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

==Page 296==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 297==

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

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

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

==Page 298==

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

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

==Page 299==

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

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

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

==Page 300==

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

'''"somethin tattooed on my head"''' 
Cf. Queequeg's tattoos in ''Moby-Dick'', Ch. 3 and ''passim''.

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

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

==Page 301==

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

'''squareheads''' 
Scandinavians, especially Swedes, are sometimes referred to as ''squareheads''. In HBO's ''Deadwood'', for example, the orphaned girl Sophia (whose Scandinavian family migrated from Minnesota) is the ''squarehead girl''.

'''"just tie the reins . . . their way back"''' 
Cf. p. 294, "rented horses had already been skillfully unhitching themselves and proceding back to the corral."

==Page 302==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 303==

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

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

'''congress... congregation''' 
Two vs more-than-two at a time

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 304==

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

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

==Page 305==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 306==

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

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

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

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

'''frijoles''' 
Mexican beans.

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

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

==Page 307==
'''what'll there be then to crucify mankind on a cross of?''' 
Near-quotation from William Jennings Bryan's [http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5354/ "Cross of Gold" speech,] arguably the most famous American political speech ever, of the last sentence, "You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 308==

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

==Page 309==

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

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

==Page 310==

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

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

==Page 311==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 313==

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

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

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

==Page 314==

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

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

==Page 315==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 317==

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

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

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

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

ATD 219-242

2007-12-01T00:41:28Z

Gortbrack: respacing following entry

:'''<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.

:'''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}}

2007-11-25T01:18:31Z

Gortbrack: /* Page 186 */

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

==Page 171==

[[image:kenosha-kid.jpg|thumb|125px|"The Kenosha Kid" by Forbes Parkhill (Aug 1931) 
[http://themodernword.com/pynchon/Pynchon_kenosha_kid.html Full text and images at The Modern Word]|right]]'''Kieselguhr Kid''' 
Dynamite, a blasting explosive, was invented in 1867 by Alfred P. Nobel by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr.

The name also recalls the Kenosha Kid sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which may have taken its name from a 1931 pulp fiction story by Forbes Parkhill, a two-fisted wild west adventure.

'''...detective agencies like Pinkerton‘s and Thiel‘s''' 
see Wikipedia Entries [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_Detective_Agency 1],[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Detective_Service_Company 2]

'''they could look at the unsolved cases the way a banker might at instruments of debt''' 
And bankers call those instruments ''negotiable paper.''

'''reaction of 1849''' 
Acts of European governments to suppress the widespread liberal revolutions of 1848. The reaction impelled many people to emigrate to the U.S.

'''Sangre de Cristos''' 
southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_De_Cristo_Mountains Wikipedia Entry]

Robert Oppenheimer had a ranch in the Sangre de Cristos and loved to ride horseback through the area since he was 18. When the Manhattan Project sought a location to set up shop, Oppenheimer saw Los Alamos as a way to combine his two great loves (physics and NM) with the military's need of a secure and isolated place for the bomb's development.

==Page 172==

'''The Kid's family had supposedly come . . . whenever the Kid's in the county''' 
''The Legend of the Kieselguhr Kid,'' with parallels to the Legends of Zorro, the Lone Ranger and many others.

'''Couple dozen, in big bandoliers across his chest''' 
Similar to the way suicide bombers in the Middle East wear their munitions?

'''Uncompahgre''' 
The Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado.

'''Butch Cassidy''' 
infamous outlaw [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Wikipedia Entry]

'''Dr. Lombroso''' 
Born in Verona, Italy, Dr. Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), using concepts drawn from Physiognomy, early Eugenics, Psychiatry and Social Darwinism, devised the theory that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso Wikipedia entry]

'''Lodazal''' 
spanish for bog, quagmire 
Burke Ponghill has some "swampland" for sale, it's in Colorado, wanna buy some? Comes with a bridge he'd be happy to sell you too. Calls to mind the Florida land speculation boom/bust of the 1920s in general and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isola_di_Lolando Isola di Lolando] in particular. Built to look like a Venetian island, it still sits abandonded in Biscayne Bay.

==Page 173==

'''"evil-doers"''' 
This immediately brings to mind the post 9/11 George W. Bush use of the term, once again relating the time of AtD, with its "unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places" with current day America - unless, of course, "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred." [[User:Thew|Thew]] 18:49, 30 May 2007 (PDT)

'''"got us a man of principle"''' 
Eerily reminiscent of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, the convicted American murderer known for his campaign of mail bombings, many of which were addressed to specific victims, intended by Kaczynski to draw attention to what he percieved as the ills of technology on modern society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Wikipedia entry].

There a several tenuous threads of connection between Pynchon and the Unabomber. Pynchon has written works exploring the dangers of modern technology and, more specifically, ludditism. [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html] [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/paper_gibbs.html] As a young man, Pynchon co-wrote such a play, ''Minstral Island'', with his Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale, who later would become one of the world's most prominent and outspoken luddites. Sale later said, "The Unabomber and I share a great many views about the pernicious effect of the Industrial Revolution, the evils of modern technologies, the stifling effect of mass society, the vast extent of suffering in a machine-dominated world and the inevitability of social and environmental catastrophe if the industrial system goes unchecked," although naturally Sale condemned the Unabomber's method. When the Unabomber's identity was still unknown, Pynchon was suggested (with who knows what degree of seriousness, and by whom) as a possible suspect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#1990s_and_2000s]

'''"jizzmatic juices backin' up, putting pressure on the brain" 
'Jizzmatic juices' seems to be a Pynchon-created slang phrase for semen, adapted from the dictionary-found slang word for semen, "jism". Pynchon has "a lady acquaintence" of Mr. Ponghill as responsible for the "naive theory" [Lew Basnight], commonly-enough held, that lack of sex "lack of exposure to the fair sex", previous paragraph can affect the brain and therefore one's judgment.

:Yes yes. this "lack of exposure to the fair sex" can cause [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|Beaver on the Brain]]

:Actually you can find the term "jizz" at the [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jizz Urban Dictionary] - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:49 GMT+2, 26 January 2007

'''"Don't mean he ain't got a right to his privacy."''' 
Continues the Unabomber/Pynchon connection. Pynchon follows the description of a dynamite bomber with the right to privacy, something that Pynchon has guarded closely for his entire life. For more on Pynchon and privacy, see [[ATD_26-56#Page_37|page 37]].

==Page 174==

'''back to the campfires of his youth, only then it was God didn't have a name''' 
"What is God's name?" or "What is God's first name?" was a topic that reliably led adolescent boys to yatter pointlessly on for hours when their adult leaders wanted to be left alone in camp.

'''"your own brother"''' 
The Unabomber was turned in by his brother. ("Kaczynski" means 'ducky' or 'duckman'. Did TRP hide this somewhere?)

==Page 175==

'''every cabin . . . concealed stories that were anything but peaceful''' 
Compare Sherlock Holmes in "The Copper Beeches": "It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

'''"Only slowly would it occur to his ultra-keen detective's reasoning that these bombs could have been set by anybody, including those who would clearly benefit if "Anarchists", however loosely defined, could be blamed for it."''' 
Is this an(other) allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? Cf. a similar reference in [[ATD_81-96#Page_85|page 85]] and the discussion therein.

Pynchon seems to be a smart enough guy to not believe such ridiculous theories. It's all too easy to read into these true historical events (the short-lived period of anarchist bombings of the late 19th and early 20 centuries) similitudes with more recent events, but the context in AtD is clear enough that this sort of speculation seems to be nothing more than speculation. Of course, that's the fodder for conspiracy theorists...--[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 04:40, 21 February 2007 (PST)

I see a broader parallel between government manipulation of 19th century fear of "anarchists" and 20th century fears of "terrorists." As in the 2006 film "Children of Men," where the government is responsible for the "terrorist" bombings. --[[User:Cal|Cal]] 11:48, 14 June 2007 (PST)

The idea of controlled demolitions undertaken on the gov.'s behalf isn't a new one, and those who think the idea is too outlandish for the period have failed to "Remember the Maine!" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_%28ACR-1%29]

Anyways, whether Pynchon believes the WTC "conspiracy theories" or not, it seems obvious that he is encouraging the reader to make the connection. If anyone knows that it's "all too easy to read into these true historical [or fictional] events... similitudes with more recent events" it's TRP. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]
:I disagree that TRP is "encouraging" us to make such a connex, and anyway, the Maine was either an accident or destroyed by a [Spanish] mine, so it isn't parallel. The yellow press went to work, even though the US gov't at that point was not sure it wanted war with Cuba. -- Owl of Minerva

It seems to me that when Ruggles writes statements like the quote above, or makes a reference to someone removing the rubble of a building to an out of country location, or a little later on when he has the Chums suspect their Subdesertine scherzo is really only a front for oil exploration, he does so with the full knowledge that his vigilantly paranoid (and generally anti-establishment) readers might suspect he is referring to present day events. This is the same man who wrote Proverbs for Paranoids after all. I guess it comes down to whether or not you think Pynchon had his tongue planted firmly in cheek when he wrote on Amazon that "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred". You see where I stand. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]] 

:Sorry, Pomopaul, my comment sounded rather snooty. I did NOT mean that trp wants no connex made, but rather that he is connecting past and present power politics based on disasters, especially human-caused disasters, rather than encouraging us to believe that our own gov't caused 9/11. In AtD, I see materialist power politics with not-thought-out and unintended consequences. The Austrian Emperor, for instance, is not trying to provoke war with Serbia in order to bring about the extinction of that Empire, but that is the unintended result. But you have given me pause, for you are certainly correct about Proverbs for Paranoids.... -- Owl

:A wrong premise seems to underlie some discussion in the wiki: the notion of a passage '''''referring to''''' something outside the book. The writing stands on its own feet; if it didn't, we all would have quit reading. But you don't go to the Velázquez show to learn what the Spanish princesses looked like. The artist proposes new terms that you can use to understand your world. A lot of us think we can use Pynchon's terms this way: magic, straight lines, Panic fear, born of light, the sacrifice of innocence. If that's so, then the best end of the wiki is to help users parse the terms. It misses the point to discuss what Pynchon ''thinks'' or ''intends'' or to make this book be about the 21st century.

