's Uncle Fletcher's revolver; [[ATD_81-96#Page_88|see annotations to page 88,]] where it is first mentioned.

==Page 218==

'''God . . . laying on tells''' 
"Tell" is poker slang for any signal a player gives that other players can exploit.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 199-218

2009-03-28T01:04:25Z

Bobutler: /* Page 204 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 199==

'''headed for Nevada''' 
From Denver or Golden the boys travel westward. Do they reach Nevada or just point in that direction? The scenic description may fit parts of Utah (between Colorado and Nevada) or Nevada proper. It's some 250 miles from Denver to the Utah-Nevada line; we learn that Jeshimon is a day's ride (say 100 miles?) from Nochecita, and also that you go south from Jeshimon to get to Telluride. And there's more: In Nochecita some visitors are identified as "Utahans," which suggests the town is not in Utah. 
The geography seems to work only if Nochecita is in western Colorado, not Nevada.

==Page 200==

'''Nochecita''' 
Spanish: little night. We saw earlier [[ATD_1-25#Page_22|(see annotations to p. 22)]] that bright light is not a source of comfort while darkness can be; Nochecita should be a place of shelter.
 The online dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines [http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=nochecita nochecita] as "Crepúsculo vespertino", i.e. evening twilight.

'''Estrella''' 
Spanish: star. In New World Spanish the middle syllable is pronounced just about like "Stray."
:and in Old World Spanish too 
She is a star in the "little night."

The name of a character in Dickens' ''Great Expectations.''

==Page 201==
'''natatorium''' 
''(originally and chiefly North American)'' 
A swimming pool, esp. an indoor one; a complex containing one or more such pools. Occasionally also: an area of a sea, lake, etc., suitable for swimming.<ref>(The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989)</ref>

'''stand literally ''in a circle'' around the couple as if enforcing the choice and allowing them no other''' 
Weddings in many places and times feature circles (circular ring, guests dancing in a circle, ribbon encircling the couple). A confining circle of guests does not seem to be a custom anywhere. Are these newly made "friends" pursuing some end we can't recognize—for example seeking to ensure a lineage?

'''Family idiot... some emergency drooling done''' 
Frank the self-professed Frankenstein of the Traverse family. 
Frank will not be the last ''AtD'' character to hold himself out as an [[Idiots and Idiocy in Against the Day|idiot]].
 The original Frankenstein, in Shelley's novel, however, is anything but an idiot, as he reads Milton and can express himself eloquently. The depictions of Frankenstein as an "idiot" didn't come until at least 1910 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(1910_film)] and surely Pynchon knows this.

==Page 202==

'''Cooper''' 
In the spirit of Icelandic Spar doubling, is it possible that the description of 'young gent Cooper' is Pynchon writing himself into ATD? Pynchon is reportedly shy and one of the supposed reasons given for why he never wanted his picture taken was that his upper teeth protruded and he did not like his portrait. Cooper sits astride a black and gold V-twin (!), produces a "Cornell" model Acme guitar, 'which now and then found strange notes added into the guitar chords, as though Cooper had hit between the wrong frets, only somehow it sounded right,' a pretty good analogy of Pynchon's bizarre but powerful prose style. Cf. Pynchon and his music connections and the trope (from Homer on) of musicians as the archetypal artists. Pynchon reportedly played the ukulele, so perhaps he also plays guitar. Perhaps this Cooper is an amalgam of himself and his great deceased school friend, Richard Farina?

:Scaled down just a bit, striking blue eyes, blond hair, "motor-wheelman," "injury . . . in his past." Everything but the name comes out [http://www.stevemcqueen.org.uk/ Steve McQueen] (1930-80). Not an identification but a distant resonance.

:Yeah, too much of a stretch to think it's Pynchon writing himself in. There was speculation that the character Osbie Feel in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' was just such an instance, and this one a bit more plausible. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Osbie_Feel Check it out...]

:[[image:V-Twin.jpg|right|thumb|Mesa V-Twin Preamp & Stompbox|175px]]Also, could be a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Cornell Chris Cornell], singer, guitarist & songwriter for Soundgarden and Audioslave. He's got that blond(ish) hair, that lip, was in a motorcycle accident, collaborated with Alice Cooper (on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation ''The Last Temptation''], a 1994 "concept" album), &c &c. And here's the kicker: Chris often uses the [http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Out_of%20_Production/V-Twin/v-twin.html Mesa Boogie V-Twin Preamp] which, by the way, has rubber tires, er, I mean, feet. So, in this context, I think Cornell's a good bet. And check the V-Twin logo which riffs off the Harley-Davidson logo. And, hey, this Cooper sings, writes songs and plays the guitar!

'''V-twin with white rubber tires''' 
A V-twin is a two cylinder internal combustion engine where the cylinders are arranged in a V configuration, most often seen in motorcycles. The first motorcycles available for purchase were made in 1894 by Hildebrand & Wolfmüller, but the V-twin layout did not come to market until ca. 1902 (Zedel, Switzerland). The first U.S. V-twin was apparently made by [http://www.ianchadwick.com/motorcycles/triumph/time01.html Indian] (1903). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley_Davidson Harley-Davidson] got a V-twin motor into production in 1910 or 1911 (prototype 1907).

:More to the point, it's ''also'' a rocking preamp and stompbox, as noted above. A great example of Pynchon's setting up multiple resonances with names, here having "V-Twin" do multiple-duty as a guitar preamp, a motorcyle, twinning/doubling, and his ubiquitous V's.

'''notes... rang like schoolbells''' 
Recalls the lyrics from the famous 1958 Chuck Berry song, "Johnny B. Goode": "But he could play the guitar just like a-ringin' a bell."

'''"the music, which now and then found strange notes added into the guitar chords, as though Cooper had hit between the wrong frets, only somehow it sounded right."''' 
In Pynchon's first novel, [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#sphere ''V.''], saxophonist McClintic Sphere played "all the notes Bird missed" which itself was a nod to jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman whose raw, highly vocalized sound and penchant for playing "in the cracks" of the scale led many Los Angeles jazz musicians to regard his playing as out-of-tune." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornette_Coleman]

==Page 203==

'''Cooper, cont'd'''

If Cooper ''is'' meant as some kind of parallel of Pynchon, note that Cooper waits "for faces there, or a particular face, to be drawn by the music," and one is-- Sage, who exits the house wearing gray and puts her arm up Cooper's sleeve. Could this be Pynchon's loving memory of meeting his wife?

This is all far too tenous and speculative, surely?

==Page 204==

'''Linnet Dawes''' 
The linnet is ''Carpodacus mexicanus,'' most often called house finch. The species originated in the western U.S. but got spread through the east as a result of releases by bird smugglers. Also a European finch. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnet Wikipedia]

So far we have women as a wren and as a finch.

She is named for two birds. The daw or jackdaw is an Old World bird somewhat resembling the crow in appearance and the grackle in behavior.

Jackdaw in Czech is "Kafka" --[[User:jackmw|jackmw]] 18:28, 04 April 2007 (PST)

'''plagal cadences''' 
Designating or having a cadence in which the chord of the subdominant immediately precedes that of the tonic. <ref>Def.2. '''The Oxford English Dictionary'''. 2nd ed. 1989</ref>

'''reading the ''Police Gazette'' or, actually, looking at the pictures''' 
[http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1330925 The ''National Police Gazette''] (published 1848-1980s) was the biggest men's magazine in the U.S. at the turn of the century, selling some 150,000 copies. Printed on pink paper, it contained sports reporting as well as crime stories, often with drawings of rumpled female victims. Photos of burlesque performers were a regular feature by the time of the action.

==Page 205==

'''against the daylight''' 
A direct example of ''against the day'' as ''against the light''. Significantly, Frank's attempt to discern Stray's true facial expression is thwarted by the daylight behind her. An object positioned against the daylight, or, in general, between an observer and a light source, is shadowed or silhouetted -- in Pynchon's words of the same sentence, "veiled by its own penumbra". This is suggestive of the idea that light does not always illuminate.

This is also an echo of the 'dorsal finality' framing of Constance Penhallow in Hunter's portrait back in Iceland.

'''"faro boxes"''' 
Card game with anti-cheating mechanism that can be fixed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faro_(card_game) Wikipedia.] In fact, faro was a big moneymaker—for the house—because rigging the shoe or box was so common.

'''ol' Buck-the-Tiger''' 
"Bucking the tiger" is an old euphemism for playing faro. [http://www.bcvc.net/faro/history.htm bcvc.net]

==Page 206==

'''soul-to-soul''' and '''down Mexico way''' 
Possible allusions to blues-rock guitarists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, respectively. The first phrase was the title of a Vaughan album and the second is a phrase used in the song "Hey Joe," most famously recorded by Hendrix.

Pynchon must be laughing his tits off at some of this stuff. "Soul to soul" and "down Mexico way" are just expressions - that's how they found their way into songs. TRP is a bright guy and if he'd wanted for some reason to allude to Stevie Ray and Jimi at this particular point (why, for god's sake?) he'd have found a more satisfying way of doing it.

'''everything . . . proceeded down Mexico way''' 
A triple metaphor: (3) to proceed to Mexico from Colorado, you go south. (2) "Go south" evokes "Go west." (1) To go west is an expression from the World War meaning to die. 
The vast system of trenches in the war ran mainly north and south, with the Allies on the west. Going west meant getting finally withdrawn from the never-ending trench war. Soldiers would later say "go home in a bag." [http://www.worldwar1.com/heritage/wordswar.htm ''Gone west'' for "dead"] apparently predates ''gone south'' by a little. 
[http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/26/messages/584.html ''Gone south'' for "deteriorated"] is influenced by the preceding but also relies on customary map orientation: south = down. 
So ''everything proceeded down Mexico way'' means it all came undone, turned to disaster.

'''both sounders and inkers''' 
Two types of telegraph machine. Inkers turn telegraph signals into marks along long ribbons of paper, while sounders only made sounds through a speaker, requiring a human to write down the message.

'''one day it rang while Reef happened to be right next to it''' 
Someone who knew Pynchon in the 60s described their final meeting in the article, [http://theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/pynchon.html Thomas Pynchon and the South Bay]: "I was walking down the street and he was walking toward me. Our paths crossed right in front of a pay phone, our eyes met and we recognized each other. I asked how he was and at that moment the telephone rang. He looked at me and looked at the phone, then turned around and ran down the street, and I never saw him again."

At the 70s pot-commune 'The Farm' in Tennessee, their first phone system (called 'Beatnik Bell') was legendary for working this way (by ESP). [http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/albertbates/akbp1b.html more]

'''a turbulent bath of noise that could have been fragments of speech or music surged along the lines''' 
A possible imagistic allusion to the work of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, specifically their 1948 book ''A Mathematical Theory of Communication''. Shannon and Weaver were engineers working for Bell Systems who posited that information traffic through telephone systems could best be described in mathematical terms normally reserved for the flow of ''turbulent fluids''. Their work, along with that of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener Norbert Wiener], founds the basis of the American branch of information theory. Wikipedia citations for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon Shannon] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Weaver Weaver], and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory information theory].

We know from the introduction to ''Slow Learner'' that Pynchon read (some--two books mentioned) Norbert Wiener while still in college.

==Page 207==

'''"Bob Meldrum"''' 
1920s outlaw. [http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35 cite]

'''Jeshimon''' 
Jeshimon is typically rendered from Hebrew as desert or wasteland. It appears in the Bible, 1 Samuel 26:1, "And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon?"

Apparently not the name of a real town. Utahans are known to name towns with words from scripture, though. In the Mormon book of 1 Nephi, the patriarch Lehi is reported to have migrated with his family through a wilderness. D. Kelly Ogden ("Answering the Lord's Call," ''Studies in Scripture,'' vol. 7, Salt Lake, Deseret Book, 1987) notes that the remotest kind of wilderness would have been called jeshimon. In ''God and the American Writer,'' Alfred Kazin quotes the Puritan preacher Increase Mather (in "The Mystery of Israel's Salvation") as saying, "God hath led us into a wilderness, and surely it was not because the Lord hated us but because he loved us that he brought us hither into this Jeshimon." He may, however, have been referring to Massachusetts.

There seem to be differences between commentators as to whether Jeshimon refers to a specific place or not (although the broad consensus is that it doesn't, but see for instance [http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Jeshimon NetBible]). So Jeshimon may or may not be an actual place but is certainly not pleasant to be in, befitting the mysterious, anarchic town of death in AtD

==Page 208==
'''Mortalidad''' 
Spanish for mortality.

==Page 209==

'''"every telegraph pole had a corpse hanging from it"''' 
very reminiscent of the heads on poles in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, an important text for GR.... "worst town Reef ever rode into". And the Belgian Congo, the setting for most of Conrad's novella, is mentioned in "AtD" in terms of the cruelty and exploitation of colonialism. The image of the corpses on telegraph-poles reminds me of a similar image in Stephen King's "The Stand".

'''Towers of Silence''' 
The Towers of Silence (also dakhma or dokhma or doongerwadi) are circular raised structures used by Zoroastrians for exposure of the dead. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_of_Silence Wikipedia]

==Page 210==

'''leave it to hang there by its one foot''' 
The Governor shoots malefactors, then exposes them in this way, which calls to mind the Hanged Man in the Tarot deck.

'''Second Lutheran (Missouri Synod) Church''' 
A small town with ''two'' LCMS congregations really is covered up with churches. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is a traditionalist body with no bishops. Its heritage is strongly German, and half its members today live in the Upper Midwest.

'''more churches here than saloons''' 
A comment on the utility of organized religion in maintaining civilization.

:All those churches don't seem to have much effect on civilization... 

'''blue laws''' 
Laws created during the American colonial period to enforce strict "morality." Some of these remain to this day; for example, in Indiana, you cannot purchase alcohol on Sundays. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws Wiki]

'''accommodations''' 
Decent burial.

'''subornation''' 
The act of inducing (a person) to commit an unlawful or evil act.

Reef learns that for a price even the "laws" here can be bent.

== Page 211 ==

'''arnophilia''' 
A word invented by Pynchon. According to this [http://www.basarchive.org/sample/bswbBrowse.asp?PubID=BSBR&Volume=19&Issue=6&ArticleID=5 website] the greek word ''arnos'' generally refers to a lamb or sheep, but occasionally to a goat, too. Suffixes with the common part -phil- (-phile, -philia, -philic) are used to specify some kind of attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-phil- Wikipedia]

Given Pynchon's penchant for low humor, this is also likely to be a reference to a very old joke: Salesman blows into remote Western town, asks bartender, "What do you do for, um, amusement hereabouts?" Bartender says "We fuck sheep". Salesman after a few days finds a sheepfold and soon finds himself surrounded by (in different versions) (1) laughing locals, who say "You picked an ugly one"; (2) deputies, who arrest him saying "That's the Sheriff's girl." This joke was ancient when I heard it in the late 1950s.

Also recalls the episode with Gene Wilder as Dr Ross who falls in love with a sheep in Woody Allen's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_You_Always_Wanted_to_Know_About_Sex*_(*But_Were_Afraid_to_Ask)_(film) ''Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)''].

'''Lourdes''' 
city in France of Blessed Virgin appearances in the late 1800s to a youth and supposed miraculous cures since. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes Wikipedia entry]

'''a kind of winged God''' 
in various depictions, Satan appears as an angel/godlike-creature with huge wings. One of the most famous examples would be Milton's "Paradise Lost", especially Books 1 and 2.

Also, Satan is depicted as winged in the Rider-Waite Tarot

==Page 212==

'''The upside down star''' 
The upside down star, also known as the ''inverted pentagram,'' (with "two horns exalted"), is an emblem of the Devil.

In ''Mason and Dixon,'' the upside-down star is a symbol of two things that are connected: 1) when M&D are trying to find true north, they look at stars in their telescope to measure when they reach the peak of their arc arcoss the sky. In the telescope the star is upside down. Thus, upside down stars symbolize points which cut through distortion. 2) The star is seen again and again on rifles of both Dutch and American design. They pop up around slavery, a massacre, and an Iron refinery used for making impliments of slavery and war. The rifle is much like a telescope, but differs in that it shoots lead rather then huge sweaping cuts across the landscape. But they are both acts that are branded by evil.

'''apelike trudge''' 
If you suspect someone is the devil, you watch their gait. Cloven hooves inside his boots?

Plus, surely it can't remain unmentioned, this a spot-on piss-take of George 'Dubya' Bush, leader of the Free World (versus the 'Evildoers'), and a former execution-loving Governor.

'''Flagg''' 
In several Stephen King novels, including The Stand, Randall Flagg is an evil antichrist-like character.

Also, in The Stand, the character Flagg sometimes manifests himself as a weasel.

It is probably a stretch, but if going with the Bush interpretation, we can't help but read Rove into the Gov's "cringing weasel" of a clemency secretary.

==Page 213==

'''''Quieres un cloque''''' 
Spanish: You want a grapple.

'''dusk's reassembly of the broken day''' 
Broken by heat, reassembled as it cools. Or, dusk
bringing darkness, night--"it's always night"--after
another broken day...another 'against the day' allusion?

==Page 214==

'''stole a horse''' 
Reef probably he left in such a hurry, rapelling down "the blood-red wall", that he did not try to find his own horse or felt the Marshall might have gotten to it. Possibly, but unlikely, that TRP 'forgot' about the horse Reef came in on. 
He traveled to Mortalidad by train and must have rented a horse to get to Jeshimon.

'''the McElmo''' 
Watershed territory in Utah and Colorado.

'''an ancient people whose name no one knew''' 
No one knows what the Anasazi or ancient pueblo people called themselves. The name Anasazi is Navaho, ''anaasázi'': enemy ancestors, but most Anglos think it means something like "ancient ones."

'''shouldn't somebody ought to carry on the family business—you might say, become the Kid?''' 
The comic strip ''The Phantom'' stars something like the 22nd inheritor of his family business. The Queen of England is another parallel. 
Also Cf. The Kids in the Hall sketch about the Cincinnati Kid and the Toronto Kid. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuvPpzPiIec YouTube]

'''"Each explosion was like the text of another sermon"''' 
Cf. "That gun will replace your tongue, and your poetry will be now written with blood" - Nobody towards William Blake, from 1995 movie ''Dead Man'' by Jim Jarmusch ([http://imdb.com/title/tt0112817/ IMDb], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man Wikipedia])

'''voice of the thunder''' 
Twelfth Song of the Thunder

The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice above,
The voice of the thunder
Within the dark cloud
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.

The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice below,
The voice of the grasshopper
Among the plants
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.

[From Washington Matthews, The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony, 1887]

Voice of the Thunder is also the title of a book by Laurens Van der Post
championing the life of the Australian Aborigines.

And the fifth and final section of T S Eliot's poem 'The Waste Land' is entitled "What the Thunder Said".

'''''The Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth''''' 
Not to be confused with ''The Chums of Chance in the Bowels of the Earth'', mentioned at the end of Part 1 ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|page 117]]). The cover illustration suggests that the events in ''Ends of the Earth'' follow ''Bowels'' directly.

'''[the book], already dog-eared" 
A contributor has mentioned a possible connection to Pugnax, but Pugnax was a neat reader, unlike Reef.
The book was "dog-eared" when Reef got it and I think the connection is to the word and the meaning of reading dogs like Pugnax and the one in Mason & Dixon.

Or, simply, that the book was dog-eared. (One doesn't always need to create connections where they may not exist.) --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:27, 24 February 2007 (PST)

==Page 215==

[[image:bridalveilfalls.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Bridal Veil Falls (c) [http://www.stevegarufi.com/bridal-veil-falls-colorado.htm ColoradoGuy.com]]]

'''"running a game of chance without a license" 
The use of the word 'chance' here is probably no accident. Perhaps this implies that only the Chums of Chance can run a game of chance? Only the author of the Chums books has "[poetic] license? Cf. 'Great Game'and chance.

Or it is simply a game of chance (ie, gambling).

:It seems to be simply tapping on the irony that Reef's being busted for running an unlicensed game of chance is what leads him to discovering a book about the Chums of Chance. Does he just discover the book on the floor of the cell? Ha. [[User:Greenlantern|Greenlantern]] 17:21, 28 February 2007 (PST)

'''North Cape and Franz Josef Land''' 
North Cape, Norway, is one of the northernmost points of Europe. Franz Josef Land is an archipelago in the Arctic Circle that was discovered in 1873 by Austrian polar explorers and named in honour of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. Today it belongs to Russia.

'''While reading, "he enjoyed a sort of dual existence"''' 
Spar and splitting theme? Pynchon on fiction and readers of? The magic of reading fiction and how it can transport you to other worlds?

Much like the boy Bastian in mid-80's children's fantasy film ''The Neverending Story'' [http://imdb.com/title/tt0088323/ IMdb entry]

'''he thought he saw something familiar''' 
Sensitized by the (cleverly planted?) book, he sees ''Inconvenience'' conducting surveillance.

'''Sleeping Ute''' 
Ute or Sleeping Ute Mountain is near Cortez.

'''Bridal Veil Falls''' 
Waterfall near Telluride, Colorado. At 431 feet, Bridal Veil Falls is Colorado's tallest. The historic structure between the two falls is the former Smuggler-Union hydroelectric plant, which provided Telluride's electricity from 1904 until 1954. [http://www.jeffblaylock.com/window/2004/06/bridal_veil_fal/index.php source]

==Page 216==

'''"Just greasy ashes by the trailside."''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke."

'''disrespect''' 
Corruption setting in?

'''Joe Hill''' 
1879-1915, immigrant from Sweden, labor organizer and Wobbly ideologue, executed (after being framed) in Utah. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill See the Wikipedia article.]

 Note that this is probably an anachronism. Franklin Rosemont's book on Joe Hill quotes a friend of Hill's, Alexander MacKay, stating he was "pretty damn positive" Joe Hill joined the IWW in 1910. [p. 46 of "Joe Hill - The IWW and the Making of a Revolutionary Working Class Counterculture".] The IWW wasn't even formed until 1905.

==Page 217==

'''in country you don't know how to get back in from''' 
A recurring idea, that you can go somewhere and not be able to get back.

'''Confederate Colt''' 
Webb's Uncle Fletcher's revolver; [[ATD_81-96#Page_88|see annotations to page 88,]] where it is first mentioned.

==Page 218==

'''God . . . laying on tells''' 
"Tell" is poker slang for any signal a player gives that other players can exploit.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 199-218

2009-03-28T00:56:21Z

Bobutler: /* Page 201 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 199==

'''headed for Nevada''' 
From Denver or Golden the boys travel westward. Do they reach Nevada or just point in that direction? The scenic description may fit parts of Utah (between Colorado and Nevada) or Nevada proper. It's some 250 miles from Denver to the Utah-Nevada line; we learn that Jeshimon is a day's ride (say 100 miles?) from Nochecita, and also that you go south from Jeshimon to get to Telluride. And there's more: In Nochecita some visitors are identified as "Utahans," which suggests the town is not in Utah. 
The geography seems to work only if Nochecita is in western Colorado, not Nevada.

==Page 200==

'''Nochecita''' 
Spanish: little night. We saw earlier [[ATD_1-25#Page_22|(see annotations to p. 22)]] that bright light is not a source of comfort while darkness can be; Nochecita should be a place of shelter.
 The online dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines [http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=nochecita nochecita] as "Crepúsculo vespertino", i.e. evening twilight.

'''Estrella''' 
Spanish: star. In New World Spanish the middle syllable is pronounced just about like "Stray."
:and in Old World Spanish too 
She is a star in the "little night."

The name of a character in Dickens' ''Great Expectations.''

==Page 201==
'''natatorium''' 
''(originally and chiefly North American)'' 
A swimming pool, esp. an indoor one; a complex containing one or more such pools. Occasionally also: an area of a sea, lake, etc., suitable for swimming.<ref>(The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989)</ref>

'''stand literally ''in a circle'' around the couple as if enforcing the choice and allowing them no other''' 
Weddings in many places and times feature circles (circular ring, guests dancing in a circle, ribbon encircling the couple). A confining circle of guests does not seem to be a custom anywhere. Are these newly made "friends" pursuing some end we can't recognize—for example seeking to ensure a lineage?

'''Family idiot... some emergency drooling done''' 
Frank the self-professed Frankenstein of the Traverse family. 
Frank will not be the last ''AtD'' character to hold himself out as an [[Idiots and Idiocy in Against the Day|idiot]].
 The original Frankenstein, in Shelley's novel, however, is anything but an idiot, as he reads Milton and can express himself eloquently. The depictions of Frankenstein as an "idiot" didn't come until at least 1910 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_(1910_film)] and surely Pynchon knows this.

==Page 202==

'''Cooper''' 
In the spirit of Icelandic Spar doubling, is it possible that the description of 'young gent Cooper' is Pynchon writing himself into ATD? Pynchon is reportedly shy and one of the supposed reasons given for why he never wanted his picture taken was that his upper teeth protruded and he did not like his portrait. Cooper sits astride a black and gold V-twin (!), produces a "Cornell" model Acme guitar, 'which now and then found strange notes added into the guitar chords, as though Cooper had hit between the wrong frets, only somehow it sounded right,' a pretty good analogy of Pynchon's bizarre but powerful prose style. Cf. Pynchon and his music connections and the trope (from Homer on) of musicians as the archetypal artists. Pynchon reportedly played the ukulele, so perhaps he also plays guitar. Perhaps this Cooper is an amalgam of himself and his great deceased school friend, Richard Farina?

:Scaled down just a bit, striking blue eyes, blond hair, "motor-wheelman," "injury . . . in his past." Everything but the name comes out [http://www.stevemcqueen.org.uk/ Steve McQueen] (1930-80). Not an identification but a distant resonance.

:Yeah, too much of a stretch to think it's Pynchon writing himself in. There was speculation that the character Osbie Feel in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' was just such an instance, and this one a bit more plausible. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Osbie_Feel Check it out...]

