Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

ATD 1040-1062

2007-10-10T01:58:57Z

Thew: /* Page 1058 */

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

==Page XX==

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

==Page 1040==

==Page 1041==

'''Dr. Ghloix''' 
He was also the alienist of the Vormance expedition (page 132).

'''shadow-factories''' 
Movie studios.

'''Thetis Pomidor''' 
Thetis the Silver-Footed is a Nereid (sea nymph) in Greek mythology. She is the mother of Achilles, who seeks to prevent his death by dipping him in the water of the river Styx (holding him by the famously vulnerable heel), by trying to prevent him from joining the war at Troy, and by persuading him not to try to avenge Patroclus. In the end she has made for him the magnificent shield he carries in his duel with Hector.

Pomidor is the Polish word for "tomato" (possibly other languages too). (A "tomato" = a "hottie" in mid 20th century slang).

==Page 1042==

'''Erno Rapée''' 
1891-1945, Hungarian-born composer for American movies. He published a book of "photoplay music" for the silents.

'''Shalimar''' 
Excessively evocative name for a detective's moll; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalimar the Wikipedia disambiguation page] leads to many of the meanings.

'''Mezzanine Perkins''' 
Her given name suggests a physical attribute also called "balcony," while her surname makes a nice fit with another desirable quality, "perkiness."

'''Chester LeStreet''' 
Chester le Street is a town in the north east of England. Home of Durham County Cricket club, amongst other things.

TRP almost certainly picked up on the name during research for 'Mason & Dixon'. Dixon was a native of County Durham, which is home to a number of odd place names (e.g. Pity Me, No Place). Chester-le-Street is roughly 15 miles south of Newcastle upon Tyne.

I imagine TRP keeping long lists of potential character names from odd terminology which he runs across in his research...

'''Vertex Club''' 
The vertex is the intersection of two lines of an angle, the zero point on a graph/grid. Recalls the V Note in ''V.''.

'''Miss Jardine Maraca''' 
Allusion to Beach Boys guitarist [http://www.aljardine.com Al Jardine,] who bears a reasonably common surname? Rude teenagers in the 1960s sometimes used the word "maracas" when they didn't want to come right out and refer to a girl's bazongas.

==Page 1043==

'''the days just before the earthquake''' 
The quake of June 29, 1925, destroyed the center of Santa Barbara and occasioned rebuilding to a "Mission-style" plan.

'''chifferobe''' 
From ''chiffonier'' + ''wardrobe'', a combination chest of drawers and wardrobe for hanging clothes. Pronounced "SHIF-uh-rohb." Also ''chifforobe'', ''chiffrobe'', or ''chiffarobe''.

The disposal of an old chifferobe is a plot point in Harper Lee's ''To Kill a Mockingbird''.

'''hop''' 
Marijuana.

==Page 1044==

'''smoked a Fatima''' 
Sometime in the mid-20th century, this American cigarette brand sponsored a radio program starring Basil Rathbone.

''Possibly not relevant, but given the marijuana reference, the choice of this particular cigarette brand also echoes the phrase "smoke a fatty", i.e. a big joint of marijuana.''

==Page 1045==

'''glass mattes''' 
Scenes painted on glass could be filmed along with the action, so that large or intricate backgrounds did not have to be built to full scale.

==Page 1046==

'''Olga Nethersole''' 
British actress and producer, 1863-1941; had successful tours in the U.S. and elsewhere.

'''Mrs. Fiske''' 
American actress Minnie Maddern Fiske, 1865-1932; a leading figure on the stage; made movies of two of her theatrical productions.

==Page 1047==

'''Li'l Jailbirds''' 
Some points in common with the Little Tough Guys, Dead End Kids, East Side Kids and other movie series; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Tough_Guys see the Wikipedia entry.]

'''one-reel comedies''' 
A reel of film ran off in something over 12 minutes.

'''orthochromatic film''' 
Film with low sensitivity to red light. The human face reflects a lot of red light, which made little impression on the film, so that faces tended to look dark in the projected image. Adaptations in the studio included green makeup to bring the face into highlight.

'''birch beer''' 
Carbonated soft drink made with birch bark or oil, typically popular in northeastern U.S. and Newfoundland.

'''stuffed peppers they liked to call "mangoes"''' 
This term for bell peppers occurs in the Midwest and especially southern Ohio.

==Page 1048==

'''a P.E. stop''' 
"P.E." stands for "Pacific Electric." The Pacific Electric Railway (AAR reporting mark is PE), also known as the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern California using streetcars, light rail and buses. At its greatest extent, around 1925, the system connected cities in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, and to Riverside County and San Bernardino County in the Inland Empire. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric_Railway Wikipedia]

'''runs through the time between the picture was taken and now in a matter of seconds''' 
The reason this may sound plausible is that analog computers were used in just this way to generate artillery firing tables. But in the artillery case, the parameters of motion were given; photographic film does not record this information.

==Page 1049==

'''''Intolerance''''' 
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) was D.W. Griffith's follow-up to ''Birth of a Nation''.
Intolerance and its effects are examined in four historical eras. In ancient Babylon, a mountain girl is caught up in the religious rivalry that leads to the city's downfall. In Judea, the hypocritical Pharisees condemn Jesus Christ. In 1572 Paris, unaware of the impending St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, two young Huguenots prepare for marriage. Finally, in modern America, social reformers destroy the lives of a young woman and her beloved. The sets were reportedly spectacular, and on a huge scale.

'''the ''Times'' bombing''' 
[http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/scandals/times.html The Bombing of the ''Los Angles Times''], October 1, 1910.

'''the constant term in the primitive, which differentiation has taken to zero''' 
Last part first: differentiation is the operation of finding the rate of change of a quantity; a constant doesn't change, so its differentiation yields a result of zero. The "primitive" is the function that was differentiated; if it contained a constant term, that has vanished and must be restored. Reconstruction of the primitive therefore involves reversing the differentiation (finding the "indefinite integral") and setting the correct value of the constant term. By guesswork in this instance. No, it doesn't work, but remember that this is ''alchemy'' we're talking about.

Or 'Pataphysics.

Consider a pun on "primitive" in Pynchon's worldview...the primitive being a good thing, now vanished.

==Page 1050==

'''his official . . . life . . . a completely different life''' 
The reconstruction of the "primitive" (page 1049) entails fixing a value for the constant term. The operator can choose the "official" value and get Lew's "supposed-to-be" life as output, or can choose a different value and track some unofficial life. The machine can't tell the difference.

'''Louis Le Prince''' 
1842-90. Inventor in 1888 of the "chronophotographe" process. Widely acknowledged to be first to photograph motion. He vanished from a train.

==Page 1051==

'''mazuma''' 
Slang; Yiddish derived from Hebrew: money.

==Page 1052==

'''a company-issued Bulldog''' 
A Bulldog is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon or, in Deuce's case, in a shoulder holster. First referred to in the "Beavers of the Brain" song, [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|p. 183]]

==Page 1053==

''''em mick bastards bombed the ''Times''''' 
James and Joseph McNamara ultimately pleaded guilty to the bombing (see [[#Page 1049|page 1049]] and [[#Page 1058|page 1058]]).

'''dago dynamiters''' 
Deuce must have acquired this bit of alliterative bigotry somewhere and randomly dropped it into his rant.

==Page 1054==

'''the Universal Dream Casino''' 
???

'''Chinese fourths''' 
??? The interval of a fourth in music consists of 2 whole-tones plus one half-tone. The following are all fourths: from do to fa, re to sol, mi to la; fa to ti is a tritone. In the context here, the 2 notes in the interval are being played simultaneously. In the music of the Western world (North America, Europe, and Australia), if one plays parallel fourths (e.g., do-fa to re-sol, to mi-la), it sounds like Chinese music. Authentic Chinese music is played using an Eastern scale which is different from the Western scale people in the West are used to, which is why Chinese music might sound out of tune ("jangling") to someone from the West.

==Page 1055==

==Page 1056==

'''it's no longer possible to go back the way they came''' 
A situation encountered before in ''AtD,'' for example Kit's predicament at the doubling of ''Stupendica.''

==Page 1057==

==Page 1058==

'''it wasn't Haymarket . . . It wasn't Ludlow. It wasn't the Palmer raids''' 
Haymarket bombing; Colorado coal war; Justice Department campaign against American leftists under Woodrow Wilson's attorney general Alexander M. Palmer.

'''Virgil Maraca''' 
For Virgil, [[ATD_821-848#Page_825|see page 825.]]

'''...when the land was free, before it got hijacked by capitalist Christer Republicans for their long term evil purposes....''' 
and once again (say it with me) "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

'''Gray Otis . . . the McNamaras . . . Brother Darrow''' 
the McNamaras were accused of dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building on October 1, 1910, resulting in the death of 21 persons. The crime was one of a nation-wide series intended to prevent the use of non-union materials and non-union labor. The defendants were strongly supported by the American Federation of Labor. Later the accused pleaded guilty, and James B. McNamara was sentenced to life imprisonment and John McNamara to imprisonment for 15 years. The pro-McNamara forces claimed that escaping gas, not a bomb, had destroyed the Times building. More extremist labor sympathizers charged that Otis himself had arranged the explosion.

Harrison Gray Otis (1837-1917) was an American newspaper publisher who directed the Los Angeles Times from 1886 until after World War I, which he edited with an iron hand, becoming one of the most powerful figures in southern California. He made his newspaper a voice of Republican interests, and he opposed labor unions.

The McNamara brothers trial, which ended just as it began with confessions of guilt by the McNamaras, set the cause of organized labor on the West Coast back by decades. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/2770/McNamara-Brothers-Trial-1911.html More...]

It also nearly ruined the career of Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), one of America's leading criminal defense lawyers, who represented the McNamaras in the trial. Bert Franklin, on Darrow's payroll, was caught bribing two of the jurors in the McNamara trial. He plead ed guilty to jury tampering and he testified that Darrow had known and approved of the bribery efforts.

Darrow was arrested and put on trial. When organized labor turned its back on Darrow's request for financial assistance, Darrow had to pay all the legal costs of the 13-week trial out of his own pocket. Darrow denied the charges, and on August 14 and 15, 1912, gave an impassioned closing speech to the jurors, in which he claimed that:

:"I am not on trial for having sought to bribe a man named Lockwood. I am on trial because I have been a lover of the poor, a friend of the oppressed, because I have stood by Labor for all these years."

On August 15, 1912, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty after deliberating for less than an hour. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/2768/McNamara-Brothers-Trial-1911-Darrow-Tried-Bribing-Jurors.html More about Darrow's trial...]

==Page 1059==

'''paradiddle''' 
In this sense perhaps more often "taradiddle." Fiddle, finagle, wriggle. In strict pedantic usage "paradiddle" is a kind of quadruple stroke on the snare drum. Nothing pedantic about it, LeStreet is the drummer in the house band at the Vertex Club and a paradiddle is a 4-beat exercise pattern on the snare drum. E.g., R-R-L-R-L-L-R-L or R-L-R-R-L-R-L-L or etc. (there are lots of paradiddles). The purpose is to play them fast enough so that it sounds like a roll. Different patterns produce rolls that sound distinct from each other, very important to a jazz drummer.

'''a barnstormer's Curtis JN''' 
An army surplus airplane from the World War, bought and flown by an itinerant pilot in aerobatic exhibitions. Nicknamed "Jenny," the plane was pictured on a 1918 airmail stamp; some sheets had the center image printed upside down: the "Jenny Invert."

==Page 1060==

'''constant-term recalibration, or C.T.R.''' 
[[ATD_1040-1062#Page_1050|See annotation to page 1050.]]

'''spagyrist''' 
Alchemist, especially one seeking cures. Follower of Paracelsus.

'''Doddling''' 
(1) Frequent misspelling of "dawdling." (2) Easy duty for an English bus conductor (e.g., issuing tickets but not supervising operations). (3) Sexual intercourse.

'''Tree of Diana''' 
Branching possibilities, alternate histories branching out from any given moment.

'''...one compassionate time-machine story, time travel in the name of love...''' 
Two come to mind: Robert Heinlein: ''The Door Into Summer'' and Jack Finney: ''Time and Again''. In both a protagonist succcessfully chases an impossible love through time.
:And don't forget the special meaning of "compassionate" in ''AtD,'' "the Compassionate" = the Chums of Chance.

A possibility: "The Compassionate" = "The Kindly Ones" = the Erinyes, or Furies, in Greek myth ? = The Chums of Chance.

==Page 1061==

'''mathematical mists''' 
Recalls Kit's dream on P.566, of equations permitting a view into possible worlds.
Also recalls Julian Barbour's work on probablity mists hovering over possible time capsules. Please see his book, [http://www.platonia.com/index.html ''The End of Time''] for more details.

==Page 1062==

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

ATD 1040-1062

2007-10-10T01:58:25Z

Thew: /* Page 1058 */

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

==Page XX==

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

==Page 1040==

==Page 1041==

'''Dr. Ghloix''' 
He was also the alienist of the Vormance expedition (page 132).

'''shadow-factories''' 
Movie studios.

'''Thetis Pomidor''' 
Thetis the Silver-Footed is a Nereid (sea nymph) in Greek mythology. She is the mother of Achilles, who seeks to prevent his death by dipping him in the water of the river Styx (holding him by the famously vulnerable heel), by trying to prevent him from joining the war at Troy, and by persuading him not to try to avenge Patroclus. In the end she has made for him the magnificent shield he carries in his duel with Hector.

Pomidor is the Polish word for "tomato" (possibly other languages too). (A "tomato" = a "hottie" in mid 20th century slang).

==Page 1042==

'''Erno Rapée''' 
1891-1945, Hungarian-born composer for American movies. He published a book of "photoplay music" for the silents.

'''Shalimar''' 
Excessively evocative name for a detective's moll; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalimar the Wikipedia disambiguation page] leads to many of the meanings.

'''Mezzanine Perkins''' 
Her given name suggests a physical attribute also called "balcony," while her surname makes a nice fit with another desirable quality, "perkiness."

'''Chester LeStreet''' 
Chester le Street is a town in the north east of England. Home of Durham County Cricket club, amongst other things.

TRP almost certainly picked up on the name during research for 'Mason & Dixon'. Dixon was a native of County Durham, which is home to a number of odd place names (e.g. Pity Me, No Place). Chester-le-Street is roughly 15 miles south of Newcastle upon Tyne.

I imagine TRP keeping long lists of potential character names from odd terminology which he runs across in his research...

'''Vertex Club''' 
The vertex is the intersection of two lines of an angle, the zero point on a graph/grid. Recalls the V Note in ''V.''.

'''Miss Jardine Maraca''' 
Allusion to Beach Boys guitarist [http://www.aljardine.com Al Jardine,] who bears a reasonably common surname? Rude teenagers in the 1960s sometimes used the word "maracas" when they didn't want to come right out and refer to a girl's bazongas.

==Page 1043==

'''the days just before the earthquake''' 
The quake of June 29, 1925, destroyed the center of Santa Barbara and occasioned rebuilding to a "Mission-style" plan.

'''chifferobe''' 
From ''chiffonier'' + ''wardrobe'', a combination chest of drawers and wardrobe for hanging clothes. Pronounced "SHIF-uh-rohb." Also ''chifforobe'', ''chiffrobe'', or ''chiffarobe''.

The disposal of an old chifferobe is a plot point in Harper Lee's ''To Kill a Mockingbird''.

'''hop''' 
Marijuana.

==Page 1044==

'''smoked a Fatima''' 
Sometime in the mid-20th century, this American cigarette brand sponsored a radio program starring Basil Rathbone.

''Possibly not relevant, but given the marijuana reference, the choice of this particular cigarette brand also echoes the phrase "smoke a fatty", i.e. a big joint of marijuana.''

==Page 1045==

'''glass mattes''' 
Scenes painted on glass could be filmed along with the action, so that large or intricate backgrounds did not have to be built to full scale.

==Page 1046==

'''Olga Nethersole''' 
British actress and producer, 1863-1941; had successful tours in the U.S. and elsewhere.

'''Mrs. Fiske''' 
American actress Minnie Maddern Fiske, 1865-1932; a leading figure on the stage; made movies of two of her theatrical productions.

==Page 1047==

'''Li'l Jailbirds''' 
Some points in common with the Little Tough Guys, Dead End Kids, East Side Kids and other movie series; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Tough_Guys see the Wikipedia entry.]

'''one-reel comedies''' 
A reel of film ran off in something over 12 minutes.

'''orthochromatic film''' 
Film with low sensitivity to red light. The human face reflects a lot of red light, which made little impression on the film, so that faces tended to look dark in the projected image. Adaptations in the studio included green makeup to bring the face into highlight.

'''birch beer''' 
Carbonated soft drink made with birch bark or oil, typically popular in northeastern U.S. and Newfoundland.

'''stuffed peppers they liked to call "mangoes"''' 
This term for bell peppers occurs in the Midwest and especially southern Ohio.

==Page 1048==

'''a P.E. stop''' 
"P.E." stands for "Pacific Electric." The Pacific Electric Railway (AAR reporting mark is PE), also known as the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern California using streetcars, light rail and buses. At its greatest extent, around 1925, the system connected cities in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, and to Riverside County and San Bernardino County in the Inland Empire. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric_Railway Wikipedia]

'''runs through the time between the picture was taken and now in a matter of seconds''' 
The reason this may sound plausible is that analog computers were used in just this way to generate artillery firing tables. But in the artillery case, the parameters of motion were given; photographic film does not record this information.

==Page 1049==

'''''Intolerance''''' 
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) was D.W. Griffith's follow-up to ''Birth of a Nation''.
Intolerance and its effects are examined in four historical eras. In ancient Babylon, a mountain girl is caught up in the religious rivalry that leads to the city's downfall. In Judea, the hypocritical Pharisees condemn Jesus Christ. In 1572 Paris, unaware of the impending St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, two young Huguenots prepare for marriage. Finally, in modern America, social reformers destroy the lives of a young woman and her beloved. The sets were reportedly spectacular, and on a huge scale.

'''the ''Times'' bombing''' 
[http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/scandals/times.html The Bombing of the ''Los Angles Times''], October 1, 1910.

'''the constant term in the primitive, which differentiation has taken to zero''' 
Last part first: differentiation is the operation of finding the rate of change of a quantity; a constant doesn't change, so its differentiation yields a result of zero. The "primitive" is the function that was differentiated; if it contained a constant term, that has vanished and must be restored. Reconstruction of the primitive therefore involves reversing the differentiation (finding the "indefinite integral") and setting the correct value of the constant term. By guesswork in this instance. No, it doesn't work, but remember that this is ''alchemy'' we're talking about.

Or 'Pataphysics.

Consider a pun on "primitive" in Pynchon's worldview...the primitive being a good thing, now vanished.

==Page 1050==

'''his official . . . life . . . a completely different life''' 
The reconstruction of the "primitive" (page 1049) entails fixing a value for the constant term. The operator can choose the "official" value and get Lew's "supposed-to-be" life as output, or can choose a different value and track some unofficial life. The machine can't tell the difference.

'''Louis Le Prince''' 
1842-90. Inventor in 1888 of the "chronophotographe" process. Widely acknowledged to be first to photograph motion. He vanished from a train.

==Page 1051==

'''mazuma''' 
Slang; Yiddish derived from Hebrew: money.

==Page 1052==

'''a company-issued Bulldog''' 
A Bulldog is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon or, in Deuce's case, in a shoulder holster. First referred to in the "Beavers of the Brain" song, [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|p. 183]]

==Page 1053==

''''em mick bastards bombed the ''Times''''' 
James and Joseph McNamara ultimately pleaded guilty to the bombing (see [[#Page 1049|page 1049]] and [[#Page 1058|page 1058]]).

'''dago dynamiters''' 
Deuce must have acquired this bit of alliterative bigotry somewhere and randomly dropped it into his rant.

==Page 1054==

'''the Universal Dream Casino''' 
???

'''Chinese fourths''' 
??? The interval of a fourth in music consists of 2 whole-tones plus one half-tone. The following are all fourths: from do to fa, re to sol, mi to la; fa to ti is a tritone. In the context here, the 2 notes in the interval are being played simultaneously. In the music of the Western world (North America, Europe, and Australia), if one plays parallel fourths (e.g., do-fa to re-sol, to mi-la), it sounds like Chinese music. Authentic Chinese music is played using an Eastern scale which is different from the Western scale people in the West are used to, which is why Chinese music might sound out of tune ("jangling") to someone from the West.

==Page 1055==

==Page 1056==

'''it's no longer possible to go back the way they came''' 
A situation encountered before in ''AtD,'' for example Kit's predicament at the doubling of ''Stupendica.''

==Page 1057==

==Page 1058==

'''it wasn't Haymarket . . . It wasn't Ludlow. It wasn't the Palmer raids''' 
Haymarket bombing; Colorado coal war; Justice Department campaign against American leftists under Woodrow Wilson's attorney general Alexander M. Palmer.

'''Virgil Maraca''' 
For Virgil, [[ATD_821-848#Page_825|see page 825.]]

'''...when the land was free, before it got hijacked by capitalist Christer Republicns for their long term evil purposes....''' 
and once again (say it with me) "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

'''Gray Otis . . . the McNamaras . . . Brother Darrow''' 
the McNamaras were accused of dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building on October 1, 1910, resulting in the death of 21 persons. The crime was one of a nation-wide series intended to prevent the use of non-union materials and non-union labor. The defendants were strongly supported by the American Federation of Labor. Later the accused pleaded guilty, and James B. McNamara was sentenced to life imprisonment and John McNamara to imprisonment for 15 years. The pro-McNamara forces claimed that escaping gas, not a bomb, had destroyed the Times building. More extremist labor sympathizers charged that Otis himself had arranged the explosion.

Harrison Gray Otis (1837-1917) was an American newspaper publisher who directed the Los Angeles Times from 1886 until after World War I, which he edited with an iron hand, becoming one of the most powerful figures in southern California. He made his newspaper a voice of Republican interests, and he opposed labor unions.

The McNamara brothers trial, which ended just as it began with confessions of guilt by the McNamaras, set the cause of organized labor on the West Coast back by decades. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/2770/McNamara-Brothers-Trial-1911.html More...]

It also nearly ruined the career of Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), one of America's leading criminal defense lawyers, who represented the McNamaras in the trial. Bert Franklin, on Darrow's payroll, was caught bribing two of the jurors in the McNamara trial. He plead ed guilty to jury tampering and he testified that Darrow had known and approved of the bribery efforts.

Darrow was arrested and put on trial. When organized labor turned its back on Darrow's request for financial assistance, Darrow had to pay all the legal costs of the 13-week trial out of his own pocket. Darrow denied the charges, and on August 14 and 15, 1912, gave an impassioned closing speech to the jurors, in which he claimed that:

:"I am not on trial for having sought to bribe a man named Lockwood. I am on trial because I have been a lover of the poor, a friend of the oppressed, because I have stood by Labor for all these years."

On August 15, 1912, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty after deliberating for less than an hour. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/2768/McNamara-Brothers-Trial-1911-Darrow-Tried-Bribing-Jurors.html More about Darrow's trial...]

==Page 1059==

'''paradiddle''' 
In this sense perhaps more often "taradiddle." Fiddle, finagle, wriggle. In strict pedantic usage "paradiddle" is a kind of quadruple stroke on the snare drum. Nothing pedantic about it, LeStreet is the drummer in the house band at the Vertex Club and a paradiddle is a 4-beat exercise pattern on the snare drum. E.g., R-R-L-R-L-L-R-L or R-L-R-R-L-R-L-L or etc. (there are lots of paradiddles). The purpose is to play them fast enough so that it sounds like a roll. Different patterns produce rolls that sound distinct from each other, very important to a jazz drummer.

'''a barnstormer's Curtis JN''' 
An army surplus airplane from the World War, bought and flown by an itinerant pilot in aerobatic exhibitions. Nicknamed "Jenny," the plane was pictured on a 1918 airmail stamp; some sheets had the center image printed upside down: the "Jenny Invert."

==Page 1060==

'''constant-term recalibration, or C.T.R.''' 
[[ATD_1040-1062#Page_1050|See annotation to page 1050.]]

'''spagyrist''' 
Alchemist, especially one seeking cures. Follower of Paracelsus.

'''Doddling''' 
(1) Frequent misspelling of "dawdling." (2) Easy duty for an English bus conductor (e.g., issuing tickets but not supervising operations). (3) Sexual intercourse.

'''Tree of Diana''' 
Branching possibilities, alternate histories branching out from any given moment.

'''...one compassionate time-machine story, time travel in the name of love...''' 
Two come to mind: Robert Heinlein: ''The Door Into Summer'' and Jack Finney: ''Time and Again''. In both a protagonist succcessfully chases an impossible love through time.
:And don't forget the special meaning of "compassionate" in ''AtD,'' "the Compassionate" = the Chums of Chance.

A possibility: "The Compassionate" = "The Kindly Ones" = the Erinyes, or Furies, in Greek myth ? = The Chums of Chance.

==Page 1061==

'''mathematical mists''' 
Recalls Kit's dream on P.566, of equations permitting a view into possible worlds.
Also recalls Julian Barbour's work on probablity mists hovering over possible time capsules. Please see his book, [http://www.platonia.com/index.html ''The End of Time''] for more details.

==Page 1062==

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

ATD 1040-1062

2007-10-10T01:47:33Z

Thew: /* Page 1044 */

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

==Page XX==

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

==Page 1040==

==Page 1041==

'''Dr. Ghloix''' 
He was also the alienist of the Vormance expedition (page 132).

'''shadow-factories''' 
Movie studios.

'''Thetis Pomidor''' 
Thetis the Silver-Footed is a Nereid (sea nymph) in Greek mythology. She is the mother of Achilles, who seeks to prevent his death by dipping him in the water of the river Styx (holding him by the famously vulnerable heel), by trying to prevent him from joining the war at Troy, and by persuading him not to try to avenge Patroclus. In the end she has made for him the magnificent shield he carries in his duel with Hector.

Pomidor is the Polish word for "tomato" (possibly other languages too). (A "tomato" = a "hottie" in mid 20th century slang).

==Page 1042==

'''Erno Rapée''' 
1891-1945, Hungarian-born composer for American movies. He published a book of "photoplay music" for the silents.

'''Shalimar''' 
Excessively evocative name for a detective's moll; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalimar the Wikipedia disambiguation page] leads to many of the meanings.

'''Mezzanine Perkins''' 
Her given name suggests a physical attribute also called "balcony," while her surname makes a nice fit with another desirable quality, "perkiness."

'''Chester LeStreet''' 
Chester le Street is a town in the north east of England. Home of Durham County Cricket club, amongst other things.

TRP almost certainly picked up on the name during research for 'Mason & Dixon'. Dixon was a native of County Durham, which is home to a number of odd place names (e.g. Pity Me, No Place). Chester-le-Street is roughly 15 miles south of Newcastle upon Tyne.

I imagine TRP keeping long lists of potential character names from odd terminology which he runs across in his research...

'''Vertex Club''' 
The vertex is the intersection of two lines of an angle, the zero point on a graph/grid. Recalls the V Note in ''V.''.

'''Miss Jardine Maraca''' 
Allusion to Beach Boys guitarist [http://www.aljardine.com Al Jardine,] who bears a reasonably common surname? Rude teenagers in the 1960s sometimes used the word "maracas" when they didn't want to come right out and refer to a girl's bazongas.

==Page 1043==

'''the days just before the earthquake''' 
The quake of June 29, 1925, destroyed the center of Santa Barbara and occasioned rebuilding to a "Mission-style" plan.

'''chifferobe''' 
From ''chiffonier'' + ''wardrobe'', a combination chest of drawers and wardrobe for hanging clothes. Pronounced "SHIF-uh-rohb." Also ''chifforobe'', ''chiffrobe'', or ''chiffarobe''.

The disposal of an old chifferobe is a plot point in Harper Lee's ''To Kill a Mockingbird''.

'''hop''' 
Marijuana.

==Page 1044==

'''smoked a Fatima''' 
Sometime in the mid-20th century, this American cigarette brand sponsored a radio program starring Basil Rathbone.

''Possibly not relevant, but given the marijuana reference, the choice of this particular cigarette brand also echoes the phrase "smoke a fatty", i.e. a big joint of marijuana.''

==Page 1045==

'''glass mattes''' 
Scenes painted on glass could be filmed along with the action, so that large or intricate backgrounds did not have to be built to full scale.

==Page 1046==

'''Olga Nethersole''' 
British actress and producer, 1863-1941; had successful tours in the U.S. and elsewhere.

'''Mrs. Fiske''' 
American actress Minnie Maddern Fiske, 1865-1932; a leading figure on the stage; made movies of two of her theatrical productions.

==Page 1047==

'''Li'l Jailbirds''' 
Some points in common with the Little Tough Guys, Dead End Kids, East Side Kids and other movie series; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Tough_Guys see the Wikipedia entry.]

'''one-reel comedies''' 
A reel of film ran off in something over 12 minutes.

'''orthochromatic film''' 
Film with low sensitivity to red light. The human face reflects a lot of red light, which made little impression on the film, so that faces tended to look dark in the projected image. Adaptations in the studio included green makeup to bring the face into highlight.

'''birch beer''' 
Carbonated soft drink made with birch bark or oil, typically popular in northeastern U.S. and Newfoundland.

'''stuffed peppers they liked to call "mangoes"''' 
This term for bell peppers occurs in the Midwest and especially southern Ohio.

==Page 1048==

'''a P.E. stop''' 
"P.E." stands for "Pacific Electric." The Pacific Electric Railway (AAR reporting mark is PE), also known as the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern California using streetcars, light rail and buses. At its greatest extent, around 1925, the system connected cities in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, and to Riverside County and San Bernardino County in the Inland Empire. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric_Railway Wikipedia]

'''runs through the time between the picture was taken and now in a matter of seconds''' 
The reason this may sound plausible is that analog computers were used in just this way to generate artillery firing tables. But in the artillery case, the parameters of motion were given; photographic film does not record this information.

==Page 1049==

'''''Intolerance''''' 
Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916) was D.W. Griffith's follow-up to ''Birth of a Nation''.
Intolerance and its effects are examined in four historical eras. In ancient Babylon, a mountain girl is caught up in the religious rivalry that leads to the city's downfall. In Judea, the hypocritical Pharisees condemn Jesus Christ. In 1572 Paris, unaware of the impending St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, two young Huguenots prepare for marriage. Finally, in modern America, social reformers destroy the lives of a young woman and her beloved. The sets were reportedly spectacular, and on a huge scale.

'''the ''Times'' bombing''' 
[http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/scandals/times.html The Bombing of the ''Los Angles Times''], October 1, 1910.

'''the constant term in the primitive, which differentiation has taken to zero''' 
Last part first: differentiation is the operation of finding the rate of change of a quantity; a constant doesn't change, so its differentiation yields a result of zero. The "primitive" is the function that was differentiated; if it contained a constant term, that has vanished and must be restored. Reconstruction of the primitive therefore involves reversing the differentiation (finding the "indefinite integral") and setting the correct value of the constant term. By guesswork in this instance. No, it doesn't work, but remember that this is ''alchemy'' we're talking about.

Or 'Pataphysics.

Consider a pun on "primitive" in Pynchon's worldview...the primitive being a good thing, now vanished.

==Page 1050==

'''his official . . . life . . . a completely different life''' 
The reconstruction of the "primitive" (page 1049) entails fixing a value for the constant term. The operator can choose the "official" value and get Lew's "supposed-to-be" life as output, or can choose a different value and track some unofficial life. The machine can't tell the difference.

'''Louis Le Prince''' 
1842-90. Inventor in 1888 of the "chronophotographe" process. Widely acknowledged to be first to photograph motion. He vanished from a train.

==Page 1051==

'''mazuma''' 
Slang; Yiddish derived from Hebrew: money.

==Page 1052==

'''a company-issued Bulldog''' 
A Bulldog is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon or, in Deuce's case, in a shoulder holster. First referred to in the "Beavers of the Brain" song, [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|p. 183]]

==Page 1053==

''''em mick bastards bombed the ''Times''''' 
James and Joseph McNamara ultimately pleaded guilty to the bombing (see [[#Page 1049|page 1049]] and [[#Page 1058|page 1058]]).

'''dago dynamiters''' 
Deuce must have acquired this bit of alliterative bigotry somewhere and randomly dropped it into his rant.

==Page 1054==

'''the Universal Dream Casino''' 
???

'''Chinese fourths''' 
??? The interval of a fourth in music consists of 2 whole-tones plus one half-tone. The following are all fourths: from do to fa, re to sol, mi to la; fa to ti is a tritone. In the context here, the 2 notes in the interval are being played simultaneously. In the music of the Western world (North America, Europe, and Australia), if one plays parallel fourths (e.g., do-fa to re-sol, to mi-la), it sounds like Chinese music. Authentic Chinese music is played using an Eastern scale which is different from the Western scale people in the West are used to, which is why Chinese music might sound out of tune ("jangling") to someone from the West.

==Page 1055==

==Page 1056==

'''it's no longer possible to go back the way they came''' 
A situation encountered before in ''AtD,'' for example Kit's predicament at the doubling of ''Stupendica.''

==Page 1057==

==Page 1058==

'''it wasn't Haymarket . . . It wasn't Ludlow. It wasn't the Palmer raids''' 
Haymarket bombing; Colorado coal war; Justice Department campaign against American leftists under Woodrow Wilson's attorney general Alexander M. Palmer.

'''Virgil Maraca''' 
For Virgil, [[ATD_821-848#Page_825|see page 825.]]

'''Gray Otis . . . the McNamaras . . . Brother Darrow''' 
the McNamaras were accused of dynamiting the Los Angeles Times building on October 1, 1910, resulting in the death of 21 persons. The crime was one of a nation-wide series intended to prevent the use of non-union materials and non-union labor. The defendants were strongly supported by the American Federation of Labor. Later the accused pleaded guilty, and James B. McNamara was sentenced to life imprisonment and John McNamara to imprisonment for 15 years. The pro-McNamara forces claimed that escaping gas, not a bomb, had destroyed the Times building. More extremist labor sympathizers charged that Otis himself had arranged the explosion.

Harrison Gray Otis (1837-1917) was an American newspaper publisher who directed the Los Angeles Times from 1886 until after World War I, which he edited with an iron hand, becoming one of the most powerful figures in southern California. He made his newspaper a voice of Republican interests, and he opposed labor unions.

The McNamara brothers trial, which ended just as it began with confessions of guilt by the McNamaras, set the cause of organized labor on the West Coast back by decades. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/2770/McNamara-Brothers-Trial-1911.html More...]

It also nearly ruined the career of Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), one of America's leading criminal defense lawyers, who represented the McNamaras in the trial. Bert Franklin, on Darrow's payroll, was caught bribing two of the jurors in the McNamara trial. He plead ed guilty to jury tampering and he testified that Darrow had known and approved of the bribery efforts.

Darrow was arrested and put on trial. When organized labor turned its back on Darrow's request for financial assistance, Darrow had to pay all the legal costs of the 13-week trial out of his own pocket. Darrow denied the charges, and on August 14 and 15, 1912, gave an impassioned closing speech to the jurors, in which he claimed that:

:"I am not on trial for having sought to bribe a man named Lockwood. I am on trial because I have been a lover of the poor, a friend of the oppressed, because I have stood by Labor for all these years."

On August 15, 1912, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty after deliberating for less than an hour. [http://law.jrank.org/pages/2768/McNamara-Brothers-Trial-1911-Darrow-Tried-Bribing-Jurors.html More about Darrow's trial...]

==Page 1059==

'''paradiddle''' 
In this sense perhaps more often "taradiddle." Fiddle, finagle, wriggle. In strict pedantic usage "paradiddle" is a kind of quadruple stroke on the snare drum. Nothing pedantic about it, LeStreet is the drummer in the house band at the Vertex Club and a paradiddle is a 4-beat exercise pattern on the snare drum. E.g., R-R-L-R-L-L-R-L or R-L-R-R-L-R-L-L or etc. (there are lots of paradiddles). The purpose is to play them fast enough so that it sounds like a roll. Different patterns produce rolls that sound distinct from each other, very important to a jazz drummer.

'''a barnstormer's Curtis JN''' 
An army surplus airplane from the World War, bought and flown by an itinerant pilot in aerobatic exhibitions. Nicknamed "Jenny," the plane was pictured on a 1918 airmail stamp; some sheets had the center image printed upside down: the "Jenny Invert."

==Page 1060==

'''constant-term recalibration, or C.T.R.''' 
[[ATD_1040-1062#Page_1050|See annotation to page 1050.]]

'''spagyrist''' 
Alchemist, especially one seeking cures. Follower of Paracelsus.

'''Doddling''' 
(1) Frequent misspelling of "dawdling." (2) Easy duty for an English bus conductor (e.g., issuing tickets but not supervising operations). (3) Sexual intercourse.

'''Tree of Diana''' 
Branching possibilities, alternate histories branching out from any given moment.

'''...one compassionate time-machine story, time travel in the name of love...''' 
Two come to mind: Robert Heinlein: ''The Door Into Summer'' and Jack Finney: ''Time and Again''. In both a protagonist succcessfully chases an impossible love through time.
:And don't forget the special meaning of "compassionate" in ''AtD,'' "the Compassionate" = the Chums of Chance.

A possibility: "The Compassionate" = "The Kindly Ones" = the Erinyes, or Furies, in Greek myth ? = The Chums of Chance.

==Page 1061==

'''mathematical mists''' 
Recalls Kit's dream on P.566, of equations permitting a view into possible worlds.
Also recalls Julian Barbour's work on probablity mists hovering over possible time capsules. Please see his book, [http://www.platonia.com/index.html ''The End of Time''] for more details.

==Page 1062==

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

User:Thew

2007-07-10T17:29:32Z

Thew: New page: hi

ATD 429-459

2007-07-10T17:28:12Z

Thew: /* Page 442 */

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

==Page 431==

'''metaphorical way''' and '''lateral resurrection''' 
Cf. [[ATD_397-428#Pafe 418|page 418]], where ''metaphor'' and ''lateral'' are also used in quick succession.

'''"Turkish Corner"''' 
The ''coin turquois'' or Turkish corner was an interior decorating fad ([http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197806/london.s.arab.hall.htm second half of 19th century]). Well-to-do householders had the English furniture removed from a space and put in low tables, divans, cushions, ceiling hangings, nargilehs and so forth.

'''Bactrian''' 
''Camel''. Even-toed ungulate, two-humped (twin-peaked) as compared with the one-humped dromedary.

'''Cameling''' 
Seems to mean riding on a camel, contextually.

'''light might be a ''secret determinant of history''''' 
One of the overarching themes of the book, it seems. Natural light
vs. artificial and what it means for us humans.

The [http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-38 ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas''] has a clear, readable essay on causation in history, well worth a look given that we are concerned with "determinants" and the nature of time/sequence/cause-and-effect.

==Page 432==

'''fatal word''' 
"Wife".

'''C.A.C.A.''' 
Caca; Spanish for "shit". The Chums have already begun to suspect the "shit", i.e. the malevolent organization that lies behind their boys' book heroics; the reader is now made aware of a large organization (see B.I.N., below) standing behind the massive airships and their crews. We all know what about the dynamics of large organizations, and the percentage of the time they spend in serving their purported purposes. Reminiscent of Van Vogt's Law: "90% of everything is shit (caca)".
:Not just Spanish; most western European languages. In German it's even pronounced the same as '''K-K''' (Kaiserlich und Königlich, see Max Khäutsch and Franz Ferdinand episodes).

'''Medicine Hat, Alberta''' 
A real city with a population about 56,000. It is located in the southeastern part of the province of Alberta, Canada.

'''Gamomania''' 
"Gamos" is Greek for "marriage," and mania means "mania" or "madness."

'''H.M.S.F.''' 
His Majesty's Subdesertine Frigate (p425).

'''Balaam's ass''' 
refers to Num. 22:21-34 - Balaam rides out with the princes of Moab, but the Lord sends an angel to prevent him. Balaam does not see the angel but his ass does and will not go further. Balaam smites the ass three times, to no avail, until "the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to Balaam: What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?" Balaam's ass and the serpent (in the Garden of Eden) are the only speaking animals in the bible.

'''reported as long ago as Marco Polo''' 
From Marco Polo's ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (1298-99):
:". . . When a man is riding by night through this desert and something happens to make him loiter and lose touch with his companions . . . and afterwards he wants to rejoin them, then he hears spirit talking in such a way that they seem to be his companions. Sometimes, indeed, they even hail him by name. Often these voices make him stray from the path, so that he never finds it again. And in this way many travelers have been lost and have perished. And ometimes in the night they are conscious of a noise like the clatter of a great cavalcade of riders away from the road; and, believing that these are some of their own company, they go where they hear the noise and, when day breaks, find they are victims of an illusion and in an awkward plight. . . Yes, and even by daylight men hear these spirit voices, and often you fancy you are listening to the strains of many instruments, especially drums, and the clash of arms. . . . ." 
:(page 67, ''The Travels of Marco Polo'', The Folio Society 1968 edition.) 
For Marco Polo's bio and more see Cf. [[ATD_243-272#Page 247|page 247]] and [http://www.silk-road.com/artl/marcopolo.shtml Marco Polo and His Travels].

==Page 433==

'''mutatis mutandis''' 
''Medieval Latin.'' A direct translation from Latin of mutatis mutandis would read, 'with those things having been changed which need to be changed'. More colloquially, it can be interpreted as 'the necessary changes having been made,' where "the necessary changes" are usually implied by a prior statement assumed to be understood by the reader. It carries the connotation that the reader should pay attention to the corresponding differences between the current statement and a previous one, although they are analogous. This term is used frequently in economics and in law, to parameterize a statement with a new term, or note the application of an implied, mutually understood set of changes. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutatis_mutandis].

This suggests we should view communication from the camel with the same skepticism with which we view the voices, or possibly view this communication as we would that from Balaam's ass.

'''''polygamy''''' 
Cf. Lake's conversion to (de facto) polyandry in Colorado Springs, p. 268. In both cases aquifers are the scene of the activity.

