Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 57-80

2008-03-18T23:06:48Z

Sideming: /* Page 61 */

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

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a tattered [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236 Tommy up on White Sheet Ridge]whose left eye is damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

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

ATD 57-80

2008-03-18T23:02:44Z

Sideming: /* Page 61 */

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

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_735-760#Page_741 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 741], insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#meroving ''V.'', p.237] has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_17-19#Page_18 ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.18] where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner". Also, as Pudding makes his way to Katje he passes a Tommy with his left eye damaged.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp. [[#ATD_26-56#Page_30|30]], [[#Page 58|58]], [[#Page 64|64]] and [[#Page 75|75]]).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon.

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.
:Actually, in opera, the orchestra plays in the pit in front of the stage. The use of "band" may just be colloqial, although tenor sax in an opera orchestra ''does'' seem a bit odd...

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

'''The skies were interrupted by dark gray storm clouds with a flow like molten stone, swept and liquid, and light that found its way through... 
This whole paragraph is one majestic passage of sumptuous Pynchonian Poetry. Full of beauty, dignity and glorious sentimental value: nostalgic, evocative and yet so romantic. One of those things anyone will miss after vanishing from human existence. Yes! Life is worth fighting for. Its a Gift. The thing is people are too blind and stupid to see it. We wonder why? ($$$) Merle sees hope and life worth living through Dahlia presence. You could write millions of books from this little vessel ending: 
'''They lived for different futures, but they were each other's unrecognized halves, and what fascination between them did come to pass was lit up, beyond question, with grace. 
Immutable! ''The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace ~ Mary, star of the sea'' James Joyce Ulysses passage comes to mind.

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs of so-called reality.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.

[http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ Mason and Dixon's] survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

The Traverse family plays a significant role in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Vineland'']. Frenesi Gates' grandfather is Reef Traverse, thus her great-grandfather is Webb. [[Traverse Family Tree]]

See note on [[#Page 62|p.62]] in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

Webb Traverse's homophonic name paronomasia connects to the rhetorical idea of '''World-System''' in [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|Page 33]] and revolutionary internet geeks in pre-911 America at the turn of this century. Yeah, the ones who usually indulge good electronic downtown music and intellectually happy conversations.

'''bloviate''' 
to speak or write verbosely and windily (from Merriam-Webster)

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the ''Harry Potter'' series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Philosopher's_Stone ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''] to ''Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all. Most likely they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_Stone Wikipedia on the Philosopher's Stone]

:This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.

'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

What about Pro-Soul?

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad. Just like the smell of pesticide in subway stations near any ghetto of every single city in America.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

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

ATD 615-643

2008-03-18T22:59:36Z

Sideming: /* Page 632 */

:'''<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 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 ''Reimann 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 inauguraed 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's 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 finnaly 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 physcist 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 Guld 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==

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

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

'''Jew Cantor, the ''Beast of Halle'', . . . to demolish the very foundations of mathermatics''' 
Greg Cantor (1845-1918) taught mathematics at University of Halle from 1869-1918. (Cf [[ATD_588-614#Page 593|page 593:Greg Cantor]]). He indtroduced 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.

'''"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.]

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

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

'''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==

'''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==

'''Knipfler...von Imbiss''' 
Neither one existed. Imbiss is German: snacks, fast food.

'''''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.

'''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 th eintegral 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:crsis 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.

==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.

'''''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 Guld 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 Guld 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''' 
a kind of tequila ?

==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 trnasportation center of north central Mexico.

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

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

ATD 57-80

2007-12-17T21:49:32Z

Sideming: /* Page 61 */

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

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in ''V.'' (9.II) has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (p. 18, 26-27) where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk -- among the items described are "lost pieces of different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner".

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon. 

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?

Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
He also traverses moral boundaries: he kills innocents.

Mason and Dixon's survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

See note on p.62 in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the Harry Potter series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' to ''H.P. & the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all.

My guess is they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." 

This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 14:43, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

The Philosopher's Stone and alchemy discussion may refer to LSD. "...acid and so on..." (78)
'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too—these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

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

ATD 57-80

2007-12-17T19:10:06Z

Sideming: /* Page 61 */

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

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in ''V.'' (9.II) has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch. 
Cf. ''Gravity's Rainbow'' where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk -- among the items described are a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle of an amber-colored left eye of a Weimarian. (GR p.12)

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon. 

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?

Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
He also traverses moral boundaries: he kills innocents.

Mason and Dixon's survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

See note on p.62 in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the Harry Potter series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' to ''H.P. & the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all.

My guess is they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." 

This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 14:43, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

The Philosopher's Stone and alchemy discussion may refer to LSD. "...acid and so on..." (78)
'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too—these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

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

ATD 57-80

2007-12-17T19:07:40Z

Sideming: /* Page 61 */

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

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in ''V.'' (9.II) has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch.
Cf. ''Gravity's Rainbow'' where we first visit Tyrone Slothrop's desk -- among the items described are a few pieces of a crossword puzzle of an amber-colored left eye of a Weimarian. (GR p.12)

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon. 

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?

Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
He also traverses moral boundaries: he kills innocents.

Mason and Dixon's survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

See note on p.62 in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the Harry Potter series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' to ''H.P. & the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all.

My guess is they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." 

This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 14:43, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

The Philosopher's Stone and alchemy discussion may refer to LSD. "...acid and so on..." (78)
'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too—these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

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

ATD 219-242

2007-12-14T22:35:12Z

Sideming: /* Page 219 */

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

==Page 219==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Supporting Pomopaul's speculation, in CoL49, TRP states at least twice that the Pacific Ocean is "the hole left by the moon's tearing-free and the monument to her exile." (CoL49, p.41)

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 220==

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

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

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

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

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

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

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

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

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

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

==Page 221==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and on and on.....

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

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

==Page 222==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 223==

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

==Page 224==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 225==

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

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

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

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

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

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

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

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

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

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

==Page 226==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 227==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 228==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 229==

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

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

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

==Page 230==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 231==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 232==

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

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

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

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

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

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

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

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

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

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

==Page 234==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 235==

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

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

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

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

==Page 236==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 238==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 239==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 240==

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

==Page 241==

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

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

==Page 242==

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

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

 

==References==
<references />

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

ATD 946-975

2007-12-07T00:46:16Z

Sideming: /* Page 956 */

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

==Page XX==

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

==Page 946==

'''Orpheus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus Wikipedia] entry for Orpheus, click on Death of Eurydice when you get there.

'''Young woman, there is money everywhere''' 
Even this spiritual expedition has an accountant. 
Also, Pluto, Lord of the Underworld - with all its mineral wealth - is the original plutocrat.

'''''Interdikt'' line''' 
That horizontal line on the map again.

'''Veliko Târnovo''' 
North central Bulgaria on north side of Stara Planina range. Just for Bulgarian Pynchon uses at least two transliteration systems; where you see the letter ''â'' in this system, another will have ''u.'' Present-day transliteration from Bulgarian uses the letter ''ǔ.'' The sound resembles the U in "bump"; it's represented by Ъ in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet.

'''''ruchenitsa''''' 
Bulgarian: a folk dance. The ''u'' represents the "uh" sound.

'''St. Tryphon's Day''' 
St. Tryphon or Trypho is the protector of fields. Feast day is Feb. 1 in the Orthodox calendar; at the time of the action the western and eastern calendars had drifted 12 or 13 days apart, throwing the Gregorian (western) date toward mid-February.

==Page 947==

'''Dimyat''' 
Bulgarian wine made from grapes grown near the Black Sea coast.

'''Misket''' 
Muscatel wine.

'''May, I think''' 
1912. The date gets pegged a few pages further on.

'''Kazanlâk''' 
Central Bulgaria, south slope of Stara Planina range, halfway between Plovdiv and Veliko Târnovo.

'''Rozovata Dolina''' 
Bulgarian: rose valley. The Dimitrov Dam (completed in 1955, so not yet in existence at this point in AtD) may have filled part of the valley with a reservoir. Mild confusion: The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Valley%2C_Bulgaria Wikipedia entry] gives the Bulgarian name as ''Rosova dolina.''

'''between the Balkan range and the Sredna Gora''' 
Mountain ranges running east-west across Bulgaria, the Balkan (Stara Planina) to the north. ''Stara Planina'' = Old Range, ''Sredna Gora'' = Central Mountains.

This is, in fact, Eastern Rumelia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Rumelia].

'''''mutri''''' 
Bulgarian, literally: mugs, wry faces.

==Page 948==

'''Petrich''' 
Extreme southwestern Bulgaria, near the Bulgaria/Greece/Macedonia triple point.

'''on Macedonian border''' 
Today's maps reflect another century of boundary fights and negotiations. Petrich is not right on the present border, for example.

'''between Plovdiv and Petrich''' 
Southwest quarter of Bulgaria.

'''the music stopped two years ago''' 
I.e., in 1910.

==Page 949==

'''called out to, by their diminutives''' 
You can make a list of "nicknames" from most any Slavic name. In Russian, for example, ''Aleksandr'' is informally called Alyosha, Sasha, Sashenka, etc. The irregulars are boys from the neighborhood and get addressed as such.

'''crossing ''R. damascena'' with ''R. alba''''' 
Species of roses. The species most used in attar-making is ''Rosa damascena.''

R. damascena is named after the Syrian city of Damascus, which, in 1912-13, was still part of the Ottoman Empire. R. alba is the white rose.
Cross-breeding these makes the perfect Bulgarian flower, part Ottoman, part Christian; the blending of two worlds.

==Page 950==

'''named the baby Ljubica''' 
Serbo-Croatian: violet (the flower). Commemorating Cyprian's toilette at Carnesalve, I suggest; see pages 881 and 891. '''The name is pronounced LYOO-beet-sah.''' In light of the musical theme, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ljubica_Mari%C4%87 Ljubica Marić], b. 1909, considered to be one of the most original composers to emerge from Yugoslavia, should be noted.

'''toroidal black iron antenna . . . one of those Tesla rigs''' 
I.e., made to transmit or receive energy wirelessly. 
Sounds like another [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower Wardenclyffe Tower]

==Page 951==

'''''...these are voices of the dead. Edison and Marconi both feel that the syntonic wireless can be developed as a way to communicate with departed spirits.''''' 
According to [http://skepdic.com/evp.html this website], Edison did not rule out this possibility, but what he says does not sound so enthusiastic either. Still this links up with the seance in the Swiss alps. Also interesting: In an article for the ''North American Review'' in June, 1878, Edison lists the recording of "the last words of dying persons" among ten possible uses for his newly invented phonograph. 

'''R.U.S.H.''' 
The Canadian band Rush (see note p. 708, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_(band)#Discography]) has a song on the 1981 album ''Moving Pictures'' called ''YYZ'' (Why Yz-les-Bains?). (YYZ is actually the airport code for Toronto, Canada).

'''Mihály Vámos''' 
Hungarian name, but ''vámos'' is also Spanish = go!

'''''Szia, haver''''' 
Hungarian: Hello buddy!

==Page 952==

'''''Zabraneno''''' 
Bulgarian: the forbidden. Same meaning as ''Interdikt.''

'''an attar-factory rep''' 
Attar: a fragrant essential oil or perfume obtained from flowers; attar of roses, a fragrant extract of the petals. And indeed, rose oil is the most important commodity produced in the Rozovata Dolina, with Kazanlak being the trade center for the product.

'''Philippopolis''' 
Philippopolis is now Plovdiv, located 40-50 miles south of the valley. Plovdiv was Philippopolis in 342 B.C., when it was conquered by Philip II of Macedonia and by the 1st century A.D. had undergone 2 more name changes: to Pulpudeva and to Thrimonzium. The name [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plovdiv Plovdiv] first appeared around 1369.

That brings up an important point. There's all kinds of evidence in ''AtD'' that Pynchon has appropriated history as he found it in contemporary sources. And it's a good bet that much of the published history came from Britain. Writers today like to use "local" names, but that wasn't so in earlier times. The 1911 ''Brittanica,'' for example, has entry after entry under "Henry" for monarchs who went by Heinrich, Henri, Enrique and so forth. This now-unfashionable conservatism, picked up and repeated in ''AtD,'' means we shouldn't expect to see a reference to Sevastopol'; look instead for Sebastopol. Similarly we'd see Budweis instead of České Budějovice if the subject of brewing arose. And Philippopolis follows the pattern.

'''casemate''' 
In a fortification, an armored room or emplacement for artillery. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casemate Wikipedia]

==Page 953==

'''it's only chlorine . . . you get phosgene''' 
Accurate account of the process then used to produce phosgene. Today an activated carbon catalyst replaces the sunlight.

'''''motoros''''' 
Cyclist, biker, referring here to Mihaly Vamos.

'''light is..the destructive agent''' 
Thematic,of course, when non-natural light is created....studies back to
'city illumination'. Cf. Telluride chapter.

'''Fear in lethal form''' 
This is strongly reminiscent of the "Panic fear" (p. 151) unleashed by the Vormance Expedition's digging up of the buried alien - the "incendiary Figure."

'''millions of candles per square inch''' 
Not easily converted to other units of measurement. Since the International Candle was defined as the light output from a specified wax candle, imagine a source emitting as much light as a million candles. Then imagine the sky covered with such sources, one to a square inch. No, it's unimaginably bright—disorienting, blinding, probably scorching. Recalls Olbers' paradox: in an infinite universe, we should see a star in every direction ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox wikipedia]; pay attention to the Edgar Allan Poe quotation).

'''Shipka''' 
A very small village in Bulgaria's Central Balkan Mountains, near a mountain pass of strategic importance, which connects northern Bulgaria to Upper Thrace (East Rumelia). It was the site of a battle between the Russian army and the Ottoman Turks in 1877.

'''''Sok szerencsét''''' 
Hungarian: good luck.

==Page 954==

'''Thrace''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrace Thrace] is a region in southeast Europe spreading over southern Bulgaria, northwestern Greece, and European Turkey.

'''Varna''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varna Varna] is a major seaport of Bulgaria on the Black Sea Coast. It is the third largest city of the country and a primary tourist destination. One of the oldest cities in Europe and site of the alleged world's oldest gold treasure (5th millennium BC radiocarbon dating).

==Page 955==

'''''folie à trois''''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux ''Folie à deux''] describes delusional behavior displayed by two people; here it's by three. With ''folie à deux'', the crucial point is that the sum is more than the parts: behaviors or actions only occur because of the two people interacting.

'''hebephrenic''' 
Involving delusions, hallucinations, pointless and childish behavior.

'''raptors''' 
birds of prey.

'''Sliven''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sliven Sliven] is a town east of Kazanlâk, nearly the geographic center of the country, Bulgaria.

'''the ''Halkata''''' 
Bulgarian ''khalka'': ring. The suffix ''-ta'' is a definite article. An existing formation in Bulgaria [http://noe2002.hit.bg/index1.html pic].

'''Ulitsa Rakovsky''' 
Bulgarian: Rakovsky Street. Georgi Rakovsky (1821-67), Bulgarian freedom fighter.

==Page 956==

'''''krâchma''''' 
Pronounced like CRUTCH-mah. Bulgarian: tavern.

'''Byal Sredets''' 
The [http://www.alibaba.com/catalog/11426692/Bulgarian_Cigarettes.html Sredets or Sredetz] lines of cigarettes are still produced. ''Byal'' just means "white"; Byal Sredets was (speculatively) a sub-brand.

After not too much searching, no cigar(-ettes) but [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byala%2C_Varna_Province Byala] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sredets Sredets] are towns near Varna, and silly speculation: to a non-Bulgarian English speaker, Byal Sredets, kind of looks like it could sound like "buy all cigarettes," if you pronounce Sredets as sir-e-dets.

:Byala and Sredets are not in [http://www.bulgartabac.bg/l_plants.html major tobacco-growing regions] of Bulgaria. If we have to try parsing the brand name (and we do), ''Sredets'' may refer to the [[ATD_946-975#Page_947|Sredna Gora]] growing region. 
Sredets is the old Bulgarian name of Sofia, and now a municipality within the city.

Byal is also evocative of beyul, Baikal and bi-locale.

Please see [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Binarisms_Discussion Binarisms Discussion] for more on Byal as white on the Black Sea, and other dualities in AtD.

'''''Zdrave . . . kakvo ima?''''' 
Bulgarian: Good health . . . what's the matter?

'''Bogomils''' 
Heretical sect in Balkans with doctrinal links to Cathars and Albigensians. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomilism Bogomilism]arose out of a combination of pre-Christian Bulgarian gnosticism and a peasant reaction against oppression from the institutional church and state. Essentially anarchist in outlook, it holds that there is a duality in the creation of the world. Social structures derive from Satan, an Angel (of Death ) and eldest child of God, who was sent to Earth. Only things that spring from the human soul are truly good. Therefore, the established church, state and all social heirarchies are undermined. Bogomils refused to pay taxes, to work, or to fight for the state. Anarchism with a theological bent, Bogomilism was popular in Bulgaria and the Balkans from 950 to about 1396.

Much of what is known about the Bogomils comes from the antithetical polemic with the "interesting" name ''Against the Heretics'' written not by St. Cosmas, or Randolph St. Cosmo, but Presbyter Cosmas, also refered to in some places as St. Cosmo (Kozma), a 10th century Bulgarian church official.

Of further note, [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Bogomils Bogomil propaganda] followed "the mountain chains of central Europe, starting from the Balkans and continuing along the Carpathian Mountains, the Alps and the Pyrenees..." and so might be called, ''The Light Over the Ranges."

'''''Pavlikeni''''' 
Sources differ on the meaning: (1) Bulgarian Catholics; (2) members of a heretical sect with dualist (Manichean) doctrines influenced by beliefs of the Bogomils. Also known as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulicianism Paulicianism].

Something interesting is going on here. There are two different meanings of the word Pavlikeni which pivot on the date TRP gives in the text, 1650. Originally the Pavlikeni were synonomous with the Bogomils. Churches all over Europe and Russia , Orthodox and Roman, persecuted the sect and this ended in the Balkans only when the Turks conquered the area. So from 950 to about 1389 (430 years!!) they were oppressed. From 1389 to 1650 (300 years more) the Bogomils lived peacefully under the Turks as Pavlikeni (still heretics). Then in 1650 the Roman Church gathered them into its fold. No less than 14 villages in the area embraced Catholicism. Questions: 1) Why did the Pavlikeni all of a sudden "convert" after 700 years (!!) of persecution by The Church? For protection from Turkish oppression? 2) How was this allowed under Turkish rule? 3) Why was the Roman church in a largely Orthodox corner of Europe?

The monastery Cyprian joins is pure Bogomil. It did not convert (sell out?) to Rome in 1650, but continues its heresy.

One more point. It is interesting that in the beginning of AtD (p. 10), TRP writes that stockyard workers were "overwhelmingly of the Roman faith." But here, Cyprian finds redemption from slaughter "there will be no more wars" in the arms of a Bogomil monastery. It appears that TRP is making the very subtle claim that the Church of Rome is not only a party to the great power institutions in history, but like them based on the blood of Christ, cows and the bovine mentality of soulless citizen/laborers. Only those who resist Rome and worldly power structures in general are truly free and they are the ensouled, the heretical, the Anarchist.

Seconded. TRP was raised a Catholic and was said to go to Mass regularly
at Cornell. From V. to AtD, his perspective on historic Catholicism is ...richer(?).... than a "simple" Catholic believer's, at least.

In the final section of ''V.'', "epilogue 1919," Father Fairing, S.J., after stating that anything that tugs in the direction of anarchism is anti-Christian in protestation to Stencil's views on Paracletian Politics (which seem highly relevant to themes and scenes in AtD) goes on to say:
"The Church has matured, after all. Like a young person she has passed from promiscuity to authority. You are nearly two millenia out-of-date." (p. 533)

This passage, written about 45 years ago seems relevant to Cyprian's monastery. The Bogomils were a continuation of the church's "promiscuous" period "maturing", apparently in this case, only after centuries of persecution. Cyprian remains religiously promiscuous.

'''Hebrus River . . . Maritza''' 
The Maritza or Maritsa flows west to east, draining Bulgaria between the Stara Planina (Balkan range) and the Rhodopes, then turns south and west to the Aegean Sea. The port at its mouth, in Greece, is called Evros, a name derived from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrus Hebrus].

==Page 957==

'''Manichæans''' 
cf. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_429-459#Page_437 page 437] and [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M the index at M].

'''Pythagorean ''akousmata''''' 
"Avoid beans." [[A|See explanation in the "A" alphabetical page.]] 

In ''V.'' TRP mentions ''The White Goddess'' by Robert Graves. The Pythagorean mystics, Graves writes, derived their bean aversion from the Pelasgians of Samos (Greece) which puts them in close connection with the Orphic and Druidic.

The flower of the bean is white like a spirit. Beans grow spirally "up its prop" symbolizing resurrection or reincarnation. Ghosts contrived to be reborn as humans by entering into beans and being eaten by women (Pliny mentions this). Eating beans somehow ran the risk of frustrating a dead parent's wish for progeny or rebirth. Beans were also thrown behind one's back to ward of ghosts. 

By contrast, Platonists excused their aversion on the grounds that beans caused flatulence. "Life was breath, and to break wind after eating beans was a proof that one had eaten a living soul -- in Greek and Latin the same words, ''pneuma'' and ''anima''," words that also meant gust of wind, breath, soul, spirit. Can wind have a spiritual significance in AtD?

:Does this give a twist to the meaning of Chicago as "The Windy City" at the beginning of the book -- Chicago as the "City of the Dead," especially as the cattle drives are pictured as being a gradual reduction of choice and freedom that ends in the Cartesian grid of the city and finally the killing-floor of the slaughterhouse?

Graves goes on to say that the bean belonged to the "White Goddess" who he identified with the Roman goddess Cranaë, the 'harsh or stony one,' a Greek surname of the Goddess Artemis. Artemis owned a hill-temple near Delphi in which the office of priest was always held by a boy for a five year term, and a cypress-grove, the Cranaeum, just outside Corinth. Cranaë is etymologically related to the Gaelic 'cairn' -- a pile of stones erected on a mountain-top. Can Cyprian be related to the cypress grove and to Artemis, the barren goddess?

A further note, on p. 17, Chick Counterfly recounts the schemes he and his father worked in order to keep beans in the pot. They are bean-eating worldly men vs. the other-worldly non-eaters of T.W.I.T. and the Bogomils.

'''hegumen''' 

In the Greek Orthodox Church, head of a religious community. (And, silly aside, legumen, in Latin, means bean).

'''Tetractys''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_219|page 219: Tetractys]].

'''Zalmoxis''' 
This passage could almost have been drawn from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zalmoxis Wikipedia entry.]

'''Krâstova Gora''' 
Bulgarian: name of a mountain or range. [http://www.discover-bulgaria.com/Articles.aspx?ProductID=268&CategoryID=0&pg=3&srchString= Krâstova Gora] means "Mountain (or Forest) of the Cross" and is in the Rhodopes. The monk Grigorii, known as “the Rhodopean Paisii”, has named in his sermons the Central Rhodopes as the “Mountain of the Cross” or “Forest of the Cross”. The Russian Paisi is mentioned on [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_892-918#Page_904 page 904].

Is this sentence the orphan of some narrative that's been cut? Disclosure of the baby's sex is on p. 949 and has neither a mountain nor a church in it.

'''narthex''' 
Lobby or portico of a church.

==Page 958==

'''sympathetic spirits who had dug spaces beneath their own precarious dwellings to harbor her for a night or two at a time''' 
Compare the annotations on ''stranniki'' and ''podpol'niki'' [[ATD_644-677#Page_663|(page 663).]]

'''body mass''' 
Cyprian became aware of his body as "mass and velocity and cold gravity" on page 837.

'''Bernadette o' Lourdes''' 
young woman who is reputed to have seen visions of the Mother of the Divine at Lourdes in France. See Wikipedia.

==Page 959==

'''Oh, there won't be any war''' 
Cyprian's self-discovered religiousness seems to make him overly optimistic--blind--to historical reality.

'''σχημα''' 
In English, ''schema.''

'''Νυξ''' 
In English, ''Nux'' or ''Nyx.'' cf Brides of Night below.

'''Talking, for women, is a form of breathing''' 
Compare p. 501: "a hundred women . . . all silent." Tying Noellyn/Yashmeen to Cyprian?

'''What is it that is born of light?''' 
Cyprian trying to make sense of his epiphany on page 953. 
Phosgene. 
Nicene Creed, "light of light, true God of true God, begotten not made"

==Page 960==

'''Hesychasts''' 
Contemplative hermits in Orthodox Church; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasts see Wikipedia entry.]
From the concise Brittanica: Hesychasm
in Eastern Christianity, type of monastic life in which practitioners seek divine quietness (Greek hesychia) through the contemplation of God in uninterrupted prayer. Such prayer, involving the entire human being—soul, mind, and body—is often called “pure,” or “intellectual,” prayer or the Jesus prayer. St. John Climacus, one of the greatest writers of the Hesychast tradition, wrote, “Let the remembrance of Jesus be present with each breath, and then you will know the value of the hesychia.” In the late 13th century, St. Nicephorus the Hesychast produced an even more precise “method of prayer,” advising novices to fix their eyes during prayer on the “middle of the body,” in order to achieve a more total attention, and to “attach the prayer to their breathing.” This practice was violently attacked in the first half of the 14th century by Barlaam the Calabrian, who called the Hesychasts omphalopsychoi, or people having their souls in their navels.

The Hesychast usually experiences the contemplation of God as light, the Uncreated Light of the theology of St Gregory Palamas. The Uncreated Light that the Hesychast experiences is identified with the Holy Spirit. Experiences of the Uncreated Light are allied to the 'acquisition of the Holy Spirit'. Orthodox Tradition warns against seeking ecstasy as an end in itself. Hesychasm is a traditional complex of ascetical practices embedded in the doctrine and practice of the Orthodox Church and intended to purify the member of the Orthodox Church and to make him ready for an encounter with God that comes to him when and if God wants, through God's Grace (note earlier mention of an "anti-Grace"). Very different from attainment of Nirvana.

'''Transfiguration of Christ''' 
See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfiguration_of_Jesus Transfiguration].

'''''There came a cloud and overshadowed them''''' 
Luke 9.34.

'''''omphalopsychoi''''' 
see above. "Hesychasts condemned as "having their souls in their navel".

'''Shekhinah''' 
The Kabbala calls this Spirit, Shekkinah, which, according to Harold Bloom, refers to the "feminine element in Yahweh." Shekkinah is God's maternal nature, Mother God, who broods over the Earth searching for and gathering the world's orphans and outcasts under her wings. 
The author of Genesis tells us this Spirit hovered over the earth before creation. That which dwells, that which abides.

'''shiny black accoutrements''' 
[[ATD_678-694#Page_678|See the delicious annotation to page 678.]]

'''Cosmas of Jerusalem''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Cosmas See the concise Wikipedia article.]

==Page 961==

'''metempsychosis''' 
Habitation by a soul of a different (or new) body; non-Orthodox concept related to reincarnation.

'''[i]f self-similarity proves to be a built-in property of the universe''' 
As it does seem to be. Example: a map of streams draining the side of a mountain is similar (though on a different scale) to a map of rivers draining half a continent.
:any mountain,any continent? 
:Um, no, it was an inexact statement, wasn't it. ''In a fairly broad sense,'' the way rivers join to form larger and larger streams is mirrored by the way tiny erosion channels join to form larger and larger gullies. Of course there's some continent that doesn't follow the pattern (Antarctica at present a pretty fair instance), and some mountain too (though I don't think of one offhand), but self-similarity is a widely encountered behavior. 
Moon and electron and sleep, death as text examples, are 'universe(al)' analogies.
:That is very much to the point, but self-similarity is stronger than analogy. "As above, so below" covers analogies but also behaviors at different scales that follow from common causes.

'''Brides of Night''' 
A name (used by whom?) of the order Cyprian seeks to join. 
This 'order' seems to be a creation of Pynchon's, an important metaphorical one. In Hesychasism, massive humility is stressed, as is the
linked notion that God is light and can never be known (not even after the Beatific Vision). So, a Bride of Night is a humble 'nun' who is married to the darkness of the Unknown God. 

A thought: The Brides of Night (in white robes?) is a religious parody of those "Riders of Night" in white robes who appear from time to time in the novel, viz., the Ku Klux Klan. And whereas Cyprian fleeing the world finds asylum with the Brides of Night; Chick Counterfly fleeing the riders of the night finds asylum with the Chums of Chance.

Cf: p. 959 regarding the Orthodox schema of initiation and nyx. 
This is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_negativa ''Via Negativa''] or Apophathic theology which seeks to describe God by negation, by what cannot be said or ascribed to God. Hesychast Gregory Palamas followed this path as did many Eastern Christian fathers. Before them it can be found in Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Hesiod and Plotinus. Indeed the theogony of Nyx given on p.959 is almost directly from Hesiod, where chaos is likened to anarchos. The via negativa is a mainstay of Christian mysticism (The Cloud of Unknowing, Dark Night of the Soul, Meister Eckart); Vedanta (Upanishads) "neti, neti"; Buddhism -- anatta, nirvana; Taoism -- the uncarved block, "the way that can be spoken is not the true way," empty but inexhaustible; and Islam -- [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahab_al-Din_Suhrawardi Shurarwardi], who speaks of the pure immaterial light, the luminous darkness.

==Page 962==

'''don't look back . . . or he'll take you below . . . down to America''' 
Orpheus and Eurydice again. And Lot and his wife, from Book 2.

'''And Cyprian was taken behind a great echoless door''' 
Cyprian's final transcendence of desire—which at one point we might have taken as a ''renunciation'' of desire—prompts a review of how desire itself has been presented in ''AtD.'' See text and annotations:
*Harald the Ruthless learns about desire and the forsaking of desire, [[ATD_119-148#Page_127|p. 127]]
*Scarsdale Vibe experiences a kind of desire for Kit, [[ATD_149-170#Page_158|p. 158]]
*Contemplating Yashmeen's neck, Cyprian experiences desire "of rather a specialized sort," [[ATD_489-524#Page_499|p. 499]]
*"Unreflective desire" rules Cyprian's days on the Lagoon, [[ATD_695-723#Page_708|p. 708]]
*Aspects of desire, or rather his responses to it, define Auberon Halfcourt's "two creatures resident within the same life," [[ATD_748-767#Page_759|759]]
*Cyprian first experiences a "release from desire," [[ATD_821-848#Page_839|p. 839]]
*Cyprian displays an "appetite for sexual abasement" with "a religious surrender of the self"; Yashmeen sees salvation in his surrender, [[ATD_864-891#Page_876|pp. 876-77]]
*Cyprian's transcendence of desire will be Yashmeen's reprieve from "political forms" and "utopian dreams," [[ATD_919-945#Page_942|p. 942]]

==Page 963==

'''Plain of Thrace . . . Rhodopes . . . Pirin range''' 
From the convent/castle around Sliven in the Stara Planina or Sredna Gora, south across the Maritsa valley, southwest across the Rhodope mountain range, southwest through the higher Pirins. Close to the present Bulgarian-Greek-Macedonian borders, on a generally southwestward track to the southwest corner of Bulgaria.

'''To move through it would be to struggle against time...''' 
Time and Light are linked by Relativity Theory. According to the equations, as an object approaches the speed of light, time dilates. The speed of light cannot be exceeded; time speeds up to accomodate any such attempt. (Doesn't time slow down? I.e., from the point of view of an observer not on the speeding object, doesn't a clock on the object run slow?) This has nothing directly to do with the ''brightness'' of the light, however; light of whatever intensity travels at the same speed.

'''In mid-October . . . invaded Macedonia''' 
1912, First Balkan War. The text does not mention Montenegro, which was active as well. Insofar as war aims played any role, everybody aimed to get Turkey out of the Balkans, but there was little unity beyond that. 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Balkan_War The First Balkan War] (1912-1913) was fought between the members of the Balkan League—Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro—and the Ottoman Empire. The league was formed under Russian auspices in the spring of 1912 to take Macedonia away from Turkey. Montenegro opened hostilities with Turkey on October 8, 1912 and the other members of the league delcared war on October 18. The Ottoman's army collapsed and disintegrated in first two months' fighting. The war officially ended with the signing in London on May 30, 1913 a peace treaty in which the Ottoman Empire lost almost all of its European territory including all of Macedonia and Albania—Macedonia was divided between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece; Albania was declared independent.

'''. . . by the twenty-second, fighting between Bulgarians and Turks was heavy around Kumanovo''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumanovo Kumanovo] is located in northern Macedonia near present-day border with Serbia, about 15 miles northeast of Skopje, the capital of the country.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kumanovo The Battle of Kumanovo] (October 23-24, 1912) was a major battle of the First Balkan War. After the outbreak of hostilities, three Serbian Armies, from left to right the 3rd, 1st and 2nd, advanced southwards towards Skopje. They defeated the Ottoman's 7th and 6th corps at Kumanovo in two day's fighting. The Ottoman's armies retreated 50 miles southwards all the way to Prilep, and the Serbians entered Skopje on October 26 without a fight. 

'''Adrianople''' 
Now called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edirne Edirne]. It is situated at the westernmost part of Turkey, at the present-day Turkish-Greek frontier near the Turkey/Greece/Bulgaria triple point.

'''''mehana''''' 
Mehana is Serbian and Bulgarian for the Turkish word [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehana meyhane].

'''from Philippopolis . . . Adrianople''' 
From Plovdiv southeastward down the Maritsa to Adrianople (now called Edirne).

'''Ivanoff's Second Army''' 
General Nikola Ivanov's Second Army of Bulgaria advanced from Philippopolis southeastwards to Adrianople along the Maritsa river.

==Page 964==

'''west through Strumica and Valandovo . . . the Vardar''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strumica Strumica] is in the southeast of present-day Macedonia; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valandovo Valandovo] is about 8 miles to the southwest. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vardar Vardar], passing by near Valandovo, is the major river of Macedonia, flowing north to south more or less.

'''the Tikveš wine country''' 
A plain in the center of present-day Macedonia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikve%C5%A1 Wikipedia]

'''Monastir''' 
Now [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitola Bitola] in southwest Macedonia.

'''becoming a popular, perhaps someday a national, delusion.''' 
That is, if these Turkish provinces can become nations, these horrors can be cleansed to become the national foundation myth. Nations based on ethnic division was in fact the basis for the peace settlements ending World War I.

'''between Veles and Prilep''' 
In central Macedonia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veles_%28city%29 Veles] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prilep Prilep]

==Page 965==

'''by way of Kičevo and Prilep''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ki%C4%8Devo Kičevo] is in western present-day Macedonia, Prilep more in the middle. Two Serbian columns?

'''Babuna Pass''' 
North of Prilep.

'''Russian Madsen guns and . . . Montenegrin Rexers''' 
They refer to [http://www.landships.freeservers.com/new_pages/madsen_mg_info.htm Danish Madsen light machine guns].

'''Howitzer''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howitzer Wikipedia entry]

'''"Once they get their line and length," she said''' 
A very good cricket joke by Yashmeen. Effective bowling requires the ball to be directed on the "line" of the stumps defended by the batsman, and not wide on either side. The ball must hit the pitch (the ground) in front of the batsman "on a good length", ie not too short or too full, because such deliveries can be hit more easily. Reef is either very sharp, or played cricket in Colorado.

==Page 966==

'''I Zingari''' 
Cf [[ATD_678-694#Page_690|page 690: I.Z.]] 
I Zingari (from the Italian for "the gypsies") is an English amateur cricket club which was formed on 4 July 1845, by a very aristocratic parentage. Also known as IZ, I Zingari is a wandering (or nomadic) club, having no home ground. Its club colours are black, red and gold, symbolizing the motto "out of darkness, through fire, into light"[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Zingari]. The colors, therefore, are the anarchist Red and Black, plus gold. "Out of darkness, through fire, into light" could be the motto of every seeker in AtD, and certainly applies to Yasmeen at the present moment.

==Page 967==

'''Sarakatsàni''' 
Not a place but [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarakatsani a people], Greek-speaking nomadic shepherds across the Southern Balkans well beyond the present-day borders of Greece.

'''Bukovo Pass''' 
??? Here's a [http://outdoors.webshots.com/photo/2110787010065488803qeBkDg map] with the pass and Ohrid.

'''down into Ohrid''' 
Extreme southwest of present-day Macedonia, by Lake Ohrid, a bordering lake shared between Macedonia and Albania.

'''Liman von Sanders''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Liman_von_Sanders Otto Liman von Sanders] (1855-1929), German advisor to Turkish military. In overall command of Turkish victories at the Dardanelles in 1915. Remember the earlier discussion about English and Russian fears of German influences in the Ottoman Empire, especially re the Berlin/ Baghdad railway.

'''But now the Serbs knew they could beat them''' 
A fatal conclusion, contributing to the recklessness of Serbian nationalism, and intransigence in the face of Ausrtrian demands in the wake of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. Serbia suffered terrible reverses in World War I.

==Page 968==

'''Sveti Naum''' 
Macedonian: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sveti_Naum St. Naum]. Large monastery on the lakefront south of Ohrid.

'''the defeat at Monastir''' 
The Serbian army decisively defeated the Ottoman army at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bitola Battle of Bitola] (Monastir) November 16-19, 1912.

'''Yanina''' 
Now Ioánnina, in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epirus_%28region%29 Epirus] province of present-day Greece, about 60 miles east of the Corfu island. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ioannina Ioannina], about 270 miles northwest of Athens, is located in the western Greece 25 miles from the Albanian border.

'''Pogradeci, on the road to Korça''' 
Now [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogradeci Pogradec], Albania, across the lake from Ohrid, and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kor%C3%A7%C3%AB Korcë], 20 miles south of Pogradeci, southeastern Albania near present-day Greek border.

==Page 969==

'''Erseka''' 
Now [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erseka Ersekë], southeastern Albania near the Greek border, 20 miles south of Korca.

'''Gramoz Range . . . Pindus''' 
Grámmos on present-day maps. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pindus Pindus] range runs mainly north-south in northwestern Greece; the [http://www.gtp.gr/LocPage.asp?Id=60639 Grámmos] range marks the boundary of Greece and Albania (and also the boundary between two Greek provinces, one of them named Macedonia).

'''šarplaninec''' 
Or šarplaninac. Named for the Šar Planina mountain range. It's a largeish working breed. Compare the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C5%A0arplaninac Wikipedia article] with the description of Kseniya's temperament.

'''Kseniya''' 
The name (here in Macedonian form; elsewhere Xenia) means "guest, stranger."

==Page 970==

'''''tungjatjeta''''' 
Albanian: hello! Literally: "may you have a long life" 

'''Gras''' 
1874 French rifle.

'''''një rosë vdekuri''''' 
Albanian: "What we call a rose"...Allusion to Juliet's line from Romeo & Juliet: "that what we call a rose/ by any other name would smell as sweet"

'''''Vëlla''''' 
Albanian: brother

'''Kanun of Lekë Dukagjin''' 
The most important of the hereditary codes of conduct that shape the inter-generational behavior of the rural Albanians that make up the overwhelming majority of the Kosovar population. The Kanun of Lek Dukagin probably emerged in the 15th Century but was not even written down until the 19th Century. The foundation of the Kanun is the concept of personal honor and at the center of its laws is the blood feud, a complicated system of vendettas aimed at obtaining satisfaction ''vis a vis'' punishment. There are four major offenses to personal honor under the Kanun:

#calling a man a liar in front of other men;
#insulting his wife;
#taking his weapons; and
#violating his hospitality.

These offenses are not paid for in property or by fines but by the spilling of blood or by a magnanimous pardon.

From [http://www.d-n-i.net/fcs/comments/c339.htm Balkan Primer (X) - Blood Feuds, Kanuns, and American Policy]

==Page 971==

'''rakia''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakia Rakia] is a hard liquor similar to brandy.

'''''Gëzuar!''''' 
Albanian: Cheers!

'''Tosk''' 
Principal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tosk_Albanian southern dialect] of Albanian, basis of the literary language.

'''Përmeti''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%ABrmet Përmet] on present-day maps, 20 miles southwest of Erseke.

'''Gjirokastra''' 
Argyrokastron on old maps, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gjirokast%C3%ABr Gjirokastër] on new ones, 20 miles soutwest of Permeti near the south end of Albania; about 15 miles from the Adriatic coast.

'''Vjosa''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vjosa Vijosë] on present-day maps. The Vijose river flows through Permeti northwestwards to the Adriatic Sea.

==Page 972==

'''There was a cease-fire in effect now among all parties except for Greece, still trying to take Yanina''' 
In less than two months since the First Balkan War started on October 8, 1912 the Ottoman's army was totally defeated losing Salonica, Albania, Epirus, Macedonia and Thrace to its opponents and Adrianople was under siege since November 17. An armistice was signed between Bulgaria (Serbia and Montenegro) and Turkey on December 3. Greece continued the war alone, aiming to capture Ioannina. In the Battle of Bizani, February 20-21, 1913 Greece defeated the last Ottoman army ever to enter Macedonia and Epirus and took Ioannina.

'''Muzina Pass''' 
In Southern Albania it is 572 meters high.It connects Sarande [below] with the Drinos Valley. Wikipedia, German edition.
[[Image:corfu.jpg|thumb|Corfu harbor ca. 1890|right]]
'''Agli Saranta''' 
Present-day maps identify this Albanian Riviera town as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarand%C3%AB Sarandë], located between high mountains and the Ionian Sea facing Greek island of Corfu.

'''Corfu''' 
Western Greek island off the Greek/Albanian coast. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfu Corfu],a 40-mile long island, is separated from Albania by straits varying in breadth from 2 to 25 miles. The principal town of the island, located in the east-central side of island facing Greece mainland, is also named ''Corfu''. Mt Pantokrator, a 3000-ft mountain in north-eastern Corfu, is the highest on the island—at its summit the whole island as well as Albania can be seen. Corfu island's turbulent history is full of battles and conquests; for example, between 1386 to 1797 it was under Venetian protection, in 1800s under French and the British from 1815, and it unified with Greece only as late as 1864. The 1981 James Bond movie ''For Your Eyes Only'' was filmed in Corfu.

'''Pantokratoras''' 
South of Mouzaki, Greece. Famous for Byzantine icon screens.
:Mouzaki and [http://www.zanteguru.com/places/pantokratoras.html Pantokratoras] are villages in Zante island, the last large Ionian Island down the Greek coast 80 miles south from Corfu island. The fishing boat traveling from Sarande to Corfu will not detour to Zante island first. 
Pantokratoras here refers to Mt Pantokrator (see ''Corfu'' above), a mountain in the northeast part of Corfu island, any boat traveling from Albanian town to the town of Corfu has to pass it.

'''St. Spiridion''' 
[http://www.stthomasirondequoit.com/SaintsAlive/id648.htm St. Spiridion]

'''XI''' 
Eleven: a cricket team.

'''Lefkas''' 
Or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lefkas Levkás], Leucas or Lefkada, the next sizable Ionian Island down the Greek coast from Corfu. Corinth and Lefkás were allies in the Peloponnesian War. Lefkás later was the capital of the Acarnanian League (3d cent. B.C.). The island was captured (1697) from the Ottoman Turks by Venice, which held it until 1797. There are ruins of Cyclopean walls and a temple to Apollo Leukates. Sappho is said, probably falsely, to have committed suicide by plunging into the sea from a cliff of the island. Lefkás is also known as Santa Maura. Columbia Encyclopedia.

'''demotic''' 
[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/demotic demotic]

==Page 973==

'''hot-pepper salamis''' 
are often paired with fragrant bunches of oregano. The hot pepper is present in salamis as well. They are big and red or as in the typical soppressata version, have a squashed shape due to their ageing under weights.

'''the Compassionate''' 
Yashmeen, Auberon and "the Compassionate" have come together before. On page 749 she wrote to him of her dream:
:We ascended, or rather, we were taken aloft, as if in mechanical rapture, to a great skyborne town and a small band of serious young people, dedicated to resisting death and tyranny, whom I understood at once to be the Compassionate.

Speculation: The Chums of Chance = The Compassionate = "The Kindly Ones" = the Erinyes (Furies)?

'''the Esplanade''' 
[http://www.terrakerkyra.gr/per-poli/en/poli02.html#11 The Esplanade] is famed as "the largest square in the Balkans". Beginning in 1576 for 12 years, the houses huddled around the gate of a fortress was being demolished to allow the defenders a better view over the area leaving a great space which the French later planted with trees and today forms the Espalnde Square.

'''fiacre''' 
A small hackney carriage. [French, after the Hôtel de Saint Fiacre in Paris.]

'''Durazzo''' 
Now Durrës, Albania, nearest coastal city to the capital, Tiranë. It will be more than 100 miles north of Corfu.

'''casus belli''' 
An occasion or cause for war.

'''ouzo''' 
a colorless anise-flavored Greek liqueur. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouzo Wikipedia]

==Page 974==

'''Volodya''' 
Diminutive form of ''Vladimir.'' Not Colonel Prokladka.

'''a transaction in jade''' 
Bought/got jade low, sold high. 
You have to wonder if Aubrey didn't make his profit on a stolen gem, [[ATD_119-148#Page_125|such as an idol's eye.]]

'''one of those turns''' 
. . . And aren't there a lot of them through here.

==Page 975==

'''Garitsa''' 
Latitude 39.6139 Longitude 19.9197 Altitude (feet) 3
Lat (DMS) 39° 36' 50N Long (DMS) 19° 55' 11E Altitude (meters) 0 
[http://www.terrakerkyra.gr/per-poli/en/poli03.html#30 A suburb of Corfu by the Garitsa Bay] with a handsome, tree-lined coastal road with neo-Classical buildings on one side and the Garitsa Bay on the other; and a narrow tree-filled park where local taverns and grillrooms set out their tables under the trees.

'''Leadville Fan-Tan''' 
A card game, played no doubt in the gambling halls of Leadville, Colorado. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-Tan#The_Card_Game_Fantan Wikipedia entry].

'''leptas''' 
Bastard plural of ''lepton'' (Greek = a low-denomination coin). Plural in Greek is ''lepta.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_lepton Wikipedia]

'''tsingarelli''' 
???

'''polenta''' 
Originally Italian; dish similar to cornmeal mush. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polenta Wikipedia]

'''yaprakia''' 
Stuffed grape leaves (similar to dolmathes). [http://www.greek-recipe.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article169 recipe and pic]

'''stoufado''' 
Possibly an alternative spelling of ''stifado'' (Greek = beef and onion stew)? Apparently it is an Italian spelling, as stoufado appears on this [http://www.pietroizzo.com/contacts/pi_7/2004/2004_23.html page] (which is written in Italian) in the sentence starting with "La cucina greca" (Greek cuisine).

'''Mavrodaphne''' 
Red fortified wine made in the Achaia region of Greece. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavrodaphne Wikipedia]

'''Hrisoula''' 
The cat bears the name of King Yrjö's wife (GR 119).

'''''rembetika''''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rembetika Rembetika]: the songs of the Greek underground, sung by the so-called rebetes (Greek: ρεμπέτης). Rebetes were unconventional people who lived outside the social order. They first appeared after the Greek War of Independence of 1821.

'''''karsilamas''''' 
[http://www.phantomranch.net/folkdanc/dances/karsilam.htm a traditional Greek dance]

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

ATD 57-80

2007-12-07T00:28:45Z

Sideming: /* Page 78 */

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

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in ''V.'' (9.II) has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

Maybe 'Mea Culpa'? or to expand 'Mea Maxim Culpa' as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mea_culpa here]

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon. 

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?

Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
He also traverses moral boundaries: he kills innocents.

Mason and Dixon's survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

See note on p.62 in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the Harry Potter series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' to ''H.P. & the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all.

My guess is they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." 

This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 14:43, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

The Philosopher's Stone and alchemy discussion may refer to LSD. "...acid and so on..." (78)
'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too—these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the "other" is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

From ''V.'', p.533: The Jesuit Father Fairing states: "Any tug in the direction of anarchy is anti-Christian." and a couple pages later:
"In the matter of Caesar and God...there's no conflict of interests," implying that they are one and the same.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

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

ATD 792-820

2007-12-07T00:12:10Z

Sideming: /* Page 806 */

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

==Page XX==

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

==Page 792==

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

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

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

==Page 793==

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

:This may not be suitable as a permanent feature of the wiki, but there is a strange web site where you can click on a location and see what's exactly on the opposite side of the world: http://map.pequenopolis.com/index.php?lang=en

==Page 794==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 795==

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

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

'''Neutral Moresnet''' 
Tiny "country" between Belgium and Germany; existed 1816-1919; see, oh ''do'' see, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Moresnet Wikipedia entry.]

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

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

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

==Page 796==

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

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

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

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

==Page 797==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 798==

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

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

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

==Page 799==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 800==

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

'''gongs''' 
Medals.

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

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

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

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

==Page 801==

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

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

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

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

==Page 802==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 803==

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

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

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

==Page 804==

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

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

==Page 805==

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

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

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

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

==Page 806==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 807==

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

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

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

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

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

'''Reichsrath''' 
Austrian parliament.

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

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

==Page 808==

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 809==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 810==

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

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

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

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

==Page 811==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 812==

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

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

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

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

==Page 813==

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

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

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

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

==Page 814==

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

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

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

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

==Page 815==

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

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

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

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

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

'''Gonzalo''' 
Gonzalo who?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 816==

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

'''divided second''' 
A dt.

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 817==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 818==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uskok is also a place's name.

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

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

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

==Page 819==

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

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

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

==Page 820==

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

ATD 243-272

2007-09-22T23:23:21Z

Sideming: /* Page 270 */

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

==Page 243==

'''The Chums return''' 
When were the Chums last seen in AtD? As far back as page 142?

A brief reminder of who the Chums are and what we know about them so far:
:'''Randolph St. Cosmo''', commander.
:'''Lindsay Noseworth''', Master-at-Arms and second in command, hates slackers and slang.
:'''Miles Blundell''', handyman, awkward, with an "ample waist" (11), also ship's Commissary, whose cooking ranges from pure cordon bleu to inedible. (110)
:'''Darby Suckling''', the baby of the crew, served "as both factotum and mascotte". By page 141 or so, has transformed from spirited youth to bomb obsessed, (111) sneering, snide cynic. Because of hitting adolescence?
:'''Chick Counterfly''', the newest member of the crew, picked up by the Chums in the South while on the run from the KKK. At last appearance, had become Dr. Counterfly, knowledgeable Science Officer aboard the Inconvenience (141). Reliably humorous. (110). Chick's style of speech here seems intermediate between the country boy of the early chapters and the sophisticated Dr Counterfly who met the Vormance expedition. Are we also at an intermediate point on the timeline?

[[image:fumaioli.jpg|thumb|150px|Fumaioli in Venice|right]]
'''''fumaioli''''' 
Italian: ''funnels''; fumaioli are large wide-topped chimneys, common to the rooftops of Venice.

'''''certo''''' 
sure, certain.

'''''Seccatura''''' 
Italian: ''Inconvenience''

==Page 244==

'''''ragazza''''' 
Italian: ''girl''.

'''Picardy thirds''' 
The use of a major chord at the end of a musical section in a minor key. Miles seems just as moved by them as Lew. [[ATD_26-56#Page_50 | Cf p50]]

The gondolier is singing harmony with himself, or else Miles is imagining the accompaniment.

Picardie is also a region in northern France and "during the Middle Ages... included the Dutch speaking Flanders." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy] The region was a hotbed of action along the Western Front in WWI and played host to the Battle of the Somme, which totaled more than a million casualties and was "one of the bloodiest battles in human history."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme]

'''''stabilimento''''' 
Italian: establishment.

==Page 245==
'''Garibaldi''' 
Famous Italian leader, major figure in the Italian Unification. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garibaldi Wikipedia]

'''''"Ehi, sugo!"''''' 
"Hey, sauce!" Does this make sense to anyone?
It does not make any sense in Italian.

'''twentyfold''' 
5 chums times 4 suspects each. (Randolph suspects Lindsay, Miles, Darby and Chick of being the leak; and so on around the crew. And that assumes no one suspects Pugnax!)

'''''osteria''''' 
tavern.

'''San Polo''' 
The smallest district/area in Venice, and among the oldest. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Polo Wikipedia]

'''''rio''''' 
narrow waterway in Venice.

'''against the night''' 
OK...

'''''calli''''' 
Venetian 'street' or 'lane'.

==Page 246==

'''''sotoporteghi''''' 
passageways. See picture for one example [http://www.dialetto-veneto.it/images/FotoComano/Comano-Cattognano.jpg].

'''''"Sa stai, O! Lungo, ehi!"''''' 
It does not mean anything in Italian or in the Venetian dialect. One possibility is mimicking the callouts of gondoliers. ''Lungo'' could be someone's nickname. 
Other possibility is a wrong lettering of: ''Xa star, oh! Lungo, ehi!'', meaning ''Ehi, Lungo, let it be and let's go!'' or something similar.

'''''cameriere''''' 
Italian: waitresses (plural of ''cameriera'').

'''''pallonisti''''' 
(fake-)Italian: balloonists.

'''''Ehi, macché, Pina! ''''' 
Italian: Ehi, Giusep(Pina), what are you telling me?

'''''giadrul''''' 
Again, doesn't mean anything in Italian or Venetian dialect. Seems to be a [https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0007&L=irtrad-l&D=0&T=0&P=94630 term of insult], variously described as American-Italian only (see previous link) and southern Italian (see next). One source gives one meaning as "[http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070318034908AAem49X zuccone]" - this appears to mean "[http://notes.tranq.com/archives/2004/01/23/zuccone/ pumpkinhead]". I guess we're looking for something phallic, given the context. 
(''as far as I can see, it is an American-Italian deformation of the correct italian word "citrullo", which in fact is some sort of "dumb ass", and is derived from neapolitan for "cetriolo", that is, "cucumber" '')

'''"with all the spaghetti-joints in this town to choose from, are you saying those dadblame Russians have come in ''here''?"''' 
reminiscent of a similar line from the film ''Casablanca'', spoken by Humphrey Bogart: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

==Page 247==

'''tacchino in pomegranate sauce''' 
turkey in pomegranate sauce and, presumably, the "Purple Thanksgiving" to which Miles refers above.

'''''Dum vivimus, bibamus''''' 
While we live, let us drink. Paraphrase of "Dum vivimus, vivamus".

'''vini frizzanti''' 
sparkling wine.

'''SANGUIS RUBER, MENS PURA''' 
Latin: Red blood, clean mind.

'''''Serrata del Maggior Consiglio''''' 
Great Council Lockout, 1297. Link to the "Maggior Consiglio" entry on Reference.com [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/Maggior%20Consiglio]

'''Napoleon's abolition''' 
1797. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia]

'''Polos' return''' 
Marco Polo together with his father and uncle returned to Venice in 1295 from their travel to China started in 1271. 

''Marco Polo'' (1254-1324), a Venetian traveller. Was born of a nobel family at Venice, while his father and uncle had gone on a mercantile expedition by Constantinople and the Crimea to Bokhara and to Cathy (China). The Mongol prince commissioned them as envoys to the Pope, a commission they tried in vain to carry out in Italy (1269). The Polos started again a new trip to China in 1271, taking with them young Marco,
and arrived at the court of Kublai Khan in 1275 by way of Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan to Lop Nor, then across the Gobi desert to Kansu and Shang-tu. Marco Polo entered the diplomatic service of Kublai Khan and was sent on missions to various parts of the Mongol empire. The Polos left China on 1282 and returned by way of Sumatra, India, and Persia to Venice (1295). In 1298 Marco was in command of a galley at the battle of Curzola, where the Venetians were defeated by the Genoese, and he was a prisoner for a year at Genoa. Here it was thought that he dictated to another captive an account of his travels, published under the title of ''Divisamemt dou monde''. (English title: ''The Travels of Marco Polo''.) ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo Marco Polo].)

''Kublai Khan'' (1214-94), Mongol khan, emperor of China, grandson of Jenghiz Khan. He completed the conquest of northern China and became the first foreigner ever to rule China. An enegetic prince, he suppressed his rivals, adopted the Chinese mode of civilisation, encouraged men of letters and made Buddhism the state religion. But his attempt to invade Japan ended in disaster. His dominions extended from Arctic Ocean to the Strait of Malacca, and from Korea to Asia Minor and the confines of Hungary. The splendor of his court inspired the graphic pages of Marco Polo. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.)

==Page 248==

[[image:doge.jpg|thumb|100px|Doge by Giovanni Bellini|right]]'''Doge's hat''' 
For some thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge, a rare but not unique Italian title derived from the Latin Dux, as the major Italian parallel Duce and the English Duke. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia entry]

'''''Attenzione al culo''''' 
Italian: watch your ass.

'''Shambhala''' 
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a mystical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas. Shambhala is believed to be a society where all the inhabitants are enlightened. During the 19th century, Theosophical Society founder H.P. Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult enthusiasts. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala Wikipedia entry]

'''Professor Svegli of the University of Pisa''' 
The fictional professor's name comes from the Italian ''sveglio'' for "clever, dextrous, skillful."

'''"try to forget the usual picture in two dimensions"''' 
Cf. page 220, the idea behind the ''Tetractys'' as explained by Nigel and Neville.

'''an episode of intentional blindness''' 
Echoes the "denial of ordinary vision" that Lew sees when he meets Professor Renfrew (p. 240). Might these "blind spots" in sense evoke Iceland Spar?

==Page 249==

'''"Those whose enduring object is power in this world are only too happy to use without remorse the others, whose aim is of course to transcend all question of power. Each regards the other as a pack of deluded fools."''' 
Over time, Pynchon appears to have come to a belief in a massive conflict between cultures "valuing analysis and differentiation" and those valuing "unity and integration". The two alternate maps of Asia could be a reference to these disparate worldviews.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. Wikipedia entry on V.]

'''The problem lies with the projection''' 
(a) Projection by each group of its own obsession onto the other group. (b) Cartographic projection, i.e., how the round world gets imaged onto a flat sheet of paper.

'''paramorphoscope''' 
AtD is itself a paramorphoscope; satire and science fiction typically hold up a distorting mirror to the world in which they are written, and present worlds "set to the side of the one we have taken". In the end the correct paramorphic "mirror" shows the world clearly.

'''"a certain percentage of them went mad and ended up in the asylum on San Servolo"''' 
Cf. the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum with its light-obsessed inmates at [[ATD_57-80#Page_59|page 59]].

'''the asylum on San Servolo''' 
First established as a military hospital in 1715, later became a mental asylum. Seems that San Servolo is to Venice what Bedlam is to London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Servolo Wikipedia]

'''Clifford's term''' 
W.K. Clifford, (1845-1879): an English mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford Wikipedia]

==Page 250==

[[Image:stmarks.jpg|thumb|200px|right|St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) in Venice]]
'''Dr. Cantor''' 
Georg Cantor (1845 - 1918), German mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_theorem Cantor's Theorem] is what is most relevant to his mention here.

'''the plano-convex designs of Griendl von Ach''' 
For a brief history of the compound-lens microscope, and the roles played by the Italians and the Dutch, including Griendl von Ach, see:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Microscope

'''prophetic vision of St. Mark''' 
Mark the Evangelist (1st century) is traditionally believed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark and a companion of Peter. From [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brown-venice.html this site]: "...a prophetic dream that Mark was said to have experienced during his earlier, supposed ministry in the area of the Venetian lagoon. In it he was visited by an angel who told him that he would find his final resting place on the very site where San Marco would later be built." In the first century there was no settlement worth mentioning in the Lagoon yet. The prophecy was "fulfilled" in 828 when the saint's remains stolen on orders of Doge Giustiniano Participazio in Alexandria were brought to Venice. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_the_Evangelist Wikipedia entry] St. Mark is represented by a winged lion and is the patron saint of Venice [http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/saintm08.htm].

'''''but in reverse''''' 
Miles now takes the place of the angel. Who or what is the "Being" and what form does the prophecy take?

'''neither sails, masts, nor oars''' 
Not a craft that is driven by the wind or human muscle. To say more could spoil a plot point.

==Page 251==

[[Image:stmarklion.jpg|thumb|600px|center|The Lion of St. Mark, by Carpaccio]]

'''Lion of St. Mark by Carpaccion''' 
Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460–1525/6) was a Venetian painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittore_Carpaccio Wikipedia entry]

'''the vision of St. Mark, but in reverse''' 
In St. Mark's vision, an angel appeared to Mark and informed him that his remains would one day end up in his present location, which later became Venice. Here, Miles seems to assume the form of the angel (in the form of a lion?) and the 'promise' Pynchon mentions seems to be the angel's promise to Mark.

'''our own duty, our own fate... the real journey''' 
Pynchon's one-paragraph summation of human life and its meaning recalls a letter Pynchon wrote in the early 1960s, [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]], in which he also summed up the entirety of human life in a few tidy sentences. Both employ the word 'pilgrimage.'

==Page 252==

'''''sotopòrteghi''''' 
Tunnels or passageways under large buildings.

'''tenebrous''' 
Means "shadowy" but is also a link back to the previous paragraph. The Tenebrae Service is a special form that is meant to recreate the feelings of the Passion story, also represented by the Stations of the Cross.

'''Renata''' 
Note that Renata is the name of the female protagonist in Ernest Hemingway's ''Across the River and into the Trees'', set in Venice.

'''Glagolitic''' 
The Glagolitic Alphabet is the oldest known Slavic alphabet (9th c.). It originated as a tactic to lessen the dependence of the subjects of the Prince of Greater Moravia on Frankish priests, who banned it but could not suppress it; it played a similar role in preserving Bulgarian independence from Byzantium. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic] It appears to be a nexus of the kind of simultaneous temporal and spiritual tasks the Chums of Chance are now involved in. In this, it raises the issues first explored by Pynchon in the "Tchitcherine in Kyrghizia" sections of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' in which the introduction of a written alphabet causes immense political and social change.

'''Gauloise''' 
famous French cigarette. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauloise Wikipedia].

'''''scusi''''' 
Italian: Excuse me.

'''''Affascinante, caro''''' 
Italian: Fascinating, dear (addressed to a male person).

'''''ragazzo''''' 
Italian: Boy.

'''''Mattoidi''''' 
Italian: Semi-insane persons. The word was [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-mat1.htm coined by Cesare Lombroso,] the physiognomist.

'''''Prego''''' 
Italian: Please.

==Page 253==

'''Pozzuoli''' 
A city in the Province of Naples (''Napoli'') in the region of Campania. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzuoli Wikipedia].

'''The Tarocchi are much, much older.''' 
Not at all! This is one of those ideas that rarely gets questioned, especially since some "interpreters" of the tarot claim ancient Egyptian origins. The actually only [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot date back to the 15th century], as playing cards, and tarot divination was invented in the 19th century, with absolutely no historical precedent.

However, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley] in his writings and the design of his own version of the tarot, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Thoth_(Crowley) Thoth Deck], made a case for the Tarot unifying and being rooted in much older divination methods from Ancient egypt to the[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] to Greek [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology astrology]. Crowley's Golden Dawn gets a previous mention in ATD. Though work on the Thoth deck would not begin until 1938, Crowley´s assignment of the Kabbalah's [http://jktarot.com/naples Sephiroth to the major arcana] probably bears attention when considering the chapter structure of ATD: he called the correspondence "The Naples Arrangement" in honour of having worked it out there, and this passage's mention of Renata's business associate being in Naples at this moment is unlikely to be coincidence.
:Surely a robust skepticism toward Crowley and his research methods is in order? Consider, for example, this [http://www.tarothermit.com/letter.htm "open letter"] to tarot users—from a judicious scholar and believer, not a committed skeptic—making the point that if the cards embody images (of whatever origin) "speaking" to the reader or student, it isn't essential to press the further claim that they were invented by the god Thoth. The paintings lack a couple of millennia of "temporal bandwidth" but aren't necessarily voided of appeal by that, any more than Michelangelo's ''Pietà'' is a less-valid devotional object for having been sculpted 1500 years after the event.

'''''sfumato''''' 
Refers to a well known painting method which blends so subtly the colors and tones that no perceptible transition is visible, as demonstrated by Leonardo da Vince's ''Mona Lisa''. See [http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato Wikipedia]. 
The context seems to imply ''smoke'', then ''fumo'' instead should be used.
:No, the evocation of the painterly effect becomes a metaphor for the way the boat comes into sight.

==Page 254==

'''''Pax tibi, Darbe''''' 
Latin: Peace to you, Darby. ''Pax tibi'' is not at all obscure—devout Catholics used it as a parting formula—but Chick has Latinized Darby's name to ''Darbus'' (vocative case ''Darbe'') and may be consciously echoing the text in [[#Page_251|Carpaccio's lion painting]] or on a [[#Page_247|pre-Napoleonic]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Most_Serene_Republic_of_Venice.svg flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice:] ''Pax tibi Marce evangelista meus,'' "Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist."

'''like some damned ''Farewell'' Symphony''' 
Franz Josef Haydn, 1772, Hungary. Musicians at Count Esterházy's court had been kept too long on duty (and away from their families). Going on strike would have been disrespectful, so in the last movement of Haydn's hinting work, the players one by one extinguish their candles and exit, leaving two violins to play the last phrases.

'''"Chums of Chance were expected to die on the job. Or else live forever, there being two schools of thought, actually."''' 
Possibly a reference to the fact that the Chums seem to live simultaneously in the "real" world of the novel and also in fictional stories within the novel.

==Page 255==

'''Mostruccio''' 
Italian, literally: small monster, meant as a lovely nickname.

[[Image:samoyeds.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Samoyeds]]
'''Samoyeds''' 
These nomadic reindeer herders help with the herding, pull sleds, and are sometimes called "the smiley dog" in reference to their seemingly smiling faces. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoyed_(dog) Wikipedia]

'''Bastille Day''' 
The Campanile di San Marco collapsed 14 July 1902. Pynchon Wiki on the [[Campanile]].

'''''lasagnoni''''' 
Italian, plural of ''lasagnone'': Blowhard, braggart.

A hint may come from an Italian dictionary: a ''lasagnone'' being an awkward, simple person, the kind of loafers who abound on city squares or street corners and, consequently, may appear in tourists' pictures.

==Page 256==
[[Image:Campanile.jpg|thumb|200px|right]]

'''dual citizenship''' 
They live in two places, there are two skycraft, they point a gun at one place but the shell strikes a different place. Lots of '''bi-''' somethings in this passage.

'''the little-understood enigmata of the simultaneous''' 
The concept of simultaneous events, including the accurate definition and, moreover, the very ''need'' of such a definition, played a significant role in the soon-to-be formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity Special Relativity Theory]. One of the main consequences of the theory is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity relativity of simultaneity].

'''four-brick groupings''' 
Padzhitnoff sees the Campanile come apart as a game of Tetris! The "four-brick groupings [...] begin their gentle, undeadly descent, rotating and translating in all available modes". (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_123|page 123]] for more on Tetris.)

'''the tower collapses''' 
Might have some relation to the final poem of ''Gravity's Rainbow''. The fall of the tower is foreshadowed -- foretold, actually -- in Chick´s Tarot reading by Renata (See [[ATD_243-272#Page_253|page 253]]).

==Page 257==

'''What stood for a thousand years''' 
Pretty close: Construction of the Campanile began in the year 912.

'''deciduous''' 
Something that falls, drops or is shed, like leaves from a tree or baby teeth.

'''We had the weather-gauge''' 
In the days of sail, [http://www.weathergage.com/ weather gage] described the relative position of two ships or forces. If you were downwind you could run or, if you meant to engage the enemy, tack to approach him. Every time you changed tack you lost an opportunity to shoot (because your guns pointed left and right). If you lay upwind, you could keep your guns trained on the enemy throughout the engagement. The weather gage was an often decisive battle advantage, and the phrase is common in nautical narratives.

'''neuræsthenic prostration''' 
This is the third (at least) time Randolph has exhibited this tendency.

:This is the third time that this word has appeared so far, but in the second instance (page 188) it was used by Nigel to describe Lew Basnight, not Randolph.

:Not the word, but this reaction in Randolph occurred on pages 12 and 28. It seems to be a regular thing with him.

==Page 258==

'''Tetralith''' 
Modern math term for three dimensional solid formed by merging three hyperbolic paraboloids in a manner that they have a common midpoint. See [http://www.tetranometry.com/#tetralith Tetralith Photo #2]. Pynchon just means a Tetris-shaped projectile, a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino Tetromino].
:A "monolith" (as in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'')means an "object made of a single block of stone". Hence "tetralith" means an "object made of four blocks of stone", which is exactly what you see on the game "Tetris".

'''Japanese character for "four" being same as that for "death"''' 
Not quite correct. The Japanese kanji (Chinese) characters for four 四 and death 死 are quite distinct, but can be pronounced in the same way, hence the taboo.

'''Ryohei Uchida''' 
Ultra-nationalist, founder of the Black Dragon Soceity (see below), a right-wing, paramilitary organization. See [http://members.tripod.com/ravenshrine/uchida.html Ryohei Uchida].

'''''polny pizdets''''' 
Crude Russian: a total screwup.

'''Black Dragon Society''' 
A paramiltary, ultra-nationalist, right-wing organization in Japan founded by Ryohei Uchida in 1901. Its initial public goal was to support Janpanese expansion in Manchuria. Therefore, during the period from 1901 to the end of World War I, it aimed to help the Japanese government drive the Russian presence out of that region. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (a war fought over Manchuria, with the Russians soundly defeated) it was active in espionage, sabotage and assassination against the Russians. During the 20's, 30's and later periods the Black Dragon Society evolved and expanded its activities around the world, including the United States. It was finally disbanded in 1946 by General MacArthur after World War II. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuryu-kai Wikipedia entry].

'''''Smirno''''' 
Russian: quiet!

==Page 259==

'''''dov'era, com'era''''' 
Italian: where it was, as it was. See [http://veniceblog.typepad.com/veniceblog/2003/12/comera_dovera.html veniceblog]. On July 14, 1902 the St. Mark's Campanile in Piazza San Marco, Venice, mysteriously and totally collapsed. Under the 'battle cry' of '''''com'era, dov'era''''' it was rebuilt. The Campanile was reopened on April 25 (St. Mark's Day) 1912. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Campanile St. Mark's Campanile]. Also, Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page 256|page 256:the tower collapses]].

''''La Marangona''''' 
The largest bell in the campanile is called la Marangona. At midnight, that massive bell resounds alone from high in the Piazza, and can be heard from almost any point in the city. There are four other bells in the campanile and they each have a name.

'''"Bells are the most ancient objects. They call to us out of eternity"''' 
This chapter is bookended by references to bells. It opens, "Across the city noontide a field of bells emerged into flower."

==Page 260==

'''Deuce and Sloat return''' 
These two, it will be recalled, are the men hired by the mine owners to kill Webb Traverse. (193) It is unclear who is whose sidekick. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_195|195]]) Sloat tends to bodies, Deuce the spirit. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_197|197]])

'''Curly Dee''' 
Mathematicians call the "partial derivative" symbol "curly d." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_derivative Wikipedia shows the symbol.]

'''inside out''' 
Optical illusion.

==Page 261==

'''Nonpareil Eating House''' 
The motto over the door was probably "None Like It!"

'''Mayva and Lake''' 
Webb Traverse's wife and daughter.

'''lard smoke''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke," and p. 216, "Just greasy ashes by the trailside."

'''biscuit-shooter''' 
I.e., a cook.

'''Cañon City''' 
Site of the Colorado State Penitentiary, meant to suggest Deuce and Sloat had done time there.

'''gong''' 
???
17:18, 1 January 2007 (PST)[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]]
 "kicking the gong around" is slang for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_the_Moocher smoking opium]. Here, Sloat seems to mean that Deuce's opium smoking has affected his judgement.

==Page 262==

'''Willis Turnstone''' 
Turnstones are members of the sandpiper family, stocky birds that use their stout bills to flip over rocks and such in search of food. There are two species: Black Turnstone (''Arenaria melanocephala'') and Ruddy Turnstone (''A. interpres''). The [http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Ruddy_Turnstone.html Ruddy's] breeding plumage is a bold calico of white, orange, and black.

==Page 263==

'''"Crazier."''' 
Cf Bonnie and Clyde.

'''Oleander Prudge''' 
A name that brings joy to the heart of any Dickensian who happens to be reading along.

==Page 264==

'''single-jacker''' 
A miner who with a hammer and spike cuts a hole into rock for placement of a stick of dynamite. A set of holes are cut for each "synchronized" blast.
(Double jackers work as a team.)
Infer (this) one as a loner, a bit crazy, single minded, silent, easily hurt or misunderstood, doesn't play well with others...

'''How I feel about Mr. Kindred...and...Webb Traverse are two different things''' 

This is an interesting exchange between Lake and Oleander Prudge. Clearly Oleander hits a nerve as Lake spills the hotcakes. Lake goes into denial, saying her love of someone she would normally hate (Deuce -- her father's killer) and hating someone she would normally love (her father Webb) are "two different things."

Oleanders rejoinder, "they can't be," has the finality of a mathematical proof.

It's as if Lake is looking at passion through an emotional lense of iceland spar and sees two sets of images (father/lover, hate/love)and wants to believe they're different, whereas Oleander sees that in fact they are one. This won't be the last time Lake gets herself a "twofer."

==Page 265==

'''backing away down the valley''' 
It's instructive to look at a [http://www.vacationtelluride.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=standard&categoryId=11&subCategoryId=0 map or satellite photo of Telluride.] You could very well lay a single track from the mouth of the valley up to the town, but no farther. So the train drives into the station, then backs out until there's room for a spur where it can turn around.

'''gullet of days''' 
Metaphor. The miners' lives "as easily (as jug whisky)disappeared down the throat of everyday life".

==Page 266==

'''white-throated swift''' 
A swift is a small plainly colored bird similar to a swallow. The [http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/187/_/White-throated_Swift.aspx white-throated species,] which breeds in the western U.S. and winters in Mexico, is less plain than some. And get the species name: '''''Aeronaut'''es saxatalis.''

'''November''' 
November 1903.

'''in January, martial law''' 
January 3, 1904.

'''nymph du pave''' 
should probably read "nymphE du pave": [http://dict.die.net/nymphe%20du%20pave/ street-whore]. Theoretically this could also translate as: (image of a) nymph on a mosaic (tesselated floor) - like the huge roman one of Ariadne in the Rue du Pavé in Avenche (Switzerland) [http://www.stub.unibe.ch/welten/texte/herzig.html german weblink]

Most likely not (the mosaic idea); this is a consecrated term for prostitute. Note: in French, pavé means cobblestone. --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:09, 3 March 2007 (PST)

'''geometric episode''' 
Vaguely reminiscent of Proust on Combray: "And on one of the longest walks we ever took from Combray there was a spot where the narrow road emerged suddenly on to an immense plain, closed at the horizon by strips of forest over which rose and stood alone the fine point of Saint-Hilaire's steeple, but so sharpened and so pink that it seemed to be no more than sketched on the sky by the finger-nail of a painter anxious to give to such a landscape, to so pure a piece of 'nature,' this little sign of art, this single indication of human existence." [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8swnn10.txt etext]

'''Engelmann spruce''' 
[http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=175 Picea engelmannii,] a light-colored, easily worked wood with fairly straight grain and slight contrast between heartwood and sapwood; [http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/boise/trees/engelmann.shtml uses include] piano sounding boards and the tops of violins and guitars, hence the association with the acoustics of the church.

A short biography of Dr. Engelmann (lit. Angel-Man) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engelmann Wikipedia-Entry], more elaborated on [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Engelmann german site]

'''albatross cloth''' 
Evidently a distinct color/design for a wedding or wedding party dress in the West at the time. I have no OED at the moment, but there are at least two online "diaries" or descriptions using the phrase. Here is one: "We were married August 6, 1896 at 7:30 AM at my folk’s residence among friends and relatives. To honor the event, my folks had our parlor decorated with many flowers including roses, myrtle and geraniums. I wore an elegant gown of white silk and albatross cloth."

==Page 267==

'''Osterbybruk''' 
Town noted for ironmaking, 20 miles (32 km) north of Uppsala, eastern Sweden, nowhere near Jämtland (next entry).

'''Jemt-land''' 
A Province in west central Sweden [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4mtland Wikipedia.] The hyphen is not part of the name and probably marks a syncopation in the rev's delivery.

'''Child of the storm''' 
See the [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/?s=child+of+the+storm ATD Weblog entry].

==Page 268==

'''sideways pussy''' 
Folklore.

'''side hobbles''' 
A hobble is a device for a horse or a dog that restricts the range of motion of the legs. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobble Wikipedia entry]. 
A [http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/archive/index.php/t-67850.html side hobble or Scotch hobble] links the horse's two left or two right legs, restricting its movement. 
"Hobble" also describes a type of skirt used (apparently) in bondage, see this [http://www.darksidecreations.com/product.asp?productid=19 example (not safe for work)] in latex.

==Page 269==

'''items, nearly always stolen''' 
Cf bower-bird.

'''marmot''' 
A stout-bodied, short-legged rodent that has coarse fur, a short bushy tail, and very short ears, lives in burrows, and hibernates in winter; also: a prairie dog or one of the larger ground squirrels. Marmots are native to Colorado and live at the higher altitudes. They are about the size of a weasel.

'''''"huevón"''''' 
From hueva (egg). According to [http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2004/06/huevon_and_guey.html this blog] huevon "literally refers to the size of a mans "cojones" (another pseudo decent word that has seen a lot of mainstream play). It is commonly used to indicate how lazy someone is. The bigger the "huevon" you are, the lazier. As with "guey", however, this too has often been used to say dude or buddy."

'''''pinche cabron''''' 
fucking asshole.

==Page 270==

'''same hour, just before dawn...he even bombs by the moon''' 
I.e., he waits for a favorable phase. People who "plant by the signs," for example, associate days of the lunar month to parts of the plant and of the human body. They sow squash (vines) under one sign and lettuce (leaves) under another; they sow nothing at all when the moon is waning. Would a moon-guided bomber blow up trestles (legs) at one phase and plutocrats (belly) at another?

Here we see that Webb is "deuced" again -- first by being killed by Deuce, second by having his modus [operandi] imitated.

The time signature for the modus is given in both solar terms -- "the same hour just before dawn" -- and lunar terms. Depending on the time of year, the bombings probably happen from 4am to 6am.

It would be interesting if the anarchists had esoteric moon teachings as to which moon position is best for success.

Given that the authorities know the time of day and that the moon is the same in a relative way, they pretty much can predict the time of the next bombing, they just don't know exactly where. Sort of a variation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

Since TRP is conversant with astrology and the moon seems to be signaling ideas in AtD, it may be of interest to drill down into this passage a bit more from an astronomical, astrological perspective.

In the Northern Hemisphere, in the hours just before dawn, any visible moon will be a waning moon along the full to new moon spectrum. Vedic astrology calls this the Krishna Paksha or dark half of the full lunar cycle. A waning moon 72 degrees (approx) past full (a waning moon less than 108 degrees from the sun) takes on a negative, slightly malefic tone. If you had a clock where the sun was the hour hand stuck at noon, and the minute hand was the moon, the moon turns bad at 18 minutes to the hour and reaches it nadir in badness at the hour or new moon. 

Drilling down further, Indian astrological analysis considers the tithi. A tithi does not consider the stellar zodiacal place of the moon, but the angular distance between sun and moon -- in the clock metaphor, we look at the minute. Instead of the 8 phases of standard western classificaton, there are 30 tithis, each lasting a little less than a day. Each tithi has its own interpretation. 

If there were an esoteric aspect to anarchist bombing technique regarding an auspicious time for maximum destruction, it would perhaps be in the Mars-ruled 11th tithi (Ekadasi), a time of strong, energetic conflict, fighting, explosions. Such a moon can be seen the morning of Oct 6th, 2007. At 42 to 54 degress before new moon, it's analogous to the sun at noon and the moon at 7-9 minutes to the hour. It's your basic waning crescent moon. Further, this moon can be in the 12th house (loss and secret enemies) when the sun is predawn, but only for about 2.5 hours.
In Telluride, CO, on Oct 6th, 2007, this type of moon will be in the 12th house from about 3:14am to 5:42am with sunrise at 7:15am. So one could expect an explosion probably between first predawn light and 5:42am.

==Page 271==

'''skip''' 
In mining, a skip is "an iron bucket, which slides between guides,
for hoisting mineral and rock." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

'''ex-Danite''' 
Danites were Joseph Smith's vigilantes, "Armies of Israel", during the Mormon War 1838 in Missouri, i.e., before travel to Utah.

'''"Avenging Angels"''' 
Refers to [http://www.ugca.org/ugca1099/ugca1099main.htm Civil War-vintage Colt pistols] usually with sawn off barrels.

==Page 272==

'''the Dolores''' 
Dolores River runs through Cortez (where Deuce seems to be, next to exploding cactus p270). "We woke up in the Dolores... [VALLEY/REGION/HOTEL]"

'''a luminous face suspended''' 

Some large convex object in the sky.

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

ATD 243-272

2007-09-22T21:20:32Z

Sideming: /* Page 270 */

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

==Page 243==

'''The Chums return''' 
When were the Chums last seen in AtD? As far back as page 142?

A brief reminder of who the Chums are and what we know about them so far:
:'''Randolph St. Cosmo''', commander.
:'''Lindsay Noseworth''', Master-at-Arms and second in command, hates slackers and slang.
:'''Miles Blundell''', handyman, awkward, with an "ample waist" (11), also ship's Commissary, whose cooking ranges from pure cordon bleu to inedible. (110)
:'''Darby Suckling''', the baby of the crew, served "as both factotum and mascotte". By page 141 or so, has transformed from spirited youth to bomb obsessed, (111) sneering, snide cynic. Because of hitting adolescence?
:'''Chick Counterfly''', the newest member of the crew, picked up by the Chums in the South while on the run from the KKK. At last appearance, had become Dr. Counterfly, knowledgeable Science Officer aboard the Inconvenience (141). Reliably humorous. (110). Chick's style of speech here seems intermediate between the country boy of the early chapters and the sophisticated Dr Counterfly who met the Vormance expedition. Are we also at an intermediate point on the timeline?

[[image:fumaioli.jpg|thumb|150px|Fumaioli in Venice|right]]
'''''fumaioli''''' 
Italian: ''funnels''; fumaioli are large wide-topped chimneys, common to the rooftops of Venice.

'''''certo''''' 
sure, certain.

'''''Seccatura''''' 
Italian: ''Inconvenience''

==Page 244==

'''''ragazza''''' 
Italian: ''girl''.

'''Picardy thirds''' 
The use of a major chord at the end of a musical section in a minor key. Miles seems just as moved by them as Lew. [[ATD_26-56#Page_50 | Cf p50]]

The gondolier is singing harmony with himself, or else Miles is imagining the accompaniment.

Picardie is also a region in northern France and "during the Middle Ages... included the Dutch speaking Flanders." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy] The region was a hotbed of action along the Western Front in WWI and played host to the Battle of the Somme, which totaled more than a million casualties and was "one of the bloodiest battles in human history."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme]

'''''stabilimento''''' 
Italian: establishment.

==Page 245==
'''Garibaldi''' 
Famous Italian leader, major figure in the Italian Unification. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garibaldi Wikipedia]

'''''"Ehi, sugo!"''''' 
"Hey, sauce!" Does this make sense to anyone?
It does not make any sense in Italian.

'''twentyfold''' 
5 chums times 4 suspects each. (Randolph suspects Lindsay, Miles, Darby and Chick of being the leak; and so on around the crew. And that assumes no one suspects Pugnax!)

'''''osteria''''' 
tavern.

'''San Polo''' 
The smallest district/area in Venice, and among the oldest. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Polo Wikipedia]

'''''rio''''' 
narrow waterway in Venice.

'''against the night''' 
OK...

'''''calli''''' 
Venetian 'street' or 'lane'.

==Page 246==

'''''sotoporteghi''''' 
passageways. See picture for one example [http://www.dialetto-veneto.it/images/FotoComano/Comano-Cattognano.jpg].

'''''"Sa stai, O! Lungo, ehi!"''''' 
It does not mean anything in Italian or in the Venetian dialect. One possibility is mimicking the callouts of gondoliers. ''Lungo'' could be someone's nickname. 
Other possibility is a wrong lettering of: ''Xa star, oh! Lungo, ehi!'', meaning ''Ehi, Lungo, let it be and let's go!'' or something similar.

'''''cameriere''''' 
Italian: waitresses (plural of ''cameriera'').

'''''pallonisti''''' 
(fake-)Italian: balloonists.

'''''Ehi, macché, Pina! ''''' 
Italian: Ehi, Giusep(Pina), what are you telling me?

