Difference between revisions of "ATD 397-428"

Revision as of 08:17, 6 January 2007

Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.

Page 397

syntonic wireless
???

street-Arab
???

Columbian Half-Dollar
???

"ten yeeuhz ago" Places this action in or around 1903.

Page 398

nuncio
Casulaly, a messengfer; more fomally, a permanent official Papal representative at a foreign court.

Evening Quarters
???

H.G. Wells
Herbert George Wells (1866-1946), one of the 19th Century science fiction writers whom Pynchon is both emulating and parodying in ATD. Wikipedia entry.

jeu d'esprit
French: play of wit. "H. G. Wells speculative jeu d'esprit" refers specifically to his work The Time Machine.

on the subject
On the subject of time machines.

National Imprest
???

"Plug" Loafsley
Plug-ugly loafer/oaf?

Lollipop Lounge
Lollipop is vulgar slang for an underage girl. There is at least one 'pornographic' magazine called Lollipops featuring supposedly underage girls.

turned out
(When? Before or after first visit?)

Tenderloin

2) A city district notorious for vice and graft. [After 'the Tenderloin', an area of New York City (from the easy income it once offered corrupt policeman)

From the American Heritage Dictionary.

squalid empire
Cf Alan Parker's 1976 movie "Bugsy Malone". IMDb

Page 399

indigo... yellow
Clashing-colors motif.

dicer
???

opopanax and vervain
Two fragrant, medicinal substances derived from flowering plants. They bloom yellow and violet, respectively. Wikipedia pages for opopanax and for vervain.

Though Wikipedia prefers the spelling opoponax, the OED suggests Pynchon's.

slide cornet
A brass instrument with the voice of a cornet but using a slide instead of valves. Very, very rare.

mandola
An eight-stringed instrument shaped like a mandolin but tuned the same as a viola. It is originally an Irish instrument.

"tin pan" piano
A reference to New York's Tin Pan Alley. Probably, the tag means to indicate that the piano was out of tune or sounded 'cacophonous'. Wikipedia entry

houris
According to the OED, a "nymph of the Muslim Paradise. Hence applied allusively to a voluptuously beautiful woman." According to the American Heritage Dictionary, "houris" is the plural of 'houri', as defined above.

Darby
Over 21yo, if he's aged.

Page 400

paillettes
2. a spangle used to ornament a dress or costume. [from Old French,diminutive of paille,straw]. American Heritage Dictionary.

louche
of questionable taste or morality. From Old French, losche= squint-eyed, ultimately from Latin, luscus = blind in one eye. Source: American Heritage Dictionary.

"jazz"
The OED suggests that the spelling here was always more popular than jass, as used on p. 370. It makes sense that a musician like "Dope" Breedlove might use a less conventional spelling, as he would be familiar with the term before common usage had regularized its spelling. By contrast, within the "dime novel" idiom of the Chums of Chance narration (dime novelists not necessarily being, especially in this days, the swingin'-est of cats), while jazz still registers as a slang term, its spelling has already been regularized.

Dey high-hats us uptown
They scorn or snub us.

Dey low-balls us downtown
They underestimate us.

Missus Grundy
Mrs. Grundy, proverbial looker-askance at any improper activity. "an extremely conventional or priggish person" afer a character alluded to in the play Speed The Plough, by Thomas Morton (1764-1838), British playwright. Source: American Heritage Dictionary.

'ying'
"Yen"?

Page 401

Angela Grace
I.e., Angel of Grace

Gophiz... Hudson Dustuhs
Gophers, Hudson Dusters.

bushwahs
Bourgeois.

slickin up
Gentrification.

Mr. Mawgin
J. Pierpont Morgan.

stanchion
Upright structural member, here part of the El trestle.

find it
(Small-penis joke.)

time-corroded
Actually, on p. 154 we learn that when these structures were erected, they were intentionally antiqued, "deliberately burned, attempts being made to blacken the stylized wreckage in aesthetic and interesting ways," a description that applies also to Pynchon's historical fiction with its antiquated language and its generally favorable view of all things black. Though, of course it's been a decade since the shrine was erected, and some actual time-corrosion may have occurred.

seeming to date from some ancient catastrophe, far older than the city.
When, what is that catastrophe in ATD, pages 149-170?

