Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 792-820

2009-05-27T21:04:55Z

Jpicco: /* Page 797 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 792==

'''''rishta''-doctors . . . guinea-worms''' 
From the context, ''rishta''-doctors means Guinea worm disease doctors. 
During 12th to 13th centuries the word in Arabic-speaking countries for macaroni was ''rishta'', but the context clearly indicates that it means ''worm'', or specifically, ''Guinea worm''. 
The Guinea worm is a threadlike parasitic worm that grows and matures inside the human body growing as long as 3 feet long. After a year, the worm emerges through a painful blister in the skin causing long-term suffering and sometimes crippling after-effects. People get infected when they drink standing water containing a tiny water flea that is infected with the even tinier larvae of the Guinea worm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis The disease] occurs mainly in Africa. 
Pynchon uses the word "Dracunculiasis" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=D a-And this use is an OED citation for the word. OED: 1942 D. L. Belding Clin. Parasitol. xxii. 375 Dracunculus medinensis+. Disease.—Dracontiasis, dracunculosis, dracunculiasis. 1967 Amer. Jrnl. Trop. Med. & Hygiene XVI. 23/1 Dracunculiasis occurs commonly in and around Kurnool. 1973 T. Pynchon ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (1975) i. 13 "Dracunculiasis and Oriental sore rampant among the troops, no beer for a month." 1990 Lancet 8 Sept. 630/1 Several studies have reported on the prevalence of permanent disability resulting from poliomyelitis but dracunculiasis (guineaworm disease), another preventable cause of permanent disease, has not received the same attention.

'''drumfire''' 
Intense, continuous artillery fire, characteristic of the bombardments that preceded the attempted advances on the Western Front in World War I. The word is a calque of German ''Trommelfeuer.''

'''to get in out of it''' 
A typo? Should be "to get out of it"?? Not really: this is actually common English usage; for example, "to get in out of the rain."

==Page 793==

'''Tierra del Fuego''' 
Not exactly the other side of the world, but the closest land to that point. Tierra del Fuego translates as "Land of the Fire."

:This may not be suitable as a permanent feature of the wiki, but there is a strange web site where you can click on a location and see what's exactly on the opposite side of the world: http://www.antipodemap.com/

==Page 794==

'''communicate with the explorer Peary, then in the Arctic''' 
Robert Peary did not even leave New York City at the start of his polar expedition until July 6, 1908, 6 days '''after''' the Tunguska Event of 6-30-08, and did not reach Ellesmere Island until the summer of 1909(see[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_Event] section on Wardenclyffe Tower).
: But this was one of the 'theories' around the time and long after attempting to explain the Tunguska Event. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska event in Wikipedia].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Peary Robert Peary] (1856-1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person to reach the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. He made several attempts to reach the North Pole between 1898 and 1905. His final assault set off from New York City on july 6, 1908 and wintered near
Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island and from there departed for the pole on March 1, 1909. He established Camp Jesup near the Pole on April 6. In his diary for April 7, Peary wrote "The Pole at alst !!! The prize of 3 centuries, ... ''Mine'' at last ..."

'''Tesla . . . his tower at Wardenclyffe''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower] (1901-1917) was an early wireless telecommunications aerial tower intended for commercial wireless trans-Atlantic telephony, broadcasting and to demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wire. The tower was named after James Warden, a lawyer and banker, who had purchased the land in Shoreham, Long Island, about 60 miles from Manhattan. The Tesla Tower was never fully operational and was not completed due to economic problems. The property is now owned by [[Q-weapon_and_Photography#gevaert|Agfa-Gevaert]].

Paramorphic Alert: Thursday, June 7, 2007, an [http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-06/miot-mdw060107.php MIT research group headed by Marin Soljacic] is making wireless power transfer happen in their lab. Tesla redux.

'''Ellsmere Island''' 
Commonly spelled [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellesmere_Island Ellesmere Island]. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and with Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island is the most northerly point of land in Canada. With an area of over 75,000 square miles, it is the world's 10th largest island and Canada's third largest.

'''Brother Tom Swift. He spends more time these days in court than in the laboratory.''' 
Tom Swift is the young protagonist in several series of juvenile adventure novels starting in the early twentieth century and continuing to the present. More exactly, each such series stars a young protagonist named Tom Swift who is a genius inventor and whose breakthroughs in technology (especially transport technology) drive the plots of the novels. Besides the similarity (or "brotherhood") between the adventuring youths, the Chums' stories have titles similar to the Tom Swift novels, eg ''Tom Swift and His Motor Boat; or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa''; ''Tom Swift and His Airship; or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud''; &c &c.

Although the Tom Swift novels weren't published until 1910 an ''apparent'' anachronism we should remember that Tom Swift, in this context, is as "real" as the Chums of Chance, and thus the events in the first novel, ''Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle; or, Fun and Adventure on the Road'' -- which included patent disputes and lawsuits -- would have "happened" prior to the novel being published.

'''Semipalatinsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semey Semipalatinsk] is a city on the Irtysh River, a ''long'' way southwest of Vanavara. Soviet nuclear tests were administered from here.

'''Irbit''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irbit Irbit] is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia on the right bank of the Nitsa River. It is located about 120 miles east of Yekaterinburg.

'''''obstanovka''''' 
Russian: situation.

==Page 795==

'''''Zdorovo!''''' 
Russian: If the stress falls on the first syllable it means ''great!''

If the stress falls on the second syllable it means ''hello!''

'''Neutral Moresnet''' 
Tiny "country" between Belgium and Germany; existed 1816-1919; see, oh ''do'' see, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Moresnet Wikipedia entry.] 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto#Official_use Another Wikipedia article] refers to a plan, early in the 20th century, to declare Esperanto the official language of the country.

'''''tchudak''''' 
Now transliterated ''chudak.'' Russian: crank.

'''Kiakhta''' 
Or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyakhta ''Kyakhta''], only two syllables. Town on Russian (Buriat)-Mongolian border south of Lake Baikal, a center of Russian trade with China.

'''Not even Russian army does that!''' 
And it cost them dearly in 1914 when intercepted "clear" radio traffic helped the Germans crush them at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_Battle_of_Tannenberg Battle of Tannenberg.]

==Page 796==

'''By dusk . . . running-lights''' 
An enigma. The ordinary way of analyzing it: Make a model, say a flashlight, an orange and a toothpick mooring line with a raisin balloon at the top. As the orange rotates toward the east and the flashlight appears to set in the west, what gets dark first? The base of the toothpick, the shadow progressing upward. But the text says the raisin does, the shadow arc moving downward.

It's very curious that immediately following this apparently topsy-turvy paragraph Miles says "As above, so below." Significant?

:I hope nobody minds having most of this quite good conversation moved to [[Talk:ATD_792-820|the Discussion tab]] (and a spoiler added there).

'''Slowly as God's justice''' 
Must be noted given title and everything religious in ATD.

==Page 797==

'''upriver from Vanavara''' 
"Ground zero" of the Event was 40 miles north of Vanavara. Cf [[ATD_768-791#Page_779|page 779: A heavenwide blast of light.]]

'''"simultaneity" . . . Special Relativity''' 
Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905) refutes the idea that two observers seeing two events can ever agree on whether the events were simultaneous. Adopters of the theory (and in 1908 they were all ''early'' adopters) would be asking one another if it applied to this phenomenon.

'''the error of the seismograph recordings . . . singularity''' 
"Error" doesn't mean mistake or wrongness. It measures the variability within each instrument; every measurement comes with a plus-or-minus figure. If the Event happened instantaneously, each of the charts would record it as a more or less spread-out peak. The energy released in a process is calculated from the area under the curve of intensity versus time; to get the power (rate of energy release), divide the energy by the duration of the process. Even though he states the math wrongly, Vanderjuice suspects the seismographs of the world have responded to a titanic release of energy that took place in essentially no time at all, so that power = energy divided by zero. When physicists see a ''real'' process apparently demanding division by zero, they call it a singularity and go looking for an explanation.

'''the equations of history''' 
Perhaps an allusion to Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation Trilogy'', in which the Psychohistorian Harry Selden calculates equations of history. His equations are (seemingly) thrown off by the advent of a mutant with unusual powers that his predictive equations do not take into account--not unlike the advent of the Tunguska Event.

'''Tchernobyl, the star of Revelation''' 
Tchernobyl is the Ukraine translation (perhaps mistranslation) for Wormwood "the destroying star in the book of Revelation" (page 784). And, as we all know, in 1986 there was a nuclear meltdown in the Ukranian city of Chernobyl.

'''something that had not quite happened yet''' 
In short, an Omen. The Tunguska Event could be seen as an omen of the destructive forces unleashed over the entire course of the 20th Century.

'''Circassian slave''' 
Common figure in European literature about the "Lustful Turk." Circassia is a region in the Caucasus. 

In the early 1860s, after Russian conquest of their region of the Caucasus, nearly half a million Circassians migrated to Turkey. Many Circassian women, prized for their beauty, were sold into slavery.

'''teppisti''' 
Italian: hooligans, hoodlums, thugs

==Page 798==

'''Krakatoa''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_506|page 506: Krakatoa]].

'''''mala vita''''' 
Italian: evil life. With more specific reference to Mafia style criminal organizations like the Malavita del Brenta of Venice. There is also a genre of songs glorifying Mafia life called canto di Malavita.

'''brides picotees''' 
A Venetian lace with a hexagonal pattern. French: tickle straps

==Page 799==

'''"Bevis Moistleigh"''' 
Bevis Mostly? Bevis Wetly?
Cf. Sir Bevis from Lang's Red Romance Book around this time. Or a Twilight Zone story, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Zone/Mr._Bevis Mr. Bevis 1960]. 
Or, see later in ''AtD'', Bevis is an allusion to Beavis & Butthead. ([[Idiots and Idiocy in Against the Day|Idiot]])

Possibly, given what follows, an allusion to the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, oldest extant Jewish house of worship in Britain [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevis_Marks_Synagogue], but more likely a reference to (p.800)''Bevis,the Story of a Boy.''

'''''macchinette''''' 
Italian for small devices.

'''Glagolitic alphabet''' 
See excellent annotation to [[ATD_243-272#Page_252|page 252]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic_alphabet this].

'''gematria''' 
As described in the text, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is also a number. In the simplest form of Gematria, words, phrases and sentences with eqivalent numerical value are somehow linked, in a way promoting exegesis of Torah and Midrash (Torah commentary). More complex, mystical gematria systems are described in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria].
Not strictly gematria, but, there is also the so-called "Bible Code" based on another sort of numerical reading of Torah.

==Page 800==

'''''fatkeqëse''''' 
Albanian: translated in the text as "disaster." Is this correct?

'''gongs''' 
Medals.

'''Irredentism''' 
A policy appealing to the idea that "our" lands are unredeemed, i.e., ruled by some outsider, and must be brought into our domain. See annotation to "Eurasia Irredenta" ([[ATD_748-767#Page_761|page 761).]]

'''''Bevis . . . the Story of a Boy''''' 
Theign taunts Bevis with the title of a popular novel, ''Bevis, the Story of a Boy'' (1882), by Richard Jefferies.

This contributor, with a keen sense of sacrifice for the greater good, actually ''read'' the three-volume novel. Jefferies writes in a good plain style but seems not to have thought of putting a plot in his book. Bevis, of what would later be recognized as Boy Scout age, spends several hundred pages of a southern English summer exploring and naming the world within a dozen miles of his home (Africa, Ceylon, the East Indies, South America are all there). He is rich and has, sadly, what we must call criminally negligent parents who don't even look for him when he vanishes into the South Seas for a week at a time. Most of the highlights of the book concern Bevis' killing some creature (to eat it, more often than not) or kicking his faithful dog Pan. Bevis doesn't know the meaning of fear, and my guess is that he went into the Army and got his self-reliant head blown off in South Africa. If ''Bevis'' shares any thematic point with ''AtD'' it is pretty well limited to geographic exhaustiveness; his journeys of exploration are set forth in as much detail as any of the Traverses'.

Bevis takes his name from a hero of [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Romance medieval romance,] [http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/cinder/images/LANG12.htm Sir Bevis of Hampton.]

==Page 801==

'''unprovided for in the future tense of any language''' 
I.e., we have no simple way to describe future events in a chaotic system. You can't say that Chinese butterfly '''will''' cause a windstorm in Brazil.

'''High susceptibility to primordial variables''' 
Chaos theorists talk about "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions."

'''"an emigration of reason itself".......Crusade"''' 
Notice war talk and natural destruction around the Event. 
As well, the Crusades were a series of western European Christian attacks on Islam, the Mideast (with the establishment of Crusader Kingdoms), and even Christian Byzantium/Constantinople, linking the text to 19th and 20th century Imperialist ventures. For a map of the medieval kingdoms, see [http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/crusades/first/crusader_states.jpg]

'''Railway Brain''' 
A recognized disorder at one time, explained in the text following in AtD.

==Page 802==

'''croakers''' 
Slang: [http://www.classiccrimefiction.com/hardboiled-slang.htm doctors, especially quacks.]

Also: One who croaks, murmurs, grumbles, or complains
unreasonably; one who habitually forebodes evil.

The doctors (performing ''curative activities'' to earn their fees but not really curing anything) feel they are putting one over on everybody else.

'''radioactive mud-bath slime''' 
Treatment with naturally radioactive waters from hot springs was thought to cure many ailments. An example of a radioactive hot spring resort in Austria is Badgastein.

'''Mentone''' 
Mentone, Italy or across the border, Menton (Italian name ''Mentone''), France, in the Riviera. In fact there was no Menton, France, for a long time until 1860 the former Grimaldi town of Mentone, Italy, was bought by France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton Menton] is much better known than Mentone; this small town on the Franco-Italian border, about 45 miles northeast of Nice, is the most beautiful town on the French Riviera—''La perle de la France'' (The Pearl of France). It's warm climate makes it a favorite tourist destination. Menton is also a city of gardens; it won the competition for the best city of flowers in France five different times.

'''...an evening sky which had refused the dusk...''' 
Inverse of Against the Day?

'''the boulevard Carnolès''' 
There is a ''Palais Carnolès'' at 3 Avenue de la Madone, Menton (or ''Mentone''). But couldn't locate the Boulevard Carnolès. 
-Carnolès is a village that's just outside Menton, and though there is no boulevard Carnolès, it might refer to the street leading to Carnolès.

'''Mariahilf''' 
The Sixth District of Vienna, known as a shopping district.

==Page 803==

'''midinettes''' 
salesgirls (of Paris).

'''Facharbeiter''' 
German: technician, specialist, skilled worker.

'''Gabika''' 
"Cute" double diminutive for the Hungarian male name Gábor (Gabriel) and also, more commonly, for the female name Gabriella. The ambiguity (also his looks) fits finely the subversion of gender roles in his relationship to Noellyn Fanshawe.
*Wouldn't it be his relationship to Yashmeen? [[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]] 13:16, 11 April 2007 (PDT)

==Page 804==

'''Maida Vale''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maida_Vale Maida Vale] is a street in north-west London. The area, also known as Little Venice, is mostly residential and often extremely affluent.

'''eleven''' 
Vienna is 86 degrees west of the Event, more or less. Converting longitude to time at 15 degrees = 1 hour, we get a time difference of 5 hours 44 minutes. At 7:17 a.m. Event time, it was 1:33 a.m. in Vienna. Now, at 11:00 p.m. the same day, Vienna time, it is 21 hours and 27 minutes after the event. The atmospheric effect has propagated west (possibly against the high-level winds?) from Siberia to Central Europe in quite a short time. All these numbers are rough!

==Page 805==

'''prepare them against the day''' 
Here the phrase means "in anticipation of" or "to be ready for." 
And more. Thematic.
Given what has been said about the Tunguska Event, colored by accounts of the atmospheric effects of the Krakatoa eruption, highly suggestive of Judgment Day.

I shoulda been keepin' notes, dammit! I am sure that regularly through the book I have been spotting deliberate sentences ending with "... ''something'' the day"...but not, until now, with "''against'' the day". And a few score pages ago I'm sure there was a sentence what ended w' "...against the night...", then Tunguska happens, and we now need to be wary o'the day..?

I didn't catch occurrences of "the day" but I did catch a lot of "against the..." Of course I noticed it about halfway through. I would like to read it again and make note of all of the things against some other thing. Also, I believe this is the only place in the book where the title occurs. But then, I do have 6 pages left.

:I wouldn't get too hung up on that. You can find 'em all, but then what? Pynchon loves red herrings. More interesting to track more oblique references to the title, some of which are on the [[Against the Day Title#Title References Oblique and Otherwise|Title Speculations page]]

==Page 806==

'''Toward the end of October all Hell broke loose . . . annex Bosnia''' 
The Bosnian Crisis began with the fear on the part of Austria-Hungary of possible reverses of Turkish concessions since the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 by the newly-resurgent Young Turk movement. The answer to this was annexation of Bosnia, which it had ruled as a colony since 1878. Knowing such a move would be opposed by Serbia, in turn supported by Russia, the Austrians offered to support the right of Russia to move warships through the Bosporus, and to support a declaration of independence from Turkey by Bulgaria. This provoked a general crisis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Crisis] from which Serbia had to back down, lacking Russian support. All had been settled in secret meetings in the months before; the Bulgarian (Glagolitic) traffic intercepted by Bevis Moistleigh, above, is thus explained. So is the sense of Grand Conspiracy; all the Great Powers were eventuallly involved. 
See [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos127.htm The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1908.]

Brigitte Hamann in her book ''Hitler's Vienna'' writes:
"Diplomatic observers explained [the annexation] as an attempt 'to help the country get over its internal calamity'....To be sure, the real reason was indeed a patriotic one: annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina was meant to be an anniversary present to the old emperor [1908 marked the 60th annivesary of FJ's reign]. After all, in wars that had brought much loss, the empire had become smaller and smaller during Franz Josef's reign...Now the empire finally was supposed to become larger again for a change, in a way that was erroneously deemed simple. The consequences of such a step on European politics were vastly underestimated, and preparation for the annexation was flawed on an interntational level." ''Hitler's Vienna'', p. 104. [[User:Sideming|Sideming]]

'''coconut-shy''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_shy A coconut shy] (or coconut shie) is a traditional game frequently found as a sidestall at funfairs and fêtes. The game consists of throwing wooden balls at a row of coconuts balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins each coconut successfully dislodged. In some cases other prizes may be won instead of the coconuts.
The origins of the game are unclear, although the term is first listed in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1903.
The word 'shy' in this context is a colloquial English term, meaning 'to throw' or toss.

'''šljivovica''' 
One of the spellings of this word for plum brandy (also slivovica, slivovitz, etc.). Serbian culture (perhaps others) seems to attribute almost nationalist cultural significance to the drink (the contributor is Serbian-American).

'''one to fifty million . . . mile-to-the-inch sheets''' 
Two extremes of mapmaking. A 1:50,000,000 map of the United States would fit comfortably on a page of ''AtD'' with most of Mexico and several Canadian provinces. Austria-Hungary at that scale would be about as big as your two thumbprints side by side.

The British Ordnance Survey produced a famous series of inch-to-the-mile sheets (1:63,360); the detail is about fine enough to show the left-turn lane of a city street. At this scale it would take some 200 unhandily large sheets to cover Austria-Hungary.

'''F.O.''' 
Foreign Office: the British equivalent of the US State Department.
Also found in ''V.''

'''Decisions of the utmost gravity''' 
that lead to Gravity's rainbows'''

==Page 807==

'''Major B. F. Vumb''' 
Major Bum Fuck Vumb, as in Dumb? Another Pynchonian V-name
with the usual associations.

'''''Judensau''''' 
German: Jewish pig.

'''the Vienna Woods''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienerwald The Vienna Woods] is a low, wooded section of the Alps in eastern Lower Austria and far into the city of Vienna, covering over nearly 390 square miles and including the northermost parts of the entire Alpine chain. It is a favourite outdoor destination for people living around Vienna.

'''Christian Socialists . . . Dr. Karl Lueger''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lueger Karl Lueger] (pronounced in three syllables, LOO eh ger) (1844-1910) was a Viennese politician, Burgomeister (mayor) of Vienna, and founder of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party. He was a role model for Adolf Hitler.

'''Burgomeister''' 
This is the English form of the German Burgermeister -- mayor.

'''Reichsrath''' 
Austrian parliament.

'''''Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich''''' 
German: as translated in text.
Lueger used anti-Semitism as the rocket fuel to launch and maintain his political career, yet he himself had Jewish friends and backers. When confronted on this point his retort was this line -- essentially meaning the opposite of how it is used in the text. Instead of non-Jews being labelled Jews indiscriminately, Lueger meant it in the sense that his Jewish friends were ''not'' Jews -- and therefore exempt from persecution. His anti-Semitism was based on religion, not race -- which Hitler later faulted as leading to a situation where Jews would convert in name only.

'''''der schöne'' Karl''' 
German: the handsome, or the nice, Karl. Deeply sarcastic.

==Page 808==

'''"Well actually . . ."''' 
Shanghai, which because of its international status did not require a passport or visa for entry, would become a refuge for Jews made stateless by Nazi Germany or were otherwise refugees in the 1930s. Many tens of thousands were able to reach it, and survived the war and the Holocaust under Japanese occupation. Large numbers reached it using so-called Sugihara Passports, letters of transit issued by the Japanese vice-consul to Lithuania in 1940, with the connivance of Dutch diplomats[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugihara]. Obviously an anachronism, but actually...this is about portents and other bends in Time, perhaps things that echo up and down the Timelines (ours and alternates).

'''Graz''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_519|page 519: Graz]].

'''Elefant Hotel''' 
The only listed Elefant Hotel in Austria, a building described as "ancient", is in Salzburg, not Graz; it is currently a Best Western. There is also a Hotel Elefant in Prague, once part ot the Empire; perhaps there was a chain?

'''. . . common Anglo-Habsburg interests...''' 
All the Great Powers found ways to benefit from the Bosnian Crisis, perhaps explaining Theign providing Italian naval decodes to the Austrians. Or, as Latewood accuses below, he is a double agent; McHugh is at least suspicious here. Either way, sending Latewood and Moistleigh on a suicide mission to Bosnia is one way to cover his tracks.

'''Murgasse''' 
Street in Graz. The Murgasse was first mentioned in a document from 1346. The part of town to the south was occupied by the farmers.
Murgasse
8490 Bad Radkersburg, Austria

==Page 809==

'''the Treaty of Berlin''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: the Treaty of Berlin]].

'''Novi Pazar''' 
Novi Pazar also figures briefly in ''GR'' (P.14-15, Viking eds.): "...on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe" The Novi Pazar desk is manned by Lord Blatherard Osmo. The crisis passed, but Lord Osmo has an adenoid, and this mucoid "lymphatic monster", now independently alive in 1939, is confronted by an agent of The Firm (an outfit very like its temporal predecessor the T.W.I.T. in its interests in the paranormal) , one "Pirate" Prentice; it is "now as big as St Paul's and growing by the hour" threatening all London, but confined successfully--leading to Lord Osmo's neglect of Novi Pazar...A bizarre satiric experience of Crisis Management by Great Power foreign ministries, and the literally sticky mess they created. Currently, some obscure ex-Ottoman sanjaks, cobbled together as Iraq in 1919, are something of a hinge of history; another paramorphic mirroring of 1900/2000.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Pazar Novi Pazar] is now a city of Serbia, about 110 miles directly south of Belgrade. Its name means "a new bazaar" in the local language. It was administered by Austria-Hungary from 1878 to 1908, and by Turkey (Ottoman Empire) from 1908 to 1912, and by Serbia 1912 to now.

'''Constantinople''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople Constantinople] was the capital of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261) and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922). It is strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara on the Bosphorous Strait. It extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) side of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world which is situated on two continents. It was officially renamed to Istanbul in 1930.

'''the Young Turks with their revolution''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks The Young Turks] was a coalition of various reform groups in favor of reforming the administration of Ottoman Empire. Their movement brought about the second constitutional era through a revolution against the monarchy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turk_Revolution The Young Turk Revolution] of 1908 restored the suspended parliament and was a landmark in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Revolution arose from the Ottoman peoples' near-universal opposition to the tyranny and corruption of the Sultan, which forged an unlikely union of reform-minded pluralists, Turkish nationalists, and Western-oriented secularists.

'''the vile Aerenthal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Lexa_von_Aehrenthal Aloys (or Alois) von Aerenthal] (1854-1912), Austrian foreign minister (1906-1912) who engineered the annexation of Bosnia in 1908.

'''in three-quarter time''' 
Waltzes are in 3/4 time and so the national powers are waltzing into a European war. Note the chain-like sliding/closing/turning step sequence in Viennese Waltz, and also the rhythm itself represented by the repeated dactyl "and so on, and so on".

Two plausible references: events driven by Vienna, the world's waltz capital, and a dark comic song recorded by the Kingston Trio in the 1960s: "Merry Minuet." In 3/4 time, it includes lyrics commenting on ethnic hatred, irredentism and inevitable nuclear catastrophe.

In fact, the sequence of events described here as a possibility in 1908 were realized in 1914, when Russia, in the crisis provoked by a Serbian youth group's assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, this time backed Serbia, resulting in the cascade of troop mobilizations that became World War I.

'''Mitrovitsa''' 
A Serbian town near the Turkish-Serbian border (now in Kosovo), about 25 miles southeast of Novi Pazar and 140 miles southeast of Sarajevo. The full Serbian name now is Kosovska Mitrovica, the Albanian name is Mitrovicë, and the population is mostly Albanian nowadays. (Some precognition about Novi Pazar.)

'''a railroad link from Sarajebo to Mitrovitsa, and thus to the Ægean Sea''' 
A railroad of 210 miles long linking Mitrovitsa (Turkish-Serbian border) throuhg Skopje (Macedonia) to Salonica (Greece) by the Ægean Sea alredy existed since December 1874.

'''Isvolsky''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Izvolski Alexander Petrovich Izvolsky] (Izvolski, Izvolskii) (1856-1919), Russian foreign minister (1906-1910), a major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente, who on September 15, 1908, traded Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria in exchange for Austria's help in opening the Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian ships. Pynchon's spelling may well be from a contemporary source; consistent transliteration is a more recent fetish.

'''Grey''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon Sir Edward Grey] (1862-1933), British Foreign Secretary 1905-16. He was the other major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente (1907).

'''The Dardanelles''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelles The Dardanelles], an international waterway, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It separates Europe (Gallipoli peninsula) and the mainland of Asia. With the Bosporus, Dardanelles connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.
Talk about a hinge of history! The Dardanelles were the site of the Trojan War; Troy being located on the western, Asian side of the strait.
Xerxes and Alexander marched through. It has figured in the Napoleonic Wars, the Crimean War and is the site of the Battle of Gallipoli in WWI.

==Page 810==

'''It's like having the lights brought up for a bit...''' 
As the crisis wound down to war in 1914, Sir Edward Grey (still Foreign Minister) is famously quoted as having said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon]

'''Vlado Clissan''' 
His name comes from his hometown of Clissa, but this is the Italian name of the place. In Serbo-Croatian it is ''Klis.'' A pseudonym?

'''Blutwurst Special''' 
German: blood sausage.

'''toad-in-the-hole''' 
a traditional British dish. It consists of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy.

==Page 811==

'''"iron convergences and receding signal-lamps"''' 
our 'free choices' in . . . life; so ironic at this point.

Kurt Vonnegut, in ''Slaughterhouse Five'', described the human point of view as from consciousness strapped to a railroad car, forever facing only backward; from this vantage, history looks single and inevitable, whereas in reality the train of history is moving over unknown numbers of (from this perspective unseen) switch points, the settings of which are in fact changeable (the more complex view being taken by an extraterrestrial species, the Tralfamadorians, who can see forward to the many possibilities), alternate histories possible at every switch. The character Pointsman in ''GR'' in some ways embodies these possibilities.

'''The Semmering tunnel''' 
It refers to the Semmering mountain-peak tunnel of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Railway the Semmering Railway]. The tunnel, with a length of 4,700 ft, was opened on May 15, 1854. (A new Semmering tunnel, through the mountain base, was built in 1952). The Semmering Railway, having a total of 15 tunnels, is a part of the Austrian Souther Railway (Südbahn) connecting Vienna to Trieste. The world's first mountain railway with a standard gauge, it was built between 1848 and 1854 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

'''the Mur Valley''' 
The valley of the Mur River which, about 300 miles long, runs through the south-central Austria, northeast Slovenia and northern Croatia, where it flows into the Drava River. The biggest city in the Mur Valley is Graz, Austria.

'''Slavonian''' 
Today the name applies to the eastern part of Croatia, but a map will confirm that the route passes through the Slovenian plain. Writers before the World War must have had difficulty keeping Slovenia, Slovakia and Slavonia straight, especially since all were inhabited by Slavonic peoples.

'''the Slavonian plain''' 
The Slavonian plain (actually the historical region called Srem/Srijem/Sirmium minus the Fruška Hills) is an agricultural lowland in eastern Croatia and beyond. It is part of the larger Pannonia plain. It is bounded by the Papuk Mountains in the west, the river Drava in the north, the Sava in the south, and the Danube in the east. It was part of Croatia-Slavonia until 1918; the eastern section now belongs to Serbia.

'''Ljubljana''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubljana Ljubljana] is the capital of Slovenia. It is also the cultural and economical center of the country. It is located in central Slovenia.

'''the Karst''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kras The Karst] is a limestone borderline plateau region of southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It rises quite steeply above the neighboring landscape and is famous for its caves including Vilenica in Slovenia, the oldest tourist cave in the world. In addition to caves, erosion has produced in the Karst fissures, sinkholes and underground streams.

'''Općina''' 
A village about 4 miles northeast of Trieste.

'''the Piazza Grande''' 
Trieste's central square, a great rectangle lined on three sides by stately imperial buildings, its fourth, short side, revealing the Adriatic sea.

'''the Piazza Cavana''' 
Trieste's "Nighttown" before World War I.

'''Austrian double''' 
Latewood, in light of Theign's treatment of Yashmeen, and the apparent passing of Italian naval decrypts to Austria, accuses Theign of being an Austrain double agent.

==Page 812==

'''a Fortuny gown''' 
[http://www.chick.net/proust/fortuny.html Mariano Fortuny] (1871-1949), a Spanish fashion designer worked mostly in Venice, created some of the most remarkable fabrics and dresses of 20th century. His pleated silk gowns and velvet cloaks are regarded by collectors and museums around the world as the unique expression and embodiment of a craft at its best. He was one of the source of inspiration to Marcel Proust.

'''Mestre Bridge''' 
Mestre is a town in Veneto, northern Italy, a frazione of the comune of Venice. Located on the mainland,the city is connected to Venice by a large rail and road bridge, called Ponte della Libertà (Freedom Bridge). Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|Page 706: Mestre bridge]].

'''Cloisters Court''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_490|page 490: Cloisters Court]].

'''King's''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_497|page 497: King's]]

==Page 813==

''''And England's far, and honour a name'''' 
Cyprian quoting from the 1897 poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada"]] ("They Pass the Torch of Life") by Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938), previously quoted on page 236 [[ATD_219-242#Page_236|(also see annotation)]]. (Discussed in this wiki's article by Peter Vernon, [[Cricket in Against the Day|It Just Isn't Cricket: Cricket As Metaphor in ''Against the Day'']])

Cf. "Cricket is 'chess made flesh'"--John Fowles

'''"honour"''' 
Cf. Falstaff on.

'''the Caffè degli Specchi''' 
Trieste was one of the first European cities took to coffee in a big way.
It is the leading coffee port on the Mediterranean and is renowned for its cafes and coffee. The first coffe houses in Trieste opened at the beginning of the 18th century. They become very popular with artists and intellecturals. Several of the original coffe houses are still going strong; the Caffè degli Specchi, located in the Piazza Unità d'Italia and opened since 1839, is one of them.

==Page 814==

'''Lateeners''' 
A lateener is a boat with a lateen sail: a triangular sail with one edge tied to a long spar, which is supported in the middle on a mast.

'''''Strichmädchen''''' 
German: streetwalker, hooker, prostitute.

'''LLoyd Austriaco''' 
A ship line. Lloyd Triestino was formed in 1919 as the successor to Lloyd Austriaco following the incorporation of Trieste into the Kingdom of Italy on January 3rd 1919.

'''Molo San Carlo''' 
A pier (''molo'') in Trieste. See [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Molo_San_Carlo.jpg Molo San Carlo']picture around 1900.

==Page 815==

'''"Nimrod" . . . from Elgar's ''Enigma Variations''''' 
"Nimrod" is the ninth section of this major 1899 work by English composer Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Like the other 13 sections, it characterizes a family friend; this one is A. J. Jaeger (whose name means "hunter" in German, hence "Nimrod," the name of a hunter mentioned in the Bible). [http://www.elgar.org/3enigma.htm Here is a very good description of the work and "Nimrod" in particular.]

The "Nimrod" variation is perhaps the most poignant of the piece; it rises to a cresendo and slowly, sadly, fades; an anthem for the fading of the 19th century.

'''"La Gazza Ladra"''' 
Overture by Rossini to an opera whose title means "The Thieving Magpie." It is as bright and impersonal as "Nimrod" is serious and sentimental.

''Gazza'' (Italian) specifically identifies the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Magpie European Magpie] (''Pica pica''), while ''magpie'' designates any of a dozen species.

'''"The Volga Boatmen" . . . "Auld Lang Syne"''' 
The puzzle in the "Enigma" Variations is this: Variations are based on a theme, but Elgar never states the theme; what is the melody? These are two of the popular guesses.

'''Gonzalo''' 
Gonzalo who?

Probably not the elderly adviser shipwrecked in ''The Tempest,'' by Shakespeare, considering the in-joke connection to Millicent.

It's a stretch, but some searching turns up a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millicent_Silver Millicent Silver] and a [http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Soriano Gonzalo Soriano], two among many musicians on a series of recordings by Victoria De Los Angeles of songs of Spain. Otherwise no connection between them.

'''Millicent''' 
? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millicent_Fawcett Millicent Fawcett] (1847-1929), a British suffragist and an early feminist. Is this the right person?

'''Δt''' 
Mathematical symbol used to represent a short length of time.

In addition, Pynchon is very concerned with dt,(little delta-t) the time differential, an infinitesimal change in time; to quote Pynchon from ''Lot 49'' (Lippincott, 1965 p.129): "a vanishingly small instant in which change had to be confronted at last for what it was, where it could no longer disguise itself as something innocuous like an average rate; where the velocity dwelled in the projectile though the projectile be frozen in midflight, where death dwelled in the cell though the cell be looked in on at its most quick." But, the paragraph goes on, "dt" also suggests DTs, Delirium Tremens (alcohol withdrawal) a state giving access to hallucinatory experiences, "spectra beyond the known Sun, music made purely of Antarctic loneliness and fright." Which is the general mood in the wake of the Tunguska Event and the Bosnian Crisis, or should be, if the characters were not so dutifully repressing it. (In ''Lot 49'' the realization of the dt/DTs connection has to do with Oedipa Maas' realization of the finality of death, and what inaccessible realms of experience are lost with each individual's death).

:Are you confusing Δ''t'', symbolizing a finite duration, with ''dt,'' a duration shrunk to an infinitesimal? 
(Possibly--my physics/calculus may be rusting. The connection may still hold; note emendation above--thanks. Edit further if necessary!).

'''Davos''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davos Davos] is a municipality in the eastern part of Switzerland. A popular destination for the rich and ailing because its high valley climate has long been considered excellent by doctors for curing lung desease. It is the setting of Thomas Mann's ''The Magic Mountain''. Davos is famous as the host of the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of global political and business elites.

'''Föhn''' 
German. [http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/glossary/fpagegl.shtml#fo Wind] warmed and dried by descent on the lee side of a mountain. Germans even today acknowledge that its presence (say, in Munich) affects mood and emotions.

'''co-conscious with the everyday''' 
again. Linked to creativity here.

'''Ramanujan's Formula''' 
an elegant hyperbolic summation, Ramanujan's formula for the Riemann zeta function evaluated at the odd positive integers. Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_498|page 498: Rumanujan]] didn't come to the attention of Western mathematicians until he wrote to Hardy in late 1912 - early 1913 and travelled to Cambridge in 1914. Is Yashmeen prescient?

==Page 816==

'''''dolce far niente''''' 
Italian: sweet idleness (literally, sweet to do nothing).

'''divided second''' 
A dt.

'''of his entry''' 
Vlado the Impaler?

'''the Karst''' 
Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_811|page 811: the Karst]]. 
Generic "karst topography" takes its name from this area of Slovenia and Italy (locally called ''kras'' and ''carso''). The terrain features limestone with fissures and cavities eroded by water. Caves as well as underground streams and lakes are common.

'''''osmizza''''' 
These are informal eating places out in rural areas, where farmers sell their meats, cheeses, olives and wines.

'''Illyria''' 
The Roman province in which modern Trieste is located.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyria Illyria] was in Clssical antiquity a region in the western part of today's Balkan Peninsula, found by the tribes and clans of Illyrian, an ancient people who spoke the Illyrian languages. Illyria was a formidable local power in the 4th century BC, only after the Roman conquest in 168 BC did Illyria become one of the Roman provinces, Illyricum. In the context "ancient before Illyria" referrs to the period before the Roman conquest.

==Page 817==

'''quiet spaces between trams, unpredictable, even, she imagined, mathematically so''' 
An observation that might have seemed "foreign" to mathematics at the time she made it. A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution Poisson distribution] expresses the probability that a specific number of trams arrive during a given time interval but cannot determine the exact arrival time of the next tram. The length of the "quiet space" varies in a ''chaotic'' way—which doesn't at all mean that the transit system is random.

The appearance of "chaos theory" in the second half of the 20th century provided a vehicle for interpreting the process, and observations like that of the trams were incorporated into mathematics. Two familiar "rhythms" have this quality of chaotic intervals: the beating of the human heart and the sound of water dripping from a faucet. The second part of the phrase is subtle: the time of the next tram/thud/drip can't be mathematically predicted (to arbitrary accuracy), but it is possible to describe in mathematical terms the ''way'' in which it's unpredictable. James Gleick's [http://www.around.com/chaos.html ''Chaos, Making a New Science,''] is just one of the good sources on this new theory.

'''never farther than half a block from the counter-soporific fluid''' 
Perhaps an allusion or parallel to the 21st century ubiquity of Starbucks.

:Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_813|page 813: the Caffe degli Specchi]].

'''''Svr šavam!''''' 
Croatian/Serbian: I'm finishing. Here it means ''I'm coming''. Should be: ''Svršavam.''

'''Velebit''' 
Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page_326|page 326: Velebit]].
A ridge that runs parallel to the Croatian Adriatic coast a few tens of miles south of Trieste. Lying a short distance inland, it is made up of limestone karst.

==Page 818==

'''Zengg''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Zengg]].

'''Veglia''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krk_(island) Veglia], the second largest Adriatic island, is a Croatian island (''Krk'') in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Fiume.

'''persisted from day to day''' 
The image again of the storm that retains its identity over a long time.

'''Stationary waves''' 
Crests and troughs that don't move. Seen more often where water is flowing (up/downstream of rocks in rapids), but also where waves coming onshore interact with those reflected from the shore.

'''Novlian''' 
A family from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Vinodolski Novi], a town on the Adriatic coast in Croatia about 10 miles north of Zengg (''Senj'') and 22 miles southeast of Fiume (''Rijeka'').

'''Uskok''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Uskok]]. 
Serbian/Croatian: fugitive. Writers even in antiquity noted that piracy was a main economic activity along this coast.

In all, Vlado seems very like the Traverse brothers, set against the modern world, or anyway modern power arrangements, a bit of an anarchist in his own way. But his grievances have historic depth and resonance, more of what Pynchon in ''V.'' called "Temporal Bandwidth".

Uskok is also a place's name.

'''the Argonauts''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts The Argonauts], in Greek mythology, were a band of heroes who, in the years before the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_war Trojan War], accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_fleece Golden Fleece]. Their name comes from their ship ''Argo'' which in turn was named after its builder Argus.

'''Split''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split Split], situated on a small peninsula on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea about 150 miles southeast of Zengg, is the largest and most important city in Dalmatia, Croatia.

'''Clissa''' 
Town from which Vlado Clissan takes his ''nom de guerre.'' Locally called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klis Klis] which is located inland just 5 miles northeast of Split near the eponymous mountain pass. Because of its geographical position, Clissa is susceptible to a rather strong bora wind.

==Page 819==

'''You know the play by Shakespeare, ''The Merchant of Venice''? [...] We keep hoping till the end for Antonio to come to grief.''' 
In ''The Merchant of Venice'', Antonio, the protagonist, is a wealthy merchant in Venice, his wealth coming from the ships he owns, which could easily be at peril from pirates. So, natch, Vlado and his comrades who attack Venetian ships are pulling for the pirates.

'''''mala vita''''' 
bad life

'''palačinka''' 
Serbo-Croatian for crepe or thin pancake.

==Page 820==

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

ATD 892-918

2007-05-14T16:51:59Z

Jpicco: /* Page 907 */

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

==Page 892==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 893==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 894==

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

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

'''Katie bar the door''' 
Slang expression dating from the late 1800's meaning, Look out! (there's trouble headed this way so close and "lock" the door). For a possible etymology see: [http://www.word-detective.com/111703.html]

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

== Page 895 ==

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

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

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

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

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

'''''semeuse''''' 
French: girl sowing seeds.

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

==Page 896==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 897==

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

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

==Page 898==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 899==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 900==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 901==

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

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

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

==Page 902==

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

==Page 903==

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

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

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

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

==Page 904==

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

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

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

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

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

'''A railroad . . . East Roumelia''' 
As in ''Mason & Dixon,'' another straight line cast across the land.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 905==

'''caryatid''' 
Architecture: a supporting column sculptured in the form of a draped female figure.

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

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

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

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

==Page 906==

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

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

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

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

==Page 907==

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

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

[[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]] 16:46, 13 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 908==

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

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

'''Byzantine schemes''' 
Wonderful play on words. Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire until the Turkish conquest of 1458; any complex intrigue, said to be typical of the old and very sophisticated Empire, is called "Byzantine" in complexity. Here of course the schemes are both complex and, located in Constantinople, literally Byzantine. A good example of Pynchonian "Temporal Bandwidth"; this is a multicultural, multitemporal joke.

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

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

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

==Page 909==

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

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

==Page 910==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 911==

'''the invisible city ahead of him gripping him ever more surely in its field''' 
Istanbul (was Constantinople...) is another city, like Venice, with enormous Temporal Bandwidth. Ancient, multicultural, politically and historically complex, it (its "field"?) grips Kit as Venice gripped Dally. It is, in fact historically connected to Venice (two poles of the medieval Mediterannean) by trade and competition. Venice had a hand in the destruction of Constantinople during a Crusade; Venetian
mercenaries were among its last defenders in the Turkish siege of 1458.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 912==

'''drummer''' 
Salesman.

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

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

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

'''''politissas''''' 
???

==Page 913==

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

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

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

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

'''Béla Blaskó . . . from Lugos''' 
In the same way that a man from Miskolc took the name Miskolci, this successful actor in another life will take a new stage name.

==Page 914==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 915==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 916==

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

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

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

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

'''Venezia''' 
Venice.

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

==Page 917==

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

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

==Page 918==

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

ATD 892-918

2007-05-13T23:54:35Z

Jpicco: /* Page 907 */

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

==Page 892==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 893==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 894==

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

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

'''Katie bar the door''' 
Slang expression dating from the late 1800's meaning, Look out! (there's trouble headed this way so close and "lock" the door). For a possible etymology see: [http://www.word-detective.com/111703.html]

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

== Page 895 ==

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

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

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

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

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

'''''semeuse''''' 
French: girl sowing seeds.

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

==Page 896==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 897==

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

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

==Page 898==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 899==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 900==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 901==

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

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

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

==Page 902==

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

==Page 903==

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

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

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

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

==Page 904==

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

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

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

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

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

'''A railroad . . . East Roumelia''' 
As in ''Mason & Dixon,'' another straight line cast across the land.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 905==

'''caryatid''' 
Architecture: a supporting column sculptured in the form of a draped female figure.

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

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

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

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

==Page 906==

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

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

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

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

==Page 907==

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

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

[[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]] 16:46, 13 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 908==

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

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

'''Byzantine schemes''' 
Wonderful play on words. Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire until the Turkish conquest of 1458; any complex intrigue, said to be typical of the old and very sophisticated Empire, is called "Byzantine" in complexity. Here of course the schemes are both complex and, located in Constantinople, literally Byzantine. A good example of Pynchonian "Temporal Bandwidth"; this is a multicultural, multitemporal joke.

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

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

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

==Page 909==

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

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

==Page 910==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 911==

'''the invisible city ahead of him gripping him ever more surely in its field''' 
Istanbul (was Constantinople...) is another city, like Venice, with enormous Temporal Bandwidth. Ancient, multicultural, politically and historically complex, it (its "field"?) grips Kit as Venice gripped Dally. It is, in fact historically connected to Venice (two poles of the medieval Mediterannean) by trade and competition. Venice had a hand in the destruction of Constantinople during a Crusade; Venetian
mercenaries were among its last defenders in the Turkish siege of 1458.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 912==

'''drummer''' 
Salesman.

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

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

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

'''''politissas''''' 
???

==Page 913==

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

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

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

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

'''Béla Blaskó . . . from Lugos''' 
In the same way that a man from Miskolc took the name Miskolci, this successful actor in another life will take a new stage name.

==Page 914==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 915==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 916==

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

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

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

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

'''Venezia''' 
Venice.

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

==Page 917==

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

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

==Page 918==

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

ATD 892-918

2007-05-13T23:48:16Z

Jpicco: /* Page 907 */

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

==Page 892==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 893==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 894==

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

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

'''Katie bar the door''' 
Slang expression dating from the late 1800's meaning, Look out! (there's trouble headed this way so close and "lock" the door). For a possible etymology see: [http://www.word-detective.com/111703.html]

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

== Page 895 ==

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

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

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

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

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

'''''semeuse''''' 
French: girl sowing seeds.

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

==Page 896==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 897==

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

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

==Page 898==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 899==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 900==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 901==

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

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

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

==Page 902==

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

==Page 903==

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

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

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

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

==Page 904==

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

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

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

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

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

'''A railroad . . . East Roumelia''' 
As in ''Mason & Dixon,'' another straight line cast across the land.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 905==

'''caryatid''' 
Architecture: a supporting column sculptured in the form of a draped female figure.

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

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

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

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

==Page 906==

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

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

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

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

==Page 907==

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

'''"...here I come, Constantinople."''' 
Dally's chapter-ending remark is a reference to "Constantinople," the opening track on The Residents' 1978 EP Duck Stab. Similarly to Thomas Pynchon himself, The Residents have been famous since the early 70s, yet the world knows little of their identity. Complete lyrics:

Here I come Constantinople
Here I come Constantinople
I am coming Constantinople
Here I come
All the leaves are off of the oak and
All of the sheep have followed the spoken
Word. I'm coming Constantinople
Here I come
So I stand out in the open
All my friends are with you I hope and
pray. I'm coming Constantinople
Here I come
Here I come Constantinople
Here I come Constantinople
I am coming Constantinople
Here I come

[[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]] 16:46, 13 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 908==

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

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

'''Byzantine schemes''' 
Wonderful play on words. Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire until the Turkish conquest of 1458; any complex intrigue, said to be typical of the old and very sophisticated Empire, is called "Byzantine" in complexity. Here of course the schemes are both complex and, located in Constantinople, literally Byzantine. A good example of Pynchonian "Temporal Bandwidth"; this is a multicultural, multitemporal joke.

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

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

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

==Page 909==

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

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

==Page 910==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 911==

'''the invisible city ahead of him gripping him ever more surely in its field''' 
Istanbul (was Constantinople...) is another city, like Venice, with enormous Temporal Bandwidth. Ancient, multicultural, politically and historically complex, it (its "field"?) grips Kit as Venice gripped Dally. It is, in fact historically connected to Venice (two poles of the medieval Mediterannean) by trade and competition. Venice had a hand in the destruction of Constantinople during a Crusade; Venetian
mercenaries were among its last defenders in the Turkish siege of 1458.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 912==

'''drummer''' 
Salesman.

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

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

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

'''''politissas''''' 
???

==Page 913==

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

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

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

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

'''Béla Blaskó . . . from Lugos''' 
In the same way that a man from Miskolc took the name Miskolci, this successful actor in another life will take a new stage name.

==Page 914==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 915==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 916==

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

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

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

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

'''Venezia''' 
Venice.

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

==Page 917==

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

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

==Page 918==

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

ATD 892-918

2007-05-13T23:46:53Z

Jpicco: /* Page 907 */

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

==Page 892==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 893==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 894==

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

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

'''Katie bar the door''' 
Slang expression dating from the late 1800's meaning, Look out! (there's trouble headed this way so close and "lock" the door). For a possible etymology see: [http://www.word-detective.com/111703.html]

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

== Page 895 ==

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

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

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

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

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

'''''semeuse''''' 
French: girl sowing seeds.

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

==Page 896==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 897==

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

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

==Page 898==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 899==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 900==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 901==

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

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

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

==Page 902==

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

==Page 903==

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

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

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

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

==Page 904==

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

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

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

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

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

'''A railroad . . . East Roumelia''' 
As in ''Mason & Dixon,'' another straight line cast across the land.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 905==

'''caryatid''' 
Architecture: a supporting column sculptured in the form of a draped female figure.

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

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

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

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

==Page 906==

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

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

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

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

==Page 907==

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

'''"...here I come, Constantinople."''' 
Dally's chapter-ending remark is a reference to "Constantinople," the opening track on The Residents' 1978 EP Duck Stab. Similarly to Thomas Pynchon himself, The Residents have been famous since the early 70s, yet the world knows little of their identity. Complete lyrics:

Here I come Constantinople
Here I come Constantinople
I am coming Constantinople
Here I come
All the leaves are off of the oak and
All of the sheep have followed the spoken
Word. I'm coming Constantinople
Here I come
So I stand out in the open
All my friends are with you I hope and
pray. I'm coming Constantinople
Here I come.
Here I come Constantinople
Here I come Constantinople
I am coming Constantinople
Here I come

[[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]] 16:46, 13 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 908==

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

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

'''Byzantine schemes''' 
Wonderful play on words. Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire until the Turkish conquest of 1458; any complex intrigue, said to be typical of the old and very sophisticated Empire, is called "Byzantine" in complexity. Here of course the schemes are both complex and, located in Constantinople, literally Byzantine. A good example of Pynchonian "Temporal Bandwidth"; this is a multicultural, multitemporal joke.

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

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

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

==Page 909==

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

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

==Page 910==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 911==

'''the invisible city ahead of him gripping him ever more surely in its field''' 
Istanbul (was Constantinople...) is another city, like Venice, with enormous Temporal Bandwidth. Ancient, multicultural, politically and historically complex, it (its "field"?) grips Kit as Venice gripped Dally. It is, in fact historically connected to Venice (two poles of the medieval Mediterannean) by trade and competition. Venice had a hand in the destruction of Constantinople during a Crusade; Venetian
mercenaries were among its last defenders in the Turkish siege of 1458.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 912==

'''drummer''' 
Salesman.

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

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

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

'''''politissas''''' 
???

==Page 913==

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

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

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

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

'''Béla Blaskó . . . from Lugos''' 
In the same way that a man from Miskolc took the name Miskolci, this successful actor in another life will take a new stage name.

==Page 914==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 915==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 916==

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

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

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

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

'''Venezia''' 
Venice.

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

==Page 917==

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

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

==Page 918==

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

ATD 821-848

2007-04-23T18:23:30Z

Jpicco: /* Page 832 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 821==

'''''John of Asia''''' 
John of Asia, also called John of Ephesus, was a 6th-century church leader and historian. The ruins of Ephesus are located in western Asia Minor, now in Turkey.

'''Pola''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula Pola], the largest city in Istria, is situated at the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula 52 miles directly south of Trieste. From the 19th century through World War I, Pola was the headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

'''the Bocche di Cattaro''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boka_Kotorska The Bocche di Cattaro], the Gulf of Kotor, is a winding bay on the Adratic Sea in Montenegro. The gulf is in fact a submerged River canyon of the disintegrated Bokelj river which used ot run from the high mountain plateaus of Mount Orjen.

'''coastline approaching infinite length''' 
A reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals Fractals]
(another fractal reference occurs on [[ATD_557-587#Page_575|page 575: inside that labyrinth]]). Benoit Mandelbrot, in ''Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension'' discusses the infinite coastline of Britain: "We will see that . . . the final estimated length is not only extremely large but in fact so large that it is best considered infinite." 
Although this pov is true, might this line mean that the "coastline" of the Adreatic Sea, which is where Bocche di Cattaro is, circling as it does on the inside, almost connects with itself? When it would be "infinite". See Wikipedia.
:Wikipedia ?
:Circular doesn't mean infinite. There's no reason to cite Wikipedia to illustrate a mistaken point. A fuller citation of the Mandelbrot passage would be useful, though.

==Page 822==

'''Jacintha Drulov''' 
The surname suggests the necessity of wiping the "drool off" the gentlemen's chins. Jacintha, pronounced yah-SIN-tah and of Dutch usage, is the Latinate form of Jacinthe, which is the French feminine form of [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=hyacinth Hyacinth].
:Obsessive searching turned up two Drulovs. First is a brand of pellet gun made first in Czechoslovakia and later in the Czech Republic. The Drulov DU-10 Condor is a popular target pistol. The second Drulov is very odd (I mean the connection is very odd; probably an entirely conventional fellow). A historian of medicine named Richard Koch left Germany in 1936 and spent the rest of his life in a Russian spa town, Essentuki. His old university, Tübingen, acquired his papers and created an online index. It lists a letter to Koch from one Druloff, identified as—here it comes—the director of a balneological institute: a center for the study of therapeutic baths. This is just too zany to mean anything, and I don't expect this note to survive the wiki editing process, but it truly did make my hackles stand up for a moment.

'''Lady Quethlock''' 
Quethlock is/was a place in Australia in 1915.

'''Zhenski Tzrnogorski Institut''' 
Montenegrin: Montenegrin Female Institute. Женски Црногорски Институт. The use of "tz" in the transliteration (instead of present-day "ts") signals an old source and may indicate that Pynchon has found a real school. Differences between the Montenegrin and Serbian languages are relatively slight.

'''Cetinje''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetinje Cetinje] is a town in southwestern Montenegro. It nestles on a small Karst plain surrounded by limestone mountains.

==Page 823==

'''Baden-Powell''' 
Pronounced BAY-den POLE (other branches of the family say POOL). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Baden-Powell Robert Baden-Powell] (1857-1941) was a British officer and spy who after service in the Boer Wars founded the Boy Scouts.

'''Applied Idiotics''' 
I suggest this is a minor theme of ''AtD.'' Every couple of chapters we have a reference to someone learning to act like an idiot (never a fool, a zany, an imbecile, a twit—always an idiot). Is there a connection to the notion of the "holy fool" here? 
Good question. There is also the possible play on Applied Robotics and/or A. I. = Artificial Intelligence.
:D'oh!

'''Chipping Sodbury''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipping_Sodbury A real town] in the west of England, birthplace of J. K. Rowling. Sod is short for sodomite, commonly heard in Britain and frequently used in AtD.

'''M.6I.''' 
In fact MI6, Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 6 (UK), responsible for collection of overseas intelligence. Deliberate solecism by Bevis the Idiot? -Seems more likely it's Pynchon having some fun.

==Page 824==

'''a Tsarist school''' 
See the [[ATD_821-848#Page_822|annotation to page 822.]]

==Page 825==

'''Eridanus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eridanus_%28mythology%29 The Eridanus] is a river of Hades in Greek mythology whose name has been adopted by paleogeographers to describe the real ice age river that ran where the Baltic Sea is now. There have been various guesses at which real river was the Eridanus: the Po in north Italy, and the Nile and the Danube.

'''Virgil''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil Virgil] (70 BC-19 BC) was an ancient Roman poet, the author of the ''Aeneid'', a Roman Empire's national epic. He also was Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory in ''The Divine Comedy''.

'''the Argo''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo The Argo] was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcus to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

'''Apollonius of Rhodes''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_Rhodius Apollonius of Rhodes] (early 3rd century-after 246 BC) was a poet, scholar and director of the Library of Alexandria. He is best known for his epic poem the ''Argonautica'', which told the mythological story of Jason and the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece.

'''Euxine to Cronian Seas''' 
Euxine Sea → Black Sea, a sea between Europe and Asia. 
Cronia Sea → North Polar Sea.

'''Colchis''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchis Colchis] was a nearly triangular ancient Georgian region, now mostly the western part of Georgia. In Greek mythology it was the home of Medea and the destination of the Argonauts.

'''Medea''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea Medea] was the daughter of King Aeētes of Colchis and later wife of Jason.

'''the Timavo''' 
[http://www.triestetourism.it/pagine_eng/timavo.htm The Timavo] river has its source at the foot of Mount Nevoso, the highest mountain top of the Slovenian Carso. It flows through most of the Karstic Plateau underground and comes up to the surface again in San Giovanni di Duino. Jason and the Argonauts were able to reach the Black Sea and safety by going up the mouths of the Ister river first and then of the Timavo river.

'''Padus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_River The Padus], the Latin name of the Po, is a river that flows 400 miles eastward across northern Italy from Monviso in Alps to the Adriatic Sea near Venice. It is the longest river in Italy.

'''Timavus''' 
A river described by Apollonius of Rhodes in his ''Argonautica'', which some scholars claimed is the Rhine.

'''the Amber Islands''' 
The islands, ''Brac, Hvar, Vis,'' etc, in the Adriatic Sea next to the Croatian coast were known to ancient Greeks as the Amber Islands.

==Page 826==

'''Metković''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metkovi%C4%87 Metković] is a city in the southeastern end of Croatia close to Montenegro.

'''Kotor''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotor Kotoa], located in a most secluded part of Gulf of Kotor, is a coastal town in Montenegro.

'''Ragusa''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubrovnik Ragusa], now called Dubrovnik,is an old city on the Adriatic Sea coast in the extreme south of Croatia about midway between Metković and Kotor.

'''a brodet full of skarpina''' 
Brodet is a general name for a fish stew on the Croatian coast. It is generally made from various types of fish—skarpina, ugor, skusa, etc. See a picture of [http://www.cromedia.com/miso/slikar/galerija/skarpina.html skarpina fish].

'''the Gulf of Cattaro''' 
Cf [[ATD_821-848#Page_821|page 821: the Bocche di Cattaro]].

'''the Bay of Teodo''' 
The outermost part, the entrance, of the Gulf of Cattaro is the Bay of Teodo (or Bay of Tivat).

'''Zelenika''' 
Zelenika is a little village near [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herceg_Novi Herceg-Novi] in the Bay of Teodo, the entrance to the Gulf of Kotor, in Montenegro.

'''Hum''' 
A village on the Adriatic coast in Herzegovina.

'''Mostar''' 
An inland city southwest of Sarajevo, about 90 miles northwest of Ragusa in Herzegovina.

'''"This 'annexation' is a Habsburg death-warrant"''' 
Literally true; it resulted directly in the death of the Habsburg heir in 1914 and the dismemberment of the Empire in 1918-1919.

==Page 827==

'''Black Hand''' 
Street name for "Union or Death" (Уједињење или Смрт, Ujedinjenje ili Smrt), founded 1911, secret society to promote formation of a Greater Serbia. I.e., freedom fighters or terrorists depending on your point of view.

:Timeline of the story at this point is 1908 !

Gavrilo Princip, the 1914 assassin of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, and his accomplices, were members.

It refers to [http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/blk-hand.html "The National Defense"] — ''Narodna Odbrana'' — (1908-1911). As a reaction to Austria's annexation of Bosnia, on October 8, 1908, ''Narodna Odbrana'', a semi-secret society, was founded in Belgrade. The purpose of the society was to recruit and train partisans for a possible war between Serbia and Austria. The society also undertook anti-Austrian propaganda and organized spies and saboteurs to operate within Austro-Hungarian Empire. Under pressure from Austria the Serbian government stopped the ''Narodna Odbrana'''s terrorist actions around 1910. Some members of ''Narodna Odbrana'' formed in 1911 a new secret organization, Union or Death, to continue the terrorist actions. Also see [http://www.answers.com/topic/narodna-odbrana Narodna Odbrana].

'''Militär-Kasino''' 
Officers' Club. ''Kasino''s in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were modelled after traditional English clubs. ''Militär-Kasino''s were officially sponsored clubs for the local military caste but were also open to rich and "respectable" civilians.

'''Sephardic Jews''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardic Sephardic Jews] are a subgroup of Jews originating in the Iberian Peninsula, including the descendants of those subject to expulsion from Spain by order of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, or from Portugal by order of King Manuel I in 1497.

'''Salonica''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki Salonica], now known as Thessaloniki, is Greece's second-largest city and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is Greece's second major economical, induatrial, commercial and cultural center as weel as a major transportation hub in southeastern Europe. Salonica's Jewish community, largely of Sephardic background comprised 49% of the city's population as late as 1902 but only less than 0.5% now. But the Jewish influence on the city is still very strong.

'''Ma'min household''' 
''Ma'min'' is Hebrew: believer, in this case a household of believing Jews. Transliteration of words written in the Hebrew alphabet always causes trouble; you may also see ''mamin'' and even [http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=332502 ''ma'amin.'']

The song called [http://www.aish.com/shabbatsongs/shabbatsongsdefault/-Ani_Mamin-_-_Faith_in_Redemption.asp "Ani ma'min"] is titled in English "Faith in Redemption," but the first two words ''Ani mamin'' just mean "I believe." If you will allow yourself time to dope out the alphabet, you can see from [http://www.shiachat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=50182 this page] that the plural form ''maminim'' means "believers."

'''Judezmo''' 
Also known as Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews, i.e. those originating in Moorish Spain (Sepharad). Just as Yiddish is a German dialect written with Hebrew characters, with admixture of Hebrew loan words, Judezmo/Ladino is medieval Spanish written with Hebrew characters with admixture of Hebrew loan words [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladino_language]. As Pynchon partially explains, the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jewish refugees from the Spanish Expulsion of Jews and Moslems following the completion of the Christian Reconquest in 1497 (those who remained faced the Inquisition, forcible conversion, or false conversion: outward following of Catholicism with underground Jewish worship; those who followed this third course were called Marranos). The Ottomans settled these refugees in border areas and places of uncertain allegiance to the Empire (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia, Serbia, parts of North Africa) on the theory that these would be grateful and loyal Ottoman subjects.

'''the Evidenzbüro''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_711|page 711: the Evidenzbüro]]. 
Another information-collating agency. German: evidence office.

==Page 828==

'''the forty-fifth parallel''' 
It is a line roughly from Belgrade (Serbia) through Turin (Italy) to Bordeaux (France). Sarajevo is located at 43°52‘N, Constantinople (Istanbul) 41°00‘N.

'''the war between Turkey and Russia''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_229|page 229: the Russo-Turkish War]] (1877-1878).

'''the Treaty of Berlin''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: the Treaty of Berlin]].

'''glacis''' 
[http://www.atelierdesdauphins.com/english/histo/eglosbas.htm The glacis] is an artificial slope of earth in the front of works such as fortifications or a city wall, so constructed as to keep any potential assailant under fire to the last possible moment. (A vertical city wall cannot achieve that.)

'''raki''' 
An anise-flavored Turkish alcoholic beverage.

==Page 829==

'''to Bosna-Brod, change there, return by way of Zegreb''' 
Bosna-Brod's current official name is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosanski_Brod Bosanski Brod]. It is a Bosnian village on the Bosnian-Croatian border, located on the Sava River about 90 miles north of Sarajevo. Just across the Sava is a much larger [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonski_Brod Slavonski Brod], Croatia, an important railway junction and 120 miles southeast of Zagreb, the capital and largest city of Croatia. There is a major railway linking Slavonski Brod to Zegreb.

'''"set to spy"''' 
seems a typo for "sent to spy" because of next phrase.

'''Careva Ulica''' 
Croatian: Emperor Street.

'''Žilavka''' 
A wine from Macedonia.

==Page 830==

'''Webley''' 
British military issue revolver. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webley_Revolver Webley Revolver]).

'''Kiprskni''' 
Misha and Grisha are perfectly capable of saying "Cyprian" or the Russian counterpart "Kiprian"; is this superconsonantal garble just their private joke?

'''''tchistka''''' 
Or ''chistka.'' Russian: the cleanup.

''' . . . left him alone . . . with a loaded pistol, expecting a . . . traditional suicide''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_712|page 712: Hotel Klomser & Colonel Alfred Redl]]. 
Though Colonel Max Khäutsch uses the pistol to shoot his way out, this - and much of what we have learned of Khäutsch‘s career - strongly recalls the fate of Oberst (german for Colonel) Alfred Redl (1864-1913), whose suicide has "entered the folklore of the business" as well. Redl was an Austrian officer who rose to head the counter-intelligence efforts of Austria-Hungary. His term in office was marked by innovation, and he used very high technology for the time to ensnare foreign intelligence agents. When the Russians learned that he was a homosexual, they blackmailed him into committing treason against his homeland, although the Russians made quite substantial cash payments. The Austrian found out about this much too late and by chance only. In the early hours of Sunday morning May 25, 1913, Colonel Alfred Redl blew his brains out in a room at the Hotel Klomser, in the fashionable Herrengasse district of Vienna. He was permitted to "judge himself" after interrogation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Redl Wikipedia] [http://www.trivia-library.com/a/world-war-i-russian-spy-col-alfred-redl.htm 1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/a_centur.htm 2] [http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/redl_a.html 3] [http://p205.ezboard.com/Redl-Scandal/faustrohungarianlandforcesdiscussionforumfrm0.showMessage?topicID=1422.topic forum entry 1] [http://p205.ezboard.com/a-few-questions-about-Colonel-Alfred-Redl/faustrohungarianlandforcesdiscussionforumfrm0.showMessage?topicID=1730.topic forum entry 2] [http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(s1i30045ss4d5w45hfkmsd45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,6,13;journal,7,33;linkingpublicationresults,1:102465,1 paysite]

'''Platz Am Hof . . . Kredit-Anstalt . . . the Hofburg briefly became Dodge City''' 
Hof = german court. Some geographical confusion here: the War Ministry resided at "Platz Am Hof" 17 (later 2) [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofkriegsrat german Wikipedia] [http://www.planet-vienna.com/spots/AmHof/am_hof.htm 2] from 1776 until 1912. The building was demolished "a short time before WW1" and replaced with the headquarters of the "Länderbank", by now owned by the "Bank Austria - Creditanstalt". At the given time the only building "next door" to the one of the War-Ministry was a church. The contributor is not sure whether there was a bank at "Platz Am Hof" yet when the Colonel fled. Furthermore, the "Platz Am Hof" is not to be confused with the "Hofburg". At "Am Hof" the Dukes of Babenberg [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babenberg Wikipedia] resided until 1246. When the Habsburgs took over, they took residence much closer to the city-walls about 600 meters away to the south in what was to become he "Hofburg". [http://www.vienna.at/engine.aspx/page/vienna-features-stadtplan interactive map]

'''Fehim Pasha''' 
Head of Turkish secret police, assassinated after the 1908 revolution.

'''that Brusa job''' 
??? (Brusa, ''Bursa'', is a city in northwestern Turkey).

==Page 831==

'''arificial''' 
Error for ''artificial.''

'''the muezzins''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muezzin The chosen persons] at the mosque who lead the call to Friday service and the five daily prayers from one of the mosque's minarets.

'''''tsiftê-télli''''' 
Greek, derived from Turkish: belly dancing. [http://www.shira.net/glossary.htm See this site for an explanation.]

==Page 832==

'''fezzes''' 
Aside from the magical explanation in the text, isn't this a silent movie gag too? The passage is also mysteriously reminiscent of "The Fez", a 1976 recording by American jazz-rock artists Steely Dan, in which the narrator refuses to do "it" without the fez on, for fear of being considered unholy. Complete lyrics:

:"No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on
:Oh no
:No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on
:Oh no
:That's what I am
:Please understand
:I wanna be your holy man

:No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on
:Oh no
:Don't make me do it without the fez on
:Oh no
:That's what I am
:Please understand..."

[[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]] 11:23, 23 April 2007 (PDT)

==Page 833==

'''Kiseljak''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiseljak Kiseljak] is a small town in central Bosnia-Herzegovina, located northeast of Sarajevo.

'''Zenica''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenica Zenica], the fourth largest city in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is situated by the Bosna river about 40 miles northwest of Sarajevo.

'''Travnik and Jajce''' 
They are located northwest of Zenica. For their locations see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Topographic_map_of_bosnia_and_herzegovina.jpg the Bosnia-Herzegovina map].

==Page 834==

'''''Zdravo, gospodini''''' 
Serbian/Croatian: Hello, gentlemen.

'''šljivovica''' 
Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_806|page 806: šljivovica]].

'''''Ne razumen''''' 
Croatian/Serbian: not reasonable. Might be an error for ''Ne razumem'': I don't understand.
:The suggestion seems correct.

'''Banjaluka''' 
About 30 miles north of Jajce. (Cf the Bosnia-Herzegovina map of [[ATD_821-848#Page_833|page 833: Travnik and Jajce]]).

'''Vakuf . . . Bugojno''' 
Vakuf also called Donji Vakuf. Vakuf and Bugojno are south of Jajce. See [http://www.aboutromania.com/maps167.html this map].

==Page 835==

'''"Union or Death"''' 
[[ATD_821-848#Page_827|See annotations to page 827.]]

'''9 mm Parabellum ammunition''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_mm_Luger_Parabellum The 9 mm Parabellum pistol cartridge] was introduced in 1902 for the Pistole Parabellum, a higher-power version of the earlier 7.65 mm Luger Parabellum and the most widespread used pistol cartridge in the world.

'''.32 Savage''' 
A picture of 1907 [http://www.adamsguns.com/1707.jpg .32 caliber Savage pistol], manufactured by Savage Arms, a New York company.

'''lignite''' 
Also called "brown coal," a dirty-burning fuel with an acrid odor.

==Page 836==

'''''poljes''''' 
Serbian/Croatian for "field". Local meaning explained in text.

'''''Djavola''''' 
Croatian/Serbian? "The Devil!"

==Page 837==

'''Mauser''' 
Cf [[ATD_374-396#Page_389|page 389: Mausers]]. 
German-made rifle.

'''''En tu kulo Dio!''''' 
I just don't believe this is Serbian or Croatian; one of Danilo's many other languages? 
It's sort of Spanish (Danilo is originally a Spanish Jew) meaning: "fucking God!" -- [[User:Blicero2|Blicero2]] 09 March 2007

==Page 838==

==Page 839==

'''Vesna''' 
Whatever her name may signify in Greek, it also corresponds to the Russian word for "spring" (the season).

'''. . . he found that for some undefined time now he had not even been imagining desire, its arousal, its fulfillment, or any occasion for it''' 
This is the absence of all desire (even of the desire to not desire) that is the goal of all Buddhist spritiual development, enlightenment, the highest state, the release from Maya (illusion). Cyprian has found it through intense caring. In a sense he has found Shambhala, in the middle of the "Balkan Powderkeg".

But he has found it in the mountains, away from the circumstances of the Bosnian Crisis. These mountains are as lawless, anarchic as Pynchon's Colorado Rockies; there, too, the Traverses seem to find fulfillment(s), or anyway are free to do so in the same way Cyprian is free in Bosnia--he is at least temporarily unmoored (perhaps outside Time). This all brings to mind Eliot's line in ''The Wasteland'': "In the mountains, there you feel free"(I, 17).

==Page 840==

==Page 841==

'''kapama''' 
A roast lamb dish.

'''. . . both rivers . . .''' 
The Sava and Danube Rivers. Belgrade lies at the confluence of these two rivers.

'''Pljevlje''' 
More commonly spelled Pljevlja of Serbia-Montenegro, a city about 120 miles southwest of Belgrade just inside Montenegro.

'''''konak''''' 
Apparently Turkish: mansion.

'''''Sanjak''''' 
A geographical and administrative unit in Turkish. (Sandžak in Serbian).

'''Kossovska Mitrovitsa''' 
A Turkish railhead in 1908-09. Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_809|page 809: Mitrovitsa]].

==Page 842==

'''the Black Mountain of Skoplje''' 
The range of hills around Skoplje. It is known locally as ''Skopska Tserna Gora'' — the Black Mountain of Skoplje. The name "Black Mountain" is due to the fact that the hills of the area have always been covered in black pine (''pinusnegra''). 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoplje Skoplje or Skopje], situated by the Vardar River at the foot of Mount Vodno, is the capital and the largest city, but still village-like, of Macedonia. It is also the birthplace of Mother Teresa. It lies one third of the way from Kossovska Mitrovitsa to Salonica.

'''Mount Vodno''' 
A 3,520 ft high mountain at its foot Skoplje lies.

'''the Vardar''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardar The Vardar], with a length of 240 miles, is the longest river in Macedonia and major one of Greece. It flows into the Aegean Sea west of Salonica.

'''the Tikveš Plain''' 
[http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Tikves A plain] situated in central Macedonia known for an artifical lake, Lake Tikveš on the Crna River, and home to the town of Kavadaci, famous for its wine.

'''Demir Kapija, the Iron Gate''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demir_Kapija Demir Kapija], located near the Vardar river and the limestone gorge of the same name. The name ''Demir Kapija'' originates from the Turkish time, meaning "The Iron Gate".

==Page 843==

'''the mosqueless idea of a city . . . orthogonal''' 
When the Young Turks abandon the mosque as the center of civic life, they must adopt the European model with streets meeting at right angles. 
Cf. Cartesian grid of Chicago. 
Precisely.

'''iconostasis''' 
The screen in an Orthodox church where icons are hung.

'''oud, baglamas''' 
Stringed musical instruments: the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oud oud] is fretless, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baglamas baglama] has frets that are tied on.

'''fretless portamento''' 
Portamento: A sliding up or down the string from one note to the next note. Fretless would suggest an instrument without frets, like the oud, and, hence, very smooth sliding.

'''''merakloú''''' 
Greek: coquette. I like Pynchon's description better, "a flame, a brilliant focus of cognizance."

'''''Tha spáso koúpes''''' 
??? (Answer:) Like the text says, "I will smash all the glasses" (a more eastern (east of Greece)/Asia Minor sounding bellydance song).

'''''argilés''''' 
Bastard plural (i.e., English ''-s'' grafted to singular) of a Greek word argilé or arghilé: water pipe, nargileh, hookah.

==Page 844==

'''''koulouria''''' 
Breaded butter cookies made in various shapes, circles, braids, coils, figure eights, etc., with (possibly) a sesame seed sugar glaze. More than one recipe found searching the internet.

'''''kombolói''''' 
[http://www.yasou.org/geninfo/komboloi.htm Worry beads]

'''''karsilamás''''' 
A face-to-face couple dance.

'''''Amán''''' 
An excalmation of mercy, Turkish in origin. From online Glossary of Greek.

'''''Stin ipochí''''' 
???

'''bottom dead center of the European Question''' 
In a rotary system like the crankshaft of an engine, angles and times are reckoned from one of two points: top dead center and bottom dead center. Bottom dead center occurs when the piston is at its lowest point and stationary for an instant.

==Page 845==

'''''dervisidhes''''' 
Dervish boys? See later use.

'''Gabrovo Slim''' 
Gabrovo is a city in northern central Bulgaria, 100 miles east of Sofia. Another ''AtD'' character named for his physique (like, e.g., Flaco = "slim" in Spanish). 
Apropos of Flaco: [http://www.netdotcom.com/revmexpc/fortune.htm This web site] remarks on the number of people named Slim who were involved in the Mexican Revolution.

'''''rembetes''''' 
rembet (pl. rembetes): The most well-known name given a member of the Greek urban sub-culture of the early 20th century. Originally thought to derive from the Turkish, Stathis Gauntlet has presented an analysis that throws this into doubt. from: Online glossary of Greek Slang.

'''the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Macedonian_Revolutionary_Organization The Internal Macedonia Revolutionary Organization] was a revolutionary political organization in the Macedonia and Thrace regions of the Ottomann Empire as well as in Bulgaria. It was founded in 1893 in Salonica by a group of Bulgarian exarchist from Macedonia. IMRO was active in Macedonia and Thrace at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The stated goal of IMRO was to unite all elements dissatisfied with the Ottoman oppression for autonomy for the two regions and eventual unification with Bulgaria.

'''Gotse Deltchev''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotse_Delchev Gotse Deltchev or Delchev] (1872-1903) was an important 19th century revolutionary figure in Macedonia. He was one of the leasders of IMRO. He was killed in the St. Ilya's Day (May 4, 1903) uprising against Turkish rule in Macedonia.

'''that short-lived 'Big Bulgaria' as it was before the Treaty of Berlin''' 
At the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878) a 'Big Bulgaria' (or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Bulgaria ''Greater Bulgaria'']) was formed. But four months later, it was divided by the Treaty of Berlin of July 13, 1878, into Principality of Bulgaria, East Rumelia, and the Macedonia. See [[ATD_678-694#Page_690|page 690: the Macedonia Question]].

==Page 846==

'''Oh, I'm the Scarlet Pimpernel, now, is that it?''' 
''The Scarlet Pimpernel'' is a classic play and adventure novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, set during the French Revolution. It first opened on 15 October 1903 at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal, in London; the character is an anonymous hero who, through a combination of courage and daring, has rescued many French aristocrats from the guillotine and brought them safely to England. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Pimpernel Wikipedia entry]

'''''Tsoupra mou''''' 
???

'''Karakas Effendi''' 
From [http://www.rembetiko.gr/forums/showthread.php?t=17420&page=11 this website]:

:One of the reasons why the tavernas flourished was Salonica's insatiable appetite for music of all kinds. Before 1912, musical contacts with Istanbul had been very close, and musicians in the sultan's service used to give concerts at the Café Mazlum on the waterfront. "Spring in Salonica" ran one [http://zemerl.com/cgi-bin//print.pl?title=Primavera+en+Salonico popular Judezmo song], "at Mazlum's café a black-eyed girl sings the amane and plays the oud." Music united all tongues and faiths. "There was not one Salonican who did not run to hear the voice of Karakas Effendi an elderly man, tall as a pine, his 75 years hidden in a black frock-coat was an Istanbul Jew who moved easily, like many musicians, between the café and the synagogue, challenging the cantors to see who could chant the blessings more beautifully."

'''Dervish Boys''' 
dervisi (pl. dervisades): In Turkish, a dervish, member of the Mevlevi sect. In rembetika,-a musical unerworld-- used to denote a hash smoker.

'''Exarch''' 
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, deputy to a patriarch.

'''The City''' 
Constantinople. Its present name, Istanbul (Stambul), comes from the Greek phrase ''eis ten polin'' (είς την πολιν): into the City.

'''Eminönü''' 
Dock area of Constantinople at the mouth of the Golden Horn, on the south (Stambul) side of that inlet.

'''Stamboul''' 
Former English spelling of Stambul or Istanbul.

==Page 847==

==Page 848==

'''Ultraviolet Catastrophe''' 
The Rayleigh-Jeans law says that the intensity of radiation emitted at any wavelength λ by a body at a temperature T is proportional to T/λ4. Jacintha, "carelessly radiant," is following the law into the short-wavelength region (small λ) where it does not apply. The failure of Rayleigh-Jeans in the ultraviolet or short-wavelength range—it predicts infinitely intense radiation, contrary to observation—is referred to as the Ultraviolet Catastrophe.

'''Geneva, New York''' 
Bevis is referring to Geneva, Switzerland and New York, New York, but, as a silly aside, there is also a town upstate, Geneva, New York. It is located on the northern tip of Seneca Lake, the largest in area of the Finger Lakes. Ithaca, home of Cornell University, is on the southern tip of Cayuga Lake, the longest of the Finger Lakes. The two lakes are adjacent Finger Lakes. Geneva is the home of Hobart College for men (founded in 1822) and William Smith College for women (founded in 1908).

'''I am offended only by certain sorts of wallpaper''' 
Allusion to a famous quote of Oscar Wilde's: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go." Sometimes cited as his last words, it actualy dates to a month before he died in 1900 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wild], [http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,49171_1_10,00.html]. Cyprian's apparent spiritual transformation is continuing here; sarcastic as ever, he realizes the nature of love and the superficiality of materialism. One of his natures, the old or the new, the superficial "wallpaper", or the authentic self he is discovering, has to go. That he should voice this in a Wildean witticism is pure Cyprian.

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

ATD 821-848

2007-04-23T18:22:13Z

Jpicco: /* Page 832 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 821==

'''''John of Asia''''' 
John of Asia, also called John of Ephesus, was a 6th-century church leader and historian. The ruins of Ephesus are located in western Asia Minor, now in Turkey.