:Well, maybe we need to continue this discussion on a Talk page. "Referring" to something outside the book has different meanings,of course, and certain literalnesses of referring many of us might find....narrow......or plain wrong but I would argue that TRP would agree with Melville on the NECESSITY of works to 'tie in' to the real world. [citation needed]. I think one of the best things about the wiki is that is allows that to be shown--and shown deeply and thematically---against the blindness of some readers and even 'critics' and reviewers who say Pynchon's works are so 'postmodern' they are only about themselves. I think the above poster might not differ with this assessment, but I wanted to stress it. [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 08:40, 22 June 2007 (PDT)

==Page 176==

'''revealing the Plutonic powers as they daily sent their legions of gnomes underground''' 
Here we may have a key to understanding the war in the Earth's Interior—in which Chthonica, Princess of Plutonia, saw her castle besieged by the Legion of Gnomes—when the Chums of Chance seem to have joined the Plutonic cause; [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|see text and annotations, p. 117.]]

'''"the Powers, who always had more dwarves waiting, even eagerly, to be sent below."''' 
A Tolkien-inspired imagery? Dwarfs figure prominently into Norse mythology and fantasy works before Tolkien, but Tolkien supposedly began the use of the spelling, "dwarves," employed here. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf Wikipedia entry on Dwarf] 
:I would hope it's an allusion to Wagner's Ring rather than to Tolkien. On pp. 127-28, Iceland Spar, there is discussion of the far north and Nordic travels there. Beyond the Ginnungagap lay Niflheim or in German Niebelheim, meaning Foggy Home, and in Wagner it lay under the earth, with bent-over workers, perhaps dwarves, forced to mine gold and other minerals. This makes the comment above, about the earth's interior and Chthonica, fit even better.

'''Tortoni's on Arapahoe''' 
Italian restaurant located in the 1500 block of Arapahoe Street in downtown Denver. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~codenver/miracle/104.htm Photo]

'''Gahan's saloon across the street from City Hall''' 
Saloon operated by William Gahan, a Denver City Councilman, and his brothers conveniently located at 1401 Larimer Street in Denver, across the street from City Hall. Gahan operated two other saloons, including one at 1133 Larimer Street, which he supposedly kept open on Sundays, harbored gambling, and sponsored a boys' baseball team that played for beer.

'''Ed Chase, the boss of the red-light district''' 
Edward "Big Ed" Chase (1838-1921) was a New Yorker from Saratoga Springs who became the leader of criminal activities in Denver from 1860 on, and as such was an influential and respected man. He ran saloons, gambling houses, bordellos, and theaters (specializing in "burlesque"), and served on the Denver City Council from 1866-1869. After that, he was a behind-the-scenes ward boss and power broker for the Republican party, which dominated Denver politics at the time. Nearly every 19th century election in Denver was clouded by charges that Chase had organized an army of voters out of riffraff, vagrants, prostitutes, barflies and gamblers. By the time of his death in 1921, Chase had come to be regarded as a respected real estate investor and capitalist. For more info, consult ''The City & The Saloon: Denver 1858-1918'' by Thomas J. Noel.

'''"another little Haymarket"''' 
On May 4th 1886 a workers' protest meeting was held at the West Randolph Street Haymarket in Chicago. A bomb was thrown at the police, the police opened fire and many officers and protesters were killed ([http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html chicagohistory.org])

==Page 177==

'''The Row''' 
Denver‘s red light district developed along McGaa Street (subsequently renamed Holladay and then Market Street) [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200010/ai_n8908963 1] [http://www.womenof.com/Articles/d011899.asp 2]

==Page 178==

'''W.F.M.''' 
Western Federation of Miners [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia Entry]

'''Tansy Wagwheel''' 
Other ''AtD'' women named for herbs and ornamentals include Stray's friend [[ATD_199-218#Page_203|Sage in Nochecita,]] [[ATD_243-272#Page_263|Lake's colleague Oleander Prudge,]] [[ATD_149-170#Page_160|Cousin Dittany Vibe,]] [[ATD_336-357#Page_345|Verbena at Smokefoot's,]] and of course [[ATD_26-56#Page_28|Dahlia Rideout.]]

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
The Klan itself was not in its heyday at the time this episode took place, and not only is it unlikely that the Klan would have shown itself at the time, but also that it would have been this far west. The "modern" Klan was only reformed in 1915. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Wikipedia]. IN the 1920s, Colorado would become a stronghold of the "modern" Klan.

'''heeled''' 
Carrying a sidearm. (The word also means "having money," but here the first meaning is pretty clear.)

==Page 179==

'''Buck Wells''' 
An elite American who was on the board of the Telluride Mining Association, head of a mining company and was aggressively anti-union even to the point of false murder charges. Bulkeley Wells http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulkeley_Wells

'''Clovis Yutts''' 
"Yutz" is a slang word (from Yiddish) for a clueless goof.

'''different tempos and keys''' 
Cf 'anarchist miracle' in "Lot 49" (chapter 5).

In the early 1970s San Francisco was the site of the Black Flag Concerts, where anybody was allowed to make any music. People who attended said it was disorienting to wander through the crowd listening to folk singers, kazoo bands and Celtic harpists all belting away. (The Black Flag is a traditional emblem of anarchism.)

Also perhaps a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives Charles Ives], who wrote much music containing combatting sections in different keys, tempi and melody. The quintessential image of Ives' music is that of four marching bands playing different tunes arriving at the same village square. Ives attended Yale, though graduated in 1898, two years prior to the scene beginning on page 156.

Or perhaps just an image of musical anarchy to match the political Anarchism.

==Page 180==

'''Valley Tan''' 
Mormon whiskey reported by Mark Twain. [http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/091795.html cite]

As Twain himself suggests, Valley Tan was not so much a whiskey as a “first cousin to it.” It was a brand of patent medicines that were produced in Salt Lake City at the Valley Tan Remedies (V.T.R.) Laboratory beginning in 1884. A brief profile of the company can be found at this [http://www.fohbc.com/PDF_Files/ValleyTanRemedies_Sanders.pdf website.]

==Page 181==

'''it'll be run Anarchist run for you, Brother Basnight''' 
Echoes Chick on p. 8: "legal ain't got nothing to do with it—it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door."

==Page 182==

'''faded into the mobility''' 
"Mobility" also appears in ''Mason & Dixon.'' The word was later shortened to "mob."

'''"kept wasting Agency money rattling off one telegram after another."''' 
Cf. the following excerpt from a letter by novelist Raymond Chandler to Jamie Hamilton, 21 March 1949:
:"I remember several years ago when Howard Hawks was making ''The Big Sleep'', the movie, he and Bogart got into an argument as to whether one of the characters was murdered or commited suicide. They sent me a wire (there's a joke about this too) asking me, and dammit I didn't know either. Of course I got hooted at. The joke was in connection with Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros. Believe it or not, he saw the wire, the wire cost the studio 70 cents, and he called Hawks up and asked him whether it was really necessary to send a telegram about a point like that. That's one way to run a business." (''The Raymond Chandler Papers'', ed. by Tom Hiney and Frank McShane, Penguin 2001, p. 105)

'''P.E.T.N.''' 
The explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Ingredient of Semtex, discovered 1891. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN Wikipedia]

'''Dr. Oyswharf''' 
There is, in Norfolk, Virginia, a district (?) called "Oyster Wharf"; there is, in London, a development called "Oyster Wharf" not sure if it's significant or points anywhere, but it appears that this fellow's name is a contraction of those two words. More generically, an "oyster wharf" is any wharf where the oystermen come in and offload their catch. Back in the day, they would give oysters away for free. Oyster shells are a natural source of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3).

Bear in mind that the Chums' Upper Hierarchy communicated orders to the Chums via a pearl. Miles Blundell "well before sunup, had visited the shellfish market in the teeming narrow lanes of the old town in Surabaya, East Java" and procured a bucket of "Special Japanese Oysters" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 113|p. 113]]). The pearl was inserted into a device which rendered a "photographic image." This connects with the red crystal used in Merle's and Roswell's device ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page 1037|p. 1037]]).