'''pan-spectral fields''' 
Well, ''pan'' means universal. As in ''panorama'', ''Pan-Am''. Another suggestion of possible worlds.

'''World-Island''' 
The phrase was coined by English geographer and geo-politician [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halford_John_Mackinder Sir Halford John Mackinder] who formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_%28geopolitics%29 Heartland Theory] (1904) in his address to the Royal Geographic Society, "The Geographical Pivot of History." "World-Island" refers '''not to the Earth''', but to the continuous landmass of Eurasia measuring more than 21 million square miles (54 million km²). This landmass contains no waterways to the ocean and is contained by the Arctic ice cap and drainage to the north, the monsoon lands along the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, the Near East or land of the Five Seas, and Europe. This landmass is remote and inaccessible to its periphery. Mackinder argued in his address that this was the strategic region of the foremost importance in the World. The Heartland theory hypothesized the possibility for a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland, which wouldn't need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to supply its military industrial complex but would instead use railways, and that this empire couldn't be defeated by all the rest of the world against it; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolitics See also '''Geopolitics''' in Wikipedia]

'''"Euphrates" poplars''' 
One of the five classes of Poplars: ''turanga''. Its scientific name is ''populus euphratica'', a subtropical poplar found usually in Southwest Asia.

'''aryq''' 
Most likely variant of Arrack (OED): name applied in Eastern countries to any liquour of native manufacture, usually distilled coconut palm sap. - Or rather arak, the Middle Eastern equivalent of ouzo, Pernod, etc., which, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arak_%28distilled_beverage%29 according to Wikipedia,] should not be confused with southeast Asian arrack.

'''B.I.N.''' 
Biometric Institute of Neuropathy, see p. 432.

As in "Loony bin".

'''seventeen-syllable''' 
Haiku - japanese poems consisting of 17 syllables, classically arranged in three lines of 5 - 7 - 5 syllables each

Brilliant! 
''Still at it, Suckling?'' 
''Insufferable little'' 
''Prick, I'll break your neck!''

==Page 434==

'''Eta/Nu Transformators''' 
Probably an imaginary scientific device. Eta is most likely a reference to the metric tensor of (four dimensional) Minkowski space. Nu sometimes symbolizes frequency.
:Alternate view 
:In classical electromagnetism, Eta is the wave impedance and Nu is the velocity of the wave; both are related to the material parameters of the medium the wave is traveling in. Specifically, Eta determines how a wave moves between different media (reflection, refraction, and transmission), while the velocity is related to the frequency and wavelength of the wave. Thus, the device probably allows the ships inhabitants to see while in the sand.

'''pari passu''' 
on an equal footing

'''Deep Blavatsky''' 
Named for Madame Helena Blavatsky (Helena Petrovna Hahn), founder of the Theosophical Society [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blavatsky]. Cf. [[ATD_219-242#Page 219|page 219]].

==Page 435==

'''Gurkhas''' 
Nepalese forces that have fought alongside British troops.

'''German professors''' 
Likely a double allusion, first to Professor Werfner of Göttingen, referenced on p. 226, and also to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schliemann Heinrich Schliemann], the German treasure hunter (not actually a professor) who first established the true historical location of Troy, the site of the Trojan War. His accomplishments are sadly underscored by his extremely amateurish excavation technique which destroyed as much as it extracted from the site.

'''General Forrest''' 
Nathan Bedford Forrest, rebel leader in U.S. Civil War. Although he pioneered high-mobility tactics, he may never have uttered the famous quotation; see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest Wikipedia entry.]

Also, recognized as founder of the KKK -- see earlier episode in Colorado.

'''archiepiscopal''' 
Pertaining to an archbishop.

'''jewel-studded Victoria Crosses''' 
The VC is the highest medal for valo(u)r in the British military, about on a par with the Medal of Honor in the U.S. (except that it is never given posthumously). Adding jewels to the award is pure fantasy.

'''Fabergé''' 
Russian jeweler. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Faberg%C3%A9 Wikipedia entry].

'''"appealing though they be or, shall I say, as they are"''' 
Captain Toadflax's corrects his grammatical mistake, an error that is partially obscured by the inverted construction he employs. If one straightens out his words into a more conventional form, e.g., "though they [secular pleasures] be appealing," the error is clearer: ''they'', the third person plural pronoun, requires ''are'' as a verb, i.e. ''pleasures are'' rather than ''pleasures be''. The ''OED'' lists many examples of ''be'' taking the place of ''are'' in similar contexts, but notes that this usage is either dialectal or archaic.
:Why Toadflax commits this error is less clear than what the error itself is. One possibility is that Pynchon is making an allusion to Captains Bildad and Peleg of ''Moby-Dick'', who speak in an archaic vernacular typical of New England Puritans.
::For more information, see the ''OED'', "be, v.," sub-entry, A.I.h.¶.
:'''It isn't an error!''' Toadflax first correctly uses the subjunctive, "appealing though they be"; the choice of mood says he is making a speculative statement, something like "however appealing they are imagined to be." Then he rephrases—changing the meaning of his statement—to the indicative mood, "appealing as they are," saying that the pleasures definitely, factually ''are'' appealing. The contrast of subjunctive and indicative is becoming archaic now, but it wasn't archaic or even odd coming from an educated speaker in the early 20th century.

'''subarenaceous''' 
Below or beneath the sand (sub) + (arenaceous).

==Page 436==

'''limen''' 
threshold

'''transmundane''' 
Beyond the mundane, beyond the world

'''lamaseries''' 
Domiciles of Buddhist lamas (as in "monasteries").

'''Torriform Inclusion''' 
A made-up condition from Torus==Arch.: a large convex molding, semicircular in cross section, located at the base of a classical column?
From the American Heritage Dictionary.
St. Cosmo has just seen, he thinks, a "watchtower".
'Watchtower'-Cf. the name of the magazine (and building in Brooklyn) that the Jehovah's Witnesses use.
'distinguishing man-made from God-made'...

More likely from ''turris'' (Latin), ''torre'' (Spanish) or similar (what's the Italian?) meaning "tower."

'''Urban terrain''' 
(But only cities unwisely built on sand.)

'''Stilton Gaspereaux''' 
??? stilton is type of blue cheese from England.

'''Sven Hedin''' 
Swedish explorer, especially of the Asian countries, and excavator of ruins of ancient cities. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Hedin wikipedia]

'''Aurel Stein''' 
Sir Marc Aurel Stein. Hungarian-born explorer later knighted as a British citizen. Credited with the discovery, and arguably the exploitation, of the Mogao Grottoes in China. A rock-carved repository of ancient Buddhist texts and murals, the grottoes are known collectively as 'The Cave of a Thousand Buddhas' and protected a copy of the Mahayana Diamond sutra, acknowledged as the world's oldest dated printed text. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Aurel_Stein Wikipedia entry].

'''first known maps''' 
None of Ptolemy's maps has survived the classical period. They were, however, reconstructed in manuscript and engraved on copper or carved in wood for editions of the Ptolemy atlas. In 1482, the first woodcut edition, containing the first map of the world to include contemporary discoveries, was published in Ulm, Germany. It contains a brightly handcolored map of the Holy Land....

Allusion to the Map/Territory relation—the relationship between symbol and object. Coined by Alfred Korzybski, “The map is not the territory” is a related expression meaning that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself, e.g., the pain from a stone falling on your foot is not the stone; one's opinion of a politician, favorable or unfavorable, is not that person; a metaphorical representation of a concept is not the concept itself; and so on. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory]Here, the (abstract) map itself could be a guide to a spritual quest or to conquest.

==Page 437==

'''Nernst lamps''' 
An electric lamp consisting of a short, slender rod of zirconium oxide (ceramic) in open air, heated to brilliant white incandescence by electrical current. It was developed by the German physicist and chemist Walther Nernst (1864-1941) in 1897 at Goettingen University. In 1905 he formulated the third law of thermodynamics, and in 1920 he received the Nobel Prize in chemistry. For a picture of the lamp [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nernst_lamp Nernst lamp]] and Nernst's bio [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Nernst Nernst.]]

'''range-finder''' 
Cf. 'range', passim

'''level of encryption''' 
(Cf Heisenberg?)Does not seem to allude to Heisenberg and his Uncertainty Principle so much as buried layers of meaning that can hide to invisibility.

'''Mount Kailash''' 
A mountain located in the Chinese Himalayas with great religious significance in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is seen as the residence of Shiva, God of destruction and regeneration. The mountain is visited every year by many religious pilgrims. In Buddhism, the mountain was believed to be the location of a battle between two ancient sorcerers: Milarepa (Tantric Buddhism) and Naro-Bonchung (Tibetan Bön religion). Pynchon is perhaps alluding to the population dividing nature of religions. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kailash wikipedia].

'''Shiva''' 
Shiva is the formless, timeless and spaceless Supreme God in Shaivism, one of the major branches of Hinduism practiced in India. Shiva means "One who purifies everyone by the utterance of His name" or "The Pure One". The name Shiva is the Holiest of Holy names. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva Shiva]].

'''polarize light... in time''' 
Thematic.

'''Manichaeans''' 
A gnostic sect that followed the third century Persian prophet Mani (Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page 439|page 439]]). Their main theological belief was in a stark divide between Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.

Basic to Manichaeism's doctrine was the conflicting dualism between the realm of God, represented by ''light'' and by spiritual enlightenment, and the realm of Satan, symbolized by ''darkness'' and by the world of material things. To account for the existence of evil in a world created by God, Mani posited a primal struggle in which the forces of Satan separated from God; humanity, composed of matter, that which belongs to Satan, but infused with a modicum of godly light, was a product of this struggle, and was a paradigm of the eternal war between the forces of ''light'' and those of ''darkness''. Christ, the ideal, light-clad soul, could redeem for each person that portion of light God had allotted. Light and dark were seen to be commingled in our present age as good and evil, but in the last days each would return to its proper, separate realm, as they were in the beginning. The Christian notion of the Fall and of personal sin was repugnent to the Manichaeans; they felt that the soul suffered not from a weak and corrupt will but from contact with matter. Evil was a physical, not a moral thing; a person's misfortunes were miseries, not sins. (taken from ''The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2001-2005, [[http://www.bartkeby.com/65/ma/Manichae.html Manichaean]].)

Very relevant here in ADT: one could call their theology, BINARY.

==Page 438==

'''expanded sense... Maxwell... Hertz''' 
All forms of electromagnetic radiation form a spectrum, of which visible light is a small part; all such radiation shares fundamental physical properties.
Cf. range as spectrum.

:Let us quote more fully — '''''the light we see as well as the expanded sense of it prophesied by Maxwell, confirmed by Hertz''''' — it means the ''expanded'' understanding of the nature of the visible light (''the sense of it''). In 1865 Maxwell prophesied that, base on his field equations, "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws." (Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page 58|page 58]].) In 1877 Hertz experimentally disdcovered that light behaves exactly as an electromagnetic wave described by the Maxwell Field Equations and is part of the full electromagnetic spectrum. Therefore, Hertz comfirmed what Maxwell prdicted about the nature of light. (Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 318|page 318]].)
:Regardless how the scientific understaning of the nature of light has been expanded and changed, the Manichaean's view of light as invariant will remain, they will worship light to eternity. All other forms of matter are considered 'darkness'.
:Of course it is impossible for the Manichaens to know the dualism, light/darkness, of their theology has the reflection in the dualism of light. Light is a wave (electromagnetic wave) and simultaneously consists of particles (photons).

''''Perfects'''' 
Perfects are the priests of the Cathar, a pantheistic manicheistic sect from the middle ages.

:Since Gaspereaux (and Pynchon) still talking about Manichaean, let's just talk about it. 
:Strict virtue for the Manichaean involved necessarily withdrawal from the world. The community was accordingly divided into two groups; the ''Elect'' or the "Perfects", the ''Primates Manichaeorum'', who embraced a rigourous rule, and the ''Hearers'', the ''auditores'',who led a more normal life and supported the ''Elect'' both by works and alms.

'''Mysteries''' 
''The Book of Secrets'' (or ''The Book of Mysteries''). The sacred Manichaean text by Mani. Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page 439|page 439]].

'''Graeco-Buddhist''' 
Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Graeco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 800 years in Central Asia in the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism Wikipedia]

'''Italo-Islamic style(s)''' 
A result of the Islamic Conquest of Sicily and parts of southern Italy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Sicily Wikipedia on the Emirate of Sicily] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islam_in_southern_Italy 2]

==Page 439==

'''Nuovo Rialto''' 
Seems like Pynchon creating a "New Rialto" city under these sands as many
cities take the name of an older city and add New....

From Wikipedia: Rialto is an area of the San Polo sestiere of Venice, known for its markets and for the Rialto Bridge.

The area was settled by the ninth century, when a small area in the middle of the Realtine Islands either side of the Rio Businiacus was known as the Rivoaltus. Soon, the Businiacus became known as the Grand Canal, and the district became the Rialto, referring to only the area on the left bank.

The Rialto became an important district in 1097, when Venice's market moved there, and in the following century a boat bridge was set up across the Grand Canal providing access to it. This was soon replaced by the Rialto Bridge.

Pynchon seems to love Venice so Nuovo Rialto is very ironically intended given this scene.

'''Mani''' 
Mani (216-276), founder of religion Manichaeism. He was born in the province Babylon which was then under Persian rule. His family was Persian, bu this name is Aramaic. Mani had probably originally belonged to a Christian sect, now called Elkhasitts. Between the age of 12 and 24, Mani had visions where an angel told him that he would be the prophet of a last divine revelation. Aroudn AD 240, at the Persian court of King Shapur 1, Mani established his own religious philosophy. He and his followers (Manichaeans) regarded the world as irreconcilably divided into the kingdoms of light and darkness, good and evil. They practiced extreme asceticism in their struggle toward the light. At 26 he started on a long journey as the "Ambassador of Light" travelling through the Persian Empire and reaching as far as India, where he came under the influence of Buddhism. As Mani's teaching gained ground he came in opposition to the Zoroastrian priests and the Emperor Bahram 1. From 274 Mani lost the emperor's protection, and he either died in prison or was executed. His death was retold as an incident similar to the crucifixion of Jesus.

'''the Oxus''' 
The Oxus River of the Greeks. Its present-day name is the Amu Darya (or Amu river). It is the longest river in Central Asia. For more and map location see [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amu_Darya the Oxus]].

'''Jenghiz Khan''' 
Jenghiz (or Genghis) Khan (1162-1227), born as Temujin, a son of a Mongol chief. At thirteen he was called to succeed his father, and for years to struggle hard against hostile tribes. His ambition awakening with his continued success. He spent six years in subjugating the Naimans, between Lake Balkhash (in Southeastern Kazakhstan) and the Irtish (an enormous river in Western Siberia) , and in conquering Tangut, south of Gobi desert. In 1206 he started to use the name ''Jenghiz Khan'' — "Very Mighty Ruler". In 1211 he overruan the empire of North China, and in 1271 conquered and annexed the Kara-Chitai empire from Lake Balkhash to Tibet.
In 1218 he attacked the powerful empire of Kharezm, bounded by the Jazartes, Indus, Persian Gulf and Caspian, took Bokhara, Smarkand, Kharezm and other chief cities and returned home in 1225. His lieutenants continued to expand Jenghiz Khan's empire further and further. Jenghiz Khan died on August 18, 1227. He was not only a warrior and conqueror, but a skillful administrator and ruler; he not only conquered empires stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific, but organized them into states which outlasted the short span that usually measures the life of Asiatic sovereignties. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.)

'''crystallography of the silica medium''' 
Computer-base [silicon] allusion!?
:No! The most common constituent of sand, in inland continental or non-tropical coastal settings, is silicon dioxide (''silica'') usually in the form of quartz which is very resistant to weathering.
:And computer chips are made with silicon metal, not silica.

'''clearly a thousand years more recent than they ought to have been''' 
That is, the Manichean shrines date from the fourteenth Century, not the fourth Century when Mani, the founder, started Manicheanism. Pynchon dating 'when it went bad' in history?

'''Passing of the Remarks''' 
Sounds like a humorous reification of what gets said between sailors. Modeled after Changing of the Guard?

'''Steeplechase Park''' 
Steeplechase Park, located at Coney Island, was an amusement park and collection of rides, funhouses and the like. As a child I used to visit in the late 50's.

'''The Book of Secrets''' 
''The Book of Secrets'', (''Safar al–Asrar''), Manichaean sacred text by Mani. It was also called ''The Book of Mysteries'', and Titus just called it simply ''Mysteries''. It was characterized as "polemical and dogmatic." In eighteen chapters it was written to refute the false doctrines of the established sects and creeds n the world, including the sect of Bardesain or Bardesan. The book evidently dealt with the esoteric life of Jesus. The nature of Soul and Body was defined. And it also described reincarnation. A portion of the book was in the form of a dialogue between Jesus and his apostles. [[http://essenes.net/new/maniwritings.html mani's writitngs]].

==Page 440==

'''screaming...with blood''' 
Screaming motif.

'''''chong pir''''' 
Presumably Uyghur for "big lice."

'''Uyghur''' 
Member of an ethnic group in western China. It is sometimes claimed that the Uyghurs are Indo-European in one sense or another.

'''''Pulex''''' 
Flea.

'''voiced interdental fricative''' 
The ''th'' sound, as in "the" or "with." (Bad example—many if not most speakers use the unvoiced sound in "with." Try "then, other, father.") Basically, the lice lisp. This could be meant to suggest that their speech contains static or noise.

'''skeleton rig''' 
The skeleton rig is a shoulder holster for carrying a concealed handgun. They were developed in the 1890s. A very nice looking one, as well as a description thereof, can be purchased at [http://www.holster-connection.com/html/ted_blocker/tb_Skeleton.html First American Ordnance website], which also just so happens to be my source for the above info.

'''andante''' 
Literally "walking." An Italian word typically seen in notation for classical music. It denotes a moderately slow pace.

'''Sandman Saloon''' 
Tavern for the 'sandmen', without those great tavern names in the above-ground world. Negative associations to this saloon, it seems, unlike the usual saloons in TRP's world. A Neil Gaiman allusion?

==Page 441==

'''Leonard and Lyle''' 
Google comes up with mentioning Sir Leonard Lyle [http://www.parkexplorer.org.uk/park_intro.asp?ID=new16 1], sugar-magnate and heir to Abram Lyle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Lyle 2] and "Lyle‘s Golden Syrup" [http://www.lylesgoldensyrup.com/LylesGoldenSyrup/PastPresent/default.htm 3]. Thats one interesting logo, what with the dead lion/bees and the tibetan stamp on ATD, btw. Golden Syrup = oil?

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

'''''teke''''' 
From this [http://home.earthlink.net/~lkritikos/glossary.html glossary on greek rembetiko music]: "teke (pl. tekedhes): A club where one could buy hashish and the use of a narghile in which to smoke it"

An American fraternity or a member thereof. Tau Kappa Epsilon. Founded in the 1890s; has had a reputation for being a bit wilder than many fraternities.

'''Spindletop''' 
From wikipedia: Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in south Beaumont, Texas (approx. 30.02 -94.07) in the United States. On January 10, 1901, the well "Lucas 1" came in at Spindletop, marking the birthdate of the modern petroleum industry. At 100,000 barrels of oil a day, the gusher tripled U.S. oil production overnight, ensuring the second industrial revolution would be fueled not by wood and coal but by oil and its byproducts. Some of the companies chartered to exploit the wealth of Spindletop are some of today's largest and well known corporations such as ExxonMobil, and Texaco.

'''Groznyi''' 
Grozny or Groznyy (Russian: Гро́зный; Chechen: Соьлж-ГIала, Syolzh-Ghaala) is the capital of the Chechen Republic in Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River....As most of the residents there were Terek Cossacks, the town grew slowly until the development of Oil reserves in the early 20th century. This spiralled development of industry and petrochemical production. In addition to the oil drilled in the city itself, the city became a geographical centre of Russia's network of oil fields, and also in 1893 became part of the Transcaucasia - Russia Proper railway. From wikipedia

'''calyx bits''' 
Bits used for taking core samples in oil exploration. Rods are screwed together to make up the "drill string," with the bit at the bottom end. After exploration, the calyx bit is replaced with a rock bit; the borehole is stabilized with a "casing string" made of pipe (tubing) a little bigger than the bit.

Presumably some kind of mining drill-related equipment. "The mining operations were unusual in that much of the mining was done through large diameter holes drilled with calyx bits." [http://www.ut.blm.gov/sanrafaelohv/explore/historicmining.htm]

'''adults''' 
Chums not adults, then? No,they do not age, it seems.

'''''ässalamu äläykum''''' 
A muslim greeting. Translates to "Peace be with you."

'''anticline''' 
An underground rock structure with a shape resembling a ridge on the surface. Oil exploration focuses on "domes" (like salt domes, see Spindletop entry above) and anticlines, because either of these provides a volume where oil—ascending because it's lighter than rock or water—can collect to make a "pool" that can be exploited.

==Page 442==
'''Had it not (p440) ....someones hidden plans''' 
This whole conversation implies a coming war over oil, being sold as a holy mission... why does that sound familiar? Of course, once again, "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred."

'''''equine altitude''''' 
High horse.

'''allure of Veneto-Uyghur women''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriatic_Veneti Veneti] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanais Veneto] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs Uyghurs] Long distance trade (like wars and tourism in general) is very likely to enforce the intermingling of different [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_pool Gene Pools], which, more often than not, results in particularily beautiful specimens of the kinds involved. Travels of mediterrenean merchants along the various branches of the Silk Road seem to have been pretty common from at least 14th century on - see [http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/pegol.html Pegelotti‘s Merchant Handbook] (ca. 1340) which partially reads like a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonely_planet Lonely Planet Guide] of back then. During the Renaissance most of the merchants (from Florence/Venice/Geneva) set out from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanais Tana/Tanais] which some sources put as a trade-post if not colony of the "West".

'''2 percent . . . most of them''' 
Implies at least 150 in crew.

'''Marco Querini''' 
An oasis named after Marco Querini? i.e. ''Oasi Marco Querini''. In January 1571, Venetians under Marco Querini defeated Turks near Famagusta, Cyprus.

'''Terrenascondite''' 
Italian: terre (pl. of terra) = lands; ascondito, as a past participle is incorrect, it shoult be "nascosto",but it is clearly related to the verb nascondere (archaic: ascondere)= to hide. Translation is undoubtedly "hidden lands".

'''Pozzo San Vito''' 
Italian: Pozzo means well; San Vito is a Saint. Well of San Vito. ''Oasi Pozzo San Vito.'' San Vito, according [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintv07.htm to this site], died by being boiled in oil, other sources say it was lead - a hint to the subterranean resources here? Cfr. Italian: "Ballo di San Vito", that is, Saint Vitus' Dance, a syndrome having as a consequence tics or jerks. It may be an allusion to involuntary movements or disconntected behaviour(?). Colloquially, "pozzo" also means "crazy".

'''all that incarnation and slaughter will transpire in silence''' 
Calls to mind the silent battle scene in Akira Kurosawa's samurai retelling of ''King Lear'', titled ''Ran'', which translates roughly to "chaos."

==Page 443==

'''peterman option''' 
A 'peterman' is a slang term for a safe-blower.

'''Consommé Imperial''' 
A gingered chicken broth with julienne of carrots and leeks.

'''Timbales de Suprêmes de Volailles''' 
Chicken Supreme Pudding ? Um, Suprêmes de Volailles means the white meat of chicken prepared with a fortified white sauce. To make timbales, the meat is chopped and placed in individual molds, a little grated Gruyère cheese on top, and baked in a water bath (just like some puddings).

'''Gigot Grillé a la Sauce Piquante''' 
A 'gigot' is a leg of lamb or haunch of veal. 'Sauce Piquante' is a spicy sauce.

'''aubergines à la Sauce Mousseline''' 
Eggplants with mussel sauce. -No, the French for mussels is moules, not moussel. A Sauce Mousseline is Hollandaise lightened with a bit of whipped cream. An odd choice perhaps for eggplant, but then Sauce Piquante is more for pork or boiled beef (pot-au-feu) than lamb.

:I've never seen a dog eat eggplant, but it sounds like something one wouldn't want to miss. Only thing is, it has to be somebody else's dog.

'''Pouilly-Fuissé''' 
A white Burgundy made from the Chardonnay grape.

'''Graves''' 
A white wine from the Graves district of France.

==Page 444==

'''Oasi''' 
Plural of "oasis."

:No. ''Oases'' is the plural of ''oasis''. Here, ''Oasi'' is the Italian word for ''oasis''!

'''cataplexy''' 
Sudden loss of muscle power following a strong emotional stimulus.

'''Nobel brothers''' 
Robert and Ludvig Nobel, brothers of Alfred Nobel of dynamite and prize fame, co-founders of Branobel, an important early oil company that controlled a large amount of Russian output. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branobel Wikipedia entry].

'''shaft-alley''' 
Somebody check this: the channel, running fore-and-aft deep in the ship's hull, where the propeller shafts are located.

'''the balloon is up''' 
British metaphor: The action has started. A phrase also used in ''V.''

'''F.O.''' 
Foreign Office

'''''Daily Mail''''' 
London tabloid, staunch early supporters of Adolf Hitler. Today specialises in stirring up hatred of immigrants and other minorities.

'''Inspector Sands''' 
A code word used in London to alert authorities without causing panic amongst the general public. Generally the alert is raised by the fire alarm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Sands Wikipedia entry].

'''"Sands of Inner Asia"''' 
Captain, now Inspector Sands, seems to be being compared for his achievements to "Lawrence of Arabia" parodistically.

'''Taklamakan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taklamakan The Taklamakan] (also Taklimakan) is a desert of Central Asia, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. It is known as the largest sand-only desert in the world. Some references fancifully state that Taklamakan means "if you go in, you won't come out"; others state that it means "Desert of Death" or "Place of No Return".

==Page 445==

'''Kashgar to Urumchi''' 
Two cities currently on the far western border of China. Presumably in this context they were two points inside the general area within which the 'Great Powers' competed to try and find Shambhala.

'''fell into the hands of''' 
An analogy with the present-day situation in Central Asia in particular. Throughout the book, there are references to Anarchist/Terrorists, to the spread of dynamite and other kinds of phenomena. These are all technologies that allow, or cause, power to flow into the hands of the powerless to use for their own purposes.

'''those Powers . . . still competing for it''' 
And to complete the analogy, the countries/peoples who have exercised power for centuries and are now baffled to see it flow into the hands of the powerless.

'''World-Island''' 
[[#Page_433|See entry at page 433]]

'''discreet summons''' 
Eg "paging Dr Blue".
It doesn't seem to me to be a phrase that needs a gloss: a discreet summons is simply what it says and made be made in any number of ways.

'''far wicket''' 
A 'wicket' may simply be a gate; but in the context of a novel and the bomber at Headingly cricket ground and Fenners, the Cambridge cricket ground, a 'wicket' is the three stumps at one end of a cricket pitch. ("The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly" - see p.236.)
:That isn't the context here; we are in a government building where supplicants have to pass through gates—wickets—and face bureaucrats through grilles—more wickets.

'''wog''' 
''Chiefly British.'' An ethnic slur used for any dark-skinned peoples. Alleged to stand for "Western Oriental Gentleman", but mainly applied to Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, and other brown-skinned Asians.
I have heard it comes from 'wily oriental gentleman'; but the Oxford English Dictionary states that the origin is uncertain and defines a 'wog' as someone especially of Arab extraction.
Eric Partridge, in'' A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'' (8th ed., 1984), suggests that the term derives from "golliwog," the name of a black male doll character with frizzy hair popularized in Bertha Upton's children's story, The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls--and a 'Golliwog' (1895).

'''Vic removal''' 
Perhaps "Victoria removal," i.e., assassination of the Queen. But she died in 1901. What year is it now?

'''eating an explosive''' 
Cf Lew's Cyclomite.

==Page 446==

'''St Martin le Grand''' 
A street in the City of London.

'''Angel Street''' 
Another street in the City which meets St Martin le Grand at right-angles.

'''G.P.O. West''' 
G.P.O - General Post Office

'''pneumatic dispatches''' 
An extensive 'pneumatic dispatch' system existed on London during the Victorian era, started in 1851 and carrying on at least into the 1930's. By 1886 London had 94 telegram tubes totaling 34 1/2 miles and around 4.5 million telegraph messages were carried in cylinders at around 20mph. At its height the network extended some 57 miles connecting 67 branch offices via a central sorting office. See [http://www.capsu.org/history/telegram_conveyors.html] and
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm] (with illustrations).

'''drill suits''' 
Drill is a durable cotton fabric; khaki drill is used for uniforms.

'''chars''' 
Charwomen. Maids, cleaners.

'''Hundreds of telegraphers''' 
The scene described, including the pneumatic dispatches and the ostensible concern about terrorism, is very similar to one in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."

'''clicks and rests''' 
Presumably the clicks of a telegraphic system and the rests or silences in between. [[Binarisms_Discussion|Another binarism.]]

'''Northern Temple of Connexion''' 
It's in the north of the City; and the phrase suggests the religious intensity of the need to connect or communicate as well as mildly satirising it.

'''marblework''' 
Such buildings would have used quantities of marble; hence the image of a 'temple' above.

'''Bloggins''' 
An archetypal ordinary man; an everyman figure.

'''allegro vivatchy''' 
phonetic of 'allegro vivace' - a musical term for a quick tempo. If the policeman had been manhandling an English suspect, he would have said "All right then, quick march." An early instance of cultural sensitivity. . . .

==Page 447==

'''grease-paint''' 
'Grease-paint' refers to old-fashioned stage make-up.

'''cylinder of gutta-percha''' 
Pneumatic dispatches were carried in cylinders of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha Gutta-Percha] -- an inelastic latex made from the sap of the Gutta-Percha tree -- covered in felt. See [http://www.capsu.org/history/telegram_conveyors.html]. Gutta-percha crops up a number of times in ATD, possibly enough to suggest some sort of motif or connection?

Gutta percha per se is a Victorian equivalent to rubber, or rather hard rubber (they knew to use soft latex for erasers, "gum boots" and such). Discovery of the vulcanization process led to replacement of gutta-percha in many applications.

'''its "D" box''' 
The receiving mechanism on the end of pneumatic dispatch pipe.

"The somewhat complicated pattern of double sluice valve originally used at the central stations has been superseded by a simpler form, known as the D box, so named Despatching from the shape of its cross section. This box is of and cast iron, and is provided with a close-fitting, Receiving brass-framed, sliding lid with a glass panel. This Apparatus, lid fits air-tight, and closes the box after a carrier has been inserted into the mouth of the tube; the latter enters at one end of the box and is there bell-mouthed. A supply pipe, to which is connected a 3-way cock, is joined on to the box and allows communication at will with either the pressure or vacuum mains, so that the apparatus becomes available for either sending (by pressure) or receiving (by vacuum) a carrier. Automatic working, by which the air supply is automatically turned on on the introduction of the carrier into a tube and on closing of the D box, and is cut off when the carrier arrives, was introduced in 1909." From the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica entry on Pneumatic Dispatch, cited at [http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm]

'''Holborn''' 
Holborn is between the Strand (at the northern end of Waterloo Bridge) and Bloomsbury.

'''Saffron Hill''' 
is in the City, an area named Farringdon, east of Holborn.

'''''tantum dic verbo'' isn't it''' 
Might be derived from that part of the Mass where it's said: "Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed '''tantum dic verbo''' et sanabitur anima mea" ("Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but '''speak the word''' only, and my soul shall be healed")

Sands seems to be telling Gaspereaux to "just say the word".

'''''intact''''' 
(Did I miss this?)

==Page 448==

'''because I'm mad''' 
???

'''half-sovereign case''' 
A sovereign is old English money for one pound, i.e 20 shillings. A half-sovereign is ten shillings old money.

'''Mr. Campbell-Bannerman''' 
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836-1908) was a Liberal MP and then Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1905 to 1908. I'm not sure when he was knighted; but he's not the only character in the novel connected with Trinity College, Cambridge.

==Page 449==

'''Clarabella''' 
Clarabelle=name of the clown on The Howdy Doody Show [TV] in the fifties.

'''Audacity, Iowa''' 
???

==Page 450==

'''DREAMTIME MOVY''' 
Misspelling is dreamlike? Or, more possibly, the spelling hadn't yet been standardized.
:The ''OED'' an cites an occurance of this spelling as late as 1919.

'''log... waterfall''' 
This passage anticipates a scene in D. W. Griffith's 1920 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Down_East Way Down East] in which Lillian Gish, stranded on an ice-floe, rushes toward a potential demise over the edge of the falls. More specifically, Pynchon is here positing this (fictional) collision between the film (i.e., the diegetic world of the film) and the breaking projector (the non-diegetic world of the film!) as the origin of the... (wait for it) -- CLIFFHANGER.
:What does ''diegetic'' mean, please?

'''lens-brother''' 
(Like masonic sign?)(Also reminiscent of the lens (the K/kid/d) carries in Delaney's ''Dhalgren'')

'''Powers movement''' 
Around 1897, Nicholas Power improved the "Maltese Cross" used in the Geneva movement; his company sold [http://www.victorian-cinema.net/power.htm projectors] including the "Peerless" and the popular No. 5. The Power or Power[']s movement could not be adapted to sound projection.

'''Geneva''' 
A watch movement also used in film projection. "The Geneva movement is so called because of its use in Geneva watches as a stop wind. The projection on the driving disk acts as the pawl drive, and the concave projections on the lower disc act as stop pawls. This is used at the present time in motion picture machines for moving the film in front of the lens and is known as the intermittent movement."

'''Wilt Flambo''' 
Flambeau = torch (French).

'''acetylene''' 
When the flammable gas was used for illumination, it was often generated on the spot by dripping water onto lumps of calcium carbide.

==Page 451==

'''nitro in the film''' 
Cellulose nitrate was the predecessor to modern photographic films. The nitrate material might be coated with collodion, which served as the substrate to the chemistry that made the image. Nitrate film was/is notoriously flammable.

'''the tip''' 
The audience. Pynchon uses the word many times in ''AtD.''

'''strange relation''' 
Cf GR on calculus.

'''dark perplexity''' 
Cf Gen X?

'''dilapidated portals''' 
See p.406: the West Gate's "two flanking towers of rusticated stone and Gothical aspect... an aspect of terrible antiquity..."

'''queen-of-the-prairie''' 
[http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/68/index.html Meadowsweet,] ''Filipendula rubra,'' wild flower with clusters of pink blooms in midsummer.

'''Geneva''' 
[[#Page_450|See annotation to p. 450.]]

==Page 452==

'''Sempitern''' 
An archaic term meaning 'eternal', a poetic but appropriate name for a river? Echoing "Serpentine," the lake in London's Hyde Park.

'''Sicilians with equal apprehensions for the principle of the vendetta''' 
If the vendetta began when A killed B, couldn't B's son short-circuit the whole thing by going back in time and killing A first? And then who would be responsible for killing the son? Possible application to the Traverse/Vibe/Deuce relationship, too.

'''siegecraft of Time''' 
Cf Paris Commune siege, p.19.

'''to see in its vortex the fundamental structure of everything''' 
A reference to the Yeatsian conception of the gyre as the primary or fundamental form. "'The mind, whether expressed in history or in the individual life, has a precise movement, which can be quickened or slackened but cannot be fundamentally altered, and this movement can be expressed by a mathematical form’ and this form is the gyre." [http://www.yeatsvision.com/Geometry.html] 

More from wikipedia: "The theory of history articulated in A Vision centers on a diagram composed of two conical spirals, one situated inside the other, so that the widest part of one cone occupies the same plane as the tip of the other cone, and vice versa. Around these cones he imagined a set of spirals. Yeats claimed that this image (he called the spirals "gyres") captured contrary motions inherent within the process of history, and he divided each gyre into different regions that represented particular kinds of historical periods (and could also represent the psychological phases of an individual's development). Yeats believed that in 1921 the world was on the threshold of an apocalyptic moment, as history reached the end of the outer gyre (to speak roughly) and began moving along the inner gyre." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)] 
Cf. the remark, "history is a step-function" in ''V.''. Is the above an
evolution of that remark/vision? http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11

'''between Cleveland and Denver''' 
Merle's idiosyncratic choice of endpoints? This helps define where Candlebrow is, though.

'''automorphic functions''' 
Auto= self; same as in autogamy. American Heritage Dict. -morph = Form, structure, function. Self-forming, self-structuring-- or self-organizing as Pynchon says elsewhere in ADT.

The phrase has a specific meaning in mathematics, referring to a generalization of periodic functions.

==Page 453==
'''We thus enter the whirlwind''' 
God is sometimes referred to this way. Often Capitalized, but here the speaker is using it literally, but Pynchon maybe metaphorically?

'''Lobatchevskian''' 
of Nikolai Lobachevsky (1793-1856), a Russian Mathematician, co-founder, with Hungarian mathematician János Bolyai, of non-Euclidean geometry. Born at Nizhny Novgorod and a professor at Kazan University from 1814. In 1829 he published his non-Euclidean geometry paper, the first account of that subject in print.

'''Automorphic Dispensation''' 
Self-forming, self-organizing, recurring or periodic dispensation. 
On the meaning of "dispensation" see [[ATD_119-148#Page_128|annotations to p. 128.]]

'''distressing regularity''' 
Explains dilapidation?

'''Thorvald''' 
Scandinavian name from the Old Norse name ''Þórvaldr''. It combines the name "Thor" (thunder) and scandinavian word "valdr" (ruler), to create the meaning "thunder ruler" or "ruler of the thunder". Either would be apt, in this case.

The persisting storm also occurs in ''Mason & Dixon'', in at least one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and in Walter Moers‘ [http://www.amazon.com/13-2-Lives-Captain-Bluebear/dp/1585678449/sr=1-1/qid=1170090170/ref=sr_1_1/002-4941751-7235229?ie=UTF8&s=books "13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear"].

'''''thresher dinners''''' 
Hearty communal midday meals for men taking part in harvest. Here a sacrifice to Thorvald.

==Page 454==

'''"gaff"''' 
A deceptive feature like the rabbit-concealing false bottom in a magician's top hat.

'''Giant Airships of 1896 and '7''' 
An early UFO sensation. From November 1896 to the summer of '97, newspapers reported numerous sightings of [http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9607/airship.htm a large cigar-shaped airship]. The first reports came from Sacramento; the "ship" (or ships) moved from west to east, with [http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n03/illinois-ufo-mania-of-1897.html a big concentration in Illinois.] "Contacts" with the people on board the craft all proved to be hoaxes, and the speed of the ship's travel was a pretty good match for the speed of propagation of phony newspaper stories from town to town.

In the context of ''AtD'' we have to ask: In a world where airships were common by 1893, operated by a sizable community of aeronautics clubs like the Chums of Chance, why would another airship create a sensation in 1896? Who would consider it mysterious?

And ''were'' airships common by 1893? [http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/ss/airship_5.htm This brief account] of the technology in our historical context says that trials date back to mid-century, but practical airships appeared only in 1898.

[http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Mysterious-airship.jpg This artist's conception] is no less imaginative than sketches that appeared in the media in 1896-97.

'''Chick''' 
First Chum to appear in non-Chums chapter? Chick is the Chum we know, besides Pugnax if we count him, to have come aboard The Inconvenience from the real world. Another meaning to Counterfly? More earthbound?

==Page 455==

'''Cleveland... trial... Bounce v. Vibe''' 
See p67 & 426

'''Somble, Strool, and Fleshway''' 
[[ATD_26-56#Page_34|See annotations to page 34.]]

''''paranoia querulans'... P.Q.''' 
[[Paranoia_Querulans|Described in the page so titled.]]

'''Hercules''' 
Allusion to Hercules Powder Company, major manufacturer of black powder and other explosives.

'''blasting agent''' 
Just a casual reference to the Hercules product. In a more technical context "blasting agents" are distinguished from "shattering explosives." A blasting agent releases its energy more slowly and produces a heaving action.

'''detonans''' 
That which is detonated - cod latin. Detonans is a present participle, roughly meaning "that detonates" or "detonating".

'''"I'm just another nutty inventor"''' 
Roswell has been discussing his plans to dynamite the Vibe Corp. which has used its power to harrass him. Throughout his work, esp. ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon has dealt with themes involving the split between elect and preterite, or to use a more simplified phrase, winners and losers. Dynamite offers the small and powerless, the "long-shot opponents of the mills of Capital" referred to earlier in the page, an expression of power of their own. In this way it is like the AK-47 today which has made it far more difficult for powers (e.g. the United States in Iraq) to exert control over populations.

==Page 456==

'''aigrette''' 
Literally an egret or aigrette (or Lesser White Heron); hence a tuft of feathers such as an egret has and hence a spray of gems worn on the head and finally luminous rays seen emerging from the moon in solar eclipses or, to quote the OED, "at the ends of electrified bodies" [[ATD_397-428#Page_405|(see annotation to p. 405.)]]

'''Pencil''' 
To mathematicians, a pencil is a family of geometric objects sharing a common property, such as a collection of lines that pass through a common point. (Of course, constipated mathematicians also find pencils useful for working out logs).

'''equivalent of a shrug''' 
Nice anthropomorphism.

'''I want to know light...take some in my hands...and bring it back''' 
More light-infatuation, but this sounds particularly Promethean to me. Everybody knows Prometheus is famous for stealing fire from the Gods and bringing it to man in his unburnable fennel, but for Pynchoniacs, Zeus' reaction to this is quite interesting. Imaginably, Zeus is pretty pissed, so "to punish Prometheus for this hubris (and all of mankind in the process), Zeus devised 'such evil for them that they shall desire death rather than life'". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus Wiki] Then he sends Prometheus "to Mount Caucasus, where an eagle (often shown as a vulture) by the name of Ethon (offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna) would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again." Talk about Eternal Return.

Finally "[t]o punish man for the offenses of Prometheus, Zeus told Hephaestus to "mingle together all things loveliest, sweetest, and best, but look that you also mingle therewith the opposites of each." So Hephaestus took gold and dross, wax and flint, pure snow and mud of the highways, honey and gall; he took the bloom of the rose and the toad's venom, the voice of laughing water and the peacocks squall; he took the sea's beauty and its treachery, the dog's fidelity and the wind's inconstancy, and the mother bird's heart of love and the cruelty of the tiger. All these, and other contraries past number, he blended cunningly into one substance and this he molded into the shape that Zeus had described to him. She was as beautiful as a goddess and Zeus named her Pandora which meant "all gifted"." And a little later on Pandora opens her eponymic box and "all suffering and despair" is unleashed upon mankind.

