Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 219-242

2008-06-17T15:18:17Z

Gelitripping: /* Page 220 */

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

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

:Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence

:In [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''CoL49''], TRP states at least twice that the Pacific Ocean is "the hole left by the moon's tearing-free and the monument to her exile." ([http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_3 ''The Crying of Lot 49'', p.41])

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

[[image:Ts_seal.gif|thumb|200px|right|Theosophical Society Seal]]
'''Theosophical Society''' 
The Theosophical Society was founded in New York City, USA, in 1875 by H.P. Blavatsky, Henry Steel Olcott, William Quan Judge and others. Its initial objective was the investigation, study and explanation of mediumistic phenomena. After a few years Olcott and Blavatsky moved to India and established the International Headquarters at Adyar, Madras (Chennai). There, they also became interested in studying Eastern religions, and these were included in the Society's agenda. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theosophical_Society Wikipedia entry]
"Its post-blavatskian fragments" refers to the schism that occured between some of the founding members after the passing of H.P. Blavatsky in 1891.

'''Society for Psychical Research''' 
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a non-profit organization which started in the United Kingdom and was later imitated in other countries. Its stated purpose is to understand "events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal by promoting and supporting important research in this area" and to "examine allegedly paranormal phenomena in a scientific and unbiased way."[1] It was founded in 1882 by a group of eminent thinkers including Edmund Gurney, Frederic William Henry Myers, William Fletcher Barrett, Henry Sidgwick, and Edmund Dawson Rogers. The Society's headquarters are in Marloes Road, London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Psychical_Research Wikipedia entry]

[[image:Gdrosycross.gif|thumb|140px|right|Rosy Cross of the Golden Dawn]]
'''Order of the Golden Dawn''' 
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or, more commonly, the Golden Dawn) was a magical order of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, practicing a form of theurgy and spiritual development. William Wynn Westcott, also a member of the Theosophical Society, appears to have been the initial driving force behind the establishment of the Golden Dawn. See also the aforementioned schism within the Theosophical Society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_the_Golden_Dawn Wikipedia entry]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was—at least until well up in the 19th century) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to. At the time of the action, Lew's offense against taste is not to wear tartan (see below in this entry) but to wear a tartan he isn't entitled to wear.

The previous statement doesn't quite jibe. In the late 17 cent. it was prosecutable for any '''Scot''' (read Highlander) to wear a tartan. Those tartans we see ascribed to clans were creations made to please Queen Victoria. Tartans and the Kilt are from Scottish '''and Irish''' Clans; from the oppressed. Thus, the fun in the line comes from the fact that an '''''authentic''''' tartan was false to begin with, but that doesn't keep Nigel from ''lording'' the ''fact'' that Lew's argyle sox are not up to snuff. 
Kilts came from an earlier garment which covered more of the body than today's piece, and those in plaid were called '''''Breacan''''', meaning partially colored or speckled. The plaids also came in trews (trousers), and ruanas (shawls). Many had uniformity in design, but probably because those were the colors available and thus recognized as part of a family, clan or sept. 

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

Anyone familiar with Ceremonial Magick is aware of Aleister Crowley.

Crowley was famously Bi-Sexual, responsible for one of the most famous Tarot Decks---the "Thoth" deck, and was involved in spycraft for British Intelligence and---it is rumored---was a double agent for the Germans as well.

Nicholas Nookshaft is a parody version of Crowley.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

'''Yashmeen Halfcourt''' 
Her initials YH are the first half of the Tetragrammaton -- YHVH or YHWH in English.

'''seventeenth degree Adept''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

On the other hand, T.W.I.T. is centered on Tarot cards, so the relationship between number and any correspondences to the Tarot would be very much to the point. In this case, the Major Arcana assigned to the number 17 is the [http://www.angelpaths.com/majors/star.html Star]. The Crowley-associated system for Tarot consists of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth Thoth ] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot Tarot] deck, along with Crowley's "explanatory" [http://tinyurl.com/yu4ye3 'Book of Thoth']:

:As has been explained elsewhere. It refers to the Zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer. The picture represents Nuith, our Lady of the Stars. For the full meaning of this sentence it is necessary to understand the first chapter of the ''Book of the Law''. . . .

The full text can be found at [http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_thoth34.htm About.com's] site on the Thoth "Star" card, albiet with the wrong card illustrated, in this case atu 18, "The Moon".

:'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzaddik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Auberon Halfcourt''' 
Auberon means royal or noble bear. 
Punning, "Au" is the chemical symbol for gold, thus, "Golden Bear", mascotte of UC Berkeley. 

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
Summer capital of the British Raj in India in the Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]. 
A terminus of the Kalka-Simla railway line (built 1906) aka the "British Jewel of the Orient." 
Named for the goddess Shyamala Devi, an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Kali.

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship. I believe the great game stands for Espionage in the Age of Gentlemen, the substance of Pynchon's '''''Under the Rose'''''. 

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year. 

This seems as good an instance as any to question the insistence of some here to pin down the exact date (and season?). Pynchon doesn't knock it to the wall, doesn't find cause to bother and I think the reason for that is obvious... the ambiguity lends a freer hand with which to paint. So don't fuck with the butterfly on the wheel. 

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

All parallels between past and present are worth considering. They don't have to be direct references. The present-day Ernst August - famous for pissing on the Turkish Pavilion at EXPO 2000 - carries on the family tradition.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was founded to subvert the '''''United Irishmen''''' of Wolfe Tone by agitating against Protestant and Catholic community. It was hostile to the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence. In the 1880's it developed the Ulster Unionist Party to politically parry Parliamentary attempts at Home Rule for Ireland.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland. 
This was and still is known as "Marching Season" in Northern Ireland; the time when 'parades' are traditionally a source of fear and violence. Nearly all the parades are organized by the Orange Lodges and hence anti-Catholic.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character ([[ATD_1-25#Page 18|p.18]])

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Also, acronymically, the GBH=Grievous Bodily Harm, the British term for felonious assault.

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to deepening autumn.

One of two possible explanations: 
1. The T.W.I.T. is perhaps using an ascendent or lunar based astrological system rather than the solar-based system commonly used in the West. This resolves the apparent contradiction of a Gemini in autumn since the ascendent travels through all signs every 24 hours and the moon travels through the entire zodiac once a month. For example, Vedic astrology looks primarily to the ascendent, then the moon, and lastly the sun to study respectively the body, the mind and the spirit of the native. Basnight does have a mind that operates on two planes -- hence a moon in Gemini reading. 
2. The explosion carried Lew to a place on the other side of the Sun. Deep autumn would then be November 23 to December 21th, our sign of Sagittarius.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

Check out the [[Cricket_in_Against_the_Day|"Cricket in ''Against the Day'' article]] by Peter Vernon, which is an in-depth look at, well, cricket in ''Against the Day''.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Mason & Dixon''], as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'([http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_50:_484-490 ''M&D'' p.485]) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

"Create More Dukes" has a second meaning, suggested by the odd choice of verb. ''Duke'' in Britain refers to the highest rank of nobility, and fittingly there are not many of them. At present only about a dozen people hold the title. Since sometime in the 1870s new dukes have been ''created'' (by decree of the monarch) only in the royal family. Most recently at the time of the action, Queen Victoria had promoted a run-of-the-mill marquess to the dukedom of Fife to set the stage for his marriage to one of her granddaughters. If some group of activists thought the nation needed to beef up its peerage, they might adopt the slogan found here as a graffito. 
[http://www.ukdukes.co.uk/ Here is a colorful summary] of UK dukes today and through history, although it is '''unsound''' on coats of arms and such. [http://website.lineone.net/~david.beamish/index.htm This site] has more names and fewer pictures, listing all the titles (from dukes to lowly barons) created since the year Dot.

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

:Obviously more than a little joke. Refers to Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827)[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace Wikipedia Entry], aka "the French Newton", probably the greatest mathematician and astronomer of his time. Most of the scientific principles derived from his findings are explored in AtD (from lumineferous ether to the existence of black holes). Laplace was also instrumental in the advancement of the science of probabilities.
:The ever quotable Laplace, much loved by atheists worldwide, famously replied to Napoléon, when he asked why there was no mention of God in his treatise on astronomy: "Sir, there was no need for that hypothesis". Also responsible for what is known as the Laplacian principle: "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness."

:The literal translation of Laplace is "The Place".

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" could possibly be female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).

:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized, plus Renfrew himself wants to meet the Bomber. That leaves the Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas.

:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.

:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.

:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government. De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

::Alternately, there's no clear answer and not enough clues (especially considering the role of time, forces beyond anyone's control, double agents, etc.). This Gentleman Bomber can be any person from Lew's past or a deja vu from the future. The G. Bomber seems to be England's answer to the Kieselguhr Kid, a nebulous personality working against the forces of history. The important thing about this situation is not the Bomber's identity, but the fact that Lew is being thrown into an assignment much like his last one in America (and we know how that ended...) He's obviously not very happy about it, and not inclined to tell anyone what he knows, or might know.

:: For what it's worth, my take was also Webb, especially in the context of all the bilocation business. It isn't "Webb" but evil alter-land "Webb"! (no dig on ya'll Brit folk intended, although the "...''my'' stay at Cambridge" bit was just wonderful :)

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

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

ATD 1018-1039

2008-03-30T20:06:57Z

Gelitripping: /* Page 1037 */

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

==Page 1018==

'''All Europe sweltered''' 
A possible jump in time of the action. I can't find year-by-year weather records going back to the 1910s, though.

1911 seems to have been a particularly hot summer in [http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1188881.ece Great Britain] and [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Wetterereignissen_im_20._Jahrhundert/1910er Central Europe (german Wikipedia)].

Perhaps more a reference (paramorphic mirroring) of present-day Europe's heat waves, attributed to climate change.

:If not for the point made in the next paragraph of this annotation, I might protest that ''AtD'' has been respectful of such historical "anchors" as weather, wars and expositions. A major heat wave in the book, I expect to find reflecting a historical one. Still . . . .

The great daylight comet of january 1910 and Halley's in April pass by with no noticeable effect on the world's weather nor our impressionable characters.

'''Mountains of the Moon ''' 
A small mountain range in central Africa between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, long though falsely supposed to be the source of the Nile. Today called the Ruwenzori Range.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountains_of_the_Moon_%28Africa%29 Wikipedia]

==Page 1019==

'''the well-known Tour d'Argent in Paris''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_d'Argent Wikipedia says] the establishment is over 400 years old.

'''Balthazar''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_bottle Wine bottle] with a capacity of 12 liters, which equals 16 standard bottles.

'''Not long before, Pugnax had convinced her to come aboard''' 
So the action here is set before Kseniya's encounter with Ljubica? 

Or possibly some re-writing has taken place and the two passages no longer match up. Two reasons for this analysis. The description here "fiercely beautiful" does not seem to match the one on p.969 "something like a shaggy brown and blond bear with a kindly enough face". Also, despite saying that Pugnax and Kseniya only recently met, it seems that the action here is set after Kseniya's encounter with Ljubica, by which time Pugnax and Kseniya were already a steady item. We have a pretty much unbroken narrative time-line with the CoC from here until after the war, with no mention of watching over Reef, Yashmeen and Ljubica during this time.

