Difference between revisions of "ATD 557-587"
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'''theory of sets'''<br> | '''theory of sets'''<br> | ||
| − | + | Set theory is the mathematical theory of sets, which represent collections of abstract objects. It encompasses the everyday notions, introduced in primary school, of collections of objects, and the elements of, and membership in, such collections. In most modern mathematical formalisms, set theory provides the language in which mathematical objects are described. It is (along with logic and the predicate calculus) one of the axiomatic foundations for mathematics, allowing mathematical objects to be constructed formally from the undefined terms of "set" and "set membership". It is in its own right a branch of mathematics and an active field of mathematical research. Wikipedia | |
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'''Bruges Canal'''<br> | '''Bruges Canal'''<br> | ||
Revision as of 21:10, 12 January 2007
- Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.
Contents
- 1 Page 557
- 2 Page 558
- 3 Page 559
- 4 Page 560
- 5 Page 561
- 6 Page 562
- 7 Page 563
- 8 Page 564
- 9 Page 565
- 10 Page 566
- 11 Page 567
- 12 Page 568
- 13 Page 569
- 14 Page 570
- 15 Page 571
- 16 Page 572
- 17 Page 573
- 18 Page 574
- 19 Page 575
- 20 Page 576
- 21 Page 577
- 22 Page 578
- 23 Page 579
- 24 Page 580
- 25 Page 581
- 26 Page 582
- 27 Page 583
- 28 Page 584
- 29 Page 585
- 30 Page 586
- 31 Page 587
- 32 Annotation Index
Page 557
Viktor Mulciber
???
bespoke
made to order, hence hand-made and expensive. Somewhere in the novel is a reference to 1 Savile Row, the address of Gieves and Hawkes, a very traditional English tailor.
Basil Zaharoff
???
trains of history... run
???
Q-weapon
Allusion to Professor Kokintz's "Q-bomb" in The Mouse That Roared (1959).
Balkan komitadji
Bulgarian: revolutionaries. This equivalent comes from a communist-era dictionary, and it is quite possible the word meant something a little different before World War I.
waybill
Ancestor of what Fedex and UPS call "shipping document"; it identifies the article shipped and contains necessary addresses and instructions.
metamorphosed into an American Negro
Cf honorary Negro (Frank above).
Nipponese
Japanese
Hertzian
Electromagnetic waves, first demonstrated by Heinrich Hertz
they cannot strictly . . . longitudinal as well as transverse
Hertz's theory and Maxwell's equations describe transverse waves in which the electric and magnetic fields are perpendicular to the direction of travel; no longitudinal waves--with vibrations parallel to the direction of travel--are permitted. In air, sound waves are longitudinal; what's suggested here is a new wave that does not fit the Hertz-Maxwell paradigm.
Page 558
scalar part
Quaternion equivalent of the real part.
Time is a scaler term.
baritone in a barbershop quartet
Quote:Technically speaking, barbershop harmony is a style of unaccompanied singing with three voices harmonizing to the melody. The lead usually sings the melody, with the tenor harmonizing above the lead. The bass sings the lowest harmonizing notes and the baritone provides in-between notes, either above or below the lead to make chords (specifically, dominant-type or "barbershop" sevenths) that give barbershop its distinctive, "full" sound.
viola in a string quartet
Two violins, a viola, and a violoncello make up a string quartet. The viola is between the others in pitch and is generally considered to have been given the least interesting parts in Classical and Romantic music for string quartet.
Further Term
The three parts of a quaternion that are multiples of i, j and k
the fulfiller of the Trinity
the name of the first atom bomb detonated at Los Alamos. Alluded to earlier. The origin of the name Trinity for this event is uncertain. It is commonly thought that Robert Oppenheimer provided the name, which would seem logical, but even this is not definitely known. A leading theory is that Oppenhimer did select it, and that he did so with reference to the divine Hindu trinity of Brahma (the Creator), Vishnu (the Preserver), and Shiva (the Destroyer). Oppenheimer had an avid interest in Sanskrit literature (which he had taught himself to read), and following the Trinity test is reported to have recited a passage from the Bhagavad-Gita that is quoted earlier in this wiki.
Also, a religious allusion to the three-person Godhead in Christian theology.
Also, third ADT meaning!, a college in Dublin mentioned on page 560.
the pulselessness of salvation
salvation lies outside of time?
A weapon based on Time
Time is why there is entropy, that key Pynchonian term. Pynchon has created a brilliant metaphor that uses the concept uniquely.
laterite
A mineral structure formed by erosion, see Wikipedia. Laterite is typically rich in metal oxides and poor in organic matter.
Ostend
Ostend (Dutch: Oostende, French & German: Ostende) is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. It comprises the villages of Mariakerke, Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest at the Belgian coast. Wikipedia.
