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Chapter 5

2026-04-12T20:46:58Z

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b: 80 - '''German-baroque''' 
The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep color, grandeur, and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. In Germany baroque style arrived as the counter-reformation.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Germany#Baroque]
Here is a Germany travel guide on Baroque German Cities [https://www.germany.travel/en/cities-culture/baroque-cities.html Baroque Cities]

b: 81 - '''Shattuck Avenue''' 
A major thoroughfare of the city of Berkeley and the University of California, Berkeley.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shattuck_Avenue]

a: 101, b: 81 - '''Plays of Ford, Webster, Tourneur and Wharfinger''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford_(dramatist) '''John Ford'''] is famous for [http://books.google.com/books?id=EgxYEemQXEsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Tis+pity+she%27s+a+whore&as_brr=1 '''''Tis pity she's a whore'''''], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Webster '''John Webster'''] wrote [http://books.google.com/books?id=sxdMAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA139&dq=The+Duchess+of+Malfi&as_brr=1 '''''The Duchess of Malfi'''''] and [http://www.enotes.com/literary-criticism/tourneur-cyril '''Cyril Tourneur'''] wrote [http://books.google.com/books?id=0vwkAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA241&dq=The+Atheist%27s+Tragedy&as_brr=1 '''''The Atheist's Tragedy'''''], while the [http://books.google.com/books?id=sxdMAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA335&dq=Revenger%27s+Tragedy&as_brr=1 '''''Revenger's Tragedy'''''] is ascribed to Tourneur with a great deal of controversy as regards authorship.

b: 81 - '''Quarto''' A format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produce eight book pages. Each printed page presents as one-fourth size of the full sheet. Establishes the time period of the "text".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarto]

b: 82 - '''Alexandrine''' 
A line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrine]

b: 82 - '''Folio''' 
A folio is made up of one or more full sheets of paper, on each of which four pages of text are printed, two on each side; each sheet is then folded once to produce two leaves. Each leaf of a folio book thus is one half the size of the original sheet. Ordinarily, additional printed folio sheets would be inserted inside one another to form a group or "gathering" of leaves prior to binding the book.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folio]

b: 82 - '''Whitechapel''' 
A East London, East End that has a long history. Whitechapel's spine is the old Roman Road, that ran from the Aldgate on London's Wall, to Colchester in Essex (Roman Britannia's first capital), and beyond. This road, which was later named the Great Essex Road, is now designated the A11. This historic route has the names Whitechapel High Street and Whitechapel Road as it passes through, or along the boundary, of Whitechapel. For many centuries travellers to and from London on this route were accommodated at the many coaching inns which lined Whitechapel High Street.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitechapel]

b: 82 - '''Wheeler Hall''' and '''Sather Gate''' 
Both of these national historical landmarks demonstrate Pynchon's eye for detail regarding location and setting. Wheeler Hall is in the Classical Revival style and named after Benjamin Ide Wheeler, philologist and university president.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler_Hall] Sather Gate, also in the Classical Revival Beaux-Arts style. The gate opens into the Sproul Plaza, the plaza where the busy protesting occurs.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sather_Gate]

b: 82 - '''a plaza teeming with...''' 
This is Sproul Plaza with a combination of a stairway that can be used as a large raised platform and a ready audience makes Upper Sproul Plaza a popular location for student protests, the first of which occurred in 1964 with the Free Speech Movement.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sproul_Plaza]

a: 103, b: 83 - '''FSM's, YAF's, VDC's''' 
Free Speech Movement, Young Americans for Freedom, and Vietnam Day Committee. The Free Speech Movement was a long-lasting protest on the University of California, Berkeley campus. It demanded that students be allowed to freely discuss the Vietnam War.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement] The Young Americans for Freedom was a conservative student coalition that supported Barry Goldwater in 1964. It was made up of conservatives and libertarians.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Americans_for_Freedom] The VDC was a coalition of left-wing political groups, student groups, labour organizations, and pacifist religions in America that opposed the Vietnam War. It was formed in Berkeley in 1965 and was active through the majority of the war. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Day_Committee]

a: 103, b: 83 - '''a national reflex to certain pathologies in high places only death had the power to cure''' 
Presumably, the McCarthy era, which only ended with McCarthy's death in 1957.

a: 103, b: 83 - '''Siwash''' 
A fictional college in stories by George Fitch (d. 1915), American author. Also, a small usually inland college that is notably provincial in outlook.

Also related to Native Americans?
:Since "Siwash" is here compared to Berkeley university, I'd say no. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]]

b: 83 - '''Hondas and Suzukis''' 
These Japanese motorcycles, which were flooding the market by the early 1960s, exemplify the beginning of the fall of American manufacturing. By 1964, Honda had become the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles.[https://www.bdhonda.com/about-us/honda-history] Meanwhile Suzuki had established a subsidiary in Los Angeles to produce motorcycles for US consumers.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki]

a: 104, b: 83 - '''Secretaries James and Foster and Senator Joseph''' 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Forrestal James Forrestal], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles John Foster Dulles], and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy Joseph McCarthy].

a: 104, b: 84 - '''a shirt on various Polynesian themes and dating from the Truman administration''' 
Recalls the shirt worn by Slothrop in Part 2 of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', even though that one was Hawaiian and worn a few months before Truman took office.

b: 84 - '''Watusi''' 
The Watusi is a solo dance that enjoyed brief popularity during the early 1960s. It was one of the most popular dance crazes of the 1960s in the United States.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watusi_(dance)] Nefastis probably watches American Bandstand, the popular music/dance show that aired on Saturday mornings. The show had recently (1963) moved to Los Angeles from Philadelphia.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bandstand]

b: 84 - '''simpatico''' 
Two definitions of simpatico, 1) having a compatible temperament or pleasing qualities; 2) compatible (with a person, thing, etc.). Which definition applies to Nefastis?[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/simpatico].

b: 84-85 - '''entropy''' 
This is the first mention of entropy in the book. Nefastis identifies two areas of entropy theory: thermodynamics and information theory. Entropy is a scientific concept that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the microscopic description of nature in statistical physics, and to the principles of information theory.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy] Nefastis finally describes it as a "figure of speech, ...a metaphor" which connects [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics thermodynamics] to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory information theory].

b: 84 - '''Maxwell's Demon''' 
Maxwell's demon is a thought experiment that appears to disprove the second law of thermodynamics. It was proposed by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1867.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon]

b: 85 - '''Yogi Bear''' 
Yogi Bear is an anthropomorphic animal character who has appeared in numerous comic books, animated television shows, and films. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Bear]

b: 85 - '''Magilla Gorilla''' 
Magilla Gorilla (voiced by Allan Melvin) is a fun-loving yet trouble-prone anthropomorphic Western gorilla who spends his time languishing in the front display window of Melvin Peebles' pet shop, eating bananas and being a drain on the shop's finances.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magilla_Gorilla]

b: 85 - '''Peter Potamus''' 
Peter Potamus is a purple animated hippopotamus that first appeared in the 1964–1966 animated television series The Peter Potamus Show, produced by Hanna-Barbera and first broadcast on September 16, 1964.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Potamus]

b: 88 - '''Wells Fargo''' 
Surviving the Panic of 1855 gave Wells Fargo two advantages. First, it faced virtually no competition in the banking and express business in California after the crisis; second, Wells Fargo attained a reputation for dependability and soundness. From 1855 through 1866, Wells Fargo expanded rapidly, becoming the West's all-purpose business, communications, and transportation agent.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_(1852%E2%80%931998)]

a: 110, b: 88 - '''Roos Atkins''' 
Chain of upscale men's clothing stores in San Francisco [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roos/Atkins]

b: 88 - '''North Beach''' 
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, the Financial District, and Russian Hill.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Beach,_San_Francisco]

b: 88 - '''cerise''' 
a deep, bright red color tinted with pink.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cerise]

b: 89 - '''Finocchio's''' 
Finocchio's Club was a former nightclub and bar in operation from 1936 to 1999 in North Beach, San Francisco, California.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finocchio%27s_Club] Finocchio, which is also a fennel called Florence fennel.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/finocchio], is a derogatory term for a homosexual man in Italian (“faggot”). This is what Oedipa has just thought, with reference to the bar The Greek Way: "not a fag joint, no." One page earlier, by contrast, with reference to the Trystero: "it survived today, in California, serving as a channel of communication for those of unorthodox sexual persuasion." This is therefore the main reference of the bar called Finocchio. Read about the origin of this insult directed at homosexuals and its connection with the fennel plant [https://www.gay.it/finocchio-ricchione-etimologia-insulti-contro-gay here]

a: 112, b: 90 - '''sinophile''' 
Someone fond of chinese culture. On occasion, the term is used to describe people who exhibit a sexual preference for Chinese or Asian partners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinophile] The character being referred to is John Nefastis, who likes to do it when "there is something about China" on TV.

b: 91 - '''Inamorati Anonymous''' 
A lover, a gallant [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inamorato#English] Anonymous alluding to Alcoholics Anonymous or other addiction recovery organizations. No meetings, just someone to help if they call a toll-free number. Much like the black musician in "A Secret Integration" from ''Slow Learner''.

b: 92 - '''The Stack''' 
The Stack interchange involved a complex set of exit and entry ramps of 3, 4 and even 5 levels built around the country.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_interchange] The first stack interchange was the Four Level Interchange (renamed the Bill Keene Memorial Interchange), built in Los Angeles, California, and completed in 1949, at the junction of US Route 101 (US 101) and State Route 110 (SR 110).[https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/l-a-s-famous-four-level-freeway-interchange-the-stack-turns-58]

b: 92 - '''taking his Brody''' 
Generally spelled Brodie, after Steve Brodie, who claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived. The phrase became vernacular for suicide attempts or taking great risks. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Brodie_(bridge_jumper)]

b: 92 - '''Bhuddist Monk in Vietnam who set himself on fire''' 
This would be Thích Quảng Đức who was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who died by self-immolation at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c]

b: 92 - '''Groovy''' 
Opposite of square. Groovy is originally an expression from jazz, meaning musical, playable, as in a groovy record. The groove of the record has beat and soul. Something or someone groovy has beat and soul. The term was adopted by the musically inclined countercultures of beatniks and hippies. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=groovy] Hardly a term to describe the self-immolation, nor does it seem typical of a military industrial corporation mid-level executive.

b: 92 - '''Buick''' 
One of the oldest automobile companies still in operation. In the sixties they would have been a typical car for a mid-level executive. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick#1960s]

b: 92 - '''Zachary All suit''' 
Zachary All Clothing on Wilshire Boulevard provided inexpensive suits with salesmen who were professional tailors. [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-the-amazing-story/145835993/] The owner of the store was Edward Nalbandian, a local, Armenian-American businessman who made commercials that included such lines as "Eddie, are you joking? No, I am not joking." which inspired a song by Frank Zappa. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Nalbandian]

b: 93 - '''Zippo''' 
A Zippo lighter is a reusable metal lighter produced by Zippo Manufacturing Company of Bradford, Pennsylvania, United States. In ''Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans'' (1984), describe the use of Zippo lighters in search and destroy missions during the Vietnam War. Edwards stated: "when you say level a village, you don't use torches. It's not like in the 1800s. You used a Zippo." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippo]

b: 93 - '''hedgerows of Normandy''' 
Normandy was the scene of furious fights several weeks after June 6, 1944. After the battle of the beaches, what historians today commonly call the “hedge war” begins with reference to the particular nature of the terrain on which To evolve the belligerent forces. The hedge warfare, also known as the “bocage”, began as early as the day after D-Day and ended at the end of August 1944, when the Allied troops ended up liberating most part of the present-day Basse-Normandie.[https://www.dday-overlord.com/en/battle-of-normandy/tactics/hedgerow-warfare]

b: 93 - '''the Ardennes''' 
The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, extending into Germany and France. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardennes] It was the setting for the Battle of the Bulge after the Normandy landing. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge] By identifying Normandy, Ardennes and Germany, Pynchon shows the executive and founder of IA to have been involved in the European front through the end of WWII. He obviously had seen his share of combat.

b: 93 - '''efficiency expert''' 
An efficiency expert consults with a company to find redundancies and inefficiencies. [https://ecminstitute.com/cee-certified-efficiency-expert/] There is an Edgar Rice Boroughs book titled ''The Efficiency Expert''' written in 1921. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Efficiency_Expert_(novel)]

a: 115, b: 93 - '''IBM 7094''' 
At the time of publishing, this was the top-of-the-line computer. One of those HUGE room sized ones.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7090#IBM_7094]

b: 94 - '''Chinatown''' 
The Chinatown in San Francisco is one of the largest in North America and the oldest north of Mexico. It served as a port of entry for early Chinese immigrants from the 1850s to the 1900s. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown#outsideofasia]

b: 94 - '''herbalist''' 
A Chinese herbalist would use Chinese herbology, the theory of traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_herbology]

b: 94 - '''ideographs''' 
Pynchon uses "ideographs" to describe Chinese characters, which are actually logographs. Chinese characters[a] are used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Chinese characters have a documented history spanning over three millennia, representing one of the four independent inventions of writing accepted by scholars; of these, they comprise the only writing system continuously used since its invention. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters]

b: 95 - '''sonorous''' 
Full of sound and rich, as in language or verse. [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sonorous]

b: 96 - '''Golden Gate Park''' 
Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond and Sunset districts of San Francisco, United States. It is the largest park in the city, containing 1,017 acres (412 ha), and the third-most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 24 million visitors annually. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Park]

a: 119, b: 96 - '''Jesus Arrabal''' 
[http://tinyurl.com/37pbq5 '''''Jesus Arrabal''''] conflates [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus '''''Jesus''''] a word, generally fixed in meaning as the figure at the Center of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity '''''Christianity'''''], [and also a common [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10673c.htm '''''Christian Name'''''] in Catholic Latin American], with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_influence_on_Spanish '''''Arrabal'''''] a Spanish word that grew from Arab roots, arrabal (suburb - al-rabad). The word changed in meaning over time to include the suburbs, the outlands, and the slums, all zones of exclusion. The word [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Arrabal '''''Arrabal'''''] as a proper name leads us to Fernando Arrabal, noted playwright working in the Theater of the Absurd.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Arrabal] It may also refer to James Jesus Angleton, a high-ranking CIA official who led Operation Chaos against domestic dissidents.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jesus_Angleton] Finally, spoken aloud it sounds like '''Jesus 'orrible'''. See '''a: 129, b: 105 - '''high magic to low puns''', below.

a: 119, b: 96 - '''Conjuración de los Insurgentes Anarquistas''' 
A fictional Anarchist organization with the acronym [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency '''C.I.A.'''], a pun that serves to remind us once again of the secretive intelligence organization. [http://www.answers.com/topic/conspiracy?cat=biz-fin '''Conjuración'''] is both conjuration and conspiracy, so it is both a Conspiracy of Insurgent Anarchists and a Conjuration of Insurgent Anarchists. As in both [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth '''''Pan's Labyrinth'''''] and [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page '''''Against the Day'''''] there is an Anarchist/Magical co-conspiracy.

a: 119, b: 96 - '''Flores Magon brothers''' 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Flores_Mag%C3%B3n Ricardo], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jes%C3%BAs_Flores_Mag%C3%B3n Jesús] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Flores_Mag%C3%B3n Enrique] Flores Magón led anarchist movements in Mexico in the early 1900's. Magonism (Spanish: Magonismo) is an anarchist, or more precisely anarcho-communist, school of thought precursor of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. It is mainly based on the ideas of Ricardo Flores Magón, his brothers Enrique and Jesús, and also other collaborators of the Mexican newspaper [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneraci%C3%B3n Regeneración].[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magonism]

a: 119, b: 96 - '''Zapata''' 
Emiliano Zapata was another Mexican revolutionary in the early 1900's.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emiliano_Zapata]

b: 97 - '''yucateco''' 
A member of the Mayan people of the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.[https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/Yucateco]

b: 97 - '''oligarchist''' 
Jesús means oligarch, a member of the elite of an oligarchy, which is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, religious, political, or military control.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy]

b: 97 - '''pobrecito''' 
Jesús refers to Pierce as pobrecito, a Spanish word that translates to "poor, little thing." With the exclamation pobrecito, Jesús is referring to Pierce and the news of his death. If he were referring to Oedipa, he would instead say pobrecita (feminine form). This is, of course, interesting given the relationship between the two. 

b: 97 - '''Bakunin''' 
Mikhail Bakunin was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, social anarchist,[5] and collectivist anarchist traditions. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin] Bakunin elaborates on his definition of miracles in "God and the State".[http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bakunin/godandstate/godandstate_ch1.html]

b: 97 - '''cataclysm''' 
Jesús explains that when two different worlds collide, they create a cataclysm. This is how he feels about his meeting with Pierce. A cataclysm is a sudden, violent event, often geological.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cataclysm]

b: 97 - '''señá''' 
Jesús says "And yet, señá, if any of it should ever really ahppen that perfectly, I would aalso have to cry miracle. Jesús appears to claim that he is giving Oedipa a hint, clue or point in the right direction. [https://m.interglot.com/es/en/se%C3%B1%C3%A1]

b: 97 - '''privilegiado''' 
Jesús refers to the privileged class in Mexico, which he still considered to be humble on some level, unlike Pierce.[https://translate.google.com/details?sl=es&tl=en&text=privilegiado&op=translate]

b: 97 - '''a Virgin appearing to an Indian''' 
Jesús probably means Juan Diego, an Aztec, and Our Lady of Guadelupe.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe] Jesús uses this as an example of his definition of "miracle". [https://www.terraamericanart.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/MySymbolsMyIdentity_VirgenHandout.pdf]

b: 98 - '''priistas''' 
Members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Institucional or PRI): a Mexican political party. It was formed in 1929 and was the dominant political party for much of the 20th century.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Revolutionary_Party]

b: 98 - '''Anarcho-syndicalism''' 
is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence in broader society.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism]

b: 98 - '''Regeneración''' 
Here are some examples of the Mexican anarcho-syndicalist newspaper, but from 1913-1915.[https://californiarevealed.org/search?search_api_fulltext=Regeneracion&op=Search]

b: 98 - '''Negroes''' 
In the English language, the term negro (or sometimes negress for a female) is a term historically used to refer to people of Black African heritage. The term negro means the color black in Spanish and Portuguese (from Latin niger), where English took it from.[1] The term can be viewed as offensive, inoffensive, or completely neutral, largely depending on the region or country where it is used, as well as the time period and context in which it is applied. It has various equivalents in other languages of Europe. Pynchon's use of the term timestamps the book in the early sixties, as the terms "black" and "African-American" haven't entered the American vernacular.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro]

b: 98 - '''Fillmore''' 
The Fillmore District is a historical neighborhood in San Francisco located to the southwest of Nob Hill, west of Market Street and north of the Mission District.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillmore_District,_San_Francisco] It would be an interesting exercise to map Oedipa's route through the Bay area.

b: 99 - '''transistor radio''' 
A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Following the invention of the transistor in 1947—which revolutionized the field of consumer electronics by introducing small but powerful, convenient hand-held devices—the Regency TR-1 was released in 1954 becoming the first commercial transistor radio.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio] Another timestamp for the book.

b: 99 - '''Top 200''' 
On August 4, 1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart: the Hot 100, with "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson its first No. 1. The Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13, 1958.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_100] Pynchon probably exaggerates the number by doubling it to emphasize the low popularity of the songs.

b: 99 - '''Out at the airport''' 
San Francisco International Airport is the primary international airport serving the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is located in San Mateo County. As Oedipa walks around the airport this is another pre-9-11 timestamp when people could wander the airport without security checks.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_International_Airport]

b: 99 - '''Alameda County''' 
Alameda County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353,[4][6] making it the 7th-most populous county in the state[7] and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland.[8] Alameda County is in the San Francisco Bay Area, occupying much of the East Bay region.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alameda_County,_California]

b: 100 - '''Marbling''' 
Marbling (intramuscular fat) is the intermingling or dispersion of fat within the lean. Graders evaluate the amount and distribution of marbling in the ribeye muscle at the cut surface after the carcass has been ribbed between the 12th and 13th ribs. Degree of marbling is the primary determination of quality grade.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbled_meat]

b: 100 - '''Interregnum''' 
An intermission in any order of succession; any breach of continuity in action or influence. This is usually associated with the change in a leadership role, king, president, etc.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/interregnum]

a: 125, b: 101 - '''jitney''' 
A type of taxi, but with a regular route, that stops at any point along the way that you want. It is also shared with other riders. Jitneys are run, usually, entrepreneurially and often unlicensed. A kind of off-the-grid "taxi".[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jitney][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi#Jitney]

b: 101 - '''Howard Street''' 
Howard Street is a street in San Francisco's South of Market District (SoMa). It begins after branching off from Van Ness Avenue near the Mission District, and then runs parallel to and between of Mission Street (to the North) and Folsom Street (to the South) towards The Embarcadero.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Street_(San_Francisco)]

b: 101 - '''The Embarcadero''' 
(Spanish for "Embarkment") is the eastern waterfront of Port of San Francisco and a major roadway in San Francisco, California. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarcadero_(San_Francisco)]

b: 102 - '''Fresno''' 
Fresno (Spanish for 'Ash') is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. This is where the sailor says his wife lives. Interesting that she lives in an inland city rather than on the coast.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno,_California]

b: 102 - '''flinders''' 
fragments, splinters [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flinders]

b: 103 - '''Homburg hat''' 
A homburg is a semi-formal hat of fur felt, characterized by a single dent running down the centre of the crown (called a "gutter crown"), a wide silk grosgrain hatband ribbon, a flat brim shaped in a "pencil curl", and a ribbon-bound trim about the edge of the brim. It is traditionally offered in black or grey.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homburg_hat]

b: 103 - '''beaverboard partitions''' 
Beaverboard (also beaver board) is a fiberboard building material, formed of wood fibre compressed into sheets.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaverboard]

b: 103 - '''picture of a saint''' 
The saint who changes water into oil for the lamps in Jerusalem is Saint Narcissus. This links back to chapter 2 and San Narciso.[https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-narcissus-of-jerusalem/#:~:text=Saint%20Narcissus%20of%20Jerusalem's%20Story&text=The%20miracle%20for%20which%20Narcissus,in%20the%20late%20second%20century.] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_of_Jerusalem]

b: 103 - '''Roos/Atkins suit'''
Roos/Atkins was the name of a chain of upscale men's clothing stores based in San Francisco, California. It was formed through a 1957 merger of the Robert Atkins and Roos Brothers clothiers. The chain expanded after World War II to include several locations throughout northern California, but declined in the 1980s; by the early 1990s all locations had been closed or sold to other retailers.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roos/Atkins]

b: 104 - '''Ramírez''' 
Ramírez is a Spanish-language patronymic surname of Germanic origin, meaning "son of Ramiro".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%ADrez_(surname)]

b: 104 - '''Viking's funeral''' 
A Viking would be buried in a ship, usually burned at the site along with his possessions.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_funeral#shipburials] This alludes to Beowolf's ending as well.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf]

b: 104 - '''DT's delirium tremens''' 
Delirium tremens (DTs; lit. 'mental disturbance with shaking') is a rapid onset of confusion usually caused by withdrawal from alcohol. When it occurs, it is often three days into the withdrawal symptoms and lasts for two to three days. Physical effects may include shaking, shivering, irregular heart rate, and sweating.[1] People may also hallucinate. Occasionally, a very high body temperature or seizures (colloquially known as "rum fits") may result in death.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_tremens]

a: 129, b: 105 - '''time differential (dt)'''
A derivative of a variable or function with respect to time.[https://www.oed.com/dictionary/time-differential_n?tab=meaning_and_use]
(mathematics, calculus) A derivative of a function with respect to time, usually interpreted as the rate of change of the value of the function.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/time_derivative#English]

a: 129, b: 105 - '''high magic to low puns''' 

see [[High_Magic_to_low_Puns|'''High Magic to Low Puns''']]

a: 129, b: 105 - '''spectra''' 
Plural of spectrum. a continuous, infinite, one-dimensional set, possibly bounded by extremes. Has other mathematical definitions.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spectrum#English]

