Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

User:Dariusk

2008-06-11T01:12:04Z

Dariusk:

Darius likes Pynchon. Darius likes wikis. This works out nicely.

A professional game developer, you can read his blog about video games, [http://tinysubversions.blogspot.com Tiny Subversions].

[[Image:Dariusk_i_rocket_pynchon.jpg]]
(Check out this custom shirt I got for Christmas!)

ATD 374-396

2006-12-24T22:09:28Z

Dariusk: /* Page 390 */

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

==Page 374==

'''already fallen''' 
???

'''Ewball Oust''' 
Eyeball? Cueball?

'''Toplady Oust''' 
???

'''Patio method''' 
???

==Page 375==

'''Washoe process''' 
???

'''''Espato... espanto... Espantoso''''' 
???

==Page 376==

'''General Huerta''' 
General labor-strike (Spanish).

'''Bajio... Torreon... Zacatecas... Leon... Silao''' 
???

'''''tlachiqueros''''' 
???

'''maguey juice''' 
Juice from the maguey, or century plant.

'''Vera Cruz puros''' 
???

'''zinc''' 
Galvanized iron doesn't rust?

'''Empresas Oustianas, S.A.''' 
???

==Page 377==

'''pulque''' 
A Mexican alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of various agaves.

'''''callejon... subida''''' 
???

'''Semana Santa''' 
Holy Week (week before Easter) (Spanish).

'''''juzgado''''' 
Sp. court, likely orgin of hoosegow.

'''''Mordida''''' 
Sp. bribe.

'''Broomhandle''' 
Cf German self-loader.

'''''esposas''''' 
Spouses.

'''Panteon''' 
???

'''Cerro del trozado''' 
???

'''''El Palacio de Cristal''''' 
The Crystal Palace (Spanish).

==Page 379==

'''''chinches''''' 
???

'''Dwayne Provecho''' 
???

'''No say prayo-coopy, compadre''' 
"No se preoccupe"? Don't worry?

==Page 380==

'''Amparo''' 
???

==Page 381==

'''''lisonjeros''''' 
???

'''bolillos''' 
Mexican rolls.

'''El Chinganariz''' 
The nosefuck?

'''''paredon''''' 
???

'''P.L.M.''' 
???

'''Flores Magon''' 
???

'''Camilo Arriaga''' 
???

'''''potosino''''' 
???

==Page 382==

'''''muñeca''''' 
???

'''''caldereros y sus macheteros''''' 
???

==Page 383==

'''''cuchillo''''' 
Knife.

'''''momias''''' 
???

==Page 384==

'''Marfil''' 
???

'''''compinche''''' 
???

'''Ay, Jalisco''' 
(Not italic?)

'''El Ñato''' 
Also a character in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', where he was the leader of the Argentinians trying to emigrate to Germany.

==Page 385==

'''''pendejo''''' 
A Mexican obscenity used an an insult, roughly translates to "dick."

'''''sin embargo''''' 
Nevertheless (Spanish).

'''''el Famoso Chavalito del Quiselgur''''' 
The famous Kieselguhr Kid (Spanish).

==Page 386==

'''''copa''''' 
Cup (of coffee).

'''''pues''''' 
Well (Spanish)

'''uninflected''' 
???

'''''Que guapa, que tetas fantasticas, verdad''''' 
???

==Page 387==

'''Cuban claro''' 
???

'''Partidos wrapper''' 
???

'''''tropa''''' 
???

'''''huevon''''' 
???

'''psitticide''' 
Parrot-murder.

'''''Caray''''' 
???

'''''loco... lucas''''' 
???

==Page 388==

'''jack''' 
???

'''Monte el Refugio''' 
???

'''Huertistas''' 
Huerta's troops.

'''Sombrerete''' 
???

'''Tarahumares''' 
???

==Page 389==

'''Yaquis''' 
Central American Indian tribe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaqui Wikipedia entry].

'''Mayas''' 
???

'''Mausers''' 
???

'''fandango saloon''' 
???

==Page 390==

'''''Hasta lueguito''''' 
See you in a little bit?

'''El Espinero''' 
The thorn-man (Spanish).

'''''shabotshi''''' 
???

'''''Que toza tienes alla''''' 
"What a log you've got there." Frank should be flattered. A toza is pretty much an entire tree trunk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Trillo-6_tronco_de_pino.png

==Page 391==

'''nopales''' 
Prickly pear cacti.

'''scalenohedral''' 
Having the form of a scalenohedron, a solid body the faces of whiche are all scalene triangles.

==Page 392==

'''''Hikuli''''' 
Peyote. This scene, with the ''brujo'' giving Frank peyote, followed by him barfing and then flying, is highly reminiscent of Carlos Castaneda's works, esp. ''Tales of Power''.

'''while it was alive''' 
(Most vegetables?)

==Page 394==

'''Tears of Job''' 
???

==Page 395==

'''Bolson de Mapimi''' 
???

'''Budweiser''' 
???

'''blood''' 
Peckinpah tribute?

'''''El se fue''''' 
He left (Spanish).

'''''jarrito''''' 
???

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

ATD 397-428

2006-12-24T22:04:23Z

Dariusk: /* Page 424 */

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

==Page 397==

'''syntonic wireless''' 
???

'''street-Arab''' 
???

'''Columbian ''Half-Dollar''''' 
???

==Page 398==

'''nuncio''' 
???

'''Evening Quarters''' 
???

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

'''jeu d'esprit''' 
???

'''on the subject''' 
???

'''National Imprest''' 
???

'''"Plug" Loafsley''' 
Plug-ugly loafer/oaf?

'''Lollipop Lounge''' 
???

'''turned out''' 
(When? Before or after first visit?)

'''Tenderloin''' 
???

'''squalid empire''' 
Cf Alan Parker's 1976 movie "Bugsy Malone". [http://imdb.com/title/tt0074256/ IMDb]

==Page 399==

'''indigo... yellow''' 
Clashing-colors motif.

'''dicer''' 
???