Inner Boulevards
streets in Brussels."In spite of the competition of the Central or Inner Boulevards, the Montagne de la Cour still remains the principal street for shopping in Brussels." "Brussels", Antiques Digest, 1904.
Gare du Midi
The largest railway station in Brussels and a haunt of prostitutes.
Edouard Gevaert
(No ligature?)
Page 559
Krupp field-piece
The Krupps are an ancient German family, famous for making weapons. A field-piece is a light-cannon.
vaguely glandular
Describes Belgium, it seems.
ostinato
A continually repeated musical phrase or rhythm.
poleaxed
Stunned, brought to a mental standstill. (I believe a poleaxe was used in slaughterhouses. --Volver 11:31, 3 January 2007 (PST))
lost to silence
(Not silent, or very?)Very
Page 560
Estacade
???
mousmée... mouchard
French: a young Japanese woman; a police spy.
always lead an irregular life
Cf GR.
Maria Bayley Hamilton
???
council meeting
???
Page 561
Brougham Bridge
???
pulls a knife
(Folklore, really later?)
on the stone
The bridge is evidently a stone bridge. Stone, a natural thing, is a good for Pynchon. Hamilton's action is metaphorically a deeply religious moment. "Pentecostal" wherein the Quaternions 'descend' to earth [in the thoughts of men].
Pentecostal
Pentecost (< Greek πεντηκοστή [ἡμέρα], pentekostē [hēmera], "the fiftieth day") is the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday, which corresponds to the tenth day after Ascension Thursday. It is a feast in the Christian liturgical calendar — symbolically related to the Jewish festival of Shavuot — that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the followers of Jesus on that day, as described in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2. Pentecost is also called "Whitsunday" (deriving from "Wit Sunday") in UK and other English-speaking areas.
official Mischief Opportunity
like 'shore leave', it seems. To leave the rules of the Organization and create mischief.
absinthe spoons
absinthe spoons have slits whereon are placed sugar cubes through which one pours the absinthe
cravats
A cravat is the neckband forerunner of the modern, tailored necktie. From the end of the 16th century, the term "band" applied to any long-strip neckcloth that was not a "ruff"; the ruff—a starched, pleated white linen strip—started its fashion career earlier in the 16th century as neckcloth that could be changed-a-fresh to keep the neck of a doublet from becoming too-soiled or as a bib or a napkin. A "band" could indicate a plain, attached shirt collar or a detachable "falling band" that draped over the doublet collar.
Necktie fashions have changed over time.The modern cravat originated in the 1630s.
"four-door farce"
(See eg Bogdanovich's "What's Up, Doc?")
This is also a pun on the name of Georges Feydeau, French writer of farces who was writing when Pynchon's novel is set. One of the recurring physical jokes involves sets with many doors and people coming in and out, just missing each other....
Page 562
Minque
the fish auction house
carillons... carilloneur
bells...bellringer
Hanseatic
The Hansa or Hanseatic League (definitely a creation of "the Christian North," next paragraph) was a great mercantile system that held itself above national rule.
burghers
middle-class married men
silted up
backed up, underwater, with mud
Damme and Sluis
Port cities near Bruges, heavily dependent on them from the 14th Century.
Page 563
trusted his intuitiveness
Woevre is a natural killer.
"Jou moerskont!"... Afrikaans
Possibly "you horse's ass"?
Page 564
immense choir
???
Voetsak
Dutch or Afrikaans, "Go away!", also spelled "voertsek" or "voetsek"
starers
???
tobacco-stricken
a smoker's deep voice?
half-silvering
A design for an optical beam splitter that causes half of the incident light to be transmitted and the other half to be reflected.
four cusps... index-surface
???
co-conscious
third use, I think. Who/what is co-conscious here?
Page 565
true icosahedron
Probably an regular icosahedron, where the sides are formed by 20 equilateral triangles
12+8... pyrites
Pyrite crystals form a structure that can be decomposed into unit cells that contain (part of) 12 sulphur atoms and 8 iron atoms.
Riemann sphere
Wikipedia
Felix Klein
German mathematician (Wikipedia)
ebonite
An early plastic(Wikipedia)
Ohmic Drift
ohm = : the practical meter-kilogram-second unit of electric resistance equal to the resistance of a circuit in which a potential difference of one volt produces a current of one ampere
speed of the earth... kinetic energy
Einstein in 1905 showed most of this argument to be nonsense, but if Lorentz's paper is still recent (next entry) the shift in thinking may not have happened yet.