:[[image:V-Twin.jpg|right|thumb|Mesa V-Twin Preamp & Stompbox|175px]]Also, could be a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Cornell Chris Cornell], singer, guitarist & songwriter for Soundgarden and Audioslave. He's got that blond(ish) hair, that lip, was in a motorcycle accident, collaborated with Alice Cooper (on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation ''The Last Temptation''], a 1994 "concept" album), &c &c. And here's the kicker: Chris often uses the [http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Out_of%20_Production/V-Twin/v-twin.html Mesa Boogie V-Twin Preamp] which, by the way, has rubber tires, er, I mean, feet. So, in this context, I think Cornell's a good bet. And check the V-Twin logo which riffs off the Harley-Davidson logo. And, hey, this Cooper sings, writes songs and plays the guitar!

'''V-twin with white rubber tires''' 
A V-twin is a two cylinder internal combustion engine where the cylinders are arranged in a V configuration, most often seen in motorcycles. The first motorcycles available for purchase were made in 1894 by Hildebrand & Wolfmüller, but the V-twin layout did not come to market until ca. 1902 (Zedel, Switzerland). The first U.S. V-twin was apparently made by [http://www.ianchadwick.com/motorcycles/triumph/time01.html Indian] (1903). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley_Davidson Harley-Davidson] got a V-twin motor into production in 1910 or 1911 (prototype 1907).

:More to the point, it's ''also'' a rocking preamp and stompbox, as noted above. A great example of Pynchon's setting up multiple resonances with names, here having "V-Twin" do multiple-duty as a guitar preamp, a motorcyle, twinning/doubling, and his ubiquitous V's.

'''notes... rang like schoolbells''' 
Recalls the lyrics from the famous 1958 Chuck Berry song, "Johnny B. Goode": "But he could play the guitar just like a-ringin' a bell."

'''"the music, which now and then found strange notes added into the guitar chords, as though Cooper had hit between the wrong frets, only somehow it sounded right."''' 
In Pynchon's first novel, [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#sphere ''V.''], saxophonist McClintic Sphere played "all the notes Bird missed" which itself was a nod to jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman whose raw, highly vocalized sound and penchant for playing "in the cracks" of the scale led many Los Angeles jazz musicians to regard his playing as out-of-tune." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornette_Coleman]

==Page 203==

'''Cooper, cont'd'''

If Cooper ''is'' meant as some kind of parallel of Pynchon, note that Cooper waits "for faces there, or a particular face, to be drawn by the music," and one is-- Sage, who exits the house wearing gray and puts her arm up Cooper's sleeve. Could this be Pynchon's loving memory of meeting his wife?

This is all far too tenous and speculative, surely?

==Page 204==

'''Linnet Dawes''' 
The linnet is ''Carpodacus mexicanus,'' most often called house finch. The species originated in the western U.S. but got spread through the east as a result of releases by bird smugglers. Also a European finch. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linnet Wikipedia]

So far we have women as a wren and as a finch.

She is named for two birds. The daw or jackdaw is an Old World bird somewhat resembling the crow in appearance and the grackle in behavior.

Jackdaw in Czech is "Kafka" --[[User:jackmw|jackmw]] 18:28, 04 April 2007 (PST)

'''reading the ''Police Gazette'' or, actually, looking at the pictures''' 
[http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1330925 The ''National Police Gazette''] (published 1848-1980s) was the biggest men's magazine in the U.S. at the turn of the century, selling some 150,000 copies. Printed on pink paper, it contained sports reporting as well as crime stories, often with drawings of rumpled female victims. Photos of burlesque performers were a regular feature by the time of the action.

==Page 205==

'''against the daylight''' 
A direct example of ''against the day'' as ''against the light''. Significantly, Frank's attempt to discern Stray's true facial expression is thwarted by the daylight behind her. An object positioned against the daylight, or, in general, between an observer and a light source, is shadowed or silhouetted -- in Pynchon's words of the same sentence, "veiled by its own penumbra". This is suggestive of the idea that light does not always illuminate.

This is also an echo of the 'dorsal finality' framing of Constance Penhallow in Hunter's portrait back in Iceland.

'''"faro boxes"''' 
Card game with anti-cheating mechanism that can be fixed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faro_(card_game) Wikipedia.] In fact, faro was a big moneymaker—for the house—because rigging the shoe or box was so common.

'''ol' Buck-the-Tiger''' 
"Bucking the tiger" is an old euphemism for playing faro. [http://www.bcvc.net/faro/history.htm bcvc.net]

==Page 206==

'''soul-to-soul''' and '''down Mexico way''' 
Possible allusions to blues-rock guitarists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, respectively. The first phrase was the title of a Vaughan album and the second is a phrase used in the song "Hey Joe," most famously recorded by Hendrix.

Pynchon must be laughing his tits off at some of this stuff. "Soul to soul" and "down Mexico way" are just expressions - that's how they found their way into songs. TRP is a bright guy and if he'd wanted for some reason to allude to Stevie Ray and Jimi at this particular point (why, for god's sake?) he'd have found a more satisfying way of doing it.

'''everything . . . proceeded down Mexico way''' 
A triple metaphor: (3) to proceed to Mexico from Colorado, you go south. (2) "Go south" evokes "Go west." (1) To go west is an expression from the World War meaning to die. 
The vast system of trenches in the war ran mainly north and south, with the Allies on the west. Going west meant getting finally withdrawn from the never-ending trench war. Soldiers would later say "go home in a bag." [http://www.worldwar1.com/heritage/wordswar.htm ''Gone west'' for "dead"] apparently predates ''gone south'' by a little. 
[http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/26/messages/584.html ''Gone south'' for "deteriorated"] is influenced by the preceding but also relies on customary map orientation: south = down. 
So ''everything proceeded down Mexico way'' means it all came undone, turned to disaster.

'''both sounders and inkers''' 
Two types of telegraph machine. Inkers turn telegraph signals into marks along long ribbons of paper, while sounders only made sounds through a speaker, requiring a human to write down the message.

'''one day it rang while Reef happened to be right next to it''' 
Someone who knew Pynchon in the 60s described their final meeting in the article, [http://theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/pynchon.html Thomas Pynchon and the South Bay]: "I was walking down the street and he was walking toward me. Our paths crossed right in front of a pay phone, our eyes met and we recognized each other. I asked how he was and at that moment the telephone rang. He looked at me and looked at the phone, then turned around and ran down the street, and I never saw him again."

At the 70s pot-commune 'The Farm' in Tennessee, their first phone system (called 'Beatnik Bell') was legendary for working this way (by ESP). [http://www.thefarm.org/lifestyle/albertbates/akbp1b.html more]

'''a turbulent bath of noise that could have been fragments of speech or music surged along the lines''' 
A possible imagistic allusion to the work of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver, specifically their 1948 book ''A Mathematical Theory of Communication''. Shannon and Weaver were engineers working for Bell Systems who posited that information traffic through telephone systems could best be described in mathematical terms normally reserved for the flow of ''turbulent fluids''. Their work, along with that of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener Norbert Wiener], founds the basis of the American branch of information theory. Wikipedia citations for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon Shannon] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Weaver Weaver], and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory information theory].

We know from the introduction to ''Slow Learner'' that Pynchon read (some--two books mentioned) Norbert Wiener while still in college.

==Page 207==

'''"Bob Meldrum"''' 
1920s outlaw. [http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35 cite]

'''Jeshimon''' 
Jeshimon is typically rendered from Hebrew as desert or wasteland. It appears in the Bible, 1 Samuel 26:1, "And the Ziphites came unto Saul to Gibeah, saying, Doth not David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before Jeshimon?"

Apparently not the name of a real town. Utahans are known to name towns with words from scripture, though. In the Mormon book of 1 Nephi, the patriarch Lehi is reported to have migrated with his family through a wilderness. D. Kelly Ogden ("Answering the Lord's Call," ''Studies in Scripture,'' vol. 7, Salt Lake, Deseret Book, 1987) notes that the remotest kind of wilderness would have been called jeshimon. In ''God and the American Writer,'' Alfred Kazin quotes the Puritan preacher Increase Mather (in "The Mystery of Israel's Salvation") as saying, "God hath led us into a wilderness, and surely it was not because the Lord hated us but because he loved us that he brought us hither into this Jeshimon." He may, however, have been referring to Massachusetts.

There seem to be differences between commentators as to whether Jeshimon refers to a specific place or not (although the broad consensus is that it doesn't, but see for instance [http://net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Jeshimon NetBible]). So Jeshimon may or may not be an actual place but is certainly not pleasant to be in, befitting the mysterious, anarchic town of death in AtD

==Page 208==
'''Mortalidad''' 
Spanish for mortality.

==Page 209==

'''"every telegraph pole had a corpse hanging from it"''' 
very reminiscent of the heads on poles in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, an important text for GR.... "worst town Reef ever rode into". And the Belgian Congo, the setting for most of Conrad's novella, is mentioned in "AtD" in terms of the cruelty and exploitation of colonialism. The image of the corpses on telegraph-poles reminds me of a similar image in Stephen King's "The Stand".

'''Towers of Silence''' 
The Towers of Silence (also dakhma or dokhma or doongerwadi) are circular raised structures used by Zoroastrians for exposure of the dead. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_of_Silence Wikipedia]

==Page 210==

'''leave it to hang there by its one foot''' 
The Governor shoots malefactors, then exposes them in this way, which calls to mind the Hanged Man in the Tarot deck.

'''Second Lutheran (Missouri Synod) Church''' 
A small town with ''two'' LCMS congregations really is covered up with churches. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is a traditionalist body with no bishops. Its heritage is strongly German, and half its members today live in the Upper Midwest.

'''more churches here than saloons''' 
A comment on the utility of organized religion in maintaining civilization.

:All those churches don't seem to have much effect on civilization... 

'''blue laws''' 
Laws created during the American colonial period to enforce strict "morality." Some of these remain to this day; for example, in Indiana, you cannot purchase alcohol on Sundays. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws Wiki]

'''accommodations''' 
Decent burial.

'''subornation''' 
The act of inducing (a person) to commit an unlawful or evil act.

Reef learns that for a price even the "laws" here can be bent.

== Page 211 ==

'''arnophilia''' 
A word invented by Pynchon. According to this [http://www.basarchive.org/sample/bswbBrowse.asp?PubID=BSBR&Volume=19&Issue=6&ArticleID=5 website] the greek word ''arnos'' generally refers to a lamb or sheep, but occasionally to a goat, too. Suffixes with the common part -phil- (-phile, -philia, -philic) are used to specify some kind of attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-phil- Wikipedia]

Given Pynchon's penchant for low humor, this is also likely to be a reference to a very old joke: Salesman blows into remote Western town, asks bartender, "What do you do for, um, amusement hereabouts?" Bartender says "We fuck sheep". Salesman after a few days finds a sheepfold and soon finds himself surrounded by (in different versions) (1) laughing locals, who say "You picked an ugly one"; (2) deputies, who arrest him saying "That's the Sheriff's girl." This joke was ancient when I heard it in the late 1950s.

Also recalls the episode with Gene Wilder as Dr Ross who falls in love with a sheep in Woody Allen's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_You_Always_Wanted_to_Know_About_Sex*_(*But_Were_Afraid_to_Ask)_(film) ''Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask)''].

'''Lourdes''' 
city in France of Blessed Virgin appearances in the late 1800s to a youth and supposed miraculous cures since. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lourdes Wikipedia entry]

'''a kind of winged God''' 
in various depictions, Satan appears as an angel/godlike-creature with huge wings. One of the most famous examples would be Milton's "Paradise Lost", especially Books 1 and 2.

Also, Satan is depicted as winged in the Rider-Waite Tarot

==Page 212==

'''The upside down star''' 
The upside down star, also known as the ''inverted pentagram,'' (with "two horns exalted"), is an emblem of the Devil.

In ''Mason and Dixon,'' the upside-down star is a symbol of two things that are connected: 1) when M&D are trying to find true north, they look at stars in their telescope to measure when they reach the peak of their arc arcoss the sky. In the telescope the star is upside down. Thus, upside down stars symbolize points which cut through distortion. 2) The star is seen again and again on rifles of both Dutch and American design. They pop up around slavery, a massacre, and an Iron refinery used for making impliments of slavery and war. The rifle is much like a telescope, but differs in that it shoots lead rather then huge sweaping cuts across the landscape. But they are both acts that are branded by evil.

'''apelike trudge''' 
If you suspect someone is the devil, you watch their gait. Cloven hooves inside his boots?

Plus, surely it can't remain unmentioned, this a spot-on piss-take of George 'Dubya' Bush, leader of the Free World (versus the 'Evildoers'), and a former execution-loving Governor.

'''Flagg''' 
In several Stephen King novels, including The Stand, Randall Flagg is an evil antichrist-like character.

Also, in The Stand, the character Flagg sometimes manifests himself as a weasel.

It is probably a stretch, but if going with the Bush interpretation, we can't help but read Rove into the Gov's "cringing weasel" of a clemency secretary.

==Page 213==

'''''Quieres un cloque''''' 
Spanish: You want a grapple.

'''dusk's reassembly of the broken day''' 
Broken by heat, reassembled as it cools. Or, dusk
bringing darkness, night--"it's always night"--after
another broken day...another 'against the day' allusion?

==Page 214==

'''stole a horse''' 
Reef probably he left in such a hurry, rapelling down "the blood-red wall", that he did not try to find his own horse or felt the Marshall might have gotten to it. Possibly, but unlikely, that TRP 'forgot' about the horse Reef came in on. 
He traveled to Mortalidad by train and must have rented a horse to get to Jeshimon.

'''the McElmo''' 
Watershed territory in Utah and Colorado.

'''an ancient people whose name no one knew''' 
No one knows what the Anasazi or ancient pueblo people called themselves. The name Anasazi is Navaho, ''anaasázi'': enemy ancestors, but most Anglos think it means something like "ancient ones."

'''shouldn't somebody ought to carry on the family business—you might say, become the Kid?''' 
The comic strip ''The Phantom'' stars something like the 22nd inheritor of his family business. The Queen of England is another parallel. 
Also Cf. The Kids in the Hall sketch about the Cincinnati Kid and the Toronto Kid. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuvPpzPiIec YouTube]

'''"Each explosion was like the text of another sermon"''' 
Cf. "That gun will replace your tongue, and your poetry will be now written with blood" - Nobody towards William Blake, from 1995 movie ''Dead Man'' by Jim Jarmusch ([http://imdb.com/title/tt0112817/ IMDb], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man Wikipedia])

'''voice of the thunder''' 
Twelfth Song of the Thunder

The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice above,
The voice of the thunder
Within the dark cloud
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.

The voice that beautifies the land!
The voice below,
The voice of the grasshopper
Among the plants
Again and again it sounds,
The voice that beautifies the land.

[From Washington Matthews, The Mountain Chant: A Navajo Ceremony, 1887]

Voice of the Thunder is also the title of a book by Laurens Van der Post
championing the life of the Australian Aborigines.

And the fifth and final section of T S Eliot's poem 'The Waste Land' is entitled "What the Thunder Said".

'''''The Chums of Chance at the Ends of the Earth''''' 
Not to be confused with ''The Chums of Chance in the Bowels of the Earth'', mentioned at the end of Part 1 ([[ATD_97-118#Page_117|page 117]]). The cover illustration suggests that the events in ''Ends of the Earth'' follow ''Bowels'' directly.

'''[the book], already dog-eared" 
A contributor has mentioned a possible connection to Pugnax, but Pugnax was a neat reader, unlike Reef.
The book was "dog-eared" when Reef got it and I think the connection is to the word and the meaning of reading dogs like Pugnax and the one in Mason & Dixon.

Or, simply, that the book was dog-eared. (One doesn't always need to create connections where they may not exist.) --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:27, 24 February 2007 (PST)

==Page 215==

[[image:bridalveilfalls.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Bridal Veil Falls (c) [http://www.stevegarufi.com/bridal-veil-falls-colorado.htm ColoradoGuy.com]]]

'''"running a game of chance without a license" 
The use of the word 'chance' here is probably no accident. Perhaps this implies that only the Chums of Chance can run a game of chance? Only the author of the Chums books has "[poetic] license? Cf. 'Great Game'and chance.

Or it is simply a game of chance (ie, gambling).

:It seems to be simply tapping on the irony that Reef's being busted for running an unlicensed game of chance is what leads him to discovering a book about the Chums of Chance. Does he just discover the book on the floor of the cell? Ha. [[User:Greenlantern|Greenlantern]] 17:21, 28 February 2007 (PST)

'''North Cape and Franz Josef Land''' 
North Cape, Norway, is one of the northernmost points of Europe. Franz Josef Land is an archipelago in the Arctic Circle that was discovered in 1873 by Austrian polar explorers and named in honour of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. Today it belongs to Russia.

'''While reading, "he enjoyed a sort of dual existence"''' 
Spar and splitting theme? Pynchon on fiction and readers of? The magic of reading fiction and how it can transport you to other worlds?

Much like the boy Bastian in mid-80's children's fantasy film ''The Neverending Story'' [http://imdb.com/title/tt0088323/ IMdb entry]

'''he thought he saw something familiar''' 
Sensitized by the (cleverly planted?) book, he sees ''Inconvenience'' conducting surveillance.

'''Sleeping Ute''' 
Ute or Sleeping Ute Mountain is near Cortez.

'''Bridal Veil Falls''' 
Waterfall near Telluride, Colorado. At 431 feet, Bridal Veil Falls is Colorado's tallest. The historic structure between the two falls is the former Smuggler-Union hydroelectric plant, which provided Telluride's electricity from 1904 until 1954. [http://www.jeffblaylock.com/window/2004/06/bridal_veil_fal/index.php source]

==Page 216==

'''"Just greasy ashes by the trailside."''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke."

'''disrespect''' 
Corruption setting in?

'''Joe Hill''' 
1879-1915, immigrant from Sweden, labor organizer and Wobbly ideologue, executed (after being framed) in Utah. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill See the Wikipedia article.]

 Note that this is probably an anachronism. Franklin Rosemont's book on Joe Hill quotes a friend of Hill's, Alexander MacKay, stating he was "pretty damn positive" Joe Hill joined the IWW in 1910. [p. 46 of "Joe Hill - The IWW and the Making of a Revolutionary Working Class Counterculture".] The IWW wasn't even formed until 1905.

==Page 217==

'''in country you don't know how to get back in from''' 
A recurring idea, that you can go somewhere and not be able to get back.

'''Confederate Colt''' 
Webb's Uncle Fletcher's revolver; [[ATD_81-96#Page_88|see annotations to page 88,]] where it is first mentioned.

==Page 218==

'''God . . . laying on tells''' 
"Tell" is poker slang for any signal a player gives that other players can exploit.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 171-198

2009-03-28T00:53:38Z

Bobutler: /* Page 198 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 171==

[[image:kenosha-kid.jpg|thumb|125px|"The Kenosha Kid" by Forbes Parkhill (Aug 1931) 
[http://themodernword.com/pynchon/Pynchon_kenosha_kid.html Full text and images at The Modern Word]|right]]'''Kieselguhr Kid''' 
Dynamite, a blasting explosive, was invented in 1867 by Alfred P. Nobel by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr.

The name also recalls the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=K#kenoshakid Kenosha Kid sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow''], which may have taken its name from a 1931 pulp fiction story by Forbes Parkhill, a two-fisted wild west adventure.

'''...detective agencies like Pinkerton‘s and Thiel‘s''' 
see Wikipedia Entries [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_Detective_Agency 1],[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Detective_Service_Company 2]

'''they could look at the unsolved cases the way a banker might at instruments of debt''' 
And bankers call those instruments ''negotiable paper.''

'''reaction of 1849''' 
Acts of European governments to suppress the widespread liberal revolutions of 1848. The reaction impelled many people to emigrate to the U.S.

'''Sangre de Cristos''' 
southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_De_Cristo_Mountains Wikipedia Entry]

Spanish: Blood of Christ

Robert Oppenheimer had a ranch in the Sangre de Cristos and loved to ride horseback through the area since he was 18. When the Manhattan Project sought a location to set up shop, Oppenheimer saw Los Alamos as a way to combine his two great loves (physics and NM) with the military's need of a secure and isolated place for the bomb's development.

==Page 172==

'''The Kid's family had supposedly come . . . whenever the Kid's in the county''' 
''The Legend of the Kieselguhr Kid,'' with parallels to the Legends of Zorro, the Lone Ranger and many others.

'''Couple dozen, in big bandoliers across his chest''' 
Similar to the way suicide bombers in the Middle East wear their munitions?

'''Uncompahgre''' 
The Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado.

'''Butch Cassidy''' 
infamous outlaw [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Wikipedia Entry]

'''Dr. Lombroso''' 
Born in Verona, Italy, Dr. Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), using concepts drawn from Physiognomy, early Eugenics, Psychiatry and Social Darwinism, devised the theory that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso Wikipedia entry]

'''Lodazal''' 
spanish for bog, quagmire 
Burke Ponghill has some "swampland" for sale, it's in Colorado, wanna buy some? Comes with a bridge he'd be happy to sell you too. Calls to mind the Florida land speculation boom/bust of the 1920s in general and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isola_di_Lolando Isola di Lolando] in particular. Built to look like a Venetian island, it still sits abandonded in Biscayne Bay.

==Page 173==

'''"evil-doers"''' 
This immediately brings to mind the post 9/11 George W. Bush use of the term, once again relating the time of AtD, with its "unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places" with current day America - unless, of course, "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred." [[User:Thew|Thew]] 18:49, 30 May 2007 (PDT)

'''"got us a man of principle"''' 
Eerily reminiscent of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, the convicted American murderer known for his campaign of mail bombings, many of which were addressed to specific victims, intended by Kaczynski to draw attention to what he percieved as the ills of technology on modern society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Wikipedia entry].

There a several tenuous threads of connection between Pynchon and the Unabomber. Pynchon has written works exploring the dangers of modern technology and, more specifically, ludditism. [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html] [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/paper_gibbs.html] As a young man, Pynchon co-wrote such a play, ''Minstral Island'', with his Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale, who later would become one of the world's most prominent and outspoken luddites. Sale later said, "The Unabomber and I share a great many views about the pernicious effect of the Industrial Revolution, the evils of modern technologies, the stifling effect of mass society, the vast extent of suffering in a machine-dominated world and the inevitability of social and environmental catastrophe if the industrial system goes unchecked," although naturally Sale condemned the Unabomber's method. When the Unabomber's identity was still unknown, Pynchon was suggested (with who knows what degree of seriousness, and by whom) as a possible suspect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#1990s_and_2000s]

'''"jizzmatic juices backin' up, putting pressure on the brain" 
'Jizzmatic juices' seems to be a Pynchon-created slang phrase for semen, adapted from the dictionary-found slang word for semen, "jism". Pynchon has "a lady acquaintence" of Mr. Ponghill as responsible for the "naive theory" [Lew Basnight], commonly-enough held, that lack of sex "lack of exposure to the fair sex", previous paragraph can affect the brain and therefore one's judgment.
:In the 19th century, this was actually a "scientific" theory. The idea was that the human body was a closed system w/ a certain amount of energy. For women, intellectual activity was presumed to send blood to the head, meaning that it would not be available for reproduction. For men, lack of sexual activity was presumed to lead to a clogged up system dangerous to health. Among other things this point was used to justify men's visits to prostitutes. See for instance this book excerpt via Google Books[http://books.google.com/books?id=6eOlhNkjXaAC&pg=PA215&dq=men+medicine+health+19th+century&sig=E76pPUJ8M9VnXZ5E2afIfcr3o_M]

:Yes yes. this "lack of exposure to the fair sex" can cause [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|Beaver on the Brain]]

:Actually you can find the term "jizz" at the [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jizz Urban Dictionary] - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:49 GMT+2, 26 January 2007

'''"Don't mean he ain't got a right to his privacy."''' 
Continues the Unabomber/Pynchon connection. Pynchon follows the description of a dynamite bomber with the right to privacy, something that Pynchon has guarded closely for his entire life. For more on Pynchon and privacy, see [[ATD_26-56#Page_37|page 37]].

==Page 174==

'''back to the campfires of his youth, only then it was God didn't have a name''' 
"What is God's name?" or "What is God's first name?" was a topic that reliably led adolescent boys to yatter pointlessly on for hours when their adult leaders wanted to be left alone in camp.

'''"your own brother"''' 
The Unabomber was turned in by his brother. ("Kaczynski" means 'ducky' or 'duckman'. Did TRP hide this somewhere?)

==Page 175==

'''every cabin . . . concealed stories that were anything but peaceful''' 
Compare Sherlock Holmes in "The Copper Beeches": "It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

'''"Only slowly would it occur to his ultra-keen detective's reasoning that these bombs could have been set by anybody, including those who would clearly benefit if "Anarchists", however loosely defined, could be blamed for it."''' 
Is this an(other) allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? Cf. a similar reference in [[ATD_81-96#Page_85|page 85]] and the discussion therein.

