Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 296-317

2006-12-20T02:21:16Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 301 */ squareheads

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

==Page 296==

'''Rodgers Brothers''' 
???

'''Mescalero''' 
???

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

'''Basin''' 
???

==Page 297==

'''Pandora works''' 
???

'''adits''' 
???

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

'''bullion day''' 
???

==Page 298==

'''''duendes''''' 
???

==Page 299==

'''matte-surface''' 
???

'''"...Sunday-morning voice..."''' 
???

==Page 300==

'''Chinese children''' 
(Lots of mentions of China when Merle's around?)

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

'''collodion''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collodion Wikipedia]

==Page 301==

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

==Page 302==
'''ghost bison''' 
The American Buffalo was nearly hunted to extinction in the 19th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_buffalo#19th_century_Buffalo_hunts Wikipedia]

'''Gallows Frame Saloon''' 
???

'''fathom miners''' 
???

'''remittance men''' 
Black sheep paid regularly by families to stay away.

==Page 303==

'''Circassian walnut''' 
???

'''Charlie Fong Ding''' 
???

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

'''California Peg''' 
???

'''''sous-maitresse''''' 
???

'''Grundyesque''' 
???

'''Popcorn Alley''' 
???

'''hurdy girl''' 
???

'''Pick and Gad''' 
???

==Page 304==

'''civil war and White Terror''' 
???

==Page 305==

'''"The Shooting of Dan McGrew"''' 
1907 poem by Canadian poet Robert Service, so anachronistic here. [http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/TheSpelloftheYukon/chap13.html etext]

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

'''Stephen Emmens''' 
???

'''"argentaurum"''' 
???

'''nymph's mirror''' 
???

'''''Schieferspath''''' 
???

'''superstitious Scotchman''' 
???

==Page 306==

'''''grown brighter''''' 
???

'''gold... silver''' 
???

'''rhomboid''' 
???

'''Veta Madre''' 
???

==Page 307==

'''Lyman Gage''' 
???

'''like a kettle coming to a boil''' 
???

'''stopes''' 
???

'''Charles Bonnet Syndrome'''

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

Remarkably, CBS is characterized often by bizarre and grotesque images: ghosts, elves, sprites, cartoon-like figures, disembodies faces, magical landscapes. According to Cliff Pickover, author of ''Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves'' (Smart Publications, 2005), "people affflicted with certain eye diseases give similar reports of beings from parallel universes." [http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/PublicWebsite/public_rnib003641.hcsp Royal National Institute of the Blind] [http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/Pickover/pc/bonnet.html Dr. Cliff Pickover Comments] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bonnet Wikipedia Wikipedia entry on Bonnet] --[[User:Jmanmiami|Jmanmiami]] 09:10, 1 December 2006 (PST)

'''Puckpool''' 
???

==Page 308==

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

==Page 309==

'''Old Gideon''' 
???

'''A.T. Still''' 
???

==Page 310==

'''''Jefe''''' 
Chief (Spanish).

==Page 311==

'''mind-poisoning vetches''' 
???

'''Edgar Hadley''' 
???

'''Margaret Perril''' 
???

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

'''Trout Lake''' 
???

==Page 313==

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

'''packer's knife''' 
???

==Page 314==

'''Dutch Waltz''' 
???

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

==Page 315==

'''Railbird Saloon''' 
???

'''Gastón Villa''' 
???

'''''cholo'' balls''' 
???

'''''charro''''' 
???

'''Galandronome''' 
???

'''Battle of Puebla''' 
???

==Page 316==

'''Ophir road''' 
???

'''wraith''' 
(Was she nearby at this moment?)

==Page 317==

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

'''''abrazos''''' 
???

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

ATD 296-317

2006-12-20T02:05:34Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 302 */ ghost bison

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

==Page 296==

'''Rodgers Brothers''' 
???

'''Mescalero''' 
???

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

'''Basin''' 
???

==Page 297==

'''Pandora works''' 
???

'''adits''' 
???

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

'''bullion day''' 
???

==Page 298==

'''''duendes''''' 
???

==Page 299==

'''matte-surface''' 
???

'''"...Sunday-morning voice..."''' 
???

==Page 300==

'''Chinese children''' 
(Lots of mentions of China when Merle's around?)

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

'''collodion''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collodion Wikipedia]

==Page 301==

'''squareheads''' 
???

==Page 302==
'''ghost bison''' 
The American Buffalo was nearly hunted to extinction in the 19th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_buffalo#19th_century_Buffalo_hunts Wikipedia]

'''Gallows Frame Saloon''' 
???

'''fathom miners''' 
???

'''remittance men''' 
Black sheep paid regularly by families to stay away.

==Page 303==

'''Circassian walnut''' 
???

'''Charlie Fong Ding''' 
???

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

'''California Peg''' 
???

'''''sous-maitresse''''' 
???

'''Grundyesque''' 
???

'''Popcorn Alley''' 
???

'''hurdy girl''' 
???

'''Pick and Gad''' 
???

==Page 304==

'''civil war and White Terror''' 
???

==Page 305==

'''"The Shooting of Dan McGrew"''' 
1907 poem by Canadian poet Robert Service, so anachronistic here. [http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/TheSpelloftheYukon/chap13.html etext]

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

'''Stephen Emmens''' 
???

'''"argentaurum"''' 
???

'''nymph's mirror''' 
???

'''''Schieferspath''''' 
???

'''superstitious Scotchman''' 
???

==Page 306==

'''''grown brighter''''' 
???

'''gold... silver''' 
???

'''rhomboid''' 
???

'''Veta Madre''' 
???

==Page 307==

'''Lyman Gage''' 
???

'''like a kettle coming to a boil''' 
???

'''stopes''' 
???

