Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Chums of Chance

2007-02-18T20:10:48Z

Jurgen:

Young mens' organization. The Charter of the Chums of Chance includes a paraphrase of Star Trek's "Prime Directive" not to violate the rules of a local culture. The initial appearance of the Chums in ATD, in the sky aboard a hydrogen balloon, may recall the appearance of the three ''Knaben'' in Mozart's ''Die Zauberflöte''.

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"!).

* The [[Chums of Chance]] -- "a five-lad crew" (3) consisting of:
** [[Randolph St. Cosmo]], "the ship commander" (3)
** [[Darby Suckling]], "the 'baby' of the crew" (3)
** [[Lindsay Noseworth]], "second in command here and known for his impatience with all manifestations of the slack" (4)
** [[Miles Blundell]], "Handyman Apprentice" (4)
** [[Chick Counterfly]], "the newest member of the crew" (4), "son of a notorious and widely sought 'carpetbagger'" (8)
** [[Pugnax]], "a dog of no particular breed" (5)

{{ATD Alpha Nav}}

[[category:characters]]

Chums of Chance

2007-02-18T20:09:44Z

Jurgen:

ATD 1-25

2007-02-18T20:09:04Z

Jurgen: /* 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 to 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}}

Talk:Main Page

2007-02-18T20:01:43Z

Jurgen: /* The impending anarchist miracle */

==Contributed "Entries" to Alpha and Page by Page==

I see a lot of entries that are just items people are dumping in but not adding any real content, or just the name and a link to Wikipedia. I think it's fine to link to Wikipedia -- don't get me wrong -- but I for one would like to see folks go more for quality than quantity, perhaps adding some information/speculations rather than just sending the user off to another website. As I see it, one major purpose of this site is to make it a valuable resource, rather than a bunch of question marks. Take a look at my early entries for the alpha nav; even if I just copied the first few sentences of Wikipedia before sending the user off, at least there's some info there.

To me, it just looks lazy. I'd say if you're going to contribute something, then contribute something. Same with images. Rather than just linking to an image, make the extra effort to get the image, make sure its size is optimized and inline it to the entries. If you're not sure how to do this, and the existing instructions seem opaque to you, let me know and I'll help out.

I've put an enormous amount of effort into this, and so have many of the other contributors, and I'd just say make the effort or don't do anything at all, rather than leave a mess for someone else to clean up. There. I *said* it!

[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 15:45, 13 December 2006 (PST)

:I agree that just posting a link is not enough and people should at least post a sentence or two but I also have two comments: 1) I learned from creating the [http://queenloana.wikispaces.com/ Queen Loana wiki] the lesson that '''contributors are more willing to fill in blanks than add entries.''' So, placing an entry and nothing but a question mark will often prompt people to jump in and explain something that baffled you. 2) mess cleaning is part and parcel of the wiki process and has some positives: a newbie may make a mistake but after either being contacted or simply seeing their mistake corrected can become valuable contributors. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 17:31, 13 December 2006 (PST)

::Good points. [[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 17:41, 13 December 2006 (PST)

==Changed all Alpha Nav pages from, eg, "ATD-A" to "A"==
So all alpha nav edits can be done on the plain alpha letter. Because of the way I'm structuring the multiple-novel wikis, there won't be conflicts if, say, GR and ATD both have individual alpha pages. Just doing some housecleaning... [[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 00:08, 12 December 2006 (PST)

==Insert special characters extension just added==

When you edit a page, look further down the edit page and you'll see a bunch of symbols, letters from different alphabets, common wiki markup code, and other stuff. Just click on one of them and it will appear wherever your cursor is in the editing field. This should help out with page editing ⅞ (couldn't resist :).

[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 16:18, 11 December 2006 (PST)

:great addition, Tim. Next time I'll have no excuse for spelling Fariña as Farina. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 19:25, 11 December 2006 (PST)

==Added Annotation by Page==

Hey, I've started to add a different type of annotation that the Alphabetical Index. I like this method because it gives the reader all the references on the page, as he reads, in a non-spoilerish fashion. No idea if this will take off aside from my contributions, and also no idea how to integrate it with the Alphabetical Index, but these problems I leave to future Pynchonwiki contributors as well as my future self.

I also have not followed the naming guidelines on the main page, for the simple reason that I don't know how...! These pages can be renamed and moved by whoever knows how to do so.

[[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 08:51, 22 November 2006 (PST)

: I would name the page-by-page pages eg: ATD 1-25, etc. Ultimately, all Pynchon's works will be in the Wiki, so it's important to establish this convention. I have moved the three pages you created to reflect this naming.

: I changed the page number headers to a 2nd level from a 1st level, to reflect semantically their heirarchy on the page (they appeared at the same level as "Pages 1-25"; thus, for example, I changed

::<nowiki>=Page 1=</nowiki>

::to

::<nowiki>==Page1==</nowiki>

: I would suggest that eventually we have a link to the ToC for the page-by-page, as it will be a '''very long''' ToC!

:[[User:WikiAdmin|Tim]] November 22, 2006

:::good call! I'll handle that ToC soon. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 12:26, 23 November 2006 (PST)

I think the page-by-page (can we now call that the PbP?) is a lot more fun to edit, since it follows the way I am reading the book.
--[[User:Fblau|Fblau]] 09:03, 25 November 2006 (PST)

== PbP Annotations added to sidebar - 11/30/06==
This should make things a bit easier, nav-wise. I set up a template that can be accessed by entering in the search box "Template:ATD PbP" - so that's where all the edits get made.