'''Pola''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula Pola], the largest city in Istria, is situated at the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula 52 miles directly south of Trieste. From the 19th century through World War I, Pola was the headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

'''the Bocche di Cattaro''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boka_Kotorska The Bocche di Cattaro], the Gulf of Kotor, is a winding bay on the Adratic Sea in Montenegro. The gulf is in fact a submerged River canyon of the disintegrated Bokelj river which used ot run from the high mountain plateaus of Mount Orjen.

'''coastline approaching infinite length''' 
A reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals Fractals]
(another fractal reference occurs on [[ATD_557-587#Page_575|page 575: inside that labyrinth]]). Benoit Mandelbrot, in ''Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension'' discusses the infinite coastline of Britain: "We will see that . . . the final estimated length is not only extremely large but in fact so large that it is best considered infinite." 
Although this pov is true, might this line mean that the "coastline" of the Adreatic Sea, which is where Bocche di Cattaro is, circling as it does on the inside, almost connects with itself? When it would be "infinite". See Wikipedia.
:Wikipedia ?
:Circular doesn't mean infinite. There's no reason to cite Wikipedia to illustrate a mistaken point. A fuller citation of the Mandelbrot passage would be useful, though.

==Page 822==

'''Jacintha Drulov''' 
The surname suggests the necessity of wiping the "drool off" the gentlemen's chins. Jacintha, pronounced yah-SIN-tah and of Dutch usage, is the Latinate form of Jacinthe, which is the French feminine form of [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=hyacinth Hyacinth].
:Obsessive searching turned up two Drulovs. First is a brand of pellet gun made first in Czechoslovakia and later in the Czech Republic. The Drulov DU-10 Condor is a popular target pistol. The second Drulov is very odd (I mean the connection is very odd; probably an entirely conventional fellow). A historian of medicine named Richard Koch left Germany in 1936 and spent the rest of his life in a Russian spa town, Essentuki. His old university, Tübingen, acquired his papers and created an online index. It lists a letter to Koch from one Druloff, identified as—here it comes—the director of a balneological institute: a center for the study of therapeutic baths. This is just too zany to mean anything, and I don't expect this note to survive the wiki editing process, but it truly did make my hackles stand up for a moment.

'''Lady Quethlock''' 
Quethlock is/was a place in Australia in 1915.

'''Zhenski Tzrnogorski Institut''' 
Montenegrin: Montenegrin Female Institute. Женски Црногорски Институт. The use of "tz" in the transliteration (instead of present-day "ts") signals an old source and may indicate that Pynchon has found a real school. Differences between the Montenegrin and Serbian languages are relatively slight.

'''Cetinje''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetinje Cetinje] is a town in southwestern Montenegro. It nestles on a small Karst plain surrounded by limestone mountains.

==Page 823==

'''Baden-Powell''' 
Pronounced BAY-den POLE (other branches of the family say POOL). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Baden-Powell Robert Baden-Powell] (1857-1941) was a British officer and spy who after service in the Boer Wars founded the Boy Scouts.

'''Applied Idiotics''' 
I suggest this is a minor theme of ''AtD.'' Every couple of chapters we have a reference to someone learning to act like an idiot (never a fool, a zany, an imbecile, a twit—always an idiot). Is there a connection to the notion of the "holy fool" here? 
Good question. There is also the possible play on Applied Robotics and/or A. I. = Artificial Intelligence.
:D'oh!

'''Chipping Sodbury''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipping_Sodbury A real town] in the west of England, birthplace of J. K. Rowling. Sod is short for sodomite, commonly heard in Britain and frequently used in AtD.

'''M.6I.''' 
In fact MI6, Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 6 (UK), responsible for collection of overseas intelligence. Deliberate solecism by Bevis the Idiot? -Seems more likely it's Pynchon having some fun.

==Page 824==

'''a Tsarist school''' 
See the [[ATD_821-848#Page_822|annotation to page 822.]]

==Page 825==

'''Eridanus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eridanus_%28mythology%29 The Eridanus] is a river of Hades in Greek mythology whose name has been adopted by paleogeographers to describe the real ice age river that ran where the Baltic Sea is now. There have been various guesses at which real river was the Eridanus: the Po in north Italy, and the Nile and the Danube.

'''Virgil''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil Virgil] (70 BC-19 BC) was an ancient Roman poet, the author of the ''Aeneid'', a Roman Empire's national epic. He also was Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory in ''The Divine Comedy''.

'''the Argo''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo The Argo] was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcus to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

'''Apollonius of Rhodes''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_Rhodius Apollonius of Rhodes] (early 3rd century-after 246 BC) was a poet, scholar and director of the Library of Alexandria. He is best known for his epic poem the ''Argonautica'', which told the mythological story of Jason and the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece.

'''Euxine to Cronian Seas''' 
Euxine Sea → Black Sea, a sea between Europe and Asia. 
Cronia Sea → North Polar Sea.

'''Colchis''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchis Colchis] was a nearly triangular ancient Georgian region, now mostly the western part of Georgia. In Greek mythology it was the home of Medea and the destination of the Argonauts.

'''Medea''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea Medea] was the daughter of King Aeētes of Colchis and later wife of Jason.

'''the Timavo''' 
[http://www.triestetourism.it/pagine_eng/timavo.htm The Timavo] river has its source at the foot of Mount Nevoso, the highest mountain top of the Slovenian Carso. It flows through most of the Karstic Plateau underground and comes up to the surface again in San Giovanni di Duino. Jason and the Argonauts were able to reach the Black Sea and safety by going up the mouths of the Ister river first and then of the Timavo river.

'''Padus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_River The Padus], the Latin name of the Po, is a river that flows 400 miles eastward across northern Italy from Monviso in Alps to the Adriatic Sea near Venice. It is the longest river in Italy.

'''Timavus''' 
A river described by Apollonius of Rhodes in his ''Argonautica'', which some scholars claimed is the Rhine.

'''the Amber Islands''' 
The islands, ''Brac, Hvar, Vis,'' etc, in the Adriatic Sea next to the Croatian coast were known to ancient Greeks as the Amber Islands.

==Page 826==

'''Metković''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metkovi%C4%87 Metković] is a city in the southeastern end of Croatia close to Montenegro.

'''Kotor''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotor Kotoa], located in a most secluded part of Gulf of Kotor, is a coastal town in Montenegro.

'''Ragusa''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubrovnik Ragusa], now called Dubrovnik,is an old city on the Adriatic Sea coast in the extreme south of Croatia about midway between Metković and Kotor.

'''a brodet full of skarpina''' 
Brodet is a general name for a fish stew on the Croatian coast. It is generally made from various types of fish—skarpina, ugor, skusa, etc. See a picture of [http://www.cromedia.com/miso/slikar/galerija/skarpina.html skarpina fish].

'''the Gulf of Cattaro''' 
Cf [[ATD_821-848#Page_821|page 821: the Bocche di Cattaro]].

'''the Bay of Teodo''' 
The outermost part, the entrance, of the Gulf of Cattaro is the Bay of Teodo (or Bay of Tivat).

'''Zelenika''' 
Zelenika is a little village near [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herceg_Novi Herceg-Novi] in the Bay of Teodo, the entrance to the Gulf of Kotor, in Montenegro.

'''Hum''' 
A village on the Adriatic coast in Herzegovina.

'''Mostar''' 
An inland city southwest of Sarajevo, about 90 miles northwest of Ragusa in Herzegovina.

'''"This 'annexation' is a Habsburg death-warrant"''' 
Literally true; it resulted directly in the death of the Habsburg heir in 1914 and the dismemberment of the Empire in 1918-1919.

==Page 827==

'''Black Hand''' 
Street name for "Union or Death" (Уједињење или Смрт, Ujedinjenje ili Smrt), founded 1911, secret society to promote formation of a Greater Serbia. I.e., freedom fighters or terrorists depending on your point of view.

:Timeline of the story at this point is 1908 !

Gavrilo Princip, the 1914 assassin of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, and his accomplices, were members.

It refers to [http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/blk-hand.html "The National Defense"] — ''Narodna Odbrana'' — (1908-1911). As a reaction to Austria's annexation of Bosnia, on October 8, 1908, ''Narodna Odbrana'', a semi-secret society, was founded in Belgrade. The purpose of the society was to recruit and train partisans for a possible war between Serbia and Austria. The society also undertook anti-Austrian propaganda and organized spies and saboteurs to operate within Austro-Hungarian Empire. Under pressure from Austria the Serbian government stopped the ''Narodna Odbrana'''s terrorist actions around 1910. Some members of ''Narodna Odbrana'' formed in 1911 a new secret organization, Union or Death, to continue the terrorist actions. Also see [http://www.answers.com/topic/narodna-odbrana Narodna Odbrana].

'''Militär-Kasino''' 
Officers' Club. ''Kasino''s in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were modelled after traditional English clubs. ''Militär-Kasino''s were officially sponsored clubs for the local military caste but were also open to rich and "respectable" civilians.

'''Sephardic Jews''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardic Sephardic Jews] are a subgroup of Jews originating in the Iberian Peninsula, including the descendants of those subject to expulsion from Spain by order of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, or from Portugal by order of King Manuel I in 1497.

'''Salonica''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki Salonica], now known as Thessaloniki, is Greece's second-largest city and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is Greece's second major economical, induatrial, commercial and cultural center as weel as a major transportation hub in southeastern Europe. Salonica's Jewish community, largely of Sephardic background comprised 49% of the city's population as late as 1902 but only less than 0.5% now. But the Jewish influence on the city is still very strong.

'''Ma'min household''' 
''Ma'min'' is Hebrew: believer, in this case a household of believing Jews. Transliteration of words written in the Hebrew alphabet always causes trouble; you may also see ''mamin'' and even [http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=332502 ''ma'amin.'']

The song called [http://www.aish.com/shabbatsongs/shabbatsongsdefault/-Ani_Mamin-_-_Faith_in_Redemption.asp "Ani ma'min"] is titled in English "Faith in Redemption," but the first two words ''Ani mamin'' just mean "I believe." If you will allow yourself time to dope out the alphabet, you can see from [http://www.shiachat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=50182 this page] that the plural form ''maminim'' means "believers."

'''Judezmo''' 
Also known as Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews, i.e. those originating in Moorish Spain (Sepharad). Just as Yiddish is a German dialect written with Hebrew characters, with admixture of Hebrew loan words, Judezmo/Ladino is medieval Spanish written with Hebrew characters with admixture of Hebrew loan words [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladino_language]. As Pynchon partially explains, the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jewish refugees from the Spanish Expulsion of Jews and Moslems following the completion of the Christian Reconquest in 1497 (those who remained faced the Inquisition, forcible conversion, or false conversion: outward following of Catholicism with underground Jewish worship; those who followed this third course were called Marranos). The Ottomans settled these refugees in border areas and places of uncertain allegiance to the Empire (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia, Serbia, parts of North Africa) on the theory that these would be grateful and loyal Ottoman subjects.

'''the Evidenzbüro''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_711|page 711: the Evidenzbüro]]. 
Another information-collating agency. German: evidence office.

==Page 828==

'''the forty-fifth parallel''' 
It is a line roughly from Belgrade (Serbia) through Turin (Italy) to Bordeaux (France). Sarajevo is located at 43°52‘N, Constantinople (Istanbul) 41°00‘N.

'''the war between Turkey and Russia''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_229|page 229: the Russo-Turkish War]] (1877-1878).

'''the Treaty of Berlin''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: the Treaty of Berlin]].

'''glacis''' 
[http://www.atelierdesdauphins.com/english/histo/eglosbas.htm The glacis] is an artificial slope of earth in the front of works such as fortifications or a city wall, so constructed as to keep any potential assailant under fire to the last possible moment. (A vertical city wall cannot achieve that.)

'''raki''' 
An anise-flavored Turkish alcoholic beverage.

==Page 829==

'''to Bosna-Brod, change there, return by way of Zegreb''' 
Bosna-Brod's current official name is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosanski_Brod Bosanski Brod]. It is a Bosnian village on the Bosnian-Croatian border, located on the Sava River about 90 miles north of Sarajevo. Just across the Sava is a much larger [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonski_Brod Slavonski Brod], Croatia, an important railway junction and 120 miles southeast of Zagreb, the capital and largest city of Croatia. There is a major railway linking Slavonski Brod to Zegreb.

'''"set to spy"''' 
seems a typo for "sent to spy" because of next phrase.

'''Careva Ulica''' 
Croatian: Emperor Street.

'''Žilavka''' 
A wine from Macedonia.

==Page 830==

'''Webley''' 
British military issue revolver. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webley_Revolver Webley Revolver]).

'''Kiprskni''' 
Misha and Grisha are perfectly capable of saying "Cyprian" or the Russian counterpart "Kiprian"; is this superconsonantal garble just their private joke?

'''''tchistka''''' 
Or ''chistka.'' Russian: the cleanup.

''' . . . left him alone . . . with a loaded pistol, expecting a . . . traditional suicide''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_712|page 712: Hotel Klomser & Colonel Alfred Redl]]. 
Though Colonel Max Khäutsch uses the pistol to shoot his way out, this - and much of what we have learned of Khäutsch‘s career - strongly recalls the fate of Oberst (german for Colonel) Alfred Redl (1864-1913), whose suicide has "entered the folklore of the business" as well. Redl was an Austrian officer who rose to head the counter-intelligence efforts of Austria-Hungary. His term in office was marked by innovation, and he used very high technology for the time to ensnare foreign intelligence agents. When the Russians learned that he was a homosexual, they blackmailed him into committing treason against his homeland, although the Russians made quite substantial cash payments. The Austrian found out about this much too late and by chance only. In the early hours of Sunday morning May 25, 1913, Colonel Alfred Redl blew his brains out in a room at the Hotel Klomser, in the fashionable Herrengasse district of Vienna. He was permitted to "judge himself" after interrogation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Redl Wikipedia] [http://www.trivia-library.com/a/world-war-i-russian-spy-col-alfred-redl.htm 1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/a_centur.htm 2] [http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/redl_a.html 3] [http://p205.ezboard.com/Redl-Scandal/faustrohungarianlandforcesdiscussionforumfrm0.showMessage?topicID=1422.topic forum entry 1] [http://p205.ezboard.com/a-few-questions-about-Colonel-Alfred-Redl/faustrohungarianlandforcesdiscussionforumfrm0.showMessage?topicID=1730.topic forum entry 2] [http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(s1i30045ss4d5w45hfkmsd45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,6,13;journal,7,33;linkingpublicationresults,1:102465,1 paysite]

'''Platz Am Hof . . . Kredit-Anstalt . . . the Hofburg briefly became Dodge City''' 
Hof = german court. Some geographical confusion here: the War Ministry resided at "Platz Am Hof" 17 (later 2) [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofkriegsrat german Wikipedia] [http://www.planet-vienna.com/spots/AmHof/am_hof.htm 2] from 1776 until 1912. The building was demolished "a short time before WW1" and replaced with the headquarters of the "Länderbank", by now owned by the "Bank Austria - Creditanstalt". At the given time the only building "next door" to the one of the War-Ministry was a church. The contributor is not sure whether there was a bank at "Platz Am Hof" yet when the Colonel fled. Furthermore, the "Platz Am Hof" is not to be confused with the "Hofburg". At "Am Hof" the Dukes of Babenberg [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babenberg Wikipedia] resided until 1246. When the Habsburgs took over, they took residence much closer to the city-walls about 600 meters away to the south in what was to become he "Hofburg". [http://www.vienna.at/engine.aspx/page/vienna-features-stadtplan interactive map]

'''Fehim Pasha''' 
Head of Turkish secret police, assassinated after the 1908 revolution.

'''that Brusa job''' 
??? (Brusa, ''Bursa'', is a city in northwestern Turkey).

==Page 831==

'''arificial''' 
Error for ''artificial.''

'''the muezzins''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muezzin The chosen persons] at the mosque who lead the call to Friday service and the five daily prayers from one of the mosque's minarets.

'''''tsiftê-télli''''' 
Greek, derived from Turkish: belly dancing. [http://www.shira.net/glossary.htm See this site for an explanation.]

==Page 832==

'''fezzes''' 
Aside from the magical explanation in the text, isn't this a silent movie gag too? The passage is also mysteriously reminiscent of "The Fez", a 1976 recording by American jazz-rock artists Steely Dan, in which the narrator refuses to do "it" without the fez on, for fear of being considered unholy. Complete lyrics:

:"No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on
:Oh no
:No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on
:Oh no
:That's what I am
:Please understand
:I wanna be your holy man

:No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on
:Oh no
:Don't make me do it without the fez on
:Oh no
:That's what I am
:Please understand..."

==Page 833==

'''Kiseljak''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiseljak Kiseljak] is a small town in central Bosnia-Herzegovina, located northeast of Sarajevo.

'''Zenica''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenica Zenica], the fourth largest city in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is situated by the Bosna river about 40 miles northwest of Sarajevo.

'''Travnik and Jajce''' 
They are located northwest of Zenica. For their locations see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Topographic_map_of_bosnia_and_herzegovina.jpg the Bosnia-Herzegovina map].

==Page 834==

'''''Zdravo, gospodini''''' 
Serbian/Croatian: Hello, gentlemen.

'''šljivovica''' 
Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_806|page 806: šljivovica]].

'''''Ne razumen''''' 
Croatian/Serbian: not reasonable. Might be an error for ''Ne razumem'': I don't understand.
:The suggestion seems correct.

'''Banjaluka''' 
About 30 miles north of Jajce. (Cf the Bosnia-Herzegovina map of [[ATD_821-848#Page_833|page 833: Travnik and Jajce]]).

'''Vakuf . . . Bugojno''' 
Vakuf also called Donji Vakuf. Vakuf and Bugojno are south of Jajce. See [http://www.aboutromania.com/maps167.html this map].

==Page 835==

'''"Union or Death"''' 
[[ATD_821-848#Page_827|See annotations to page 827.]]

'''9 mm Parabellum ammunition''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_mm_Luger_Parabellum The 9 mm Parabellum pistol cartridge] was introduced in 1902 for the Pistole Parabellum, a higher-power version of the earlier 7.65 mm Luger Parabellum and the most widespread used pistol cartridge in the world.

'''.32 Savage''' 
A picture of 1907 [http://www.adamsguns.com/1707.jpg .32 caliber Savage pistol], manufactured by Savage Arms, a New York company.

'''lignite''' 
Also called "brown coal," a dirty-burning fuel with an acrid odor.

==Page 836==

'''''poljes''''' 
Serbian/Croatian for "field". Local meaning explained in text.

'''''Djavola''''' 
Croatian/Serbian? "The Devil!"

==Page 837==

'''Mauser''' 
Cf [[ATD_374-396#Page_389|page 389: Mausers]]. 
German-made rifle.

'''''En tu kulo Dio!''''' 
I just don't believe this is Serbian or Croatian; one of Danilo's many other languages? 
It's sort of Spanish (Danilo is originally a Spanish Jew) meaning: "fucking God!" -- [[User:Blicero2|Blicero2]] 09 March 2007

==Page 838==

==Page 839==

'''Vesna''' 
Whatever her name may signify in Greek, it also corresponds to the Russian word for "spring" (the season).

'''. . . he found that for some undefined time now he had not even been imagining desire, its arousal, its fulfillment, or any occasion for it''' 
This is the absence of all desire (even of the desire to not desire) that is the goal of all Buddhist spritiual development, enlightenment, the highest state, the release from Maya (illusion). Cyprian has found it through intense caring. In a sense he has found Shambhala, in the middle of the "Balkan Powderkeg".

But he has found it in the mountains, away from the circumstances of the Bosnian Crisis. These mountains are as lawless, anarchic as Pynchon's Colorado Rockies; there, too, the Traverses seem to find fulfillment(s), or anyway are free to do so in the same way Cyprian is free in Bosnia--he is at least temporarily unmoored (perhaps outside Time). This all brings to mind Eliot's line in ''The Wasteland'': "In the mountains, there you feel free"(I, 17).

==Page 840==

==Page 841==

'''kapama''' 
A roast lamb dish.

'''. . . both rivers . . .''' 
The Sava and Danube Rivers. Belgrade lies at the confluence of these two rivers.

'''Pljevlje''' 
More commonly spelled Pljevlja of Serbia-Montenegro, a city about 120 miles southwest of Belgrade just inside Montenegro.

'''''konak''''' 
Apparently Turkish: mansion.

'''''Sanjak''''' 
A geographical and administrative unit in Turkish. (Sandžak in Serbian).

'''Kossovska Mitrovitsa''' 
A Turkish railhead in 1908-09. Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_809|page 809: Mitrovitsa]].

==Page 842==

'''the Black Mountain of Skoplje''' 
The range of hills around Skoplje. It is known locally as ''Skopska Tserna Gora'' — the Black Mountain of Skoplje. The name "Black Mountain" is due to the fact that the hills of the area have always been covered in black pine (''pinusnegra''). 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoplje Skoplje or Skopje], situated by the Vardar River at the foot of Mount Vodno, is the capital and the largest city, but still village-like, of Macedonia. It is also the birthplace of Mother Teresa. It lies one third of the way from Kossovska Mitrovitsa to Salonica.

'''Mount Vodno''' 
A 3,520 ft high mountain at its foot Skoplje lies.

'''the Vardar''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardar The Vardar], with a length of 240 miles, is the longest river in Macedonia and major one of Greece. It flows into the Aegean Sea west of Salonica.

'''the Tikveš Plain''' 
[http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Tikves A plain] situated in central Macedonia known for an artifical lake, Lake Tikveš on the Crna River, and home to the town of Kavadaci, famous for its wine.

'''Demir Kapija, the Iron Gate''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demir_Kapija Demir Kapija], located near the Vardar river and the limestone gorge of the same name. The name ''Demir Kapija'' originates from the Turkish time, meaning "The Iron Gate".

==Page 843==

'''the mosqueless idea of a city . . . orthogonal''' 
When the Young Turks abandon the mosque as the center of civic life, they must adopt the European model with streets meeting at right angles. 
Cf. Cartesian grid of Chicago. 
Precisely.

'''iconostasis''' 
The screen in an Orthodox church where icons are hung.

'''oud, baglamas''' 
Stringed musical instruments: the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oud oud] is fretless, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baglamas baglama] has frets that are tied on.

'''fretless portamento''' 
Portamento: A sliding up or down the string from one note to the next note. Fretless would suggest an instrument without frets, like the oud, and, hence, very smooth sliding.

'''''merakloú''''' 
Greek: coquette. I like Pynchon's description better, "a flame, a brilliant focus of cognizance."

'''''Tha spáso koúpes''''' 
??? (Answer:) Like the text says, "I will smash all the glasses" (a more eastern (east of Greece)/Asia Minor sounding bellydance song).

'''''argilés''''' 
Bastard plural (i.e., English ''-s'' grafted to singular) of a Greek word argilé or arghilé: water pipe, nargileh, hookah.

==Page 844==

'''''koulouria''''' 
Breaded butter cookies made in various shapes, circles, braids, coils, figure eights, etc., with (possibly) a sesame seed sugar glaze. More than one recipe found searching the internet.

'''''kombolói''''' 
[http://www.yasou.org/geninfo/komboloi.htm Worry beads]

'''''karsilamás''''' 
A face-to-face couple dance.

'''''Amán''''' 
An excalmation of mercy, Turkish in origin. From online Glossary of Greek.

'''''Stin ipochí''''' 
???

'''bottom dead center of the European Question''' 
In a rotary system like the crankshaft of an engine, angles and times are reckoned from one of two points: top dead center and bottom dead center. Bottom dead center occurs when the piston is at its lowest point and stationary for an instant.

==Page 845==

'''''dervisidhes''''' 
Dervish boys? See later use.

'''Gabrovo Slim''' 
Gabrovo is a city in northern central Bulgaria, 100 miles east of Sofia. Another ''AtD'' character named for his physique (like, e.g., Flaco = "slim" in Spanish). 
Apropos of Flaco: [http://www.netdotcom.com/revmexpc/fortune.htm This web site] remarks on the number of people named Slim who were involved in the Mexican Revolution.

'''''rembetes''''' 
rembet (pl. rembetes): The most well-known name given a member of the Greek urban sub-culture of the early 20th century. Originally thought to derive from the Turkish, Stathis Gauntlet has presented an analysis that throws this into doubt. from: Online glossary of Greek Slang.

'''the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Macedonian_Revolutionary_Organization The Internal Macedonia Revolutionary Organization] was a revolutionary political organization in the Macedonia and Thrace regions of the Ottomann Empire as well as in Bulgaria. It was founded in 1893 in Salonica by a group of Bulgarian exarchist from Macedonia. IMRO was active in Macedonia and Thrace at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The stated goal of IMRO was to unite all elements dissatisfied with the Ottoman oppression for autonomy for the two regions and eventual unification with Bulgaria.

'''Gotse Deltchev''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotse_Delchev Gotse Deltchev or Delchev] (1872-1903) was an important 19th century revolutionary figure in Macedonia. He was one of the leasders of IMRO. He was killed in the St. Ilya's Day (May 4, 1903) uprising against Turkish rule in Macedonia.

'''that short-lived 'Big Bulgaria' as it was before the Treaty of Berlin''' 
At the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878) a 'Big Bulgaria' (or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Bulgaria ''Greater Bulgaria'']) was formed. But four months later, it was divided by the Treaty of Berlin of July 13, 1878, into Principality of Bulgaria, East Rumelia, and the Macedonia. See [[ATD_678-694#Page_690|page 690: the Macedonia Question]].

==Page 846==

'''Oh, I'm the Scarlet Pimpernel, now, is that it?''' 
''The Scarlet Pimpernel'' is a classic play and adventure novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, set during the French Revolution. It first opened on 15 October 1903 at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal, in London; the character is an anonymous hero who, through a combination of courage and daring, has rescued many French aristocrats from the guillotine and brought them safely to England. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Pimpernel Wikipedia entry]

'''''Tsoupra mou''''' 
???

'''Karakas Effendi''' 
From [http://www.rembetiko.gr/forums/showthread.php?t=17420&page=11 this website]:

:One of the reasons why the tavernas flourished was Salonica's insatiable appetite for music of all kinds. Before 1912, musical contacts with Istanbul had been very close, and musicians in the sultan's service used to give concerts at the Café Mazlum on the waterfront. "Spring in Salonica" ran one [http://zemerl.com/cgi-bin//print.pl?title=Primavera+en+Salonico popular Judezmo song], "at Mazlum's café a black-eyed girl sings the amane and plays the oud." Music united all tongues and faiths. "There was not one Salonican who did not run to hear the voice of Karakas Effendi an elderly man, tall as a pine, his 75 years hidden in a black frock-coat was an Istanbul Jew who moved easily, like many musicians, between the café and the synagogue, challenging the cantors to see who could chant the blessings more beautifully."

'''Dervish Boys''' 
dervisi (pl. dervisades): In Turkish, a dervish, member of the Mevlevi sect. In rembetika,-a musical unerworld-- used to denote a hash smoker.

'''Exarch''' 
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, deputy to a patriarch.

'''The City''' 
Constantinople. Its present name, Istanbul (Stambul), comes from the Greek phrase ''eis ten polin'' (είς την πολιν): into the City.

'''Eminönü''' 
Dock area of Constantinople at the mouth of the Golden Horn, on the south (Stambul) side of that inlet.

'''Stamboul''' 
Former English spelling of Stambul or Istanbul.

==Page 847==

==Page 848==

'''Ultraviolet Catastrophe''' 
The Rayleigh-Jeans law says that the intensity of radiation emitted at any wavelength λ by a body at a temperature T is proportional to T/λ4. Jacintha, "carelessly radiant," is following the law into the short-wavelength region (small λ) where it does not apply. The failure of Rayleigh-Jeans in the ultraviolet or short-wavelength range—it predicts infinitely intense radiation, contrary to observation—is referred to as the Ultraviolet Catastrophe.

'''Geneva, New York''' 
Bevis is referring to Geneva, Switzerland and New York, New York, but, as a silly aside, there is also a town upstate, Geneva, New York. It is located on the northern tip of Seneca Lake, the largest in area of the Finger Lakes. Ithaca, home of Cornell University, is on the southern tip of Cayuga Lake, the longest of the Finger Lakes. The two lakes are adjacent Finger Lakes. Geneva is the home of Hobart College for men (founded in 1822) and William Smith College for women (founded in 1908).

'''I am offended only by certain sorts of wallpaper''' 
Allusion to a famous quote of Oscar Wilde's: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go." Sometimes cited as his last words, it actualy dates to a month before he died in 1900 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wild], [http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,49171_1_10,00.html]. Cyprian's apparent spiritual transformation is continuing here; sarcastic as ever, he realizes the nature of love and the superficiality of materialism. One of his natures, the old or the new, the superficial "wallpaper", or the authentic self he is discovering, has to go. That he should voice this in a Wildean witticism is pure Cyprian.

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

ATD 821-848

2007-04-23T18:17:34Z

Jpicco: /* Page 832 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 821==

'''''John of Asia''''' 
John of Asia, also called John of Ephesus, was a 6th-century church leader and historian. The ruins of Ephesus are located in western Asia Minor, now in Turkey.

'''Pola''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pula Pola], the largest city in Istria, is situated at the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula 52 miles directly south of Trieste. From the 19th century through World War I, Pola was the headquarters of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

'''the Bocche di Cattaro''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boka_Kotorska The Bocche di Cattaro], the Gulf of Kotor, is a winding bay on the Adratic Sea in Montenegro. The gulf is in fact a submerged River canyon of the disintegrated Bokelj river which used ot run from the high mountain plateaus of Mount Orjen.

'''coastline approaching infinite length''' 
A reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals Fractals]
(another fractal reference occurs on [[ATD_557-587#Page_575|page 575: inside that labyrinth]]). Benoit Mandelbrot, in ''Fractals: Form, Chance and Dimension'' discusses the infinite coastline of Britain: "We will see that . . . the final estimated length is not only extremely large but in fact so large that it is best considered infinite." 
Although this pov is true, might this line mean that the "coastline" of the Adreatic Sea, which is where Bocche di Cattaro is, circling as it does on the inside, almost connects with itself? When it would be "infinite". See Wikipedia.
:Wikipedia ?
:Circular doesn't mean infinite. There's no reason to cite Wikipedia to illustrate a mistaken point. A fuller citation of the Mandelbrot passage would be useful, though.

==Page 822==

'''Jacintha Drulov''' 
The surname suggests the necessity of wiping the "drool off" the gentlemen's chins. Jacintha, pronounced yah-SIN-tah and of Dutch usage, is the Latinate form of Jacinthe, which is the French feminine form of [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=hyacinth Hyacinth].
:Obsessive searching turned up two Drulovs. First is a brand of pellet gun made first in Czechoslovakia and later in the Czech Republic. The Drulov DU-10 Condor is a popular target pistol. The second Drulov is very odd (I mean the connection is very odd; probably an entirely conventional fellow). A historian of medicine named Richard Koch left Germany in 1936 and spent the rest of his life in a Russian spa town, Essentuki. His old university, Tübingen, acquired his papers and created an online index. It lists a letter to Koch from one Druloff, identified as—here it comes—the director of a balneological institute: a center for the study of therapeutic baths. This is just too zany to mean anything, and I don't expect this note to survive the wiki editing process, but it truly did make my hackles stand up for a moment.

'''Lady Quethlock''' 
Quethlock is/was a place in Australia in 1915.

'''Zhenski Tzrnogorski Institut''' 
Montenegrin: Montenegrin Female Institute. Женски Црногорски Институт. The use of "tz" in the transliteration (instead of present-day "ts") signals an old source and may indicate that Pynchon has found a real school. Differences between the Montenegrin and Serbian languages are relatively slight.

'''Cetinje''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetinje Cetinje] is a town in southwestern Montenegro. It nestles on a small Karst plain surrounded by limestone mountains.

==Page 823==

'''Baden-Powell''' 
Pronounced BAY-den POLE (other branches of the family say POOL). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Baden-Powell Robert Baden-Powell] (1857-1941) was a British officer and spy who after service in the Boer Wars founded the Boy Scouts.

'''Applied Idiotics''' 
I suggest this is a minor theme of ''AtD.'' Every couple of chapters we have a reference to someone learning to act like an idiot (never a fool, a zany, an imbecile, a twit—always an idiot). Is there a connection to the notion of the "holy fool" here? 
Good question. There is also the possible play on Applied Robotics and/or A. I. = Artificial Intelligence.
:D'oh!

'''Chipping Sodbury''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipping_Sodbury A real town] in the west of England, birthplace of J. K. Rowling. Sod is short for sodomite, commonly heard in Britain and frequently used in AtD.

'''M.6I.''' 
In fact MI6, Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 6 (UK), responsible for collection of overseas intelligence. Deliberate solecism by Bevis the Idiot? -Seems more likely it's Pynchon having some fun.

==Page 824==

'''a Tsarist school''' 
See the [[ATD_821-848#Page_822|annotation to page 822.]]

==Page 825==

'''Eridanus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eridanus_%28mythology%29 The Eridanus] is a river of Hades in Greek mythology whose name has been adopted by paleogeographers to describe the real ice age river that ran where the Baltic Sea is now. There have been various guesses at which real river was the Eridanus: the Po in north Italy, and the Nile and the Danube.

'''Virgil''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil Virgil] (70 BC-19 BC) was an ancient Roman poet, the author of the ''Aeneid'', a Roman Empire's national epic. He also was Dante's guide through Hell and Purgatory in ''The Divine Comedy''.

'''the Argo''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argo The Argo] was the ship on which Jason and the Argonauts sailed from Iolcus to retrieve the Golden Fleece.

'''Apollonius of Rhodes''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_Rhodius Apollonius of Rhodes] (early 3rd century-after 246 BC) was a poet, scholar and director of the Library of Alexandria. He is best known for his epic poem the ''Argonautica'', which told the mythological story of Jason and the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece.

'''Euxine to Cronian Seas''' 
Euxine Sea → Black Sea, a sea between Europe and Asia. 
Cronia Sea → North Polar Sea.

'''Colchis''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colchis Colchis] was a nearly triangular ancient Georgian region, now mostly the western part of Georgia. In Greek mythology it was the home of Medea and the destination of the Argonauts.

'''Medea''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medea Medea] was the daughter of King Aeētes of Colchis and later wife of Jason.

'''the Timavo''' 
[http://www.triestetourism.it/pagine_eng/timavo.htm The Timavo] river has its source at the foot of Mount Nevoso, the highest mountain top of the Slovenian Carso. It flows through most of the Karstic Plateau underground and comes up to the surface again in San Giovanni di Duino. Jason and the Argonauts were able to reach the Black Sea and safety by going up the mouths of the Ister river first and then of the Timavo river.

'''Padus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_River The Padus], the Latin name of the Po, is a river that flows 400 miles eastward across northern Italy from Monviso in Alps to the Adriatic Sea near Venice. It is the longest river in Italy.

'''Timavus''' 
A river described by Apollonius of Rhodes in his ''Argonautica'', which some scholars claimed is the Rhine.

'''the Amber Islands''' 
The islands, ''Brac, Hvar, Vis,'' etc, in the Adriatic Sea next to the Croatian coast were known to ancient Greeks as the Amber Islands.

==Page 826==

'''Metković''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metkovi%C4%87 Metković] is a city in the southeastern end of Croatia close to Montenegro.

'''Kotor''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotor Kotoa], located in a most secluded part of Gulf of Kotor, is a coastal town in Montenegro.

'''Ragusa''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubrovnik Ragusa], now called Dubrovnik,is an old city on the Adriatic Sea coast in the extreme south of Croatia about midway between Metković and Kotor.

'''a brodet full of skarpina''' 
Brodet is a general name for a fish stew on the Croatian coast. It is generally made from various types of fish—skarpina, ugor, skusa, etc. See a picture of [http://www.cromedia.com/miso/slikar/galerija/skarpina.html skarpina fish].

'''the Gulf of Cattaro''' 
Cf [[ATD_821-848#Page_821|page 821: the Bocche di Cattaro]].

'''the Bay of Teodo''' 
The outermost part, the entrance, of the Gulf of Cattaro is the Bay of Teodo (or Bay of Tivat).

'''Zelenika''' 
Zelenika is a little village near [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herceg_Novi Herceg-Novi] in the Bay of Teodo, the entrance to the Gulf of Kotor, in Montenegro.

'''Hum''' 
A village on the Adriatic coast in Herzegovina.

'''Mostar''' 
An inland city southwest of Sarajevo, about 90 miles northwest of Ragusa in Herzegovina.

'''"This 'annexation' is a Habsburg death-warrant"''' 
Literally true; it resulted directly in the death of the Habsburg heir in 1914 and the dismemberment of the Empire in 1918-1919.

==Page 827==

'''Black Hand''' 
Street name for "Union or Death" (Уједињење или Смрт, Ujedinjenje ili Smrt), founded 1911, secret society to promote formation of a Greater Serbia. I.e., freedom fighters or terrorists depending on your point of view.

:Timeline of the story at this point is 1908 !

Gavrilo Princip, the 1914 assassin of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, and his accomplices, were members.

It refers to [http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/comment/blk-hand.html "The National Defense"] — ''Narodna Odbrana'' — (1908-1911). As a reaction to Austria's annexation of Bosnia, on October 8, 1908, ''Narodna Odbrana'', a semi-secret society, was founded in Belgrade. The purpose of the society was to recruit and train partisans for a possible war between Serbia and Austria. The society also undertook anti-Austrian propaganda and organized spies and saboteurs to operate within Austro-Hungarian Empire. Under pressure from Austria the Serbian government stopped the ''Narodna Odbrana'''s terrorist actions around 1910. Some members of ''Narodna Odbrana'' formed in 1911 a new secret organization, Union or Death, to continue the terrorist actions. Also see [http://www.answers.com/topic/narodna-odbrana Narodna Odbrana].

'''Militär-Kasino''' 
Officers' Club. ''Kasino''s in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy were modelled after traditional English clubs. ''Militär-Kasino''s were officially sponsored clubs for the local military caste but were also open to rich and "respectable" civilians.

'''Sephardic Jews''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardic Sephardic Jews] are a subgroup of Jews originating in the Iberian Peninsula, including the descendants of those subject to expulsion from Spain by order of the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, or from Portugal by order of King Manuel I in 1497.

'''Salonica''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki Salonica], now known as Thessaloniki, is Greece's second-largest city and the capital of the Greek region of Macedonia. It is Greece's second major economical, induatrial, commercial and cultural center as weel as a major transportation hub in southeastern Europe. Salonica's Jewish community, largely of Sephardic background comprised 49% of the city's population as late as 1902 but only less than 0.5% now. But the Jewish influence on the city is still very strong.

'''Ma'min household''' 
''Ma'min'' is Hebrew: believer, in this case a household of believing Jews. Transliteration of words written in the Hebrew alphabet always causes trouble; you may also see ''mamin'' and even [http://www.chabad.org/library/article.asp?AID=332502 ''ma'amin.'']

The song called [http://www.aish.com/shabbatsongs/shabbatsongsdefault/-Ani_Mamin-_-_Faith_in_Redemption.asp "Ani ma'min"] is titled in English "Faith in Redemption," but the first two words ''Ani mamin'' just mean "I believe." If you will allow yourself time to dope out the alphabet, you can see from [http://www.shiachat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=50182 this page] that the plural form ''maminim'' means "believers."

'''Judezmo''' 
Also known as Ladino, the language of the Sephardic Jews, i.e. those originating in Moorish Spain (Sepharad). Just as Yiddish is a German dialect written with Hebrew characters, with admixture of Hebrew loan words, Judezmo/Ladino is medieval Spanish written with Hebrew characters with admixture of Hebrew loan words [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ladino_language]. As Pynchon partially explains, the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jewish refugees from the Spanish Expulsion of Jews and Moslems following the completion of the Christian Reconquest in 1497 (those who remained faced the Inquisition, forcible conversion, or false conversion: outward following of Catholicism with underground Jewish worship; those who followed this third course were called Marranos). The Ottomans settled these refugees in border areas and places of uncertain allegiance to the Empire (Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia, Serbia, parts of North Africa) on the theory that these would be grateful and loyal Ottoman subjects.

'''the Evidenzbüro''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_711|page 711: the Evidenzbüro]]. 
Another information-collating agency. German: evidence office.

==Page 828==

'''the forty-fifth parallel''' 
It is a line roughly from Belgrade (Serbia) through Turin (Italy) to Bordeaux (France). Sarajevo is located at 43°52‘N, Constantinople (Istanbul) 41°00‘N.

'''the war between Turkey and Russia''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_229|page 229: the Russo-Turkish War]] (1877-1878).

'''the Treaty of Berlin''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: the Treaty of Berlin]].

'''glacis''' 
[http://www.atelierdesdauphins.com/english/histo/eglosbas.htm The glacis] is an artificial slope of earth in the front of works such as fortifications or a city wall, so constructed as to keep any potential assailant under fire to the last possible moment. (A vertical city wall cannot achieve that.)

'''raki''' 
An anise-flavored Turkish alcoholic beverage.

==Page 829==

'''to Bosna-Brod, change there, return by way of Zegreb''' 
Bosna-Brod's current official name is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosanski_Brod Bosanski Brod]. It is a Bosnian village on the Bosnian-Croatian border, located on the Sava River about 90 miles north of Sarajevo. Just across the Sava is a much larger [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavonski_Brod Slavonski Brod], Croatia, an important railway junction and 120 miles southeast of Zagreb, the capital and largest city of Croatia. There is a major railway linking Slavonski Brod to Zegreb.

'''"set to spy"''' 
seems a typo for "sent to spy" because of next phrase.

'''Careva Ulica''' 
Croatian: Emperor Street.

'''Žilavka''' 
A wine from Macedonia.

==Page 830==

'''Webley''' 
British military issue revolver. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webley_Revolver Webley Revolver]).

'''Kiprskni''' 
Misha and Grisha are perfectly capable of saying "Cyprian" or the Russian counterpart "Kiprian"; is this superconsonantal garble just their private joke?

'''''tchistka''''' 
Or ''chistka.'' Russian: the cleanup.

''' . . . left him alone . . . with a loaded pistol, expecting a . . . traditional suicide''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_712|page 712: Hotel Klomser & Colonel Alfred Redl]]. 
Though Colonel Max Khäutsch uses the pistol to shoot his way out, this - and much of what we have learned of Khäutsch‘s career - strongly recalls the fate of Oberst (german for Colonel) Alfred Redl (1864-1913), whose suicide has "entered the folklore of the business" as well. Redl was an Austrian officer who rose to head the counter-intelligence efforts of Austria-Hungary. His term in office was marked by innovation, and he used very high technology for the time to ensnare foreign intelligence agents. When the Russians learned that he was a homosexual, they blackmailed him into committing treason against his homeland, although the Russians made quite substantial cash payments. The Austrian found out about this much too late and by chance only. In the early hours of Sunday morning May 25, 1913, Colonel Alfred Redl blew his brains out in a room at the Hotel Klomser, in the fashionable Herrengasse district of Vienna. He was permitted to "judge himself" after interrogation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Redl Wikipedia] [http://www.trivia-library.com/a/world-war-i-russian-spy-col-alfred-redl.htm 1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/books/chap1/a_centur.htm 2] [http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/redl_a.html 3] [http://p205.ezboard.com/Redl-Scandal/faustrohungarianlandforcesdiscussionforumfrm0.showMessage?topicID=1422.topic forum entry 1] [http://p205.ezboard.com/a-few-questions-about-Colonel-Alfred-Redl/faustrohungarianlandforcesdiscussionforumfrm0.showMessage?topicID=1730.topic forum entry 2] [http://taylorandfrancis.metapress.com/(s1i30045ss4d5w45hfkmsd45)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,6,13;journal,7,33;linkingpublicationresults,1:102465,1 paysite]

'''Platz Am Hof . . . Kredit-Anstalt . . . the Hofburg briefly became Dodge City''' 
Hof = german court. Some geographical confusion here: the War Ministry resided at "Platz Am Hof" 17 (later 2) [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofkriegsrat german Wikipedia] [http://www.planet-vienna.com/spots/AmHof/am_hof.htm 2] from 1776 until 1912. The building was demolished "a short time before WW1" and replaced with the headquarters of the "Länderbank", by now owned by the "Bank Austria - Creditanstalt". At the given time the only building "next door" to the one of the War-Ministry was a church. The contributor is not sure whether there was a bank at "Platz Am Hof" yet when the Colonel fled. Furthermore, the "Platz Am Hof" is not to be confused with the "Hofburg". At "Am Hof" the Dukes of Babenberg [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babenberg Wikipedia] resided until 1246. When the Habsburgs took over, they took residence much closer to the city-walls about 600 meters away to the south in what was to become he "Hofburg". [http://www.vienna.at/engine.aspx/page/vienna-features-stadtplan interactive map]

'''Fehim Pasha''' 
Head of Turkish secret police, assassinated after the 1908 revolution.

'''that Brusa job''' 
??? (Brusa, ''Bursa'', is a city in northwestern Turkey).

==Page 831==

'''arificial''' 
Error for ''artificial.''

'''the muezzins''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muezzin The chosen persons] at the mosque who lead the call to Friday service and the five daily prayers from one of the mosque's minarets.

'''''tsiftê-télli''''' 
Greek, derived from Turkish: belly dancing. [http://www.shira.net/glossary.htm See this site for an explanation.]

==Page 832==

'''fezzes''' 
Aside from the magical explanation in the text, isn't this a silent movie gag too? The passage is also mysteriously reminiscent of "The Fez" by American jazz-rock artists Steely Dan, in which the narrator refuses to do "it" without the fez on, for fear of being considered unholy. Complete lyrics:

"No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on
Oh no
No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on
Oh no
That's what I am
Please understand
I wanna be your holy man

No I'm never gonna do it without the fez on
Oh no
Don't make me do it without the fez on
Oh no
That's what I am
Please understand..."

==Page 833==

'''Kiseljak''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiseljak Kiseljak] is a small town in central Bosnia-Herzegovina, located northeast of Sarajevo.

'''Zenica''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenica Zenica], the fourth largest city in Bosnia-Herzegovina, is situated by the Bosna river about 40 miles northwest of Sarajevo.

'''Travnik and Jajce''' 
They are located northwest of Zenica. For their locations see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Topographic_map_of_bosnia_and_herzegovina.jpg the Bosnia-Herzegovina map].

==Page 834==

'''''Zdravo, gospodini''''' 
Serbian/Croatian: Hello, gentlemen.

'''šljivovica''' 
Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_806|page 806: šljivovica]].

'''''Ne razumen''''' 
Croatian/Serbian: not reasonable. Might be an error for ''Ne razumem'': I don't understand.
:The suggestion seems correct.

'''Banjaluka''' 
About 30 miles north of Jajce. (Cf the Bosnia-Herzegovina map of [[ATD_821-848#Page_833|page 833: Travnik and Jajce]]).

'''Vakuf . . . Bugojno''' 
Vakuf also called Donji Vakuf. Vakuf and Bugojno are south of Jajce. See [http://www.aboutromania.com/maps167.html this map].

==Page 835==

'''"Union or Death"''' 
[[ATD_821-848#Page_827|See annotations to page 827.]]

'''9 mm Parabellum ammunition''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_mm_Luger_Parabellum The 9 mm Parabellum pistol cartridge] was introduced in 1902 for the Pistole Parabellum, a higher-power version of the earlier 7.65 mm Luger Parabellum and the most widespread used pistol cartridge in the world.

'''.32 Savage''' 
A picture of 1907 [http://www.adamsguns.com/1707.jpg .32 caliber Savage pistol], manufactured by Savage Arms, a New York company.

'''lignite''' 
Also called "brown coal," a dirty-burning fuel with an acrid odor.

==Page 836==

'''''poljes''''' 
Serbian/Croatian for "field". Local meaning explained in text.

'''''Djavola''''' 
Croatian/Serbian? "The Devil!"

==Page 837==

'''Mauser''' 
Cf [[ATD_374-396#Page_389|page 389: Mausers]]. 
German-made rifle.

'''''En tu kulo Dio!''''' 
I just don't believe this is Serbian or Croatian; one of Danilo's many other languages? 
It's sort of Spanish (Danilo is originally a Spanish Jew) meaning: "fucking God!" -- [[User:Blicero2|Blicero2]] 09 March 2007

==Page 838==

==Page 839==

'''Vesna''' 
Whatever her name may signify in Greek, it also corresponds to the Russian word for "spring" (the season).

'''. . . he found that for some undefined time now he had not even been imagining desire, its arousal, its fulfillment, or any occasion for it''' 
This is the absence of all desire (even of the desire to not desire) that is the goal of all Buddhist spritiual development, enlightenment, the highest state, the release from Maya (illusion). Cyprian has found it through intense caring. In a sense he has found Shambhala, in the middle of the "Balkan Powderkeg".

But he has found it in the mountains, away from the circumstances of the Bosnian Crisis. These mountains are as lawless, anarchic as Pynchon's Colorado Rockies; there, too, the Traverses seem to find fulfillment(s), or anyway are free to do so in the same way Cyprian is free in Bosnia--he is at least temporarily unmoored (perhaps outside Time). This all brings to mind Eliot's line in ''The Wasteland'': "In the mountains, there you feel free"(I, 17).

==Page 840==

==Page 841==

'''kapama''' 
A roast lamb dish.

'''. . . both rivers . . .''' 
The Sava and Danube Rivers. Belgrade lies at the confluence of these two rivers.

'''Pljevlje''' 
More commonly spelled Pljevlja of Serbia-Montenegro, a city about 120 miles southwest of Belgrade just inside Montenegro.

'''''konak''''' 
Apparently Turkish: mansion.

'''''Sanjak''''' 
A geographical and administrative unit in Turkish. (Sandžak in Serbian).

'''Kossovska Mitrovitsa''' 
A Turkish railhead in 1908-09. Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_809|page 809: Mitrovitsa]].

==Page 842==

'''the Black Mountain of Skoplje''' 
The range of hills around Skoplje. It is known locally as ''Skopska Tserna Gora'' — the Black Mountain of Skoplje. The name "Black Mountain" is due to the fact that the hills of the area have always been covered in black pine (''pinusnegra''). 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skoplje Skoplje or Skopje], situated by the Vardar River at the foot of Mount Vodno, is the capital and the largest city, but still village-like, of Macedonia. It is also the birthplace of Mother Teresa. It lies one third of the way from Kossovska Mitrovitsa to Salonica.

'''Mount Vodno''' 
A 3,520 ft high mountain at its foot Skoplje lies.

'''the Vardar''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardar The Vardar], with a length of 240 miles, is the longest river in Macedonia and major one of Greece. It flows into the Aegean Sea west of Salonica.

'''the Tikveš Plain''' 
[http://encycl.opentopia.com/term/Tikves A plain] situated in central Macedonia known for an artifical lake, Lake Tikveš on the Crna River, and home to the town of Kavadaci, famous for its wine.

'''Demir Kapija, the Iron Gate''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demir_Kapija Demir Kapija], located near the Vardar river and the limestone gorge of the same name. The name ''Demir Kapija'' originates from the Turkish time, meaning "The Iron Gate".

==Page 843==

'''the mosqueless idea of a city . . . orthogonal''' 
When the Young Turks abandon the mosque as the center of civic life, they must adopt the European model with streets meeting at right angles. 
Cf. Cartesian grid of Chicago. 
Precisely.

'''iconostasis''' 
The screen in an Orthodox church where icons are hung.

'''oud, baglamas''' 
Stringed musical instruments: the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oud oud] is fretless, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baglamas baglama] has frets that are tied on.

'''fretless portamento''' 
Portamento: A sliding up or down the string from one note to the next note. Fretless would suggest an instrument without frets, like the oud, and, hence, very smooth sliding.

'''''merakloú''''' 
Greek: coquette. I like Pynchon's description better, "a flame, a brilliant focus of cognizance."

'''''Tha spáso koúpes''''' 
??? (Answer:) Like the text says, "I will smash all the glasses" (a more eastern (east of Greece)/Asia Minor sounding bellydance song).

'''''argilés''''' 
Bastard plural (i.e., English ''-s'' grafted to singular) of a Greek word argilé or arghilé: water pipe, nargileh, hookah.

==Page 844==

'''''koulouria''''' 
Breaded butter cookies made in various shapes, circles, braids, coils, figure eights, etc., with (possibly) a sesame seed sugar glaze. More than one recipe found searching the internet.

'''''kombolói''''' 
[http://www.yasou.org/geninfo/komboloi.htm Worry beads]

'''''karsilamás''''' 
A face-to-face couple dance.

'''''Amán''''' 
An excalmation of mercy, Turkish in origin. From online Glossary of Greek.

'''''Stin ipochí''''' 
???

'''bottom dead center of the European Question''' 
In a rotary system like the crankshaft of an engine, angles and times are reckoned from one of two points: top dead center and bottom dead center. Bottom dead center occurs when the piston is at its lowest point and stationary for an instant.

==Page 845==

'''''dervisidhes''''' 
Dervish boys? See later use.

'''Gabrovo Slim''' 
Gabrovo is a city in northern central Bulgaria, 100 miles east of Sofia. Another ''AtD'' character named for his physique (like, e.g., Flaco = "slim" in Spanish). 
Apropos of Flaco: [http://www.netdotcom.com/revmexpc/fortune.htm This web site] remarks on the number of people named Slim who were involved in the Mexican Revolution.

'''''rembetes''''' 
rembet (pl. rembetes): The most well-known name given a member of the Greek urban sub-culture of the early 20th century. Originally thought to derive from the Turkish, Stathis Gauntlet has presented an analysis that throws this into doubt. from: Online glossary of Greek Slang.

'''the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Macedonian_Revolutionary_Organization The Internal Macedonia Revolutionary Organization] was a revolutionary political organization in the Macedonia and Thrace regions of the Ottomann Empire as well as in Bulgaria. It was founded in 1893 in Salonica by a group of Bulgarian exarchist from Macedonia. IMRO was active in Macedonia and Thrace at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The stated goal of IMRO was to unite all elements dissatisfied with the Ottoman oppression for autonomy for the two regions and eventual unification with Bulgaria.

'''Gotse Deltchev''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotse_Delchev Gotse Deltchev or Delchev] (1872-1903) was an important 19th century revolutionary figure in Macedonia. He was one of the leasders of IMRO. He was killed in the St. Ilya's Day (May 4, 1903) uprising against Turkish rule in Macedonia.

'''that short-lived 'Big Bulgaria' as it was before the Treaty of Berlin''' 
At the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), the Treaty of San Stefano (March 3, 1878) a 'Big Bulgaria' (or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Bulgaria ''Greater Bulgaria'']) was formed. But four months later, it was divided by the Treaty of Berlin of July 13, 1878, into Principality of Bulgaria, East Rumelia, and the Macedonia. See [[ATD_678-694#Page_690|page 690: the Macedonia Question]].

==Page 846==

'''Oh, I'm the Scarlet Pimpernel, now, is that it?''' 
''The Scarlet Pimpernel'' is a classic play and adventure novel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, set during the French Revolution. It first opened on 15 October 1903 at Nottingham’s Theatre Royal, in London; the character is an anonymous hero who, through a combination of courage and daring, has rescued many French aristocrats from the guillotine and brought them safely to England. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Pimpernel Wikipedia entry]

'''''Tsoupra mou''''' 
???

'''Karakas Effendi''' 
From [http://www.rembetiko.gr/forums/showthread.php?t=17420&page=11 this website]:

:One of the reasons why the tavernas flourished was Salonica's insatiable appetite for music of all kinds. Before 1912, musical contacts with Istanbul had been very close, and musicians in the sultan's service used to give concerts at the Café Mazlum on the waterfront. "Spring in Salonica" ran one [http://zemerl.com/cgi-bin//print.pl?title=Primavera+en+Salonico popular Judezmo song], "at Mazlum's café a black-eyed girl sings the amane and plays the oud." Music united all tongues and faiths. "There was not one Salonican who did not run to hear the voice of Karakas Effendi an elderly man, tall as a pine, his 75 years hidden in a black frock-coat was an Istanbul Jew who moved easily, like many musicians, between the café and the synagogue, challenging the cantors to see who could chant the blessings more beautifully."

'''Dervish Boys''' 
dervisi (pl. dervisades): In Turkish, a dervish, member of the Mevlevi sect. In rembetika,-a musical unerworld-- used to denote a hash smoker.

'''Exarch''' 
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, deputy to a patriarch.

'''The City''' 
Constantinople. Its present name, Istanbul (Stambul), comes from the Greek phrase ''eis ten polin'' (είς την πολιν): into the City.

'''Eminönü''' 
Dock area of Constantinople at the mouth of the Golden Horn, on the south (Stambul) side of that inlet.

'''Stamboul''' 
Former English spelling of Stambul or Istanbul.

==Page 847==

==Page 848==

'''Ultraviolet Catastrophe''' 
The Rayleigh-Jeans law says that the intensity of radiation emitted at any wavelength λ by a body at a temperature T is proportional to T/λ4. Jacintha, "carelessly radiant," is following the law into the short-wavelength region (small λ) where it does not apply. The failure of Rayleigh-Jeans in the ultraviolet or short-wavelength range—it predicts infinitely intense radiation, contrary to observation—is referred to as the Ultraviolet Catastrophe.

'''Geneva, New York''' 
Bevis is referring to Geneva, Switzerland and New York, New York, but, as a silly aside, there is also a town upstate, Geneva, New York. It is located on the northern tip of Seneca Lake, the largest in area of the Finger Lakes. Ithaca, home of Cornell University, is on the southern tip of Cayuga Lake, the longest of the Finger Lakes. The two lakes are adjacent Finger Lakes. Geneva is the home of Hobart College for men (founded in 1822) and William Smith College for women (founded in 1908).

'''I am offended only by certain sorts of wallpaper''' 
Allusion to a famous quote of Oscar Wilde's: "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or other of us has got to go." Sometimes cited as his last words, it actualy dates to a month before he died in 1900 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wild], [http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,49171_1_10,00.html]. Cyprian's apparent spiritual transformation is continuing here; sarcastic as ever, he realizes the nature of love and the superficiality of materialism. One of his natures, the old or the new, the superficial "wallpaper", or the authentic self he is discovering, has to go. That he should voice this in a Wildean witticism is pure Cyprian.

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

ATD 792-820

2007-04-11T21:12:57Z

Jpicco: /* Page 805 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 792==

'''''rishta''-doctors . . . guinea-worms''' 
Fron the context, ''rishta''-doctors means Guinea worm disease doctors. 
During 12th to 13th centuries the word in Arabic-speaking countries for macaroni was ''rishta'', but the context clearly indicates that it means ''worm'', or specifically, ''Guinea worm''. 
The Guinea worm is a threadlike parasitic worm that grows and matures indide the human body growing as long as 3 feet long. After a year, the worm emerges through a painful blister in the skin causing long-term suffering and sometimes crippling after-effect. People get infected when they drink standing water contaning a tiny water flea that is infected with the even tinier larvae of the Guinea worm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis The disease] occurs mainly in Africa.

'''drumfire''' 
Intense, continuous artillery fire, characteristic of the bombardments that preceded the attempted advances on the Western Front in World War I.

'''to get in out of it''' 
A typo? Shoud be "to get out of it"?? Not really: this is actually common English usage; for example, "to get in out of the rain."

==Page 793==

'''Tierra del Fuego''' 
Not exactly the other side of the world, but the closest land to that point. Tierra del Fuego translates as "Land of the Fire."

:This may not be suitable as a permanent feature of the wiki, but there is a strange web site where you can click on a location and see what's exactly on the opposite side of the world: http://map.pequenopolis.com/index.php?lang=en

==Page 794==

'''communicate with the explorer Peary, then in the Arctic''' 
Robert Peary did not even leave New York City at the start of his polar expedition until July 6, 1908, 6 days '''after''' the Tunguska Event of 6-30-08, and did not reach Ellesmere Island until the summer of 1909(see[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_Event] section on Wardenclyffe Tower).
: But this was one of the 'theories' around the time and long after attempting to explain the Tunguska Event. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska event in Wikipedia].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Peary Robert Peary] (1856-1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person to reach the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. He made several attempts to reach the North Pole between 1898 and 1905. His final assault set off from New York City on july 6, 1908 and wintered near
Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island and from there departed for the pole on March 1, 1909. He established Camp Jesup near the Pole on April 6. In his diary for April 7, Peary wrote "The Pole at alst !!! The prize of 3 centuries, ... ''Mine'' at last ..."

'''Tesla . . . his tower at Wardenclyffe''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower] (1901-1917) was an early wireless telecommunications aerial tower intended for commercial wireless trans-Atlantic telephony, broadcasting and to demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wire. The tower was named after James Warden, a lawyer and banker, who had purchased the land in Shoreham, Long Island, about 60 miles from Manhattan. The Tesla Tower was never fully operational and was not completed due to economic problems. The property is now owned by [[Q-weapon_and_Photography#gevaert|Agfa-Gevaert]].

'''Ellsmere Island''' 
Commonly spelled [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellesmere_Island Ellesmere Island]. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and with Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island is the most northerly point of land in Canada. With an area of over 75,000 square miles, it is the world's 10th largest island and Canada's third largest.

'''Brother Tom Swift. He spends more time these days in court than in the laboratory.''' 
Tom Swift is the young protagonist in several series of juvenile adventure novels starting in the early twentieth century and continuing to the present. More exactly, each such series stars a young protagonist named Tom Swift who is a genius inventor and whose breakthroughs in technology (especially transport technology) drive the plots of the novels. Besides the similarity (or "brotherhood") between the adventuring youths, the Chums' stories have titles similar to the Tom Swift novels, eg ''Tom Swift and His Motor Boat; or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa''; ''Tom Swift and His Airship; or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud''; &c &c.

Although the Tom Swift novels weren't published until 1910 an ''apparent'' anachronism we should remember that Tom Swift, in this context, is as "real" as the Chums of Chance, and thus the events in the first novel, ''Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle; or, Fun and Adventure on the Road'' -- which included patent disputes and lawsuits -- would have "happened" prior to the novel being published.

'''Semipalatinsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semey Semipalatinsk] is a city on the Irtysh River, a ''long'' way southwest of Vanavara. Soviet nuclear tests were administered from here.

'''Irbit''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irbit Irbit] is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia on the right bank of the Nitsa River. It is located about 120 miles east of Yekaterinburg.

'''''obstanovka''''' 
Russian: situation.

==Page 795==

'''''Zdorovo!''''' 
Russian: ''hel''lo!

'''Neutral Moresnet''' 
Tiny "country" between Belgium and Germany; existed 1816-1919; see, oh ''do'' see, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Moresnet Wikipedia entry.]

'''''tchudak''''' 
Now transliterated ''chudak.'' Russian: crank.

'''Kiakhta''' 
Or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyakhta ''Kyakhta''], only two syllables. Town on Russian (Buriat)-Mongolian border south of Lake Baikal, a center of Russian trade with China.

'''Not even Russian army does that!''' 
And it cost them dearly in 1914 when intercepted "clear" radio traffic helped the Germans crush them at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_Battle_of_Tannenberg Battle of Tannenberg.]

==Page 796==

'''By dusk . . . running-lights''' 
An enigma. The ordinary way of analyzing it: Make a model, say a flashlight, an orange and a toothpick mooring line with a raisin balloon at the top. As the orange rotates toward the east and the flashlight appears to set in the [http://www.example.com link title]west, what gets dark first? The base of the toothpick, the shadow progressing upward. But the text says the raisin does, the shadow arc moving downward.

It's very curious that immediately following this apparently topsy-turvy paragraph Miles says "As above, so below." Significant?

Are the Chums watching from above?..."as the boys watched"..."as above,so below."?--[User: MKohut] January 28, 2007

:I suggest there's no error, and the "ordinary way" is not the right way to understand the text. It definitely is worth looking for a way that the narration--and Miles' benediction--can be technically as well as thematically correct.

In wizardry (developed from shamanry) Hermes Trismegistus wrote an
Emerald Tablet on which he wrote his wisdom (9-14 precepts).
Sir Isaac Newton translated one precept as:
"That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below."

So, magic?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet Wiki]

--[[User:mrplong]] 13:36, 31 January 2007 (AST)

The only way that the described phenomenon: the order in which the cargo balloons become enshadowed, could be true is if it was the darkness that was advancing as a physical force. It's as if the definitions of light and dark have been reversed. A rising sun (light source) will illuminate the highest objects first, a rising "dark source" would enshadow the highest objects first, too.

In addition to all the other references stated, I believe Miles' comment refers to the cargo balloons and their tethers to the ground, echoing the Inconvenience and its links to its Earth based masters. [mwm]

The precept has been linked to numerology [http://home.online.no/~luneng/999.html]; These words circulate throughout occult and magical circles, and they come from Hermetic texts. The concept was first laid out in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the words "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing."[24]

In accordance with the various levels of reality: physical, mental, and spiritual, this relates that what happens on any level happens on every other. This is however more often used in the sense of the microcosm and the macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) you can understand the other.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism#_note-10]. Card I of the Major Arcana of the Waite Tarot Deck (alluded to throughout AtD) shows The Magician, simultaneously pointing up toward the sky and down toward the earth.

'''Slowly as God's justice''' 
Must be noted given title and everything religious in ATD.

==Page 797==

'''upriver from Vanavara''' 
"Ground zero" of the Event was 40 miles north of Vanavara. Cf [[ATD_768-791#Page_779|page 779: A heavenwide blast of light.]]

'''"simultaneity" . . . Special Relativity''' 
Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905) refutes the idea that two observers seeing two events can ever agree on whether the events were simultaneous. Adopters of the theory (and in 1908 they were all ''early'' adopters) would be asking one another if it applied to this phenomenon.

'''the error of the seismograph recordings . . . singularity''' 
"Error" doesn't mean mistake or wrongness. It measures the variability within each instrument; every measurement comes with a plus-or-minus figure. If the Event happened instantaneously, each of the charts would record it as a more or less spread-out peak. The energy released in a process is calculated from the area under the curve of intensity versus time; to get the power (rate of energy release), divide the energy by the duration of the process. Even though he states the math wrongly, Vanderjuice suspects the seismographs of the world have responded to a titanic release of energy that took place in essentially no time at all, so that power = energy divided by zero. When physicists see a ''real'' process apparently demanding division by zero, they call it a singularity and go looking for an explanation.

'''the equations of history''' 
Perhaps an allusion to Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation Trilogy'', in which the Psychohistorian Harry Selden calculates equations of history. His equations are (seemingly) thrown off by the advent of a mutant with unusual powers that his predictive equations do not take into account--not unlike the advent of the Tunguska Event.

'''Tchernobyl, the star of Revelation''' 
Tchernobyl is the Ukraine translation (perhaps mistranslation) for Wormwood "the destroying star in the book of Revelation" (page 784). And, as we all know, in 1986 there was a a nuclear meltdown of the Ukranian city Chernobyl.

'''something that had not quite happened yet''' 
In short, an Omen. The Tunguska Event could be seen as an omen of the destructive forces unleashed over the entire course of the 20th Century.

'''Circassian slave''' 
Common figure in European literature about the "Lustful Turk." Circassia is a region in the Caucasus. 

In the early 1860s, after Russian conquest of their region of the Caucasus, nearly half a million Circassians migrated to Turkey. Many Circassian women, prized for their beauty, were sold into slavery.

'''teppisti''' 
Italian: hooligans, hoodlums, thugs

==Page 798==

'''Krakatoa''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_506|page 506: Krakatoa]].

'''''mala vita''''' 
Italian: evil life. With more specific reference to Mafia style criminal organizations like the Malavita del Brenta of Venice. There is also a genre of songs glorifying Mafia life called canto di Malavita.

'''brides picotees''' 
A Venetian lace with a hexagonal pattern. French: tickle straps

==Page 799==

'''"Bevis Moistleigh"''' 
Bevis Mostly? Bevis Wetly?
Cf. Sir Bevis from Lang's Red Romance Book around this time. or a Twilight Zone story, Bevis 1960. See Wikipedia. 
Or, see later in ATD, Bevis is an allusion to Beavis & Butthead. [Idiot]

Possibly, given what follows, an allusion to the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, oldest extant Jewish house of worship in Britain [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevis_Marks_Synagogue], but more likely a reference to (p.800)''Bevis,the Story of a Boy.''

'''''macchinette''''' 
Italian for small devices.

'''Glagolitic alphabet''' 
See excellent annotation to [[ATD_243-272#Page_252|page 252]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic_alphabet this].

'''gematria''' 
As described in the text, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is also a number. In the simplest form of Gematria, words, phrases and sentences with eqivalent numerical value are somehow linked, in a way promoting exegesis of Torah and Midrash (Torah commentary). More complex, mystical gematria systems are described in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria].

==Page 800==

'''''fatkeqëse''''' 
Albanian: translated in the text as "disaster." Is this correct?

'''gongs''' 
Medals.

'''Irredentism''' 
A policy appealing to the idea that "our" lands are unredeemed, i.e., ruled by some outsider, and must be brought into our domain. See annotation to "Eurasia Irredenta" ([[ATD_748-767#Page_761|page 761).]]

'''''Bevis . . . the Story of a Boy''''' 
Theign taunts Bevis with the title of a popular novel, ''Bevis: the Story of a Boy'' (1882), by Richard Jefferies. From bits and pieces of the work quoted online (the book is apparently still in print), the narrative style and dialog writing appear similar to what we've seen in the early Chums passages. What's more, themes associated with this and other books by Jefferies (e.g., the beauty of the untouched countryside) align with some of the ''AtD'' themes. Jefferies also published a "post-Apocalypse" novel called ''After London.'' The Jefferies-Pynchon link may merit a closer look.

==Page 801==

'''unprovided for in the future tense of any language''' 
I.e., we have no simple way to describe future events in a chaotic system. You can't say that Chinese butterfly '''will''' cause a windstorm in Brazil.

'''High susceptibility to primordial variables''' 
Chaos theorists talk about "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions."

'''"an emigration of reason itself".......Crusade"''' 
Notice war talk and natural destruction around the Event. 
As well, the Crusades were a series of European Christian attacks on Islam and the Mideast (with the establishment of Crusader Kingdoms), linking the text to 19th and 20th century Imperialist ventures. For a map of the medieval kingdoms, see [http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/crusades/first/crusader_states.jpg]

'''Railway Brain''' 
A recognized disorder at one time, explained in the text following in AtD.

==Page 802==

'''croakers''' 
Slang: doctors, especially quacks.

Also: One who croaks, murmurs, grumbles, or complains
unreasonably; one who habitually forebodes evil.

"Croaker" is a long-established (slang) word for "doctor," and in this passage it is quite clear that the doctors (performing curative activities to earn their fees but not really curing anything) feel they are putting one over on everybody else.

Some online citations: 
:http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19757 
:http://www.whysanity.net/monos/requiem.html 
:http://cancer.iu.edu/news/research/archives/2000/06.pdf ("In the Spotlight," 2nd graf) 
:http://www.classiccrimefiction.com/hardboiled-slang.htm 
:http://www.hobonickels.org/alpert04.htm 
:http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcnewman/definition.html 
:In short, it wasn't the complainers who "thought they were putting one over," it was the quacks who administered expensive treatments for all ills.

:Slang, sic. I see. Another possible multiple TRP meaning, the complaining doctors, esp. quack "shrinks", relatively new at the time?

'''radioactive mud-bath slime''' 
Treatment with naturally radioactive waters from hot springs was thought to cure many ailments. An example of a radioactive hot spring resort in Austria is Badgastein.

'''Mentone''' 
Mentone, Italy or across the border, Menton (Italian name ''Mentone''), France, in the Riviera. In fact there was no Menton, France, for a long time until 1860 the former Grimaldi town of Mentone, Italy, was bought by France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton Menton] is much better known than Mentone; this small town on the Franco-Italian border, about 45 miles northeast of Nice, is the most beautiful town on the French Riviera—''La perle de la France'' (The Pearl of France). It's warm climate makes it a favorite tourist destination. Menton is also a city of gardens; it won the competition for the best city of flowers in France five different times.

'''...an evening sky which had refused the dusk...''' 
Inverse of Against the Day?

'''the boulevard Carnolès''' 
There is a ''Palais Carnolès'' at 3 Avenue de la Madone, Menton (or ''Mentone''). But couldn't locate the Boulevard Carnolès.

'''Mariahilf''' 
The Sixth District of Vienna, known as a shopping district.

==Page 803==

'''midinettes''' 
salesgirls (of Paris).

'''Facharbeiter''' 
German: technician, specialist, skilled worker.

'''Gabika''' 
"Cute" double diminutive for the Hungarian male name Gábor (Gabriel) and also, more commonly, for the female name Gabriella. The ambiguity (also his looks) fits finely the subversion of gender roles in his relationship to Noellyn Fanshawe.
*Wouldn't it be his relationship to Yashmeen? [[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]] 13:16, 11 April 2007 (PDT)

==Page 804==

'''Maida Vale''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maida_Vale Maida Vale] is a street in north-west London. The area, also known as Little Venice, is mostly residential and often extremely affluent.

'''eleven''' 
Vienna is 86 degrees west of the Event, more or less. Converting longitude to time at 15 degrees = 1 hour, we get a time difference of 5 hours 44 minutes. At 7:17 a.m. Event time, it was 1:33 a.m. in Vienna. Now, at 11:00 p.m. the same day, Vienna time, it is 21 hours and 27 minutes after the event. The atmospheric effect has propagated west (possibly against the high-level winds?) from Siberia to Central Europe in quite a short time. All these numbers are rough!

==Page 805==

'''prepare them against the day''' 
Here the phrase means "in anticipation of" or "to be ready for." 
And more. Thematic.
Given what has been said about the Tunguska Event, colored by accounts of the atmospheric effects of the Krakatoa eruption, highly suggestive of Judgment Day.

'''against the day''' 
I shoulda been keepin' notes, dammit! I am sure that regularly through the book I have been spotting deliberate sentences ending with "... ''something'' the day"...but not, until now, with "''against'' the day". And a few score pages ago I'm sure there was a sentence what ended w' "...against the night...", then Tunguska happens, and we now need to be wary o'the day..?

==Page 806==

'''Toward the end of October all Hell broke loose . . . annex Bosnia''' 
The Bosnian Crisis began with the fear on the part of Austria-Hungary of possible reverses of Turkish concessions since the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 by the newly-resurgent Young Turk movement. The answer to this was annexation of Bosnia, which it had ruled as a colony since 1878. Knowing such a move would be opposed by Serbia, in turn supported by Russia, the Austrians offered to support the right of Russia to move warships through the Bosporus, and to support a declaration of independence from Turkey by Bulgaria. This provoked a general crisis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Crisis] from which Serbia had to back down, lacking Russian support. All had been settled in secret meetings in the months before; the Bulgarian (Glagolitic) traffic intercepted by Bevis Moistleigh, above, is thus explained. So is the sense of Grand Conspiracy; all the Great Powers were eventuallly involved. 
See [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos127.htm The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1908.]

'''coconut-shy''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_shy A coconut shy] (or coconut shie) is a traditional game frequently found as a sidestall at funfairs and fêtes. The game consists of throwing wooden balls at a row of coconuts balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins each coconut successfully dislodged. In some cases other prizes may be won instead of the coconuts.
The origins of the game are unclear, although the term is first listed in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1903.
The word 'shy' in this context is a colloquial English term, meaning 'to throw' or toss.

'''šljivovica''' 
One of the spellings of this word for plum brandy (also slivovica, slivovitz, etc.).

'''one to fifty million . . . mile-to-the-inch sheets''' 
Two extremes of mapmaking. A 1:50,000,000 map of the United States would fit comfortably on a page of ''AtD'' with most of Mexico and several Canadian provinces. Austria-Hungary at that scale would be about as big as your two thumbprints side by side.

The British Ordnance Survey produced a famous series of inch-to-the-mile sheets (1:63,360); the detail is about fine enough to show the left-turn lane of a city street. At this scale it would take some 200 unhandily large sheets to cover Austria-Hungary.

'''Decisions of the utmost gravity''' 
that lead to Gravity's rainbows'''

==Page 807==

'''Major B. F. Vumb''' 
Major Bum Fuck Vumb, as in Dumb? Another Pynchonian V-name
with the usual associations.

'''''Judensau''''' 
German: Jewish pig.

'''the Vienna Woods''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienerwald The Vienna Woods] is a low, wooded section of the Alps in eastern Lower Austria and far into the city of Vienna, covering over nearly 390 square miles and including the northermost parts of the entire Alpine chain. It is a favourite outdoor destination for people living around Vienna.

'''Christian Socialists . . . Dr. Karl Lueger''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lueger Karl Lueger] (pronounced in three syllables, LOO eh ger) (1844-1910) was a Viennese politician, Burgomeister (mayor) of Vienna, and founder of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party. He was a role model for Adolf Hitler.

'''Reichsrath''' 
Austrian parliament.

'''''Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich''''' 
German: as translated in text.

'''''der schöne'' Karl''' 
German: the handsome, or the nice, Karl. Deeply sarcastic.

==Page 808==

'''"Well actually . . ."''' 
Shanghai, which because of its international status did not require a passport or visa for entry, would become a refuge for Jews made stateless by Nazi Germany or were otherwise refugees in the 1930s. Many tens of thousands were able to reach it, and survived the war and the Holocaust under Japanese occupation. Large numbers reached it using so-called Sugihara Passports, letters of transit issued by the Japanese vice-consul to Lithuania in 1940, with the connivance of Dutch diplomats[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugihara]. Obviously an anachronism, but actually...this is about portents and other bends in Time, perhaps things that echo up and down the Timelines (ours and alternates).

'''Graz''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_519|page 519: Graz]].

'''Elefant Hotel''' 
The only listed Elefant Hotel in Austria, a building described as "ancient", is in Salzburg, not Graz; it is currently a Best Western. There is also a Hotel Elefant in Prague, once part ot the Empire; perhaps there was a chain?

'''. . . common Anglo-Habsburg interests...''' 
All the Great Powers found ways to benefit from the Bosnian Crisis, perhaps explaining Theign providing Italian naval decodes to the Austrians. Or, as Latewood accuses below, he is a double agent; McHugh is at least suspicious here. Either way, sending Latewood and Moistleigh on a suicide mission to Bosnia is one way to cover his tracks.

'''Murgasse''' 
Street in Graz. The Murgasse was first mentioned in a document from 1346. The part of town to the south was occupied by the farmers.
Murgasse
8490 Bad Radkersburg, Austria

==Page 809==

'''the Treaty of Berlin''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: the Treaty of Berlin]].

'''Novi Pazar''' 
Novi Pazar also figures briefly in ''GR'' (P.14-15, Viking eds.): "...on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe" The Novi Pazar desk is manned by Lord Blatherard Osmo. The crisis passed, but Lord Osmo has an adenoid, and this mucoid "lymphatic monster", now independently alive in 1939, is confronted by an agent of The Firm (an outfit very like its temporal predecessor the T.W.I.T. in its interests in the paranormal) , one "Pirate" Prentice; it is "now as big as St Paul's and growing by the hour" threatening all London, but confined successfully--leading to Lord Osmo's neglect of Novi Pazar...A bizarre satiric experience of Crisis Management by Great Power foreign ministries, and the literally sticky mess they created. Currently, some obscure ex-Ottoman sanjaks, cobbled together as Iraq in 1919, are something of a hinge of history; another paramorphic mirroring of 1900/2000.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Pazar Novi Pazar] is now a city of Serbia, about 110 miles directly south of Belgrade. Its name means "a new bazaar" in the local language. It was administered by Austria-Hungary from 1878 to 1908, and by Turkey (Ottoman Empire) from 1908 to 1912, and by Serbia 1912 to now.

'''Constantinople''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople Constantinople] was the capital of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261) and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922). It is strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara on the Bosphorous Strait. It extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) side of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world which is situated on two continents. It was officially renamed to Istanbul in 1930.

'''the Young Turks with their revolution''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks The Young Turks] was a coalition of various reform groups in favor of reforming the administration of Ottoman Empire. Their movement brought about the second constitutional era through a revolution against the monarchy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turk_Revolution The Young Turk Revolution] of 1908 restored the suspended parliament and was a landmark in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Revolution arose from the Ottoman peoples' near-universal opposition to the tyranny and corruption of the Sultan, which forged an unlikely union of reform-minded pluralists, Turkish nationalists, and Western-oriented secularists.

'''the vile Aerenthal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Lexa_von_Aehrenthal Aloys (or Alois) von Aerenthal] (1854-1912), Austrian foreign minister (1906-1912) who engineered the annexation of Bosnia in 1908.

'''in three-quarter time''' 
Waltzes are in 3/4 time and so the national powers are waltzing into a European war. Note the chain-like sliding/closing/turning step sequence in Viennese Waltz, and also the rhythm itself represented by the repeated dactyl "and so on, and so on".

Two plausible references: events driven by Vienna, the world's waltz capital, and a dark comic song recorded by the Kingston Trio in the 1960s: "Merry Minuet." In 3/4 time, it includes lyrics commenting on ethnic hatred, irredentism and inevitable nuclear catastrophe.

