Difference between revisions of "Chapter 10"

Revision as of 20:19, 23 September 2013

Page 96

shviger evil eye
Shviger is Yiddish for mother-in-law.

Midwest... it was the golden age of arcades then...
Possible reference to Walter Day and Ottumwa, Iowa's Twin Galaxies.

Page 97

opera
Frank Henry Loesser (1910 – 1969) wrote the lyrics and music to Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. Jussi Björling singing Nessun Dorma, Deanna Durbin singing Nessun Dorma. Squillo "is a technical term attached to the resonant, trumpet-like sound in the voice of opera singers." Wikipedia

References to opera are littered throughout Pynchon's works. Wagner is mentioned numerous times in Gravity's Rainbow.

Page 98

it's Aretha Franklin, the time she filled in for Pavarotti at the Grammys back in '98
Here's the performance right here.

prewar classic seven
Prewar apartment with seven full rooms.

Space Ghost Coast to Ghost
A cult classic cartoon that ran from 1994-2004, known for its "surrealism, non-sequiturs and random, unpredictable parody humor". Wikipedia

Likud Day
Likud is the major center-right party in Israel. A secular party, it was founded in 1973 by Menachem Begin in an alliance with several right-wing and liberal parties. Likud's victory in the 1977 elections was a major turning point in the country's political history, marking the first time the left had lost power. In addition, it was the first time in Israel that a right wing party won the plurality of the votes. However, after ruling the country for most of the 1980s, the party lost the Knesset election in 1992. Nevertheless, Likud's candidate Benjamin Netanyahu did win the vote for Prime Minister in 1996 and was given the task of forming a government after the 1996 elections. From WIKI.

Page 99

Fu Manchu
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century. The character was also featured extensively in cinema, television, radio, comic strips and comic books for over 90 years, and has become an archetype of the evil criminal genius while lending the name to the Fu Manchu moustache. From WIKI.

Soutine
Website here.

Lenox Hill
Lenox Hill Hospital, on Manhattan's Upper East Side in New York City, is a 652-bed, tertiary-care hospital and a teaching hospital of New York Medical College, State University of New York Downstate Medical Center College of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, Long Island University and Pace University. It was founded in 1857 as the German Dispensary. From WIKI.

Page 100

a RICO beef
Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as the RICO Act or simply RICO, is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. The RICO Act focuses specifically on racketeering, and it allows the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes which they ordered others to do or assisted them, closing a perceived loophole that allowed someone who told a man to, for example, murder, to be exempt from the trial because he did not actually commit the crime personally. From WIKI.

Explaining to Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.
The narrator jokingly refers to Windust as Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., who played an FBI agent in the TV series The FBI.

Sam Jaffe
Sam Jaffe (March 10, 1891 – March 24, 1984) was an American actor, teacher, musician and engineer. In 1951, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and appeared in other classic films such as Ben-Hur (1959) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). He may be best remembered for playing the title role in Gunga Din (1939), and the High Lama in Lost Horizon (1937). From WIKI.

Klaatu
Klaatu is a fictional humanoid alien in the 1951 science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still and its 2008 remake. Klaatu is famous in part because of the phrase "Klaatu barada nikto!" used in the classic film and its re-use in the Bruce Campbell cult comedy film Army of Darkness, as well as many other films. From WIKI.

Page 102

A reconvergence of what the day scattered
Sappho was a Greek lyric poet, born on the island of Lesbos. The Alexandrians included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BCE, and it is said that she died around 570 BCE, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, has been lost, but her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments.

Pynchon is referencing this Sappho poem:

To Evening
O HESPERUS! Thou bringest all things home;
All that the garish day hath scattered wide;
The sheep, the goat, back to the welcome fold;

Thou bring'st the child, too, to his mother's side.

Pynchon quotes this very poem in Mason & Dixon, at 96.

Page 103

still believes the Rosenbergs were innocent
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of espionage and executed in 1953.

La cibaeñа
An entirely invented word. Perhaps some pun?

catibias
Dominican street food.