Difference between revisions of "Chapter 11"

Latest revision as of 20:37, 2 August 2018

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Billie's Bounce
A bebop classic written by Charlie Parker. Here you go.

who liked to creep
The sixth appearance of the word "creep". It's starting to seem important.

a parable nobody is supposed to get
A story within a story in the vein of The Courier's Tragedy in Crying of Lot 49, "Byron the Bulb" (among many others) in Gravity's Rainbow. An outsider who refuses to sell out and a soulless, powerful force are at the core of this parable as well as pretty much all of Pynchon's books.

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journalists with nasal-length issues

Liars, see Pinocchio's nose WIKI.

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tabloidofthedamned.com
In case you missed the chapter six annotation, tabloidofthedamned.com takes you to www.thomaspynchon.com.

There's two pretty radically different interpretations of Pynchon linking to Pynchon Wiki's sister site in the text of Bleeding Edge. One, it could simply be a shout-out to his most prominent fan page. Two, he detests the page, given the pretty angrily negative connotations of "tabloid" and "of the damned" (hopefully not meaning us-- will let you know in the afterlife, if able). "Is this gonna be on the Internet now?" on the following page is a fairly negative response to so many private details of Pynchon's life being posted openly on the web, indeed often by those who believe themselves to be his biggest fans.

Allow this commentator to submit that we, the Pynchon readers and fans, take this reference as a reminder: It is up to us more than anyone else to give this great writer the privacy he deserves, including through our web sites, Pynchon Wiki commentary, and whatever.

Sterling Hayden
Sterling Walter Hayden (born Sterling Relyea Walter; March 26, 1916 – May 23, 1986) was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and film noir, such as Johnny Guitar, The Asphalt Jungle and The Killing. Later on he became noted as a character actor for such roles as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). He also played the Irish-American policeman, Captain McCluskey, in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather in 1972, and the novelist Roger Wade in 1973's The Long Goodbye. He played the role of Leo Dalcò in Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 in 1976. At six feet five inches, he was taller than most actors. From WIKI.

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Some Nazi name
Horst shares his first name with Horst Wessel, author of the lyrics to the Nazi anthem "Die Fahne Hoch", also known as the Horst Wessel Lied. This was effectively the German national anthem during the Nazi years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb5MjWZ7kxk

CFE
Certified Fraud Examiner

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Newspaper of Record
New York Times

"I like the streak, I'm keeping it"
Writer Susan Sontag's famous streak:

Susan Sontag and her hair, Creative Commons licensed photo from here

"a deep sympathy modified by contempt"
In her Notes on "Camp" (1964), Sontag writes "To name a sensibility, to draw its contours and to recount its history, requires a deep sympathy modified by revulsion." Notes on "Camp"

A sensibility (as distinct from an idea) is one of the hardest things to talk about; but there are special reasons why Camp, in particular, has never been discussed. It is not a natural mode of sensibility, if there be any such. Indeed the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. And Camp is esoteric -- something of a private code, a badge of identity even, among small urban cliques. Apart from a lazy two-page sketch in Christopher Isherwood's novel The World in the Evening (1954), it has hardly broken into print. To talk about Camp is therefore to betray it. If the betrayal can be defended, it will be for the edification it provides, or the dignity of the conflict it resolves. For myself, I plead the goal of self-edification, and the goad of a sharp conflict in my own sensibility. I am strongly drawn to Camp, and almost as strongly offended by it. That is why I want to talk about it, and why I can. For no one who wholeheartedly shares in a given sensibility can analyze it; he can only, whatever his intention, exhibit it. To name a sensibility, to draw its contours and to recount its history, requires a deep sympathy modified by revulsion.

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Page Six
Scandal section of New York Post (no longer on page six), now morphed into a website and magazine of the same name. Wiki

The Montauk Project
The Montauk Project is alleged to have been a series of secret United States government projects conducted at Camp Hero or Montauk Air Force Station on Montauk, Long Island for the purpose of developing psychological warfare techniques and exotic research including time travel. Jacques Vallée describes allegations of the Montauk Project as an outgrowth of stories about the Philadelphia Experiment. From WIKI.

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TWA Flight 800
Trans World Airlines Flight 800, a Boeing 747-100, exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean near East Moriches, New York, on July 17, 1996, at about 8:31 PM EDT, 12 minutes after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport on a scheduled international passenger flight to Rome, with a stopover in Paris. All 230 people on board were killed, the third-deadliest aviation accident to occur in U.S. territory. While accident investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) traveled to the scene, arriving the following morning, there was much initial speculation that a terrorist attack was the cause of the crash. Consequently, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) initiated a parallel criminal investigation. Sixteen months later the FBI announced that no evidence had been found of a criminal act and closed its active investigation. From WIKI.

Larry Ellison
CEO of Oracle.

Bill Gross
Called "the nation's most prominent bond investor" by the New York Times, Gross co-founded Pacific Investment Management (PIMCO) and currently manages PIMCO's Total Return fund (the world's largest bond fund) and several smaller ones. From WIKI.

p.s. despite being a legend among bond investors, Gross was ignominiously kicked out of Pimco in mid 2014 as a result of too many years of lacklustre performance. But this came after Bleeding Edge was published.

Special Purpose Vehicle
Also, a special purpose entity. It is a legal entity (usually a limited company of some type or, sometimes, a limited partnership) created to fulfill narrow, specific or temporary objectives. SPEs are typically used by companies to isolate the firm from financial risk. They are also commonly used to hide debt (inflating profits), hide ownership, and obscure relationships between different entities which are in fact related to each other (see Enron). From WIKI.

Jebel Ali Free Zone
Jebel Ali Free Zone is a free economic zone located in the Jebel Ali area at the far western end of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, near Abu Dhabi. Created under an Emiri Decree, Jafza commenced operations in 1985 with standard size office units and warehouses to provide ready built facilities to customers. In 1990 Jafza expanded its facilities to include light industrial units. From WIKI.

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Kind of fuckin pathetic... [like] that Barbara Stanwyck movie...
Reference to the end of the film Stella Dallas (1937). See WIKI.