Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 892-918

2009-05-18T14:56:22Z

Dusty: /* Page 903 */

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

==Page 892==

'''Bodeo-packing''' 
The Bodeo was the Italian [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_pistol service pistol].

'''''coglioni''''' 
Coglione is Italian for testicle, literally. However, the word is also used figuratively, with the connotation of a foolishly annoying person, which the British might translate as "twit". I guess in American English you would translate it as ''dork''.

'''Bloomsbury''' 
Fashionable London district including the British Museum and University College London.

'''west of Regents Park''' 
The huge park is in northern central London. To the west are Lisson, Paddington, Westbourne Green, Kensal Town and other districts.

Parts of ''The Princess Casamassima'' are set in Lisson Grove.

==Page 893==

'''taximeter cab''' 
The taximeter is the device (mechanical in this context) that calculates passenger fares based on a combination of distance travelled and/or waiting time. It is the shortened form of this word that gives the "taxi" its name. The modern taximeter was invented by German Wilhelm Bruhn in 1891, and the Daimler Victoria, the world's first meter-equipped (and gasoline-powered) taxicab, was built by Gottlieb Daimler in 1897.
Taximeters were originally mechanical and mounted outside the cab, above the driver's side front wheel. Meters were soon relocated inside the taxi, and in the 1980s electronic meters were introduced, doing away with the once-familiar ticking sound of the meter's timing mechanism.

'''Fedora''' 
Capitalized because at the time it was recognized as a proper name: from Sardou's play ''Fédora.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_(hat) Description, picture and history on Wikipedia.] Another hat named after a play (because someone in the play wore such a hat) - the other being [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_171-198#Page_185 Trilby].

'''Lampo''' 
Italian-made pistol.

'''Peckham Rye''' 
District in southeast London.

Perhaps of significance, perhaps not: site of Muriel Sparks' 1960 novel ''The Ballad of Peckham Rye'', in which one character, around whom the action revolves, may or may not be teh Devil, but who is certainly disruptive of normal middle class values.

Perhaps more pertinently where William Blake first had a vision of angels in 1767.

'''Henry Newbolt''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Newbolt Sir Henry Newbolt] (1862-1938) was an English author and poet.

'''"Vitaï Lampada"''' 
Dally noting passages from [[Vitai Lampada|the Newbolt poem]] quoted by Cyprian on [[ATD_792-820#Page_813|page 813]] and by Dr. De Bottle on [[ATD_219-242#Page_236|page 236.]]

'''pietà''' 
Works so titled commonly show Mary, the mother of Jesus, with his body after its removal from the cross.

==Page 894==

'''predators' wings''' 
Western art mostly depicts angels with the wings of prey species, namely doves.

'''Angel of Death''' 
This angel appears in ''V.'' and ''GR'' too.

'''Katie bar the door''' 
Slang expression dating from the late 1800's meaning, Look out! (there's trouble headed this way so close and "lock" the door). For a possible etymology see: [http://www.word-detective.com/111703.html] 
:The story of 'Catherine Bar-the-Door', the lady who tried to protect the Scots King James by inserting her arm as a 'bolt' in the door was a standard item of the pop history they taught in Scottish schools back in the fifties (I was there!), like Bruce and the Spider, King Alfred and the Cakes, Washington and the cherry tree and so on. That surely must be the origin of the phrase.

'''Pegamoid traveler's satchel''' 
Pegamoid: a fabric coated with [http://www.kwhplast.com/Default.aspx?id=454043 plasticized nitrocellulose;] used for early aircraft fuselages, convertible roofs and wallets. There is a [http://www.londontown.com/LondonStreets/pegamoid_road_6f6.html Pegamoid Road] in the borough of Enfield, London.

== Page 895 ==

'''capitalist temples . . . those of us who do''' 
Is Dally a concrete being or an abstraction? Here she is flipping back and forth. She is very "concrete:" the reference is to a statue which she modeled for.

'''''The Spirit of Bimetallism''''' 
Beautiful title: invented image for a perfectly spiritless policy.

:I'm not so sure how "spiritless" the policy was; many less wealthy folks favored a more inflationary money policy, which bimetallism represented. For a contemporary political cartoon reflecting this, see [http://projects.vassar.edu/1896/0912la.jpg]. -- After the Civil War, there was a decades-long debate about whether the US should keep silver as well as gold coinage, and whether the dollar should be pegged to gold (the "gold standard"). It was an issue important to the Populist Party and was the basis of William Jennings Bryan's "cross of gold" speech. For economic details, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimetallism].

L. Frank Baum's populist parable, ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900) also took up the call for bimetallism. In the book, the Ruby Slippers that transport Dorothy home are actually made of silver, echoing Bryan's call for the deliverance of the laboring classes through the "free coingage of silver." The golden Yellow Brick Road leads only to the big city but no deliverance. Whereas, ''"Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert.....If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country.". Glinda explains, "All you have to do is knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go."''

Like Dahlia, Dorothy can be said to represent ''The Spirit of
Bimetallism''.

Does bi-metallism parallel bi-location?

Note that as a child (p.27) Dahlia is called a ''helpless angel'' (Italics in original text).

And one that had turned to blood in the Colorado mines.

A bimetallic strip was the moving part in a thermostat. 
Still is, but in context the word refers to a currency system based on both gold and silver. 

:In general, Pynchon is parodying the Late Victorian tendency of the plutes to glorify their activities by decorating their institutions with 'art' allegorizing them, for example sculptures of young ladies representing Commerce, Industry, Agriculture and so on... Dally can see the real living girls who've been fossilized into these figures.

'''''semeuse''''' 
French: girl sowing seeds. 
:the "semeuse" is referred to here as "classic" because she is the symbol of France: the shawl or hood is in fact a Phrygian cap (emblem of the French revolution) and the figure of the semeuse was ubiquitous on French coins and stamps throughout the XXth century.

'''Charlie Sykes''' 
Charles Robinson Sykes was a sculptor who designed the hood ornament for Rolls Royce, called "The Spirit of Ecstasy." See also p. 1074.

==Page 896==

'''Three Choirs Festival''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Choirs_Festival Three Choirs Festival], a British music festival held each August alternately at the cathedrals of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester and originally featuring their three choirs.

'''Ralph Vaughan Williams''' 
English composer, 1872-1958 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams]. He premiered the [http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/v-w/tallisfantasia.html "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis"] in 1910.

'''cantores and decani''' 
Cantoris (another print error in AtD?) is the side of a church choir occupied by the Cantor. In English churches this is typically the choir stalls on the north side of the chancel, although there are some notable exceptions, such as Durham Cathedral. The opposite side is known as Decani, the side of a church choir occupied by the Dean. In English churches this is typically the choir stalls on the south side of the chancel.

'''Phrygian''' 
The theme is in the "modern" phrygian mode which, if one starts on the "e" note, consists of the notes e-f-g-a-b-c-d-e. You don't have to start on "e," but you must maintain the relationship of the intervals: half-step, whole-step, whole-step, whole-step, half-step, whole-step, whole-step.

'''very slowly Ruperta began to levitate...''' 
Ruperta's levitation, caused or triggered by the Phrygian music she is hearing, has a Pythagorean precedent:

:Pythagoras discovered that the seven modes — or keys — of the Greek system of music had the power to incite or allay the various emotions. It is related that while observing the stars one night he encountered a young man befuddled with strong drink and mad with jealousy who was piling faggots about his mistress' door with the intention of burning the house. The frenzy of the youth was accentuated by a flutist a short distance away who was playing a tune in the stirring Phrygian mode. Pythagoras induced the musician to change his air to the slow, and rhythmic Spondaic mode, whereupon the intoxicated youth immediately became composed and, gathering up his bundles of wood, returned quietly to his own home. From [[Pythagorean Theory of Music and Color]]

However, whereas in the Pythagoras story the Phrygian mode causes the young man to become agitated, in Ruperta's case, the effect is physically and spiritually uplifting. Moreover, Pythagoras' Phrygian mode is the ancient Greek Phrygian mode (d-e-f-g-a-b-c-d, what is called the Dorian mode today) not the "modern" one used by Thomas Tallis and, hence, Vaughn Williams. Also, Spondaic is a rhythmn, not a mode. The new mode Pythagoras asked the flutist to change to was the Hypophrygian (g-a-b-c-d-e-f-g).

'''Somehow, I alone, for every single wrong act of my life, must find a right one to balance it''' 
Ruperta retuns to earth a Buddhist; her first step is to restore karmic balance in her life. If any music in the world could produce such a transformation, it is Vaughan Williams' ''Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis'', heard in an English cathedral's acoustics. This, too, produces alternate histories.
:That is one of the most elegant entries in this whole wiki.

==Page 897==

'''imprimatura''' 
The unfilled white ground of a canvas, painted only with white primer. (It can be other than white, especially in Venetian painting.)

'''immoderate light-space . . . ''Dido Building Carthage''''' 
[http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/turner/paintings/carthage.html 1815 painting in the National Gallery, London.]

==Page 898==

'''West End''' 
Area, centered roughly on Shaftesbury Avenue, where London legitimate theaters concentrate. British equivalent of Broadway.

'''''mitzvah''''' 
Hebrew: good or worthy deed.

'''Wogs Begin at Wigan''' 
Another classy theatrical offering from the producer of "Dagoes with Knives." Does TRP have a low opinion of theater? 
:The point being an allusion to jocularly racist expressions like "Wogs begin at Calais", i.e. where England stops. In this case, the northern English consider the southerners equally alien. Or perhaps vice versa. 
Mr. Pynchon was spotted at a recent all-day production of Tom Stoppard's
newest three-part play, ''The Coast of Utopia'', not surprising perhaps.(2007) ''The Coast of Utopia'' is a trilogy about the origins of modern political radicalism in 19th century Russia. The central figures in the action are Michael Bakunin, Vissarion Belinsky, and Alexander Herzen. The work consists of three plays: "Voyage", "Shipwreck", and "Salvage". From wikipedia. 
He seems only to have a low opinion of low
plays, plays which manifest and feed our cultural stereotypes. [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 08:31, 15 June 2007 (PDT)

'''character juvenile''' 
In a theater company the "juvenile" played a young, eligible man, counterpart to the ingenue. "Character" is almost an antonym for a stock player, having the ability to play many roles without limitation by physical type.

'''vocal range was half an octave''' 
A song as simple as "Home on the Range" calls for a full octave of range. Half an octave is not much more than inflected humming.

'''Shaftesbury Avenue, the Strand, Haymarket, and Kings Way''' 
The rough quadrangle bounded by these streets lies west of the City and includes Covent Garden, the Royal Opera House, the National Portrait Gallery and one entrance to Charing Cross railway station.

'''from Camberwell Green to Notting Hill Gate''' 
Camberwell Green is in southeast London, Notting Hill Gate in the west central part of the area.

'''Scotch eggs''' 
A delicacy Americans often just refuse to believe: a hard-boiled egg enrobed in sausage meat and deep-fried.

'''chip-shop newspaper''' 
The newspaper used to wrap the fish and chips (US: French Fries); very greasy, naturally, but the only paper that may come to hand.

==Page 899==

'''laddered stockings''' 
Britishism; in US parlance, stockings ruined by a run (producing a laddered effect).

'''beauties of photogravuredom''' 
When newspapers used the gravure process, costs dictated they reserve it for pictorial material of special value, often publishing a separate section or even a magazine showing fashionably dressed women.

'''Lalique''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Lalique René Lalique] (1860-1945) was one of the world's greatest glass makers and jewellery designers, renowned for his stunning creations of perfume bottles, vases, jewellery, chandeliers, clocks, and automobile hood ornaments.

'''Turkish railway intrigues''' 
Refers to the international machinations among the Powers over the proposed (Berlin to) Baghdad Railway, in fact the Basra railway. Such a rail link would give Germany access to development of a large swath of the Ottoman Empire, and make possible a naval presence in the Persian Gulf, seen by Britain as a threat to routes to India in case of war. Britain and other states also worried, quite rightly, that the German rapprochement with the Ottomans could lead to army connections. From about 1911 German military advisors trained Ottoman officers, and in World War I the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany (which is why Australian troops were sent to die at Gallipoli).

Elsewhere in AtD there are references to the proposed routes for this rail network (routes through East Roumelia, the Orient Express route), which was eventually completed--the last link being put in place under Vichy France in Syria in 1940 [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos139.htm].

The meaning within AtD of such a network, linking Europe and Asia, widens to potential links to Russian railways, e.g. the Trans-Caucasian Kit rides, and the Trans-Siberian; and via Palestine and Cairo, to Cecil Rhodes' proposed Cape to Cairo Railway. Add the recently completed Channel Tunnel and a recently proposed Bering Strait Tunnel, and there is a potential for a world-spanning network of steel rails, binding everywhere to everywhere--a 19th Century dream come true--and the old routes languish, as in Ostend.

'''From Turkish railway intrigues, Crouchmas had . . .''' 
See pp. 237-239.

==Page 900==

'''Finsbury''' 
North of the City of London and near the suggestively named Shoreditch.

'''Northumberland Avenue''' 
Upscale street near Charing Cross and Scotland Yard.

'''in expensive ''déshabillé''''' 
''Déshabillé'' is French: undressed. I.e., dressed (expensively) but not dressed to go out.
:neglige — a loose dressing gown for women.

'''Oxfordshire''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxfordshire Oxfordshire], where the University of Oxford is located, is a county in the south-central of England.

'''Overlunch''' 
Dally and Lew meet over lunch. Nice.

'''Moon, Sun''' 
Which Dally held in her balance as the Spirit of Bimetallism, P.895.
Silver Moon, Gold Sun.

==Page 901==

'''Vionnet-gowned''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Vionnet Madeleine Vionnet] (June 22, 1876 - 1975) was a French fashion designer. Called the "Queen of the bias cut" and "the architect among dressmakers," Vionnet is best-known today for her elegant Grecian-style dresses and for introducing the bias cut to the fashion world. The bias cut and absence of padding allowed a new freedom of movement.

[[Image:The_Moon_Tarot_XVIII.jpg‎|100px|thumb|Tarot XVIII|right]]
'''the giant crayfish clattered slowly out of the bathing-pool, and the dog began to bay''' 
Lew's vision descibes the imagery on the Moon Tarot Card XVIII 

'''the Dog Star Sirius, which ruled this part of the summer''' 
A sky enigma [[ATD_792-820#Page_796|(see the annotations to page 796 for another)]]. In old beliefs, Sirius "ruled" late summer (the "Dog Days") by lining up with the Sun so that their heats added together. In this season Sirius and the Earth are on opposite sides of the Sun, so that you look toward the Sun and see Sirius near it and behind it; Sirius sets a little time before or after sunset rather than ascending throughout the evening.

I suggest it is worth the effort to seek a way this passage can be technically and thematically right. --[[User:Volver|Volver]] 14:44, 28 January 2007 (PST)

==Page 902==

'''playing now in 3/4, too fast to be called a waltz...''' 
Disaster in 3/4 time--see P.809 and note. Once again the pace of movement toward the European Disaster is picking up; here again there is an echo of Ravel's chaotic ''La Valse''.

==Page 903==

'''the King is the Kaiser's uncle''' 
British Queen Victoria's eldest child, Princess Victoria, married Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia in 1857. Their eldest son became Germany's last Kaiser in 1888. When Queen Victoria died in 1901, her eldest son (second child), Prince Albert Edward, became King Edward VII. 
It is interesting to know that through Queen Victoria's daughters, British King, German Kaiser and Russia Tsar were related. Queen Victoria's second daughter (third child), Princess Alice, had a daughter, Alix, who was the wife of Russia's last Tsar, Nicholas II.

'''rapid changes in Turkish politics''' 
The Turkish oscillations between the other Powers, here principally England and Germany, the Berlin to Baghdad Railway being one among the issues at stake.

'''level of 'reality' at which nations, like money in the bank, are merged and indistinguishable''' 
This rather cryptic line will take on more meaning on P.904, where there is reference to alternate historical possibilities (note teh partail quotes areound 'reality'), literally merging England and Germany, victor and vanquished in the First World War. This is also an Anarchist tenet, the equally evil nature of all governments.

It is the opposite of cryptic. It states clearly that all authoritative governments are based upon the same principles, much like money in the bank, which they interchange as amenably as loyal countrymen, the only difference being their loyalty is to no country in particular but rather to Countries in the universal sense, which allow them to separate the world into digestible pieces and consequently hold happily onto their individual plots.

'''St.Paul's''' 
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A4187568 St.Paul's Cathedral], London. The current St Paul's Cathedral is the fourth one to occupy its site on Ludgate Hill. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, it's first stone was laid in 1675 and the final stone was not laid until 1710. The height of St Paul's from the pavement to the top of the cross is 365 feet.

==Page 904==

'''A royal charter . . . illuminating gas''' 
Ernest Augustus (1771-1851) was a younger son of British and Hanoverian King George III. In Britain he had a substantial military career and, as Duke of Cumberland, began to pursue a political one as well. His niece Victoria acceded to the British throne in 1837—the crown passing to her as heiress of an older son of George III—but Hanover's laws said a woman could not serve as monarch there, so the royal dynasty split. Ernest Augustus was named King of Hanover and occupied the throne until his death. He evidently used the name Ernst-August in Hannover.

(Göttingen, by the way, lay in this kingdom. Its university was founded by Ernest Augustus' great-grandfather George II.)

The tunnel in question would link Galloway in Scotland to Ulster in Ireland, burrowing under 20 miles of seabed in waters some 100 fathoms (over 150 m) deep. In 1837-51 it was laughably unfeasible, and indeed it would not become an economic proposition until over a century later. (From most parts of Britain it would be harder to get to Galloway than Ireland anyway.)

So the "charter" mentioned in the text was granted for an impossible project by a monarch who, our history tells us, had no jurisdiction in the countries affected. It is essential to read this bit of text in conjunction with the Grand Cohen's speculations on pages 230-231.

(What is suggested here is that the building houses files from alternate timelines, alternate histories,; or: from alternate Possibilities that collapsed into the certainty of a single timeline).

'''A railroad . . . East Roumelia''' 
As in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Mason & Dixon''], another straight line cast across the land.

And part of the proposed German financed Berlin to Baghdad network outflanking Britain's sea routes, through some territory of doubtful and disputed sovereignty.

'''guilloche''' 
Or guilloché, a pattern of interlaced curved lines, most commonly seen on banknotes. These patterns were traditionally used for security printing purposes as a protection against counterfeit and forgery, as well as for decorating valuable objects such as Fabergé eggs and pocket watches. 
Guilloché machines (alternately called geometric lathes, rose machines, engine-turners, and cycloidal engines) were first used for a watch casing dated 1624, and consist of myriad gears and settings that can produce many different patterns.

'''A deed . . . Buckinghamshire . . . east of Wolverton and north of Bletchley''' 
Is it coincidence that this area contains the designed town of Milton Keynes? Bletchley has another resonance: Alan Turing worked during WWII at Bletchley Park, the center for British code-breaking. 
Buckinghamshire is the eastern neighbor of Oxfordshire.

<div id="obock">'''Obock'''</div>
A real French colony in present-day Djibouti; sovereignty is not made clear by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obock Wikipedia entry.] According to the 1911 Britannica (search on Obock and go to history), the French took formal possession of Obock in 1883 and were currently (1911) using it as a coaling station for warships and as a highroad to Abyssinia.

'''Sagallo''' 
A Russian colony near Obock; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagallo another Wikipedia article.]

'''Atchinoff''' 
Or Achinov: adventurer who sought in 1889 to establish the colony of Sagallo.

'''the archimandrite Païsi''' 
Archimandrite: a ranking priest in the Orthodox Church. [http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/SAC_SAR/SAGALLO.html Païsi] is the (Russian Orthodox) priest who is not named in the Wikipedia article on Sagallo.

==Page 905==

'''caryatid''' 
Architecture: a supporting column sculptured in the form of a draped female figure. 
:I think the point is that Dally is in the British Library (part of the British Museum). A copy of everything published had to be registered there, so there would be treaties and contracts of international importance - evidence of what Crouchmas had been up to. It was the largest building in Britain at the time (see Wikipedia article on British Library). So the simple fact that she's there makes Crouchmas suspicious. She's doing some 'investigative journalism' using 'public' sources that are hidden away unless you know where to look for them.

'''lunes''' 
A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lune lune] is the surface formed by cutting a sphere with two planes each including the center.

'''nacreous''' 
Having the luster of pearl or mother-of-pearl.

'''bleared''' 
Used figuratively (in this context): obscured (mental or moral perception)

'''Madame Entrevue''' 
Mrs. Interview.

In its "journalistic" sense, "entrevue" is used only in French Canada (the French prefer the English term "interview"). Here, "entrevue" means "a concerted meeting". or it might take on the alternate meaning, "seen partially".

==Page 906==

'''Baz Zaharoff''' 
Mentioned on [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_557-587#Page_557 page 557].

'''Wagon-Lits''' 
A sleeping car on a European railroad train.

'''but it's ''they'' who want to sell ''him'' something''' 
Uh-oh. The device that Umeki took away is coming back.

Oh yes ... and [[ATD_97-118#Page_114|there's more...]]

==Page 907==

'''condition of sin''' 
Possible reference to the (perhaps hopeless) intertwining of spiritual and temporal quests, like the search for Shambhala. The seeking of knowledge seems hopelessly entwined with the seeking of power.

'''Turkish Delight''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_delight Turkish delight] is a confection made from starch and sugar. It is often flavoured with rosewater and lemon, the former giving it a characteristic pale pink color... During his travels to Istanbul, an unknown Briton became very fond of the delicacy... and shipped them to Britain under the name Turkish Delight. It became a major delicacy in Britain. (Wikipedia) 
Also, a memorable part of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

'''"...here I come, Constantinople."''' 
Dally's chapter-ending remark is a reference to the chorus of "Constantinople," a popular recording by The Residents from their 1978 EP [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Stab%21 Duck Stab!] Like Thomas Pynchon himself, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Residents The Residents] have been famous since the early 70s yet the world knows little of their identity. [http://www.elyrics.net/read/r/residents-lyrics/constantinople-lyrics.html Complete lyrics]

[[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]] 16:46, 13 May 2007 (PDT) 
- The Residents also had a later album called Wormwood, aka Tchernobyl, one of the explanations for the Tunguska event, cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_792-820#Page_792 annotation to page 797]

==Page 908==

'''what some were beginning to call Istanbul''' 
[[ATD_821-848#Page_846|See annotation to page 846.]]

'''Cağaloğlu''' 
District in Istanbul somewhat west of Aya Sophia.

'''Byzantine schemes''' 
Wonderful play on words. Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire until the Turkish conquest of 1453; any complex intrigue, said to be typical of the old and very sophisticated Empire, is called "Byzantine" in complexity. Here of course the schemes are both complex and, located in Constantinople, literally Byzantine. A good example of Pynchonian "Temporal Bandwidth"; this is a multicultural, multitemporal joke.

'''Imi and Ernö''' 
Imi is the diminutive for Imre (Emery); Ernő (with double long accent) is the Hungarian equivalent for Ernest.

'''Szeged''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szeged Szeged] is a city in southern border of Hungary, a major center of paprika production.

'''Wagons-Lits''' 
Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits et des Grands Express Européens (the International Sleeping-Car Company and Great European Expresses). Originally, the company deployed sleeping- and dining-cars in Europe, similar to the Pullman company in the US. The company deployed the first sleeping and dining cars for long-distance train travel in Europe. In 1883 the company started with a service to Constantinople called the Orient Express [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compagnie_Internationale_des_Wagons-Lits]. The train followed several routes in its storied history ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient_Express]). Kit and Dally are both on the luxury Wagons-Lits version, running by way of Vienna and Budapest [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orient_Express]. The European sections of the route were as much subject to political machinations as the proposed Ottoman Empire continuations on to Baghdad and beyond.

==Page 909==

'''Zaharoff ''úr''''' 
Hungarian: Mr. Zaharoff.

'''''Fönök''''' 
Hungarian: chief, boss. Also a slangish form of address, showing friendly intentions to a (male) stranger.

