Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Chapter 40

2015-04-14T17:23:04Z

NOx404: /* Page 456 */ Added an entry for "El Productos stuffed with weed"

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==Page 450==
'''She's innocent...She's so fuckin innocent''' 
Echos of Britney Spears from [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_1#Page_7 page 7]? Maybe, maybe not. It's just that at the end of this novel there are so many references to previous happenings that one just can't be sure, can one?
 
 
'''Hypnotiq''' 
Misspelling/typo of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hpnotiq Hpnotiq,] a turquoise liqueur?

==Page 451==
'''''The Geek That Couldn't Sleep''''' 
Playing on the 1939 animated short [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gkWB5QtPFQ The Bear that Couldn't Sleep]?

'''bagpipe players, improvisiong grace notes on "Candle in the Wind"''' 
I thought I was going to have to be the one to take one for the team by being the one to annotate this oppressively ubiquitous Elton John song associated with the deaths of Princess Diana and Marilyn Monroe, but I'm thrilled to say [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyw1lC7tFLY YouTube] has a dude playing it on bagpipes. Thank you, dude and YouTube.

==Page 452==
'''CMU''' 
Carnegie Mellon University, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Mellon_University WIKI].

'''leading indicator...bagpipe players would get a heads-up before the next one happens?''' 
Little bit of [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Tyrone_Slothrop Slothrop] here, as well as a bleeding edge?

'''The Montauk Project''' 
Just a refresher, on page 117 March explains "The Montauk Project is every horrible suspicion you've ever had since World War II, all the paranoid production values, a vast underground facility, exotic weapons, space aliens, time travel, other dimensions..."

'''Cue the theremin music''' 
Refers to the theme song of the original TV series ''Star Trek'' (I think?), which used the eerie sound of the theremin. Relates to the extra terrestrial/sci-fi activities at Montauk mentioned a few lines earlier.

It more likely is an allusion to the music from ''The Day the Earth Stood Still''. I don't believe there is a theremin in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzRb1OVpat0 the original Star Trek theme]

Two things. One: apparently the vocal style of the ''Star Trek'' theme song really was meant to imitate specifically the theremin, and not just to sound 'spacey.' Two: ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' gets referenced on page [[Chapter_10#Page_100|100.]]

==Page 454==
'''Igor's ZiL-41047''' 
The ZIL-41047 is a limousine built by ZIL of Russia. Production of ZIL models ceased in 2002 due to their previous customer base turning to more modern Western vehicles.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIL-41047]

See p. [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_15#Page_160 160]

'''''shmaravozka'''''

(шмаравозка) Russian slang, "pimped-out ride" (Pynchon's use of the term in a novel set in 2001-02 may be anachronistic.)

'''''pushka''''' (пушка) is Russian for "cannon" but just like cannon in English it is also slang for "handgun"

==Page 455==
'''''govno''''' 
(говно) Russian, "shit"

'''''nichego''''' 
(ничего) Russian, "nothing."

'''''vory''''' 
(воры) Russian, "thieves."

'''Austin Powers ... shagadelic'''<br\>
Austin Powers was a character portrayed by Mike Myers in a series of three action-comedy movies parodying the James Bond flicks. Shagadelic was first coined by him in the 1997 film ''Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery'', the first of the trilogy.

==Page 456==
'''fake barn and silo of Stew Leonard''' 
Stew Leonard's is chain of four supermarkets in Connecticut and New York which ''Ripley's Believe It or Not!'' deemed "The World's Largest Dairy", with Fortune magazine listing Stew Leonard's as one of the "100 Best Companies to Work For". "Anyone who comes from Connecticut or thereabouts knows this landmark chain of grocery stores where mechanized cows sing and roosters crow," according to a writer for the ''Sun-Sentinel'' of Florida. A typical Stew Leonard's store will attract customers from a wider geographic area than a typical supermarket because customers are willing to drive longer distances. The store's fame comes from its innovative in-store marketing, which includes a barnlike wood decor, a winding path for shoppers instead of straight, parallel aisles, and animatronic singing animals perched above the shelving. In 1993, Stew Leonard Sr. was convicted of committing tax fraud through an elaborate scheme including short-weighting to divert more than $17 million in cash register receipts over a ten-year period. He was sentenced to 52-months in jail. Court documents indicated that Stew Leonard Jr. played a role in the tax fraud. However, in the interest of protecting his son and the store, Stew Leonard Sr. pleaded guilty in exchange for an agreement from the prosecutors to not bring charges against Stew Leonard Jr. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stew_Leonard%27s WIKI].

'''... Chimpan Zee bridge. ''' 

The Tappan Zee Bridge.

'''El Productos stuffed with weed'''
El Producto cigars are cheap cigars commonly used to make blunts.

'''DDT's road anthem "Ty Nye Odin" (You Are Not Alone)...and the soulful ballad "Veter"''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lWulSZIvFQ Ty Nye Odin] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7z0jtmbOC8 Veter] on YouTube. 

Anyone else getting a slight whiff, a silage, perhaps, of the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AEMiz6rcxc nihilists] from ''The Big Lebowski''?

Formed in 1980, DDT were one of he most popular Russian rock bands of the 80s and 90s. The song "Veter" (The Wind), in particular, would be known to any Russian who grew up at that time.

'''Vladimirskii Tsentral'''

Well-known prison in the city of Vladimir dating from the reign of Catherine the Great and still in use today. (It is, however, very unlikely that petty criminals like Grisha and Misha would have served time there.)

==Page 457==
'''Mohawk for 'firefly'''' 
This [http://winddancer45.tripod.com/MohawkLanguage.html page] says "tewattsirokwas" does mean "firefly."

'''Camp Tewattsirokwas ... the Gimelmans from Cedarhurst'''
The camp and the Gimelmans are, as far as I can tell, fictional.

You will need a lot of watts (a terrawatt?) to operate a server farm and a lot of cooling (Lake Heatsink)

So is it named after a way of producing light without heat, or after Groucho Marx character Rufus T. Firefly?

'''the Schachtman unpleasantness''' 
Max Shachtman (1904 – 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. He evolved from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL-CIO President George Meany. In 1938, Shachtman shocked Trotsky by publishing an article in the New International in which James Burnham declared his opposition to dialectical materialism, the philosophy of Marxism. Although Trotsky reassured Shachtman, "I did not deny in the least the usefulness of the article you and Burnham wrote," the issue would soon be revived as Shachtman and Trotsky clashed on the outbreak of World War II. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Shachtman]

'''Marching to Astoria''' 
Reference to Archie Bunker's version. Actually Marching to Pretoria, which was sung at many upstate sleepaway camps. http://youtu.be/Hap0jqU0WsQ

'''Zum Gali Gali''' 
a Hebrew folk song

'''aaahhh! Wesley Epstein!''' 
Perhaps one of Maxine's crushes at summer camp?

'''spiel from the Geek's Cotillion''' 
This would be Ice's speech at the Tworkeffx party in [[Chapter_28|| Chapter 28]] (p. 310) wherein he says that the thing to do is "to go north, set up server farms where heat dissipation won't be so much of a problem [...] Domed communities across the Arctic tundra."

'''Ride Wit Me''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtSDWq6HsJE YouTube.] Help the view count pass the 31 million mark.

==Page 458==
'''one of those vircators''' 
A vircator (VIRtual CAthode oscillaTOR) is a microwave generator that is capable of generating brief pulses of tunable, narrow band microwaves at very high power levels. Vircators have been used as electromagnetic (EM) pulse generators and for generating X-rays.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vircator]

This scene sounds like it came from Repo Man [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repo_Man_%28film%29 wiki]

'''''Po khuy''''' 
(по хуй) An obscene Russian expression of indifference, cf. "don't give a fuck" in English. Its usage seems somewhat out of place here. A contemptuous "na khuy" (на хуй) (= fuck it!; to hell with it!) would be both far more common and much more to Grisha's point.

==Page 459==

'''''nyaschetchka''''' 
(няшечка) Russian Internet slang, "cutie pie." (I suspect its use here is thoroughly anachronistic, as I can't find any citations for the word that are older than 2010.)

'''Gaussian blur''' 
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauß (30 April 1777 – 23 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physical scientist who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, algebra, statistics, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, geophysics, electrostatics, astronomy, and optics. Sometimes referred to as the ''Princeps mathematicorum'' (Latin, "the Prince of Mathematicians" or "the foremost of mathematicians") and "greatest mathematician since antiquity", Gauss had a remarkable influence in many fields of mathematics and science and is ranked as one of history's most influential mathematicians. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Gauss WIKI].

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_blur Gaussian blur] is a well known technique for smoothing or blurring images using an algorithm based on Gauss' mathematical work (using a 'Gaussian function'). Its effect is to simultaneously make an image appear smoother (and potentially more pleasing to the eye) but also to destroy detail in the process. The idea of a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaussian_function Gaussian function] relates to the mathematical distribution of V2 rocket strikes in Gravity's Rainbow.

'''Article 272''' 
This is, indeed, the relevant article in the revised Criminal Code of the Russian Federation adopted in 1997, notable for including cybercrimes for the first time.

==Page 460==

'''Deimos-and-Phobos''' 
In Greek mythology, the twin sons of Ares and Aphrodite. They personify "terror" and "fear" respectively.

'''Overflow exploit, denial of service'''
<blockquote>'''Buffer overflow:''' In computer security and programming, a buffer overflow, or buffer overrun, is an anomaly where a program, while writing data to a buffer, overruns the buffer's boundary and overwrites adjacent memory. This is a special case of violation of memory safety. Buffer overflows can be triggered by inputs that are designed to execute code, or alter the way the program operates. This may result in erratic program behavior, including memory access errors, incorrect results, a crash, or a breach of system security. Thus, they are the basis of many software vulnerabilities and can be maliciously exploited.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_overflow] 

'''Denial of Service (DoS):''' In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of efforts to temporarily or indefinitely interrupt or suspend services of a host connected to the Internet.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial_of_service_attack]</blockquote>

'''Anasha can do funny things to a man''' 
"Anasha" is Russian for the dried resin exuded by female indian hemp plant, aka hashish

'''HALO... HAHO''' 
High-altitude military parachuting (or military free fall (MFF)) is a method of delivering personnel, equipment, and supplies from a transport aircraft at a high altitude via free-fall parachute insertion. Two techniques are used: HALO (high altitude - low opening) and HAHO (high altitude - high opening). In the HALO technique, the parachutist opens his parachute at a low altitude after free-falling for a period of time, while in the HAHO technique, the parachutist opens his parachute at a high altitude just a few seconds after jumping from the aircraft. HALO techniques date back to 1960 when the U.S. Air Force was conducting experiments that followed earlier work by Colonel John Stapp in the late 1940s through early 1950s on survivability factors for high-flying pilots needing to eject at high altitudes. In recent years, the HALO technique has been practiced by civilians as a form of skydiving. HALO is used for delivering equipment, supplies, or personnel, while HAHO is generally used only for personnel. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HALO_jump WIKI].

'''''praporschik''''' 
A grade of NCO in the Russian army. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praporshchik WIKI]

==Page 461==
'''Spetsnaz''' 
See p. [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_13#Page_139 139].

'''''dzhef''''' 
Russian, "dope." (One of Pynchon's lamer cross-linguistic puns. "Everything (is) dope," of course, makes sense in English. In Russian, it would make no sense at all, as джеф doesn't have the adjectival slang usage of "very good" that "dope" does in English.)

'''Wahhabist bullshit front''' 
See p. [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_31#Page_344 344].

'''hedgehog in the fog''' 
English translation of the Russian animated film [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCsJZV7aCdY ''Yozhik v Tumane''] mentioned on page 273.

==Page 462==
'''The ''padonki'' exchange a hopeful glance.''' 
Padonki (Russian: падонки) is an an underground, nonconformist counter-culture within the Russian-speaking Internet that originated in 1997. It's most famous for using a distinctive slang, known as padonkaffsky jargon or, alternatively, as Olbanian. They pride themselves on their ability to creatively disrupt, question and make fun of mainstream culture. A padonok is any individual who has the ability to detach from social, cultural, ideological, and political norms. The singular of padonki is padonok (Russian: падонок), an intentional misspelling of podonok (Russian: подонок), which means riff-raff, scoundrel, or scum. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padonki]]

'''Do svidanya Maksi! Poka, byelokurva!''' 
"Goodbye, Maxi! So long, Ditzy Blonde!" (До свидания, Макси! Пока, белокурва!) The term белокурва is more than a little obscure, with only a few hundred G-hits, many of which are to dictionaries of slang and jargon. Some of the Russian Pynchon uses in BE is bog-standard for anyone familiar with the language, but it seems probable that Pynchon was also relying extensively on [http://www.russki-mat.net/e/Russian.php this site] for some of the more colorful (and highly improbable) expressions Igor, Misha and Grisha use.

Белокурва is slang for the "dumb blonde" of the jokes.

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 35

2015-04-14T17:15:53Z

NOx404: /* Page 384 */ Changed this page to 385 because someone else made this into page 384 even though the page above this is for page 384. Also added an entry for "I'm not Dopey or Doc either"

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==Page 383==
'''''Star Wars'' marathon''' 
Possibly just the original trilogy. ''The Phantom Menace'' was released in theaters 1999 and on DVD sometime in 2001. ''Attack of the Clone''s comes out in theaters 2002.

==Page 384==
'''T-shirt reading ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US''' 
"All your base are belong to us" (often shortened to "All Your Base", "AYBABTU", or simply "AYB") is a phrase that became an Internet meme. The text comes from the opening cutscene of the 1991 European Sega Mega Drive version of the video game Zero Wing by Toaplan, which was poorly translated from the original Japanese version.

The meme developed from this as the result of a GIF animation depicting the opening text which was initially popularized on the Something Awful message forums. [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us more info]

[[File:Sam-Jackson-Kangol.jpg|left]]'''Kangol 504''' 
See the type of hat [http://www.kangolstore.com/headwear/shape/504-caps.html here.]

'''Sam the King of Cool''' 
aka Samuel L. Jackson, the actor, who often wears a Kangol hat.

==Page 385==
'''I'm not Dopey or Doc either''' 
A reference to the dwarves Dopey and Doc from the Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

==Page 386==
'''Love you in ''Pulp Fiction'', baby. That Bible quote?''' 
Samuel L. Jackson (see note above on page 384) played a hit man in the film ''Pulp Fiction'' and would often deliver a not-quite-biblical monologue before shooting someone. You can see it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czb4jn5y94g here].

Little more on this famous quote. Here's the ending of Pulp Fiction where Jackson's character "explains" the quote: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMN5uQhF-Ro YouTube.] 

The somewhat misquoted Ezekiel passage from the film: Ezekiel 25:17.
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. 

King James version of [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+25&version=KJV Ezekiel 25.]

==Page 386==
'''an oversize bottle of vodka, named after a Lithuanian basketball player''' 
“Sabonis” is the Russian slang for a huge bottle of vodka. Basketball star Arvydas Sabonis was the center of NBA's Portland Trail Blazers between 1995-2001 and 2002-2003. He won the Olympic gold with the Soviet national team in 1988 and played in Žalgiris Kaunas club in the 1980s, contributing to its legendary victories against CSKA Moscow. After Lithuania regained independence, he won two Olympic bronze medals with the Lithuanian team.

==Page 388==
'''I've come in for an episode of inconvenience myself''' 
maybe even a couple of episodes - The Inconvenience ship in Against the Day [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I here] Inconvenience HMS in Mason & Dixon [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I here]

==Page 390==
'''Is it that American Indian curse about, if you save somebody's life you're responsible for what happens to them from then on?'''<br\>
AFAIK there is no "curse" anything like this, American Indian or otherwise. Many people believe this to be a Chinese custom or proverb, but that idea appears to be erroneous too. Some people on the net claim that that the saying originated from a 1975 episode of the television show Kung Fu, others mention Star Wars or the Andy Griffith Show, or Japan instead of China.