I don't see a problem with the timeline. Pugnax and Ksenija haven't met "recently" but "not long before", simply meaning before p. 969, where she has a "task... to steer everyone to safety without appearing to." i.e. she is doing so at the behest of the CoC, whom she presumably had previously joined aboard the Inconvenience. As for the discrepancy in description, I'd point out that the narrative is focalized through Reef's viewpoint on p.969, and despite his penchant for Papillons, the fact that his description of Ksenija is somewhat less glowing than the description from Pugnax's viewpoint here shouldn't be that surprising. [[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]] 01:32, 26 August 2007 (PDT)

A female Balkan sheepdog also appears in ''Lot 49'': The crew of the midget submarine "Justine" in the movie "Cashiered" is comprised of Baby Igor, his father, and Murray the St Bernard. On shore ("should there be a happy ending") are a woman for each "and even a female sheepdog with eyes for Murray the St Bernard" (Lippincott edition P. 31-32, Bantam paperback P. 18-19).

==Page 1020==

'''sympiezometer''' 
Form of barometer invented in 1818, [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Barometer says the 1911 ''Britannica.'']

'''first ''Inconvenience'' after the little-known Battle of Desconocido''' 
Another allusion to naval customs, an item claimed from a ship and carried aboard her namesake. ''Desconocido'' is Spanish: unknown.

==Page 1021==

'''Pythagorean or Counter-Earth . . . Antichthon . . . the Sun is always between us''' 
Fictional device also used in Nabokov's ''Ada'' (though not in such a powerful way). People from one Earth can visit the other, speak the language, recognize the topography, but see differences in history and customs; neither planet can ever be aware of the other in the normal course of things.

The Counter-Earth resolves the problem of Sirius rising in the summer [[ATD_892-918#Page_901|(annotations to page 901).]] When one Earth is at January in its orbit, the other is at July.

Cf [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Earth Antichthon]. Is Antichthon related to Anti-stone? If you say "Antichthon" in a manner similar to Reef's forays into Italian, French, etc., you can almost hear "anti-stone."

'''Philolaus of Tarentum'''

Excellent article at [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/philolaus/ Philolaus]. A leading Pythogorean, a century after Pythagoras and a senior contemporary to Socrates. Plato mentions meeting him in Italy, and Aristotle gets his information on the akousmata and beans from him.

'''X-ray Spex''' 
Previously mentioned on [[ATD_588-614#Page_588|page 588]].

'''American Republic . . . passed so irrevocably into the control of the evil and moronic''' 
We're using Pynchon's ball, so we'll play by his rules. The Chums have journeyed from the other Earth to this one, not the other way around.

H.L. Mencken famously referred to the United States as "The Moronic Inferno." He also (Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920) wrote: "As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." This was in the midst of the Harding campaign, but Time is becoming increasingly confused here, and no one is bragging about George W. Bush's intellect either. 
Wow, that Mencken quote is prophetic...

'''Foundational Memorandum''' 
The Star Trek Prime Directive again; see [[ATD_1-25#Page_8|annotations to page 8]] for its first occurrence.

==Page 1022==

'''Baklashchan''' 
Possibly a pun: "backlash chan" -- the land of backlashes. 
Has resonance with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balochistan_%28region%29 Baluchistan] palteau found in the area of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.
Or can refer to a backlash as in a reactionary political/social movement?

'''Bactrian camel''' 
Dromedary vs. Bactrian: the mnemonic says count the humps in the first letter. Bactrian, two humps. One could say, a "bi-cameral" camel -- the "bi" motiff appears again. Also, this is the second mention of the bactrian camel. The first is on p. 431.

'''full moon''' 
Assuming this scene takes place on the same planet we are on now, the first full moon of the early autumn of 1914 took place at exactly, 5:59 am. (UT/GMT) on October 4th. Since the moon is almost full here, this scene probably took place on the night of Oct. 2 or 3rd. I have not found any event of note correlating with these dates -- though [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Parsons Jack Whiteside Parsons], occultist and JPL co-founder was born on October 2nd, 1914. And if you read his bio, this guy belongs in a Pynchon novel.

'''World-Island''' 
[[ATD 429-459#Page_433|See annotation at page 433]]

==Page 1023==

'''Lwów''' 
Name of Lviv (Lvov, L'vov) at times when it was under Polish rule.

'''the High Tatra''' 
Tatra mountain range in Slovakia.

'''Cyrenaica''' 
Eastern coastal part of Libya, bordering Egypt on its east.

'''baleful mists above West Flanders''' 
Much of the horror of the World War was centered here (Ypres, Menin, Passchendaele). The "mists" could also come from the use of poison gas, alluded to earlier.

==Page 1024==

'''''Pomne o Golodayushchiki''''' 
Russian: Remember the Starving. Incorrect. Should be: ''Pomni o Golodayushchikh''.

'''''Dobro pozhalovat''''' 
Russian: Welcome!

'''Tsar-Bell of Moscow''' 
Famous bell that proved too heavy for the tower it was intended for; it was displayed on the ground for centuries (and may still be). See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Kolokol Tsar Kolokol & its picture].

'''cranberry-flavored beer''' 
Kvass, traditional Russian beverage made by fermenting a mash of stale rye bread. It can be flavored with, among other things, cranberries.

'''since a great influenza epidemic''' 
The epidemic had gone on for several years before it burst out at the end of the World War and killed millions. 
See [http://virus.stanford.edu/uda/ The Influenza Pandemic of 1918] of Stanford Website.

==Page 1025==

'''''podlets''''' 
Russian: scoundrel.

'''''Shtab''''' 
Russian (from German): staff, support center, headquarters.

'''the English Slander of Women Act of 1891''' 
"As late as the 18th century in England, only imputation of crime or social disease and casting aspersions on professional competence constituted slander, and no offenses were added until ''the Slander of Women Act in 1891'' made imputation of unchastity illegal." 
— from [http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-9029733 Britannica Concise Encyclopedia].

==Page 1026==

'''Mount Blanc''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Blanc Mount Blanc], with a height of 15,800 ft at its summit, is the highest mountain in Western Europe. It is situated at the French/Italian border with each country claims the summit as her own. Mount Blanc is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the world.

'''the Revolution''' 
On November 7, 1917, the Russian Bolsheviks overthrew Alexander Kerensky's democratic Provisional Government in Petrograd (St Petersburg) in a virtually bloodless coup. See [http://www.guysboroughacademy.ednet.ns.ca/reds/november_revolution.htm November Revolution].

'''''ostinati''''' 
In music, ostinato refers to a short phrase that is repeated several times. The 2-note bass pattern from "Jaws" is an ostinato, as is the opening bass part to "Sweet Emotion" by Aerosmith and the bass part to Pachelbel's Canon. Any repeated riff in a rock song is an ostinato, from the opening guitar riff of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" by the Rolling Stones to the voiced "Take a Chance"s by ABBA. Staccato is a direction in music meaning that the notes should be performed in an abrupt, sharp, clear-cut manner. It certainly pertains to machine-gun fire and Pynchon has the ostinati and the staccato "scored", which is also a musical term meaning the wriiten form of a musical composition.

==Page 1027==

'''Konechno''' 
Russian: of course.

'''Japanese-American expeditionary force''' 
Of 1919, sent to Vladivostok and environs against the Bolsheviks. 
:Why Japanese-American ?
Wished to take adantage of the Russian turmoil after the November Revolution of 1917 and to seize and annex the Russian maritime provinces, the Japanese landed their first troops in the Russian Far East in the spring of 1918. By late 1918 they had 70,000 troops in Eastern Siberia to establish a regular occupation regime. Siberia east of Lake Baikal was Japanese territory until they withdrew in October 1922. 
Contrary to Japanese clear objective, the United States had no well-defined policy toward Russia. In August 1918 the United States dispatched from the Philippines to Siberia an expeditionary force that ultimately numbered 7,000 with the intructions to help rebuild the anti-German front but to refrain from any intervention in internal Russian affairs. The Bolsheviks treated the Americans as hostile interventionists and the Whites regarded them as Bolshevik sympathizers. Until the spring of 1919, American troops in Siberia carried out ordinary garrison duties and assumed responsibility for the operations of the Tran-Siberian Railroad. The American Expeditionary Force left Siberia in April 1920. 
:—— from Richard Pipes, ''Russia under the Bolshevik Regime'' (1993)
According to George Kennan's July 1976 article in ''Foreign Affair'': 
The United States' sending troops was not "motivated by an intention that these forces should be employed with a view to unseating the Soviet government . . . the decision ha[s] been taken . . . in conjunction with the World War then in progress, and for the purposes related primarily to the prosecution of that war."

'''relocation of Admiral Kolchak's government from Omsk''' 
A. V. Kolchak (1873-1920), an organizer of the White counterrevolutionary movement in the Russian Civil War, dictator of a realm in Siberia, the Urals and the Far East. In our history he was captured and shot. 
Shortly after the 1917 November Revolution (in January, 1918), the Socialist Revolutionary Party (Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_720|page 720]]) and its allies declared Siberia independent and, in July, formed a government in Omsk. [http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/alexander_kolchak.htm Admiral Alexander Kolchak] joined the Omsk government as Minister of War in October, and in December he staged a coup that made him its leader. Kolchak's campaign against the Bolsheviks reached its zenith in mid April 1919, when he pushed the Reds west of the Perm-Orenburg-Caspian-Sea line back beyond the Ural Mountaines and advanced to the Volga. His fortune changed for the worse after May, 1919, however, and on November 14, 1919, his government retreated from Omsk to Irkutsk (Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_764|page 764: Irkutsk]]) .
:This happened after the event on page 1028; ie. one full year after the World War I armistice

==Page 1028==

'''Martinmas''' 
Feast day of St. Martin of Tours, November 11.

'''an armistice''' 
The agreement between the Germans and the Allies to end World War I on November 11, 1918.

==Page 1029==

'''Consequences may never end''' 
They certainly haven't. The Balkans remain a powderkeg, and the Iraq War is a direct consequence of the destruction and partition of the Ottoman Empire in World war I. But the consequences of any act never really end...

'''Nebo-tovarishch''' 
Russian: sky-comrade. A grammatically incorrect compound. It comes out as if the '''sky''' is the comrade. Should be something like ''tovarishch po nebu'' or ''nebesnyi tovarishch''.

'''repeating great vertical circles''' 
Like hot-air balloons (nondirigibles) in the "box" outside Albuquerque, New Mexico.

'''standard cubic feet''' 
Measure of quantity of gas: number of cubic feet that would be occupied if the gas were at "standard conditions," i.e., 60 degrees Fahrenheit (usually) and 1 atmosphere or 14.7 pounds per square inch.

==Page 1030==

'''Sodality of Ætheronauts''' 
A sodality is a society; the ætheronauts use the æther as their medium of flight

:Recalls Cyprian Latewood's [[ATD_946-975#Page 961|Brides of Night]].

The word can have a religious connotation, reminding us of the idea of the Chums as the "compassionate ones," and of their and the Russians' aid during World War I.