'''''giadrul''''' 
Again, doesn't mean anything in Italian or Venetian dialect. Seems to be a [https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0007&L=irtrad-l&D=0&T=0&P=94630 term of insult], variously described as American-Italian only (see previous link) and southern Italian (see next). One source gives one meaning as "[http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070318034908AAem49X zuccone]" - this appears to mean "[http://notes.tranq.com/archives/2004/01/23/zuccone/ pumpkinhead]". I guess we're looking for something phallic, given the context. 
(''as far as I can see, it is an American-Italian deformation of the correct italian word "citrullo", which in fact is some sort of "dumb ass", and is derived from neapolitan for "cetriolo", that is, "cucumber" '')

'''"with all the spaghetti-joints in this town to choose from, are you saying those dadblame Russians have come in ''here''?"''' 
reminiscent of a similar line from the film ''Casablanca'', spoken by Humphrey Bogart: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

==Page 247==

'''tacchino in pomegranate sauce''' 
turkey in pomegranate sauce and, presumably, the "Purple Thanksgiving" to which Miles refers above.

'''''Dum vivimus, bibamus''''' 
While we live, let us drink. Paraphrase of "Dum vivimus, vivamus".

'''vini frizzanti''' 
sparkling wine.

'''SANGUIS RUBER, MENS PURA''' 
Latin: Red blood, clean mind.

'''''Serrata del Maggior Consiglio''''' 
Great Council Lockout, 1297. Link to the "Maggior Consiglio" entry on Reference.com [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/Maggior%20Consiglio]

'''Napoleon's abolition''' 
1797. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia]

'''Polos' return''' 
Marco Polo together with his father and uncle returned to Venice in 1295 from their travel to China started in 1271. 

''Marco Polo'' (1254-1324), a Venetian traveller. Was born of a nobel family at Venice, while his father and uncle had gone on a mercantile expedition by Constantinople and the Crimea to Bokhara and to Cathy (China). The Mongol prince commissioned them as envoys to the Pope, a commission they tried in vain to carry out in Italy (1269). The Polos started again a new trip to China in 1271, taking with them young Marco,
and arrived at the court of Kublai Khan in 1275 by way of Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan to Lop Nor, then across the Gobi desert to Kansu and Shang-tu. Marco Polo entered the diplomatic service of Kublai Khan and was sent on missions to various parts of the Mongol empire. The Polos left China on 1282 and returned by way of Sumatra, India, and Persia to Venice (1295). In 1298 Marco was in command of a galley at the battle of Curzola, where the Venetians were defeated by the Genoese, and he was a prisoner for a year at Genoa. Here it was thought that he dictated to another captive an account of his travels, published under the title of ''Divisamemt dou monde''. (English title: ''The Travels of Marco Polo''.) ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo Marco Polo].)

''Kublai Khan'' (1214-94), Mongol khan, emperor of China, grandson of Jenghiz Khan. He completed the conquest of northern China and became the first foreigner ever to rule China. An enegetic prince, he suppressed his rivals, adopted the Chinese mode of civilisation, encouraged men of letters and made Buddhism the state religion. But his attempt to invade Japan ended in disaster. His dominions extended from Arctic Ocean to the Strait of Malacca, and from Korea to Asia Minor and the confines of Hungary. The splendor of his court inspired the graphic pages of Marco Polo. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.)

==Page 248==

[[image:doge.jpg|thumb|100px|Doge by Giovanni Bellini|right]]'''Doge's hat''' 
For some thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge, a rare but not unique Italian title derived from the Latin Dux, as the major Italian parallel Duce and the English Duke. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia entry]

'''''Attenzione al culo''''' 
Italian: watch your ass.

'''Shambhala''' 
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a mystical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas. Shambhala is believed to be a society where all the inhabitants are enlightened. During the 19th century, Theosophical Society founder H.P. Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult enthusiasts. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala Wikipedia entry]

'''Professor Svegli of the University of Pisa''' 
The fictional professor's name comes from the Italian ''sveglio'' for "clever, dextrous, skillful."

'''"try to forget the usual picture in two dimensions"''' 
Cf. page 220, the idea behind the ''Tetractys'' as explained by Nigel and Neville.

'''an episode of intentional blindness''' 
Echoes the "denial of ordinary vision" that Lew sees when he meets Professor Renfrew (p. 240). Might these "blind spots" in sense evoke Iceland Spar?

==Page 249==

'''"Those whose enduring object is power in this world are only too happy to use without remorse the others, whose aim is of course to transcend all question of power. Each regards the other as a pack of deluded fools."''' 
Over time, Pynchon appears to have come to a belief in a massive conflict between cultures "valuing analysis and differentiation" and those valuing "unity and integration". The two alternate maps of Asia could be a reference to these disparate worldviews.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. Wikipedia entry on V.]

'''The problem lies with the projection''' 
(a) Projection by each group of its own obsession onto the other group. (b) Cartographic projection, i.e., how the round world gets imaged onto a flat sheet of paper.

'''paramorphoscope''' 
AtD is itself a paramorphoscope; satire and science fiction typically hold up a distorting mirror to the world in which they are written, and present worlds "set to the side of the one we have taken". In the end the correct paramorphic "mirror" shows the world clearly.

'''"a certain percentage of them went mad and ended up in the asylum on San Servolo"''' 
Cf. the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum with its light-obsessed inmates at [[ATD_57-80#Page_59|page 59]].

'''the asylum on San Servolo''' 
First established as a military hospital in 1715, later became a mental asylum. Seems that San Servolo is to Venice what Bedlam is to London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Servolo Wikipedia]

'''Clifford's term''' 
W.K. Clifford, (1845-1879): an English mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford Wikipedia]

==Page 250==

[[Image:stmarks.jpg|thumb|200px|right|St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) in Venice]]
'''Dr. Cantor''' 
Georg Cantor (1845 - 1918), German mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_theorem Cantor's Theorem] is what is most relevant to his mention here.

'''the plano-convex designs of Griendl von Ach''' 
For a brief history of the compound-lens microscope, and the roles played by the Italians and the Dutch, including Griendl von Ach, see:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Microscope

'''prophetic vision of St. Mark''' 
Mark the Evangelist (1st century) is traditionally believed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark and a companion of Peter. From [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brown-venice.html this site]: "...a prophetic dream that Mark was said to have experienced during his earlier, supposed ministry in the area of the Venetian lagoon. In it he was visited by an angel who told him that he would find his final resting place on the very site where San Marco would later be built." In the first century there was no settlement worth mentioning in the Lagoon yet. The prophecy was "fulfilled" in 828 when the saint's remains stolen on orders of Doge Giustiniano Participazio in Alexandria were brought to Venice. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_the_Evangelist Wikipedia entry] St. Mark is represented by a winged lion and is the patron saint of Venice [http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/saintm08.htm].

'''''but in reverse''''' 
Miles now takes the place of the angel. Who or what is the "Being" and what form does the prophecy take?

'''neither sails, masts, nor oars''' 
Not a craft that is driven by the wind or human muscle. To say more could spoil a plot point.

==Page 251==

[[Image:stmarklion.jpg|thumb|600px|center|The Lion of St. Mark, by Carpaccio]]

'''Lion of St. Mark by Carpaccion''' 
Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460–1525/6) was a Venetian painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittore_Carpaccio Wikipedia entry]

'''the vision of St. Mark, but in reverse''' 
In St. Mark's vision, an angel appeared to Mark and informed him that his remains would one day end up in his present location, which later became Venice. Here, Miles seems to assume the form of the angel (in the form of a lion?) and the 'promise' Pynchon mentions seems to be the angel's promise to Mark.

'''our own duty, our own fate... the real journey''' 
Pynchon's one-paragraph summation of human life and its meaning recalls a letter Pynchon wrote in the early 1960s, [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]], in which he also summed up the entirety of human life in a few tidy sentences. Both employ the word 'pilgrimage.'

==Page 252==

'''''sotopòrteghi''''' 
Tunnels or passageways under large buildings.

'''tenebrous''' 
Means "shadowy" but is also a link back to the previous paragraph. The Tenebrae Service is a special form that is meant to recreate the feelings of the Passion story, also represented by the Stations of the Cross.

'''Renata''' 
Note that Renata is the name of the female protagonist in Ernest Hemingway's ''Across the River and into the Trees'', set in Venice.

'''Glagolitic''' 
The Glagolitic Alphabet is the oldest known Slavic alphabet (9th c.). It originated as a tactic to lessen the dependence of the subjects of the Prince of Greater Moravia on Frankish priests, who banned it but could not suppress it; it played a similar role in preserving Bulgarian independence from Byzantium. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic] It appears to be a nexus of the kind of simultaneous temporal and spiritual tasks the Chums of Chance are now involved in. In this, it raises the issues first explored by Pynchon in the "Tchitcherine in Kyrghizia" sections of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' in which the introduction of a written alphabet causes immense political and social change.

'''Gauloise''' 
famous French cigarette. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauloise Wikipedia].

'''''scusi''''' 
Italian: Excuse me.

'''''Affascinante, caro''''' 
Italian: Fascinating, dear (addressed to a male person).

'''''ragazzo''''' 
Italian: Boy.

'''''Mattoidi''''' 
Italian: Semi-insane persons. The word was [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-mat1.htm coined by Cesare Lombroso,] the physiognomist.

'''''Prego''''' 
Italian: Please.

==Page 253==

'''Pozzuoli''' 
A city in the Province of Naples (''Napoli'') in the region of Campania. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzuoli Wikipedia].

'''The Tarocchi are much, much older.''' 
Not at all! This is one of those ideas that rarely gets questioned, especially since some "interpreters" of the tarot claim ancient Egyptian origins. The actually only [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot date back to the 15th century], as playing cards, and tarot divination was invented in the 19th century, with absolutely no historical precedent.

However, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley] in his writings and the design of his own version of the tarot, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Thoth_(Crowley) Thoth Deck], made a case for the Tarot unifying and being rooted in much older divination methods from Ancient egypt to the[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] to Greek [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology astrology]. Crowley's Golden Dawn gets a previous mention in ATD. Though work on the Thoth deck would not begin until 1938, Crowley´s assignment of the Kabbalah's [http://jktarot.com/naples Sephiroth to the major arcana] probably bears attention when considering the chapter structure of ATD: he called the correspondence "The Naples Arrangement" in honour of having worked it out there, and this passage's mention of Renata's business associate being in Naples at this moment is unlikely to be coincidence.
:Surely a robust skepticism toward Crowley and his research methods is in order? Consider, for example, this [http://www.tarothermit.com/letter.htm "open letter"] to tarot users—from a judicious scholar and believer, not a committed skeptic—making the point that if the cards embody images (of whatever origin) "speaking" to the reader or student, it isn't essential to press the further claim that they were invented by the god Thoth. The paintings lack a couple of millennia of "temporal bandwidth" but aren't necessarily voided of appeal by that, any more than Michelangelo's ''Pietà'' is a less-valid devotional object for having been sculpted 1500 years after the event.

'''''sfumato''''' 
Refers to a well known painting method which blends so subtly the colors and tones that no perceptible transition is visible, as demonstrated by Leonardo da Vince's ''Mona Lisa''. See [http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato Wikipedia]. 
The context seems to imply ''smoke'', then ''fumo'' instead should be used.
:No, the evocation of the painterly effect becomes a metaphor for the way the boat comes into sight.

==Page 254==

'''''Pax tibi, Darbe''''' 
Latin: Peace to you, Darby. ''Pax tibi'' is not at all obscure—devout Catholics used it as a parting formula—but Chick has Latinized Darby's name to ''Darbus'' (vocative case ''Darbe'') and may be consciously echoing the text in [[#Page_251|Carpaccio's lion painting]] or on a [[#Page_247|pre-Napoleonic]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Most_Serene_Republic_of_Venice.svg flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice:] ''Pax tibi Marce evangelista meus,'' "Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist."

'''like some damned ''Farewell'' Symphony''' 
Franz Josef Haydn, 1772, Hungary. Musicians at Count Esterházy's court had been kept too long on duty (and away from their families). Going on strike would have been disrespectful, so in the last movement of Haydn's hinting work, the players one by one extinguish their candles and exit, leaving two violins to play the last phrases.

'''"Chums of Chance were expected to die on the job. Or else live forever, there being two schools of thought, actually."''' 
Possibly a reference to the fact that the Chums seem to live simultaneously in the "real" world of the novel and also in fictional stories within the novel.

==Page 255==

'''Mostruccio''' 
Italian, literally: small monster, meant as a lovely nickname.

[[Image:samoyeds.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Samoyeds]]
'''Samoyeds''' 
These nomadic reindeer herders help with the herding, pull sleds, and are sometimes called "the smiley dog" in reference to their seemingly smiling faces. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoyed_(dog) Wikipedia]

'''Bastille Day''' 
The Campanile di San Marco collapsed 14 July 1902. Pynchon Wiki on the [[Campanile]].

'''''lasagnoni''''' 
Italian, plural of ''lasagnone'': Blowhard, braggart.

A hint may come from an Italian dictionary: a ''lasagnone'' being an awkward, simple person, the kind of loafers who abound on city squares or street corners and, consequently, may appear in tourists' pictures.

==Page 256==
[[Image:Campanile.jpg|thumb|200px|right]]

'''dual citizenship''' 
They live in two places, there are two skycraft, they point a gun at one place but the shell strikes a different place. Lots of '''bi-''' somethings in this passage.

'''the little-understood enigmata of the simultaneous''' 
The concept of simultaneous events, including the accurate definition and, moreover, the very ''need'' of such a definition, played a significant role in the soon-to-be formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity Special Relativity Theory]. One of the main consequences of the theory is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity relativity of simultaneity].

'''four-brick groupings''' 
Padzhitnoff sees the Campanile come apart as a game of Tetris! The "four-brick groupings [...] begin their gentle, undeadly descent, rotating and translating in all available modes". (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_123|page 123]] for more on Tetris.)

'''the tower collapses''' 
Might have some relation to the final poem of ''Gravity's Rainbow''. The fall of the tower is foreshadowed -- foretold, actually -- in Chick´s Tarot reading by Renata (See [[ATD_243-272#Page_253|page 253]]).

==Page 257==

'''What stood for a thousand years''' 
Pretty close: Construction of the Campanile began in the year 912.

'''deciduous''' 
Something that falls, drops or is shed, like leaves from a tree or baby teeth.

'''We had the weather-gauge''' 
In the days of sail, [http://www.weathergage.com/ weather gage] described the relative position of two ships or forces. If you were downwind you could run or, if you meant to engage the enemy, tack to approach him. Every time you changed tack you lost an opportunity to shoot (because your guns pointed left and right). If you lay upwind, you could keep your guns trained on the enemy throughout the engagement. The weather gage was an often decisive battle advantage, and the phrase is common in nautical narratives.

'''neuræsthenic prostration''' 
This is the third (at least) time Randolph has exhibited this tendency.

:This is the third time that this word has appeared so far, but in the second instance (page 188) it was used by Nigel to describe Lew Basnight, not Randolph.

:Not the word, but this reaction in Randolph occurred on pages 12 and 28. It seems to be a regular thing with him.

==Page 258==

'''Tetralith''' 
Modern math term for three dimensional solid formed by merging three hyperbolic paraboloids in a manner that they have a common midpoint. See [http://www.tetranometry.com/#tetralith Tetralith Photo #2]. Pynchon just means a Tetris-shaped projectile, a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino Tetromino].
:A "monolith" (as in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'')means an "object made of a single block of stone". Hence "tetralith" means an "object made of four blocks of stone", which is exactly what you see on the game "Tetris".

'''Japanese character for "four" being same as that for "death"''' 
Not quite correct. The Japanese kanji (Chinese) characters for four 四 and death 死 are quite distinct, but can be pronounced in the same way, hence the taboo.

'''Ryohei Uchida''' 
Ultra-nationalist, founder of the Black Dragon Soceity (see below), a right-wing, paramilitary organization. See [http://members.tripod.com/ravenshrine/uchida.html Ryohei Uchida].

'''''polny pizdets''''' 
Crude Russian: a total screwup.

'''Black Dragon Society''' 
A paramiltary, ultra-nationalist, right-wing organization in Japan founded by Ryohei Uchida in 1901. Its initial public goal was to support Janpanese expansion in Manchuria. Therefore, during the period from 1901 to the end of World War I, it aimed to help the Japanese government drive the Russian presence out of that region. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (a war fought over Manchuria, with the Russians soundly defeated) it was active in espionage, sabotage and assassination against the Russians. During the 20's, 30's and later periods the Black Dragon Society evolved and expanded its activities around the world, including the United States. It was finally disbanded in 1946 by General MacArthur after World War II. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuryu-kai Wikipedia entry].

'''''Smirno''''' 
Russian: quiet!

==Page 259==

'''''dov'era, com'era''''' 
Italian: where it was, as it was. See [http://veniceblog.typepad.com/veniceblog/2003/12/comera_dovera.html veniceblog]. On July 14, 1902 the St. Mark's Campanile in Piazza San Marco, Venice, mysteriously and totally collapsed. Under the 'battle cry' of '''''com'era, dov'era''''' it was rebuilt. The Campanile was reopened on April 25 (St. Mark's Day) 1912. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Campanile St. Mark's Campanile]. Also, Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page 256|page 256:the tower collapses]].

''''La Marangona''''' 
The largest bell in the campanile is called la Marangona. At midnight, that massive bell resounds alone from high in the Piazza, and can be heard from almost any point in the city. There are four other bells in the campanile and they each have a name.

'''"Bells are the most ancient objects. They call to us out of eternity"''' 
This chapter is bookended by references to bells. It opens, "Across the city noontide a field of bells emerged into flower."

==Page 260==

'''Deuce and Sloat return''' 
These two, it will be recalled, are the men hired by the mine owners to kill Webb Traverse. (193) It is unclear who is whose sidekick. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_195|195]]) Sloat tends to bodies, Deuce the spirit. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_197|197]])

'''Curly Dee''' 
Mathematicians call the "partial derivative" symbol "curly d." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_derivative Wikipedia shows the symbol.]

'''inside out''' 
Optical illusion.

==Page 261==

'''Nonpareil Eating House''' 
The motto over the door was probably "None Like It!"

'''Mayva and Lake''' 
Webb Traverse's wife and daughter.

'''lard smoke''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke," and p. 216, "Just greasy ashes by the trailside."

'''biscuit-shooter''' 
I.e., a cook.

'''Cañon City''' 
Site of the Colorado State Penitentiary, meant to suggest Deuce and Sloat had done time there.

'''gong''' 
???
17:18, 1 January 2007 (PST)[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]]
 "kicking the gong around" is slang for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_the_Moocher smoking opium]. Here, Sloat seems to mean that Deuce's opium smoking has affected his judgement.

==Page 262==

'''Willis Turnstone''' 
Turnstones are members of the sandpiper family, stocky birds that use their stout bills to flip over rocks and such in search of food. There are two species: Black Turnstone (''Arenaria melanocephala'') and Ruddy Turnstone (''A. interpres''). The [http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Ruddy_Turnstone.html Ruddy's] breeding plumage is a bold calico of white, orange, and black.

==Page 263==

'''"Crazier."''' 
Cf Bonnie and Clyde.

'''Oleander Prudge''' 
A name that brings joy to the heart of any Dickensian who happens to be reading along.

==Page 264==

'''single-jacker''' 
A miner who with a hammer and spike cuts a hole into rock for placement of a stick of dynamite. A set of holes are cut for each "synchronized" blast.
(Double jackers work as a team.)
Infer (this) one as a loner, a bit crazy, single minded, silent, easily hurt or misunderstood, doesn't play well with others...

'''How I feel about Mr. Kindred...and...Webb Traverse are two different things''' 

This is an interesting exchange between Lake and Oleander Prudge. Clearly Oleander hits a nerve as Lake spills the hotcakes. Lake goes into denial, saying her love of someone she would normally hate (Deuce -- her father's killer) and hating someone she would normally love (her father Webb) are "two different things."

Oleanders rejoinder, "they can't be," has the finality of a mathematical proof.

It's as if Lake is looking at passion through an emotional lense of iceland spar and sees two sets of images (father/lover, hate/love)and wants to believe they're different, whereas Oleander sees that in fact they are one. This won't be the last time Lake gets herself a "twofer."

==Page 265==

'''backing away down the valley''' 
It's instructive to look at a [http://www.vacationtelluride.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=standard&categoryId=11&subCategoryId=0 map or satellite photo of Telluride.] You could very well lay a single track from the mouth of the valley up to the town, but no farther. So the train drives into the station, then backs out until there's room for a spur where it can turn around.

'''gullet of days''' 
Metaphor. The miners' lives "as easily (as jug whisky)disappeared down the throat of everyday life".

==Page 266==

'''white-throated swift''' 
A swift is a small plainly colored bird similar to a swallow. The [http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/187/_/White-throated_Swift.aspx white-throated species,] which breeds in the western U.S. and winters in Mexico, is less plain than some. And get the species name: '''''Aeronaut'''es saxatalis.''

'''November''' 
November 1903.

'''in January, martial law''' 
January 3, 1904.

'''nymph du pave''' 
should probably read "nymphE du pave": [http://dict.die.net/nymphe%20du%20pave/ street-whore]. Theoretically this could also translate as: (image of a) nymph on a mosaic (tesselated floor) - like the huge roman one of Ariadne in the Rue du Pavé in Avenche (Switzerland) [http://www.stub.unibe.ch/welten/texte/herzig.html german weblink]

Most likely not (the mosaic idea); this is a consecrated term for prostitute. Note: in French, pavé means cobblestone. --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:09, 3 March 2007 (PST)

'''geometric episode''' 
Vaguely reminiscent of Proust on Combray: "And on one of the longest walks we ever took from Combray there was a spot where the narrow road emerged suddenly on to an immense plain, closed at the horizon by strips of forest over which rose and stood alone the fine point of Saint-Hilaire's steeple, but so sharpened and so pink that it seemed to be no more than sketched on the sky by the finger-nail of a painter anxious to give to such a landscape, to so pure a piece of 'nature,' this little sign of art, this single indication of human existence." [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8swnn10.txt etext]

'''Engelmann spruce''' 
[http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=175 Picea engelmannii,] a light-colored, easily worked wood with fairly straight grain and slight contrast between heartwood and sapwood; [http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/boise/trees/engelmann.shtml uses include] piano sounding boards and the tops of violins and guitars, hence the association with the acoustics of the church.

A short biography of Dr. Engelmann (lit. Angel-Man) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engelmann Wikipedia-Entry], more elaborated on [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Engelmann german site]

'''albatross cloth''' 
Evidently a distinct color/design for a wedding or wedding party dress in the West at the time. I have no OED at the moment, but there are at least two online "diaries" or descriptions using the phrase. Here is one: "We were married August 6, 1896 at 7:30 AM at my folk’s residence among friends and relatives. To honor the event, my folks had our parlor decorated with many flowers including roses, myrtle and geraniums. I wore an elegant gown of white silk and albatross cloth."

==Page 267==

'''Osterbybruk''' 
Town noted for ironmaking, 20 miles (32 km) north of Uppsala, eastern Sweden, nowhere near Jämtland (next entry).

'''Jemt-land''' 
A Province in west central Sweden [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4mtland Wikipedia.] The hyphen is not part of the name and probably marks a syncopation in the rev's delivery.

'''Child of the storm''' 
See the [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/?s=child+of+the+storm ATD Weblog entry].

==Page 268==

'''sideways pussy''' 
Folklore.

'''side hobbles''' 
A hobble is a device for a horse or a dog that restricts the range of motion of the legs. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobble Wikipedia entry]. 
A [http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/archive/index.php/t-67850.html side hobble or Scotch hobble] links the horse's two left or two right legs, restricting its movement. 
"Hobble" also describes a type of skirt used (apparently) in bondage, see this [http://www.darksidecreations.com/product.asp?productid=19 example (not safe for work)] in latex.

==Page 269==

'''items, nearly always stolen''' 
Cf bower-bird.

'''marmot''' 
A stout-bodied, short-legged rodent that has coarse fur, a short bushy tail, and very short ears, lives in burrows, and hibernates in winter; also: a prairie dog or one of the larger ground squirrels. Marmots are native to Colorado and live at the higher altitudes. They are about the size of a weasel.

'''''"huevón"''''' 
From hueva (egg). According to [http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2004/06/huevon_and_guey.html this blog] huevon "literally refers to the size of a mans "cojones" (another pseudo decent word that has seen a lot of mainstream play). It is commonly used to indicate how lazy someone is. The bigger the "huevon" you are, the lazier. As with "guey", however, this too has often been used to say dude or buddy."

'''''pinche cabron''''' 
fucking asshole.

==Page 270==

'''same hour, just before dawn...he even bombs by the moon''' 
I.e., he waits for a favorable phase. People who "plant by the signs," for example, associate days of the lunar month to parts of the plant and of the human body. They sow squash (vines) under one sign and lettuce (leaves) under another; they sow nothing at all when the moon is waning. Would a moon-guided bomber blow up trestles (legs) at one phase and plutocrats (belly) at another?

Here we see that Webb is "deuced" again -- first by being killed by Deuce, second by having his modus [operandi] imitated.

The time signature for the modus is given in both solar terms -- "the same hour just before dawn" -- and lunar terms. Depending on the time of year, the bombings probably happen from 4am to 6am.

It would be interesting if the anarchists had esoteric moon teachings as to which moon position is best for success.

Given that the authorities know the time of day and that the moon is the same in a relative way, they pretty much can predict the time of the next bombing, they just don't know exactly where. Sort of a variation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

==Page 271==

'''skip''' 
In mining, a skip is "an iron bucket, which slides between guides,
for hoisting mineral and rock." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

'''ex-Danite''' 
Danites were Joseph Smith's vigilantes, "Armies of Israel", during the Mormon War 1838 in Missouri, i.e., before travel to Utah.

'''"Avenging Angels"''' 
Refers to [http://www.ugca.org/ugca1099/ugca1099main.htm Civil War-vintage Colt pistols] usually with sawn off barrels.

==Page 272==

'''the Dolores''' 
Dolores River runs through Cortez (where Deuce seems to be, next to exploding cactus p270). "We woke up in the Dolores... [VALLEY/REGION/HOTEL]"

'''a luminous face suspended''' 

Some large convex object in the sky.

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

ATD 243-272

2007-09-22T20:47:29Z

Sideming: /* Page 270 */

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

==Page 243==

'''The Chums return''' 
When were the Chums last seen in AtD? As far back as page 142?

A brief reminder of who the Chums are and what we know about them so far:
:'''Randolph St. Cosmo''', commander.
:'''Lindsay Noseworth''', Master-at-Arms and second in command, hates slackers and slang.
:'''Miles Blundell''', handyman, awkward, with an "ample waist" (11), also ship's Commissary, whose cooking ranges from pure cordon bleu to inedible. (110)
:'''Darby Suckling''', the baby of the crew, served "as both factotum and mascotte". By page 141 or so, has transformed from spirited youth to bomb obsessed, (111) sneering, snide cynic. Because of hitting adolescence?
:'''Chick Counterfly''', the newest member of the crew, picked up by the Chums in the South while on the run from the KKK. At last appearance, had become Dr. Counterfly, knowledgeable Science Officer aboard the Inconvenience (141). Reliably humorous. (110). Chick's style of speech here seems intermediate between the country boy of the early chapters and the sophisticated Dr Counterfly who met the Vormance expedition. Are we also at an intermediate point on the timeline?

[[image:fumaioli.jpg|thumb|150px|Fumaioli in Venice|right]]
'''''fumaioli''''' 
Italian: ''funnels''; fumaioli are large wide-topped chimneys, common to the rooftops of Venice.

'''''certo''''' 
sure, certain.

'''''Seccatura''''' 
Italian: ''Inconvenience''

==Page 244==

'''''ragazza''''' 
Italian: ''girl''.

'''Picardy thirds''' 
The use of a major chord at the end of a musical section in a minor key. Miles seems just as moved by them as Lew. [[ATD_26-56#Page_50 | Cf p50]]

The gondolier is singing harmony with himself, or else Miles is imagining the accompaniment.

Picardie is also a region in northern France and "during the Middle Ages... included the Dutch speaking Flanders." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy] The region was a hotbed of action along the Western Front in WWI and played host to the Battle of the Somme, which totaled more than a million casualties and was "one of the bloodiest battles in human history."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme]

'''''stabilimento''''' 
Italian: establishment.

==Page 245==
'''Garibaldi''' 
Famous Italian leader, major figure in the Italian Unification. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garibaldi Wikipedia]

'''''"Ehi, sugo!"''''' 
"Hey, sauce!" Does this make sense to anyone?
It does not make any sense in Italian.

'''twentyfold''' 
5 chums times 4 suspects each. (Randolph suspects Lindsay, Miles, Darby and Chick of being the leak; and so on around the crew. And that assumes no one suspects Pugnax!)

'''''osteria''''' 
tavern.

'''San Polo''' 
The smallest district/area in Venice, and among the oldest. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Polo Wikipedia]

'''''rio''''' 
narrow waterway in Venice.

'''against the night''' 
OK...

'''''calli''''' 
Venetian 'street' or 'lane'.

==Page 246==

'''''sotoporteghi''''' 
passageways. See picture for one example [http://www.dialetto-veneto.it/images/FotoComano/Comano-Cattognano.jpg].

'''''"Sa stai, O! Lungo, ehi!"''''' 
It does not mean anything in Italian or in the Venetian dialect. One possibility is mimicking the callouts of gondoliers. ''Lungo'' could be someone's nickname. 
Other possibility is a wrong lettering of: ''Xa star, oh! Lungo, ehi!'', meaning ''Ehi, Lungo, let it be and let's go!'' or something similar.

'''''cameriere''''' 
Italian: waitresses (plural of ''cameriera'').

'''''pallonisti''''' 
(fake-)Italian: balloonists.

'''''Ehi, macché, Pina! ''''' 
Italian: Ehi, Giusep(Pina), what are you telling me?

'''''giadrul''''' 
Again, doesn't mean anything in Italian or Venetian dialect. Seems to be a [https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0007&L=irtrad-l&D=0&T=0&P=94630 term of insult], variously described as American-Italian only (see previous link) and southern Italian (see next). One source gives one meaning as "[http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070318034908AAem49X zuccone]" - this appears to mean "[http://notes.tranq.com/archives/2004/01/23/zuccone/ pumpkinhead]". I guess we're looking for something phallic, given the context. 
(''as far as I can see, it is an American-Italian deformation of the correct italian word "citrullo", which in fact is some sort of "dumb ass", and is derived from neapolitan for "cetriolo", that is, "cucumber" '')

'''"with all the spaghetti-joints in this town to choose from, are you saying those dadblame Russians have come in ''here''?"''' 
reminiscent of a similar line from the film ''Casablanca'', spoken by Humphrey Bogart: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

==Page 247==

'''tacchino in pomegranate sauce''' 
turkey in pomegranate sauce and, presumably, the "Purple Thanksgiving" to which Miles refers above.

'''''Dum vivimus, bibamus''''' 
While we live, let us drink. Paraphrase of "Dum vivimus, vivamus".

'''vini frizzanti''' 
sparkling wine.

'''SANGUIS RUBER, MENS PURA''' 
Latin: Red blood, clean mind.

'''''Serrata del Maggior Consiglio''''' 
Great Council Lockout, 1297. Link to the "Maggior Consiglio" entry on Reference.com [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/Maggior%20Consiglio]

'''Napoleon's abolition''' 
1797. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia]

'''Polos' return''' 
Marco Polo together with his father and uncle returned to Venice in 1295 from their travel to China started in 1271. 

''Marco Polo'' (1254-1324), a Venetian traveller. Was born of a nobel family at Venice, while his father and uncle had gone on a mercantile expedition by Constantinople and the Crimea to Bokhara and to Cathy (China). The Mongol prince commissioned them as envoys to the Pope, a commission they tried in vain to carry out in Italy (1269). The Polos started again a new trip to China in 1271, taking with them young Marco,
and arrived at the court of Kublai Khan in 1275 by way of Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan to Lop Nor, then across the Gobi desert to Kansu and Shang-tu. Marco Polo entered the diplomatic service of Kublai Khan and was sent on missions to various parts of the Mongol empire. The Polos left China on 1282 and returned by way of Sumatra, India, and Persia to Venice (1295). In 1298 Marco was in command of a galley at the battle of Curzola, where the Venetians were defeated by the Genoese, and he was a prisoner for a year at Genoa. Here it was thought that he dictated to another captive an account of his travels, published under the title of ''Divisamemt dou monde''. (English title: ''The Travels of Marco Polo''.) ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo Marco Polo].)

''Kublai Khan'' (1214-94), Mongol khan, emperor of China, grandson of Jenghiz Khan. He completed the conquest of northern China and became the first foreigner ever to rule China. An enegetic prince, he suppressed his rivals, adopted the Chinese mode of civilisation, encouraged men of letters and made Buddhism the state religion. But his attempt to invade Japan ended in disaster. His dominions extended from Arctic Ocean to the Strait of Malacca, and from Korea to Asia Minor and the confines of Hungary. The splendor of his court inspired the graphic pages of Marco Polo. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.)

==Page 248==

[[image:doge.jpg|thumb|100px|Doge by Giovanni Bellini|right]]'''Doge's hat''' 
For some thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge, a rare but not unique Italian title derived from the Latin Dux, as the major Italian parallel Duce and the English Duke. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia entry]

'''''Attenzione al culo''''' 
Italian: watch your ass.

'''Shambhala''' 
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a mystical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas. Shambhala is believed to be a society where all the inhabitants are enlightened. During the 19th century, Theosophical Society founder H.P. Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult enthusiasts. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala Wikipedia entry]

'''Professor Svegli of the University of Pisa''' 
The fictional professor's name comes from the Italian ''sveglio'' for "clever, dextrous, skillful."

'''"try to forget the usual picture in two dimensions"''' 
Cf. page 220, the idea behind the ''Tetractys'' as explained by Nigel and Neville.

'''an episode of intentional blindness''' 
Echoes the "denial of ordinary vision" that Lew sees when he meets Professor Renfrew (p. 240). Might these "blind spots" in sense evoke Iceland Spar?

==Page 249==

'''"Those whose enduring object is power in this world are only too happy to use without remorse the others, whose aim is of course to transcend all question of power. Each regards the other as a pack of deluded fools."''' 
Over time, Pynchon appears to have come to a belief in a massive conflict between cultures "valuing analysis and differentiation" and those valuing "unity and integration". The two alternate maps of Asia could be a reference to these disparate worldviews.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. Wikipedia entry on V.]

'''The problem lies with the projection''' 
(a) Projection by each group of its own obsession onto the other group. (b) Cartographic projection, i.e., how the round world gets imaged onto a flat sheet of paper.

'''paramorphoscope''' 
AtD is itself a paramorphoscope; satire and science fiction typically hold up a distorting mirror to the world in which they are written, and present worlds "set to the side of the one we have taken". In the end the correct paramorphic "mirror" shows the world clearly.

'''"a certain percentage of them went mad and ended up in the asylum on San Servolo"''' 
Cf. the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum with its light-obsessed inmates at [[ATD_57-80#Page_59|page 59]].

'''the asylum on San Servolo''' 
First established as a military hospital in 1715, later became a mental asylum. Seems that San Servolo is to Venice what Bedlam is to London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Servolo Wikipedia]

'''Clifford's term''' 
W.K. Clifford, (1845-1879): an English mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford Wikipedia]

==Page 250==

[[Image:stmarks.jpg|thumb|200px|right|St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) in Venice]]
'''Dr. Cantor''' 
Georg Cantor (1845 - 1918), German mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_theorem Cantor's Theorem] is what is most relevant to his mention here.

'''the plano-convex designs of Griendl von Ach''' 
For a brief history of the compound-lens microscope, and the roles played by the Italians and the Dutch, including Griendl von Ach, see:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Microscope

'''prophetic vision of St. Mark''' 
Mark the Evangelist (1st century) is traditionally believed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark and a companion of Peter. From [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brown-venice.html this site]: "...a prophetic dream that Mark was said to have experienced during his earlier, supposed ministry in the area of the Venetian lagoon. In it he was visited by an angel who told him that he would find his final resting place on the very site where San Marco would later be built." In the first century there was no settlement worth mentioning in the Lagoon yet. The prophecy was "fulfilled" in 828 when the saint's remains stolen on orders of Doge Giustiniano Participazio in Alexandria were brought to Venice. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_the_Evangelist Wikipedia entry] St. Mark is represented by a winged lion and is the patron saint of Venice [http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/saintm08.htm].

'''''but in reverse''''' 
Miles now takes the place of the angel. Who or what is the "Being" and what form does the prophecy take?

'''neither sails, masts, nor oars''' 
Not a craft that is driven by the wind or human muscle. To say more could spoil a plot point.

==Page 251==

[[Image:stmarklion.jpg|thumb|600px|center|The Lion of St. Mark, by Carpaccio]]

'''Lion of St. Mark by Carpaccion''' 
Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460–1525/6) was a Venetian painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittore_Carpaccio Wikipedia entry]

'''the vision of St. Mark, but in reverse''' 
In St. Mark's vision, an angel appeared to Mark and informed him that his remains would one day end up in his present location, which later became Venice. Here, Miles seems to assume the form of the angel (in the form of a lion?) and the 'promise' Pynchon mentions seems to be the angel's promise to Mark.

'''our own duty, our own fate... the real journey''' 
Pynchon's one-paragraph summation of human life and its meaning recalls a letter Pynchon wrote in the early 1960s, [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]], in which he also summed up the entirety of human life in a few tidy sentences. Both employ the word 'pilgrimage.'

==Page 252==

'''''sotopòrteghi''''' 
Tunnels or passageways under large buildings.

'''tenebrous''' 
Means "shadowy" but is also a link back to the previous paragraph. The Tenebrae Service is a special form that is meant to recreate the feelings of the Passion story, also represented by the Stations of the Cross.

'''Renata''' 
Note that Renata is the name of the female protagonist in Ernest Hemingway's ''Across the River and into the Trees'', set in Venice.

'''Glagolitic''' 
The Glagolitic Alphabet is the oldest known Slavic alphabet (9th c.). It originated as a tactic to lessen the dependence of the subjects of the Prince of Greater Moravia on Frankish priests, who banned it but could not suppress it; it played a similar role in preserving Bulgarian independence from Byzantium. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic] It appears to be a nexus of the kind of simultaneous temporal and spiritual tasks the Chums of Chance are now involved in. In this, it raises the issues first explored by Pynchon in the "Tchitcherine in Kyrghizia" sections of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' in which the introduction of a written alphabet causes immense political and social change.

'''Gauloise''' 
famous French cigarette. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauloise Wikipedia].

'''''scusi''''' 
Italian: Excuse me.

'''''Affascinante, caro''''' 
Italian: Fascinating, dear (addressed to a male person).

'''''ragazzo''''' 
Italian: Boy.

'''''Mattoidi''''' 
Italian: Semi-insane persons. The word was [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-mat1.htm coined by Cesare Lombroso,] the physiognomist.

'''''Prego''''' 
Italian: Please.

==Page 253==

'''Pozzuoli''' 
A city in the Province of Naples (''Napoli'') in the region of Campania. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzuoli Wikipedia].

'''The Tarocchi are much, much older.''' 
Not at all! This is one of those ideas that rarely gets questioned, especially since some "interpreters" of the tarot claim ancient Egyptian origins. The actually only [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot date back to the 15th century], as playing cards, and tarot divination was invented in the 19th century, with absolutely no historical precedent.

However, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley] in his writings and the design of his own version of the tarot, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Thoth_(Crowley) Thoth Deck], made a case for the Tarot unifying and being rooted in much older divination methods from Ancient egypt to the[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] to Greek [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology astrology]. Crowley's Golden Dawn gets a previous mention in ATD. Though work on the Thoth deck would not begin until 1938, Crowley´s assignment of the Kabbalah's [http://jktarot.com/naples Sephiroth to the major arcana] probably bears attention when considering the chapter structure of ATD: he called the correspondence "The Naples Arrangement" in honour of having worked it out there, and this passage's mention of Renata's business associate being in Naples at this moment is unlikely to be coincidence.
:Surely a robust skepticism toward Crowley and his research methods is in order? Consider, for example, this [http://www.tarothermit.com/letter.htm "open letter"] to tarot users—from a judicious scholar and believer, not a committed skeptic—making the point that if the cards embody images (of whatever origin) "speaking" to the reader or student, it isn't essential to press the further claim that they were invented by the god Thoth. The paintings lack a couple of millennia of "temporal bandwidth" but aren't necessarily voided of appeal by that, any more than Michelangelo's ''Pietà'' is a less-valid devotional object for having been sculpted 1500 years after the event.

'''''sfumato''''' 
Refers to a well known painting method which blends so subtly the colors and tones that no perceptible transition is visible, as demonstrated by Leonardo da Vince's ''Mona Lisa''. See [http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato Wikipedia]. 
The context seems to imply ''smoke'', then ''fumo'' instead should be used.
:No, the evocation of the painterly effect becomes a metaphor for the way the boat comes into sight.

==Page 254==

'''''Pax tibi, Darbe''''' 
Latin: Peace to you, Darby. ''Pax tibi'' is not at all obscure—devout Catholics used it as a parting formula—but Chick has Latinized Darby's name to ''Darbus'' (vocative case ''Darbe'') and may be consciously echoing the text in [[#Page_251|Carpaccio's lion painting]] or on a [[#Page_247|pre-Napoleonic]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Most_Serene_Republic_of_Venice.svg flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice:] ''Pax tibi Marce evangelista meus,'' "Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist."

'''like some damned ''Farewell'' Symphony''' 
Franz Josef Haydn, 1772, Hungary. Musicians at Count Esterházy's court had been kept too long on duty (and away from their families). Going on strike would have been disrespectful, so in the last movement of Haydn's hinting work, the players one by one extinguish their candles and exit, leaving two violins to play the last phrases.

'''"Chums of Chance were expected to die on the job. Or else live forever, there being two schools of thought, actually."''' 
Possibly a reference to the fact that the Chums seem to live simultaneously in the "real" world of the novel and also in fictional stories within the novel.

==Page 255==

'''Mostruccio''' 
Italian, literally: small monster, meant as a lovely nickname.

[[Image:samoyeds.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Samoyeds]]
'''Samoyeds''' 
These nomadic reindeer herders help with the herding, pull sleds, and are sometimes called "the smiley dog" in reference to their seemingly smiling faces. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoyed_(dog) Wikipedia]

'''Bastille Day''' 
The Campanile di San Marco collapsed 14 July 1902. Pynchon Wiki on the [[Campanile]].

'''''lasagnoni''''' 
Italian, plural of ''lasagnone'': Blowhard, braggart.

A hint may come from an Italian dictionary: a ''lasagnone'' being an awkward, simple person, the kind of loafers who abound on city squares or street corners and, consequently, may appear in tourists' pictures.

==Page 256==
[[Image:Campanile.jpg|thumb|200px|right]]

'''dual citizenship''' 
They live in two places, there are two skycraft, they point a gun at one place but the shell strikes a different place. Lots of '''bi-''' somethings in this passage.

'''the little-understood enigmata of the simultaneous''' 
The concept of simultaneous events, including the accurate definition and, moreover, the very ''need'' of such a definition, played a significant role in the soon-to-be formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity Special Relativity Theory]. One of the main consequences of the theory is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity relativity of simultaneity].

'''four-brick groupings''' 
Padzhitnoff sees the Campanile come apart as a game of Tetris! The "four-brick groupings [...] begin their gentle, undeadly descent, rotating and translating in all available modes". (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_123|page 123]] for more on Tetris.)

'''the tower collapses''' 
Might have some relation to the final poem of ''Gravity's Rainbow''. The fall of the tower is foreshadowed -- foretold, actually -- in Chick´s Tarot reading by Renata (See [[ATD_243-272#Page_253|page 253]]).

==Page 257==

'''What stood for a thousand years''' 
Pretty close: Construction of the Campanile began in the year 912.

'''deciduous''' 
Something that falls, drops or is shed, like leaves from a tree or baby teeth.

'''We had the weather-gauge''' 
In the days of sail, [http://www.weathergage.com/ weather gage] described the relative position of two ships or forces. If you were downwind you could run or, if you meant to engage the enemy, tack to approach him. Every time you changed tack you lost an opportunity to shoot (because your guns pointed left and right). If you lay upwind, you could keep your guns trained on the enemy throughout the engagement. The weather gage was an often decisive battle advantage, and the phrase is common in nautical narratives.

'''neuræsthenic prostration''' 
This is the third (at least) time Randolph has exhibited this tendency.

:This is the third time that this word has appeared so far, but in the second instance (page 188) it was used by Nigel to describe Lew Basnight, not Randolph.

:Not the word, but this reaction in Randolph occurred on pages 12 and 28. It seems to be a regular thing with him.

==Page 258==

'''Tetralith''' 
Modern math term for three dimensional solid formed by merging three hyperbolic paraboloids in a manner that they have a common midpoint. See [http://www.tetranometry.com/#tetralith Tetralith Photo #2]. Pynchon just means a Tetris-shaped projectile, a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino Tetromino].
:A "monolith" (as in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'')means an "object made of a single block of stone". Hence "tetralith" means an "object made of four blocks of stone", which is exactly what you see on the game "Tetris".

'''Japanese character for "four" being same as that for "death"''' 
Not quite correct. The Japanese kanji (Chinese) characters for four 四 and death 死 are quite distinct, but can be pronounced in the same way, hence the taboo.

'''Ryohei Uchida''' 
Ultra-nationalist, founder of the Black Dragon Soceity (see below), a right-wing, paramilitary organization. See [http://members.tripod.com/ravenshrine/uchida.html Ryohei Uchida].

'''''polny pizdets''''' 
Crude Russian: a total screwup.

'''Black Dragon Society''' 
A paramiltary, ultra-nationalist, right-wing organization in Japan founded by Ryohei Uchida in 1901. Its initial public goal was to support Janpanese expansion in Manchuria. Therefore, during the period from 1901 to the end of World War I, it aimed to help the Japanese government drive the Russian presence out of that region. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (a war fought over Manchuria, with the Russians soundly defeated) it was active in espionage, sabotage and assassination against the Russians. During the 20's, 30's and later periods the Black Dragon Society evolved and expanded its activities around the world, including the United States. It was finally disbanded in 1946 by General MacArthur after World War II. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuryu-kai Wikipedia entry].

'''''Smirno''''' 
Russian: quiet!

==Page 259==

'''''dov'era, com'era''''' 
Italian: where it was, as it was. See [http://veniceblog.typepad.com/veniceblog/2003/12/comera_dovera.html veniceblog]. On July 14, 1902 the St. Mark's Campanile in Piazza San Marco, Venice, mysteriously and totally collapsed. Under the 'battle cry' of '''''com'era, dov'era''''' it was rebuilt. The Campanile was reopened on April 25 (St. Mark's Day) 1912. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Campanile St. Mark's Campanile]. Also, Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page 256|page 256:the tower collapses]].

''''La Marangona''''' 
The largest bell in the campanile is called la Marangona. At midnight, that massive bell resounds alone from high in the Piazza, and can be heard from almost any point in the city. There are four other bells in the campanile and they each have a name.

'''"Bells are the most ancient objects. They call to us out of eternity"''' 
This chapter is bookended by references to bells. It opens, "Across the city noontide a field of bells emerged into flower."

==Page 260==

'''Deuce and Sloat return''' 
These two, it will be recalled, are the men hired by the mine owners to kill Webb Traverse. (193) It is unclear who is whose sidekick. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_195|195]]) Sloat tends to bodies, Deuce the spirit. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_197|197]])

'''Curly Dee''' 
Mathematicians call the "partial derivative" symbol "curly d." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_derivative Wikipedia shows the symbol.]

'''inside out''' 
Optical illusion.

==Page 261==

'''Nonpareil Eating House''' 
The motto over the door was probably "None Like It!"

'''Mayva and Lake''' 
Webb Traverse's wife and daughter.

'''lard smoke''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke," and p. 216, "Just greasy ashes by the trailside."

'''biscuit-shooter''' 
I.e., a cook.

'''Cañon City''' 
Site of the Colorado State Penitentiary, meant to suggest Deuce and Sloat had done time there.

'''gong''' 
???
17:18, 1 January 2007 (PST)[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]]
 "kicking the gong around" is slang for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_the_Moocher smoking opium]. Here, Sloat seems to mean that Deuce's opium smoking has affected his judgement.

==Page 262==

'''Willis Turnstone''' 
Turnstones are members of the sandpiper family, stocky birds that use their stout bills to flip over rocks and such in search of food. There are two species: Black Turnstone (''Arenaria melanocephala'') and Ruddy Turnstone (''A. interpres''). The [http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Ruddy_Turnstone.html Ruddy's] breeding plumage is a bold calico of white, orange, and black.

==Page 263==

'''"Crazier."''' 
Cf Bonnie and Clyde.

'''Oleander Prudge''' 
A name that brings joy to the heart of any Dickensian who happens to be reading along.

==Page 264==

'''single-jacker''' 
A miner who with a hammer and spike cuts a hole into rock for placement of a stick of dynamite. A set of holes are cut for each "synchronized" blast.
(Double jackers work as a team.)
Infer (this) one as a loner, a bit crazy, single minded, silent, easily hurt or misunderstood, doesn't play well with others...

'''How I feel about Mr. Kindred...and...Webb Traverse are two different things''' 

This is an interesting exchange between Lake and Oleander Prudge. Clearly Oleander hits a nerve as Lake spills the hotcakes. Lake goes into denial, saying her love of someone she would normally hate (Deuce -- her father's killer) and hating someone she would normally love (her father Webb) are "two different things."

Oleanders rejoinder, "they can't be," has the finality of a mathematical proof.

It's as if Lake is looking at passion through an emotional lense of iceland spar and sees two sets of images (father/lover, hate/love)and wants to believe they're different, whereas Oleander sees that in fact they are one. This won't be the last time Lake gets herself a "twofer."

==Page 265==

'''backing away down the valley''' 
It's instructive to look at a [http://www.vacationtelluride.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=standard&categoryId=11&subCategoryId=0 map or satellite photo of Telluride.] You could very well lay a single track from the mouth of the valley up to the town, but no farther. So the train drives into the station, then backs out until there's room for a spur where it can turn around.

'''gullet of days''' 
Metaphor. The miners' lives "as easily (as jug whisky)disappeared down the throat of everyday life".

==Page 266==

'''white-throated swift''' 
A swift is a small plainly colored bird similar to a swallow. The [http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/187/_/White-throated_Swift.aspx white-throated species,] which breeds in the western U.S. and winters in Mexico, is less plain than some. And get the species name: '''''Aeronaut'''es saxatalis.''

'''November''' 
November 1903.

'''in January, martial law''' 
January 3, 1904.

'''nymph du pave''' 
should probably read "nymphE du pave": [http://dict.die.net/nymphe%20du%20pave/ street-whore]. Theoretically this could also translate as: (image of a) nymph on a mosaic (tesselated floor) - like the huge roman one of Ariadne in the Rue du Pavé in Avenche (Switzerland) [http://www.stub.unibe.ch/welten/texte/herzig.html german weblink]

Most likely not (the mosaic idea); this is a consecrated term for prostitute. Note: in French, pavé means cobblestone. --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:09, 3 March 2007 (PST)

'''geometric episode''' 
Vaguely reminiscent of Proust on Combray: "And on one of the longest walks we ever took from Combray there was a spot where the narrow road emerged suddenly on to an immense plain, closed at the horizon by strips of forest over which rose and stood alone the fine point of Saint-Hilaire's steeple, but so sharpened and so pink that it seemed to be no more than sketched on the sky by the finger-nail of a painter anxious to give to such a landscape, to so pure a piece of 'nature,' this little sign of art, this single indication of human existence." [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8swnn10.txt etext]

'''Engelmann spruce''' 
[http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=175 Picea engelmannii,] a light-colored, easily worked wood with fairly straight grain and slight contrast between heartwood and sapwood; [http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/boise/trees/engelmann.shtml uses include] piano sounding boards and the tops of violins and guitars, hence the association with the acoustics of the church.

A short biography of Dr. Engelmann (lit. Angel-Man) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engelmann Wikipedia-Entry], more elaborated on [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Engelmann german site]

'''albatross cloth''' 
Evidently a distinct color/design for a wedding or wedding party dress in the West at the time. I have no OED at the moment, but there are at least two online "diaries" or descriptions using the phrase. Here is one: "We were married August 6, 1896 at 7:30 AM at my folk’s residence among friends and relatives. To honor the event, my folks had our parlor decorated with many flowers including roses, myrtle and geraniums. I wore an elegant gown of white silk and albatross cloth."

==Page 267==

'''Osterbybruk''' 
Town noted for ironmaking, 20 miles (32 km) north of Uppsala, eastern Sweden, nowhere near Jämtland (next entry).

'''Jemt-land''' 
A Province in west central Sweden [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4mtland Wikipedia.] The hyphen is not part of the name and probably marks a syncopation in the rev's delivery.

'''Child of the storm''' 
See the [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/?s=child+of+the+storm ATD Weblog entry].

==Page 268==

'''sideways pussy''' 
Folklore.

'''side hobbles''' 
A hobble is a device for a horse or a dog that restricts the range of motion of the legs. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobble Wikipedia entry]. 
A [http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/archive/index.php/t-67850.html side hobble or Scotch hobble] links the horse's two left or two right legs, restricting its movement. 
"Hobble" also describes a type of skirt used (apparently) in bondage, see this [http://www.darksidecreations.com/product.asp?productid=19 example (not safe for work)] in latex.

==Page 269==

'''items, nearly always stolen''' 
Cf bower-bird.

'''marmot''' 
A stout-bodied, short-legged rodent that has coarse fur, a short bushy tail, and very short ears, lives in burrows, and hibernates in winter; also: a prairie dog or one of the larger ground squirrels. Marmots are native to Colorado and live at the higher altitudes. They are about the size of a weasel.

'''''"huevón"''''' 
From hueva (egg). According to [http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2004/06/huevon_and_guey.html this blog] huevon "literally refers to the size of a mans "cojones" (another pseudo decent word that has seen a lot of mainstream play). It is commonly used to indicate how lazy someone is. The bigger the "huevon" you are, the lazier. As with "guey", however, this too has often been used to say dude or buddy."

'''''pinche cabron''''' 
fucking asshole.

==Page 270==

'''same hour, just before dawn...he even bombs by the moon''' 
I.e., he waits for a favorable phase. People who "plant by the signs," for example, associate days of the lunar month to parts of the plant and of the human body. They sow squash (vines) under one sign and lettuce (leaves) under another; they sow nothing at all when the moon is waning. Would a moon-guided bomber blow up trestles (legs) at one phase and plutocrats (belly) at another?

Here we see that Webb is "deuced" again -- first by being killed by Deuce, second by having his modus [operandi] imitated.

The time signature for the modus is given in both solar terms -- "the same hour just before dawn" -- and lunar terms. Depending on the time of year, the bombings probably happen from 4am to 6am.

"By the moon" is vague. Moon phases seem most likely because of folkways as described above. Because of the time of day, the moon will be in the waning half of its cycle, somewhere between a setting full moon, or a rising waning crescent, or even a new moon, where the moon is missing altogether. The moon cannot be waxing and visible simultaneously when the sun is about to rise, as it will have set.

Assuming the bomber works when the moon is visible and waning, puts the bombings in a time known as the Krishna Paksha (the darker half) in Vedic astrology, when the moon becomes progressively more malefic. Each paksha is divided into 15 tithis, each having its own interpretation; each tithi is farther divided into two karans, again with their own designations. I doubt it, but it would be interesting if the anarchists had esoteric moon teachings as to which moon tithi/karan/position is best for success.

Given that the authorities know the time of day and that the moon is the same in a relative way, they pretty much can predict the time of the next bombing, they just don't know exactly where. Sort of a variation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

==Page 271==

'''skip''' 
In mining, a skip is "an iron bucket, which slides between guides,
for hoisting mineral and rock." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

'''ex-Danite''' 
Danites were Joseph Smith's vigilantes, "Armies of Israel", during the Mormon War 1838 in Missouri, i.e., before travel to Utah.

'''"Avenging Angels"''' 
Refers to [http://www.ugca.org/ugca1099/ugca1099main.htm Civil War-vintage Colt pistols] usually with sawn off barrels.

==Page 272==

'''the Dolores''' 
Dolores River runs through Cortez (where Deuce seems to be, next to exploding cactus p270). "We woke up in the Dolores... [VALLEY/REGION/HOTEL]"

'''a luminous face suspended''' 

Some large convex object in the sky.

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

ATD 243-272

2007-09-22T19:56:50Z

Sideming: /* Page 264 */

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

==Page 243==

'''The Chums return''' 
When were the Chums last seen in AtD? As far back as page 142?

A brief reminder of who the Chums are and what we know about them so far:
:'''Randolph St. Cosmo''', commander.
:'''Lindsay Noseworth''', Master-at-Arms and second in command, hates slackers and slang.
:'''Miles Blundell''', handyman, awkward, with an "ample waist" (11), also ship's Commissary, whose cooking ranges from pure cordon bleu to inedible. (110)
:'''Darby Suckling''', the baby of the crew, served "as both factotum and mascotte". By page 141 or so, has transformed from spirited youth to bomb obsessed, (111) sneering, snide cynic. Because of hitting adolescence?
:'''Chick Counterfly''', the newest member of the crew, picked up by the Chums in the South while on the run from the KKK. At last appearance, had become Dr. Counterfly, knowledgeable Science Officer aboard the Inconvenience (141). Reliably humorous. (110). Chick's style of speech here seems intermediate between the country boy of the early chapters and the sophisticated Dr Counterfly who met the Vormance expedition. Are we also at an intermediate point on the timeline?

[[image:fumaioli.jpg|thumb|150px|Fumaioli in Venice|right]]
'''''fumaioli''''' 
Italian: ''funnels''; fumaioli are large wide-topped chimneys, common to the rooftops of Venice.

'''''certo''''' 
sure, certain.

'''''Seccatura''''' 
Italian: ''Inconvenience''

==Page 244==

'''''ragazza''''' 
Italian: ''girl''.

'''Picardy thirds''' 
The use of a major chord at the end of a musical section in a minor key. Miles seems just as moved by them as Lew. [[ATD_26-56#Page_50 | Cf p50]]

The gondolier is singing harmony with himself, or else Miles is imagining the accompaniment.

Picardie is also a region in northern France and "during the Middle Ages... included the Dutch speaking Flanders." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy] The region was a hotbed of action along the Western Front in WWI and played host to the Battle of the Somme, which totaled more than a million casualties and was "one of the bloodiest battles in human history."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Somme]

'''''stabilimento''''' 
Italian: establishment.

==Page 245==
'''Garibaldi''' 
Famous Italian leader, major figure in the Italian Unification. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garibaldi Wikipedia]

'''''"Ehi, sugo!"''''' 
"Hey, sauce!" Does this make sense to anyone?
It does not make any sense in Italian.

'''twentyfold''' 
5 chums times 4 suspects each. (Randolph suspects Lindsay, Miles, Darby and Chick of being the leak; and so on around the crew. And that assumes no one suspects Pugnax!)

'''''osteria''''' 
tavern.

'''San Polo''' 
The smallest district/area in Venice, and among the oldest. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Polo Wikipedia]

'''''rio''''' 
narrow waterway in Venice.

'''against the night''' 
OK...

'''''calli''''' 
Venetian 'street' or 'lane'.

==Page 246==

'''''sotoporteghi''''' 
passageways. See picture for one example [http://www.dialetto-veneto.it/images/FotoComano/Comano-Cattognano.jpg].

'''''"Sa stai, O! Lungo, ehi!"''''' 
It does not mean anything in Italian or in the Venetian dialect. One possibility is mimicking the callouts of gondoliers. ''Lungo'' could be someone's nickname. 
Other possibility is a wrong lettering of: ''Xa star, oh! Lungo, ehi!'', meaning ''Ehi, Lungo, let it be and let's go!'' or something similar.

'''''cameriere''''' 
Italian: waitresses (plural of ''cameriera'').

'''''pallonisti''''' 
(fake-)Italian: balloonists.

'''''Ehi, macché, Pina! ''''' 
Italian: Ehi, Giusep(Pina), what are you telling me?

'''''giadrul''''' 
Again, doesn't mean anything in Italian or Venetian dialect. Seems to be a [https://listserv.heanet.ie/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0007&L=irtrad-l&D=0&T=0&P=94630 term of insult], variously described as American-Italian only (see previous link) and southern Italian (see next). One source gives one meaning as "[http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070318034908AAem49X zuccone]" - this appears to mean "[http://notes.tranq.com/archives/2004/01/23/zuccone/ pumpkinhead]". I guess we're looking for something phallic, given the context. 
(''as far as I can see, it is an American-Italian deformation of the correct italian word "citrullo", which in fact is some sort of "dumb ass", and is derived from neapolitan for "cetriolo", that is, "cucumber" '')

'''"with all the spaghetti-joints in this town to choose from, are you saying those dadblame Russians have come in ''here''?"''' 
reminiscent of a similar line from the film ''Casablanca'', spoken by Humphrey Bogart: "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine."

==Page 247==

'''tacchino in pomegranate sauce''' 
turkey in pomegranate sauce and, presumably, the "Purple Thanksgiving" to which Miles refers above.

'''''Dum vivimus, bibamus''''' 
While we live, let us drink. Paraphrase of "Dum vivimus, vivamus".

'''vini frizzanti''' 
sparkling wine.

'''SANGUIS RUBER, MENS PURA''' 
Latin: Red blood, clean mind.

'''''Serrata del Maggior Consiglio''''' 
Great Council Lockout, 1297. Link to the "Maggior Consiglio" entry on Reference.com [http://www.reference.com/browse/all/Maggior%20Consiglio]

'''Napoleon's abolition''' 
1797. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia]

'''Polos' return''' 
Marco Polo together with his father and uncle returned to Venice in 1295 from their travel to China started in 1271. 

''Marco Polo'' (1254-1324), a Venetian traveller. Was born of a nobel family at Venice, while his father and uncle had gone on a mercantile expedition by Constantinople and the Crimea to Bokhara and to Cathy (China). The Mongol prince commissioned them as envoys to the Pope, a commission they tried in vain to carry out in Italy (1269). The Polos started again a new trip to China in 1271, taking with them young Marco,
and arrived at the court of Kublai Khan in 1275 by way of Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan to Lop Nor, then across the Gobi desert to Kansu and Shang-tu. Marco Polo entered the diplomatic service of Kublai Khan and was sent on missions to various parts of the Mongol empire. The Polos left China on 1282 and returned by way of Sumatra, India, and Persia to Venice (1295). In 1298 Marco was in command of a galley at the battle of Curzola, where the Venetians were defeated by the Genoese, and he was a prisoner for a year at Genoa. Here it was thought that he dictated to another captive an account of his travels, published under the title of ''Divisamemt dou monde''. (English title: ''The Travels of Marco Polo''.) ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo Marco Polo].)

''Kublai Khan'' (1214-94), Mongol khan, emperor of China, grandson of Jenghiz Khan. He completed the conquest of northern China and became the first foreigner ever to rule China. An enegetic prince, he suppressed his rivals, adopted the Chinese mode of civilisation, encouraged men of letters and made Buddhism the state religion. But his attempt to invade Japan ended in disaster. His dominions extended from Arctic Ocean to the Strait of Malacca, and from Korea to Asia Minor and the confines of Hungary. The splendor of his court inspired the graphic pages of Marco Polo. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.)

==Page 248==

[[image:doge.jpg|thumb|100px|Doge by Giovanni Bellini|right]]'''Doge's hat''' 
For some thousand years, the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice was styled the Doge, a rare but not unique Italian title derived from the Latin Dux, as the major Italian parallel Duce and the English Duke. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doge_of_Venice Wikipedia entry]

'''''Attenzione al culo''''' 
Italian: watch your ass.

'''Shambhala''' 
In Tibetan Buddhist tradition, Shambhala is a mystical kingdom hidden somewhere beyond the snowpeaks of the Himalayas. Shambhala is believed to be a society where all the inhabitants are enlightened. During the 19th century, Theosophical Society founder H.P. Blavatsky alluded to the Shambhala myth, giving it currency for Western occult enthusiasts. Later esoteric writers further emphasized and elaborated on the concept of a hidden land inhabited by a hidden mystic brotherhood whose members labor for the good of humanity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shambhala Wikipedia entry]

'''Professor Svegli of the University of Pisa''' 
The fictional professor's name comes from the Italian ''sveglio'' for "clever, dextrous, skillful."

'''"try to forget the usual picture in two dimensions"''' 
Cf. page 220, the idea behind the ''Tetractys'' as explained by Nigel and Neville.

'''an episode of intentional blindness''' 
Echoes the "denial of ordinary vision" that Lew sees when he meets Professor Renfrew (p. 240). Might these "blind spots" in sense evoke Iceland Spar?

==Page 249==

'''"Those whose enduring object is power in this world are only too happy to use without remorse the others, whose aim is of course to transcend all question of power. Each regards the other as a pack of deluded fools."''' 
Over time, Pynchon appears to have come to a belief in a massive conflict between cultures "valuing analysis and differentiation" and those valuing "unity and integration". The two alternate maps of Asia could be a reference to these disparate worldviews.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. Wikipedia entry on V.]

'''The problem lies with the projection''' 
(a) Projection by each group of its own obsession onto the other group. (b) Cartographic projection, i.e., how the round world gets imaged onto a flat sheet of paper.

'''paramorphoscope''' 
AtD is itself a paramorphoscope; satire and science fiction typically hold up a distorting mirror to the world in which they are written, and present worlds "set to the side of the one we have taken". In the end the correct paramorphic "mirror" shows the world clearly.

'''"a certain percentage of them went mad and ended up in the asylum on San Servolo"''' 
Cf. the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum with its light-obsessed inmates at [[ATD_57-80#Page_59|page 59]].

'''the asylum on San Servolo''' 
First established as a military hospital in 1715, later became a mental asylum. Seems that San Servolo is to Venice what Bedlam is to London. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Servolo Wikipedia]

'''Clifford's term''' 
W.K. Clifford, (1845-1879): an English mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kingdon_Clifford Wikipedia]

==Page 250==

[[Image:stmarks.jpg|thumb|200px|right|St Mark's Basilica (Basilica di San Marco) in Venice]]
'''Dr. Cantor''' 
Georg Cantor (1845 - 1918), German mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_theorem Cantor's Theorem] is what is most relevant to his mention here.

'''the plano-convex designs of Griendl von Ach''' 
For a brief history of the compound-lens microscope, and the roles played by the Italians and the Dutch, including Griendl von Ach, see:
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Microscope

'''prophetic vision of St. Mark''' 
Mark the Evangelist (1st century) is traditionally believed to be the author of the Gospel of Mark and a companion of Peter. From [http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/brown-venice.html this site]: "...a prophetic dream that Mark was said to have experienced during his earlier, supposed ministry in the area of the Venetian lagoon. In it he was visited by an angel who told him that he would find his final resting place on the very site where San Marco would later be built." In the first century there was no settlement worth mentioning in the Lagoon yet. The prophecy was "fulfilled" in 828 when the saint's remains stolen on orders of Doge Giustiniano Participazio in Alexandria were brought to Venice. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_the_Evangelist Wikipedia entry] St. Mark is represented by a winged lion and is the patron saint of Venice [http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/saintm08.htm].

'''''but in reverse''''' 
Miles now takes the place of the angel. Who or what is the "Being" and what form does the prophecy take?

'''neither sails, masts, nor oars''' 
Not a craft that is driven by the wind or human muscle. To say more could spoil a plot point.

==Page 251==

[[Image:stmarklion.jpg|thumb|600px|center|The Lion of St. Mark, by Carpaccio]]

'''Lion of St. Mark by Carpaccion''' 
Vittore Carpaccio (c.1460–1525/6) was a Venetian painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vittore_Carpaccio Wikipedia entry]

'''the vision of St. Mark, but in reverse''' 
In St. Mark's vision, an angel appeared to Mark and informed him that his remains would one day end up in his present location, which later became Venice. Here, Miles seems to assume the form of the angel (in the form of a lion?) and the 'promise' Pynchon mentions seems to be the angel's promise to Mark.

'''our own duty, our own fate... the real journey''' 
Pynchon's one-paragraph summation of human life and its meaning recalls a letter Pynchon wrote in the early 1960s, [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]], in which he also summed up the entirety of human life in a few tidy sentences. Both employ the word 'pilgrimage.'

==Page 252==

'''''sotopòrteghi''''' 
Tunnels or passageways under large buildings.

'''tenebrous''' 
Means "shadowy" but is also a link back to the previous paragraph. The Tenebrae Service is a special form that is meant to recreate the feelings of the Passion story, also represented by the Stations of the Cross.

'''Renata''' 
Note that Renata is the name of the female protagonist in Ernest Hemingway's ''Across the River and into the Trees'', set in Venice.

'''Glagolitic''' 
The Glagolitic Alphabet is the oldest known Slavic alphabet (9th c.). It originated as a tactic to lessen the dependence of the subjects of the Prince of Greater Moravia on Frankish priests, who banned it but could not suppress it; it played a similar role in preserving Bulgarian independence from Byzantium. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glagolitic] It appears to be a nexus of the kind of simultaneous temporal and spiritual tasks the Chums of Chance are now involved in. In this, it raises the issues first explored by Pynchon in the "Tchitcherine in Kyrghizia" sections of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' in which the introduction of a written alphabet causes immense political and social change.

'''Gauloise''' 
famous French cigarette. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauloise Wikipedia].

'''''scusi''''' 
Italian: Excuse me.

'''''Affascinante, caro''''' 
Italian: Fascinating, dear (addressed to a male person).

'''''ragazzo''''' 
Italian: Boy.

'''''Mattoidi''''' 
Italian: Semi-insane persons. The word was [http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-mat1.htm coined by Cesare Lombroso,] the physiognomist.

'''''Prego''''' 
Italian: Please.

==Page 253==

'''Pozzuoli''' 
A city in the Province of Naples (''Napoli'') in the region of Campania. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzuoli Wikipedia].

'''The Tarocchi are much, much older.''' 
Not at all! This is one of those ideas that rarely gets questioned, especially since some "interpreters" of the tarot claim ancient Egyptian origins. The actually only [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarot date back to the 15th century], as playing cards, and tarot divination was invented in the 19th century, with absolutely no historical precedent.

However, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley Aleister Crowley] in his writings and the design of his own version of the tarot, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Thoth_(Crowley) Thoth Deck], made a case for the Tarot unifying and being rooted in much older divination methods from Ancient egypt to the[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] to Greek [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrology astrology]. Crowley's Golden Dawn gets a previous mention in ATD. Though work on the Thoth deck would not begin until 1938, Crowley´s assignment of the Kabbalah's [http://jktarot.com/naples Sephiroth to the major arcana] probably bears attention when considering the chapter structure of ATD: he called the correspondence "The Naples Arrangement" in honour of having worked it out there, and this passage's mention of Renata's business associate being in Naples at this moment is unlikely to be coincidence.
:Surely a robust skepticism toward Crowley and his research methods is in order? Consider, for example, this [http://www.tarothermit.com/letter.htm "open letter"] to tarot users—from a judicious scholar and believer, not a committed skeptic—making the point that if the cards embody images (of whatever origin) "speaking" to the reader or student, it isn't essential to press the further claim that they were invented by the god Thoth. The paintings lack a couple of millennia of "temporal bandwidth" but aren't necessarily voided of appeal by that, any more than Michelangelo's ''Pietà'' is a less-valid devotional object for having been sculpted 1500 years after the event.

'''''sfumato''''' 
Refers to a well known painting method which blends so subtly the colors and tones that no perceptible transition is visible, as demonstrated by Leonardo da Vince's ''Mona Lisa''. See [http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Sfumato Wikipedia]. 
The context seems to imply ''smoke'', then ''fumo'' instead should be used.
:No, the evocation of the painterly effect becomes a metaphor for the way the boat comes into sight.

==Page 254==

'''''Pax tibi, Darbe''''' 
Latin: Peace to you, Darby. ''Pax tibi'' is not at all obscure—devout Catholics used it as a parting formula—but Chick has Latinized Darby's name to ''Darbus'' (vocative case ''Darbe'') and may be consciously echoing the text in [[#Page_251|Carpaccio's lion painting]] or on a [[#Page_247|pre-Napoleonic]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Most_Serene_Republic_of_Venice.svg flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice:] ''Pax tibi Marce evangelista meus,'' "Peace to you, Mark, my evangelist."

'''like some damned ''Farewell'' Symphony''' 
Franz Josef Haydn, 1772, Hungary. Musicians at Count Esterházy's court had been kept too long on duty (and away from their families). Going on strike would have been disrespectful, so in the last movement of Haydn's hinting work, the players one by one extinguish their candles and exit, leaving two violins to play the last phrases.

'''"Chums of Chance were expected to die on the job. Or else live forever, there being two schools of thought, actually."''' 
Possibly a reference to the fact that the Chums seem to live simultaneously in the "real" world of the novel and also in fictional stories within the novel.

==Page 255==

'''Mostruccio''' 
Italian, literally: small monster, meant as a lovely nickname.

[[Image:samoyeds.jpg|thumb|150px|right|Samoyeds]]
'''Samoyeds''' 
These nomadic reindeer herders help with the herding, pull sleds, and are sometimes called "the smiley dog" in reference to their seemingly smiling faces. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoyed_(dog) Wikipedia]

'''Bastille Day''' 
The Campanile di San Marco collapsed 14 July 1902. Pynchon Wiki on the [[Campanile]].

'''''lasagnoni''''' 
Italian, plural of ''lasagnone'': Blowhard, braggart.

A hint may come from an Italian dictionary: a ''lasagnone'' being an awkward, simple person, the kind of loafers who abound on city squares or street corners and, consequently, may appear in tourists' pictures.

==Page 256==
[[Image:Campanile.jpg|thumb|200px|right]]

'''dual citizenship''' 
They live in two places, there are two skycraft, they point a gun at one place but the shell strikes a different place. Lots of '''bi-''' somethings in this passage.

'''the little-understood enigmata of the simultaneous''' 
The concept of simultaneous events, including the accurate definition and, moreover, the very ''need'' of such a definition, played a significant role in the soon-to-be formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity Special Relativity Theory]. One of the main consequences of the theory is the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_of_simultaneity relativity of simultaneity].

'''four-brick groupings''' 
Padzhitnoff sees the Campanile come apart as a game of Tetris! The "four-brick groupings [...] begin their gentle, undeadly descent, rotating and translating in all available modes". (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_123|page 123]] for more on Tetris.)

'''the tower collapses''' 
Might have some relation to the final poem of ''Gravity's Rainbow''. The fall of the tower is foreshadowed -- foretold, actually -- in Chick´s Tarot reading by Renata (See [[ATD_243-272#Page_253|page 253]]).

==Page 257==

'''What stood for a thousand years''' 
Pretty close: Construction of the Campanile began in the year 912.

'''deciduous''' 
Something that falls, drops or is shed, like leaves from a tree or baby teeth.

'''We had the weather-gauge''' 
In the days of sail, [http://www.weathergage.com/ weather gage] described the relative position of two ships or forces. If you were downwind you could run or, if you meant to engage the enemy, tack to approach him. Every time you changed tack you lost an opportunity to shoot (because your guns pointed left and right). If you lay upwind, you could keep your guns trained on the enemy throughout the engagement. The weather gage was an often decisive battle advantage, and the phrase is common in nautical narratives.

'''neuræsthenic prostration''' 
This is the third (at least) time Randolph has exhibited this tendency.

:This is the third time that this word has appeared so far, but in the second instance (page 188) it was used by Nigel to describe Lew Basnight, not Randolph.

:Not the word, but this reaction in Randolph occurred on pages 12 and 28. It seems to be a regular thing with him.

==Page 258==

'''Tetralith''' 
Modern math term for three dimensional solid formed by merging three hyperbolic paraboloids in a manner that they have a common midpoint. See [http://www.tetranometry.com/#tetralith Tetralith Photo #2]. Pynchon just means a Tetris-shaped projectile, a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetromino Tetromino].
:A "monolith" (as in ''2001: A Space Odyssey'')means an "object made of a single block of stone". Hence "tetralith" means an "object made of four blocks of stone", which is exactly what you see on the game "Tetris".

'''Japanese character for "four" being same as that for "death"''' 
Not quite correct. The Japanese kanji (Chinese) characters for four 四 and death 死 are quite distinct, but can be pronounced in the same way, hence the taboo.

'''Ryohei Uchida''' 
Ultra-nationalist, founder of the Black Dragon Soceity (see below), a right-wing, paramilitary organization. See [http://members.tripod.com/ravenshrine/uchida.html Ryohei Uchida].

'''''polny pizdets''''' 
Crude Russian: a total screwup.

'''Black Dragon Society''' 
A paramiltary, ultra-nationalist, right-wing organization in Japan founded by Ryohei Uchida in 1901. Its initial public goal was to support Janpanese expansion in Manchuria. Therefore, during the period from 1901 to the end of World War I, it aimed to help the Japanese government drive the Russian presence out of that region. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (a war fought over Manchuria, with the Russians soundly defeated) it was active in espionage, sabotage and assassination against the Russians. During the 20's, 30's and later periods the Black Dragon Society evolved and expanded its activities around the world, including the United States. It was finally disbanded in 1946 by General MacArthur after World War II. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuryu-kai Wikipedia entry].

'''''Smirno''''' 
Russian: quiet!

==Page 259==

'''''dov'era, com'era''''' 
Italian: where it was, as it was. See [http://veniceblog.typepad.com/veniceblog/2003/12/comera_dovera.html veniceblog]. On July 14, 1902 the St. Mark's Campanile in Piazza San Marco, Venice, mysteriously and totally collapsed. Under the 'battle cry' of '''''com'era, dov'era''''' it was rebuilt. The Campanile was reopened on April 25 (St. Mark's Day) 1912. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mark's_Campanile St. Mark's Campanile]. Also, Cf [[ATD_243-272#Page 256|page 256:the tower collapses]].

''''La Marangona''''' 
The largest bell in the campanile is called la Marangona. At midnight, that massive bell resounds alone from high in the Piazza, and can be heard from almost any point in the city. There are four other bells in the campanile and they each have a name.

'''"Bells are the most ancient objects. They call to us out of eternity"''' 
This chapter is bookended by references to bells. It opens, "Across the city noontide a field of bells emerged into flower."

==Page 260==

'''Deuce and Sloat return''' 
These two, it will be recalled, are the men hired by the mine owners to kill Webb Traverse. (193) It is unclear who is whose sidekick. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_195|195]]) Sloat tends to bodies, Deuce the spirit. ([[ATD_171-198#Page_197|197]])

'''Curly Dee''' 
Mathematicians call the "partial derivative" symbol "curly d." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partial_derivative Wikipedia shows the symbol.]

'''inside out''' 
Optical illusion.

==Page 261==

'''Nonpareil Eating House''' 
The motto over the door was probably "None Like It!"

'''Mayva and Lake''' 
Webb Traverse's wife and daughter.

'''lard smoke''' 
Cf. p. 10, "tall smokestacks unceasingly vomiting black grease-smoke," and p. 216, "Just greasy ashes by the trailside."

'''biscuit-shooter''' 
I.e., a cook.

'''Cañon City''' 
Site of the Colorado State Penitentiary, meant to suggest Deuce and Sloat had done time there.

'''gong''' 
???
17:18, 1 January 2007 (PST)[[User:Bklyn48|Bklyn48]]
 "kicking the gong around" is slang for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_the_Moocher smoking opium]. Here, Sloat seems to mean that Deuce's opium smoking has affected his judgement.

==Page 262==

'''Willis Turnstone''' 
Turnstones are members of the sandpiper family, stocky birds that use their stout bills to flip over rocks and such in search of food. There are two species: Black Turnstone (''Arenaria melanocephala'') and Ruddy Turnstone (''A. interpres''). The [http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Ruddy_Turnstone.html Ruddy's] breeding plumage is a bold calico of white, orange, and black.

==Page 263==

'''"Crazier."''' 
Cf Bonnie and Clyde.

'''Oleander Prudge''' 
A name that brings joy to the heart of any Dickensian who happens to be reading along.

==Page 264==

'''single-jacker''' 
A miner who with a hammer and spike cuts a hole into rock for placement of a stick of dynamite. A set of holes are cut for each "synchronized" blast.
(Double jackers work as a team.)
Infer (this) one as a loner, a bit crazy, single minded, silent, easily hurt or misunderstood, doesn't play well with others...

'''How I feel about Mr. Kindred...and...Webb Traverse are two different things''' 

This is an interesting exchange between Lake and Oleander Prudge. Clearly Oleander hits a nerve as Lake spills the hotcakes. Lake goes into denial, saying her love of someone she would normally hate (Deuce -- her father's killer) and hating someone she would normally love (her father Webb) are "two different things."

Oleanders rejoinder, "they can't be," has the finality of a mathematical proof.

It's as if Lake is looking at passion through an emotional lense of iceland spar and sees two sets of images (father/lover, hate/love)and wants to believe they're different, whereas Oleander sees that in fact they are one. This won't be the last time Lake gets herself a "twofer."

==Page 265==

'''backing away down the valley''' 
It's instructive to look at a [http://www.vacationtelluride.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=standard&categoryId=11&subCategoryId=0 map or satellite photo of Telluride.] You could very well lay a single track from the mouth of the valley up to the town, but no farther. So the train drives into the station, then backs out until there's room for a spur where it can turn around.

'''gullet of days''' 
Metaphor. The miners' lives "as easily (as jug whisky)disappeared down the throat of everyday life".

==Page 266==

'''white-throated swift''' 
A swift is a small plainly colored bird similar to a swallow. The [http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/187/_/White-throated_Swift.aspx white-throated species,] which breeds in the western U.S. and winters in Mexico, is less plain than some. And get the species name: '''''Aeronaut'''es saxatalis.''

'''November''' 
November 1903.

'''in January, martial law''' 
January 3, 1904.

'''nymph du pave''' 
should probably read "nymphE du pave": [http://dict.die.net/nymphe%20du%20pave/ street-whore]. Theoretically this could also translate as: (image of a) nymph on a mosaic (tesselated floor) - like the huge roman one of Ariadne in the Rue du Pavé in Avenche (Switzerland) [http://www.stub.unibe.ch/welten/texte/herzig.html german weblink]

Most likely not (the mosaic idea); this is a consecrated term for prostitute. Note: in French, pavé means cobblestone. --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 02:09, 3 March 2007 (PST)

'''geometric episode''' 
Vaguely reminiscent of Proust on Combray: "And on one of the longest walks we ever took from Combray there was a spot where the narrow road emerged suddenly on to an immense plain, closed at the horizon by strips of forest over which rose and stood alone the fine point of Saint-Hilaire's steeple, but so sharpened and so pink that it seemed to be no more than sketched on the sky by the finger-nail of a painter anxious to give to such a landscape, to so pure a piece of 'nature,' this little sign of art, this single indication of human existence." [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/8swnn10.txt etext]

'''Engelmann spruce''' 
[http://www.cnr.vt.edu/dendro/dendrology/syllabus/factsheet.cfm?ID=175 Picea engelmannii,] a light-colored, easily worked wood with fairly straight grain and slight contrast between heartwood and sapwood; [http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/boise/trees/engelmann.shtml uses include] piano sounding boards and the tops of violins and guitars, hence the association with the acoustics of the church.

A short biography of Dr. Engelmann (lit. Angel-Man) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Engelmann Wikipedia-Entry], more elaborated on [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Engelmann german site]

'''albatross cloth''' 
Evidently a distinct color/design for a wedding or wedding party dress in the West at the time. I have no OED at the moment, but there are at least two online "diaries" or descriptions using the phrase. Here is one: "We were married August 6, 1896 at 7:30 AM at my folk’s residence among friends and relatives. To honor the event, my folks had our parlor decorated with many flowers including roses, myrtle and geraniums. I wore an elegant gown of white silk and albatross cloth."

==Page 267==

'''Osterbybruk''' 
Town noted for ironmaking, 20 miles (32 km) north of Uppsala, eastern Sweden, nowhere near Jämtland (next entry).

'''Jemt-land''' 
A Province in west central Sweden [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4mtland Wikipedia.] The hyphen is not part of the name and probably marks a syncopation in the rev's delivery.

'''Child of the storm''' 
See the [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/?s=child+of+the+storm ATD Weblog entry].