Pynchon seems to be a smart enough guy to not believe such ridiculous theories. It's all too easy to read into these true historical events (the short-lived period of anarchist bombings of the late 19th and early 20 centuries) similitudes with more recent events, but the context in AtD is clear enough that this sort of speculation seems to be nothing more than speculation. Of course, that's the fodder for conspiracy theorists...--[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 04:40, 21 February 2007 (PST)

I see a broader parallel between government manipulation of 19th century fear of "anarchists" and 20th century fears of "terrorists." As in the 2006 film "Children of Men," where the government is responsible for the "terrorist" bombings. --[[User:Cal|Cal]] 11:48, 14 June 2007 (PST)

The idea of controlled demolitions undertaken on the gov.'s behalf isn't a new one, and those who think the idea is too outlandish for the period have failed to "Remember the Maine!" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_%28ACR-1%29]

Anyways, whether Pynchon believes the WTC "conspiracy theories" or not, it seems obvious that he is encouraging the reader to make the connection. If anyone knows that it's "all too easy to read into these true historical [or fictional] events... similitudes with more recent events" it's TRP. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]
:I disagree that TRP is "encouraging" us to make such a connex, and anyway, the Maine was either an accident or destroyed by a [Spanish] mine, so it isn't parallel. The yellow press went to work, even though the US gov't at that point was not sure it wanted war with Cuba. -- Owl of Minerva

It seems to me that when Ruggles writes statements like the quote above, or makes a reference to someone removing the rubble of a building to an out of country location, or a little later on when he has the Chums suspect their Subdesertine scherzo is really only a front for oil exploration, he does so with the full knowledge that his vigilantly paranoid (and generally anti-establishment) readers might suspect he is referring to present day events. This is the same man who wrote Proverbs for Paranoids after all. I guess it comes down to whether or not you think Pynchon had his tongue planted firmly in cheek when he wrote on Amazon that "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred". You see where I stand. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]] 

:Sorry, Pomopaul, my comment sounded rather snooty. I did NOT mean that trp wants no connex made, but rather that he is connecting past and present power politics based on disasters, especially human-caused disasters, rather than encouraging us to believe that our own gov't caused 9/11. In AtD, I see materialist power politics with not-thought-out and unintended consequences. The Austrian Emperor, for instance, is not trying to provoke war with Serbia in order to bring about the extinction of that Empire, but that is the unintended result. But you have given me pause, for you are certainly correct about Proverbs for Paranoids.... -- Owl

:A wrong premise seems to underlie some discussion in the wiki: the notion of a passage '''''referring to''''' something outside the book. The writing stands on its own feet; if it didn't, we all would have quit reading. But you don't go to the Velázquez show to learn what the Spanish princesses looked like. The artist proposes new terms that you can use to understand your world. A lot of us think we can use Pynchon's terms this way: magic, straight lines, Panic fear, born of light, the sacrifice of innocence. If that's so, then the best end of the wiki is to help users parse the terms. It misses the point to discuss what Pynchon ''thinks'' or ''intends'' or to make this book be about the 21st century.

:Well, maybe we need to continue this discussion on a Talk page. "Referring" to something outside the book has different meanings,of course, and certain literalnesses of referring many of us might find....narrow......or plain wrong but I would argue that TRP would agree with Melville on the NECESSITY of works to 'tie in' to the real world. [citation needed]. I think one of the best things about the wiki is that is allows that to be shown--and shown deeply and thematically---against the blindness of some readers and even 'critics' and reviewers who say Pynchon's works are so 'postmodern' they are only about themselves. I think the above poster might not differ with this assessment, but I wanted to stress it. [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 08:40, 22 June 2007 (PDT)

==Page 176==

'''revealing the Plutonic powers as they daily sent their legions of gnomes underground''' 
Here we may have a key to understanding the war in the Earth's Interior—in which Chthonica, Princess of Plutonia, saw her castle besieged by the Legion of Gnomes—when the Chums of Chance seem to have joined the Plutonic cause; [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|see text and annotations, p. 117.]]

'''"the Powers, who always had more dwarves waiting, even eagerly, to be sent below."''' 
A Tolkien-inspired imagery? Dwarfs figure prominently into Norse mythology and fantasy works before Tolkien, but Tolkien supposedly began the use of the spelling, "dwarves," employed here. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf Wikipedia entry on Dwarf] 
:I would hope it's an allusion to Wagner's Ring rather than to Tolkien. On pp. 127-28, Iceland Spar, there is discussion of the far north and Nordic travels there. Beyond the Ginnungagap lay Niflheim or in German Niebelheim, meaning Foggy Home, and in Wagner it lay under the earth, with bent-over workers, perhaps dwarves, forced to mine gold and other minerals. This makes the comment above, about the earth's interior and Chthonica, fit even better.

'''Tortoni's on Arapahoe''' 
Italian restaurant located in the 1500 block of Arapahoe Street in downtown Denver. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~codenver/miracle/104.htm Photo]

'''Gahan's saloon across the street from City Hall''' 
Saloon operated by William Gahan, a Denver City Councilman, and his brothers conveniently located at 1401 Larimer Street in Denver, across the street from City Hall. Gahan operated two other saloons, including one at 1133 Larimer Street, which he supposedly kept open on Sundays, harbored gambling, and sponsored a boys' baseball team that played for beer.

'''Ed Chase, the boss of the red-light district''' 
Edward "Big Ed" Chase (1838-1921) was a New Yorker from Saratoga Springs who became the leader of criminal activities in Denver from 1860 on, and as such was an influential and respected man. He ran saloons, gambling houses, bordellos, and theaters (specializing in "burlesque"), and served on the Denver City Council from 1866-1869. After that, he was a behind-the-scenes ward boss and power broker for the Republican party, which dominated Denver politics at the time. Nearly every 19th century election in Denver was clouded by charges that Chase had organized an army of voters out of riffraff, vagrants, prostitutes, barflies and gamblers. By the time of his death in 1921, Chase had come to be regarded as a respected real estate investor and capitalist. For more info, consult ''The City & The Saloon: Denver 1858-1918'' by Thomas J. Noel.

'''"another little Haymarket"''' 
On May 4th 1886 a workers' protest meeting was held at the West Randolph Street Haymarket in Chicago. A bomb was thrown at the police, the police opened fire and many officers and protesters were killed ([http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html chicagohistory.org])

==Page 177==

'''The Row''' 
Denver‘s red light district developed along McGaa Street (subsequently renamed Holladay and then Market Street) [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200010/ai_n8908963 1] [http://www.womenof.com/Articles/d011899.asp 2]

==Page 178==

'''W.F.M.''' 
Western Federation of Miners [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia Entry]

'''Tansy Wagwheel''' 
Other ''AtD'' women named for herbs and ornamentals include Stray's friend [[ATD_199-218#Page_203|Sage in Nochecita,]] [[ATD_243-272#Page_263|Lake's colleague Oleander Prudge,]] [[ATD_149-170#Page_160|Cousin Dittany Vibe,]] [[ATD_336-357#Page_345|Verbena at Smokefoot's,]] and of course [[ATD_26-56#Page_28|Dahlia Rideout.]]

'''Dynamite Them All, and Let Jesus Sort Them Out''' 
Ms. Wagwheel's words echo Arnaud Amaury's (the Papal legate) comment after the Albigensian Crusade: "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius " ("Kill them all, God will know his own").
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade#cite_note-21 Wikipedia Note]

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
The Klan itself was not in its heyday at the time this episode took place, and not only is it unlikely that the Klan would have shown itself at the time, but also that it would have been this far west. The "modern" Klan was only reformed in 1915. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Wikipedia]. IN the 1920s, Colorado would become a stronghold of the "modern" Klan.

'''heeled''' 
Carrying a sidearm. (The word also means "having money," but here the first meaning is pretty clear.)

==Page 179==

'''Buck Wells''' 
An elite American who was on the board of the Telluride Mining Association, head of a mining company and was aggressively anti-union even to the point of false murder charges. Bulkeley Wells http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulkeley_Wells

'''Clovis Yutts''' 
"Yutz" is a slang word (from Yiddish) for a clueless goof.

'''different tempos and keys''' 
Cf 'anarchist miracle' in "Lot 49" (chapter 5).

In the early 1970s San Francisco was the site of the Black Flag Concerts, where anybody was allowed to make any music. People who attended said it was disorienting to wander through the crowd listening to folk singers, kazoo bands and Celtic harpists all belting away. (The Black Flag is a traditional emblem of anarchism.)

Also perhaps a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives Charles Ives], who wrote much music containing combatting sections in different keys, tempi and melody. The quintessential image of Ives' music is that of four marching bands playing different tunes arriving at the same village square. Ives attended Yale, though graduated in 1898, two years prior to the scene beginning on page 156.

Or perhaps just an image of musical anarchy to match the political Anarchism.

==Page 180==

'''Valley Tan''' 
Mormon whiskey reported by Mark Twain. [http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/091795.html cite]

As Twain himself suggests, Valley Tan was not so much a whiskey as a “first cousin to it.” It was a brand of patent medicines that were produced in Salt Lake City at the Valley Tan Remedies (V.T.R.) Laboratory beginning in 1884. A brief profile of the company can be found at this [http://www.fohbc.com/PDF_Files/ValleyTanRemedies_Sanders.pdf website.]

==Page 181==

'''it'll be run Anarchist run for you, Brother Basnight''' 
Echoes Chick on p. 8: "legal ain't got nothing to do with it—it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door."

==Page 182==

'''faded into the mobility''' 
"Mobility" also appears in ''Mason & Dixon.'' The word was later shortened to "mob."

'''"kept wasting Agency money rattling off one telegram after another."''' 
Cf. the following excerpt from a letter by novelist Raymond Chandler to Jamie Hamilton, 21 March 1949:
:"I remember several years ago when Howard Hawks was making ''The Big Sleep'', the movie, he and Bogart got into an argument as to whether one of the characters was murdered or commited suicide. They sent me a wire (there's a joke about this too) asking me, and dammit I didn't know either. Of course I got hooted at. The joke was in connection with Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros. Believe it or not, he saw the wire, the wire cost the studio 70 cents, and he called Hawks up and asked him whether it was really necessary to send a telegram about a point like that. That's one way to run a business." (''The Raymond Chandler Papers'', ed. by Tom Hiney and Frank McShane, Penguin 2001, p. 105)

'''P.E.T.N.''' 
The explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Ingredient of Semtex, discovered 1891. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN Wikipedia]

'''Dr. Oyswharf''' 
There is, in Norfolk, Virginia, a district (?) called "Oyster Wharf"; there is, in London, a development called "Oyster Wharf" not sure if it's significant or points anywhere, but it appears that this fellow's name is a contraction of those two words. More generically, an "oyster wharf" is any wharf where the oystermen come in and offload their catch. Back in the day, they would give oysters away for free. Oyster shells are a natural source of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3).

Bear in mind that the Chums' Upper Hierarchy communicated orders to the Chums via a pearl. Miles Blundell "well before sunup, had visited the shellfish market in the teeming narrow lanes of the old town in Surabaya, East Java" and procured a bucket of "Special Japanese Oysters" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 113|p. 113]]). The pearl was inserted into a device which rendered a "photographic image." This connects with the red crystal used in Merle's and Roswell's device ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page 1037|p. 1037]]).

Also bear in mind the sexual implications of the oyster, both its use as slang for the vagina (because its shape is evocative of the vagina, and some say its smell, as well) as well as its reputation as a aphrodisiac. This plays into [[The_Sexual_Angle|the sexual pattern]] that runs through ''Against the Day''. A few tidbits:

:Oysters were documented as a aphrodisiac food by the Romans in the second century A.D as mentioned in a satire by Juvenal. He described the wanton ways of women after ingesting wine and eating "giant oysters". An additional hypotheses is that the oyster resembles the "female" genitals. In reality oysters are a very nutritious and high in protein. [http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/aphrodis_foods.htm]

:Oysters have always been linked with love. When Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros, the word "aphrodisiac" was born. The dashing lover Casanova also used to start a meal eating 12 dozen oysters. [http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0298/oysters.html]

Interesting that the oyster plays to the sexual connection, ''and'' the "artful sons of Nippon" using paramorphism to change aragonite, the "nacreous" (an adjective frequently used to describe semen) part of the pearl "to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 114|p. 114]]).

Also: "Oysvarf" in Yiddish means, literally, vomitus; An "oysvarf" translates roughly as "a little puke".
:Actually, my checking indicates that it's ''oysvurf'', not ''oysvarf'', which is Yiddish for an outcast or bad person.

Also might be a reference to Owsley Stanley,"'underground' LSD chemist, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD" and "the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters". wiki:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley]

'''mixtures of nitro compounds and polymethylenes''' 
Nitro compounds include TNT, nitroglycerine and many other explosives. Polymethylenes are probably polymethylene waxes used as stabilizers or desensitizers.

'''experiencing the hotel dining room in a range of colors, not to mention cultural references, which had not been there when he came in''' 
Kinda like the way many of us are seeing ''AtD'' after prolonged exposure to the wiki. . . .

'''"The wallpaper in particular presented not a repeating pattern at all"''' 
Cf. Lucius Sheppard's 1985 short story ''The Fundamental Things'', where a lady starts translating her wallpaper pattern to Hebrew.

The connection between explosives and psychedelics is apparently not based in chemistry but it has appeared elsewhere in popular culture. The 1967 James Bond spoof ''Casino Royale'' has a scene where pillowcases are inflated with a psychedelic gas, a fuse is attached, and a powerful explosion is the result.

==Page 183==

[[image:beaver-on-the-brain.jpg|thumb|Beaver on the Brain T-Shirt|right]]'''Yes we're Beavers of the Brain... 
This little hallucinated ditty, sung by "a race of very small but perfectly visible inhabitants" of Lew Basnight's steak, is reminiscent of "We Represent the Lollipop Guild" sung by three tough-looking Munchkin boys in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 ''The Wizard of Oz''] (1939). "Beavers of the Brain" also brings to mind the phrase "Beaver on the brain" (describing a horny male or, perhaps, lesbian) which even adorns t-shirts (see right).

Cf. "Pussy on the brain" - [[ATD_243-272#Page 260|p.260]]

See also, [[The Sexual Angle]].

'''Keep that Bulldog in your pocket...''' 
A "Bulldog" is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon. It also carries a somewhat sexual connotation.

'''Cyclomite''' 
A spelling error may lead to the idea that cyclomite is a name for the explosive RDX; that's cyclo'''n'''ite.

:I don't think this is a spelling error. Connects with dynomite. No way.

:Didn't make myself clear. If cyclomite is a Pynchon coinage, a Google search should give only Pynchon-linked hits. But I got a hit on an explosive—causing me to be short of breath till I realized it was just a misspelling for the correct term '''(in that context)''' "cyclonite," or RDX.

'''plasticerator''' 
Plasti-, moldable (in this case chewable); cera- related to Latin ''cera'' = wax, ''cerumen'' = earwax; -ator, an agent to modify a product. The word "plasticerator" does not seem to have caught on. It would not be a failed synonym for "plasticizer," an agent to make rigid plastics pliable.

==Page 184==

'''Kankakee''' 
city in Illinois.

'''Wall of Death''' 
Without risk of spoilage, [[ATD_460-488#Page_476|see annotation to p. 476.]]

'''things would happen gradually enough to afford time to do something about it''' 
A central idea in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which features a rocket that breaks the sound barrier and thus the ability to kill you before you hear it coming.

'''the world turned all inside out''' 
This passage describes acid flashbacks.
:It's certainly written so as to suggest acid flashbacks but it's describing Lew's experience of being blown up

'''the carnival theory''' 
On page 90 Kit Traverse had "seen a dynamited carny jump up out of the blast good as new."

==Page 185==

'''Trilby hat''' 
Derived from George du Maurier's 1894 novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby Trilby]. The novel was adapted into a long-running play starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali. A hat of this style was worn on stage during the play's first London production.

'''excursion''' 
Wilde's US lecture tour was in 1882.

==Page 186==

'''Anasazi''' 
Ancient Pueblo Peoples, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi "Anasazi"]

'''"Like a Red Indian Stonehenge!" - "Only different!"''' 
Cf. " 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.' " (''Vineland'', p. 170). See also [[ATD_119-148#Page_133| page 133]].

[[image:hangedman.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Hanged Man by Colman-Smith]]
'''''grifa''''' 
Marijuana. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grifa cite]

'''Miss Colman-Smith is West Indian [tarot cards]''' 
Pamela Colman Smith (1878—1951) was an artist, illustrator, and writer. She is best known for designing the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite. Smith was born in England, the daughter of an American merchant from Brooklyn, Charles Edward Smith and his Jamaican wife Corinne Colman. Due to her father’s job with the West India Improvement Company, the family often moved, spending time in London, Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith Wikipedia entry]

Pynchon's interest in the tarot is evident in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Two tarot cards are referred to here -- the Hanged Man ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite image]) and the Knight of Swords ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_arcana#Swords image]). The reference is an anachronism, as the deck wasn't published until 1909.

The two tarot cards could be seen to have opposite interpretations. In readings [http://www.learntarot.com/skn.htm the Knight of Swords] is indicative of direct action, whereas [http://www.learntarot.com/maj12.htm the Hanged Man] is indicative of letting go and waiting for results.

'''''espadas . . . copas''''' 
Spanish: Swords, Cups. The Tarot suits corresponding to spades and clubs.

'''Querent''' 
Latin: one who asks. The subject of a Tarot reading (in some settings, the mark).

'''Perseid''' 
"The shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8 and 14 with a peak on August 12. During the peak, rates of a hundred or more meteors per hour can be registered." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid Wikipedia]
This paragraph again suggests [[ATD_81-96#Page_83|p. 83]], Indian, and even Indian ghosts' amusement with the Whites. 

==Page 187==

'''hell of a blow-up . . . . maiden's sigh''' 
Possible allusion to the testing of Trinity Bomb, the first explosion of an atomic weapon, which took place at White Sands, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test Wikipedia].

See the text on the "anti-Stone," pp. 78-79, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|and annotations.]]

'''A second Moon''' 
[[ATD_119-148#Page_144|On page 144,]] ''Inconvenience'' is described as a "misplaced moon."

'''Galveston''' 
In the summer of 1900 Galveston was a major seaport; many of its cotton warehouses still stand. In the 19th century it was a port of entry for immigrants from Germany, Bohemia, the Balkans and elsewhere. The 1900 hurricane was the making of Houston, a few dozen miles up slow-flowing Buffalo Bayou—which was turned into the Ship Channel within a few years.

==Page 188==

'''Galveston Hurricane''' 
An historical event (8th September 1900, 6000 dead).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900 [Wikipedia]]

'''wherever could you have been living, before that frightful bomb brought you to us?''' 
Perhaps an allusion to and rhetorical parallel of the "wake-up bomb" of the 9/11 attacks, and the relative increase of attention paid by the American media and public to such post-9/11 disasters as the slaughter of citizens in the Afghan and Iraq offensives, the destruction wrought by the South Asian tsunami, the displacement of the "hidden" poor of the Gulf States by Hurricane Katrina, the carnage of the earthquake in Iran, the rampant and still-raging genocides of Sudan, and so on.
:It has to work in ''AtD'' before it can be an allusion to something else! Here Neville seems to say Lew was ''not'' with him and Nigel until the explosion delivered "the New Lew" into "the world reconstituted" (p. 185), not that the N's simply found him in his torpor. "It didn't seem like Colorado anymore" (also p. 185). The explosion did more than knock Lew out; now he's living somewhere else. The reader is well-advised to trust Pynchon and let the text mean what it means before interpreting other histories into it.

:By my reading, this is the second time Lew has been displaced into another, parallel, world. The first time (in Ch. 1) occurred when he left innocence to find himself having committed some unmentionable crime, of which he has no recollection (bec/ he committed no crime in his original world).

'''neuræsthenic''' 
This is the second appearance of the word (the first was on page 83). Neurasthenia was a kind of catch-all at the time for what today would be called depression, fatigue, anxiety, etc.

==Page 189==

'''squarehead compadres''' 
Scandinavians, especially Swedes, are sometimes referred to as ''squareheads''. In HBO's ''Deadwood'', for example, the orphaned girl Sophia (whose Scandinavian family migrated from Minnesota) is the ''squarehead girl''.

'''Fireman Jim Flynn''' 
The nickname undoubtedly comes from railroading, not firefighting.

==Page 190==

'''blue northers''' 
In the West, the Plains and down to Texas, a blue norther is a fast-moving weather front with lightning, rain and wind, followed by a rapid drop in temperature.

==Page 191==
'''ineradicable''' 
Incapable of being eradicated or rooted out. <ref>(The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989)</ref>

==Page 192==

'''nearly twenty''' 
1883 + 19yo = 1902?

'''stamps beating''' 
Breaking ore into small pieces in preparation for refining.

==Page 193==

'''Uncompahgre''' 
A Plateau in Western Colorado, named after the Uncompahgre Ute Indian Tribe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncompahgre_%28disambiguation%29 [Wikipedia]]

'''Deuce Kindred''' 
A seaman deuce is an apprentice seaman. See V. 
Deuce=Two=Also?...Deuce=Two=Doubling? 
Philip K. Dick's full name is Philip Kindred Dick.

'''Deuce had been one of those Sickly Youths . . . Strenuosity''' 
[[ATD_149-170#Page_159|Theodore Roosevelt]] was the model for feeble boys growing into bold men. His "Strenuous Life" doctrine was uncomfortably close to the adult Deuce's ways.

'''absorbed . . . re-emission . . . fluorescence of vindictiveness''' 
In a fluorescent tube, invisible ultraviolet radiation from the electrical discharge is absorbed by "phosphors" on the inside of the glass. The UV excites the phosphor atoms, which then—instead of giving off ultraviolet of their own—re-emit the energy at a different wavelength, one that is visible.

'''workin fathoms''' 
Mining under a contract that paid by the volume of rock extracted. See [[ATD_296-317#Page_302|annotations to p. 302]] (but to avoid spoilers, don't look up or down).

'''not since the aught-one strike''' 
So 1901 is in the past.

'''three-dollar sack suit''' 
That is, a suit one might buy at a store where one fills a sack with clothes and then pays three dollars for the lot.
A sack suit is an ordinary 19th-c. business suit which "evolved into the modern three piece suit."
[http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/sack.html source]

==Page 194==

'''the fish at that table''' 
The player whose money the others mean to take.

'''Dallas Divide''' 
Mountain Pass dividing the Uncompahgre Plateau from the San Juan Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Divide [Wikipedia]]

==Page 195==

'''Sloat Fresno''' 
Possibly named for Commodore John D. Sloat ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Sloat Wikipedia entry]), American naval officer who claimed California, then a territory of Mexico, as part of the United States on July 7, 1846. The text of the declaration can be found [http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/documents/sloat.htm here]. Another source may be the Sloat Lumber Co. of Quincy, CA, which used an uncommon 30 gauge track, about which all I can find is [http://members.tripod.com/~Sloat_Lumber_Co/PROTOTYP.HTM here]. Fresno is presumably a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno%2C_CA city in California], though its direct relation to either the Commodore or the Sloat Lumber Co. is unclear.

''Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,'' by Cormac McCarthy, has a character named Sloat, but he's so minor that the only dialog he gets is when he denies being related to the commodore.

Sloat is another term for slat, a narrow piece of wood. Fresno is Spanish for ash.

In terms of sound and connotation, Sloat sounds like "stoat" (a weasel) combined with "sl" -- slippery, slimey, sluggish. All of which fits him.

'''copping the borax''' 
? Seemingly a term invented by Pynchon. No idea what it means, but borax is a mineral used in detergent, pottery, a lots of other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax Wikipedia on Borax]

"Borax" is a slang word for cheap, poorly made products. Makers of borax for use in cleansing used to give away junky items as premiums. If you look at it the other way around, "borax" could mean a premium, hence an enlistment bonus. "Copping" of course is getting something by underhand means.

'''from Fort Bliss to the Coeur d'Alenes''' 
From Dan to Beersheba, so to speak. Fort Bliss is near El Paso, Texas. The Coeur d'Alène Mountains are in the panhandle of Idaho and the western end of Montana.

'''Montrose''' 
Montrose, CO. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado [Wikipedia]]

'''li'l buddy''' 
Brings to mind Gilligan and the Skipper from ''Gilligan's Island'': Sloat, like the Skipper, is twice his buddy's size; in both pairs, it is uncertain just who is whose sidekick; and the Skipper referred to Gilligan by, "li'l buddy."

==Page 196==

'''red liquor''' 
Colored liquor, such as bourbon or whiskey.

==Page 197==

'''Sloat tending to bodies, Deuce... the spirit''' 
Again, the body/soul dichotomy. See [[ATD_97-118#Page_101|page 101]] and [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]] letter by Pynchon.
:This describes a complementarity as well as a dichotomy, and leads us back to the theme of doubling and Doppelgänger.

[[image:couplingpin.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Coupling pin]]'''coupling pin''' See photo.

==Page 198==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Repeats the title of Part One. May also suggest Tesla's 03 July 1899 'vision' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_97|page 97]]). May also be tied to the light/dark theme running through parts of the book thus far: light over the (dark) ranges. Note the concurrence of the leitmotives light-time-water in the sentence "He watched the light over the ranges slowly draining away". The image of "draining light" might also hint at the wave-particle duality.

'''Jeshimon''' 
Literally: "the waste", more specifically the wilderness of Judah in the Bible, near the Dead Sea. [http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/jeshimon.html christiananswers.net]. Fuller annotation at [[ATD_199-218#Page_209|page 209.]]

'''"Sir, please relocate your hand or I shall be obliged to do so myself"''' 
A fine flowery way of saying, "Move it or lose it, Sport."

'''Cortez''' 
In far southwestern Colorado near the Utah state line.

'''decolletage''' 
The low-cut neck of a bodice. <ref>(Def.1. The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989)</ref>

'''shadow had taken the immeasurable plain''' 
Contrasts "the light over the ranges". Possibly an allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah, the "cities of the plain" in Genesis 19, in which the angels advise Lot and his family: "do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the Plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away" (19:17). ''The cities of the plain'', is also the title of i) the translated fourth volume of Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'' (original title ''Sodome et Gomorrhe'') and ii) Cormac McCarthy's third novel of ''The Border Trilogy''.

This is the third possible reference to Proust so far. See also [[ATD_149-170#Page_165|page 165]], and [[#Page_188|page 188]].

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 171-198

2009-03-28T00:51:20Z

Bobutler: /* Page 191 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 171==

[[image:kenosha-kid.jpg|thumb|125px|"The Kenosha Kid" by Forbes Parkhill (Aug 1931) 
[http://themodernword.com/pynchon/Pynchon_kenosha_kid.html Full text and images at The Modern Word]|right]]'''Kieselguhr Kid''' 
Dynamite, a blasting explosive, was invented in 1867 by Alfred P. Nobel by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr.