'''opopanax''' 
Typo for 'opoponax'. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opoponax Wikipedia]

'''vervain''' 
???

'''slide cornet''' 
???

'''mandola''' 
An eight-stringed instrument shaped like a mandolin but tuned the same as a viola.

'''"tin pan" piano''' 
???

'''houris''' 
???

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

==Page 400==

'''paillettes''' 
???

'''louche''' 
???

'''"jazz"''' 
(When did the spelling change?)

'''high-hats''' 
???

'''Missus Grundy''' 
???

''''ying'''' 
"Yen"?

==Page 401==

'''Angela Grace''' 
Angel of Grace?

'''Gophiz... Hudson Dustuhs''' 
Gophers, Hudson Dusters.

'''slickin up''' 
Gentrification.

'''Mr. Mawgin''' 
J. Pierpont Morgan.

'''stanchion''' 
???

'''find it''' 
(Small-penis joke.)

'''I AM THE WAY''' 
???

'''triatomic''' 
Ozone = O3.

==Page 402==

'''solenoidal relay''' 
???

'''Dr. Zoot''' 
???

'''pale''' 
Even tough-guy Plug fears time machine.

'''dynamo''' 
???

'''Grandmother's day''' 
Pre-Civil War.

'''Breguet''' 
(Date?)

'''shimming''' 
???

'''revenue diverted''' 
(Why not no-revenue?)

==Page 403==

'''coaming''' 
???

'''undog this hatch''' 
???

'''faith''' 
(Blind, not humble.)

'''nervous organizations''' 
Cf drugs.

'''pillioned''' 
???

'''horses''' 
???

'''arrays of metallic points''' 
???

==Page 404==

'''shockwaves of the Creation''' 
Anachronistic Big Bang theory?

'''chamber shook''' 
(It didn't on p403.)

'''not beasts''' 
Airplanes?

'''smell''' 
Cf GR on Passchendaele.

==Page 405==

'''latest Oldsmobile''' 
(Dates.)

'''Candlebrow U.''' 
???

'''double-domes''' 
???

'''drumming''' 
Traveling salesmanship.

'''Ball in Hand''' 
???

'''Alonzo Meatman''' 
???

==Page 406==

'''''Imum Coeli''''' 
???

'''Gideon Candlebrow''' 
???

'''Grossdale''' 
???

==Page 407==

'''"Smegmo"''' 
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma

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

'''four thousand years''' 
???

'''this year''' 
???

'''flammivomous''' 
???

'''1925''' 
Lindsay c47yo?

'''Randolph''' 
(Has he been absent?)

==Page 408==

'''telegraphic messages''' 
(Why at night, particularly? Email parody?)

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

'''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.

'''Finney Hall''' 
???

'''florescent''' 
???

==Page 409==

'''"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, 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 few times.

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

'''Wellesianism''' 
Typo, unless he means Orson.

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

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

'''Q-98s''' 
FM station?

'''vulcanite''' 
???

'''Heusler's alloy''' 
???

'''bonzoline''' 
???

'''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''' 
???

'''magnalium''' 
???

'''packfong silver''' 
???

'''safe harbor''' 
Paradoxical, I think.

'''automorphic''' 
???

==Page 410==

'''revenance''' 
???

'''Symmes Street''' 
???

'''gaslit''' 
Lightfuel motif.

'''St. Louis Fair''' 
1904.

'''fantan''' 
???

'''"preserver"''' 
Gun?

'''magenta-and-green''' 
Clashing-colors motif.

==Page 411==

'''Hawaiian''' 
???

'''Zennist''' 
Practitioners of Zen Buddhism.

'''''Caged Women of Yokohama''''' 
???

==Page 412==

'''"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.

'''apricot and aquamarine''' 
Clashing-colors motif.

'''Bohr... Mach... Einstein... Spengler... Wells... McTaggart''' 
???

'''young Einstein''' 
Perhaps a reference to the 1988 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Einstein movie] of the same name. At the time of the F.I.C.O.T.T. (1895 at the earliest), Einstein would have already published "[http://www.worldscibooks.com/phy_etextbook/4454/4454_chap1.pdf The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields]." Ironically, Einstein's special theory of relativity would later essentially invalidate theories of luminiferous aether.

'''neo-Augustinian''' 
???

'''vertical distance''' 
Of pudding-drop?

'''Old Stearinery Bell Tower''' 
???

==Page 413==

'''322 feet''' 
???

'''disordered''' 
Eg clocktower assassins?

'''homeopathist''' 
???

'''"the ''lycopodium'' type"... Fear''' 
???

'''sky-brother''' 
???

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

==Page 414==

'''purlieus''' 
???

'''millwork''' 
???

'''penumbrae''' 
(Is the ligatured-ae appropriate here?)

'''interfered with''' 
Sexually molested.

'''vacant''' 
(So signs of occupancy are faked?)

'''dust''' 
(Clear sign of vacancy.)

'''systematically deluded''' 
Cf Descartes.

'''quiescence''' 
(Meatman is cyborg?)

==Page 415==

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

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

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

'''certain of your great dynamos''' 
???

'''Fraternity of the Venturesome''' 
Mistranslated 'Chums of Chance'.

'''''nzzt''''' 
Electrical short?

'''mission assignments''' 
Pynchon seems to explain Chums backstory.

==Page 416==

'''Squanto and the Pilgrims''' 
???

==Page 417==

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

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

'''trespassers''' 
???

'''enigmatic object''' 
Plotpoint?

==Page 418==

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

'''evidence... everywhere''' 
Cf ''Crying of Lot 49''.

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

'''contracts''' 
With Devil.

'''Other Units''' 
(So our five gossiped to others?)

'''exhaustive''' 
Cf Trekkies.

'''came to recall''' 
Cf PK Dick.

'''red and indigo''' 
Clashing?

==Page 419==

'''"El Capitan"''' 
Sousa march.

'''"Whistling Rufus"''' 
???

'''consecrated''' 
???

