Difference between revisions of "ATD 296-317"

Latest revision as of 23:44, 12 May 2019

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

Page 296

Rodgers Brothers
spelled Rogers Brothers, with 1847 Silver Ware (and other items) on E-Bay they seem to have been a leading maker of silverware and other silver products in the 1900's.

Mescalero
Mescalero is a native American tribe of Southern Athabaskan heritage currently living in southcentral New Mexico. Wikipedia.

Little Hellkite Mine
Does not seem to have existed.
Hellkite = a fierce fighter.
A kite is a vicious bird of prey in the falcon family.
Shakespeare used the expression in Macbeth (Act 4, Scene 3): MacDuff: "O hell-kite! - All? What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam, At one fell swoop? ".MacDuff uses 'fell' in a sense that is now rare - as an adjective meaning 'fierce, deadly.' From Brush Up Your Shakespeare.

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

Basin
The Basin referred to is most likely Marshall Basin[1], which is located up the Tomboy Road [2]. Here are two images of it from the late 1800s: [3] and [4].
Another thought is that it might be Yankee Boy Basin, which is up Imogene Pass, but it seems unlikely that Frank could have gone up the Tomboy Road and then wound up going over Imogene Pass, but that may have been difficult due to the 13,000 ft St Sophia's Ridge between the two.

glockenspiel
Percussion instrument with horizontal, tuned steel bars of various sizes that are struck with mallets and produce a bright metallic sound. Norton glossary of musical terms.

Page 297

Pandora works
Mine and works between Tomboy and Telluride. See the Telluride Places of Interest

adit
A horizontal entrance to an underground mine. Wikipedia

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

Page 298

duendes
Spanish for goblins, trolls or leprechauns, http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duende.

Also, duende is the essential spirit or passion of Flamenco, "flamenco soul". A "mysterious and ineffable spirit" inextricably linked with death, without which Flamenco is empty. Lorca called it "A mysterious power that everyone feels and no philosophy can explain". http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamenco#Duende

powder monkey
Historically, a sailor whose job it was to keep gun crews supplied with gunpowder and shot during battle. More generally, one who carries or sets explosives, as Dally does here.

Page 299

matte-surface
Not shiny.

"...Sunday-morning voice..."
Perhaps a sermonizing, righteous preacher-like voice, although the context suggests whispering, as in church.

Buck Wells
Bulkeley Wells, an historical figure, was a mine manager and cavalry commander and sheriff at Telluride, previously mentioned on p. 179. He was aggressively anti-union. Bulkeley Wells http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulkeley_Wells

Might be he'll even do the deed on himself
Wells committed suicide in 1931. Ibid.

Page 300

Throw down
to begin an altercation. "Throw down" http://www.blackraptor.net/m7fic/contents/terms.htm

"somethin tattooed on my head"
Cf. Queequeg's tattoos in Moby-Dick, Ch. 3 and passim.
"And the Lord put a mark on Cain ..." (Genesis) Cain is marked so that he can be recognized for his evil deed; at the same time he is protected by God. There is a great exegesis by Herman Hesse in his DEMIAN - that the mark is a symbol of inner knowledge. All three kind of fit Frank.

fragment of time
Sparks move faster than shutter.

collodion
Toxic chemical used both in early photography and explosives manufacturing. Wikipedia

Page 301

"circles of otherworld blindness up on tall poles" This about electric lights!. Seems to be an allusion to the most famous literary image involving poles--the heads on poles in Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
A-and repeats this image from earlier use in Telluride chapter.

squareheads
See annotation on page 189.

Page 302

ghost bison
The American Buffalo was nearly hunted to extinction in the 19th century. Wikipedia

Gallows Frame Saloon
The Gallows Frame is the structural frame, usually made of steel or timber, at the top of an underground mine shaft. These frames hold the hoisting equipment which raise and lower equipment and miners into the underground mine.
Cf. Sailor's Grave saloon in V. and the USS Scaffold also in V. Death surrounds us theme.

fathom miners
Miners paid by the "fathom" of ore extracted. Useful background on mining practices. A fathom was a block of ore 6 feet high by 6 feet deep by the width of the vein being worked.

remittance men
remittance man
Function: noun
one living abroad on remittances from home. Merriam-Webster

Black sheep paid regularly by families to stay away.??? Source?

Page 303

Circassian walnut
A swirled hardwood popular in woodworking, in this case used as a synecdoche to refer to a bar (the bar is made of Circassian walnut; incidentally, Yashmeen was a Circassian slave). Named for a region in the northern Caucasus Mountains from which the tree originates.