==Page 268==

'''sideways pussy''' 
Folklore.

'''side hobbles''' 
A hobble is a device for a horse or a dog that restricts the range of motion of the legs. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobble Wikipedia entry]. 
A [http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/archive/index.php/t-67850.html side hobble or Scotch hobble] links the horse's two left or two right legs, restricting its movement. 
"Hobble" also describes a type of skirt used (apparently) in bondage, see this [http://www.darksidecreations.com/product.asp?productid=19 example (not safe for work)] in latex.

==Page 269==

'''items, nearly always stolen''' 
Cf bower-bird.

'''marmot''' 
A stout-bodied, short-legged rodent that has coarse fur, a short bushy tail, and very short ears, lives in burrows, and hibernates in winter; also: a prairie dog or one of the larger ground squirrels. Marmots are native to Colorado and live at the higher altitudes. They are about the size of a weasel.

'''''"huevón"''''' 
From hueva (egg). According to [http://juantornoe.blogs.com/hispanictrending/2004/06/huevon_and_guey.html this blog] huevon "literally refers to the size of a mans "cojones" (another pseudo decent word that has seen a lot of mainstream play). It is commonly used to indicate how lazy someone is. The bigger the "huevon" you are, the lazier. As with "guey", however, this too has often been used to say dude or buddy."

'''''pinche cabron''''' 
fucking asshole.

==Page 270==

'''he even bombs by the moon''' 
I.e., he waits for a favorable phase. People who "plant by the signs," for example, associate days of the lunar month to parts of the plant and of the human body. They sow squash (vines) under one sign and lettuce (leaves) under another; they sow nothing at all when the moon is waning. Would a moon-guided bomber blow up trestles (legs) at one phase and plutocrats (belly) at another?

==Page 271==

'''skip''' 
In mining, a skip is "an iron bucket, which slides between guides,
for hoisting mineral and rock." Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

'''ex-Danite''' 
Danites were Joseph Smith's vigilantes, "Armies of Israel", during the Mormon War 1838 in Missouri, i.e., before travel to Utah.

'''"Avenging Angels"''' 
Refers to [http://www.ugca.org/ugca1099/ugca1099main.htm Civil War-vintage Colt pistols] usually with sawn off barrels.

==Page 272==

'''the Dolores''' 
Dolores River runs through Cortez (where Deuce seems to be, next to exploding cactus p270). "We woke up in the Dolores... [VALLEY/REGION/HOTEL]"

'''a luminous face suspended''' 

Some large convex object in the sky.

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

ATD 219-242

2007-09-12T20:30:03Z

Sideming: /* Page 221 */

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

==Page 219==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

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

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

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

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

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

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

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

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

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

==Page 221==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and on and on.....

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

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

==Page 222==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 223==

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

==Page 224==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 225==

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

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

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

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

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

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

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

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

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

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

==Page 226==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 227==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 228==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 229==

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

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

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

==Page 230==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

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

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

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

==Page 232==

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

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

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

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

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

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

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

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

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

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

==Page 234==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 235==

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

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

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

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

==Page 236==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 238==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 239==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 240==

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

==Page 241==

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

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

==Page 242==

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

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

 

==References==
<references />

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

ATD 219-242

2007-09-12T20:22:06Z

Sideming: /* Page 222 */

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

==Page 219==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

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

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

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

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

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

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

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

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

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

==Page 221==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and on and on.....

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

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

==Page 222==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 223==

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

==Page 224==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 225==

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

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

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

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

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

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

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

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

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

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

==Page 226==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 227==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 228==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 229==

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

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

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

==Page 230==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

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

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

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

==Page 232==

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

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

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

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

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

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

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

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

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

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

==Page 234==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 235==

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

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

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

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

==Page 236==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 238==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 239==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 240==

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

==Page 241==

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

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

==Page 242==

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

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

 

==References==
<references />

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

H

2007-09-12T20:02:42Z

Sideming:

'''Hadamard, Jacques (1865-1963)''' 
590; French mathematician best known for his proof of the prime number theorem in 1896; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Hadamard Wikipedia entry]

'''Hadley, Dr. Edgar''' 
311; at Miners' Hospital

[[image:reynaldo-hahn.gif|thumb|Reynaldo Hahn|right]]<div id="hahn">'''Hahn, Reynaldo (1874-1947)'''</div>
1065; his tune from ''Ciboulette''; Reynaldo Hahn (born August 9, 1875 in Caracas, Venezuela, died January 28, 1947 in Paris, France) was a naturalised French composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the ''mélodie''. The fine craftsmanship, remarkable beauty, and originality of his works capture the insouciance of ''la belle époque''. His operetta ''Ciboulette'' (1923) remains in popular repertoire. He also composed the operetta ''Mozart'' for [[G#guitry|Sacha Guitry]].

'''Halász, Lajos''' 
720; a local sensitive in Buda-Pesth

'''Halfcourt, Lietenant-Colonel G. Auberon''' 
222; "formerly a squadron commander in the Eighteenth Hussars"; stationed in Kashgar ("spiritual capital of Inner Asia"), 630; at the "palatial Hotel Tarim" 753;

'''Halfcourt, Yashmeen''' 
221-222; at T.W.I.T., and ward (not biological daughter) of G. Auberon Halfcourt; 489; aka "Pinky" 493; discussing Göttingen with Cyprian Latewood, 499; to Göttingen, 503; in Göttingen, 589; parents were Russian, 595; "''she'' is the world" 596; inspiration for Hilbert-Póya Conjecture, 604; "grandiose coat of arms" 677; encounters Cyprian in Vienna, 716; "bedeviled by two or three powers at once" 717-18; letter to her father, 748-750; dream of her father, 749; her hair and "those mystical waterfalls that hide the Hidden Worlds of the Tibetan lamas, 760; "the local word for jade is ''yashm''" 761; working in a dress shop in Mariahilf, 802; in Trieste with Cyprian, 811; meets Reef in Venice, 855; in Torino w/Reef, 1072;

[[image:halkata.jpg|thumb|''Halkata'' - The Ring|right]]'''Halkata''' 
955; aka ''Hulkata'', aka "The Ring" a stone arch that Reef, Yashmeen and Lubjica pass beneath. The Ring is located on the Karandila, a hilltop 1050m above sealevel in Sliven, a town in southeast Bulgaria in the eastern part of the Thracian plain. It is a rock protrusion with an interesting, yet peculiar hole in the center. According to myth, one would change gender upon passing through the ring.

'''Halley, Edmond (1656-1742)''' 
115; English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who proposed, in 1692, that the earth was hollow; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Halley Wikipedia entry]

'''Hamilton, Maria Bayley''' 
560; Sir Hamilton's wife;

'''Hamlet''' 
760;

<div id="hamilton"></div>'''Hamilton, Sir William Rowan (1805-1865)''' 
99; Sir Hamilton was an Irish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who made important contributions to the development of optics, dynamics, and algebra. His discovery of [[ATD-Q#quaternions|quaternions]] is perhaps his best known investigation; his illumination "at [[Brougham_Bridge|Brougham Bridge]] in Ireland in 1845, 99; 132; 526; 535; Quaternions discover ''him'', 560-61; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rowan_Hamilton Wikipedia entry]

'''Hanna, Mark (1837-1904)''' 
979; his "miserable stooge" President McKinley; Marcus Alonzo Hanna, best known as Mark Hanna, was an industrialist and Republican politician from Cleveland, Ohio. He rose to fame as the campaign manager of the successful Republican Presidential candidate William McKinley in the U.S. Presidential election of 1896, in what is considered the forerunner of the modern political campaign, and subsequently became one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hanna Wikipedia]

'''Hardy, Godfrey Harold "G. H." (1877-1947)''' 
239, 438; a prominent English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. He was called "Harold" by a few close friends, and otherwise "G. H."; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._H._Hardy Wikipedia entry]

'''Harald the Ruthless (1015-1066)''' 
127; Norwegian Harald Hardraade, or Hardråde king of Norway (1045–66). His harsh suppression of lesser Norwegian chieftains cost him their military support in his unsuccessful struggle to conquer Denmark (1045–62). The son of Sigurd Sow (Syr), a chieftain in eastern Norway, and of Estrid, mother of the Norwegian king Olaf II Haraldsson (St. Olaf), Harald fought at the age of 15 against the Danes.

'''Harriman, Brother''' 
130; works for Scarsdale Vibe

'''Haruspices''' 
729; in the Marco Zoppo painting ''The Sack of Rome''; HARUSPICES, or Aruspices (perhaps "entrail observers," cf. Skt. hira, Gr. xop87' 7), a class of soothsayers in Rome. Their art (''disciplina'') consisted especially in deducing the will of the gods from the appearance presented by the entrails of the slain victim. From [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Haruspices 1911 Ed. of the Encyclopedia Brittanica]

'''Hashim, Tariq''' 
766; book-dealer in Bukhara

'''Hassan''' 
765; Doosra's "loyal lieutenant"

'''Hatch''' 
646;

'''Hats''' 
10; "bonnet," 28; "stovepipe hat," 29; 37; "straw hats," 39; "scorcher cap," 42; "forests of hatracks bearing an entire Museum of Hat History," 43; "flowered bonnet-brim," 70; "coolie hats," 109; 145; 162; 207; 211; 226; 232, hatpin issues; 233, slouch hats, drugs and hats; 269; 273; 283, headgear; 284; 286-8; 292, "beaver sombreros; 294; 299, "canvas miner's cap"; 314; 315; "high-hat technical school," 318; 337; 340; "The Phenomenal Dr. Ictibus and His Safe-Deflector Hat," 344; 345; 358; 366; 369; "hatbrims," 376; "hatbrims," 384; "hatbrims," "red bandannas round their heads," 390; "pearl-gray bowlers," 399; "stiff-hatted security," 410; "Medicine Hat, Alberta," 432; "no time even to take off his hat," "gondolier's hat," 445; "'''cap'''," 446; 447;

'''''Hausknochen''''' 
589; 592;

'''Hawaii''' 
69; South Sea islands tattoo artists; volcano, 411; [[ATD-U#uke|See also Ukuleles]]

'''Hawkes, Sophrosyne''' 
932; "typewriter lass" at Whitehall who runs off with Ratty McHugh

'''Haymarket Bomb''' 
25; The Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago is 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; 111; 176; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_bombing Wikipedia entry]

'''Headingly''' 
236; Should be spelled Headingley, at least in this world. Suburb of Leeds, England. Headingley is home to the Yorkshire cricket team and a venue for international cricket matches since 1899. Headingley was the scene of some Direct Action in 1975: an England v. Australia Test Match was abandoned after supporters of wrongly-convicted prisoner George Davis ruined the pitch; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Davis_%28armed_robber%29 Wikipedia entry]

'''Headingly bomb''' 
608; and Lew Basright;

'''''head of Jochanaan''''' 
626; from the opera "Salome" by Richard Strauss, the head of John the Baptist; Salome, who demanded of King Herod, who lusted after her, John the Baptist's head on a platter as the price for her allowing him to have her; Salome had desired John the Baptist, but had been rebuffed.

'''Heaven''' 
"unattainable as Heaven," 146; "Heavenly City," 165; 293;

'''Heaviside, Oliver (1850-1925)''' 
98; English electrical engineer who adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, and was co-discoverer of the rate of energy transfer by an electromagnetic field; ''Electromagnetic Theory'' (1893); 533; "Walt Whitman of English Physics" 535; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside Wikipedia entry]; [[Heaviside|A good article on Heaviside]]

'''Heden, Sven''' 
436;

'''Hegel''' 
538;

'''Heinrich''' 
597; Gunther von Quassel's "intimate"

'''Held, Anna''' 
334;

'''Helgustaðir''' 
126; Located in East Iceland, one of the world's best-known sources of Icelandic spar.
[http://giantcrystals.strahlen.org/europe/helgustadir.htm| web page about the site, with photos]

'''Heide''' 
915; "horrible little bourgeoise" in ''The Burgher King''

'''Hell''' 
"Chicago winter, that is a sub-zero-degrees version of Hell," 41; "'''infernal''' side to the story," 78; "Hell with electric lights," 79; 131; "I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY — DANTE," from Canto III of ''Il Inferno,'' 154; "Jeshimon was like a religious painting of hell used to scare kids in Sunday school," 210; "'Hell it is,'" 215; "some old, numinous, center-of-the-world willingness to raise species of hell that hadn't been invented yet," 274; 372; 377; 379; 382; Hierarchy is "'sure's "heck" too good for'" the Chums, 397; "down in Hell's / Kitchen," 400; "I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY — DANTE," 401; Chums "ready to deal with Hell itself," 418; see also [[T#telluric|'''Telluric Interior''']] and [[T#telluride|'''Telluride''']]

'''Helm''' 
780; on the ''Bol'shaia Igra''

'''Henry, Emile (1872-1894)''' 
87; French anarchist, who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry]

'''Herbert, Victory''' 
512;

'''Hercules''' 
455;

'''Herman''' 
182; bartender at Anarchists' Saloon

'''Hernández, Braulio''' 
983; "former lieutenant governor" of Chihuahua who "had just taken the silver-mining town of Santa Eulalia";

'''Herodotus (484 BC–ca. 425 BC)''' 
957; Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Dorian Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus Wikipedia]

'''Hershel''' 
39; bellman at the Esthonia Hotel

'''Hertz, Heinrich Rudolf (1857-1894)''' 
121; "extra Hertzian rays"; German physicist and mechanician for whom the hertz, an SI unit, is named. In 1888, he was the first to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic radiation by building an apparatus to produce UHF radio waves; 318; 330; 438; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Rudolf_Hertz Wikipedia entry]

'''Hesitation Waltz''' 
1082; A style of waltz which arose in the 1910s and incorporated Hesitations and was danced to fast music. A Hesitation is basically a halt on the standing foot during the full waltz measure, with the moving foot suspended in the air or slowly dragged.

'''Hesychasts''' 
960; adherents to Hesychasm, an eremitic tradition of prayer in Eastern Orthodox Christianity (Gk: ἡσυχάζω hesychazo: "to keep stillness"). Hesychastic practice bears some superficial resemblance to mystical prayer or meditation in Eastern religions (eg Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasts Wikipedia]

'''Hierarchy''' 
415; 417; Chums of Chance's invisible superiors

'''High Albedo''' 
493; A property of a surface that describes its ability to reflect and reject heat. High albedo surfaces have both a light color (high solar reflectance) and a high emmittance (can reject heat back to the environment).

'''high-grading''' 
196; In mining, high grading is the theft and concealement of valuable ore by miners for personal profit. Common during the United States gold rush, high graders would usually conceal gold ore in a pocket or lunch pail, or internally within the body, and later attempt to fence it on the black market; 486;

'''Hilbert, Dr. David (1862-1943)''' 
324; German mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He invented or developed a broad range of fundamental ideas, in invariant theory, the axiomatization of geometry, and with the notion of Hilbert space, one of the foundations of functional analysis. Among the students of Hilbert, there were Hermann Weyl, the champion of chess Emanuel Lasker, Ernst Zermelo, and Carl Gustav Hempel. John von Neumann was his assistant. At the University of Göttingen, Hilbert was surrounded by a social circle of some of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century, such as Emmy Noether and Alonzo Church; "Spectral Theory" 499; 600; 625; 633; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert Wikipedia entry]

'''Hill, Joe (1879-1915)''' 
216; born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, and also known as Joseph Hillström, Joe Hill was a radical songwriter, labor activist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies. He was executed for murder after a controversial trial. After his death, he became the subject of a folksong; 463; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill Wikipedia entry]

'''Hindoo Shuffle''' 
357; magic trick

'''Hinton, C. Howard''' 
591;

'''Hip Sing''' 
340; rival tong of On Leong, New York City

'''History''' 
29; "a warm invitation to rewrite history," 45; "duties to history and blood," 127; "''Historia Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae,''" 128; "the great silent struggle that was the history of the place," 129; "Mathematics and History," 130; 149; "as-yet-unwritten history," 151; 152; 222-223; "certain hidden geometries of History," 373; 376; 381; 393; 418; "light might be a ''secret determinant of history'', 431; 448; 559; and field operatives ("history Time's pathology"), 828; Northern powers who "manipulate other people's history but produce none of their own [...] lives are the units of exchange" 828;

'''H.M.S. ''Megaera''''' 
108; frigate; Megaera (Greek: Μεγαιρα, "the jealous one") is one of the Erinyes in Greek Mythology. She is the cause of jealousy and envy, and causes people to commit crimes, especially marital infidelity. Like her sisters Alecto and Tisiphone, she was born of the blood of Uranus when Cronus castrated him.

'''hole card''' 
684; In blackjack, the facedown card that the dealer gets. In stud and hold ‘em poker, the facedown cards dealt to each player.

'''Hole-in-the-Wall Gang''' 
287; name given to a gang in the American Wild West, which took its name from the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass in Johnson County, Wyoming, where several outlaw gangs had their hideouts. The Gang was not simply one large organized gang of outlaws, but rather was made up of several separate gangs, all operating out of the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass, using it as their base of operations. The gangs formed a coalition, each planning and carrying out its own robberies with very little interaction with the other gangs. At times, members of one gang would ride along with other gangs, but usually each gang operated separately, meeting up only when they were each at the hideout at the same time; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_Wall_Gang Wikipedia entry]

'''Holliday, Doc (1851-1887)''' 
25; John Henry "Doc" Holliday was an American dentist, gambler and gunfighter of the Old West frontier, who is usually remembered for his associations with Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral; "rejoinder to Frank McLaury at the O.K. Corral" 647-48; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Holliday Wikipedia entry]

'''Hollow Earth''' 
115; Chums of Chance's journey into, 115; H. Penhallow's journey, 155; 274; 327; hoosegow in Guanojuana, 380; 391; "hidden cave of rainwater" 393; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_earth Wikipedia entry]

'''Holloway''' 
933; prison where Jenny McHugh was

'''Holmes, Sherlock''' 
689;

'''Horses''' 
127; "one of the last live horses in the Metropolitan area," 150; at Armageddon, 443; grazing in the Quadrangle, 451;

'''Hotel Borealis''' 
129; where Vormance Expedition set up headquarters;

'''Hôtel de Deux Continents''' 
911; where Kit tends bar in Constantinople

'''Hotel Noctambulo''' 
462; where insomnia prevails, in Fickle Creek

'''Hotel Neue Mutzenbacher''' 
702, aka "The Mutzi" in Vienna "near the Imperial Stables"

'''Hot Sauce'''
"''¡Cuidado Cabrón! Salsa Explosiva La Original''," 129-30; "Gigot Grillé à la Sauce Piquante," 443;

'''Houdini, Harry''' 
355;

'''Hour of the Rat''' 
675; according to the [[Time_in_OldJapan|time keeping in pre-modern Japan]], the Hour of the Rat was from 11pm till 1am.

'''Hrisoula''' 
975; taverna cat in Corfu

'''Hsiang-Chiao''' 
260; Deuce Kindred's "on-again-off-again romance with"

'''Huerta, General''' 
376; "brutal heart, bloody mind"; "goes after Yaquis or Mayas" 389; leading government forces against Orozco, 986; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoriano_Huerta Wikipedia entry]

'''Humfried''' 
588; at Göttingen; 592; 597; muttering in strange language, 622;

'''Hungarians''' 
46;

'''Hypatia (AD 370(?)-415)''' 
717; Hypatia of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, teacher, and head of the Platonist school at Alexandria about AD 400. Hypatia wrote commentaries on the astronomical canon of Ptolemy and did work on conic sections . Her works are lost, but are referred to in the Suda lexicon. She was the daughter of the mathematician and philosopher Theon of Alexandria (he was also the last head of the Museum at Alexandria); [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia/ Wikipedia entry]

'''hypodermic syringe''' 
23; [[hypodermic syringe | DISCUSSION ]]

'''Hypopsammotic Survival Apparatus''' 
425; invented by Roswell Bounce, "providing a practical way to submerge oneself beneath the sands and still be able to breath, walk around, and so forth"

{{ATD_Alpha_Nav}}

H

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'''Hadamard, Jacques (1865-1963)''' 
590; French mathematician best known for his proof of the prime number theorem in 1896; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Hadamard Wikipedia entry]

'''Hadley, Dr. Edgar''' 
311; at Miners' Hospital

[[image:reynaldo-hahn.gif|thumb|Reynaldo Hahn|right]]<div id="hahn">'''Hahn, Reynaldo (1874-1947)'''</div>
1065; his tune from ''Ciboulette''; Reynaldo Hahn (born August 9, 1875 in Caracas, Venezuela, died January 28, 1947 in Paris, France) was a naturalised French composer, conductor, music critic and diarist. Best known as a composer of songs, he wrote in the French classical tradition of the ''mélodie''. The fine craftsmanship, remarkable beauty, and originality of his works capture the insouciance of ''la belle époque''. His operetta ''Ciboulette'' (1923) remains in popular repertoire. He also composed the operetta ''Mozart'' for [[G#guitry|Sacha Guitry]].

'''Halász, Lajos''' 
720; a local sensitive in Buda-Pesth

'''Halfcourt, Lietenant-Colonel G. Auberon''' 
222; "formerly a squadron commander in the Eighteenth Hussars"; stationed in Kashgar ("spiritual capital of Inner Asia"), 630; at the "palatial Hotel Tarim" 753;

'''Halfcourt, Yashmeen''' 
221-222; at T.W.I.T., and ward (not necessarily daughter) of G. Auberon Halfcourt; 489; aka "Pinky" 493; discussing Göttingen with Cyprian Latewood, 499; to Göttingen, 503; in Göttingen, 589; parents were Russian, 595; "''she'' is the world" 596; inspiration for Hilbert-Póya Conjecture, 604; "grandiose coat of arms" 677; encounters Cyprian in Vienna, 716; "bedeviled by two or three powers at once" 717-18; letter to her father, 748-750; dream of her father, 749; her hair and "those mystical waterfalls that hide the Hidden Worlds of the Tibetan lamas, 760; "the local word for jade is ''yashm''" 761; working in a dress shop in Mariahilf, 802; in Trieste with Cyprian, 811; meets Reef in Venice, 855; in Torino w/Reef, 1072;

[[image:halkata.jpg|thumb|''Halkata'' - The Ring|right]]'''Halkata''' 
955; aka ''Hulkata'', aka "The Ring" a stone arch that Reef, Yashmeen and Lubjica pass beneath. The Ring is located on the Karandila, a hilltop 1050m above sealevel in Sliven, a town in southeast Bulgaria in the eastern part of the Thracian plain. It is a rock protrusion with an interesting, yet peculiar hole in the center. According to myth, one would change gender upon passing through the ring.

'''Halley, Edmond (1656-1742)''' 
115; English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who proposed, in 1692, that the earth was hollow; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Halley Wikipedia entry]

'''Hamilton, Maria Bayley''' 
560; Sir Hamilton's wife;

'''Hamlet''' 
760;

<div id="hamilton"></div>'''Hamilton, Sir William Rowan (1805-1865)''' 
99; Sir Hamilton was an Irish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who made important contributions to the development of optics, dynamics, and algebra. His discovery of [[ATD-Q#quaternions|quaternions]] is perhaps his best known investigation; his illumination "at [[Brougham_Bridge|Brougham Bridge]] in Ireland in 1845, 99; 132; 526; 535; Quaternions discover ''him'', 560-61; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rowan_Hamilton Wikipedia entry]

'''Hanna, Mark (1837-1904)''' 
979; his "miserable stooge" President McKinley; Marcus Alonzo Hanna, best known as Mark Hanna, was an industrialist and Republican politician from Cleveland, Ohio. He rose to fame as the campaign manager of the successful Republican Presidential candidate William McKinley in the U.S. Presidential election of 1896, in what is considered the forerunner of the modern political campaign, and subsequently became one of the most powerful members of the U.S. Senate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Hanna Wikipedia]

'''Hardy, Godfrey Harold "G. H." (1877-1947)''' 
239, 438; a prominent English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. He was called "Harold" by a few close friends, and otherwise "G. H."; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._H._Hardy Wikipedia entry]

'''Harald the Ruthless (1015-1066)''' 
127; Norwegian Harald Hardraade, or Hardråde king of Norway (1045–66). His harsh suppression of lesser Norwegian chieftains cost him their military support in his unsuccessful struggle to conquer Denmark (1045–62). The son of Sigurd Sow (Syr), a chieftain in eastern Norway, and of Estrid, mother of the Norwegian king Olaf II Haraldsson (St. Olaf), Harald fought at the age of 15 against the Danes.

'''Harriman, Brother''' 
130; works for Scarsdale Vibe

'''Haruspices''' 
729; in the Marco Zoppo painting ''The Sack of Rome''; HARUSPICES, or Aruspices (perhaps "entrail observers," cf. Skt. hira, Gr. xop87' 7), a class of soothsayers in Rome. Their art (''disciplina'') consisted especially in deducing the will of the gods from the appearance presented by the entrails of the slain victim. From [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Haruspices 1911 Ed. of the Encyclopedia Brittanica]

'''Hashim, Tariq''' 
766; book-dealer in Bukhara

'''Hassan''' 
765; Doosra's "loyal lieutenant"

'''Hatch''' 
646;

'''Hats''' 
10; "bonnet," 28; "stovepipe hat," 29; 37; "straw hats," 39; "scorcher cap," 42; "forests of hatracks bearing an entire Museum of Hat History," 43; "flowered bonnet-brim," 70; "coolie hats," 109; 145; 162; 207; 211; 226; 232, hatpin issues; 233, slouch hats, drugs and hats; 269; 273; 283, headgear; 284; 286-8; 292, "beaver sombreros; 294; 299, "canvas miner's cap"; 314; 315; "high-hat technical school," 318; 337; 340; "The Phenomenal Dr. Ictibus and His Safe-Deflector Hat," 344; 345; 358; 366; 369; "hatbrims," 376; "hatbrims," 384; "hatbrims," "red bandannas round their heads," 390; "pearl-gray bowlers," 399; "stiff-hatted security," 410; "Medicine Hat, Alberta," 432; "no time even to take off his hat," "gondolier's hat," 445; "'''cap'''," 446; 447;

'''''Hausknochen''''' 
589; 592;

'''Hawaii''' 
69; South Sea islands tattoo artists; volcano, 411; [[ATD-U#uke|See also Ukuleles]]

'''Hawkes, Sophrosyne''' 
932; "typewriter lass" at Whitehall who runs off with Ratty McHugh

'''Haymarket Bomb''' 
25; The Haymarket Riot on May 4, 1886, in Chicago is 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; 111; 176; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_bombing Wikipedia entry]

'''Headingly''' 
236; Should be spelled Headingley, at least in this world. Suburb of Leeds, England. Headingley is home to the Yorkshire cricket team and a venue for international cricket matches since 1899. Headingley was the scene of some Direct Action in 1975: an England v. Australia Test Match was abandoned after supporters of wrongly-convicted prisoner George Davis ruined the pitch; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Davis_%28armed_robber%29 Wikipedia entry]

'''Headingly bomb''' 
608; and Lew Basright;

'''''head of Jochanaan''''' 
626; from the opera "Salome" by Richard Strauss, the head of John the Baptist; Salome, who demanded of King Herod, who lusted after her, John the Baptist's head on a platter as the price for her allowing him to have her; Salome had desired John the Baptist, but had been rebuffed.

'''Heaven''' 
"unattainable as Heaven," 146; "Heavenly City," 165; 293;

'''Heaviside, Oliver (1850-1925)''' 
98; English electrical engineer who adapted complex numbers to the study of electrical circuits, and was co-discoverer of the rate of energy transfer by an electromagnetic field; ''Electromagnetic Theory'' (1893); 533; "Walt Whitman of English Physics" 535; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Heaviside Wikipedia entry]; [[Heaviside|A good article on Heaviside]]

'''Heden, Sven''' 
436;

'''Hegel''' 
538;

'''Heinrich''' 
597; Gunther von Quassel's "intimate"

'''Held, Anna''' 
334;

'''Helgustaðir''' 
126; Located in East Iceland, one of the world's best-known sources of Icelandic spar.
[http://giantcrystals.strahlen.org/europe/helgustadir.htm| web page about the site, with photos]

'''Heide''' 
915; "horrible little bourgeoise" in ''The Burgher King''

'''Hell''' 
"Chicago winter, that is a sub-zero-degrees version of Hell," 41; "'''infernal''' side to the story," 78; "Hell with electric lights," 79; 131; "I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY — DANTE," from Canto III of ''Il Inferno,'' 154; "Jeshimon was like a religious painting of hell used to scare kids in Sunday school," 210; "'Hell it is,'" 215; "some old, numinous, center-of-the-world willingness to raise species of hell that hadn't been invented yet," 274; 372; 377; 379; 382; Hierarchy is "'sure's "heck" too good for'" the Chums, 397; "down in Hell's / Kitchen," 400; "I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY — DANTE," 401; Chums "ready to deal with Hell itself," 418; see also [[T#telluric|'''Telluric Interior''']] and [[T#telluride|'''Telluride''']]

'''Helm''' 
780; on the ''Bol'shaia Igra''

'''Henry, Emile (1872-1894)''' 
87; French anarchist, who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry]

'''Herbert, Victory''' 
512;

'''Hercules''' 
455;

'''Herman''' 
182; bartender at Anarchists' Saloon

'''Hernández, Braulio''' 
983; "former lieutenant governor" of Chihuahua who "had just taken the silver-mining town of Santa Eulalia";

'''Herodotus (484 BC–ca. 425 BC)''' 
957; Herodotus of Halicarnassus was a Dorian Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC and is regarded as the "Father of History". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus Wikipedia]

'''Hershel''' 
39; bellman at the Esthonia Hotel

'''Hertz, Heinrich Rudolf (1857-1894)''' 
121; "extra Hertzian rays"; German physicist and mechanician for whom the hertz, an SI unit, is named. In 1888, he was the first to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic radiation by building an apparatus to produce UHF radio waves; 318; 330; 438; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Rudolf_Hertz Wikipedia entry]

'''Hesitation Waltz''' 
1082; A style of waltz which arose in the 1910s and incorporated Hesitations and was danced to fast music. A Hesitation is basically a halt on the standing foot during the full waltz measure, with the moving foot suspended in the air or slowly dragged.

'''Hesychasts''' 
960; adherents to Hesychasm, an eremitic tradition of prayer in Eastern Orthodox Christianity (Gk: ἡσυχάζω hesychazo: "to keep stillness"). Hesychastic practice bears some superficial resemblance to mystical prayer or meditation in Eastern religions (eg Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesychasts Wikipedia]

'''Hierarchy''' 
415; 417; Chums of Chance's invisible superiors

'''High Albedo''' 
493; A property of a surface that describes its ability to reflect and reject heat. High albedo surfaces have both a light color (high solar reflectance) and a high emmittance (can reject heat back to the environment).

'''high-grading''' 
196; In mining, high grading is the theft and concealement of valuable ore by miners for personal profit. Common during the United States gold rush, high graders would usually conceal gold ore in a pocket or lunch pail, or internally within the body, and later attempt to fence it on the black market; 486;

'''Hilbert, Dr. David (1862-1943)''' 
324; German mathematician, recognized as one of the most influential and universal mathematicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries. He invented or developed a broad range of fundamental ideas, in invariant theory, the axiomatization of geometry, and with the notion of Hilbert space, one of the foundations of functional analysis. Among the students of Hilbert, there were Hermann Weyl, the champion of chess Emanuel Lasker, Ernst Zermelo, and Carl Gustav Hempel. John von Neumann was his assistant. At the University of Göttingen, Hilbert was surrounded by a social circle of some of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century, such as Emmy Noether and Alonzo Church; "Spectral Theory" 499; 600; 625; 633; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert Wikipedia entry]

'''Hill, Joe (1879-1915)''' 
216; born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund, and also known as Joseph Hillström, Joe Hill was a radical songwriter, labor activist and member of the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the Wobblies. He was executed for murder after a controversial trial. After his death, he became the subject of a folksong; 463; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill Wikipedia entry]

'''Hindoo Shuffle''' 
357; magic trick

'''Hinton, C. Howard''' 
591;

'''Hip Sing''' 
340; rival tong of On Leong, New York City

'''History''' 
29; "a warm invitation to rewrite history," 45; "duties to history and blood," 127; "''Historia Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae,''" 128; "the great silent struggle that was the history of the place," 129; "Mathematics and History," 130; 149; "as-yet-unwritten history," 151; 152; 222-223; "certain hidden geometries of History," 373; 376; 381; 393; 418; "light might be a ''secret determinant of history'', 431; 448; 559; and field operatives ("history Time's pathology"), 828; Northern powers who "manipulate other people's history but produce none of their own [...] lives are the units of exchange" 828;

'''H.M.S. ''Megaera''''' 
108; frigate; Megaera (Greek: Μεγαιρα, "the jealous one") is one of the Erinyes in Greek Mythology. She is the cause of jealousy and envy, and causes people to commit crimes, especially marital infidelity. Like her sisters Alecto and Tisiphone, she was born of the blood of Uranus when Cronus castrated him.

'''hole card''' 
684; In blackjack, the facedown card that the dealer gets. In stud and hold ‘em poker, the facedown cards dealt to each player.

'''Hole-in-the-Wall Gang''' 
287; name given to a gang in the American Wild West, which took its name from the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass in Johnson County, Wyoming, where several outlaw gangs had their hideouts. The Gang was not simply one large organized gang of outlaws, but rather was made up of several separate gangs, all operating out of the Hole-in-the-Wall Pass, using it as their base of operations. The gangs formed a coalition, each planning and carrying out its own robberies with very little interaction with the other gangs. At times, members of one gang would ride along with other gangs, but usually each gang operated separately, meeting up only when they were each at the hideout at the same time; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hole_in_the_Wall_Gang Wikipedia entry]

'''Holliday, Doc (1851-1887)''' 
25; John Henry "Doc" Holliday was an American dentist, gambler and gunfighter of the Old West frontier, who is usually remembered for his associations with Wyatt Earp and the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral; "rejoinder to Frank McLaury at the O.K. Corral" 647-48; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Holliday Wikipedia entry]

'''Hollow Earth''' 
115; Chums of Chance's journey into, 115; H. Penhallow's journey, 155; 274; 327; hoosegow in Guanojuana, 380; 391; "hidden cave of rainwater" 393; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_earth Wikipedia entry]

'''Holloway''' 
933; prison where Jenny McHugh was

'''Holmes, Sherlock''' 
689;

'''Horses''' 
127; "one of the last live horses in the Metropolitan area," 150; at Armageddon, 443; grazing in the Quadrangle, 451;

'''Hotel Borealis''' 
129; where Vormance Expedition set up headquarters;

'''Hôtel de Deux Continents''' 
911; where Kit tends bar in Constantinople

'''Hotel Noctambulo''' 
462; where insomnia prevails, in Fickle Creek

'''Hotel Neue Mutzenbacher''' 
702, aka "The Mutzi" in Vienna "near the Imperial Stables"

'''Hot Sauce'''
"''¡Cuidado Cabrón! Salsa Explosiva La Original''," 129-30; "Gigot Grillé à la Sauce Piquante," 443;

'''Houdini, Harry''' 
355;

'''Hour of the Rat''' 
675; according to the [[Time_in_OldJapan|time keeping in pre-modern Japan]], the Hour of the Rat was from 11pm till 1am.

'''Hrisoula''' 
975; taverna cat in Corfu

'''Hsiang-Chiao''' 
260; Deuce Kindred's "on-again-off-again romance with"

'''Huerta, General''' 
376; "brutal heart, bloody mind"; "goes after Yaquis or Mayas" 389; leading government forces against Orozco, 986; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoriano_Huerta Wikipedia entry]

'''Humfried''' 
588; at Göttingen; 592; 597; muttering in strange language, 622;

'''Hungarians''' 
46;

'''Hypatia (AD 370(?)-415)''' 
717; Hypatia of Alexandria was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, teacher, and head of the Platonist school at Alexandria about AD 400. Hypatia wrote commentaries on the astronomical canon of Ptolemy and did work on conic sections . Her works are lost, but are referred to in the Suda lexicon. She was the daughter of the mathematician and philosopher Theon of Alexandria (he was also the last head of the Museum at Alexandria); [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia/ Wikipedia entry]

'''hypodermic syringe''' 
23; [[hypodermic syringe | DISCUSSION ]]

'''Hypopsammotic Survival Apparatus''' 
425; invented by Roswell Bounce, "providing a practical way to submerge oneself beneath the sands and still be able to breath, walk around, and so forth"

{{ATD_Alpha_Nav}}

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

==Page 219==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

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

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

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

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

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

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

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

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

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

==Page 221==

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and on and on.....

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

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

==Page 222==

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

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

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

'''Simla''' 
British outpost in Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 223==

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

==Page 224==

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

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

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

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

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

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

==Page 225==

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

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

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

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship.

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to deepening autumn.

One of two possible explanations: 
1. The T.W.I.T. is perhaps using an ascendent or lunar based astrological system rather than the solar-based system commonly used in the West. This resolves the apparent contradiction of a Gemini in autumn since the ascendent travels through all signs every 24 hours and the moon travels through the entire zodiac once a month. For example, Vedic astrology looks primarily to the ascendent, then the moon, and lastly the sun to study respectively the body, the mind and the spirit of the native. Basnight does have a mind that operates on two planes -- hence a moon in Gemini reading. 
2. The explosion carried Lew to a place on the other side of the Sun. Deep autumn would then be November 23 to December 21th, our sign of Sagittarius.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2007-09-07T19:51:19Z

Sideming: /* Page 221 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

'''seventeenth degree Adept''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

:'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzaddik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
British outpost in Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship.

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to autumn.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

User talk:MKOHUT

2007-09-07T19:47:44Z

Sideming:

Hi Mark,

I just noticed that you nuked some edits on I did to AtD Pages 26-56, linking between two references. Please let me know why you did this?

Thanks. [[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 23:50, 19 March 2007 (PDT)

Dear Wiki Administrator,

This was some kind of accident.....I did not intend, never intend, to delete anything that Administrators write....and, although I have nuked
a few things from others that seemed refuted by later discoverers, including me, I almost always just write my opinions after others with whom I might not agree.

I think my entry accident comes from not leaving enough white space when
I paste something.....the wiki does not seem to endlessly expand that way as on e-mails.....

I am trying to be near perfect.

Thank You,
Mark Kohut

Dear Wiki Administrator,

I just added a note to the Cosmo entry about the Cosmo in Mason & Dixon and I do not know how to italicize the book's title, which I think is the proper formatting....usual way to italicize is not working for me...I will erase it if necessary.

Thank You,
Mark K.

Hi MKOHUT,

Regarding Philolaus. I'll give you a short answer. He taught that the world is divided into "limiteds" and "unlimited." Limited were numbers and edges; unlimiteds included air, earth, water, sound, space and time. He also taught that the earth revolved around a central fire that was conjoined with the limited geometric shape of the circle to create the sun. The perfect combination of limited and unlimited produced "harmony" and he thought of harmony as soul. It's interesting that later down that same page, TRP brings up the Harmonica band again.

In researching more on Philolaus, I found a book on the Pythagoreans and a cursory look revealed that I may have had them all wrong. They appear to have been an secretive aristocratic oligarchy. They did not trust the common man. In fact, the bean ban may have been a ban on democratic elections -- since beans were used in the election process. So they appear to be anti-democratic and elitist. I feel I have to dive deep into what is known about Philolaus and the Pythagoreans before I can add anything more to the entries. In some ways, it seems to parallel the Chums of Chance -- are they "good guys" or are they working for the current powerstructure? The whole thing has suddenly become very complex.

You can call me "Sid"

Hi Mark,

RE Pokler in GR -- it's been about a decade since I last read GR. I'll try to research it over the weekend and get back to you. -- Scott

Hi MKOHUT,

Regarding the Noctical posting. Something was gnawing at me regarding the name of this group. I first wanted to confirm what I thought was the case, that noctical derives from night -- as in equinox, equinoctical. In researching that, I came across the D&D posting. I posted it here because TRP is well known for picking things up from all sorts of places, and D&D seems a prime place for him to borrow ideas. I was taken with the description of the Nocticals -- and while I haven't mapped it directly to the events that follow the recovery of the Figure from under the ice, to my mind, it offered some very vivid imagery that added to the flavor of the apolocypse that The Transnoctical Group knowingly or unknowingly imported into the City -- which I'm not clear on is NYC or DC.
That was my thinking. If you think it is not revelant please feel free to edit or delete that entry -- no problem.

BTW, I moved recently and my copy of GR is still in one of many book boxes in the garage. Sorry I didn't get back to you as I said I would.
It may take awhile.

Sid.
---
Hi Mark,

Thanks for the Eclipse mine comment, and thanks for posting the von Braun immortality passage to the GR page. Are you reading all of TRP's works at the same time or what? You're a busy man! -- Sid

User:Sideming

2007-09-07T19:43:08Z

Sideming:

A partial newbie to Pynchon: I've read''GR'' 3 times, ''Crying of Lot 49'' twice, Vineland once, got halfway through MD (the mechanical duck found my off switch) and I am now two-thirds of the way through ''V.'' and my second round of AtD.

Si_de_ming is my Chinese name from college, For the exact reasons Pynchon mentions in AtD, my nickname was "Mr. Death."

An economist by training, my current interests are Sanskrit/Jyotish and Proust. I have an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School where I studied Gnosticism under His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, current Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America; and Islamic Mysticism under Annemarie Schimmel, may God's peace be upon her -- but I personally do not practice.

AtD hits close to home. My father's people were from the hill country across the Ohio from the Mason-Dixon line, and Webb Traverse talks and thinks very much like my beloved grandfather, not a miner but a steel worker -- though in a very similar place to Webb's. And like Webb's sons Frank, who thought to become an engineer, and Kit, who later works on planes, my father indeed became an engineer working on jet engines at GE, a leading character in ''GR''.

My mother's family are all Serbian. Serbo-Croatian was her first language, and I still have cousins in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica.
I was raised in the Serbian Orthodox Church. With an engineer father and a Serbian mother, Tesla was like a patron saint in our family. I have travelled in the Balkans, Greece and Turkey (where my wife works as an archaeologist), and spent some time in the monasteries of Mt. Athos.

I have had dinner with the current pretender to the Serbian throne, Crown Prince Alexander and his family. I just can't ring him up to say hello.

Like Blinky Morgan and Vera Meroving I have a damaged left eye from a childhood knife accident. While it doesn't have a clock or astrological symbols inscribed on it, nor does it allow me to be a walking interferometer, it does have a pupil that resembles the Mandlebrot Set. Call me Squinty.

Lastly I grew up in Ohio, Cincinnati -- Pynchon seems to have spent some time there. It probably doesn't hurt that the city has winged-pigs for civic statuary along the river, at the airport, and hosts the annual Flying Pig Marathon.

I now live in the San Francisco Bay area where I read Pynchon and Proust.

Sid,
Tell me, what is Pynchon's meaning in the Pokler scene in GR wherein he says that he, [Pokler] "missed the Director's clever Gnostic symbolism in the lighting scene of the two shadows, Cain's and Abel's? [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 11:22, 3 August 2007 (PDT)

Sid,

It's OK. No need to research for me. It will all unfold in time, as AtD predicts. When I read about your gnostic studies, I thought this particular paragraph might have jumped out at you. I have just read it.
[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 16:07, 3 August 2007 (PDT)

Sid,

Perhaps 'trans' as I posted has larger possible meanings than the one you posit? Just also to say: The D & D stuff is an ingenious find but I can't see how it really applies. Just my two cents.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 13:21, 17 August 2007 (PDT)

Sid,

Thanks for the response. Yea, imagery is Pynchonian in D & D post. I am not going to edit it or erase it...I, too, have made some associations most will not find relevant but TRP is wider than both of us. I have erased somne of mine when someone 'refutes' to my satisfaction. Who knows.
Please don't spend any time trying to answer the GR question..one of your gnosticism posts and my further reading added some illumination, I think.
Keep reading and posting. [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 08:38, 20 August 2007 (PDT)

User:Sideming

2007-09-07T19:29:36Z

Sideming:

A partial newbie to Pynchon: I've read''GR'' 3 times, ''Crying of Lot 49'' twice, Vineland once, got halfway through MD (the mechanical duck found my off switch) and I am now two-thirds of the way through ''V.'' and my second round of AtD.

Si_de_ming is my Chinese name from college, For the exact reasons Pynchon mentions in AtD, my nickname was "Mr. Death."

An economist by training, my current interests are Sanskrit/Jyotish and Proust. I have an MDiv from Harvard Divinity School where I studied Gnosticism under His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, current Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America; and Islamic Mysticism under Annemarie Schimmel -- but I personally do not practice.

AtD hits close to home. My father's people were from the hill country across the Ohio from the Mason-Dixon line, and Webb Traverse talks and thinks very much like my beloved grandfather, not a miner but a steel worker -- though in a very similar place to Webb's. And like Webb's sons Frank, who thought to become an engineer, and Kit, who later works on planes, my father indeed became an engineer working on jet engines at GE, a leading character in ''GR''.

My mother's family are all Serbian. Serbo-Croatian was her first language, and I still have cousins in Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica.
I was raised in the Serbian Orthodox Church. With an engineer father and a Serbian mother, Tesla was like a patron saint in our family. I have travelled in the Balkans, Greece and Turkey (where my wife works as an archaeologist), and spent some time in the monasteries of Mt. Athos.

I have had dinner with the current pretender to the Serbian throne, Crown Prince Alexander and his family. I just can't ring him up to say hello.

Like Blinky Morgan and Vera Meroving I have a damaged left eye from a childhood knife accident. While it doesn't have a clock or astrological symbols inscribed on it, nor does it allow me to be a walking interferometer, it does have a pupil that resembles the Mandlebrot Set. Call me Squinty.

Lastly I grew up in Ohio, Cincinnati -- Pynchon seems to have spent some time there. It probably doesn't hurt that the city has winged-pigs for civic statuary along the river, at the airport, and hosts the annual Flying Pig Marathon.

I now live in the San Francisco Bay area where I read Pynchon and Proust.

Sid,
Tell me, what is Pynchon's meaning in the Pokler scene in GR wherein he says that he, [Pokler] "missed the Director's clever Gnostic symbolism in the lighting scene of the two shadows, Cain's and Abel's? [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 11:22, 3 August 2007 (PDT)

Sid,

It's OK. No need to research for me. It will all unfold in time, as AtD predicts. When I read about your gnostic studies, I thought this particular paragraph might have jumped out at you. I have just read it.
[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 16:07, 3 August 2007 (PDT)

Sid,

Perhaps 'trans' as I posted has larger possible meanings than the one you posit? Just also to say: The D & D stuff is an ingenious find but I can't see how it really applies. Just my two cents.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 13:21, 17 August 2007 (PDT)

Sid,

Thanks for the response. Yea, imagery is Pynchonian in D & D post. I am not going to edit it or erase it...I, too, have made some associations most will not find relevant but TRP is wider than both of us. I have erased somne of mine when someone 'refutes' to my satisfaction. Who knows.
Please don't spend any time trying to answer the GR question..one of your gnosticism posts and my further reading added some illumination, I think.
Keep reading and posting. [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 08:38, 20 August 2007 (PDT)

ATD 219-242

2007-09-06T17:44:53Z

Sideming: /* Page 221 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

'''seventeenth degree Adept''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

:'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzakkik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
British outpost in Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship.

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to autumn.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2007-09-06T17:43:31Z

Sideming: /* Page 221 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

''''seventeenth degree Adept'''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzakkik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
British outpost in Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship.

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to autumn.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2007-09-05T22:07:28Z

Sideming: /* Page 221 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

''''17th degree Adept'''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzakkik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
British outpost in Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship.

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to autumn.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2007-09-05T22:06:05Z

Sideming: /* Page 221 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

''''17th degree Adept'''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

'''Symbolic and Cultural Meanings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17_%28number%29#In_culture 17]:''' 

Because 17 has no symbolic significance, it does! In ''The Illuminatus! Trilogy,'' the symbol for Discordianism includes a pyramid with 17 steps because 17 has "virtually no interesting geometric, arithmetic, or mystical qualities." 

In the Harry Potter universe, 17 is the coming of age for wizards. 

Described at MIT as 'the most random number', according to hackers' lore. This is supposedly because in a study where respondents were asked to choose a random number from 1 to 20, 17 was the most common choice. 

The number of syllables in a haiku (5+7+5). 

The number of special significance to Yellow Pig's Day and Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics.

and on and on.....

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzakkik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
British outpost in Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship.

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to autumn.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2007-09-05T21:31:45Z

Sideming: /* Page 221 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

''''17th degree Adept'''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service award. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzakkik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
British outpost in Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship.

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to autumn.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2007-09-05T21:30:53Z

Sideming: /* Page 221 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

''''17th degree Adept'''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service recognition. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]
"One whose merit surpasses his iniquity."
The Talmud says that at least 36 anonymous tzadikim are living among us at all times; they are anonymous, and it is for their sake alone that the world is not destroyed.

The common theme between the Masonic 17th degree and Tzakkik seems to be '''righteousness'''.

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
British outpost in Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship.

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to autumn.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 219-242

2007-09-05T21:17:56Z

Sideming: /* Page 221 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 219==

'''they would have little clue . . . their more or less ambushed keesters''' 
One of half a dozen Pynchonian circumlocutions for "wouldn't know [blank] if it bit them in the ass."

[[image:tetractys.png|thumb|175px|right|The Tetractys]]'''True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys''' 
The Tetractys is a triangular figure consisting of ten points arranged in four rows: one, two, three, and four points in each row. As a mystical symbol, it was very important to the followers of the secret worship of the Pythagoreans, Kabbalists, and nutbars of other affiliations since. It has all kinds of symbological meaning, including the four elements, the organization of space, the Tarot, etc. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetractys Wikipedia entry];

:In the Pythagorean tetractys the supreme symbol of universal forces and processes are set forth the theories of the Greeks concerning color and music. The first three dots represent the threefold White Light, which is the Godhead containing potentially all sound and color. The remaining seven dots are the colors of the spectrum and the notes of the musical scale. The colors and tones are the active creative powers which, emanating from the First Cause, establish the universe. The seven are divided into two groups, one containing three powers and the other four a relationship also shown in the tetractys. The higher group that of three becomes the spiritual nature of the created universe; the lower group that of four manifests as the irrational sphere, or inferior world. <ref>From [http://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/ ''The Secret Teachings of All Ages''] by Manly P. Hall (1928)</ref>

:This division (three/four) has to be related to the "trivium" (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and "quadrivium" (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) of the [http://www.cosmopolis.com/villa/liberal-arts.html Medieval liberal arts.]

More effably, if you flip the Tetractys left to right, it gives the positions of the pins in ten-pin bowling.

The acronym T.W.I.T is most appropriate: a twit is an ineffectual buffoon. Neville and Nigel are certainly twits.

I believe the above really misses the Big Symbol, i.e., Pynchon's linking of T.W.I.T. with the vagina, i.e., the female ''sex'' organ. "T.W.I.T." sounds like no, ''is'' a cross between "clit" and "twat." And, natch, it's headed up by [[#Page 220|Nookshaft]]. And, let's face it, that tetractys is surely an inverted beaver, yes? (See [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|"Beavers of the Brain"]]). Its male counterpart is [[ATD 397-428#Page 405|Candlebrow U.]], to be encountered down the road apiece (and that ain't no spoiler!).

"The Tetractys" is also the name of a poem by the Quaternionist prophet Hamilton. I can't imagine Pynchon didn't find it fairly interesting reading. [http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/octonions/node24.html Read it for yourself here]

'''Chunxton Crescent''' 
Invented by Pynchon. "Crescent" is a female symbol in many mythologies and cultures, and it reinforces T.W.I.T.'s association with the female sex. But "Chunxton"?

:The moon is seen as a female symbol, and was worshipped in ancient times as a powerful force. It is believed to be linked to the unconscious and our feminine side. The sacredness of the moon has been connected with the basic cyclic rhythms of life. The changing phases of the moon were linked to the death and rebirth seen in crops and the seasons, and also to the female monthly cycle that controls human fertility. The moon calendar is still important and many festivals exist around the lunar phases. [http://www.new-age.co.uk/moon-dates.htm]

[[image:bap.gif|thumb|200px|right|Eliphas Levi's Baphomet]]
The crescent is also said "to represent silver (the metal associated with the moon) in alchemy, where, by inference, it can also be used to represent
qualities that silver possesses." (Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.)

Additionally, the crescent was an important symbol for Eliphas Levi, occultist, magician, and spiritual antecedent to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and, in turn, the T.W.I.T.

''Chunxton'' may be derived from "chunk stone" or "chunk(s) town." I'm inclined to favor the first. "Chunk stone" has two main meanings: (1) stone that's quarried in chunks instead of blocks, slabs or crystals; (2) a magical stone that figures in some American Indian stories. Turquoise and amethyst chunk stones are often made into jewelry as-is, or [http://www.bridastone.com/chunkstone.htm larger chunks of (say) marble] can be used as decoration. Here are links to two Indian stories in which people use chunk stones in finding or tracking: [http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/se/mtsi/mtsi156.htm first,] [http://romeoandjuliet.ws/books/native_american/se/mtsi/mtsi270.shtml second.] Of course it's also possible that "chunk" is the verb meaning "throw," in which case there ought to be a "glass houses" connection somewhere; I can't find it.

Pure speculation here, but our own moon is a giant "chunk" of "stone". And how did that "chunk" get there? Well, this being Thomas Pynchon's universe, sometime early in the solar system's history, this proto-planet called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpheus#Orpheus_in_astronomy Orpheus] comes along and smacks into the Earth so violently that it not only creates the moon, but at the same time expels enough water and gas to make "it possible for life on Earth to evolve as we currently know it." Seems to me like something worthy of Occultist reverence. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]

'''Tyburnia''' 
"Tyburnia occupies the ground on the north side of Hyde-park and Kensington-gardens, and stretches from Edgware-road on the east to about Inverness-terrace on the west. This is not, strictly speaking, a fashionable quarter; but it is not absolutely unfashionable, and is a very favourite part with those — lawyers, merchants, and others—who have to reside in town the greater part of the year." Charles Dickens (Jr.), ''Dickens's Dictionary of London'', 1879.

'''Sir John Soane''' 
(1753 – 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neo-Classical style. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Soane Wikipedia entry]

'''Madame Blavatsky''' 
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), Russian-born founder of the Theosophical Society. Madame Blavatsky claimed that all religions were both true in their inner teachings and false or imperfect in their external conventional manifestations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Blavatsky Wikipedia]

'''of whom there seemed an ever-increasing supply''' 
Supply of seekers, not of "arrangements." (Well, this contributor read it wrong . . . twice.)

'''century had rushed . . . out the other side''' 
An instant of zero, not a whole year, because they aren't yet "out the other side" of 1900. ??? A century is 100 years. The one referred to here lasted from 1800-1899 and, since it's 1900, it has "rushed to its end."
:Missing the point. The image focuses on the ''zero.'' And please, let's not have that sterile argument about when a century begins!

==Page 220==

'''not even if that tartan were authentic''' 
It's a solecism in England, but is (or was) a prosecutable offense in Scotland, to wear the tartan of a clan one doesn't belong to.

'''Caen stone''' 
A cream-colored limestone for building, found near Caen, France.

'''syrinx''' 
a primitive wind instrument consisting of several parallel pipes bound together; panpipes.

'''lyre''' 
an ancient form of harp, so syrinx and lyre are like flute and harp. A famous Concerto for flute and harp is the work of G. F. Handel, who also composed the ''Messiah.''

'''ten-in-one''' 
Ten sideshow acts for one admission. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideshow Wikipedia]

Also, a description of the Tetractys.

'''masses of shadow . . . bright presences''' 
We've had suggestions, at least, that shadow is more hospitable than brightness.

'''humans reincarnated as cats, dogs, and mice''' 
Do the T.W.I.T. members just take the word of the creatures, or do they have some way to be sure?

'''Nicholas Nookshaft''' 
Grand Cohen Nicholas Nookshaft's name reinforces the linking of [[#Page 219|T.W.I.T.]] to the female sex organ, "Nooky shaft" being a vulgarism for the vagina. Interestingly, "shaft" is both a rod or pole, or penis, as well as a vertical passageway, thus its connations are bisexual.

'''Grand Cohen''' 
'Cohen' is Hebrew for 'priest'.

==Page 221==

'''Couldn't have been the same world as the one you're in now''' 
We can infer that Lew got blown up in one world and shifted to another. A review of the explosion episode, particularly with [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|the annotations to p. 188,]] will be worthwhile.

'''"Lateral world-sets, other parts of the Creation, lie all around us, each with its crossover points or gates of transfer from one to another, and they can be anywhere, really."''' 
Could this be the explanation for some of the most inexplicable scenes from the book thus far: Lew Basnight's mysterious offense, causing him to lose his wife, and his first encounter with the Drave group (around [[ATD_26-56#Page_39|page 39]]); and Hunter Penhallow's escape from the mysterious creature (around [[ATD_149-170#Pages_154-155|page 154]])? Parallel worlds?

''''17th degree Adept'''' 
Masonic and other esoteric mystery schools have differing number of degrees. Attaining a degree shows that one has sufficiently mastered the material, undergone the tests and passed through any initiations involved with that degree.

The Masonic system has three degrees. These are extended to 32 in the Scottish Rite and a 33rd degree is the ultimate akin to a Distinguished Service recognition. By comparison, the Golden Dawn has 11 degrees divided in three orders; and the Order of the Temple of the East (Order Templi Orientis, O.T.O) has 12. In TWIT, the 17th appears to be the final degree where one becomes a Master TWIT or a Grand TWIT, I suppose.

Why 17 degrees? Other than 17 being prime, there seems to be no symbolic or geometric significance to 17. Since the Crowley-associated systems do not reach 17, whereas the Masonic system does, looking to the Masonic A & A Scottish Rite [http://www.freemasonry101.org.uk/the_book/219-17th_degree/17th_degree.htm 17th degree] we find it is the "Knight of the East and West" which teaches that loyalty to God is man's primary allegiance, and the temporal governments not founded upon God and His righteousness will inevitably fall. Compare this to the Bogomils later in AtD.

''''Tzaddik'''' 
A righteous Jew. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzadik Wikipedia]

==Page 222==

'''The Tetractys isn't the only thing round here that's ineffable''' 
Schoolyard joke. "F" a euphemism for fuck, so "ineffable" = unfuckable also describes Yashmeen.

'''squadron commander''' 
A [http://pinetreeweb.com/13th-south-african-war-36-01.htm squadron of hussars] would number 100-200 troopers commanded by a major. (The linked page concerns Baden-Powell's regiment—the 13th, not the 18th—in the South African War.)

'''Eighteenth Hussars''' 
Prestigious British cavalry regiment. Stationed in India 1864-76 and 1890-98; Halfcourt's secondment must have taken place at one of these times.

'''Simla''' 
British outpost in Himalayas. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Wikipedia]

'''Smartly taken at silly point''' 
A cricketing reference. Silly point is a fielding position very close to the batsman. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=smartly.taken+silly.point examples] 
With the infield pulled in for a bunt, the cleanup man swings away and pulls a clothesline drive between third and short, which the shortstop snares for the out. (Teach ''you'' lot to come over here and talk cricket.)

'''To know, to dare, to will, to keep silent''' 
Mystical formula. [http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&q=to.know.to.dare.to.will examples]
The four precepts of Western Magick, extensively discussed in the writings of Aleister Crowley.

'''In the States, "detective" doesn't mean—''' 
. . . An agent who solves criminal cases. The major "detective" bureaus hired personnel out as bodyguards and muscle.

'''"There is but one 'case' which occupies us"''' 
This echoes the famous quote from Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'': "The world is all that is the case." (See the full text of the ''Tractatus'' [http://www.kfs.org/~jonathan/witt/tlph.html here].) This quote also factors in heavily in V. (Specifically, in two places: there's the [http://www.phil-reed.com/2006/02/14/the-love-songs-of-thomas-pynchon/ P's and Q's love song], and also in Captain Weissman's repeating, encoded, hallucinated message over the telegraph in Africa.)

'''The Number 22''' 
I found it interesting that the significance of the number 22 was first brought up on page 222. might be nothing, really. 22 is the number of cards in the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, the section of the deck that has been removed from the modern playing deck which only has the suits (elements) and the Court cards. The 22 Major Arcana are numbers 0 to 21 and move from The Fool card to the Universe. Purportedly and symbolically, the progression of cards tell a tale of the evolutionary path of the Soul in its course. The 22 cards also, in some systems, map onto the 22 paths that connect the spheres of the Kabalistic Tree of Life (which also is mentioned in this chapter). An understanding of the Tarot cards cannot be achieved with an understanding how they relate to the Tree of Life. They are the relationships between the Sephiroths which in turn at 10 in number, just like the Tetractys and portray the energies that flow from the highest monad of Divinity (Kether) down into the manifested world (Malkuth). Pynchon makes use of both the Tarot and the Kabalah in Against the Day as well as Gravity's Rainbow.

See also the novel ''The Greater Trumps'' by Charles Williams for a similar intrusion of the characters of the Major Arcana into everyday English life.

22 is two times two, so a quaternion...

==Page 223==

'''"And the crime... just what would be the nature of that?"''' 
Might Lew himself be one of the 22 suspects? Perhaps the ineffable crime is what made people treat him like a pariah earlier in the book.

==Page 224==

'''"'walking out'"''' 
A walking date.

'''the veil of ''maya''''' 
In Hinduism, maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. In Hindu philosophy, maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self. Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth. Arthur Schopenhauer used the term "Veil of Maya" to describe his view of ''The World as Will and Representation''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_(illusion) Wikipedia entry]

'''the ancient London landscape . . . known to the Druids''' 
Peter Ackroyd's recent ''London, the Biography'' devotes many pages to sacred and magical features of the city. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druid "Druid"].

'''Trumper's''' 
London's royal barbers since 1875. [http://www.trumpers.com/ site] 
And what other barber would you mention in a passage about the Greater Trumps . . . .

'''On this island [...] all English, spoken or written, is looked down on as no more than strings of text cleverly encrypted''' 
A sentiment echoed in the first sentence of Pynchon's December 2006 letter written in defense of novelist Ian McEwan: "Given the British genius for coded utterance..." [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/06/nwriter06.xml Image of Letter]

'''crosswords in newspapers''' 
The first crossword to appear in a newspaper was in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword#History 1913]. Cryptic crosswords in British newspapers certainly match Pynchon's description. See, for example, [http://www.crossword.org.uk/listen.htm the Listener crossword].

==Page 225==

'''Girton College''' 
Of Cambridge University, for women, founded 1869. [http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/about/history/brief.html history]

'''Next they'll be letting you folks vote.''' 
Women were granted the right to vote in England in 1928.

'''"the vast jangling thronged somehow monumental London evening"''' 
This kind of eschewing of punctuation might be expected in Joyce but it's not typical of Pynchon and seems to serve no special purpose here. A typo?

'''Pamela Colman Smith''' 
Illustrator of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith "Wikipedia"].

'''Arthur Edward Waite''' 
Occultist and co-creator of the Rider-Waite Tarot deck. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Waite Wikipedia]

'''four stone''' 
56 pounds.

'''Uckenfays''' 
Ucken-fay is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_Latin "pig latin"] for 'fucken'.

'''''gaver du visage''''' 
A literal translation of "stuff one's face", though this is not how it is said in French (it would be se gaver or se baffrer). [http://french.about.com/od/vocabulary/g/gaver.htm cite]

'''cigar-divan''' 
A smoking salon (divan) for cigar smokers.

Interestingly, a work by Robert Louis Stevenson, from 1903, entitled The Dynamiter begins with a "Prologue of the Cigar Divan".

==Page 226==

'''Seven Dials''' 
bad area in London, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Dials Wikipedia entry]

[[image:tarotdevil.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Devil by Colman-Smith]]

'''growler''' 
Four-wheeled [http://www.bbno.freeserve.co.uk/glossary.htm carriage] drawn by four horses. Supplanted by the Hansom cab.

<div id="renfrew"></div>'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward.

Also notice the theme of dual natures or forces. The two professors are "bound and ... could not separate even if they wanted to." They become rivals within the broader conflict of the 'Great Game' -- the political rivalry over Central Asia being played out by the various European powers, but especially by Great Britain and the Russian Empire.

[http://www.cam.ac.uk/cambuniv/index.html Cambridge University] is one of the oldest and the best universities in the world. In 2009 it will be celebrating its 800th Anniversary. In its early day, Cambridge was a center of the new learning of the Renaissance and of the theology of the Reformation; in modern times it has excelled in science. It is now a confederation of 31 Colleges (such as King's, Girton, St.John, Trinity and others mentioned in ATD), consists of over 100 departments and faculties, and other institutions. Since 1904, 81 affiliates of Cambridge have won Nobel Prize in every category: 29 in Physics, 22 in Medicine, 19 in Chemistry, 7 in Economics, 2 in Literature and 2 in Peace.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg-August_University_of_G%C3%B6ttingen Göttingen University], one of the most famous universities in Europe, founded in Göttingen, Germany, in 1737 by King George II of England in his capacity as Elector of Hanover. At the end of the 19th century, it became world famous because of its Departments of Mathematics and Physics and rivaled Cambridge for eminence. The reputation of the university was founded by many eminent professors who are commemorated by statues and plaques all over the campus. It claimed 44 Nobel Laureates. But it suffered from the 1933 Great Purge of the Nazi crackdown on "Jewish Physics" and never recovered its original fame.

'''Berlin Conference of 1878''' 
Divided Balkans after Russo-Turkish War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_of_Berlin Wikipedia]

'''English, . . . , Japanese—not to mention indigenous—components''' 
''Not to mention'' them was exactly the point as the Great Powers sorted out the Ottoman possessions.

==Page 227==

'''"The Great Game"''' 
The Great Game was a term used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by Rudyard Kipling in his novel, ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia entry] Also the name of Padzhitnoff's airship.

'''mamluk lamps''' 
A [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/07/nfe/hob_17.190.985.htm mosque lamp]
from the [http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/mehistorydatabase/mamluks.php mamluk] era.

'''...the Kabbalist Tree of Life, with the names of the Sephiroth spelled out in Hebrew, which had brought her more than enough of that uniquely snot-nosed British anti-Semitism... ''' 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah Kabbalah] is the ancient study of Jewish mysticism, long shrouded in mystery and kept from all but a devout few of the most dedicated Talmudic scholars. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Tree_of_Life_Medieval.jpg.jpg Tree of Life] is one of the central symbols of Kabbalah, supposedly a physical representation of the path of enlightenment from the most base knowledge of the physical world (at the bottom), to the highest spiritual planes of understanding (at the top). The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephirot Sephiroth] are the nodes of the Tree, representing the various "stages" of understanding. Of course, tihs is all a very gross oversimplifcation and hardly does justice to the term itself.

The "Quabbalah" or "Cabalah" being studied by Madonna and others in Hollywood is a secularized and co-opted form of the original Kabbalah, which is deeply connected to the Torah and Jewish life.

In Medieval Europe, Kabbalist scholars wore amulets and other symbols on their clothing, and were often misunderstood to be magicians or wizards (think Merlin). The common magician's expression "abra cadabra" has Kabbalistic origins.

'''"Eskimoff . . . I say what sort of name is that?"''' 
Tiptoeing around the real question, "Is she Jewish?"

'''English Rose''' 
The phrase "English Rose" or "Bonnie English Rose" when applied to a woman means her skin is unblemished, her coloring subtle, her temper sweet. Madame Eskimoff, in short, is a beauty in a traditional English style. 
(Incidentally, an officially unrecognized designation of [http://www.marinrose.org/englishroses.html roses].)

==Page 228==

'''Oliver Lodge''' 
English physicist, inventor and writer (1851-1940) involved in the development of wireless telegraphy and radio. After the death of his son in 1915, Lodge became interested in spiritualism and life after death and wrote several books on the subject. Lodge conducted research on lightning, electricity, electromagnetism and wrote about the aether, themes that are repeated throughout ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Joseph_Lodge Wikipedia entry].

'''William Crookes''' 
English chemist and physicist (1832-1919) who worked in spectroscopy and whose work pioneered the construction and use of vacuum tubes. Like Oliver Lodge, Crookes was also a spiritualist, which appears to be Pynchon's reason for grouping him with others in this passage, although his experiments in electricity and light also tie in with these themes in ''ATD.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Piper''' 
Probably [http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/mediums/piper.htm Leonora Piper] 1857-1950.

'''Eusapia Palladino''' 
(1854-1918) Famous italian spiritualist medium.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusapia_Palladino Wikipedia entry]. It's fair to say she was often caught cheating.

'''W.T. Stead''' 
William T. Stead (1849-1912), British writer, poet, social crusader, and spiritualist. He went down with the ''Titanic.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Thomas_Stead Wikipedia entry].

'''Mrs. Burchell''' 
The Yorkshire Seeress, investigated by WT Stead. [http://www.wholeagain.com/prophecyfodor.html cite]

'''assassination''' 
Trouble with the time here. Lew's timeline points pretty strongly to autumn 1900. A séance that's "about to" go on Mme. Eskimoff's résumé, however, leads the murder of the Serbian king and queen by three months, and the murder itself occurred in June 1903, which seems to imply March of that year.

'''Alexander and Draga Obrenovich, the King and Queen of Serbia''' 
According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Obrenovich Wikipedia] the assassination occured on 11 June 1903, so the seance at which Mrs. Burchell "witnessed" it, should have taken place in March 1903.

'''Parsons-Short Auxetophone''' 
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/auxetophone/auxetoph.htm pic and info]. The Auxetophone appears to have been a sound amplification device, not a recorder. Parsons did not enter the picture till 1903, so the apparatus would not have this name in 1900, but Short demonstrated it as early as 1898.

'''electros of the original wax impressions''' 
A thin film of metal was electroplated onto the wax, then peeled off and wrapped around a new cylinder.

==Page 229==

'''syntonic''' 
A term used in both engineering and psychology. Psychology: "Characterized by a high degree of emotional responsiveness to the environment." Electricity: "Of or relating to two oscillating circuits having the same resonant frequency."

The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntonic_comma syntonic comma], a small interval in the frequency ratio of 81:80, is a problem in musical [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''the Russo-Turkish War''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War,_1877–1878 The Russo-Turkish War] (1877-1878), the latest Russo-Turkish War of many fought between these two contries since 16th century as a result of Russian attempts to find an outlet on the Black Sea and to conquer the Caucasus, dominate the Balkan Peninsula, gain control of the Dardanelles and Bosporus straits, and retain access to world trade routes. The last Russo-Turkish War came as a result of the anti-Ottoman uprising (1875) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria. On Russian instigation, Serbia and Montenegro joined the rebels; after securing Austrian neutrality, Russia openly entered the War in 1877. The War ended in 1878 resulted in the Treaty of San Stefano which so thoroughly revised the map in favor of Russia and her client, Bulgaria, that the European powers called a conference (the Congress of Berlin) to revise its terms by the Treaty of Berlin.

==Page 230==

'''King's... Girton''' 
King's College is one of the most famous and historic colleges at Cambridge, founded in 1441. Girton College, Cambridge, was established in 1869 as the first residential college for women in England.

'''Michaelmas term''' 
The fall term, starting early October (1900 here). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaelmas_term Wikipedia]

'''tweeny''' 
A [http://www.bartleby.com/68/30/830.html between-maid].

'''Edward Oxford''' 
attempted to shoot Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, at the time of her first pregnancy (1840).[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Oxford Wikipedia]

'''had the young Queen died then without issue''' 
Nookshaft posits two scenarios: (1) The implicit, unmentioned, and not as "interesting" possibility that everything is actual, as it "appears" to be in the "real" world, surrounding Queen Victoria; that she is simply an old, vain regent. (2) "the 'real' Vic is elsewhere," and the current, aged Victoria is a ghostly stand-in. Nookshaft implies that this figure is a proxy or puppet of Ernst-August. If this were "the case," then the question shifts to the following: (a) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive in cahoots with Ernst-August in the "real" world? or: (b) Is the ruler of the underworld, who holds the "real," eternally young Victoria captive NOT in cahoots with Ernst-August, who nevertheless ascends to the throne with real-Vic out of the way, and imposes the stand-in? In which case: What would be the motivation of the underworld-entity third-party? And who, or what, specifically, is it?

'''sixty years ago''' 
One event of 1840, the attempt on Victoria's life, is referred to as sixty years ago; another, the issue of the first adhesive stamps, as more than sixty years ago. 
If it weren't for these nagging problems in Lew's timeline, we could peg the date as 1900.

'''Salic law''' 
originated in the Late Roman Empire as Germanic tribes invaded and their law codes were translated into Latin and written down. Salic Law was that of the
Franks who settled in present-day northern France and the law code of Charlemagne. Over the course of the Middle Ages it was largely replaced by Roman Law. For examples, see [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/salic-law.html]. 

However, Salic Law continued to be used in a number of European areas to decide matters of noble inheritance. Specifically, Salic Law stated that no female could inherit rulership (above by [[User:Owl of Minerva|Owl of Minerva]] 18:03, 4 April 2007 (PDT)) and, indeed, a royal or noble title could be inherited only through the "male line." When King William IV, ruler of both the United Kingdom and Hanover, died, the Crowns separated. Hanover practiced Salic law, while Britain did not. King William's niece Victoria ascended to the throne of Great Britain and Ireland, but the throne of Hanover went to William's brother Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_Law Wikipedia entry]

'''Tory despotism''' 
Thatcher?
: Not necessarily-- it describes Ernest himself. "The Duke of Cumberland had a reputation as one of the least pleasant of the sons of George III. Politically an arch-reactionary, he opposed the 1828 Catholic Emancipation Bill proposed by the government of the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Augustus_I_of_Hanover Wikipedia entry]

It can describe Ernst August and still be an allegory of Thatcher. The description of Ireland fits that of some world-views during her time.

'''Catholics''' 
Someone famously cited James Joyce as proof that Catholics shouldn't get university educations.

==Page 231==

'''Orange Lodges''' 
Lodges of the Orange Order, a protestant fraternal organisation based predominantly in Northern Ireland and Scotland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_lodge Wikipedia entry]. The Orange Order was hostile to Catholicism and the idea of Irish Home Rule or independence.

'''"from the first to the twelfth of July, anniversaries of the Boyne and Aughrim."''' 
i.e. anniversaries of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Boyne Battle of the Boyne] and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aughrim Battle of Aughrim] of the Williamite War in Ireland.

[[Image:pennyblack.jpg|thumb|100px|right|The first adhesive stamp, 1840]]
'''"the first adhesive stamps of 1840"''' 
This stamp has come to be called the Penny Black. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_Black Wikipedia entry] 
Penny Black is also the name of a character (pages 18, 231)

'''"immune to Time, [...] neither of them aging"''' 
Cf Oscar Wilde's only novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray The Picture of Dorian Gray], in which Dorian Gray remains young while his portrait ages.

'''springtide''' 
Cf Stray's pregnancy, a "dreamy thing" (page 201). The definition of springtide is springtime.

==Page 232==

'''Éliphaz Lévi''' 
A/K/A Eliphas Levi, ''nom de plume'' of Alphonse Louis Constant (1810-1875), French occultist and writer who pioneered a revival of Magick in the 19th Century, and was an influence on A.E. Waite, the Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley. An acquaintance of novelist Edward ("It was a dark and stormy night") Bulwer-Lytton. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliphas_Levi Wikipedia entry].

'''punters''' 
Punter is being used in the sense of someone who bets, someone who is taking a chance.
Or more probably in the common extended sense meaning merely "customer"

'''''akousmata''''' 
Greek: things heard. [[A|Good information under "A" in the alpha index.]]

'''number twenty-four''' 
Or 25? [http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/gvp/gvp11.htm etext]

'''Iamblichus''' 
(ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek) was a neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western Paganism itself. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_%28philosopher%29 Wikipedia]

'''maquillage''' 
French: makeup.

==Page 233==

'''Collis Brown's Mixture''' 
Contained morphine, chloroform, and caramel, among other things. [http://admin.safescript.com/drugcgic.cgi/DRUG?1006901319+0 Full ingredients]

'''xylene''' 
Xylene abuse is similar to "glue sniffing"-- xylene is a strong solvent able to cause several damages to health, especially to the brain. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylene wikipedia]

'''a thousand pounds a year''' 
Over $100,000 today. [http://futureboy.homeip.net/fsp/dollar.fsp?quantity=1000&currency=pounds&fromYear=1900 cite]

'''"pinky"''' 
Condy's fluid is pink to purple. Methylated spirits is a kind of denatured alcohol: 95% ethyl alcohol, 5% methyl alcohol. "Pinky" would have a variety of effects, very possibly including blindness.

==Page 234==

'''Condy's fluid''' 
A disinfectant used to treat and prevent Scarlet Fever, among other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Bollmann_Condy Wikipedia]

'''''tonight's the night''''' 
Considering the content here, probable reference to Neil Young's drug-addled album and its title song, "Tonight's The Night" from 1975. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonight%27s_the_Night_%28album%29 Wiki]

'''Cheapside''' 
an important market street in the City of London.

'''mews''' 
A street originally for stabling; but in modern times often converted into houses/apartments.

'''Coombs de Bottle''' 
"comes the bottle" ?

'''Russian duck''' 
Duck is strong, untwilled linen or cotton, lighter and finer than canvas. Russian duck is coarse, heavy and unbleached but softer than English duck.

==Page 235==

'''sensitive flames''' 
Cf GR p.29-32, 715.

'''extractors . . . distillation columns''' 
Separatory apparatus. An extractor works on differences in solubility, a distillation column differences in volatility.

'''tremblers and timers''' 
A trembler is a kind of motion detector used in both bombs and alarms; one kind has a flexible stem with a heavy contact on the free end so that disturbing the package it contains causes a trigger circuit to close. A timer uses a clocklike mechanism to bring two contacts together.

'''proper solvent procedures''' 
Famous 1960s "Anarchist Cookbook" was infamously inaccurate. [http://www.amazon.com/Anarchist-Cookbook-C-066-William-Powell/dp/0962303208 Amazon w/author's note]

==Page 236==

'''Breathless hush in the close tonight''' 
Dr. De Bottle quoting from Henry Newbolt's poem [[Vitai Lampada|"Vitaï Lampada,"]] which makes school games a metaphor and model for martial bravery.

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
Cf Hornung's 'Gentleman Thief' and cricket player, Raffles. [http://www.mysterynet.com/books/testimony/hardknox.shtml info]

Reminds me of the Krikkit Robots in Douglas Adams' ''Life, The Universe, and Everything,'' where a bomb is put in place of a Cricket Ball at a match between Britain and Australia. 

Here and elswhere the spelling of the cricket ground should be 'Headingley'.

'''The Ashes''' 
An international cricket series between England and Australia dating back to 1882. [http://www.334notout.com/ashes/reports/report21.htm dates] A number of references in this chapter relate to this rivalry. For example, on this page the English cricket ball is compared to the Australian "kookaburra". Kookaburra is the brand name of the balls used in Australia, in England it's Duke. The properties of the English ball was one of the keys to England's success in the summer of 2005. Was Pynchon's writing here influenced by the hype in the UK at the time?

'''Phosgene''' 
A poison gas used in World War I.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosgene Wikipedia]

'''logwood''' 
Source of red dye. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logwood Wikipedia]

'''exhiliration''' 
Misspelling of ''exhilaration.''

==Page 237==

'''beige substance''' 
Presumably Cyclomite.

'''Happy Birthday! . . . Gemini''' 
Ordinarily you would think this tagged the date as 21 May to 20 June [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_%28astrology%29 Wikipedia.] But other evidence in the text points to autumn.

'''get the Ashes back . . . next year''' 
On page 236 the Ashes (Test Matches, cricket competitions between England and Australia) are "in progress." At some time previous to this conversation Mme. Eskimoff said England will regain the trophy "next year" provided they use the young bowler Bosanquet (next entry). Test Matches took place in (a) December 1901 to March 1902, Australia victorious; (b) May to August 1902, Australia again; (c) December 1903 to March 1904, England bringing back the Ashes and Bosanquet figuring as a key bowler.

If Mme. Eskimoff has foreseen aright, "next year" is 1904 and the time of the action is 1903. The conflict in dates is troubling: In a matter of weeks and a few pages, Lew just misses the 1900 Hurricane and gets information that definitely points to 1903. (And he proves to be a Gemini with an autumn birthday!) I don't think there is anything accidental—or negligible—about the discrepancies.

'''Bosanquet''' 
Another Ashes reference. [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/england/content/player/9158.html Bernard Bosanquet] invented the bosie (or googly), as described here, around 1900. A major factor in England's 2005 Ashes success was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_swing reverse swing], another type of delivery whose physical dynamics are poorly understood.

'''Pom''' 
A somewhat derogatory term for a British person, commonly used in Australian English. Also [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/287200.html Pommy or Pommie.]

'''Hebrew letter Shin''' 
Obviously a nod to the Vulcan greeting in ''Star Trek'', with the distinctive hand sign and the phrase, "Live long and prosper." Perhaps also to the Jewish faith of Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock. See [http://www.pinenet.com/~rooster/v-salute.html The Jewish origin of the Vulcan Salute]

Pynchon placed one of these in ''Mason & Dixon'', as well:

:Dixon discovers "The Rabbi of Prague, headquarters of a Kabbalistick Faith, in Correspondence with the Elect Cohens of Paris, whose private Salute they now greet Dixon with, the Fingers spread two and two, and the Thumb held away from them likewise, said to represent the Hebrew letter ''Shin'' and to signify, 'Live long and prosper.'( M&D 485) 
Might there be a further connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris" and these backwoods Kabbalists?

Also, note the hand on the devil tarot card above.

Shin "also stands for the word Shaddai, a name for God. Because of this, a kohen (priest) forms the letter Shin with his hands as he recites the Priestly Blessing. In the mid 1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shin_%28letter%29#In_Judaism]

"In the Septuagint and other early translations Shaddai was translated with words meaning "Almighty". The root word "shadad" (שדד) means "to overpower" or "to destroy". This would give Shaddai the meaning of "destroyer" as one of the aspects of God. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism#Shaddai]

...and if we look back to the Devil tarot card we see the shin hand sign and the inverted pentagram. Thus through Eliphas Levi and then Coleman-Smith/Waite a connection is created between shin and the inverted pentagram. And then we can make connections with the Jeshimonians and the TWITsters.

This might be why "the cure grows right next to the cause" in Jeshimon. They are under the winged protection of God-the-Destroyer.

==Page 238==

'''Second Law of Thermodynamics''' 
The law of entropy... "The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium." (Rudolf Clausius) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics]

There's no such thing as a perfectly efficient engine, i.e., a box that does work by taking in heat from where there is lots of heat (e.g., combustion chamber) and throwing off heat where there is not much (exhaust pipe). Something always gets lost. Similarly, the transfer of money from where there is plenty (bank) to where there isn't much (Europe) is never perfectly efficient.

"He began then, bewilderingly, to talk about something called entropy. The word bothered him... But it was too technical for her. She did gather that there were two distinct kinds of this entropy. One having to do with heat engines, the other to do with communication... The two fields were entirely unconnected, except at one point: Maxwell's Demon. As the Demon sat and sorted his molecules into hot and cold, the system was said to lose entropy. But somehow the loss was offset by the information the Demon gained about what molecules were where... Entropy is a figure of speech, then, a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow." ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (Pages 84 - 85)

'''''morsus fundamento''''' 
Latin: A bite on the ass?

The meaning is that he wouldn't know metaphysics if it bit him in the ass. Like "octogenarihexation" ("86"-ing) in Vineland--the vulgar faux fancied up.

'''three-percent consols''' 
British "consolidated" bonds, for many years the conservative investment ''par excellence.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consols wikipedia]

==Page 239==

'''mental''' 
Not mental as in "of the mind" but mental as in "mad". "You're mental, you are" is a common british playground taunt.

'''Colney Hatch''' 
London lunatic asylum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colney_Hatch_Lunatic_Asylum Wikipedia]

'''Out of the dust . . . beam of morning sunlight''' 
I.e., sometimes your horse wins.

'''ENCYCLICAL''' 
An encyclical is a letter circulated by the pope or other figure of high authority in a body of believers. A comprehensive [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclical Wikipedia article] explains and adds a list of papal encyclicals. An encyclical usually takes its first 2 or 3 words as its title (''Multi et Unus'' in this case).

Of course, the Vatican would strongly protest that McTaggart, an atheist, should send out an encyclical!