'''Richardson Romanesque''' 
Style of American Romanesque architecture from 1880s-1890s, named after architect Henry Robson Richardson, notable for use of brown stone, rounded corners, arches and cylindrical turrets. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Romanesque Wikipedia Entry].

'''modal theory''' 
???

'''chit''' 
???

'''Bing Spooninger''' 
Like "Bing" Crosby, a crooner.

'''rack''' 
???

==Page 420==

'''every note''' 
Om?

'''say "Wall"''' 
???

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

'''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.

'''Lombardy poplars.''' 
???

'''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''' 
???

'''harmonica-reed files''' 
???

==Page 422==

'''I.G. Mundharfwerke''' 
Interessen-Gemeinschaft Mundharfwerke (Harmonica-works Association of Common Interests). "Mundharf" is Swabian German for "Harmonica".

'''drifted''' 
Cf Slothrop's desk.

'''Offenbach''' 
Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), French composer of operettas.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Offenbach Wikipedia Entry].

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

'''vapor bearing... minerals''' 
???

'''A.D.C.''' 
???

==Page 423==

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

'''volunteer decoys''' 
Fan-meme.

'''"At a Georgia Camp Meeting"''' 
???

'''"deps"''' 
???

'''route out of the past''' 
The nostalgia trap.

==Page 424==

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

'''isotropy''' 
???

'''presently''' 
R. Crumb did a comic like this.

'''opposition''' 
(Was unconscious, now conscious?)

'''dropped from altitudes''' 
(Cf pudding above)

==Page 425==

'''"After the Ball"''' 
???

'''Bukhara''' 
???

'''T.D.Y.''' 
???

'''''Saksaul''''' 
???

'''Q. Zane Toadflax''' 
(Sounds like Douglas Adams?)

'''Hypopsammotic... Hypops''' 
???

==Page 426==

'''beating their prices''' 
Contradicts p425 "no further expenditure".

==Page 427==

'''temporarily lapsing''' 
???

'''''pigs fly''''' 
Lindsay = pig.

'''legalistic''' 
???

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

ATD 397-428

2006-12-24T22:03:38Z

Dariusk: /* Page 422 */

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

==Page 397==

'''syntonic wireless''' 
???

'''street-Arab''' 
???

'''Columbian ''Half-Dollar''''' 
???

==Page 398==

'''nuncio''' 
???

'''Evening Quarters''' 
???

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

'''jeu d'esprit''' 
???

'''on the subject''' 
???

'''National Imprest''' 
???

'''"Plug" Loafsley''' 
Plug-ugly loafer/oaf?

'''Lollipop Lounge''' 
???

'''turned out''' 
(When? Before or after first visit?)

'''Tenderloin''' 
???

'''squalid empire''' 
Cf Alan Parker's 1976 movie "Bugsy Malone". [http://imdb.com/title/tt0074256/ IMDb]

==Page 399==

'''indigo... yellow''' 
Clashing-colors motif.

'''dicer''' 
???

'''opopanax''' 
Typo for 'opoponax'. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opoponax Wikipedia]

'''vervain''' 
???

'''slide cornet''' 
???

'''mandola''' 
An eight-stringed instrument shaped like a mandolin but tuned the same as a viola.

'''"tin pan" piano''' 
???

'''houris''' 
???

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

==Page 400==

'''paillettes''' 
???

'''louche''' 
???

'''"jazz"''' 
(When did the spelling change?)

'''high-hats''' 
???

'''Missus Grundy''' 
???

''''ying'''' 
"Yen"?

==Page 401==

'''Angela Grace''' 
Angel of Grace?

'''Gophiz... Hudson Dustuhs''' 
Gophers, Hudson Dusters.

'''slickin up''' 
Gentrification.

'''Mr. Mawgin''' 
J. Pierpont Morgan.

'''stanchion''' 
???

'''find it''' 
(Small-penis joke.)

'''I AM THE WAY''' 
???

'''triatomic''' 
Ozone = O3.

==Page 402==

'''solenoidal relay''' 
???

'''Dr. Zoot''' 
???

'''pale''' 
Even tough-guy Plug fears time machine.

'''dynamo''' 
???

'''Grandmother's day''' 
Pre-Civil War.

'''Breguet''' 
(Date?)

'''shimming''' 
???

'''revenue diverted''' 
(Why not no-revenue?)

==Page 403==

'''coaming''' 
???

'''undog this hatch''' 
???

'''faith''' 
(Blind, not humble.)

'''nervous organizations''' 
Cf drugs.

'''pillioned''' 
???

'''horses''' 
???

'''arrays of metallic points''' 
???

==Page 404==

'''shockwaves of the Creation''' 
Anachronistic Big Bang theory?

'''chamber shook''' 
(It didn't on p403.)

'''not beasts''' 
Airplanes?

'''smell''' 
Cf GR on Passchendaele.

==Page 405==

'''latest Oldsmobile''' 
(Dates.)

'''Candlebrow U.''' 
???

'''double-domes''' 
???

'''drumming''' 
Traveling salesmanship.

'''Ball in Hand''' 
???

'''Alonzo Meatman''' 
???

==Page 406==

'''''Imum Coeli''''' 
???

'''Gideon Candlebrow''' 
???

'''Grossdale''' 
???

==Page 407==

'''"Smegmo"''' 
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma

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

'''four thousand years''' 
???

'''this year''' 
???

'''flammivomous''' 
???

'''1925''' 
Lindsay c47yo?

'''Randolph''' 
(Has he been absent?)

==Page 408==

'''telegraphic messages''' 
(Why at night, particularly? Email parody?)

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

'''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.

'''Finney Hall''' 
???

'''florescent''' 
???

==Page 409==

'''"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, 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 few times.

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

'''Wellesianism''' 
Typo, unless he means Orson.

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

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

'''Q-98s''' 
FM station?

'''vulcanite''' 
???

'''Heusler's alloy''' 
???

'''bonzoline''' 
???

'''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''' 
???