'''nitronaphthol''' 
Fuel suitable for use in a compression-ignition engine.

'''chaffinch''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaffinch Wikipedia]

'''Their names were Heartsease and Primula, Glee, Blaze, and Viridian''' 
:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartsease '''Heartsease'''] is a flower - ''Viola tricolor'' - which has the medicinal quality of lifting the spirits, i.e., "Mends a broken heart"

:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primula '''Primula'''] - the Primrose (''Primula vulgaris'') has the [http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Primula medicinal quality] of inducing sleep

:'''Viridian''', from the Latin for "green," and she's definitely "green", as demonstrated by this scolding of Chick Counterfly: "Fumes are not the future," declared Viridian. "Burning dead dinosaurs and whatever they ate ain't the answer, Crankshaft Boy." ([[#Page 1031|p. 1031]])

'''each had found her way to this Ætherist sorority through the mysteries of inconvenience...''' 
The members of the Sodality have backstories reminiscent of the Lost Boys in ''Peter Pan.'' Also reminiscent of the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=F#ff Floundering Four in ''Gravity's Rainbow'']:
:"Each of the FF is, in fact, gifted while at the same time flawed by his gift unfit by it for human living."

'''mysteries of inconvenience''' 
Might as well capitalize it. The Inconvenience and her crew do indeed work by making small alterations in Time and History, one of many forces doing so, and those forces are multiplying rapidly. There are several references to such minor "inconveniences" throughout the book; here such "inconveniences" create yet more forces (The Sodality) able to create yet more alterations...

==Page 1031==

'''list of variables . . . Reynolds Number''' 
Quantities describing the æther as if it were a real medium like air. 
In fluid dynamics, [http://www.answers.com/topic/reynolds-number-2 the Reynolds Number] (Re), named after the British engineer Osborne Reynods (1842-1912), is a ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces. At low Reynolds number where viscous forces are dominant the flow is laminar; at high Reynolds number inertial forces dominant the flow is turbulent. Typical values of Reynolds Number: blood flow in brain ~ 100; blood flow in aorta ~ 1,000; major league baseball pitch (air over the ball) ~ 200,000; air over a cruising aircraft ~ 10,000,000.

'''boundary layer . . . the boundary-layer thickness''' 
[http://www.answers.com/boundary%20layer The boundary layer] is a thin layer of flowing gas or liquid in contact with a solid surface due to the fluid viscous effect. The fluid in the boundary layer is subjected to shear forces, and the fluid velocity varies from zero at the surface to a maximum nearly the same as the free stream velocity. The location of the maximum velocity in the boundary layer defines [http://www.answers.com/boundary%20layer%20thickness its thickness] from the solid surface. In other words, the boundary-layer thickness is the distance required for the fluid velocity rising from zero to approach its free stream value. In one of many mathematical expressions, the boundary-layer thickness can be expressed as proportional to the square root of the product of kinematic viscosity and time.
:Since the boundary-layer thickness is not proportional to the kinematic viscosity (unit: ''cm²/s'') alone, so one can NOT say the boundary-layer thickness is inversely proportional to time (unit: ''s''). The product of kinematic viscosity and time will have — ''cm²/s • s → cm²'' as its unit, the square root of it will give ''cm'', the proper unit for boundary layer thickness.

'''kinematic''' 
Dynamics, the branch of the science of mechanics that studies the motion of objects, is in turn sudivided into two fields: kinetics, which studies the forces that produce or change motion; and kinematics, which studies the motion of objects independently of their productive forces.

'''Like Sidney and Beatrice Webb around here''' 
Cf [[ATD_588-614#Page_602|page 602: Sidney . . . Kensington Sid]]. 
Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield PC (13 July 1859 – 13 October 1947): British socialist, economist and reformer, normally referred to in the same breath as his wife, Beatrice Webb. They early members of the Fabian Society in 1884, along with G. Bernard Shaw, turning it into the pre-eminent political-intellectual society in England in the Edwardian era and beyond.
In H.G. Wells's The New Machiavelli (1911), the Webbs, as 'the Baileys', are unmercifully lampooned as short-sighted, bourgeois manipulators.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Webb], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Webb]

==Page 1032==

'''City of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels''' 
Los Angeles was founded in 1781 as "Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles." 

'''"the boys expressed wonder at how much more infected with light the night-time terrains passing below them had become [...] they felt themselves in uneasy witness to some final conquest, a triumph over night whose motive none could quite grasp"''' 
Compare: "...within the daylit and obvious and taken-for-granted has always lain, as if in wait, the dark itinerary, the corrupted pilgrim's guide, the nameless Station before the first, in the lightless uncreated, where salvation does not yet exist." ([[ATD_557-587#Page 566|p. 566]]), "daylit America . . . its steadfast denial of night" ([[ATD_724-747#Page 732|page 732]]), and ''AtD'' epigraph, Thelonious Monk's "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light." 
Also: "we make our journies out there in the low light of the future, and return to the bourgeois day and its mass delusion of safety" (p. 942)

==Page 1033==

'''subjunctive mood . . . ''two-word vulgarism''''' 
In an expression like "Screw you," the verb is not in the imperative mood but in the subjunctive. I think. (Yes, because it's not factual but hypothetical). And the two-word vulgarism may be rather similar to that phrase, too. (The subjunctive mood is a mood that represents an act or state (not as a fact but) as contingent or possible. It is a grammatical form of verbs implying hypothetical action or condition. Subjunctives are italicized in these sentences: “If Mr. Stafford were (not “was”) fluent in French, he could communicate with his employees more effectively”; “If Sheila had been here, she would have helped us with our math.”) 
:Lindsay has been a pedant right from the start, and he takes offence at Darby's implied criticism of his ridiculously contorted sentence ("a corporate system any of whose trivial shortcomings with which you still find yourself obliged to quibble"), perhaps hinting that he should have used a subjunctive ("with which you still found yourself"?). Darby shows that he understands the subjunctive ("Long live capitalism"). In languages that use the subjunctive consistently, the third person singular of the subjunctive functions as a kind of imperative (Fiat lux - let there be light). So "Fuck you" is a kind of subjunctive. More generally, it's referring to the subjunctive/indicative contrast that runs through the book (hypothetical worlds v. real world).

==Page 1034==

'''huge piece of machinery . . . since 1884''' 
The Nipkow scanner works just as described in the text; it is the basis for development work that is still in progress, though not for television.
See this site: [http://www.microscopy.fsu.edu/optics/timeline/people/nipkow.html] for details. Picture with clear explanation: [http://www.diycalculator.com/popup-h-console.shtml#A3]

'''what looked like . . . hat he was wearing''' 
They are picking up transmissions from . . . the future? another world? In any case, this one's a rerun. 
[[ATD_171-198#Page_195|See p. 195 and annotations]] for another allusion to this pair.

==Page 1035==

==Page 1036==

'''Oxone . . . Blattnerphone components''' 
This list, all by itself, has drawn attention from [http://www.nysun.com/article/43545 a book reviewer] and [http://althouse.blogspot.com/2006/11/shelves-and-bench-tops-were-crowded.html a blogger,] both of whom regard it as "typical" of ''AtD.'' Oxone is an oxidizer in solid form, used today for swimming pool treatment. Thalofide describes a kind of photoelectric cell or electric eye. Aeolight is a brand of discharge lamp. The Blattnerphone was a wire recorder.

'''Lee De Forest added that grid electrode to the Fleming valve''' 
The Fleming valve--named for British electrical engineer Sir John Ambrose Fleming (1849–1945)--was an early form of diode (a vacuum tube in which electrons flow in one direction, from a heated filament to a plate). In 1907, [[ATD_26-56#Page_29| De Forest (AtD, p. 29)]] created the triode out of the diode by inserting a curved mesh grid, whose voltage could be varied, between the filament and the plate.

'''output . . . can be the indefinite integral of any signal''' 

:Long discussion mostly removed to the Discussion page on Jan. 23, 2008

This is in fact an elegant mathematical, or, better, 'pataphysical, expression of the phenomenon of looking at a single photograph and imagining it as part of a movie (which is after all just a sequence of still photographs), or of many possible movies--the movie is the integral of the photograph. This is techno-mathematical nonsense of a very particular kind: an example of 'Pataphysics [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pataphysics], which its originator, the absurdist novelist and playwright Alfred Jarry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Jarry](1873-1907) defined as "The science of imaginary solutions". His fictional creation Dr. Faustroll explains that 'Pataphysics deals with "the laws which govern exceptions and will explain the universe supplementary to this one". One can imagine any number of possible "movies" or world-lines, for the subject of a photograph, any number of alternate histories and supplementary universes.

'''paranoia querelans''' 
Misspelling of ''querulans.'' [[Paranoia_Querulans|This page]] describes the disorder.

==Page 1037==
[[image:Lorandite.jpg|thumb|130px|Lorandite|right]]'''Merle [...] took from a wall safe a brilliant red crystal, brought it over to a platinoid housing and carefully slid it into place. "Lorandite brought out of Macedonia before the Balkan Wars, pure thallium arsenosulfide, purer quality than you can find anymore."''' 
So is this what becomes of the "crystal about the size of a human eyeball" ([[ATD 557-587#Page 565|p. 565]]) that was at the heart of the Q-weapon which is sold by [[ATD_557-587#gevaert|Edouard Gevaert]] to Piet Woevre, who gladly hands it over to Kit Traverse, who gives it to Quaternionist Umeki Tsurigane, who (probably?) gives it to Auberon Halfcourt in Constantinople, but more likely takes it with her to Japan (p. 906) where Baz Zaharoff is headed to purchase it ("something [the Japanese] came in possession of a few years ago"). And someone brings it out of Macedonia (perhaps Kit, Reef or Yashmeen?), and Photographer Merle Rideout ends up with it, using its power to reanimate photographs and unlock Time. You remember Merle showing Frank Traverse some Icelandic spar:

:“This is the stuff itself, argentaurum, about a fifty-fifty mix. And this” into the other hand sprang a blurry crystal about the size of a pocket Bible but thin as a nymph’s mirror “this is calcite, known in this particular format to some of the visiting labor as Schieferspath [ [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Calcite slate-spar (German Schieferspath) - crystals of tabular habit, and sometimes as thin as paper] ] (see also [[ATD_296-317#Page_305|annotations to page 305]]), a good pure specimen I happened to obtain one night back in Creede—yes, night does return now and then to Creede—off of a superstitious Scotchman holding a perfectly good nine of diamonds he couldn’t bring himself to hang on to. Think of this piece of spar here as the kitchen window, and just take a look through.” pp.305-306

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorandite '''Lorandite'''] is a thallium arsenic sulfosalt with formula: TlAsS2. It was first discovered at Alshar, Republic of Macedonia in 1894 and named after Loránd Eötvös, physicist at the University of Budapest.

'''Thallium''' is highly toxic and is used in rat poisons and insecticides but since it might also cause cancer, this use has been cut back or eliminated in many countries. It has even been used in some murders, earning the nicknames "The Poisoner's Poison" and "Inheritance powder" (alongside arsenic). Thallium sulfide's electrical conductivity changes with exposure to infrared light therefore making this compound useful in photocells, and thallium oxide has been used to manufacture glasses that have a high index of refraction.