[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 18:22, 30 November 2006 (PST)

==What can the Pynchonwiki do better than Amazon.com full text search?==

I note that Amazon.com's full text search of Pynchon's novels does exactly the same thing as one function of Thomaspynchon.com's previous guides: giving the page numbers where a given character or thing is mentioned. That said, I think we need to articulate what the guides and Pynchon wiki do ''in addition'' to justify all the human labor involved, and then communicate that to potential wiki contributors. (also, Amazon doesn't do this for AtD yet, but since it's available for all his other works, I assume it's just a matter of time). Thoughts? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 12:26, 23 November 2006 (PST)

==Change of logo/cover image==

Shouldn't we change the cover image/logo for Pynchon wiki (upper left corner) to the final version of the cover? And, for accuracy's sake, shouldn't we include the white border around the cover? [[User:Torerye|Torerye]] 01:21, 24 November 2006 (PST)

:agreed-- Tim will have to take care of that, though. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 14:17, 24 November 2006 (PST)

'''Tim sez:''' 
This brings up the general branding of this site. I would like to have Wikis for all the works, and use the Category namespace to separate them. Having them all in this wiki means that a user can search in all the novels.

So, I'm thinking I just create a "logo" image that's general, for "Pynchon Wiki".

I'd surely love to hear anyone's thoughts on this so we can brainstorm the best decision. Email me directly at tim (at) hyperarts (dot com).

--[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 15:00, 24 November 2006 (PST)

==Missing caption?==

Um, was the picture caption removed as a spoiler, or what? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 22:49, 27 November 2006 (PST)

: No, I just took it off to free up the image, jettisoning signifiers. As I looked at it, I just thought it worked better if the reader just sort of recognizes it as that Chums of Chance bit without being too literal.

: [[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 23:28, 27 November 2006 (PST)

== The impending anarchist miracle ==

:''The following is copied from [http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0611&msg=111809&sort=date A. A.'s message on PYNCHON-L].''

Jasper Fidget <jasper.fidget@[omitted]> wrote:
> [...] I anticipate the wiki turning into a junkyard full of people's
> half-baked opinions and
> Kinbote-esque commentary (i.e. worse than useless).

In reply to which, pynchonoid <pynchonoid@[omitted]> wrote:
> That's Pynchon-l you're describing, certainly.
>
> I think you're wrong about the potential for
> http://pynchonwiki.com. So far, it is nothing like
> your description and is instead a useful resource that
> will grow more so as more people contribute useful
> information.
>

And in reply to the above, I say:

First of all, Kinbote's commentary isn't "worse than useless". His digressions on Zembla have blasted little to do with John Shade's Appalachia, but leaving aside the value of the Forward (which gives the reader their first brush with Shade and, in some respects, a more complete visual impression), the Commentary and Index provide a counterpart and complement to the 999 lines of the poem itself. The book in its entirety is an artifice, deceptive and illuminating; if pynchonwiki.com produces anything like ''Pale Fire,'' its authors would have every right to be proud.

"[http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/foldoc/6/51.htm Ha ha, only serious.]"

Second, the pynchonwiki has the potential to become something I wished Wikipedia could provide: a place to provide factual material of scholarly use, backed up with pointers to papers and books, ''plus'' the opportunity to generate new literary talk with kindred folks. You can't do that over at WP. Even applying the bread-and-butter methods of lit-crit one learns in the undergraduate years is a sin, or in the argot, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research Original Research]. In WP territory, you can't discuss a new book, even with old methods, only report what other people have said about old books. This is appropriate for an encyclopedia, but it can't constitute the whole of discourse.

Human behavior implies some basic facts about wiki life. Foremost is the under-acknowledged issue that in any situation where the wiki grows by people contributing their free time, the majority of edits will be minor ones, affecting (and affected by) only their immediate environment. Lists can grow item by item, for example, much more easily than entire articles can be overhauled. Thus, even in cases where a page contains all the ''facts'' one needs, the organization will often be poor. Also, ensuring coordination among multiple pages can be difficult and tiresome to achieve.

These societal traits make wikis a good repository for things like lists of typos, catalogs of character names and so forth. In these cases, small edits ''can'' build a workable and useful whole by incremental additions. However, there is an unhappy flipside. Most of the really good articles on WP (say, those listed in "Featured Articles") are the work of one person or a small group, say a couple-three editors, who assemble a clear and thorough exposition of a topic which interests them. Remarkably often, such people can do a really terrific job. They push the article up to Featured status (I
did this five times — all it takes is energy and care), where it can sit and bask in the glory. . . . And attract a stream of well-meaning editors who come along, adding their favorite tidbit of information, little drops of this or that which may well be completely accurate but which don't fit into the scheme painfully worked out by the original authors.

After this goes on for long enough, the original authors or others with a like-minded sense of dedication have to go through and clean up the cruft.

I saw several cycles of this happen with the article ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes Calvin and Hobbes]''. Everybody has their own favorite ''Calvin and Hobbes'' strip, and damn if they don't want to talk about it! This sort of thing is a big reason why WP has "Featured Article Review", a mechanism for forcing cruft patrol and, if necessary, taking pages off the honor roll.

If pynchonwiki is to be a going concern, it'll need mechanisms for keeping track of good content. Somebody will also have to institute ground rules for keeping debate fair and dealing with the inevitable hotheads and trolls (trust me, no subject is too obscure to attract crackpottery). Otherwise, we're just prayin' for that anarchist miracle.