'''MCTAGGART . . . HARDY''' 
Seems to refer to a historical logician joke. [http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Science_Humor/1210.html explanation] Professor McTaggart was, perhaps, the most famous philosopher
who argued that Time did not exist as we seem to experience it.
W.H. Hardy was a very famous Cambridge mathematician who knew all the
famous philosophers in England. 

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart John McTaggart Ellis (J. M. E.) McTaggart] (1866-1925), British philosopher. He was born in London and educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Trinity College, Cambridge. He lectured Philosophy at Trinity College from 1897 to 1923. His brilliant commentaries and studies on Hegel's dialectic (1896), cosmology (1901) and logic (1910) were preliminaries to his own constructive system-building in ''Nature of Existence'' (3 vols., 1921-1927). In his 1908 essay "The Unreality of Time" he argued that our perception of time is an illusion (Cf [[ATD_397-428#Page_412|page 412]]: dismissing . . . the ''existence'' of Time).

[http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Hardy.html Godfrey Harold Hardy] (1877-1947), English mathematician. He was a lecturer at Cambridge (1906-1919), professor at Oxford (1919-31) and Cambridge (1931-47). Concurrently with Wilhelm Weinberg developed Hardy-Weinberg law (1906) describing genetic distribution and dequilibrium in large populations. He was also known for contributions to complex analysis, Diophantine analysis, Fourier series, distribution of prime numbers, etc.

'''''Multi et Unus''''' 
Many and One.

'''CREATE MORE DUKES''' and '''EXPROPRIATE CHUCKERS''' 
Is the grafitti in Cambridge another cricketing reference? Dukes are the balls used in England (cf. p236). Chucking (or bending the arm when bowling) is an emotive topic in cricket that arises from time to time. It first arose around 1900 [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/258016.html]. In 2005 it caused administrators to change the rules of the game [http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/144358.html].

'''the Laplacian, a relatively remote mathematicians' pub''' 
A little Pynchonian joke? The Laplacian operator is a component of the Schrödinger equation, the basis of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics was famously rejected by Albert Einstein (many references on the net but see [http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/dice.html Stephen Hawking]), known for his theories of relativity. Moreover, quantum mechanics deals with the very small and relativity with the very large (this is a simplification of course), so the Laplacian is indeed remote from relativity!
:No such pub during ''my'' stay in Cambridge (1998-2000). Also not today, according to [http://www.cambridgepubs.com/alphabetical/ this] list.

==Page 240==

'''Worse than Gordon at Khartoum''' 
Refers to Charles George Gordon, British Major-General, whose attempted defense of Khartoum versus Arabi rebels in 1884-85 ended with his beheading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia] cf. Basil Dearden's 1966 film ''Khartoum'', in which the role of Gordon is played by Charlton Heston.

==Page 241==

'''"You recognize him?"''' 
As, presumably, Webb.
:How can that be? Webb is dead, there's nothing to suggest he went to England, the costume is not right for him, and—most tellingly—his medium is dynamite, not phosgene.
:Who might Lew recognize in the photo? The "suspects" are Neville, Nigel, the Grand Cohen, Dr. Coombs De Bottle, Clive Crouchmas and Professor Renfrew. If Prof. Werfner looks much like Prof. Renfrew, he goes on the list too. If the "Gentleman Bomber" is allowed to be possibly female, add Yashmeen and Mme. Eskimoff. We haven't met anyone else (except members of the Icosadyad, who don't have faces).
:Suppose we rule out the ladies and Werfner. Neville or Nigel wouldn't be able to hide their identities with a suit of white flannels. Renfrew is sitting right there when Lew sees the picture, but Lew's reaction (his stomach sinks) does not seem Lew-like if it's Renfrew he has recognized. The Cohen, De Bottle and Crouchmas are left.
:Would Lew experience dread on spotting Crouchmas? He doesn't know much about C.C. at this point, so it isn't clear why he would suppress that recognition.
:Seeing the Cohen might lead to this gastric reaction: Lew might think he's on the fringe of an anarchist group again (and look where it got him the last time). The Cohen stays on the list.
:Dr. De Bottle not only follows cricket but bets on it; he speaks almost with reverence about phosgene; he knows a nonobvious fact about the bombs; and he dresses like a gentleman. None of these points applies to the Cohen. And recognizing De Bottle would give Lew that sinking feeling because D.B. is purportedly fighting against bombers on behalf of the government.
:De Bottle goes to the top of the short list.

'''A bosie from a beamer''' 
More cricket! A bosie is now more commonly known as a googly (cf. p237). A beamer is a full-pitched delivery that reaches the batsman above waist height.

==Page 242==

[[Image:globenorth.gif|thumb|150px|The northern hemisphere]]

'''''unheimlich''''' 
German: uncanny, sinister.

 

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 81-96

2007-09-04T19:37:04Z

Sideming: /* Page 89 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 81==
'''July Fourth started hot and grew hotter,...''' 

[[image:Gpynch.jpg|thumb|Guardan Review|right]] On Saturday, 18 November 2006, the UK's Guardian newspaper, in a Review section which featured a drawing of what Pynchon might now look like on its cover, published a full-page excerpt from ''Against the Day''. This comprised pages 81 to 85 (up to "he wondered sometimes if he would've ever signed on."), with the addition of the final paragraph from page 96, ending with "Happy Fourth of July, Webb." This was a much more substantial excerpt than the one which appeared in the Penguin Press catalogue, and was arguably a more alluring one in terms of attracting the general reader. These were the only official excerpts published before ATD itself, on 21 November 2006.

The Guardian excerpt is now online:
[http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1950566,00.html]

The timing of this chapter, opening on a summer morning, parallels that of the novel's very first chapter.

'''nitro beginning to ooze out of dynamite sticks''' 
The important point about dynamite is when it '''doesn't''' blow up. Alfred Nobel discovered that he could stabilize nitroglycerine by soaking it into a powdered clay; the product was not sensitive to shock or heat. That is, until it separated in hot weather, with greasy-feeling free nitro collecting on the outside of the sticks. (A minor plot point in the TV series ''Lost,'' isn't it?)

'''Feast of St. Barbara''' 
According to legend, Saint Barbara was the extremely beautiful daughter of a wealthy heathen named Dioscorus, who lived near Nicomedia in Asia Minor, in the 4th Century AD. Because of her singular beauty and fearful that she be demanded in marriage and taken away from him, he jealously shut her up in a tower to protect her from the outside world. When Barbara converted to Christianity, her enraged father killed her and was subsequently struck down by lightening. St. Barbara was venerated as early as the seventh century. The legend of the lightning bolt which struck down her father caused her to be regarded as the patron saint in time of danger from thunderstorms, fires and sudden death. When gunpowder made its appearance in the Western world, Saint Barbara was invoked for aid against accidents resulting from explosions since some of the earlier artillery pieces often blew up instead of firing their projectile, Saint Barbara became the patroness of the artillerymen. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm]

'''Propaganda of the Deed''' 
Anarchist terrorism.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed [Wikipedia]]

'''Zarzuela''' 
Webb's horse is named for a Spanish genre of musical theater. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarzuela [Wikipedia]]

'''cicadas''' 
[http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/insect/05590.html Cicadas in Colorado] are annual, not 17- or 13-year periodical species, so they don't help pin down the year of the action.

==Page 82==
'''Skinner''' 
A person who drives mules.

'''"Rocky Mountain canaries"''' 
Burros, donkeys, nicknamed for their sweet song.

'''Chinaman''' 
This is the latest of many allusions to China or Chinese in an exotic, oriental way. This may simply be imitating Gilded Age and early 20th century American fiction and films, which often featured mystical Chinese as characters and villains. It also recalls the use of Feng Shui in ''Mason & Dixon''.

It may also allude to the large number of Chinese who worked on the railroads in the Rocky Mountains, especially as dynamiters.

'''Eclipse Union mine''' 
A sextuple entendre of sorts: 
First it can mean a mine where the labor union has been blocked/extinguished/shut down. 
Second, it may denote Confederate sympathies vis-a-vis the Northern states. 
Third, it is a redudant description of the sun and moon in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy syzygy] which term expands into several other meanings in alchemy, biology, gnosticism, mathematics (Hilbert's syzygy theorem), medicine, philosophy, poetry and zoology. 
Fourth, in alchemy and astrology the sun is gold and the moon is silver, an eclipse union mine may be one that produces more silver than gold. 
Fifth, assuming a solar eclipse, an eclipse would be "against the day." 
Sixth, and perhaps most probably, it may refer to the 1878 Solar Eclipse Expedition to Pike's Peak headed by Samuel Pierpont Langley.

'''flames issuing out of his head''' 
It's not unheard-of that a recreational drug user sees other people on fire. The hallucination may also be linked to the coming dynamite headache (next entry).

'''dynamite headache''' 
The nitroglycerin in dynamite is the same compound used medicinally against angina pectoris. Users say the sudden headache is better than the chest pains . . . but sometimes they pause to think before answering.

'''Cour d'Alene bullpens''' 
Usually 'Coeur'. Striking miners in 1892 were illegally confined in bullpens. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene_miners'_dispute [Wikipedia]]

'''Cripple Creek''' 
Cripple Creek was the location of a miner's strike in 1894. It was a significant labor event and it was the first time that a state Militia was called out in support of the miners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Creek_miners'_strike_of_1894 Wikipedia entry]

'''side-door pullman''' 
Boxcar.

==Page 83==

'''They thought it was funny''' 
Many authorities report that Indians think almost everything whites do is funny. In particular:

'''Colorado . . . created as a reservation for whites''' 
Drawing straight lines on the ground and calling them limits. Most of the reservations in the West and on the Plains are bounded by such lines rather than "natural" boundaries like crestlines. So is Colorado: "four straight lines on paper" -- a Cartesian state of geography.

'''General Bobrikoff''' 
Or Bobrikov, N.I. (1839-1904), given dictatorial powers in Finland, viewed there as oppressor, assassinated.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
Neurasthenia (Fatigue syndrome) is a neurotic disorder. [http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/?gf40.htm+f480 Definition/Symptoms]

This word appears again on [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|page 188]]. It may be a reference to Proust, who was neurasthenic. It may also simply be a fancy word for disinterested in this context. 
:The diagnosis was frequently used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for men (women were "hysterics"). In World War I, soldiers suffering what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder were diagnosed as neurasthenic -- if they weren't refused medical aid and/ or executed as deserters. See Elaine Showalter, '''''The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980''''' (NY: Pantheon, 1985)

==Page 84==

'''1900''' 
So the current Fourth of July must be 1901 or later (not 1899). 
And not 1904: Gen. Bobrikoff (preceding page) was assassinated in June of that year, so Veikko's toast goes stale. Therefore 1901, '02 or '03.

On August 14, 1900, American, British, Russian and American troops entered Beijing to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

'''''Minneskort''''' 
Modern Finnish word for computer memory cards. (TRP likely saw it on a Nokia phone.)

'''Fink trusses''' 
This [http://pghbridges.com/basics.htm perfectly delightful site] for bridge spotters identifies the Fink truss as a design by Albert Fink dating from the 1860s. It's illustrated way down toward the bottom of the page. All the compression and tension members lie below the plane of the deck where the tracks are laid.

==Page 85==

'''nippers''' 
The etymology is not very interesting, but [http://www.britishempire.co.uk/glossary/n.htm decide for yourself.] According to Google, the term used to mean "boys used to open and close doors in a mine," but the link to the source is dead.

'''Innocent Victims . . . Monsters That Did the Deed''' 
Use of capitals seems to emphasize the fact that these persons are simply convenient stock characters in the forwarding of the owners'/government's agenda.

'''"some of these explosions, the more deadly of them, in fact, were really set off to begin with not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves."''' 
Is this an allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? 

NO! In labor history, many 'accidents' and some planned deeds by owners were blamed on radicals, anarchists, etc. It was common in the early days of the labor movement for owners to conspire to make the unions look bad in this manner. One such example is cited [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_labor_issues_and_events here] in 1910, and it is certainly far from the only one.

See, however, a much more straightforward allusion in [[ATD_171-198#Page_175|page 175]].
:While it's true that many "anarchist" explosions were planned by the owners of industry, to suggest that this is NOT! an allusion to the possibility of US Government involvement in the 9-11 attacks seems rather limiting. Pynchon hinted strongly that this novel is an allegory for our own time in the jacket blurb, and much of what makes this chapter interesting is the way it creates a disturbing analogy between the terrorism carried out by Webb, a highly sympathetic figure, and that carried out by the 9-11 hijackers, whom we so love to hate.

'''Which left precious few targets except for the railroad.''' 
Frank Norris's 1901 novel ''The Octopus'' is summed up in one short paragraph. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus_%28Frank_Norris%29 Wikipedia entry].

==Page 86==
'''Shorty's Billiard Saloon''' 
This is based on real accounts of billiard balls sparking and exploding in saloons. The balls in question used a then-new thermoplastic compound of cellulose nitrate and camphor developed and patented under the trademark "celluloid" by John Wesley Hyatt as a substitute for ivory. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C Celluloid] for Wikipedia links to Hyatt and Celluloid.

'''without being hit once''' 
Similar to a pivotal scene in the film, ''Pulp Fiction''.

'''a state of heightened receptivity''' 
People who talk about enlightenment and unsubstantiated alternative "therapies" use this phrase a lot—[http://www.enlightenment.com/forums/msgs.cfm?msg=708&forum=6&tz=240 example]—but in simplest terms it just means [http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/pdf%2F8004%2F8004r2.pdf hypnosis.]

==Page 87==

'''those French Anarchists . . . Emile Henry . . . Vaillant''' 
Emile Henry (1872 - May 21, 1894) was a French anarchist who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty. Henry was angered over the execution of another Anarchist, Auguste Vaillant, for the destruction of a government building that hurt no one, and took it upon himself to strike back to avenge his fellow revolutionary's death. He saw the Cafe as a representation of the bourgeois itself and his intent was to kill as many people as possible in the bombing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry].

'''how can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?''' 
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's ''Full Metal Jacket.'' ("How you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.") Discussion here also recalls the Weathermen, a violent off-shoot of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) during the Vietnam Era.

'''listening . . . to the sermon . . . those absolute terms''' 
While there is a movement or school called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism Christian anarchism] (use the Wikipedia article with caution), Gatlin's ideas do not harmonize with it. As his sermon on pages 86-87 makes plain, he follows quite a different line.

'''Mason-Dixon line''' 
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning clan from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon." No Traverses appear, however, in Pynchon's ''Mason & Dixon'' (except in the sense that the whole M-D survey was conducted by the traverse method), but one can speculate that had they been, the Traverse ancestors may have been victims of the Line's bad Feng Shui. From this, one could infer a connection between the Line and Colorado Anarchism.

'''Civil War''' 
This is the first instance of the term, for a war so far in the novel being referred to as "The Rebellion".

==Page 88==

'''westward drift''' 
Webb Traverse's wanderings are referred to as "this westward drift". The phrase is probably not accidental: in scientific circles "westward drift" is used for either of two geophysical phenomena: the gradual westward [http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~dacheson/res2.html [movement of the magnetic north pole]] and the westward [http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/1-2/199 [rotation of the outer layers of the Earth]] (the lithosphere) relative to the inner layers.

'''twelve-cylinder Confederate Colt''' 
A hard weapon to identify. Some Colt revolvers were sold to the Southern forces in the first few days after Fort Sumter, but it's far more likely that this is a knockoff of Colt's 1851 design made, for example, at Augusta, Georgia. Plenty of these got into service. Caliber is probably .36 or .44, but there are other possibilities. "Twelve-cylinder" is nonsense; there is a rare version of the Colt cylinder with ''twelve cylinder stops,'' but it holds ''six'' percussion rounds (ball and cap system). The cylinder stops are depressions on the outer surface of the cylinder forming part of the mechanism that aligns the chamber with the barrel for firing. Photos of sidearms online are ephemeral (many vanish once the auction concludes), so no link here, even if any of the available images did show the variant. To see today's selection, Google 
Confederate revolver

==Page 89==

'''silver-boom babies''' 
Assuming the silver boom of 1890-1892 is meant, Webb's kids were aged about 9 to 16. [[Timeline|Timeline with spoilers]]

'''Ace of spades...death card''' 
The ace of spades seems to have been considered the "death card" in the Vietnam War. [http://www.newtscards.com/secret_weapon_death_playing_cards.asp Article]

Oh, ''long'' before that. Schoolchildren in the 1950s (who would pretty reliably believe anything) believed in the association, and aren't there about a shelf's worth of spy and mystery novels where the Ace of Spades portends death?

Going back farther,
:''In Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Suicide Club" (1878), the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_of_Spades Ace of Spades] functions as the "sign of death" within a secret society whose members commit "suicide" by submitting to be killed, if they draw the Ace of Spades from a pack of 52 cards during a club meeting, by another member drawing the Ace of Clubs.''

Also, as the highest card in the deck, it commonly defeats everything else, as does death. 
Why Mayva should be likened to the Ace of Spades is still to be explained.

'''fancy briar pipe . . . beat-up old corncob''' 
Briar pipes appeared in Europe from the 1850s on. The Missouri Meerschaum brand of corncob pipe dates from 1869. Until close to 1900, clay pipes were probably more common than either.

'''Bob Ford's Funeral''' 
June 1892 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw) [Wikipedia]]

'''Creede''' 
Central Colorado mining town, now a ski resort.

'''Telluride''' 
Far southwestern Colorado mining town, now a ski and mountain resort, with an annual film festival. Named for the telluride ores typical of the vicinity, but the name has more possible significance in AtD.

Used as an adjective, Telluric: Of or belonging to the earth; terrestrial; pertaining to the earth as a planet; also, arising from the earth or soil (OED). In turn the origin of Tellurism: Magnetic influence or principle supposed by some to pervade all nature, and to produce the phenomenon of Animal Magnetism; also the theory of Animal Magnetism based on this, propounded in 1822 by Keiser in Germany (OED). "Animal Magnetism" is referred to in English as Mesmerism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Magnetism].

'''extreme and unmerciful whiteness''' 
It doesn't seem to be accidental that "white" and "whiteness" are hard to endure in ''AtD.'' Consider [[ATD_26-56#Page_52|"the whiteness of the place nearly unbearable";]] the White City and White City Investigations; and other uses.

'''repeal of the Silver Act''' 
Prior to 1892, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

'''tiresome moral exercise''' 
May be a preterite association with President Clinton's impeachment and Senate trial over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

==Page 90==

'''before he got shot''' 
1899. [http://www.butchandsundance.com/players/ketchumgang.htm [cite]]

'''the Cornish wives in Jacktown''' 
Many Western miners came from Cornwall. The stock nickname for any Cornishman was "Cousin Jack." So Jacktown is the area where the Cornish families live.

'''Lake''' 
'Lake Traverse' is a real lake between Minnesota and South Dakota. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Traverse Wikipedia]

'''dynamited carny jump up out of that blast good as new''' 
This passage recalls Daffy Duck cartoons.

==Page 91==

'''theory and practice of resistance to power''' 
[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun138236.html Mao Tse-tung] (or Mao Zedong) said, "The guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea." Gatlin anticipates the principle, with a kicker that's especially pertinent to ''AtD:'' to succeed at invisibility, you must first succeed at visibility.

'''"Sleep? is when you sleep . . . ." "Only that I wouldn't want it . . ."''' 
(Looks like typos to me.)

We often include a question in our answer, in this case summarising the question with "sleep?" then immediately answering. And just as it does falling at the end of a sentence, the "?" reflects a change of vocal pitch/stress. As for the sentence fragment, Webb is a man of few words, and "The reservation I have about what you say is" are not some of them.

==Page 92==

'''$3-blessed-50 a day''' 
This might be an over-estimate; in 2006 dollars, that comes to over $86 a day, not a bad wage indeed. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ Calculator]

$86 dollars a day not a bad wage?? Assuming an 8-12 hour day, that comes out to about today's minimum wage -- which is hardly a living wage. This seems about right. Just enough to keep body, soul and family together. Maybe. The text implies that $3.50/day was just barely a "living wage."

Compare $3.50 in context on p. 378 (when you get there)

'''Western Federation of Miners''' 
A radical labor union created in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia] Their history was very violent.

'''. . . a mule dropping on the edge of life's mountain trail, ready to be either squashed flat or kicked into the void.''' 
Brings directly to mind a scene from Cormac McCarthy's 1985 highly praised novel ''Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness In The West'':
:"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was." (Modern Library Edition 2001, p. 147).
The novel is considered as one of the 20th century American masterpieces ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian Wikipedia entry]). It is set about 45 years before the beginning of AtD (1849-50) at the Mexico - Texas borderlands. In fact, partly due to Pynchon's frequent references to ''red'' light, ''west'' and ''sunset'' (see [[Red%2C_West_and_Sunsets|here]] for a growing list), I suspect a kind of deeper relation between the two novels, but more evidence is required.
:I hate to mention this, because the McCarthy connection is so cogent, but doesn't that phrase in ''AtD'' refer to a "mule dropping" rather than a mule that drops? Or rather: doesn't that phrase ''refract'' (or bi-refract) the passage from ''Blood Meridian,'' bringing the mule's flight to mind while overtly talking about a turd? (A mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but a dropping does.)

:Maybe (I say maybe!) an ordinary mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but what about a ''Pynchon'' mule? (OK, just kidding, I think you have a point! And it sounds terrific, why you hate to mention???) - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:48, 28 March 2007 (PDT)

:This entry spurred me to read ''Blood Meridian,'' and while ''AtD'' is completely independent of that work, yes, the two novels do reflect a ruddy western light on each other. A really voracious reader will find, I suspect, that ''AtD'' is subtly linked to many other late-20th/early-21st century fictions. Contributors to this wiki have noted some such parallels; one that I found by chance is described in the [[ATD_119-148#Page_142|annotations to p. 142]] ("scentless snow walls"). These relationships suggest yet another interpretation of the title, if we needed another: The book is to be read as object against ground, ''against'' the literature of ''the day.''—[[User:Volver|Volver]]

:I agree, apart from the 'late-20th/early-21st century' point - I think that the link you suggest does exist but extends much beyond. See for example [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/child-of-the-storm-ii/ this] extremely interesting entry in the AtD Weblog. [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 01:45, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 93==
'''plutes''' 
Plutocrats: members of the wealthy class controlling a government

'''Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.''' 
Reviewers of ATD have quoted this line, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601252.html] but Pynchon did not make it up. It comes from authentic miner's union literature of the time. [http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=178]

'''Compassion''' 
With 'Republicans' below, a possible reference to 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration. "...starving, homeless, and dead..." is what the Republicans mean by compassion, demonstrating the need for the "foreign phrase book". Has always been thus,historically and now?

'''Republicans''' 
William McKinley was elected in 1896 on the Republican ticket, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan, ushering in a chain of Republican Presidents until Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912. Obviously, could also be interpreted as a jab at the current Republican Party.

==Page 94==

'''duster''' 
Long coat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing) Wikipedia entry]

'''the people's work, if not God's, the two forces according to Reverend Gatlin having the same voice''' 
Gatlin has in mind the proverb ''Vox populi vox Dei,'' "the voice of the people is the voice of God." There's a twist, though; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi see Wikipedia.]

'''"Don't beg, you hear me? Don't any of you ever, fucking, beg, me or nobody, for nothin." 
Could have easily been TRP's response to interview requests!!!

:I think it's about honor, not annoyance.

'''There's a master list in Washington, D.C...maintained by the U.S. Secret Service.''' 
The Secret Service, founded in 1865 as a treasury force, was not a presidential protection force until 1902. Prior to this, it functioned more or less like the FBI today. This passage suggests that we are after McKinley's assassination (1901) and the period when the Secret Service began protecting the president, though page 97 suggests that this occurred in 1899.

'''Say, open up em peepers 'fore you walk over a cliff someplace''' 
Card 0 of the Rider-Waite Tarot depicts The Fool walking in bright sunlight, his eyes shut, about to fall over a precipice if he doesn't heed the little dog who's trying to warn him of the peril. It isn't out of the question that Webb has encountered the Tarot, but if he has not, his use of the image speaks strongly for its archetypal nature.

==Page 95==

'''dynamite rounders''' 
Rounders was a precursor to baseball. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders [Wikipedia]]

Consider the alternative, that the "rounders" are the kids; "every sheriff has at least a dozen in his county" can refer to the game of rounders only by a stretch of meaning. Rounders: rascals, mischief-makers, in this case making mischief with dynamite.

'''waiting for the rest of the joke''' 
Cf Dally and Lindsay, p27.

==Page 96==

'''"We ready?"''' 
The destruction of the railroad bridge is reminiscent of scenes in Edward Abbey's anarchistic 1975 novel ''The Monkey Wrench Gang.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang Wikipedia entry].

'''Sufficient unto the day''' 
From The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: 6:34. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (The New Testament of the King James Bible)
Very title thematic?

"No one knows exactly when the hit will come---every morning, before the markets open, out before the milkmen, They make Their new update and decide on what's going to be sufficient unto the day."--Gravity's Rainbow,
page 544.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 81-96

2007-09-04T19:25:19Z

Sideming: /* Page 82 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 81==
'''July Fourth started hot and grew hotter,...''' 

[[image:Gpynch.jpg|thumb|Guardan Review|right]] On Saturday, 18 November 2006, the UK's Guardian newspaper, in a Review section which featured a drawing of what Pynchon might now look like on its cover, published a full-page excerpt from ''Against the Day''. This comprised pages 81 to 85 (up to "he wondered sometimes if he would've ever signed on."), with the addition of the final paragraph from page 96, ending with "Happy Fourth of July, Webb." This was a much more substantial excerpt than the one which appeared in the Penguin Press catalogue, and was arguably a more alluring one in terms of attracting the general reader. These were the only official excerpts published before ATD itself, on 21 November 2006.

The Guardian excerpt is now online:
[http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1950566,00.html]

The timing of this chapter, opening on a summer morning, parallels that of the novel's very first chapter.

'''nitro beginning to ooze out of dynamite sticks''' 
The important point about dynamite is when it '''doesn't''' blow up. Alfred Nobel discovered that he could stabilize nitroglycerine by soaking it into a powdered clay; the product was not sensitive to shock or heat. That is, until it separated in hot weather, with greasy-feeling free nitro collecting on the outside of the sticks. (A minor plot point in the TV series ''Lost,'' isn't it?)

'''Feast of St. Barbara''' 
According to legend, Saint Barbara was the extremely beautiful daughter of a wealthy heathen named Dioscorus, who lived near Nicomedia in Asia Minor, in the 4th Century AD. Because of her singular beauty and fearful that she be demanded in marriage and taken away from him, he jealously shut her up in a tower to protect her from the outside world. When Barbara converted to Christianity, her enraged father killed her and was subsequently struck down by lightening. St. Barbara was venerated as early as the seventh century. The legend of the lightning bolt which struck down her father caused her to be regarded as the patron saint in time of danger from thunderstorms, fires and sudden death. When gunpowder made its appearance in the Western world, Saint Barbara was invoked for aid against accidents resulting from explosions since some of the earlier artillery pieces often blew up instead of firing their projectile, Saint Barbara became the patroness of the artillerymen. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm]

'''Propaganda of the Deed''' 
Anarchist terrorism.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_deed [Wikipedia]]

'''Zarzuela''' 
Webb's horse is named for a Spanish genre of musical theater. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarzuela [Wikipedia]]

'''cicadas''' 
[http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/insect/05590.html Cicadas in Colorado] are annual, not 17- or 13-year periodical species, so they don't help pin down the year of the action.

==Page 82==
'''Skinner''' 
A person who drives mules.

'''"Rocky Mountain canaries"''' 
Burros, donkeys, nicknamed for their sweet song.

'''Chinaman''' 
This is the latest of many allusions to China or Chinese in an exotic, oriental way. This may simply be imitating Gilded Age and early 20th century American fiction and films, which often featured mystical Chinese as characters and villains. It also recalls the use of Feng Shui in ''Mason & Dixon''.

It may also allude to the large number of Chinese who worked on the railroads in the Rocky Mountains, especially as dynamiters.

'''Eclipse Union mine''' 
A sextuple entendre of sorts: 
First it can mean a mine where the labor union has been blocked/extinguished/shut down. 
Second, it may denote Confederate sympathies vis-a-vis the Northern states. 
Third, it is a redudant description of the sun and moon in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syzygy syzygy] which term expands into several other meanings in alchemy, biology, gnosticism, mathematics (Hilbert's syzygy theorem), medicine, philosophy, poetry and zoology. 
Fourth, in alchemy and astrology the sun is gold and the moon is silver, an eclipse union mine may be one that produces more silver than gold. 
Fifth, assuming a solar eclipse, an eclipse would be "against the day." 
Sixth, and perhaps most probably, it may refer to the 1878 Solar Eclipse Expedition to Pike's Peak headed by Samuel Pierpont Langley.

'''flames issuing out of his head''' 
It's not unheard-of that a recreational drug user sees other people on fire. The hallucination may also be linked to the coming dynamite headache (next entry).

'''dynamite headache''' 
The nitroglycerin in dynamite is the same compound used medicinally against angina pectoris. Users say the sudden headache is better than the chest pains . . . but sometimes they pause to think before answering.

'''Cour d'Alene bullpens''' 
Usually 'Coeur'. Striking miners in 1892 were illegally confined in bullpens. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeur_d'Alene_miners'_dispute [Wikipedia]]

'''Cripple Creek''' 
Cripple Creek was the location of a miner's strike in 1894. It was a significant labor event and it was the first time that a state Militia was called out in support of the miners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cripple_Creek_miners'_strike_of_1894 Wikipedia entry]

'''side-door pullman''' 
Boxcar.

==Page 83==

'''They thought it was funny''' 
Many authorities report that Indians think almost everything whites do is funny. In particular:

'''Colorado . . . created as a reservation for whites''' 
Drawing straight lines on the ground and calling them limits. Most of the reservations in the West and on the Plains are bounded by such lines rather than "natural" boundaries like crestlines. So is Colorado: "four straight lines on paper" -- a Cartesian state of geography.

'''General Bobrikoff''' 
Or Bobrikov, N.I. (1839-1904), given dictatorial powers in Finland, viewed there as oppressor, assassinated.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
Neurasthenia (Fatigue syndrome) is a neurotic disorder. [http://www.who.int/classifications/apps/icd/icd10online/?gf40.htm+f480 Definition/Symptoms]

This word appears again on [[ATD_171-198#Page_188|page 188]]. It may be a reference to Proust, who was neurasthenic. It may also simply be a fancy word for disinterested in this context. 
:The diagnosis was frequently used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially for men (women were "hysterics"). In World War I, soldiers suffering what we would call post-traumatic stress disorder were diagnosed as neurasthenic -- if they weren't refused medical aid and/ or executed as deserters. See Elaine Showalter, '''''The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980''''' (NY: Pantheon, 1985)

==Page 84==

'''1900''' 
So the current Fourth of July must be 1901 or later (not 1899). 
And not 1904: Gen. Bobrikoff (preceding page) was assassinated in June of that year, so Veikko's toast goes stale. Therefore 1901, '02 or '03.

On August 14, 1900, American, British, Russian and American troops entered Beijing to quell the Boxer Rebellion.

'''''Minneskort''''' 
Modern Finnish word for computer memory cards. (TRP likely saw it on a Nokia phone.)

'''Fink trusses''' 
This [http://pghbridges.com/basics.htm perfectly delightful site] for bridge spotters identifies the Fink truss as a design by Albert Fink dating from the 1860s. It's illustrated way down toward the bottom of the page. All the compression and tension members lie below the plane of the deck where the tracks are laid.

==Page 85==

'''nippers''' 
The etymology is not very interesting, but [http://www.britishempire.co.uk/glossary/n.htm decide for yourself.] According to Google, the term used to mean "boys used to open and close doors in a mine," but the link to the source is dead.

'''Innocent Victims . . . Monsters That Did the Deed''' 
Use of capitals seems to emphasize the fact that these persons are simply convenient stock characters in the forwarding of the owners'/government's agenda.

'''"some of these explosions, the more deadly of them, in fact, were really set off to begin with not by Anarchists but by the owners themselves."''' 
Is this an allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? 

NO! In labor history, many 'accidents' and some planned deeds by owners were blamed on radicals, anarchists, etc. It was common in the early days of the labor movement for owners to conspire to make the unions look bad in this manner. One such example is cited [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_labor_issues_and_events here] in 1910, and it is certainly far from the only one.

See, however, a much more straightforward allusion in [[ATD_171-198#Page_175|page 175]].
:While it's true that many "anarchist" explosions were planned by the owners of industry, to suggest that this is NOT! an allusion to the possibility of US Government involvement in the 9-11 attacks seems rather limiting. Pynchon hinted strongly that this novel is an allegory for our own time in the jacket blurb, and much of what makes this chapter interesting is the way it creates a disturbing analogy between the terrorism carried out by Webb, a highly sympathetic figure, and that carried out by the 9-11 hijackers, whom we so love to hate.

'''Which left precious few targets except for the railroad.''' 
Frank Norris's 1901 novel ''The Octopus'' is summed up in one short paragraph. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Octopus_%28Frank_Norris%29 Wikipedia entry].

==Page 86==
'''Shorty's Billiard Saloon''' 
This is based on real accounts of billiard balls sparking and exploding in saloons. The balls in question used a then-new thermoplastic compound of cellulose nitrate and camphor developed and patented under the trademark "celluloid" by John Wesley Hyatt as a substitute for ivory. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C Celluloid] for Wikipedia links to Hyatt and Celluloid.

'''without being hit once''' 
Similar to a pivotal scene in the film, ''Pulp Fiction''.

'''a state of heightened receptivity''' 
People who talk about enlightenment and unsubstantiated alternative "therapies" use this phrase a lot—[http://www.enlightenment.com/forums/msgs.cfm?msg=708&forum=6&tz=240 example]—but in simplest terms it just means [http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com/pdf%2F8004%2F8004r2.pdf hypnosis.]

==Page 87==

'''those French Anarchists . . . Emile Henry . . . Vaillant''' 
Emile Henry (1872 - May 21, 1894) was a French anarchist who on February 12, 1894 detonated a bomb at the Café Terminus in the Parisian Gare Saint-Lazare killing one person and wounding twenty. Henry was angered over the execution of another Anarchist, Auguste Vaillant, for the destruction of a government building that hurt no one, and took it upon himself to strike back to avenge his fellow revolutionary's death. He saw the Cafe as a representation of the bourgeois itself and his intent was to kill as many people as possible in the bombing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emile_Henry Wikipedia entry].

'''how can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?''' 
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's ''Full Metal Jacket.'' ("How you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.") Discussion here also recalls the Weathermen, a violent off-shoot of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) during the Vietnam Era.

'''listening . . . to the sermon . . . those absolute terms''' 
While there is a movement or school called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_anarchism Christian anarchism] (use the Wikipedia article with caution), Gatlin's ideas do not harmonize with it. As his sermon on pages 86-87 makes plain, he follows quite a different line.

'''Mason-Dixon line''' 
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning clan from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon." No Traverses appear, however, in Pynchon's ''Mason & Dixon'' (except in the sense that the whole M-D survey was conducted by the traverse method), but one can speculate that had they been, the Traverse ancestors may have been victims of the Line's bad Feng Shui. From this, one could infer a connection between the Line and Colorado Anarchism.

'''Civil War''' 
This is the first instance of the term, for a war so far in the novel being referred to as "The Rebellion".

==Page 88==

'''westward drift''' 
Webb Traverse's wanderings are referred to as "this westward drift". The phrase is probably not accidental: in scientific circles "westward drift" is used for either of two geophysical phenomena: the gradual westward [http://home.jesus.ox.ac.uk/~dacheson/res2.html [movement of the magnetic north pole]] and the westward [http://bulletin.geoscienceworld.org/cgi/content/abstract/118/1-2/199 [rotation of the outer layers of the Earth]] (the lithosphere) relative to the inner layers.

'''twelve-cylinder Confederate Colt''' 
A hard weapon to identify. Some Colt revolvers were sold to the Southern forces in the first few days after Fort Sumter, but it's far more likely that this is a knockoff of Colt's 1851 design made, for example, at Augusta, Georgia. Plenty of these got into service. Caliber is probably .36 or .44, but there are other possibilities. "Twelve-cylinder" is nonsense; there is a rare version of the Colt cylinder with ''twelve cylinder stops,'' but it holds ''six'' percussion rounds (ball and cap system). The cylinder stops are depressions on the outer surface of the cylinder forming part of the mechanism that aligns the chamber with the barrel for firing. Photos of sidearms online are ephemeral (many vanish once the auction concludes), so no link here, even if any of the available images did show the variant. To see today's selection, Google 
Confederate revolver

==Page 89==

'''silver-boom babies''' 
Assuming the silver boom of 1890-1892 is meant, Webb's kids were aged about 9 to 16. [[Timeline|Timeline with spoilers]]

'''Ace of spades...death card''' 
The ace of spades seems to have been considered the "death card" in the Vietnam War. [http://www.newtscards.com/secret_weapon_death_playing_cards.asp Article]

Oh, ''long'' before that. Schoolchildren in the 1950s (who would pretty reliably believe anything) believed in the association, and aren't there about a shelf's worth of spy and mystery novels where the Ace of Spades portends death?

'''fancy briar pipe . . . beat-up old corncob''' 
Briar pipes appeared in Europe from the 1850s on. The Missouri Meerschaum brand of corncob pipe dates from 1869. Until close to 1900, clay pipes were probably more common than either.

'''Bob Ford's Funeral''' 
June 1892 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ford_(outlaw) [Wikipedia]]

'''Creede''' 
Central Colorado mining town, now a ski resort.

'''Telluride''' 
Far southwestern Colorado mining town, now a ski and mountain resort, with an annual film festival. Named for the telluride ores typical of the vicinity, but the name has more possible significance in AtD.

Used as an adjective, Telluric: Of or belonging to the earth; terrestrial; pertaining to the earth as a planet; also, arising from the earth or soil (OED). In turn the origin of Tellurism: Magnetic influence or principle supposed by some to pervade all nature, and to produce the phenomenon of Animal Magnetism; also the theory of Animal Magnetism based on this, propounded in 1822 by Keiser in Germany (OED). "Animal Magnetism" is referred to in English as Mesmerism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Magnetism].

'''extreme and unmerciful whiteness''' 
It doesn't seem to be accidental that "white" and "whiteness" are hard to endure in ''AtD.'' Consider [[ATD_26-56#Page_52|"the whiteness of the place nearly unbearable";]] the White City and White City Investigations; and other uses.

'''repeal of the Silver Act''' 
Prior to 1892, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

'''tiresome moral exercise''' 
May be a preterite association with President Clinton's impeachment and Senate trial over the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

==Page 90==

'''before he got shot''' 
1899. [http://www.butchandsundance.com/players/ketchumgang.htm [cite]]

'''the Cornish wives in Jacktown''' 
Many Western miners came from Cornwall. The stock nickname for any Cornishman was "Cousin Jack." So Jacktown is the area where the Cornish families live.

'''Lake''' 
'Lake Traverse' is a real lake between Minnesota and South Dakota. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Traverse Wikipedia]

'''dynamited carny jump up out of that blast good as new''' 
This passage recalls Daffy Duck cartoons.

==Page 91==

'''theory and practice of resistance to power''' 
[http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/maotsetun138236.html Mao Tse-tung] (or Mao Zedong) said, "The guerrilla must move among the people as a fish swims in the sea." Gatlin anticipates the principle, with a kicker that's especially pertinent to ''AtD:'' to succeed at invisibility, you must first succeed at visibility.

'''"Sleep? is when you sleep . . . ." "Only that I wouldn't want it . . ."''' 
(Looks like typos to me.)

We often include a question in our answer, in this case summarising the question with "sleep?" then immediately answering. And just as it does falling at the end of a sentence, the "?" reflects a change of vocal pitch/stress. As for the sentence fragment, Webb is a man of few words, and "The reservation I have about what you say is" are not some of them.

==Page 92==

'''$3-blessed-50 a day''' 
This might be an over-estimate; in 2006 dollars, that comes to over $86 a day, not a bad wage indeed. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ Calculator]

$86 dollars a day not a bad wage?? Assuming an 8-12 hour day, that comes out to about today's minimum wage -- which is hardly a living wage. This seems about right. Just enough to keep body, soul and family together. Maybe. The text implies that $3.50/day was just barely a "living wage."

Compare $3.50 in context on p. 378 (when you get there)

'''Western Federation of Miners''' 
A radical labor union created in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia] Their history was very violent.

'''. . . a mule dropping on the edge of life's mountain trail, ready to be either squashed flat or kicked into the void.''' 
Brings directly to mind a scene from Cormac McCarthy's 1985 highly praised novel ''Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness In The West'':
:"The following evening as they rode up onto the western rim they lost one of the mules. It went skittering off down the canyon wall with the contents of the panniers exploding soundlessly in the hot dry air and it fell through sunlight and through shade, turning in that lonely void until it fell from sight into a sink of cold blue space that absolved it forever of memory in the mind of any living thing that was." (Modern Library Edition 2001, p. 147).
The novel is considered as one of the 20th century American masterpieces ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Meridian Wikipedia entry]). It is set about 45 years before the beginning of AtD (1849-50) at the Mexico - Texas borderlands. In fact, partly due to Pynchon's frequent references to ''red'' light, ''west'' and ''sunset'' (see [[Red%2C_West_and_Sunsets|here]] for a growing list), I suspect a kind of deeper relation between the two novels, but more evidence is required.
:I hate to mention this, because the McCarthy connection is so cogent, but doesn't that phrase in ''AtD'' refer to a "mule dropping" rather than a mule that drops? Or rather: doesn't that phrase ''refract'' (or bi-refract) the passage from ''Blood Meridian,'' bringing the mule's flight to mind while overtly talking about a turd? (A mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but a dropping does.)

:Maybe (I say maybe!) an ordinary mule doesn't have the option of being squashed flat, but what about a ''Pynchon'' mule? (OK, just kidding, I think you have a point! And it sounds terrific, why you hate to mention???) - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:48, 28 March 2007 (PDT)

:This entry spurred me to read ''Blood Meridian,'' and while ''AtD'' is completely independent of that work, yes, the two novels do reflect a ruddy western light on each other. A really voracious reader will find, I suspect, that ''AtD'' is subtly linked to many other late-20th/early-21st century fictions. Contributors to this wiki have noted some such parallels; one that I found by chance is described in the [[ATD_119-148#Page_142|annotations to p. 142]] ("scentless snow walls"). These relationships suggest yet another interpretation of the title, if we needed another: The book is to be read as object against ground, ''against'' the literature of ''the day.''—[[User:Volver|Volver]]

:I agree, apart from the 'late-20th/early-21st century' point - I think that the link you suggest does exist but extends much beyond. See for example [http://againsttheday.wordpress.com/2007/01/20/child-of-the-storm-ii/ this] extremely interesting entry in the AtD Weblog. [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 01:45, 2 May 2007 (PDT)

==Page 93==
'''plutes''' 
Plutocrats: members of the wealthy class controlling a government

'''Labor produces all wealth. Wealth belongs to the producer thereof.''' 
Reviewers of ATD have quoted this line, [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/16/AR2006111601252.html] but Pynchon did not make it up. It comes from authentic miner's union literature of the time. [http://laborarts.org/collections/item.cfm?itemid=178]

'''Compassion''' 
With 'Republicans' below, a possible reference to 'compassionate conservatism' of the Bush administration. "...starving, homeless, and dead..." is what the Republicans mean by compassion, demonstrating the need for the "foreign phrase book". Has always been thus,historically and now?

'''Republicans''' 
William McKinley was elected in 1896 on the Republican ticket, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan, ushering in a chain of Republican Presidents until Woodrow Wilson was elected in 1912. Obviously, could also be interpreted as a jab at the current Republican Party.

==Page 94==

'''duster''' 
Long coat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duster_(clothing) Wikipedia entry]

'''the people's work, if not God's, the two forces according to Reverend Gatlin having the same voice''' 
Gatlin has in mind the proverb ''Vox populi vox Dei,'' "the voice of the people is the voice of God." There's a twist, though; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_populi see Wikipedia.]

'''"Don't beg, you hear me? Don't any of you ever, fucking, beg, me or nobody, for nothin." 
Could have easily been TRP's response to interview requests!!!

:I think it's about honor, not annoyance.

'''There's a master list in Washington, D.C...maintained by the U.S. Secret Service.''' 
The Secret Service, founded in 1865 as a treasury force, was not a presidential protection force until 1902. Prior to this, it functioned more or less like the FBI today. This passage suggests that we are after McKinley's assassination (1901) and the period when the Secret Service began protecting the president, though page 97 suggests that this occurred in 1899.

'''Say, open up em peepers 'fore you walk over a cliff someplace''' 
Card 0 of the Rider-Waite Tarot depicts The Fool walking in bright sunlight, his eyes shut, about to fall over a precipice if he doesn't heed the little dog who's trying to warn him of the peril. It isn't out of the question that Webb has encountered the Tarot, but if he has not, his use of the image speaks strongly for its archetypal nature.

==Page 95==

'''dynamite rounders''' 
Rounders was a precursor to baseball. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rounders [Wikipedia]]

Consider the alternative, that the "rounders" are the kids; "every sheriff has at least a dozen in his county" can refer to the game of rounders only by a stretch of meaning. Rounders: rascals, mischief-makers, in this case making mischief with dynamite.

'''waiting for the rest of the joke''' 
Cf Dally and Lindsay, p27.

==Page 96==

'''"We ready?"''' 
The destruction of the railroad bridge is reminiscent of scenes in Edward Abbey's anarchistic 1975 novel ''The Monkey Wrench Gang.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey_Wrench_Gang Wikipedia entry].

'''Sufficient unto the day''' 
From The Gospel According to Saint Matthew: 6:34. "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." (The New Testament of the King James Bible)
Very title thematic?

"No one knows exactly when the hit will come---every morning, before the markets open, out before the milkmen, They make Their new update and decide on what's going to be sufficient unto the day."--Gravity's Rainbow,
page 544.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 26-56

2007-08-31T21:20:19Z

Sideming: /* Page 29 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 26==

'''egret plumes''' 
Some species of egrets were threatened with extinction in the 19th century because their plumes (also called ''aigrettes'') were much used in millinery. Problem is, the egrets grew the showy feathers only in breeding season, so that's when they were killed, hence no little egrets (egretlets?).

'''Little Egypt''' 
was the stage name for two popular exotic dancers, Ashea Wabe who danced at the Seeley banquet at the 1893 World's Fair and Farida Mazar Spyropoulos, also performing under the stage name Fatima, appeared at the "Street in Cairo" exhibition on the Midway at the World's Columbian Exposition, held in Chicago in 1893. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Egypt_(dancer) Wikipedia entry] Also a 1961 [[Little_Egypt|song]] by the Coasters.

==Page 27==

'''Bacchanale''' 
From ''Samson et Dalila'', op. 47 (1877) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samson_and_Delilah_%28opera%29 Wikipedia entry]. Listen to a [http://themodernword.com/wiki/bacchanale.mp3 30 second MP3 sample]

"Bacchanalia" describes not just the music but the dance too, in this context.

'''from here to Timbuctoo''' 
Now known as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbuktu Timbuktu,] a standard figure of speech for the other end of Creation.

'''Maxim whirling machines...''' 
This paragraph describes a number of real flying apparati: [http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Chanute/library/Prog_Aero_Oct1893.html This article] from October 1893 describes the Maxim whirling machine and others.

'''ornithurgy''' 
Invented word?

My guess is that it signifies something like bird-works: 
ornith- variant of ornitho; [New Latin orntho-, from Greek, from orns, ornth-, bird;] [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ornitho-] 
-urgy [New Latin -rgia, from Greek -ourgi, from -ourgos, working, from ergon, work; see werg- in Indo-European roots [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/-urgy]

Above seems exactly right. This contributor was mislead by an inadequate source linking "theurgy" and "thurgy". I have erased the mistakes. The above meaning clearly fits the other use of 'ornithurgy' in AtD.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 13:23, 9 July 2007 (PDT)

'''Dally''' 
Merle's relationship with Dally is reminiscent of Ryan and Tatum O'Neal's characters in the 1973 Peter Bogdanovich film, "Paper Moon". Merle's family situation (single father, smart aleck daughter, mother who took off) is identical to that of ''Vineland's'' protagonist Zoyd Wheeler.

==Page 28==

'''''Imbottigliata!''''' Italian for "bottled".

'''Dahlia Rideout''' 
The Lolita motif is common in Pynchon's works. Other Lolitas include Bianca in [[http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow.'']

:Dahlia is four or five years old! She is not a Lolita motif here. Lolita was twelve and Humbert was sick.

'''in Randolph's face a degree of stupefaction one regrets to term characteristic''' 
Randolph "froze" previously, on page 12; evidently this is a trait already established in the ''Chums'' novels.

'''fulminate me if she ain't''' 
What an odd turn of phrase: set me off explosively.

'''this Trouvé-screw unit over here''' 
Gustave Trouvé built advanced machinery from the 1860s to the 1890s; [http://invention.psychology.msstate.edu/i/Chanute/library/Prog_Screws_May1892.html his work on airscrews] was pivotal, and he also invented [http://www.electricrecordteam.com/history.htm the outboard motor.] Before Trouvé's design studies, propulsion in the air used sail-rotors like windmills or depended on slightly modified marine propellers.

==Page 29==

'''Midway Plaisance''' 
The big central concourse of the White City. "Plaisance" is an alternative (or Frenchified) spelling of "pleasance," an esthetically appealing spot. According to [http://users.vnet.net/schulman/Columbian/columbian.html this very good site] on the Columbian Exposition, the Midway Plaisance lent its name to the midways of circuses ever after.

'''a l'étouffée''' 
French, meaning braised. So, braised alligator meat. Braised food, for instance crawfish, is a culinary specialty of New Orleans.

In the New Orleans context, a recipe is pertinent because "braise" doesn't exactly tell the story of this Cajun preparation. The following is drastically abridged from, of all things, the obituary of Joe Daole ("Joe Dale") in the ''Atlanta Journal-Constitution,'' April 21, 2007:
:Saute onion, green pepper, celery, parsley and garlic in a great deal of butter. Add peeled and chopped tomatoes and seasonings. Simmer, covered, 5-10 minutes. Make a dark brown roux with oil and flour; add to vegetables. Add seafood stock and bring to a boil. Add peeled shrimp or crawfish tail meat and cook just 2-3 minutes. Serve over rice.

'''Sloane Laboratory''' 
Yale's physics lab built 1882. Cf [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|page 33]].

'''Professor Gibbs''' 
Josiah Williard Gibbs (1839-1903), American mathematical physicist. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1854 he went to Yale and won prizes for excellence in Latin and mathematics. He undertook research in engineering and received his Ph.D in 1863, the first doctorate in engineering to be conferred in the US. From 1866 to 1869 Gibbs studies in Europe - first in Paris, then in Berlin and finally in Heidelberg. He was professor at Yale from 1871 to 1903. He contributed substantially to the study of thermodynamics, and his most important work, ''On the Equilibrium of Heterogeneous Substances'' (1876 and 1878) and his "phase rule" established him as a founder of physical chemistry. Gibbs' work on vector analysis was also of major importance in pure mathematics. Gibbs was one of the greatest American scientists in the 19th century. ([http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Gibbs.html Gibbs].)

'''De Forest''' 
Lee De Forest (1873-1961), American inventor. He was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa and educated at Yale and Chicago. A pioneer of radio, he introduced the grid into the therm-ionic valve, and invented the audion (1907), feedback circuit (1912) and the four-electrode valve. He involved in first news by radio (1916). He also did much early work on sound reproduction and on television. He patented over 300 inventions in wireless telegraphy, radio, telephony, talking pictures, high-speed facsimile transmission, television, radiotherapy, radar, etc. He was called, sometimes, "the father of radio." ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_De_Forest De Forest].)

'''Kimura''' 
He received his Ph.D degree in mathematics from Yale University in 1896. (Dissertation: ''Studies on General Spherical Functions''.) He published a paper ''On the Nabla of Quaternions'' in ''The Annals of Mathermatics'', Vol 10, No. 1/6 (1895-1896). In 1912, he published a paper called ''One-Waveness in Wireless Telegraphy; Pseudo-Impact Excitation'' in ''Physical Review'' of May 1912. (''Nabla'' is an early name for the "del" operator, symbolized by the inverted Greek letter Δ.)

'''Ray Ipsow''' 
In Latin ''re ipso'' means "the thing itself." "To the thing itself" was the motto and rallying cry of the investigational method known as phenomenology [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology Wikipedia entry] developed by Edmund Husserl [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Husserl Wikipedia entry]. As the phrase indicates, it is a plea against abstraction--a theme of GR--- and for reality 'itself'.

'''Outer Indianoplace''' 
Derogatory nickname for Indianapolis.

'''down in New Orleans . . . that Khartoum business''' 
Evidently two Chums of Chance books we didn't know about. Perhaps ''The Chums of Chance and the Voodoo Priest'' and ''The Chums of Chance and the Mussulman Hordes.''

'''Khartoum... Mahdi's army''' 
Khartoum is the capital of Sudan. The Mahdi army refered to here was an Islamic group in the 1880s that advocated a return to strict Islamic values and battled with the government of Khartoum and Egyptian armies.More on these convoluted events at the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sudan_(1884-1898) Wikipedia entry].

The concept of the Mahdi is far beyond this one historic event, however.
In point of fact, the U.S. is fighting the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi_Army Mahdi Army] in Iraq right now.

==Page 30==

'''contrary wind . . . Oltre Giubba, instead of down at Alex''' 
From Khartoum you fly north by west to Alexandria. That wind was about as contrary as it could be: from Khartoum to Oltre Giuba is south by east. Now called [http://www.jubaland.org/ Jubaland,] Oltre Giuba (just one B, please, this isn't ''Pagliacci'') is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oltre_Giuba the southwesternmost part of Somalia,] across the Juba River from the rest. Not to be confused with Juba province in southern Sudan.
:Oh, and the Oltre Giuba diversion must have taken place before ''Inconvenience'' was fitted with hydrogen steam power, else she could have flown against the wind.

'''railroad watch''' 
High-quality pocket watch. [http://www.pockethorology.org/Railroad/Railroad.htm [pix and info]]

==Page 31==

'''Scarsdale Vibe''' 
Scarsdale NY boasts that it's Westchester County's wealthiest community, so a 'Scarsdale vibe' implies 'stinking of money'. Vibe is another Pynchon baddie whose last name starts with "V", ''e.g.'', Brock Vond in ''Vineland.''

'''"The Juggernaut"''' 
The name of Vibe's private train derives from the Sanskrit Jagannātha, meaning "Lord of the Universe" one of the many names of Lord Krishna. "Krishna" itself means "black" or "dark" skinned. British colonial "urban" legend had it that Hindus sought to be crushed under the wheels of giant cars in Krishna's "chariot procession" at Puri as a way of gaining salvation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggernaut see the Wikipedia entry.]

Capitalism has often been described as a juggernaut. One of numerous uses:
"Even as leaders of nation states compete for power and prestige, the juggernaut of capitalism diminishes borders, weakens governments and, eventually," ...
http://www.southpacific.arts.unsw.edu.au/resources/resource_nissology.htm - 
:A leading sociologist, Anthony Giddens, is also responsible for the phrase, "the juggernaut of modernity". See this incredibly relevant definition and analysis of this phrase: "The most defining property of modernity, according to Giddens, is '''that we are disembedded from time and space'''. In pre-modern societies, space was the area in which one moved, time was the experience one had while moving. In modern societies, however, the social space is no longer confined by the boundaries set by the space in which one moves. One can now imagine what other spaces look like, even if he has never been there. In this regard, Giddens talks about virtual space and virtual time. Another distinctive property of modernity lies in the field of knowledge. In pre-modern societies, it were the elders who possessed the knowledge: they were definable in time and space. In modern societies we must rely on expert systems. These are not present in time and space, but we must trust them. Even if we trust them, we know that something could go wrong: there's always a risk we have to take. Also the technologies which we use, and which transform constraints into means, hold risks. Consequently, there is always a heightened sense of uncertainty in contemporary societies. It is also in this regard that Giddens uses the image of a 'juggernaut': modernity is said to be like an unsteerable juggernaut traveling through space." Wikipedia [[http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Giddens]]

'''in disguise . . . bodyguards and secretaries . . . ebony stick''' 
Some great disguise!

'''Foley Walker''' 
"Foley walker" is a term used to indicate a sound-effects expert. Also known as a foley artist [http://www.natf.org/wad/foley.htm [cite]]

Coalhouse Walker is a major character in Doctorow's ''Ragtime'', mentioned earlier as a book set within the same time period.

Probably a stretch: "One of the company's (i.e. Thiel‘s Detective Service Company) first employees was John F. Farley, a former U.S. Cavalry trooper. In 1885, Farley was appointed manager of Thiel's Denver office. Farley was known as the 'King of the Strikebreakers.' In 1895 Farley gave up any pretense of detective work and specialized in strike services, at one point allegedly earning $1 million from a strike in San Francisco. After a decade of strikebreaking, Farley retired—not having lost a single one of the 35 strike actions to which he had supplied personnel. Farley later became Denver's chief of police." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Detective_Service_Company from Wikipedia]. The Denver city election results trial of 1889 invited media focus on corruption ties and payoffs between "Soapy" Smith (Criminal Boss of Denver), the mayor and Farley, the chief of police (see Note 6 in this [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soapy_Smith Wikipedia entry])

'''Forty-seventh and Ashland''' 
[...] First, the story [...] about Ashland being named for the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire is an urban legend. Ashland Avenue, first known as Reuben Street, was already developed before the fire and was considered the height of suburban living on the West Side in the 1860s.
[http://www.gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/ashland_the_great_fire_and_the_ruins_of_chicago/ [cite]] [...] The spread of movie palaces in the automobile age presaged the spread of commercial buildings from the Loop to the neighborhoods and suburbs. By 1930, Marshall Field & Co. had created smaller versions of its downtown store in Evanston and Oak Park, while neighborhood retailers like Goldblatt's and Wieboldt's were moving downtown. Chicago developed regional shopping districts at 47th and Ashland, 63rd and Halsted, Irving Park and Pulaski, and many other locations. Certain areas catered to specialized industries, such as “Automobile Row” on South Michigan Avenue, or the Maxwell Street Market, an open-air European-style market that resisted every effort at modernization until its destruction in the 1990s. [...]
[http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/316.html [cite]]
[http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/img/crops/478.jpg [photo]]

==Page 32==

'''Second Corinthians''' 
This exchange between Vibe and Ipsow refers specifically to 2 Corinthians 11:19 -- For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.
[http://www.kingjamesversionofthebible.com/47-secondcorinthians.html [cite]]

'''Ipsow's response to S. Vibe on lines 21-23( ...in these days need arises directly from criminal acts of the rich)''' can be seen as a direct paraphrase of Ch. 5 of the book of James:
Now listen you rich.. you have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! the wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields cry out against you... you have lived in luxury and fattened yourself in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and killed innocent men ... James 5

==Page 33==

'''"Old Zip Coon"''' 
"Old Zip Coon" dates from as early as 1834 and is considered the original name for the 19th-century American folk song, 'Turkey in the Straw'. [[Old Zip Coon | lyrics]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_in_the_Straw Wikipedia] See also [http://www.stephen-foster-songs.de/Amsong59.htm] and [http://www.csufresno.edu:80/folklore/ballads/RJ19258.html]. 
The word "coon" may originate in America as a derogatory name for a Negro, but it was current in England too (therefore not "for an African-American"). For other occurrences of the word, with show business associations in every case, see text and annotations: [[#Page_48|page 48]], [[ATD_336-357#Page_344|page 344]], [[ATD_358-373#Page_369|page 369]] and [[ATD_397-428#Page 424|page 424.]]
:In this contributor's boyhood, a brand of chewing tobacco heavily advertised on East Tennessee radio and television used the tune in its jingle, with lyrics close to:
<blockquote>If you like a spicy taste 
Every morning, night and noon, 
Then you're bound to like the taste 
When you chew Red Coon.</blockquote>
:The package at this time portrayed a raccoon, but it's possible a different image had come before.

'''Dr. Tesla''' 
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), American inventor. He was born in Croatia of Serbian parents. He studied at Graz (Austria), Prague and Paris. He discovered (1881) principle of rotating magnetic field, basis of practically all alternating-current (AC) machinery. Between 1882-1884 he was an engineer in Paris (1882-84) and constructed his first induction motor (1883). He emigrated to the United States (1884, naturalized in 1889). Worked for Thmoas Edison (1884-85) but left the Edison Works at Menlo Park (Edison opposed to AC idea) to concentrate on his own inventions, which include improved dynamos, transformers, electric bulbs, wireless communication (1897) and the high-frequency coil which bears his name. (Cf [[ATD_97-118#Page_97|page 97]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Tesla].)

<div id="rewrite">'''violate . . . the essence of everything modern history is supposed to be''' 
Notice what he ''doesn't'' say: the principles of the free market, the essence of the capitalist economic system. As if modern history has already been written and such research would somehow undermine it.</div>

'''Sloane Lab''' 
Completed in 1912, was the gift of Henry T. Sloane, BA 1866, and William D. Sloane, MA HON. 1889. Of Longmeadow stone, it is Collegiate Gothic in style. Charles C. Haight was the architect. (An underground addition was constructed in 1958 to house a Van de Graaff machine-now removed. The John A. Hartford Foundation, Inc., and the U.S. Public Health Service financed it. Sloane Lab was the first University constructed on the Hillhouse Estate (less the three acres adjoining Sachem’s Wood). The property was a gift in 1910 of Mrs. Russell Sage, and called Pierson Sage Square. The University had wanted to acquire the land to develop into a turn-of-the-century “science park”. The well-known landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmstead advised in the land’s development. [217 Prospect Street]
[http://www.facilities.yale.edu/campus/Building1.asp?lstBldg=1075 [cite]] and [http://www.facilities.yale.edu/images/BFS/1075.jpg [photo]].

Interestingly, Frederick Law Olmstead was also pivital in the development of the grounds for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. His famous "Wooded Isle" remains a centerpiece in Chicago's Jackson Park. [http://www.hydepark.org/parks/jpac/jpkhistoryandfair.htm [link]] and
[http://www.hydepark.org/parks/pics/laggen4.JPG [photo]].

For a more detailed account of Olmstead's landscape architecture as it relates to the 1893 World's Fair, see Erik Larson's ''The Devil in the White City''.

:These would be anachronistic, but as the note for p29 above mentions, a lab existed by 1882.

==Page 34==

'''the most terrible weapon the world has seen . . . rational systems of control''' 
This statement defines the threat—as the plutocrats see it—of free power (anarchy) and their justification for bending government and every other compelling force to stamp it out.

'''out of the fish-market anarchy of all battling all''' 
Vibe quotes Thomas Hobbes, who in ''Leviathan'' (1651) described the primitive state of the human race as ''bellum omnium contra omnes,'' the war of all against all, which was ended only by the creation of the State. Note the change of "war" to "anarchy."

'''Pierpont''' 
John Pierpont Morgan I (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and banker, who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation.
[...]
In 1900, Morgan financed inventor Nikola Tesla and his Wardenclyffe Tower with $150,000 for experiments in radio. Tesla was unsuccessful and, in 1904, Morgan pulled out. Later, Tesla created an AC generator
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Morgan [cite]]

'''non-linear phenomena of scale''' 
Linear scaling means, for example, store twice as much charge, get twice as much voltage. An instance of behavior becoming nonlinear is when air insulation breaks down (arcs, lightning); here adding charge may lead to a ''decrease'' in voltage.

'''Somble, Strool & Fleshway''' 
Law firms in Pynchon have such charming names; compare Salitieri, Poore, Nash, de Brutus, and Short in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] or Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus in [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49'']. This one has more of a Dickensian sound. Somble could be a portmanteau of ''somber'' and ''tremble'' or ''some bull''; Strool, perhaps, of ''strait'' (= narrow) and ''cruel,'' or ''stool'' and ''drool''. "Fleshway" might suggest a reference to Samuel Butler's ''The Way of All Flesh,'' which was not published until 1903, but it seems more likely to go back to [http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/brush_excerpts/brush_20041027.shtml a biblical phrase] associated with death.

Using the onomatapeia technique such as in the ''Gravity's Rainbow'' law firm, we start to get 'Some Bull, is ('t) Drool And.......Help needed! How about "some bull's strool and fleshway." Strool being the portmanteau of stool and drool, and fleshway being the meaty part of the flushway (g.i. tract, anus) -- you know, something like bullshit with the consitency of diarrhea.

Incidentally, Strool is an actual surname as well as the name of a town in South Dakota.

By the way, Thomas Hobbes' ''Leviathan'' (see "all against all" entry toward the top of this page) is also the source of Salitieri et al. ("solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short," describing the life of human beings in their primitive state). 

'''vestiary''' 
Of, or relating to, clothing.

==Page 36==

'''Fairgoers would see the ship overhead and yet not see it''' 
Useful property for a surveillance platform.

'''Lew Basnight''' 
"Bas" is French for "low", though "bas nuit" means nothing in French.

A detective named 'Lew' reminds us (who is "us"?) of Ross Macdonald's character Lew Archer which in turn recalls another detective, Miles Archer, partner of Sam Spade in San Francisco detective agency Spade & Archer. This may be a bad pun on 'lube-ass night' and also might refer to the incident causing Lew to be shunned by his peers.

[[image:beaver-on-the-brain.jpg|thumb|Beaver on the Brain T-Shirt|right]]Very possibly, Pynchon is having some fun here, working a whole sexual angle, naming his character after the phrase "BAS night," meaning a boys' night out, "BAS" being an acronym for "Bitches Ain't Shit" from the [http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/drdre/bitchesaintshit.html "song" by Dr. Dre] (featuring Snoop Dogg, Dat Nigga Daz, Kurupt, Jewel). And, hey, Lew meets Nicholas Nookshaft, Grand Cohen of T.W.I.T. (Nookie Shaft? Twat crossed w/clit? A-and isn't that tetractys an inverted beaver?), where he meets Yashmeen, a ''very'' sexual woman. And then there's that whole "Beavers of the Brain" cyclomite episode ([[ATD 171-198#Page 183|p. 183]]) (Beavers, fercrissakes!). Perhaps something worth following up ... or not!

It is possible Basnight is an Americanization of the German "Fasnacht". "Fastnacht or Fasnacht is the pre-Lenten carnival in Alemannic folklore in Switzerland, southern Germany, Alsace and western Austria. It is also known in parts of Pennsylvania Dutch Country as Fauschnaut Day and is celebrated on the day before Ash Wednesday, or the last Tuesday before Lent." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasnacht]

"A likely derivation is from PIE pwo- "purify" (cognate to pava-mana), or alternatively connected with Middle High German vaselen "prosper, bud" and interpreted as a fertility rite."

Fasnacht Day is known in English as Shrove Tuesday. "The word shrove is a past tense of the English verb "shrive," which means to obtain absolution for one's sins by confessing and doing penance." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrove_Tuesday] All of this seems to tally well with the Basnight character.

Another pun theory: on page 38, Lew is described as being in an ignorance "black as night." This can be abbreviated to "Basnight."
Lew is pronounced "loo," which of course is the British toilet.
Lew Basnight then means, "toilet, black as night." Just a thought...

'''White City Investigations''' 
Since the White City dates from 01 May 1893, this ought to be later.

The name recalls the White Visitation of [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']. Any connection?

==Page 37==
'''fictitiousness''' 
On this and the previous page, there is a question raised of whether the Chums are fictional. Or it could be saying that such fantastical sights as the airship are easy to miss at the fair.

It seems more likely that the comparison here is simply between that of the fair, a small, self-contained world of marvels (like all World's Fairs) and the "real world" outside its gates.

There is lots more going on (and it's ''lots'' more interesting). Consider these passages on pages 36-37:
*the . . . celebration possessed the exact degree of fictitiousness to permit the boys access and agency
*The harsh nonfictional world waited outside the White City's limits
*he (Lew) had not . . . heard of the Chums of Chance
*every boy knows the Chums of Chance
*you're not storybook characters. . . . Are you?
Too much back-and-forth about fiction to be '''just''' about the exposition and the real world. Some premises that are implicit here:
*The Chums know that they live in literature whether they have a "real" existence or not.
*They know their books are popular with an audience of boys. (Lindsay is surprised that Lew didn't read them earlier, not that he isn't reading them now.)
*Lew doesn't regard objective evidence (they are standing before him, he's ascended in their ship) as sufficient to rule out ambiguity (". . . Are you?").
*The lads are able to experience and act only in a quasi-fictitious environment. Off the fairgrounds (in the WCI office), Randolph gives nothing but answers scripted for him by National.
All this suggests that even the Chums aren't sure on what level they exist. They definitely have adventures, as recorded in their books, but they don't seem to have adventures ''not'' contained in the novels.
What will happen if they come to the end of a ''Chums'' book while we are still reading ''AtD''?

'''No more than Wyatt Earp or Nellie Bly''' 
See the next two entries. Earp had a "real" life but people remember him chiefly because of stories written about him (and by him through ghostwriters, [http://baseportal.com/cgi-bin/baseportal.pl?htx=/zpub2000/sfentries&cmd=list&range=0,50&Title~=E&cmd=all&Id=98 link 1], [http://www.ferncanyonpress.com/tombston/robbery.shtml link 2]). Bly entertained masses of people by having adventures and then writing about them. Each "lived" through a body of literature.

'''Wyatt Earp''' 
(1848–1929), was a teamster, sometime buffalo hunter, officer of the law in various Western frontier towns, gambler, and saloon-keeper in the Wild West and the U.S. mining frontier from California to Alaska. He is best known for his participation in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyatt_Earp Wikipedia]

'''Nellie Bly''' 
(1864-1922) was an American journalist, author, industrialist, and charity worker. She is most famous for an undercover exposé in which she faked insanity to study a mental institution from within. She is also well-known for her record-breaking trip around the world. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nellie_Bly Wikipedia]

'''Regarding Lew Basnight's malady...''' 
Again, there seems to be a character with a neurological illness; in this case it is presented as amnesia, but seizures also result in "lost time". (See comments on Miles' "electricity coming on" on page 24.) Such maladies are more common than one supposes, and can offer a glimpse of other-worldliness akin to that of hallucinogenics, and epileptics have, at times, been considered to have access to past or future lives.

'''making a point of pronouncing his name disrespectfully''' 
The only way it could be done is, apparently, by saying Lube Ass Night. Well, that or tone of voice.

'''the Upstate-Downstate Beast''' 
Illinois is one of three states with an Upstate, though one of them doesn't use the term Downstate (South Carolina divides itself into Upstate and Lowcountry). The nickname points to a traveling man, perhaps. "Moral horror," "denounced," "revulsion" probably fit with many crimes, though most of those would have led to a prison sentence and we don't have any information of Lew's serving time.

'''"Although the longer a fellow's name has been in the magazines, the harder it is to tell fiction from non-fiction."''' 
May express Pynchon's reaction to the press' treatment of him over the years. In 1964, when Pynchon heard that the ''New York Herald Tribune'' was writing an article about him, Pynchon wrote to his agent that he assumed the piece "will be riddled with the same lies, calumnies and all-around knavish disregard for my privacy" as previous articles. ("Pynchon's Letters Nudge His Mask," ''New York Times,'' 4 Mar 1998).

'''Wensleydale''' 
A type of cheese made in Yorkshire, England.

==Page 38==

'''"You have destroyed your name."''' 
Wensleydale using very strong language. He doesn't say "destroyed your reputation" or "discredited your name" but "''destroyed'' your name." Does anyone else see this as suggesting Lew's name was not Lew Basnight before his sin?

'''to plead with him to come back''' 
A strange response, that Troth should ask the Upstate-Downstate Beast to return to her. You would think she'd prefer him as far away as he could get.

'''one of your other wives''' 
A direct reference to Lew's sin, or is Troth just pelting Lew with anything that's in reach?

==Page 39==

'''kazoos''' 
This silly instrument appears in several Pynchon novels.

'''slow ritual movement''' 
Maybe tai chi, or anachronistic Gurdjieffian dance?

'''Drave''' 
Possibly a back formation from 'Dravidians,' referring to David Koresh's Branch Davidians.
: huh? [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 16:23, 19 December 2006 (PST)
: I have to second that "huh?" This seems exceedingly improbable. [[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 06:15, 15 February 2007 (PST)
Another possibility is that Pynchon had in mind the Scottish noun "drave," which the OED defines as a "fishing expedition in which several men take part, each supplying a net and receiving a share of the profits made. Later, A haul (of fish); also, a shoal." This resonates with the evangelical role that Drave plays (Cf. Matthew 4:18, where Jesus addresses Peter and Matthew, "And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.")

It should be noted, though, that there is also a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drave Drave river] in south central Europe, though there seems to be little textual evidence to support this association.

'''Saratoga chips''' 
Potato chips were invented in Saratoga Springs, NY, and were often called Saratoga chips in the 19th century.

'''Esthonia Hotel''' 
Atonia is a lack of normal muscle tension, but also, "A frightening form of paralysis that occurs when a person suddenly finds himself or herself unable to move for a few minutes, most often upon falling asleep or waking up. Commonly called sleep paralysis, the condition is due to an ill-timed disconnection between the brain and the body." [http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=9811 Definition] This could mean that the hotel in question is nothing more than an internal hallucination of Basnight's, further suggesting that his problem is one of neurological rather than simply moral or spiritual cause.
:Could be, but at the same time let's not overlook the plain reading: Esthonia is an obsolete spelling of the country ''Estonia.''

'''''liable for criminal penalties''''' 
Law and the legal profession so far appear in AtD more than any other Pynchon novel (perhaps save ''The Crying of Lot 49''), and so far, like here, in a negative or confusing light, perhaps as part of the establishment Pynchon seems to rail against in the novel.

==Page 40==

'''lofty regions no high-iron pioneer had yet dared''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wainwright_Building In the early 1890s] anything taller than about 10 stories would have qualified.

'''remembrance stick''' 
Similar to keisaku in Zen Buddhism, an attempt by a sensei to alert students to their mindlessness in zazen (sitting meditation), usually administered by a stick. An English translation is stick of compassion. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyosaku [Wikipedia]]

Lew's performance of commonplace and strange chores is also similar to the way Zen training can proceed for novitiates.

==Page 41==

'''you keep bouncing free. Avoiding penance and thereby definition''' 
It is hard to tie Drave down philosophically. No connection between sin and penance, penance as destiny, penance happens or doesn't, and now this idea that penance ''defines'' one's existence.

==Page 42==

'''Spring arrived''' 
We've seen Lew pretty well through a year: summertime (p. 38) when Troth followed him to Chicago, autumn (p. 40) when he checked in at the Esthonia, winter (p. 41) as his bank account starved, now in the spring his moment of grace.

'''scorcher cap''' 
The cap of an early bicycling enthusiast. According to [http://www.velorution.biz/?p=1288 this] site,

:"In […]1892 [… a] bicyclist to be considered genuine had to be dressed in bicycle clothes. A man had to wear bicycle pants which were baggy at the top and tight to the legs below. Then he had to have bicycle socks and shoes. The shoes were made of canvass. Then he had to have a loose fitting grey colored short which we would designate now as a sport shirt. Then on his head he had to wear a tight fitting cap with a long bill in front, the longer the better up to a certain ceiling length. With this outfit and a bicycle with drop handlebars he was ready to appear in public as a real cyclist. If he could make 20 miles an hour on a good track he was called a 'scorcher,' the idea being that he was going so fast that he would scorch at least the end of his nose if nothing else."

'''shirtwaists with huge shoulders''' 
Fashionable the year of the Fair; compare Chevrolette McAdoo's outfit, p. 26.

'''He understood that things were exactly what they were.''' 
This sentence sums up the entire experience at the Esthonia hotel, which seems to be a Zen-like initiation. Here, Lew Basnight seems to have attained some form of enlightenment, and the description ("a condition...which he later came to think of as grace"), along with this sentence, are almost textbook examples of Zen enlightenment. No lights flash, no changes are seen; one merely understands that things are what they are. After this experience, he leaves the hotel, and no longer needs to be there. He then embarks on his new career, in part because of his extreme ability to notice minute details; something that he was not said to have had before.
:The sentence can also serve as a guide to readers of ''AtD.'' Even when it is tempting to speculate that "this paragraph is about Richard Nixon" or protest that "you can't see Sirius on a summer evening," it is worth the effort to let the text mean what it means.

==Page 43==

'''transfigured''' 
In Lew's time of grace, he shows a changed face.

'''leisurely rips through the fabric of the day''' 
See below

==Page 44==

'''He had learned to step to the side of the day.''' 
Through the book there are juxtapositions of things with and against the day (the 'title motif'). Here, we are told that Lew has learned to step "to the side" of the day. Possibly he is able to enter another plane? This is possible considering the dream-like hotel sequence on previous pages.
:I think that the "other plane" interpretation is a bit of a stretch. The passage seems to imply that Lew has learned to will and maintain a degree of detachment from his surroundings, perhaps a relinquishment of his perceived control over events or his attempts to control them.

'''it was apparently not as easy for anyone in "Chicago" to be that certain of his whereabouts''' 
The quotes here may be to distinguish the fact that while technically living in Chicago, Lew sometimes exists or moves within a place or plane that others also living there don't see, or have access to.

==Page 45==

'''two-headed eagle''' 
As Holy Roman Emperor, the Austro-Hungarian emperor bore a two-headed eagle (each head crowned) as part of his arms. The Tsar of Russia also used a two-headed eagle, but it was triply crowned (one crown between the heads). The Serbian two-headed eagle appeared on a shield with one crown above it, and the Montenegrin one had a single crown between the heads. Other details of the envelope would serve to disambiguate.

'''Trabants''' 
"Trabanten" (German for 'satellites') originally - during the Thirty Years' War - were lightly armed foot soldiers; later this term was used for servants and/or bodyguards of high-ranking persons.

'''"have a lawyer explain civil liability to you"''' 
Again, law. Pynchon must have boned up on legal jargon (or perhaps he got sued?). 
Or he may simply read the newspaper; this concept is neither obscure nor complex.

'''gumshoe''' 
Perhaps a bit too early to use this term; the Dictionary of American Slang dates it as "by 1906".

'''a couple a thousand hunkies''' 
"Hunkies" was a slur against Hungarians and other eastern Europeans. The word may have morphed into "honkies."

'''Francis Ferdinand''' 
This is indeed the same Franz Ferdinand whose assassination in 1914 triggered World War I. At the time of his appearance in AtD, he would have been 30, and his two passions throughout young adulthood and his 20s were travel and hunting (it is estimated that he shot more than 5,000 deer in his lifetime). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand_of_Austria Wikipedia entry]. He did indeed attend the Chicago Exposition. [http://columbus.iit.edu/bookfair/ch27.html]

A selection of Habsburgs, with ''AtD'' figures in '''''bold italic''''':
*'''''Franz Joseph I''''' (1830-1916; sometimes anglicized as Francis Joseph) became Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, King of Bohemia in 1848 and occupied the throne until his death; even the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Joseph_I_of_Austria Wikipedia entry,] which seeks to be exhaustive, resorts to "etc." in the list of his titles
:*[http://www.visualstatistics.net/East-West/Mayerling%20Tragedy/Mayerling%20tragedy.htm '''''Rudolph'''''] (1858-1889), Crown Prince, Franz Joseph's son, who died, apparently by suicide, with his mistress '''''Mary Vetsera''''' at the Mayerling hunting lodge
*'''''Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph''''' (1832-1867), Franz Joseph's brother, set up as [http://www.casaimperial.org/emperador.htm Emperor Maximilian of Mexico] 1864-67 with French backing, executed
*[http://www.geocities.com/henrivanoene/genaustria06.html ''Karl Ludwig''] (1833-96), Franz Joseph's brother, from whom the rest of the Habsburgs descended
:*[[F|'''''Franz Ferdinand''''']] (1863-1914), Karl Ludwig's son, who became heir to the throne on his father's death and was [http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/duke.htm assassinated at Sarajevo] on June 28, 1914; the murder indirectly triggered the World War
:*[http://ftp.cac.psu.edu/~saw/royal/r16.html ''Otto Franz''] (1865-1906), Karl Ludwig's son
::*[http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/karl.htm ''Karl I''] (1888-1922), Otto's elder son, who succeeded Franz Joseph as Emperor and King (abdicated 1918 at the end of the World War) and became ancestor of half the Habsburgs living today
::*''Maximilian'' (1895-1952), Otto's younger son, ancestor of the other half
:*[http://www.thepeerage.com/p11163.htm ''Ferdinand Karl Ludwig''] (1868-1915), Karl Ludwig's son
*[http://worldroots.com/cgi-bin/gasteldb?@I13495@ ''Ludwig Viktor''] (1842-1919), Franz Joseph's brother

See the annotation about Austria-Hungary on the next page.

'''shive artist''' 
Someone proficient with a knife (shive=knife or razor).

'''to rewrite history''' 
Hold on, '''re'''write? As Vibe did on [[#rewrite|page 33,]] Privett seems to reason that history has already been decided and some action would change it rather than generate a valid new history.

==Page 46==

'''"staff," a mixture of plaster and hemp fibers''' 
[http://ftp.apci.net/~truax/1904wf/WF_Mem-Staff.htm [pix and info]]

[http://users.vnet.net/schulman/Columbian/columbian.html One source] says it was jute, not hemp.

According to [http://www.buildingstonemagazine.com/summer-06/historic.html ''Building Stone'' magazine,] the buildings were meant to be painted in bright colors, but the Chicago climate put the kibosh on that. Even keeping them white called for continuous repainting.

The Museum of Science and Industry is the only structure surviving from the exposition. Built as the Palace of Fine Arts, it started out faced in staff but was later [http://www.aviewoncities.com/chicago/museumofscienceandindustry.htm rebuilt] to the original exterior design in limestone and marble.

'''to counterfeit some deathless white stone''' 

Given the many references throughout AtD to "white" and "stones" to ''counterfeit'' a ''deathless'' white stone seems portentous.

'''"In Austria," the Archduke was explaining, ". . . the Chicago Stockyards might possibly be rented out . . . for a weekend's amusement"''' 

Pynchon continues his linking of the Stockyard killing-floor with the genocidal horrors of the 20th Century, it seems. See above. Heidegger (sic) made this connection somewhere and J.M Coetze's novel Elizabeth Costello uses it in a key chapter that was published separately. Researching the details.

'''beaters who drive the animals toward the hunters . . . waiting to shoot them''' 
Skillful use of ambiguity: waiting to shoot the animals or the beaters?

'''"Hungarians occupy the lowest level of brute existence"''' 
Even if the quote might be fictive, the Archduke's characterization is close to the point. Franz Ferdinand, a dour reactionary with aggressive ideas in foreign policy, had the reputation of an avowed Hungarophobe. The Compromise of 1867 created a dualistic Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which the Archduke sought to transform in a "trialistic" way, giving an enivsioned southern Slav union of Croatia (which was united in a sub-confederation with Hungary), Bosnia and Dalmatia a status similar to that of the Kingdom of Hungary. Note how the Czechs, a population about twice as large as southwestern Slavs, were omitted from this scheme. The idea was evidently to weaken the Hungarian establishment, and recentralize power in Vienna.

'''Mannlicher''' 
A double-barreled rifle designed by Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher. It is reported that Archduke Franz Ferdinand had several of these made special for him.

Interestingly enough, the rifle is also mentioned in ''Green Hills of Africa'' and ''The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber'' by Ernest Hemingway, who used it extensively on hunting.

Franz was eventually assassinated in Sarajevo. Coincidentally (?), fellow assassinee JFK was initially claimed to have been a victim of Lee Harvey Oswald's Mannlicher rifle.

==Page 47==

'''K&K Special Security''' 
"K&K" stands for "Kaiserlich und Königlich," German for "imperial and royal (kingly)," to indicate the Austrian two titles of the ruler of the Dual Monarchy: King of Hungary and Emperor of Austria. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiserlich_und_königlich Wikipedia entry].

'''Kuchenteigs-Verderbtheit''' 
This is not a German word as far as I know and most likely not even a degenerate Habsburg or one of his officers would have used it (but then I haven't read Franz Ferdinand's account of his travels...). Sounds more like some Babelfish machine translation of "pastry-depravity" to me. I wonder what the German translator will make of this. My guess is, s/he will not make a "typical German" combined noun out of it, but turn the phrase to be able to use an adverb like "mehlspeisennarrisch" instead (what with in Austria and Bavaria there is a word for (mostly sweet) pastry: "Mehlspeise" (literally "flour-meal), and "narrisch" is Austrian/Viennese for being (slightly) mad). But then, of course, there might be a pun intended I as a bad english-speaker just dont get. Maybe via the pronounciation? Check out this [http://www.dict.cc/?s=Kuchenteigs-Verderbtheit dictionary], head for "continue searching" and press "voice output" - voila, thats what "Kuchenteigs-Verderbtheit" sounds like.