b: 106 - '''Market Street''' 
Market Street is a major thoroughfare in San Francisco, California. It begins at The Embarcadero in front of the Ferry Building at the northeastern edge of the city and runs southwest through downtown, passing the Civic Center and the Castro District, to the intersection with Portola Drive in the Twin Peaks neighborhood.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Street_(San_Francisco)]

b: 106 - '''City Hall''' 
San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_City_Hall]

b: 106 - '''Civic Center''' 
The Civic Center in San Francisco, California, is an area located a few blocks north of the intersection of Market Street and Van Ness Avenue that contains many of the city's largest government and cultural institutions.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_Center,_San_Francisco]

b: 106 - '''trans-bay bus terminal''' 
The San Francisco Transbay Terminal was a transportation complex in San Francisco, California, United States, roughly in the center of the rectangle bounded north–south by Mission Street and Howard Street, and east–west by Beale Street and 2nd Street in the South of Market area of the city. It closed on August 7, 2010, to make way for the construction of the replacement facility, the Transbay Transit Center, and associated towers.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Transbay_Terminal]

b: 106 - '''Oakland''' 
Oakland is a city in the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_California]

b: 106 - '''Telegraph''' 
Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California. It is approximately 4.5 miles (7.2 km) in length.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph_Avenue]

b: 106 - '''Berkeley''' 
Berkeley is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,_California]

b: 107 - '''Harris tweed coat''' 
Harris tweed (Scottish Gaelic: Clò mór or Clò hearach) is a tweed cloth that is handwoven by islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides. This definition, quality standards and protection of the Harris tweed name are enshrined in the Harris Tweed Act 1993.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_tweed]

b: 107 - '''waltz''' 
The waltz (from German Walzer [ˈvalt͡sɐ̯]), meaning "to roll or revolve")[1] is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple (3/4 time), performed primarily in closed position.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz]

b: 107 - '''tango''' 
Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Argentine Milonga, Spanish-Cuban Habanera, and Uruguayan Candombe celebrations. In tango, the steps are typically more gliding, but can vary widely in timing, speed, and character, and follow no single specific rhythm. Because the dance is led and followed at the level of individual steps, these variations can occur from one step to the next. This allows the dancers to vary the dance from moment to moment to match the music (which often has both legato and/or staccato elements) and their mood.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tango]

b: 107 - '''two-step''' 
A two-step consists of two steps in approximately the same direction onto the same foot, separated by a joining or uniting step with the other foot. For example, a right two-step forward is a forward step onto the right foot, a closing step with the left foot, and a forward step onto the right foot. The closing step may be done directly beside the other foot, or obliquely beside, or even crossed, as long as the closing foot does not go past the other foot.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-step_(dance_move)] Or maybe they were dancing the country-western swing two-step. The country/western two-step, often called the Texas two-step or simply the two-step, is a country/western dance usually danced to country music in common time.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country-western_two-step]

b: 107 - '''bossa nova''' 
Bossa nova was also a fad dance that corresponded to the music. It was introduced in the late 1950s and faded out in the mid-sixties. A variant of basic 8-beat pattern was: "step forward, tap, step back, step together, repeat from the opposite foot".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bossa_nova#dance]

b: 107 - '''slop''' 
Probably not what Pynchon intended, but it is interesting that slop is an acronym for Strategic lateral offset procedure (SLOP), which is a solution to a byproduct of increased navigation accuracy in aircraft. Because most now use GPS, aircraft track flight routes with extremely high accuracy. As a result, if an error in height occurs, there is a much higher chance of collision. SLOP allows aircraft to offset the centreline of an airway or flight route by a small amount, normally to the right, so that collision with opposite direction aircraft becomes unlikely.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lateral_offset_procedure]

a: 132, b: 107 - '''Oedipa checked out of the hotel and drove down the peninsula''' 
This may be a continuity goof by Pynchon. "in chapter 5, Oedipa parks her car in San Francisco's North Beach, then spends the night wandering through the Bay Area on foot and by bus, ending up the next morning at her hotel in Berkeley; after a short sleep she "check out of the hotel and drove down the peninsula." How did her car get from San Francisco to Berkeley?" Edward Mendelson, "Gravity's Encyclopedia," fn. 12.

[[Image:airmail.png|thumb|150px|right|8 cent Airmail stamp]]

b: 108 - '''Gewehr 43''' 
The Gewehr 43 or Karabiner 43 (abbreviated G43, K43, Gew 43, Kar 43) is a 7.92×57mm Mauser caliber semi-automatic rifle developed by Germany during World War II.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gewehr_43] The rifle used a 7.92x57mm Mauser round, which Hilarius complains are defective.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.92%C3%9757mm_Mauser]

b: 109 - '''PBX''' 
A PBX is a telephone exchange or switching system that serves a private organization. A PBX permits the sharing of central office trunks between internally installed telephones, and provides intercommunication between those internal telephones within the organization without the use of external lines.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_telephone_system#Private_branch_exchange]

b: 109 - '''hipshot''' 
(US, colloquial) Standing with one hip lower than the other.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hipshot]

b: 109 - '''Speer and his ministry of cretins''' 
Albert Speer was Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich and Hitler's chief architect. Despite doubts about his credibility, at the Nuremberg trials, he was the only defendant to accept responsibility for his involvement with the Nazi regime, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while many of his colleagues were executed.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer]

b: 109 - '''karate-chop'''
A strike with the bottom side of an open hand.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/karate_chop] Some interesting examples in the Urban Dictionary.[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Karate%20Chop]

b: 109 - '''Freudian''' 
Hilarius means that he follows Sigmund Freud, who was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud] This method establishes an important theme in the book.

b: 109 - '''cantankerous''' 
Given to or marked by an ill-tempered, quarrelsome nature; ill-tempered, cranky, crabby. Cantankerous is generally used to describe an unpleasant elderly person in a slightly pejorative manner.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cantankerous]

b: 109 - '''Jew''' 
The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎, Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation: [jehuˈdim]) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East, and whose traditional religion is Judaism.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews] Preceded by cantankerous and spoken by a Nazi war criminal, this is used pejoratively by Hilarius.

b: 109 - '''nicht wahr''' 
German: not true? : isn't that so?[https://translate.google.com/details?sl=auto&tl=en&text=nicht%20wahr&op=translate]

b: 109 - '''penance''' 
A voluntary self-imposed punishment for a sinful act or wrongdoing. It may be intended to serve as reparation for the act.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/penance]

b: 110 - '''Biedermeyer furniture''' 
The term derives from the fictional mediocre poet Gottlieb Biedermaier [sic], who featured in the Munich magazine Fliegende Blätter (Flying Leaves). It is used mostly to denote the unchallenging artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design. Biedermeier has influenced later styles.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biedermeier]

b: 110 - '''slide whistle''' 
A slide whistle (variously known as a swanee or swannee whistle, lotus flute, piston flute, or jazz flute) is a wind instrument consisting of a fipple like a recorder's and a tube with a piston in it.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_whistle] Usually a children's toy, this makes for a derogatory image of a siren, silly at the least.

b: 110 - '''Your Israeli''' 
Obviously referring to citizens of the state of Israel, officially the State of Israel,[b] is a country in the Southern Levant, West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon and Syria to the north, the West Bank and Jordan to the east, Egypt, the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel] Hilarius' paranoia runs deep for reasons soon discovered.

b: 110 - '''Zvi''' 
Zvi (Hebrew: צְבִי and צבי‎, Tzvi, Ṣvi, "gazelle") is a Jewish masculine given name.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvi]

b: 110 - '''oubliette''' 
A dungeon only accessible by a trapdoor at the top.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oubliette] Quite a face!!

b: 111 - '''sling arms''' 
Here is an Army drill sergeant training [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THZQsSE_Oz0 video] to show how it is done. There are so many military terms that both the narrator (understandable) and Oedipa (not clear why she knows and uses these terms) use.

b: 111 - '''reality principle''' 
In Freudian psychology and psychoanalysis, the reality principle is the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly, as opposed to acting according to the pleasure principle. The reality principle is the governing principle of the actions taken by the ego, after its slow development from a "pleasure-ego" into a "reality-ego".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_principle]

b: 111 - '''Buchenwald''' 
Buchenwald (German pronunciation: [ˈbuːxn̩valt]; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg [de] hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich. Many actual or suspected communists were among the first internees.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchenwald_concentration_camp]

b: 112 - '''Eichmann'''
The Eichmann trial was the 1961 trial in Israel of major Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann who was captured in Argentina by Israeli agents and brought to Israel to stand trial.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_trial] Adolf Eichmann had been in charge of the "Final Solution".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann]

b: 112 - '''catatonic''' 
having a tendency to remain in a rigid state of stupor for long periods which give way to short periods of extreme agitation.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/catatonic]

b: 112 - '''liberal SS circles''' 
The dark humor of imagining "liberal" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel SS] circles may be lost in the modern U.S., but the definition of liberal as one with liberal views, supporting individual liberty[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liberal] seems to fit, especially as in the 1960s, there were actual liberal Republicans represented by Rockefeller Republicans, who were members of the United States Republican Party (GOP) in the 1930s–1970s who held moderate-to-liberal views on domestic issues, similar to those of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Rockefeller Nelson Rockefeller], Governor of New York (1959–1973) and Vice President of the U.S. (1974–1977). For a more robust discussion of liberal see the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism Wikipedia] entry.

b: 112 - '''humane''' 
Having or showing concern for the pain or suffering of another; compassionate.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humane] Again, dark [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_humor humor] to describe the perpetrators of The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust Holocaust].

b: 112 - '''metronomes''' 
A metronome (from Greek μέτρον (métron) 'measure', and νομός (nomós) 'law') is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a uniform interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats per minute (BPM).[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronome]

b: 112 - '''serpents''' 
The serpent, or snake, is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_symbolism][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpents_in_the_Bible]

b: 112 - '''Brechtian vignettes''' 
Bertolt Brecht,[a] was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht] A vignette is a short story or anecdote that presents a scene or tableau, or paints a picture.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vignette][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vignette_(literature)]

b: 112 - '''magic-lantern''' 
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name lanterna magica, was an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a single lens inverts an image projected through it (as in the phenomenon which inverts the image of a camera obscura), slides were inserted upside down in the magic lantern, rendering the projected image correctly oriented.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_lantern]

b: 112 - '''hallucinations''' 
A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the compelling sense of reality.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination]

b: 112 - '''Jung''' 
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. Jung's research and personal vision, however, made it difficult to follow his older colleague's doctrine and they parted ways. This division was painful for Jung and resulted in the establishment of Jung's analytical psychology, as a comprehensive system separate from psychoanalysis.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung]

b: 112 - '''solfeggio''' 
is a mnemonic used in teaching aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western music. Solfège is a form of solmization, though the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge]

b: 112 - '''V-2''' 
The V2 (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit. 'Vengeance Weapon 2'), with the technical name Aggregat 4 (A4), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a "vengeance weapon" and assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings of German cities. The V2 rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line (edge of space) with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944. The V-2 is an essential element in ''Gravity's Rainbow''.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket]

a: 139, b: 114 - '''Edna Mosh''' 
Mucho Maas deliberately distorts the sound of his wife's name to compensate for the [http://www.nutshellhifi.com/library/tinyhistory1.html distortions] of [http://www.tangentsunset.com/laradiohistory.htm AM radio] in the mid-sixties.

b: 114 - '''Caesar''' 
It derives from the cognomen of the Roman dictator Julius Caesar. The change from being a surname to a title used by the Roman emperors can be traced to AD 68, following the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. When used on its own, the title denoted heirs apparent, which would later adopt the title Augustus on accession. The title remained an essential part of the style of the emperors, and became the word for "emperor" in some languages, such as German (kaiser) and Russian (tsar).[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(title)]

b: 114 - '''Ringo Starr''' 
Sir Richard Starkey[2] MBE[3] (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringo_Starr]

b: 114 - '''Chubby Checker''' 
Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles, including the Twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' R&B song "The Twist", and the pony dance style with the 1961 cover of the song "Pony Time".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chubby_Checker]

b: 114 - '''the Righteous Brothers''' 
The Righteous Brothers are an American musical duo originally formed by Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield. Medley formed the group with Hatfield in 1963.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Brothers]

b: 115 - '''iridescences, auras''' 
Aniridescence is an exhibition of colors like those of the rainbow; a prismatic play of color.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/iridescence] An aura is an invisible force surrounding a living creature.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aura] Pynchon makes this and aura plural, indicating that Oedipa attempts to discern the multiple personalities that Funch describes.

b: 116 - '''His E string''' 
Mucho identifies one of the strings of the violin. The E string is the highest pitched string on a violin. That Mucho can pick this one string out of 68 strings of 17 violins is amazing.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin#Pitch_range]

b: 116 - '''spectrum analysis''' 
Mucho claims to be able to do what a spectrum analyzer can do. A spectrum analyzer measures the magnitude of an input signal versus frequency within the full frequency range of the instrument.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_analyzer]

a: 143, b: 117 - '''She Loves You''' 
The Beatles third single, first issued in the U.S. on the obscure '''Swan''' label.

b: 118 - '''hophead''' 
A drug user or addict. Hophead is an umbrella term for users of everything from cocaine to marijuana (or 'tea' - which is a jazz era term, not one that originated with the Beats as is erroneously noted elsewhere @ the Urban Dictionary) to benzedrine (aka 'bennies'/amphetamine). The term sprang from the early jazz scene in 1920's/30's America.[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hophead]

See: [[She_Loves_You_And_More|'''She Loves You And More''']]

b: 118 - '''hophead''' 
A drug user or addict. Hophead is an umbrella term for users of everything from cocaine to marijuana (or 'tea' - which is a jazz era term, not one that originated with the Beats as is erroneously noted elsewhere @ the Urban Dictionary) to benzedrine (aka 'bennies'/amphetamine). The term sprang from the early jazz scene in 1920's/30's America.[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hophead]

b: 118 - '''National Automobile Dealers Association N.A.D.A.''' 
The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) is an American trade organization representing nearly 16,500 franchised new car and truck dealerships, both domestic and foreign. Established in 1917, the organization is based in Tysons Corner, Virginia. As the automotive retail industry's primary trade association, NADA monitors federal legislation and regulation affecting dealerships and publishes forecasts and reports about industry trends.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Automobile_Dealers_Association] "Nada" in Spanish means "nothing".[https://translate.google.com/details?sl=es&tl=en&text=nada&op=translate]

b: 119 - '''twelve tone''' 
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer,[not verified in body] who published his "law of the twelve tones" in 1919. In 1923, Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) developed his own, better-known version of 12-tone technique, which became associated with the "Second Viennese School" composers, who were the primary users of the technique in the first decades of its existence.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique]

"As Mucho walked away he was whistling something complicated, twelve-tone." Corresponds to the famous Schoenberg boast that "one day even mailboys will whistle my tunes." Is Mucho giving Oedipa a final sign that he too is a W.A.S.T.E. user or 'mailboy'?

{{CL49 PbP}}

Chapter 5

2026-04-10T19:28:09Z

WikiAdmin:

{{CL49 PbP Text}}

b: 80 - '''German-baroque''' 
The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep color, grandeur, and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. In Germany baroque style arrived as the counter-reformation.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Germany#Baroque]
Here is a Germany travel guide on Baroque German Cities [https://www.germany.travel/en/cities-culture/baroque-cities.html Baroque Cities]

b: 81 - '''Shattuck Avenue''' 
A major thoroughfare of the city of Berkeley and the University of California, Berkeley.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shattuck_Avenue]

a: 101, b: 81 - '''Plays of Ford, Webster, Tourneur and Wharfinger''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ford_(dramatist) '''John Ford'''] is famous for [http://books.google.com/books?id=EgxYEemQXEsC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Tis+pity+she%27s+a+whore&as_brr=1 '''''Tis pity she's a whore'''''], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Webster '''John Webster'''] wrote [http://books.google.com/books?id=sxdMAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA139&dq=The+Duchess+of+Malfi&as_brr=1 '''''The Duchess of Malfi'''''] and [http://www.enotes.com/literary-criticism/tourneur-cyril '''Cyril Tourneur'''] wrote [http://books.google.com/books?id=0vwkAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA241&dq=The+Atheist%27s+Tragedy&as_brr=1 '''''The Atheist's Tragedy'''''], while the [http://books.google.com/books?id=sxdMAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA335&dq=Revenger%27s+Tragedy&as_brr=1 '''''Revenger's Tragedy'''''] is ascribed to Tourneur with a great deal of controversy as regards authorship.

b: 81 - '''Quarto''' A format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produce eight book pages. Each printed page presents as one-fourth size of the full sheet. Establishes the time period of the "text".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarto]

b: 82 - '''Alexandrine''' 
A line of poetic meter comprising 12 syllables. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrine]

b: 82 - '''Folio''' 
A folio is made up of one or more full sheets of paper, on each of which four pages of text are printed, two on each side; each sheet is then folded once to produce two leaves. Each leaf of a folio book thus is one half the size of the original sheet. Ordinarily, additional printed folio sheets would be inserted inside one another to form a group or "gathering" of leaves prior to binding the book.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folio]

b: 82 - '''Whitechapel''' 
A East London, East End that has a long history. Whitechapel's spine is the old Roman Road, that ran from the Aldgate on London's Wall, to Colchester in Essex (Roman Britannia's first capital), and beyond. This road, which was later named the Great Essex Road, is now designated the A11. This historic route has the names Whitechapel High Street and Whitechapel Road as it passes through, or along the boundary, of Whitechapel. For many centuries travellers to and from London on this route were accommodated at the many coaching inns which lined Whitechapel High Street.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitechapel]

b: 82 - '''Wheeler Hall''' and '''Sather Gate''' 
Both of these national historical landmarks demonstrate Pynchon's eye for detail regarding location and setting. Wheeler Hall is in the Classical Revival style and named after Benjamin Ide Wheeler, philologist and university president.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheeler_Hall] Sather Gate, also in the Classical Revival Beaux-Arts style. The gate opens into the Sproul Plaza, the plaza where the busy protesting occurs.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sather_Gate]

b: 82 - '''a plaza teeming with...''' 
This is Sproul Plaza with a combination of a stairway that can be used as a large raised platform and a ready audience makes Upper Sproul Plaza a popular location for student protests, the first of which occurred in 1964 with the Free Speech Movement.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sproul_Plaza]

a: 103, b: 83 - '''FSM's, YAF's, VDC's''' 
Free Speech Movement, Young Americans for Freedom, and Vietnam Day Committee. The Free Speech Movement was a long-lasting protest on the University of California, Berkeley campus. It demanded that students be allowed to freely discuss the Vietnam War.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Movement] The Young Americans for Freedom was a conservative student coalition that supported Barry Goldwater in 1964. It was made up of conservatives and libertarians.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Americans_for_Freedom] The VDC was a coalition of left-wing political groups, student groups, labour organizations, and pacifist religions in America that opposed the Vietnam War. It was formed in Berkeley in 1965 and was active through the majority of the war. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_Day_Committee]

a: 103, b: 83 - '''a national reflex to certain pathologies in high places only death had the power to cure''' 
Presumably, the McCarthy era, which only ended with McCarthy's death in 1957.

a: 103, b: 83 - '''Siwash''' 
A fictional college in stories by George Fitch (d. 1915), American author. Also, a small usually inland college that is notably provincial in outlook.

Also related to Native Americans?
:Since "Siwash" is here compared to Berkeley university, I'd say no. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]]

b: 83 - '''Hondas and Suzukis''' 
These Japanese motorcycles, which were flooding the market by the early 1960s, exemplify the beginning of the fall of American manufacturing. By 1964, Honda had become the world's largest manufacturer of motorcycles.[https://www.bdhonda.com/about-us/honda-history] Meanwhile Suzuki had established a subsidiary in Los Angeles to produce motorcycles for US consumers.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki]

a: 104, b: 83 - '''Secretaries James and Foster and Senator Joseph''' 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Forrestal James Forrestal], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles John Foster Dulles], and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy Joseph McCarthy].

a: 104, b: 84 - '''a shirt on various Polynesian themes and dating from the Truman administration''' 
Recalls the shirt worn by Slothrop in Part 2 of ''Gravity's Rainbow'', even though that one was Hawaiian and worn a few months before Truman took office.

b: 84 - '''Watusi''' 
The Watusi is a solo dance that enjoyed brief popularity during the early 1960s. It was one of the most popular dance crazes of the 1960s in the United States.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watusi_(dance)] Nefastis probably watches American Bandstand, the popular music/dance show that aired on Saturday mornings. The show had recently (1963) moved to Los Angeles from Philadelphia.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Bandstand]

b: 84 - '''simpatico''' 
Two definitions of simpatico, 1) having a compatible temperament or pleasing qualities; 2) compatible (with a person, thing, etc.). Which definition applies to Nefastis?[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/simpatico].

b: 84-85 - '''entropy''' 
This is the first mention of entropy in the book. Nefastis identifies two areas of entropy theory: thermodynamics and information theory. Entropy is a scientific concept that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the microscopic description of nature in statistical physics, and to the principles of information theory.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy] Nefastis finally describes it as a "figure of speech, ...a metaphor" which connects [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermodynamics thermodynamics] to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory information theory].

b: 84 - '''Maxwell's Demon''' 
Maxwell's demon is a thought experiment that appears to disprove the second law of thermodynamics. It was proposed by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1867.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon]

b: 85 - '''Yogi Bear''' 
Yogi Bear is an anthropomorphic animal character who has appeared in numerous comic books, animated television shows, and films. He made his debut in 1958 as a supporting character in The Huckleberry Hound Show.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Bear]

b: 85 - '''Magilla Gorilla''' 
Magilla Gorilla (voiced by Allan Melvin) is a fun-loving yet trouble-prone anthropomorphic Western gorilla who spends his time languishing in the front display window of Melvin Peebles' pet shop, eating bananas and being a drain on the shop's finances.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magilla_Gorilla]

b: 85 - '''Peter Potamus''' 
Peter Potamus is a purple animated hippopotamus that first appeared in the 1964–1966 animated television series The Peter Potamus Show, produced by Hanna-Barbera and first broadcast on September 16, 1964.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Potamus]

b: 88 - '''Wells Fargo''' 
Surviving the Panic of 1855 gave Wells Fargo two advantages. First, it faced virtually no competition in the banking and express business in California after the crisis; second, Wells Fargo attained a reputation for dependability and soundness. From 1855 through 1866, Wells Fargo expanded rapidly, becoming the West's all-purpose business, communications, and transportation agent.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_(1852%E2%80%931998)]

a: 110, b: 88 - '''Roos Atkins''' 
Chain of upscale men's clothing stores in San Francisco [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roos/Atkins]

b: 88 - '''North Beach''' 
North Beach is a neighborhood in the northeast of San Francisco adjacent to Chinatown, the Financial District, and Russian Hill.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Beach,_San_Francisco]

b: 88 - '''cerise''' 
a deep, bright red color tinted with pink.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cerise]

b: 89 - '''Finocchio's''' 
Finocchio's Club was a former nightclub and bar in operation from 1936 to 1999 in North Beach, San Francisco, California.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finocchio%27s_Club] Finocchio, which is also a fennel called Florence fennel.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/finocchio], is a derogatory term for a homosexual man in Italian (“faggot”). This is what Oedipa has just thought, with reference to the bar The Greek Way: "not a fag joint, no." One page earlier, by contrast, with reference to the Trystero: "it survived today, in California, serving as a channel of communication for those of unorthodox sexual persuasion." This is therefore the main reference of the bar called Finocchio. Read about the origin of this insult directed at homosexuals and its connection with the fennel plant [https://www.gay.it/finocchio-ricchione-etimologia-insulti-contro-gay here]

a: 112, b: 90 - '''sinophile''' 
Someone fond of chinese culture. On occasion, the term is used to describe people who exhibit a sexual preference for Chinese or Asian partners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinophile] The character being referred to is John Nefastis, who likes to do it when "there is something about China" on TV.