'''magnalium''' 
???

'''packfong silver''' 
???

'''safe harbor''' 
Paradoxical, I think.

'''automorphic''' 
???

==Page 410==

'''revenance''' 
???

'''Symmes Street''' 
???

'''gaslit''' 
Lightfuel motif.

'''St. Louis Fair''' 
1904.

'''fantan''' 
???

'''"preserver"''' 
Gun?

'''magenta-and-green''' 
Clashing-colors motif.

==Page 411==

'''Hawaiian''' 
???

'''Zennist''' 
Practitioners of Zen Buddhism.

'''''Caged Women of Yokohama''''' 
???

==Page 412==

'''"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.

'''apricot and aquamarine''' 
Clashing-colors motif.

'''Bohr... Mach... Einstein... Spengler... Wells... McTaggart''' 
???

'''young Einstein''' 
Perhaps a reference to the 1988 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Einstein movie] of the same name. At the time of the F.I.C.O.T.T. (1895 at the earliest), Einstein would have already published "[http://www.worldscibooks.com/phy_etextbook/4454/4454_chap1.pdf The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields]." Ironically, Einstein's special theory of relativity would later essentially invalidate theories of luminiferous aether.

'''neo-Augustinian''' 
???

'''vertical distance''' 
Of pudding-drop?

'''Old Stearinery Bell Tower''' 
???

==Page 413==

'''322 feet''' 
???

'''disordered''' 
Eg clocktower assassins?

'''homeopathist''' 
???

'''"the ''lycopodium'' type"... Fear''' 
???

'''sky-brother''' 
???

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

==Page 414==

'''purlieus''' 
???

'''millwork''' 
???

'''penumbrae''' 
(Is the ligatured-ae appropriate here?)

'''interfered with''' 
Sexually molested.

'''vacant''' 
(So signs of occupancy are faked?)

'''dust''' 
(Clear sign of vacancy.)

'''systematically deluded''' 
Cf Descartes.

'''quiescence''' 
(Meatman is cyborg?)

==Page 415==

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

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

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

'''certain of your great dynamos''' 
???

'''Fraternity of the Venturesome''' 
Mistranslated 'Chums of Chance'.

'''''nzzt''''' 
Electrical short?

'''mission assignments''' 
Pynchon seems to explain Chums backstory.

==Page 416==

'''Squanto and the Pilgrims''' 
???

==Page 417==

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

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

'''trespassers''' 
???

'''enigmatic object''' 
Plotpoint?

==Page 418==

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

'''evidence... everywhere''' 
Cf ''Crying of Lot 49''.

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

'''contracts''' 
With Devil.

'''Other Units''' 
(So our five gossiped to others?)

'''exhaustive''' 
Cf Trekkies.

'''came to recall''' 
Cf PK Dick.

'''red and indigo''' 
Clashing?

==Page 419==

'''"El Capitan"''' 
Sousa march.

'''"Whistling Rufus"''' 
???

'''consecrated''' 
???

'''Richardson Romanesque''' 
Style of American Romanesque architecture from 1880s-1890s, named after architect Henry Robson Richardson, notable for use of brown stone, rounded corners, arches and cylindrical turrets. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Romanesque Wikipedia Entry].

'''modal theory''' 
???

'''chit''' 
???

'''Bing Spooninger''' 
Like "Bing" Crosby, a crooner.

'''rack''' 
???

==Page 420==

'''every note''' 
Om?

'''say "Wall"''' 
???

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

'''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.

'''Lombardy poplars.''' 
???

'''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''' 
???

'''harmonica-reed files''' 
???

==Page 422==

'''I.G. Mundharfwerke''' 
Interessen-Gemeinschaft Mundharfwerke (Harmonica-works Association of Common Interests). "Mundharf" is Swabian German for "Harmonica".

'''drifted''' 
Cf Slothrop's desk.

'''Offenbach''' 
Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), French composer of operettas.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Offenbach Wikipedia Entry].

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

'''vapor bearing... minerals''' 
???

'''A.D.C.''' 
???

==Page 423==

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

'''volunteer decoys''' 
Fan-meme.

'''"At a Georgia Camp Meeting"''' 
???

'''"deps"''' 
???

'''route out of the past''' 
The nostalgia trap.

==Page 424==

''''coon' material''' 
???

'''isotropy''' 
???

'''presently''' 
R. Crumb did a comic like this.

'''opposition''' 
(Was unconscious, now conscious?)

'''dropped from altitudes''' 
(Cf pudding above)

==Page 425==

'''"After the Ball"''' 
???

'''Bukhara''' 
???

'''T.D.Y.''' 
???

'''''Saksaul''''' 
???

'''Q. Zane Toadflax''' 
(Sounds like Douglas Adams?)

'''Hypopsammotic... Hypops''' 
???

==Page 426==

'''beating their prices''' 
Contradicts p425 "no further expenditure".

==Page 427==

'''temporarily lapsing''' 
???

'''''pigs fly''''' 
Lindsay = pig.

'''legalistic''' 
???

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

ATD 397-428

2006-12-24T21:56:45Z

Dariusk: /* Page 407 */

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

==Page 397==

'''syntonic wireless''' 
???

'''street-Arab''' 
???

'''Columbian ''Half-Dollar''''' 
???

==Page 398==

'''nuncio''' 
???

'''Evening Quarters''' 
???

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

'''jeu d'esprit''' 
???

'''on the subject''' 
???

'''National Imprest''' 
???

'''"Plug" Loafsley''' 
Plug-ugly loafer/oaf?

'''Lollipop Lounge''' 
???

'''turned out''' 
(When? Before or after first visit?)

'''Tenderloin''' 
???

'''squalid empire''' 
Cf Alan Parker's 1976 movie "Bugsy Malone". [http://imdb.com/title/tt0074256/ IMDb]

==Page 399==

'''indigo... yellow''' 
Clashing-colors motif.

'''dicer''' 
???

'''opopanax''' 
Typo for 'opoponax'. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opoponax Wikipedia]

'''vervain''' 
???