The term probably is made up, but the meaning is more like "shameful addiction to cookie dough." In the context of detectives, what may be happening here is this: The Austrians have heard the canard that American policemen are addicted to doughnuts, but they misunderstand both ''doughnut'' and ''addicted.''

Another possibility: Austrians have read that American detectives will do anything for dough.

'''Boll Weevil Lounge''' 
The boll weevil, a destructive cotton pest, first arrived in America (via Mexico) in 1892, only one year before the opening section of ATD. It is a fitting name for a "Negro Bar" as the boll weevil is the subject of dozens of blues songs. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boll_weevil [Wikipedia]]

1893 is too soon for the songs and probably for the lounge too. Cotton was still king in the South; the big [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_States_and_International_Exposition_%281895%29 Atlanta exposition] was two years in the future, and the economic dislocation had not properly begun. The boll weevil songs date from the teens-20s and later.

'''...the only place in Chicago a man could find a decent orange phosphate...''' 
A reference to the modern stereotype that black people like orange soda, here called a phosphate.

==Page 48==

'''Wassermelone''' 
Watermelon; another black stereotype...

'''grip cars''' 
The lead cars in cable-car systems. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_City_Railway [Wikipedia]]

'''''deine Mutti'', as you would say''' 
Franz Ferdinand is attempting to engage the patrons of the Boll Weevil Lounge in a game of "the dozens", an insult contest in which opponents make fun of each other's mothers. "The dozens" has its origins in the New Orleans slave trade. As with the boll weevil, "the dozens" is closely associated with blues music. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_dozens [Wikipedia]]

'''the World's Fair, not the World's Ugly''' 
A fairly sophisticated pun, if F.F.'s English is so rudimentary.

'''''...'st los, Hund?''''' 
German for "'s up, dog?"

'''All Pimps Look Alike to Me''' 
An early rag by Ernest Hogan was entitled All Coons Look Alike to Me; "Hogan was evidently not the originator of the song's lyrics, having appropriated them after hearing a pianist in a Chicago salon playing a song titled "All Pimps Look Alike to Me"". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hogan See this article.] 
For more "coon" references see text and annotations: [[#Page_33|page 33]], [[ATD_336-357#Page_344|page 344]], [[ATD_358-373#Page_369|page 369]] and especially [[ATD_397-428#Page 424|page 424]].

'''scapegrace''' 
Scoundrel.

'''And when Franz Ferdinand pays, everybody pays!''' 
WWI?

'''keester''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 49==

'''Kinsley's''' 
A famous steakhouse at 105-107 Adams St. in downtown Chicago. The building was erected in 1885.

'''At first Lew took it for a church''' 
This could be an allusion to the film, ''On The Waterfront'', and a similar scene when Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) is sent by Johnny Friendly and Co. to eavesdrop on a meeting being held in a church by local priest Father Barry (Karl Malden) along with workers from the docks who are fed up with Friendly and the Mob, especially in light of a recent death. Social themes of film seem apt as well. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_waterfront].

Karl Malden (Mladen Sekulovich)incidentally was a product of this milieu, born in Chicago in 1912 to a Serb steelworker father and Czech seamstress mother. The Sekulovich family hails from Herzegovina.

'''Welsbach mantles''' 
One of the most important advances in the history of lighting, the Welsbach mantle (for a period so ubiquitous it became more commonly known simply as 'gas mantle') was first sold commercially in 1892 and quickly spread throughout Europe. It remained an important part of street lighting until the widespread introduction of electric lighting in the early 1900s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_mantle Wikipedia entry].

'''Reverend Moss Gatlin''' 
A fictional character. Is he connected to Rev. Cherrycoke? They are both Reverends with strong political opinions and you can hear Pynchon's voice here very strong.

Possible allusion to Reverend Fr. John M. Corridan, the real-life counterpart of Father Barry in ''On The Waterfront''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M._Corridan Wikipedia]

Some real, or anyway nonfictional, anarchist preachers:
*[http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard107.html Thomas Olney,] 17th-century Baptist anarchist who was influential in Rhode Island
*[http://www.loc.gov/catdir/description/hol055/96047023.html Rudolf Rocker] (1873-1958), nicknamed the "anarchist rabbi"
*[http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/gallery/galleryindex.htm Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis,] Dutch minister who came to anarchism in 1897
*[http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_archives/critics/mckinley/chap4.html Albert Dahlquist and Joseph A. Wildman,] caught up in persecutions after the McKinley assassination (Dahlquist was nearly lynched; Wildman was tarred and feathered)
*[http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301208.shtml Father Frank Morales,] participant in Portland anti-globalization demonstrations
*[http://www.deadanarchists.org/anton.html Hugh O. Pentecost,] who in 1889 was slated to address a meeting in commemoration of the Haymarket; Philadelphia authorities suppressed the gathering

'''fascinators''' 
Hair adornments. [http://www.ribbonsandpearls.co.uk/catalogue/fascinators/fascinator_hair_accessories_intro.htm [pix]]

'''bearing the insults of the day''' 
See notes on [[ATD_26-56#Page_43|pages 43 and 44]] above.

'''Blake's Jerusalem''' 
The original lines From William Blake's poem are:

I will not cease from mental fight, 
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand 
Till we have built Jerusalem 
In England's green and pleasant land.

'''Fierce as the winter's tempest . . . Death's for the bought and sold!''' 
This lyric does not come up in a Google search. It doesn't flow like any other lyric in Pynchon but reads like a rather good hymn text. No variations in the meter, no words broken for the sake of rhyme, no punctuation to show lengthened or chopped syllables. And yet thematically it is a seamless fit with the text around it. Are the lines original in ''AtD,'' or can their source be identified?

==Page 50==

'''Picardy third''' 
The use of a major chord at the end of a musical section in a minor key. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy_third Wikipedia entry]

==Page 51==

'''deadfalls''' 
Low points where refuse collects? Cf. Pynchon's story, Low-Lands?[http://www.thefreedictionary.com/deadfalls [def]]

'''prophesiers who had seen America as it might be in visions America's wardens could not tolerate''' 
Coupled with the cover blurb Pynchon wrote: "If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction." Could ''Against the Day'' be Pynchon's prophecy of a future America?

[[image:we_never_sleep.jpg|thumb|175px|right]]'''The Unsleeping Eye''' 
Reference to Pinkerton's competing PI agency. Pinkerton's National Detective Agency had a logo with an eye in the center, and below it read, "We Never Sleep." See also [[ATD_1-25#Page_13|page 13]].

'''bay rum''' 
A type of cologne or after-shave. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_rum Wikipedia article]

==Page 52==

'''''Inconvenience''''' 
Lew Basnight's temporary presence on the airship may be the first clue as to why it's called ''Inconvenience''. Perhaps his growing sympathy for the anarchists will lead to greater involvement by him, the Chums, or at least the book in portraying the anarchist movement, which is viewed as an inconvenience to the ruling classes. Pynchon may consider his novel's message, similarly, as an inconvenient truth about America's past, present or both.

:I thought it was just a polysyllable that sounds stately but means the opposite.--[[User:Robot|Robot]] 13:18, 5 December 2006 (PST)

In ''Mason & Dixon'', the willful reality of other people are referred to as inconveniences more than once.

'''the whiteness of the place nearly unbearable''' 
Causing an effect something like snow blindness.

'''some weeks till the fair closes''' 
30 October 1893.

'''our future's all a blank''' 
Whoever the Chums get their orders from, they have not received any new ones yet. They look ahead and see a blank page.

'''Freddie Turner''' 
Frederick Jackson Turner (1861 - 1932) was, with Charles A. Beard, the most influential American historian of the early 20th century. He is best known for ''The Significance of the Frontier in American History'', an essay which describes his views on how the idea of the frontier shaped the American character, and how the frontier drove American history and America's westward expansion. Excerpt: "In this advance, the frontier is the outer edge of the wave the meeting point between savagery and civilization."
[http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1893turner.html eText here...]; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Jackson_Turner Wikipedia]

==Page 53==

'''Here's where the Trail comes to an end at last''' 
With the advent of the railroad, the West changed dramatically. Chicago became the stockyards and slaughterhouse of America, and cowboys only funneled their cattle in that direction, no longer simply following them on the range or leading them to more local places of slaughter. The cowboy had become a cog in the wheel of a mechanism of death.

'''Blitz Instruments and Wackett Punches''' 
Mentioned in 1911 Britannica article 'Slaughter-house' [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Slaughter-house [etext]]

'''charabanc''' 
An open-topped bus for tourists.

'''"The frontier ends and disconnection begins"''' 
Here, the free cowboy myth of Buffalo Bill's show is replaced by the grim reality of the stockyard worker.

'''Cause and effect''' 
A major theme in ''Gravity's Rainbow''.

'''How the dickens do I know?''' 
A possible reference to the novels of Charles Dickens, who critiques in such works as ''Hard Times'' (1854) the onset of urban decay, and the choked living and working conditions of the proletariat as the Industrial Revolution steams onward. 
Or it may just be a standard euphemism; polite speakers were enjoined not to name the Devil.

'''hob-raising years''' 
Hell-raising years; his early years. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hob Definition of "hob".]

==Page 54==

'''where you knew you could stand and piss would flow two ways at once.''' 
The Professor is talking about growing up in Colorado, where the Continental Divide passes. It would be logical to suggest that, at the precise location of this divide, piss would indeed flow both east and west.
:For Easterners at least, it's a well-known tourist ritual to pee right on the line.

The best place to do this, for tourists, is at Cache La Poudre Lake, headwaters of the Colorado River on Trail Ridge Road (US 34) in Rocky Mountain National Park—it is exactly on the Divide, and water exits to East and West, Atlantic and Pacific.

'''into the control of potent operatives who did not wish him well''' 
Describing Lew's movement now, but a few pages previously that of the stock at the slaughterhouse.

'''Cheerfulness . . . a precarious commodity''' 
The original narrator of the Chums passages has definitely been pushed aside now. They seem to be in a totally different book.

==Page 55==

'''. . . they continued in a fragmented reverie which, . . . often announced some change in the works''' 
Good to notice when the Chums get like this again: i.e. unfocused, depressed, without direction, it may lead to patterns in the plot.
:No Fair, no orders, no adventures: The Chums are between books!

'''Speculation began to fill the day.''' 
See note on [[ATD_26-56#Page_43|pages 43 and 44]] above.

'''the ill-famed Hawk''' 
In deepening autumn it is ''rehearsing'' "swift descent, merciless assault, rapture of souls"; at the end of the passage "the temperature head[s] down." The Hawk appears to be a metaphor for winter or its storms. ([http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/the_hawk/ possible definition?]) 
:That is pretty conclusive. ''Hawk'' an established and documented metaphor for the winter wind.
The Hawk is also one of the ubiquitous birds of prey in ATD. The words showing its lethal effect and the drop in temperature are Pynchon themes
for evil. Evil comes from the lands of low temperatures. See GR.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

M

2007-08-31T21:09:18Z

Sideming:

'''Macassar Oil''' 
16; 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. Exotic hair oil was quite the rage in the first half of the 19th century, another popular hair pomade being made from bear fat! (This gave rise to the curious practice of placing stuffed bears outside English barber shops.) <ref>[http://takeourword.com/Issue050.html Take Our Word For It Website]</ref>; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macassar_oil Wikipedia entry]

'''Macchiavelli, Niccolò di Bernardo dei (1469-1527)''' 
669; an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet and romantic comedic playwright. He is a figure of the Italian Renaissance and a central figure of its political component, most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory ([http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm ''The Prince'']) on the one hand and republicanism ([http://www.constitution.org/mac/disclivy_.htm ''Discourses on Livy'']) on the other. In ''The Prince'' Macchiavelli describes the arts by which a Prince (a ruler) can retain control of his realm. He focuses primarily on what he calls the ''principe nuovo'' or "new prince", under the assumption that a hereditary prince has an easier task since the people are accustomed to him. All a hereditary prince needs to do is carefully maintain the institutions that the people are used to; a new prince has a much more difficult task since he must stabilize his newfound power and build a structure that will endure. This task requires the Prince to be publicly above reproach but privately may require him to do things of an evil nature in order to achieve the greater good; 669; Italian "facility for creeping about" 706; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macchiavelli Wikipedia]

'''Macedonian Question''' 
690; The dispute between Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is a symbolic struggle concerning legitimate rights over "Macedonia"-- the name, the territory, and the loyalty of its inhabitants. The dispute was created by two conflicting national narratives. In the Balkans, nation-building has emphasized particularistic over universalistic criteria. Local national narratives were instrumental in establishing the legitimate possession of a territory by a particular ethnic group. Historically, these narratives are tied to local nationalisms since their function is to designate a territory as the exclusive homeland of a particular nation. The Macedonian narrative views Macedonia as occupied by the Macedonian nation and suggests the existence of national minorities in Bulgaria and Greece. The Greek narrative does not acknowledge the existence of a Macedonian nation and considers the existence of a Macedonian minority within Greece to be a manifestation of Macedonian irredentism. The Macedonian narrative directly questions the Greek narrative's assumption of historical continuity. The strong Greek reaction against FYROM's declaration of independence is a response to this implicit threat to modern Greek identity <ref>Victor Roudometof, [http://www.gate.net/~mango/JHS1.htm Nationalism and Identity Politics in the Balkans: Greece and the Macedonian Question], ''Journal of Modern Greek Studies'' 14.2 (1996) 253-301</ref>; 697; 845; 871;

'''Mach, Ernst (1838-1916)''' 
412; 616; Austrian physicist and philosopher, best known as namesake of the Mach number. Mach number, M, is the '''ratio''' of the speed of flow of a gas to the speed of sound. When M = 1, it means the gas flow speed reaches the sonic speed; M > 1 the gas flows at supersonic speed and M < 1 subsonic speed. When ''Concord'' jetliner cruised at M = 2.2 that means she was flying at the speed of 2.2 times the speed of sound. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach%2C_Ernst Wikipedia entry.]

'''"Macking for a mack"''' 
359; a mack is slang for seducer, usually of women but in this case of potential investors; "mack" is also slang for a pimp. Reef is the bunco steerer, hence a mack in either sense. Stray is steering marks to him, hence acting as ''his'' mack.

'''Madali''' 
756; This refers to Mohammed 'Ali Khan (1822-1841) who ruled the Central Asian state of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khanate_of_Kokand Khanate of Kokand], ascending to the throne in 1821 at the age of 12. During his reign, the Khanate of Kokand reached its greatest territorial extent.

'''Madame Butterfly (opera)''' 
567;

'''Madero, Francisco I. (1873-1913)''' 
Madero was a politician, writer and revolutionary who served as President of Mexico from 1911 to 1913. As a respectable upper-class politician he supplied a center around which opposition to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz could coalesce. However, once Díaz was deposed, the Mexican Revolution quickly spun out of Madero's control. He was deposed and executed by the Porfirista military that he neglected to replace with his revolutionary supporters. His death was followed by the most violent period of the revolution (1913-1917) until the Constitution of 1917 and revolutionary president Venustiano Carranza achieved some degree of stability; his force at Casas Grandes, 919; Revolution, 982; [http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/history/jtuck/jtmaderofi.html Article by Jim Tuck at Mexico Connect]; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_I._Madero Wikipedia entry]

'''Magdika''' 
802; "blond wife of a Hungarian cavalry officer" with whom Reef is sleeping

'''Magic Crystal''' 
133;

'''magnetism''' 
97; 121;

'''Mags and Nuncs and Matins''' 
497; different types of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canticles canticles]

'''Magonistas''' 
982; in Chihuahua; "politics through chemistry" 984;

'''Magyakan''' 
143; "a shaman of great regional fame ... who has been active on behalf of the Ilimpiya" 775; disappears after Tunguska, 785;

'''Mahdi''' 
29; "the expected one" - a Muslim leader who assumes a messianic role; [http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/v/alpha/m.html#mahdi The mahdi in ''V.''] 
From Islamic eschatology in general and Shiiate Twelver Imam mysticism in particular, the Mahdi is similar to the coming avatar of Vishnu, Kalki, the Christian idea of the Second Coming of Christ or the Jewish idea of the Messiah -- a cosmic, divine figure who comes to defeat the principle of Evil (in Christian terms, The Antichrist, in Islam the ''Dajjal'' ) and restore the righteous to their proper place. The Mahdi will fight alongside Jesus to bring about the perfect and just Islamic society just prior to the "Day of the Resurrection" at the end of time.

Throughout Muslim history there have been leaders who proclaimed themselves the Mahdi, similar to Christians from time to time proclaiming themselves the Messiah.

'''mail''' 
173; [[mail|DISCUSSION]]

'''Mainan Tant Gras Hall''' 
369; concert saloon in New Orleans

'''Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building''' 
24; at the Chicago World's Fair

'''Malus, Etienne-Louis (1775-1812)''' 
126; "Napoleonic army engineer and physicist [...] looking through a piece of Iceland spar [...] discovered polarized light"; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etienne-Louis_Malus Wikipedia entry]

'''Manicheans''' 
437-39; Followers of Mani, who taught that the universe is controlled by two antagonistic powers, light or goodness (identified with God), and darkness, chaos, or evil. One of Mani's claims was that, though Christ had been sent into the world to restore it to light and banish darkness, His apostles had perverted his doctrine, and he, Mani, was sent as the Paraclete to restore it; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism Wikipedia entry]

'''Manning, Professor Henry Parker (1859-1956)''' 
511; In 1889 he entered Johns Hopkins University to study mathematics, astronomy and physics. When he received his Ph.D. degree in 1891, his first printed paper had already appeared in the American Journal of Mathematics. He was appointed instructor in mathematics at Brown that same year, and “with his advent,” Professor Raymond C. Archibald would later write, “a new era in the development of mathematics at Brown was ushered in.” From 1893 to 1908 Manning offered courses in higher mathematics never previously available at Brown, courses with names like “Theory of functions: algebraic functions, Riemann surfaces, and Abelian functions,” “Substitutions and transformation groups,” and “Quaternions, non-Euclidean geometry, and hyperspace.” After 1908 there were others in the department able to teach higher mathematics. His publications included Non-Euclidean Geometry in 1901, the first English language text in this subject, ''Irrational Numbers and their Representation by Sequences and Series'' in 1906, and ''Geometry of Four Dimensions'' in 1914. [http://www.brown.edu/Administration/News_Bureau/Databases/Encyclopedia/search.php?serial=M0090]

'''Mantegna, Andrea (1431-1506)''' 
725; an Italian Renaissance artist. A serious student of Roman archaeology and son-in-law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective as he thought best, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality. At the age of eleven he became the apprentice of Francesco Squarcione, Paduan painter. Squarcione, whose original vocation was tailoring, appears to have had a remarkable enthusiasm for ancient art, and a faculty for acting. Like his famous compatriot Petrarca, Squarcione was something of a fanatic for ancient Rome: he travelled in Italy, and perhaps Greece, collecting antique statues, reliefs, vases, etc., forming a collection of such works, making drawings from them himself, and throwing open his stores for others to study from, and then undertaking works on commission for which his pupils no less than himself were made available. As many as 137 painters and pictorial students passed through his school, established towards 1440 and which became famous all over Italy. Mantegna was Squarcione's favorite pupil. Squarcione taught Mantegna the Latin language and instructed him to study fragments of Roman sculpture. He also preferred forced perspective; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Mantegna Wikipedia]

'''Mañuela''' 
642; waitress at Doña Cecilia; also the name assumed by the prostitute Major Marvy is engaging just before his orchidectomy in GR.

'''Maps''' 
town becomes an unreadable, 461;

'''Maraca, Miss Jardine''' 
1042; "canary" with the Vertex Club house band; photo animated, 1049;

'''maragogype''' 
638; a kind of arabica coffee with grains twice to 3 times as big as arabica grains. In Mexico, it is grown at 1400 meters high in the chiapas State close to the Pacific coast and the Guatemala border; sweet and nicely shaped;

'''Marcello''' 
667; with Ruperta

'''Marching Academy Harmonica Band''' 
418-424; "aberration in <nowiki>[Chums of Chance's]</nowiki> history"

'''Mar-Fuad, Al''' 
757; "noted Uyghur trouble-maker"; the Uyghur are a Turkic people of Central Asia. They are one of China's 56 officially recognized ethnicities. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_people Wikipedia]

'''Marin, Officer C.''' 
477; reporting officer at cantina where Sloat was killed by Frank Traverse

'''Marinetti''' 
584; Futurists; 587;

'''Martinmas''' 
1028; St. Martin's Day (or Martinmas) is November 11, the feast day of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_of_Tours Martin of Tours], who started out as a Roman soldier. He was baptized when he was grown up and became a monk. It is understood that he was a kind man who lead a quiet and simple life. The most famous legend of his life is that he once cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar during a snowstorm, to save the beggar from dying of the cold; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Martin's_Day Wikipedia entry]

'''Marx, Groucho (Julius)''' 
467-468; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groucho_marx Wikipedia entry][[ATD-J#julius|See also Julius]]

'''Marx, Karl (1818-1883)''' 
359; immensely influential philosopher, political economist, and socialist revolutionary. While Marx addressed a wide range of issues, he is most famous for his analysis of history in terms of class struggles, summed up in the opening line of the introduction to the ''Communist Manifesto'': "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." 624. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx Wikipedia entry]

'''Mascaregna''' 
"piratically bearded youth" with Tancredi, in Venice;

'''Mascotte''' 
3, 128

'''Maskelyne cabinet''' 
571;

'''Mathematics''' 
122; 147;

'''Matteawan''' 
145; Matteawan State Hospital, originally the Asylum for Insane Criminals in Auburn, relocated to the village of Matteawan (between the Hudson River and the Fishkill Mountains) in 1891 and renamed the following year.

'''Mauve''' 
226; 269; [[ATD-C#color|See also Color]]

'''Mavrovlachi of Croatia''' 
870; "Vlado's own"; the Morlachs, aka the Mavrovlachi ("Black Vlachs"), were a population of Vlach shepherds that lived in the Dinaric Alps (western Balkans in modern use), constantly migrating in search for better pastures for their sheep flocks. They were probably a blend of Romanized indigenous peoples and Roman colonists. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morlachs Wikipedia]

The adjective "black" is used here with the meaning of "northern", this metaphor probably deriving from the Turkic practice of naming cardinal directions after colours.

'''Maxim whirling machines''' 
27;

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
58; In electromagnetics, Maxwell's equations are a set of four equations, developed by James Clerk Maxwell, that describe the behavior of both the electric and magnetic fields, as well as their interactions with matter. Maxwell's four equations express, respectively, how electric charges produce electric fields (Gauss' law), the experimental absence of magnetic monopoles, how currents and changing electric fields produce magnetic fields (the Ampere-Maxwell law), and how changing magnetic fields produce electric fields (Faraday's law of induction). 318; 330; 438; 532; 533; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_equations Wikipedia entry]

<div id="maxwell"></div>'''Maxwell, James Clerk (1831-1879)''' 
98; Scottish mathematical physicist, born in Edinburgh. Maxwell formulated a set of equations expressing the basic laws of electricity and magnetism and developed the Maxwell distribution in the kinetic theory of gases. He was the last representative of a younger branch of the well-known Scottish family of Clerk of Penicuik. He is also credited with developing the first permanent colour photograph in 1861. "''Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism'' of 1873", 98; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell Wikipedia entry]

'''Mayas''' 
The "Mayas" mentioned on [[ATD_374-396#Page_389|p. 389]] are probably Mayos.

'''mayonnaise''' 
284; thunderstorm-proof; 544; cult of, in Belgium; etymology, 545; 560; and potato salad, 1048;

'''Maza, Benito Juárez''' 
987; governor of Oaxaca

'''McAdoo, Chevrolette''' 
26;

'''McDivott, Katie''' 
337; 505;

'''McGonigal, Bridget''' 
365; a slide in the San Juans named after a mine owner's wife;

'''McHugh, "Jenny"''' 
932; Ratty's wife, aka [[I#invert|Jenny Invert]]

'''McHugh, Reginald "Ratty"''' 
491; friend of Cyprian Latewood's; in Vienna, 700; 717-18; in Vienna, 808; in Venice, 865; aka "Reg" 932;

'''McKim, Mead and White''' 
326; The most dazzling architect triumvirate in America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was that of of New York City's Charles Follen McKim, William Rutherford Mead, and Stanford White. The brilliance of McKim, Mead, and White changed the course of American architecture. Of the three, it was the genius of Stanford White that most importantly influenced the architectural scene in Buffalo. McKim, Mead, and White was formed in 1878 when Charles Follen McKim (1847-1909) formed a partnership with William Rutherford Mead (1846-1928) and William B. Bigelow. Bigelow retired the following year when Stanford White (1853-1906) joined the firm and the firm's name was established.

'''McKinley, President William (1843-1901)''' 
109; the 25th President of the United States; figurehead, 109; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley Wikipedia entry]

<div id="mcnamaras">'''McNamara, John L. and James B.'''</div>
1058; the McNamaras were accused of dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building on October 1, 1910, resulting in the death of 21 persons. The crime was one of a nation-wide series intended to prevent the use of non-union materials and non-union labor. The defendants were strongly supported by the American Federation of Labor. Later the accused pleaded guilty, and James B. McNamara was sentenced to life imprisonment and John McNamara to imprisonment for 15 years. The pro-McNamara forces claimed that escaping gas, not a bomb, had destroyed the Times building. More extremist labor sympathizers charged that Otis himself had arranged the explosion.

Harrison Gray Otis was an American newspaper publisher who directed the Los Angeles Times from 1886 until after World War I, which he edited with an iron hand, becoming one of the most powerful figures in southern California. He made his newspaper a voice of Republican interests, and he opposed labor unions.

The McNamara brothers trial, which ended just as it began with confessions of guilt by the McNamaras, set the cause of organized labor on the West Coast back by decades. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/2770/McNamara-Brothers-Trial-1911.html More...]

It also nearly ruined the career of Clarence Darrow, one of America's leading criminal defense lawyers. Bert Franklin, on Darrow's payroll, was caught bribing two of the jurors in the McNamara trial. He plead ed guilty to jury tampering and he testified that Darrow had known and approved of the bribery efforts.

Darrow was arrested and put on trial. When organized labor turned its back on Darrow's request for financial assistance, Darrow had to pay all the legal costs of the 13-week trial out of his own pocket. Darrow denied the charges, and on August 14 and 15, 1912, gave an impassioned closing speech to the jurors, in which he claimed that:

:"I am not on trial for having sought to bribe a man named Lockwood. I am on trial because I have been a lover of the poor, a friend of the oppressed, because I have stood by Labor for all these years."

On August 15, 1912, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty after deliberating for less than an hour. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/2768/McNamara-Brothers-Trial-1911-Darrow-Tried-Bribing-Jurors.html More about Darrow's trial...]

'''McTaggart Hall''' 
452; headquarters of Metaphysics Department at Candlebrow

'''McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis (1866-1925)''' 
239; a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1891 to 1925; an Idealist metaphysician of great range, invention, precision, and power. McTaggart developed his own, highly original, metaphysical system. In his two-volume ''Nature of Existence'', the most famous element is his argument for the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unreality_of_Time unreality of time]. In a famous paper The Unreality of Time (1908), McTaggart had [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time/#4 argued] that our perception of time is an illusion, and that time itself is merely ideal, 412; professor at Cambridge, 749; "The senior combination-room of a college without a master" 933; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.M.E._McTaggart Wikipedia entry]

'''McVeety, Con''' 
342; works for R. W. Vibe; "Olio of Oddities" 343;[[Con McVeety DISCUSSION| DISCUSSION]]

'''Meat''' 
the Chicago Stockyards, 10; "those famous Chicago beefsteaks," 29; Meat Olaf, 129; Meat Olaf, 135; "details of his 'steak'," 182; steaks; "''slab o' that bull meat''," 337; Alonzo R. Meatman, 405; "the great Lard Scandal of the 80's," 406; "meat lozenges," 444; See also [[ATD-S|'''Shambles''']].

'''Meat Olaf''' 
129; a fictional Norwegian dish, a variant of meatloaf, perhaps; 135;

'''Meatman, Alonzo R.''' 
405; (first appearance misspelled "Meattman"); sold Zoot the time machine; 410; 412; ''lycopodium'' type, 413; Mr. Ace's tool, 414; at the Harmonica Academy, 419-422;

'''Meldrum, Bob''' 
282; 383; aka Hair-Trigger Bob, in Colorado. Not much is known about the real life Robert D. Meldrum. Born in 1866 in England, Meldrum walked a fine line between gun-for-hire and law officer and was said to have shot over 14 men. He was employed by the Pinkerton's and was Deputy Town Marshal of Telluride during the early 1900s. Eventually arrested in 1912 for murder, although he only received a sentence of five to seven years in the Wyoming State Penitentiary. [http://www.museumnwco.org/lookBackArticle.php?lookBackID=35 "Bad Man" Bob Meldrum]

'''Melpómene''' 
990; girl from Palenque Frank Traverse meets in Tapachula

'''Merriwell, Frank''' 
100; fictional, Yale attending, football playing, pulp magazine character created by Burt L. Standish, alluded to by Kit Traverse.

'''Metaphor''' 
230, "Death is a region of metaphor"; 299; "passing into metaphorical identities," 418; "some not strictly metaphorical way," 431;

'''Metropole''' 
705; hotel in Trieste where Derrick Theign stays, previously known as Buon Pastore

[[image:Michelangelo-Pieta.jpg|thumb|Michelangelo's ''Pieta''|200px|right]]'''Michelangelo''' 
1011; The ''Pietà'' (1498-1499) by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo Michelangelo] is a marble sculpture in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, the first of a number of works of the same theme by the artist. The statue was commissioned by the French cardinal Jean de Billheres, who was a representative in Rome. The statue was made for the cardinal's funeral monument, but was moved to its current location, the first chapel on the right as one enters the basilica, in the 18th century; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet%C3%A0_(Michelangelo) Wikipedia on the Pieta];

'''Michelson, Albert Abraham (1852-1931)''' 
58; Polish-born American physicist known for his work on the measurement of the speed of light and especially for the Michelson-Morley experiment. In 1907 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics, the first American to receive the Nobel in the sciences; 132; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Michelson Wikipedia entry]

'''Michelson-Morley Experiment''' 
59; The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University. It is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907; 1031; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

'''Midway Plaisance''' 
29;

'''Mikimoto, Dr.''' 
114; cultured pearls;

'''Miklós''' 
913; desk clerk at Grand-Hôtel-Tisza in Szeged;

'''Minié ball''' 
101; Prior to the development of the minie ball, rifles were not used in combat due to the difficulty in loading. The ammunition used by rifles was the same diameter as the barrel in order for the bullet to engage the groves of the rifled barrel. As a result the ball had to be forced into the barrel. The minie ball, originally designed by Captain Claude-Etienne Minie of France and improved on by manufacturers in the United States, changed warfare. Since the minie ball was smaller than the diameter of the barrel, it could be loaded quickly by dropping the bullet down the barrel. This conical lead bullet had two or three grooves and a conical cavity in its base. The gases, formed by the burning of powder once the firearm was fired, expanded the base of the bullet so that it engaged the rifling in the barrel. Thus, rifles could be loaded quickly and yet fired accurately; 620; [http://www.civilwar.si.edu/weapons_minieball.html From the Smithsonian website]

'''Minkowski, Hermann (1864-1909)''' 
324; mathematician who developed the geometrical theory of numbers and who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity; Hilbert's co-adjutor; at Candlebrow, 458; 1020; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowski Wikipedia entry]

'''Mirrors''' 
Isola degli Specchi (Isle of Mirrors), 244; symmetry, 337; 347; 351; 353; 354; Isle of Mirrors "in that Lagoon over in Venice" where they make the "finest conjuror's mirrors" 422; 463; 498; 537; 553; 564; 569; 651; 706; 728; 877;

'''Miskolci''' 
713; vampirish

'''Miserere, Vincenzo''' 
569; sales rep from mirror factory

'''Misha and Grisha''' 
699; in Prater with Cyprian; in Sarajevo, 829;

'''Mitze''' 
915; best friend of the "horrible little bourgeoise, Heidi" in ''The Burgher King''

'''MKIV/ODC''' 
541; "Mark Four something or other"; actually, it's the Mark IV Ohmic Drift Compensator, which "regulates how much light is allowed to enter the silvering of the mirror! Special kind of refraction! Calibrated against imaginary index! Dangerous! Of the essence!'" - a component of the Q-weapon; 565;

'''Modestine ("Moddie")''' 
339; actress Dally's replacing, in New York City; 342;

'''Mahommedans''' 
772; aka Muslims

'''Moises''' 
521; "resident Jewish mystic" in Morocco

'''Moistleigh, Bevis''' 
799; crytographer in Venice;

'''Mondragön semiautomatics''' 
640; from Germany

[[image:Monte-Nuovo.jpg|thumb|300px|Monte Nuovo|right]]'''Montenuovo, Count''' 
681; "Emperor's chamberlain"; Monte Nuovo ("new mountain") is a cinder cone volcano within the Campi Flegrei caldera, on the Bay of Naples. It last erupted in 1538. [http://boris.vulcanoetna.com/Montenuovo.html More...]

'''Morgan, Blinky''' 
59; "a walking interferometer", 62; Charles "Blinky" Morgan, fur store burglar and cop killer, arrested June 1887, hanged Columbus, Ohio, March 1888; [http://www.clevelandmemory.org/ebooks/kennedy/c17.html From ''A History of the City of Cleveland'' by James Harrison Kennedy]; execution of, 65;

'''Morgan, John Pierpont (J.P.) (1837-1913) 
34; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Morgan J.P. Morgan] originally provided Tesla $150,000 (although he needed $1M) in 1900 to build the Wardenclyff laboratory, but abandoned Tesla when he found out what Tesla's true purpose for Wardenclyff was &151; Tesla's vision of free power did not agree with Morgan's financial worldview; [http://educate-yourself.org/fe/radiantenergystory.shtml From Educate-Yourself.com:] "Undreamed of therapeutic applications to improve human health and to eliminate disease conditions could have been achieved fully 100 years ago had Tesla been allowed to complete his commercial development of Radiant Energy. But powerful barons of industry, chiefly in the person of John Pierpont Morgan, colluded to deny him the financial backing he needed and in doing so, effectively denied mankind one of Nature’s most abundant and inexhaustible gifts of free energy"; 326; "safe as the Morgan Bank" 379; a prince of capital, 734;

'''Morley, Professor Edward''' 
62; and Blinky Morgan, 62;

'''Moss, Reverend''' 
91; Webb Traverse's minister

'''Motorcycles''' 
463;

'''''mouchard''''' 
560; a police spy;

'''Mouffette''' 
665; French: "skunk"; Ruperta's sexy poodle

'''Mount Kailash''' 
769; a peak in the Gangdisê mountains in the Tibet region of China, the source of some of the longest rivers in Asia — the Indus River, the Sutlej River — is considered a sacred place in four religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Bön faith. In Hindu mythology, it is considered to be the abode of Lord Shiva. The mountain lies near Lake Manasarowar and Lake Rakshastal in Tibet. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kailash Wikipedia]

'''''mousmée''''' 
560; a type of hydrangea (flower)

'''Movay, E. Percy''' 
1077; "strangely possessed algebraist"

'''mufti''' 
16; civilian dress worn by a person who is entitled to wear a military uniform

'''Mulciber, Victor''' 
557; "arms tycoon" at the Kursaal, in Pera (Istanbul); No benign associations with "Mulciber"! Mulciber is an alternative name of the Roman god Vulcan, the god of fire and volcanoes, and the manufacturer of art, arms, iron, and armor for gods and heroes. Mulciber is also the name of a character in John Milton's Paradise Lost, the architect of the demon city of Pandemonium. In [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter the Harry Potter books], Mulciber is a Death Eater, a minor Dark Wizard; 911;

'''Multiple Worlds or Dimensions''' 
See [[ATD-L|Lateral World Sets]].

'''Murray Hill''' 
68; in Cleveland

'''Museums''' 
"Museum of Hat History," 43; 145; "Museum of Museumology," 149-151; "Museum der Monstrositäten, . . . dedicated to the current 'Crisis' in European mathematics," 632; "museum of bad taste" (Hotel Neue Mutzenbacher), 702;
:Museums, with their High Culture sensibility and insistence on removing artifacts from the dynamic ebb and flow of culture, serve as a direct contrast to the Chums' popular "dime novels."

'''Mushtaq''' 
754; Auburon Halfcourt's "colleague of many years"

'''Music''' 
ukulele: 15 (Miles plays it), 324, 408, 410, 451, 553, 567, 678 (quartet), 684; accordian, 49; 52; 57; 126; singing, 138; in ''The Inconvenience'', 140; 160; 163; 178; 266; 315; "That Göttingen Rag" 324; Tin Pan Alley, 342; harpist, 347; "Her Mother Never Told Her" 347; "Oh, When You Talk That Talk" 349; "Funiculi, Funiculá" 349; ''La Forza del Destino'', 352; in New Orleans, 368; "Jass" 370; "La Cucaracha" 375, 389; 399; song in Lollipop Lounge, 400; 418; "El Capitán" 419; "Whistling Rufus" 419; "My Country 'Tis of Thee" 419; "'Zo Meatman's Gone A-WOL" 420; "At a Georgia Camp Meeting" 423; "After the Ball" 425; 436; Joe Hill's "Pie in the Sky" 463; "For It Is Thou, Lord" 477; hymn-writing, 497-98; "five-pound note" song, 503; 510; 522; 524; "Quizzical Queer Quaternioneer" 534; and Q-waves, 566; Puccini's ''Madame Butterfly'', 567; Borel-Clerc's "La Matchiche" 567; Günther's song, 598; "O Tempora, O Mores" and "The Black Whale of Askalon" 625-26; house band, 642; "Daisy, Daisy" 647; alpenborn figure, 665; ''Waltzing in Whitechappel'' 679; ''liebestod'' (German: "love death"), 681; "Chinese harmony" 682; [[Spitalfields|"Singing Bird of Spitalfields"]] 684; "Ritter Georg Hoch!" (old German anthem), 700; ''Fiakerlieder'', 703; Mozart Adagio, 712; 714; 716; "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" 725; 746; 754; drums, 783; Tuvan throat singers, 786; 797; "Nimrod" from Elgar's ''Enigma Variations'', 815; "La Gazza Ladra," "The Volga Boatmen," "Auld Lang Syne," Gonzalo and Millicent, 815; campanile bells, 818; "The Idiotic" 823; 831; "oud, baglamas, and a kind of hammered dulcimer called a santouri" 843; ukes - "I Love You Truly" 866; "Very nice, very nice, very j''nice-in-deed'', 888; accordians, 891; Brownian motion in waltzing, 902; Austro-Hungarian Blues, 915; Lydian mode, Phrygian mode, 940; Phrygian, 945; 946-47; "Jim Along " on a clarinet, 971; Chinese fourths, 1054; in Lake's dream, 1056; "Bicycle Built for Two" 1067; throat singing, 1079-1080; "jazz-inflected ''hopak''" 1079; "Vegetaria-no" 1082

'''Muspellheim''' 
128; In Norse/Germanic cosmology, Muspellheim is the Land of Fire. It is one of the first two primal worlds created in a vortex around the World Tree, and the collision between Muspellheim and Niflheim - fire and water, fire and ice, heat and cold - created the energy that formed the basis for the other seven worlds; [http://www.cauldronfarm.com/nine/index.html Website on Norse/German cosmology]

'''Myrna''' 
473;

==References==
<references/>

{{ATD_Alpha_Nav}}

G

2007-08-31T20:50:20Z

Sideming:

'''Gabika''' 
803; works in dress shop with Yashmeen;

'''Gabrovo Slim''' 
845; "noodle-thin and mournful Bulgarian"; at wedding, 947;

'''Gage, Lyman Judson (1836-1927)''' 
307; "that old Gold Standard hand and bank president"; Gage was president of the First National Bank of Chicago; in 1892, he was chosen president of the board of directors of the World's Columbian Exposition, the successful financing of which was due more to him than to any other man. As Secretary of the Treasury under President Grover Cleveland, Gage was influential in securing passage of the Gold Standard Act of March 14, 1900, which reestablished a currency backed solely by gold; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_J._Gage Wikipedia entry]

'''Galandronome''' 
374; a type of bassoon developed by French instrument maker Galander in the mid-19th century;

'''Galois, Evariste''' 
601;

'''Gallows Frame''' 
"Gallows Frame Saloon," in Telluride, 302; "broken gallow-frames," 391;
:The Gallows Frame is the structural frame, usually made of steel or timber, at the top of an underground mine shaft. These frames hold the hoisting equipment which raise and lower equipment and miners into the underground mine.

'''Gamomania''' 
432; "the abnormal desire to be married"

[[image:balloons-paris.jpg|thumb|Garçons de '71|right]]'''Garçons de '71''' 
19; French: The Boys of '71; annual convention in Paris, 1083; During the Siege of Paris in the 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. [[Garçons de '71|Read on...]]

'''Gas Office''' 
607

'''Gaspereaux, Stilton''' 
436; civilian passenger on ''Saksaul''; in London, 445;

'''Gatlin, Reverend Moss''' 
49; Anarchist preacher; "we are Stripes and Solids on the pool table of earthly existence" 86; The New York Times, commenting on the Haymarket Square riots in Chicago in 1886, offered the following solution to the anarchist threat, “In the early stages of an acute outbreak of anarchy a Gatling gun, or if the case be severe, two, is the sovereign remedy"; in Denver with his "Anarchist Heaven" car, 465; at tent city in Ludlow, Colorado, 1009;

'''Gatling''' 
754; The Gatling gun is a gunpowder field weapon invented in the 1860s which used multiple rotating barrels turned by a hand crank. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatling_gun Wikipedia]

[[image:Gauss-Weber_Statue.jpg|thumb|Gauss & Weber Statue]]'''Gauss''' 
498; 588; statue of Gauss and Weber, 594;

'''gaver du visage''' 
225; French for something like "stuff your face", appropriately enough for a "form of gluttony"

'''Geheimrat''' 
603; title of the highest officials of a German royal or principal court. It has its roots in 17th century Europe when governmental administration was established. The English language equivalent is Privy Councillor. The title disappeared after the destruction of the German Empire in 1918, when the various royal courts in Germany were replaced by the Weimar Republic.

'''gematria''' 
799; Gematria (Heb. גימטריה, from the Greek γεωμετρία) is numerology of the Hebrew language and Hebrew alphabet, and is used by its proponents to derive meaning or relative relationship. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gematria Wikipedia]

'''Gennady''' 
780; "the ''umnik'' of [Padzy's] crew";

'''Gennaro''' 
846: an Exarch; bartender at the L'Espagnol Clignant in Nice; an Exarch, according to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exarch Wikipedia]: "In the Eastern Christian Churches (Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Catholic), the term exarch has two distinct uses: the deputy of a patriarch, or a bishop who holds authority over other bishops without being a patriarch (thus, a position between that of patriarch and metropolitan); or, a bishop appointed over a group of the faithful not yet large enough or organized enough to be constituted an eparchy/diocese (thus the equivalent of a vicar apostolic)."

'''Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
236; cricket-ball bombs; 241; 605; 690; spotted at Fenner's cricket ground, 691;
:Possibly a nod to "The Girl Who Was Death," a particularly hallucinogenic episode of the late 60s cult TV series, ''The Prisoner'', which begins with a cricket-playing colonel being blown up by a cricket ball bomb.

'''Gerasimoff, Dr. (Ofitser Nauchny)''' 
258; Chick Counterfly's "opposite number"; w/Padzy, 780;

'''Gerhardt''' 
517; Austrian Chief Stoker aboard ''Stupendica'', ''Herr Hauptheitzer''; in Swiss Alps, drilling, 655;

'''German Sea, The''' 
489; 504;

'''Geronimo''' 
195;[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geronimo Wikipedia entry]

'''Gevaert, Edouard''' 
558; sells Q-98 to Woevre; "unworldly go-between," 559; [[Q-weapon and Photography|Connections...]]

[[image:dirhan.jpg|thumb|Afghani dirham|right]]'''Ghaznivid Empire''' 
596; Sunni Muslim state in Khorasan in modern day Afghanistan that existed from 962 to 1187. It was created by Alp Tigin, a former Turkic slave general, with the city Ghazna (Ghazni) as capital, replacing the ruling Samanids; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaznavid_Empire Wikipedia entry]

'''Ghloix, Dr. Otto''' 
132; "Expedition alienist"; "psychomedical officer" 143; visiting alienist from Switzerland, 686; Lew's alienist, 1041 (originally a 19th century term for a psychiatrist, the term "alientist" is still used in psychiatric hospitals to describe those mental health professionals who evaluate defendants to determine their competency to stand trial.);

'''Ghosts''' 
132; Icelanders long tradition of, 133; "bad ice, blizzards, malevolent ghosts," 151; 218; Victoria's "ghostly stand-in," 231; "ghost-light," 306; 373; 375; "haunted," 384;

'''Giambolognese, Signora''' 
865; Venetian resident at ''pensione'' in Santa Croce;

'''Giant-Wheel''' 
699; The Giant Wheel in the Prater is an important Viennese landmark, providing a view over the city. The wheel was the brain child of Gabor Steiner (1858-1944) and was built in 1896 by the English engineer Walter B. Basset, who produced similar designs in London and Paris. It was erected in the record time of eight months and was operated for the first time on June 21 1897; [http://www.technologystudent.com/culture1/ferris1.htm More on this website]

'''Gibbs, Professor Willard''' 
29; 158; 318-19; 532-3; 793; Gibbsian, 526; 532; Josiah Willard Gibbs was arguably the greatest American scientist of the 19th century, bringing the power of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics to what had been cookbook and rule-of-thumb chemistry. He demonstrated and extended the value of modeling in "phase space," a graph in which each physical state of a system is represented by a point representing pressure, volume, temperature, etc. ("water in all its phases," 368)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willard_Gibbs Wikipedia entry]

'''Gibson Girls''' 
409; The Gibson Girl was the personification of the feminine ideal as portrayed in the satirical pen and ink illustrated stories created by illustrator Charles Dana Gibson during over 15 years spanning the late nineteenth and early twentieth century; 512; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson_Girl Wikipedia entry]

'''''Gift to Young Housewives, A''''' 
754; cookbook by Russian Yelena Ivanovna (aka Elena N.) Molokhovets; Banned in Molokhovets's native country since the Russian Revolution, this gastronomic standard for pre-Revolutionary upper- and middle-class Russian households contains recipes for such old standards as cabbage with butter and crumbs, potato pudding, Beef Stroganov, babas, piroq, and pashka. Little is known about Molokhovets' life. Born in 1831 into a military family in the far northern city of Arkhangelsk, she received a good education at a school run by the Imperial Educational Society for Noble Girls. With her husband, an architect, she had ten children. He seems to have been an enlightened spouse who was supportive of her writing. Molokhovets' old age coincided with the turmoil surrounding the 1917 Russian Revolution. She died in St. Petersburg in 1918. Her cookbook, however, lives on. A Gift to Young Housewives went through 29 editions before being deemed too bourgeois for publication under the Soviet regime.

'''Gigg, Jack''' 
99; Kit Traverse's sidekick

'''Gilmore, Mr.''' 
187; conductor in New Mexico

'''Ginger''' 
1076; Stray's daughter

'''Ginnungagap''' 
127; "the lightless abyss"; Ginnungagap ("seeming emptiness"), in the cosmology of Norse mythology, is the primordial void separating Niflheim and Muspell, the land of eternal ice and snow and the land of eternal heat and flame; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginnungagap Wikipedia entry]

'''Girtonian''' 
492; 498; Of or pertaining to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girton_College%2C_Cambridge Girton College].

'''Giuseppina''' 
246; waitress at ''Osteria'' in San Polo

'''Glagolitic''' 
252; The Glagolitic alphabet was invented during the 9th century by the missionaries St Cyril (827-869 AD) and St Methodius (826-885 AD) in order to translate the bible and other religious works into the language of the Great Moravia region. They probably modelled Glagolitic on a cursive form of the Greek alphabet, and based their translations on a Slavic dialect of the Thessalonika area, which formed the basis of the literary standard known as Old Church Slavonic; 799; [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/glagolitic.htm More from this website]

'''God''' "
87; "God's ledger; "God-possesed fugitives," 127; "God dwells in His Heavenly City," 131; rocks as "post-godhead" 209; under God's wing, 211; ''shin'', 237; 534;

'''Gold Standard''' 
89; The "gold standard" is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard Wikipedia entry]

'''Golden Age''' 
561;

'''Gomez, Che''' 
987; "mayor and ''jefe politico'' of Juchitán"

'''Gomez, Eusebio''' 
373; "acting as a subagent" in Mexico, 640; aka Wolfe Tone O'Reilly, 641;

'''Gonzales, General''' 
985; his suicide after Frank Traverse's ''máquina loca'';

'''Gordon, Charles George (1833-1885)''' 
240; known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, was a British army officer and administrator. He is remembered for his exploits in China and northern Africa. Gordon was killed in Khartoum while defending it against the uprising led by the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Mohammed Ahmed who decapitated Gordon and displayed his head on a spear; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_George_Gordon Wikipedia entry]

'''Göttingen''' 
226; Werfner at Göttingen; 594; during war with Prussia

'''Gottlob''' 
588; at Göttingen;

'''Grace'''
42; 70; 213; 374; Angela Grace, 399-402; and anti-Grace, 895;

'''Grace, Angela''' 
399-402; songstress at Lollypop Lounge who's "ten summers old";

'''Grace, Dr.''' 
577; appeared to Hunter in a dream, "the mass-grave-to-be of Europe";

'''Gradenigo, Doge Pietro''' 
247; 880;

<div id="grandcohen">'''Grand Cohen'''</div>
499; A cohen, or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohen Kohen], is a member of the Jewish priestly class; 720;

'''Grand Guignol''' 
1066; The Grand Guignol (pronounced [gʁɑ̃ giɲɔl]) was a theatre (Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol) in the Pigalle area of Paris (at 20 bis, rue Chaptal), which, from its opening in 1897 to its closing in 1962, specialized in naturalistic horror shows. The name is often used as a general term for graphic, amoral horror entertainment. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Guignol Wikipedia]

'''Grand Hotel de la Nouvelle Digue''' 
526; in Ostend, Belgium; 531;

'''Granitza''' 
326; small town "above Adriatic Coast in the Velebit range"

'''grapnel''' 
13; a tool consisting of several hooks for grasping and holding; often thrown with a rope

'''Grassmann, Hermann (1809-1877)''' 
324; German polymath, renowned in his day as a linguist and now admired as a mathematician. He was also a physicist, neohumanist, all-round scholar, and publisher; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_grassmann Wikipedia entry]; Grassmann's 1862 ''Ausdehnungslehre'' (literally, "Theory of Extension") is one of the great mathematical works of the nineteenth century. In it the foundations of linear and multilinear algebra are laid and much of the superstructure too is constructed. It is regrettable that such a book on such a subject should, from the moment of publication, have been not much read. Indeed, Grassmann's reputation for impenetrability has persisted to this day; 535; [http://www.maths.utas.edu.au/People/dfs/Papers/GrassmannTranslation/node3.html More about ''Ausdehnungslehre'' here]

<div id="gravity">'''Gravity'''</div>
"The soles of Lew's feet began to ache, as if wanting to be taken all the way to the center of the Earth," 41; "a secret imperative, like the force of gravity," 80; Time vulnerable to, 457;

'''Great Airships of 1896 and '7''' 
454; On November 17, 1896 in Sacramento, California, there appeared, on a rainy night, a bright light. It moved slowly west appearing to be about a thousand feet above the rooftops. Hundreds of people saw the light including George Scott, an assistant to the Secretary of State of California. Scott persuaded some friends to join him on the observation deck above the capitol dome and from there they thought they could see three lights, not one. Above the lights was a dark, oblong shape. In 1897 there were many sightings of great airships from California to
Texas, however the airplane would not be invented for another 6 years,
and neither had large dirigibles or blimps yet been flown. In Aurora,
Texas one such ship supposedly crashed into a windmill or tower and exploded. [http://ufocasebook.com/Aurora.html Read more about the 1897 incident] and [http://www.unmuseum.org/airship.htm the Mysterious Airship of 1896]

'''Great Game''' 
"BOL'SHAIA IGRA, or, The Great Game,'" 123; 227; reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling Kipling's] novel ''Kim'', 756; 772;

:The Great Game, a term usually attributed to Arthur Conolly, was used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The term was later popularized by British novelist Rudyard Kipling in his work ''Kim''. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running from approximately 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907. Following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 a second, less intensive phase followed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia]

The Wikipedia article has a very interesting section titled "The Great Game Renewed"
:With the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War, the United States displaced Britain as the global power, asserting its influence in the Middle East in pursuit of oil, containment of the Soviet Union, and access to other resources. This period is sometimes referred to as "The New Great Game" by commentators, and there are references in the military, security and diplomatic communities to "The Great Game" as an analogy or framework for events involving India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and more recently, the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia.
Obviously, we should add Iraq to that list. The parallels are obvious, as is the failure to learn from history or past mistakes.

'''Great Wife Bazaar of the World-Island''' 
432;

'''Gretchen''' 
640; Günther's date at Steve/Ramón's ("the restless Valkyrie")

'''Grey''' 
809; politician

'''Grimsford, Wes''' 
211; marshal of Jeshimon

'''Griswold, Uncle''' 
497; Cyprian's corrupting sodomite uncle

'''Grossmith, George''' 
494; at Cambridge

'''groundhogs''' 
1021; aka people

'''growler''' 
226; An old-fashioned siren, the kind that takes awhile to start. By extension, a police car carrying such a siren.

'''Groznyi''' 
441;

'''Grundy, Mrs.''' 
400; Mrs Grundy is the personification of the tyranny of conventional propriety (from Thomas Morton's play ''Speed the Plough'', which appeared in 1798), a person who is too much concerned with being proper, modest, or righteous; 427;

'''Gruntling''' 
944; accountant in Prof. Sleepcoat's party

'''Guanajuato''' 
127; Iceland Spar mined in, 306; Frank Traverse and Ewball in, 376;

'''Guitry, Sacha''' 
1066; "J'ai Deux Amants" (French: "I Have Two Lovers" a recording by Yvonne Printemps, written by Sacha Guitry and Andre Messager [[J'ai Deux Amants - I Have Two Lovers|Lyrics +]]. The composer [[H#hahn|Reynaldo Hahn]] (see also ''ATD'' at [[ATD 1063-1085#Page_1065|page 1065]]) wrote the music for his operetta ''Mozart'' (1925).

'''guncotton''' 
27; guncotton is Nitrocellulose (Cellulose nitrate) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose (e.g. through exposure to nitric acid or powerful nitrating agent), used in explosives

'''gutta-percha''' 
603; Gutta-percha (Palaquium) is genus of tropical trees native to southeast Asia and northern Australasia, from Taiwan south to Malaya and east to the Solomon Islands. It is also an inelastic natural latex produced from the sap of these trees, particularly from the species Palaquium gutta. Chemically, gutta-percha is a polyterpene, a polymer of isoprene (trans-1,4-polyisoprene);[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha]. It was often used an early insulating material on telegraphs and other electrical equipment. 611;

'''gynecophobia''' 
501; fear of women

{{ATD_Alpha_Nav}}

ATD 57-80

2007-08-29T21:36:04Z

Sideming: /* Page 78 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in ''V.'' (9.II) has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon. 

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?

Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
He also traverses moral boundaries: he kills innocents.

Mason and Dixon's survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

See note on p.62 in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the Harry Potter series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' to ''H.P. & the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all.

My guess is they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." 

This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 14:43, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

The Philosopher's Stone and alchemy discussion may refer to LSD. "...acid and so on..." (78)
'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too—these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the other is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

[http://www.3rd1000.com/alchemy/alchemyterms2.htm Handy Alchemy Dictionary] 
Compare ''Lapis Philosophorum'' and ''Infernal Stone'' 
AntiStone might be thought of as the ''Infernal Stone'' which is an alkali hydroxide such as sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) used to make soap or potassium hydroxide aka potash. They are both alkali salts. Another alkali salt (but not an hydroxide) is calcium carbonate, better known as Iceland Spar.

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 864-891

2007-08-29T21:01:18Z

Sideming: /* Page 882 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 864==

'''''galleggianti''''' 
Boathouses.

'''''traghetto''''' 
ferry-boat.

==Page 865==

'''cicerone''' 
Guide, especially for a single woman.

'''''Inglesi''''' 
Italian: Englishmen.

==Page 866==

'''Gorblimey''' 
Representing a Cockney pronunciation of "God blind me!"; in medieval times, people would curse using contractions rather than breaking the third commandment (Do not use the Lord's name in vain oaths). Compare strewth, zounds, 'sblood. -- Wiktionary

'''Jenny Invert''' 
This is not her first occurrence. Part of the printing of 1918 24-cent airmail stamps showed an inverted image of a Curtis JN-4 Jenny airplane. [http://www.afa.org/magazine/1990/0790jenny.asp It's a famous and valuable stamp.] 
Another female character named after a stamp is "Penny Black"

'''Newmarket''' 
Cf [[ATD_489-524#Page_495|page 495: Newmarket]].

'''Nether Wallop, Hants''' 
Hants: customary shortening of Hampshire. 
NETHER WALLOP, a parish in the hundred of Thorngate, county Hants, 7 miles S.W. of Andover, and 3½ N.W. of Stockbridge, its post town. The parish is situated under Danebury Hill, on which are remains of a fortification with ramparts, strengthened on the western side by an outwork, and supposed to have been formed by Canute the Great. The surface is hilly and the soil chalky. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Winchester, value £350. The church, dedicated to St. Andrew, contains several old monuments and two brasses-one of an abbess, bearing date 1432, and the other of a mitred abbot. Gazeteer of Ireland and Great Britain. 
Great Pynchonian name.

'''Inanimate Bird Association''' 
Concerned with clay pigeons, i.e., trapshooting.

'''rather shirty''' 

Shirty: angry, irritated, huffy, stroppy.
Maybe from "Keep your shirt on!" (Don't get angry!)

'''the key also changes day to day''' 
A code depending upon changes in the starting point for shifts in the text (e.g a book with a different starting page depending on the date, groups of letters that change starting with a different letter every day)is considered unbreakable unless one knows the starting point, called the Key.

'''''Oca ti jebem''''' 
Macedonian: I fuck your father.

'''Giles Piprake''' 
Is he aping Chico Marx? 
A small rake with women? See his remark about Ratty's wife. The joke here is that if Ratty's wife did complain, that would be a problem Piprake couldn't sort out. 
No, G.P.'s comeback is a joke in the "That's what ''she'' said" genre. 
Lots of definitions for [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pip pip], take your pick. Breaking through a shell (shell being a metaphor for a problem barrier in this case) seems as appropriate as any. Lots of definitions for [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rake rake], too. 
A ''pipkrake'' is a narrow spike of ice that grows upward from a body of groundwater in freezing weather, carrying a portion of soil on its top surface. [http://epod.usra.edu/archive/epodviewer.php3?oid=336192 Here] are a photo and discussion; note that the caption has the misspelling ''piprake''!

==Page 867==

'''remember not to wear yellow''' 
Cyprian thinks he was seen hiding because he was wearing yellow?
Conjecture: Austro-Hungary's colors were yellow and black. So yellow not only draws the eye, but he might also be taken for an Austrian in Venice incurring Italian mob wrath or perhaps Theign's attention.

'''''valletto''''' 
Italian: valet, attendant.

'''''heliotrope''''' 
A moderate, light, or brilliant violet to moderate or deep reddish purple.

'''''Facciam' il porco''''' 
We (the Prince and valletto) are playing the sexual pervert. Literally, we are doing the pig, but porco is Italian slang for sexual pervert.

'''''Il mio ragazzo è molto geloso''''' 
Italian: My little guy is very jealous.

'''''Qualsiasi, Ciprianino''''' 
Italian: Whatever you want (you want is implied), little Cyprian.

'''The Iron Gateway''' 
an imaginary internal 'Symbolist' artwork embodying vivid hallucinatory visions within ATD? 
Also a real structure:
Iron Gateway & Draghut Mosque, Tripoli Medina
Iron Gateway, Tripoli Medina
Iron Gateway & Draghut Mosque, Tripoli Medina

-- Is this a reference to the Portal, p.154?

'''Carlo Zen furniture''' 
Designed by Carlo Zen (Italian, 1851-1918)
Among the more prolific designers and cabinet-makers of the period was the firm of Carlo Zen. Some of his decorations suggest the strong influence of continental symbolism, while other objects reveal a keen awareness of geometric simplification.

'''Galileo Chini''' 
Galileo CHINI , famous italian painter and ceramist, was born in Florence on December 2nd 1873 and died on August 23rd 1956.
In 1896, he funded "The Art of Ceramics" (later called "Factory Fornaci S.Lorenzo). He introduced the Liberty style in Italy.
As a painter he took part at the"Biennale di Venezia" from 1901 till 1936.
In 1911 he was in Bangkok to decorate Siam King's palace.
He remained there till 1913: it was a triumph! Back in Italy, he taught at the "Accademia di Belle Arti"in Florence. Some of his beautiful works of Art can be found at the Modern Art Gallery in Rome, at the Uffizi in Florence and at the Modern Art Gallery in Palazzo Pitti.

'''Bugatti''' 
Carlo Bugatti (1856-1940), world-famous furniture designer from Milan.

==Page 868==

'''''corno''''' 
The "horned" cap worn by Doges of Venice. An example comes from a Bellini portrait of a doge at [http://www.prints.co.nz/page/fine-art/PROD/Renaissance_Art_Prints/7211].

'''''lo stato''''' 
Italian: the state.

'''penance....imbalance in Nature.''' 
incredible thematic paragraph that relates to revenge motif?

- seems also to refer to the idea of Karma and karmic penance. Only if you make up for the deeds done in this or in an earlier life, the karmic account will be balanced (i.e. 'Nature' in the sense of the whole cosmos).

==Page 869==

'''''salizzada''''' 
Salizzada once meant a paved street, implying that all other, less important calles were once just dirt-packed alleyways.From a Venice Guidebook.

==Page 870==

'''Not by a long chalk''' 
This mainly British expression means “not by any means”, “not at all” and often turns up in conventional expressions such as they weren’t beaten yet, not by a long chalk.
It goes back to the days in which a count or score of almost any kind was marked up on a convenient surface using chalk. At a pub or ale house this might be a note of the amount of credit you had been given (often called the chalk in the early nineteenth century), which Charles Dickens refers to in Great Expectations: “There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly long chalk scores in it on the wall at the side of the door, which seemed to me to be never paid off.”-- Yahoo answers.

'''gibanica''' 
Croatian: a rolled pastry filled with cheese or fruit.

'''kadulja''' 
Croatian, literally: garden sage.

'''coastal Čakavština''' 
Speech of a region in coastal Croatia.

==Page 871==

'''''bàcari''''' 
Venetian wine bars

'''formulæ''' 
Spells. The plural of formula, an established form of words or symbols for use in a ceremony or procedure.

==Page 872==

'''''Altezza''''' 
Italian: Highness.

==Page 873==

'''Montepulciano''' 
A red wine, considered among Italy's best, from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montepulciano Montepulciano].

'''the Ponte degli Scalzi''' 
Cf [[ATD_724-747#Page_746|page 746: the Ponte degli Scalzi]].

==Page 874==

'''11 mm Montenegrin Gasser''' 
A hinged-framed 11.3 mm calibre revolver

'''... to leave some mark of imbalance''' 
Refer back to p.868: "... there is an imbalance in Nature."

'''San Stae''' 
In Santa Croce district.

==Page 875==

==Page 876==

'''gentleman ops''' 
A tradition in thrillers. Bulldog Drummond and Tommy Hambledon are just two in the crowd.

'''dittoes''' 
"A suit of dittoes" is an outfit of coat, vest (waistcoat) and trousers from the same fabric.

'''Wrong sod, I'm afraid''' 
Not Oscar Wilde, i.e. not a Dandy

'''religious surrender of the self''' 
See P. 836, and note. Suggests Cyprian's masochism is a form of self-transcendence; transgression as transcendence. He has indeed demonstrated his ability to lose all desire...

==Page 877==

'''...what were the chances of finding anyone seeking to transcend that, and not even particularly aware of it?''' 
Passing beyond the self, passing beyond desire (and without fanfare), Cyprtian's very Buddhist quest, is perceived only as masochistic in the Western materialist view.

==Page 878==

'''''brisance''''' 
A French word now fully adopted in English. In the context of explosives it means "shattering power." In English it means the shattering or crushing effect of a sudden release of energy as in an explosion.

'''undissembled''' 
Synonyms: open-hearted, honest, plain, artless, guileless, ingenuous, innocent, natural, sincere, transparent, unconcealed, undisguised, unvarnished. Antonyms: devious, secretive, two-faced, evasive.

'''Wigan''' 
A town near Manchester, England, (with a professional soccer team, Wigan Atheletic).

'''the Earl's Court Wheel''' 
[http://www.shadyoldlady.com/location.php?loc=492 The Great Wheel] of a height of 300 ft built at the Earls Court exhibition grounds, London. It was modelled on the original one in Chicago. It was opend on July 6, 1895 for the "Empire of India Exhibition" and stayed in service until 1906. It was dismantled in 1907.

'''reversals of power''' 
Reversals of sexual power positions parallel Alernating Current. If DC is "direct" i.e. in one direction only, and AC is "alternating" current, a current of periodical reversals, perhaps all this talk of transcending sexual norms and role reversals is a social/sexual counterpoint to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Currents Current Wars]fought between Edison and Tesla. After much heated contention, Tesla and AC won, enormously extending the range and safety of power distribution (electrical, economic, sexual, social) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_engineering].Seen in the light of electrical circuitry, Anarchist explosions are expressions of power imbalance, every detonation another circuit blown. 
Electrical engineering terms take on new significance in AtD: twisted pair, induction coupling, Q inductors, three-phase generation, loads, triangle wave, square wave, etc. Interestingly, the wiki commentary on the War of the Currents states that "AC cannot really be understood or exploited without a substantial mathematical and mathematical physics orientation, which Tesla had" -- as did Yashmeen -- at whose feet these power reversals were but the "outskirts" (an interesting double entendre in outskirts). That Yashmeen is central to all this sexual power transformation, generation, distribution, alternating style as well as being a human mental radio (clairvoyance) -- she becomes an embodiment of both Henry Adams' dynamo and Virgin -- in one! A duality in singularity. She is the mother/whore of the electrical world.

==Page 879==

'''the least ''clairvoyante''''' 
The (woman) friend least able to exercise occult powers such as seeing the future.

'''Carnevale''' 
Italian: Carnival. The Italian word [http://italianfood.about.com/library/rec/blr0149.htm ''Carnevale''] derives from ''Carne Levare'' — Remove Meat — the name of the sumptuous dinner people would hold the night before Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. In the past, things were especially intense in Venice, where debauched revels went on for weeks.

==Page 880==

'''Carnesalve''' 
If Carnevale means "goodbye to meat" (beginning of the Lenten fast), Carnesalve means "hello there, meat!"

'''San Servolo''' 
Island in the Venetian Lagoon, to the southeast of San Giorgio Maggiore, from 18th century until 1978 site of the Venetian psychiatric hospital. Since 1978, site of the "Istituto per le Ricerche e gli Studi sull´Emarginazione Sociale e Culturale" (Institute for the Study of Social and Cultural Marginalization) to preserve the documents associated with the history of the psychiatric hostpital [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Servolo].

'''Signori di Notte''' 
Italian: night lords.

==Page 881==

'''...framed by Signor Fabrizio's re-imagining of Yashmeen's hair...''' 
Saved from when he cut it off? On P. 860, she says he may "do whatever he want(s) with it.

'''Parma violets''' 
A delicate variety of the flower produced in the Italian city. The blossoms are sometimes sold candied, too.

'''loggie''' 
Plural of ''loggia.'' Italian: theater box or similar feature in a formal room.

==Page 882==

'''''amoretti''''' 
Italian: "Cupids" used as space fillers or decorative elements.

'''''tesoro''''' 
Italian: treasure.

'''Quickly now ....''' 
The conception described here is technically immaculate: Reef fulfills the role of the Father, Yashmeen that of Mary, and Cyprian that of the Holy Ghost. 

Or is this a human instance of three phase electrical generation? 
Or an alchemical operation to produce the Philosopher's Stone? 
Or the creation of a Moonchild through sex magic ala Aleister Crowley.

Alchemical musings: Person-Sex-Orb-Metal 
Reef: male, sun, gold 
Yashmeen: female, moon, silver 
Cyprian: female/male, mercury, mercury (quicksilver)

Cyprian first receives the seed as the functional equivalent of a female and then plants the seed as a male. He changes gender relating to his passing through the arch alone -- this also seems metaphorically related to the process of photographic plate development shift in colors. 

This sex shift also relates him to Mercury, quicksilver, a transition metal named for a hermaphroditic god. The glyph for Mercury is used in biology and botany to mean double-sexed.

Mercury was once used in the amalgamation process of refining gold and silver ores. It was central to the practice of the assayer in juding the purity of gold and silver ore, and the alchemist in the the production of the Philosopher's Stone. Mercury signifies the ''coniunctio'' or uniting of opposites.

'''''fellatrice''''' 
Or: fellatrix , a female who performs oral-genital-sex on the penis. Quote: Woody Allen to Miro Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite (1995): ' I'm sure that you're a state-of-the-art fellatrix .' The etymology of fellatrice and fellatrix is the same as that of fellatio: from Latin, fellare (to suck). These words are used in English, French and Italian.
(denoting Cyprian's role, not his physiology).
 ''in fact, the word is not used in italian at all.''

==Page 883==

'''Ascension Day''' 
The fortieth day after Easter Sunday (which is always a Thursday), commemorating the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension Ascension] of Christ into heaven, according to Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51, and Acts 1:2.

==Page 884==

==Page 885==

'''outmoded sexual protocols''' 
Again, transgression = transcendence. Of course, also parallels struggl;es over acceptance of homosexuality in our times.

'''nasal intrusion''' 
Sticking one's nose into something.

'''''chavalitos''''' 
Spanish: kids.

==Page 886==

'''Grand Army of the Matrimonial Republic''' 
The Grand Army of the Republic comprised Union veterans of the American Civil War. Its heyday came around 1890-1910.

==Page 887==

'''endlessless''' 
A typo for endlessness.

==Page 887-888==
'''[T]he dream came and found him...''' 
Reef's contribution to the hallucination/dream motif previously referenced in the Traverse sections of the novel. The color yellow seems to be significant here and elsewhere, especially coded to Webb Traverse. [More forthcoming]

<blockquote>
          In the dream they were no longer in the ghostly canyons of the McElmo but in the city, not Venice but noplace American either, with an umappable operational endlessless (sic) to its streets, the same ancient, disquieting pictures engraved on its walls as back in the McElmo, spelling out a story whose pitiless truth couldn't be admitted officially by the authorities here because of the danger to the public sanity.... It was darker out here than he had any idea of. In the distance Reef caught sight of a procession of miners in their long rubber coats, only one of them, about halfway along, with the candle stub in his hat lit. Like postulants in habits, they proceeded single file down a narrow street like a humid drift lit back or front by a yellow lamp. As Reef came closer he saw the bearer of the light was Webb. 
        "Small victories," Webb greeted him. "Just to come away with one or two. To praise and to honor the small victories where and however they happen." 
        "Hasn't been too many of them lately, Pa," Reef tried to say. 
        "Not talking about yours, you numbskull." 
        Understanding that this was Webb's attempt to pass on another message, like up the séance in the Alps, Reef saw just for one lucid instant that this was the precise intelligence he needed to get him back to where he had wandered off the trail, so long ago. And then he was awake and trying to remember why it was important.</blockquote>

[[User:Bean|remy]] 13:15, 28 December 2006 (PST)

endlessless: typo for endlessness

pictures engraved on the walls: the Puebloan pictograms

'''Garfagnana''' 
Historical region of Italy, today part of the province of Lucca in the Apennines, in northwest Tuscany, but before the unification of Italy it belonged to the Duchy of Modena and Reggio, ruled by the Este family. For a short time, in the 16th century, it was governed by the poet Ludovico Ariosto [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfagnana].

'''Bagni di Lucca''' 
Note the similarity in name to Banjaluka (or Banja Luka), Bosnia or actually Republika Srpska , mentioned on page 834. Another bilocation, like Kara Tagh and Montenegro ([[ATD_748-767#Page_764|annotations, page 764]]).

Might also add: Novi Pazar = Novi Bazar = Newmarket.

Also Agadir and Cádiz, both coming from the Phoenician gadir, meaning '"castle", "fortress"..."walled stronghold" or simply "wall"'.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%A1diz]

'''homeopathic principle''' 
Like cures like. To alleviate an allergy, according to homeopathic doctrine, administer the allergen in an exceedingly dilute form.

==Page 889==

'''Say surly topple''' 
You can't help thinking Reef does this on purpose (or Pynchon :-). French ''C'est sur la table'': It's on the table.

'''pasta asciutta''' 
Pasta dish with potatoes and green beans. Actually ''pasta asciutta'' refers to any kind of ''pasta''. Actually, pasta asciutta refers to any kind of packaged dry (asciutta translates as dry) pasta (as opposed to made from [http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1635,144190-254199,00.html scratch]) and apparently when Reef boiled it, it "was always overdone." There are also lots of regional recipes with pasta asciutta as part of the name of the recipe, e. g., pasta asciutta alla bolognese, or pasta asciutta alla siciliana.

'''pasta fazool''' 
Officially ''pasta e fagioli;'' "fazool" imitates the pronunciation in a regional dialect of Italian. A hearty soup consisting of pasta, any one of a variety of beans (borlotti (cranberry) beans, kidney beans, cannellini beans, ...), and optionally some meat.

==Page 890==

'''''al dente''''' 
Italian, cooked so as to be firm when eaten; literally: to the tooth or to the bite, referring to the need to chew the pasta due to its firmness.

'''Barcelona''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_Week Tragic Week] (in Catalan la Setmana Tràgica, in Spanish la Semana Trágica) (July 25-August 2, 1909) is the name used for a series of bloody confrontations between the army and the working classes of Barcelona and other cities of Catalonia, backed by the anarchists, communists and republicans, during the last week of July 1909. It was caused by the calling-up of reserve troops by Prime Minister Antonio Maura to be sent as reinforcements when Spain renewed military-colonial activity in Morocco on July 9. There would be risings again in 1917, and Barcelona was among the last strongholds of the Spanish Republic in the Civil War of 1936-39; even during the Civil war, anarchists and Communists fought in the streets (see Orwell's ''Homage to Catalonia'' for a participant account. In 1972 anarchist grafiti could still be found in the Old City). But in 1909, indeed, much worse was to come.

'''''línea del fuego''''' 
Spanish: line of (the) fire. This may be a naive translation of "firing line" or "line of fire" (note the satisfying ambiguity); ''línea de tiro'' seems to be preferred.

'''...''absence of desire''--why one might choose ''not to embrace'' what the world judges, it often seemed unanimously, to lie clearly in one's interest.''' 
Cyprian is becoming aware of his interest in divesting himself of desire. Yashmeen in the following sentences notes this change that took place in him in Bosnia; he notes how difficult renouncing his desire for her will be, and she that this is not the real meaning.

==Page 891==

'''Biarritz''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biarritz Biarritz], located about 11 miles from the border with Spain, is a town by the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in southwestern France.

'''''bal musette''''' 
French: dance hall (bal), with the music provided by an accordion band. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal-musette Bal-musette] is a style of French popular music presumably played at these dance halls.

'''in some auxiliary sense . . . his own''' 
Review details of the encounter at Carnesalve (page 881).

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 748-767

2007-08-29T20:16:48Z

Sideming: /* Page 756 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 749==

'''Crotona''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_633|page 633: Crotona in Magna Grecia]]. or [[ATD_695-723#Page_706|page 706: Crotona]]. 

Or Croton. One of the most flourishing cities of Magna Graecia. According to Herodotus (3.131), the physicians of Croton were considered the foremost among the Greeks. Pythagoras founded his school, the Pythagoreans, at Croton circa 530 BC [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crotona Crotona].

'''Professor McTaggart''' 
Cf [[ATD_219-242#Page_239|page 239: McTaggart]].

'''combination-room''' 
in the University of Cambridge, England, a room into which the fellows withdraw after dinner, for wine, dessert, and conversation.

'''a Nietzschean''' 
A believer in the ideas of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/

In the context of Yashmeen's letter, where being a Nietzschean is contrasted with Professor McTaggart's very optimistic vision of "an era of enlightenment and peace", Yashmeen is surely referring to Nietzsche's visionary prediction of a horrible coming century, the 20th.
["That he--Nietzsche--forsaw the advent of Hitlerism is another matter."
R.J. Hollingdale, translator of ''Thus Spake Zarathustra'', Penguin Classics, introduction, page 14]. 
McTaggart's view---he did not believe that Time existed, remember!-- was a very socially acceptable and common one especially among intellectuals of the time. Notice the word 'evolved', as Darwin's ideas spread and many thought the world would keep getting better and better; there would be no more wars ever, etc. 
H. G. Wells was such an optimist---and WW 1 devastated this belief.
[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 11:03, 15 June 2007 (PDT)

Nietzsche's sister, in an introduction to his work [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thus_Spoke_Zarathustra ''Thus Spake Zarathustra''], said that while writing the work, Nietzsche wrote to her:

:"I have engaged a place here for three months: forsooth, I am the greatest fool to allow my courage to be sapped from me by the climate of Italy. Now and again I am troubled by the thought: WHAT NEXT? '''My 'future' is the darkest thing in the world to me''', but as there still remains a great deal for me to do, I suppose I ought rather to think of doing this than of my future, and leave the rest to THEE and the gods."<ref>Nietzsche, Friedrich, ''Thus Spake Zarathustra, A Book For All And None'', Translated by Thomas Commmon, Introduction by Mrs. Forster-Nietzsche - [http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext99/spzar10.txt e-text at Project Gutenberg]</ref> (''Emphasis added'')

Nietzsche's sister notoriously elided and, perhaps, falsified some of Nietzshe's letters, scholars agree. See the Introduction, p. 14, by the later translator of the Penguin Classics edition of ''Thus Spake Zarathustra''
alluded to above. Pynchon would know this as/if he read Nietzsche, I must assume. I think the "dark future" Nietzshe writes of in that letter, if it is quoted accurately,refers to his fears of his own future--the reception and development of his ideas--see preceding line but, mostly, his own fears for his mental health. He was what we might call neurasthenic; his sensibility needed a special place near the water in Turin to write 'Zarathustra' he felt. He worried, rightly, that he might
have a breakdown---and later did. He was out of touch with reality most of his last years. [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 09:01, 18 June 2007 (PDT)

'''returned to thoughts'''
Perhaps another of Pynchon's masterfully subtle verbal/ideational allusions. One of Nietzsche's famous ideas is the notion of 'the eternal return'. By this he meant that the universe, if it had no Final End as
in most teleologies, and all everyone did within it, would recur and repeat endlessly. Yashmeen's earlier thoughts were now recurring, so to allude. 
One might reflect on Pynchon's view of History: does it recur cyclically?

==Page 750==

'''Ringpungpa''' 
In the 15th century, Namka Gyantsan, an aristocrat, usurped the post of Dzongpon (magistrate) of Rinpung county and changed it to a hereditary position. Called Ringpungpa in Tibetan historical books, the family gradually grew stronger and more powerful, establishing a separatist rule in Ringpung County whose influence extended into the internal section of the Phaddru regime [http://www.tibetinfor.com.cn/tibetzt-en/zxyj/03/003.doc]. The "scholar" referred to would have to be a descendent of this powerful family. Again the spiritual and temporal powers are intertwined. TRP is fond of usurpation; cf. the Tristero in [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49''].

'''''Insh'allah''''' 
Arabic term evoked by speakers to indicate hope for an aforementioned event to occur in the future. The phrase translates into English as "God willing" or "If it is God's will." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insha'Allah Wikipedia]

==Page 751==

'''Bucharest''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucharest Bucharest] is the capital of Romania. It is located in the southeast of the country, and an industrial and commercial center of Romania.

'''Constantza''' 
Constanţa, Romanian port on Black Sea.

'''Batumi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batumi Batumi] is a Black Sea port city in southwest Georgia. It is located about 12 mile from the Turkish border in a subtropical zone, rich in citrus fruit and tea.

'''dukhans''' 
Inns.

'''Baku''' 
Cf [[ATD_149-170#Page_168|page 168: Baku]]. This is the fifth time Baku was mentioned; previously page 168, page 441, page 631 and page 639. But this is the first time Baku itself was being described. 
Background: In 1907 Oil workers in Baku protested against working conditions, led by none other than Uncle Joe Stalin himself. On September 29, 1907, Stalin delivered a speech at the gravesite of a worker killed by hired agents of capitalists.

'''Caspian Sea''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea Caspian Sea] is a saltwater lake in southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, the largest inland body of water in the world. It is bordered on the west by Azerbaijan and Russia, on the northeast and east by Kazakhstan, on the east by Turkmenistan, and on the south by Iran. In the 1960s and 1970s the level of Caspian Sea fell substantially, partly due to irrigation usage of the water. In 1980s its level began rising again at a rate of about 6 to 8 inches annually. The Caspian Sea has no outlet, but it is linked to the Baltic Sea, the White Sea, and the Black Sea by an extensive network of inland waterways, chief of which is the Volga River.

'''Bnito oil tankers''' 
In 1870s-80s Nobels Brothers (Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_444|page 444: Nobel brothers]]) dominated distribution of oil within the Russian Empire. The Rothschilds decided to take on the Nobels and in 1886 founded their own oil company: ''BNITO''. To break the Nobels' monopoly on distribution of oil, The Bnito Co. won a contract to transport Bnito oil east of the Suez Canal and developed the ''tanker'', a ship specifically designed to carry oil in storage tanks built into the hull as opposed to just placing barrels of oils in the hold. (Some historians said the exploitations of Baku's oil were how did the Nobel Brothers afford a peace prize and Rothschilds acquire their bank.)

'''Krasnovodsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenbashi%2C_Turkmenistan Krasnovodsk] is a city in Turkmenistan on the Krasnovodsk Gulf of the Caspian Sea. As the terminus of the Trans-Caspian Railroad, it is an important transportation center. In 1993 it was renamed by the president-for-life Niyazov, after his self-proclaimed tilte, ''Türkmenbasy'', Leader of all Turkmen.

'''Trans-Caspian Railroad''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Caspian_railway Trans Caspian Railroad], also called the Central Asiatic Railroad, built by the Russians in the 19th century, follows the path of the Silk Road through much of western Central Asia. It starts at the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea at Krasnovodsk and heads southeast, along the edge of the Karakum Desert.

'''Qara Qum''' 
Now more often spelled Kara Kum, a desert between Caspian Sea and Amu Darya River with the Aral Sea to the north. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakum_Desert Karakum Desert] occupies about 80% of the area of Turkmenistan with an average of one person per 2.5 sq miles. It has significant oil and natural gas deposits, and is crossed by the Trans-Caspian railroad.

'''railroad-metaphysics''' 
Notice how 'consciousness is a part of this description. And reflect on what Pynchon thinks of railroads, therefore of the phenomenology of 'railroad metaphysics'.

==Page 752==

'''The effect of rotating ninety degrees from a moving timeline, as expected, was delivery into a space containing imaginary axes...''' 
The moving train is described by a tensor, its path a vector in three dimensions plus the time dimension. Looking out from it, i.e. at ninety degrees to its direction of travel, may involve axes with complex number coordinates. In other words, looking out of a train moving through unknown territory involves one in acts of imagination, trying to fathom the lives lived in the territory one is passing through, here a very strange one for Kit (consultation of the Times Atlas shows the railroad's route is described precisely, between desert and irrigated fields, and on to the terminus), or perhaps alternate histories generated by leaving the train at any point.

'''Merv''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merv Merv] is a city in Turkmenistan. It was a major oasis-city in Central Asia on the historical Silk Road. The site of ancient Merv had been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

'''barkhan''' 
traveling crescent-shaped sand dune.

