ATD 81-96

Page 81

Feast of St. Barbara. External link

Page 82

Skinner
A person who drives mules.

Cripple Creek
Cripple Creek was the location of a miner's strike in 1894. It was a significant labor event and it was the first time that a state Militia was called out in support of the miners. Wikipedia entry

Page 87

Rev. Moss Gatlin's rhetorical question "How can anyone set off a bomb that will take innocent lives?" and its wisecrack response, "Long fuse" seems a calculated echo of Kubrick's 'Full Metal Jacket.' ("How can you shoot women and children?" "Easy -- don't lead 'em so much.")

Mason-Dixon line We learn that the Traverse family had been "an old ridegerunning caln from southern Pennsylvania, close to the Mason-Dixon. The Civil War, which ate up a good part of Wbb's boyhood, split the family as well, so that shortly before it was over, he found himself in the back of a agon heading west..." I searched through all of M&D and didn't find any Traverses who had met the exporers, but it's obvious that there were there and that the Traverse family are victim's of the Line's bad Feng Shui. So interesting, then to see the link between the Line, Colarado Anarchism, and the Labor movemnet in California.

Page 89

Repeal of the Silver Act of 1893

Prior to 1893, both Silver and Gold were used as a metallic standard for currency in the United States. The Sherman Act authorized the treasury to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver per month. This inflated the price of silver, causing eastern investors to start hoarding gold as a hedge. The unrest this caused in the Colorado mines resulted in the repeal of the Act. When this happened, the mining of silver began to rapidly decline, causing further destabilization in the silver mining industry.

Page 93

plutes
plutocrats: members of the wealthy class controlling a government

Page 95

a radius of annhilation that, if it could not include the ones who deserved it, might as well include himself

Hair-raising to see Pynchon put the suicide bomber/terrorists back in the US where they also have a home; the effect also to make them (the suicide bombers over there somewhere - Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) a bit less foreign, and to make ourselves, good US citizens, appear foreign to ourselves: how could we, civilized Americans interested only in democracy and freedom for all, have these feelings and desires?

September 11, 2001 and its consequences seem obvious on this novel, at least in these first 95 pages.