The name also recalls the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=K#kenoshakid Kenosha Kid sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow''], which may have taken its name from a 1931 pulp fiction story by Forbes Parkhill, a two-fisted wild west adventure.

'''...detective agencies like Pinkerton‘s and Thiel‘s''' 
see Wikipedia Entries [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_Detective_Agency 1],[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Detective_Service_Company 2]

'''they could look at the unsolved cases the way a banker might at instruments of debt''' 
And bankers call those instruments ''negotiable paper.''

'''reaction of 1849''' 
Acts of European governments to suppress the widespread liberal revolutions of 1848. The reaction impelled many people to emigrate to the U.S.

'''Sangre de Cristos''' 
southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_De_Cristo_Mountains Wikipedia Entry]

Spanish: Blood of Christ

Robert Oppenheimer had a ranch in the Sangre de Cristos and loved to ride horseback through the area since he was 18. When the Manhattan Project sought a location to set up shop, Oppenheimer saw Los Alamos as a way to combine his two great loves (physics and NM) with the military's need of a secure and isolated place for the bomb's development.

==Page 172==

'''The Kid's family had supposedly come . . . whenever the Kid's in the county''' 
''The Legend of the Kieselguhr Kid,'' with parallels to the Legends of Zorro, the Lone Ranger and many others.

'''Couple dozen, in big bandoliers across his chest''' 
Similar to the way suicide bombers in the Middle East wear their munitions?

'''Uncompahgre''' 
The Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado.

'''Butch Cassidy''' 
infamous outlaw [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Wikipedia Entry]

'''Dr. Lombroso''' 
Born in Verona, Italy, Dr. Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), using concepts drawn from Physiognomy, early Eugenics, Psychiatry and Social Darwinism, devised the theory that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso Wikipedia entry]

'''Lodazal''' 
spanish for bog, quagmire 
Burke Ponghill has some "swampland" for sale, it's in Colorado, wanna buy some? Comes with a bridge he'd be happy to sell you too. Calls to mind the Florida land speculation boom/bust of the 1920s in general and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isola_di_Lolando Isola di Lolando] in particular. Built to look like a Venetian island, it still sits abandonded in Biscayne Bay.

==Page 173==

'''"evil-doers"''' 
This immediately brings to mind the post 9/11 George W. Bush use of the term, once again relating the time of AtD, with its "unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places" with current day America - unless, of course, "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred." [[User:Thew|Thew]] 18:49, 30 May 2007 (PDT)

'''"got us a man of principle"''' 
Eerily reminiscent of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, the convicted American murderer known for his campaign of mail bombings, many of which were addressed to specific victims, intended by Kaczynski to draw attention to what he percieved as the ills of technology on modern society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Wikipedia entry].

There a several tenuous threads of connection between Pynchon and the Unabomber. Pynchon has written works exploring the dangers of modern technology and, more specifically, ludditism. [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html] [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/paper_gibbs.html] As a young man, Pynchon co-wrote such a play, ''Minstral Island'', with his Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale, who later would become one of the world's most prominent and outspoken luddites. Sale later said, "The Unabomber and I share a great many views about the pernicious effect of the Industrial Revolution, the evils of modern technologies, the stifling effect of mass society, the vast extent of suffering in a machine-dominated world and the inevitability of social and environmental catastrophe if the industrial system goes unchecked," although naturally Sale condemned the Unabomber's method. When the Unabomber's identity was still unknown, Pynchon was suggested (with who knows what degree of seriousness, and by whom) as a possible suspect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#1990s_and_2000s]

'''"jizzmatic juices backin' up, putting pressure on the brain" 
'Jizzmatic juices' seems to be a Pynchon-created slang phrase for semen, adapted from the dictionary-found slang word for semen, "jism". Pynchon has "a lady acquaintence" of Mr. Ponghill as responsible for the "naive theory" [Lew Basnight], commonly-enough held, that lack of sex "lack of exposure to the fair sex", previous paragraph can affect the brain and therefore one's judgment.
:In the 19th century, this was actually a "scientific" theory. The idea was that the human body was a closed system w/ a certain amount of energy. For women, intellectual activity was presumed to send blood to the head, meaning that it would not be available for reproduction. For men, lack of sexual activity was presumed to lead to a clogged up system dangerous to health. Among other things this point was used to justify men's visits to prostitutes. See for instance this book excerpt via Google Books[http://books.google.com/books?id=6eOlhNkjXaAC&pg=PA215&dq=men+medicine+health+19th+century&sig=E76pPUJ8M9VnXZ5E2afIfcr3o_M]

:Yes yes. this "lack of exposure to the fair sex" can cause [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|Beaver on the Brain]]

:Actually you can find the term "jizz" at the [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jizz Urban Dictionary] - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:49 GMT+2, 26 January 2007

'''"Don't mean he ain't got a right to his privacy."''' 
Continues the Unabomber/Pynchon connection. Pynchon follows the description of a dynamite bomber with the right to privacy, something that Pynchon has guarded closely for his entire life. For more on Pynchon and privacy, see [[ATD_26-56#Page_37|page 37]].

==Page 174==

'''back to the campfires of his youth, only then it was God didn't have a name''' 
"What is God's name?" or "What is God's first name?" was a topic that reliably led adolescent boys to yatter pointlessly on for hours when their adult leaders wanted to be left alone in camp.

'''"your own brother"''' 
The Unabomber was turned in by his brother. ("Kaczynski" means 'ducky' or 'duckman'. Did TRP hide this somewhere?)

==Page 175==

'''every cabin . . . concealed stories that were anything but peaceful''' 
Compare Sherlock Holmes in "The Copper Beeches": "It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

'''"Only slowly would it occur to his ultra-keen detective's reasoning that these bombs could have been set by anybody, including those who would clearly benefit if "Anarchists", however loosely defined, could be blamed for it."''' 
Is this an(other) allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? Cf. a similar reference in [[ATD_81-96#Page_85|page 85]] and the discussion therein.

Pynchon seems to be a smart enough guy to not believe such ridiculous theories. It's all too easy to read into these true historical events (the short-lived period of anarchist bombings of the late 19th and early 20 centuries) similitudes with more recent events, but the context in AtD is clear enough that this sort of speculation seems to be nothing more than speculation. Of course, that's the fodder for conspiracy theorists...--[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 04:40, 21 February 2007 (PST)

I see a broader parallel between government manipulation of 19th century fear of "anarchists" and 20th century fears of "terrorists." As in the 2006 film "Children of Men," where the government is responsible for the "terrorist" bombings. --[[User:Cal|Cal]] 11:48, 14 June 2007 (PST)

The idea of controlled demolitions undertaken on the gov.'s behalf isn't a new one, and those who think the idea is too outlandish for the period have failed to "Remember the Maine!" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_%28ACR-1%29]

Anyways, whether Pynchon believes the WTC "conspiracy theories" or not, it seems obvious that he is encouraging the reader to make the connection. If anyone knows that it's "all too easy to read into these true historical [or fictional] events... similitudes with more recent events" it's TRP. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]
:I disagree that TRP is "encouraging" us to make such a connex, and anyway, the Maine was either an accident or destroyed by a [Spanish] mine, so it isn't parallel. The yellow press went to work, even though the US gov't at that point was not sure it wanted war with Cuba. -- Owl of Minerva

It seems to me that when Ruggles writes statements like the quote above, or makes a reference to someone removing the rubble of a building to an out of country location, or a little later on when he has the Chums suspect their Subdesertine scherzo is really only a front for oil exploration, he does so with the full knowledge that his vigilantly paranoid (and generally anti-establishment) readers might suspect he is referring to present day events. This is the same man who wrote Proverbs for Paranoids after all. I guess it comes down to whether or not you think Pynchon had his tongue planted firmly in cheek when he wrote on Amazon that "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred". You see where I stand. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]] 

:Sorry, Pomopaul, my comment sounded rather snooty. I did NOT mean that trp wants no connex made, but rather that he is connecting past and present power politics based on disasters, especially human-caused disasters, rather than encouraging us to believe that our own gov't caused 9/11. In AtD, I see materialist power politics with not-thought-out and unintended consequences. The Austrian Emperor, for instance, is not trying to provoke war with Serbia in order to bring about the extinction of that Empire, but that is the unintended result. But you have given me pause, for you are certainly correct about Proverbs for Paranoids.... -- Owl

:A wrong premise seems to underlie some discussion in the wiki: the notion of a passage '''''referring to''''' something outside the book. The writing stands on its own feet; if it didn't, we all would have quit reading. But you don't go to the Velázquez show to learn what the Spanish princesses looked like. The artist proposes new terms that you can use to understand your world. A lot of us think we can use Pynchon's terms this way: magic, straight lines, Panic fear, born of light, the sacrifice of innocence. If that's so, then the best end of the wiki is to help users parse the terms. It misses the point to discuss what Pynchon ''thinks'' or ''intends'' or to make this book be about the 21st century.

:Well, maybe we need to continue this discussion on a Talk page. "Referring" to something outside the book has different meanings,of course, and certain literalnesses of referring many of us might find....narrow......or plain wrong but I would argue that TRP would agree with Melville on the NECESSITY of works to 'tie in' to the real world. [citation needed]. I think one of the best things about the wiki is that is allows that to be shown--and shown deeply and thematically---against the blindness of some readers and even 'critics' and reviewers who say Pynchon's works are so 'postmodern' they are only about themselves. I think the above poster might not differ with this assessment, but I wanted to stress it. [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 08:40, 22 June 2007 (PDT)

==Page 176==

'''revealing the Plutonic powers as they daily sent their legions of gnomes underground''' 
Here we may have a key to understanding the war in the Earth's Interior—in which Chthonica, Princess of Plutonia, saw her castle besieged by the Legion of Gnomes—when the Chums of Chance seem to have joined the Plutonic cause; [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|see text and annotations, p. 117.]]

'''"the Powers, who always had more dwarves waiting, even eagerly, to be sent below."''' 
A Tolkien-inspired imagery? Dwarfs figure prominently into Norse mythology and fantasy works before Tolkien, but Tolkien supposedly began the use of the spelling, "dwarves," employed here. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf Wikipedia entry on Dwarf] 
:I would hope it's an allusion to Wagner's Ring rather than to Tolkien. On pp. 127-28, Iceland Spar, there is discussion of the far north and Nordic travels there. Beyond the Ginnungagap lay Niflheim or in German Niebelheim, meaning Foggy Home, and in Wagner it lay under the earth, with bent-over workers, perhaps dwarves, forced to mine gold and other minerals. This makes the comment above, about the earth's interior and Chthonica, fit even better.

'''Tortoni's on Arapahoe''' 
Italian restaurant located in the 1500 block of Arapahoe Street in downtown Denver. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~codenver/miracle/104.htm Photo]

'''Gahan's saloon across the street from City Hall''' 
Saloon operated by William Gahan, a Denver City Councilman, and his brothers conveniently located at 1401 Larimer Street in Denver, across the street from City Hall. Gahan operated two other saloons, including one at 1133 Larimer Street, which he supposedly kept open on Sundays, harbored gambling, and sponsored a boys' baseball team that played for beer.

'''Ed Chase, the boss of the red-light district''' 
Edward "Big Ed" Chase (1838-1921) was a New Yorker from Saratoga Springs who became the leader of criminal activities in Denver from 1860 on, and as such was an influential and respected man. He ran saloons, gambling houses, bordellos, and theaters (specializing in "burlesque"), and served on the Denver City Council from 1866-1869. After that, he was a behind-the-scenes ward boss and power broker for the Republican party, which dominated Denver politics at the time. Nearly every 19th century election in Denver was clouded by charges that Chase had organized an army of voters out of riffraff, vagrants, prostitutes, barflies and gamblers. By the time of his death in 1921, Chase had come to be regarded as a respected real estate investor and capitalist. For more info, consult ''The City & The Saloon: Denver 1858-1918'' by Thomas J. Noel.

'''"another little Haymarket"''' 
On May 4th 1886 a workers' protest meeting was held at the West Randolph Street Haymarket in Chicago. A bomb was thrown at the police, the police opened fire and many officers and protesters were killed ([http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html chicagohistory.org])

==Page 177==

'''The Row''' 
Denver‘s red light district developed along McGaa Street (subsequently renamed Holladay and then Market Street) [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200010/ai_n8908963 1] [http://www.womenof.com/Articles/d011899.asp 2]

==Page 178==

'''W.F.M.''' 
Western Federation of Miners [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia Entry]

'''Tansy Wagwheel''' 
Other ''AtD'' women named for herbs and ornamentals include Stray's friend [[ATD_199-218#Page_203|Sage in Nochecita,]] [[ATD_243-272#Page_263|Lake's colleague Oleander Prudge,]] [[ATD_149-170#Page_160|Cousin Dittany Vibe,]] [[ATD_336-357#Page_345|Verbena at Smokefoot's,]] and of course [[ATD_26-56#Page_28|Dahlia Rideout.]]

'''Dynamite Them All, and Let Jesus Sort Them Out''' 
Ms. Wagwheel's words echo Arnaud Amaury's (the Papal legate) comment after the Albigensian Crusade: "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius " ("Kill them all, God will know his own").
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade#cite_note-21 Wikipedia Note]

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
The Klan itself was not in its heyday at the time this episode took place, and not only is it unlikely that the Klan would have shown itself at the time, but also that it would have been this far west. The "modern" Klan was only reformed in 1915. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Wikipedia]. IN the 1920s, Colorado would become a stronghold of the "modern" Klan.

'''heeled''' 
Carrying a sidearm. (The word also means "having money," but here the first meaning is pretty clear.)

==Page 179==

'''Buck Wells''' 
An elite American who was on the board of the Telluride Mining Association, head of a mining company and was aggressively anti-union even to the point of false murder charges. Bulkeley Wells http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulkeley_Wells

'''Clovis Yutts''' 
"Yutz" is a slang word (from Yiddish) for a clueless goof.

'''different tempos and keys''' 
Cf 'anarchist miracle' in "Lot 49" (chapter 5).

In the early 1970s San Francisco was the site of the Black Flag Concerts, where anybody was allowed to make any music. People who attended said it was disorienting to wander through the crowd listening to folk singers, kazoo bands and Celtic harpists all belting away. (The Black Flag is a traditional emblem of anarchism.)

Also perhaps a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives Charles Ives], who wrote much music containing combatting sections in different keys, tempi and melody. The quintessential image of Ives' music is that of four marching bands playing different tunes arriving at the same village square. Ives attended Yale, though graduated in 1898, two years prior to the scene beginning on page 156.

Or perhaps just an image of musical anarchy to match the political Anarchism.

==Page 180==

'''Valley Tan''' 
Mormon whiskey reported by Mark Twain. [http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/091795.html cite]

As Twain himself suggests, Valley Tan was not so much a whiskey as a “first cousin to it.” It was a brand of patent medicines that were produced in Salt Lake City at the Valley Tan Remedies (V.T.R.) Laboratory beginning in 1884. A brief profile of the company can be found at this [http://www.fohbc.com/PDF_Files/ValleyTanRemedies_Sanders.pdf website.]

==Page 181==

'''it'll be run Anarchist run for you, Brother Basnight''' 
Echoes Chick on p. 8: "legal ain't got nothing to do with it—it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door."

==Page 182==

'''faded into the mobility''' 
"Mobility" also appears in ''Mason & Dixon.'' The word was later shortened to "mob."

'''"kept wasting Agency money rattling off one telegram after another."''' 
Cf. the following excerpt from a letter by novelist Raymond Chandler to Jamie Hamilton, 21 March 1949:
:"I remember several years ago when Howard Hawks was making ''The Big Sleep'', the movie, he and Bogart got into an argument as to whether one of the characters was murdered or commited suicide. They sent me a wire (there's a joke about this too) asking me, and dammit I didn't know either. Of course I got hooted at. The joke was in connection with Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros. Believe it or not, he saw the wire, the wire cost the studio 70 cents, and he called Hawks up and asked him whether it was really necessary to send a telegram about a point like that. That's one way to run a business." (''The Raymond Chandler Papers'', ed. by Tom Hiney and Frank McShane, Penguin 2001, p. 105)

'''P.E.T.N.''' 
The explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Ingredient of Semtex, discovered 1891. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN Wikipedia]

'''Dr. Oyswharf''' 
There is, in Norfolk, Virginia, a district (?) called "Oyster Wharf"; there is, in London, a development called "Oyster Wharf" not sure if it's significant or points anywhere, but it appears that this fellow's name is a contraction of those two words. More generically, an "oyster wharf" is any wharf where the oystermen come in and offload their catch. Back in the day, they would give oysters away for free. Oyster shells are a natural source of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3).

Bear in mind that the Chums' Upper Hierarchy communicated orders to the Chums via a pearl. Miles Blundell "well before sunup, had visited the shellfish market in the teeming narrow lanes of the old town in Surabaya, East Java" and procured a bucket of "Special Japanese Oysters" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 113|p. 113]]). The pearl was inserted into a device which rendered a "photographic image." This connects with the red crystal used in Merle's and Roswell's device ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page 1037|p. 1037]]).

Also bear in mind the sexual implications of the oyster, both its use as slang for the vagina (because its shape is evocative of the vagina, and some say its smell, as well) as well as its reputation as a aphrodisiac. This plays into [[The_Sexual_Angle|the sexual pattern]] that runs through ''Against the Day''. A few tidbits:

:Oysters were documented as a aphrodisiac food by the Romans in the second century A.D as mentioned in a satire by Juvenal. He described the wanton ways of women after ingesting wine and eating "giant oysters". An additional hypotheses is that the oyster resembles the "female" genitals. In reality oysters are a very nutritious and high in protein. [http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/aphrodis_foods.htm]

:Oysters have always been linked with love. When Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros, the word "aphrodisiac" was born. The dashing lover Casanova also used to start a meal eating 12 dozen oysters. [http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0298/oysters.html]

Interesting that the oyster plays to the sexual connection, ''and'' the "artful sons of Nippon" using paramorphism to change aragonite, the "nacreous" (an adjective frequently used to describe semen) part of the pearl "to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 114|p. 114]]).

Also: "Oysvarf" in Yiddish means, literally, vomitus; An "oysvarf" translates roughly as "a little puke".
:Actually, my checking indicates that it's ''oysvurf'', not ''oysvarf'', which is Yiddish for an outcast or bad person.

Also might be a reference to Owsley Stanley,"'underground' LSD chemist, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD" and "the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters". wiki:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley]

'''mixtures of nitro compounds and polymethylenes''' 
Nitro compounds include TNT, nitroglycerine and many other explosives. Polymethylenes are probably polymethylene waxes used as stabilizers or desensitizers.

'''experiencing the hotel dining room in a range of colors, not to mention cultural references, which had not been there when he came in''' 
Kinda like the way many of us are seeing ''AtD'' after prolonged exposure to the wiki. . . .

'''"The wallpaper in particular presented not a repeating pattern at all"''' 
Cf. Lucius Sheppard's 1985 short story ''The Fundamental Things'', where a lady starts translating her wallpaper pattern to Hebrew.

The connection between explosives and psychedelics is apparently not based in chemistry but it has appeared elsewhere in popular culture. The 1967 James Bond spoof ''Casino Royale'' has a scene where pillowcases are inflated with a psychedelic gas, a fuse is attached, and a powerful explosion is the result.

==Page 183==

[[image:beaver-on-the-brain.jpg|thumb|Beaver on the Brain T-Shirt|right]]'''Yes we're Beavers of the Brain... 
This little hallucinated ditty, sung by "a race of very small but perfectly visible inhabitants" of Lew Basnight's steak, is reminiscent of "We Represent the Lollipop Guild" sung by three tough-looking Munchkin boys in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 ''The Wizard of Oz''] (1939). "Beavers of the Brain" also brings to mind the phrase "Beaver on the brain" (describing a horny male or, perhaps, lesbian) which even adorns t-shirts (see right).

Cf. "Pussy on the brain" - [[ATD_243-272#Page 260|p.260]]

See also, [[The Sexual Angle]].

'''Keep that Bulldog in your pocket...''' 
A "Bulldog" is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon. It also carries a somewhat sexual connotation.

'''Cyclomite''' 
A spelling error may lead to the idea that cyclomite is a name for the explosive RDX; that's cyclo'''n'''ite.

:I don't think this is a spelling error. Connects with dynomite. No way.

:Didn't make myself clear. If cyclomite is a Pynchon coinage, a Google search should give only Pynchon-linked hits. But I got a hit on an explosive—causing me to be short of breath till I realized it was just a misspelling for the correct term '''(in that context)''' "cyclonite," or RDX.

'''plasticerator''' 
Plasti-, moldable (in this case chewable); cera- related to Latin ''cera'' = wax, ''cerumen'' = earwax; -ator, an agent to modify a product. The word "plasticerator" does not seem to have caught on. It would not be a failed synonym for "plasticizer," an agent to make rigid plastics pliable.

==Page 184==

'''Kankakee''' 
city in Illinois.

'''Wall of Death''' 
Without risk of spoilage, [[ATD_460-488#Page_476|see annotation to p. 476.]]

'''things would happen gradually enough to afford time to do something about it''' 
A central idea in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which features a rocket that breaks the sound barrier and thus the ability to kill you before you hear it coming.

'''the world turned all inside out''' 
This passage describes acid flashbacks.
:It's certainly written so as to suggest acid flashbacks but it's describing Lew's experience of being blown up

'''the carnival theory''' 
On page 90 Kit Traverse had "seen a dynamited carny jump up out of the blast good as new."

==Page 185==

'''Trilby hat''' 
Derived from George du Maurier's 1894 novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby Trilby]. The novel was adapted into a long-running play starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali. A hat of this style was worn on stage during the play's first London production.

'''excursion''' 
Wilde's US lecture tour was in 1882.

==Page 186==

'''Anasazi''' 
Ancient Pueblo Peoples, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi "Anasazi"]

'''"Like a Red Indian Stonehenge!" - "Only different!"''' 
Cf. " 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.' " (''Vineland'', p. 170). See also [[ATD_119-148#Page_133| page 133]].

[[image:hangedman.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Hanged Man by Colman-Smith]]
'''''grifa''''' 
Marijuana. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grifa cite]

'''Miss Colman-Smith is West Indian [tarot cards]''' 
Pamela Colman Smith (1878—1951) was an artist, illustrator, and writer. She is best known for designing the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite. Smith was born in England, the daughter of an American merchant from Brooklyn, Charles Edward Smith and his Jamaican wife Corinne Colman. Due to her father’s job with the West India Improvement Company, the family often moved, spending time in London, Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith Wikipedia entry]

Pynchon's interest in the tarot is evident in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Two tarot cards are referred to here -- the Hanged Man ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite image]) and the Knight of Swords ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_arcana#Swords image]). The reference is an anachronism, as the deck wasn't published until 1909.

The two tarot cards could be seen to have opposite interpretations. In readings [http://www.learntarot.com/skn.htm the Knight of Swords] is indicative of direct action, whereas [http://www.learntarot.com/maj12.htm the Hanged Man] is indicative of letting go and waiting for results.

'''''espadas . . . copas''''' 
Spanish: Swords, Cups. The Tarot suits corresponding to spades and clubs.

'''Querent''' 
Latin: one who asks. The subject of a Tarot reading (in some settings, the mark).

'''Perseid''' 
"The shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8 and 14 with a peak on August 12. During the peak, rates of a hundred or more meteors per hour can be registered." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid Wikipedia]
This paragraph again suggests [[ATD_81-96#Page_83|p. 83]], Indian, and even Indian ghosts' amusement with the Whites. 

==Page 187==

'''hell of a blow-up . . . . maiden's sigh''' 
Possible allusion to the testing of Trinity Bomb, the first explosion of an atomic weapon, which took place at White Sands, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test Wikipedia].

See the text on the "anti-Stone," pp. 78-79, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|and annotations.]]

'''A second Moon''' 
[[ATD_119-148#Page_144|On page 144,]] ''Inconvenience'' is described as a "misplaced moon."

'''Galveston''' 
In the summer of 1900 Galveston was a major seaport; many of its cotton warehouses still stand. In the 19th century it was a port of entry for immigrants from Germany, Bohemia, the Balkans and elsewhere. The 1900 hurricane was the making of Houston, a few dozen miles up slow-flowing Buffalo Bayou—which was turned into the Ship Channel within a few years.

==Page 188==

'''Galveston Hurricane''' 
An historical event (8th September 1900, 6000 dead).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900 [Wikipedia]]

'''wherever could you have been living, before that frightful bomb brought you to us?''' 
Perhaps an allusion to and rhetorical parallel of the "wake-up bomb" of the 9/11 attacks, and the relative increase of attention paid by the American media and public to such post-9/11 disasters as the slaughter of citizens in the Afghan and Iraq offensives, the destruction wrought by the South Asian tsunami, the displacement of the "hidden" poor of the Gulf States by Hurricane Katrina, the carnage of the earthquake in Iran, the rampant and still-raging genocides of Sudan, and so on.
:It has to work in ''AtD'' before it can be an allusion to something else! Here Neville seems to say Lew was ''not'' with him and Nigel until the explosion delivered "the New Lew" into "the world reconstituted" (p. 185), not that the N's simply found him in his torpor. "It didn't seem like Colorado anymore" (also p. 185). The explosion did more than knock Lew out; now he's living somewhere else. The reader is well-advised to trust Pynchon and let the text mean what it means before interpreting other histories into it.

:By my reading, this is the second time Lew has been displaced into another, parallel, world. The first time (in Ch. 1) occurred when he left innocence to find himself having committed some unmentionable crime, of which he has no recollection (bec/ he committed no crime in his original world).

'''neuræsthenic''' 
This is the second appearance of the word (the first was on page 83). Neurasthenia was a kind of catch-all at the time for what today would be called depression, fatigue, anxiety, etc.