Maybe there's a typo in this sentence too. The syntax seems to be screwed up, with the preposition "about" having no object, and instead being followed by a comma that seems to make no sense.

'''IRS-issue stogie''' 
An “IRS-issue stogie” would be an American cigar that came in a box with the IRS stamp on it. Since 1862, when Congress passed a broad taxation law that included taxing cigars to help finance the Civil War the IRS has taxed cigars [http://cigarhistory.info/Dating/Dating_Tax_Stamps.html]. Since then cigars have come in boxes and those boxes have the IRS stamp (looks sort of like a postage stamp) on them which means they’ve been properly taxed.

Quality cigars, usually from other countries (e.g. Cuba), don’t have the IRS stamp, so the "IRS-issue" not to mention "stogie" (a cheap cigar) would imply a cheap cigar.

''I can't find this reference on this page - can someone fix?''

'''street pickup'''<br\>
9/11 provided a boost to the intercity bus business, and members of New York's Chinese community were among the first to take advantage of the opportunity. Dragon Coach and New Century started up budget New York-to-Washington routes in 2002 to compete with the established bus lines, but there may have been earlier runs made by others under less formal auspices. [http://www.gotobus.com/chinatownbus/history/]

==Page 391==
'''Eurowire''' 
Type of "lever-backed" earring. More info [http://jewelrymaking.about.com/od/finishingtechniques/ss/080905_3.htm here.]

==Page 392==
'''Already, as the Eagles say, gone''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8o_C50JFkc ''Already Gone.''] 1974 Eagles song.

'''Winston Churchill''' 
Apparently he really did say "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."

==Page 393==
'''Cybiko''' 
Real hand-held device. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybiko Wiki.]

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 35

2015-04-14T17:11:23Z

NOx404: /* Page 384 */ Copied and pasted the entry on Sam the King of Cool from the duplicate entry for page 384.

{{BE PxP Header}}

==Page 383==
'''''Star Wars'' marathon''' 
Possibly just the original trilogy. ''The Phantom Menace'' was released in theaters 1999 and on DVD sometime in 2001. ''Attack of the Clone''s comes out in theaters 2002.

==Page 384==
'''T-shirt reading ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US''' 
"All your base are belong to us" (often shortened to "All Your Base", "AYBABTU", or simply "AYB") is a phrase that became an Internet meme. The text comes from the opening cutscene of the 1991 European Sega Mega Drive version of the video game Zero Wing by Toaplan, which was poorly translated from the original Japanese version.

The meme developed from this as the result of a GIF animation depicting the opening text which was initially popularized on the Something Awful message forums. [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-your-base-are-belong-to-us more info]

[[File:Sam-Jackson-Kangol.jpg|left]]'''Kangol 504''' 
See the type of hat [http://www.kangolstore.com/headwear/shape/504-caps.html here.]

'''Sam the King of Cool''' 
aka Samuel L. Jackson, the actor, who often wears a Kangol hat.

==Page 384==
'''Sam the King of Cool''' 
aka Samuel L. Jackson, the actor, who often wears a Kangol hat.

==Page 386==
'''Love you in ''Pulp Fiction'', baby. That Bible quote?''' 
Samuel L. Jackson (see note above on page 384) played a hit man in the film ''Pulp Fiction'' and would often deliver a not-quite-biblical monologue before shooting someone. You can see it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czb4jn5y94g here].

Little more on this famous quote. Here's the ending of Pulp Fiction where Jackson's character "explains" the quote: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMN5uQhF-Ro YouTube.] 

The somewhat misquoted Ezekiel passage from the film: Ezekiel 25:17.
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. 

King James version of [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel+25&version=KJV Ezekiel 25.]

==Page 386==
'''an oversize bottle of vodka, named after a Lithuanian basketball player''' 
“Sabonis” is the Russian slang for a huge bottle of vodka. Basketball star Arvydas Sabonis was the center of NBA's Portland Trail Blazers between 1995-2001 and 2002-2003. He won the Olympic gold with the Soviet national team in 1988 and played in Žalgiris Kaunas club in the 1980s, contributing to its legendary victories against CSKA Moscow. After Lithuania regained independence, he won two Olympic bronze medals with the Lithuanian team.

==Page 388==
'''I've come in for an episode of inconvenience myself''' 
maybe even a couple of episodes - The Inconvenience ship in Against the Day [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I here] Inconvenience HMS in Mason & Dixon [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=I here]

==Page 390==
'''Is it that American Indian curse about, if you save somebody's life you're responsible for what happens to them from then on?'''<br\>
AFAIK there is no "curse" anything like this, American Indian or otherwise. Many people believe this to be a Chinese custom or proverb, but that idea appears to be erroneous too. Some people on the net claim that that the saying originated from a 1975 episode of the television show Kung Fu, others mention Star Wars or the Andy Griffith Show, or Japan instead of China.

Maybe there's a typo in this sentence too. The syntax seems to be screwed up, with the preposition "about" having no object, and instead being followed by a comma that seems to make no sense.

'''IRS-issue stogie''' 
An “IRS-issue stogie” would be an American cigar that came in a box with the IRS stamp on it. Since 1862, when Congress passed a broad taxation law that included taxing cigars to help finance the Civil War the IRS has taxed cigars [http://cigarhistory.info/Dating/Dating_Tax_Stamps.html]. Since then cigars have come in boxes and those boxes have the IRS stamp (looks sort of like a postage stamp) on them which means they’ve been properly taxed.

Quality cigars, usually from other countries (e.g. Cuba), don’t have the IRS stamp, so the "IRS-issue" not to mention "stogie" (a cheap cigar) would imply a cheap cigar.

''I can't find this reference on this page - can someone fix?''

'''street pickup'''<br\>
9/11 provided a boost to the intercity bus business, and members of New York's Chinese community were among the first to take advantage of the opportunity. Dragon Coach and New Century started up budget New York-to-Washington routes in 2002 to compete with the established bus lines, but there may have been earlier runs made by others under less formal auspices. [http://www.gotobus.com/chinatownbus/history/]

==Page 391==
'''Eurowire''' 
Type of "lever-backed" earring. More info [http://jewelrymaking.about.com/od/finishingtechniques/ss/080905_3.htm here.]

==Page 392==
'''Already, as the Eagles say, gone''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8o_C50JFkc ''Already Gone.''] 1974 Eagles song.

'''Winston Churchill''' 
Apparently he really did say "Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."

==Page 393==
'''Cybiko''' 
Real hand-held device. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybiko Wiki.]

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 33

2015-04-14T17:03:33Z

NOx404: /* Page 360 */ Added an entry for Dear Abby, I have this friend with a big problem . . .

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==Page 354==
'''Jetsons-era spaceport''' 
Not a bad little [http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/paleofuture/2013/03/mid-21st-century-modern-that-jetsons-architecture/ essay] on Mid-21st Century Modern architecture.

'''cyberflaneurs''' 
"A person who idly surfs the internet." In 2012 the New York Times ran an article on the [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-of-the-cyberflaneur.html?pagewanted=all Death of the Cyberflaneur]

==Page 355==
'''a strange creepy nimbus like a follow spot in a club''' 
A nimbus is an aura, or a luminous cloud or a halo surrounding a supernatural being or a saint. A follow spot (or followspot) is a moving spot light that tracks a subject, eg a dancing couple on the dance floor.

'''''Battlestar Galactica''''' 
The reboot doesn't come out until 2004, so here they are talking about the original show.

'''requesting her presence on the bridge'''<br\>
Star Trek references start here and continue for another half page or so

'''posters of Denise Richards and Tia Carrere''' 
Denise Richards for her role in ''Starship Troopers'', no doubt, and Tia Carrere, for ''Relic Hunter'' maybe?

==Page 356==
'''Regulate''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1plPyJdXKIY YouTube] has it. The song was released in 1994.

'''''More Cowbell''''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGBD1KUz2RA YouTube] has a clip from this famous SNL skit, which was first aired, by the way, April 2000. 
Does this count as a sneaky Godzilla allusion since the band parodied in the skit, Blue Oyster Cult, also recorded the song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln8-Y-fIbqM Godzilla]?

'''Deus Ex theme''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1oxIrAX39M Youtube] to the rescue again. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex WIKI] has more on this 2000 cyberpunk-style video game.

356 - Deus Ex is a cyberpunk-themed action-role playing video game — combining first-person shooter, stealth and role-playing elements — developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive in 2000. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex Wikipedia]. Check out the theme:{{#ev:youtube|ZCk8ByyCsks}}

'''cyberelves''' 
Not to be confused, surely, with cyberflaneurs or the "little tiny people...from under the radiator..with little brooms, and dustpans" from page 346.

'''tarball''' 
Slang for a way to distribute code [http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/T/tarball.html tarball] derived from the tar archive format [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_%28computing%29 wiki]

==Page 357==
'''Kabbalistic vessels smashed at the Creation into all these bright drops of light''' 
Recalls [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page Gravity's Rainbow], page 148: "Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation."

'''An Abyss''' 
A reference to the Tree of Life in Hermetic Kabbalah.

From Lon Milo DuQuette's "Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot," page 63:

"The area (or non-area) between the supernal triad (sephiroth 1-2-3) and the rest of the Tree is called the Abyss. It is an inscrutable looking glass that separates the ideal (the abstract concepts of 1-2-3) from the actual (the manifest qualities of the phenomenal universe)."

In other words, it separates the unmanifested from the manifested, or, as Lucas puts it, the codeless from the coded.

==Page 358==
'''the edge of the unnavigable, the region of no information''' 
Bleeding edge?

'''the beginning before the Word''' 
John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

'''vertigo--lovesick, nauseous''' 
Yet more intimations of Hitchcock's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_%28film%29 Vertigo.] "Lovesick, nauseous" could be the film's subtitle.

==Page 359==

'''Munchkinetic effect''' 
A reference to Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz.

'''Phatic how's Justin, how's Fiona, all fine thanks''' 
"Phatic" means denoting or relating to language used for general purposes of social interaction, rather than to convey information or ask questions, such as ''hello, how are you?'' and ''nice morning, isn't it?''

==Page 360==
'''Dear Abby, I have this friend with a big problem . . .''' 
Long running advice column started in 1956 by Abigail Van Buren.

'''King Kongs, which are Crown Royal plus banana liqueur''' 
Little odd, no, for the narrative voice to define something like this? I thought that was our job! Anyway, also known as a "Rock Star," this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Royal#Mixing a real cocktail].

'''Fernet-Branca... That crazy motherfucker from Voorhees, Krueger!''' 
Cf. p. [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_7#Page_70 70].

==Page 361==
'''that crazy motherfucker from Voorhees, Krueger''' 
That would be Ian Longspoon. The name is likely a tip o' the hat to Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees of two classic slasher/horror films "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th".

'''what sort of look like giant letter J's, not to mention L's''' 
"It could stand for anything, couldn't it?" This is reminiscent of readers speculating on what the "V" stands for in Pynchon's first novel [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ''V.''].

'''Oakley M Frames''' 
Somewhat spacey-looking, apparently famous, athletic sunglasses. [http://www.oakley.com/mframe Oakley] site.

==Page 362==
'''seldom-heard oldie "Soul Gidget"''' 
Fictional song by from ''Inherent Vice''. Nice touch. [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_10#Page_155 Page 155.]

"One of the few known attempts at black surf music...by Meatball Flag." 
Lyrics:

Who's that strollin down the street, 
Hi-heel flip-flops on her feet, 
Always got a great big smile 
Never gets popped by Juv-o-nile— 
Who is it? 
Soul Gidget! 

Who never worries about her karma? 
Who be that signifyin on your mama? 
Out there lookin so bad and big, 
Like Sandra Dee in some Afro wig— 
Who is it? 
Soul Gidget! 

Surf's up, Soul Gidget’s there, 
Got that patchouli all in her hair, 
Down in Hermosa she’s runnin wild, 
Back in South Central she just a child— 
Uh who is it? 
Soul Gidget!

==Page 363==
'''you've got to believe...that was the '69 Mets''' 
The 1969 New York Mets season was the team's eighth as a Major League Baseball franchise and culminated with them winning the World Series over the Baltimore Orioles. They played their home games at Shea Stadium. The team was managed by Gil Hodges. The team is often referred to as the "Amazin' Mets" (a nickname coined by Casey Stengel, who managed the team from their inaugural season to 1965) or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_New_York_Mets_season the "Miracle Mets."].

HOWEVER, "You gotta believe!!!" was Mets pitcher Tug McGraw's catchphrase during [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_New_York_Mets_season the '''1973''' season], and that phrase wasn't used during the 1969 season.

==Page 364==
'''Duane Reade''' 
See pp. [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_10#Page_107 107] and [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_37#Page_414 414].

'''ever try anal?...His specialty I bet?''' 
Little nod to Pynchon's niece, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Taormino Tristan Taormino,] sex educator who wrote ''The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women''?

Note also that this is set up a bit earlier in their conversation (on page 360) with Vyrva saying "a-little-goes-a-long-way, pain-in-the-ass-unbearable".

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

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2015-04-14T17:00:19Z

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==Page 354==
'''Jetsons-era spaceport''' 
Not a bad little [http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/paleofuture/2013/03/mid-21st-century-modern-that-jetsons-architecture/ essay] on Mid-21st Century Modern architecture.

'''cyberflaneurs''' 
"A person who idly surfs the internet." In 2012 the New York Times ran an article on the [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-of-the-cyberflaneur.html?pagewanted=all Death of the Cyberflaneur]

==Page 355==
'''a strange creepy nimbus like a follow spot in a club''' 
A nimbus is an aura, or a luminous cloud or a halo surrounding a supernatural being or a saint. A follow spot (or followspot) is a moving spot light that tracks a subject, eg a dancing couple on the dance floor.

'''''Battlestar Galactica''''' 
The reboot doesn't come out until 2004, so here they are talking about the original show.

'''requesting her presence on the bridge'''<br\>
Star Trek references start here and continue for another half page or so

'''posters of Denise Richards and Tia Carrere''' 
Denise Richards for her role in ''Starship Troopers'', no doubt, and Tia Carrere, for ''Relic Hunter'' maybe?

==Page 356==
'''Regulate''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1plPyJdXKIY YouTube] has it. The song was released in 1994.

'''''More Cowbell''''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGBD1KUz2RA YouTube] has a clip from this famous SNL skit, which was first aired, by the way, April 2000. 
Does this count as a sneaky Godzilla allusion since the band parodied in the skit, Blue Oyster Cult, also recorded the song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln8-Y-fIbqM Godzilla]?

'''Deus Ex theme''' 
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1oxIrAX39M Youtube] to the rescue again. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex WIKI] has more on this 2000 cyberpunk-style video game.

356 - Deus Ex is a cyberpunk-themed action-role playing video game — combining first-person shooter, stealth and role-playing elements — developed by Ion Storm and published by Eidos Interactive in 2000. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_Ex Wikipedia]. Check out the theme:{{#ev:youtube|ZCk8ByyCsks}}

'''cyberelves''' 
Not to be confused, surely, with cyberflaneurs or the "little tiny people...from under the radiator..with little brooms, and dustpans" from page 346.

'''tarball''' 
Slang for a way to distribute code [http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/T/tarball.html tarball] derived from the tar archive format [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_%28computing%29 wiki]

==Page 357==
'''Kabbalistic vessels smashed at the Creation into all these bright drops of light''' 
Recalls [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page Gravity's Rainbow], page 148: "Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation."

'''An Abyss''' 
A reference to the Tree of Life in Hermetic Kabbalah.

From Lon Milo DuQuette's "Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot," page 63:

"The area (or non-area) between the supernal triad (sephiroth 1-2-3) and the rest of the Tree is called the Abyss. It is an inscrutable looking glass that separates the ideal (the abstract concepts of 1-2-3) from the actual (the manifest qualities of the phenomenal universe)."

In other words, it separates the unmanifested from the manifested, or, as Lucas puts it, the codeless from the coded.