'''Charles Bonnet Syndrome'''

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

Remarkably, CBS is characterized often by bizarre and grotesque images: ghosts, elves, sprites, cartoon-like figures, disembodies faces, magical landscapes. According to Cliff Pickover, author of ''Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves'' (Smart Publications, 2005), "people affflicted with certain eye diseases give similar reports of beings from parallel universes." [http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/PublicWebsite/public_rnib003641.hcsp Royal National Institute of the Blind] [http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/Pickover/pc/bonnet.html Dr. Cliff Pickover Comments] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bonnet Wikipedia Wikipedia entry on Bonnet] --[[User:Jmanmiami|Jmanmiami]] 09:10, 1 December 2006 (PST)

'''Puckpool''' 
???

==Page 308==

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

==Page 309==

'''Old Gideon''' 
???

'''A.T. Still''' 
???

==Page 310==

'''''Jefe''''' 
Chief (Spanish).

==Page 311==

'''mind-poisoning vetches''' 
???

'''Edgar Hadley''' 
???

'''Margaret Perril''' 
???

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

'''Trout Lake''' 
???

==Page 313==

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

'''packer's knife''' 
???

==Page 314==

'''Dutch Waltz''' 
???

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

==Page 315==

'''Railbird Saloon''' 
???

'''Gastón Villa''' 
???

'''''cholo'' balls''' 
???

'''''charro''''' 
???

'''Galandronome''' 
???

'''Battle of Puebla''' 
???

==Page 316==

'''Ophir road''' 
???

'''wraith''' 
(Was she nearby at this moment?)

==Page 317==

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

'''''abrazos''''' 
???

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

The Sentiment of Loss

2006-12-20T01:07:41Z

Strangecultist: added O'Rooney quote

Thomas Pynchon writes elegant prose, which is often profound and sometimes heartbreakingly beautiful. Some of the more poignant sentiment in the early pages of ATD regards loss -- the loss of barely-known kindred spirits and sons or brothers long loved. If one searches the text for less literal examples of "loss", the pages of this, at times, sorrowful book will likely reveal such examples. Here are a few of the more literal examples:

:pp. 87-88 (Webb Traverse)
:Across the Ohio in a hill town whose name he soon couldn't remember, there was a dark-haired girl Webb's age whose name, Teresa, he would never forget. They were out wlking the wagon ruts, just beyond a fenceline the hills went rushing away, the sky was clouded over, it might've been between rain showers, and young Webb was all ready to unburden his heart, which like the sky was about to reveal something beyond itself. He almost did tell her. They both seemed to see it coming, and later, heading west, he carried with him that silence that had stretched on between them until there was no point anymore. He might have stayed, otherwise, snuck off from the wagons, headed back to her. She might have found a way to come after him, too, but that was a dream, really, he didn't know, would never know, how she felt.

:p. 106 (Mayva Traverse)
:'I'll never see you again.' No. She didn't say that. But she might've, so easy. A look from him. Any small gesture of collapse from his careful, young man's posture back into the boy she wanted, after all, to keep.

:p. 137 (Constance Penhallow)
:She looked to every horizon, taking her time, saving south for last. Not a wisp of smoke, not the last, wind-muted cry of a steam siren, only the good-bye letter waiting this morning on her work-table, held now like a crushed handkerchief in her pocket, in which he had given her his heart -- but which she could not open again and read for fear that through some terrible magic she had never learned to undo, it might have become, after all, a blank sheet.

:p. 191 (Lake Traverse)
:Lake came back to the cabin once to get some of her things. The place echoed with desertion. Webb was on shift, Mayva was out running chores. All her brothers were long gone, the one she missed most being Kit, for they were the two youngest and had shared a kind of willfulness, a yearning for the undreamt-of destiny, or perhaps no more than a stubborn aversion to settling for the everyday life of others.

:p.317 (Dahlia and Merle Rideout)
:They had been in and out of each other's arms so often, she had no uneasiness with good-bye ''abrazos''. Merle, who had a sense of the bets on the table here, knew he better not spook her now. Neither of them had ever had much interest in breaking each other's heart. In theory they both knew she had to move on, though all he wanted right now was to wait, even just another day. But he knew that feeling, and he guessed it would pass.

:p.373 (Wolfe Tone O'Rooney)
:...watching the fall of night, 'weightless as a widow's veil,' observed the young Irishman, 'and isn't it the curse of the drifter, this desolation of heart we feel each evening at sundown, with the slow loop of the river out there just for half a minute, catching the last light, pregnant with the city in all its density and wonder, the possibilties never to be counted, much less lived into, by the likes of us, don't you see, for we're only passing through, we're already ghosts.'

In his long, thoughtful review of ''Gravity's Rainbow'' in the NY Times Book Review of 11 March 1973, Richard Locke wrote:

"In all of Pynchon's books there is also an element of soft lyrical sadness, a longing for a tryst with a lost love. But this tenderness is most often inextricable from a drift into passiveness, self-pity, withdrawal, emotional impotence, or it is the feeling that links victim and executioner."

[[Category:ATD]]

The Sentiment of Loss

2006-12-15T01:50:31Z

Strangecultist: added Dahlia/Merle Rideout quote

Thomas Pynchon writes elegant prose, which is often profound and sometimes heartbreakingly beautiful. Some of the more poignant sentiment in the early pages of ATD regards loss -- the loss of barely-known kindred spirits and sons or brothers long loved. If one searches the text for less literal examples of "loss", the pages of this, at times, sorrowful book will likely reveal such examples. Here are a few of the more literal examples:

:pp. 87-88 (Webb Traverse)
:Across the Ohio in a hill town whose name he soon couldn't remember, there was a dark-haired girl Webb's age whose name, Teresa, he would never forget. They were out wlking the wagon ruts, just beyond a fenceline the hills went rushing away, the sky was clouded over, it might've been between rain showers, and young Webb was all ready to unburden his heart, which like the sky was about to reveal something beyond itself. He almost did tell her. They both seemed to see it coming, and later, heading west, he carried with him that silence that had stretched on between them until there was no point anymore. He might have stayed, otherwise, snuck off from the wagons, headed back to her. She might have found a way to come after him, too, but that was a dream, really, he didn't know, would never know, how she felt.