In fact, the sequence of events described here as a possibility in 1908 were realized in 1914, when Russia, in the crisis provoked by a Serbian youth group's assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, this time backed Serbia, resulting in the cascade of troop mobilizations that became World War I.

'''Mitrovitsa''' 
A Serbian town near the Turkish-Serbian border (now in Kosovo), about 25 miles southeast of Novi Pazar and 140 miles southeast of Sarajevo. The full Serbian name now is Kosovska Mitrovica, the Albanian name is Mitrovicë, and the population is mostly Albanian nowadays. (Some precognition about Novi Pazar.)

'''a railroad link from Sarajebo to Mitrovitsa, and thus to the Ægean Sea''' 
A railroad of 210 miles long linking Mitrovitsa (Turkish-Serbian border) throuhg Skopje (Macedonia) to Salonica (Greece) by the Ægean Sea alredy existed since December 1874.

'''Isvolsky''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Izvolski Alexander Petrovich Izvolsky] (Izvolski, Izvolskii) (1856-1919), Russian foreign minister (1906-1910), a major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente, who on September 15, 1908, traded Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria in exchange for Austria's help in opening the Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian ships. Pynchon's spelling may well be from a contemporary source; consistent transliteration is a more recent fetish.

'''Grey''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon Sir Edward Grey] (1862-1933), British Foreign Secretary 1905-16. He was the other major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente (1907).

'''The Dardanelles''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelles The Dardanelles], an international waterway, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It separates Europe (Gallipoli peninsula) and the mainland of Asia. With the Bosporus, Dardanelles connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

==Page 810==

'''It's like having the lights brought up for a bit...''' 
As the crisis wound down to war in 1914, Sir Edward Grey (still Foreign Minister) is famously quoted as having said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon]

'''Vlado Clissan''' 
His name comes from his hometown of Clissa, but this is the Italian name of the place. In Serbo-Croatian it is ''Klis.'' A pseudonym?

'''Blutwurst Special''' 
German: blood sausage.

'''toad-in-the-hole''' 
a traditional British dish. It consists of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy.

==Page 811==

'''"iron convergences and receding signal-lamps"''' 
our 'free choices' in . . . life; so ironic at this point.

Kurt Vonnegut, in ''Slaughterhouse Five'', described the human point of view as from consciousness strapped to a railroad car, forever facing only backward; from this vantage, history looks single and inevitable, whereas in reality the train of history is moving over unknown numbers of (from this perspective unseen) switch points, the settings of which are in fact changeable (the more complex view being taken by an extraterrestrial species, the Tralfamadorians, who can see forward to the many possibilities), alternate histories possible at every switch. The character Pointsman in ''GR'' in some ways embodies these possibilities.

'''The Semmering tunnel''' 
It refers to the Semmering mountain-peak tunnel of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Railway the Semmering Railway]. The tunnel, with a length of 4,700 ft, was opened on May 15, 1854. (A new Semmering tunnel, through the mountain base, was built in 1952). The Semmering Railway, having a total of 15 tunnels, is a part of the Austrian Souther Railway (Südbahn) connecting Vienna to Trieste. The world's first mountain railway with a standard gauge, it was built between 1848 and 1854 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

'''the Mur Valley''' 
The valley of the Mur River which, about 300 miles long, runs through the south-central Austria, northeast Slovenia and northern Croatia, where it flows into the Drava River. The biggest city in the Mur Valley is Graz, Austria.

'''Slavonian''' 
Today the name applies to the eastern part of Croatia, but a map will confirm that the route passes through the Slovenian plain. Writers before the World War must have had difficulty keeping Slovenia, Slovakia and Slavonia straight, especially since all were inhabited by Slavonic peoples.

'''the Slavonian plain''' 
The Slavonian plain is a fertile agricultural lowland in eastern Croatia and beyond. It is part of the larger Pannonia plain. It includes three primary rivers: the Drava in the north and the Sava in the south and the Danube in the east. The area between the Sava and Drava rivers and bounded on the east by the Hungarian border is the historical region Slavonia forming the eastern part of Croatia.

'''Ljubljana''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubljana Ljubljana] is the capital of Slovenia. It is also the cultural and economical center of the country. It is located in central Slovenia.

'''the Karst''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kras The Karst] is a limestone borderline plateau region of southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It rises quite steeply above the neighboring landscape and is famous for its caves including Vilenica in Slovenia, the oldest tourist cave in the world. In addition to caves, erosion has produced in the Karst fissures, sinkholes and underground streams.

'''Općina''' 
A village about 4 miles northeast of Trieste.

'''the Piazza Grande''' 
Trieste's central square, a great rectangle lined on three sides by stately imperial buildings, its fourth, short side, revealing the Adriatic sea.

'''the Piazza Cavana''' 
Trieste's "Nighttown" before World War I.

'''Austrian double''' 
Latewood, in light of Theign's treatment of Yashmeen, and the apparent passing of Italian naval decrypts to Austria, accuses Theign of being an Austrain double agent.

==Page 812==

'''a Fortuny gown''' 
[http://www.chick.net/proust/fortuny.html Mariano Fortuny] (1871-1949), a Spanish fashion designer worked mostly in Venice, created some of the most remarkable fabrics and dresses of 20th century. His pleated silk gowns and velvet cloaks are regarded by collectors and museums around the world as the unique expression and embodiment of a craft at its best. He was one of the source of inspiration to Marcel Proust.

'''Mestre Bridge''' 
Mestre is a town in Veneto, northern Italy, a frazione of the comune of Venice. Located on the mainland,the city is connected to Venice by a large rail and road bridge, called Ponte della Libertà (Freedom Bridge). Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|Page 706: Mestre bridge]].

'''Cloisters Court''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_490|page 490: Cloisters Court]].

'''King's''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_497|page 497: King's]]

==Page 813==

''''And England's far, and honour a name'''' 
Cyprian quoting from the 1897 poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada"]] ("They Pass the Torch of Life") by Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938), previously quoted on page 236 [[ATD_219-242#Page_236|(also see annotation)]].

'''"honour"''' 
Cf. Falstaff on.

'''the Caffè degli Specchi''' 
Trieste was one of the first European cities took to coffee in a big way.
It is the leading coffee port on the Mediterranean and is renowned for its cafes and coffee. The first coffe houses in Trieste opened at the beginning of the 18th century. They become very popular with artists and intellecturals. Several of the original coffe houses are still going strong; the Caffè degli Specchi, located in the Piazza Unità d'Italia and opened since 1839, is one of them.

==Page 814==

'''Lateeners''' 
A lateener is a boat with a lateen sail: a triangular sail with one edge tied to a long spar, which is supported in the middle on a mast.

'''''Strichmädchen''''' 
German: streetwalker.

'''LLoyd Austriaco''' 
A ship line. Lloyd Triestino was formed in 1919 as the successor to Lloyd Austriaco following the incorporation of Trieste into the Kingdom of Italy on January 3rd 1919.

'''Molo San Carlo''' 
A pier (''molo'') in Trieste. See [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Molo_San_Carlo.jpg Molo San Carlo']picture around 1900.

==Page 815==

'''"Nimrod" . . . from Elgar's ''Enigma Variations''''' 
"Nimrod" is the ninth section of this major 1899 work by English composer Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Like the other 13 sections, it characterizes a family friend; this one is A. J. Jaeger (whose name means "hunter" in German, hence "Nimrod," the name of a hunter mentioned in the Bible). [http://www.elgar.org/3enigma.htm Here is a very good description of the work and "Nimrod" in particular.]

The "Nimrod" variation is perhaps the most poignant of the piece; it rises to a cresendo and slowly, sadly, fades; an anthem for the fading of the 19th century.

'''"La Gazza Ladra"''' 
Overture by Rossini to an opera whose title means "The Thieving Magpie." It is as bright and impersonal as "Nimrod" is serious and sentimental.

'''"The Volga Boatmen" . . . "Auld Lang Syne"''' 
The puzzle in the "Enigma" Variations is this: Variations are based on a theme, but Elgar never states the theme; what is the melody? These are two of the popular guesses.

'''Gonzalo''' 
Gonzalo who?

'''Millicent''' 
? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millicent_Fawcett Millicent Fawcett] (1847-1929), a British suffragist and an early feminist. Is this the right person?

'''Δt''' 
Mathematical symbol used to represent a short length of time.

In addition, Pynchon is very concerned with dt,(little delta-t) the time differential, an infinitesimal change in time; to quote Pynchon from ''Lot 49'' (Lippincott, 1965 p.129): "a vanishingly small instant in which change had to be confronted at last for what it was, where it could no longer disguise itself as something innocuous like an average rate; where the velocity dwelled in the projectile though the projectile be frozen in midflight, where death dwelled in the cell though the cell be looked in on at its most quick." But, the paragraph goes on, "dt" also suggests DTs, Delirium Tremens (alcohol withdrawal) a state giving access to hallucinatory experiences, "spectra beyond the known Sun, music made purely of Antarctic loneliness and fright." Which is the general mood in the wake of the Tunguska Event and the Bosnian Crisis, or should be, if the characters were not so dutifully repressing it. (In ''Lot 49'' the realization of the dt/DTs connection has to do with Oedipa Maas' realization of the finality of death, and what inaccessible realms of experience are lost with each individual's death).

:Are you confusing Δ''t'', symbolizing a finite duration, with ''dt,'' a duration shrunk to an infinitesimal? 
(Possibly--my physics/calculus may be rusting. The connection may still hold; note emendation above--thanks. Edit further if necessary!).

'''Davos''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davos Davos] is a municipality in the eastern part of Switzerland. A popular destination for the rich and ailing because its high valley climate has long been considered excellent by doctors for curing lung desease. It is the setting of Thomas Mann's ''The Magic Mountain''. Davos is famous as the host of the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of global political and business elites.

'''Föhn''' 
German. [http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/glossary/fpagegl.shtml#fo Wind] warmed and dried by descent on the lee side of a mountain. Germans even today acknowledge that its presence (say, in Munich) affects mood and emotions.

'''co-conscious with the everyday''' 
again. Linked to creativity here.

'''Ramanujan's Formula''' 
an elegant hyperbolic summation, Ramanujan's formula for the Riemann zeta function evaluated at the odd positive integers. Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_498|page 498: Rumanujan]] didn't come to the attention of Western mathematicians until he wrote to Hardy in late 1912 - early 1913 and travelled to Cambridge in 1914. Is Yashmeen prescient?

==Page 816==

'''''dolce far niente''''' 
Italian: sweet idleness (literally, sweet to do nothing).

'''divided second''' 
A dt.

'''of his entry''' 
Vlado the Impaler?

'''the Karst''' 
Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_811|page 811: the Karst]]. 
Generic "karst topography" takes its name from this area of Slovenia and Italy (locally called ''kras'' and ''carso''). The terrain features limestone with fissures and cavities eroded by water. Caves as well as underground streams and lakes are common.

'''''osmizza''''' 
These are informal eating places out in rural areas, where farmers sell their meats, cheeses, olives and wines.

'''Illyria''' 
The Roman province in which modern Trieste is located.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyria Illyria] was in Clssical antiquity a region in the western part of today's Balkan Peninsula, found by the tribes and clans of Illyrian, an ancient people who spoke the Illyrian languages. Illyria was a formidable local power in the 4th century BC, only after the Roman conquest in 168 BC did Illyria become one of the Roman provinces, Illyricum. In the context "ancient before Illyria" referrs to the period before the Roman conquest.

==Page 817==

'''quiet spaces between trams, unpredictable, even, she imagined, mathematically so''' 
The time of the next tram can't be mathematically predicted (to arbitrary accuracy), but it is possible to describe in mathematical terms the '''way''' in which it's unpredictable. A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution Poisson distribution] expresses the probability that a specific number of trams arrive during a given time interval (but cannot determine the exact arrival time of the next tram).

'''never farther than half a block from the counter-soporific fluid''' 
Perhaps an allusion or parallel to the 21st century ubiquity of Starbucks.

:Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_813|page 813: the Caffe degli Specchi]].

'''''Svr šavam!''''' 
Croatian/Serbian: I'm finishing. Also, implausibly, written ''Svršavam.''

'''Velebit''' 
Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page_326|page 326: Velebit]].
A ridge that runs parallel to the Croatian Adriatic coast a few tens of miles south of Trieste. Lying a short distance inland, it is made up of limestone karst.

==Page 818==

'''Zengg''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Zengg]].

'''Veglia''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krk_(island) Veglia], the second largest Adriatic island, is a Croatian island (''Krk'') in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Fiume.

'''persisted from day to day''' 
The image again of the storm that retains its identity over a long time.

'''Stationary waves''' 
Crests and troughs that don't move. Seen more often where water is flowing (up/downstream of rocks in rapids), but also where waves coming onshore interact with those reflected from the shore.

'''Novlian''' 
A family from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Vinodolski Novi], a town on the Adriatic coast in Croatia about 10 miles north of Zengg (''Senj'') and 22 miles southeast of Fiume (''Rijeka'').

'''Uskok''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Uskok]]. 
Serbian/Croatian: fugitive. Writers even in antiquity noted that piracy was a main economic activity along this coast.

In all, Vlado seems very like the Traverse brothers, set against the modern world, or anyway modern power arrangements, a bit of an anarchist in his own way. But his grievances have historic depth and resonance, more of what Pynchon in ''V.'' called "Temporal Bandwidth".

Uskok is also a place's name.

'''the Argonauts''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts The Argonauts], in Greek mythology, were a band of heroes who, in the years before the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_war Trojan War], accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_fleece Golden Fleece]. Their name comes from their ship ''Argo'' which in turn was named after its builder Argus.

'''Split''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split Split], situated on a small peninsula on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea about 150 miles southeast of Zengg, is the largest and most important city in Dalmatia, Croatia.

'''Clissa''' 
Town from which Vlado Clissan takes his ''nom de guerre.'' Locally called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klis Klis] which is located inland just 5 miles northeast of Split near the eponymous mountain pass. Because of its geographical position, Clissa is susceptible to a rather strong bora wind.

==Page 819==

'''You know the play by Shakespeare, ''The Merchant of Venice''? [...] We keep hoping till the end for Antonio to come to grief.''' 
In ''The Merchant of Venice'', Antonio, the protagonist, is a wealthy merchant in Venice, his wealth coming from the ships he owns, which could easily be at peril from pirates. So, natch, Vlado and his comrades who attack Venetian ships are pulling for the pirates.

'''''mala vita''''' 
bad life

'''palačinka''' 
Croatian for crepe or thin pancake.

==Page 820==

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

ATD 792-820

2007-04-11T20:16:32Z

Jpicco: /* Page 803 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 792==

'''''rishta''-doctors . . . guinea-worms''' 
Fron the context, ''rishta''-doctors means Guinea worm disease doctors. 
During 12th to 13th centuries the word in Arabic-speaking countries for macaroni was ''rishta'', but the context clearly indicates that it means ''worm'', or specifically, ''Guinea worm''. 
The Guinea worm is a threadlike parasitic worm that grows and matures indide the human body growing as long as 3 feet long. After a year, the worm emerges through a painful blister in the skin causing long-term suffering and sometimes crippling after-effect. People get infected when they drink standing water contaning a tiny water flea that is infected with the even tinier larvae of the Guinea worm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis The disease] occurs mainly in Africa.

'''drumfire''' 
Intense, continuous artillery fire, characteristic of the bombardments that preceded the attempted advances on the Western Front in World War I.

'''to get in out of it''' 
A typo? Shoud be "to get out of it"?? Not really: this is actually common English usage; for example, "to get in out of the rain."

==Page 793==

'''Tierra del Fuego''' 
Not exactly the other side of the world, but the closest land to that point. Tierra del Fuego translates as "Land of the Fire."

:This may not be suitable as a permanent feature of the wiki, but there is a strange web site where you can click on a location and see what's exactly on the opposite side of the world: http://map.pequenopolis.com/index.php?lang=en

==Page 794==

'''communicate with the explorer Peary, then in the Arctic''' 
Robert Peary did not even leave New York City at the start of his polar expedition until July 6, 1908, 6 days '''after''' the Tunguska Event of 6-30-08, and did not reach Ellesmere Island until the summer of 1909(see[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_Event] section on Wardenclyffe Tower).
: But this was one of the 'theories' around the time and long after attempting to explain the Tunguska Event. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska event in Wikipedia].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Peary Robert Peary] (1856-1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person to reach the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. He made several attempts to reach the North Pole between 1898 and 1905. His final assault set off from New York City on july 6, 1908 and wintered near
Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island and from there departed for the pole on March 1, 1909. He established Camp Jesup near the Pole on April 6. In his diary for April 7, Peary wrote "The Pole at alst !!! The prize of 3 centuries, ... ''Mine'' at last ..."

'''Tesla . . . his tower at Wardenclyffe''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower] (1901-1917) was an early wireless telecommunications aerial tower intended for commercial wireless trans-Atlantic telephony, broadcasting and to demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wire. The tower was named after James Warden, a lawyer and banker, who had purchased the land in Shoreham, Long Island, about 60 miles from Manhattan. The Tesla Tower was never fully operational and was not completed due to economic problems. The property is now owned by [[Q-weapon_and_Photography#gevaert|Agfa-Gevaert]].

'''Ellsmere Island''' 
Commonly spelled [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellesmere_Island Ellesmere Island]. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and with Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island is the most northerly point of land in Canada. With an area of over 75,000 square miles, it is the world's 10th largest island and Canada's third largest.

'''Brother Tom Swift. He spends more time these days in court than in the laboratory.''' 
Tom Swift is the young protagonist in several series of juvenile adventure novels starting in the early twentieth century and continuing to the present. More exactly, each such series stars a young protagonist named Tom Swift who is a genius inventor and whose breakthroughs in technology (especially transport technology) drive the plots of the novels. Besides the similarity (or "brotherhood") between the adventuring youths, the Chums' stories have titles similar to the Tom Swift novels, eg ''Tom Swift and His Motor Boat; or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa''; ''Tom Swift and His Airship; or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud''; &c &c.

Although the Tom Swift novels weren't published until 1910 an ''apparent'' anachronism we should remember that Tom Swift, in this context, is as "real" as the Chums of Chance, and thus the events in the first novel, ''Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle; or, Fun and Adventure on the Road'' -- which included patent disputes and lawsuits -- would have "happened" prior to the novel being published.

'''Semipalatinsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semey Semipalatinsk] is a city on the Irtysh River, a ''long'' way southwest of Vanavara. Soviet nuclear tests were administered from here.

'''Irbit''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irbit Irbit] is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia on the right bank of the Nitsa River. It is located about 120 miles east of Yekaterinburg.

'''''obstanovka''''' 
Russian: situation.

==Page 795==

'''''Zdorovo!''''' 
Russian: ''hel''lo!

'''Neutral Moresnet''' 
Tiny "country" between Belgium and Germany; existed 1816-1919; see, oh ''do'' see, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Moresnet Wikipedia entry.]

'''''tchudak''''' 
Now transliterated ''chudak.'' Russian: crank.

'''Kiakhta''' 
Or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyakhta ''Kyakhta''], only two syllables. Town on Russian (Buriat)-Mongolian border south of Lake Baikal, a center of Russian trade with China.

'''Not even Russian army does that!''' 
And it cost them dearly in 1914 when intercepted "clear" radio traffic helped the Germans crush them at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_Battle_of_Tannenberg Battle of Tannenberg.]

==Page 796==

'''By dusk . . . running-lights''' 
An enigma. The ordinary way of analyzing it: Make a model, say a flashlight, an orange and a toothpick mooring line with a raisin balloon at the top. As the orange rotates toward the east and the flashlight appears to set in the [http://www.example.com link title]west, what gets dark first? The base of the toothpick, the shadow progressing upward. But the text says the raisin does, the shadow arc moving downward.

It's very curious that immediately following this apparently topsy-turvy paragraph Miles says "As above, so below." Significant?

Are the Chums watching from above?..."as the boys watched"..."as above,so below."?--[User: MKohut] January 28, 2007

:I suggest there's no error, and the "ordinary way" is not the right way to understand the text. It definitely is worth looking for a way that the narration--and Miles' benediction--can be technically as well as thematically correct.

In wizardry (developed from shamanry) Hermes Trismegistus wrote an
Emerald Tablet on which he wrote his wisdom (9-14 precepts).
Sir Isaac Newton translated one precept as:
"That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below."

So, magic?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet Wiki]

--[[User:mrplong]] 13:36, 31 January 2007 (AST)

The only way that the described phenomenon: the order in which the cargo balloons become enshadowed, could be true is if it was the darkness that was advancing as a physical force. It's as if the definitions of light and dark have been reversed. A rising sun (light source) will illuminate the highest objects first, a rising "dark source" would enshadow the highest objects first, too.

In addition to all the other references stated, I believe Miles' comment refers to the cargo balloons and their tethers to the ground, echoing the Inconvenience and its links to its Earth based masters. [mwm]

The precept has been linked to numerology [http://home.online.no/~luneng/999.html]; These words circulate throughout occult and magical circles, and they come from Hermetic texts. The concept was first laid out in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the words "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing."[24]

In accordance with the various levels of reality: physical, mental, and spiritual, this relates that what happens on any level happens on every other. This is however more often used in the sense of the microcosm and the macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) you can understand the other.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism#_note-10]. Card I of the Major Arcana of the Waite Tarot Deck (alluded to throughout AtD) shows The Magician, simultaneously pointing up toward the sky and down toward the earth.

'''Slowly as God's justice''' 
Must be noted given title and everything religious in ATD.

==Page 797==

'''upriver from Vanavara''' 
"Ground zero" of the Event was 40 miles north of Vanavara. Cf [[ATD_768-791#Page_779|page 779: A heavenwide blast of light.]]

'''"simultaneity" . . . Special Relativity''' 
Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905) refutes the idea that two observers seeing two events can ever agree on whether the events were simultaneous. Adopters of the theory (and in 1908 they were all ''early'' adopters) would be asking one another if it applied to this phenomenon.

'''the error of the seismograph recordings . . . singularity''' 
"Error" doesn't mean mistake or wrongness. It measures the variability within each instrument; every measurement comes with a plus-or-minus figure. If the Event happened instantaneously, each of the charts would record it as a more or less spread-out peak. The energy released in a process is calculated from the area under the curve of intensity versus time; to get the power (rate of energy release), divide the energy by the duration of the process. Even though he states the math wrongly, Vanderjuice suspects the seismographs of the world have responded to a titanic release of energy that took place in essentially no time at all, so that power = energy divided by zero. When physicists see a ''real'' process apparently demanding division by zero, they call it a singularity and go looking for an explanation.

'''the equations of history''' 
Perhaps an allusion to Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation Trilogy'', in which the Psychohistorian Harry Selden calculates equations of history. His equations are (seemingly) thrown off by the advent of a mutant with unusual powers that his predictive equations do not take into account--not unlike the advent of the Tunguska Event.

'''Tchernobyl, the star of Revelation''' 
Tchernobyl is the Ukraine translation (perhaps mistranslation) for Wormwood "the destroying star in the book of Revelation" (page 784). And, as we all know, in 1986 there was a a nuclear meltdown of the Ukranian city Chernobyl.

'''something that had not quite happened yet''' 
In short, an Omen. The Tunguska Event could be seen as an omen of the destructive forces unleashed over the entire course of the 20th Century.

'''Circassian slave''' 
Common figure in European literature about the "Lustful Turk." Circassia is a region in the Caucasus. 

In the early 1860s, after Russian conquest of their region of the Caucasus, nearly half a million Circassians migrated to Turkey. Many Circassian women, prized for their beauty, were sold into slavery.

'''teppisti''' 
Italian: hooligans, hoodlums, thugs

==Page 798==

'''Krakatoa''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_506|page 506: Krakatoa]].

'''''mala vita''''' 
Italian: evil life. With more specific reference to Mafia style criminal organizations like the Malavita del Brenta of Venice. There is also a genre of songs glorifying Mafia life called canto di Malavita.

'''brides picotees''' 
A Venetian lace with a hexagonal pattern. French: tickle straps

==Page 799==

'''"Bevis Moistleigh"''' 
Bevis Mostly? Bevis Wetly?
Cf. Sir Bevis from Lang's Red Romance Book around this time. or a Twilight Zone story, Bevis 1960. See Wikipedia. 
Or, see later in ATD, Bevis is an allusion to Beavis & Butthead. [Idiot]

Possibly, given what follows, an allusion to the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, oldest extant Jewish house of worship in Britain [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevis_Marks_Synagogue], but more likely a reference to (p.800)''Bevis,the Story of a Boy.''

'''''macchinette''''' 
Italian for small devices.

'''Glagolitic alphabet''' 
See excellent annotation to [[ATD_243-272#Page_252|page 252]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic_alphabet this].

'''gematria''' 
As described in the text, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is also a number. In the simplest form of Gematria, words, phrases and sentences with eqivalent numerical value are somehow linked, in a way promoting exegesis of Torah and Midrash (Torah commentary). More complex, mystical gematria systems are described in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria].

==Page 800==

'''''fatkeqëse''''' 
Albanian: translated in the text as "disaster." Is this correct?

'''gongs''' 
Medals.

'''Irredentism''' 
A policy appealing to the idea that "our" lands are unredeemed, i.e., ruled by some outsider, and must be brought into our domain. See annotation to "Eurasia Irredenta" ([[ATD_748-767#Page_761|page 761).]]

'''''Bevis . . . the Story of a Boy''''' 
Theign taunts Bevis with the title of a popular novel, ''Bevis: the Story of a Boy'' (1882), by Richard Jefferies. From bits and pieces of the work quoted online (the book is apparently still in print), the narrative style and dialog writing appear similar to what we've seen in the early Chums passages. What's more, themes associated with this and other books by Jefferies (e.g., the beauty of the untouched countryside) align with some of the ''AtD'' themes. Jefferies also published a "post-Apocalypse" novel called ''After London.'' The Jefferies-Pynchon link may merit a closer look.

==Page 801==

'''unprovided for in the future tense of any language''' 
I.e., we have no simple way to describe future events in a chaotic system. You can't say that Chinese butterfly '''will''' cause a windstorm in Brazil.

'''High susceptibility to primordial variables''' 
Chaos theorists talk about "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions."

'''"an emigration of reason itself".......Crusade"''' 
Notice war talk and natural destruction around the Event. 
As well, the Crusades were a series of European Christian attacks on Islam and the Mideast (with the establishment of Crusader Kingdoms), linking the text to 19th and 20th century Imperialist ventures. For a map of the medieval kingdoms, see [http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/crusades/first/crusader_states.jpg]

'''Railway Brain''' 
A recognized disorder at one time, explained in the text following in AtD.

==Page 802==

'''croakers''' 
Slang: doctors, especially quacks.

Also: One who croaks, murmurs, grumbles, or complains
unreasonably; one who habitually forebodes evil.

"Croaker" is a long-established (slang) word for "doctor," and in this passage it is quite clear that the doctors (performing curative activities to earn their fees but not really curing anything) feel they are putting one over on everybody else.

Some online citations: 
:http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19757 
:http://www.whysanity.net/monos/requiem.html 
:http://cancer.iu.edu/news/research/archives/2000/06.pdf ("In the Spotlight," 2nd graf) 
:http://www.classiccrimefiction.com/hardboiled-slang.htm 
:http://www.hobonickels.org/alpert04.htm 
:http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcnewman/definition.html 
:In short, it wasn't the complainers who "thought they were putting one over," it was the quacks who administered expensive treatments for all ills.

:Slang, sic. I see. Another possible multiple TRP meaning, the complaining doctors, esp. quack "shrinks", relatively new at the time?

'''radioactive mud-bath slime''' 
Treatment with naturally radioactive waters from hot springs was thought to cure many ailments. An example of a radioactive hot spring resort in Austria is Badgastein.

'''Mentone''' 
Mentone, Italy or across the border, Menton (Italian name ''Mentone''), France, in the Riviera. In fact there was no Menton, France, for a long time until 1860 the former Grimaldi town of Mentone, Italy, was bought by France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton Menton] is much better known than Mentone; this small town on the Franco-Italian border, about 45 miles northeast of Nice, is the most beautiful town on the French Riviera—''La perle de la France'' (The Pearl of France). It's warm climate makes it a favorite tourist destination. Menton is also a city of gardens; it won the competition for the best city of flowers in France five different times.

'''...an evening sky which had refused the dusk...''' 
Inverse of Against the Day?

'''the boulevard Carnolès''' 
There is a ''Palais Carnolès'' at 3 Avenue de la Madone, Menton (or ''Mentone''). But couldn't locate the Boulevard Carnolès.

'''Mariahilf''' 
The Sixth District of Vienna, known as a shopping district.

==Page 803==

'''midinettes''' 
salesgirls (of Paris).

'''Facharbeiter''' 
German: technician, specialist, skilled worker.

'''Gabika''' 
"Cute" double diminutive for the Hungarian male name Gábor (Gabriel) and also, more commonly, for the female name Gabriella. The ambiguity (also his looks) fits finely the subversion of gender roles in his relationship to Noellyn Fanshawe.
*Wouldn't it be his relationship to Yashmeen? [[User:Jpicco|Jpicco]] 13:16, 11 April 2007 (PDT)

==Page 804==

'''Maida Vale''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maida_Vale Maida Vale] is a street in north-west London. The area, also known as Little Venice, is mostly residential and often extremely affluent.

'''eleven''' 
Vienna is 86 degrees west of the Event, more or less. Converting longitude to time at 15 degrees = 1 hour, we get a time difference of 5 hours 44 minutes. At 7:17 a.m. Event time, it was 1:33 a.m. in Vienna. Now, at 11:00 p.m. the same day, Vienna time, it is 21 hours and 27 minutes after the event. The atmospheric effect has propagated west (possibly against the high-level winds?) from Siberia to Central Europe in quite a short time. All these numbers are rough!

==Page 805==

'''prepare them against the day''' 
Here the phrase means "in anticipation of" or "to be ready for." 
And more. Thematic.
Given what has been said about the Tunguska Event, colored by accounts of the atmospheric effects of the Krakatoa eruption,highly suggestive of Judgment Day.

'''against the day''' 
I shoulda been keepin' notes, dammit! I am sure that regularly through the book I have been spotting deliberate sentences ending with "... ''something'' the day"...but not, until now, with "''against'' the day". And a few score pages ago I'm sure there was a sentence what ended w' "...against the night...", then Tunguska happens, and we now need to be wary o'the day..?

==Page 806==

'''Toward the end of October all Hell broke loose . . . annex Bosnia''' 
The Bosnian Crisis began with the fear on the part of Austria-Hungary of possible reverses of Turkish concessions since the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 by the newly-resurgent Young Turk movement. The answer to this was annexation of Bosnia, which it had ruled as a colony since 1878. Knowing such a move would be opposed by Serbia, in turn supported by Russia, the Austrians offered to support the right of Russia to move warships through the Bosporus, and to support a declaration of independence from Turkey by Bulgaria. This provoked a general crisis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Crisis] from which Serbia had to back down, lacking Russian support. All had been settled in secret meetings in the months before; the Bulgarian (Glagolitic) traffic intercepted by Bevis Moistleigh, above, is thus explained. So is the sense of Grand Conspiracy; all the Great Powers were eventuallly involved. 
See [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos127.htm The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1908.]

'''coconut-shy''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_shy A coconut shy] (or coconut shie) is a traditional game frequently found as a sidestall at funfairs and fêtes. The game consists of throwing wooden balls at a row of coconuts balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins each coconut successfully dislodged. In some cases other prizes may be won instead of the coconuts.
The origins of the game are unclear, although the term is first listed in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1903.
The word 'shy' in this context is a colloquial English term, meaning 'to throw' or toss.

'''šljivovica''' 
One of the spellings of this word for plum brandy (also slivovica, slivovitz, etc.).

'''one to fifty million . . . mile-to-the-inch sheets''' 
Two extremes of mapmaking. A 1:50,000,000 map of the United States would fit comfortably on a page of ''AtD'' with most of Mexico and several Canadian provinces. Austria-Hungary at that scale would be about as big as your two thumbprints side by side.

The British Ordnance Survey produced a famous series of inch-to-the-mile sheets (1:63,360); the detail is about fine enough to show the left-turn lane of a city street. At this scale it would take some 200 unhandily large sheets to cover Austria-Hungary.

'''Decisions of the utmost gravity''' 
that lead to Gravity's rainbows'''

==Page 807==

'''Major B. F. Vumb''' 
Major Bum Fuck Vumb, as in Dumb? Another Pynchonian V-name
with the usual associations.

'''''Judensau''''' 
German: Jewish pig.

'''the Vienna Woods''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienerwald The Vienna Woods] is a low, wooded section of the Alps in eastern Lower Austria and far into the city of Vienna, covering over nearly 390 square miles and including the northermost parts of the entire Alpine chain. It is a favourite outdoor destination for people living around Vienna.

'''Christian Socialists . . . Dr. Karl Lueger''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lueger Karl Lueger] (pronounced in three syllables, LOO eh ger) (1844-1910) was a Viennese politician, Burgomeister (mayor) of Vienna, and founder of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party. He was a role model for Adolf Hitler.

'''Reichsrath''' 
Austrian parliament.

'''''Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich''''' 
German: as translated in text.

'''''der schöne'' Karl''' 
German: the handsome, or the nice, Karl. Deeply sarcastic.

==Page 808==

'''"Well actually . . ."''' 
Shanghai, which because of its international status did not require a passport or visa for entry, would become a refuge for Jews made stateless by Nazi Germany or were otherwise refugees in the 1930s. Many tens of thousands were able to reach it, and survived the war and the Holocaust under Japanese occupation. Large numbers reached it using so-called Sugihara Passports, letters of transit issued by the Japanese vice-consul to Lithuania in 1940, with the connivance of Dutch diplomats[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugihara]. Obviously an anachronism, but actually...this is about portents and other bends in Time, perhaps things that echo up and down the Timelines (ours and alternates).

'''Graz''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_519|page 519: Graz]].

'''Elefant Hotel''' 
The only listed Elefant Hotel in Austria, a building described as "ancient", is in Salzburg, not Graz; it is currently a Best Western. There is also a Hotel Elefant in Prague, once part ot the Empire; perhaps there was a chain?

'''. . . common Anglo-Habsburg interests...''' 
All the Great Powers found ways to benefit from the Bosnian Crisis, perhaps explaining Theign providing Italian naval decodes to the Austrians. Or, as Latewood accuses below, he is a double agent; McHugh is at least suspicious here. Either way, sending Latewood and Moistleigh on a suicide mission to Bosnia is one way to cover his tracks.

'''Murgasse''' 
Street in Graz. The Murgasse was first mentioned in a document from 1346. The part of town to the south was occupied by the farmers.
Murgasse
8490 Bad Radkersburg, Austria

==Page 809==

'''the Treaty of Berlin''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: the Treaty of Berlin]].

'''Novi Pazar''' 
Novi Pazar also figures briefly in ''GR'' (P.14-15, Viking eds.): "...on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe" The Novi Pazar desk is manned by Lord Blatherard Osmo. The crisis passed, but Lord Osmo has an adenoid, and this mucoid "lymphatic monster", now independently alive in 1939, is confronted by an agent of The Firm (an outfit very like its temporal predecessor the T.W.I.T. in its interests in the paranormal) , one "Pirate" Prentice; it is "now as big as St Paul's and growing by the hour" threatening all London, but confined successfully--leading to Lord Osmo's neglect of Novi Pazar...A bizarre satiric experience of Crisis Management by Great Power foreign ministries, and the literally sticky mess they created. Currently, some obscure ex-Ottoman sanjaks, cobbled together as Iraq in 1919, are something of a hinge of history; another paramorphic mirroring of 1900/2000.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Pazar Novi Pazar] is now a city of Serbia, about 110 miles directly south of Belgrade. Its name means "a new bazaar" in the local language. It was administered by Austria-Hungary from 1878 to 1908, and by Turkey (Ottoman Empire) from 1908 to 1912, and by Serbia 1912 to now.

'''Constantinople''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople Constantinople] was the capital of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261) and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922). It is strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara on the Bosphorous Strait. It extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) side of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world which is situated on two continents. It was officially renamed to Istanbul in 1930.

'''the Young Turks with their revolution''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks The Young Turks] was a coalition of various reform groups in favor of reforming the administration of Ottoman Empire. Their movement brought about the second constitutional era through a revolution against the monarchy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turk_Revolution The Young Turk Revolution] of 1908 restored the suspended parliament and was a landmark in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Revolution arose from the Ottoman peoples' near-universal opposition to the tyranny and corruption of the Sultan, which forged an unlikely union of reform-minded pluralists, Turkish nationalists, and Western-oriented secularists.

'''the vile Aerenthal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Lexa_von_Aehrenthal Aloys (or Alois) von Aerenthal] (1854-1912), Austrian foreign minister (1906-1912) who engineered the annexation of Bosnia in 1908.

'''in three-quarter time''' 
Waltzes are in 3/4 time and so the national powers are waltzing into a European war. Note the chain-like sliding/closing/turning step sequence in Viennese Waltz, and also the rhythm itself represented by the repeated dactyl "and so on, and so on".

Two plausible references: events driven by Vienna, the world's waltz capital, and a dark comic song recorded by the Kingston Trio in the 1960s: "Merry Minuet." In 3/4 time, it includes lyrics commenting on ethnic hatred, irredentism and inevitable nuclear catastrophe.

In fact, the sequence of events described here as a possibility in 1908 were realized in 1914, when Russia, in the crisis provoked by a Serbian youth group's assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, this time backed Serbia, resulting in the cascade of troop mobilizations that became World War I.

'''Mitrovitsa''' 
A Serbian town near the Turkish-Serbian border (now in Kosovo), about 25 miles southeast of Novi Pazar and 140 miles southeast of Sarajevo. The full Serbian name now is Kosovska Mitrovica, the Albanian name is Mitrovicë, and the population is mostly Albanian nowadays. (Some precognition about Novi Pazar.)

'''a railroad link from Sarajebo to Mitrovitsa, and thus to the Ægean Sea''' 
A railroad of 210 miles long linking Mitrovitsa (Turkish-Serbian border) throuhg Skopje (Macedonia) to Salonica (Greece) by the Ægean Sea alredy existed since December 1874.

'''Isvolsky''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Izvolski Alexander Petrovich Izvolsky] (Izvolski, Izvolskii) (1856-1919), Russian foreign minister (1906-1910), a major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente, who on September 15, 1908, traded Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria in exchange for Austria's help in opening the Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian ships. Pynchon's spelling may well be from a contemporary source; consistent transliteration is a more recent fetish.

'''Grey''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon Sir Edward Grey] (1862-1933), British Foreign Secretary 1905-16. He was the other major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente (1907).

'''The Dardanelles''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelles The Dardanelles], an international waterway, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It separates Europe (Gallipoli peninsula) and the mainland of Asia. With the Bosporus, Dardanelles connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

==Page 810==

'''It's like having the lights brought up for a bit...''' 
As the crisis wound down to war in 1914, Sir Edward Grey (still Foreign Minister) is famously quoted as having said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon]

'''Vlado Clissan''' 
His name comes from his hometown of Clissa, but this is the Italian name of the place. In Serbo-Croatian it is ''Klis.'' A pseudonym?

'''Blutwurst Special''' 
German: blood sausage.

'''toad-in-the-hole''' 
a traditional British dish. It consists of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy.

==Page 811==

'''"iron convergences and receding signal-lamps"''' 
our 'free choices' in . . . life; so ironic at this point.

Kurt Vonnegut, in ''Slaughterhouse Five'', described the human point of view as from consciousness strapped to a railroad car, forever facing only backward; from this vantage, history looks single and inevitable, whereas in reality the train of history is moving over unknown numbers of (from this perspective unseen) switch points, the settings of which are in fact changeable (the more complex view being taken by an extraterrestrial species, the Tralfamadorians, who can see forward to the many possibilities), alternate histories possible at every switch. The character Pointsman in ''GR'' in some ways embodies these possibilities.

'''The Semmering tunnel''' 
It refers to the Semmering mountain-peak tunnel of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Railway the Semmering Railway]. The tunnel, with a length of 4,700 ft, was opened on May 15, 1854. (A new Semmering tunnel, through the mountain base, was built in 1952). The Semmering Railway, having a total of 15 tunnels, is a part of the Austrian Souther Railway (Südbahn) connecting Vienna to Trieste. The world's first mountain railway with a standard gauge, it was built between 1848 and 1854 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

'''the Mur Valley''' 
The valley of the Mur River which, about 300 miles long, runs through the south-central Austria, northeast Slovenia and northern Croatia, where it flows into the Drava River. The biggest city in the Mur Valley is Graz, Austria.

'''Slavonian''' 
Today the name applies to the eastern part of Croatia, but a map will confirm that the route passes through the Slovenian plain. Writers before the World War must have had difficulty keeping Slovenia, Slovakia and Slavonia straight, especially since all were inhabited by Slavonic peoples.

'''the Slavonian plain''' 
The Slavonian plain is a fertile agricultural lowland in eastern Croatia and beyond. It is part of the larger Pannonia plain. It includes three primary rivers: the Drava in the north and the Sava in the south and the Danube in the east. The area between the Sava and Drava rivers and bounded on the east by the Hungarian border is the historical region Slavonia forming the eastern part of Croatia.

'''Ljubljana''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubljana Ljubljana] is the capital of Slovenia. It is also the cultural and economical center of the country. It is located in central Slovenia.

'''the Karst''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kras The Karst] is a limestone borderline plateau region of southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It rises quite steeply above the neighboring landscape and is famous for its caves including Vilenica in Slovenia, the oldest tourist cave in the world. In addition to caves, erosion has produced in the Karst fissures, sinkholes and underground streams.

'''Općina''' 
A village about 4 miles northeast of Trieste.

'''the Piazza Grande''' 
Trieste's central square, a great rectangle lined on three sides by stately imperial buildings, its fourth, short side, revealing the Adriatic sea.

'''the Piazza Cavana''' 
Trieste's "Nighttown" before World War I.

'''Austrian double''' 
Latewood, in light of Theign's treatment of Yashmeen, and the apparent passing of Italian naval decrypts to Austria, accuses Theign of being an Austrain double agent.

==Page 812==

'''a Fortuny gown''' 
[http://www.chick.net/proust/fortuny.html Mariano Fortuny] (1871-1949), a Spanish fashion designer worked mostly in Venice, created some of the most remarkable fabrics and dresses of 20th century. His pleated silk gowns and velvet cloaks are regarded by collectors and museums around the world as the unique expression and embodiment of a craft at its best. He was one of the source of inspiration to Marcel Proust.

'''Mestre Bridge''' 
Mestre is a town in Veneto, northern Italy, a frazione of the comune of Venice. Located on the mainland,the city is connected to Venice by a large rail and road bridge, called Ponte della Libertà (Freedom Bridge). Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|Page 706: Mestre bridge]].

'''Cloisters Court''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_490|page 490: Cloisters Court]].

'''King's''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_497|page 497: King's]]

==Page 813==

''''And England's far, and honour a name'''' 
Cyprian quoting from the 1897 poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada"]] ("They Pass the Torch of Life") by Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938), previously quoted on page 236 [[ATD_219-242#Page_236|(also see annotation)]].

'''"honour"''' 
Cf. Falstaff on.

'''the Caffè degli Specchi''' 
Trieste was one of the first European cities took to coffee in a big way.
It is the leading coffee port on the Mediterranean and is renowned for its cafes and coffee. The first coffe houses in Trieste opened at the beginning of the 18th century. They become very popular with artists and intellecturals. Several of the original coffe houses are still going strong; the Caffè degli Specchi, located in the Piazza Unità d'Italia and opened since 1839, is one of them.

==Page 814==

'''Lateeners''' 
A lateener is a boat with a lateen sail: a triangular sail with one edge tied to a long spar, which is supported in the middle on a mast.

'''''Strichmädchen''''' 
German: streetwalker.

'''LLoyd Austriaco''' 
A ship line. Lloyd Triestino was formed in 1919 as the successor to Lloyd Austriaco following the incorporation of Trieste into the Kingdom of Italy on January 3rd 1919.

'''Molo San Carlo''' 
A pier (''molo'') in Trieste. See [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Molo_San_Carlo.jpg Molo San Carlo']picture around 1900.

==Page 815==

'''"Nimrod" . . . from Elgar's ''Enigma Variations''''' 
"Nimrod" is the ninth section of this major 1899 work by English composer Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Like the other 13 sections, it characterizes a family friend; this one is A. J. Jaeger (whose name means "hunter" in German, hence "Nimrod," the name of a hunter mentioned in the Bible). [http://www.elgar.org/3enigma.htm Here is a very good description of the work and "Nimrod" in particular.]

The "Nimrod" variation is perhaps the most poignant of the piece; it rises to a cresendo and slowly, sadly, fades; an anthem for the fading of the 19th century.

'''"La Gazza Ladra"''' 
Overture by Rossini to an opera whose title means "The Thieving Magpie." It is as bright and impersonal as "Nimrod" is serious and sentimental.

'''"The Volga Boatmen" . . . "Auld Lang Syne"''' 
The puzzle in the "Enigma" Variations is this: Variations are based on a theme, but Elgar never states the theme; what is the melody? These are two of the popular guesses.

'''Gonzalo''' 
Gonzalo who?

'''Millicent''' 
? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millicent_Fawcett Millicent Fawcett] (1847-1929), a British suffragist and an early feminist. Is this the right person?

'''Δt''' 
Mathematical symbol used to represent a short length of time.

In addition, Pynchon is very concerned with dt,(little delta-t) the time differential, an infinitesimal change in time; to quote Pynchon from ''Lot 49'' (Lippincott, 1965 p.129): "a vanishingly small instant in which change had to be confronted at last for what it was, where it could no longer disguise itself as something innocuous like an average rate; where the velocity dwelled in the projectile though the projectile be frozen in midflight, where death dwelled in the cell though the cell be looked in on at its most quick." But, the paragraph goes on, "dt" also suggests DTs, Delirium Tremens (alcohol withdrawal) a state giving access to hallucinatory experiences, "spectra beyond the known Sun, music made purely of Antarctic loneliness and fright." Which is the general mood in the wake of the Tunguska Event and the Bosnian Crisis, or should be, if the characters were not so dutifully repressing it. (In ''Lot 49'' the realization of the dt/DTs connection has to do with Oedipa Maas' realization of the finality of death, and what inaccessible realms of experience are lost with each individual's death).

:Are you confusing Δ''t'', symbolizing a finite duration, with ''dt,'' a duration shrunk to an infinitesimal? 
(Possibly--my physics/calculus may be rusting. The connection may still hold; note emendation above--thanks. Edit further if necessary!).

'''Davos''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davos Davos] is a municipality in the eastern part of Switzerland. A popular destination for the rich and ailing because its high valley climate has long been considered excellent by doctors for curing lung desease. It is the setting of Thomas Mann's ''The Magic Mountain''. Davos is famous as the host of the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of global political and business elites.

'''Föhn''' 
German. [http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/glossary/fpagegl.shtml#fo Wind] warmed and dried by descent on the lee side of a mountain. Germans even today acknowledge that its presence (say, in Munich) affects mood and emotions.

'''co-conscious with the everyday''' 
again. Linked to creativity here.

'''Ramanujan's Formula''' 
an elegant hyperbolic summation, Ramanujan's formula for the Riemann zeta function evaluated at the odd positive integers. Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_498|page 498: Rumanujan]] didn't come to the attention of Western mathematicians until he wrote to Hardy in late 1912 - early 1913 and travelled to Cambridge in 1914. Is Yashmeen prescient?

==Page 816==

'''''dolce far niente''''' 
Italian: sweet idleness (literally, sweet to do nothing).

'''divided second''' 
A dt.

'''of his entry''' 
Vlado the Impaler?

'''the Karst''' 
Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_811|page 811: the Karst]]. 
Generic "karst topography" takes its name from this area of Slovenia and Italy (locally called ''kras'' and ''carso''). The terrain features limestone with fissures and cavities eroded by water. Caves as well as underground streams and lakes are common.

'''''osmizza''''' 
These are informal eating places out in rural areas, where farmers sell their meats, cheeses, olives and wines.

'''Illyria''' 
The Roman province in which modern Trieste is located.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyria Illyria] was in Clssical antiquity a region in the western part of today's Balkan Peninsula, found by the tribes and clans of Illyrian, an ancient people who spoke the Illyrian languages. Illyria was a formidable local power in the 4th century BC, only after the Roman conquest in 168 BC did Illyria become one of the Roman provinces, Illyricum. In the context "ancient before Illyria" referrs to the period before the Roman conquest.

==Page 817==

'''quiet spaces between trams, unpredictable, even, she imagined, mathematically so''' 
The time of the next tram can't be mathematically predicted (to arbitrary accuracy), but it is possible to describe in mathematical terms the '''way''' in which it's unpredictable. A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution Poisson distribution] expresses the probability that a specific number of trams arrive during a given time interval (but cannot determine the exact arrival time of the next tram).

'''never farther than half a block from the counter-soporific fluid''' 
Perhaps an allusion or parallel to the 21st century ubiquity of Starbucks.

:Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_813|page 813: the Caffe degli Specchi]].

'''''Svr šavam!''''' 
Croatian/Serbian: I'm finishing. Also, implausibly, written ''Svršavam.''

'''Velebit''' 
Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page_326|page 326: Velebit]].
A ridge that runs parallel to the Croatian Adriatic coast a few tens of miles south of Trieste. Lying a short distance inland, it is made up of limestone karst.

==Page 818==

'''Zengg''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Zengg]].

'''Veglia''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krk_(island) Veglia], the second largest Adriatic island, is a Croatian island (''Krk'') in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Fiume.

'''persisted from day to day''' 
The image again of the storm that retains its identity over a long time.

'''Stationary waves''' 
Crests and troughs that don't move. Seen more often where water is flowing (up/downstream of rocks in rapids), but also where waves coming onshore interact with those reflected from the shore.

'''Novlian''' 
A family from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Vinodolski Novi], a town on the Adriatic coast in Croatia about 10 miles north of Zengg (''Senj'') and 22 miles southeast of Fiume (''Rijeka'').

'''Uskok''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Uskok]]. 
Serbian/Croatian: fugitive. Writers even in antiquity noted that piracy was a main economic activity along this coast.

In all, Vlado seems very like the Traverse brothers, set against the modern world, or anyway modern power arrangements, a bit of an anarchist in his own way. But his grievances have historic depth and resonance, more of what Pynchon in ''V.'' called "Temporal Bandwidth".

Uskok is also a place's name.

'''the Argonauts''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts The Argonauts], in Greek mythology, were a band of heroes who, in the years before the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_war Trojan War], accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_fleece Golden Fleece]. Their name comes from their ship ''Argo'' which in turn was named after its builder Argus.

'''Split''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split Split], situated on a small peninsula on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea about 150 miles southeast of Zengg, is the largest and most important city in Dalmatia, Croatia.

'''Clissa''' 
Town from which Vlado Clissan takes his ''nom de guerre.'' Locally called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klis Klis] which is located inland just 5 miles northeast of Split near the eponymous mountain pass. Because of its geographical position, Clissa is susceptible to a rather strong bora wind.

==Page 819==

'''You know the play by Shakespeare, ''The Merchant of Venice''? [...] We keep hoping till the end for Antonio to come to grief.''' 
In ''The Merchant of Venice'', Antonio, the protagonist, is a wealthy merchant in Venice, his wealth coming from the ships he owns, which could easily be at peril from pirates. So, natch, Vlado and his comrades who attack Venetian ships are pulling for the pirates.

'''''mala vita''''' 
bad life

'''palačinka''' 
Croatian for crepe or thin pancake.

==Page 820==

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

ATD 792-820

2007-04-11T20:10:38Z

Jpicco: /* Page 802 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 792==

'''''rishta''-doctors . . . guinea-worms''' 
Fron the context, ''rishta''-doctors means Guinea worm disease doctors. 
During 12th to 13th centuries the word in Arabic-speaking countries for macaroni was ''rishta'', but the context clearly indicates that it means ''worm'', or specifically, ''Guinea worm''. 
The Guinea worm is a threadlike parasitic worm that grows and matures indide the human body growing as long as 3 feet long. After a year, the worm emerges through a painful blister in the skin causing long-term suffering and sometimes crippling after-effect. People get infected when they drink standing water contaning a tiny water flea that is infected with the even tinier larvae of the Guinea worm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis The disease] occurs mainly in Africa.

'''drumfire''' 
Intense, continuous artillery fire, characteristic of the bombardments that preceded the attempted advances on the Western Front in World War I.

'''to get in out of it''' 
A typo? Shoud be "to get out of it"?? Not really: this is actually common English usage; for example, "to get in out of the rain."

==Page 793==

'''Tierra del Fuego''' 
Not exactly the other side of the world, but the closest land to that point. Tierra del Fuego translates as "Land of the Fire."

:This may not be suitable as a permanent feature of the wiki, but there is a strange web site where you can click on a location and see what's exactly on the opposite side of the world: http://map.pequenopolis.com/index.php?lang=en

==Page 794==

'''communicate with the explorer Peary, then in the Arctic''' 
Robert Peary did not even leave New York City at the start of his polar expedition until July 6, 1908, 6 days '''after''' the Tunguska Event of 6-30-08, and did not reach Ellesmere Island until the summer of 1909(see[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_Event] section on Wardenclyffe Tower).
: But this was one of the 'theories' around the time and long after attempting to explain the Tunguska Event. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska event in Wikipedia].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Peary Robert Peary] (1856-1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person to reach the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. He made several attempts to reach the North Pole between 1898 and 1905. His final assault set off from New York City on july 6, 1908 and wintered near
Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island and from there departed for the pole on March 1, 1909. He established Camp Jesup near the Pole on April 6. In his diary for April 7, Peary wrote "The Pole at alst !!! The prize of 3 centuries, ... ''Mine'' at last ..."

'''Tesla . . . his tower at Wardenclyffe''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower] (1901-1917) was an early wireless telecommunications aerial tower intended for commercial wireless trans-Atlantic telephony, broadcasting and to demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wire. The tower was named after James Warden, a lawyer and banker, who had purchased the land in Shoreham, Long Island, about 60 miles from Manhattan. The Tesla Tower was never fully operational and was not completed due to economic problems. The property is now owned by [[Q-weapon_and_Photography#gevaert|Agfa-Gevaert]].

'''Ellsmere Island''' 
Commonly spelled [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellesmere_Island Ellesmere Island]. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and with Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island is the most northerly point of land in Canada. With an area of over 75,000 square miles, it is the world's 10th largest island and Canada's third largest.

'''Brother Tom Swift. He spends more time these days in court than in the laboratory.''' 
Tom Swift is the young protagonist in several series of juvenile adventure novels starting in the early twentieth century and continuing to the present. More exactly, each such series stars a young protagonist named Tom Swift who is a genius inventor and whose breakthroughs in technology (especially transport technology) drive the plots of the novels. Besides the similarity (or "brotherhood") between the adventuring youths, the Chums' stories have titles similar to the Tom Swift novels, eg ''Tom Swift and His Motor Boat; or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa''; ''Tom Swift and His Airship; or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud''; &c &c.

Although the Tom Swift novels weren't published until 1910 an ''apparent'' anachronism we should remember that Tom Swift, in this context, is as "real" as the Chums of Chance, and thus the events in the first novel, ''Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle; or, Fun and Adventure on the Road'' -- which included patent disputes and lawsuits -- would have "happened" prior to the novel being published.

'''Semipalatinsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semey Semipalatinsk] is a city on the Irtysh River, a ''long'' way southwest of Vanavara. Soviet nuclear tests were administered from here.

'''Irbit''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irbit Irbit] is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia on the right bank of the Nitsa River. It is located about 120 miles east of Yekaterinburg.

'''''obstanovka''''' 
Russian: situation.

==Page 795==

'''''Zdorovo!''''' 
Russian: ''hel''lo!

'''Neutral Moresnet''' 
Tiny "country" between Belgium and Germany; existed 1816-1919; see, oh ''do'' see, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Moresnet Wikipedia entry.]

'''''tchudak''''' 
Now transliterated ''chudak.'' Russian: crank.

'''Kiakhta''' 
Or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyakhta ''Kyakhta''], only two syllables. Town on Russian (Buriat)-Mongolian border south of Lake Baikal, a center of Russian trade with China.

'''Not even Russian army does that!''' 
And it cost them dearly in 1914 when intercepted "clear" radio traffic helped the Germans crush them at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_Battle_of_Tannenberg Battle of Tannenberg.]

==Page 796==

'''By dusk . . . running-lights''' 
An enigma. The ordinary way of analyzing it: Make a model, say a flashlight, an orange and a toothpick mooring line with a raisin balloon at the top. As the orange rotates toward the east and the flashlight appears to set in the [http://www.example.com link title]west, what gets dark first? The base of the toothpick, the shadow progressing upward. But the text says the raisin does, the shadow arc moving downward.

It's very curious that immediately following this apparently topsy-turvy paragraph Miles says "As above, so below." Significant?

Are the Chums watching from above?..."as the boys watched"..."as above,so below."?--[User: MKohut] January 28, 2007

:I suggest there's no error, and the "ordinary way" is not the right way to understand the text. It definitely is worth looking for a way that the narration--and Miles' benediction--can be technically as well as thematically correct.

In wizardry (developed from shamanry) Hermes Trismegistus wrote an
Emerald Tablet on which he wrote his wisdom (9-14 precepts).
Sir Isaac Newton translated one precept as:
"That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below."

So, magic?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet Wiki]

--[[User:mrplong]] 13:36, 31 January 2007 (AST)

The only way that the described phenomenon: the order in which the cargo balloons become enshadowed, could be true is if it was the darkness that was advancing as a physical force. It's as if the definitions of light and dark have been reversed. A rising sun (light source) will illuminate the highest objects first, a rising "dark source" would enshadow the highest objects first, too.

In addition to all the other references stated, I believe Miles' comment refers to the cargo balloons and their tethers to the ground, echoing the Inconvenience and its links to its Earth based masters. [mwm]

The precept has been linked to numerology [http://home.online.no/~luneng/999.html]; These words circulate throughout occult and magical circles, and they come from Hermetic texts. The concept was first laid out in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the words "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing."[24]

In accordance with the various levels of reality: physical, mental, and spiritual, this relates that what happens on any level happens on every other. This is however more often used in the sense of the microcosm and the macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) you can understand the other.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism#_note-10]. Card I of the Major Arcana of the Waite Tarot Deck (alluded to throughout AtD) shows The Magician, simultaneously pointing up toward the sky and down toward the earth.

'''Slowly as God's justice''' 
Must be noted given title and everything religious in ATD.

==Page 797==

'''upriver from Vanavara''' 
"Ground zero" of the Event was 40 miles north of Vanavara. Cf [[ATD_768-791#Page_779|page 779: A heavenwide blast of light.]]

'''"simultaneity" . . . Special Relativity''' 
Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905) refutes the idea that two observers seeing two events can ever agree on whether the events were simultaneous. Adopters of the theory (and in 1908 they were all ''early'' adopters) would be asking one another if it applied to this phenomenon.

'''the error of the seismograph recordings . . . singularity''' 
"Error" doesn't mean mistake or wrongness. It measures the variability within each instrument; every measurement comes with a plus-or-minus figure. If the Event happened instantaneously, each of the charts would record it as a more or less spread-out peak. The energy released in a process is calculated from the area under the curve of intensity versus time; to get the power (rate of energy release), divide the energy by the duration of the process. Even though he states the math wrongly, Vanderjuice suspects the seismographs of the world have responded to a titanic release of energy that took place in essentially no time at all, so that power = energy divided by zero. When physicists see a ''real'' process apparently demanding division by zero, they call it a singularity and go looking for an explanation.

'''the equations of history''' 
Perhaps an allusion to Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation Trilogy'', in which the Psychohistorian Harry Selden calculates equations of history. His equations are (seemingly) thrown off by the advent of a mutant with unusual powers that his predictive equations do not take into account--not unlike the advent of the Tunguska Event.

'''Tchernobyl, the star of Revelation''' 
Tchernobyl is the Ukraine translation (perhaps mistranslation) for Wormwood "the destroying star in the book of Revelation" (page 784). And, as we all know, in 1986 there was a a nuclear meltdown of the Ukranian city Chernobyl.

'''something that had not quite happened yet''' 
In short, an Omen. The Tunguska Event could be seen as an omen of the destructive forces unleashed over the entire course of the 20th Century.

'''Circassian slave''' 
Common figure in European literature about the "Lustful Turk." Circassia is a region in the Caucasus. 

In the early 1860s, after Russian conquest of their region of the Caucasus, nearly half a million Circassians migrated to Turkey. Many Circassian women, prized for their beauty, were sold into slavery.

'''teppisti''' 
Italian: hooligans, hoodlums, thugs

==Page 798==

'''Krakatoa''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_506|page 506: Krakatoa]].

'''''mala vita''''' 
Italian: evil life. With more specific reference to Mafia style criminal organizations like the Malavita del Brenta of Venice. There is also a genre of songs glorifying Mafia life called canto di Malavita.

'''brides picotees''' 
A Venetian lace with a hexagonal pattern. French: tickle straps

==Page 799==

'''"Bevis Moistleigh"''' 
Bevis Mostly? Bevis Wetly?
Cf. Sir Bevis from Lang's Red Romance Book around this time. or a Twilight Zone story, Bevis 1960. See Wikipedia. 
Or, see later in ATD, Bevis is an allusion to Beavis & Butthead. [Idiot]

Possibly, given what follows, an allusion to the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, oldest extant Jewish house of worship in Britain [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevis_Marks_Synagogue], but more likely a reference to (p.800)''Bevis,the Story of a Boy.''

'''''macchinette''''' 
Italian for small devices.

'''Glagolitic alphabet''' 
See excellent annotation to [[ATD_243-272#Page_252|page 252]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic_alphabet this].

'''gematria''' 
As described in the text, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is also a number. In the simplest form of Gematria, words, phrases and sentences with eqivalent numerical value are somehow linked, in a way promoting exegesis of Torah and Midrash (Torah commentary). More complex, mystical gematria systems are described in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria].

==Page 800==

'''''fatkeqëse''''' 
Albanian: translated in the text as "disaster." Is this correct?

'''gongs''' 
Medals.

'''Irredentism''' 
A policy appealing to the idea that "our" lands are unredeemed, i.e., ruled by some outsider, and must be brought into our domain. See annotation to "Eurasia Irredenta" ([[ATD_748-767#Page_761|page 761).]]

'''''Bevis . . . the Story of a Boy''''' 
Theign taunts Bevis with the title of a popular novel, ''Bevis: the Story of a Boy'' (1882), by Richard Jefferies. From bits and pieces of the work quoted online (the book is apparently still in print), the narrative style and dialog writing appear similar to what we've seen in the early Chums passages. What's more, themes associated with this and other books by Jefferies (e.g., the beauty of the untouched countryside) align with some of the ''AtD'' themes. Jefferies also published a "post-Apocalypse" novel called ''After London.'' The Jefferies-Pynchon link may merit a closer look.

==Page 801==

'''unprovided for in the future tense of any language''' 
I.e., we have no simple way to describe future events in a chaotic system. You can't say that Chinese butterfly '''will''' cause a windstorm in Brazil.

'''High susceptibility to primordial variables''' 
Chaos theorists talk about "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions."

'''"an emigration of reason itself".......Crusade"''' 
Notice war talk and natural destruction around the Event. 
As well, the Crusades were a series of European Christian attacks on Islam and the Mideast (with the establishment of Crusader Kingdoms), linking the text to 19th and 20th century Imperialist ventures. For a map of the medieval kingdoms, see [http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/crusades/first/crusader_states.jpg]

'''Railway Brain''' 
A recognized disorder at one time, explained in the text following in AtD.

==Page 802==

'''croakers''' 
Slang: doctors, especially quacks.

Also: One who croaks, murmurs, grumbles, or complains
unreasonably; one who habitually forebodes evil.

"Croaker" is a long-established (slang) word for "doctor," and in this passage it is quite clear that the doctors (performing curative activities to earn their fees but not really curing anything) feel they are putting one over on everybody else.

Some online citations: 
:http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19757 
:http://www.whysanity.net/monos/requiem.html 
:http://cancer.iu.edu/news/research/archives/2000/06.pdf ("In the Spotlight," 2nd graf) 
:http://www.classiccrimefiction.com/hardboiled-slang.htm 
:http://www.hobonickels.org/alpert04.htm 
:http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcnewman/definition.html 
:In short, it wasn't the complainers who "thought they were putting one over," it was the quacks who administered expensive treatments for all ills.

:Slang, sic. I see. Another possible multiple TRP meaning, the complaining doctors, esp. quack "shrinks", relatively new at the time?

'''radioactive mud-bath slime''' 
Treatment with naturally radioactive waters from hot springs was thought to cure many ailments. An example of a radioactive hot spring resort in Austria is Badgastein.

'''Mentone''' 
Mentone, Italy or across the border, Menton (Italian name ''Mentone''), France, in the Riviera. In fact there was no Menton, France, for a long time until 1860 the former Grimaldi town of Mentone, Italy, was bought by France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton Menton] is much better known than Mentone; this small town on the Franco-Italian border, about 45 miles northeast of Nice, is the most beautiful town on the French Riviera—''La perle de la France'' (The Pearl of France). It's warm climate makes it a favorite tourist destination. Menton is also a city of gardens; it won the competition for the best city of flowers in France five different times.

'''...an evening sky which had refused the dusk...''' 
Inverse of Against the Day?

'''the boulevard Carnolès''' 
There is a ''Palais Carnolès'' at 3 Avenue de la Madone, Menton (or ''Mentone''). But couldn't locate the Boulevard Carnolès.

'''Mariahilf''' 
The Sixth District of Vienna, known as a shopping district.

==Page 803==

'''midinettes''' 
salesgirls (of Paris).

'''Facharbeiter''' 
German: technician, specialist, skilled worker.

'''Gabika''' 
"Cute" double diminutive for the Hungarian male name Gábor (Gabriel) and also, more commonly, for the female name Gabriella. The ambiguity (also his looks) fits finely the subversion of gender roles in his relationship to Noellyn Fanshawe.

==Page 804==

'''Maida Vale''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maida_Vale Maida Vale] is a street in north-west London. The area, also known as Little Venice, is mostly residential and often extremely affluent.

'''eleven''' 
Vienna is 86 degrees west of the Event, more or less. Converting longitude to time at 15 degrees = 1 hour, we get a time difference of 5 hours 44 minutes. At 7:17 a.m. Event time, it was 1:33 a.m. in Vienna. Now, at 11:00 p.m. the same day, Vienna time, it is 21 hours and 27 minutes after the event. The atmospheric effect has propagated west (possibly against the high-level winds?) from Siberia to Central Europe in quite a short time. All these numbers are rough!

==Page 805==

'''prepare them against the day''' 
Here the phrase means "in anticipation of" or "to be ready for." 
And more. Thematic.
Given what has been said about the Tunguska Event, colored by accounts of the atmospheric effects of the Krakatoa eruption,highly suggestive of Judgment Day.

'''against the day''' 
I shoulda been keepin' notes, dammit! I am sure that regularly through the book I have been spotting deliberate sentences ending with "... ''something'' the day"...but not, until now, with "''against'' the day". And a few score pages ago I'm sure there was a sentence what ended w' "...against the night...", then Tunguska happens, and we now need to be wary o'the day..?

==Page 806==

'''Toward the end of October all Hell broke loose . . . annex Bosnia''' 
The Bosnian Crisis began with the fear on the part of Austria-Hungary of possible reverses of Turkish concessions since the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 by the newly-resurgent Young Turk movement. The answer to this was annexation of Bosnia, which it had ruled as a colony since 1878. Knowing such a move would be opposed by Serbia, in turn supported by Russia, the Austrians offered to support the right of Russia to move warships through the Bosporus, and to support a declaration of independence from Turkey by Bulgaria. This provoked a general crisis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Crisis] from which Serbia had to back down, lacking Russian support. All had been settled in secret meetings in the months before; the Bulgarian (Glagolitic) traffic intercepted by Bevis Moistleigh, above, is thus explained. So is the sense of Grand Conspiracy; all the Great Powers were eventuallly involved. 
See [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos127.htm The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1908.]

'''coconut-shy''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_shy A coconut shy] (or coconut shie) is a traditional game frequently found as a sidestall at funfairs and fêtes. The game consists of throwing wooden balls at a row of coconuts balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins each coconut successfully dislodged. In some cases other prizes may be won instead of the coconuts.
The origins of the game are unclear, although the term is first listed in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1903.
The word 'shy' in this context is a colloquial English term, meaning 'to throw' or toss.

'''šljivovica''' 
One of the spellings of this word for plum brandy (also slivovica, slivovitz, etc.).

'''one to fifty million . . . mile-to-the-inch sheets''' 
Two extremes of mapmaking. A 1:50,000,000 map of the United States would fit comfortably on a page of ''AtD'' with most of Mexico and several Canadian provinces. Austria-Hungary at that scale would be about as big as your two thumbprints side by side.

The British Ordnance Survey produced a famous series of inch-to-the-mile sheets (1:63,360); the detail is about fine enough to show the left-turn lane of a city street. At this scale it would take some 200 unhandily large sheets to cover Austria-Hungary.

'''Decisions of the utmost gravity''' 
that lead to Gravity's rainbows'''

==Page 807==

'''Major B. F. Vumb''' 
Major Bum Fuck Vumb, as in Dumb? Another Pynchonian V-name
with the usual associations.

'''''Judensau''''' 
German: Jewish pig.

'''the Vienna Woods''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienerwald The Vienna Woods] is a low, wooded section of the Alps in eastern Lower Austria and far into the city of Vienna, covering over nearly 390 square miles and including the northermost parts of the entire Alpine chain. It is a favourite outdoor destination for people living around Vienna.

'''Christian Socialists . . . Dr. Karl Lueger''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lueger Karl Lueger] (pronounced in three syllables, LOO eh ger) (1844-1910) was a Viennese politician, Burgomeister (mayor) of Vienna, and founder of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party. He was a role model for Adolf Hitler.

'''Reichsrath''' 
Austrian parliament.

'''''Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich''''' 
German: as translated in text.

'''''der schöne'' Karl''' 
German: the handsome, or the nice, Karl. Deeply sarcastic.

==Page 808==

'''"Well actually . . ."''' 
Shanghai, which because of its international status did not require a passport or visa for entry, would become a refuge for Jews made stateless by Nazi Germany or were otherwise refugees in the 1930s. Many tens of thousands were able to reach it, and survived the war and the Holocaust under Japanese occupation. Large numbers reached it using so-called Sugihara Passports, letters of transit issued by the Japanese vice-consul to Lithuania in 1940, with the connivance of Dutch diplomats[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugihara]. Obviously an anachronism, but actually...this is about portents and other bends in Time, perhaps things that echo up and down the Timelines (ours and alternates).

'''Graz''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_519|page 519: Graz]].

'''Elefant Hotel''' 
The only listed Elefant Hotel in Austria, a building described as "ancient", is in Salzburg, not Graz; it is currently a Best Western. There is also a Hotel Elefant in Prague, once part ot the Empire; perhaps there was a chain?

'''. . . common Anglo-Habsburg interests...''' 
All the Great Powers found ways to benefit from the Bosnian Crisis, perhaps explaining Theign providing Italian naval decodes to the Austrians. Or, as Latewood accuses below, he is a double agent; McHugh is at least suspicious here. Either way, sending Latewood and Moistleigh on a suicide mission to Bosnia is one way to cover his tracks.

'''Murgasse''' 
Street in Graz. The Murgasse was first mentioned in a document from 1346. The part of town to the south was occupied by the farmers.
Murgasse
8490 Bad Radkersburg, Austria

==Page 809==

'''the Treaty of Berlin''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: the Treaty of Berlin]].

'''Novi Pazar''' 
Novi Pazar also figures briefly in ''GR'' (P.14-15, Viking eds.): "...on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe" The Novi Pazar desk is manned by Lord Blatherard Osmo. The crisis passed, but Lord Osmo has an adenoid, and this mucoid "lymphatic monster", now independently alive in 1939, is confronted by an agent of The Firm (an outfit very like its temporal predecessor the T.W.I.T. in its interests in the paranormal) , one "Pirate" Prentice; it is "now as big as St Paul's and growing by the hour" threatening all London, but confined successfully--leading to Lord Osmo's neglect of Novi Pazar...A bizarre satiric experience of Crisis Management by Great Power foreign ministries, and the literally sticky mess they created. Currently, some obscure ex-Ottoman sanjaks, cobbled together as Iraq in 1919, are something of a hinge of history; another paramorphic mirroring of 1900/2000.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Pazar Novi Pazar] is now a city of Serbia, about 110 miles directly south of Belgrade. Its name means "a new bazaar" in the local language. It was administered by Austria-Hungary from 1878 to 1908, and by Turkey (Ottoman Empire) from 1908 to 1912, and by Serbia 1912 to now.

'''Constantinople''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople Constantinople] was the capital of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261) and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922). It is strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara on the Bosphorous Strait. It extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) side of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world which is situated on two continents. It was officially renamed to Istanbul in 1930.

'''the Young Turks with their revolution''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks The Young Turks] was a coalition of various reform groups in favor of reforming the administration of Ottoman Empire. Their movement brought about the second constitutional era through a revolution against the monarchy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turk_Revolution The Young Turk Revolution] of 1908 restored the suspended parliament and was a landmark in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Revolution arose from the Ottoman peoples' near-universal opposition to the tyranny and corruption of the Sultan, which forged an unlikely union of reform-minded pluralists, Turkish nationalists, and Western-oriented secularists.

'''the vile Aerenthal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Lexa_von_Aehrenthal Aloys (or Alois) von Aerenthal] (1854-1912), Austrian foreign minister (1906-1912) who engineered the annexation of Bosnia in 1908.

'''in three-quarter time''' 
Waltzes are in 3/4 time and so the national powers are waltzing into a European war. Note the chain-like sliding/closing/turning step sequence in Viennese Waltz, and also the rhythm itself represented by the repeated dactyl "and so on, and so on".

Two plausible references: events driven by Vienna, the world's waltz capital, and a dark comic song recorded by the Kingston Trio in the 1960s: "Merry Minuet." In 3/4 time, it includes lyrics commenting on ethnic hatred, irredentism and inevitable nuclear catastrophe.

In fact, the sequence of events described here as a possibility in 1908 were realized in 1914, when Russia, in the crisis provoked by a Serbian youth group's assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, this time backed Serbia, resulting in the cascade of troop mobilizations that became World War I.

'''Mitrovitsa''' 
A Serbian town near the Turkish-Serbian border (now in Kosovo), about 25 miles southeast of Novi Pazar and 140 miles southeast of Sarajevo. The full Serbian name now is Kosovska Mitrovica, the Albanian name is Mitrovicë, and the population is mostly Albanian nowadays. (Some precognition about Novi Pazar.)

'''a railroad link from Sarajebo to Mitrovitsa, and thus to the Ægean Sea''' 
A railroad of 210 miles long linking Mitrovitsa (Turkish-Serbian border) throuhg Skopje (Macedonia) to Salonica (Greece) by the Ægean Sea alredy existed since December 1874.

'''Isvolsky''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Izvolski Alexander Petrovich Izvolsky] (Izvolski, Izvolskii) (1856-1919), Russian foreign minister (1906-1910), a major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente, who on September 15, 1908, traded Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria in exchange for Austria's help in opening the Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian ships. Pynchon's spelling may well be from a contemporary source; consistent transliteration is a more recent fetish.

'''Grey''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon Sir Edward Grey] (1862-1933), British Foreign Secretary 1905-16. He was the other major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente (1907).

'''The Dardanelles''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelles The Dardanelles], an international waterway, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It separates Europe (Gallipoli peninsula) and the mainland of Asia. With the Bosporus, Dardanelles connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

==Page 810==

'''It's like having the lights brought up for a bit...''' 
As the crisis wound down to war in 1914, Sir Edward Grey (still Foreign Minister) is famously quoted as having said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon]

'''Vlado Clissan''' 
His name comes from his hometown of Clissa, but this is the Italian name of the place. In Serbo-Croatian it is ''Klis.'' A pseudonym?

'''Blutwurst Special''' 
German: blood sausage.

'''toad-in-the-hole''' 
a traditional British dish. It consists of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy.

==Page 811==

'''"iron convergences and receding signal-lamps"''' 
our 'free choices' in . . . life; so ironic at this point.

Kurt Vonnegut, in ''Slaughterhouse Five'', described the human point of view as from consciousness strapped to a railroad car, forever facing only backward; from this vantage, history looks single and inevitable, whereas in reality the train of history is moving over unknown numbers of (from this perspective unseen) switch points, the settings of which are in fact changeable (the more complex view being taken by an extraterrestrial species, the Tralfamadorians, who can see forward to the many possibilities), alternate histories possible at every switch. The character Pointsman in ''GR'' in some ways embodies these possibilities.

'''The Semmering tunnel''' 
It refers to the Semmering mountain-peak tunnel of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Railway the Semmering Railway]. The tunnel, with a length of 4,700 ft, was opened on May 15, 1854. (A new Semmering tunnel, through the mountain base, was built in 1952). The Semmering Railway, having a total of 15 tunnels, is a part of the Austrian Souther Railway (Südbahn) connecting Vienna to Trieste. The world's first mountain railway with a standard gauge, it was built between 1848 and 1854 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

'''the Mur Valley''' 
The valley of the Mur River which, about 300 miles long, runs through the south-central Austria, northeast Slovenia and northern Croatia, where it flows into the Drava River. The biggest city in the Mur Valley is Graz, Austria.

'''Slavonian''' 
Today the name applies to the eastern part of Croatia, but a map will confirm that the route passes through the Slovenian plain. Writers before the World War must have had difficulty keeping Slovenia, Slovakia and Slavonia straight, especially since all were inhabited by Slavonic peoples.

'''the Slavonian plain''' 
The Slavonian plain is a fertile agricultural lowland in eastern Croatia and beyond. It is part of the larger Pannonia plain. It includes three primary rivers: the Drava in the north and the Sava in the south and the Danube in the east. The area between the Sava and Drava rivers and bounded on the east by the Hungarian border is the historical region Slavonia forming the eastern part of Croatia.

'''Ljubljana''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubljana Ljubljana] is the capital of Slovenia. It is also the cultural and economical center of the country. It is located in central Slovenia.

'''the Karst''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kras The Karst] is a limestone borderline plateau region of southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It rises quite steeply above the neighboring landscape and is famous for its caves including Vilenica in Slovenia, the oldest tourist cave in the world. In addition to caves, erosion has produced in the Karst fissures, sinkholes and underground streams.

'''Općina''' 
A village about 4 miles northeast of Trieste.

'''the Piazza Grande''' 
Trieste's central square, a great rectangle lined on three sides by stately imperial buildings, its fourth, short side, revealing the Adriatic sea.

'''the Piazza Cavana''' 
Trieste's "Nighttown" before World War I.

'''Austrian double''' 
Latewood, in light of Theign's treatment of Yashmeen, and the apparent passing of Italian naval decrypts to Austria, accuses Theign of being an Austrain double agent.

==Page 812==

'''a Fortuny gown''' 
[http://www.chick.net/proust/fortuny.html Mariano Fortuny] (1871-1949), a Spanish fashion designer worked mostly in Venice, created some of the most remarkable fabrics and dresses of 20th century. His pleated silk gowns and velvet cloaks are regarded by collectors and museums around the world as the unique expression and embodiment of a craft at its best. He was one of the source of inspiration to Marcel Proust.

'''Mestre Bridge''' 
Mestre is a town in Veneto, northern Italy, a frazione of the comune of Venice. Located on the mainland,the city is connected to Venice by a large rail and road bridge, called Ponte della Libertà (Freedom Bridge). Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|Page 706: Mestre bridge]].

'''Cloisters Court''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_490|page 490: Cloisters Court]].

'''King's''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_497|page 497: King's]]

==Page 813==

''''And England's far, and honour a name'''' 
Cyprian quoting from the 1897 poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada"]] ("They Pass the Torch of Life") by Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938), previously quoted on page 236 [[ATD_219-242#Page_236|(also see annotation)]].

'''"honour"''' 
Cf. Falstaff on.

'''the Caffè degli Specchi''' 
Trieste was one of the first European cities took to coffee in a big way.
It is the leading coffee port on the Mediterranean and is renowned for its cafes and coffee. The first coffe houses in Trieste opened at the beginning of the 18th century. They become very popular with artists and intellecturals. Several of the original coffe houses are still going strong; the Caffè degli Specchi, located in the Piazza Unità d'Italia and opened since 1839, is one of them.

==Page 814==

'''Lateeners''' 
A lateener is a boat with a lateen sail: a triangular sail with one edge tied to a long spar, which is supported in the middle on a mast.

'''''Strichmädchen''''' 
German: streetwalker.