Also bear in mind the sexual implications of the oyster, both its use as slang for the vagina (because its shape is evocative of the vagina, and some say its smell, as well) as well as its reputation as a aphrodisiac. This plays into [[The_Sexual_Angle|the sexual pattern]] that runs through ''Against the Day''. A few tidbits:

:Oysters were documented as a aphrodisiac food by the Romans in the second century A.D as mentioned in a satire by Juvenal. He described the wanton ways of women after ingesting wine and eating "giant oysters". An additional hypotheses is that the oyster resembles the "female" genitals. In reality oysters are a very nutritious and high in protein. [http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/aphrodis_foods.htm]

:Oysters have always been linked with love. When Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros, the word "aphrodisiac" was born. The dashing lover Casanova also used to start a meal eating 12 dozen oysters. [http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0298/oysters.html]

Interesting that the oyster plays to the sexual connection, ''and'' the "artful sons of Nippon" using paramorphism to change aragonite, the "nacreous" (an adjective frequently used to describe semen) part of the pearl "to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 114|p. 114]]).

Also: "Oysvarf" in Yiddish means, literally, vomitus; An "oysvarf" translates roughly as "a little puke".
:Actually, my checking indicates that it's ''oysvurf'', not ''oysvarf'', which is Yiddish for an outcast or bad person.

Also might be a reference to Owsley Stanley,"'underground' LSD chemist, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD" and "the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters". wiki:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley]

'''mixtures of nitro compounds and polymethylenes''' 
Nitro compounds include TNT, nitroglycerine and many other explosives. Polymethylenes are probably polymethylene waxes used as stabilizers or desensitizers.

'''experiencing the hotel dining room in a range of colors, not to mention cultural references, which had not been there when he came in''' 
Kinda like the way many of us are seeing ''AtD'' after prolonged exposure to the wiki. . . .

'''"The wallpaper in particular presented not a repeating pattern at all"''' 
Cf. Lucius Sheppard's 1985 short story ''The Fundamental Things'', where a lady starts translating her wallpaper pattern to Hebrew.

The connection between explosives and psychedelics is apparently not based in chemistry but it has appeared elsewhere in popular culture. The 1967 James Bond spoof ''Casino Royale'' has a scene where pillowcases are inflated with a psychedelic gas, a fuse is attached, and a powerful explosion is the result.

==Page 183==

[[image:beaver-on-the-brain.jpg|thumb|Beaver on the Brain T-Shirt|right]]'''Yes we're Beavers of the Brain... 
This little hallucinated ditty, sung by "a race of very small but perfectly visible inhabitants" of Lew Basnight's steak, is reminiscent of "We Represent the Lollipop Guild" sung by three tough-looking Munchkin boys in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 ''The Wizard of Oz''] (1939). "Beavers of the Brain" also brings to mind the phrase "Beaver on the brain" (describing a horny male or, perhaps, lesbian) which even adorns t-shirts (see right).

'''Keep that Bulldog in your pocket...''' 
A "Bulldog" is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon. It also carries a somewhat sexual connotation.

'''Cyclomite''' 
A spelling error may lead to the idea that cyclomite is a name for the explosive RDX; that's cyclo'''n'''ite.

:I don't think this is a spelling error. Connects with dynomite. No way.

:Didn't make myself clear. If cyclomite is a Pynchon coinage, a Google search should give only Pynchon-linked hits. But I got a hit on an explosive—causing me to be short of breath till I realized it was just a misspelling for the correct term '''(in that context)''' "cyclonite," or RDX.

'''plasticerator''' 
Plasti-, moldable (in this case chewable); cera- related to Latin ''cera'' = wax, ''cerumen'' = earwax; -ator, an agent to modify a product. The word "plasticerator" does not seem to have caught on. It would not be a failed synonym for "plasticizer," an agent to make rigid plastics pliable.

==Page 184==

'''Kankakee''' 
city in Illinois.

'''Wall of Death''' 
Without risk of spoilage, [[ATD_460-488#Page_476|see annotation to p. 476.]]

'''things would happen gradually enough to afford time to do something about it''' 
A central idea in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which features a rocket that breaks the sound barrier and thus the ability to kill you before you hear it coming.

'''the world turned all inside out''' 
This passage describes acid flashbacks.
:It's certainly written so as to suggest acid flashbacks but it's describing Lew's experience of being blown up

'''the carnival theory''' 
On page 90 Kit Traverse had "seen a dynamited carny jump up out of the blast good as new."

==Page 185==

'''Trilby hat''' 
Derived from George du Maurier's 1894 novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby Trilby]. The novel was adapted into a long-running play starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali. A hat of this style was worn on stage during the play's first London production.

'''excursion''' 
Wilde's US lecture tour was in 1882.

==Page 186==

'''Anasazi''' 
Ancient Pueblo Peoples, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi "Anasazi"]

'''"Like a Red Indian Stonehenge!" - "Only different!"''' 
Cf. " 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.' " (''Vineland'', p. 170). See also [[ATD_119-148#Page_133| page 133]].

[[image:hangedman.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Hanged Man by Colman-Smith]]
'''''grifa''''' 
Marijuana. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grifa cite]

'''Miss Colman-Smith is West Indian [tarot cards]''' 
Pamela Colman Smith (1878—1951) was an artist, illustrator, and writer. She is best known for designing the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite. Smith was born in England, the daughter of an American merchant from Brooklyn, Charles Edward Smith and his Jamaican wife Corinne Colman. Due to her father’s job with the West India Improvement Company, the family often moved, spending time in London, Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith Wikipedia entry]

Pynchon's interest in the tarot is evident in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Two tarot cards are referred to here -- the Hanged Man ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite image]) and the Knight of Swords ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_arcana#Swords image]). The reference is an anachronism, as the deck wasn't published until 1909.

'''''espadas . . . copas''''' 
Spanish: Swords, Cups. The Tarot suits corresponding to spades and clubs.

'''Querent''' 
Latin: one who asks. The subject of a Tarot reading (in some settings, the mark).

'''Perseid''' 
"The shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8 and 14 with a peak on August 12. During the peak, rates of a hundred or more meteors per hour can be registered." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid Wikipedia]
This paragraph again suggests [[ATD page 83]], Indian, and even Indian ghosts' amusement with the Whites. 

==Page 187==

'''hell of a blow-up . . . . maiden's sigh''' 
Possible allusion to the testing of Trinity Bomb, the first explosion of an atomic weapon, which took place at White Sands, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test Wikipedia].

See the text on the "anti-Stone," pp. 78-79, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|and annotations.]]

'''A second Moon''' 
[[ATD_119-148#Page_144|On page 144,]] ''Inconvenience'' is described as a "misplaced moon."

'''Galveston''' 
In the summer of 1900 Galveston was a major seaport; many of its cotton warehouses still stand. In the 19th century it was a port of entry for immigrants from Germany, Bohemia, the Balkans and elsewhere. The 1900 hurricane was the making of Houston, a few dozen miles up slow-flowing Buffalo Bayou—which was turned into the Ship Channel within a few years.

==Page 188==

'''Galveston Hurricane''' 
An historical event (8th September 1900, 6000 dead).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900 [Wikipedia]]

'''wherever could you have been living, before that frightful bomb brought you to us?''' 
Perhaps an allusion to and rhetorical parallel of the "wake-up bomb" of the 9/11 attacks, and the relative increase of attention paid by the American media and public to such post-9/11 disasters as the slaughter of citizens in the Afghan and Iraq offensives, the destruction wrought by the South Asian tsunami, the displacement of the "hidden" poor of the Gulf States by Hurricane Katrina, the carnage of the earthquake in Iran, the rampant and still-raging genocides of Sudan, and so on.
:It has to work in ''AtD'' before it can be an allusion to something else! Here Neville seems to say Lew was ''not'' with him and Nigel until the explosion delivered "the New Lew" into "the world reconstituted" (p. 185), not that the N's simply found him in his torpor. "It didn't seem like Colorado anymore" (also p. 185). The explosion did more than knock Lew out; now he's living somewhere else. The reader is well-advised to trust Pynchon and let the text mean what it means before interpreting other histories into it.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
This is the second appearance of the word (the first was on page 83). Neurasthenia was a kind of catch-all at the time for what today would be called depression, fatigue, anxiety, etc.

==Page 189==

'''Fireman Jim Flynn''' 
The nickname undoubtedly comes from railroading, not firefighting.

==Page 190==

'''blue northers''' 
In the West, the Plains and down to Texas, a blue norther is a fast-moving weather front with lightning, rain and wind, followed by a rapid drop in temperature.

==Page 191==

==Page 192==

'''nearly twenty''' 
1883 + 19yo = 1902?

'''stamps beating''' 
Breaking ore into small pieces in preparation for refining.

==Page 193==

'''Uncompahgre''' 
A Plateau in Western Colorado, named after the Uncompahgre Ute Indian Tribe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncompahgre_%28disambiguation%29 [Wikipedia]]

'''Deuce Kindred''' 
A seaman deuce is an apprentice seaman. See V. 
Deuce=Two=Also?...Deuce=Two=Doubling? 
Philip K. Dick's full name is Philip Kindred Dick.

'''Deuce had been one of those Sickly Youths . . . Strenuosity''' 
[[ATD_149-170#Page_159|Theodore Roosevelt]] was the model for feeble boys growing into bold men. His "Strenuous Life" doctrine was uncomfortably close to the adult Deuce's ways.

'''absorbed . . . re-emission . . . fluorescence of vindictiveness''' 
In a fluorescent tube, invisible ultraviolet radiation from the electrical discharge is absorbed by "phosphors" on the inside of the glass. The UV excites the phosphor atoms, which then—instead of giving off ultraviolet of their own—re-emit the energy at a different wavelength, one that is visible.