==Page 910==

'''''Bocsánat''''' 
Hungarian: pardon!

'''Euphorbia''' 
Quick thinking, but she may not be flattered. The genus ''Euphorbia'' comprises the spurges, large-leafed plants with milky sap. Yes, and perhaps the best known Euphorbia is the poinsettia, euphorbia pulcherrima, which has large red (like Dally's hair) flowers ([http://flowers109.tripod.com/newquotations1.html pic]). (The red flowers combined with its green leaves make it a popular plant around Christmas time). The poinsettia is beautiful and pulcherrima means most beautiful, so she may be flattered.

'''''chef de brigade''''' 
French: crew chief.

'''''kalabriás''''' 
Hungarian: the complicated card game ''klaberjas'' or "klob." Kalábriász is a more common spelling.

'''Porta Orientalis''' 
The Eastern Gate Pass in the Southern Carpathians (Transylvanian Alps), complete with railway tunnel, connecting historical Translyvania with the Danubian Plain in Walachia (southern Romania).

'''Széchenyi-Tér tramline''' 
Széchenyi tér is a central city square in Szeged, where the first tramline (electric streetcar) was inaugurated in 1908. Recall Merle Rideout's work with streetcars.

'''Kiskúnfélegyháza''' 
Town 70 miles southeast of Budapest on the route to Szeged.

==Page 911==

'''the invisible city ahead of him gripping him ever more surely in its field''' 
Istanbul (was Constantinople...) is another city, like Venice, with enormous Temporal Bandwidth. Ancient, multicultural, politically and historically complex, it (its "field"?) grips Kit as Venice gripped Dally. It is, in fact historically connected to Venice (two poles of the medieval Mediterannean) by trade and competition. Venice had a hand in the destruction of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204-5; Venetian
mercenaries were among its last defenders in the Turkish siege of 1453.

'''Galata Tower''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galata_Tower Galata Tower], one of Istanbul's most striking landmarks, is located on the Galata side of the Golden Horn. Genoese traders built it in 1348, with a height of 220 ft the tallest structure when built.

'''Eminönü''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emin%C3%B6n%C3%BC Eminönü], a district of Istanbul, is the heart of the walled city of Constantine, the focus of a history of incredible richness and a seaport.

'''the Sultan's threatened counterrevolution''' 
April 1909.

'''Pera Palace''' 
[http://www.allaboutturkey.com/perapalas.htm Pera Palas Hotel] in Galata district of Istanbul was originally founded in 1892 for the specific purpose of hosting passengers arriving on the ''Orient Express''. Room 411 of the hotel is now preserved as "Agatha Christie Room" because it was said Agatha Christie wrote ''Murder on the Orient Express'' in that room.

'''the Committee of Union and Progress''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Union_and_Progress The Committee of Union and Progress] (C.U.P.), an umbrella political organization, was found in 1906 by various underground revolutionary factions with the common goal of disolving the Ottoman Empire. It came to power between 1908 and 1918.

'''''komitadji''''' 
Cf [[ATD_557-587#Page_557|page 557: Balkan ''komitadji'']].

'''Viktor Mulciber''' 
Cf [[ATD_557-587#Page_557|page 557: Viktor Mulciber]].

==Page 912==

'''drummer''' 
Salesman.

'''air show in Brescia last year''' 
The competition took place in September 1909.

'''pilots like Calderara and Cobianchi''' 
Mario Calderara (1879-1944) and Mario Cobianchi (1881-1944), Italian pioneers of aviation. For an eerie foreshadowing of ''Inconvenience'' and the Campanile, [http://www.earlyaviators.com/ecobianc.htm look at the photo near the middle of this page.]

'''''meyhane''''' 
A Turkish tavern.

'''''politissas''''' 
A "politissa" is "a woman from Constantinople (Istanbul)." See [http://amanyala.blogspot.com/2006/09/rembetiko-of-month_13.html this article].

==Page 913==

'''the promise . . . year before last''' 
So the promise and Dally and Kit's goodbye took place in 1908?

'''Grand-Hôtel Tisza''' 
Named for the Tisza River.

'''''újházaspár''''' 
Hungarian: new wedded couple (literally). The formation is perfect but there is no such compound word in common usage; seems to be a calque for "newlyweds"

'''Varosi Színház''' 
Hungarian: ''Municipal Theater''. The correct spelling should be Városi.

'''Béla Blaskó . . . from Lugos''' 
In the same way that a man from Miskolc took the name Miskolci, this successful actor in another life will take a new stage name. Born in 1882, his full name was Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó. If you haven't figured out who he would become after crossing the Atlantic, read here[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bela_lugosi]

==Page 914==

'''Pityu''' 
Diminutive for István (Stephen).

'''''hálaszlé''''' 
Hungarian: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_soup fisherman soup].

'''Temesvár''' 
In Romanian, Timişoara, in Transylvania, another political football in 19th and early 20th century politics; reinforces the Bela Lugosi reference. - In the strict sense Temesvár/Timişoara does not belong to Transylvania proper but to Banat, a particularly multi-ethnic region between the Danube and the southernmost reaches of the Carpathians. Under Habsburg rule it was a garrison town with mostly German population, and in 1989 it was the birthplace of the Romanian revolution.

'''''The Burgher King''''' 
I.e., middle-class.

Also, of course, a play on the fast food chain, similar to the character Muller Hoch-Leben (MIller High Life) in ''GR''.

Interplay between the aristocracy and the middle (or lower) classes was a central theme in the Austro-Hungarian operetta of the age, with titles like Prince Bob, Baroness Lili, Countess Marica, the Count of Luxemburg, the Princess of Circus, and last but not least, the Queen of Csárdás, a perennial classic.

'''Schleppingsdorff''' 
Comic German name: a shlep from shlepville.

'''Machen wir . . . nichts kaufen''' 
German: Let's go for a window-shopping stroll; / Put on something fiddly (or fancy). / In streets and lanes let's just run— / Stare at everything but don't buy anything.

In addition, the German here is not correct. The second line should read "Überwirf Dir irgendeinen Fummel" or "Wirf Dir einen Fummel über", or something like that.

==Page 915==

'''''molto agitato''''' 
Italian musical direction: highly agitated.

'''''ucca''''' 
Hungarian: street.

'''So super-ficially deep...Good time girl from the K and K''' 
The plot is a mash-up of countless operettas. As far as "good time girls, superficially deep": at this point (1900-1910) the art and literature of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was replete with complicated women in complicated relationships (cf. the paintings of Gustav Klimt, the stories of Robert Musil, Stefan Zweig; not to mention Sigmund Freud's case histories, particularly "Dora"); mistresses and prostitutes did figure heavily as well.

K and K (k.u.k) stands for kaiserlich und königlich, imperial (Austrian) and royal (Hungarian).

The lyrics resemble (maybe by accident, maybe not) one of the all-time operetta hits, "Girls are angels", basically about flirtation and extramarital sex with chorus girls, from ''The Queen of Csárdás'' (see note to The Burgher King on page 914). The song is traditionally performed "wearing a silk hat at a rakish angle", and contains "superficially deep" lines like "here all existence is just an appearance / here everyone is allowed to play a role".

(the passage reads like a very Pynchonian take on the whole tradition, in a way comparable to "The Courier's Tragedy" in "Lot 49".)

==Page 916==

'''"that piece of business where he bites old Heidi's neck, what was that all about?''' 
Nod to the actor's (who would rename himself Bela Lugosi, see page 913) future defining role of Dracula. Lugosi first played the famous vampire on Broadway in 1927 before scaring movie audiences to death in 1931. When Dally adds "Something they do in these parts?", she unknowingly refers to the long tradition of belief in vampirism in the Balkans, especially in Transylvania (modern day Romania).

'''up the river''' 
The Tisza.

'''Szolnok''' 
Town east of Budapest.

'''Lake Balaton''' 
Long narrow lake in west central Hungary, with reputedly the finest beaches in Central Europe. Popular holiday resorts.

'''Pragerhof''' 
Pragersko in present-day Slovenia.

'''Venezia''' 
Venice.

'''Siófok''' 
Town on the southern shore of Lake Balaton.

==Page 917==

'''gaff-riggers''' 
A gaff-rigger is a boat or ship with gaff-rigged sails. Gaff-rigged denotes a fore-and-aft sail bent to a mast, to a boom at the lower edge, and to a gaff (inclined spar) extending from the mast at the top.

'''''fogások''''' 
Hungarian: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zander zanders] synonymous with (''[http://www.caspianenvironment.org/biodb/eng/fishes/Stizostedion%20lucioperca/main.htm Lucioperca lucioperca]'' or ''sandra''). The correct spelling is ''fogasok'', without an accent.

==Page 918==

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

ATD 768-791

2009-05-17T15:45:02Z

Dusty: /* Page 788 */

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

==Page 768==

'''fourteeners''' 
Affectionate name applied by Coloradans to mountain peaks 14,000 feet (approx. 4200 m) high.

'''Lake Baikal''' 

Another bi-location: one world out here, another reflected one in the lake. Oh, and the first syllable of the name is pronounced BY. 

Incidentally, "bai" is the Chinese word for "white" and is written 白. Could "bi-location" imply a "white" location?
Cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_946-975 Byal Sredets] p. 956.

Photos of Lake Baikal: [http://angara.net/photo/album/122] & [http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/lakebaikal/]

An Article on the Oddities of Lake Baikal: [http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF9/986.html] 

Wikipedia Entry: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal]

==Page 769==

'''Mount Kailash''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_437|page 437: Mount Kailash]].

'''Tengri Khan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Tengri Tengri Khan] is a mountain, the second-highest peak (23,000 ft) of the Tian Shan mountain range.

'''Hassan was of course no longer there.''' 
OK, I have no idea what happened here. Since this is the non-spoiler section, maybe we can talk about it here: [[Hassan's Dissappearance Discussion|DISCUSSION]]

'''a maze of slot canyons''' 
The ground is crumpled rather like Kovalevskaia's handkerchief on page 634.

==Page 770==

'''stand before the Gate . . . Kit looked up . . .''' 
See the picture here: Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_764|page 764: Tushuk Tash]].

'''followed by the whizzing sound''' 
As the impact of the V-2 was in ''Gravity's Rainbow.''

==Page 771==

'''You are released''' 
Echoes ''Ite, missa est'' on page 668.

'''samovars . . . gasping and puffing''' 
Samovar: a double urn containing a large amount of hot water and a small amount of super-strong tea. Passengers mixed their own to taste. The hot-water urn (the samovar proper) was in fact a small charcoal boiler; there ''was'' much steam. Many Russian railroad cars had samovars.

'''Ak-su''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aksu_City Ak-su] (White Water) is a city in Xinjiang, China. It is located in the Southern foothills of Tian Shan. The economy of Ak-su is mostly agricultural, with cotton, in particular the long-staple cotton, as the main product.

'''Kucha''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kucha Kucha] is a city in Xinjiang. It was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Takalmakan desert in the Tarim Basin.

'''Korla''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korla Korla], also spelled as Kurla, is a city south of Karashahr. The Iron Gate Pass, 4 miles north of the city, played an important part in protecting the ancient Silk Road from rading nomads from the north.

'''Karasahr''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karasahr Karasahr] (Black City) is located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert.

'''nephrite''' 
Fibrous silicate mineral, one of the constituents of jade.

'''Turfan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turfan Turfan] is an oasis city located about 90 miles southeast of Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, China, in a mountain basin on the northern side of the Turfan Depression. Even though it has only 0.9 inch rainfall per year, Turfan has long been the center of a fertile oasis, producing great quatities of high-quality fruits, and an imprtant trade center.

'''Flaming Mountains''' 
[http://www.chinaetravel.com/attraction/att27c.html Flaming Mountains] are red sandstone hills on the northern edge of the Turfan Basin. The red of the hills has been likened to burning flames, and temperatures often reach a sweltering 130° F. The Mountains were made famous by the 16th-century Chinese classic novel ''Journey to the West''.

'''the Sangre de Cristos''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_de_Cristo_Mountains The Sangre de Cristos] (Blood of Christ) are the southermost subrange of the Rocky Mountains located in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

==Page 772==
'''the ancient kingdom of Khocho . . . to be the historical Shambhala''' 
Dr Edwin Bernbaum, a Research Associate of the University of California, Berkeley, claimed, in his book [http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FWay-Shambhala-Mythical-Kingdom-Himalayas%2Fdp%2F1570628742%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1180372355%26sr%3D1-1&tag=hyperartspynchon&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325 ''The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas''] (1980, 2001), that Shambhala is not in the Himalayas, but far to the north, in the Turfan Depression, "Established by the Uighurs, a Turkish perople, around 850, the kingdom of Khocho flourished for four hundred years as a remarkable oasis of culture and learning. A predominantly Buddhist country, with numerous monasteries, it also had active centers of Manicheanism and Nestorian Christianity . . . At the time the ''Kalackra'' appreared in India, the kingdom of Khocho probably possessed the most advanced civilization of any country in Central Asia. Well-irrigated fields and orchards produced enough surplus food to allow the Uighurs to run welfare programs for the poor. Living together in peaceful harmony, people of different races, relgions and languages stimulated each other's thought and culture. Paintings found in the ruins of Turfan show houses built in the Chinese style, men and women dressed in embroidered silk, and a chamber ensemble complete with harps, guitar, and flutes. Even the Chinese, the most fastidious connoisseurs of culture, were impressed by the grace of Uihur society." (pp.42-43)

Bernbaum's [http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FWay-Shambhala-Mythical-Kingdom-Himalayas%2Fdp%2F1570628742%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1180372355%26sr%3D1-1&tag=hyperartspynchon&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325 ''The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas''] is an excellent resource and a likely backgrounder for Pynchon when writing about Shambhala in ''Against the Day''.

Interesting connection between Shambala and bi-location: According to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalachakra Kalachakra Tantra], the King of Shambhala requested teaching from the Buddha that would allow him to practice the dharma without renouncing his worldly enjoyments and responsibilities. In response to his request, the Buddha appeared in two places at once to teach the first Kālachakra tantra. (Wikipedia)

'''Urumchi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi Urumchi] or Ürümqi, is the capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. With a population of 2.1 million (75% are Han Chinese) and located in the northwest of the country, it is the largest city in the western half of China. Ürümqi is the most remote city from any sea in the world at a distance of about 1,400 miles from the nearest coastline.

'''lowlands of Dzungaria''' 
A region of 300,000 sq mi in Xinjiang, NW China. It is a largely steppe and semidesert basin surrounded by high mountains: the Tian Shan in the south and the Altai in the north. Urumchi and Yining are the main cities with other smaller oasis towns dot the piedmont areas. The region passed to the Chinese only in the mid-18th century.

==Page 773==

'''Lake Zaisan''' 
Lake Zaisan, in Russian Central Asia near the Chinese border, is located in an open valley between the Altai range on the northeast and the Tarbagatai on the south at an altitude of 1,355 ft.

'''The Irtysh . . . the Ob''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irtysh_River The Irtysh] is the chief tributary of the Ob which is a major river in western Siberia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ob_river The Ob] is Russia's fourth longest river. The Ob-Irtysh form a major basin in Asia, encompassing most of western Siberia and the Altai Mountains.

'''Novosibirsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novosibirsk Novosibirsk] lies along the Ob river in the West Siberian Plain. It is Russia's 3rd largest city, after Moscow and St.Petersburg. It was founded in 1893 as the future site of the Trans-Siberian Railway bridge crossing the Ob. In early 20th century the Turkestan-Siberia Railway, connecting Novosibirsk to Central Asia and the Caspian Sea, was completed.

'''The Paris of Siberia''' 
By 1900 Irkutsk (Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_764|page 763: Irkutsk]]) had been nicknamed as such.

'''''kupechestvo''''' 
Russian: the merchant community.

'''Glaskovsk''' 
A suburb in Irkutsk across the Irkut river.

==Page 774==

'''Club Golomyanka''' 
A golomyanka is a viviparous fish of the perch family, unique to Lake Baikal.

'''NAUSHNIKI''' 
As translated in the text.

'''1895 model Nagant revolver''' 
[http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg102-e.htm Nagant revolver] was designed in Belgium by Nagant brothers in the late 1880s and was adopted by numerous countries. The major user and manufacturer was Russia which adopted it in 1895.

'''British gold sovereigns''' 
The world's most popular gold coins, [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/firstsovereign.html British gold sovereign] first came to existence in 1489 under Henry VII. There was a major change in 1816 for the so-called Modern Soverign which are continure to the present day. It has a value of one pound sterling (but with a much higher trading market value) and is made of 15.55 grams of standard gold coinage alloy of 23 carat, equal to 95.83% pure gold. (Another source [http://www.onlygold.com/Coins/BritishSovereignsFullScreen.asp British gold sovereigns2] said they have a 91.7% gold.)

==Page 775==

'''Tower Hill''' 
[http://www.royalmint.com/RoyalMint/web/site/Corporate/AboutUs/History/TowerHill.asp The Royal Mint at Tower Hill], London, between 1812-1968. Now the Royal mint is at Liantrisant (10 miles west of Cardiff), Wales.

'''Young Vic''' 
Image of young Queen Victoria on the British sovereign (1 pound) piece. The first portrait for Queen Victoria was the "Youg Head", which was used on sovereigns from 1838 to 1887 inclusive. For a picture for this coin see [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/heads.html Victoria Young Head]. 
Contrast with [http://www.rvhf.org/history.html Old Vic,] the theater, originally the Royal Coburg, renamed Royal Victoria in 1833—when Vic was Young. The name Old Vic "eventually" became customary and is now official. This is the house that Kevin Spacey runs.

'''Upper Tunguska, Stony Tunguska, Lower Tunguska''' 
They are the three eastern tributaries of the Yenisei River in Siberia. They cut across the swampy forests of east-central Siberia, draining the Tunguska Basin. Furthest north is the Lower Tunguska (1,590 mile long). The Stony Tunguska (980 mile long) rises west of the headwaters of the Lower Tunguska. The Upper Tunguska is the name given to the lower course of the Angara and it joins the Yenisei at Strelka. The area of the three rivers is the home of the Tungus. ([http://www.bartelby.com/65/tu/Tunguska.html Tunguska]).

'''the Ilimpiya''' 
Presumably the Ilimpeya River, a left-bank tributary of the Lower Tunguska, is named for them.

:It refers to the Tungus people from the Ilimpiya river.

'''the Shanyagir''' 
A clan of the Tungus people who lives along the Stony Tunguska.

'''Magyakan''' 
Shaman of the Ilimpiya clan, also spelled Magankan. His greatest feat was summoning a huge flock of ''agdi'', the birds made of iron that produce the thunder, for the explosion over the land of the Shanyagir clan. It flattened nearly a thousand square miles of forest and started a fire that burned for weeks, sending ash so high that it circled the Northern Hemisphere, making sunsets bright. See [http://www.answers.com/topic/shaman shaman].

'''''siberyaki''''' 
Standard spelling ''sibiryaki.'' Russian: Siberians.

'''Bratsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratsk Bratsk], located on the Angara River near the vast Bratsk Reservoir, is a city in Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia.

'''Yeniseisk''' 
[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Yeniseisk,_Siberia_(Capital) Yeniseisk], on the right bank of the Yenisei, is a Siberian city 170 miles northwest of Krasnoyarsk, capital of the government of the same name.

'''embouchure''' 
French word denoting the conformation of the mouth (in speaking, playing the clarinet, etc.).

==Page 776==

'''Dorzhieff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agvan_Dorjiev Agvan Dorjiev] (1853/54–1938) was an ethnic Buriat who trained as a Buddhist monk in Tibet.He was one of the tutors of the 13th Dalai Lama and was his representative at the Russian court. [[Agvan Dorjie|More »]]

'''taiga''' 
Coniferous boreal forest; supports logging, trapping, hunting/gathering.

'''iron creatures of Agdy . . . their eyes flashing . . .''' 
"The Tungus have only one expression for the thunder - ''agdy''-, by which they also describe the old man, the lord of the thunder as well as all the thunderbirds that come down to earth and cause the thunder. The ''Agdy'' birds are as big as black grouses, are made of iron, and their eyes are fiery. The thunder arises from their flight above the earth and their eyes flash like lightning." (from a quotation in [http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/evenkiv.html Tungus eye-witnesses reports of Tunguska Event]).

'''Hindu fire-god Agni''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni Fire-god Agni] is a Hindu and Vedic deity. The word ''Agni'' is Sanskrit for "fire". Agni is a messenger from and to the other gods. He is ever-young and immortal, because the fire is re-lit every day.

'''Ogdai Khan''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_765|page 765: Ogdai]].

==Page 777==

'''The Church of England''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England The Church of England] is the officially established Christian church in England, and acts as the "mother" and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion.

'''Shamanism''' 
Decentralized religion. The village shaman engaged in spirit travel and communicated with animals, ancestors, etc., for the benefit of the people, often using bizarrely excessive amounts of drugs.

'''The Cherokee''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee The Cherokee] are a people indigenous to North American, who at the time of European contact in the 16th century inhabited what is now the Eastern and Southeastern United States. Most were forcibly moved westward to the Ozark Plateua. They were one of the tribes referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes.

'''the Apache''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache The Apache] is the collective name for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the US. They formerly lived over eastern Arizona, north-western Mexico, New Mexico, parts of Texas.

'''the massacre of the Sioux Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee''' 
They were the largest and most important Indian tribe north of Mexico, with the exception of Chippewa, who, however, lack the solidarity of the Sioux. [http://www.indians.org/articles/sioux-indians.html The Sioux] actually came to North America from Asia about 30,000 years ago. The name Sioux means "little snake". They were generally nomadic, typically followed the pattern of the buffalo. [http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/sioux-indians/sioux-indians.htm The Sioux Indians] occupied the vast domain extending from the Arkansas River, in the south, to the western tributary of Lake Winnipeg, in the north, and westward to the eastern slopes of the Rocky. The Sioux battled the white men and fought against the government in orer to keep their land. There was a general uprising in 1862. Later there were many more fierce armed conflicts involved the Sioux. One of the better known was ''The Battle of Little Big Horn'' on June 25, 1876, in which General Custer and all of his immediate command were killed. This was one of the most significant victories, led by [http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/bigfoor.htm Sitting Bull] (1831-1890), of the Indian Nations. 
A new Indian's religion that promised to rid the land of white people and restore the Indians' way of life evolved in 1880s-1890s as a reaction to the Indians being forced to submit to government authority and reservation life. The new religion was called [http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKghost.html the Ghost Dance] by the white because of its ceremonial ritual dance and its precepts of resurrection and reunion with the dead. The Sioux were the most enthusiastic believers. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs banned the Ghost Dance feared that the swelling numbers of Ghost Dancers and believed that the ritual was a precusor to renwered Indian militancy and violent rebellion. The confrontation led to [http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKmscr.html The Wounded Knee Massacre] on December 29, 1890 in which over 350 Ghost Dancers were slained. And this was the last major armed conflict between the Indian Nations and the US Government.

==Page 779==

'''A heavenwide blast of light''' 
It refers to the greatest cosmic impact of the century, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event the Tunguska Event], happened at 7:17 A.M. on June 30, 1908 near the Stony Tunguska River at Tunguska basin in central Siberia, Russia. With no warning, a small comet or meteor about 100 ft in diameter, coming from the direction of Western China and glowing with the heat of 5,000 degrees, hurtling through space about 3-6 miles above the Earth and exploded in the sky 40 miles north of Vanavara settlement by the Stony Tunguska. It was so powerful that the seismograph at Irkutsk, some 550 miles away, registered what looked like an earthquake. The impact had a force of 20 million tons of TNT, equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs. It is estimated that 60-80 million trees were felled over an area of 830 square miless but left no obvious crater. If the explosion had occurred over St Petersburg hundreds of thousands of people would have been killed. But the Event occurred at such a remote and isolated location that no scientist bothered to investigate the "rumors" of the event for 13 years. (See also [http://www.unmuseum.org/siberia.htm Tunguska Event from UnMuseum].)
:Check your TV schedule for a History Channel special, ''Siberian Apocalypse,'' which presents old movie footage of Soviet explorations (my guess: re-enacted in the 1930s) and analyses by present-day scientists and UFOlogists, along with the usual Slo-Mo Channel animations repeated ad nauseam. The program ran on March 18, 2007. The best current information, according to a team from the University of Bologna, points to a stony asteroid (a "carbonaceous chondrite") that disintegrated some miles above the surface, leaving no fragments to be found but loading the local vegetation with elements not typical of the taiga.
:Two of the stranger hypotheses about the Event have special ''AtD'' connections. (1) The cosmic object was a chunk of antimatter, and the energy it released was due to annihilation when it came into contact with terrestrial matter (air). This would make the object, in a sense, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|the Anti-Stone (p. 78).]] (2) The Event was the explosion produced by dissipation of a huge [[ATD_57-80#Page_73|ball lightning (p. 73).]] Both these notions are pretty remote, though, and the stony asteroid holds up better.

