Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 919-945

2009-01-10T05:31:00Z

Rstsuchiya: /* Page 927 */ Similar to a Lawrence of Arabia Scene

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

==Page 919==

'''Holy Week''' 
Holy Week is the last week of Lent, the week immediately preceding Easter Sunday.

Places the action somewhere between April 9 - 15, 1911.

Frank was also in Mexico (Guanajuato) during la Semana Santa back on p.377.

'''Madero's force at Casas Grandes''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_I._Madero Francisco Madero] (1873-1913) was a Mexico's liberal political leader. He denounced President Porfirio Diaz and headed an armed revolt to overthrow Diaz's idctatorship in November, 1910. In a span of six months, Madero was successful and Diaz was forced to resign and fled to France in exile, while Madero was elected president in November, 1911. In 1913, Madero was overthrown by his own general, Victoriano Huerta, and murdered. 

On March 5, 1911, during the Mexican Revolution, Madero led his forces to attack in Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, but was defeated.

'''the recent battle''' 
Battle of Casas Grandes, March 5, 1911, defeat for Madero's army in the Mexican Revolution.

'''''novio''''' 
Spanish: boyfriend.

'''something like a city after dark''' 
Like the White City, which he never saw.

==Page 920==

'''''¿qué tal, amigo?''''' 
Spanish: What's up, my friend?

'''''brujo''''' 
Spanish: wizard.

'''''¿verdad?''''' 
Spanish: don't you?

'''José de la Luz Blanco''' 
Colonel, later general, in Madero's revolutionary forces.

'''''mucho gusto''''' 
Spanish: pleased to meet you.

'''whipcord''' 
A strong worsted or cotton fabric made of hard-twisted yarns with a diagonal cord or rib [http://vintagesewing.info/1920s/23-wmtp/illust/whipcord.jpg pic].

==Page 921==

'''''Adiós, mi guapo''''' 
Spanish: goodbye, my lady's man (handsome dude).

'''''compinche''''' 
Spanish: pal.

'''''copas''''' 
Spanish: glasses, cups.

==Page 922==

'''Krupp mountain gun''' 
[http://www.spanamwar.com/spanishkrupp75.htm Picture and text].

'''laudanum, paregoric''' 
Laudanum is an alcoholic tincture of opium; paregoric, a camphorated tincture of opium.

'''Bloody Shirt''' 
Waving the bloody shirt, as a political tactic, dates back at least 1300 years. The demagogue compels listeners to a desired action by citing a wrong they cannot ignore or forgive.

'''Bolsón de Mapimí''' 
[[ATD 374-396#Page 395|See p.395: Bolsón de Mapimi]]

==Page 923==

'''campesino''' 
cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_374-396#Page_376 page 376].

'''...the mysterious ruins thought to have been built by refugees fleeing from their mythical homeland of Aztlan up north.''' 
An interesting anacronism here. From [http://www.ccha-assoc.org/Meso-sw04/rationale.html this website], we learn that

:At first, because of its Pueblo-like architecture, Paquime [aka Casas Grandes] had been regarded as a sort of southern extension of the ancient Pueblo world. But Charles Di Peso's excavations in the 1950's raised a "storm of controversy," revealing pyramid platforms mounds, ball-courts, and macaw breeding pens, leading him to conclude that what he had found was a major Mesoamerican "Gateway City," a 14th century urban trading center from whence Mesoamerican prestige items (macaw feathers, marine shells, copper bells) were exported to the American Southwest, bringing "higher" Mesoamerican culture with them.

So it seems that at the time Wren Provenance would have been part of a "semi-official" Harvard dig at [[Casas Grandes]], the original inhabitants wouldn't have been considered to be from Aztlan, unless they are (gasp!) Trespassers/visitors from the future. And on [[#Page 930|page 930]], this is supported.

Also, Pynchon seems to subscribe here to the theory that the actual geographical location of Aztlan was somewhere in what is now the southwestern United States. He refers to Aztlan being "up north" of [[Casas Grandes]]. This theory, held by some, seems to contradict a well-established consensus among scholars that these areas were inhabited by North American Indians who, as opposed to Aztecs, left enough artifacts in these areas to document their existence there, and that Aztlan would have been closer to Central Mexico. 
This exodus from Aztlan may be an alternate history from a parallel world.

==Page 924==

'''''tetas de muñeca''''' 
Spanish: doll-tits.

'''''pinga de títere''''' 
Spanish: puppet-pecker.

'''Frank found himself in a strange yet familiar City [...] nobody but the most senior Astrologers even being allowed to view the sky.''' 
An amazing sentence, perhaps the longest in the novel (more than a page in length), reminiscent of the opening dream sequence or that evensong service in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' a hallucinogenic cinematic pan. Awesome! 
Amazing indeed, and a brilliant Kerouac pastiche?

==Page 925==

'''''tlachiqueros''''' 
Cf [[ATD_374-396#Page_376|page 376: ''tlachiqueros'']].

'''swamp-beaver hides''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutria nutria] (called so in North America, coypu elsewhere) has the nickname [http://www.bugspray.com/article/nutria.html swamp beaver (see line 20)].

'''Hallucinati''' 
Play on ''Illuminati,'' the Illuminated Ones, but the Hallucinati are lit by indigenous cacti and such.

'''''paseo'' time''' 
Spanish: time for strolling.

'''''ristras''''' 
Spanish: strings.

'''pamphlets''' 
These bear some similarity to the infamous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tijuana_bibles "Tijuana Bibles"] of the 20th century.

'''heliographs''' 
The [[ATD_849-863#Page_851|annotation to page 851]] defines the machine used for communication; here "heliograph" is an image produced by the action of sunlight. [http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/wfp/ See this remarkable page titled "The First Photograph."] [http://www.nicephore-niepce.com/ Nicephore Niepce] invented the process which used the very limited sensitivity of bitumen of Judea to light to create an image.

'''city not yet come into being''' 
Like an Aztlan alternate, an Aztlan never conquered by Cortez, developing without European influence beyond 1500 AD--what would such a mesoamerican culture look like?

==Page 926==

'''a little light reading''' 
Note the pun. Frank's reading "pamphlets ... hand-tinted heliographs in luminescent violets" (from [[#Page 925|p. 925]]) Wren hands him "the exact same periodical"

'''trespassers..winged demigods''' 
Notice trespassers, non-capitalized, linked with beasts with wings--and gringos!-- we have seen earlier.

==Page 927==

'''The biplane slowly became visible'''

From Freudenthal's ''How Aviation “Firsts” Took Place in Mexico'' (1945):

"Although, at the beginning of the year 1911, there was practically no aviation in Mexico ... the events taking place in and over Mexico clearly foreshadowed the future importance of this weapon ... in February, 1911, Charles K. Hamilton ... took off from El Paso and flew to Ciudad Juarez, circling twice above the latter city. It was then held by the forces of the Mexican General Navarro. The soldiers, Hamilton reported, showed great fright when he appeared in the skies, running frantically for shelter. Then Roland Garros ... flew his monoplane over the same route, but at an altitude greater than Hamiton’s 900 feet. The following day Rene Simon flew directly over the camp of the insurrectionist General Orozco. '''These were the first scouting flights of an airplane under actual war conditions'''" (emphasis mine).

Is the biplane on ATD p. 927 Hamilton’s flight? Here are the clues:

* What: the first wartime use of a plane for scouting (not long before aerial WWI combat)
* When: Feb. 1911
* Where: Ciudad Juarez at 900 feet over General Navarro's troops

[http://www.earlyaviators.com/ehamilch.htm Here is more on Hamilton], including pictures of his planes (Garrow and Simon are also have pages on this site).

'''The harsh hum filled the valley. Everybody looked up. The biplane slowly became visible...It might be bringing anything, to a degree of unpleasantness unknown so far in modern warfare,...'''

This passage reminds me of a scene in the motion picture ''Lawrence of Arabia'' (1962): A harsh hum fills a desert valley. Lawrence of Arabia and Colonel Brighton look up and see a pair of Turkish biplanes slowly weaving through the valley to bomb an Arab encampment. Brighton disparages the Arabs for not following his advice to move out of range of the Turkish forces: "They simply will not understand what modern weapons do!"

==Page 928==

'''outside chance of saving his soul''' 
Frank must become aware, by developing a historical sense. Pynchon goes beyond his concept of Temporal Bandwidth (in ''V.''), the ability to experience the history of a place and imagine future consequences, to live simultaneously in past, present and future, to (if we agree Frank's vision took him to an alternate Aztlan) the ability to do so and to envision and in some sense inhabit alternate histories. Frank is a typical American, from a place whose history began yesterday; such an ability would save any American's soul.

'''They were not about to be caught twice''' 
i.e. not like the Mesa Verde people along the McElmo.

'''Mormon settlements''' 
Mormons did settle in the desert southwest, and proselytized among the Pueblos, Navajo and other groups. In 1911, Hopi adherents and traditionalists fought a brief civil war, permanently splitting the group between those remaining at the Mesas and those now settled at Tuba City, AZ.

==Page 929==
'''the cruel country of the invaders, the people with wings, the serpents who spoke, the poisonous lizards who never lost a fight''' 
Are these the Trespassers? This also sounds like the Tatzelwurm. Was the Tatzelwurm a Trespasser?

==Page 930==

'''"The professors she works for return in September to the other side..."''' 
Aha, no wonder these professors "under semi-office Harvard auspices" know about the Casas Grandes/Aztlan connection which arose in the 1950s, but they're digging in the summer of 1911! They're from "the other side" visitors/Trespassers from the future!

==Page 931==

'''profitable weeks''' 
Because they are using Yashmeen's roulette system; see pages 862-3 [[ATD_849-863#Page_863|and annotations.]]

'''Biarritz''' 
Cf [[ATD_864-891#Page_891|page 891: Biarritz]]. 
Coastal city in France, on the shore of the Bay of Biscay.

'''Pau''' 
Inland city in France, east of Biarritz.

'''Yz-les-Bains''' 
Aix-les-Bains, pronounced EKS-lay-ban, is a city in southeastern France. (''Bains'' = baths.) The name Yz, probably pronounced like eece but ''just possibly'' like the letter Y or Wise, may be an allusion to that. But here are a couple of odd things. (1) Although it is too high in the mountains to be "near the foothills," there is a ski resort called Ax-les-Thermes (''Thermes'' = hot springs). And (2) scattered through the French foothills are a number of places whose names are letters of the alphabet: Ercé (R.C.), Port de l'Oo (O.), Les Eaux (O.), St. Béat (B.A.) and the excessively high peak Cembras d'Azè (A.Z., almost). There may be an intricate game of hide-the-spa going on here.