'''footplate man''' 
Railroad crewman, one involved in the running or maintenance of the locomotive (the control cabin surface of a steam locomotive is called the footplate).

'''deadheading''' 
A crew member riding as a passenger, not actively participating in the running of the vehicle, is said to be "deadheading"; the term is still used in railroading and on the airlines. Similarly, a nonworking locomotive being towed as part of a train is a "deadhead". (Unavoidable allusion, perhaps, to the non-working followers of the Grateful Dead, as well).

'''Samarkand''' 
[http://columbia.thefreedictionary.com/Samarkan Samarkand] is a city in Uzbekistan on the Trans-Caspian Railroad. It is one of the oldest existing cities in the world and the oldest of Central Asia. At its greatest period it had great silk and iron industries and was the meeting point of merchants' caravans from India, Persia, and China. It still is a major cotton and silk center.

'''Namaz Premulkoff''' 
His given name is the Persian and Turkic translation of Arabic ''salah'' or ''salat'': the five daily prayers required of Muslims. How did a Muslim get a Russianized surname? Same way Kazakhstan's present ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev did, by getting his vital statistics recorded under Russian rules.
:In a heartening instance of world news following the wiki, Tajikistan's President [http://tajikistan.neweurasia.net/?p=173 Emomali Rakhmonov] announced in March 2007 that he and other Tajiks will be stripping the Slavic endings off their names. Kindly address him as President Rakhmon in all future correspondence.

==Page 753 ==

'''Charjui''' 
A city of 25,000, bordering with Uzbekistan, in Turkmenistan.

'''Amu-Darya . . . the Oxus''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_439|page 439: the Oxus]].

'''Bukhara''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukhara Bukhara] lies west of Samarkand and is one of the most ancient cities of Uzbekistan. The name of Bukhara originates from the word ''vihara'' which means "monastery" in Sanskrit. The city was once a large commerical center on the Silk Road and a center of learning renowned throughout the Islamic world. It still has 350 mosques and 100 religious colleges.

'''Kagan''' 
Kagan City, ten miles outside Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

'''Khokand''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokand Khokand] is a city in eastern Uzbekistan at the southwestern edge of the Fergana Valley. It is about 140 miles souteast of Tashkent. It is on the crossroads of the ancient trade routes.

'''Andizhan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andijan Andizhan] is the fourth-largest city in Uzbekistan. It is located in the east of the country in the Fergana Valley near the border with Kyrgyzstan.

'''Osh''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osh Osh] is an ancient city in the Fergana Valley of southern Kyrgyzstan. Osh is the second largest city in Kyrgyzstan and is often referred to as the "capital of the south".

'''Kashgar''' 
Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_630|page 630: Kashgar]].

'''the Taklamakan''' 
Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page_444|page 444: Taklamakan]].

'''Stanley and Livingstone''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone David Livingstone] (1813-1873) was a Scottish missionary and explorer in central Aftica. He was the first European to see Victoria Falls, which he named. He is perhaps best remembered because of his meeting with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley Henry Stanley] (1841-1904), a jounalist and explorer, which gave rise to the popular quotation, ''Dr. Livingstone, I presume?''. Late in his life Livingstone completely lost contact with the outside world for six years, and Stanley was sent by ''New York Herald'' in 1869 to find him as a publicity stunt. Stanley found Livingstone on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in November 10, 1871 with the now famous tongue-in-cheek greeting (Livingstone was the only white man within hundreds of miles). In 1939, a popular film called [http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0031973/ ''Stanley and Livingstone''] was released with Spencer Tracy as Stanley.

==Page 754==

'''Prokladka''' 
The name is a common Russian word with two meanings: construction and gasket.
Female hygienic pads (with or without wings) are also referred to as prokladkas

'''Kalinka''' 
"My Little Snowball Tree", Russian folk song, popularized by ''Red Army Chorus''.

'''Ochi Chorniya''' 
Stereotypical Russian ballad, "Dark Eyes." The second word is actually ''Chorniye''. (It's spelled so now, but before 1917 it was ''chorniya'' or ''chornyya.'')

'''E. N. Molokhovets''' 
The book (''Podarok molodym khozyaykam'', Kursk: 1861) and the author are real. Elena Burman married city architect Frants Frantsevich Molokhovets, whose name is not Russian but suggests a Germanized Polish noble family (Franz Molochowiec). The etymology is not clear.

'''Orloff''' 
Also known as Oryol or Orel Trotter, a breed developed in the 19th century.

'''the Tian Shan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian_Shan The Tian Shan] (Chinese words for "Celestial Mountains") is the mountain range, west of the Taklamakan Desert, running some 1,700 miles eastward from Tashkent into China. The mountain range is part of the Himalayan orogenic belt. The highest peak in the Tian Shan is Jengish chokusu (24,400 ft) and the second highest Khan Tengri (23,100 ft).

'''''Bol'shaia Igra''''' 
"The Great Game", counterpart to the ''Inconvenience''. Cf page 123 & page 245.

'''use of betel''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betel Betel] is a spice whose leaves have medicinal properties. The plant is evergreen and perennial, with glossy heart-shaped leaves and white catkins, and grows to a height of slightly over 3 feet. In India and parts of Southeast Asia, betel leaves are chewed with mineral lime and the areca nut which promotes red-stained saliva. Betel leaves are used as a stimulant, an anitseptic and a breath-freshener. They are used to treat headaches, arthritis, toothache, indigestion, constipation, etc.

==Page 755==

'''the Urals''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural_Mountains The Urals] is a mountain system in western Russia extending for over 1,240 miles from the Artic Ocean to the Caspian Sea, and traditionally regarded as the natural boundary between Europe and Asia. The mountains hold vast mineral wealth.

'''A.D.C. or ''lichnyi adiutant''''' 
Aide-de-camp or (Russian:) personal adjutant.

'''Klopski''' 
''Klop'' is a Russian word for "bug."

'''''peculiar machines''''' 
Arcade games? 

These "so-called Chinese Enigmata," with their habit-forming and soul-stealing technological effects, sound like a riff on the current state of video games, TV, virtual reality, internet--screens in general. --[[User:Jerwolff|Jerwolff]] 12:55, 9 May 2007 (PDT)

'''''Yob tvoyu mat' ''''' 
Russian, literally: Fuck your mother. Just a general expletive. (Cf [[ATD_615-643#Page_616|page 616: ''Yob tvoyu mat''']]).

'''''zastolye''''' 
Group of people around a table. A feast.

'''''begin to spin''''' 
To whirl like a Dervish, a member of a mystical Sufi sect that spins to induce visions ("your mind proceeding to flee in all directions at once"). The "Spin" of an electron, however, is also one of four quantum numbers (all vector quantities) specifying the electron's exact quantum state. It can be further used to calculate properties of electrons as wave functions, radiating "in all directions at once" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_spin].

==Page 756==

'''''Poshol ty na khuy''''' 
Impolite Russian, literally "Go to the prick", meaning; "Fuck off".

'''The Doosra''' 
Doosra is an Urdu word loosely meaning "second". It has become common parlance in cricket in the past few years and is used to describe a ball bowled by a finger spinner that turns in the opposite direction from his stock delivery. A lot of controversy surrounds the doosra as it is hard to bowl legally (it is much easier to throw it than to bowl it). One assumes that Pynchon was aware of all this: see the cricketing references on pp.219-242. In particular, Pynchon has already referenced the bosie: a mirror image of the doosra. More bilocations, anyone?

The Doosra "turns in the opposite direction," one could say it "counterflies."

'''from Manchuria west to Hungary''' 
The extent of the 13th century Mongol Empire (see "Chingiz" below).

'''Pan-Turanian''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turanism Pan-Turanism] is a political movement for the union of all [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turan Turanian peoples], or the collective inclusion of all Altaic peoples.

'''ganja''' 
cannabis.

'''fusel oils''' 
Fusel alcohols, also sometimes called fusel oils, or potato oil in Europe, are higher order (more than two carbons) alcohols formed by fermentation and present in cider, mead, beer, wine, and spirits to varying degrees. The term fusel is German for “bad liquor.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusel_oil Fusel oil].

'''Chingiz''' 
Also transliterated as "Genghis" as in "Genghis Khan".

'''''denshchik''''' 
Russian: batman.

'''Madali''' 
Muhammad 'Ali Khan, also known as Madali Khan. From 1822–42 he ruled the Uzbek Ming dynasty and the Kokand khanate, raising the level of culture,
expanding foreign policy and resisting Russian aggression.

==Page 757==

'''poisonous nutmeat''' 
betel.

'''Uyghur''' 
Member of an ethnic group in western China, sometimes described as Indo-European.

'''Al Mar-Fuad''' 
Get a load of this character! He dresses in English hunting tweeds and a deerstalker cap, brandishes a shotgun, pronounces his "r"'s as w's, and says things like "Weally?" and "I am going out after some gwouse." Maybe "wabbits" are next for this Uyghur version of [http://jenn98.com/bugs/images/bugs-elmer-daffy.jpg ''Elmer Fudd''] (Al Mar-Fuad--get it?).

'''Lord Salisbury''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gascoyne-Cecil%2C_3rd_Marquess_of_Salisbury Lord Salisbury] (1830-1903) was a British statesman and Prime Minister on three occasions: 1885-1886, 1886-1892 and 1895-1902. He, the first British Prime Minister of the 20th century, is seen as an icon of traditional, aristocratic conservatism.

==Page 758==

'''. . . so as to draw off the odd Russian division in the event of a European war''' 
To have some idea of the realtionship between Russia and Japan at this time, see the Wikipedia article on the Russo-Japanese War [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War].

'''yakitori pitches''' 
Yakitori: grilled bird, a Japanese type of skewered chicken made from several bite-sized pieces of chicken meat, or chicken offal, skewered on a bamboo skewer and barbecued, usually over charcoal [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakitori Wikipedia]. Pitch: a stand, especially for selling something; compare [[ATD_588-614#Page_608|"queer the pitch," p. 608.]]

'''old Cavi ate the sausage at Kabul''' 
Sir Louis Cavagnari, British envoy to Afghanistan, killed on Sept. 3, 1879, in the course of an insurrection. If "eat the sausage" is some horrible detail, no online source specifies. 
I believe "eat the sausage" is slang and refers to the fact that he was killed, like "kicked the bucket." 
:Source, please? If it is a known figure of speech, it's quite an obscure one. In a Google search on May 9, 2007, search string
"eat the sausage" die
:the first 80 hits gave phrases involving cyanide, potato salad, mustard, and animals from which sausage is made, but it was always a real sausage, not a metaphorical one. "Kick the bucket," on the other hand, came up as a metaphor in 10 out of the first 10 hits.

'''meddling of the Powers...convergence to the Mohammedan''' 
Exactly the situation today. More 1900/2000 parallels. It might be more accurate to say that the situation today evolved from the situation then. This sounds more like a good discussion topic rather than annotation material.

'''''Polkovnik''''' 
Russian: Colonel.

'''''Polny pizdets''''' 
Russian: a total fuckup.

'''Simla''' 
Now call [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimla Shimla]. It was the summer capital of the erstwhile British Raj in India. It is now the capital city of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Shimla, nestled in the middle Himalayas in northern India, is a favorite destination for honeymooners and tourists, particularly in summer. 

Punjabi Hill States, refuge and resort of Raj officers for generations [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_States].

'''Pelitis''' 
Peliti was a Manufacturing Confectioner and he was by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen Empress, a purveyor of cakes, chocolates etc. He started his restaurant and confectionery business in 1870 at 11 Government Place in the Dalhousie Square area of Calcutta.(At a meeting on 26-Sep-1919 the Rotary Club of Calcutta was organized thus ushering in the movement in India and indeed the mainland of Asia)[http://www.rotacal.org/pelitis.htm].

'''the Combermere Bridge''' 
In 1828, Lord Combermere, the British Commander-in-Chief of the Indian army, built a bridge spanning a gushing mountain stream in Simla (Shimla).
See a drawing of [http://www.victoriamemorial-cal.org/tripur_combridge.html the bridge].

== Page 759 ==

'''transnoctial''' 
Not through but ''across'' the night; [[ATD_119-148#Page_131|compare Transnoctial Discussion group, p. 131.]]

'''the Waziri''' 
A people from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waziristan Waziristan], a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.

'''"haunted spaces of desire . . . walled in by work-demands" 
is co-conscious(ness), page 760

==Page 760==

'''two creatures resident within the same life . . . each at once respectful and contemptuous of the other's imperatives''' 
As frequently as English speakers quote, "Lord, what fools these mortals be!" (and just as inaptly), German speakers quote a line from Goethe's ''Faust:''
:''Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust''
It begins a fine speech, which this contributor translates as
<blockquote>Alas, there are two souls living in my breast, 
Which will not be reconciled. 
One, grasping for love, 
Faces out to the world; 
The other shuns the flesh 
And turns toward a higher sphere.</blockquote>
Halfcourt sees himself as a Faust-like dual being.

'''mystical waterfalls that hide the Hidden Worlds of Tibetan lamas''' 
Behind which lie the beyuls. These places really exist! Please see Ian Baker's [http://www.amazon.com/Heart-World-Journey-Secret-Place/dp/1594200270 ''The Heart of the World: A Journey to the Last Secret Place'']

==Page 761==

'''subaltern''' 
A junior officer in the British army; now titled second lieutenant in most regiments.

'''Guri Amir''' 
Guri Amir or Gur-e Amir is the mausoleum Tamerlane built for his family. It is a great monument of Islamic architecture. [http://www.galenfrysinger.com/guri_amir_mausoleum.htm Guri Amir Mausoleum pictures].

'''Alexander III''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Russia Alexander III] (1845-1894) was the Tsar of Russia between 1881-1894. He died in Livadia Palace, Crimea, and was buried at the Peter and Paul Fortress in St.Petersburg. He was succeeded by his eldest son Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. Tsar Alexander's memorial is located in Irkustsk at the embankment of the Angara River.

'''Tamerlane''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur Tamerlane] (1336-1405), the most influential Central Asia's military leader of the Middle Ages, restored the former Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. During his long military career, Tamerlane engaged in an almost constant state of warfare in order to extend his borders and maintain his conquest, which reached from the Mediterranean in the west to India in the South and Russia in the North.

'''Craven A''' 
Plainly not the blend of pipe tobacco celebrated under the name "Arcadia" by James M. Barrie. London tobacconist Craven also gave his name to a [http://www.winspiration.co.uk/slogans.htm brand of cigarettes] now manufactured elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Formerly advertised under the slogan, "It's kind to your throat."

'''Eurasia Irredenta''' 
Fighters for Italian statehood in the 19th century used the slogan "Italia Irredenta": unredeemed Italy, that is, the lands still held by Habsburgs and other foreign powers. Their goal of course was to redeem it, place these areas under rule by Italians and fold them into one kingdom. 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irredentism Irredentism] is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity and/or prior historical possession, actual or alleged. It is a feature of identity politics combined with cultural and political geography. Since most borders have been moved and redrawn at one point, a great many countries could theoretically present irredentist claims to their neighbours. 

Cf. "the mad Irredentist" with whom V. is rumored to have run off to Paris. ''V.''http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?search=irredentist&fulltext=Search
 

Irredentism is similar to so-called "pan-" movements, such as the "Pan-German movement that emerged in the late 19th century. The difference is that irredentists seek territory, whereas "pan-" movements have the more ambitious aim of seizing control of any state that has some citizens of the "pan" ethnicity, or a related ethnicity. Thus during World War I some German politicians fantasized about controlling Belgian, since the Flemish were Germanic "kin."
 
''''Turania'''' 
Turanism of page 756.
 

==Page 762==

'''Beerbohm Tree''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Beerbohm_Tree Herbert Beerbohm Tree] (1853-1917), noted English actor.

'''arrack''' 
an Asian alcoholic beverage like rum that is distilled from a fermented mash of malted rice with toddy or molasses.

'''clepsydra''' 
water clock.

==Page 763==

'''taking flannel''' 
Speculation: metaphor constructed in parallel with [http://www.college-of-law.co.uk/20092.html "take silk."] On appointment as a Queen's Counsel—a senior sort of lawyer in England—the practitioner puts away his or her old robes and assumes a new one made of silk. Did Halfcourt come late to a profession in which the customary apparel is made of flannel? If so, which profession?

'''P&O steamer''' 
Pacific and Orient line, British steamship company.

'''the Great Bitter Lake''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bitter_Lake The Great Bitter Lake] is a salt water lake between the north and south part of the Suez Canal.

'''Karachi''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi Karachi], located on the coast of the Arabian Sea, northwest of the Indus River Delta, is the most populated city in Pakistan. It is the financial and commercial center as well as the largest port of the country. The metropolitan area and its suburbs comprises the world's second most populated city.

'''Kiamari''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiamari Kiamari] is one of the neighborhoods of Kiamari Town in Karachi, Pakistan.

'''the Northwestern Railway''' 
The North Western Railway (NWR) of India was formed in January 1886, an amalgam of a number of smaller railways, principally the Sind, Punjab and Delhi Railway. The division of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947 saw the rail lines of the NWR divided between India (1,900 miles) and Pakistan (6,900 miles).

'''the Indus''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_River The Indus] is the longest and most important river in Pakistan and one of the most important one on the Indian subcontinent. Starting in the Tibetan plateau the Indus flows, through Kashmir, in a southernly direction along the entire length of Pakistan and merges into the Arabian Sea near Karachi.

'''the plains of Sind''' 
fertile plains around the Indus river in the center of Sind (Sindh) province, Pakistan.

'''Nowshera''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nowshera Nowshera] is a major city in the North-West Frontier Province, Paksitan. It is known for its Cantonement, the site of Pakistan Army's School of Artillery.

'''Durghal station''' 
???

'''Malakand Pass''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malakand_Pass The Malakand Pass] is a mountain pass in India.

'''Karakoram Pass''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakoram_Pass The Karakoram Pass], on the boundary of territory controlled by India and China, is the highest pass on the ancient caravan route between Leh, Ladakh and Yarkand in the Tarim Basin.

'''East Turkestan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Turkestan East Turkestan], largely inhabited by Turkic people, is the part of greater Turkestan in Xinjiang, China and far eastern Central Asia. Marco Polo passed Turkestan in the year of 1272.

'''might as well all be on a Cook's tour''' 
Cook's is still in business selling package tours. What cost Auberon months of hardship and danger, groups might now visit as tourists.

'''the Tungus''' 
[http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/evenks.shtml The Tungus], called the Evenks since 1931, are a Siberian ethnic group who live in the Siberian taiga from the Yenisei and Ob river basins to the Pacific Ocean and from the Amur River to the Arctic Ocean. The original home of the Tungus was in the vicinity of Lake Baikal but later migrated eastward to the current habitat. The Tungus are closely related to the Manchus and, before 1920, practiced a shamanistic religion. Their language is a close relation of the Mongolian and the Turkic ones, and the written language was created only in the late 1920s. First mentioned as “exhibits” in the White City, P.23.

'''the Yenisei''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yenisei_River The Yenisei], a river in Russia flowing from Mongolia through Siberia into the Arctic Ocean, is the fifth longest in the world. It is slightly shorter but with 1.5 times the flow of the Mississippi-Missouri.

'''''bergut''''' 
A golden eagle used by the Kirghiz Tatars, who call it Bergut or Bearcoot, for the capture of antelopes, foxes and wolves.

'''Altai''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altay_Mountains Altai] is a mountain range in central Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan come together, and where the great rivers Irtysh, Ob and Yenisei have their source.

==Page 764==

'''Irkutsk''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irkutsk,_Russia Irkutsk] is located about 45 miles northwest of Lake Baikal but 3,100 miles east of Moscow. It is one of the largest cities in Siberia. The city proper lies at the Angara River, a tributary of the Yenisei. A small river, the Irkut, from which the city takes its name, joins the Angara directly opposite the city. Irkutsk's main industries are timber, aluminum and minerals.

'''the Angara''' 
[http://en.wikiopedia.org/wiki/Angara_River The Angara] is a 1,150-mile long river in Irkutsk Oblast, southeastern Siberia, Russia. It is the only river flowing out of Lake Baikal, and is a headwater of the Yenisie.

[[image:Tushuk-Tash.jpg|thumb|Tushuk Tash|right]]'''Tushuk Tash''' 
Also called ''Shipton's Arch''. [http://www.naturalarches.org/gallery-China-TushukTash.htm Tushuk Tash], the highest natural arch in the world, is a very crumbly conglomerate arch in Kara Tagh range 25 miles west-northwest of Kashgar, Xianjiang, China. The National Geographic team measured the arch at 1,200 feet high (about the height of the Empire State Building) with a estimated span of 180 feet. Tushuk Tash means ''Pierce Rock'' ("a rock with a hole in it"). Tushuk Tash was made known to the outside in 1947 by English mountaineer Eric Shipton but was "lost" because of the inaccurate location given. In May 2000 ''National Geographic'' "rediscovered" it again and used the local name.

'''Kara Tagh''' 
The mountain range near Kashgar where Tushuk Tash is located. 

With a name meaning "black mountain" you would expect there to be more than one. Places going by this name or the similar names Karatau and Kara Dagh are dotted all over Central Asia. This one lies in extreme western China.

Is it significant that ''Karadağ'' is the Turkish name of Montenegro?

'''the Tunguska country''' 
[http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/evenks.shtml The Tunguska country], in its broadest geographical sense, is the Siberia taiga region where the Tungus people live—the Ob River in the west to the Okhotsk Sea in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to Manchuria and Sakhalin in the south. Its core is [http://www.bartelby.com/65/tu/TungskBas.html the Tunguska Basins] in east central Siberia (Krasnoyarsk Territory) between the Yenisei and Lena rivers. Across the basin three Tunguska rivers—the Lower Tunguska, the Stony Tunguska and the Upper Tunguska—run through. Commonly the area of these three rivers is considered the home of the Tungus: the Tunguska country in its narrower definition.

'''And when we try to return . . . [w]e may not be able to''' 
Kit had this experience when the liner ''Stupendica'' doubled herself.

'''Buriat''' 
The Buriats live in southwestern Siberia to northwestern China and Mongolia. They include Buddhists and shamanists. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buryats Buriats], the largest ethnic minority group in Siberia, are of Mongolian descent and share many customs with their Mongolian cousins such as nomadic herding and living in yurts.

'''Lake Baikal''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal Lake Baikal] lies in Southern Siberia, Russia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and Buryatia to the southeast near the city of Irkutsk. It is the largest freshwater lake and 2nd largest by volume in the world. It is also the deepest (max 5,369 ft; ave 2,487 ft) and oldest (25-30 million years). It contains over one fifth of the world's and over 90% of Russia's liquid fresh surface water. It is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

==Page 765==

'''Japanese "38th Year" Arisaka rifle''' 
Japanes Arisaka Type 38 Rifle produced from 1905 to the early 1940s. The "38th Year" refers to the 38th Year of reign of the Emperor at the time of the rifle's introduction - 1905. [http://world.guns.ru/rifle/rfl22-e.htm The Arisaka Type 38] was based on the Mauser action and over-all design. It was designed by ("eponymous") Colonel Nariakira Arisaka (1852-1915).

'''Marwari''' 
[http://www.kyhorsepark.com/imh/bw/marwari.html The Marwari horse], native to the Marwar region of India, are particularly well suited for both the desert environment and its role as a battle horse for the cavalry. It was said that the Marwari horse has a homing instinct and exceptional hearing famous for bring back riders who became lost in the desert. There were only three ways a Marwari left a battlefield: one when he was victorious, another carried his wounded master to safety and the last eaten by vultures after laying down his life for his master.

'''Ogdai''' 
Ogdai (1185-1241), 3rd son of Genghis Khan, and the ruler of Mongol Emprie between 1229-1241.

'''the journey itself is a conscious Being''' 

'''I am contaminated beyond hope, Mushtaq''' 
Halfcourt's predicament ''vis a vis'' Yashmeen is reminiscent of that of Edward Ashburnham, Ford Madox Ford's "Good Soldier".
:In what way, may I ask?
By being in love with a woman he cannot possibly have without breaking every rule of honor he lives by.

==Page 766==

'''the scholar Taranatha''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taranatha Taranatha] (1575-1634) is considered the scholar and exponent of the Jonang school of Tibetan Buddhism.

'''the Tibetan Canon''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_Buddhist_canon The Tibetan Buddhist canono] is a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various sects of Tibetan Buddhism.

'''the Tengyur''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tengyur The Tengyur] is the section of the Tibetan canon to which were assigned commentaries to the Buddhist teachings, treatises and abhidharma works. It constains 3626 texts in 224 volumes.

'''''Rigpa Dzinpai Phonya''''' 
An excerpt of this book (''Knowledge-Bearing Messenger'') appeared in an anthology [http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FBook-Heaven-Anthology-Writings-Ancient%2Fdp%2F0195119339%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1180393791%26sr%3D1-1&tag=hyperartspynchon&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325 ''The Book of Heaven: An Anthology of Writings from Ancient to Modern Times''] (2000) by Carol & Philip Zaleski, pp. 349-354.

'''Rimpung Ngawang Jigdag''' 
It should be Ri''n''pung Ngawang Jigdag, the 16th-entury Tibetan Prince, (Rinpugapa of page 750), who obtained the glimpse of paradise by summoning a Yogi in a meditative visualisation.

'''when you come to a fork in the road, take it''' 
A maxim of America's foremost Yogi, the baseball player Yogi Berra.

'''Grünwedel''' 
[http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/creator/albert_gr%C3%BCnwedel.html.en Albert Grünwedel] (1856-1935) was a German archaeologist of India, Tibet and Central Asia. He published a book about Buddhist iconography ''Bibliotheca Buddhica'' (1903). Of the four Turfan expeditions dispatched from Germany, he led the first (1902-1903) and the third (1906-1907).

'''''Shambhalai Lamyig''''' 
fictitious book.

'''Laufer''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthold_Laufer Berthold Laufer] (1874-1934) was a German-American anthropologist, orientalist. For 35 years he was virtually the only Sinologist working in the United States. He made four major expeditions to the Himalayas (from ''Encyclopedia Britannica''): one sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in New York (1901-1904), another one by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago (1907-1910). He could read and speak not only Chinese, but Manchu, Japanese, Tibetan, and many other Asian languages (from Chicago Field Museum).

==References==
<references />

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 171-198

2007-08-29T18:53:49Z

Sideming: /* Page 172 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 171==

[[image:kenosha-kid.jpg|thumb|125px|"The Kenosha Kid" by Forbes Parkhill (Aug 1931) 
[http://themodernword.com/pynchon/Pynchon_kenosha_kid.html Full text and images at The Modern Word]|right]]'''Kieselguhr Kid''' 
Dynamite, a blasting explosive, was invented in 1867 by Alfred P. Nobel by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr.

The name also recalls the Kenosha Kid sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which may have taken its name from a 1931 pulp fiction story by Forbes Parkhill, a two-fisted wild west adventure.

'''...detective agencies like Pinkerton‘s and Thiel‘s''' 
see Wikipedia Entries [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_Detective_Agency 1],[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Detective_Service_Company 2]

'''they could look at the unsolved cases the way a banker might at instruments of debt''' 
And bankers call those instruments ''negotiable paper.''

'''reaction of 1849''' 
Acts of European governments to suppress the widespread liberal revolutions of 1848. The reaction impelled many people to emigrate to the U.S.

'''Sangre de Cristos''' 
southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_De_Cristo_Mountains Wikipedia Entry]

Robert Oppenheimer had a ranch in the Sangre de Cristos and loved to ride horseback through the area since he was 18. When the Manhattan Project sought a location to set up shop, Oppenheimer saw Los Alamos as a way to combine his two great loves (physics and NM) with the military's need of a secure and isolated place for the bomb's development.

==Page 172==

'''The Kid's family had supposedly come . . . whenever the Kid's in the county''' 
''The Legend of the Kieselguhr Kid,'' with parallels to the Legends of Zorro, the Lone Ranger and many others.

'''Couple dozen, in big bandoliers across his chest''' 
Similar to the way suicide bombers in the Middle East wear their munitions?

'''Uncompahgre''' 
The Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado.

'''Butch Cassidy''' 
infamous outlaw [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Wikipedia Entry]

'''Dr. Lombroso''' 
Born in Verona, Italy, Dr. Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), using concepts drawn from Physiognomy, early Eugenics, Psychiatry and Social Darwinism, devised the theory that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso Wikipedia entry]

'''Lodazal''' 
spanish for bog, quagmire 
Burke Ponghill has some "swampland" for sale, it's in Colorado, wanna buy some? Comes with a bridge he'd be happy to sell you too. Calls to mind the Florida land speculation boom/bust of the 1920s in general and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isola_di_Lolando Isola di Lolando] in particular. Built to look like a Venetian island, it still sits abandonded in Biscayne Bay.

==Page 173==

'''"evil-doers"''' 
This immediately brings to mind the post 9/11 George W. Bush use of the term, once again relating the time of AtD, with its "unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places" with current day America - unless, of course, "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred." [[User:Thew|Thew]] 18:49, 30 May 2007 (PDT)

'''"got us a man of principle"''' 
Eerily reminiscent of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, the convicted American murderer known for his campaign of mail bombings, many of which were addressed to specific victims, intended by Kaczynski to draw attention to what he percieved as the ills of technology on modern society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Wikipedia entry].

There a several tenuous threads of connection between Pynchon and the Unabomber. Pynchon has written works exploring the dangers of modern technology and, more specifically, ludditism. [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html] [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/paper_gibbs.html] As a young man, Pynchon co-wrote such a play, ''Minstral Island'', with his Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale, who later would become one of the world's most prominent and outspoken luddites. Sale later said, "The Unabomber and I share a great many views about the pernicious effect of the Industrial Revolution, the evils of modern technologies, the stifling effect of mass society, the vast extent of suffering in a machine-dominated world and the inevitability of social and environmental catastrophe if the industrial system goes unchecked," although naturally Sale condemned the Unabomber's method. When the Unabomber's identity was still unknown, Pynchon was suggested (with who knows what degree of seriousness, and by whom) as a possible suspect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#1990s_and_2000s]

'''"jizzmatic juices backin' up, putting pressure on the brain" 
'Jizzmatic juices' seems to be a Pynchon-created slang phrase for semen, adapted from the dictionary-found slang word for semen, "jism". Pynchon has "a lady acquaintence" of Mr. Ponghill as responsible for the "naive theory" [Lew Basnight], commonly-enough held, that lack of sex "lack of exposure to the fair sex", previous paragraph can affect the brain and therefore one's judgment.

:Yes yes. this "lack of exposure to the fair sex" can cause [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|Beaver on the Brain]]

:Actually you can find the term "jizz" at the [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jizz Urban Dictionary] - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:49 GMT+2, 26 January 2007

'''"Don't mean he ain't got a right to his privacy."''' 
Continues the Unabomber/Pynchon connection. Pynchon follows the description of a dynamite bomber with the right to privacy, something that Pynchon has guarded closely for his entire life. For more on Pynchon and privacy, see [[ATD_26-56#Page_37|page 37]].

==Page 174==

'''back to the campfires of his youth, only then it was God didn't have a name''' 
"What is God's name?" or "What is God's first name?" was a topic that reliably led adolescent boys to yatter pointlessly on for hours when their adult leaders wanted to be left alone in camp.

'''"your own brother"''' 
The Unabomber was turned in by his brother. ("Kaczynski" means 'ducky' or 'duckman'. Did TRP hide this somewhere?)

==Page 175==

'''every cabin . . . concealed stories that were anything but peaceful''' 
Compare Sherlock Holmes in "The Copper Beeches": "It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

'''"Only slowly would it occur to his ultra-keen detective's reasoning that these bombs could have been set by anybody, including those who would clearly benefit if "Anarchists", however loosely defined, could be blamed for it."''' 
Is this an(other) allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? Cf. a similar reference in [[ATD_81-96#Page_85|page 85]] and the discussion therein.

Pynchon seems to be a smart enough guy to not believe such ridiculous theories. It's all too easy to read into these true historical events (the short-lived period of anarchist bombings of the late 19th and early 20 centuries) similitudes with more recent events, but the context in AtD is clear enough that this sort of speculation seems to be nothing more than speculation. Of course, that's the fodder for conspiracy theorists...--[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 04:40, 21 February 2007 (PST)

I see a broader parallel between government manipulation of 19th century fear of "anarchists" and 20th century fears of "terrorists." As in the 2006 film "Children of Men," where the government is responsible for the "terrorist" bombings. --[[User:Cal|Cal]] 11:48, 14 June 2007 (PST)

The idea of controlled demolitions undertaken on the gov.'s behalf isn't a new one, and those who think the idea is too outlandish for the period have failed to "Remember the Maine!" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_%28ACR-1%29]

Anyways, whether Pynchon believes the WTC "conspiracy theories" or not, it seems obvious that he is encouraging the reader to make the connection. If anyone knows that it's "all too easy to read into these true historical [or fictional] events... similitudes with more recent events" it's TRP. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]]
:I disagree that TRP is "encouraging" us to make such a connex, and anyway, the Maine was either an accident or destroyed by a [Spanish] mine, so it isn't parallel. The yellow press went to work, even though the US gov't at that point was not sure it wanted war with Cuba. -- Owl of Minerva

It seems to me that when Ruggles writes statements like the quote above, or makes a reference to someone removing the rubble of a building to an out of country location, or a little later on when he has the Chums suspect their Subdesertine scherzo is really only a front for oil exploration, he does so with the full knowledge that his vigilantly paranoid (and generally anti-establishment) readers might suspect he is referring to present day events. This is the same man who wrote Proverbs for Paranoids after all. I guess it comes down to whether or not you think Pynchon had his tongue planted firmly in cheek when he wrote on Amazon that "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred". You see where I stand. --[[User:Pomopaulrevere|Pomopaulrevere]] 

:Sorry, Pomopaul, my comment sounded rather snooty. I did NOT mean that trp wants no connex made, but rather that he is connecting past and present power politics based on disasters, especially human-caused disasters, rather than encouraging us to believe that our own gov't caused 9/11. In AtD, I see materialist power politics with not-thought-out and unintended consequences. The Austrian Emperor, for instance, is not trying to provoke war with Serbia in order to bring about the extinction of that Empire, but that is the unintended result. But you have given me pause, for you are certainly correct about Proverbs for Paranoids.... -- Owl

:A wrong premise seems to underlie some discussion in the wiki: the notion of a passage '''''referring to''''' something outside the book. The writing stands on its own feet; if it didn't, we all would have quit reading. But you don't go to the Velázquez show to learn what the Spanish princesses looked like. The artist proposes new terms that you can use to understand your world. A lot of us think we can use Pynchon's terms this way: magic, straight lines, Panic fear, born of light, the sacrifice of innocence. If that's so, then the best end of the wiki is to help users parse the terms. It misses the point to discuss what Pynchon ''thinks'' or ''intends'' or to make this book be about the 21st century.

:Well, maybe we need to continue this discussion on a Talk page. "Referring" to something outside the book has different meanings,of course, and certain literalnesses of referring many of us might find....narrow......or plain wrong but I would argue that TRP would agree with Melville on the NECESSITY of works to 'tie in' to the real world. [citation needed]. I think one of the best things about the wiki is that is allows that to be shown--and shown deeply and thematically---against the blindness of some readers and even 'critics' and reviewers who say Pynchon's works are so 'postmodern' they are only about themselves. I think the above poster might not differ with this assessment, but I wanted to stress it. [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 08:40, 22 June 2007 (PDT)

==Page 176==

'''revealing the Plutonic powers as they daily sent their legions of gnomes underground''' 
Here we may have a key to understanding the war in the Earth's Interior—in which Chthonica, Princess of Plutonia, saw her castle besieged by the Legion of Gnomes—when the Chums of Chance seem to have joined the Plutonic cause; [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|see text and annotations, p. 117.]]

'''"the Powers, who always had more dwarves waiting, even eagerly, to be sent below."''' 
A Tolkien-inspired imagery? Dwarfs figure prominently into Norse mythology and fantasy works before Tolkien, but Tolkien supposedly began the use of the spelling, "dwarves," employed here. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf Wikipedia entry on Dwarf] 
:I would hope it's an allusion to Wagner's Ring rather than to Tolkien. On pp. 127-28, Iceland Spar, there is discussion of the far north and Nordic travels there. Beyond the Ginnungagap lay Niflheim or in German Niebelheim, meaning Foggy Home, and in Wagner it lay under the earth, with bent-over workers, perhaps dwarves, forced to mine gold and other minerals. This makes the comment above, about the earth's interior and Chthonica, fit even better.

'''Tortoni's on Arapahoe''' 
Italian restaurant located in the 1500 block of Arapahoe Street in downtown Denver. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~codenver/miracle/104.htm Photo]

'''Gahan's saloon across the street from City Hall''' 
Saloon operated by William Gahan, a Denver City Councilman, and his brothers conveniently located at 1401 Larimer Street in Denver, across the street from City Hall. Gahan operated two other saloons, including one at 1133 Larimer Street, which he supposedly kept open on Sundays, harbored gambling, and sponsored a boys' baseball team that played for beer.

'''Ed Chase, the boss of the red-light district''' 
Edward "Big Ed" Chase (1838-1921) was a New Yorker from Saratoga Springs who became the leader of criminal activities in Denver from 1860 on, and as such was an influential and respected man. He ran saloons, gambling houses, bordellos, and theaters (specializing in "burlesque"), and served on the Denver City Council from 1866-1869. After that, he was a behind-the-scenes ward boss and power broker for the Republican party, which dominated Denver politics at the time. Nearly every 19th century election in Denver was clouded by charges that Chase had organized an army of voters out of riffraff, vagrants, prostitutes, barflies and gamblers. By the time of his death in 1921, Chase had come to be regarded as a respected real estate investor and capitalist. For more info, consult ''The City & The Saloon: Denver 1858-1918'' by Thomas J. Noel.

'''"another little Haymarket"''' 
On May 4th 1886 a workers' protest meeting was held at the West Randolph Street Haymarket in Chicago. A bomb was thrown at the police, the police opened fire and many officers and protesters were killed ([http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html chicagohistory.org])

==Page 177==

'''The Row''' 
Denver‘s red light district developed along McGaa Street (subsequently renamed Holladay and then Market Street) [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200010/ai_n8908963 1] [http://www.womenof.com/Articles/d011899.asp 2]

==Page 178==

'''W.F.M.''' 
Western Federation of Miners [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia Entry]

'''Tansy Wagwheel''' 
Other ''AtD'' women named for herbs and ornamentals include Stray's friend [[ATD_199-218#Page_203|Sage in Nochecita,]] [[ATD_243-272#Page_263|Lake's colleague Oleander Prudge,]] [[ATD_149-170#Page_160|Cousin Dittany Vibe,]] [[ATD_336-357#Page_345|Verbena at Smokefoot's,]] and of course [[ATD_26-56#Page_28|Dahlia Rideout.]]

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
The Klan itself was not in its heyday at the time this episode took place, and not only is it unlikely that the Klan would have shown itself at the time, but also that it would have been this far west. The "modern" Klan was only reformed in 1915. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Wikipedia]. IN the 1920s, Colorado would become a stronghold of the "modern" Klan.

'''heeled''' 
Carrying a sidearm. (The word also means "having money," but here the first meaning is pretty clear.)

==Page 179==

'''Buck Wells''' 
An elite American who was on the board of the Telluride Mining Association, head of a mining company and was aggressively anti-union even to the point of false murder charges. Bulkeley Wells http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulkeley_Wells

'''Clovis Yutts''' 
"Yutz" is a slang word (from Yiddish) for a clueless goof.

'''different tempos and keys''' 
Cf 'anarchist miracle' in "Lot 49" (chapter 5).

In the early 1970s San Francisco was the site of the Black Flag Concerts, where anybody was allowed to make any music. People who attended said it was disorienting to wander through the crowd listening to folk singers, kazoo bands and Celtic harpists all belting away. (The Black Flag is a traditional emblem of anarchism.)

Also perhaps a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives Charles Ives], who wrote much music containing combatting sections in different keys, tempi and melody. The quintessential image of Ives' music is that of four marching bands playing different tunes arriving at the same village square. Ives attended Yale, though graduated in 1898, two years prior to the scene beginning on page 156.

Or perhaps just an image of musical anarchy to match the political Anarchism.

==Page 180==

'''Valley Tan''' 
Mormon whiskey reported by Mark Twain. [http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/091795.html cite]

As Twain himself suggests, Valley Tan was not so much a whiskey as a “first cousin to it.” It was a brand of patent medicines that were produced in Salt Lake City at the Valley Tan Remedies (V.T.R.) Laboratory beginning in 1884. A brief profile of the company can be found at this [http://www.fohbc.com/PDF_Files/ValleyTanRemedies_Sanders.pdf website.]

==Page 181==

'''it'll be run Anarchist run for you, Brother Basnight''' 
Echoes Chick on p. 8: "legal ain't got nothing to do with it—it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door."

==Page 182==

'''faded into the mobility''' 
"Mobility" also appears in ''Mason & Dixon.'' The word was later shortened to "mob."

'''"kept wasting Agency money rattling off one telegram after another."''' 
Cf. the following excerpt from a letter by novelist Raymond Chandler to Jamie Hamilton, 21 March 1949:
:"I remember several years ago when Howard Hawks was making ''The Big Sleep'', the movie, he and Bogart got into an argument as to whether one of the characters was murdered or commited suicide. They sent me a wire (there's a joke about this too) asking me, and dammit I didn't know either. Of course I got hooted at. The joke was in connection with Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros. Believe it or not, he saw the wire, the wire cost the studio 70 cents, and he called Hawks up and asked him whether it was really necessary to send a telegram about a point like that. That's one way to run a business." (''The Raymond Chandler Papers'', ed. by Tom Hiney and Frank McShane, Penguin 2001, p. 105)

'''P.E.T.N.''' 
The explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Ingredient of Semtex, discovered 1891. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN Wikipedia]

'''Dr. Oyswharf''' 
There is, in Norfolk, Virginia, a district (?) called "Oyster Wharf"; there is, in London, a development called "Oyster Wharf" not sure if it's significant or points anywhere, but it appears that this fellow's name is a contraction of those two words. More generically, an "oyster wharf" is any wharf where the oystermen come in and offload their catch. Back in the day, they would give oysters away for free. Oyster shells are a natural source of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3).

Bear in mind that the Chums' Upper Hierarchy communicated orders to the Chums via a pearl. Miles Blundell "well before sunup, had visited the shellfish market in the teeming narrow lanes of the old town in Surabaya, East Java" and procured a bucket of "Special Japanese Oysters" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 113|p. 113]]). The pearl was inserted into a device which rendered a "photographic image." This connects with the red crystal used in Merle's and Roswell's device ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page 1037|p. 1037]]).

Also bear in mind the sexual implications of the oyster, both its use as slang for the vagina (because its shape is evocative of the vagina, and some say its smell, as well) as well as its reputation as a aphrodisiac. This plays into [[The_Sexual_Angle|the sexual pattern]] that runs through ''Against the Day''. A few tidbits:

:Oysters were documented as a aphrodisiac food by the Romans in the second century A.D as mentioned in a satire by Juvenal. He described the wanton ways of women after ingesting wine and eating "giant oysters". An additional hypotheses is that the oyster resembles the "female" genitals. In reality oysters are a very nutritious and high in protein. [http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/aphrodis_foods.htm]

:Oysters have always been linked with love. When Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros, the word "aphrodisiac" was born. The dashing lover Casanova also used to start a meal eating 12 dozen oysters. [http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0298/oysters.html]

Interesting that the oyster plays to the sexual connection, ''and'' the "artful sons of Nippon" using paramorphism to change aragonite, the "nacreous" (an adjective frequently used to describe semen) part of the pearl "to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 114|p. 114]]).

Also: "Oysvarf" in Yiddish means, literally, vomitus; An "oysvarf" translates roughly as "a little puke".
:Actually, my checking indicates that it's ''oysvurf'', not ''oysvarf'', which is Yiddish for an outcast or bad person.

Also might be a reference to Owsley Stanley,"'underground' LSD chemist, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD" and "the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters". wiki:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley]

'''mixtures of nitro compounds and polymethylenes''' 
Nitro compounds include TNT, nitroglycerine and many other explosives. Polymethylenes are probably polymethylene waxes used as stabilizers or desensitizers.

'''experiencing the hotel dining room in a range of colors, not to mention cultural references, which had not been there when he came in''' 
Kinda like the way many of us are seeing ''AtD'' after prolonged exposure to the wiki. . . .

'''"The wallpaper in particular presented not a repeating pattern at all"''' 
Cf. Lucius Sheppard's 1985 short story ''The Fundamental Things'', where a lady starts translating her wallpaper pattern to Hebrew.

The connection between explosives and psychedelics is apparently not based in chemistry but it has appeared elsewhere in popular culture. The 1967 James Bond spoof ''Casino Royale'' has a scene where pillowcases are inflated with a psychedelic gas, a fuse is attached, and a powerful explosion is the result.

==Page 183==

[[image:beaver-on-the-brain.jpg|thumb|Beaver on the Brain T-Shirt|right]]'''Yes we're Beavers of the Brain... 
This little hallucinated ditty, sung by "a race of very small but perfectly visible inhabitants" of Lew Basnight's steak, is reminiscent of "We Represent the Lollipop Guild" sung by three tough-looking Munchkin boys in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 ''The Wizard of Oz''] (1939). "Beavers of the Brain" also brings to mind the phrase "Beaver on the brain" (describing a horny male or, perhaps, lesbian) which even adorns t-shirts (see right).

'''Keep that Bulldog in your pocket...''' 
A "Bulldog" is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon. It also carries a somewhat sexual connotation.

'''Cyclomite''' 
A spelling error may lead to the idea that cyclomite is a name for the explosive RDX; that's cyclo'''n'''ite.

:I don't think this is a spelling error. Connects with dynomite. No way.

:Didn't make myself clear. If cyclomite is a Pynchon coinage, a Google search should give only Pynchon-linked hits. But I got a hit on an explosive—causing me to be short of breath till I realized it was just a misspelling for the correct term '''(in that context)''' "cyclonite," or RDX.

'''plasticerator''' 
Plasti-, moldable (in this case chewable); cera- related to Latin ''cera'' = wax, ''cerumen'' = earwax; -ator, an agent to modify a product. The word "plasticerator" does not seem to have caught on. It would not be a failed synonym for "plasticizer," an agent to make rigid plastics pliable.

==Page 184==

'''Kankakee''' 
city in Illinois.

'''Wall of Death''' 
Without risk of spoilage, [[ATD_460-488#Page_476|see annotation to p. 476.]]

'''things would happen gradually enough to afford time to do something about it''' 
A central idea in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which features a rocket that breaks the sound barrier and thus the ability to kill you before you hear it coming.

'''the world turned all inside out''' 
This passage describes acid flashbacks.
:It's certainly written so as to suggest acid flashbacks but it's describing Lew's experience of being blown up

'''the carnival theory''' 
On page 90 Kit Traverse had "seen a dynamited carny jump up out of the blast good as new."

==Page 185==

'''Trilby hat''' 
Derived from George du Maurier's 1894 novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby Trilby]. The novel was adapted into a long-running play starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali. A hat of this style was worn on stage during the play's first London production.

'''excursion''' 
Wilde's US lecture tour was in 1882.

==Page 186==

'''Anasazi''' 
Ancient Pueblo Peoples, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi "Anasazi"]

'''"Like a Red Indian Stonehenge!" - "Only different!"''' 
Cf. " 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.' " (''Vineland'', p. 170). See also [[ATD_119-148#Page_133| page 133]].

[[image:hangedman.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Hanged Man by Colman-Smith]]
'''''grifa''''' 
Marijuana. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grifa cite]

'''Miss Colman-Smith is West Indian [tarot cards]''' 
Pamela Colman Smith (1878—1951) was an artist, illustrator, and writer. She is best known for designing the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite. Smith was born in England, the daughter of an American merchant from Brooklyn, Charles Edward Smith and his Jamaican wife Corinne Colman. Due to her father’s job with the West India Improvement Company, the family often moved, spending time in London, Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith Wikipedia entry]

Pynchon's interest in the tarot is evident in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Two tarot cards are referred to here -- the Hanged Man ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite image]) and the Knight of Swords ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_arcana#Swords image]). The reference is an anachronism, as the deck wasn't published until 1909.

'''''espadas . . . copas''''' 
Spanish: Swords, Cups. The Tarot suits corresponding to spades and clubs.

'''Querent''' 
Latin: one who asks. The subject of a Tarot reading (in some settings, the mark).

'''Perseid''' 
"The shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8 and 14 with a peak on August 12. During the peak, rates of a hundred or more meteors per hour can be registered." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid Wikipedia]

==Page 187==

'''hell of a blow-up . . . . maiden's sigh''' 
Possible allusion to the testing of Trinity Bomb, the first explosion of an atomic weapon, which took place at White Sands, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test Wikipedia].

See the text on the "anti-Stone," pp. 78-79, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|and annotations.]]

'''A second Moon''' 
[[ATD_119-148#Page_144|On page 144,]] ''Inconvenience'' is described as a "misplaced moon."

'''Galveston''' 
In the summer of 1900 Galveston was a major seaport; many of its cotton warehouses still stand. In the 19th century it was a port of entry for immigrants from Germany, Bohemia, the Balkans and elsewhere. The 1900 hurricane was the making of Houston, a few dozen miles up slow-flowing Buffalo Bayou—which was turned into the Ship Channel within a few years.

==Page 188==

'''Galveston Hurricane''' 
An historical event (8th September 1900, 6000 dead).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900 [Wikipedia]]

'''wherever could you have been living, before that frightful bomb brought you to us?''' 
Perhaps an allusion to and rhetorical parallel of the "wake-up bomb" of the 9/11 attacks, and the relative increase of attention paid by the American media and public to such post-9/11 disasters as the slaughter of citizens in the Afghan and Iraq offensives, the destruction wrought by the South Asian tsunami, the displacement of the "hidden" poor of the Gulf States by Hurricane Katrina, the carnage of the earthquake in Iran, the rampant and still-raging genocides of Sudan, and so on.
:It has to work in ''AtD'' before it can be an allusion to something else! Here Neville seems to say Lew was ''not'' with him and Nigel until the explosion delivered "the New Lew" into "the world reconstituted" (p. 185), not that the N's simply found him in his torpor. "It didn't seem like Colorado anymore" (also p. 185). The explosion did more than knock Lew out; now he's living somewhere else. The reader is well-advised to trust Pynchon and let the text mean what it means before interpreting other histories into it.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
This is the second appearance of the word (the first was on page 83). Neurasthenia was a kind of catch-all at the time for what today would be called depression, fatigue, anxiety, etc.

==Page 189==

'''Fireman Jim Flynn''' 
The nickname undoubtedly comes from railroading, not firefighting.

==Page 190==

'''blue northers''' 
In the West, the Plains and down to Texas, a blue norther is a fast-moving weather front with lightning, rain and wind, followed by a rapid drop in temperature.

==Page 191==

==Page 192==

'''nearly twenty''' 
1883 + 19yo = 1902?

'''stamps beating''' 
Breaking ore into small pieces in preparation for refining.

==Page 193==

'''Uncompahgre''' 
A Plateau in Western Colorado, named after the Uncompahgre Ute Indian Tribe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncompahgre_%28disambiguation%29 [Wikipedia]]

'''Deuce Kindred''' 
A seaman deuce is an apprentice seaman. See V. 
Deuce=Two=Also?...Deuce=Two=Doubling? 
Philip K. Dick's full name is Philip Kindred Dick.

'''Deuce had been one of those Sickly Youths . . . Strenuosity''' 
[[ATD_149-170#Page_159|Theodore Roosevelt]] was the model for feeble boys growing into bold men. His "Strenuous Life" doctrine was uncomfortably close to the adult Deuce's ways.

'''absorbed . . . re-emission . . . fluorescence of vindictiveness''' 
In a fluorescent tube, invisible ultraviolet radiation from the electrical discharge is absorbed by "phosphors" on the inside of the glass. The UV excites the phosphor atoms, which then—instead of giving off ultraviolet of their own—re-emit the energy at a different wavelength, one that is visible.

'''workin fathoms''' 
Mining under a contract that paid by the volume of rock extracted. See [[ATD_296-317#Page_302|annotations to p. 302]] (but to avoid spoilers, don't look up or down).

'''not since the aught-one strike''' 
So 1901 is in the past.

'''three-dollar sack suit''' 
That is, a suit one might buy at a store where one fills a sack with clothes and then pays three dollars for the lot.
A sack suit is an ordinary 19th-c. business suit which "evolved into the modern three piece suit."
[http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/sack.html source]

==Page 194==

'''the fish at that table''' 
The player whose money the others mean to take.

'''Dallas Divide''' 
Mountain Pass dividing the Uncompahgre Plateau from the San Juan Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Divide [Wikipedia]]

==Page 195==

'''Sloat Fresno''' 
Possibly named for Commodore John D. Sloat ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Sloat Wikipedia entry]), American naval officer who claimed California, then a territory of Mexico, as part of the United States on July 7, 1846. The text of the declaration can be found [http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/documents/sloat.htm here]. Another source may be the Sloat Lumber Co. of Quincy, CA, which used an uncommon 30 gauge track, about which all I can find is [http://members.tripod.com/~Sloat_Lumber_Co/PROTOTYP.HTM here]. Fresno is presumably a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno%2C_CA city in California], though its direct relation to either the Commodore or the Sloat Lumber Co. is unclear.

''Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,'' by Cormac McCarthy, has a character named Sloat, but he's so minor that the only dialog he gets is when he denies being related to the commodore.

Sloat is another term for slat, a narrow piece of wood. Fresno is Spanish for ash.

'''copping the borax''' 
? Seemingly a term invented by Pynchon. No idea what it means, but borax is a mineral used in detergent, pottery, a lots of other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax Wikipedia on Borax]

"Borax" is a slang word for cheap, poorly made products. Makers of borax for use in cleansing used to give away junky items as premiums. If you look at it the other way around, "borax" could mean a premium, hence an enlistment bonus. "Copping" of course is getting something by underhand means.

'''from Fort Bliss to the Coeur d'Alenes''' 
From Dan to Beersheba, so to speak. Fort Bliss is near El Paso, Texas. The Coeur d'Alène Mountains are in the panhandle of Idaho and the western end of Montana.

'''Montrose''' 
Montrose, CO. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado [Wikipedia]]

'''li'l buddy''' 
Brings to mind Gilligan and the Skipper from ''Gilligan's Island'': Sloat, like the Skipper, is twice his buddy's size; in both pairs, it is uncertain just who is whose sidekick; and the Skipper referred to Gilligan by, "li'l buddy."

==Page 196==

'''red liquor''' 
Colored liquor, such as bourbon or whiskey.

==Page 197==

'''Sloat tending to bodies, Deuce... the spirit''' 
Again, the body/soul dichotomy. See [[ATD_97-118#Page_101|page 101]] and [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]] letter by Pynchon.

[[image:couplingpin.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Coupling pin]]'''coupling pin''' See photo.

==Page 198==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Repeats the title of Part One. May also suggest Tesla's 03 July 1899 'vision' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_97|page 97]]). May also be tied to the light/dark theme running through parts of the book thus far: light over the (dark) ranges. Note the concurrence of the leitmotives light-time-water in the sentence "He watched the light over the ranges slowly draining away". The image of "draining light" might also hint at the wave-particle duality.

'''Jeshimon''' 
Literally: "the waste", more specifically the wilderness of Judah in the Bible, near the Dead Sea. [http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/jeshimon.html christiananswers.net]. Fuller annotation at [[ATD_199-218#Page_209|page 209.]]

'''"Sir, please relocate your hand or I shall be obliged to do so myself"''' 
A fine flowery way of saying, "Move it or lose it, Sport."

'''Cortez''' 
In far southwestern Colorado near the Utah state line.

'''shadow had taken the immeasurable plain''' 
Contrasts "the light over the ranges". Possibly an allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah, the "cities of the plain" in Genesis 19, in which the angels advise Lot and his family: "do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the Plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away" (19:17). ''The cities of the plain'', is also the title of i) the translated fourth volume of Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'' (original title ''Sodome et Gomorrhe'') and ii) Cormac McCarthy's third novel of ''The Border Trilogy''.

This is the third possible reference to Proust so far. See also [[ATD_149-170#Page_165|page 165]], and [[#Page_188|page 188]].

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 149-170

2007-08-29T18:24:53Z

Sideming: /* Page 153 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 149==

'''meteorite''' 
Cf ''Smilla's Sense of Snow'' by Peter Hoeg.

'''the far-fallen object''' 
That makes one think of Milton's Lucifer, doesn't it? But going back a few pages, "Flames were always your destiny, my children" (p. 145). And if the object doesn't bring light to the great city, it does bring fire. Lucifer is not too strong a connection, but still in the background.

The Yiddish word ''farfallen'' means both "fallen" and "bygone."

The alien visitors disguised as a meterorite is reminiscent of the arrival of Martians in Grovers Mill, NJ in Orson Wells adaptation of ''War of the Worlds.''

==Page 150==
'''the entangled carriages, wagons, and streetcars ... hitched to animals months dead and yet unremoved''' 
An anticipation of the scenes of destruction following the U.S. federal government's and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fema FEMA]'s botched relief efforts at the onset and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the southeastern United States in August and September 2005. 
:also a likely visual reference to the popular belief that the Christian Rapture will involve abandoned vehicles jamming the highways as motorists ascend skyward.

'''Tammanoid creatures, able to deliver votes''' 
As in "Tammany Hall", the often corrupt political machine that played a role in New York City politics for nearly two centuries. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall Wikipedia entry].

'''a stationary star, let alone one of the falling sort''' 
''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 760: "But it was ''not a star'', it was falling, a bright angel of death." The whole passage seems strongly connected to GR. Could also be a reference to Lucifer, who is referred to as the falling star. 
And behind both AtD and GR, there are strong overtones from the ''Book of Revelation:''
:9:1 -''The fifth angel blew his trumpet. I saw a star, that had fallen down from Heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the fathomless pit.''
:9:2 - ''Then he opened the pit and smoke like the smoke of a vast furnace rose out of it, so that the light of the sun and the air itself grew dark from the smoke of the pit.''

'''White Wings''' 
For many years (1880s or 1890s through 1950s?) the most visible and dependable of New York City's public services: the street sweepers. And of course, just a wee bit of angelic resonance.

==Page 151==

'''the Eskimo view''' 
But cf page 142, where the Eskimos are "eager" to help.

'''...at least one consultation with somebody - that "there would always be time..."''' 
once more ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.760: "There is time, if you need the comfort, to touch the person next to you...".

'''Panic fear''' 
Note the capital letter; this is not blind, uncontrolled fear in general but specifically fear associated with the great nature-god Pan.

'''Panic fear... affecting pose''' 
Although there are hints in the previous pages, here is where the parallels with 9/11 become too clear to ignore. Pynchon's presenting 9/11 as a story of a meteor dug from the ice will no doubt fill pages of analysis soon. To start, though, Pynchon critiques post-9/11 opportunism ("many in the aftermath did profit briefly by... affecting that pose"). Many say 'opportunism' has attended many, many disasters. For a full, spoiler-filled discussion, see [[Against the Day and September 11]] 

'''Deep downtown, where a narrow waterway from long ago still ran up into the city...''' 
Ok, this is fiction but we've all convinced ourselves we're talking about New York. Pynchon could have invented this waterway but that's not his style. So where is this waterway in downtown NY? 

Several waterways existed in lower Manhattan that were later filled in or paved over. [http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/nycolonial/index.html A map from 1874] --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 12:14, 20 February 2007 (PST)

The most prominent, which makes sense of the geography ("deep downtown")but not the time, would be Canal Street; the eponymous canal had been filled in long before the time of this action.

'''a cargo ship... in whose hold... kept in restraints... stirred a Figure with supernatural powers''' 
Also reminiscent of ''King Kong'', where the chained ape is transported by ship to New York.

'''which no one in its as-yet-unwritten history had ever known how to stop''' 
Christian religions teach that the work of the Devil can be stopped; on the other hand, the Devil's history is anything but unwritten (see Genesis, ''Paradise Lost,'' Neil Gaiman, etc.). Keep searching.

==Page 152==

'''with only dwindling moments of normal history remaining''' 
Do we infer that history, somehow plotted in advance, is about to go off its rails? ''AtD'' refers several times to the idea of an already settled history being disrupted by some action. Drave on p. 41, for example: "Most people have a wheel riding up on a wire, or some rails in the street, some kind of guide or groove, to keep them moving in the direction of their destiny. But you keep bouncing free." And Lew's summary: "Going off my trolley." Also [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|on p. 33: Scarsdale Vibe on the essence of modern history.]]

'''Tenderloin toughs''' 
The red-light district of Manhattan at the time, in Midtown Manhattan from 23rd Street to 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue to Seventh Avenue.

'''Fire and blood were about to roll like fate upon the complacent multitudes''' 
cf. Genesis 19:24: "and then the LORD rained down fire and brimstone from the skies on Sodom and Gomorrah."
:Well, in its own terms Genesis is describing a punishment. It would be a distortion to say the "complacent multitudes" are being punished. Scarred, killed, robbed, yes, but not punished.

'''beautiful patterns''' 
Cf. "picturesque patterns," p. 81, as well as Igor Padzhitnoff's Tetris-like bombardments on [[ATD 119-148#Page 123|p. 123]].

==Page 153==

'''a chorale of pain''' 
If enough people are suffering together, they become a choir; see annotations to [[ATD_1-25#Page_19|page 19]] and [[ATD_97-118#Page_116|page 116.]]

'''a three dimensional image in full color, not exactly of Christ but with the same beard, robes, ability to emit light''' 
Note that the unnamed enemy allegedly said, "The man-shaped light shall not deliver you" back on page 145. On whether this may or may not also allude to Osama bin Laden, see the [[Talk:ATD_149-170|149-170 Talk Page]].

:Or Christ himself "doubly refracted" into the anti-Christ.[[User:S-Fremin|S-Fremin]] 08:19, 20 January 2007 (PST)

:Also recalls, once again, the last page of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', with its "closeup of the face, a face we all know".

Projecting a three dimensional image: most projections are two dimensional, like a movie. This is holographic projection. Holography was invented in 1947, so this is either an anachronism or a slip into science fiction or just fiction.

If not Christ then possibly the 12th Imam, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi the Mahdi] which ties in with the Doosra later. Incidentally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad concluded his 17 September 2005 address to the United Nations General Assembly with discussion of the Mahdi and a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdaviat prayer] for his appearance.

Scene also, with mass hysteria, noise, and especially this hologram image recall climax of classic film, ''Quatermass and the Pit'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_and_the_pit Wikipedia]

'''Our Protector...who remained, guardedly, unnamed''' 
unnamable--ineffable--like the atomic bomb on p.78 (Cf. Webb, Merle and the "Anti-Stone") 

The Godhead, the highest God, is the unnameable, the ineffable.

The word "guardedly," however, can take on two meanings here. 

First, it can refer to the proscription in many religions of saying the name of God, which is beyond human language anyhow, but is thought of as the ultimate word of power, hence the Commandment:
:''Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain''
Also consider the Jewish use of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragrammaton Tetragrammaton] refered to as "The Name" often pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah, but in fact no one knows the true pronunciation. 

Second "guardedly" in a protective or spineless sense: they don't know which devine or demonic power they're dealing with. Even the Archbishop seems unsure who the Figure is and everyone is hedging their bets so that once they learn the name of this god (the Figure) they can then claim to have known it all along as a way to propitiate it. In so doing they ''may'' save their hides and cities, but from a Judeo-Christian perspective they have violated the commandment of having no gods before the God of the Covenant. They have already violated the commandment(s) regarding the making of graven images or likenesses, or the bowing down to and serving such likeness (like the golden calf). Bottom line: they're selling their souls to save their skins.

'''recent incorporation''' 
1898. New York City is a special case. The city consists of the entire area of five counties. These counties retain a small amount of governance as boroughs. Under the state legislation, commonly called Consolidation, that allowed the city (as the City of Greater New York) to annex huge areas beyond its original borders (including smaller cities, towns and villages) in 1898, the State of New York retains certain powers over the city. At the time of Consolidation, Queens County was split between the western towns, which voted to join the city, and those that did not. The next year (1899), the eastern towns of Queens County separated to become Nassau County. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_New_York#Borough Wikipedia entry]

'''So the city . . . face of their violator''' 
It's important that this paragraph describes the great city ''before'' the Figure devastated it.

==Pages 154-155==

'''weeping widow...cruelest bitch of a city''' 
Personifications of the city, as in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (p.4: "last crystallizations of all the city has denied, threatened, lied to its children"). What is "he" and "she" referring to in the following paragraph?

'''Hellfire''' 
once more fire and brimstone.

'''the Destroyer''' 
Allusion to the Hindu god Shiva?

'''I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY''' 
From the description of the gate to hell in Canto III in ''The Divine Comedy Volume I: Inferno'' by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Pynchon quotes from the modern translation by Mark Musa:

:"I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY,
:I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL GRIEF,
:I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN RACE.

:JUSTICE IT WAS THAT MOVED MY GREAT CREATOR;
:DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE CREATED ME,
:AND HIGHEST WISDOM JOINED WITH PRIMAL LOVE.

:BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS
:WERE MADE, AND I SHALL LAST ETERNALLY.
:ABANDON EVERY HOPE, ALL YOU WHO ENTER."

Note that Pynchon echoes the word "race" on the previous page: "an embittered and amnesiac race".

:The "votive shrine . . . Downtown" may be intended to evoke the shrine at the footprints at Ground Zero, "votive" here invoking the twin beams of light that took the place of the WTC towers in the months following 9-11, though it should be noted that the actual description invokes the basement cavities of the the towers' foot-prints much more accurately.

'''From the Journals of Mr. Fleetwood Vibe...''' 
The short narrative spanning pp.138-155 bears some of the hallmarks characteristic of the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft: (1) a narrator (Fleetwood) who relates a series of horrible, cosmic events in the form of a memoir or journal entry; (2) a slumbering entity, or "visitor" (p149), mistaken for a more mundane object (meteorite, in this case), and; (3) the incapacity of humans to anticipate or respond to the foreignness of this cosmic vistior and its actions. Given that this horrible thing was retrieved from the Arctic, it is reminiscent of Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (though, ''Antarctic'' in setting; 1931; [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness Wikisource text of the novella]) and, given the meteor-like form of this visitor, "The Colour out of Space" (1927; [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Colour_Out_of_Space Wikisource text of the story]).

:Also, the beginning of Hunter's escape, when he gets "lost" and the streets "made no sense anymore" recalls the Lovecraft story, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_of_Erich_Zann "The Music of Erich Zann"]. It is also similar to Winston Smith's early wanderings in ''1984''.

In addition, the whole passage probably makes reference to several 1950s Sci-Fi movies, most importantly "The Thing from Another World" (1951) by Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby (remade as "The Thing" by John Carpenter in 1982) in which scientists discover an alien and lethal lifeform under the ice of the arctic. The idea of the alien lifeform falling to earth and being mistaken for a meteorite at first is prominent in Jack Arnold's "It Came from Outer Space" (1954), although the aliens in that case are benevolent rather than dangerous.

Hunter Penhallow's escape might be read as a happy ending getaway inversion of the claustrophobic opening sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', where nobody gets saved; "in this world brought low" echoes "the Light that hath brought the Towers low" on the final page of Gravity's Rainbow..."Light" may prefigure Against the Day's treatment of that subject, too.

:cf also "The Museum at night...unlighted and towering", p.150

The disorientation that Hunter experiences (city streets skewing, finding a mysterious group of people) echoes Lew Basnight's encounter with Drave's group ([[ATD_26-56#Page_39|p39]]), and the vision on the opening pages of ''Gravity's Rainbow''.

:In regards to Hunter's escape echoing Lew Basnight's "Chicago" sequence: It seems as if Hunter is also able to step to the side of the day? [[User:Greenlantern|Greenlantern]] 13:35, 20 February 2007 (PST)

:The connection of Hunter's "meeting" and Lew's encounter with Drave seems valid and useful. As to Hunter's having a power of invisibility, that's less well substantiated. I suggest instead that the refugees (throughout history refugees have known to keep their coats and hats on) have a way of fleeing into time. "The longer they traveled, the more 'futuristic' would the scenery grow." It's futuristic because it exists in the future!

==Page 156==

'''clouded and windless late-November day''' 
From 1898 to 1942 and again from 1946 to 1975, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Harvard-Yale_football_games Harvard-Yale football game]—followed by persons in one province of the United States—was played in the last half of every November. 
The timing—a matter of months from Tesla's storm to now—suggests that the game is that of 1899, which was played on November 18 at Cambridge. A Cornell man might relish the fact that the outcome was a 0-0 tie.

'''Taft Hotel''' 
The Taft in New Haven opened in 1912; it isn't clear whether there might have been an earlier property of that name. The Taft in New York City opened in 1926. So placing a Taft Hotel in New Haven in 1899 is another anachronism (which appear often and seem to serve some purpose). A Google search turns up the suggestion (on an ephemeral eBay page) that there may have been a Taft's Hotel in West Cambridge in the mid-19th century too.

Not so hidden Ohio president: Wm H. Taft, of Cincinnati was president in 1912, a Yale grad, Skull&Bones member.

'''Irish pennants''' 
[http://www.jacksjoint.com/sailor_terminology.htm#Irish%20Pennant Untidy ends of thread or string.]

'''rival school hues''' 
Yale: blue and white. Harvard: crimson white, and black.

'''"Mr. Rinehart"''' 
A Harvard rallying cry, supposedly dating to 1900. The original Rinehart obtained his law degree from Harvard in 1903. In 1900 Mr. Rinehart occupied a high room in Gray's Hall at Harvard. It was easier for his friends to call to him from the ground than to climb three flights of stairs when they wanted him to join them. They would stand at the corner of Gray's and shout, "Oh, Rinehart." Many another student was called in the same way, and no particular attention was paid. But one sweltering night, when students were grinding for final examinations, one of them heard the familiar "Oh, Rinehart" from below and reacted instantly. He tossed aside his book and echoed the cry into the Yard. Within a minute, the enclosure resounded with the phrase from side to side and end to end. Something about the sound and accent of the name appealed to the students and from then until the end of the session the cry was heard nightly throughout the Yard. [http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0110b&L=ads-l&P=9765 source]

In later years, the origin story for the tradition changed: Rinehart became a lonely freshman who shouted his own name to see what it would sound like to be popular. He was discovered shouting his own name and the cry of "Rinehart" was used to make fun of him. The tradition continued until after World War II, when it faded from memory. Contemporary students apparently aren't familiar with the story or tradition. [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/003880.html Language Log]

'''Tibetan prayer wheel principle''' 
Previously mentioned on [[ATD_119-148#Page_130|page 130]], where the principle was used to transport oneself to the tropical locale of the ''¡Cuidado, Cabrón!'' hot sauce label.

==Page 157==

'''"crimson" is cognate with "worm"''' 
[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003873.html Largely true.] The American Heritage Dictionary gives the [http://www.bartleby.com/61/79/W0227900.html etymology for ''worm''] as "Middle English, from Old English ''wurm,'' variant of ''wyrm.''" The root ''wyrm'' in turn derives from the Indo-European base [http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE571.html wer-2], meaning to turn or bend. (Words descended from wer-2 include ''stalwart, weird, vertebra, wrath, wrong, wrestle, briar'' and ''rhapsody.'') The modern word ''crimson'' derives from Middle English ''cremesin,'' which (via one of several alternative pathways) comes from Arabic ''qirmizy,'' a word based on ''qirmiz,'' the kermes insect. This insect, which lives on the Kermes oak (''Quercus coccifera''), was an early source for red dye but fell out of favor after the introduction of [http://www.bell.lib.umn.edu/Products/cochinea.html cochineal]. The Arabic name for this insect probably stems from the Sanskrit ''kṛmi-ja-,'' referring to a red dye produced from worms. The ''-ja'' is from an Indo-European root ''*gene-,'' meaning "to produce" (whence, ultimately, our word "gene" and the ''-gen'' in chemical element names). The other component, ''kṛmi-,'' means "worm", and takes us back to Indo-European wer-2.

'''"no professional football"''' 
NFL founded 1902. [http://www.nfl.com/history/chronology/1869-1910 cite]

'''grease runs''' 
Deliveries of graft payments.

'''the Tombs''' 
A prison in New York City. [http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/histry3a.html History of the Tombs]

'''dime novel''' 
Adoption of poor but plucky boy by industrialist in need of an heir sounds like a plot by [http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/dp/pennies/1860_alger.html Horatio Alger, Jr.] (1832 or 1834-99). A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger,_Jr. Wikipedia entry] gives one plot summary that serves for quite a few of Alger's 135 dime novels.

'''crockful of cucumbers''' 
Male children? (Cucumber is slang for penis.) 
Obviously, yes, but not because they have penises. You put cucumbers in a crock to pickle them; Vibe's sons have all the energy and initiative of vegetables soaking up brine.

==Page 158==

'''Willard Gibbs''' 
Cf [[ATD_26-56#Page 29|page 29]]. J. Willard Gibbs (1839-1903), an American mathematical physicist.

'''it was desire''' 
"Desire" is a word of power in ''AtD.'' We saw it in Harald the Ruthless, [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|p. 117,]] and will see it again.

'''lust in idleness''' 
"Love-in-idleness" is a traditional name for the pansy.

'''Hamiltonian''' 
Hamilton Quaternion (Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 130|page 130]]) disciples.

In classical mechanics, Hamiltonian is a function used to describe a dynamical system (as a pendulum or a particle in motion) in terms of generalized coordinates and momenta. It is equal to the total energy of the system when time is not explicitly part of the function. It is named after the Irish mathematician Sir William R. Hamilton (1805-1865). ([http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Hamilton.html Hamilton].)

==Page 159==

'''Walter Camp''' 
[http://www.waltercamp.org/history5.htm Yale University athlete (1859-1925) who helped create the game of American football.]

'''Witherspoon Street''' 
Runs to the north, away from the main gate of the Princeton campus. See also [[Witherspoon Street|DISCUSSION]].

'''Rooseveltian strenuosity''' 
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) advised Americans to live "the strenuous life"—and provided an example. 
[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1207796-1,00.html He suffered from asthma as a boy] and was considered a poor risk to grow up at all. Through vigorous exercise and outdoor living he became strong and, more often than not, healthy. He was elected vice-president after service in the Spanish-American War, succeeding to [http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tr26.html the presidency (1901-9)] when William McKinley was assassinated. 
In a speech to the Hamilton Club of Chicago in 1899, he said:
<blockquote>I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. 
("The Strenuous Life," collected in [http://www.bartleby.com/58/ his book of the same name, 1900.])</blockquote>

''''Fax's brother Cragmont''' 
There is a Cragmont area in Berkeley, Calif., and a Cragmont assembly ground (church campground) in Black Mountain, N.C. Doesn't seem to be a New York suburb, though.

'''across the perilous æther''' 
Repeating the phrase from p. 99 [[ATD_97-118#Page_99|(see annotations).]] Here ''æther'' means "air" or "empty space."

'''an expedition heading for Africa''' 
At the time of the Vormance expedition, Fleetwood has already been to Africa, so this episode precedes Vormance.

'''meat lozenges''' 
Lightweight for hikers. "Brand's meat lozenges, which are about the size of a four-penny piece and a quarter of an inch thick" [http://www.rootsweb.com/~nzlscant/mountcook.htm cite]

'''Seven Sisters''' 
Seven women's colleges at the time. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(colleges) Wikipedia]

==Page 160==

'''Dittany''' 
(1) [http://www.alchemy-works.com/herb_dittany.html White dittany,] ''Dictamnus albus'' var. ''dasycarpus,'' with reputed medicinal properties; (2) [http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/design/handbooks/herbgarden/7.html common dittany,] Maryland dittany or stone mint, ''Cunila origanoides''; or (3) [http://cretashop.gr/br/productsbr/diet/dittany_br.htm dittany of Crete,] ''Origanum dictamnus'' L., a species of oregano said to have aphrodisiac qualities. Herb (2) is native to North America, but the smart money's on (3).

==Page 161==

'''Elsie de Wolfe''' 
(1865-1950), American interior designer, hostess, and actress, best known for her innovative and anti-Victorian interiors. She is often credited with inventing the profession of interior decoration. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_De_Wolfe Wikipedia entry]

'''"musical dramas"''' 
The musical ''comedy'' genre was nascent, while operetta was a mature form with plenty of audience appeal. R.W. Vibe was misguided, though, if he thought Conkling's 30-year career (see next entry) could be condensed to three entertaining acts.

'''Roscoe Conkling''' 
New York Radical Republican politician (1829–1888) who served in both the House and the Senate. He opposed reform, acted as a friend of big business, engineered the selection of Chester A. Arthur as vice-president, and was suspected of involvement in the Garfield assassination that made Arthur president. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Conkling See also his Wikipedia entry.]

'''Tubby the pig''' 
Pynchon thinks pigs are cool. For examples, the character Pig Bodine, the Porky Pig tattoo and the Plechazunga costume in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Pynchon was allegedly notorious for carrying around a 6- to 7-inch yellow plastic pig ([http://www.theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/pynchon.html source]), and his room was allegedly decorated with pig toys around the 1960s, according to Jules Siegel's Playboy article on the writer.

==Page 162==

'''Sillery''' 
Wine from the French town of the same name. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sillery%2C_Marne Wikipedia]

'''puce''' 
A brownish color; perhaps meant as a play on "puke"? 
Seems straigtforward in the text: overlay Scarsdale's gray tones with Edwarda's mauve and sometimes you get puce. Sort of.

==Page 163==

'''"Kit was wondering through the house when he heard piano music"''' 
Just like Kurt Mondaugen, in chapter 9 of ''V.'' (p. 238)

'''R. Wilshire Vibe had not endeared himself to his nephew''' 
Because ''African Antics'' comically played up the dangers Fleetwood was about to face.

'''Tell me, what-cha gonn-na do, When they come screamin, after you?''' 
This reminds me of The Guns of Brixton, by The Clash, which contains the lines:

''When they kick out your front door 
''How you gonna come? 
''With your hands on your head 
''Or on the trigger of your gun ''

Is it possible this line is a reference to the popular American television reality series [http://www.cops.com/ COPS], whose theme song contains the lyrics:

''Bad boys, bad boys 
''Whatcha gonna do? 
''Boad boys, bad boys 
''Whatcha gonna do? 
''Whatcha gonna do 
''When they come for you? ''

The series follows the daily lives and patrols of "real life" police officers on patrol in varoius American cities, often focusing on the down-trodden and marginalized in American society. The overall effect of the program is often to further separate the "us" from the "them", in that we can sit idly by and use the unfortunate, stupid, or criminal as our entertainment.

==Page 164==

'''Logical paradoxes''' 
Fleetwood has presented Kit with a statement similar to the notorious liar paradox with "...you shouldn't trust anything I have to say about this family."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox Wikipedia] 
Whether the statement actually qualifies as a paradox is not immediately clear. Fleetwood is not just saying "you shouldn't trust anything I have to say," which is self referential in the manner of the liar paradox. He is specifically referring to some sentences he might utter "...about this family." Unless we are willing to interpret Fleetwood's sentence itself as being about his family, and not just some other sentences he might utter, it is not paradoxical. Fleetwood is a member of the family. His sentence makes a statement that casts doubt on what he might say about a member of the family. This statement by Fleetwood about what he might say can be (but arguably not "must be") interpreted, in a general sense, as a statement about his family (which includes himself). On that interpretation he is making a statement that denies that the statement itself can be trusted. 
There is a second way Fletwood's statement does not clearly show itself to be a paradox. Most variations on the liar paradox are statements that claim themselves to be false; this is different from a statement saying that it cannot be trusted. If something cannot be trusted, it might still be true.

==Page 165==

'''"your strongest certainty...you remember everything"''' 
The whole paragraph recalls Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'', where random perceptions suddenly bring back lost memories. Through this remembrance the past is regained, and it is suddenly possible to constitute identity. This might be mirrored in Fleetwood's "single great episode of light" in which one hasn't "discovered it but returned to it".

'''all my colleagues care about is finding waterfalls''' 
A quest Kit must have sympathized with; see p. 98 [[ATD_97-118#Page_98|and annotations.]]

'''a simply-connected space with an unbroken line around it''' 
Orthodox Jewish communities often make a symbolic perimeter around their space so that they can, for example, carry a book as they walk to Sabbath worship; by convention they are still "home"—thus not enjoined against some kinds of work—as long as they stay inside this ''eruv.'' One such neighborhood in Atlanta uses a set of electrical power lines to bound its area.

In this context, "simply connected" means the region inside the perimeter does not contain any "islands" that don't belong to the space. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simply_connected Wikipedia gives an admirably clear explanation.]

==Page 166==

'''hair ropes''' 
Cowboy superstition: horsehair ropes kept snakes away.

'''"some peaceful expanse of rangeland"''' 
The use of the word "range" along with the previous page's description of heavenly light suggest some connection to the phrase, "the light over the range."

In fact, there were several proposals for an African "Zion", most notoriously a Nazi plan to settle all Jews in Madagascar.

'''by way of commentary''' 
On Fleetwood's rotten joke.

'''"stand your ground"''' 
Ellmann tells a similar story about Joyce's father facing charging riders in Phoenix Park.

==Page 167==

'''...it was a time honored principle to do nothing for free [...] Trust me. Buy Rand shares''' 
It is implied that Rand is a gold mining company (does anyone know if this is/was a real company?). Regardless, Yitzhak and Fleetwood are talking about South Africa. Although the ''rand'' is the currency of South Africa today, it was not in circulation intil 1961. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_pound source]) The famous Kruger''rand'' is a gold coin, but that was introduced in 1967. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krugerrand source]) The Witwaters''rand'' is the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built.

The Rand is a gold field, not a company or currency (in this context). See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_119-148#Page_146 note on page 146]

It is possible that Pynchon is also mocking the philosophy of Ayn Rand, which is often characterized as a defense of selfishness or strong individualism. Pynchon [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0277-335X(198201)47%3A1%3C62%3ALATWWO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W previously parodied] Ayn Rand and her Theory of Objectivism as "Mafia Winsome" and her "Theory of Heroic Love" in ''V.''
: It seems a stretch to interpret this as a reference to Ayn Rand, especially as these sound like historical facts: although the Australian gold rush began in the 1850s, the rich Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie fields of gold were found in the 1890s, apparently triggering later rushes. ([http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/goldrush/ source]) But perhaps... [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 17:59, 22 December 2006 (PST)

'''war going on''' 
The Second Boer War started 11 October 1899, between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic). After a protracted hard-fought war, the two independent republics lost and were absorbed into the British Empire. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War Wikipedia]

==Page 168==

'''Eastern Question''' 
Europe's concern with post-Ottoman Turkey. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Question Wikipedia]

'''"Fleetwood wanted to be like them...He prayed to become one of them. [...] Nothing "took." "''' 
Cf. William Gibson's 1981 short story ''Hinterlands'' ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinterlands_%28short_story%29 Wikipedia entry]), for a similar case of people willing unsuccesfully to be "taken" by the unknown (albeit without Pynchon's explanation as to why this doesn't happen):
:"We both have the drive, though, that special need, that freak dynamic that lets us keep going back to Heaven. We both got it the same way, lay out there in our little boats for weeks, waiting for the Highway to take us. And when our last flare was gone, we were hauled back here by tugs. Some people just aren't taken, and nobody knows why. And you'll never get a second chance. [...] But I'd wanted to go, wanted it so bad. Charmian, too."

'''Massawa''' 
a port on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. Important for many centuries, it has been colonised by Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Britain... It became the capital of the Italian colony of Eritrea until this was moved to Asmara in 1900. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massawa Wikipedia entry]

'''Lourenço Marques''' 
Today known as Maputo, capital city of Mozambique. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo Wikipedia entry]

'''''cantinhas''''' 
Portuguese: taverns (like Spanish ''cantinas'').

'''rotgut rejectamenta of Bucelas and Dão''' 
Rotgut= "poor-quality and potentially toxic alcoholic liquor." Rejectamenta= "things thrown out or away," so the reject wine. Bucelas, Portugal is a famous wine-growing region. Dão is a type of Portuguese wine.

'''Johannesburg''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannesburg Johannesburg], also known as ''eGoli'', the place of Gold, is the financial, economic and cultural center, but not the capital, of South Africa. The discovery of gold in 1880s brought a large number of whites to this region from all over the world. Apartheid, a racial segregation system, was enforced between 1948-1990. While gold mining no longer takes place within the city limits, most mining companies still have their headquarters in Johannesburg.

