Difference between revisions of "ATD 1040-1062"

Revision as of 10:45, 16 April 2007

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

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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; the Wikipedia disambiguation page leads to many of the meanings.

Mezzanine Perkins
Her given name suggests a physical attribute also called "balcony."

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

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 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.

hop
Marijuana.

Page 1044

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

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; 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. 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. 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
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, p. 183

Page 1053

'em mick bastards bombed the Times
James and Joseph McNamara ultimately pleaded guilty to the bombing (see page 1049).

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.

Gray Otis . . . the McNamaras . . . Brother Darrow
Harrison Gray Otis (1837-1917), editor and publisher of the Los Angeles Times 1881-1917. James and Joseph McNamara, identified on page 1053. Trial lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857-1938), here called "Brother" in recognition of his attachment to labor causes.

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.
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.

Page 1062

Annotation Index