Possibly because: if Aix=X, we have a real X(-les bans) and a YZ(-le-bans); these are the coordinates, x,y,z. It is "carefully hidden", and as described on this and the following pages resembles the ideal Anarchist Collective of our (and Pynchon's) hippie dreams, ca. 1970. If Riemann functions are involved (see [[#Page_937|P. 937 and note]]), Y and Z may be coordinates involving imaginary numbers, fitting for the Edenic commune first referred to on P.372-373: "a place promised them, not by God, which'd be asking too much of the average Anarchist, but by certain hidden geometries of History, which must include, somewhere, at least at a single point, a safe conjugate to all the spill of accursed meridians, passing daily, desolate, one upon the next."

'''''gave''''' 
French: mountain stream, torrent.

'''Veterans of the Cataluñan struggle''' 
Probably referring to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_independentism Spanish Secession War] the struggle of Catalonia (Spanish: Cataluña) for independence from Spain and France when Cataluña was defeated.

'''"near one of the foci of the ellipse"''' 
yet another interesting mathematical metaphor: an ellipse (from the Greek ἔλλειψις, literally absence) is a locus of points in a plane such that the sum of the distances to two fixed points is a constant. The two fixed points are called foci (singular- focus). An alternate definition would be that an ellipse is the path traced out by a point whose distance from a fixed point, called the focus, maintains a constant ratio less than one with its distance from a straight line not passing through the focus, called the directrix. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipse]

'''counter-Te Deum, more ''desperamus'' than ''laudamus''''' 
Latin: more "we despair" than "we praise."

A Te Deum is a hymn of praise to God, a sort of thanksgiving for a specific blessed event. It is also known as Te Deum Laudamus (latin: "we praise Thee God"). Therefore a counter-Te Deum would imply complaining about/to God.

==Page 932==

'''I'm not in disguise...''' 
The hippie dream: turn on, tune in, drop out. But bring your skills. People did, as described here.

'''Sophrosyne Hawkes''' 
''Sophrosyne'' is Greek, used in philosophy: moderation, moral sanity.

'''the old dutch''' 
Rhyming slang: Duchess of Fife = wife.

'''treacle-and-brown-paper arrangement such as burglars use''' 
One of P.G. Wodehouse's stories gives a good summary. You want to break a windowpane without lacerating yourself and waking everybody in the house. Get some treacle (molasses, syrup) and brown wrapping paper. Smear the window with the treacle and stick the paper to it. Rap the paper smartly. The glass fractures but doesn't fall out. (But is this correct or the fantasy of some crime writer?)

==Page 933==

'''plasmon biscuit''' 
Containing milk protein, salts and phosphates, these were/are made as dog rations and as biscuits for babies and adults. Adults use them as a quick snack when hiking, etc. Ernest Shackleton [http://books.google.com/books?id=6uIRAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA116&lpg=RA1-PA116&dq=plasmon+biscuit&source=web&ots=GMffcVzVbV&sig=Sk0KPAc-fb776xo6Hks4Og7rUsU used them (see second full paragraph)] during the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909.

'''Holloway''' 
1852 U.K. prison in Islington, North London. Female only inmates since 1902.

'''brooch of honor designed by Sylvia Pankhurst''' 
An honour medal for imprisonment was awarded to Emmeline Pankhurst, founder of the suffragettes, by the Women's Social and Political Union, Pankhurst was arrested in 1908 after she called on supporters to disrupt Parliament. The medal is inscribed with the date of her arrest and Holloway prison, where she was held. (Interestinigly,the medal was recently put up for sale [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20061108/ai_n16826883].

'''Ratty, having tracked rumors and attended to messages...found his way to a secret path...''' 
The way their cheerful menage was founded and how it is structured and worked is reminiscent of the [http://www.findhorn.org/about_us/display_new.php#anchor-beginnings Findhorn Foundation]in Scotland, and [http://www.esalen.org Esalen] in Big Sur, both founded
while Pynchon was finishing ''V'' in 1962. For that matter, golf is common to all three places. Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy has written several books on mystical golf, calling the game "western yoga" and a "mystery school for Republicans." 

The movie ''Caddyshack'' spoofs on this theme ... "Be..be the ball, Danny."

And especially Bill Murray in this classic scene as Carl Spackler...

''So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.''

'''John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart He] is best known today for writing "The Unreality of Time" (published 1908). 
May I suggest that with a name like that you get ''deja vu'' by the time you finish reading it! 
Or whiplash. 
Such 'doubling' in his name is very Icelandic sparring, metaphorically speaking, of course.

'''senior combination-room''' 
A room for seniors at a college or university where they can enjoy TV, pool, ping pong, conversation, wine, dessert, etc.

'''Hotchkiss''' 
A light [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotchkiss_gun cannon or howitzer] (42 mm) packed on two mules, or a rapid-fire 37 mm cannon. Both were in service at the time of the action, but after some 30 years on the market neither was a novelty.

'''I.W.W.''' 
The Industrial Workers of the World, known popularly as The Wobblies. Their slogan was "One Big Union". The organization still exists [http://www.iww.org/]; it is currently (2007) organizing Starbucks baristas, among many other projects. Significantly, The IWW was founded in Chicago in June 1905 at a convention of two hundred socialists, anarchists, and radical trade unionists from all over the United States (mainly the Western Federation of Miners) who were opposed to the policies of the American Federation of Labor. The "Wobbly Shop" refers to the grass-roots democracy methods for running industry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World].

==Page 934==

'''A legacy, one finds, of these ancient all-male structures''' 
A complaint about womens' roles in the Civil Rights and Peace movements of the 1960s, one factor that led to the emergence at that time of the modern feminist movement. 
One woman participant in the 1968 Columbia student strike explained: "The men made revolution and the women made coffee."

[[image:cayman_ball.jpg|thumb|100px|Brambled golf balls|right]]'''ancient brambled guttie''' 
A "guttie" golf ball has a solid gutta-percha core [ [[ATD_397-428#Page 403|See page 403 annotation]] ]; gutta-percha cores were invented in 1848. Modern golf balls have cores of titanium compounds, hybrid materials, softer shells and a more pressurized core. "Brambled" golf balls have hemispherical bumps molded into the surface to improve aerodynamics when the ball spins, the exact opposite of dimples which is what the surface of modern golf balls has. A brambled golf ball (sometimes called a Cayman ball) is specifically designed to fly true, but short. It is used on particularly short golf courses where space is at a premium. The brambles help it fly a trajectory that a normal golf ball would so that hooks and slices, fades and draws are possible.

==Page 935==

'''transform''' 
A mathematical operation that "maps" a relation from one domain to another.

Here, "Belgian Congo" maps to "Balkan Penninsula". By 1912, everyone at Yz-le-Bans would be familiar with Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'', if not with other descriptions of the atrocities of exploitation of indigenous people in Congo. The conversation here and to follow describes the dawning realization of the imperialist exploitation of Eastern Europe by European powers. (Zora Neale Hurston famously commented that Hitler did in Europe what Europeans had been doing in Africa for a century. Cf. The Hereros sections in ''V.''). It begins with railroads and "other straight line" constructions.

The themes of ATD might also "map" to current events in another warzone, where a contemporary Great Game is being played out.

'''common in dreams''' 
Such as Frank's and Reef's. And/or, dreams require interpretation.

'''"The rail lines come into it as well, it's all like reading ancient Tibetan or something..."''' 
The role of railroads in rationalizing the magic out of the world and exploiting it have been made clear repeatedly, and their extension to all corners of Asia is exemplified by Kit's and Frank's journeys. We know the strange seal on the AtD cover reads "Tibetan Chamber of Commerce". As Pynchon was writing AtD, China was completing its railroad to Tibet, now open.

'''self-inflicted Anarchist bomb casualties''' 
In current chapter's context, possibly another 1960's reference, this time to the Greenwich Village (NY) townhouse explosion caused by a Weather Underground bomb manufacturing operation.

==Page 936==

'''a bold horizontal line''' 
Again, a straight line imposed on natural terrain spells trouble.

'''certain disagreeable events, attributed to 'Germany', are scheduled to occur''' 
This appears to be a map of time, not just of space, and perhaps of alternate historical possibilities.

'''the weight of a tank''' 
Um, battle tank development did not begin until 1915.

'''Coddington lens''' 
A hand lens used for close examination of objects [http://www.eyeantiques.com/MicroscopesAndTelescopes/Coddington%20microscope_brass.htm pic].

==Page 937==

'''instead of real against imaginary values''' 
Suggesting that on this map of time, what is supposedly imaginary is in some way real. Perhaps real in the sense we can learn from it? Real until we reduce the possibilities to a single reality by acting?

'''Katanga''' 
The southern province of Congo.

'''persistent long-standing nightmare''' 
McHugh's scenario for the beginning of the World War.

'''Having failed to learn the lessons of that now mythical time...''' 
That is, of the recently past Bosnian Crisis. Ratty now proposes yet another possible Balkan scenario leading to General European War.

==Page 938==

'''Cæsars''' 
Both the German Kaiser and the Russian Tsar took their titles from the name Cæsar.

'''''zadruga''''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: ''zadruga'']], labor cooperative.

'''Central governments were never designed for peace.''' 
The Anarchist Randolph Bourne wrote in 1919, 'War is the health of the State.'

'''pestilent forms''' 
The forms of 20th century totalitarianism were unknown in 1912.
:Yes. But "that would rise up afterward, from the swamp of the ruined Europe."

'''Werfner's ''Interdikt''''' 
Cf [[ATD_678-694#Page_690|page 690: ''das Interdikt'']].

==Page 939==

'''Phrenology''' 
Nineteenth century pseudoscience that, oddly, was correct in one big idea and incorrect in all the small ones. Neuroscience in the 19th century believed all parts of the brain were totipotent, able to process any kind of information or carry out any mental function. Phrenologists correctly held that different parts of the brain carried out different and specialized functions. (Unfortunately, they also mapped these functions completely fancifully, and linked them to a series of palpable landmarks on the skull, which could be read as a pattern of mental capabilities [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology]). Cyprian's quip suggests the modern Gaia hypothesis, which treats the Earth as a total conscious organism, would have to deal with the idea that some parts of the planet are more specialized. Niall Ferguson, in ''The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the West'' (Penguin Press, 2006) more plausibly points out that the early 20th century Balkans fulfills his three demonstrated conditions for becoming a conflict flashpoint: (1) Multi-ethnic population (2) location at the border of a failing empire (3) economic volatility.

'''relax into his fate''' 
Cyprian again reacting as a Buddhist, following karma.