Some judicious readers may remember we've already been to the Pandora Works back on p.297, and we all know what those light-worshiping Alchemists will do with the metals they remove from mines just like it.

'''machinery . . . more complicated than it needs to be''' 
Merle and Roswell, as alchemists, suspect the problem of "moving pictures" may have a solution with fewer moving parts.

'''lost mines''' 
(Factual?) One of the classic "crazy old galoot" figures in Westerns is the deranged sourdough who can't stop talking about the incredibly rich lode he and his partner found and then lost.

==Page 457==

'''tourbillon''' 
A tourbillon is a type of mechanical clock or watch escapement invented in 1795 by Abraham-Louis Breguet that is designed to counter the effects of gravity and other perturbing forces that can affect the accuracy of a chronometer. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourbillon Wikipedia]

Tourbillon is French for "whirlwind" - Thorvald‘s tiny chronometer-cousin.

'''make time impervious to gravity''' 
Thematic to this book and GR?

'''patent pencils''' 
Mechanical or (British) propelling pencils. "Patent" as in patent medicine, patent leather: innovative, gimmicky, making claims of uniqueness.

Ebenezer Wood "constructed the first hexagon- and octagon-shaped pencil cases that we have today. Ebenezer did not patent his invention and shared his techniques with whoever asked." from Wikipedia.

'''zephyr gingham''' 
From [http://vintagesewing.info/1920s/26-fcm/fcm-16a.html this site]: gingham: A cotton fabric in checks or stripes nearly alike on both sides. zephyr: Anything light and airy. We have zephyr yarns, zephyr gingham, zephyr tissues.

'''lawn''' 
a thin or sheer linen or cotton fabric, either plain or printed.

'''pongee''' 
silk of a slightly uneven weave made from filaments of wild silk woven in natural tan color or its cotton imitation.

==Page 458==

'''professors... engineers''' 
Theory vs practice.

'''Latinate token of prestige''' 
PhD (''Philosophiae Doctor''), summa cum laude, etc.

'''suspicious of night horizons''' 
(sunsets?)Absence of light horizons? You can't see the horizon at night unless ''something'' is flashing and flaring over beyond it. Townsfolk are traditionally suspicious of strange flickerings in the sky. Fireworks specialists give you a way out: "Oh, Luigi was just trying out a new star shell."

'''current... purity''' 
Free of noise?

'''Minkowski''' 
Hermann Minkowski was a German mathematician who made useful contributions in the development of relativity, amongst other things. Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 324|page 324]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowski]

'''Three times ten... minus one seconds''' 
Three times ten to the fifth refers to the speed of light. The square root of minus 1 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_unit Wikipedia] is also known as the Imaginary Unit or i. i is sometimes also expressed as the square root of -1, as here. Complex numbers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number Wikipedia] can be expressed as a + bi where a is the real part of the complex number and b is the imaginary part. Complex numbers were an important element of the work of both Minkowski and Einstein. Also, for imaginary number Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 133|page 133]] and complex number Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 132|page 132]].

''Against the Day'' takes place at the time when Newtonian physics were being supplanted, at least in theory, by physics based on Relativity. This equation touches on that. But also, the use of a real and an imaginary number returns to the theme of duality that arises throughout the book. The spacetime measured by imaginary or complex numbers would seem to be something different though co-existent with 'our' spacetime.

'''other expression''' 
Contextually, Roswell seems to be refering to the other side of the above equation...'that other expression 'over there'...they are at a slate "blackboard."

'''he called the equation "pregnant"''' 
Minkowski used the German word ''prägnant,'' which doesn't mean "pregnant." It means concise, precise, penetrating.

'''astronomical distance''' 
Small-scale astronomy then: 3x105 km is about two-thirds of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

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

ATD 429-459

2007-07-10T17:05:03Z

Thew: /* Page 442 */

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

==Page 431==

'''metaphorical way''' and '''lateral resurrection''' 
Cf. [[ATD_397-428#Pafe 418|page 418]], where ''metaphor'' and ''lateral'' are also used in quick succession.

'''"Turkish Corner"''' 
The ''coin turquois'' or Turkish corner was an interior decorating fad ([http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/197806/london.s.arab.hall.htm second half of 19th century]). Well-to-do householders had the English furniture removed from a space and put in low tables, divans, cushions, ceiling hangings, nargilehs and so forth.

'''Bactrian''' 
''Camel''. Even-toed ungulate, two-humped (twin-peaked) as compared with the one-humped dromedary.

'''Cameling''' 
Seems to mean riding on a camel, contextually.

'''light might be a ''secret determinant of history''''' 
One of the overarching themes of the book, it seems. Natural light
vs. artificial and what it means for us humans.

The [http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv1-38 ''Dictionary of the History of Ideas''] has a clear, readable essay on causation in history, well worth a look given that we are concerned with "determinants" and the nature of time/sequence/cause-and-effect.

==Page 432==

'''fatal word''' 
"Wife".

'''C.A.C.A.''' 
Caca; Spanish for "shit". The Chums have already begun to suspect the "shit", i.e. the malevolent organization that lies behind their boys' book heroics; the reader is now made aware of a large organization (see B.I.N., below) standing behind the massive airships and their crews. We all know what about the dynamics of large organizations, and the percentage of the time they spend in serving their purported purposes. Reminiscent of Van Vogt's Law: "90% of everything is shit (caca)".
:Not just Spanish; most western European languages. In German it's even pronounced the same as '''K-K''' (Kaiserlich und Königlich, see Max Khäutsch and Franz Ferdinand episodes).

'''Medicine Hat, Alberta''' 
A real city with a population about 56,000. It is located in the southeastern part of the province of Alberta, Canada.

'''Gamomania''' 
"Gamos" is Greek for "marriage," and mania means "mania" or "madness."

'''H.M.S.F.''' 
His Majesty's Subdesertine Frigate (p425).

'''Balaam's ass''' 
refers to Num. 22:21-34 - Balaam rides out with the princes of Moab, but the Lord sends an angel to prevent him. Balaam does not see the angel but his ass does and will not go further. Balaam smites the ass three times, to no avail, until "the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she said to Balaam: What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?" Balaam's ass and the serpent (in the Garden of Eden) are the only speaking animals in the bible.

'''reported as long ago as Marco Polo''' 
From Marco Polo's ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (1298-99):
:". . . When a man is riding by night through this desert and something happens to make him loiter and lose touch with his companions . . . and afterwards he wants to rejoin them, then he hears spirit talking in such a way that they seem to be his companions. Sometimes, indeed, they even hail him by name. Often these voices make him stray from the path, so that he never finds it again. And in this way many travelers have been lost and have perished. And ometimes in the night they are conscious of a noise like the clatter of a great cavalcade of riders away from the road; and, believing that these are some of their own company, they go where they hear the noise and, when day breaks, find they are victims of an illusion and in an awkward plight. . . Yes, and even by daylight men hear these spirit voices, and often you fancy you are listening to the strains of many instruments, especially drums, and the clash of arms. . . . ." 
:(page 67, ''The Travels of Marco Polo'', The Folio Society 1968 edition.) 
For Marco Polo's bio and more see Cf. [[ATD_243-272#Page 247|page 247]] and [http://www.silk-road.com/artl/marcopolo.shtml Marco Polo and His Travels].

==Page 433==

'''mutatis mutandis''' 
''Medieval Latin.'' A direct translation from Latin of mutatis mutandis would read, 'with those things having been changed which need to be changed'. More colloquially, it can be interpreted as 'the necessary changes having been made,' where "the necessary changes" are usually implied by a prior statement assumed to be understood by the reader. It carries the connotation that the reader should pay attention to the corresponding differences between the current statement and a previous one, although they are analogous. This term is used frequently in economics and in law, to parameterize a statement with a new term, or note the application of an implied, mutually understood set of changes. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutatis_mutandis].

This suggests we should view communication from the camel with the same skepticism with which we view the voices, or possibly view this communication as we would that from Balaam's ass.

'''''polygamy''''' 
Cf. Lake's conversion to (de facto) polyandry in Colorado Springs, p. 268. In both cases aquifers are the scene of the activity.

'''pan-spectral fields''' 
Well, ''pan'' means universal. As in ''panorama'', ''Pan-Am''. Another suggestion of possible worlds.

'''World-Island''' 
The phrase was coined by English geographer and geo-politician [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halford_John_Mackinder Sir Halford John Mackinder] who formulated [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_%28geopolitics%29 Heartland Theory] (1904) in his address to the Royal Geographic Society, "The Geographical Pivot of History." "World-Island" refers '''not to the Earth''', but to the continuous landmass of Eurasia measuring more than 21 million square miles (54 million km²). This landmass contains no waterways to the ocean and is contained by the Arctic ice cap and drainage to the north, the monsoon lands along the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, the Near East or land of the Five Seas, and Europe. This landmass is remote and inaccessible to its periphery. Mackinder argued in his address that this was the strategic region of the foremost importance in the World. The Heartland theory hypothesized the possibility for a huge empire being brought into existence in the Heartland, which wouldn't need to use coastal or transoceanic transport to supply its military industrial complex but would instead use railways, and that this empire couldn't be defeated by all the rest of the world against it; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geopolitics See also '''Geopolitics''' in Wikipedia]

'''"Euphrates" poplars''' 
One of the five classes of Poplars: ''turanga''. Its scientific name is ''populus euphratica'', a subtropical poplar found usually in Southwest Asia.

'''aryq''' 
Most likely variant of Arrack (OED): name applied in Eastern countries to any liquour of native manufacture, usually distilled coconut palm sap. - Or rather arak, the Middle Eastern equivalent of ouzo, Pernod, etc., which, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arak_%28distilled_beverage%29 according to Wikipedia,] should not be confused with southeast Asian arrack.

'''B.I.N.''' 
Biometric Institute of Neuropathy, see p. 432.

As in "Loony bin".

'''seventeen-syllable''' 
Haiku - japanese poems consisting of 17 syllables, classically arranged in three lines of 5 - 7 - 5 syllables each

Brilliant! 
''Still at it, Suckling?'' 
''Insufferable little'' 
''Prick, I'll break your neck!''

==Page 434==

'''Eta/Nu Transformators''' 
Probably an imaginary scientific device. Eta is most likely a reference to the metric tensor of (four dimensional) Minkowski space. Nu sometimes symbolizes frequency.
:Alternate view 
:In classical electromagnetism, Eta is the wave impedance and Nu is the velocity of the wave; both are related to the material parameters of the medium the wave is traveling in. Specifically, Eta determines how a wave moves between different media (reflection, refraction, and transmission), while the velocity is related to the frequency and wavelength of the wave. Thus, the device probably allows the ships inhabitants to see while in the sand.

'''pari passu''' 
on an equal footing

'''Deep Blavatsky''' 
Named for Madame Helena Blavatsky (Helena Petrovna Hahn), founder of the Theosophical Society [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blavatsky]. Cf. [[ATD_219-242#Page 219|page 219]].

==Page 435==

'''Gurkhas''' 
Nepalese forces that have fought alongside British troops.

'''German professors''' 
Likely a double allusion, first to Professor Werfner of Göttingen, referenced on p. 226, and also to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Schliemann Heinrich Schliemann], the German treasure hunter (not actually a professor) who first established the true historical location of Troy, the site of the Trojan War. His accomplishments are sadly underscored by his extremely amateurish excavation technique which destroyed as much as it extracted from the site.

'''General Forrest''' 
Nathan Bedford Forrest, rebel leader in U.S. Civil War. Although he pioneered high-mobility tactics, he may never have uttered the famous quotation; see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Bedford_Forrest Wikipedia entry.]

Also, recognized as founder of the KKK -- see earlier episode in Colorado.

'''archiepiscopal''' 
Pertaining to an archbishop.

'''jewel-studded Victoria Crosses''' 
The VC is the highest medal for valo(u)r in the British military, about on a par with the Medal of Honor in the U.S. (except that it is never given posthumously). Adding jewels to the award is pure fantasy.

'''Fabergé''' 
Russian jeweler. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Faberg%C3%A9 Wikipedia entry].

'''"appealing though they be or, shall I say, as they are"''' 
Captain Toadflax's corrects his grammatical mistake, an error that is partially obscured by the inverted construction he employs. If one straightens out his words into a more conventional form, e.g., "though they [secular pleasures] be appealing," the error is clearer: ''they'', the third person plural pronoun, requires ''are'' as a verb, i.e. ''pleasures are'' rather than ''pleasures be''. The ''OED'' lists many examples of ''be'' taking the place of ''are'' in similar contexts, but notes that this usage is either dialectal or archaic.
:Why Toadflax commits this error is less clear than what the error itself is. One possibility is that Pynchon is making an allusion to Captains Bildad and Peleg of ''Moby-Dick'', who speak in an archaic vernacular typical of New England Puritans.
::For more information, see the ''OED'', "be, v.," sub-entry, A.I.h.¶.
:'''It isn't an error!''' Toadflax first correctly uses the subjunctive, "appealing though they be"; the choice of mood says he is making a speculative statement, something like "however appealing they are imagined to be." Then he rephrases—changing the meaning of his statement—to the indicative mood, "appealing as they are," saying that the pleasures definitely, factually ''are'' appealing. The contrast of subjunctive and indicative is becoming archaic now, but it wasn't archaic or even odd coming from an educated speaker in the early 20th century.

'''subarenaceous''' 
Below or beneath the sand (sub) + (arenaceous).

==Page 436==

'''limen''' 
threshold

'''transmundane''' 
Beyond the mundane, beyond the world

'''lamaseries''' 
Domiciles of Buddhist lamas (as in "monasteries").

'''Torriform Inclusion''' 
A made-up condition from Torus==Arch.: a large convex molding, semicircular in cross section, located at the base of a classical column?
From the American Heritage Dictionary.
St. Cosmo has just seen, he thinks, a "watchtower".
'Watchtower'-Cf. the name of the magazine (and building in Brooklyn) that the Jehovah's Witnesses use.
'distinguishing man-made from God-made'...

More likely from ''turris'' (Latin), ''torre'' (Spanish) or similar (what's the Italian?) meaning "tower."

'''Urban terrain''' 
(But only cities unwisely built on sand.)

'''Stilton Gaspereaux''' 
??? stilton is type of blue cheese from England.

'''Sven Hedin''' 
Swedish explorer, especially of the Asian countries, and excavator of ruins of ancient cities. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sven_Hedin wikipedia]

'''Aurel Stein''' 
Sir Marc Aurel Stein. Hungarian-born explorer later knighted as a British citizen. Credited with the discovery, and arguably the exploitation, of the Mogao Grottoes in China. A rock-carved repository of ancient Buddhist texts and murals, the grottoes are known collectively as 'The Cave of a Thousand Buddhas' and protected a copy of the Mahayana Diamond sutra, acknowledged as the world's oldest dated printed text. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Aurel_Stein Wikipedia entry].

'''first known maps''' 
None of Ptolemy's maps has survived the classical period. They were, however, reconstructed in manuscript and engraved on copper or carved in wood for editions of the Ptolemy atlas. In 1482, the first woodcut edition, containing the first map of the world to include contemporary discoveries, was published in Ulm, Germany. It contains a brightly handcolored map of the Holy Land....

Allusion to the Map/Territory relation—the relationship between symbol and object. Coined by Alfred Korzybski, “The map is not the territory” is a related expression meaning that an abstraction derived from something, or a reaction to it, is not the thing itself, e.g., the pain from a stone falling on your foot is not the stone; one's opinion of a politician, favorable or unfavorable, is not that person; a metaphorical representation of a concept is not the concept itself; and so on. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory]Here, the (abstract) map itself could be a guide to a spritual quest or to conquest.

==Page 437==

'''Nernst lamps''' 
An electric lamp consisting of a short, slender rod of zirconium oxide (ceramic) in open air, heated to brilliant white incandescence by electrical current. It was developed by the German physicist and chemist Walther Nernst (1864-1941) in 1897 at Goettingen University. In 1905 he formulated the third law of thermodynamics, and in 1920 he received the Nobel Prize in chemistry. For a picture of the lamp [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nernst_lamp Nernst lamp]] and Nernst's bio [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walther_Nernst Nernst.]]

'''range-finder''' 
Cf. 'range', passim

'''level of encryption''' 
(Cf Heisenberg?)Does not seem to allude to Heisenberg and his Uncertainty Principle so much as buried layers of meaning that can hide to invisibility.

'''Mount Kailash''' 
A mountain located in the Chinese Himalayas with great religious significance in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is seen as the residence of Shiva, God of destruction and regeneration. The mountain is visited every year by many religious pilgrims. In Buddhism, the mountain was believed to be the location of a battle between two ancient sorcerers: Milarepa (Tantric Buddhism) and Naro-Bonchung (Tibetan Bön religion). Pynchon is perhaps alluding to the population dividing nature of religions. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Kailash wikipedia].

'''Shiva''' 
Shiva is the formless, timeless and spaceless Supreme God in Shaivism, one of the major branches of Hinduism practiced in India. Shiva means "One who purifies everyone by the utterance of His name" or "The Pure One". The name Shiva is the Holiest of Holy names. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva Shiva]].

'''polarize light... in time''' 
Thematic.

'''Manichaeans''' 
A gnostic sect that followed the third century Persian prophet Mani (Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page 439|page 439]]). Their main theological belief was in a stark divide between Good and Evil, Light and Darkness.

Basic to Manichaeism's doctrine was the conflicting dualism between the realm of God, represented by ''light'' and by spiritual enlightenment, and the realm of Satan, symbolized by ''darkness'' and by the world of material things. To account for the existence of evil in a world created by God, Mani posited a primal struggle in which the forces of Satan separated from God; humanity, composed of matter, that which belongs to Satan, but infused with a modicum of godly light, was a product of this struggle, and was a paradigm of the eternal war between the forces of ''light'' and those of ''darkness''. Christ, the ideal, light-clad soul, could redeem for each person that portion of light God had allotted. Light and dark were seen to be commingled in our present age as good and evil, but in the last days each would return to its proper, separate realm, as they were in the beginning. The Christian notion of the Fall and of personal sin was repugnent to the Manichaeans; they felt that the soul suffered not from a weak and corrupt will but from contact with matter. Evil was a physical, not a moral thing; a person's misfortunes were miseries, not sins. (taken from ''The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, 2001-2005, [[http://www.bartkeby.com/65/ma/Manichae.html Manichaean]].)

Very relevant here in ADT: one could call their theology, BINARY.

==Page 438==

'''expanded sense... Maxwell... Hertz''' 
All forms of electromagnetic radiation form a spectrum, of which visible light is a small part; all such radiation shares fundamental physical properties.
Cf. range as spectrum.

:Let us quote more fully — '''''the light we see as well as the expanded sense of it prophesied by Maxwell, confirmed by Hertz''''' — it means the ''expanded'' understanding of the nature of the visible light (''the sense of it''). In 1865 Maxwell prophesied that, base on his field equations, "light itself is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of waves propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws." (Cf [[ATD_57-80#Page 58|page 58]].) In 1877 Hertz experimentally disdcovered that light behaves exactly as an electromagnetic wave described by the Maxwell Field Equations and is part of the full electromagnetic spectrum. Therefore, Hertz comfirmed what Maxwell prdicted about the nature of light. (Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 318|page 318]].)
:Regardless how the scientific understaning of the nature of light has been expanded and changed, the Manichaean's view of light as invariant will remain, they will worship light to eternity. All other forms of matter are considered 'darkness'.
:Of course it is impossible for the Manichaens to know the dualism, light/darkness, of their theology has the reflection in the dualism of light. Light is a wave (electromagnetic wave) and simultaneously consists of particles (photons).

''''Perfects'''' 
Perfects are the priests of the Cathar, a pantheistic manicheistic sect from the middle ages.

:Since Gaspereaux (and Pynchon) still talking about Manichaean, let's just talk about it. 
:Strict virtue for the Manichaean involved necessarily withdrawal from the world. The community was accordingly divided into two groups; the ''Elect'' or the "Perfects", the ''Primates Manichaeorum'', who embraced a rigourous rule, and the ''Hearers'', the ''auditores'',who led a more normal life and supported the ''Elect'' both by works and alms.

'''Mysteries''' 
''The Book of Secrets'' (or ''The Book of Mysteries''). The sacred Manichaean text by Mani. Cf [[ATD_429-459#Page 439|page 439]].

'''Graeco-Buddhist''' 
Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Graeco-Buddhism, is the cultural syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 800 years in Central Asia in the area corresponding to modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan, between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism Wikipedia]

'''Italo-Islamic style(s)''' 
A result of the Islamic Conquest of Sicily and parts of southern Italy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Sicily Wikipedia on the Emirate of Sicily] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Islam_in_southern_Italy 2]

==Page 439==

'''Nuovo Rialto''' 
Seems like Pynchon creating a "New Rialto" city under these sands as many
cities take the name of an older city and add New....

From Wikipedia: Rialto is an area of the San Polo sestiere of Venice, known for its markets and for the Rialto Bridge.

The area was settled by the ninth century, when a small area in the middle of the Realtine Islands either side of the Rio Businiacus was known as the Rivoaltus. Soon, the Businiacus became known as the Grand Canal, and the district became the Rialto, referring to only the area on the left bank.

The Rialto became an important district in 1097, when Venice's market moved there, and in the following century a boat bridge was set up across the Grand Canal providing access to it. This was soon replaced by the Rialto Bridge.

Pynchon seems to love Venice so Nuovo Rialto is very ironically intended given this scene.

'''Mani''' 
Mani (216-276), founder of religion Manichaeism. He was born in the province Babylon which was then under Persian rule. His family was Persian, bu this name is Aramaic. Mani had probably originally belonged to a Christian sect, now called Elkhasitts. Between the age of 12 and 24, Mani had visions where an angel told him that he would be the prophet of a last divine revelation. Aroudn AD 240, at the Persian court of King Shapur 1, Mani established his own religious philosophy. He and his followers (Manichaeans) regarded the world as irreconcilably divided into the kingdoms of light and darkness, good and evil. They practiced extreme asceticism in their struggle toward the light. At 26 he started on a long journey as the "Ambassador of Light" travelling through the Persian Empire and reaching as far as India, where he came under the influence of Buddhism. As Mani's teaching gained ground he came in opposition to the Zoroastrian priests and the Emperor Bahram 1. From 274 Mani lost the emperor's protection, and he either died in prison or was executed. His death was retold as an incident similar to the crucifixion of Jesus.

'''the Oxus''' 
The Oxus River of the Greeks. Its present-day name is the Amu Darya (or Amu river). It is the longest river in Central Asia. For more and map location see [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amu_Darya the Oxus]].

'''Jenghiz Khan''' 
Jenghiz (or Genghis) Khan (1162-1227), born as Temujin, a son of a Mongol chief. At thirteen he was called to succeed his father, and for years to struggle hard against hostile tribes. His ambition awakening with his continued success. He spent six years in subjugating the Naimans, between Lake Balkhash (in Southeastern Kazakhstan) and the Irtish (an enormous river in Western Siberia) , and in conquering Tangut, south of Gobi desert. In 1206 he started to use the name ''Jenghiz Khan'' — "Very Mighty Ruler". In 1211 he overruan the empire of North China, and in 1271 conquered and annexed the Kara-Chitai empire from Lake Balkhash to Tibet.
In 1218 he attacked the powerful empire of Kharezm, bounded by the Jazartes, Indus, Persian Gulf and Caspian, took Bokhara, Smarkand, Kharezm and other chief cities and returned home in 1225. His lieutenants continued to expand Jenghiz Khan's empire further and further. Jenghiz Khan died on August 18, 1227. He was not only a warrior and conqueror, but a skillful administrator and ruler; he not only conquered empires stretching from the Black Sea to the Pacific, but organized them into states which outlasted the short span that usually measures the life of Asiatic sovereignties. (from Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 1984 edition.)

'''crystallography of the silica medium''' 
Computer-base [silicon] allusion!?
:No! The most common constituent of sand, in inland continental or non-tropical coastal settings, is silicon dioxide (''silica'') usually in the form of quartz which is very resistant to weathering.
:And computer chips are made with silicon metal, not silica.

'''clearly a thousand years more recent than they ought to have been''' 
That is, the Manichean shrines date from the fourteenth Century, not the fourth Century when Mani, the founder, started Manicheanism. Pynchon dating 'when it went bad' in history?

'''Passing of the Remarks''' 
Sounds like a humorous reification of what gets said between sailors. Modeled after Changing of the Guard?

'''Steeplechase Park''' 
Steeplechase Park, located at Coney Island, was an amusement park and collection of rides, funhouses and the like. As a child I used to visit in the late 50's.

'''The Book of Secrets''' 
''The Book of Secrets'', (''Safar al–Asrar''), Manichaean sacred text by Mani. It was also called ''The Book of Mysteries'', and Titus just called it simply ''Mysteries''. It was characterized as "polemical and dogmatic." In eighteen chapters it was written to refute the false doctrines of the established sects and creeds n the world, including the sect of Bardesain or Bardesan. The book evidently dealt with the esoteric life of Jesus. The nature of Soul and Body was defined. And it also described reincarnation. A portion of the book was in the form of a dialogue between Jesus and his apostles. [[http://essenes.net/new/maniwritings.html mani's writitngs]].

==Page 440==

'''screaming...with blood''' 
Screaming motif.

'''''chong pir''''' 
Presumably Uyghur for "big lice."

'''Uyghur''' 
Member of an ethnic group in western China. It is sometimes claimed that the Uyghurs are Indo-European in one sense or another.

'''''Pulex''''' 
Flea.

'''voiced interdental fricative''' 
The ''th'' sound, as in "the" or "with." (Bad example—many if not most speakers use the unvoiced sound in "with." Try "then, other, father.") Basically, the lice lisp. This could be meant to suggest that their speech contains static or noise.

'''skeleton rig''' 
The skeleton rig is a shoulder holster for carrying a concealed handgun. They were developed in the 1890s. A very nice looking one, as well as a description thereof, can be purchased at [http://www.holster-connection.com/html/ted_blocker/tb_Skeleton.html First American Ordnance website], which also just so happens to be my source for the above info.

'''andante''' 
Literally "walking." An Italian word typically seen in notation for classical music. It denotes a moderately slow pace.

'''Sandman Saloon''' 
Tavern for the 'sandmen', without those great tavern names in the above-ground world. Negative associations to this saloon, it seems, unlike the usual saloons in TRP's world. A Neil Gaiman allusion?

==Page 441==

'''Leonard and Lyle''' 
Google comes up with mentioning Sir Leonard Lyle [http://www.parkexplorer.org.uk/park_intro.asp?ID=new16 1], sugar-magnate and heir to Abram Lyle [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Lyle 2] and "Lyle‘s Golden Syrup" [http://www.lylesgoldensyrup.com/LylesGoldenSyrup/PastPresent/default.htm 3]. Thats one interesting logo, what with the dead lion/bees and the tibetan stamp on ATD, btw. Golden Syrup = oil?

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

'''''teke''''' 
From this [http://home.earthlink.net/~lkritikos/glossary.html glossary on greek rembetiko music]: "teke (pl. tekedhes): A club where one could buy hashish and the use of a narghile in which to smoke it"

An American fraternity or a member thereof. Tau Kappa Epsilon. Founded in the 1890s; has had a reputation for being a bit wilder than many fraternities.

'''Spindletop''' 
From wikipedia: Spindletop is a salt dome oil field located in south Beaumont, Texas (approx. 30.02 -94.07) in the United States. On January 10, 1901, the well "Lucas 1" came in at Spindletop, marking the birthdate of the modern petroleum industry. At 100,000 barrels of oil a day, the gusher tripled U.S. oil production overnight, ensuring the second industrial revolution would be fueled not by wood and coal but by oil and its byproducts. Some of the companies chartered to exploit the wealth of Spindletop are some of today's largest and well known corporations such as ExxonMobil, and Texaco.

'''Groznyi''' 
Grozny or Groznyy (Russian: Гро́зный; Chechen: Соьлж-ГIала, Syolzh-Ghaala) is the capital of the Chechen Republic in Russia. The city lies on the Sunzha River....As most of the residents there were Terek Cossacks, the town grew slowly until the development of Oil reserves in the early 20th century. This spiralled development of industry and petrochemical production. In addition to the oil drilled in the city itself, the city became a geographical centre of Russia's network of oil fields, and also in 1893 became part of the Transcaucasia - Russia Proper railway. From wikipedia

'''calyx bits''' 
Bits used for taking core samples in oil exploration. Rods are screwed together to make up the "drill string," with the bit at the bottom end. After exploration, the calyx bit is replaced with a rock bit; the borehole is stabilized with a "casing string" made of pipe (tubing) a little bigger than the bit.

Presumably some kind of mining drill-related equipment. "The mining operations were unusual in that much of the mining was done through large diameter holes drilled with calyx bits." [http://www.ut.blm.gov/sanrafaelohv/explore/historicmining.htm]

'''adults''' 
Chums not adults, then? No,they do not age, it seems.

'''''ässalamu äläykum''''' 
A muslim greeting. Translates to "Peace be with you."

'''anticline''' 
An underground rock structure with a shape resembling a ridge on the surface. Oil exploration focuses on "domes" (like salt domes, see Spindletop entry above) and anticlines, because either of these provides a volume where oil—ascending because it's lighter than rock or water—can collect to make a "pool" that can be exploited.

==Page 442==
'''Had it not (p440) ....someones hidden plans''' 
This whole conversation implies a coming war over oil being sold as a holy mission... why does that sound familiar? Of course, once again, "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred." [[User:Thew|Thew]]

'''''equine altitude''''' 
High horse.

'''allure of Veneto-Uyghur women''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriatic_Veneti Veneti] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanais Veneto] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs Uyghurs] Long distance trade (like wars and tourism in general) is very likely to enforce the intermingling of different [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_pool Gene Pools], which, more often than not, results in particularily beautiful specimens of the kinds involved. Travels of mediterrenean merchants along the various branches of the Silk Road seem to have been pretty common from at least 14th century on - see [http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/pegol.html Pegelotti‘s Merchant Handbook] (ca. 1340) which partially reads like a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonely_planet Lonely Planet Guide] of back then. During the Renaissance most of the merchants (from Florence/Venice/Geneva) set out from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanais Tana/Tanais] which some sources put as a trade-post if not colony of the "West".

'''2 percent . . . most of them''' 
Implies at least 150 in crew.

'''Marco Querini''' 
An oasis named after Marco Querini? i.e. ''Oasi Marco Querini''. In January 1571, Venetians under Marco Querini defeated Turks near Famagusta, Cyprus.

'''Terrenascondite''' 
Italian: terre (pl. of terra) = lands; ascondito, as a past participle is incorrect, it shoult be "nascosto",but it is clearly related to the verb nascondere (archaic: ascondere)= to hide. Translation is undoubtedly "hidden lands".

'''Pozzo San Vito''' 
Italian: Pozzo means well; San Vito is a Saint. Well of San Vito. ''Oasi Pozzo San Vito.'' San Vito, according [http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintv07.htm to this site], died by being boiled in oil, other sources say it was lead - a hint to the subterranean resources here? Cfr. Italian: "Ballo di San Vito", that is, Saint Vitus' Dance, a syndrome having as a consequence tics or jerks. It may be an allusion to involuntary movements or disconntected behaviour(?). Colloquially, "pozzo" also means "crazy".

'''all that incarnation and slaughter will transpire in silence''' 
Calls to mind the silent battle scene in Akira Kurosawa's samurai retelling of ''King Lear'', titled ''Ran'', which translates roughly to "chaos."

==Page 443==

'''peterman option''' 
A 'peterman' is a slang term for a safe-blower.

'''Consommé Imperial''' 
A gingered chicken broth with julienne of carrots and leeks.

'''Timbales de Suprêmes de Volailles''' 
Chicken Supreme Pudding ? Um, Suprêmes de Volailles means the white meat of chicken prepared with a fortified white sauce. To make timbales, the meat is chopped and placed in individual molds, a little grated Gruyère cheese on top, and baked in a water bath (just like some puddings).

'''Gigot Grillé a la Sauce Piquante''' 
A 'gigot' is a leg of lamb or haunch of veal. 'Sauce Piquante' is a spicy sauce.

'''aubergines à la Sauce Mousseline''' 
Eggplants with mussel sauce. -No, the French for mussels is moules, not moussel. A Sauce Mousseline is Hollandaise lightened with a bit of whipped cream. An odd choice perhaps for eggplant, but then Sauce Piquante is more for pork or boiled beef (pot-au-feu) than lamb.

:I've never seen a dog eat eggplant, but it sounds like something one wouldn't want to miss. Only thing is, it has to be somebody else's dog.

'''Pouilly-Fuissé''' 
A white Burgundy made from the Chardonnay grape.

'''Graves''' 
A white wine from the Graves district of France.

==Page 444==

'''Oasi''' 
Plural of "oasis."

:No. ''Oases'' is the plural of ''oasis''. Here, ''Oasi'' is the Italian word for ''oasis''!

'''cataplexy''' 
Sudden loss of muscle power following a strong emotional stimulus.

'''Nobel brothers''' 
Robert and Ludvig Nobel, brothers of Alfred Nobel of dynamite and prize fame, co-founders of Branobel, an important early oil company that controlled a large amount of Russian output. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branobel Wikipedia entry].

'''shaft-alley''' 
Somebody check this: the channel, running fore-and-aft deep in the ship's hull, where the propeller shafts are located.

'''the balloon is up''' 
British metaphor: The action has started. A phrase also used in ''V.''

'''F.O.''' 
Foreign Office

'''''Daily Mail''''' 
London tabloid, staunch early supporters of Adolf Hitler. Today specialises in stirring up hatred of immigrants and other minorities.

'''Inspector Sands''' 
A code word used in London to alert authorities without causing panic amongst the general public. Generally the alert is raised by the fire alarm. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Sands Wikipedia entry].

'''"Sands of Inner Asia"''' 
Captain, now Inspector Sands, seems to be being compared for his achievements to "Lawrence of Arabia" parodistically.

'''Taklamakan''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taklamakan The Taklamakan] (also Taklimakan) is a desert of Central Asia, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. It is known as the largest sand-only desert in the world. Some references fancifully state that Taklamakan means "if you go in, you won't come out"; others state that it means "Desert of Death" or "Place of No Return".

==Page 445==

'''Kashgar to Urumchi''' 
Two cities currently on the far western border of China. Presumably in this context they were two points inside the general area within which the 'Great Powers' competed to try and find Shambhala.

'''fell into the hands of''' 
An analogy with the present-day situation in Central Asia in particular. Throughout the book, there are references to Anarchist/Terrorists, to the spread of dynamite and other kinds of phenomena. These are all technologies that allow, or cause, power to flow into the hands of the powerless to use for their own purposes.

'''those Powers . . . still competing for it''' 
And to complete the analogy, the countries/peoples who have exercised power for centuries and are now baffled to see it flow into the hands of the powerless.

'''World-Island''' 
[[#Page_433|See entry at page 433]]

'''discreet summons''' 
Eg "paging Dr Blue".
It doesn't seem to me to be a phrase that needs a gloss: a discreet summons is simply what it says and made be made in any number of ways.

'''far wicket''' 
A 'wicket' may simply be a gate; but in the context of a novel and the bomber at Headingly cricket ground and Fenners, the Cambridge cricket ground, a 'wicket' is the three stumps at one end of a cricket pitch. ("The Gentleman Bomber of Headingly" - see p.236.)
:That isn't the context here; we are in a government building where supplicants have to pass through gates—wickets—and face bureaucrats through grilles—more wickets.

'''wog''' 
''Chiefly British.'' An ethnic slur used for any dark-skinned peoples. Alleged to stand for "Western Oriental Gentleman", but mainly applied to Indians, Pakistanis, Arabs, and other brown-skinned Asians.
I have heard it comes from 'wily oriental gentleman'; but the Oxford English Dictionary states that the origin is uncertain and defines a 'wog' as someone especially of Arab extraction.
Eric Partridge, in'' A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English'' (8th ed., 1984), suggests that the term derives from "golliwog," the name of a black male doll character with frizzy hair popularized in Bertha Upton's children's story, The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls--and a 'Golliwog' (1895).

'''Vic removal''' 
Perhaps "Victoria removal," i.e., assassination of the Queen. But she died in 1901. What year is it now?

'''eating an explosive''' 
Cf Lew's Cyclomite.

==Page 446==

'''St Martin le Grand''' 
A street in the City of London.

'''Angel Street''' 
Another street in the City which meets St Martin le Grand at right-angles.

'''G.P.O. West''' 
G.P.O - General Post Office

'''pneumatic dispatches''' 
An extensive 'pneumatic dispatch' system existed on London during the Victorian era, started in 1851 and carrying on at least into the 1930's. By 1886 London had 94 telegram tubes totaling 34 1/2 miles and around 4.5 million telegraph messages were carried in cylinders at around 20mph. At its height the network extended some 57 miles connecting 67 branch offices via a central sorting office. See [http://www.capsu.org/history/telegram_conveyors.html] and
[http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm] (with illustrations).

'''drill suits''' 
Drill is a durable cotton fabric; khaki drill is used for uniforms.

'''chars''' 
Charwomen. Maids, cleaners.

'''Hundreds of telegraphers''' 
The scene described, including the pneumatic dispatches and the ostensible concern about terrorism, is very similar to one in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."

'''clicks and rests''' 
Presumably the clicks of a telegraphic system and the rests or silences in between. [[Binarisms_Discussion|Another binarism.]]

'''Northern Temple of Connexion''' 
It's in the north of the City; and the phrase suggests the religious intensity of the need to connect or communicate as well as mildly satirising it.

'''marblework''' 
Such buildings would have used quantities of marble; hence the image of a 'temple' above.

'''Bloggins''' 
An archetypal ordinary man; an everyman figure.

'''allegro vivatchy''' 
phonetic of 'allegro vivace' - a musical term for a quick tempo. If the policeman had been manhandling an English suspect, he would have said "All right then, quick march." An early instance of cultural sensitivity. . . .

==Page 447==

'''grease-paint''' 
'Grease-paint' refers to old-fashioned stage make-up.

'''cylinder of gutta-percha''' 
Pneumatic dispatches were carried in cylinders of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gutta-percha Gutta-Percha] -- an inelastic latex made from the sap of the Gutta-Percha tree -- covered in felt. See [http://www.capsu.org/history/telegram_conveyors.html]. Gutta-percha crops up a number of times in ATD, possibly enough to suggest some sort of motif or connection?

Gutta percha per se is a Victorian equivalent to rubber, or rather hard rubber (they knew to use soft latex for erasers, "gum boots" and such). Discovery of the vulcanization process led to replacement of gutta-percha in many applications.

'''its "D" box''' 
The receiving mechanism on the end of pneumatic dispatch pipe.

"The somewhat complicated pattern of double sluice valve originally used at the central stations has been superseded by a simpler form, known as the D box, so named Despatching from the shape of its cross section. This box is of and cast iron, and is provided with a close-fitting, Receiving brass-framed, sliding lid with a glass panel. This Apparatus, lid fits air-tight, and closes the box after a carrier has been inserted into the mouth of the tube; the latter enters at one end of the box and is there bell-mouthed. A supply pipe, to which is connected a 3-way cock, is joined on to the box and allows communication at will with either the pressure or vacuum mains, so that the apparatus becomes available for either sending (by pressure) or receiving (by vacuum) a carrier. Automatic working, by which the air supply is automatically turned on on the introduction of the carrier into a tube and on closing of the D box, and is cut off when the carrier arrives, was introduced in 1909." From the 1911 Encyclopedia Brittanica entry on Pneumatic Dispatch, cited at [http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/COMMS/pneumess/pneumess.htm]

'''Holborn''' 
Holborn is between the Strand (at the northern end of Waterloo Bridge) and Bloomsbury.

'''Saffron Hill''' 
is in the City, an area named Farringdon, east of Holborn.

'''''tantum dic verbo'' isn't it''' 
Might be derived from that part of the Mass where it's said: "Domine, non sum dignus, ut intres sub tectum meum: sed '''tantum dic verbo''' et sanabitur anima mea" ("Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but '''speak the word''' only, and my soul shall be healed")

Sands seems to be telling Gaspereaux to "just say the word".

'''''intact''''' 
(Did I miss this?)

==Page 448==

'''because I'm mad''' 
???

'''half-sovereign case''' 
A sovereign is old English money for one pound, i.e 20 shillings. A half-sovereign is ten shillings old money.

'''Mr. Campbell-Bannerman''' 
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (1836-1908) was a Liberal MP and then Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1905 to 1908. I'm not sure when he was knighted; but he's not the only character in the novel connected with Trinity College, Cambridge.

==Page 449==

'''Clarabella''' 
Clarabelle=name of the clown on The Howdy Doody Show [TV] in the fifties.

'''Audacity, Iowa''' 
???

==Page 450==

'''DREAMTIME MOVY''' 
Misspelling is dreamlike? Or, more possibly, the spelling hadn't yet been standardized.
:The ''OED'' an cites an occurance of this spelling as late as 1919.

'''log... waterfall''' 
This passage anticipates a scene in D. W. Griffith's 1920 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Way_Down_East Way Down East] in which Lillian Gish, stranded on an ice-floe, rushes toward a potential demise over the edge of the falls. More specifically, Pynchon is here positing this (fictional) collision between the film (i.e., the diegetic world of the film) and the breaking projector (the non-diegetic world of the film!) as the origin of the... (wait for it) -- CLIFFHANGER.
:What does ''diegetic'' mean, please?

'''lens-brother''' 
(Like masonic sign?)(Also reminiscent of the lens (the K/kid/d) carries in Delaney's ''Dhalgren'')

'''Powers movement''' 
Around 1897, Nicholas Power improved the "Maltese Cross" used in the Geneva movement; his company sold [http://www.victorian-cinema.net/power.htm projectors] including the "Peerless" and the popular No. 5. The Power or Power[']s movement could not be adapted to sound projection.