Iron '''arsenosulfide''' is the most common ore of arsenic. It is found in [[B#mapimi|Mexico (Mapimí)]], Sweden (Tunaberg) and the U.S. (Montana).

According to [http://www.worldpress.org/Europe/2781.cfm '''Risto Karajkov'''] writing in "World Press":

''The lorandite is thought to have the potential to unravel the so-called "neutrino puzzle." By serving as a geochemical detector of the neuron, the lorandite could validate or disprove the theory of the standard solar system, say physicists. In simple terms—it would let us understand the work of the Sun.''

==Page 1038==

'''old gaffers''' 
A gaffer in the motion picture industry is the head of the electrical department, responsible for the execution (and sometimes the design) of the lighting plan for a production. In British English the term gaffer is long established as meaning an old man, or the foreman of a squad of workmen. (In U.S. English, similarly, "Pappy" is a nickname for the leader of such a group—like [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=H#pappy Pappy Hod in ''V.''].)

The term was also used to describe men who adjusted lighting in English theatre and men who tended street lamps, after the "gaff" they used, a pole with a hook on its end [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaffer].

One seller of gaffer's tape (used in theater and film) says [http://www.thetapeworks.com/what_gaffer.htm the "gaff" story is incorrect,] but it isn't clear this is correct, because long poles called [http://www.prosoundweb.com/lighting/tech_reference/bill/terms/terms.shtml#hammer "hi-tech focusing aids"] are definitely still used in theater.

The "old man" meaning comes from a dialectal pronunciation of "grandfather." I love the idea that Roswell and Merle are gaffers (electricians) claiming to be gaffers (old men).

==Page 1039==

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

ATD 219-242

2007-12-04T15:37:53Z

Gelitripping: /* Page 221 */

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

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to. The previous statement doesn't quite jive. In the late 17 cent. it was prosecutable for any '''Scot''' (read Highlander) to wear a tartan. Those tartans we see ascribed to clans were creations made to please Queen Victoria. Tartans and the Kilt are from Scottish '''and Irish''' Clans; from the oppressed. Thus, the fun in the line comes from the fact that an '''''authentic''''' tartan was false to begin with, but that doesn't keep Nigel from ''lording'' the ''fact'' that Lew's argyle sox are not up to snuff. 
Kilts came from an earlier garment which covered more of the body than today's piece, and those in plaid were called '''''Breacan''''', meaning partially colored or speckled. The plaids also came in trews (trousers), and ruanas (shawls). Many had uniformity in design, but probably because those were the colors available and thus recognized as part of a family, clan or sept. 

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

'''Yashmeen Halfcourt''' 
Her initials YH are the first half of the Tetragrammaton -- YHVH or YHWH in English.

'''seventeenth degree Adept''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

On the other hand, T.W.I.T. is centered on Tarot cards, so the relationship between number and any correspondences to the Tarot would be very much to the point. In this case, the Major Arcana assigned to the number 17 is the [http://www.angelpaths.com/majors/star.html Star]. The Crowley-associated system for Tarot consists of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth Thoth ] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot Tarot] deck, along with Crowley's "explanatory" [http://tinyurl.com/yu4ye3 'Book of Thoth']:

:As has been explained elsewhere. It refers to the Zodiacal sign of Aquarius, the water-bearer. The picture represents Nuith, our Lady of the Stars. For the full meaning of this sentence it is necessary to understand the first chapter of the ''Book of the Law''. . . .

The full text can be found at [http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_thoth34.htm About.com's] site on the Thoth "Star" card, albiet with the wrong card illustrated, in this case atu 18, "The Moon".

:'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzaddik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Auberon Halfcourt''' 
Auberon means royal or noble bear. 
Punning, "Au" is the chemical symbol for gold, thus, "Golden Bear", mascotte of UC Berkeley. 

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
Summer capital of the British Raj in India in the Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]. 
A terminus of the Kalka-Simla railway line (built 1906) aka the "British Jewel of the Orient." 
Named for the goddess Shyamala Devi, an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Kali.

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship. I believe the great game stands for Espionage in the Age of Gentlemen, the substance of Pynchon's '''''Under the Rose'''''. 

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was founded to subvert the '''''United Irishmen''''' of Wolfe Tone by agitating against Protestant and Catholic community. It was hostile to the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence. In the 1880's it developed the Ulster Unionist Party to politically parry Parliamentary attempts at Home Rule for Ireland.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland. 
This was and still is known as "Marching Season" in Northern Ireland; the time when 'parades' are traditionally a source of fear and violence. Nearly all the parades are organized by the Orange Lodges and hence anti-Catholic.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to deepening autumn.

One of two possible explanations: 
1. The T.W.I.T. is perhaps using an ascendent or lunar based astrological system rather than the solar-based system commonly used in the West. This resolves the apparent contradiction of a Gemini in autumn since the ascendent travels through all signs every 24 hours and the moon travels through the entire zodiac once a month. For example, Vedic astrology looks primarily to the ascendent, then the moon, and lastly the sun to study respectively the body, the mind and the spirit of the native. Basnight does have a mind that operates on two planes -- hence a moon in Gemini reading. 
2. The explosion carried Lew to a place on the other side of the Sun. Deep autumn would then be November 23 to December 21th, our sign of Sagittarius.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

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

ATD 219-242

2007-12-04T15:16:03Z

Gelitripping: /* Page 221 */

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

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to. The previous statement doesn't quite jive. In the late 17 cent. it was prosecutable for any '''Scot''' (read Highlander) to wear a tartan. Those tartans we see ascribed to clans were creations made to please Queen Victoria. Tartans and the Kilt are from Scottish '''and Irish''' Clans; from the oppressed. Thus, the fun in the line comes from the fact that an '''''authentic''''' tartan was false to begin with, but that doesn't keep Nigel from ''lording'' the ''fact'' that Lew's argyle sox are not up to snuff. 
Kilts came from an earlier garment which covered more of the body than today's piece, and those in plaid were called '''''Breacan''''', meaning partially colored or speckled. The plaids also came in trews (trousers), and ruanas (shawls). Many had uniformity in design, but probably because those were the colors available and thus recognized as part of a family, clan or sept. 

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

'''Yashmeen Halfcourt''' 
Her initials YH are the first half of the Tetragrammaton -- YHVH or YHWH in English.

'''seventeenth degree Adept''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

On the other hand, T.W.I.T. is centered on Tarot cards, so the relationship between number and any correspondences to the Tarot would be very much to the point. In this case, the Major Arcana assigned to the number 17 is the [http://www.angelpaths.com/majors/star.html Star]. The Crowley-associated system for Tarot consists of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth Thoth ] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot Tarot] deck, along with Crowley's explanatory [http://tinyurl.com/yu4ye3 'Book of Thoth']:

:
:'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzaddik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Auberon Halfcourt''' 
Auberon means royal or noble bear. 
Punning, "Au" is the chemical symbol for gold, thus, "Golden Bear", mascotte of UC Berkeley. 

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
Summer capital of the British Raj in India in the Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]. 
A terminus of the Kalka-Simla railway line (built 1906) aka the "British Jewel of the Orient." 
Named for the goddess Shyamala Devi, an incarnation of the Hindu Goddess Kali.

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship. I believe the great game stands for Espionage in the Age of Gentlemen, the substance of Pynchon's '''''Under the Rose'''''. 

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was founded to subvert the '''''United Irishmen''''' of Wolfe Tone by agitating against Protestant and Catholic community. It was hostile to the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence. In the 1880's it developed the Ulster Unionist Party to politically parry Parliamentary attempts at Home Rule for Ireland.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland. 
This was and still is known as "Marching Season" in Northern Ireland; the time when 'parades' are traditionally a source of fear and violence. Nearly all the parades are organized by the Orange Lodges and hence anti-Catholic.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to deepening autumn.

One of two possible explanations: 
1. The T.W.I.T. is perhaps using an ascendent or lunar based astrological system rather than the solar-based system commonly used in the West. This resolves the apparent contradiction of a Gemini in autumn since the ascendent travels through all signs every 24 hours and the moon travels through the entire zodiac once a month. For example, Vedic astrology looks primarily to the ascendent, then the moon, and lastly the sun to study respectively the body, the mind and the spirit of the native. Basnight does have a mind that operates on two planes -- hence a moon in Gemini reading. 
2. The explosion carried Lew to a place on the other side of the Sun. Deep autumn would then be November 23 to December 21th, our sign of Sagittarius.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

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

ATD 1-25

2007-12-01T04:01:47Z

Gelitripping:

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

==cover text==
The black text and its drop shadows are in different typefaces. It may be worth noting, from a conceptual point of view, that we can infer from the angle of the drop shadows that the light source is any individual holding the book—that is, the reader or a potential reader.

==cover seal==
The seal appears to be written in Tibetan language, according to somebody who posts regularly to Pynchon-l under the name "Ya Sam", who reports:

I contacted the Tibetan Cultural Centre with the request to translate
the mysterious legend on the AtD seal. They were kind enough to forward my
request to the Tibetan tranlsator Tenzin Namgyal to whose generosity we
owe the solution of one more ATD related mystery.

It is the Tibetan language, alright, and it means ...... Tibetan
Government Chamber of Commerce.

Read their response below:

:Dear Ya Sam, 
:I showed the seal you sent to our Tibetan translator, Tenzin Namgyal. He says the word to word translation is: Tibetan Government Commerce Chamber in other words: Tibetan Government Chamber of commerce. Why Pynchon has chosen to place this on the cover of his book is anyones guess. Reading the book reviews gave no insight into the reason. Perhaps after one has read it?

:Best wishes,

:Sandy Belth 
:Tibetan Cultural Center

Also of interest: the coin bears a striking resemblance to the doubloon in ''Moby-Dick'' that Ahab nails to the mainmast as a prize to the first crew member to sight the white whale. Melville's description runs thus:

:It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra. (Ch.99, "The Doubloon")

==copyright page==
The copyright page states that ''Against the Day'' is published by Viking Penguin, but on the title page and elsewhere we can read that the book is published by Penguin Press. The copyright pages of other books from Penguin Press state "Penguin Press" as the publisher, as could be expected, and it seems likely that the substitution of "Penguin Press" with "Viking" is one of many typographical errors in the book (see [[errata]]).
I have confirmed from inside Penguin Press that this is a copyediting mistake. Here is a direct e-mail answer about the Viking Penguin listing: "this was a copyediting mistake that will be corrected. There was never a Viking contract for this book."

==Dedication==
Most of Pynchon's novels contain dedications-- ''Mason & Dixon'' ("For Melanie, and for Jackson") , ''Vineland'' ("For my mother and father"), and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' ("For Richard Fariña")-- but not so ''Against the Day,'' as published. Advance reading copies of the book did contain the words "Dedication TK" in italics, but this is simply [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Come publisher-speak] for "dedication to come." It is unknown whether Pynchon ever considered inclusion of a dedication or whether the publisher simply left the page open just in case, but the ultimate lack of a dedication may suggest that Pynchon feels he's thanked everyone he needs to thank.