'''poods''' 
Russian measure of weight. One pood = 16.38 kilograms; 30 poods = 491 kg = 1081 pounds, pretty close to half a ton.

'''''ekipazh''''' 
Russian: crew, team.

'''''Právil'no''''' 
Russian: all ''right!''

'''Russian design philosophy''' 
. . . which is perpetuated in Soviet and Russian space technology.

'''Razvedka''' 
Russian: intelligence (in the military-political sense).

'''pogroms''' 
Terror campaigns, usually against Jews.

==Page 780==

'''Ofitser Nauchny''' 
Russian: science officer.

'''this Event''' 
The Tunguska Event. Cf 779: A heavenside blast of light.

'''''umnik''''' 
Russian: clever man.

'''General Sukhomlinoff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Sukhomlinov Vladimir Alexandrovich Sukhomlinoff] (1848-1926), Russian cavalry officer, Chief of General Staff 1908-9, Minister of War 1909-15, imprisoned 1917-18 for failure to prepare the Russian Army for World War, emigrated to Finland and then to Germany.

'''''Zi!''''' 
Might be an error. "Wait" in the imperative mode is ''zhdi'' or ''podozhdi'' in Russian.

'''butterfly . . . angel''' 
The description of the damage pattern is accurate; see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event.]

==Page 781==

'''''zastolye''''' 
Russian: group of regulars.

'''''Khuy''''' 
Impolite Russian: cock!

'''Bezumyoff''' 
The name derives from Russian ''bezumets'': madman.

'''''vseznaǐka''''' 
Russian: as translated in text. In keeping with the sources he must have used—many of them contemporary—Pynchon applies a bewildering assortment of rules in transliterating Russian words.

'''"potentially a hole in the earth"''' 
One of the theories regarding the real Tungaska Event is that a small black hole entered the earth. Flaw in theory: an exit has never been found. See Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event]).

'''. . . ''at any moment'', directly beneath St Petersburg . . .''' 
"According to the Guinness Book of World Records (1966 edition), if the collision had occurred 4 hours 47 minutes later, it would have wiped out St. Petersburg, the starting point of the Bolshevik revolution." See (Wikipedia article, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event]).

'''Tsarskoe Selo''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsarskoe_Selo Tsarskoe Selo], ''Tsar's Village'', was the "country" home of the Russian Tsars. It is now part of the town of Pushkin about 15 miles south from the center of St.Petersburg.

==Page 782==

'''''Nichevo''''' 
Russian: nothing.

'''Vanavara''' 
[http://www.evenkya.ru/eng/?id=obsh&sid=admterdel&ssid=41 Vanavara] is the adminstrative center, a settlement with a population of 3,000, of Tungusko-Chunsky region. It is situated on the right bank of the Stony Tunguska river. Vanavara was 40 miles south of the Tunguska Event blast center.

'''Transfinitum''' 
Cantor's mathematical concept of transfinite numbers, indefinitely large but distinct from one another.

==Page 783==

'''...to reaffirm allegiance to its limits, including mortality...''' 
That is, to reaffirm the allegiance of the inhabitants of this world to the "something's" limits, remind Man of mortality and transcendent laws and limits.

'''''dungur''''' 
A ''dungur'' is a shamanic drum.

'''homeopathic echoes to protect from its return''' 
The homeopathic principle is that small doses of what kills will cure or prevent; drumming prevents return of the huge sound.

==Page 784==

'''Raskol'niki''' 
Russian: schismatics, dissenters. Raskol'nikov in ''Crime and Punishment'' derives his name from this word.

'''Tchernobyl . . . Wormwood''' 
Now rendered more commonly as Chernobyl (Russian), Chornobyl (Ukrainian). 

Wormwood, a star that falls onto the Earth poisoning the fresh water sources per Book of Revelation 8:10-11. 

Dostoyevsky explores Tchenobyl/Wormwood, the meaning of the Book of Revelation in ''[[Idiots and Idiocy in Against the Day|The Idiot]]'', where Wormwood is also linked to the newly built net of railroads ([http://www.google.de/books?id=AWMyvJTUoFYC&pg=RA1-PA423&ots=eUY1cTqyvg&dq=idiot+wormwood&sig=9e2YFxWCZU568-eHjz_nHMM345A#PRA1-PA423,M1 Google Books]).

Absinthe, Neville and Nigel's favourite spirit, "comes from the medicinal plant Artemisia absinthium, also called grand wormwood or Absinth wormwood."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe]

'''Reindeer discovered again their ancient powers of flight, which had lapsed over the centuries since humans had invaded the North. Some were stimulated by the accompanying radiation into an epidermal luminescence at the red end of the spectrum, particularly around the nasal area.''' 
In other words, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and his airborne squadron mates. Seriously: magic and the possibility of change is reintroduced into the world.

'''heat . . . tended to flow unpredictably''' 
The Laws of Thermodynamics have taken a brief holiday.

'''Old Slavonic''' 
Or Old Church Slavonic; liturgical language of Russian Orthodox Church, closely related to Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Serbian (Tesla's father was a Serbian priest who worked in this language).

'''Aspects of the landscape of Tierra del Fuego . . . sea ernes''' 
Not exactly. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_Eagle White-tailed Eagle] (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), also known as the Erne or the Sea Eagle, is actually a bird of Eurasia.

==Page 785==

'''''izba''''' 
Russian: hut.

'''Ssagan''' 
In Burkhanism, a Russian religious movement that flourished among the indigenous people of Russia's Gorno Altai region between 1904 and the 1930s, Ak-Burkhan ("White Burkhan) is a deity who is depicted as an old man with white hair, a white coat, and white headgear, who rides a white horse, and is possibly analogous to the Mongolian "white old man," Tsagan Ebugen. The Buryat language (or Buriat) is a Mongolic language spoken by the Buryats of Siberia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkhanism]

Sacred white reindeer parallels Native American's reverence for white buffalos.

And the white stag as Christ-symbol in Renaissance paintings.

A more accurate romanization of Ssagan would be "Tsagaan", reflecting the long vowel present in the original Mongolian Цагаан.

==Page 786==

'''the Sayan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayan_Mountains The Sayan] is a mountain range in southern Siberia. The eastern Sauan extends 600 miles from the Yenisei to the southwest end of Lake Baikal, and the western Sayan forms the eastern continuation of the Altay Mountains.

'''Tannu-Ola''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannu-Ola_Mountains The Tannu-Ola] mountain range is in southern Siberia extending east-west direction and curves along the Mongolian border.

'''Tuva''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuva Tuva] is located in extreme southern Siberia bordering with Mongolia. Its eastern part is forested and elevated, and the west is a drier lowland.

'''if a fellow was going to come riding in anywhere on a white reindeer''' 
Suggestive of Jesus riding an ass into Jerusalem

'''an unearthly guttural singing''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone_singing Overtone singing], also known as throat singing, overtone chanting, or harmonic singing, is a type of singing in which the singer manipulates the harmonic resonances created as air travels from the lungs... The best-known of the traditional forms comes from Tuva... Ethnomusicologists studying throat singing in these areas mark (it) as an integral part in the ancient pastoral animism that is still practised today. (Wikipedia) 
It is unearthly and fascinating. Tuvan throat singing can be seen and heard in the movie "Genghis Blues," a documentary about American musician Paul Pena's trip to Tuva to compete in a throat singing contest.
:In the early 1970s the German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen got some students together and made a one-piece album called ''Stimmung'' (German: tuning up). It's '''choral''' overtone singing. "Unearthly" is right.

'''"borbanngadyr"''' 
The Wikipedia entry linked in the previous annotation mentions, but doesn't describe, a style of overtone singing called ''borbangnadyr.'' Same letters arranged differently. It doesn't follow that there is a typo; transliteration from languages like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuvan_language Tuvan] without "literary" histories is often controversial.

'''"the heart of Earth" 
'''"all's I see's a bunch of sheep" 
'''"Exactly." 
This is Shambhala. Sheep may safely graze.

==Page 787==

'''the Wheel of Life''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavacakra The Wheel of Life] is a complex symbolic representation of "continuous movement" in the form of a circle, used primarily in Tibetan Buddhism. "Continuous movement", ''samsāra'', is the continuous cycle of birth, life, and death from which one liberates oneself through enlightenment.

'''"Are you kind deities? or wrathful deities?"''' 
Here the interaction between Prance and the Chums of Chance resembles that between Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, and Dorothy Gale in the 1939 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 The Wizard of Oz.] After descending from the sky in a pink bubble and encountering Dorothy in Munchkinland, Glinda asks "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" Dorothy replies that she's not a witch at all, just as Randolph St. Cosmo replies that the Chums "endeavor to be kind." Darby's reference to Bo Peep seems Munchkinlandian too, as Glinda is a sort of shepherd to the Munchkins themselves. --[[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]]

Also a reference to the Buddhist hierarchy of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrathful_deities enlightened beings].
A notable feature of Tibetan Buddhism is the emphasis on wrathful deities, often alternative manifestations of normally peaceful deities. They symbolize the dynamic activity of an enlightened being, brought forth to tame negative or unsettling impulses in the human mind. (Wikipedia)

'''"Bo Peep" 
she who has lost her sheep, as in the rhyme.

'''"Never work,", muttered Darby. "They'll squash you like bugs." 
Darby, now a lawyer, now cynical, presents the archetypal response to
Prance's visiting " deities" as in classic sci-fi books and movies.

'''the Tengyur''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_766|page 766: Tengyur]].

==Page 788==

'''band of''' '''''brodyagi''''' 
This entire passage is a reference to ''Don Quixote'', namely the incident with Gines de Pasamonte and the galley slaves. In ''Don Quixote'', Gines acts as a metafictional representation of Cervantes, as well as a symbol of the author/writer. Here, Topor acts as Gines, representing TRP (notice the name similarity). The hallucinogenic mushrooms represent the ''Quixote''--with a two part narrative, the first pleasant and wonderous, the second full of horrors--as well as AtD and novels, generally. The urine-drinking seems to be a crack at literary critics and literature fans who write about books and read what others write--essentially, drinking each other's urine: the after-products of the consumption of books. --[[User:Specklebelly|Specklebelly]]

Yes, and urophagia is certainly prevalent around here.

'''''brodyagi''''' 
Russian: tramps.

'''"Topor"''' 
Russian: The Ax.

'''fusel oils''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_756|page 756: fusel oils]]. 
Toxic byproducts of fermentation, sometimes still present in bad liquor.

'''strange mottled red mushrooms''' 
''Amanita muscaria'', an hallucinogenic mushroom. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria Wikipedia entry].

'''drank one another's urine''' 
Shamanistic practice also observed in some "mystery" religions. The person who ingests the drug (e.g., toxic mushroom) partly metabolizes it and excretes it; followers can get a, hrmm, watered-down dose by drinking his urine. Source: [http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/information/biography/abcde/allegro_john.html ''The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross''] by John M. Allegro (1970).

==Page 789==

'''''brodyagi''''' 
See page 788.

'''Christian propaganda mill down south''' 
A college?

'''Pacific Coast League''' 
Minor league (Triple-A) baseball league that at the time was the only professional baseball league west of St. Louis. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Coast_League Wikipedia entry].

Perhaps Colfax Vibe has become Sandy Koufax, pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1960's.

'''barmaid from Oakland''' 
Oakland has a Pacific Coast Brewing Company with some very sweet barmaids.

==Page 790==

'''the wilderness Creature that feeds on all other creatures . . .''' 
Described by Captain Padzhitnoff on p.124

'''Krasnoyarsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk], the third largest city in Siberia, is on the Yenisei River upstream of Yeniseisk. It is an important junction on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

'''arival''' 
Misspelling of ''arrival.''

'''remittance man''' 
A man living on remittances, i.e. family funds from home, a trust fund, etc. It is also time to note that a Fleetwood is a model of Cadillac.

==Page 791==

'''the Vormance people''' 
The Vormance polar expedition was mentioned on page 130 and elsewhere.

'''taken by the wind''' Included in refrain/hook from popular Fleetwood Mac [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleetwood_Mac]song "Rhiannon"[http://www.lyricsfreak.com/f/fleetwood+mac/rhiannon_20054400.html]Perhaps an alternative to the Fleetwood/Cadillac reference.
[[User:Wagyu|Wagyu]] 15:52, 1 July 2007 (PDT)

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

ATD 296-317

2009-04-25T13:06:46Z

Dusty: /* Page 311 */

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

==Page 296==

'''Rodgers Brothers''' 
spelled Rogers Brothers, with 1847 Silver Ware (and other items) on E-Bay they seem to have been a leading maker of silverware and other silver products in the 1900's.

'''Mescalero''' 
Mescalero is a native American tribe of Southern Athabaskan heritage currently living in southcentral New Mexico. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mescalero Wikipedia].

'''Little Hellkite Mine''' 
Does not seem to have existed. 
Hellkite = a fierce fighter. 
A kite is a vicious bird of prey in the falcon family. 
Shakespeare used the expression in Macbeth (Act 4, Scene 3): MacDuff:
"O hell-kite! - All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop? ".MacDuff uses 'fell' in a sense that is now rare - as an adjective meaning 'fierce, deadly.' From Brush Up Your Shakespeare.

'''Timken springs''' 
Henry Timken was a carriage maker who held three patents for carriage springs in the 1890’s. He founded his company, The Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company, in St. Louis in 1899. He also invented the tapered roller bearings which bear his name and were used in the hubs of carriages and automobiles. The company still exists and Timken roller bearing are used today in a number if diverse industries including spacecraft. Oddly enough (maybe not so odd considering Pynchon), the modern day Timken company created for the Bosch Group (See the note above for “Hieronymous wheel” on page 292) a process to produce a high alloy steel that could easily be machined to make trucks parts.

'''Basin''' 
There is a Bear Basin Ranch still operating (as in the 1880s) in Colorado. "A Weekend of Classic Cowboying in the Colorado High Country carefully designed to fill a weekend on horseback with action packed fun, learning and western adventure at our 1880s Colorado ranch."From our Bear Basin Ranch near the Colorado Sangre de Cristo Wilderness Area..." Bear Basin Ranch http://www.adventurespecialists.org/colo.htm

'''glockenspiel''' 
Percussion instrument with horizontal, tuned steel bars of various sizes that are struck with mallets and produce a bright metallic sound. Norton glossary of musical terms.

==Page 297==

'''Pandora works''' 
Mine and works between Tomboy and Telluride. See the [http://www.telluride.net/index.cfm?fuseaction=standard&categoryId=7&categoryType=2&subcategoryId=0 Telluride Places of Interest]

'''adit''' 
A horizontal entrance to an underground mine. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adit Wikipedia]

'''tommyknockers''' 
Mythical mine dwellers, originally part of European legend, introduced to America by European miners. The name "tommyknockers" comes from Cornish mining lore. According to legend the tommyknockers are underground spirits who guard the earth's ores, especially gold and silver. Tommyknockers were known for mischief, pranks, jokes, and being highly spirited. "Knockers" comes from knocking sounds heard in mines that were attributed to their antics. They are tiny characters who dress like little miners and perform many mining duties while underground working alongside miners. [http://www.blm.gov/heritage/HE_Kids/tommy_knock.htm BLM Website]

==Page 298==

'''''duendes''''' 
Spanish for goblins, trolls or leprechauns, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duende.

'''powder monkey''' 
Historically, a sailor whose job it was to keep gun crews supplied with gunpowder and shot during battle. More generally, one who carries or sets explosives, as Dally does here.

==Page 299==

'''matte-surface''' 
Not shiny.

'''"...Sunday-morning voice..."''' 
Perhaps a sermonizing, righteous preacher-like voice, although the context suggests whispering, as in church.

'''Buck Wells''' 
Bulkeley Wells, an historical figure, was a mine manager and cavalry commander and sheriff at Telluride, previously mentioned on p. 179. He was
aggressively anti-union. Bulkeley Wells http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulkeley_Wells

'''Might be he'll even do the deed on himself''' 
Wells committed suicide in 1931. Ibid.

==Page 300==

'''Throw down''' 
to begin an altercation. "Throw down"
http://www.blackraptor.net/m7fic/contents/terms.htm

'''"somethin tattooed on my head"''' 
Cf. Queequeg's tattoos in ''Moby-Dick'', Ch. 3 and ''passim''. 
"And the Lord put a mark on Cain ..." (Genesis) Cain is marked so that he can be recognized for his evil deed; at the same time he is protected by God. There is a great exegesis by Herman Hesse in his '''''DEMIAN''''' - that the mark is a symbol of inner knowledge. All three kind of fit Frank.

'''fragment of time''' 
Sparks move faster than shutter.

'''collodion''' 
Toxic chemical used both in early photography and explosives manufacturing.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collodion Wikipedia]

==Page 301==

'''"circles of otherworld blindness up on tall poles"'''
This about electric lights!. Seems to be an allusion to the most famous literary image involving poles--the heads on poles in Conrad's ''Heart of
''Darkness.'' 
A-and repeats this image from earlier use in Telluride chapter.

'''squareheads''' 
See annotation on [[ATD_171-198#Page_189|page 189.]]

==Page 302==

'''ghost bison''' 
The American Buffalo was nearly hunted to extinction in the 19th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_buffalo#19th_century_Buffalo_hunts Wikipedia]

'''Gallows Frame Saloon''' 
The Gallows Frame is the structural frame, usually made of steel or timber, at the top of an underground mine shaft. These frames hold the hoisting equipment which raise and lower equipment and miners into the underground mine. 
Cf. Sailor's Grave saloon in ''V.'' and the USS Scaffold also in ''V.''
Death surrounds us theme.

'''fathom miners''' 
Miners paid by the "fathom" of ore extracted. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GDX/is_5_75/ai_65277661/pg_12 Useful background on mining practices.] A fathom was a block of ore 6 feet high by 6 feet deep by the width of the vein being worked.

'''remittance men''' 
remittance man 
Function: noun 
one living abroad on remittances from home. Merriam-Webster 

Black sheep paid regularly by families to stay away.??? Source?

==Page 303==

'''Circassian walnut''' 
A swirled hardwood popular in woodworking, in this case used as a synecdoche to refer to a bar (the bar is made of Circassian walnut; incidentally, Yashmeen was a Circassian slave). Named for a region in the northern Caucasus Mountains from which the tree originates.

'''Charlie Fong Ding''' 
Seems like a made-up comic Chinese name by TRP. Charlie, as in Charlie Chan, is a stereotypical Chinese first name as transliterated in America. 
There is a road in The Northern Territory named after Fong Ding who was born in 1856 in Hoy Ping, Kwangtung (Guangdong) Province, China. He arrived in the Northern Territory in 1890 and in 1898 married Wong See at Port Darwin. He died at Pine Creek in 1928 aged 72 years. Fong Ding was a railway fettler and gold miner at Brock's Creek and Fountain Head and was the patriarch of the Fong family of Darwin and grandfather of the late Lord Mayor of Darwin, Alex Fong Lim. Fong Ding http://www.ipe.nt.gov.au/whatwedo/landinformation/place/register/view.jsp?id=6144

'''congress... congregation''' 
Two vs more-than-two at a time.
Also, the word congregation has an official/religious conotation

'''California Peg 
The "''sous-maitresse''," or teacher's aid, at the Silver Orchid brothel.

'''Grundyesque''' 
Prudish; after Mrs. Grundy, a character in Thomas Morton's ''Speed the Plow'', (1798)([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs._Grundy]). See page 400 on "Mrs. Grundy"

'''Popcorn Alley''' 
Street of (now historic) brothels in Telluride.

'''a range of useful information'''. 
Range again, as spectrum.

'''hurdy girl''' 
A professional dancing girl.

==Page 304==

'''Annie Oakley''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Oakley See Wikipedia entry]

'''civil war and White Terror''' 
The Finnish Civil War lasted from January-May 1918 and was fought between the conservative White and revolutionary Red factions of the army. After the Whites emerged victorious, they rounded up Red elements in prison camps where many died, hence the White Terror. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Civil_War Wikipedia.]

'''"Love", whatever that turned out to be, would occupy a whole different piece of range.''' conveys a whole new meaning to the word 'range'?...not just land but something like 'range of emotions"?
'Piece of range' as in a spectrum? Light exists in a spectrum.
Cf. 'Light over the ranges' indeed.

==Page 305==

'''"The Shooting of Dan McGrew"''' 
"A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon ..."
Poem by Robert Service (1874 - 1958). A Scotsman who came to Canada to work tough outdoors jobs, he was also a banker, a World War I Correspondent (WWI), and a wealthy world traveler who left the Yukon in 1912. [http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/TheSpelloftheYukon/chap13.html etext]

'''ruffled doves''' 
A/k/a "soiled doves," a Western term for prostitutes.

'''Stephen Emmens''' 
American chemist and mining engineer, inventor of the explosive Emmensite, who believed an intermediate substance he called "argentaurum" was transmutable into silver or gold; he claimed to have discovered a process by which the gold content of silver could be thus enriched. He carried out his experiments from 1895 to 1897, and saw them made public in 1899. The details of the process, as far as they are known, are as Pynchon describes them. Attempts to enlist emminent scientists to verify Emmens' apparent alchemy included an offer to Nicola Tesla (He refused). [http://www.borderlands.com/archives/arch/alchem.html].

'''"argentaurum"''' 
Substance claimed by Dr. Stephen Emmens to be intermediate beteween silver and gold, and through which, as an intermediate step, each could be transmuted to the other.[http://www.borderlands.com/archives/arch/alchem.html].

'''nymph's mirror''' 
Speculation: The "mirror" available to nymphs was any still surface of water, so thin as the surface of water.

'''''Schieferspath''''' 
Has nothing to do with paths; ''spath'' is German for ''spar.'' ''Schiefer'' indicates it is a foliated mineral. So: foliated spar, i.e., a spar that cleaves readily into sheets. "[S]ome of the visiting labor" may come from a place where calcite is mined under this name.

'''superstitious Scotchman''' 
Holding the nine of diamonds, [[ATD_1-25#Page_24|"the curse of Scotland,"]] he doesn't bet his hand but loses the specimen.

==Page 306==

'''''grown brighter''''' 
It's drawing light from a non-material source, from a parallel world, which adds to the light already present? 
Does this surprising way that images through a calcite spar ''grow brighter'' remind any readers of the rooms in ''Mason & Dixon'' which are
larger inside than their measureable dimensions?[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 16:19, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

'''gold... silver''' 
Any role of Iceland Spar and double-refracted light in the Emmens process of transmutation is Pynchon's invention.

'''rhomboid''' 
A parallelogram with unequal adjacent sides and oblique angles. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhomboid Wikipedia]

'''Veta Madre''' 
The "Mother Lode" of Mexico [http://www.mindat.org/loc-7776.html] in Guanajuato.

'''frijoles''' 
Mexican beans.