'''workin fathoms''' 
Mining under a contract that paid by the volume of rock extracted. See [[ATD_296-317#Page_302|annotations to p. 302]] (but to avoid spoilers, don't look up or down).

'''not since the aught-one strike''' 
So 1901 is in the past.

'''three-dollar sack suit''' 
That is, a suit one might buy at a store where one fills a sack with clothes and then pays three dollars for the lot.
A sack suit is an ordinary 19th-c. business suit which "evolved into the modern three piece suit."
[http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/sack.html source]

==Page 194==

'''the fish at that table''' 
The player whose money the others mean to take.

'''Dallas Divide''' 
Mountain Pass dividing the Uncompahgre Plateau from the San Juan Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Divide [Wikipedia]]

==Page 195==

'''Sloat Fresno''' 
Possibly named for Commodore John D. Sloat ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Sloat Wikipedia entry]), American naval officer who claimed California, then a territory of Mexico, as part of the United States on July 7, 1846. The text of the declaration can be found [http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/documents/sloat.htm here]. Another source may be the Sloat Lumber Co. of Quincy, CA, which used an uncommon 30 gauge track, about which all I can find is [http://members.tripod.com/~Sloat_Lumber_Co/PROTOTYP.HTM here]. Fresno is presumably a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno%2C_CA city in California], though its direct relation to either the Commodore or the Sloat Lumber Co. is unclear.

''Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,'' by Cormac McCarthy, has a character named Sloat, but he's so minor that the only dialog he gets is when he denies being related to the commodore.

Sloat is another term for slat, a narrow piece of wood. Fresno is Spanish for ash.

'''copping the borax''' 
? Seemingly a term invented by Pynchon. No idea what it means, but borax is a mineral used in detergent, pottery, a lots of other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax Wikipedia on Borax]

"Borax" is a slang word for cheap, poorly made products. Makers of borax for use in cleansing used to give away junky items as premiums. If you look at it the other way around, "borax" could mean a premium, hence an enlistment bonus. "Copping" of course is getting something by underhand means.

'''from Fort Bliss to the Coeur d'Alenes''' 
From Dan to Beersheba, so to speak. Fort Bliss is near El Paso, Texas. The Coeur d'Alène Mountains are in the panhandle of Idaho and the western end of Montana.

'''Montrose''' 
Montrose, CO. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado [Wikipedia]]

'''li'l buddy''' 
Brings to mind Gilligan and the Skipper from ''Gilligan's Island'': Sloat, like the Skipper, is twice his buddy's size; in both pairs, it is uncertain just who is whose sidekick; and the Skipper referred to Gilligan by, "li'l buddy."

==Page 196==

'''red liquor''' 
Colored liquor, such as bourbon or whiskey.

==Page 197==

'''Sloat tending to bodies, Deuce... the spirit''' 
Again, the body/soul dichotomy. See [[ATD_97-118#Page_101|page 101]] and [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]] letter by Pynchon.

[[image:couplingpin.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Coupling pin]]'''coupling pin''' See photo.

==Page 198==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Repeats the title of Part One. May also suggest Tesla's 03 July 1899 'vision' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_97|page 97]]). May also be tied to the light/dark theme running through parts of the book thus far: light over the (dark) ranges. Note the concurrence of the leitmotives light-time-water in the sentence "He watched the light over the ranges slowly draining away". The image of "draining light" might also hint at the wave-particle duality.

'''Jeshimon''' 
Literally: "the waste", more specifically the wilderness of Judah in the Bible, near the Dead Sea. [http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/jeshimon.html christiananswers.net]. Fuller annotation at [[ATD_199-218#Page_209|page 209.]]

'''"Sir, please relocate your hand or I shall be obliged to do so myself"''' 
A fine flowery way of saying, "Move it or lose it, Sport."

'''Cortez''' 
In far southwestern Colorado near the Utah state line.

'''shadow had taken the immeasurable plain''' 
Contrasts "the light over the ranges". Possibly an allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah, the "cities of the plain" in Genesis 19, in which the angels advise Lot and his family: "do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the Plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away" (19:17). ''The cities of the plain'', is also the title of i) the translated fourth volume of Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'' (original title ''Sodome et Gomorrhe'') and ii) Cormac McCarthy's third novel of ''The Border Trilogy''.

This is the third possible reference to Proust so far. See also [[ATD_149-170#Page_165|page 165]], and [[#Page_188|page 188]].

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

ATD 81-96

2007-11-24T16:04:54Z

Gortbrack: /* Page 82 */

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

==Page 81==
'''July Fourth started hot and grew hotter,...''' 

[[image:Gpynch.jpg|thumb|Guardan Review|right]] On Saturday, 18 November 2006, the UK's Guardian newspaper, in a Review section which featured a drawing of what Pynchon might now look like on its cover, published a full-page excerpt from ''Against the Day''. This comprised pages 81 to 85 (up to "he wondered sometimes if he would've ever signed on."), with the addition of the final paragraph from page 96, ending with "Happy Fourth of July, Webb." This was a much more substantial excerpt than the one which appeared in the Penguin Press catalogue, and was arguably a more alluring one in terms of attracting the general reader. These were the only official excerpts published before ATD itself, on 21 November 2006.

The Guardian excerpt is now online:
[http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1950566,00.html]

The timing of this chapter, opening on a summer morning, parallels that of the novel's very first chapter.

'''nitro beginning to ooze out of dynamite sticks''' 
The important point about dynamite is when it '''doesn't''' blow up. Alfred Nobel discovered that he could stabilize nitroglycerine by soaking it into a powdered clay; the product was not sensitive to shock or heat. That is, until it separated in hot weather, with greasy-feeling free nitro collecting on the outside of the sticks. (A minor plot point in the TV series ''Lost,'' isn't it?)

'''Feast of St. Barbara''' 
According to legend, Saint Barbara was the extremely beautiful daughter of a wealthy heathen named Dioscorus, who lived near Nicomedia in Asia Minor, in the 4th Century AD. Because of her singular beauty and fearful that she be demanded in marriage and taken away from him, he jealously shut her up in a tower to protect her from the outside world. When Barbara converted to Christianity, her enraged father killed her and was subsequently struck down by lightening. St. Barbara was venerated as early as the seventh century. The legend of the lightning bolt which struck down her father caused her to be regarded as the patron saint in time of danger from thunderstorms, fires and sudden death. When gunpowder made its appearance in the Western world, Saint Barbara was invoked for aid against accidents resulting from explosions since some of the earlier artillery pieces often blew up instead of firing their projectile, Saint Barbara became the patroness of the artillerymen. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm]

'''Propaganda of the Deed''' 
Anarchist terrorism.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed [Wikipedia]]

'''Zarzuela''' 
Webb's horse is named for a Spanish genre of musical theater. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarzuela [Wikipedia]]

'''cicadas''' 
[http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/insect/05590.html Cicadas in Colorado] are annual, not 17- or 13-year periodical species, so they don't help pin down the year of the action.

==Page 82==
'''Skinner''' 
A person who drives mules.

'''"Rocky Mountain canaries"''' 
Burros, donkeys, nicknamed for their sweet song.

'''Chinaman''' 
This is the latest of many allusions to China or Chinese in an exotic, oriental way. This may simply be imitating Gilded Age and early 20th century American fiction and films, which often featured mystical Chinese as characters and villains. It also recalls the use of Feng Shui in ''Mason & Dixon''.

It may also allude to the large number of Chinese who worked on the railroads in the Rocky Mountains, especially as dynamiters.

'''Eclipse Union mine''' 
A sextuple entendre of sorts: 
First it can mean a mine where the labor union has been blocked/extinguished/shut down. 
Second, it may denote Confederate sympathies vis-a-vis the Northern states. 
Third, it is a redudant description of the sun and moon in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy syzygy] which term expands into several other meanings in alchemy, biology, gnosticism, mathematics (Hilbert's syzygy theorem), medicine, philosophy, poetry and zoology. 
Fourth, in alchemy and astrology the sun is gold and the moon is silver, an eclipse union mine may be one that produces more silver than gold. 
Fifth, assuming a solar eclipse, an eclipse would be "against the day." 
Sixth, and perhaps most probably, it may refer to the 1878 Solar Eclipse Expedition to Pike's Peak headed by Samuel Pierpont Langley.

'''flames issuing out of his head''' 
It's not unheard-of that a recreational drug user sees other people on fire. The hallucination may also be linked to the coming dynamite headache (next entry). There's also the allusion to Moses coming from the mountain with fire from his head; this is the source for Michelangelo's 'horns' on his statue. Veikko carries the word, but won't be allowed into the new 'Promised Land.' This is the first we meet Veikko which sounds close to Vico, a sure source of Pynchonian elements. 

'''dynamite headache''' 
The nitroglycerin in dynamite is the same compound used medicinally against angina pectoris. Users say the sudden headache is better than the chest pains . . . but sometimes they pause to think before answering.

'''Cour d'Alene bullpens''' 
Usually 'Coeur'. Striking miners in 1892 were illegally confined in bullpens. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene_miners'_dispute [Wikipedia]]

'''Cripple Creek''' 
Cripple Creek was the location of a miner's strike in 1894. It was a significant labor event and it was the first time that a state Militia was called out in support of the miners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Creek_miners'_strike_of_1894 Wikipedia entry]

'''side-door pullman''' 
Boxcar.