Pirate Prentice wrote:

> There's basically 3 things the wiki does at the moment: 1) straight up
> reference (what was the Chicago World's Fair and when did it happen?),
> 2) connections to other Pynchon novels ("single up all lines" also
> appears on these pages of GR and V., "entropy" was a major theme in
> GR, etc), and 3) interpretation.

I think that any work people do on #3 (which is what Wikipediphiles call "original research") should be credited to the people who do it, since it is after all value generated by labor. To an extent, #2 shades into #3, depending upon how much one has to squint to draw the connections. The many avatars of Pig Bodine are less subtle than the postage-stamp references in ATD, for example.

[[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 15:44, 29 November 2006 (PST)

:What do we do about interpretation? As you say, the Pynchonwiki differs from Wikipedia in that there's room for people to add their own interpretations. Jasper on Pynchon-L warned that this could easily turn into a BS free-for-all, and maybe he's right. Who knows? This is one grand experiment! I foresee that someday, perhaps soon, we will need to agree on some hard and fast rules regarding opinions/interpretation (i.e. should users sign their opinions, do we keep interpretation in the discussion pages, etc), but for now, I for one say let's just sit back and see what the 125+ registered users we've got come up with. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 19:58, 29 November 2006 (PST)

::I floated an idea on PYNCHON-L which seems reasonable, at first glance. What if we institute a rule like Wikipedia's "No original research" policy for the articles themselves, allow a free-for-all on the ''discussion'' side, and then host periodic debates on issues of interest? We pick a topic relating to ATD, people who want to throw lit-crit around write their positions, and after a week, the moderator (''i.e.,'' a screwball with scholarly pretensions and too much free time) writes up the debate's "greatest hits" as an article. Giving proper attribution to all participants, naturally. This way, we can cover whatever issues arise naturally in close-reading ATD, letting everyone who wants to rant do so, while making sure important ideas don't get lost. [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 08:37, 30 November 2006 (PST)

:::[[User:Ande|Ande]]+++Not quite sure how to "discuss" here yet---but since I stirred the pot on the pynchon-l site, I will try to move my musings here. As always with Wikipedia and actually anything (see recent gatt.org hacks of WTO, news stories about faked research at the university level, etc.) Reader Beware! It seems that when speculating, there is speculating language properly employed (wiggle words like "seems to me, mayhaps, IMHO--if you are partial to internet convention) that can signal departure from fact to opinion. But the "facts" are only so good too--there is nothing to stop me from presenting myself as a scholar of esoteric Sanskrit calligraphy and providing translation of the text of the seal, nefariously if I wish, to promote some pet close reading. On the other hand, part of the joy of reading,esp reading Pynchon, is the unexpected depth gained by digging just a bit-- I'm not a WWI naval buff--my experience being limited to loving __Riddle of the Sands__ and a quick read of __Dreadnought__, so my initial read of 'dazzle painting'(AtD 122) had more Star Trek NG-Romulan Ships appearing off the aft deck-type connotations, but I marked it, looked it up, found it to be fascinating (esp when you consider that the periscopes looking at the painted patterns were made of Iceland Spar), and found that the wiki was a great place to share my discovery--without feeling too shy about the "well duh, of course everyone knows that..." responses that one might subject oneself to in an open forum...

:::As to attribution, I started this discussion of speculation on the wiki on the P-List, because I found an off-hand comment I made in the course of (what I had assumed) was a less than serious discussion, suddenly "attributed" to me on the wiki--now, I understand that I can "edit" said attribution into wiki oblivion (or into a wiki war) but last vestiges of my Mother's WASPish upbringing cause me to hesitate to disturb the work of others...I could just retreat into politeness and not talk to strangers at all.

:::So, as to the issue of No. 3--Interpretation--I agree with A.A., No.2 will bleed into No. 3, attribution is essential--and such posts should include a signature--preferably not just the digital signature available if you dig in the wiki history. We may even want to create a system so that people can discreetly mark posts as 1, 2 or 3, if they forget to use speculative language. And in the meantime, I would ask that until we have a moderated discussion, where Ideas are tempered in the furnace of debate, we be careful about "attributing" passing thoughts as "original research." Ande [[User:Ande|Ande]] 10:49, 30 November 2006 (PST)

::::Quick hints about the mechanics of wiki-work: you can indent paragraphs by using colons, ''italicize text'' by using double apostrophes (<nowiki>''</nowiki>), '''bold text''' by using triple apostrophes (<nowiki>'''</nowiki>), sign your name by using four tildes (<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> for me gives [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 10:10, 30 November 2006 (PST)) and make "wikilinks" to other pages by using double square brackets. <nowiki>[[Thomas Pynchon]]</nowiki>, for example, gives [[Thomas Pynchon]]. Wikipedia has a "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet Cheatsheet]" on these matters; all of those tricks should work the same here. Best wishes, [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 10:10, 30 November 2006 (PST)

:::I think Ande's ideas are all good ones, and particularly like the idea of keeping separate the discussion and annotation sections. Of course, with Pynchon, there's plenty to draw connections with, and I think it's worthwhile to bracket non-obvious connections with contingent language. Not only does this indicate their interprative nature, it also more fully allows the possiblity of other readings.[[User:Ahpsp|Ahpsp]] 10:42, 30 November 2006 (PST)

'''Tim sez:'''
I already laid out on the home page, under "Pynchon Wiki Help and Contributor Guidelines", how to handle discussion:

:To open a discussion on an individual listing of the Alpha Index, [[ATD-T|see the page on Tait]]. Basically, give it a name that identifies the alpha listing (eg <nowiki>[[Subject Discussion|DISCUSSION]]</nowiki> where "Subject Discussion" would be, eg, "Tait Discussion" or whatever) and notice that the visible name will be "DISCUSSION" in full caps, so it stands out a bit.