==Page 940==

'''Lydian''' 
What Sleepcoat refers to is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydian_mode Medieval/Modern Lydian mode] (the white keys of the piano played from F to F). As with the Phrygian mode discussed in the wiki entry on [[ATD_892-918#Page_896|page 896]], there are two Lydian modes, the ancient Greek and the Medieval/Modern, although both modes in ''Against the Day'' refer to the medieval/modern Lydian. The "forbidden note" is the note that makes a tritone (three whole steps above the tonic). In jazz, this is often referred to as a "sharp eleven" (the 11th is the 4th degree of a scale when it is played in a chord that includes a dominant (flatted) seventh). The Beatles' "Blue Jay Way" is in the Lydian mode. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tritone Wikipedia on the Tritone].

'''"Exactly--it's this B natural," banging on it two or three times. "Should be flatted. Once it was actually a forbidden note, you know..."..."The interval which our unflatted B makes with F was known to the ancients as 'the devil in the music'..."''' 
On Sept. 9, 2003, it was announced that astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory found evidence of sound waves (transmitted by the surrounding gas) emitted by a supermassive black hole. In musical terms, the pitch of the sound generated by the black hole translates into the note B flat, 57 octaves lower than middle-C. The vibrations explain why the gas shell surrounding black holes does not cool [http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/09sep_blackholesounds.htm].

So the forbidden note in the Lydian mode, not found, Sleepcoat thinks avoided, in Balkan music, draws attention to a fundamental astrophysical property (a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_spheres Music of the Spheres]). Or to the fact that it "should be flatted", i.e. there is a fundamental half-tone difference in the universe as it is and as it mathematically should be.

'the devil in music' aka "diabolus in musica" (see the "tritone" entry above), is a name supposedly given to that unholy musical interval during the middle ages. Maybe because of its "evil" connotation (and its really cool name), the tritone has been used extensively in heavy metal music. One of the great masters of the tritone was the late great Denis "Piggy" d'Amour of famed québécois thrash-metal band Voïvod, which intrestingly enough, is a slavic titlet which translates as "prince" or, in Dracula's case, "count".

'''Orpheus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus Orpheus], since the 6th century BC, was considered one of the chief poets and musicians of antiquity, and the inventor or perfector of the lyre. He is also the only mortal who's literally been to Hell and back.

The Orphic myth is often referenced throughout AtD. One of the interesting versions of this classic story is Jean Cocteau's film "Orphée" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus_%28film%29], in which the title character crosses mirrors to get to the other side (there's something very iceland sparic about that). Also of note: in Cocteau's movie, Orpheus becomes obsessed with garbled (coded) radio broadcasts he hears on his car radio, which seem to emanate, again, "from the other side".

==Page 941==

'''Jurançon''' 
Town near Pau.

'''Paris Commune''' 
Revolutionary government in Paris for two months in 1871.

'''Bartók and Kodály in Hungary''' 
Béla Bartók (1881-1945) wrote music influenced in part by the Hungarian (Magyar) folk songs he collected after 1905. Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) incorporated some such music into works such as the "Dances of Marosszék."

'''Canteloube in the Auvergne''' 
Many songs Joseph Canteloube (1879-1957) collected found their way into his "Chants d'Auvergne."

'''Vaughan Williams in England''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Vaughan_Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams] (1872-1958) was one of a small corps of collectors in Britain. A highlight of his output is the "English Folk Song Suite" for military band. His "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis" is discussed on [[ATD_892-918#Page_896|page 896]].

'''Eugénie Lineff in Russia''' 
Publishing under this French form of her name, Evgeniya Lineva or Linyova (1853/4-1919) brought out collections of Russian and Ukrainian folk songs.

'''Hjalmar Thuren in the Farøe Islands''' 
Danish musicologist Thuren (1873-1912) collected in the Farøes, East Greenland and elsewhere.

==Page 942==

'''a commonwealth of the oppressed''' 
Such a commonwealth might require the kind of transcendence of desire Cyprian is embarked upon.

'''unmapped territory''' 
But they have the Map--they just can't yet read it.

'''utopian dreams...defective forms of time travel''' 
Fiction is an escape into Possibility, alternate histories; clearly a reflexive reference to AtD itself. One way to formulate this is to consider fiction, the Imaginary, another coordinate axis for the universe, like the three dimensions of space and the fourth of time. The imaginary/fictional affects reality, the choices made in the realm of the other four axes, by way of consciousness (thought and desire). Utopian dreaming is a "defective" form in that it is not along a "real" axis of travel, or perhaps because it can only affect choices in the other four axes via defective human consciousness. 
: Utopian dreams are also a kind of time-travelling in two directions. In the obvious sense, the utopian is dreaming of a perfect future where everything is the way he/she thinks it should be. But utopian visionaries also have a habit of reinventing the past in their own image: once, in some Golden Age, things were like this... Feminists like to believe in some peaceful matriarchal society of the past before things went wrong. Wicca practitioners believe they're following 'the old religion', yet the whole idea of witchcraft as a widespread 'religion' was invented by the witch persecutors and the neo-witches of the 20th century. And of course the classic utopian vision of the past is the Garden of Eden. You invent a past that mirrors the future you want to see.

'''we make our journies out there in the low light of the future, and return to the bourgeois day and its mass delusion of safety''' 
Thematic. Another interpretation of "against the day"? The idealist anarchist "utopian dream" against the materialist capitalist "bourgeois day."

'''untouched by cause and effect...points were thrown one by one like a magician forcing a card on spectators...''' 
Action collapses Possibility into Actuality in one formulation of the quantum universe; a reprise of Yashmeen's departure from Vienna.

==Page 943==

'''Zagreb''' 
Cf [[ATD_695-723#Page_705|page 705: Zagreb]].
Capital of Croatia.

'''Beograd''' 
Usually "Belgrade" in English. Capital of Serbia, later of Yugoslavia.

'''There's ever such a nice panatela right here''' 
Allusion to the famous apocryphal remark attributed to Sigmund Freud: "Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar."
Not at all: this time a cigar (a nice panatela) is definitely not a cigar.

'''Craven A''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craven_A Craven A] is a brand of English-style flavor cigarette which is made in both Canada and in Jamaica.

Funny little innuendo laden exchange between Reef and Cyprian. Reef wants a chubby cigar (cheroot), Cyprian offers his own panatela (one of the slimmest cigars available) and Reef replies that what he is offering isn't even the size of a cigarette (Craven A). This is not the first time Pynchon alludes to the diminutive size of Cyprian's appendage.

'''massés''' 
A massé shot in billiards involves driving the cue down onto the white ball so that a steep curve or complete reversal of cue ball direction is obtained without the necessity of any rail or object ball being struck.

==Page 944==

'''''machos''''' 
Spanish: he-men.

'''Sofia''' 
Cf [[ATD_678-694#Page_690|page 690: Sofia]]. Capital of Bulgaria.

'''Tsentralna Gara''' 
Bulgarian: Central (railway) Station.

'''Boulevard Knyaginya Mariya Luiza''' 
Bulgarian: Princess Marie Louise Boulevard. Named for Marie Louise of Bourbon-Parma (1870-99), consort of Prince Ferdinand, who became Tsar of Bulgaria after her death.

==Page 945==

'''Arthur Symons''' 
1865-1945, poet and critic who visited Sofia in 1903. And for being sensitive, in 1909 Symons suffered a psychotic breakdown, and published very little new work for a period of more than twenty years.

'''Kind of like Omaha''' 
This gratuitous comment calls for a self-indulgent annotation. I lived in Omaha for 2 years. Reef's assessment is completely accurate. But it might be worth noting that just as the arrival of the railroad seems to have rationalized Sofia, Omaha, also a city developed on a grid system, was the jumping off point for the Union Pacific half of the Transcontinental Railroad project.

'''leva''' 
Plural of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_lev lev], which is divided into 100 stotinki.

'''quo''' 
Punning on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quid_pro_quo quid pro quo].

'''kebabcheta''' 
Bulgarian: rissole (something resembling a meat-filled croquette or breaded cutlet). Two notes: (1) The ''-ta'' at the end is not part of the word but a definite article; (2) present-day spelling is ''kebapche.''

'''banichka''' 
Bulgarian: cheese patty.

'''palachinki''' 
Bulgarian: pancakes.

'''to doss''' 
to sleep

'''Transylvanian . . . ''kanástánc''''' 
In western Bulgaria he thinks he hears a Hungarian "swineherd's dance" from a part of present-day northern Romania, which belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary until 1918, with a large Magyar population (31.6 pct according to the 1910 census). That song really would have done some traveling. (Should it be spelled ''kanásztánc''? - Oh yes. It had a Transylvanian Romanian version, though, called crucea.)

'''antiphonal''' 
Answering responsively, as in [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/antiphony antiphony].

'''Shop dialect''' 
Nothing to do with ateliers. Bulgarian ''shop'' refers to the Sofia district and specifically peasants living there.

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

ATD 615-643

2008-12-29T02:08:03Z

Rstsuchiya: /* Page 624 */

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

==Page 615==

'''''Kreditbrief''''' 
German: letter of credit.

==Page 616==

'''Auditorienhaus''' 
Building housing auditoriums (and in this case a library).

'''Riemann's ''Habilitationsschrift''''' 
In Germany a new faculty member presents a lecture or, in this case, a thesis on taking up office. 
Riemann's lecture, ''On the Hypotheses that Lie at the Foundation of Geometry'', delivered on June 10, 1854. It became a classic of mathematics.

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habilitation Habilitation] is actually a formal process for giving a person the right to teach university courses independently (i.e. without a formal assignment) and supervise doctoral candidates. This right is usually referred to as venia docendi or venia legendi in Germany. The process consists of delivering a thesis (Habilitationsschrift) and giving a lecture.

'''the 1859 paper on primes''' 
In August 1859 Riemann presented a paper, ''On the Number of Prime Numbers Less Than a Given Quantity'', to the Berlin Academy of Science. In the middle of that paper he made what later was called the ''Riemann Hypothesis'' (Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page 496|page 496:conjecture]]). Today, after nearly 150 years of careful research and exhaustive study, it remains unproved.

'''''Achphänomen''''' 
German: the "aha" phenomenon.

'''''Tchetvyortoye Izmereniye''''' 
Today more likely transliterated ''Chetvertoe izmerenie.'' Russian: (the) fourth dimension.

'''''"Yob tvoyu mat'"''''' 
Russian: Fuck your mother. It's as impolite as it looks, but used way more often than in English.

'''Otzovists''' 
A splinter Bolshevik faction. The name comes from the noun ''otzyv'' meaning "recall"; it does not mean "god-builders." The group (existing under this name only in 1908-9) demanded the recall of Social Democrats from the national legislature.