'''Geneva''' 
A watch movement also used in film projection. "The Geneva movement is so called because of its use in Geneva watches as a stop wind. The projection on the driving disk acts as the pawl drive, and the concave projections on the lower disc act as stop pawls. This is used at the present time in motion picture machines for moving the film in front of the lens and is known as the intermittent movement."

'''Wilt Flambo''' 
Flambeau = torch (French).

'''acetylene''' 
When the flammable gas was used for illumination, it was often generated on the spot by dripping water onto lumps of calcium carbide.

==Page 451==

'''nitro in the film''' 
Cellulose nitrate was the predecessor to modern photographic films. The nitrate material might be coated with collodion, which served as the substrate to the chemistry that made the image. Nitrate film was/is notoriously flammable.

'''the tip''' 
The audience. Pynchon uses the word many times in ''AtD.''

'''strange relation''' 
Cf GR on calculus.

'''dark perplexity''' 
Cf Gen X?

'''dilapidated portals''' 
See p.406: the West Gate's "two flanking towers of rusticated stone and Gothical aspect... an aspect of terrible antiquity..."

'''queen-of-the-prairie''' 
[http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/68/index.html Meadowsweet,] ''Filipendula rubra,'' wild flower with clusters of pink blooms in midsummer.

'''Geneva''' 
[[#Page_450|See annotation to p. 450.]]

==Page 452==

'''Sempitern''' 
An archaic term meaning 'eternal', a poetic but appropriate name for a river? Echoing "Serpentine," the lake in London's Hyde Park.

'''Sicilians with equal apprehensions for the principle of the vendetta''' 
If the vendetta began when A killed B, couldn't B's son short-circuit the whole thing by going back in time and killing A first? And then who would be responsible for killing the son? Possible application to the Traverse/Vibe/Deuce relationship, too.

'''siegecraft of Time''' 
Cf Paris Commune siege, p.19.

'''to see in its vortex the fundamental structure of everything''' 
A reference to the Yeatsian conception of the gyre as the primary or fundamental form. "'The mind, whether expressed in history or in the individual life, has a precise movement, which can be quickened or slackened but cannot be fundamentally altered, and this movement can be expressed by a mathematical form’ and this form is the gyre." [http://www.yeatsvision.com/Geometry.html] 

More from wikipedia: "The theory of history articulated in A Vision centers on a diagram composed of two conical spirals, one situated inside the other, so that the widest part of one cone occupies the same plane as the tip of the other cone, and vice versa. Around these cones he imagined a set of spirals. Yeats claimed that this image (he called the spirals "gyres") captured contrary motions inherent within the process of history, and he divided each gyre into different regions that represented particular kinds of historical periods (and could also represent the psychological phases of an individual's development). Yeats believed that in 1921 the world was on the threshold of an apocalyptic moment, as history reached the end of the outer gyre (to speak roughly) and began moving along the inner gyre." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Second_Coming_(poem)] 
Cf. the remark, "history is a step-function" in ''V.''. Is the above an
evolution of that remark/vision? http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11

'''between Cleveland and Denver''' 
Merle's idiosyncratic choice of endpoints? This helps define where Candlebrow is, though.

'''automorphic functions''' 
Auto= self; same as in autogamy. American Heritage Dict. -morph = Form, structure, function. Self-forming, self-structuring-- or self-organizing as Pynchon says elsewhere in ADT.

The phrase has a specific meaning in mathematics, referring to a generalization of periodic functions.

==Page 453==
'''We thus enter the whirlwind''' 
God is sometimes referred to this way. Often Capitalized, but here the speaker is using it literally, but Pynchon maybe metaphorically?

'''Lobatchevskian''' 
of Nikolai Lobachevsky (1793-1856), a Russian Mathematician, co-founder, with Hungarian mathematician János Bolyai, of non-Euclidean geometry. Born at Nizhny Novgorod and a professor at Kazan University from 1814. In 1829 he published his non-Euclidean geometry paper, the first account of that subject in print.

'''Automorphic Dispensation''' 
Self-forming, self-organizing, recurring or periodic dispensation. 
On the meaning of "dispensation" see [[ATD_119-148#Page_128|annotations to p. 128.]]

'''distressing regularity''' 
Explains dilapidation?

'''Thorvald''' 
Scandinavian name from the Old Norse name ''Þórvaldr''. It combines the name "Thor" (thunder) and scandinavian word "valdr" (ruler), to create the meaning "thunder ruler" or "ruler of the thunder". Either would be apt, in this case.

The persisting storm also occurs in ''Mason & Dixon'', in at least one of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels and in Walter Moers‘ [http://www.amazon.com/13-2-Lives-Captain-Bluebear/dp/1585678449/sr=1-1/qid=1170090170/ref=sr_1_1/002-4941751-7235229?ie=UTF8&s=books "13 1/2 lives of Captain Bluebear"].

'''''thresher dinners''''' 
Hearty communal midday meals for men taking part in harvest. Here a sacrifice to Thorvald.

==Page 454==

'''"gaff"''' 
A deceptive feature like the rabbit-concealing false bottom in a magician's top hat.

'''Giant Airships of 1896 and '7''' 
An early UFO sensation. From November 1896 to the summer of '97, newspapers reported numerous sightings of [http://www.balloonlife.com/publications/balloon_life/9607/airship.htm a large cigar-shaped airship]. The first reports came from Sacramento; the "ship" (or ships) moved from west to east, with [http://www.reall.org/newsletter/v06/n03/illinois-ufo-mania-of-1897.html a big concentration in Illinois.] "Contacts" with the people on board the craft all proved to be hoaxes, and the speed of the ship's travel was a pretty good match for the speed of propagation of phony newspaper stories from town to town.

In the context of ''AtD'' we have to ask: In a world where airships were common by 1893, operated by a sizable community of aeronautics clubs like the Chums of Chance, why would another airship create a sensation in 1896? Who would consider it mysterious?

And ''were'' airships common by 1893? [http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/ss/airship_5.htm This brief account] of the technology in our historical context says that trials date back to mid-century, but practical airships appeared only in 1898.

[http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Mysterious-airship.jpg This artist's conception] is no less imaginative than sketches that appeared in the media in 1896-97.

'''Chick''' 
First Chum to appear in non-Chums chapter? Chick is the Chum we know, besides Pugnax if we count him, to have come aboard The Inconvenience from the real world. Another meaning to Counterfly? More earthbound?

==Page 455==

'''Cleveland... trial... Bounce v. Vibe''' 
See p67 & 426

'''Somble, Strool, and Fleshway''' 
[[ATD_26-56#Page_34|See annotations to page 34.]]

''''paranoia querulans'... P.Q.''' 
[[Paranoia_Querulans|Described in the page so titled.]]

'''Hercules''' 
Allusion to Hercules Powder Company, major manufacturer of black powder and other explosives.

'''blasting agent''' 
Just a casual reference to the Hercules product. In a more technical context "blasting agents" are distinguished from "shattering explosives." A blasting agent releases its energy more slowly and produces a heaving action.

'''detonans''' 
That which is detonated - cod latin. Detonans is a present participle, roughly meaning "that detonates" or "detonating".

'''"I'm just another nutty inventor"''' 
Roswell has been discussing his plans to dynamite the Vibe Corp. which has used its power to harrass him. Throughout his work, esp. ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon has dealt with themes involving the split between elect and preterite, or to use a more simplified phrase, winners and losers. Dynamite offers the small and powerless, the "long-shot opponents of the mills of Capital" referred to earlier in the page, an expression of power of their own. In this way it is like the AK-47 today which has made it far more difficult for powers (e.g. the United States in Iraq) to exert control over populations.

==Page 456==

'''aigrette''' 
Literally an egret or aigrette (or Lesser White Heron); hence a tuft of feathers such as an egret has and hence a spray of gems worn on the head and finally luminous rays seen emerging from the moon in solar eclipses or, to quote the OED, "at the ends of electrified bodies" [[ATD_397-428#Page_405|(see annotation to p. 405.)]]

'''Pencil''' 
To mathematicians, a pencil is a family of geometric objects sharing a common property, such as a collection of lines that pass through a common point. (Of course, constipated mathematicians also find pencils useful for working out logs).

'''equivalent of a shrug''' 
Nice anthropomorphism.

'''I want to know light...take some in my hands...and bring it back''' 
More light-infatuation, but this sounds particularly Promethean to me. Everybody knows Prometheus is famous for stealing fire from the Gods and bringing it to man in his unburnable fennel, but for Pynchoniacs, Zeus' reaction to this is quite interesting. Imaginably, Zeus is pretty pissed, so "to punish Prometheus for this hubris (and all of mankind in the process), Zeus devised 'such evil for them that they shall desire death rather than life'". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus Wiki] Then he sends Prometheus "to Mount Caucasus, where an eagle (often shown as a vulture) by the name of Ethon (offspring of the monsters Typhon and Echidna) would pick at his liver; it would grow back each day and the eagle would eat it again." Talk about Eternal Return.

Finally "[t]o punish man for the offenses of Prometheus, Zeus told Hephaestus to "mingle together all things loveliest, sweetest, and best, but look that you also mingle therewith the opposites of each." So Hephaestus took gold and dross, wax and flint, pure snow and mud of the highways, honey and gall; he took the bloom of the rose and the toad's venom, the voice of laughing water and the peacocks squall; he took the sea's beauty and its treachery, the dog's fidelity and the wind's inconstancy, and the mother bird's heart of love and the cruelty of the tiger. All these, and other contraries past number, he blended cunningly into one substance and this he molded into the shape that Zeus had described to him. She was as beautiful as a goddess and Zeus named her Pandora which meant "all gifted"." And a little later on Pandora opens her eponymic box and "all suffering and despair" is unleashed upon mankind.

Some judicious readers may remember we've already been to the Pandora Works back on p.297, and we all know what those light-worshiping Alchemists will do with the metals they remove from mines just like it.

'''machinery . . . more complicated than it needs to be''' 
Merle and Roswell, as alchemists, suspect the problem of "moving pictures" may have a solution with fewer moving parts.

'''lost mines''' 
(Factual?) One of the classic "crazy old galoot" figures in Westerns is the deranged sourdough who can't stop talking about the incredibly rich lode he and his partner found and then lost.

==Page 457==

'''tourbillon''' 
A tourbillon is a type of mechanical clock or watch escapement invented in 1795 by Abraham-Louis Breguet that is designed to counter the effects of gravity and other perturbing forces that can affect the accuracy of a chronometer. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourbillon Wikipedia]

Tourbillon is French for "whirlwind" - Thorvald‘s tiny chronometer-cousin.

'''make time impervious to gravity''' 
Thematic to this book and GR?

'''patent pencils''' 
Mechanical or (British) propelling pencils. "Patent" as in patent medicine, patent leather: innovative, gimmicky, making claims of uniqueness.

Ebenezer Wood "constructed the first hexagon- and octagon-shaped pencil cases that we have today. Ebenezer did not patent his invention and shared his techniques with whoever asked." from Wikipedia.

'''zephyr gingham''' 
From [http://vintagesewing.info/1920s/26-fcm/fcm-16a.html this site]: gingham: A cotton fabric in checks or stripes nearly alike on both sides. zephyr: Anything light and airy. We have zephyr yarns, zephyr gingham, zephyr tissues.

'''lawn''' 
a thin or sheer linen or cotton fabric, either plain or printed.

'''pongee''' 
silk of a slightly uneven weave made from filaments of wild silk woven in natural tan color or its cotton imitation.

==Page 458==

'''professors... engineers''' 
Theory vs practice.

'''Latinate token of prestige''' 
PhD (''Philosophiae Doctor''), summa cum laude, etc.

'''suspicious of night horizons''' 
(sunsets?)Absence of light horizons? You can't see the horizon at night unless ''something'' is flashing and flaring over beyond it. Townsfolk are traditionally suspicious of strange flickerings in the sky. Fireworks specialists give you a way out: "Oh, Luigi was just trying out a new star shell."

'''current... purity''' 
Free of noise?

'''Minkowski''' 
Hermann Minkowski was a German mathematician who made useful contributions in the development of relativity, amongst other things. Cf [[ATD_318-335#Page 324|page 324]] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Minkowski]

'''Three times ten... minus one seconds''' 
Three times ten to the fifth refers to the speed of light. The square root of minus 1 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_unit Wikipedia] is also known as the Imaginary Unit or i. i is sometimes also expressed as the square root of -1, as here. Complex numbers [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_number Wikipedia] can be expressed as a + bi where a is the real part of the complex number and b is the imaginary part. Complex numbers were an important element of the work of both Minkowski and Einstein. Also, for imaginary number Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 133|page 133]] and complex number Cf [[ATD_119-148#Page 132|page 132]].

''Against the Day'' takes place at the time when Newtonian physics were being supplanted, at least in theory, by physics based on Relativity. This equation touches on that. But also, the use of a real and an imaginary number returns to the theme of duality that arises throughout the book. The spacetime measured by imaginary or complex numbers would seem to be something different though co-existent with 'our' spacetime.

'''other expression''' 
Contextually, Roswell seems to be refering to the other side of the above equation...'that other expression 'over there'...they are at a slate "blackboard."

'''he called the equation "pregnant"''' 
Minkowski used the German word ''prägnant,'' which doesn't mean "pregnant." It means concise, precise, penetrating.

'''astronomical distance''' 
Small-scale astronomy then: 3x105 km is about two-thirds of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

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

ATD 374-396

2007-06-23T18:52:23Z

Thew: /* Page 378 */

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

==Page 374==

'''a dime novel . . . suffering in its name''' 
The novel is, presumably, ''The Chums of Chance in Old Mexico'', as described on [[ATD 1-25#Page 7|p. 7]].

'''Ewball Oust''' 
Oust is a [http://www.oust.com odor eliminator] the container of which has a quite phallic shape. And there's that phallic "U" again (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_130|p.130]]), conjoined with "ball" which the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines as "5. Any rounded protuberant part of the body." It is thought that "ball" is derived from the Indo-European word ''bhel'', meaning to blow, swell; with derivatives referring to various round objects and to the notion of tumescent masculinity. Derivatives include ''boulevard'', ''boulder'', ''phallus'', ''balloon'', ''ballot'', and ''fool''. [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzb01800.html] So Ewball Oust plays into [[The Sexual Angle]] in ''AtD'', where sexual names proliferate.

:Interestingly, there's a game called U-Ball (aka Ubuntu Ball) that pits two ball-throwing teams, separated by a center line, against each other. The object of the game is to get all of your opponents “out” of the game by either 1) Hitting them with a ball you throw, or 2) Catching a ball they throw at you while trying to get you out.

:When someone is “out” of the game [o-or ousted!], they leave the main playing area and join other “out” teammates on the other side of their opponent’s team, also separated by a line (like the end line on a volleyball court). While “out,” players act as a backstop to catch balls thrown by their teammates that go through their opponents’ side. “Out” people also can throw at their opponents to get their opponents “out.” Once you are “out” you stay out, so you can’t come back in when you hit someone from your “out” position.

:The game ends when the last person on one side is hit or throws a ball that is caught. [http://www.elca.org/hunger/facts/uball.html]

The game is also known as dodgeball.

:''Ubuntu'' is a traditional sub-Saharan African concept, which roughly translated means “I am because we are”.

:...and he may just turn out to be a bit of a [scr]ewball. [[User:Thew|Thew]] 19:28, 21 June 2007 (PDT)

'''''charro''''' 
Spanish: Mexican cowboy.

'''Veta Madre''' 
It is not a mine, but rather the original saying ''Mother Lode''. Many silver mines in Guanajuato city are on the Veta Madre. See [http://www.mindat.org/loc-7776.html Veta Madre].

'''Toplady Oust''' 
Toplady Oust was conceived "in a choir loft during a rendition of 'Rock of Ages'" written by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Montague_Toplady Reverend Toplady], and thus named! And what would be so, er, stimulating about "Rock of Ages," (cleft for me...)...?

Rev'd Toplady, in ''A Short Essay on Original Sin'', likened the soul at death to a [[Birds|bird]] leaving a cage:
:Conformably to this view of things, Plato chose to derive ''soma'' the Greek word for body; from ''sayma'' which signifies a tomb or sepulchre: on supposition that the body is that to a soul which a grave is to the body; and that souls emerge from the body by death as a bird flies from a broken cage, or as a captive escapes from a place of painful and dishonourable confinement. [http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/atoriginalsin.htm]

''''Rock of Ages'''' 
'Rock of Ages' is one of the world's best-loved Christian hymns with the original lyrics by Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady and music by Thomas Hastings. The lyrics were first published in ''The Gospel Magazine'' in 1775 with the music added in around 1830. Of course, there are now several modernised vresions. For the lyrics and more information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Ages Rock of Ages] and [http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/rockofages.html RofA].

'''Patio method''' 
The Spaniards in Mexico used the "patio" method to extract silver from its ore. The process takes its name from shallow circular pits, 15 yards across, in which the ore was worked. Silver ore was ground up with water to make mud, and this mud was spread 10 inches deep over the patio. Miners then added salt and mercury and mixed everything by having mules pull stone blocks over it repeatedly. This process forced the silver to combine chemically with the mercury. The mud was rinsed away, and the silver-mercury compound was heated to force off the mercury. Miners in Tegucigalpa imported large amounts of salt from the southern coast and mercury, from Seville to produce their silver. [http://www.marrder.com/htw/2001mar/cultural.htm From HondurasThisWeek website]

==Page 375==

'''Washoe process''' 
The Washoe Process
In the Washoe Process (named for Indians that inhabited the area around Lake Tahoe, and thus the name for the area around Virginia City, the name now preserved in the name of the neighboring county, Washoe County), the improvement to the process of heating the ore during extraction in an iron pan increased the recovery and decreased the processing time. The iron from the pan acted as the reducing agent for the silver:

2AgCl + Fe = 2Ag + FeCl2

The drive for this reaction is nearly 0.6 volts greater than the drive for the reaction for reducing silver using copper (at standard conditions as above), so this reaction is highly favored.

In addition, heating the reaction mixture helped the formation of the amalgam of silver with mercury. In this reaction, the mercury was not changed into mercurous chloride (calomel), so mercury was not used up in the process. The iron pans and iron mixers (mullers) would be consumed in the process, but these could be replaced readily. <ref>Dennis, W.H., A Hundred Years of Metallurgy, Gerals Duckworth & Co., Ltd., London, 1963, p. 282-287</ref>

'''Guanajuato''' 
The capital city, northwest of Mexico City, of the state of the same name in Mexico's central highland. It is located at an elevation of 6,550 ft and in one of the richest silver mining area of Mexico.
:Guanajuato is also mentioned as an important secondary source of [[I|Iceland spar.]]

'''ores tend to be free-milling''' 
The fragments remain separate (thus accessible to the leaching process) rather than reagglomerating.

'''''Espato''''' 
Spanish: Spar. Iceland Spar is 'espato de Islandia'.

'''''espanto''''' 
Spanish: something strange, ugly or shocking. Also a haunt or ghost.

'''''Espantoso''''' 
Spanish: Horrible or shocking

''''La Cucaracha'''' 
'The Cockroach', a popular folk song during the Mexican revolution. There were many versions of different lyrics. One of them was said to mock General Huerta. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_cucaracha Wikipedia].

'''hoosegow''' 
jail.

'''''grifa''''' 
marihuana

==Page 376==

'''General Huerta''' 
Gen. Victoriano Huerta (1854-1916) was on the make in the period of the action. He was an Army general, but also a villain, a drunkard, a drug addict and, for a brief time, the President of Mexico between October 1913 and July 1914. [http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/history/vhuerta1.html Here] is a précis of his career.

'''Bajío''' 
Bajío is a region in Mexico in the central highland state of Guanajuato.

'''the eve of a turn in history''' 
Pynchon's own spoiler. The Mexican Revolution is brewing.

'''Torreón... Zacatecas... León... Silao''' 
Torreón is a desert city to the north, in Coahuila. Zacatecas is both a state and city in Central Mexico, situated between Torreón and León. León and Silao are cities in Guanajuato. León is the fifth largest city in Mexico (by population).

Zacatecas was the site of a major revolt against Porfirio Díaz's government during the Mexican Revolution of 1910, in which Pancho Villa attempted to capture the city of Zacatecas and the state's lucrative silver mines. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacatecas see here].

'''mesquite''' 
A leguminous plant of the Prosopis genus found in Northern Mexico and Southwestern U.S. Mesquite trees are also found in the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico.

'''ore tailing''' 
residue separated in the preparation of ore.

'''''tlachiqueros''''' 
The workers who make ''pulque'' - a traditional navtive beverage of Mesoamerica.

'''maguey juice''' 
Juice from the maguey, an agave, ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maguey maguey]), or century plant, from which ''pulque'' is made.

'''campesino''' 
A simple farmer or farmworker is referred to as a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campesino campesino] in Spanish.

'''Vera Cruz puros''' 
Spanish: Vera Cruz cigars.

'''zinc''' 
It is a moderately reactive bluish-white metal that tarnishes in moist air and burns in air with a bright greenish flame. Zinc is the fourth most common metal in use, trailing only iron, aluminium and copper in annual production.

'''Empresas Oustianas, S.A.''' 
Oustian Enterprises, Anonymous Society (S.A. just points to a form of incorporation, nothing sinister).

==Page 377==

'''pulque''' 
A Mexican alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of various agaves. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulque pulque].

'''''callejon''''' 
Spanish: callejon: narrow street, alley.

'''''subida''''' 
Spanish: subida: a street going uphill.

'''Semana Santa''' 
Spanish: Holy Week (week before Easter).

'''Judas Iscariot''' 
According to the New Testament, Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve original apostles of Jesus and the one who betrayed him.

'''''rurales''''' 
Mexican Rural Guard, a force of mounted police or gendarmerie that became famous during th period of President Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911). For further information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurales rurales].

==Page 378==

'''''juzgado''''' 
Spanish: court, likely orgin of hoosegow.

'''Calle Juarez''' 
Spanish: Juarez Street.

'''''Mordida''''' 
Spanish: bribe.

'''Broomhandle''' 
Cf German self-loader.

'''''pistoles''''' 
The word ''pistoles'' does not exist in Spanish, although ''pistolas'' would mean guns, specifically, handguns, pistols. Probably the -''E'' in ''pistoles'' was a phonetical adaptation to ease pronunciation for non-Spanish speakers in the U.S.

'''''esposas''''' 
Spanish: Handcuffs.

esposa is also "wife" in spanish.

'''Panteon''' 
Spanish: Cemetery.

'''Cerro del trozado''' 
A hill in Guanajuato, where the cemetery of St. Paula is located. The place where the famous 'Momias de Guanajuato' (Mummies of Guanajuato, [http://poetry.rotten.com/momias/ momias]) were found (cf p.383).

'''''¿Donde estamos?''''' 
Spanish: Where are we? (?)

'''''El Palacio de Cristal''''' 
Spanish (ironic): the Crystal Palace.

The real Crystal Palace is known from [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C#crystal-palace ''Gravity's Rainbow''], of course. "One of the glories of the Victorian era. It was designed entirely of glass and iron by Joseph Paxton, a former head gardener at Chatsworth, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, or to give it its full name, the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. It was originally erected in Hyde Park but moved to Sydenham in 1854 with some alterations, including the addition of two towers, and used as an exhibition, entertainment, and recreational centre. It became national property in 1911 and was destroyed by fire in 1936." From the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C ''GR'' wiki].

'''''La politica''''' 
Spanish: politics, the political.

'''''Felicitaciones''''' 
Spanish: Congratulations.

==Page 379==

'''Porfirio Díaz''' 
Mexican President from 1876 to 1880 (with exception of months) and from 1884 to 1911. Cf p.7 and also see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%Adaz Díaz].

'''''chinches''''' 
Spanish: Bedbugs

'''Dwayne Provecho''' 
In Mexico, and other Latin American cultures, "Buen Provecho" is a phrase spoken to one's companions before a meal. Used like the French "Bon appétit", it means "Enjoy your meal." This makes Dwayne's comment on page 381 that much more humorous: "You boys sure eat good,"

'''Nogales''' 
City of Nogales, AZ. Just across the border: Nogales, Mexico.

'''''frontera''''' 
Spanish: border.

'''As time passed''' 
It could be a considerable time; folklore characters who get penned up underground can't tell if a night and a day, seven years or even a century has passed up above.

'''No say prayo-coopy, compadre''' 
"No se preoccupe". Don't worry, buddy.

==Page 380==

'''''cientificos''''' 
Spanish: scientists.

'''Amparo''' 
??? A feminine Spanish name, means "protection, shelter."

'''hidalgo''' 
A member of the lower nobility of Spain. (Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary)

:means something else here? maybe jewelery?

==Page 381==

'''''lisonjeros''''' 
Spanish: Flatterers

'''"They say it was something one of you did a long time ago, back on the Other Side." 
Cf. Page 37, Lew Basnight's unknowable transgression: "...by way of a sin he was supposed to have once committed." Also interesting to note the capitalization of Other Side, which sounds the other-dimension motif.

'''bolillos''' 
Mexican rolls.

'''El Chinganáriz''' 
The nosefuck (approximately). The salsa described here would be so potent it would cause your nose to turn red, get runny, irritated and perhaps even bleed.

'''in the shadow of the ''paredón''''' 
Delicate reference to his being stood against the big wall (''paredón'') and shot.

'''P.L.M.''' 
Partido Liberal Mexicano, Mexican Liberal Party, reformist organization prominent in the 1910 Revolution.

'''Flores Magón brothers''' 
Ricardo Flores Magón, founder of P.L.M., and his brothers Jesús and Enrique. Considered heroes of the Mexican Revolution. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Flores_Mag%C3%B3n Wikipedia entry]

'''''¿verdad?''''' 
Isn't it? Right?

'''Camilo Arriaga''' 
Mexican journalist, politician and writer from San Luis Potosí. Founder, along with the Flores Magon brothers, of the P.L.M.

'''''potosino''''' 
i.e. person from San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

==Page 382==

'''''muñeca''''' 
Spanish: Doll. Often used as a term of endearment or compliment.

'''''caldereros y sus macheteros''''' 
Perhaps a reference to the makers of 'barbacoa', which has a very strong odor, traditionally associated also with its makers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbacoa Wikipedia entry on barbacoa].
:not quite convinced.
::Tequila and beer, and ''calderero'' derived from ''caldera'' = boiler. So: boilermakers and their helpers. (Where I come from the boilermaker includes the helper, but somewhere else in ''AtD'' the beer is named separately.)

==Page 383==

''''"everybody here thinks you're the Kierselguhr Kid"'''' 
The 'Kieselguhr Kid' has become a myth, a construct. There has to be one.
All sorts of things are expected of 'him' from both his enemies and his friends. A little like Bin Laden?
:Cf. the "legend" of the Kieselguhr Kid, [[ATD_171-198#Page_172|p. 172 and annotations.]] There has to be one.

'''''cuchillo''''' 
Knife.

'''''momias''''' 
Spanish: Mummies. More about Guanajuato's famous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummies_of_Guanajuato Mummies] at Wikipedia.
Also cf p.378.

==Page 384==

'''Marfil''' 
Spanish: Ivory.

'''''compinche''''' 
Spanish: Pal, buddy, (chum?)

'''''vaquero''''' 
Spanish: cowboy.

'''Ay, Jalisco''' 
''Ay, Jalisco! No te rajes'', is a common Mexican idiom. It means that you shouldn't back out of any situation, even when the odds are against you. Jalisco itselft is a state in West-central Mexico whose capital city is Guadalajara.

'''El Ñato''' 
Also a character in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', where he was the leader of the Argentinians trying to emigrate to Germany.

==Page 385==

'''a very large tropical parrot''' 
Cf. the "parrot with a disdainful smile," p. 129.

'''''m'hijo''''' 
Spanish: my son. Apocopation of 'mi hijo'. Used in certain regions of Mexico as a term of endearment, not necessarily indicating blood relation.

'''''pendejo''''' 
Spanish: A vaginal hair. Usually, used in Mexico as an obscenity that roughly translates to "dick" or "asshole" depending on context.

'''''sin embargo''''' 
Spanish: Nevertheless

'''''¡Vámonos!''''' 
Spanish: Lets go!

'''''guerrillero''''' 
Spanish: guerrilla.

'''''el Famoso Chavalito del Quiselgur''''' 
Spanish: The famous Kieselguhr Kid

==Page 386==

'''''copa''''' 
Spanish: A glass (of a spirited drink).

'''''pues''''' 
Spanish: Well

'''a partial vacuum in the passage of time''' 
Cf. p. 373, "a place promised them, not by God, which'd be asking too much of the average Anarchist, but by certain hidden geometries of History, which must include, somewhere, at least at a single point, a safe conjugate to all the spill of accursed meridians, passing daily, desolate, one upon the next."

'''Maxim gun''' 
The Maxim gun was the first self-powered machine gun, invented by the American-born Briton Sir Hiram Maxim in 1884. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_gun wikipedia entry]

'''''Que guapa, que tetas fantasticas, verdad?''''' 
Spanish: "How beautiful, what fantastic tits, eh?" (right?)

==Page 387==

'''Cuban claro''' 
A kind of Cuban cigar or ''habanos'' made with a light-colored (''claro'') wrapper.

'''Partidos wrapper''' 
A region of Cuba, where some of the finest ''habanos'' are made.

'''''tropa''''' 
Spanish: A group of soldiers, a troop

'''Parrot Joaquin''' 
Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi was the first novelist in Latin America. His most famous work is ''El periquillo sarniento'', translated to English as ''The Mangy Parrot''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Joaqu%C3%ADn_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_Lizardi Wikipedia entry]

'''''pendejo''''' 
Spanish (slang): idiot, stupid.

'''''huevon''''' 
A Mexican obscenity, meaning literally 'to have big testicles'; roughly translates as 'lazy'.

''''Double refraction'''' 
Once again the theme of dual natures.

'''psitticide''' 
Parrot-murder.

'''''Caray''''' 
Spanish: Damn!

'''Palacio del Gobierno''' 
Spanish: Government Palace.

'''''loco''''' 
Spanish: Crazy.

'''''lucas''''' 
One of the writers of the gospels; a common name in Mexico. Used as an euphemism for 'crazy'.

==Page 388==

'''jack''' 
Jackass, burro.

'''Monte el Refugio''' 
Mount Refuge.

'''''mierda''''' 
shit.

'''Huertistas''' 
Huerta's troops.

'''Sombrerete''' 
A small town in Zacatecas.

'''Tarahumares''' 
Indigenous people of northern Mexico, renowned for their long-distance running ability. [[Tarahumare Indians of Mexico|Article + pics]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara Wikipedia Entry].

First mentioned as among the "exhibits" at the White City on P.23.

==Page 389==

'''Yaquis''' 
Central American Indian tribe that inhabit the Mexican state of Sonora. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaqui Wikipedia entry].

'''Mayas''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayo_people Mayos] are an Indian tribe that inhabit the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa. For an Anglo it might be a natural mistake to say "Maya," but the context points to "Mayo" because in history, geography and language the Mayo and the Yaqui have a close association. Maya peoples live far to the south.

'''Mausers''' 
Someone holding a Mauser bolt action rifle, commonly known as ''palotruenos'' during the Mexican Revolution. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser Wikipedia entry on Mauser]

'''fandango saloon''' 
Saloon featuring a style of flamenco music and dance. These are especially popular in the southwest United States.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandango Wikipedia entry].

'''''Es mi destino, Pancho.''''' 
That is my destiny, Pancho. "Pancho" is a common short name for Francisco, as "Frank" is in English.

==Page 390==

'''''vaya con Dios''''' 
Spanish: go with God.

'''''Hasta lueguito''''' 
Spanish: See you later.

'''''anarquistas''''' 
Spanish: anarchists.

'''El Espinero''' 
Spanish: The thorn-man

'''''shabotshi''''' 
This is a Tarahumare word meaning "bearded one" and is most often used to refer, with derision, to Mexicans. Among the Tarahumare men, beards are rare. [http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/16426/99.html Carl Lumholtz' ''Unknown Mexico'' Ebook]

'''''brujo''''' 
Spanish: sorcerer, shaman.

'''''Que toza tienes alla''''' 
"What a log you've got there." Frank should be flattered. A toza is pretty much an entire tree trunk. See toza picture [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Trillo-6_tronco_de_pino.png].

==Page 391==

'''nopales''' 
Prickly pear cacti.

'''Nicol prism''' 
optical device that produces plane-polarized light.

'''scalenohedral habit''' 
Habit means the characteristic crystalline form of a mineral. Scalenohedral means the form is of a scalenohedron, a solid body the faces of which are all scalene triangles. Therefore, the calcit crystal Frank was looking at had the characteristic crystalline form of a scalenohedron.

==Page 392==

'''a sun-bleached stick with an elegant warp''' 
Carl Lumholtz, in ''Unknown Mexico'' ([http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16426 text available in Project Gutenberg]), Vol. 1, Chap. IV, reports: "[A]n interesting find [in an ancient pueblo dwelling] was a 'boomerang' similar to that used to this day by the Moqui Indians for killing rabbits."

'''''Hikuli''''' 
Peyote. This scene, with the ''brujo'' giving Frank peyote, followed by him barfing and then flying, is highly reminiscent of Carlos Castaneda's works, esp. ''Tales of Power''.

'''while it was alive''' 
(Most vegetables?)

==Page 393==

'''"The idea was that water should be everywhere, free to everybody. It was life. Then a few got greedy."''' 
The idea of dual natures, or dual forces has come up repeatedly (cf. [[ATD 219-242#renfrew|Renfrew p. 226]]). Here we have a variation that is a bit like the concept of Original Sin. There is a single location near the desert where all the rain that would have fallen in the desert falls. This is a punishment for the greed of some people. Alternatively, it could be seen -- and in fact is described in the passage -- as a balance. The greed of 'some people' distorts the intended even distribution of water. To balance this, a concentration occurs somewhere else. Notice that with the idea of balance, the old Original Sin concept is altered. 'Intent' in the sense of divine intent or punishment, is much less clear. Instead there is a notion of consequences. One imbalance leads to a counter balance. 
This is also, perhaps, a statement about non-violent anarchism, enough for all in nature, if no one 'gets greedy".

==Page 394==

'''Tears of Job''' 
An annual grass (Coix lacryma-jobi) native to Asia and naturalised in North America.

==Page 395==

'''out-of-scale plain...mineral condition''' 
recalls Genesis 19:25,26, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: "He overthrew those cities and destroyed all the Plain, with everyone living there and everything growing in the ground. But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she turned into a pillar of salt".

See also p.391: (talking about a piece of spar) "as if there were a soul harbored within". And so the end of GR: "and a Soul in ev'ry stone..."

'''Bolsón de Mapimí''' 
Spanish: ''Mapimi Basin'' - An enclosed depression in northern Mexico, that comprises parts of the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango. Situated in the arid northern plateau region and averaging 3,000 ft (900 m) in elevation, it is structurally similar to the Basin and Range region of Arizona and New Mexico, in the United States. One ''very'' interesting thing about the Mapimi Basin is the "[[Zone of Silence]]"...

'''Budweiser Little Big Horn panorama''' 
"This depiction of a horrific (if somewhat-deserved) massacre has been brought to you in sweeping panorama by Bludweiser and by Blud Lite. Bludweiser - this Blud's for you!"

The painting "Custer's Last Fight" by Cassily Adams, widely reproduced by Anheuser-Busch for advertising.

'''blood . . . ''Fin''''' 
Cinematic imagery.

'''''¿Y el otro?''''' 
Spanish: And the other one?

'''''El se fue''''' 
Spanish: He left.

'''''jarrito''''' 
Spanish: A small jug, usually made of clay.

'''''¿Y cuándo vuelva?''''' 
Spanish: And when does he come back?

'''''Nunca me dijo nada, mi jefe.''''' 
Spanish: He never told me anything, boss.

==Page 396==

'''''Si el caballero quisiera algún recuerdo ...''''' 
Spanish: If the gentleman would like any souvenir...

'''''pistoleros''''' 
Spanish: gunslingers

==References==
<references/>
==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 374-396

2007-06-22T02:32:53Z

Thew: /* Page 374 */

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

==Page 374==

'''a dime novel . . . suffering in its name''' 
The novel is, presumably, ''The Chums of Chance in Old Mexico'', as described on [[ATD 1-25#Page 7|p. 7]].

'''Ewball Oust''' 
Oust is a [http://www.oust.com odor eliminator] the container of which has a quite phallic shape. And there's that phallic "U" again (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_130|p.130]]), conjoined with "ball" which the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines as "5. Any rounded protuberant part of the body." It is thought that "ball" is derived from the Indo-European word ''bhel'', meaning to blow, swell; with derivatives referring to various round objects and to the notion of tumescent masculinity. Derivatives include ''boulevard'', ''boulder'', ''phallus'', ''balloon'', ''ballot'', and ''fool''. [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzb01800.html] So Ewball Oust plays into [[The Sexual Angle]] in ''AtD'', where sexual names proliferate.

:Interestingly, there's a game called U-Ball (aka Ubuntu Ball) that pits two ball-throwing teams, separated by a center line, against each other. The object of the game is to get all of your opponents “out” of the game by either 1) Hitting them with a ball you throw, or 2) Catching a ball they throw at you while trying to get you out.

:When someone is “out” of the game [o-or ousted!], they leave the main playing area and join other “out” teammates on the other side of their opponent’s team, also separated by a line (like the end line on a volleyball court). While “out,” players act as a backstop to catch balls thrown by their teammates that go through their opponents’ side. “Out” people also can throw at their opponents to get their opponents “out.” Once you are “out” you stay out, so you can’t come back in when you hit someone from your “out” position.

:The game ends when the last person on one side is hit or throws a ball that is caught. [http://www.elca.org/hunger/facts/uball.html]

The game is also known as dodgeball.

:''Ubuntu'' is a traditional sub-Saharan African concept, which roughly translated means “I am because we are”.

:...and he may just turn out to be a bit of a [scr]ewball. [[User:Thew|Thew]] 19:28, 21 June 2007 (PDT)

'''''charro''''' 
Spanish: Mexican cowboy.

'''Veta Madre''' 
It is not a mine, but rather the original saying ''Mother Lode''. Many silver mines in Guanajuato city are on the Veta Madre. See [http://www.mindat.org/loc-7776.html Veta Madre].

'''Toplady Oust''' 
Toplady Oust was conceived "in a choir loft during a rendition of 'Rock of Ages'" written by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Montague_Toplady Reverend Toplady], and thus named! And what would be so, er, stimulating about "Rock of Ages," (cleft for me...)...?

Rev'd Toplady, in ''A Short Essay on Original Sin'', likened the soul at death to a [[Birds|bird]] leaving a cage:
:Conformably to this view of things, Plato chose to derive ''soma'' the Greek word for body; from ''sayma'' which signifies a tomb or sepulchre: on supposition that the body is that to a soul which a grave is to the body; and that souls emerge from the body by death as a bird flies from a broken cage, or as a captive escapes from a place of painful and dishonourable confinement. [http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/atoriginalsin.htm]

''''Rock of Ages'''' 
'Rock of Ages' is one of the world's best-loved Christian hymns with the original lyrics by Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady and music by Thomas Hastings. The lyrics were first published in ''The Gospel Magazine'' in 1775 with the music added in around 1830. Of course, there are now several modernised vresions. For the lyrics and more information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Ages Rock of Ages] and [http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/rockofages.html RofA].

'''Patio method''' 
The Spaniards in Mexico used the "patio" method to extract silver from its ore. The process takes its name from shallow circular pits, 15 yards across, in which the ore was worked. Silver ore was ground up with water to make mud, and this mud was spread 10 inches deep over the patio. Miners then added salt and mercury and mixed everything by having mules pull stone blocks over it repeatedly. This process forced the silver to combine chemically with the mercury. The mud was rinsed away, and the silver-mercury compound was heated to force off the mercury. Miners in Tegucigalpa imported large amounts of salt from the southern coast and mercury, from Seville to produce their silver. [http://www.marrder.com/htw/2001mar/cultural.htm From HondurasThisWeek website]

==Page 375==

'''Washoe process''' 
The Washoe Process
In the Washoe Process (named for Indians that inhabited the area around Lake Tahoe, and thus the name for the area around Virginia City, the name now preserved in the name of the neighboring county, Washoe County), the improvement to the process of heating the ore during extraction in an iron pan increased the recovery and decreased the processing time. The iron from the pan acted as the reducing agent for the silver:

2AgCl + Fe = 2Ag + FeCl2

The drive for this reaction is nearly 0.6 volts greater than the drive for the reaction for reducing silver using copper (at standard conditions as above), so this reaction is highly favored.

In addition, heating the reaction mixture helped the formation of the amalgam of silver with mercury. In this reaction, the mercury was not changed into mercurous chloride (calomel), so mercury was not used up in the process. The iron pans and iron mixers (mullers) would be consumed in the process, but these could be replaced readily. <ref>Dennis, W.H., A Hundred Years of Metallurgy, Gerals Duckworth & Co., Ltd., London, 1963, p. 282-287</ref>

'''Guanajuato''' 
The capital city, northwest of Mexico City, of the state of the same name in Mexico's central highland. It is located at an elevation of 6,550 ft and in one of the richest silver mining area of Mexico.
:Guanajuato is also mentioned as an important secondary source of [[I|Iceland spar.]]

'''ores tend to be free-milling''' 
The fragments remain separate (thus accessible to the leaching process) rather than reagglomerating.

'''''Espato''''' 
Spanish: Spar. Iceland Spar is 'espato de Islandia'.

'''''espanto''''' 
Spanish: something strange, ugly or shocking. Also a haunt or ghost.

'''''Espantoso''''' 
Spanish: Horrible or shocking

''''La Cucaracha'''' 
'The Cockroach', a popular folk song during the Mexican revolution. There were many versions of different lyrics. One of them was said to mock General Huerta. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_cucaracha Wikipedia].

'''hoosegow''' 
jail.

