Difference between revisions of "Chapter 36"

Latest revision as of 06:38, 2 September 2020

Page 395

Twelfth Night
Twelfth Night; or, What You Will is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written around 1601–02 as a Twelfth Night's entertainment for the close of the Christmas season. The play expanded on the musical interludes and riotous disorder expected of the occasion, with plot elements drawn from the short story "Of Apollonius and Silla" by Barnabe Rich, based on a story by Matteo Bandello. From WIKI.

Page 396

shoulder surfers
In computer security, shoulder surfing refers to using direct observation techniques, such as looking over someone's shoulder, to get information. It is commonly used to obtain passwords, PINs, security codes, and similar data. Wikipedia

Page 397

in loco Santaclausis
A play on the Latin phrase "in loco parentis," which means "in the place of a parent" and refers to the legal responsibility of an organization (e.g., a university) to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent.

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friends who warbike around town
Warbiking is, in Internet vernacular, searching for unsecured wireless networks by bicycle. [1]

Page 401

All About Eve and shit
The 1950 film is about a successful actress and her young fan Eve Harrington, who insinuates herself into the older actress's life.

Page 402

mohel
A mohel is a Jewish person trained in the practice of brit milah, the "covenant of circumcision." From WIKI.

Out there somewhere in that nomad's field of indifference, riding the Chinese bus into a futurity of imprecise schedules and reduced options
This is reminiscent of the fate of Tyrone Slothrop, in Gravity's Rainbow, pages 738-742 (original Viking editions), where he is "scattered" and eventually sort of disappears from the action, dissolves.

Windust's fate echoes Slothrop's:

He's silent, wherever he is. One more American sheep the shepherds have temporarily lost track of, somewhere in the high country of this ruinous hour, cragfast in the storm.

Page 403

wadis of deep purity
Wadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some cases, it may refer to a dry (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream. From WIKI.

Omar Sharif
Another Lawrence of Arabia reference, following from convo with Vyrva on p. 400. See Sharif's info and a photo on WIKI.

melismas of desert wind
Melisma is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, in which each syllable of text is matched to a single note. From WIKI.

Page 404

SVG Alice Blue
SVG is Scalable Vector Graphics, an image format used on the web, dating from 1999. Alice Blue is one of the standard colors in SVG. It is a very pale blue, 240,248,255 in rgb.

"Alice blue is a pale tint of azure that was favored by Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt, which sparked a fashion sensation in the United States." Wikipedia Pynchon's wife is a great-granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt, and thus this could be read as a small family allusion in a novel which numerous critics have interpreted as Pynchon's most personal.

Page 405

Citroen Sahara
1962 model, 24 hp, top speed 65 mph on two engines.

a pair of fishhooks
"Fishhook" is gambling lingo for a Jack of any suit.

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a music track heavy on the hijaz scale
The hijaz scale — aka the Phrygian Dominant, Hijaz-Nahawand, Fraigish — is distinguished by the augmented interval between the 2nd and 3rd degrees of the scale, which is commonly heard in Jewish, Greek, Turkish, Arab, Persian, and Flamenco music. The scale is: D Eb F# G A Bb C. Wikipedia

Omar Sharif ... playing bridge
Not only an actor, Sharif was also an international-level bridge player.

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his careless gift of boy's cruelty
A "careless" gift is a meaningless gift given with little thought. It's Windust giving the Montauk Project his gift of "boy's cruelty" which was nurtured and developed. See page 339 Windust would be "a preadolescent boy [...] abducted circa 1960" by the Montauk Project, as described on page 243.

GS-1800-series job

General Service 1800 series numbers are used to designate various government special agents. See WIKI.