'''Lenin''' 
[http://www.bartleby.com/65/le/Lenin-Vl.html Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov aka Lenin] (1870-1924), Russian revolutionary and founder of Bolshevism and the major force behind the October Revolution, 1917. He studied law at Kazan University but only practiced law for a couple of years before becoming a professional revolutionary. He was arrested in 1895 for his opinions and activities, and was exiled to Siberia in 1897 for three years. At the end of his exile he went to Switzerland in 1900 and became the leader of the Bolsheviks in 1903, and returned to Russia in 1905 during the 1905 Revolution. He left Russia in 1907 and only returned in April, 1917 with Germany's connivance. Lenin inaugurated the ''dictatorship of the proletariat'' after the October Revolution. He died on January 21, 1924 and became the demi-god of the Soviet Union. According to ''Chambers Biographical Dictionary'' (1988) Lenin was "shrewd, dynamic, im[placable, pedantic, opportunist, as ice-cold in his economic reasoning as in his impersonal political hatreds that could encompass millions. . . . He inspired in the name of democracy a despotism boundless in the power of its ambition and sense of destiny.''

'''Bolshevists''' 
Commonly called ''Bolsheviks''. At the Second Congress of the Russia's Social Democratic Labor Party in August, 1903 there was a dispute between Lenin and Martov, two of the party's leaders. Lenin argued for a small party of highly disciplined, centralized and dedicated professional revolutionary elites with a large fringe of non-party sympathizers and supporters. Martov disagreed believing it was better to have a mass party of activists. At the end of the debate Lenin won a narrow victory: 28 to 23 (the only time in the party history up to then Lenin had a majority behind him). From then on, the Party was split into Lenin's faction called themselves ''Bolsheviks'' (majority) and Martov's faction known as ''Mensheviks'' (minority). The split became permanent as both groups' policy and practice diverged more and more. In 1912, Lenin's Bolsheviks faction formed a separate Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks) which in 1918, after they came to power, changed its name to All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks). It finally became Communist Party of Soviet Union in 1952 which was dissolved in 1991.

'''anti-Materialist''' 
Marxism belongs to the materialist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism] strain of the Western philosophical tradition, stating that the only objective reality is matter. The orthodox Marxist doctrine is divided into historical materialism (which claims that changes of society and even the non-material "superstructure" are determined by economical processes, and thus materially caused); and dialectical materialism, proposed by Engels and then Lenin, which is basically a philosophy of nature combined with a rather crude gnoseology. The latter maintains that matter is the only substance and it is inherently and objectively dialectical in nature, i.e. it is in constant development due to the interactions of conflicting forces on all levels. An anti-Materialist (like Mach, who was denounced as a "subjective Idealist") is one who is against such belief.

'''Mach''' 
Austrian physicist and philosopher. A strong critic of Newtonian absolute time and absolute space. Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page 412|page 412:Ernst Mach]] (1838-1916). He was the target of Lenin's attack in his best-known attempt to create a Marxist philosophy (in the technical sense), ''Materialism and Empiriocriticism''.

'''Ouspensky''' 
Russian mystic and author of ''The Fourth Dimension''. Cf [[ATD_588-614#Page 602|page 602:Young Ouspensky]] (1878-1947).

==Page 617==

'''above this galley-slave repetition of days''' 
ATD motif i.e. rebel against the quotidian day.

'''the already seen''' 
. . . which we know better under the French term ''déjà vu.''

'''Staring at the wallpaper.''' 
A parallel to Kovalevskaya, whose father used Ostrogradsky notes to cover
the walls. Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page 500|page 500:Sofia Kovalevskaia]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Kovalevskaia wiki].

'''''i, j,'' and ''k'', the unit vectors''' 
Cf [[ATD_525-556#Page 526|page 526:Gibbsian Vectors]].

==Page 618==

'''''Schnitte''''' 
Plural of ''Schnitt.'' German: cuts.

'''multiply-connected spaces''' 
In topology, geometrical objects or spaces are connected but not simply connected are called multiply-connected spaces. In mathematics, a geometrical object or space is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simply-connected simply connected] if it consists of one piece and doesn't have any "holes" that pass all the way through it. For example, neither a doughout nor a coffee cup with handle is simply connected, and so both are [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/MultiplyConnected.html multiply connected]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simply_connected Also see Wikipedia] for a fine, relatively nontechnical explanation. Sea-ice and Venice were described as multiply connected spaces on [[ATD_119-148#Page_136|p. 136.]]

''''vector space'''' 
In mathematics, a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vector_space vector space] is a collection of objects, vectors, that may be scaled and added.

'''space of higher dimensionality''' 
Hypersphere. A four-dimensional hypersphere is currently considered the possible shape of our universe. (A 4-D hypersphere is to a 3-D sphere, what a 3-D sphere is to a circle.) In mathematics, [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Hypersphere.html Hypersphere] can be n-dimensional with n = 4 and greater. Also see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypersphere Hypersphere of Wiki Entry].

'''''nichevo''''' 
Russian: nothing, "it doesn't matter".

'''if it doesn't work with gold, the next step will be lead''' 
Cowboy alchemy. If you can't settle your dispute with money, you will have to shoot it out. There's a reference to this process on page 105.

'''it's this damned English practice of talking in code''' 
Refers to commonly noted English cultural tendency to avoid direct expression in conversation.

'''the Anglo-Russian Entente''' 
The Britain and Russia settled a number of differences in Asia. And with both countries concerned about Germany but friendly with France they concluded the Anglo-Russian Entente on August 31, 1907, in St. Petersburg. It defined their respective spheres of interest in Persia, Afghanistan and Tibet, with Russia taking the northern areas of Persia and Britain taking the Persian Gulf area in the south. Its primary aim was to keep Germany out of that region.

==Page 619==

'''''Bierstube''''' 
German: tavern, beer hall.

==Page 620==

'''''akousmaton''''' 
In ''AtD'' the plural ''akousmata'' occurs more often. [[A|Look it up in the alphabetical "A" page.]]

'''eidolon''' 
From Greek: image, picture.

'''minié ball''' 
Rifle bullet with a conical head used in muzzle-loading firearms. [[ATD_97-118#Page_101|See the fuller annotation on p. 101.]]

'''Zirconium''' 
A steel-gray hard ductile metallic element with a high melting point that occurs widely in combined form, is highly resistant to corrosion, and is used especially in alloys and in refractories and ceramics. 
Zirconium is often confused with ''zircon'' and even more often with ''zirconia.'' Zircon is a gemstone consisting chiefly of zirconium silicate. Zirconia is the oxide of zirconium. "Cubic zirconia" became a popular surrogate gem a couple of decades ago.

'''galena''' 
a bluish-gray cubic mineral with metallic luster consisting of lead sulfide and constituting the principal ore of lead.

==Page 621==

'''Reckon ''yo tengo que'' get ''el'' fuck out of ''aquí''''' 
Macaronic Spanish/English: Reckon I'd better get the fuck out of here. 
Kit said the same thing when he decided to leave Yale (page 318).

'''''Zum Mickifest! Komm, komm!''''' 
German: To the Mickey party, come, come! "Mickey Finn" = knockout drops such as chloral hydrate (see any film noir).

'''''K.O.-Tropfen''''' 
German: K.O. (= knockout) drops.

==Page 622==

'''Group-theoretical implications''' 
Introductions to group theory often use "symmetry under rotation" as an illustration. You can rotate a square 90 degrees and get the same square, and likewise 180 and 270 degrees, so the square has fourfold symmetry. Here Gottlob applies a similar concept to the printed words ''pun'' and ''und,'' which alternate with every 180 degree rotation.

'''rhonchus''' 
a whistling or snoring sound heard on auscultation of the chest when the air channels are partly obstructed.

'''''Gottlob! Wo ist deine Spritze?''''' 
German: Gottlob, where is your syringe?

'''''"Streng reserviert für den Elefanten!"''''' 
German: Strictly reserved for the elephant (not elephants).

==Page 623==

'''strychnine''' 
a bitter poisonous alkaloid that is obtained from ''nux vomica'' and related plants, and is used as a poison (as for rodents) and medicinally as a stimulant of the central nervous system.

'''Noncommutative . . . Asymmetric''' 
A relation like "cures" is ''commutative'' if "A cures B" implies that "B cures A" and vice versa. Here the situation is fuzzier because a total cure is not at issue: "Chloral alleviates the effects of strychnine" and "Strychnine alleviates the effects of chloral" are both true, so ''noncommutative'' doesn't quite apply, but one is more true than the other, so ''asymmetric'' is a better choice of word.

'''''Verfluchte cowboy!''''' 
German: Damn cowboy! (should be ''Verfluchter Cowboy'')

'''''Achtung, Schwester!''''' 
German: Hey, Nurse!

'''''Klapsmühle''''' 
German: nut factory. (''Er hat einen Klaps'' means "He's nutty"; ''Mühle'' is a mill.)

'''one of his canonical outfits''' 
"Canonicals" is a term for priestly vestments. 
But also, in the psychology of perception, means 'typical' or 'most easily recognised as'

'''Dr. Willi Dingkopf''' 
German: Thinghead. Possibly, given other meanings of "thing", Dickhead.

==Page 624==

'''''Kit: '...You just hit me with, with that stick?'''''' 
This scene was revealed earlier in the book on page 596:
"This is the world, Kit reflected, a couple nights later, around 3 A.M., as an extra smack of the bamboo stick, She is the world."

'''''Hebraic''''' 
Jewish.

'''you are not ''also Hebraic''''' 
Anti-Semitic Dingkopf considered Kit Jewish by his name ''Traverse''.

'''Jew Cantor, the ''Beast of Halle'', . . . to demolish the very foundations of mathematics''' 
Greg Cantor (1845-1918) taught mathematics at University of Halle from 1869-1918. (Cf [[ATD_588-614#Page 593|page 593:Greg Cantor]]). He introduced the concepts of infinity and continuum into mathematics and thus brought about one of mathematical crises mentioned on page 594. (Cf [[ATD_588-614#Page 594|page 594:crisis in mathematics]]). 
Dingkopf regarded Greg Cantor Jewish by his name ''Cantor''.

==Page 625==

'''"Cantor is a practicing Lutheran." "With a name like that? Please." 
Dingkopf hears the name and obsessively thinks of the many Polish Jewish families that bear it. But the connection is not as strong as he surmises: The church of St. Thomas (Thomaskirche) in Leipzig had a staff member called Cantor or Kantor, and noted practicing Lutheran Johann Sebastian Bach held the position in his prime years. Cantor/Lutheran is not an absurdity.