'''"like Baku with giraffes"''' 
''Gravity's Rainbow'' mentions Baku by name three times, according to [http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/b.html the Pynchon Pages index]:

352; seaport capital of Azerbaydzhanskaya SSR, Soviet Union, on the west coast of the Caspian Sea; 353; Blobadjian "pursued through the black end of Baku by a passel of screaming Arabists" 354
(Actually there are four references, as it appears twice in page 354 - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 20:28, 25 January 2007)

And not to forget the giraffe: "Foppl stood holding a sjambok or cattle whip of giraffe hide" (''V.'', chapter 9, p. 240)

After reading this section, and the oddly-separated text of Fleetwood's reverie about his pursuit of wealth in the Transvaal, and his murder of the Kaffir, the family name struck me, "Vibe" = "V" I be. Certainly this section brings back the African horror of "V."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku Baku], Azerbaijan's capital, is located on the southern shore of the Apsheron peninsula of the Caspian Sea. The origin of the name, based on the most widely known theory, comes from ''bad kube'', meaning "city of winds". Today's Baku is reallly three cities rolled into one: the old town (885-1872), the boomtown (1872-1920) and the Soviet-built town (1921-1991). The basis of Baku's economy is petroleum. Commercial exploitation began in 1872, (Baku is where Nobel Brothers acquired their wealth and the money for the ''Nobel Peace Prize''), and by the beginning of the 20th century the Baku oil field was the largest in the world and Baku supplied half of the world's oil production. But towards the end of the 20th century much of the land's petroleum had been exhausted, and drilling had extended into the sea. Baku ranks as one of the largest world centers for the production of oil industry equipment.

==Page 169==

'''Kaffirs''' 
African blacks. The word Kaffir, derived from Arabic ''kafir,'' "infidel," is considered [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_%28ethnic_slur%29 extremely insulting,] and calling someone this name has been a civil cause of action in South Africa since the 1970s.

'''eGoli''' 
Zulu name for Johannesburg and a possible pun on e-coli.

'''to be shot or to step into a mine shaft''' 
Completing the story Fleetwood didn't tell on p. 147.

==Page 170==

'''some grave imbalance in the structure of the world . . . Be serious''' 
Fleetwood's dreams connect forward (in time—but back to pp. 121-55 in ''AtD'') to the scourging of the great city.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 1000-1017

2007-08-24T05:15:20Z

Sideming: /* Page 1012 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page XX==

'''Sample entry''' 
Please format like this.

==Page 1000==

'''L.A.H.D.I.D.A''' 
la-di-da: pretentious

'''Their foolish music is about to stop''' 
Vibe using the same image as Professor Sleepcoat, but from a different angle.

==Page 1001==

'''perfect ten-acre mesh''' 
Mutilation of the land by imposition of straight lines on it.

'''telpherage''' 
Cars suspended from overhead cables, or the system of cables.

==Page 1002==
'''all busy killin each other over some snarled-up politics way beyond any easy understanding''' 
No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

==Page 1003==

'''the whole history of those Balkan peoples is revenge, back and forth, families against families, and it never ends''' 
Again, no reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

'''Trinidad''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinidad%2C_Colorado Trinidad] is the Spanish word for Trinity.

==Page 1004==

'''Toltec Hotel''' 
Now [http://www.historictrinidad.com/toltec.htm dilapidated] but perhaps being [http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-125924698.html renovated].

'''Ludlow''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow%2C_CO Wikipedia]

'''Mother Jones''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones Mary Harris Jones] (1830-1930), labor organizer and advocate. A speech she made in Trinidad climaxed with: "Rise up and strike . . . strike until the last one of you drop into your graves. We are going to stand together and never surrender. Boys, always remember you ain't got a damn thing if you ain't got a union!"

'''the C.F.I. office''' 
Colorado Fuel and Iron; The Colorado Fuel and Iron (CF&I) steel mill on the south side of town was the main industry in Pueblo, Colorado for most of its history. Over the course of its history, the company has had several major labor disputes. The most famous of these culminated in the famous Ludlow Massacre at one of its coal mines in 1914; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Fuel_and_Iron Wikipedia entry]

==Page 1005==

'''...a halo or glory out of which anything might emerge...''' 
A glory is an optical phenomenon produced by light backscattered (a combination of diffraction, reflection and refraction) towards its source by a cloud of uniformly-sized water droplets. A glory has multiple colored rings. The angular size is much smaller than a rainbow, about 5° to 20°, depending on the size of the droplets, seen in the direction opposite the sun [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_%28optical_phenomenon%29]. The description here recalls the "somehow blazingly illuminated spaces" in Penhallow's paintings (P. 897).
(Glories are often seen in association with a Brocken spectre, the apparently enormously magnified shadow of an observer cast, when the Sun is low, upon the upper surfaces of clouds that are below the mountain upon which he stands; In ''GR'' Tyrone Slothrop experiences this phenomenon atop Mt. Greylock in Massachusetts).

==Page 1006==

==Page 1007==

'''Sister Clementia''' 
There is a Sister [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clementia Clementia] in the play "Sancta Susanna" written by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Stramm August Stramm].

'''John Chase . . . General''' 
Commanding state militia in the coal war; [http://www.du.edu/anthro/ludlow/cfhist3.html here is a summary of atrocities committed by his force.]

==Page 1008==

'''an inestimable edge both tactical and psychological''' 
The military, acting on behalf of the plutocrats, use a less-advanced form of the ''Interdikt'' weapon: light.

'''darkness . . . compassion''' 
Respite from the attack.

==Page 1009==

'''vagging''' 
Bogus arrest for vagrancy, a strikebreaking tactic.

'''the Baldwin-Felts "detective" agency''' 
Run from Bluefield, West Virginia, the company acted outside the law on behalf of industrialists until federal law banned the use of such private armies. Significantly, its records were destroyed when the agency went out of business in 1930.

==Page 1010==

'''With a rifle it's too personal''' 
As the 20th century progressed, first the machine gun, as described here, later high-altitude bombing, later nuclear-tipped missiles, provided increasingly impersonal, and therefore easier, means of killing, one factor adduced to explain the increasing toll of violence. Perhaps another paramorphic mirror image of the early 21st century, which has seen the advent of the suicide attacker and purposeful attacks on unengaged noncombatants.

==Page 1011==

'''Pueblo''' 
City along the Front Range south of Denver and Colorado Springs, where the Arkansas River exits its canyon, the first large city north of the coalfields and site of the huge CF&I steel plant. Pronounced "Pee-eb-low" by locals.

'''the 29 Luglio Saloon''' 
Italian: July 29, anniversary of King Umberto I's assassination (1900); see link in next entry.

'''Bresci . . . King Umberto . . .''' 
Cf [[ATD_724-747#Page_739|page 739: Bresci]].

'''. . . fallen somehow off a supply wagon . . .''' 
i.e. stolen.

==Page 1012==

'''Balkan folks . . . their Easter or somethin''' 
In 1914, Orthodox Easter fell on April 19 in the western calendar. Chase's final attack began the morning of the 20th.

Paramorphically speaking, April 19-20 is a busy day for fire and explosion:
*Battle of Lexington and Concord: the "shot heard round the world" opening the American Revolutionary War (19th, 1775)
*The above is why Patriot's Day started as April 19 in Massachusetts, legendarily the anniversary of Paul Revere's Midnight 4/18-19 ride.
*Beginning of the French Revolutionary Wars (20th, 1792)
*Hitler's birthday (20th, 1889)
*Destruction of Toronto by fire (19th, 1904)
*Beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (19th, 1943)
*Failure of the Bay of Pigs raid (19th, 1961)
*Explosion of a gun turret on USS ''Iowa'' (19th, 1989)
*Branch Davidian compound fire (19th, 1993)
*Oklahoma City bombing (19th, 1995)
*Columbine High School shootings and heaviest US bombing of Kossovo (20th, 1999)
*The fiery end of the sign of Aries, ruled by Mars, God of War
*And in ''AtD'' the Ludlow Massacre (20th, 1914)
all fell on these two days. For more, type the date in Wikipedia's search window.

==Page 1013==

'''mercenaries called themselves "the American Legion"''' 
Not ''that'' American Legion. These soldiers of fortune enlisted under Pancho Villa. [http://www.netdotcom.com/revmexpc/fortune.htm This web site has numerous pictures of them.]

==Page 1014==

==Page 1015==

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
Colorado was a stronghold of the KKK into the 1920s. As late as the 1980s there was sporadic Klan activity around Colorado Springs, then attributed to groups at nearby Fort Carson. But the area was also a site of the militant right wing Posse Comitatus movement.

'''Brice''' 
Possibly named after [http://www.christdesert.org/cgi-bin/martyrology.dynamic.5.cgi?month=10&day=13&date=Go Saint Brice].

==Page 1016==

==Page 1017==

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

User talk:MKOHUT

2007-08-20T15:32:37Z

Sideming:

User talk:MKOHUT

2007-08-20T15:31:18Z

Sideming:

Hi Mark,

I just noticed that you nuked some edits on I did to AtD Pages 26-56, linking between two references. Please let me know why you did this?

Thanks. [[User:WikiAdmin|WikiAdmin]] 23:50, 19 March 2007 (PDT)

Dear Wiki Administrator,

This was some kind of accident.....I did not intend, never intend, to delete anything that Administrators write....and, although I have nuked
a few things from others that seemed refuted by later discoverers, including me, I almost always just write my opinions after others with whom I might not agree.

I think my entry accident comes from not leaving enough white space when
I paste something.....the wiki does not seem to endlessly expand that way as on e-mails.....

I am trying to be near perfect.

Thank You,
Mark Kohut

Dear Wiki Administrator,

I just added a note to the Cosmo entry about the Cosmo in Mason & Dixon and I do not know how to italicize the book's title, which I think is the proper formatting....usual way to italicize is not working for me...I will erase it if necessary.

Thank You,
Mark K.

Hi MKOHUT,

Regarding Philolaus. I'll give you a short answer. He taught that the world is divided into "limiteds" and "unlimited." Limited were numbers and edges; unlimiteds included air, earth, water, sound, space and time. He also taught that the earth revolved around a central fire that was conjoined with the limited geometric shape of the circle to create the sun. The perfect combination of limited and unlimited produced "harmony" and he thought of harmony as soul. It's interesting that later down that same page, TRP brings up the Harmonica band again.

In researching more on Philolaus, I found a book on the Pythagoreans and a cursory look revealed that I may have had them all wrong. They appear to have been an secretive aristocratic oligarchy. They did not trust the common man. In fact, the bean ban may have been a ban on democratic elections -- since beans were used in the election process. So they appear to be anti-democratic and elitist. I feel I have to dive deep into what is known about Philolaus and the Pythagoreans before I can add anything more to the entries. In some ways, it seems to parallel the Chums of Chance -- are they "good guys" or are they working for the current powerstructure? The whole thing has suddenly become very complex.

You can call me "Sid"

Hi Mark,

RE Pokler in GR -- it's been about a decade since I last read GR. I'll try to research it over the weekend and get back to you. -- Scott

Hi MKOHUT,

Regarding the Noctical posting. Something was gnawing at me regarding the name of this group. I first wanted to confirm what I thought was the case, that noctical derives from night -- as in equinox, equinoctical. In researching that, I came across the D&D posting. I posted it here because TRP is well known for picking things up from all sorts of places, and D&D seems a prime place for him to borrow ideas. I was taken with the description of the Nocticals -- and while I haven't mapped it directly to the events that follow the recovery of the Figure from under the ice, to my mind, it offered some very vivid imagery that added to the flavor of the apolocypse that The Transnoctical Group knowingly or unknowingly imported into the City -- which I'm not clear on is NYC or DC.
That was my thinking. If you feel it is not revelant please feel free to edit or delete that entry -- now problem.

BTW, I moved recently and my copy of GR is still in one of many book boxes in the garage. Sorry I didn't get back to you as I said I would.
It may take awhile.

Sid.

ATD 119-148

2007-08-17T18:31:28Z

Sideming: /* Page 131 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 121==

'''flying bridge''' 
On an ordinary aquatic ship, the flying bridge is an open deck atop the pilothouse for navigating in good weather. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_bridge [Wikipedia]]

'''to measure and map . . . that mysterious mathematical lattice-work''' 
A big research area in satellite and earth sciences. For example, if you know to utmost accuracy how gravity varies in near-Earth space, you can predict the orbits of satellites used for navigation and positioning (i.e., GPS).

'''"Ray-rush"''' 
Cf contemporary telecom bandwidth auctions. "Ray-rush" as "Gold-rush"

'''here at the high edge of the atmosphere''' 
Odd phrasing that may mark an allusion to the space race a few decades later.

'''obscure feelings of dread''' 
Strange lights in the sky, not accompanied by thunder, are a portent—seldom of anything good on the way.

==Page 122==

'''transfiguration unceasing''' 
Not just continuous change, but specifically changes in the observer's face as the colors and intensities shift.

'''iceblink''' 
Lightening of the underside of clouds over ice. A related phenomenon is "water sky," darkening of clouds over water. [http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/basics/phenomena/water_sky.html Photos of both.]

'''souls bound to the planetary lines of force, swept pole to pole''' 
In ''V,'' Mondaugen was stationed in South Africa to record "sferics" or "whistlers," a form of radio interference due to charged particles traveling along Earth's lines of magnetic force. Here, the planet being hollow, the field may be continuous, north-south on the outside and then south-north on the inside, and the lines may represent some other, nonmagnetic field. Note the link here to the mysterious lattice-work on p. 121 above.

'''manœuvring''' 
British spelling; U.S. ''maneuvering.''

'''dazzle-painting''' 
A camouflage painting technique used on WWI ships.[http://www.gotouring.com/razzledazzle/articles/dazzle.html].

'''intelligence centers on the surface such as the Inter-Group Laboratory for Opticomagnetic Observation (I.G.L.O.O.), a radiational clearing-house in Northern Alaska''' 
Perhaps a reference to the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) site in Gakonka, AK, which is ostensibly engaged in ionospheric research [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haarp (Wikipedia entry)]. Also suggestive of the ECHELON network [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHELON (Wikipedia entry)], comprising a number of signals intelligence sites, which are capable of intercepting a wide variety of communications signals throughout the world. Also, Pynchon often creates humorous or fanciful acronyms: W.A.S.T.E. (''The Crying of Lot 49''), A.C.H.T.U.N.G. (''Gravity's Rainbow''), etc.

'''Lloyd's of the high spectrum [...] the next fateful Lutine announcement.''' The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutine HMS Lutine] (Lutine translates as "the tease") was a ship commissioned in the French Royal Navy which was later given to the English Royal Navy during the Revolution. In 1799 she sank in the North Sea while blockading Holland; her hold was full of gold. Lloyd's of London, an independent insurance market still known for being willing to assume large insurance risks for the right price, had insured the gold, and paid the claim in full, acquiring nominal ownership of the still-unsalvaged cargo. The ship's bell was recovered in the mid-19th century and hangs to this day in the Underwriting Room at Lloyd's. For many years the the Lutine Bell was struck to announce news of an overdue ship: once if lost, twice if reported safe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd's_of_London#Miscellaneous [Wikipedia]]

'''last eclipse''' 
Possibly Pike's Peak, 1878? [http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/SEhistory/SEhistory.html (partial table)]

==Page 123==

'''lookout telegraph''' 
Instead of attaching Pugnax's tail directly to a hammer that hits the gong, the gong is struck remotely via a telegraph line.

'''Igor Padzhitnoff''' 
The whole passage that introduces the rival airship captain is a play on Tetris. Igor's surname is similar to that of the creator of Tetris, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexey_Pazhitnov Alexey Pazhitnov]. Also, the captain himself serves "a program of mischief", flies a ship called "The Great Game" and drops "bricks and masonry, always in the four-block fragments which had become his "signature," to fall on and damage targets designated by his superiors."

The term 'Great Game' also refers to the intense geopolitical rivalry between the English and Russian empires over control of Central Asia during the whole of the 19th century [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game Wikipedia]. The period of this Great Game is thought to have ended in 1907, about the time of the book. The constant appearance of the Russians wherever the Chums go would appear to play on both this and on the coming Cold War conflict. The equation of all of these with Tetris suggests a common theme in all three 'non-violent' conflicts.

'''''Ice Pirates''''' 
This turn of phrase echoes the spoof [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087451/ movie] of camraderie and dangerous "space herpes" that was released in 1984. There's no textual evidence that Pynchon means to refer to the movie, but the satirical humor and outlandish situations presented in the film might be attractive to someone with his sensibilities.

'''Tovarishchi Slutchainyi''' 
Tovarishchi translates as comrades; the literal translation of "Slutchainyi" is "accidental", leading to one possible reading of the phrase being: Chums of Chance. 
The phrase "Tovarishchi Slutchainyi" could also mean someone who is friends, but not intentionally, ie: perhaps people who are conscripted into a situation where they are forced to be communal. (Thanks to Anna Zaytseva for the idiomatic help!) 
A third reading is introduced when the homophonic correspondence between the final two syllables of Slutchainyi and Vice-President Cheney's name is noted. (Erhm, this doesn't work: the Russian word is sloo-CHIE-nee.)
:If the name were ''Tovarishchi Sluchainogo'' instead of as in the text, it would mean "Comrades of the Random," an exact parallel to the Chums.

'''trespassing upon their "sky-space" again''' 
A Soviet and Russian preoccupation, encroachment on their airspace by military or civilian flights.

'''nasal dislocation''' 
'Nose out of joint' = offended, feelings hurt.

==Page 124==

'''Getting jump on me''' 
To put on a comic Russian accent, first thing you do is delete all the articles: ''a, an, the.'' Russian has no articles, and some Russian speakers can't get the frightfully complicated rules for using ours.

'''Na sobrat' ya po nebo!''' 
Randolph says "На собратья по небо." What I believe he means to say is
"Наши собратья по небу" or Nashi sobrat'ya po nebu, meaning "Our brothers/comrades of the sky"—perhaps a ritual greeting between the two groups. 
If aeronauts are like pilots, and they are--see ATD early---they feel and state a solidarity with others who fly. 
It is unlikely that Pynchon would make a mistake (the Russian in GR is correct) but Randolph might err. 
:''Much'' of the Russian in ''GR'' is OK, not all, and somebody erred on page 123 when they made ''sluchainyi'' (singular) modify ''tovarishchi'' (plural).

'''all animals . . . had names—bears, wolves, Siberian tigers''' 
Linguists cite Padzhitnoff's error as their favorite example of a taboo. Some time in the remote past, the name of the bear—derived from an Indo-European word like ''arktos'' or ''rktos''—became unspeakable and was replaced, in Russian, by the euphemism "honey-eater": ''medved'.'' It happened so long ago that speakers of the language think this is the native word. Same in English; ours comes from an old word for "brown."

'''That creature, we did not have name for''' 
Well then, how the hell are we supposed to look it up and post it to the wiki?

==Page 125==
'''a ''roman-feuilleton'' by M. Eugène Sue''' 
A ''roman-feuilleton'' or serial novel. Eugène Sue (the "M." is for Monsieur = Mr.) was a French novelist roughly contemporary to Dumas père, with whom he has been compared. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugène_Sue Wikipedia entry on Eugène Sue] Sue's most famous, which used to be a Modern Library title, is ''The Wandering Jew.''

His largest work, Les Mystères de Paris, is noted for its eventful plots and unique characters. Sue could have been called an early-19th-century Pynchon. Sue explored the underworld, and his work was quite sensational. [http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/s#a1186 Link to his works at Gutenberg]

'''into the Zone of Emergency''' 
Both the text and the theme are reminiscent of Slothrop's passage "into the Zone" in GR.

Reading TRP has trained me to look for meaningful acronyms whether they are there or not. Here ZoE, zoë, [http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=b&p=10 "animal life"] -- and the emergence thereof. Spinning this album backword, we hear "the emergence of the animal" which like all good backward masking, refers to something in the [http://www.ccel.org/bible/phillips/CP27Revelation.htm ''Book of Revelation''.] This section, so titled, seems relevant (revelant): 
: 11:7-10 - ''Then...the animal will come up out of the pit and go to war with them. It will conquer and kill them, and their bodies will lie in the street of the great city...."

'''red as a cursed ruby representing a third eye in the brow of some idol of the incomprehensible''' 
Seems too random to not be a reference to something...Very possibly; under the name T.Lopsang Rampa an Englishman published a thoroughly discredited spiritual autobiography called The Third Eye. The Third Eye, by Englishman Cyril Hoskin, a fantastic (and popular) tale of Tibetan spirit possession published in 1956; included telepathy and more.

In the 1940 version of "The Thief of Bagdad" the boy thief Abu (played by Sabu) must steal a magical "all-seeing eye" (ruby?) from the brow of a massive golden idol in a remote temple, in order to see - as in a crystal ball - the location of the Princess held in thrall by the evil vizier Jaffar.

:The stolen idol's eye as a literary device goes back at least to 1868, when Wilkie Collins invented the modern detective novel in [http://www.lib.mq.edu.au/digital/seringapatam/other/moonstone.html ''The Moonstone.''] In 1891, London's Savoy Theatre presented a post-Gilbert and Sullivan operetta called [http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/other_savoy/nautch_girl/nautch_review.html ''The Nautch Girl''] using the same gimmick. And a rather maudlin poem by J. Milton Hayes, [http://ingeb.org/songs/theresae.html "The Green Eye of the Little Yellow God"] (written before 1911), gives it a Kiplingesque treatment.

:And the theft of the idol's eye results in blindness, blindness at the heart of the diamond, and so [[ATD_97-118#Page_109|another ''Moonstone'' resonance.]]

The Hindu god of destruction and transformation, Shiva, "is often depicted with a third eye with which he burned Desire (Kāma) to ashes". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

'''Isafjörðr''' 
Town in the Westfjords of Iceland. Often spelled as Isafjörður, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ísafjörður Wikipedia]

'''The "extra man" of Arctic myth''' 

In his footnotes to "The Waste Land", T.S. Eliot glosses the lines:

''Who is the third who walks always beside you?'' 
''When I count, there are only you and I together'' 
''But when I look ahead up the white road'' 
''There is always another one walking beside you'' 

with:

"The following lines were stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted." [http://www.infoplease.com/t/lit/wasteland/thunder.html]

See also [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackletonexped/dispatches/19991110.html NOVA Online: Shackleton's Antarctic Odyssey]
"Shackleton, for his part, attributed their astonishing success to something else: 'I know that during that long and racking march of 36 hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three.' Worsley and Crean, uncannily, felt the same. When T. S. Eliot read Shackleton's account, he was inspired to write the passage at the head of this dispatch."

'''the true face''' 
Possible variant on Taoism's "The Tao that can be spoken of is not the true Tao" [http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/T/the-X-that-can-be-Y-is-not-the-true-X.html [cf]] 
Or -- the Zen koan regarding one's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_face Original Face]: "What did your face look like before your parents were born?"

'''bonzoline''' 
Ivory substitute made from celluloid, used for billiard balls. [http://www.oedilf.com/db/Lim.php?Word=bonzoline [cite]]

==Page 126==
'''inukshuk''' 
An inukshuk is a stone landmark used as a milestone or directional marker by the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic. The Arctic Circle, dominated by permafrost, has few natural landmarks and thus the inuksuk was central to navigation across the barren tundra. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inukshuk Wikipedia entry on Inukshuk]

'''a truth beyond the secular''' 
Pynchon's use of the word "secular" is unusual. He previously had the Chums striving "to minimize contamination of the secular" on [[ATD_97-118#Page_113|page 113]], and here the Chums try to glimpse "some expression of a truth beyond the secular." Neither of these statements makes much sense with the normal definitions in use today for "secular"-- what could this mean?
: I think it is likely that secular means quotidian, "of the day", visible, as opposed to the invisible and mysterious which pervades ATD.
:Yes, that is a good extension of the original meaning: of the ages, of an age—as opposed to "eternal."

'''Étienne-Louis Malus''' 
See [[ATD_97-118#Page_114|page 114]].

'''The ''Étienne-Louis Malus''''' 
The level of detail in the description suggests Pynchon wrote it while looking at a photo.

'''Iceland spar''' 
A crystalline form of calcite; see [[ATD_97-118#Page_114|annotations to page 114]] and the fuller entry [[I|under "I" in the alpha index]]. In truth, the links in these wiki entries make [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcite Wikipedia] look lame.

'''Luxembourg Palace''' 
In Paris; now the seat of the French Senate.

'''376 feet, 6 inches''' 
The same length as the WWII-era [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_class_destroyer Fletcher Class Destroyer].

'''to the coasts of "Iceland," to the inhabited cliffs of ice''' 
The quotation marks suggest a place with this nickname, not Iceland. And sure enough, the Icelanders live in unglaciated lowlands, not cliffs in the ice.

'''They passed around rumors--the Captain was insane again, ice-pirates were hunting the ''Malus'' like whalers...''' 
This phrase seems evocative of ''Moby Dick'', not only in the intimation that the Captain might be insane and the rumors that might result, but also with the explicit references to "whalers" in the subsequent clause, "the subtle insanity of Ahab." ''Moby Dick'' of course contains many scenes when two whaling ships come together to exchange messages. Chapter 131, "The Pequod Meets the Delight," features particularly sinister omens. It is safe to say, however, that none of the captains who meets Ahab quite resembles Padzhitnoff or has a "signature" resembling the game of Tetris! Pynchon once again lightly tweaks the "line" linking his body of work to Melville's. ([[ATD_57-80#Page_73|page 73]])

==Page 127==

'''Constance Penhallow''' 
Hallow: to set apart as holy, to honor greatly. Her name then pairs the virtue of constancy with honoring the pen. Note also that her grandson, mentioned a few lines below, is named Hunter and is an artist--In the hunt for the consecrated pen.

Alternatively, the prefix ''pen-'' is Gaelic for ''head, principal,'' or ''chief,'' in which case the name would mean "Holiest." It is also Latin for ''nearly, almost'' (as in "penultimate" or "peninsula"), rendering the name "nearly holy." Given the Nordic origin of the Penhallow family, and the Germanic etymology of "hallow," the Gaelic prefix may be more likely. On the other hand, the Latinate prefix suggests the state of preterition -- not quite holy and perhaps not saved...

I don't see "Nordic" (although their fortune is derived from Nordic commerce). The prefix ''Pen-'' in a surname marks the family as Cornish in origin.

'''another remembered country''' 
The description of the scene suggests England or more specifically Cornwall, but who is remembering it? Constance lives in an "ancestral" home and Hunter apparently has not been away from there. It's an iconic background Hunter has painted into the scene; see the next entry.

'''walled garden''' 
In the Christian iconographic traditions of the Medieval and Renaissance periods, a walled garden, or ''hortus conclusus'' signified both/either the Garden of Eden and/or Mary's virginity.

'''Harald the Ruthless''' 
Harald III Sigurdsson (1015 – September 25, 1066), later surnamed Harald Hardråde (meaning ruthless) was the king of Norway from 1047 until 1066. Harald was the last great Viking king of Norway and his invasion of England and death at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 proved a true watershed moment. It marked the end of the Viking age. In Norway, Harald's death also marked the beginning of the Christian era. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_III_of_Norway Wikipedia entry on Harald the Ruthless]

'''Ginnungagap''' 
In Norse mythology, Ginnungagap ("seeming emptiness" or "gaping gap") was a vast chasm that existed before the ordering of the world. To the north of Ginnungagap lay the intense cold of Niflheim, to the south the insufferable heat of Muspelheim. At the beginning of time, the two met in the Ginnungagap; and where the heat met the frost, the frost drops melted and formed the substance eitr, which quickened into life in the form of the giant Ymir, the father of all Frost giants. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginnungagap Wikipedia entry on Ginnungagap]

Ginnungagap seems a Norse counterpart to the Indian Akasa. 
''Eitr'' has no linguistic tie to ''aether'' -- but the two words have phonetic resonance. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eitr Eitr] means "poison" or specifically "snake poison."

'''inexplicable desire . . . about desire, and the forsaking of desire''' 
When Pynchon uses the word "desire" it always has some special urgency. Harald feels driven to enter Ginnungagap but draws back without fulfilling his desire.

==Page 128==

'''So relates Adam of Bremen in the ''Historia Hammaburgensis Ecclesiæ''''' 
The references to [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Adam_of_Bremen Adam of Bremen] and [http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Harald_III Harald the Ruthless] may be "softer" than many appropriations of history in ''AtD.'' Or another way to characterize them may be "bolder." Adam (d. ca. 1085) was a learned churchman who wrote a history called ''Gesta hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum'' (Acts of the Archbishops of the Hamburg Church) or ''Historia ecclesiastica'' (Church History). In the fourth book, ''Descriptio insularum aquilonum'' (Description of the Islands of the North), Adam writes about the expedition mentioned in the text and another voyage to the northern seas.

The indented paragraphs below are based on ''History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen,'' translated by F.J. Tschan from the ''Historia'' and published in 1959 by Columbia University Press. Extracts are paraphrased except where identified by quotation marks.

:From Book IV, chapter xxxix (pp. 219-220 in Tschan): Past [i.e., north of?] Vinland there is no habitable land in the ocean, only impassable ice and darkness. Frozen sea is encountered one day's sail to the north. The Norwegian prince Harald took several ships to explore the northern realm. Finally they saw the murky boundaries of "a failing world." Harald turned around and did not fall into the bottomless pit.

:From the next chapters, IV, xl-xli (220-221 in Tschan): A number of ships sailed from the coast of Frisia, landing in Iceland and then proceeding northward. Reaching the limits of the known islands, they commended their fate to God and St. Willehad and continued into an all-obscuring mist. They were picked up by a current of the "fluctuating" ocean and whirled around a great chasm that sucks in the sea and then vomits it forth again. Some ships were lost but others saved themselves by rowing against the flow. The voyagers came to an island encircled by high cliffs where men lived in underground caves. They collected great treasure of gold and silver that lay in front of the caves, then were chased from the island by giants with enormous hounds. A safe return to Bremen ended the exploration.

What the mariners reported is some medium-scale phenomenon, big enough to seize a ship. It might be a tidal or current vortex. In a footnote to chapter xl, the translator says there is a big whirlpool (the ''Eis'') off the east coast of Greenland. The original Maelstrom (look further down this page) is a zone of current shears and eddies off the west coast of Norway. We might also suspect a violent tidal rush, as in the Bay of Fundy. There are enough candidates out there to promote Adam's version from fabulous to plausible, at any rate.

The key point, however, is that Ginnungagap and Harald's epiphany about desire are ''not'' related by Adam but read/written into his account.

'''water-sky''' 
Darkening of the underside of clouds over water; [http://nsidc.org/arcticmet/basics/phenomena/water_sky.html photos of water-sky and iceblink.]

'''drawn into another, toroidal dispensation''' 
"Dispensation" refers to a scheme under which God carries out his purposes toward men, or to a providential event affecting men and involving either mercy or judgment. [http://www.calvarysbd.com/terms.htm#D Slightly fuller definition.] "Toroidal" means donut-shaped.

A toroidal dispensation then is a scheme of universal management involving a donut shape. A huge whirlpool, in short: a ''maelstrom.''

[http://www.math.uio.no/maelstrom/ ''The'' Maelstrom] is a complicated system of currents and eddies off the coast of Norway, a frightful hazard to navigators that has become an icon for the vortex or whirlpool.

'''Bay of Röerford''' 
Does not seem to exist, at least with this spelling. 
A Google hit seems to confirm that the scientist Rasmus or Erasmus Bartholin studied calcite from the Bay of Roerford or Röerford, possibly in Denmark, but the link leads only to a summary, not full text.

'''southward to that region of sailors' yarns and oddities unconfirmed''' 
Clever inversion. To these people of the north, it's our familiar temperate seas that contain the marvels: porpoises, sargasso weed, year-round harbors.

'''Hunter Penhallow''' 
See above, Constance Penhallow. 
By the way, Penhallow is pronounced in a way that's very close to the italian "pennello" which means "paintbrush": quite appropriate for a painter!

'''lower-eighties''' 
Latitudes from 80N to 85N (mainly Ellesmere Island). [http://www.athropolis.com/map2.htm [map]] 
You would think that, but the text refers to people with "lower-eighties accents," and virtually no scientist comes from these latitudes (to say nothing of alienists). Could it have to do with 80th to 85th Streets? The expedition does appear to sail from New York.

'''love''' 
The word is rare in Pynchon's work. Here it is linked to separation, the human theme of the novel.

==Page 129==

'''shakes''' 
[http://www.houstonremodeling.com/glossary/glossary_s.htm Shingles made by splitting a wood such as cedar along the grain.]

'''Meat Olaf''' 
Anagram.
:As a lesson on the dangers of over-interpretation: I asked a Norwegian friend whether this is truly a Norwegian dish, to which he replied "no," making me feel stupid. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]]

:It is however the case that a popular Norwegian (and Norwegian-American) dish is lutefisk, an awful concoction unimaginable to those of us who enjoy fresh seafood, which is a sort of "fish loaf." For a funny description of an American attempt to eat it, see [http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~atman/ic/lutefisk.html].

'''''¡Cuidado Cabrón! Salsa Explosiva La Original''''' 
Cabrón is an offensive word in Spanish meaning a guy who is an asshole/dick/cuckold, but friends can also call each other Cabrón in a joking manner. So, ''Watch-Out, Fucker! The Original Explosive Sauce''.
:There appears, in "''Explosiva La Original''," to be a suggestion of an originary explosion, i.e. the Big Bang.

==Page 130==

'''separated . . . by only the thinnest of membranes''' 
An excellent book, ''The Mind in the Cave,'' by David Lewis-Williams, explores the idea that the partition between worlds is thick most everywhere but thin in special places, allowing the spiritual journeyer (e.g., the shaman) to make an easy crossing. Superstitions about veils, including [[ATD_119-148#Page_140|human cauls,]] make similar claims about what separates the natural and supernatural worlds. Shifts from one world to another figure at several places in ''AtD''; [[ATD_1-25#Page_9|see for example the dialog on p. 9,]] "Another 'surface,' but an earthly one."

'''until the phrase no longer had meaning''' 
This contributor took part in creating a work of radio conceptual art called ''Knob.'' A reader spoke the word "knob" onto a tape, which was then looped so that it repeated every 3-4 seconds. After a few dozen repetitions, the listener could not associate any meaning with the word; after the full half-hour, few could stand without assistance.

'''the force of a Tibetan prayer wheel''' 
Pynchon is slightly confused here. When spinning a Tibetan prayer wheel, you don't recite any prayers or mantras. The prayer wheel contains rolls of paper imprinted with the Om Mani Padme Hum mantra, but it is believed that the spinning of the wheel has the same effect as reciting that mantra; the more one recites the mantra, the closer one can get to enlightenment. So here, it would be more correct to say something along the lines of "the force of a mantra" rather than a Tibetan prayer wheel, since the characters are reciting the name of the salsa. [http://www.dharma-haven.org/tibetan/prayer-wheel.htm More on Tibetan prayer wheels]

'''Tsangpo-Brahmaputra country''' 
The Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river drains a large portion of the eastern Himalaya and southern Tibetan plateau as well as the eastern Himalayan syntaxis, one of the most tectonically active areas of the globe.

'''Candlebrow University''' 
A fictional institute, created in the tradition of Lovecraft's Miskatonic University.

[[image:ex-voti-isernia.jpg|thumb|175px|''Ex Voti'' of Wax, from Isernia|right]]What ''is'' a "candlebrow"? Consider those [[St. Cosmo|phallic ''ex voti'' candles offered up to St. Cosmo]]. The head of the candle-phallus, brow shaped, sits atop the cylindrical candle-shaft and is, metaphorically, the candle's brow. And, natch, Gideon Candlebrow made the bucks necessary to fund Candlebrow U. with the miracle product "Smegmo," the "Messiah of kitchen fats" (Imperial Margarine was advertised as "the King of Margarines") and we all know what [http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Asmegma&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official smegma] is. Also, the Biblical Gideon was associated with Phallus worship which was not considered at all shocking back in the day. When Gideon was asked by the Israelites to rule over them, he demurred stating that Yahveh shall rule over them, and he called on the people for all their golden ornaments, and of these be made the golden ephod (conventionally viewed as a priestly apron; controversially viewed as a phallus). The ephod was thus Yahveh or his idol. [http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Old%20Testament/Sex%20Worship%20and%20Idols.htm] [[The Sexual Angle|More on this...]]

Pynchon consistently calls it Candlebrow '''U.''' instead of simply Candlebrow or Candlebrow University because the letter's ''shape'', like the inverted-vagina shape of the Tetractys, echoes its phallic connotation. Pynchon similarly emphasizes the phallic by using "Dick" Counterfly (''with'' the quotes) instead of simply Dick. Hmmm, Ewball / U-ball?

Or, heck, maybe it's just Pynchon's oblique way of saying "fuck you"...

And, of course, this is all connected with how [[St. Cosmo|that Randy St. Cosmo]] got his name...

'''Quaternions''' 
In mathematics, quaternions are a non-commutative extension of complex numbers. They were first described by the Irish mathematician [[ATD-H#hamilton|Sir William Rowan Hamilton]] in 1843 and applied to mechanics in three-dimensional space. At first, quaternions were regarded as pathological, because they disobeyed the commutative law ab = ba. Although they have been superseded in most applications by vectors, they still find uses in both theoretical and applied mathematics, in particular for calculations involving three-dimensional rotations. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaternion Wikipedia entry].

'''Dr. V Ganesh Rao''' 
Ganesha is a Hindu god. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha Wikipedia]:

"It is widely believed that "Wherever there is Ganesha, there is Success and Prosperity" and "Wherever there is Success and Prosperity there is Ganesha". He is the Lord of Obstacles both of a material and spiritual order.[2] He is capable of placing obstacles in the path of those who need to be checked, and can remove blockages just as easily. By calling on him people believe that he will come to their aid and grant them success in their endeavour. He also is considered the master of intellect and wisdom."

'''Fleetwood Vibe''' 
Fleetwood, like Scarsdale, is a wealthy suburb of New York City. Both communities are located in Westchester County, north of New York City.

'''bucket-shop''' 
Business designed to cheat people. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucket_shop [Wikipedia]]

'''Dodge Flannelette''' 
Flannelette is a little washcloth. 
Flannelette is a soft fabric popular (in the UK at least) for pyjamas of a cosy but unsexy kind --[[User:Gobbag|Gobbag]] 10:40, 11 February 2007 (PST)
We have already seen one character with a name similar to an American car: Chevrolette. Two actually: The Cadillac Fleetwood.

'''Harriman... Schiff''' 
Railroad magnate and financier behind Northern Pacific Railroad, c1901. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Pacific_Railroad [Wikipedia]] [http://www.beardbooks.com/beardbooks/eh_harriman.html Book on Harriman] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._H._Harriman Harriman Wikpedia Entry] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff Schiff Wikipedia Entry]

==Page 131==

'''The Transnoctial Discussion Group''' 
Note that "transnoctial" doesn't mean ''through'' the night, it means ''across'' the night. See annotations to the next page for discussion of the members' names.

Noctial: from a [http://forums.gleemax.com/archive/index.php/t-838215.html Dungeons and Dragons] bulletin board: 

:''When a star is born, it violently tears apart the void that was there before its creation, ripping the nihility into hundreds of pieces and sending them hurtling through space. Occasionally, one finds its way to a planet, where it stays, consuming creatures to fill the unending emptiness inside it. These are noctials, rare but dangerous creatures that usually dwell in the wilderness.''
:''Noctials prefer open environments at night, making use of their Made of Sky ability to blend in with the night sky and drop down on unsuspecting prey. They are reclusive during the day, hiding in caves and other dark places. If it is clear that a noctial will lose a battle, a noctial will, rather than show a sense of self-preservation and flee, instead move to a position where its death throes will hurt its attackers as much as possible.''
:''Made of Sky (Ex): Noctials are made of the blackness between the stars, and so blend in perfectly. If the sun has set and a creature looking at a noctial sees nothing behind it except the sky, the noctial can hold perfectly still and automatically succeed on a Hide check, effectively being invisible to that creature as long as it remains immobile. True Seeing and the like have no effect on this ability.
:''Death Throes (Su): When a noctial dies, it explodes in a manner not unlike that of a dying star. Transforming into a raging inferno of white fire, it deals 4d6 damage to all creatures within 10 feet and 1d6 to all creatures within 20 feet. This will also ignite most flammable material within 20 feet.'' 
:''Ooze traits: Noctials are immune to all mind-affecting effects, poison, sleep effects, paralysis, polymorph, stunning, critical hits, flanking, and all effects relying on sight''. 
:''Incorporeal subtype: All nonmagical weapons miss noctials. All magical attacks have a 50% miss chance, unless they are based on positive energy, negative energy, or force or have Ghost touch. Noctials can partially enter objects, but must always be within 5 feet of the object's exterior. A noctial's attacks pass through natural armor, armor, and shields unless they are force-based (Mage Armor) or have a deflection bonus. They also can't manipulate objects, be grappled, or really interact with matter at all.''

'''"with oceangoing ships we left flat surfaces and went into Riemann space"''' 
One of Riemann's major contributions was the mathematics of manifolds, geometrical constructs that on a local scale appear to have fewer dimensions than they actually occupy. A standard example is the surface of the earth, which locally appears to be flat (2-dimensional), but in fact is curved (3-dimensional). Riemann's differential geometry quantifies the distortion produced by the curve of the surface.

'''first few wingbeats...invasion routes" 
An extraordinary paragraph. ''wingbeats'': in context has a demonic overtone of bats and Rebel Angels. Vormance and Vibe his sponsor here seem more intent on storming Heaven than exploring the artic -- shades of the ''Book of Revelation'' and Milton's ''Paradise Lost''.

'''Outer Hebrides''' 
or Western Isles comprise an island chain off the west coast of Scotland. The population today is only 26,370, and there is no University.

==Page 132==

'''it described the present journey as being taken "at right angles to the flow of time"''' 
Fittingly, as the discussion immediately following makes clear, this means into an imaginary time.

'''Vormance . . . Otto Ghloix . . . a heckler''' 
Members of the Transnoctial Discussion Group are Alden Vormance, V. Ganesh Rao, Dodge Flannelette, Fleetwood Vibe, Templeton Blope, Hastings Throyle, Otto Ghloix, and an extra man (heckler).

Without trying to read too much into the names, consider two parallel discussion groups in stories by the science fiction writer R.A. Lafferty, both collected in ''Nine Hundred Grandmothers'' (1970). "Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne" features Gregory Smirnov, Valery Mok, her husband Charles Cogsworth, a person called Glasser, Aloysius Shiplap, Willy McGilly, Audifax O'Hanlon and Diogenes Pontifex. The brilliant "Narrow Valley" brings in "the eminent scientists, Dr. Velikof Vonk, Arpad Arkabaranan and Willy McGilly. That bunch turns up every time you get on a good one." Vonk, Arkabaranan and McGilly are a stable group with many other credits in Lafferty's fiction. These groups share more than just capricious names with the T.D.G.; the members have a hypothesis ready for any observation, and the hypotheses never agree.

'''an ''additional axis'' whose unit is (-1)¹/²''' 
The usual form of representing a complex number ''z = b + ai'', (see below for explanation) graphically is by presenting its real part, ''b'', along the horizontal real axis and its imaginary part, ''a'', on the vertical imaginary (''additional'') axis of a Cartesian coordinate system. For a graph illustion of [http://www-xray.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jgraham/hypo/h13/images/image118.gif z = 1 + 2i].

'''complex number''' 
The complex number is of the form ''b + ai'', where ''a'' and ''b'' are real numbers and ''i'' is defined as the square root of -1, i.e. ''i'' = (-1)¹/². According to the definition, Cf page 133 Imaginary Number, ''ai'' is an imaginary number. Therefore, a complex number is a sum of real and imaginary numbers. Commonly, one use ''z'' to denote the whole expression ''b + ai'', i.e. ''z = b + ai''. And now ''z'' is called a complex number. Besides ''z'', the letter ''w'' is often used to denote complex numbers.

'''complex variable''' 
In mathematics, a 'variable' is a symbolic representation, usually a letter of the English (such as x and y), Greek or Roman alphabet, denoting an 'unkown' quantity which may vary during the course of calculation or investigation. For example, the speed of a jetliner,''v'', flying from Los Angeles to New York varies during the course of its flight. So,''v'' here is a variable. While 'c', the speed of light, unvaried, is a constant. In the algebraic equation y = ax² + bx + c where a, b and c are constants, x and y are ''variables''. When x and y involve complex numbers, then they are called complex variables.

'''''w'' = exp ''z''''' 
Here ''w'' is a complex-valued function of a complex variable; exp ''z''—written ''ez'' in the text—is a generalization of the exponential function to the base ''e''. The expression ''w'' = exp ''z'' gives the relationship of the independent (complex) variable ''z'' to the dependent (complex) variable ''w'', i.e., mapping ''z'' onto ''w''. This relationship may not be one-to-one.

:Mathematicians, please check this: In general, ''w'' = ''ez'' maps a line in the ''z'' plane to a spiral, not a circle, in the ''w'' plane. In the special case of a line parallel to the real axis, the map is either a line or a ray. In the special case of a line parallel to the imaginary axis, the map is indeed a circle. If this assertion is correct, it plays hob with Prof. Rao's metaphor.

The number ''e'' is the base of the natural logarithm, approximately equals to 2.71828. After ''Pi'', ''e'' is the most important
constant in mathematics. See the popular article about the history, definition and 10,000-place value of [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/e.html ''e''].

'''as Fitzgerald maintained, a shrinkage of dimension''' 
Irish physicist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_FitzGerald George FitzGerald] proposed a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Length_contraction contraction of length] parallel to the direction of motion, to explain the negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment. Quantitavely, the contraction is identical with the one predicted later by Einstein's special theory of relativity.

[http://musr.physics.ubc.ca/~jess/p200/str/str.html Here] is a concise and satisfying discussion of the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction in the context of late 19th and early 20th-century physics.

==Page 133==

'''a heckler . . . whom nobody . . . seemed quite able to locate''' 
The [[ATD_119-148#Page_125|Extra Man]] has followed the team indoors. 
Or maybe it is the ''Voice of God'' heckling those who just heckeled him!

'''Ynglingasaga''' 
See also Ynglinga Saga, or the story of the ancient Norse kings. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ynglinga_saga Wikipedia entry]

'''''The Book of Iceland Spar''''', '''commonly described as "like the ''Ynglingasaga'' only different"''' 
" 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.' " (''Vineland'', p. 170)

'''... even of days not yet transpired.''' 
Reminiscent of the Borges short story "The Library of Babel" about an "infinite library" which contains every possible book. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_babel Wikipedia entry].

'''Imaginary Number''' 
Imaginary number is of the form ''ai'', where ''a'' is a real number, and ''i'' is defined such that ''i² = -1'', 
i.e. i = (-1)¹/² (sqare root of minus 1). For example, ''-16¹/²'', (square root of minus 16) is an imaginary number since it can be expressed as ''4i'' by definition. In the novel ''The Da Vinci Code'' (2003), the character Robert Langdon jokes that character Sophie Neveu "believes in the imaginary number ''i'' because it helps her break code". In Issac Asimov's short story ''The Imaginary'' (1942), eccentric psychologist Tan Porus explains the behavior of a mysterious species of squid by using imaginary numbers in the equations which describe its psychology.

==Page 134==

'''that all-important ninety-degree twist to their light, so they can exist alongside our own world but not be seen''' 
Seems to echo Merle Rideout's theory on the "double refraction" of Blinky Morgan and Ed Morley from p.62. 
It's also a reference to the discussion of complex numbers in the previous pages, the implication being that the double refraction due to the Iceland Spar ("ninety-degree twist") puts the "Hidden People" into an imaginary space analogous to the imaginary axis of the space of complex numbers--[[User:Gobbag|Gobbag]] 12:55, 11 February 2007 (PST)
It could also be the angle at which light is polarized.

Also, this technique of bending light is similar to the technology The Predator has for a cloaking device. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_%28alien%29 Wikipedia]

'''visitors from elsewhere, of non-human aspect''' 
Extraterrestrials, perhaps? "Visitors", in popular culture, is a term sometimes used to describe ETs. The alien race from the television miniseries ''V'' was named The Visitors. In the fictional world of ''South Park'', aliens are referred to as "visitors".

:I'd opt for visitors from another dimension, a spiritual or an imaginary dimension, such as the dimension or axis upon which imaginary numbers reside (see above).
In his 1919 book, The Book of the Damned, Charles Fort uses the term to describe extra-terrestrials.

'''infinitesimal circle''' 
Cf p58. Reference to epsilon neighbourhoods, an essential tool in mathematical proofs.

'''bad ice''' 
Uneven ice formed by pressure, currents and wind in the dynamic Arctic environment

'''a device immediately recognizable yet unnamable''' 
"Device" here means an emblem. Irrelevantly, the rising sun on the Japanese flag is a device in this sense.

'''neutral-density gray''' 
Photography term. A neutral-density filter is designed to reduce the amount of light entering the lens without introducing a colour cast.

'''the sea-green, the ice-green, glass-green sea.''' 
In ''Ulysses'', James Joyce repeatedly describes the "snotgreen sea" (cf. Gabler edition, p. 4), itself an allusion to Homer's evocation of the "wine-dark sea". Cf., also, ATD, p.127: " . . . a green headland, sheer green walls of ice, the greenness nearest the water . . . . " and GR, V131: "the sea, which at sunset tonight shone green and smooth as iron-rich glass". In previous novels, Pynchon's use of color is almost always advised, as N.K. Hayles and M.B. Eiser note in their essay, "Coloring Gravity's Rainbow," in which green is frequently associated with the natural world, uncontaminated by humanity. 
Also, the repetition itself has a Joyceian feel.--[[User:Gobbag|Gobbag]] 13:52, 11 February 2007 (PST)
:Who but an artist like Hunter would catalog greens this way?

'''Narvik''' 
is a town in Norway, above the Arctic Circle.

==Page 135==

'''in the offing''' 
Extended meaning: imminent. Originally a ship was said to be in the offing when she was visible from land but not yet (or no longer) in the area of safe anchorage.

'''Mush-It-Away''' 
Takeaway (takeout fast food) for dogsledders.

'''cloudberries''' 
[http://www.chem.ucla.edu/~alice/explorations/churchill/cloudb.htm ''Rubus chamaemorus,''] edible fruit, yellow when ripe, related to raspberries, found growing wild in northern parts. Indigenous peoples may indeed eat them with blubber, but nowadays they also go into preserves and liqueurs.

'''skua eggs any style''' 
The [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9068130/skua skua] is a predatory seabird, ''Catharacta skua.''

For those not familiar with American diner lingo, "any style" means they will be served fried, scrambled, poached or boiled, as you request.

'''Arctic humor''' 
If Narvik's three jokes are Arctic humor, give me the temperate kind any time.

==Page 136==

'''Venice of the Arctic''' 
Many cities have been compared with Venice in Italy, usually due to a high density of waterways (especially inner city canals) and/or maritime trade connections. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_city_nicknames#.27Venice_of_....27 Wikipedia entry on Venice of the X comparisons]

The Venice passage contains three themes that have appeared often in ''Against the Day'' so far: that of doubles (such as Foley Walker and Scarsdale Vibe, Randolph and his Russian counterpart, etc) and that of chance or randomness (the Chums, the meeting of Vibe and Walker, etc).

Also the double versions of the map of Asia, double versions of elements that can be seen when they are viewed with Iceland Spar.

Finally, the thinnest of veils between two locations allowing for bi-location. The first is the salsa label which when looked at the right way will transport you to the sunny clime immediately; the second is here on the ice, for when the cracks perfectly match the map of Venice, you can step through it and be translated directly to Italy.

And Pynchon seems to love Venice, a very positive place in one short story

'''multiply-connected spaces''' 
Mathematical expression. In the crassest terms, Venice is multiply connected because some paths from one dry place to another pass through water. Without much risk of a spoiler, [[ATD_615-643#Page_618|see the definition on p. 618.]]

'''Bauer-Grünewald''' 
Famous hotel in Venice.

'''kedgework''' 
A set of pilings used to move a ship by hauling on its mooring or anchoring lines.

==Page 138==

In the period of ATD, museums around the world sought spectacular meteorites, e.g. the Cape York meteorite recovered by Arctic explorer Robert Peary.
[http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/meteorites/what/capeyork.php]

'''From the Journals...''' 
This passage marks the first break in the narration to a first-person style. Pynchon thus briefly adopts the form of an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistolary_novel epistolary novel], a style popular during the period with which ATD is concerned--see for instance ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dracula Dracula]''.

'''Rapture of the North''' 
Coined phrase, after "Rapture of the Deep," a [http://www.deep-six.com/page74.htm nitrogen narcosis] experienced by deep-sea divers.

'''Nesselrode pudding''' 
From ''The Penguin Book of Food and Drink'', ed. Paul Levy: 
"An iced pudding flavoured with chestnuts and dried fruit was invented by Monsieur Mony, chef for many years to the Russian diplomat, Count Nesselrode, in Paris [...] Glacé fruit and peel were a further embellishment to the Nesselrode by the time Proust was old enough to notice such things.

==Page 139==

'''scarcely enough of us to handle the lines''' 
Compare Darby's singlehanded feat, [[ATD_1-25#Page_14|annotations to p. 14.]]

'''Dr. Counterfly... bearded''' 
Last seen as a boy with low rank. Six years have elapsed, 1893-1899.

'''lenses proved to be...Nicol prisms''' 
A Nicol Prism is a device to produce polarized light. It is made from a crystal of calcite (Iceland spar), which is cut along a precisely determined plane and then cemented back together with Canada balsam. A picture can be found [http://web.grinnell.edu/physics/PMuseum/Nicol%20Prisms.html here], detailed diagrams of Nicol and other polarizing prisms are availabe [http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/phyopt/polpri.html here].

:Glasses like the ones described here are used for viewing 3-D movies.

'''''nunatak''''' 
A nunatak (plural: nunataks) is a mountain top that is not covered by land ice (see glaciation and ice age), and protrudes out of a surrounding glacier. The wildlife on a nunatak can be isolated by the glacier, just like an island is in the ocean. Nunataks are generally angular and jagged because of freeze-thaw weathering, and can be seen to contrast strongly with the softer contours of the glacially eroded land below if the glacier retreats. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nunatak [Wikipedia]]

Pynchon's translation, "land connected" would seem to be at 180 degrees to Wikipedia's "lonely peak" (which is supported by Bates & Jackson, ''Glossary of Geology,'' 2nd ed.). Which is correct?

Perhaps "land connected" because it is a connection to the land beneath the glacier? --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 13:09, 19 February 2007 (PST)

==Page 140==

'''an ark . . . and life resume its dominion''' 
Ecologists use the word [http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/SNT/noframe/zy198.htm#R ''refugium''] (plural ''refugia'') for an area protected from drastic changes in the surrounding region and preserving species and communities in just the way described in the text.

'''overhead . . . bulkheads''' 
And on p. 144 '''purchase . . . hawser . . . strand . . . starboard quarter''' 
Fleetwood either has a nautical background or is using these terms (for ceiling; walls; strong point of attachment; very heavy rope product; unravel; and behind and on the right side) in order to sound like an old salt.

'''sensitive-flames''' 
The term has a specific technical meaning: [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Sensitive+flame External link]

'''a large brass speaking-trumpet''' 
Somewhat reminiscent of the ubiquitous W.A.S.T.E. symbolism in ''The Crying of Lot 49''.

[[image:Breguethands.jpg|thumb|Breguet hands|right]]'''Breguet-style arrowheads''' 
A distinctive fine watch of French design, usually with open circles ('moons') near the ends of the hands. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch) Wikipedia entry]

'''Poulsen's Telegraphone''' 
Invented in 1898, the first magnetic recording machine was patented by Valdemar Poulsen. The theory behind this machine was worked out theoretically by Oberlin Smith of the UK in 1888. Poulsen's machine recorded by passing a thin wire across an electromagnet. Each minute section of the wire would retain its electromagnetic charge, thus recording the sound. Sound could be both recorded and played back. Unfortunately, because the machine's output wasn't very loud and there was no way to amplify the signal, the Telegraphone was not much of a success. [http://www.wou.edu/las/creativearts/music/MUS%20206%20Text.pdf External link]

'''a human caul''' 
caul (Latin: Caput galeatum, literally, "head helmet") is a thin, filmy membrane, the remnants of the amniotic sac, that covers or partly covers the newborn mammal immediately after birth. It is also the membrane enclosing the paunch of mammals, particularly as in pork and mutton butchery. In butchery, the caul is used as offal. A third meaning refers to a type of women's headdress.

To be "born with a caul" is meant to indicate a great future. The superstition attached to birth cauls has figured into numerous works of fiction, including ''David Copperfield,'' Stephen King's ''The Shining'' (wherein the child Danny Torrance, born with a caul, is possessed with the eponymous supernatural power), and Alan Moore's short graphic novel, ''The Birth Caul''.

Caul births are rare. Two [http://doctorpotato.blogdrive.com/archive/32.html superstitions linked to them] are (1) that possession of a human caul (preferably one's own, but not necessarily) protects one against drowning and, by extension, protects one's ship against being wrecked; (2) that the child born in a caul will have second sight, the thinness of the membrane signifying the closeness of the natural and supernatural worlds. Midwives sometimes abstracted and sold cauls.

==Page 141==

'''''camera lucida''''' 
A drawing aid sometimes used with an optical instrument; it is worthwhile to read the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_lucida Wikipedia entry] in order to understand what's going on here.

'''misfortunes of certain Egyptologists''' 
Possibly a reference to the curse supposed to be attendant on the tomb of Tutankhamen, and upon which the death of George Herbert, who financed the expedition, was blamed. The tomb was breached in Feb 1923, though, and that seems later than this episode, so it may just be a reference to general myth or just one more anachronism. [http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/curse.htm [history]]

'''odalisque of the snows''' 
An odalisque was a virgin female slave who tended to the harem of the Turkish sultan. Numerous paintings of the 19th century portrayed them as reclining beauties. The most famous of these is Ingres' ''La grande odalisque'' (1814):

[[Image:odalisque.jpg|300px|center]]

'''mongoloid features''' 
Perhaps a reference to images of the Buddha, in which he is often seen reclining?

Lord Vishnu is often depicted lying or sleeping like an odalisque upon the serpent (naga) Lord Sesha who represents widom, power, energy. Vishnu is the Preserver in the Trimurti of Brahma/Vishnu/Siva. Some legends associate him with the primeval waters that pervaded the world before creation and as the mover of waters. Vishnu is also the restorer of dharma and has ten avatars that have/will come to re-establish righteousness over chaos, one of which is Lord Krishna. In many depictions, a lotus or the four-faced Brahma rises from the navel of the reclining god. It is said that when Vishnu is depicted in this manner good and evil are in proper balance throughout the cosmos.

That this faux nunatak has mongoloid or serpent eyes brings to mind the passage in the ''Book of Revelation'' where Archangel Michael defeats Satan/the dragon:
:12:7-9 - ''The war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels battled with the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they did not prevail and they were expelled from Heaven. So the huge dragon, the serpent of ancient times, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, was hurled down upon the earth, and his angels were hurled down with him.''

That this serpent is encased in ice at the North Pole is suggestive of Satan at the bottom of hell, in Dante's Ninth Circle, also encased in ice.

It would appear that the Vormance expedition, in search of profits, is about to undo the work of Heaven and unleash Satan upon the world.

While Dante and Virgil escape the center of hell at the bottom of the world (a zone of emergency if ever there was one) by passing through the center of the earth, Chick and the Chums "fly counter" to this -- through the center of the earth -- to get to the zone of emergency, the lake of ice, at the top of the world to witness the liberation of Destruction.
A cosmic reversal.

'''Tolkien?''' 
From FleetwoodVibe's journal of the Vormance expedition where his crew and the ChumsOfChance are assembled in the Inconvenience, observing the "''nunatak''" through some strange instrument (p141):

"...we were bound in a common terror of that moment at which it might ''become aware of our interest'' and smoothly pivot its awful head to stare us full in the face"

Startlingly, this is highly reminiscent of more than one passage in Lord of the Rings where transfixed good guys observe Sauron or his lair through a crystal ball, in terror of attracting his attention

:Reminiscent, yes, but not concrete enough to be interpreted as intentional, IMO. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]]

==Page 142==

'''Eddas''' 
Refers to the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Prose Edda, both of which were written down in Iceland during the 13th century, although some of the poems included in them may be centuries older.

'''which of us . . . had not performed''' 
Using the subjunctive mood, not the past perfect tense. A writer of today might say, "which of us . . . would not have performed."

'''we intrepid innocents . . . destiny.''' 
This Vormance expedition calls to mind the 2004 film [http://imdb.com/title/tt0370263/ AVP: Alien Vs. Predator], in which an exploratory expedition funded by nefarious corporate elements discovers an ancient polar pyramid which they descend into, getting more than they bargain for in the process. Good stupid camp. See p. 134 in regards to Predator's cloaking device.

'''scentless snow walls''' 
An interesting literary parallel: Richard Powers' novel ''Gain'' (1998) tells of a botanist who sails with the first U.S. Antarctic expedition:
<blockquote>A scent wafted upon him, a redolence for all the world like the smell of a forgotten existence. . . . the thing he smelled, out on the ice, was the sachet of scentlessness: air before the employment of lungs.</blockquote>
Congress, it's revealed, has funded the journey in hopes of discovering Symmes' Hole in the southern continent. The scientist belongs to a candle- and soap-manufacturing family that makes a fortune, establishes a conglomerate, invents a cooking fat substitute, exhibits at the 1893 Columbian World's Exposition in Chicago, endows a college, and extends the benefits of industrial society (cleanliness, Americanism and cancer clusters) throughout the world.

The name of the family and the company is Clare, but plainly there are several parallels to the Candlebrow saga. Scroll back to the annotations on p. 130, or (risking spoilers) [[ATD_397-428#Page_405|jump ahead to the annotations on p. 405]] and succeeding pages.

==Page 143==

'''Tungus''' 
Old name for the Siberian language Evenki; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tungusic_languages see Wikipedia.]

'''bilocation''' 
Doubtless to be an important concept in the novel, judging by the title of Part Three. Latin bis, twice, and locatio, place. Bilocation is as Pynchon explains, the ostensibly supernatural act of appearing or being in two or more locations simultaneously. Bilocation is claimed to have been experienced, and even practiced at will, by mystics, ecstatics, saints, monks, and magical adepts. Notably, Icelandic sagas also speak of warriors who were able to fall into a trance and appear thousands of miles away in battle. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilocation Wikipedia on bilocation] Is also obviously related to the physical properties of Iceland Spar.

'''Arctic hysteria . . . Northern melancholia''' 
We have three "scientifically" named psychological disorders: Rapture of the North (scroll back to annotations on p. 138), Arctic hysteria and Northern melancholia. Whatever happens, Ghloix will claim he predicted it.

If it's psychological disorders we are talking about, why not include Narvik's "Arctic humor" (p. 135)?

'''Christian Time''' 
That is, linear time, a concept first introduced by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo St. Augustine of Hippo] (354-430), in his autobiographical [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions/confessions.html ''Confessions'']. Augustine argued that the inevitability and singularity of Christ's return demanded that all history must be viewed as a linear progression toward the apocalypse and the ascendancy of Christ on Earth, after which time would effectively stop, an event described as the "End of Days." From this decidedly deterministic view of time, Augustine derived his doctrine of predestination, that is, of a world in which each soul, even as it is born, is already pre-defined as saved or unsaved. While the Catholic Church would eventually reject this doctrine, the protestant reformer and theologian John Calvin resurrected it, and it became an important part of Calvinist theology, notably as practiced by the Puritans.

==Page 144==

'''"we measured, and remeasured, and each time the dimensions kept coming out different - not just slightly so but drastically."''' 
Cf. Mark Danielewski's debut novel ''House Of Leaves'' (2000), where a house interior dimensions keep changing, while the exterior remains unaltered. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_leaves Wikipedia entry]

Compare ''Mason & Dixon'' wherein the interiors of a coach (and one house, at least?) is more spacious than the measured dimensions.

While TRP writes only of the dimensions of the thing and not its actual shape, there is the sense of something protean, of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus Proteus] in the hold. In reading the wiki entry one learns that Proteus is associated in alchemy with Philosophical Mercury, "the light of nature," the ''anima mundi '' (spirit of the world), and much later Carl Jung associated it with the unconscious. Homer, Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Joyce, Vonnegut among others make use of this "Old Man of the Sea" god.

'''"its gaze had remained directed solely, personally, to each of us, no matter where we stood or moved."''' 
Supposedly a standard feature of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church portrait-icons.

Also brings to mind [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_lisa Mona Lisa]
:[http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/eyefolow.htm Here is a scientific account] (though less coherent than we might like) of how the artist makes the subject of a painting seem to be looking at the viewer. It's very simple: paint the eyes looking along a line perpendicular to the canvas. But what's described in the text here is a little different and may be related to a phenomenon in public speaking: If the speaker makes eye contact with a few people in the audience, even skipping randomly around the house, ''many'' will report "He was looking directly at me!"

'''misplaced moon''' 
The moon simile is not far-fetched; ''Inconvenience'' viewed head-on must have looked quite moonlike.

'''something, down there, below our feet... where it lay patient and thawing, was terribly, and soon to be more terribly, amiss.''' 
This is all extremely Lovecraftian, and especially brings to mind Lovecraft's story, "At The Mountains Of Madness". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness Wikipedia]

'''Returned to harbor at last''' 
Not in Iceland but in the city from where the expedition first sailed.

'''impersonal momenta of the Commercial''' 
Momentum (plural momenta) must be a metaphor for the constant buzz of commerce; in physics, of course, the word means a well-defined quantity of motion, but that does not seem to fit here.

==Page 145==

'''upstate security of Matteawan''' 
I.e., committed to the Matteawan Asylum at Fishkill, N.Y. Does this leave any doubt as to the name of the great city?

[[image:Evangelion.jpg|right|175px|thumb|The apocalyptic giant of light unearthed in the Arctic in Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'''the man-shaped light shall not deliver you''' 
Reminiscent of the famous Japanese anime ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'' (1994-95), in which mankind unearths a mysterious creature from the Arctic ice that appears as a man-shaped giant of light, gets out of man's control and triggers an apocalypse. Probably not an intentional reference, but if Pynchon plays Tetris, who knows? 
:-sinister variant of GR's Kirghiz Light? Those who see the Light find their words dismissed "as the meaningless sounds of a baby" (GR 358) just as witnesses to ATD's light are sent to the sanitorium. Note also the line's similarity to the Aqyn's warning from GR: "And the Light will never find you." (359)

The "man of light" is also a term from ancient Iranian gnosticism, representing the [http://www.kheper.net/topics/augeoides/Higher_Self.html higher self], the heavenly twin, the guide of light of every individual.
"The quest for the dawning of light in the cosmic North symbolizes the mystic's search for realization. In this spiritual journey, the light arising in man's inner darkness- the Northern Light or Midnight Sun- represents the impartial but brilliant light of Truth, that which sets us free from egotism and from slavery to material existence." Please see Henry Corbin's wonderful book [http://www.booklightinc.net/omegapub/detail.html?session=2a71a6af38a06d45076b5355e0eb5fd5&id=0930872487 ''The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism''] though be advised that it is written for the specialist.

c.f. the man-shaped light on 153

'''those starfish corridors where they suffer…''' 
“they” are the witnesses who heard the Figure speak. Pynchon here refers to the radial structure of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Bentham Jeremy Bentham’s] designs for his [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon panopticon], a penal/containment facility wherein many individuals can be observed from a central unit, giving the illusion of constant surveillance. The witnesses in “the upstate security of Matteawan” appear to be detained in just such a facility.
:That unfortunately doesn't hold up. The panopticon doesn't have radiating corridors, as the floor plan in the Wikipedia article (link above) shows. And Matteawan was not built to the panopticon design anyway; it was an accretion of fairly conventional rectangular structures. [http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/docs2day/fishkill.html Here is an aerial view] of Matteawan at a time later than the action; [http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/loaded.html this web page] has exterior and interior views; the asylum was even pictured on [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/matteawan_ny/index.html colored postcards.] The direct reference of "starfish" is probably to long wings running in scattered directions.

Through the use of the word “starfish” the narrator further invokes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lovecraft H. P. Lovecraft’s] novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness ''At The Mountains of Madness''], wherein starfish- and star-shaped patterns abound in the culture and physiology of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Things Elder Ones].

==Page 146==

'''lines''' 
The description of the single-file line at the train station basically describes current security conditions at American airports.
A single line (i.e. linear thinking) does not seem to be a 'positive' in the Pynchon world. (See too the slaughterhouse on page 10.)

'''Explorers' Club''' 
Apparently in South Africa (the famous NYC one wasn't founded until 1904).
:In Washington, D.C. ("the District"), though this doesn't help with the timing since the D.C. chapter wasn't formed till 1924. But "in Africa," "out there" and the word "British" in referring to the poet laureate—these all rule out Africa as the site.

'''Dr. Jim's little adventure''' 
A reference to the so-called "Jameson Raid" spearheaded by Dr. L. S. Jameson. The raid was intended to trigger an uprising among the British expatriate workers (the Uitlanders) in the Transvaal, but failed, and instead served to further destabilize the region and catalyze the Second Boer War. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jameson_Raid Wikipedia entry] (From Wikipedia: “The Jameson Raid (December 29, 1895 - January 2, 1896) was a raid on Paul Kruger's Transvaal Republic carried out by Leander Starr Jameson and his Rhodesian and Bechuanaland policemen over the New Year weekend of 1895-96. It was intended to trigger an uprising by the primarily British expatriate workers (known as Uitlanders) in the Transvaal but failed to do so. The raid was ineffective and no uprising took place, but it did much to bring about the Second Boer War and the Second Matabele War.”)

'''"War any moment"''' 
The Second Boer War started in October 1899. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War [Wikipedia]]

'''Rand shares''' 
Not the currency, but rather the gold fields near Johannesburg. The following page confirms this: "In the Rand, some of the shafts go down four thousand feet."

'''the British poet-laureate’s commemorative verse''' 
Reference to Alfred Austin. From Wikipedia: “As poet-laureate, his topical verses did not escape negative criticism; a hasty poem written in praise of the Jameson Raid in 1896 being a notable instance.” [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Austin Wikipedia entry]

The questionable rhyme referred to is from that “hasty poem” --

::They went across the veldt,
::As hard as they could pelt.

==Page 147==

'''Borchardt''' 
[[image:borchardt.jpg|thumb|200px|Borchardt pistol|right]]1894 forerunner of Luger.

'''Nansen''' 
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen (1861-1930) was a Norwegian explorer, scientist and diplomat. Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his work as a League of Nations High Commissioner. In 1893, he sailed to the Arctic in a ship which was deliberately allowed to drift north through the sea ice, a journey that took more than three years. During this first crossing of the Arctic Ocean the expedition became the first to discover the existence of a deep polar basin. When, after more than one year in the ice it became apparent that the ship would not reach the North Pole, Nansen continued north on foot and, in April 1895, reached 86° 14´ N, the highest latitude then attained. The two men were forced to spend the winter, surviving on walrus blubber and polar bear meat. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fridtjof_Nansen Wikipedia entry on Nansen] Cf. p. 138.

'''Suppose it were to happen to us . . . an innocence they knew how to circumvent''' 
"Art" is supposed, among other things, to help us interpret our world. This passage is Art as brilliant and hardnosed as anything Goya or Picasso or Shostakovich ever created. Just one man's opinion. --[[User:Volver|Volver]] 15:19, 5 February 2007 (PST)

This passage, "use humans for similar purposes", ie, for food, recalls the classic Twilight Zone episode, To Serve Man, as well as the movie Soylent Green.

==Page 148==

'''"Evolution. Ape evolves to man, well, what's the next step - human to what? Some ''compound organism'', the American Corporation, for instance"''' 
Cf. the following excerpt from William Gibson's 1981 short story "New Rose Hotel":

:Imagine an alien, Fox once said, who's come here to identify the planet's dominant form of intelligence. The alien has a look, then chooses. What do you think he picks? I probably shrugged.
:The zaibatsus, Fox said, the multinationals. The blood of a zaibatsu is information, not people. The structure is independent of the individual lives that comprise it. Corporation as life form.

'''the American Corporation, for instance, in which even the Supreme Court has recognized legal personhood ''' 
Refers to Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (1886), during which Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite announced: "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad Wikipedia entry] Corporations are routinely recognized as "persons" in the law nowadays. For more on the recognition of corporation as legal persons, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood Wikipedia entry on corporate personhood]. A recent documentary film, ''The Corporation'' (2003), tried to make the case that if a corporation is a "person," it has the personality of a psychopath.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2007-08-17T17:33:28Z

Sideming: /* Page 63 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in ''V.'' (9.II) has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it's void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon. 

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?

Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
He also traverses moral boundaries: he kills innocents.

Mason and Dixon's survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

See note on p.62 in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the Harry Potter series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' to ''H.P. & the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all.

My guess is they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." 

This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 14:43, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

The Philosopher's Stone and alchemy discussion may refer to LSD. "...acid and so on..." (78)
'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too—these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the other is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2007-08-17T17:32:00Z

Sideming: /* Page 63 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in ''V.'' (9.II) has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight" or "o.d. on moonshine."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it’s a void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon. 

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?

Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
He also traverses moral boundaries: he kills innocents.

Mason and Dixon's survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

See note on p.62 in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the Harry Potter series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' to ''H.P. & the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all.

My guess is they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." 

This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 14:43, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

The Philosopher's Stone and alchemy discussion may refer to LSD. "...acid and so on..." (78)
'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too—these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the other is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 57-80

2007-08-17T17:28:41Z

Sideming: /* Page 61 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 57==

'''Her name was never far from the discourse of the day.''' 
Another reference to something with respect to ''the day''.

'''Dally's questions...''' 
...seem a tad complex for her age, if this is just after she was first seen, when she is said to be four or five.

==Page 58==

'''a couple of professors at the Case Institute in Cleveland, who were planning an experiment''' 
The Michelson–Morley experiment, one of the most important and famous experiments in the history of physics, was performed in 1887 by Albert Michelson and Edward Morley at what is now Case Western Reserve University, and is generally considered to be the first strong evidence against the theory of a luminiferous aether. Primarily for this work, Albert Michelson was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1907. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson-Morley_experiment Wikipedia entry]

In oversimplified form: Michelson and Morley built an instrument that would signal any change in the speed of light traveling along its axis. They measured no change when the instrument was rotated. Now a wave in the æther should appear to go faster if you are moving against it, slower if you are moving with it (like ripples in a pond: walk beside the pond in the same direction as the ripples, and you catch up to them, finding a lower speed; walk the other way and they come toward you at a higher rate, seeming to move faster). By the theory that was then accepted, the instrument certainly should have reported a difference. After repeating the experiment many times, M&M concluded that the æther was somehow always moving the same way relative to the instrument, an absurd behavior, or that light was not, after all, a wave in the æther. And if the æther doesn't convey light waves, there is no justification for including it in physical theory.

'''the luminiferous Æther''' 
This passage recalls Pynchon's discussion of the "soniferous aether" in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (695).

:Michelson and Morley, in [http://www.aip.org/history/gap/Michelson/Michelson.html their original ''American Journal of Science'' article,] spelled the word "ether." ''Aether'' and ''æther'' have hung on as minority spellings. Most people say EE-ther, but William Vermillion Houston, a venerable professor of mathematical physics in the middle 1960s, pronounced it EH-ther to avoid confusion with the anesthetic. Most writers don't capitalize the word.

'''one finds in the devout Ætherist a propensity of character evertoward the continuous as against the discrete''' 
Particle or Wave? Aether is the medium that light would move in, if it were a wave. This enters the question of whether light is a particle or a wave into the discussion. Pynchon sets up the dichotomy: (aether/wave/continuous vs. empty space/particle/discrete) (also, see page 61)

'''sal ammoniac''' 
Ammonium chloride. A solution served as electrolyte in storage batteries such as the Leclanché cell, which could be used to store the charge generated by the Toepler machine (next entry).

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charge. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Toepler [Wikipedia]]. Also spelled Toepler.

'''all those tiny whirlpools the theory has come to require''' 
People still write articles and books about physics based on the æther. Many physics departments put such papers in the "crank file," but now the World Wide Web [http://www.aetherpress.com/physics.htm makes them available to everybody.] One way of finagling the æther to accommodate "real" matter is to postulate vortices or whirlpools in the medium, corresponding to electrons and other particles.

Ætherism escaped the fate of Ptolemaic astronomy, which collapsed gradually—over a matter of centuries—as it had to grow in complexity to keep up with the technology of observation. Ideas about the æther, in contrast, could not be rigged up to fit Michelson and Morley's results: one experiment spelled the death of the theory, and it became untenable between a summer and the next spring.

'''Michelson''' 
Albert A. Michelson (1852-1931), American physicist. He was born in Strelno, Prussia (now Strzelno, Poland). His family emigrated to the US in 1854. He attended the U.S. Naval Academy and graduated in 1873. After some studies in Europe (Berlin, Heidelberg and Paris) he became Professor of Physics in Case School of Applied Science (1883-89), Clark Univeristy (1889-92) and University of Chicago (1892-1931). He invented an interferometer and an echelon grating, and did important experimental work on the spectrum, but is chiefly remembered for the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine æther drift, the negative result of which set Einstein on the road to the Theory of Relativity. In 1907 he became the first American scientist to win a Nobel prize "for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations carried out with their aid." ([http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1907/michelson-bio.html Michelson].)

'''Maxwell Field Equations''' 
In 1864, Maxwell advanced a set of four equations that would describe almost all phenomena involving electricity and magnetism. They not only explained the interrelationship of these two but also showed these two could not be separated. There was only a single ''electromagnetic field''. These equations predicted the existence of ''electromagnetic radiation''. By taking the ratio of certain corresponding values in the equations describing the force between electric charges and the force between magnetic poles one can calculate the velocity at which the electromagnetic wave would have to move. This ratio turned out to be precisely equal to the velocity of light. In 1865 Maxwell wrote that "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves
propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws".

'''in Berlin''' 
1881.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to Mason & Dixon's visit with George Washington.

TRP spends an inordinate amount of time in Ohio in AtD. Why?
I don't know. An idea: in addition to the Mason & Dixon connection, Ohio dominated US politics from 1869 to 1923 producing 7 of the 11 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohio_presidents presidents] (counting Grover Cleveland -- who ironically was not from Ohio -- once). Most of them were riddled with scandal.

In AtD, TRP seems to mention things that are connected with some of these presidents without naming the president outright. Spotting them is what is hereafter named the "Hidden Ohio President" -- sort of like "find the pope in the pizza." The only president mentioned by name (to the best of my recollection) is William McKinley -- an Ohio president, but not hidden.

'''This strip of Ohio due west of Connecticut''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Western_Reserve Western Reserve of Connecticut.]

'''Blinky Morgan''' 
The Blinky Morgan episode is not invented; it was a sensation in parts of Ohio in 1887-88. For a spoiler, [[M|see M in the Alphabetical Index.]]

'''bravos in blue''' 
A bravo is defined as a villain, especially a hired killer. [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/bravo Definition] Here, it's the men in blue who earn that sobriquet.

'''Northern Ohio Insane Asylum''' 
Full of light enthusiastes who invented light-powered bicycles (see p 76), believe light to have consciousness and personality, and who eat light.

"Originally known as the [http://www.rootsweb.com/~asylums/cleveland_oh/index.html Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum], this was the second of 6 public asylums established in Ohio in the 1850's. In later years it was commonly known as Newburgh State Hospital because it was located in Newburgh Township as recompense for Cleveland having been awarded the location of Cuyahoga County Seat. The main building, containing 100 beds, was completed in 1855 on land in Newburgh" donated by the family of James Garfield, later US president -- who ironically was gunned down by a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Garfield "delusional religious fanatic."]

Hidden Ohio Presidents: this is the first (not) mentioned president from Ohio in AtD, James Garfield.

Could there exist some subtly altered version of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, filled with scientists? A university perhaps, from which physicists sometimes escape to wreak havoc upon the world? Surely, not: that would be Para-NOIA.

==Page 60==

'''Lightarians''' 
see Breatharians [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/inedia Wikipedia entry], who claim that it is possible to live without food.

'''Aether reports''' 
Associations of light with "wind."

'''Roswell Bounce''' 
GR includes a character named Hillary Bounce.

The mentions of cosmic space, balloons, a US Bureau "in charge of reporting," and his occupation as a photograper seem to allude to the 1947 Roswell UFO incident, an alleged alien crash that the US government insisted was a downed weather balloon. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_UFO_incident Wikipedia entry]

==Page 61==

'''intervals of invisibility''' 
When you blink, the world becomes invisible momentarily. Blinky - intervals of no light?

'''international scramble to ''corner light''''' 
Corner a commodity, or make a corner in it: to gain possession or just control of so much gold or silver, say, that you can dictate the price. In 1869 Jay Gould and James Fisk almost cornered gold; their success depended on the federal government locking down its gold reserves, but [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/1/1991_1_20.shtml in the end it didn't.] The whole market collapsed. In the 1970s the Hunt brothers [http://www.wallstraits.com/main/viewarticle.php?id=1298 nearly made a corner in silver.]

'''Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.''' 
Vaguely recalls the use of John Dillinger in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (741), insofar as they both read a surprising amount of metaphysical meaning into the death or final apprehension of a notorious criminal.
It also ties the criminal underground (out of the light) with the properties of light.

'''box job''' 
Safecracking. [http://www.skepticfiles.org/faq/twists.htm [cite]]

'''Each of Blinky's eyes . . . a walking interferometer''' 
The instrument used by Michelson and Morley (see annotations to page 58) was called an interferometer. It worked by leading light along two paths, then back to the source. Light also reaches Blinky by two distinct paths.

Blinky's damaged left eye indicates the 12th house in Vedic medical astrology, the house of invisible enemies, hospitals, insane asylums, imprisonment, bankruptcy, expenses, convents/monasteries, pleasures of the bedroom. The 4th, 8th (see Columbus below) and 12th form the triad of moksha houses, houses of final release and liberation. Being next to the 1st, the house of dawn and the day, the 12th is alongside the day, and a great place to disappear into.

Cf. Vera Meroving in ''V.'' (9.II) has an artificial left eye the iris of which is encircled by the zodiac and seems to operate like a watch.

==Page 62==

'''A walking interferometer''' 
Blinky Morgan is a walking [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer interferometer]. 
Incidentally, while you may not be able to become a walking interferometer, you can apparently train yourself to see light polarity, whether the polarization is linear or circular and in which direction thanks to [http://www.polarization.com/haidinger/haidinger.html Haidinger's Brush.]

'''double-refractor''' 
In physics, the word ''birefringence'' describes a substance that refracts light differently as a function of its direction or polarization. If the difference has to do with color or wavelength, the term used is ''dispersion'' (a prism disperses white light into a rainbow).

'''Edward Morley''' 
Edward W. Morley (1838-1912), American chemist and physicist. He was born in Newark, N.J. He was a professor at Western Reserve (1869-1906) and conducted researches in the variations of atmosphere oxygen content, thermal expansion of gases, vapor tension of mercury, desities of oxygen and hydrogen. He was best known for collaboration with Michelson on æther effect experiment (1887).

'''''goes somewhere else'' . . . where Blinky was when he was invisible''' 
Suggesting that Blinky's mechanism for invisibility—and Lew's stepping [[ATD_26-56#Page_44|"to the side of the day"]] as well—involves moving a little distance along some unconventional dimension, so that the light by which people ''would'' see him doesn't arrive with the rest of the light they perceive.

'''when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations''' 
M&M's paper appeared in a November 1887 journal and reported observations dated January and July, presumably also 1887. (Publication lag was much shorter then than it is today.)

'''Alpena, Michigan''' 
Town where Blinky Morgan is apprehended. One of two anchor cities in Northern Michigan. The other, across the peninsula, its rival, Traverse City. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpena%2C_Michigan Alpena link] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traverse_City%2C_Michigan Traverse City link]

'''''emerged from invisibility''''' 
Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existence of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisible.

'''the moment he reentered the world . . . experiment was fated to have a negative outcome''' 
The phrasing points to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat Schrödinger's infamous cat experiment,] where the fate of the creature is not determined until the chamber is opened and the system inside it reenters the observer's world.