:You can initiate a discussion for any topic using the above syntax. Just make sure the discussion article you create has an unique, intuitive and reasonably brief name. Don't just create a new article called "Discussion" -- if one already exists, you'll just open that one for editing. And, as I've said elsewhere, just use the "List All Pages" sidebar link to see what current exists in the wiki.

:Anybody is free to email me tim (at) hyperarts (dot com) to discuss.

:I think through the group process we can get it right.

:Regarding help, besides the Wikipedia Cheatsheet, you can use the Help link in the sidebar which has a page with lots of useful info. I need to create The Perfect Wiki Cheatsheet, but just haven't gotten the time what with all else that sort of exploding around me :)

:[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 10:56, 30 November 2006 (PST)

::Tim, I think your system of Discussion is overkill. What if, and I believe this would commonly happen, someone has only a sentence or two to say about Tait? Or someone wants to respond to that in a sentence or two? We'd then be creating hundreds of Wiki pages with only a bit of content in them.

::I advocate for the creation of separate discussion pages only if there's so much discussion on a certain entry that it's bogging down the Letter page. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 15:50, 30 November 2006 (PST)

Tim sez: 
::I think your approach is fine, basically the same principal as adding content to the Page by Page or Alpha guides, i.e., the drilldown. Avoid clutter at all costs!

::I also think a general discussion page, such as this has become, should be archived (moved) every so often. This one's getting quite unwieldy.

::[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 18:19, 30 November 2006 (PST)

Could I suggest a different approach? I think the spoiler-free page annotations pages are a fantastic resource for somebody reading the book for the first time. The letters pages provide a good overview and quick reference. But I suspect that in the long run, both will prove too limiting for people who want to delve deeper into individual topics. I think it would be useful to expand most entries into their own articles, especially characters, places, concepts. These pages would contain spoilers as well as discussion--one subsection could be devoted to opinions and debate. That way, we wouldn't need an additional system of DISCUSSION pages, which would clutter up the automatically generated category indices.

--[[User:Jurgen|Jurgen]] 12:01, 18 February 2007 (PST)

==Attribution?==

A lot of people are talking about whether we should suggest signing posts, especially those we'd consider opinion or speculation. I actually think this is a good idea, but obviously it will be up to each contributor whether he chooses to or not.[[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 15:52, 30 November 2006 (PST)

== Copyright policy? ==

The Pynchon Wiki doesn't appear to have any copyright notices or policies set out. Should we agree to release our contributions under the GFDL 1.2, like Wikipedia, a Creative Commons license or some such? [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 16:59, 2 December 2006 (PST)
:Sounds good to me-- CC may be the way to go. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 17:55, 2 December 2006 (PST)
::My personal choice would be for the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5], or perhaps the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike] version. [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 20:04, 3 December 2006 (PST)

==Wiki Tip: Contributors would rather fill in blanks than add new entries.==
Therefore, it is preferable to add unknown references marked with a question mark than to omit them entirely. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 17:57, 3 December 2006 (PST)

== Referencing ==

As we gradually increase the sophistication of our pages, a system of speedily generating footnotes (or other citation mechanisms) will become important. Right now, we seem to be handling everything with direct external hyperlinks, which is fine for the moment, but pretty soon, we'll be wanting to give footnotes or Harvard references to journal articles and specific pages of books. (Yes, you know, all that Pynchon-relevant material which is not yet online?) Adopting the [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php Cite.php extension to MediaWiki] might be a very good idea. See, oh, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism Transhumanism] for an example using this referencing style to its fullest. [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 20:12, 3 December 2006 (PST)
:again, I whole-heartedly agree. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 21:43, 3 December 2006 (PST)

:'''Tim sez:''' I have installed Cite.php. It's fairly easy to use and, as above, here's [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php the Cite.php page with instructions.] Basically, after an entry you want to cite, put the references between these two tags: <nowiki><ref></ref></nowiki>, and at the bottom, where you want to references to be listed, put this tag: <nowiki><references/></nowiki>. Very cool, and thanks for the suggestion.

:[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 05:53, 5 December 2006 (PST)

:::You're welcome! I have used these footnotes on the page [[Thomas Pynchon]] to set an example. [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 16:52, 5 December 2006 (PST)

== Tibetan seal and Shambhala ==

Why does Pynchon use the seal meaning "Tibetan Government Chamber of Commerce?" One reason may be that Shambhala, oft mentioned in the novel, is supposed to a mystical (or mythical) city in Tibet. Madam Blavatski, also a presence in the novel, claimed to have been in touch with Shambhala. Twentieth-century explorers were not able to find evidence of the city. Pynchon's use of the seal seems less than serious. [[User:Godshawl|Godshawl]] 13:37, 26 December 2006 (PST)

== Errata page 1049, line 21 ==

Superfluous quotation mark before Roswell.

[[User:Godshawl|Godshawl]] 13:06, 14 January 2007 (PST)

== List of Characters? ==

Greetings. Maybe I haven't explored the wiki thoroughly enough yet, but is there a [[master list of characters]] anywhere? Should we start one? It would contain spoilers, obviously. We could sort them into a [[:category:characters]] that would generate its own index. I feel that a list with brief paragraphs about each major and minor character could be quite useful.