b: 91 - '''Inamorati Anonymous''' 
A lover, a gallant [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/inamorato#English] Anonymous alluding to Alcoholics Anonymous or other addiction recovery organizations. No meetings, just someone to help if they call a toll-free number. Much like the black musician in "A Secret Integration" from ''Slow Learner''.

b: 92 - '''The Stack''' 
The Stack interchange involved a complex set of exit and entry ramps of 3, 4 and even 5 levels built around the country.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_interchange] The first stack interchange was the Four Level Interchange (renamed the Bill Keene Memorial Interchange), built in Los Angeles, California, and completed in 1949, at the junction of US Route 101 (US 101) and State Route 110 (SR 110).[https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/lost-la/l-a-s-famous-four-level-freeway-interchange-the-stack-turns-58]

b: 92 - '''taking his Brody''' 
Generally spelled Brodie, after Steve Brodie, who claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived. The phrase became vernacular for suicide attempts or taking great risks. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Brodie_(bridge_jumper)]

b: 92 - '''Bhuddist Monk in Vietnam who set himself on fire''' 
This would be Thích Quảng Đức who was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who died by self-immolation at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Th%C3%ADch_Qu%E1%BA%A3ng_%C4%90%E1%BB%A9c]

b: 92 - '''Groovy''' 
Opposite of square. Groovy is originally an expression from jazz, meaning musical, playable, as in a groovy record. The groove of the record has beat and soul. Something or someone groovy has beat and soul. The term was adopted by the musically inclined countercultures of beatniks and hippies. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=groovy] Hardly a term to describe the self-immolation, nor does it seem typical of a military industrial corporation mid-level executive.

b: 92 - '''Buick''' 
One of the oldest automobile companies still in operation. In the sixties they would have been a typical car for a mid-level executive. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buick#1960s]

b: 92 - '''Zachary All suit''' 
Zachary All Clothing on Wilshire Boulevard provided inexpensive suits with salesmen who were professional tailors. [https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-los-angeles-times-the-amazing-story/145835993/] The owner of the store was Edward Nalbandian, a local, Armenian-American businessman who made commercials that included such lines as "Eddie, are you joking? No, I am not joking." which inspired a song by Frank Zappa. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Nalbandian]

b: 93 - '''Zippo''' 
A Zippo lighter is a reusable metal lighter produced by Zippo Manufacturing Company of Bradford, Pennsylvania, United States. In ''Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans'' (1984), describe the use of Zippo lighters in search and destroy missions during the Vietnam War. Edwards stated: "when you say level a village, you don't use torches. It's not like in the 1800s. You used a Zippo." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zippo]

b: 93 - '''hedgerows of Normandy''' 
Normandy was the scene of furious fights several weeks after June 6, 1944. After the battle of the beaches, what historians today commonly call the “hedge war” begins with reference to the particular nature of the terrain on which To evolve the belligerent forces. The hedge warfare, also known as the “bocage”, began as early as the day after D-Day and ended at the end of August 1944, when the Allied troops ended up liberating most part of the present-day Basse-Normandie.[https://www.dday-overlord.com/en/battle-of-normandy/tactics/hedgerow-warfare]

b: 93 - '''the Ardennes''' 
The Ardennes is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, extending into Germany and France. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardennes] It was the setting for the Battle of the Bulge after the Normandy landing. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge] By identifying Normandy, Ardennes and Germany, Pynchon shows the executive and founder of IA to have been involved in the European front through the end of WWII. He obviously had seen his share of combat.

b: 93 - '''efficiency expert''' 
An efficiency expert consults with a company to find redundancies and inefficiencies. [https://ecminstitute.com/cee-certified-efficiency-expert/] There is an Edgar Rice Boroughs book titled ''The Efficiency Expert''' written in 1921. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Efficiency_Expert_(novel)]

a: 115, b: 93 - '''IBM 7094''' 
At the time of publishing, this was the top-of-the-line computer. One of those HUGE room sized ones.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7090#IBM_7094]

b: 94 - '''Chinatown''' 
The Chinatown in San Francisco is one of the largest in North America and the oldest north of Mexico. It served as a port of entry for early Chinese immigrants from the 1850s to the 1900s. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinatown#outsideofasia]

b: 94 - '''herbalist''' 
A Chinese herbalist would use Chinese herbology, the theory of traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_herbology]

b: 94 - '''ideographs''' 
Pynchon uses "ideographs" to describe Chinese characters, which are actually logographs. Chinese characters[a] are used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Chinese characters have a documented history spanning over three millennia, representing one of the four independent inventions of writing accepted by scholars; of these, they comprise the only writing system continuously used since its invention. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters]

b: 95 - '''sonorous''' 
Full of sound and rich, as in language or verse. [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sonorous]

b: 96 - '''Golden Gate Park''' 
Golden Gate Park is an urban park between the Richmond and Sunset districts of San Francisco, United States. It is the largest park in the city, containing 1,017 acres (412 ha), and the third-most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated 24 million visitors annually. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Gate_Park]

a: 119, b: 96 - '''Jesus Arrabal''' 
[http://tinyurl.com/37pbq5 '''''Jesus Arrabal''''] conflates [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus '''''Jesus''''] a word, generally fixed in meaning as the figure at the Center of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity '''''Christianity'''''], [and also a common [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10673c.htm '''''Christian Name'''''] in Catholic Latin American], with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_influence_on_Spanish '''''Arrabal'''''] a Spanish word that grew from Arab roots, arrabal (suburb - al-rabad). The word changed in meaning over time to include the suburbs, the outlands, and the slums, all zones of exclusion. The word [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Arrabal '''''Arrabal'''''] as a proper name leads us to Fernando Arrabal, noted playwright working in the Theater of the Absurd.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Arrabal] It may also refer to James Jesus Angleton, a high-ranking CIA official who led Operation Chaos against domestic dissidents.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jesus_Angleton] Finally, spoken aloud it sounds like '''Jesus 'orrible'''. See '''a: 129, b: 105 - '''high magic to low puns''', below.

a: 119, b: 96 - '''Conjuración de los Insurgentes Anarquistas''' 
A fictional Anarchist organization with the acronym [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency '''C.I.A.'''], a pun that serves to remind us once again of the secretive intelligence organization. [http://www.answers.com/topic/conspiracy?cat=biz-fin '''Conjuración'''] is both conjuration and conspiracy, so it is both a Conspiracy of Insurgent Anarchists and a Conjuration of Insurgent Anarchists. As in both [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan%27s_Labyrinth '''''Pan's Labyrinth'''''] and [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page '''''Against the Day'''''] there is an Anarchist/Magical co-conspiracy.

a: 119, b: 96 - '''Flores Magon brothers''' 
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Flores_Mag%C3%B3n Ricardo], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jes%C3%BAs_Flores_Mag%C3%B3n Jesús] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrique_Flores_Mag%C3%B3n Enrique] Flores Magón led anarchist movements in Mexico in the early 1900's. Magonism (Spanish: Magonismo) is an anarchist, or more precisely anarcho-communist, school of thought precursor of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. It is mainly based on the ideas of Ricardo Flores Magón, his brothers Enrique and Jesús, and also other collaborators of the Mexican newspaper [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regeneraci%C3%B3n Regeneración].[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magonism]

a: 119, b: 96 - '''Zapata''' 
Emiliano Zapata was another Mexican revolutionary in the early 1900's.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emiliano_Zapata]

b: 97 - '''yucateco''' 
A member of the Mayan people of the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico.[https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/Yucateco]

b: 97 - '''oligarchist''' 
Jesús means oligarch, a member of the elite of an oligarchy, which is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of people. These people may or may not be distinguished by one or several characteristics, such as nobility, fame, wealth, education, or corporate, religious, political, or military control.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oligarchy]

b: 97 - '''pobrecito''' 
Jesús refers to Oedipa as pobrecito, a Spanish word that translates to poor, little thing. Does he mean to show empathy or belittle her?[https://reflectivemeded.org/2019/02/05/pobrecito-the-fine-line-between-compassion-and-infantilization/]

b: 97 - '''Bakunin''' 
Mikhail Bakunin was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, social anarchist,[5] and collectivist anarchist traditions. Bakunin's prestige as a revolutionary also made him one of the most famous ideologues in Europe, gaining substantial influence among radicals throughout Russia and Europe.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin] Bakunin elaborates on his definition of miracles in "God and the State".[http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bakunin/godandstate/godandstate_ch1.html]

b: 97 - '''cataclysm''' 
Jesús explains that when two different worlds collide, they create a cataclysm. This is how he feels about his meeting with Pierce. A cataclysm is a sudden, violent event, often geological.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cataclysm]

b: 97 - '''señá''' 
Jesús says "And yet, señá, if any of it should ever really ahppen that perfectly, I would aalso have to cry miracle. Jesús appears to claim that he is giving Oedipa a hint, clue or point in the right direction. [https://m.interglot.com/es/en/se%C3%B1%C3%A1]

b: 97 - '''privilegiado''' 
Jesús refers to the privileged class in Mexico, which he still considered to be humble on some level, unlike Pierce.[https://translate.google.com/details?sl=es&tl=en&text=privilegiado&op=translate]

b: 97 - '''a Virgin appearing to an Indian''' 
Jesús probably means Juan Diego, an Aztec, and Our Lady of Guadelupe.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe] Jesús uses this as an example of his definition of "miracle". [https://www.terraamericanart.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/MySymbolsMyIdentity_VirgenHandout.pdf]

b: 98 - '''priistas''' 
Members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (Spanish: Partido Revolucionario Institucional or PRI): a Mexican political party. It was formed in 1929 and was the dominant political party for much of the 20th century.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_Revolutionary_Party]

b: 98 - '''Anarcho-syndicalism''' 
is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence in broader society.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism]

b: 98 - '''Regeneración''' 
Here are some examples of the Mexican anarcho-syndicalist newspaper, but from 1913-1915.[https://californiarevealed.org/search?search_api_fulltext=Regeneracion&op=Search]

b: 98 - '''Negroes''' 
In the English language, the term negro (or sometimes negress for a female) is a term historically used to refer to people of Black African heritage. The term negro means the color black in Spanish and Portuguese (from Latin niger), where English took it from.[1] The term can be viewed as offensive, inoffensive, or completely neutral, largely depending on the region or country where it is used, as well as the time period and context in which it is applied. It has various equivalents in other languages of Europe. Pynchon's use of the term timestamps the book in the early sixties, as the terms "black" and "African-American" haven't entered the American vernacular.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negro]

b: 98 - '''Fillmore''' 
The Fillmore District is a historical neighborhood in San Francisco located to the southwest of Nob Hill, west of Market Street and north of the Mission District.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fillmore_District,_San_Francisco] It would be an interesting exercise to map Oedipa's route through the Bay area.

b: 99 - '''transistor radio''' 
A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Following the invention of the transistor in 1947—which revolutionized the field of consumer electronics by introducing small but powerful, convenient hand-held devices—the Regency TR-1 was released in 1954 becoming the first commercial transistor radio.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio] Another timestamp for the book.

b: 99 - '''Top 200''' 
On August 4, 1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart: the Hot 100, with "Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Nelson its first No. 1. The Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13, 1958.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Hot_100] Pynchon probably exaggerates the number by doubling it to emphasize the low popularity of the songs.

b: 99 - '''Out at the airport''' 
San Francisco International Airport is the primary international airport serving the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is located in San Mateo County. As Oedipa walks around the airport this is another pre-9-11 timestamp when people could wander the airport without security checks.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_International_Airport]

b: 99 - '''Alameda County''' 
Alameda County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,682,353,[4][6] making it the 7th-most populous county in the state[7] and 21st most populous nationally. The county seat is Oakland.[8] Alameda County is in the San Francisco Bay Area, occupying much of the East Bay region.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alameda_County,_California]

b: 100 - '''Marbling''' 
Marbling (intramuscular fat) is the intermingling or dispersion of fat within the lean. Graders evaluate the amount and distribution of marbling in the ribeye muscle at the cut surface after the carcass has been ribbed between the 12th and 13th ribs. Degree of marbling is the primary determination of quality grade.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbled_meat]

b: 100 - '''Interregnum''' 
An intermission in any order of succession; any breach of continuity in action or influence. This is usually associated with the change in a leadership role, king, president, etc.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/interregnum]

a: 125, b: 101 - '''jitney''' 
A type of taxi, but with a regular route, that stops at any point along the way that you want. It is also shared with other riders. Jitneys are run, usually, entrepreneurially and often unlicensed. A kind of off-the-grid "taxi".[https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jitney][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi#Jitney]

b: 101 - '''Howard Street''' 
Howard Street is a street in San Francisco's South of Market District (SoMa). It begins after branching off from Van Ness Avenue near the Mission District, and then runs parallel to and between of Mission Street (to the North) and Folsom Street (to the South) towards The Embarcadero.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Street_(San_Francisco)]

b: 101 - '''The Embarcadero''' 
(Spanish for "Embarkment") is the eastern waterfront of Port of San Francisco and a major roadway in San Francisco, California. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarcadero_(San_Francisco)]

b: 102 - '''Fresno''' 
Fresno (Spanish for 'Ash') is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. This is where the sailor says his wife lives. Interesting that she lives in an inland city rather than on the coast.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresno,_California]

b: 102 - '''flinders''' 
fragments, splinters [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/flinders]

b: 103 - '''Homburg hat''' 
A homburg is a semi-formal hat of fur felt, characterized by a single dent running down the centre of the crown (called a "gutter crown"), a wide silk grosgrain hatband ribbon, a flat brim shaped in a "pencil curl", and a ribbon-bound trim about the edge of the brim. It is traditionally offered in black or grey.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homburg_hat]

b: 103 - '''beaverboard partitions''' 
Beaverboard (also beaver board) is a fiberboard building material, formed of wood fibre compressed into sheets.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaverboard]

b: 103 - '''picture of a saint''' 
The saint who changes water into oil for the lamps in Jerusalem is Saint Narcissus. This links back to chapter 2 and San Narciso.[https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-narcissus-of-jerusalem/#:~:text=Saint%20Narcissus%20of%20Jerusalem's%20Story&text=The%20miracle%20for%20which%20Narcissus,in%20the%20late%20second%20century.] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissus_of_Jerusalem]

b: 103 - '''Roos/Atkins suit'''
Roos/Atkins was the name of a chain of upscale men's clothing stores based in San Francisco, California. It was formed through a 1957 merger of the Robert Atkins and Roos Brothers clothiers. The chain expanded after World War II to include several locations throughout northern California, but declined in the 1980s; by the early 1990s all locations had been closed or sold to other retailers.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roos/Atkins]

b: 104 - '''Ramírez''' 
Ramírez is a Spanish-language patronymic surname of Germanic origin, meaning "son of Ramiro".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%ADrez_(surname)]

b: 104 - '''Viking's funeral''' 
A Viking would be buried in a ship, usually burned at the site along with his possessions.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norse_funeral#shipburials] This alludes to Beowolf's ending as well.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf]

b: 104 - '''DT's delirium tremens''' 
Delirium tremens (DTs; lit. 'mental disturbance with shaking') is a rapid onset of confusion usually caused by withdrawal from alcohol. When it occurs, it is often three days into the withdrawal symptoms and lasts for two to three days. Physical effects may include shaking, shivering, irregular heart rate, and sweating.[1] People may also hallucinate. Occasionally, a very high body temperature or seizures (colloquially known as "rum fits") may result in death.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delirium_tremens]

a: 129, b: 105 - '''time differential (dt)'''
A derivative of a variable or function with respect to time.[https://www.oed.com/dictionary/time-differential_n?tab=meaning_and_use]
(mathematics, calculus) A derivative of a function with respect to time, usually interpreted as the rate of change of the value of the function.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/time_derivative#English]

a: 129, b: 105 - '''high magic to low puns''' 

see [[High_Magic_to_low_Puns|'''High Magic to Low Puns''']]

a: 129, b: 105 - '''spectra''' 
Plural of spectrum. a continuous, infinite, one-dimensional set, possibly bounded by extremes. Has other mathematical definitions.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spectrum#English]

b: 106 - '''Market Street''' 
Market Street is a major thoroughfare in San Francisco, California. It begins at The Embarcadero in front of the Ferry Building at the northeastern edge of the city and runs southwest through downtown, passing the Civic Center and the Castro District, to the intersection with Portola Drive in the Twin Peaks neighborhood.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Street_(San_Francisco)]

b: 106 - '''City Hall''' 
San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomized the high-minded American Renaissance of the 1880s to 1917.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_City_Hall]

b: 106 - '''Civic Center''' 
The Civic Center in San Francisco, California, is an area located a few blocks north of the intersection of Market Street and Van Ness Avenue that contains many of the city's largest government and cultural institutions.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civic_Center,_San_Francisco]

b: 106 - '''trans-bay bus terminal''' 
The San Francisco Transbay Terminal was a transportation complex in San Francisco, California, United States, roughly in the center of the rectangle bounded north–south by Mission Street and Howard Street, and east–west by Beale Street and 2nd Street in the South of Market area of the city. It closed on August 7, 2010, to make way for the construction of the replacement facility, the Transbay Transit Center, and associated towers.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Transbay_Terminal]

b: 106 - '''Oakland''' 
Oakland is a city in the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakland,_California]

b: 106 - '''Telegraph''' 
Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley campus in Berkeley, California. It is approximately 4.5 miles (7.2 km) in length.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegraph_Avenue]

b: 106 - '''Berkeley''' 
Berkeley is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley,_California]

b: 107 - '''Harris tweed coat''' 
Harris tweed (Scottish Gaelic: Clò mór or Clò hearach) is a tweed cloth that is handwoven by islanders at their homes in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, finished in the Outer Hebrides, and made from pure virgin wool dyed and spun in the Outer Hebrides. This definition, quality standards and protection of the Harris tweed name are enshrined in the Harris Tweed Act 1993.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_tweed]

b: 107 - '''waltz''' 
The waltz (from German Walzer [ˈvalt͡sɐ̯]), meaning "to roll or revolve")[1] is a ballroom and folk dance, normally in triple (3/4 time), performed primarily in closed position.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltz]

b: 107 - '''tango''' 
Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Argentine Milonga, Spanish-Cuban Habanera, and Uruguayan Candombe celebrations. In tango, the steps are typically more gliding, but can vary widely in timing, speed, and character, and follow no single specific rhythm. Because the dance is led and followed at the level of individual steps, these variations can occur from one step to the next. This allows the dancers to vary the dance from moment to moment to match the music (which often has both legato and/or staccato elements) and their mood.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tango]

b: 107 - '''two-step''' 
A two-step consists of two steps in approximately the same direction onto the same foot, separated by a joining or uniting step with the other foot. For example, a right two-step forward is a forward step onto the right foot, a closing step with the left foot, and a forward step onto the right foot. The closing step may be done directly beside the other foot, or obliquely beside, or even crossed, as long as the closing foot does not go past the other foot.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-step_(dance_move)] Or maybe they were dancing the country-western swing two-step. The country/western two-step, often called the Texas two-step or simply the two-step, is a country/western dance usually danced to country music in common time.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country-western_two-step]

b: 107 - '''bossa nova''' 
Bossa nova was also a fad dance that corresponded to the music. It was introduced in the late 1950s and faded out in the mid-sixties. A variant of basic 8-beat pattern was: "step forward, tap, step back, step together, repeat from the opposite foot".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bossa_nova#dance]

b: 107 - '''slop''' 
Probably not what Pynchon intended, but it is interesting that slop is an acronym for Strategic lateral offset procedure (SLOP), which is a solution to a byproduct of increased navigation accuracy in aircraft. Because most now use GPS, aircraft track flight routes with extremely high accuracy. As a result, if an error in height occurs, there is a much higher chance of collision. SLOP allows aircraft to offset the centreline of an airway or flight route by a small amount, normally to the right, so that collision with opposite direction aircraft becomes unlikely.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lateral_offset_procedure]

a: 132, b: 107 - '''Oedipa checked out of the hotel and drove down the peninsula''' 
This may be a continuity goof by Pynchon. "in chapter 5, Oedipa parks her car in San Francisco's North Beach, then spends the night wandering through the Bay Area on foot and by bus, ending up the next morning at her hotel in Berkeley; after a short sleep she "check out of the hotel and drove down the peninsula." How did her car get from San Francisco to Berkeley?" Edward Mendelson, "Gravity's Encyclopedia," fn. 12.

[[Image:airmail.png|thumb|150px|right|8 cent Airmail stamp]]

b: 108 - '''Gewehr 43''' 
The Gewehr 43 or Karabiner 43 (abbreviated G43, K43, Gew 43, Kar 43) is a 7.92×57mm Mauser caliber semi-automatic rifle developed by Germany during World War II.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gewehr_43] The rifle used a 7.92x57mm Mauser round, which Hilarius complains are defective.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.92%C3%9757mm_Mauser]

b: 109 - '''PBX''' 
A PBX is a telephone exchange or switching system that serves a private organization. A PBX permits the sharing of central office trunks between internally installed telephones, and provides intercommunication between those internal telephones within the organization without the use of external lines.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_telephone_system#Private_branch_exchange]

b: 109 - '''hipshot''' 
(US, colloquial) Standing with one hip lower than the other.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hipshot]

b: 109 - '''Speer and his ministry of cretins''' 
Albert Speer was Minister of Armaments and War Production for the Third Reich and Hitler's chief architect. Despite doubts about his credibility, at the Nuremberg trials, he was the only defendant to accept responsibility for his involvement with the Nazi regime, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while many of his colleagues were executed.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Speer]

b: 109 - '''karate-chop'''
A strike with the bottom side of an open hand.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/karate_chop] Some interesting examples in the Urban Dictionary.[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Karate%20Chop]

b: 109 - '''Freudian''' 
Hilarius means that he follows Sigmund Freud, who was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in the psyche, through dialogue between patient and psychoanalyst, and the distinctive theory of mind and human agency derived from it.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud] This method establishes an important theme in the book.

b: 109 - '''cantankerous''' 
Given to or marked by an ill-tempered, quarrelsome nature; ill-tempered, cranky, crabby. Cantankerous is generally used to describe an unpleasant elderly person in a slightly pejorative manner.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cantankerous]

b: 109 - '''Jew''' 
The Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים‎, Yehudim, Israeli pronunciation: [jehuˈdim]) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East, and whose traditional religion is Judaism.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews] Preceded by cantankerous and spoken by a Nazi war criminal, this is used pejoratively by Hilarius.

b: 109 - '''nicht wahr''' 
German: not true? : isn't that so?[https://translate.google.com/details?sl=auto&tl=en&text=nicht%20wahr&op=translate]

b: 109 - '''penance''' 
A voluntary self-imposed punishment for a sinful act or wrongdoing. It may be intended to serve as reparation for the act.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/penance]

b: 110 - '''Biedermeyer furniture''' 
The term derives from the fictional mediocre poet Gottlieb Biedermaier [sic], who featured in the Munich magazine Fliegende Blätter (Flying Leaves). It is used mostly to denote the unchallenging artistic styles that flourished in the fields of literature, music, the visual arts and interior design. Biedermeier has influenced later styles.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biedermeier]

b: 110 - '''slide whistle''' 
A slide whistle (variously known as a swanee or swannee whistle, lotus flute, piston flute, or jazz flute) is a wind instrument consisting of a fipple like a recorder's and a tube with a piston in it.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_whistle] Usually a children's toy, this makes for a derogatory image of a siren, silly at the least.

b: 110 - '''Your Israeli''' 
Obviously referring to citizens of the state of Israel, officially the State of Israel,[b] is a country in the Southern Levant, West Asia. It is bordered by Lebanon and Syria to the north, the West Bank and Jordan to the east, Egypt, the Gaza Strip and the Red Sea to the south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel] Hilarius' paranoia runs deep for reasons soon discovered.

b: 110 - '''Zvi''' 
Zvi (Hebrew: צְבִי and צבי‎, Tzvi, Ṣvi, "gazelle") is a Jewish masculine given name.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvi]

b: 110 - '''oubliette''' 
A dungeon only accessible by a trapdoor at the top.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oubliette] Quite a face!!

b: 111 - '''sling arms''' 
Here is an Army drill sergeant training [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THZQsSE_Oz0 video] to show how it is done. There are so many military terms that both the narrator (understandable) and Oedipa (not clear why she knows and uses these terms) use.