I AM THE WAY INTO THE DOLEFUL CITY
Phrase first appears on p. 154, where it is inscribed over the shrine that the citizens erect to the Destroyer. It is a quote from Canto III of Dante's Il Inferno, where it is emblazoned over the gates to Hell.

triatomic
I.e., ozone or O₃, which is a molecule composed of three bonded oxygen molecules. Wikipedia.

Page 402

solenoidal relay
Solenoid: a coil of wire hollow in the center. To make a relay, stick an iron rod partway into the middle. Turn the current on, and the magnetic field pulls the iron in. Attach the rod to the bolt on the gate and you can unlock it by pushing a button.

Dr. Zoot
homage to Zoot Sims, jazzman?
Most often combined with Suit, as in Zoot suit - Wikipedia. Often zoot suiters wear a felt hat with a long feather (called a tapa or ... By their dress, Zoot suiters expressed defiance, at a time when fabric was ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoot_suit There is a contemporary "zootsuit" radio station devoted to old radio shows. Historically, much later than the period of ATD here, there were riots in Los Angeles called the Zoot Suit riots.

pale
Even tough-guy Plug fears time machine. Pynchon's perspective on artificial light, "already harsh illumination".

dynamo
Early electrical generator with permanent magnet instead of stator winding.

Grandmother's day
Pre-Civil War.

Breguet
A distinctive fine watch of French design, usually with open circles ('moons') near the ends of the hands. (See also p.140) Wikipedia entry

shimming
Insertion of thin material to make two parts line up. Think of the matchbook under the table leg.

revenue diverted
(Why not no-revenue?)because revenue was spent---very cheaply: in only "the simplest upkeep."

Page 403

coaming
Bodywork. Panels concealing frame, wiring, etc.

undog this hatch
Nautical: disengage whatever is holding the door shut.

faith
(Blind, not humble.)

nervous organizations
Cf drugs.

pillioned
Riding two to a horse.

horses
???

arrays of metallic points
???

Page 404

shockwaves of the Creation
Anachronistic Big Bang theory?
I must say that in the Big Bang theory, stars were first created out of the bang; here the metaphor seems to accept that the stars already exist and "are blown through by the shockwaves of the Creation", capitalized, a common Pynchon touch, as in a Biblical allusion.

chamber shook
(It didn't on p403.)

not beasts
Airplanes?

smell
Cf GR on Passchendaele.

Page 405

latest Oldsmobile
(Dates.)

Candlebrow U.
Candle = 2)Abbr. c)Pysics a)an obsolete unit of luminous intensity,originally defined in terms of a wax candle,From American Heritage Dictionary. Brow = 3)The projecting upper edge of a steep place, as 'the brow of a hill'. Also, of course, the eyebrow, the forehead. Same source.

Probably too tenuous to lead anywhere: Asa Candler's family became implausibly rich through ownership of Coca-Cola stock; Candlers and their Woodruff connections gave implausible sums to Emory University in Atlanta. See Candlebrow and Smegmo entries on the next couple of pages.

double-domes
'dome' is slang for the human brain, of course. [Amer Heritage] and seems to mean, in humorous context, two-headed or double-brained thinkers...(more doubling motif--as joke?)

drumming
Traveling salesmanship.

river called the Ball in Hand
Another cricket allusion? Dried river beds are often used as a playground for cricket, says wikipedia, where this also comes: When a batsman attempts a dangerous run, he could be run out by any of the fielders who just need to hold the ball in hand [cannot underline or embolden] and land their feet on the stone at the bowlers end (hence run out by 'conduction', as opposed to hitting the stumps at the bowlers end).

The Ball In Handsee page 409, where it seems to be Alonzo's local tavern.

Alonzo Meatman
???

Page 406

counterfeit of the Timeless
Thematic. Whole sentence seems the sharpest indictment of 'the Academy' as exemplified by Candlebrow U.