==Page 83==

'''They thought it was funny''' 
Many authorities report that Indians think almost everything whites do is funny. In particular:

'''Colorado . . . created as a reservation for whites''' 
Drawing straight lines on the ground and calling them limits. Most of the reservations in the West and on the Plains are bounded by such lines rather than "natural" boundaries like crestlines. So is Colorado: "four straight lines on paper" -- a Cartesian state of geography.

'''General Bobrikoff''' 
Or Bobrikov, N.I. (1839-1904), given dictatorial powers in Finland, viewed there as oppressor, assassinated.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
Neurasthenia (Fatigue syndrome) is a neurotic disorder. [http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/?gf40.htm+f480 Definition/Symptoms]

This word appears again on [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|page 188]]. It may be a reference to Proust, who was neurasthenic. It may also simply be a fancy word for disinterested in this context. 
:The diagnosis was frequently used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for men (women were "hysterics"). In World War I, soldiers suffering what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder were diagnosed as neurasthenic -- if they weren't refused medical aid and/ or executed as deserters. See Elaine Showalter, '''''The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980''''' (NY: Pantheon, 1985)

==Page 84==

'''1900''' 
So the current Fourth of July must be 1901 or later (not 1899). 
And not 1904: Gen. Bobrikoff (preceding page) was assassinated in June of that year, so Veikko's toast goes stale. Therefore 1901, '02 or '03.

On August 14, 1900, American, British, Russian and American troops entered Beijing to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

'''''Minneskort''''' 
Modern Finnish word for computer memory cards. (TRP likely saw it on a Nokia phone.)

'''Fink trusses''' 
This [http://pghbridges.com/basics.htm perfectly delightful site] for bridge spotters identifies the Fink truss as a design by Albert Fink dating from the 1860s. It's illustrated way down toward the bottom of the page. All the compression and tension members lie below the plane of the deck where the tracks are laid.

==Page 85==

'''nippers''' 
The etymology is not very interesting, but [http://www.britishempire.co.uk/glossary/n.htm decide for yourself.] According to Google, the term used to mean "boys used to open and close doors in a mine," but the link to the source is dead.

'''Innocent Victims . . . Monsters That Did the Deed''' 
Use of capitals seems to emphasize the fact that these persons are simply convenient stock characters in the forwarding of the owners'/government's agenda.

'''"some of these explosions, the more deadly of them, in fact, were really set off to begin with not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves."''' 
Is this an allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? 

NO! In labor history, many 'accidents' and some planned deeds by owners were blamed on radicals, anarchists, etc. It was common in the early days of the labor movement for owners to conspire to make the unions look bad in this manner. One such example is cited [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_labor_issues_and_events here] in 1910, and it is certainly far from the only one.

See, however, a much more straightforward allusion in [[ATD_171-198#Page_175|page 175]].
:While it's true that many "anarchist" explosions were planned by the owners of industry, to suggest that this is NOT! an allusion to the possibility of US Government involvement in the 9-11 attacks seems rather limiting. Pynchon hinted strongly that this novel is an allegory for our own time in the jacket blurb, and much of what makes this chapter interesting is the way it creates a disturbing analogy between the terrorism carried out by Webb, a highly sympathetic figure, and that carried out by the 9-11 hijackers, whom we so love to hate.

'''Which left precious few targets except for the railroad.''' 
Frank Norris's 1901 novel ''The Octopus'' is summed up in one short paragraph. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus_%28Frank_Norris%29 Wikipedia entry].

==Page 86==
'''Shorty's Billiard Saloon''' 
This is based on real accounts of billiard balls sparking and exploding in saloons. The balls in question used a then-new thermoplastic compound of cellulose nitrate and camphor developed and patented under the trademark "celluloid" by John Wesley Hyatt as a substitute for ivory. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C Celluloid] for Wikipedia links to Hyatt and Celluloid.

'''without being hit once''' 
Similar to a pivotal scene in the film, ''Pulp Fiction''.

'''a state of heightened receptivity''' 
People who talk about enlightenment and unsubstantiated alternative "therapies" use this phrase a lot—[http://www.enlightenment.com/forums/msgs.cfm?msg=708&forum=6&tz=240 example]—but in simplest terms it just means [http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/pdf%2F8004%2F8004r2.pdf hypnosis.]

==Page 87==

'''those French Anarchists . . . Emile Henry . . . Vaillant''' 
Emile Henry (1872 - May 21, 1894) was a French anarchist who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty. Henry was angered over the execution of another Anarchist, Auguste Vaillant, for the destruction of a government building that hurt no one, and took it upon himself to strike back to avenge his fellow revolutionary's death. He saw the Cafe as a representation of the bourgeois itself and his intent was to kill as many people as possible in the bombing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry].

'''how can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?''' 
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's ''Full Metal Jacket.'' ("How you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.") Discussion here also recalls the Weathermen, a violent off-shoot of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) during the Vietnam Era.

'''listening . . . to the sermon . . . those absolute terms''' 
While there is a movement or school called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism Christian anarchism] (use the Wikipedia article with caution), Gatlin's ideas do not harmonize with it. As his sermon on pages 86-87 makes plain, he follows quite a different line.

'''Mason-Dixon line''' 
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning clan from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon." No Traverses appear, however, in Pynchon's ''Mason & Dixon'' (except in the sense that the whole M-D survey was conducted by the traverse method), but one can speculate that had they been, the Traverse ancestors may have been victims of the Line's bad Feng Shui. From this, one could infer a connection between the Line and Colorado Anarchism.

'''Civil War''' 
This is the first instance of the term, for a war so far in the novel being referred to as "The Rebellion".

==Page 88==

'''westward drift''' 
Webb Traverse's wanderings are referred to as "this westward drift". The phrase is probably not accidental: in scientific circles "westward drift" is used for either of two geophysical phenomena: the gradual westward [http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~dacheson/res2.html [movement of the magnetic north pole]] and the westward [http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/1-2/199 [rotation of the outer layers of the Earth]] (the lithosphere) relative to the inner layers.

'''twelve-cylinder Confederate Colt''' 
A hard weapon to identify. Some Colt revolvers were sold to the Southern forces in the first few days after Fort Sumter, but it's far more likely that this is a knockoff of Colt's 1851 design made, for example, at Augusta, Georgia. Plenty of these got into service. Caliber is probably .36 or .44, but there are other possibilities. "Twelve-cylinder" is nonsense; there is a rare version of the Colt cylinder with ''twelve cylinder stops,'' but it holds ''six'' percussion rounds (ball and cap system). The cylinder stops are depressions on the outer surface of the cylinder forming part of the mechanism that aligns the chamber with the barrel for firing. Photos of sidearms online are ephemeral (many vanish once the auction concludes), so no link here, even if any of the available images did show the variant. To see today's selection, Google 
Confederate revolver

==Page 89==

'''silver-boom babies''' 
Assuming the silver boom of 1890-1892 is meant, Webb's kids were aged about 9 to 16. [[Timeline|Timeline with spoilers]]

'''Ace of spades...death card''' 
The ace of spades seems to have been considered the "death card" in the Vietnam War. [http://www.newtscards.com/secret_weapon_death_playing_cards.asp Article]

Oh, ''long'' before that. Schoolchildren in the 1950s (who would pretty reliably believe anything) believed in the association, and aren't there about a shelf's worth of spy and mystery novels where the Ace of Spades portends death?

Going back farther,
:''In Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Suicide Club" (1878), the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Spades Ace of Spades] functions as the "sign of death" within a secret society whose members commit "suicide" by submitting to be killed, if they draw the Ace of Spades from a pack of 52 cards during a club meeting, by another member drawing the Ace of Clubs.''

Also, as the highest card in the deck, it commonly defeats everything else, as does death. 
Why Mayva should be likened to the Ace of Spades is still to be explained.

'''fancy briar pipe . . . beat-up old corncob''' 
Briar pipes appeared in Europe from the 1850s on. The Missouri Meerschaum brand of corncob pipe dates from 1869. Until close to 1900, clay pipes were probably more common than either.

'''Bob Ford's Funeral''' 
June 1892 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw) [Wikipedia]]

'''Creede''' 
Central Colorado mining town, now a ski resort.

'''Telluride''' 
Far southwestern Colorado mining town, now a ski and mountain resort, with an annual film festival. Named for the telluride ores typical of the vicinity, but the name has more possible significance in AtD.

Used as an adjective, Telluric: Of or belonging to the earth; terrestrial; pertaining to the earth as a planet; also, arising from the earth or soil (OED). In turn the origin of Tellurism: Magnetic influence or principle supposed by some to pervade all nature, and to produce the phenomenon of Animal Magnetism; also the theory of Animal Magnetism based on this, propounded in 1822 by Keiser in Germany (OED). "Animal Magnetism" is referred to in English as Mesmerism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Magnetism].

'''extreme and unmerciful whiteness''' 
It doesn't seem to be accidental that "white" and "whiteness" are hard to endure in ''AtD.'' Consider [[ATD_26-56#Page_52|"the whiteness of the place nearly unbearable";]] the White City and White City Investigations; and other uses.