--[[User:Jurgen|Jurgen]] 11:21, 18 February 2007 (PST)

Master list of characters

2007-02-18T19:49:06Z

Jurgen:

Entries are sorted by first appearance.

* The [[Chums of Chance]] -- "a five-lad crew" (3) consisting of:
** [[Randolph St. Cosmo]], "the ship commander" (3)
** [[Darby Suckling]], "the 'baby' of the crew" (3)
** [[Lindsay Noseworth]], "second in command here and known for his impatience with all manifestations of the slack" (4)
** [[Miles Blundell]], "Handyman Apprentice" (4)
** [[Chick Counterfly]], "the newest member of the crew" (4), "son of a notorious and widely sought 'carpetbagger'" (8)
** [[Pugnax]], "a dog of no particular breed" (5)

Category:Characters

2007-02-18T19:43:37Z

Jurgen:

Dramatis Personae with the own pages. There's also a [[master list of characters]].

Chums of Chance

2007-02-18T19:25:55Z

Jurgen:

Chums of Chance

2007-02-18T19:25:36Z

Jurgen:

Master list of characters

2007-02-18T19:25:01Z

Jurgen:

The [[Chums of Chance]] -- "a five-lad crew" (3)

User:Jurgen

2007-02-18T19:22:16Z

Jurgen:

http://jurgenfauth.com

Talk:Main Page

2007-02-18T19:21:44Z

Jurgen: List of Characters?

==Contributed "Entries" to Alpha and Page by Page==

I see a lot of entries that are just items people are dumping in but not adding any real content, or just the name and a link to Wikipedia. I think it's fine to link to Wikipedia -- don't get me wrong -- but I for one would like to see folks go more for quality than quantity, perhaps adding some information/speculations rather than just sending the user off to another website. As I see it, one major purpose of this site is to make it a valuable resource, rather than a bunch of question marks. Take a look at my early entries for the alpha nav; even if I just copied the first few sentences of Wikipedia before sending the user off, at least there's some info there.

To me, it just looks lazy. I'd say if you're going to contribute something, then contribute something. Same with images. Rather than just linking to an image, make the extra effort to get the image, make sure its size is optimized and inline it to the entries. If you're not sure how to do this, and the existing instructions seem opaque to you, let me know and I'll help out.

I've put an enormous amount of effort into this, and so have many of the other contributors, and I'd just say make the effort or don't do anything at all, rather than leave a mess for someone else to clean up. There. I *said* it!

[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 15:45, 13 December 2006 (PST)

:I agree that just posting a link is not enough and people should at least post a sentence or two but I also have two comments: 1) I learned from creating the [http://queenloana.wikispaces.com/ Queen Loana wiki] the lesson that '''contributors are more willing to fill in blanks than add entries.''' So, placing an entry and nothing but a question mark will often prompt people to jump in and explain something that baffled you. 2) mess cleaning is part and parcel of the wiki process and has some positives: a newbie may make a mistake but after either being contacted or simply seeing their mistake corrected can become valuable contributors. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 17:31, 13 December 2006 (PST)

::Good points. [[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 17:41, 13 December 2006 (PST)

==Changed all Alpha Nav pages from, eg, "ATD-A" to "A"==
So all alpha nav edits can be done on the plain alpha letter. Because of the way I'm structuring the multiple-novel wikis, there won't be conflicts if, say, GR and ATD both have individual alpha pages. Just doing some housecleaning... [[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 00:08, 12 December 2006 (PST)

==Insert special characters extension just added==

When you edit a page, look further down the edit page and you'll see a bunch of symbols, letters from different alphabets, common wiki markup code, and other stuff. Just click on one of them and it will appear wherever your cursor is in the editing field. This should help out with page editing ⅞ (couldn't resist :).

[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 16:18, 11 December 2006 (PST)

:great addition, Tim. Next time I'll have no excuse for spelling Fariña as Farina. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 19:25, 11 December 2006 (PST)

==Added Annotation by Page==

Hey, I've started to add a different type of annotation that the Alphabetical Index. I like this method because it gives the reader all the references on the page, as he reads, in a non-spoilerish fashion. No idea if this will take off aside from my contributions, and also no idea how to integrate it with the Alphabetical Index, but these problems I leave to future Pynchonwiki contributors as well as my future self.

I also have not followed the naming guidelines on the main page, for the simple reason that I don't know how...! These pages can be renamed and moved by whoever knows how to do so.

[[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 08:51, 22 November 2006 (PST)

: I would name the page-by-page pages eg: ATD 1-25, etc. Ultimately, all Pynchon's works will be in the Wiki, so it's important to establish this convention. I have moved the three pages you created to reflect this naming.

: I changed the page number headers to a 2nd level from a 1st level, to reflect semantically their heirarchy on the page (they appeared at the same level as "Pages 1-25"; thus, for example, I changed

::<nowiki>=Page 1=</nowiki>

::to

::<nowiki>==Page1==</nowiki>

: I would suggest that eventually we have a link to the ToC for the page-by-page, as it will be a '''very long''' ToC!

:[[User:WikiAdmin|Tim]] November 22, 2006

:::good call! I'll handle that ToC soon. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 12:26, 23 November 2006 (PST)

I think the page-by-page (can we now call that the PbP?) is a lot more fun to edit, since it follows the way I am reading the book.
--[[User:Fblau|Fblau]] 09:03, 25 November 2006 (PST)

== PbP Annotations added to sidebar - 11/30/06==
This should make things a bit easier, nav-wise. I set up a template that can be accessed by entering in the search box "Template:ATD PbP" - so that's where all the edits get made.