'''the Gold Standard''' 
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold. 
Under the gold standard, currency issuers guarantee to redeem notes, upon demand, in that amount of gold. Governments that employ such a fixed unit of account, and which will redeem their notes to other governments in gold, share a fixed-currency relationship. Gold Standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Standard

'''Silver Act...repealed''' 
Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 required the US government
to buy millions of ounces of silver bullion every month. This Act was
repealed in 1893 when people, mostly investors, sold silver to get notes redeemable in gold making the government's gold reserves were in danger of depletion. Silver Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Silver_Purchase_Act

==Page 307==
'''what'll there be then to crucify mankind on a cross of?''' 
Direct reference to William Jennings Bryan's [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/ "Cross of Gold" speech,] delivered on July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. One of the most famous American political speeches, it closes with, "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

'''Lyman Gage''' 
Banker, and Secretary of the Treasury under McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, 1897-1902. In 1900 he ensured passage of the Gold Standard Act, which repealed bimatalism and had tremendous effects on the mining industry, and the economy in general, leading eventually to the foundation of the Federal Reserve System to regulate the currency in the wake of the resulting instability [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_J._Gage]. Just incidentally, Gage had been President of the Board of Directors of the Columbian Exposition.

'''like a kettle coming to a boil''' 
Chaos theory originated from a range of observations like this (organised cells in boiling water).

'''stopes''' 
Stopes are the steplike excavation working areas of a mine.
[http://www.morewords.com/word/stope/ Stope] or [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Stope Stopes].

'''Doc Turnstone''' 
A young doctor who unsuccessfully courted Lake, introduced p. 262.

'''Charles Bonnet Syndrome''' 
Named after the Swiss philosopher and naturalist, Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), who first described a syndrome in which visually-impaired people see vivid, complex images that aren't real. CBS is thought to result from visual deprivation, and commonly occurs in sufferers of macular degeneration and other impairments of the eyes. Importantly, CBS does not (clinically, cannot) result from any type of psychosis or dementia. Thus, those who experience CBS are otherwise "normal" people.

Remarkably, CBS is characterized often by bizarre and grotesque images: ghosts, elves, sprites, cartoon-like figures, disembodies faces, magical landscapes. According to Cliff Pickover, author of ''Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves'' (Smart Publications, 2005), "people affflicted with certain eye diseases give similar reports of beings from parallel universes." [http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/PublicWebsite/public_rnib003641.hcsp Royal National Institute of the Blind] [http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/Pickover/pc/bonnet.html Dr. Cliff Pickover Comments] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bonnet Wikipedia Wikipedia entry on Bonnet]

'''Puckpool's Adventures in Neuropathy''' 
Seems to be invented by Pynchon.

==Page 308==

'''macular degeneration''' 
Degeneration of the macula, the part of the retina responsible for the sharp, central vision needed to read or drive. A leading cause of vision loss and blindness in people aged 65 and older.

==Page 309==

'''Old Gideon''' 
Bourbon, mentioned on page 40 and in the index."Different varieties of bourbon were very popular too, such as Old Crow and Old Gideon."
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/old_west/102390

'''A.T. Still''' 
(1828-1917), "Father of American Osteopathic Medicine." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Taylor_Still The Wikipedia entry] also identifies the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri.

==Page 310==

'''''Jefe''''' 
Spanish: chief, boss.

'''''Gracias a Dios!''''' 
Spanish: thank God!

==Page 311==

'''mind-poisoning vetches''' 
The vetches are weak-stemmed, semi-vining plants. See [http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/Crops/Vetches.html Vetches].

'''creosote''' 
A creosote bush is "a shrub native to arid parts of Mexico and the western US. Its leaves smell of creosote" (''Oxford Dictionary of English'').

'''Edgar Hadley''' 
[http://books.google.com/books?id=HPNgqJI7WJoC&pg=PA55&lpg=PA55&dq=dr+edgar+hadley&source=web&ots=l84uX-RjA7&sig=YTXoiTwX93e5Yl3jy-tJj1ptN8Q Telluride Historical Museum].

'''blood diverted from its return''' 
Accurate but odd?

An example of Pynchon's predilection for describing apparently simple events in strangely abstract detail.

'''Trout Lake''' 
Trout Lake is located between Rico and Ophir, west of Silverton, CO, at an elevation of 9802 ft. For further information and photos see [http://ghostdepot.com/rg/mainline/san%20juan%20branch/trout%20lake.htm Trout Lake].

==Page 313==

'''Busted Flush''' 
The name of the boat that Travis McGee, the hero of 21 mysteries written by John D. McDonald, lives on. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_McGee Wikipedia]) He named the boat for the poker hand he had that won it for him.

'''tridigital''' 
Three fingers (measure of liquor).

'''packer's knife''' 
A meat packing knife, similar to a boning knife. Generally a long, thin, somewhat flexible blade. (Not unlike a filet knife in that respect.)

==Page 314==

'''Dutch Waltz''' 
A simple dance for beginning figure skaters. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_dances wikipedia]: "...in the United States, the first dance learned by most skaters is the Dutch Waltz, which features only forward skating in a side-by-side hold, skated to music with a very slow waltz tempo."

'''centrifugal''' 
Pulling away from center.

==Page 315==

'''Railbird Saloon''' 
A "railbird" is a spectator who hangs on or over the boundary rail at a racetrack, presumably a horseplayer. Not sure if that is any help here.

'''Gastón Villa''' 
A pun on British football club Aston Villa?

'''''cholo'' balls''' 
Seems to be referring to decorative ornaments hanging on a mariachi style sombrero as the decorations often portrayed in the vehicles of Mexican-American "Cholos" (gangsters/low riders).

'''''charro''''' 
A Mexican cowboy.

'''don't preoccupy yourself''' 
A literal translation of the Spanish idiom ¡No te preocupes!, "don't worry". Ellmore Disco was thought to be Mexican. p. 283.

'''Galandronome''' 
A type of bassoon developed by French instrument maker Galander in the mid-19th century.

'''Battle of Puebla''' 
Mexican victory over French forces, May 5, 1862, commemorated in Latino communities as ''cinco de mayo.''

==Page 316==
'''Rio Bravo''' 
Perhaps a nod to one of the greatest movie westerns, Howard Hawks' ''Rio Bravo''? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Bravo_(1959_film) Wikipedia]

'''Ophir road''' 
Presumably the road to the town of Ophir, South of Telluride, named for the biblical souce of the treasure of Solomon's Fleet [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11259b.htm]. Perhaps one of Pynchon's contrasts: Telluride, named rationally for its ore deposits; Ophir a name from the pre-rational and mythic. Yes, and Telluride's 'rationality': "to Hell You Ride" [ADT]

==Page 317==

'''backward departure''' 
No way to turn engine?

:Right; [[ATD_243-272#Page_265|see annotation to page 265.]]

'''''abrazos''''' 
Spanish for "embrace"; "hugs".

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

ATD 273-295

2009-04-25T11:56:53Z

Dusty: /* Page 292 */

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

==Page 273==

'''the electric''' 
The Denver Tramway Company, beginning in 1886, operated electric railcars between central Denver and outlying communities. [http://www.denvergov.org/AboutDenver/history_narrative_3.asp Citation]

==Page 274==

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

'''the Christian daring of Scarsdale's gesture''' 
To outside observers Vibe appears to be turning the other cheek.

'''drygulched''' 
In this context, ambushed and killed [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/drygulch drygulch].

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

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

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

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

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

'''the best-priced ore to be dug''' 
A mining engineer calculates the value of ore as the market price of its valuable constituents minus the cost of mining, concentrating and refining. Zinc metal brings less than gold or silver, but its ore may be attractive if it is rich in zinc and processing costs are low.

'''some bright engineer''' 
???

==Page 275==

'''concentrating mills''' 
First step in treating ore is concentration or beneficiation: breaking it into small pieces and separating the fragments that contain zinc from those that don't.

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

'''Wren Provenance''' 
Let's not forget that one manifestation of [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] was Victoria Wren. One could see this as the "provenance of wren?" There appear to be many allusions to [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] in ''ATD''.

'''heaps''' 
slag heaps. For their picture see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_heap Wikipedia].

'''Sons of Heaven section''' 
This is a term for the emperors of China.
Cf. references to the Chinese as 'the celestials', e.g. in the HBO series [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood_(TV_series) ''Deadwood''].

'''Bear Paw''' 
An almond-flavored yeast-raised pastry shaped shaped like an irregular semicircle resembling a bear's claw. Octopus Ink seems to be a joking reference to the coffee. [I think the speaker here (Wren) is making a joking reference to the strange food that the Chinese saloon serves, not to pastry and coffee.]

==Page 276==

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

'''"and there she was, not much on, what there was all black, tightly laced, stockings askew, standing in an open polyhedral of mirrors, examining herself from all the angles available. Transformed."''' 
Cf. Mélanie l' Heuremaudit in ''V.'', pp 397-8.

'''dress cavalry helmet''' 
A collection of pictures of various dress cavalry helmets can be found here: [http://news.webshots.com/album/165792861CIEtya cavalry helmet pictures].

==Page 277==

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

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

'''images of creatures''' 
The ancient Puebloans of both the Mesa Verde and Chaco centers left numerous images, called petroglyphs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph], many of which are as eerie as Pynchon suggests here (the Wikipedia article shows Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands National Park in Utah). They include figures of humans and other creatures, and of comets and the 1054 supernova now known as the Crab Nebula (there are more than 14 pages of pictures of ''Pueblo Petroglyphs'' on Google Images: [http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Pueblo+Petroglyphs&btnG=Search+Images]).

==Page 278==

'''the report''' 
??? (Answer:) Wren was on an anthropological expedition. This is the report on the findings of that expedition.

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

'''Albany... bar mirror''' 
???

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

==Page 279==

'''Bulkley Wells''' 
Easier to find under correct spelling Bulkeley. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GDX/is_5_75/ai_65277661/pg_13 Here] is an account of some of his activities as mine manager and militia commander.

'''Ice Saw murder''' 
I saw murder?..eyewitness.??? Yes, a pun. Also, here is a picture of an [http://www.museum.state.il.us/RiverWeb/harvesting/archives/images/index.html?RollID=roll4&FrameID=Icesaw_450 ice saw], used to saw through ice for the purpose of ice fishing. And there is more fun and games if the saw is made of ice, recalling the scenario where there is a dead body, some blood and a pool of water. How did the body die? It was hacked to death with the saw made of ice which is now melted.

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

'''hurdy girls''' 
In an article titled [[http://www.phantomranch.net/folkdanc/articles/boysnite.htm Boys' Nite Out in Leadville]], the following:
<blockquote>
in the 187Os, the Colorado Miner described the hurdy-gurdy houses of Leadville as "breathing holes of hell, where customers imbibe torchlight whiskey and indulge in the quadrille and the whirling sinuosities of the waltz."
</blockquote>
and
<blockquote>"The very first women in the mining camps of California were German girls who were called hurdy-gurdy girls after the musical instruments of the same name, and the name also became attached to the dance hall. While a long way from virginal status, the first girls were so prized that they did not have to participate in prostitution"
</blockquote>

[[http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/cala/body.1_div.6.html Elsewhere]] mention is made of "hurdy-houses" which appear to be the same thing

==Page 280==

'''South Pacific islands''' 
Cf Margaret Mead (1901-78), a cultural anthropologist who visited and published extensively on Samoa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa_and_the_Mead-Freeman_controversy Wikipedia entry]

==Page 281==
[[Image:telluridetoday.gif|thumb|200px|right|Telluride as it appears today ([http://www.hillhaus.com/blog/index.php?blog=7&cat=30 source])]]
'''first city''' 
The first extensive use of the alternating current was in arc lighting, the kind used in street lighting. There is some dispute in histories as to which city was first, but Telluride was among, if not the, first.

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

'''"Beside the tracks at one bend stood a local lunatic"''' 
Like starting an amusement park ride.

'''"To-Hell-you-ride'''" 
To-Tell-u-ride

==Page 282==

'''level of hatred''' 
Cf capacitance?

'''drifts and stopes''' 
A drift is a horizontal or nearly horizontal underground opening. A stope is a usually steplike excavation underground for the removal of ore that is formed as the ore is mined in successive layers.

'''vagging bee''' 
"vag" is slang/shorthand for "vagrant"; the word "bee" as used here comes from the English dialect ''been'' or ''bean''. These were variations on ''boon'', once widely used in the sense of “voluntary help, given to a farmer by his neighbors, in time of harvest, haymaking, etc." In the early 1870s, the idea of bee began to be extended to situations that had some kind of communal basis, but weren’t farm work, some pretty sinister such as ''hanging bee'', ''lynching bee'' (this occurs in Mark Twain's ''Huckleberry Finn'') and ''whipping bee''. It is in this sense of a social gathering to perform some task that bee is used in ''Against the Day''. [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe2.htm From World Wide Words]

'''Bob Meldrum''' 
"Bad Man" Bob Meldrum served as agent to Pinkerton’s Detective Agency and a watchdog for the big cattle outfits around Little Snake River, gaining a reputation as a mean man with a quick trigger finger. He was rumored to be responsible for over fourteen wanton killings. Pynchon's characterisation of Meldrum (with his huge mustache and quick temper) is very similar to the Loony Tunes character Yosemite Sam.[http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35]

==Page 283==

'''''"joven"''''' 
Young fellow (Spanish).

'''Ellmore Disco''' 
Elmore = (H)ell More, i.e. More Hell?
:Possibly also an allusion to Elwood Blues, Dan Akroyd's character in '''The Blues Brothers'''.
:Or—with less distortion of the name—to Pynchon's near-contemporary Elmore Leonard, who writes many scenes of inventive and unconstrained violence.
::The explanation is simpler: Ellmore Disco sounds exactly as El Mordisco, The Bite in Spanish (remember, Ellmore is said to be Mexican, maybe "El Mordisco" was a nickname or alias he had there and when in the States he adapted to sound like an English Name). Why Ellmore Disco is El Mordisco I don't know. Perhaps being him the guy to see to in Telluride it means that he gets "a bite" (money) of the people who need favors from him.

'''headgear, tending to fancy black beavers''' 
Another instance of "beaver on the brain"?

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

'''Seven-Toed Pete''' 
Seven Card Stud

==Page 284==

'''battered 'from the day''''

'''thunderstorm-proof mayonnaise''' 
Mayo is an ATD leitmotif. There is a folk belief, enshrined in no less an authority than the ''Joy Of Cooking'', that mayonnaise will separate if it is made when a thunderstorm is imminent.

'''jaconet... tartalan... crepe lissé''' 
jaconet 1.a soft, white, lightweight cotton textile 2. cotton cloth glazed on one side and dyed. 
Tarlatan (another printing error, apparently) is a kind of thin open muslin (the general name for the most delicately woven cotton fabrics) used especially for ball-dresses. 
Crepe lissé is a thin, transparent, smooth or glossy gauze-like fabric, plain woven, without any twill, of highly twisted raw silk or other staple.

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

'''Grand Rapids style''' 
A simple, non-ornamental design style of furniture, with heavy emphasis
on office furniture. Mostly oak, it seems. From the 1860's, the office furniture was "mass-produced", whatever that means for the times. A kind of furniture allowing no "moral turpitude", as one online remark has it. (see Time.com use in 1978 below!)
Grand Rapids was a furniture center and major location for regular furniture exhibitions for decades before and after the time of ATD. Source: Grand Rapids Public Library catalog, passim.
:"The rooms are furnished in Grand Rapids style. The beds have pallets, but no springs, no Western-style mattresses, no top sheets; maid service consists of dumping a clean sheet and a blanket on the bed, to be made up by the guest."
:---Time.com...1978...on certain hotel rooms in China.

"Grand Rapids" doesn't imply a lack of ornamentation, not at all. The industry makes chairs and other items to the current taste. Once it was heavy oak bookcases with cornice moldings; today it's hi-tech office chairs. What marks Grand Rapids is design that lends itself to mass production.

:Oh, and those Chinese hotels? They bought perfectly good Grand Rapids bedsteads and dropped plywood in to save the price of springs. The pallets don't define the style!

'''Four Corners Boys''' 
Deuce and Sloat? Perhaps nicknamed so after what they did to Lake on page 269: "They took her down to the Four Corners..."

:the only historical reference I could find about a shooting in Cortez involving "Four Corners Boys" is rather recent: on May 29, 1998, City of Cortez Patrolman Dale Claxton was gunned down by three young men. Here's an exerpt from a news story dating back to october 2005: "The three suspects who made up '''the Four Corners Group''' appeared to be nothing more than weekend warriors and good old boys who talked more they acted. However that all changed when best friends Alan Pilon, Jason Wayne McVean and Robert Mathew Mason decided to take it to the big leagues. After the execution of Officer Claxton, the three men fled in the water truck heading toward Utah and its endless wilderness not known for its warmth and hospitable surroundings." Here's the complete article [http://www.policeone.com/writers/columnists/24Seven/articles/119760/]

==Page 285==

'''million apiece''' 
From 1900, a million dollars would have the value of @20 to 23 million in 2005, depending on ways of measuring purchasing value. It would have over $100 million dollars in value, measured against the worker's average wage at the time. See [http://www.measuringworth.com/ Measuring Worth site].
Note: The prediction is accurate. Think of such well-heeled communities as Aspen, Colorado that are to spring up.
'''music-hall Chinese''' 
What the hell is up with Pynchon's perennial mentions of China and Chinese?

There were a lot of Chinese in the west, starting with the gold rush in California, then building the transcontinental railway. Many remained, and Chinese laborers were pretty common out there.

'''C major... A miner''' 
A pun on the musical key of A minor. One octave of the C major scale consists of the notes c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c (all white keys on a piano). One octave of the A minor scale (technically, A natural minor) consists of the same note names as the C major scale, but starting on the "a" note, not on the "c" note: a-b-c-d-e-f-g-a. Because of this, A minor is called the relative minor of C major.

It is possible that the identical physical shape of the C major or A minor chord on the keyboard is depicted in Disco's smiling mouth, raising the possibility that he is missing 3 teeth corresponding to that schema. 'Ruinous' suggests some sort of dental deficiency. That, or he is missing all the teeth but those 3 which constitute the chord, though this would perhaps benefit from a more explicit description.

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

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

'''Cal Rutan''' 
[[image:cal-rutan.jpg|thumb|Cal Rutan, on the left|right]]J. Calvin ("Cal") Rutan was the Telluride County sheriff during the labor struggles of 1902-1904.

==Page 286==

'''menudo''' 
Mexican tripe soup, so peppery it should come with a warning placard.

'''Loomis''' 
Loomis Disco. Possible reference to Adore Loomis, child victim of Homer Simpson in [[Nathanael West's]] novel ''[[The Day of the Locust]]'' (1939).

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

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

==Page 287==

'''chicharrones''' 
Fried pork skins.

'''''Ristras''''' '''of .... dark purple chilies''' 
Strings of .... dried red peppers.

'''tortas''' 
Mexican sandwiches.

'''tamales''' 
Cornmeal paste wrapped in corn or banana husks and stuffed with chicken, pork or turkey and/or vegetables, then steamed.

'''sixty-degree wedges''' 
One-sixth of a pie.

'''''Por poco te faltó La Blanca''''' 
Spanish: You just missed La Blanca.
:In fact, it's a literal translation to Spanish of the English sentence. It should have been "Por poco te encontrás con La Blanca" or "Acabas de perderte a La Blanca" to be accurate and have some meaning (unless Lupe is saying "You almost get short of cocaine", since "la blanca", "the white one", is one of the slang names for cocaine).

==Page 288==

'''Montrose''' 
A city on Colorado's Western Slope. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado Wikipedia entry].

'''popcorn snows''' 
Apparently an informal meteorological term for giant snowflakes.[http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=popcorn.snow&as_brr=0&sa=N&tab=pw Google]

The popcorn snows were first mentioned in L. Frank Baum's ''The Scarecrow of Oz'' (1915): 'In the Land of Mo the snow's made of popcorn, not frozen water crystals as it is in other places.' [http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/oziana/oz0726.htm Popcorn Snows].
Of course, Mr. Baum also wrote the classic ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900).

A popcorn blizzard also figures into one of the tales of Paul Bunyan, the legendary destroyer of American landscapes. It likely appeared in newspapers after 1920. This contributor taught fourth-grade reading last year and first came across it in a textbook retelling. More can be found at [http://www.jcs-group.com/mystery/bunyan.html].

Popcorn snow is also a term used to describe springtime snow conditions for skiing. Not far off base considering Telluride is now predominantly a ritzy ski town.

'''vanning''' 
in context, 'a winnowing device". Archaic, from American Heritage Dictionary.

'''Loopy''' 
Anglo pronunciation of Lupe, a diminutive of the given name Guadalupe. Lupita is another.

'''masa''' 
Spanish: mass; also short for ''masa harina'': corn (maize) flour.

'''''comal''''' 
A Mexican style skillet, usually made of cast iron in round or oval shape.

==Page 289==

'''''Pobrecito''''' 
Poor little boy.

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

==Page 290==

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

'''McBryan's''' 
???

'''trick animal''' 
???

==Page 291==

'''''seguro''''' 
Spanish: "sure"

'''parlor houses''' 
Brothels

'''Cosmopolitan Saloon and Gambling Club''' 
Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page_260|p.260]]. In Telluride, CO.

'''bullion day''' 
From ''Tomboy Bride: A Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West'' (1969) by Harriet Fish Backus:

:George was promoted to his position taking charge of recovering gold amalgam and delivery it to the mine office. Two or three times a month it was prepared for shipment on what was called Bullion Day.

:This was a day of importance on which the gold, free of quicksilver, was melted and poured into three bar-molds each approximately nine inches long, five wide and four deep, containing five hundred ounces and at that time worth ten thousand dollars. The crucible, filled with molten gold, was lifted from the furnace by a chain block and swung to a point directly above the molds in a proper position topour. Using long tongs the superintendent tipped the crucible just enough to let the white hot liquid flow into the molds. (p.71) [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZXe3snWpqgwC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=%22bullion+day%22+%2B+mining&source=web&ots=pWq7uBF5_8&sig=HmPILPJFR9ZPeSI688XCjG6Zm9U&hl=en]

'''Mr. Edison's scheme ... static electricity''' 
In the summer of 1900, Thomas Edison erected a plant at the Ortiz Mine in Dolores, New Mexico, to extract gold ore using static electricity. However, dry gravels could not be obtained and, due to the poor quality of the ore, the tests were deemed a failure.

'''Wetherill's magnet''' 
An apparatus for separating magnetic minerals from nonmagnetic minerals, a Wetherill magnetic separator consists of two horseshoe magnets placed side by side and parallel to each other. Three belts are employed with each pair of magnets. The first belt brings the ore in horizontally under one pole piece of the upper magnet. The second belt operates under the surface of the upper pole piece, rounds the tips, and moves up the bevel of its wedge, bringing with it magnetic particles which, as they get above the magnetic field, fall off. The third belt accomplishes the same for the other pole piece of the upper magnet. [http://books.google.com/books?id=fhEAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA633&lpg=PA633&dq=wetherill+magnet&source=web&ots=5ivwNQSM6V&sig=ItAb4vM8uTKzjkC_yYkMt76Equ8&hl=en]

==Page 292==

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

'''Hieronymus Wheel''' 
Seems to describe a roulette wheel. Google and the OED turn up nothing on "Hieronymus Wheel," but Pynchon's bizarre choice of language obviously suggests the Dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch Wikipedia entry]. Perhaps Pynchon alludes to a certain wheel in a Bosch painting? Bosch's "Circle of Hell" depicts a wheel coming out of (or going into) the mouth of a fishlike creature, but that doesn't really make sense of the term, either. See [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion page 273-295]]

It refers to the Bosch painting 'The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things' (1485). It involves a wheel of the 7 big ones. Quite fitting in the dissipated environment of Hell-u-ride. Also, its divided in much the same way as a roulette wheel.

'''Dieter''' 
Oldfashioned German first name. Pronunciation: [diːtər]. Short for Dietrich. Popular male name in Germany after WWII.
:Since "Dieter" is "the barkeep" the English word ''dieter'' for someone who prescibes a diet comes to mind.
::Seems like a stretch. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)
Possibly a reference to H. Dieter Zeh [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Dieter_Zeh]and his "Many Minds" interpretation of the multiverse issue [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation].[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]] 19:37, 1 January 2007 (PST)
:How so? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)

The multiple interpretations of what is going on in the bar, which will become more apparent in the following pages, suggest the exemplification of this solution to the "multiple universes" problem.