''Cantor'' just means ''singer'' in Latin, and it has been used for persons who have a singing part in both Jewish and Christian (and possibly other) rites.

'''"Dr Hilbert . . ." "Dr. . . . ''David'' Hilbert"''' 
Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 324|page324:David Hilbet]] (1862-1943), a German mathematician. Again, Dingkopf regarded him as Jewish because of his name, ''David''.

'''''Kolonie''''' 
German: colony, compound.

'''Invisibilism''' 
The principles of this (apparently) fictional school of design bring to mind Buckminster Fuller's concept of '''ephemeralization''', which notes that as design and technology improve -- "the more ''rationally'' a structure was designed" -- the more that can be done with less, process waste converges toward zero and things become physically smaller, "less visible...to the point" -- the "Penultimate Term" -- of being all but invisible. A simple example, the telephone cord is quickly disappearing as we go to cordless phones, and transistors "grow" smaller and smaller as a corollary to Moore's law. The principle of ephemeralization can be applied to design, construction, transportation, computer and other technologies and tools.

'''into its own metastructure''' 
A German SAP engineer once explained "we control complexity through abstraction."

'''one is left with only traces in the world, a few tangles of barbed wire''' 
The Invisibilist principles are paramorphosized into a future of kolonies where only the barbed wire outlines are visible. Within the context of antisemitism in the preceding paragraphs, the text is moving from kolonies to concentration camps, concentration camps empty perhaps except for the traces of consciousness remaining, outlined in barbed wire, the plan-view of, not the Penultimate Term, but the Final Solution.

'''certain odors''' 
cf. p. 408
This has less to do with Proust and involutary memory than with "perhaps certain ''odors''[Italicized in the original] steming from a few tangles of barbed wire upwind, a wind "which itself possesses now the same index of refracton as the departed Structure..." As is explained to Kit by someone in a guard's uniform who may not actually be a guard. That certain odor seems to be the odor of smoke from the ovens.

'''refraction index''' 
Among other things a refraction index can be used to measure concentration (camps) and confirm purity (ethnic).

'''someone . . . whom Kit . . . assumed was a guard''' 
Error in grammar by Pynchon or, more charitably, introduced by a copy editor. Punctuating as ''someone who/whom (Kit assumed) was a guard'' makes the choice of pronoun clearer. Alternatively: did Kit assume someone? No, he assumed a proposition about someone: ''someone was a guard.'' When the subject of that is transformed to "who/whom" for the purpose of linking it into the sentence, it remains the subject: ''who was a guard.'' 
A quibble over a fine point? Yes, but Pynchon is renowned for his fine points, and this mistake seems to put him on a level with a news intern at a third-tier TV station. So let's consider this a teaching moment: ''Copy editors, don't impose your ignorance on good writers.''

'''''So Gut Wie Neu''''' 
German: as good as new.

'''Dirigible Field''' 
The inmates' occupational therapy is a disguise for constructing this landing facility.

'''a real Dirigible''' 
The inmates have established a cargo cult [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult Wikipedia article] or a [http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/ufos.html UFO cult.]
:Sounds like an echo and/or parody of the "He Who Must Come" material on page 543. Both are in close proximity to the name Richard Strauss.

'''Doofland''' 
German ''doof'' means comically stupid (possibly an origin of English "doofus").

Or maybe a version of "Tiefland" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiefland_(opera)], the 1903 Eugen d'Albert opera which was turned into a film directed by Leni Riefenstahl [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiefland_(film)]. The latter, which began filming in 1940 and wasn't released until 1954, turned out to be the most expensive b&w film made in Nazi Germany. Additional notoriety for the film comes from Riefenstahl's having used Roma and Stinti extras who were being held in Nazi collection camps, so-called "Zigeunerlager."

'''O Tempora, O Mores''' 
Latin: Oh, the times! Oh, the customs! (Was there really music under this title?)

Famous sentence by Cicero in his First Oration against Catiline, which means Oh the times! Oh the morals! In his opening speech against Catiline, who had previously tried to kill him, Cicero deplores the viciousness and corruption of his age. This sentence is now used as an exclamation to criticize present-day attitudes and trends, often jokingly. So, it is, indeed, an "old favorite"

'''The Black Whale of Askalon''' 
"Im Schwarzen Walfisch zu Askalon," comic song. The "Black Whale" is a tavern in the ancient Persian town of Askalon. [http://www.grainger.de/music/songs/schwarzenwalfisch.html A paraphrase of the lyrics.]

==Page 626==

'''the head of Jochanaan''' 
In Strauss' opera ''Salome'' the title character asks for and receives as tribute John the Baptist's head on a platter. John in the opera is called Jochanaan.

'''Richard Strauss's opera ''Salome'' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page 498|page 498:Richard Struass]]'s one-act opera ''Salome'' was performed first time in Dresden, Germany, on December 9, 1905. It was a sensation of the year 1905. The opera was based on the French play ''Salomé'' by Oscar Wilde. The time of action: about 30 A.D.; place of action: Jerusalem . . . for the story see [http://www.music.lv/opera/Salome/default_E.htm Salome].

'''the Five Jews''' 
In the middle of the opera ''Salome'' five Jews argued concerning the nature of God.

'''''Judeamus igitur, Judenes dum su-hu-mus''''' 
German university students used to sing ''Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus'' ("Then let us be joyful while we are young men"); the melody forms the climax of Brahms' "Academic Festival" overture. Dr. Dingkopf, the Johnny One-Note of anti-Semitism, sings in bastard Latin, "Then let us Jew while we are Jews."

'''Ich Bin Ein Berliner''' 
JFK said "Ich bin ein Berliner" at the Berlin wall in 1963. According to Wikipedia, there is an urban legend: 
<blockquote>Kennedy should have said "Ich bin Berliner" to mean "I am a person from Berlin." By adding the indefinite article ein, his statement implied he was a non-human Berliner, thus "I am a jelly doughnut". The statement was followed by uproarious laughter.</blockquote> 
However, Wikipedia goes on to state: <blockquote>There is no grammatical error in Kennedy's statement; the indefinite article does not change its meaning. In German, the statement of origin "Ich bin ein Brandenburger" (I am a Brandenburger) is more common than "Ich bin Brandenburger" (I am Brandenburger), but both are correct. The article "ein" can be used as a form of emphasis: it implies "just one of many." As Kennedy did stress the "ein", the usage was, according to German linguist Jürgen Eichhoff [1], "not only correct, but the one and only correct way of expressing in German what the President intended to say."</blockquote> 
--[[User:Btchakir|Btchakir]] 07:51, 19 December 2006 (PST)

And Kennedy's motto drew tumultuous cheers, not laughter; the Berliners had no trouble understanding what he meant.

Maybe a Simpsons connection as well:[http://www.anvari.org/fortune/Simpsons_Subtle_Allusions/9.html]

'''''Konditerei''''' 
German: pastry shop.

'''''Puderzucker''''' 
German: powdered sugar.

==Page 628==

'''Halfcourt? what kind of a name is that?''' 
This is Dingkopf speaking, in the context of his obsession with Jewish infiltration of British society. "What kind of a name is that?" has the subtext "Is that a ''Jewish'' name?"

'''''Der Wall''''' 
In German there are at least three words for "wall": ''Wand'' (the wall of a room), ''Mauer'' (a masonry wall) and ''Wall'' (a wall of a fortification). The infamous Berlin Wall was ''die Mauer.''

In this case 'der Wall' means the rampart on which the town wall stood. After this was razed in the 18. century a path was made on top of 'der Wall' along which Yashmeen and Kit take their walk.

'''dotted quarter rest''' 
Musical notation: brief pause.

==Page 629==

'''Hainberg''' 
Likely to be the Hainberg-Gymnasium at Göttingen http://hainberg-gymnasium.de/

'''Rheinpfalz''' 
A wine from the Rhine-Palatinate region in western Germany.

'''Deidesheimer...Herrgottsacker...Hofstück''' 
Three different wines.

'''do a bunk''' 
Flee.

==Page 630==

'''a Theosophist''' 
an adherent of theosophy professing to achieve a knowledge of God by spiritual ecstasy, direct intuition, or special individual revelation.

'''Sidney Reilly''' 
Sidney Reilly, aka The Ace of Spies--a real early 20th century British--and other--intelligence agent [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Reilly].

'''hoosier''' 
Bumpkin; capitalized, it has a different meaning.

'''stans''' 
Countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Turkestan, etc.). Possible anachronism; term gained currency after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

No anachronism - in many central-asian languages (Pashtu, Dari, Farsi, etc.) '-stan' means 'land of', i.e. Afghanistan = Land of the Afghans, Nuristan = Land of Light, Frankistan = France, Germanistan = Germany, etc.

'''One Savile Row''' 
Seat of the Royal Geographical Society.

'''Kashgar''' 
Now called Kashi, a city in the extreme west of China; at the western end of the Taklimakan desert; a principal town of Chinese Turkestan. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashgar Kāshi (Kashgar)].

'''Auberon Halfcourt''' 
The name Auberon is derived from Oberon and related to Alberich, the dwarf in Wagner's ''Ring'' cycle. Half-court describes a reduced form of basketball. Another possible allusion (bit of a stretch, perhaps?) is to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auberon_Herbert Auberon Herbert,] a British libertarian whom Benjamin Tucker described as "a true anarchist in everything but name."

==Page 631==

'''the recent Anglo-Russian Entente''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page 618|page 618:Anglio-Russian Entente]] of 1907 in which the spheres of influence in inner Asia were divided between Britain and Russia in order to keep Germany out of that region.

'''Baku and Johannesburg''' 
Cf [[ATD_149-170#Page_168|page 168: Johannesburg; Baku]].

'''One vision . . . spiritual, and the other, capitalist.''' 
Competing visions as to the significance of what lies buried beneath the sands in Central Asia. We have already seen a map that reflects [[ATD 243-272#Page 249|dual visions]] of the area. The Great Game competition shaping up in Asia is a continuation of a global 'metaphysical' conflict between materialist and integrationist tendencies.

'''lie doggo''' 
Go underground, maintain a low profile.

==Page 632==

'''Museum der Monstrositäten''' 
German: museum of monstrosities. ''Mathematical'' monstrosities.

'''motor diligence''' 
Motor taxi, as opposed to horse-drawn.

'''the Brocken''' 
The highest peak (3,750 ft) in the Harz Mountains in Germany. It is about 35 miles northeast of Göttingen. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brocken The Brocken]). 

Appears in ''GR'' where Slothrop and neophyte witch Geli Tripping encounter the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_329-336 Brockengespenst] p. 330. and ....

