Chapter 37

Page 408

hex thistle
Hex (hexidecimal) values are used to define colors in website coding and each hex value also has a corresponding descriptive name. There are 4 hex-colors called "thistle": #FFE1FF (Thistle 1), #EED2EE (Thistle 2), #CDB5CD (Thistle 3) and #8B7B8B (Thistle 4). Each of the previous values are colored their corresponding hex value. As you can see, "hex thistle" ranges from a bright to a dark lavender.

Page 409

she has 'loided her way in
To "loid" is to open (a locked door) by sliding a thin piece of celluloid or plastic between the door edge and doorframe to force open a spring lock.[1]

Page 410

De al-liga-tuh purse...
"The Lady with the Alligator Purse" is a nonsense skipping-rope rhyme with a number of variations on this version:

Miss Lucy had a baby,
His name was Tiny Tim.
She put him in the bathtub,
To see if he could swim.

He drank up all the water.
He ate up all the soap.
He tried to eat the bathtub,
But it wouldn't go down down his throat.

Miss Lucy called the doctor,
Miss Lucy called the nurse.
Miss Lucy called the lady
With the alligator alligator purse.

"Mumps," said the doctor.
"Measles," said the nurse.
"Hiccups," said the lady
With the alligator alligator purse.

Out went the doctor.
Out went the nurse.
Out went the lady
With the alligator alligator purse.

Page 412

one of those first-person-shooter kinds of towns
First-person shooter (FPS) is a video game genre centered on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through a first-person perspective; that is, the player experiences the action through the eyes of the protagonist. Wikipedia Pynchon obviously means that the town seems to be an infinite space.

a pillar of salt
"As soon as they had brought them out [of Sodom and Gomorrah], one of them said, 'Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain!' . . . But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt." (Genesis 19: 17-26)

Page 413

Back in Manhattan meatspace
Hmm. So does Maxine's return to meatspace begin here, or as Chapter 37 (page 408) begins, with her choosing the Walther PPK to take to where Windust is supposed to be?

At best, it's somewhat ambiguous, as the visit to "the place" where Windust is to be waiting is described in a quite surreal, over-the-top way, eg the Lady with the Alligator Purse, the possibly sentient dogs (shades of the Learnèd English Dog, on page 18 of Mason & Dixon), and so forth.

Although it seems that Maxine actually returns to meatspace beginning with Chapter 37, but I find the whole thing quite ambiguous.

Scooby Goes Latin! (1990)
This seems to be an invention of Pynchon, which leads to the great pun, "if it hadn't been for those Medellín kids!” instead of the usual "meddling kids."

Page 414

He's in the Duane Reade around the corner
Duane Reade Inc., a subsidiary of the Walgreen Company, is a chain of pharmacy and convenience stores, primarily located in New York City, known for its high volume small store layouts in densely populated Manhattan locations. The headquarters is located along Ninth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.[2]

Page 418

John Garfield
Real actor who made a fair number of appearances in Inherent Vice.

endless prosecution, cop cop cop
Ernie's railing about too many cop shows on TV echoes Doc Sportello's rant against TV cop shows on page 97 of Inherent Vice. Both characters lament the disappearance on TV of great Private Investigators and the emergence of heroic cops. In Inherent Vice, Doc sees it just beginning ("the tube is saturated with fuckin cop shows"). In Bleeding Edge Ernie is looking back to when Maxine and her sister were kids watching TV — which would be the early 1970s when Inherent Vice takes place — and he'd ground them if he caught them watching a "cop show."

Page 419

DARPAnet
Also mentioned on Page 54 of Inherent Vice.

Page 422

don't mourn, organize
Often (and incorrectly) cited as the last words of activist Joe Hill.