==Page 189==

'''squarehead compadres''' 
Scandinavians, especially Swedes, are sometimes referred to as ''squareheads''. In HBO's ''Deadwood'', for example, the orphaned girl Sophia (whose Scandinavian family migrated from Minnesota) is the ''squarehead girl''.

'''Fireman Jim Flynn''' 
The nickname undoubtedly comes from railroading, not firefighting.

==Page 190==

'''blue northers''' 
In the West, the Plains and down to Texas, a blue norther is a fast-moving weather front with lightning, rain and wind, followed by a rapid drop in temperature.

==Page 191==
'''ineradicable''' 
Incapable of being eradicated or rooted out. <ref>(The Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989)</ref>

==Page 192==

'''nearly twenty''' 
1883 + 19yo = 1902?

'''stamps beating''' 
Breaking ore into small pieces in preparation for refining.

==Page 193==

'''Uncompahgre''' 
A Plateau in Western Colorado, named after the Uncompahgre Ute Indian Tribe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncompahgre_%28disambiguation%29 [Wikipedia]]

'''Deuce Kindred''' 
A seaman deuce is an apprentice seaman. See V. 
Deuce=Two=Also?...Deuce=Two=Doubling? 
Philip K. Dick's full name is Philip Kindred Dick.

'''Deuce had been one of those Sickly Youths . . . Strenuosity''' 
[[ATD_149-170#Page_159|Theodore Roosevelt]] was the model for feeble boys growing into bold men. His "Strenuous Life" doctrine was uncomfortably close to the adult Deuce's ways.

'''absorbed . . . re-emission . . . fluorescence of vindictiveness''' 
In a fluorescent tube, invisible ultraviolet radiation from the electrical discharge is absorbed by "phosphors" on the inside of the glass. The UV excites the phosphor atoms, which then—instead of giving off ultraviolet of their own—re-emit the energy at a different wavelength, one that is visible.

'''workin fathoms''' 
Mining under a contract that paid by the volume of rock extracted. See [[ATD_296-317#Page_302|annotations to p. 302]] (but to avoid spoilers, don't look up or down).

'''not since the aught-one strike''' 
So 1901 is in the past.

'''three-dollar sack suit''' 
That is, a suit one might buy at a store where one fills a sack with clothes and then pays three dollars for the lot.
A sack suit is an ordinary 19th-c. business suit which "evolved into the modern three piece suit."
[http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/sack.html source]

==Page 194==

'''the fish at that table''' 
The player whose money the others mean to take.

'''Dallas Divide''' 
Mountain Pass dividing the Uncompahgre Plateau from the San Juan Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Divide [Wikipedia]]

==Page 195==

'''Sloat Fresno''' 
Possibly named for Commodore John D. Sloat ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Sloat Wikipedia entry]), American naval officer who claimed California, then a territory of Mexico, as part of the United States on July 7, 1846. The text of the declaration can be found [http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/documents/sloat.htm here]. Another source may be the Sloat Lumber Co. of Quincy, CA, which used an uncommon 30 gauge track, about which all I can find is [http://members.tripod.com/~Sloat_Lumber_Co/PROTOTYP.HTM here]. Fresno is presumably a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno%2C_CA city in California], though its direct relation to either the Commodore or the Sloat Lumber Co. is unclear.

''Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,'' by Cormac McCarthy, has a character named Sloat, but he's so minor that the only dialog he gets is when he denies being related to the commodore.

Sloat is another term for slat, a narrow piece of wood. Fresno is Spanish for ash.

In terms of sound and connotation, Sloat sounds like "stoat" (a weasel) combined with "sl" -- slippery, slimey, sluggish. All of which fits him.

'''copping the borax''' 
? Seemingly a term invented by Pynchon. No idea what it means, but borax is a mineral used in detergent, pottery, a lots of other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax Wikipedia on Borax]

"Borax" is a slang word for cheap, poorly made products. Makers of borax for use in cleansing used to give away junky items as premiums. If you look at it the other way around, "borax" could mean a premium, hence an enlistment bonus. "Copping" of course is getting something by underhand means.

'''from Fort Bliss to the Coeur d'Alenes''' 
From Dan to Beersheba, so to speak. Fort Bliss is near El Paso, Texas. The Coeur d'Alène Mountains are in the panhandle of Idaho and the western end of Montana.

'''Montrose''' 
Montrose, CO. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado [Wikipedia]]

'''li'l buddy''' 
Brings to mind Gilligan and the Skipper from ''Gilligan's Island'': Sloat, like the Skipper, is twice his buddy's size; in both pairs, it is uncertain just who is whose sidekick; and the Skipper referred to Gilligan by, "li'l buddy."

==Page 196==

'''red liquor''' 
Colored liquor, such as bourbon or whiskey.

==Page 197==

'''Sloat tending to bodies, Deuce... the spirit''' 
Again, the body/soul dichotomy. See [[ATD_97-118#Page_101|page 101]] and [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]] letter by Pynchon.
:This describes a complementarity as well as a dichotomy, and leads us back to the theme of doubling and Doppelgänger.

[[image:couplingpin.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Coupling pin]]'''coupling pin''' See photo.

==Page 198==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Repeats the title of Part One. May also suggest Tesla's 03 July 1899 'vision' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_97|page 97]]). May also be tied to the light/dark theme running through parts of the book thus far: light over the (dark) ranges. Note the concurrence of the leitmotives light-time-water in the sentence "He watched the light over the ranges slowly draining away". The image of "draining light" might also hint at the wave-particle duality.

'''Jeshimon''' 
Literally: "the waste", more specifically the wilderness of Judah in the Bible, near the Dead Sea. [http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/jeshimon.html christiananswers.net]. Fuller annotation at [[ATD_199-218#Page_209|page 209.]]

'''"Sir, please relocate your hand or I shall be obliged to do so myself"''' 
A fine flowery way of saying, "Move it or lose it, Sport."

'''Cortez''' 
In far southwestern Colorado near the Utah state line.

'''shadow had taken the immeasurable plain''' 
Contrasts "the light over the ranges". Possibly an allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah, the "cities of the plain" in Genesis 19, in which the angels advise Lot and his family: "do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the Plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away" (19:17). ''The cities of the plain'', is also the title of i) the translated fourth volume of Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'' (original title ''Sodome et Gomorrhe'') and ii) Cormac McCarthy's third novel of ''The Border Trilogy''.

This is the third possible reference to Proust so far. See also [[ATD_149-170#Page_165|page 165]], and [[#Page_188|page 188]].

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 81-96

2009-03-13T18:46:19Z

Bobutler: /* Page 86 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 81==
'''July Fourth started hot and grew hotter,...''' 

[[image:Gpynch.jpg|thumb|Guardan Review|right]] On Saturday, 18 November 2006, the UK's Guardian newspaper, in a Review section which featured a drawing of what Pynchon might now look like on its cover, published a full-page excerpt from ''Against the Day''. This comprised pages 81 to 85 (up to "he wondered sometimes if he would've ever signed on."), with the addition of the final paragraph from page 96, ending with "Happy Fourth of July, Webb." This was a much more substantial excerpt than the one which appeared in the Penguin Press catalogue, and was arguably a more alluring one in terms of attracting the general reader. These were the only official excerpts published before ATD itself, on 21 November 2006.

The Guardian excerpt is now online:
[http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1950566,00.html]

The timing of this chapter, opening on a summer morning, parallels that of the novel's very first chapter.

Makes reference to that July Fourth feeling in YR 2000 New York when the internet / new economy / electronic revolution was getting hot while reaching its maximum peak.

'''nitro beginning to ooze out of dynamite sticks''' 
The important point about dynamite is when it '''doesn't''' blow up. Alfred Nobel discovered that he could stabilize nitroglycerine by soaking it into a powdered clay; the product was not sensitive to shock or heat. That is, until it separated in hot weather, with greasy-feeling free nitro collecting on the outside of the sticks. (A minor plot point in the TV series ''Lost,'' isn't it?)

'''Feast of St. Barbara''' 
According to legend, Saint Barbara was the extremely beautiful daughter of a wealthy heathen named Dioscorus, who lived near Nicomedia in Asia Minor, in the 4th Century AD. Because of her singular beauty and fearful that she be demanded in marriage and taken away from him, he jealously shut her up in a tower to protect her from the outside world. When Barbara converted to Christianity, her enraged father killed her and was subsequently struck down by lightening. St. Barbara was venerated as early as the seventh century. The legend of the lightning bolt which struck down her father caused her to be regarded as the patron saint in time of danger from thunderstorms, fires and sudden death. When gunpowder made its appearance in the Western world, Saint Barbara was invoked for aid against accidents resulting from explosions since some of the earlier artillery pieces often blew up instead of firing their projectile, Saint Barbara became the patroness of the artillerymen. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm]

'''Propaganda of the Deed''' 
Anarchist terrorism.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed [Wikipedia]]

'''Zarzuela''' 
Webb's horse is named for a Spanish genre of musical theater. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarzuela [Wikipedia]]

'''cicadas''' 
[http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/insect/05590.html Cicadas in Colorado] are annual, not 17- or 13-year periodical species, so they don't help pin down the year of the action.

==Page 82==
'''Skinner''' 
Commonly, a skinner is a person who skins sections of animals or whole animals, such as cattle, sheep, and pigs, to prepare them for cooking. Historically the term referred to those engaged in the trade of skins and furs.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner (profession) Wikipedia] However, in this context, "skinner" refers to a more obscure definition: a worker who drives mules. Long teams of mules, up to ten pairs of mules on one wagon were used to haul borax from the mines to the railroads. A skinner could "skin" or outsmart a mule. ("skin" is old criminal slang for "defraud" or "cheat.")

'''"Rocky Mountain canaries"''' 
This was the nickname the miners gave to burros, because of their braying.

'''Chinaman''' 
There was a large number of Chinese who worked on the railroads in the Rocky Mountains, especially as dynamiters, in the late 18th and early 20th centuries.

'''Eclipse Union mine''' 
The Eclipse mine was one of many in the Cripple Creek District, Lake County, Colorado, in the late 19th century. From this [http://www.scripophily.net/jaflmiandtuc.html website]:

:The Ajax vein had been staked over its length by five adjoining claims located in 1878 the Ajax, Bobtail, Nero, Park View, and Union Flag. All were patented in 1883 by the Eclipse Mining Company, which had been incorporated a year earlier with capital stock of $50,000. A year later the mine was developed via three adits (40, 100, and 400 feet long) and three shafts (each 30 feet deep). Immediately adjacent to the claims along the vein the company owned four patented mill sites of 5 acres each (Corregan and Lingane 1883).

Doubtful that the "Union" capital "U" infers that the mine was unionized, rather the Eclipse Union mine is likely a fictional entity, based on the actual existence of the Eclipse and Union mines, both active in the late 19th century in Lake County, Colorado [http://www.topozone.com/states/Colorado.asp?county=Lake&feature=Mine], with a double-entendre that references the mine owners' drive to ''eclipse'' the unions, i.e., wipe them out. Or perhaps Pynchon simply came across such a named mine in his research...

[[image:Moses.jpg|thumb|Michelangelo's "Moses"|right|160px]]'''flames issuing out of his head''' 
This hallucination likely refers to Veikko's "insane fanaticism" "even on his calmest days," his eyes "illuminated from within" [[#Page 83|p.83]]. There's also the allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses Moses] coming from the mountain with fire from his head; this is the source for Michelangelo's "horns" on his statue, as well as other 17th century depictions of Moses. Veikko carries the word, but won't be allowed into the new "Promised Land." Like Moses, Veikko is fanatical about freeing his people from enslavement, in ''ATD'' from the mine owners and bosses. This is the first we meet Veikko which sounds close to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Vico Giambattista Vico], a possible source of Pynchonian elements. 

'''dynamite headache''' 
In the early 20th century, the nitroglycerin in dynamite was discovered to cause severe headaches. Dynamite (DNT) is highly skin-penetrating and such headaches, dubbed "dynamite headaches," were often suffered by workers in plants manufacturing explosives. Dynamite headaches were also common among miners, who were often exposed to vaporized nitroglycerin when detonating dynamite.

'''Cour d'Alene bullpens''' 
Spelled ''Coeur'', actually. During the July 1892 strikes, the violence provided the mine owners and the governor with an excuse to bring in six companies of the Idaho National Guard to "suppress insurrection and violence." Federal troops also arrived, and they confined six hundred miners in bullpens without any hearings or formal charges. Some were later "sent up" for violating injunctions, others for obstructing the United States mail. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene_miners'_dispute Wikipedia entry]

'''Cripple Creek''' 
Cripple Creek was the location of a miner's strike in 1894. It was a significant labor event and it was the first time that a state Militia was called out in support of the miners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Creek_miners'_strike_of_1894 Wikipedia entry]

'''side-door pullman''' 
Boxcar.

==Page 83==

'''They thought it was funny''' 
Many authorities report that Indians think almost everything whites do is funny. In particular:

'''Colorado . . . created as a reservation for whites''' 
Drawing straight lines on the ground and calling them limits. Most of the reservations in the West and on the Plains are bounded by such lines rather than "natural" boundaries like crestlines. So is Colorado: "four straight lines on paper" -- a Cartesian state of geography.

'''General Bobrikoff''' 
Or Bobrikov, N.I. (1839-1904), given dictatorial powers in Finland, viewed there as oppressor, assassinated on June 16, 1904, the day of the action in Joyce's Ulysses.

'''mean and cold, same wealth without conscience, same poor people in misery, army and police free as wolves to commit cruelties on behalf of the bosses, bosses ready to do anything to protect what they had stolen''' 
So simple and yet so truthful. History keeps repeating itself... One endless vicious cycle of the same lame old... One reason for James Joyce spend years writing thousand pages of sophisticated {Finnegan/Ulyssean} gibberish in defense of such unvarnished genuine statement. John Zorn once said... "governments have been thinking for thousands of years on how to fuck us up." And its the artist role to break away from that and say... now look...

'''neuræsthenic''' 
Neurasthenia (Fatigue syndrome) is a neurotic disorder. [http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/?gf40.htm+f480 Definition/Symptoms]

This word appears again on [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|page 188]]. It may be a reference to Proust, who was neurasthenic. It may also simply be a fancy word for disinterested in this context. 
:The diagnosis was frequently used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for men (women were "hysterics"). In World War I, soldiers suffering what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder were diagnosed as neurasthenic -- if they weren't refused medical aid and/ or executed as deserters. See Elaine Showalter, '''''The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980''''' (NY: Pantheon, 1985)

==Page 84==

'''1900''' 
So the current Fourth of July must be 1901 or later (not 1899). 
And not 1904: Gen. Bobrikoff (preceding page) was assassinated in June of that year, so Veikko's toast goes stale. Therefore 1901, '02 or '03.

On August 14, 1900, American, British, Russian and American troops entered Beijing to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

'''''Minneskort''''' 
Modern Swedish word for computer memory cards. Swedish is a minority language in Finland. (TRP likely saw it on a Nokia phone.)

'''Fink trusses''' 
This [http://pghbridges.com/basics.htm perfectly delightful site] for bridge spotters identifies the Fink truss as a design by Albert Fink dating from the 1860s. It's illustrated way down toward the bottom of the page. All the compression and tension members lie below the plane of the deck where the tracks are laid.

'''...it bein a three-day holiday''' 
Indicates that this passage takes place in 1902, as the Fourth of July fell on a Friday. ([http://www.hf.rim.or.jp/~kaji/cal/cal.cgi?1902 Source])

==Page 85==

'''nippers''' 
Boys who assist a costermonger, carter, etc. Later (more generally): the most junior members of a group of workmen, esp. one employed in menial tasks. (def.4a. ''The Oxford English Dictionary.'' 2nd ed. 1989.)

'''swampers''' 
Workmen who clear a road for lumberers in a ‘swamp’ or forest. Though the OED doesn't specify mining work in it definition, it is probable that swampers also clear the roads and paths for miners. (def.1a. ''The Oxford English Dictionary.'' 2nd ed. 1989.)

'''Innocent Victims . . . Monsters That Did the Deed''' 
Use of capitals seems to emphasize the fact that these persons are simply convenient stock characters in the forwarding of the owners'/government's agenda.

'''"some of these explosions, the more deadly of them, in fact, were really set off to begin with not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves."''' 
Is this an allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? 

NO! In labor history, many 'accidents' and some planned deeds by owners were blamed on radicals, anarchists, etc. It was common in the early days of the labor movement for owners to conspire to make the unions look bad in this manner. One such example is cited [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_labor_issues_and_events here] in 1910, and it is certainly far from the only one.

See, however, a much more straightforward allusion in [[ATD_171-198#Page_175|page 175]].
:While it's true that many "anarchist" explosions were planned by the owners of industry, to suggest that this is NOT! an allusion to the possibility of US Government involvement in the 9-11 attacks seems rather limiting. Pynchon hinted strongly that this novel is an allegory for our own time in the jacket blurb, and much of what makes this chapter interesting is the way it creates a disturbing analogy between the terrorism carried out by Webb, a highly sympathetic figure, and that carried out by the 9-11 hijackers, whom we so love to hate.

'''Which left precious few targets except for the railroad.''' 
Frank Norris's 1901 novel ''The Octopus'' is summed up in one short paragraph. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus_%28Frank_Norris%29 Wikipedia entry].

==Page 86==
'''Shorty's Billiard Saloon''' 
This is based on real accounts of billiard balls sparking and exploding in saloons. The balls in question used a then-new thermoplastic compound of cellulose nitrate and camphor developed and patented under the trademark "celluloid" by John Wesley Hyatt as a substitute for ivory. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C Celluloid] for Wikipedia links to Hyatt and Celluloid.

'''without being hit once''' 
Similar to a pivotal scene in the film, ''Pulp Fiction''.

'''a state of heightened receptivity''' 
People who talk about enlightenment and unsubstantiated alternative "therapies" use this phrase a lot—[http://www.enlightenment.com/forums/msgs.cfm?msg=708&forum=6&tz=240 example]—but in simplest terms it just means [http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/pdf%2F8004%2F8004r2.pdf hypnosis.]

'''pernicious''' 
Of a thing, action, intent, etc.: causing or likely to cause harm, esp. in a gradual or insidious manner; dangerous, destructive; evil. Also in weakened use: having a harmful influence; undesirable. (def.2a. ''The Oxford English Dictionary.'' 2nd ed. 1989.)

==Page 87==

'''those French Anarchists . . . Emile Henry . . . Vaillant''' 
Emile Henry (1872 - May 21, 1894) was a French anarchist who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty. Henry was angered over the execution of another Anarchist, Auguste Vaillant, for the destruction of a government building that hurt no one, and took it upon himself to strike back to avenge his fellow revolutionary's death. He saw the Cafe as a representation of the bourgeois itself and his intent was to kill as many people as possible in the bombing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry].

'''how can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?''' 
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's ''Full Metal Jacket.'' ("How you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.") Discussion here also recalls the Weathermen, a violent off-shoot of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) during the Vietnam Era.

'''listening . . . to the sermon . . . those absolute terms''' 
While there is a movement or school called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism Christian anarchism] (use the Wikipedia article with caution), Gatlin's ideas do not harmonize with it. As his sermon on pages 86-87 makes plain, he follows quite a different line.

'''Mason-Dixon line''' 
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning clan from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon." No Traverses appear, however, in Pynchon's ''Mason & Dixon'' (except in the sense that the whole M-D survey was conducted by the traverse method), but one can speculate that had they been, the Traverse ancestors may have been victims of the Line's bad Feng Shui. From this, one could infer a connection between the Line and Colorado Anarchism.

'''Civil War''' 
This is the first instance of the term, for a war so far in the novel being referred to as "The Rebellion".

==Page 88==

'''westward drift''' 
Webb Traverse's wanderings are referred to as "this westward drift". The phrase is probably not accidental: in scientific circles "westward drift" is used for either of two geophysical phenomena: the gradual westward [http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~dacheson/res2.html movement of the magnetic north pole] and the westward [http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/1-2/199 rotation of the outer layers of the Earth] (the lithosphere) relative to the inner layers.

'''twelve-cylinder Confederate Colt''' 
A hard weapon to identify. Some Colt revolvers were sold to the Southern forces in the first few days after Fort Sumter, but it's far more likely that this is a knockoff of Colt's 1851 design made, for example, at Augusta, Georgia. Plenty of these got into service. Caliber is probably .36 or .44, but there are other possibilities. "Twelve-cylinder" is nonsense; there is a rare version of the Colt cylinder with ''twelve cylinder stops,'' but it holds ''six'' percussion rounds (ball and cap system). The cylinder stops are depressions on the outer surface of the cylinder forming part of the mechanism that aligns the chamber with the barrel for firing. Photos of sidearms online are ephemeral (many vanish once the auction concludes), so no link here, even if any of the available images did show the variant. To see today's selection, trying [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22confederate+revolver%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a googling "Confederate revolver"]...

==Page 89==

'''silver-boom babies''' 
Assuming the silver boom of 1890-1892 is meant, Webb's kids were aged about 9 to 16. [[Timeline|Timeline with spoilers]]

'''Ace of spades...death card''' 
The ace of spades seems to have been considered the "death card" in the Vietnam War. [http://www.newtscards.com/secret_weapon_death_playing_cards.asp Article]

Oh, ''long'' before that. Schoolchildren in the 1950s (who would pretty reliably believe anything) believed in the association, and aren't there about a shelf's worth of spy and mystery novels where the Ace of Spades portends death?

Going back farther,
:''In Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Suicide Club" (1878), the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Spades Ace of Spades] functions as the "sign of death" within a secret society whose members commit "suicide" by submitting to be killed, if they draw the Ace of Spades from a pack of 52 cards during a club meeting, by another member drawing the Ace of Clubs.''

Also, as the highest card in the deck, it commonly defeats everything else, as does death. 
Why Mayva should be likened to the Ace of Spades is still to be explained.

'''fancy briar pipe . . . beat-up old corncob''' 
Briar pipes appeared in Europe from the 1850s on. The Missouri Meerschaum brand of corncob pipe dates from 1869. Until close to 1900, clay pipes were probably more common than either.

'''Bob Ford's Funeral''' 
June 1892 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw) [Wikipedia]]

'''Creede''' 
Central Colorado mining town, now a ski resort.

'''Telluride''' 
Far southwestern Colorado mining town, now a ski and mountain resort, with an annual film festival. Named for the telluride ores typical of the vicinity, but the name has more possible significance in AtD.

Used as an adjective, Telluric: Of or belonging to the earth; terrestrial; pertaining to the earth as a planet; also, arising from the earth or soil (OED). In turn the origin of Tellurism: Magnetic influence or principle supposed by some to pervade all nature, and to produce the phenomenon of Animal Magnetism; also the theory of Animal Magnetism based on this, propounded in 1822 by Keiser in Germany (OED). "Animal Magnetism" is referred to in English as Mesmerism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Magnetism].

'''extreme and unmerciful whiteness''' 
It doesn't seem to be accidental that "white" and "whiteness" are hard to endure in ''AtD.'' Consider [[ATD_26-56#Page_52|"the whiteness of the place nearly unbearable";]] the White City and White City Investigations; and other uses.

'''repeal of the Silver Act''' 
Prior to 1892, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

'''tiresome moral exercise''' 
May be a preterite association with President Clinton's impeachment and Senate trial over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

==Page 90==

'''before he got shot''' 
1899. [http://www.butchandsundance.com/players/ketchumgang.htm [cite]]

'''the Cornish wives in Jacktown''' 
Many Western miners came from Cornwall. The stock nickname for any Cornishman was "Cousin Jack." So Jacktown is the area where the Cornish families live.

'''Lake''' 
'Lake Traverse' is a real lake between Minnesota and South Dakota. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Traverse Wikipedia]

'''dynamited carny jump up out of that blast good as new''' 
This passage recalls Daffy Duck cartoons.

==Page 91==

'''theory and practice of resistance to power''' 
[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun138236.html Mao Tse-tung] (or Mao Zedong) said, "The guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea." Gatlin anticipates the principle, with a kicker that's especially pertinent to ''AtD:'' to succeed at invisibility, you must first succeed at visibility.

'''"Sleep? is when you sleep"''' 
Not likely this is a typo. We often include a question in our answer, in this case summarising the question with "sleep?" then immediately answering. And just as it does falling at the end of a sentence, the "?" reflects a change of vocal pitch/stress. As for the sentence fragment, Webb is a man of few words, and "The reservation I have about what you say is" are not some of them.

Alludes Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki's teachings on Zen... "shower is when you shower." First pages of William Burroughs' The Ticket That Exploded comes to mind ~ the notion about sleep, heartbeat and mind/spiritual/innerSelf survivalism... that fearful feeling of falling asleep and never waking up again to fulfill your true revolutionary objectives.

==Page 92==

'''$3-blessed-50 a day''' 
This might be an over-estimate; in 2006 dollars, that comes to over $86 a day, not a bad wage indeed. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ Calculator]

$86 dollars a day not a bad wage?? Assuming an 8-12 hour day, that comes out to about today's minimum wage -- which is hardly a living wage. This seems about right. Just enough to keep body, soul and family together. Maybe. The text implies that $3.50/day was just barely a "living wage."

Compare $3.50 in context on [[ATD_374-396|p. 378]]...

'''Western Federation of Miners''' 
A radical labor union created in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia] Their history was very violent.

'''. . . a mule dropping on the edge of life's mountain trail, ready to be either squashed flat or kicked into the void.''' 
Brings directly to mind a scene from Cormac McCarthy's 1985 highly praised novel ''Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness In The West'':
:"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was." (Modern Library Edition 2001, p. 147).
The novel is considered as one of the 20th century American masterpieces ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian Wikipedia entry]). It is set about 45 years before the beginning of AtD (1849-50) at the Mexico - Texas borderlands. In fact, partly due to Pynchon's frequent references to ''red'' light, ''west'' and ''sunset'' (see [[Red%2C_West_and_Sunsets|here]] for a growing list), I suspect a kind of deeper relation between the two novels, but more evidence is required.
:I hate to mention this, because the McCarthy connection is so cogent, but doesn't that phrase in ''AtD'' refer to a "mule dropping" rather than a mule that drops? Or rather: doesn't that phrase ''refract'' (or bi-refract) the passage from ''Blood Meridian,'' bringing the mule's flight to mind while overtly talking about a turd? (A mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but a dropping does.)