==Page 358==
'''the edge of the unnavigable, the region of no information''' 
Bleeding edge?

'''the beginning before the Word''' 
John 1:1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

'''vertigo--lovesick, nauseous''' 
Yet more intimations of Hitchcock's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_%28film%29 Vertigo.] "Lovesick, nauseous" could be the film's subtitle.

==Page 359==

'''Munchkinetic effect''' 
A reference to Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz.

'''Phatic how's Justin, how's Fiona, all fine thanks''' 
"Phatic" means denoting or relating to language used for general purposes of social interaction, rather than to convey information or ask questions, such as ''hello, how are you?'' and ''nice morning, isn't it?''

==Page 360==
'''King Kongs, which are Crown Royal plus banana liqueur''' 
Little odd, no, for the narrative voice to define something like this? I thought that was our job! Anyway, also known as a "Rock Star," this is [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Royal#Mixing a real cocktail].

'''Fernet-Branca... That crazy motherfucker from Voorhees, Krueger!''' 
Cf. p. [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_7#Page_70 70].

==Page 361==
'''that crazy motherfucker from Voorhees, Krueger''' 
That would be Ian Longspoon. The name is likely a tip o' the hat to Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees of two classic slasher/horror films "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Friday the 13th".

'''what sort of look like giant letter J's, not to mention L's''' 
"It could stand for anything, couldn't it?" This is reminiscent of readers speculating on what the "V" stands for in Pynchon's first novel [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ''V.''].

'''Oakley M Frames''' 
Somewhat spacey-looking, apparently famous, athletic sunglasses. [http://www.oakley.com/mframe Oakley] site.

==Page 362==
'''seldom-heard oldie "Soul Gidget"''' 
Fictional song by from ''Inherent Vice''. Nice touch. [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_10#Page_155 Page 155.]

"One of the few known attempts at black surf music...by Meatball Flag." 
Lyrics:

Who's that strollin down the street, 
Hi-heel flip-flops on her feet, 
Always got a great big smile 
Never gets popped by Juv-o-nile— 
Who is it? 
Soul Gidget! 

Who never worries about her karma? 
Who be that signifyin on your mama? 
Out there lookin so bad and big, 
Like Sandra Dee in some Afro wig— 
Who is it? 
Soul Gidget! 

Surf's up, Soul Gidget’s there, 
Got that patchouli all in her hair, 
Down in Hermosa she’s runnin wild, 
Back in South Central she just a child— 
Uh who is it? 
Soul Gidget!

==Page 363==
'''you've got to believe...that was the '69 Mets''' 
The 1969 New York Mets season was the team's eighth as a Major League Baseball franchise and culminated with them winning the World Series over the Baltimore Orioles. They played their home games at Shea Stadium. The team was managed by Gil Hodges. The team is often referred to as the "Amazin' Mets" (a nickname coined by Casey Stengel, who managed the team from their inaugural season to 1965) or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_New_York_Mets_season the "Miracle Mets."].

HOWEVER, "You gotta believe!!!" was Mets pitcher Tug McGraw's catchphrase during [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_New_York_Mets_season the '''1973''' season], and that phrase wasn't used during the 1969 season.

==Page 364==
'''Duane Reade''' 
See pp. [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_10#Page_107 107] and [http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_37#Page_414 414].

'''ever try anal?...His specialty I bet?''' 
Little nod to Pynchon's niece, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tristan_Taormino Tristan Taormino,] sex educator who wrote ''The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women''?

Note also that this is set up a bit earlier in their conversation (on page 360) with Vyrva saying "a-little-goes-a-long-way, pain-in-the-ass-unbearable".

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 29

2015-04-14T16:56:49Z

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==Page 314==
'''The spread on the Jets-Indianapolis game Sunday is 2 points.''' 
Sunday, 9 September. This game did take place on this day and the victory margin is correct, but the Vegas spread on the game was 1.5, not 2(big difference for gamblers). [[User:H2oetry|H2oetry]] ([[User talk:H2oetry|talk]])

'''Vinny Testaverde is a little less consistent, managing in the last five minutes for example to fumble on the Colts' 2-yard line to a defensive end who then proceeds to run the ball 98 yards to a touchdown''' 
The fumble return was actually only 95 yards instead of 98. The play did begin on the 2 yard line, but the fumble was recovered by defensive end Chukie Nwokorie on the 5 yard line, and that is where the distance of the return begins, not at the play's origin. [http://www.pro-football-reference.com/boxscores/200109090nyj.htm Here is the boxscore] [[User:H2oetry|H2oetry]] ([[User talk:H2oetry|talk]])

'''Stolid Geometry''' 
aka Square

==Page 316==
'''in a film noir, or possibly jaune''' 
Jaune being that yellowish color of Simpson skin.

'''TUESDAY MORNING THEY ALL CONVOY over to Kugelblitz together...''' 
Tuesday, 11 September.

==Page 317==
'''the Reichstag fire''' 
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The fire was used as evidence by the Nazis that the Communists were plotting against the German government and the event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire WIKI].

==Page 318==
'''"I know. We got snookered."''' 
tr.v. snook·ered
1. Slang 
a. To lead (another) into a situation in which all possible choices are undesirable; trap. 
b. To fool; dupe; hoodwink. 
From the cue sport of the same name. To snooker someone is to leave them in a position where there is no straight shot to the target ball—typically because it is hidden behind one of your own.

'''not traditional peanut butter or cheese'''<br\>
In cartoons, mousetraps are always baited with cheese, but in real life, the best bait is generally considered to be peanut butter

==Page 320==
'''blackened alligator'''<br\>
as in blackened rubble

'''sheep's eyeball'''<br\>
a traditional delicacy in the Middle East

'''Ürümqi'''<br\>
A city in northwest China, but with a significant Muslim population

==Page 325==
[[Image:Example.jpg|thumb|200px|left|thumb|175px|Skull and Bones logo]]'''Skull and Bones''' 
Skull and Bones is an undergraduate senior secret society at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. It is the oldest senior class landed society at Yale. The society's alumni organization, the Russell Trust Association, owns the society's real estate and oversees the organization. The society is known informally as "Bones", and members are known as "Bonesmen". From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_bones WIKI].

''George HW Bush and George W Bush were both members ''

'''What's the latest on 4360.0 kilohertz?''' 
4360.0 kilohertz is a shortwave radio frequency used, it is believed, by spies in the Mediterranean. Of course, "Oops, or do I mean megahertz?" is yet another Pynchon Pun, on hurts/hertz, as Avi gives a violent jump when Maxine asks him nice as pie if he's heard anything on that frequency, it being used near Israel. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station]

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 28

2015-04-14T16:54:31Z

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==Page 301==
'''It's a warm evening''' 
Sept. 8th (according to the invitation Maxine received last chapter)

==Page 302==
'''''Matrix''-era Ray Bans''' 
Reference breaks the usual, though not ironclad, pattern of giving a film's release date when mentioned. Perhaps because the theme of the party going on is "1999" and since the film came out that year Pynchon doesn't feel the need to spell it out. Anyone have a grasp on the logic behind sometimes giving release dates and sometimes not? Is there always a good reason for when the date isn't given? [It's probably simply because it is used as an adjective here]

Also, "era" is a bit of an odd word choice considering nothing else in that list of nineties "instant nostalgia" items gets qualified with a time of creation and/or when popular indicator word or phrase. Why not simply something like "Matrix glasses"?

According to this [http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-05-04/features/0305040269_1_matrix-glasses-morpheus page] the glasses for the film were made by Blinde Design and they did not produce them for commercial release until a few years after the first Matrix film came out. This [http://www.sunglasses-shop.co.uk/film-and-tv/t/the-matrix.aspx site] says Ray-Ban makes similar glasses, though not when they started producing them.

'''pre-crash fantasy years''' 
This line (and this whole paragraph in general) may be about Y2K and the financial crash, but it's really about 9/11. No?

'''Blink-182, Echo and the Bunnymen, Barenaked Ladies, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony''' 
Strange list, of course, but Echo seems a little out of place since they pre-date the other bands by at least a decade and their "hits" were in the 1980s. Great band name, by the way, Echo and the Bunnymen. Seems like the sort of name Pynchon would find interesting. Joylessly, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_%26_the_Bunnymen WIKI] informs us that the name means practically nothing and, according a band member, the name was haphazardly chosen out of a list of names, all "just as stupid as the rest."

I'm pretty sure Echo was what they called their drum machine before they had a drummer. Their heyday was definitely the 80s, though they did reform and release some stuff in the late-90s; it was fairly obscure compared to the other bands mentioned however, in regard to the Top 40, etc.

==Page 303==
'''Razorfish alumni''' 
They were one of the first companies to have an animated homepage, utilizing the "server-push" capabilities of the latest version of the Netscape browser. Because of this and aggressive marketing tactics, their work became well known, well-respected, and the firm grew quickly over the next few years. Soon thereafter, they received a strategic investment from Omnicom (along with other New Media pioneers, Agency.com, Red Sky Interactive, Think New Ideas and Organic), making them one of the first firms to be financed by a traditional media holding company. Razorfish used this money to move to new offices, redesign their branding (to include the slogan "Everything that can be digital will be.") and expand operations. It and other New York-based Web design companies formed the core of a cluster of New Media companies known as Silicon Alley. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razorfish_%28company%29 WIKI].

'''PBRs ... in a washtub of crushed ice''' 
Pabst Blue Ribbon, a mediocre beer popular with hipsters.

==Page 304==
'''temporal aliasing''' 
In signal processing and related disciplines, aliasing refers to an effect that causes different signals to become indistinguishable (or aliases of one another) when sampled. It also refers to the distortion or artifact that results when the signal reconstructed from samples is different from the original continuous signal. Aliasing can occur in signals sampled in time, for instance digital audio, and is referred to as '''temporal aliasing'''. Aliasing can also occur in spatially sampled signals, for instance digital images. Aliasing in spatially sampled signals is called spatial aliasing. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporal_aliasing]

'''Wow, back off Kim Basinger'''
Kim Basinger is an American actress and former model. At the time of Bleeding Edge she would have been most famous for her Academy Award winning performance in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.A._Confidential_(film) L.A. Confidential.] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Basinger Wiki article on Basinger]

'''I think he's in some creepy retro-pissing contest with Josh Harris. Remember that millennium-eve party at pseudo? Went on for months?''' 
I was hoping this would be referenced in ''Bleeding Edge''. This is depicted wonderfully in Ondi Timoner's Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary "We Live In Public." [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XSTwfdFwIY Here is a trailer]. [http://weliveinpublic.blog.indiepixfilms.com/ Here is the official website].

==Page 305==
'''Giuseppe Zanotti... Stuart Weitzman... Jimmy Choo...''' 
All of course shoe designers, given Eric's fetish.

'''Security through immaturity''' 
Playing on the pejorative term "[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/security-through-obscurity.html security through obscurity]" in which security vulnerabilities are merely hidden instead of being closed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity WIKI]

==Page 306==
'''Had a brilliant Arturo Fuente the other day!''' 
Arturo Fuente is a brand of cigar, founded by Arturo Fuente, Sr. in 1912 in West Tampa, Florida. It's one of the most critically acclaimed makers of hand-rolled premium cigars outside of Cuba.. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arturo_Fuente Wikipedia]

==Page 307==
'''Nazi Vegetable''' 
This is a fictional musical group, obviously.

'''In the Toilet''' 
This song sorta seems to possibly go to the tune of Elvis's "In the Ghetto," which of course given the attention to the toilets we've just read about, is more irony.

==Page 308==
'''epileptigogic lighting''' 
This would be lighting that can trigger an epileptic fit, i.e., strobe lights.

'''Electric Slide''' 
Likely the dance that was inspired by "Shall We Dance (Electric Slide)" by Grandmaster Slice and Scratchmaster Chuck T., produced by them in 1989. Check it:
{{#ev:youtube|lawyOmNqA9Y}}

'''Paradise Garage''' 
Another [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Garage Paradise Garage] reference, to go along with those in chapters 14, 15, and 23. This last one goes into much greater detail as to what dancing at the Garage meant to Maxine.

==Page 309==
'''THE EH? TEAM''' 
A play on the title of a popular 80s TV show ''The A Team''

'''ça va?'''<br\>
Colloquial Quebecois French for 'How's it going?' It literally translates as "is it going", so the answer is "oui" rather than "bien" or similar.

'''about as fat as Ally McBeal''' 
Calista Flockhart played the title character on the TV show ''Ally McBeal'' (1997-2002). She was very skinny.

'''poutine''' 
This is the quintessential French Canadian fast food item. It is found all over Quebec; though it is sometimes found elsewhere in Canada and in some places in the northern United States, it is basically a regional specialty.

To me, poutine has always seemed to be an item whose reputation has far outstripped its inherent value. Maybe I've never had 'good' poutine, but in my experience, poutine has consisted of soft french fries, covered in mediocre gravy (a reasonable replacement for ketchup, but not as good as mayonnaise), with mostly-tasteless cheese curds adding a lumpy white visual element. In summary, something inoffensive and filling that you can shovel into your mouth without much chewing. But like Felix, for some reason Quebeckers seem proud of it.

Poutine is first referenced on pg 88.

==Page 310==
'''his eyes ... less expressive than many Maxine has noted at the fish market'''<br\>
A good way of estimating a fish's freshness is to look at its eyes. So Maxine is not referring to fish market customers' eyes.

'''server farms''' 
Seems worth noting a passage in the novel where Pynchon talks about things we find on the cover of ''Bleeding Edge''. See a [[Bleeding_Edge_cover_analysis|discussion]] on the cover.

'''Godwin's law''' 
Godwin's law is an assertion made by Mike Godwin in 1990 that has become an Internet adage. It states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1." In other words, Godwin said that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably makes a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis. Although in one of its early forms Godwin's law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions, the law is now often applied to any threaded online discussion, such as forums, chat rooms and blog comment threads, and has been invoked for the inappropriate use of Nazi analogies in articles or speeches. In 2012, "Godwin's Law" became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law WIKI]. Also, interestingly, Godwin did his seniors honors thesis on Pynchon.

'''''The Attractive Schoolgirl of Zazhopinsk''''' 

''Zazhopinsk'' is a Russian version of "East Bumfuck" or any similar locution in English. The back of beyond, basically. "Zhopa" (жопа) is the Russian word for "buttocks," so Zazhopinsk could be rendered as "Beyond-butt-town."

This fictitious opera's name probably derives from Dmitri Shostakovich's ''Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk''. When Stalin attended a performance of this opera, he walked out part way through, and published an editorial the next day “Chaos Instead of Music” attacking both the artistic value of the work and the political ideology of the composer. Although Shostkovich was never actually purged, his funding dried up almost immediately, and his diaries record that he took up sleeping in the doorway of his apartment in case he was arrested in the night so that his children would not see.

==Page 311==
'''when she finds anybody trying too hard to fool her, she reaches for her revolver''' 
Brings to mind the lyrics and theme of [http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/105042/ Mission of Burma's "That's When I Reach For My Revolver."]

'''mogul on the black-diamond slopes'''<br\>
Expert-level ski slopes are marked by a black diamond, mogul here having the dual meaning of a small hill in the middle of a ski slope and an important business person.

'''Nora Charles'''<br\>
the Myrna Loy character in the Thin Man movies. In that series, husband Nick (William Powell) was the street-smart detective, while Nora was the moneyed semi-sidekick. Nora was frequently found at upper-class parties, ie with similar financial backing to the current event, but with a very different class of attendees.

'''CD tilde home''' 
The [http://forum.linuxcareer.com/threads/1669-Single-linux-command-to-return-to-home-directory Linux command] to change back to your home directory.