Recently Lorentz's paper
Lorentz's 1904 "Electromagnetic phenomena in a system moving with any velocity less than that of light" (PDF)
Lorentz . . . Fitzgerald . . . along the axis of motion
It was the phenomenon of the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction, together with the abolition of the æther by Michelson and Morley, that led Einstein to his theory of special relativity.
Lord Rayleigh
British physicist (Wikipedia)
Page 566
In a dream...
This passage, describing Kit's dream of Umeki and the message it conveys, pulls together many of the main themes of Against the Day, tying things together in a way that Pynchon seldom does, almost as if he's providing a rather large piece of the puzzle to help the reader understand the novel:
- "Deep among the equations describing the behavor of light, field equations, Vector and Quaternion equations, lies a set of directions, an intinerary, a map to a hidden space. Double refraction appears again and again as a key element, permitting a view into a Creation set just to the side of this one, so close as to overlap, where the membrane between the worlds, in many places, has become too frail, too permeable, for safety.... Within the mirror, with the scalar term, within the daylit and obvious and taken-for-granted has always lain, as if in wait, the dark intinerary, the corrupted pilgrim's guide, the nameless Station before the first, in the lightless uncreated, where salvation does not yet exist."
analogies
(Pynchonian heuristics.)
the corrupted pilgrim's guide, the nameless Station before the first
Cf. p. 436 holy pilgrimages. One defines a destination, proceeds through a series of stations...
lightless uncreated
(Gnostic heresy?)
stuffed sinus
sinus/nasal congestion. It is like looking out onto a new world when one's sinus finally clears after days of congestion.
Konichiwa
Japanese greeting
Page 567
new Puccini opera
Obviously, Madame Butterfly
Borel-Clerc... "La Matchiche"
Popular vaudeville song from 1903. "La Matchiche" is French for the Brazilian dance Maxixe.
western anchor
What about France, Spain, Portugal?
Compaignie Internationale des Wagons-Lits
"International Sleeping-Car Company", Wikipedia
two hundred francs
???
theory of sets
Set theory is the mathematical theory of sets, which represent collections of abstract objects. It encompasses the everyday notions, introduced in primary school, of collections of objects, and the elements of, and membership in, such collections. In most modern mathematical formalisms, set theory provides the language in which mathematical objects are described. It is (along with logic and the predicate calculus) one of the axiomatic foundations for mathematics, allowing mathematical objects to be constructed formally from the undefined terms of "set" and "set membership". It is in its own right a branch of mathematics and an active field of mathematical research. Wikipedia
Bruges Canal
???
Page 568
vaporetto
A Venetian water-bus.
Grand Canal
The main canal that runs through the heart of Venice and down past San Marco, the city's main square.
San Marco end
See above. This is where Florian's (appears in the novel) is situated.
Piazzetta
???
San Giorgio Maggiore
A rather over-ornate church on the Grand Canal opposite San Marco.
spreading... cloak
Cliche/allusion?
live here forever
Pynchon special-pleading that Dally isn't just another tourist.
Or is this just a typical reaction of the tourist? And a Pynchonesque longing for home?
Page 569
Malibran... Polo's house
The Teatro Malibran, built at the site of Marco Polo's house, which was destroyed in 1596.
"pincette" pass
Probably from the pincer movement of military strategy.
profondes
"Large pockets in tail coats which can be used for vanishes or productions", Wikipedia
Vincenzo Miserere
???
train to Trieste
???
Svegli
???
shark leather
Different from sharkskin?
Specchiere
Mirror-maker
glassmakers on Murano
Wikipedia
Page 570
another one of his stories
(Jackson Pynchon should highlight all the AtD passages that originated as bedtime stories.)
TERAPIA
Italian, "therapy"
San Servolo
An island in the Venetian archipelago, Wikipedia, Google Maps
Palazzo Ducale
The Ducal Palace in Venice, residence of the Doge. It's by San Marco.
manicomio
Italian, "madhouse"
uterine vellum
Vellum produced from the skin of an unborn calf
pitch, rouge
Products used in the grinding of lenses and mirrors.
Page 571
La Doppiatrice
Italian: the Doubler.
Ettore Sananzolo
???
Maskelyne cabinet
After Neville Maskelyne, from Mason and Dixon. Maskelyne sent M and D to record the Transit of Venus.
More likely a descendant, Jasper M., famous stage magician and designer of dazzle camouflage.Volver 15:34, 2 January 2007 (PST)
Page 572
smoke back into a cigar
Time's arrow/ entropy motif.
hard-as-a-rock black cigar
???
thumping
???
salso
???
sandoli
???
trains pulling in
Famous early film.
Page 573
Cannareggio
Cannaregio
Page 574
thirty years older
About 65yo?
that day
In NYC when Dally showed up.
when she was born
Cf Pretenders/Chryssie Hynde.