[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 18:22, 30 November 2006 (PST)

==What can the Pynchonwiki do better than Amazon.com full text search?==

I note that Amazon.com's full text search of Pynchon's novels does exactly the same thing as one function of Thomaspynchon.com's previous guides: giving the page numbers where a given character or thing is mentioned. That said, I think we need to articulate what the guides and Pynchon wiki do ''in addition'' to justify all the human labor involved, and then communicate that to potential wiki contributors. (also, Amazon doesn't do this for AtD yet, but since it's available for all his other works, I assume it's just a matter of time). Thoughts? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 12:26, 23 November 2006 (PST)

==Change of logo/cover image==

Shouldn't we change the cover image/logo for Pynchon wiki (upper left corner) to the final version of the cover? And, for accuracy's sake, shouldn't we include the white border around the cover? [[User:Torerye|Torerye]] 01:21, 24 November 2006 (PST)

:agreed-- Tim will have to take care of that, though. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 14:17, 24 November 2006 (PST)

'''Tim sez:''' 
This brings up the general branding of this site. I would like to have Wikis for all the works, and use the Category namespace to separate them. Having them all in this wiki means that a user can search in all the novels.

So, I'm thinking I just create a "logo" image that's general, for "Pynchon Wiki".

I'd surely love to hear anyone's thoughts on this so we can brainstorm the best decision. Email me directly at tim (at) hyperarts (dot com).

--[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 15:00, 24 November 2006 (PST)

==Missing caption?==

Um, was the picture caption removed as a spoiler, or what? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 22:49, 27 November 2006 (PST)

: No, I just took it off to free up the image, jettisoning signifiers. As I looked at it, I just thought it worked better if the reader just sort of recognizes it as that Chums of Chance bit without being too literal.

: [[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 23:28, 27 November 2006 (PST)

== The impending anarchist miracle ==

:''The following is copied from [http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0611&msg=111809&sort=date A. A.'s message on PYNCHON-L].''

Jasper Fidget <jasper.fidget@[omitted]> wrote:
> [...] I anticipate the wiki turning into a junkyard full of people's
> half-baked opinions and
> Kinbote-esque commentary (i.e. worse than useless).

In reply to which, pynchonoid <pynchonoid@[omitted]> wrote:
> That's Pynchon-l you're describing, certainly.
>
> I think you're wrong about the potential for
> http://pynchonwiki.com. So far, it is nothing like
> your description and is instead a useful resource that
> will grow more so as more people contribute useful
> information.
>

And in reply to the above, I say:

First of all, Kinbote's commentary isn't "worse than useless". His digressions on Zembla have blasted little to do with John Shade's Appalachia, but leaving aside the value of the Forward (which gives the reader their first brush with Shade and, in some respects, a more complete visual impression), the Commentary and Index provide a counterpart and complement to the 999 lines of the poem itself. The book in its entirety is an artifice, deceptive and illuminating; if pynchonwiki.com produces anything like ''Pale Fire,'' its authors would have every right to be proud.

"[http://burks.brighton.ac.uk/burks/foldoc/6/51.htm Ha ha, only serious.]"

Second, the pynchonwiki has the potential to become something I wished Wikipedia could provide: a place to provide factual material of scholarly use, backed up with pointers to papers and books, ''plus'' the opportunity to generate new literary talk with kindred folks. You can't do that over at WP. Even applying the bread-and-butter methods of lit-crit one learns in the undergraduate years is a sin, or in the argot, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research Original Research]. In WP territory, you can't discuss a new book, even with old methods, only report what other people have said about old books. This is appropriate for an encyclopedia, but it can't constitute the whole of discourse.

Human behavior implies some basic facts about wiki life. Foremost is the under-acknowledged issue that in any situation where the wiki grows by people contributing their free time, the majority of edits will be minor ones, affecting (and affected by) only their immediate environment. Lists can grow item by item, for example, much more easily than entire articles can be overhauled. Thus, even in cases where a page contains all the ''facts'' one needs, the organization will often be poor. Also, ensuring coordination among multiple pages can be difficult and tiresome to achieve.

These societal traits make wikis a good repository for things like lists of typos, catalogs of character names and so forth. In these cases, small edits ''can'' build a workable and useful whole by incremental additions. However, there is an unhappy flipside. Most of the really good articles on WP (say, those listed in "Featured Articles") are the work of one person or a small group, say a couple-three editors, who assemble a clear and thorough exposition of a topic which interests them. Remarkably often, such people can do a really terrific job. They push the article up to Featured status (I
did this five times — all it takes is energy and care), where it can sit and bask in the glory. . . . And attract a stream of well-meaning editors who come along, adding their favorite tidbit of information, little drops of this or that which may well be completely accurate but which don't fit into the scheme painfully worked out by the original authors.

After this goes on for long enough, the original authors or others with a like-minded sense of dedication have to go through and clean up the cruft.

I saw several cycles of this happen with the article ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_and_Hobbes Calvin and Hobbes]''. Everybody has their own favorite ''Calvin and Hobbes'' strip, and damn if they don't want to talk about it! This sort of thing is a big reason why WP has "Featured Article Review", a mechanism for forcing cruft patrol and, if necessary, taking pages off the honor roll.