Charlie Fong Ding
Seems like a made-up comic Chinese name by TRP. Charlie, as in Charlie Chan, is a stereotypical Chinese first name as transliterated in America.
There is a road in The Northern Territory named after Fong Ding who was born in 1856 in Hoy Ping, Kwangtung (Guangdong) Province, China. He arrived in the Northern Territory in 1890 and in 1898 married Wong See at Port Darwin. He died at Pine Creek in 1928 aged 72 years. Fong Ding was a railway fettler and gold miner at Brock's Creek and Fountain Head and was the patriarch of the Fong family of Darwin and grandfather of the late Lord Mayor of Darwin, Alex Fong Lim. Fong Ding http://www.ipe.nt.gov.au/whatwedo/landinformation/place/register/view.jsp?id=6144

Actually, this seems to be a real person in Telluride, although the first name is spelled slightly differently. From the book The Corpse on Boomerang Road: Telluride's War on Labor 1899-1908: "Charley Fong Ding was a silk and porcelain merchant who also ran the largest laundry in 1901." ([5]) He is also mentioned in a book called Telluride. ([6])

congress... congregation
Two vs more-than-two at a time. Also, the word congregation has an official/religious conotation

California Peg
The "sous-maitresse," or teacher's aid, at the Silver Orchid brothel.

Grundyesque
Prudish; after Mrs. Grundy, a character in Thomas Morton's Speed the Plow, (1798)([7]). See page 400 on "Mrs. Grundy"

Popcorn Alley
Street of (now historic) brothels in Telluride.

a range of useful information.
Range again, as spectrum.

hurdy girl
A professional dancing girl.

Page 304

Annie Oakley
See Wikipedia entry

civil war and White Terror
The Finnish Civil War lasted from January-May 1918 and was fought between the conservative White and revolutionary Red factions of the army. After the Whites emerged victorious, they rounded up Red elements in prison camps where many died, hence the White Terror. Wikipedia.

"Love", whatever that turned out to be, would occupy a whole different piece of range. conveys a whole new meaning to the word 'range'?...not just land but something like 'range of emotions"? 'Piece of range' as in a spectrum? Light exists in a spectrum. Cf. 'Light over the ranges' indeed.

Page 305

"The Shooting of Dan McGrew"
"A bunch of the boys were whooping it up in the Malamute saloon ..." Poem by Robert Service (1874 - 1958). A Scotsman who came to Canada to work tough outdoors jobs, he was also a banker, a World War I Correspondent (WWI), and a wealthy world traveler who left the Yukon in 1912. etext

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

Stephen Emmens
American chemist and mining engineer, inventor of the explosive Emmensite, who believed an intermediate substance he called "argentaurum" was transmutable into silver or gold; he claimed to have discovered a process by which the gold content of silver could be thus enriched. He carried out his experiments from 1895 to 1897, and saw them made public in 1899. The details of the process, as far as they are known, are as Pynchon describes them. Attempts to enlist emminent scientists to verify Emmens' apparent alchemy included an offer to Nicola Tesla (He refused). [8].

"argentaurum"
Substance claimed by Dr. Stephen Emmens to be intermediate beteween silver and gold, and through which, as an intermediate step, each could be transmuted to the other.[9]. The preceding 2 links are to an article by Vincent Gaddis. I think his articles and books may well have been an important source for materials and ideas that appear in ATD. Gaddis lived in Gaberville, Ca., a region TRP lived in and researched for Vineland. Here's another Gaddis article that has ATD imagery: sentient lightning and the photography of etheric bodies [10]

nymph's mirror
Speculation: The "mirror" available to nymphs was any still surface of water, so thin as the surface of water.

Schieferspath
Has nothing to do with paths; spath is German for spar. Schiefer indicates it is a foliated mineral. So: foliated spar, i.e., a spar that cleaves readily into sheets. "[S]ome of the visiting labor" may come from a place where calcite is mined under this name.

superstitious Scotchman
Holding the nine of diamonds, "the curse of Scotland," he doesn't bet his hand but loses the specimen.

Page 306

grown brighter
It's drawing light from a non-material source, from a parallel world, which adds to the light already present?
Does this surprising way that images through a calcite spar grow brighter remind any readers of the rooms in Mason & Dixon which are larger inside than their measureable dimensions?MKOHUT 16:19, 14 June 2007 (PDT)

gold... silver
Any role of Iceland Spar and double-refracted light in the Emmens process of transmutation is Pynchon's invention.

rhomboid
A parallelogram with unequal adjacent sides and oblique angles. Wikipedia

Veta Madre
The "Mother Lode" of Mexico [11] in Guanajuato.

frijoles
Mexican beans.

the Gold Standard
The gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of gold.
Under the gold standard, currency issuers guarantee to redeem notes, upon demand, in that amount of gold. Governments that employ such a fixed unit of account, and which will redeem their notes to other governments in gold, share a fixed-currency relationship. Gold Standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Standard

Silver Act...repealed
Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890 required the US government to buy millions of ounces of silver bullion every month. This Act was repealed in 1893 when people, mostly investors, sold silver to get notes redeemable in gold making the government's gold reserves were in danger of depletion. Silver Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Silver_Purchase_Act

Page 307

what'll there be then to crucify mankind on a cross of?
Direct reference to William Jennings Bryan's "Cross of Gold" speech, delivered on July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. One of the most famous American political speeches, it closes with, "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."