'''slide cornet''' 
???

'''mandola''' 
An eight-stringed instrument shaped like a mandolin but tuned the same as a viola.

'''"tin pan" piano''' 
???

'''houris''' 
???

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

==Page 400==

'''paillettes''' 
???

'''louche''' 
???

'''"jazz"''' 
(When did the spelling change?)

'''high-hats''' 
???

'''Missus Grundy''' 
???

''''ying'''' 
"Yen"?

==Page 401==

'''Angela Grace''' 
Angel of Grace?

'''Gophiz... Hudson Dustuhs''' 
Gophers, Hudson Dusters.

'''slickin up''' 
Gentrification.

'''Mr. Mawgin''' 
J. Pierpont Morgan.

'''stanchion''' 
???

'''find it''' 
(Small-penis joke.)

'''I AM THE WAY''' 
???

'''triatomic''' 
Ozone = O3.

==Page 402==

'''solenoidal relay''' 
???

'''Dr. Zoot''' 
???

'''pale''' 
Even tough-guy Plug fears time machine.

'''dynamo''' 
???

'''Grandmother's day''' 
Pre-Civil War.

'''Breguet''' 
(Date?)

'''shimming''' 
???

'''revenue diverted''' 
(Why not no-revenue?)

==Page 403==

'''coaming''' 
???

'''undog this hatch''' 
???

'''faith''' 
(Blind, not humble.)

'''nervous organizations''' 
Cf drugs.

'''pillioned''' 
???

'''horses''' 
???

'''arrays of metallic points''' 
???

==Page 404==

'''shockwaves of the Creation''' 
Anachronistic Big Bang theory?

'''chamber shook''' 
(It didn't on p403.)

'''not beasts''' 
Airplanes?

'''smell''' 
Cf GR on Passchendaele.

==Page 405==

'''latest Oldsmobile''' 
(Dates.)

'''Candlebrow U.''' 
???

'''double-domes''' 
???

'''drumming''' 
Traveling salesmanship.

'''Ball in Hand''' 
???

'''Alonzo Meatman''' 
???

==Page 406==

'''''Imum Coeli''''' 
???

'''Gideon Candlebrow''' 
???

'''Grossdale''' 
???

==Page 407==

'''"Smegmo"''' 
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smegma

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

'''four thousand years''' 
???

'''this year''' 
???

'''flammivomous''' 
???

'''1925''' 
Lindsay c47yo?

'''Randolph''' 
(Has he been absent?)

==Page 408==

'''telegraphic messages''' 
(Why at night, particularly? Email parody?)

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

'''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.

'''Finney Hall''' 
???

'''florescent''' 
???

==Page 409==

'''"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, 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 few times.

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

'''Wellesianism''' 
Typo, unless he means Orson.

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

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

'''Q-98s''' 
FM station?

'''vulcanite''' 
???

'''Heusler's alloy''' 
???

'''bonzoline''' 
???

'''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''' 
???

'''magnalium''' 
???

'''packfong silver''' 
???

'''safe harbor''' 
Paradoxical, I think.

'''automorphic''' 
???

==Page 410==

'''revenance''' 
???

'''Symmes Street''' 
???

'''gaslit''' 
Lightfuel motif.

'''St. Louis Fair''' 
1904.

'''fantan''' 
???

'''"preserver"''' 
Gun?

'''magenta-and-green''' 
Clashing-colors motif.

==Page 411==

'''Hawaiian''' 
???

'''Zennist''' 
Practitioners of Zen Buddhism.

'''''Caged Women of Yokohama''''' 
???

==Page 412==

'''"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.

'''apricot and aquamarine''' 
Clashing-colors motif.

'''Bohr... Mach... Einstein... Spengler... Wells... McTaggart''' 
???

'''young Einstein''' 
Perhaps a reference to the 1988 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Einstein movie] of the same name. At the time of the F.I.C.O.T.T. (1895 at the earliest), Einstein would have already published "[http://www.worldscibooks.com/phy_etextbook/4454/4454_chap1.pdf The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields]." Ironically, Einstein's special theory of relativity would later essentially invalidate theories of luminiferous aether.

'''neo-Augustinian''' 
???

'''vertical distance''' 
Of pudding-drop?

'''Old Stearinery Bell Tower''' 
???

==Page 413==

'''322 feet''' 
???

'''disordered''' 
Eg clocktower assassins?

'''homeopathist''' 
???

'''"the ''lycopodium'' type"... Fear''' 
???

'''sky-brother''' 
???

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

==Page 414==

'''purlieus''' 
???

'''millwork''' 
???

'''penumbrae''' 
(Is the ligatured-ae appropriate here?)

'''interfered with''' 
Sexually molested.

'''vacant''' 
(So signs of occupancy are faked?)

'''dust''' 
(Clear sign of vacancy.)

'''systematically deluded''' 
Cf Descartes.

'''quiescence''' 
(Meatman is cyborg?)

==Page 415==

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

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

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

'''certain of your great dynamos''' 
???

'''Fraternity of the Venturesome''' 
Mistranslated 'Chums of Chance'.

'''''nzzt''''' 
Electrical short?

'''mission assignments''' 
Pynchon seems to explain Chums backstory.

==Page 416==

'''Squanto and the Pilgrims''' 
???

==Page 417==

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

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

'''trespassers''' 
???

'''enigmatic object''' 
Plotpoint?

==Page 418==

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

'''evidence... everywhere''' 
Cf ''Crying of Lot 49''.

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

'''contracts''' 
With Devil.

'''Other Units''' 
(So our five gossiped to others?)

'''exhaustive''' 
Cf Trekkies.

'''came to recall''' 
Cf PK Dick.

'''red and indigo''' 
Clashing?

==Page 419==

'''"El Capitan"''' 
Sousa march.

'''"Whistling Rufus"''' 
???

'''consecrated''' 
???