'''''grifa''''' 
marihuana

==Page 376==

'''General Huerta''' 
Gen. Victoriano Huerta (1854-1916) was on the make in the period of the action. He was an Army general, but also a villain, a drunkard, a drug addict and, for a brief time, the President of Mexico between October 1913 and July 1914. [http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/history/vhuerta1.html Here] is a précis of his career.

'''Bajío''' 
Bajío is a region in Mexico in the central highland state of Guanajuato.

'''the eve of a turn in history''' 
Pynchon's own spoiler. The Mexican Revolution is brewing.

'''Torreón... Zacatecas... León... Silao''' 
Torreón is a desert city to the north, in Coahuila. Zacatecas is both a state and city in Central Mexico, situated between Torreón and León. León and Silao are cities in Guanajuato. León is the fifth largest city in Mexico (by population).

Zacatecas was the site of a major revolt against Porfirio Díaz's government during the Mexican Revolution of 1910, in which Pancho Villa attempted to capture the city of Zacatecas and the state's lucrative silver mines. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacatecas see here].

'''mesquite''' 
A leguminous plant of the Prosopis genus found in Northern Mexico and Southwestern U.S. Mesquite trees are also found in the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico.

'''ore tailing''' 
residue separated in the preparation of ore.

'''''tlachiqueros''''' 
The workers who make ''pulque'' - a traditional navtive beverage of Mesoamerica.

'''maguey juice''' 
Juice from the maguey, an agave, ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maguey maguey]), or century plant, from which ''pulque'' is made.

'''campesino''' 
A simple farmer or farmworker is referred to as a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campesino campesino] in Spanish.

'''Vera Cruz puros''' 
Spanish: Vera Cruz cigars.

'''zinc''' 
It is a moderately reactive bluish-white metal that tarnishes in moist air and burns in air with a bright greenish flame. Zinc is the fourth most common metal in use, trailing only iron, aluminium and copper in annual production.

'''Empresas Oustianas, S.A.''' 
Oustian Enterprises, Anonymous Society (S.A. just points to a form of incorporation, nothing sinister).

==Page 377==

'''pulque''' 
A Mexican alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of various agaves. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulque pulque].

'''''callejon''''' 
Spanish: callejon: narrow street, alley.

'''''subida''''' 
Spanish: subida: a street going uphill.

'''Semana Santa''' 
Spanish: Holy Week (week before Easter).

'''Judas Iscariot''' 
According to the New Testament, Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve original apostles of Jesus and the one who betrayed him.

'''''rurales''''' 
Mexican Rural Guard, a force of mounted police or gendarmerie that became famous during th period of President Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911). For further information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurales rurales].

==Page 378==

'''''juzgado''''' 
Spanish: court, likely orgin of hoosegow.

'''Calle Juarez''' 
Spanish: Juarez Street.

'''''Mordida''''' 
Spanish: bribe.

'''Broomhandle''' 
Cf German self-loader.

'''''pistoles''''' 
The word ''pistoles'' does not exist in Spanish, although ''pistolas'' would mean guns, specifically, handguns, pistols. Probably the -''E'' in ''pistoles'' was a phonetical adaptation to ease pronunciation for non-Spanish speakers in the U.S.

'''''esposas''''' 
Spanish: Handcuffs.

'''Panteon''' 
Spanish: Cemetery.

'''Cerro del trozado''' 
A hill in Guanajuato, where the cemetery of St. Paula is located. The place where the famous 'Momias de Guanajuato' (Mummies of Guanajuato, [http://poetry.rotten.com/momias/ momias]) were found (cf p.383).

'''''¿Donde estamos?''''' 
Spanish: Where are we? (?)

'''''El Palacio de Cristal''''' 
Spanish (ironic): the Crystal Palace.

The real Crystal Palace is known from [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C#crystal-palace ''Gravity's Rainbow''], of course. "One of the glories of the Victorian era. It was designed entirely of glass and iron by Joseph Paxton, a former head gardener at Chatsworth, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, or to give it its full name, the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. It was originally erected in Hyde Park but moved to Sydenham in 1854 with some alterations, including the addition of two towers, and used as an exhibition, entertainment, and recreational centre. It became national property in 1911 and was destroyed by fire in 1936." From the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C ''GR'' wiki].

'''''La politica''''' 
Spanish: politics, the political.

'''''Felicitaciones''''' 
Spanish: Congratulations.

==Page 379==

'''Porfirio Díaz''' 
Mexican President from 1876 to 1880 (with exception of months) and from 1884 to 1911. Cf p.7 and also see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%Adaz Díaz].

'''''chinches''''' 
Spanish: Bedbugs

'''Dwayne Provecho''' 
In Mexico, and other Latin American cultures, "Buen Provecho" is a phrase spoken to one's companions before a meal. Used like the French "Bon appétit", it means "Enjoy your meal." This makes Dwayne's comment on page 381 that much more humorous: "You boys sure eat good,"

'''Nogales''' 
City of Nogales, AZ. Just across the border: Nogales, Mexico.

'''''frontera''''' 
Spanish: border.

'''As time passed''' 
It could be a considerable time; folklore characters who get penned up underground can't tell if a night and a day, seven years or even a century has passed up above.

'''No say prayo-coopy, compadre''' 
"No se preoccupe". Don't worry, buddy.

==Page 380==

'''''cientificos''''' 
Spanish: scientists.

'''Amparo''' 
??? A feminine Spanish name, means "protection, shelter."

'''hidalgo''' 
A member of the lower nobility of Spain. (Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary)

:means something else here? maybe jewelery?

==Page 381==

'''''lisonjeros''''' 
Spanish: Flatterers

'''"They say it was something one of you did a long time ago, back on the Other Side." 
Cf. Page 37, Lew Basnight's unknowable transgression: "...by way of a sin he was supposed to have once committed." Also interesting to note the capitalization of Other Side, which sounds the other-dimension motif.

'''bolillos''' 
Mexican rolls.

'''El Chinganáriz''' 
The nosefuck (approximately). The salsa described here would be so potent it would cause your nose to turn red, get runny, irritated and perhaps even bleed.

'''in the shadow of the ''paredón''''' 
Delicate reference to his being stood against the big wall (''paredón'') and shot.

'''P.L.M.''' 
Partido Liberal Mexicano, Mexican Liberal Party, reformist organization prominent in the 1910 Revolution.

'''Flores Magón brothers''' 
Ricardo Flores Magón, founder of P.L.M., and his brothers Jesús and Enrique. Considered heroes of the Mexican Revolution. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Flores_Mag%C3%B3n Wikipedia entry]

'''''¿verdad?''''' 
Isn't it? Right?

'''Camilo Arriaga''' 
Mexican journalist, politician and writer from San Luis Potosí. Founder, along with the Flores Magon brothers, of the P.L.M.

'''''potosino''''' 
i.e. person from San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

==Page 382==

'''''muñeca''''' 
Spanish: Doll. Often used as a term of endearment or compliment.

'''''caldereros y sus macheteros''''' 
Perhaps a reference to the makers of 'barbacoa', which has a very strong odor, traditionally associated also with its makers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbacoa Wikipedia entry on barbacoa].
:not quite convinced.
::Tequila and beer, and ''calderero'' derived from ''caldera'' = boiler. So: boilermakers and their helpers. (Where I come from the boilermaker includes the helper, but somewhere else in ''AtD'' the beer is named separately.)

==Page 383==

''''"everybody here thinks you're the Kierselguhr Kid"'''' 
The 'Kieselguhr Kid' has become a myth, a construct. There has to be one.
All sorts of things are expected of 'him' from both his enemies and his friends. A little like Bin Laden?
:Cf. the "legend" of the Kieselguhr Kid, [[ATD_171-198#Page_172|p. 172 and annotations.]] There has to be one.

'''''cuchillo''''' 
Knife.

'''''momias''''' 
Spanish: Mummies. More about Guanajuato's famous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummies_of_Guanajuato Mummies] at Wikipedia.
Also cf p.378.

==Page 384==

'''Marfil''' 
Spanish: Ivory.

'''''compinche''''' 
Spanish: Pal, buddy, (chum?)

'''''vaquero''''' 
Spanish: cowboy.

'''Ay, Jalisco''' 
''Ay, Jalisco! No te rajes'', is a common Mexican idiom. It means that you shouldn't back out of any situation, even when the odds are against you. Jalisco itselft is a state in West-central Mexico whose capital city is Guadalajara.

'''El Ñato''' 
Also a character in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', where he was the leader of the Argentinians trying to emigrate to Germany.

==Page 385==

'''a very large tropical parrot''' 
Cf. the "parrot with a disdainful smile," p. 129.

'''''m'hijo''''' 
Spanish: my son. Apocopation of 'mi hijo'. Used in certain regions of Mexico as a term of endearment, not necessarily indicating blood relation.

'''''pendejo''''' 
Spanish: A vaginal hair. Usually, used in Mexico as an obscenity that roughly translates to "dick" or "asshole" depending on context.

'''''sin embargo''''' 
Spanish: Nevertheless

'''''¡Vámonos!''''' 
Spanish: Lets go!

'''''guerrillero''''' 
Spanish: guerrilla.

'''''el Famoso Chavalito del Quiselgur''''' 
Spanish: The famous Kieselguhr Kid

==Page 386==

'''''copa''''' 
Spanish: A glass (of a spirited drink).

'''''pues''''' 
Spanish: Well

'''a partial vacuum in the passage of time''' 
Cf. p. 373, "a place promised them, not by God, which'd be asking too much of the average Anarchist, but by certain hidden geometries of History, which must include, somewhere, at least at a single point, a safe conjugate to all the spill of accursed meridians, passing daily, desolate, one upon the next."

'''Maxim gun''' 
The Maxim gun was the first self-powered machine gun, invented by the American-born Briton Sir Hiram Maxim in 1884. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_gun wikipedia entry]

'''''Que guapa, que tetas fantasticas, verdad?''''' 
Spanish: "How beautiful, what fantastic tits, eh?" (right?)

==Page 387==

'''Cuban claro''' 
A kind of Cuban cigar or ''habanos'' made with a light-colored (''claro'') wrapper.

'''Partidos wrapper''' 
A region of Cuba, where some of the finest ''habanos'' are made.

'''''tropa''''' 
Spanish: A group of soldiers, a troop

'''Parrot Joaquin''' 
Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi was the first novelist in Latin America. His most famous work is ''El periquillo sarniento'', translated to English as ''The Mangy Parrot''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Joaqu%C3%ADn_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_Lizardi Wikipedia entry]

'''''pendejo''''' 
Spanish (slang): idiot, stupid.

'''''huevon''''' 
A Mexican obscenity, meaning literally 'to have big testicles'; roughly translates as 'lazy'.

''''Double refraction'''' 
Once again the theme of dual natures.

'''psitticide''' 
Parrot-murder.

'''''Caray''''' 
Spanish: Damn!

'''Palacio del Gobierno''' 
Spanish: Government Palace.

'''''loco''''' 
Spanish: Crazy.

'''''lucas''''' 
One of the writers of the gospels; a common name in Mexico. Used as an euphemism for 'crazy'.

==Page 388==

'''jack''' 
Jackass, burro.

'''Monte el Refugio''' 
Mount Refuge.

'''''mierda''''' 
shit.

'''Huertistas''' 
Huerta's troops.

'''Sombrerete''' 
A small town in Zacatecas.

'''Tarahumares''' 
Indigenous people of northern Mexico, renowned for their long-distance running ability. [[Tarahumare Indians of Mexico|Article + pics]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara Wikipedia Entry].

First mentioned as among the "exhibits" at the White City on P.23.

==Page 389==

'''Yaquis''' 
Central American Indian tribe that inhabit the Mexican state of Sonora. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaqui Wikipedia entry].

'''Mayas''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayo_people Mayos] are an Indian tribe that inhabit the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa. For an Anglo it might be a natural mistake to say "Maya," but the context points to "Mayo" because in history, geography and language the Mayo and the Yaqui have a close association. Maya peoples live far to the south.

'''Mausers''' 
Someone holding a Mauser bolt action rifle, commonly known as ''palotruenos'' during the Mexican Revolution. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser Wikipedia entry on Mauser]

'''fandango saloon''' 
Saloon featuring a style of flamenco music and dance. These are especially popular in the southwest United States.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandango Wikipedia entry].

'''''Es mi destino, Pancho.''''' 
That is my destiny, Pancho. "Pancho" is a common short name for Francisco, as "Frank" is in English.

==Page 390==

'''''vaya con Dios''''' 
Spanish: go with God.

'''''Hasta lueguito''''' 
Spanish: See you later.

'''''anarquistas''''' 
Spanish: anarchists.

'''El Espinero''' 
Spanish: The thorn-man

'''''shabotshi''''' 
This is a Tarahumare word meaning "bearded one" and is most often used to refer, with derision, to Mexicans. Among the Tarahumare men, beards are rare. [http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/16426/99.html Carl Lumholtz' ''Unknown Mexico'' Ebook]

'''''brujo''''' 
Spanish: sorcerer, shaman.

'''''Que toza tienes alla''''' 
"What a log you've got there." Frank should be flattered. A toza is pretty much an entire tree trunk. See toza picture [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Trillo-6_tronco_de_pino.png].

==Page 391==

'''nopales''' 
Prickly pear cacti.

'''Nicol prism''' 
optical device that produces plane-polarized light.

'''scalenohedral habit''' 
Habit means the characteristic crystalline form of a mineral. Scalenohedral means the form is of a scalenohedron, a solid body the faces of which are all scalene triangles. Therefore, the calcit crystal Frank was looking at had the characteristic crystalline form of a scalenohedron.

==Page 392==

'''a sun-bleached stick with an elegant warp''' 
Carl Lumholtz, in ''Unknown Mexico'' ([http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16426 text available in Project Gutenberg]), Vol. 1, Chap. IV, reports: "[A]n interesting find [in an ancient pueblo dwelling] was a 'boomerang' similar to that used to this day by the Moqui Indians for killing rabbits."

'''''Hikuli''''' 
Peyote. This scene, with the ''brujo'' giving Frank peyote, followed by him barfing and then flying, is highly reminiscent of Carlos Castaneda's works, esp. ''Tales of Power''.

'''while it was alive''' 
(Most vegetables?)

==Page 393==

'''"The idea was that water should be everywhere, free to everybody. It was life. Then a few got greedy."''' 
The idea of dual natures, or dual forces has come up repeatedly (cf. [[ATD 219-242#renfrew|Renfrew p. 226]]). Here we have a variation that is a bit like the concept of Original Sin. There is a single location near the desert where all the rain that would have fallen in the desert falls. This is a punishment for the greed of some people. Alternatively, it could be seen -- and in fact is described in the passage -- as a balance. The greed of 'some people' distorts the intended even distribution of water. To balance this, a concentration occurs somewhere else. Notice that with the idea of balance, the old Original Sin concept is altered. 'Intent' in the sense of divine intent or punishment, is much less clear. Instead there is a notion of consequences. One imbalance leads to a counter balance. 
This is also, perhaps, a statement about non-violent anarchism, enough for all in nature, if no one 'gets greedy".

==Page 394==

'''Tears of Job''' 
An annual grass (Coix lacryma-jobi) native to Asia and naturalised in North America.

==Page 395==

'''out-of-scale plain...mineral condition''' 
recalls Genesis 19:25,26, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: "He overthrew those cities and destroyed all the Plain, with everyone living there and everything growing in the ground. But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she turned into a pillar of salt".

See also p.391: (talking about a piece of spar) "as if there were a soul harbored within". And so the end of GR: "and a Soul in ev'ry stone..."

'''Bolsón de Mapimí''' 
Spanish: ''Mapimi Basin'' - An enclosed depression in northern Mexico, that comprises parts of the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango. Situated in the arid northern plateau region and averaging 3,000 ft (900 m) in elevation, it is structurally similar to the Basin and Range region of Arizona and New Mexico, in the United States. One ''very'' interesting thing about the Mapimi Basin is the "[[Zone of Silence]]"...

'''Budweiser Little Big Horn panorama''' 
"This depiction of a horrific (if somewhat-deserved) massacre has been brought to you in sweeping panorama by Bludweiser and by Blud Lite. Bludweiser - this Blud's for you!"

The painting "Custer's Last Fight" by Cassily Adams, widely reproduced by Anheuser-Busch for advertising.

'''blood . . . ''Fin''''' 
Cinematic imagery.

'''''¿Y el otro?''''' 
Spanish: And the other one?

'''''El se fue''''' 
Spanish: He left.

'''''jarrito''''' 
Spanish: A small jug, usually made of clay.

'''''¿Y cuándo vuelva?''''' 
Spanish: And when does he come back?

'''''Nunca me dijo nada, mi jefe.''''' 
Spanish: He never told me anything, boss.

==Page 396==

'''''Si el caballero quisiera algún recuerdo ...''''' 
Spanish: If the gentleman would like any souvenir...

'''''pistoleros''''' 
Spanish: gunslingers

==References==
<references/>
==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 374-396

2007-06-22T02:28:51Z

Thew: /* Page 374 */

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

==Page 374==

'''a dime novel . . . suffering in its name''' 
The novel is, presumably, ''The Chums of Chance in Old Mexico'', as described on [[ATD 1-25#Page 7|p. 7]].

'''Ewball Oust''' 
Oust is a [http://www.oust.com odor eliminator] the container of which has a quite phallic shape. And there's that phallic "U" again (See [[ATD_119-148#Page_130|p.130]]), conjoined with "ball" which the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' defines as "5. Any rounded protuberant part of the body." It is thought that "ball" is derived from the Indo-European word ''bhel'', meaning to blow, swell; with derivatives referring to various round objects and to the notion of tumescent masculinity. Derivatives include ''boulevard'', ''boulder'', ''phallus'', ''balloon'', ''ballot'', and ''fool''. [http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/roots/zzb01800.html] So Ewball Oust plays into [[The Sexual Angle]] in ''AtD'', where sexual names proliferate.

:Interestingly, there's a game called U-Ball (aka Ubuntu Ball) that pits two ball-throwing teams, separated by a center line, against each other. The object of the game is to get all of your opponents “out” of the game by either 1) Hitting them with a ball you throw, or 2) Catching a ball they throw at you while trying to get you out.

:When someone is “out” of the game [o-or ousted!], they leave the main playing area and join other “out” teammates on the other side of their opponent’s team, also separated by a line (like the end line on a volleyball court). While “out,” players act as a backstop to catch balls thrown by their teammates that go through their opponents’ side. “Out” people also can throw at their opponents to get their opponents “out.” Once you are “out” you stay out, so you can’t come back in when you hit someone from your “out” position.

:The game ends when the last person on one side is hit or throws a ball that is caught. [http://www.elca.org/hunger/facts/uball.html]

The game is also known as dodgeball.

:''Ubuntu'' is a traditional sub-Saharan African concept, which roughly translated means “I am because we are”.

:...and like some of these mining schemes, he too may turn out to be a bit of a [scr]ewball. [[User:Thew|Thew]] 19:28, 21 June 2007 (PDT)

'''''charro''''' 
Spanish: Mexican cowboy.

'''Veta Madre''' 
It is not a mine, but rather the original saying ''Mother Lode''. Many silver mines in Guanajuato city are on the Veta Madre. See [http://www.mindat.org/loc-7776.html Veta Madre].

'''Toplady Oust''' 
Toplady Oust was conceived "in a choir loft during a rendition of 'Rock of Ages'" written by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustus_Montague_Toplady Reverend Toplady], and thus named! And what would be so, er, stimulating about "Rock of Ages," (cleft for me...)...?

Rev'd Toplady, in ''A Short Essay on Original Sin'', likened the soul at death to a [[Birds|bird]] leaving a cage:
:Conformably to this view of things, Plato chose to derive ''soma'' the Greek word for body; from ''sayma'' which signifies a tomb or sepulchre: on supposition that the body is that to a soul which a grave is to the body; and that souls emerge from the body by death as a bird flies from a broken cage, or as a captive escapes from a place of painful and dishonourable confinement. [http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/atoriginalsin.htm]

''''Rock of Ages'''' 
'Rock of Ages' is one of the world's best-loved Christian hymns with the original lyrics by Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady and music by Thomas Hastings. The lyrics were first published in ''The Gospel Magazine'' in 1775 with the music added in around 1830. Of course, there are now several modernised vresions. For the lyrics and more information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_of_Ages Rock of Ages] and [http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/rockofages.html RofA].

'''Patio method''' 
The Spaniards in Mexico used the "patio" method to extract silver from its ore. The process takes its name from shallow circular pits, 15 yards across, in which the ore was worked. Silver ore was ground up with water to make mud, and this mud was spread 10 inches deep over the patio. Miners then added salt and mercury and mixed everything by having mules pull stone blocks over it repeatedly. This process forced the silver to combine chemically with the mercury. The mud was rinsed away, and the silver-mercury compound was heated to force off the mercury. Miners in Tegucigalpa imported large amounts of salt from the southern coast and mercury, from Seville to produce their silver. [http://www.marrder.com/htw/2001mar/cultural.htm From HondurasThisWeek website]

==Page 375==

'''Washoe process''' 
The Washoe Process
In the Washoe Process (named for Indians that inhabited the area around Lake Tahoe, and thus the name for the area around Virginia City, the name now preserved in the name of the neighboring county, Washoe County), the improvement to the process of heating the ore during extraction in an iron pan increased the recovery and decreased the processing time. The iron from the pan acted as the reducing agent for the silver:

2AgCl + Fe = 2Ag + FeCl2

The drive for this reaction is nearly 0.6 volts greater than the drive for the reaction for reducing silver using copper (at standard conditions as above), so this reaction is highly favored.

In addition, heating the reaction mixture helped the formation of the amalgam of silver with mercury. In this reaction, the mercury was not changed into mercurous chloride (calomel), so mercury was not used up in the process. The iron pans and iron mixers (mullers) would be consumed in the process, but these could be replaced readily. <ref>Dennis, W.H., A Hundred Years of Metallurgy, Gerals Duckworth & Co., Ltd., London, 1963, p. 282-287</ref>

'''Guanajuato''' 
The capital city, northwest of Mexico City, of the state of the same name in Mexico's central highland. It is located at an elevation of 6,550 ft and in one of the richest silver mining area of Mexico.
:Guanajuato is also mentioned as an important secondary source of [[I|Iceland spar.]]

'''ores tend to be free-milling''' 
The fragments remain separate (thus accessible to the leaching process) rather than reagglomerating.

'''''Espato''''' 
Spanish: Spar. Iceland Spar is 'espato de Islandia'.

'''''espanto''''' 
Spanish: something strange, ugly or shocking. Also a haunt or ghost.

'''''Espantoso''''' 
Spanish: Horrible or shocking

''''La Cucaracha'''' 
'The Cockroach', a popular folk song during the Mexican revolution. There were many versions of different lyrics. One of them was said to mock General Huerta. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_cucaracha Wikipedia].

'''hoosegow''' 
jail.

'''''grifa''''' 
marihuana

==Page 376==

'''General Huerta''' 
Gen. Victoriano Huerta (1854-1916) was on the make in the period of the action. He was an Army general, but also a villain, a drunkard, a drug addict and, for a brief time, the President of Mexico between October 1913 and July 1914. [http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/history/vhuerta1.html Here] is a précis of his career.

'''Bajío''' 
Bajío is a region in Mexico in the central highland state of Guanajuato.

'''the eve of a turn in history''' 
Pynchon's own spoiler. The Mexican Revolution is brewing.

'''Torreón... Zacatecas... León... Silao''' 
Torreón is a desert city to the north, in Coahuila. Zacatecas is both a state and city in Central Mexico, situated between Torreón and León. León and Silao are cities in Guanajuato. León is the fifth largest city in Mexico (by population).

Zacatecas was the site of a major revolt against Porfirio Díaz's government during the Mexican Revolution of 1910, in which Pancho Villa attempted to capture the city of Zacatecas and the state's lucrative silver mines. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacatecas see here].

'''mesquite''' 
A leguminous plant of the Prosopis genus found in Northern Mexico and Southwestern U.S. Mesquite trees are also found in the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico.

'''ore tailing''' 
residue separated in the preparation of ore.

'''''tlachiqueros''''' 
The workers who make ''pulque'' - a traditional navtive beverage of Mesoamerica.

'''maguey juice''' 
Juice from the maguey, an agave, ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maguey maguey]), or century plant, from which ''pulque'' is made.

'''campesino''' 
A simple farmer or farmworker is referred to as a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campesino campesino] in Spanish.

'''Vera Cruz puros''' 
Spanish: Vera Cruz cigars.

'''zinc''' 
It is a moderately reactive bluish-white metal that tarnishes in moist air and burns in air with a bright greenish flame. Zinc is the fourth most common metal in use, trailing only iron, aluminium and copper in annual production.

'''Empresas Oustianas, S.A.''' 
Oustian Enterprises, Anonymous Society (S.A. just points to a form of incorporation, nothing sinister).

==Page 377==

'''pulque''' 
A Mexican alcoholic beverage made from the fermented sap of various agaves. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulque pulque].

'''''callejon''''' 
Spanish: callejon: narrow street, alley.

'''''subida''''' 
Spanish: subida: a street going uphill.

'''Semana Santa''' 
Spanish: Holy Week (week before Easter).

'''Judas Iscariot''' 
According to the New Testament, Judas Iscariot was one of the twelve original apostles of Jesus and the one who betrayed him.

'''''rurales''''' 
Mexican Rural Guard, a force of mounted police or gendarmerie that became famous during th period of President Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911). For further information see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurales rurales].

==Page 378==

'''''juzgado''''' 
Spanish: court, likely orgin of hoosegow.

'''Calle Juarez''' 
Spanish: Juarez Street.

'''''Mordida''''' 
Spanish: bribe.

'''Broomhandle''' 
Cf German self-loader.

'''''pistoles''''' 
The word ''pistoles'' does not exist in Spanish, although ''pistolas'' would mean guns, specifically, handguns, pistols. Probably the -''E'' in ''pistoles'' was a phonetical adaptation to ease pronunciation for non-Spanish speakers in the U.S.

'''''esposas''''' 
Spanish: Handcuffs.

'''Panteon''' 
Spanish: Cemetery.

'''Cerro del trozado''' 
A hill in Guanajuato, where the cemetery of St. Paula is located. The place where the famous 'Momias de Guanajuato' (Mummies of Guanajuato, [http://poetry.rotten.com/momias/ momias]) were found (cf p.383).

'''''¿Donde estamos?''''' 
Spanish: Where are we? (?)

'''''El Palacio de Cristal''''' 
Spanish (ironic): the Crystal Palace.

The real Crystal Palace is known from [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C#crystal-palace ''Gravity's Rainbow''], of course. "One of the glories of the Victorian era. It was designed entirely of glass and iron by Joseph Paxton, a former head gardener at Chatsworth, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, or to give it its full name, the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. It was originally erected in Hyde Park but moved to Sydenham in 1854 with some alterations, including the addition of two towers, and used as an exhibition, entertainment, and recreational centre. It became national property in 1911 and was destroyed by fire in 1936." From the [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C ''GR'' wiki].

'''''La politica''''' 
Spanish: politics, the political.

'''''Felicitaciones''''' 
Spanish: Congratulations.

==Page 379==

'''Porfirio Díaz''' 
Mexican President from 1876 to 1880 (with exception of months) and from 1884 to 1911. Cf p.7 and also see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%Adaz Díaz].

'''''chinches''''' 
Spanish: Bedbugs

'''Dwayne Provecho''' 
In Mexico, and other Latin American cultures, "Buen Provecho" is a phrase spoken to one's companions before a meal. Used like the French "Bon appétit", it means "Enjoy your meal." This makes Dwayne's comment on page 381 that much more humorous: "You boys sure eat good,"

'''Nogales''' 
City of Nogales, AZ. Just across the border: Nogales, Mexico.

'''''frontera''''' 
Spanish: border.

'''As time passed''' 
It could be a considerable time; folklore characters who get penned up underground can't tell if a night and a day, seven years or even a century has passed up above.

'''No say prayo-coopy, compadre''' 
"No se preoccupe". Don't worry, buddy.

==Page 380==

'''''cientificos''''' 
Spanish: scientists.

'''Amparo''' 
??? A feminine Spanish name, means "protection, shelter."

'''hidalgo''' 
A member of the lower nobility of Spain. (Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary)

:means something else here? maybe jewelery?

==Page 381==

'''''lisonjeros''''' 
Spanish: Flatterers

'''"They say it was something one of you did a long time ago, back on the Other Side." 
Cf. Page 37, Lew Basnight's unknowable transgression: "...by way of a sin he was supposed to have once committed." Also interesting to note the capitalization of Other Side, which sounds the other-dimension motif.

'''bolillos''' 
Mexican rolls.

'''El Chinganáriz''' 
The nosefuck (approximately). The salsa described here would be so potent it would cause your nose to turn red, get runny, irritated and perhaps even bleed.

'''in the shadow of the ''paredón''''' 
Delicate reference to his being stood against the big wall (''paredón'') and shot.

'''P.L.M.''' 
Partido Liberal Mexicano, Mexican Liberal Party, reformist organization prominent in the 1910 Revolution.

'''Flores Magón brothers''' 
Ricardo Flores Magón, founder of P.L.M., and his brothers Jesús and Enrique. Considered heroes of the Mexican Revolution. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Flores_Mag%C3%B3n Wikipedia entry]

'''''¿verdad?''''' 
Isn't it? Right?

'''Camilo Arriaga''' 
Mexican journalist, politician and writer from San Luis Potosí. Founder, along with the Flores Magon brothers, of the P.L.M.

'''''potosino''''' 
i.e. person from San Luis Potosi, San Luis Potosi, Mexico.

==Page 382==

'''''muñeca''''' 
Spanish: Doll. Often used as a term of endearment or compliment.

'''''caldereros y sus macheteros''''' 
Perhaps a reference to the makers of 'barbacoa', which has a very strong odor, traditionally associated also with its makers. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbacoa Wikipedia entry on barbacoa].
:not quite convinced.
::Tequila and beer, and ''calderero'' derived from ''caldera'' = boiler. So: boilermakers and their helpers. (Where I come from the boilermaker includes the helper, but somewhere else in ''AtD'' the beer is named separately.)

==Page 383==

''''"everybody here thinks you're the Kierselguhr Kid"'''' 
The 'Kieselguhr Kid' has become a myth, a construct. There has to be one.
All sorts of things are expected of 'him' from both his enemies and his friends. A little like Bin Laden?
:Cf. the "legend" of the Kieselguhr Kid, [[ATD_171-198#Page_172|p. 172 and annotations.]] There has to be one.

'''''cuchillo''''' 
Knife.

'''''momias''''' 
Spanish: Mummies. More about Guanajuato's famous [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummies_of_Guanajuato Mummies] at Wikipedia.
Also cf p.378.

==Page 384==

'''Marfil''' 
Spanish: Ivory.

'''''compinche''''' 
Spanish: Pal, buddy, (chum?)

'''''vaquero''''' 
Spanish: cowboy.

'''Ay, Jalisco''' 
''Ay, Jalisco! No te rajes'', is a common Mexican idiom. It means that you shouldn't back out of any situation, even when the odds are against you. Jalisco itselft is a state in West-central Mexico whose capital city is Guadalajara.

'''El Ñato''' 
Also a character in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', where he was the leader of the Argentinians trying to emigrate to Germany.

==Page 385==

'''a very large tropical parrot''' 
Cf. the "parrot with a disdainful smile," p. 129.

'''''m'hijo''''' 
Spanish: my son. Apocopation of 'mi hijo'. Used in certain regions of Mexico as a term of endearment, not necessarily indicating blood relation.

'''''pendejo''''' 
Spanish: A vaginal hair. Usually, used in Mexico as an obscenity that roughly translates to "dick" or "asshole" depending on context.

'''''sin embargo''''' 
Spanish: Nevertheless

'''''¡Vámonos!''''' 
Spanish: Lets go!

'''''guerrillero''''' 
Spanish: guerrilla.

'''''el Famoso Chavalito del Quiselgur''''' 
Spanish: The famous Kieselguhr Kid

==Page 386==

'''''copa''''' 
Spanish: A glass (of a spirited drink).

'''''pues''''' 
Spanish: Well

'''a partial vacuum in the passage of time''' 
Cf. p. 373, "a place promised them, not by God, which'd be asking too much of the average Anarchist, but by certain hidden geometries of History, which must include, somewhere, at least at a single point, a safe conjugate to all the spill of accursed meridians, passing daily, desolate, one upon the next."

'''Maxim gun''' 
The Maxim gun was the first self-powered machine gun, invented by the American-born Briton Sir Hiram Maxim in 1884. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_gun wikipedia entry]

'''''Que guapa, que tetas fantasticas, verdad?''''' 
Spanish: "How beautiful, what fantastic tits, eh?" (right?)

==Page 387==

'''Cuban claro''' 
A kind of Cuban cigar or ''habanos'' made with a light-colored (''claro'') wrapper.

'''Partidos wrapper''' 
A region of Cuba, where some of the finest ''habanos'' are made.

'''''tropa''''' 
Spanish: A group of soldiers, a troop

'''Parrot Joaquin''' 
Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi was the first novelist in Latin America. His most famous work is ''El periquillo sarniento'', translated to English as ''The Mangy Parrot''. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Joaqu%C3%ADn_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_Lizardi Wikipedia entry]

'''''pendejo''''' 
Spanish (slang): idiot, stupid.

'''''huevon''''' 
A Mexican obscenity, meaning literally 'to have big testicles'; roughly translates as 'lazy'.

''''Double refraction'''' 
Once again the theme of dual natures.

'''psitticide''' 
Parrot-murder.

'''''Caray''''' 
Spanish: Damn!

'''Palacio del Gobierno''' 
Spanish: Government Palace.

'''''loco''''' 
Spanish: Crazy.

'''''lucas''''' 
One of the writers of the gospels; a common name in Mexico. Used as an euphemism for 'crazy'.

==Page 388==

'''jack''' 
Jackass, burro.

'''Monte el Refugio''' 
Mount Refuge.

'''''mierda''''' 
shit.

'''Huertistas''' 
Huerta's troops.

'''Sombrerete''' 
A small town in Zacatecas.

'''Tarahumares''' 
Indigenous people of northern Mexico, renowned for their long-distance running ability. [[Tarahumare Indians of Mexico|Article + pics]] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara Wikipedia Entry].

First mentioned as among the "exhibits" at the White City on P.23.

==Page 389==

'''Yaquis''' 
Central American Indian tribe that inhabit the Mexican state of Sonora. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaqui Wikipedia entry].

'''Mayas''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayo_people Mayos] are an Indian tribe that inhabit the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa. For an Anglo it might be a natural mistake to say "Maya," but the context points to "Mayo" because in history, geography and language the Mayo and the Yaqui have a close association. Maya peoples live far to the south.

'''Mausers''' 
Someone holding a Mauser bolt action rifle, commonly known as ''palotruenos'' during the Mexican Revolution. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mauser Wikipedia entry on Mauser]

'''fandango saloon''' 
Saloon featuring a style of flamenco music and dance. These are especially popular in the southwest United States.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fandango Wikipedia entry].

'''''Es mi destino, Pancho.''''' 
That is my destiny, Pancho. "Pancho" is a common short name for Francisco, as "Frank" is in English.

==Page 390==

'''''vaya con Dios''''' 
Spanish: go with God.

'''''Hasta lueguito''''' 
Spanish: See you later.

'''''anarquistas''''' 
Spanish: anarchists.

'''El Espinero''' 
Spanish: The thorn-man

'''''shabotshi''''' 
This is a Tarahumare word meaning "bearded one" and is most often used to refer, with derision, to Mexicans. Among the Tarahumare men, beards are rare. [http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/16426/99.html Carl Lumholtz' ''Unknown Mexico'' Ebook]

'''''brujo''''' 
Spanish: sorcerer, shaman.

'''''Que toza tienes alla''''' 
"What a log you've got there." Frank should be flattered. A toza is pretty much an entire tree trunk. See toza picture [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Trillo-6_tronco_de_pino.png].

==Page 391==

'''nopales''' 
Prickly pear cacti.

'''Nicol prism''' 
optical device that produces plane-polarized light.

'''scalenohedral habit''' 
Habit means the characteristic crystalline form of a mineral. Scalenohedral means the form is of a scalenohedron, a solid body the faces of which are all scalene triangles. Therefore, the calcit crystal Frank was looking at had the characteristic crystalline form of a scalenohedron.

==Page 392==

'''a sun-bleached stick with an elegant warp''' 
Carl Lumholtz, in ''Unknown Mexico'' ([http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16426 text available in Project Gutenberg]), Vol. 1, Chap. IV, reports: "[A]n interesting find [in an ancient pueblo dwelling] was a 'boomerang' similar to that used to this day by the Moqui Indians for killing rabbits."

'''''Hikuli''''' 
Peyote. This scene, with the ''brujo'' giving Frank peyote, followed by him barfing and then flying, is highly reminiscent of Carlos Castaneda's works, esp. ''Tales of Power''.

'''while it was alive''' 
(Most vegetables?)

==Page 393==

'''"The idea was that water should be everywhere, free to everybody. It was life. Then a few got greedy."''' 
The idea of dual natures, or dual forces has come up repeatedly (cf. [[ATD 219-242#renfrew|Renfrew p. 226]]). Here we have a variation that is a bit like the concept of Original Sin. There is a single location near the desert where all the rain that would have fallen in the desert falls. This is a punishment for the greed of some people. Alternatively, it could be seen -- and in fact is described in the passage -- as a balance. The greed of 'some people' distorts the intended even distribution of water. To balance this, a concentration occurs somewhere else. Notice that with the idea of balance, the old Original Sin concept is altered. 'Intent' in the sense of divine intent or punishment, is much less clear. Instead there is a notion of consequences. One imbalance leads to a counter balance. 
This is also, perhaps, a statement about non-violent anarchism, enough for all in nature, if no one 'gets greedy".

==Page 394==

'''Tears of Job''' 
An annual grass (Coix lacryma-jobi) native to Asia and naturalised in North America.

==Page 395==

'''out-of-scale plain...mineral condition''' 
recalls Genesis 19:25,26, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: "He overthrew those cities and destroyed all the Plain, with everyone living there and everything growing in the ground. But Lot's wife, behind him, looked back, and she turned into a pillar of salt".

See also p.391: (talking about a piece of spar) "as if there were a soul harbored within". And so the end of GR: "and a Soul in ev'ry stone..."

'''Bolsón de Mapimí''' 
Spanish: ''Mapimi Basin'' - An enclosed depression in northern Mexico, that comprises parts of the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila and Durango. Situated in the arid northern plateau region and averaging 3,000 ft (900 m) in elevation, it is structurally similar to the Basin and Range region of Arizona and New Mexico, in the United States. One ''very'' interesting thing about the Mapimi Basin is the "[[Zone of Silence]]"...

'''Budweiser Little Big Horn panorama''' 
"This depiction of a horrific (if somewhat-deserved) massacre has been brought to you in sweeping panorama by Bludweiser and by Blud Lite. Bludweiser - this Blud's for you!"

The painting "Custer's Last Fight" by Cassily Adams, widely reproduced by Anheuser-Busch for advertising.

'''blood . . . ''Fin''''' 
Cinematic imagery.

'''''¿Y el otro?''''' 
Spanish: And the other one?

'''''El se fue''''' 
Spanish: He left.

'''''jarrito''''' 
Spanish: A small jug, usually made of clay.

'''''¿Y cuándo vuelva?''''' 
Spanish: And when does he come back?

'''''Nunca me dijo nada, mi jefe.''''' 
Spanish: He never told me anything, boss.

==Page 396==

'''''Si el caballero quisiera algún recuerdo ...''''' 
Spanish: If the gentleman would like any souvenir...

'''''pistoleros''''' 
Spanish: gunslingers

==References==
<references/>
==Annotation Index==
{{ATD PbP}}

ATD 358-373

2007-06-16T02:16:57Z

Thew: /* Page 360 */

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

==Page 358==

'''Camp Bird''' 
Camp Bird Mine, Ouray, Ouray County, CO, is a gold-zinc-silver-lead-copper mine operated from 1896 to 1990. It located six miles south of Ouray and produced yearly 1.5 million ounces of gold and 4 million ounces of silver until 1990. [http://www.mindat.org/loc-8702.html Camp Bird].

'''Archie Dipple''' 
???

'''". . . camel herd imported years ago . . ."''' 
Camels were imported in 1855 for use by the U.S. Army as pack animals. They were quite capable, but the Army eventually abandoned them around the Civil War. Those that escaped became a feral population that survived in the Southwest until 1941. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Camel_Corps Wikipedia]

'''kids in cylindrical hats''' 
hotel pageboys. [http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=hotel+pageboy pix]

==Page 359==

'''bunco-steerer''' 
A con man or fraudster, but the use here seems less malicious than usual.

'''Macking for a mack''' 
Pimping for a pimp. Mack: a pimp (from English ''mackerel'' or French ''maquereau'').

'''Karl Marx''' 
Karl Marx (1818-83) German socialist and economist, founder of modern international Communism. The son of a Jewish lawyer, studied law at Bonn and Berlin but took up history, philosophy and Feuerbach's materialism. Moved to Paris in 1843 after his radical newspaper was closed by the German authority. Expelled from Paris in 1845 for his radical jounalism he moved to Brussels. Based on study of the French Revolution, together with fellow exile, Friedrich Engels (1920-95), they wrote the famous ''Communist Manifesto'' (1848), [http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html manifesto], a masterpiece of political proganganda and intellectual brow-beating. It begins with 'A spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of communism.' It goes on to attack the state as a mere instrument of oppression, religion and culture are mere ideologies of the capitalist class. It ends with 'The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains . . . Working men of all countries, unite!' The immediate result was Marx's expulsion from Brussels. He and his family finally settled in London where, after 30 years lonely study in the British Museum reading room, he produced his life work, ''Das Kapital'' (Capital, 3 vols., 1867-94). ''Das Kapital'' (Cf page 360) was unfinished when Marx died in 1883, his disciple and collaborator, Engels completed the work. In it Marx argues that capitalist expandsion depends on surplus value, capitalist competition is only successful at the expense of the worker, the antagonisms must inevitably lead to revolution and the extinction of the capitalist class, which ultimately lead ot a classless society. Marx had little to do with practical politics. The intellectual rigous of Marxism proved to be far inferior to its emotive power. To his followers and disciples, dreaming of social justice and never giving a moment's critical thought to his writings, Marx provided them with yet another substitute religion. 
It should be noted that "Marxism" as it is commonly known today (oversimplified to meet the practical needs of the communist movement) is quite different from Marx's original oeuvre, which, apart from the ''Communist Manifesto'' and some textbook excerpts, was seldom read by rank-and-file party members (or leaders, for that matter). His view of society as a dynamic system of interacting objective forces, with economy as the decisive factor, was an important step forward in social thinking. Also his early, unpublished writings are stimulating excursions into post-Hegelian philosophical anthropology. His influence is unmistakable in the works of such 20th century intellectual gurus as Sartre, Habermas, or Bourdieu. He was also a sharp political journalist, catering for, paradoxically, a middle-class audience. For more of [http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/marx.html Marx].