Imum Coeli
Latin for "bottom of the sky." In Astrology, it is the point in space where the ecliptic crosses the meridian in the north, exactly opposite the Midheaven. Wikipedia entry

Gideon Candlebrow
made-up founder whose scandalous fortune underlay Candlebrow U?

Grossdale
a gross dale?

Page 407

"Smegmo"
Smegma is a secretion of mammalian genitals Wikipedia.

margarine
1887 saw the introduction of the Margarine Act in Great Britain, which required margarine to be labeled as such. This was in response to the adulteration of butter by oleomargarine (made from animal fats).

Candlebow + margarine reminds me of Camille Paglia on Renee Zellwegger as "margarine-browed" (which I don't really understand).

four thousand years
Refers to the time believed to have elapsed since Abraham and the foundation of Judaism Wikipedia. Under kosher laws Jews are not allowed to mix milk and meat products in the same meal. The rabbi's proclamation about having waited 4000 years refers to the arrival of Smegmo as a non-milk substitute for butter that can be eaten with meat dishes.

"you kept hearing different stories about exactly what was in it"
Refers to wide range of urban legend-like attributions as to the origins and/or makeup of smegma that exist especially among children.

There's a resonance with Coca-Cola, too: exaggerated secrecy about the formula, fanatical market development, endowment of a university (Emory in the case of the Woodruff and Candler fortunes).

First International Conference on Time-Travel
MIT students held a Time Traveler Convention on May 7, 2005. The organizers did only modest publicity, claiming that the event would be reported and people in the future would read about it and decide to attend. ("Technically, you would only need one time traveler convention," one said.) Vanderjuice's reasoning is almost a mirror image of that.

this year
???

flammivomous
Invented word? "Vomiting flame." Not invented: Flammivomous. (definition) by Webster 1913 (print), Tue Dec 21 1999 at 23:41:04. Flam*miv"o*mous (?), a. [L. flammivomus; flamma flame + vomere to vomit.] ...

1925 or thereabouts
Lindsay's unfamiliarity with the term "nooky," here used to refer to attractive women and not to a sex act, its most common present day usage, will likely continue until it becomes an accepted part of the English language, which occurred, according to the OED, with its first substantiative written usage in 1928. The OED, by the way, prefers the spelling nookie.

Randolph
(Has he been absent?)

Page 408

telegraphic messages
(Why at night, particularly? Email parody?) Seems many telegraphic messages were delivered at night, perhaps because they could be picked up during the daytime and many came after evening began.

"Goes with everything"
Cf Al Capp's Shmoos?

in the way that certain odors can instantly return us to earlier years
Recalls Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu in which the taste and smell of a madeleine cookie summons a collection of childhood memories.

Finney Hall
Probably a Hall in Candlebrow U. named after American author Jack Finney, who wrote a famous time travel novel, Time & Again. See wikipedia for dates.

florescent
flowering, blooming.From florescense. Amer Heritage Dictionary

Page 409

Gibson Girls
From illustrations of a kind of woman first made by Charles Dana Gibson. Besides certain physical features--see wikipedia---such women were thought to be 'independent', often college girls, although not suffragettes.

"Why you insufferable little --"
This line, paired with St. Cosmo's observation at the end of the following paragraph: "And might I add, Mr. Noseworth, that these constant attempts to strangle Suckling do our public image little good," seem a fairly direct reference to a well-worn trope from the Simpsons, in which the splenetic Homer, as played here by Noseworth, expresses his no-longer-controllable frustration with Bart, here the increasingly smartalecky Suckling. Pynchon, as has been widely reported, has appeared on The Simpsons a couple times.

More than even "Vineland," it seems, this book is fraught with pop culture/low comedy asides.

Wellesianism
Typo, unless he means Orson.

Asimov Transecular
Interesting to find one of Isaac Asimov's time travel machines on the pile of "picked-over hulks of failed time machines." Of course, it would have to have been deposited there from some time in the future.

to transecular adj "that is made through the centuries" (Portuguese) Btchakir 16:48, 19 December 2006 (PST)

Q-98s
FM station?

vulcanite
Star Trek allusion?