If pynchonwiki is to be a going concern, it'll need mechanisms for keeping track of good content. Somebody will also have to institute ground rules for keeping debate fair and dealing with the inevitable hotheads and trolls (trust me, no subject is too obscure to attract crackpottery). Otherwise, we're just prayin' for that anarchist miracle.

Pirate Prentice wrote:

> There's basically 3 things the wiki does at the moment: 1) straight up
> reference (what was the Chicago World's Fair and when did it happen?),
> 2) connections to other Pynchon novels ("single up all lines" also
> appears on these pages of GR and V., "entropy" was a major theme in
> GR, etc), and 3) interpretation.

I think that any work people do on #3 (which is what Wikipediphiles call "original research") should be credited to the people who do it, since it is after all value generated by labor. To an extent, #2 shades into #3, depending upon how much one has to squint to draw the connections. The many avatars of Pig Bodine are less subtle than the postage-stamp references in ATD, for example.

[[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 15:44, 29 November 2006 (PST)

:What do we do about interpretation? As you say, the Pynchonwiki differs from Wikipedia in that there's room for people to add their own interpretations. Jasper on Pynchon-L warned that this could easily turn into a BS free-for-all, and maybe he's right. Who knows? This is one grand experiment! I foresee that someday, perhaps soon, we will need to agree on some hard and fast rules regarding opinions/interpretation (i.e. should users sign their opinions, do we keep interpretation in the discussion pages, etc), but for now, I for one say let's just sit back and see what the 125+ registered users we've got come up with. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 19:58, 29 November 2006 (PST)

::I floated an idea on PYNCHON-L which seems reasonable, at first glance. What if we institute a rule like Wikipedia's "No original research" policy for the articles themselves, allow a free-for-all on the ''discussion'' side, and then host periodic debates on issues of interest? We pick a topic relating to ATD, people who want to throw lit-crit around write their positions, and after a week, the moderator (''i.e.,'' a screwball with scholarly pretensions and too much free time) writes up the debate's "greatest hits" as an article. Giving proper attribution to all participants, naturally. This way, we can cover whatever issues arise naturally in close-reading ATD, letting everyone who wants to rant do so, while making sure important ideas don't get lost. [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 08:37, 30 November 2006 (PST)

:::[[User:Ande|Ande]]+++Not quite sure how to "discuss" here yet---but since I stirred the pot on the pynchon-l site, I will try to move my musings here. As always with Wikipedia and actually anything (see recent gatt.org hacks of WTO, news stories about faked research at the university level, etc.) Reader Beware! It seems that when speculating, there is speculating language properly employed (wiggle words like "seems to me, mayhaps, IMHO--if you are partial to internet convention) that can signal departure from fact to opinion. But the "facts" are only so good too--there is nothing to stop me from presenting myself as a scholar of esoteric Sanskrit calligraphy and providing translation of the text of the seal, nefariously if I wish, to promote some pet close reading. On the other hand, part of the joy of reading,esp reading Pynchon, is the unexpected depth gained by digging just a bit-- I'm not a WWI naval buff--my experience being limited to loving __Riddle of the Sands__ and a quick read of __Dreadnought__, so my initial read of 'dazzle painting'(AtD 122) had more Star Trek NG-Romulan Ships appearing off the aft deck-type connotations, but I marked it, looked it up, found it to be fascinating (esp when you consider that the periscopes looking at the painted patterns were made of Iceland Spar), and found that the wiki was a great place to share my discovery--without feeling too shy about the "well duh, of course everyone knows that..." responses that one might subject oneself to in an open forum...

:::As to attribution, I started this discussion of speculation on the wiki on the P-List, because I found an off-hand comment I made in the course of (what I had assumed) was a less than serious discussion, suddenly "attributed" to me on the wiki--now, I understand that I can "edit" said attribution into wiki oblivion (or into a wiki war) but last vestiges of my Mother's WASPish upbringing cause me to hesitate to disturb the work of others...I could just retreat into politeness and not talk to strangers at all.

:::So, as to the issue of No. 3--Interpretation--I agree with A.A., No.2 will bleed into No. 3, attribution is essential--and such posts should include a signature--preferably not just the digital signature available if you dig in the wiki history. We may even want to create a system so that people can discreetly mark posts as 1, 2 or 3, if they forget to use speculative language. And in the meantime, I would ask that until we have a moderated discussion, where Ideas are tempered in the furnace of debate, we be careful about "attributing" passing thoughts as "original research." Ande [[User:Ande|Ande]] 10:49, 30 November 2006 (PST)

::::Quick hints about the mechanics of wiki-work: you can indent paragraphs by using colons, ''italicize text'' by using double apostrophes (<nowiki>''</nowiki>), '''bold text''' by using triple apostrophes (<nowiki>'''</nowiki>), sign your name by using four tildes (<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki> for me gives [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 10:10, 30 November 2006 (PST)) and make "wikilinks" to other pages by using double square brackets. <nowiki>[[Thomas Pynchon]]</nowiki>, for example, gives [[Thomas Pynchon]]. Wikipedia has a "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Cheatsheet Cheatsheet]" on these matters; all of those tricks should work the same here. Best wishes, [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 10:10, 30 November 2006 (PST)

:::I think Ande's ideas are all good ones, and particularly like the idea of keeping separate the discussion and annotation sections. Of course, with Pynchon, there's plenty to draw connections with, and I think it's worthwhile to bracket non-obvious connections with contingent language. Not only does this indicate their interprative nature, it also more fully allows the possiblity of other readings.[[User:Ahpsp|Ahpsp]] 10:42, 30 November 2006 (PST)

'''Tim sez:'''
I already laid out on the home page, under "Pynchon Wiki Help and Contributor Guidelines", how to handle discussion:

:To open a discussion on an individual listing of the Alpha Index, [[ATD-T|see the page on Tait]]. Basically, give it a name that identifies the alpha listing (eg <nowiki>[[Subject Discussion|DISCUSSION]]</nowiki> where "Subject Discussion" would be, eg, "Tait Discussion" or whatever) and notice that the visible name will be "DISCUSSION" in full caps, so it stands out a bit.

