Chapter 8

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cheese danish
A reference that cannot help but invoke memories of Slab's hilarious obsession in V to paint this pastry. “The cheese Danish was a recent obsession of Slab’s. He had taken, some time ago, to painting in a frenzy these morning-pastries in every conceivable style, light and setting. The room was already littered with Cubist Fauve and Surrealist cheese Danishes. ‘Monet spent his declining years at his Home in Giverny, painting the water lilies in the garden pool,’ reasoned Slab. ‘He painted all kinds of water lilies. He liked water lilies. These are my declining years. I like cheese danishes, they have kept me alive now for longer than I can remember.”

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hawala
"an informal value transfer system based on the performance and honour of a huge network of money brokers, which are primarily located in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. It is basically a parallel or alternative remittance system that exists or operates outside of, or parallel to traditional banking or financial channels." Wikipedia

"Kim Novak comes floating down the river"
The 1955 film Picnic features a small town festival, where every year a woman is named Queen of Neewollah ("Halloween" spelled backwards). Kim Novak floating in the boat can be seen in the final seconds of the film's trailer

Wiki says the film had a limited release in November 1955 and went nationwide in 1956.

Odd trivia fact about "Picnic." This is the film that James Vicary in 1957 lied about containing subliminal messages that successfully caused people to drink more Coke and eat more popcorn. Read more about the famous hoax.

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sharia-compliant workarounds
Sharia is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia deals with many topics addressed by secular law, including crime, politics, and economics, as well as personal matters such as sexual intercourse, hygiene, diet, prayer, and fasting. Though interpretations of sharia vary between cultures, in its strictest definition it is considered the infallible law of God—as opposed to the human interpretation of the laws (fiqh). From WIKI.

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Nigerian emails
"Internationally, Nigeria is infamous for a form of bank fraud dubbed 419, a type of advance fee fraud (named after Section 419 of the Nigerian Penal Code) along with the "Nigerian scam", a form of confidence trick practiced by individuals and criminal syndicates. These scams involve a complicit Nigerian bank (the laws being set up loosely to allow it) and a scammer who claims to have money he needs to obtain from that bank. The victim is talked into exchanging bank account information on the premise that the money will be transferred to him, and then he'll get to keep a cut. In reality, money is taken out instead, and/or large fees (which seem small in comparison with the imaginary wealth he awaits) are deducted." Wikipedia

pigeon drop
"Pigeon drop is a confidence trick in which a mark or "pigeon" is persuaded to give up a sum of money in order to secure the rights to a larger sum of money, or more valuable object. In reality, the scammers make off with the money and the mark is left with nothing." Wikipedia

Tomcat
Baretta 3032 Tomcat: a small, semi-automatic pistol designed to be easily concealed

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AMONG MAXINE'S MORE USEFUL SENSORS is her bladder.

Tyrone Slothrop (Gravity's Rainbow) also had a bodily sensor.

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toilet wall
Recalls these scene in Crying of Lot 49 where Oedipa Maas sees the W.A.S.T.E. horn written on the bathroom wall.

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chick who did the tarot deck
Pamela Coleman Smith died penniless despite doing the illustrations for a tarot deck whose design has been sold millions of times. Wikipedia

This deck is referenced heavily in Against the Day, with it being a major plot feature for T.W.I.T.

Public Void Close
Java command closing an input stream. [1]