'''LLoyd Austriaco''' 
A ship line. Lloyd Triestino was formed in 1919 as the successor to Lloyd Austriaco following the incorporation of Trieste into the Kingdom of Italy on January 3rd 1919.

'''Molo San Carlo''' 
A pier (''molo'') in Trieste. See [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Molo_San_Carlo.jpg Molo San Carlo']picture around 1900.

==Page 815==

'''"Nimrod" . . . from Elgar's ''Enigma Variations''''' 
"Nimrod" is the ninth section of this major 1899 work by English composer Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Like the other 13 sections, it characterizes a family friend; this one is A. J. Jaeger (whose name means "hunter" in German, hence "Nimrod," the name of a hunter mentioned in the Bible). [http://www.elgar.org/3enigma.htm Here is a very good description of the work and "Nimrod" in particular.]

The "Nimrod" variation is perhaps the most poignant of the piece; it rises to a cresendo and slowly, sadly, fades; an anthem for the fading of the 19th century.

'''"La Gazza Ladra"''' 
Overture by Rossini to an opera whose title means "The Thieving Magpie." It is as bright and impersonal as "Nimrod" is serious and sentimental.

'''"The Volga Boatmen" . . . "Auld Lang Syne"''' 
The puzzle in the "Enigma" Variations is this: Variations are based on a theme, but Elgar never states the theme; what is the melody? These are two of the popular guesses.

'''Gonzalo''' 
Gonzalo who?

'''Millicent''' 
? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millicent_Fawcett Millicent Fawcett] (1847-1929), a British suffragist and an early feminist. Is this the right person?

'''Δt''' 
Mathematical symbol used to represent a short length of time.

In addition, Pynchon is very concerned with dt,(little delta-t) the time differential, an infinitesimal change in time; to quote Pynchon from ''Lot 49'' (Lippincott, 1965 p.129): "a vanishingly small instant in which change had to be confronted at last for what it was, where it could no longer disguise itself as something innocuous like an average rate; where the velocity dwelled in the projectile though the projectile be frozen in midflight, where death dwelled in the cell though the cell be looked in on at its most quick." But, the paragraph goes on, "dt" also suggests DTs, Delirium Tremens (alcohol withdrawal) a state giving access to hallucinatory experiences, "spectra beyond the known Sun, music made purely of Antarctic loneliness and fright." Which is the general mood in the wake of the Tunguska Event and the Bosnian Crisis, or should be, if the characters were not so dutifully repressing it. (In ''Lot 49'' the realization of the dt/DTs connection has to do with Oedipa Maas' realization of the finality of death, and what inaccessible realms of experience are lost with each individual's death).

:Are you confusing Δ''t'', symbolizing a finite duration, with ''dt,'' a duration shrunk to an infinitesimal? 
(Possibly--my physics/calculus may be rusting. The connection may still hold; note emendation above--thanks. Edit further if necessary!).

'''Davos''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davos Davos] is a municipality in the eastern part of Switzerland. A popular destination for the rich and ailing because its high valley climate has long been considered excellent by doctors for curing lung desease. It is the setting of Thomas Mann's ''The Magic Mountain''. Davos is famous as the host of the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of global political and business elites.

'''Föhn''' 
German. [http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/glossary/fpagegl.shtml#fo Wind] warmed and dried by descent on the lee side of a mountain. Germans even today acknowledge that its presence (say, in Munich) affects mood and emotions.

'''co-conscious with the everyday''' 
again. Linked to creativity here.

'''Ramanujan's Formula''' 
an elegant hyperbolic summation, Ramanujan's formula for the Riemann zeta function evaluated at the odd positive integers. Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_498|page 498: Rumanujan]] didn't come to the attention of Western mathematicians until he wrote to Hardy in late 1912 - early 1913 and travelled to Cambridge in 1914. Is Yashmeen prescient?

==Page 816==

'''''dolce far niente''''' 
Italian: sweet idleness (literally, sweet to do nothing).

'''divided second''' 
A dt.

'''of his entry''' 
Vlado the Impaler?

'''the Karst''' 
Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_811|page 811: the Karst]]. 
Generic "karst topography" takes its name from this area of Slovenia and Italy (locally called ''kras'' and ''carso''). The terrain features limestone with fissures and cavities eroded by water. Caves as well as underground streams and lakes are common.

'''''osmizza''''' 
These are informal eating places out in rural areas, where farmers sell their meats, cheeses, olives and wines.

'''Illyria''' 
The Roman province in which modern Trieste is located.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyria Illyria] was in Clssical antiquity a region in the western part of today's Balkan Peninsula, found by the tribes and clans of Illyrian, an ancient people who spoke the Illyrian languages. Illyria was a formidable local power in the 4th century BC, only after the Roman conquest in 168 BC did Illyria become one of the Roman provinces, Illyricum. In the context "ancient before Illyria" referrs to the period before the Roman conquest.

==Page 817==

'''quiet spaces between trams, unpredictable, even, she imagined, mathematically so''' 
The time of the next tram can't be mathematically predicted (to arbitrary accuracy), but it is possible to describe in mathematical terms the '''way''' in which it's unpredictable. A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution Poisson distribution] expresses the probability that a specific number of trams arrive during a given time interval (but cannot determine the exact arrival time of the next tram).

'''never farther than half a block from the counter-soporific fluid''' 
Perhaps an allusion or parallel to the 21st century ubiquity of Starbucks.

:Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_813|page 813: the Caffe degli Specchi]].

'''''Svr šavam!''''' 
Croatian/Serbian: I'm finishing. Also, implausibly, written ''Svršavam.''

'''Velebit''' 
Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page_326|page 326: Velebit]].
A ridge that runs parallel to the Croatian Adriatic coast a few tens of miles south of Trieste. Lying a short distance inland, it is made up of limestone karst.

==Page 818==

'''Zengg''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Zengg]].

'''Veglia''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krk_(island) Veglia], the second largest Adriatic island, is a Croatian island (''Krk'') in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Fiume.

'''persisted from day to day''' 
The image again of the storm that retains its identity over a long time.

'''Stationary waves''' 
Crests and troughs that don't move. Seen more often where water is flowing (up/downstream of rocks in rapids), but also where waves coming onshore interact with those reflected from the shore.

'''Novlian''' 
A family from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Vinodolski Novi], a town on the Adriatic coast in Croatia about 10 miles north of Zengg (''Senj'') and 22 miles southeast of Fiume (''Rijeka'').

'''Uskok''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Uskok]]. 
Serbian/Croatian: fugitive. Writers even in antiquity noted that piracy was a main economic activity along this coast.

In all, Vlado seems very like the Traverse brothers, set against the modern world, or anyway modern power arrangements, a bit of an anarchist in his own way. But his grievances have historic depth and resonance, more of what Pynchon in ''V.'' called "Temporal Bandwidth".

Uskok is also a place's name.

'''the Argonauts''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts The Argonauts], in Greek mythology, were a band of heroes who, in the years before the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_war Trojan War], accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_fleece Golden Fleece]. Their name comes from their ship ''Argo'' which in turn was named after its builder Argus.

'''Split''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split Split], situated on a small peninsula on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea about 150 miles southeast of Zengg, is the largest and most important city in Dalmatia, Croatia.

'''Clissa''' 
Town from which Vlado Clissan takes his ''nom de guerre.'' Locally called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klis Klis] which is located inland just 5 miles northeast of Split near the eponymous mountain pass. Because of its geographical position, Clissa is susceptible to a rather strong bora wind.

==Page 819==

'''You know the play by Shakespeare, ''The Merchant of Venice''? [...] We keep hoping till the end for Antonio to come to grief.''' 
In ''The Merchant of Venice'', Antonio, the protagonist, is a wealthy merchant in Venice, his wealth coming from the ships he owns, which could easily be at peril from pirates. So, natch, Vlado and his comrades who attack Venetian ships are pulling for the pirates.

'''''mala vita''''' 
bad life

'''palačinka''' 
Croatian for crepe or thin pancake.

==Page 820==

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

ATD 792-820

2007-04-11T19:42:13Z

Jpicco: /* Page 799 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 792==

'''''rishta''-doctors . . . guinea-worms''' 
Fron the context, ''rishta''-doctors means Guinea worm disease doctors. 
During 12th to 13th centuries the word in Arabic-speaking countries for macaroni was ''rishta'', but the context clearly indicates that it means ''worm'', or specifically, ''Guinea worm''. 
The Guinea worm is a threadlike parasitic worm that grows and matures indide the human body growing as long as 3 feet long. After a year, the worm emerges through a painful blister in the skin causing long-term suffering and sometimes crippling after-effect. People get infected when they drink standing water contaning a tiny water flea that is infected with the even tinier larvae of the Guinea worm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis The disease] occurs mainly in Africa.

'''drumfire''' 
Intense, continuous artillery fire, characteristic of the bombardments that preceded the attempted advances on the Western Front in World War I.

'''to get in out of it''' 
A typo? Shoud be "to get out of it"?? Not really: this is actually common English usage; for example, "to get in out of the rain."

==Page 793==

'''Tierra del Fuego''' 
Not exactly the other side of the world, but the closest land to that point. Tierra del Fuego translates as "Land of the Fire."

:This may not be suitable as a permanent feature of the wiki, but there is a strange web site where you can click on a location and see what's exactly on the opposite side of the world: http://map.pequenopolis.com/index.php?lang=en

==Page 794==

'''communicate with the explorer Peary, then in the Arctic''' 
Robert Peary did not even leave New York City at the start of his polar expedition until July 6, 1908, 6 days '''after''' the Tunguska Event of 6-30-08, and did not reach Ellesmere Island until the summer of 1909(see[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_Event] section on Wardenclyffe Tower).
: But this was one of the 'theories' around the time and long after attempting to explain the Tunguska Event. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska event in Wikipedia].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Peary Robert Peary] (1856-1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person to reach the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. He made several attempts to reach the North Pole between 1898 and 1905. His final assault set off from New York City on july 6, 1908 and wintered near
Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island and from there departed for the pole on March 1, 1909. He established Camp Jesup near the Pole on April 6. In his diary for April 7, Peary wrote "The Pole at alst !!! The prize of 3 centuries, ... ''Mine'' at last ..."

'''Tesla . . . his tower at Wardenclyffe''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower] (1901-1917) was an early wireless telecommunications aerial tower intended for commercial wireless trans-Atlantic telephony, broadcasting and to demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wire. The tower was named after James Warden, a lawyer and banker, who had purchased the land in Shoreham, Long Island, about 60 miles from Manhattan. The Tesla Tower was never fully operational and was not completed due to economic problems. The property is now owned by [[Q-weapon_and_Photography#gevaert|Agfa-Gevaert]].

'''Ellsmere Island''' 
Commonly spelled [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellesmere_Island Ellesmere Island]. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and with Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island is the most northerly point of land in Canada. With an area of over 75,000 square miles, it is the world's 10th largest island and Canada's third largest.

'''Brother Tom Swift. He spends more time these days in court than in the laboratory.''' 
Tom Swift is the young protagonist in several series of juvenile adventure novels starting in the early twentieth century and continuing to the present. More exactly, each such series stars a young protagonist named Tom Swift who is a genius inventor and whose breakthroughs in technology (especially transport technology) drive the plots of the novels. Besides the similarity (or "brotherhood") between the adventuring youths, the Chums' stories have titles similar to the Tom Swift novels, eg ''Tom Swift and His Motor Boat; or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa''; ''Tom Swift and His Airship; or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud''; &c &c.

Although the Tom Swift novels weren't published until 1910 an ''apparent'' anachronism we should remember that Tom Swift, in this context, is as "real" as the Chums of Chance, and thus the events in the first novel, ''Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle; or, Fun and Adventure on the Road'' -- which included patent disputes and lawsuits -- would have "happened" prior to the novel being published.

'''Semipalatinsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semey Semipalatinsk] is a city on the Irtysh River, a ''long'' way southwest of Vanavara. Soviet nuclear tests were administered from here.

'''Irbit''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irbit Irbit] is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia on the right bank of the Nitsa River. It is located about 120 miles east of Yekaterinburg.

'''''obstanovka''''' 
Russian: situation.

==Page 795==

'''''Zdorovo!''''' 
Russian: ''hel''lo!

'''Neutral Moresnet''' 
Tiny "country" between Belgium and Germany; existed 1816-1919; see, oh ''do'' see, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Moresnet Wikipedia entry.]

'''''tchudak''''' 
Now transliterated ''chudak.'' Russian: crank.

'''Kiakhta''' 
Or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyakhta ''Kyakhta''], only two syllables. Town on Russian (Buriat)-Mongolian border south of Lake Baikal, a center of Russian trade with China.

'''Not even Russian army does that!''' 
And it cost them dearly in 1914 when intercepted "clear" radio traffic helped the Germans crush them at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_Battle_of_Tannenberg Battle of Tannenberg.]

==Page 796==

'''By dusk . . . running-lights''' 
An enigma. The ordinary way of analyzing it: Make a model, say a flashlight, an orange and a toothpick mooring line with a raisin balloon at the top. As the orange rotates toward the east and the flashlight appears to set in the [http://www.example.com link title]west, what gets dark first? The base of the toothpick, the shadow progressing upward. But the text says the raisin does, the shadow arc moving downward.

It's very curious that immediately following this apparently topsy-turvy paragraph Miles says "As above, so below." Significant?

Are the Chums watching from above?..."as the boys watched"..."as above,so below."?--[User: MKohut] January 28, 2007

:I suggest there's no error, and the "ordinary way" is not the right way to understand the text. It definitely is worth looking for a way that the narration--and Miles' benediction--can be technically as well as thematically correct.

In wizardry (developed from shamanry) Hermes Trismegistus wrote an
Emerald Tablet on which he wrote his wisdom (9-14 precepts).
Sir Isaac Newton translated one precept as:
"That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below."

So, magic?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet Wiki]

--[[User:mrplong]] 13:36, 31 January 2007 (AST)

The only way that the described phenomenon: the order in which the cargo balloons become enshadowed, could be true is if it was the darkness that was advancing as a physical force. It's as if the definitions of light and dark have been reversed. A rising sun (light source) will illuminate the highest objects first, a rising "dark source" would enshadow the highest objects first, too.

In addition to all the other references stated, I believe Miles' comment refers to the cargo balloons and their tethers to the ground, echoing the Inconvenience and its links to its Earth based masters. [mwm]

The precept has been linked to numerology [http://home.online.no/~luneng/999.html]; These words circulate throughout occult and magical circles, and they come from Hermetic texts. The concept was first laid out in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the words "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing."[24]

In accordance with the various levels of reality: physical, mental, and spiritual, this relates that what happens on any level happens on every other. This is however more often used in the sense of the microcosm and the macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) you can understand the other.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism#_note-10]. Card I of the Major Arcana of the Waite Tarot Deck (alluded to throughout AtD) shows The Magician, simultaneously pointing up toward the sky and down toward the earth.

'''Slowly as God's justice''' 
Must be noted given title and everything religious in ATD.

==Page 797==

'''upriver from Vanavara''' 
"Ground zero" of the Event was 40 miles north of Vanavara. Cf [[ATD_768-791#Page_779|page 779: A heavenwide blast of light.]]

'''"simultaneity" . . . Special Relativity''' 
Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905) refutes the idea that two observers seeing two events can ever agree on whether the events were simultaneous. Adopters of the theory (and in 1908 they were all ''early'' adopters) would be asking one another if it applied to this phenomenon.

'''the error of the seismograph recordings . . . singularity''' 
"Error" doesn't mean mistake or wrongness. It measures the variability within each instrument; every measurement comes with a plus-or-minus figure. If the Event happened instantaneously, each of the charts would record it as a more or less spread-out peak. The energy released in a process is calculated from the area under the curve of intensity versus time; to get the power (rate of energy release), divide the energy by the duration of the process. Even though he states the math wrongly, Vanderjuice suspects the seismographs of the world have responded to a titanic release of energy that took place in essentially no time at all, so that power = energy divided by zero. When physicists see a ''real'' process apparently demanding division by zero, they call it a singularity and go looking for an explanation.

'''the equations of history''' 
Perhaps an allusion to Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation Trilogy'', in which the Psychohistorian Harry Selden calculates equations of history. His equations are (seemingly) thrown off by the advent of a mutant with unusual powers that his predictive equations do not take into account--not unlike the advent of the Tunguska Event.

'''Tchernobyl, the star of Revelation''' 
Tchernobyl is the Ukraine translation (perhaps mistranslation) for Wormwood "the destroying star in the book of Revelation" (page 784). And, as we all know, in 1986 there was a a nuclear meltdown of the Ukranian city Chernobyl.

'''something that had not quite happened yet''' 
In short, an Omen. The Tunguska Event could be seen as an omen of the destructive forces unleashed over the entire course of the 20th Century.

'''Circassian slave''' 
Common figure in European literature about the "Lustful Turk." Circassia is a region in the Caucasus. 

In the early 1860s, after Russian conquest of their region of the Caucasus, nearly half a million Circassians migrated to Turkey. Many Circassian women, prized for their beauty, were sold into slavery.

'''teppisti''' 
Italian: hooligans, hoodlums, thugs

==Page 798==

'''Krakatoa''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_506|page 506: Krakatoa]].

'''''mala vita''''' 
Italian: evil life. With more specific reference to Mafia style criminal organizations like the Malavita del Brenta of Venice. There is also a genre of songs glorifying Mafia life called canto di Malavita.

'''brides picotees''' 
A Venetian lace with a hexagonal pattern. French: tickle straps

==Page 799==

'''"Bevis Moistleigh"''' 
Bevis Mostly? Bevis Wetly?
Cf. Sir Bevis from Lang's Red Romance Book around this time. or a Twilight Zone story, Bevis 1960. See Wikipedia. 
Or, see later in ATD, Bevis is an allusion to Beavis & Butthead. [Idiot]

Possibly, given what follows, an allusion to the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, oldest extant Jewish house of worship in Britain [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevis_Marks_Synagogue], but more likely a reference to (p.800)''Bevis,the Story of a Boy.''

'''''macchinette''''' 
Italian for small devices.

'''Glagolitic alphabet''' 
See excellent annotation to [[ATD_243-272#Page_252|page 252]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic_alphabet this].

'''gematria''' 
As described in the text, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is also a number. In the simplest form of Gematria, words, phrases and sentences with eqivalent numerical value are somehow linked, in a way promoting exegesis of Torah and Midrash (Torah commentary). More complex, mystical gematria systems are described in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria].

==Page 800==

'''''fatkeqëse''''' 
Albanian: translated in the text as "disaster." Is this correct?

'''gongs''' 
Medals.

'''Irredentism''' 
A policy appealing to the idea that "our" lands are unredeemed, i.e., ruled by some outsider, and must be brought into our domain. See annotation to "Eurasia Irredenta" ([[ATD_748-767#Page_761|page 761).]]

'''''Bevis . . . the Story of a Boy''''' 
Theign taunts Bevis with the title of a popular novel, ''Bevis: the Story of a Boy'' (1882), by Richard Jefferies. From bits and pieces of the work quoted online (the book is apparently still in print), the narrative style and dialog writing appear similar to what we've seen in the early Chums passages. What's more, themes associated with this and other books by Jefferies (e.g., the beauty of the untouched countryside) align with some of the ''AtD'' themes. Jefferies also published a "post-Apocalypse" novel called ''After London.'' The Jefferies-Pynchon link may merit a closer look.

==Page 801==

'''unprovided for in the future tense of any language''' 
I.e., we have no simple way to describe future events in a chaotic system. You can't say that Chinese butterfly '''will''' cause a windstorm in Brazil.

'''High susceptibility to primordial variables''' 
Chaos theorists talk about "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions."

'''"an emigration of reason itself".......Crusade"''' 
Notice war talk and natural destruction around the Event. 
As well, the Crusades were a series of European Christian attacks on Islam and the Mideast (with the establishment of Crusader Kingdoms), linking the text to 19th and 20th century Imperialist ventures. For a map of the medieval kingdoms, see [http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/crusades/first/crusader_states.jpg]

'''Railway Brain''' 
A recognized disorder at one time, explained in the text following in AtD.

==Page 802==

'''croakers''' 
Slang: doctors, especially quacks.

Also: One who croaks, murmurs, grumbles, or complains
unreasonably; one who habitually forebodes evil.

"Croaker" is a long-established (slang) word for "doctor," and in this passage it is quite clear that the doctors (performing curative activities to earn their fees but not really curing anything) feel they are putting one over on everybody else.

Some online citations: 
:http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19757 
:http://www.whysanity.net/monos/requiem.html 
:http://cancer.iu.edu/news/research/archives/2000/06.pdf ("In the Spotlight," 2nd graf) 
:http://www.classiccrimefiction.com/hardboiled-slang.htm 
:http://www.hobonickels.org/alpert04.htm 
:http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcnewman/definition.html 
:In short, it wasn't the complainers who "thought they were putting one over," it was the quacks who administered expensive treatments for all ills.

:Slang, sic. I see. Another possible multiple TRP meaning, the complaining doctors, esp. quack "shrinks", relatively new at the time?

'''radioactive mud-bath slime''' 
Treatment with naturally radioactive waters from hot springs was thought to cure many ailments. An example of a radioactive hot spring resort in Austria is Badgastein.

'''Mentone''' 
Mentone, Italy or across the border, Menton (Italian name ''Mentone''), France, in the Riviera. In fact there was no Menton, France, for a long time until 1860 the former Grimaldi town of Mentone, Italy, was bought by France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton Menton] is much better known than Mentone; this small town on the Franco-Italian border, about 45 miles northeast of Nice, is the most beautiful town on the French Riviera—''La perle de la France'' (The Pearl of France). It's warm climate makes it a favorite tourist destination. Menton is also a city of gardens; it won the competition for the best city of flowers in France five different times.

'''the boulevard Carnolès''' 
There is a ''Palais Carnolès'' at 3 Avenue de la Madone, Menton (or ''Mentone''). But couldn't locate the Boulevard Carnolès.

'''Mariahilf''' 
The Sixth District of Vienna, known as a shopping district.

==Page 803==

'''midinettes''' 
salesgirls (of Paris).

'''Facharbeiter''' 
German: technician, specialist, skilled worker.

'''Gabika''' 
"Cute" double diminutive for the Hungarian male name Gábor (Gabriel) and also, more commonly, for the female name Gabriella. The ambiguity (also his looks) fits finely the subversion of gender roles in his relationship to Noellyn Fanshawe.

==Page 804==

'''Maida Vale''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maida_Vale Maida Vale] is a street in north-west London. The area, also known as Little Venice, is mostly residential and often extremely affluent.

'''eleven''' 
Vienna is 86 degrees west of the Event, more or less. Converting longitude to time at 15 degrees = 1 hour, we get a time difference of 5 hours 44 minutes. At 7:17 a.m. Event time, it was 1:33 a.m. in Vienna. Now, at 11:00 p.m. the same day, Vienna time, it is 21 hours and 27 minutes after the event. The atmospheric effect has propagated west (possibly against the high-level winds?) from Siberia to Central Europe in quite a short time. All these numbers are rough!

==Page 805==

'''prepare them against the day''' 
Here the phrase means "in anticipation of" or "to be ready for." 
And more. Thematic.
Given what has been said about the Tunguska Event, colored by accounts of the atmospheric effects of the Krakatoa eruption,highly suggestive of Judgment Day.

'''against the day''' 
I shoulda been keepin' notes, dammit! I am sure that regularly through the book I have been spotting deliberate sentences ending with "... ''something'' the day"...but not, until now, with "''against'' the day". And a few score pages ago I'm sure there was a sentence what ended w' "...against the night...", then Tunguska happens, and we now need to be wary o'the day..?

==Page 806==

'''Toward the end of October all Hell broke loose . . . annex Bosnia''' 
The Bosnian Crisis began with the fear on the part of Austria-Hungary of possible reverses of Turkish concessions since the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 by the newly-resurgent Young Turk movement. The answer to this was annexation of Bosnia, which it had ruled as a colony since 1878. Knowing such a move would be opposed by Serbia, in turn supported by Russia, the Austrians offered to support the right of Russia to move warships through the Bosporus, and to support a declaration of independence from Turkey by Bulgaria. This provoked a general crisis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Crisis] from which Serbia had to back down, lacking Russian support. All had been settled in secret meetings in the months before; the Bulgarian (Glagolitic) traffic intercepted by Bevis Moistleigh, above, is thus explained. So is the sense of Grand Conspiracy; all the Great Powers were eventuallly involved. 
See [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos127.htm The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1908.]

'''coconut-shy''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_shy A coconut shy] (or coconut shie) is a traditional game frequently found as a sidestall at funfairs and fêtes. The game consists of throwing wooden balls at a row of coconuts balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins each coconut successfully dislodged. In some cases other prizes may be won instead of the coconuts.
The origins of the game are unclear, although the term is first listed in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1903.
The word 'shy' in this context is a colloquial English term, meaning 'to throw' or toss.

'''šljivovica''' 
One of the spellings of this word for plum brandy (also slivovica, slivovitz, etc.).

'''one to fifty million . . . mile-to-the-inch sheets''' 
Two extremes of mapmaking. A 1:50,000,000 map of the United States would fit comfortably on a page of ''AtD'' with most of Mexico and several Canadian provinces. Austria-Hungary at that scale would be about as big as your two thumbprints side by side.

The British Ordnance Survey produced a famous series of inch-to-the-mile sheets (1:63,360); the detail is about fine enough to show the left-turn lane of a city street. At this scale it would take some 200 unhandily large sheets to cover Austria-Hungary.

'''Decisions of the utmost gravity''' 
that lead to Gravity's rainbows'''

==Page 807==

'''Major B. F. Vumb''' 
Major Bum Fuck Vumb, as in Dumb? Another Pynchonian V-name
with the usual associations.

'''''Judensau''''' 
German: Jewish pig.

'''the Vienna Woods''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienerwald The Vienna Woods] is a low, wooded section of the Alps in eastern Lower Austria and far into the city of Vienna, covering over nearly 390 square miles and including the northermost parts of the entire Alpine chain. It is a favourite outdoor destination for people living around Vienna.

'''Christian Socialists . . . Dr. Karl Lueger''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lueger Karl Lueger] (pronounced in three syllables, LOO eh ger) (1844-1910) was a Viennese politician, Burgomeister (mayor) of Vienna, and founder of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party. He was a role model for Adolf Hitler.

'''Reichsrath''' 
Austrian parliament.

'''''Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich''''' 
German: as translated in text.

'''''der schöne'' Karl''' 
German: the handsome, or the nice, Karl. Deeply sarcastic.

==Page 808==

'''"Well actually . . ."''' 
Shanghai, which because of its international status did not require a passport or visa for entry, would become a refuge for Jews made stateless by Nazi Germany or were otherwise refugees in the 1930s. Many tens of thousands were able to reach it, and survived the war and the Holocaust under Japanese occupation. Large numbers reached it using so-called Sugihara Passports, letters of transit issued by the Japanese vice-consul to Lithuania in 1940, with the connivance of Dutch diplomats[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugihara]. Obviously an anachronism, but actually...this is about portents and other bends in Time, perhaps things that echo up and down the Timelines (ours and alternates).

'''Graz''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_519|page 519: Graz]].

'''Elefant Hotel''' 
The only listed Elefant Hotel in Austria, a building described as "ancient", is in Salzburg, not Graz; it is currently a Best Western. There is also a Hotel Elefant in Prague, once part ot the Empire; perhaps there was a chain?

'''. . . common Anglo-Habsburg interests...''' 
All the Great Powers found ways to benefit from the Bosnian Crisis, perhaps explaining Theign providing Italian naval decodes to the Austrians. Or, as Latewood accuses below, he is a double agent; McHugh is at least suspicious here. Either way, sending Latewood and Moistleigh on a suicide mission to Bosnia is one way to cover his tracks.

'''Murgasse''' 
Street in Graz. The Murgasse was first mentioned in a document from 1346. The part of town to the south was occupied by the farmers.
Murgasse
8490 Bad Radkersburg, Austria

==Page 809==

'''the Treaty of Berlin''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: the Treaty of Berlin]].

'''Novi Pazar''' 
Novi Pazar also figures briefly in ''GR'' (P.14-15, Viking eds.): "...on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe" The Novi Pazar desk is manned by Lord Blatherard Osmo. The crisis passed, but Lord Osmo has an adenoid, and this mucoid "lymphatic monster", now independently alive in 1939, is confronted by an agent of The Firm (an outfit very like its temporal predecessor the T.W.I.T. in its interests in the paranormal) , one "Pirate" Prentice; it is "now as big as St Paul's and growing by the hour" threatening all London, but confined successfully--leading to Lord Osmo's neglect of Novi Pazar...A bizarre satiric experience of Crisis Management by Great Power foreign ministries, and the literally sticky mess they created. Currently, some obscure ex-Ottoman sanjaks, cobbled together as Iraq in 1919, are something of a hinge of history; another paramorphic mirroring of 1900/2000.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Pazar Novi Pazar] is now a city of Serbia, about 110 miles directly south of Belgrade. Its name means "a new bazaar" in the local language. It was administered by Austria-Hungary from 1878 to 1908, and by Turkey (Ottoman Empire) from 1908 to 1912, and by Serbia 1912 to now.

'''Constantinople''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople Constantinople] was the capital of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261) and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922). It is strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara on the Bosphorous Strait. It extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) side of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world which is situated on two continents. It was officially renamed to Istanbul in 1930.

'''the Young Turks with their revolution''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks The Young Turks] was a coalition of various reform groups in favor of reforming the administration of Ottoman Empire. Their movement brought about the second constitutional era through a revolution against the monarchy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turk_Revolution The Young Turk Revolution] of 1908 restored the suspended parliament and was a landmark in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Revolution arose from the Ottoman peoples' near-universal opposition to the tyranny and corruption of the Sultan, which forged an unlikely union of reform-minded pluralists, Turkish nationalists, and Western-oriented secularists.

'''the vile Aerenthal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Lexa_von_Aehrenthal Aloys (or Alois) von Aerenthal] (1854-1912), Austrian foreign minister (1906-1912) who engineered the annexation of Bosnia in 1908.

'''in three-quarter time''' 
Waltzes are in 3/4 time and so the national powers are waltzing into a European war. Note the chain-like sliding/closing/turning step sequence in Viennese Waltz, and also the rhythm itself represented by the repeated dactyl "and so on, and so on".

Two plausible references: events driven by Vienna, the world's waltz capital, and a dark comic song recorded by the Kingston Trio in the 1960s: "Merry Minuet." In 3/4 time, it includes lyrics commenting on ethnic hatred, irredentism and inevitable nuclear catastrophe.

In fact, the sequence of events described here as a possibility in 1908 were realized in 1914, when Russia, in the crisis provoked by a Serbian youth group's assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, this time backed Serbia, resulting in the cascade of troop mobilizations that became World War I.

'''Mitrovitsa''' 
A Serbian town near the Turkish-Serbian border (now in Kosovo), about 25 miles southeast of Novi Pazar and 140 miles southeast of Sarajevo. The full Serbian name now is Kosovska Mitrovica, the Albanian name is Mitrovicë, and the population is mostly Albanian nowadays. (Some precognition about Novi Pazar.)

'''a railroad link from Sarajebo to Mitrovitsa, and thus to the Ægean Sea''' 
A railroad of 210 miles long linking Mitrovitsa (Turkish-Serbian border) throuhg Skopje (Macedonia) to Salonica (Greece) by the Ægean Sea alredy existed since December 1874.

'''Isvolsky''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Izvolski Alexander Petrovich Izvolsky] (Izvolski, Izvolskii) (1856-1919), Russian foreign minister (1906-1910), a major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente, who on September 15, 1908, traded Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria in exchange for Austria's help in opening the Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian ships. Pynchon's spelling may well be from a contemporary source; consistent transliteration is a more recent fetish.

'''Grey''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon Sir Edward Grey] (1862-1933), British Foreign Secretary 1905-16. He was the other major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente (1907).

'''The Dardanelles''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelles The Dardanelles], an international waterway, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It separates Europe (Gallipoli peninsula) and the mainland of Asia. With the Bosporus, Dardanelles connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

==Page 810==

'''It's like having the lights brought up for a bit...''' 
As the crisis wound down to war in 1914, Sir Edward Grey (still Foreign Minister) is famously quoted as having said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon]

'''Vlado Clissan''' 
His name comes from his hometown of Clissa, but this is the Italian name of the place. In Serbo-Croatian it is ''Klis.'' A pseudonym?

'''Blutwurst Special''' 
German: blood sausage.

'''toad-in-the-hole''' 
a traditional British dish. It consists of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy.

==Page 811==

'''"iron convergences and receding signal-lamps"''' 
our 'free choices' in . . . life; so ironic at this point.

Kurt Vonnegut, in ''Slaughterhouse Five'', described the human point of view as from consciousness strapped to a railroad car, forever facing only backward; from this vantage, history looks single and inevitable, whereas in reality the train of history is moving over unknown numbers of (from this perspective unseen) switch points, the settings of which are in fact changeable (the more complex view being taken by an extraterrestrial species, the Tralfamadorians, who can see forward to the many possibilities), alternate histories possible at every switch. The character Pointsman in ''GR'' in some ways embodies these possibilities.

'''The Semmering tunnel''' 
It refers to the Semmering mountain-peak tunnel of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Railway the Semmering Railway]. The tunnel, with a length of 4,700 ft, was opened on May 15, 1854. (A new Semmering tunnel, through the mountain base, was built in 1952). The Semmering Railway, having a total of 15 tunnels, is a part of the Austrian Souther Railway (Südbahn) connecting Vienna to Trieste. The world's first mountain railway with a standard gauge, it was built between 1848 and 1854 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

'''the Mur Valley''' 
The valley of the Mur River which, about 300 miles long, runs through the south-central Austria, northeast Slovenia and northern Croatia, where it flows into the Drava River. The biggest city in the Mur Valley is Graz, Austria.

'''Slavonian''' 
Today the name applies to the eastern part of Croatia, but a map will confirm that the route passes through the Slovenian plain. Writers before the World War must have had difficulty keeping Slovenia, Slovakia and Slavonia straight, especially since all were inhabited by Slavonic peoples.

'''the Slavonian plain''' 
The Slavonian plain is a fertile agricultural lowland in eastern Croatia and beyond. It is part of the larger Pannonia plain. It includes three primary rivers: the Drava in the north and the Sava in the south and the Danube in the east. The area between the Sava and Drava rivers and bounded on the east by the Hungarian border is the historical region Slavonia forming the eastern part of Croatia.

'''Ljubljana''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubljana Ljubljana] is the capital of Slovenia. It is also the cultural and economical center of the country. It is located in central Slovenia.

'''the Karst''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kras The Karst] is a limestone borderline plateau region of southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It rises quite steeply above the neighboring landscape and is famous for its caves including Vilenica in Slovenia, the oldest tourist cave in the world. In addition to caves, erosion has produced in the Karst fissures, sinkholes and underground streams.

'''Općina''' 
A village about 4 miles northeast of Trieste.

'''the Piazza Grande''' 
Trieste's central square, a great rectangle lined on three sides by stately imperial buildings, its fourth, short side, revealing the Adriatic sea.

'''the Piazza Cavana''' 
Trieste's "Nighttown" before World War I.

'''Austrian double''' 
Latewood, in light of Theign's treatment of Yashmeen, and the apparent passing of Italian naval decrypts to Austria, accuses Theign of being an Austrain double agent.

==Page 812==

'''a Fortuny gown''' 
[http://www.chick.net/proust/fortuny.html Mariano Fortuny] (1871-1949), a Spanish fashion designer worked mostly in Venice, created some of the most remarkable fabrics and dresses of 20th century. His pleated silk gowns and velvet cloaks are regarded by collectors and museums around the world as the unique expression and embodiment of a craft at its best. He was one of the source of inspiration to Marcel Proust.

'''Mestre Bridge''' 
Mestre is a town in Veneto, northern Italy, a frazione of the comune of Venice. Located on the mainland,the city is connected to Venice by a large rail and road bridge, called Ponte della Libertà (Freedom Bridge). Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|Page 706: Mestre bridge]].

'''Cloisters Court''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_490|page 490: Cloisters Court]].

'''King's''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_497|page 497: King's]]

==Page 813==

''''And England's far, and honour a name'''' 
Cyprian quoting from the 1897 poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada"]] ("They Pass the Torch of Life") by Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938), previously quoted on page 236 [[ATD_219-242#Page_236|(also see annotation)]].

'''"honour"''' 
Cf. Falstaff on.

'''the Caffè degli Specchi''' 
Trieste was one of the first European cities took to coffee in a big way.
It is the leading coffee port on the Mediterranean and is renowned for its cafes and coffee. The first coffe houses in Trieste opened at the beginning of the 18th century. They become very popular with artists and intellecturals. Several of the original coffe houses are still going strong; the Caffè degli Specchi, located in the Piazza Unità d'Italia and opened since 1839, is one of them.

==Page 814==

'''Lateeners''' 
A lateener is a boat with a lateen sail: a triangular sail with one edge tied to a long spar, which is supported in the middle on a mast.

'''''Strichmädchen''''' 
German: streetwalker.

'''LLoyd Austriaco''' 
A ship line. Lloyd Triestino was formed in 1919 as the successor to Lloyd Austriaco following the incorporation of Trieste into the Kingdom of Italy on January 3rd 1919.

'''Molo San Carlo''' 
A pier (''molo'') in Trieste. See [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Molo_San_Carlo.jpg Molo San Carlo']picture around 1900.

==Page 815==

'''"Nimrod" . . . from Elgar's ''Enigma Variations''''' 
"Nimrod" is the ninth section of this major 1899 work by English composer Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Like the other 13 sections, it characterizes a family friend; this one is A. J. Jaeger (whose name means "hunter" in German, hence "Nimrod," the name of a hunter mentioned in the Bible). [http://www.elgar.org/3enigma.htm Here is a very good description of the work and "Nimrod" in particular.]

The "Nimrod" variation is perhaps the most poignant of the piece; it rises to a cresendo and slowly, sadly, fades; an anthem for the fading of the 19th century.

'''"La Gazza Ladra"''' 
Overture by Rossini to an opera whose title means "The Thieving Magpie." It is as bright and impersonal as "Nimrod" is serious and sentimental.

'''"The Volga Boatmen" . . . "Auld Lang Syne"''' 
The puzzle in the "Enigma" Variations is this: Variations are based on a theme, but Elgar never states the theme; what is the melody? These are two of the popular guesses.

'''Gonzalo''' 
Gonzalo who?

'''Millicent''' 
? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millicent_Fawcett Millicent Fawcett] (1847-1929), a British suffragist and an early feminist. Is this the right person?

'''Δt''' 
Mathematical symbol used to represent a short length of time.

In addition, Pynchon is very concerned with dt,(little delta-t) the time differential, an infinitesimal change in time; to quote Pynchon from ''Lot 49'' (Lippincott, 1965 p.129): "a vanishingly small instant in which change had to be confronted at last for what it was, where it could no longer disguise itself as something innocuous like an average rate; where the velocity dwelled in the projectile though the projectile be frozen in midflight, where death dwelled in the cell though the cell be looked in on at its most quick." But, the paragraph goes on, "dt" also suggests DTs, Delirium Tremens (alcohol withdrawal) a state giving access to hallucinatory experiences, "spectra beyond the known Sun, music made purely of Antarctic loneliness and fright." Which is the general mood in the wake of the Tunguska Event and the Bosnian Crisis, or should be, if the characters were not so dutifully repressing it. (In ''Lot 49'' the realization of the dt/DTs connection has to do with Oedipa Maas' realization of the finality of death, and what inaccessible realms of experience are lost with each individual's death).

:Are you confusing Δ''t'', symbolizing a finite duration, with ''dt,'' a duration shrunk to an infinitesimal? 
(Possibly--my physics/calculus may be rusting. The connection may still hold; note emendation above--thanks. Edit further if necessary!).

'''Davos''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davos Davos] is a municipality in the eastern part of Switzerland. A popular destination for the rich and ailing because its high valley climate has long been considered excellent by doctors for curing lung desease. It is the setting of Thomas Mann's ''The Magic Mountain''. Davos is famous as the host of the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of global political and business elites.

'''Föhn''' 
German. [http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/glossary/fpagegl.shtml#fo Wind] warmed and dried by descent on the lee side of a mountain. Germans even today acknowledge that its presence (say, in Munich) affects mood and emotions.

'''co-conscious with the everyday''' 
again. Linked to creativity here.

'''Ramanujan's Formula''' 
an elegant hyperbolic summation, Ramanujan's formula for the Riemann zeta function evaluated at the odd positive integers. Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_498|page 498: Rumanujan]] didn't come to the attention of Western mathematicians until he wrote to Hardy in late 1912 - early 1913 and travelled to Cambridge in 1914. Is Yashmeen prescient?

==Page 816==

'''''dolce far niente''''' 
Italian: sweet idleness (literally, sweet to do nothing).

'''divided second''' 
A dt.

'''of his entry''' 
Vlado the Impaler?

'''the Karst''' 
Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_811|page 811: the Karst]]. 
Generic "karst topography" takes its name from this area of Slovenia and Italy (locally called ''kras'' and ''carso''). The terrain features limestone with fissures and cavities eroded by water. Caves as well as underground streams and lakes are common.

'''''osmizza''''' 
These are informal eating places out in rural areas, where farmers sell their meats, cheeses, olives and wines.

'''Illyria''' 
The Roman province in which modern Trieste is located.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyria Illyria] was in Clssical antiquity a region in the western part of today's Balkan Peninsula, found by the tribes and clans of Illyrian, an ancient people who spoke the Illyrian languages. Illyria was a formidable local power in the 4th century BC, only after the Roman conquest in 168 BC did Illyria become one of the Roman provinces, Illyricum. In the context "ancient before Illyria" referrs to the period before the Roman conquest.

==Page 817==

'''quiet spaces between trams, unpredictable, even, she imagined, mathematically so''' 
The time of the next tram can't be mathematically predicted (to arbitrary accuracy), but it is possible to describe in mathematical terms the '''way''' in which it's unpredictable. A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution Poisson distribution] expresses the probability that a specific number of trams arrive during a given time interval (but cannot determine the exact arrival time of the next tram).

'''never farther than half a block from the counter-soporific fluid''' 
Perhaps an allusion or parallel to the 21st century ubiquity of Starbucks.

:Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_813|page 813: the Caffe degli Specchi]].

'''''Svr šavam!''''' 
Croatian/Serbian: I'm finishing. Also, implausibly, written ''Svršavam.''

'''Velebit''' 
Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page_326|page 326: Velebit]].
A ridge that runs parallel to the Croatian Adriatic coast a few tens of miles south of Trieste. Lying a short distance inland, it is made up of limestone karst.

==Page 818==

'''Zengg''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Zengg]].

'''Veglia''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krk_(island) Veglia], the second largest Adriatic island, is a Croatian island (''Krk'') in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Fiume.

'''persisted from day to day''' 
The image again of the storm that retains its identity over a long time.

'''Stationary waves''' 
Crests and troughs that don't move. Seen more often where water is flowing (up/downstream of rocks in rapids), but also where waves coming onshore interact with those reflected from the shore.

'''Novlian''' 
A family from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Vinodolski Novi], a town on the Adriatic coast in Croatia about 10 miles north of Zengg (''Senj'') and 22 miles southeast of Fiume (''Rijeka'').

'''Uskok''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Uskok]]. 
Serbian/Croatian: fugitive. Writers even in antiquity noted that piracy was a main economic activity along this coast.

In all, Vlado seems very like the Traverse brothers, set against the modern world, or anyway modern power arrangements, a bit of an anarchist in his own way. But his grievances have historic depth and resonance, more of what Pynchon in ''V.'' called "Temporal Bandwidth".

Uskok is also a place's name.

'''the Argonauts''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts The Argonauts], in Greek mythology, were a band of heroes who, in the years before the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_war Trojan War], accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_fleece Golden Fleece]. Their name comes from their ship ''Argo'' which in turn was named after its builder Argus.

'''Split''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split Split], situated on a small peninsula on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea about 150 miles southeast of Zengg, is the largest and most important city in Dalmatia, Croatia.

'''Clissa''' 
Town from which Vlado Clissan takes his ''nom de guerre.'' Locally called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klis Klis] which is located inland just 5 miles northeast of Split near the eponymous mountain pass. Because of its geographical position, Clissa is susceptible to a rather strong bora wind.

==Page 819==

'''You know the play by Shakespeare, ''The Merchant of Venice''? [...] We keep hoping till the end for Antonio to come to grief.''' 
In ''The Merchant of Venice'', Antonio, the protagonist, is a wealthy merchant in Venice, his wealth coming from the ships he owns, which could easily be at peril from pirates. So, natch, Vlado and his comrades who attack Venetian ships are pulling for the pirates.

'''''mala vita''''' 
bad life

'''palačinka''' 
Croatian for crepe or thin pancake.

==Page 820==

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

ATD 792-820

2007-04-11T19:35:18Z

Jpicco: /* Page 799 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 792==

'''''rishta''-doctors . . . guinea-worms''' 
Fron the context, ''rishta''-doctors means Guinea worm disease doctors. 
During 12th to 13th centuries the word in Arabic-speaking countries for macaroni was ''rishta'', but the context clearly indicates that it means ''worm'', or specifically, ''Guinea worm''. 
The Guinea worm is a threadlike parasitic worm that grows and matures indide the human body growing as long as 3 feet long. After a year, the worm emerges through a painful blister in the skin causing long-term suffering and sometimes crippling after-effect. People get infected when they drink standing water contaning a tiny water flea that is infected with the even tinier larvae of the Guinea worm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracunculiasis The disease] occurs mainly in Africa.

'''drumfire''' 
Intense, continuous artillery fire, characteristic of the bombardments that preceded the attempted advances on the Western Front in World War I.

'''to get in out of it''' 
A typo? Shoud be "to get out of it"?? Not really: this is actually common English usage; for example, "to get in out of the rain."

==Page 793==

'''Tierra del Fuego''' 
Not exactly the other side of the world, but the closest land to that point. Tierra del Fuego translates as "Land of the Fire."

:This may not be suitable as a permanent feature of the wiki, but there is a strange web site where you can click on a location and see what's exactly on the opposite side of the world: http://map.pequenopolis.com/index.php?lang=en

==Page 794==

'''communicate with the explorer Peary, then in the Arctic''' 
Robert Peary did not even leave New York City at the start of his polar expedition until July 6, 1908, 6 days '''after''' the Tunguska Event of 6-30-08, and did not reach Ellesmere Island until the summer of 1909(see[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_Event] section on Wardenclyffe Tower).
: But this was one of the 'theories' around the time and long after attempting to explain the Tunguska Event. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska event in Wikipedia].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Peary Robert Peary] (1856-1920) was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person to reach the geographic North Pole on April 6, 1909. He made several attempts to reach the North Pole between 1898 and 1905. His final assault set off from New York City on july 6, 1908 and wintered near
Cape Sheridan on Ellesmere Island and from there departed for the pole on March 1, 1909. He established Camp Jesup near the Pole on April 6. In his diary for April 7, Peary wrote "The Pole at alst !!! The prize of 3 centuries, ... ''Mine'' at last ..."

'''Tesla . . . his tower at Wardenclyffe''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower Nikola Tesla's Wardenclyffe Tower] (1901-1917) was an early wireless telecommunications aerial tower intended for commercial wireless trans-Atlantic telephony, broadcasting and to demonstrate the transmission of power without interconnecting wire. The tower was named after James Warden, a lawyer and banker, who had purchased the land in Shoreham, Long Island, about 60 miles from Manhattan. The Tesla Tower was never fully operational and was not completed due to economic problems. The property is now owned by [[Q-weapon_and_Photography#gevaert|Agfa-Gevaert]].

'''Ellsmere Island''' 
Commonly spelled [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellesmere_Island Ellesmere Island]. Lying within the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and with Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island is the most northerly point of land in Canada. With an area of over 75,000 square miles, it is the world's 10th largest island and Canada's third largest.

'''Brother Tom Swift. He spends more time these days in court than in the laboratory.''' 
Tom Swift is the young protagonist in several series of juvenile adventure novels starting in the early twentieth century and continuing to the present. More exactly, each such series stars a young protagonist named Tom Swift who is a genius inventor and whose breakthroughs in technology (especially transport technology) drive the plots of the novels. Besides the similarity (or "brotherhood") between the adventuring youths, the Chums' stories have titles similar to the Tom Swift novels, eg ''Tom Swift and His Motor Boat; or, The Rivals of Lake Carlopa''; ''Tom Swift and His Airship; or, The Stirring Cruise of the Red Cloud''; &c &c.

Although the Tom Swift novels weren't published until 1910 an ''apparent'' anachronism we should remember that Tom Swift, in this context, is as "real" as the Chums of Chance, and thus the events in the first novel, ''Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle; or, Fun and Adventure on the Road'' -- which included patent disputes and lawsuits -- would have "happened" prior to the novel being published.

'''Semipalatinsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semey Semipalatinsk] is a city on the Irtysh River, a ''long'' way southwest of Vanavara. Soviet nuclear tests were administered from here.

'''Irbit''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irbit Irbit] is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia on the right bank of the Nitsa River. It is located about 120 miles east of Yekaterinburg.

'''''obstanovka''''' 
Russian: situation.

==Page 795==

'''''Zdorovo!''''' 
Russian: ''hel''lo!

'''Neutral Moresnet''' 
Tiny "country" between Belgium and Germany; existed 1816-1919; see, oh ''do'' see, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Moresnet Wikipedia entry.]

'''''tchudak''''' 
Now transliterated ''chudak.'' Russian: crank.

'''Kiakhta''' 
Or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyakhta ''Kyakhta''], only two syllables. Town on Russian (Buriat)-Mongolian border south of Lake Baikal, a center of Russian trade with China.

'''Not even Russian army does that!''' 
And it cost them dearly in 1914 when intercepted "clear" radio traffic helped the Germans crush them at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_Battle_of_Tannenberg Battle of Tannenberg.]

==Page 796==

'''By dusk . . . running-lights''' 
An enigma. The ordinary way of analyzing it: Make a model, say a flashlight, an orange and a toothpick mooring line with a raisin balloon at the top. As the orange rotates toward the east and the flashlight appears to set in the [http://www.example.com link title]west, what gets dark first? The base of the toothpick, the shadow progressing upward. But the text says the raisin does, the shadow arc moving downward.

It's very curious that immediately following this apparently topsy-turvy paragraph Miles says "As above, so below." Significant?

Are the Chums watching from above?..."as the boys watched"..."as above,so below."?--[User: MKohut] January 28, 2007

:I suggest there's no error, and the "ordinary way" is not the right way to understand the text. It definitely is worth looking for a way that the narration--and Miles' benediction--can be technically as well as thematically correct.

In wizardry (developed from shamanry) Hermes Trismegistus wrote an
Emerald Tablet on which he wrote his wisdom (9-14 precepts).
Sir Isaac Newton translated one precept as:
"That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below."

So, magic?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Tablet Wiki]

--[[User:mrplong]] 13:36, 31 January 2007 (AST)

The only way that the described phenomenon: the order in which the cargo balloons become enshadowed, could be true is if it was the darkness that was advancing as a physical force. It's as if the definitions of light and dark have been reversed. A rising sun (light source) will illuminate the highest objects first, a rising "dark source" would enshadow the highest objects first, too.

In addition to all the other references stated, I believe Miles' comment refers to the cargo balloons and their tethers to the ground, echoing the Inconvenience and its links to its Earth based masters. [mwm]

The precept has been linked to numerology [http://home.online.no/~luneng/999.html]; These words circulate throughout occult and magical circles, and they come from Hermetic texts. The concept was first laid out in The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, in the words "That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One Thing."[24]

In accordance with the various levels of reality: physical, mental, and spiritual, this relates that what happens on any level happens on every other. This is however more often used in the sense of the microcosm and the macrocosm. The microcosm is oneself, and the macrocosm is the universe. The macrocosm is as the microcosm, and vice versa; within each lies the other, and through understanding one (usually the microcosm) you can understand the other.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism#_note-10]. Card I of the Major Arcana of the Waite Tarot Deck (alluded to throughout AtD) shows The Magician, simultaneously pointing up toward the sky and down toward the earth.

'''Slowly as God's justice''' 
Must be noted given title and everything religious in ATD.

==Page 797==

'''upriver from Vanavara''' 
"Ground zero" of the Event was 40 miles north of Vanavara. Cf [[ATD_768-791#Page_779|page 779: A heavenwide blast of light.]]

'''"simultaneity" . . . Special Relativity''' 
Einstein's special theory of relativity (1905) refutes the idea that two observers seeing two events can ever agree on whether the events were simultaneous. Adopters of the theory (and in 1908 they were all ''early'' adopters) would be asking one another if it applied to this phenomenon.

'''the error of the seismograph recordings . . . singularity''' 
"Error" doesn't mean mistake or wrongness. It measures the variability within each instrument; every measurement comes with a plus-or-minus figure. If the Event happened instantaneously, each of the charts would record it as a more or less spread-out peak. The energy released in a process is calculated from the area under the curve of intensity versus time; to get the power (rate of energy release), divide the energy by the duration of the process. Even though he states the math wrongly, Vanderjuice suspects the seismographs of the world have responded to a titanic release of energy that took place in essentially no time at all, so that power = energy divided by zero. When physicists see a ''real'' process apparently demanding division by zero, they call it a singularity and go looking for an explanation.

'''the equations of history''' 
Perhaps an allusion to Isaac Asimov's ''Foundation Trilogy'', in which the Psychohistorian Harry Selden calculates equations of history. His equations are (seemingly) thrown off by the advent of a mutant with unusual powers that his predictive equations do not take into account--not unlike the advent of the Tunguska Event.

'''Tchernobyl, the star of Revelation''' 
Tchernobyl is the Ukraine translation (perhaps mistranslation) for Wormwood "the destroying star in the book of Revelation" (page 784). And, as we all know, in 1986 there was a a nuclear meltdown of the Ukranian city Chernobyl.

'''something that had not quite happened yet''' 
In short, an Omen. The Tunguska Event could be seen as an omen of the destructive forces unleashed over the entire course of the 20th Century.

'''Circassian slave''' 
Common figure in European literature about the "Lustful Turk." Circassia is a region in the Caucasus. 

In the early 1860s, after Russian conquest of their region of the Caucasus, nearly half a million Circassians migrated to Turkey. Many Circassian women, prized for their beauty, were sold into slavery.

'''teppisti''' 
Italian: hooligans, hoodlums, thugs

==Page 798==

'''Krakatoa''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_506|page 506: Krakatoa]].

'''''mala vita''''' 
Italian: evil life. With more specific reference to Mafia style criminal organizations like the Malavita del Brenta of Venice. There is also a genre of songs glorifying Mafia life called canto di Malavita.

'''brides picotees''' 
A Venetian lace with a hexagonal pattern. French: tickle straps

==Page 799==

'''"Bevis Moistleigh"''' 
Bevis Mostly? Bevis Wetly?
Cf. Sir Bevis from Lang's Red Romance Book around this time. or a Twilight Zone story, Bevis 1960. See Wikipedia. 
Or, see later in ATD, Bevis is an allusion to Beavis & Butthead. [Idiot]

Possibly, given what follows, an allusion to the Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, oldest extant Jewish house of worship in Britain [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevis_Marks_Synagogue], but more likely a reference to (p.800)''Bevis,the Story of a Boy.''

'''''macchinette''''' 
Italian for small devices.

'''Glagolitic alphabet''' 
See excellent annotation to [[ATD_243-272#Page_252|page 252]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic_alphabet this].

'''gematria''' 
As described in the text, each letter of teh Hebrew alphabet is also a number. In the simplest form of Gematria, words, phrases and sentences with eqivalent numerical value are somehow linked, in a way promoting exegesis of Torah and Midrash (Torah commentary). More complex, mystical gematria systems are described in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria].

==Page 800==

'''''fatkeqëse''''' 
Albanian: translated in the text as "disaster." Is this correct?

'''gongs''' 
Medals.

'''Irredentism''' 
A policy appealing to the idea that "our" lands are unredeemed, i.e., ruled by some outsider, and must be brought into our domain. See annotation to "Eurasia Irredenta" ([[ATD_748-767#Page_761|page 761).]]

'''''Bevis . . . the Story of a Boy''''' 
Theign taunts Bevis with the title of a popular novel, ''Bevis: the Story of a Boy'' (1882), by Richard Jefferies. From bits and pieces of the work quoted online (the book is apparently still in print), the narrative style and dialog writing appear similar to what we've seen in the early Chums passages. What's more, themes associated with this and other books by Jefferies (e.g., the beauty of the untouched countryside) align with some of the ''AtD'' themes. Jefferies also published a "post-Apocalypse" novel called ''After London.'' The Jefferies-Pynchon link may merit a closer look.

==Page 801==

'''unprovided for in the future tense of any language''' 
I.e., we have no simple way to describe future events in a chaotic system. You can't say that Chinese butterfly '''will''' cause a windstorm in Brazil.

'''High susceptibility to primordial variables''' 
Chaos theorists talk about "extreme sensitivity to initial conditions."

'''"an emigration of reason itself".......Crusade"''' 
Notice war talk and natural destruction around the Event. 
As well, the Crusades were a series of European Christian attacks on Islam and the Mideast (with the establishment of Crusader Kingdoms), linking the text to 19th and 20th century Imperialist ventures. For a map of the medieval kingdoms, see [http://www.medievaltymes.com/courtyard/images/crusades/first/crusader_states.jpg]

'''Railway Brain''' 
A recognized disorder at one time, explained in the text following in AtD.

==Page 802==

'''croakers''' 
Slang: doctors, especially quacks.

Also: One who croaks, murmurs, grumbles, or complains
unreasonably; one who habitually forebodes evil.

"Croaker" is a long-established (slang) word for "doctor," and in this passage it is quite clear that the doctors (performing curative activities to earn their fees but not really curing anything) feel they are putting one over on everybody else.

Some online citations: 
:http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=19757 
:http://www.whysanity.net/monos/requiem.html 
:http://cancer.iu.edu/news/research/archives/2000/06.pdf ("In the Spotlight," 2nd graf) 
:http://www.classiccrimefiction.com/hardboiled-slang.htm 
:http://www.hobonickels.org/alpert04.htm 
:http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jcnewman/definition.html 
:In short, it wasn't the complainers who "thought they were putting one over," it was the quacks who administered expensive treatments for all ills.

:Slang, sic. I see. Another possible multiple TRP meaning, the complaining doctors, esp. quack "shrinks", relatively new at the time?

'''radioactive mud-bath slime''' 
Treatment with naturally radioactive waters from hot springs was thought to cure many ailments. An example of a radioactive hot spring resort in Austria is Badgastein.

'''Mentone''' 
Mentone, Italy or across the border, Menton (Italian name ''Mentone''), France, in the Riviera. In fact there was no Menton, France, for a long time until 1860 the former Grimaldi town of Mentone, Italy, was bought by France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menton Menton] is much better known than Mentone; this small town on the Franco-Italian border, about 45 miles northeast of Nice, is the most beautiful town on the French Riviera—''La perle de la France'' (The Pearl of France). It's warm climate makes it a favorite tourist destination. Menton is also a city of gardens; it won the competition for the best city of flowers in France five different times.

'''the boulevard Carnolès''' 
There is a ''Palais Carnolès'' at 3 Avenue de la Madone, Menton (or ''Mentone''). But couldn't locate the Boulevard Carnolès.

'''Mariahilf''' 
The Sixth District of Vienna, known as a shopping district.

==Page 803==

'''midinettes''' 
salesgirls (of Paris).

'''Facharbeiter''' 
German: technician, specialist, skilled worker.

'''Gabika''' 
"Cute" double diminutive for the Hungarian male name Gábor (Gabriel) and also, more commonly, for the female name Gabriella. The ambiguity (also his looks) fits finely the subversion of gender roles in his relationship to Noellyn Fanshawe.

==Page 804==

'''Maida Vale''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maida_Vale Maida Vale] is a street in north-west London. The area, also known as Little Venice, is mostly residential and often extremely affluent.

'''eleven''' 
Vienna is 86 degrees west of the Event, more or less. Converting longitude to time at 15 degrees = 1 hour, we get a time difference of 5 hours 44 minutes. At 7:17 a.m. Event time, it was 1:33 a.m. in Vienna. Now, at 11:00 p.m. the same day, Vienna time, it is 21 hours and 27 minutes after the event. The atmospheric effect has propagated west (possibly against the high-level winds?) from Siberia to Central Europe in quite a short time. All these numbers are rough!

==Page 805==

'''prepare them against the day''' 
Here the phrase means "in anticipation of" or "to be ready for." 
And more. Thematic.
Given what has been said about the Tunguska Event, colored by accounts of the atmospheric effects of the Krakatoa eruption,highly suggestive of Judgment Day.

'''against the day''' 
I shoulda been keepin' notes, dammit! I am sure that regularly through the book I have been spotting deliberate sentences ending with "... ''something'' the day"...but not, until now, with "''against'' the day". And a few score pages ago I'm sure there was a sentence what ended w' "...against the night...", then Tunguska happens, and we now need to be wary o'the day..?

==Page 806==

'''Toward the end of October all Hell broke loose . . . annex Bosnia''' 
The Bosnian Crisis began with the fear on the part of Austria-Hungary of possible reverses of Turkish concessions since the Russo-Turkish War of 1878 by the newly-resurgent Young Turk movement. The answer to this was annexation of Bosnia, which it had ruled as a colony since 1878. Knowing such a move would be opposed by Serbia, in turn supported by Russia, the Austrians offered to support the right of Russia to move warships through the Bosporus, and to support a declaration of independence from Turkey by Bulgaria. This provoked a general crisis [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_Crisis] from which Serbia had to back down, lacking Russian support. All had been settled in secret meetings in the months before; the Bulgarian (Glagolitic) traffic intercepted by Bevis Moistleigh, above, is thus explained. So is the sense of Grand Conspiracy; all the Great Powers were eventuallly involved. 
See [http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos127.htm The Annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1908.]

'''coconut-shy''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_shy A coconut shy] (or coconut shie) is a traditional game frequently found as a sidestall at funfairs and fêtes. The game consists of throwing wooden balls at a row of coconuts balanced on posts. Typically a player buys three balls and wins each coconut successfully dislodged. In some cases other prizes may be won instead of the coconuts.
The origins of the game are unclear, although the term is first listed in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1903.
The word 'shy' in this context is a colloquial English term, meaning 'to throw' or toss.

'''šljivovica''' 
One of the spellings of this word for plum brandy (also slivovica, slivovitz, etc.).

'''one to fifty million . . . mile-to-the-inch sheets''' 
Two extremes of mapmaking. A 1:50,000,000 map of the United States would fit comfortably on a page of ''AtD'' with most of Mexico and several Canadian provinces. Austria-Hungary at that scale would be about as big as your two thumbprints side by side.

The British Ordnance Survey produced a famous series of inch-to-the-mile sheets (1:63,360); the detail is about fine enough to show the left-turn lane of a city street. At this scale it would take some 200 unhandily large sheets to cover Austria-Hungary.

'''Decisions of the utmost gravity''' 
that lead to Gravity's rainbows'''

==Page 807==

'''Major B. F. Vumb''' 
Major Bum Fuck Vumb, as in Dumb? Another Pynchonian V-name
with the usual associations.

'''''Judensau''''' 
German: Jewish pig.

'''the Vienna Woods''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienerwald The Vienna Woods] is a low, wooded section of the Alps in eastern Lower Austria and far into the city of Vienna, covering over nearly 390 square miles and including the northermost parts of the entire Alpine chain. It is a favourite outdoor destination for people living around Vienna.

'''Christian Socialists . . . Dr. Karl Lueger''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lueger Karl Lueger] (pronounced in three syllables, LOO eh ger) (1844-1910) was a Viennese politician, Burgomeister (mayor) of Vienna, and founder of the anti-Semitic Christian Social Party. He was a role model for Adolf Hitler.

'''Reichsrath''' 
Austrian parliament.

'''''Wer Jude ist, bestimme ich''''' 
German: as translated in text.

'''''der schöne'' Karl''' 
German: the handsome, or the nice, Karl. Deeply sarcastic.

==Page 808==

'''"Well actually . . ."''' 
Shanghai, which because of its international status did not require a passport or visa for entry, would become a refuge for Jews made stateless by Nazi Germany or were otherwise refugees in the 1930s. Many tens of thousands were able to reach it, and survived the war and the Holocaust under Japanese occupation. Large numbers reached it using so-called Sugihara Passports, letters of transit issued by the Japanese vice-consul to Lithuania in 1940, with the connivance of Dutch diplomats[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugihara]. Obviously an anachronism, but actually...this is about portents and other bends in Time, perhaps things that echo up and down the Timelines (ours and alternates).

'''Graz''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_519|page 519: Graz]].

'''Elefant Hotel''' 
The only listed Elefant Hotel in Austria, a building described as "ancient", is in Salzburg, not Graz; it is currently a Best Western. There is also a Hotel Elefant in Prague, once part ot the Empire; perhaps there was a chain?

'''. . . common Anglo-Habsburg interests...''' 
All the Great Powers found ways to benefit from the Bosnian Crisis, perhaps explaining Theign providing Italian naval decodes to the Austrians. Or, as Latewood accuses below, he is a double agent; McHugh is at least suspicious here. Either way, sending Latewood and Moistleigh on a suicide mission to Bosnia is one way to cover his tracks.

'''Murgasse''' 
Street in Graz. The Murgasse was first mentioned in a document from 1346. The part of town to the south was occupied by the farmers.
Murgasse
8490 Bad Radkersburg, Austria

==Page 809==

'''the Treaty of Berlin''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: the Treaty of Berlin]].

'''Novi Pazar''' 
Novi Pazar also figures briefly in ''GR'' (P.14-15, Viking eds.): "...on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe" The Novi Pazar desk is manned by Lord Blatherard Osmo. The crisis passed, but Lord Osmo has an adenoid, and this mucoid "lymphatic monster", now independently alive in 1939, is confronted by an agent of The Firm (an outfit very like its temporal predecessor the T.W.I.T. in its interests in the paranormal) , one "Pirate" Prentice; it is "now as big as St Paul's and growing by the hour" threatening all London, but confined successfully--leading to Lord Osmo's neglect of Novi Pazar...A bizarre satiric experience of Crisis Management by Great Power foreign ministries, and the literally sticky mess they created. Currently, some obscure ex-Ottoman sanjaks, cobbled together as Iraq in 1919, are something of a hinge of history; another paramorphic mirroring of 1900/2000.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Pazar Novi Pazar] is now a city of Serbia, about 110 miles directly south of Belgrade. Its name means "a new bazaar" in the local language. It was administered by Austria-Hungary from 1878 to 1908, and by Turkey (Ottoman Empire) from 1908 to 1912, and by Serbia 1912 to now.

'''Constantinople''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople Constantinople] was the capital of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261) and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922). It is strategically located between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara on the Bosphorous Strait. It extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) side of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world which is situated on two continents. It was officially renamed to Istanbul in 1930.

'''the Young Turks with their revolution''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks The Young Turks] was a coalition of various reform groups in favor of reforming the administration of Ottoman Empire. Their movement brought about the second constitutional era through a revolution against the monarchy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turk_Revolution The Young Turk Revolution] of 1908 restored the suspended parliament and was a landmark in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The Revolution arose from the Ottoman peoples' near-universal opposition to the tyranny and corruption of the Sultan, which forged an unlikely union of reform-minded pluralists, Turkish nationalists, and Western-oriented secularists.

'''the vile Aerenthal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Lexa_von_Aehrenthal Aloys (or Alois) von Aerenthal] (1854-1912), Austrian foreign minister (1906-1912) who engineered the annexation of Bosnia in 1908.

'''in three-quarter time''' 
Waltzes are in 3/4 time and so the national powers are waltzing into a European war. Note the chain-like sliding/closing/turning step sequence in Viennese Waltz, and also the rhythm itself represented by the repeated dactyl "and so on, and so on".

Two plausible references: events driven by Vienna, the world's waltz capital, and a dark comic song recorded by the Kingston Trio in the 1960s: "Merry Minuet." In 3/4 time, it includes lyrics commenting on ethnic hatred, irredentism and inevitable nuclear catastrophe.

In fact, the sequence of events described here as a possibility in 1908 were realized in 1914, when Russia, in the crisis provoked by a Serbian youth group's assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, this time backed Serbia, resulting in the cascade of troop mobilizations that became World War I.

'''Mitrovitsa''' 
A Serbian town near the Turkish-Serbian border (now in Kosovo), about 25 miles southeast of Novi Pazar and 140 miles southeast of Sarajevo. The full Serbian name now is Kosovska Mitrovica, the Albanian name is Mitrovicë, and the population is mostly Albanian nowadays. (Some precognition about Novi Pazar.)

'''a railroad link from Sarajebo to Mitrovitsa, and thus to the Ægean Sea''' 
A railroad of 210 miles long linking Mitrovitsa (Turkish-Serbian border) throuhg Skopje (Macedonia) to Salonica (Greece) by the Ægean Sea alredy existed since December 1874.

'''Isvolsky''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Izvolski Alexander Petrovich Izvolsky] (Izvolski, Izvolskii) (1856-1919), Russian foreign minister (1906-1910), a major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente, who on September 15, 1908, traded Bosnia-Herzegovina to Austria in exchange for Austria's help in opening the Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian ships. Pynchon's spelling may well be from a contemporary source; consistent transliteration is a more recent fetish.

'''Grey''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon Sir Edward Grey] (1862-1933), British Foreign Secretary 1905-16. He was the other major architect of the Anglo-Russian Entente (1907).

'''The Dardanelles''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dardanelles The Dardanelles], an international waterway, is a narrow strait in northwestern Turkey connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara. It separates Europe (Gallipoli peninsula) and the mainland of Asia. With the Bosporus, Dardanelles connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.

==Page 810==

'''It's like having the lights brought up for a bit...''' 
As the crisis wound down to war in 1914, Sir Edward Grey (still Foreign Minister) is famously quoted as having said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Grey,_1st_Viscount_Grey_of_Fallodon]

'''Vlado Clissan''' 
His name comes from his hometown of Clissa, but this is the Italian name of the place. In Serbo-Croatian it is ''Klis.'' A pseudonym?

'''Blutwurst Special''' 
German: blood sausage.

'''toad-in-the-hole''' 
a traditional British dish. It consists of sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter, usually served with vegetables and gravy.

==Page 811==

'''"iron convergences and receding signal-lamps"''' 
our 'free choices' in . . . life; so ironic at this point.

Kurt Vonnegut, in ''Slaughterhouse Five'', described the human point of view as from consciousness strapped to a railroad car, forever facing only backward; from this vantage, history looks single and inevitable, whereas in reality the train of history is moving over unknown numbers of (from this perspective unseen) switch points, the settings of which are in fact changeable (the more complex view being taken by an extraterrestrial species, the Tralfamadorians, who can see forward to the many possibilities), alternate histories possible at every switch. The character Pointsman in ''GR'' in some ways embodies these possibilities.

'''The Semmering tunnel''' 
It refers to the Semmering mountain-peak tunnel of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmering_Railway the Semmering Railway]. The tunnel, with a length of 4,700 ft, was opened on May 15, 1854. (A new Semmering tunnel, through the mountain base, was built in 1952). The Semmering Railway, having a total of 15 tunnels, is a part of the Austrian Souther Railway (Südbahn) connecting Vienna to Trieste. The world's first mountain railway with a standard gauge, it was built between 1848 and 1854 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

'''the Mur Valley''' 
The valley of the Mur River which, about 300 miles long, runs through the south-central Austria, northeast Slovenia and northern Croatia, where it flows into the Drava River. The biggest city in the Mur Valley is Graz, Austria.

'''Slavonian''' 
Today the name applies to the eastern part of Croatia, but a map will confirm that the route passes through the Slovenian plain. Writers before the World War must have had difficulty keeping Slovenia, Slovakia and Slavonia straight, especially since all were inhabited by Slavonic peoples.

'''the Slavonian plain''' 
The Slavonian plain is a fertile agricultural lowland in eastern Croatia and beyond. It is part of the larger Pannonia plain. It includes three primary rivers: the Drava in the north and the Sava in the south and the Danube in the east. The area between the Sava and Drava rivers and bounded on the east by the Hungarian border is the historical region Slavonia forming the eastern part of Croatia.

'''Ljubljana''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubljana Ljubljana] is the capital of Slovenia. It is also the cultural and economical center of the country. It is located in central Slovenia.

'''the Karst''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kras The Karst] is a limestone borderline plateau region of southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It rises quite steeply above the neighboring landscape and is famous for its caves including Vilenica in Slovenia, the oldest tourist cave in the world. In addition to caves, erosion has produced in the Karst fissures, sinkholes and underground streams.

'''Općina''' 
A village about 4 miles northeast of Trieste.

'''the Piazza Grande''' 
Trieste's central square, a great rectangle lined on three sides by stately imperial buildings, its fourth, short side, revealing the Adriatic sea.

'''the Piazza Cavana''' 
Trieste's "Nighttown" before World War I.

'''Austrian double''' 
Latewood, in light of Theign's treatment of Yashmeen, and the apparent passing of Italian naval decrypts to Austria, accuses Theign of being an Austrain double agent.

==Page 812==

'''a Fortuny gown''' 
[http://www.chick.net/proust/fortuny.html Mariano Fortuny] (1871-1949), a Spanish fashion designer worked mostly in Venice, created some of the most remarkable fabrics and dresses of 20th century. His pleated silk gowns and velvet cloaks are regarded by collectors and museums around the world as the unique expression and embodiment of a craft at its best. He was one of the source of inspiration to Marcel Proust.

'''Mestre Bridge''' 
Mestre is a town in Veneto, northern Italy, a frazione of the comune of Venice. Located on the mainland,the city is connected to Venice by a large rail and road bridge, called Ponte della Libertà (Freedom Bridge). Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|Page 706: Mestre bridge]].

'''Cloisters Court''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_490|page 490: Cloisters Court]].

'''King's''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_497|page 497: King's]]

==Page 813==

''''And England's far, and honour a name'''' 
Cyprian quoting from the 1897 poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada"]] ("They Pass the Torch of Life") by Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938), previously quoted on page 236 [[ATD_219-242#Page_236|(also see annotation)]].

'''"honour"''' 
Cf. Falstaff on.

'''the Caffè degli Specchi''' 
Trieste was one of the first European cities took to coffee in a big way.
It is the leading coffee port on the Mediterranean and is renowned for its cafes and coffee. The first coffe houses in Trieste opened at the beginning of the 18th century. They become very popular with artists and intellecturals. Several of the original coffe houses are still going strong; the Caffè degli Specchi, located in the Piazza Unità d'Italia and opened since 1839, is one of them.

==Page 814==

'''Lateeners''' 
A lateener is a boat with a lateen sail: a triangular sail with one edge tied to a long spar, which is supported in the middle on a mast.

'''''Strichmädchen''''' 
German: streetwalker.

'''LLoyd Austriaco''' 
A ship line. Lloyd Triestino was formed in 1919 as the successor to Lloyd Austriaco following the incorporation of Trieste into the Kingdom of Italy on January 3rd 1919.

'''Molo San Carlo''' 
A pier (''molo'') in Trieste. See [http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Molo_San_Carlo.jpg Molo San Carlo']picture around 1900.

==Page 815==

'''"Nimrod" . . . from Elgar's ''Enigma Variations''''' 
"Nimrod" is the ninth section of this major 1899 work by English composer Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Like the other 13 sections, it characterizes a family friend; this one is A. J. Jaeger (whose name means "hunter" in German, hence "Nimrod," the name of a hunter mentioned in the Bible). [http://www.elgar.org/3enigma.htm Here is a very good description of the work and "Nimrod" in particular.]

The "Nimrod" variation is perhaps the most poignant of the piece; it rises to a cresendo and slowly, sadly, fades; an anthem for the fading of the 19th century.

'''"La Gazza Ladra"''' 
Overture by Rossini to an opera whose title means "The Thieving Magpie." It is as bright and impersonal as "Nimrod" is serious and sentimental.

'''"The Volga Boatmen" . . . "Auld Lang Syne"''' 
The puzzle in the "Enigma" Variations is this: Variations are based on a theme, but Elgar never states the theme; what is the melody? These are two of the popular guesses.

'''Gonzalo''' 
Gonzalo who?

'''Millicent''' 
? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millicent_Fawcett Millicent Fawcett] (1847-1929), a British suffragist and an early feminist. Is this the right person?

'''Δt''' 
Mathematical symbol used to represent a short length of time.

In addition, Pynchon is very concerned with dt,(little delta-t) the time differential, an infinitesimal change in time; to quote Pynchon from ''Lot 49'' (Lippincott, 1965 p.129): "a vanishingly small instant in which change had to be confronted at last for what it was, where it could no longer disguise itself as something innocuous like an average rate; where the velocity dwelled in the projectile though the projectile be frozen in midflight, where death dwelled in the cell though the cell be looked in on at its most quick." But, the paragraph goes on, "dt" also suggests DTs, Delirium Tremens (alcohol withdrawal) a state giving access to hallucinatory experiences, "spectra beyond the known Sun, music made purely of Antarctic loneliness and fright." Which is the general mood in the wake of the Tunguska Event and the Bosnian Crisis, or should be, if the characters were not so dutifully repressing it. (In ''Lot 49'' the realization of the dt/DTs connection has to do with Oedipa Maas' realization of the finality of death, and what inaccessible realms of experience are lost with each individual's death).

:Are you confusing Δ''t'', symbolizing a finite duration, with ''dt,'' a duration shrunk to an infinitesimal? 
(Possibly--my physics/calculus may be rusting. The connection may still hold; note emendation above--thanks. Edit further if necessary!).

'''Davos''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davos Davos] is a municipality in the eastern part of Switzerland. A popular destination for the rich and ailing because its high valley climate has long been considered excellent by doctors for curing lung desease. It is the setting of Thomas Mann's ''The Magic Mountain''. Davos is famous as the host of the World Economic Forum, an annual meeting of global political and business elites.

'''Föhn''' 
German. [http://www.bom.gov.au/lam/glossary/fpagegl.shtml#fo Wind] warmed and dried by descent on the lee side of a mountain. Germans even today acknowledge that its presence (say, in Munich) affects mood and emotions.

'''co-conscious with the everyday''' 
again. Linked to creativity here.

'''Ramanujan's Formula''' 
an elegant hyperbolic summation, Ramanujan's formula for the Riemann zeta function evaluated at the odd positive integers. Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_498|page 498: Rumanujan]] didn't come to the attention of Western mathematicians until he wrote to Hardy in late 1912 - early 1913 and travelled to Cambridge in 1914. Is Yashmeen prescient?

==Page 816==

'''''dolce far niente''''' 
Italian: sweet idleness (literally, sweet to do nothing).

'''divided second''' 
A dt.

'''of his entry''' 
Vlado the Impaler?

'''the Karst''' 
Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_811|page 811: the Karst]]. 
Generic "karst topography" takes its name from this area of Slovenia and Italy (locally called ''kras'' and ''carso''). The terrain features limestone with fissures and cavities eroded by water. Caves as well as underground streams and lakes are common.

'''''osmizza''''' 
These are informal eating places out in rural areas, where farmers sell their meats, cheeses, olives and wines.

'''Illyria''' 
The Roman province in which modern Trieste is located.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illyria Illyria] was in Clssical antiquity a region in the western part of today's Balkan Peninsula, found by the tribes and clans of Illyrian, an ancient people who spoke the Illyrian languages. Illyria was a formidable local power in the 4th century BC, only after the Roman conquest in 168 BC did Illyria become one of the Roman provinces, Illyricum. In the context "ancient before Illyria" referrs to the period before the Roman conquest.

==Page 817==

'''quiet spaces between trams, unpredictable, even, she imagined, mathematically so''' 
The time of the next tram can't be mathematically predicted (to arbitrary accuracy), but it is possible to describe in mathematical terms the '''way''' in which it's unpredictable. A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution Poisson distribution] expresses the probability that a specific number of trams arrive during a given time interval (but cannot determine the exact arrival time of the next tram).

'''never farther than half a block from the counter-soporific fluid''' 
Perhaps an allusion or parallel to the 21st century ubiquity of Starbucks.

:Cf [[ATD_792-820#Page_813|page 813: the Caffe degli Specchi]].

'''''Svr šavam!''''' 
Croatian/Serbian: I'm finishing. Also, implausibly, written ''Svršavam.''

'''Velebit''' 
Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page_326|page 326: Velebit]].
A ridge that runs parallel to the Croatian Adriatic coast a few tens of miles south of Trieste. Lying a short distance inland, it is made up of limestone karst.

==Page 818==

'''Zengg''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Zengg]].

'''Veglia''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krk_(island) Veglia], the second largest Adriatic island, is a Croatian island (''Krk'') in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Fiume.

'''persisted from day to day''' 
The image again of the storm that retains its identity over a long time.