'''cults who believe the world will end on such and such a day''' 
Such as the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millerites Millerites], who thought this would occur on October 22, 1844.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar] (1910-1995), an Indian-American physicist, astrophysicist and mathematician, known to the world as Chandra, who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics. He calculated and discovered the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrasekharlimit Chandrasekhar Limit] which is the maximum mass possible for a white dwarf star (one of the end stages of stars that have exhausted their fuel) supported by electron degeneracy pressure, and is approximately 3 × 1030 kg, around 1.44 times the mass of the Sun.
The initials O.D.C. refer to the novel "2001: A space odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke, where [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Chandra Chandra] is the inventor of the HAL computer system.
In ATD p. 63 O.D.Chandrasekhar mentions akasa as the solution for the problems the aetherists have discussing implications of the Michelson-Morley experiment, akasa referring to [http://ignca.nic.in/ps_05013.htm space] in hindu cosmology, alas O.D. is proposing space itself here as the medium for light.

O.D. may be named after Shiva, the destructive or transformative deity of the Hindu Trimurti. "Shiva bears on his head the crescent of the moon. Thus Shiva is known by the names of Somasundara and Chandrashekara."[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva#Attributes_of_Shiva wiki]

Chandra means moon. Punning, chandra "sekhar" might be "moon seeker." 
According to a colleague from India, "sekhar" means "light." So,
O.D. Chandrasekhar means "o.d. on moonlight."

'''If we can explain . . . why keep it?''' 
If Roswell doesn't engage his internal censor pretty quickly, he will be asking this question about God indeed.

'''directionless drift…Mia Culpepper…astrology…void of course…mid October''' 
TRP is taking some poetic license with the term void of course. The moon is Void of Course when it does not make any major aspect with a planet from the moment of its last aspect to the end of the sign it is passing through. The moon passes through each sign approximately every 2.5 days. Thus, void of course is an astrological situation that can last from a few minutes to a day or two at most – not until “mid-October” which sounds like more than two days into the future. And as it says in the book, it is a period of directionless drift.

“Void of course” can also be a pun on the reality of the aether, it’s a void, of course, akasa.

'''Madge and Mia Culpepper''' 
May be descended from the noted astrologer, botanist and original wildcrafter [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654)],through his only surviving child, Mary.

They present another duality around light. 

Madge derives from the Greek ''margaron'' meaning pearl or "child of light" and has some resonance if not relation to Magdalene. Madge as a pet-form of Magaret has been considered the [http://www.babynamer.com/Madgethe national Scottish female name].

Mia, strictly speaking, is derived from the Hebrew Miryam meaning "the wished-for child." It might be traced back to ancient Egyptian, and is a form of Maria/Mary. Other interpretations are "rebellion" or "sea of bitterness." It might also simply be a pun on M.I.A. -- missing in action.

'''fundament''' 
Buttocks.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemistry and a bit of alchemy.

'''saw the image appear . . . out of the pale Invisible''' 
The chemical processes of photography, a kind of alchemy, become the mechanism by which the visible becomes invisible (when the plate is exposed) and the invisible becomes visible (when it is developed). The chemistry of the silver salts may be the "dimension" Lew and Blinky move along.

'''As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite...''' 
Darkness becomes light, and light becomes darkness. The essence of light is dark, and vice versa, and this might be a key hermeneutic for AtD.

==Page 65==

'''Merle’s all-night illumination''' 
Distant echo of Blundell’s quote from p. 24 with inspiration (Merle’s new found obsession with photography) being like physical electricity, here like a light bulb. A glowing that keeps him awake.

'''dip-fingered''' 
A dip is a pickpocket. Merle has magic fingers for extracting information.

'''Cleveland Library''' 
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869, its mission, "to be the best urban library system in the country by providing access to the worldwide information that people and organizations need in a timely, convenient, and equitable manner." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Public_Library Wikipedia]

The open-stacks system is deeply subversive and a great enabler of writers and other anarchists.

==Page 66==

'''seeking admission to the hanging''' 
This whole scene, with Blinky's Hanging memorabilia, people in town walking around in a trance, etc, strongly echoes the beginning verse of "Desolation Row" by Bob Dylan. [http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/desolation.html "They're selling postcards of the hanging..."(Dylan's lyrics)]

'''murders in Ravenna''' 
Ravenna is the county seat of Portage County, Ohio (home to the famous Kent State University). Blinky Morgan and his gang broke into a train at the Ravenna Station to free a fellow gang member who was in-transit to be questioned regarding a recent robbery of a Cleveland area business. One officer was killed and another brought within an inch of his life [http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=BMC [Encyclopedia of Cleveland History]].

'''light of Heaven''' 
By Merle ruining the plates of the hanging (where his photography obsession has led him) by over-exposure of physical light, his brain is lit up by a spiritual light.

'''If the U.S. was a person . . . and it ''sat down,'' Columbus, Ohio would instantly be plunged into darkness.''' 
Merle stole this gag from ''Mason & Dixon.'' 
Note that the bars in Columbus are said to close at 8 o'clock. In astrology (both Western and Vedic) the 8th house rules among other things, death, hemorroids, the anus and rectum.

'''youthful folly''' 
The name of the 4th hexagram of the I Ching (Yi Jing) in the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. Mentioned in GR as well.

'''Lorain County''' 
Greater Cleveland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorain_County%2C_Ohio [Wikipedia]]

==Page 67==

'''Beast Without Shame''' 
Inexplicably recalls the epithet earlier used to denounce Lew Basnight on [[ATD_26-56#Page_36|page 36]]: "the Upstate-Downstate Beast."

Given that Merle is involved with photography and that the ladies of indignation and male town folk are out to get him, one possibility, reading between the lines, is that Merle might be involved in risque photography, the late 19th century version of porn.

Merle's backstory probably got rewritten very late in the game (see also pp30, 58, 64, and 75).

'''East Fullmoon, Iowa''' 
The full moon (fool moon) is usually associated with lunacy and strange behaviour. The moon is full when it is in direct opposition to the sun (against the day, so to say), and east is the direction of ascendancy (lunar, solar, planetary, etc.). An east full moon would be big and bright just after sunset (the death of the day).

The moon also, traditionally in both western and eastern astrology, represents silver and the feminine -- the waxing moon, the growing young woman; the full moon, the pregnant mother; the waning moon, the mature woman becoming a crone; the new moon, the hidden cycle between death and rebirth/resurrection.

The eastern houses of an astrological chart are the 1st, 2nd, and 12th. Only the 1st and 12th are above the horizon. 

Full moon in the first house, the ascendant, represents the rise of lunacy, anarchy, the growing importance of silver and the empowerment of women. This is when the moon is big on the horizon. 

As the moon moves higher into the sky, its apparent size diminishes as it transverses the twelfth house, and so the moon in the twelfth represents the loss of silver and the disappearance of women and mothers, and here in East Fullmoon we see the disappearance of two women, Roxana and Erlys. The 12th being a house of loss, "there is little hope on the horizon...for any replacement." Venus is not rising on this particular night. However, "Lucky" Luca Zombini gets a replacement, while "Miserable" Merle Rideout does not.

'''tenor sax player from the pit band at the local opera house''' 
The "opera house" is not a venue for opera, then.

==Page 68==

'''. . . have you ever felt that you wished to suddenly disappear . . . ?''' 
While Merle is getting obsessed with revealing images from darkrooms and chemicals, Zombini comes and makes Erlys "disappear."

==Page 69==

'''some larger plan''' 
May be talking about writing ''Against the Day'' itself.

'''winter skies . . . Through the falling snow''' 
Above the white space we're in winter 1887-88 (after Blinky Morgan's execution); below it, winter 1893-94 (after the Fair closed).

==Page 70==

'''scantlings''' 
Framing lumber.

'''man-made bad times''' 
The Panic of 1893 and the 1893-95 depression. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893 The Wikipedia article] goes into causes and effects.

'''giant spokes''' 
This illusion, only with straight streets instead of straight planted rows, was described by the ''Chums'' author [[ATD_1-25#Page_10|on page 10.]]

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to. 
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/tending/essay1c.html American Ginseng and the Idea of the Commons] at the LOC.

'''. . . herbs the wildcrafters knew the names and market prices of . . .''' 
"Wildcrafting" here means the harvest of any plant parts from non-cultivated medicinal plants, plants which have essentially planted themselves in any location". ([http://www.ryandrum.com/wildcrafting.htm wildcrafting] also contains a detailed explanation of the author's wildcrafting.)

==Page 71==

'''Inner American Sea''' 
The Great Plains.

Melville in ''Moby Dick'' likens the sea to the prairie:

Chapter 14: A Nantucker (sic) ''"lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie, he hides among the waves, he climbs them ...like the Alps."''

Chapter 114: ''"in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked."''

But perhaps Melville was only following common usage as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conestoga_Wagon travelers] crossing the prairie often described their wagons as "ships upon the ocean," or ships on "rolling waves of green from horizon to horizon," or as resembling "dim sails crossing a rolling sea."

'''Ottumwa''' 
City in Iowa. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottumwa,_Iowa [Wikipedia]]

'''Albert Lea''' 
City in Minnesota. Hometown of Seaman Bodine from ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (710) and ''V.''.

'''before the sun had moved a minute of arc''' 
''Pedantry alert:'' The sun moves 1 minute of arc in 4 clock seconds.

==Page 72==

'''brightly lit against the stormy days''' 
Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page_57|page 57]].

'''witch hazel''' 
Astringent distilled from leaves and bark of the witch hazel shrub (genus ''Hamamelis'') and used as a skin care product.

'''thorned helixes''' 
An allusion to Thurn and Taxis?

'''Premo''' 
1903. [http://westfordcomp.com/classics/filmpackhawkeye/index.htm [cite]]

'''Brownie''' 
1900.

'''calm as a sharpshooter''' 
Allusion of camera as a gun. Also, perhaps the idea of breathing out when shooting to ensure calm when pulling the trigger (or pressing the shutter button).

'''There was always plenty of bell-hanger work''' 
In this and the subsequent pages we see Merle getting involved, apart from his usual ''light-related'' job (photography), to ''sound-related'' and ''electricity-related'' jobs.

==Page 73==

'''frog-bonding''' 
Can mean a technique in brick masonry. [http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index.php?qid=20061106081517AAscjfG [source]], but when referring to streetcars, "frogs" are the heavy metal flangeways that connect track to switches, diamonds, cross-overs and other track structures. Frogs guide wheels from one track structure to another. Pynchon may be confusing the term. (Frog-bonding here is probably the electrician's task of installing cables to link the frog and the tracks to either side of it, so that the car's front and rear wheels are at the same potential relative to the catenary wire.)

'''sal ammoniac battery''' 
Wet storage cell using sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) solution as electrolyte. A well-known form is the Leclanché cell. Prof. Vanderjuice got mixed up with such a battery [[ATD_57-80#Page_58|on page 58.]]

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Also possibly the movie "Ghostbusters".
Also recalls Insane Asylum where he is told light has "consciousness and personality."
But Merle's "hitch as a lightning-rod salesman" also may be read as Pynchon's
tip-of-the-hat (or the copper rod) to a certain nineteenth-century American
predecessor, the author of a story called "The Lightning Rod Man" (1854).
Come to think of it, Pynchon may be the one contemporary author able to match
Melville in whimsy, satire, melancholia, encryption, Jehovah-like ambition, and periodic
sentences that are light on their feet yet labyrinthine. Cf. M&D's link to Melville's
''Israel Potter'' (now, sadly, unread), or GR's line trailing back toward that book about a whale.... Cf. ATD, p. 123.
This 'Skip' episode is not to be skipped or skimmed; it sets ATD's readers briefly aglow with sweetness and light and sadness.

'''Ball Lightning''' 
Ball lightning reportedly takes the form of a short-lived, glowing, floating object often the size and shape of a basketball, but it can also be golf ball size or smaller. It is sometimes associated with thunderstorms, but unlike lightning flashes arcing between two points, which last a small fraction of a second, ball lightning reportedly lasts many seconds. There have been some reports of production of a similar phenomenon in the laboratory, but some still disagree on whether it is the same phenomenon. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning Ball Lightning],
[http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s520317.htm Ball lightning explained] and
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020209/bob8.asp Anatomy of a lightning ball].

:Great balls of fire [http://searchlight.anomalyresponse.org/2007/03/physicists-create-great-balls-of-fire.html]! Sort of reminds one of that [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Balls_of_Fire Jerry Lee Lewis song]. Recall The Killer's 1973 tune [[Meat Man]], and one [[ATD 397-428#meatman|Alonzo Meatman]]...

==Page 74==

'''two bits''' 
The equivalent of an absurdly generous $5 in today's money. [http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppowerus/ [calculator]]
Merle's proposition to Dahlia echoes the old saw about marriage: if you put a penny in a jar for every time "you do it" in the first year of marriage and take a penny out for every time you do it thereafter, you'd never empty the jar.

'''Indian grass''' 
A North American prairie grass [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Grass Wikipedia]

==Page 75==

'''She watched the invisible force at work''' 
This subchapter, in which we have watched Merle getting involved in jobs about ''sound'' and ''electricity'', on top of his usual job about ''light'', closes with an image of the blowing ''wind'', the "invisible force". A couple of lines back, we have Merle saying "There's your gold, Dahlia", pointing to the wind "blowing in the high Indian grass" and Dally thinking "what an ''alchemist'' [he] was" (italics mine). It is the first allusion of Merle as an alchemist.

'''San Juans''' 
[http://www.americansouthwest.net/colorado/san_juan_mountains/index.html [map]]

'''Dishforth's Illustrated Weekly''' 
"dish" - gossip. Also, Dishforth is an English cricket club in the Nidderdale and District Amateur Cricket League.

'''some new kind of gravure process''' 
In gravure (rotogravure, photogravure) printing, the ink is applied to the paper via tiny pits or "cells" in the metal gravure cylinder. The equipment costs way more than hot-lead or offset plant, but the image quality ranges from very good up to astounding and the cylinder is good for extremely long runs. Gravure differs from halftone in pits versus raised dots. At the time of the action, gravure was used for premium materials such as lifestyle magazines.

If anyone remembers the song "Easter Parade," the lines
<blockquote>The photographers will snap us, 
And you'll find that you're 
in the rotogravure,</blockquote>
refer to a gravure-printed fashion section in a newspaper.

The halftone, which became common in the 1890s, revolutionized magazines, no longer requiring more complex and expensive engravings. Pictures were finer, as explained in this section, as they were reduced to "a grain so fine" that the dots were almost invisible. Light and dark were therefore split into tiny atoms of ink, allowing for subtle gradations of tone. [http://www.oldandsold.com/articles10/advertising-14.shtml Article on the history of the halftone.]

'''approach the gates of the laughing academy''' 
Echoes "approach the gates of the Penitentiary" (used by the ''Chums'' author) [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|on page 7.]]

==Page 76==

'''charge slowly building up on a condenser plate''' 
Condensers are now more often called capacitors. You store charge by taking electrons from one plate and depositing them on the other.

'''photographer's or, if you like, alchemist's stuff''' 
Second allusion to Merle as an alchemist (see also previous and next page).

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle. (There was one in GR, too-- somebody giving a haircut.)

'''annealing oven''' 
Equipment that definitely pertains to alchemy and metal fabrication more than photography. The alchemist who creates his/her own glassware (alembics, coils, etc.) has an annealing oven, in which newly made wares are allowed to cool very slowly (many hours) so that internal stresses are relieved. Unannealed glass shatters too readily. A similar treatment is applied to metal parts that have been made brittle by working (bending, hammering, etc.), and for a similar reason.

'''burnishing machine''' 
In darkroom times, very high-gloss prints got that way by being pressed against a bright, smooth, chrome-plated drum that was heated from the inside.

==Page 77==

'''Webb Traverse''' 
The character is introduced mere paragraphs after the description of spiderwebs "that when the early daylight was right cause you to stand there just stupefied." As "traverse" means to travel across or through, perhaps the character's name signifies his ability to navigate the complicated webs off.. I dunno, society, the establishment or something?

Traversing the WorldWideWeb is a common expression, eg by search engine 'spiders'.

In law, to "traverse" means to deny, and a "traverse" to a pleading is a denial of its allegations. This appellation fits Webb Traverse, whose anarchism is a denial of industrial capitalism.
He also traverses moral boundaries: he kills innocents.

Mason and Dixon's survey was a traverse, as opposed to a triangulation.

See note on p.62 in regards to Traverse City, MI (Alpena's cross-peninsula rival). Significant, or not?

'''cupel''' 
A porous ceramic cup used in refining noble metals like gold. When the contents are melted, "base" metals oxidize and the material of the cupel absorbs them, leaving the gold in the cup.

'''the famous Philosopher's Stone''' 
Not famous enough: When Scholastic Books acquired the Harry Potter series for U.S. publication, the company insulted American readers by changing the name of the first book from ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' to ''H.P. & the Sorcerer's Stone.'' The Sorcerer's Stone is not famous at all.

My guess is they thought Americans would be scared off by anything involving "philosophy." 

This guess is correct as I heard from colleagues in publishing.[[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 14:43, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

The Philosopher's Stone and alchemy discussion may refer to LSD. "...acid and so on..." (78)
'''traprock''' 
In geology, a dark-colored, fine-grained igneous rock like basalt.

'''alchemists keep tryin, it's what we do''' 
Photography as alchemy. Mercury and the Philosopher's stone.

'''Fulminate I believe it's called''' 
Merle gets almost everything right (and a good thing, too—these substances are lethal). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_fulminate Mercury fulminate] was discovered in 1799 and came into use in detonators by 1814. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia] has a good entry on silver fulminate and fulminating silver. Some fulminates are so sensitive that their own weight will cause them to detonate. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulminic_acid Fulminic acid,] discovered in 1824, is not the same as prussic (hydrocyanic) acid but does smell like it. Fulminating gold, not very closely related to these, is a material of alchemy.

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
Probably anticipates the atom bomb. See page 79 on "politics through chemistry"...."temples of Mammon all in smithereens".

This statement that Anti-Stone, if it is an allusion to the atomic bomb, "has another name that we'd just get into trouble saying out loud"
reminds of Oppenheimer and what he said the detonation of the first atomic bomb "Trinity" in the New Mexico desert made him think of: "We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that one way or another."[11]

:The A-bomb is just not convincing. No one—not even proficient alchemists—knew until the 1930s that elements could be transmuted explosively. And at the time of the action (1890s) the only way to get into trouble by saying "atom bomb" would be to say it to a conservative English teacher. While using an atomic bomb does result in "smithereens," its action is not based on chemistry. If you dissect this conversation, going all the way back to "In Colorado they found a farm outbuilding," it seems more likely that Merle and Webb are thinking of a process that deconstructs gold and silver and turns plutocrats' fortunes into rubble. Two alternatives: (a) Just as triple-rectified mercury is a step along the way to the Stone, fulminating silver is a step along the way to the Anti-Stone, some ideal or essential chemical explosive. Or (b) what demolishes fortunes and turns gold into just a shiny metal: revolution and anarchy.

Anti-Stone seems to be a watchword. Merle and Webb are sizing each other up, looking for a "countersign" sniffing each other out as members of a conspiracy. Similar to Masonic (brick/stone) practice where signs and countersigns are used so that members may recognize one another in public without revealing themselves, "Anti-Stone" and "alchemist" stand in as coded references for "anarchist" -- a word, that if spoken, would get them in trouble.

If the Philosopher's Stone is a "figure of speech for God and salvation" in everyday, "Christian" society, "why then the other --" the Antichrist is the Anarchist, who seeks to overturn that social order. In a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvinistic Calvinistic]- Pynchonian world, the Philosopher Stone of God and Salvation represents the Elect, the "pre-saved" and the other is the preterite, totally depraved and ruined, common man.

'''breathin in those fumes''' 
Mercury fumes are what made hatters mad.

==Page 79==

'''poor folks on the march, bigger than Coxey’s Army''' 
Group of unemployed men who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. Jacob S. Coxey (1854–1951), a businessman, led the group, which hoped to persuade Congress to authorize public-works programs to provide jobs. It left Ohio on March 25 and reached Washington on May 1 with about 500 men, the only one of several groups to reach its destination. It attracted much attention but failed to bring about any legislation [http://www.answers.com/topic/coxey-s-army Answers.com], [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9026696/Coxeys-Army Britannica]

==Page 80==

'''not the result of any idle drift but more of a secret imperative, like the force of gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

'''as if silver were alive, with a soul and a voice''' 
. . . like Skip the ball lightning.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 97-118

2007-08-15T17:50:59Z

Sideming: /* Page 113 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 97==

'''the iron of their shoes . . . seeking the magnetic memory of that long-ago visit''' 
Familiar cartoon gag, a ''horseshoe'' magnet attracting all sorts of hardware as it flies through the air.

'''the Rebellion''' 
What the North called the Civil War. [[ATD_1-25#Page_7|Another reference...]]

'''Tesla, Dr. Nikola''' (1856-1943) 
Tesla was a Serb-American inventor, engineer and physicist whose patents and theoretical work form the basis of modern alternating current electric power (AC) systems, radio, and a bunch of other stuff. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla Wikipedia entry] Tesla researched in Colorado Springs from May 1899 - January 1900, a location he chose because of the frequent thunderstorms, the high altitude, and the dryness of the air. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla#Colorado_Springs Wikipedia on Tesla at Colorado Springs].

Much of the the funding for his Colorado Springs laboratory came from Colonel John Jacob Astor. Tesla's friend and patent lawyer, Leonard E. Curtis, persuaded the El Paso Power Company to supply Tesla with all the electricity he wanted, free of charge. The arrangement ended the night Tesla's activities burned out the dynamo and the entire city lost power. [http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_colspr.html PBS: Tesla - Master of Lightning]

"Tesla logged in his diary on July 3, 1899 that a separate resonance transformer tuned to the same high frequency as a larger high-voltage resonance transformer would transceive energy from the larger coil, acting as a transmitter of wireless energy, which was used to confirm Tesla's patent for radio during later disputes in the courts. These air core high-frequency resonate coils were the predecessors of systems from radio to radar and medical magnetic resonance imaging devices." [http://www.crystalinks.com/tesla.html] This information was later used to confirm his patent for radio which he received posthumously in 1946, 3 years after his death. [http://www.resonanceresearch.com/nikola-tesla-coils-picture-colorado-1899-labratory.htm].

Pynchon confuses this 03 July 'vision', during a natural electrical storm, with later experimental generation of high voltages.

[http://www.teslasociety.com The Tesla Society] confusingly describes Tesla as a "Serbian-born American" but states his birthplace as Smiljan, Croatia.

'''Vectorist . . . by way of the Electricity''' 
Vector symbolism offers an economical way to describe electrical processes; electrical engineers still use vector algebra and vector analysis combined with concepts from complex number theory.

==Page 98==

'''a turbine generator located underneath a waterfall''' 
Not sitting there to catch the falling water. A waterfall is a convenient place for a power plant because you can get easy access to two elevations: take in water at the top, install your turbine at the bottom. The mention of penstocks and other plumbing farther down the page confirms that the flow is being captured in pipes at the head of the fall and run through a turbine at the bottom.

'''engineering students... from Cornell, Yale''' 
Cornell is Pynchon's alma mater, where he initially studied engineering. [[Thomas Pynchon|Pynchon bio]]

'''Maxwell''' 
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was a Scottish mathematical physicist among the pioneers of electromagnetism. Pynchon made use of his theoretical "Maxwell's Demon" in ''The Crying of Lot 49''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell Wikipedia entry]

'''Maxwell's ''Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism'' of 1873''' 
Full text of [http://www.archive.org/details/electricandmagne01maxwrich Volume 1] and [http://www.archive.org/details/electricandmag02maxwrich Volume 2] at the Internet Archive.

==Page 99==

'''the Invisible''' 
Up to this point there have been many mentions of things invisible, here capitalized. Recalling Blundell's quote from p. 24, suddenly everything connects and makes sense to Kit after his revelation. It is a mystical experience for him as he reaches this knowledge through something like a voice telling him.

'''So is altitude transformed, continuously, to light''' 
The potential energy of water at an altitude is realized when it falls, producing the flow of electricity required for the production of artificial light. 

'''Hamilton had experienced at Brougham Bridge in Ireland''' 
William Rowan Hamilton (1805-1865) was an Irish mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who made important contributions to the development of optics, dynamics, and algebra. His discovery of quaternions is perhaps his best known investigation. The discovery of quaternions reportedly occurred during a walk with his wife by the Royal Canal in Dublin. Upon having the inspiration for the formula, he promptly carved it into the side of the nearby [[Brougham_Bridge |Broom (or Brougham) Bridge]]. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rowan_Hamilton Wikipedia entry]

'''a jump from one place to another''' 
An allusion to quantum jump (or quantum leap), which would be proposed some years later as a model for the electron's transition between energy states within an atom and as the sole cause of the emission of electromagnetic radiation, including that of ''light'', by atoms. Interestingly enough, the term "quantum leap" would later become a standard vernacular term to describe abrupt advances. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_leap Wikipedia entry]

'''with . . . what perilous æther opening between and beneath''' 
The etymology of ''air'' includes ''æther.'' The gap between initial and final states is a region where there's nothing to "support" the particle making the quantum jump.

'''the truth he now possessed in his personal interior, certain and unshakable''' 
Kit's belief in Vectorism is solidified. 
Not belief. He's broken through to a state where he doesn't have to write the math down—he sees directly from problem statement to solution.

'''Jack, we're seventeen''' 
Around 1900.

'''Pike's Peak or Bust!''' 
The slogan of miners heading to Colorado during the Gold Rush of 1859.

'''Frank got so nervous about climbing''' 
Is Frank acrophobic?

'''Cañon City alumnus''' 
An ex-convict who has done time in the Colorado pen.

'''swamping''' 
Menial work.

==Page 100==

'''Lieutenants of Industry Scholarship Program''' 
The metaphor "Captain of Industry" gets dusted off; Vibe is the captain, so his minions can't go any higher than lieutenants.

'''Mr. Merriwell, we really need this touchdown''' 
An allusion to the fictional character Frank Merriwell, an adventuresome student at Yale and football hero, he was created by the pulp fiction writer Gilbert Patten, who wrote under the pen name Burt L. Standish. The first story, "Frank Merriwell: or, First Days at Fardale" appeared in ''Tip Top Weekly'' on April 18, 1896. Merriwell went on to appear in comic books, radio programs, and dime novels. As the passage suggests, Merriwell constituted an idealized picture of the east coast, old money elite. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Merriwell Wikipedia Entry on Frank Merriwell]

'''Yale''' 
This possible deal with the devil that Kit makes to get into Yale recalls the evil pact made to get Tyrone Slothrop into Harvard in ''Gravity's Rainbow''.

'''Horsefeathers''' 
The title of a 1932 Marx Brothers film ("Horse Feathers"). Another possible indication for the promised Groucho Marx cameo. See also "ducksoup" (p.25)

'''Antietam''' 
The first major battle in the American Civil War to take place on Northern soil, in 1862. It was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with almost 23,000 casualties.

'''substitute conscriptee''' 
The Enrollment Act of 1863 allowed draftees to pay $300 to a substitute who would serve for them. (See [http://www.rootsweb.com/~nygenese/purchase.jpg here] for an example substitution form.) J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Jay Gould, James Mellon and future president Grover Cleveland all hired substitutes. Within a year the price had gone up to $1,100, however. [http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1994/winter/civil-war-draft-records.html Civil War Draft Records: Exemptions and Enrollments]

==Page 101==

'''Cold Harbor''' 
There were two battles of Cold Harbor: the first, in 1862, predated Antietam, so this would have been the second in 1864 0http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cold_Harbor Wikipedia].

'''the Brain and its Mysteries''' 
This is a recurring theme, with suggestions of neurological symptoms already seen, such as Miles Blondell's weird feelings and Lew Basnight's malady. As seen below, the presence of the bullet has some effects on his brain: he receives "communications, from far, far away," which can be symptoms of brain injuries.

For more on auditory hallucinations see the recently published ''Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination'' by Daniel B. Smith.

'''Minié ball''' 
Prior to the development of the minie ball, rifles were not used in combat due to the difficulty in loading. The ammunition used by rifles was the same diameter as the barrel in order for the bullet to engage the groves of the rifled barrel. As a result the ball had to be forced into the barrel. The minie ball, originally designed by Captain Claude-Etienne Minie of France and improved on by manufacturers in the United States, changed warfare. Since the minie ball was smaller than the diameter of the barrel, it could be loaded quickly by dropping the bullet down the barrel. This conical lead bullet had two or three grooves and a conical cavity in its base. The gases, formed by the burning of powder once the firearm was fired, expanded the base of the bullet so that it engaged the rifling in the barrel. Thus, rifles could be loaded quickly and yet fired accurately; 620; [http://www.civilwar.si.edu/weapons_minieball.html From the Smithsonian website]

However, Minié balls are relatively large, generally .58 caliber, so that would be a mighty large piece of lead lodged in his brain. [http://www.eclectichistorian.net/RifleMusket/Minies.html Picture]

'''"far, far away"''' 
A nod to the opening lines of ''Star Wars''? “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." 
A similar episode is in Richard Powers' "Three Farmers on their Way to a Dance" (1985), in which a character affirms that he can get military radio communications thanks to a dental filling. Richard Powers has often been compared to Pynchon.

'''physical well-being''' 
The dichotomy of bodily and spiritual well-being appears in the [[The World is at Fault]] letter that Pynchon wrote in the early 60s.

'''"if it exists"''' 
Assuming this is c1882, when the Standard Oil Trust was formed, it was already well-known.

==Page 102==
'''ten gallons of coffee''' 
Major caffeine abuse also figured in to ''Mason & Dixon''.

'''Twin Vibes''' 
Vibe and Walker work together in part because of Walker's "powers". These "vibrations" could be the source of the name Vibe.

'''With that kind of personal faith . . . handling snakes''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_handling Wikipedia] says snake-handling did not become a movement until the 1920s but was a sensational practice before the end of the 19th century. The requisite "personal faith" is defined in Mark 16:17-18: "And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name . . . [t]hey shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Southern Appalachia is now the epicenter of snake-handling.

'''''"Izvinite... Hvala"''''' 
'Excuse me'... 'Thank you' in Croatian. [http://www.bugeurope.com/essentials/croatian.html [cite]] Also in Serbian, though written in a different alphabet.

==Page 103==

'''por vida''' 
For life.

'''a message from perhaps farther beyond...''' 
Kit may think it another message from the Invisible. Due to his belief in Vectorism?

'''how Mr. Vibe . . . had been left free to behave''' 
The mission given to Walker is to constrain Vibe, who in some sense shares a "karma" with him.

==Page 104==

'''"Tithing," Tesla said, "giving back to the day."''' 
Tesla's contempt for this tithing positions him as—wait for it—against the day.

==Page 105==

'''Jake with me''' 
Fine with me.

'''"not here on the desolate lee shore whose back country is death"''' 
Wonderful, just wonderful...

==Page 107==

Since this is 1899, the Chums should be six years older than they were in Chicago.

'''this era of desuetude''' 
Time when usual rules and customs are not being practiced.

'''midwatch''' 
The time between midnight and 4 a.m. Another naval practice observed by the Chums.

'''A boy . . . under a baggy cap with its bill turned sidewise''' 
I can't identify this as to title or date, but the subject appeared in lithographs that hung in many homes in the first half of the 20th century.

'''Tesla device''' 
A radio. He received a patent for the radio after his death. The transmissions of July 3, 1899 (see Page 97, above) were used as evidence that he should be granted the patent.

:A member of the wiki has pointed out that Tesla recorded thunderstorm observations on that date but did not carry out transmissions.

'''voices . . . difficult to credit with any origin in the material sphere . . . hoarse whispering''' 
Messages coming from a world the Chums don't inhabit? From outside their novel, I suggest, specifically from their author, who is preparing to take over the narration again. 

I would suggest that in the early days of radio even Tesla himself thought he was receiving messages from [http://www.borderlands.com/archives/arch/marscom.htm Mars], when in fact he was discovering the foundation of radio telescopy. Edison and Marconi also thought radio would allow them to converse with the dead. That the Chums also hear voices is probably to be expected. On the other hand, please see [http://www.strangenation.com.au/Articles/sna_evp_vod.htm Electronic Voice Phenomena] for a paranormal discussion on the phenomena.

'''Indian Ocean islands of Amsterdam and St.Paul''' 
As noted in the text, Indian Ocean Islands. Both are volcanic in origin. They remain without permanent residents.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%8Ele_Saint-Paul Wikipedia article on St. Paul Island]

'''westerlies''' 
A westerly is a wind that is ''coming from'' the west, not heading toward the west. The Chums must therefore have been somewhere in Europe, Africa or Central Asia at the time.

==Page 108==

'''islets vanished from the nautical charts''' 
Do features really vanish from charts? Could it be that their ''names'' were no longer recorded?

It is possible that some small islands collapse or are eroded, and disappear below the sea, to "rejoin the Invisible".

'''St. Masque''' 
This island's name may have been one of the ones to vanish.

'''huge underground construction''' 
The description calls to mind Boston's "Big Dig," or a bunker such as those built by SAC, NORAD or other military organizations. In particular it brings to mind the Cheyenne Mountain Directorate in Colorado Springs, CO.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_Mountain]

'''''Megaera''''' 
One of the Greek Furies. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaera [Wikipedia]]

Apparently a real shipwreck as well. [http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/book_excerpt.asp?bookid=1535 [Scroll down to St. Paul Island]]

'''four hundred of us made it''' 
The informative page linked in the preceding entry is pretty clear: 330-odd of them made it.

'''"Curious," Chick said.''' 
His register of speech is very different from what we heard in earlier episodes.

==Page 109==

'''the volcano''' 
''Not'' Krakatoa. The Chums are in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

'''antipodal to Colorado Springs''' 
Amsterdam and St. Paul are, to within a few dozen miles, exactly on the opposite side of the Earth to the Springs. Because Tesla's work there wound up early in 1900, the antipodal point could not have held much interest after that. The 1899 dating holds.

'''Chums of Chance Logistical Services''' 
In the whole series of novels this is probably the only mention of CoCLS. All the other books had instruments, weapons, etc., just appear without explanation. "Never questioned, always on time" simply because it's written (or unwritten) that way.

'''mephitically seeping volcano''' 
"Mephitic" means foul-smelling.

'''President McKinley''' 
Since McKinley was assassinated (by an anarchist) in September, 1901, this situates the episode some time between 1899 and 1901.

'''a beach so intensely sunlit as to appear almost colorless''' 
Again an excess of light takes away from the ambience rather than adding to it -- a sun bleached beach.

'''blindness at the heart of a diamond''' 
This enigmatic imagery is reflected (no pun intended) in a few references: [http://books.google.com//books?num=100&q=heart.of.a.diamond&as_brr=0 more] 

"where the light came down sifted through so many emerald screens that it was as flawless as the heart of a diamond. " (''Anne of Green Gables'', Chapt. 15, by Lucy Maud Montgomery) 

"It was a singularly sharp night, and clear as the heart of a diamond."'' A Story that is Untrue'' by Ambrose Bierce 

blindness seems not to be a positive with this metaphor. No light, a heart that cannot see. Diamonds = lightlessness.

An important diamond with a blindness at its heart is the one in Wilkie Collins's novel ''The Moonstone'' (1868)([http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/155 Project Gutenberg]). The diamond brings misfortune to its possessor; it is stolen twice early in the novel, and various characters try to regain it. It may be worth noting that, in Collins, a big diamond with a blindness at its heart is worth less than its compounds, if it's cut into pieces.

'''Since his''' (Darby's) '''voice had changed''' 
In three-quarters of a century Tom Swift didn't age half a dozen years. The Chums could not have aged much before ''AtD'' opened, because they weren't very old when we met them. Now the mascotte who sang the treble parts has become an adolescent.

==Page 110==

'''The once cheery mascotte... into a distrust of authority''' 
In this section Darby Suckling looks to be the "punk" of the Chums ala Darby Crash. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darby_Crash Wikipedia]

'''Nihilism''' 
Nihilism comes from the Latin ''nihil'', or nothing. It appears in the verb "annihilate", meaning to bring to nothing, to destroy completely. Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist would believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. Nihilism is most often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) who argued that its corrosive effects would eventually destroy all moral, religious, and metaphysical convictions and precipitate the greatest crisis in human history. Ivan Turgenev's ''Fathers and Sons'' (1862) popularized ''nihilism'' by his character Bazarov who preached a creed of total negation. In Russia, nihilism became identified with a loosely organized revolutionary movement (1860-1917) that rejected the authority of the state, church, and family. The movement advocated a social arrangement based on rationalism and materialism as the sole source of knowledge, and individual freedom as the highest goal. The movement eventually deteriorated into an ethos of subversion, destruction, and anarchy. And by the late 1870s, a nihilist was anyone associated with clandestine political groups advocating terrorism and assassination. ([http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/nihilism.htm Nihilism]).

'''Platonic polyhedra''' 
In the Timaeus of Plato, the eponymous character claims, in what he calls his "likely story," that the cosmos was created by the gathering of triangles into regular solids which coincide with the four elements: the pyramid (fire), cube (earth), octahedron (air), icosahedron (water), and dodecahedron. The dodecahedron becomes associated with Æther.

'''Clarendons''' 
Clarendon is a serif typeface created in 1845 that was often used for wanted posters in the Old West. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarendon_%28typeface%29 Wikipedia entry, with a sample]

'''FUNDAMENT-SEIZING''' 
Ass-grabbing.

'''"Zumbledy bongbong," [Miles Blundell] called encouragingly, as the food flew. "Vamble, Vamble!"''' 
Miles's odd speech may be an allusion to that of the Muppets' Swedish Chef.

He may also be speaking in tongues, or simply have some sort of apraxia of speech, given these comments and those on the following page.

==Page 111==

'''unmix a failed sauce''' 
There is a folk belief, however, that mayonnaise and other egg-based sauces will separate during a thunderstorm. You can, however, re-mix sauces of this kind that have de-emulsified.

'''time is intrinsic in every recipe''' 
Not whether you bake the pie for 20 minutes or 40. What's intrinsic is that the recipe always takes you forward in time. Start with ground meat, end with a hamburger, never the other way around.

'''"Of the metawarble of blibfloth zep"''' 
Poor Miles' communication problems continue.

'''dog's dinner''' 
Something that is ostentatiously smart [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/dogs-dinner.html Definition].
"bone china" takes on new meaning!

'''In the U.S.A., it was almost the Fourth of July''' 
''Inconvenience'' is a day ahead of the U.S., being well west of the International Date Line.

'''noteworthy episodes of military explosion . . . necessary to maintain the integrity of the American homeland''' 
Put the stress on ''military.'' Other explosions achieve different purposes.

'''Explosion without an objective . . . is politics in its purest form''' 
Set this against not only the next entry but also against Drave's aphorism "Remorse without an object is a doorway to deliverance" (p. 39).

'''Haymarket bomb . . . wonders of chemistry''' 
Cf. p. 79, "the widely admired Mexican principle of politics through chemistry."

==Page 112==

'''I wish I knew what they were arguing about''' 
Randolph's consciousness has not been raised, as we used to say in the 1970s.

'''"the nature of the skyrocket's ascent"''' 
Chumps of Choice blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2007/01/dance-of-anarchy-and-change.html suggests] that this refers to ''Gravity's Rainbow.''

'''about the trajectories of your own lives''' 
Miles has divined that the Chums have adventures (the display) but also intervals when their movement is unsensed from outside: between the end of one of their novels and the beginning of the next one.

'''"Think, bloviators, think!"''' 
To bloviate means to speak or write at length in a pompous or boastful manner. CoC blog [http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/2007/01/dance-of-anarchy-and-change.html suggests] that this, coupled with the verbose allusion to ''Gravity's Rainbow'' above, is Pynchon's message to jargony commentators of his work, presumably in academia.

Presumably, us as well

'''By the time ''Inconvenience'' was ready to take once more to the sky''' 
Another damned anticlimax. They travel halfway around the world, Logistical Services puts on a big push to supply the experimental station, and we get ''not one single word'' about any data collected or knowledge gained as a result of Tesla's experiments.

'''President McKinley . . . naked woman . . . National Bird . . . something to eat . . . one of the Platonic polyhedra . . . draped female personage''' 
It is hard to see how the final figurehead choice is a "compromise" among these candidates.

==Page 113==

'''X.O.''' 
In many militaries' units, the executive officer (XO) is the second-in-command, reporting to the commanding officer (CO).

'''"contamination by the secular"''' 
Secular can be defined as "denoting attitudes, activities, or other things that have no religious or spiritual basis." As the Chums have so far not been overtly religious, perhaps they mean secular in the spiritual sense?

Secular also means "worldly", as in, that which the Chums of Chance are literally above: 113: "That sort of bickering may be for ground people, but it is not for us."

'''Gloymbroognitz thidfusp''' 
Odd. Sounds like something from Adams' ''Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'', but isn't. Anyone?
Famous, surreal Polish writer of the 20th Century, Gombrowitz, Wittold 
Miles is having trouble communicating in words. See p. 110 and 111

'''Surabaya''' 
Today in Indonesia. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surabaya Wikipedia entry]

'''"Special Japanese Oyster"''' 
The pearl that comes from this oyster that facilitates communications from the Chums' Upper Hierarchy is a result of Japanese experimentation "a pearl of quite uncommon size and iridescence, seeming indeed to glow
from within" that connects with the red calcite that powers the Q-weapon, as well as Merle's and Bounce's device later in the novel. [[Q-weapon and Photography|Read on...]]

This seems to be a standard mode of communication as the Chums get out the equipment, pull the blinds, etc., as if per usual.

The pearl as means of communication from the "Upper Hierarchy" bears some similarity to the Gnostic/Manichean/Eastern Orthodox passage from the apocryphal ''Acts of Thomas.'' called [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymn_of_the_Pearl ''The Hymn of the Pearl'']. The gnostic gloss on the story is that we (here The Chums) are spirits lost in the world of matter who forget our true origin, until a divine being, i.e. "The Upper Hierarchy", sends a message by way of a revealer (usually Jesus, here the pearl) to help us remember our mission. 

In the hymn the son of the king of kings is sent to retrieve a pearl from a serpent. There is no obvious serpent at this point in AtD, but the Chums get the pearl in Surabaya, whose name derives from ''suro'' (shark) and ''baya'' (crocodile), in this case both white, which together bear a mytho-poetic parallel to, a "paramorphic encryption" of a serpent. 

And like the calcite that powers the Q-weapon, in Biblical studies there is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_document Q] document which when mixed with the book of Mark yields Matthew and Luke. Prominent Biblical scholars theorize that such a book consisting of the saying of Jesus must exist based on textual analysis, but a copy has never been found. Certain texts are, as one of the Librarians says, "outside of time" but may be inferred from the evidence. (p.133)

The oysters are sold to Miles with "unusual persuasiveness" at "what did seem a remarkably attractive price." This might be an inversion, a "parable parody," a parody of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Pearl ''Parable of the Pearl.''] wherein Jesus likens the Kingdom of Heaven to a pearl of great price; whereas here, at first glance, Miles gets his pearl at discount. In re-reading it though, we are not actually told the pearl is cheap, but that whatever price it came at was remarkably attractive and unusually persuasive, in other words, the Kingdom of Heaven is an attractive bargain and persuasive at any rate of exchange with worldly goods.

==Page 114==

'''Nernst lamps''' An early incandescent lamp invented by Hermann Nernst (1864-1941), which made use of a heated ceramic rod to produce light in ambient air (in contrast to Edison's incandescent, which required a vacuum to operate).

'''Dr. Mikimoto (Kokichi)''' Produced the first cultured pearl in 1893 in Toba, Japan. As he left school at 13 to help support his family, any Doctorate he may have obtained must have been honorary.

And the Japanese:

:Through a highly secret technical process, developed in Japan at around the same time Dr. Mikimoto was producing his first cultured pearls, portions of the original aragonite which made up the nacreous layers of the pearl had, through “induced paramorphism,” as it was known to the artful sons of Nippon, been selectively changed here and there to a different form of calcium carbonate namely, to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar.

And remember that Baz Zaharoff, on [[ATD_892-918#Page 906|page 906]], is headed to Japan because:

:"it’s ''they'' who want to sell ''him'' something, you see. Everyone’s being ever so dark about it. The item doesn’t even have a name anyone agrees on, except for a Q in it somewhere I think. Something they came into possession of a few years ago and now have up for sale on most attractive terms, almost as if..."

More about the Q-weapon on [[ATD_1018-1039#Page 1037|p. 1037]]...

'''Iceland Spar''' 
"Spar," in mineralogy: a transparent or translucent light-colored crystalline mineral, usually readily cleaved and somewhat lustrous; e.g. Iceland spar (calcite) . . . . (paraphrased from Bates & Jackson, ''Glossary of Geology,'' 2nd ed.)

See this handy "About Geology" page [http://geology.about.com/library/bl/images/blcalcite.htm], with an illustration demonstrating a spar's double-refraction effect on printed letters--remarkably like that on the cover of ATD! This kind of calcite has rhombohedral cleavage, because each of its faces is a rhombus, a warped rectangle in which none of the corners are square. Is each of the rectangular pages of ATD then a warped cleavage from some sort of crystalline whole, refracting its text in several directions at once? Of course, to the Chums the text message they receive from Upper Hierarchy has but one simple meaning. "Paramorphism" = the structural alteration of a mineral without any change in its external form or chemical composition.

And look at this too, how to make Iceland Spar animations:
[http://images.google.it/imgres?imgurl=http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/imgmay04/dwd/dwf1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artmay04/dwjpegcyc.html&h=300&w=400&sz=15&hl=it&start=12&tbnid=NQMhCqiW1apqNM:&tbnh=93&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Diceland%2Bspar%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Dit]

'''divided into two separate rays, termed "ordinary" and "extraordinary" 
In the optics lab, physics students split a laser beam into two rays, which impinge on an object and are reflected onto a photographic plate, generating a hologram. The Japanese here anticipate the process, using the differently polarized rays (split by the Iceland spar) instead of laser light and replacing the plate with minute crystals in the pearl. The idea of three-dimensional holography and data storage in solid crystals would not resurface until the 1950s or 60s.

'''the limitless mischief of pearls''' 
A book's worth of superstitions exist around pearls. Pearls bring tears. The bride must wear pearls. The bride who wears pearls will be unhappy. If your pearl loses its luster, you are about to die. A pearl dissolved in wine is a poison. A pearl dissolved in wine is a love potion.

'''get up buoyancy''' 
A surface ship "gets up steam" in preparation for departure. Another naval or nautical analog.

'''Etienne-Louis Malus''' 
1775-1812, a French officer and mathematician whose work was predominantly concerned with light. He studied ray systems, and his theory on polarisation was published in 1809. His theory of the double refraction of light in crystals was published in 1810. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etienne-Louis_Malus Wikipedia] Malus is also the genus of the apple. Malus is best known for his law describing intensity of light as it passes through polarized materials. There are delicious metaphorical implications for any reader of a Pynchon novel.

'''pearls''' 
Probably meant to contrast the "blindness at the heart of a diamond" referred to on p. 109. Pynchon may want to call to mind ''The Scarlet Letter'', in which Pearl, the child produced by the union of the protagonist, Hester Prynne, and the Rev. Dimsdale, becomes a symbol of beauty derived from sin (there, and likely here, represented by the grain of sand around which the pearl forms).

'''Dr. Alden Vormance''' "
Vormance's surname may be meant to combine "Romance" and "worm," calling to mind the Romantic exuberance that motivated 19th century exploratory expeditions as well as the serpent of the Biblical expulsion story. 
Another Pynchonian "V" name and we know what Pynchon thinks of "Romantic exuberance". See GR, at least. And a remark in ATD [to find]. 
Alternatively, Vormance may be a conflation of the German prefix ''vor-'' (meaning "forward") with the -mancy combining form (e.g. necromancy) meaning prophecy--[[User:Gobbag|Gobbag]] 12:38, 11 February 2007 (PST)

'''a strong presumption of Bad Taste''' 
The Chums seek to avoid this accusation just as Peter Pan tries to avert Captain Hook's taunt, "Bad form." The phrase occurs in J.M. Barrie's novel ''Peter Pan'' (''Peter and Wendy''), possibly also in the stage version, and again in the movie ''Hook.''

==Page 115==
'''(Johannes) Kepler''' 
(1571-1630), mathematician best known for his laws of planetary motion, one of the foundations of Isaac Newton's theory of gravity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Kepler Wikipedia]

'''Edmond Halley''' 
1656-1742, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Halley Halley] was an English physical scientist most remembered for the comet he which he predicted would return. In 1692 he proposed that the earth was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollow_Earth hollow]. In 1698 he departed on a two year voyage as captain of the HMS Paramore in order to measure variations in the Earth's magnetic field. In 1716 he suggested timing the transit of Venus to determine the distance between the earth and the sun.

'''(Leonhard) Euler''' 
The method of traverse (pun ignored) by which the Chums proceed became known as a Symmes' Hole after John Cleeves Symmes who, in 1818 circulated a pamphlet arguing for the existence of such holes in the polar regions and further volunteered to lead an expedition to said regions.

Symmes' following lecture tours were further carried forth by one J.N. Reynolds. "[Edgar Allen] Poe is said to have repeatedly called out the name "Reynolds" on the night before his death, though no one has ever been able to identify the person to whom he referred." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_allen_poe Edgar Allen Poe's] first published short story, "Ms. Found in a Bottle" (1833) took, as its premise, the existence of Symmes' Holes: theoretical holes in the polar areas which led to a hollow interior.

:Research has its charms, but so does mindless surfing. [http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/03/ This blog] presents a map of the Earth inside the Earth, complete with Shambhala. The layout unfortunately doesn't fit the ''AtD'' account, but it's quite funny.

'''the great portal . . . ''noticeably smaller''''' 
Unrelieved light is unendurable; the entry into the Earth offers shadow, but the region of shelter has shrunk. Unrelieved ultraviolet light is deadly; the "ozone layer" in the atmosphere serves as protection, but the cover has shrunk—particularly in the Antarctic—as the "ozone hole" has grown larger. A small parallel, but it forwards the theme a little.

==Page 116==

'''vatic''' 
Prophetic. [http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2004/10/21.html [def]]

'''this is a self-protective reflex''' 
In his mystical phase Miles proves to be a believer in [http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/ James Lovelock's "Gaia."]

'''the ship's nitro-lycopodium engines''' 
''Inconvenience'' has gone through a major refit, apparently: no more hydrogen power. Lycopodium consists of spores from a club moss, usually ''Lycopodium clavatum.'' It is a highly flammable yellowish powder. Photographers used it for flash illumination. In principle, an internal combustion engine can run on a powdered fuel, though difficulties abound in practice. The "nitro" part is a puzzle; nitromethane (called "nitro" or, in drag racing, simply "fuel") seems the most obvious reference. Do the ship's engines use a slurry of lycopodium in nitromethane? That would be a tricky fuel to handle. 
I don't think "nitro" refers to a particular, separate substance. The prefix nitro- indicates a substance whose molecules have the group NO2 attached to them. The oxygen in this group is easily released, with the result that nitro-compounds usually burn very rapidly and intensely, effectively having their own internal oxygen supply. Strictly the prefix should be applied to well defined molecular species such as nitromethane, nitrobenzene, etc, etc. However it is also used for complex biological substances treated with a nitrating agent such as nitric acid: nitrocotton (gun cotton) is a common example. Pynchon has probably invented nitro-lycopodium as a plausible though non-existent propellant, in the fashion we're accustomed to seeing with him.--[[User:Gobbag|Gobbag]] 06:57, 11 February 2007 (PST)

That is probably right, and a good point. "Plausible though non-existent" in Pynchon works because it is surrounded by the ''existent'' or prospectively existent: A modest collection of real ''AtD'' minerals/rocks/gems (lorandite, jade, Iceland spar) makes a context in which "Special Japanese Pearl" can nestle. Similarly, nitro-lycopodium falls into a class that already contains hydrogen, coal, muscle power (wheelfolk), petroleum derivatives and waterfalls. And Pynchon's fictional history is underpinned by historical events described in the ''Encyclopedia Britannica.''

'''night-glass''' 
Telescopes and binoculars are described by their magnifying power (say 7X) and the diameter of their objective lens or "pupil" (say 35 mm). For many years 7X35 binoculars were a practical compromise for field use (army issue, etc.), but these were useless at night because they could not collect enough light. "Night" binoculars might be 7X50 or even larger. Similarly, a night-glass is a telescope with an oversized lens in front.

'''electrical sound-magnifier''' 
What would come to be called an ''amplifier'' in post-Chums times.

'''human timbres and rhythms, not speech so much as music''' 
Again the "choir" image as on [[ATD_1-25#Page_19|page 19.]]

==Page 117==

'''bolts of intense greenish light''' 
Hmm, the Chums are getting the same view of this war as America got of the "Shock and Awe" campaign in Baghdad.

'''the byzantine politics of the region''' 
Byzantine: fiendishly complicated, from ''Byzantium,'' the name of the city that would later become Constantinople and later again Istanbul.

'''royal court of Chthonica''' 
The adjective ''chthonic'' means "of the earth" or "of the underworld" and is often used to refer to the gods and other entities residing under the surface of the earth. The adjective is used creatively, and most famously, in the fictional works of H.P. Lovecraft ... a chief deity of his ficitional universe being Cthulhu.

'''Plutonia''' 
[http://www.trussel.com/prehist/plutonia.htm ''Plutonia''] is the title of a novel written by Russian geologist [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Obruchev Vladimir Obruchev], published in 1915. According to [http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2000/cur0002.htm this sf site], it's a hollow-earth story.

The "Plutonist" movement, as opposed to the "Neptunist", was quite in vogue in the late 1800s, being a theory of geography which held that the interior heat of the earth was somehow responsible for various geological processes.

'''Tunbridge Wells''' 
[http://www.icons.org.uk/nom/nominations/disgusted-of-tunbridge-wells "Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells"] is an archetypal figure of conservative England whose correspondence can be found frequently in newspapers railing at the latest outrages of modernity. Tunbridge Wells briefly features in Gravity's Rainbow.

On whether this and the subterranean adventure may allude to ''Gravity's Rainbow,'' see [[Talk:ATD_97-118|Discussion]].

'''my harmless little intraterrestrial scherzo''' 
Once again, the unseen narrator appears. By inference, the narrator is also the author of the various ''Chums of Chance...'' books referenced in ATD. This episode's also a little ''inter-textual'' scherzo: Poe (''Arthur Gordon Pym''), Jules Verne, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Earth%27s_Core_%28novel%29 Edgar Rice Burroughs and Pelucidar], ''Star Trek'', Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth... and Jeremiah Dixon's own underground journey in M&D. Doesn't Chick Counterfly sound rather Spockian here (cf. 115, bottom)?

==Page 118==

'''a tiny circle of brightness far ahead''' 
Literally "the light at the end of the tunnel," a metaphor used repeatedly, and to no good effect, by American political leaders starting some weeks after the beginning of the Vietnam War.

'''a tricky bit of steering''' 
If you emerge at the North Pole, every way you steer is south, so ''which'' south will take you to the rendezvous?

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 149-170

2007-08-15T17:28:23Z

Sideming: /* Page 162 */

:'''<big>Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.</big>''' 

==Page 149==

'''meteorite''' 
Cf ''Smilla's Sense of Snow'' by Peter Hoeg.

'''the far-fallen object''' 
That makes one think of Milton's Lucifer, doesn't it? But going back a few pages, "Flames were always your destiny, my children" (p. 145). And if the object doesn't bring light to the great city, it does bring fire. Lucifer is not too strong a connection, but still in the background.

The Yiddish word ''farfallen'' means both "fallen" and "bygone."

The alien visitors disguised as a meterorite is reminiscent of the arrival of Martians in Grovers Mill, NJ in Orson Wells adaptation of ''War of the Worlds.''

==Page 150==
'''the entangled carriages, wagons, and streetcars ... hitched to animals months dead and yet unremoved''' 
An anticipation of the scenes of destruction following the U.S. federal government's and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fema FEMA]'s botched relief efforts at the onset and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the southeastern United States in August and September 2005. 
:also a likely visual reference to the popular belief that the Christian Rapture will involve abandoned vehicles jamming the highways as motorists ascend skyward.

'''Tammanoid creatures, able to deliver votes''' 
As in "Tammany Hall", the often corrupt political machine that played a role in New York City politics for nearly two centuries. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tammany_Hall Wikipedia entry].

'''a stationary star, let alone one of the falling sort''' 
''Gravity's Rainbow'', p. 760: "But it was ''not a star'', it was falling, a bright angel of death." The whole passage seems strongly connected to GR. Could also be a reference to Lucifer, who is referred to as the falling star. 
And behind both AtD and GR, there are strong overtones from the ''Book of Revelation:''
:9:1 -''The fifth angel blew his trumpet. I saw a star, that had fallen down from Heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the fathomless pit.''
:9:2 - ''Then he opened the pit and smoke like the smoke of a vast furnace rose out of it, so that the light of the sun and the air itself grew dark from the smoke of the pit.''

'''White Wings''' 
For many years (1880s or 1890s through 1950s?) the most visible and dependable of New York City's public services: the street sweepers. And of course, just a wee bit of angelic resonance.

==Page 151==

'''the Eskimo view''' 
But cf page 142, where the Eskimos are "eager" to help.

'''...at least one consultation with somebody - that "there would always be time..."''' 
once more ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.760: "There is time, if you need the comfort, to touch the person next to you...".

'''Panic fear''' 
Note the capital letter; this is not blind, uncontrolled fear in general but specifically fear associated with the great nature-god Pan.

'''Panic fear... affecting pose''' 
Although there are hints in the previous pages, here is where the parallels with 9/11 become too clear to ignore. Pynchon's presenting 9/11 as a story of a meteor dug from the ice will no doubt fill pages of analysis soon. To start, though, Pynchon critiques post-9/11 opportunism ("many in the aftermath did profit briefly by... affecting that pose"). Many say 'opportunism' has attended many, many disasters. For a full, spoiler-filled discussion, see [[Against the Day and September 11]] 

'''Deep downtown, where a narrow waterway from long ago still ran up into the city...''' 
Ok, this is fiction but we've all convinced ourselves we're talking about New York. Pynchon could have invented this waterway but that's not his style. So where is this waterway in downtown NY? 

Several waterways existed in lower Manhattan that were later filled in or paved over. [http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/nycolonial/index.html A map from 1874] --[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 12:14, 20 February 2007 (PST)

The most prominent, which makes sense of the geography ("deep downtown")but not the time, would be Canal Street; the eponymous canal had been filled in long before the time of this action.

'''a cargo ship... in whose hold... kept in restraints... stirred a Figure with supernatural powers''' 
Also reminiscent of ''King Kong'', where the chained ape is transported by ship to New York.

'''which no one in its as-yet-unwritten history had ever known how to stop''' 
Christian religions teach that the work of the Devil can be stopped; on the other hand, the Devil's history is anything but unwritten (see Genesis, ''Paradise Lost,'' Neil Gaiman, etc.). Keep searching.

==Page 152==

'''with only dwindling moments of normal history remaining''' 
Do we infer that history, somehow plotted in advance, is about to go off its rails? ''AtD'' refers several times to the idea of an already settled history being disrupted by some action. Drave on p. 41, for example: "Most people have a wheel riding up on a wire, or some rails in the street, some kind of guide or groove, to keep them moving in the direction of their destiny. But you keep bouncing free." And Lew's summary: "Going off my trolley." Also [[ATD_26-56#Page_33|on p. 33: Scarsdale Vibe on the essence of modern history.]]

'''Tenderloin toughs''' 
The red-light district of Manhattan at the time, in Midtown Manhattan from 23rd Street to 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue to Seventh Avenue.

'''Fire and blood were about to roll like fate upon the complacent multitudes''' 
cf. Genesis 19:24: "and then the LORD rained down fire and brimstone from the skies on Sodom and Gomorrah."
:Well, in its own terms Genesis is describing a punishment. It would be a distortion to say the "complacent multitudes" are being punished. Scarred, killed, robbed, yes, but not punished.

'''beautiful patterns''' 
Cf. "picturesque patterns," p. 81, as well as Igor Padzhitnoff's Tetris-like bombardments on [[ATD 119-148#Page 123|p. 123]].

==Page 153==

'''a chorale of pain''' 
If enough people are suffering together, they become a choir; see annotations to [[ATD_1-25#Page_19|page 19]] and [[ATD_97-118#Page_116|page 116.]]

'''a three dimensional image in full color, not exactly of Christ but with the same beard, robes, ability to emit light''' 
Note that the unnamed enemy allegedly said, "The man-shaped light shall not deliver you" back on page 145. On whether this may or may not also allude to Osama bin Laden, see the [[Talk:ATD_149-170|149-170 Talk Page]].

:Or Christ himself "doubly refracted" into the anti-Christ.[[User:S-Fremin|S-Fremin]] 08:19, 20 January 2007 (PST)

:Also recalls, once again, the last page of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', with its "closeup of the face, a face we all know".

Scene also, with mass hysteria, noise, and especially this hologram image recall climax of classic film, ''Quatermass and the Pit'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_and_the_pit Wikipedia]

'''Our Protector...who remained, guardedly, unnamed''' 
unnamable--ineffable--like the atomic bomb on p.78 (Cf. Webb, Merle and the "Anti-Stone")

'''recent incorporation''' 
1898. New York City is a special case. The city consists of the entire area of five counties. These counties retain a small amount of governance as boroughs. Under the state legislation, commonly called Consolidation, that allowed the city (as the City of Greater New York) to annex huge areas beyond its original borders (including smaller cities, towns and villages) in 1898, the State of New York retains certain powers over the city. At the time of Consolidation, Queens County was split between the western towns, which voted to join the city, and those that did not. The next year (1899), the eastern towns of Queens County separated to become Nassau County. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_divisions_of_New_York#Borough Wikipedia entry]

'''So the city . . . face of their violator''' 
It's important that this paragraph describes the great city ''before'' the Figure devastated it.

==Pages 154-155==

'''weeping widow...cruelest bitch of a city''' 
Personifications of the city, as in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (p.4: "last crystallizations of all the city has denied, threatened, lied to its children"). What is "he" and "she" referring to in the following paragraph?

'''Hellfire''' 
once more fire and brimstone.

'''the Destroyer''' 
Allusion to the Hindu god Shiva?

'''I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY''' 
From the description of the gate to hell in Canto III in ''The Divine Comedy Volume I: Inferno'' by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). Pynchon quotes from the modern translation by Mark Musa:

:"I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY,
:I AM THE WAY INTO ETERNAL GRIEF,
:I AM THE WAY TO A FORSAKEN RACE.

:JUSTICE IT WAS THAT MOVED MY GREAT CREATOR;
:DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE CREATED ME,
:AND HIGHEST WISDOM JOINED WITH PRIMAL LOVE.

:BEFORE ME NOTHING BUT ETERNAL THINGS
:WERE MADE, AND I SHALL LAST ETERNALLY.
:ABANDON EVERY HOPE, ALL YOU WHO ENTER."

Note that Pynchon echoes the word "race" on the previous page: "an embittered and amnesiac race".

:The "votive shrine . . . Downtown" may be intended to evoke the shrine at the footprints at Ground Zero, "votive" here invoking the twin beams of light that took the place of the WTC towers in the months following 9-11, though it should be noted that the actual description invokes the basement cavities of the the towers' foot-prints much more accurately.

'''From the Journals of Mr. Fleetwood Vibe...''' 
The short narrative spanning pp.138-155 bears some of the hallmarks characteristic of the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft: (1) a narrator (Fleetwood) who relates a series of horrible, cosmic events in the form of a memoir or journal entry; (2) a slumbering entity, or "visitor" (p149), mistaken for a more mundane object (meteorite, in this case), and; (3) the incapacity of humans to anticipate or respond to the foreignness of this cosmic vistior and its actions. Given that this horrible thing was retrieved from the Arctic, it is reminiscent of Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" (though, ''Antarctic'' in setting; 1931; [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness Wikisource text of the novella]) and, given the meteor-like form of this visitor, "The Colour out of Space" (1927; [http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Colour_Out_of_Space Wikisource text of the story]).

:Also, the beginning of Hunter's escape, when he gets "lost" and the streets "made no sense anymore" recalls the Lovecraft story, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_of_Erich_Zann "The Music of Erich Zann"]. It is also similar to Winston Smith's early wanderings in ''1984''.

In addition, the whole passage probably makes reference to several 1950s Sci-Fi movies, most importantly "The Thing from Another World" (1951) by Howard Hawks and Christian Nyby (remade as "The Thing" by John Carpenter in 1982) in which scientists discover an alien and lethal lifeform under the ice of the arctic. The idea of the alien lifeform falling to earth and being mistaken for a meteorite at first is prominent in Jack Arnold's "It Came from Outer Space" (1954), although the aliens in that case are benevolent rather than dangerous.

Hunter Penhallow's escape might be read as a happy ending getaway inversion of the claustrophobic opening sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', where nobody gets saved; "in this world brought low" echoes "the Light that hath brought the Towers low" on the final page of Gravity's Rainbow..."Light" may prefigure Against the Day's treatment of that subject, too.

:cf also "The Museum at night...unlighted and towering", p.150

The disorientation that Hunter experiences (city streets skewing, finding a mysterious group of people) echoes Lew Basnight's encounter with Drave's group ([[ATD_26-56#Page_39|p39]]), and the vision on the opening pages of ''Gravity's Rainbow''.

:In regards to Hunter's escape echoing Lew Basnight's "Chicago" sequence: It seems as if Hunter is also able to step to the side of the day? [[User:Greenlantern|Greenlantern]] 13:35, 20 February 2007 (PST)

:The connection of Hunter's "meeting" and Lew's encounter with Drave seems valid and useful. As to Hunter's having a power of invisibility, that's less well substantiated. I suggest instead that the refugees (throughout history refugees have known to keep their coats and hats on) have a way of fleeing into time. "The longer they traveled, the more 'futuristic' would the scenery grow." It's futuristic because it exists in the future!

==Page 156==

'''clouded and windless late-November day''' 
From 1898 to 1942 and again from 1946 to 1975, the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Harvard-Yale_football_games Harvard-Yale football game]—followed by persons in one province of the United States—was played in the last half of every November. 
The timing—a matter of months from Tesla's storm to now—suggests that the game is that of 1899, which was played on November 18 at Cambridge. A Cornell man might relish the fact that the outcome was a 0-0 tie.

'''Taft Hotel''' 
The Taft in New Haven opened in 1912; it isn't clear whether there might have been an earlier property of that name. The Taft in New York City opened in 1926. So placing a Taft Hotel in New Haven in 1899 is another anachronism (which appear often and seem to serve some purpose). A Google search turns up the suggestion (on an ephemeral eBay page) that there may have been a Taft's Hotel in West Cambridge in the mid-19th century too.

Not so hidden Ohio president: Wm H. Taft, of Cincinnati was president in 1912, a Yale grad, Skull&Bones member.

'''Irish pennants''' 
[http://www.jacksjoint.com/sailor_terminology.htm#Irish%20Pennant Untidy ends of thread or string.]

'''rival school hues''' 
Yale: blue and white. Harvard: crimson white, and black.

'''"Mr. Rinehart"''' 
A Harvard rallying cry, supposedly dating to 1900. The original Rinehart obtained his law degree from Harvard in 1903. In 1900 Mr. Rinehart occupied a high room in Gray's Hall at Harvard. It was easier for his friends to call to him from the ground than to climb three flights of stairs when they wanted him to join them. They would stand at the corner of Gray's and shout, "Oh, Rinehart." Many another student was called in the same way, and no particular attention was paid. But one sweltering night, when students were grinding for final examinations, one of them heard the familiar "Oh, Rinehart" from below and reacted instantly. He tossed aside his book and echoed the cry into the Yard. Within a minute, the enclosure resounded with the phrase from side to side and end to end. Something about the sound and accent of the name appealed to the students and from then until the end of the session the cry was heard nightly throughout the Yard. [http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0110b&L=ads-l&P=9765 source]

In later years, the origin story for the tradition changed: Rinehart became a lonely freshman who shouted his own name to see what it would sound like to be popular. He was discovered shouting his own name and the cry of "Rinehart" was used to make fun of him. The tradition continued until after World War II, when it faded from memory. Contemporary students apparently aren't familiar with the story or tradition. [http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/003880.html Language Log]

'''Tibetan prayer wheel principle''' 
Previously mentioned on [[ATD_119-148#Page_130|page 130]], where the principle was used to transport oneself to the tropical locale of the ''¡Cuidado, Cabrón!'' hot sauce label.

==Page 157==

'''"crimson" is cognate with "worm"''' 
[http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003873.html Largely true.] The American Heritage Dictionary gives the [http://www.bartleby.com/61/79/W0227900.html etymology for ''worm''] as "Middle English, from Old English ''wurm,'' variant of ''wyrm.''" The root ''wyrm'' in turn derives from the Indo-European base [http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE571.html wer-2], meaning to turn or bend. (Words descended from wer-2 include ''stalwart, weird, vertebra, wrath, wrong, wrestle, briar'' and ''rhapsody.'') The modern word ''crimson'' derives from Middle English ''cremesin,'' which (via one of several alternative pathways) comes from Arabic ''qirmizy,'' a word based on ''qirmiz,'' the kermes insect. This insect, which lives on the Kermes oak (''Quercus coccifera''), was an early source for red dye but fell out of favor after the introduction of [http://www.bell.lib.umn.edu/Products/cochinea.html cochineal]. The Arabic name for this insect probably stems from the Sanskrit ''kṛmi-ja-,'' referring to a red dye produced from worms. The ''-ja'' is from an Indo-European root ''*gene-,'' meaning "to produce" (whence, ultimately, our word "gene" and the ''-gen'' in chemical element names). The other component, ''kṛmi-,'' means "worm", and takes us back to Indo-European wer-2.

'''"no professional football"''' 
NFL founded 1902. [http://www.nfl.com/history/chronology/1869-1910 cite]

'''grease runs''' 
Deliveries of graft payments.

'''the Tombs''' 
A prison in New York City. [http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/histry3a.html History of the Tombs]

'''dime novel''' 
Adoption of poor but plucky boy by industrialist in need of an heir sounds like a plot by [http://www-sul.stanford.edu/depts/dp/pennies/1860_alger.html Horatio Alger, Jr.] (1832 or 1834-99). A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger,_Jr. Wikipedia entry] gives one plot summary that serves for quite a few of Alger's 135 dime novels.

'''crockful of cucumbers''' 
Male children? (Cucumber is slang for penis.) 
Obviously, yes, but not because they have penises. You put cucumbers in a crock to pickle them; Vibe's sons have all the energy and initiative of vegetables soaking up brine.

==Page 158==

'''Willard Gibbs''' 
Cf [[ATD_26-56#Page 29|page 29]]. J. Willard Gibbs (1839-1903), an American mathematical physicist.

'''it was desire''' 
"Desire" is a word of power in ''AtD.'' We saw it in Harald the Ruthless, [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|p. 117,]] and will see it again.

'''lust in idleness''' 
"Love-in-idleness" is a traditional name for the pansy.

'''Hamiltonian''' 
Hamilton Quaternion (Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 130|page 130]]) disciples.

In classical mechanics, Hamiltonian is a function used to describe a dynamical system (as a pendulum or a particle in motion) in terms of generalized coordinates and momenta. It is equal to the total energy of the system when time is not explicitly part of the function. It is named after the Irish mathematician Sir William R. Hamilton (1805-1865). ([http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Mathematicians/Hamilton.html Hamilton].)

==Page 159==

'''Walter Camp''' 
[http://www.waltercamp.org/history5.htm Yale University athlete (1859-1925) who helped create the game of American football.]

'''Witherspoon Street''' 
Runs to the north, away from the main gate of the Princeton campus. See also [[Witherspoon Street|DISCUSSION]].

'''Rooseveltian strenuosity''' 
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) advised Americans to live "the strenuous life"—and provided an example. 
[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1207796-1,00.html He suffered from asthma as a boy] and was considered a poor risk to grow up at all. Through vigorous exercise and outdoor living he became strong and, more often than not, healthy. He was elected vice-president after service in the Spanish-American War, succeeding to [http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tr26.html the presidency (1901-9)] when William McKinley was assassinated. 
In a speech to the Hamilton Club of Chicago in 1899, he said:
<blockquote>I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. 
("The Strenuous Life," collected in [http://www.bartleby.com/58/ his book of the same name, 1900.])</blockquote>

''''Fax's brother Cragmont''' 
There is a Cragmont area in Berkeley, Calif., and a Cragmont assembly ground (church campground) in Black Mountain, N.C. Doesn't seem to be a New York suburb, though.

'''across the perilous æther''' 
Repeating the phrase from p. 99 [[ATD_97-118#Page_99|(see annotations).]] Here ''æther'' means "air" or "empty space."

'''an expedition heading for Africa''' 
At the time of the Vormance expedition, Fleetwood has already been to Africa, so this episode precedes Vormance.

'''meat lozenges''' 
Lightweight for hikers. "Brand's meat lozenges, which are about the size of a four-penny piece and a quarter of an inch thick" [http://www.rootsweb.com/~nzlscant/mountcook.htm cite]

'''Seven Sisters''' 
Seven women's colleges at the time. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(colleges) Wikipedia]

==Page 160==

'''Dittany''' 
(1) [http://www.alchemy-works.com/herb_dittany.html White dittany,] ''Dictamnus albus'' var. ''dasycarpus,'' with reputed medicinal properties; (2) [http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/design/handbooks/herbgarden/7.html common dittany,] Maryland dittany or stone mint, ''Cunila origanoides''; or (3) [http://cretashop.gr/br/productsbr/diet/dittany_br.htm dittany of Crete,] ''Origanum dictamnus'' L., a species of oregano said to have aphrodisiac qualities. Herb (2) is native to North America, but the smart money's on (3).

==Page 161==

'''Elsie de Wolfe''' 
(1865-1950), American interior designer, hostess, and actress, best known for her innovative and anti-Victorian interiors. She is often credited with inventing the profession of interior decoration. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_De_Wolfe Wikipedia entry]

'''"musical dramas"''' 
The musical ''comedy'' genre was nascent, while operetta was a mature form with plenty of audience appeal. R.W. Vibe was misguided, though, if he thought Conkling's 30-year career (see next entry) could be condensed to three entertaining acts.

'''Roscoe Conkling''' 
New York Radical Republican politician (1829–1888) who served in both the House and the Senate. He opposed reform, acted as a friend of big business, engineered the selection of Chester A. Arthur as vice-president, and was suspected of involvement in the Garfield assassination that made Arthur president. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Conkling See also his Wikipedia entry.]

'''Tubby the pig''' 
Pynchon thinks pigs are cool. For examples, the character Pig Bodine, the Porky Pig tattoo and the Plechazunga costume in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Pynchon was allegedly notorious for carrying around a 6- to 7-inch yellow plastic pig ([http://www.theaesthetic.com/NewFiles/pynchon.html source]), and his room was allegedly decorated with pig toys around the 1960s, according to Jules Siegel's Playboy article on the writer.

==Page 162==

'''Sillery''' 
Wine from the French town of the same name. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sillery%2C_Marne Wikipedia]

'''puce''' 
A brownish color; perhaps meant as a play on "puke"? 
Seems straigtforward in the text: overlay Scarsdale's gray tones with Edwarda's mauve and sometimes you get puce. Sort of.

==Page 163==

'''"Kit was wondering through the house when he heard piano music"''' 
Just like Kurt Mondaugen, in chapter 9 of ''V.'' (p. 238)

'''R. Wilshire Vibe had not endeared himself to his nephew''' 
Because ''African Antics'' comically played up the dangers Fleetwood was about to face.

'''Tell me, what-cha gonn-na do, When they come screamin, after you?''' 
This reminds me of The Guns of Brixton, by The Clash, which contains the lines:

''When they kick out your front door 
''How you gonna come? 
''With your hands on your head 
''Or on the trigger of your gun ''

Is it possible this line is a reference to the popular American television reality series [http://www.cops.com/ COPS], whose theme song contains the lyrics:

''Bad boys, bad boys 
''Whatcha gonna do? 
''Boad boys, bad boys 
''Whatcha gonna do? 
''Whatcha gonna do 
''When they come for you? ''

The series follows the daily lives and patrols of "real life" police officers on patrol in varoius American cities, often focusing on the down-trodden and marginalized in American society. The overall effect of the program is often to further separate the "us" from the "them", in that we can sit idly by and use the unfortunate, stupid, or criminal as our entertainment.

==Page 164==

'''Logical paradoxes''' 
Fleetwood has presented Kit with a statement similar to the notorious liar paradox with "...you shouldn't trust anything I have to say about this family."
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox Wikipedia] 
Whether the statement actually qualifies as a paradox is not immediately clear. Fleetwood is not just saying "you shouldn't trust anything I have to say," which is self referential in the manner of the liar paradox. He is specifically referring to some sentences he might utter "...about this family." Unless we are willing to interpret Fleetwood's sentence itself as being about his family, and not just some other sentences he might utter, it is not paradoxical. Fleetwood is a member of the family. His sentence makes a statement that casts doubt on what he might say about a member of the family. This statement by Fleetwood about what he might say can be (but arguably not "must be") interpreted, in a general sense, as a statement about his family (which includes himself). On that interpretation he is making a statement that denies that the statement itself can be trusted. 
There is a second way Fletwood's statement does not clearly show itself to be a paradox. Most variations on the liar paradox are statements that claim themselves to be false; this is different from a statement saying that it cannot be trusted. If something cannot be trusted, it might still be true.

==Page 165==

'''"your strongest certainty...you remember everything"''' 
The whole paragraph recalls Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'', where random perceptions suddenly bring back lost memories. Through this remembrance the past is regained, and it is suddenly possible to constitute identity. This might be mirrored in Fleetwood's "single great episode of light" in which one hasn't "discovered it but returned to it".

'''all my colleagues care about is finding waterfalls''' 
A quest Kit must have sympathized with; see p. 98 [[ATD_97-118#Page_98|and annotations.]]

'''a simply-connected space with an unbroken line around it''' 
Orthodox Jewish communities often make a symbolic perimeter around their space so that they can, for example, carry a book as they walk to Sabbath worship; by convention they are still "home"—thus not enjoined against some kinds of work—as long as they stay inside this ''eruv.'' One such neighborhood in Atlanta uses a set of electrical power lines to bound its area.

In this context, "simply connected" means the region inside the perimeter does not contain any "islands" that don't belong to the space. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simply_connected Wikipedia gives an admirably clear explanation.]

==Page 166==

'''hair ropes''' 
Cowboy superstition: horsehair ropes kept snakes away.

'''"some peaceful expanse of rangeland"''' 
The use of the word "range" along with the previous page's description of heavenly light suggest some connection to the phrase, "the light over the range."

In fact, there were several proposals for an African "Zion", most notoriously a Nazi plan to settle all Jews in Madagascar.

'''by way of commentary''' 
On Fleetwood's rotten joke.

'''"stand your ground"''' 
Ellmann tells a similar story about Joyce's father facing charging riders in Phoenix Park.

==Page 167==

'''...it was a time honored principle to do nothing for free [...] Trust me. Buy Rand shares''' 
It is implied that Rand is a gold mining company (does anyone know if this is/was a real company?). Regardless, Yitzhak and Fleetwood are talking about South Africa. Although the ''rand'' is the currency of South Africa today, it was not in circulation intil 1961. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_African_pound source]) The famous Kruger''rand'' is a gold coin, but that was introduced in 1967. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krugerrand source]) The Witwaters''rand'' is the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built.

The Rand is a gold field, not a company or currency (in this context). See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_119-148#Page_146 note on page 146]

It is possible that Pynchon is also mocking the philosophy of Ayn Rand, which is often characterized as a defense of selfishness or strong individualism. Pynchon [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0277-335X(198201)47%3A1%3C62%3ALATWWO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W previously parodied] Ayn Rand and her Theory of Objectivism as "Mafia Winsome" and her "Theory of Heroic Love" in ''V.''
: It seems a stretch to interpret this as a reference to Ayn Rand, especially as these sound like historical facts: although the Australian gold rush began in the 1850s, the rich Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie fields of gold were found in the 1890s, apparently triggering later rushes. ([http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/goldrush/ source]) But perhaps... [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]] 17:59, 22 December 2006 (PST)

'''war going on''' 
The Second Boer War started 11 October 1899, between the British Empire and the two independent Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic). After a protracted hard-fought war, the two independent republics lost and were absorbed into the British Empire. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War Wikipedia]

==Page 168==

'''Eastern Question''' 
Europe's concern with post-Ottoman Turkey. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Question Wikipedia]

'''"Fleetwood wanted to be like them...He prayed to become one of them. [...] Nothing "took." "''' 
Cf. William Gibson's 1981 short story ''Hinterlands'' ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinterlands_%28short_story%29 Wikipedia entry]), for a similar case of people willing unsuccesfully to be "taken" by the unknown (albeit without Pynchon's explanation as to why this doesn't happen):
:"We both have the drive, though, that special need, that freak dynamic that lets us keep going back to Heaven. We both got it the same way, lay out there in our little boats for weeks, waiting for the Highway to take us. And when our last flare was gone, we were hauled back here by tugs. Some people just aren't taken, and nobody knows why. And you'll never get a second chance. [...] But I'd wanted to go, wanted it so bad. Charmian, too."

'''Massawa''' 
a port on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. Important for many centuries, it has been colonised by Egypt, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Britain... It became the capital of the Italian colony of Eritrea until this was moved to Asmara in 1900. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massawa Wikipedia entry]

'''Lourenço Marques''' 
Today known as Maputo, capital city of Mozambique. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo Wikipedia entry]

'''''cantinhas''''' 
Portuguese: taverns (like Spanish ''cantinas'').

'''rotgut rejectamenta of Bucelas and Dão''' 
Rotgut= "poor-quality and potentially toxic alcoholic liquor." Rejectamenta= "things thrown out or away," so the reject wine. Bucelas, Portugal is a famous wine-growing region. Dão is a type of Portuguese wine.

'''Johannesburg''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannesburg Johannesburg], also known as ''eGoli'', the place of Gold, is the financial, economic and cultural center, but not the capital, of South Africa. The discovery of gold in 1880s brought a large number of whites to this region from all over the world. Apartheid, a racial segregation system, was enforced between 1948-1990. While gold mining no longer takes place within the city limits, most mining companies still have their headquarters in Johannesburg.

'''"like Baku with giraffes"''' 
''Gravity's Rainbow'' mentions Baku by name three times, according to [http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/b.html the Pynchon Pages index]:

352; seaport capital of Azerbaydzhanskaya SSR, Soviet Union, on the west coast of the Caspian Sea; 353; Blobadjian "pursued through the black end of Baku by a passel of screaming Arabists" 354
(Actually there are four references, as it appears twice in page 354 - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 20:28, 25 January 2007)

And not to forget the giraffe: "Foppl stood holding a sjambok or cattle whip of giraffe hide" (''V.'', chapter 9, p. 240)

After reading this section, and the oddly-separated text of Fleetwood's reverie about his pursuit of wealth in the Transvaal, and his murder of the Kaffir, the family name struck me, "Vibe" = "V" I be. Certainly this section brings back the African horror of "V."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku Baku], Azerbaijan's capital, is located on the southern shore of the Apsheron peninsula of the Caspian Sea. The origin of the name, based on the most widely known theory, comes from ''bad kube'', meaning "city of winds". Today's Baku is reallly three cities rolled into one: the old town (885-1872), the boomtown (1872-1920) and the Soviet-built town (1921-1991). The basis of Baku's economy is petroleum. Commercial exploitation began in 1872, (Baku is where Nobel Brothers acquired their wealth and the money for the ''Nobel Peace Prize''), and by the beginning of the 20th century the Baku oil field was the largest in the world and Baku supplied half of the world's oil production. But towards the end of the 20th century much of the land's petroleum had been exhausted, and drilling had extended into the sea. Baku ranks as one of the largest world centers for the production of oil industry equipment.

==Page 169==

'''Kaffirs''' 
African blacks. The word Kaffir, derived from Arabic ''kafir,'' "infidel," is considered [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_%28ethnic_slur%29 extremely insulting,] and calling someone this name has been a civil cause of action in South Africa since the 1970s.

'''eGoli''' 
Zulu name for Johannesburg and a possible pun on e-coli.

'''to be shot or to step into a mine shaft''' 
Completing the story Fleetwood didn't tell on p. 147.

==Page 170==

'''some grave imbalance in the structure of the world . . . Be serious''' 
Fleetwood's dreams connect forward (in time—but back to pp. 121-55 in ''AtD'') to the scourging of the great city.

==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}