'''"An older Germany .... Deeper"''' 
Meaning pre-Christian Germany, as referenced earlier in the passage with the description 'witchlike'.

'''weapons somehow ''not yet decipherable''''' 
Rayguns.

==Page 633==

'''Knipfel...von Imbiss''' 
Neither one existed. Imbiss is German: snacks, fast food. *** I have a differing opinion: Knipfel is Jim Knipfel. Thomas Pynchon has read Knipfel's memoirs, enjoyed them, and blurbed them.

'''''Weierstrass Functions''''' 
Cf [[ATD_588-614#Page 589|page 589:everywhere continuous but nowhere differentiable]].

'''''Russell's Letter''''' 
Russell's letter of June 16, 1902. (see below "Poor Frege . . .").

'''''the Set of All Sets That Are Not Members of Themselves''''' 
Russell Paradox. Cf [[ATD_525-556#Page 538|page 538:Bertie Russell]].

'''''parallax effect''''' 
the apparent shift of an object against a background due to a change in observer's position.

'''Poor Frege . . . about to publish his book . . .''' 
[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Frege.html Gottlob Frege] (1848-1925) was a German mathematician. He was one of the founders of modern symbolic logic putting forward the view that mathematics is reducible to logic. 
In 1893 Frege published his ''The Basic Laws of Arithmetic, Vol. 1'' in which he axiomatized arithmetic with an intuitive collection of axioms. While his ''The Basic Laws of Arithmetic, Vol. 2'' was at the printer, Frege received a letter (June 16, 1902) from Bertrand Russell in which Russell pointed out that the ''Russell Paradox'' gave a contradiction in Frege's system of axioms.

'''''Kot!''''' 
German: shit.

'''Crotona in Magna Grecia''' 
Crotona is the old Latin name of the Italian city [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crotone Crotone] in southern Italy on the Gulf of Taranto. Ancient Crotona was long one of the most flourishing cities of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Graecia Magna Grecia] (Latin for ''Greater Greece''), the area in Southern Italy colonised by Greek settlers in the 8th century BC. Pythagoras went to Crotona at the age of 40 and most of his philosophical activities occurred there.

'''Hilbeert . . . August . . . in 1900 . . . International Congress . . . "Paris Problems" 
Paris Problems = Hilbert's Problems. Cf [[ATD_588-614#Page 604|page 604:the outstanding problems in mathematics]].

'''''zone of dual nature''''' 
One place that is two places: this peculiar Pynchonian form of bilocation again.

'''part "real"...part "pictorial" or let us say "fictional"''' 
Complex numbers are made up of a real number and an imaginary number (e.g "one plus the square root of negative one"), as AtD is made up of real and imaginary (fictional) parts, the effect of which (continuing into P.635) is described as "taking one beyond four dimensional environs...out into a timeless region..." This seems to be the goal of the protagonists, the author, and the reader.

==Page 634==

'''''Mengenlehre''''' 
German: set theory.

'''one is thrust . . . into a timeless region''' 
Like one of those funhouse rooms where gravity is reversed.

'''ZU DEN QUATERNIONEN''' 
German railway stations all have a big sign: ZU DEN ZÜGEN, to the trains. Here it's to the quaternions.

Not sure about the train connection, it reminded me rather of signs found in zoos or circus sideshows pointing to the major attractions (e.g. "Zu den Löwen" - "[This way] To the lions"). [[User:WolfgangFaber|WolfgangFaber]] 14:35, 11 October 2008 (PDT)

'''Nernst light''' 
Light from [[ATD_429-459#Page 437|page 437:Nernst Lamp]].

'''Brougham Bridge''' 
Cf [[ATD_557-587#Page 561|page 561:Brougham Bridge]].

'''complex knife''' 
"part real and part imaginary", and there is a "real" reproduction nearby. These are ''aides memoires'', inspirations--perhaps the dimensions beyond are literally located in imagination, mental spaces.

'''Sofia Kovalevskaia and . . . Weierstrass''' 
From 1870 Weierstrass was Kovalevskaia's mathematics tutor in Berlin. He gave Kovalevskaia private lessons twice a week for four years. Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page 500|page 500:Weierstrass and Sofia Kovalevskaia]]. 
Here, as on page 500, there is a hint of romantic involvement between the teacher and the student.

'''Lebesgue''' 
[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Lebesgue.html Henri Lebesgue] (1875-1941) was a French mathematician. He formulated the theory of measure in 1901 and the following year he gave the definition of the Lebesgue integral that generalises the notion of the Riemann integral.

'''"surface devoid of tangent planes"''' 
In other words, discontinuous functions. 
Up to the end of the 19th century, mathematical analysis was limited to continuous functions based largely on the Riemann method of integration. However, in 1902, Lebesgue extended the concept of the area below a curve to include many ''discontinuous functions'' and thus generalised the notion of the Riemann integral and revolutionised the integral calculus.

'''. . . everywhere continuous and nowhere differentiable''' 
Cf [[ATD_588-614#Page 589|page 589:everywhere continuous but nowhere differentiabl, Weierstrass function]] and [[ATD_588-614#Page 594|page 594:cirsis in mathematics]].

==Page 635==

'''The Kaiser now seeks in Mexico . . . opportunities for mischief toward the U.S.''' 
Now and for years to come: America's entry into World War One was spurred in part by the Kaiser's offer to return part of the Southwest to Mexico.

'''''Rosinenkacker''''' 
German: one who shits raisins. More commonly "Korinthenkacker", insulting term for a very pedantic person.

'''a world line...never travel''' 
A world line is a tensor, a four-dimensional vector through space ''and'' time, therefore a history. Here Gunther is describing the closing off of his future possibilities. In quantum theory observation causes possible states to 'collapse' into one measured state; hence, the past observed from the present is deterministic (it has only one possible state), but the present observed from the past has many possible states until our actions cause it to collapse into one state. Our actions will then be seen to have been inevitable, a world line [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel]. Hence: "Ach, das Schiksal".

'''''Ach, das Schicksal''''' 
German: ah, fate.

'''chloral to coffee''' 
A depressant to a stimulant, antipodal (opposite) effects on neuronal function. 

'''that terrible ecstasy known to result from unmediated observation of the beautiful''' 
Cf. Rilke, First Duino Elegy:
"For beauty is nothing but
the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,
and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains
to destroy us. Every Angel is terror." 
Rilke features strongly in V and GR (with Weissmann/Blicero). The idea that 'the sublime' involves an element of terror is fundamental to Romanticism.

May also be an allusion to what is known as "Stendhal Syndrome" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stendhal_syndrome], a psychosomatic illness that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly 'beautiful' or a large amount of art is in a single place. The term can also be used to describe a similar reaction to a surfeit of choice in other circumstances, e.g. when confronted with immense beauty in the natural world. It is said that a lot of tourists who visit Florence and Venice experience it.

==Page 636==

'''Children''' 
The preceding sections are a concise, riotous, poignant summary of life at an institute of higher learning; students and to some extent faculty are, notoriously, children at play. Yashmeen, Kit and Gunther are graduating, without diplomas but going out of the hothouse atmosphere of the University into the "real world". But given the preceding 5 pages, how real is that? 
But this is not so much about the University as about 'the Museum' on the Brocken, and the issue is really who is speaking. Who would feel qualified to call them 'children'? They're in a 'strange, underground temple' and the Brocken is an ancient, magical place. Associated especially with witches and 'the Spectre of the Brocken', an aerial phenomenon that resembles a human figure (actually the shadow of the viewer on the mist).

'''The next time you visit...''' 
The University never looks the same after graduation; also, nothing ever does: Heraclitus' dictum that no man ever steps in the same river twice. Time (''pace'' Proust) cannot be reclaimed (even if you can find the tesseract's entrance again)because even if you go back in time, you are not the same person you were; you have been changed by experience. 
Again, it's 'the Museum' that's closing. This isn't the Museum of Professor Klein at the University, mentioned on p. 632, it's a 'nocturnal equivalent' out on the Brocken.

'''"You know who I am."''' 
Cf. Leonard Cohen:
"You know who I am, you've stared at the sun.
I am the one who loves changing from nothing to one."
Some sort of god of mathematics, the curator of the museum?
The Spectre of the Brocken (seen by Slothrop and Geli in GR)? Rilke's angel, the terrible ecstasy referred to on p. 635? All three? 
Another possibility: the author. After all, the characters are his 'children', his creations. And in a fiction, the author is God. The Museum that he's closing isn't only a museum of mathematics, it's a musuem of ''narratives'' about mathematics.

==Page 637==

'''caldo tlapeno''' 
Mexican chicken vegetable soup.

'''Tampico''' 
Tampico means "the place of the otters". As a city, it is Mexico's second most important commercial port along the Gulf of Mexico, is located on the southeastern tip of Tamaulipas. The State of Tamaulipas is on the northeast side of Mexico directly south of Texas; but [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampico Tampico] is about 300 miles from the US border.

'''Chiapas''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiapas Chiapas] is a poor and largely agricultural stat in the southeast of Mexico. It is best known for its 1994 Zapatista movement.

'''"El Atildado"''' 
Spanish: the neat man. But it also suggests "the man marked with a tilde" (see page 600). When reading this passage aloud, think about how to stress the word "also" in "a gift Günther von Quassel had ''also'' been blessed with."

(In mathematical notation, the tilde "~" means "approximately" or "is proportional to," depending on country.)

==Page 638==

'''''Bohnen''''' 
German: beans

'''Maragogype''' 
As Gunther says, a variety of coffee bean, large in size, grown in Mexico and Central America [http://coffeeplus.com.au/coffees/7443.html].

'''Arbuckles''' 
Not only a brand of coffee, but a method of preparation also known as "Cowboy Coffee" similar to Turkish/Greek coffee in one boils the grounds in the water [http://www.ineedcoffee.com/02/04/cowboycoffee/]. Synonymous here with "plain old, unfancified coffee"--perhaps a swipe at 21st century coffee gourmets and at Starbucks. Another paramorphic-mirror image of the early 21st century in the early 20th. 
Cowhands expected their coffee to be ‘brown gargle”, hot, black, strong and thick enough to float a six shooter in. 
It's really, really hard to equate cowboy coffee to Greek coffee. Greek (Turkish, Serbian) coffee is made from beans ground to powder and boiled for a few seconds, usually in sugar syrup. Grounds in the cup are a virtue. Cowboy coffee starts as coarse grounds, which are boiled for several minutes (or, heaven help us, longer) and often "refined" with eggshells, which cause the grounds to settle out.

'''''cafetalero''''' 
Perhaps as in ''pistolero''; i.e. a barrista.

more likely translates as "coffee man"

'''''el otro lado''''' 
Spanish: the other side (in one sense or other).