:This entry spurred me to read ''Blood Meridian,'' and while ''AtD'' is completely independent of that work, yes, the two novels do reflect a ruddy western light on each other. A really voracious reader will find, I suspect, that ''AtD'' is subtly linked to many other late-20th/early-21st century fictions. Contributors to this wiki have noted some such parallels; one that I found by chance is described in the [[ATD_119-148#Page_142|annotations to p. 142]] ("scentless snow walls"). These relationships suggest yet another interpretation of the title, if we needed another: The book is to be read as object against ground, ''against'' the literature of ''the day.''—[[User:Volver|Volver]]

:I agree, apart from the 'late-20th/early-21st century' point - I think that the link you suggest does exist but extends much beyond. See for example [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/child-of-the-storm-ii/ this] extremely interesting entry in the AtD Weblog. [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 01:45, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 93==
'''plutes''' 
Plutocrats: members of the wealthy class controlling a government

'''Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.''' 
Reviewers of ATD have quoted this line, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601252.html] but Pynchon did not make it up. It comes from authentic miner's union literature of the time. [http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=178]

'''Compassion''' 
With 'Republicans' below, a possible reference to 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration. "...starving, homeless, and dead..." is what the Republicans mean by compassion, demonstrating the need for the "foreign phrase book". Has always been thus,historically and now?

'''Republicans''' 
William McKinley was elected in 1896 on the Republican ticket, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan, ushering in a chain of Republican Presidents until Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912. Obviously, could also be interpreted as a jab at the current Republican Party.

==Page 94==

'''duster''' 
Long coat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing) Wikipedia entry]

'''the people's work, if not God's, the two forces according to Reverend Gatlin having the same voice''' 
Gatlin has in mind the proverb ''Vox populi vox Dei,'' "the voice of the people is the voice of God." There's a twist, though; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi see Wikipedia.]

'''"Don't beg, you hear me? Don't any of you ever, fucking, beg, me or nobody, for nothin." 
Could have easily been TRP's response to interview requests!!!

:I think it's about honor, not annoyance.

'''There's a master list in Washington, D.C...maintained by the U.S. Secret Service.''' 
The Secret Service, founded in 1865 as a treasury force, was not a presidential protection force until 1902. Prior to this, it functioned more or less like the FBI today. This passage suggests that we are after McKinley's assassination (1901) and the period when the Secret Service began protecting the president, though page 97 suggests that this occurred in 1899.

'''Say, open up em peepers 'fore you walk over a cliff someplace''' 
Card 0 of the Rider-Waite Tarot depicts The Fool walking in bright sunlight, his eyes shut, about to fall over a precipice if he doesn't heed the little dog who's trying to warn him of the peril. It isn't out of the question that Webb has encountered the Tarot, but if he has not, his use of the image speaks strongly for its archetypal nature.

==Page 95==

'''dynamite rounders''' 
Rounders was a precursor to baseball. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders [Wikipedia]]

Consider the alternative, that the "rounders" are the kids; "every sheriff has at least a dozen in his county" can refer to the game of rounders only by a stretch of meaning. Rounders: rascals, mischief-makers, in this case making mischief with dynamite.

'''waiting for the rest of the joke''' 
Cf Dally and Lindsay, p27.

==Page 96==

'''"We ready?"''' 
The destruction of the railroad bridge is reminiscent of scenes in Edward Abbey's anarchistic 1975 novel ''The Monkey Wrench Gang.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang Wikipedia entry].

'''Sufficient unto the day''' 
From The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: 6:34. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (The New Testament of the King James Bible)
Very title thematic?

"No one knows exactly when the hit will come---every morning, before the markets open, out before the milkmen, They make Their new update and decide on what's going to be sufficient unto the day."--Gravity's Rainbow,
page 544.

'''Happy Fourth of July, Webb'''

Endearing? Veikko is eight years older than Webb.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 81-96

2009-03-13T18:38:59Z

Bobutler: /* Page 85 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 81==
'''July Fourth started hot and grew hotter,...''' 

[[image:Gpynch.jpg|thumb|Guardan Review|right]] On Saturday, 18 November 2006, the UK's Guardian newspaper, in a Review section which featured a drawing of what Pynchon might now look like on its cover, published a full-page excerpt from ''Against the Day''. This comprised pages 81 to 85 (up to "he wondered sometimes if he would've ever signed on."), with the addition of the final paragraph from page 96, ending with "Happy Fourth of July, Webb." This was a much more substantial excerpt than the one which appeared in the Penguin Press catalogue, and was arguably a more alluring one in terms of attracting the general reader. These were the only official excerpts published before ATD itself, on 21 November 2006.

The Guardian excerpt is now online:
[http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1950566,00.html]

The timing of this chapter, opening on a summer morning, parallels that of the novel's very first chapter.

Makes reference to that July Fourth feeling in YR 2000 New York when the internet / new economy / electronic revolution was getting hot while reaching its maximum peak.

'''nitro beginning to ooze out of dynamite sticks''' 
The important point about dynamite is when it '''doesn't''' blow up. Alfred Nobel discovered that he could stabilize nitroglycerine by soaking it into a powdered clay; the product was not sensitive to shock or heat. That is, until it separated in hot weather, with greasy-feeling free nitro collecting on the outside of the sticks. (A minor plot point in the TV series ''Lost,'' isn't it?)

'''Feast of St. Barbara''' 
According to legend, Saint Barbara was the extremely beautiful daughter of a wealthy heathen named Dioscorus, who lived near Nicomedia in Asia Minor, in the 4th Century AD. Because of her singular beauty and fearful that she be demanded in marriage and taken away from him, he jealously shut her up in a tower to protect her from the outside world. When Barbara converted to Christianity, her enraged father killed her and was subsequently struck down by lightening. St. Barbara was venerated as early as the seventh century. The legend of the lightning bolt which struck down her father caused her to be regarded as the patron saint in time of danger from thunderstorms, fires and sudden death. When gunpowder made its appearance in the Western world, Saint Barbara was invoked for aid against accidents resulting from explosions since some of the earlier artillery pieces often blew up instead of firing their projectile, Saint Barbara became the patroness of the artillerymen. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm]

'''Propaganda of the Deed''' 
Anarchist terrorism.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed [Wikipedia]]

'''Zarzuela''' 
Webb's horse is named for a Spanish genre of musical theater. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarzuela [Wikipedia]]

'''cicadas''' 
[http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/insect/05590.html Cicadas in Colorado] are annual, not 17- or 13-year periodical species, so they don't help pin down the year of the action.

==Page 82==
'''Skinner''' 
Commonly, a skinner is a person who skins sections of animals or whole animals, such as cattle, sheep, and pigs, to prepare them for cooking. Historically the term referred to those engaged in the trade of skins and furs.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner (profession) Wikipedia] However, in this context, "skinner" refers to a more obscure definition: a worker who drives mules. Long teams of mules, up to ten pairs of mules on one wagon were used to haul borax from the mines to the railroads. A skinner could "skin" or outsmart a mule. ("skin" is old criminal slang for "defraud" or "cheat.")

'''"Rocky Mountain canaries"''' 
This was the nickname the miners gave to burros, because of their braying.

'''Chinaman''' 
There was a large number of Chinese who worked on the railroads in the Rocky Mountains, especially as dynamiters, in the late 18th and early 20th centuries.

'''Eclipse Union mine''' 
The Eclipse mine was one of many in the Cripple Creek District, Lake County, Colorado, in the late 19th century. From this [http://www.scripophily.net/jaflmiandtuc.html website]:

:The Ajax vein had been staked over its length by five adjoining claims located in 1878 the Ajax, Bobtail, Nero, Park View, and Union Flag. All were patented in 1883 by the Eclipse Mining Company, which had been incorporated a year earlier with capital stock of $50,000. A year later the mine was developed via three adits (40, 100, and 400 feet long) and three shafts (each 30 feet deep). Immediately adjacent to the claims along the vein the company owned four patented mill sites of 5 acres each (Corregan and Lingane 1883).

Doubtful that the "Union" capital "U" infers that the mine was unionized, rather the Eclipse Union mine is likely a fictional entity, based on the actual existence of the Eclipse and Union mines, both active in the late 19th century in Lake County, Colorado [http://www.topozone.com/states/Colorado.asp?county=Lake&feature=Mine], with a double-entendre that references the mine owners' drive to ''eclipse'' the unions, i.e., wipe them out. Or perhaps Pynchon simply came across such a named mine in his research...

[[image:Moses.jpg|thumb|Michelangelo's "Moses"|right|160px]]'''flames issuing out of his head''' 
This hallucination likely refers to Veikko's "insane fanaticism" "even on his calmest days," his eyes "illuminated from within" [[#Page 83|p.83]]. There's also the allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses Moses] coming from the mountain with fire from his head; this is the source for Michelangelo's "horns" on his statue, as well as other 17th century depictions of Moses. Veikko carries the word, but won't be allowed into the new "Promised Land." Like Moses, Veikko is fanatical about freeing his people from enslavement, in ''ATD'' from the mine owners and bosses. This is the first we meet Veikko which sounds close to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Vico Giambattista Vico], a possible source of Pynchonian elements. 

'''dynamite headache''' 
In the early 20th century, the nitroglycerin in dynamite was discovered to cause severe headaches. Dynamite (DNT) is highly skin-penetrating and such headaches, dubbed "dynamite headaches," were often suffered by workers in plants manufacturing explosives. Dynamite headaches were also common among miners, who were often exposed to vaporized nitroglycerin when detonating dynamite.

'''Cour d'Alene bullpens''' 
Spelled ''Coeur'', actually. During the July 1892 strikes, the violence provided the mine owners and the governor with an excuse to bring in six companies of the Idaho National Guard to "suppress insurrection and violence." Federal troops also arrived, and they confined six hundred miners in bullpens without any hearings or formal charges. Some were later "sent up" for violating injunctions, others for obstructing the United States mail. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene_miners'_dispute Wikipedia entry]

'''Cripple Creek''' 
Cripple Creek was the location of a miner's strike in 1894. It was a significant labor event and it was the first time that a state Militia was called out in support of the miners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Creek_miners'_strike_of_1894 Wikipedia entry]

'''side-door pullman''' 
Boxcar.

==Page 83==

'''They thought it was funny''' 
Many authorities report that Indians think almost everything whites do is funny. In particular:

'''Colorado . . . created as a reservation for whites''' 
Drawing straight lines on the ground and calling them limits. Most of the reservations in the West and on the Plains are bounded by such lines rather than "natural" boundaries like crestlines. So is Colorado: "four straight lines on paper" -- a Cartesian state of geography.

'''General Bobrikoff''' 
Or Bobrikov, N.I. (1839-1904), given dictatorial powers in Finland, viewed there as oppressor, assassinated on June 16, 1904, the day of the action in Joyce's Ulysses.

'''mean and cold, same wealth without conscience, same poor people in misery, army and police free as wolves to commit cruelties on behalf of the bosses, bosses ready to do anything to protect what they had stolen''' 
So simple and yet so truthful. History keeps repeating itself... One endless vicious cycle of the same lame old... One reason for James Joyce spend years writing thousand pages of sophisticated {Finnegan/Ulyssean} gibberish in defense of such unvarnished genuine statement. John Zorn once said... "governments have been thinking for thousands of years on how to fuck us up." And its the artist role to break away from that and say... now look...

'''neuræsthenic''' 
Neurasthenia (Fatigue syndrome) is a neurotic disorder. [http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/?gf40.htm+f480 Definition/Symptoms]

This word appears again on [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|page 188]]. It may be a reference to Proust, who was neurasthenic. It may also simply be a fancy word for disinterested in this context. 
:The diagnosis was frequently used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for men (women were "hysterics"). In World War I, soldiers suffering what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder were diagnosed as neurasthenic -- if they weren't refused medical aid and/ or executed as deserters. See Elaine Showalter, '''''The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980''''' (NY: Pantheon, 1985)

==Page 84==

'''1900''' 
So the current Fourth of July must be 1901 or later (not 1899). 
And not 1904: Gen. Bobrikoff (preceding page) was assassinated in June of that year, so Veikko's toast goes stale. Therefore 1901, '02 or '03.

On August 14, 1900, American, British, Russian and American troops entered Beijing to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

'''''Minneskort''''' 
Modern Swedish word for computer memory cards. Swedish is a minority language in Finland. (TRP likely saw it on a Nokia phone.)

'''Fink trusses''' 
This [http://pghbridges.com/basics.htm perfectly delightful site] for bridge spotters identifies the Fink truss as a design by Albert Fink dating from the 1860s. It's illustrated way down toward the bottom of the page. All the compression and tension members lie below the plane of the deck where the tracks are laid.

'''...it bein a three-day holiday''' 
Indicates that this passage takes place in 1902, as the Fourth of July fell on a Friday. ([http://www.hf.rim.or.jp/~kaji/cal/cal.cgi?1902 Source])

==Page 85==

'''nippers''' 
Boys who assist a costermonger, carter, etc. Later (more generally): the most junior members of a group of workmen, esp. one employed in menial tasks. (def.4a. ''The Oxford English Dictionary.'' 2nd ed. 1989.)

'''swampers''' 
Workmen who clear a road for lumberers in a ‘swamp’ or forest. Though the OED doesn't specify mining work in it definition, it is probable that swampers also clear the roads and paths for miners. (def.1a. ''The Oxford English Dictionary.'' 2nd ed. 1989.)

'''Innocent Victims . . . Monsters That Did the Deed''' 
Use of capitals seems to emphasize the fact that these persons are simply convenient stock characters in the forwarding of the owners'/government's agenda.

'''"some of these explosions, the more deadly of them, in fact, were really set off to begin with not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves."''' 
Is this an allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? 

NO! In labor history, many 'accidents' and some planned deeds by owners were blamed on radicals, anarchists, etc. It was common in the early days of the labor movement for owners to conspire to make the unions look bad in this manner. One such example is cited [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_labor_issues_and_events here] in 1910, and it is certainly far from the only one.

See, however, a much more straightforward allusion in [[ATD_171-198#Page_175|page 175]].
:While it's true that many "anarchist" explosions were planned by the owners of industry, to suggest that this is NOT! an allusion to the possibility of US Government involvement in the 9-11 attacks seems rather limiting. Pynchon hinted strongly that this novel is an allegory for our own time in the jacket blurb, and much of what makes this chapter interesting is the way it creates a disturbing analogy between the terrorism carried out by Webb, a highly sympathetic figure, and that carried out by the 9-11 hijackers, whom we so love to hate.

'''Which left precious few targets except for the railroad.''' 
Frank Norris's 1901 novel ''The Octopus'' is summed up in one short paragraph. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus_%28Frank_Norris%29 Wikipedia entry].

==Page 86==
'''Shorty's Billiard Saloon''' 
This is based on real accounts of billiard balls sparking and exploding in saloons. The balls in question used a then-new thermoplastic compound of cellulose nitrate and camphor developed and patented under the trademark "celluloid" by John Wesley Hyatt as a substitute for ivory. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C Celluloid] for Wikipedia links to Hyatt and Celluloid.

'''without being hit once''' 
Similar to a pivotal scene in the film, ''Pulp Fiction''.

'''a state of heightened receptivity''' 
People who talk about enlightenment and unsubstantiated alternative "therapies" use this phrase a lot—[http://www.enlightenment.com/forums/msgs.cfm?msg=708&forum=6&tz=240 example]—but in simplest terms it just means [http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/pdf%2F8004%2F8004r2.pdf hypnosis.]

==Page 87==

'''those French Anarchists . . . Emile Henry . . . Vaillant''' 
Emile Henry (1872 - May 21, 1894) was a French anarchist who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty. Henry was angered over the execution of another Anarchist, Auguste Vaillant, for the destruction of a government building that hurt no one, and took it upon himself to strike back to avenge his fellow revolutionary's death. He saw the Cafe as a representation of the bourgeois itself and his intent was to kill as many people as possible in the bombing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry].

'''how can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?''' 
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's ''Full Metal Jacket.'' ("How you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.") Discussion here also recalls the Weathermen, a violent off-shoot of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) during the Vietnam Era.

'''listening . . . to the sermon . . . those absolute terms''' 
While there is a movement or school called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism Christian anarchism] (use the Wikipedia article with caution), Gatlin's ideas do not harmonize with it. As his sermon on pages 86-87 makes plain, he follows quite a different line.

'''Mason-Dixon line''' 
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning clan from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon." No Traverses appear, however, in Pynchon's ''Mason & Dixon'' (except in the sense that the whole M-D survey was conducted by the traverse method), but one can speculate that had they been, the Traverse ancestors may have been victims of the Line's bad Feng Shui. From this, one could infer a connection between the Line and Colorado Anarchism.

'''Civil War''' 
This is the first instance of the term, for a war so far in the novel being referred to as "The Rebellion".

==Page 88==

'''westward drift''' 
Webb Traverse's wanderings are referred to as "this westward drift". The phrase is probably not accidental: in scientific circles "westward drift" is used for either of two geophysical phenomena: the gradual westward [http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~dacheson/res2.html movement of the magnetic north pole] and the westward [http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/1-2/199 rotation of the outer layers of the Earth] (the lithosphere) relative to the inner layers.

'''twelve-cylinder Confederate Colt''' 
A hard weapon to identify. Some Colt revolvers were sold to the Southern forces in the first few days after Fort Sumter, but it's far more likely that this is a knockoff of Colt's 1851 design made, for example, at Augusta, Georgia. Plenty of these got into service. Caliber is probably .36 or .44, but there are other possibilities. "Twelve-cylinder" is nonsense; there is a rare version of the Colt cylinder with ''twelve cylinder stops,'' but it holds ''six'' percussion rounds (ball and cap system). The cylinder stops are depressions on the outer surface of the cylinder forming part of the mechanism that aligns the chamber with the barrel for firing. Photos of sidearms online are ephemeral (many vanish once the auction concludes), so no link here, even if any of the available images did show the variant. To see today's selection, trying [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22confederate+revolver%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a googling "Confederate revolver"]...

==Page 89==

'''silver-boom babies''' 
Assuming the silver boom of 1890-1892 is meant, Webb's kids were aged about 9 to 16. [[Timeline|Timeline with spoilers]]

'''Ace of spades...death card''' 
The ace of spades seems to have been considered the "death card" in the Vietnam War. [http://www.newtscards.com/secret_weapon_death_playing_cards.asp Article]

Oh, ''long'' before that. Schoolchildren in the 1950s (who would pretty reliably believe anything) believed in the association, and aren't there about a shelf's worth of spy and mystery novels where the Ace of Spades portends death?

Going back farther,
:''In Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Suicide Club" (1878), the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Spades Ace of Spades] functions as the "sign of death" within a secret society whose members commit "suicide" by submitting to be killed, if they draw the Ace of Spades from a pack of 52 cards during a club meeting, by another member drawing the Ace of Clubs.''

Also, as the highest card in the deck, it commonly defeats everything else, as does death. 
Why Mayva should be likened to the Ace of Spades is still to be explained.

'''fancy briar pipe . . . beat-up old corncob''' 
Briar pipes appeared in Europe from the 1850s on. The Missouri Meerschaum brand of corncob pipe dates from 1869. Until close to 1900, clay pipes were probably more common than either.

'''Bob Ford's Funeral''' 
June 1892 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw) [Wikipedia]]

'''Creede''' 
Central Colorado mining town, now a ski resort.

'''Telluride''' 
Far southwestern Colorado mining town, now a ski and mountain resort, with an annual film festival. Named for the telluride ores typical of the vicinity, but the name has more possible significance in AtD.

Used as an adjective, Telluric: Of or belonging to the earth; terrestrial; pertaining to the earth as a planet; also, arising from the earth or soil (OED). In turn the origin of Tellurism: Magnetic influence or principle supposed by some to pervade all nature, and to produce the phenomenon of Animal Magnetism; also the theory of Animal Magnetism based on this, propounded in 1822 by Keiser in Germany (OED). "Animal Magnetism" is referred to in English as Mesmerism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Magnetism].

'''extreme and unmerciful whiteness''' 
It doesn't seem to be accidental that "white" and "whiteness" are hard to endure in ''AtD.'' Consider [[ATD_26-56#Page_52|"the whiteness of the place nearly unbearable";]] the White City and White City Investigations; and other uses.

'''repeal of the Silver Act''' 
Prior to 1892, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

'''tiresome moral exercise''' 
May be a preterite association with President Clinton's impeachment and Senate trial over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

==Page 90==

'''before he got shot''' 
1899. [http://www.butchandsundance.com/players/ketchumgang.htm [cite]]

'''the Cornish wives in Jacktown''' 
Many Western miners came from Cornwall. The stock nickname for any Cornishman was "Cousin Jack." So Jacktown is the area where the Cornish families live.

'''Lake''' 
'Lake Traverse' is a real lake between Minnesota and South Dakota. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Traverse Wikipedia]

'''dynamited carny jump up out of that blast good as new''' 
This passage recalls Daffy Duck cartoons.

==Page 91==

'''theory and practice of resistance to power''' 
[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun138236.html Mao Tse-tung] (or Mao Zedong) said, "The guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea." Gatlin anticipates the principle, with a kicker that's especially pertinent to ''AtD:'' to succeed at invisibility, you must first succeed at visibility.

'''"Sleep? is when you sleep"''' 
Not likely this is a typo. We often include a question in our answer, in this case summarising the question with "sleep?" then immediately answering. And just as it does falling at the end of a sentence, the "?" reflects a change of vocal pitch/stress. As for the sentence fragment, Webb is a man of few words, and "The reservation I have about what you say is" are not some of them.

Alludes Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki's teachings on Zen... "shower is when you shower." First pages of William Burroughs' The Ticket That Exploded comes to mind ~ the notion about sleep, heartbeat and mind/spiritual/innerSelf survivalism... that fearful feeling of falling asleep and never waking up again to fulfill your true revolutionary objectives.

==Page 92==

'''$3-blessed-50 a day''' 
This might be an over-estimate; in 2006 dollars, that comes to over $86 a day, not a bad wage indeed. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ Calculator]

$86 dollars a day not a bad wage?? Assuming an 8-12 hour day, that comes out to about today's minimum wage -- which is hardly a living wage. This seems about right. Just enough to keep body, soul and family together. Maybe. The text implies that $3.50/day was just barely a "living wage."

Compare $3.50 in context on [[ATD_374-396|p. 378]]...

'''Western Federation of Miners''' 
A radical labor union created in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia] Their history was very violent.

'''. . . a mule dropping on the edge of life's mountain trail, ready to be either squashed flat or kicked into the void.''' 
Brings directly to mind a scene from Cormac McCarthy's 1985 highly praised novel ''Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness In The West'':
:"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was." (Modern Library Edition 2001, p. 147).
The novel is considered as one of the 20th century American masterpieces ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian Wikipedia entry]). It is set about 45 years before the beginning of AtD (1849-50) at the Mexico - Texas borderlands. In fact, partly due to Pynchon's frequent references to ''red'' light, ''west'' and ''sunset'' (see [[Red%2C_West_and_Sunsets|here]] for a growing list), I suspect a kind of deeper relation between the two novels, but more evidence is required.
:I hate to mention this, because the McCarthy connection is so cogent, but doesn't that phrase in ''AtD'' refer to a "mule dropping" rather than a mule that drops? Or rather: doesn't that phrase ''refract'' (or bi-refract) the passage from ''Blood Meridian,'' bringing the mule's flight to mind while overtly talking about a turd? (A mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but a dropping does.)

:This entry spurred me to read ''Blood Meridian,'' and while ''AtD'' is completely independent of that work, yes, the two novels do reflect a ruddy western light on each other. A really voracious reader will find, I suspect, that ''AtD'' is subtly linked to many other late-20th/early-21st century fictions. Contributors to this wiki have noted some such parallels; one that I found by chance is described in the [[ATD_119-148#Page_142|annotations to p. 142]] ("scentless snow walls"). These relationships suggest yet another interpretation of the title, if we needed another: The book is to be read as object against ground, ''against'' the literature of ''the day.''—[[User:Volver|Volver]]

:I agree, apart from the 'late-20th/early-21st century' point - I think that the link you suggest does exist but extends much beyond. See for example [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/child-of-the-storm-ii/ this] extremely interesting entry in the AtD Weblog. [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 01:45, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 93==
'''plutes''' 
Plutocrats: members of the wealthy class controlling a government

'''Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.''' 
Reviewers of ATD have quoted this line, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601252.html] but Pynchon did not make it up. It comes from authentic miner's union literature of the time. [http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=178]

'''Compassion''' 
With 'Republicans' below, a possible reference to 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration. "...starving, homeless, and dead..." is what the Republicans mean by compassion, demonstrating the need for the "foreign phrase book". Has always been thus,historically and now?

'''Republicans''' 
William McKinley was elected in 1896 on the Republican ticket, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan, ushering in a chain of Republican Presidents until Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912. Obviously, could also be interpreted as a jab at the current Republican Party.

==Page 94==

'''duster''' 
Long coat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing) Wikipedia entry]

'''the people's work, if not God's, the two forces according to Reverend Gatlin having the same voice''' 
Gatlin has in mind the proverb ''Vox populi vox Dei,'' "the voice of the people is the voice of God." There's a twist, though; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi see Wikipedia.]

'''"Don't beg, you hear me? Don't any of you ever, fucking, beg, me or nobody, for nothin." 
Could have easily been TRP's response to interview requests!!!

:I think it's about honor, not annoyance.