'''repeal of the Silver Act''' 
Prior to 1892, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

'''tiresome moral exercise''' 
May be a preterite association with President Clinton's impeachment and Senate trial over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

==Page 90==

'''before he got shot''' 
1899. [http://www.butchandsundance.com/players/ketchumgang.htm [cite]]

'''the Cornish wives in Jacktown''' 
Many Western miners came from Cornwall. The stock nickname for any Cornishman was "Cousin Jack." So Jacktown is the area where the Cornish families live.

'''Lake''' 
'Lake Traverse' is a real lake between Minnesota and South Dakota. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Traverse Wikipedia]

'''dynamited carny jump up out of that blast good as new''' 
This passage recalls Daffy Duck cartoons.

==Page 91==

'''theory and practice of resistance to power''' 
[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun138236.html Mao Tse-tung] (or Mao Zedong) said, "The guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea." Gatlin anticipates the principle, with a kicker that's especially pertinent to ''AtD:'' to succeed at invisibility, you must first succeed at visibility.

'''"Sleep? is when you sleep . . . ." "Only that I wouldn't want it . . ."''' 
(Looks like typos to me.)

We often include a question in our answer, in this case summarising the question with "sleep?" then immediately answering. And just as it does falling at the end of a sentence, the "?" reflects a change of vocal pitch/stress. As for the sentence fragment, Webb is a man of few words, and "The reservation I have about what you say is" are not some of them.

==Page 92==

'''$3-blessed-50 a day''' 
This might be an over-estimate; in 2006 dollars, that comes to over $86 a day, not a bad wage indeed. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ Calculator]

$86 dollars a day not a bad wage?? Assuming an 8-12 hour day, that comes out to about today's minimum wage -- which is hardly a living wage. This seems about right. Just enough to keep body, soul and family together. Maybe. The text implies that $3.50/day was just barely a "living wage."

Compare $3.50 in context on p. 378 (when you get there)

'''Western Federation of Miners''' 
A radical labor union created in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia] Their history was very violent.

'''. . . a mule dropping on the edge of life's mountain trail, ready to be either squashed flat or kicked into the void.''' 
Brings directly to mind a scene from Cormac McCarthy's 1985 highly praised novel ''Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness In The West'':
:"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was." (Modern Library Edition 2001, p. 147).
The novel is considered as one of the 20th century American masterpieces ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian Wikipedia entry]). It is set about 45 years before the beginning of AtD (1849-50) at the Mexico - Texas borderlands. In fact, partly due to Pynchon's frequent references to ''red'' light, ''west'' and ''sunset'' (see [[Red%2C_West_and_Sunsets|here]] for a growing list), I suspect a kind of deeper relation between the two novels, but more evidence is required.
:I hate to mention this, because the McCarthy connection is so cogent, but doesn't that phrase in ''AtD'' refer to a "mule dropping" rather than a mule that drops? Or rather: doesn't that phrase ''refract'' (or bi-refract) the passage from ''Blood Meridian,'' bringing the mule's flight to mind while overtly talking about a turd? (A mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but a dropping does.)

:Maybe (I say maybe!) an ordinary mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but what about a ''Pynchon'' mule? (OK, just kidding, I think you have a point! And it sounds terrific, why you hate to mention???) - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:48, 28 March 2007 (PDT)

:This entry spurred me to read ''Blood Meridian,'' and while ''AtD'' is completely independent of that work, yes, the two novels do reflect a ruddy western light on each other. A really voracious reader will find, I suspect, that ''AtD'' is subtly linked to many other late-20th/early-21st century fictions. Contributors to this wiki have noted some such parallels; one that I found by chance is described in the [[ATD_119-148#Page_142|annotations to p. 142]] ("scentless snow walls"). These relationships suggest yet another interpretation of the title, if we needed another: The book is to be read as object against ground, ''against'' the literature of ''the day.''—[[User:Volver|Volver]]

:I agree, apart from the 'late-20th/early-21st century' point - I think that the link you suggest does exist but extends much beyond. See for example [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/child-of-the-storm-ii/ this] extremely interesting entry in the AtD Weblog. [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 01:45, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 93==
'''plutes''' 
Plutocrats: members of the wealthy class controlling a government

'''Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.''' 
Reviewers of ATD have quoted this line, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601252.html] but Pynchon did not make it up. It comes from authentic miner's union literature of the time. [http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=178]

'''Compassion''' 
With 'Republicans' below, a possible reference to 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration. "...starving, homeless, and dead..." is what the Republicans mean by compassion, demonstrating the need for the "foreign phrase book". Has always been thus,historically and now?

'''Republicans''' 
William McKinley was elected in 1896 on the Republican ticket, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan, ushering in a chain of Republican Presidents until Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912. Obviously, could also be interpreted as a jab at the current Republican Party.

==Page 94==

'''duster''' 
Long coat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing) Wikipedia entry]

'''the people's work, if not God's, the two forces according to Reverend Gatlin having the same voice''' 
Gatlin has in mind the proverb ''Vox populi vox Dei,'' "the voice of the people is the voice of God." There's a twist, though; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi see Wikipedia.]

'''"Don't beg, you hear me? Don't any of you ever, fucking, beg, me or nobody, for nothin." 
Could have easily been TRP's response to interview requests!!!

:I think it's about honor, not annoyance.

'''There's a master list in Washington, D.C...maintained by the U.S. Secret Service.''' 
The Secret Service, founded in 1865 as a treasury force, was not a presidential protection force until 1902. Prior to this, it functioned more or less like the FBI today. This passage suggests that we are after McKinley's assassination (1901) and the period when the Secret Service began protecting the president, though page 97 suggests that this occurred in 1899.

'''Say, open up em peepers 'fore you walk over a cliff someplace''' 
Card 0 of the Rider-Waite Tarot depicts The Fool walking in bright sunlight, his eyes shut, about to fall over a precipice if he doesn't heed the little dog who's trying to warn him of the peril. It isn't out of the question that Webb has encountered the Tarot, but if he has not, his use of the image speaks strongly for its archetypal nature.

==Page 95==

'''dynamite rounders''' 
Rounders was a precursor to baseball. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders [Wikipedia]]

Consider the alternative, that the "rounders" are the kids; "every sheriff has at least a dozen in his county" can refer to the game of rounders only by a stretch of meaning. Rounders: rascals, mischief-makers, in this case making mischief with dynamite.

'''waiting for the rest of the joke''' 
Cf Dally and Lindsay, p27.

==Page 96==

'''"We ready?"''' 
The destruction of the railroad bridge is reminiscent of scenes in Edward Abbey's anarchistic 1975 novel ''The Monkey Wrench Gang.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang Wikipedia entry].

'''Sufficient unto the day''' 
From The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: 6:34. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (The New Testament of the King James Bible)
Very title thematic?

"No one knows exactly when the hit will come---every morning, before the markets open, out before the milkmen, They make Their new update and decide on what's going to be sufficient unto the day."--Gravity's Rainbow,
page 544.

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

ATD 81-96

2007-11-24T15:54:24Z

Gortbrack: /* Page 82 */

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

==Page 81==
'''July Fourth started hot and grew hotter,...''' 

[[image:Gpynch.jpg|thumb|Guardan Review|right]] On Saturday, 18 November 2006, the UK's Guardian newspaper, in a Review section which featured a drawing of what Pynchon might now look like on its cover, published a full-page excerpt from ''Against the Day''. This comprised pages 81 to 85 (up to "he wondered sometimes if he would've ever signed on."), with the addition of the final paragraph from page 96, ending with "Happy Fourth of July, Webb." This was a much more substantial excerpt than the one which appeared in the Penguin Press catalogue, and was arguably a more alluring one in terms of attracting the general reader. These were the only official excerpts published before ATD itself, on 21 November 2006.

The Guardian excerpt is now online:
[http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1950566,00.html]

The timing of this chapter, opening on a summer morning, parallels that of the novel's very first chapter.

'''nitro beginning to ooze out of dynamite sticks''' 
The important point about dynamite is when it '''doesn't''' blow up. Alfred Nobel discovered that he could stabilize nitroglycerine by soaking it into a powdered clay; the product was not sensitive to shock or heat. That is, until it separated in hot weather, with greasy-feeling free nitro collecting on the outside of the sticks. (A minor plot point in the TV series ''Lost,'' isn't it?)

'''Feast of St. Barbara''' 
According to legend, Saint Barbara was the extremely beautiful daughter of a wealthy heathen named Dioscorus, who lived near Nicomedia in Asia Minor, in the 4th Century AD. Because of her singular beauty and fearful that she be demanded in marriage and taken away from him, he jealously shut her up in a tower to protect her from the outside world. When Barbara converted to Christianity, her enraged father killed her and was subsequently struck down by lightening. St. Barbara was venerated as early as the seventh century. The legend of the lightning bolt which struck down her father caused her to be regarded as the patron saint in time of danger from thunderstorms, fires and sudden death. When gunpowder made its appearance in the Western world, Saint Barbara was invoked for aid against accidents resulting from explosions since some of the earlier artillery pieces often blew up instead of firing their projectile, Saint Barbara became the patroness of the artillerymen. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm]

'''Propaganda of the Deed''' 
Anarchist terrorism.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed [Wikipedia]]

'''Zarzuela''' 
Webb's horse is named for a Spanish genre of musical theater. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarzuela [Wikipedia]]

'''cicadas''' 
[http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/insect/05590.html Cicadas in Colorado] are annual, not 17- or 13-year periodical species, so they don't help pin down the year of the action.