'''bucket shop''' 
A stock swindle, in which one set of trades is reported to the customer, while the brokerage is really using the money in other, usually riskier trades ("bucketing"). A place where the public could bet on the daily motions of stock prices before 1929 and before the advent of instant stock quotes via the Internet.

Given the year, this may be related to the Panic of 1907. Steve/Ramon bought stocks on margin and when they went south he was slammed.

'''flimming''' 
Probably = indulging in flimflam (fraud, swindles)

'''''norte''''' 
north wind.

'''Plaza de Toros''' 
A bullring.

'''[S]louching away into the yellow opacity, he invited them all up to a wingding [...] that evening.''' 
Compare with T.S. Eliot's ''Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'':

<blockquote>
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes 
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening</blockquote>
[[User:Bean|remy]] 09:52, 28 December 2006 (PST)

==Page 639==

'''Rio Bravo''' 
Mexican name for the river known in the US as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Grande Rio Grande].

'''Ramos gin fizzes''' 
The original [http://www.gumbopages.com/food/beverages/ramos-gin-fizz.html Ramos gin fizz] was invented in the 1880s by Henry C. Ramos, in his bar at Meyer's Restaurant, this is one of New Orleans' most famous drinks.

'''jungles of Tehuantepec''' 
Jungles of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isthmus_of_Tehuantepec The Isthmus of Tehuantepec] in Mexico. The isthmus represents the shortest distance between the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean.

'''unnatural boom''' 
Another paramorphic mirroring of the 21st/20th centuries; tech stock boom/bust of ~2000.

'''Baku''' 
Cf [[ATD_149-170#Page_168|page 168: Baku]].

'''skeeters''' 
mosquitoes

'''adios ''chingamadre''''' 
Spanish: goodbye, motherfucker.

==Page 640==

'''Valkyrie''' 
In Norse mythology the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie Valkyries] are minor female deities.

'''Mondragón semiautomatics''' 
A self-loading rifle designed and patented by Mexican General Mondragón in 1896 — so it was only 10 years ago. It's magazine capacity was of 8-round or 10-round box, or later 30-round drum (for German service). For a picture of the refined 1908 model and its 1907 patent see [http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl26-e.htm Mondgragón M1908 rifle].

'''Springfield''' 
An American magazine-fed, bolt-action rifle. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1903_Springfield_rifle Springfield].

'''Schnecken rigs''' 
A possible anachronism, but it is hard to be sure. The German word ''Schnecken'' in the small-arms context (''Schneckenmagazin'') refers to what's called a "cylindrical magazine" in English. The best-known weapon using this magazine is the Russian PP-19 Bison submachine gun, but the Bison is based in part on Kalashnikov technology and hence could not have been developed until after World War II. [http://88.198.24.206/invisionboard/lofiversion/index.php/t20170.html The definitive online information] on the Bison not only identifies it as using the ''Schneckenmagazin'' but also contains excellent cutaway drawings of the "helical feed" system; use your browser's search function to find the word Bison. [http://world.guns.ru/smg/smg08-e.htm This page] has a photo and specs in English. The Schnecken rig is definitely ''not'' the drum magazine used with the American Thompson submachine gun in the 1920s.

'''anti-Porfiristas''' 
Opponents of the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, hence left wing. Eventually, ten years later, to become the Mexican Revolution led by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata.

'''the Pánuco''' 
''Río Pánuco'', a river in Veracruz state, east-central Mexico. It is formed by the junction of the Moctezuma and Tamuín rivers on the San Luis Potosí-Veracruz state line, the Pánuco meanders generally east-northeastward past the town of Pánuco to the Gulf of Mexico about 6 miles below Tampico.

==Page 641==

'''Mondragóns will get you through''' 
Echoes the wonderful 1970s slogan "Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope."

'''hidalgo''' 
Coin with a portrait of Miguel Hidalgo (1753 – 1811), hero of the Mexican war of independence against Spain.

'''''este . . . perdón''''' 
this . . . sorry

==Page 642==

'''La Fotinga Huasteca''' 
''Fotinga'' is Spanish: jalopy. ''Huasteca'' is a region of the Sierra Madre Oriental north of San Luis Potosí. A local equivalent to "Tijuana Taxi"?

'''''batería''''' 
Spanish: battery (collection of percussion instruments).

'''[T]hat dirty li'l back-shootin Bob Ford.''' 
Ford shot notorious outlaw Jesse James in the back on April 3, 1882; Ford himself was shotgunned to death in 1892. The event inspired one Billy Gashade to pen the verse that became the popular folk ballad "Jesse James," recorded by Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen, and many others. 
[[User:bnilsson|bnilsson]] 01:41, 2 January 2007 (EDT)

'''''resentimientos''''' 
resentments.

'''eight seconds . . . rodeo''' 
A bull rider must stay aboard for eight seconds to score.

'''cerverzas Bohemias''' 
Bohemias (brand) beers, a Mexican beer.

'''Cuervo Extra''' 
Brand of tequila.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Cuervo José Cuervo] is a well-known brand of tequila; the wikipedia does not mention ''Extra'' but ''Especial''.

==Page 643==

'''''frontera''''' 
Spanish: frontier.

'''drygulched''' 
Ambushed, betrayed.

'''Krag-Jorgensens''' 
Repeating-bolt-action rifles designed by the Norwegians Ole Krag and Erik Jorgensen in late 19th century (1886). From 1892 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krag-J%C3%B8rgensen Krag-Jorgensens] were used by the United States army as standard arms. And now it is a popular collector item.

'''Juárez''' 
''Ciudad Juárez'', or simply ''Juárez'', is a city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It stands on the Rio Grande across the border from El Paso, Texas. [http://www.juarez-mexico.com/ Juárez] is the major port of entry and transportation center of north central Mexico.

'''''Vaya con Dios, pendejo''''' 
Spanish: Go with God, asshole.

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

ATD 615-643

2008-12-29T02:07:27Z

Rstsuchiya: /* Page 624 */

ATD 1-25

2008-11-26T18:03:50Z

Rstsuchiya: /* Page 5 */ Pugnax is perhaps the sixth "LAD" of the Chums of Chance

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

==cover text==
[[image:Ispar.jpg|right|thumb|125px|An alphabet viewed through Iceland spar ('birefringence')]]
Words viewed through the translucent crystal known as 'Iceland spar,' look like this-- with multiple 'ghost' images. Note that here, the ghost images appear in multiple typefaces. The combination of traditional serif fonts with modern sans-serif fonts suggests the themes of time, past/present, etc.

==cover seal==
The seal is written in Tibetan. Someone going by the name 'Ya Sam' [http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0612&msg=112066&keywords=Namgyal posted] on the Pynchon-l message board:

"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"

The seal also bears some resemblance to the doubloon in ''Moby-Dick'' that Ahab nails to the mainmast as a prize to the first crew member to sight the white whale. Melville's description runs thus:

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

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

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

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

==Page 1==

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

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

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

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

:I wonder whether "light over the ranges" could refer to space-time along the line of the theories of general relativity, particularly since the voyage of ''inconvenience'' appears at times to take place under that conceptual framework. In addition, keeping in mind Pynchon's educational background, I would add to the above definitions and considerations that "range" is also a mathematical concept.

==Page 3==

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

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

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

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

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

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

'''"Windy City, here we come!"''' 
The nickname for Chicago, of course. The earliest known references to the "Windy City" are from 1876. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windy_City,_Origin_of_Name_(Chicago)| Origin of name "Windy City" at Wikipedia]

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

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

The commander's name also evokes Randolph St., a main thoroughfare in Chicago. Perhaps also saint(liness) and cosmos?

'''Now secure the Special Sky Detail''' 
When a naval vessel is departing from port or returning to port, a specially trained team is put in charge of the complicated process. The command is, [http://tpub.com/content/administration/12968a/css/12968a_41.htm "Now set the Special Sea Detail."] 'Once the ship is aloft and clear of ground obstructions, the command comes, "Now secure the Special Sky Detail," meaning disband the team for the time being and all return to regular duties.

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

'''''Inconvenience''''' 
Pynchon's fictional navy includes the USS Scaffold, Impulsive, 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.

In other Pynchon novels: 1) In ''Mason & Dixon'', the H.M.S. Inconvenience is the ship of Fender-Belly Bodine. [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I#inconvenience More]. 2) In ''Mason & Dixon'', the word is applied to the difficulties of an Other, other human beings as we act, interact. See citations at the ''M & D'' wiki. 2) In ''Gravity's Rainbow'': "the gift of Daedalus that allowed him [Pokler] to put as much labyrinth as required between himself and the
''inconveniences of caring''. [Italics mine] They had sold him convenience, so much of it, all on credit, and now They were collecting." (435)

'''patriotic bunting''' 
TRP reminds again that this is a very American skyship. 

AtD has many echoes of Doctorow's "Ragtime": Doctorow fictionalises the same era, including anarchists, bombings, and early Hollywood.

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

'''five-lad crew''' 
Randolph St. Cosmo (ship commander), Lindsay Noseworth (master-at-arms), Miles Blundell (handyman apprentice), Darby Suckling (factotum and mascot), and Chick Counterfly.

'''The [[Chums of Chance]]''' 
To be chummy with chance might mean lucky, fond of gambling, fond of chaos, irrational, adventurous, or anarchist. Or maybe they became chums by accident.

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].

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|More on ''The Explorigator'']]

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

'''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. See also the 2004 bestseller, ''The Devil in the White City'', a non-fiction work that details the building of the Fair, the growth of Chicago, and the first serial murderer in America.

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

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

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

==Page 4==

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

'''"Turn to"''' 
a shipboard expression, "put your back into it". Evokes the "Go to!" of Majistral and compatriots, ''V.'', chapter 11.

'''Perhaps its familiarity... rendered it temporarily invisible to you." 
Perhaps an admonition from the author that familiar things will be easily overlooked?
I think the fact that they were picnic baskets matters... TRP perhaps saying, as he seems to suggest elsewhere, that we overlook the simple pleasures too often.
:There's more to this, as becomes apparent shortly. Here are more opposites; things seen vs unseen, visible vs. invisible.

'''Chick Counterfly''' 
Rich with meaning or just another goofy Pynchon name? Some possibilities include: (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? (4) He is the only Chum we know who was "rescued" from the "real" world. Meaning there? To be counter to flying is to be earthbound, where he started and he is the one with whom the conversation about relanding on a different "earth" happens.

==Page 5==
'''picklesome''' 
Having the nature of a pickle, i.e, a boy who is inclined to mischief.

