Difference between revisions of "Chapter 22"

Latest revision as of 20:01, 3 August 2018

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Adderall
While generally prescribed for ADD, its commonly snorted, and abused as an upper.

split for Seattle...hums a few bars of the Darth Vader theme
Reference to Microsoft.

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"Presently they're linked and slowly descending from wee-hours Manhattan into teeming darkness, leaving the surface-Net crawlers busy overhead..."
The next few pages bear a striking resemblance to William Gibson's descriptions of cyberspace in his seminal work Neuromancer. The concept of the internet as a physical space has managed to hold water quite well since its inception, and fits in well with Pynchon's own interest in the physical and figurative value of real estate.

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recherché
Choice, refined, exquisite... Also, Sandwichgrrl's comment here brings to mind Gabriel Ice's perhaps not-so-choice wine cellar which is a front for his weird tunnel system.

Ride the Wild Surf
A 1964 beach party/surfing movie and a song by Jan & Dean. A play on "surfing the web."

summer will end all too soon
The Endless Summer was a famous 1966 surfing movie, continuing the surfing theme from a couple of lines earlier.

in the shallows
A potential reference to the book "The Shallows" about how instant search functionality negatively effects the brain.

Robert Moses
Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and was arguably one of the most polarizing figures in the history of urban planning in the United States. His decisions favoring highways over public transit helped create the modern suburbs of Long Island and influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners who spread his philosophies across the nation. One of his major contributions to urban planning was New York's large parkway network. WIKI.

"Robert Moses of the Deep Net": the only occurence of the Deep Net instead of Deep Web. Editing, again?

Gigantic vacuum-tube computers with half-acre footprints
Dinosaurs.

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Scope wizards
In the late 1950s, only the military was flying supersonic jet aircraft like the all-weather capable F102A Delta Dagger or "One-O-Wonderful" F101B Voodoo. Nicknames were usually applied to the air and ground crews, using the "Voodoo" theme: "One-Oh-Wonder" for the pilots, "Scope Wizard" for the Radar Intercept Officers (RIOs, later called Weapon System Officers/WSOs or "Whizzos), and "Witch Doctors" for the maintenance guys. They were a formidable sight, whether taxiing past the alert hangars or taking off in formation.

bird colonel
A full colonel in the US Army.

ADC from AFOSI Region 7
Aerospace Defense Command (though inactivated in 1980?) from United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

the gulag
The Gulag was the Soviet Union government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems during the Stalin era, from the 1930s through the 1950s. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The term is also sometimes used to describe the camps themselves. From WIKI.

Time travel...you have to do it from inside out, with your mind and body...navigating Time is an unforgiving discipline &c.
The curse of the writer (in the world of Tron).

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MKUltra-type programs
Project MKUltra is the code name of a U.S. government covert human research operation experimenting in the behavioral engineering of humans (mind control) through the CIA's Scientific Intelligence Division. The program began in the early 1950s, was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and officially halted in 1973. The program engaged in many illegal activities; in particular it used unwitting U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy. MKUltra involved the use of many methodologies to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture. Wikipedia entry

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Lacanian
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's intellectuals in the 1960s and the 1970s, especially the post-structuralist philosophers. From WIKI.

Alfonsín
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (March 12, 1927 – March 31, 2009) was an Argentine lawyer, politician and statesman, who served as the President of Argentina from December 10, 1983, to July 8, 1989. Alfonsín was the first democratically elected president of Argentina following the military government known as the National Reorganization Process. He was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in 1985, among numerous other such recognitions. From WIKI.

Menem-Cavallo era
President Menem had already privatized the state telecom concern and national airlines (the once-premier airline in Latin America, Aerolíneas Argentinas, which was later almost run into the ground). The stability Cavallo's plan helped bring about, however, opened prospects for more privatizations than ever. Going on to total over 200 state enterprises, these included the costly state railroads concern, the state oil monopoly YPF, several public utilities, two government television stations, 10,000 km (6000 mi) of roads, steel and petrochemical firms, grain elevators, hotels, subways and even racetracks. A panoply of provincial and municipal banks were sold to financial giants abroad (sometimes over the opposition of their respective governors and mayors) and, taking a page from Chile's successful experiment, the mandatory state pensions system was opened to choice through the authorization of for private pension schemes. From WIKI.

Law of the Father
An important idea in the work of Jacques Lacan, which is relevant since Leopold is a Lacanian shrink.
In 1897 Freud remarked, on the basis of his analysis of his first patients and his self-analysis, that "The father forbids the child from realizing its unconscious wish to sleep with his mother" (letter to Fliess, October 15, 1897). This first outline of the Oedipus complex, which now appears simplistic, grew increasingly complex throughout Freud's research. In time the Law of the Father turned out to be directed both toward the mother ("You will not reintegrate your product") as well as her offspring swept up by desire. The law is also accompanied by an injunction against cannibalism and murder, and hold up ideals, primarily sexual ones ("Later you will enjoy, like me, a woman from another family"). Once introjected, this becomes the origin of the superego and ego ideal. The repression of drives, their suppression and sublimation, are the principal outcomes of the conflict that connects them structurally to this law. [1]

Bear in mind, though, that the quoted material above applies to Freud's early biology-based thinking. Taking cues from Freud's later cultural/anthropological interests, Lacan maps Oedipus and ego development onto the structures of language ("The Unconscious is structured like [a] language.") and more or less replaces Freud's Id-Ego-Superego mechanics with his own Real-Imaginary-Symbolic orders as his go-to hermeneutic machine.

Villa Freud
This is an actual neighborhood located within the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires known for "its high concentration of psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, hence its name." See WIKI.

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Maybe not as bad as getting disappeared
During the last military dictatorship in Argentina, from 1976 to 1983, around 30,000 people got disappeared by the state.

loquesea
Whatevs.

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"What, excuse me, gives you authority here? What happens in your practice, when you want to save somebody but lose them instead?"
Maxine is a Jewish Mother with an it's-complicated relationship with the Law, whether civil, financial or Lacanian. Is Pynchon giving us a version of Freud/Lacan from the Mother's point of view (who no one ever asks about all this desire and desired object michegas)? Is she condemned to Windust's attentions because she is the Mother? Is she condemned to reading Windust as an abducted little boy who's been shocked and awed into usefulness as an IMF thug? Is she any different in this regard than Frenesi Gates or Oedipa Maas? Is she really Naomi Klein? Stay tuned.