Chapter 17

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when WYNY switched formats overnight from country to classic disco
Some anachronistic joshing from Pynchon here, perhaps an old WYNY country fan, as per WIKI on July 5, 2012 WYNY changed their format from country to adult contemporary.

"Middletown New York"
Wonder what this song may sound like? NY-based Visit interpreted it over at YouTube.

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what Jodi Della Femina might call shortcuts
In 1999 Jodi Della Femina published a book ("Jodi's Shortcuts") about the Hamptons. "The book outraged plenty of Hamptons folks who aren't blue-chip Maidstone types, since it revealed all the sacred backroads detours through leafy neighborhoods off the Montauk highway." (NY Mag)

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some Meat Loaf reference
Bat Out of Hell?

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schadenfreudefest
The enjoyment, and making it a festive occasion, of others's failures and misfortunes.

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Cheatin side of town, as the Eagles like to say
Here are some lyrics from the song "Lyin' Eyes" by the Eagles: "She is headed for the cheatin' side of town." See the WIKI.

where a man can kick out the jambs
A play on "Kick Out the Jams," an album and song by the band MC5. And Pynchon has used this before, see Vineland pg. 191.

See also Robert Anton Wilson's The Illuminatus Trilogy for another version: "Kick out the JAMS!", referring to the Justified Ancients of Mu [p. 123 and intermittently for next 650 pages]. On same page, a reference to D.E.A.T.H. and Pynchon.

Penthouse Forum
The letters page of Penthouse magazine was famous for people writing in with funny/crazy stories about sex. Or so I've been told.

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Bobby Van's people
Bobby Van was born Robert Jack Stein to vaudeville parents in The Bronx, New York City, and grew up backstage, witnessing many memorable Depression-era acts. See the WIKI.

Bobby Van's was then (and is still in 2014) a steakhouse in Bridgehampton on Montauk Highway. It had a reputation of be frequented by writers (some of whom reportedly wrote there) and by both celebrities and celebrity watchers. The statement that "Got to lose this scrunchy thing, right now you are lookin to much like these Bobby Van's people" likely refers to Maxine needing to dress down a bit for the role of contractor's helper at the Ice mansion.

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Gurney's
Gurney's Inn is a historic oceanfront resort on the very tip of Long Island, located on 290 Old Montauk Highway in Montauk, New York. U.S. President Richard Nixon wrote his acceptance speech at the Skippers Cottage. It has a famous Thalasso spa. From WIKI.

Har-Tru tennis court
American-style green clay court. Clay courts aren't made of clay, by the way. Instead they are made of "shale, stone, or brick." WIKI. Har-Tru courts are typically constructed with crushed Pre-Cambrian metabasalt. More trivia: the Har-Tru company got its odd name by combining the first initials of the owner's name "Henry Alexander Robinson" and a variant spelling of "true" that stressed the "true bounce" of the court. Company history page.

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Bluebeard's Castle
Bluebeard is a French folk tale, in which a wealthy aristocrat leaves his castle and tells his wife not to enter a mysterious locked room in the castle under any circumstances. Wikipedia

Bluebeard, thank you, wiki, is possibly based on a real man, Gilles de Rais, who lived in France in the early 1400s. He was executed in 1440, having been found guilty of committing numerous child murders. Centuries later, in 1697 Paris, Charles Perrault published a fairy tale that really got the Bluebeard legend rolling. In the Perrault version, Bluebeard is slain and the story has a happy ending.

Could be another opera reference too. In Bela Bartok's version, there are multiple locked rooms which the new wife insists on seeing, and each of which turns out to contain the corpse of a previous wife. The last room of course is reserved for the new Duchess Bluebeard. The mood of the opera is very close to that of an Alfred Hitchcock film (eg Psycho), and we've seen more than a couple of Hitchcock references in this book so far, so this connection might not be that much of a stretch.

phonetic letters including Whisky, Tango, and Foxtrot
a.k.a., WTF or What The Fuck

But we later learn what they stand for. See Page 261.

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her coordinates all at once shift ninety degrees, so that she can't tell if she's staring vertically down uncountable levels or straight ahead down another long hallway. It lasts only a heartbeat, but how does it have to?
About 33 seconds into this clip from Hitchcock's "Vertigo" see something similar, an effect created, by the way, with a model of the stairwell laid down horizontally on the floor. More on the "Vertigo Effect."

a child? Something in a child-size fatigue uniform...rising as if on wings
Very Korean horror.

And, 1:32 into this clip from, yes, "Vertigo" again, see a small, but quickly enlarging, frightening form emerge from the darkness, a creature that evokes great fear in a woman.

Vosne-Romanée
Vosne-Romanée wine is produced in the commune of Vosne-Romanée in Côte de Nuits of Burgundy as well as in the neighbouring commune of Flagey-Échezeaux. The Appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC) Vosne-Romanée may only be used for red wine with Pinot noir as the main grape. There are a total of 15 Premier Cru vineyards in the two communes, as well as six Grand Cru vineyards in Vosne-Romanée and two in Flagey-Échezeaux. These Grand Cru vineyards include Burgundy's most iconic, sought-after and expensive red wines, with Romanée-Conti of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti at the pinnacle: "There can be little doubt that in the firmament of the Cote de nuits, Vosne-Romanée is the brightest star." From WIKI.

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Droolin' Floyd Womack
See page 51 in Inherent Vice where DFW also makes appearence with a song.

Roll on, four-wheeler, roll on.
Riffing on Charley Pride? Randy Newman's Burn On, as in, "burn on, big river, burn on"? The possibilities must be legion.

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Woodbury Common, Paramus
Shopping malls.