'''the long September which has been with them in a virtual way since spring before last''' <br\>
March 2000 was the date of the dotcom bubble bursting. The reality of this long September contrasts with the naivete of the Eternal September

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 27

2015-04-14T16:46:08Z

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==Page 288==
'''Prairie du Chien or Fond du Lac'''<br\>
cities in Wisconsin

'''as Ace Ventura sez''' 
Jim Carrey played the whacky character Ace Ventura in two movies (1994 and 1995). His signature catch phrase was "allllll righty then."

==Page 289==
'''Kum & Go''' 
A chain of convenience stores popular in the Midwest. Hard to believe Pynchon didn't make up that name!

According to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kum_%26_Go WIKI,] the name is "a play on the phrase "come and go" using the initials of founders Krause and Gentle."

'''Floyd's Knobs, Indiana''' 
A real city with a Pynchonesque name.

'''Merc ... CME'''<br\>
Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Although New York City is the center of stock and bond trading in the U.S., the main locus of futures and options trading is in Chicago, with activity split between the CME and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).

'''double trading'''<br\>
Double trading is an options strategy that experienced traders use to (hopefully) double their profits. After they have purchased a contract, if traders notice that price of the asset is on a continued upward (or downward) trend, then they will buy more of the asset. (At least that's the only definition I could find. I can't imagine why the strategy would be banned, and couldn't find any instance of such a ban ever taking place, at CME or anywhere else.)

'''...They sing her the Hy-Vee commercial. More than once.''' 
Appears Horst was successful in giving the boys a crash Iowa-childhood experience.

==Page 290==
'''at the CBOT, and to the Brokers Inn, where they are the legendary giant fish sandwich''' 
This is all true....

:Years ago, before the new 10,000 CBOT floor was open, and the CBOT was only one building, there used to be a restaurant in the building just to the east. It was called Broker's Inn. [...] As a tradition, on Ash Wednesday and every Friday, Broker's Inn would serve "the fish sandwich". The fish sandwich was a large yellow bun, served open-faced, with fried whitefish piled as high as the plate could hold before falling off. The fish was light, tender on the inside, and crisp on the outside. This was served with their famous tartar sauce and fresh wedges of lemon. One person could never finish this sandwich if they ordered anything else. This was all before the new floor was installed. [http://www.yelp.com/biz/chicago-board-of-trade-building-chicago]

'''Maid-Rites''' 
Here's a recipe for a [http://iowagirleats.com/2010/11/01/you-know-youre-from-the-midwest/ Maid-Rite].

'''Louisville Hot Brown''' 
Wow, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Brown WIKI] has a page on this sandwich.

'''Nolan Bushnell''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nolan_Bushnell Founder] of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese.

==Page 291==
'''Scooby-Doo shades''' 
Another Scooby reference to go with chapter 18's "Daphne and Wilma's."

Which makes us wonder, what would Scooby Doo?

'''Hydro Thunder''' 

As with the other arcade games mentioned in the chapter, Hydro Thunder really exists. [http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydro_Thunder Wiki]

==Page 292==

'''covering a margin call''' 
Horst has purchased some derivatives (options or futures) with a significant fraction of the purchase price loaned to him by his broker ("purchased on margin"). Since the time of purchase, the price of the derivative has gone down, and the broker has given Horst a "margin call", ie a couple of hours to put up some more cash to limit their level of exposure. If Horst fails to do so, and the price keeps dropping, the broker stands to lose money. To prevent this possibility, the broker will just sell the derivatives at the going price, which would generate an instant loss for Horst. In this case, Horst believes the price drop is just temporary, so he deposits the extra cash as requested ("covers the call") and the derivatives don't get sold. It looks like he has a number of other positions open, so this margin call is not necessarily a big deal. It does indicate that Horst is engaging in high risk trading though: leveraging his capital in a market that is already very volatile and risky.

'''Berghoff longnecks''' 
Beer made by the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Huber_Brewing_Company Joseph Huber Brewing Company,] second oldest brewery in the United States. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeungling Yuengling] is the oldest.

Berghoff is also a German restaurant on West Adams near the financial district. In the window, Berghoff displays Chicago liquor license #1.

==Page 294==
'''Rachel . . . Green''' 
Rachel Green is the character played by Jennifer Aniston on the TV show ''Friends''. She had an on-again, off-again love affair with Ross.

'''ha ha only serious''' 
A phrase from "nerd"-ier circles and mentioned in [http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html the Jargon File]:

<blockquote>
[from SF fandom, orig. as mutation of HHOK, ‘Ha Ha Only Kidding’] A phrase (often seen abbreviated as HHOS) that aptly captures the flavor of much hacker discourse. Applied especially to parodies, absurdities, and ironic jokes that are both intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of truth, or truths that are constructed on in-joke and self-parody. This lexicon contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both form and content. Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider, a wannabee, or in larval stage. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master.
</blockquote>.

==Page 295==
'''Tworkeffx''' 
Could be an abbreviated form of "network effect," where a good or service becomes more valuable when more people use it, which is the case for many websites such as YouTube, Amazon.com, Wikipedia &c &c.

There's also "Twork It Out," a tune on Usher's third studio album, ''8701'' which was originally intended for an October 31, 2000 release but was delayed numerous times following the leak of several tracks onto the online music store Napster and finally released in July 2001. The title is derived from Usher singing for the first time in his local church in 1987 and the album's release date of 2001. From [http://www.metrolyrics.com/twork-it-out-lyrics-usher.html the lyrics], "tworking" is pretty much having sex.
{{#ev:youtube|EVi5Kyucy5E}}

'''End of the World As We Know It''' 
A reference to the song "It's the End of the World as We Know It" (1987) by R.E.M.

==Page 296==
'''As Labor Day approaches''' 
which, in 2001, was on Sept. 3rd

'''El Atildado''' 
"Atildado" is Spanish for elegant, stylish

Or more pointedly, it means, The Dapper Man.

''you mean 'Dude'?''

'''Johnny Pacheco''' 
Johnny Pacheco is a Dominican musician, arranger, producer, and bandleader of Cuban music. He is one of the most influential figures in Latin music, best known for being the creator of the Fania All-Stars, and for coining the term "Salsa" to denote the genre. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Pacheco WIKI].

==Page 298==
'''A barstool, named Sven?'''<br\>
Maybe a bit of poetic license here? IKEA has a stool named "Svenerik", but it's more of a piano stool. The max height is 58 cm, so it's too short to be much good as a bar stool.

==Page 299==

'''Jemima, Keziah, and Kerenhappuch''' 
Job's three daughters, as in, from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Job Book of Job].

==Page 300==
'''merengue''' 
Merengue is a style of Dominican music and dance. Partners hold each other in a closed position. The leader holds the follower's waist with the leader's right hand, while holding the follower's right hand with the leader's left hand at the follower's eye level. Partners bend their knees slightly left and right, thus making the hips move left and right. The hips of the leader and follower move in the same direction throughout the song. Partners may walk sideways or circle each other, in small steps. They can switch to an open position and do separate turns without letting go each other's hands or releasing one hand. During these turns they may twist and tie their handhold into intricate pretzels. Other choreographies are possible. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merengue_%28dance%29 WIKI].

'''"Copacabana"''' 
Classic song by Mr. Barry Manilow.

{{#ev:youtube|D8955_YASoQ}}

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Chapter 26

2015-04-14T16:41:44Z

NOx404: /* Page 279 */ Added an entry for neorealist films

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==Page 275==
'''formaldehyde''' 
Clothing is coated with formaldehyde to make them "wrinkle free". Formaldehyde is also used to preserve corpses. Most people are familiar with the miasma from frog dissection in high school biology.

'''The Thug, here rendered in fuchsia and optical green''' 
That is, looking a lot like the Hulk.
<blockquote>There is a moment in ''Against the Day'' where this color combination is used; does anyone remember where and if there is a significance between these two items?</blockquote>

==Page 276==
''' a mural-size screen grab from the opening of ''The Letter'' (1940) in which Bette Davis is pretending to pump six rounds into...''' 
Image and film info at [http://www.allmovie.com/movie/v29107 allmovie.] Bette comes out with gun blazing at 1:18 into this [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo5QuonRCHE clip.]

'''David Newell''' 
Supporting actor turned makeup artist. [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0627789/#actor IMDB] makes it appear he spent much of his career being uncredited for his work.

==Page 277==
'''It's what, legal in Utah for three people to get married?''' 
Despite being illegal, in Utah today, those living in polygamist families number about 40,000 people(about 1.4 percent of the population). Polygamists are difficult to prosecute because many only seek marriage licenses for their first marriage, while the other marriages are secretly conducted in private ceremonies. Thereafter, secondary wives attempt to be seen in public as single women with children.

''The mainstream Mormon church (LDS) turned away from polygamy many years ago. But there are still many 'fundamentalist' Mormons practising polygamy, often living in closed communities. See Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven for more on the (very) dark side of polygamy. [http://www.amazon.com/Under-Banner-Heaven-Story-Violent/dp/1400032806]''

'''DITS''' <br\>
pun on ditz

==Page 278==

'''Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray''' 
Dr. Brown's is a brand of soft drink made by J&R Bottling. It is a popular brand in the New York City region and in South Florida, but it can also be found in Jewish delicatessens and upscale supermarkets around the United States. Dr. Brown's dates back to 1869 when their famous Dr. Brown's Cel-Ray soda was commonly sold in New York delicatessens. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Brown's]

'''a bit on the demi-sec side''' 
"Demi sec" is a French term for the sweetness of a wine. It translates to "semi-dry" or medium-dry. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetness_of_wine]

''If you're used to brut, demi-sec tastes pretty sweet. So I'd interpret this as Cornelia's tactful way of saying the Dr Brown's is a bit too sweet for her taste''

'''folie à deux''' 
French: "madness for two" a shared psychotic disorder between two people who are extremely close. Normally it's two people sharing the same delusion, but in this case, it's two people sharing complementary delusions.

==Page 279==

'''Far from the Channel 13 upper-class dynasty''' 
Channel 13 is a New York City PBS station, PBS being the preferred network for the educated and well healed.

'''well east of the Nassau line''' 
That is, not in Nassau County which is the 13th wealthiest county in the US with a median income of $93K+. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States]

'''neorealist films''' 
Also known as Italian Neorealism. "A national film movement ] characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class, filmed on location, frequently using non-professional actors." Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_neorealism Wiki]

'''The Muffya''' 
A bad pun on The Mafia... "Muff" is slang for pussy etc.

Perhaps more to the point here, "Muffy" is also a paradigmatic WASP and/or preppy female nickname.

'''Donna non vidi mai''' 
Italian: "I have never seen a woman" - So Rocky is watching Cornelia shower while he eats a pizza and sings this tenor aria from Act 1 of Puccini's Manon Lescaut. A love-at-first-sight soliloquy. "I have never seen a woman like this!" Pynchon referenced the Act 3 tenor solo in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_3 Chapter 3 of ''V.'']

{{#ev:youtube|pEJ3Sb5WVr4}}

'''Down in K-Town they call him '4-D'''' 
Koreatown is an ethnic Korean enclave in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, centered on the block of West 32nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koreatown,_Manhattan]

==Page 280==
'''Chandler Platt''' 
Interesting name which could be a nod to detective-fiction writer Raymond Chandler [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler] who wrote the Philip Marlowe series from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. When Chandler was in his twenties, he worked at the Los Angeles Creamery whose owner, George E. Platt, was found guilty and fined for selling a mixture of milk and condensed milk as "cream" and was also involved in many other corrupt schemes. Someone Chandler Platt could have worked with! [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/06/raymond-chandlers-crime-introduction-via-ice-cream.html]

'''the high-muzzle-velocity law firm of Hanover, Fisk''' 
Nice little pun on "hand over fist", as in making money hand over fist... Muzzle velocity is the speed a projectile has at the moment it leaves the muzzle of the gun. So a high-powered firm (with a suggestion of violence), handling big cases. This rifle reference connects to the to the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle mentioned on [[#Page_282|page 282]], the high-muzzle-velocity rifle used by Lee Harvey Oswald to assassinate President Kennedy in 1963.

'''New Zealand kauri''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agathis_australis WIKI] tells us kauri forests are some of the oldest in the world, that individual trees often live longer than 600 years, and that they are very large trees with volumes, but not heights, often rivaling sequoias. When kauri trees fall over, they are usually submerged in an anoxic swamp environment, which prevents them from rotting. They used to pull ancient kauri logs out of the swamps to make super-high-end furniture, but I don't know if they still do. With their large diameters, a table made from a cross-section of a single kauri could fit quite a few secretaries under it.

==Page 281==
'''Skadden, Arps''' 
A [http://www.skadden.com/ real law firm] in Washington, DC.

'''friends, in the pre-Internet sense of the term'''<br\>
Facebook didn't allow tagging contacts as "friends" until 2005. Weren't they among the first (ie is this an anachronism)?

==Page 282==
'''Mannlicher-Carcano . . . Jackie and I were dear friends''' 
A Mannlicher-Carcano is a high-muzzle-velocity rifle and what Lee Harvey Oswald used to assassinate John F. Kennedy in 1963. Jackie was, as most are aware, JFK's wife and the first lady.

'''"Jay-Z?" "Well, actually I'm more of a Nas person. As you may know they're in this feud at the moment, that old Queens-versus-Brooklyn thing again, hate to take sides, but---"The World Is Yours," how can anything even compare?''' 
Probably splitting hairs here, but the feud between Jay-Z and Nas didn't become widely known until Jay-Z's "Takeover" was released on his "Blueprint" album, which came out on September 11. Jay-Z did dis some rappers at the Hot 97 Summer Jam 2001 held in late June, but the hardest hit was Nas' friend and Queens resident Prodigy of Mobb Deep, while Nas was only briefly mentioned. You'd probably had to have been close to the inner circles of these rappers to be conversationally aware of the feud which became heated in the months to come. As for "The World is Yours," reference, I agree with the sentiment, and wonder if it was used since Jay-Z sampled it on "Dead Presidents II" from his 1996 debut album. Anyone else have thoughts on this? [[User:H2oetry|H2oetry]] ([[User talk:H2oetry|talk]])h2oetry

Also, it was pretty much universally accepted that Nas won the beef with "Ether," on ''Stillmatic'' which would be released in December 2001. Nas's ''Illmatic,'' from 1994, is by many, considered the greatest rap record of all time, and extremely rare these days, only contains one guest appearance for a single verse (AZ on "Life's a Bitch"). The above question in regard to the use of "The World is Yours," is indeed possible, though most likely it's used here because the phrase references Scarface, which kind of ties into the theme of this part of the book, I'd say.

'''Tryin to do Tupac and Biggie thangs ... Mort and Pell''' 
A brilliant rap about the racism against Asians implicit in Caucasians playing Asians in 1930s-40s Hollywood films, and asssociated stereotypes. Darren sets out to do what Tupac and Biggie did, i.e., promoting his own cultural values and decrying societal injustices via the rap idiom.

And these two rappers represent yet another Rap Rivalry East Coast (Biggie) vs. West Coast (Tupac). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast%E2%80%93West_Coast_hip_hop_rivalry]

The set up is when Chandler Platt's intern Darren who we assume is Asian when Maxine wants to avoid using "inscrutably" to describe his expression, "inscrutable" being a stereotypical characteristic of Asians. Thus, the trope of Asian stereotypes is introduced, and leads to Darren kicking off his rap with "Dig it..."

'''Tryin to do Tupac and Biggie thangs''' 
Like Tupac (aka 2Pac) Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls), two very successful rappers in the 1990s, Darren wants to be a rap warrior for his people, his culture.

[[file:Mao-bank.jpg|left|thumb|75px]]'''With red velvet Chairman Mao piggy banks''' 
Nice rhyme: Biggie thangs / piggy banks ... Darren wants to be a Big Rap Star, but he wants to do it the Asian way. Perhaps using Chairman Mao here is Darren's way of using a homegrown and authentic Asian icon to represent his way. Interesting that it's a Chairman Mao piggy bank, Mao being iconic of Marxism, as opposed to the blatantly capitalist pursuit of fame and money by American rappers. Down the page a bit, when asked by Platt how he expects to make money, Darren replies that making money is "not the point."