b: 111 - '''reality principle''' 
In Freudian psychology and psychoanalysis, the reality principle is the ability of the mind to assess the reality of the external world, and to act upon it accordingly, as opposed to acting according to the pleasure principle. The reality principle is the governing principle of the actions taken by the ego, after its slow development from a "pleasure-ego" into a "reality-ego".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_principle]

b: 111 - '''Buchenwald''' 
Buchenwald (German pronunciation: [ˈbuːxn̩valt]; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on Ettersberg [de] hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within the Altreich. Many actual or suspected communists were among the first internees.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchenwald_concentration_camp]

b: 112 - '''Eichmann'''
The Eichmann trial was the 1961 trial in Israel of major Holocaust perpetrator Adolf Eichmann who was captured in Argentina by Israeli agents and brought to Israel to stand trial.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_trial] Adolf Eichmann had been in charge of the "Final Solution".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Eichmann]

b: 112 - '''catatonic''' 
having a tendency to remain in a rigid state of stupor for long periods which give way to short periods of extreme agitation.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/catatonic]

b: 112 - '''liberal SS circles''' 
The dark humor of imagining "liberal" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel SS] circles may be lost in the modern U.S., but the definition of liberal as one with liberal views, supporting individual liberty[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/liberal] seems to fit, especially as in the 1960s, there were actual liberal Republicans represented by Rockefeller Republicans, who were members of the United States Republican Party (GOP) in the 1930s–1970s who held moderate-to-liberal views on domestic issues, similar to those of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Rockefeller Nelson Rockefeller], Governor of New York (1959–1973) and Vice President of the U.S. (1974–1977). For a more robust discussion of liberal see the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism Wikipedia] entry.

b: 112 - '''humane''' 
Having or showing concern for the pain or suffering of another; compassionate.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humane] Again, dark [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_humor humor] to describe the perpetrators of The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust Holocaust].

b: 112 - '''metronomes''' 
A metronome (from Greek μέτρον (métron) 'measure', and νομός (nomós) 'law') is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a uniform interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats per minute (BPM).[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metronome]

b: 112 - '''serpents''' 
The serpent, or snake, is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_symbolism][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpents_in_the_Bible]

b: 112 - '''Brechtian vignettes''' 
Bertolt Brecht,[a] was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht] A vignette is a short story or anecdote that presents a scene or tableau, or paints a picture.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vignette][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vignette_(literature)]

b: 112 - '''magic-lantern''' 
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name lanterna magica, was an early type of image projector that used pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lenses, and a light source. Because a single lens inverts an image projected through it (as in the phenomenon which inverts the image of a camera obscura), slides were inserted upside down in the magic lantern, rendering the projected image correctly oriented.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_lantern]

b: 112 - '''hallucinations''' 
A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the compelling sense of reality.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallucination]

b: 112 - '''Jung''' 
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. Jung's research and personal vision, however, made it difficult to follow his older colleague's doctrine and they parted ways. This division was painful for Jung and resulted in the establishment of Jung's analytical psychology, as a comprehensive system separate from psychoanalysis.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung]

b: 112 - '''solfeggio''' 
is a mnemonic used in teaching aural skills, pitch and sight-reading of Western music. Solfège is a form of solmization, though the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge]

b: 112 - '''V-2''' 
The V2 (German: Vergeltungswaffe 2, lit. 'Vengeance Weapon 2'), with the technical name Aggregat 4 (A4), was the world's first long-range guided ballistic missile. The missile, powered by a liquid-propellant rocket engine, was developed during the Second World War in Nazi Germany as a "vengeance weapon" and assigned to attack Allied cities as retaliation for the Allied bombings of German cities. The V2 rocket also became the first artificial object to travel into space by crossing the Kármán line (edge of space) with the vertical launch of MW 18014 on 20 June 1944. The V-2 is an essential element in ''Gravity's Rainbow''.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket]

a: 139, b: 114 - '''Edna Mosh''' 
Mucho Maas deliberately distorts the sound of his wife's name to compensate for the [http://www.nutshellhifi.com/library/tinyhistory1.html distortions] of [http://www.tangentsunset.com/laradiohistory.htm AM radio] in the mid-sixties.

b: 114 - '''Caesar''' 
It derives from the cognomen of the Roman dictator Julius Caesar. The change from being a surname to a title used by the Roman emperors can be traced to AD 68, following the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. When used on its own, the title denoted heirs apparent, which would later adopt the title Augustus on accession. The title remained an essential part of the style of the emperors, and became the word for "emperor" in some languages, such as German (kaiser) and Russian (tsar).[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(title)]

b: 114 - '''Ringo Starr''' 
Sir Richard Starkey[2] MBE[3] (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ringo_Starr]

b: 114 - '''Chubby Checker''' 
Chubby Checker (born Ernest Evans; October 3, 1941) is an American singer and dancer. He is widely known for popularizing many dance styles, including the Twist dance style, with his 1960 hit cover of Hank Ballard & The Midnighters' R&B song "The Twist", and the pony dance style with the 1961 cover of the song "Pony Time".[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chubby_Checker]

b: 114 - '''the Righteous Brothers''' 
The Righteous Brothers are an American musical duo originally formed by Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield. Medley formed the group with Hatfield in 1963.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Righteous_Brothers]

b: 115 - '''iridescences, auras''' 
Aniridescence is an exhibition of colors like those of the rainbow; a prismatic play of color.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/iridescence] An aura is an invisible force surrounding a living creature.[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aura] Pynchon makes this and aura plural, indicating that Oedipa attempts to discern the multiple personalities that Funch describes.

b: 116 - '''His E string''' 
Mucho identifies one of the strings of the violin. The E string is the highest pitched string on a violin. That Mucho can pick this one string out of 68 strings of 17 violins is amazing.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin#Pitch_range]

b: 116 - '''spectrum analysis''' 
Mucho claims to be able to do what a spectrum analyzer can do. A spectrum analyzer measures the magnitude of an input signal versus frequency within the full frequency range of the instrument.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrum_analyzer]

a: 143, b: 117 - '''She Loves You''' 
The Beatles third single, first issued in the U.S. on the obscure '''Swan''' label.

b: 118 - '''hophead''' 
A drug user or addict. Hophead is an umbrella term for users of everything from cocaine to marijuana (or 'tea' - which is a jazz era term, not one that originated with the Beats as is erroneously noted elsewhere @ the Urban Dictionary) to benzedrine (aka 'bennies'/amphetamine). The term sprang from the early jazz scene in 1920's/30's America.[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hophead]

See: [[She_Loves_You_And_More|'''She Loves You And More''']]

b: 118 - '''hophead''' 
A drug user or addict. Hophead is an umbrella term for users of everything from cocaine to marijuana (or 'tea' - which is a jazz era term, not one that originated with the Beats as is erroneously noted elsewhere @ the Urban Dictionary) to benzedrine (aka 'bennies'/amphetamine). The term sprang from the early jazz scene in 1920's/30's America.[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Hophead]

b: 118 - '''National Automobile Dealers Association N.A.D.A.''' 
The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) is an American trade organization representing nearly 16,500 franchised new car and truck dealerships, both domestic and foreign. Established in 1917, the organization is based in Tysons Corner, Virginia. As the automotive retail industry's primary trade association, NADA monitors federal legislation and regulation affecting dealerships and publishes forecasts and reports about industry trends.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Automobile_Dealers_Association] "Nada" in Spanish means "nothing".[https://translate.google.com/details?sl=es&tl=en&text=nada&op=translate]

b: 119 - '''twelve tone''' 
The twelve-tone technique—also known as dodecaphony, twelve-tone serialism, and (in British usage) twelve-note composition—is a method of musical composition first devised by Austrian composer Josef Matthias Hauer,[not verified in body] who published his "law of the twelve tones" in 1919. In 1923, Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951) developed his own, better-known version of 12-tone technique, which became associated with the "Second Viennese School" composers, who were the primary users of the technique in the first decades of its existence.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique]

"As Mucho walked away he was whistling something complicated, twelve-tone." Corresponds to the famous Schoenberg boast that "one day even mailboys will whistle my tunes." Is Mucho giving Oedipa a final sign that he too is a W.A.S.T.E. user or 'mailboy'?

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'''''CounterPunch'' Article, August 2025: "The Zeitgeist of Mad Logic" by Joseph Natoli:'''
“The marvellous logic of the mad which seems to mock that of the logicians because it resembles it so exactly, or rather because it is exactly the same, and because at the secret heart of madness, at the core of so many errors, so many absurdities, so many words and gestures without consequence...” ― Michel Foucault, ''Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason''

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==Featured Article==

[http://www.examiner.com/x-13462-West-Palm-Beach-Literature-Examiner~y2009m7d19-Modernism-v-Postmodernism-part-one-The-Crying-of-Lot-49 Modernism v. Postmodernism: ''The Crying of Lot 49''] 
by Michelle Cannon - Examiner.com 
July 19, 2009

The relationship between modernism and postmodernism is often complicated as both genres share certain similarities as well as differences. E.L. Doctorow’s ''Ragtime'' and Thomas Pynchon’s ''The Crying of Lot 49'' are examples of the relationship between these two genres. In both novels, discarded objects play a crucial role in establishing the relationship between modernism and postmodernism. Throughout both of these texts, there are numerous examples of not only discarded objects, but also discarded people and ideas. This recurrent theme intertwines itself within both of these novels and becomes vital to the understanding of the relationship between modernism and postmodernism. This first article will entail a discussion of ''The Crying of Lot 49'', which focuses on the heroine, Oedipa Mass, as she strives to uncover the secrets behind the death of her recently deceased ex-boyfriend after being named the executor of his will. [http://www.examiner.com/x-13462-West-Palm-Beach-Literature-Examiner~y2009m7d19-Modernism-v-Postmodernism-part-one-The-Crying-of-Lot-49 Read the Article...]

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'''And now ... ''The Movie'' ...''' 
A shortfilm version of ''CL49'' found on YouTube and created by someone who goes by the handle "filibusterer"... [[Crying of Lot 49 Film]]

'''San Jose, California - August 14, 2007''' - It turns out that the entire text of ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is being broadcast in semaphore from the top of Adobe's Almaden Towers headquarters. [http://www.earstudio.com/sanjosesemaphore/ ''San Jose Semaphore''], by artist [http://www.kqed.org/arts/people/spark/profile.jsp?id=8563 Ben Rubin], is a permanent public artwork commissioned by Adobe Systems Incorporated in collaboration with the City of San Jose’s Office of Cultural Affair’s Public Art Program. The code was recently cracked by two Silicon Valley tech workers, Mark Snesrud and Bob Mayo.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_6620943?nclick_check=1/ Read more...]

'''Santa Barbara, California - Nov 26, 2007 - Postal Horns Moving South!''' 
Vandals tagged the University of California, Santa Barbara campus and parts of Isla Vista over Thanksgiving break, making use of a symbol found in the 1966 Thomas Pynchon novel ''The Crying of Lot 49''. The symbol, which resembles a trumpet, was spray-painted in red at various locations, including South Hall, Manzanita Village and the Daily Nexus advertising office.

[http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=15223 Read more...] and [http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/29/pynchon "Spray-Painting Pynchon"]
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The '''Spoiler-Free Annotations by Page''' allows the reader to look up and contribute allusions and references while reading the book, in a convenient and spoiler-free manner.

Apart from that, it's up to you.

==Page by Page Annotations==
An alternate form of commentary on the text. The guiding principle of these annotations is to remain spoiler-free, so that readers can follow along without the fear that later parts of the book will be revealed.
{{CL49 PbP}}
 

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: [http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_lot49.html The Modern Word: ''The Crying of Lot 49'']
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* [http://www.newpartisan.com/home/literature-for-the-age-of-unease-reading-pynchon-today.html "Reading Pynchon Today" in the ''New Partisan'']
* [http://www.bookforum.com/archive/sum_05/pynchon.html "Pynchon From A to V" - Excellent!]
* [http://pynchonoid.blogspot.com/ Pynchonoid Blog]
* [http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/cl49/index.html Pomona ''The Crying of Lot 49'' page]
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==Featured Article==

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Chapter 2

2008-07-14T23:10:16Z

WikiAdmin:

{{CL49 PbP Text}}
 

a: 23, b: 13 - '''Sick Dick and the Volkswagens''' 
Fictional, but a 1970s New York City punk band adopted the name. [http://black2com.blogspot.com/2006/03/black-to-comm-back-issue-update-hey-ya.html] "I Want to Kiss Your Feet" no doubt an allusion to the 1963 Beatles hit, "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The 1960s Volkswagens were referred to as "Beetles" because they were similar in shape to the insect. (Get it?) Might this mean that Pynchon was fond of the Beatles but "did not believe in" them? Also, Pynchon explores the foot fetish in greater depth in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=F#footfetish ''Against the Day''] ...

a: 24, b: 14 - '''printed circuit''' 
Many people have undoubtedly seen civilization from a plane or high place and been reminded of a circuit board, but this description is probably one of, if not the first time it's been set down in American fiction.

a: 25, b: 14 - '''believe in his job''' 
Echoes the "believe in" language from two pages back. Pynchon is drawing a metaphor between "believing in" a band and "believing in" a job. 

"Believing in" here seems to mean something like identifying with; being one with (sorta); not being alienated from. Which seems thematic to the mystery
within the story.

also see [[Voices,_Voices|'''Voices, Voices''']]

a: 25, b: 14 - '''religious instant''' 
May be a stretch, but Pynchon's works seem to have many such "religious instants," in which a character experiences a flood of ideas and emotions in just a few moments. [[Talk:Chapter_2|Further discussion]]

a: 25, b: 15 - '''giants of the aerospace industry''' 
Pynchon worked as a technical writer at Boeing from 1960-62.

a: 26, b: 15 - '''horse''' 
Heroin.

a: 26, b: 17 - '''the Paranoids''' 
Some fan has made a mock-up of what a CD by The Paranoids might look like, [http://www.entropic-empire.com/cds/paranoids.html here].

The Paranoids are a pastische of various Rock & Roll bands struggling in L.A. in the wake of the success of the Beatles.

see [[The_Paranoids|'''The Paranoids]]

a: 30, b: 19 - '''Gallipoli''' 
The Battle of Gallipoli took place at Gallipoli from April 1915 to December 1915 during the First World War. A joint British and French operation was mounted in an effort to eventually capture the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (Istanbul). The attempt failed, with heavy casualties on both sides. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gallipoli Wikipedia]

a: 31, b: 20 - '''hierophany''' 
Physical manifestation of the holy or sacred. This manifestation can be in many forms, often in symbols or rituals. An example of a hierophany would be an apparition or image appearing on a window bearing resemblance to the virgin Mary.

a: 31, b: 20 - '''Book of the Dead''' 
ancient Egyptian funerary text used by the ancient Egyptians as a set of instructions for the afterlife. Not all the spells were used for every burial; some depended on wealth and status. Some spells were gifts to the gods, while other were used so the person could walk, a spell for not dying again in the afterlife, and even a spell 'For preventing a man from going upside down and from eating feces' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Dead Wikipedia]

Also a reference to the [http://near-death.com/experiences/buddhism01.html '''''Bardo Thodol'''''], or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol '''''Tibetan Book of the Dead'''''], a text [http://www.randychase.com/leary_1.htm '''Timothy Leary''']:

::I was tremendously influenced by Thomas Pynchon whose book, "Gravity’s Rainbow," I think, is the Bible of the information and communication age. Naturally, it’s underestimated and ignored, because it’s so powerful, and because he won’t play the game. . . .
found invaluable in exploring the [http://tinyurl.com/337xqe '''''The Psychedelic Experience''''']. In turn, this rediscovered material from the [http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/dead/otherworld.html '''''Tibetan Book of the Dead'''''] influenced the [http://www.egodeath.com/johnlennonhelp.htm '''Beatles'''] on their first track recorded for the LP [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolver_(album) '''Revolver'''], [http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Tomorrow%20Never%20Knows '''Tomorrow Never Knows.]

<div id="single_up_all_lines">a: 31, b: 20 - '''singling up all lines</div>
Pynchon was in the Navy for a spell and "single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way.

Pynchon uses this term in almost all his novels, notably as the first sentence of [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day.''] For more, see [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_3 ATD, page 3].

a: 33, b: 21 - '''a cash nexus''' 
a phrase of Karl Marx that refers to the way interpersonal relations in a
(Capitalist) society are 'reduced' to economic relationships.

a: 33, b: 22 - '''Manni di Presso''' 
Manic depression?

a: 36, b: 24 - '''Botticelli''' 
Botticelli is a guessing game which requires the players to have a good knowledge of biographical details of famous people. The game has several variants, but the common theme is that one person or team thinks of a famous person, reveals their initial letter, and then answers yes/no questions to allow other players to guess the identity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botticelli_%28game%29 Wikipedia]

{{CL49 PbP}}

Chapter 2

2008-07-14T22:44:28Z

WikiAdmin: Beatles - Beetles

{{CL49 PbP Text}}
 

a: 23, b: 13 - '''Sick Dick and the Volkswagens''' 
Fictional, but a 1970s New York City punk band adopted the name. [http://black2com.blogspot.com/2006/03/black-to-comm-back-issue-update-hey-ya.html] "I Want to Kiss Your Feet" no doubt an allusion to the 1963 Beatles hit, "I Want to Hold Your Hand." The 1960s Volkswagens were referred to as "Beetles" because they were similar in shape to the insect. (Get it?) Might this mean that Pynchon was fond of the Beatles but "did not believe in" them? Also, Pynchon explores the foot fetish in greater depth in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''] ...

a: 24, b: 14 - '''printed circuit''' 
Many people have undoubtedly seen civilization from a plane or high place and been reminded of a circuit board, but this description is probably one of, if not the first time it's been set down in American fiction.

a: 25, b: 14 - '''believe in his job''' 
Echoes the "believe in" language from two pages back. Pynchon is drawing a metaphor between "believing in" a band and "believing in" a job. 

"Believing in" here seems to mean something like identifying with; being one with (sorta); not being alienated from. Which seems thematic to the mystery
within the story.

also see [[Voices,_Voices|'''Voices, Voices''']]

a: 25, b: 14 - '''religious instant''' 
May be a stretch, but Pynchon's works seem to have many such "religious instants," in which a character experiences a flood of ideas and emotions in just a few moments. [[Talk:Chapter_2|Further discussion]]

a: 25, b: 15 - '''giants of the aerospace industry''' 
Pynchon worked as a technical writer at Boeing from 1960-62.

a: 26, b: 15 - '''horse''' 
Heroin.

a: 26, b: 17 - '''the Paranoids''' 
Some fan has made a mock-up of what a CD by The Paranoids might look like, [http://www.entropic-empire.com/cds/paranoids.html here].

The Paranoids are a pastische of various Rock & Roll bands struggling in L.A. in the wake of the success of the Beatles.

see [[The_Paranoids|'''The Paranoids]]

a: 30, b: 19 - '''Gallipoli''' 
The Battle of Gallipoli took place at Gallipoli from April 1915 to December 1915 during the First World War. A joint British and French operation was mounted in an effort to eventually capture the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (Istanbul). The attempt failed, with heavy casualties on both sides. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gallipoli Wikipedia]

a: 31, b: 20 - '''hierophany''' 
Physical manifestation of the holy or sacred. This manifestation can be in many forms, often in symbols or rituals. An example of a hierophany would be an apparition or image appearing on a window bearing resemblance to the virgin Mary.

a: 31, b: 20 - '''Book of the Dead''' 
ancient Egyptian funerary text used by the ancient Egyptians as a set of instructions for the afterlife. Not all the spells were used for every burial; some depended on wealth and status. Some spells were gifts to the gods, while other were used so the person could walk, a spell for not dying again in the afterlife, and even a spell 'For preventing a man from going upside down and from eating feces' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Dead Wikipedia]

Also a reference to the [http://near-death.com/experiences/buddhism01.html '''''Bardo Thodol'''''], or [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardo_Thodol '''''Tibetan Book of the Dead'''''], a text [http://www.randychase.com/leary_1.htm '''Timothy Leary''']:

::I was tremendously influenced by Thomas Pynchon whose book, "Gravity’s Rainbow," I think, is the Bible of the information and communication age. Naturally, it’s underestimated and ignored, because it’s so powerful, and because he won’t play the game. . . .
found invaluable in exploring the [http://tinyurl.com/337xqe '''''The Psychedelic Experience''''']. In turn, this rediscovered material from the [http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/dead/otherworld.html '''''Tibetan Book of the Dead'''''] influenced the [http://www.egodeath.com/johnlennonhelp.htm '''Beatles'''] on their first track recorded for the LP [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolver_(album) '''Revolver'''], [http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Tomorrow%20Never%20Knows '''Tomorrow Never Knows.]

<div id="single_up_all_lines">a: 31, b: 20 - '''singling up all lines</div>
Pynchon was in the Navy for a spell and "single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way.

Pynchon uses this term in almost all his novels, notably as the first sentence of [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day.''] For more, see [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_3 ATD, page 3].

a: 33, b: 21 - '''a cash nexus''' 
a phrase of Karl Marx that refers to the way interpersonal relations in a
(Capitalist) society are 'reduced' to economic relationships.

a: 33, b: 22 - '''Manni di Presso''' 
Manic depression?

a: 36, b: 24 - '''Botticelli''' 
Botticelli is a guessing game which requires the players to have a good knowledge of biographical details of famous people. The game has several variants, but the common theme is that one person or team thinks of a famous person, reveals their initial letter, and then answers yes/no questions to allow other players to guess the identity. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botticelli_%28game%29 Wikipedia]

{{CL49 PbP}}

Chapter 1

2008-05-15T01:14:32Z

WikiAdmin: formatting

{{CL49 PbP Text}}

Title Page: '''The Crying of Lot 49''' 
In property auctions, numbered "lots" of property or tangible objects are "cried" by an auctioneer. For a discussion of some other things the title may or may not allude to, see the article [[7 x 7|'''''7 x 7''''']].

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Oedipa''' 
Oedipus was the mythical king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus Wikipedia] Oedipus the King, aka Oedipus Rex, is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles and first performed in 428 BC. Many critics, including Aristotle, consider it the greatest tragedy ever written. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King Wikipedia]

:Whether Oedipa has anything to do with Oedipus is an open question. Some critics find zero connection and note that the name indicates that names are only words, and not necessarily full of meaning (mysteries without answers being a theme in CoL49). Others have teased various interpretations from Sophocles' play to connect its protagonist to Pynchon's. So far, no single explanation is remotely concrete or thoroughly convincing. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]]

For more discussion of Oedipa's name, see the [[Talk:Chapter_1|Discussion page]].

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Maas''' 

'''Maas''' Translates from Dutch & German into '''Web''' or '''Network''' and is also an alternative spelling for the '''Meuse''' river in Belgium and the Netherlands. 
For more, see [[Maas_y_Mas| '''Maas y Mas''']]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''kirsch''' 
Kirschwasser, German for "cherry water", often known simply as Kirsch ("cherry"), is a clear cherry brandy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsch Wikipedia] The mention of "kirsch" in the first sentence begins a considerable sequence of references to Germany, German words or German history through Chapter 1.

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Pierce Inverarity''' 
Pynchon & Company (an East Coast Brokerage house) fell apart in 1931, E.A. Pierce (a larger financial institution) picked up that company's holdings. Thus 'Pierce'. See [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50910FE3E5F11738DDDAC0A94DC405B818FF1D3 "EXCHANGE SUSPENDS PYNCHON & COMPANY, New York Times April 25, 1931]. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''California real estate mogul''' 
Many of the terms and concepts in 'The Crying of Lot 49' are derived from laws concerning property and investment. The ancestors of Thomas Ruggles Pynchon [apparentlty the fifth Pynchon to be so named] had much involvement in real estate and property laws. See [http://books.google.com/books?id=asAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA51&dq=Stearns+pynchon+springfield&as_brr=1#PPP1,M1 '''''. . . . the Petition of the Springfield Aquaduct'''''], pages 44 - 53. Also see [http://tinyurl.com/2gb8aa '''''Popular Law Library'''''] and go to page 95. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name of God. . . .''' 
Regarding the TV/God connection: the notion that Television has supplanted God by the mid-sixties.