'''Nippon''' 
Japan in Japanese.

'''bellows''' 
For explanation, see [http://licm.org.uk/livingImage/BellowsCamera.html Bellows Camera].

==Page 293==

'''Japanese''' 
Sumimasen = "Pardon me" or "Excuse me" 
Bobusan desu = This is Bob 
Gonnusuringaa = "gunslinger" 
("Gansuringaa" is a more appropriate Japanese transliteration of "gunslinger", but no Japanese will recognize the word anyway.) 
mottomo abunai desu = he is extremely dangerous 
(This is a bizarre Japanese expression.) 
Anna koto! = That sort of thing! 
(This does not seem to make sense contextually.)

'''fulgurescence''' 
n : an emission in flashes or sparks, like lightning. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstruse_topics_in_Pynchon's_Against_the_Day#Abstruse_words]

'''profanity... much of it in Japanese''' 
The Japanese language has little profanity in the Western sense: words considered vulgar and which cannot be spoken in polite company. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_profanity#Japanese Wikipedia entry on Profanity in Japanese]

'''"The loss of clarity . . . . in the dark"''' 
See the note for Hieronymous wheel in [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion]]. If the "Hieronymous wheel" refers to a Bosch painting, perhaps this scene continues some kind fo parallel to Hell or something else. The painting includes several unknown creatures, including a barrel with legs, while “thrashed about” suggests the central fish monster image of the painting.
:Cf. also:
:*p. 136, "and for that brief instant it would be possible to move from one version to the other.", i.e. from "Venice of the Arctic" to the secular Venice.
:*p. 221, "Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really . . . . An unscheduled Explosion, introduced into the accustomed flow of the day, may easily open, now and then, passages to elsewhere,"
:*p. 230, "'Let us imagine a lateral world, set only infintesimally to the side of the one we think we know.'"

::Cf., also the transdimensional travel of Buckaroo Bonzai in the Pynchon inspired film, ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension'' (1984), especially the images of 8th-Dimensional creatures that Bonzai sees as he passes through the mountain. [http://imdb.com/title/tt0086856/ IMDB entry].
::Cf., further, the notion of a "multiverse," that is, a physical ur-structure, comprised of many, if not infinite universes, of which ours is only one. Several contemporary cosmological theories require that a multiverse exist, though its existence remains highly conjectural. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse Wikipedia entry].

'''It became possible to believe that one had been spirited, in the swift cascade of light-flashes, to some distant geography where creatures as yet unknown thrashed about, howling affrightedly, in the dark.''' 
A possible reference to the phantastic dreamscapes of the Japanese animation-filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Among his works, plausibly coded into this lengthy sentence, are ''Spirited Away'' (''Sen to Chihiro no kamikakukushi / The Spiriting-Away of Sen and Chihiro'', 2001) and ''Howl's Moving Castle'' (''Howl no ugoku shiro'', 2004).

'''"the American West--it is a spiritual territory! in which we seek to study the secrets of your--national soul''' 
It is possible that Pynchon needs a link from the Colorado Mine Wars to the Russo-Japanese War, but why place a ''Japanese Trade Delegation'' seeking to learn the spiritual secrets of the American West (which Merle Rideout correctly points out, lacks any) in the middle of a gunfight or brawl in Telluride? This could be a sly allusion, in a book about alternate histories and timelines, to arguably one of the best "alternate history" books ever written, Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle". In a 1962 in which the Axis won World war II, Nobusuke Tagomi is head of the ''Ranking Trade Mission'' to the (Japanese-occupied) Pacific States of America. He, like many Japanese, are fascinated with the artifacts of "pre-War US Culture", most especially with artifacts of the Old West and with its martial arts, which possess the spiritual power of "Historicity" (much as American occupation troops in Japan collected swords and studied Zen Buddhism). Tagomi, in short, collects old six-shooters, and practices quick-drawing and firing, a fact which is central to the book's action. Colorado figures heavily in the book's action as well; in the relatively free Rocky Mountain States (a buffer state between the PSA and the German-occupied USA) a solitary author has written a novel in which the US and Britain won World War II...[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_In_the_High_Castle]. And don't forget that this 'K' in Philip K. Dick's name stands for ''Kindred''...

'''packing out pyrites''' 
Mining fool's gold. Or wasting your resources by loading it into cars or skips instead of throwing it on the tail heap.

'''katana''' 
Japanese samurai sword.
'''

==Page 294==

'''Baron Akashi''' 
A Japanese general whose career included spying, but, anachronistically, his career did not begin until 1889. He was a spy in Europe during Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). So would he've been famous even to the lengths of backwoods CO? How much spyin' can a poor boy do if he's famous?
:The burden of fame doesn't seem to have kept James Bond or Austin Powers from succeeding in their espionage activities.
:Baron Akashi himself was famous, but his sidekick was not. The former didn't show up at Telluride but the latter did as 'some li'l laundry runner'.

'''planning a hoist''' 
''Heist'' is now universal, but originally it was a dialect form of ''hoist.''

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

==Page 295==

'''summer of '89''' 
Butch Cassidy and his accomplices robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride on 24 June 1889 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy#1889.E2.80.931894_.E2.80.94_early_robberies.2C_going_to_prison Wikipedia])

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

ATD 273-295

2009-04-25T11:49:25Z

Dusty: /* Page 292 */

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

==Page 273==

'''the electric''' 
The Denver Tramway Company, beginning in 1886, operated electric railcars between central Denver and outlying communities. [http://www.denvergov.org/AboutDenver/history_narrative_3.asp Citation]

==Page 274==

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

'''the Christian daring of Scarsdale's gesture''' 
To outside observers Vibe appears to be turning the other cheek.

'''drygulched''' 
In this context, ambushed and killed [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/drygulch drygulch].

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

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

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

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

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

'''the best-priced ore to be dug''' 
A mining engineer calculates the value of ore as the market price of its valuable constituents minus the cost of mining, concentrating and refining. Zinc metal brings less than gold or silver, but its ore may be attractive if it is rich in zinc and processing costs are low.

'''some bright engineer''' 
???

==Page 275==

'''concentrating mills''' 
First step in treating ore is concentration or beneficiation: breaking it into small pieces and separating the fragments that contain zinc from those that don't.

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

'''Wren Provenance''' 
Let's not forget that one manifestation of [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] was Victoria Wren. One could see this as the "provenance of wren?" There appear to be many allusions to [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] in ''ATD''.

'''heaps''' 
slag heaps. For their picture see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_heap Wikipedia].

'''Sons of Heaven section''' 
This is a term for the emperors of China.
Cf. references to the Chinese as 'the celestials', e.g. in the HBO series [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood_(TV_series) ''Deadwood''].

'''Bear Paw''' 
An almond-flavored yeast-raised pastry shaped shaped like an irregular semicircle resembling a bear's claw. Octopus Ink seems to be a joking reference to the coffee. [I think the speaker here (Wren) is making a joking reference to the strange food that the Chinese saloon serves, not to pastry and coffee.]

==Page 276==

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

'''"and there she was, not much on, what there was all black, tightly laced, stockings askew, standing in an open polyhedral of mirrors, examining herself from all the angles available. Transformed."''' 
Cf. Mélanie l' Heuremaudit in ''V.'', pp 397-8.

'''dress cavalry helmet''' 
A collection of pictures of various dress cavalry helmets can be found here: [http://news.webshots.com/album/165792861CIEtya cavalry helmet pictures].

==Page 277==

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

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

'''images of creatures''' 
The ancient Puebloans of both the Mesa Verde and Chaco centers left numerous images, called petroglyphs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph], many of which are as eerie as Pynchon suggests here (the Wikipedia article shows Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands National Park in Utah). They include figures of humans and other creatures, and of comets and the 1054 supernova now known as the Crab Nebula (there are more than 14 pages of pictures of ''Pueblo Petroglyphs'' on Google Images: [http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Pueblo+Petroglyphs&btnG=Search+Images]).

==Page 278==

'''the report''' 
??? (Answer:) Wren was on an anthropological expedition. This is the report on the findings of that expedition.

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

'''Albany... bar mirror''' 
???

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

==Page 279==

'''Bulkley Wells''' 
Easier to find under correct spelling Bulkeley. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GDX/is_5_75/ai_65277661/pg_13 Here] is an account of some of his activities as mine manager and militia commander.

'''Ice Saw murder''' 
I saw murder?..eyewitness.??? Yes, a pun. Also, here is a picture of an [http://www.museum.state.il.us/RiverWeb/harvesting/archives/images/index.html?RollID=roll4&FrameID=Icesaw_450 ice saw], used to saw through ice for the purpose of ice fishing. And there is more fun and games if the saw is made of ice, recalling the scenario where there is a dead body, some blood and a pool of water. How did the body die? It was hacked to death with the saw made of ice which is now melted.

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

'''hurdy girls''' 
In an article titled [[http://www.phantomranch.net/folkdanc/articles/boysnite.htm Boys' Nite Out in Leadville]], the following:
<blockquote>
in the 187Os, the Colorado Miner described the hurdy-gurdy houses of Leadville as "breathing holes of hell, where customers imbibe torchlight whiskey and indulge in the quadrille and the whirling sinuosities of the waltz."
</blockquote>
and
<blockquote>"The very first women in the mining camps of California were German girls who were called hurdy-gurdy girls after the musical instruments of the same name, and the name also became attached to the dance hall. While a long way from virginal status, the first girls were so prized that they did not have to participate in prostitution"
</blockquote>

[[http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/cala/body.1_div.6.html Elsewhere]] mention is made of "hurdy-houses" which appear to be the same thing

==Page 280==

'''South Pacific islands''' 
Cf Margaret Mead (1901-78), a cultural anthropologist who visited and published extensively on Samoa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa_and_the_Mead-Freeman_controversy Wikipedia entry]

==Page 281==
[[Image:telluridetoday.gif|thumb|200px|right|Telluride as it appears today ([http://www.hillhaus.com/blog/index.php?blog=7&cat=30 source])]]
'''first city''' 
The first extensive use of the alternating current was in arc lighting, the kind used in street lighting. There is some dispute in histories as to which city was first, but Telluride was among, if not the, first.

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

'''"Beside the tracks at one bend stood a local lunatic"''' 
Like starting an amusement park ride.

'''"To-Hell-you-ride'''" 
To-Tell-u-ride

==Page 282==

'''level of hatred''' 
Cf capacitance?

'''drifts and stopes''' 
A drift is a horizontal or nearly horizontal underground opening. A stope is a usually steplike excavation underground for the removal of ore that is formed as the ore is mined in successive layers.

'''vagging bee''' 
"vag" is slang/shorthand for "vagrant"; the word "bee" as used here comes from the English dialect ''been'' or ''bean''. These were variations on ''boon'', once widely used in the sense of “voluntary help, given to a farmer by his neighbors, in time of harvest, haymaking, etc." In the early 1870s, the idea of bee began to be extended to situations that had some kind of communal basis, but weren’t farm work, some pretty sinister such as ''hanging bee'', ''lynching bee'' (this occurs in Mark Twain's ''Huckleberry Finn'') and ''whipping bee''. It is in this sense of a social gathering to perform some task that bee is used in ''Against the Day''. [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe2.htm From World Wide Words]

'''Bob Meldrum''' 
"Bad Man" Bob Meldrum served as agent to Pinkerton’s Detective Agency and a watchdog for the big cattle outfits around Little Snake River, gaining a reputation as a mean man with a quick trigger finger. He was rumored to be responsible for over fourteen wanton killings. Pynchon's characterisation of Meldrum (with his huge mustache and quick temper) is very similar to the Loony Tunes character Yosemite Sam.[http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35]

==Page 283==

'''''"joven"''''' 
Young fellow (Spanish).

'''Ellmore Disco''' 
Elmore = (H)ell More, i.e. More Hell?
:Possibly also an allusion to Elwood Blues, Dan Akroyd's character in '''The Blues Brothers'''.
:Or—with less distortion of the name—to Pynchon's near-contemporary Elmore Leonard, who writes many scenes of inventive and unconstrained violence.
::The explanation is simpler: Ellmore Disco sounds exactly as El Mordisco, The Bite in Spanish (remember, Ellmore is said to be Mexican, maybe "El Mordisco" was a nickname or alias he had there and when in the States he adapted to sound like an English Name). Why Ellmore Disco is El Mordisco I don't know. Perhaps being him the guy to see to in Telluride it means that he gets "a bite" (money) of the people who need favors from him.

'''headgear, tending to fancy black beavers''' 
Another instance of "beaver on the brain"?

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

'''Seven-Toed Pete''' 
Seven Card Stud

==Page 284==

'''battered 'from the day''''

'''thunderstorm-proof mayonnaise''' 
Mayo is an ATD leitmotif. There is a folk belief, enshrined in no less an authority than the ''Joy Of Cooking'', that mayonnaise will separate if it is made when a thunderstorm is imminent.

'''jaconet... tartalan... crepe lissé''' 
jaconet 1.a soft, white, lightweight cotton textile 2. cotton cloth glazed on one side and dyed. 
Tarlatan (another printing error, apparently) is a kind of thin open muslin (the general name for the most delicately woven cotton fabrics) used especially for ball-dresses. 
Crepe lissé is a thin, transparent, smooth or glossy gauze-like fabric, plain woven, without any twill, of highly twisted raw silk or other staple.

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

'''Grand Rapids style''' 
A simple, non-ornamental design style of furniture, with heavy emphasis
on office furniture. Mostly oak, it seems. From the 1860's, the office furniture was "mass-produced", whatever that means for the times. A kind of furniture allowing no "moral turpitude", as one online remark has it. (see Time.com use in 1978 below!)
Grand Rapids was a furniture center and major location for regular furniture exhibitions for decades before and after the time of ATD. Source: Grand Rapids Public Library catalog, passim.
:"The rooms are furnished in Grand Rapids style. The beds have pallets, but no springs, no Western-style mattresses, no top sheets; maid service consists of dumping a clean sheet and a blanket on the bed, to be made up by the guest."
:---Time.com...1978...on certain hotel rooms in China.

"Grand Rapids" doesn't imply a lack of ornamentation, not at all. The industry makes chairs and other items to the current taste. Once it was heavy oak bookcases with cornice moldings; today it's hi-tech office chairs. What marks Grand Rapids is design that lends itself to mass production.

:Oh, and those Chinese hotels? They bought perfectly good Grand Rapids bedsteads and dropped plywood in to save the price of springs. The pallets don't define the style!

'''Four Corners Boys''' 
Deuce and Sloat? Perhaps nicknamed so after what they did to Lake on page 269: "They took her down to the Four Corners..."

:the only historical reference I could find about a shooting in Cortez involving "Four Corners Boys" is rather recent: on May 29, 1998, City of Cortez Patrolman Dale Claxton was gunned down by three young men. Here's an exerpt from a news story dating back to october 2005: "The three suspects who made up '''the Four Corners Group''' appeared to be nothing more than weekend warriors and good old boys who talked more they acted. However that all changed when best friends Alan Pilon, Jason Wayne McVean and Robert Mathew Mason decided to take it to the big leagues. After the execution of Officer Claxton, the three men fled in the water truck heading toward Utah and its endless wilderness not known for its warmth and hospitable surroundings." Here's the complete article [http://www.policeone.com/writers/columnists/24Seven/articles/119760/]

==Page 285==

'''million apiece''' 
From 1900, a million dollars would have the value of @20 to 23 million in 2005, depending on ways of measuring purchasing value. It would have over $100 million dollars in value, measured against the worker's average wage at the time. See [http://www.measuringworth.com/ Measuring Worth site].
Note: The prediction is accurate. Think of such well-heeled communities as Aspen, Colorado that are to spring up.
'''music-hall Chinese''' 
What the hell is up with Pynchon's perennial mentions of China and Chinese?

There were a lot of Chinese in the west, starting with the gold rush in California, then building the transcontinental railway. Many remained, and Chinese laborers were pretty common out there.

'''C major... A miner''' 
A pun on the musical key of A minor. One octave of the C major scale consists of the notes c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c (all white keys on a piano). One octave of the A minor scale (technically, A natural minor) consists of the same note names as the C major scale, but starting on the "a" note, not on the "c" note: a-b-c-d-e-f-g-a. Because of this, A minor is called the relative minor of C major.

It is possible that the identical physical shape of the C major or A minor chord on the keyboard is depicted in Disco's smiling mouth, raising the possibility that he is missing 3 teeth corresponding to that schema. 'Ruinous' suggests some sort of dental deficiency. That, or he is missing all the teeth but those 3 which constitute the chord, though this would perhaps benefit from a more explicit description.

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

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

'''Cal Rutan''' 
[[image:cal-rutan.jpg|thumb|Cal Rutan, on the left|right]]J. Calvin ("Cal") Rutan was the Telluride County sheriff during the labor struggles of 1902-1904.

==Page 286==

'''menudo''' 
Mexican tripe soup, so peppery it should come with a warning placard.

'''Loomis''' 
Loomis Disco. Possible reference to Adore Loomis, child victim of Homer Simpson in [[Nathanael West's]] novel ''[[The Day of the Locust]]'' (1939).

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

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

==Page 287==

'''chicharrones''' 
Fried pork skins.

'''''Ristras''''' '''of .... dark purple chilies''' 
Strings of .... dried red peppers.

'''tortas''' 
Mexican sandwiches.

'''tamales''' 
Cornmeal paste wrapped in corn or banana husks and stuffed with chicken, pork or turkey and/or vegetables, then steamed.

'''sixty-degree wedges''' 
One-sixth of a pie.

'''''Por poco te faltó La Blanca''''' 
Spanish: You just missed La Blanca.
:In fact, it's a literal translation to Spanish of the English sentence. It should have been "Por poco te encontrás con La Blanca" or "Acabas de perderte a La Blanca" to be accurate and have some meaning (unless Lupe is saying "You almost get short of cocaine", since "la blanca", "the white one", is one of the slang names for cocaine).

==Page 288==

'''Montrose''' 
A city on Colorado's Western Slope. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado Wikipedia entry].

'''popcorn snows''' 
Apparently an informal meteorological term for giant snowflakes.[http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=popcorn.snow&as_brr=0&sa=N&tab=pw Google]

The popcorn snows were first mentioned in L. Frank Baum's ''The Scarecrow of Oz'' (1915): 'In the Land of Mo the snow's made of popcorn, not frozen water crystals as it is in other places.' [http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/oziana/oz0726.htm Popcorn Snows].
Of course, Mr. Baum also wrote the classic ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900).

A popcorn blizzard also figures into one of the tales of Paul Bunyan, the legendary destroyer of American landscapes. It likely appeared in newspapers after 1920. This contributor taught fourth-grade reading last year and first came across it in a textbook retelling. More can be found at [http://www.jcs-group.com/mystery/bunyan.html].

Popcorn snow is also a term used to describe springtime snow conditions for skiing. Not far off base considering Telluride is now predominantly a ritzy ski town.

'''vanning''' 
in context, 'a winnowing device". Archaic, from American Heritage Dictionary.

'''Loopy''' 
Anglo pronunciation of Lupe, a diminutive of the given name Guadalupe. Lupita is another.

'''masa''' 
Spanish: mass; also short for ''masa harina'': corn (maize) flour.

'''''comal''''' 
A Mexican style skillet, usually made of cast iron in round or oval shape.

==Page 289==

'''''Pobrecito''''' 
Poor little boy.

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

==Page 290==

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

'''McBryan's''' 
???

'''trick animal''' 
???

==Page 291==

'''''seguro''''' 
Spanish: "sure"

'''parlor houses''' 
Brothels

'''Cosmopolitan Saloon and Gambling Club''' 
Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page_260|p.260]]. In Telluride, CO.

'''bullion day''' 
From ''Tomboy Bride: A Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West'' (1969) by Harriet Fish Backus:

:George was promoted to his position taking charge of recovering gold amalgam and delivery it to the mine office. Two or three times a month it was prepared for shipment on what was called Bullion Day.

:This was a day of importance on which the gold, free of quicksilver, was melted and poured into three bar-molds each approximately nine inches long, five wide and four deep, containing five hundred ounces and at that time worth ten thousand dollars. The crucible, filled with molten gold, was lifted from the furnace by a chain block and swung to a point directly above the molds in a proper position topour. Using long tongs the superintendent tipped the crucible just enough to let the white hot liquid flow into the molds. (p.71) [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZXe3snWpqgwC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=%22bullion+day%22+%2B+mining&source=web&ots=pWq7uBF5_8&sig=HmPILPJFR9ZPeSI688XCjG6Zm9U&hl=en]

'''Mr. Edison's scheme ... static electricity''' 
In the summer of 1900, Thomas Edison erected a plant at the Ortiz Mine in Dolores, New Mexico, to extract gold ore using static electricity. However, dry gravels could not be obtained and, due to the poor quality of the ore, the tests were deemed a failure.

'''Wetherill's magnet''' 
An apparatus for separating magnetic minerals from nonmagnetic minerals, a Wetherill magnetic separator consists of two horseshoe magnets placed side by side and parallel to each other. Three belts are employed with each pair of magnets. The first belt brings the ore in horizontally under one pole piece of the upper magnet. The second belt operates under the surface of the upper pole piece, rounds the tips, and moves up the bevel of its wedge, bringing with it magnetic particles which, as they get above the magnetic field, fall off. The third belt accomplishes the same for the other pole piece of the upper magnet. [http://books.google.com/books?id=fhEAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA633&lpg=PA633&dq=wetherill+magnet&source=web&ots=5ivwNQSM6V&sig=ItAb4vM8uTKzjkC_yYkMt76Equ8&hl=en]

==Page 292==

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

'''Hieronymus Wheel''' 
Seems to describe a roulette wheel. Google and the OED turn up nothing on "Hieronymus Wheel," but Pynchon's bizarre choice of language obviously suggests the Dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch Wikipedia entry]. Perhaps Pynchon alludes to a certain wheel in a Bosch painting? Bosch's "Circle of Hell" depicts a wheel coming out of (or going into) the mouth of a fishlike creature, but that doesn't really make sense of the term, either. See [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion page 273-295]]

It refers to the Bosch painting 'The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things' (1485). It involves a wheel of the 7 big ones. Quite fitting in this dissipated environment.

'''Dieter''' 
Oldfashioned German first name. Pronunciation: [diːtər]. Short for Dietrich. Popular male name in Germany after WWII.
:Since "Dieter" is "the barkeep" the English word ''dieter'' for someone who prescibes a diet comes to mind.
::Seems like a stretch. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)
Possibly a reference to H. Dieter Zeh [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Dieter_Zeh]and his "Many Minds" interpretation of the multiverse issue [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation].[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]] 19:37, 1 January 2007 (PST)
:How so? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)

The multiple interpretations of what is going on in the bar, which will become more apparent in the following pages, suggest the exemplification of this solution to the "multiple universes" problem.

'''Nippon''' 
Japan in Japanese.

'''bellows''' 
For explanation, see [http://licm.org.uk/livingImage/BellowsCamera.html Bellows Camera].

==Page 293==

'''Japanese''' 
Sumimasen = "Pardon me" or "Excuse me" 
Bobusan desu = This is Bob 
Gonnusuringaa = "gunslinger" 
("Gansuringaa" is a more appropriate Japanese transliteration of "gunslinger", but no Japanese will recognize the word anyway.) 
mottomo abunai desu = he is extremely dangerous 
(This is a bizarre Japanese expression.) 
Anna koto! = That sort of thing! 
(This does not seem to make sense contextually.)