'''Pugnax''' 
'Pugnax' is Latin for, "combative, fond of fighting, stubborn, contentious" (i.e. one who is pugnacious). Pugnax's fantastic intelligence recalls another intelligent Pynchon dog, the Learned English Dog (referred to as "LED") in ''Mason & Dixon''. Perhaps Pugnax is the Chums's sixth "lad": "Learned American Dog." 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.

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

Loosely reminiscent of the V-2 rockets in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', "from the sky, which no one can "begin to try to record, much less coordinate reports of"... 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''''' 
''The Princess Casamassima'' is an 1886 novel by Henry James. It is the story of an intelligent but confused young London bookbinder, Hyacinth Robinson, who becomes involved in radical politics and a terrorist assassination plot. The novel certainly does have notable relevance in today's climate of terrorism and political violence. While the book's details are not directly applicable to current issues, the central theme admiration for the beautiful if imperfect world vs. a desire to change it through terrorism will seem all too familiar to contemporary readers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Princess_Casamassima Wikipedia] [[Princess Casamassima|Discussion of ''The Princess Casamassima'']]

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

'''Pugnax sniffed . . . as always this scent eluded him''' 
It is unclear so far why Pugnax would detect no scent from Lindsay.

'''''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" is a Dutch-sounding name suggesting "fond o' juice," "wonder juice", and "wander juice". "Heino" is a man's given name [http://www.behindthename.com/php/view.php?name=heino meaning 'home'] in German, Dutch, Finnish, and Estonian. Perhaps an allusion to the German pop star, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heino Heino].

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 7==

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

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

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

'''a bitter and unresolved "piece of business"''' 
Rather than give a proper reason for the Chums to be in the Deep South, the narrator cops out by pleading that it's "not advisable" to specify.
:It's not a cop-out, it sets the question of what is going on in the mysterious organization to which the Chums belong.

'''"the Rebellion of thirty years previous"''' 
The South called the Civil War "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" and thus the soldiers were "rebels" or "rebs." The official papers of the war have the title of "Official Records of the War of Rebellion," emphasizing that the South had no 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' series.

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

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

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

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

==Page 8==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 9==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 10==

'''rationalized into movement 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.''' 

See [[#Page 3| p.3 entry, above]] for a comparison of this passage with "single up all lines." The Rationalization/Routinization of Charisma is a common trope in Pynchon, particularly in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Routinization_of_Charisma ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

==Page 11==

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

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

==Page 12==

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

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

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

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

==Page 13==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 14==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 15==

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

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

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

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

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

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

'''Macassar oil''' 
Macassar oil is an oil used primarily by men in Victorian and Edwardian times to smooth their hair. It was advertised as containing oil from Macassar, which is the former name of Ujung Pandang, a district on the island of Celebes in Indonesia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassar_oil Wikipedia entry]
 This is why the ornamental doily-like linen cloths on the upper backs and arms of upholstered furniture were called '''''antimacassars'''''.

==Page 16==

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

This also sets up oppositions between dark vs light (of the White City), order vs disorder; good vs evil.

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

==Page 17==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 18==

'''headgear''' 
Description vaguely reminiscent of "Madame Bovary". [http://robotwisdom.com/flaubert/bovary/bovary1.html [notes]]

'''eclipse green''' 
Apparently an actual shade. [http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DIO_DRO/DIRECT.html [cite]]

'''Bindlestiffs of the Blue A.C.''' 
Bindlestiff means hobo; hence, the Hoboes of the Sky Aeronautical Club.

'''("Penny") Black''' 
The Penny Black was the world's first official adhesive postage stamp, issued by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1840. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry]; See also [[ATD_219-242#Page 231|p.231]].

'''Tzigane''' 
French for "gypsy". Also a piece by Ravel. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzigane_(Ravel) Wikipedia entry]

'''Egypt''' 
Little Egypt is the southern area of the state of Illinois in the United States of America. Named so because it has a considerable river delta and a metropolis called Cairo (KAY-roe). The region is and was sometimes called simply "Egypt," especially in the 19th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Egypt_(region) Wikipedia entry]

==Page 19==

'''goin all blue from the light of that electric fluid''' 
Their ship was beset by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo%27s_fire St. Elmo's fire,] a low-energy electrical discharge often seen on surface vessels and occasionally on aircraft. Electric charge does behave in some respects like a fluid and was long described in such terms.

'''Voices calling out together''' 
There is no reason to doubt they heard the voices, but an aural hallucination is not out of the question: a chorus of voices is one of the easiest effects to produce with a synthesizer.

[[image:balloons-paris.jpg|thumb|200px|Garçons de '71|right]]'''Garçons de '71''' 
French: The Boys of '71; During the Siege of Paris in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War Franco-Prussian War], 1870-1871, balloons were manufactured within railroad stations in Paris. The balloons were used to get mail and passengers out of Paris. The ''Garçons de '71'' are a (probably) fictional cadre of young men who operated such balloons [[Garçons de '71|Read on...]]

'''a condition of ''permanent siege''''' 
Surely no one has failed to notice what a "wartime president" is allowed to get away with. "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

'''pétroleurs de Paris''' 
An early form of Molotov cocktail thrower during the Siege of Paris. There were pétroleurs and pétroleuses.

==Page 20==

'''they'll fly wherever they're needed''' 
While the Chums obey orders from above, the Garçons de '71 follow a different imperative.

'''energy we could feel, directed personally at us''' 
Someone may be trying to influence what the Bindlestiffs do, or keep them away from the Garçons' work of mercy.

==Page 21==

'''admissions gate''' 
Apparently a break in the fence, capitalized on by freelance impresarios.

'''fifty-cent pieces''' 
Odd. According to [http://users.vnet.net/schulman/Columbian/columbian.html this remarkable Columbian Exposition site,] regular admission was just half a dollar. Maybe Lindsay and Miles could have negotiated with the midget.

==Page 22==

'''Kodaks''' 
The word Kodak was trademarked in 1888, and the first Kodak camera was sold with the slogan, "You press the button - we do the rest." In 1891, the company released the first daylight-loading camera, so film could be changed without a darkroom. Kodaks would have been a novelty at the fair in 1893.

'''half-light . . . in the interests of mercy . . . the safety of the lights''' 
Interesting contrast suggesting a tradeoff between comfort/solace in the shadows and safety in the bright light.

'''Isandhlwana''' 
Isandlwana is an isolated hill in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa. On January 22, 1879, it was the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, where over 20,000 Zulu warriors defeated a contingent of British soldiers in the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War. Almost the entire column of about 1,200 British soldiers was killed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isandhlwana [Wikipedia]] You will find a chapter on Isandhlwana in any book that has the words "military" and "blunders" in the title.

==Page 23==

'''Tarahumara''' 
Indian tribe of Northern New Mexico, in the Sierra Madres, known for cave-dwelling in the late 19th century. [[Tarahumare_Indians|About the Tarahumara]]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara [Wikipedia]]

'''"geek"''' 
A geek's act comprised things no one would do who had not sunk all the way to the bottom of the carnie world: eating live creatures, throwing fits, and so forth. Much like the television show "Fear Factor," but sad rather than stultifying.

'''monte''' 
Three-card monte.

==Page 24==

'''the curse of Scotland''' 
A term used in poker, bridge and various other card games for the nine of diamonds. Dates from 1710. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_Scotland [Wikipedia]]

'''like the electricity coming on... how everything fits together, connects. It doesn't last long, though.''' 
From something as random as calling out a card trick comes this extremely profound quote by Miles Blundell (full quote edited here). The heart of this quote/thought seems to be crucial.

What Miles describes is also the symptoms of a mild seizure - could he be epileptic? Epileptics were often credited with shamanic or prophetic powers, and many sightings of religious figures have been attributed to seizures. On [[#Page 4|page 4]], Miles is also said to suffer from "confusion in his motor processes", which may be related.

Although seizures are electrical discharges from the brain, epileptics rarely describe sensing electricity. They see altered light, hear altered sounds, or feel auras, though usually described as inside of themselves, not around them. They also feel confusion, not clarity. The full description seems to better represent that of a "peak experience", or a transcendental state. I also wonder whether, "Pretty soon, I'm just back to tripping over my feet again", refers to more earth-bound means of attaining mind-altered states.

This is one of several early suggestions that Miles and Lew Basnight experience similar states.

'''Cracker Jack''' 
First sold at the at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Jack [Wikipedia]]

'''New Levee district''' 
Chicago's redlight district c1890. [http://www.ipsn.org/genesis.htm [cite]]

'''Epworth League''' 
A Methodist youth organization founded in 1889. [http://www.southernmethodistchurch.org/id48.htm [cite]]

==Page 25==

'''Haymarket bomb''' 
The Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago may be the origin of international May Day observances and in popular literature inspired the caricature of "a bomb-throwing anarchist." The causes of the incident are still controversial, although deeply polarized attitudes separating the business class and the working class in late 19th century Chicago are generally acknowledged as having precipitated the tragedy and its aftermath. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_bombing Wikipedia entry].

'''if the Governor decides to pardon that gang of anarchistic murderers''' 
In May of 1886, 350,000 workers, including 70,000 in Chicago were taking to the streets to rally for the eight hour work day. After four workers were killed by the police on May 3, the anarchist leaders in Chicago called for a meeting in Haymarket Square. Although the rally was peaceful, the police came in on horseback to break it up and an unknown individual in the crowd hurled a homemade bomb into the air. After the explosion, which killed a policeman, the police opened fire on the crowd. Subsequently, the anarchist leaders deemed responsible for the rally were arrested and tried for the murder of the policeman. The Eight men were convicted of the bombing and seven of them sentenced to death. Governor Richard J. Oglesby commuted two death sentences to life. Four were hanged and a fifth committed suicide. A later governor, John P. Altgeld, pardoned the three survivors on June 26, 1893, concluding that all eight of them were innocent. The last words of anarchist August Spies before he was hanged were 'The time will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you strangle today.' Two very good books on the Haymarket Riot and the events surrounding it include The Haymarket Tragedy by Paul Avrich and Death In The Haymarket by James Green.

'''mixture of contempt and pity''' 
This is ''definitely'' not from one of the Chums' adventure stories.

'''embonpoint''' 
Convexity of body; what used to be called a "prosperous" look.

'''duck soup''' 
Meaning "an easy task," but also the name of a Marx Bros. movie. Perhaps relevant, given the cameo by Groucho promised on the book sleeve. Many of the Marx Brothers early movies had animal references in the title: Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup. The titles usually had nothing at all to do with the plot, although they contributed to the lunatic nature of the comedy. The expression 'Horse Feathers' is used a few times later on in Against The Day.

==References==
<references />

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