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Mazatlán''' 
City in the mexican state of Sinaloa, located on the Pacific coast of Mexico, east from the southernmost tip of the Baja California peninsula. It is worth mentioning that a large wave of German immigrants arrived in the mid 1800s, developing Mazatlán into a thriving commercial seaport. Additionally, Mazatlán played a role in the California gold rush, with people traveling by boat from Mazatlán to San Francisco. Pynchon is placed in Mexico (at least, Mexico City) throughout the 1960s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazatlan Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Cornell University''' 
Ivy league university located in Ithaca, New York. Pynchon began studies in engineering physics in 1953, but left after two years to serve in the U.S. Navy. In 1957, Pynchon returned with a focus in English, a BA he received in 1959. "The Small Rain", Pynchon's first published story, was printed in the ''Cornell Writer'' in May, 1959. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pynchon#Childhood_and_education Wikipedia: Pynchon][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University Wikipedia: Cornell]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Bartók Concerto for Orchestra''' 
Five-movement musical work finished in 1943 by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945), after his native exile to the United States in response to the rise of the Nazi party. Bartók is one of a number of references to the theme of "exile" in this first chapter.

The critic Charles Hollander suggests that the fourth movement is neither "dry" nor "disconsolate," and that Pynchon deliberately reversed the facts to bring attention to Bartók's status as a political exile. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartok Wikipedia Bartók][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Orchestra_(Bart%C3%B3k)#Fourth_movement Wikipedia: Concerto][http://www.vheissu.info/art/art_eng_49_hollander.htm Hollander Essay]
:"Dry and disconsolate" are not facts but opinions, although the consensus opinion might be "facts". Pynchon may have described the movement as it sounded to him (or his character).
:For more, see the [[Talk:Chapter_1|Discussion page]].

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Jay Gould''' 
(1836 – 1892) Infamous American financier (known as the "Mephistopheles of Wall Street"), who became a leading American railroad builder and speculator in the mid 19th century. In 1869, the Fisk-Gould Scandal (also known as Black Friday) spread financial panic as a result of Gould and fellow financier James Fisk's efforts to corner the gold market. Further political scandals and unfair dealings have cemented his reputation (both throughout his life and during the century after his death) as one of the most unethical of the 19th century American robber barons. It is worth note that the bust of Jay Gould is the "only ikon in the house" of Pierce Inverarity, and that Oedipa expressed the fear that it (on a shelf over the bed) would "someday topple on them". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Gould Wikipedia: Gould][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%281869%29 Wikipedia: Black Friday]

<div id="warpe">a: 10, b: 2 - '''Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus'''</div>
Law firm representing Pierce Inverarity.

:"Warpe," possible reference to the municipality of Warpe located in the district of Nienburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany (Germany and Nazism being referenced thoroughly in Chapter 1). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warpe Wikipedia]

:"Kubitschek" is possibly drawn from Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (1902 - 1976), a Brazilian social reformer and 24th President of Brazil (1956 - 1961) who went into a self-imposed exile after a military coup d'état, which had later been claimed to have been taking as a preemptive measure to deter an "inevitable communist revolution" (the coup having been tacitly (and directly) assisted and supported by the United States government and the CIA)--this is another in a series of anecdotal references to "exile" as well as a potential comment on United States foreign policy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juscelino_Kubitschek Wikipedia: Kubitschek][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_1964_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat Wikipedia: 1964 Brazilian Coup]

:"McMingus" is a probable nod toward Jazz legend Charles Mingus (1922 - 1979). Pynchon is a lifelong Jazz fan, making this unlikely to be a coincidence. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mingus Wikipedia]

:Pynchon's penchant for absurd, punning law firm names is continued in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=S#salitieri ''Gravity's Rainbow''] with Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short.

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Metzger''' 
Co-executor of Inverarity's will and signatory of the letter Oedipa receives in Chapter 1. Metzger is German for "butcher", and could also be a reference to Wolfgang Metzger (1899 - 1979), a german psychologist who served as one of the main representatives of Gestalt psychology, a theory that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This concept will recur later in the chapter, under the term "Triptych". Additionally, the introduction of Dr Hilarius, a German psychologist, will strengthen this association. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Metzger Wikipedia: Metzger][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology Wikipedia: Gestalt].

:[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metzgerpost Metzgerpost] ("butcher post") was an early type of mail service in the western regions of the Holy Roman Empire, superseded by the Thurn und Taxis-dominated imperial system. 

Compare '''Meztger''' to [http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy/unfolding_self.html '''Ralph Metzner'''], co-author with [http://www.timothyleary.us/ '''Timothy Leary'''] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass '''Richard Alpert'''], also known as [http://www.ramdass.org/ '''Ram Dass'''], of [http://tinyurl.com/337xqe '''The Psychedelic Experience''']. 

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Kinneret-Among-The-Pines''' 
Fictional California town that Oedipa Maas resides in. Yam Kinneret (Sea of Kinnereth) is the modern Hebrew name for the Sea of Galilee, Israel's largest freshwater lake. Upon the shores of Galilee, much of the ministry of Christ was said to have occurred, among which include His Sermon on the Mount, as well as the miracles of His walking on water, calming a storm, and feeding the
multitude with five loaves of bread and two fish. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee Wikipedia]. During the years Pynchon was working on 'The Crying of Lot 49, College buddy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fariña '''Richard Farina'''] lived in [http://ci.carmel.ca.us/ '''Carmel by the Sea'''].

a: 10, b: 2 - '''settecento''' 
''Settecento'' is Italian for seven hundred, and is the standard Italian term for the 18th century (the 1700s). It is used in English mostly to refer to art-historical and architectural movements and styles of that period. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settecento Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''variorum''' 
A work containing all known varients of a text whereby all variations and emendations are set side-by-side to track textual decisions. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variorum Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto''' 
Kazoos appear in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']. The title isn't as outlandish as it may seem; Vivaldi's concerti are often performed on instruments they were not written for. Example: [http://idrs.colorado.edu/Publications/DR/DR7.1/vivaldi.html concerto for two cellos] recast for bassoon trio. Cross referenced search of kazoos in the Gravity's Rainbow Wiki: [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Songs/Compositions ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=H ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=O ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dope_in_Gravity%27s_Rainbow]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Boyd Beaver''' 
Soloist for the Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto. "Boyd" might stem from the Gaelic word for "blond", while "Beaver" is a chiefly American slang term for female genitalia, possibly prompting the image of a blonde vagina playing a kazoo. One might also take "Boy", evoked by "Boyd", combined with the "female" beaver, and find the same gender-bending implied in Oedipa's name itself (or in a male author writing a female protagonist, or the Muse inspiring the poet). The name also bears an obvious resemblance to Zoyd Wheeler, the protagonist of ''Vineland'', though he played the keyboard.

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Wendell ("Mucho") Maas''' 
"Mucho más" is common Spanish phrase, meaning "much more." Mucho Maas reappears in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''Vineland''].

:''Maas'' is also Dutch for ''mesh'' and ''loophole'' (in the architectural and the figurative sense as well), which may be related to the book's treatement of webs or networks.

:The near-likeness "mass" becomes an important word/concept in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' and, especially, ''Against The Day'', although the associative meanings do not seem to mesh.! [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 13:42, 11 July 2007 (PDT)

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Pachuco dialect''' 
Pachucos were Mexican American youth who developed their own subculture during the 1930s and 1940s in the Southwestern United States. They wore distinctive clothes (such as Zoot Suits) and spoke their own dialect (Caló). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachuco Wikipedia] Zoot suits appear a few times in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

a: 11, b: 2 - '''chingas and maricones''' 
Spanish slang words. "Chingas" is a conjugation of the word "chingar" (slang for "to fuck"), translating "chingas" as "[you] fuck" (or, better, just a plural of "chinga"). "Maricones" refers to the term "maricón" (based on the word "marica" or "male homosexual") which is equivalent to the English insult "faggot".

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Lamont Cranston''' 

[[image:The-Shadow_1939.jpg|right|thumb|150px|The Shadow comic]]One identity adopted by The Shadow, a character of pulp fiction, radio shows, and comic books. Cranston was a wealthy young man about town. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow Wikipedia]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow '''The Shadow'''] first appeared on radio in 1930. The banking institution Pynchon & Company collapsed in 1931. The last words Oedipa hears from Pierce:
:"I heard that," Pierce said. "I think it's time Wendell Maas had a little visit from the Shadow."
were spoken a year before she received the letter from Warpe, Wistful, Kubitschek and McMingus.

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Commissioner Weston... Professor Quackenbush''' 
Police [http://www.angelfire.com/yt/Weston/ '''Commissioner Weston'''] was the [http://theshadowfan.com/theshadowfan/past-shadow/movies/the-shadow-serial-1940/ '''Shadow's'''] friend and running mate. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028772/ '''Professor Quackenbush'''] is most likely a reference to Dr. Quackenbush from [http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/Marx/films/posters/DayAtTheRaces2.jpg '''Day at the Races'''].

a: 13 b: 4 -'''I don't believe in any of it, Oed''' 
The short form of Oedipa "Oed" means "boring" in German.

a: 13, b: 4 - '''Mucho shaved his ... throw them further off''' 
All of the references in this section refer to the stereotypical (often Italian) used car salesman with greased back hair, a very short mustache, and huge lapels on his suit.

[[Image:jacklemmon.jpg|90px|thumb|left|Jack Lemmon and his hair in the 60s]]a: 13, b: 4 - '''used only water, combing it like Jack Lemmon''' 
American actor (1925-2001). He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films ''Some Like It Hot'', ''The Apartment'' and others. Wilder felt Lemmon had a natural tendency toward overacting that had to be tempered; the Wilder biography ''Nobody's Perfect'' quotes the director as saying: "Lemmon, I would describe him as a ham, a fine ham, and with ham you have to trim a little fat." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_lemmon Wikipedia]

a: 13, b: 4 - '''creampuff''' 
A very well maintained used car. 

a: 16, b: 7 - '''Dr. Hilarius, her shrink or psychotherapist''' 
[[Image:Hilarius.jpg|right|thumb|St. Hilarius|150px]]According to the Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Hilarius '''Pope Saint Hilarius'''] was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 461 to February 28, 468). He was canonized as a saint after his death. The Sardinian archdeacon of Rome, Hilarius was elected bishop of Rome probably November 17, 461, and was consecrated November 19, 461 and died on February 28 (?), 468.

As archdeacon under Pope Leo I he fought vigorously for the rights of the Roman See and vigorously opposed the condemnation of Flavian of Constantinople at the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 to settle the question of Eutyches. According to a letter to the Empress Pulcheria, collected among the letter of Leo I, Hilarus apologizes for not delivering to her the pope's letter after the synod. . . .

Shrink is a shortened form of headshrinker, which is 50s slang. The OED cites 'shrink' in this text of 1966, as the first recorded written use of it as a slang term. Which must be why Pynchon defined it in the text.

a: 17, b: 8 - '''LSD-25, mescaline, psilocybin''' 
These hallucinogenic drugs are also mentioned in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''''''Gravity's Rainbow''''']. LSD gets a special mention as an agent of spiritual awareness in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland '''''Vineland''''']. See notes for [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_6 '''She Loves You''] on page a: 143, b: 117 of CoL49 wiki, where Mucho Maas is expressing ideas about psychedelics concordant with the writings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley '''Aldous Huxley'''.] Peyote's magical potential is rendered on pages 392-394 of Against the Day, in wholy favorable terms, with the connection of divinatory powers and envisioning agents such as [http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-405965/Native-American-Church '''Hikuli'''] displayed in a very favorable light.

It remains an open question as to whether and to what extent Pynchon took or was influenced by them. ([http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Smoking_Dope_with_Thomas_Pynchon "whether"?])

a: 18, b:8 - '''lapses from orthodoxy''' 
Orthodox Freudian psychotherapy involved the therapist literally trying not to impose himself at all on the patient. That's why the therapist is often shown sitting behind the patient. The goal is to be a blank canvas and have the patient paint his problems on the therapist, thereby bringing them into consciousness.

[[Image:rorschach1.jpg|150px|thumb|right|The first of the ten cards in the Rorschach inkblot test]]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''Rorschach blot''' 
The Rorschach inkblot test (Pronounced roar-shock) is a method of psychological evaluation. Psychologists use this test to try to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_inkblot_test Wikipedia]

[[Image:rorschachcomic1.png|thumb|150px|right|Rorschach, a comic book character in ''Watchmen'']]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''a face is symmetrical like a Rorschach blot''' 
In the graphic novel, ''Watchmen'', written by Alan Moore, there is a character named Rorschach who wears a mask with a Rorscach blot on the front. Moore is a self-professed Pynchon fan: he referenced [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. ''V.''] in ''V for Vendetta'' and has mentioned [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] in interview. It is possible, not to say probable, that Moore was inspired by this line.

a: 18, b: 8 - '''TAT picture''' 
The TAT is popularly known as the picture interpretation technique because it uses a standard series of 31 provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject must tell a story. It was developed by American psychologists in the 1930s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_Apperception_Test Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Fu-Manchu''' 
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character, an evil genius of Chinese origin, first featured in a series of novels by Birmingham author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Manchu Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Perry Mason''' 
Perry Mason is a fictional defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner. Mason was portrayed by Raymond Burr in a television series which ran on CBS from 1957 to 1966. The typical plot involves Perry Mason unmasking the actual murderer in a final dramatic courtroom showdown. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Mason Wikipedia]

a: 19, b: 9 - '''''The Profession v. Perry Mason...''''' 
Roseman may be trying to undermine Perry Mason by arguing that the dramatic courtroom twists in the TV show are actually uncommon in the American legal system.

[[Image:remediosvaro.jpg|thumb|175px|''Bornando el manto terrestre'', 1961|left]]
a: 21, b: 11 - '''Bornando el Manto Terrestre''' 
Remedios Varo (1908 - 1963) was a surrealist painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedios_Varo Wikipedia]

Bill Brown [http://www.notbored.org/crying.html notes] that "Pynchon saw Bordando el Manto Terrestre when, as part of the first full retrospective of the painter's work, it was displayed at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1964, a year after her death at the age of 55. Painted in 1961, el Manto (oil on masonite, roughly 40 by 48 inches) is the central panel in an autobiographical triptych. It is possible that Pynchon, writing ''Lot 49'' in 1965, recalled the painting from memory or incomplete notes, and not with a reproduction of it set in front of him. He gets a lot wrong."

[[image:bubble-shades.jpg|thumb|Bubble Shades|120px|right]]
a:21, b:11 - '''she wore dark green bubble shades''' 
This is the sixties, after all...

{{CL49 PbP}}

Main Page

2008-02-15T07:18:10Z

WikiAdmin:

[[Image:CL49_cover.jpg|right]]<big>'''Welcome to ''The Crying of Lot 49'' Wiki'''</big>

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This is the newly created Wiki for [[Thomas Pynchon]]'s ''The Crying of Lot 49''. Besides using the Alphabetical Index and the page-by-page annotation, you can also take a look at [[The Crying of Lot 49 covers|''The Crying of Lot 49'' covers]], read the [[Reviews of The Crying of Lot 49|reviews]], or [[The Crying of Lot 49 Obs|provide insights or observations]].

<div style="border:1px solid #ccc; background:#efefef; padding:10px; margin:1em 0; width:70%">

'''And now ... ''The Movie'' ...''' 
A shortfilm version of ''CL49'' found on YouTube and created by someone who goes by the handle "filibusterer"... [[Crying of Lot 49 Film]]

'''San Jose, California - August 14, 2007''' - It turns out that the entire text of ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is being broadcast in semaphore from the top of Adobe's Almaden Towers headquarters. [http://www.earstudio.com/sanjosesemaphore/ ''San Jose Semaphore''], by artist [http://www.kqed.org/arts/people/spark/profile.jsp?id=8563 Ben Rubin], is a permanent public artwork commissioned by Adobe Systems Incorporated in collaboration with the City of San Jose’s Office of Cultural Affair’s Public Art Program. The code was recently cracked by two Silicon Valley tech workers, Mark Snesrud and Bob Mayo.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_6620943?nclick_check=1/ Read more...]

'''Santa Barbara, California - Nov 26, 2007 - Postal Horns Moving South!''' 
Vandals tagged the University of California, Santa Barbara campus and parts of Isla Vista over Thanksgiving break, making use of a symbol found in the 1966 Thomas Pynchon novel ''The Crying of Lot 49''. The symbol, which resembles a trumpet, was spray-painted in red at various locations, including South Hall, Manzanita Village and the Daily Nexus advertising office.

[http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=15223 Read more...] and [http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/11/29/pynchon "Spray-Painting Pynchon"]
</div>

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Crying of Lot 49 Film

2008-02-15T07:14:56Z

WikiAdmin: New page: This is a film created by [http://www.youtube.com/user/filibusterer Filibusterer]. Don't know much about the filmmaker, but the result is interesting... {{#ev:youtube|fWJrKrB4poU}}

This is a film created by [http://www.youtube.com/user/filibusterer Filibusterer]. Don't know much about the filmmaker, but the result is interesting...

{{#ev:youtube|fWJrKrB4poU}}

Chapter 1

2008-01-22T05:57:40Z

WikiAdmin: clean up & add links to references

{{CL49 PbP Text}}

Title Page: '''The Crying of Lot 49''' 
In property auctions, numbered "lots" of property or tangible objects are "cried" by an auctioneer. For a discussion of some other things the title may or may not allude to, see the article [[7 x 7|'''''7 x 7''''']].

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Oedipa''' 
Oedipus was the mythical king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus Wikipedia] Oedipus the King, aka Oedipus Rex, is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles and first performed in 428 BC. Many critics, including Aristotle, consider it the greatest tragedy ever written. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King Wikipedia]

:Whether Oedipa has anything to do with Oedipus is an open question. Some critics find zero connection and note that the name indicates that names are only words, and not necessarily full of meaning (mysteries without answers being a theme in CoL49). Others have teased various interpretations from Sophocles' play to connect its protagonist to Pynchon's. So far, no single explanation is remotely concrete or thoroughly convincing. [[User:Bleakhaus|Bleakhaus]]

For more discussion of Oedipa's name, see the [[Talk:Chapter_1|Discussion page]].

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Maas''' 

'''Maas''' Translates from Dutch & German into '''Web''' or '''Network''' and is also an alternative spelling for the '''Meuse''' river in Belgium and the Netherlands. 
For more, see [[Maas_y_Mas| '''Maas y Mas''']]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''kirsch''' 
Kirschwasser, German for "cherry water", often known simply as Kirsch ("cherry"), is a clear cherry brandy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsch Wikipedia] The mention of "kirsch" in the first sentence begins a considerable sequence of references to Germany, German words or German history through Chapter 1.

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Pierce Inverarity''' 
Pynchon & Company (an East Coast Brokerage house) fell apart in 1931, E.A. Pierce (a larger financial institution) picked up that company's holdings. Thus 'Pierce'. See [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50910FE3E5F11738DDDAC0A94DC405B818FF1D3 "EXCHANGE SUSPENDS PYNCHON & COMPANY, New York Times April 25, 1931]. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''California real estate mogul''' 
Many of the terms and concepts in 'The Crying of Lot 49' are derived from laws concerning property and investment. The ancestors of Thomas Ruggles Pynchon [apparentlty the fifth Pynchon to be so named] had much involvement in real estate and property laws. See [http://books.google.com/books?id=asAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA51&dq=Stearns+pynchon+springfield&as_brr=1#PPP1,M1 '''''. . . . the Petition of the Springfield Aquaduct'''''], pages 44 - 53. Also see [http://tinyurl.com/2gb8aa '''''Popular Law Library'''''] and go to page 95. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name of God. . . .''' 
Regarding the TV/God connection: the notion that Television has supplanted God by the mid-sixties.

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Mazatlán''' 
City in the mexican state of Sinaloa, located on the Pacific coast of Mexico, east from the southernmost tip of the Baja California peninsula. It is worth mentioning that a large wave of German immigrants arrived in the mid 1800s, developing Mazatlán into a thriving commercial seaport. Additionally, Mazatlán played a role in the California gold rush, with people traveling by boat from Mazatlán to San Francisco. Pynchon is placed in Mexico (at least, Mexico City) throughout the 1960s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazatlan Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Cornell University''' 
Ivy league university located in Ithaca, New York. Pynchon began studies in engineering physics in 1953, but left after two years to serve in the U.S. Navy. In 1957, Pynchon returned with a focus in English, a BA he received in 1959. "The Small Rain", Pynchon's first published story, was printed in the ''Cornell Writer'' in May, 1959. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pynchon#Childhood_and_education Wikipedia: Pynchon][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University Wikipedia: Cornell]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Bartók Concerto for Orchestra''' 
Five-movement musical work finished in 1943 by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945), after his native exile to the United States in response to the rise of the Nazi party. Bartók is one of a number of references to the theme of "exile" in this first chapter.

The critic Charles Hollander suggests that the fourth movement is neither "dry" nor "disconsolate," and that Pynchon deliberately reversed the facts to bring attention to Bartók's status as a political exile. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartok Wikipedia Bartók][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Orchestra_(Bart%C3%B3k)#Fourth_movement Wikipedia: Concerto][http://www.vheissu.info/art/art_eng_49_hollander.htm Hollander Essay]
:"Dry and disconsolate" are not facts but opinions, although the consensus opinion might be "facts". Pynchon may have described the movement as it sounded to him (or his character).
:For more, see the [[Talk:Chapter_1|Discussion page]].

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Jay Gould''' 
(1836 – 1892) Infamous American financier (known as the "Mephistopheles of Wall Street"), who became a leading American railroad builder and speculator in the mid 19th century. In 1869, the Fisk-Gould Scandal (also known as Black Friday) spread financial panic as a result of Gould and fellow financier James Fisk's efforts to corner the gold market. Further political scandals and unfair dealings have cemented his reputation (both throughout his life and during the century after his death) as one of the most unethical of the 19th century American robber barons. It is worth note that the bust of Jay Gould is the "only ikon in the house" of Pierce Inverarity, and that Oedipa expressed the fear that it (on a shelf over the bed) would "someday topple on them". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Gould Wikipedia: Gould][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%281869%29 Wikipedia: Black Friday]

<div id="warpe">a: 10, b: 2 - '''Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus'''</div>
Law firm representing Pierce Inverarity.

:"Warpe," possible reference to the municipality of Warpe located in the district of Nienburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany (Germany and Nazism being referenced thoroughly in Chapter 1). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warpe Wikipedia]

:"Kubitschek" is possibly drawn from Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (1902 - 1976), a Brazilian social reformer and 24th President of Brazil (1956 - 1961) who went into a self-imposed exile after a military coup d'état, which had later been claimed to have been taking as a preemptive measure to deter an "inevitable communist revolution" (the coup having been tacitly (and directly) assisted and supported by the United States government and the CIA)--this is another in a series of anecdotal references to "exile" as well as a potential comment on United States foreign policy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juscelino_Kubitschek Wikipedia: Kubitschek][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_1964_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat Wikipedia: 1964 Brazilian Coup]

:"McMingus" is a probable nod toward Jazz legend Charles Mingus (1922 - 1979). Pynchon is a lifelong Jazz fan, making this unlikely to be a coincidence. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mingus Wikipedia]

:Pynchon's penchant for absurd, punning law firm names is continued in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=S#salitieri ''Gravity's Rainbow''] with Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short.

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Metzger''' 
Co-executor of Inverarity's will and signatory of the letter Oedipa receives in Chapter 1. Metzger is German for "butcher", and could also be a reference to Wolfgang Metzger (1899 - 1979), a german psychologist who served as one of the main representatives of Gestalt psychology, a theory that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This concept will recur later in the chapter, under the term "Triptych". Additionally, the introduction of Dr Hilarius, a German psychologist, will strengthen this association. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Metzger Wikipedia: Metzger][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology Wikipedia: Gestalt].

:[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metzgerpost Metzgerpost] ("butcher post") was an early type of mail service in the western regions of the Holy Roman Empire, superseded by the Thurn und Taxis-dominated imperial system. 