:p. 106 (Mayva Traverse)
:'I'll never see you again.' No. She didn't say that. But she might've, so easy. A look from him. Any small gesture of collapse from his careful, young man's posture back into the boy she wanted, after all, to keep.

:p. 137 (Constance Penhallow)
:She looked to every horizon, taking her time, saving south for last. Not a wisp of smoke, not the last, wind-muted cry of a steam siren, only the good-bye letter waiting this morning on her work-table, held now like a crushed handkerchief in her pocket, in which he had given her his heart -- but which she could not open again and read for fear that through some terrible magic she had never learned to undo, it might have become, after all, a blank sheet.

:p. 191 (Lake Traverse)
:Lake came back to the cabin once to get some of her things. The place echoed with desertion. Webb was on shift, Mayva was out running chores. All her brothers were long gone, the one she missed most being Kit, for they were the two youngest and had shared a kind of willfulness, a yearning for the undreamt-of destiny, or perhaps no more than a stubborn aversion to settling for the everyday life of others.

:p.317 (Dahlia and Merle Rideout)
:They had been in and out of each other's arms so often, she had no uneasiness with good-bye ''abrazos''. Merle, who had a sense of the bets on the table here, knew he better not spook her now. Neither of them had ever had much interest in breaking each other's heart. In theory they both knew she had to move on, though all he wanted right now was to wait, even just another day. But he knew that feeling, and he guessed it would pass.

(Please add anything of a similar vein or, of course, change what's already written.) 
[[User:Strangecultist|Strangecultist]] 17:31, 3 December 2006 (PST)

[[Category:ATD]]

ATD 219-242

2006-12-08T04:37:36Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 224 */

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

==Page 222==

'''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.

'''"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.)

==Page 224==
'''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]

==Page 226==

'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward. Given the importance of railway lines in this and other chapters, it is also interesting to note that Cambridge's rail system was built in 1845 while Gottingen's was built in 1854.

==Page 227==

"The Great Game" in this case does not refer to Padzhitnoff's airship, but it's the same name.

==Page 236==

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
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.

==Page 237==

'''Hebrew letter Shin- sign''' 
"This person greeted the Cohen by raising his left hand, then spreading the fingers two and two away from the thumb so as to form the Hebrew letter ''shin'', signifying the initial letter of one of the pre-Mosaic (that is, plural) names of God, which may never be spoken.

" 'Basically wishing long life and prosperity,' explained the Choen, answering with the same gesture"
 
compare with the following from M&D 485: 
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.' " 
So is there connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris"? and these backwoods Kabbalists? 
Obvious connects with Star Trek's Vulcan greeting and with Leonard Nimoy's jewish faith.

ATD 219-242

2006-12-08T04:33:11Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 224 */British cryptography

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

==Page 222==

'''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.

'''"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.)

==Page 224==
'''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..."

==Page 226==

'''Renfrew at Cambridge and Werfner at Göttingen''' 
Note that each Professor's name is the other's spelled backward. Given the importance of railway lines in this and other chapters, it is also interesting to note that Cambridge's rail system was built in 1845 while Gottingen's was built in 1854.

==Page 227==

"The Great Game" in this case does not refer to Padzhitnoff's airship, but it's the same name.

==Page 236==

'''The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly''' 
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.

==Page 237==

'''Hebrew letter Shin- sign''' 
"This person greeted the Cohen by raising his left hand, then spreading the fingers two and two away from the thumb so as to form the Hebrew letter ''shin'', signifying the initial letter of one of the pre-Mosaic (that is, plural) names of God, which may never be spoken.

" 'Basically wishing long life and prosperity,' explained the Choen, answering with the same gesture"
 
compare with the following from M&D 485: 
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.' " 
So is there connection between The Cohen of T.W.I.T., the "Cohens of Paris"? and these backwoods Kabbalists? 
Obvious connects with Star Trek's Vulcan greeting and with Leonard Nimoy's jewish faith.

ATD 199-218

2006-12-08T04:17:00Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 205 */ against the daylight

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

==Page 205==
'''against the daylight''' 
A direct example of ''against the day'' as ''against the light''. Significantly, Frank's attempt to discern Stray's true facial expression is thwarted by the daylight behind her. An object positioned against the daylight, or, in general, between an observer and a light source, is shadowed or silhouetted -- in Pynchon's words of the same sentence, "veiled by its own penumbra". This is suggestive of the idea that light does not always illuminate.
==Page 212==

'''The upside down star''' 
Talking about the Marshal of Jeshimon, The Rev. of the town says:
"'notice anything in particular?...Observe the star Wes is wearing.'...It
was a five-pointed star, nickel-plated, like they tended to war, except
that it was on upside down. 'Whith the two points up-that's the horns of
the Devil, and signifies that Elderly Gent and his works.'"

In Mason and Dixon: The upside star is a symbol two things that are connected: 1. when M&D are trying to find true north, they look at starts in their telescope at measure when they reach the peak of their arc arcoss the sky. In the telescope the star is upside down. Thus, upside down stars symbolize points which cut through distortion.
2. The star is seen again and again on rifles of both Dutch and American design.
They pop up around slavery, a massacre, and an Iron refinery used for making impliments of slavery and war. The rifle is much like a telescope, but differs in that it shoots lead rather then huge sweaping cuts across the landscape. But they are both acts that are branded by evil.

The "upside down star" is also known as the ''inverted pentagram'' (with "two horns exalted"), an emblem of the Devil.

The Sentiment of Loss

2006-12-05T05:32:25Z

Strangecultist:

The Sentiment of Loss

2006-12-05T05:31:18Z

Strangecultist: added Lake T. quote

The Sentiment of Loss

2006-12-04T01:31:09Z

Strangecultist: A page regarding the admittedly broad theme of "loss" in ATD

ATD 149-170

2006-12-04T00:26:46Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 167 */ Rand shares

==Page 150==
'''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].
==Pages 154-155==
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.