'''There's a master list in Washington, D.C...maintained by the U.S. Secret Service.''' 
The Secret Service, founded in 1865 as a treasury force, was not a presidential protection force until 1902. Prior to this, it functioned more or less like the FBI today. This passage suggests that we are after McKinley's assassination (1901) and the period when the Secret Service began protecting the president, though page 97 suggests that this occurred in 1899.

'''Say, open up em peepers 'fore you walk over a cliff someplace''' 
Card 0 of the Rider-Waite Tarot depicts The Fool walking in bright sunlight, his eyes shut, about to fall over a precipice if he doesn't heed the little dog who's trying to warn him of the peril. It isn't out of the question that Webb has encountered the Tarot, but if he has not, his use of the image speaks strongly for its archetypal nature.

==Page 95==

'''dynamite rounders''' 
Rounders was a precursor to baseball. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders [Wikipedia]]

Consider the alternative, that the "rounders" are the kids; "every sheriff has at least a dozen in his county" can refer to the game of rounders only by a stretch of meaning. Rounders: rascals, mischief-makers, in this case making mischief with dynamite.

'''waiting for the rest of the joke''' 
Cf Dally and Lindsay, p27.

==Page 96==

'''"We ready?"''' 
The destruction of the railroad bridge is reminiscent of scenes in Edward Abbey's anarchistic 1975 novel ''The Monkey Wrench Gang.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang Wikipedia entry].

'''Sufficient unto the day''' 
From The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: 6:34. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (The New Testament of the King James Bible)
Very title thematic?

"No one knows exactly when the hit will come---every morning, before the markets open, out before the milkmen, They make Their new update and decide on what's going to be sufficient unto the day."--Gravity's Rainbow,
page 544.

'''Happy Fourth of July, Webb'''

Endearing? Veikko is eight years older than Webb.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 81-96

2009-03-13T18:27:51Z

Bobutler: /* Page 84 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 81==
'''July Fourth started hot and grew hotter,...''' 

[[image:Gpynch.jpg|thumb|Guardan Review|right]] On Saturday, 18 November 2006, the UK's Guardian newspaper, in a Review section which featured a drawing of what Pynchon might now look like on its cover, published a full-page excerpt from ''Against the Day''. This comprised pages 81 to 85 (up to "he wondered sometimes if he would've ever signed on."), with the addition of the final paragraph from page 96, ending with "Happy Fourth of July, Webb." This was a much more substantial excerpt than the one which appeared in the Penguin Press catalogue, and was arguably a more alluring one in terms of attracting the general reader. These were the only official excerpts published before ATD itself, on 21 November 2006.

The Guardian excerpt is now online:
[http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1950566,00.html]

The timing of this chapter, opening on a summer morning, parallels that of the novel's very first chapter.

Makes reference to that July Fourth feeling in YR 2000 New York when the internet / new economy / electronic revolution was getting hot while reaching its maximum peak.

'''nitro beginning to ooze out of dynamite sticks''' 
The important point about dynamite is when it '''doesn't''' blow up. Alfred Nobel discovered that he could stabilize nitroglycerine by soaking it into a powdered clay; the product was not sensitive to shock or heat. That is, until it separated in hot weather, with greasy-feeling free nitro collecting on the outside of the sticks. (A minor plot point in the TV series ''Lost,'' isn't it?)

'''Feast of St. Barbara''' 
According to legend, Saint Barbara was the extremely beautiful daughter of a wealthy heathen named Dioscorus, who lived near Nicomedia in Asia Minor, in the 4th Century AD. Because of her singular beauty and fearful that she be demanded in marriage and taken away from him, he jealously shut her up in a tower to protect her from the outside world. When Barbara converted to Christianity, her enraged father killed her and was subsequently struck down by lightening. St. Barbara was venerated as early as the seventh century. The legend of the lightning bolt which struck down her father caused her to be regarded as the patron saint in time of danger from thunderstorms, fires and sudden death. When gunpowder made its appearance in the Western world, Saint Barbara was invoked for aid against accidents resulting from explosions since some of the earlier artillery pieces often blew up instead of firing their projectile, Saint Barbara became the patroness of the artillerymen. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm]

'''Propaganda of the Deed''' 
Anarchist terrorism.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed [Wikipedia]]

'''Zarzuela''' 
Webb's horse is named for a Spanish genre of musical theater. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarzuela [Wikipedia]]

'''cicadas''' 
[http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/insect/05590.html Cicadas in Colorado] are annual, not 17- or 13-year periodical species, so they don't help pin down the year of the action.

==Page 82==
'''Skinner''' 
Commonly, a skinner is a person who skins sections of animals or whole animals, such as cattle, sheep, and pigs, to prepare them for cooking. Historically the term referred to those engaged in the trade of skins and furs.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner (profession) Wikipedia] However, in this context, "skinner" refers to a more obscure definition: a worker who drives mules. Long teams of mules, up to ten pairs of mules on one wagon were used to haul borax from the mines to the railroads. A skinner could "skin" or outsmart a mule. ("skin" is old criminal slang for "defraud" or "cheat.")

'''"Rocky Mountain canaries"''' 
This was the nickname the miners gave to burros, because of their braying.

'''Chinaman''' 
There was a large number of Chinese who worked on the railroads in the Rocky Mountains, especially as dynamiters, in the late 18th and early 20th centuries.

'''Eclipse Union mine''' 
The Eclipse mine was one of many in the Cripple Creek District, Lake County, Colorado, in the late 19th century. From this [http://www.scripophily.net/jaflmiandtuc.html website]:

:The Ajax vein had been staked over its length by five adjoining claims located in 1878 the Ajax, Bobtail, Nero, Park View, and Union Flag. All were patented in 1883 by the Eclipse Mining Company, which had been incorporated a year earlier with capital stock of $50,000. A year later the mine was developed via three adits (40, 100, and 400 feet long) and three shafts (each 30 feet deep). Immediately adjacent to the claims along the vein the company owned four patented mill sites of 5 acres each (Corregan and Lingane 1883).

Doubtful that the "Union" capital "U" infers that the mine was unionized, rather the Eclipse Union mine is likely a fictional entity, based on the actual existence of the Eclipse and Union mines, both active in the late 19th century in Lake County, Colorado [http://www.topozone.com/states/Colorado.asp?county=Lake&feature=Mine], with a double-entendre that references the mine owners' drive to ''eclipse'' the unions, i.e., wipe them out. Or perhaps Pynchon simply came across such a named mine in his research...

[[image:Moses.jpg|thumb|Michelangelo's "Moses"|right|160px]]'''flames issuing out of his head''' 
This hallucination likely refers to Veikko's "insane fanaticism" "even on his calmest days," his eyes "illuminated from within" [[#Page 83|p.83]]. There's also the allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses Moses] coming from the mountain with fire from his head; this is the source for Michelangelo's "horns" on his statue, as well as other 17th century depictions of Moses. Veikko carries the word, but won't be allowed into the new "Promised Land." Like Moses, Veikko is fanatical about freeing his people from enslavement, in ''ATD'' from the mine owners and bosses. This is the first we meet Veikko which sounds close to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Vico Giambattista Vico], a possible source of Pynchonian elements. 

'''dynamite headache''' 
In the early 20th century, the nitroglycerin in dynamite was discovered to cause severe headaches. Dynamite (DNT) is highly skin-penetrating and such headaches, dubbed "dynamite headaches," were often suffered by workers in plants manufacturing explosives. Dynamite headaches were also common among miners, who were often exposed to vaporized nitroglycerin when detonating dynamite.

'''Cour d'Alene bullpens''' 
Spelled ''Coeur'', actually. During the July 1892 strikes, the violence provided the mine owners and the governor with an excuse to bring in six companies of the Idaho National Guard to "suppress insurrection and violence." Federal troops also arrived, and they confined six hundred miners in bullpens without any hearings or formal charges. Some were later "sent up" for violating injunctions, others for obstructing the United States mail. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene_miners'_dispute Wikipedia entry]

'''Cripple Creek''' 
Cripple Creek was the location of a miner's strike in 1894. It was a significant labor event and it was the first time that a state Militia was called out in support of the miners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Creek_miners'_strike_of_1894 Wikipedia entry]

'''side-door pullman''' 
Boxcar.

==Page 83==

'''They thought it was funny''' 
Many authorities report that Indians think almost everything whites do is funny. In particular:

'''Colorado . . . created as a reservation for whites''' 
Drawing straight lines on the ground and calling them limits. Most of the reservations in the West and on the Plains are bounded by such lines rather than "natural" boundaries like crestlines. So is Colorado: "four straight lines on paper" -- a Cartesian state of geography.

'''General Bobrikoff''' 
Or Bobrikov, N.I. (1839-1904), given dictatorial powers in Finland, viewed there as oppressor, assassinated on June 16, 1904, the day of the action in Joyce's Ulysses.

'''mean and cold, same wealth without conscience, same poor people in misery, army and police free as wolves to commit cruelties on behalf of the bosses, bosses ready to do anything to protect what they had stolen''' 
So simple and yet so truthful. History keeps repeating itself... One endless vicious cycle of the same lame old... One reason for James Joyce spend years writing thousand pages of sophisticated {Finnegan/Ulyssean} gibberish in defense of such unvarnished genuine statement. John Zorn once said... "governments have been thinking for thousands of years on how to fuck us up." And its the artist role to break away from that and say... now look...

'''neuræsthenic''' 
Neurasthenia (Fatigue syndrome) is a neurotic disorder. [http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/?gf40.htm+f480 Definition/Symptoms]

This word appears again on [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|page 188]]. It may be a reference to Proust, who was neurasthenic. It may also simply be a fancy word for disinterested in this context. 
:The diagnosis was frequently used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for men (women were "hysterics"). In World War I, soldiers suffering what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder were diagnosed as neurasthenic -- if they weren't refused medical aid and/ or executed as deserters. See Elaine Showalter, '''''The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980''''' (NY: Pantheon, 1985)

==Page 84==

'''1900''' 
So the current Fourth of July must be 1901 or later (not 1899). 
And not 1904: Gen. Bobrikoff (preceding page) was assassinated in June of that year, so Veikko's toast goes stale. Therefore 1901, '02 or '03.

On August 14, 1900, American, British, Russian and American troops entered Beijing to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

'''''Minneskort''''' 
Modern Swedish word for computer memory cards. Swedish is a minority language in Finland. (TRP likely saw it on a Nokia phone.)

'''Fink trusses''' 
This [http://pghbridges.com/basics.htm perfectly delightful site] for bridge spotters identifies the Fink truss as a design by Albert Fink dating from the 1860s. It's illustrated way down toward the bottom of the page. All the compression and tension members lie below the plane of the deck where the tracks are laid.

'''...it bein a three-day holiday''' 
Indicates that this passage takes place in 1902, as the Fourth of July fell on a Friday. ([http://www.hf.rim.or.jp/~kaji/cal/cal.cgi?1902 Source])

==Page 85==

'''nippers''' 
The etymology is not very interesting, but [http://www.britishempire.co.uk/glossary/n.htm decide for yourself.] According to Google, the term used to mean "boys used to open and close doors in a mine," but the link to the source is dead.

'''Innocent Victims . . . Monsters That Did the Deed''' 
Use of capitals seems to emphasize the fact that these persons are simply convenient stock characters in the forwarding of the owners'/government's agenda.

'''"some of these explosions, the more deadly of them, in fact, were really set off to begin with not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves."''' 
Is this an allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? 

NO! In labor history, many 'accidents' and some planned deeds by owners were blamed on radicals, anarchists, etc. It was common in the early days of the labor movement for owners to conspire to make the unions look bad in this manner. One such example is cited [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_labor_issues_and_events here] in 1910, and it is certainly far from the only one.

See, however, a much more straightforward allusion in [[ATD_171-198#Page_175|page 175]].
:While it's true that many "anarchist" explosions were planned by the owners of industry, to suggest that this is NOT! an allusion to the possibility of US Government involvement in the 9-11 attacks seems rather limiting. Pynchon hinted strongly that this novel is an allegory for our own time in the jacket blurb, and much of what makes this chapter interesting is the way it creates a disturbing analogy between the terrorism carried out by Webb, a highly sympathetic figure, and that carried out by the 9-11 hijackers, whom we so love to hate.

'''Which left precious few targets except for the railroad.''' 
Frank Norris's 1901 novel ''The Octopus'' is summed up in one short paragraph. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus_%28Frank_Norris%29 Wikipedia entry].

==Page 86==
'''Shorty's Billiard Saloon''' 
This is based on real accounts of billiard balls sparking and exploding in saloons. The balls in question used a then-new thermoplastic compound of cellulose nitrate and camphor developed and patented under the trademark "celluloid" by John Wesley Hyatt as a substitute for ivory. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C Celluloid] for Wikipedia links to Hyatt and Celluloid.

'''without being hit once''' 
Similar to a pivotal scene in the film, ''Pulp Fiction''.

'''a state of heightened receptivity''' 
People who talk about enlightenment and unsubstantiated alternative "therapies" use this phrase a lot—[http://www.enlightenment.com/forums/msgs.cfm?msg=708&forum=6&tz=240 example]—but in simplest terms it just means [http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/pdf%2F8004%2F8004r2.pdf hypnosis.]

==Page 87==

'''those French Anarchists . . . Emile Henry . . . Vaillant''' 
Emile Henry (1872 - May 21, 1894) was a French anarchist who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty. Henry was angered over the execution of another Anarchist, Auguste Vaillant, for the destruction of a government building that hurt no one, and took it upon himself to strike back to avenge his fellow revolutionary's death. He saw the Cafe as a representation of the bourgeois itself and his intent was to kill as many people as possible in the bombing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry].

'''how can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?''' 
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's ''Full Metal Jacket.'' ("How you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.") Discussion here also recalls the Weathermen, a violent off-shoot of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) during the Vietnam Era.

'''listening . . . to the sermon . . . those absolute terms''' 
While there is a movement or school called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism Christian anarchism] (use the Wikipedia article with caution), Gatlin's ideas do not harmonize with it. As his sermon on pages 86-87 makes plain, he follows quite a different line.

'''Mason-Dixon line''' 
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning clan from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon." No Traverses appear, however, in Pynchon's ''Mason & Dixon'' (except in the sense that the whole M-D survey was conducted by the traverse method), but one can speculate that had they been, the Traverse ancestors may have been victims of the Line's bad Feng Shui. From this, one could infer a connection between the Line and Colorado Anarchism.

'''Civil War''' 
This is the first instance of the term, for a war so far in the novel being referred to as "The Rebellion".

==Page 88==

'''westward drift''' 
Webb Traverse's wanderings are referred to as "this westward drift". The phrase is probably not accidental: in scientific circles "westward drift" is used for either of two geophysical phenomena: the gradual westward [http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~dacheson/res2.html movement of the magnetic north pole] and the westward [http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/1-2/199 rotation of the outer layers of the Earth] (the lithosphere) relative to the inner layers.

'''twelve-cylinder Confederate Colt''' 
A hard weapon to identify. Some Colt revolvers were sold to the Southern forces in the first few days after Fort Sumter, but it's far more likely that this is a knockoff of Colt's 1851 design made, for example, at Augusta, Georgia. Plenty of these got into service. Caliber is probably .36 or .44, but there are other possibilities. "Twelve-cylinder" is nonsense; there is a rare version of the Colt cylinder with ''twelve cylinder stops,'' but it holds ''six'' percussion rounds (ball and cap system). The cylinder stops are depressions on the outer surface of the cylinder forming part of the mechanism that aligns the chamber with the barrel for firing. Photos of sidearms online are ephemeral (many vanish once the auction concludes), so no link here, even if any of the available images did show the variant. To see today's selection, trying [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22confederate+revolver%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a googling "Confederate revolver"]...

==Page 89==

'''silver-boom babies''' 
Assuming the silver boom of 1890-1892 is meant, Webb's kids were aged about 9 to 16. [[Timeline|Timeline with spoilers]]

'''Ace of spades...death card''' 
The ace of spades seems to have been considered the "death card" in the Vietnam War. [http://www.newtscards.com/secret_weapon_death_playing_cards.asp Article]

Oh, ''long'' before that. Schoolchildren in the 1950s (who would pretty reliably believe anything) believed in the association, and aren't there about a shelf's worth of spy and mystery novels where the Ace of Spades portends death?

Going back farther,
:''In Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Suicide Club" (1878), the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Spades Ace of Spades] functions as the "sign of death" within a secret society whose members commit "suicide" by submitting to be killed, if they draw the Ace of Spades from a pack of 52 cards during a club meeting, by another member drawing the Ace of Clubs.''

Also, as the highest card in the deck, it commonly defeats everything else, as does death. 
Why Mayva should be likened to the Ace of Spades is still to be explained.

'''fancy briar pipe . . . beat-up old corncob''' 
Briar pipes appeared in Europe from the 1850s on. The Missouri Meerschaum brand of corncob pipe dates from 1869. Until close to 1900, clay pipes were probably more common than either.

'''Bob Ford's Funeral''' 
June 1892 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw) [Wikipedia]]

'''Creede''' 
Central Colorado mining town, now a ski resort.

'''Telluride''' 
Far southwestern Colorado mining town, now a ski and mountain resort, with an annual film festival. Named for the telluride ores typical of the vicinity, but the name has more possible significance in AtD.

Used as an adjective, Telluric: Of or belonging to the earth; terrestrial; pertaining to the earth as a planet; also, arising from the earth or soil (OED). In turn the origin of Tellurism: Magnetic influence or principle supposed by some to pervade all nature, and to produce the phenomenon of Animal Magnetism; also the theory of Animal Magnetism based on this, propounded in 1822 by Keiser in Germany (OED). "Animal Magnetism" is referred to in English as Mesmerism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Magnetism].

'''extreme and unmerciful whiteness''' 
It doesn't seem to be accidental that "white" and "whiteness" are hard to endure in ''AtD.'' Consider [[ATD_26-56#Page_52|"the whiteness of the place nearly unbearable";]] the White City and White City Investigations; and other uses.

'''repeal of the Silver Act''' 
Prior to 1892, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

'''tiresome moral exercise''' 
May be a preterite association with President Clinton's impeachment and Senate trial over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

==Page 90==

'''before he got shot''' 
1899. [http://www.butchandsundance.com/players/ketchumgang.htm [cite]]

'''the Cornish wives in Jacktown''' 
Many Western miners came from Cornwall. The stock nickname for any Cornishman was "Cousin Jack." So Jacktown is the area where the Cornish families live.

'''Lake''' 
'Lake Traverse' is a real lake between Minnesota and South Dakota. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Traverse Wikipedia]

'''dynamited carny jump up out of that blast good as new''' 
This passage recalls Daffy Duck cartoons.

==Page 91==

'''theory and practice of resistance to power''' 
[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun138236.html Mao Tse-tung] (or Mao Zedong) said, "The guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea." Gatlin anticipates the principle, with a kicker that's especially pertinent to ''AtD:'' to succeed at invisibility, you must first succeed at visibility.

'''"Sleep? is when you sleep"''' 
Not likely this is a typo. We often include a question in our answer, in this case summarising the question with "sleep?" then immediately answering. And just as it does falling at the end of a sentence, the "?" reflects a change of vocal pitch/stress. As for the sentence fragment, Webb is a man of few words, and "The reservation I have about what you say is" are not some of them.

Alludes Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki's teachings on Zen... "shower is when you shower." First pages of William Burroughs' The Ticket That Exploded comes to mind ~ the notion about sleep, heartbeat and mind/spiritual/innerSelf survivalism... that fearful feeling of falling asleep and never waking up again to fulfill your true revolutionary objectives.

==Page 92==

'''$3-blessed-50 a day''' 
This might be an over-estimate; in 2006 dollars, that comes to over $86 a day, not a bad wage indeed. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ Calculator]

$86 dollars a day not a bad wage?? Assuming an 8-12 hour day, that comes out to about today's minimum wage -- which is hardly a living wage. This seems about right. Just enough to keep body, soul and family together. Maybe. The text implies that $3.50/day was just barely a "living wage."

Compare $3.50 in context on [[ATD_374-396|p. 378]]...

'''Western Federation of Miners''' 
A radical labor union created in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia] Their history was very violent.

'''. . . a mule dropping on the edge of life's mountain trail, ready to be either squashed flat or kicked into the void.''' 
Brings directly to mind a scene from Cormac McCarthy's 1985 highly praised novel ''Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness In The West'':
:"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was." (Modern Library Edition 2001, p. 147).
The novel is considered as one of the 20th century American masterpieces ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian Wikipedia entry]). It is set about 45 years before the beginning of AtD (1849-50) at the Mexico - Texas borderlands. In fact, partly due to Pynchon's frequent references to ''red'' light, ''west'' and ''sunset'' (see [[Red%2C_West_and_Sunsets|here]] for a growing list), I suspect a kind of deeper relation between the two novels, but more evidence is required.
:I hate to mention this, because the McCarthy connection is so cogent, but doesn't that phrase in ''AtD'' refer to a "mule dropping" rather than a mule that drops? Or rather: doesn't that phrase ''refract'' (or bi-refract) the passage from ''Blood Meridian,'' bringing the mule's flight to mind while overtly talking about a turd? (A mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but a dropping does.)

:This entry spurred me to read ''Blood Meridian,'' and while ''AtD'' is completely independent of that work, yes, the two novels do reflect a ruddy western light on each other. A really voracious reader will find, I suspect, that ''AtD'' is subtly linked to many other late-20th/early-21st century fictions. Contributors to this wiki have noted some such parallels; one that I found by chance is described in the [[ATD_119-148#Page_142|annotations to p. 142]] ("scentless snow walls"). These relationships suggest yet another interpretation of the title, if we needed another: The book is to be read as object against ground, ''against'' the literature of ''the day.''—[[User:Volver|Volver]]

:I agree, apart from the 'late-20th/early-21st century' point - I think that the link you suggest does exist but extends much beyond. See for example [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/child-of-the-storm-ii/ this] extremely interesting entry in the AtD Weblog. [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 01:45, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 93==
'''plutes''' 
Plutocrats: members of the wealthy class controlling a government

'''Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.''' 
Reviewers of ATD have quoted this line, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601252.html] but Pynchon did not make it up. It comes from authentic miner's union literature of the time. [http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=178]

'''Compassion''' 
With 'Republicans' below, a possible reference to 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration. "...starving, homeless, and dead..." is what the Republicans mean by compassion, demonstrating the need for the "foreign phrase book". Has always been thus,historically and now?

'''Republicans''' 
William McKinley was elected in 1896 on the Republican ticket, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan, ushering in a chain of Republican Presidents until Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912. Obviously, could also be interpreted as a jab at the current Republican Party.

==Page 94==

'''duster''' 
Long coat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing) Wikipedia entry]

'''the people's work, if not God's, the two forces according to Reverend Gatlin having the same voice''' 
Gatlin has in mind the proverb ''Vox populi vox Dei,'' "the voice of the people is the voice of God." There's a twist, though; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi see Wikipedia.]

'''"Don't beg, you hear me? Don't any of you ever, fucking, beg, me or nobody, for nothin." 
Could have easily been TRP's response to interview requests!!!

:I think it's about honor, not annoyance.

'''There's a master list in Washington, D.C...maintained by the U.S. Secret Service.''' 
The Secret Service, founded in 1865 as a treasury force, was not a presidential protection force until 1902. Prior to this, it functioned more or less like the FBI today. This passage suggests that we are after McKinley's assassination (1901) and the period when the Secret Service began protecting the president, though page 97 suggests that this occurred in 1899.

'''Say, open up em peepers 'fore you walk over a cliff someplace''' 
Card 0 of the Rider-Waite Tarot depicts The Fool walking in bright sunlight, his eyes shut, about to fall over a precipice if he doesn't heed the little dog who's trying to warn him of the peril. It isn't out of the question that Webb has encountered the Tarot, but if he has not, his use of the image speaks strongly for its archetypal nature.

==Page 95==

'''dynamite rounders''' 
Rounders was a precursor to baseball. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders [Wikipedia]]

Consider the alternative, that the "rounders" are the kids; "every sheriff has at least a dozen in his county" can refer to the game of rounders only by a stretch of meaning. Rounders: rascals, mischief-makers, in this case making mischief with dynamite.

'''waiting for the rest of the joke''' 
Cf Dally and Lindsay, p27.

==Page 96==

'''"We ready?"''' 
The destruction of the railroad bridge is reminiscent of scenes in Edward Abbey's anarchistic 1975 novel ''The Monkey Wrench Gang.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang Wikipedia entry].

'''Sufficient unto the day''' 
From The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: 6:34. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (The New Testament of the King James Bible)
Very title thematic?

"No one knows exactly when the hit will come---every morning, before the markets open, out before the milkmen, They make Their new update and decide on what's going to be sufficient unto the day."--Gravity's Rainbow,
page 544.

'''Happy Fourth of July, Webb'''

Endearing? Veikko is eight years older than Webb.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 81-96

2009-03-13T18:17:50Z

Bobutler: /* Page 83 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 81==
'''July Fourth started hot and grew hotter,...''' 

[[image:Gpynch.jpg|thumb|Guardan Review|right]] On Saturday, 18 November 2006, the UK's Guardian newspaper, in a Review section which featured a drawing of what Pynchon might now look like on its cover, published a full-page excerpt from ''Against the Day''. This comprised pages 81 to 85 (up to "he wondered sometimes if he would've ever signed on."), with the addition of the final paragraph from page 96, ending with "Happy Fourth of July, Webb." This was a much more substantial excerpt than the one which appeared in the Penguin Press catalogue, and was arguably a more alluring one in terms of attracting the general reader. These were the only official excerpts published before ATD itself, on 21 November 2006.

The Guardian excerpt is now online:
[http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1950566,00.html]

The timing of this chapter, opening on a summer morning, parallels that of the novel's very first chapter.

Makes reference to that July Fourth feeling in YR 2000 New York when the internet / new economy / electronic revolution was getting hot while reaching its maximum peak.