==Page 360==

'''Capital''' 
The ''magnum opus'' of German socialist Karl Marx (1818-83), ''Das Kapital'' (Capital, 3 vols. 1867-94). According to Norman Davies of University of London, ''Capital'' was a "sustained exercise in speculative social philosophy, a rambling jumble of brilliant insights and turgid pedantry. It borrowed a number of disparate ideas current at the time, and reassembled them in the original combination of 'dialectical materialism'. Marx aimed to create the same sort of universal theory for human society that Darwin had done for natural history; . . . He took the subject of materialist history from Feuerbach, the class struggle from Saint-Simon, the dictatorship of the proletariat from Babeuf, the labor theory of value from Adam Smith, the theory of surplus from Bray and Thompson, the principle of dialectical progress from Hegel. All these components were put togerther in s messianic doctrine . . ." See Karl Marx of page 359 and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital Capital].

'''across the day''' 
???

'''taken in''' 
Out = alive; in = living dead.

'''Saturday nights''' 
Since "V" Pynchon has presented heavy drinking as a virtue.

This seems like a rather absurd statement to me. (cf. the Anubis and Casino Hermann Goering in GR, the kids in Entropy, Oedipa and Metzger in COL49, u.s.w.)

'''sanctuary''' 
(Why leave free places at all, though?)

'''Chicago-built''' 
Railway hub leads to manufacture of heavy goods.
:built or made in Chicago !

'''Sean O'Farrells''' 
"The popular Shawn O'Farrell was created in Butte, Montana, a straight shot of whiskey followed with a glass of cold beer; it gave birth to the boilermaker." From this [http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/old_west/102390 website] A Google search for Sean O‘Farrell came up with [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1556-1283(194604)5%3A2%3C153%3ATFCATO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y this link] but the contributor is afraid you need a campus-location to access it.

'''army "A" tents''' 
A-Frame tents are canvas tents supported by a vertical pole at either end and a cord or horizontal pole between the two along the top. When viewed from the entrance end, they form a triangle, hence the name.
[http://coonriver.com/tent.jpg Image of Civil War era A-Frames.]

'''bars had toothmarks''' 
(Patrons so drunk they sit on floor and gnaw edge of bar?)
Maybe many teeth have been knocked out in these bars?

I take it to mean toothmarks from those whose heads were bounced off the bar during a violent confrontation.

....or so drunk they fall face first into it.

==Page 361==

'''Pinkerton and public''' 
Assuming one is willing to take "Pinkerton" as a substitution for "private," it being a "private investigations firm," then this may be an allusion to Jurgen Habermas's work examining the distinction (and frequent lack thereof) between the public and private spheres of social interaction. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas Wikipedia on Habermas].

==Page 363==

'''the Wall''' 
Death?

'''''chavalitos''''' 
Kids (Spanish).

'''calico recital''' 
I.e., wife's conventional plea.

'''side o' beef''' 
She is both rhyming on his name and comparing him to something that one ''hangs.''

'''. . . want to do nothing but be down at them famous little feet''' 
???

==Page 364==

'''Denver''' 
Actually mine school at Golden, 15 miles west?

'''purple... orange''' 
(Clashing colors keep turning up as a motif.)

'''January colt''' 
From the Racecourse Association:
All racehorses are given the nominal birthday of January 1st. Thus a "two-year-old" born in June and one born in January of the same year are considered to be of the same age for the purposes of satisfying the conditions of some races re: weight carried. In reality, the January horse may be considered to have a significant advantage in terms of physical development at this early stage in its career.

'''Borrasca''' 
Borrasca in Spanish means storm, squall, depression, or area of low pressure. But apparently it can also mean an exhausted mine, and 'Going borrasca' means "becoming mined-out". Interestingly, this is very close to the English word 'borassic', ie. out of cash. This comes from Cockney Rhyming Slang: 'boracic lint' meaning 'skint', ie without any money.

==Page 365==

'''Bridget McGonigal''' 
a slide in the San Juans named after a mine owner's wife.
:A real feature?

'''to fill the day''' 
(Day motif.)

==Page 366==

'''sled''' 
(Cf Dally and Frank.)

'''Jake''' 
Okay (slang).

'''dead and gone, and therefore born again''' 
Several characters in ''AtD'' have a similar experience—Lew Basnight on page 185 is an example.

==Page 367==

'''Thrapston Cheesely III''' 
???

'''Madame Aubergine''' 
"Aubergine" is French for eggplant. Cf. p. 67, "'my little eggplant.'"

'''Ruperta Chirpingdon-Groin''' 
???

'''Yup Toy''' 
Expensive yuppie gadget, eg iPod.

'''naphtha-light''' 
Obscure fuel-into-light motif variant.

==Page 368==

'''$3.50-a-quart''' 
About $75 today.

Compare to p.92 where $3.50 is given as a day's wage.

'''an exquisite''' 
one who is overly fastidious in dress or ornament.

'''Monsieur Peychaud''' 
Antoine Amadie Peychaud, a Creole apothecary who moved to New Orleans from the West Indies and set up shop in the French Quarter in the early 1800s. [http://www.gumbopages.com/food/beverages/sazerac.html weblink]

'''Sazeracs''' 
A New Orleans cocktail. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sazerac Wikipedia entry].

'''Bob Stockton''' 
???

'''Absinthe Frappés''' 
Read about absinthe in America at [http://www.oxygenee.com/absinthe-americas.html The Virtual Absinthe Museum].

'''...some form of zombie powder''' 
the most common ingredients of Haitian "poudres zombi" [http://science.howstuffworks.com/zombie1.htm according to this website] are [http://amphibiaweb.org/cgi/amphib_query?rel-genus=like&rel-species=like&rel-common_name=like&rel-family=equals&rel-ordr=equals&rel-isocc=like&rel-description=like&rel-distribution=like&rel-life_history=like&rel-trends_and_threats=like&rel-relation_to_humans=like&rel-comments=like&query_src=aw_search_index&max=200&orderbyaw=Family&where-genus=Bufo&where-species=marinus&where-common_name=&where-family=Bufonidae&where-ordr=Anura&where-isocc=any&rel-species_account=matchboolean&where-species_account=&rel-declinecauses=equals&where-declinecauses=any&rel-iucn=equals&where-iucn=&rel-cites=equals&where-cites= Canetoad] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine DMT], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bufotenin Bufotenin], heart [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid steroids]), [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pufferfish Pufferfish] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrodotoxin Tetrotodoxin]) , [http://www.amphibiainfo.com/gallery/anura/hylidae/osteopilus/dominicensis/ Hispaniolan Common Tree Frog] (?) and "Human Remains"(?).

In Colombia the effects of an intoxication with [http://earthops.org/burundanga.html Burundanga] ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopolamine Scopolamine]) are described as those of a [http://www.brugerforeningen.dk/bfny.nsf/0/A6CA2207359E19AFC12568C4005E94C8?OpenDocument&K=International%20News&S=UK Zombie Powder]

'''bengaline''' 
A fabric having a crosswise ribbed effect made of silk, wool, or synthetic fibers [http://www.bharattextile.com/dictionary/118 weblink].

'''Medici collar''' 
Medici collar is a flared, fan-shaped collar with a V-opening at the front popular in the 1540s and 1550s after similar styles seen in the portrait of Catherine de Medici in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_de%27_Medici Wikipedia].
:[http://www.bharattextile.com/dictionary/118 a few samples here] can't see any collar samples!

'''bastard chinchilla''' 
A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinchilla chinchilla] is a rodent with thick, valuable fur. Bastard here means 'false', so the cuffs resemble chinchilla fur but are not truly chinchilla.

'''glissandi''' 
Glissando (plural: glissandi) is a musical term that refers to either a continuous sliding from one pitch to another or an incidental scale played while moving from one melodic note to another.

'''whorehouse professor''' 
Just as it was for aeronauts, "Professor" was a customary title for pianists in low surroundings.

'''voodoo''' 
A polytheistic religion practiced chiefly by West-Indian Negroes, deriving principally from African cult worship and containing elements borrowed from the Catholic religion.

==Page 369==

'''cheurice sausage''' 
spelled "chaurice",[typo or variant?],it is a spicy Cajun pork sausage. See "POCHE'S, Smoked Chaurice" at Cajungrocer.com. There is
a Portuguese variant, a garlic sausage with another spelling yet. ''Chouriço.''

'''gumbo''' 
A spicy, hearty stew or soup, found typically on the Gulf of Mexico in the U.S. and very common in Louisiana and the Lowcountry around Charleston, South Carolina. It usually consists of rice and soup, the latter can contain seafood (shrimp, crab or crawfish), fowl (duck, chicken) and other meats.

'''étouffé''' 
Also, étouffée, literally means smothered, choked off. It is a Creole seafood dish, a tangy tomato-based sauce, typically served over rice, similar to gumbo, very popular in New Orlean. The usual staple of an étouffée is crawfish, whereas shrimp or crabmeat are more often found in gumbos.

'''sassafras''' 
A genus of two species of deciduous trees in the family Lauraceae. It's root, bark, wood and leaves have many usages: perfumes, insect repellent, soft drink (root beer), dye, drugs and many others. The leaves are used for thickening sauces and soups, and when dried and ground are known as filé powder, a spice used in Cajun, Creole and other Louisiana cooking.

'''Italian Troubles''' 
???

'''''Va fongool-a''''' 
The original Italian phrase is "Va'a fare in culo" meaning literally "go do it in the ass", or simply "fuck you."

'''Maman Tant Gras Hall''' 
Mama-So-Fat Hall.

'''''guignette''''' 
A [http://www.ornitho-digiscoping.tramelan.ch/pages_des_especes/chevalier_guignette.htm guignette] is a bird, a sandpiper. A [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinguette guinguette] is a cabaret. Looks like another printing error.

'''"Dope" Breedlove and his Merry Coons''' 
Dope breeds love? Maybe Pynchon is lampooning the vicious stereotyping of the whole act, i.e. Those who named them consider them dumb,happy,love breeding black folk.

'''cataplexy''' 
Sudden loss of muscle power following a strong emotional stimulus.

'''traps''' 
Equipment, gear, luggage.

==Page 370==

'''Ramos gin fizz''' 
Another New Orleans cocktail. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramos_gin_fizz Wikipedia entry].

'''Anarchist theory''' 
At the core of anarchist thought lies the contention that all forms of domination are hateful, that government is not just unnecessary but harmful. Early believers in England and France held that the workers should avoid involvment in parliamentary politics, and should liberate themselves by direct action on the streets and in the factories. As a result of an extreme reaction against the extreme autocracy of the Russian Empire, two Russian famous anarchists, Mikhail Bakunin (1814-76) and Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), proclaimed that anarchists organize in order to destroy states. German anarchist Max Sirner (1806-56) stressed the absolute rights of the individual to freedom from institutional control. This principle ruled out any chance of an effective anarchist organization. Anarchism inspired the birth of modern terrorism. The idea was that sensational acts of murder or destruction would publicize injustice, break the resolve of government policy, and shatter the nerve of the ruling elite. (taken from Norman Davies' ''Europe: A History'' (1996).)

'''Benjamin Tucker''' 
1854-1939, American individualist anarchist. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tucker Wikipedia].

'''Land League''' 
The Irish Land League. It was an Irish political organization ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Land_league Land League]) of the late 19th centruy aimed to abolish landlordism in Irland and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on. The period (1870s, 1880s and 1890s) of the Land League's agitation is known in Irland as the Land War, actually not a "war" but rather a prolonged period of civil unrest
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_war Land War]).

'''Jass''' 
An article in the OED on the etymology of the word Jazz by a Bob Rigter traces the word to French "Chasser" and says the word "jass' was in use in New Orleans around 1900! 
"The Grand Larousse de la Langua Française (1971) derives CHASSER from Classical Latin CAPTARE. It provides two related meanings: 'chercher à prendre' and 'pousser devant soi, obliger à avancer ... faire avancer rapidement'. Clearly, the first can be related to the sexual connotation, and the second to the rhythmical connotation of the word JASS as it was used in New Orleans round 1900." 
The OED lists the earliest print usage of "Jazz," originally a dance and not, as in current use, the musical form, as 1909. The exact dating of this episode is unclear, though it seems likely to have occurred earlier.
The usage is not anachronistic though its precise usage(as a musical form rather than a dance)may be unknown. As for the unusual spelling, the OED lists "Jass" as a variant, though with no information as to where or when it was prevalent. see OED article above.

'''Wolfe Tone O'Rooney''' 
The author probably had Theobald Wolfe Tone, commonly known as Wolfe Tone, in mind when he created Wolfe Tone O'Rooney. Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-98), an Irish revolutionary and one of the founders of the Society of United Irishmen ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_United_Irishmen United Irishmen]) in 1791. The society envisioned the union of Protestant and Catholic Irland to work toward constitutional independence as a republic on the model of the United States. In 1795 it shifted from a constitutional to a revolutionary approach. Mr. Tone was inspired with republican idealism by the successes of the American Revolution and by the apparent success of the French Revolution. He was instrumental in several abortive attempts to secure French support for Irish revolution in the 1790s. Wolfe Tone was captured at sea during one of these attempts (1798 Irish Rebellion) and sentenced to death for high treason. He committed suicide, allegedly by cutting his own throat, in prison in Dublin. Wolfe Tone is worshiped in Irland as an iconic figure and the father of Irish Republicanism. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobald_Wolfe_Tone Wolfe Tone]).

Wolf tones appear in music as well, as unwanted resonances in stringed instruments ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_tone Wikipedia]) and as artifacts of [http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/tmprment.html temperament].

'''Fenian''' 
Term (often derogatory) for Irish nationalists. Thought to be derived from the name of the mercenary tribes who protected the king of Eire.

'''boycotting''' 
The word boycott arose in the autumn of 1880 to describe the action instituted by the Irish Land League towards those who incurred its hostility and is derived from the name of Captain Charles Boycott (1832-79), an English estate agent of an absentee landlord, the Earl Erne. Captain Boycott not only refused the protesting farmers' demand of rent reduction but also ejected them from the land. Organized by the Land League, he was subject to social ostracism; the Land League proclaimed: "Let every man in the parish turn his back on him; have no communications with him; have no dealings with him". His workers stopped working in the house, in the field and the house. Local bussinessmen stopped trading with him and the postman refused to delivery his mails. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott Wikipedia].

'''"Sligo and Tipperary"''' 
Counties in Ireland. Wikipedia pages for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sligo Sligo] and for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipperary Tipperary].

'''. . . a metaphorical device whose tenor . . .''' 
Refers to I.A. Richards' identification of metaphor as two discrete elements, "tenor" and "vehicle." In "my love is a rose," "my love" is the tenor, "a rose," the vehicle (see the Wikipedia entry [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor Metaphor] for more). The reference to tenor is a reminder that metaphor is itself a doubling, refractory device.

==Page 371==

'''Red Onion''' 
New Orleans night club on Rampart Street. In the "Back o Town" district, also called the "colored red light district," it was in its day quite a dive. Still in operation.

'''the Deux Espèces''' 
French: the Two Species. In Roman Catholic liturgy, ''la sainte Communion sous les deux espèces'' is "Holy Communion under both kinds," that is, when the communicant receives both the wine and the Host.

'''Flaco''' 
Skinny man (Spanish) or, as a ''nom de guerre,'' "Slim."

==Page 372==

'''"the more repressive the State is, the closer life under it resembles Death"''' 
An allusion to the theories of Mexican-American psychoanalyst Norman O. Brown, whose works, [http://www.amazon.com/Life-Against-Death-Psychoanalytical-Meaning/dp/0819561444/ref=pd_sim_b_1/002-6565825-6477661 ''Life Against Death''] (1959) and [http://www.amazon.com/Loves-Body-Reissue-Norman-Brown/dp/0520071069/sr=8-1/qid=1168179129/ref=sr_1_1/002-6565825-6477661?ie=UTF8&s=books ''Love's Body''] (1966) were an important influence on ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Brown, elaborating on and radicalizing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freud%2C_Sigmund Freud's] theories of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_drive death drive] as discussed in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_and_Its_Discontents ''Civilization and Its Discontents''] (1930), argues that all submission to the state necessarily constitutes a form of psychic repression. Brown saw this repression as resulting from a desire for and ultimately being tantamount to death.
:Those interested should seek out Lawrence C. Wolfley's excellent article "Repression's Rainbow: The Presence of Norman O. Brown in Pynchon's Big Novel," first published in ''PMLA'', Vol. 92, No. 5 (Oct., 1977), pp. 873-889, but reprinted frequently.

'''the bombing of the Teatro Lyceo during a performance of Rossini's opera ''William Tell''''' 
On November 7, 1893, the opening night of the season, an anarchist dissident threw two bombs into the Barcelona opera house; only one bomb exploded, killing twenty and injuring many more.

"Lyceum" (Catalan ''liceu,'' Spanish ''liceo'' or ''lyceo,'' French ''lycée,'' etc.) varies in meaning from country to country. [http://www.apologetics.org/glossary.html The original Lyceum] was the Athens garden where Aristotle taught. In some places the word refers to a secondary school, in others a cultural institution. Lyceum is among the most popular names for theaters in the English-speaking world.

Wikipedia has possibly redundant entries for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Teatre_del_Liceu the Opera House], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona Barcelona], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gioacchino_Rossini Rossini], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Tell_%28opera%29 ''William Tell''], and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatori_Superior_de_M%C3%BAsica_del_Liceu Barcelona's Conservatori Superior de Música del Liceu], the musical conservatory for which the Teatro was built.

'''Montjuich''' 
Catalan for "Hill of the Jews," a broad hill overlooking Barcelona, atop which a 17th century fortress sits. The fortress shelled the city in 1842 following a popular uprising and was used through the reign of Franco to hold political prisoners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montjuich Wikipedia].

'''latifundios''' 
Spanish landed estates, a remnant of the Roman social order. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latifundios Wikipedia].

'''Anarchist Czolgosz had assassinated McKinley''' 
Leon Czolgosz, the son of a Polish immigrant in Detroit, MI, shot and mortally wounded President McKinley on September 6, 1901 in Buffalo, New York, at the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exhibition, a World's Fair held in Buffalo because it could be powered by electricity from Niagara Falls. McKinley died on September 16. Czolgosz was quickly found guilty and was executed by electrocution October 29, 1901. Wikipedia entries for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Czolgosz Czolgosz], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_McKinley McKinley], and the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan-American_Exposition Pan-American Exposition].

'''the Paris Commune''' 
The "socialist government that briefly ruled Paris from 18 March (more formally from 26 March) to 28 May 1871," cited from [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_commune Wikipedia].

==Page 373==

'''a single point . . . upon the next''' 
That is, a place that that is beyond time, where the movement of the meridians (lines of longitude) have no effect. The only part of the earth where this is literally true is the axis. See, therefore, the Chums' journey through the Telluric Interior," pp. 114-18.

'''''Despedida''''' 
Goodbye (Spanish).

'''beignets''' 
New Orleans-style square, holeless doughnuts usually sprinkled with powdered sugar, famously served at Cafe Du Monde. [http://www.cafedumonde.com/ Website].

'''Bakunin''' 
Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876), Russian anarchist and revolutionary. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakunin Wikipedia entry].

'''Kropotkin''' 
Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921), Russian prince and anarchist, author of ''Mutual Aid.'' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin Wikipedia entry].

'''Eusebio Gómez''' 
Wolfe Tone takes a historic name. In 1815 Eusebio Gómez received a royal land grant that included now-prosperous Jupiter Island, Florida. The land was later subdivided and, around 1900, a British development company acquired it.

'''''a sus órdenes''''' 
Sp., "at your service."

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

ATD 171-198

2007-06-10T02:42:21Z

Thew: /* Page 173 */

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

==Page 171==

[[image:kenosha-kid.jpg|thumb|125px|"The Kenosha Kid" by Forbes Parkhill (Aug 1931) 
[http://themodernword.com/pynchon/Pynchon_kenosha_kid.html Full text and images at The Modern Word]|right]]'''Kieselguhr Kid''' 
Dynamite, a blasting explosive, was invented in 1867 by Alfred P. Nobel by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr.

The name also recalls the Kenosha Kid sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which may have taken its name from a 1931 pulp fiction story by Forbes Parkhill, a two-fisted wild west adventure.

'''...detective agencies like Pinkerton‘s and Thiel‘s''' 
see Wikipedia Entries [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_Detective_Agency 1],[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Detective_Service_Company 2]

'''they could look at the unsolved cases the way a banker might at instruments of debt''' 
And bankers call those instruments ''negotiable paper.''

'''reaction of 1849''' 
Acts of European governments to suppress the widespread liberal revolutions of 1848. The reaction impelled many people to emigrate to the U.S.

'''Sangre de Cristos''' 
southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_De_Cristo_Mountains Wikipedia Entry]

Robert Oppenheimer had a ranch in the Sangre de Cristos and loved to ride horseback through the area since he was 18. When the Manhattan Project sought a location to set up shop, Oppenheimer saw Los Alamos as a way to combine his two great loves (physics and NM) with the military's need of a secure and isolated place for the bomb's development.

==Page 172==

'''The Kid's family had supposedly come . . . whenever the Kid's in the county''' 
''The Legend of the Kieselguhr Kid,'' with parallels to the Legends of Zorro, the Lone Ranger and many others.

'''Couple dozen, in big bandoliers across his chest''' 
Similar to the way suicide bombers in the Middle East wear their munitions?

'''Uncompahgre''' 
The Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado.

'''Butch Cassidy''' 
infamous outlaw [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Wikipedia Entry]

'''Dr. Lombroso''' 
Born in Verona, Italy, Dr. Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), using concepts drawn from Physiognomy, early Eugenics, Psychiatry and Social Darwinism, devised the theory that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso Wikipedia entry]

'''Lodazal''' 
spanish for bog, quagmire (?)

==Page 173==

'''"evil-doers"''' 
This immediately brings to mind the post 9/11 George W. Bush use of the term, once again relating the time of AtD, with its "unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places" with current day America - unless, of course, "No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred." [[User:Thew|Thew]] 18:49, 30 May 2007 (PDT)

'''"got us a man of principle"''' 
Eerily reminiscent of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, the convicted American murderer known for his campaign of mail bombings, many of which were addressed to specific victims, intended by Kaczynski to draw attention to what he percieved as the ills of technology on modern society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Wikipedia entry].

There a several tenuous threads of connection between Pynchon and the Unabomber. Pynchon has written works exploring the dangers of modern technology and, more specifically, ludditism. [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html] [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/paper_gibbs.html] As a young man, Pynchon co-wrote such a play, ''Minstral Island'', with his Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale, who later would become one of the world's most prominent and outspoken luddites. Sale later said, "The Unabomber and I share a great many views about the pernicious effect of the Industrial Revolution, the evils of modern technologies, the stifling effect of mass society, the vast extent of suffering in a machine-dominated world and the inevitability of social and environmental catastrophe if the industrial system goes unchecked," although naturally Sale condemned the Unabomber's method. When the Unabomber's identity was still unknown, Pynchon was suggested (with who knows what degree of seriousness, and by whom) as a possible suspect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#1990s_and_2000s]

'''"jizzmatic juices backin' up, putting pressure on the brain" 
'Jizzmatic juices' seems to be a Pynchon-created slang phrase for semen, adapted from the dictionary-found slang word for semen, "jism". Pynchon has "a lady acquaintence" of Mr. Ponghill as responsible for the "naive theory" [Lew Basnight], commonly-enough held, that lack of sex "lack of exposure to the fair sex", previous paragraph can affect the brain and therefore one's judgment.

:Yes yes. this "lack of exposure to the fair sex" can cause [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|Beaver on the Brain]]

:Actually you can find the term "jizz" at the [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jizz Urban Dictionary] - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:49 GMT+2, 26 January 2007

'''"Don't mean he ain't got a right to his privacy."''' 
Continues the Unabomber/Pynchon connection. Pynchon follows the description of a dynamite bomber with the right to privacy, something that Pynchon has guarded closely for his entire life. For more on Pynchon and privacy, see [[ATD_26-56#Page_37|page 37]].

==Page 174==

'''back to the campfires of his youth, only then it was God didn't have a name''' 
"What is God's name?" or "What is God's first name?" was a topic that reliably led adolescent boys to yatter pointlessly on for hours when their adult leaders wanted to be left alone in camp.

'''"your own brother"''' 
The Unabomber was turned in by his brother. ("Kaczynski" means 'ducky' or 'duckman'. Did TRP hide this somewhere?)

==Page 175==

'''every cabin . . . concealed stories that were anything but peaceful''' 
Compare Sherlock Holmes in "The Copper Beeches": "It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

'''"Only slowly would it occur to his ultra-keen detective's reasoning that these bombs could have been set by anybody, including those who would clearly benefit if "Anarchists", however loosely defined, could be blamed for it."''' 
Is this an(other) allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? Cf. a similar reference in [[ATD_81-96#Page_85|page 85]] and the discussion therein.

Pynchon seems to be a smart enough guy to not believe such ridiculious theories. It's all too easy to read into these true historical events (the short-lived period of anarchist bombings of the late 19th and early 20 centuries) similitudes with more recent events, but the context in AtD is clear enough that this sort of speculation seems to be nothing more than speculation. Of course, that's the fodder for conspiracy theorists...--[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 04:40, 21 February 2007 (PST)

==Page 176==

'''revealing the Plutonic powers as they daily sent their legions of gnomes underground''' 
Here we may have a key to understanding the war in the Earth's Interior—in which Chthonica, Princess of Plutonia, saw her castle besieged by the Legion of Gnomes—when the Chums of Chance seem to have joined the Plutonic cause; [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|see text and annotations, p. 117.]]

'''"the Powers, who always had more dwarves waiting, even eagerly, to be sent below."''' 
A Tolkien-inspired imagery? Dwarfs figure prominently into Norse mythology and fantasy works before Tolkien, but Tolkien supposedly began the use of the spelling, "dwarves," employed here. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf Wikipedia entry on Dwarf] 
:I would hope it's an allusion to Wagner's Ring rather than to Tolkien. On pp. 127-28, Iceland Spar, there is discussion of the far north and Nordic travels there. Beyond the Ginnungagap lay Niflheim or in German Niebelheim, meaning Foggy Home, and in Wagner it lay under the earth, with bent-over workers, perhaps dwarves, forced to mine gold and other minerals. This makes the comment above, about the earth's interior and Chthonica, fit even better.

'''Tortoni's on Arapahoe''' 
Italian restaurant located in the 1500 block of Arapahoe Street in downtown Denver. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~codenver/miracle/104.htm Photo]

'''Gahan's saloon across the street from City Hall''' 
Saloon operated by William Gahan, a Denver City Councilman, and his brothers conveniently located at 1401 Larimer Street in Denver, across the street from City Hall. Gahan operated two other saloons, including one at 1133 Larimer Street, which he supposedly kept open on Sundays, harbored gambling, and sponsored a boys' baseball team that played for beer.

'''Ed Chase, the boss of the red-light district''' 
Edward "Big Ed" Chase (1838-1921) was a New Yorker from Saratoga Springs who became the leader of criminal activities in Denver from 1860 on, and as such was an influential and respected man. He ran saloons, gambling houses, bordellos, and theaters (specializing in "burlesque"), and served on the Denver City Council from 1866-1869. After that, he was a behind-the-scenes ward boss and power broker for the Republican party, which dominated Denver politics at the time. Nearly every 19th century election in Denver was clouded by charges that Chase had organized an army of voters out of riffraff, vagrants, prostitutes, barflies and gamblers. By the time of his death in 1921, Chase had come to be regarded as a respected real estate investor and capitalist. For more info, consult ''The City & The Saloon: Denver 1858-1918'' by Thomas J. Noel.

'''"another little Haymarket"''' 
On May 4th 1886 a workers' protest meeting was held at the West Randolph Street Haymarket in Chicago. A bomb was thrown at the police, the police opened fire and many officers and protesters were killed ([http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html chicagohistory.org])

==Page 177==

'''The Row''' 
Denver‘s red light district developed along McGaa Street (subsequently renamed Holladay and then Market Street) [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200010/ai_n8908963 1] [http://www.womenof.com/Articles/d011899.asp 2]

==Page 178==

'''W.F.M.''' 
Western Federation of Miners [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia Entry]

'''Tansy Wagwheel''' 
Other ''AtD'' women named for herbs and ornamentals include Stray's friend Sage in Nochecita, Oleander Prudge, Dittany Vibe and of course Dahlia Rideout.

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
The Klan itself was not in its heyday at the time this episode took place, and not only is it unlikely that the Klan would have shown itself at the time, but also that it would have been this far west. The "modern" Klan was only reformed in 1915. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Wikipedia]. IN the 1920s, Colorado woulod become a stronghold of the "modern" Klan.

'''heeled''' 
Carrying a sidearm. (The word also means "having money," but here the first meaning is pretty clear.)

==Page 179==

'''Clovis Yutts''' 
"Yutz" is a slang word (from Yiddish) for a clueless goof.

'''different tempos and keys''' 
Cf 'anarchist miracle' in "Lot 49" (chapter 5).

In the early 1970s San Francisco was the site of the Black Flag Concerts, where anybody was allowed to make any music. People who attended said it was disorienting to wander through the crowd listening to folk singers, kazoo bands and Celtic harpists all belting away. (The Black Flag is a traditional emblem of anarchism.)

Also perhaps a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives Charles Ives], who wrote much music containing combatting sections in different keys, tempi and melody. The quintessential image of Ives' music is that of four marching bands playing different tunes arriving at the same village square. Ives attended Yale, though graduated in 1898, two years prior to the scene beginning on page 156.

Or perhaps just an image of musical anarchy to match the political Anarchism.

==Page 180==

'''Valley Tan''' 
Mormon whiskey reported by Mark Twain. [http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/091795.html cite]

==Page 181==

'''it'll be run Anarchist run for you, Brother Basnight''' 
Echoes Chick on p. 8: "legal ain't got nothing to do with it—it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door."

==Page 182==

'''faded into the mobility''' 
"Mobility" also appears in ''Mason & Dixon.'' The word was later shortened to "mob."

'''"kept wasting Agency money rattling off one telegram after another."''' 
Cf. the following excerpt from a letter by novelist Raymond Chandler to Jamie Hamilton, 21 March 1949:
:"I remember several years ago when Howard Hawks was making ''The Big Sleep'', the movie, he and Bogart got into an argument as to whether one of the characters was murdered or commited suicide. They sent me a wire (there's a joke about this too) asking me, and dammit I didn't know either. Of course I got hooted at. The joke was in connection with Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros. Believe it or not, he saw the wire, the wire cost the studio 70 cents, and he called Hawks up and asked him whether it was really necessary to send a telegram about a point like that. That's one way to run a business." (''The Raymond Chandler Papers'', ed. by Tom Hiney and Frank McShane, Penguin 2001, p. 105)

'''P.E.T.N.''' 
The explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Ingredient of Semtex, discovered 1891. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN Wikipedia]

'''Dr. Oyswharf''' 
There is, in Norfolk, Virginia, a district (?) called "Oyster Wharf"; there is, in London, a development called "Oyster Wharf" not sure if it's significant or points anywhere, but it appears that this fellow's name is a contraction of those two words. More generically, an "oyster wharf" is any wharf where the oystermen come in and offload their catch. Back in the day, they would give oysters away for free. Oyster shells are a natural source of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3).

Bear in mind that the Chums' Upper Hierarchy communicated orders to the Chums via a pearl. Miles Blundell "well before sunup, had visited the shellfish market in the teeming narrow lanes of the old town in Surabaya, East Java" and procured a bucket of "Special Japanese Oysters" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 113|p. 113]]). The pearl was inserted into a device which rendered a "photographic image." This connects with the red crystal used in Merle's and Roswell's device ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page 1037|p. 1037]]).

Also bear in mind the sexual implications of the oyster, both its use as slang for the vagina (because its shape is evocative of the vagina, and some say its smell, as well) as well as its reputation as a aphrodisiac. This plays into [[The_Sexual_Angle|the sexual pattern]] that runs through ''Against the Day''. A few tidbits:

:Oysters were documented as a aphrodisiac food by the Romans in the second century A.D as mentioned in a satire by Juvenal. He described the wanton ways of women after ingesting wine and eating "giant oysters". An additional hypotheses is that the oyster resembles the "female" genitals. In reality oysters are a very nutritious and high in protein. [http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/aphrodis_foods.htm]

:Oysters have always been linked with love. When Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros, the word "aphrodisiac" was born. The dashing lover Casanova also used to start a meal eating 12 dozen oysters. [http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0298/oysters.html]

Interesting that the oyster plays to the sexual connection, ''and'' the "artful sons of Nippon" using paramorphism to change aragonite, the "nacreous" (an adjective frequently used to describe semen) part of the pearl "to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 114|p. 114]]).

Also: "Oysvarf" in Yiddish means, literally, vomitus; An "oysvarf" translates roughly as "a little puke".
:Actually, my checking indicates that it's ''oysvurf'', not ''oysvarf'', which is Yiddish for an outcast or bad person.

Also might be a reference to Owsley Stanley,"'underground' LSD chemist, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD" and "the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters". wiki:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley]

'''mixtures of nitro compounds and polymethylenes''' 
Nitro compounds include TNT, nitroglycerine and many other explosives. Polymethylenes are probably polymethylene waxes used as stabilizers or desensitizers.

'''experiencing the hotel dining room in a range of colors, not to mention cultural references, which had not been there when he came in''' 
Kinda like the way many of us are seeing ''AtD'' after prolonged exposure to the wiki. . . .

'''"The wallpaper in particular presented not a repeating pattern at all"''' 
Cf. Lucius Sheppard's 1985 short story ''The Fundamental Things'', where a lady starts translating her wallpaper pattern to Hebrew.

The connection between explosives and psychedelics is apparently not based in chemistry but it has appeared elsewhere in popular culture. The 1967 James Bond spoof ''Casino Royale'' has a scene where pillowcases are inflated with a psychedelic gas, a fuse is attached, and a powerful explosion is the result.

==Page 183==

[[image:beaver-on-the-brain.jpg|thumb|Beaver on the Brain T-Shirt|right]]'''Yes we're Beavers of the Brain... 
This little hallucinated ditty, sung by "a race of very small but perfectly visible inhabitants" of Lew Basnight's steak, is reminiscent of "We Represent the Lollipop Guild" sung by three tough-looking Munchkin boys in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 ''The Wizard of Oz''] (1939). "Beavers of the Brain" also brings to mind the phrase "Beaver on the brain" (describing a horny male or, perhaps, lesbian) which even adorns t-shirts (see right).

'''Keep that Bulldog in your pocket...''' 
A "Bulldog" is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon. It also carries a somewhat sexual connotation.

'''Cyclomite''' 
A spelling error may lead to the idea that cyclomite is a name for the explosive RDX; that's cyclo'''n'''ite.

:I don't think this is a spelling error. Connects with dynomite. No way.

:Didn't make myself clear. If cyclomite is a Pynchon coinage, a Google search should give only Pynchon-linked hits. But I got a hit on an explosive—causing me to be short of breath till I realized it was just a misspelling for the correct term '''(in that context)''' "cyclonite," or RDX.

'''plasticerator''' 
Plasti-, moldable (in this case chewable); cera- related to Latin ''cera'' = wax, ''cerumen'' = earwax; -ator, an agent to modify a product. The word "plasticerator" does not seem to have caught on. It would not be a failed synonym for "plasticizer," an agent to make rigid plastics pliable.

==Page 184==

'''Kankakee''' 
city in Illinois.

'''Wall of Death''' 
Without risk of spoilage, [[ATD_460-488#Page_476|see annotation to p. 476.]]

'''things would happen gradually enough to afford time to do something about it''' 
A central idea in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which features a rocket that breaks the sound barrier and thus the ability to kill you before you hear it coming.

'''the world turned all inside out''' 
This passage describes acid flashbacks.
:It's certainly written so as to suggest acid flashbacks but it's describing Lew's experience of being blown up

'''the carnival theory''' 
On page 90 Kit Traverse had "seen a dynamited carny jump up out of the blast good as new."

==Page 185==

'''Trilby hat''' 
Derived from George du Maurier's 1894 novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby Trilby]. The novel was adapted into a long-running play starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali. A hat of this style was worn on stage during the play's first London production.

'''excursion''' 
Wilde's US lecture tour was in 1882.

==Page 186==

'''Anasazi''' 
Ancient Pueblo Peoples, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi "Anasazi"]

'''"Like a Red Indian Stonehenge!" - "Only different!"''' 
Cf. " 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.' " (''Vineland'', p. 170). See also [[ATD_119-148#Page_133| page 133]].

[[image:hangedman.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Hanged Man by Colman-Smith]]
'''''grifa''''' 
Marijuana. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grifa cite]

'''Miss Colman-Smith is West Indian [tarot cards]''' 
Pamela Colman Smith (1878—1951) was an artist, illustrator, and writer. She is best known for designing the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite. Smith was born in England, the daughter of an American merchant from Brooklyn, Charles Edward Smith and his Jamaican wife Corinne Colman. Due to her father’s job with the West India Improvement Company, the family often moved, spending time in London, Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith Wikipedia entry]

Pynchon's interest in the tarot is evident in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Two tarot cards are referred to here -- the Hanged Man ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite image]) and the Knight of Swords ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_arcana#Swords image]). The reference is an anachronism, as the deck wasn't published until 1909.

'''''espadas . . . copas''''' 
Spanish: Swords, Cups. The Tarot suits corresponding to spades and clubs.

'''Querent''' 
Latin: one who asks. The subject of a Tarot reading (in some settings, the mark).

'''Perseid''' 
"The shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8 and 14 with a peak on August 12. During the peak, rates of a hundred or more meteors per hour can be registered." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid Wikipedia]

==Page 187==

'''hell of a blow-up . . . . maiden's sigh''' 
Possible allusion to the testing of Trinity Bomb, the first explosion of an atomic weapon, which took place at White Sands, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test Wikipedia].

See the text on the "anti-Stone," pp. 78-79, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|and annotations.]]

'''A second Moon''' 
[[ATD_119-148#Page_144|On page 144,]] ''Inconvenience'' is described as a "misplaced moon."

'''Galveston''' 
In the summer of 1900 Galveston was a major seaport; many of its cotton warehouses still stand. In the 19th century it was a port of entry for immigrants from Germany, Bohemia, the Balkans and elsewhere. The 1900 hurricane was the making of Houston, a few dozen miles up slow-flowing Buffalo Bayou—which was turned into the Ship Channel within a few years.

==Page 188==

'''Galveston Hurricane''' 
An historical event (8th September 1900, 6000 dead).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900 [Wikipedia]]

'''wherever could you have been living, before that frightful bomb brought you to us?''' 
Perhaps an allusion to and rhetorical parallel of the "wake-up bomb" of the 9/11 attacks, and the relative increase of attention paid by the American media and public to such post-9/11 disasters as the slaughter of citizens in the Afghan and Iraq offensives, the destruction wrought by the South Asian tsunami, the displacement of the "hidden" poor of the Gulf States by Hurricane Katrina, the carnage of the earthquake in Iran, the rampant and still-raging genocides of Sudan, and so on.
:It has to work in ''AtD'' before it can be an allusion to something else! Here Neville seems to say Lew was ''not'' with him and Nigel until the explosion delivered "the New Lew" into "the world reconstituted" (p. 185), not that the N's simply found him in his torpor. "It didn't seem like Colorado anymore" (also p. 185). The explosion did more than knock Lew out; now he's living somewhere else. The reader is well-advised to trust Pynchon and let the text mean what it means before interpreting other histories into it.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
This is the second appearance of the word (the first was on page 83). Neurasthenia was a kind of catch-all at the time for what today would be called depression, fatigue, anxiety, etc.

==Page 189==

'''Fireman Jim Flynn''' 
The nickname undoubtedly comes from railroading, not firefighting.

==Page 190==

'''blue northers''' 
In the West, the Plains and down to Texas, a blue norther is a fast-moving weather front with lightning, rain and wind, followed by a rapid drop in temperature.

==Page 191==

==Page 192==

'''nearly twenty''' 
1883 + 19yo = 1902?

'''stamps beating''' 
Breaking ore into small pieces in preparation for refining.

==Page 193==

'''Uncompahgre''' 
A Plateau in Western Colorado, named after the Uncompahgre Ute Indian Tribe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncompahgre_%28disambiguation%29 [Wikipedia]]

'''Deuce Kindred''' 
A seaman deuce is an apprentice seaman. See V. 
Deuce=Two=Also?...Deuce=Two=Doubling? 
Philip K. Dick's full name is Philip Kindred Dick.

'''Deuce had been one of those Sickly Youths . . . Strenuosity''' 
[[ATD_149-170#Page_159|Theodore Roosevelt]] was the model for feeble boys growing into bold men. His "Strenuous Life" doctrine was uncomfortably close to the adult Deuce's ways.

'''absorbed . . . re-emission . . . fluorescence of vindictiveness''' 
In a fluorescent tube, invisible ultraviolet radiation from the electrical discharge is absorbed by "phosphors" on the inside of the glass. The UV excites the phosphor atoms, which then—instead of giving off ultraviolet of their own—re-emit the energy at a different wavelength, one that is visible.