Of course, Darren's cute little piggy bank will be an ineffective tool to challenge the injustices represented in the old Hollywood movies and which persist to the present, when Platt returns to his office and starts "pullin rank" on Darren, ordering him around.



==Page 283==

'''like Screamin Jay in Hong Kong / jumpin to wrong conclusions''' 
Screamin' Jay Hawkins recorded "Hong Kong" (1958), a paranoid & non-sensical lament ("Standin' on a corner in Hong Kong / My baby was down in Hong Kong / Worried about you baby / You been down too long / in Hong Kong") . I assume it's Screamin' Jay who's "jumpin to wrong conclusions" about his baby and about how scary Hong Kong is. His hysterical delivery, paranoia about his baby's fate, and his fake-Chinese babbling (including the name-checking of common Chinese-American food dishes) indicate a frightened Western man in an Eastern land with a strong whiff of racism. A wacky tune, for sure:
{{#ev:youtube|PaTHMO-XmV4}}

'''old-movie confusions''' 
The "old-movie confusions" are confusion about both the general characterization and stereotyping of Asia and Asians in the 1930s-era Hollywood films, and about Caucasian actors (specifically Scandinavians, the whitest people on the planet) playing Asian characters (aka Yellowface [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examples_of_Yellowface]), such as in the four American films referenced in Darren's rap "The Adventures of Marco Polo" (1938) [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029842/] where both Kubla Khan and his daughter Princess Kukachin are played by Caucasian actors; The "Charlie Chan" films [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chan] in which Swedish-American actor Warner Oland played detective Charlie Chan for 15 of the films, until his death in 1938; "The Letter" (1940) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_(1940_film)] where Gale Sondegaard, an American actress born to Danish-American parents, plays the role of Mrs. Hammond, the asian wife of Davis's manservant whom Davis murders; and "The Bitter Tea of General Yen" (1933) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bitter_Tea_of_General_Yen)] where all the Asian characters are played by Caucasians. (Yes, Pynchon spells it "General Yan" but this covers both an anime character (General Yan) and the 1933 film (General Yen), or perhaps it's just a typo.)

'''yo, who be dat Scandinavian brand of Azian''' 
Why, it's Sigrid Gurie (Norwegian American), of course, who played Kubla Khan's daughter in "The Adventures of Marco Polo"! But, of course, it's all the actors in the lead Asian roles in the films referenced in this rap.

Spelling "Asian" as "Azian" derives from early Internet chatting where "Asian" was abbreviated "AZN".

[[file:Gurie-Marco-Polo.jpg|thumb|caption|Gary Cooper & Sigrid Gurie in "The Adventures of Marco Polo"|175px|left]]'''ya dig wid some Sigrid be / the daughter of Kublai Khan...''' 
In "The Adventures of Marco Polo," the character of Kublai Khan (spelled "Kubla" in the film credits) is played by George Barbier, and Khan's daughter Princess Kukachin is played by Norwegian-American actress '''Sigrid Gurie'''. Most of the other Chinese characters in the film are played by Caucasians. Kublai Khan was the ruler of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294, and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty. Marco Polo was the first European to visit China and publish a detailed chronicle of his experience. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo]

Here's a clip from the film, just some stills accompanied by the film's soundtrack:
{{#ev:youtube|KyLoiHXcqYs}}



[[file:Oland-Charlie-Chan.jpg|thumb|caption|Warner Oland as Charlie Chan|175px|left]]'''Warner Oland, Charlie Chan''' 
Warner Oland (1879-1938) was a Swedish American actor who played the detective Charlie Chan in the popular film franchise of the 1930s. Yet another Caucasian playing an Asian and reinforcing stereotypes. Oland also played another Asian, Fu Manchu, in the first three films of that franchise. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chan] (See also, "a gong from a hitherto-unreleased Fu Manchu movie goes off" - [[Chapter_10#Page_99|page 99]])

'''General Yan / bitter tea''' 
"The Bitter Tea of General Yen," is a 1933 dramatic film directed by Frank Capra where most of the Asian actors are played by Caucasians, most notably Danish actor Nils Asther in the role of General Yen. (It's ''possible'' this is also a reference to General Yan, the former Commander-in-Chief of the GHQ in the Guilty Crown anime franchise, although it's more likely a typo!)

Here's a fan-made trailer:
{{#ev:youtube|3_OyenMfHEk}}

[[file:Sondegaard-The-Letter.jpg|thumb|caption|Gale Sondegaard in "The Letter"|180px|left]]'''for her stupidity pullin rank / Bette Davis shanked by Gale Sondegaard''' 
Reference to "The Letter" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Letter_(1940_film)], an American noir film directed by William Wyler, where Bette Davis in the role of Leslie Crosbie is the social superior to Gale Sondegaard's Sondegaard parents were Danish Mrs. Hammond who is the wife of Davis's manservant and lover whom Davis murders. As for "pullin rank," Bette Davis was not only Sondegaard's social superior in the film, she was also the lead actress and Sondegaard the supporting actress. In "The Letter" Davis's character is stabbed (shanked - prison-yard slang) by Sondegaard's character.

Here's the trailer for "The Letter":

{{#ev:youtube|DsLf-AXyeT8}}

'''like they was on the yard / or down in some forgotten cell''' 
A prison yard, of course.

'''far, far from the corner of / Mott and Pell''' 
The heart of New York City's Chinatown. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mott_Street] Indeed they are very far away as "The Letter" takes place in Malaya.

'''And get Hugh Goldman for me over there?" "Mad cool, yo" 
Sadly, after Darren's performance, Platt comes in and begins "pullin rank" on Darren, brusquely cutting him off and ordering him about, to which Darren hiply but subserviently replies, "Mad cool, yo" and scoots off to do Platt's bidding.

Darren is aware of the inequities of power, of capitalism, rails against it, but remains, at least at this point, a slave a pet beholden to his corporate master. This is reminiscent of Bryon the Bulb in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_640-655 ''Gravity's Rainbow''; at page 654-655] in the original Viking edition, who ended up ''knowing'' The Truth but unable to effect any change:

:Someday he will know everything, and still be as impotent as before. His youthful dreams of organizing all the bulbs in the world seem impossible now—the Grid is wide open, all messages can be overheard, and there are more than enough traitors out on the line. Prophets traditionally don’t last long—they are either killed outright, or given an accident serious enough to make them stop and think, and most often they do pull back. But on Byron has been visited an even better fate. '''He is condemned to go on forever, knowing the truth and powerless to change anything.''' No longer will he seek to get off the wheel. His anger and frustration will grow without limit, and he will find himself, poor perverse bulb, enjoying it . . . .

And on [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_706-717#Page_713 page 713], Roger Mexico reflects on the Counterforce as the Corporate Masters' "doomed pet freaks," and wonders "which is worse: living on as Their pet, or death?"

Thus Darren's "red velvet Chairman Mao piggy bank" will be his cute but feckless weapon to fight injustice.

'''Gongsta Rap''' 
AKA the Asian version of Gangsta Rap. Another cute Pynchon Pun...

'''They gonna be give me all rice-nigga remarks and shit, this way I beat 'em to it.''' 
"Rice nigga" is, as you might suspect, a derogatory/racist term for Asians. Darren anticipates these kinds of remarks when he starts performing out, so he writes this rap that lampoons American stereotypes of Asians, starting with Screamin' Jay Hawkins' paranoid and racist "Hong Kong."

==Page 284==
'''chomping into it and scattering crumbs... Grabbing another, two or three actually''' 
Chandler Platt has become the Cookie Monster.

'''I could rely without hesitation upon young Darren...''' 
Darren is not only Platt's slave, but also his protector!

==Page 285==

'''as Larry Talbot into the Wolf Man''' 
Larry Talbot, played by Lon Chaney, Jr., was the main character of the horror film ''The Wolf Man'' (1941) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wolf_Man_(1941_film)].

:Trivia alert: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lon_Chaney,_Jr. Chaney] played Larry Talbot in ''The Wolf Man''. Though Chaney was in a fair number of monster movies, he was never, contrary to what Warren Zevon may have led us to believe, in a film titled "The Werewolves of London." The 1935 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf_of_London ''Werewolf of London''] starred Henry Hull.

==Page 286==
'''flaneur''' 
Term for a certain type of character found in literature, especially the works of 19th century France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fl%C3%A2neur WIKI] tells us "Drawing on Fournel, and on his analysis of the poetry of Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin described the flâneur as the essential figure of the modern urban spectator, an amateur detective and investigator of the city. More than this, his flâneur was a sign of the alienation of the city and of capitalism. For Benjamin, the flâneur met his demise with the triumph of consumer capitalism."

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Chapter 22

2015-04-14T16:25:26Z

NOx404: /* Page 241 */ Added an entry for "in the shallows"

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==Page 239==
'''Adderall''' 
While generally prescribed for ADD, its commonly snorted, and abused as an upper.

'''split for Seattle...hums a few bars of the Darth Vader theme''' 
Reference to Microsoft.

==Page 240==
'''"Presently they're linked and slowly descending from wee-hours Manhattan into teeming darkness, leaving the surface-Net crawlers busy overhead..."''' 
The next few pages bear a striking resemblance to William Gibson's descriptions of cyberspace in his seminal work '''Neuromancer'''. The concept of the internet as a physical space has managed to hold water quite well since its inception, and fits in well with Pynchon's own interest in the physical and figurative value of real estate.

==Page 241==
'''recherché''' 
Choice, refined, exquisite... Also, Sandwichgrrl's comment here brings to mind Gabriel Ice's perhaps not-so-choice wine cellar which is a front for his weird tunnel system.

'''Ride the Wild Surf''' 
A 1964 beach party/surfing movie and a song by Jan & Dean. A play on "surfing the web."

'''summer will end all too soon''' 
''The Endless Summer'' was a famous 1966 surfing movie, continuing the surfing theme from a couple of lines earlier.

'''in the shallows''' 
A potential reference to the book [http://www.amazon.com/The-Shallows-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750 "The Shallows"] about how instant search functionality negatively effects the brain.

'''Robert Moses''' 
Robert Moses (December 18, 1888 – July 29, 1981) was the "master builder" of mid-20th century New York City, Long Island, Rockland County, and Westchester County, New York. As the shaper of a modern city, he is sometimes compared to Baron Haussmann of Second Empire Paris, and was arguably one of the most polarizing figures in the history of urban planning in the United States. His decisions favoring highways over public transit helped create the modern suburbs of Long Island and influenced a generation of engineers, architects, and urban planners who spread his philosophies across the nation. One of his major contributions to urban planning was New York's large parkway network. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses WIKI].

"Robert Moses of the Deep Net": the only occurence of the Deep '''Net''' instead of Deep Web. Editing, again?

'''Gigantic vacuum-tube computers with half-acre footprints''' 
Dinosaurs. This whole section sorta screams, Moloch!

==Page 242==

'''Scope wizards''' 
In the late 1950s, only the military was flying supersonic jet aircraft like the all-weather capable F102A Delta Dagger or "One-O-Wonderful" F101B Voodoo. Nicknames were usually applied to the air and ground crews, using the "Voodoo" theme: "One-Oh-Wonder" for the pilots, '''"Scope Wizard" for the Radar Intercept Officers''' (RIOs, later called Weapon System Officers/WSOs or "Whizzos), and "Witch Doctors" for the maintenance guys. They were a formidable sight, whether taxiing past the alert hangars or taking off in formation.

'''bird colonel''' 
A full colonel in the US Army.

'''ADC from AFOSI Region 7''' 
Aerospace Defense Command [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerospace_Defense_Command (though inactivated in 1980?)] from United States Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

'''the gulag''' 
The Gulag was the Soviet Union government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems during the Stalin era, from the 1930s through the 1950s. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of extrajudicial punishment. The Gulag is recognized as a major instrument of political repression in the Soviet Union. The term is also sometimes used to describe the camps themselves. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag WIKI].

'''Time travel...you have to do it from inside out, with your mind and body...navigating Time is an unforgiving discipline''' &c. 
The curse of the writer (in the world of Tron).

==Page 243==
'''MKUltra-type programs''' 
Project MKUltra is the code name of a U.S. government covert human research operation experimenting in the behavioral engineering of humans (mind control) through the CIA's Scientific Intelligence Division. The program began in the early 1950s, was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967 and officially halted in 1973. The program engaged in many illegal activities; in particular it used unwitting U.S. and Canadian citizens as its test subjects, which led to controversy regarding its legitimacy. MKUltra involved the use of many methodologies to manipulate people's mental states and alter brain functions, including the surreptitious administration of drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra Wikipedia entry]

==Page 244==
'''Lacanian''' 
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's intellectuals in the 1960s and the 1970s, especially the post-structuralist philosophers. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacanian WIKI].

'''Alfonsín''' 
Raúl Ricardo Alfonsín (March 12, 1927 – March 31, 2009) was an Argentine lawyer, politician and statesman, who served as the President of Argentina from December 10, 1983, to July 8, 1989. Alfonsín was the first democratically elected president of Argentina following the military government known as the National Reorganization Process. He was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation in 1985, among numerous other such recognitions. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonsin WIKI].

'''Menem-Cavallo era''' 
President Menem had already privatized the state telecom concern and national airlines (the once-premier airline in Latin America, Aerolíneas Argentinas, which was later almost run into the ground). The stability Cavallo's plan helped bring about, however, opened prospects for more privatizations than ever. Going on to total over 200 state enterprises, these included the costly state railroads concern, the state oil monopoly YPF, several public utilities, two government television stations, 10,000 km (6000 mi) of roads, steel and petrochemical firms, grain elevators, hotels, subways and even racetracks. A panoply of provincial and municipal banks were sold to financial giants abroad (sometimes over the opposition of their respective governors and mayors) and, taking a page from Chile's successful experiment, the mandatory state pensions system was opened to choice through the authorization of for private pension schemes. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domingo_Cavallo#The_Menem_administration WIKI].

'''Law of the Father''' 
An important idea in the work of Jacques Lacan, which is relevant since Leopold is a Lacanian shrink. 
In 1897 Freud remarked, on the basis of his analysis of his first patients and his self-analysis, that "The father forbids the child from realizing its unconscious wish to sleep with his mother" (letter to Fliess, October 15, 1897). This first outline of the Oedipus complex, which now appears simplistic, grew increasingly complex throughout Freud's research. In time the Law of the Father turned out to be directed both toward the mother ("You will not reintegrate your product") as well as her offspring swept up by desire. The law is also accompanied by an injunction against cannibalism and murder, and hold up ideals, primarily sexual ones ("Later you will enjoy, like me, a woman from another family"). Once introjected, this becomes the origin of the superego and ego ideal. The repression of drives, their suppression and sublimation, are the principal outcomes of the conflict that connects them structurally to this law. [http://www.answers.com/topic/law-of-the-father]

Bear in mind, though, that the quoted material above applies to Freud's early biology-based thinking. Taking cues from Freud's later cultural/anthropological interests, Lacan maps Oedipus and ego development onto the structures of language ("The Unconscious is structured like [a] language.") and more or less replaces Freud's Id-Ego-Superego mechanics with his own Real-Imaginary-Symbolic orders as his go-to hermeneutic machine.

'''Villa Freud''' 
This is an actual neighborhood located within the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires known for "its high concentration of psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, hence its name." See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Freud#Palermo_Norte.2C_Alto_Palermo_and_Villa_Freud WIKI].

==Page 245==
'''Maybe not as bad as getting disappeared''' 
During the last military dictatorship in Argentina, from 1976 to 1983, around 30,000 people got disappeared by the state.

'''''loquesea''''' 
Whatevs.