'''Stationary waves''' 
Crests and troughs that don't move. Seen more often where water is flowing (up/downstream of rocks in rapids), but also where waves coming onshore interact with those reflected from the shore.

'''Novlian''' 
A family from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novi_Vinodolski Novi], a town on the Adriatic coast in Croatia about 10 miles north of Zengg (''Senj'') and 22 miles southeast of Fiume (''Rijeka'').

'''Uskok''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_697|page 697: Uskok]]. 
Serbian/Croatian: fugitive. Writers even in antiquity noted that piracy was a main economic activity along this coast.

In all, Vlado seems very like the Traverse brothers, set against the modern world, or anyway modern power arrangements, a bit of an anarchist in his own way. But his grievances have historic depth and resonance, more of what Pynchon in ''V.'' called "Temporal Bandwidth".

Uskok is also a place's name.

'''the Argonauts''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argonauts The Argonauts], in Greek mythology, were a band of heroes who, in the years before the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_war Trojan War], accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_fleece Golden Fleece]. Their name comes from their ship ''Argo'' which in turn was named after its builder Argus.

'''Split''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split Split], situated on a small peninsula on the eastern shores of the Adriatic Sea about 150 miles southeast of Zengg, is the largest and most important city in Dalmatia, Croatia.

'''Clissa''' 
Town from which Vlado Clissan takes his ''nom de guerre.'' Locally called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klis Klis] which is located inland just 5 miles northeast of Split near the eponymous mountain pass. Because of its geographical position, Clissa is susceptible to a rather strong bora wind.

==Page 819==

'''You know the play by Shakespeare, ''The Merchant of Venice''? [...] We keep hoping till the end for Antonio to come to grief.''' 
In ''The Merchant of Venice'', Antonio, the protagonist, is a wealthy merchant in Venice, his wealth coming from the ships he owns, which could easily be at peril from pirates. So, natch, Vlado and his comrades who attack Venetian ships are pulling for the pirates.

'''''mala vita''''' 
bad life

'''palačinka''' 
Croatian for crepe or thin pancake.

==Page 820==

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

ATD 768-791

2007-04-10T22:24:56Z

Jpicco: /* Page 787 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 768==

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

'''Lake Baikal''' 

Another bi-location: one world out here, another reflected one in the lake.

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

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

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

==Page 769==

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

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

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

==Page 770==

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

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

==Page 771==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 772==
'''the ancient kingdom of Khocho . . . to be the historical Shambhala''' 
Dr Edwin Bernbaum, a Research Associate of the University of California, Berkeley, claimed, in his book ''The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalays'' (1980), that Shambhala is not in the Himalayas, but far to the north, in the Turfan Depression, "Established by the Uighurs, a Turkish perople, around 850, the kingdom of Khocho flourished for four hundred years as a remarkable oasis of culture and learning. A predominantly Buddhist country, with numerous monasteries, it also had active centers of Manicheanism and Nestorian Christianity . . . At the time the ''Kalackra'' appreared in India, the kingdom of Khocho probably possessed the most advanced civilization of any country in Central Asia. Well-irrigated fields and orchards produced enough surplus food to allow the Uighurs to run welfare programs for the poor. Living together in peaceful harmony, people of different races, relgions and languages stimulated each other's thought and culture. Paintings found in the ruins of Turfan show houses built in the Chinese style, men and women dressed in embroidered silk, and a chamber ensemble complete with harps, guitar, and flutes. Even the Chinese, the most fastidious connoisseurs of culture, were impressed by the grace of Uihur society." (pp.42-43)

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

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

==Page 773==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 774==

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

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

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

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

==Page 775==

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

'''Young Vic''' 
Image of young Queen Victoria on the British sovereign (1 pound) piece. The first portrait for Queen Victoria was the "Youg Head", which was used on sovereigns from 1838 to 1887 inclusive. For a picture for this coin see [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/heads.html Victoria Young Head].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 776==

'''Dorzhieff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agvan_Dorjiev Agvan Dorjiev] (1853/54–1938) was an ethnic Buriat who trained as a Buddhist monk in Tibet.He was one of the tutors of the 13th Dalai Lama and was his representative at the Russian court. He played a great role in the international political life, establishing various relations between Tibet and Russia. The British believed that Dorjiev had created the Shambala Russian myth. Ekai Kawaguchi, a Buddhist monk from Japan who visited Tibet at the turn of the 20th century, claimed to have heard of a pamphlet in which Dorjiev wrote “Shambhala was Russia. The Emperor, moreover, was an incarnation of Tsongkhapa, and would sooner or later subdue the whole world and found a gigantic Buddhist empire”. The religiously-based purpose of Agvan Dorjiev was the foundation of a Lamaist-oriented kingdom of the Tibetans and Mongols as a theocracy under the Dalai Lama ... [and] under the protection of Tsarist Russia ... In addition, among the Lamaists there existed the religiously grounded hope for help from a ‘Messianic Kingdom’ in the North ... called 'Northern Shambhala’. At the center of Dorjiev’s activities in Russia stood the construction of a three-dimensional mandala — the Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg. Regarding the décor, it is perhaps also of interest that there was a swastika motif which the Bolsheviks knocked out during the Second World War. Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg there was sufficient room for several lamas, who looked after the ritual life, to live on the grounds. Dorjiev had originally intended to triple the staffing and to construct not just a temple but also a whole monastery. This was prevented, however, by the intervention of the Russian Orthodox Church . Officially, the buddhist shrine was declared to be a place for the needs of the Buriat, Tuva, mongol ,and Kalmyk minorities in the capital. With regard to its occult functions it was a tantric mandala with which the Kalachakra system was to be transplanted into the West. From the lamas’ traditional point of view, founding a temple is seen as an act of spiritual occupation of a territory. Such sacred buildings as the Kalachakra temple in St. Petersburg are cosmograms which are employed by the lamas as magic seals in order to spiritually subjugate countries and peoples.

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

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

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

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

==Page 777==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 779==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 780==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 781==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 782==

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

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

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

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

==Page 783==

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

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

==Page 784==

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

'''Tchernobyl . . . Wormwood''' 
Now rendered more commonly as Chernobyl (Russian), Chornobyl (Ukrainian). 
Wormwood, a star that falls onto the Earth poisoning the fresh water sources per Book of Revelation 8:10-11.

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

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

'''Old Slavonic''' 
Or Old Church Slavonic; liturgical language of Russian Orthodox Church, closely related to Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian.

==Page 785==

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

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

==Page 786==

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

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

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

'''"borbanngadyr"''' 
throat singing..like a flute: from the context.

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

==Page 787==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 788==

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

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

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

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

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

'''drank one another's urine''' 
Shamanistic practice also observed in some "mystery" religions. The person who ingests the drug partly metabolizes it and excretes it; followers can get a, hrmm, watered-down dose by drinking his urine.

==Page 789==

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

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

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

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

==Page 790==

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

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

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

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

==Page 791==

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

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

User:Jpicco

2007-04-10T22:21:11Z

Jpicco: New page: Just a regular Pynchon reader.

Just a regular Pynchon reader.

ATD 768-791

2007-04-10T22:13:05Z

Jpicco: /* Page 787 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 768==

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

'''Lake Baikal''' 

Another bi-location: one world out here, another reflected one in the lake.

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

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

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

==Page 769==

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

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

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

==Page 770==

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

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

==Page 771==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 772==
'''the ancient kingdom of Khocho . . . to be the historical Shambhala''' 
Dr Edwin Bernbaum, a Research Associate of the University of California, Berkeley, claimed, in his book ''The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalays'' (1980), that Shambhala is not in the Himalayas, but far to the north, in the Turfan Depression, "Established by the Uighurs, a Turkish perople, around 850, the kingdom of Khocho flourished for four hundred years as a remarkable oasis of culture and learning. A predominantly Buddhist country, with numerous monasteries, it also had active centers of Manicheanism and Nestorian Christianity . . . At the time the ''Kalackra'' appreared in India, the kingdom of Khocho probably possessed the most advanced civilization of any country in Central Asia. Well-irrigated fields and orchards produced enough surplus food to allow the Uighurs to run welfare programs for the poor. Living together in peaceful harmony, people of different races, relgions and languages stimulated each other's thought and culture. Paintings found in the ruins of Turfan show houses built in the Chinese style, men and women dressed in embroidered silk, and a chamber ensemble complete with harps, guitar, and flutes. Even the Chinese, the most fastidious connoisseurs of culture, were impressed by the grace of Uihur society." (pp.42-43)

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

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

==Page 773==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 774==

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

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

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

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

==Page 775==

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

'''Young Vic''' 
Image of young Queen Victoria on the British sovereign (1 pound) piece. The first portrait for Queen Victoria was the "Youg Head", which was used on sovereigns from 1838 to 1887 inclusive. For a picture for this coin see [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/heads.html Victoria Young Head].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 776==

'''Dorzhieff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agvan_Dorjiev Agvan Dorjiev] (1853/54–1938) was an ethnic Buriat who trained as a Buddhist monk in Tibet.He was one of the tutors of the 13th Dalai Lama and was his representative at the Russian court. He played a great role in the international political life, establishing various relations between Tibet and Russia. The British believed that Dorjiev had created the Shambala Russian myth. Ekai Kawaguchi, a Buddhist monk from Japan who visited Tibet at the turn of the 20th century, claimed to have heard of a pamphlet in which Dorjiev wrote “Shambhala was Russia. The Emperor, moreover, was an incarnation of Tsongkhapa, and would sooner or later subdue the whole world and found a gigantic Buddhist empire”. The religiously-based purpose of Agvan Dorjiev was the foundation of a Lamaist-oriented kingdom of the Tibetans and Mongols as a theocracy under the Dalai Lama ... [and] under the protection of Tsarist Russia ... In addition, among the Lamaists there existed the religiously grounded hope for help from a ‘Messianic Kingdom’ in the North ... called 'Northern Shambhala’. At the center of Dorjiev’s activities in Russia stood the construction of a three-dimensional mandala — the Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg. Regarding the décor, it is perhaps also of interest that there was a swastika motif which the Bolsheviks knocked out during the Second World War. Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg there was sufficient room for several lamas, who looked after the ritual life, to live on the grounds. Dorjiev had originally intended to triple the staffing and to construct not just a temple but also a whole monastery. This was prevented, however, by the intervention of the Russian Orthodox Church . Officially, the buddhist shrine was declared to be a place for the needs of the Buriat, Tuva, mongol ,and Kalmyk minorities in the capital. With regard to its occult functions it was a tantric mandala with which the Kalachakra system was to be transplanted into the West. From the lamas’ traditional point of view, founding a temple is seen as an act of spiritual occupation of a territory. Such sacred buildings as the Kalachakra temple in St. Petersburg are cosmograms which are employed by the lamas as magic seals in order to spiritually subjugate countries and peoples.

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

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

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

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

==Page 777==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 779==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 780==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 781==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 782==

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

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

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

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

==Page 783==

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

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

==Page 784==

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

'''Tchernobyl . . . Wormwood''' 
Now rendered more commonly as Chernobyl (Russian), Chornobyl (Ukrainian). 
Wormwood, a star that falls onto the Earth poisoning the fresh water sources per Book of Revelation 8:10-11.

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

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

'''Old Slavonic''' 
Or Old Church Slavonic; liturgical language of Russian Orthodox Church, closely related to Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian.

==Page 785==

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

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

==Page 786==

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

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

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

'''"borbanngadyr"''' 
throat singing..like a flute: from the context.

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

==Page 787==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 788==

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

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

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

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

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

'''drank one another's urine''' 
Shamanistic practice also observed in some "mystery" religions. The person who ingests the drug partly metabolizes it and excretes it; followers can get a, hrmm, watered-down dose by drinking his urine.

==Page 789==

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

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

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

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

==Page 790==

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

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

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

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

==Page 791==

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

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

ATD 768-791

2007-04-10T22:10:27Z

Jpicco: /* Page 787 */

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

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 768==

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

'''Lake Baikal''' 

Another bi-location: one world out here, another reflected one in the lake.

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

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

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

==Page 769==

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

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

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

==Page 770==

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

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

==Page 771==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 772==
'''the ancient kingdom of Khocho . . . to be the historical Shambhala''' 
Dr Edwin Bernbaum, a Research Associate of the University of California, Berkeley, claimed, in his book ''The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalays'' (1980), that Shambhala is not in the Himalayas, but far to the north, in the Turfan Depression, "Established by the Uighurs, a Turkish perople, around 850, the kingdom of Khocho flourished for four hundred years as a remarkable oasis of culture and learning. A predominantly Buddhist country, with numerous monasteries, it also had active centers of Manicheanism and Nestorian Christianity . . . At the time the ''Kalackra'' appreared in India, the kingdom of Khocho probably possessed the most advanced civilization of any country in Central Asia. Well-irrigated fields and orchards produced enough surplus food to allow the Uighurs to run welfare programs for the poor. Living together in peaceful harmony, people of different races, relgions and languages stimulated each other's thought and culture. Paintings found in the ruins of Turfan show houses built in the Chinese style, men and women dressed in embroidered silk, and a chamber ensemble complete with harps, guitar, and flutes. Even the Chinese, the most fastidious connoisseurs of culture, were impressed by the grace of Uihur society." (pp.42-43)

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

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

==Page 773==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 774==

'''Club Golomyanka''' 
A golomyanka is a viviparous fish of the perch family, unique to Lake Baikal.

'''NAUSHNIKI''' 
As translated in the text.

'''1895 model Nagant revolver''' 
[http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg102-e.htm Nagant revolver] was designed in Belgium by Nagant brothers in the late 1880s and was adopted by numerous countries. The major user and manufacturer was Russia which adopted it in 1895.

'''British gold sovereigns''' 
The world's most popular gold coins, [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/firstsovereign.html British gold sovereign] first came to existence in 1489 under Henry VII. There was a major change in 1816 for the so-called Modern Soverign which are continure to the present day. It has a value of one pound sterling (but with a much higher trading market value) and is made of 15.55 grams of standard gold coinage alloy of 23 carat, equal to 95.83% pure gold. (Another source [http://www.onlygold.com/Coins/BritishSovereignsFullScreen.asp British gold sovereigns2] said they have a 91.7% gold.)

==Page 775==

'''Tower Hill''' 
[http://www.royalmint.com/RoyalMint/web/site/Corporate/AboutUs/History/TowerHill.asp The Royal Mint at Tower Hill], London, between 1812-1968. Now the Royal mint is at Liantrisant (10 miles west of Cardiff), Wales.

'''Young Vic''' 
Image of young Queen Victoria on the British sovereign (1 pound) piece. The first portrait for Queen Victoria was the "Youg Head", which was used on sovereigns from 1838 to 1887 inclusive. For a picture for this coin see [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/heads.html Victoria Young Head].

'''Upper Tunguska, Stony Tunguska, Lower Tunguska''' 
They are the three eastern tributaries of the Yenisei River in Siberia. They cut across the swampy forests of east-central Siberia, draining the Tunguska Basin. Furthest north is the Lower Tunguska (1,590 mile long). The Stony Tunguska (980 mile long) rises west of the headwaters of the Lower Tunguska. The Upper Tunguska is the name given to the lower course of the Angara and it joins the Yenisei at Strelka. The area of the three rivers is the home of the Tungus. ([http://www.bartelby.com/65/tu/Tunguska.html Tunguska]).

'''the Ilimpiya''' 
Presumably the Ilimpeya River, a left-bank tributary of the Lower Tunguska, is named for them.

:It refers to the Tungus people from the Ilimpiya river.

'''the Shanyagir''' 
A clan of the Tungus people who lives along the Stony Tunguska.

'''Magyakan''' 
Shaman of the Ilimpiya clan, also spelled Magankan. His greatest feat was summoning a huge flock of ''agdi'', the birds made of iron that produce the thunder, for the explosion over the land of the Shanyagir clan. It flattened nearly a thousand square miles of forest and started a fire that burned for weeks, sending ash so high that it circled the Northern Hemisphere, making sunsets bright. See [http://www.answers.com/topic/shaman shaman].

'''''siberyaki''''' 
Standard spelling ''sibiryaki.'' Russian: Siberians.

'''Bratsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratsk Bratsk], located on the Angara River near the vast Bratsk Reservoir, is a city in Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia.

'''Yeniseisk''' 
[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Yeniseisk,_Siberia_(Capital) Yeniseisk], on the right bank of the Yenisei, is a Siberian city 170 miles northwest of Krasnoyarsk, capital of the government of the same name.

'''embouchure''' 
French word denoting the conformation of the mouth (in speaking, playing the clarinet, etc.).

==Page 776==

'''Dorzhieff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agvan_Dorjiev Agvan Dorjiev] (1853/54–1938) was an ethnic Buriat who trained as a Buddhist monk in Tibet.He was one of the tutors of the 13th Dalai Lama and was his representative at the Russian court. He played a great role in the international political life, establishing various relations between Tibet and Russia. The British believed that Dorjiev had created the Shambala Russian myth. Ekai Kawaguchi, a Buddhist monk from Japan who visited Tibet at the turn of the 20th century, claimed to have heard of a pamphlet in which Dorjiev wrote “Shambhala was Russia. The Emperor, moreover, was an incarnation of Tsongkhapa, and would sooner or later subdue the whole world and found a gigantic Buddhist empire”. The religiously-based purpose of Agvan Dorjiev was the foundation of a Lamaist-oriented kingdom of the Tibetans and Mongols as a theocracy under the Dalai Lama ... [and] under the protection of Tsarist Russia ... In addition, among the Lamaists there existed the religiously grounded hope for help from a ‘Messianic Kingdom’ in the North ... called 'Northern Shambhala’. At the center of Dorjiev’s activities in Russia stood the construction of a three-dimensional mandala — the Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg. Regarding the décor, it is perhaps also of interest that there was a swastika motif which the Bolsheviks knocked out during the Second World War. Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg there was sufficient room for several lamas, who looked after the ritual life, to live on the grounds. Dorjiev had originally intended to triple the staffing and to construct not just a temple but also a whole monastery. This was prevented, however, by the intervention of the Russian Orthodox Church . Officially, the buddhist shrine was declared to be a place for the needs of the Buriat, Tuva, mongol ,and Kalmyk minorities in the capital. With regard to its occult functions it was a tantric mandala with which the Kalachakra system was to be transplanted into the West. From the lamas’ traditional point of view, founding a temple is seen as an act of spiritual occupation of a territory. Such sacred buildings as the Kalachakra temple in St. Petersburg are cosmograms which are employed by the lamas as magic seals in order to spiritually subjugate countries and peoples.

'''taiga''' 
Coniferous boreal forest; supports logging, trapping, hunting/gathering.

'''iron creatures of Agdy . . . their eyes flashing . . .''' 
"The Tungus have only one expression for the thunder - ''agdy''-, by which they also describe the old man, the lord of the thunder as well as all the thunderbirds that come down to earth and cause the thunder. The ''Agdy'' birds are as big as black grouses, are made of iron, and their eyes are fiery. The thunder arises from their flight above the earth and their eyes flash like lightning." (from a quotation in [http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/evenkiv.html Tungus eye-witnesses reports of Tunguska Event]).

'''Hindu fire-god Agni''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni Fire-god Agni] is a Hindu and Vedic deity. The word ''Agni'' is Sanskrit for "fire". Agni is a messenger from and to the other gods. He is ever-young and immortal, because the fire is re-lit every day.

'''Ogdai Khan''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_765|page 765: Ogdai]].

==Page 777==

'''The Church of England''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England The Church of England] is the officially established Christian church in England, and acts as the "mother" and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion.

'''Shamanism''' 
Decentralized religion. The village shaman engaged in spirit travel and communicated with animals, ancestors, etc., for the benefit of the people, often using bizarrely excessive amounts of drugs.

'''The Cherokee''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee The Cherokee] are a people indigenous to North American, who at the time of European contact in the 16th century inhabited what is now the Eastern and Southeastern United States. Most were forcibly moved westward to the Ozark Plateua. They were one of the tribes referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes.

'''the Apache''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache The Apache] is the collective name for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the US. They formerly lived over eastern Arizona, north-western Mexico, New Mexico, parts of Texas.

'''the massacre of the Sioux Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee''' 
They were the largest and most important Indian tribe north of Mexico, with the exception of Chippewa, who, however, lack the solidarity of the Sioux. [http://www.indians.org/articles/sioux-indians.html The Sioux] actually came to North America from Asia about 30,000 years ago. The name Sioux means "little snake". They were generally nomadic, typically followed the pattern of the buffalo. [http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/sioux-indians/sioux-indians.htm The Sioux Indians] occupied the vast domain extending from the Arkansas River, in the south, to the western tributary of Lake Winnipeg, in the north, and westward to the eastern slopes of the Rocky. The Sioux battled the white men and fought against the government in orer to keep their land. There was a general uprising in 1862. Later there were many more fierce armed conflicts involved the Sioux. One of the better known was ''The Battle of Little Big Horn'' on June 25, 1876, in which General Custer and all of his immediate command were killed. This was one of the most significant victories, led by [http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/bigfoor.htm Sitting Bull] (1831-1890), of the Indian Nations. 
A new Indian's religion that promised to rid the land of white people and restore the Indians' way of life evolved in 1880s-1890s as a reaction to the Indians being forced to submit to government authority and reservation life. The new religion was called [http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKghost.html the Ghost Dance] by the white because of its ceremonial ritual dance and its precepts of resurrection and reunion with the dead. The Sioux were the most enthusiastic believers. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs banned the Ghost Dance feared that the swelling numbers of Ghost Dancers and believed that the ritual was a precusor to renwered Indian militancy and violent rebellion. The confrontation led to [http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKmscr.html The Wounded Knee Massacre] on December 29, 1890 in which over 350 Ghost Dancers were slained. And this was the last major armed conflict between the Indian Nations and the US Government.

==Page 779==

'''A heavenwide blast of light''' 
It refers to the greatest cosmic impact of the century, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event the Tunguska Event], happened at 7:17 A.M. on June 30, 1908 near the Stony Tunguska River at Tunguska basin in central Siberia, Russia. With no warning, a small comet or meteor about 100 ft in diameter, coming from the direction of Western China and glowing with the heat of 5,000 degrees, hurtling through space about 3-6 miles above the Earth and exploded in the sky 40 miles north of Vanavara settlement by the Stony Tunguska. It was so powerful that the seismograph at Irkutsk, some 550 miles away, registered what looked like an earthquake. The impact had a force of 20 million tons of TNT, equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs. It is estimated that 60-80 million trees were felled over an area of 830 square miless but left no obvious crater. If the explosion had occurred over St Petersburg hundreds of thousands of people would have been killed. But the Event occurred at such a remote and isolated location that no scientist bothered to investigate the "rumors" of the event for 13 years. (See also [http://www.unmuseum.org/siberia.htm Tunguska Event from UnMuseum].)
:Check your TV schedule for a History Channel special, ''Siberian Apocalypse,'' which presents old movie footage of Soviet explorations (my guess: re-enacted in the 1930s) and analyses by present-day scientists and UFOlogists, along with the usual Slo-Mo Channel animations repeated ad nauseam. The program ran on March 18, 2007. The best current information, according to a team from the University of Bologna, points to a stony asteroid (a "carbonaceous chondrite") that disintegrated some miles above the surface, leaving no fragments to be found but loading the local vegetation with elements not typical of the taiga.
:Two of the stranger hypotheses about the Event have special ''AtD'' connections. (1) The cosmic object was a chunk of antimatter, and the energy it released was due to annihilation when it came into contact with terrestrial matter (air). This would make the object, in a sense, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|the Anti-Stone (p. 78).]] (2) The Event was the explosion produced by dissipation of a huge [[ATD_57-80#Page_73|ball lightning (p. 73).]] Both these notions are pretty remote, though, and the stony asteroid holds up better.

'''poods''' 
Russian measure of weight. One pood = 16.38 kilograms; 30 poods = 491 kg = 1081 pounds, pretty close to half a ton.

'''''ekipazh''''' 
Russian: crew, team.

'''''Právil'no''''' 
Russian: all ''right!''

'''Russian design philosophy''' 
. . . which is perpetuated in Soviet and Russian space technology.

'''Razvedka''' 
Russian: intelligence (in the military-political sense).

'''pogroms''' 
Terror campaigns, usually against Jews.

==Page 780==

'''Ofitser Nauchny''' 
Russian: science officer.

'''this Event''' 
The Tunguska Event. Cf 779: A heavenside blast of light.

'''''umnik''''' 
Russian: clever man.

'''General Sukhomlinoff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Sukhomlinov Vladimir Alexandrovich Sukhomlinoff] (1848-1926), Russian cavalry officer, Chief of General Staff 1908-9, Minister of War 1909-15, imprisoned 1917-18 for failure to prepare the Russian Army for World War, emigrated to Finland and then to Germany.

'''''Zi!''''' 
Might be an error. "Wait" in the imperative mode is ''zhdi'' or ''podozhdi'' in Russian.

'''butterfly . . . angel''' 
The description of the damage pattern is accurate; see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event.]

==Page 781==

'''''zastolye''''' 
Russian: group of regulars.

'''''Khuy''''' 
Impolite Russian: cock!

'''Bezumyoff''' 
The name derives from Russian ''bezumets'': madman.

'''''vseznaǐka''''' 
Russian: as translated in text. In keeping with the sources he must have used—many of them contemporary—Pynchon applies a bewildering assortment of rules in transliterating Russian words.

'''"potentially a hole in the earth"''' 
One of the theories regarding the real Tungaska Event is that a small black hole entered the earth. Flaw in theory: an exit has never been found. See Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event]).

'''. . . ''at any moment'', directly beneath St Petersburg . . .''' 
"According to the Guinness Book of World Records (1966 edition), if the collision had occurred 4 hours 47 minutes later, it would have wiped out St. Petersburg, the starting point of the Bolshevik revolution." See (Wikipedia article, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event]).

'''Tsarskoe Selo''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsarskoe_Selo Tsarskoe Selo], ''Tsar's Village'', was the "country" home of the Russian Tsars. It is now part of the town of Pushkin about 15 miles south from the center of St.Petersburg.

==Page 782==

'''...to reaffrm allegiance to its limits, including mortality...''' 
That is, to reaffirm the allegiance of the inhabitants of this world to the "something's" limits, remind Man of mortality and transcendent laws and limits.

'''''Nichevo''''' 
Russian: nothing.

'''Vanavara''' 
[http://www.evenkya.ru/eng/?id=obsh&sid=admterdel&ssid=41 Vanavara] is the adminstrative center, a settlement with a population of 3,000, of Tungusko-Chunsky region. It is situated on the right bank of the Stony Tunguska river. Vanavara was 40 miles south of the Tunguska Event blast center.

'''Transfinitum''' 
Cantor's mathematical concept of transfinite numbers, indefinitely large but distinct from one another.

==Page 783==

'''''dungur''''' 
A ''dungur'' is a shamanic drum.

'''homeopathic echoes to protect from its return''' 
The homeopathic principle is that small doses of what kills will cure or prevent; drumming prevents return of the huge sound.

==Page 784==

'''Raskol'niki''' 
Russian: schismatics, dissenters. Raskol'nikov in ''Crime and Punishment'' derives his name from this word.

'''Tchernobyl . . . Wormwood''' 
Now rendered more commonly as Chernobyl (Russian), Chornobyl (Ukrainian). 
Wormwood, a star that falls onto the Earth poisoning the fresh water sources per Book of Revelation 8:10-11.

'''Reindeer discovered again their ancient powers of flight, which had lapsed over the centuries since humans had invaded the North. Some were stimulated by the accompanying radiation into an epidermal luminescence at the red end of the spectrum, particularly around the nasal area.''' 
In other words, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and his airborne squadron mates. Seriously: magic and the possibility of change is reintroduced into the world.

'''heat . . . tended to flow unpredictably''' 
The Laws of Thermodynamics have taken a brief holiday.

'''Old Slavonic''' 
Or Old Church Slavonic; liturgical language of Russian Orthodox Church, closely related to Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian.

==Page 785==

'''''izba''''' 
Russian: hut.

'''Ssagan''' 
In Burkhanism, a Russian religious movement that flourished among the indigenous people of Russia's Gorno Altai region between 1904 and the 1930s, Ak-Burkhan ("White Burkhan) is a deity who is depicted as an old man with white hair, a white coat, and white headgear, who rides a white horse, and is possibly analogous to the Mongolian "white old man," Tsagan Ebugen. The Buryat language (or Buriat) is a Mongolic language spoken by the Buryats of Siberia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkhanism]

==Page 786==

'''the Sayan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayan_Mountains The Sayan] is a mountain range in southern Siberia. The eastern Sauan extends 600 miles from the Yenisei to the southwest end of Lake Baikal, and the western Sayan forms the eastern continuation of the Altay Mountains.

'''Tannu-Ola''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannu-Ola_Mountains The Tannu-Ola] mountain range is in southern Siberia extending east-west direction and curves along the Mongolian border.

'''Tuva''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuva Tuva] is located in extreme southern Siberia bordering with Mongolia. Its eastern part is forested and elevated, and the west is a drier lowland.

'''"borbanngadyr"''' 
throat singing..like a flute: from the context.

'''"the heart of Earth" 
'''"all's I see's a bunch of sheep" 
'''"Exactly." 
This is Shambhala. Sheep may safely graze.

==Page 787==

'''the Wheel of Life''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavacakra The Wheel of Life] is a complex symbolic representation of "continuous movement" in the form of a circle, used primarily in Tibetan Buddhism. "Continuous movement", ''samsāra'', is the continuous cycle of birth, life, and death from which one liberates oneself through enlightenment.

'''"Are you kind deities? or wrathful deities?"''' 
Here Prance prefigures Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, from the 1939 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 The Wizard of Oz.] After descending from the sky in a pink bubble and encountering Dorothy Gale in Munchkinland, Glinda asks "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" Dorothy replies that she's not a witch at all, just as Randolph St. Cosmo replies that the Chums "endeavor to be kind." Darby's reference to Bo Peep seems Munchkinlandian too, as Glinda is a sort of shepherd to the Munchkins themselves.

'''"Bo Peep" 
she who has lost her sheep, as in the rhyme.

'''"Never work,", muttered Darby. "They'll squash you like bugs." 
Darby, now a lawyer, now cynical, presents the archetypal response to
Prance's visiting " deities" as in classic sci-fi books and movies.

'''the Tengyur''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_766|page 766: Tengyur]].

==Page 788==

'''band of''' '''''brodyagi''''' 
This entire passage is a reference to ''Don Quixote'', namely the incident with Gines de Pasamonte and the galley slaves. In ''Don Quixote'', Gines acts as a metafictional representation of Cervantes, as well as a symbol of the author/writer. Here, Topor acts as Gines, representing TRP (notice the name similarity). The hallucinogenic mushrooms represent the ''Quixote''--with a two part narrative, the first pleasant and wonderous, the second full of horrors--as well as AtD and novels, generally. The urine-drinking seems to be a crack at literary critics and literature fans who write about books and read what others write--essentially, drinking each other's urine: the after-products of the consumption of books. --[[User:Specklebelly|Specklebelly]]

'''''brodyagi''''' 
Russian: tramps.

'''"Topor"''' 
Russian: The Ax.

'''fusel oils''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_756|page 756: fusel oils]]. 
Toxic byproducts of fermentation, sometimes still present in bad liquor.

'''strange mottled red mushrooms''' 
''Amanita muscaria'', an hallucinogenic mushroom. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria Wikipedia entry].

'''drank one another's urine''' 
Shamanistic practice also observed in some "mystery" religions. The person who ingests the drug partly metabolizes it and excretes it; followers can get a, hrmm, watered-down dose by drinking his urine.

==Page 789==

'''''brodyagi''''' 
See page 788.

'''Christian propaganda mill down south''' 
A college?

'''Pacific Coast League''' 
Minor league (Triple-A) baseball league that at the time was the only professional baseball league west of St. Louis. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Coast_League Wikipedia entry].

Perhaps Colfax Vibe has become Sandy Koufax, pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1960's.

==Page 790==

'''the wilderness Creature that feeds on all other creatures . . .''' 
Described by Captain Padzhitnoff on p.124

'''Krasnoyarsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk], the third largest city in Siberia, is on the Yenisei River upstream of Yeniseisk. It is an important junction on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

'''arival''' 
Misspelling of ''arrival.''

'''remittance man''' 
A man living on remittances, i.e. family funds from home, a trust fund, etc. It is also time to note that a Fleetwood is a model of Cadillac.

==Page 791==

'''the Vormance people''' 
The Vormance polar expedition was mentioned on page 130 and elsewhere.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 768-791

2007-04-10T22:09:14Z

Jpicco: /* Page 787 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 768==

'''fourteeners''' 
Affectionate name applied by Coloradans to mountain peaks 14,000 feet (approx. 4200 m) high.

'''Lake Baikal''' 

Another bi-location: one world out here, another reflected one in the lake.

Photos of Lake Baikal: [http://angara.net/photo/album/122] & [http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/lakebaikal/]

An Article on the Oddities of Lake Baikal: [http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF9/986.html] 

Wikipedia Entry: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal]

==Page 769==

'''Mount Kailash''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_437|page 437: Mount Kailash]].

'''Tengri Khan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Tengri Tengri Khan] is a mountain, the second-highest peak (23,000 ft) of the Tian Shan mountain range.

'''a maze of slot canyons''' 
The ground is crumpled rather like Kovalevskaia's handkerchief on page 634.

==Page 770==

'''stand before the Gate . . . Kit looked up . . .''' 
See the picture here: Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_764|page 764: Tushuk Tash]].

'''followed by the whizzing sound''' 
As the impact of the V-2 was in ''Gravity's Rainbow.''

==Page 771==

'''You are released''' 
Echoes ''Ite, missa est'' on page 668.

'''samovars . . . gasping and puffing''' 
Samovar: a double urn containing a large amount of hot water and a small amount of super-strong tea. Passengers mixed their own to taste. The hot-water urn (the samovar proper) was in fact a small charcoal boiler; there ''was'' much steam. Many Russian railroad cars had samovars.

'''Ak-su''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aksu_City Ak-su] (White Water) is a city in Xinjiang, China. It is located in the Southern foothills of Tian Shan. The economy of Ak-su is mostly agricultural, with cotton, in particular the long-staple cotton, as the main product.

'''Kucha''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kucha Kucha] is a city in Xinjiang. It was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Takalmakan desert in the Tarim Basin.

'''Korla''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korla Korla], also spelled as Kurla, is a city south of Karashahr. The Iron Gate Pass, 4 miles north of the city, played an important part in protecting the ancient Silk Road from rading nomads from the north.

'''Karasahr''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karasahr Karasahr] (Black City) is located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert.

'''nephrite''' 
Fibrous silicate mineral, one of the constituents of jade.

'''Turfan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turfan Turfan] is an oasis city located about 90 miles southeast of Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, China, in a mountain basin on the northern side of the Turfan Depression. Even though it has only 0.9 inch rainfall per year, Turfan has long been the center of a fertile oasis, producing great quatities of high-quality fruits, and an imprtant trade center.

'''Flaming Mountains''' 
[http://www.chinaetravel.com/attraction/att27c.html Flaming Mountains] are red sandstone hills on the northern edge of the Turfan Basin. The red of the hills has been likened to burning flames, and temperatures often reach a sweltering 130° F. The Mountains were made famous by the 16th-century Chinese classic novel ''Journey to the West''.

'''the Sangre de Cristos''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_de_Cristo_Mountains The Sangre de Cristos] (Blood of Christ) are the southermost subrange of the Rocky Mountains located in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

==Page 772==
'''the ancient kingdom of Khocho . . . to be the historical Shambhala''' 
Dr Edwin Bernbaum, a Research Associate of the University of California, Berkeley, claimed, in his book ''The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalays'' (1980), that Shambhala is not in the Himalayas, but far to the north, in the Turfan Depression, "Established by the Uighurs, a Turkish perople, around 850, the kingdom of Khocho flourished for four hundred years as a remarkable oasis of culture and learning. A predominantly Buddhist country, with numerous monasteries, it also had active centers of Manicheanism and Nestorian Christianity . . . At the time the ''Kalackra'' appreared in India, the kingdom of Khocho probably possessed the most advanced civilization of any country in Central Asia. Well-irrigated fields and orchards produced enough surplus food to allow the Uighurs to run welfare programs for the poor. Living together in peaceful harmony, people of different races, relgions and languages stimulated each other's thought and culture. Paintings found in the ruins of Turfan show houses built in the Chinese style, men and women dressed in embroidered silk, and a chamber ensemble complete with harps, guitar, and flutes. Even the Chinese, the most fastidious connoisseurs of culture, were impressed by the grace of Uihur society." (pp.42-43)

'''Urumchi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi Urumchi] or Ürümqi, is the capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. With a population of 2.1 million (75% are Han Chinese) and located in the northwest of the country, it is the largest city in the western half of China. Ürümqi is the most remote city from any sea in the world at a distance of about 1,400 miles from the nearest coastline.

'''lowlands of Dzungaria''' 
A region of 300,000 sq mi in Xinjiang, NW China. It is a largely steppe and semidesert basin surrounded by high mountains: the Tian Shan in the south and the Altai in the north. Urumchi and Yining are the main cities with other smaller oasis towns dot the piedmont areas. The region passed to the Chinese only in the mid-18th century.

==Page 773==

'''Lake Zaisan''' 
Lake Zaisan, in Russian Central Asia near the Chinese border, is located in an open valley between the Altai range on the northeast and the Tarbagatai on the south at an altitude of 1,355 ft.

'''The Irtysh . . . the Ob''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irtysh_River The Irtysh] is the chief tributary of the Ob which is a major river in western Siberia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ob_river The Ob] is Russia's fourth longest river. The Ob-Irtysh form a major basin in Asia, encompassing most of western Siberia and the Altai Mountains.

'''Novosibirsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novosibirsk Novosibirsk] lies along the Ob river in the West Siberian Plain. It is Russia's 3rd largest city, after Moscow and St.Petersubrg. It was founded in 1893 as the future site of the Trans-Siberian Railway bridge crossing the Ob. In early 20th century the Turkestan-Siberia Railway, connecting Novosibirsk to Central Asia and the Caspian Sea, was completed.

'''The Paris of Irkutsk''' 
By 1900 Irkutsk (Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_764|page 763: Irkutsk]]) had been nicknamed as such.

'''''kupechestvo''''' 
Russian: the merchant community.

'''Glaskovsk''' 
A suburb in Irkutsk across the Irkut river.

==Page 774==

'''Club Golomyanka''' 
A golomyanka is a viviparous fish of the perch family, unique to Lake Baikal.

'''NAUSHNIKI''' 
As translated in the text.

'''1895 model Nagant revolver''' 
[http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg102-e.htm Nagant revolver] was designed in Belgium by Nagant brothers in the late 1880s and was adopted by numerous countries. The major user and manufacturer was Russia which adopted it in 1895.

'''British gold sovereigns''' 
The world's most popular gold coins, [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/firstsovereign.html British gold sovereign] first came to existence in 1489 under Henry VII. There was a major change in 1816 for the so-called Modern Soverign which are continure to the present day. It has a value of one pound sterling (but with a much higher trading market value) and is made of 15.55 grams of standard gold coinage alloy of 23 carat, equal to 95.83% pure gold. (Another source [http://www.onlygold.com/Coins/BritishSovereignsFullScreen.asp British gold sovereigns2] said they have a 91.7% gold.)

==Page 775==

'''Tower Hill''' 
[http://www.royalmint.com/RoyalMint/web/site/Corporate/AboutUs/History/TowerHill.asp The Royal Mint at Tower Hill], London, between 1812-1968. Now the Royal mint is at Liantrisant (10 miles west of Cardiff), Wales.

'''Young Vic''' 
Image of young Queen Victoria on the British sovereign (1 pound) piece. The first portrait for Queen Victoria was the "Youg Head", which was used on sovereigns from 1838 to 1887 inclusive. For a picture for this coin see [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/heads.html Victoria Young Head].

'''Upper Tunguska, Stony Tunguska, Lower Tunguska''' 
They are the three eastern tributaries of the Yenisei River in Siberia. They cut across the swampy forests of east-central Siberia, draining the Tunguska Basin. Furthest north is the Lower Tunguska (1,590 mile long). The Stony Tunguska (980 mile long) rises west of the headwaters of the Lower Tunguska. The Upper Tunguska is the name given to the lower course of the Angara and it joins the Yenisei at Strelka. The area of the three rivers is the home of the Tungus. ([http://www.bartelby.com/65/tu/Tunguska.html Tunguska]).

'''the Ilimpiya''' 
Presumably the Ilimpeya River, a left-bank tributary of the Lower Tunguska, is named for them.

:It refers to the Tungus people from the Ilimpiya river.

'''the Shanyagir''' 
A clan of the Tungus people who lives along the Stony Tunguska.

'''Magyakan''' 
Shaman of the Ilimpiya clan, also spelled Magankan. His greatest feat was summoning a huge flock of ''agdi'', the birds made of iron that produce the thunder, for the explosion over the land of the Shanyagir clan. It flattened nearly a thousand square miles of forest and started a fire that burned for weeks, sending ash so high that it circled the Northern Hemisphere, making sunsets bright. See [http://www.answers.com/topic/shaman shaman].

'''''siberyaki''''' 
Standard spelling ''sibiryaki.'' Russian: Siberians.

'''Bratsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratsk Bratsk], located on the Angara River near the vast Bratsk Reservoir, is a city in Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia.

'''Yeniseisk''' 
[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Yeniseisk,_Siberia_(Capital) Yeniseisk], on the right bank of the Yenisei, is a Siberian city 170 miles northwest of Krasnoyarsk, capital of the government of the same name.

'''embouchure''' 
French word denoting the conformation of the mouth (in speaking, playing the clarinet, etc.).

==Page 776==

'''Dorzhieff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agvan_Dorjiev Agvan Dorjiev] (1853/54–1938) was an ethnic Buriat who trained as a Buddhist monk in Tibet.He was one of the tutors of the 13th Dalai Lama and was his representative at the Russian court. He played a great role in the international political life, establishing various relations between Tibet and Russia. The British believed that Dorjiev had created the Shambala Russian myth. Ekai Kawaguchi, a Buddhist monk from Japan who visited Tibet at the turn of the 20th century, claimed to have heard of a pamphlet in which Dorjiev wrote “Shambhala was Russia. The Emperor, moreover, was an incarnation of Tsongkhapa, and would sooner or later subdue the whole world and found a gigantic Buddhist empire”. The religiously-based purpose of Agvan Dorjiev was the foundation of a Lamaist-oriented kingdom of the Tibetans and Mongols as a theocracy under the Dalai Lama ... [and] under the protection of Tsarist Russia ... In addition, among the Lamaists there existed the religiously grounded hope for help from a ‘Messianic Kingdom’ in the North ... called 'Northern Shambhala’. At the center of Dorjiev’s activities in Russia stood the construction of a three-dimensional mandala — the Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg. Regarding the décor, it is perhaps also of interest that there was a swastika motif which the Bolsheviks knocked out during the Second World War. Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg there was sufficient room for several lamas, who looked after the ritual life, to live on the grounds. Dorjiev had originally intended to triple the staffing and to construct not just a temple but also a whole monastery. This was prevented, however, by the intervention of the Russian Orthodox Church . Officially, the buddhist shrine was declared to be a place for the needs of the Buriat, Tuva, mongol ,and Kalmyk minorities in the capital. With regard to its occult functions it was a tantric mandala with which the Kalachakra system was to be transplanted into the West. From the lamas’ traditional point of view, founding a temple is seen as an act of spiritual occupation of a territory. Such sacred buildings as the Kalachakra temple in St. Petersburg are cosmograms which are employed by the lamas as magic seals in order to spiritually subjugate countries and peoples.

'''taiga''' 
Coniferous boreal forest; supports logging, trapping, hunting/gathering.

'''iron creatures of Agdy . . . their eyes flashing . . .''' 
"The Tungus have only one expression for the thunder - ''agdy''-, by which they also describe the old man, the lord of the thunder as well as all the thunderbirds that come down to earth and cause the thunder. The ''Agdy'' birds are as big as black grouses, are made of iron, and their eyes are fiery. The thunder arises from their flight above the earth and their eyes flash like lightning." (from a quotation in [http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/evenkiv.html Tungus eye-witnesses reports of Tunguska Event]).

'''Hindu fire-god Agni''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni Fire-god Agni] is a Hindu and Vedic deity. The word ''Agni'' is Sanskrit for "fire". Agni is a messenger from and to the other gods. He is ever-young and immortal, because the fire is re-lit every day.

'''Ogdai Khan''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_765|page 765: Ogdai]].

==Page 777==

'''The Church of England''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England The Church of England] is the officially established Christian church in England, and acts as the "mother" and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion.

'''Shamanism''' 
Decentralized religion. The village shaman engaged in spirit travel and communicated with animals, ancestors, etc., for the benefit of the people, often using bizarrely excessive amounts of drugs.

'''The Cherokee''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee The Cherokee] are a people indigenous to North American, who at the time of European contact in the 16th century inhabited what is now the Eastern and Southeastern United States. Most were forcibly moved westward to the Ozark Plateua. They were one of the tribes referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes.

'''the Apache''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache The Apache] is the collective name for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the US. They formerly lived over eastern Arizona, north-western Mexico, New Mexico, parts of Texas.

'''the massacre of the Sioux Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee''' 
They were the largest and most important Indian tribe north of Mexico, with the exception of Chippewa, who, however, lack the solidarity of the Sioux. [http://www.indians.org/articles/sioux-indians.html The Sioux] actually came to North America from Asia about 30,000 years ago. The name Sioux means "little snake". They were generally nomadic, typically followed the pattern of the buffalo. [http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/sioux-indians/sioux-indians.htm The Sioux Indians] occupied the vast domain extending from the Arkansas River, in the south, to the western tributary of Lake Winnipeg, in the north, and westward to the eastern slopes of the Rocky. The Sioux battled the white men and fought against the government in orer to keep their land. There was a general uprising in 1862. Later there were many more fierce armed conflicts involved the Sioux. One of the better known was ''The Battle of Little Big Horn'' on June 25, 1876, in which General Custer and all of his immediate command were killed. This was one of the most significant victories, led by [http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/bigfoor.htm Sitting Bull] (1831-1890), of the Indian Nations. 
A new Indian's religion that promised to rid the land of white people and restore the Indians' way of life evolved in 1880s-1890s as a reaction to the Indians being forced to submit to government authority and reservation life. The new religion was called [http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKghost.html the Ghost Dance] by the white because of its ceremonial ritual dance and its precepts of resurrection and reunion with the dead. The Sioux were the most enthusiastic believers. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs banned the Ghost Dance feared that the swelling numbers of Ghost Dancers and believed that the ritual was a precusor to renwered Indian militancy and violent rebellion. The confrontation led to [http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKmscr.html The Wounded Knee Massacre] on December 29, 1890 in which over 350 Ghost Dancers were slained. And this was the last major armed conflict between the Indian Nations and the US Government.

==Page 779==

'''A heavenwide blast of light''' 
It refers to the greatest cosmic impact of the century, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event the Tunguska Event], happened at 7:17 A.M. on June 30, 1908 near the Stony Tunguska River at Tunguska basin in central Siberia, Russia. With no warning, a small comet or meteor about 100 ft in diameter, coming from the direction of Western China and glowing with the heat of 5,000 degrees, hurtling through space about 3-6 miles above the Earth and exploded in the sky 40 miles north of Vanavara settlement by the Stony Tunguska. It was so powerful that the seismograph at Irkutsk, some 550 miles away, registered what looked like an earthquake. The impact had a force of 20 million tons of TNT, equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs. It is estimated that 60-80 million trees were felled over an area of 830 square miless but left no obvious crater. If the explosion had occurred over St Petersburg hundreds of thousands of people would have been killed. But the Event occurred at such a remote and isolated location that no scientist bothered to investigate the "rumors" of the event for 13 years. (See also [http://www.unmuseum.org/siberia.htm Tunguska Event from UnMuseum].)
:Check your TV schedule for a History Channel special, ''Siberian Apocalypse,'' which presents old movie footage of Soviet explorations (my guess: re-enacted in the 1930s) and analyses by present-day scientists and UFOlogists, along with the usual Slo-Mo Channel animations repeated ad nauseam. The program ran on March 18, 2007. The best current information, according to a team from the University of Bologna, points to a stony asteroid (a "carbonaceous chondrite") that disintegrated some miles above the surface, leaving no fragments to be found but loading the local vegetation with elements not typical of the taiga.
:Two of the stranger hypotheses about the Event have special ''AtD'' connections. (1) The cosmic object was a chunk of antimatter, and the energy it released was due to annihilation when it came into contact with terrestrial matter (air). This would make the object, in a sense, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|the Anti-Stone (p. 78).]] (2) The Event was the explosion produced by dissipation of a huge [[ATD_57-80#Page_73|ball lightning (p. 73).]] Both these notions are pretty remote, though, and the stony asteroid holds up better.

'''poods''' 
Russian measure of weight. One pood = 16.38 kilograms; 30 poods = 491 kg = 1081 pounds, pretty close to half a ton.

'''''ekipazh''''' 
Russian: crew, team.

'''''Právil'no''''' 
Russian: all ''right!''

'''Russian design philosophy''' 
. . . which is perpetuated in Soviet and Russian space technology.

'''Razvedka''' 
Russian: intelligence (in the military-political sense).

'''pogroms''' 
Terror campaigns, usually against Jews.

==Page 780==

'''Ofitser Nauchny''' 
Russian: science officer.

'''this Event''' 
The Tunguska Event. Cf 779: A heavenside blast of light.

'''''umnik''''' 
Russian: clever man.

'''General Sukhomlinoff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Sukhomlinov Vladimir Alexandrovich Sukhomlinoff] (1848-1926), Russian cavalry officer, Chief of General Staff 1908-9, Minister of War 1909-15, imprisoned 1917-18 for failure to prepare the Russian Army for World War, emigrated to Finland and then to Germany.

'''''Zi!''''' 
Might be an error. "Wait" in the imperative mode is ''zhdi'' or ''podozhdi'' in Russian.

'''butterfly . . . angel''' 
The description of the damage pattern is accurate; see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event.]

==Page 781==

'''''zastolye''''' 
Russian: group of regulars.

'''''Khuy''''' 
Impolite Russian: cock!

'''Bezumyoff''' 
The name derives from Russian ''bezumets'': madman.

'''''vseznaǐka''''' 
Russian: as translated in text. In keeping with the sources he must have used—many of them contemporary—Pynchon applies a bewildering assortment of rules in transliterating Russian words.

'''"potentially a hole in the earth"''' 
One of the theories regarding the real Tungaska Event is that a small black hole entered the earth. Flaw in theory: an exit has never been found. See Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event]).

'''. . . ''at any moment'', directly beneath St Petersburg . . .''' 
"According to the Guinness Book of World Records (1966 edition), if the collision had occurred 4 hours 47 minutes later, it would have wiped out St. Petersburg, the starting point of the Bolshevik revolution." See (Wikipedia article, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event]).

'''Tsarskoe Selo''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsarskoe_Selo Tsarskoe Selo], ''Tsar's Village'', was the "country" home of the Russian Tsars. It is now part of the town of Pushkin about 15 miles south from the center of St.Petersburg.

==Page 782==

'''...to reaffrm allegiance to its limits, including mortality...''' 
That is, to reaffirm the allegiance of the inhabitants of this world to the "something's" limits, remind Man of mortality and transcendent laws and limits.

'''''Nichevo''''' 
Russian: nothing.

'''Vanavara''' 
[http://www.evenkya.ru/eng/?id=obsh&sid=admterdel&ssid=41 Vanavara] is the adminstrative center, a settlement with a population of 3,000, of Tungusko-Chunsky region. It is situated on the right bank of the Stony Tunguska river. Vanavara was 40 miles south of the Tunguska Event blast center.

'''Transfinitum''' 
Cantor's mathematical concept of transfinite numbers, indefinitely large but distinct from one another.

==Page 783==

'''''dungur''''' 
A ''dungur'' is a shamanic drum.

'''homeopathic echoes to protect from its return''' 
The homeopathic principle is that small doses of what kills will cure or prevent; drumming prevents return of the huge sound.

==Page 784==

'''Raskol'niki''' 
Russian: schismatics, dissenters. Raskol'nikov in ''Crime and Punishment'' derives his name from this word.

'''Tchernobyl . . . Wormwood''' 
Now rendered more commonly as Chernobyl (Russian), Chornobyl (Ukrainian). 
Wormwood, a star that falls onto the Earth poisoning the fresh water sources per Book of Revelation 8:10-11.

'''Reindeer discovered again their ancient powers of flight, which had lapsed over the centuries since humans had invaded the North. Some were stimulated by the accompanying radiation into an epidermal luminescence at the red end of the spectrum, particularly around the nasal area.''' 
In other words, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and his airborne squadron mates. Seriously: magic and the possibility of change is reintroduced into the world.

'''heat . . . tended to flow unpredictably''' 
The Laws of Thermodynamics have taken a brief holiday.

'''Old Slavonic''' 
Or Old Church Slavonic; liturgical language of Russian Orthodox Church, closely related to Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian.

==Page 785==

'''''izba''''' 
Russian: hut.

'''Ssagan''' 
In Burkhanism, a Russian religious movement that flourished among the indigenous people of Russia's Gorno Altai region between 1904 and the 1930s, Ak-Burkhan ("White Burkhan) is a deity who is depicted as an old man with white hair, a white coat, and white headgear, who rides a white horse, and is possibly analogous to the Mongolian "white old man," Tsagan Ebugen. The Buryat language (or Buriat) is a Mongolic language spoken by the Buryats of Siberia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkhanism]

==Page 786==

'''the Sayan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayan_Mountains The Sayan] is a mountain range in southern Siberia. The eastern Sauan extends 600 miles from the Yenisei to the southwest end of Lake Baikal, and the western Sayan forms the eastern continuation of the Altay Mountains.

'''Tannu-Ola''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannu-Ola_Mountains The Tannu-Ola] mountain range is in southern Siberia extending east-west direction and curves along the Mongolian border.

'''Tuva''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuva Tuva] is located in extreme southern Siberia bordering with Mongolia. Its eastern part is forested and elevated, and the west is a drier lowland.

'''"borbanngadyr"''' 
throat singing..like a flute: from the context.

'''"the heart of Earth" 
'''"all's I see's a bunch of sheep" 
'''"Exactly." 
This is Shambhala. Sheep may safely graze.

==Page 787==

'''the Wheel of Life''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavacakra The Wheel of Life] is a complex symbolic representation of "continuous movement" in the form of a circle, used primarily in Tibetan Buddhism. "Continuous movement", ''samsāra'', is the continuous cycle of birth, life, and death from which one liberates oneself through enlightenment.

'''"Are you kind deities? or wrathful deities?"''' 
Here Prance prefigures Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, from the 1939 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 The Wizard of Oz.] Upon encountering Dorothy Gale in Munchkinland, she asks "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" Dorothy replies that she's not a witch at all, just as Randolph St. Cosmo replies that the Chums "endeavor to be kind." Darby's reference to Bo Peep seems Munchkinlandian too, as Glinda is a sort of shepherd to the Munchkins themselves.

'''"Bo Peep" 
she who has lost her sheep, as in the rhyme.

'''"Never work,", muttered Darby. "They'll squash you like bugs." 
Darby, now a lawyer, now cynical, presents the archetypal response to
Prance's visiting " deities" as in classic sci-fi books and movies.

'''the Tengyur''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_766|page 766: Tengyur]].

==Page 788==

'''band of''' '''''brodyagi''''' 
This entire passage is a reference to ''Don Quixote'', namely the incident with Gines de Pasamonte and the galley slaves. In ''Don Quixote'', Gines acts as a metafictional representation of Cervantes, as well as a symbol of the author/writer. Here, Topor acts as Gines, representing TRP (notice the name similarity). The hallucinogenic mushrooms represent the ''Quixote''--with a two part narrative, the first pleasant and wonderous, the second full of horrors--as well as AtD and novels, generally. The urine-drinking seems to be a crack at literary critics and literature fans who write about books and read what others write--essentially, drinking each other's urine: the after-products of the consumption of books. --[[User:Specklebelly|Specklebelly]]

'''''brodyagi''''' 
Russian: tramps.

'''"Topor"''' 
Russian: The Ax.

'''fusel oils''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_756|page 756: fusel oils]]. 
Toxic byproducts of fermentation, sometimes still present in bad liquor.

'''strange mottled red mushrooms''' 
''Amanita muscaria'', an hallucinogenic mushroom. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria Wikipedia entry].

'''drank one another's urine''' 
Shamanistic practice also observed in some "mystery" religions. The person who ingests the drug partly metabolizes it and excretes it; followers can get a, hrmm, watered-down dose by drinking his urine.

==Page 789==

'''''brodyagi''''' 
See page 788.

'''Christian propaganda mill down south''' 
A college?

'''Pacific Coast League''' 
Minor league (Triple-A) baseball league that at the time was the only professional baseball league west of St. Louis. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Coast_League Wikipedia entry].

Perhaps Colfax Vibe has become Sandy Koufax, pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1960's.

==Page 790==

'''the wilderness Creature that feeds on all other creatures . . .''' 
Described by Captain Padzhitnoff on p.124

'''Krasnoyarsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk], the third largest city in Siberia, is on the Yenisei River upstream of Yeniseisk. It is an important junction on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

'''arival''' 
Misspelling of ''arrival.''

'''remittance man''' 
A man living on remittances, i.e. family funds from home, a trust fund, etc. It is also time to note that a Fleetwood is a model of Cadillac.

==Page 791==

'''the Vormance people''' 
The Vormance polar expedition was mentioned on page 130 and elsewhere.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 768-791

2007-04-10T22:07:15Z

Jpicco: /* Page 787 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 768==

'''fourteeners''' 
Affectionate name applied by Coloradans to mountain peaks 14,000 feet (approx. 4200 m) high.

'''Lake Baikal''' 

Another bi-location: one world out here, another reflected one in the lake.

Photos of Lake Baikal: [http://angara.net/photo/album/122] & [http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/lakebaikal/]

An Article on the Oddities of Lake Baikal: [http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF9/986.html] 

Wikipedia Entry: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal]

==Page 769==

'''Mount Kailash''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_437|page 437: Mount Kailash]].

'''Tengri Khan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Tengri Tengri Khan] is a mountain, the second-highest peak (23,000 ft) of the Tian Shan mountain range.

'''a maze of slot canyons''' 
The ground is crumpled rather like Kovalevskaia's handkerchief on page 634.

==Page 770==

'''stand before the Gate . . . Kit looked up . . .''' 
See the picture here: Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_764|page 764: Tushuk Tash]].

'''followed by the whizzing sound''' 
As the impact of the V-2 was in ''Gravity's Rainbow.''

==Page 771==

'''You are released''' 
Echoes ''Ite, missa est'' on page 668.

'''samovars . . . gasping and puffing''' 
Samovar: a double urn containing a large amount of hot water and a small amount of super-strong tea. Passengers mixed their own to taste. The hot-water urn (the samovar proper) was in fact a small charcoal boiler; there ''was'' much steam. Many Russian railroad cars had samovars.

'''Ak-su''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aksu_City Ak-su] (White Water) is a city in Xinjiang, China. It is located in the Southern foothills of Tian Shan. The economy of Ak-su is mostly agricultural, with cotton, in particular the long-staple cotton, as the main product.

'''Kucha''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kucha Kucha] is a city in Xinjiang. It was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Takalmakan desert in the Tarim Basin.

'''Korla''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korla Korla], also spelled as Kurla, is a city south of Karashahr. The Iron Gate Pass, 4 miles north of the city, played an important part in protecting the ancient Silk Road from rading nomads from the north.

'''Karasahr''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karasahr Karasahr] (Black City) is located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of the Taklamakan desert.

'''nephrite''' 
Fibrous silicate mineral, one of the constituents of jade.

'''Turfan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turfan Turfan] is an oasis city located about 90 miles southeast of Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, China, in a mountain basin on the northern side of the Turfan Depression. Even though it has only 0.9 inch rainfall per year, Turfan has long been the center of a fertile oasis, producing great quatities of high-quality fruits, and an imprtant trade center.

'''Flaming Mountains''' 
[http://www.chinaetravel.com/attraction/att27c.html Flaming Mountains] are red sandstone hills on the northern edge of the Turfan Basin. The red of the hills has been likened to burning flames, and temperatures often reach a sweltering 130° F. The Mountains were made famous by the 16th-century Chinese classic novel ''Journey to the West''.

'''the Sangre de Cristos''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_de_Cristo_Mountains The Sangre de Cristos] (Blood of Christ) are the southermost subrange of the Rocky Mountains located in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

==Page 772==
'''the ancient kingdom of Khocho . . . to be the historical Shambhala''' 
Dr Edwin Bernbaum, a Research Associate of the University of California, Berkeley, claimed, in his book ''The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalays'' (1980), that Shambhala is not in the Himalayas, but far to the north, in the Turfan Depression, "Established by the Uighurs, a Turkish perople, around 850, the kingdom of Khocho flourished for four hundred years as a remarkable oasis of culture and learning. A predominantly Buddhist country, with numerous monasteries, it also had active centers of Manicheanism and Nestorian Christianity . . . At the time the ''Kalackra'' appreared in India, the kingdom of Khocho probably possessed the most advanced civilization of any country in Central Asia. Well-irrigated fields and orchards produced enough surplus food to allow the Uighurs to run welfare programs for the poor. Living together in peaceful harmony, people of different races, relgions and languages stimulated each other's thought and culture. Paintings found in the ruins of Turfan show houses built in the Chinese style, men and women dressed in embroidered silk, and a chamber ensemble complete with harps, guitar, and flutes. Even the Chinese, the most fastidious connoisseurs of culture, were impressed by the grace of Uihur society." (pp.42-43)

'''Urumchi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi Urumchi] or Ürümqi, is the capital of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. With a population of 2.1 million (75% are Han Chinese) and located in the northwest of the country, it is the largest city in the western half of China. Ürümqi is the most remote city from any sea in the world at a distance of about 1,400 miles from the nearest coastline.

'''lowlands of Dzungaria''' 
A region of 300,000 sq mi in Xinjiang, NW China. It is a largely steppe and semidesert basin surrounded by high mountains: the Tian Shan in the south and the Altai in the north. Urumchi and Yining are the main cities with other smaller oasis towns dot the piedmont areas. The region passed to the Chinese only in the mid-18th century.

==Page 773==

'''Lake Zaisan''' 
Lake Zaisan, in Russian Central Asia near the Chinese border, is located in an open valley between the Altai range on the northeast and the Tarbagatai on the south at an altitude of 1,355 ft.

'''The Irtysh . . . the Ob''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irtysh_River The Irtysh] is the chief tributary of the Ob which is a major river in western Siberia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ob_river The Ob] is Russia's fourth longest river. The Ob-Irtysh form a major basin in Asia, encompassing most of western Siberia and the Altai Mountains.

'''Novosibirsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novosibirsk Novosibirsk] lies along the Ob river in the West Siberian Plain. It is Russia's 3rd largest city, after Moscow and St.Petersubrg. It was founded in 1893 as the future site of the Trans-Siberian Railway bridge crossing the Ob. In early 20th century the Turkestan-Siberia Railway, connecting Novosibirsk to Central Asia and the Caspian Sea, was completed.

'''The Paris of Irkutsk''' 
By 1900 Irkutsk (Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_764|page 763: Irkutsk]]) had been nicknamed as such.

'''''kupechestvo''''' 
Russian: the merchant community.

'''Glaskovsk''' 
A suburb in Irkutsk across the Irkut river.

==Page 774==

'''Club Golomyanka''' 
A golomyanka is a viviparous fish of the perch family, unique to Lake Baikal.

'''NAUSHNIKI''' 
As translated in the text.

'''1895 model Nagant revolver''' 
[http://world.guns.ru/handguns/hg102-e.htm Nagant revolver] was designed in Belgium by Nagant brothers in the late 1880s and was adopted by numerous countries. The major user and manufacturer was Russia which adopted it in 1895.

'''British gold sovereigns''' 
The world's most popular gold coins, [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/firstsovereign.html British gold sovereign] first came to existence in 1489 under Henry VII. There was a major change in 1816 for the so-called Modern Soverign which are continure to the present day. It has a value of one pound sterling (but with a much higher trading market value) and is made of 15.55 grams of standard gold coinage alloy of 23 carat, equal to 95.83% pure gold. (Another source [http://www.onlygold.com/Coins/BritishSovereignsFullScreen.asp British gold sovereigns2] said they have a 91.7% gold.)

==Page 775==

'''Tower Hill''' 
[http://www.royalmint.com/RoyalMint/web/site/Corporate/AboutUs/History/TowerHill.asp The Royal Mint at Tower Hill], London, between 1812-1968. Now the Royal mint is at Liantrisant (10 miles west of Cardiff), Wales.

'''Young Vic''' 
Image of young Queen Victoria on the British sovereign (1 pound) piece. The first portrait for Queen Victoria was the "Youg Head", which was used on sovereigns from 1838 to 1887 inclusive. For a picture for this coin see [http://www.goldsovereigns.co.uk/heads.html Victoria Young Head].

'''Upper Tunguska, Stony Tunguska, Lower Tunguska''' 
They are the three eastern tributaries of the Yenisei River in Siberia. They cut across the swampy forests of east-central Siberia, draining the Tunguska Basin. Furthest north is the Lower Tunguska (1,590 mile long). The Stony Tunguska (980 mile long) rises west of the headwaters of the Lower Tunguska. The Upper Tunguska is the name given to the lower course of the Angara and it joins the Yenisei at Strelka. The area of the three rivers is the home of the Tungus. ([http://www.bartelby.com/65/tu/Tunguska.html Tunguska]).

'''the Ilimpiya''' 
Presumably the Ilimpeya River, a left-bank tributary of the Lower Tunguska, is named for them.

:It refers to the Tungus people from the Ilimpiya river.

'''the Shanyagir''' 
A clan of the Tungus people who lives along the Stony Tunguska.

'''Magyakan''' 
Shaman of the Ilimpiya clan, also spelled Magankan. His greatest feat was summoning a huge flock of ''agdi'', the birds made of iron that produce the thunder, for the explosion over the land of the Shanyagir clan. It flattened nearly a thousand square miles of forest and started a fire that burned for weeks, sending ash so high that it circled the Northern Hemisphere, making sunsets bright. See [http://www.answers.com/topic/shaman shaman].

'''''siberyaki''''' 
Standard spelling ''sibiryaki.'' Russian: Siberians.

'''Bratsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratsk Bratsk], located on the Angara River near the vast Bratsk Reservoir, is a city in Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, Russia.

'''Yeniseisk''' 
[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Yeniseisk,_Siberia_(Capital) Yeniseisk], on the right bank of the Yenisei, is a Siberian city 170 miles northwest of Krasnoyarsk, capital of the government of the same name.

'''embouchure''' 
French word denoting the conformation of the mouth (in speaking, playing the clarinet, etc.).

==Page 776==

'''Dorzhieff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agvan_Dorjiev Agvan Dorjiev] (1853/54–1938) was an ethnic Buriat who trained as a Buddhist monk in Tibet.He was one of the tutors of the 13th Dalai Lama and was his representative at the Russian court. He played a great role in the international political life, establishing various relations between Tibet and Russia. The British believed that Dorjiev had created the Shambala Russian myth. Ekai Kawaguchi, a Buddhist monk from Japan who visited Tibet at the turn of the 20th century, claimed to have heard of a pamphlet in which Dorjiev wrote “Shambhala was Russia. The Emperor, moreover, was an incarnation of Tsongkhapa, and would sooner or later subdue the whole world and found a gigantic Buddhist empire”. The religiously-based purpose of Agvan Dorjiev was the foundation of a Lamaist-oriented kingdom of the Tibetans and Mongols as a theocracy under the Dalai Lama ... [and] under the protection of Tsarist Russia ... In addition, among the Lamaists there existed the religiously grounded hope for help from a ‘Messianic Kingdom’ in the North ... called 'Northern Shambhala’. At the center of Dorjiev’s activities in Russia stood the construction of a three-dimensional mandala — the Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg. Regarding the décor, it is perhaps also of interest that there was a swastika motif which the Bolsheviks knocked out during the Second World War. Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg there was sufficient room for several lamas, who looked after the ritual life, to live on the grounds. Dorjiev had originally intended to triple the staffing and to construct not just a temple but also a whole monastery. This was prevented, however, by the intervention of the Russian Orthodox Church . Officially, the buddhist shrine was declared to be a place for the needs of the Buriat, Tuva, mongol ,and Kalmyk minorities in the capital. With regard to its occult functions it was a tantric mandala with which the Kalachakra system was to be transplanted into the West. From the lamas’ traditional point of view, founding a temple is seen as an act of spiritual occupation of a territory. Such sacred buildings as the Kalachakra temple in St. Petersburg are cosmograms which are employed by the lamas as magic seals in order to spiritually subjugate countries and peoples.

'''taiga''' 
Coniferous boreal forest; supports logging, trapping, hunting/gathering.

'''iron creatures of Agdy . . . their eyes flashing . . .''' 
"The Tungus have only one expression for the thunder - ''agdy''-, by which they also describe the old man, the lord of the thunder as well as all the thunderbirds that come down to earth and cause the thunder. The ''Agdy'' birds are as big as black grouses, are made of iron, and their eyes are fiery. The thunder arises from their flight above the earth and their eyes flash like lightning." (from a quotation in [http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/evenkiv.html Tungus eye-witnesses reports of Tunguska Event]).

'''Hindu fire-god Agni''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni Fire-god Agni] is a Hindu and Vedic deity. The word ''Agni'' is Sanskrit for "fire". Agni is a messenger from and to the other gods. He is ever-young and immortal, because the fire is re-lit every day.

'''Ogdai Khan''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_765|page 765: Ogdai]].

==Page 777==

'''The Church of England''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_England The Church of England] is the officially established Christian church in England, and acts as the "mother" and senior branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, as well as a founding member of the Porvoo Communion.

'''Shamanism''' 
Decentralized religion. The village shaman engaged in spirit travel and communicated with animals, ancestors, etc., for the benefit of the people, often using bizarrely excessive amounts of drugs.

'''The Cherokee''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee The Cherokee] are a people indigenous to North American, who at the time of European contact in the 16th century inhabited what is now the Eastern and Southeastern United States. Most were forcibly moved westward to the Ozark Plateua. They were one of the tribes referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes.

'''the Apache''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache The Apache] is the collective name for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the US. They formerly lived over eastern Arizona, north-western Mexico, New Mexico, parts of Texas.

'''the massacre of the Sioux Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee''' 
They were the largest and most important Indian tribe north of Mexico, with the exception of Chippewa, who, however, lack the solidarity of the Sioux. [http://www.indians.org/articles/sioux-indians.html The Sioux] actually came to North America from Asia about 30,000 years ago. The name Sioux means "little snake". They were generally nomadic, typically followed the pattern of the buffalo. [http://www.sonofthesouth.net/union-generals/sioux-indians/sioux-indians.htm The Sioux Indians] occupied the vast domain extending from the Arkansas River, in the south, to the western tributary of Lake Winnipeg, in the north, and westward to the eastern slopes of the Rocky. The Sioux battled the white men and fought against the government in orer to keep their land. There was a general uprising in 1862. Later there were many more fierce armed conflicts involved the Sioux. One of the better known was ''The Battle of Little Big Horn'' on June 25, 1876, in which General Custer and all of his immediate command were killed. This was one of the most significant victories, led by [http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/bigfoor.htm Sitting Bull] (1831-1890), of the Indian Nations. 
A new Indian's religion that promised to rid the land of white people and restore the Indians' way of life evolved in 1880s-1890s as a reaction to the Indians being forced to submit to government authority and reservation life. The new religion was called [http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKghost.html the Ghost Dance] by the white because of its ceremonial ritual dance and its precepts of resurrection and reunion with the dead. The Sioux were the most enthusiastic believers. But the Bureau of Indian Affairs banned the Ghost Dance feared that the swelling numbers of Ghost Dancers and believed that the ritual was a precusor to renwered Indian militancy and violent rebellion. The confrontation led to [http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKmscr.html The Wounded Knee Massacre] on December 29, 1890 in which over 350 Ghost Dancers were slained. And this was the last major armed conflict between the Indian Nations and the US Government.

==Page 779==

'''A heavenwide blast of light''' 
It refers to the greatest cosmic impact of the century, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event the Tunguska Event], happened at 7:17 A.M. on June 30, 1908 near the Stony Tunguska River at Tunguska basin in central Siberia, Russia. With no warning, a small comet or meteor about 100 ft in diameter, coming from the direction of Western China and glowing with the heat of 5,000 degrees, hurtling through space about 3-6 miles above the Earth and exploded in the sky 40 miles north of Vanavara settlement by the Stony Tunguska. It was so powerful that the seismograph at Irkutsk, some 550 miles away, registered what looked like an earthquake. The impact had a force of 20 million tons of TNT, equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshima bombs. It is estimated that 60-80 million trees were felled over an area of 830 square miless but left no obvious crater. If the explosion had occurred over St Petersburg hundreds of thousands of people would have been killed. But the Event occurred at such a remote and isolated location that no scientist bothered to investigate the "rumors" of the event for 13 years. (See also [http://www.unmuseum.org/siberia.htm Tunguska Event from UnMuseum].)
:Check your TV schedule for a History Channel special, ''Siberian Apocalypse,'' which presents old movie footage of Soviet explorations (my guess: re-enacted in the 1930s) and analyses by present-day scientists and UFOlogists, along with the usual Slo-Mo Channel animations repeated ad nauseam. The program ran on March 18, 2007. The best current information, according to a team from the University of Bologna, points to a stony asteroid (a "carbonaceous chondrite") that disintegrated some miles above the surface, leaving no fragments to be found but loading the local vegetation with elements not typical of the taiga.
:Two of the stranger hypotheses about the Event have special ''AtD'' connections. (1) The cosmic object was a chunk of antimatter, and the energy it released was due to annihilation when it came into contact with terrestrial matter (air). This would make the object, in a sense, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|the Anti-Stone (p. 78).]] (2) The Event was the explosion produced by dissipation of a huge [[ATD_57-80#Page_73|ball lightning (p. 73).]] Both these notions are pretty remote, though, and the stony asteroid holds up better.

'''poods''' 
Russian measure of weight. One pood = 16.38 kilograms; 30 poods = 491 kg = 1081 pounds, pretty close to half a ton.

'''''ekipazh''''' 
Russian: crew, team.

'''''Právil'no''''' 
Russian: all ''right!''

'''Russian design philosophy''' 
. . . which is perpetuated in Soviet and Russian space technology.

'''Razvedka''' 
Russian: intelligence (in the military-political sense).

'''pogroms''' 
Terror campaigns, usually against Jews.

==Page 780==

'''Ofitser Nauchny''' 
Russian: science officer.

'''this Event''' 
The Tunguska Event. Cf 779: A heavenside blast of light.

'''''umnik''''' 
Russian: clever man.

'''General Sukhomlinoff''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Sukhomlinov Vladimir Alexandrovich Sukhomlinoff] (1848-1926), Russian cavalry officer, Chief of General Staff 1908-9, Minister of War 1909-15, imprisoned 1917-18 for failure to prepare the Russian Army for World War, emigrated to Finland and then to Germany.

'''''Zi!''''' 
Might be an error. "Wait" in the imperative mode is ''zhdi'' or ''podozhdi'' in Russian.

'''butterfly . . . angel''' 
The description of the damage pattern is accurate; see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event.]

==Page 781==

'''''zastolye''''' 
Russian: group of regulars.

'''''Khuy''''' 
Impolite Russian: cock!

'''Bezumyoff''' 
The name derives from Russian ''bezumets'': madman.

'''''vseznaǐka''''' 
Russian: as translated in text. In keeping with the sources he must have used—many of them contemporary—Pynchon applies a bewildering assortment of rules in transliterating Russian words.

'''"potentially a hole in the earth"''' 
One of the theories regarding the real Tungaska Event is that a small black hole entered the earth. Flaw in theory: an exit has never been found. See Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event]).

'''. . . ''at any moment'', directly beneath St Petersburg . . .''' 
"According to the Guinness Book of World Records (1966 edition), if the collision had occurred 4 hours 47 minutes later, it would have wiped out St. Petersburg, the starting point of the Bolshevik revolution." See (Wikipedia article, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event Tunguska Event]).

'''Tsarskoe Selo''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsarskoe_Selo Tsarskoe Selo], ''Tsar's Village'', was the "country" home of the Russian Tsars. It is now part of the town of Pushkin about 15 miles south from the center of St.Petersburg.

==Page 782==

'''...to reaffrm allegiance to its limits, including mortality...''' 
That is, to reaffirm the allegiance of the inhabitants of this world to the "something's" limits, remind Man of mortality and transcendent laws and limits.

'''''Nichevo''''' 
Russian: nothing.

'''Vanavara''' 
[http://www.evenkya.ru/eng/?id=obsh&sid=admterdel&ssid=41 Vanavara] is the adminstrative center, a settlement with a population of 3,000, of Tungusko-Chunsky region. It is situated on the right bank of the Stony Tunguska river. Vanavara was 40 miles south of the Tunguska Event blast center.

'''Transfinitum''' 
Cantor's mathematical concept of transfinite numbers, indefinitely large but distinct from one another.

==Page 783==

'''''dungur''''' 
A ''dungur'' is a shamanic drum.

'''homeopathic echoes to protect from its return''' 
The homeopathic principle is that small doses of what kills will cure or prevent; drumming prevents return of the huge sound.

==Page 784==

'''Raskol'niki''' 
Russian: schismatics, dissenters. Raskol'nikov in ''Crime and Punishment'' derives his name from this word.

'''Tchernobyl . . . Wormwood''' 
Now rendered more commonly as Chernobyl (Russian), Chornobyl (Ukrainian). 
Wormwood, a star that falls onto the Earth poisoning the fresh water sources per Book of Revelation 8:10-11.

'''Reindeer discovered again their ancient powers of flight, which had lapsed over the centuries since humans had invaded the North. Some were stimulated by the accompanying radiation into an epidermal luminescence at the red end of the spectrum, particularly around the nasal area.''' 
In other words, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and his airborne squadron mates. Seriously: magic and the possibility of change is reintroduced into the world.

'''heat . . . tended to flow unpredictably''' 
The Laws of Thermodynamics have taken a brief holiday.

'''Old Slavonic''' 
Or Old Church Slavonic; liturgical language of Russian Orthodox Church, closely related to Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian.

==Page 785==

'''''izba''''' 
Russian: hut.

'''Ssagan''' 
In Burkhanism, a Russian religious movement that flourished among the indigenous people of Russia's Gorno Altai region between 1904 and the 1930s, Ak-Burkhan ("White Burkhan) is a deity who is depicted as an old man with white hair, a white coat, and white headgear, who rides a white horse, and is possibly analogous to the Mongolian "white old man," Tsagan Ebugen. The Buryat language (or Buriat) is a Mongolic language spoken by the Buryats of Siberia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burkhanism]

==Page 786==

'''the Sayan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayan_Mountains The Sayan] is a mountain range in southern Siberia. The eastern Sauan extends 600 miles from the Yenisei to the southwest end of Lake Baikal, and the western Sayan forms the eastern continuation of the Altay Mountains.

'''Tannu-Ola''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tannu-Ola_Mountains The Tannu-Ola] mountain range is in southern Siberia extending east-west direction and curves along the Mongolian border.

'''Tuva''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuva Tuva] is located in extreme southern Siberia bordering with Mongolia. Its eastern part is forested and elevated, and the west is a drier lowland.

'''"borbanngadyr"''' 
throat singing..like a flute: from the context.

'''"the heart of Earth" 
'''"all's I see's a bunch of sheep" 
'''"Exactly." 
This is Shambhala. Sheep may safely graze.

==Page 787==

'''the Wheel of Life''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhavacakra The Wheel of Life] is a complex symbolic representation of "continuous movement" in the form of a circle, used primarily in Tibetan Buddhism. "Continuous movement", ''samsāra'', is the continuous cycle of birth, life, and death from which one liberates oneself through enlightenment.

'''"Are you kind deities? or wrathful deities?"''' 
Here Prance prefigures Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Upon encountering Dorothy Gale in Munchkinland, she asks "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" Dorothy replies that she's not a witch at all, just as Randolph St. Cosmo replies that the Chums "endeavor to be kind." Darby's reference to Bo Peep seems Munchkinlandian too, as Glinda is a sort of shepherd to the Munchkins themselves.

'''"Bo Peep" 
she who has lost her sheep, as in the rhyme.

'''"Never work,", muttered Darby. "They'll squash you like bugs." 
Darby, now a lawyer, now cynical, presents the archetypal response to
Prance's visiting " deities" as in classic sci-fi books and movies.

'''the Tengyur''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_766|page 766: Tengyur]].