Heusler's alloy
???

bonzoline
???

electrum
An alloy of gold and silver, presumably not the same as argentaurum.

lignum vitae
The very hard heavy wood of any of several tropical American guaiacum trees. In Latin, literally "wood of life."

platinoid
???

magnalium
???

packfong silver
???

safe harbor
Paradoxical, I think.

automorphic
auto = Self,same. Morph = to change

Page 410

revenance
???

Symmes Street
???

gaslit
Lightfuel motif.

St. Louis Fair
1904.

fantan
???

"preserver"
Gun?

magenta-and-green
Clashing-colors motif.

Page 411

Finding of Unusual Circumstances Questionaire Also, presumably, known as the "F.U.C.Q." or "fuck-you," for short.

Hawaiian
???

Zennist
Practitioners of Zen Buddhism.

Caged Women of Yokohama
???

Page 412

"Does a dog possess the Buddha-nature?" [...] "Yes, obviously"
According to the Zen parable the answer to the question is "Mu", which is both "No" and the sound of a dog's bark, thus neither simply yes nor no. See the explanantion given by the Learned English Dog in Mason & Dixon (Ch. 3, p. 22).

apricot and aquamarine
Clashing-colors motif.

Bohr... Mach... Einstein... Spengler... Wells... McTaggart
All of these people did work involving either speculation about time (Wells) or other subjects that reached their highest expression in Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which had implications regarding the nature of time and spacetime Wikipedia. Pynchon refers to the fact that this work was underway and 'in the air' at the time of the novel.

young Einstein
Perhaps a reference to the 1988 movie of the same name. At the time of the F.I.C.O.T.T. (1895 at the earliest), Einstein would have already published "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields." Ironically, Einstein's special theory of relativity would later essentially invalidate theories of luminiferous aether.

neo-Augustinian
St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), in his autobiographical Confessions, is credited with reconceptualizing the notion of time in Christian terms. Throyle, on p.143, summarizes what he terms "Christian time," as a "linear way of regarding time, a simple straight line from past, through present, into the future." See also Eschatology.

fatal steamed pudding
Presumably the subject of the "Christmas-pudding controversy" mentioned on p. 406. In the context of Prof. Taggart's disbelief in time and the Augustinian's presumed belief that time moves inevitably toward Christ's return, a Christmas pudding (which, one should mention, is prepared with suet or similar animal fat, though presumably Smegmo can be substituted) is a symbol, insofar as it invokes the birth of Christ, of a pivotal moment in the proper sequence of Augustinian time. The pudding, which context here suggests the neo-Augustinian dropped on the McTaggartite, at once symbolizes the Fall of Man, as well as the McTaggartite's inevitable descent into Hell. The whole arrangement is problematized, however, by the comments of the County Coroner, who describes the outcome of the event dependent on "wagering," chance being irreconcilable with Augustinian time.

vertical distance
Of pudding-drop?

Old Stearinery Bell Tower
???

Page 413

322 feet
???

disordered
Eg clocktower assassins?

homeopathist
???

"the lycopodium type"... Fear
???

sky-brother
???

other Promise... resurrected... two millennia
???

Page 414

purlieus
???

millwork
???

penumbrae
(Is the ligatured-ae appropriate here?)

interfered with
Sexually molested.

vacant
(So signs of occupancy are faked?)

dust
(Clear sign of vacancy.)

systematically deluded
Cf Descartes.

quiescence
(Meatman is cyborg?)

Page 415

"Mr. Ace"
Master race; ace of spades; Mr Earl?

phatic
Relating to speech that serves to establish social relationships rather than to inform.

denounced
(Capitalism has failed but failure still can't be mentioned.)

certain of your great dynamos
???

Fraternity of the Venturesome
Mistranslated 'Chums of Chance'.

nzzt
Electrical short?

mission assignments
Pynchon seems to explain Chums backstory.

Page 416

Squanto and the Pilgrims
???