==Page 167==
'''...it was a time honored principle to do nothing for free [...] Trust me. Buy Rand shares''' 
There seems to be a double meaning here. The text implies 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, where the ''rand'' is the currency, the Kruger''rand'' is a gold coin, and the Witwaters''rand'' is the ridge upon which Johannesburg is built. On another level, however, it seems as though Pynchon is mocking the philosophy of Ayn Rand, which is often characterized as a defense of selfishness or strong individualism.
==Page 168==

"like Baku with giraffes"

Gravity's Rainbow mentions Baku by name three times, according to the Pynchon Pages index (http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/b.html):

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

ATD 119-148

2006-12-03T18:17:45Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 138 */ Lovecraft in pp138-155 ??

==Page 122==

'''dazzle-painting''' 
A camouflage painting technique used on WWI ships. Link: [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. 

'''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.

==Page 123==

'''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 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."

'''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.

'''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 the 1980s. 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.

==Page 126==
'''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 (cf. p. 73).

'''Étienne-Louis Malus''' 
Etienne-Louis Malus (July 23, 1775 – February 24, 1812) was a French officer, engineer, physicist, and mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etienne-Louis_Malus Wikipedia Entry] 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.

==Page 127==

'''Constance Penhallow''' 
Hallow: to set apart as holy, to honor greatly. Her name then pairs the virtue of canstancy with honoring the pen. Note also that her grandson, mentioned on page 128, 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...

==Page 128==

'''Hunter Penhallow''' 
See above, Constance Penhallow.

==Page 133==

'''Ynglingsaga''' 
See also Ynglinga Saga, or the story of the ancient Norse kings. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ynglinga_saga Wikipedia entry]

'''... 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]

==Page 134==
'''visitors from elsewhere, of non-human aspect''' 
Extraterrestrials. "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".

'''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".

==Page 136==

'''kedgework''' 
A set of pilings used to move a ship by hauling on it's mooring or anchoring lines.

==Page 138==
'''From the Journals of Mr. Fleetwood Vibe...''' 
So begins a short narrative, spanning pp.138-155, which 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]).

'''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==
'''Dr. Counterfly''' 
Last seen as a boy with low rank. How much time has elapsed?

'''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].

==Page 140==

'''a large brass speaking-trumpet''' 
As in the ubiquitous W.A.S.T.E. symbolism in The Crying of Lot 49.

'''Bréguet-style arrowheads''' 
A distinctive fine watch of French design. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch) Wikipedia entry]

'''Poulson's Telegraphone''' 
Invented in 1898, the first magnetic recording machine was patented by Valdemar Poulson. The theory behind this machine was worked out theoretically by Oberlin Smith of the UK in 1888. Poulson'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.

==Page 141==

'''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.

==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.

ATD 119-148

2006-12-03T17:55:12Z

Strangecultist: /* =Page 136 */ removed extra =sign

==Page 122==

'''dazzle-painting''' 
A camouflage painting technique used on WWI ships. Link: [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. 

'''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.

==Page 123==

'''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 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."

'''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.

'''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 the 1980s. 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.

==Page 126==
'''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 (cf. p. 73).

'''Étienne-Louis Malus''' 
Etienne-Louis Malus (July 23, 1775 – February 24, 1812) was a French officer, engineer, physicist, and mathematician. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etienne-Louis_Malus Wikipedia Entry] 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.

==Page 127==

'''Constance Penhallow''' 
Hallow: to set apart as holy, to honor greatly. Her name then pairs the virtue of canstancy with honoring the pen. Note also that her grandson, mentioned on page 128, is named Hunter and is an artist--In the hunt for the consecrated pen.

==Page 128==

'''Hunter Penhallow''' 
See above, Constance Penhallow.

==Page 133==

'''Ynglingsaga''' 
See also Ynglinga Saga, or the story of the ancient Norse kings. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ynglinga_saga Wikipedia entry]

'''... 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]

==Page 134==
'''visitors from elsewhere, of non-human aspect''' 
Extraterrestrials. "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".

'''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".

==Page 136==

'''kedgework''' 
A set of pilings used to move a ship by hauling on it's mooring or anchoring lines.

==Page 140==

'''a large brass speaking-trumpet''' 
As in the ubiquitous W.A.S.T.E. symbolism in The Crying of Lot 49.

'''Bréguet-style arrowheads''' 
A distinctive fine watch of French design. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breguet_(watch) Wikipedia entry]

'''Poulson's Telegraphone''' 
Invented in 1898, the first magnetic recording machine was patented by Valdemar Poulson. The theory behind this machine was worked out theoretically by Oberlin Smith of the UK in 1888. Poulson'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.

==Page 141==

'''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.

==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.

ATD 149-170

2006-12-03T17:51:57Z

Strangecultist: /* Pages 154-155 */ Tammanoid creatures...

ATD 119-148

2006-12-01T01:03:10Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 133 */ visitors from elsewhere = ETs

ATD 97-118

2006-12-01T00:33:45Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 117 */ royal court of Chthonica

==Page 99==
'''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''' 
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 bricks on the side of the canal. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rowan_Hamilton Wikipedia entry]

==Page 109==

'''blindness at the heart of a diamond''' 
This enigmatic imagery is reflected (no pun intended) in a few references: 

"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 

==Page 114==

'''Nernst lamps''' An early incandescent lamp invented by Hermann Nernst, 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). Hermann Nernst was also responsible for first formulating the Third Law of Thermodynamics, also called the Nernst Heat Theorem. [http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/nernst.htm "Nernst Heat Theorem (Third Law of Thermodynamics) was presented by Walther Nernst on December 23, 1905 at a meeting of the Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen."]

'''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.

'''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.

==Page 115==
'''Kepler'''

'''(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'''

==Page 117==
'''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.

'''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.

'''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.

ATD 119-148

2006-12-01T00:20:19Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 122 */ I.G.L.O.O. = HAARP or ECHELON?