'''Richardson Romanesque''' 
Style of American Romanesque architecture from 1880s-1890s, named after architect Henry Robson Richardson, notable for use of brown stone, rounded corners, arches and cylindrical turrets. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richardson_Romanesque Wikipedia Entry].

'''modal theory''' 
???

'''chit''' 
???

'''Bing Spooninger''' 
Like "Bing" Crosby, a crooner.

'''rack''' 
???

==Page 420==

'''every note''' 
Om?

'''say "Wall"''' 
???

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

'''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.

'''Lombardy poplars.''' 
???

'''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''' 
???

'''harmonica-reed files''' 
???

==Page 422==

'''I.G. Mundharfwerke''' 
???

'''drifted''' 
Cf Slothrop's desk.

'''Offenbach''' 
Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), French composer of operettas.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Offenbach Wikipedia Entry].

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

'''vapor bearing... minerals''' 
???

'''A.D.C.''' 
???

==Page 423==

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

'''volunteer decoys''' 
Fan-meme.

'''"At a Georgia Camp Meeting"''' 
???

'''"deps"''' 
???

'''route out of the past''' 
The nostalgia trap.

==Page 424==

''''coon' material''' 
???

'''isotropy''' 
???

'''presently''' 
R. Crumb did a comic like this.

'''opposition''' 
(Was unconscious, now conscious?)

'''dropped from altitudes''' 
(Cf pudding above)

==Page 425==

'''"After the Ball"''' 
???

'''Bukhara''' 
???

'''T.D.Y.''' 
???

'''''Saksaul''''' 
???

'''Q. Zane Toadflax''' 
(Sounds like Douglas Adams?)

'''Hypopsammotic... Hypops''' 
???

==Page 426==

'''beating their prices''' 
Contradicts p425 "no further expenditure".

==Page 427==

'''temporarily lapsing''' 
???

'''''pigs fly''''' 
Lindsay = pig.

'''legalistic''' 
???

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

User:Dariusk

2006-12-18T17:43:53Z

Dariusk: Added my shirt picture.

File:Dariusk i rocket pynchon.jpg

2006-12-18T17:42:06Z

Dariusk: This is a picture of wiki user dariusk in his custom Pynchon T-shirt.

This is a picture of wiki user dariusk in his custom Pynchon T-shirt.

ATD 219-242

2006-12-07T03:40:19Z

Dariusk: /* Page 222 */

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

==Page 222==

'''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.

'''"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.)

==Page 226==

'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward. Given the importance of railway lines in this and other chapters, it is also interesting to note that Cambridge's rail system was built in 1845 while Gottingen's was built in 1854.

==Page 227==

"The Great Game" in this case does not refer to Padzhitnoff's airship, but it's the same name.

==Page 236==

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
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.

==Page 237==

'''Hebrew letter Shin- sign''' 
"This person greeted the Cohen by raising his left hand, then spreading the fingers two and two away from the thumb so as to form the Hebrew letter ''shin'', signifying the initial letter of one of the pre-Mosaic (that is, plural) names of God, which may never be spoken.

" 'Basically wishing long life and prosperity,' explained the Choen, answering with the same gesture"
 
compare with the following from M&D 485: 
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.' " 
So is there connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris"? and these backwoods Kabbalists? 
Obvious connects with Star Trek's Vulcan greeting and with Leonard Nimoy's jewish faith.

ATD 97-118

2006-12-07T03:31:35Z

Dariusk: Added page 104

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

==Page 97==

'''the Rebellion''' 
What the North called the Civil War. [[ATD_57-80#Page_61|Another reference...]]

'''Tesla, Dr. Nikola''' (1856-1943) 
Tesla was a Serb-American inventor, engineer and physicist whose patents and theoretical work form the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, radio, and a bunch of other stuff. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Wikipedia entry] Tesla researched in Colorado Springs from May 1899 - January 1900, a location he chose because of the frequent thunderstorms, the high altitude, and the dryness of the air. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Colorado_Springs Wikipedia on Tesla at Colorado Springs].

Much of the the funding for his Colorado Springs laboratory came from Colonel John Jacob Astor. Tesla's friend and patent lawyer, Leonard E. Curtis, persuaded the El Paso Power Company to supply Tesla with all the electricity he wanted, free of charge. The arrangement ended the night Tesla's activities burned out the dynamo and the entire city lost power. [http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_colspr.html PBS: Tesla - Master of Lightning]

"Tesla logged in his diary on July 3, 1899 that a separate resonance transformer tuned to the same high frequency as a larger high-voltage resonance transformer would transceive energy from the larger coil, acting as a transmitter of wireless energy, which was used to confirm Tesla's patent for radio during later disputes in the courts. These air core high-frequency resonate coils were the predecessors of systems from radio to radar and medical magnetic resonance imaging devices." [http://www.crystalinks.com/tesla.html] This information was later used to confirm his patent for radio which he received posthumously in 1946, 3 years after his death. [http://www.resonanceresearch.com/nikola-tesla-coils-picture-colorado-1899-labratory.htm].

==Page 98==

'''engineering students... from Cornell, Yale''' 
Cornell is Pynchon's alma mater, where he initially studied engineering. [[Thomas Pynchon|Pynchon bio]]

'''Maxwell's Treatise''' 
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was a Scottish mathematical physicist among the pioneers of electromagnetism. Pynchon made use of his theoretical "Maxwell's Demon" in ''The Crying of Lot 49''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell Wikipedia entry]

==Page 99==
'''So is altitude transformed, continuously, to light''' 
The potential energy of water at an altitude is realized when it falls, producing the flow of electricity required for the production of artificial light. 

'''Hamilton had experienced at Brougham Bridge''' 
William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) was an Irish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who made important contributions to the development of optics, dynamics, and algebra. His discovery of quaternions is perhaps his best known investigation. The discovery of quaternions reportedly occurred during a walk with his wife by the Royal Canal in Dublin. Upon having the inspiration for the formula, he promptly carved it into the bricks on the side of the canal. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rowan_Hamilton Wikipedia entry]

'''Pike's Peak or Bust!'''
The slogan of miners heading to Colorado during the Gold Rush of 1859.