==Epigraph==
"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light." - Thelonious Monk 
Jazz and particularly bebop seem to be a lifelong interest of Pynchon’s, appearing in some form in all his works and what biographical snippets exist. As a college student, Pynchon “spent a lot of time in jazz clubs, nursing the two-beer minimum,” by his own admission (''Slow Learner'', Introduction). The Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/that-thelonious-monk-epigraph.html notes] that: 1) in his youth, Pynchon allegedly referred to Monk as a "God"; 2) the character McClintic Sphere in ''V''. takes Monk's middle name, Sphere; and 3) "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light" was apparently something Monk was given to saying, rather than something he once said. For more on McClintic Sphere and Monk, see Charles Hollander's essay [http://www.howardm.net/tsmonk/pynchon.php Does McClintic Sphere in ''V.'' stand for Thelonious Monk?]. On [[ATD_724-747#Page 732|page 732]]: "...daylit America ... its steadfast denial of night."

==Page 1==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
"Range" is defined in the ''Oxford American Dictionary'' as "a line or series of mountains or hills : the coastal ranges of the northwest," so "range" or "ranges" can be used to denote a number of mountains. 

'Ranges' may also refer to farms, homesteads and ranches in 1893 America. America was predominantly that in 1893. Cf. "Home, home on the range".

"celebrating in song the wider range of life..." Thomas Pynchon on
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Waddell Helen Waddell's]
''The Wandering Scholars'', p. 8, Introduction to[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Learner ''Slow Learner], 1984.

A range is also a group of diverse objects.

A-and "range" is a word full of its own meaning. [[Range|A partial list of definitions of "range"...]] 
Range as diversity---lost---may be a major theme of AtD.

In addition, light over ranges is an issue throughout the novel: exploitation and development of electrical and electronics was a concern of the Raymond, Pynchon & Company and Pynchon and company, an investment firm run by yacht enthusiast George M. Pynchon. Pynchon & Company invested in Edison's work.

==Page 3==

'''"Now single up all lines!"''' 
Pynchon was in the Navy for a spell and "single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way.

But the opening line has many possible connotations.
:The Modern Word's Quail [http://www.themodernword.com/reviews/pynchon_atd.html writes] that "it is simultaneously a self-directive and a call to the reader; suggesting that ''Against the Day'' is a culmination of his previous work, and also charging the reader to find meaning within its twisting labyrinth. It may also be a sly, preemptive joke on the book’s initial critics, as the novel begins with the launch of a bloated gasbag bearing a somewhat provocative name."

:"single up all lines" is used in its normal nautical context in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_1#single_up_all_lines ''V.'', p.11]; [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#single_up_all_lines ''The Crying of Lot 49'', p.31]; [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_488-491#single_up_all_lines ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.489]; and [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_26:_257-265#Page_258 ''Mason & Dixon'', pp.258 and 260]. Perhaps we can understand this "line" as a text-string linking Pynchon's novels together (all but ''Vineland''?) in preparation for a voyage to...?

Also, in the very first sentence, Pynchon introduces the concept of doubling (with the word "Single"!) "single up all lines" as a call to journey, to movement and expansion, a beginning. Then, on [[#Page_10|page 10]]: "only in straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the killing-floor." Thus, a progressive singling or reduction of all lines/paths, a rationalization/routinization unto death. Both represent "a progressive reduction of choices" a collapsing of many possibilities into one "reality." ''See also'' [[ATD_557-587#Page_585|annotation, page 585]] and more on [[Routinization of Charisma]].

'''"Cheerly now...handsomely...very well!!"''' 
Cheerly means "heartily," and was traditionally used as cry of encouragement among sailors. Handsomely (in nautical context): carefully, in good order, unhurriedly.

:Pynchon served in the Navy and uses nautical language in most of his novels. ''Mason & Dixon'': "Cheerly. Cheerly, then, Lads..." (54).

Compare with the nautical lauguage of the opening scene from Shakespeare's 'The Tempest':

:ACT I.
:SCENE I. — On a Ship at sea. A Storm, with Thunder and
:Lightning.
:Enter Master and Boatswain severally.
:Mast. Boatswain !
:Boats. Here, master: what cheer?
:Mast. Good, speak to the mariners : fall to't yarely, or
:we run ourselves a-ground : bestir, bestir. [Exit].
:Enter Mariners.
:Boats. Heigh, my hearts ! cheerly, cheerly, my hearts
:yare, yare ! Take in the topsail. Tend to the master's whistle.
:[Exeunt Mariners.] — Blow till thou burst thy wind, if
:room enough!

'''"Windy City, here we come!"''' 
The nickname for Chicago, of course, but in 1893 the use meant city of braggarts more than it did wind. The earliest known references to the "Windy City" are from 1876, and involve Chicago's rivalry with Cincinnati. A popular myth states that "Windy City" was first used by New York Sun editor Charles Dana in the bidding for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The popularity of the nickname has endured, even after the Cincinnati rivalry and the Columbian Exposition both ended. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windy_City,_Origin_of_Name_(Chicago)| Origin of name "Windy City" at Wikipedia]

'''Randolph St. Cosmo, the ship commander''' 
[[image:ex-voti-isernia.jpg|thumb|175px|Ex voti of Wax, from Isernia|right]]Historically, there are two versions of the 3rd century CE figure St. Cosmo (aka St. Cosmas): the "randy" St. Cosmo, aka the "modern Priapus," and the saintly martyred St. Cosmo of Church lore. Pynchon, it seems, is connecting Randolph St. Cosmo to the former. "Randy," as astute observers will note, is an adjective which means, well, "horny." There's a distinct sexual thread woven throughout ''Against the Day'' [[Basnight%2C_Lewis_%28%22Lew%22%29|(See the ''beginnings'' of exploring this angle...]]) a-and Heartsease, St. Cosmo's mate, is the first to get pregnant! so this seems to fit right in. [[St. Cosmo|Read more about the historical St. Cosmo...]]; and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sts._Cosmas_and_Damian Wikipedia entry]

In [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=V#veery ''Mason & Dixon''], Pynchon has the Veery brothers, Cosmo and Damian, who are professional effigy makes in Philadelphia! And, just to make it interesting, "He's a rare Wax Artist, our Cosmo is." ([http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_29:_289-295#Page_290 p. 290]) (Note: Wax phallus effigies were offered by the women to St. Cosmo at the festivals held in his name, as shown above.)

'''Now secure the Special Sky Detail''' 
When a naval vessel is departing from port or returning to port, a specially trained team is put in charge of the complicated process. The command is, [http://tpub.com/content/administration/12968a/css/12968a_41.htm "Now set the Special Sea Detail."] ''Inconvenience'' is run along fairly strict naval lines—given the age of the officers and crew, you might say she is a tot ship—and the beginning of the book was preceded by an analogous "Now set the Special Sky Detail." Once the ship is aloft and clear of ground obstructions, the command comes, "Now secure the Special Sky Detail," meaning disband the team for the time being and all return to regular duties. The language, tasks and customs aboard the skyship will show parallels to navy usage throughout the book.

'''summer uniform of red-and-white-striped blazer and trousers of sky blue''' 
Calls to mind the color scheme of Ned Land's (Kirk Douglas) costume in Disney's 1954 film version of ''20,000 Leagues under the Sea''. 

Also calls to mind the colors of the American flag.

'''"scuttlebutt" . . . thousand . . . wonders''' 
A most vigorous campaign [to host the Columbian Exposition] was then inaugurated, the three other cities making a common cause against Washington, whose claim was based on the fact that the proposed exposition was to be held under auspices of the national government, and hence that the capital was the most appropriate place.... By each of the claimants every advantage was urged, and by each of their rivals every defect was exaggerated. Congressional committees accorded a hearing to the several delegations, that of Chicago being represented, among others, by DeWitt C. Cregier, Thomas B. Bryan, and Edward T. Jeffery. from "Book of the Fair" by Hubert Bancroft, 1893.
:"Scuttlebutt" is a very close equivalent to "water-cooler gossip." [http://www.jacksjoint.com/sailor_terminology.htm Here is a glossary] of nautical terms with some of the etymologies.

'''''Inconvenience''''' 
Pynchon's fictional navy includes the USS Scaffold and the Susanna Squaducci (''V.''), and the John E. Badass (''GR''). Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html notes] that the British Royal Navy has a long tradition of warships with names like Impulsive, Incendiary, Inconstant, Indignant, etc. Impulsive is the name of the ship Ploy, who loses all his teeth in V., gets transferred to.
Inconvenience is an apt name for the Chums' adventures in 'reality'. They are an inconvenience; they are inconvenienced. (In having to take on Chick Counterfly, for example). 

Pynchon uses the word ''inconvenience'' in a possibly thematic, connected way in ''Mason & Dixon'' and in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. In ''Mason & Dixon'', the word is applied to the difficulties of an Other, other human beings as we act, interact. See citations at the ''M & D'' wiki. Here is the clearest relevant use for understanding for the Chums' airship, perhaps: from ''Gravity's Rainbow'': "the gift of Daedalus that allowed him [Pokler] to put as much labyrinth as required between himself and the
''inconveniences of caring''. [Italics mine] They had sold him convenience, so much of it, all on credit, and now They were collecting."
page 435, Penguin paperback edition with the Frank Miller cover.

In addition, if we take the Latinate roots of in-con-ven-(ience) and willfully misread the "in" as adverbial "in" (as e.g. "in-come") rather than the privative "not" (as e.g. "in-cred-ible"), we get "the arriving-in-together"; the "inconvenience", then, is essentially a tongue-in-cheek "vehicle". 
I do not think it illuminating to "willfully misread"!?! We are trying to
willfully read possible meanings and resonances. [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 06:01, 2 August 2007 (PDT)

Also, recall Fender-Belly Bodine, in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I#inconvenience ''Mason & Dixon'']: "Back on old H.M.S. ''Inconvenience'', we wasted many a Day and Night watching that fancy Counter get smaller by the minute..." (p.28)

'''patriotic bunting''' 
TRP reminds again that this is a very American skyship. 
AtD has many echoes of Doctorow's "Ragtime": Doctorow fictionalises the same era, including anarchists, bombings, and early Hollywood.

'''aeronautics''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied to the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of early aeronautics. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Aeronautics|Brittanica 11th on Aeronautics]

'''five-lad crew''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo (ship commander), Lindsay Noseworth (master-at-arms), Miles Blundell (handyman apprentice), Darby Suckling (factotum and mascot), and Chick Counterfly. The commander's name evokes Randolph St., a main thoroughfare in Chicago. Perhaps also saint(liness) and cosmos?

'''The [[Chums of Chance]]''' 
To be chummy with chance might mean lucky, fond of gambling, fond of chaos, irrational, or anarchist. Or maybe they became chums by accident. The "chance" may also be that of the winds that carry them in directions not always intended.
:The American philospher Charles Sanders Peirce, who set down his most important ideas in the late 1800's, argued that 'Chance' was a feature of the universe that can refute all determinisms.