User:Strangecultist

2006-11-30T05:36:59Z

Strangecultist:

Hey there. Ryan here. Some 15 years ago, my moms (in clear disgust) threw ''Gravity's Rainbow'' to the cold floor of the rickety old shack in which we resided. I miss the aurora b. of those dear northwoods, and I've loved the author ever since.

ATD 97-118

2006-11-30T05:23:00Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 99 */ so is altitude transformed...

==Page 99==
'''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''' 
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 bricks on the side of the canal. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rowan_Hamilton Wikipedia entry]

==Page 109==

'''blindness at the heart of a diamond''' 
This enigmatic imagery is reflected (no pun intended) in a few references: 

"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 

==Page 114==

'''Nernst lamps''' An early incandescent lamp invented by Hermann Nernst, 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). Hermann Nernst was also responsible for first formulating the Third Law of Thermodynamics, also called the Nernst Heat Theorem. [http://chem.ch.huji.ac.il/~eugeniik/history/nernst.htm "Nernst Heat Theorem (Third Law of Thermodynamics) was presented by Walther Nernst on December 23, 1905 at a meeting of the Königliche Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen."]

'''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.

'''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.

==Page 115==
'''Kepler'''

'''(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'''

==Page 117==

'''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.

Modern Parallels

2006-11-29T04:11:09Z

Strangecultist: added category ATD identifier

Despite Mr. Pynchon's insistence to the contrary in the original dust jacket copy -- "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred" -- the reader of ''Against the Day'' cannot, of course, help but draw parallels between its text and the events, political philosophies, and social inequalities of the present day.
 
With the introduction of the Webb Traverse storyline, the reader begins to encounter strong, direct references to modern time. Webb considers the possibility that doing physical harm to the infrastructure of wealth might backfire, thinking, "Not that any owner ever cared rat shit about the lives of workers, of course, except to define them as Innocent Victims in whose name uniformed goons could then go out and hunt down the Monsters That Did the Deed" (p85). September 11, 2001 and the United States of America's response -- more specifically, the response of the "owners"/plutocrats -- to the events of that day lurk within this sentence. A paragraph later, the reader encounters a reference to that darkest of conspiracy theories concerning September 11: "...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" (p85). Webb is philosophically sickened by the prospect of the owners/government as ''agent provocateur'', spreading destruction from within, using his sacred truth medium, "nitro", to slander his cause. Soon, we find Webb advising his children against the disingenuous semantics of the plutocrats (p93). Webb chooses "Freedom", "Reform", and "Compassion" as prime examples of their euphemisms, which echo Operation Iraqi ''Freedom'', "''Freedom'''s on the march", immigration ''reform'', and ''compassion''ate conservatism.
 
Perhaps what makes the presence of these parallels especially uncomforable to an American reader is the fact that the story, at this point at least, is focused on domestic terrorists. That "darker thing", "the desire, the desparate need to create a radius of annihilation that, if it could not include the ones who deserved it, might as well include himself" (p95) might first be identified as the thought of a September 11 hijacker or a suicide bomber of any foreign stripe. But, here, we are dealing with the dark thoughts of an American boy, Reef Traverse...

[[Category:ATD]]

Modern Parallels

2006-11-29T03:50:40Z

Strangecultist:

ATD 81-96

2006-11-29T03:47:47Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 82 */

==Page 81==
Feast of St. Barbara. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm External link]

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

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

==Page 85==
'''Innocent Victims...Monsters That Did the Deed''' 
Use of capitals seems to emphasize the fact that these persons are simply convenient stock characters in the forwarding of the owners'/government's agenda.

==Page 87==
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question "How can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?" and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket.' ("How can you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.")

'''Mason-Dixon line'''
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning caln from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon. The Civil War, which ate up a good part of Wbb's boyhood, split the family as well, so that shortly before it was over, he found himself in the back of a agon heading west..."
I searched through all of M&D and didn't find any Traverses who had met
the exporers, but it's obvious that there were there and that the Traverse
family are victim's of the Line's bad Feng Shui. So interesting, then to
see the link between the Line, Colarado Anarchism, and the Labor movemnet
in California.

==Page 89==
'''Repeal of the Silver Act of 1893''' 

Prior to 1893, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

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

==Page 95==
'''a radius of annhilation that, if it could not include the ones who deserved it, might as well include himself ''' 

Hair-raising to see Pynchon put the suicide bomber/terrorists back in the US where they also have a home; the effect also to make them (the suicide bombers over there somewhere - Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) a bit less foreign, and to make ourselves, good US citizens, appear foreign to ourselves: how could we, civilized Americans interested only in democracy and freedom for all, have these feelings and desires?

September 11, 2001 and its consequences seem obvious on this novel, at least in these first 95 pages.

Modern Parallels

2006-11-29T03:37:44Z

Strangecultist:

Despite Mr. Pynchon's insistence to the contrary in the original dust jacket copy -- "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred" -- the reader of ''Against the Day'' cannot, of course, help but draw parallels between its text and the events, political philosophies, and social inequalities of modern times.
 
With the introduction of the Webb Traverse storyline, the reader begins to encounter strong, direct references to present time. Webb considers the possibility that doing physical harm to the infrastructure of wealth might backfire, thinking, "Not that any owner ever cared rat shit about the lives of workers, of course, except to define them as Innocent Victims in whose name uniformed goons could then go out and hunt down the Monsters That Did the Deed" (p85). September 11, 2001 and the United States of America's response -- more specifically, the response of the "owners"/plutocrats -- to the events of that day lurk within this sentence. A paragraph later, the reader encounters a reference to that darkest of conspiracy theories concerning September 11: "...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" (p85). Webb is philosophically sickened by the prospect of the owners/government as ''agent provocateur'', spreading destruction from within, using his sacred truth medium, "nitro", to slander his cause. Soon, we find Webb advising his children against the disingenuous semantics of the plutocrats (p93). Webb chooses "Freedom", "Reform", and "Compassion" as prime examples of their euphemisms, which echo Operation Iraqi ''Freedom'', "''Freedom'''s on the march", immigration ''reform'', and ''compassion''ate conservatism.
 