==Page 100==

'''Mr. Merriwell, we really need this touchdown''' 
An allusion to the fictional character Frank Merriwell, an adventuresome student at Yale and football hero, he was created by the pulp fiction writer Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pen name Burt L. Standish. The first story, "Frank Merriwell: or, First Days at Fardale" appeared in ''Tip Top Weekly'' on April 18, 1896. Merriwell went on to appear in comic bools, radio programs, and dime novels. As the passage suggests, Merriwell constituted an idealized picture of the east coast, old money elite. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Merriwell Wikipedia Entry on Frank Merriwell]

'''Yale''' 
This possible deal with the devil that Kit makes to get into Yale recalls the evil pact made to get Tyrone Slothrop into Harvard in ''Gravity's Rainbow''.

'''substitute conscriptee''' 
The Enrollment Act of 1863 allowed draftees to pay $300 to a substitute who would serve for them. (See [http://www.rootsweb.com/~nygenese/purchase.jpg here] for an example substitution form.) J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, James Mellon and future president Grover Cleveland all hired substitutes. Within a year the price had gone up to $1,100, however. [http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1994/winter/civil-war-draft-records.html Civil War Draft Records: Exemptions and Enrollments]

==Page 101==

'''Minié ball''' 
Prior to the development of the minie ball, rifles were not used in combat due to the difficulty in loading. The ammunition used by rifles was the same diameter as the barrel in order for the bullet to engage the groves of the rifled barrel. As a result the ball had to be forced into the barrel. The minie ball, originally designed by Captain Claude-Etienne Minie of France and improved on by manufacturers in the United States, changed warfare. Since the minie ball was smaller than the diameter of the barrel, it could be loaded quickly by dropping the bullet down the barrel. This conical lead bullet had two or three grooves and a conical cavity in its base. The gases, formed by the burning of powder once the firearm was fired, expanded the base of the bullet so that it engaged the rifling in the barrel. Thus, rifles could be loaded quickly and yet fired accurately; 620; [http://www.civilwar.si.edu/weapons_minieball.html From the Smithsonian website]

'''"far, far away"''' 
A nod to the opening lines of ''Star Wars''? “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."

'''physical well-being''' 
The dichotomy of bodily and spiritual well-being appears in the [[The World is at Fault]] letter that Pynchon wrote in the early 60s.

==Page 102==
'''ten gallons of coffee''' 
Major caffeine abuse also figured in to ''Mason & Dixon''.

==Page 104==

'''"Tithing," Tesla said, "giving back to the day."''' Tesla's contempt for this tithing positions him as--wait for it--against the day.

==Page 107==
'''Tesla device''' 
A radio. He received a patent for the radio after his death. The transmissions of July 3, 1899 (see Page 97, above) were used as evidence that he should be granted the patent.

'''Indian Ocean islands of Amsterdam and St.Paul''' 
The islands are notable in this context as being directly antipodal Colorado, site of the action concerning the Traverse family in the preceding section.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8Ele_Saint-Paul Wikipedia article on St. Paul Island]

==Page 109==

'''blindness at the heart of a diamond''' 
This enigmatic imagery is reflected (no pun intended) in a few references: 

"where the light came down sifted through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart of a diamond. " (''Anne of Green Gables'', Chapt. 15, by Lucy Maud Montgomery) 

"It was a singularly sharp night, and clear as the heart of a diamond."'' A Story that is Untrue'' by Ambrose Bierce 

==Page 110==

'''Clarendons'''

Clarendon is a serif typeface created in 1845 that was often used for wanted posters in the Old West. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarendon_%28typeface%29 Wikipedia entry, with a sample]

==Page 113==

'''X.O.''' 
In many militaries' units, the executive officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the commanding officer (CO).

'''"contamination by the secular"''' 
Secular can be defined as "denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis." As the Chums have so far not been overtly religious, perhaps they mean secular in the spiritual sense?

'''Gloymbroognitz thidfusp''' 
?

'''Surabaya''' 
Today in Indonesia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surabaya Wikipedia entry]

==Page 114==

'''Nernst lamps''' An early incandescent lamp invented by Hermann Nernst (1864-1941), which made use of a heated ceramic rod to produce light in ambient air (in contrast to Edison's incandescent, which required a vacuum to operate).

'''Dr. Mikimoto (Kokichi)''' Produced the first cultured pearl in 1893 in Toba, Japan. As he left school at 13 to help support his family, any Doctorate he may have obtained must have been honorary.

'''Iceland Spar''' 
See this handy "About Geology" page [http://geology.about.com/library/bl/images/blcalcite.htm], with an illustration demonstrating a spar's double-refraction effect on printed letters--remarkably like that on the cover of ATD! This kind of calcite has rhombohedral cleavage, because each of its faces is a rhombus, a warped rectangle in which none of the corners are square. A "spar" would be not the whole calcite crystal, but a cleavage fragment. Is each of the rectangular pages of ATD then a warped cleavage from some sort of crystalline whole, refracting its text in several directions at once? Of course, to the Chums the text message they receive from Upper Hierarchy has but one simple meaning. "Paramorphism" = the structural alteration of a mineral without any change in its chemical composition.

'''Etienne-Louis Malus''' 
1775-1812, a French officer and mathematician whose work was predominantly concerned with light. He studied ray systems, and his theory on polarisation was published in 1809. His theory of the double refraction of light in crystals was published in 1810. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etienne-Louis_Malus Wikipedia] Malus is also the genus of the apple. Malus is best known for his law describing intensity of light as it passes through polarized materials. There are delicious metaphorical implications for any reader of a Pynchon novel.

==Page 115==
'''Kepler'''

'''Edmond Halley''' 
1656-1742, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Halley Halley] was an English physical scientist most remembered for the comet he which he predicted would return. In 1692 he proposed that the earth was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth hollow]. In 1698 he departed on a two year voyage as captain of the HMS Paramore in order to measure variations in the Earth's magnetic field. In 1716 he suggested timing the transit of Venus to determine the distance between the earth and the sun.