'''nitro beginning to ooze out of dynamite sticks''' 
The important point about dynamite is when it '''doesn't''' blow up. Alfred Nobel discovered that he could stabilize nitroglycerine by soaking it into a powdered clay; the product was not sensitive to shock or heat. That is, until it separated in hot weather, with greasy-feeling free nitro collecting on the outside of the sticks. (A minor plot point in the TV series ''Lost,'' isn't it?)

'''Feast of St. Barbara''' 
According to legend, Saint Barbara was the extremely beautiful daughter of a wealthy heathen named Dioscorus, who lived near Nicomedia in Asia Minor, in the 4th Century AD. Because of her singular beauty and fearful that she be demanded in marriage and taken away from him, he jealously shut her up in a tower to protect her from the outside world. When Barbara converted to Christianity, her enraged father killed her and was subsequently struck down by lightening. St. Barbara was venerated as early as the seventh century. The legend of the lightning bolt which struck down her father caused her to be regarded as the patron saint in time of danger from thunderstorms, fires and sudden death. When gunpowder made its appearance in the Western world, Saint Barbara was invoked for aid against accidents resulting from explosions since some of the earlier artillery pieces often blew up instead of firing their projectile, Saint Barbara became the patroness of the artillerymen. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm]

'''Propaganda of the Deed''' 
Anarchist terrorism.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed [Wikipedia]]

'''Zarzuela''' 
Webb's horse is named for a Spanish genre of musical theater. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarzuela [Wikipedia]]

'''cicadas''' 
[http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/insect/05590.html Cicadas in Colorado] are annual, not 17- or 13-year periodical species, so they don't help pin down the year of the action.

==Page 82==
'''Skinner''' 
Commonly, a skinner is a person who skins sections of animals or whole animals, such as cattle, sheep, and pigs, to prepare them for cooking. Historically the term referred to those engaged in the trade of skins and furs.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner (profession) Wikipedia] However, in this context, "skinner" refers to a more obscure definition: a worker who drives mules. Long teams of mules, up to ten pairs of mules on one wagon were used to haul borax from the mines to the railroads. A skinner could "skin" or outsmart a mule. ("skin" is old criminal slang for "defraud" or "cheat.")

'''"Rocky Mountain canaries"''' 
This was the nickname the miners gave to burros, because of their braying.

'''Chinaman''' 
There was a large number of Chinese who worked on the railroads in the Rocky Mountains, especially as dynamiters, in the late 18th and early 20th centuries.

'''Eclipse Union mine''' 
The Eclipse mine was one of many in the Cripple Creek District, Lake County, Colorado, in the late 19th century. From this [http://www.scripophily.net/jaflmiandtuc.html website]:

:The Ajax vein had been staked over its length by five adjoining claims located in 1878 the Ajax, Bobtail, Nero, Park View, and Union Flag. All were patented in 1883 by the Eclipse Mining Company, which had been incorporated a year earlier with capital stock of $50,000. A year later the mine was developed via three adits (40, 100, and 400 feet long) and three shafts (each 30 feet deep). Immediately adjacent to the claims along the vein the company owned four patented mill sites of 5 acres each (Corregan and Lingane 1883).

Doubtful that the "Union" capital "U" infers that the mine was unionized, rather the Eclipse Union mine is likely a fictional entity, based on the actual existence of the Eclipse and Union mines, both active in the late 19th century in Lake County, Colorado [http://www.topozone.com/states/Colorado.asp?county=Lake&feature=Mine], with a double-entendre that references the mine owners' drive to ''eclipse'' the unions, i.e., wipe them out. Or perhaps Pynchon simply came across such a named mine in his research...

[[image:Moses.jpg|thumb|Michelangelo's "Moses"|right|160px]]'''flames issuing out of his head''' 
This hallucination likely refers to Veikko's "insane fanaticism" "even on his calmest days," his eyes "illuminated from within" [[#Page 83|p.83]]. There's also the allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses Moses] coming from the mountain with fire from his head; this is the source for Michelangelo's "horns" on his statue, as well as other 17th century depictions of Moses. Veikko carries the word, but won't be allowed into the new "Promised Land." Like Moses, Veikko is fanatical about freeing his people from enslavement, in ''ATD'' from the mine owners and bosses. This is the first we meet Veikko which sounds close to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Vico Giambattista Vico], a possible source of Pynchonian elements. 

'''dynamite headache''' 
In the early 20th century, the nitroglycerin in dynamite was discovered to cause severe headaches. Dynamite (DNT) is highly skin-penetrating and such headaches, dubbed "dynamite headaches," were often suffered by workers in plants manufacturing explosives. Dynamite headaches were also common among miners, who were often exposed to vaporized nitroglycerin when detonating dynamite.

'''Cour d'Alene bullpens''' 
Spelled ''Coeur'', actually. During the July 1892 strikes, the violence provided the mine owners and the governor with an excuse to bring in six companies of the Idaho National Guard to "suppress insurrection and violence." Federal troops also arrived, and they confined six hundred miners in bullpens without any hearings or formal charges. Some were later "sent up" for violating injunctions, others for obstructing the United States mail. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene_miners'_dispute Wikipedia entry]

'''Cripple Creek''' 
Cripple Creek was the location of a miner's strike in 1894. It was a significant labor event and it was the first time that a state Militia was called out in support of the miners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Creek_miners'_strike_of_1894 Wikipedia entry]

'''side-door pullman''' 
Boxcar.

==Page 83==

'''They thought it was funny''' 
Many authorities report that Indians think almost everything whites do is funny. In particular:

'''Colorado . . . created as a reservation for whites''' 
Drawing straight lines on the ground and calling them limits. Most of the reservations in the West and on the Plains are bounded by such lines rather than "natural" boundaries like crestlines. So is Colorado: "four straight lines on paper" -- a Cartesian state of geography.

'''General Bobrikoff''' 
Or Bobrikov, N.I. (1839-1904), given dictatorial powers in Finland, viewed there as oppressor, assassinated on June 16, 1904, the day of the action in Joyce's Ulysses.

'''mean and cold, same wealth without conscience, same poor people in misery, army and police free as wolves to commit cruelties on behalf of the bosses, bosses ready to do anything to protect what they had stolen''' 
So simple and yet so truthful. History keeps repeating itself... One endless vicious cycle of the same lame old... One reason for James Joyce spend years writing thousand pages of sophisticated {Finnegan/Ulyssean} gibberish in defense of such unvarnished genuine statement. John Zorn once said... "governments have been thinking for thousands of years on how to fuck us up." And its the artist role to break away from that and say... now look...

'''neuræsthenic''' 
Neurasthenia (Fatigue syndrome) is a neurotic disorder. [http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/?gf40.htm+f480 Definition/Symptoms]

This word appears again on [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|page 188]]. It may be a reference to Proust, who was neurasthenic. It may also simply be a fancy word for disinterested in this context. 
:The diagnosis was frequently used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for men (women were "hysterics"). In World War I, soldiers suffering what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder were diagnosed as neurasthenic -- if they weren't refused medical aid and/ or executed as deserters. See Elaine Showalter, '''''The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980''''' (NY: Pantheon, 1985)

==Page 84==

'''1900''' 
So the current Fourth of July must be 1901 or later (not 1899). 
And not 1904: Gen. Bobrikoff (preceding page) was assassinated in June of that year, so Veikko's toast goes stale. Therefore 1901, '02 or '03.

On August 14, 1900, American, British, Russian and American troops entered Beijing to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

'''''Minneskort''''' 
Modern Swedish word for computer memory cards. Swedish is a minority language in Finland. (TRP likely saw it on a Nokia phone.)

'''Fink trusses''' 
This [http://pghbridges.com/basics.htm perfectly delightful site] for bridge spotters identifies the Fink truss as a design by Albert Fink dating from the 1860s. It's illustrated way down toward the bottom of the page. All the compression and tension members lie below the plane of the deck where the tracks are laid.

==Page 85==

'''nippers''' 
The etymology is not very interesting, but [http://www.britishempire.co.uk/glossary/n.htm decide for yourself.] According to Google, the term used to mean "boys used to open and close doors in a mine," but the link to the source is dead.

'''Innocent Victims . . . Monsters That Did the Deed''' 
Use of capitals seems to emphasize the fact that these persons are simply convenient stock characters in the forwarding of the owners'/government's agenda.

'''"some of these explosions, the more deadly of them, in fact, were really set off to begin with not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves."''' 
Is this an allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? 

NO! In labor history, many 'accidents' and some planned deeds by owners were blamed on radicals, anarchists, etc. It was common in the early days of the labor movement for owners to conspire to make the unions look bad in this manner. One such example is cited [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_labor_issues_and_events here] in 1910, and it is certainly far from the only one.

See, however, a much more straightforward allusion in [[ATD_171-198#Page_175|page 175]].
:While it's true that many "anarchist" explosions were planned by the owners of industry, to suggest that this is NOT! an allusion to the possibility of US Government involvement in the 9-11 attacks seems rather limiting. Pynchon hinted strongly that this novel is an allegory for our own time in the jacket blurb, and much of what makes this chapter interesting is the way it creates a disturbing analogy between the terrorism carried out by Webb, a highly sympathetic figure, and that carried out by the 9-11 hijackers, whom we so love to hate.

'''Which left precious few targets except for the railroad.''' 
Frank Norris's 1901 novel ''The Octopus'' is summed up in one short paragraph. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus_%28Frank_Norris%29 Wikipedia entry].

==Page 86==
'''Shorty's Billiard Saloon''' 
This is based on real accounts of billiard balls sparking and exploding in saloons. The balls in question used a then-new thermoplastic compound of cellulose nitrate and camphor developed and patented under the trademark "celluloid" by John Wesley Hyatt as a substitute for ivory. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C Celluloid] for Wikipedia links to Hyatt and Celluloid.

'''without being hit once''' 
Similar to a pivotal scene in the film, ''Pulp Fiction''.

'''a state of heightened receptivity''' 
People who talk about enlightenment and unsubstantiated alternative "therapies" use this phrase a lot—[http://www.enlightenment.com/forums/msgs.cfm?msg=708&forum=6&tz=240 example]—but in simplest terms it just means [http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/pdf%2F8004%2F8004r2.pdf hypnosis.]

==Page 87==

'''those French Anarchists . . . Emile Henry . . . Vaillant''' 
Emile Henry (1872 - May 21, 1894) was a French anarchist who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty. Henry was angered over the execution of another Anarchist, Auguste Vaillant, for the destruction of a government building that hurt no one, and took it upon himself to strike back to avenge his fellow revolutionary's death. He saw the Cafe as a representation of the bourgeois itself and his intent was to kill as many people as possible in the bombing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry].

'''how can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?''' 
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's ''Full Metal Jacket.'' ("How you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.") Discussion here also recalls the Weathermen, a violent off-shoot of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) during the Vietnam Era.

'''listening . . . to the sermon . . . those absolute terms''' 
While there is a movement or school called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism Christian anarchism] (use the Wikipedia article with caution), Gatlin's ideas do not harmonize with it. As his sermon on pages 86-87 makes plain, he follows quite a different line.

'''Mason-Dixon line''' 
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning clan from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon." No Traverses appear, however, in Pynchon's ''Mason & Dixon'' (except in the sense that the whole M-D survey was conducted by the traverse method), but one can speculate that had they been, the Traverse ancestors may have been victims of the Line's bad Feng Shui. From this, one could infer a connection between the Line and Colorado Anarchism.

'''Civil War''' 
This is the first instance of the term, for a war so far in the novel being referred to as "The Rebellion".

==Page 88==

'''westward drift''' 
Webb Traverse's wanderings are referred to as "this westward drift". The phrase is probably not accidental: in scientific circles "westward drift" is used for either of two geophysical phenomena: the gradual westward [http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~dacheson/res2.html movement of the magnetic north pole] and the westward [http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/1-2/199 rotation of the outer layers of the Earth] (the lithosphere) relative to the inner layers.

'''twelve-cylinder Confederate Colt''' 
A hard weapon to identify. Some Colt revolvers were sold to the Southern forces in the first few days after Fort Sumter, but it's far more likely that this is a knockoff of Colt's 1851 design made, for example, at Augusta, Georgia. Plenty of these got into service. Caliber is probably .36 or .44, but there are other possibilities. "Twelve-cylinder" is nonsense; there is a rare version of the Colt cylinder with ''twelve cylinder stops,'' but it holds ''six'' percussion rounds (ball and cap system). The cylinder stops are depressions on the outer surface of the cylinder forming part of the mechanism that aligns the chamber with the barrel for firing. Photos of sidearms online are ephemeral (many vanish once the auction concludes), so no link here, even if any of the available images did show the variant. To see today's selection, trying [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22confederate+revolver%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a googling "Confederate revolver"]...

==Page 89==

'''silver-boom babies''' 
Assuming the silver boom of 1890-1892 is meant, Webb's kids were aged about 9 to 16. [[Timeline|Timeline with spoilers]]

'''Ace of spades...death card''' 
The ace of spades seems to have been considered the "death card" in the Vietnam War. [http://www.newtscards.com/secret_weapon_death_playing_cards.asp Article]

Oh, ''long'' before that. Schoolchildren in the 1950s (who would pretty reliably believe anything) believed in the association, and aren't there about a shelf's worth of spy and mystery novels where the Ace of Spades portends death?

Going back farther,
:''In Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Suicide Club" (1878), the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Spades Ace of Spades] functions as the "sign of death" within a secret society whose members commit "suicide" by submitting to be killed, if they draw the Ace of Spades from a pack of 52 cards during a club meeting, by another member drawing the Ace of Clubs.''

Also, as the highest card in the deck, it commonly defeats everything else, as does death. 
Why Mayva should be likened to the Ace of Spades is still to be explained.

'''fancy briar pipe . . . beat-up old corncob''' 
Briar pipes appeared in Europe from the 1850s on. The Missouri Meerschaum brand of corncob pipe dates from 1869. Until close to 1900, clay pipes were probably more common than either.

'''Bob Ford's Funeral''' 
June 1892 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw) [Wikipedia]]

'''Creede''' 
Central Colorado mining town, now a ski resort.

'''Telluride''' 
Far southwestern Colorado mining town, now a ski and mountain resort, with an annual film festival. Named for the telluride ores typical of the vicinity, but the name has more possible significance in AtD.

Used as an adjective, Telluric: Of or belonging to the earth; terrestrial; pertaining to the earth as a planet; also, arising from the earth or soil (OED). In turn the origin of Tellurism: Magnetic influence or principle supposed by some to pervade all nature, and to produce the phenomenon of Animal Magnetism; also the theory of Animal Magnetism based on this, propounded in 1822 by Keiser in Germany (OED). "Animal Magnetism" is referred to in English as Mesmerism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Magnetism].

'''extreme and unmerciful whiteness''' 
It doesn't seem to be accidental that "white" and "whiteness" are hard to endure in ''AtD.'' Consider [[ATD_26-56#Page_52|"the whiteness of the place nearly unbearable";]] the White City and White City Investigations; and other uses.

'''repeal of the Silver Act''' 
Prior to 1892, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

'''tiresome moral exercise''' 
May be a preterite association with President Clinton's impeachment and Senate trial over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

==Page 90==

'''before he got shot''' 
1899. [http://www.butchandsundance.com/players/ketchumgang.htm [cite]]

'''the Cornish wives in Jacktown''' 
Many Western miners came from Cornwall. The stock nickname for any Cornishman was "Cousin Jack." So Jacktown is the area where the Cornish families live.

'''Lake''' 
'Lake Traverse' is a real lake between Minnesota and South Dakota. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Traverse Wikipedia]

'''dynamited carny jump up out of that blast good as new''' 
This passage recalls Daffy Duck cartoons.

==Page 91==

'''theory and practice of resistance to power''' 
[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun138236.html Mao Tse-tung] (or Mao Zedong) said, "The guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea." Gatlin anticipates the principle, with a kicker that's especially pertinent to ''AtD:'' to succeed at invisibility, you must first succeed at visibility.

'''"Sleep? is when you sleep"''' 
Not likely this is a typo. We often include a question in our answer, in this case summarising the question with "sleep?" then immediately answering. And just as it does falling at the end of a sentence, the "?" reflects a change of vocal pitch/stress. As for the sentence fragment, Webb is a man of few words, and "The reservation I have about what you say is" are not some of them.

Alludes Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki's teachings on Zen... "shower is when you shower." First pages of William Burroughs' The Ticket That Exploded comes to mind ~ the notion about sleep, heartbeat and mind/spiritual/innerSelf survivalism... that fearful feeling of falling asleep and never waking up again to fulfill your true revolutionary objectives.

==Page 92==

'''$3-blessed-50 a day''' 
This might be an over-estimate; in 2006 dollars, that comes to over $86 a day, not a bad wage indeed. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ Calculator]

$86 dollars a day not a bad wage?? Assuming an 8-12 hour day, that comes out to about today's minimum wage -- which is hardly a living wage. This seems about right. Just enough to keep body, soul and family together. Maybe. The text implies that $3.50/day was just barely a "living wage."

Compare $3.50 in context on [[ATD_374-396|p. 378]]...

'''Western Federation of Miners''' 
A radical labor union created in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia] Their history was very violent.

'''. . . a mule dropping on the edge of life's mountain trail, ready to be either squashed flat or kicked into the void.''' 
Brings directly to mind a scene from Cormac McCarthy's 1985 highly praised novel ''Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness In The West'':
:"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was." (Modern Library Edition 2001, p. 147).
The novel is considered as one of the 20th century American masterpieces ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian Wikipedia entry]). It is set about 45 years before the beginning of AtD (1849-50) at the Mexico - Texas borderlands. In fact, partly due to Pynchon's frequent references to ''red'' light, ''west'' and ''sunset'' (see [[Red%2C_West_and_Sunsets|here]] for a growing list), I suspect a kind of deeper relation between the two novels, but more evidence is required.
:I hate to mention this, because the McCarthy connection is so cogent, but doesn't that phrase in ''AtD'' refer to a "mule dropping" rather than a mule that drops? Or rather: doesn't that phrase ''refract'' (or bi-refract) the passage from ''Blood Meridian,'' bringing the mule's flight to mind while overtly talking about a turd? (A mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but a dropping does.)

:This entry spurred me to read ''Blood Meridian,'' and while ''AtD'' is completely independent of that work, yes, the two novels do reflect a ruddy western light on each other. A really voracious reader will find, I suspect, that ''AtD'' is subtly linked to many other late-20th/early-21st century fictions. Contributors to this wiki have noted some such parallels; one that I found by chance is described in the [[ATD_119-148#Page_142|annotations to p. 142]] ("scentless snow walls"). These relationships suggest yet another interpretation of the title, if we needed another: The book is to be read as object against ground, ''against'' the literature of ''the day.''—[[User:Volver|Volver]]

:I agree, apart from the 'late-20th/early-21st century' point - I think that the link you suggest does exist but extends much beyond. See for example [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/child-of-the-storm-ii/ this] extremely interesting entry in the AtD Weblog. [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 01:45, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 93==
'''plutes''' 
Plutocrats: members of the wealthy class controlling a government

'''Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.''' 
Reviewers of ATD have quoted this line, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601252.html] but Pynchon did not make it up. It comes from authentic miner's union literature of the time. [http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=178]

'''Compassion''' 
With 'Republicans' below, a possible reference to 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration. "...starving, homeless, and dead..." is what the Republicans mean by compassion, demonstrating the need for the "foreign phrase book". Has always been thus,historically and now?

'''Republicans''' 
William McKinley was elected in 1896 on the Republican ticket, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan, ushering in a chain of Republican Presidents until Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912. Obviously, could also be interpreted as a jab at the current Republican Party.

==Page 94==

'''duster''' 
Long coat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing) Wikipedia entry]

'''the people's work, if not God's, the two forces according to Reverend Gatlin having the same voice''' 
Gatlin has in mind the proverb ''Vox populi vox Dei,'' "the voice of the people is the voice of God." There's a twist, though; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi see Wikipedia.]

'''"Don't beg, you hear me? Don't any of you ever, fucking, beg, me or nobody, for nothin." 
Could have easily been TRP's response to interview requests!!!

:I think it's about honor, not annoyance.

'''There's a master list in Washington, D.C...maintained by the U.S. Secret Service.''' 
The Secret Service, founded in 1865 as a treasury force, was not a presidential protection force until 1902. Prior to this, it functioned more or less like the FBI today. This passage suggests that we are after McKinley's assassination (1901) and the period when the Secret Service began protecting the president, though page 97 suggests that this occurred in 1899.

'''Say, open up em peepers 'fore you walk over a cliff someplace''' 
Card 0 of the Rider-Waite Tarot depicts The Fool walking in bright sunlight, his eyes shut, about to fall over a precipice if he doesn't heed the little dog who's trying to warn him of the peril. It isn't out of the question that Webb has encountered the Tarot, but if he has not, his use of the image speaks strongly for its archetypal nature.

==Page 95==

'''dynamite rounders''' 
Rounders was a precursor to baseball. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders [Wikipedia]]

Consider the alternative, that the "rounders" are the kids; "every sheriff has at least a dozen in his county" can refer to the game of rounders only by a stretch of meaning. Rounders: rascals, mischief-makers, in this case making mischief with dynamite.

'''waiting for the rest of the joke''' 
Cf Dally and Lindsay, p27.

==Page 96==

'''"We ready?"''' 
The destruction of the railroad bridge is reminiscent of scenes in Edward Abbey's anarchistic 1975 novel ''The Monkey Wrench Gang.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang Wikipedia entry].

'''Sufficient unto the day''' 
From The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: 6:34. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (The New Testament of the King James Bible)
Very title thematic?

"No one knows exactly when the hit will come---every morning, before the markets open, out before the milkmen, They make Their new update and decide on what's going to be sufficient unto the day."--Gravity's Rainbow,
page 544.

'''Happy Fourth of July, Webb'''

Endearing? Veikko is eight years older than Webb.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2009-03-13T17:54:06Z

Bobutler: /* Page 78 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. (New York Times archive page: [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C04E5D71E38E033A25756C2A9679D94669FD7CF].) For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a tattered [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236 Tommy up on White Sheet Ridge]whose left eye is damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''hoosier''' 
An inexperienced, awkward, or unsophisticated person.

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''Murray Hill''' 
A street in Cleveland bordering both Case Western Reserve University and Little Italy.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

'''hieratic''' 
Pertaining to or used by the priestly class; used in connexion with sacred subjects. (From the same root as ''hieroglyphics''.)

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''parquetry''' 
Inlaid work of blocks of wood arranged in a geometric pattern, esp. in furniture and flooring.

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''amalgamator work''' 
Extracting silver from its ore by combining it with mercury. (Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition, 1989.)

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2009-03-13T17:51:47Z

Bobutler: /* Page 78 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. (New York Times archive page: [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C04E5D71E38E033A25756C2A9679D94669FD7CF].) For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a tattered [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236 Tommy up on White Sheet Ridge]whose left eye is damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''hoosier''' 
An inexperienced, awkward, or unsophisticated person.

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''Murray Hill''' 
A street in Cleveland bordering both Case Western Reserve University and Little Italy.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

'''hieratic''' 
Pertaining to or used by the priestly class; used in connexion with sacred subjects. (From the same root as ''hieroglyphics''.)

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''parquetry''' 
Inlaid work of blocks of wood arranged in a geometric pattern, esp. in furniture and flooring.

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''amalgamator work''' 
Extracting silver from its ore by combining it with mercury.

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2009-03-13T16:15:50Z

Bobutler:

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. (New York Times archive page: [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C04E5D71E38E033A25756C2A9679D94669FD7CF].) For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a tattered [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236 Tommy up on White Sheet Ridge]whose left eye is damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''hoosier''' 
An inexperienced, awkward, or unsophisticated person.

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''Murray Hill''' 
A street in Cleveland bordering both Case Western Reserve University and Little Italy.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

'''hieratic''' 
Pertaining to or used by the priestly class; used in connexion with sacred subjects. (From the same root as ''hieroglyphics''.)

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''parquetry''' 
Inlaid work of blocks of wood arranged in a geometric pattern, esp. in furniture and flooring.

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2009-03-13T16:06:50Z

Bobutler:

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. (New York Times archive page: [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C04E5D71E38E033A25756C2A9679D94669FD7CF].) For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a tattered [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236 Tommy up on White Sheet Ridge]whose left eye is damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''hoosier''' 
An inexperienced, awkward, or unsophisticated person.

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''Murray Hill''' 
A street in Cleveland bordering both Case Western Reserve University and Little Italy.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

'''hieratic''' 
Pertaining to or used by the priestly class; used in connexion with sacred subjects. (From the same root as ''hieroglyphics''.)

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2009-03-13T00:56:25Z

Bobutler: /* Page 59 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. (New York Times archive page: [http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C04E5D71E38E033A25756C2A9679D94669FD7CF].) For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a tattered [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236 Tommy up on White Sheet Ridge]whose left eye is damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''hoosier''' 
An inexperienced, awkward, or unsophisticated person.

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''Murray Hill''' 
A street in Cleveland bordering both Case Western Reserve University and Little Italy.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2009-03-13T00:51:52Z

Bobutler: /* Page 65 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a tattered [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236 Tommy up on White Sheet Ridge]whose left eye is damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''hoosier''' 
An inexperienced, awkward, or unsophisticated person.

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''Murray Hill''' 
A street in Cleveland bordering both Case Western Reserve University and Little Italy.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2009-03-13T00:51:16Z

Bobutler: /* Page 65 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a tattered [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236 Tommy up on White Sheet Ridge]whose left eye is damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''hoosier''' 
An inexperienced, awkward, or unsophisticated person.

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''Murray Hill'''
A street in Cleveland bordering both Case Western Reserve University and Little Italy.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2009-03-13T00:46:25Z

Bobutler: /* Page 64 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a tattered [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236 Tommy up on White Sheet Ridge]whose left eye is damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''hoosier''' 
An inexperienced, awkward, or unsophisticated person.

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}