Perhaps what makes the presence of these parallels especially uncomforable to an American reader is the fact that the story, at this point at least, is focused on domestic terrorists. That "darker thing", "the desire, the desparate need to create a radius of annihilation that, if it could not include the ones who deserved it, might as well include himself" (p95) might first be identified as the thought of a September 11 hijacker or a suicide bomber of any foreign stripe. But, here, we are dealing with the dark thoughts of an American boy, Reef Traverse...

ATD 81-96

2006-11-29T00:09:41Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 89 */

==Page 81==
Feast of St. Barbara. [http://sill-www.army.mil/pao/pabarbar.htm External link]

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

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

==Page 87==
Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question "How can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?" and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket.' ("How can you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.")

'''Mason-Dixon line'''
We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning caln from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon. The Civil War, which ate up a good part of Wbb's boyhood, split the family as well, so that shortly before it was over, he found himself in the back of a agon heading west..."
I searched through all of M&D and didn't find any Traverses who had met
the exporers, but it's obvious that there were there and that the Traverse
family are victim's of the Line's bad Feng Shui. So interesting, then to
see the link between the Line, Colarado Anarchism, and the Labor movemnet
in California.

==Page 89==
'''Repeal of the Silver Act of 1893''' 

Prior to 1893, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

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

==Page 95==
'''a radius of annhilation that, if it could not include the ones who deserved it, might as well include himself ''' 

Hair-raising to see Pynchon put the suicide bomber/terrorists back in the US where they also have a home; the effect also to make them (the suicide bombers over there somewhere - Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) a bit less foreign, and to make ourselves, good US citizens, appear foreign to ourselves: how could we, civilized Americans interested only in democracy and freedom for all, have these feelings and desires?

September 11, 2001 and its consequences seem obvious on this novel, at least in these first 95 pages.

I

2006-11-28T05:00:20Z

Strangecultist:

'''Iamblichus of Chalcis (ca 245 - ca 325)''' 
232; also known as Iamblichus Chalcidensis, was a Greek 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; 620; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iamblichus_(philosopher) Wikipedia entry]

'''Iceland spar''' 
126; Iceland spar is a calcite, which gets its name from "chalix" the Greek word for lime, a most amazing and yet, most common mineral. It is one of the most common minerals on the face of the Earth, comprising about 4% by weight of the Earth's crust and is formed in many different geological environments. Iceland spar is basically clear cleaved fragments of completely colorless (ice-like) calcite, originally discovered and named after Eskifjord, Iceland where the calcite is found in basalt cavities. It best demonstrates the unique property of calcite called double refraction where, when a ray of light enters the crystal and due to calcite's unique optical properties, the ray is split into fast and slow beams. As these two beams exit the crystal they are bent into two different angles (known as angles of refraction) because the angle is affected by the speed of the beams. A person viewing into the crystal will see two images ... of everything; "The Book of..." 133; "paramorphoscopes of" 250; ''Schieferspath'', 305-06; Zombini's, 355; aka ''espato'' or ''espanto'', 375; double-refraction, 375; 387; 391; 437; 564; "expression in crystal form of Earth's velocity" 688; [http://mineral.galleries.com/minerals/carbonat/calcite/calcite.htm From this website]. Note the text of the dust jacket of the book is split into three, not two overlapping images.

[[image:Tarot_Judgement.jpg|thumb|Judgement|right]]'''Icosadyad''' 
225; the "Company of Twenty-two," meaning the Major Arcana in the Tarot deck. "They are the ones most capable of damage"; Greek: Icosa- = 20; Dyad, according to the Pythagoreans, is the principle of "twoness" or "otherness" and, generally, is any two entities regarded as a unit; in the Tarot context, "icosadyad" would refer a doubling of Number XX of the Major Arcana of the Tarot deck, Judgement; 231; 496; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_(Tarot_card) Wikipedia entry]

'''icosahedron''' 
565; polyhedron having 20 faces, but usually a regular icosahedron is implied, which has equilateral triangles as faces. [Etymology: 16th Century: from Greek eikosaedron, from eikosi twenty + -edron -hedron]; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icosahedron Wikipedia entry]

'''Ictibus, The Phenominal Dr.''' 
344; "and His Safe-Deflector Hat"; ictibus is the ablative case for the Latin word "ictus" meaning a "blow" or "strike" - thus, away from a strike, appropriately

'''Idiom Neutral''' 
533; an international auxiliary language, published in 1902 by the International Academy of the Universal Language under the leadership of Waldemar Rosenberger, a St. Petersburg engineer; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiom_Neutral Wikipedia entry]

'''I.G.L.O.O.''' 
122; Inter-Group Laboratory for Opticomagnetic Observation, a "radiational clearinghouse in Northern Alaska"

'''''Imbottigliata''''' 
28; Italian = bottled;

'''Imperium of Steam''' 
567; 680;

'''''Imum Coeli''''' 
406; In astrology, the ''Imum Coeli'' (Latin for "bottom of the sky"), IC, is the point in space where the ecliptic crosses the meridian in the north, exactly opposite the Midheaven. It is said to refer to our roots and also to the least conscious part of ourselves. It symbolizes foundations, beginnings in life, what may have been experienced through parental inheritance and homeland influences, need for security and relationships with the home and family life; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imum_Coeli Wikipedia entry]

<div id="inconvenience"></div>'''''Inconvenience, The''''' 
3; Chums of Chance's hydrogen skyship; in [[Mason and Dixon]] H.M.S. Inconvenience was a ship that [[Fender-Belly Bodine]] once sailed in.