:You can initiate a discussion for any topic using the above syntax. Just make sure the discussion article you create has an unique, intuitive and reasonably brief name. Don't just create a new article called "Discussion" -- if one already exists, you'll just open that one for editing. And, as I've said elsewhere, just use the "List All Pages" sidebar link to see what current exists in the wiki.

:Anybody is free to email me tim (at) hyperarts (dot com) to discuss.

:I think through the group process we can get it right.

:Regarding help, besides the Wikipedia Cheatsheet, you can use the Help link in the sidebar which has a page with lots of useful info. I need to create The Perfect Wiki Cheatsheet, but just haven't gotten the time what with all else that sort of exploding around me :)

:[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 10:56, 30 November 2006 (PST)

::Tim, I think your system of Discussion is overkill. What if, and I believe this would commonly happen, someone has only a sentence or two to say about Tait? Or someone wants to respond to that in a sentence or two? We'd then be creating hundreds of Wiki pages with only a bit of content in them.

::I advocate for the creation of separate discussion pages only if there's so much discussion on a certain entry that it's bogging down the Letter page. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 15:50, 30 November 2006 (PST)

Tim sez: 
::I think your approach is fine, basically the same principal as adding content to the Page by Page or Alpha guides, i.e., the drilldown. Avoid clutter at all costs!

::I also think a general discussion page, such as this has become, should be archived (moved) every so often. This one's getting quite unwieldy.

::[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 18:19, 30 November 2006 (PST)

==Attribution?==

A lot of people are talking about whether we should suggest signing posts, especially those we'd consider opinion or speculation. I actually think this is a good idea, but obviously it will be up to each contributor whether he chooses to or not.[[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 15:52, 30 November 2006 (PST)

== Copyright policy? ==

The Pynchon Wiki doesn't appear to have any copyright notices or policies set out. Should we agree to release our contributions under the GFDL 1.2, like Wikipedia, a Creative Commons license or some such? [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 16:59, 2 December 2006 (PST)
:Sounds good to me-- CC may be the way to go. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 17:55, 2 December 2006 (PST)
::My personal choice would be for the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5], or perhaps the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/ Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike] version. [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 20:04, 3 December 2006 (PST)

==Wiki Tip: Contributors would rather fill in blanks than add new entries.==
Therefore, it is preferable to add unknown references marked with a question mark than to omit them entirely. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 17:57, 3 December 2006 (PST)

== Referencing ==

As we gradually increase the sophistication of our pages, a system of speedily generating footnotes (or other citation mechanisms) will become important. Right now, we seem to be handling everything with direct external hyperlinks, which is fine for the moment, but pretty soon, we'll be wanting to give footnotes or Harvard references to journal articles and specific pages of books. (Yes, you know, all that Pynchon-relevant material which is not yet online?) Adopting the [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php Cite.php extension to MediaWiki] might be a very good idea. See, oh, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism Transhumanism] for an example using this referencing style to its fullest. [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 20:12, 3 December 2006 (PST)
:again, I whole-heartedly agree. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 21:43, 3 December 2006 (PST)

:'''Tim sez:''' I have installed Cite.php. It's fairly easy to use and, as above, here's [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cite/Cite.php the Cite.php page with instructions.] Basically, after an entry you want to cite, put the references between these two tags: <nowiki><ref></ref></nowiki>, and at the bottom, where you want to references to be listed, put this tag: <nowiki><references/></nowiki>. Very cool, and thanks for the suggestion.

:[[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 05:53, 5 December 2006 (PST)

:::You're welcome! I have used these footnotes on the page [[Thomas Pynchon]] to set an example. [[User:BlakeStacey|BlakeStacey]] 16:52, 5 December 2006 (PST)

== Tibetan seal and Shambhala ==

Why does Pynchon use the seal meaning "Tibetan Government Chamber of Commerce?" One reason may be that Shambhala, oft mentioned in the novel, is supposed to a mystical (or mythical) city in Tibet. Madam Blavatski, also a presence in the novel, claimed to have been in touch with Shambhala. Twentieth-century explorers were not able to find evidence of the city. Pynchon's use of the seal seems less than serious. [[User:Godshawl|Godshawl]] 13:37, 26 December 2006 (PST)

== Errata page 1049, line 21 ==

Superfluous quotation mark before Roswell.

[[User:Godshawl|Godshawl]] 13:06, 14 January 2007 (PST)

== List of Characters? ==

Greetings. Maybe I haven't explored the wiki thoroughly enough yet, but is there a [[master list of characters]] anywhere? Should we start one? It would contain spoilers, obviously. We could sort them into a [[:category:characters]] that would generate its own index. I feel that a list with brief paragraphs about each major and minor character could be quite useful.

--[[User:Jurgen|Jurgen]] 11:21, 18 February 2007 (PST)