Compare '''Meztger''' to [http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy/unfolding_self.html '''Ralph Metzner'''], co-author with [http://www.timothyleary.us/ '''Timothy Leary'''] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass '''Richard Alpert'''], also known as [http://www.ramdass.org/ '''Ram Dass'''], of [http://tinyurl.com/337xqe '''The Psychedelic Experience''']. 

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Kinneret-Among-The-Pines''' 
Fictional California town that Oedipa Maas resides in. Yam Kinneret (Sea of Kinnereth) is the modern Hebrew name for the Sea of Galilee, Israel's largest freshwater lake. Upon the shores of Galilee, much of the ministry of Christ was said to have occurred, among which include His Sermon on the Mount, as well as the miracles of His walking on water, calming a storm, and feeding the
multitude with five loaves of bread and two fish. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee Wikipedia]. During the years Pynchon was working on 'The Crying of Lot 49, College buddy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fariña '''Richard Farina'''] lived in [http://ci.carmel.ca.us/ '''Carmel by the Sea'''].

a: 10, b: 2 - '''settecento''' 
''Settecento'' is Italian for seven hundred, and is the standard Italian term for the 18th century (the 1700s). It is used in English mostly to refer to art-historical and architectural movements and styles of that period. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settecento Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''variorum''' 
A work containing all known varients of a text whereby all variations and emendations are set side-by-side to track textual decisions. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variorum Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto''' 
Kazoos appear in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']. The title isn't as outlandish as it may seem; Vivaldi's concerti are often performed on instruments they were not written for. Example: [http://idrs.colorado.edu/Publications/DR/DR7.1/vivaldi.html concerto for two cellos] recast for bassoon trio. Cross referenced search of kazoos in the Gravity's Rainbow Wiki: [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Songs/Compositions ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=H ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=O ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dope_in_Gravity%27s_Rainbow]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Boyd Beaver''' 
Soloist for the Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto. "Boyd" might stem from the Gaelic word for "blond", while "Beaver" is a chiefly American slang term for female genitalia, possibly prompting the image of a blonde vagina playing a kazoo. One might also take "Boy", evoked by "Boyd", combined with the "female" beaver, and find the same gender-bending implied in Oedipa's name itself (or in a male author writing a female protagonist, or the Muse inspiring the poet). The name also bears an obvious resemblance to Zoyd Wheeler, the protagonist of ''Vineland'', though he played the keyboard.

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Wendell ("Mucho") Maas''' 
"Mucho más" is common Spanish phrase, meaning "much more." Mucho Maas reappears in [http://vineland.pynchonwiki.com/wiki ''Vineland''].

:''Maas'' is also Dutch for ''mesh'' and ''loophole'' (in the architectural and the figurative sense as well), which may be related to the book's treatement of webs or networks.

:The near-likeness "mass" becomes an important word/concept in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' and, especially, ''Against The Day'', although the associative meanings do not seem to mesh.! [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 13:42, 11 July 2007 (PDT)

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Pachuco dialect''' 
Pachucos were Mexican American youth who developed their own subculture during the 1930s and 1940s in the Southwestern United States. They wore distinctive clothes (such as Zoot Suits) and spoke their own dialect (Caló). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachuco Wikipedia] Zoot suits appear a few times in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

a: 11, b: 2 - '''chingas and maricones''' 
Spanish slang words. "Chingas" is a conjugation of the word "chingar" (slang for "to fuck"), translating "chingas" as "[you] fuck" (or, better, just a plural of "chinga"). "Maricones" refers to the term "maricón" (based on the word "marica" or "male homosexual") which is equivalent to the English insult "faggot".

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Lamont Cranston''' 

[[image:The-Shadow_1939.jpg|right|thumb|150px|The Shadow comic]]One identity adopted by The Shadow, a character of pulp fiction, radio shows, and comic books. Cranston was a wealthy young man about town. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow Wikipedia]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow '''The Shadow'''] first appeared on radio in 1930. The banking institution Pynchon & Company collapsed in 1931. The last words Oedipa hears from Pierce:
:"I heard that," Pierce said. "I think it's time Wendell Maas had a little visit from the Shadow."
were spoken a year before she received the letter from Warpe, Wistful, Kubitschek and McMingus.

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Commissioner Weston... Professor Quackenbush''' 
Police [http://www.angelfire.com/yt/Weston/ '''Commissioner Weston'''] was the [http://theshadowfan.com/theshadowfan/past-shadow/movies/the-shadow-serial-1940/ '''Shadow's'''] friend and running mate. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028772/ '''Professor Quackenbush'''] is most likely a reference to Dr. Quackenbush from [http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/Marx/films/posters/DayAtTheRaces2.jpg '''Day at the Races'''].

a: 13, b: 4 - '''Mucho shaved his ... throw them further off''' 
All of the references in this section refer to the stereotypical (often Italian) used car salesman with greased back hair, a very short mustache, and huge lapels on his suit.

[[Image:jacklemmon.jpg|90px|thumb|left|Jack Lemmon and his hair in the 60s]]a: 13, b: 4 - '''used only water, combing it like Jack Lemmon''' 
American actor (1925-2001). He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films ''Some Like It Hot'', ''The Apartment'' and others. Wilder felt Lemmon had a natural tendency toward overacting that had to be tempered; the Wilder biography ''Nobody's Perfect'' quotes the director as saying: "Lemmon, I would describe him as a ham, a fine ham, and with ham you have to trim a little fat." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_lemmon Wikipedia]

a: 13, b: 4 - '''creampuff''' 
A very well maintained used car. 

a: 16, b: 7 - '''Dr. Hilarius, her shrink or psychotherapist''' 
[[Image:Hilarius.jpg|right|thumb|St. Hilarius|150px]]According to the Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Hilarius '''Pope Saint Hilarius'''] was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 461 to February 28, 468). He was canonized as a saint after his death. The Sardinian archdeacon of Rome, Hilarius was elected bishop of Rome probably November 17, 461, and was consecrated November 19, 461 and died on February 28 (?), 468.

As archdeacon under Pope Leo I he fought vigorously for the rights of the Roman See and vigorously opposed the condemnation of Flavian of Constantinople at the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 to settle the question of Eutyches. According to a letter to the Empress Pulcheria, collected among the letter of Leo I, Hilarus apologizes for not delivering to her the pope's letter after the synod. . . .

Shrink is a shortened form of headshrinker, which is 50s slang. The OED cites 'shrink' in this text of 1966, as the first recorded written use of it as a slang term. Which must be why Pynchon defined it in the text.

a: 17, b: 8 - '''LSD-25, mescaline, psilocybin''' 
These hallucinogenic drugs are also mentioned in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''''''Gravity's Rainbow''''']. LSD gets a special mention as an agent of spiritual awareness in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland '''''Vineland''''']. See notes for [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_6 '''She Loves You''] on page a: 143, b: 117 of CoL49 wiki, where Mucho Maas is expressing ideas about psychedelics concordant with the writings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley '''Aldous Huxley'''.] Peyote's magical potential is rendered on pages 392-394 of Against the Day, in wholy favorable terms, with the connection of divinatory powers and envisioning agents such as [http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-405965/Native-American-Church '''Hikuli'''] displayed in a very favorable light.

It remains an open question as to whether and to what extent Pynchon took or was influenced by them. ([http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Smoking_Dope_with_Thomas_Pynchon "whether"?])

a: 18, b:8 - '''lapses from orthodoxy''' 
Orthodox Freudian psychotherapy involved the therapist literally trying not to impose himself at all on the patient. That's why the therapist is often shown sitting behind the patient. The goal is to be a blank canvas and have the patient paint his problems on the therapist, thereby bringing them into consciousness.

[[Image:rorschach1.jpg|150px|thumb|right|The first of the ten cards in the Rorschach inkblot test]]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''Rorschach blot''' 
The Rorschach inkblot test (Pronounced roar-shock) is a method of psychological evaluation. Psychologists use this test to try to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_inkblot_test Wikipedia]

[[Image:rorschachcomic1.png|thumb|150px|right|Rorschach, a comic book character in ''Watchmen'']]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''a face is symmetrical like a Rorschach blot''' 
In the graphic novel, ''Watchmen'', written by Alan Moore, there is a character named Rorschach who wears a mask with a Rorscach blot on the front. Moore is a self-professed Pynchon fan: he referenced [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. ''V.''] in ''V for Vendetta'' and has mentioned [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] in interview. It is possible, not to say probable, that Moore was inspired by this line.

a: 18, b: 8 - '''TAT picture''' 
The TAT is popularly known as the picture interpretation technique because it uses a standard series of 31 provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject must tell a story. It was developed by American psychologists in the 1930s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_Apperception_Test Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Fu-Manchu''' 
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character, an evil genius of Chinese origin, first featured in a series of novels by Birmingham author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Manchu Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Perry Mason''' 
Perry Mason is a fictional defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner. Mason was portrayed by Raymond Burr in a television series which ran on CBS from 1957 to 1966. The typical plot involves Perry Mason unmasking the actual murderer in a final dramatic courtroom showdown. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Mason Wikipedia]

a: 19, b: 9 - '''''The Profession v. Perry Mason...''''' 
Roseman may be trying to undermine Perry Mason by arguing that the dramatic courtroom twists in the TV show are actually uncommon in the American legal system.

[[Image:remediosvaro.jpg|thumb|175px|''Bornando el manto terrestre'', 1961|left]]
a: 21, b: 11 - '''Bornando el Manto Terrestre''' 
Remedios Varo (1908 - 1963) was a surrealist painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedios_Varo Wikipedia]

Bill Brown [http://www.notbored.org/crying.html notes] that "Pynchon saw Bordando el Manto Terrestre when, as part of the first full retrospective of the painter's work, it was displayed at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1964, a year after her death at the age of 55. Painted in 1961, el Manto (oil on masonite, roughly 40 by 48 inches) is the central panel in an autobiographical triptych. It is possible that Pynchon, writing ''Lot 49'' in 1965, recalled the painting from memory or incomplete notes, and not with a reproduction of it set in front of him. He gets a lot wrong."

[[image:bubble-shades.jpg|thumb|Bubble Shades|120px|right]]
a:21, b:11 - '''she wore dark green bubble shades''' 
This is the sixties, after all...

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Title Page: '''The Crying of Lot 49'''

Many of the concepts of '''''The Crying of Lot 49''''' have to do with Numerology and property law. Read more about this in the article [[7 x 7|'''''7 x 7''''']].

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Oedipa''' 
Oedipus was the mythical king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus Wikipedia] Oedipus the King, aka Oedipus Rex, is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles and first performed in 428 BC. Many critics, including Aristotle, consider it the greatest tragedy ever written. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King Wikipedia]

:Whether Oedipa has anything to do with Oedipus is an open question. Some critics find zero connection and note that the name indicates that names are only words, and not necessarily full of meaning (mysteries without answers being a theme in CoL49). Others have teased various interpretations from Sophocles' play to connect its protagonist to Pynchon's. So far, no single explanation is remotely concrete or thoroughly convincing.

:Some suggest the Oedipus reference is to an incident earlier in the king's career, having to do, in fact, with the way he became king of Thebes. Oedipus famously solved the riddle of the Sphinx and heroically freed Thebes of her curse (cf. the deeds of young Theseus, the labors of Herakles, etc.). Sophocles' play has an older Oedipus finally figuring out the riddle of his own birth, over-confident in his own ability to figure things out. Oedipus is the riddle-solver, by definition. And doesn't it make sense to think of Oedipa as a riddle-solver? Q.E.D. Now the riddle is sometimes said to be "what walks on four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon, and three feet at night?" The answer is man (baby=4; man=2; old man with cane = 3), which is where this gets interesting: one of the legendary precepts engraved on the temple of Apollo at Delphi is "gnothi seauton", "know yourself". This almost certainly is taken to mean not (as we might tend to think) that we should discover ourselves as individuals, but rather that we should know our own nature, i.e. the nature of mankind, i.e. "know that you are mortal". Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sphinx with the answer "man", but he doesn't know himself as a man, fallible and doomed--count no man blessed until he's dead, Greeks were fond of saying--not until the peak of his powers, walking on two legs, so to speak. His story doesn't end there: he wanders the earth blind after putting out his eyes (death would be too good for himself), and eventually as an old man settles on Athens as a place to die, knowing that his spirit will be a powerful force in the land of his death (see Soph., Oedipus at Colonus). This is the essence of a hero for the Greeks, a mortal who remains powerful in death, as is reflected in their practice of hero-cult offerings at grave sites (compare, say, Xtian saints' relics, bones thought to have power). As an old man, Oedipus is like a holy prophet (compare the blind sage Tieresias, or the legendary blind poet Homer), a man who sees without eyes (compare what Paul Atreides becomes in the second Dune novel). So, does Oedipa ascend to some deeper understanding by the end of the novel? Wait and see.

:Oedipa's name is probably pronounced in the American fashion, ED-i-pa, not British fashion, EED-i-pa, because Mucho uses the short form "Oed," which almost has to be ED.

:A further comic level in the name Oedipa: It looks like a feminization of ''Oedipus,'' which is a Latin name derived from the Greek ''Oidipous.'' While ''-pus'' has the look of a word-ending that might alternate between masculine and feminine forms, like proper names ''Julius/Julia'' or adjectives ''sanctus/sanctum/sancta,'' in fact it stands in for Greek ''-pous,'' meaning "foot," a form that doesn't alternate. (All feet are the same gender no matter who's wearing them.) Whoever coined the name Oedipa pretended to know a little more than they really did.

Additionally, there is the Freudian concept of the Oedipal Complex. Basically, a son loves his mother (in an unconscious sexual way) and is jealous of his father and wants to kill him and have his mom all to himself. The daughter version of this is called the Electra Complex. In the Electra Complex the daughter is upset that she has no penis and is jealous of her father's penis and becomes angry at him ("penis envy").

Psychological concepts run rampant throughout '''''The Crying of Lot 49''''', usually parodied as if they were being reflected back in a funhouse mirror. When the novel was issued in 1966, many parodies concerning psychotherapy were in progress, noteably 1967's inspired [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062153/ '''The Presidents's Analyst''']. At the center of this parody, the patient saves the doctor from himself.

Viewing [http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html '''''Oedipus Rex'''''] as an early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whodunit '''Whodunit"'''], as our author does in '''''CoL49''''', one remembers that the plot resolution of 'Oedipus Rex' reveals our proto-typical gumshoe realizing he was the [http://m-w.com/dictionary/perp '''perp''''] all along, Oedipus is the detective that swears vengance on Oedipus the criminal. Oedipus is blinded by his revelation. Revelation, Illumination, the "Knowing" that came to so many who took on hip new therapys in the '60's, sometimes the blindness that came from seeing too much, all elements in the story. . . .

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Maas''' 

'''Maas''' Translates from Dutch & German into '''Web''' or '''Network''' and is also an alternative spelling for the '''Meuse''' river in Belgium and the Netherlands. 
see [[Maas_y_Mas| '''Maas y Mas''']]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''kirsch''' 
Kirschwasser, German for "cherry water", often known simply as Kirsch ("cherry"), is a clear cherry brandy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsch Wikipedia] The mention of "kirsch" in the first sentence begins a considerable sequence of references to Germany, German words or German history through Chapter 1.

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Pierce Inverarity''' 
Pynchon & Company (an East Coast Brokerage house) fell apart in 1931, E.A. Pierce (a larger financial institution) picked up that company's holdings. Thus 'Pierce'. See [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50910FE3E5F11738DDDAC0A94DC405B818FF1D3 "EXCHANGE SUSPENDS PYNCHON & COMPANY, New York Times April 25, 1931] and note that the details for this article are buried behind the 'pay' wall. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''California real estate mogul''' 
Many of the terms and concepts in 'The Crying of Lot 49' are derived from laws concerning property and investment. The ancestors of Thomas Ruggles Pynchon [apparentlty the fifth Pynchon to be so named] had much involvement in real estate and property laws. See [http://books.google.com/books?id=asAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA51&dq=Stearns+pynchon+springfield&as_brr=1#PPP1,M1 '''''. . . . the Petition of the Springfield Aquaduct'''''], pages 44 - 53. Also see [http://tinyurl.com/2gb8aa '''''Popular Law Library'''''] and go to page 95. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name of God. . . .''' 
The New York investment and banking firm of Pynchon & company helped develop Electrical networks and the 'Entertainment Industry'. Pynchon & Company collapsed when a consortium of investors including Western Electric forced William Fox out of movies in order to control patents for the talkies. See "Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox", self published. 1933, and "The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound 1926 - 1931", Donald Crafton ISBN 0 - 520 - 22128 - 1.
Note also the TV/God connection, and the notion that Television has supplanted God by the mid-sixties. [RL]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Mazatlán''' 
City in the mexican state of Sinaloa, located on the Pacific coast of Mexico, east from the southernmost tip of the Baja California peninsula. It is worth mentioning that a large wave of German immigrants arrived in the mid 1800s, developing Mazatlán into a thriving commercial seaport. Additionally, Mazatlán played a role in the California gold rush, with people traveling by boat from Mazatlán to San Francisco. Pynchon is placed in Mexico (at least, Mexico City) throughout the 1960s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazatlan Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Cornell University''' 
Ivy league university located in Ithaca, New York. Pynchon began studies in engineering physics in 1953, but left after two years to serve in the U.S. Navy. In 1957, Pynchon returned with a focus in English, a BA he received in 1959. "The Small Rain", Pynchon's first published story, was printed in the ''Cornell Writer'' in May, 1959. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pynchon#Childhood_and_education Wikipedia: Pynchon][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University Wikipedia: Cornell]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Bartók Concerto for Orchestra''' 
Five-movement musical work finished in 1943 by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945), after his native exile to the United States in response to the rise of the Nazi party--Bartók is one of a number of references to the theme of "exile" in this first chapter. Interestingly enough, the fourth movement (''Intermezzo interrotto'') is alleged to be neither "dry" nor "disconsolate", the theory suggested by Charles Hollander that Pynchon deliberatly reversed the facts to bring attention to Bartók's status as a political exile. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartok Wikipedia Bartók][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Orchestra_(Bart%C3%B3k)#Fourth_movement Wikipedia: Concerto][http://www.vheissu.info/art/art_eng_49_hollander.htm Hollander Essay]

:"Dry and disconsolate" are not facts but opinions, although the consensus opinion might be "facts". I think Pynchon described this work as it sounded to him (or his character).

:Hollander's reference to Bartók seems somewhat superficial. Most Hungarian listeners can identify the "serenade theme" in Movement Four as the chorus of a popular irredentist song, nostalgic enough as it was written after Hungary's dismemberment in the Treaty of Trianon (1920), when Transylvania was attached to Romania (see the reference to the "Transylvanian Consulate" on the following page). So even if not "dry", it definitely sounds "disconsolate", an expression of desperate homesickness. Musicologists cannot quite pin down why Bartók chose to paraphrase such a trivial song; the most recent theory is that by giving it a Romanian rhythmic twist, he expressed his nostalgia for the multicultural Greater Hungary thad had been lost forever. (Sorry but I can only give a Hungarian link; the excerpt from the musical sheet is at the bottom of the page: [http://www.muzsika.net/cikknezo.php3?cikk_id=2089 Bartók's Strange Nostalgia]. It was published by Rózsavölgyi & Co., ''not'' coincidentally.) I think the main theme here is intrusion rather than exile as the serenade tune is disrupted by the Shostakovichian "drunken gang".

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Jay Gould''' 
(1836 – 1892) Infamous American financier (known as the "Mephistopheles of Wall Street"), who became a leading American railroad builder and speculator in the mid 19th century. In 1869, the Fisk-Gould Scandal (also known as Black Friday) spread financial panic as a result of Gould and fellow financier James Fisk's efforts to corner the gold market. Further political scandals and unfair dealings have cemented his reputation (both throughout his life and during the century after his death) as one of the most unethical of the 19th century American robber barons. It is worth note that the bust of Jay Gould is the "only ikon in the house" of Pierce Inverarity, and that Oedipa expressed the fear that it (on a shelf over the bed) would "someday topple on them". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Gould Wikipedia: Gould][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%281869%29 Wikipedia: Black Friday]

<div id="warpe">a: 10, b: 2 - '''Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus'''</div>
Law firm representing Pierce Inverarity.

:"Warpe," possible reference to the municipality of Warpe located in the district of Nienburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany (Germany and Nazism being referenced thoroughly in Chapter 1). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warpe Wikipedia]

:"Kubitschek" is possibly drawn from Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (1902 - 1976), a Brazilian social reformer and 24th President of Brazil (1956 - 1961) who went into a self-imposed exile after a military coup d'état, which had later been claimed to have been taking as a preemptive measure to deter an "inevitable communist revolution" (the coup having been tacitly (and directly) assisted and supported by the United States government and the CIA)--this is another in a series of anecdotal references to "exile" as well as a potential comment on United States foreign policy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juscelino_Kubitschek Wikipedia: Kubitschek][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_1964_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat Wikipedia: 1964 Brazilian Coup]

:"McMingus" is a probable nod toward Jazz legend Charles Mingus (1922 - 1979). Pynchon is a lifelong Jazz fan, making this unlikely to be a coincidence. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mingus Wikipedia]

:Pynchon's penchant for absurd, punning law firm names is continued in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=S#salitieri ''Gravity's Rainbow''] with Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short.

In 1964 E.A. Pierce consolidated forces with Merrill Lynch thus creating Merrill, Lynch, Fenner, Pierce and Smith, an investment house that deployed Television Advertisement by the mid-sixties.

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Metzger''' 
Co-executor of Inverarity's will and signatory of the letter Oedipa receives in Chapter 1. Metzger is German for "butcher", and could also be a reference to Wolfgang Metzger (1899 - 1979), a german psychologist who served as one of the main representatives of Gestalt psychology, a theory that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This concept will recur later in the chapter, under the term "Triptych". Additionally, the introduction of Dr Hilarius, a German psychologist, will strengthen this association. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Metzger Wikipedia: Metzger][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology Wikipedia: Gestalt]. 
:One might add, in the Gestalt mode, that "Metzger" can evoke "regrets", wistfully if you like: how would it feel to find yourself called on, as Oedipa is, by the ghost of an old lover? 
:[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metzgerpost Metzgerpost] ("butcher post") was an early type of mail service in the western regions of the Holy Roman Empire, superseded by the Thurn und Taxis-dominated imperial system. 

Compare '''Meztger''' to [http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy/unfolding_self.html '''Ralph Metzner'''], co-author with [http://www.timothyleary.us/ '''Timothy Leary'''] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass '''Richard Alpert'''], also known as [http://www.ramdass.org/ '''Ram Dass'''], of [http://tinyurl.com/337xqe '''The Psychedelic Experience''']. 

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Kinneret-Among-The-Pines''' 
Fictional California town that Oedipa Maas resides in. Yam Kinneret (Sea of Kinnereth) is the modern Hebrew name for the Sea of Galilee, Israel's largest freshwater lake. Upon the shores of Galilee, much of the ministry of Christ was said to have occurred, among which include His Sermon on the Mount, as well as the miracles of His walking on water, calming a storm, and feeding the
multitude with five loaves of bread and two fish. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee Wikipedia]. During the years Pynchon was working on 'The Crying of Lot 49, College buddy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fariña '''Richard Farina'''] lived in [http://ci.carmel.ca.us/ '''Carmel by the Sea'''].

a: 10, b: 2 - '''settecento''' 
Settecento is the Italian word for seven hundred, and is the standard Italian term for the 18th century (not the 17th century, but the years beginning with 17). It is used in English mostly to refer to art-historical and architectural movements and styles of that period. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settecento Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''variorum''' 
A work containing all known varients of a text whereby all variations and emendations are set side-by-side to track textual decisions. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variorum Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto''' 
Kazoos appear in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']. The title isn't as outlandish as it may seem; Vivaldi's concerti are often performed on instruments they were not written for. Example: [http://idrs.colorado.edu/Publications/DR/DR7.1/vivaldi.html concerto for two cellos] recast for bassoon trio. Cross referenced search of kazoos in the Gravity's Rainbow Wiki: [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Songs/Compositions ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=H ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=O ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dope_in_Gravity%27s_Rainbow]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Boyd Beaver''' 
Soloist for the Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto. "Boyd" might stem from the Gaelic word for "blond", while "Beaver" is a chiefly American slang term for female genitalia, possibly prompting the image of a blonde vagina playing a kazoo. One might also take "Boy", evoked by "Boyd", combined with the "female" beaver, and find the same gender-bending implied in Oedipa's name itself (or in a male author writing a female protagonist, or the Muse inspiring the poet). The name also bears an obvious resemblance to Zoyd Wheeler, the protagonist of ''Vineland'', though he played the keyboard.