==Page 788==

'''band of''' '''''brodyagi''''' 
This entire passage is a reference to ''Don Quixote'', namely the incident with Gines de Pasamonte and the galley slaves. In ''Don Quixote'', Gines acts as a metafictional representation of Cervantes, as well as a symbol of the author/writer. Here, Topor acts as Gines, representing TRP (notice the name similarity). The hallucinogenic mushrooms represent the ''Quixote''--with a two part narrative, the first pleasant and wonderous, the second full of horrors--as well as AtD and novels, generally. The urine-drinking seems to be a crack at literary critics and literature fans who write about books and read what others write--essentially, drinking each other's urine: the after-products of the consumption of books. --[[User:Specklebelly|Specklebelly]]

'''''brodyagi''''' 
Russian: tramps.

'''"Topor"''' 
Russian: The Ax.

'''fusel oils''' 
Cf [[ATD_748-767#Page_756|page 756: fusel oils]]. 
Toxic byproducts of fermentation, sometimes still present in bad liquor.

'''strange mottled red mushrooms''' 
''Amanita muscaria'', an hallucinogenic mushroom. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria Wikipedia entry].

'''drank one another's urine''' 
Shamanistic practice also observed in some "mystery" religions. The person who ingests the drug partly metabolizes it and excretes it; followers can get a, hrmm, watered-down dose by drinking his urine.

==Page 789==

'''''brodyagi''''' 
See page 788.

'''Christian propaganda mill down south''' 
A college?

'''Pacific Coast League''' 
Minor league (Triple-A) baseball league that at the time was the only professional baseball league west of St. Louis. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Coast_League Wikipedia entry].

Perhaps Colfax Vibe has become Sandy Koufax, pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1960's.

==Page 790==

'''the wilderness Creature that feeds on all other creatures . . .''' 
Described by Captain Padzhitnoff on p.124

'''Krasnoyarsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk], the third largest city in Siberia, is on the Yenisei River upstream of Yeniseisk. It is an important junction on the Trans-Siberian Railway.

'''arival''' 
Misspelling of ''arrival.''

'''remittance man''' 
A man living on remittances, i.e. family funds from home, a trust fund, etc. It is also time to note that a Fleetwood is a model of Cadillac.

==Page 791==

'''the Vormance people''' 
The Vormance polar expedition was mentioned on page 130 and elsewhere.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 748-767

2007-04-05T21:54:44Z

Jpicco: /* Page 766 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 749==

'''Crotona''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_633|page 633: Crotona in Magna Grecia]]. or [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|page 706: Crotona]]. 

Or Croton. One of the most flourishing cities of Magna Graecia. According to Herodotus (3.131), the physicians of Croton were considered the foremost among the Greeks. Pythagoras founded his school, the Pythagoreans, at Croton circa 530 BC [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crotona Crotona].

'''Professor McTaggart''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_239|page 239: McTaggart]].

'''combination-room''' 
in the University of Cambrdige, England, a room into which the fellows withdraw after dinner, for wine, dessert, and conversation.

'''a Nietzschean''' 
A follower of German philosopher Nietzsche's belief that Christianity's emphasis on the afterlife makes its believers less able to cope with earthly life. 
Well, there is a lot more that could be being referred to here in calling someone a Nietzschean.

==Page 750==

'''Ringpungpa''' 
In the 15th century, Namka Gyantsan, an aristocrat, usurped the post of Dzongpon (magistrate) of Rinpung county and changed it to a hereditary position. Called Ringpungpa in Tibetan historical books, the family gradually grew stronger and more powerful, establishing a separatist rule in Ringpung County whose influence extended into the internal section of the Phaddru regime [http://www.tibetinfor.com.cn/tibetzt-en/zxyj/03/003.doc]. The "scholar" referred to would have to be a descendent of this powerful family. Again the spiritual and temporal powers are intertwined. TRP is fond of usurpation; cf. the Tristero in ''Lot 49''.

'''''Insh'allah''''' 
Arabic term evoked by speakers to indicate hope for an aforementioned event to occur in the future. The phrase translates into English as "God willing" or "If it is God's will." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insha'Allah Wikipedia]

==Page 751==

'''Bucharest''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucharest Bucharest] is the capital of Romania. It is located in the southeast of the country, and an industrial and commercial center of Romania.

'''Constantza''' 
Constanţa, Romanian port on Black Sea.

'''Batumi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batumi Batumi] is a Black Sea port city in southwest Georgia. It is located about 12 mile from the Turkish border in a subtropical zone, rich in citrus fruit and tea.

'''dukhans''' 
Inns.

'''Baku''' 
Cf [[ATD_149-170#Page_168|page 168: Baku]]. This is the fifth time Baku was mentioned; previously page 168, page 441, page 631 and page 639. But this is the first time Baku itself was being described.

'''Caspian Sea''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea Caspian Sea] is a saltwater lake in southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, the largest inland body of water in the world. It is bordered on the west by Azerbaijan and Russia, on the northeast and east by Kazakhstan, on the east by Turkmenistan, and on the south by Iran. In the 1960s and 1970s the level of Caspian Sea fell substantially, partly due to irrigation usage of the water. In 1980s its level began rising again at a rate of about 6 to 8 inches annually. The Caspian Sea has no outlet, but it is linked to the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, and the Black Sea by an extensive network of inland waterways, chief of which is the Volga River.

'''Bnito oil tankers''' 
In 1870s-80s Nobels Brothers (Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_444|page 444: Nobel brothers]]) dominated distribution of oil within the Russian Empire. The Rothschilds decided to take on the Nobels and in 1886 founded their own oil company: ''BNITO''. To break the Nobels' monopoly on distribution of oil, The Bnito Co. won a contract to transport Bnito oil east of the Suez Canal and developed the ''tanker'', a ship specifically designed to carry oil in storage tanks built into the hull as opposed to just placing barrels of oils in the hold. (Some historians said the exploitations of Baku's oil were how did the Nobel Brothers afford a peace prize and Rothschilds acquire their bank.)

'''Krasnovodsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenbashi%2C_Turkmenistan Krasnovodsk] is a city in Turkmenistan on the Krasnovodsk Gulf of the Caspian Sea. As the terminus of the Trans-Caspian Railroad, it is an important transportation center. In 1993 it was renamed by the president-for-life Niyazov, after his self-proclaimed tilte, ''Türkmenbasy'', Leader of all Turkmen.

'''Trans-Caspian Railroad''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Caspian_railway Trans Caspian Railroad], also called the Central Asiatic Railroad, built by the Russians in the 19th cnetury, follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It starts at the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea at Krasnovodsk and heads southeast, along the edge of the Karakum Desert.

'''Qara Qum''' 
Now more often spelled Kara Kum, a desert between Caspian Sea and Amu Darya River with the Aral Sea to the north. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakum_Desert Karakum Desert] occupies about 80% of the area of Turkmenistan with an average of one person per 2.5 sq miles. It has significant oil and natural gas deposits, and is crossed by the Trans-Caspian railroad.

'''railroad-metaphysics''' 
Notice how 'consciousness is a part of this description. And reflect on what Pynchon thinks of railroads, therefore of the phenomenology of 'railroad metaphysics'.

==Page 752==

'''The effect of rotating ninety degrees from a moving timeline, as expected, was delivery into a space containing imaginary axes...''' 
The moving train is described by a tensor, its path a vector in three dimensions plus the time dimension. Looking out from it, i.e. at ninety degrees to its direction of travel, may involve axes with complex number coordinates. In other words, looking out of a train moving through unknown territory involves one in acts of imagination, trying to fathom the lives lived in the territory one is passing through, here a very strange one for Kit (consultation of the Times Atlas shows the railroad's route is described precisely, between desert and irrigated fields, and on to the terminus), or perhaps alternate histories generated by leaving the train at any point.

'''Merv''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv Merv] is a city in Turkmenistan. It was a major oasis-city in Central Asia on the historical Silk Road. The site of ancient Merv had been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

'''barkhan''' 
traveling crescent-shaped sand dune.

'''footplate man''' 
Railroad crewman, one involved in the running or maintenance of the locomotive (the control cabin surface of a steam locomotive is called the footplate).

'''deadheading''' 
A crew member riding as a passenger, not actively participating in the running of the vehicle, is said to be "deadheading"; the term is still used in railroading and on the airlines. Similarly, a nonworking locomotive being towed as part of a train is a "deadhead". (Unavoidable allusion, perhaps, to the non-working followers of the Grateful Dead, as well).

'''Samarkand''' 
[http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Samarkan Samarkand] is a city in Uzbekistan on the Trans-Caspian Railroad. It is one of the oldest existing cities in the world and the oldest of Central Asia. At its greatest period it had great silk and iron industries and was the meeting point of merchants' caravans from India, Persia, and China. It still is a major cotton and silk center.

'''Namaz Premulkoff''' 
His given name is the Persian and Turkic translation of Arabic ''salah'' or ''salat'': the five daily prayers required of Muslims. How did a Muslim get a Russianized surname? Same way Kazakhstan's present ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev did, by getting his vital statistics recorded under Russian rules.
:In a heartening instance of world news following the wiki, Tajikistan's President [http://tajikistan.neweurasia.net/?p=173 Emomali Rakhmonov] announced in March 2007 that he and other Tajiks will be stripping the Slavic endings off their names. Kindly address him as President Rakhmon in all future correspondence.

==Page 753 ==

'''Charjui''' 
A city of 25,000, bordering with Uzbekistan, in Turkmenistan.

'''Amu-Darya . . . the Oxus''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_439|page 439: the Oxus]].

'''Bukhara''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara Bukhara] lies west of Samarkand and is one of the most ancient cities of Uzbekistan. The name of Bukhara originates from the word ''vihara'' which means "monastery" in Sanskrit. The city was once a large commerical center on the Silk Road and a center of learning renowned throughout the Islamic world. It still has 350 mosques and 100 religious colleges.

'''Kagan''' 
Kagan City, ten miles outside Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

'''Khokand''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokand Khokand] is a city in eastern Uzbekistan at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley. It is about 140 miles souteast of Tashkent. It is on the crossroads of the ancient trade routes.

'''Andizhan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andijan Andizhan] is the fourth-largest city in Uzbekistan. It is located in the east of the country in the Fergana Valley near the border with Kyrgyzstan.

'''Osh''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osh Osh] is an ancient city in the Fergana Valley of southern Kyrgyzstan. Osh is the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan and is often referred to as the "capital of the south".

'''Kashgar''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_630|page 630: Kashgar]].

'''the Taklamakan''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_444|page 444: Taklamakan]].

'''Stanley and Livingstone''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone David Livingstone] (1813-1873) was a Scottish missionary and explorer in central Aftica. He was the first European to see Victoria Falls, which he named. He is perhaps best remembered because of his meeting with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley Henry Stanley] (1841-1904), a jounalist and explorer, which gave rise to the popular quotation, ''Dr. Livingstaone, I presume?''. Late in his life Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years, and Stanley was sent by ''New York Herald'' in 1869 to find him as a publicity stunt. Stanley found Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in November 10, 1871 with the now famous tongue-in-cheek greeting (Livingstone was the only white man within hundreds of miles). In 1939, a popular film called [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0031973/ ''Stanley and Livingstone''] was released with Spencer Tracy as Stanley.

==Page 754==

'''Prokladka''' 
The name is a common Russian word with two meanings: construction and gasket.
Female hygienic pads (with or without wings) are also referred to as prokladkas

'''Kalinka''' 
"My Little Snowball Tree", Russian folk song, popularized by ''Red Army Chorus''.

'''Ochi Chorniya''' 
Stereotypical Russian ballad, "Dark Eyes." The second word is actually ''Chorniye''. (It's spelled so now, but before 1917 it was ''chorniya'' or ''chornyya.'')

'''E. N. Molokhovets''' 
The book (''Podarok molodym khozyaykam'', Kursk: 1861) and the author are real. Elena Burman married city architect Frants Frantsevich Molokhovets, whose name is not Russian but suggests a Germanized Polish noble family (Franz Molochowiec). The etymology is not clear.

'''Orloff''' 
Also known as Oryol or Orel Trotter, a breed developed in the 19th century.

'''the Tian Shan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian_Shan The Tian Shan] (Chinese words for "Celestial Mountains") is the mountain range, west of the Taklamakan Desert, running some 1,700 miles eastward from Tashkent into China. The mountain range is part of the Himalayan orogenic belt. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish chokusu (24,400 ft) and the second highest Khan Tengri (23,100 ft).

'''''Bol'shaia Igra''''' 
"The Great Game", counterpart to the ''Inconvenience''. Cf page 123 & page 245.

'''use of betel''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betel Betel] is a spice whose leaves have medicinal properties. The plant is evergreen and perennial, with glossy heart-shaped leaves and white catkins, and grows to a height of slightly over 3 feet. In India and parts of Southeast Asia, betel leaves are chewed with mineral lime and the areca nut which promotes red-stained saliva. Betel leaves are used as a stimulant, an anitseptic and a breath-freshener. They are used to treat headaches, arthritis, toothache, indigestion, constipation, etc.

==Page 755==

'''the Urals''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural_Mountains The Urals] is a mountain system in western Russia extending for over 1,240 miles from the Artic Ocean to the Caspian Sea, and traditionally regarded as the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. The mountains hold vast mineral wealth.

'''A.D.C. or ''lichnyi adiutant''''' 
Aide-de-camp or (Russian:) personal adjutant.

'''Klopski''' 
''Klop'' is a Russian word for "bug."

'''''peculiar machines''''' 
Arcade games?

'''''Yob tvoyu mat' ''''' 
Russian, literally: Fuck your mother. Just a general expletive. (Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_616|page 616: ''Yob tvoyu mat''']]).

'''''zastolye''''' 
Group of people around a table. A feast.

'''''begin to spin''''' 
To whirl like a Dervish, a member of a mystical Sufi sect that spins to induce visions ("your mind proceeding to flee in all directions at once"). The "Spin" of an electron, however, is also one of four quantum numbers (all vector quantities) specifying the electron's exact quantum state. It can be further used to calculate properties of electrons as wave functions, radiating "in all directions at once" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_spin].

==Page 756==

'''''Poshol ty na khuy''''' 
Impolite Russian, literally "Go to the prick", meaning; "Fuck off".

'''The Doosra''' 
Doosra is an Urdu word loosely meaning "second". It has become common parlance in cricket in the past few years and is used to describe a ball bowled by a finger spinner that turns in the opposite direction from his stock delivery. A lot of controversy surrounds the doosra as it is hard to bowl legally (it is much easier to throw it than to bowl it). One assumes that Pynchon was aware of all this: see the cricketing references on pp.219-242. In particular, Pynchon has already referenced the bosie: a mirror image of the doosra. More bilocations, anyone?

'''Pan-Turanian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turanism Pan-Turanism] is a political movement for the union of all [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turan Turanian peoples], or the collective inclusion of all Altaic peoples.

'''ganja''' 
cannabis.

'''fusel oils''' 
Fusel alcohols, also sometimes called fusel oils, or potato oil in Europe, are higher order (more than two carbons) alcohols formed by fermentation and present in cider, mead, beer, wine, and spirits to varying degrees. The term fusel is German for “bad liquor.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusel_oil Fusel oil].

'''Chingiz''' 
Also transliterated as "Genghis" as in "Genghis Khan".

'''''denshchik''''' 
Russian: batman.

'''Madali''' 
Muhammad 'Ali Khan, also known as Madali Khan. From 1822–42 he ruled the Uzbek Ming dynasty and the Kokand khanate, raising the level of culture,
expanding foreign policy and resisting Russian aggression.

==Page 757==

'''poisonous nutmeat''' 
betel.

'''Uyghur''' 
Member of an ethnic group in western China, sometimes described as Indo-European.

'''Al Mar-Fuad''' 
Get a load of this character! He dresses in English hunting tweeds and a deerstalker cap, brandishes a shotgun, pronounces his "r"'s as w's, and says things like "Weally?" and "I am going out after some gwouse." Maybe "wabbits" are next for this Uyghur version of [http://jenn98.com/bugs/images/bugs-elmer-daffy.jpg ''Elmer Fudd''] (Al Mar-Fuad--get it?).

'''Lord Salisbury''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil%2C_3rd_Marquess_of_Salisbury Lord Salisbury] (1830-1903) was a British statesman and Prime Minister on three occasions: 1885-1886, 1886-1892 and 1895-1902. He, the first British Prime Minister of the 20th century, is seen as an icon of traditional, aristocratic conservatism.

==Page 758==

'''. . . so as to draw off the odd Russian division in the event of a European war''' 
To have some idea of the realtionship between Russia and Japan at this time, see the Wikipedia article on the Russo-Japanese War [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War].

'''yakitori pitches''' 
Yakitori: grilled bird, a Japanese type of skewered chicken made from several bite-sized pieces of chicken meat, or chicken offal, skewered on a bamboo skewer and barbecued, usually over charcoal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakitori Wikipedia]. A Yakitori pitch would be a kind of fast food stand: pitch a tent and sell yakitori.

'''old Cavi ate the sausage at Kabul''' 
Sir Louis Cavagnari, British envoy to Afghanistan, killed on Sept. 3, 1879, in the course of an insurrection. If "eat the sausage" is some horrible detail, no online source specifies. I believe "eat the sausage" is slang and refers to the fact that he was killed, like "kicked the bucket."

'''meddling of the Powers...convergence to the Mohammedan''' 
Exactly the situation today. More 1900/2000 parallels. It might be more accurate to say that the situation today evolved from the situation then. This sounds more like a good discussion topic rather than annotation material.

'''''Polkovnik''''' 
Russian: Colonel.

'''''Polny pizdets''''' 
Russian: a total fuckup.

'''Simla''' 
Now call [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Shimla]. It was the summer capital of the erstwhile British Raj in India. It is now the capital city of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Shimla, nestled in the middle Himalayas in northern India, is a favorite destination for honeymooners and tourists, particularly in summer. 

Punjabi Hill States, refuge and resort of Raj officers for generations [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_States].

'''Pelitis''' 
Peliti was a Manufacturing Confectioner and he was by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen Empress, a purveyor of cakes, chocolates etc. He started his restaurant and confectionery business in 1870 at 11 Government Place in the Dalhousie Square area of Calcutta.(At a meeting on 26-Sep-1919 the Rotary Club of Calcutta was organized thus ushering in the movement in India and indeed the mainland of Asia)[http://www.rotacal.org/pelitis.htm].

'''the Combermere Bridge''' 
In 1828, Lord Combermere, the British Commander-in-Chief of the Indian army, built a bridge spanning a gushing mountain stream in Simla (Shimla).
See a drawing of [http://www.victoriamemorial-cal.org/tripur_combridge.html the bridge].

== Page 759 ==

'''transnoctial''' 
??? through the night

'''the Waziri''' 
A people from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waziristan Waziristan], a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.

'''"haunted spaces of desire . . . walled in by work-demands" 
is co-conscious(ness), page 760

==Page 761==

'''subaltern''' 
A junior officer in the British army; now titled second lieutenant in most regiments.

'''Guri Amir''' 
Guri Amir or Gur-e Amir is the mausoleum Tamerlane built for his family. It is a great monument of Islamic architecture. [http://www.galenfrysinger.com/guri_amir_mausoleum.htm Guri Amir Mausoleum pictures].

'''Alexander III''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Russia Alexander III] (1845-1894) was the Tsar of Russia between 1881-1894. He died in Livadia Palace, Crimea, and was buried at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St.Petersburg. He was succeeded by his eldest son Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. Tsar Alexander's memorial is located in Irkustsk at the embankment of the Angara River.

'''Tamerlane''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur Tamerlane] (1336-1405), the most influential Central Asia's military leader of the Middle Ages, restored the former Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. During his long military career, Tamerlane engaged in an almost constant state of warfare in order to extend his borders and maintain his conquest, which reached from the Mediterranean in the west to India in the South and Russia in the North.

'''Craven A''' 
Plainly not the blend of pipe tobacco celebrated under the name "Arcadia" by James M. Barrie. London tobacconist Craven also gave his name to a [http://www.winspiration.co.uk/slogans.htm brand of cigarettes] now manufactured elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Formerly advertised under the slogan, "It's kind to your throat."

'''Eurasia Irredenta''' 
Fighters for Italian statehood in the 19th century used the slogan "Italia Irredenta": unredeemed Italy, that is, the lands still held by Habsburgs and other foreign powers. Their goal of course was to redeem it, place these areas under rule by Italians and fold them into one kingdom.

''''Turania'''' 
Turanism of page 756.

==Page 762==

'''Beerbohm Tree''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Beerbohm_Tree Herbert Beerbohm Tree] (1853-1917), noted English actor.

'''arrack''' 
an Asian alcoholic beverage like rum that is distilled from a fermented mash of malted rice with toddy or molasses.

'''clepsydra''' 
water clock.

==Page 763==

'''taking flannel''' 
???

'''P&O steamer''' 
Pacific and Orient line, British steamship company.

'''the Great Bitter Lake''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bitter_Lake The Great Bitter Lake] is a salt water lake between the north and south part of the Suez Canal.

'''Karachi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi Karachi], located on the coast of the Arabian Sea, northwest of the Indus River Delta, is the most populated city in Pakistan. It is the financial and commercial center as well as the largest port of the country. The metropolitan area and its suburbs comprises the world's second most populated city.

'''Kiamari''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiamari Kiamari] is one of the neighborhoods of Kiamari Town in Karachi, Pakistan.

'''the Northwestern Railway''' 
The North Western Railway (NWR) of India was formed in January 1886, an amalgam of a number of smaller railways, principally the Sind, Punjab and Delhi Railway. The division of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947 saw the rail lines of the NWR divided between India (1,900 miles) and Pakistan (6,900 miles).

'''the Indus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River The Indus] is the longest and most important river in Pakistan and one of the most important one on the Indian subcontinent. Starting in the Tibetan plateau the Indus flows, through Kashmir, in a southernly direction along the entire length of Pakistan and merges into the Arabian Sea near Karachi.

'''the plains of Sind''' 
fertile plains around the Indus river in the center of Sind (Sindh) province, Pakistan.

'''Nowshera''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowshera Nowshera] is a major city in the North-West Frontier Province, Paksitan. It is known for its Cantonement, the site of Pakistan Army's School of Artillery.

'''Durghal station''' 
???

'''Malakand Pass''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malakand_Pass The Malakand Pass] is a mountain pass in India.

'''Karakoram Pass''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakoram_Pass The Karakoram Pass], on the boundary of territory controlled by India and China, is the highest pass on the ancient caravan route between Leh, Ladakh and Yarkand in the Tarim Basin.

'''East Turkestan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan East Turkestan], largely inhabited by Turkic people, is the part of greater Turkestan in Xinjiang, China and far eastern Central Asia. Marco Polo passed Turkestan in the year of 1272.

'''might as well all be on a Cook's tour''' 
Cook's is still in business selling package tours. What cost Auberon months of hardship and danger, groups might now visit as tourists.

'''the Tungus''' 
[http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/evenks.shtml The Tungus], called the Evenks since 1931, are a Siberian ethnic group who live in the Siberian taiga from the Yenisei and Ob river basins to the Pacific Ocean and from the Amur River to the Arctic Ocean. The original home of the Tungus was in the vicinity of Lake Baikal but later migrated eastward to the current habitat. The Tungus are closely related to the Manchus and, before 1920, practiced a shamanistic religion. Their language is a close relation of the Mongolian and the Turkic ones, and the written language was created only in the late 1920s. First mentioned as “exhibits” in the White City, P.23.

'''the Yenisei''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yenisei_River The Yenisei], a river in Russia flowing from Mongolia through Siberia into the Arctic Ocean, is the fifth longest in the world. It is slightly shorter but with 1.5 times the flow of the Mississippi-Missouri.

'''''bergut''''' 
A golden eagle used by the Kirghiz Tatars, who call it Bergut or Bearcoot, for the capture of antelopes, foxes and wolves.

'''Altai''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altay_Mountains Altai] is a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the great rivers Irtysh, Ob and Yenisei have their source.

==Page 764==

'''Irkutsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irkutsk,_Russia Irkutsk] is located about 45 miles northwest of Lake Baikal but 3,100 miles east of Moscow. It is one of the largest cities in Siberia. The city proper lies at the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisei. A small river, the Irkut, from which the city takes its name, joins the Angara directly opposite the city. Irkutsk's main industries are timber, aluminum and minerals.

'''the Angara''' 
[http://en.wikiopedia.org/wiki/Angara_River The Angara] is a 1,150-mile long river in Irkutsk Oblast, southeastern Siberia, Russia. It is the only river flowing out of Lake Baikal, and is a headwater of the Yenisie.

'''Tushuk Tash''' 
Also called ''Shipton's Arch''. [http://www.naturalarches.org/gallery-China-TushukTash.htm Tushuk Tash], the highest natural arch in the world, is a very crumbly conglomerate arch in Kara Tagh range 25 miles west-northwest of Kashgar, Xianjiang, China. The National Geographic team measured the arch at 1,200 feet high (about the height of the Empire State Building) with a estimated span of 180 feet. Tushuk Tash means ''Pierce Rock'' ("a rock with a hole in it"). Tushuk Tash was made known to the outside in 1947 by English mountaineer Eric Shipton but was "lost" because of the inaccurate location given. In May 2000 ''National Geographic'' "rediscovered" it again and used the local name.

'''Kara Tagh''' 
The mountain range near Kashgar where Tushuk Tash is located. 

With a name meaning "black mountain" you would expect there to be more than one. Places going by this name or the similar names Karatau and Kara Dagh are dotted all over Central Asia. This one lies in extreme western China.

Is it significant that ''Karadağ'' is the Turkish name of Montenegro?

'''the Tunguska country''' 
[http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/evenks.shtml The Tunguska country], in its broadest geographical sense, is the Siberia taiga region where the Tungus people live—the Ob River in the west to the Okhotsk Sea in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to Manchuria and Sakhalin in the south. Its core is [http://www.bartelby.com/65/tu/TungskBas.html the Tunguska Basins] in east central Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Territory) between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. Across the basin three Tunguska rivers—the Lower Tunguska, the Stony Tunguska and the Upper Tunguska—run through. Commonly the area of these three rivers is considered the home of the Tungus: the Tunguska country in its narrower definition.

'''And when we try to return . . . [w]e may not be able to''' 
Kit had this experience when the liner ''Stupendica'' doubled herself.

'''Buriat''' 
The Buriats live in southwestern Siberia to northwestern China and Mongolia. They include Buddhists and shamanists. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buryats Buriats], the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia, are of Mongolian descent and share many customs with their Mongolian cousins such as nomadic herding and living in yurts.

'''Lake Baikal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal Lake Baikal] lies in Southern Siberia, Russia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and Buryatia to the southeast near the city of Irkutsk. It is the largest freshwater lake and 2nd largest by volume in the world. It is also the deepest (max 5,369 ft; ave 2,487 ft) and oldest (25-30 million years). It contains over one fifth of the world's and over 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. It is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

==Page 765==

'''Japanese "38th Year" Arisaka rifle''' 
Japanes Arisaka Type 38 Rifle produced from 1905 to the early 1940s. The "38th Year" refers to the 38th Year of reign of the Emperor at the time of the rifle's introduction - 1905. [http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl22-e.htm The Arisaka Type 38] was based on the Mauser action and over-all design. It was designed by ("eponymous") Colonel Nariakira Arisaka (1852-1915).

'''Marwari''' 
[http://www.kyhorsepark.com/imh/bw/marwari.html The Marwari horse], native to the Marwar region of India, are particularly well suited for both the desert environment and its role as a battle horse for the cavalry. It was said that the Marwari horse has a homing instinct and exceptional hearing famous for bring back riders who became lost in the desert. There were only three ways a Marwari left a battlefield: one when he was victorious, another carried his wounded master to safety and the last eaten by vultures after laying down his life for his master.

'''Ogdai''' 
Ogdai (1185-1241), 3rd son of Genghis Khan, and the ruler of Mongol Emprie between 1229-1241.

'''the journey itself is a conscious Being''' 

'''I am contaminated beyond hope, Mushtaq''' 
Halfcourt's predicament ''vis a vis'' Yashmeen is reminiscent of that of Edward Ashburnham, Ford Madox Ford's "Good Soldier".
:In what way, may I ask?
By being in love with a woman he cannot possibly have without breaking every rule of honor he lives by.

==Page 766==

'''the scholar Taranatha''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranatha Taranatha] (1575-1634) is considered the scholar and exponent of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism.

'''the Tibetan Canon''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Buddhist_canon The Tibetan Buddhist canono] is a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various sects of Tibetan Buddhism.

'''the Tengyur''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengyur The Tengyur] is the section of the Tibetan canon to which were assigned commentaries to the Buddhist teachings, treatises and abhidharma works. It constains 3626 texts in 224 volumes.

'''''Rigpa Dzinpai Phonya''''' 
An excerpt of this book (''Knowledge-Bearing Messenger'') appeared in an anthology ''The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times'' (2000) by Carol & Philip Zaleski, pp. 349-354.

'''Rimpung Ngawang Jigdag''' 
It should be Ri''n''pung Ngawang Jigdag, the 16th-entury Tibetan Prince, (Rinpugapa of page 750), who obtained the glimpse of paradise by summoning a Yogi in a meditative visualisation.

'''when you come to a fork in the road, take it''' 
A maxim of America's foremost Yogi, the baseball player Yogi Berra.

'''Grünwedel''' 
[http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/creator/albert_gr%C3%BCnwedel.html.en Albert Grünwedel] (1856-1935) was a German archaeologist of India, Tibet and Central Asia. He published a book about Buddhist iconography ''Bibliotheca Buddhica'' (1903). Of the four Turfan expeditions dispatched from Germany, he led the first (1902-1903) and the third (1906-1907).

'''''Shambhalai Lamyig''''' 
fictitious book.

'''Laufer''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthold_Laufer Berthold Laufer] (1874-1934) was a German-American anthropologist, orientalist. For 35 years he was virtually the only Sinologist working in the United States. He made four major expeditions to the Himalayas (from ''Encyclopedia Britannica''): one sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in New York (1901-1904), another one by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (1907-1910). He could read and speak not only Chinese, but Manchu, Japanese, Tibetan, and many other Asian languages (from Chicago Field Museum).

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 748-767

2007-04-05T21:39:47Z

Jpicco: /* Page 757 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 749==

'''Crotona''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_633|page 633: Crotona in Magna Grecia]]. or [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|page 706: Crotona]]. 

Or Croton. One of the most flourishing cities of Magna Graecia. According to Herodotus (3.131), the physicians of Croton were considered the foremost among the Greeks. Pythagoras founded his school, the Pythagoreans, at Croton circa 530 BC [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crotona Crotona].

'''Professor McTaggart''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_239|page 239: McTaggart]].

'''combination-room''' 
in the University of Cambrdige, England, a room into which the fellows withdraw after dinner, for wine, dessert, and conversation.

'''a Nietzschean''' 
A follower of German philosopher Nietzsche's belief that Christianity's emphasis on the afterlife makes its believers less able to cope with earthly life. 
Well, there is a lot more that could be being referred to here in calling someone a Nietzschean.

==Page 750==

'''Ringpungpa''' 
In the 15th century, Namka Gyantsan, an aristocrat, usurped the post of Dzongpon (magistrate) of Rinpung county and changed it to a hereditary position. Called Ringpungpa in Tibetan historical books, the family gradually grew stronger and more powerful, establishing a separatist rule in Ringpung County whose influence extended into the internal section of the Phaddru regime [http://www.tibetinfor.com.cn/tibetzt-en/zxyj/03/003.doc]. The "scholar" referred to would have to be a descendent of this powerful family. Again the spiritual and temporal powers are intertwined. TRP is fond of usurpation; cf. the Tristero in ''Lot 49''.

'''''Insh'allah''''' 
Arabic term evoked by speakers to indicate hope for an aforementioned event to occur in the future. The phrase translates into English as "God willing" or "If it is God's will." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insha'Allah Wikipedia]

==Page 751==

'''Bucharest''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucharest Bucharest] is the capital of Romania. It is located in the southeast of the country, and an industrial and commercial center of Romania.

'''Constantza''' 
Constanţa, Romanian port on Black Sea.

'''Batumi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batumi Batumi] is a Black Sea port city in southwest Georgia. It is located about 12 mile from the Turkish border in a subtropical zone, rich in citrus fruit and tea.

'''dukhans''' 
Inns.

'''Baku''' 
Cf [[ATD_149-170#Page_168|page 168: Baku]]. This is the fifth time Baku was mentioned; previously page 168, page 441, page 631 and page 639. But this is the first time Baku itself was being described.

'''Caspian Sea''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea Caspian Sea] is a saltwater lake in southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, the largest inland body of water in the world. It is bordered on the west by Azerbaijan and Russia, on the northeast and east by Kazakhstan, on the east by Turkmenistan, and on the south by Iran. In the 1960s and 1970s the level of Caspian Sea fell substantially, partly due to irrigation usage of the water. In 1980s its level began rising again at a rate of about 6 to 8 inches annually. The Caspian Sea has no outlet, but it is linked to the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, and the Black Sea by an extensive network of inland waterways, chief of which is the Volga River.

'''Bnito oil tankers''' 
In 1870s-80s Nobels Brothers (Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_444|page 444: Nobel brothers]]) dominated distribution of oil within the Russian Empire. The Rothschilds decided to take on the Nobels and in 1886 founded their own oil company: ''BNITO''. To break the Nobels' monopoly on distribution of oil, The Bnito Co. won a contract to transport Bnito oil east of the Suez Canal and developed the ''tanker'', a ship specifically designed to carry oil in storage tanks built into the hull as opposed to just placing barrels of oils in the hold. (Some historians said the exploitations of Baku's oil were how did the Nobel Brothers afford a peace prize and Rothschilds acquire their bank.)

'''Krasnovodsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenbashi%2C_Turkmenistan Krasnovodsk] is a city in Turkmenistan on the Krasnovodsk Gulf of the Caspian Sea. As the terminus of the Trans-Caspian Railroad, it is an important transportation center. In 1993 it was renamed by the president-for-life Niyazov, after his self-proclaimed tilte, ''Türkmenbasy'', Leader of all Turkmen.

'''Trans-Caspian Railroad''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Caspian_railway Trans Caspian Railroad], also called the Central Asiatic Railroad, built by the Russians in the 19th cnetury, follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It starts at the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea at Krasnovodsk and heads southeast, along the edge of the Karakum Desert.

'''Qara Qum''' 
Now more often spelled Kara Kum, a desert between Caspian Sea and Amu Darya River with the Aral Sea to the north. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakum_Desert Karakum Desert] occupies about 80% of the area of Turkmenistan with an average of one person per 2.5 sq miles. It has significant oil and natural gas deposits, and is crossed by the Trans-Caspian railroad.

'''railroad-metaphysics''' 
Notice how 'consciousness is a part of this description. And reflect on what Pynchon thinks of railroads, therefore of the phenomenology of 'railroad metaphysics'.

==Page 752==

'''The effect of rotating ninety degrees from a moving timeline, as expected, was delivery into a space containing imaginary axes...''' 
The moving train is described by a tensor, its path a vector in three dimensions plus the time dimension. Looking out from it, i.e. at ninety degrees to its direction of travel, may involve axes with complex number coordinates. In other words, looking out of a train moving through unknown territory involves one in acts of imagination, trying to fathom the lives lived in the territory one is passing through, here a very strange one for Kit (consultation of the Times Atlas shows the railroad's route is described precisely, between desert and irrigated fields, and on to the terminus), or perhaps alternate histories generated by leaving the train at any point.

'''Merv''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv Merv] is a city in Turkmenistan. It was a major oasis-city in Central Asia on the historical Silk Road. The site of ancient Merv had been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

'''barkhan''' 
traveling crescent-shaped sand dune.

'''footplate man''' 
Railroad crewman, one involved in the running or maintenance of the locomotive (the control cabin surface of a steam locomotive is called the footplate).

'''deadheading''' 
A crew member riding as a passenger, not actively participating in the running of the vehicle, is said to be "deadheading"; the term is still used in railroading and on the airlines. Similarly, a nonworking locomotive being towed as part of a train is a "deadhead". (Unavoidable allusion, perhaps, to the non-working followers of the Grateful Dead, as well).

'''Samarkand''' 
[http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Samarkan Samarkand] is a city in Uzbekistan on the Trans-Caspian Railroad. It is one of the oldest existing cities in the world and the oldest of Central Asia. At its greatest period it had great silk and iron industries and was the meeting point of merchants' caravans from India, Persia, and China. It still is a major cotton and silk center.

'''Namaz Premulkoff''' 
His given name is the Persian and Turkic translation of Arabic ''salah'' or ''salat'': the five daily prayers required of Muslims. How did a Muslim get a Russianized surname? Same way Kazakhstan's present ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev did, by getting his vital statistics recorded under Russian rules.
:In a heartening instance of world news following the wiki, Tajikistan's President [http://tajikistan.neweurasia.net/?p=173 Emomali Rakhmonov] announced in March 2007 that he and other Tajiks will be stripping the Slavic endings off their names. Kindly address him as President Rakhmon in all future correspondence.

==Page 753 ==

'''Charjui''' 
A city of 25,000, bordering with Uzbekistan, in Turkmenistan.

'''Amu-Darya . . . the Oxus''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_439|page 439: the Oxus]].

'''Bukhara''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara Bukhara] lies west of Samarkand and is one of the most ancient cities of Uzbekistan. The name of Bukhara originates from the word ''vihara'' which means "monastery" in Sanskrit. The city was once a large commerical center on the Silk Road and a center of learning renowned throughout the Islamic world. It still has 350 mosques and 100 religious colleges.

'''Kagan''' 
Kagan City, ten miles outside Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

'''Khokand''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokand Khokand] is a city in eastern Uzbekistan at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley. It is about 140 miles souteast of Tashkent. It is on the crossroads of the ancient trade routes.

'''Andizhan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andijan Andizhan] is the fourth-largest city in Uzbekistan. It is located in the east of the country in the Fergana Valley near the border with Kyrgyzstan.

'''Osh''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osh Osh] is an ancient city in the Fergana Valley of southern Kyrgyzstan. Osh is the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan and is often referred to as the "capital of the south".

'''Kashgar''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_630|page 630: Kashgar]].

'''the Taklamakan''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_444|page 444: Taklamakan]].

'''Stanley and Livingstone''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone David Livingstone] (1813-1873) was a Scottish missionary and explorer in central Aftica. He was the first European to see Victoria Falls, which he named. He is perhaps best remembered because of his meeting with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley Henry Stanley] (1841-1904), a jounalist and explorer, which gave rise to the popular quotation, ''Dr. Livingstaone, I presume?''. Late in his life Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years, and Stanley was sent by ''New York Herald'' in 1869 to find him as a publicity stunt. Stanley found Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in November 10, 1871 with the now famous tongue-in-cheek greeting (Livingstone was the only white man within hundreds of miles). In 1939, a popular film called [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0031973/ ''Stanley and Livingstone''] was released with Spencer Tracy as Stanley.

==Page 754==

'''Prokladka''' 
The name is a common Russian word with two meanings: construction and gasket.
Female hygienic pads (with or without wings) are also referred to as prokladkas

'''Kalinka''' 
"My Little Snowball Tree", Russian folk song, popularized by ''Red Army Chorus''.

'''Ochi Chorniya''' 
Stereotypical Russian ballad, "Dark Eyes." The second word is actually ''Chorniye''. (It's spelled so now, but before 1917 it was ''chorniya'' or ''chornyya.'')

'''E. N. Molokhovets''' 
The book (''Podarok molodym khozyaykam'', Kursk: 1861) and the author are real. Elena Burman married city architect Frants Frantsevich Molokhovets, whose name is not Russian but suggests a Germanized Polish noble family (Franz Molochowiec). The etymology is not clear.

'''Orloff''' 
Also known as Oryol or Orel Trotter, a breed developed in the 19th century.

'''the Tian Shan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian_Shan The Tian Shan] (Chinese words for "Celestial Mountains") is the mountain range, west of the Taklamakan Desert, running some 1,700 miles eastward from Tashkent into China. The mountain range is part of the Himalayan orogenic belt. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish chokusu (24,400 ft) and the second highest Khan Tengri (23,100 ft).

'''''Bol'shaia Igra''''' 
"The Great Game", counterpart to the ''Inconvenience''. Cf page 123 & page 245.

'''use of betel''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betel Betel] is a spice whose leaves have medicinal properties. The plant is evergreen and perennial, with glossy heart-shaped leaves and white catkins, and grows to a height of slightly over 3 feet. In India and parts of Southeast Asia, betel leaves are chewed with mineral lime and the areca nut which promotes red-stained saliva. Betel leaves are used as a stimulant, an anitseptic and a breath-freshener. They are used to treat headaches, arthritis, toothache, indigestion, constipation, etc.

==Page 755==

'''the Urals''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural_Mountains The Urals] is a mountain system in western Russia extending for over 1,240 miles from the Artic Ocean to the Caspian Sea, and traditionally regarded as the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. The mountains hold vast mineral wealth.

'''A.D.C. or ''lichnyi adiutant''''' 
Aide-de-camp or (Russian:) personal adjutant.

'''Klopski''' 
''Klop'' is a Russian word for "bug."

'''''peculiar machines''''' 
Arcade games?

'''''Yob tvoyu mat' ''''' 
Russian, literally: Fuck your mother. Just a general expletive. (Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_616|page 616: ''Yob tvoyu mat''']]).

'''''zastolye''''' 
Group of people around a table. A feast.

'''''begin to spin''''' 
To whirl like a Dervish, a member of a mystical Sufi sect that spins to induce visions ("your mind proceeding to flee in all directions at once"). The "Spin" of an electron, however, is also one of four quantum numbers (all vector quantities) specifying the electron's exact quantum state. It can be further used to calculate properties of electrons as wave functions, radiating "in all directions at once" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_spin].

==Page 756==

'''''Poshol ty na khuy''''' 
Impolite Russian, literally "Go to the prick", meaning; "Fuck off".

'''The Doosra''' 
Doosra is an Urdu word loosely meaning "second". It has become common parlance in cricket in the past few years and is used to describe a ball bowled by a finger spinner that turns in the opposite direction from his stock delivery. A lot of controversy surrounds the doosra as it is hard to bowl legally (it is much easier to throw it than to bowl it). One assumes that Pynchon was aware of all this: see the cricketing references on pp.219-242. In particular, Pynchon has already referenced the bosie: a mirror image of the doosra. More bilocations, anyone?

'''Pan-Turanian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turanism Pan-Turanism] is a political movement for the union of all [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turan Turanian peoples], or the collective inclusion of all Altaic peoples.

'''ganja''' 
cannabis.

'''fusel oils''' 
Fusel alcohols, also sometimes called fusel oils, or potato oil in Europe, are higher order (more than two carbons) alcohols formed by fermentation and present in cider, mead, beer, wine, and spirits to varying degrees. The term fusel is German for “bad liquor.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusel_oil Fusel oil].

'''Chingiz''' 
Also transliterated as "Genghis" as in "Genghis Khan".

'''''denshchik''''' 
Russian: batman.

'''Madali''' 
Muhammad 'Ali Khan, also known as Madali Khan. From 1822–42 he ruled the Uzbek Ming dynasty and the Kokand khanate, raising the level of culture,
expanding foreign policy and resisting Russian aggression.

==Page 757==

'''poisonous nutmeat''' 
betel.

'''Uyghur''' 
Member of an ethnic group in western China, sometimes described as Indo-European.

'''Al Mar-Fuad''' 
Get a load of this character! He dresses in English hunting tweeds and a deerstalker cap, brandishes a shotgun, pronounces his "r"'s as w's, and says things like "Weally?" and "I am going out after some gwouse." Maybe "wabbits" are next for this Uyghur version of [http://jenn98.com/bugs/images/bugs-elmer-daffy.jpg ''Elmer Fudd''] (Al Mar-Fuad--get it?).

'''Lord Salisbury''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil%2C_3rd_Marquess_of_Salisbury Lord Salisbury] (1830-1903) was a British statesman and Prime Minister on three occasions: 1885-1886, 1886-1892 and 1895-1902. He, the first British Prime Minister of the 20th century, is seen as an icon of traditional, aristocratic conservatism.

==Page 758==

'''. . . so as to draw off the odd Russian division in the event of a European war''' 
To have some idea of the realtionship between Russia and Japan at this time, see the Wikipedia article on the Russo-Japanese War [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War].

'''yakitori pitches''' 
Yakitori: grilled bird, a Japanese type of skewered chicken made from several bite-sized pieces of chicken meat, or chicken offal, skewered on a bamboo skewer and barbecued, usually over charcoal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakitori Wikipedia]. A Yakitori pitch would be a kind of fast food stand: pitch a tent and sell yakitori.

'''old Cavi ate the sausage at Kabul''' 
Sir Louis Cavagnari, British envoy to Afghanistan, killed on Sept. 3, 1879, in the course of an insurrection. If "eat the sausage" is some horrible detail, no online source specifies. I believe "eat the sausage" is slang and refers to the fact that he was killed, like "kicked the bucket."

'''meddling of the Powers...convergence to the Mohammedan''' 
Exactly the situation today. More 1900/2000 parallels. It might be more accurate to say that the situation today evolved from the situation then. This sounds more like a good discussion topic rather than annotation material.

'''''Polkovnik''''' 
Russian: Colonel.

'''''Polny pizdets''''' 
Russian: a total fuckup.

'''Simla''' 
Now call [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Shimla]. It was the summer capital of the erstwhile British Raj in India. It is now the capital city of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Shimla, nestled in the middle Himalayas in northern India, is a favorite destination for honeymooners and tourists, particularly in summer. 

Punjabi Hill States, refuge and resort of Raj officers for generations [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_States].

'''Pelitis''' 
Peliti was a Manufacturing Confectioner and he was by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen Empress, a purveyor of cakes, chocolates etc. He started his restaurant and confectionery business in 1870 at 11 Government Place in the Dalhousie Square area of Calcutta.(At a meeting on 26-Sep-1919 the Rotary Club of Calcutta was organized thus ushering in the movement in India and indeed the mainland of Asia)[http://www.rotacal.org/pelitis.htm].

'''the Combermere Bridge''' 
In 1828, Lord Combermere, the British Commander-in-Chief of the Indian army, built a bridge spanning a gushing mountain stream in Simla (Shimla).
See a drawing of [http://www.victoriamemorial-cal.org/tripur_combridge.html the bridge].

== Page 759 ==

'''transnoctial''' 
??? through the night

'''the Waziri''' 
A people from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waziristan Waziristan], a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.

'''"haunted spaces of desire . . . walled in by work-demands" 
is co-conscious(ness), page 760

==Page 761==

'''subaltern''' 
A junior officer in the British army; now titled second lieutenant in most regiments.

'''Guri Amir''' 
Guri Amir or Gur-e Amir is the mausoleum Tamerlane built for his family. It is a great monument of Islamic architecture. [http://www.galenfrysinger.com/guri_amir_mausoleum.htm Guri Amir Mausoleum pictures].

'''Alexander III''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Russia Alexander III] (1845-1894) was the Tsar of Russia between 1881-1894. He died in Livadia Palace, Crimea, and was buried at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St.Petersburg. He was succeeded by his eldest son Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. Tsar Alexander's memorial is located in Irkustsk at the embankment of the Angara River.

'''Tamerlane''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur Tamerlane] (1336-1405), the most influential Central Asia's military leader of the Middle Ages, restored the former Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. During his long military career, Tamerlane engaged in an almost constant state of warfare in order to extend his borders and maintain his conquest, which reached from the Mediterranean in the west to India in the South and Russia in the North.

'''Craven A''' 
Plainly not the blend of pipe tobacco celebrated under the name "Arcadia" by James M. Barrie. London tobacconist Craven also gave his name to a [http://www.winspiration.co.uk/slogans.htm brand of cigarettes] now manufactured elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Formerly advertised under the slogan, "It's kind to your throat."

'''Eurasia Irredenta''' 
Fighters for Italian statehood in the 19th century used the slogan "Italia Irredenta": unredeemed Italy, that is, the lands still held by Habsburgs and other foreign powers. Their goal of course was to redeem it, place these areas under rule by Italians and fold them into one kingdom.

''''Turania'''' 
Turanism of page 756.

==Page 762==

'''Beerbohm Tree''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Beerbohm_Tree Herbert Beerbohm Tree] (1853-1917), noted English actor.

'''arrack''' 
an Asian alcoholic beverage like rum that is distilled from a fermented mash of malted rice with toddy or molasses.

'''clepsydra''' 
water clock.

==Page 763==

'''taking flannel''' 
???

'''P&O steamer''' 
Pacific and Orient line, British steamship company.

'''the Great Bitter Lake''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bitter_Lake The Great Bitter Lake] is a salt water lake between the north and south part of the Suez Canal.

'''Karachi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi Karachi], located on the coast of the Arabian Sea, northwest of the Indus River Delta, is the most populated city in Pakistan. It is the financial and commercial center as well as the largest port of the country. The metropolitan area and its suburbs comprises the world's second most populated city.

'''Kiamari''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiamari Kiamari] is one of the neighborhoods of Kiamari Town in Karachi, Pakistan.

'''the Northwestern Railway''' 
The North Western Railway (NWR) of India was formed in January 1886, an amalgam of a number of smaller railways, principally the Sind, Punjab and Delhi Railway. The division of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947 saw the rail lines of the NWR divided between India (1,900 miles) and Pakistan (6,900 miles).

'''the Indus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River The Indus] is the longest and most important river in Pakistan and one of the most important one on the Indian subcontinent. Starting in the Tibetan plateau the Indus flows, through Kashmir, in a southernly direction along the entire length of Pakistan and merges into the Arabian Sea near Karachi.

'''the plains of Sind''' 
fertile plains around the Indus river in the center of Sind (Sindh) province, Pakistan.

'''Nowshera''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowshera Nowshera] is a major city in the North-West Frontier Province, Paksitan. It is known for its Cantonement, the site of Pakistan Army's School of Artillery.

'''Durghal station''' 
???

'''Malakand Pass''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malakand_Pass The Malakand Pass] is a mountain pass in India.

'''Karakoram Pass''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakoram_Pass The Karakoram Pass], on the boundary of territory controlled by India and China, is the highest pass on the ancient caravan route between Leh, Ladakh and Yarkand in the Tarim Basin.

'''East Turkestan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan East Turkestan], largely inhabited by Turkic people, is the part of greater Turkestan in Xinjiang, China and far eastern Central Asia. Marco Polo passed Turkestan in the year of 1272.

'''might as well all be on a Cook's tour''' 
Cook's is still in business selling package tours. What cost Auberon months of hardship and danger, groups might now visit as tourists.

'''the Tungus''' 
[http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/evenks.shtml The Tungus], called the Evenks since 1931, are a Siberian ethnic group who live in the Siberian taiga from the Yenisei and Ob river basins to the Pacific Ocean and from the Amur River to the Arctic Ocean. The original home of the Tungus was in the vicinity of Lake Baikal but later migrated eastward to the current habitat. The Tungus are closely related to the Manchus and, before 1920, practiced a shamanistic religion. Their language is a close relation of the Mongolian and the Turkic ones, and the written language was created only in the late 1920s. First mentioned as “exhibits” in the White City, P.23.

'''the Yenisei''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yenisei_River The Yenisei], a river in Russia flowing from Mongolia through Siberia into the Arctic Ocean, is the fifth longest in the world. It is slightly shorter but with 1.5 times the flow of the Mississippi-Missouri.

'''''bergut''''' 
A golden eagle used by the Kirghiz Tatars, who call it Bergut or Bearcoot, for the capture of antelopes, foxes and wolves.

'''Altai''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altay_Mountains Altai] is a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the great rivers Irtysh, Ob and Yenisei have their source.

==Page 764==

'''Irkutsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irkutsk,_Russia Irkutsk] is located about 45 miles northwest of Lake Baikal but 3,100 miles east of Moscow. It is one of the largest cities in Siberia. The city proper lies at the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisei. A small river, the Irkut, from which the city takes its name, joins the Angara directly opposite the city. Irkutsk's main industries are timber, aluminum and minerals.

'''the Angara''' 
[http://en.wikiopedia.org/wiki/Angara_River The Angara] is a 1,150-mile long river in Irkutsk Oblast, southeastern Siberia, Russia. It is the only river flowing out of Lake Baikal, and is a headwater of the Yenisie.

'''Tushuk Tash''' 
Also called ''Shipton's Arch''. [http://www.naturalarches.org/gallery-China-TushukTash.htm Tushuk Tash], the highest natural arch in the world, is a very crumbly conglomerate arch in Kara Tagh range 25 miles west-northwest of Kashgar, Xianjiang, China. The National Geographic team measured the arch at 1,200 feet high (about the height of the Empire State Building) with a estimated span of 180 feet. Tushuk Tash means ''Pierce Rock'' ("a rock with a hole in it"). Tushuk Tash was made known to the outside in 1947 by English mountaineer Eric Shipton but was "lost" because of the inaccurate location given. In May 2000 ''National Geographic'' "rediscovered" it again and used the local name.

'''Kara Tagh''' 
The mountain range near Kashgar where Tushuk Tash is located. 

With a name meaning "black mountain" you would expect there to be more than one. Places going by this name or the similar names Karatau and Kara Dagh are dotted all over Central Asia. This one lies in extreme western China.

Is it significant that ''Karadağ'' is the Turkish name of Montenegro?

'''the Tunguska country''' 
[http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/evenks.shtml The Tunguska country], in its broadest geographical sense, is the Siberia taiga region where the Tungus people live—the Ob River in the west to the Okhotsk Sea in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to Manchuria and Sakhalin in the south. Its core is [http://www.bartelby.com/65/tu/TungskBas.html the Tunguska Basins] in east central Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Territory) between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. Across the basin three Tunguska rivers—the Lower Tunguska, the Stony Tunguska and the Upper Tunguska—run through. Commonly the area of these three rivers is considered the home of the Tungus: the Tunguska country in its narrower definition.

'''And when we try to return . . . [w]e may not be able to''' 
Kit had this experience when the liner ''Stupendica'' doubled herself.

'''Buriat''' 
The Buriats live in southwestern Siberia to northwestern China and Mongolia. They include Buddhists and shamanists. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buryats Buriats], the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia, are of Mongolian descent and share many customs with their Mongolian cousins such as nomadic herding and living in yurts.

'''Lake Baikal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal Lake Baikal] lies in Southern Siberia, Russia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and Buryatia to the southeast near the city of Irkutsk. It is the largest freshwater lake and 2nd largest by volume in the world. It is also the deepest (max 5,369 ft; ave 2,487 ft) and oldest (25-30 million years). It contains over one fifth of the world's and over 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. It is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

==Page 765==

'''Japanese "38th Year" Arisaka rifle''' 
Japanes Arisaka Type 38 Rifle produced from 1905 to the early 1940s. The "38th Year" refers to the 38th Year of reign of the Emperor at the time of the rifle's introduction - 1905. [http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl22-e.htm The Arisaka Type 38] was based on the Mauser action and over-all design. It was designed by ("eponymous") Colonel Nariakira Arisaka (1852-1915).

'''Marwari''' 
[http://www.kyhorsepark.com/imh/bw/marwari.html The Marwari horse], native to the Marwar region of India, are particularly well suited for both the desert environment and its role as a battle horse for the cavalry. It was said that the Marwari horse has a homing instinct and exceptional hearing famous for bring back riders who became lost in the desert. There were only three ways a Marwari left a battlefield: one when he was victorious, another carried his wounded master to safety and the last eaten by vultures after laying down his life for his master.

'''Ogdai''' 
Ogdai (1185-1241), 3rd son of Genghis Khan, and the ruler of Mongol Emprie between 1229-1241.

'''the journey itself is a conscious Being''' 

'''I am contaminated beyond hope, Mushtaq''' 
Halfcourt's predicament ''vis a vis'' Yashmeen is reminiscent of that of Edward Ashburnham, Ford Madox Ford's "Good Soldier".
:In what way, may I ask?
By being in love with a woman he cannot possibly have without breaking every rule of honor he lives by.

==Page 766==

'''the scholar Taranatha''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranatha Taranatha] (1575-1634) is considered the shcolar and exponent of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism.

'''the Tibetan Canon''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Buddhist_canon The Tibetan Buddhist canono] is a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various sects of Tibetan Buddhism.

'''the Tengyur''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengyur The Tengyur] is the section of the Tibetan canon to which were assigned commentaries to the Buddhist teachings, treatises and abhidharma works. It constains 3626 texts in 224 volumes.

'''''Rigpa Dzinpai Phonya''''' 
An excerpt of this book (''Knowledge-Bearing Messenger'') appeared in an anthology ''The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times'' (2000) by Carol & Philip Zaleski, pp. 349-354.

'''Rimpung Ngawang Jigdag''' 
It should be Ri''n''pung Ngawang Jigdag, the 16th-entury Tibetan Prince, (Rinpugapa of page 750), who obtained the glimpse of paradise by summoning a Yogi in a meditative visualisation.

'''when you come to a fork in the road, take it''' 
A maxim of America's foremost Yogi, the baseball player Yogi Berra.

'''Grünwedel''' 
[http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/creator/albert_gr%C3%BCnwedel.html.en Albert Grünwedel] (1856-1935) was a German archaeologist of India, Tibet and Central Asia. He published a book about Buddhist iconography ''Bibliotheca Buddhica'' (1903). Of the four Turfan expeditions dispatched from Germany, he led the first (1902-1903) and the third (1906-1907).

'''''Shambhalai Lamyig''''' 
fictitious book.

'''Laufer''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthold_Laufer Berthold Laufer] (1874-1934) was a German-American anthropologist, orientalist. For 35 years he was virtually the only Sinologist working in the United States. He made four major expeditions to the Himalayas (from ''Encyclopedia Britannica''): one sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in New York (1901-1904), another one by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (1907-1910). He could read and speak not only Chinese, but Manchu, Japanese, Tibetan, and many other Asian languages (from Chicago Field Museum).

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 748-767

2007-04-05T21:24:37Z

Jpicco: /* Page 753 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 749==

'''Crotona''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_633|page 633: Crotona in Magna Grecia]]. or [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|page 706: Crotona]]. 

Or Croton. One of the most flourishing cities of Magna Graecia. According to Herodotus (3.131), the physicians of Croton were considered the foremost among the Greeks. Pythagoras founded his school, the Pythagoreans, at Croton circa 530 BC [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crotona Crotona].

'''Professor McTaggart''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_239|page 239: McTaggart]].

'''combination-room''' 
in the University of Cambrdige, England, a room into which the fellows withdraw after dinner, for wine, dessert, and conversation.

'''a Nietzschean''' 
A follower of German philosopher Nietzsche's belief that Christianity's emphasis on the afterlife makes its believers less able to cope with earthly life. 
Well, there is a lot more that could be being referred to here in calling someone a Nietzschean.

==Page 750==

'''Ringpungpa''' 
In the 15th century, Namka Gyantsan, an aristocrat, usurped the post of Dzongpon (magistrate) of Rinpung county and changed it to a hereditary position. Called Ringpungpa in Tibetan historical books, the family gradually grew stronger and more powerful, establishing a separatist rule in Ringpung County whose influence extended into the internal section of the Phaddru regime [http://www.tibetinfor.com.cn/tibetzt-en/zxyj/03/003.doc]. The "scholar" referred to would have to be a descendent of this powerful family. Again the spiritual and temporal powers are intertwined. TRP is fond of usurpation; cf. the Tristero in ''Lot 49''.

'''''Insh'allah''''' 
Arabic term evoked by speakers to indicate hope for an aforementioned event to occur in the future. The phrase translates into English as "God willing" or "If it is God's will." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insha'Allah Wikipedia]

==Page 751==

'''Bucharest''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucharest Bucharest] is the capital of Romania. It is located in the southeast of the country, and an industrial and commercial center of Romania.

'''Constantza''' 
Constanţa, Romanian port on Black Sea.

'''Batumi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batumi Batumi] is a Black Sea port city in southwest Georgia. It is located about 12 mile from the Turkish border in a subtropical zone, rich in citrus fruit and tea.

'''dukhans''' 
Inns.

'''Baku''' 
Cf [[ATD_149-170#Page_168|page 168: Baku]]. This is the fifth time Baku was mentioned; previously page 168, page 441, page 631 and page 639. But this is the first time Baku itself was being described.

'''Caspian Sea''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea Caspian Sea] is a saltwater lake in southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, the largest inland body of water in the world. It is bordered on the west by Azerbaijan and Russia, on the northeast and east by Kazakhstan, on the east by Turkmenistan, and on the south by Iran. In the 1960s and 1970s the level of Caspian Sea fell substantially, partly due to irrigation usage of the water. In 1980s its level began rising again at a rate of about 6 to 8 inches annually. The Caspian Sea has no outlet, but it is linked to the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, and the Black Sea by an extensive network of inland waterways, chief of which is the Volga River.

'''Bnito oil tankers''' 
In 1870s-80s Nobels Brothers (Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_444|page 444: Nobel brothers]]) dominated distribution of oil within the Russian Empire. The Rothschilds decided to take on the Nobels and in 1886 founded their own oil company: ''BNITO''. To break the Nobels' monopoly on distribution of oil, The Bnito Co. won a contract to transport Bnito oil east of the Suez Canal and developed the ''tanker'', a ship specifically designed to carry oil in storage tanks built into the hull as opposed to just placing barrels of oils in the hold. (Some historians said the exploitations of Baku's oil were how did the Nobel Brothers afford a peace prize and Rothschilds acquire their bank.)

'''Krasnovodsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenbashi%2C_Turkmenistan Krasnovodsk] is a city in Turkmenistan on the Krasnovodsk Gulf of the Caspian Sea. As the terminus of the Trans-Caspian Railroad, it is an important transportation center. In 1993 it was renamed by the president-for-life Niyazov, after his self-proclaimed tilte, ''Türkmenbasy'', Leader of all Turkmen.

'''Trans-Caspian Railroad''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Caspian_railway Trans Caspian Railroad], also called the Central Asiatic Railroad, built by the Russians in the 19th cnetury, follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It starts at the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea at Krasnovodsk and heads southeast, along the edge of the Karakum Desert.

'''Qara Qum''' 
Now more often spelled Kara Kum, a desert between Caspian Sea and Amu Darya River with the Aral Sea to the north. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakum_Desert Karakum Desert] occupies about 80% of the area of Turkmenistan with an average of one person per 2.5 sq miles. It has significant oil and natural gas deposits, and is crossed by the Trans-Caspian railroad.

'''railroad-metaphysics''' 
Notice how 'consciousness is a part of this description. And reflect on what Pynchon thinks of railroads, therefore of the phenomenology of 'railroad metaphysics'.

==Page 752==

'''The effect of rotating ninety degrees from a moving timeline, as expected, was delivery into a space containing imaginary axes...''' 
The moving train is described by a tensor, its path a vector in three dimensions plus the time dimension. Looking out from it, i.e. at ninety degrees to its direction of travel, may involve axes with complex number coordinates. In other words, looking out of a train moving through unknown territory involves one in acts of imagination, trying to fathom the lives lived in the territory one is passing through, here a very strange one for Kit (consultation of the Times Atlas shows the railroad's route is described precisely, between desert and irrigated fields, and on to the terminus), or perhaps alternate histories generated by leaving the train at any point.

'''Merv''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv Merv] is a city in Turkmenistan. It was a major oasis-city in Central Asia on the historical Silk Road. The site of ancient Merv had been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

'''barkhan''' 
traveling crescent-shaped sand dune.

'''footplate man''' 
Railroad crewman, one involved in the running or maintenance of the locomotive (the control cabin surface of a steam locomotive is called the footplate).

'''deadheading''' 
A crew member riding as a passenger, not actively participating in the running of the vehicle, is said to be "deadheading"; the term is still used in railroading and on the airlines. Similarly, a nonworking locomotive being towed as part of a train is a "deadhead". (Unavoidable allusion, perhaps, to the non-working followers of the Grateful Dead, as well).

'''Samarkand''' 
[http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Samarkan Samarkand] is a city in Uzbekistan on the Trans-Caspian Railroad. It is one of the oldest existing cities in the world and the oldest of Central Asia. At its greatest period it had great silk and iron industries and was the meeting point of merchants' caravans from India, Persia, and China. It still is a major cotton and silk center.

'''Namaz Premulkoff''' 
His given name is the Persian and Turkic translation of Arabic ''salah'' or ''salat'': the five daily prayers required of Muslims. How did a Muslim get a Russianized surname? Same way Kazakhstan's present ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev did, by getting his vital statistics recorded under Russian rules.
:In a heartening instance of world news following the wiki, Tajikistan's President [http://tajikistan.neweurasia.net/?p=173 Emomali Rakhmonov] announced in March 2007 that he and other Tajiks will be stripping the Slavic endings off their names. Kindly address him as President Rakhmon in all future correspondence.

==Page 753 ==

'''Charjui''' 
A city of 25,000, bordering with Uzbekistan, in Turkmenistan.

'''Amu-Darya . . . the Oxus''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_439|page 439: the Oxus]].

'''Bukhara''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara Bukhara] lies west of Samarkand and is one of the most ancient cities of Uzbekistan. The name of Bukhara originates from the word ''vihara'' which means "monastery" in Sanskrit. The city was once a large commerical center on the Silk Road and a center of learning renowned throughout the Islamic world. It still has 350 mosques and 100 religious colleges.

'''Kagan''' 
Kagan City, ten miles outside Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

'''Khokand''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokand Khokand] is a city in eastern Uzbekistan at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley. It is about 140 miles souteast of Tashkent. It is on the crossroads of the ancient trade routes.

'''Andizhan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andijan Andizhan] is the fourth-largest city in Uzbekistan. It is located in the east of the country in the Fergana Valley near the border with Kyrgyzstan.

'''Osh''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osh Osh] is an ancient city in the Fergana Valley of southern Kyrgyzstan. Osh is the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan and is often referred to as the "capital of the south".

'''Kashgar''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_630|page 630: Kashgar]].

'''the Taklamakan''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_444|page 444: Taklamakan]].

'''Stanley and Livingstone''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone David Livingstone] (1813-1873) was a Scottish missionary and explorer in central Aftica. He was the first European to see Victoria Falls, which he named. He is perhaps best remembered because of his meeting with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley Henry Stanley] (1841-1904), a jounalist and explorer, which gave rise to the popular quotation, ''Dr. Livingstaone, I presume?''. Late in his life Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years, and Stanley was sent by ''New York Herald'' in 1869 to find him as a publicity stunt. Stanley found Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in November 10, 1871 with the now famous tongue-in-cheek greeting (Livingstone was the only white man within hundreds of miles). In 1939, a popular film called [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0031973/ ''Stanley and Livingstone''] was released with Spencer Tracy as Stanley.

==Page 754==

'''Prokladka''' 
The name is a common Russian word with two meanings: construction and gasket.
Female hygienic pads (with or without wings) are also referred to as prokladkas

'''Kalinka''' 
"My Little Snowball Tree", Russian folk song, popularized by ''Red Army Chorus''.

'''Ochi Chorniya''' 
Stereotypical Russian ballad, "Dark Eyes." The second word is actually ''Chorniye''. (It's spelled so now, but before 1917 it was ''chorniya'' or ''chornyya.'')

'''E. N. Molokhovets''' 
The book (''Podarok molodym khozyaykam'', Kursk: 1861) and the author are real. Elena Burman married city architect Frants Frantsevich Molokhovets, whose name is not Russian but suggests a Germanized Polish noble family (Franz Molochowiec). The etymology is not clear.

'''Orloff''' 
Also known as Oryol or Orel Trotter, a breed developed in the 19th century.

'''the Tian Shan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian_Shan The Tian Shan] (Chinese words for "Celestial Mountains") is the mountain range, west of the Taklamakan Desert, running some 1,700 miles eastward from Tashkent into China. The mountain range is part of the Himalayan orogenic belt. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish chokusu (24,400 ft) and the second highest Khan Tengri (23,100 ft).

'''''Bol'shaia Igra''''' 
"The Great Game", counterpart to the ''Inconvenience''. Cf page 123 & page 245.

'''use of betel''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betel Betel] is a spice whose leaves have medicinal properties. The plant is evergreen and perennial, with glossy heart-shaped leaves and white catkins, and grows to a height of slightly over 3 feet. In India and parts of Southeast Asia, betel leaves are chewed with mineral lime and the areca nut which promotes red-stained saliva. Betel leaves are used as a stimulant, an anitseptic and a breath-freshener. They are used to treat headaches, arthritis, toothache, indigestion, constipation, etc.

==Page 755==

'''the Urals''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural_Mountains The Urals] is a mountain system in western Russia extending for over 1,240 miles from the Artic Ocean to the Caspian Sea, and traditionally regarded as the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. The mountains hold vast mineral wealth.

'''A.D.C. or ''lichnyi adiutant''''' 
Aide-de-camp or (Russian:) personal adjutant.

'''Klopski''' 
''Klop'' is a Russian word for "bug."

'''''peculiar machines''''' 
Arcade games?

'''''Yob tvoyu mat' ''''' 
Russian, literally: Fuck your mother. Just a general expletive. (Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_616|page 616: ''Yob tvoyu mat''']]).

'''''zastolye''''' 
Group of people around a table. A feast.

'''''begin to spin''''' 
To whirl like a Dervish, a member of a mystical Sufi sect that spins to induce visions ("your mind proceeding to flee in all directions at once"). The "Spin" of an electron, however, is also one of four quantum numbers (all vector quantities) specifying the electron's exact quantum state. It can be further used to calculate properties of electrons as wave functions, radiating "in all directions at once" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_spin].

==Page 756==

'''''Poshol ty na khuy''''' 
Impolite Russian, literally "Go to the prick", meaning; "Fuck off".

'''The Doosra''' 
Doosra is an Urdu word loosely meaning "second". It has become common parlance in cricket in the past few years and is used to describe a ball bowled by a finger spinner that turns in the opposite direction from his stock delivery. A lot of controversy surrounds the doosra as it is hard to bowl legally (it is much easier to throw it than to bowl it). One assumes that Pynchon was aware of all this: see the cricketing references on pp.219-242. In particular, Pynchon has already referenced the bosie: a mirror image of the doosra. More bilocations, anyone?

'''Pan-Turanian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turanism Pan-Turanism] is a political movement for the union of all [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turan Turanian peoples], or the collective inclusion of all Altaic peoples.

'''ganja''' 
cannabis.

'''fusel oils''' 
Fusel alcohols, also sometimes called fusel oils, or potato oil in Europe, are higher order (more than two carbons) alcohols formed by fermentation and present in cider, mead, beer, wine, and spirits to varying degrees. The term fusel is German for “bad liquor.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusel_oil Fusel oil].

'''Chingiz''' 
Also transliterated as "Genghis" as in "Genghis Khan".

'''''denshchik''''' 
Russian: batman.

'''Madali''' 
Muhammad 'Ali Khan, also known as Madali Khan. From 1822–42 he ruled the Uzbek Ming dynasty and the Kokand khanate, raising the level of culture,
expanding foreign policy and resisting Russian aggression.

==Page 757==

'''poisonous nutmeat''' 
betel.

'''Uyghur''' 
Member of an ethnic group in western China, sometimes described as Indo-European.

'''Al Mar-Fuad''' 
Get a load of this character! He dresses in English hunting tweeds and a deerstalker cap, brandishes a shotgun, pronounces his "r"'s as w's, and says things like "Weally?" and "I am going out after some gwouse." Maybe "wabbits" are next for this Uyghur version of ''Elmer Fudd'' (Al Mar-Fuad--get it?).

'''Lord Salisbury''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil%2C_3rd_Marquess_of_Salisbury Lord Salisbury] (1830-1903) was a British statesman and Prime Minister on three occasions: 1885-1886, 1886-1892 and 1895-1902. He, the first British Prime Minister of the 20th century, is seen as an icon of traditional, aristocratic conservatism.

==Page 758==

'''. . . so as to draw off the odd Russian division in the event of a European war''' 
To have some idea of the realtionship between Russia and Japan at this time, see the Wikipedia article on the Russo-Japanese War [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War].

'''yakitori pitches''' 
Yakitori: grilled bird, a Japanese type of skewered chicken made from several bite-sized pieces of chicken meat, or chicken offal, skewered on a bamboo skewer and barbecued, usually over charcoal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakitori Wikipedia]. A Yakitori pitch would be a kind of fast food stand: pitch a tent and sell yakitori.

'''old Cavi ate the sausage at Kabul''' 
Sir Louis Cavagnari, British envoy to Afghanistan, killed on Sept. 3, 1879, in the course of an insurrection. If "eat the sausage" is some horrible detail, no online source specifies. I believe "eat the sausage" is slang and refers to the fact that he was killed, like "kicked the bucket."

'''meddling of the Powers...convergence to the Mohammedan''' 
Exactly the situation today. More 1900/2000 parallels. It might be more accurate to say that the situation today evolved from the situation then. This sounds more like a good discussion topic rather than annotation material.

'''''Polkovnik''''' 
Russian: Colonel.

'''''Polny pizdets''''' 
Russian: a total fuckup.

'''Simla''' 
Now call [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Shimla]. It was the summer capital of the erstwhile British Raj in India. It is now the capital city of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Shimla, nestled in the middle Himalayas in northern India, is a favorite destination for honeymooners and tourists, particularly in summer. 

Punjabi Hill States, refuge and resort of Raj officers for generations [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_States].

'''Pelitis''' 
Peliti was a Manufacturing Confectioner and he was by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen Empress, a purveyor of cakes, chocolates etc. He started his restaurant and confectionery business in 1870 at 11 Government Place in the Dalhousie Square area of Calcutta.(At a meeting on 26-Sep-1919 the Rotary Club of Calcutta was organized thus ushering in the movement in India and indeed the mainland of Asia)[http://www.rotacal.org/pelitis.htm].

'''the Combermere Bridge''' 
In 1828, Lord Combermere, the British Commander-in-Chief of the Indian army, built a bridge spanning a gushing mountain stream in Simla (Shimla).
See a drawing of [http://www.victoriamemorial-cal.org/tripur_combridge.html the bridge].

== Page 759 ==

'''transnoctial''' 
??? through the night

'''the Waziri''' 
A people from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waziristan Waziristan], a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.

'''"haunted spaces of desire . . . walled in by work-demands" 
is co-conscious(ness), page 760

==Page 761==

'''subaltern''' 
A junior officer in the British army; now titled second lieutenant in most regiments.

'''Guri Amir''' 
Guri Amir or Gur-e Amir is the mausoleum Tamerlane built for his family. It is a great monument of Islamic architecture. [http://www.galenfrysinger.com/guri_amir_mausoleum.htm Guri Amir Mausoleum pictures].

'''Alexander III''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Russia Alexander III] (1845-1894) was the Tsar of Russia between 1881-1894. He died in Livadia Palace, Crimea, and was buried at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St.Petersburg. He was succeeded by his eldest son Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. Tsar Alexander's memorial is located in Irkustsk at the embankment of the Angara River.

'''Tamerlane''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur Tamerlane] (1336-1405), the most influential Central Asia's military leader of the Middle Ages, restored the former Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. During his long military career, Tamerlane engaged in an almost constant state of warfare in order to extend his borders and maintain his conquest, which reached from the Mediterranean in the west to India in the South and Russia in the North.

'''Craven A''' 
Plainly not the blend of pipe tobacco celebrated under the name "Arcadia" by James M. Barrie. London tobacconist Craven also gave his name to a [http://www.winspiration.co.uk/slogans.htm brand of cigarettes] now manufactured elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Formerly advertised under the slogan, "It's kind to your throat."

'''Eurasia Irredenta''' 
Fighters for Italian statehood in the 19th century used the slogan "Italia Irredenta": unredeemed Italy, that is, the lands still held by Habsburgs and other foreign powers. Their goal of course was to redeem it, place these areas under rule by Italians and fold them into one kingdom.

''''Turania'''' 
Turanism of page 756.

==Page 762==

'''Beerbohm Tree''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Beerbohm_Tree Herbert Beerbohm Tree] (1853-1917), noted English actor.

'''arrack''' 
an Asian alcoholic beverage like rum that is distilled from a fermented mash of malted rice with toddy or molasses.

'''clepsydra''' 
water clock.

==Page 763==

'''taking flannel''' 
???

'''P&O steamer''' 
Pacific and Orient line, British steamship company.

'''the Great Bitter Lake''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bitter_Lake The Great Bitter Lake] is a salt water lake between the north and south part of the Suez Canal.

'''Karachi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi Karachi], located on the coast of the Arabian Sea, northwest of the Indus River Delta, is the most populated city in Pakistan. It is the financial and commercial center as well as the largest port of the country. The metropolitan area and its suburbs comprises the world's second most populated city.

'''Kiamari''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiamari Kiamari] is one of the neighborhoods of Kiamari Town in Karachi, Pakistan.

'''the Northwestern Railway''' 
The North Western Railway (NWR) of India was formed in January 1886, an amalgam of a number of smaller railways, principally the Sind, Punjab and Delhi Railway. The division of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947 saw the rail lines of the NWR divided between India (1,900 miles) and Pakistan (6,900 miles).

'''the Indus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River The Indus] is the longest and most important river in Pakistan and one of the most important one on the Indian subcontinent. Starting in the Tibetan plateau the Indus flows, through Kashmir, in a southernly direction along the entire length of Pakistan and merges into the Arabian Sea near Karachi.

'''the plains of Sind''' 
fertile plains around the Indus river in the center of Sind (Sindh) province, Pakistan.

'''Nowshera''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowshera Nowshera] is a major city in the North-West Frontier Province, Paksitan. It is known for its Cantonement, the site of Pakistan Army's School of Artillery.

'''Durghal station''' 
???

'''Malakand Pass''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malakand_Pass The Malakand Pass] is a mountain pass in India.

'''Karakoram Pass''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakoram_Pass The Karakoram Pass], on the boundary of territory controlled by India and China, is the highest pass on the ancient caravan route between Leh, Ladakh and Yarkand in the Tarim Basin.

'''East Turkestan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan East Turkestan], largely inhabited by Turkic people, is the part of greater Turkestan in Xinjiang, China and far eastern Central Asia. Marco Polo passed Turkestan in the year of 1272.

'''might as well all be on a Cook's tour''' 
Cook's is still in business selling package tours. What cost Auberon months of hardship and danger, groups might now visit as tourists.

'''the Tungus''' 
[http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/evenks.shtml The Tungus], called the Evenks since 1931, are a Siberian ethnic group who live in the Siberian taiga from the Yenisei and Ob river basins to the Pacific Ocean and from the Amur River to the Arctic Ocean. The original home of the Tungus was in the vicinity of Lake Baikal but later migrated eastward to the current habitat. The Tungus are closely related to the Manchus and, before 1920, practiced a shamanistic religion. Their language is a close relation of the Mongolian and the Turkic ones, and the written language was created only in the late 1920s. First mentioned as “exhibits” in the White City, P.23.

'''the Yenisei''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yenisei_River The Yenisei], a river in Russia flowing from Mongolia through Siberia into the Arctic Ocean, is the fifth longest in the world. It is slightly shorter but with 1.5 times the flow of the Mississippi-Missouri.

'''''bergut''''' 
A golden eagle used by the Kirghiz Tatars, who call it Bergut or Bearcoot, for the capture of antelopes, foxes and wolves.

'''Altai''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altay_Mountains Altai] is a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the great rivers Irtysh, Ob and Yenisei have their source.

==Page 764==

'''Irkutsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irkutsk,_Russia Irkutsk] is located about 45 miles northwest of Lake Baikal but 3,100 miles east of Moscow. It is one of the largest cities in Siberia. The city proper lies at the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisei. A small river, the Irkut, from which the city takes its name, joins the Angara directly opposite the city. Irkutsk's main industries are timber, aluminum and minerals.

'''the Angara''' 
[http://en.wikiopedia.org/wiki/Angara_River The Angara] is a 1,150-mile long river in Irkutsk Oblast, southeastern Siberia, Russia. It is the only river flowing out of Lake Baikal, and is a headwater of the Yenisie.

'''Tushuk Tash''' 
Also called ''Shipton's Arch''. [http://www.naturalarches.org/gallery-China-TushukTash.htm Tushuk Tash], the highest natural arch in the world, is a very crumbly conglomerate arch in Kara Tagh range 25 miles west-northwest of Kashgar, Xianjiang, China. The National Geographic team measured the arch at 1,200 feet high (about the height of the Empire State Building) with a estimated span of 180 feet. Tushuk Tash means ''Pierce Rock'' ("a rock with a hole in it"). Tushuk Tash was made known to the outside in 1947 by English mountaineer Eric Shipton but was "lost" because of the inaccurate location given. In May 2000 ''National Geographic'' "rediscovered" it again and used the local name.

'''Kara Tagh''' 
The mountain range near Kashgar where Tushuk Tash is located. 

With a name meaning "black mountain" you would expect there to be more than one. Places going by this name or the similar names Karatau and Kara Dagh are dotted all over Central Asia. This one lies in extreme western China.

Is it significant that ''Karadağ'' is the Turkish name of Montenegro?