'''Inner American Sea''' 
71;

'''Innocence''' 
87; 223; 235; ''corrupting youth'', 335; 362; 416; Chums of Chance, 418; 502; mathematicians, 540; "hunger for young bodies" 581; 674;

'''''Interdikt, das''''' 
690; 200-mile phosgene (poison gas) line

'''Interface''' 
53-54;

'''inukshuk''' 
126;

'''Invisibility''' 
"a sacred condition" 43; desks, 39; hawk, 55; "intervals of" 61; "emerged from" 62; "the pale invisible" 64; of the wind, 75; detectives at Colorado mines, 92; duster, 94; "window into" for Kit Traverse, 99; "...distance" 106; Islands disappearing, 108; fireworks, 112; "imperceptable war" 122; extra man, 125; 127; invisible heckler, 133; Hidden People, 134; 135; 142; 144; 150; 153; 160; 163; Fleetwood, 164; home, 165; 176; Major Arcana, 223; 242; 245; 249; 252; 266; chili's, 289; 327; workers at I.J. & K. Smokefoot, 345-46; in New Orleans, 369; 522; Chums of Chance, 549; Invisiblism, 625; 627; cloak of invisibility, 716;

'''Ipsow, Ray''' 
29; colleague of Professor Heino Vanderjuice of Yale University;

'''Ironworkers Union''' 
43;

'''Isafjoror''' 
125;

'''Isandhlwana''' 
22; "massacre of British troops at"; On January 22, 1879, Isandlwana was the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, where over 20,000 Zulu warriors defeated a contingent of British soldiers in the first engagement of the Anglo-Zulu War. Almost the entire column of about 1,200 British soldiers was killed, and the regimental colours were lost; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isandhlwana Wikipedia entry]

'''Isola degli Specchi, aka Isle of Mirrors''' 
244; island of mirror-makers in Venice, 569;

'''Italian Troubles''' 
369; in New Orleans

{{ATD_Alpha_Nav}}

ATD 57-80

2006-11-28T04:50:02Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 70 */

==Page 58==

'''Michelson-Morley 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]

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

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charges.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to M&D's visit with George Washington.

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

==Page 60==

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

'''Roswell 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==

'''"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.

'''"Blinky" a "walking interferometer"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer Wikipedia entry on Interferometers]

==Page 62==

Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existance of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisable.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to 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 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.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemestry.

==Page 67==

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

'''Merle and Dally''' 
Merle's family situation (single father, smart aleck daughter, mother who took off) is identical to that of ''Vineland's'' protagonist Zoyd Wheeler.

==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 Erly "disappear."

==Page 69==

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

==Page 70==

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' 
The [http://www.wfbf.com/media_center/photo_gallery/ginseng%20closeup.jpg "red berries"] Merle refers to.

==Page 74==

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''.
Aslo recalls Insane Asylum where he told that light has "consciousness and personality"

==Page 76==

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle.

==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?

'''Webb and Merle''' 
Photography as alchemy. Murcury and the Philosopher's stone
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia entry on Silver Fulminate]

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
not clear what it does: turns gold into lead, i.e. explosives/weapons?

==Page 80==

'''gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

ATD 57-80

2006-11-28T04:45:49Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 73 */

==Page 58==

'''Michelson-Morley 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]

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

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charges.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to M&D's visit with George Washington.

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

==Page 60==

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

'''Roswell 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==

'''"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.

'''"Blinky" a "walking interferometer"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer Wikipedia entry on Interferometers]

==Page 62==

Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existance of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisable.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to 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 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.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemestry.

==Page 67==

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

'''Merle and Dally''' 
Merle's family situation (single father, smart aleck daughter, mother who took off) is identical to that of ''Vineland's'' protagonist Zoyd Wheeler.

==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 Erly "disappear."

==Page 69==

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

==Page 70==

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' 
[[Image:Example.jpg]]

==Page 74==

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''.
Aslo recalls Insane Asylum where he told that light has "consciousness and personality"

==Page 76==

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle.

==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?

'''Webb and Merle''' 
Photography as alchemy. Murcury and the Philosopher's stone
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia entry on Silver Fulminate]

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
not clear what it does: turns gold into lead, i.e. explosives/weapons?

==Page 80==

'''gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

ATD 57-80

2006-11-28T04:42:17Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 69 */

==Page 58==

'''Michelson-Morley 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]

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

'''[[T%C3%B6pler_influence_machine|Töpler influence machine]]''' 
A machine for producing electrical charges.

==Page 59==

'''Ohio''' 
Harks back to M&D's visit with George Washington.

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

==Page 60==

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

'''Roswell 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==

'''"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.

'''"Blinky" a "walking interferometer"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interferometry#Interferometer Wikipedia entry on Interferometers]

==Page 62==

Blinky "emerges from invisibility" thus dooming the existance of aether. Aether is then "Against the Day" undetectable, unknowable, invisable.

==Page 63==

'''O.D. Chandrasekhar''' 
Perhaps a nod to 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 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.

==Page 64==

'''Photography''' 
Light tied to silver and chemestry.

==Page 67==

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

'''Merle and Dally''' 
Merle's family situation (single father, smart aleck daughter, mother who took off) is identical to that of ''Vineland's'' protagonist Zoyd Wheeler.

==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 Erly "disappear."

==Page 69==

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

==Page 73==

''''seng''' 
Ginseng. ''Panax sp.'' 
[[Image:Example.jpg]]

==Page 74==

'''Skip''' 
Obviously recalls Byron the sentient lightbulb from ''Gravity's Rainbow''.
Aslo recalls Insane Asylum where he told that light has "consciousness and personality"

==Page 76==

'''Electric Generator hooked to an old bicycle''' 
Don't know if this is that important, but similar to Insane Asylum light-bicycle.

==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?

'''Webb and Merle''' 
Photography as alchemy. Murcury and the Philosopher's stone
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fulminate Wikipedia entry on Silver Fulminate]

==Page 78==

'''The Anti-Stone''' 
not clear what it does: turns gold into lead, i.e. explosives/weapons?

==Page 80==

'''gravity''' 
Ties into the central scientific metaphor of GR, that the laws of physics and fate are somehow connected.