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Wendell ("Mucho") Maas''' 
"Mucho más" is common Spanish phrase, meaning "much more." Mucho Maas reappears in ''Vineland''.

:''Maas'' is also Dutch for ''mesh'' and ''loophole'' (in the architectural and the figurative sense as well), which may be related to the book's treatement of webs or networks.

:The near-likeness "mass" becomes an important word/concept in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' and, especially, ''Against The Day'', although the associative meanings do not seem to mesh.! [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 13:42, 11 July 2007 (PDT)

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Pachuco dialect''' 
Pachucos were Mexican American youth who developed their own subculture during the 1930s and 1940s in the Southwestern United States. They wore distinctive clothes (such as Zoot Suits) and spoke their own dialect (Caló). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachuco Wikipedia] Zoot suits appear a few times in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

a: 11, b: 2 - '''chingas and maricones''' 
Spanish slang words. "Chingas" is a conjugation of the word "chingar" (slang for "to fuck"), translating "chingas" as "[you] fuck" (or, better, just a plural of "chinga"). "Maricones" refers to the term "maricón" (based on the word "marica" or "male homosexual") which is equivalent to the English insult "faggot".

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Lamont Cranston''' 

[[image:The-Shadow_1939.jpg|right|thumb|150px|The Shadow comic]]One identity adopted by The Shadow, a character of pulp fiction, radio shows, and comic books. Cranston was a wealthy young man about town. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow Wikipedia]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow '''The Shadow'''] first appeared on radio in 1930. The banking institution Pynchon & Company collapsed in 1931. The last words Oedipa hears from Pierce:
:"I heard that," Pierce said. "I think it's time Wendell Maas had a little visit from the Shadow."
were spoken a year before she received the letter from Warpe, Wistful, Kubitschek and McMingus.

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Commissioner Weston... Professor Quackenbush''' 
Police [http://www.angelfire.com/yt/Weston/ '''Commissioner Weston'''] was the [http://theshadowfan.com/theshadowfan/past-shadow/movies/the-shadow-serial-1940/ '''Shadow's'''] friend and running mate. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028772/ '''Professor Quackenbush'''] is most likely a reference to Dr. Quackenbush from[http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/Marx/films/posters/DayAtTheRaces2.jpg '''Day at the Races'''].

a: 13, b: 4 - '''Mucho shaved his ... throw them further off''' 
All of the references in this section refer to the stereotypical (often Italian) used car salesman with greased back hair, a very short mustache, and huge lapels on his suit.

[[Image:jacklemmon.jpg|90px|thumb|left|Jack Lemmon and his hair in the 60s]]a: 13, b: 4 - '''used only water, combing it like Jack Lemmon''' 
American actor (1925-2001). He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films ''Some Like It Hot'', ''The Apartment'' and others. Wilder felt Lemmon had a natural tendency toward overacting that had to be tempered; the Wilder biography ''Nobody's Perfect'' quotes the director as saying: "Lemmon, I would describe him as a ham, a fine ham, and with ham you have to trim a little fat." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_lemmon Wikipedia]

a: 13, b: 4 - '''creampuff''' 
A very well maintained used car. 

a: 16, b: 7 - '''Dr. Hilarius, her shrink or psychotherapist''' 
[[Image:Hilarius.jpg|right|thumb|St. Hilarius|150px]]According to the Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Hilarius '''Pope Saint Hilarius'''] was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 461 to February 28, 468). He was canonized as a saint after his death. The Sardinian archdeacon of Rome, Hilarius was elected bishop of Rome probably November 17, 461, and was consecrated November 19, 461 and died on February 28 (?), 468.

As archdeacon under Pope Leo I he fought vigorously for the rights of the Roman See and vigorously opposed the condemnation of Flavian of Constantinople at the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 to settle the question of Eutyches. According to a letter to the Empress Pulcheria, collected among the letter of Leo I, Hilarus apologizes for not delivering to her the pope's letter after the synod. . . .

Shrink is a shortened form of headshrinker, which is 50s slang. The OED cites 'shrink' in this text of 1966, as the first recorded written use of it as a slang term. Which must be why Pynchon defined it in the text.

a: 17, b: 8 - '''LSD-25, mescaline, psilocybin''' 
These hallucinogenic drugs are also mentioned in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''''''Gravity's Rainbow''''']. LSD gets a special mention as an agent of spiritual awareness in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland '''''Vineland''''']. See notes for [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_6 '''She Loves You''] on page a: 143, b: 117 of CoL49 wiki, where Mucho Maas is expressing ideas about psychedelics concordant with the writings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley '''Aldous Huxley'''.] Peyote's magical potential is rendered on pages 392-394 of Against the Day, in wholy favorable terms, with the connection of divinatory powers and envisioning agents such as [http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-405965/Native-American-Church '''Hikuli'''] displayed in a very favorable light.

It remains an open question as to whether and to what extent Pynchon took or was influenced by them. ([http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Smoking_Dope_with_Thomas_Pynchon "whether"?])

a: 18, b:8 - '''lapses from orthodoxy''' 
Orthodox Freudian psychotherapy involved the therapist literally trying not to impose himself at all on the patient. That's why the therapist is often shown sitting behind the patient. The goal is to be a blank canvas and have the patient paint his problems on the therapist, thereby bringing them into consciousness.

[[Image:rorschach1.jpg|150px|thumb|right|The first of the ten cards in the Rorschach inkblot test]]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''Rorschach blot''' 
The Rorschach inkblot test (Pronounced roar-shock) is a method of psychological evaluation. Psychologists use this test to try to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_inkblot_test Wikipedia]

[[Image:rorschachcomic1.png|thumb|150px|right|Rorschach, a comic book character in ''Watchmen'']]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''a face is symmetrical like a Rorschach blot''' 
In the graphic novel, ''Watchmen'', written by Alan Moore, there is a character named Rorschach who wears a mask with a Rorscach blot on the front. Moore is a self-professed Pynchon fan: he referenced [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. ''V.''] in ''V for Vendetta'' and has mentioned [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] in interview. It is possible, not to say probable, that Moore was inspired by this line.

a: 18, b: 8 - '''TAT picture''' 
The TAT is popularly known as the picture interpretation technique because it uses a standard series of 31 provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject must tell a story. It was developed by American psychologists in the 1930s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_Apperception_Test Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Fu-Manchu''' 
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character, an evil genius of Chinese origin, first featured in a series of novels by Birmingham author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Manchu Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Perry Mason''' 
Perry Mason is a fictional defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner. Mason was portrayed by Raymond Burr in a television series which ran on CBS from 1957 to 1966. The typical plot involves Perry Mason unmasking the actual murderer in a final dramatic courtroom showdown. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Mason Wikipedia]

a: 19, b: 9 - '''''The Profession v. Perry Mason...''''' 
Roseman may be trying to undermine Perry Mason by arguing that the dramatic courtroom twists in the TV show are actually uncommon in the American legal system.

[[Image:remediosvaro.jpg|thumb|175px|''Bornando el manto terrestre'', 1961|left]]
a: 21, b: 11 - '''Bornando el Manto Terrestre''' 
Remedios Varo (1908 - 1963) was a surrealist painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedios_Varo Wikipedia]

Bill Brown [http://www.notbored.org/crying.html notes] that "Pynchon saw Bordando el Manto Terrestre when, as part of the first full retrospective of the painter's work, it was displayed at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1964, a year after her death at the age of 55. Painted in 1961, el Manto (oil on masonite, roughly 40 by 48 inches) is the central panel in an autobiographical triptych. It is possible that Pynchon, writing ''Lot 49'' in 1965, recalled the painting from memory or incomplete notes, and not with a reproduction of it set in front of him. He gets a lot wrong."

[[image:bubble-shades.jpg|thumb|Bubble Shades|120px|right]]
a:21, b:11 - '''she wore dark green bubble shades''' 
This is the sixties, after all...

{{CL49 PbP}}

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WikiAdmin: '''''The Shadow''''' (1939)

'''''The Shadow''''' (1939)

Chapter 1

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{{CL49 PbP Text}}
 

Title Page: '''The Crying of Lot 49'''

Many of the concepts of '''''The Crying of Lot 49''''' have to do with Numerology and property law. Read more about this in the article [[7 x 7|'''''7 x 7''''']].

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Oedipa''' 
Oedipus was the mythical king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus Wikipedia] Oedipus the King, aka Oedipus Rex, is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles and first performed in 428 BC. Many critics, including Aristotle, consider it the greatest tragedy ever written. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King Wikipedia]

:Whether Oedipa has anything to do with Oedipus is an open question. Some critics find zero connection and note that the name indicates that names are only words, and not necessarily full of meaning (mysteries without answers being a theme in CoL49). Others have teased various interpretations from Sophocles' play to connect its protagonist to Pynchon's. So far, no single explanation is remotely concrete or thoroughly convincing.

:Some suggest the Oedipus reference is to an incident earlier in the king's career, having to do, in fact, with the way he became king of Thebes. Oedipus famously solved the riddle of the Sphinx and heroically freed Thebes of her curse (cf. the deeds of young Theseus, the labors of Herakles, etc.). Sophocles' play has an older Oedipus finally figuring out the riddle of his own birth, over-confident in his own ability to figure things out. Oedipus is the riddle-solver, by definition. And doesn't it make sense to think of Oedipa as a riddle-solver? Q.E.D. Now the riddle is sometimes said to be "what walks on four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon, and three feet at night?" The answer is man (baby=4; man=2; old man with cane = 3), which is where this gets interesting: one of the legendary precepts engraved on the temple of Apollo at Delphi is "gnothi seauton", "know yourself". This almost certainly is taken to mean not (as we might tend to think) that we should discover ourselves as individuals, but rather that we should know our own nature, i.e. the nature of mankind, i.e. "know that you are mortal". Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sphinx with the answer "man", but he doesn't know himself as a man, fallible and doomed--count no man blessed until he's dead, Greeks were fond of saying--not until the peak of his powers, walking on two legs, so to speak. His story doesn't end there: he wanders the earth blind after putting out his eyes (death would be too good for himself), and eventually as an old man settles on Athens as a place to die, knowing that his spirit will be a powerful force in the land of his death (see Soph., Oedipus at Colonus). This is the essence of a hero for the Greeks, a mortal who remains powerful in death, as is reflected in their practice of hero-cult offerings at grave sites (compare, say, Xtian saints' relics, bones thought to have power). As an old man, Oedipus is like a holy prophet (compare the blind sage Tieresias, or the legendary blind poet Homer), a man who sees without eyes (compare what Paul Atreides becomes in the second Dune novel). So, does Oedipa ascend to some deeper understanding by the end of the novel? Wait and see.

:Oedipa's name is probably pronounced in the American fashion, ED-i-pa, not British fashion, EED-i-pa, because Mucho uses the short form "Oed," which almost has to be ED.

:A further comic level in the name Oedipa: It looks like a feminization of ''Oedipus,'' which is a Latin name derived from the Greek ''Oidipous.'' While ''-pus'' has the look of a word-ending that might alternate between masculine and feminine forms, like proper names ''Julius/Julia'' or adjectives ''sanctus/sanctum/sancta,'' in fact it stands in for Greek ''-pous,'' meaning "foot," a form that doesn't alternate. (All feet are the same gender no matter who's wearing them.) Whoever coined the name Oedipa pretended to know a little more than they really did.

Additionally, there is the Freudian concept of the Oedipal Complex. Basically, a son loves his mother (in an unconscious sexual way) and is jealous of his father and wants to kill him and have his mom all to himself. The daughter version of this is called the Electra Complex. In the Electra Complex the daughter is upset that she has no penis and is jealous of her father's penis and becomes angry at him ("penis envy").

Psychological concepts run rampant throughout '''''The Crying of Lot 49''''', usually parodied as if they were being reflected back in a funhouse mirror. When the novel was issued in 1966, many parodies concerning psychotherapy were in progress, noteably 1967's inspired [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062153/ '''The Presidents's Analyst''']. At the center of this parody, the patient saves the doctor from himself.

Viewing [http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html '''''Oedipus Rex'''''] as an early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whodunit '''Whodunit"'''], as our author does in '''''CoL49''''', one remembers that the plot resolution of 'Oedipus Rex' reveals our proto-typical gumshoe realizing he was the [http://m-w.com/dictionary/perp '''perp''''] all along, Oedipus is the detective that swears vengance on Oedipus the criminal. Oedipus is blinded by his revelation. Revelation, Illumination, the "Knowing" that came to so many who took on hip new therapys in the '60's, sometimes the blindness that came from seeing too much, all elements in the story. . . .

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Maas''' 

'''Maas''' Translates from Dutch & German into '''Web''' or '''Network''' and is also an alternative spelling for the '''Meuse''' river in Belgium and the Netherlands. 
see [[Maas_y_Mas| '''Maas y Mas''']]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''kirsch''' 
Kirschwasser, German for "cherry water", often known simply as Kirsch ("cherry"), is a clear cherry brandy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsch Wikipedia] The mention of "kirsch" in the first sentence begins a considerable sequence of references to Germany, German words or German history through Chapter 1.

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Pierce Inverarity''' 
Pynchon & Company (an East Coast Brokerage house) fell apart in 1931, E.A. Pierce (a larger financial institution) picked up that company's holdings. Thus 'Pierce'. See [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50910FE3E5F11738DDDAC0A94DC405B818FF1D3 "EXCHANGE SUSPENDS PYNCHON & COMPANY, New York Times April 25, 1931] and note that the details for this article are buried behind the 'pay' wall. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''California real estate mogul''' 
Many of the terms and concepts in 'The Crying of Lot 49' are derived from laws concerning property and investment. The ancestors of Thomas Ruggles Pynchon [apparentlty the fifth Pynchon to be so named] had much involvement in real estate and property laws. See [http://books.google.com/books?id=asAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA51&dq=Stearns+pynchon+springfield&as_brr=1#PPP1,M1 '''''. . . . the Petition of the Springfield Aquaduct'''''], pages 44 - 53. Also see [http://tinyurl.com/2gb8aa '''''Popular Law Library'''''] and go to page 95. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name of God. . . .''' 
The New York investment and banking firm of Pynchon & company helped develop Electrical networks and the 'Entertainment Industry'. Pynchon & Company collapsed when a consortium of investors including Western Electric forced William Fox out of movies in order to control patents for the talkies. See "Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox", self published. 1933, and "The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound 1926 - 1931", Donald Crafton ISBN 0 - 520 - 22128 - 1.
Note also the TV/God connection, and the notion that Television has supplanted God by the mid-sixties. [RL]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Mazatlán''' 
City in the mexican state of Sinaloa, located on the Pacific coast of Mexico, east from the southernmost tip of the Baja California peninsula. It is worth mentioning that a large wave of German immigrants arrived in the mid 1800s, developing Mazatlán into a thriving commercial seaport. Additionally, Mazatlán played a role in the California gold rush, with people traveling by boat from Mazatlán to San Francisco. Pynchon is placed in Mexico (at least, Mexico City) throughout the 1960s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazatlan Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Cornell University''' 
Ivy league university located in Ithaca, New York. Pynchon began studies in engineering physics in 1953, but left after two years to serve in the U.S. Navy. In 1957, Pynchon returned with a focus in English, a BA he received in 1959. "The Small Rain", Pynchon's first published story, was printed in the ''Cornell Writer'' in May, 1959. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pynchon#Childhood_and_education Wikipedia: Pynchon][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University Wikipedia: Cornell]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Bartók Concerto for Orchestra''' 
Five-movement musical work finished in 1943 by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945), after his native exile to the United States in response to the rise of the Nazi party--Bartók is one of a number of references to the theme of "exile" in this first chapter. Interestingly enough, the fourth movement (''Intermezzo interrotto'') is alleged to be neither "dry" nor "disconsolate", the theory suggested by Charles Hollander that Pynchon deliberatly reversed the facts to bring attention to Bartók's status as a political exile. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartok Wikipedia Bartók][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Orchestra_(Bart%C3%B3k)#Fourth_movement Wikipedia: Concerto][http://www.vheissu.info/art/art_eng_49_hollander.htm Hollander Essay]

:"Dry and disconsolate" are not facts but opinions, although the consensus opinion might be "facts". I think Pynchon described this work as it sounded to him (or his character).

:Hollander's reference to Bartók seems somewhat superficial. Most Hungarian listeners can identify the "serenade theme" in Movement Four as the chorus of a popular irredentist song, nostalgic enough as it was written after Hungary's dismemberment in the Treaty of Trianon (1920), when Transylvania was attached to Romania (see the reference to the "Transylvanian Consulate" on the following page). So even if not "dry", it definitely sounds "disconsolate", an expression of desperate homesickness. Musicologists cannot quite pin down why Bartók chose to paraphrase such a trivial song; the most recent theory is that by giving it a Romanian rhythmic twist, he expressed his nostalgia for the multicultural Greater Hungary thad had been lost forever. (Sorry but I can only give a Hungarian link; the excerpt from the musical sheet is at the bottom of the page: [http://www.muzsika.net/cikknezo.php3?cikk_id=2089 Bartók's Strange Nostalgia]. It was published by Rózsavölgyi & Co., ''not'' coincidentally.) I think the main theme here is intrusion rather than exile as the serenade tune is disrupted by the Shostakovichian "drunken gang".

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Jay Gould''' 
(1836 – 1892) Infamous American financier (known as the "Mephistopheles of Wall Street"), who became a leading American railroad builder and speculator in the mid 19th century. In 1869, the Fisk-Gould Scandal (also known as Black Friday) spread financial panic as a result of Gould and fellow financier James Fisk's efforts to corner the gold market. Further political scandals and unfair dealings have cemented his reputation (both throughout his life and during the century after his death) as one of the most unethical of the 19th century American robber barons. It is worth note that the bust of Jay Gould is the "only ikon in the house" of Pierce Inverarity, and that Oedipa expressed the fear that it (on a shelf over the bed) would "someday topple on them". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Gould Wikipedia: Gould][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%281869%29 Wikipedia: Black Friday]

<div id="warpe">a: 10, b: 2 - '''Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus'''</div>
Law firm representing Pierce Inverarity.

:"Warpe," possible reference to the municipality of Warpe located in the district of Nienburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany (Germany and Nazism being referenced thoroughly in Chapter 1). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warpe Wikipedia]

:"Kubitschek" is possibly drawn from Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (1902 - 1976), a Brazilian social reformer and 24th President of Brazil (1956 - 1961) who went into a self-imposed exile after a military coup d'état, which had later been claimed to have been taking as a preemptive measure to deter an "inevitable communist revolution" (the coup having been tacitly (and directly) assisted and supported by the United States government and the CIA)--this is another in a series of anecdotal references to "exile" as well as a potential comment on United States foreign policy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juscelino_Kubitschek Wikipedia: Kubitschek][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_1964_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat Wikipedia: 1964 Brazilian Coup]

:"McMingus" is a probable nod toward Jazz legend Charles Mingus (1922 - 1979). Pynchon is a lifelong Jazz fan, making this unlikely to be a coincidence. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mingus Wikipedia]

:Pynchon's penchant for absurd, punning law firm names is continued in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=S#salitieri ''Gravity's Rainbow''] with Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short.

In 1964 E.A. Pierce consolidated forces with Merrill Lynch thus creating Merrill, Lynch, Fenner, Pierce and Smith, an investment house that deployed Television Advertisement by the mid-sixties.

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Metzger''' 
Co-executor of Inverarity's will and signatory of the letter Oedipa receives in Chapter 1. Metzger is German for "butcher", and could also be a reference to Wolfgang Metzger (1899 - 1979), a german psychologist who served as one of the main representatives of Gestalt psychology, a theory that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This concept will recur later in the chapter, under the term "Triptych". Additionally, the introduction of Dr Hilarius, a German psychologist, will strengthen this association. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Metzger Wikipedia: Metzger][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology Wikipedia: Gestalt]. 
:One might add, in the Gestalt mode, that "Metzger" can evoke "regrets", wistfully if you like: how would it feel to find yourself called on, as Oedipa is, by the ghost of an old lover? 
:[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metzgerpost Metzgerpost] ("butcher post") was an early type of mail service in the western regions of the Holy Roman Empire, superseded by the Thurn und Taxis-dominated imperial system. 

Compare '''Meztger''' to [http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy/unfolding_self.html '''Ralph Metzner'''], co-author with [http://www.timothyleary.us/ '''Timothy Leary'''] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass '''Richard Alpert'''], also known as [http://www.ramdass.org/ '''Ram Dass'''], of [http://tinyurl.com/337xqe '''The Psychedelic Experience''']. 

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Kinneret-Among-The-Pines''' 
Fictional California town that Oedipa Maas resides in. Yam Kinneret (Sea of Kinnereth) is the modern Hebrew name for the Sea of Galilee, Israel's largest freshwater lake. Upon the shores of Galilee, much of the ministry of Christ was said to have occurred, among which include His Sermon on the Mount, as well as the miracles of His walking on water, calming a storm, and feeding the
multitude with five loaves of bread and two fish. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee Wikipedia]. During the years Pynchon was working on 'The Crying of Lot 49, College buddy [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Fariña '''Richard Farina'''] lived in [http://ci.carmel.ca.us/ '''Carmel by the Sea'''].

a: 10, b: 2 - '''settecento''' 
Settecento is the Italian word for seven hundred, and is the standard Italian term for the 18th century (not the 17th century, but the years beginning with 17). It is used in English mostly to refer to art-historical and architectural movements and styles of that period. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settecento Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''variorum''' 
A work containing all known varients of a text whereby all variations and emendations are set side-by-side to track textual decisions. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variorum Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto''' 
Kazoos appear in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']. The title isn't as outlandish as it may seem; Vivaldi's concerti are often performed on instruments they were not written for. Example: [http://idrs.colorado.edu/Publications/DR/DR7.1/vivaldi.html concerto for two cellos] recast for bassoon trio. Cross referenced search of kazoos in the Gravity's Rainbow Wiki: [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Songs/Compositions ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=H ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=O ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dope_in_Gravity%27s_Rainbow]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Boyd Beaver''' 
Soloist for the Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto. "Boyd" might stem from the Gaelic word for "blond", while "Beaver" is a chiefly American slang term for female genitalia, possibly prompting the image of a blonde vagina playing a kazoo. One might also take "Boy", evoked by "Boyd", combined with the "female" beaver, and find the same gender-bending implied in Oedipa's name itself (or in a male author writing a female protagonist, or the Muse inspiring the poet). The name also bears an obvious resemblance to Zoyd Wheeler, the protagonist of ''Vineland'', though he played the keyboard.

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Wendell ("Mucho") Maas''' 
"Mucho más" is common Spanish phrase, meaning "much more." Mucho Maas reappears in ''Vineland''.

:''Maas'' is also Dutch for ''mesh'' and ''loophole'' (in the architectural and the figurative sense as well), which may be related to the book's treatement of webs or networks.

:The near-likeness "mass" becomes an important word/concept in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' and, especially, ''Against The Day'', although the associative meanings do not seem to mesh.! [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 13:42, 11 July 2007 (PDT)

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Pachuco dialect''' 
Pachucos were Mexican American youth who developed their own subculture during the 1930s and 1940s in the Southwestern United States. They wore distinctive clothes (such as Zoot Suits) and spoke their own dialect (Caló). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachuco Wikipedia] Zoot suits appear a few times in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

a: 11, b: 2 - '''chingas and maricones''' 
Spanish slang words. "Chingas" is a conjugation of the word "chingar" (slang for "to fuck"), translating "chingas" as "[you] fuck" (or, better, just a plural of "chinga"). "Maricones" refers to the term "maricón" (based on the word "marica" or "male homosexual") which is equivalent to the English insult "faggot".

