Difference between revisions of "Chapter 14"

Revision as of 04:01, 7 October 2013

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E-rated video game
E is for "everyone", i.e. a non-age-restricted rating.

James Bond at the baccarat table
See ultra-cool Bond introduce himself at the baccarat table, a game he played often throughout the books and films.

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Lennie on Law & Order
Lennie Briscoe was a detective for 12 seasons on the TV show Law & Order.

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Zabar's
Zabar's is a specialty food store at 2245 Broadway and 80th Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, founded by Louis Zabar. It is one of the best known commercial landmarks of the neighborhood, and is known for its selection of bagels, smoked fish, olives, and cheeses. Zabar's is frequently referenced in popular culture. From WIKI.

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noraebang
Karaoke establishment that has many different rooms for rent with karaoke equipment.

Regulation D
Reserve Requirements for Depository Institutions (Regulation D) is a Federal Reserve Board regulation that limits the number of preauthorized withdrawals and transfers from a savings account or money market account. The regulation applies to all United States banking institutions offering such accounts. From WIKI.

Filene's Basement
A store where designer clothes are sold on discount.

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Mikimoto
Japanese jewelry company, pretty much top of the line in pearls.

Tim Horton's
A ubiquitous doughnut/coffee shop in Canada.

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we're trying to go legit . . . like Michael Corleone
The main character in the Godfather films. After he becomes the head of his family, he tries to make his family's business legitimate.

Amy & Joey, an Off-Broadway musical
This fictional musical is about Joey Buttafuoco (from Massapequa, NY). In 1992, he had an affair with Amy Fisher, who then shot Buttafuoco's wife Mary Jo. Mary Jo survived.

Funny, we're 150 pages into a Pynchon novel and this is the first song. Must be some kinda record.

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like Gloria Grahame in Oklahoma!
Gloria Grahame starred in the 1955 musical film Oklahoma!

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Soju Wallbangers
Soju is Korean rice liquor. A "Harvey Wallbanger" is a cocktail made with vodka, Galliano, and orange juice.

Darkeden
DarkEden is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing computer game that's big in Korea. From WIKI.

Cohiba
Brando of Cuban cigars.

"Volare" . . . Domenico Modugno on Ed Sullivan back in '58
This happened. Watch it here.

Pynchon's commentary on Volare lightly recalls a central theme of Gravity's Rainbow-- flying in the sky, above it all, defying gravity...

Young man dreams he's flying . . .
This paragraph is a faithful summary of the lyrics of "Volare" (which means "to fly"). Knowing that 9/11 is right around the corner, I found this unsettling.

I don't think it's 'I left my brains down in Africa'
Spud is singing "Africa" by Toto. The actual lyrics are "I bless the rains down in Africa."

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Gematria
Gematria is a traditional Jewish system of assigning numerical value to a word or phrase. From Wikipedia: "The best-known example of Gematria is the Hebrew word Chai ("life"), which is composed of two letters which (using the assignments in the Mispar gadol table) add up to 18. This has made 18 a "lucky number" among Jews, and gifts in multiples of 18 are very common."

tables versus CSS
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. CSS is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation, including elements such as the layout, colors, and fonts. From WIKI.

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some telltale fidgeting of the Florsheims
Brings to mind the comment of Lucas or Justin in regard to getting out of DeepArcher, i.e. just gotta click your heels three times. Also, all of the special focus on shoes so far... And the comment at one point of Maxine, I believe, that in NYC shoes told everything, or something to that effect.

Daikatana
John Romero's Daikatana, or simply Daikatana, is a first-person shooter video game developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive. The game is known as one of the major commercial failures of the video game industry. Daikatana was delayed multiple times from its conception in early 1997 to its eventual release in 2000. By this time, numerous games based on more advanced graphical technology (such as id Software's Quake III and Epic MegaGames' Unreal Tournament) had already been released, causing Daikatana to lag technologically in the market with its dated Quake II game engine. From WIKI.

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"Are You with Me, Dr. Wu"
Actually, the song is simply called "Doctor Wu," from Steely Dan's 1975 album Katy Lied. Does Doctor Wu metaphorically stand for a drug habit? The harmony lyrics in question are:
Are you with me Doctor Wu?
Are you really just a shadow
Of the man that I once knew?
Are you crazy; are you high?
Or just an ordinary guy?
Have you done all you can do?
Are you with me, Doctor?