ATD 1-25

2006-11-28T02:30:37Z

Strangecultist: /* Page 9 */

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

'''"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light."''' 
Epigraph by Thelonious Monk. Jazz and particularly bebop seem to be a lifelong interest of Pynchon’s, appearing in some form in all his works and what biographical snippets exist. As a college student, Pynchon “spent a lot of time in jazz clubs, nursing the two-beer minimum,” by his own admission (''Slow Learner'', Introduction).

==Page 3==

'''"Now single up all lines!"''' 
Pynchon was in the Navy for a spell and "single up all lines" is a common enough nautical term. But the opening line has many possible connotations. The Modern Word's Quail [http://www.themodernword.com/reviews/pynchon_atd.html writes] that "it is simultaneously a self-directive and a call to the reader; suggesting that ''Against the Day'' is a culmination of his previous work, and also charging the reader to find meaning within its twisting labyrinth. It may also be a sly, preemptive joke on the book’s initial critics, as the novel begins with the launch of a bloated gasbag bearing a somewhat provocative name." For more on lines, see page 146. One may also want to pay attention to sections on 'vectors' (represented by arrows). "Single up all lines" is used in its normal nautical context in ''V.'', 11 and ''Gravity's Rainbow'', 489.

'''The Chums of Chance''' 
Cameraderie and isolation are two recurring topics in Pynchon's works. The Chums are a band of heroes like those commonly featured in the 19th century boys' fiction that Pynchon evokes, but also recall Pynchon's high school fictions, [http://themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_hamster.html Voice of the Hamster] and [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_boys.html The Boys], in which the teenage Pynchon lovingly portrayed his group of high school chums, known as, simply, "The Boys."

'''World's Columbian Exposition''' 
also called The Chicago World's Fair, was held in Chicago in 1893, to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus' discovery of the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D.C. and St. Louis, Missouri, for the honor of hosting the fair. The fair had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicago's self image and American industrial optimism. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Columbian_Exposition Wikipedia entry].

==Page 5==

'''Pugnax''' 
The name meaning, in Latin, "likes to fight." Pugnax's fantastic intelligence recalls another intelligent dog, the Learned English Dog in ''Mason & Dixon''. Pugnax's manner of speech is also reminiscent of the mystery-solving cartoon dog "Scooby-Doo."

'''"...during a confidential assignment in Our Nation's Capitol (see ''The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit)..."'' 
This could be seen as a criticism of American Presidents present or past, or perhaps the Vietnam War, which Pynchon himself opposed.

==Page 8==

'''"which directs us never to interfere with legal customs of any locality down at which we may happen to have touched"''' 
Like the Prime Directive in ''Star Trek''.

==Page 9==

'''"Do not imagine, that in coming aboard ''Inconvenience'' you have escaped into any realm of the counterfactual..."''' 
This may be Pynchon directly addressing the reader. Given that his introductory blurb proclaims the world of AtD as what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two, this paragraph seems to indicate that Pynchon, like all great fantasy or sci-fi writers, does not intend to create a world where anything goes. Rather, he will create a world that differs from ours but then obey the rules and constraints he's already established.

'''"Going up is like going north."''' 
Anyone understand this statement by Randolph?? This simply seems to use the notion that most maps put north at the top, so moving north is moving 'up' the page. Once you pass the pole, you are going south, or back 'down' the map.

This may be an allusion to the change in climate from warm southern climates to cold northern climates. The contrast from southern california to northern california is apt, sunny beaches south...rainy foggy beaches north. Population thins out similar to the oxygen the further North you get. Alaska being the ideal extreme. One can see this as another of the many echoes to themes from "Gravity's Rainbow" in the "Light Over the Ranges" section. Ascending (in an airship or rocket) is like moving Northward to colder and less habitable environments, until one crosses the Pole (literally going 'Beyond the Zero.')

Also, it may further drive home the point, to Chick, that up does not lead to "any realm of the counterfactual": the comparison with going north should remind him that up is just another direction, strange and uncomfortable as it may be for him.

Are we reading too deeply into this statement? Perhaps it only means that the air gets cooler as the ship ascends into higher altitudes, and therefore is like travelling northward.
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Importantly, going up (in altitude) is an '''expedited''' means of going to a place that is “like” the North (in latitude). For example, say you are at the foot of the Rocky Mountains on a summer day in Colorado. While the snowline on the mountains may only be a few miles ''up'', the snowline on land of the same or similar elevation to the land you stand on is likely a 1000+ miles ''north''. The sudden increase in altitude accompanying a flight aboard the Inconvenience does not allow one to acclimatize gradually to the northern feel -- thus Chick’s need for a “transitional” “foul-weather cloak”. Interestingly, in terms of gravity, going up is like going ''south'': [http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=465 gravity is relatively stronger at points of low altitude and high latitude].
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I think the more interesting part is the comment that there is a secret that we must not talk about where going further upwards creates an experience much like gover OVER the pole- i.e. warmer and marmer. This is the real question.

==Page 12==

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

==Page 13==
'''"...quite as if were some giant eyeball, perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a spirit of constructive censure."''' 
This is strikingly reminiscent of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odilon_Redon Odilon Redon's] 1882 Lithograph ''L'Oeil, comme un ballon bizarre se dirige vers l'infini (The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity).'' [http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O%3ADE%3AI%3A2&page_number=4&template_id=1&sort_order=1 At MoMa's Online Collection]

Reference also to ATD Pg. 51 and "The Unsleeping Eye", an apparent reference to Pinkerton's competing PI agency.

==Page 15==

'''ukelele''' 
Ukeleles also appear in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. According to Jules Siegel's article, "Who is Thomas Pynchon, and why did he take off with my wife?", Pynchon himself played the ukelele in college.

==Page 18==

'''Tzigane''' 
Meaning "gypsy".

==Page 24==

'''Epworth League''' 
A Methodist youth organization founded around 1899.

==Page 25==

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

'''duck soup''' 
Meaning "an easy task," but also the name of a Marx Bros. movie. Perhaps relevant, given the cameo by Groucho promised on the book sleeve.