Lyman Gage
Banker, and Secretary of the Treasury under McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, 1897-1902. In 1900 he ensured passage of the Gold Standard Act, which repealed bimetalism and had tremendous effects on the mining industry, and the economy in general, leading eventually to the foundation of the Federal Reserve System to regulate the currency in the wake of the resulting instability [12]. Just incidentally, Gage had been President of the Board of Directors of the Columbian Exposition.

like a kettle coming to a boil
Chaos theory originated from a range of observations like this (organised cells in boiling water).

stopes
Stopes are the steplike excavation working areas of a mine. Stope or Stopes.

Doc Turnstone
A young doctor who unsuccessfully courted Lake, introduced p. 262.

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

Remarkably, CBS is characterized often by bizarre and grotesque images: ghosts, elves, sprites, cartoon-like figures, disembodied faces, magical landscapes. According to Cliff Pickover, author of Sex, Drugs, Einstein, and Elves (Smart Publications, 2005), "people affflicted with certain eye diseases give similar reports of beings from parallel universes." Royal National Institute of the Blind Dr. Cliff Pickover Comments Wikipedia Wikipedia entry on Bonnet

Puckpool's Adventures in Neuropathy
Seems to be invented by Pynchon.

Page 308

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

duendes
Mythical goblin or fairy-like creature. Wikipedia

Page 309

Old Gideon
Bourbon, mentioned on page 40 and in the index."Different varieties of bourbon were very popular too, such as Old Crow and Old Gideon." http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/old_west/102390

A.T. Still
(1828-1917), "Father of American Osteopathic Medicine." The Wikipedia entry also identifies the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri.

Page 310

Jefe
Spanish: chief, boss.

Gracias a Dios!
Spanish: thank God!

Page 311

mind-poisoning vetches
The vetches are weak-stemmed, semi-vining plants. See Vetches.

creosote
A creosote bush is "a shrub native to arid parts of Mexico and the western US. Its leaves smell of creosote" (Oxford Dictionary of English).

Edgar Hadley
Telluride Historical Museum.

blood diverted from its return
Accurate but odd?

An example of Pynchon's predilection for describing apparently simple events in strangely abstract detail.

Trout Lake
Trout Lake is located between Rico and Ophir, west of Silverton, CO, at an elevation of 9802 ft. For further information and photos see Trout Lake.

Page 313

Busted Flush
The name of the boat that Travis McGee, the hero of 21 mysteries written by John D. McDonald, lives on. (Wikipedia) He named the boat for the poker hand he had that won it for him.

tridigital
Three fingers (measure of liquor).

packer's knife
A meat packing knife, similar to a boning knife. Generally a long, thin, somewhat flexible blade. (Not unlike a filet knife in that respect.)

Page 314

Dutch Waltz
A simple dance for beginning figure skaters. From wikipedia: "...in the United States, the first dance learned by most skaters is the Dutch Waltz, which features only forward skating in a side-by-side hold, skated to music with a very slow waltz tempo."

centrifugal
Pulling away from center.

Page 315

Railbird Saloon
A "railbird" is a spectator who hangs on or over the boundary rail at a racetrack, presumably a horseplayer. Not sure if that is any help here.

Gastón Villa
A pun on British football club Aston Villa?

cholo balls
Seems to be referring to decorative ornaments hanging on a mariachi style sombrero as the decorations often portrayed in the vehicles of Mexican-American "Cholos" (gangsters/low riders).

charro
A Mexican cowboy.

don't preoccupy yourself
A literal translation of the Spanish idiom ¡No te preocupes!, "don't worry". Ellmore Disco was thought to be Mexican. p. 283.

Galandronome
A type of bassoon developed by French instrument maker Galander in the mid-19th century. Wikipedia. Since there is only one known instrument left in the world, Gastón Villa probably exaggerates when he says it was once standard military issue. Furthermore, Pynchon writes that it is made of brass and has valves and keys. However, the descriptions and photographs show that its main body is made of maple wood and that it does not have any valves. Images on the Website of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Battle of Puebla
Mexican victory over French forces, May 5, 1862, commemorated in Latino communities as cinco de mayo.

Page 316

Rio Bravo
Rio Bravo is the Mexican name for the Rio Grande, meaning Webb’s killers have likely slipped across the border. Perhaps also a nod to one of the greatest movie westerns, Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo? Wikipedia

Some ghosts go oo-oo-oo... the bone deep voice of retribution
Here we have Frank in an encounter with the ghost of his father, which ends with a auditory hallucination of an explosion. Which may or may not have something to do with the explosion recorded in Madame Eskimoff's sitting for the T.W.I.T. See p229

Ophir road
Presumably the road to the town of Ophir, South of Telluride, named for the biblical souce of the treasure of Solomon's Fleet [13]. Perhaps one of Pynchon's contrasts: Telluride, named rationally for its ore deposits; Ophir a name from the pre-rational and mythic. Yes, and Telluride's 'rationality': "to Hell You Ride" [ADT]

Page 317

backward departure
No way to turn engine?

Right; see annotation to page 265.

abrazos
Spanish for "embrace"; "hugs".

Annotation Index