'''(Leonhard) Euler''' 
The method of traverse (pun ignored) by which the Chums proceed became known as a Symmes' Hole after John Cleeves Symmes who, in 1818 circulated a pamphlet arguing for the existence of such holes in the polar regions and further volunteered to lead an expedition to said regions.

Symmes' following lecture tours were further carried forth by one J.N. Reynolds. "[Edgar Allen] Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though no one has ever been able to identify the person to whom he referred." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_allen_poe Edgar Allen Poe's] first published short story, "Ms. Found in a Bottle" (1833) took, as its premise, the existence of Symmes' Holes: theoretical holes in the polar areas which led to a hollow interior.

==Page 117==
'''royal court of Chthonica''' 
The adjective ''chthonic'' means "of the earth" or "of the underworld" and is often used to refer to the gods and other entities residing under the surface of the earth. The adjective is used creatively, and most famously, in the fictional works of H.P. Lovecraft ... a chief deity of his ficitional universe being Cthulhu.

'''Plutonia''' 
As above, a reference to the underworld and its inherent connotations of underground voyage, from the Aeneid to Christ to Dante to Tarzan, et al. The "Plutonist" movement, as opposed to the "Neptunist", was quite in vogue in the late 1800s, being a theory of geography which held that the interior heat of the earth was somehow responsible for various geological processes.

'''Tunbridge Wells''' 
[http://www.icons.org.uk/nom/nominations/disgusted-of-tunbridge-wells "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells"] is an archetypal figure of conservative England whose correspondence can be found frequently in newspapers railing at the latest outrages of modernity. Tunbridge Wells briefly features in Gravity's Rainbow.

'''my harmless little intraterrestrial scherzo''' 
Once again, the unseen narrator appears. By inference, the narrator is also the author of the various ''Chums of Chance...'' books referenced in ATD. This episode's also a little ''inter-textual'' scherzo: Poe (''Arthur Gordon Pym''), Jules Verne, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Pelucidar, ''Star Trek'', Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth... and Jeremiah Dixon's own underground journey in M&D. Doesn't Chick Counterfly sound rather Spockian here (cf. 115, bottom)?

ATD 219-242

2006-12-07T03:29:06Z

Dariusk: Add Page 227

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

==Page 222==

'''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.

==Page 226==

'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward. Given the importance of railway lines in this and other chapters, it is also interesting to note that Cambridge's rail system was built in 1845 while Gottingen's was built in 1854.

==Page 227==

"The Great Game" in this case does not refer to Padzhitnoff's airship, but it's the same name.

==Page 236==

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
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.

==Page 237==

'''Hebrew letter Shin- sign''' 
"This person greeted the Cohen by raising his left hand, then spreading the fingers two and two away from the thumb so as to form the Hebrew letter ''shin'', signifying the initial letter of one of the pre-Mosaic (that is, plural) names of God, which may never be spoken.

" 'Basically wishing long life and prosperity,' explained the Choen, answering with the same gesture"
 
compare with the following from M&D 485: 
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.' " 
So is there connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris"? and these backwoods Kabbalists? 
Obvious connects with Star Trek's Vulcan greeting and with Leonard Nimoy's jewish faith.

User:Dariusk

2006-12-07T03:24:33Z

Dariusk: Added link to my blog.

Darius likes Pynchon. Darius likes wikis. This works out nicely.

A professional game developer, you can read his blog about video games, [http://tinysubversions.blogspot.com Tiny Subversions].

ATD 243-272

2006-12-07T03:22:48Z

Dariusk: Created page 254.

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

==Page 246==

'''"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 254==

'''"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.

==Page 256==

Padzhitnoff sees the Campanile come apart as a game of Tetris! The '''"four-brick groupings [...] begind their gentle, undeadly descent, rotating and translating in all available modes"'''. (See [[ATD_119-148|page 123]] for more on Tetris.)

==Page 269==

'''the dirt, the blood-red dirt''' 
This line recalls Homer's "wine-dark sea" first found in The Iliad (Bk VII) in a scene in which Achilles grieves for the death of Patroclus. Given the context here, it might be thought of as "mock-heroic."

ATD 243-272

2006-12-07T03:19:54Z

Dariusk: Adding another tetris reference.

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

==Page 246==

'''"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 256==

Padzhitnoff sees the Campanile come apart as a game of Tetris! The '''"four-brick groupings [...] begind their gentle, undeadly descent, rotating and translating in all available modes"'''. (See [[ATD_119-148|page 123]] for more on Tetris.)

==Page 269==

'''the dirt, the blood-red dirt''' 
This line recalls Homer's "wine-dark sea" first found in The Iliad (Bk VII) in a scene in which Achilles grieves for the death of Patroclus. Given the context here, it might be thought of as "mock-heroic."

User:Dariusk

2006-11-27T18:45:32Z

Dariusk: Adding a brief "bio" to my page.

Darius likes Pynchon. Darius likes wikis. This works out nicely.

ATD 119-148

2006-11-27T17:07:58Z

Dariusk: Created Page 123 section, adding the Tetris reference.

==Page 122==

'''dazzle-painting''' 
A camouflage painting technique used on WWI ships. Link: [http://www.gotouring.com/razzledazzle/articles/dazzle.html]

==Page 123==

'''Igor Padzhitnoff''' 
The whole passage that introduces the rival airship captain is a play on Tetris. Igor's surname is similar to that of the creator of Tetris, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Pazhitnov Alexey Pazhitnov]. Also, the captain himself flies a ship called "The Great Game" and drops "bricks and masonry, always in the four-block fragments which had become his "signature," to fall on and damage targets designated by his superiors."

==Page 146==

'''lines''' 
The description of the single-file line at the train station basically describes current security conditions at American airports. A single line (i.e. linear thinking) does not seem to be a 'positive' in the Pynchon world.