==Page 82==
'''Skinner''' 
A person who drives mules.

'''"Rocky Mountain canaries"''' 
Burros, donkeys, nicknamed for their sweet song.

'''Chinaman''' 
This is the latest of many allusions to China or Chinese in an exotic, oriental way. This may simply be imitating Gilded Age and early 20th century American fiction and films, which often featured mystical Chinese as characters and villains. It also recalls the use of Feng Shui in ''Mason & Dixon''.

It may also allude to the large number of Chinese who worked on the railroads in the Rocky Mountains, especially as dynamiters.

'''Eclipse Union mine''' 
A sextuple entendre of sorts: 
First it can mean a mine where the labor union has been blocked/extinguished/shut down. 
Second, it may denote Confederate sympathies vis-a-vis the Northern states. 
Third, it is a redudant description of the sun and moon in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy syzygy] which term expands into several other meanings in alchemy, biology, gnosticism, mathematics (Hilbert's syzygy theorem), medicine, philosophy, poetry and zoology. 
Fourth, in alchemy and astrology the sun is gold and the moon is silver, an eclipse union mine may be one that produces more silver than gold. 
Fifth, assuming a solar eclipse, an eclipse would be "against the day." 
Sixth, and perhaps most probably, it may refer to the 1878 Solar Eclipse Expedition to Pike's Peak headed by Samuel Pierpont Langley.

'''flames issuing out of his head''' 
It's not unheard-of that a recreational drug user sees other people on fire. The hallucination may also be linked to the coming dynamite headache (next entry). There's also the allusion to Moses coming from the mountain with fire from his head; this is the source for Michelangelo's 'horns' on his statue. Veikko carries the word, but won't be allowed into the new 'Promised Land.' 

'''dynamite headache''' 
The nitroglycerin in dynamite is the same compound used medicinally against angina pectoris. Users say the sudden headache is better than the chest pains . . . but sometimes they pause to think before answering.

'''Cour d'Alene bullpens''' 
Usually 'Coeur'. Striking miners in 1892 were illegally confined in bullpens. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene_miners'_dispute [Wikipedia]]

'''Cripple Creek''' 
Cripple Creek was the location of a miner's strike in 1894. It was a significant labor event and it was the first time that a state Militia was called out in support of the miners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Creek_miners'_strike_of_1894 Wikipedia entry]

'''side-door pullman''' 
Boxcar.

==Page 83==

'''They thought it was funny''' 
Many authorities report that Indians think almost everything whites do is funny. In particular:

'''Colorado . . . created as a reservation for whites''' 
Drawing straight lines on the ground and calling them limits. Most of the reservations in the West and on the Plains are bounded by such lines rather than "natural" boundaries like crestlines. So is Colorado: "four straight lines on paper" -- a Cartesian state of geography.

'''General Bobrikoff''' 
Or Bobrikov, N.I. (1839-1904), given dictatorial powers in Finland, viewed there as oppressor, assassinated.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
Neurasthenia (Fatigue syndrome) is a neurotic disorder. [http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/?gf40.htm+f480 Definition/Symptoms]

This word appears again on [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|page 188]]. It may be a reference to Proust, who was neurasthenic. It may also simply be a fancy word for disinterested in this context. 
:The diagnosis was frequently used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for men (women were "hysterics"). In World War I, soldiers suffering what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder were diagnosed as neurasthenic -- if they weren't refused medical aid and/ or executed as deserters. See Elaine Showalter, '''''The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980''''' (NY: Pantheon, 1985)

==Page 84==

'''1900''' 
So the current Fourth of July must be 1901 or later (not 1899). 
And not 1904: Gen. Bobrikoff (preceding page) was assassinated in June of that year, so Veikko's toast goes stale. Therefore 1901, '02 or '03.

On August 14, 1900, American, British, Russian and American troops entered Beijing to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

'''''Minneskort''''' 
Modern Finnish word for computer memory cards. (TRP likely saw it on a Nokia phone.)

'''Fink trusses''' 
This [http://pghbridges.com/basics.htm perfectly delightful site] for bridge spotters identifies the Fink truss as a design by Albert Fink dating from the 1860s. It's illustrated way down toward the bottom of the page. All the compression and tension members lie below the plane of the deck where the tracks are laid.

==Page 85==

'''nippers''' 
The etymology is not very interesting, but [http://www.britishempire.co.uk/glossary/n.htm decide for yourself.] According to Google, the term used to mean "boys used to open and close doors in a mine," but the link to the source is dead.

'''Innocent Victims . . . Monsters That Did the Deed''' 
Use of capitals seems to emphasize the fact that these persons are simply convenient stock characters in the forwarding of the owners'/government's agenda.

'''"some of these explosions, the more deadly of them, in fact, were really set off to begin with not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves."''' 
Is this an allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? 

NO! In labor history, many 'accidents' and some planned deeds by owners were blamed on radicals, anarchists, etc. It was common in the early days of the labor movement for owners to conspire to make the unions look bad in this manner. One such example is cited [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_labor_issues_and_events here] in 1910, and it is certainly far from the only one.

See, however, a much more straightforward allusion in [[ATD_171-198#Page_175|page 175]].
:While it's true that many "anarchist" explosions were planned by the owners of industry, to suggest that this is NOT! an allusion to the possibility of US Government involvement in the 9-11 attacks seems rather limiting. Pynchon hinted strongly that this novel is an allegory for our own time in the jacket blurb, and much of what makes this chapter interesting is the way it creates a disturbing analogy between the terrorism carried out by Webb, a highly sympathetic figure, and that carried out by the 9-11 hijackers, whom we so love to hate.

'''Which left precious few targets except for the railroad.''' 
Frank Norris's 1901 novel ''The Octopus'' is summed up in one short paragraph. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus_%28Frank_Norris%29 Wikipedia entry].

==Page 86==
'''Shorty's Billiard Saloon''' 
This is based on real accounts of billiard balls sparking and exploding in saloons. The balls in question used a then-new thermoplastic compound of cellulose nitrate and camphor developed and patented under the trademark "celluloid" by John Wesley Hyatt as a substitute for ivory. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C Celluloid] for Wikipedia links to Hyatt and Celluloid.

'''without being hit once''' 
Similar to a pivotal scene in the film, ''Pulp Fiction''.

'''a state of heightened receptivity''' 
People who talk about enlightenment and unsubstantiated alternative "therapies" use this phrase a lot—[http://www.enlightenment.com/forums/msgs.cfm?msg=708&forum=6&tz=240 example]—but in simplest terms it just means [http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/pdf%2F8004%2F8004r2.pdf hypnosis.]

==Page 87==

'''those French Anarchists . . . Emile Henry . . . Vaillant''' 
Emile Henry (1872 - May 21, 1894) was a French anarchist who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty. Henry was angered over the execution of another Anarchist, Auguste Vaillant, for the destruction of a government building that hurt no one, and took it upon himself to strike back to avenge his fellow revolutionary's death. He saw the Cafe as a representation of the bourgeois itself and his intent was to kill as many people as possible in the bombing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry].

'''how can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?''' 
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's ''Full Metal Jacket.'' ("How you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.") Discussion here also recalls the Weathermen, a violent off-shoot of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) during the Vietnam Era.

'''listening . . . to the sermon . . . those absolute terms''' 
While there is a movement or school called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism Christian anarchism] (use the Wikipedia article with caution), Gatlin's ideas do not harmonize with it. As his sermon on pages 86-87 makes plain, he follows quite a different line.

'''Mason-Dixon line''' 
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning clan from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon." No Traverses appear, however, in Pynchon's ''Mason & Dixon'' (except in the sense that the whole M-D survey was conducted by the traverse method), but one can speculate that had they been, the Traverse ancestors may have been victims of the Line's bad Feng Shui. From this, one could infer a connection between the Line and Colorado Anarchism.

'''Civil War''' 
This is the first instance of the term, for a war so far in the novel being referred to as "The Rebellion".

==Page 88==

'''westward drift''' 
Webb Traverse's wanderings are referred to as "this westward drift". The phrase is probably not accidental: in scientific circles "westward drift" is used for either of two geophysical phenomena: the gradual westward [http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~dacheson/res2.html [movement of the magnetic north pole]] and the westward [http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/1-2/199 [rotation of the outer layers of the Earth]] (the lithosphere) relative to the inner layers.

'''twelve-cylinder Confederate Colt''' 
A hard weapon to identify. Some Colt revolvers were sold to the Southern forces in the first few days after Fort Sumter, but it's far more likely that this is a knockoff of Colt's 1851 design made, for example, at Augusta, Georgia. Plenty of these got into service. Caliber is probably .36 or .44, but there are other possibilities. "Twelve-cylinder" is nonsense; there is a rare version of the Colt cylinder with ''twelve cylinder stops,'' but it holds ''six'' percussion rounds (ball and cap system). The cylinder stops are depressions on the outer surface of the cylinder forming part of the mechanism that aligns the chamber with the barrel for firing. Photos of sidearms online are ephemeral (many vanish once the auction concludes), so no link here, even if any of the available images did show the variant. To see today's selection, Google 
Confederate revolver

==Page 89==

'''silver-boom babies''' 
Assuming the silver boom of 1890-1892 is meant, Webb's kids were aged about 9 to 16. [[Timeline|Timeline with spoilers]]

'''Ace of spades...death card''' 
The ace of spades seems to have been considered the "death card" in the Vietnam War. [http://www.newtscards.com/secret_weapon_death_playing_cards.asp Article]

Oh, ''long'' before that. Schoolchildren in the 1950s (who would pretty reliably believe anything) believed in the association, and aren't there about a shelf's worth of spy and mystery novels where the Ace of Spades portends death?