'''fulgurescence''' 
n : an emission in flashes or sparks, like lightning. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstruse_topics_in_Pynchon's_Against_the_Day#Abstruse_words]

'''profanity... much of it in Japanese''' 
The Japanese language has little profanity in the Western sense: words considered vulgar and which cannot be spoken in polite company. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_profanity#Japanese Wikipedia entry on Profanity in Japanese]

'''"The loss of clarity . . . . in the dark"''' 
See the note for Hieronymous wheel in [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion]]. If the "Hieronymous wheel" refers to a Bosch painting, perhaps this scene continues some kind fo parallel to Hell or something else. The painting includes several unknown creatures, including a barrel with legs, while “thrashed about” suggests the central fish monster image of the painting.
:Cf. also:
:*p. 136, "and for that brief instant it would be possible to move from one version to the other.", i.e. from "Venice of the Arctic" to the secular Venice.
:*p. 221, "Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really . . . . An unscheduled Explosion, introduced into the accustomed flow of the day, may easily open, now and then, passages to elsewhere,"
:*p. 230, "'Let us imagine a lateral world, set only infintesimally to the side of the one we think we know.'"

::Cf., also the transdimensional travel of Buckaroo Bonzai in the Pynchon inspired film, ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension'' (1984), especially the images of 8th-Dimensional creatures that Bonzai sees as he passes through the mountain. [http://imdb.com/title/tt0086856/ IMDB entry].
::Cf., further, the notion of a "multiverse," that is, a physical ur-structure, comprised of many, if not infinite universes, of which ours is only one. Several contemporary cosmological theories require that a multiverse exist, though its existence remains highly conjectural. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse Wikipedia entry].

'''It became possible to believe that one had been spirited, in the swift cascade of light-flashes, to some distant geography where creatures as yet unknown thrashed about, howling affrightedly, in the dark.''' 
A possible reference to the phantastic dreamscapes of the Japanese animation-filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Among his works, plausibly coded into this lengthy sentence, are ''Spirited Away'' (''Sen to Chihiro no kamikakukushi / The Spiriting-Away of Sen and Chihiro'', 2001) and ''Howl's Moving Castle'' (''Howl no ugoku shiro'', 2004).

'''"the American West--it is a spiritual territory! in which we seek to study the secrets of your--national soul''' 
It is possible that Pynchon needs a link from the Colorado Mine Wars to the Russo-Japanese War, but why place a ''Japanese Trade Delegation'' seeking to learn the spiritual secrets of the American West (which Merle Rideout correctly points out, lacks any) in the middle of a gunfight or brawl in Telluride? This could be a sly allusion, in a book about alternate histories and timelines, to arguably one of the best "alternate history" books ever written, Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle". In a 1962 in which the Axis won World war II, Nobusuke Tagomi is head of the ''Ranking Trade Mission'' to the (Japanese-occupied) Pacific States of America. He, like many Japanese, are fascinated with the artifacts of "pre-War US Culture", most especially with artifacts of the Old West and with its martial arts, which possess the spiritual power of "Historicity" (much as American occupation troops in Japan collected swords and studied Zen Buddhism). Tagomi, in short, collects old six-shooters, and practices quick-drawing and firing, a fact which is central to the book's action. Colorado figures heavily in the book's action as well; in the relatively free Rocky Mountain States (a buffer state between the PSA and the German-occupied USA) a solitary author has written a novel in which the US and Britain won World War II...[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_In_the_High_Castle]. And don't forget that this 'K' in Philip K. Dick's name stands for ''Kindred''...

'''packing out pyrites''' 
Mining fool's gold. Or wasting your resources by loading it into cars or skips instead of throwing it on the tail heap.

'''katana''' 
Japanese samurai sword.
'''

==Page 294==

'''Baron Akashi''' 
A Japanese general whose career included spying, but, anachronistically, his career did not begin until 1889. He was a spy in Europe during Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). So would he've been famous even to the lengths of backwoods CO? How much spyin' can a poor boy do if he's famous?
:The burden of fame doesn't seem to have kept James Bond or Austin Powers from succeeding in their espionage activities.
:Baron Akashi himself was famous, but his sidekick was not. The former didn't show up at Telluride but the latter did as 'some li'l laundry runner'.

'''planning a hoist''' 
''Heist'' is now universal, but originally it was a dialect form of ''hoist.''

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

==Page 295==

'''summer of '89''' 
Butch Cassidy and his accomplices robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride on 24 June 1889 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy#1889.E2.80.931894_.E2.80.94_early_robberies.2C_going_to_prison Wikipedia])

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

ATD 273-295

2009-04-25T11:47:08Z

Dusty: /* Page 292 */

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

==Page 273==

'''the electric''' 
The Denver Tramway Company, beginning in 1886, operated electric railcars between central Denver and outlying communities. [http://www.denvergov.org/AboutDenver/history_narrative_3.asp Citation]

==Page 274==

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

'''the Christian daring of Scarsdale's gesture''' 
To outside observers Vibe appears to be turning the other cheek.

'''drygulched''' 
In this context, ambushed and killed [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/drygulch drygulch].

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

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

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

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

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

'''the best-priced ore to be dug''' 
A mining engineer calculates the value of ore as the market price of its valuable constituents minus the cost of mining, concentrating and refining. Zinc metal brings less than gold or silver, but its ore may be attractive if it is rich in zinc and processing costs are low.

'''some bright engineer''' 
???

==Page 275==

'''concentrating mills''' 
First step in treating ore is concentration or beneficiation: breaking it into small pieces and separating the fragments that contain zinc from those that don't.

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

'''Wren Provenance''' 
Let's not forget that one manifestation of [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] was Victoria Wren. One could see this as the "provenance of wren?" There appear to be many allusions to [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] in ''ATD''.

'''heaps''' 
slag heaps. For their picture see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_heap Wikipedia].

'''Sons of Heaven section''' 
This is a term for the emperors of China.
Cf. references to the Chinese as 'the celestials', e.g. in the HBO series [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood_(TV_series) ''Deadwood''].

'''Bear Paw''' 
An almond-flavored yeast-raised pastry shaped shaped like an irregular semicircle resembling a bear's claw. Octopus Ink seems to be a joking reference to the coffee. [I think the speaker here (Wren) is making a joking reference to the strange food that the Chinese saloon serves, not to pastry and coffee.]

==Page 276==

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

'''"and there she was, not much on, what there was all black, tightly laced, stockings askew, standing in an open polyhedral of mirrors, examining herself from all the angles available. Transformed."''' 
Cf. Mélanie l' Heuremaudit in ''V.'', pp 397-8.

'''dress cavalry helmet''' 
A collection of pictures of various dress cavalry helmets can be found here: [http://news.webshots.com/album/165792861CIEtya cavalry helmet pictures].

==Page 277==

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

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

'''images of creatures''' 
The ancient Puebloans of both the Mesa Verde and Chaco centers left numerous images, called petroglyphs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph], many of which are as eerie as Pynchon suggests here (the Wikipedia article shows Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands National Park in Utah). They include figures of humans and other creatures, and of comets and the 1054 supernova now known as the Crab Nebula (there are more than 14 pages of pictures of ''Pueblo Petroglyphs'' on Google Images: [http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Pueblo+Petroglyphs&btnG=Search+Images]).

==Page 278==

'''the report''' 
??? (Answer:) Wren was on an anthropological expedition. This is the report on the findings of that expedition.

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

'''Albany... bar mirror''' 
???

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

==Page 279==

'''Bulkley Wells''' 
Easier to find under correct spelling Bulkeley. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GDX/is_5_75/ai_65277661/pg_13 Here] is an account of some of his activities as mine manager and militia commander.

'''Ice Saw murder''' 
I saw murder?..eyewitness.??? Yes, a pun. Also, here is a picture of an [http://www.museum.state.il.us/RiverWeb/harvesting/archives/images/index.html?RollID=roll4&FrameID=Icesaw_450 ice saw], used to saw through ice for the purpose of ice fishing. And there is more fun and games if the saw is made of ice, recalling the scenario where there is a dead body, some blood and a pool of water. How did the body die? It was hacked to death with the saw made of ice which is now melted.

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

'''hurdy girls''' 
In an article titled [[http://www.phantomranch.net/folkdanc/articles/boysnite.htm Boys' Nite Out in Leadville]], the following:
<blockquote>
in the 187Os, the Colorado Miner described the hurdy-gurdy houses of Leadville as "breathing holes of hell, where customers imbibe torchlight whiskey and indulge in the quadrille and the whirling sinuosities of the waltz."
</blockquote>
and
<blockquote>"The very first women in the mining camps of California were German girls who were called hurdy-gurdy girls after the musical instruments of the same name, and the name also became attached to the dance hall. While a long way from virginal status, the first girls were so prized that they did not have to participate in prostitution"
</blockquote>

[[http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/cala/body.1_div.6.html Elsewhere]] mention is made of "hurdy-houses" which appear to be the same thing

==Page 280==

'''South Pacific islands''' 
Cf Margaret Mead (1901-78), a cultural anthropologist who visited and published extensively on Samoa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa_and_the_Mead-Freeman_controversy Wikipedia entry]

==Page 281==
[[Image:telluridetoday.gif|thumb|200px|right|Telluride as it appears today ([http://www.hillhaus.com/blog/index.php?blog=7&cat=30 source])]]
'''first city''' 
The first extensive use of the alternating current was in arc lighting, the kind used in street lighting. There is some dispute in histories as to which city was first, but Telluride was among, if not the, first.

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

'''"Beside the tracks at one bend stood a local lunatic"''' 
Like starting an amusement park ride.

'''"To-Hell-you-ride'''" 
To-Tell-u-ride

==Page 282==

'''level of hatred''' 
Cf capacitance?

'''drifts and stopes''' 
A drift is a horizontal or nearly horizontal underground opening. A stope is a usually steplike excavation underground for the removal of ore that is formed as the ore is mined in successive layers.

'''vagging bee''' 
"vag" is slang/shorthand for "vagrant"; the word "bee" as used here comes from the English dialect ''been'' or ''bean''. These were variations on ''boon'', once widely used in the sense of “voluntary help, given to a farmer by his neighbors, in time of harvest, haymaking, etc." In the early 1870s, the idea of bee began to be extended to situations that had some kind of communal basis, but weren’t farm work, some pretty sinister such as ''hanging bee'', ''lynching bee'' (this occurs in Mark Twain's ''Huckleberry Finn'') and ''whipping bee''. It is in this sense of a social gathering to perform some task that bee is used in ''Against the Day''. [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe2.htm From World Wide Words]

'''Bob Meldrum''' 
"Bad Man" Bob Meldrum served as agent to Pinkerton’s Detective Agency and a watchdog for the big cattle outfits around Little Snake River, gaining a reputation as a mean man with a quick trigger finger. He was rumored to be responsible for over fourteen wanton killings. Pynchon's characterisation of Meldrum (with his huge mustache and quick temper) is very similar to the Loony Tunes character Yosemite Sam.[http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35]

==Page 283==

'''''"joven"''''' 
Young fellow (Spanish).

'''Ellmore Disco''' 
Elmore = (H)ell More, i.e. More Hell?
:Possibly also an allusion to Elwood Blues, Dan Akroyd's character in '''The Blues Brothers'''.
:Or—with less distortion of the name—to Pynchon's near-contemporary Elmore Leonard, who writes many scenes of inventive and unconstrained violence.
::The explanation is simpler: Ellmore Disco sounds exactly as El Mordisco, The Bite in Spanish (remember, Ellmore is said to be Mexican, maybe "El Mordisco" was a nickname or alias he had there and when in the States he adapted to sound like an English Name). Why Ellmore Disco is El Mordisco I don't know. Perhaps being him the guy to see to in Telluride it means that he gets "a bite" (money) of the people who need favors from him.

'''headgear, tending to fancy black beavers''' 
Another instance of "beaver on the brain"?

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

'''Seven-Toed Pete''' 
Seven Card Stud

==Page 284==

'''battered 'from the day''''

'''thunderstorm-proof mayonnaise''' 
Mayo is an ATD leitmotif. There is a folk belief, enshrined in no less an authority than the ''Joy Of Cooking'', that mayonnaise will separate if it is made when a thunderstorm is imminent.

'''jaconet... tartalan... crepe lissé''' 
jaconet 1.a soft, white, lightweight cotton textile 2. cotton cloth glazed on one side and dyed. 
Tarlatan (another printing error, apparently) is a kind of thin open muslin (the general name for the most delicately woven cotton fabrics) used especially for ball-dresses. 
Crepe lissé is a thin, transparent, smooth or glossy gauze-like fabric, plain woven, without any twill, of highly twisted raw silk or other staple.

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

'''Grand Rapids style''' 
A simple, non-ornamental design style of furniture, with heavy emphasis
on office furniture. Mostly oak, it seems. From the 1860's, the office furniture was "mass-produced", whatever that means for the times. A kind of furniture allowing no "moral turpitude", as one online remark has it. (see Time.com use in 1978 below!)
Grand Rapids was a furniture center and major location for regular furniture exhibitions for decades before and after the time of ATD. Source: Grand Rapids Public Library catalog, passim.
:"The rooms are furnished in Grand Rapids style. The beds have pallets, but no springs, no Western-style mattresses, no top sheets; maid service consists of dumping a clean sheet and a blanket on the bed, to be made up by the guest."
:---Time.com...1978...on certain hotel rooms in China.

"Grand Rapids" doesn't imply a lack of ornamentation, not at all. The industry makes chairs and other items to the current taste. Once it was heavy oak bookcases with cornice moldings; today it's hi-tech office chairs. What marks Grand Rapids is design that lends itself to mass production.

:Oh, and those Chinese hotels? They bought perfectly good Grand Rapids bedsteads and dropped plywood in to save the price of springs. The pallets don't define the style!

'''Four Corners Boys''' 
Deuce and Sloat? Perhaps nicknamed so after what they did to Lake on page 269: "They took her down to the Four Corners..."

:the only historical reference I could find about a shooting in Cortez involving "Four Corners Boys" is rather recent: on May 29, 1998, City of Cortez Patrolman Dale Claxton was gunned down by three young men. Here's an exerpt from a news story dating back to october 2005: "The three suspects who made up '''the Four Corners Group''' appeared to be nothing more than weekend warriors and good old boys who talked more they acted. However that all changed when best friends Alan Pilon, Jason Wayne McVean and Robert Mathew Mason decided to take it to the big leagues. After the execution of Officer Claxton, the three men fled in the water truck heading toward Utah and its endless wilderness not known for its warmth and hospitable surroundings." Here's the complete article [http://www.policeone.com/writers/columnists/24Seven/articles/119760/]

==Page 285==

'''million apiece''' 
From 1900, a million dollars would have the value of @20 to 23 million in 2005, depending on ways of measuring purchasing value. It would have over $100 million dollars in value, measured against the worker's average wage at the time. See [http://www.measuringworth.com/ Measuring Worth site].
Note: The prediction is accurate. Think of such well-heeled communities as Aspen, Colorado that are to spring up.
'''music-hall Chinese''' 
What the hell is up with Pynchon's perennial mentions of China and Chinese?

There were a lot of Chinese in the west, starting with the gold rush in California, then building the transcontinental railway. Many remained, and Chinese laborers were pretty common out there.

'''C major... A miner''' 
A pun on the musical key of A minor. One octave of the C major scale consists of the notes c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c (all white keys on a piano). One octave of the A minor scale (technically, A natural minor) consists of the same note names as the C major scale, but starting on the "a" note, not on the "c" note: a-b-c-d-e-f-g-a. Because of this, A minor is called the relative minor of C major.

It is possible that the identical physical shape of the C major or A minor chord on the keyboard is depicted in Disco's smiling mouth, raising the possibility that he is missing 3 teeth corresponding to that schema. 'Ruinous' suggests some sort of dental deficiency. That, or he is missing all the teeth but those 3 which constitute the chord, though this would perhaps benefit from a more explicit description.

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

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

'''Cal Rutan''' 
[[image:cal-rutan.jpg|thumb|Cal Rutan, on the left|right]]J. Calvin ("Cal") Rutan was the Telluride County sheriff during the labor struggles of 1902-1904.

==Page 286==

'''menudo''' 
Mexican tripe soup, so peppery it should come with a warning placard.

'''Loomis''' 
Loomis Disco. Possible reference to Adore Loomis, child victim of Homer Simpson in [[Nathanael West's]] novel ''[[The Day of the Locust]]'' (1939).

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

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

==Page 287==

'''chicharrones''' 
Fried pork skins.

'''''Ristras''''' '''of .... dark purple chilies''' 
Strings of .... dried red peppers.

'''tortas''' 
Mexican sandwiches.

'''tamales''' 
Cornmeal paste wrapped in corn or banana husks and stuffed with chicken, pork or turkey and/or vegetables, then steamed.

'''sixty-degree wedges''' 
One-sixth of a pie.

'''''Por poco te faltó La Blanca''''' 
Spanish: You just missed La Blanca.
:In fact, it's a literal translation to Spanish of the English sentence. It should have been "Por poco te encontrás con La Blanca" or "Acabas de perderte a La Blanca" to be accurate and have some meaning (unless Lupe is saying "You almost get short of cocaine", since "la blanca", "the white one", is one of the slang names for cocaine).

==Page 288==

'''Montrose''' 
A city on Colorado's Western Slope. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado Wikipedia entry].

'''popcorn snows''' 
Apparently an informal meteorological term for giant snowflakes.[http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=popcorn.snow&as_brr=0&sa=N&tab=pw Google]

The popcorn snows were first mentioned in L. Frank Baum's ''The Scarecrow of Oz'' (1915): 'In the Land of Mo the snow's made of popcorn, not frozen water crystals as it is in other places.' [http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/oziana/oz0726.htm Popcorn Snows].
Of course, Mr. Baum also wrote the classic ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900).

A popcorn blizzard also figures into one of the tales of Paul Bunyan, the legendary destroyer of American landscapes. It likely appeared in newspapers after 1920. This contributor taught fourth-grade reading last year and first came across it in a textbook retelling. More can be found at [http://www.jcs-group.com/mystery/bunyan.html].

Popcorn snow is also a term used to describe springtime snow conditions for skiing. Not far off base considering Telluride is now predominantly a ritzy ski town.

'''vanning''' 
in context, 'a winnowing device". Archaic, from American Heritage Dictionary.

'''Loopy''' 
Anglo pronunciation of Lupe, a diminutive of the given name Guadalupe. Lupita is another.

'''masa''' 
Spanish: mass; also short for ''masa harina'': corn (maize) flour.

'''''comal''''' 
A Mexican style skillet, usually made of cast iron in round or oval shape.

==Page 289==

'''''Pobrecito''''' 
Poor little boy.

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

==Page 290==

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

'''McBryan's''' 
???

'''trick animal''' 
???

==Page 291==

'''''seguro''''' 
Spanish: "sure"

'''parlor houses''' 
Brothels

'''Cosmopolitan Saloon and Gambling Club''' 
Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page_260|p.260]]. In Telluride, CO.

'''bullion day''' 
From ''Tomboy Bride: A Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West'' (1969) by Harriet Fish Backus:

:George was promoted to his position taking charge of recovering gold amalgam and delivery it to the mine office. Two or three times a month it was prepared for shipment on what was called Bullion Day.

:This was a day of importance on which the gold, free of quicksilver, was melted and poured into three bar-molds each approximately nine inches long, five wide and four deep, containing five hundred ounces and at that time worth ten thousand dollars. The crucible, filled with molten gold, was lifted from the furnace by a chain block and swung to a point directly above the molds in a proper position topour. Using long tongs the superintendent tipped the crucible just enough to let the white hot liquid flow into the molds. (p.71) [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZXe3snWpqgwC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=%22bullion+day%22+%2B+mining&source=web&ots=pWq7uBF5_8&sig=HmPILPJFR9ZPeSI688XCjG6Zm9U&hl=en]

'''Mr. Edison's scheme ... static electricity''' 
In the summer of 1900, Thomas Edison erected a plant at the Ortiz Mine in Dolores, New Mexico, to extract gold ore using static electricity. However, dry gravels could not be obtained and, due to the poor quality of the ore, the tests were deemed a failure.

'''Wetherill's magnet''' 
An apparatus for separating magnetic minerals from nonmagnetic minerals, a Wetherill magnetic separator consists of two horseshoe magnets placed side by side and parallel to each other. Three belts are employed with each pair of magnets. The first belt brings the ore in horizontally under one pole piece of the upper magnet. The second belt operates under the surface of the upper pole piece, rounds the tips, and moves up the bevel of its wedge, bringing with it magnetic particles which, as they get above the magnetic field, fall off. The third belt accomplishes the same for the other pole piece of the upper magnet. [http://books.google.com/books?id=fhEAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA633&lpg=PA633&dq=wetherill+magnet&source=web&ots=5ivwNQSM6V&sig=ItAb4vM8uTKzjkC_yYkMt76Equ8&hl=en]

==Page 292==

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

'''Hieronymus Wheel''' 
Seems to describe a roulette wheel. Google and the OED turn up nothing on "Hieronymus Wheel," but Pynchon's bizarre choice of language obviously suggests the Dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch Wikipedia entry]. Perhaps Pynchon alludes to a certain wheel in a Bosch painting? Bosch's "Circle of Hell" depicts a wheel coming out of (or going into) the mouth of a fishlike creature, but that doesn't really make sense of the term, either. See [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion page 273-295]]

It refers to the Bosch painting 'The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things' (1485). It involves a wheel of the 7 big ones.

'''Dieter''' 
Oldfashioned German first name. Pronunciation: [diːtər]. Short for Dietrich. Popular male name in Germany after WWII.
:Since "Dieter" is "the barkeep" the English word ''dieter'' for someone who prescibes a diet comes to mind.
::Seems like a stretch. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)
Possibly a reference to H. Dieter Zeh [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Dieter_Zeh]and his "Many Minds" interpretation of the multiverse issue [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation].[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]] 19:37, 1 January 2007 (PST)
:How so? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)

The multiple interpretations of what is going on in the bar, which will become more apparent in the following pages, suggest the exemplification of this solution to the "multiple universes" problem.

'''Nippon''' 
Japan in Japanese.

'''bellows''' 
For explanation, see [http://licm.org.uk/livingImage/BellowsCamera.html Bellows Camera].

==Page 293==

'''Japanese''' 
Sumimasen = "Pardon me" or "Excuse me" 
Bobusan desu = This is Bob 
Gonnusuringaa = "gunslinger" 
("Gansuringaa" is a more appropriate Japanese transliteration of "gunslinger", but no Japanese will recognize the word anyway.) 
mottomo abunai desu = he is extremely dangerous 
(This is a bizarre Japanese expression.) 
Anna koto! = That sort of thing! 
(This does not seem to make sense contextually.)

'''fulgurescence''' 
n : an emission in flashes or sparks, like lightning. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstruse_topics_in_Pynchon's_Against_the_Day#Abstruse_words]

'''profanity... much of it in Japanese''' 
The Japanese language has little profanity in the Western sense: words considered vulgar and which cannot be spoken in polite company. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_profanity#Japanese Wikipedia entry on Profanity in Japanese]

'''"The loss of clarity . . . . in the dark"''' 
See the note for Hieronymous wheel in [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion]]. If the "Hieronymous wheel" refers to a Bosch painting, perhaps this scene continues some kind fo parallel to Hell or something else. The painting includes several unknown creatures, including a barrel with legs, while “thrashed about” suggests the central fish monster image of the painting.
:Cf. also:
:*p. 136, "and for that brief instant it would be possible to move from one version to the other.", i.e. from "Venice of the Arctic" to the secular Venice.
:*p. 221, "Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really . . . . An unscheduled Explosion, introduced into the accustomed flow of the day, may easily open, now and then, passages to elsewhere,"
:*p. 230, "'Let us imagine a lateral world, set only infintesimally to the side of the one we think we know.'"

::Cf., also the transdimensional travel of Buckaroo Bonzai in the Pynchon inspired film, ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension'' (1984), especially the images of 8th-Dimensional creatures that Bonzai sees as he passes through the mountain. [http://imdb.com/title/tt0086856/ IMDB entry].
::Cf., further, the notion of a "multiverse," that is, a physical ur-structure, comprised of many, if not infinite universes, of which ours is only one. Several contemporary cosmological theories require that a multiverse exist, though its existence remains highly conjectural. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse Wikipedia entry].