"The certainty of chance" is a Surrealist slogan. We learned from ''Slow Learner'' that Pynchon was influenced early by Surrealism.
The slogan is quoted in this obit of a real life
character out of Pynchon, George Melly, Jazz singer, writer, anarchist and polymorphous lover.[http://www.economist.com/search/search.cfm?rv=2&qr=melly&area=1&x=6&y=7]

Cameraderie and isolation are two recurring topics in Pynchon's works. The Chums are a band of heroes like those commonly featured in the 19th century boys' fiction that Pynchon evokes, but also recall Pynchon's high school fictions, [http://themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_hamster.html Voice of the Hamster] and [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_boys.html The Boys], in which the teenage Pynchon lovingly portrayed his group of high school chums, known as, simply, "The Boys."

[[image:dart-explorigator.jpg|thumb|120px|right]]The Chums are reminiscent of two comics of the early 20th century, [[Little Nemo|''Little Nemo in Slumberland'']], by Windsor McCay, and ''The Explorigator'', by Harry Grant Dart. "The Explorigator" was the name of a fantastic airship that traversed the universe. It was manned by Admiral Fudge, a youthful adventurer and inventor, accompanied by a group of friends, also children his age (around nine or ten): Detective Rubbersole, Maurice Mizzentop, Nicholas Nohooks, Grenadier Shift, Teddy Typewriter, and Ah Fergetitt. ''The Explorigator'' ran for 14 weeks in 1908 and made an impression for its imaginative and visual creativity. [[The Explorigator|More on ''The Explorigator'']] <ref>[http://lambiek.net/artists/d/dart_harry_grant.htm Lambiek Comiclopedia]</ref>

The names of the Chums may also be derived from famous Jazz musicians: Miles (Davis), Chick (Corea), Darby (Hicks), (Boots) Randolph, and (Vachel) Lindsay (a stretch here?), notes the [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html#c116587978292060684 Chumps of Choice blog].

The creativity of Pynchon's naming of the Chums, as other characters, shows yet again his Dickensian influence.

Note that there's five Chums, the number of chapters of the book (a-and the number of letters in "Chums"!).

'''Chicago''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied on the [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/ 1911 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica] as a major reference for his treatment of 1890s Chicago. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Chicago 1911 Britannica entry on Chicago]

Also, The band Chicago's third hit song "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" deals with how one faces living in a world under constraints of time [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Does_Anybody_Really_Know_What_Time_It_Is%3F]. The opening lyrics are:

Does anybody really know what time it is?
Does anybody really care?
About Time...

'''World's Columbian Exposition''' 
also called The Chicago World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image and American industrial optimism. The International Exposition was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. It was a historical moment and the beginning of a revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by providing alternating current to illuminate the Exposition. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Columbian_Exposition Wikipedia entry]. This World's Fair was enveloped in optimism for the future. "The thousand or more such wonders which awaited [the Chums] there." p.3

'''lifelines''' 
Called "manropes" on sailing ships. Ropes running fore-and-aft above the gunwales to prevent sailors getting blown overboard. They were held up by short stanchions inserted into holes in the rails. Source: ''The Ashley Book of Knots,'' 1944.

'''as my faithful readers will remember''' 
Pynchon here is immediately inserting this story into a larger canon of Chums of Chance fictions, titles of which are mentioned in subsequent pages.

'''mascotte''' 
The English word 'mascot' has its origin in the late 19th cent.: from French mascotte. The spelling may also be a tribute to the Dutch brand of rolling papers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mascotte_%28rolling_papers%29 [Wikipedia]]

==Page 4==

'''Professor''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo is called Professor.
"Professor" was a common title for early hot-air balloonists. [EC]

'''"Turn to"''' 
Evokes the "Go to!" of Majistral and compatriots, ''V.'', chapter eleven. "Turn to" is also a shipboard expression, "put your back into it" or something of the kind.

'''Perhaps its familiarity... rendered it temporarily invisible to you." 
Perhaps an admonition from the author that familiar things will be easily overlooked?
I think the fact that they were picnic baskets matters...TRP perhaps saying, as he seems to suggest elsewhere, that we overlook the simple pleasures too often.

'''"for Miles, while possessed of good intentions and the kindest heart in the little band, suffered at times from a confusion in his motor processes, often producing lively results, yet as frequently compromising the crew's physical safety.'''" 
Talk about Filles de Kilimanjaro and Miles post-quintet years, a prolonged effect on survivors after the bombings of 1945 and in the arts of Japan’s exploding subculture.

'''Chick Counterfly''' 
Three possibilities: (1) A counter fly is an annoyance in (say) the butcher's shop. (2) Chick always speaks "counter" to anyone else's "flight" of imagery. (3) The only non-''AtD''-related uses of this word that I've found came in patents describing mechanisms; "the counterfly direction" means contrary to the direction everything else is flying in, hence this character counters the flying of the craft?

He is the only Chum we know who was "rescued" from the "real" world. Meaning there? To be counter to flying is to be earthbound, where he started and he is the one with whom the conversation about relanding
on a different "earth" happens.

Like Suckling's name suggesting a relationship to another Pynchon character (Pig Bodine), Pynchon winks at a relationship between Counterfly and Tyrone Slothrop. In Counterfly´s first utterance in the book, “Ha ha,” cried young Counterfly, “say, but if you ain’t the most slob-footed chap I ever seen!” you can derive "Tyrone Slothrop" from an anagram of Counterfly and "slob-footed chap."

:Huh? That's a pretty sloppy anagram, ain't it? What about that "b" and that"d" ... this is ''way'' too much of a stretch. There's something to these names, perhaps, but I don't think you're close here, friend.

==Page 5==

'''"all tableware with Chums of Chance Insignia is Organizational property"''' 
The organization in question is the Chums of Chance themselves, here considered as an institution rather than as a collection of individuals.

'''picklesome''' 
Having the nature of a pickle, i.e, a boy who is inclined to mischief.

A word not much seen since the nineteenth century.

'''Pugnax''' 
I suspect that, in keeping with a very strong [[Birds|"bird" theme]] (the original aeronauts!) in ''Against the Day'', Pynchon may have named Pugnax after a bird called the Ruff (''Philomachus pugnax'') which is a medium-sized wader. Note that Pugnax's first "utterance" is "Rr Rff-rff Rr-rr-rff-rrf-rrf"...

There are a number of characters named after birds or bird sounds: Linnet Dawes, "Pert" Chirpingdon-Groin (there is a pert bird), and Wren Provenance immediately come to mind, but I'm sure there are others, and there are myriad bird references and metaphors (the Sodality of Ǣtheronauts and their mechanical wings); I just haven't had the time to explore it deeply, but others may... (Just read [[Birds|the bit about birds]] from ''Homage to Pythagoras''...

You can even make a semiserious case that the Aeronauts are named for a bird, the white-throated swift, ''Aeronautes saxatalis'' [[ATD_243-272#Page_266|(mentioned on p. 266)]].

The name meaning, in Latin, "likes to fight" (i.e. one who is pugnacious). Pugnax's fantastic intelligence recalls another intelligent Pynchon dog, the Learned English Dog in ''Mason & Dixon''. His manner of speech is somewhat reminiscent of the mystery-solving cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, and [http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112507&sort=date members of PYNCHON-L] have speculated that his eyebrows and reading habits allude to Gromit, from the [http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/ Wallace and Gromit] claymation films.

Could this name be an homage to the dog in the Asterix comics, Idéfix in French; Dogmatix in English? Many of the character in the Asterix comics have names ending in "x".

'''"...during a confidential assignment in Our Nation's Capitol (see ''The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit'')..."''' 
This could be seen as a criticism of an American President, present or past. President Bush is a candidate, considering the Pynchon-authored [[Against the Day description|Amazon.com book description]] which included "With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

The Chums "rescued Pugnax, then but a pup"--an innocent, a child creature--"from a furious encounter..between rival packs of the city's wild dogs".
The wild dogs equal both political parties?

'''lavatorial assaults''' 
"from the sky, which no one can "begin to try to record, much less coordinate reports of" recall the V-2 rockets which are linked to Slothrop's erections in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. That is, pee from the sky is "folklore, superstition, or perhaps...the religious" in ATD compared to rockets screaming across the sky and the destruction in GR.

This also recalls jokes and urban legends regarding frozen waste from leaky airplane lavatories (i.e., "you can still be hit by an icy B.M.")

==Page 6==

'''''Princess Casamassima''''' 
''The Princess Casamassima'' is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in ''The Atlantic Monthly'' in 1885-1886 and then as a book in 1886. It is the story of an intelligent but confused young London bookbinder, Hyacinth Robinson, who becomes involved in radical politics and a terrorist assassination plot. The novel certainly does have notable relevance in today's climate of terrorism and political violence. While the book's details are not directly applicable to current issues, the central theme admiration for the beautiful if imperfect world vs. a desire to change it through terrorism will seem all too familiar to contemporary readers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_Casamassima Wikipedia] [[Princess Casamassima|Discussion of ''The Princess Casamassima'']]

'''Placing . . . an emphasis''' 
Lapse of authorial control? Surely the creator of the ''Chums'' novels would not write such a Pynchonian sentence fragment!

'''Pugnax sniffed . . . as always this scent eluded him''' 
If Pugnax doesn't detect a human scent, that suggests Lindsay is not human. Not human, Master-at-Arms, speaks in hyper-constructed prose, has a notably short fuse . . . he's Lieutenant Worf of ''Star Trek, the Next Generation.''

'''''Krakatoa''''' 
Erupted 1883. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa Wikipedia entry.]

'''Heino Vanderjuice of New Haven''' 
Scientist who designed the ''Inconvenience's'' hydrogen engine. "Vanderjuice" suggests both "wonder juice" and "wander juice," fitting since his engine allows the Chums to wander and is wondrous insofar as it apparently violates the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics second law of thermodynamics]. "Heino" (HIE-no) is a man's given name [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=heino meaning 'home'] in German, Finnish, and Estonian. Perhaps an allusion to the German pop star, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heino Heino].

:Um, a quibble: ''Vanderjuice'' is some kind of corrupted Dutch, and in Dutch the name Heino would be pronounced HAY-no. He is not an immigrant, though, and American speakers no doubt say HIGH-no.

Jules Verne influence? Vanderjuice a red herring, pointing to Dutch origin and electrical ("juice") background? Or does one try to parse the name into eg "Fond O' Juice"?

'''no better than a perpetual-motion machine''' 
A perpetual-motion machine is not just one that runs forever, but one that ''performs work'' forever without any input of energy. All PM machines ever invented have been either hoaxes ("secret free energy source the government doesn't want you to know about") or mistakes. The hydrogen generator/engine is neither, which is why the disdainful phrase "no better than" is crucial.

By the way, how does one generate hydrogen? In high school chem lab we used zinc filings and hydrochloric acid, but that seems unsuitable with Miles around. Is it possible Vanderjuice has invented a photovoltaic electrolysis cell?

'''Miles, with his marginal gifts of coördination, and Chick, with a want of alacrity fully as perceptible''' 
Like the old gag: The food in this restaurant isn't any good, but the service is awful.

'''ratlines and shrouds''' 
''Inconvenience'' is rigged like a sailing ship of the period, though it's hard to see why she needs to be. Shrouds fan out from a masthead down to a rail; ratlines run horizontally to join them. The whole affair serves the sailors as a ladder.