'''the Tunguska country''' 
[http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/evenks.shtml The Tunguska country], in its broadest geographical sense, is the Siberia taiga region where the Tungus people live—the Ob River in the west to the Okhotsk Sea in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to Manchuria and Sakhalin in the south. Its core is [http://www.bartelby.com/65/tu/TungskBas.html the Tunguska Basins] in east central Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Territory) between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. Across the basin three Tunguska rivers—the Lower Tunguska, the Stony Tunguska and the Upper Tunguska—run through. Commonly the area of these three rivers is considered the home of the Tungus: the Tunguska country in its narrower definition.

'''And when we try to return . . . [w]e may not be able to''' 
Kit had this experience when the liner ''Stupendica'' doubled herself.

'''Buriat''' 
The Buriats live in southwestern Siberia to northwestern China and Mongolia. They include Buddhists and shamanists. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buryats Buriats], the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia, are of Mongolian descent and share many customs with their Mongolian cousins such as nomadic herding and living in yurts.

'''Lake Baikal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal Lake Baikal] lies in Southern Siberia, Russia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and Buryatia to the southeast near the city of Irkutsk. It is the largest freshwater lake and 2nd largest by volume in the world. It is also the deepest (max 5,369 ft; ave 2,487 ft) and oldest (25-30 million years). It contains over one fifth of the world's and over 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. It is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

==Page 765==

'''Japanese "38th Year" Arisaka rifle''' 
Japanes Arisaka Type 38 Rifle produced from 1905 to the early 1940s. The "38th Year" refers to the 38th Year of reign of the Emperor at the time of the rifle's introduction - 1905. [http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl22-e.htm The Arisaka Type 38] was based on the Mauser action and over-all design. It was designed by ("eponymous") Colonel Nariakira Arisaka (1852-1915).

'''Marwari''' 
[http://www.kyhorsepark.com/imh/bw/marwari.html The Marwari horse], native to the Marwar region of India, are particularly well suited for both the desert environment and its role as a battle horse for the cavalry. It was said that the Marwari horse has a homing instinct and exceptional hearing famous for bring back riders who became lost in the desert. There were only three ways a Marwari left a battlefield: one when he was victorious, another carried his wounded master to safety and the last eaten by vultures after laying down his life for his master.

'''Ogdai''' 
Ogdai (1185-1241), 3rd son of Genghis Khan, and the ruler of Mongol Emprie between 1229-1241.

'''the journey itself is a conscious Being''' 

'''I am contaminated beyond hope, Mushtaq''' 
Halfcourt's predicament ''vis a vis'' Yashmeen is reminiscent of that of Edward Ashburnham, Ford Madox Ford's "Good Soldier".
:In what way, may I ask?
By being in love with a woman he cannot possibly have without breaking every rule of honor he lives by.

==Page 766==

'''the scholar Taranatha''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranatha Taranatha] (1575-1634) is considered the shcolar and exponent of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism.

'''the Tibetan Canon''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Buddhist_canon The Tibetan Buddhist canono] is a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various sects of Tibetan Buddhism.

'''the Tengyur''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengyur The Tengyur] is the section of the Tibetan canon to which were assigned commentaries to the Buddhist teachings, treatises and abhidharma works. It constains 3626 texts in 224 volumes.

'''''Rigpa Dzinpai Phonya''''' 
An excerpt of this book (''Knowledge-Bearing Messenger'') appeared in an anthology ''The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times'' (2000) by Carol & Philip Zaleski, pp. 349-354.

'''Rimpung Ngawang Jigdag''' 
It should be Ri''n''pung Ngawang Jigdag, the 16th-entury Tibetan Prince, (Rinpugapa of page 750), who obtained the glimpse of paradise by summoning a Yogi in a meditative visualisation.

'''when you come to a fork in the road, take it''' 
A maxim of America's foremost Yogi, the baseball player Yogi Berra.

'''Grünwedel''' 
[http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/creator/albert_gr%C3%BCnwedel.html.en Albert Grünwedel] (1856-1935) was a German archaeologist of India, Tibet and Central Asia. He published a book about Buddhist iconography ''Bibliotheca Buddhica'' (1903). Of the four Turfan expeditions dispatched from Germany, he led the first (1902-1903) and the third (1906-1907).

'''''Shambhalai Lamyig''''' 
fictitious book.

'''Laufer''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthold_Laufer Berthold Laufer] (1874-1934) was a German-American anthropologist, orientalist. For 35 years he was virtually the only Sinologist working in the United States. He made four major expeditions to the Himalayas (from ''Encyclopedia Britannica''): one sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in New York (1901-1904), another one by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (1907-1910). He could read and speak not only Chinese, but Manchu, Japanese, Tibetan, and many other Asian languages (from Chicago Field Museum).

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 678-694

2007-03-23T20:23:50Z

Jpicco: /* Page 681 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 678==

'''''Whitechapel . . . Ripping . . .'' murders of the late '80s''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitechapel Whitechapel] is an inner city district east of Charing Cross, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
The heart of the district is Whitechapel Road itself, named for a small chapel of ease dedicated to St. Mary. In Victorian era Whitechapel area was full of poor English country stock which was swelled by large number of immigrants. This endemic poverty drove many women to prostitution. Such prostitutes were the victims of the serial killer known as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_the_Ripper Jack the Ripper] who terrorised this part of London in the autumn of 1888.

'''''Piggott's''''' 
???

'''the Strand''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.ord/wiki/Strand,_London The Strand] is the popular name of a street in London called ''Strand''. It derives its name from the Old English "shore" or "river bank". It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar. There are many prominent buildings, churches, and palaces along the street.

'''exhibiting that sinister British craving for the dark and shiny...''' 
Perhaps an Orwellian reference here:

:'It's this bloody thing that does it,' she said, ripping off the scarlet sash of the Junior Anti-Sex League and flinging it on to a bough. Then, as though touching her waist had reminded her of something, she felt in the pocket of her overalls and produced a small slab of chocolate. She broke it in half and gave one of the pieces to Winston. Even before he had taken it he knew by the smell that it was very unusual chocolate. '''It was dark and shiny''', and was wrapped in silver paper.<ref>''1984'', George Orwell, 1948, Ch. X</ref>

The whole paragraph also recalls the Velvet Underground Song ''Venus in Furs'' [http://www.lyricsdomain.com/22/velvet_underground/shiny_shiny_shiny_boots_of_leather.html Lyrics], a hymn of the SM/Fetish-scene: "dark and shiny... patent boots... [http://www.lorraineelement.com/links.htm mackintoshes]..." reads like catchwords from the covers of [http://www.atomage.co.uk/index.html Atomage Magazine], whose editor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sutcliffe_%28designer%29 John Sutcliffe], btw, did the costumes for the TV-Series [http://dissolute.com.au/avweb/fashion1.html The Avengers].

'''...students of the chimpanzee...''' 
A stretch? According to a paper done by Arthur W. Epstein (1987), (male) chimpanzees and other primates might develop a fetish: "The endowing of an object with ... [erotic associations] has been noted in a zoo-dwelling chimpanzee ... who displayed sexual arousal toward one specific object, a rubber boot.... The chimpanzee quickly approached, gazed at the boot and handled it. The penis became erect and was touched to the boot. Shortly thereafter, manual self-stimulation and ejaculation occurred. The ejaculate was then consumed. This response was said to be invariable and occurred whether the boot was worn by a keeper or simply placed in the cage. (pp. 143-144)" [http://www.scottsdalecc.edu/ricker/psy101/readings/Section_3/3-1.html source]
:To me, the text implies the chimpanzee likes all the bright and shiny stuff, not that it has any neurotic fetishes...see list down to albedo. The experts in 'erotic neuropathy' see what 'students of the chmpanzee' know. [User: MKOHUT, February 4, 2007]

'''marcasite''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcasite Wikipedia]

Marcasite, in keeping with the idea of bilocations and doubles, is also a ''twinned'' mineral, it's opposing pair being pyrite (fool's gold), much as diamonds are twinned with graphite.
[http://www.galleries.com/minerals/sulfides/marcasit/marcasit.htm]

'''queasy albedo''' 
Albedo is the ratio of reflected to incident electromagnetic radiation power. It is a unitless measure indicative of a surface's or body's reflectivity. The word is derived from albus, a Latin word for "white".

'''streetlighting... luminous equivalent of a ...shriek''' 
Thematic. 

Whitechapel and white color theme all over.

'''buskers''' 
persons who entertain in a public place for donations.

'''Duke of Cumberland's Theatre''' 
Queen Victoria's uncle Ernest Augustus was the Duke of Cumberland; [[ATD_219-242#Page_230|see annotation to page 230.]] A real theater?

==Page 679==

'''co-tenant of Tarot Card XV...Renfrew 
Werfner is other co-tenant surely. 
Card XV is the Devil.

'''K. & K. Landwehr''' 
German. ''K. und K.'' or ''K-K'', Kaiserlich-Königlich, Imperial and Royal. ''Landwehr,'' a section of the "joint" Austro-Hungarian Army over which only the Austrian (as disctinct from Austro-Hungarian) government had authority.

'''''slightly more mineral''''' 
cf Frank's "mineral condition", [[ATD_374-396#Page_395|page 395]].

'''Jack the Ripper''' 
The serial killer in Whitechapel district of London in 1888. Cf [[ATD_678-694#Page_678|page 678:''Whitechapel . . . Ripping . . . murders'']].

==Page 680==

'''"including the blood everyone's come for"''' 
The audience at a musical about Jack the Ripper 'comes for blood'? Revenge
motivations even here? Notice response of other audience member...

'''''Sowieso''''' 
German: anyway.

'''Piccadilly Circus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piccadilly_Circus Piccadilly Circus], a circular open space at a street junction, is a famous traffic intersection and public space at the heart of West End, London. It links to several well-known theathres and is close to major shopping areas in a central location. Its memorial fountain status itself is a major tourist attraction.

==Page 681==

'''the tragedy at Mayerling''' 
It refers to the deaths of Austrian Crown Prince, Archduke Rudolf, and his girlfriend, Baroness Mary Vetsera, at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mayerling_Incident Mayerling] hungting lodge in Lower Austria on January 30, 1889. Austrian officials regarded it as an act of a suicide pact but many others believed an international conspiracy of murder.

'''old F.F.''' 
Franz Ferdinand. (Cf [[ATD_26-56#Page_45|page 45:Francis Fernand]]). The eldest son of the younger brother of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. Austria's heir apparent after the death of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889. His assassination in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, precipitated World War I.

'''''Liebestod''''' 
German: love-death. Denotes in particular the climactic scene in Wagner's opera ''Tristan und Isolde,'' but here means the fatal end of an affair. And Rudolf's unfortunate love-death led to Austria's death-love thru Ferdinand!?

'''''Fachsimpelei''''' 
German: shop talk.

'''the Triple Alliance''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Alliance_(1882) The treaty] by which Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy pledged on May 20, 1882, to support each others militarily in the event of an attack against any of them by two or more great powers.

'''''Ach, die Vetsera''''' 
German: ah, the Vetsera. Baroness Mary Vetsera was the mistress of Crown Prince Rudolf. In 1889 both were found dead at the Mayerling hunting lodge.

'''''cherchons la femme''''' 
French: let us seek the woman. The phrase usually means to look for the woman who has set events in motion; here it's used ironically to mean that focusing on the search for the woman will mask any questions about Rudolf and his father.

'''[Pynchon thru]Khautsch links the first famous serial killer in history, Jack the Ripper, with the assassination of Crown Prince Rudolf--he could have been at Mayerling!--and the serial genocidal killings of Austria? "Railway depot...gates disposed radially in all directions"...p.683 "lives by the trainload"...
The implication, though, is that all of those thousands of potential murderers were, in fact, the one true murderer--that each of the victims was killed by an unspecified but potentially enormous number of killers, simultaneously...

:serial genocidal killings of Austria ?

==Page 682==

'''Trafalgar Square''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trafalgar_Square Trafalgar Square] is a square in London that commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar (October 21, 1805) in which the British Navy of 27 ships soundly defeated the French and Spanish combined fleet of 33 ships west of Cape Trafalgar in south-west Spain. The square, a popular site for political demonstrations, is the location of Nelson's Column.

'''the "Boston"''' 
A dance somewhat like the waltz.

'''pentatonic''' 
A scale with five notes per octave. C-D-E-G-A(-C) or A-C-D-E-G(-A), for example. Western listeners sense this as an "Oriental" scale—Ravel used it in the "Empress of the Pagodas" movement of his ''Mother Goose'' Suite—but it occurs much more widely ("Loch Lomond").

==Page 683==

'''Franz Josef''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Joseph_I_of_Austria Franz Josef] (1830-1916), Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia from 1848 to 1916. His 68-year reign is the third-longest in the recorded history of Europe.

'''the Belvedere''' 
The Belvedere Palace, Vienna, comprises two magnificent baroque mansions facing each other across a sloping formal garden. Prince Eugene of Savoy, whose campaigns against the Turks enabled the Habsburg Emprie to reclaim Hungary, purchased some land beyond Vienna's city walls in 1693, upon which he ordered a park with elaborate water features and fountains to be built. In 1714 the Prince had the lower Belvedere built and in 1721 the upper one. The Palace now is open to public tours. See [http://www.freefoto.com/browse.jsp?id=02-07-3 Belvedere Pictures].

'''Prince Eugene of Savoy''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Eugene_of_Savoy Prince Eugene of Savoy] (1663-1736) was the greatest general to serve the Habsburgs.

'''Ballhausplatz''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballhausplatz Ballhausplatz] is a square in central Vienna containing the building that over 200 years has been the official residence of the State Chancellor. As a result, ''Ballhausplatz'' is often used as shorthand for the Austrian Chancellery

'''the Anglo-Russian Entente''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_618|page 618:the Anglo-Russian Entente]].

'''Wilhelmstrasse''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_496|page 496:Wilhelmstrasse]].

'''''gemütlicher alter Junge''''' 
German: good old boy.

'''some symmetry was being broken''' 
Spontaneous symmetry breaking in physics takes place when a system that is symmetric with respect to some symmetry group goes into a vacuum state that is not symmetric. At this point the system no longer appears to behave in a symmetric manner. A common example to help explain this phenomenon is a ball sitting on top of a hill. This ball is in a completely symmetric state. However, it is not a stable one: the ball can easily roll down the hill. At some point, the ball will spontaneously roll down the hill in one direction or another. The symmetry has been broken because the direction the ball rolled down in has now been singled out from other directions [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneously_broken_symmetry].

Here, the meaning appears to be that the equilibrium of the twinned professors is broken; Werfner is in London, where he "should not be" (Renfrew's territory); a historical stasis has been broken; this must mean something. Perhaps a foreshadowing of the collapse of the Great Power "symmetry" of 1814 to 1914.

Not spontaneous symmetry broken, just plain broken symmetry. Cf [[ATD_525-556#Page_537|page 537:broken symmetries]].

==Page 684==

'''da capo''' 
Musical direction. Italian: (repeat) from the top.

'''Spitalfields''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitalfields Spitalfields] is an area in Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, near to Liverpool Station and Brick Lane.

'''Brick Lane''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brick_Lane Brick Lane] is a street in the East End of London. the street is paved with bricks and the area was known in earlier times fo brick and tile manfacture.

'''Stepney''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepney Stepney] is an inner-city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets as Spitalfields.

==Page 685==

'''[D.C.]''' 
[[ATD_678-694#Page_684|See ''da capo.'']]

'''''impersonating British idiots''''' 
Again and again in ''AtD'' we see the vital importance of being able to act the part of an idiot.

'''Lew, detective realizing he is also a hired hand, has an epiphany into bilocation/doubling theme re Renfrew and Werfner.''' 
"kept separate.. [by].. two distinct kinds of light."'''p. 686 

==Page 686==
'''Dr. Otto Ghloix''' 
p. 132 & 148.

'''Pure Land''' 
Shambala but any other meanings?

==Page 687==

'''the coal of Dr. Ghloix's Corona''' 
Easier to see when people smoke in the dark. The glowing red end of his cigar.

'''a small Welsbach unit''' 
Welsbach mantle, a device for generating bright white light when heated by a flame. It is one of many inventions by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Auer_von_Welsbach Welsbach] (1858-1929), an Austrian scientist and inventor.

'''''Plafond Lumineux''''' 
French: luminous ceiling.

==Page 688==

'''lantern-horn''' 
"Since horn can be softened and made malleable, and be molded into various shapes, such as spoons, . . . combs . . ." In Middle Ages, [http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-carlson/horn/horn2.html horn] "was also used to make ''lantern panes'', window panes," etc.

'''we risk being divided in two . . . Atonement, in any case comes much later''' 
A superbly constructed wordplay. "Atonement" means seeking and gaining release from guilt or ostracism, but the word is constructed from "at one." So the risk of splitting in two is followed, at length, by becoming one again.

==Page 690==

'''the Macedonian Question''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macedonia_%28region%29 Macedonia] is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe whose area was politically re-defined several times in the past. Nowhere in Europe are races and nationalities (Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Bosniaks, Serbs, Turks, etc) so inextricably intermingled as in Macedonia. Much of the difficulty of the Macedonian problem lies in the communal antagonisms of these peoples, and in the ambitions of the neighboring Balkan States and the intrigues of the "Great Powers". Until the summer of 1878, there was no Macedonian Question because it was part of the general Balkan question. 
Russia's ambition of having access to the Miditerranean Sea and extending her influence over the Balkan Peninsula by driving the Ottoman Empire out from there led to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877%E2%80%931878 the Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878). The war ended with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_San_Stefano the Treaty of San Stefano] (March 3, 1878) by which Romania, Serbia, Montenegro obtained their independence and a Russophile [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Bulgaria Greater Bulgaria] was established causing great concerns in Britain, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France and Italy. The Greater Bulgaria was then dismembered by the "Great Powers" in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin the Congress of Berlin] (June 13 - July 13, 1878) under the terms of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Berlin%2C_1878 the Treaty of Berlin]: Bulgaria was divided into Principality of Bulgaria, East Rumelia, and the Macedonia, which was returned to the Ottoman Empire. On September 6, 1885, however, the Bulgarians of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_of_Bulgaria East Rumelia unified with Bulgaria] making Bulgaria the largest state in the Balkans then, much to the annoyance of Serbia and Greece, and the anger of Russia. Now, the stage was set for the appearance of [http://www.mak-truth.com/fe_mqest.htm the Macedonia Question]: with all the Slavs living in Macedonia but under the Turkish rule providing a new focus point for the century-old Balkan rivalries to explode in various forms. 
[http://en.wikipedia.rog/wiki/Serbo-Bulgarian_War A two-week war] (November 14-28, 1885) was fought between Serbia and Bulgaria right after the Bulgaria's Unification. These two countries had their different ambitions for Macedonia which led to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Wars two Balkan Wars] in 1912-1913 involving other Balkan countries. And then World War I, World War II, War in Slovenia (1991), Croatian War of Independence (1991-1995), Bosnia War (1992-1995), Kosovo War (1999), Southern Serbia Conflict (2001) and Macedonia Conflict (2001), and up to present day. The question of Kosovo's independence is still not solved as of 2007 and prospect of violence there is highly likely.

'''Sofia''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia Sofia] is the capital of Bulgaria, located in the western part of the country.

'''Balkan Range''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_Mountains Balkan Mountain Range] runs 340 miles from Eastern Serbia eastward through Central Bulgaria onto the Black Sea.

'''Sredna Gora''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sredna_Gora Sredna Gora] is a mountain range in Central Bulgaria.

'''''das Interdikt''''' 
Prof Werfner's name for a 200-mile long, from Sofia to the Black Sea, phosgene (poison gas) line.

'''irreversible, pitiless''' 
Definition of a Doomsday Machine. See ''Dr. Strangelove'' and too many other authorities to count.

'''Charlottenburg''' 
District of Berlin, west and south of the city center. Woods, a castle.

Charlottenburg was an independent city until 1920. As a symbol of power and authority, Charlottenburg here refers to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottenburg_Palace Charlottenburg Palace] (now a museum) in that city.

'''Fenner's''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenner's Fenner's] is the cricket ground of the University of Cambridge. It has hosted first-class cricket matches since 1848, and many world-class players appeared there.

'''I.Z.''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Zingari I Zingari] is an English amateur cricket club which was formed on July 4 1845. The name was from the Italian for "the gypsies".

'''the Gentleman Bomber''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_236|page 236: The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly]]

==Page 691==

'''Cheapside''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_234|page 234: Cheapside]]

'''Dr. Coombs De Bottle''' 
Cf Page 234.

'''carbonyl chloride''' 
Phosgene, a poison gas used in World War I, Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_236|page 236: Phosgene]].

'''the Jameson Raid''' 
Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page_146|page 146: Dr. Jim's little adventure]].

==Page 692==
'''"No one seemed to be in charge"''' 
The non-violent situation and meaning of anarchism. Things still worked and Lew on the next page felt free, released from a "contract", the social, political contract?

==Page 693==
'''scabland''' 
An elevated area of barren rocky land with little or no soil cover, often crossed by dry stream channels. Often used in the plural.

==References==
<references/>

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

Talk:Red, West and Sunsets

2007-03-01T22:52:51Z

Jpicco: New page: "abandon" - Do you mean "abound"?

"abandon" - Do you mean "abound"?

ATD 81-96

2007-03-01T22:50:28Z

Jpicco: /* Page 92 */

:'''<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]]

==Page 82==
'''Skinner''' 
A person who drives mules.

'''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.

'''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]

==Page 83==

'''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.

==Page 84==
'''1900''' 
So the current Fourth of July must be 1901 or later (not 1899).

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.)

==Page 85==
'''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''.

==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.")

'''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.

==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?

'''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].

'''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.

==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==

'''"Sleep? is when you sleep . . . ." "Only that I wouldn't want it . . ."''' 
(Looks like typos to me.)

The "sleep?" could also just be a transcription of conversational style. We often include a question in our answer, in this case summarising the question with "sleep?" then immediately answering.

==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]

'''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, 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.

==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 occured in 1899.

==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?

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2007-03-01T22:22:04Z

Jpicco: /* Page 66 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference of something w.r.t. ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charges. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]].

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many university physics departments put such publications in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles. Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed because it had to grow in complexity to keep up with improving accuracy in observation, but ideas about the æther could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to M&D's visit with George Washington.

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76,) believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum, this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds,was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh donated by the Garfield family." [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html [1]]

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer].

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
There is a Ravenna, Ohio. Pynchon may have trimmed the explanation from an earlier draft?

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.''

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

==Page 70==

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains?

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710).

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light--and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion of Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?

Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
He also traverses moral boundaries: he kills innocents.

Mason and Dixon's survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

See note on p.62 in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too—these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 1-25

2007-03-01T21:49:11Z

Jpicco: /* Page 17 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==cover text==
The black text and its drop shadows are in different typefaces. It may be worth noting, from a conceptual point of view, that we can infer from the angle of the drop shadows that the light source is any individual holding the book—that is, the reader or a potential reader.

==cover seal==
The seal appears to be written in Tibetan language, according to somebody who posts regularly to Pynchon-l under the name "Ya Sam", who reports:

I contacted the Tibetan Cultural Centre with the request to translate
the mysterious legend on the AtD seal. They were kind enough to forward my
request to the Tibetan tranlsator Tenzin Namgyal to whose generosity we
owe the solution of one more ATD related mystery.

It is the Tibetan language, alright, and it means ...... Tibetan
Government Chamber of Commerce.

Read their response below:

:Dear Ya Sam, 
:I showed the seal you sent to our Tibetan translator, Tenzin Namgyal. He says the word to word translation is: Tibetan Government Commerce Chamber in other words: Tibetan Government Chamber of commerce. Why Pynchon has chosen to place this on the cover of his book is anyones guess. Reading the book reviews gave no insight into the reason. Perhaps after one has read it?

:Best wishes,

:Sandy Belth 
:Tibetan Cultural Center

Also of interest: the coin bears a striking resemblance to the doubloon in ''Moby-Dick'' that Ahab nails to the mainmast as a prize to the first crew member to sight the white whale. Melville's description runs thus:

:It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra. (Ch.99, "The Doubloon")

==copyright page==
The copyright page states that ''Against the Day'' is published by Viking Penguin, but on the title page and elsewhere we can read that the book is published by Penguin Press. The copyright pages of other books from Penguin Press state "Penguin Press" as the publisher, as could be expected, and it seems likely that the substitution of "Penguin Press" with "Viking" is one of many typographical errors in the book (see [[errata]]).
I have confirmed from inside Penguin Press that this is a copyediting mistake. Here is a direct e-mail answer about the Viking Penguin listing: "this was a copyediting mistake that will be corrected. There was never a Viking contract for this book."

==Dedication==
Most of Pynchon's novels contain dedications-- ''Mason & Dixon'' ("For Melanie, and for Jackson") , ''Vineland'' ("For my mother and father"), and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' ("For Richard Fariña")-- but not so ''Against the Day,'' as published. Advance reading copies of the book did contain the words "Dedication TK" in italics, but this is simply [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Come publisher-speak] for "dedication to come." It is unknown whether Pynchon ever considered inclusion of a dedication or whether the publisher simply left the page open just in case, but the ultimate lack of a dedication may suggest that Pynchon feels he's thanked everyone he needs to thank.

==Epigraph==
"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light." - Thelonious Monk 
Jazz and particularly bebop seem to be a lifelong interest of Pynchon’s, appearing in some form in all his works and what biographical snippets exist. As a college student, Pynchon “spent a lot of time in jazz clubs, nursing the two-beer minimum,” by his own admission (''Slow Learner'', Introduction). The Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/that-thelonious-monk-epigraph.html notes] that: 1) in his youth, Pynchon allegedly referred to Monk as a "God"; 2) the character McClintic Sphere in ''V''. takes Monk's middle name, Sphere; and 3) "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light" was apparently something Monk was given to saying, rather than something he once said. For more on McClintic Sphere and Monk, see Charles Hollander's essay [http://www.howardm.net/tsmonk/pynchon.php Does McClintic Sphere in ''V.'' stand for Thelonious Monk?]. On [[ATD_724-747#Page 732|page 732]]: "...daylit America ... its steadfast denial of night."

==Page 1==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Range is defined in the Oxford American Dictionary as "a line or series of mountains or hills : the coastal ranges of the northwest," so "range" or "ranges" can be used to denote a number of mountains. 'Ranges' may also refer to farms, homesteads and ranches in 1893 America. America was predominantly that in 1893. Cf. "Home, home on the range". A range is also a group of diverse objects.

==Page 3==

'''"Now single up all lines!"''' 
Pynchon was in the Navy for a spell and "single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way.

But the opening line has many possible connotations.
:The Modern Word's Quail [http://www.themodernword.com/reviews/pynchon_atd.html writes] that "it is simultaneously a self-directive and a call to the reader; suggesting that ''Against the Day'' is a culmination of his previous work, and also charging the reader to find meaning within its twisting labyrinth. It may also be a sly, preemptive joke on the book’s initial critics, as the novel begins with the launch of a bloated gasbag bearing a somewhat provocative name."

:"Single up all lines" is used in its normal nautical context in ''V.'', 11; ''COL49'', 31; ''Gravity's Rainbow'', 489; and ''Mason & Dixon'', 258, 260. Perhaps we can understand this "line" as a text-string linking Pynchon's novels together (all but ''Vineland''?)--in preparation for a voyage to...?

'''"Cheerly now...handsomely...very well!!"''' 
Cheerly means "heartily," and was traditionally used as cry of encouragement among sailors. Handsomely (in nautical context): carefully, in good order, unhurriedly.

:Pynchon served in the Navy and uses nautical language in most of his novels. ''Mason & Dixon'': "Cheerly. Cheerly, then, Lads..." (54).

'''"Windy City, here we come!"''' 
The nickname for Chicago, of course, but in 1893 the use meant city of braggarts more than it did wind. The earliest known references to the "Windy City" are from 1876, and involve Chicago's rivalry with Cincinnati. A popular myth states that "Windy City" was first used by New York Sun editor Charles Dana in the bidding for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The popularity of the nickname has endured, even after the Cincinnati rivalry and the Columbian Exposition both ended. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windy_City,_Origin_of_Name_(Chicago)| Origin of name "Windy City" at Wikipedia]

'''summer uniform of red-and-white-striped blazer and trousers of sky blue''' 
Calls to mind the color scheme of Ned Land's (Kirk Douglas) costume in Disney's 1954 film version of ''20,000 Leagues under the Sea''.

''''scuttlebutt...thousand...wonders''' 
A most vigorous campaign [to host the Columbian Exposition] was then inaugurated, the three other cities making a common cause against Washington, whose claim was based on the fact that the proposed exposition was to be held under auspices of the national government, and hence that the capital was the most appropriate place.... By each of the claimants every advantage was urged, and by each of their rivals every defect was exaggerated. Congressional committees accorded a hearing to the several delegations, that of Chicago being represented, among others, by DeWitt C. Cregier, Thomas B. Bryan, and Edward T. Jeffery. from "Book of the Fair" by Hubert Bancroft, 1893.

'''''Inconvenience''''' 
Pynchon's fictional navy includes the USS Scaffold and the Susanna Squaducci (''V.''), and the John E. Badass (''GR''). Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html notes] that the British Royal Navy has a long tradition of warships with names like Impulsive, Incendiary, Inconstant, Indignant, etc. Impulsive is the name of the ship Ploy, who loses all his teeth in V., gets transferred to.
Inconvenience is an apt name for the Chums' adventures in 'reality'. They are an inconvenience; they are inconvenienced. (In having to take on Chick Counterfly, for example).

Also, recall Fender-Belly Bodine, in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I#inconvenience ''Mason & Dixon'']: "Back on old H.M.S. ''Inconvenience'', we wasted many a Day and Night watching that fancy Counter get smaller by the minute..." (p.28)

'''patriotic bunting''' 
AtD has many echoes of Doctorow's "Ragtime": Doctorow fictionalises the same era, including anarchists, bombings, and early Hollywood.

'''aeronautics''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied to the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of early aeronautics. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Aeronautics|Brittanica 11th on Aeronautics]

'''five-lad crew''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo (ship commander), Lindsay Noseworth (master-at-arms), Miles Blundell (handyman apprentice), Darby Suckling (factotum and mascot), and Chick Counterfly. The commander's name evokes Randolph St., a main thoroughfare in Chicago. Perhaps also saint(liness) and cosmos?

'''The [[Chums of Chance]]''' 
To be chummy with chance might mean lucky, fond of gambling, fond of chaos, irrational, or anarchist. Or maybe they became chums by accident. The "chance" may also be that of the winds that carry them in directions not always intended.
:The American philospher Charles Sanders Peirce, who set down his most important ideas in the late 1800's, argued that 'Chance' was a feature of the universe that can refute all determinisms.

Cameraderie and isolation are two recurring topics in Pynchon's works. The Chums are a band of heroes like those commonly featured in the 19th century boys' fiction that Pynchon evokes, but also recall Pynchon's high school fictions, [http://themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_hamster.html Voice of the Hamster] and [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_boys.html The Boys], in which the teenage Pynchon lovingly portrayed his group of high school chums, known as, simply, "The Boys."

[[image:dart-explorigator.jpg|thumb|120px|right]]The Chums are reminiscent of two comics of the early 20th century, [[Little Nemo|''Little Nemo in Slumberland'']], by Windsor McCay, and ''The Explorigator'', by Harry Grant Dart. "The Explorigator" was the name of a fantastic airship that traversed the universe. It was manned by Admiral Fudge, a youthful adventurer and inventor, accompanied by a group of friends, also children his age (around nine or ten): Detective Rubbersole, Maurice Mizzentop, Nicholas Nohooks, Grenadier Shift, Teddy Typewriter, and Ah Fergetitt. ''The Explorigator'' ran for 14 weeks in 1908 and made an impression for its imaginative and visual creativity. [[The Explorigator|More on ''The Explorigator'']] <ref>[http://lambiek.net/artists/d/dart_harry_grant.htm Lambiek Comiclopedia]</ref>

The names of the Chums may also be derived from famous Jazz musicians: Miles (Davis), Chick (Corea), Darby (Hicks), (Boots) Randolph, and (Vachel) Lindsay (a stretch here?), notes the [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html#c116587978292060684 Chumps of Choice blog].

The creativity of Pynchon's naming of the Chums, as other characters, shows yet again his Dickensian influence.

Note that there's five Chums, the number of chapters of the book (a-and the number of letters in "Chums"!).

'''Chicago''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied on the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of 1890s Chicago. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Chicago Brittanica 11th on Chicago]

'''World's Columbian Exposition''' 
also called The Chicago World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image and American industrial optimism. The International Exposition was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. It was a historical moment and the beginning of a revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by providing alternating current to illuminate the Exposition. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Columbian_Exposition Wikipedia entry]. This World's Fair was enveloped in optimism for the future. "The thousand or more such wonders which awaited [the Chums] there." p.3

'''as my faithful readers will remember''' 
Pynchon here is immediately inserting this story into a larger canon of Chums of Chance fictions, titles of which are mentioned in subsequent pages.

'''mascotte''' 
The English word 'mascot' has its origin in the late 19th cent.: from French mascotte. The spelling may also be a tribute to the Dutch brand of rolling papers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mascotte_%28rolling_papers%29 [Wikipedia]]

==Page 4==

'''Professor''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo is called Professor. Professor of flight as some early aeronauts were called?

'''"Turn to"''' 
Evokes the "Go to!" of Majistral and compatriots, ''V.'', chapter eleven. "Turn to" is also a shipboard expression, "put your back into it" or something of the kind.

'''Perhaps its familiarity... rendered it temporarily invisible to you." 
Perhaps an admonation from the author than familiar things will be easily overlooked?

'''Chick Counterfly''' 
Three possibilities: (1) A counter fly is an annoyance in (say) the butcher's shop. (2) Chick always speaks "counter" to anyone else's "flight" of imagery. (3) The only non-''AtD''-related uses of this word that I've found came in patents describing mechanisms; "the counterfly direction" means contrary to the direction everything else is flying in, hence this character counters the flying of the craft?

He is the only Chum we know who was "rescued" from the "real" world. Meaning there?

==Page 5==

'''"all tableware with Chums of Chance Insignia is Organizational property"''' 
The organization in question is the Chums of Chance themselves, here considered as an institution rather than as a collection of individuals.

'''Pugnax''' 
The name meaning, in Latin, "likes to fight" (i.e. one who is pugnacious). Pugnax's fantastic intelligence recalls another intelligent Pynchon dog, the Learned English Dog in ''Mason & Dixon''. His manner of speech is somewhat reminiscent of the mystery-solving cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, and [http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112507&sort=date members of PYNCHON-L] have speculated that his eyebrows and reading habits allude to Gromit, from the [http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/ Wallace and Gromit] claymation films.

Could this name be an homage to the dog in the Asterix comics, Idéfix in French; Dogmatix in English? Many of the character in the Asterix comics have names ending in "x".

'''"...during a confidential assignment in Our Nation's Capitol (see ''The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit'')..."''' 
This could be seen as a criticism of an American President, present or past. President Bush is a candidate, considering the Pynchon-authored [[Against the Day description|Amazon.com book description]] which included "With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

The Chums "rescued Pugnax, then but a pup"--an innocent, a child creature--"from a furious encounter..between rival packs of the city's wild dogs".
The wild dogs equal both political parties?

'''lavatorial assaults''' 
"from the sky, which no one can "begin to try to record, much less coordinate reports of" recall the V-2 rockets which are linked to Slothrop's erections in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. That is, pee from the sky is "folklore, superstition, or perhaps...the religious" in ATD compared to rockets screaming across the sky and the destruction in GR.

==Page 6==

'''''Princess Casamassima''''' 
Published 1886 (James had published two others by 1893), a classic dealing with terrorists, anarchists, and bombings. [http://www.henryjames.org.uk/pcasa/home.htm Full text] Sequel to "Roderick Hudson". It's the only Henry James novel in which he takes on such overtly political subjects, the only one which deals with violent extremes of human behavior. 
:Thematically, it's reactionary, the opposite of AtD. 
:ATD is not reactionary but also not the opposite of Princess Casamassima thematically, it can be easily argued.

Pugnax prefers in his reading "sentimental tales about his own species [rather] than those exhibiting extremes of human behavior, which he appeared to find a bit lurid." It seems Pynchon is slyly commenting on James' Princess Casamassima here in that that James novel DID deal with 'extremes of human behaviour' yet Pugnax prefers 'sentimental tales'! As many who have had dogs know, often when raised from puppyhood with loving owners, they 'think they are human'. Pugnax learns where to pee off the gondola - a pretty natural function for a dog - "like the rest of the crew".

Or: it is a theme in GR, that the book, writing itself, is an abstraction from experience and not, of course, the thing itself. Noseworth, "who placed upon the word 'book' . . . contempt" did, however, know the subject matter of 'Princess Casamassima.' He, Noseworth, hopes they will "suffer no occasion for exposure more immediate than that to be experienced, as with Pugnax at this moment, safely within the leaves of some book." It matters that the Chums ARE also characters in books of their adventures.

It should also be noted that the Princess Casamassima is one of the rare characters in James' novels who appears in more than one work. She was originally a character in the 1875 novel Roderick Hudson, where her name was, quite fittingly, Christina Light.

'''Pugnax sniffed . . . as always this scent eluded him''' 
If Pugnax doesn't detect a human scent, that suggests Lindsay is not human. Not human, Master-at-Arms, speaks in hyper-constructed prose, has a notably short fuse . . . he's Lieutenant Worf of ''Star Trek, the Next Generation.''

'''''Krakatoa''''' 
Erupted 1883. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa Wikipedia entry.]

'''Heino Vanderjuice of New Haven''' 
Scientist who designed the ''Inconvenience's'' hydrogen engine. "Vanderjuice" suggests both "wonder juice" and "wander juice," fitting since his engine allows the Chums to wander and is wondrous insofar as it apparently violates the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics second law of thermodynamics]. "Heino" (HIE-no) is a man's given name [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=heino meaning 'home'] in German, Finnish, and Estonian. Perhaps an allusion to the German pop star, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heino Heino].

:Um, a quibble: ''Vanderjuice'' is some kind of corrupted Dutch, and in Dutch the name Heino would be pronounced HAY-no. He is not an immigrant, though, and American speakers no doubt say HIGH-no.

Jules Verne influence? Vanderjuice a red herring, pointing to Dutch origin and electrical ("juice") background? Or does one try to parse the name into eg "Fond O' Juice"?

'''". . . anemometer of the Robinson's type"''' 
Cup anemometer invented in 1846 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Thomas_Romney_Robinson Dr. John Thomas Romney Robinson]. Cup anemometers are still commonly used to measure wind speed because of their simplicity and reliability in a variety of environmental conditions. [http://www.arm.ac.uk/annrep/annrep2000/node13.html pic]

'''how rapidly the ship was proceeding''' 
But you can't measure the craft's progress by measuring wind speed at a point on the craft itself. All you get from the anemometer is a speed relative to the air, which is in variable motion. Since the craft is moving at the speed of the wind plus the speed of its propulsion device, the speed found by the anemometor is basically useless.

==Page 7==

'''Porfirio Díaz''' 
President of Mexico 1876-1880, 1884-1911. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%ADaz Wikipedia]

In most countries, the Interior Ministry (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Home Office, etc.) ran programs like secret police. Are the Chums working for forces of conservativism?

'''"beside a black-water river of the Deep South". 
Blackwater River is in lower central Florida, pretty deep south; but there are numerous rivers in swampy areas that run black with organic matter.

'''a bitter and unresolved "piece of business"''' 
Rather than give a proper reason for the Chums to be in the Deep South, the narrator cops out by pleading that it's "not advisable" to specify.

'''"the Rebellion of thirty years previous"''' 
The Civil War was not called such during the time it was occurring; the South called it "the war between the states" to emphasize both their right to secede from the union and that this was a war between sovereign states; the North called it "the Rebellion of 1861" or, after termination of hostilities, "the Rebellion of 1861-1865," appellations that did not recognize the South's right to secede.

'''"one still not advisable to set upon one's page"''' 
The American Civil War, that "rebellion of thirty years previous," has not yet become a suitable subject for an adventure tale such as the Chums'.

'''absquatulated''' 
Means to move away quickly, usually to avoid capture. Apparently a mock-Latinate formation, "to go off and squat somewhere else." [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-abs1.htm A brief article] on the history and etymology of "absquatulate."

'''"Crackerjack!" exclaimed Chick.''' 
Cracker Jack, the food, was first sold at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, though it did not bear its present name. As one word here, however, it is not the candy: "Crackerjack" entered English first as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," then as an adjective. The foodstuff gained its present name, according to the [http://www.crackerjack.com/history.php official Cracker Jack website], in 1896. The OED lists the first written use of "crackerjack" as 1895, two years after the present scene. It is by no means impossible, however, that the term would have been current in the spoken language in 1893.

==Page 8==

'''the town of Thick Bush''' 
Aside from whether this phrase might apply to some political figure of the past or present, "thick bush" is the literal meaning of the Spanish Matagorda, the name of many towns in Latin America and one on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

'''"which directs us never to interfere with legal customs of any locality down at which we may happen to have touched"''' 
Like the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_directive Prime Directive] in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_trek ''Star Trek'']. Lindsay's fussy syntax echoes Winston Churchill's exasperated "This is the kind of carping criticism up with which I will not put."

'''Katie bar the door''' 
An expression that means that there's trouble brewing. (See [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-kat1.htm this article] about the expression's etymology.)

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
Reminiscent of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Klan] encounter scenes in the Coen Brothers' ''O Brother, Where Art Thou''.

'''way better than a mile a minute''' 
The Chums' point of departure is unknown, but they arrived in Chicago after catching a southerly wind (pg 3), southerly meaning "wind blowing from the south." The Chums surpass 60 miles an hour here, but as their previous speed was unknown, it's difficult to know where they were leaving from. (New Orleans to Chicago is 834 miles, slightly less than 14 hours at 60 miles/hour, so a possibility.)

==Page 9==

'''"Do not imagine, that in coming aboard ''Inconvenience'' you have escaped into any realm of the counterfactual..."''' 
This may be Pynchon directly addressing the reader. Given that his [[Against_the_Day_description|book description]] proclaims the world of AtD as "what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two," this paragraph seems to indicate that Pynchon, like all great fantasy or sci-fi writers, does not intend to create a world where anything goes. Rather, he will create a world that differs from ours but then obey the rules and constraints he's already established.

'''"Going up is like going north."''' 
Air gets cooler as the ship ascends into higher altitudes, and therefore like travelling northward. This page also suggests some further mystery of the Chums may be revealed to Chick and the reader in time.

:North is not a positive place in Pynchon's world. It is associated with anti-life---coldness as here---compared to the South, a place of light and warmth, such as the tropics. See GR.

:But to go far enough north means heading south again, observes Chick Counterfly--is this one meaning of his name? Then one would be "approaching the surface of another planet, maybe?" asks Chick.

"Not exactly" [answers Randolph] "No. Another 'surface', but an earthly one"
"You'll see. In time, of course". Time is earthly?

'''"Another 'surface'"''' 
In ancient conics the cone is formed by taking a line through a point (the vertex) at a particular angle to a plane and then inscribing a circle on the plane. Two conic surfaces are made by the motion of this line, one below this point and one above. The three conic sections (hyperbola, parabola, and ellipse) are created by slicing the conic surface(s) at different angles.
:huh?[[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 12:38, 15 January 2007 (PST)

==Page 10==

'''Stockyards''' 
Chicago was, at the time, the meat-packing and slaughtering capital of the United States. The stench from the stockyards below must have been memorable.

'''...looked up at the airship in wonder..." 
The sight of any airship in 1893 must have been rare indeed.

'''Cartesian grid''' 
From Rene Descartes, 17th century philosopher and mathematician; see Wikipedia entry, whose most famous argument, "I think therefore I am" and mathematical studies have often lead him to be seen as the first modern philosopher of ultra-rationality. Geometry has 'the Cartesian coordinant system, a grid. Chicago's streets are laid out in a very rational grid arrangement.

Pynchon is reputed to have written 'Gravity's Rainbow' on engineer's grid paper.

In modern mathematics, curves are described only in relation to the two dimensional grid (see previous page). If conic sections are not specifically being thought of here, the theme of dimensionality, at least, is already at play.

'''that unshaped freedom being rationalized into movement only in straight lines''' 
Rationalization is a key sociological concept [from online Dictionary of Social Science]:RATIONALIZATION
This term has two specific meanings in sociology. (1) The concept was developed by German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) who used it in two ways. First, it was the process through which magical, supernatural and religious ideas lose cultural importance in a society and ideas based on science and practical calculation become dominant. For example, in modern societies science has rationalized our understanding of weather patterns. Science explains weather patterns as a result of interaction between physical elements like wind-speed and direction, air and water temperatures, humidity, etc. In some other cultures, weather is thought to express the pleasure or displeasure of gods, or spirits of ancestors. One explanation is rationalized and scientific, the other mysterious and magical. Rationalization also involves the development of forms of social organization devoted to the achievement of precise goals by efficient means. It is this type of rationalization that we see in the development of modern business corporations and of bureaucracy. These are organizations dedicated to the pursuit of defined goals by calculated, systematically administered means. (2) Within symbolic interactionism, rationalization is used more in the everyday sense of the word to refer to providing justifications or excuses for one's actions.

'''"only in straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the killing-floor."''' 
From innocent bovines to ...the world? "Single up all lines"....
Stockyards were organized in such a way that the cattle would procede through a series of chutes and passages, until they arrived alone at the point of death.

"Progressive reduction of choices" also occurred in ''Mason & Dixon''—there were infinitely many wildernesses out to the west until M&D ran the line and rationalized the country into Maryland and Pennsylvania.

==Page 11==

'''plummet''' 
In the real world, this might be bad physics, as closing the valve wouldn't slow the descent. Objects in a fluid medium like air float if their weight is less than the weight of the fluid they displace (hence why one fills a balloon with a light gas such as hydrogen or helium). Once the ''Inconvenience'' loses its buoyancy, it will continue to fall, unless its weight is reduced to what a lesser amount of hydrogen could support. The Inconvenience, however, has a hydrogen producing apparatus that could kick in, slow, and eventually stop their descent.

==Page 12==

'''Liverpool Kiss''' 
A head butt.

'''Herr Riemann''' 
Riemann, Georg Friedrich Bernhard (1826-1866) (pronounced REE mahn or in IPA: ['ri:man]) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to analysis and differential geometry, some of them paving the way for the later development of general relativity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann Wikipedia entry].

'''''Mr.'' Noseworth''' 
Lindsay insisting on proper naval forms: an ensign, lieutenant (junior grade), lieutenant or lieutenant commander in the U.S. navy is correctly addressed as "Mister Surname."

'''"topological genius"''' 
Riemann's differential geometry goes beyond the Cartesian grid. See conic sections and dimensionality above, page 10.

==Page 13==

'''There was an "eager stampede" to the rail''' 
Why is eager stampede in quotation marks? The sentence reads fine without it. Does it seem to show ironic knowingness on the part of the narrator? If so, why and who is the narrator?
: I suspect this is a stylistic device from the turn of the century light literature that Pynchon is emulating-- placing a novel term in quotation marks. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 01:35, 23 December 2006 (PST)

:insightfully true, I suspect, but it still shows 'narratorial knowingness', yes?

: Cf. Flaubert's use of quotations in ''Madame Bovary'' to isolate what he deemed the contemptible argot of the bourgeoisie.

::Apparently not a cliche: [http://books.google.com//books?num=100&q=eager.stampede&as_brr=0 GoogleBooks]

'''"...among the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast bags..."''' 
Recalls the opening line of ''Mason & Dixon'': "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr‘d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins..."

'''"...quite as if were some giant eyeball, perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a spirit of constructive censure."''' 
This is strikingly reminiscent of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon Odilon Redon's] 1882 Lithograph ''L'Oeil, comme un ballon bizarre se dirige vers l'infini (The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity).'' [http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A2&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=1 At MoMa's Online Collection]
Notice that society = censure, if constructive. Gamboling nude on a summer day was OK until the ''Inconvenience'', as eyeball, appeared.

:The Odilon Redon lithograph appears on the cover of the 1998 Vintage paperback edition of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, whose first unforgettable chapter triggers the novel with a ballooning incident leaving the reader dangling over the edge of suspense and suspension.

==Page 14==

'''Jacob's-ladder''' 
Used here as "a marine ladder of rope or chain with wooden or iron rungs" (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged) but is suggestive of Jacob's ladder in Genesis:

Genesis 28:12 And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (King James version)

'''''vol-à-voile''''' 
The narrator has turned the French phrase ''vol-à-voile'' (gliding) into a verb.

'''gold-beaters' skin''' 
Very thin vellum (membrane taken from the caecum or blind stomach of an ox). To prepare gold for gilding, it was placed between sheets of vellum and hammered thin.

'''Evening Quarters''' 
Naval practice of mustering the crew at the end of the day's work.

==Page 15==

'''ukulelist''' 
Ukuleles also appear in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', ''Vineland'', and ''Mason & Dixon''. According to Jules Siegel's article, "Who is Thomas Pynchon, and why did he take off with my wife?", Pynchon himself played the ukulele in college.

[[image:Macassar-Oil.jpg|thumb|175px|''Macassar Oil. An Oily Puff for Soft Heads''|right]]'''Beaufort Scale''' 
A scale for measuring wind strength, developed 1805.

'''"...forty-four buttons...one for each State of the Union." 
Wyoming was the 44th state admitted to the union in 1890.

'''port section of the crew''' 
The half of the crew permitted to go freely ashore this time. The other half tomorrow. "Port" and "starboard": are these simply either/or words that sailors remember easily?

'''Macassar oil''' 
Macassar oil is an oil used primarily by men in Victorian and Edwardian times to smooth their hair. It was advertised as containing oil from Macassar, which is the former name of Ujung Pandang, a district on the island of Celebes in Indonesia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassar_oil Wikipedia entry]

==Page 16==

'''About the fringes,' Randolph reminded the liberty-goers, 'of any gathering on the scale of this Exposition, are apt to lurk vicious and debased elements, whose sole aim is to take advantage of the unwary.''' 
Indeed, the Chicago World's Fair was haunted by one of America's more prolific and original serial killers, H.H. Holmes. Born in 1861, Holmes came to Chicago as a pharmacist and built an office building that was eventually dubbed 'The Castle'. Consisting of commercial stores on the first floor, and offices and apartments on the upper floors, the building also housed hidden rooms where Holmes murdered his victims, chutes that conveyed the bodies to the basement, and a chamber of horrors in the basement where he destroyed the corpses. Holmes took advantage of the World's Columbian Exposition to lure victims, primarily females who had come unaccompanied to Chicago, to the Castle for torture and murder. It is estimated that he killed over 200 people at the Castle while the Exposition was in operation. Two very good books about Holmes are The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson and Depraved by Harold Schechter. It is doubtful that Pynchon was thinking explicitly of Holmes when he wrote this passage, although he must be aware of the story. Randolph could not have known about Holmes since Holmes was not captured until after the Fair was over. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._H.H._Holmes Wikipedia entry]

'''tension of the gas''' 
I.e., the pressure in the bag.

==Page 17==

'''"as if it were something the stripling had only read about, in some boys' book of adventures...as if that page of their chronicles lay turned and done"''' 
The narrator makes us aware that Darby's adventures are as if/will be written down...the 'reality' of almost killing all of them is now just words on a page...as is this book, ATD?...Again a Pynchonian theme: no book is the reality.

'''"and the order 'About-face' had been uttered by some potent though invisible Commandant of Earthly Days, toward whom Darby, in amiable obedience, had turned again."''' 
Is this just a metaphor from the narrator to describe what it is like for Darby, or is it also self-referential to
all the adventures of the Chums?. Another Q: Is the Commandant of Earthly Days the invisible presence from whom the chums get their orders? Cf. earthly surface, p.9

'''Chinese foofooraw''' 
Also spelled foofaraw, a great deal of fuss, or useless frills. Cf folderol. However, why Chinese?

'''cubeb''' 
The name for the berry and for the oil obtained from the unripe berry of the East Indian climbing shrub ''P. cubeba''. The dried fruits are sometimes used as a condiment or are ground and smoked in cigarette form as an herbal remedy. [http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/pepper The Free Dictionary] Also appears in ''Gravity's Rainbow,'' page 118.

'''"...goldurn Keeley Cure"''' 
A treatment for alcohol, nicotine and narcotic addiction involving injections of "bichloride" or "double chloride" of gold, and also known as the "gold cure". Named for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Keeley Dr. Leslie E. Keeley,] who opened the first of many Keeley Institutes in [http://www.dwighthigh.k12.il.us/dwight/dwight.htm Dwight, Illinois], not far from Chicago, in 1879.

==Page 18==

'''headgear''' 
Description vaguely reminiscent of "Madame Bovary". [http://robotwisdom.com/flaubert/bovary/bovary1.html [notes]]

'''eclipse green''' 
Apparently an actual shade. [http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DIO_DRO/DIRECT.html [cite]]

'''Bindlestiffs of the Blue A.C.''' 
Bindlestiff means hobo; hence, the Hoboes of the Sky Aeronautical Club.

'''("Penny") Black''' 
The Penny Black was the world's first official adhesive postage stamp, issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1840. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black [Wikipedia]]

'''Tzigane''' 
French for "gypsy". Also a piece by Ravel. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzigane_(Ravel) [Wikipedia]]

'''Egypt''' 
Little Egypt is the southern area of the state of Illinois in the United States of America. The region is and was sometimes called simply "Egypt," especially in the 19th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Egypt_(region) [Wikipedia]]

==Page 19==

'''Garçons de 71''' 
A group of aeronauts formed in Paris during the Siege and Commune of Paris.

'''pétroleurs de Paris''' 
An early form of Molotov cocktail thrower during the Siege of Paris. There were pétroleurs and pétroleuses.

==Page 22==
'''Kodaks''' 
The word Kodak was trademarked in 1888, and the first Kodak camera was sold with the slogan, "You press the button - we do the rest." In 1891, the company released the first daylight-loading camera, so film could be changed without a darkroom. Kodaks would have been a novelty at the fair in 1893.

'''Isandhlwana''' 
Isandlwana is an isolated hill in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. On January 22, 1879, it was the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, where over 20,000 Zulu warriors defeated a contingent of British soldiers in the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War. Almost the entire column of about 1,200 British soldiers was killed, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isandhlwana [Wikipedia]]

==Page 23==

'''Tarahumara''' 
Indian tribe of Northern New Mexico, in the Sierra Madres, known for cave-dwelling in the late 19th century. [[Tarahumare_Indians|About the Tarahumara]]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara [Wikipedia]]

'''monte''' 
Three-card monte.

==Page 24==

'''the curse of Scotland''' 
A term used in poker, bridge and various other card games for the nine of diamonds. Dates from 1710. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Scotland [Wikipedia]]

'''like the electricity coming on... how everything fits together, connects. It doesn't last long, though.''' 
From something as random as calling out a card trick comes this extremely profound quote by Miles Blundell (full quote edited here). The heart of this quote/thought seems to be crucial.

What Miles describes is also the symptoms of a mild seizure - could he be epileptic? Epileptics were often credited with shamanic or prophetic powers, and many sightings of religious figures have been attributed to seizures. On page 4, Miles is also said to suffer from "confusion in his motor processes", which may be related.

'''Cracker Jack''' 
First sold at the at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack [Wikipedia]]

'''New Levee district''' 
Chicago's redlight district c1890. [http://www.ipsn.org/genesis.htm [cite]]

'''Epworth League''' 
A Methodist youth organization founded in 1889. [http://www.southernmethodistchurch.org/id48.htm [cite]]

==Page 25==

'''Haymarket bomb''' 
The Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago may be the origin of international May Day observances and in popular literature inspired the caricature of "a bomb-throwing anarchist." The causes of the incident are still controversial, although deeply polarized attitudes separating the business class and the working class in late 19th century Chicago are generally acknowledged as having precipitated the tragedy and its aftermath. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_bombing Wikipedia entry].

'''if the Governor decides to pardon that gang of anarchistic murderers''' 
In May of 1886, 350,000 workers, including 70,000 in Chicago were taking to the streets to rally for the eight hour work day. After four workers were killed by the police on May 3, the anarchist leaders in Chicago called for a meeting in Haymarket Square. Although the rally was peaceful, the police came in on horseback to break it up and an unknown individual in the crowd hurled a homemade bomb into the air. After the explosion, which killed a policeman, the police opened fire on the crowd. Subsequently, the anarchist leaders deemed responsible for the rally were arrested and tried for the murder of the policeman. The Eight men were convicted of the bombing and seven of them sentenced to death. Governor Richard J. Oglesby commuted two death sentences to life. Four were hanged and a fifth committed suicide. A later governor, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three survivors on June 26, 1893, concluding that all eight of them were innocent. The last words of anarchist August Spies before he was hanged were 'The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.' Two very good books on the Haymarket Riot and the events surrounding it include The Haymarket Tragedy by Paul Avrich and Death In The Haymarket by James Green.

'''mixture of contempt and pity''' 
This is ''definitely'' not from one of the Chums' adventure stories.

'''duck soup''' 
Meaning "an easy task," but also the name of a Marx Bros. movie. Perhaps relevant, given the cameo by Groucho promised on the book sleeve. Many of the Marx Brothers early movies had animal references in the title: Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup. The titles usually had nothing at all to do with the plot, although they contributed to the lunatic nature of the comedy. The expression 'Horse Feathers' is used a few times later on in Against The Day.

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 1-25

2007-03-01T21:37:51Z

Jpicco: /* Page 17 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==cover text==
The black text and its drop shadows are in different typefaces. It may be worth noting, from a conceptual point of view, that we can infer from the angle of the drop shadows that the light source is any individual holding the book—that is, the reader or a potential reader.

==cover seal==
The seal appears to be written in Tibetan language, according to somebody who posts regularly to Pynchon-l under the name "Ya Sam", who reports:

I contacted the Tibetan Cultural Centre with the request to translate
the mysterious legend on the AtD seal. They were kind enough to forward my
request to the Tibetan tranlsator Tenzin Namgyal to whose generosity we
owe the solution of one more ATD related mystery.

It is the Tibetan language, alright, and it means ...... Tibetan
Government Chamber of Commerce.

Read their response below:

:Dear Ya Sam, 
:I showed the seal you sent to our Tibetan translator, Tenzin Namgyal. He says the word to word translation is: Tibetan Government Commerce Chamber in other words: Tibetan Government Chamber of commerce. Why Pynchon has chosen to place this on the cover of his book is anyones guess. Reading the book reviews gave no insight into the reason. Perhaps after one has read it?

:Best wishes,

:Sandy Belth 
:Tibetan Cultural Center

Also of interest: the coin bears a striking resemblance to the doubloon in ''Moby-Dick'' that Ahab nails to the mainmast as a prize to the first crew member to sight the white whale. Melville's description runs thus:

:It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra. (Ch.99, "The Doubloon")

==copyright page==
The copyright page states that ''Against the Day'' is published by Viking Penguin, but on the title page and elsewhere we can read that the book is published by Penguin Press. The copyright pages of other books from Penguin Press state "Penguin Press" as the publisher, as could be expected, and it seems likely that the substitution of "Penguin Press" with "Viking" is one of many typographical errors in the book (see [[errata]]).
I have confirmed from inside Penguin Press that this is a copyediting mistake. Here is a direct e-mail answer about the Viking Penguin listing: "this was a copyediting mistake that will be corrected. There was never a Viking contract for this book."

==Dedication==
Most of Pynchon's novels contain dedications-- ''Mason & Dixon'' ("For Melanie, and for Jackson") , ''Vineland'' ("For my mother and father"), and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' ("For Richard Fariña")-- but not so ''Against the Day,'' as published. Advance reading copies of the book did contain the words "Dedication TK" in italics, but this is simply [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Come publisher-speak] for "dedication to come." It is unknown whether Pynchon ever considered inclusion of a dedication or whether the publisher simply left the page open just in case, but the ultimate lack of a dedication may suggest that Pynchon feels he's thanked everyone he needs to thank.

==Epigraph==
"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light." - Thelonious Monk 
Jazz and particularly bebop seem to be a lifelong interest of Pynchon’s, appearing in some form in all his works and what biographical snippets exist. As a college student, Pynchon “spent a lot of time in jazz clubs, nursing the two-beer minimum,” by his own admission (''Slow Learner'', Introduction). The Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/that-thelonious-monk-epigraph.html notes] that: 1) in his youth, Pynchon allegedly referred to Monk as a "God"; 2) the character McClintic Sphere in ''V''. takes Monk's middle name, Sphere; and 3) "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light" was apparently something Monk was given to saying, rather than something he once said. For more on McClintic Sphere and Monk, see Charles Hollander's essay [http://www.howardm.net/tsmonk/pynchon.php Does McClintic Sphere in ''V.'' stand for Thelonious Monk?]. On [[ATD_724-747#Page 732|page 732]]: "...daylit America ... its steadfast denial of night."

==Page 1==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Range is defined in the Oxford American Dictionary as "a line or series of mountains or hills : the coastal ranges of the northwest," so "range" or "ranges" can be used to denote a number of mountains. 'Ranges' may also refer to farms, homesteads and ranches in 1893 America. America was predominantly that in 1893. Cf. "Home, home on the range". A range is also a group of diverse objects.

==Page 3==

'''"Now single up all lines!"''' 
Pynchon was in the Navy for a spell and "single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way.

But the opening line has many possible connotations.
:The Modern Word's Quail [http://www.themodernword.com/reviews/pynchon_atd.html writes] that "it is simultaneously a self-directive and a call to the reader; suggesting that ''Against the Day'' is a culmination of his previous work, and also charging the reader to find meaning within its twisting labyrinth. It may also be a sly, preemptive joke on the book’s initial critics, as the novel begins with the launch of a bloated gasbag bearing a somewhat provocative name."

:"Single up all lines" is used in its normal nautical context in ''V.'', 11; ''COL49'', 31; ''Gravity's Rainbow'', 489; and ''Mason & Dixon'', 258, 260. Perhaps we can understand this "line" as a text-string linking Pynchon's novels together (all but ''Vineland''?)--in preparation for a voyage to...?

'''"Cheerly now...handsomely...very well!!"''' 
Cheerly means "heartily," and was traditionally used as cry of encouragement among sailors. Handsomely (in nautical context): carefully, in good order, unhurriedly.

:Pynchon served in the Navy and uses nautical language in most of his novels. ''Mason & Dixon'': "Cheerly. Cheerly, then, Lads..." (54).

'''"Windy City, here we come!"''' 
The nickname for Chicago, of course, but in 1893 the use meant city of braggarts more than it did wind. The earliest known references to the "Windy City" are from 1876, and involve Chicago's rivalry with Cincinnati. A popular myth states that "Windy City" was first used by New York Sun editor Charles Dana in the bidding for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The popularity of the nickname has endured, even after the Cincinnati rivalry and the Columbian Exposition both ended. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windy_City,_Origin_of_Name_(Chicago)| Origin of name "Windy City" at Wikipedia]

'''summer uniform of red-and-white-striped blazer and trousers of sky blue''' 
Calls to mind the color scheme of Ned Land's (Kirk Douglas) costume in Disney's 1954 film version of ''20,000 Leagues under the Sea''.

''''scuttlebutt...thousand...wonders''' 
A most vigorous campaign [to host the Columbian Exposition] was then inaugurated, the three other cities making a common cause against Washington, whose claim was based on the fact that the proposed exposition was to be held under auspices of the national government, and hence that the capital was the most appropriate place.... By each of the claimants every advantage was urged, and by each of their rivals every defect was exaggerated. Congressional committees accorded a hearing to the several delegations, that of Chicago being represented, among others, by DeWitt C. Cregier, Thomas B. Bryan, and Edward T. Jeffery. from "Book of the Fair" by Hubert Bancroft, 1893.

'''''Inconvenience''''' 
Pynchon's fictional navy includes the USS Scaffold and the Susanna Squaducci (''V.''), and the John E. Badass (''GR''). Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html notes] that the British Royal Navy has a long tradition of warships with names like Impulsive, Incendiary, Inconstant, Indignant, etc. Impulsive is the name of the ship Ploy, who loses all his teeth in V., gets transferred to.
Inconvenience is an apt name for the Chums' adventures in 'reality'. They are an inconvenience; they are inconvenienced. (In having to take on Chick Counterfly, for example).

Also, recall Fender-Belly Bodine, in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I#inconvenience ''Mason & Dixon'']: "Back on old H.M.S. ''Inconvenience'', we wasted many a Day and Night watching that fancy Counter get smaller by the minute..." (p.28)

'''patriotic bunting''' 
AtD has many echoes of Doctorow's "Ragtime": Doctorow fictionalises the same era, including anarchists, bombings, and early Hollywood.

'''aeronautics''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied to the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of early aeronautics. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Aeronautics|Brittanica 11th on Aeronautics]

'''five-lad crew''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo (ship commander), Lindsay Noseworth (master-at-arms), Miles Blundell (handyman apprentice), Darby Suckling (factotum and mascot), and Chick Counterfly. The commander's name evokes Randolph St., a main thoroughfare in Chicago. Perhaps also saint(liness) and cosmos?

'''The [[Chums of Chance]]''' 
To be chummy with chance might mean lucky, fond of gambling, fond of chaos, irrational, or anarchist. Or maybe they became chums by accident. The "chance" may also be that of the winds that carry them in directions not always intended.
:The American philospher Charles Sanders Peirce, who set down his most important ideas in the late 1800's, argued that 'Chance' was a feature of the universe that can refute all determinisms.

Cameraderie and isolation are two recurring topics in Pynchon's works. The Chums are a band of heroes like those commonly featured in the 19th century boys' fiction that Pynchon evokes, but also recall Pynchon's high school fictions, [http://themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_hamster.html Voice of the Hamster] and [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_boys.html The Boys], in which the teenage Pynchon lovingly portrayed his group of high school chums, known as, simply, "The Boys."

[[image:dart-explorigator.jpg|thumb|120px|right]]The Chums are reminiscent of two comics of the early 20th century, [[Little Nemo|''Little Nemo in Slumberland'']], by Windsor McCay, and ''The Explorigator'', by Harry Grant Dart. "The Explorigator" was the name of a fantastic airship that traversed the universe. It was manned by Admiral Fudge, a youthful adventurer and inventor, accompanied by a group of friends, also children his age (around nine or ten): Detective Rubbersole, Maurice Mizzentop, Nicholas Nohooks, Grenadier Shift, Teddy Typewriter, and Ah Fergetitt. ''The Explorigator'' ran for 14 weeks in 1908 and made an impression for its imaginative and visual creativity. [[The Explorigator|More on ''The Explorigator'']] <ref>[http://lambiek.net/artists/d/dart_harry_grant.htm Lambiek Comiclopedia]</ref>

The names of the Chums may also be derived from famous Jazz musicians: Miles (Davis), Chick (Corea), Darby (Hicks), (Boots) Randolph, and (Vachel) Lindsay (a stretch here?), notes the [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html#c116587978292060684 Chumps of Choice blog].

The creativity of Pynchon's naming of the Chums, as other characters, shows yet again his Dickensian influence.

Note that there's five Chums, the number of chapters of the book (a-and the number of letters in "Chums"!).

'''Chicago''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied on the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of 1890s Chicago. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Chicago Brittanica 11th on Chicago]

'''World's Columbian Exposition''' 
also called The Chicago World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image and American industrial optimism. The International Exposition was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. It was a historical moment and the beginning of a revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by providing alternating current to illuminate the Exposition. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Columbian_Exposition Wikipedia entry]. This World's Fair was enveloped in optimism for the future. "The thousand or more such wonders which awaited [the Chums] there." p.3

'''as my faithful readers will remember''' 
Pynchon here is immediately inserting this story into a larger canon of Chums of Chance fictions, titles of which are mentioned in subsequent pages.

'''mascotte''' 
The English word 'mascot' has its origin in the late 19th cent.: from French mascotte. The spelling may also be a tribute to the Dutch brand of rolling papers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mascotte_%28rolling_papers%29 [Wikipedia]]

==Page 4==

'''Professor''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo is called Professor. Professor of flight as some early aeronauts were called?

'''"Turn to"''' 
Evokes the "Go to!" of Majistral and compatriots, ''V.'', chapter eleven. "Turn to" is also a shipboard expression, "put your back into it" or something of the kind.

'''Perhaps its familiarity... rendered it temporarily invisible to you." 
Perhaps an admonation from the author than familiar things will be easily overlooked?

'''Chick Counterfly''' 
Three possibilities: (1) A counter fly is an annoyance in (say) the butcher's shop. (2) Chick always speaks "counter" to anyone else's "flight" of imagery. (3) The only non-''AtD''-related uses of this word that I've found came in patents describing mechanisms; "the counterfly direction" means contrary to the direction everything else is flying in, hence this character counters the flying of the craft?

He is the only Chum we know who was "rescued" from the "real" world. Meaning there?

==Page 5==

'''"all tableware with Chums of Chance Insignia is Organizational property"''' 
The organization in question is the Chums of Chance themselves, here considered as an institution rather than as a collection of individuals.

'''Pugnax''' 
The name meaning, in Latin, "likes to fight" (i.e. one who is pugnacious). Pugnax's fantastic intelligence recalls another intelligent Pynchon dog, the Learned English Dog in ''Mason & Dixon''. His manner of speech is somewhat reminiscent of the mystery-solving cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, and [http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112507&sort=date members of PYNCHON-L] have speculated that his eyebrows and reading habits allude to Gromit, from the [http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/ Wallace and Gromit] claymation films.

Could this name be an homage to the dog in the Asterix comics, Idéfix in French; Dogmatix in English? Many of the character in the Asterix comics have names ending in "x".

'''"...during a confidential assignment in Our Nation's Capitol (see ''The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit'')..."''' 
This could be seen as a criticism of an American President, present or past. President Bush is a candidate, considering the Pynchon-authored [[Against the Day description|Amazon.com book description]] which included "With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

The Chums "rescued Pugnax, then but a pup"--an innocent, a child creature--"from a furious encounter..between rival packs of the city's wild dogs".
The wild dogs equal both political parties?

'''lavatorial assaults''' 
"from the sky, which no one can "begin to try to record, much less coordinate reports of" recall the V-2 rockets which are linked to Slothrop's erections in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. That is, pee from the sky is "folklore, superstition, or perhaps...the religious" in ATD compared to rockets screaming across the sky and the destruction in GR.

==Page 6==

'''''Princess Casamassima''''' 
Published 1886 (James had published two others by 1893), a classic dealing with terrorists, anarchists, and bombings. [http://www.henryjames.org.uk/pcasa/home.htm Full text] Sequel to "Roderick Hudson". It's the only Henry James novel in which he takes on such overtly political subjects, the only one which deals with violent extremes of human behavior. 
:Thematically, it's reactionary, the opposite of AtD. 
:ATD is not reactionary but also not the opposite of Princess Casamassima thematically, it can be easily argued.

Pugnax prefers in his reading "sentimental tales about his own species [rather] than those exhibiting extremes of human behavior, which he appeared to find a bit lurid." It seems Pynchon is slyly commenting on James' Princess Casamassima here in that that James novel DID deal with 'extremes of human behaviour' yet Pugnax prefers 'sentimental tales'! As many who have had dogs know, often when raised from puppyhood with loving owners, they 'think they are human'. Pugnax learns where to pee off the gondola - a pretty natural function for a dog - "like the rest of the crew".

Or: it is a theme in GR, that the book, writing itself, is an abstraction from experience and not, of course, the thing itself. Noseworth, "who placed upon the word 'book' . . . contempt" did, however, know the subject matter of 'Princess Casamassima.' He, Noseworth, hopes they will "suffer no occasion for exposure more immediate than that to be experienced, as with Pugnax at this moment, safely within the leaves of some book." It matters that the Chums ARE also characters in books of their adventures.

It should also be noted that the Princess Casamassima is one of the rare characters in James' novels who appears in more than one work. She was originally a character in the 1875 novel Roderick Hudson, where her name was, quite fittingly, Christina Light.

'''Pugnax sniffed . . . as always this scent eluded him''' 
If Pugnax doesn't detect a human scent, that suggests Lindsay is not human. Not human, Master-at-Arms, speaks in hyper-constructed prose, has a notably short fuse . . . he's Lieutenant Worf of ''Star Trek, the Next Generation.''

'''''Krakatoa''''' 
Erupted 1883. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa Wikipedia entry.]

'''Heino Vanderjuice of New Haven''' 
Scientist who designed the ''Inconvenience's'' hydrogen engine. "Vanderjuice" suggests both "wonder juice" and "wander juice," fitting since his engine allows the Chums to wander and is wondrous insofar as it apparently violates the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics second law of thermodynamics]. "Heino" (HIE-no) is a man's given name [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=heino meaning 'home'] in German, Finnish, and Estonian. Perhaps an allusion to the German pop star, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heino Heino].

:Um, a quibble: ''Vanderjuice'' is some kind of corrupted Dutch, and in Dutch the name Heino would be pronounced HAY-no. He is not an immigrant, though, and American speakers no doubt say HIGH-no.

Jules Verne influence? Vanderjuice a red herring, pointing to Dutch origin and electrical ("juice") background? Or does one try to parse the name into eg "Fond O' Juice"?

'''". . . anemometer of the Robinson's type"''' 
Cup anemometer invented in 1846 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Thomas_Romney_Robinson Dr. John Thomas Romney Robinson]. Cup anemometers are still commonly used to measure wind speed because of their simplicity and reliability in a variety of environmental conditions. [http://www.arm.ac.uk/annrep/annrep2000/node13.html pic]

'''how rapidly the ship was proceeding''' 
But you can't measure the craft's progress by measuring wind speed at a point on the craft itself. All you get from the anemometer is a speed relative to the air, which is in variable motion. Since the craft is moving at the speed of the wind plus the speed of its propulsion device, the speed found by the anemometor is basically useless.

==Page 7==

'''Porfirio Díaz''' 
President of Mexico 1876-1880, 1884-1911. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%ADaz Wikipedia]

In most countries, the Interior Ministry (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Home Office, etc.) ran programs like secret police. Are the Chums working for forces of conservativism?

'''"beside a black-water river of the Deep South". 
Blackwater River is in lower central Florida, pretty deep south; but there are numerous rivers in swampy areas that run black with organic matter.

'''a bitter and unresolved "piece of business"''' 
Rather than give a proper reason for the Chums to be in the Deep South, the narrator cops out by pleading that it's "not advisable" to specify.

'''"the Rebellion of thirty years previous"''' 
The Civil War was not called such during the time it was occurring; the South called it "the war between the states" to emphasize both their right to secede from the union and that this was a war between sovereign states; the North called it "the Rebellion of 1861" or, after termination of hostilities, "the Rebellion of 1861-1865," appellations that did not recognize the South's right to secede.

'''"one still not advisable to set upon one's page"''' 
The American Civil War, that "rebellion of thirty years previous," has not yet become a suitable subject for an adventure tale such as the Chums'.

'''absquatulated''' 
Means to move away quickly, usually to avoid capture. Apparently a mock-Latinate formation, "to go off and squat somewhere else." [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-abs1.htm A brief article] on the history and etymology of "absquatulate."

'''"Crackerjack!" exclaimed Chick.''' 
Cracker Jack, the food, was first sold at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, though it did not bear its present name. As one word here, however, it is not the candy: "Crackerjack" entered English first as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," then as an adjective. The foodstuff gained its present name, according to the [http://www.crackerjack.com/history.php official Cracker Jack website], in 1896. The OED lists the first written use of "crackerjack" as 1895, two years after the present scene. It is by no means impossible, however, that the term would have been current in the spoken language in 1893.

==Page 8==

'''the town of Thick Bush''' 
Aside from whether this phrase might apply to some political figure of the past or present, "thick bush" is the literal meaning of the Spanish Matagorda, the name of many towns in Latin America and one on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

'''"which directs us never to interfere with legal customs of any locality down at which we may happen to have touched"''' 
Like the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_directive Prime Directive] in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_trek ''Star Trek'']. Lindsay's fussy syntax echoes Winston Churchill's exasperated "This is the kind of carping criticism up with which I will not put."

'''Katie bar the door''' 
An expression that means that there's trouble brewing. (See [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-kat1.htm this article] about the expression's etymology.)

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
Reminiscent of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Klan] encounter scenes in the Coen Brothers' ''O Brother, Where Art Thou''.

'''way better than a mile a minute''' 
The Chums' point of departure is unknown, but they arrived in Chicago after catching a southerly wind (pg 3), southerly meaning "wind blowing from the south." The Chums surpass 60 miles an hour here, but as their previous speed was unknown, it's difficult to know where they were leaving from. (New Orleans to Chicago is 834 miles, slightly less than 14 hours at 60 miles/hour, so a possibility.)

==Page 9==

'''"Do not imagine, that in coming aboard ''Inconvenience'' you have escaped into any realm of the counterfactual..."''' 
This may be Pynchon directly addressing the reader. Given that his [[Against_the_Day_description|book description]] proclaims the world of AtD as "what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two," this paragraph seems to indicate that Pynchon, like all great fantasy or sci-fi writers, does not intend to create a world where anything goes. Rather, he will create a world that differs from ours but then obey the rules and constraints he's already established.

'''"Going up is like going north."''' 
Air gets cooler as the ship ascends into higher altitudes, and therefore like travelling northward. This page also suggests some further mystery of the Chums may be revealed to Chick and the reader in time.

:North is not a positive place in Pynchon's world. It is associated with anti-life---coldness as here---compared to the South, a place of light and warmth, such as the tropics. See GR.

:But to go far enough north means heading south again, observes Chick Counterfly--is this one meaning of his name? Then one would be "approaching the surface of another planet, maybe?" asks Chick.

"Not exactly" [answers Randolph] "No. Another 'surface', but an earthly one"
"You'll see. In time, of course". Time is earthly?

'''"Another 'surface'"''' 
In ancient conics the cone is formed by taking a line through a point (the vertex) at a particular angle to a plane and then inscribing a circle on the plane. Two conic surfaces are made by the motion of this line, one below this point and one above. The three conic sections (hyperbola, parabola, and ellipse) are created by slicing the conic surface(s) at different angles.
:huh?[[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 12:38, 15 January 2007 (PST)

==Page 10==

'''Stockyards''' 
Chicago was, at the time, the meat-packing and slaughtering capital of the United States. The stench from the stockyards below must have been memorable.

'''...looked up at the airship in wonder..." 
The sight of any airship in 1893 must have been rare indeed.

'''Cartesian grid''' 
From Rene Descartes, 17th century philosopher and mathematician; see Wikipedia entry, whose most famous argument, "I think therefore I am" and mathematical studies have often lead him to be seen as the first modern philosopher of ultra-rationality. Geometry has 'the Cartesian coordinant system, a grid. Chicago's streets are laid out in a very rational grid arrangement.

Pynchon is reputed to have written 'Gravity's Rainbow' on engineer's grid paper.

In modern mathematics, curves are described only in relation to the two dimensional grid (see previous page). If conic sections are not specifically being thought of here, the theme of dimensionality, at least, is already at play.

'''that unshaped freedom being rationalized into movement only in straight lines''' 
Rationalization is a key sociological concept [from online Dictionary of Social Science]:RATIONALIZATION
This term has two specific meanings in sociology. (1) The concept was developed by German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) who used it in two ways. First, it was the process through which magical, supernatural and religious ideas lose cultural importance in a society and ideas based on science and practical calculation become dominant. For example, in modern societies science has rationalized our understanding of weather patterns. Science explains weather patterns as a result of interaction between physical elements like wind-speed and direction, air and water temperatures, humidity, etc. In some other cultures, weather is thought to express the pleasure or displeasure of gods, or spirits of ancestors. One explanation is rationalized and scientific, the other mysterious and magical. Rationalization also involves the development of forms of social organization devoted to the achievement of precise goals by efficient means. It is this type of rationalization that we see in the development of modern business corporations and of bureaucracy. These are organizations dedicated to the pursuit of defined goals by calculated, systematically administered means. (2) Within symbolic interactionism, rationalization is used more in the everyday sense of the word to refer to providing justifications or excuses for one's actions.

'''"only in straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the killing-floor."''' 
From innocent bovines to ...the world? "Single up all lines"....
Stockyards were organized in such a way that the cattle would procede through a series of chutes and passages, until they arrived alone at the point of death.

"Progressive reduction of choices" also occurred in ''Mason & Dixon''—there were infinitely many wildernesses out to the west until M&D ran the line and rationalized the country into Maryland and Pennsylvania.

==Page 11==

'''plummet''' 
In the real world, this might be bad physics, as closing the valve wouldn't slow the descent. Objects in a fluid medium like air float if their weight is less than the weight of the fluid they displace (hence why one fills a balloon with a light gas such as hydrogen or helium). Once the ''Inconvenience'' loses its buoyancy, it will continue to fall, unless its weight is reduced to what a lesser amount of hydrogen could support. The Inconvenience, however, has a hydrogen producing apparatus that could kick in, slow, and eventually stop their descent.