'''workin fathoms''' 
Mining under a contract that paid by the volume of rock extracted. See [[ATD_296-317#Page_302|annotations to p. 302]] (but to avoid spoilers, don't look up or down).

'''not since the aught-one strike''' 
So 1901 is in the past.

'''three-dollar sack suit''' 
That is, a suit one might buy at a store where one fills a sack with clothes and then pays three dollars for the lot.
A sack suit is an ordinary 19th-c. business suit which "evolved into the modern three piece suit."
[http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/sack.html source]

==Page 194==

'''the fish at that table''' 
The player whose money the others mean to take.

'''Dallas Divide''' 
Mountain Pass dividing the Uncompahgre Plateau from the San Juan Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Divide [Wikipedia]]

==Page 195==

'''Sloat Fresno''' 
Possibly named for Commodore John D. Sloat ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Sloat Wikipedia entry]), American naval officer who claimed California, then a territory of Mexico, as part of the United States on July 7, 1846. The text of the declaration can be found [http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/documents/sloat.htm here]. Another source may be the Sloat Lumber Co. of Quincy, CA, which used an uncommon 30 gauge track, about which all I can find is [http://members.tripod.com/~Sloat_Lumber_Co/PROTOTYP.HTM here]. Fresno is presumably a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno%2C_CA city in California], though its direct relation to either the Commodore or the Sloat Lumber Co. is unclear.

''Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,'' by Cormac McCarthy, has a character named Sloat, but he's so minor that the only dialog he gets is when he denies being related to the commodore.

Sloat is another term for slat, a narrow piece of wood. Fresno is Spanish for ash.

'''copping the borax''' 
? Seemingly a term invented by Pynchon. No idea what it means, but borax is a mineral used in detergent, pottery, a lots of other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax Wikipedia on Borax]

"Borax" is a slang word for cheap, poorly made products. Makers of borax for use in cleansing used to give away junky items as premiums. If you look at it the other way around, "borax" could mean a premium, hence an enlistment bonus. "Copping" of course is getting something by underhand means.

'''from Fort Bliss to the Coeur d'Alenes''' 
From Dan to Beersheba, so to speak. Fort Bliss is near El Paso, Texas. The Coeur d'Alène Mountains are in the panhandle of Idaho and the western end of Montana.

'''Montrose''' 
Montrose, CO. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado [Wikipedia]]

'''li'l buddy''' 
Brings to mind Gilligan and the Skipper from ''Gilligan's Island'': Sloat, like the Skipper, is twice his buddy's size; in both pairs, it is uncertain just who is whose sidekick; and the Skipper referred to Gilligan by, "li'l buddy."

==Page 196==

'''red liquor''' 
Colored liquor, such as bourbon or whiskey.

==Page 197==

'''Sloat tending to bodies, Deuce... the spirit''' 
Again, the body/soul dichotomy. See [[ATD_97-118#Page_101|page 101]] and [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]] letter by Pynchon.

[[image:couplingpin.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Coupling pin]]'''coupling pin''' See photo.

==Page 198==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Repeats the title of Part One. May also suggest Tesla's 03 July 1899 'vision' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_97|page 97]]). May also be tied to the light/dark theme running through parts of the book thus far: light over the (dark) ranges. Note the concurrence of the leitmotives light-time-water in the sentence "He watched the light over the ranges slowly draining away". The image of "draining light" might also hint at the wave-particle duality.

'''Jeshimon''' 
Literally: "the waste", more specifically the wilderness of Judah in the Bible, near the Dead Sea. [http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/jeshimon.html christiananswers.net]. Fuller annotation at [[ATD_199-218#Page_209|page 209.]]

'''"Sir, please relocate your hand or I shall be obliged to do so myself"''' 
A fine flowery way of saying, "Move it or lose it, Sport."

'''Cortez''' 
In far southwestern Colorado near the Utah state line.

'''shadow had taken the immeasurable plain''' 
Contrasts "the light over the ranges". Possibly an allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah, the "cities of the plain" in Genesis 19, in which the angels advise Lot and his family: "do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the Plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away" (19:17). ''The cities of the plain'', is also the title of i) the translated fourth volume of Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'' (original title ''Sodome et Gomorrhe'') and ii) Cormac McCarthy's third novel of ''The Border Trilogy''.

This is the third possible reference to Proust so far. See also [[ATD_149-170#Page_165|page 165]], and [[#Page_188|page 188]].

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

ATD 171-198

2007-05-31T01:51:06Z

Thew: /* Page 173 */

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

==Page 171==

[[image:kenosha-kid.jpg|thumb|125px|"The Kenosha Kid" by Forbes Parkhill (Aug 1931) 
[http://themodernword.com/pynchon/Pynchon_kenosha_kid.html Full text and images at The Modern Word]|right]]'''Kieselguhr Kid''' 
Dynamite, a blasting explosive, was invented in 1867 by Alfred P. Nobel by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr.

The name also recalls the Kenosha Kid sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which may have taken its name from a 1931 pulp fiction story by Forbes Parkhill, a two-fisted wild west adventure.

'''...detective agencies like Pinkerton‘s and Thiel‘s''' 
see Wikipedia Entries [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_Detective_Agency 1],[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Detective_Service_Company 2]

'''they could look at the unsolved cases the way a banker might at instruments of debt''' 
And bankers call those instruments ''negotiable paper.''

'''reaction of 1849''' 
Acts of European governments to suppress the widespread liberal revolutions of 1848. The reaction impelled many people to emigrate to the U.S.

'''Sangre de Cristos''' 
southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_De_Cristo_Mountains Wikipedia Entry]

Robert Oppenheimer had a ranch in the Sangre de Cristos and loved to ride horseback through the area since he was 18. When the Manhattan Project sought a location to set up shop, Oppenheimer saw Los Alamos as a way to combine his two great loves (physics and NM) with the military's need of a secure and isolated place for the bomb's development.

==Page 172==

'''The Kid's family had supposedly come . . . whenever the Kid's in the county''' 
''The Legend of the Kieselguhr Kid,'' with parallels to the Legends of Zorro, the Lone Ranger and many others.

'''Couple dozen, in big bandoliers across his chest''' 
Similar to the way suicide bombers in the Middle East wear their munitions?

'''Uncompahgre''' 
The Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado.

'''Butch Cassidy''' 
infamous outlaw [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Wikipedia Entry]

'''Dr. Lombroso''' 
Born in Verona, Italy, Dr. Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), using concepts drawn from Physiognomy, early Eugenics, Psychiatry and Social Darwinism, devised the theory that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso Wikipedia entry]

'''Lodazal''' 
spanish for bog, quagmire (?)

==Page 173==

'''"evil-doers"''' 
This immediately brings to mind the post 9/11 George W. Bush use of the term, once again relating the time of AtD, with its "unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places" with current day America.[[User:Thew|Thew]] 18:49, 30 May 2007 (PDT)

'''"got us a man of principle"''' 
Eerily reminiscent of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, the convicted American murderer known for his campaign of mail bombings, many of which were addressed to specific victims, intended by Kaczynski to draw attention to what he percieved as the ills of technology on modern society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Wikipedia entry].

There a several tenuous threads of connection between Pynchon and the Unabomber. Pynchon has written works exploring the dangers of modern technology and, more specifically, ludditism. [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html] [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/paper_gibbs.html] As a young man, Pynchon co-wrote such a play, ''Minstral Island'', with his Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale, who later would become one of the world's most prominent and outspoken luddites. Sale later said, "The Unabomber and I share a great many views about the pernicious effect of the Industrial Revolution, the evils of modern technologies, the stifling effect of mass society, the vast extent of suffering in a machine-dominated world and the inevitability of social and environmental catastrophe if the industrial system goes unchecked," although naturally Sale condemned the Unabomber's method. When the Unabomber's identity was still unknown, Pynchon was suggested (with who knows what degree of seriousness, and by whom) as a possible suspect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#1990s_and_2000s]

'''"jizzmatic juices backin' up, putting pressure on the brain" 
'Jizzmatic juices' seems to be a Pynchon-created slang phrase for semen, adapted from the dictionary-found slang word for semen, "jism". Pynchon has "a lady acquaintence" of Mr. Ponghill as responsible for the "naive theory" [Lew Basnight], commonly-enough held, that lack of sex "lack of exposure to the fair sex", previous paragraph can affect the brain and therefore one's judgment.

:Yes yes. this "lack of exposure to the fair sex" can cause [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|Beaver on the Brain]]

:Actually you can find the term "jizz" at the [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jizz Urban Dictionary] - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:49 GMT+2, 26 January 2007

'''"Don't mean he ain't got a right to his privacy."''' 
Continues the Unabomber/Pynchon connection. Pynchon follows the description of a dynamite bomber with the right to privacy, something that Pynchon has guarded closely for his entire life. For more on Pynchon and privacy, see [[ATD_26-56#Page_37|page 37]].

==Page 174==

'''back to the campfires of his youth, only then it was God didn't have a name''' 
"What is God's name?" or "What is God's first name?" was a topic that reliably led adolescent boys to yatter pointlessly on for hours when their adult leaders wanted to be left alone in camp.

'''"your own brother"''' 
The Unabomber was turned in by his brother. ("Kaczynski" means 'ducky' or 'duckman'. Did TRP hide this somewhere?)

==Page 175==

'''every cabin . . . concealed stories that were anything but peaceful''' 
Compare Sherlock Holmes in "The Copper Beeches": "It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

'''"Only slowly would it occur to his ultra-keen detective's reasoning that these bombs could have been set by anybody, including those who would clearly benefit if "Anarchists", however loosely defined, could be blamed for it."''' 
Is this an(other) allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? Cf. a similar reference in [[ATD_81-96#Page_85|page 85]] and the discussion therein.

Pynchon seems to be a smart enough guy to not believe such ridiculious theories. It's all too easy to read into these true historical events (the short-lived period of anarchist bombings of the late 19th and early 20 centuries) similitudes with more recent events, but the context in AtD is clear enough that this sort of speculation seems to be nothing more than speculation. Of course, that's the fodder for conspiracy theorists...--[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 04:40, 21 February 2007 (PST)

==Page 176==

'''revealing the Plutonic powers as they daily sent their legions of gnomes underground''' 
Here we may have a key to understanding the war in the Earth's Interior—in which Chthonica, Princess of Plutonia, saw her castle besieged by the Legion of Gnomes—when the Chums of Chance seem to have joined the Plutonic cause; [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|see text and annotations, p. 117.]]

'''"the Powers, who always had more dwarves waiting, even eagerly, to be sent below."''' 
A Tolkien-inspired imagery? Dwarfs figure prominently into Norse mythology and fantasy works before Tolkien, but Tolkien supposedly began the use of the spelling, "dwarves," employed here. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf Wikipedia entry on Dwarf] 
:I would hope it's an allusion to Wagner's Ring rather than to Tolkien. On pp. 127-28, Iceland Spar, there is discussion of the far north and Nordic travels there. Beyond the Ginnungagap lay Niflheim or in German Niebelheim, meaning Foggy Home, and in Wagner it lay under the earth, with bent-over workers, perhaps dwarves, forced to mine gold and other minerals. This makes the comment above, about the earth's interior and Chthonica, fit even better.

'''Tortoni's on Arapahoe''' 
Italian restaurant located in the 1500 block of Arapahoe Street in downtown Denver. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~codenver/miracle/104.htm Photo]

'''Gahan's saloon across the street from City Hall''' 
Saloon operated by William Gahan, a Denver City Councilman, and his brothers conveniently located at 1401 Larimer Street in Denver, across the street from City Hall. Gahan operated two other saloons, including one at 1133 Larimer Street, which he supposedly kept open on Sundays, harbored gambling, and sponsored a boys' baseball team that played for beer.

'''Ed Chase, the boss of the red-light district''' 
Edward "Big Ed" Chase (1838-1921) was a New Yorker from Saratoga Springs who became the leader of criminal activities in Denver from 1860 on, and as such was an influential and respected man. He ran saloons, gambling houses, bordellos, and theaters (specializing in "burlesque"), and served on the Denver City Council from 1866-1869. After that, he was a behind-the-scenes ward boss and power broker for the Republican party, which dominated Denver politics at the time. Nearly every 19th century election in Denver was clouded by charges that Chase had organized an army of voters out of riffraff, vagrants, prostitutes, barflies and gamblers. By the time of his death in 1921, Chase had come to be regarded as a respected real estate investor and capitalist. For more info, consult ''The City & The Saloon: Denver 1858-1918'' by Thomas J. Noel.

'''"another little Haymarket"''' 
On May 4th 1886 a workers' protest meeting was held at the West Randolph Street Haymarket in Chicago. A bomb was thrown at the police, the police opened fire and many officers and protesters were killed ([http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html chicagohistory.org])

==Page 177==

'''The Row''' 
Denver‘s red light district developed along McGaa Street (subsequently renamed Holladay and then Market Street) [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200010/ai_n8908963 1] [http://www.womenof.com/Articles/d011899.asp 2]

==Page 178==

'''W.F.M.''' 
Western Federation of Miners [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia Entry]

'''Tansy Wagwheel''' 
Other ''AtD'' women named for herbs and ornamentals include Stray's friend Sage in Nochecita, Oleander Prudge, Dittany Vibe and of course Dahlia Rideout.

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
The Klan itself was not in its heyday at the time this episode took place, and not only is it unlikely that the Klan would have shown itself at the time, but also that it would have been this far west. The "modern" Klan was only reformed in 1915. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Wikipedia]. IN the 1920s, Colorado woulod become a stronghold of the "modern" Klan.

'''heeled''' 
Carrying a sidearm. (The word also means "having money," but here the first meaning is pretty clear.)

==Page 179==

'''Clovis Yutts''' 
"Yutz" is a slang word (from Yiddish) for a clueless goof.

'''different tempos and keys''' 
Cf 'anarchist miracle' in "Lot 49" (chapter 5).

In the early 1970s San Francisco was the site of the Black Flag Concerts, where anybody was allowed to make any music. People who attended said it was disorienting to wander through the crowd listening to folk singers, kazoo bands and Celtic harpists all belting away. (The Black Flag is a traditional emblem of anarchism.)

Also perhaps a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives Charles Ives], who wrote much music containing combatting sections in different keys, tempi and melody. The quintessential image of Ives' music is that of four marching bands playing different tunes arriving at the same village square. Ives attended Yale, though graduated in 1898, two years prior to the scene beginning on page 156.

Or perhaps just an image of musical anarchy to match the political Anarchism.

==Page 180==

'''Valley Tan''' 
Mormon whiskey reported by Mark Twain. [http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/091795.html cite]

==Page 181==

'''it'll be run Anarchist run for you, Brother Basnight''' 
Echoes Chick on p. 8: "legal ain't got nothing to do with it—it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door."

==Page 182==

'''faded into the mobility''' 
"Mobility" also appears in ''Mason & Dixon.'' The word was later shortened to "mob."

'''"kept wasting Agency money rattling off one telegram after another."''' 
Cf. the following excerpt from a letter by novelist Raymond Chandler to Jamie Hamilton, 21 March 1949:
:"I remember several years ago when Howard Hawks was making ''The Big Sleep'', the movie, he and Bogart got into an argument as to whether one of the characters was murdered or commited suicide. They sent me a wire (there's a joke about this too) asking me, and dammit I didn't know either. Of course I got hooted at. The joke was in connection with Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros. Believe it or not, he saw the wire, the wire cost the studio 70 cents, and he called Hawks up and asked him whether it was really necessary to send a telegram about a point like that. That's one way to run a business." (''The Raymond Chandler Papers'', ed. by Tom Hiney and Frank McShane, Penguin 2001, p. 105)

'''P.E.T.N.''' 
The explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Ingredient of Semtex, discovered 1891. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN Wikipedia]

'''Dr. Oyswharf''' 
There is, in Norfolk, Virginia, a district (?) called "Oyster Wharf"; there is, in London, a development called "Oyster Wharf" not sure if it's significant or points anywhere, but it appears that this fellow's name is a contraction of those two words. More generically, an "oyster wharf" is any wharf where the oystermen come in and offload their catch. Back in the day, they would give oysters away for free. Oyster shells are a natural source of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3).

Bear in mind that the Chums' Upper Hierarchy communicated orders to the Chums via a pearl. Miles Blundell "well before sunup, had visited the shellfish market in the teeming narrow lanes of the old town in Surabaya, East Java" and procured a bucket of "Special Japanese Oysters" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 113|p. 113]]). The pearl was inserted into a device which rendered a "photographic image." This connects with the red crystal used in Merle's and Roswell's device ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page 1037|p. 1037]]).

Also bear in mind the sexual implications of the oyster, both its use as slang for the vagina (because its shape is evocative of the vagina, and some say its smell, as well) as well as its reputation as a aphrodisiac. This plays into [[The_Sexual_Angle|the sexual pattern]] that runs through ''Against the Day''. A few tidbits:

:Oysters were documented as a aphrodisiac food by the Romans in the second century A.D as mentioned in a satire by Juvenal. He described the wanton ways of women after ingesting wine and eating "giant oysters". An additional hypotheses is that the oyster resembles the "female" genitals. In reality oysters are a very nutritious and high in protein. [http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/aphrodis_foods.htm]

:Oysters have always been linked with love. When Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros, the word "aphrodisiac" was born. The dashing lover Casanova also used to start a meal eating 12 dozen oysters. [http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0298/oysters.html]

Interesting that the oyster plays to the sexual connection, ''and'' the "artful sons of Nippon" using paramorphism to change aragonite, the "nacreous" (an adjective frequently used to describe semen) part of the pearl "to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 114|p. 114]]).

Also: "Oysvarf" in Yiddish means, literally, vomitus; An "oysvarf" translates roughly as "a little puke".
:Actually, my checking indicates that it's ''oysvurf'', not ''oysvarf'', which is Yiddish for an outcast or bad person.

Also might be a reference to Owsley Stanley,"'underground' LSD chemist, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD" and "the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters". wiki:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley]

'''mixtures of nitro compounds and polymethylenes''' 
Nitro compounds include TNT, nitroglycerine and many other explosives. Polymethylenes are probably polymethylene waxes used as stabilizers or desensitizers.

'''experiencing the hotel dining room in a range of colors, not to mention cultural references, which had not been there when he came in''' 
Kinda like the way many of us are seeing ''AtD'' after prolonged exposure to the wiki. . . .

'''"The wallpaper in particular presented not a repeating pattern at all"''' 
Cf. Lucius Sheppard's 1985 short story ''The Fundamental Things'', where a lady starts translating her wallpaper pattern to Hebrew.

The connection between explosives and psychedelics is apparently not based in chemistry but it has appeared elsewhere in popular culture. The 1967 James Bond spoof ''Casino Royale'' has a scene where pillowcases are inflated with a psychedelic gas, a fuse is attached, and a powerful explosion is the result.

==Page 183==

[[image:beaver-on-the-brain.jpg|thumb|Beaver on the Brain T-Shirt|right]]'''Yes we're Beavers of the Brain... 
This little hallucinated ditty, sung by "a race of very small but perfectly visible inhabitants" of Lew Basnight's steak, is reminiscent of "We Represent the Lollipop Guild" sung by three tough-looking Munchkin boys in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 ''The Wizard of Oz''] (1939). "Beavers of the Brain" also brings to mind the phrase "Beaver on the brain" (describing a horny male or, perhaps, lesbian) which even adorns t-shirts (see right).

'''Keep that Bulldog in your pocket...''' 
A "Bulldog" is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon. It also carries a somewhat sexual connotation.

'''Cyclomite''' 
A spelling error may lead to the idea that cyclomite is a name for the explosive RDX; that's cyclo'''n'''ite.

:I don't think this is a spelling error. Connects with dynomite. No way.

:Didn't make myself clear. If cyclomite is a Pynchon coinage, a Google search should give only Pynchon-linked hits. But I got a hit on an explosive—causing me to be short of breath till I realized it was just a misspelling for the correct term '''(in that context)''' "cyclonite," or RDX.

'''plasticerator''' 
Plasti-, moldable (in this case chewable); cera- related to Latin ''cera'' = wax, ''cerumen'' = earwax; -ator, an agent to modify a product. The word "plasticerator" does not seem to have caught on. It would not be a failed synonym for "plasticizer," an agent to make rigid plastics pliable.

==Page 184==

'''Kankakee''' 
city in Illinois.

'''Wall of Death''' 
Without risk of spoilage, [[ATD_460-488#Page_476|see annotation to p. 476.]]

'''things would happen gradually enough to afford time to do something about it''' 
A central idea in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which features a rocket that breaks the sound barrier and thus the ability to kill you before you hear it coming.

'''the world turned all inside out''' 
This passage describes acid flashbacks.
:It's certainly written so as to suggest acid flashbacks but it's describing Lew's experience of being blown up

'''the carnival theory''' 
On page 90 Kit Traverse had "seen a dynamited carny jump up out of the blast good as new."

==Page 185==

'''Trilby hat''' 
Derived from George du Maurier's 1894 novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby Trilby]. The novel was adapted into a long-running play starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali. A hat of this style was worn on stage during the play's first London production.

'''excursion''' 
Wilde's US lecture tour was in 1882.

==Page 186==

'''Anasazi''' 
Ancient Pueblo Peoples, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi "Anasazi"]

'''"Like a Red Indian Stonehenge!" - "Only different!"''' 
Cf. " 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.' " (''Vineland'', p. 170). See also [[ATD_119-148#Page_133| page 133]].

[[image:hangedman.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Hanged Man by Colman-Smith]]
'''''grifa''''' 
Marijuana. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grifa cite]

'''Miss Colman-Smith is West Indian [tarot cards]''' 
Pamela Colman Smith (1878—1951) was an artist, illustrator, and writer. She is best known for designing the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite. Smith was born in England, the daughter of an American merchant from Brooklyn, Charles Edward Smith and his Jamaican wife Corinne Colman. Due to her father’s job with the West India Improvement Company, the family often moved, spending time in London, Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith Wikipedia entry]

Pynchon's interest in the tarot is evident in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Two tarot cards are referred to here -- the Hanged Man ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite image]) and the Knight of Swords ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_arcana#Swords image]). The reference is an anachronism, as the deck wasn't published until 1909.

'''''espadas . . . copas''''' 
Spanish: Swords, Cups. The Tarot suits corresponding to spades and clubs.

'''Querent''' 
Latin: one who asks. The subject of a Tarot reading (in some settings, the mark).

'''Perseid''' 
"The shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8 and 14 with a peak on August 12. During the peak, rates of a hundred or more meteors per hour can be registered." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid Wikipedia]

==Page 187==

'''hell of a blow-up . . . . maiden's sigh''' 
Possible allusion to the testing of Trinity Bomb, the first explosion of an atomic weapon, which took place at White Sands, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test Wikipedia].

See the text on the "anti-Stone," pp. 78-79, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|and annotations.]]

'''A second Moon''' 
[[ATD_119-148#Page_144|On page 144,]] ''Inconvenience'' is described as a "misplaced moon."

'''Galveston''' 
In the summer of 1900 Galveston was a major seaport; many of its cotton warehouses still stand. In the 19th century it was a port of entry for immigrants from Germany, Bohemia, the Balkans and elsewhere. The 1900 hurricane was the making of Houston, a few dozen miles up slow-flowing Buffalo Bayou—which was turned into the Ship Channel within a few years.

==Page 188==

'''Galveston Hurricane''' 
An historical event (8th September 1900, 6000 dead).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900 [Wikipedia]]

'''wherever could you have been living, before that frightful bomb brought you to us?''' 
Perhaps an allusion to and rhetorical parallel of the "wake-up bomb" of the 9/11 attacks, and the relative increase of attention paid by the American media and public to such post-9/11 disasters as the slaughter of citizens in the Afghan and Iraq offensives, the destruction wrought by the South Asian tsunami, the displacement of the "hidden" poor of the Gulf States by Hurricane Katrina, the carnage of the earthquake in Iran, the rampant and still-raging genocides of Sudan, and so on.
:It has to work in ''AtD'' before it can be an allusion to something else! Here Neville seems to say Lew was ''not'' with him and Nigel until the explosion delivered "the New Lew" into "the world reconstituted" (p. 185), not that the N's simply found him in his torpor. "It didn't seem like Colorado anymore" (also p. 185). The explosion did more than knock Lew out; now he's living somewhere else. The reader is well-advised to trust Pynchon and let the text mean what it means before interpreting other histories into it.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
This is the second appearance of the word (the first was on page 83). Neurasthenia was a kind of catch-all at the time for what today would be called depression, fatigue, anxiety, etc.

==Page 189==

'''Fireman Jim Flynn''' 
The nickname undoubtedly comes from railroading, not firefighting.

==Page 190==

'''blue northers''' 
In the West, the Plains and down to Texas, a blue norther is a fast-moving weather front with lightning, rain and wind, followed by a rapid drop in temperature.

==Page 191==

==Page 192==

'''nearly twenty''' 
1883 + 19yo = 1902?

'''stamps beating''' 
Breaking ore into small pieces in preparation for refining.

==Page 193==

'''Uncompahgre''' 
A Plateau in Western Colorado, named after the Uncompahgre Ute Indian Tribe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncompahgre_%28disambiguation%29 [Wikipedia]]

'''Deuce Kindred''' 
A seaman deuce is an apprentice seaman. See V. 
Deuce=Two=Also?...Deuce=Two=Doubling? 
Philip K. Dick's full name is Philip Kindred Dick.

'''Deuce had been one of those Sickly Youths . . . Strenuosity''' 
[[ATD_149-170#Page_159|Theodore Roosevelt]] was the model for feeble boys growing into bold men. His "Strenuous Life" doctrine was uncomfortably close to the adult Deuce's ways.

'''absorbed . . . re-emission . . . fluorescence of vindictiveness''' 
In a fluorescent tube, invisible ultraviolet radiation from the electrical discharge is absorbed by "phosphors" on the inside of the glass. The UV excites the phosphor atoms, which then—instead of giving off ultraviolet of their own—re-emit the energy at a different wavelength, one that is visible.

'''workin fathoms''' 
Mining under a contract that paid by the volume of rock extracted. See [[ATD_296-317#Page_302|annotations to p. 302]] (but to avoid spoilers, don't look up or down).

'''not since the aught-one strike''' 
So 1901 is in the past.

'''three-dollar sack suit''' 
That is, a suit one might buy at a store where one fills a sack with clothes and then pays three dollars for the lot.
A sack suit is an ordinary 19th-c. business suit which "evolved into the modern three piece suit."
[http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/sack.html source]

==Page 194==

'''the fish at that table''' 
The player whose money the others mean to take.

'''Dallas Divide''' 
Mountain Pass dividing the Uncompahgre Plateau from the San Juan Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Divide [Wikipedia]]

==Page 195==

'''Sloat Fresno''' 
Possibly named for Commodore John D. Sloat ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Sloat Wikipedia entry]), American naval officer who claimed California, then a territory of Mexico, as part of the United States on July 7, 1846. The text of the declaration can be found [http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/documents/sloat.htm here]. Another source may be the Sloat Lumber Co. of Quincy, CA, which used an uncommon 30 gauge track, about which all I can find is [http://members.tripod.com/~Sloat_Lumber_Co/PROTOTYP.HTM here]. Fresno is presumably a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno%2C_CA city in California], though its direct relation to either the Commodore or the Sloat Lumber Co. is unclear.

''Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,'' by Cormac McCarthy, has a character named Sloat, but he's so minor that the only dialog he gets is when he denies being related to the commodore.

Sloat is another term for slat, a narrow piece of wood. Fresno is Spanish for ash.

'''copping the borax''' 
? Seemingly a term invented by Pynchon. No idea what it means, but borax is a mineral used in detergent, pottery, a lots of other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax Wikipedia on Borax]

"Borax" is a slang word for cheap, poorly made products. Makers of borax for use in cleansing used to give away junky items as premiums. If you look at it the other way around, "borax" could mean a premium, hence an enlistment bonus. "Copping" of course is getting something by underhand means.

'''from Fort Bliss to the Coeur d'Alenes''' 
From Dan to Beersheba, so to speak. Fort Bliss is near El Paso, Texas. The Coeur d'Alène Mountains are in the panhandle of Idaho and the western end of Montana.

'''Montrose''' 
Montrose, CO. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado [Wikipedia]]

'''li'l buddy''' 
Brings to mind Gilligan and the Skipper from ''Gilligan's Island'': Sloat, like the Skipper, is twice his buddy's size; in both pairs, it is uncertain just who is whose sidekick; and the Skipper referred to Gilligan by, "li'l buddy."

==Page 196==

'''red liquor''' 
Colored liquor, such as bourbon or whiskey.

==Page 197==

'''Sloat tending to bodies, Deuce... the spirit''' 
Again, the body/soul dichotomy. See [[ATD_97-118#Page_101|page 101]] and [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]] letter by Pynchon.

[[image:couplingpin.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Coupling pin]]'''coupling pin''' See photo.

==Page 198==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Repeats the title of Part One. May also suggest Tesla's 03 July 1899 'vision' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_97|page 97]]). May also be tied to the light/dark theme running through parts of the book thus far: light over the (dark) ranges. Note the concurrence of the leitmotives light-time-water in the sentence "He watched the light over the ranges slowly draining away". The image of "draining light" might also hint at the wave-particle duality.

'''Jeshimon''' 
Literally: "the waste", more specifically the wilderness of Judah in the Bible, near the Dead Sea. [http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/jeshimon.html christiananswers.net]. Fuller annotation at [[ATD_199-218#Page_209|page 209.]]

'''"Sir, please relocate your hand or I shall be obliged to do so myself"''' 
A fine flowery way of saying, "Move it or lose it, Sport."

'''Cortez''' 
In far southwestern Colorado near the Utah state line.

'''shadow had taken the immeasurable plain''' 
Contrasts "the light over the ranges". Possibly an allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah, the "cities of the plain" in Genesis 19, in which the angels advise Lot and his family: "do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the Plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away" (19:17). ''The cities of the plain'', is also the title of i) the translated fourth volume of Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'' (original title ''Sodome et Gomorrhe'') and ii) Cormac McCarthy's third novel of ''The Border Trilogy''.

This is the third possible reference to Proust so far. See also [[ATD_149-170#Page_165|page 165]], and [[#Page_188|page 188]].

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

ATD 171-198

2007-05-31T01:50:03Z

Thew: /* Page 173 */

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

==Page 171==

[[image:kenosha-kid.jpg|thumb|125px|"The Kenosha Kid" by Forbes Parkhill (Aug 1931) 
[http://themodernword.com/pynchon/Pynchon_kenosha_kid.html Full text and images at The Modern Word]|right]]'''Kieselguhr Kid''' 
Dynamite, a blasting explosive, was invented in 1867 by Alfred P. Nobel by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr.

The name also recalls the Kenosha Kid sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which may have taken its name from a 1931 pulp fiction story by Forbes Parkhill, a two-fisted wild west adventure.

'''...detective agencies like Pinkerton‘s and Thiel‘s''' 
see Wikipedia Entries [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_Detective_Agency 1],[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Detective_Service_Company 2]

'''they could look at the unsolved cases the way a banker might at instruments of debt''' 
And bankers call those instruments ''negotiable paper.''

'''reaction of 1849''' 
Acts of European governments to suppress the widespread liberal revolutions of 1848. The reaction impelled many people to emigrate to the U.S.

'''Sangre de Cristos''' 
southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_De_Cristo_Mountains Wikipedia Entry]

Robert Oppenheimer had a ranch in the Sangre de Cristos and loved to ride horseback through the area since he was 18. When the Manhattan Project sought a location to set up shop, Oppenheimer saw Los Alamos as a way to combine his two great loves (physics and NM) with the military's need of a secure and isolated place for the bomb's development.

==Page 172==

'''The Kid's family had supposedly come . . . whenever the Kid's in the county''' 
''The Legend of the Kieselguhr Kid,'' with parallels to the Legends of Zorro, the Lone Ranger and many others.

'''Couple dozen, in big bandoliers across his chest''' 
Similar to the way suicide bombers in the Middle East wear their munitions?

'''Uncompahgre''' 
The Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado.

'''Butch Cassidy''' 
infamous outlaw [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Wikipedia Entry]

'''Dr. Lombroso''' 
Born in Verona, Italy, Dr. Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), using concepts drawn from Physiognomy, early Eugenics, Psychiatry and Social Darwinism, devised the theory that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso Wikipedia entry]

'''Lodazal''' 
spanish for bog, quagmire (?)

==Page 173==

'''"evil-doers"''' 
This immediately brings to mind the post 9/11 George W. Bush use of the term, once again relating the time of AtD, with its "unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places" with current day America.[[User:Thew|Thew]] 18:49, 30 May 2007 (PDT) thew

'''"got us a man of principle"''' 
Eerily reminiscent of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, the convicted American murderer known for his campaign of mail bombings, many of which were addressed to specific victims, intended by Kaczynski to draw attention to what he percieved as the ills of technology on modern society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Wikipedia entry].

There a several tenuous threads of connection between Pynchon and the Unabomber. Pynchon has written works exploring the dangers of modern technology and, more specifically, ludditism. [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html] [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/paper_gibbs.html] As a young man, Pynchon co-wrote such a play, ''Minstral Island'', with his Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale, who later would become one of the world's most prominent and outspoken luddites. Sale later said, "The Unabomber and I share a great many views about the pernicious effect of the Industrial Revolution, the evils of modern technologies, the stifling effect of mass society, the vast extent of suffering in a machine-dominated world and the inevitability of social and environmental catastrophe if the industrial system goes unchecked," although naturally Sale condemned the Unabomber's method. When the Unabomber's identity was still unknown, Pynchon was suggested (with who knows what degree of seriousness, and by whom) as a possible suspect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#1990s_and_2000s]

'''"jizzmatic juices backin' up, putting pressure on the brain" 
'Jizzmatic juices' seems to be a Pynchon-created slang phrase for semen, adapted from the dictionary-found slang word for semen, "jism". Pynchon has "a lady acquaintence" of Mr. Ponghill as responsible for the "naive theory" [Lew Basnight], commonly-enough held, that lack of sex "lack of exposure to the fair sex", previous paragraph can affect the brain and therefore one's judgment.

:Yes yes. this "lack of exposure to the fair sex" can cause [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|Beaver on the Brain]]

:Actually you can find the term "jizz" at the [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jizz Urban Dictionary] - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:49 GMT+2, 26 January 2007

'''"Don't mean he ain't got a right to his privacy."''' 
Continues the Unabomber/Pynchon connection. Pynchon follows the description of a dynamite bomber with the right to privacy, something that Pynchon has guarded closely for his entire life. For more on Pynchon and privacy, see [[ATD_26-56#Page_37|page 37]].

==Page 174==

'''back to the campfires of his youth, only then it was God didn't have a name''' 
"What is God's name?" or "What is God's first name?" was a topic that reliably led adolescent boys to yatter pointlessly on for hours when their adult leaders wanted to be left alone in camp.

'''"your own brother"''' 
The Unabomber was turned in by his brother. ("Kaczynski" means 'ducky' or 'duckman'. Did TRP hide this somewhere?)

==Page 175==

'''every cabin . . . concealed stories that were anything but peaceful''' 
Compare Sherlock Holmes in "The Copper Beeches": "It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

'''"Only slowly would it occur to his ultra-keen detective's reasoning that these bombs could have been set by anybody, including those who would clearly benefit if "Anarchists", however loosely defined, could be blamed for it."''' 
Is this an(other) allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? Cf. a similar reference in [[ATD_81-96#Page_85|page 85]] and the discussion therein.

Pynchon seems to be a smart enough guy to not believe such ridiculious theories. It's all too easy to read into these true historical events (the short-lived period of anarchist bombings of the late 19th and early 20 centuries) similitudes with more recent events, but the context in AtD is clear enough that this sort of speculation seems to be nothing more than speculation. Of course, that's the fodder for conspiracy theorists...--[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 04:40, 21 February 2007 (PST)

==Page 176==

'''revealing the Plutonic powers as they daily sent their legions of gnomes underground''' 
Here we may have a key to understanding the war in the Earth's Interior—in which Chthonica, Princess of Plutonia, saw her castle besieged by the Legion of Gnomes—when the Chums of Chance seem to have joined the Plutonic cause; [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|see text and annotations, p. 117.]]

'''"the Powers, who always had more dwarves waiting, even eagerly, to be sent below."''' 
A Tolkien-inspired imagery? Dwarfs figure prominently into Norse mythology and fantasy works before Tolkien, but Tolkien supposedly began the use of the spelling, "dwarves," employed here. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf Wikipedia entry on Dwarf] 
:I would hope it's an allusion to Wagner's Ring rather than to Tolkien. On pp. 127-28, Iceland Spar, there is discussion of the far north and Nordic travels there. Beyond the Ginnungagap lay Niflheim or in German Niebelheim, meaning Foggy Home, and in Wagner it lay under the earth, with bent-over workers, perhaps dwarves, forced to mine gold and other minerals. This makes the comment above, about the earth's interior and Chthonica, fit even better.

'''Tortoni's on Arapahoe''' 
Italian restaurant located in the 1500 block of Arapahoe Street in downtown Denver. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~codenver/miracle/104.htm Photo]

'''Gahan's saloon across the street from City Hall''' 
Saloon operated by William Gahan, a Denver City Councilman, and his brothers conveniently located at 1401 Larimer Street in Denver, across the street from City Hall. Gahan operated two other saloons, including one at 1133 Larimer Street, which he supposedly kept open on Sundays, harbored gambling, and sponsored a boys' baseball team that played for beer.

'''Ed Chase, the boss of the red-light district''' 
Edward "Big Ed" Chase (1838-1921) was a New Yorker from Saratoga Springs who became the leader of criminal activities in Denver from 1860 on, and as such was an influential and respected man. He ran saloons, gambling houses, bordellos, and theaters (specializing in "burlesque"), and served on the Denver City Council from 1866-1869. After that, he was a behind-the-scenes ward boss and power broker for the Republican party, which dominated Denver politics at the time. Nearly every 19th century election in Denver was clouded by charges that Chase had organized an army of voters out of riffraff, vagrants, prostitutes, barflies and gamblers. By the time of his death in 1921, Chase had come to be regarded as a respected real estate investor and capitalist. For more info, consult ''The City & The Saloon: Denver 1858-1918'' by Thomas J. Noel.

'''"another little Haymarket"''' 
On May 4th 1886 a workers' protest meeting was held at the West Randolph Street Haymarket in Chicago. A bomb was thrown at the police, the police opened fire and many officers and protesters were killed ([http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html chicagohistory.org])

==Page 177==

'''The Row''' 
Denver‘s red light district developed along McGaa Street (subsequently renamed Holladay and then Market Street) [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200010/ai_n8908963 1] [http://www.womenof.com/Articles/d011899.asp 2]

==Page 178==

'''W.F.M.''' 
Western Federation of Miners [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia Entry]

'''Tansy Wagwheel''' 
Other ''AtD'' women named for herbs and ornamentals include Stray's friend Sage in Nochecita, Oleander Prudge, Dittany Vibe and of course Dahlia Rideout.

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
The Klan itself was not in its heyday at the time this episode took place, and not only is it unlikely that the Klan would have shown itself at the time, but also that it would have been this far west. The "modern" Klan was only reformed in 1915. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Wikipedia]. IN the 1920s, Colorado woulod become a stronghold of the "modern" Klan.

'''heeled''' 
Carrying a sidearm. (The word also means "having money," but here the first meaning is pretty clear.)

==Page 179==

'''Clovis Yutts''' 
"Yutz" is a slang word (from Yiddish) for a clueless goof.

'''different tempos and keys''' 
Cf 'anarchist miracle' in "Lot 49" (chapter 5).

In the early 1970s San Francisco was the site of the Black Flag Concerts, where anybody was allowed to make any music. People who attended said it was disorienting to wander through the crowd listening to folk singers, kazoo bands and Celtic harpists all belting away. (The Black Flag is a traditional emblem of anarchism.)

Also perhaps a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives Charles Ives], who wrote much music containing combatting sections in different keys, tempi and melody. The quintessential image of Ives' music is that of four marching bands playing different tunes arriving at the same village square. Ives attended Yale, though graduated in 1898, two years prior to the scene beginning on page 156.

Or perhaps just an image of musical anarchy to match the political Anarchism.

==Page 180==

'''Valley Tan''' 
Mormon whiskey reported by Mark Twain. [http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/091795.html cite]

==Page 181==

'''it'll be run Anarchist run for you, Brother Basnight''' 
Echoes Chick on p. 8: "legal ain't got nothing to do with it—it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door."

==Page 182==

'''faded into the mobility''' 
"Mobility" also appears in ''Mason & Dixon.'' The word was later shortened to "mob."

'''"kept wasting Agency money rattling off one telegram after another."''' 
Cf. the following excerpt from a letter by novelist Raymond Chandler to Jamie Hamilton, 21 March 1949:
:"I remember several years ago when Howard Hawks was making ''The Big Sleep'', the movie, he and Bogart got into an argument as to whether one of the characters was murdered or commited suicide. They sent me a wire (there's a joke about this too) asking me, and dammit I didn't know either. Of course I got hooted at. The joke was in connection with Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros. Believe it or not, he saw the wire, the wire cost the studio 70 cents, and he called Hawks up and asked him whether it was really necessary to send a telegram about a point like that. That's one way to run a business." (''The Raymond Chandler Papers'', ed. by Tom Hiney and Frank McShane, Penguin 2001, p. 105)

'''P.E.T.N.''' 
The explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Ingredient of Semtex, discovered 1891. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN Wikipedia]

'''Dr. Oyswharf''' 
There is, in Norfolk, Virginia, a district (?) called "Oyster Wharf"; there is, in London, a development called "Oyster Wharf" not sure if it's significant or points anywhere, but it appears that this fellow's name is a contraction of those two words. More generically, an "oyster wharf" is any wharf where the oystermen come in and offload their catch. Back in the day, they would give oysters away for free. Oyster shells are a natural source of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3).