Going back farther,
:''In Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Suicide Club" (1878), the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Spades Ace of Spades] functions as the "sign of death" within a secret society whose members commit "suicide" by submitting to be killed, if they draw the Ace of Spades from a pack of 52 cards during a club meeting, by another member drawing the Ace of Clubs.''

Also, as the highest card in the deck, it commonly defeats everything else, as does death. 
Why Mayva should be likened to the Ace of Spades is still to be explained.

'''fancy briar pipe . . . beat-up old corncob''' 
Briar pipes appeared in Europe from the 1850s on. The Missouri Meerschaum brand of corncob pipe dates from 1869. Until close to 1900, clay pipes were probably more common than either.

'''Bob Ford's Funeral''' 
June 1892 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw) [Wikipedia]]

'''Creede''' 
Central Colorado mining town, now a ski resort.

'''Telluride''' 
Far southwestern Colorado mining town, now a ski and mountain resort, with an annual film festival. Named for the telluride ores typical of the vicinity, but the name has more possible significance in AtD.

Used as an adjective, Telluric: Of or belonging to the earth; terrestrial; pertaining to the earth as a planet; also, arising from the earth or soil (OED). In turn the origin of Tellurism: Magnetic influence or principle supposed by some to pervade all nature, and to produce the phenomenon of Animal Magnetism; also the theory of Animal Magnetism based on this, propounded in 1822 by Keiser in Germany (OED). "Animal Magnetism" is referred to in English as Mesmerism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Magnetism].

'''extreme and unmerciful whiteness''' 
It doesn't seem to be accidental that "white" and "whiteness" are hard to endure in ''AtD.'' Consider [[ATD_26-56#Page_52|"the whiteness of the place nearly unbearable";]] the White City and White City Investigations; and other uses.

'''repeal of the Silver Act''' 
Prior to 1892, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

'''tiresome moral exercise''' 
May be a preterite association with President Clinton's impeachment and Senate trial over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

==Page 90==

'''before he got shot''' 
1899. [http://www.butchandsundance.com/players/ketchumgang.htm [cite]]

'''the Cornish wives in Jacktown''' 
Many Western miners came from Cornwall. The stock nickname for any Cornishman was "Cousin Jack." So Jacktown is the area where the Cornish families live.

'''Lake''' 
'Lake Traverse' is a real lake between Minnesota and South Dakota. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Traverse Wikipedia]

'''dynamited carny jump up out of that blast good as new''' 
This passage recalls Daffy Duck cartoons.

==Page 91==

'''theory and practice of resistance to power''' 
[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun138236.html Mao Tse-tung] (or Mao Zedong) said, "The guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea." Gatlin anticipates the principle, with a kicker that's especially pertinent to ''AtD:'' to succeed at invisibility, you must first succeed at visibility.

'''"Sleep? is when you sleep . . . ." "Only that I wouldn't want it . . ."''' 
(Looks like typos to me.)

We often include a question in our answer, in this case summarising the question with "sleep?" then immediately answering. And just as it does falling at the end of a sentence, the "?" reflects a change of vocal pitch/stress. As for the sentence fragment, Webb is a man of few words, and "The reservation I have about what you say is" are not some of them.

==Page 92==

'''$3-blessed-50 a day''' 
This might be an over-estimate; in 2006 dollars, that comes to over $86 a day, not a bad wage indeed. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ Calculator]

$86 dollars a day not a bad wage?? Assuming an 8-12 hour day, that comes out to about today's minimum wage -- which is hardly a living wage. This seems about right. Just enough to keep body, soul and family together. Maybe. The text implies that $3.50/day was just barely a "living wage."

Compare $3.50 in context on p. 378 (when you get there)

'''Western Federation of Miners''' 
A radical labor union created in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia] Their history was very violent.

'''. . . a mule dropping on the edge of life's mountain trail, ready to be either squashed flat or kicked into the void.''' 
Brings directly to mind a scene from Cormac McCarthy's 1985 highly praised novel ''Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness In The West'':
:"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was." (Modern Library Edition 2001, p. 147).
The novel is considered as one of the 20th century American masterpieces ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian Wikipedia entry]). It is set about 45 years before the beginning of AtD (1849-50) at the Mexico - Texas borderlands. In fact, partly due to Pynchon's frequent references to ''red'' light, ''west'' and ''sunset'' (see [[Red%2C_West_and_Sunsets|here]] for a growing list), I suspect a kind of deeper relation between the two novels, but more evidence is required.
:I hate to mention this, because the McCarthy connection is so cogent, but doesn't that phrase in ''AtD'' refer to a "mule dropping" rather than a mule that drops? Or rather: doesn't that phrase ''refract'' (or bi-refract) the passage from ''Blood Meridian,'' bringing the mule's flight to mind while overtly talking about a turd? (A mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but a dropping does.)

:Maybe (I say maybe!) an ordinary mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but what about a ''Pynchon'' mule? (OK, just kidding, I think you have a point! And it sounds terrific, why you hate to mention???) - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:48, 28 March 2007 (PDT)

:This entry spurred me to read ''Blood Meridian,'' and while ''AtD'' is completely independent of that work, yes, the two novels do reflect a ruddy western light on each other. A really voracious reader will find, I suspect, that ''AtD'' is subtly linked to many other late-20th/early-21st century fictions. Contributors to this wiki have noted some such parallels; one that I found by chance is described in the [[ATD_119-148#Page_142|annotations to p. 142]] ("scentless snow walls"). These relationships suggest yet another interpretation of the title, if we needed another: The book is to be read as object against ground, ''against'' the literature of ''the day.''—[[User:Volver|Volver]]

:I agree, apart from the 'late-20th/early-21st century' point - I think that the link you suggest does exist but extends much beyond. See for example [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/child-of-the-storm-ii/ this] extremely interesting entry in the AtD Weblog. [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 01:45, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 93==
'''plutes''' 
Plutocrats: members of the wealthy class controlling a government

'''Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.''' 
Reviewers of ATD have quoted this line, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601252.html] but Pynchon did not make it up. It comes from authentic miner's union literature of the time. [http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=178]

'''Compassion''' 
With 'Republicans' below, a possible reference to 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration. "...starving, homeless, and dead..." is what the Republicans mean by compassion, demonstrating the need for the "foreign phrase book". Has always been thus,historically and now?

'''Republicans''' 
William McKinley was elected in 1896 on the Republican ticket, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan, ushering in a chain of Republican Presidents until Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912. Obviously, could also be interpreted as a jab at the current Republican Party.

==Page 94==

'''duster''' 
Long coat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing) Wikipedia entry]

'''the people's work, if not God's, the two forces according to Reverend Gatlin having the same voice''' 
Gatlin has in mind the proverb ''Vox populi vox Dei,'' "the voice of the people is the voice of God." There's a twist, though; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi see Wikipedia.]

'''"Don't beg, you hear me? Don't any of you ever, fucking, beg, me or nobody, for nothin." 
Could have easily been TRP's response to interview requests!!!

:I think it's about honor, not annoyance.

'''There's a master list in Washington, D.C...maintained by the U.S. Secret Service.''' 
The Secret Service, founded in 1865 as a treasury force, was not a presidential protection force until 1902. Prior to this, it functioned more or less like the FBI today. This passage suggests that we are after McKinley's assassination (1901) and the period when the Secret Service began protecting the president, though page 97 suggests that this occurred in 1899.

'''Say, open up em peepers 'fore you walk over a cliff someplace''' 
Card 0 of the Rider-Waite Tarot depicts The Fool walking in bright sunlight, his eyes shut, about to fall over a precipice if he doesn't heed the little dog who's trying to warn him of the peril. It isn't out of the question that Webb has encountered the Tarot, but if he has not, his use of the image speaks strongly for its archetypal nature.

==Page 95==

'''dynamite rounders''' 
Rounders was a precursor to baseball. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders [Wikipedia]]

Consider the alternative, that the "rounders" are the kids; "every sheriff has at least a dozen in his county" can refer to the game of rounders only by a stretch of meaning. Rounders: rascals, mischief-makers, in this case making mischief with dynamite.

'''waiting for the rest of the joke''' 
Cf Dally and Lindsay, p27.

==Page 96==

'''"We ready?"''' 
The destruction of the railroad bridge is reminiscent of scenes in Edward Abbey's anarchistic 1975 novel ''The Monkey Wrench Gang.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang Wikipedia entry].

'''Sufficient unto the day''' 
From The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: 6:34. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (The New Testament of the King James Bible)
Very title thematic?

"No one knows exactly when the hit will come---every morning, before the markets open, out before the milkmen, They make Their new update and decide on what's going to be sufficient unto the day."--Gravity's Rainbow,
page 544.

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