==Page 12==

'''Liverpool Kiss''' 
A head butt.

'''Herr Riemann''' 
Riemann, Georg Friedrich Bernhard (1826-1866) (pronounced REE mahn or in IPA: ['ri:man]) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to analysis and differential geometry, some of them paving the way for the later development of general relativity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann Wikipedia entry].

'''''Mr.'' Noseworth''' 
Lindsay insisting on proper naval forms: an ensign, lieutenant (junior grade), lieutenant or lieutenant commander in the U.S. navy is correctly addressed as "Mister Surname."

'''"topological genius"''' 
Riemann's differential geometry goes beyond the Cartesian grid. See conic sections and dimensionality above, page 10.

==Page 13==

'''There was an "eager stampede" to the rail''' 
Why is eager stampede in quotation marks? The sentence reads fine without it. Does it seem to show ironic knowingness on the part of the narrator? If so, why and who is the narrator?
: I suspect this is a stylistic device from the turn of the century light literature that Pynchon is emulating-- placing a novel term in quotation marks. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 01:35, 23 December 2006 (PST)

:insightfully true, I suspect, but it still shows 'narratorial knowingness', yes?

: Cf. Flaubert's use of quotations in ''Madame Bovary'' to isolate what he deemed the contemptible argot of the bourgeoisie.

::Apparently not a cliche: [http://books.google.com//books?num=100&q=eager.stampede&as_brr=0 GoogleBooks]

'''"...among the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast bags..."''' 
Recalls the opening line of ''Mason & Dixon'': "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr‘d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins..."

'''"...quite as if were some giant eyeball, perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a spirit of constructive censure."''' 
This is strikingly reminiscent of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon Odilon Redon's] 1882 Lithograph ''L'Oeil, comme un ballon bizarre se dirige vers l'infini (The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity).'' [http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A2&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=1 At MoMa's Online Collection]
Notice that society = censure, if constructive. Gamboling nude on a summer day was OK until the ''Inconvenience'', as eyeball, appeared.

:The Odilon Redon lithograph appears on the cover of the 1998 Vintage paperback edition of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, whose first unforgettable chapter triggers the novel with a ballooning incident leaving the reader dangling over the edge of suspense and suspension.

==Page 14==

'''Jacob's-ladder''' 
Used here as "a marine ladder of rope or chain with wooden or iron rungs" (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged) but is suggestive of Jacob's ladder in Genesis:

Genesis 28:12 And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (King James version)

'''''vol-à-voile''''' 
The narrator has turned the French phrase ''vol-à-voile'' (gliding) into a verb.

'''gold-beaters' skin''' 
Very thin vellum (membrane taken from the caecum or blind stomach of an ox). To prepare gold for gilding, it was placed between sheets of vellum and hammered thin.

'''Evening Quarters''' 
Naval practice of mustering the crew at the end of the day's work.

==Page 15==

'''ukulelist''' 
Ukuleles also appear in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', ''Vineland'', and ''Mason & Dixon''. According to Jules Siegel's article, "Who is Thomas Pynchon, and why did he take off with my wife?", Pynchon himself played the ukulele in college.

[[image:Macassar-Oil.jpg|thumb|175px|''Macassar Oil. An Oily Puff for Soft Heads''|right]]'''Beaufort Scale''' 
A scale for measuring wind strength, developed 1805.

'''"...forty-four buttons...one for each State of the Union." 
Wyoming was the 44th state admitted to the union in 1890.

'''port section of the crew''' 
The half of the crew permitted to go freely ashore this time. The other half tomorrow. "Port" and "starboard": are these simply either/or words that sailors remember easily?

'''Macassar oil''' 
Macassar oil is an oil used primarily by men in Victorian and Edwardian times to smooth their hair. It was advertised as containing oil from Macassar, which is the former name of Ujung Pandang, a district on the island of Celebes in Indonesia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassar_oil Wikipedia entry]

==Page 16==

'''About the fringes,' Randolph reminded the liberty-goers, 'of any gathering on the scale of this Exposition, are apt to lurk vicious and debased elements, whose sole aim is to take advantage of the unwary.''' 
Indeed, the Chicago World's Fair was haunted by one of America's more prolific and original serial killers, H.H. Holmes. Born in 1861, Holmes came to Chicago as a pharmacist and built an office building that was eventually dubbed 'The Castle'. Consisting of commercial stores on the first floor, and offices and apartments on the upper floors, the building also housed hidden rooms where Holmes murdered his victims, chutes that conveyed the bodies to the basement, and a chamber of horrors in the basement where he destroyed the corpses. Holmes took advantage of the World's Columbian Exposition to lure victims, primarily females who had come unaccompanied to Chicago, to the Castle for torture and murder. It is estimated that he killed over 200 people at the Castle while the Exposition was in operation. Two very good books about Holmes are The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson and Depraved by Harold Schechter. It is doubtful that Pynchon was thinking explicitly of Holmes when he wrote this passage, although he must be aware of the story. Randolph could not have known about Holmes since Holmes was not captured until after the Fair was over. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._H.H._Holmes Wikipedia entry]

'''tension of the gas''' 
I.e., the pressure in the bag.

==Page 17==

'''"as if it were something the stripling had only read about, in some boys' book of adventures...as if that page of their chronicles lay turned and done"''' 
The narrator makes us aware that Darby's adventures are as if/will be written down...the 'reality' of almost killing all of them is now just words on a page...as is this book, ATD?...Again a Pynchonian theme: no book is the reality.

'''"and the order 'About-face' had been uttered by some potent though invisible Commandant of Earthly Days, toward whom Darby, in amiable obedience, had turned again."''' 
Is this just a metaphor from the narrator to describe what it is like for Darby, or is it also self-referential to
all the adventures of the Chums?. Another Q: Is the Commandant of Earthly Days the invisible presence from whom the chums get their orders? Cf. earthly surface, p.9

'''Chinese foofooraw''' 
Also spelled foofaraw, a great deal of fuss, or useless frills. Cf folderol. However, why Chinese?

'''cubeb''' 
The name for the berry and for the oil obtained from the unripe berry of the East Indian climbing shrub ''P. cubeba''. The dried fruits are sometimes used as a condiment or are ground and smoked in cigarette form as an herbal remedy. [http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/pepper The Free Dictionary] Also appears in ''Gravity's Rainbow,'' page 118.

'''"...goldurn Keeley Cure"''' 
A treatment for alcohol, nicotine and narcotic addiction involving injections of "bichloride" or "double chloride" of gold, and also known as the "gold cure". Named for Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, who opened the first of many Keeley Institutes in [http://www.dwighthigh.k12.il.us/dwight/dwight.htm Dwight, Illinois], not far from Chicago, in 1879.

==Page 18==

'''headgear''' 
Description vaguely reminiscent of "Madame Bovary". [http://robotwisdom.com/flaubert/bovary/bovary1.html [notes]]

'''eclipse green''' 
Apparently an actual shade. [http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DIO_DRO/DIRECT.html [cite]]

'''Bindlestiffs of the Blue A.C.''' 
Bindlestiff means hobo; hence, the Hoboes of the Sky Aeronautical Club.

'''("Penny") Black''' 
The Penny Black was the world's first official adhesive postage stamp, issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1840. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black [Wikipedia]]

'''Tzigane''' 
French for "gypsy". Also a piece by Ravel. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzigane_(Ravel) [Wikipedia]]

'''Egypt''' 
Little Egypt is the southern area of the state of Illinois in the United States of America. The region is and was sometimes called simply "Egypt," especially in the 19th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Egypt_(region) [Wikipedia]]

==Page 19==

'''Garçons de 71''' 
A group of aeronauts formed in Paris during the Siege and Commune of Paris.

'''pétroleurs de Paris''' 
An early form of Molotov cocktail thrower during the Siege of Paris. There were pétroleurs and pétroleuses.

==Page 22==
'''Kodaks''' 
The word Kodak was trademarked in 1888, and the first Kodak camera was sold with the slogan, "You press the button - we do the rest." In 1891, the company released the first daylight-loading camera, so film could be changed without a darkroom. Kodaks would have been a novelty at the fair in 1893.

'''Isandhlwana''' 
Isandlwana is an isolated hill in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. On January 22, 1879, it was the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, where over 20,000 Zulu warriors defeated a contingent of British soldiers in the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War. Almost the entire column of about 1,200 British soldiers was killed, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isandhlwana [Wikipedia]]

==Page 23==

'''Tarahumara''' 
Indian tribe of Northern New Mexico, in the Sierra Madres, known for cave-dwelling in the late 19th century. [[Tarahumare_Indians|About the Tarahumara]]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara [Wikipedia]]

'''monte''' 
Three-card monte.

==Page 24==

'''the curse of Scotland''' 
A term used in poker, bridge and various other card games for the nine of diamonds. Dates from 1710. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Scotland [Wikipedia]]

'''like the electricity coming on... how everything fits together, connects. It doesn't last long, though.''' 
From something as random as calling out a card trick comes this extremely profound quote by Miles Blundell (full quote edited here). The heart of this quote/thought seems to be crucial.

What Miles describes is also the symptoms of a mild seizure - could he be epileptic? Epileptics were often credited with shamanic or prophetic powers, and many sightings of religious figures have been attributed to seizures. On page 4, Miles is also said to suffer from "confusion in his motor processes", which may be related.

'''Cracker Jack''' 
First sold at the at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack [Wikipedia]]

'''New Levee district''' 
Chicago's redlight district c1890. [http://www.ipsn.org/genesis.htm [cite]]

'''Epworth League''' 
A Methodist youth organization founded in 1889. [http://www.southernmethodistchurch.org/id48.htm [cite]]

==Page 25==

'''Haymarket bomb''' 
The Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago may be the origin of international May Day observances and in popular literature inspired the caricature of "a bomb-throwing anarchist." The causes of the incident are still controversial, although deeply polarized attitudes separating the business class and the working class in late 19th century Chicago are generally acknowledged as having precipitated the tragedy and its aftermath. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_bombing Wikipedia entry].

'''if the Governor decides to pardon that gang of anarchistic murderers''' 
In May of 1886, 350,000 workers, including 70,000 in Chicago were taking to the streets to rally for the eight hour work day. After four workers were killed by the police on May 3, the anarchist leaders in Chicago called for a meeting in Haymarket Square. Although the rally was peaceful, the police came in on horseback to break it up and an unknown individual in the crowd hurled a homemade bomb into the air. After the explosion, which killed a policeman, the police opened fire on the crowd. Subsequently, the anarchist leaders deemed responsible for the rally were arrested and tried for the murder of the policeman. The Eight men were convicted of the bombing and seven of them sentenced to death. Governor Richard J. Oglesby commuted two death sentences to life. Four were hanged and a fifth committed suicide. A later governor, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three survivors on June 26, 1893, concluding that all eight of them were innocent. The last words of anarchist August Spies before he was hanged were 'The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.' Two very good books on the Haymarket Riot and the events surrounding it include The Haymarket Tragedy by Paul Avrich and Death In The Haymarket by James Green.

'''mixture of contempt and pity''' 
This is ''definitely'' not from one of the Chums' adventure stories.

'''duck soup''' 
Meaning "an easy task," but also the name of a Marx Bros. movie. Perhaps relevant, given the cameo by Groucho promised on the book sleeve. Many of the Marx Brothers early movies had animal references in the title: Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup. The titles usually had nothing at all to do with the plot, although they contributed to the lunatic nature of the comedy. The expression 'Horse Feathers' is used a few times later on in Against The Day.

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 1-25

2007-02-22T19:37:37Z

Jpicco: /* Page 11 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

'''cover text''' 
The black text and its drop shadows are in different typefaces. It may be worth noting, from a conceptual point of view, that we can infer from the angle of the drop shadows that the light source is any individual holding the book—that is, the reader or a potential reader.

'''cover seal''' 
The seal appears to be written in Tibetan language, according to somebody who posts regularly to Pynchon-l under the name "Ya Sam", who reports:

I contacted the Tibetan Cultural Centre with the request to translate
the mysterious legend on the AtD seal. They were kind enough to forward my
request to the Tibetan tranlsator Tenzin Namgyal to whose generosity we
owe the solution of one more ATD related mystery.

It is the Tibetan language, alright, and it means ...... Tibetan
Government Chamber of Commerce.

Read their response below:

:Dear Ya Sam, 
:I showed the seal you sent to our Tibetan translator, Tenzin Namgyal. He says the word to word translation is: Tibetan Government Commerce Chamber in other words: Tibetan Government Chamber of commerce. Why Pynchon has chosen to place this on the cover of his book is anyones guess. Reading the book reviews gave no insight into the reason. Perhaps after one has read it?

:Best wishes,

:Sandy Belth 
:Tibetan Cultural Center

Also of interest: the coin bears a striking resemblance to the doubloon in ''Moby-Dick'' that Ahab nails to the mainmast as a prize to the first crew member to sight the white whale. Melville's description runs thus:

:It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra. (Ch.99, "The Doubloon")

'''Copyright page''' 
The copyright page states that ''Against the Day'' is published by Viking Penguin, but on the title page and elsewhere we can read that the book is published by Penguin Press. The copyright pages of other books from Penguin Press state "Penguin Press" as the publisher, as could be expected, and it seems likely that the substitution of "Penguin Press" with "Viking" is one of many typographical errors in the book (see [[errata]]).
I have confirmed from inside Penguin Press that this is a copyediting mistake. Here is a direct e-mail answer about the Viking Penguin listing: "this was a copyediting mistake that will be corrected. There was never a Viking contract for this book."

'''Dedication''' 
Most of Pynchon's novels contain dedications-- ''Mason & Dixon'' ("For Melanie, and for Jackson") , ''Vineland'' ("For my mother and father"), and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' ("For Richard Fariña")-- but not so ''Against the Day,'' as published. Advance reading copies of the book did contain the words "Dedication TK" in italics, but this is simply [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Come publisher-speak] for "dedication to come." It is unknown whether Pynchon ever considered inclusion of a dedication or whether the publisher simply left the page open just in case, but the ultimate lack of a dedication may suggest that Pynchon feels he's thanked everyone he needs to thank.

'''"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light."''' 
Epigraph by Thelonious Monk. Jazz and particularly bebop seem to be a lifelong interest of Pynchon’s, appearing in some form in all his works and what biographical snippets exist. As a college student, Pynchon “spent a lot of time in jazz clubs, nursing the two-beer minimum,” by his own admission (''Slow Learner'', Introduction). The Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/that-thelonious-monk-epigraph.html notes] that: 1) in his youth, Pynchon allegedly referred to Monk as a "God"; 2) the character McClintic Sphere in ''V''. takes Monk's middle name, Sphere; and 3) "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light" was apparently something Monk was given to saying, rather than something he once said. For more on McClintic Sphere and Monk, see Charles Hollander's essay [http://www.howardm.net/tsmonk/pynchon.php Does McClintic Sphere in V. stand for Thelonious Monk?].

==Page 1==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Range is defined in the Oxford American Dictionary as "a line or series of mountains or hills : the coastal ranges of the northwest," so "range" or "ranges" can be used to denote a number of mountains. 'Ranges' may also refer to farms, homesteads and ranches in 1893 America. America was predominantly that in 1893. Cf. "Home, home on the range". A range is also a group of diverse objects.

==Page 3==

'''"Now single up all lines!"''' 
Pynchon was in the Navy for a spell and "single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way.

But the opening line has many possible connotations.
:The Modern Word's Quail [http://www.themodernword.com/reviews/pynchon_atd.html writes] that "it is simultaneously a self-directive and a call to the reader; suggesting that ''Against the Day'' is a culmination of his previous work, and also charging the reader to find meaning within its twisting labyrinth. It may also be a sly, preemptive joke on the book’s initial critics, as the novel begins with the launch of a bloated gasbag bearing a somewhat provocative name."

:"Single up all lines" is used in its normal nautical context in ''V.'', 11; ''COL49'', 31; ''Gravity's Rainbow'', 489; and ''Mason & Dixon'', 258, 260. Perhaps we can understand this "line" as a text-string linking Pynchon's novels together (all but ''Vineland''?)--in preparation for a voyage to...?

'''"Cheerly now...handsomely...very well!!"''' 
Cheerly means "heartily," and was traditionally used as cry of encouragement among sailors. Handsomely (in nautical context): carefully, in good order, unhurriedly.

:Pynchon served in the Navy and uses nautical language is most of his novels. ''Mason & Dixon'': "Cheerly. Cheerly, then, Lads..." (54).

'''"Windy City, here we come!"''' 
The nickname for Chicago, of course, but in 1893 the use meant city of braggarts more than it did wind. The earliest known references to the "Windy City" are from 1876, and involve Chicago's rivalry with Cincinnati. A popular myth states that "Windy City" was first used by New York Sun editor Charles Dana in the bidding for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The popularity of the nickname has endured, even after the Cincinnati rivalry and the Columbian Exposition both ended. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windy_City,_Origin_of_Name_(Chicago)| Origin of name "Windy City" at Wikipedia]

'''summer uniform of red-and-white-striped blazer and trousers of sky blue''' 
Calls to mind the color scheme of Ned Land's (Kirk Douglas) costume in Disney's 1954 film version of ''20,000 Leagues under the Sea''.

''''scuttlebutt...thousand...wonders''' 
A most vigorous campaign [to host the Columbian Exposition] was then inaugurated, the three other cities making a common cause against Washington, whose claim was based on the fact that the proposed exposition was to be held under auspices of the national government, and hence that the capital was the most appropriate place.... By each of the claimants every advantage was urged, and by each of their rivals every defect was exaggerated. Congressional committees accorded a hearing to the several delegations, that of Chicago being represented, among others, by DeWitt C. Cregier, Thomas B. Bryan, and Edward T. Jeffery. from "Book of the Fair'by Hubert Bancroft, 1893.

'''''Inconvenience''''' 
Pynchon's fictional navy includes the USS Scaffold and the Susanna Squaducci (''V.''), and the John E. Badass (''GR''). Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html notes] that the British Royal Navy has a long tradition of warships with names like Impulsive, Incendiary, Inconstant, Indignant, etc. Impulsive is the name of the ship Ploy, who loses all his teeth in V., gets transferred to.
Inconvenience is an apt name for the Chums' adventures in 'reality'. They are an inconvenience; they are inconvenienced. (In having to take on Chick Counterfly, for example).

Also, recall Fender-Belly Bodine, in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I#inconvenience ''Mason & Dixon'']: "Back on old H.M.S. ''Inconvenience'', we wasted many a Day and Night watching that fancy Counter get smaller by the minute..." (p.28)

'''patriotic bunting''' 
AtD has many echoes of Doctorow's "Ragtime": Doctorow fictionalises the same era, including anarchists, bombings, and early Hollywood.

'''aeronautics''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied to the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of early aeronautics. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Aeronautics|Brittanica 11th on Aeronautics]

'''five-lad crew''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo (ship commander), Lindsay Noseworth (master-at-arms), Miles Blundell (handyman apprentice), Darby Suckling (factotum and mascot), and Chick Counterfly. The commander's name evokes Randolph St., a main thoroughfare in Chicago. Perhaps also saint(liness) and cosmos?

'''The [[Chums of Chance]]''' 
To be chummy with chance might mean lucky, fond of gambling, fond of chaos, irrational, or anarchist. Or maybe they became chums by accident. The "chance" may also be that of the winds that carry them in directions not always intended.
:The American philospher Charles Sanders Peirce, who set down his most important ideas in the late 1800's, argued that 'Chance' was a feature of the universe that can refute all determinisms.

Cameraderie and isolation are two recurring topics in Pynchon's works. The Chums are a band of heroes like those commonly featured in the 19th century boys' fiction that Pynchon evokes, but also recall Pynchon's high school fictions, [http://themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_hamster.html Voice of the Hamster] and [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_boys.html The Boys], in which the teenage Pynchon lovingly portrayed his group of high school chums, known as, simply, "The Boys."

[[image:dart-explorigator.jpg|thumb|120px|right]]The Chums are reminiscent of two comics of the early 20th century, [[Little Nemo|''Little Nemo in Slumberland'']], by Windsor McCay, and ''The Explorigator'', by Harry Grant Dart. "The Explorigator" was the name of a fantastic airship that traversed the universe. It was manned by Admiral Fudge, a youthful adventurer and inventor, accompanied by a group of friends, also children his age (around nine or ten): Detective Rubbersole, Maurice Mizzentop, Nicholas Nohooks, Grenadier Shift, Teddy Typewriter, and Ah Fergetitt. ''The Explorigator'' ran for 14 weeks in 1908 and made an impression for its imaginative and visual creativity. [[The Explorigator|More on ''The Explorigator'']] <ref>[http://lambiek.net/artists/d/dart_harry_grant.htm Lambiek Comiclopedia]</ref>

The names of the Chums may also be derived from famous Jazz musicians: Miles (Davis), Chick (Corea), Darby (Hicks), (Boots) Randolph, and (Vachel) Lindsay (a stretch here?), notes the [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html#c116587978292060684 Chumps of Choice blog].

The creativity of Pynchon's naming of the Chums, as other characters, shows yet again his Dickensian influence.

Note that there's five Chums, the number of chapters of the book (a-and the number of letters in "Chums"!).

'''Chicago''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied on the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of 1890s Chicago. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Chicago|Brittanica 11th on Chicago]

'''World's Columbian Exposition''' 
also called The Chicago World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image and American industrial optimism. The International Exposition was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. It was a historical moment and the beginning of a revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by providing alternating current to illuminate the Exposition. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Columbian_Exposition Wikipedia entry]. This World's Fair was enveloped in optimism for the future. "The thousand or more such wonders which awaited [the Chums] there." p.3

'''as my faithful readers will remember''' 
Pynchon here is immediately inserting this story into a larger canon of Chums of Chance fictions, titles of which are mentioned in subsequent pages.

'''mascotte''' 
The English word 'mascot' has its origin in the late 19th cent.: from French mascotte. The spelling may also be a tribute to the Dutch brand of rolling papers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mascotte_%28rolling_papers%29 [Wikipedia]]

==Page 4==

'''Professor''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo is called Professor. Professor of flight as some early aeronauts were called?

'''"Turn to"''' 
Evokes the "Go to!" of Majistral and compatriots, ''V.'', chapter eleven. "Turn to" is also a shipboard expression, "put your back into it" or something of the kind.

'''Perhaps its familiarity... rendered it temporarily invisible to you." 
Perhaps an admonation from the author than familiar things will be easily overlooked?

'''Chick Counterfly''' 
Three possibilities: (1) A counter fly is an annoyance in (say) the butcher's shop. (2) Chick always speaks "counter" to anyone else's "flight" of imagery. (3) The only non-''AtD''-related uses of this word that I've found came in patents describing mechanisms; "the counterfly direction" means contrary to the direction everything else is flying in, hence this character counters the flying of the craft?

He is the only Chum we know who was "rescued" from the "real" world. Meaning there?

==Page 5==

'''"all tableware with Chums of Chance Insignia is Organizational property"''' 
The organization in question is the Chums of Chance themselves, here considered as an institution rather than as a collection of individuals.

'''Pugnax''' 
The name meaning, in Latin, "likes to fight" (i.e. one who is pugnacious). Pugnax's fantastic intelligence recalls another intelligent Pynchon dog, the Learned English Dog in ''Mason & Dixon''. His manner of speech is somewhat reminiscent of the mystery-solving cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, and [http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112507&sort=date members of PYNCHON-L] have speculated that his eyebrows and reading habits allude to Gromit, from the [http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/ Wallace and Gromit] claymation films.

Could this name be an homage to the dog in the Asterix comics, Idéfix in French; Dogmatix in English? Many of the character in the Asterix comics have names ending in "x".

'''"...during a confidential assignment in Our Nation's Capitol (see ''The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit'')..."''' 
This could be seen as a criticism of an American President, present or past. President Bush is a candidate, considering the Pynchon-authored [[Against the Day description|Amazon.com book description]] which included "With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

The Chums "rescued Pugnax, then but a pup"--an innocent, a child creature--"from a furious encounter..between rival packs of the city's wild dogs".
The wild dogs equal both political parties?

'''lavatorial assaults''' 
"from the sky, which no one can "begin to try to record, much less coordinate reports of" recall the V-2 rockets which are linked to Slothrop's erections in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. That is, pee from the sky is "folklore, superstition, or perhaps...the religious" in ATD compared to rockets screaming across the sky and the destruction in GR.

==Page 6==

'''''Princess Casamassima''''' 
Published 1886 (James had published two others by 1893), a classic dealing with terrorists, anarchists, and bombings. [http://www.henryjames.org.uk/pcasa/home.htm Full text] Sequel to "Roderick Hudson". It's the only Henry James novel in which he takes on such overtly political subjects, the only one which deals with violent extremes of human behavior. 
:Thematically, it's reactionary, the opposite of AtD. 
:ATD is not reactionary but also not the opposite of Princess Casamassima thematically, it can be easily argued.

Pugnax prefers in his reading "sentimental tales about his own species [rather] than those exhibiting extremes of human behavior, which he appeared to find a bit lurid." It seems Pynchon is slyly commenting on James' Princess Casamassima here in that that James novel DID deal with 'extremes of human behaviour' yet Pugnax prefers 'sentimental tales'! As many who have had dogs know, often when raised from puppyhood with loving owners, they 'think they are human'. Pugnax learns where to pee off the gondola - a pretty natural function for a dog - "like the rest of the crew".

Or: it is a theme in GR, that the book, writing itself, is an abstraction from experience and not, of course, the thing itself. Noseworth, "who placed upon the word 'book' . . . contempt" did, however, know the subject matter of 'Princess Casamassima.' He, Noseworth, hopes they will "suffer no occasion for exposure more immediate than that to be experienced, as with Pugnax at this moment, safely within the leaves of some book." It matters that the Chums ARE also characters in books of their adventures.

It should also be noted that the Princess Casamassima is one of the rare characters in James' novels who appears in more than one work. She was originally a character in the 1875 novel Roderick Hudson, where her name was, quite fittingly, Christina Light.

'''Pugnax sniffed . . . as always this scent eluded him''' 
If Pugnax doesn't detect a human scent, that suggests Lindsay is not human. Not human, Master-at-Arms, speaks in hyper-constructed prose, has a notably short fuse . . . he's Lieutenant Worf of ''Star Trek, the Next Generation.''

'''''Krakatoa''''' 
Erupted 1883. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa Wikipedia entry.]

'''Heino Vanderjuice of New Haven''' 
Scientist who designed the ''Inconvenience's'' hydrogen engine. "Vanderjuice" suggests both "wonder juice" and "wander juice," fitting since his engine allows the Chums to wander and is wondrous insofar as it apparently violates the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics second law of thermodynamics]. "Heino" (HIE-no) is a man's given name [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=heino meaning 'home'] in German, Finnish, and Estonian. Perhaps an allusion to the German pop star, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heino Heino].

:Um, a quibble: ''Vanderjuice'' is some kind of corrupted Dutch, and in Dutch the name Heino would be pronounced HAY-no. He is not an immigrant, though, and American speakers no doubt say HIGH-no.

Jules Verne influence? Vanderjuice a red herring, pointing to Dutch origin and electrical ("juice") background? Or does one try to parse the name into eg "Fond O' Juice"?

'''". . . anemometer of the Robinson's type"''' 
Cup anemometer invented in 1846 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Thomas_Romney_Robinson Dr. John Thomas Romney Robinson]. Cup anemometers are still commonly used to measure wind speed because of their simplicity and reliability in a variety of environmental conditions. [http://www.arm.ac.uk/annrep/annrep2000/node13.html pic]

'''how rapidly the ship was proceeding''' 
But you can't measure the craft's progress by measuring wind speed at a point on the craft itself. All you get from the anemometer is a speed relative to the air, which is in variable motion. Since the craft is moving at the speed of the wind plus the speed of its propulsion device, the speed found by the anemometor is basically useless.

==Page 7==

'''Porfirio Díaz''' 
President of Mexico 1876-1880, 1884-1911. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%ADaz Wikipedia]

In most countries, the Interior Ministry (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Home Office, etc.) ran programs like secret police. Are the Chums working for forces of conservativism?

'''"beside a black-water river of the Deep South". 
Blackwater River is in lower central Florida, pretty deep south; but there are numerous rivers in swampy areas that run black with organic matter.

'''a bitter and unresolved "piece of business"''' 
Rather than give a proper reason for the Chums to be in the Deep South, the narrator cops out by pleading that it's "not advisable" to specify.

'''"the Rebellion of thirty years previous"''' 
The Civil War was not called such during the time it was occurring; the South called it "the war between the states" to emphasize both their right to secede from the union and that this was a war between sovereign states; the North called it "the Rebellion of 1861" or, after termination of hostilities, "the Rebellion of 1861-1865," appellations that did not recognize the South's right to secede.

'''"one still not advisable to set upon one's page"''' 
The American Civil War, that "rebellion of thirty years previous," has not yet become a suitable subject for an adventure tale such as the Chums'.

'''absquatulated''' 
Means to move away quickly, usually to avoid capture. Apparently a mock-Latinate formation, "to go off and squat somewhere else." [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-abs1.htm A brief article] on the history and etymology of "absquatulate."

'''"Crackerjack!" exclaimed Chick.''' 
Cracker Jack, the food, was first sold at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, though it did not bear its present name. As one word here, however, it is not the candy: "Crackerjack" entered English first as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," then as an adjective. The foodstuff gained its present name, according to the [http://www.crackerjack.com/history.php official Cracker Jack website], in 1896. The OED lists the first written use of "crackerjack" as 1895, two years after the present scene. It is by no means impossible, however, that the term would have been current in the spoken language in 1893.

==Page 8==

'''the town of Thick Bush''' 
Aside from whether this phrase might apply to some political figure of the past or present, "thick bush" is the literal meaning of the Spanish Matagorda, the name of many towns in Latin America and one on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

'''"which directs us never to interfere with legal customs of any locality down at which we may happen to have touched"''' 
Like the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_directive Prime Directive] in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_trek ''Star Trek'']. Lindsay's fussy syntax echoes Winston Churchill's exasperated "This is the kind of carping criticism up with which I will not put."

'''Katie bar the door''' 
An expression that means that there's trouble brewing. (See [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-kat1.htm this article] about the expression's etymology.)

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
Reminiscent of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Klan] encounter scenes in the Coen Brothers' ''O Brother, Where Art Thou''.

'''way better than a mile a minute''' 
The Chums' point of departure is unknown, but they arrived in Chicago after catching a southerly wind (pg 3), southerly meaning "wind blowing from the south." The Chums surpass 60 miles an hour here, but as their previous speed was unknown, it's difficult to know where they were leaving from. (New Orleans to Chicago is 834 miles, slightly less than 14 hours at 60 miles/hour, so a possibility.)

==Page 9==

'''"Do not imagine, that in coming aboard ''Inconvenience'' you have escaped into any realm of the counterfactual..."''' 
This may be Pynchon directly addressing the reader. Given that his [[Against_the_Day_description|book description]] proclaims the world of AtD as "what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two," this paragraph seems to indicate that Pynchon, like all great fantasy or sci-fi writers, does not intend to create a world where anything goes. Rather, he will create a world that differs from ours but then obey the rules and constraints he's already established.

'''"Going up is like going north."''' 
Air gets cooler as the ship ascends into higher altitudes, and therefore like travelling northward. This page also suggests some further mystery of the Chums may be revealed to Chick and the reader in time.

:North is not a positive place in Pynchon's world. It is associated with anti-life---coldness as here---compared to the South, a place of light and warmth, such as the tropics. See GR.

:But to go far enough north means heading south again, observes Chick Counterfly--is this one meaning of his name? Then one would be "approaching the surface of another planet, maybe?" asks Chick.

"Not exactly" [answers Randolph] "No. Another 'surface', but an earthly one"
"You'll see. In time, of course". Time is earthly?

'''"Another 'surface'"''' 
In ancient conics the cone is formed by taking a line through a point (the vertex) at a particular angle to a plane and then inscribing a circle on the plane. Two conic surfaces are made by the motion of this line, one below this point and one above. The three conic sections (hyperbola, parabola, and ellipse) are created by slicing the conic surface(s) at different angles.
:huh?[[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 12:38, 15 January 2007 (PST)

==Page 10==

'''Stockyards''' 
Chicago was, at the time, the meat-packing and slaughtering capital of the United States. The stench from the stockyards below must have been memorable.

'''...looked up at the airship in wonder..." 
The sight of any airship in 1893 must have been rare indeed.

'''Cartesian grid''' 
From Rene Descartes, 17th century philosopher and mathematician; see Wikipedia entry, whose most famous argument, "I think therefore I am" and mathematical studies have often lead him to be seen as the first modern philosopher of ultra-rationality. Geometry has 'the Cartesian coordinant system, a grid. Chicago's streets are laid out in a very rational grid arrangement.

Pynchon is reputed to have written 'Gravity's Rainbow' on engineer's grid paper.

In modern mathematics, curves are described only in relation to the two dimensional grid (see previous page). If conic sections are not specifically being thought of here, the theme of dimensionality, at least, is already at play.

'''that unshaped freedom being rationalized into movement only in straight lines''' 
Rationalization is a key sociological concept [from online Dictionary of Social Science]:RATIONALIZATION
This term has two specific meanings in sociology. (1) The concept was developed by German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) who used it in two ways. First, it was the process through which magical, supernatural and religious ideas lose cultural importance in a society and ideas based on science and practical calculation become dominant. For example, in modern societies science has rationalized our understanding of weather patterns. Science explains weather patterns as a result of interaction between physical elements like wind-speed and direction, air and water temperatures, humidity, etc. In some other cultures, weather is thought to express the pleasure or displeasure of gods, or spirits of ancestors. One explanation is rationalized and scientific, the other mysterious and magical. Rationalization also involves the development of forms of social organization devoted to the achievement of precise goals by efficient means. It is this type of rationalization that we see in the development of modern business corporations and of bureaucracy. These are organizations dedicated to the pursuit of defined goals by calculated, systematically administered means. (2) Within symbolic interactionism, rationalization is used more in the everyday sense of the word to refer to providing justifications or excuses for one's actions.

'''"only in straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the killing-floor."''' 
From innocent bovines to ...the world? "Single up all lines"....
Stockyards were organized in such a way that the cattle would procede through a series of chutes and passages, until they arrived alone at the point of death.

"Progressive reduction of choices" also occurred in ''Mason & Dixon''—there were infinitely many wildernesses out to the west until M&D ran the line and rationalized the country into Maryland and Pennsylvania.

==Page 11==

'''plummet''' 
In the real world, this might be bad physics, as closing the valve wouldn't slow the descent. Objects in a fluid medium like air float if their weight is less than the weight of the fluid they displace (hence why one fills a balloon with a light gas such as hydrogen or helium). Once the ''Inconvenience'' loses its buoyancy, it will continue to fall, unless its weight is reduced to what a lesser amount of hydrogen could support. The Inconvenience, however, has a hydrogen producing apparatus that could kick in, slow, and eventually stop their descent.

==Page 12==

'''Liverpool Kiss''' 
A head butt.

'''Herr Riemann''' 
Riemann, Georg Friedrich Bernhard (1826-1866) (pronounced REE mahn or in IPA: ['ri:man]) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to analysis and differential geometry, some of them paving the way for the later development of general relativity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann Wikipedia entry].

'''''Mr.'' Noseworth''' 
Lindsay insisting on proper naval forms: an ensign, lieutenant (junior grade), lieutenant or lieutenant commander in the U.S. navy is correctly addressed as "Mister Surname."

'''"topological genius"''' 
Riemann's differential geometry goes beyond the Cartesian grid. See conic sections and dimensionality above, page 10.

==Page 13==

'''There was an "eager stampede" to the rail''' 
Why is eager stampede in quotation marks? The sentence reads fine without it. Does it seem to show ironic knowingness on the part of the narrator? If so, why and who is the narrator?
: I suspect this is a stylistic device from the turn of the century light literature that Pynchon is emulating-- placing a novel term in quotation marks. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 01:35, 23 December 2006 (PST)

:insightfully true, I suspect, but it still shows 'narratorial knowingness', yes?

: Cf. Flaubert's use of quotations in ''Madame Bovary'' to isolate what he deemed the contemptible argot of the bourgeoisie.

::Apparently not a cliche: [http://books.google.com//books?num=100&q=eager.stampede&as_brr=0 GoogleBooks]

'''"...among the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast bags..."''' 
Recalls the opening line of ''Mason & Dixon'': "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr‘d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins..."

'''"...quite as if were some giant eyeball, perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a spirit of constructive censure."''' 
This is strikingly reminiscent of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon Odilon Redon's] 1882 Lithograph ''L'Oeil, comme un ballon bizarre se dirige vers l'infini (The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity).'' [http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A2&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=1 At MoMa's Online Collection]
Notice that society = censure, if constructive. Gamboling nude on a summer day was OK until the ''Inconvenience'', as eyeball, appeared.

:The Odilon Redon lithograph appears on the cover of the 1998 Vintage paperback edition of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, whose first unforgettable chapter triggers the novel with a ballooning incident leaving the reader dangling over the edge of suspense and suspension.

==Page 14==

'''Jacob's-ladder''' 
Used here as "a marine ladder of rope or chain with wooden or iron rungs" (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged) but is suggestive of Jacob's ladder in Genesis:

Genesis 28:12 And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (King James version)

'''''vol-à-voile''''' 
The narrator has turned the French phrase ''vol-à-voile'' (gliding) into a verb.

'''gold-beaters' skin''' 
Very thin vellum (membrane taken from the caecum or blind stomach of an ox). To prepare gold for gilding, it was placed between sheets of vellum and hammered thin.

'''Evening Quarters''' 
Naval practice of mustering the crew at the end of the day's work.

==Page 15==

'''ukulelist''' 
Ukuleles also appear in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', ''Vineland'', and ''Mason & Dixon''. According to Jules Siegel's article, "Who is Thomas Pynchon, and why did he take off with my wife?", Pynchon himself played the ukulele in college.

'''Beaufort Scale''' 
A scale for measuring wind strength, developed 1805.

'''"...forty-four buttons...one for each State of the Union." 
Wyoming was the 44th state admitted to the union in 1890.

'''port section of the crew''' 
The half of the crew permitted to go freely ashore this time. The other half tomorrow. "Port" and "starboard": are these simply either/or words that sailors remember easily?

==Page 16==

'''Macassar oil''' 
Macassar oil is an oil used primarily by men in Victorian and Edwardian times to smooth their hair. It was advertised as containing oil from Macassar, which is the former name of Ujung Pandang, a district on the island of Celebes in Indonesia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassar_oil Wikipedia entry]

'''About the fringes,' Randolph reminded the liberty-goers, 'of any gathering on the scale of this Exposition, are apt to lurk vicious and debased elements, whose sole aim is to take advantage of the unwary.''' 
Indeed, the Chicago World's Fair was haunted by one of America's more prolific and original serial killers, H.H. Holmes. Born in 1861, Holmes came to Chicago as a pharmacist and built an office building that was eventually dubbed 'The Castle'. Consisting of commercial stores on the first floor, and offices and apartments on the upper floors, the building also housed hidden rooms where Holmes murdered his victims, chutes that conveyed the bodies to the basement, and a chamber of horrors in the basement where he destroyed the corpses. Holmes took advantage of the World's Columbian Exposition to lure victims, primarily females who had come unaccompanied to Chicago, to the Castle for torture and murder. It is estimated that he killed over 200 people at the Castle while the Exposition was in operation. Two very good books about Holmes are The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson and Depraved by Harold Schechter. It is doubtful that Pynchon was thinking explicitly of Holmes when he wrote this passage, although he must be aware of the story. Randolph could not have known about Holmes since Holmes was not captured until after the Fair was over. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._H.H._Holmes Wikipedia entry]

'''tension of the gas''' 
I.e., the pressure in the bag.

==Page 17==

'''"as if it were something the stripling had only read about, in some boys' book of adventures...as if that page of their chronicles lay turned and done"''' 
The narrator makes us aware that Darby's adventures are as if/will be written down...the 'reality' of almost killing all of them is now just words on a page...as is this book, ATD?...Again a Pynchonian theme: no book is the reality.

'''"and the order 'About-face' had been uttered by some potent though invisible Commandant of Earthly Days, toward whom Darby, in amiable obedience, had turned again."''' 
Is this just a metaphor from the narrator to describe what it is like for Darby, or is it also self-referential to
all the adventures of the Chums?. Another Q: Is the Commandant of Earthly Days the invisible presence from whom the chums get their orders? Cf. earthly surface, p.9

'''Chinese foofooraw''' 
Also spelled foofaraw, a great deal of fuss, or useless frills. Cf folderol. However, why Chinese?

'''cubeb''' 
The name for the berry and for the oil obtained from the unripe berry of the East Indian climbing shrub ''P. cubeba''. The dried fruits are sometimes used as a condiment or are ground and smoked in cigarette form as an herbal remedy. [http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/pepper The Free Dictionary] Also appears in ''Gravity's Rainbow,'' page 118.

'''"...goldurn Keeley Cure"''' 
A treatment for alcohol, nicotine and narcotic addiction involving injections of "bichloride" or "double chloride" of gold, and also known as the "gold cure". Named for Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, who opened the first of many Keeley Institutes in 1879.

==Page 18==

'''headgear''' 
Description vaguely reminiscent of "Madame Bovary". [http://robotwisdom.com/flaubert/bovary/bovary1.html [notes]]

'''eclipse green''' 
Apparently an actual shade. [http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DIO_DRO/DIRECT.html [cite]]

'''Bindlestiffs of the Blue A.C.''' 
Bindlestiff means hobo; hence, the Hoboes of the Sky Aeronautical Club.

'''("Penny") Black''' 
The Penny Black was the world's first official adhesive postage stamp, issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1840. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black [Wikipedia]]

'''Tzigane''' 
French for "gypsy". Also a piece by Ravel. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzigane_(Ravel) [Wikipedia]]

'''Egypt''' 
Little Egypt is the southern area of the state of Illinois in the United States of America. The region is and was sometimes called simply "Egypt," especially in the 19th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Egypt_(region) [Wikipedia]]

==Page 19==

'''Garçons de 71''' 
A group of aeronauts formed in Paris during the Siege and Commune of Paris.

'''pétroleurs de Paris''' 
An early form of Molotov cocktail thrower during the Siege of Paris. There were pétroleurs and pétroleuses.

==Page 22==
'''Kodaks''' 
The word Kodak was trademarked in 1888, and the first Kodak camera was sold with the slogan, "You press the button - we do the rest." In 1891, the company released the first daylight-loading camera, so film could be changed without a darkroom. Kodaks would have been a novelty at the fair in 1893.

'''Isandhlwana''' 
Isandlwana is an isolated hill in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. On January 22, 1879, it was the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, where over 20,000 Zulu warriors defeated a contingent of British soldiers in the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War. Almost the entire column of about 1,200 British soldiers was killed, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isandhlwana [Wikipedia]]

==Page 23==

'''Tarahumara''' 
Indian tribe of Northern New Mexico, in the Sierra Madres, known for cave-dwelling in the late 19th century. [[Tarahumare_Indians|About the Tarahumara]]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara [Wikipedia]]

'''monte''' 
Three-card monte.

==Page 24==

'''the curse of Scotland''' 
A term used in poker, bridge and various other card games for the nine of diamonds. Dates from 1710. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Scotland [Wikipedia]]

'''like the electricity coming on... how everything fits together, connects. It doesn't last long, though.''' 
From something as random as calling out a card trick comes this extremely profound quote by Miles Blundell (full quote edited here). The heart of this quote/thought seems to be crucial.

What Miles describes is also the symptoms of a mild seizure - could he be epileptic? Epileptics were often credited with shamanic or prophetic powers, and many sightings of religious figures have been attributed to seizures. On page 4, Miles is also said to suffer from "confusion in his motor processes", which may be related.

'''Cracker Jack''' 
First sold at the at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack [Wikipedia]]

'''New Levee district''' 
Chicago's redlight district c1890. [http://www.ipsn.org/genesis.htm [cite]]

'''Epworth League''' 
A Methodist youth organization founded in 1889. [http://www.southernmethodistchurch.org/id48.htm [cite]]

==Page 25==

'''Haymarket bomb''' 
The Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago may be the origin of international May Day observances and in popular literature inspired the caricature of "a bomb-throwing anarchist." The causes of the incident are still controversial, although deeply polarized attitudes separating the business class and the working class in late 19th century Chicago are generally acknowledged as having precipitated the tragedy and its aftermath. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_bombing Wikipedia entry].

'''if the Governor decides to pardon that gang of anarchistic murderers''' 
In May of 1886, 350,000 workers, including 70,000 in Chicago were taking to the streets to rally for the eight hour work day. After four workers were killed by the police on May 3, the anarchist leaders in Chicago called for a meeting in Haymarket Square. Although the rally was peaceful, the police came in on horseback to break it up and an unknown individual in the crowd hurled a homemade bomb into the air. After the explosion, which killed a policeman, the police opened fire on the crowd. Subsequently, the anarchist leaders deemed responsible for the rally were arrested and tried for the murder of the policeman. The Eight men were convicted of the bombing and seven of them sentenced to death. Governor Richard J. Oglesby commuted two death sentences to life. Four were hanged and a fifth committed suicide. A later governor, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three survivors on June 26, 1893, concluding that all eight of them were innocent. The last words of anarchist August Spies before he was hanged were 'The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.' Two very good books on the Haymarket Riot and the events surrounding it include The Haymarket Tragedy by Paul Avrich and Death In The Haymarket by James Green.

'''mixture of contempt and pity''' 
This is ''definitely'' not from one of the Chums' adventure stories.

'''duck soup''' 
Meaning "an easy task," but also the name of a Marx Bros. movie. Perhaps relevant, given the cameo by Groucho promised on the book sleeve. Many of the Marx Brothers early movies had animal references in the title: Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup. The titles usually had nothing at all to do with the plot, although they contributed to the lunatic nature of the comedy. The expression 'Horse Feathers' is used a few times later on in Against The Day.

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 1-25

2007-02-22T19:19:17Z

Jpicco: /* Page 3 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

'''cover text''' 
The black text and its drop shadows are in different typefaces. It may be worth noting, from a conceptual point of view, that we can infer from the angle of the drop shadows that the light source is any individual holding the book—that is, the reader or a potential reader.

'''cover seal''' 
The seal appears to be written in Tibetan language, according to somebody who posts regularly to Pynchon-l under the name "Ya Sam", who reports:

I contacted the Tibetan Cultural Centre with the request to translate
the mysterious legend on the AtD seal. They were kind enough to forward my
request to the Tibetan tranlsator Tenzin Namgyal to whose generosity we
owe the solution of one more ATD related mystery.

It is the Tibetan language, alright, and it means ...... Tibetan
Government Chamber of Commerce.

Read their response below:

:Dear Ya Sam, 
:I showed the seal you sent to our Tibetan translator, Tenzin Namgyal. He says the word to word translation is: Tibetan Government Commerce Chamber in other words: Tibetan Government Chamber of commerce. Why Pynchon has chosen to place this on the cover of his book is anyones guess. Reading the book reviews gave no insight into the reason. Perhaps after one has read it?

:Best wishes,

:Sandy Belth 
:Tibetan Cultural Center

Also of interest: the coin bears a striking resemblance to the doubloon in ''Moby-Dick'' that Ahab nails to the mainmast as a prize to the first crew member to sight the white whale. Melville's description runs thus:

:It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra. (Ch.99, "The Doubloon")

'''Copyright page''' 
The copyright page states that ''Against the Day'' is published by Viking Penguin, but on the title page and elsewhere we can read that the book is published by Penguin Press. The copyright pages of other books from Penguin Press state "Penguin Press" as the publisher, as could be expected, and it seems likely that the substitution of "Penguin Press" with "Viking" is one of many typographical errors in the book (see [[errata]]).
I have confirmed from inside Penguin Press that this is a copyediting mistake. Here is a direct e-mail answer about the Viking Penguin listing: "this was a copyediting mistake that will be corrected. There was never a Viking contract for this book."

'''Dedication''' 
Most of Pynchon's novels contain dedications-- ''Mason & Dixon'' ("For Melanie, and for Jackson") , ''Vineland'' ("For my mother and father"), and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' ("For Richard Fariña")-- but not so ''Against the Day,'' as published. Advance reading copies of the book did contain the words "Dedication TK" in italics, but this is simply [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Come publisher-speak] for "dedication to come." It is unknown whether Pynchon ever considered inclusion of a dedication or whether the publisher simply left the page open just in case, but the ultimate lack of a dedication may suggest that Pynchon feels he's thanked everyone he needs to thank.

'''"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light."''' 
Epigraph by Thelonious Monk. Jazz and particularly bebop seem to be a lifelong interest of Pynchon’s, appearing in some form in all his works and what biographical snippets exist. As a college student, Pynchon “spent a lot of time in jazz clubs, nursing the two-beer minimum,” by his own admission (''Slow Learner'', Introduction). The Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/that-thelonious-monk-epigraph.html notes] that: 1) in his youth, Pynchon allegedly referred to Monk as a "God"; 2) the character McClintic Sphere in ''V''. takes Monk's middle name, Sphere; and 3) "It's always night, or we wouldn't need light" was apparently something Monk was given to saying, rather than something he once said. For more on McClintic Sphere and Monk, see Charles Hollander's essay [http://www.howardm.net/tsmonk/pynchon.php Does McClintic Sphere in V. stand for Thelonious Monk?].

==Page 1==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Range is defined in the Oxford American Dictionary as "a line or series of mountains or hills : the coastal ranges of the northwest," so "range" or "ranges" can be used to denote a number of mountains. 'Ranges' may also refer to farms, homesteads and ranches in 1893 America. America was predominantly that in 1893. Cf. "Home, home on the range". A range is also a group of diverse objects.

==Page 3==

'''"Now single up all lines!"''' 
Pynchon was in the Navy for a spell and "single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way.

But the opening line has many possible connotations.
:The Modern Word's Quail [http://www.themodernword.com/reviews/pynchon_atd.html writes] that "it is simultaneously a self-directive and a call to the reader; suggesting that ''Against the Day'' is a culmination of his previous work, and also charging the reader to find meaning within its twisting labyrinth. It may also be a sly, preemptive joke on the book’s initial critics, as the novel begins with the launch of a bloated gasbag bearing a somewhat provocative name."

:"Single up all lines" is used in its normal nautical context in ''V.'', 11; ''COL49'', 31; ''Gravity's Rainbow'', 489; and ''Mason & Dixon'', 258, 260. Perhaps we can understand this "line" as a text-string linking Pynchon's novels together (all but ''Vineland''?)--in preparation for a voyage to...?

'''"Cheerly now...handsomely...very well!!"''' 
Cheerly means "heartily," and was traditionally used as cry of encouragement among sailors. Handsomely (in nautical context): carefully, in good order, unhurriedly.

:Pynchon served in the Navy and uses nautical language is most of his novels. ''Mason & Dixon'': "Cheerly. Cheerly, then, Lads..." (54).

'''"Windy City, here we come!"''' 
The nickname for Chicago, of course, but in 1893 the use meant city of braggarts more than it did wind. The earliest known references to the "Windy City" are from 1876, and involve Chicago's rivalry with Cincinnati. A popular myth states that "Windy City" was first used by New York Sun editor Charles Dana in the bidding for the 1893 Columbian Exposition. The popularity of the nickname has endured, even after the Cincinnati rivalry and the Columbian Exposition both ended. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windy_City,_Origin_of_Name_(Chicago)| Origin of name "Windy City" at Wikipedia]

'''summer uniform of red-and-white-striped blazer and trousers of sky blue''' 
Calls to mind the color scheme of Ned Land's (Kirk Douglas) costume in Disney's 1954 film version of ''20,000 Leagues under the Sea''.

''''scuttlebutt...thousand...wonders''' 
A most vigorous campaign [to host the Columbian Exposition] was then inaugurated, the three other cities making a common cause against Washington, whose claim was based on the fact that the proposed exposition was to be held under auspices of the national government, and hence that the capital was the most appropriate place.... By each of the claimants every advantage was urged, and by each of their rivals every defect was exaggerated. Congressional committees accorded a hearing to the several delegations, that of Chicago being represented, among others, by DeWitt C. Cregier, Thomas B. Bryan, and Edward T. Jeffery. from "Book of the Fair'by Hubert Bancroft, 1893.

'''''Inconvenience''''' 
Pynchon's fictional navy includes the USS Scaffold and the Susanna Squaducci (''V.''), and the John E. Badass (''GR''). Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html notes] that the British Royal Navy has a long tradition of warships with names like Impulsive, Incendiary, Inconstant, Indignant, etc. Impulsive is the name of the ship Ploy, who loses all his teeth in V., gets transferred to.
Inconvenience is an apt name for the Chums' adventures in 'reality'. They are an inconvenience; they are inconvenienced. (In having to take on Chick Counterfly, for example).

Also, recall Fender-Belly Bodine, in [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I#inconvenience ''Mason & Dixon'']: "Back on old H.M.S. ''Inconvenience'', we wasted many a Day and Night watching that fancy Counter get smaller by the minute..." (p.28)

'''patriotic bunting''' 
AtD has many echoes of Doctorow's "Ragtime": Doctorow fictionalises the same era, including anarchists, bombings, and early Hollywood.

'''aeronautics''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied to the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of early aeronautics. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Aeronautics|Brittanica 11th on Aeronautics]

'''five-lad crew''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo (ship commander), Lindsay Noseworth (master-at-arms), Miles Blundell (handyman apprentice), Darby Suckling (factotum and mascot), and Chick Counterfly. The commander's name evokes Randolph St., a main thoroughfare in Chicago. Perhaps also saint(liness) and cosmos?

'''The [[Chums of Chance]]''' 
To be chummy with chance might mean lucky, fond of gambling, fond of chaos, irrational, or anarchist. Or maybe they became chums by accident. The "chance" may also be that of the winds that carry them in directions not always intended.
:The American philospher Charles Sanders Peirce, who set down his most important ideas in the late 1800's, argued that 'Chance' was a feature of the universe that can refute all determinisms.

Cameraderie and isolation are two recurring topics in Pynchon's works. The Chums are a band of heroes like those commonly featured in the 19th century boys' fiction that Pynchon evokes, but also recall Pynchon's high school fictions, [http://themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_hamster.html Voice of the Hamster] and [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_boys.html The Boys], in which the teenage Pynchon lovingly portrayed his group of high school chums, known as, simply, "The Boys."

[[image:dart-explorigator.jpg|thumb|120px|right]]The Chums are reminiscent of two comics of the early 20th century, [[Little Nemo|''Little Nemo in Slumberland'']], by Windsor McCay, and ''The Explorigator'', by Harry Grant Dart. "The Explorigator" was the name of a fantastic airship that traversed the universe. It was manned by Admiral Fudge, a youthful adventurer and inventor, accompanied by a group of friends, also children his age (around nine or ten): Detective Rubbersole, Maurice Mizzentop, Nicholas Nohooks, Grenadier Shift, Teddy Typewriter, and Ah Fergetitt. ''The Explorigator'' ran for 14 weeks in 1908 and made an impression for its imaginative and visual creativity. [[The Explorigator|More on ''The Explorigator'']] <ref>[http://lambiek.net/artists/d/dart_harry_grant.htm Lambiek Comiclopedia]</ref>

The names of the Chums may also be derived from famous Jazz musicians: Miles (Davis), Chick (Corea), Darby (Hicks), (Boots) Randolph, and (Vachel) Lindsay (a stretch here?), notes the [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html#c116587978292060684 Chumps of Choice blog].

The creativity of Pynchon's naming of the Chums, as other characters, shows yet again his Dickensian influence.

Note that there's five Chums, the number of chapters of the book (a-and the number of letters in "Chums"!).

'''Chicago''' 
It has been suggested that Pynchon relied on the Britannica 11th as a major reference for his treatment of 1890s Chicago. [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Chicago|Brittanica 11th on Chicago]

'''World's Columbian Exposition''' 
also called The Chicago World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image and American industrial optimism. The International Exposition was held in a building which for the first time was devoted to electrical exhibits. It was a historical moment and the beginning of a revolution, as Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse introduced the public to electrical power by providing alternating current to illuminate the Exposition. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Columbian_Exposition Wikipedia entry]. This World's Fair was enveloped in optimism for the future. "The thousand or more such wonders which awaited [the Chums] there." p.3

'''as my faithful readers will remember''' 
Pynchon here is immediately inserting this story into a larger canon of Chums of Chance fictions, titles of which are mentioned in subsequent pages.

'''mascotte''' 
The English word 'mascot' has its origin in the late 19th cent.: from French mascotte. The spelling may also be a tribute to the Dutch brand of rolling papers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mascotte_%28rolling_papers%29 [Wikipedia]]

==Page 4==

'''Professor''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo is called Professor. Professor of flight as some early aeronauts were called?

'''"Turn to"''' 
Evokes the "Go to!" of Majistral and compatriots, ''V.'', chapter eleven. "Turn to" is also a shipboard expression, "put your back into it" or something of the kind.

'''Perhaps its familiarity... rendered it temporarily invisible to you." 
Perhaps an admonation from the author than familiar things will be easily overlooked?

'''Chick Counterfly''' 
Three possibilities: (1) A counter fly is an annoyance in (say) the butcher's shop. (2) Chick always speaks "counter" to anyone else's "flight" of imagery. (3) The only non-''AtD''-related uses of this word that I've found came in patents describing mechanisms; "the counterfly direction" means contrary to the direction everything else is flying in, hence this character counters the flying of the craft?

He is the only Chum we know who was "rescued" from the "real" world. Meaning there?

==Page 5==

'''"all tableware with Chums of Chance Insignia is Organizational property"''' 
The organization in question is the Chums of Chance themselves, here considered as an institution rather than as a collection of individuals.

'''Pugnax''' 
The name meaning, in Latin, "likes to fight" (i.e. one who is pugnacious). Pugnax's fantastic intelligence recalls another intelligent Pynchon dog, the Learned English Dog in ''Mason & Dixon''. His manner of speech is somewhat reminiscent of the mystery-solving cartoon dog Scooby-Doo, and [http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112507&sort=date members of PYNCHON-L] have speculated that his eyebrows and reading habits allude to Gromit, from the [http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/ Wallace and Gromit] claymation films.

Could this name be an homage to the dog in the Asterix comics, Idéfix in French; Dogmatix in English? Many of the character in the Asterix comics have names ending in "x".

'''"...during a confidential assignment in Our Nation's Capitol (see ''The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit'')..."''' 
This could be seen as a criticism of an American President, present or past. President Bush is a candidate, considering the Pynchon-authored [[Against the Day description|Amazon.com book description]] which included "With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

The Chums "rescued Pugnax, then but a pup"--an innocent, a child creature--"from a furious encounter..between rival packs of the city's wild dogs".
The wild dogs equal both political parties?

'''lavatorial assaults''' 
"from the sky, which no one can "begin to try to record, much less coordinate reports of" recall the V-2 rockets which are linked to Slothrop's erections in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. That is, pee from the sky is "folklore, superstition, or perhaps...the religious" in ATD compared to rockets screaming across the sky and the destruction in GR.

==Page 6==

'''''Princess Casamassima''''' 
Published 1886 (James had published two others by 1893), a classic dealing with terrorists, anarchists, and bombings. [http://www.henryjames.org.uk/pcasa/home.htm Full text] Sequel to "Roderick Hudson". It's the only Henry James novel in which he takes on such overtly political subjects, the only one which deals with violent extremes of human behavior. 
:Thematically, it's reactionary, the opposite of AtD. 
:ATD is not reactionary but also not the opposite of Princess Casamassima thematically, it can be easily argued.

Pugnax prefers in his reading "sentimental tales about his own species [rather] than those exhibiting extremes of human behavior, which he appeared to find a bit lurid." It seems Pynchon is slyly commenting on James' Princess Casamassima here in that that James novel DID deal with 'extremes of human behaviour' yet Pugnax prefers 'sentimental tales'! As many who have had dogs know, often when raised from puppyhood with loving owners, they 'think they are human'. Pugnax learns where to pee off the gondola - a pretty natural function for a dog - "like the rest of the crew".

Or: it is a theme in GR, that the book, writing itself, is an abstraction from experience and not, of course, the thing itself. Noseworth, "who placed upon the word 'book' . . . contempt" did, however, know the subject matter of 'Princess Casamassima.' He, Noseworth, hopes they will "suffer no occasion for exposure more immediate than that to be experienced, as with Pugnax at this moment, safely within the leaves of some book." It matters that the Chums ARE also characters in books of their adventures.

It should also be noted that the Princess Casamassima is one of the rare characters in James' novels who appears in more than one work. She was originally a character in the 1875 novel Roderick Hudson, where her name was, quite fittingly, Christina Light.

'''Pugnax sniffed . . . as always this scent eluded him''' 
If Pugnax doesn't detect a human scent, that suggests Lindsay is not human. Not human, Master-at-Arms, speaks in hyper-constructed prose, has a notably short fuse . . . he's Lieutenant Worf of ''Star Trek, the Next Generation.''

'''''Krakatoa''''' 
Erupted 1883. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krakatoa Wikipedia entry.]

'''Heino Vanderjuice of New Haven''' 
Scientist who designed the ''Inconvenience's'' hydrogen engine. "Vanderjuice" suggests both "wonder juice" and "wander juice," fitting since his engine allows the Chums to wander and is wondrous insofar as it apparently violates the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics second law of thermodynamics]. "Heino" (HIE-no) is a man's given name [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=heino meaning 'home'] in German, Finnish, and Estonian. Perhaps an allusion to the German pop star, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heino Heino].

:Um, a quibble: ''Vanderjuice'' is some kind of corrupted Dutch, and in Dutch the name Heino would be pronounced HAY-no. He is not an immigrant, though, and American speakers no doubt say HIGH-no.

Jules Verne influence? Vanderjuice a red herring, pointing to Dutch origin and electrical ("juice") background? Or does one try to parse the name into eg "Fond O' Juice"?

'''". . . anemometer of the Robinson's type"''' 
Cup anemometer invented in 1846 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Thomas_Romney_Robinson Dr. John Thomas Romney Robinson]. Cup anemometers are still commonly used to measure wind speed because of their simplicity and reliability in a variety of environmental conditions. [http://www.arm.ac.uk/annrep/annrep2000/node13.html pic]

'''how rapidly the ship was proceeding''' 
But you can't measure the craft's progress by measuring wind speed at a point on the craft itself. All you get from the anemometer is a speed relative to the air, which is in variable motion. Since the craft is moving at the speed of the wind plus the speed of its propulsion device, the speed found by the anemometor is basically useless.

==Page 7==

'''Porfirio Díaz''' 
President of Mexico 1876-1880, 1884-1911. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%ADaz Wikipedia]

In most countries, the Interior Ministry (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Home Office, etc.) ran programs like secret police. Are the Chums working for forces of conservativism?

'''"beside a black-water river of the Deep South". 
Blackwater River is in lower central Florida, pretty deep south; but there are numerous rivers in swampy areas that run black with organic matter.

'''a bitter and unresolved "piece of business"''' 
Rather than give a proper reason for the Chums to be in the Deep South, the narrator cops out by pleading that it's "not advisable" to specify.

'''"the Rebellion of thirty years previous"''' 
The Civil War was not called such during the time it was occurring; the South called it "the war between the states" to emphasize both their right to secede from the union and that this was a war between sovereign states; the North called it "the Rebellion of 1861" or, after termination of hostilities, "the Rebellion of 1861-1865," appellations that did not recognize the South's right to secede.

'''"one still not advisable to set upon one's page"''' 
The American Civil War, that "rebellion of thirty years previous," has not yet become a suitable subject for an adventure tale such as the Chums'.

'''absquatulated''' 
Means to move away quickly, usually to avoid capture. Apparently a mock-Latinate formation, "to go off and squat somewhere else." [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-abs1.htm A brief article] on the history and etymology of "absquatulate."

'''"Crackerjack!" exclaimed Chick.''' 
Cracker Jack, the food, was first sold at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, though it did not bear its present name. As one word here, however, it is not the candy: "Crackerjack" entered English first as a noun referring to "a person or thing of marked excellence," then as an adjective. The foodstuff gained its present name, according to the [http://www.crackerjack.com/history.php official Cracker Jack website], in 1896. The OED lists the first written use of "crackerjack" as 1895, two years after the present scene. It is by no means impossible, however, that the term would have been current in the spoken language in 1893.

==Page 8==

'''the town of Thick Bush''' 
Aside from whether this phrase might apply to some political figure of the past or present, "thick bush" is the literal meaning of the Spanish Matagorda, the name of many towns in Latin America and one on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

'''"which directs us never to interfere with legal customs of any locality down at which we may happen to have touched"''' 
Like the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_directive Prime Directive] in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_trek ''Star Trek'']. Lindsay's fussy syntax echoes Winston Churchill's exasperated "This is the kind of carping criticism up with which I will not put."

'''Katie bar the door''' 
An expression that means that there's trouble brewing. (See [http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-kat1.htm this article] about the expression's etymology.)

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
Reminiscent of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Klan] encounter scenes in the Coen Brothers' ''O Brother, Where Art Thou''.

'''way better than a mile a minute''' 
The Chums' point of departure is unknown, but they arrived in Chicago after catching a southerly wind (pg 3), southerly meaning "wind blowing from the south." The Chums surpass 60 miles an hour here, but as their previous speed was unknown, it's difficult to know where they were leaving from. (New Orleans to Chicago is 834 miles, slightly less than 14 hours at 60 miles/hour, so a possibility.)

==Page 9==

'''"Do not imagine, that in coming aboard ''Inconvenience'' you have escaped into any realm of the counterfactual..."''' 
This may be Pynchon directly addressing the reader. Given that his [[Against_the_Day_description|book description]] proclaims the world of AtD as "what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two," this paragraph seems to indicate that Pynchon, like all great fantasy or sci-fi writers, does not intend to create a world where anything goes. Rather, he will create a world that differs from ours but then obey the rules and constraints he's already established.

'''"Going up is like going north."''' 
Air gets cooler as the ship ascends into higher altitudes, and therefore like travelling northward. This page also suggests some further mystery of the Chums may be revealed to Chick and the reader in time.

:North is not a positive place in Pynchon's world. It is associated with anti-life---coldness as here---compared to the South, a place of light and warmth, such as the tropics. See GR.

:But to go far enough north means heading south again, observes Chick Counterfly--is this one meaning of his name? Then one would be "approaching the surface of another planet, maybe?" asks Chick.

"Not exactly" [answers Randolph] "No. Another 'surface', but an earthly one"
"You'll see. In time, of course". Time is earthly?

'''"Another 'surface'"''' 
In ancient conics the cone is formed by taking a line through a point (the vertex) at a particular angle to a plane and then inscribing a circle on the plane. Two conic surfaces are made by the motion of this line, one below this point and one above. The three conic sections (hyperbola, parabola, and ellipse) are created by slicing the conic surface(s) at different angles.
:huh?[[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 12:38, 15 January 2007 (PST)

==Page 10==

'''Stockyards''' 
Chicago was, at the time, the meat-packing and slaughtering capital of the United States. The stench from the stockyards below must have been memorable.

'''...looked up at the airship in wonder..." 
The sight of any airship in 1893 must have been rare indeed.

'''Cartesian grid''' 
From Rene Descartes, 17th century philosopher and mathematician; see Wikipedia entry, whose most famous argument, "I think therefore I am" and mathematical studies have often lead him to be seen as the first modern philosopher of ultra-rationality. Geometry has 'the Cartesian coordinant system, a grid. Chicago's streets are laid out in a very rational grid arrangement.

Pynchon is reputed to have written 'Gravity's Rainbow' on engineer's grid paper.

In modern mathematics, curves are described only in relation to the two dimensional grid (see previous page). If conic sections are not specifically being thought of here, the theme of dimensionality, at least, is already at play.

'''that unshaped freedom being rationalized into movement only in straight lines''' 
Rationalization is a key sociological concept [from online Dictionary of Social Science]:RATIONALIZATION
This term has two specific meanings in sociology. (1) The concept was developed by German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) who used it in two ways. First, it was the process through which magical, supernatural and religious ideas lose cultural importance in a society and ideas based on science and practical calculation become dominant. For example, in modern societies science has rationalized our understanding of weather patterns. Science explains weather patterns as a result of interaction between physical elements like wind-speed and direction, air and water temperatures, humidity, etc. In some other cultures, weather is thought to express the pleasure or displeasure of gods, or spirits of ancestors. One explanation is rationalized and scientific, the other mysterious and magical. Rationalization also involves the development of forms of social organization devoted to the achievement of precise goals by efficient means. It is this type of rationalization that we see in the development of modern business corporations and of bureaucracy. These are organizations dedicated to the pursuit of defined goals by calculated, systematically administered means. (2) Within symbolic interactionism, rationalization is used more in the everyday sense of the word to refer to providing justifications or excuses for one's actions.

'''"only in straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the killing-floor."''' 
From innocent bovines to ...the world? "Single up all lines"....
Stockyards were organized in such a way that the cattle would procede through a series of chutes and passages, until they arrived alone at the point of death.

"Progressive reduction of choices" also occurred in ''Mason & Dixon''—there were infinitely many wildernesses out to the west until M&D ran the line and rationalized the country into Maryland and Pennsylvania.

==Page 11==

'''plummet''' 
In the real world, this might be bad physics, as closing the valve wouldn't slow the descent. Objects in a fluid medium like air float if their weight is less than the weight of the fluid they displace (hence why one fills a balloon with a light gas such as hydrogen or helium). Once the ''Inconvenience'' loses its buoyancy, it will continue to fall, unless its weight is reduced to what a lesser amount of hydrogen could support. The Inconvenience, however, has a hydrogen producing apparatus would kick in and and slow and eventually stop their descent.

==Page 12==

'''Liverpool Kiss''' 
A head butt.

'''Herr Riemann''' 
Riemann, Georg Friedrich Bernhard (1826-1866) (pronounced REE mahn or in IPA: ['ri:man]) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to analysis and differential geometry, some of them paving the way for the later development of general relativity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann Wikipedia entry].

'''''Mr.'' Noseworth''' 
Lindsay insisting on proper naval forms: an ensign, lieutenant (junior grade), lieutenant or lieutenant commander in the U.S. navy is correctly addressed as "Mister Surname."

'''"topological genius"''' 
Riemann's differential geometry goes beyond the Cartesian grid. See conic sections and dimensionality above, page 10.

==Page 13==

'''There was an "eager stampede" to the rail''' 
Why is eager stampede in quotation marks? The sentence reads fine without it. Does it seem to show ironic knowingness on the part of the narrator? If so, why and who is the narrator?
: I suspect this is a stylistic device from the turn of the century light literature that Pynchon is emulating-- placing a novel term in quotation marks. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 01:35, 23 December 2006 (PST)

:insightfully true, I suspect, but it still shows 'narratorial knowingness', yes?

: Cf. Flaubert's use of quotations in ''Madame Bovary'' to isolate what he deemed the contemptible argot of the bourgeoisie.

::Apparently not a cliche: [http://books.google.com//books?num=100&q=eager.stampede&as_brr=0 GoogleBooks]

'''"...among the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast bags..."''' 
Recalls the opening line of ''Mason & Dixon'': "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr‘d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins..."

'''"...quite as if were some giant eyeball, perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a spirit of constructive censure."''' 
This is strikingly reminiscent of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon Odilon Redon's] 1882 Lithograph ''L'Oeil, comme un ballon bizarre se dirige vers l'infini (The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity).'' [http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A2&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=1 At MoMa's Online Collection]
Notice that society = censure, if constructive. Gamboling nude on a summer day was OK until the ''Inconvenience'', as eyeball, appeared.

:The Odilon Redon lithograph appears on the cover of the 1998 Vintage paperback edition of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love, whose first unforgettable chapter triggers the novel with a ballooning incident leaving the reader dangling over the edge of suspense and suspension.

==Page 14==

'''Jacob's-ladder''' 
Used here as "a marine ladder of rope or chain with wooden or iron rungs" (Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged) but is suggestive of Jacob's ladder in Genesis:

Genesis 28:12 And he [Jacob] dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it. (King James version)

'''''vol-à-voile''''' 
The narrator has turned the French phrase ''vol-à-voile'' (gliding) into a verb.

'''gold-beaters' skin''' 
Very thin vellum (membrane taken from the caecum or blind stomach of an ox). To prepare gold for gilding, it was placed between sheets of vellum and hammered thin.

'''Evening Quarters''' 
Naval practice of mustering the crew at the end of the day's work.

==Page 15==

'''ukulelist''' 
Ukuleles also appear in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', ''Vineland'', and ''Mason & Dixon''. According to Jules Siegel's article, "Who is Thomas Pynchon, and why did he take off with my wife?", Pynchon himself played the ukulele in college.

'''Beaufort Scale''' 
A scale for measuring wind strength, developed 1805.

'''"...forty-four buttons...one for each State of the Union." 
Wyoming was the 44th state admitted to the union in 1890.

'''port section of the crew''' 
The half of the crew permitted to go freely ashore this time. The other half tomorrow. "Port" and "starboard": are these simply either/or words that sailors remember easily?

==Page 16==

'''Macassar oil''' 
Macassar oil is an oil used primarily by men in Victorian and Edwardian times to smooth their hair. It was advertised as containing oil from Macassar, which is the former name of Ujung Pandang, a district on the island of Celebes in Indonesia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassar_oil Wikipedia entry]

'''About the fringes,' Randolph reminded the liberty-goers, 'of any gathering on the scale of this Exposition, are apt to lurk vicious and debased elements, whose sole aim is to take advantage of the unwary.''' 
Indeed, the Chicago World's Fair was haunted by one of America's more prolific and original serial killers, H.H. Holmes. Born in 1861, Holmes came to Chicago as a pharmacist and built an office building that was eventually dubbed 'The Castle'. Consisting of commercial stores on the first floor, and offices and apartments on the upper floors, the building also housed hidden rooms where Holmes murdered his victims, chutes that conveyed the bodies to the basement, and a chamber of horrors in the basement where he destroyed the corpses. Holmes took advantage of the World's Columbian Exposition to lure victims, primarily females who had come unaccompanied to Chicago, to the Castle for torture and murder. It is estimated that he killed over 200 people at the Castle while the Exposition was in operation. Two very good books about Holmes are The Devil In The White City by Erik Larson and Depraved by Harold Schechter. It is doubtful that Pynchon was thinking explicitly of Holmes when he wrote this passage, although he must be aware of the story. Randolph could not have known about Holmes since Holmes was not captured until after the Fair was over. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._H.H._Holmes Wikipedia entry]

'''tension of the gas''' 
I.e., the pressure in the bag.

==Page 17==

'''"as if it were something the stripling had only read about, in some boys' book of adventures...as if that page of their chronicles lay turned and done"''' 
The narrator makes us aware that Darby's adventures are as if/will be written down...the 'reality' of almost killing all of them is now just words on a page...as is this book, ATD?...Again a Pynchonian theme: no book is the reality.

'''"and the order 'About-face' had been uttered by some potent though invisible Commandant of Earthly Days, toward whom Darby, in amiable obedience, had turned again."''' 
Is this just a metaphor from the narrator to describe what it is like for Darby, or is it also self-referential to
all the adventures of the Chums?. Another Q: Is the Commandant of Earthly Days the invisible presence from whom the chums get their orders? Cf. earthly surface, p.9

'''Chinese foofooraw''' 
Also spelled foofaraw, a great deal of fuss, or useless frills. Cf folderol. However, why Chinese?

'''cubeb''' 
The name for the berry and for the oil obtained from the unripe berry of the East Indian climbing shrub ''P. cubeba''. The dried fruits are sometimes used as a condiment or are ground and smoked in cigarette form as an herbal remedy. [http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/pepper The Free Dictionary] Also appears in ''Gravity's Rainbow,'' page 118.

'''"...goldurn Keeley Cure"''' 
A treatment for alcohol, nicotine and narcotic addiction involving injections of "bichloride" or "double chloride" of gold, and also known as the "gold cure". Named for Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, who opened the first of many Keeley Institutes in 1879.

==Page 18==

'''headgear''' 
Description vaguely reminiscent of "Madame Bovary". [http://robotwisdom.com/flaubert/bovary/bovary1.html [notes]]

'''eclipse green''' 
Apparently an actual shade. [http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DIO_DRO/DIRECT.html [cite]]

'''Bindlestiffs of the Blue A.C.''' 
Bindlestiff means hobo; hence, the Hoboes of the Sky Aeronautical Club.

'''("Penny") Black''' 
The Penny Black was the world's first official adhesive postage stamp, issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1840. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black [Wikipedia]]

'''Tzigane''' 
French for "gypsy". Also a piece by Ravel. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzigane_(Ravel) [Wikipedia]]

'''Egypt''' 
Little Egypt is the southern area of the state of Illinois in the United States of America. The region is and was sometimes called simply "Egypt," especially in the 19th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Egypt_(region) [Wikipedia]]

==Page 19==

'''Garçons de 71''' 
A group of aeronauts formed in Paris during the Siege and Commune of Paris.

'''pétroleurs de Paris''' 
An early form of Molotov cocktail thrower during the Siege of Paris. There were pétroleurs and pétroleuses.

==Page 22==
'''Kodaks''' 
The word Kodak was trademarked in 1888, and the first Kodak camera was sold with the slogan, "You press the button - we do the rest." In 1891, the company released the first daylight-loading camera, so film could be changed without a darkroom. Kodaks would have been a novelty at the fair in 1893.

'''Isandhlwana''' 
Isandlwana is an isolated hill in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. On January 22, 1879, it was the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, where over 20,000 Zulu warriors defeated a contingent of British soldiers in the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War. Almost the entire column of about 1,200 British soldiers was killed, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isandhlwana [Wikipedia]]

==Page 23==

'''Tarahumara''' 
Indian tribe of Northern New Mexico, in the Sierra Madres, known for cave-dwelling in the late 19th century. [[Tarahumare_Indians|About the Tarahumara]]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara [Wikipedia]]

'''monte''' 
Three-card monte.

==Page 24==

'''the curse of Scotland''' 
A term used in poker, bridge and various other card games for the nine of diamonds. Dates from 1710. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Scotland [Wikipedia]]

'''like the electricity coming on... how everything fits together, connects. It doesn't last long, though.''' 
From something as random as calling out a card trick comes this extremely profound quote by Miles Blundell (full quote edited here). The heart of this quote/thought seems to be crucial.

What Miles describes is also the symptoms of a mild seizure - could he be epileptic? Epileptics were often credited with shamanic or prophetic powers, and many sightings of religious figures have been attributed to seizures. On page 4, Miles is also said to suffer from "confusion in his motor processes", which may be related.

'''Cracker Jack''' 
First sold at the at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack [Wikipedia]]

'''New Levee district''' 
Chicago's redlight district c1890. [http://www.ipsn.org/genesis.htm [cite]]

'''Epworth League''' 
A Methodist youth organization founded in 1889. [http://www.southernmethodistchurch.org/id48.htm [cite]]

==Page 25==

'''Haymarket bomb''' 
The Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago may be the origin of international May Day observances and in popular literature inspired the caricature of "a bomb-throwing anarchist." The causes of the incident are still controversial, although deeply polarized attitudes separating the business class and the working class in late 19th century Chicago are generally acknowledged as having precipitated the tragedy and its aftermath. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_bombing Wikipedia entry].

'''if the Governor decides to pardon that gang of anarchistic murderers''' 
In May of 1886, 350,000 workers, including 70,000 in Chicago were taking to the streets to rally for the eight hour work day. After four workers were killed by the police on May 3, the anarchist leaders in Chicago called for a meeting in Haymarket Square. Although the rally was peaceful, the police came in on horseback to break it up and an unknown individual in the crowd hurled a homemade bomb into the air. After the explosion, which killed a policeman, the police opened fire on the crowd. Subsequently, the anarchist leaders deemed responsible for the rally were arrested and tried for the murder of the policeman. The Eight men were convicted of the bombing and seven of them sentenced to death. Governor Richard J. Oglesby commuted two death sentences to life. Four were hanged and a fifth committed suicide. A later governor, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three survivors on June 26, 1893, concluding that all eight of them were innocent. The last words of anarchist August Spies before he was hanged were 'The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.' Two very good books on the Haymarket Riot and the events surrounding it include The Haymarket Tragedy by Paul Avrich and Death In The Haymarket by James Green.

'''mixture of contempt and pity''' 
This is ''definitely'' not from one of the Chums' adventure stories.

'''duck soup''' 
Meaning "an easy task," but also the name of a Marx Bros. movie. Perhaps relevant, given the cameo by Groucho promised on the book sleeve. Many of the Marx Brothers early movies had animal references in the title: Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup. The titles usually had nothing at all to do with the plot, although they contributed to the lunatic nature of the comedy. The expression 'Horse Feathers' is used a few times later on in Against The Day.

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}