Bear in mind that the Chums' Upper Hierarchy communicated orders to the Chums via a pearl. Miles Blundell "well before sunup, had visited the shellfish market in the teeming narrow lanes of the old town in Surabaya, East Java" and procured a bucket of "Special Japanese Oysters" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 113|p. 113]]). The pearl was inserted into a device which rendered a "photographic image." This connects with the red crystal used in Merle's and Roswell's device ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page 1037|p. 1037]]).

Also bear in mind the sexual implications of the oyster, both its use as slang for the vagina (because its shape is evocative of the vagina, and some say its smell, as well) as well as its reputation as a aphrodisiac. This plays into [[The_Sexual_Angle|the sexual pattern]] that runs through ''Against the Day''. A few tidbits:

:Oysters were documented as a aphrodisiac food by the Romans in the second century A.D as mentioned in a satire by Juvenal. He described the wanton ways of women after ingesting wine and eating "giant oysters". An additional hypotheses is that the oyster resembles the "female" genitals. In reality oysters are a very nutritious and high in protein. [http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/aphrodis_foods.htm]

:Oysters have always been linked with love. When Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros, the word "aphrodisiac" was born. The dashing lover Casanova also used to start a meal eating 12 dozen oysters. [http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0298/oysters.html]

Interesting that the oyster plays to the sexual connection, ''and'' the "artful sons of Nippon" using paramorphism to change aragonite, the "nacreous" (an adjective frequently used to describe semen) part of the pearl "to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 114|p. 114]]).

Also: "Oysvarf" in Yiddish means, literally, vomitus; An "oysvarf" translates roughly as "a little puke".
:Actually, my checking indicates that it's ''oysvurf'', not ''oysvarf'', which is Yiddish for an outcast or bad person.

Also might be a reference to Owsley Stanley,"'underground' LSD chemist, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD" and "the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters". wiki:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley]

'''mixtures of nitro compounds and polymethylenes''' 
Nitro compounds include TNT, nitroglycerine and many other explosives. Polymethylenes are probably polymethylene waxes used as stabilizers or desensitizers.

'''experiencing the hotel dining room in a range of colors, not to mention cultural references, which had not been there when he came in''' 
Kinda like the way many of us are seeing ''AtD'' after prolonged exposure to the wiki. . . .

'''"The wallpaper in particular presented not a repeating pattern at all"''' 
Cf. Lucius Sheppard's 1985 short story ''The Fundamental Things'', where a lady starts translating her wallpaper pattern to Hebrew.

The connection between explosives and psychedelics is apparently not based in chemistry but it has appeared elsewhere in popular culture. The 1967 James Bond spoof ''Casino Royale'' has a scene where pillowcases are inflated with a psychedelic gas, a fuse is attached, and a powerful explosion is the result.

==Page 183==

[[image:beaver-on-the-brain.jpg|thumb|Beaver on the Brain T-Shirt|right]]'''Yes we're Beavers of the Brain... 
This little hallucinated ditty, sung by "a race of very small but perfectly visible inhabitants" of Lew Basnight's steak, is reminiscent of "We Represent the Lollipop Guild" sung by three tough-looking Munchkin boys in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 ''The Wizard of Oz''] (1939). "Beavers of the Brain" also brings to mind the phrase "Beaver on the brain" (describing a horny male or, perhaps, lesbian) which even adorns t-shirts (see right).

'''Keep that Bulldog in your pocket...''' 
A "Bulldog" is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon. It also carries a somewhat sexual connotation.

'''Cyclomite''' 
A spelling error may lead to the idea that cyclomite is a name for the explosive RDX; that's cyclo'''n'''ite.

:I don't think this is a spelling error. Connects with dynomite. No way.

:Didn't make myself clear. If cyclomite is a Pynchon coinage, a Google search should give only Pynchon-linked hits. But I got a hit on an explosive—causing me to be short of breath till I realized it was just a misspelling for the correct term '''(in that context)''' "cyclonite," or RDX.

'''plasticerator''' 
Plasti-, moldable (in this case chewable); cera- related to Latin ''cera'' = wax, ''cerumen'' = earwax; -ator, an agent to modify a product. The word "plasticerator" does not seem to have caught on. It would not be a failed synonym for "plasticizer," an agent to make rigid plastics pliable.

==Page 184==

'''Kankakee''' 
city in Illinois.

'''Wall of Death''' 
Without risk of spoilage, [[ATD_460-488#Page_476|see annotation to p. 476.]]

'''things would happen gradually enough to afford time to do something about it''' 
A central idea in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which features a rocket that breaks the sound barrier and thus the ability to kill you before you hear it coming.

'''the world turned all inside out''' 
This passage describes acid flashbacks.
:It's certainly written so as to suggest acid flashbacks but it's describing Lew's experience of being blown up

'''the carnival theory''' 
On page 90 Kit Traverse had "seen a dynamited carny jump up out of the blast good as new."

==Page 185==

'''Trilby hat''' 
Derived from George du Maurier's 1894 novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby Trilby]. The novel was adapted into a long-running play starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali. A hat of this style was worn on stage during the play's first London production.

'''excursion''' 
Wilde's US lecture tour was in 1882.

==Page 186==

'''Anasazi''' 
Ancient Pueblo Peoples, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi "Anasazi"]

'''"Like a Red Indian Stonehenge!" - "Only different!"''' 
Cf. " 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.' " (''Vineland'', p. 170). See also [[ATD_119-148#Page_133| page 133]].

[[image:hangedman.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Hanged Man by Colman-Smith]]
'''''grifa''''' 
Marijuana. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grifa cite]

'''Miss Colman-Smith is West Indian [tarot cards]''' 
Pamela Colman Smith (1878—1951) was an artist, illustrator, and writer. She is best known for designing the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite. Smith was born in England, the daughter of an American merchant from Brooklyn, Charles Edward Smith and his Jamaican wife Corinne Colman. Due to her father’s job with the West India Improvement Company, the family often moved, spending time in London, Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith Wikipedia entry]

Pynchon's interest in the tarot is evident in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Two tarot cards are referred to here -- the Hanged Man ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite image]) and the Knight of Swords ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_arcana#Swords image]). The reference is an anachronism, as the deck wasn't published until 1909.

'''''espadas . . . copas''''' 
Spanish: Swords, Cups. The Tarot suits corresponding to spades and clubs.

'''Querent''' 
Latin: one who asks. The subject of a Tarot reading (in some settings, the mark).

'''Perseid''' 
"The shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8 and 14 with a peak on August 12. During the peak, rates of a hundred or more meteors per hour can be registered." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid Wikipedia]

==Page 187==

'''hell of a blow-up . . . . maiden's sigh''' 
Possible allusion to the testing of Trinity Bomb, the first explosion of an atomic weapon, which took place at White Sands, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test Wikipedia].

See the text on the "anti-Stone," pp. 78-79, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|and annotations.]]

'''A second Moon''' 
[[ATD_119-148#Page_144|On page 144,]] ''Inconvenience'' is described as a "misplaced moon."

'''Galveston''' 
In the summer of 1900 Galveston was a major seaport; many of its cotton warehouses still stand. In the 19th century it was a port of entry for immigrants from Germany, Bohemia, the Balkans and elsewhere. The 1900 hurricane was the making of Houston, a few dozen miles up slow-flowing Buffalo Bayou—which was turned into the Ship Channel within a few years.

==Page 188==

'''Galveston Hurricane''' 
An historical event (8th September 1900, 6000 dead).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900 [Wikipedia]]

'''wherever could you have been living, before that frightful bomb brought you to us?''' 
Perhaps an allusion to and rhetorical parallel of the "wake-up bomb" of the 9/11 attacks, and the relative increase of attention paid by the American media and public to such post-9/11 disasters as the slaughter of citizens in the Afghan and Iraq offensives, the destruction wrought by the South Asian tsunami, the displacement of the "hidden" poor of the Gulf States by Hurricane Katrina, the carnage of the earthquake in Iran, the rampant and still-raging genocides of Sudan, and so on.
:It has to work in ''AtD'' before it can be an allusion to something else! Here Neville seems to say Lew was ''not'' with him and Nigel until the explosion delivered "the New Lew" into "the world reconstituted" (p. 185), not that the N's simply found him in his torpor. "It didn't seem like Colorado anymore" (also p. 185). The explosion did more than knock Lew out; now he's living somewhere else. The reader is well-advised to trust Pynchon and let the text mean what it means before interpreting other histories into it.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
This is the second appearance of the word (the first was on page 83). Neurasthenia was a kind of catch-all at the time for what today would be called depression, fatigue, anxiety, etc.

==Page 189==

'''Fireman Jim Flynn''' 
The nickname undoubtedly comes from railroading, not firefighting.

==Page 190==

'''blue northers''' 
In the West, the Plains and down to Texas, a blue norther is a fast-moving weather front with lightning, rain and wind, followed by a rapid drop in temperature.

==Page 191==

==Page 192==

'''nearly twenty''' 
1883 + 19yo = 1902?

'''stamps beating''' 
Breaking ore into small pieces in preparation for refining.

==Page 193==

'''Uncompahgre''' 
A Plateau in Western Colorado, named after the Uncompahgre Ute Indian Tribe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncompahgre_%28disambiguation%29 [Wikipedia]]

'''Deuce Kindred''' 
A seaman deuce is an apprentice seaman. See V. 
Deuce=Two=Also?...Deuce=Two=Doubling? 
Philip K. Dick's full name is Philip Kindred Dick.

'''Deuce had been one of those Sickly Youths . . . Strenuosity''' 
[[ATD_149-170#Page_159|Theodore Roosevelt]] was the model for feeble boys growing into bold men. His "Strenuous Life" doctrine was uncomfortably close to the adult Deuce's ways.

'''absorbed . . . re-emission . . . fluorescence of vindictiveness''' 
In a fluorescent tube, invisible ultraviolet radiation from the electrical discharge is absorbed by "phosphors" on the inside of the glass. The UV excites the phosphor atoms, which then—instead of giving off ultraviolet of their own—re-emit the energy at a different wavelength, one that is visible.

'''workin fathoms''' 
Mining under a contract that paid by the volume of rock extracted. See [[ATD_296-317#Page_302|annotations to p. 302]] (but to avoid spoilers, don't look up or down).

'''not since the aught-one strike''' 
So 1901 is in the past.

'''three-dollar sack suit''' 
That is, a suit one might buy at a store where one fills a sack with clothes and then pays three dollars for the lot.
A sack suit is an ordinary 19th-c. business suit which "evolved into the modern three piece suit."
[http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/sack.html source]

==Page 194==

'''the fish at that table''' 
The player whose money the others mean to take.

'''Dallas Divide''' 
Mountain Pass dividing the Uncompahgre Plateau from the San Juan Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Divide [Wikipedia]]

==Page 195==

'''Sloat Fresno''' 
Possibly named for Commodore John D. Sloat ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Sloat Wikipedia entry]), American naval officer who claimed California, then a territory of Mexico, as part of the United States on July 7, 1846. The text of the declaration can be found [http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/documents/sloat.htm here]. Another source may be the Sloat Lumber Co. of Quincy, CA, which used an uncommon 30 gauge track, about which all I can find is [http://members.tripod.com/~Sloat_Lumber_Co/PROTOTYP.HTM here]. Fresno is presumably a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno%2C_CA city in California], though its direct relation to either the Commodore or the Sloat Lumber Co. is unclear.

''Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,'' by Cormac McCarthy, has a character named Sloat, but he's so minor that the only dialog he gets is when he denies being related to the commodore.

Sloat is another term for slat, a narrow piece of wood. Fresno is Spanish for ash.

'''copping the borax''' 
? Seemingly a term invented by Pynchon. No idea what it means, but borax is a mineral used in detergent, pottery, a lots of other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax Wikipedia on Borax]

"Borax" is a slang word for cheap, poorly made products. Makers of borax for use in cleansing used to give away junky items as premiums. If you look at it the other way around, "borax" could mean a premium, hence an enlistment bonus. "Copping" of course is getting something by underhand means.

'''from Fort Bliss to the Coeur d'Alenes''' 
From Dan to Beersheba, so to speak. Fort Bliss is near El Paso, Texas. The Coeur d'Alène Mountains are in the panhandle of Idaho and the western end of Montana.

'''Montrose''' 
Montrose, CO. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado [Wikipedia]]

'''li'l buddy''' 
Brings to mind Gilligan and the Skipper from ''Gilligan's Island'': Sloat, like the Skipper, is twice his buddy's size; in both pairs, it is uncertain just who is whose sidekick; and the Skipper referred to Gilligan by, "li'l buddy."

==Page 196==

'''red liquor''' 
Colored liquor, such as bourbon or whiskey.

==Page 197==

'''Sloat tending to bodies, Deuce... the spirit''' 
Again, the body/soul dichotomy. See [[ATD_97-118#Page_101|page 101]] and [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]] letter by Pynchon.

[[image:couplingpin.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Coupling pin]]'''coupling pin''' See photo.

==Page 198==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Repeats the title of Part One. May also suggest Tesla's 03 July 1899 'vision' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_97|page 97]]). May also be tied to the light/dark theme running through parts of the book thus far: light over the (dark) ranges. Note the concurrence of the leitmotives light-time-water in the sentence "He watched the light over the ranges slowly draining away". The image of "draining light" might also hint at the wave-particle duality.

'''Jeshimon''' 
Literally: "the waste", more specifically the wilderness of Judah in the Bible, near the Dead Sea. [http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/jeshimon.html christiananswers.net]. Fuller annotation at [[ATD_199-218#Page_209|page 209.]]

'''"Sir, please relocate your hand or I shall be obliged to do so myself"''' 
A fine flowery way of saying, "Move it or lose it, Sport."

'''Cortez''' 
In far southwestern Colorado near the Utah state line.

'''shadow had taken the immeasurable plain''' 
Contrasts "the light over the ranges". Possibly an allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah, the "cities of the plain" in Genesis 19, in which the angels advise Lot and his family: "do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the Plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away" (19:17). ''The cities of the plain'', is also the title of i) the translated fourth volume of Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'' (original title ''Sodome et Gomorrhe'') and ii) Cormac McCarthy's third novel of ''The Border Trilogy''.

This is the third possible reference to Proust so far. See also [[ATD_149-170#Page_165|page 165]], and [[#Page_188|page 188]].

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

ATD 171-198

2007-05-31T01:49:24Z

Thew: /* Page 173 */

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

==Page 171==

[[image:kenosha-kid.jpg|thumb|125px|"The Kenosha Kid" by Forbes Parkhill (Aug 1931) 
[http://themodernword.com/pynchon/Pynchon_kenosha_kid.html Full text and images at The Modern Word]|right]]'''Kieselguhr Kid''' 
Dynamite, a blasting explosive, was invented in 1867 by Alfred P. Nobel by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr.

The name also recalls the Kenosha Kid sequence of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which may have taken its name from a 1931 pulp fiction story by Forbes Parkhill, a two-fisted wild west adventure.

'''...detective agencies like Pinkerton‘s and Thiel‘s''' 
see Wikipedia Entries [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinkerton_Detective_Agency 1],[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiel_Detective_Service_Company 2]

'''they could look at the unsolved cases the way a banker might at instruments of debt''' 
And bankers call those instruments ''negotiable paper.''

'''reaction of 1849''' 
Acts of European governments to suppress the widespread liberal revolutions of 1848. The reaction impelled many people to emigrate to the U.S.

'''Sangre de Cristos''' 
southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangre_De_Cristo_Mountains Wikipedia Entry]

Robert Oppenheimer had a ranch in the Sangre de Cristos and loved to ride horseback through the area since he was 18. When the Manhattan Project sought a location to set up shop, Oppenheimer saw Los Alamos as a way to combine his two great loves (physics and NM) with the military's need of a secure and isolated place for the bomb's development.

==Page 172==

'''The Kid's family had supposedly come . . . whenever the Kid's in the county''' 
''The Legend of the Kieselguhr Kid,'' with parallels to the Legends of Zorro, the Lone Ranger and many others.

'''Couple dozen, in big bandoliers across his chest''' 
Similar to the way suicide bombers in the Middle East wear their munitions?

'''Uncompahgre''' 
The Uncompahgre Plateau in Colorado.

'''Butch Cassidy''' 
infamous outlaw [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butch_Cassidy Wikipedia Entry]

'''Dr. Lombroso''' 
Born in Verona, Italy, Dr. Cesare Lombroso (1835-1909), using concepts drawn from Physiognomy, early Eugenics, Psychiatry and Social Darwinism, devised the theory that criminality was inherited, and that the born criminal could be identified by physical defects, which confirmed a criminal as savage, or atavistic; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesare_Lombroso Wikipedia entry]

'''Lodazal''' 
spanish for bog, quagmire (?)

==Page 173==

'''"evil-doers"''' 
This immediately brings to mind the post 9/11 George W. Bush use of the term, once again relating the time of AtD, with its "unrestarined corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places" with current day America.[[User:Thew|Thew]] 18:49, 30 May 2007 (PDT)thew

'''"got us a man of principle"''' 
Eerily reminiscent of Theodore Kaczynski, aka the Unabomber, the convicted American murderer known for his campaign of mail bombings, many of which were addressed to specific victims, intended by Kaczynski to draw attention to what he percieved as the ills of technology on modern society. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Wikipedia entry].

There a several tenuous threads of connection between Pynchon and the Unabomber. Pynchon has written works exploring the dangers of modern technology and, more specifically, ludditism. [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_essays_luddite.html] [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/paper_gibbs.html] As a young man, Pynchon co-wrote such a play, ''Minstral Island'', with his Cornell classmate Kirkpatrick Sale, who later would become one of the world's most prominent and outspoken luddites. Sale later said, "The Unabomber and I share a great many views about the pernicious effect of the Industrial Revolution, the evils of modern technologies, the stifling effect of mass society, the vast extent of suffering in a machine-dominated world and the inevitability of social and environmental catastrophe if the industrial system goes unchecked," although naturally Sale condemned the Unabomber's method. When the Unabomber's identity was still unknown, Pynchon was suggested (with who knows what degree of seriousness, and by whom) as a possible suspect. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#1990s_and_2000s]

'''"jizzmatic juices backin' up, putting pressure on the brain" 
'Jizzmatic juices' seems to be a Pynchon-created slang phrase for semen, adapted from the dictionary-found slang word for semen, "jism". Pynchon has "a lady acquaintence" of Mr. Ponghill as responsible for the "naive theory" [Lew Basnight], commonly-enough held, that lack of sex "lack of exposure to the fair sex", previous paragraph can affect the brain and therefore one's judgment.

:Yes yes. this "lack of exposure to the fair sex" can cause [[ATD 171-198#Page 183|Beaver on the Brain]]

:Actually you can find the term "jizz" at the [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=jizz Urban Dictionary] - [[User:Ctsats|Ctsats]] 12:49 GMT+2, 26 January 2007

'''"Don't mean he ain't got a right to his privacy."''' 
Continues the Unabomber/Pynchon connection. Pynchon follows the description of a dynamite bomber with the right to privacy, something that Pynchon has guarded closely for his entire life. For more on Pynchon and privacy, see [[ATD_26-56#Page_37|page 37]].

==Page 174==

'''back to the campfires of his youth, only then it was God didn't have a name''' 
"What is God's name?" or "What is God's first name?" was a topic that reliably led adolescent boys to yatter pointlessly on for hours when their adult leaders wanted to be left alone in camp.

'''"your own brother"''' 
The Unabomber was turned in by his brother. ("Kaczynski" means 'ducky' or 'duckman'. Did TRP hide this somewhere?)

==Page 175==

'''every cabin . . . concealed stories that were anything but peaceful''' 
Compare Sherlock Holmes in "The Copper Beeches": "It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys of London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside."

'''"Only slowly would it occur to his ultra-keen detective's reasoning that these bombs could have been set by anybody, including those who would clearly benefit if "Anarchists", however loosely defined, could be blamed for it."''' 
Is this an(other) allusion to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_demolition_hypothesis_for_the_collapse_of_the_World_Trade_Center Controlled demolition hypothesis] for the collapse of the WTC? Cf. a similar reference in [[ATD_81-96#Page_85|page 85]] and the discussion therein.

Pynchon seems to be a smart enough guy to not believe such ridiculious theories. It's all too easy to read into these true historical events (the short-lived period of anarchist bombings of the late 19th and early 20 centuries) similitudes with more recent events, but the context in AtD is clear enough that this sort of speculation seems to be nothing more than speculation. Of course, that's the fodder for conspiracy theorists...--[[User:Kirkm|Kirkm]] 04:40, 21 February 2007 (PST)

==Page 176==

'''revealing the Plutonic powers as they daily sent their legions of gnomes underground''' 
Here we may have a key to understanding the war in the Earth's Interior—in which Chthonica, Princess of Plutonia, saw her castle besieged by the Legion of Gnomes—when the Chums of Chance seem to have joined the Plutonic cause; [[ATD_97-118#Page_117|see text and annotations, p. 117.]]

'''"the Powers, who always had more dwarves waiting, even eagerly, to be sent below."''' 
A Tolkien-inspired imagery? Dwarfs figure prominently into Norse mythology and fantasy works before Tolkien, but Tolkien supposedly began the use of the spelling, "dwarves," employed here. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf Wikipedia entry on Dwarf] 
:I would hope it's an allusion to Wagner's Ring rather than to Tolkien. On pp. 127-28, Iceland Spar, there is discussion of the far north and Nordic travels there. Beyond the Ginnungagap lay Niflheim or in German Niebelheim, meaning Foggy Home, and in Wagner it lay under the earth, with bent-over workers, perhaps dwarves, forced to mine gold and other minerals. This makes the comment above, about the earth's interior and Chthonica, fit even better.

'''Tortoni's on Arapahoe''' 
Italian restaurant located in the 1500 block of Arapahoe Street in downtown Denver. [http://www.rootsweb.com/~codenver/miracle/104.htm Photo]

'''Gahan's saloon across the street from City Hall''' 
Saloon operated by William Gahan, a Denver City Councilman, and his brothers conveniently located at 1401 Larimer Street in Denver, across the street from City Hall. Gahan operated two other saloons, including one at 1133 Larimer Street, which he supposedly kept open on Sundays, harbored gambling, and sponsored a boys' baseball team that played for beer.

'''Ed Chase, the boss of the red-light district''' 
Edward "Big Ed" Chase (1838-1921) was a New Yorker from Saratoga Springs who became the leader of criminal activities in Denver from 1860 on, and as such was an influential and respected man. He ran saloons, gambling houses, bordellos, and theaters (specializing in "burlesque"), and served on the Denver City Council from 1866-1869. After that, he was a behind-the-scenes ward boss and power broker for the Republican party, which dominated Denver politics at the time. Nearly every 19th century election in Denver was clouded by charges that Chase had organized an army of voters out of riffraff, vagrants, prostitutes, barflies and gamblers. By the time of his death in 1921, Chase had come to be regarded as a respected real estate investor and capitalist. For more info, consult ''The City & The Saloon: Denver 1858-1918'' by Thomas J. Noel.

'''"another little Haymarket"''' 
On May 4th 1886 a workers' protest meeting was held at the West Randolph Street Haymarket in Chicago. A bomb was thrown at the police, the police opened fire and many officers and protesters were killed ([http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/571.html chicagohistory.org])

==Page 177==

'''The Row''' 
Denver‘s red light district developed along McGaa Street (subsequently renamed Holladay and then Market Street) [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200010/ai_n8908963 1] [http://www.womenof.com/Articles/d011899.asp 2]

==Page 178==

'''W.F.M.''' 
Western Federation of Miners [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Federation_of_Miners Wikipedia Entry]

'''Tansy Wagwheel''' 
Other ''AtD'' women named for herbs and ornamentals include Stray's friend Sage in Nochecita, Oleander Prudge, Dittany Vibe and of course Dahlia Rideout.

'''Ku Klux Klan''' 
The Klan itself was not in its heyday at the time this episode took place, and not only is it unlikely that the Klan would have shown itself at the time, but also that it would have been this far west. The "modern" Klan was only reformed in 1915. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan Wikipedia]. IN the 1920s, Colorado woulod become a stronghold of the "modern" Klan.

'''heeled''' 
Carrying a sidearm. (The word also means "having money," but here the first meaning is pretty clear.)

==Page 179==

'''Clovis Yutts''' 
"Yutz" is a slang word (from Yiddish) for a clueless goof.

'''different tempos and keys''' 
Cf 'anarchist miracle' in "Lot 49" (chapter 5).

In the early 1970s San Francisco was the site of the Black Flag Concerts, where anybody was allowed to make any music. People who attended said it was disorienting to wander through the crowd listening to folk singers, kazoo bands and Celtic harpists all belting away. (The Black Flag is a traditional emblem of anarchism.)

Also perhaps a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ives Charles Ives], who wrote much music containing combatting sections in different keys, tempi and melody. The quintessential image of Ives' music is that of four marching bands playing different tunes arriving at the same village square. Ives attended Yale, though graduated in 1898, two years prior to the scene beginning on page 156.

Or perhaps just an image of musical anarchy to match the political Anarchism.

==Page 180==

'''Valley Tan''' 
Mormon whiskey reported by Mark Twain. [http://historytogo.utah.gov/salt_lake_tribune/in_another_time/091795.html cite]

==Page 181==

'''it'll be run Anarchist run for you, Brother Basnight''' 
Echoes Chick on p. 8: "legal ain't got nothing to do with it—it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door."

==Page 182==

'''faded into the mobility''' 
"Mobility" also appears in ''Mason & Dixon.'' The word was later shortened to "mob."

'''"kept wasting Agency money rattling off one telegram after another."''' 
Cf. the following excerpt from a letter by novelist Raymond Chandler to Jamie Hamilton, 21 March 1949:
:"I remember several years ago when Howard Hawks was making ''The Big Sleep'', the movie, he and Bogart got into an argument as to whether one of the characters was murdered or commited suicide. They sent me a wire (there's a joke about this too) asking me, and dammit I didn't know either. Of course I got hooted at. The joke was in connection with Jack Warner, the head of Warner Bros. Believe it or not, he saw the wire, the wire cost the studio 70 cents, and he called Hawks up and asked him whether it was really necessary to send a telegram about a point like that. That's one way to run a business." (''The Raymond Chandler Papers'', ed. by Tom Hiney and Frank McShane, Penguin 2001, p. 105)

'''P.E.T.N.''' 
The explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate. Ingredient of Semtex, discovered 1891. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN Wikipedia]

'''Dr. Oyswharf''' 
There is, in Norfolk, Virginia, a district (?) called "Oyster Wharf"; there is, in London, a development called "Oyster Wharf" not sure if it's significant or points anywhere, but it appears that this fellow's name is a contraction of those two words. More generically, an "oyster wharf" is any wharf where the oystermen come in and offload their catch. Back in the day, they would give oysters away for free. Oyster shells are a natural source of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3).

Bear in mind that the Chums' Upper Hierarchy communicated orders to the Chums via a pearl. Miles Blundell "well before sunup, had visited the shellfish market in the teeming narrow lanes of the old town in Surabaya, East Java" and procured a bucket of "Special Japanese Oysters" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 113|p. 113]]). The pearl was inserted into a device which rendered a "photographic image." This connects with the red crystal used in Merle's and Roswell's device ([[ATD_1018-1039#Page 1037|p. 1037]]).

Also bear in mind the sexual implications of the oyster, both its use as slang for the vagina (because its shape is evocative of the vagina, and some say its smell, as well) as well as its reputation as a aphrodisiac. This plays into [[The_Sexual_Angle|the sexual pattern]] that runs through ''Against the Day''. A few tidbits:

:Oysters were documented as a aphrodisiac food by the Romans in the second century A.D as mentioned in a satire by Juvenal. He described the wanton ways of women after ingesting wine and eating "giant oysters". An additional hypotheses is that the oyster resembles the "female" genitals. In reality oysters are a very nutritious and high in protein. [http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/aphrodis_foods.htm]

:Oysters have always been linked with love. When Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, sprang forth from the sea on an oyster shell and promptly gave birth to Eros, the word "aphrodisiac" was born. The dashing lover Casanova also used to start a meal eating 12 dozen oysters. [http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0298/oysters.html]

Interesting that the oyster plays to the sexual connection, ''and'' the "artful sons of Nippon" using paramorphism to change aragonite, the "nacreous" (an adjective frequently used to describe semen) part of the pearl "to microscopic crystals of the doubly-refracting calcite known as Iceland spar" ([[ATD 97-118#Page 114|p. 114]]).

Also: "Oysvarf" in Yiddish means, literally, vomitus; An "oysvarf" translates roughly as "a little puke".
:Actually, my checking indicates that it's ''oysvurf'', not ''oysvarf'', which is Yiddish for an outcast or bad person.

Also might be a reference to Owsley Stanley,"'underground' LSD chemist, the first to produce large quantities of pure LSD" and "the primary LSD supplier to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters". wiki:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley]

'''mixtures of nitro compounds and polymethylenes''' 
Nitro compounds include TNT, nitroglycerine and many other explosives. Polymethylenes are probably polymethylene waxes used as stabilizers or desensitizers.

'''experiencing the hotel dining room in a range of colors, not to mention cultural references, which had not been there when he came in''' 
Kinda like the way many of us are seeing ''AtD'' after prolonged exposure to the wiki. . . .

'''"The wallpaper in particular presented not a repeating pattern at all"''' 
Cf. Lucius Sheppard's 1985 short story ''The Fundamental Things'', where a lady starts translating her wallpaper pattern to Hebrew.

The connection between explosives and psychedelics is apparently not based in chemistry but it has appeared elsewhere in popular culture. The 1967 James Bond spoof ''Casino Royale'' has a scene where pillowcases are inflated with a psychedelic gas, a fuse is attached, and a powerful explosion is the result.

==Page 183==

[[image:beaver-on-the-brain.jpg|thumb|Beaver on the Brain T-Shirt|right]]'''Yes we're Beavers of the Brain... 
This little hallucinated ditty, sung by "a race of very small but perfectly visible inhabitants" of Lew Basnight's steak, is reminiscent of "We Represent the Lollipop Guild" sung by three tough-looking Munchkin boys in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_%281939_film%29 ''The Wizard of Oz''] (1939). "Beavers of the Brain" also brings to mind the phrase "Beaver on the brain" (describing a horny male or, perhaps, lesbian) which even adorns t-shirts (see right).

'''Keep that Bulldog in your pocket...''' 
A "Bulldog" is a small, "snubbie" revolver, with a very high power-to-weight ratio, perfect for carrying in the pocket as a concealed weapon. It also carries a somewhat sexual connotation.

'''Cyclomite''' 
A spelling error may lead to the idea that cyclomite is a name for the explosive RDX; that's cyclo'''n'''ite.

:I don't think this is a spelling error. Connects with dynomite. No way.

:Didn't make myself clear. If cyclomite is a Pynchon coinage, a Google search should give only Pynchon-linked hits. But I got a hit on an explosive—causing me to be short of breath till I realized it was just a misspelling for the correct term '''(in that context)''' "cyclonite," or RDX.

'''plasticerator''' 
Plasti-, moldable (in this case chewable); cera- related to Latin ''cera'' = wax, ''cerumen'' = earwax; -ator, an agent to modify a product. The word "plasticerator" does not seem to have caught on. It would not be a failed synonym for "plasticizer," an agent to make rigid plastics pliable.

==Page 184==

'''Kankakee''' 
city in Illinois.

'''Wall of Death''' 
Without risk of spoilage, [[ATD_460-488#Page_476|see annotation to p. 476.]]

'''things would happen gradually enough to afford time to do something about it''' 
A central idea in ''Gravity's Rainbow'', which features a rocket that breaks the sound barrier and thus the ability to kill you before you hear it coming.

'''the world turned all inside out''' 
This passage describes acid flashbacks.
:It's certainly written so as to suggest acid flashbacks but it's describing Lew's experience of being blown up

'''the carnival theory''' 
On page 90 Kit Traverse had "seen a dynamited carny jump up out of the blast good as new."

==Page 185==

'''Trilby hat''' 
Derived from George du Maurier's 1894 novel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trilby Trilby]. The novel was adapted into a long-running play starring Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Svengali. A hat of this style was worn on stage during the play's first London production.

'''excursion''' 
Wilde's US lecture tour was in 1882.

==Page 186==

'''Anasazi''' 
Ancient Pueblo Peoples, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anasazi "Anasazi"]

'''"Like a Red Indian Stonehenge!" - "Only different!"''' 
Cf. " 'Thanatoid' means 'like death, only different.' " (''Vineland'', p. 170). See also [[ATD_119-148#Page_133| page 133]].

[[image:hangedman.jpg|thumb|150px|right|The Hanged Man by Colman-Smith]]
'''''grifa''''' 
Marijuana. [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Grifa cite]

'''Miss Colman-Smith is West Indian [tarot cards]''' 
Pamela Colman Smith (1878—1951) was an artist, illustrator, and writer. She is best known for designing the Rider-Waite-Smith deck of tarot cards for Arthur Edward Waite. Smith was born in England, the daughter of an American merchant from Brooklyn, Charles Edward Smith and his Jamaican wife Corinne Colman. Due to her father’s job with the West India Improvement Company, the family often moved, spending time in London, Kingston, Jamaica and Brooklyn, New York. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Colman_Smith Wikipedia entry]

Pynchon's interest in the tarot is evident in ''Gravity's Rainbow''. Two tarot cards are referred to here -- the Hanged Man ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider-Waite image]) and the Knight of Swords ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_arcana#Swords image]). The reference is an anachronism, as the deck wasn't published until 1909.

'''''espadas . . . copas''''' 
Spanish: Swords, Cups. The Tarot suits corresponding to spades and clubs.

'''Querent''' 
Latin: one who asks. The subject of a Tarot reading (in some settings, the mark).

'''Perseid''' 
"The shower is visible from mid-July each year, but the bulk of its activity falls between August 8 and 14 with a peak on August 12. During the peak, rates of a hundred or more meteors per hour can be registered." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perseid Wikipedia]

==Page 187==

'''hell of a blow-up . . . . maiden's sigh''' 
Possible allusion to the testing of Trinity Bomb, the first explosion of an atomic weapon, which took place at White Sands, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test Wikipedia].

See the text on the "anti-Stone," pp. 78-79, [[ATD_57-80#Page_78|and annotations.]]

'''A second Moon''' 
[[ATD_119-148#Page_144|On page 144,]] ''Inconvenience'' is described as a "misplaced moon."

'''Galveston''' 
In the summer of 1900 Galveston was a major seaport; many of its cotton warehouses still stand. In the 19th century it was a port of entry for immigrants from Germany, Bohemia, the Balkans and elsewhere. The 1900 hurricane was the making of Houston, a few dozen miles up slow-flowing Buffalo Bayou—which was turned into the Ship Channel within a few years.

==Page 188==

'''Galveston Hurricane''' 
An historical event (8th September 1900, 6000 dead).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane_of_1900 [Wikipedia]]

'''wherever could you have been living, before that frightful bomb brought you to us?''' 
Perhaps an allusion to and rhetorical parallel of the "wake-up bomb" of the 9/11 attacks, and the relative increase of attention paid by the American media and public to such post-9/11 disasters as the slaughter of citizens in the Afghan and Iraq offensives, the destruction wrought by the South Asian tsunami, the displacement of the "hidden" poor of the Gulf States by Hurricane Katrina, the carnage of the earthquake in Iran, the rampant and still-raging genocides of Sudan, and so on.
:It has to work in ''AtD'' before it can be an allusion to something else! Here Neville seems to say Lew was ''not'' with him and Nigel until the explosion delivered "the New Lew" into "the world reconstituted" (p. 185), not that the N's simply found him in his torpor. "It didn't seem like Colorado anymore" (also p. 185). The explosion did more than knock Lew out; now he's living somewhere else. The reader is well-advised to trust Pynchon and let the text mean what it means before interpreting other histories into it.

'''neuræsthenic''' 
This is the second appearance of the word (the first was on page 83). Neurasthenia was a kind of catch-all at the time for what today would be called depression, fatigue, anxiety, etc.

==Page 189==

'''Fireman Jim Flynn''' 
The nickname undoubtedly comes from railroading, not firefighting.

==Page 190==

'''blue northers''' 
In the West, the Plains and down to Texas, a blue norther is a fast-moving weather front with lightning, rain and wind, followed by a rapid drop in temperature.

==Page 191==

==Page 192==

'''nearly twenty''' 
1883 + 19yo = 1902?

'''stamps beating''' 
Breaking ore into small pieces in preparation for refining.

==Page 193==

'''Uncompahgre''' 
A Plateau in Western Colorado, named after the Uncompahgre Ute Indian Tribe. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncompahgre_%28disambiguation%29 [Wikipedia]]

'''Deuce Kindred''' 
A seaman deuce is an apprentice seaman. See V. 
Deuce=Two=Also?...Deuce=Two=Doubling? 
Philip K. Dick's full name is Philip Kindred Dick.

'''Deuce had been one of those Sickly Youths . . . Strenuosity''' 
[[ATD_149-170#Page_159|Theodore Roosevelt]] was the model for feeble boys growing into bold men. His "Strenuous Life" doctrine was uncomfortably close to the adult Deuce's ways.

'''absorbed . . . re-emission . . . fluorescence of vindictiveness''' 
In a fluorescent tube, invisible ultraviolet radiation from the electrical discharge is absorbed by "phosphors" on the inside of the glass. The UV excites the phosphor atoms, which then—instead of giving off ultraviolet of their own—re-emit the energy at a different wavelength, one that is visible.

'''workin fathoms''' 
Mining under a contract that paid by the volume of rock extracted. See [[ATD_296-317#Page_302|annotations to p. 302]] (but to avoid spoilers, don't look up or down).

'''not since the aught-one strike''' 
So 1901 is in the past.

'''three-dollar sack suit''' 
That is, a suit one might buy at a store where one fills a sack with clothes and then pays three dollars for the lot.
A sack suit is an ordinary 19th-c. business suit which "evolved into the modern three piece suit."
[http://www.lahacal.org/gentleman/sack.html source]

==Page 194==

'''the fish at that table''' 
The player whose money the others mean to take.

'''Dallas Divide''' 
Mountain Pass dividing the Uncompahgre Plateau from the San Juan Mountains. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dallas_Divide [Wikipedia]]

==Page 195==

'''Sloat Fresno''' 
Possibly named for Commodore John D. Sloat ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Sloat Wikipedia entry]), American naval officer who claimed California, then a territory of Mexico, as part of the United States on July 7, 1846. The text of the declaration can be found [http://www.dmwv.org/mexwar/documents/sloat.htm here]. Another source may be the Sloat Lumber Co. of Quincy, CA, which used an uncommon 30 gauge track, about which all I can find is [http://members.tripod.com/~Sloat_Lumber_Co/PROTOTYP.HTM here]. Fresno is presumably a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno%2C_CA city in California], though its direct relation to either the Commodore or the Sloat Lumber Co. is unclear.

''Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West,'' by Cormac McCarthy, has a character named Sloat, but he's so minor that the only dialog he gets is when he denies being related to the commodore.

Sloat is another term for slat, a narrow piece of wood. Fresno is Spanish for ash.

'''copping the borax''' 
? Seemingly a term invented by Pynchon. No idea what it means, but borax is a mineral used in detergent, pottery, a lots of other things. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borax Wikipedia on Borax]

"Borax" is a slang word for cheap, poorly made products. Makers of borax for use in cleansing used to give away junky items as premiums. If you look at it the other way around, "borax" could mean a premium, hence an enlistment bonus. "Copping" of course is getting something by underhand means.

'''from Fort Bliss to the Coeur d'Alenes''' 
From Dan to Beersheba, so to speak. Fort Bliss is near El Paso, Texas. The Coeur d'Alène Mountains are in the panhandle of Idaho and the western end of Montana.

'''Montrose''' 
Montrose, CO. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montrose%2C_Colorado [Wikipedia]]

'''li'l buddy''' 
Brings to mind Gilligan and the Skipper from ''Gilligan's Island'': Sloat, like the Skipper, is twice his buddy's size; in both pairs, it is uncertain just who is whose sidekick; and the Skipper referred to Gilligan by, "li'l buddy."

==Page 196==

'''red liquor''' 
Colored liquor, such as bourbon or whiskey.

==Page 197==

'''Sloat tending to bodies, Deuce... the spirit''' 
Again, the body/soul dichotomy. See [[ATD_97-118#Page_101|page 101]] and [[The_World_is_at_Fault|The World is at Fault]] letter by Pynchon.

[[image:couplingpin.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Coupling pin]]'''coupling pin''' See photo.

==Page 198==

'''The Light Over the Ranges''' 
Repeats the title of Part One. May also suggest Tesla's 03 July 1899 'vision' ([[ATD_97-118#Page_97|page 97]]). May also be tied to the light/dark theme running through parts of the book thus far: light over the (dark) ranges. Note the concurrence of the leitmotives light-time-water in the sentence "He watched the light over the ranges slowly draining away". The image of "draining light" might also hint at the wave-particle duality.

'''Jeshimon''' 
Literally: "the waste", more specifically the wilderness of Judah in the Bible, near the Dead Sea. [http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/jeshimon.html christiananswers.net]. Fuller annotation at [[ATD_199-218#Page_209|page 209.]]

'''"Sir, please relocate your hand or I shall be obliged to do so myself"''' 
A fine flowery way of saying, "Move it or lose it, Sport."

'''Cortez''' 
In far southwestern Colorado near the Utah state line.

'''shadow had taken the immeasurable plain''' 
Contrasts "the light over the ranges". Possibly an allusion to Sodom and Gomorrah, the "cities of the plain" in Genesis 19, in which the angels advise Lot and his family: "do not look back and do not stop anywhere in the Plain. Flee to the hills or you will be swept away" (19:17). ''The cities of the plain'', is also the title of i) the translated fourth volume of Proust's ''A la recherche du temps perdu'' (original title ''Sodome et Gomorrhe'') and ii) Cormac McCarthy's third novel of ''The Border Trilogy''.

This is the third possible reference to Proust so far. See also [[ATD_149-170#Page_165|page 165]], and [[#Page_188|page 188]].

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