'''". . . anemometer of the Robinson's type"''' 
Cup anemometer invented in 1846 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Thomas_Romney_Robinson Dr. John Thomas Romney Robinson]. Cup anemometers are still commonly used to measure wind speed because of their simplicity and reliability in a variety of environmental conditions. [http://www.arm.ac.uk/annrep/annrep2000/node13.html pic]

'''how rapidly the ship was proceeding''' 
But you can't measure the craft's progress by measuring wind speed at a point on the craft itself. All you get from the anemometer is a speed relative to the air, which is in variable motion. Since the craft is moving at the speed of the wind plus the speed of its propulsion device, the speed found by the anemometer is basically useless.

==Page 7==

'''Porfirio Díaz''' 
President of Mexico 1876-1880, 1884-1911. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%ADaz Wikipedia]

In most countries, the Interior Ministry (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Home Office, etc.) ran programs like secret police. Are the Chums working for forces of conservativism?

'''"beside a black-water river of the Deep South". 
Blackwater River is in lower central Florida, pretty deep south; but there are numerous rivers in swampy areas that run black with organic matter. 
Given that it was founded in 1997, and is military-related and in the South, see ''Blackwater USA'', a private military company founded by Erik Prince and Al Clark.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwater_USA]
Thousands of news stories in September/October 2007.

'''a bitter and unresolved "piece of business"''' 
Rather than give a proper reason for the Chums to be in the Deep South, the narrator cops out by pleading that it's "not advisable" to specify.

'''"the Rebellion of thirty years previous"''' 
The Civil War was not called such during the time it was occurring; the South called it "the war between the states" to emphasize both their right to secede from the union and that this was a war between sovereign states; the North called it "the Rebellion of 1861" or, after termination of hostilities, "the Rebellion of 1861-1865," appellations that did not recognize the South's right to secede.

'''"one still not advisable to set upon one's page"''' 
The American Civil War, that "rebellion of thirty years previous," has not yet become a suitable subject for an adventure tale such as the Chums'.

'''absquatulated''' 
Means to move away quickly, usually to avoid capture. Apparently a mock-Latinate formation, "to go off and squat somewhere else." [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-abs1.htm A brief article] on the history and etymology of "absquatulate." 
The word is used in Vineland.

'''"Crackerjack!" exclaimed Chick.''' 
Cracker Jack, the food, was first sold at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, though it did not bear its present name. As one word here, however, it is not the candy: "Crackerjack" entered English first as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," then as an adjective. The foodstuff gained its present name, according to the [http://www.crackerjack.com/history.php official Cracker Jack website], in 1896. The OED lists the first written use of "crackerjack" as 1895, two years after the present scene. It is by no means impossible, however, that the term would have been current in the spoken language in 1893.

'''to approach the gates of the Penitentiary''' 
A genuine saying. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Quay Matthew Quay,] a political kingmaker of the 1880s and 90s, said of Benjamin Harrison's squeaker victory over Grover Cleveland in 1888 that Harrison would "never know how many Republicans were compelled to approach the gates of the penitentiary to make him president."

'''posse comitatus''' 
What Western movie fans know as a "posse," i.e., citizens conscripted by a sheriff to assist in law enforcement. (See the Wikipedia entry on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_comitatus_(common_law) Posse Comitatus].) Remember that the ''Chums'' author gets paid by the word.

==Page 8==

'''a pocketful of specie''' 
Specie means coins as opposed to paper money.

'''the town of Thick Bush''' 
Aside from whether this phrase might apply to some political figure of the past or present, "thick bush" is the literal meaning of the Spanish Matagorda, the name of many towns in Latin America and one on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

'''"which directs us never to interfere with legal customs of any locality down at which we may happen to have touched"''' 
Like the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_directive Prime Directive] in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_trek ''Star Trek'']. Lindsay's fussy syntax echoes Winston Churchill's exasperated "This is the kind of carping criticism up with which I will not put."

'''legal customs''' 
Legal = pertaining to law, in this case lynch law. The Chums are interpreting their Prime Directive pretty broadly here.

'''Katie bar the door''' 
An expression that means that there's trouble brewing. (See [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-kat1.htm this article] about the expression's etymology.)

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
Reminiscent of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Klan] encounter scenes in the Coen Brothers' ''O Brother, Where Art Thou''.

'''tupelo, cypress, and hickory''' 
The trees are no help in locating the town; all three kinds like bottom land and grow all over the South.

'''speed . . . made it nearly invisible from the ground''' 
Few people in 1893 had seen a manmade object moving at 60 miles an hour, and many thought such a speed was lethal anyway. The ''Chums'' author suggests such an outlandish speed would make ''Inconvenience'' just a blur in the sky. Of course you can read the fin numbers on an airliner landing at 150 knots, but he didn't know that.

''Pedantry alert:'' In perfectly transparent air a ship flying a mile off the ground is visible about 125 miles away. If its flight path takes it right over your head, you can follow it for 250 miles. If it is making a groundspeed of 60 miles per hour, it takes 4 hours and change to go from horizon to horizon. In typical "clear" air (visibility say 30 miles), you will see the ship in your sky for a solid hour. These rough figures show how wrong the narrator is about speed.

'''way better than a mile a minute''' 
The Chums' point of departure is unknown, but they arrived in Chicago after catching a southerly wind (pg 3), southerly meaning "wind blowing from the south." The Chums surpass 60 miles an hour here, but as their previous speed was unknown, it's difficult to know where they were leaving from. (New Orleans to Chicago is 834 miles, slightly less than 14 hours at 60 miles/hour, so a possibility.)

==Page 9==

'''locker''' 
On board ship, any cabinet with a door or lid.

'''"Do not imagine, that in coming aboard ''Inconvenience'' you have escaped into any realm of the counterfactual..."''' 
This may be Pynchon directly addressing the reader. Given that his [[Against_the_Day_description|book description]] proclaims the world of AtD as "what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two," this paragraph seems to indicate that Pynchon, like all great fantasy or sci-fi writers, does not intend to create a world where anything goes. Rather, he will create a world that differs from ours but then obey the rules and constraints he's already established. 
Cf. Pynchon's own relevant words in the introduction to Slow Learner. He remarks that in non-realistic fiction, he had to learn that not anything went.

A-and it must mean, coming from the commander, that all aboard the ''Inconvenience'' are also subject to the 'facts' of the world. "The World is All that is the Case", from Wittgenstein. [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=W]

'''"Going up is like going north."''' 
Air gets cooler as the ship ascends into higher altitudes, and therefore like travelling northward. This page also suggests some further mystery of the Chums may be revealed to Chick and the reader in time.

North is not a positive place in Pynchon's world. It is associated with anti-life---coldness as here---compared to the South.

==Page 11==

'''plummet''' 
In the real world, this might be bad physics, as closing the valve wouldn't slow the descent. Objects in a fluid medium like air float if their weight is less than the weight of the fluid they displace (hence why one fills a balloon with a light gas such as hydrogen or helium). Once the ''Inconvenience'' loses its buoyancy, it will continue to fall, unless its weight is reduced to what a lesser amount of hydrogen could support. The Inconvenience, however, has a hydrogen producing apparatus that could kick in, slow, and eventually stop their descent.

'''bear a hand''' 
Nautical: help out.

==Page 12==

'''Liverpool Kiss''' 
A head butt.

'''Herr Riemann''' 
Riemann, Georg Friedrich Bernhard (1826-1866) (pronounced REE mahn or in IPA: ['ri:man]) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to analysis and differential geometry, some of them paving the way for the later development of general relativity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann Wikipedia entry].

'''''Mr.'' Noseworth''' 
Lindsay insisting on proper naval forms: an ensign, lieutenant (junior grade), lieutenant or lieutenant commander in the U.S. navy is correctly addressed as "Mister Surname."

'''"topological genius"''' 
Riemann's differential geometry goes beyond the Cartesian grid. See conic sections and dimensionality above, page 10.

==Page 13==

'''There was an "eager stampede" to the rail''' 
Why is eager stampede in quotation marks? The sentence reads fine without it. Does it seem to show ironic knowingness on the part of the narrator? If so, why and who is the narrator?
: I suspect this is a stylistic device from the turn of the century light literature that Pynchon is emulating-- placing a novel term in quotation marks. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 01:35, 23 December 2006 (PST)

:insightfully true, I suspect, but it still shows 'narratorial knowingness', yes?

: Cf. Flaubert's use of quotations in ''Madame Bovary'' to isolate what he deemed the contemptible argot of the bourgeoisie.

::Apparently not a cliche: [http://books.google.com//books?num=100&q=eager.stampede&as_brr=0 GoogleBooks]

'''"...among the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast bags..."''' 
Recalls the opening line of ''Mason & Dixon'': "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr‘d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins..."

'''"...quite as if were some giant eyeball, perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a spirit of constructive censure."''' 
This is strikingly reminiscent of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon Odilon Redon's] 1882 Lithograph ''L'Oeil, comme un ballon bizarre se dirige vers l'infini (The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity).'' [http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A2&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=1 At MoMa's Online Collection]
Notice that society = censure, if constructive. Gamboling nude on a summer day was OK until the ''Inconvenience'', as eyeball, appeared.

:The Odilon Redon lithograph appears on the cover of the 1998 Vintage paperback edition of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, whose first unforgettable chapter triggers the novel with a ballooning incident leaving the reader dangling over the edge of suspense and suspension.

==Page 14==

'''charmed into docility''' 
If it took only one small lad to moor the ship, she was indeed docile. A wiki contributor once saw a Goodyear blimp in Houston, Texas, landing. The craft had half a dozen long falls of rope hanging from her nose, and a ground crew of nearly two dozen men ready to take hold of them. The blimp approached nose-low, the crew took the ropes, and a gust of wind suddenly moved the ship. The crew chief gave a safety command and all the men let loose their ropes at once. On the third pass, all hands working together managed to stop the ship and get her moored. If ''Inconvenience'' was a fraction as changeable and hard to control, Darby made a great job of getting the ship staked out by himself.

'''Jacob's-ladder''' 
Used here as "a marine ladder of rope or chain with wooden or iron rungs" (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged) but is suggestive of Jacob's ladder in Genesis:

Genesis 28:12 And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (King James version)

'''a giant sack of soiled laundry''' 
Perhaps ''freshly'' soiled during the great hydrogen valve disaster.

'''''vol-à-voile''''' 
The narrator has turned the French phrase ''vol-à-voiles'' (gliding) into a verb (removing the ''s'').

'''gold-beaters' skin''' 
Very thin vellum (membrane taken from the caecum or blind stomach of an ox). To prepare gold for gilding, it was placed between sheets of vellum and hammered thin.

'''Evening Quarters''' 
Naval practice of mustering the crew at the end of the day's work.

==Page 15==

'''ukulelist''' 
Ukuleles also appear in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', ''Vineland'', and ''Mason & Dixon''. According to Jules Siegel's article, "Who is Thomas Pynchon, and why did he take off with my wife?", Pynchon himself played the ukulele in college.