'''It became possible to believe that one had been spirited, in the swift cascade of light-flashes, to some distant geography where creatures as yet unknown thrashed about, howling affrightedly, in the dark.''' 
A possible reference to the phantastic dreamscapes of the Japanese animation-filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Among his works, plausibly coded into this lengthy sentence, are ''Spirited Away'' (''Sen to Chihiro no kamikakukushi / The Spiriting-Away of Sen and Chihiro'', 2001) and ''Howl's Moving Castle'' (''Howl no ugoku shiro'', 2004).

'''"the American West--it is a spiritual territory! in which we seek to study the secrets of your--national soul''' 
It is possible that Pynchon needs a link from the Colorado Mine Wars to the Russo-Japanese War, but why place a ''Japanese Trade Delegation'' seeking to learn the spiritual secrets of the American West (which Merle Rideout correctly points out, lacks any) in the middle of a gunfight or brawl in Telluride? This could be a sly allusion, in a book about alternate histories and timelines, to arguably one of the best "alternate history" books ever written, Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle". In a 1962 in which the Axis won World war II, Nobusuke Tagomi is head of the ''Ranking Trade Mission'' to the (Japanese-occupied) Pacific States of America. He, like many Japanese, are fascinated with the artifacts of "pre-War US Culture", most especially with artifacts of the Old West and with its martial arts, which possess the spiritual power of "Historicity" (much as American occupation troops in Japan collected swords and studied Zen Buddhism). Tagomi, in short, collects old six-shooters, and practices quick-drawing and firing, a fact which is central to the book's action. Colorado figures heavily in the book's action as well; in the relatively free Rocky Mountain States (a buffer state between the PSA and the German-occupied USA) a solitary author has written a novel in which the US and Britain won World War II...[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_In_the_High_Castle]. And don't forget that this 'K' in Philip K. Dick's name stands for ''Kindred''...

'''packing out pyrites''' 
Mining fool's gold. Or wasting your resources by loading it into cars or skips instead of throwing it on the tail heap.

'''katana''' 
Japanese samurai sword.
'''

==Page 294==

'''Baron Akashi''' 
A Japanese general whose career included spying, but, anachronistically, his career did not begin until 1889. He was a spy in Europe during Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). So would he've been famous even to the lengths of backwoods CO? How much spyin' can a poor boy do if he's famous?
:The burden of fame doesn't seem to have kept James Bond or Austin Powers from succeeding in their espionage activities.
:Baron Akashi himself was famous, but his sidekick was not. The former didn't show up at Telluride but the latter did as 'some li'l laundry runner'.

'''planning a hoist''' 
''Heist'' is now universal, but originally it was a dialect form of ''hoist.''

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

==Page 295==

'''summer of '89''' 
Butch Cassidy and his accomplices robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride on 24 June 1889 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy#1889.E2.80.931894_.E2.80.94_early_robberies.2C_going_to_prison Wikipedia])

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

ATD 273-295

2009-04-25T11:15:00Z

Dusty: /* Page 285 */

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

==Page 273==

'''the electric''' 
The Denver Tramway Company, beginning in 1886, operated electric railcars between central Denver and outlying communities. [http://www.denvergov.org/AboutDenver/history_narrative_3.asp Citation]

==Page 274==

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

'''the Christian daring of Scarsdale's gesture''' 
To outside observers Vibe appears to be turning the other cheek.

'''drygulched''' 
In this context, ambushed and killed [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/drygulch drygulch].

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

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

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

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

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

'''the best-priced ore to be dug''' 
A mining engineer calculates the value of ore as the market price of its valuable constituents minus the cost of mining, concentrating and refining. Zinc metal brings less than gold or silver, but its ore may be attractive if it is rich in zinc and processing costs are low.

'''some bright engineer''' 
???

==Page 275==

'''concentrating mills''' 
First step in treating ore is concentration or beneficiation: breaking it into small pieces and separating the fragments that contain zinc from those that don't.

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

'''Wren Provenance''' 
Let's not forget that one manifestation of [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] was Victoria Wren. One could see this as the "provenance of wren?" There appear to be many allusions to [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] in ''ATD''.

'''heaps''' 
slag heaps. For their picture see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_heap Wikipedia].

'''Sons of Heaven section''' 
This is a term for the emperors of China.
Cf. references to the Chinese as 'the celestials', e.g. in the HBO series [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood_(TV_series) ''Deadwood''].

'''Bear Paw''' 
An almond-flavored yeast-raised pastry shaped shaped like an irregular semicircle resembling a bear's claw. Octopus Ink seems to be a joking reference to the coffee. [I think the speaker here (Wren) is making a joking reference to the strange food that the Chinese saloon serves, not to pastry and coffee.]

==Page 276==

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

'''"and there she was, not much on, what there was all black, tightly laced, stockings askew, standing in an open polyhedral of mirrors, examining herself from all the angles available. Transformed."''' 
Cf. Mélanie l' Heuremaudit in ''V.'', pp 397-8.

'''dress cavalry helmet''' 
A collection of pictures of various dress cavalry helmets can be found here: [http://news.webshots.com/album/165792861CIEtya cavalry helmet pictures].

==Page 277==

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

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

'''images of creatures''' 
The ancient Puebloans of both the Mesa Verde and Chaco centers left numerous images, called petroglyphs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph], many of which are as eerie as Pynchon suggests here (the Wikipedia article shows Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands National Park in Utah). They include figures of humans and other creatures, and of comets and the 1054 supernova now known as the Crab Nebula (there are more than 14 pages of pictures of ''Pueblo Petroglyphs'' on Google Images: [http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Pueblo+Petroglyphs&btnG=Search+Images]).

==Page 278==

'''the report''' 
??? (Answer:) Wren was on an anthropological expedition. This is the report on the findings of that expedition.

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

'''Albany... bar mirror''' 
???

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

==Page 279==

'''Bulkley Wells''' 
Easier to find under correct spelling Bulkeley. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GDX/is_5_75/ai_65277661/pg_13 Here] is an account of some of his activities as mine manager and militia commander.

'''Ice Saw murder''' 
I saw murder?..eyewitness.??? Yes, a pun. Also, here is a picture of an [http://www.museum.state.il.us/RiverWeb/harvesting/archives/images/index.html?RollID=roll4&FrameID=Icesaw_450 ice saw], used to saw through ice for the purpose of ice fishing. And there is more fun and games if the saw is made of ice, recalling the scenario where there is a dead body, some blood and a pool of water. How did the body die? It was hacked to death with the saw made of ice which is now melted.

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

'''hurdy girls''' 
In an article titled [[http://www.phantomranch.net/folkdanc/articles/boysnite.htm Boys' Nite Out in Leadville]], the following:
<blockquote>
in the 187Os, the Colorado Miner described the hurdy-gurdy houses of Leadville as "breathing holes of hell, where customers imbibe torchlight whiskey and indulge in the quadrille and the whirling sinuosities of the waltz."
</blockquote>
and
<blockquote>"The very first women in the mining camps of California were German girls who were called hurdy-gurdy girls after the musical instruments of the same name, and the name also became attached to the dance hall. While a long way from virginal status, the first girls were so prized that they did not have to participate in prostitution"
</blockquote>

[[http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/cala/body.1_div.6.html Elsewhere]] mention is made of "hurdy-houses" which appear to be the same thing

==Page 280==

'''South Pacific islands''' 
Cf Margaret Mead (1901-78), a cultural anthropologist who visited and published extensively on Samoa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa_and_the_Mead-Freeman_controversy Wikipedia entry]

==Page 281==
[[Image:telluridetoday.gif|thumb|200px|right|Telluride as it appears today ([http://www.hillhaus.com/blog/index.php?blog=7&cat=30 source])]]
'''first city''' 
The first extensive use of the alternating current was in arc lighting, the kind used in street lighting. There is some dispute in histories as to which city was first, but Telluride was among, if not the, first.

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

'''"Beside the tracks at one bend stood a local lunatic"''' 
Like starting an amusement park ride.

'''"To-Hell-you-ride'''" 
To-Tell-u-ride

==Page 282==

'''level of hatred''' 
Cf capacitance?

'''drifts and stopes''' 
A drift is a horizontal or nearly horizontal underground opening. A stope is a usually steplike excavation underground for the removal of ore that is formed as the ore is mined in successive layers.

'''vagging bee''' 
"vag" is slang/shorthand for "vagrant"; the word "bee" as used here comes from the English dialect ''been'' or ''bean''. These were variations on ''boon'', once widely used in the sense of “voluntary help, given to a farmer by his neighbors, in time of harvest, haymaking, etc." In the early 1870s, the idea of bee began to be extended to situations that had some kind of communal basis, but weren’t farm work, some pretty sinister such as ''hanging bee'', ''lynching bee'' (this occurs in Mark Twain's ''Huckleberry Finn'') and ''whipping bee''. It is in this sense of a social gathering to perform some task that bee is used in ''Against the Day''. [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe2.htm From World Wide Words]

'''Bob Meldrum''' 
"Bad Man" Bob Meldrum served as agent to Pinkerton’s Detective Agency and a watchdog for the big cattle outfits around Little Snake River, gaining a reputation as a mean man with a quick trigger finger. He was rumored to be responsible for over fourteen wanton killings. Pynchon's characterisation of Meldrum (with his huge mustache and quick temper) is very similar to the Loony Tunes character Yosemite Sam.[http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35]

==Page 283==

'''''"joven"''''' 
Young fellow (Spanish).

'''Ellmore Disco''' 
Elmore = (H)ell More, i.e. More Hell?
:Possibly also an allusion to Elwood Blues, Dan Akroyd's character in '''The Blues Brothers'''.
:Or—with less distortion of the name—to Pynchon's near-contemporary Elmore Leonard, who writes many scenes of inventive and unconstrained violence.
::The explanation is simpler: Ellmore Disco sounds exactly as El Mordisco, The Bite in Spanish (remember, Ellmore is said to be Mexican, maybe "El Mordisco" was a nickname or alias he had there and when in the States he adapted to sound like an English Name). Why Ellmore Disco is El Mordisco I don't know. Perhaps being him the guy to see to in Telluride it means that he gets "a bite" (money) of the people who need favors from him.

'''headgear, tending to fancy black beavers''' 
Another instance of "beaver on the brain"?

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

'''Seven-Toed Pete''' 
Seven Card Stud

==Page 284==

'''battered 'from the day''''

'''thunderstorm-proof mayonnaise''' 
Mayo is an ATD leitmotif. There is a folk belief, enshrined in no less an authority than the ''Joy Of Cooking'', that mayonnaise will separate if it is made when a thunderstorm is imminent.

'''jaconet... tartalan... crepe lissé''' 
jaconet 1.a soft, white, lightweight cotton textile 2. cotton cloth glazed on one side and dyed. 
Tarlatan (another printing error, apparently) is a kind of thin open muslin (the general name for the most delicately woven cotton fabrics) used especially for ball-dresses. 
Crepe lissé is a thin, transparent, smooth or glossy gauze-like fabric, plain woven, without any twill, of highly twisted raw silk or other staple.

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

'''Grand Rapids style''' 
A simple, non-ornamental design style of furniture, with heavy emphasis
on office furniture. Mostly oak, it seems. From the 1860's, the office furniture was "mass-produced", whatever that means for the times. A kind of furniture allowing no "moral turpitude", as one online remark has it. (see Time.com use in 1978 below!)
Grand Rapids was a furniture center and major location for regular furniture exhibitions for decades before and after the time of ATD. Source: Grand Rapids Public Library catalog, passim.
:"The rooms are furnished in Grand Rapids style. The beds have pallets, but no springs, no Western-style mattresses, no top sheets; maid service consists of dumping a clean sheet and a blanket on the bed, to be made up by the guest."
:---Time.com...1978...on certain hotel rooms in China.

"Grand Rapids" doesn't imply a lack of ornamentation, not at all. The industry makes chairs and other items to the current taste. Once it was heavy oak bookcases with cornice moldings; today it's hi-tech office chairs. What marks Grand Rapids is design that lends itself to mass production.

:Oh, and those Chinese hotels? They bought perfectly good Grand Rapids bedsteads and dropped plywood in to save the price of springs. The pallets don't define the style!

'''Four Corners Boys''' 
Deuce and Sloat? Perhaps nicknamed so after what they did to Lake on page 269: "They took her down to the Four Corners..."

:the only historical reference I could find about a shooting in Cortez involving "Four Corners Boys" is rather recent: on May 29, 1998, City of Cortez Patrolman Dale Claxton was gunned down by three young men. Here's an exerpt from a news story dating back to october 2005: "The three suspects who made up '''the Four Corners Group''' appeared to be nothing more than weekend warriors and good old boys who talked more they acted. However that all changed when best friends Alan Pilon, Jason Wayne McVean and Robert Mathew Mason decided to take it to the big leagues. After the execution of Officer Claxton, the three men fled in the water truck heading toward Utah and its endless wilderness not known for its warmth and hospitable surroundings." Here's the complete article [http://www.policeone.com/writers/columnists/24Seven/articles/119760/]

==Page 285==

'''million apiece''' 
From 1900, a million dollars would have the value of @20 to 23 million in 2005, depending on ways of measuring purchasing value. It would have over $100 million dollars in value, measured against the worker's average wage at the time. See [http://www.measuringworth.com/ Measuring Worth site].
Note: The prediction is accurate. Think of such well-heeled communities as Aspen, Colorado that are to spring up.
'''music-hall Chinese''' 
What the hell is up with Pynchon's perennial mentions of China and Chinese?

There were a lot of Chinese in the west, starting with the gold rush in California, then building the transcontinental railway. Many remained, and Chinese laborers were pretty common out there.

'''C major... A miner''' 
A pun on the musical key of A minor. One octave of the C major scale consists of the notes c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c (all white keys on a piano). One octave of the A minor scale (technically, A natural minor) consists of the same note names as the C major scale, but starting on the "a" note, not on the "c" note: a-b-c-d-e-f-g-a. Because of this, A minor is called the relative minor of C major.

It is possible that the identical physical shape of the C major or A minor chord on the keyboard is depicted in Disco's smiling mouth, raising the possibility that he is missing 3 teeth corresponding to that schema. 'Ruinous' suggests some sort of dental deficiency. That, or he is missing all the teeth but those 3 which constitute the chord, though this would perhaps benefit from a more explicit description.

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

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

'''Cal Rutan''' 
[[image:cal-rutan.jpg|thumb|Cal Rutan, on the left|right]]J. Calvin ("Cal") Rutan was the Telluride County sheriff during the labor struggles of 1902-1904.

==Page 286==

'''menudo''' 
Mexican tripe soup, so peppery it should come with a warning placard.

'''Loomis''' 
Loomis Disco. Possible reference to Adore Loomis, child victim of Homer Simpson in [[Nathanael West's]] novel ''[[The Day of the Locust]]'' (1939).

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

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

==Page 287==

'''chicharrones''' 
Fried pork skins.

'''''Ristras''''' '''of .... dark purple chilies''' 
Strings of .... dried red peppers.

'''tortas''' 
Mexican sandwiches.

'''tamales''' 
Cornmeal paste wrapped in corn or banana husks and stuffed with chicken, pork or turkey and/or vegetables, then steamed.

'''sixty-degree wedges''' 
One-sixth of a pie.

'''''Por poco te faltó La Blanca''''' 
Spanish: You just missed La Blanca.
:In fact, it's a literal translation to Spanish of the English sentence. It should have been "Por poco te encontrás con La Blanca" or "Acabas de perderte a La Blanca" to be accurate and have some meaning (unless Lupe is saying "You almost get short of cocaine", since "la blanca", "the white one", is one of the slang names for cocaine).

==Page 288==

'''Montrose''' 
A city on Colorado's Western Slope. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado Wikipedia entry].

'''popcorn snows''' 
Apparently an informal meteorological term for giant snowflakes.[http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=popcorn.snow&as_brr=0&sa=N&tab=pw Google]

The popcorn snows were first mentioned in L. Frank Baum's ''The Scarecrow of Oz'' (1915): 'In the Land of Mo the snow's made of popcorn, not frozen water crystals as it is in other places.' [http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/oziana/oz0726.htm Popcorn Snows].
Of course, Mr. Baum also wrote the classic ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900).

A popcorn blizzard also figures into one of the tales of Paul Bunyan, the legendary destroyer of American landscapes. It likely appeared in newspapers after 1920. This contributor taught fourth-grade reading last year and first came across it in a textbook retelling. More can be found at [http://www.jcs-group.com/mystery/bunyan.html].

Popcorn snow is also a term used to describe springtime snow conditions for skiing. Not far off base considering Telluride is now predominantly a ritzy ski town.

'''vanning''' 
in context, 'a winnowing device". Archaic, from American Heritage Dictionary.

'''Loopy''' 
Anglo pronunciation of Lupe, a diminutive of the given name Guadalupe. Lupita is another.

'''masa''' 
Spanish: mass; also short for ''masa harina'': corn (maize) flour.

'''''comal''''' 
A Mexican style skillet, usually made of cast iron in round or oval shape.

==Page 289==

'''''Pobrecito''''' 
Poor little boy.

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

==Page 290==

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

'''McBryan's''' 
???

'''trick animal''' 
???

==Page 291==

'''''seguro''''' 
Spanish: "sure"

'''parlor houses''' 
Brothels

'''Cosmopolitan Saloon and Gambling Club''' 
Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page_260|p.260]]. In Telluride, CO.

'''bullion day''' 
From ''Tomboy Bride: A Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West'' (1969) by Harriet Fish Backus:

:George was promoted to his position taking charge of recovering gold amalgam and delivery it to the mine office. Two or three times a month it was prepared for shipment on what was called Bullion Day.

:This was a day of importance on which the gold, free of quicksilver, was melted and poured into three bar-molds each approximately nine inches long, five wide and four deep, containing five hundred ounces and at that time worth ten thousand dollars. The crucible, filled with molten gold, was lifted from the furnace by a chain block and swung to a point directly above the molds in a proper position topour. Using long tongs the superintendent tipped the crucible just enough to let the white hot liquid flow into the molds. (p.71) [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZXe3snWpqgwC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=%22bullion+day%22+%2B+mining&source=web&ots=pWq7uBF5_8&sig=HmPILPJFR9ZPeSI688XCjG6Zm9U&hl=en]

'''Mr. Edison's scheme ... static electricity''' 
In the summer of 1900, Thomas Edison erected a plant at the Ortiz Mine in Dolores, New Mexico, to extract gold ore using static electricity. However, dry gravels could not be obtained and, due to the poor quality of the ore, the tests were deemed a failure.

'''Wetherill's magnet''' 
An apparatus for separating magnetic minerals from nonmagnetic minerals, a Wetherill magnetic separator consists of two horseshoe magnets placed side by side and parallel to each other. Three belts are employed with each pair of magnets. The first belt brings the ore in horizontally under one pole piece of the upper magnet. The second belt operates under the surface of the upper pole piece, rounds the tips, and moves up the bevel of its wedge, bringing with it magnetic particles which, as they get above the magnetic field, fall off. The third belt accomplishes the same for the other pole piece of the upper magnet. [http://books.google.com/books?id=fhEAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA633&lpg=PA633&dq=wetherill+magnet&source=web&ots=5ivwNQSM6V&sig=ItAb4vM8uTKzjkC_yYkMt76Equ8&hl=en]

==Page 292==

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

'''Hieronymus Wheel''' 
Seems to describe a roulette wheel. Google and the OED turn up nothing on "Hieronymus Wheel," but Pynchon's bizarre choice of language obviously suggests the Dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch Wikipedia entry]. Perhaps Pynchon alludes to a certain wheel in a Bosch painting? Bosch's "Circle of Hell" depicts a wheel coming out of (or going into) the mouth of a fishlike creature, but that doesn't really make sense of the term, either. See [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion page 273-295]]

'''Dieter''' 
Oldfashioned German first name. Pronunciation: [diːtər]. Short for Dietrich. Popular male name in Germany after WWII.
:Since "Dieter" is "the barkeep" the English word ''dieter'' for someone who prescibes a diet comes to mind.
::Seems like a stretch. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)
Possibly a reference to H. Dieter Zeh [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Dieter_Zeh]and his "Many Minds" interpretation of the multiverse issue [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation].[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]] 19:37, 1 January 2007 (PST)
:How so? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)

The multiple interpretations of what is going on in the bar, which will become more apparent in the following pages, suggest the exemplification of this solution to the "multiple universes" problem.

'''Nippon''' 
Japan in Japanese.

'''bellows''' 
For explanation, see [http://licm.org.uk/livingImage/BellowsCamera.html Bellows Camera].

==Page 293==

'''Japanese''' 
Sumimasen = "Pardon me" or "Excuse me" 
Bobusan desu = This is Bob 
Gonnusuringaa = "gunslinger" 
("Gansuringaa" is a more appropriate Japanese transliteration of "gunslinger", but no Japanese will recognize the word anyway.) 
mottomo abunai desu = he is extremely dangerous 
(This is a bizarre Japanese expression.) 
Anna koto! = That sort of thing! 
(This does not seem to make sense contextually.)

'''fulgurescence''' 
n : an emission in flashes or sparks, like lightning. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstruse_topics_in_Pynchon's_Against_the_Day#Abstruse_words]

'''profanity... much of it in Japanese''' 
The Japanese language has little profanity in the Western sense: words considered vulgar and which cannot be spoken in polite company. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_profanity#Japanese Wikipedia entry on Profanity in Japanese]

'''"The loss of clarity . . . . in the dark"''' 
See the note for Hieronymous wheel in [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion]]. If the "Hieronymous wheel" refers to a Bosch painting, perhaps this scene continues some kind fo parallel to Hell or something else. The painting includes several unknown creatures, including a barrel with legs, while “thrashed about” suggests the central fish monster image of the painting.
:Cf. also:
:*p. 136, "and for that brief instant it would be possible to move from one version to the other.", i.e. from "Venice of the Arctic" to the secular Venice.
:*p. 221, "Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really . . . . An unscheduled Explosion, introduced into the accustomed flow of the day, may easily open, now and then, passages to elsewhere,"
:*p. 230, "'Let us imagine a lateral world, set only infintesimally to the side of the one we think we know.'"

::Cf., also the transdimensional travel of Buckaroo Bonzai in the Pynchon inspired film, ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension'' (1984), especially the images of 8th-Dimensional creatures that Bonzai sees as he passes through the mountain. [http://imdb.com/title/tt0086856/ IMDB entry].
::Cf., further, the notion of a "multiverse," that is, a physical ur-structure, comprised of many, if not infinite universes, of which ours is only one. Several contemporary cosmological theories require that a multiverse exist, though its existence remains highly conjectural. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse Wikipedia entry].

'''It became possible to believe that one had been spirited, in the swift cascade of light-flashes, to some distant geography where creatures as yet unknown thrashed about, howling affrightedly, in the dark.''' 
A possible reference to the phantastic dreamscapes of the Japanese animation-filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Among his works, plausibly coded into this lengthy sentence, are ''Spirited Away'' (''Sen to Chihiro no kamikakukushi / The Spiriting-Away of Sen and Chihiro'', 2001) and ''Howl's Moving Castle'' (''Howl no ugoku shiro'', 2004).

'''"the American West--it is a spiritual territory! in which we seek to study the secrets of your--national soul''' 
It is possible that Pynchon needs a link from the Colorado Mine Wars to the Russo-Japanese War, but why place a ''Japanese Trade Delegation'' seeking to learn the spiritual secrets of the American West (which Merle Rideout correctly points out, lacks any) in the middle of a gunfight or brawl in Telluride? This could be a sly allusion, in a book about alternate histories and timelines, to arguably one of the best "alternate history" books ever written, Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle". In a 1962 in which the Axis won World war II, Nobusuke Tagomi is head of the ''Ranking Trade Mission'' to the (Japanese-occupied) Pacific States of America. He, like many Japanese, are fascinated with the artifacts of "pre-War US Culture", most especially with artifacts of the Old West and with its martial arts, which possess the spiritual power of "Historicity" (much as American occupation troops in Japan collected swords and studied Zen Buddhism). Tagomi, in short, collects old six-shooters, and practices quick-drawing and firing, a fact which is central to the book's action. Colorado figures heavily in the book's action as well; in the relatively free Rocky Mountain States (a buffer state between the PSA and the German-occupied USA) a solitary author has written a novel in which the US and Britain won World War II...[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_In_the_High_Castle]. And don't forget that this 'K' in Philip K. Dick's name stands for ''Kindred''...