==Page 246==
'''"What, excuse me, gives you authority here? What happens in your practice, when you want to save somebody but lose them instead?"''' 
Maxine is a Jewish Mother with an ''it's-complicated'' relationship with the Law, whether civil, financial or Lacanian. Is Pynchon giving us a version of Freud/Lacan from the Mother's point of view (who no one ever asks about all this desire and desired object michegas)? Is she condemned to Windust's attentions because she is the Mother? Is she condemned to reading Windust as an abducted little boy who's been shocked and awed into usefulness as an IMF thug? Is she any different in this regard than Frenesi Gates or Oedipa Maas? Is she really Naomi Klein? Stay tuned.

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 20

2015-04-14T16:20:19Z

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==Page 219==
'''a strip club called Joie de Beavre''' 
Rhyming pun on the french phrase joie de vivre, which is a feeling of happiness, joy, or excitement about life. [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/joie%20de%20vivre \ˌzhwä-də-ˈvēvrə\ is the pronunciation of the original phrase.] Joie de Beavre is slightly resonant with "Boyd Beaver," kazoo soloist from the first couple of pages of "The Crying of Lot 49." [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_1 PynchonWiki]. The word "Beavre" in the club's name is a reference to the word beaver, a slang term for vagina.

'''"Hi, I was told to see Stu Gotz?"''' 
Stu Gotz, the Italian-American running Joie de Beavre. Stugots is slang for male genitalia in many dialects in Southern Italy: 'stu cazzo', means "testicles," as in "a brassy pair".
It's also the name of Tony Soprano's boat. See [[g#gotz_stu|entry]].

'''a Vincente Minnelli set''' 
Vincente Minnelli (February 28, 1903 – July 25, 1986) was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as ''Meet Me in St. Louis'', ''The Band Wagon'', and ''An American in Paris''. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made many comedies and melodramas. He was married to Judy Garland from 1945 until 1951; they were the parents of Liza Minnelli. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincente_Minnelli WIKI].

''' "You want to audition, MILF night is Tuesdays,come back then."''' MILF per Wikipedia 'MILF, an acronym for "Mother/Mom/Mum I'd Like to F**k", is a colloquial term common in English and generally regarded as vulgar when spelled out. It denotes a female, usually several years older than the person using the term.[1]'. Thus, this is referring to Maxine's age relative to the average stripper.

==Page 220==
'''"Tuesday's my tupperware party"''' 
A reference to the first sentence in The Crying of Lot 49:

"One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary."

==Page 221==

'''except possibly "That's When I Reach for My Revolver."''' 
Perhaps because it's a cover, originally written and performed by Boston punk band Mission of Burma.

'''Male Gaze''' 
A reference to the Male Gaze in feminist theory. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaze#The_.22male_gaze.22_in_feminist_theory Wiki]

==Page 223==

'''floating into view printed on one face of a dodecahedron'''<br\>
like a Magic 8-Ball?

'''Champagne Lounge''' 
A champagne room (also called a champagne lounge, or champagne court) is a specialized VIP Room service offered by gentleman's clubs where a customer can purchase time (usually in half-hour increments) with an exotic dancer in a private room on the premises. Depending on the quality of the club, these rooms, which are typically away from the hustle and bustle of the main club, are generally well decorated and usually appointed with a private bar. Clubs sell champagne by the glass or by the bottle for both the dancer and the customer. Some clubs also offer a food and/or cigar service.

'''"can I help it if I like feet?"''' 
The footjob that follows on page 225 demonstrates, yet again, Pynchon's apparent foot fetish. In his second novel, ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (1966), in [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2 Chapter 2], there's Sick Dick and the Volkswagens' song "I Want To Kiss Your Feet." Pynchon also explores the foot fetish in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=F#footfetish ''Against the Day''].

==Page 225==
'''Eric, what's this, did you just...come on my feet?''' 
For mood music, they might been listening to that classic song by Sick Dick and the Volkswagens "I Want to Kiss Your Feet" from [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2 the first page of Chapter 2] of ''The Crying of Lot 49''.

'''Trojan Abstract Expressionist Collection''' 
Sadly, not real, but Trustex [http://www.condomdepot.com/product/detail.cfm/nid/201/pid/2359 banana] flavored ones do exist.

==Page 228==
'''Mothra''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra Mothra] and/or Godzilla make another appearance in a Pynchon work. Does anyone have a list of all the references?

''Well, there was a reference to goji berries a few pages back, and Gojira is Godzilla's real (Japanese) name''

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 20

2015-04-14T16:02:05Z

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==Page 219==
'''a strip club called Joie de Beavre''' 
Rhyming pun on the french phrase joie de vivre, which is a feeling of happiness, joy, or excitement about life. [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/joie%20de%20vivre \ˌzhwä-də-ˈvēvrə\ is the pronunciation of the original phrase.] Joie de Beavre is slightly resonant with "Boyd Beaver," kazoo soloist from the first couple of pages of "The Crying of Lot 49." [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_1 PynchonWiki]. The word "Beavre" in the club's name is a reference to the word beaver, a slang term for vagina.

'''"Hi, I was told to see Stu Gotz?"''' 
Stu Gotz, the Italian-American running Joie de Beavre. Stugots is slang for male genitalia in many dialects in Southern Italy: 'stu cazzo', means "testicles," as in "a brassy pair".
It's also the name of Tony Soprano's boat. See [[g#gotz_stu|entry]].

'''a Vincente Minnelli set''' 
Vincente Minnelli (February 28, 1903 – July 25, 1986) was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as ''Meet Me in St. Louis'', ''The Band Wagon'', and ''An American in Paris''. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made many comedies and melodramas. He was married to Judy Garland from 1945 until 1951; they were the parents of Liza Minnelli. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincente_Minnelli WIKI].

''' "You want to audition, MILF night is Tuesdays,come back then."''' MILF per Wikipedia 'MILF, an acronym for "Mother/Mom/Mum I'd Like to F**k", is a colloquial term common in English and generally regarded as vulgar when spelled out. It denotes a female, usually several years older than the person using the term.[1]'. Thus, this is referring to Maxine's age relative to the average stripper.

==Page 220==
'''"Tuesday's my tupperware party"''' 
A reference to the first sentence in The Crying of Lot 49:

"One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary."

==Page 221==

'''except possibly "That's When I Reach for My Revolver."''' 
Perhaps because it's a cover, originally written and performed by Boston punk band Mission of Burma.

==Page 223==

'''floating into view printed on one face of a dodecahedron'''<br\>
like a Magic 8-Ball?

'''Champagne Lounge''' 
A champagne room (also called a champagne lounge, or champagne court) is a specialized VIP Room service offered by gentleman's clubs where a customer can purchase time (usually in half-hour increments) with an exotic dancer in a private room on the premises. Depending on the quality of the club, these rooms, which are typically away from the hustle and bustle of the main club, are generally well decorated and usually appointed with a private bar. Clubs sell champagne by the glass or by the bottle for both the dancer and the customer. Some clubs also offer a food and/or cigar service.

'''"can I help it if I like feet?"''' 
The footjob that follows on page 225 demonstrates, yet again, Pynchon's apparent foot fetish. In his second novel, ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (1966), in [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2 Chapter 2], there's Sick Dick and the Volkswagens' song "I Want To Kiss Your Feet." Pynchon also explores the foot fetish in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=F#footfetish ''Against the Day''].

==Page 225==
'''Eric, what's this, did you just...come on my feet?''' 
For mood music, they might been listening to that classic song by Sick Dick and the Volkswagens "I Want to Kiss Your Feet" from [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2 the first page of Chapter 2] of ''The Crying of Lot 49''.

'''Trojan Abstract Expressionist Collection''' 
Sadly, not real, but Trustex [http://www.condomdepot.com/product/detail.cfm/nid/201/pid/2359 banana] flavored ones do exist.

==Page 228==
'''Mothra''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra Mothra] and/or Godzilla make another appearance in a Pynchon work. Does anyone have a list of all the references?

''Well, there was a reference to goji berries a few pages back, and Gojira is Godzilla's real (Japanese) name''

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 20

2015-04-14T15:54:18Z

NOx404: /* Page 219 */ Took entries from duplicate page 219 and added them here in the correct order each entry appears in the novel's page. Edited the three entries for "Joie de Beavre" into one.

{{BE PxP Header}}

==Page 219==
'''a strip club called Joie de Beavre''' 
Rhyming pun on the french phrase joie de vivre, which is a feeling of happiness, joy, or excitement about life. [http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/joie%20de%20vivre \ˌzhwä-də-ˈvēvrə\ is the pronunciation of the original phrase.] Joie de Beavre is slightly resonant with "Boyd Beaver," kazoo soloist from the first couple of pages of "The Crying of Lot 49." [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_1 PynchonWiki]. The word "Beavre" in the club's name is a reference to the word beaver, a slang term for vagina.

'''"Hi, I was told to see Stu Gotz?"''' 
Stu Gotz, the Italian-American running Joie de Beavre. Stugots is slang for male genitalia in many dialects in Southern Italy: 'stu cazzo', means "testicles," as in "a brassy pair".
It's also the name of Tony Soprano's boat. See [[g#gotz_stu|entry]].

'''a Vincente Minnelli set''' 
Vincente Minnelli (February 28, 1903 – July 25, 1986) was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as ''Meet Me in St. Louis'', ''The Band Wagon'', and ''An American in Paris''. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made many comedies and melodramas. He was married to Judy Garland from 1945 until 1951; they were the parents of Liza Minnelli. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincente_Minnelli WIKI].

''' "You want to audition, MILF night is Tuesdays,come back then."''' MILF per Wikipedia 'MILF, an acronym for "Mother/Mom/Mum I'd Like to F**k", is a colloquial term common in English and generally regarded as vulgar when spelled out. It denotes a female, usually several years older than the person using the term.[1]'. Thus, this is referring to Maxine's age relative to the average stripper.

==Page 219==
'''"Hi, I was told to see Stu Gotz?"''' 
Stu Gotz, the Italian-American running Joie de Beavre. Stugots is slang for male genitalia in many dialects in Southern Italy: 'stu cazzo', means "testicles," as in "a brassy pair".
It's also the name of Tony Soprano's boat. See [[g#gotz_stu|entry]].

''' "You want to audition, MILF night is Tuesdays,come back then."''' MILF per Wikipedia 'MILF, an acronym for "Mother/Mom/Mum I'd Like to F**k", is a colloquial term common in English and generally regarded as vulgar when spelled out. It denotes a female, usually several years older than the person using the term.[1]'. Thus, this is referring to Maxine's age relative to the average stripper.

==Page 221==

'''except possibly "That's When I Reach for My Revolver."''' 
Perhaps because it's a cover, originally written and performed by Boston punk band Mission of Burma.

==Page 223==

'''floating into view printed on one face of a dodecahedron'''<br\>
like a Magic 8-Ball?

'''Champagne Lounge''' 
A champagne room (also called a champagne lounge, or champagne court) is a specialized VIP Room service offered by gentleman's clubs where a customer can purchase time (usually in half-hour increments) with an exotic dancer in a private room on the premises. Depending on the quality of the club, these rooms, which are typically away from the hustle and bustle of the main club, are generally well decorated and usually appointed with a private bar. Clubs sell champagne by the glass or by the bottle for both the dancer and the customer. Some clubs also offer a food and/or cigar service.

'''"can I help it if I like feet?"''' 
The footjob that follows on page 225 demonstrates, yet again, Pynchon's apparent foot fetish. In his second novel, ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (1966), in [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2 Chapter 2], there's Sick Dick and the Volkswagens' song "I Want To Kiss Your Feet." Pynchon also explores the foot fetish in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=F#footfetish ''Against the Day''].

==Page 225==
'''Eric, what's this, did you just...come on my feet?''' 
For mood music, they might been listening to that classic song by Sick Dick and the Volkswagens "I Want to Kiss Your Feet" from [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2 the first page of Chapter 2] of ''The Crying of Lot 49''.

'''Trojan Abstract Expressionist Collection''' 
Sadly, not real, but Trustex [http://www.condomdepot.com/product/detail.cfm/nid/201/pid/2359 banana] flavored ones do exist.

==Page 228==
'''Mothra''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothra Mothra] and/or Godzilla make another appearance in a Pynchon work. Does anyone have a list of all the references?

''Well, there was a reference to goji berries a few pages back, and Gojira is Godzilla's real (Japanese) name''

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}

Chapter 10

2015-03-05T21:48:33Z

NOx404: /* Page 102 */ Added an entry for Ted Bundy with explanation and link

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==Page 96==
[[Image:Vontz Center.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Vontz Center at the University of Cincinnati. Photo by Greg Hume.]]

'''Scott and Nutella Vontz Auditorium, whose architect owing to some sort of mental condition...''' 
This is a reference to the Vontz Center for Molecular Studies at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, designed by architect Frank Gehry. It's indeed an interesting structure.

'''''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 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPEG914GATk singing Nessun Dorma], Deanna Durbin [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inV3RlOTOXM singing Nessun Dorma]. Squillo "is a technical term attached to the resonant, trumpet-like sound in the voice of opera singers." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squillo Wikipedia]

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

The selection of Deanna Durbin as a contender for the "best" version of Nessun Dorma is bizarre: since Nessun Dorma is a tenor aria, Ms Durbin's version would be considered an aberration at worst and a novelty trick at best by most operagoers.

==Page 98==
'''it's Aretha Franklin, the time she filled in for Pavarotti at the Grammys back in '98''' 
Here's the performance right [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlNV6YkpXdo here].

'''prewar classic seven''' 
Prewar apartment with seven full rooms.

'''frosk''' 
Yiddish for "slap" or, more particularly, "a slap in the face."

'''''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". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_ghost_coast_to_coast 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Likud 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Manchu WIKI].

See also Darren's rap about "old movie confusions" on [[Chapter_26#Page_283|page 283]] where Warner Oland, who played Fu Manchu in the film franchise, is namechecked.

Just a coincidence that on page 9 of ''The Crying of Lot 49'' Fu-Manchu makes an appearance on the face of an impersonating Dr. Hilarius as a treatment for hysterical blindness?

'''Soutine''' 
Website [http://www.soutine.com/ 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenox_Hill_Hospital WIKI].

==Page 100==
'''Tosca''' 
Another opera reference. The villain in this opera is the chief of the secret police.

'''Domingo ... Behrens ... legendary''' 
March 1985; certainly legendary principals, and unique in that Ms Behrens gained her reputation based on her interpretations of the German repertoire, rarely venturing into Italian roles such as this one. But the New York Times's reviewer was unimpressed: [http://www.nytimes.com/1985/03/12/arts/opera-hildegard-behrens-sings-first-met-tosca.html]. You can decide for yourself: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpOMVVJoiqY] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1biCHLX7AYM]

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RICO 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''.

'''''The Day the Earth Stood Still''''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still Wiki.] (Sheer coincidence that Keanu Reeves, mentioned on [[#Page_89 page 89]], starred in the 2008 remake?)
[[File:Klaatu-Equation-Blackboard.jpg|thumb|caption|Klaatu correcting Barnhardt's equation|left|300px]]

'''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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Jaffe 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klaatu_%28The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still%29 WIKI].

==Page 101==
'''just as the covert federal shutter fell''' 
The way Pynchon describes the feds taking a picture of Ernie without his knowledge is consistent with Pynchon's dislike/distrust of cameras. Here his description seems to liken the camera's falling shutter (which, of course, doesn't actually "fall", rather it rotates and opens/closes) to an axe or guillotine, an assault. But it's in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Q-weapon_and_Photography ''Against the Day''] where Pynchon more fully expands on his suspicion of cameras, portraying the camera as ""A weapon based on Time [...] With a Time-weapon you could become the most feared person in history." [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_557-587#Page_558 ''Against the Day'', page 558].

'''the Hollywood Ten''' 
Folks in Hollywood blacklisted as said they were Communists. See the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Ten#The_Hollywood_Ten 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, also known as fragment 104(a):
<blockquote>
''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.</blockquote>

Hesperus is the planet Venus glowing in the evening sky. (The V. motif again!) Pynchon quotes this very poem in ''Mason & Dixon'', at [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_10:_94-104#Page_96 page 96].