Ironic (although Chick means it sincerley) since in this case the Chums of C are "Squanto" and their strange interlocutors from another dimension are the pilgrims. Chick innocently suggests that the strangers from the future just want help ( as , like the pilgrims, they have just arrived and are low on supplies, so to speak). It is implied that just as the Indian's helping the pilgrims was re-payed with disease, genocide and war, the payback the Chums reap for helping these visitors from another dimension may not be what they expect.

Page 417

"we're totally--"
...fucked.

"He is not what he says he is."
Pynchon denies Chums backstory/explanation.

trespassers
Presumably individuals in the company of Mr. Ace and Alonzo Meatman, whose intentions toward the Chums of Chance are apparently sinister and for their own benefit. They appear to travel back through the stream of time without any kind of permission to execute their plans, thus making them trespassers (or parasites).

enigmatic object
Plotpoint?

Page 418

Trespass
With a capital T.

evidence... everywhere
Cf Crying of Lot 49.

neuropathy
An abnormal and usually degenerative state of the nervous system or nerves.

contracts
With Devil.

Other Units
(So our five gossiped to others?)

exhaustive
Cf Trekkies.

came to recall
Cf PK Dick.

red and indigo
Clashing?

Page 419

"El Capitan"
Sousa march.

"Whistling Rufus"
???

consecrated
???

Richardson Romanesque
Style of American Romanesque architecture from 1880s-1890s, named after architect Henry Robson Richardson, notable for use of brown stone, rounded corners, arches and cylindrical turrets. Wikipedia Entry.

modal theory
???

chit
???

Bing Spooninger
Like "Bing" Crosby, a crooner.

rack
???

Page 420

every note
Om?

say "Wall"
???

difficult vocal feat
???

cakewalk
An African-American entertainment having a cake as prize for the most accomplished steps and figures in walking; also, a stage dance developed from walking steps and figures typically involving a high prance with backward tilt. From this, slang for a one-sided contest or an easy task.

draw-note
Note played on harmonica by "drawing" air through reed by sucking in rather than blowing out (insert crude sex joke here).

Page 421

popularity
Masochistic love of oppressors.

cover identity
Burden of resistance.

Lombardy poplars.
A large deciduous tree, reaching 30-40 m tall. They resemble large shrubs, due to their tall, slender appearance. They grow tall very quickly and usually die within 15 years of first planting.

Chromatic Harp
A harmonica that plays all notes in an octave rather than a scale in a certain key. Examples.

Pitch Integrity Guard
???

harmonica-reed files
???

Page 422

I.G. Mundharfwerke
Interessen-Gemeinschaft Mundharfwerke (Harmonica-works Association of Common Interests). "Mundharf" is Swabian German for "Harmonica".

drifted
Cf Slothrop's desk.

Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), French composer of operettas.Wikipedia Entry.

into the Latrine
Cf Slothrop's hallucination.

vapor bearing... minerals
???

A.D.C.
???

Page 423

None of them...
Cf butterfly dreaming it's monk?

volunteer decoys
Fan-meme.

"At a Georgia Camp Meeting"
???

"deps"
???

route out of the past
The nostalgia trap.

Page 424

'coon' material
They enjoyed the jazzy parts of the routine.

isotropy
???

presently
R. Crumb did a comic like this: pic

opposition
(Was unconscious, now conscious?)

dropped from altitudes
(Cf pudding above)

Page 425

"After the Ball"
???

Bukhara
Either the Emirate of Bukhara, a former country in Central Asia or its capital

T.D.Y.
Abbrevation for Temporary Duty? weblink

Saksaul
A plant/tree native to the deserts of Central Asia, particularly the Gobi desert; it has a very hard wood and is covered with knobs Wikipedia pic

Q. Zane Toadflax
(Sounds like Douglas Adams?). Toadflax is the name of an invasive plant species

Hypopsammotic... Hypops
???

Page 426

beating their prices
Contradicts p425 "no further expenditure".

Page 427

temporarily lapsing
???

pigs fly
Lindsay = pig.

legalistic
???

Annotation Index