'''packing out pyrites''' 
Mining fool's gold. Or wasting your resources by loading it into cars or skips instead of throwing it on the tail heap.

'''katana''' 
Japanese samurai sword.
'''

==Page 294==

'''Baron Akashi''' 
A Japanese general whose career included spying, but, anachronistically, his career did not begin until 1889. He was a spy in Europe during Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). So would he've been famous even to the lengths of backwoods CO? How much spyin' can a poor boy do if he's famous?
:The burden of fame doesn't seem to have kept James Bond or Austin Powers from succeeding in their espionage activities.
:Baron Akashi himself was famous, but his sidekick was not. The former didn't show up at Telluride but the latter did as 'some li'l laundry runner'.

'''planning a hoist''' 
''Heist'' is now universal, but originally it was a dialect form of ''hoist.''

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

==Page 295==

'''summer of '89''' 
Butch Cassidy and his accomplices robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride on 24 June 1889 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy#1889.E2.80.931894_.E2.80.94_early_robberies.2C_going_to_prison Wikipedia])

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

ATD 273-295

2009-04-25T11:14:24Z

Dusty: /* Page 285 */

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

==Page 273==

'''the electric''' 
The Denver Tramway Company, beginning in 1886, operated electric railcars between central Denver and outlying communities. [http://www.denvergov.org/AboutDenver/history_narrative_3.asp Citation]

==Page 274==

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

'''the Christian daring of Scarsdale's gesture''' 
To outside observers Vibe appears to be turning the other cheek.

'''drygulched''' 
In this context, ambushed and killed [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/drygulch drygulch].

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

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

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

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

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

'''the best-priced ore to be dug''' 
A mining engineer calculates the value of ore as the market price of its valuable constituents minus the cost of mining, concentrating and refining. Zinc metal brings less than gold or silver, but its ore may be attractive if it is rich in zinc and processing costs are low.

'''some bright engineer''' 
???

==Page 275==

'''concentrating mills''' 
First step in treating ore is concentration or beneficiation: breaking it into small pieces and separating the fragments that contain zinc from those that don't.

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

'''Wren Provenance''' 
Let's not forget that one manifestation of [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] was Victoria Wren. One could see this as the "provenance of wren?" There appear to be many allusions to [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''V.''] in ''ATD''.

'''heaps''' 
slag heaps. For their picture see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slag_heap Wikipedia].

'''Sons of Heaven section''' 
This is a term for the emperors of China.
Cf. references to the Chinese as 'the celestials', e.g. in the HBO series [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadwood_(TV_series) ''Deadwood''].

'''Bear Paw''' 
An almond-flavored yeast-raised pastry shaped shaped like an irregular semicircle resembling a bear's claw. Octopus Ink seems to be a joking reference to the coffee. [I think the speaker here (Wren) is making a joking reference to the strange food that the Chinese saloon serves, not to pastry and coffee.]

==Page 276==

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

'''"and there she was, not much on, what there was all black, tightly laced, stockings askew, standing in an open polyhedral of mirrors, examining herself from all the angles available. Transformed."''' 
Cf. Mélanie l' Heuremaudit in ''V.'', pp 397-8.

'''dress cavalry helmet''' 
A collection of pictures of various dress cavalry helmets can be found here: [http://news.webshots.com/album/165792861CIEtya cavalry helmet pictures].

==Page 277==

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

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

'''images of creatures''' 
The ancient Puebloans of both the Mesa Verde and Chaco centers left numerous images, called petroglyphs [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroglyph], many of which are as eerie as Pynchon suggests here (the Wikipedia article shows Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands National Park in Utah). They include figures of humans and other creatures, and of comets and the 1054 supernova now known as the Crab Nebula (there are more than 14 pages of pictures of ''Pueblo Petroglyphs'' on Google Images: [http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Pueblo+Petroglyphs&btnG=Search+Images]).

==Page 278==

'''the report''' 
??? (Answer:) Wren was on an anthropological expedition. This is the report on the findings of that expedition.

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

'''Albany... bar mirror''' 
???

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

==Page 279==

'''Bulkley Wells''' 
Easier to find under correct spelling Bulkeley. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0GDX/is_5_75/ai_65277661/pg_13 Here] is an account of some of his activities as mine manager and militia commander.

'''Ice Saw murder''' 
I saw murder?..eyewitness.??? Yes, a pun. Also, here is a picture of an [http://www.museum.state.il.us/RiverWeb/harvesting/archives/images/index.html?RollID=roll4&FrameID=Icesaw_450 ice saw], used to saw through ice for the purpose of ice fishing. And there is more fun and games if the saw is made of ice, recalling the scenario where there is a dead body, some blood and a pool of water. How did the body die? It was hacked to death with the saw made of ice which is now melted.

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

'''hurdy girls''' 
In an article titled [[http://www.phantomranch.net/folkdanc/articles/boysnite.htm Boys' Nite Out in Leadville]], the following:
<blockquote>
in the 187Os, the Colorado Miner described the hurdy-gurdy houses of Leadville as "breathing holes of hell, where customers imbibe torchlight whiskey and indulge in the quadrille and the whirling sinuosities of the waltz."
</blockquote>
and
<blockquote>"The very first women in the mining camps of California were German girls who were called hurdy-gurdy girls after the musical instruments of the same name, and the name also became attached to the dance hall. While a long way from virginal status, the first girls were so prized that they did not have to participate in prostitution"
</blockquote>

[[http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/cala/body.1_div.6.html Elsewhere]] mention is made of "hurdy-houses" which appear to be the same thing

==Page 280==

'''South Pacific islands''' 
Cf Margaret Mead (1901-78), a cultural anthropologist who visited and published extensively on Samoa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead#Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa_and_the_Mead-Freeman_controversy Wikipedia entry]

==Page 281==
[[Image:telluridetoday.gif|thumb|200px|right|Telluride as it appears today ([http://www.hillhaus.com/blog/index.php?blog=7&cat=30 source])]]
'''first city''' 
The first extensive use of the alternating current was in arc lighting, the kind used in street lighting. There is some dispute in histories as to which city was first, but Telluride was among, if not the, first.

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

'''"Beside the tracks at one bend stood a local lunatic"''' 
Like starting an amusement park ride.

'''"To-Hell-you-ride'''" 
To-Tell-u-ride

==Page 282==

'''level of hatred''' 
Cf capacitance?

'''drifts and stopes''' 
A drift is a horizontal or nearly horizontal underground opening. A stope is a usually steplike excavation underground for the removal of ore that is formed as the ore is mined in successive layers.

'''vagging bee''' 
"vag" is slang/shorthand for "vagrant"; the word "bee" as used here comes from the English dialect ''been'' or ''bean''. These were variations on ''boon'', once widely used in the sense of “voluntary help, given to a farmer by his neighbors, in time of harvest, haymaking, etc." In the early 1870s, the idea of bee began to be extended to situations that had some kind of communal basis, but weren’t farm work, some pretty sinister such as ''hanging bee'', ''lynching bee'' (this occurs in Mark Twain's ''Huckleberry Finn'') and ''whipping bee''. It is in this sense of a social gathering to perform some task that bee is used in ''Against the Day''. [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-spe2.htm From World Wide Words]

'''Bob Meldrum''' 
"Bad Man" Bob Meldrum served as agent to Pinkerton’s Detective Agency and a watchdog for the big cattle outfits around Little Snake River, gaining a reputation as a mean man with a quick trigger finger. He was rumored to be responsible for over fourteen wanton killings. Pynchon's characterisation of Meldrum (with his huge mustache and quick temper) is very similar to the Loony Tunes character Yosemite Sam.[http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35]

==Page 283==

'''''"joven"''''' 
Young fellow (Spanish).

'''Ellmore Disco''' 
Elmore = (H)ell More, i.e. More Hell?
:Possibly also an allusion to Elwood Blues, Dan Akroyd's character in '''The Blues Brothers'''.
:Or—with less distortion of the name—to Pynchon's near-contemporary Elmore Leonard, who writes many scenes of inventive and unconstrained violence.
::The explanation is simpler: Ellmore Disco sounds exactly as El Mordisco, The Bite in Spanish (remember, Ellmore is said to be Mexican, maybe "El Mordisco" was a nickname or alias he had there and when in the States he adapted to sound like an English Name). Why Ellmore Disco is El Mordisco I don't know. Perhaps being him the guy to see to in Telluride it means that he gets "a bite" (money) of the people who need favors from him.

'''headgear, tending to fancy black beavers''' 
Another instance of "beaver on the brain"?

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

'''Seven-Toed Pete''' 
Seven Card Stud

==Page 284==

'''battered 'from the day''''

'''thunderstorm-proof mayonnaise''' 
Mayo is an ATD leitmotif. There is a folk belief, enshrined in no less an authority than the ''Joy Of Cooking'', that mayonnaise will separate if it is made when a thunderstorm is imminent.

'''jaconet... tartalan... crepe lissé''' 
jaconet 1.a soft, white, lightweight cotton textile 2. cotton cloth glazed on one side and dyed. 
Tarlatan (another printing error, apparently) is a kind of thin open muslin (the general name for the most delicately woven cotton fabrics) used especially for ball-dresses. 
Crepe lissé is a thin, transparent, smooth or glossy gauze-like fabric, plain woven, without any twill, of highly twisted raw silk or other staple.

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

'''Grand Rapids style''' 
A simple, non-ornamental design style of furniture, with heavy emphasis
on office furniture. Mostly oak, it seems. From the 1860's, the office furniture was "mass-produced", whatever that means for the times. A kind of furniture allowing no "moral turpitude", as one online remark has it. (see Time.com use in 1978 below!)
Grand Rapids was a furniture center and major location for regular furniture exhibitions for decades before and after the time of ATD. Source: Grand Rapids Public Library catalog, passim.
:"The rooms are furnished in Grand Rapids style. The beds have pallets, but no springs, no Western-style mattresses, no top sheets; maid service consists of dumping a clean sheet and a blanket on the bed, to be made up by the guest."
:---Time.com...1978...on certain hotel rooms in China.

"Grand Rapids" doesn't imply a lack of ornamentation, not at all. The industry makes chairs and other items to the current taste. Once it was heavy oak bookcases with cornice moldings; today it's hi-tech office chairs. What marks Grand Rapids is design that lends itself to mass production.

:Oh, and those Chinese hotels? They bought perfectly good Grand Rapids bedsteads and dropped plywood in to save the price of springs. The pallets don't define the style!

'''Four Corners Boys''' 
Deuce and Sloat? Perhaps nicknamed so after what they did to Lake on page 269: "They took her down to the Four Corners..."

:the only historical reference I could find about a shooting in Cortez involving "Four Corners Boys" is rather recent: on May 29, 1998, City of Cortez Patrolman Dale Claxton was gunned down by three young men. Here's an exerpt from a news story dating back to october 2005: "The three suspects who made up '''the Four Corners Group''' appeared to be nothing more than weekend warriors and good old boys who talked more they acted. However that all changed when best friends Alan Pilon, Jason Wayne McVean and Robert Mathew Mason decided to take it to the big leagues. After the execution of Officer Claxton, the three men fled in the water truck heading toward Utah and its endless wilderness not known for its warmth and hospitable surroundings." Here's the complete article [http://www.policeone.com/writers/columnists/24Seven/articles/119760/]

==Page 285==

'''million apiece''' 
From 1900, a million dollars would have the value of @20 to 23 million in 2005, depending on ways of measuring purchasing value. It would have over $100 million dollars in value, measured against the worker's average wage at the time. See [http://www.measuringworth.com/ Measuring Worth site].
Note: The prediction is accurate. Think of such well-heeled communities as Aspen, Colorado that are to spring up.
'''music-hall Chinese''' 
What the hell is up with Pynchon's perennial mentions of China and Chinese?

There were a lot of Chinese in the west, starting with the gold rush in California, then building the transcontinental railway. Many remained, and Chinese laborers were pretty common out there.

'''C major... A miner''' 
A pun on the musical key of A minor. One octave of the C major scale consists of the notes c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c (all white keys on a piano). One octave of the A minor scale (technically, A natural minor) consists of the same note names as the C major scale, but starting on the "a" note, not on the "c" note: a-b-c-d-e-f-g-a. Because of this, A minor is called the relative minor of C major.

It is possible that the identical physical shape of the C major or A minor chord on the keyboard is depicted in Disco's smiling mouth, raising the possibility that he is missing 3 teeth corresponding to that schema. 'Ruinous' suggests some sort of dental deficiency. That, or he is missing all the teeth but those 3 which constitute the chord, though this would perhaps be benefit from a more explicit description.

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

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

'''Cal Rutan''' 
[[image:cal-rutan.jpg|thumb|Cal Rutan, on the left|right]]J. Calvin ("Cal") Rutan was the Telluride County sheriff during the labor struggles of 1902-1904.

==Page 286==

'''menudo''' 
Mexican tripe soup, so peppery it should come with a warning placard.

'''Loomis''' 
Loomis Disco. Possible reference to Adore Loomis, child victim of Homer Simpson in [[Nathanael West's]] novel ''[[The Day of the Locust]]'' (1939).

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

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

==Page 287==

'''chicharrones''' 
Fried pork skins.

'''''Ristras''''' '''of .... dark purple chilies''' 
Strings of .... dried red peppers.

'''tortas''' 
Mexican sandwiches.

'''tamales''' 
Cornmeal paste wrapped in corn or banana husks and stuffed with chicken, pork or turkey and/or vegetables, then steamed.

'''sixty-degree wedges''' 
One-sixth of a pie.

'''''Por poco te faltó La Blanca''''' 
Spanish: You just missed La Blanca.
:In fact, it's a literal translation to Spanish of the English sentence. It should have been "Por poco te encontrás con La Blanca" or "Acabas de perderte a La Blanca" to be accurate and have some meaning (unless Lupe is saying "You almost get short of cocaine", since "la blanca", "the white one", is one of the slang names for cocaine).

==Page 288==

'''Montrose''' 
A city on Colorado's Western Slope. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado Wikipedia entry].

'''popcorn snows''' 
Apparently an informal meteorological term for giant snowflakes.[http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=popcorn.snow&as_brr=0&sa=N&tab=pw Google]

The popcorn snows were first mentioned in L. Frank Baum's ''The Scarecrow of Oz'' (1915): 'In the Land of Mo the snow's made of popcorn, not frozen water crystals as it is in other places.' [http://www.halcyon.com/piglet/oziana/oz0726.htm Popcorn Snows].
Of course, Mr. Baum also wrote the classic ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900).

A popcorn blizzard also figures into one of the tales of Paul Bunyan, the legendary destroyer of American landscapes. It likely appeared in newspapers after 1920. This contributor taught fourth-grade reading last year and first came across it in a textbook retelling. More can be found at [http://www.jcs-group.com/mystery/bunyan.html].

Popcorn snow is also a term used to describe springtime snow conditions for skiing. Not far off base considering Telluride is now predominantly a ritzy ski town.

'''vanning''' 
in context, 'a winnowing device". Archaic, from American Heritage Dictionary.

'''Loopy''' 
Anglo pronunciation of Lupe, a diminutive of the given name Guadalupe. Lupita is another.

'''masa''' 
Spanish: mass; also short for ''masa harina'': corn (maize) flour.

'''''comal''''' 
A Mexican style skillet, usually made of cast iron in round or oval shape.

==Page 289==

'''''Pobrecito''''' 
Poor little boy.

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

==Page 290==

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

'''McBryan's''' 
???

'''trick animal''' 
???

==Page 291==

'''''seguro''''' 
Spanish: "sure"

'''parlor houses''' 
Brothels

'''Cosmopolitan Saloon and Gambling Club''' 
Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page_260|p.260]]. In Telluride, CO.

'''bullion day''' 
From ''Tomboy Bride: A Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West'' (1969) by Harriet Fish Backus:

:George was promoted to his position taking charge of recovering gold amalgam and delivery it to the mine office. Two or three times a month it was prepared for shipment on what was called Bullion Day.

:This was a day of importance on which the gold, free of quicksilver, was melted and poured into three bar-molds each approximately nine inches long, five wide and four deep, containing five hundred ounces and at that time worth ten thousand dollars. The crucible, filled with molten gold, was lifted from the furnace by a chain block and swung to a point directly above the molds in a proper position topour. Using long tongs the superintendent tipped the crucible just enough to let the white hot liquid flow into the molds. (p.71) [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZXe3snWpqgwC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=%22bullion+day%22+%2B+mining&source=web&ots=pWq7uBF5_8&sig=HmPILPJFR9ZPeSI688XCjG6Zm9U&hl=en]

'''Mr. Edison's scheme ... static electricity''' 
In the summer of 1900, Thomas Edison erected a plant at the Ortiz Mine in Dolores, New Mexico, to extract gold ore using static electricity. However, dry gravels could not be obtained and, due to the poor quality of the ore, the tests were deemed a failure.

'''Wetherill's magnet''' 
An apparatus for separating magnetic minerals from nonmagnetic minerals, a Wetherill magnetic separator consists of two horseshoe magnets placed side by side and parallel to each other. Three belts are employed with each pair of magnets. The first belt brings the ore in horizontally under one pole piece of the upper magnet. The second belt operates under the surface of the upper pole piece, rounds the tips, and moves up the bevel of its wedge, bringing with it magnetic particles which, as they get above the magnetic field, fall off. The third belt accomplishes the same for the other pole piece of the upper magnet. [http://books.google.com/books?id=fhEAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA633&lpg=PA633&dq=wetherill+magnet&source=web&ots=5ivwNQSM6V&sig=ItAb4vM8uTKzjkC_yYkMt76Equ8&hl=en]

==Page 292==

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

'''Hieronymus Wheel''' 
Seems to describe a roulette wheel. Google and the OED turn up nothing on "Hieronymus Wheel," but Pynchon's bizarre choice of language obviously suggests the Dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch Wikipedia entry]. Perhaps Pynchon alludes to a certain wheel in a Bosch painting? Bosch's "Circle of Hell" depicts a wheel coming out of (or going into) the mouth of a fishlike creature, but that doesn't really make sense of the term, either. See [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion page 273-295]]

'''Dieter''' 
Oldfashioned German first name. Pronunciation: [diːtər]. Short for Dietrich. Popular male name in Germany after WWII.
:Since "Dieter" is "the barkeep" the English word ''dieter'' for someone who prescibes a diet comes to mind.
::Seems like a stretch. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)
Possibly a reference to H. Dieter Zeh [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._Dieter_Zeh]and his "Many Minds" interpretation of the multiverse issue [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-minds_interpretation].[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]] 19:37, 1 January 2007 (PST)
:How so? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 13:28, 5 February 2007 (PST)

The multiple interpretations of what is going on in the bar, which will become more apparent in the following pages, suggest the exemplification of this solution to the "multiple universes" problem.

'''Nippon''' 
Japan in Japanese.

'''bellows''' 
For explanation, see [http://licm.org.uk/livingImage/BellowsCamera.html Bellows Camera].

==Page 293==

'''Japanese''' 
Sumimasen = "Pardon me" or "Excuse me" 
Bobusan desu = This is Bob 
Gonnusuringaa = "gunslinger" 
("Gansuringaa" is a more appropriate Japanese transliteration of "gunslinger", but no Japanese will recognize the word anyway.) 
mottomo abunai desu = he is extremely dangerous 
(This is a bizarre Japanese expression.) 
Anna koto! = That sort of thing! 
(This does not seem to make sense contextually.)

'''fulgurescence''' 
n : an emission in flashes or sparks, like lightning. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstruse_topics_in_Pynchon's_Against_the_Day#Abstruse_words]

'''profanity... much of it in Japanese''' 
The Japanese language has little profanity in the Western sense: words considered vulgar and which cannot be spoken in polite company. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_profanity#Japanese Wikipedia entry on Profanity in Japanese]

'''"The loss of clarity . . . . in the dark"''' 
See the note for Hieronymous wheel in [[Talk:ATD_273-295|discussion]]. If the "Hieronymous wheel" refers to a Bosch painting, perhaps this scene continues some kind fo parallel to Hell or something else. The painting includes several unknown creatures, including a barrel with legs, while “thrashed about” suggests the central fish monster image of the painting.
:Cf. also:
:*p. 136, "and for that brief instant it would be possible to move from one version to the other.", i.e. from "Venice of the Arctic" to the secular Venice.
:*p. 221, "Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really . . . . An unscheduled Explosion, introduced into the accustomed flow of the day, may easily open, now and then, passages to elsewhere,"
:*p. 230, "'Let us imagine a lateral world, set only infintesimally to the side of the one we think we know.'"

::Cf., also the transdimensional travel of Buckaroo Bonzai in the Pynchon inspired film, ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension'' (1984), especially the images of 8th-Dimensional creatures that Bonzai sees as he passes through the mountain. [http://imdb.com/title/tt0086856/ IMDB entry].
::Cf., further, the notion of a "multiverse," that is, a physical ur-structure, comprised of many, if not infinite universes, of which ours is only one. Several contemporary cosmological theories require that a multiverse exist, though its existence remains highly conjectural. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse Wikipedia entry].

'''It became possible to believe that one had been spirited, in the swift cascade of light-flashes, to some distant geography where creatures as yet unknown thrashed about, howling affrightedly, in the dark.''' 
A possible reference to the phantastic dreamscapes of the Japanese animation-filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki. Among his works, plausibly coded into this lengthy sentence, are ''Spirited Away'' (''Sen to Chihiro no kamikakukushi / The Spiriting-Away of Sen and Chihiro'', 2001) and ''Howl's Moving Castle'' (''Howl no ugoku shiro'', 2004).

'''"the American West--it is a spiritual territory! in which we seek to study the secrets of your--national soul''' 
It is possible that Pynchon needs a link from the Colorado Mine Wars to the Russo-Japanese War, but why place a ''Japanese Trade Delegation'' seeking to learn the spiritual secrets of the American West (which Merle Rideout correctly points out, lacks any) in the middle of a gunfight or brawl in Telluride? This could be a sly allusion, in a book about alternate histories and timelines, to arguably one of the best "alternate history" books ever written, Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle". In a 1962 in which the Axis won World war II, Nobusuke Tagomi is head of the ''Ranking Trade Mission'' to the (Japanese-occupied) Pacific States of America. He, like many Japanese, are fascinated with the artifacts of "pre-War US Culture", most especially with artifacts of the Old West and with its martial arts, which possess the spiritual power of "Historicity" (much as American occupation troops in Japan collected swords and studied Zen Buddhism). Tagomi, in short, collects old six-shooters, and practices quick-drawing and firing, a fact which is central to the book's action. Colorado figures heavily in the book's action as well; in the relatively free Rocky Mountain States (a buffer state between the PSA and the German-occupied USA) a solitary author has written a novel in which the US and Britain won World War II...[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_In_the_High_Castle]. And don't forget that this 'K' in Philip K. Dick's name stands for ''Kindred''...

'''packing out pyrites''' 
Mining fool's gold. Or wasting your resources by loading it into cars or skips instead of throwing it on the tail heap.

'''katana''' 
Japanese samurai sword.
'''

==Page 294==

'''Baron Akashi''' 
A Japanese general whose career included spying, but, anachronistically, his career did not begin until 1889. He was a spy in Europe during Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). So would he've been famous even to the lengths of backwoods CO? How much spyin' can a poor boy do if he's famous?
:The burden of fame doesn't seem to have kept James Bond or Austin Powers from succeeding in their espionage activities.
:Baron Akashi himself was famous, but his sidekick was not. The former didn't show up at Telluride but the latter did as 'some li'l laundry runner'.

'''planning a hoist''' 
''Heist'' is now universal, but originally it was a dialect form of ''hoist.''

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

==Page 295==

'''summer of '89''' 
Butch Cassidy and his accomplices robbed the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride on 24 June 1889 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy#1889.E2.80.931894_.E2.80.94_early_robberies.2C_going_to_prison Wikipedia])

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