'''Ted Bundy''' 
A notorious American serial killer and rapist known for abducting women in the 1970s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bundy Wikipedia.]

'''Strangers in the night, exchanging--''' 
From the song "Strangers in the Night" made famous by Frank Sinatra in 1966. The first verse goes:
<blockquote>
Strangers in the night exchanging glances 
Wondering in the night what were the chances 
We'd be sharing love before the night was through.
</blockquote>

==Page 103==
'''still believes the Rosenbergs were innocent''' 
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of espionage and executed in 1953. By 2001, revelations from the Venona Project indicating the guilt of Julius Rosenberg (but not Ethel) had been widely publicized, making Ernie's belief in their innocence even more of an old-Leftie-holdout position. See [http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venona_project#Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg%C3%B1ando WIKI].

'''La cibaeñа''' 
An entirely invented word. Perhaps some pun?

La cibaeñа is a girl or woman from the Dominican Republic region of Cibao.

'''catibias''' 
Dominican street food.

General Tso's catibias, going along with the restaurant's Chinese-Dominican fusion, would be a catibias, kind of like a small Dominican calzone, filled with General Tso's chicken or pork, a popular Chinese dish which mainly has to do with the sauce.

'''morir soñando''' 
Morir soñando (die dreaming) is a popular beverage of the Dominican Republic which has made its way to other Hispanic countries, usually made of orange juice, milk, cane sugar, and chopped ice. Sometimes vanilla extract is also added, or evaporated milk is used instead of regular milk. The recipe varies greatly depending on the region and family heritage. American observers have described the drink as resembling a Creamsicle. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morir_so%C3%B1ando WIKI].

==Page 104==

'''Promis''' 
An actual program with a history not different from what Windust describes, Mossad agents included. See the article by Michael Ruppert [http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/052401_promis.html Promis]

'''rugelach''' 
A Jewish pastry of Ashkenazic origin. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugelach WIKI].

==Page 105==

'''the Ofeq satellite''' 
Ofeq is the designation of a series of Israeli reconnaissance satellites first launched in 1988. Most Ofeq satellites have been carried on top of Shavit rockets from Palmachim Airbase in Israel, on the Mediterranean coast. The Low Earth Orbit satellites complete one earth orbit every 90 minutes. The satellite launches made Israel only the eighth nation to gain an indigenous launch capability. Both the satellites and the launchers were designed and manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) with Elbit Systems' El-Op division supplying the optical payload. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ofeq WIKI].

'''the Pollard case''' 
Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) is an American who passed classified information to Israel while working as an American civilian intelligence analyst. He pleaded guilty and received a life sentence in 1987. Because his crime occurred prior to November 1, 1987, he is eligible for parole, and may be released on November 21, 2015. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard WIKI].

'''Hertzliya''' 
The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya is a private university in Israel founded in 1994 by Uriel Reichman. IDC Herzliya is a non-profit corporate institution that receives no government subsidies. The goal is scholarship that goes hand in hand with social responsibility. Degrees granted by IDC Herzliya are accredited by the Israeli Council for Higher Education and are recognized worldwide. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzliya_Interdisciplinary_Center WIKI].

'''''sayanim''''' 
A sayanim is a Jew living outside Israel who volunteers to provide assistance to Israel and/or the Israeli Mossad utilising the capacity of their own nationality to procure assistance. This assistance includes facilitating medical care, money, logistics, and even overt intelligence gathering. Estimates put the number of sayanims in the hundreds of thousand. While not official Mossad agents and sometimes acting without explicit knowledge, they may work in the capacity of unregistered representatives of the government of Israel in their respective nations. From [http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Sayanim Meta].

'''No keystroke left behind''' 
A reference to the 2001 'No Child Left Behind' Act, the George W. Bush administration's education reform which essentially mandated that each state implement a standardized testing program. [http://www.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act Wikipedia]

==Page 106==
'''Politics & Prose''' 
Independent bookstore in Washington, D.C. Website [http://www.politics-prose.com/ here].

'''Big Ben theme''' 
as heard [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbq-1Dlu1Wc here].

'''Kozmo.com''' 
an actual delivery website, went out of business April 2001.

==Page 107==
'''Flyin Dutchmahn''' 
Another opera reference, this time to Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, about a Dutch sea captain, fated to sail the seas for eternity, or at least until he can find true love (which in the opera, he doesn't)

'''Duane Reade''' 
a chain of pharmacy and convenience stores, with locations seemingly everywhere in New York City.

==Page 108==

'''Bronx Science''' 
The Bronx High School of Science is a specialized New York City public high school often considered the premier science magnet school in the United States. Founded in 1938, it is now located in the Bedford Park section of the Bronx. Admission is by an exam open to all grade-eligible students in New York City, reportedly taken by more than 20,000 students annually. Although known for its focus on mathematics and science, Bronx Science also emphasizes the humanities and social sciences and continually attracts students with a wide variety of interests beyond math and science. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronx_Science WIKI].

[[File:Bombing of presidential palace in Chile.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Bombing of presidential palace in Chile on 11 September 1973]]

'''Santiago, Chile, on 11 September 1973''' 
The 11 September 1973 Chilean coup d'état was a watershed event in both the Cold War and the history of Chile. Following an extended period of social and political unrest between the conservative-dominated Congress of Chile and the socialist President Salvador Allende, as well as economic warfare ordered by U.S. President Richard Nixon, Allende was overthrown by the armed forces and national police. During the air raids and ground attacks that preceded the coup, Allende gave his last speech, in which he vowed to stay in the presidential palace, denouncing offers for safe passage should he choose exile over confrontation. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973 WIKI].

'''Dirty War''' 
The Dirty War (part of Operation Condor) was a period of state terrorism in Argentina against political dissidents, with military and security forces conducting urban and rural guerrilla warfare against left-wing guerrillas, political dissidents, and anyone believed to be associated with socialism. Victims of the violence included an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 left-wing activists and militants, including trade unionists, students, journalists, Marxists, Peronist guerrillas and alleged sympathizers. Some 10,000 of the "disappeared" were believed to be guerrillas of the Montoneros (MPM), and the Marxist People's Revolutionary Army (ERP). The guerrillas were responsible for causing at least 6,000 casualties among the military, police forces and civilian population according to a National Geographic Magazine article in the mid-1980s. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_war WIKI].

'''IMF''' 
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that was initiated in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference and formally created in 1945 by 29 member countries. The IMF's stated goal was to assist in the reconstruction of the world's international payment system post–World War II. Countries contribute money to a pool through a quota system from which countries with payment imbalances can borrow funds temporarily. Through this activity and others such as surveillance of its members' economies and the demand for self-correcting policies, the IMF works to improve the economies of its member countries. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMF WIKI].

==Page 109==
'''School of the Americas''' 
The US Army School of the Americas, is a United States Department of Defense Institute located at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia, that provides military training to government personnel of Latin American countries. The school was founded in 1946 and from 1961 was assigned the specific goal of teaching "anti-communist counterinsurgency training," a role which it would fulfill for the rest of the Cold War. In this period, it educated several Latin American dictators, generations of their military and, during the 1980s, included the uses of torture in its curriculum. In 2000/2001, the institute was renamed The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_of_the_americas WIKI].

'''Zermelo's Axiom of Choice''' 
In mathematics, the axiom of choice, or AC, is an axiom of set theory equivalent to the statement that "the product of a collection of non-empty sets is non-empty". The axiom of choice was formulated in 1904 by Ernst Zermelo in order to formalize his proof of the well-ordering theorem. For more detail see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_choice WIKI].

==Page 111==
'''United Fruit''' 
The United Fruit Company was an American corporation that traded in tropical fruit (primarily bananas) grown on Central and South American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 from the merger of Minor C. Keith's banana-trading concerns with Andrew W. Preston's Boston Fruit Company. It flourished in the early and mid-20th century and came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, Ecuador, and the West Indies. Though it competed with the Standard Fruit Company for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_fruit WIKI].

'''Kanjobal''' 
Mayan language spoken primarily in Guatemala and part of Mexico.

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==Page 88==
'''to ''chercher le geek''''' 
Likely an homage to detective pulp fiction. The phrase from which it derives, "cherchez la femme" ("look for the woman") has been around since at least the Dumas novel ''The Mohicans of Paris'' (1854) and has come to embody a cliché of detective pulp fiction: no matter what the problem, a woman is often the root cause. The phrase has come to refer to explanations that automatically find the same root cause, no matter the specifics of the problem. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherchez_la_femme Wikipedia]

"Chercher" is the infinitive of "look" and "cherchez" is the imperative form.

'''Manifested into Dorval''' 
One of those weird Pynchonian sentences that give translators headaches, this means that Maxine is listed as a passenger on the flight arriving at Dorval airport, i.e., is listed on the plane's manifest which Dorval has.

'''le tout Montreal''' 
All Montreal.

'''Boïngueaux''' 
pronounced "Boingo"

==Page 89==
'''NetNet''' 
Cute name. Aside from the being a universal nickname for the Internet, "net" is also common French for "clean". ("Nettoyer" = To clean).

'''enchantée''' 
One of the first phrases taught in (I think) almost every introductory French course is "Enchantée de faire votre connaissance", roughly "Delighted to make your acquaintance"

'''We're beyond good and evil here''' 
This is a reference to Friedrich Nietzsche's book Beyond Good and Evil (1886). Felix uses this reference to say he can do whatever he pleases.

'''...the evening movie on the Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network, whose film library contained every Keanu Reeves movie ever made, including, that night, Felix's personal favorite ''Johnny Mnemonic''.''' 
The APTN does actually have a week of Keanu Reeves films in the summer called Keanu! Movie Blitz (see commercial spot here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSbDDeA_WAA]). The network's somewhat mysterious devotion to Reeves may be a means of asssuring "Canadian" content since Reeves grew up in Toronto (though he was born in Beirut). Further, there may be some tenuous sense of aboriginal kinship (albeit non-North American) since KR does have some Hawaiiaan ancestry through his father (emphasized through his Hawaiiaan first name that means "cool breeze over mountains"). Notable films by Reeves up to this point, if I'm reading the time frame of the novel right, include ''Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Point Break, My Own Private Idaho, Dracula, Much Ado About Nothing, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Little Buddha, Speed,'' and, perhaps most significantly, ''The Matrix''. I'm not sure just what it means, but Felix preferring ''Johnny Mnemonic'' over ''Speed'' and ''The Matrix'' is surely saying something important him. Or maybe Pynchon is simply giving a friendly shout-out to William Gibson, writer of ''Johnny Mnemonic'' and he wanted to namedrop a film that has some resonance (see below) with his own novel.

'''Johnny Mnemonic''' 
Film based on a short story by William Gibson, who also wrote the screenplay. The plot is pretty apropos to ''Bleeding Edge''': "In 2021, Johnny (Keanu Reeves) is a "mnemonic courier" with a data storage device implanted in his brain, allowing him to discreetly carry information too sensitive to transfer across the Net, the virtual-reality equivalent of the Internet. " [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic_(film) Wikipedia]

==Page 91==
'''''Ayn al-hammam''''' 
Arabic: "Where are the toilets?"

==Page 92==

'''Psycho''' 
Another Hitchcock reference. Possible thread in the novel? Also, the scene in question is of a knifing, you know, a murder committed with a weapon that has an edge, as in a "bleeding edge." Just saying.

'''Basil St. John in the life of Brenda Starr''' 
''Brenda Starr, Reporter'' was a comic strip about a glamorous, adventurous female reporter. It was created in 1940 by Dale Messick for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate. In the story, her love interest was Basil St. John. They were married, had a child, then divorced. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Starr,_Reporter WIKI].

==Page 93==
'''chase around the world after black-orchid serum''' 
Another allusion to Basil St. John (see previous page), who was obsessed with black-orchid serum.

==Page 95==
'''Windows on the World''' 
A restaurant on the top floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, which, of course, was destroyed on 9/11.

'''"Like going to Collegiate"''' 
a private school in NYC which Pynchon's son attended.

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==Page 80==
'''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.”

==Page 81==
'''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." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala 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 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1A1vqmkftw trailer]

Is there any reason, other than a typo, that the film in "Bleeding Edge" is said to have come out in 1956? Wiki says it 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. [http://www.snopes.com/business/hidden/popcorn.asp Read more] about the famous hoax.

==Page 82==
'''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 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia WIKI].

==Page 83==

'''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." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria#Crime 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." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigeon_drop Wikipedia]

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

==Page 85==
'''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.

==Page 86==
'''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. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Coleman_Smith Wikipedia]
<blockquote>This deck is referenced heavily in ''Against the Day'', with it being a major plot feature for T.W.I.T.</blockquote>

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==Page 30==
'''Leuzinger High School''' 
Leuzinger High School is a public high school (9th through 12th grades) in Lawndale, California. It opened on January 27, 1931, with an enrollment of 268. It was named after Adolph Leuzinger in recognition of his 25 years of service on the Board of Trustees of the Inglewood Union High School District. The school is in the Centinela Valley Union High School District. As Leuzinger's first senior class graduated while the 1932 Summer Olympics were hosted in and around nearby Los Angeles, the school's mascot became the "Olympians". From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leuzinger_High_School WIKI]

==Page 31==
'''statues of the Buddha''' 
The Buddhas of Bamiwam were two 6th century statues of standing buddha carved into the side of a cliff that were destroyed in 2001. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamyan Wikipedia]

'''F#ckin rugriders''' 
a "rug rider" is a derogatory term for a person of Middle Eastern / East Indian descent (as in flying carpet).

'''if the Buddha's in your way . . . it's OK to kill him?''' 
A famous koan attributed to Zen Master Linji: "If you meet the Buddha, kill him."

'''"If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!"''' is also the title of a popular psychology book from the early 1970s, written by a man with the Pynchonesque sounding name of Sheldon P. Kopp.

'''Wahhabists''' 
Wahhabism is an ultra-conservative branch of Sunni Islam (though some people dispute that a Wahhabi is a Sunni). It is a religious movement among fundamentalist Islamic believers, with an aspiration to return to the earliest fundamental Islamic sources of the Quran and Hadith, with inspiration from the teachings of Medieval theologian Ibn Taymiyyah and early jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabists WIKI].

'''The Brady Bunch''' 
When someone once asked Pynchon's sister, "What's your brother likely to be doing right now?", she reportedly said "Watching The Brady Bunch." [http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/bio/influences.html Source] The episode where Jan gets a wig is titled "The New Jan Brady." It's also [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_17#Page_310 discussed] on ''Inherent Vice'' Wiki (page 310):

:"What kind of wig?"
:"Brunette, I think. She gets tired of being a blonde?"
:"Tell me about ''that''. Still not the same as changing your politics, I guess."

Here's the clip...
{{#ev:youtube|1Lg3OVrytOM}}

'''krav maga''' 
Krav Maga is a tactical martial system developed in Israel that consists of a wide combination of techniques sourced from boxing, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, Judo, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, and grappling, along with realistic fight training. Krav Maga is known for its focus on real-world situations and extremely efficient and brutal counter-attacks. It was derived from street-fighting skills developed by Slovakian-Israeli martial artist Imi Lichtenfeld, who made use of his training as a boxer and wrestler, as a means of defending the Jewish quarter against fascist groups in Bratislava in the mid-to-late 1930s. In the late 1940s, following his immigration to Israel, he began to provide lessons on combat training to what was to become the IDF, who went on to develop the system that became known as Krav Maga. It has since been refined for civilian, police and military applications. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_maga WIKI].

==Page 32==

'''Disrespect and The Contaminator''' 
Other superheroes invented by Pynchon include Fatal Four in ''Gravity's Rainbow''... any others?

'''krav maga... kidon''' 
a martial art developed in Israel. Kidon is the name of an alleged secret department within Israel's Mossad. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidon Wikipedia]

'''Emma Levin, who's rumored to be ex-Mossad.''' 
Surely an allusion to the NCIS character Ziva David, an ex-Mossad, deadly, female agent.