'''Vagabonds of the Void''' 
The song performed by the Chums of Chance reflects the Rock and Roll attitude of the group towards the groundworld upon arrival. It's also the first time in the book we truly encounter the hipness of the group with some sort of Nine Inch Nails fronting edge to it. 

[[image:Macassar-Oil.jpg|thumb|175px|''Macassar Oil. An Oily Puff for Soft Heads''|right]]'''Beaufort Scale''' 
A scale for measuring wind strength, developed 1805.

'''"Let the lightning lash ~ And the thunder trash" 
Again, the Chums are rock stars, the coolest cats in town.

'''"...forty-four buttons...one for each State of the Union." 
Wyoming was the 44th state admitted to the union in 1890.

'''port section of the crew''' 
The half of the crew permitted to go freely ashore this time. The other half tomorrow. "Port" and "starboard": are these simply either/or words that sailors remember easily?

'''Macassar oil''' 
Macassar oil is an oil used primarily by men in Victorian and Edwardian times to smooth their hair. It was advertised as containing oil from Macassar, which is the former name of Ujung Pandang, a district on the island of Celebes in Indonesia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassar_oil Wikipedia entry]

==Page 16==

'''About the fringes,' Randolph reminded the liberty-goers, 'of any gathering on the scale of this Exposition, are apt to lurk vicious and debased elements, whose sole aim is to take advantage of the unwary.''' 
Indeed, the Chicago World's Fair was haunted by one of America's more prolific and original serial killers, H.H. Holmes. Born in 1861, Holmes came to Chicago as a pharmacist and built an office building that was eventually dubbed 'The Castle'. Consisting of commercial stores on the first floor, and offices and apartments on the upper floors, the building also housed hidden rooms where Holmes murdered his victims, chutes that conveyed the bodies to the basement, and a chamber of horrors in the basement where he destroyed the corpses. Holmes took advantage of the World's Columbian Exposition to lure victims, primarily females who had come unaccompanied to Chicago, to the Castle for torture and murder. It is estimated that he killed over 200 people at the Castle while the Exposition was in operation. Two very good books about Holmes are The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson and Depraved by Harold Schechter. It is doubtful that Pynchon was thinking explicitly of Holmes when he wrote this passage, although he must be aware of the story. Randolph could not have known about Holmes since Holmes was not captured until after the Fair was over. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._H.H._Holmes Wikipedia entry]

'''tension of the gas''' 
I.e., the pressure in the bag.

==Page 17==

'''"as if it were something the stripling had only read about, in some boys' book of adventures...as if that page of their chronicles lay turned and done"''' 
The narrator makes us aware that Darby's adventures are as if/will be written down...the 'reality' of almost killing all of them is now just words on a page.

'''"and the order 'About-face' had been uttered by some potent though invisible Commandant of Earthly Days, toward whom Darby, in amiable obedience, had turned again."''' 
Is this just a metaphor from the narrator to describe what it is like for Darby, or is it also self-referential to
all the adventures of the Chums?. Another Q: Is the Commandant of Earthly Days the invisible presence from whom the chums get their orders? 
:Related Q: Do the Chums receive their orders from the author of their books?

'''we were usually out the door and on the main road''' 
Dick and Chick knew the judge was more likely to order them out of town than into the lockup.

'''Chinese foofooraw''' 
Also spelled foofaraw, a great deal of fuss, or useless frills. Cf folderol. However, why Chinese?
:Chick's father tried to sell Mississippi to a Chinese syndicate.

'''cubeb''' 
The name for the berry and for the oil obtained from the unripe berry of the East Indian climbing shrub ''P. cubeba''. The dried fruits are sometimes used as a condiment or are ground and smoked in cigarette form as an herbal remedy. [http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/pepper The Free Dictionary] Also appears in ''Gravity's Rainbow,'' page 118.

'''"...goldurn Keeley Cure"''' 
A treatment for alcohol, nicotine and narcotic addiction involving injections of "bichloride" or "double chloride" of gold, and also known as the "gold cure". Named for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Keeley Dr. Leslie E. Keeley,] who opened the first of many Keeley Institutes in [http://www.dwighthigh.k12.il.us/dwight/dwight.htm Dwight, Illinois], not far from Chicago, in 1879.

==Page 18==

'''headgear''' 
Description vaguely reminiscent of "Madame Bovary". [http://robotwisdom.com/flaubert/bovary/bovary1.html [notes]]

'''eclipse green''' 
Apparently an actual shade. [http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DIO_DRO/DIRECT.html [cite]]

'''Bindlestiffs of the Blue A.C.''' 
Bindlestiff means hobo; hence, the Hoboes of the Sky Aeronautical Club.

'''("Penny") Black''' 
The Penny Black was the world's first official adhesive postage stamp, issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1840. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black [Wikipedia]]

'''Tzigane''' 
French for "gypsy". Also a piece by Ravel. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzigane_(Ravel) [Wikipedia]]

'''Egypt''' 
Little Egypt is the southern area of the state of Illinois in the United States of America. Named so because it has a considerable river delta and a metropolis called Cairo (KAY-roe). The region is and was sometimes called simply "Egypt," especially in the 19th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Egypt_(region) [Wikipedia]]

==Page 19==

'''goin all blue from the light of that electric fluid''' 
Their ship was beset by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo%27s_fire St. Elmo's fire,] a low-energy electrical discharge often seen on surface vessels and occasionally on aircraft. Electric charge does behave in some respects like a fluid and was long described in such terms.

'''Voices calling out together''' 
There is no reason to doubt they heard the voices, but an aural hallucination is not out of the question: a chorus of voices is one of the easiest effects to produce with a synthesizer.

[[image:balloons-paris.jpg|thumb|200px|Garçons de '71|right]]'''Garçons de '71''' 
French: The Boys of '71; During the Siege of Paris in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War Franco-Prussian War], 1870-1871, balloons were manufactured within railroad stations in Paris. The balloons were used to get mail and passengers out of Paris. The ''Garçons de '71'' are a (probably) fictional cadre of young men who operated such balloons [[Garçons de '71|Read on...]]

'''a condition of ''permanent siege''''' 
Surely no one has failed to notice what a "wartime president" is allowed to get away with. "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

'''pétroleurs de Paris''' 
An early form of Molotov cocktail thrower during the Siege of Paris. There were pétroleurs and pétroleuses.

==Page 20==

'''they'll fly wherever they're needed''' 
While the Chums obey orders from above, the Garçons de '71 follow a different imperative.

'''energy we could feel, directed personally at us''' 
Someone may be trying to influence what the Bindlestiffs do, or keep them away from the Garçons' work of mercy.

==Page 21==

'''admissions gate''' 
Apparently a break in the fence, capitalized on by freelance impresarios.

'''fifty-cent pieces''' 
Odd. According to [http://users.vnet.net/schulman/Columbian/columbian.html this remarkable Columbian Exposition site,] regular admission was just half a dollar. Maybe Lindsay and Miles could have negotiated with the midget.

==Page 22==

'''Kodaks''' 
The word Kodak was trademarked in 1888, and the first Kodak camera was sold with the slogan, "You press the button - we do the rest." In 1891, the company released the first daylight-loading camera, so film could be changed without a darkroom. Kodaks would have been a novelty at the fair in 1893.

'''half-light . . . in the interests of mercy . . . the safety of the lights''' 
Interesting contrast suggesting a tradeoff between comfort/solace in the shadows and safety in the bright light.

'''Isandhlwana''' 
Isandlwana is an isolated hill in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. On January 22, 1879, it was the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, where over 20,000 Zulu warriors defeated a contingent of British soldiers in the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War. Almost the entire column of about 1,200 British soldiers was killed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isandhlwana [Wikipedia]] You will find a chapter on Isandhlwana in any book that has the words "military" and "blunders" in the title.

==Page 23==

'''Tarahumara''' 
Indian tribe of Northern New Mexico, in the Sierra Madres, known for cave-dwelling in the late 19th century. [[Tarahumare_Indians|About the Tarahumara]]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara [Wikipedia]]

'''"geek"''' 
A geek's act comprised things no one would do who had not sunk all the way to the bottom of the carnie world: eating live creatures, throwing fits, and so forth. Much like the television show "Fear Factor," but sad rather than stultifying.

'''monte''' 
Three-card monte.

==Page 24==

'''the curse of Scotland''' 
A term used in poker, bridge and various other card games for the nine of diamonds. Dates from 1710. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Scotland [Wikipedia]]

'''like the electricity coming on... how everything fits together, connects. It doesn't last long, though.''' 
From something as random as calling out a card trick comes this extremely profound quote by Miles Blundell (full quote edited here). The heart of this quote/thought seems to be crucial.

What Miles describes is also the symptoms of a mild seizure - could he be epileptic? Epileptics were often credited with shamanic or prophetic powers, and many sightings of religious figures have been attributed to seizures. On page 4, Miles is also said to suffer from "confusion in his motor processes", which may be related.

'''Cracker Jack''' 
First sold at the at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack [Wikipedia]]

'''New Levee district''' 
Chicago's redlight district c1890. [http://www.ipsn.org/genesis.htm [cite]]

'''Epworth League''' 
A Methodist youth organization founded in 1889. [http://www.southernmethodistchurch.org/id48.htm [cite]]

==Page 25==

'''Haymarket bomb''' 
The Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago may be the origin of international May Day observances and in popular literature inspired the caricature of "a bomb-throwing anarchist." The causes of the incident are still controversial, although deeply polarized attitudes separating the business class and the working class in late 19th century Chicago are generally acknowledged as having precipitated the tragedy and its aftermath. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_bombing Wikipedia entry].

'''if the Governor decides to pardon that gang of anarchistic murderers''' 
In May of 1886, 350,000 workers, including 70,000 in Chicago were taking to the streets to rally for the eight hour work day. After four workers were killed by the police on May 3, the anarchist leaders in Chicago called for a meeting in Haymarket Square. Although the rally was peaceful, the police came in on horseback to break it up and an unknown individual in the crowd hurled a homemade bomb into the air. After the explosion, which killed a policeman, the police opened fire on the crowd. Subsequently, the anarchist leaders deemed responsible for the rally were arrested and tried for the murder of the policeman. The Eight men were convicted of the bombing and seven of them sentenced to death. Governor Richard J. Oglesby commuted two death sentences to life. Four were hanged and a fifth committed suicide. A later governor, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three survivors on June 26, 1893, concluding that all eight of them were innocent. The last words of anarchist August Spies before he was hanged were 'The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.' Two very good books on the Haymarket Riot and the events surrounding it include The Haymarket Tragedy by Paul Avrich and Death In The Haymarket by James Green.

'''mixture of contempt and pity''' 
This is ''definitely'' not from one of the Chums' adventure stories.

'''embonpoint''' 
Convexity of body; what used to be called a "prosperous" look.

'''duck soup''' 
Meaning "an easy task," but also the name of a Marx Bros. movie. Perhaps relevant, given the cameo by Groucho promised on the book sleeve. Many of the Marx Brothers early movies had animal references in the title: Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup. The titles usually had nothing at all to do with the plot, although they contributed to the lunatic nature of the comedy. The expression 'Horse Feathers' is used a few times later on in Against The Day.

==References==
<references />

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