Stronzo
Italian curse word, roughly "asshole"
In bocc' al lupo!
From the Roman dialect, in which the Italians - including Rocco and Pino - seem to speak. Meaning, literally, "In the
mouth of the wolf," and idiomatically, "Good luck."
Specifically the good-luck wish among actors: "Break a leg!" Volver 15:36, 2 January 2007 (PST)
campielli
???
Page 575
Riva
???
middy blouses
???
not yet been rebuilt
Remember p256.
lucciole
???
fondamenta
A waterside street in Venice
ombreta
???
light's good here
Old joke about drunk looking for car keys under streetlight though he dropped them somewhere else.
inside that labyrinth . . . microcosm of all Venice
A hologram has this property, that a little chip broken off it contains the entire image.
Page 576
twelve soldi
???
franc... ten francs
???
Canaletto
???
Beppo
???
pitch
???
Bauer-Grünwald
An expensive hotel near San Marco in Venice.
Page 577
'Safe'
Recent art-movie title?
Castello
???
Evening Gun
???
importunate
???
Dr. Grace
Renowned, full-bearded 19th-century English cricket player.
Page 578
Dorsoduro
An area of Venice.
pensione
A cheap Italian hotel, like a bed and breakfast.
La Calcina
???
Zattere
An area of wide waterfront pavements in Venice.
cimici
???
bora
???
Page 579
Tintoretto's Abduction...
???
Accademia
The major art-gallery in Venice
Titian
16th century Venetian painter.
Infancy Gospel of Thomas
???
Page 580
Pentecost story in Acts
???
Galilean dialect
Of Aramaic.
rii
Plural of rio.
Page 581
sotopòrteghi
An open doorway for public access.
Bodeo 10.4 mm
???
Page 582
foschetta
???
masègni
???
patrone
???
wine trains up from Puglia
???
Winter
1904-1905?
Principessa Spongiatosta
Is Pugnax's book from p6 at all relevant here?
Ca'
Abbreviated form of "Casa," Italian for "house."
Roman Composite order
???
japonica
???
Page 583
Iron Bridge
???
Le Havre
???
ma via
???
third eyes touching
The third eye, as existing on some reptiles is a dorsal organ that is receptive to light, otherwise known as the pineal eye. Since the two half-sisters are obviously not reptiles, this reference might allude to the figurative third eye, or the eye of the mind, heart or soul. When the two touch foreheads, they are able to peer into each other consciences, by way of these third eyes. /Dictionary Entry
Page 584
"Swiss insurance salesman. Wolf. No, Putzi."
Bria's had so many beaux she gets them confused?
topo
???
Dogana
???
Andrea Tancredi
An artist and acquaintence made by Hunter Penhallow in Venice. His name is likely derived from the Gioacchino Rossini opera Tancredi or the Voltaire play by the same name. Wikipedia Entry
Seurat and Signac
George Seurat (1859-1891) and Paul Signac (1863-1935), French painters who developed pointillism. Wikipedia entry.
Divisionism
???
Marinetti
???
"Futurists"
Practitioners or followers of Futurism, an early 20th century art movement that is considered the genesis of Cubism, Dada and Art Deco. Wikipedia entry.
brutalism
???
Torcello
A lonely Venetian island: very peaceful and beautiful with a church and little else.
primitivo
???
Page 585
green-and-lavender
Another clashing color scheme.
sirocco
A hot dust-laden wind from the Libyan deserts that blows on the northern Mediterranean coast chiefly in Italy, Malta, and Sicily.
San Michele
???
futuristic vehicle
P155.
Preliminary Studies...
???
Page 586
Always with us.
Gospel of ?.
vero
Cf 'verdad'.
orpiment yellow
A yellow color pigment (Wikipedia)
Nürnberg violet
An artificial color pigment discovered in 1868 in the city of Nuremberg
Page 587
nebbia, nebbietta, foschia, caligo, sfumato
???
speed of sound
Air temperature is more important that density.
La Velocità del Suono
Italian, "speed of sound"
Annotation Index
| Part One: The Light Over the Ranges |
|
|---|---|
| Part Two: Iceland Spar |
119-148, 149-170, 171-198, 199-218, 219-242, 243-272, 273-295, 296-317, 318-335, 336-357, 358-373, 374-396, 397-428 |
| Part Three: Bilocations |
429-459, 460-488, 489-524, 525-556, 557-587, 588-614, 615-643, 644-677, 678-694 |
| Part Four: Against the Day |
695-723, 724-747, 748-767, 768-791, 792-820, 821-848, 849-863, 864-891, 892-918, 919-945, 946-975, 976-999, 1000-1017, 1018-1039, 1040-1062 |
| Part Five: Rue du Départ |