==Page 33==
'''Shabtai Shavit''' 
Shabtai Shavit was director general of the Mossad from 1989 to 1996. Shavit first joined the Israel Defense Forces, where he served in the Sayeret Matkal. From 1958 to 1959, he was military governor of the Southern Command. In 1964, he joined the Mossad, where he worked his way up to director general. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabtai_Shavit WIKI].

'''A store something like Fairway...''' 
Fairway Market is an American grocery chain. Founded in the 1930s, it is one of the United States' highest grossing food retailers per square foot with 14 million customers per year. Fairway has had significant store expansion in the New York area, with 13 locations in the tri-state area including 13 food markets and 3 wine and spirit shops. The flagship store still occupies the original Broadway location at West 74th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, with larger locations in Harlem; the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn; Paramus, New Jersey; Plainview, Long Island; Pelham Manor, New York; Stamford, Connecticut; and Woodland Park, New Jersey. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairway_Market WIKI].

'''Fresser''' 
Glutton (German and Yiddish)

==Page 34==
'''What Giuliani would call quality-of-life issues''' 
This being Spring 2001 it is the final days of the reign of Giuliani whose infamous application of "Broken Windows" theory of criminology still carries currency today.

For more information see Wikipedia "Broken windows theory" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory]

==Page 35==
'''what Bob Barker might call 'right'''' 
Bob Barker used to host a TV game show called ''The Price is Right''.

'''VC''' 
Venture Capitalist. Someone who has money to support new companies or projects.

==Page 36==

'''Professionally D and D''' <br\>
I'm sure the two Ds have something to do with non-disclosure, but this appears to be a pun on Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Maxine acts (or roleplays) in order to gain more information from Vyrva.

'''preempt''' <br\>
pre-emptive bid. Vyrva's company is presumably shopping itself around, planning to sell some or all of itself to the highest bidder. It looks like hashslingerz is hoping to avoid a competitive auction, and has made them a take-it-or-leave-it buyout offer for 100% of the company. This in turn would suggest that hashslingerz believes Vyrva's company has underestimated the true value of their software and hopes to do a deal for a price that seems generous but is actually a steal.

==Page 37==

'''IPO''' 
Initial Public Offering. Up to this point, Vyrva's company has been privately owned by the founders and probably a handful of investors or venture capitalists who have lent them money while they were developing their software. The IPO would sell a large fraction (usually more than half) of the company to the public, with the shares being traded on a stock exchange such as NASDAQ. This is usually a cash windfall for the original investors. "red herring" suggests that the management does not want to become public just yet, and has been circulating false rumors about an IPO, possibly to get a better deal for more private funding from the venture capialists and private investors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering

'''Beneish model''' 
A math model that identifies whether a company has manipulated its earnings using said company's financial statements.

'''tarball''' <br\>
a compressed archive containing all of the source code. Tar is the standard compression format for source code, rather than zip or rar. Often used in linux and other open source projects.

==Page 39==

'''…the Princess Diana Beanie Baby?''' 
Beanie Babies are a line of popular stuffed animals, made by Ty Warner Inc., which was later renamed as Ty Inc. in late 1993. Each toy has an inner "posable lining" and is stuffed with plastic pellets (or "beans") rather than conventional stuffing (see PVC and PE), giving Beanie Babies a flexible feel.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beanie_Babies

Diana, Princess of Wales died on August 31, 1997. Warner announced the Beanie Baby Princess on October 29, 1997 in honor of Princess Diana.[10] Warner said that all proceeds would be donated to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. The Princess Diana Beanie Baby was sent to vendors to distribute in the second week of December 1997. Some vendors had to wait until February 1998. Only 12 Beanie Baby Princesses were released to each vendor initially, but this changed due to strong demand.

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==Title==
"Bleeding Edge" has a number of meanings. See [[Bleeding Edge Title]]. The phrase first appears on pg. 78 "What's known as bleeding-edge technology. [...] No proven use, high risk, something only early-adoption addicts feel comfortable with."

==Cover==
The cover photograph is of a server farm. I found it [http://www.wallpapervortex.com/wallpaper-18727_miscellaneous_server_farm_at_night.html here]. It's entitled "Server Farm at Night." Note how the image also evokes the World Trade Center, and the cover of Pynchon's [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ''V.''] ...

More info at [[Bleeding Edge cover analysis]]

==Book jacket description==
Pynchon likely wrote [[Bleeding_Edge|the copy]] for the book jacket description of ''Bleeding Edge'' and he likely did the same for [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page ''Inherent Vice''].

==Epigraph==
This Westlake quote is in [http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/31/nyregion/they-love-new-york.html?src=pm&pagewanted=3 a ''New York Times'' article, dated October 31, 1999], about New York City. In the article, credit is given thus: "Tucker Coe (a.k.a. Donald E. Westlake writing about a cop, a brick wall and guilt. Out of print.)." So it's most likely from Westlake's (writing as Tucker Coe) "Mitch Tobin" series.

From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_E._Westlake Westlake's Wikipedia entry]:

:Tucker Coe: 5 mystery novels featuring the character of Mitch Tobin: ''Kinds of Love, 'Kinds of Death'', 1966; ''Murder Among Children'', 1967; ''Wax Apple'' and ''A Jade in Aries'', both 1970; ''Don't Lie to Me'', 1972.

From [http://www.mystericale.com/index.php?issue=104&body=file&file=like_em_tough.htm this website]:

:Donald Westlake adopted the pseudonym Tucker Coe for a series of five superb novels about guilt-ridden ex-cop Mitch Tobin, thrown off the NYPD after his partner was killed while Tobin was spending duty time enjoying the adulterous bed of a lady whose husband was in prison. Tobin's wife forgave the infidelity, but Tobin couldn't forgive himself. He spent his time in the backyard, slowly building a brick wall to keep out a world he no longer believed he had a place in. He supported himself and his family by taking on occasional investigations, but he does so with great reluctance. Slowly, though, the casework had the therapeutic effect of forcing him to come to terms with his guilt and deal with it. Tobin was introduced in ''Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death'' (Random, 1966). By his last appearance, ''Don't Lie to Me'' (Random, 1972), Tobin had obtained a P.I. license (thus making himself no longer eligible for consideration in this column), gotten a part-time job as a night security guard at an art museum, and was well on the way to psychological recovery. Largely on the strength of the Tobin series, Westlake was awarded the P.W.A. “Eye” award for Lifetime Achievement as a private eye writer.

Donald Westlake (1933-2008) was an American writer, with over a hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction or other genres.

In the below video (at :58), Donald Westlake refers to an "article" where one of the questions being asked was: "If New York City itself were a character itself in a mystery novel, what would that character be? And I said it wouldn't be the detective, because the detective cares who killed, and NY doesn't care. And it wouldn't be the murderer because the murderer has to care about someone he kills. So I think the character New York would be would be the enigmatic blond who knows the answer but isn't going to tell you."
{{#ev:youtube|p0ptliV4fzc}}

==Title Page==
'''Flatiron Building''' 
The title page feature a photograph of the Flatiron Building, a skyscraper in NYC. "The neighborhood around it is called the Flatiron District after its signature building, which has become an icon of New York City." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatiron_Building Wikipedia]

==Dedication==
Like ''Inherent Vice'' and ''Against the Day'', ''Bleeding Edge'' has no dedication. Pynchon dedicated three of his earlier novels to friends and family: ''Mason & Dixon'' ("For Melanie, and for Jackson"), ''Vineland'' ("For my mother and father"), and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' ("For Richard Fariña").

==Page 1==

'''"the first day of spring, 2001"''' 
three instances of beginnings: the first day, of spring (the season of beginning and renewal), of the new millennium.

'''"though some still have her in their system"''' 
the novel's first sentence invokes the topic of personal data held in various databases or systems.

'''Loeffler''' 
Literally translated from German, it means 'someone who eats with a spoon'. It is not an uncommon last name in Germany; it is also the German name of a bird, the Eurasian Spoonbill. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Spoonbill Wikipedia]

Loeffler is also the name of a German composer, Charles Martin Loeffler. Very interesting to note that the composer's father wrote journalism under the name 'Tornov' or 'Tornow' while the son sometimes used it as a middle name. [http://mldd.blogspot.com/2011/07/charles-martin-loeffler-150-years.html]

'''"walking her boys to school"''' 
This scene -- a parent walking children to school in the Upper West Side of New York City -- is, more than any of Pynchon's novels, evocative of what is reported of Pynchon's biography.
:This could be an early hint that the novel has a more autobiographical element than any of his previous works? [[User:Benvolio|Benvolio]] ([[User talk:Benvolio|talk]])

[[File:Callerypear.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Callery pear trees blooming in NYC, Creative Commons licensed photo from [http://www.flickr.com/photos/kamekame/5621004054/sizes/z/in/photostream/ here]]]'''

'''Callery Pear trees''' 
Planted extensively in NYC due to its fast-growing nature and tolerance of pollution and other extreme conditions. [http://www.centralparknyc.org/visit/trees-blooms/tree-database/callery-pear.html Central Park Conservancy] Their blooming is a first sign of spring.
:Much has been written on how Callery trees smell like semen. E.g., [http://www.theawl.com/2013/04/this-spring-new-york-city-smells-much-less-like-sperm article]

'''she drifts into a pick''' 
A "pick" is a basketball term. It refers to an offensive player blocking a defensive player.

==Page 2==

'''unsheltered''' 
a term meaning those homeless who sleep in such places as doorways and lobbies. "The word unhoused refers to that segment of a homeless community who do not have ordinary lawful access to buildings in which to sleep, as referred to in the HUD [United States Department of Housing and Urban Development] definition as persons occupying "place not designed for ... sleeping accommodation for human beings." "[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness#Unsheltered_or_unhoused_people Wikipedia]

added thought: Pynchon has tickled his creatures with Heideggerian thought throughout his writing. Unsheltered is not the "normal" way in which we describe our "homeless".

'''Razor scooters''' 
a popular brand of scooter, but note how the word "razor" echoes/evokes the title, ''Bleeding Edge''.

'''Otto Kugelblitz''' 
A fictitious character, i.e. no real person. Maybe Otto Rank [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Rank] was the blueprint for Otto Kugelblitz. 
German, "ball lightning". The Kugelblitz was also the name of a tank in WWII. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kugelblitz Wikipedia]
:Many references to Germany, German words, names and German history run throughout Pynchon's oeuvre, to the point where Pynchon scholar David Cowart posits that "Pynchon seems to have had a German period, a post-German period, and a neo-Continental or global period. During his German phase he produced his first three novels... His next work, the long-awaited Vineland, represents a new phase in which the almost obsessive attention to German more seems to have faded." ''Thomas Pynchon and the Dark Passages of History'' (2012), at p. 59. [[User:Benvolio|Benvolio]] ([[User talk:Benvolio|talk]])
:A character name Skip the sentient ball lightning appears in ''Against the Day. [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=S]

'''the human life span runs through varieties of mental disorder as understood in his day- the solipsism of infancy, the sexual hysterias of adolescence and enty-level adulthood, the paranoia of middle age, the dementia of late life... all working up to death, which at last turns out to be "sanity"''' 
I was irritated that Pychnon writes so early in this book that much about the theory of a fictitious psychonalayst. It seems to me that this theory may of further importance, i.e. could it be a kind of program for this novel? 
Solipsism > sexual hysteria > paranoia > dementia > deatch > sanity 

'''on a cross street ''Law & Order'' has so far managed not to film on''' 
''Law & Order'' was the longest running crime drama on TV. It ran for 20 seasons and filmed its episodes on the streets of New York City. Of course, this adds to building sense of paranoia and fear in this opening description.

'''Berggasse 19''' 
The address in Vienna where Freud lived. It is now the site of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud_Museum_%28Vienna%29 Sigmund Freud Museum].

==Page 3==
'''Vyrva''' 
The name sounds like the German word "Wirrwarr", meaning something like "muddle", "huddle", etc.

'''"Maxi, hi?'''" 
Vyrva speaks in uptalk, or phrasing statements like questions, a linguistic characteristic found (among other places) in Southern California, especially among so-called "Valley girls". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uptalk Wikipedia]

'''Pomona''' 
Pomona College, a prestigious, private liberal arts college in Southern California

==Page 4==

'''real-estate envy attack''' 
A combination of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_envy penis envy], which is one of Freud's theories, and a heart attack.

'''Maxine runs a small fraud-investigation agency''' 
"Fraud" sounds quite similar to the name of the psychologist "Freud" who was mentioned on the previous pages. So is Maxine perhaps a "Freud-investigator"? There are so many hints about Freud and psychonalasis already on these first pages, this is why I assume that psychonalaysis may be a kind of program for the novel (see comments about Otto Kugelblitz on page 2).
NB "Gravity's Rainbow" was about another school of psychology, the "behaviourism".

'''antennas for the unspoken''' 
Cf, a letter by Pynchon: "Given the British genius for coded utterance, this could all be about something else entirely, impossible on this side of the ocean to appreciate in any nuanced way..." [http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/08/thomas-pynchon-on-plagiarism.html Source] 
Also brings to mind ''Inherent Vice'''s protagonist, who claims "if acid tripping was good for anything, it helped tune you to different unlisted frequencies." [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_5 (62)] Another person whose profession affords them a kind of social ESP, it seems.

'''a dating service called Yenta Expresso''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yenta Yenta] is a Yiddish loanword which generally means a busybody or someone who spreads gossip. Given that it's seen in the name of a dating service, it's likely a reference to the musical/film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddler_on_the_Roof Fiddler on the Roof], where the village matchmaker's name is Yenta. Y'know, it's a shame real life could never be as hyper-referential as Pynchon's reality.

==Page 5==
'''"a whistle-blower at a snack food company over in Jersey which has been secretly negotiating with ex-employees of Krispy Kreme for the illegal purchase of top-secret temperature and humidity setting on the donut purveyor's "proof box," along with equally classified phototed of the donut extruder, which however now seem to be Polaroids of auto parts taken years ago in Queens, Photoshopped and whimsically at that." '''

Classic elements of Pynchon - paranoia, corporate espionage, classified recipes, prescient placement of scandal, and word play on breakfast and auto "donuts", along with pitting Jersey and Queens identities against one another, before finishing with a quaint throwback to the days and times when Photoshop was a more primitive tool.

Krispy Kreme is set to go public on NASDAQ only days from Maxine's message, and ironically centering around a company whose intellectual property (the recipes!) were bought and not developed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krispy_Kreme#History].

==Page 6==
'''the gates of Danbury''' 
a federal prison. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Correctional_Institution,_Danbury Wikipedia]

'''Crazy Eddie''' 
American electronics store famous for its radio and TV ads in the 60s and 70s, featuring the slogan, "his prices are insane". The T-shirt in question was designed by, of all people, Robert Crumb. The TV ads featured New York disc jockey Jerry Carroll as the pitchman. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crazyeddie.jpg Wikipedia]

[[File:Crazyeddieshirt.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Crazy Eddie T-Shirt, designed by the legendary Robert Crumb''']]

"Crazy Eddie" also features prominently in the science fiction novel ''The Mote In God's Eye'' by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle (1974), signifying both the point of insanity and the furthest known reaches of the universe as the author's aliens see it.

==Page 7==
'''as Britney always sez''' 
"Oops! I Did It Again" was a huge pop hit in 2000 for Britney Spears.

'''"Help Me Rhonda"''' 
1965 song by the Beach Boys. [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pynchon_and_Brian_Wilson Pynchon reportedly recommended] that Jules Siegel listen to the Beach Boys' ''Pet Sounds'', as recounted in Siegel's article, "Who is Thomas Pynchon, and Why Did He Take Off With My Wife" (1977). Pynchon mentions "Help Me Rhonda" and two other Beach Boys hits in ''Inherent Vice''. [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Songs_mentioned_in_Inherent_Vice]

{{Bleeding Edge PbP}}