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Lamont Cranston''' 

[[image:Example.jpg|right|thumb|150px|The Shadow comic]]One identity adopted by The Shadow, a character of pulp fiction, radio shows, and comic books. Cranston was a wealthy young man about town. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow Wikipedia]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow '''The Shadow'''] first appeared on radio in 1930. The banking institution Pynchon & Company collapsed in 1931. The last words Oedipa hears from Pierce:
:"I heard that," Pierce said. "I think it's time Wendell Maas had a little visit from the Shadow."
were spoken a year before she received the letter from Warpe, Wistful, Kubitschek and McMingus.

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Commissioner Weston... Professor Quackenbush''' 
Police [http://www.angelfire.com/yt/Weston/ '''Commissioner Weston'''] was the [http://theshadowfan.com/theshadowfan/past-shadow/movies/the-shadow-serial-1940/ '''Shadow's'''] friend and running mate. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028772/ '''Professor Quackenbush'''] is most likely a reference to Dr. Quackenbush from[http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/Marx/films/posters/DayAtTheRaces2.jpg '''Day at the Races'''].

a: 13, b: 4 - '''Mucho shaved his ... throw them further off''' 
All of the references in this section refer to the stereotypical (often Italian) used car salesman with greased back hair, a very short mustache, and huge lapels on his suit.

[[Image:jacklemmon.jpg|90px|thumb|left|Jack Lemmon and his hair in the 60s]]a: 13, b: 4 - '''used only water, combing it like Jack Lemmon''' 
American actor (1925-2001). He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films ''Some Like It Hot'', ''The Apartment'' and others. Wilder felt Lemmon had a natural tendency toward overacting that had to be tempered; the Wilder biography ''Nobody's Perfect'' quotes the director as saying: "Lemmon, I would describe him as a ham, a fine ham, and with ham you have to trim a little fat." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_lemmon Wikipedia]

a: 13, b: 4 - '''creampuff''' 
A very well maintained used car. 

a: 16, b: 7 - '''Dr. Hilarius, her shrink or psychotherapist''' 
[[Image:Hilarius.jpg|right|thumb|St. Hilarius|150px]]According to the Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Hilarius '''Pope Saint Hilarius'''] was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 461 to February 28, 468). He was canonized as a saint after his death. The Sardinian archdeacon of Rome, Hilarius was elected bishop of Rome probably November 17, 461, and was consecrated November 19, 461 and died on February 28 (?), 468.

As archdeacon under Pope Leo I he fought vigorously for the rights of the Roman See and vigorously opposed the condemnation of Flavian of Constantinople at the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 to settle the question of Eutyches. According to a letter to the Empress Pulcheria, collected among the letter of Leo I, Hilarus apologizes for not delivering to her the pope's letter after the synod. . . .

Shrink is a shortened form of headshrinker, which is 50s slang. The OED cites 'shrink' in this text of 1966, as the first recorded written use of it as a slang term. Which must be why Pynchon defined it in the text.

a: 17, b: 8 - '''LSD-25, mescaline, psilocybin''' 
These hallucinogenic drugs are also mentioned in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''''''Gravity's Rainbow''''']. LSD gets a special mention as an agent of spiritual awareness in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland '''''Vineland''''']. See notes for [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_6 '''She Loves You''] on page a: 143, b: 117 of CoL49 wiki, where Mucho Maas is expressing ideas about psychedelics concordant with the writings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley '''Aldous Huxley'''.] Peyote's magical potential is rendered on pages 392-394 of Against the Day, in wholy favorable terms, with the connection of divinatory powers and envisioning agents such as [http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-405965/Native-American-Church '''Hikuli'''] displayed in a very favorable light.

It remains an open question as to whether and to what extent Pynchon took or was influenced by them. ([http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Smoking_Dope_with_Thomas_Pynchon "whether"?])

a: 18, b:8 - '''lapses from orthodoxy''' 
Orthodox Freudian psychotherapy involved the therapist literally trying not to impose himself at all on the patient. That's why the therapist is often shown sitting behind the patient. The goal is to be a blank canvas and have the patient paint his problems on the therapist, thereby bringing them into consciousness.

[[Image:rorschach1.jpg|150px|thumb|right|The first of the ten cards in the Rorschach inkblot test]]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''Rorschach blot''' 
The Rorschach inkblot test (Pronounced roar-shock) is a method of psychological evaluation. Psychologists use this test to try to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_inkblot_test Wikipedia]

[[Image:rorschachcomic1.png|thumb|150px|right|Rorschach, a comic book character in ''Watchmen'']]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''a face is symmetrical like a Rorschach blot''' 
In the graphic novel, ''Watchmen'', written by Alan Moore, there is a character named Rorschach who wears a mask with a Rorscach blot on the front. Moore is a self-professed Pynchon fan: he referenced [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. ''V.''] in ''V for Vendetta'' and has mentioned [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] in interview. It is possible, not to say probable, that Moore was inspired by this line.

a: 18, b: 8 - '''TAT picture''' 
The TAT is popularly known as the picture interpretation technique because it uses a standard series of 31 provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject must tell a story. It was developed by American psychologists in the 1930s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_Apperception_Test Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Fu-Manchu''' 
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character, an evil genius of Chinese origin, first featured in a series of novels by Birmingham author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Manchu Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Perry Mason''' 
Perry Mason is a fictional defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner. Mason was portrayed by Raymond Burr in a television series which ran on CBS from 1957 to 1966. The typical plot involves Perry Mason unmasking the actual murderer in a final dramatic courtroom showdown. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Mason Wikipedia]

a: 19, b: 9 - '''''The Profession v. Perry Mason...''''' 
Roseman may be trying to undermine Perry Mason by arguing that the dramatic courtroom twists in the TV show are actually uncommon in the American legal system.

[[Image:remediosvaro.jpg|thumb|175px|''Bornando el manto terrestre'', 1961|left]]
a: 21, b: 11 - '''Bornando el Manto Terrestre''' 
Remedios Varo (1908 - 1963) was a surrealist painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedios_Varo Wikipedia]

Bill Brown [http://www.notbored.org/crying.html notes] that "Pynchon saw Bordando el Manto Terrestre when, as part of the first full retrospective of the painter's work, it was displayed at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1964, a year after her death at the age of 55. Painted in 1961, el Manto (oil on masonite, roughly 40 by 48 inches) is the central panel in an autobiographical triptych. It is possible that Pynchon, writing ''Lot 49'' in 1965, recalled the painting from memory or incomplete notes, and not with a reproduction of it set in front of him. He gets a lot wrong."

[[image:bubble-shades.jpg|thumb|Bubble Shades|120px|right]]
a:21, b:11 - '''she wore dark green bubble shades''' 
This is the sixties, after all...

{{CL49 PbP}}

File:Hilarius.jpg

2007-12-08T18:12:35Z

WikiAdmin: Illustrations from the Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514) From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Chronicle Wikipedia]: The Nuremberg Chronicle, written in Latin and German versions by Hartmann Schedel, is one of the best document

Illustrations from the Nuremberg Chronicle, by Hartmann Schedel (1440-1514)

From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Chronicle Wikipedia]:

The Nuremberg Chronicle, written in Latin and German versions by Hartmann Schedel, is one of the best documented early printed books and, appearing in 1493, is an incunabulum.

The large workshop of Michael Wolgemut, then Nuremberg's leading artist in various media, provided the unprecedented 1,809 woodcut illustrations (before duplications are eliminated). Sebastian Kammermeister and Sebald Schreyer financed the printing in a contract dated March 16, 1492, although preparations had been well under way for several years. Wolgemut and his stepson Wilhelm Pleydenwurff were first commissioned to provide the illustrations in 1487-8, and a further contract of December 29th 1491 commissioned manuscript layouts of the text and illustrations.

Albrecht Dürer was an apprentice with Wolgemut from 1486-1489, so may well have participated in designing some of the illustrations for the specialist craftsmen (called "formschneider"s) who cut the blocks, onto which the design had been drawn, or a drawing glued.
Source: [http://www.beloit.edu/~nurember/book/images/People/Early_Christian_Medieval/index.htm]

Chapter 1

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WikiAdmin: Fix Hilarius image entry

{{CL49 PbP Text}}
 

Title Page: '''The Crying of Lot 49'''

A 'number' of concepts [and maybe a pun or two] are embedded in the title of Thomas Pynchon's second novel, a work that the author dismisses as the worst of his juvenilia in his introduction to 'Slow Learner':

:"The Small Rain" was my first published story. . . ."
: . . . .Most of what I dislike about my writing is present here in embryo, as well as in more advanced forms. I failed to recognize, just for openers, that the main character's problem was real and interesting enough to generate a story on its own. Apparently I felt I had to put on a whole extra overlay of rain images and references to "The Waste Land" and A Farewell to Arms. I was operating on the motto "Make it literary," a piece of bad advice I made up all by myself and then took. . . .
:. . . .The next story I wrote was "The Crying of Lot 49," which was marketed as a "novel." and in which I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I'd learned up until then. . . .

The title suggests a property auction as auctions are 'cried' and 'Lot' usually is in reference to a plot of land. A 'lot' is also a group of things sold at an auction, these lots are numbered. Lot is also a reference to 'Lot' in the Bible, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lot_(Bible) Wikipedia/Lot]:

:"In Luke 17:28-32 Jesus uses Lot's wife as a warning to those who do not watch for the signs of the Apocalypse, and in 2 Peter 2:7-8 Lot is described as a righteous man surrounded by wickedness."

Crying of course has a primary meaning of tears and sadness. The novel will feature a parade of homonyms surrounding all this 'crying', derived from the Middle English word [http://www.thefreedictionary.com/triste Triste], a word from Old French, originally from Latin 'tristis'. Pynchon's a grand champion at word webs and the web he spins from this tiny word oozes into every nook and cranny of this novella.

The number [http://www.zeta.org.au/~annskea/Death.htm '''49'''] has a great deal of [http://www.tms.edu/tmsj/tmsj8c.pdf '''Christian'''] and [http://www.experiencefestival.com/numerology '''Occult'''] significance. Christian numerology has 49 as the number before [http://www.stpaulskingsville.org/pentecost.htm Pentecost]. Here is an excerpt from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecost Wikipedia] article on the Pentecost:

:". . . .one of the prominent feasts in the Christian liturgical year, celebrated the fiftieth day after Easter Sunday (the tenth day after Ascension Thursday). Historically and symbolically related to the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot, it commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus as described in the Book of Acts,Chapter 2. Pentecost is also called Whitsun, Whitsunday, or Whit Sunday in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking areas."

There is an implied meaning of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revelation Revelation] and [http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhlintro.htm Gnosis] in Pentecost, so 49 would be just before '''Revelation'''. In 1966, soon after the President John Kennedy's Assassination and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Biblical Apocylypse managed to slip into [http://top40.about.com/od/popmusic101/a/top40.htm top 40 radio] with Barry McGuire's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_of_Destruction_(song) 'Eve of Destruction'] [1965] an early addition to a series of increasingly ominous messages that managed to slip into the ears of middle class American ears, including a few [http://www.youngrepublicans.com/ Young Republican] housewives who go to [http://oilintheirblood.com/synthetics.html Tupperware] parties.

In Tibetan Buddhism, the [http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ADM/goss.htm Bardo State] is 49 days:

:Bardo literally means "in between." It indicates a number of transitional or liminal conditions: (a) between birth and death, (b) the meditational state, (c) the dream stage, (d) the moment of dying, (e) the interim between death and rebirth, and (f) the process of rebirth. The bardo teachings are relevant to each liminal stage but are more pertinent to dying and death (Turner, 1969). . . .

:. . . .The soul mother or lama guides the separation of the soul in various liminal situations and is the spiritual guide who accompanies the subtle consciousness of the dead person step by step on the difficult and sometimes perilous path during the 49 days between death and rebirth.

[[image:DeeHieroglyph.gif|thumb|left|caption|Dee's glyph, whose meaning he explained in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monas_Hieroglyphica ''Monas Hieroglyphica'']|100px]][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee John Dee], astrologer to Queen Elizabeth and one of the most learned men in Renaissance England worked out his "Enochian" system of magick in order to communicate with Angels:

:"In 49 voyces, or callings: which are the Natural Keyes, to open those, not 49, but 48. (for One is not to be opened) Gates of understanding, whereby you shall have knowledge to move every Gate, and to call out as many as you please, or shall be thought necessary, which can very well, righteously, and wisely, open unto you the secrets of their Cities, and make you understand perfectly the [mysteries] contained in theTables."

See: [http://www.luckymojo.com/esoteric/occultism/magic/ceremonial/enochian/dtenochianapocalypse.txt The Enochian Apocalypse by Donald Tyson] also [http://www.themagickalreview.org/enochian/conferences.php Enochian Materials] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enochian Wikipedia: Enochian].

The Wikipedia article on Enochian Magic notes: "the features showed are commonly found in instances of glossolalia. This could be indicative of Kelley actually receiving at least this set of texts through the well-known phenomenon of [http://www.meta-religion.com/Linguistics/Glossolalia/glossolalia_today.htm glossolalia]." Pentecost is associated with glossolalia, a mode of verbal articulation that fits our author to a "T" .

John Dee deployed 'Scrying' as part of his angelic invocations, see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee Wikipedia/John Dee]:

:"Later life: By the early 1580s, Dee was growing dissatisfied with his progress in learning the secrets of nature and with his own lack of influence and recognition. He began to turn towards the supernatural as a means to acquire knowledge. Specifically, he sought to contact angels through the use of a "scryer" or crystal-gazer, who would act as an intermediary between Dee and the angels."

[http://www.crystalinks.com/scrying.html Scrying] is something of an Idée Fixe for Thomas Pynchon, as are [http://www.gnosis.org/ Gnostic] conceptions of Angelic correspondence, exemplified by Rilke's angelic invocation/poem [http://www.tonykline.co.uk/PITBR/German/Rilke.htm#_Toc509812215 Duino Elegies]

John Dee's skills also included [http://galileo.rice.edu/Catalog/NewFiles/dee.html map-making and navigation.]

:"Dee continued to work at the development of scientific instruments. While consultant to the Muscovy Company Dee assembled geographic and nautical information and prepared charts for navigation in the polar regions. De Smet calls him the central figure in the development of scientific cartography in England, and he suggests that Dee's influence was transmitted to the Netherlands where it helped form Dutch cartography in its so-called golden age."

These important contributions assisted England in their exploration and colonization of 'The New World.' There is a statue in Springfield's Stearns Square named "[http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~scanderson/deacon_chapin.HTM The Pilgrim]", that 'honors one of the town's founders, the Deacon Samuel Chapin. I have seen in some older histories of Springfield the name of Thomas Pynchon's direct ancestor [great-grandfather back ten generations] [http://www.famousamericans.net/williampynchon/ William Pynchon] as the subject of that statue. But you all know how unreliable history can be. William Pynchon was part of the first British expeditions to the New World. William Pynchon is also distinguished as the first writer to have a book---[http://www.springfieldlibrary.org/Pynchon/pynchon.html The Meritorious Price of our Redemption, Iustification, &c.]---burned in Boston, an exile from the Puritans. a heretic among heretics.

But the number 49 has an additional meaning, very deeply buried in Pynchon family history.
[http://tinyurl.com/2gb8aa Popular Law Library, Albert Hutchinson Putney] has Pynchon v. Stearns, a court case concerning estates and property rights in the legal concept generally known as the [http://lsr.nellco.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1012&context=duke/fs 'Waste Doctrine']. The 'Pynchons' in this case were direct descendants of William Pynchon whose establishment of Springfield had grown over the passing two hundred years, abbuting into the interests of the [http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ny/county/allegany/TownVillageReservation/TownAndover/Stearn'sAncientHistory/AncientHistory-Stearns.htm Stearns Family] who set up in Salem the same time William Pynchon founded [http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/pynchon.html Springfield]. And for some reason, page 95, citing 'Pynchon v. Stearns', has the ominous heading: '''Section 49: Who May Commit Waste.'''

The Stearns family were, like the Pynchon Family, among the first settlers in New England, beneficiaries of John Dee's cartography, becoming a force to be reckoned with as the lands they aquired as early settlers became a center for American investment banking services and the insurance industry.

The 'S' in T. S. Eliot stands for Stearns. Charlotte Champe Stearns (1843–1929) was a social worker, a poet and the mother of T.S. Eliot.

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Oedipa''' 
Oedipus was the mythical king of Thebes who unknowingly killed his father and married his mother. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus Wikipedia] Oedipus the King, aka Oedipus Rex, is a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles and first performed in 428 BC. Many critics, including Aristotle, consider it the greatest tragedy ever written. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_the_King Wikipedia]

:Whether Oedipa has anything to do with Oedipus is an open question. Some critics find zero connection and note that the name indicates that names are only words, and not necessarily full of meaning (mysteries without answers being a theme in CoL49). Others have teased various interpretations from Sophocles' play to connect its protagonist to Pynchon's. So far, no single explanation is remotely concrete or thoroughly convincing.

:Some suggest the Oedipus reference is to an incident earlier in the king's career, having to do, in fact, with the way he became king of Thebes. Oedipus famously solved the riddle of the Sphinx and heroically freed Thebes of her curse (cf. the deeds of young Theseus, the labors of Herakles, etc.). Sophocles' play has an older Oedipus finally figuring out the riddle of his own birth, over-confident in his own ability to figure things out. Oedipus is the riddle-solver, by definition. And doesn't it make sense to think of Oedipa as a riddle-solver? Q.E.D. Now the riddle is sometimes said to be "what walks on four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon, and three feet at night?" The answer is man (baby=4; man=2; old man with cane = 3), which is where this gets interesting: one of the legendary precepts engraved on the temple of Apollo at Delphi is "gnothi seauton", "know yourself". This almost certainly is taken to mean not (as we might tend to think) that we should discover ourselves as individuals, but rather that we should know our own nature, i.e. the nature of mankind, i.e. "know that you are mortal". Oedipus solves the riddle of the Sphinx with the answer "man", but he doesn't know himself as a man, fallible and doomed--count no man blessed until he's dead, Greeks were fond of saying--not until the peak of his powers, walking on two legs, so to speak. His story doesn't end there: he wanders the earth blind after putting out his eyes (death would be too good for himself), and eventually as an old man settles on Athens as a place to die, knowing that his spirit will be a powerful force in the land of his death (see Soph., Oedipus at Colonus). This is the essence of a hero for the Greeks, a mortal who remains powerful in death, as is reflected in their practice of hero-cult offerings at grave sites (compare, say, Xtian saints' relics, bones thought to have power). As an old man, Oedipus is like a holy prophet (compare the blind sage Tieresias, or the legendary blind poet Homer), a man who sees without eyes (compare what Paul Atreides becomes in the second Dune novel). So, does Oedipa ascend to some deeper understanding by the end of the novel? Wait and see.

:Oedipa's name is probably pronounced in the American fashion, ED-i-pa, not British fashion, EED-i-pa, because Mucho uses the short form "Oed," which almost has to be ED.

:A further comic level in the name Oedipa: It looks like a feminization of ''Oedipus,'' which is a Latin name derived from the Greek ''Oidipous.'' While ''-pus'' has the look of a word-ending that might alternate between masculine and feminine forms, like proper names ''Julius/Julia'' or adjectives ''sanctus/sanctum/sancta,'' in fact it stands in for Greek ''-pous,'' meaning "foot," a form that doesn't alternate. (All feet are the same gender no matter who's wearing them.) Whoever coined the name Oedipa pretended to know a little more than they really did.

Additionally, there is the Freudian concept of the Oedipal Complex. Basically, a son loves his mother (in an unconscious sexual way) and is jealous of his father and wants to kill him and have his mom all to himself. The daughter version of this is called the Electra Complex. In the Electra Complex the daughter is upset that she has no penis and is jealous of her father's penis and becomes angry at him ("penis envy").

Psychological concepts run rampant throughout '''''The Crying of Lot 49''''', usually parodied as if they were being reflected back in a funhouse mirror. When the novel was issued in 1966, many parodies concerning psychotherapy were in progress, noteably 1967's inspired [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062153/ '''The Presidents's Analyst''']. At the center of this parody, the patient saves the doctor from himself.

Viewing [http://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html '''''Oedipus Rex'''''] as an early [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whodunit '''Whodunit"'''], as our author does in '''''CoL49''''', one remembers that the plot resolution of 'Oedipus Rex' reveals our proto-typical gumshoe realizing he was the [http://m-w.com/dictionary/perp '''perp''''] all along, Oedipus is the detective that swears vengance on Oedipus the criminal. Oedipus is blinded by his revelation. Revelation, Illumination, the "Knowing" that came to so many who took on hip new therapys in the '60's, sometimes the blindness that came from seeing too much, all elements in the story. . . .

a: 9, b: 1 - '''kirsch''' 
Kirschwasser, German for "cherry water", often known simply as Kirsch ("cherry"), is a clear cherry brandy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirsch Wikipedia] The mention of "kirsch" in the first sentence begins a considerable sequence of references to Germany, German words or German history through Chapter 1.

a: 9, b: 1 - '''Pierce Inverarity''' 
Pynchon & Company (an East Coast Brokerage house) fell apart in 1931, E.A. Pierce (a larger financial institution) picked up that company's holdings. Thus 'Pierce'. See [http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50910FE3E5F11738DDDAC0A94DC405B818FF1D3 "EXCHANGE SUSPENDS PYNCHON & COMPANY, New York Times April 25, 1931] and note that the details for this article are buried behind the 'pay' wall. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''California real estate mogul''' 
Many of the terms and concepts in 'The Crying of Lot 49' are derived from laws concerning property and investment. The ancestors of Thomas Ruggles Pynchon [apparentlty the fifth Pynchon to be so named] had much involvement in real estate and property laws. See [http://books.google.com/books?id=asAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA51&dq=Stearns+pynchon+springfield&as_brr=1#PPP1,M1 A Statement of Facts in Connection with the Petition of the Springfield Aquaduct By William Gelston Bates], pages 44 - 53. Also see [http://tinyurl.com/2gb8aa Popular Law Library, Albert Hutchinson Putney] and go to page 95. [RL]

a: 9, b: 1 - '''greenish dead eye of the TV tube, spoke the name of God. . . .''' 
The New York investment and banking firm of Pynchon & company helped develop Electrical networks and the 'Entertainment Industry'. Pynchon & Company collapsed when a consortium of investors including Western Electric forced William Fox out of movies in order to control patents for the talkies. See "Upton Sinclair Presents William Fox", self published. 1933, and "The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound 1926 - 1931", Donald Crafton ISBN 0 - 520 - 22128 - 1.
Note also the TV/God connection, and the notion that Television has supplanted God by the mid-sixties. [RL]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Mazatlán''' 
City in the mexican state of Sinaloa, located on the Pacific coast of Mexico, east from the southernmost tip of the Baja California peninsula. It is worth mentioning that a large wave of German immigrants arrived in the mid 1800s, developing Mazatlán into a thriving commercial seaport. Additionally, Mazatlán played a role in the California gold rush, with people traveling by boat from Mazatlán to San Francisco. Pynchon is placed in Mexico (at least, Mexico City) throughout the 1960s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazatlan Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Cornell University''' 
Ivy league university located in Ithaca, New York. Pynchon began studies in engineering physics in 1953, but left after two years to serve in the U.S. Navy. In 1957, Pynchon returned with a focus in English, a BA he received in 1959. "The Small Rain", Pynchon's first published story, was printed in the ''Cornell Writer'' in May, 1959. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pynchon#Childhood_and_education Wikipedia: Pynchon][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_University Wikipedia: Cornell]

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Bartók Concerto for Orchestra''' 
Five-movement musical work finished in 1943 by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945), after his native exile to the United States in response to the rise of the Nazi party--Bartók is one of a number of references to the theme of "exile" in this first chapter. Interestingly enough, the fourth movement (''Intermezzo interrotto'') is alleged to be neither "dry" nor "disconsolate", the theory suggested by Charles Hollander that Pynchon deliberatly reversed the facts to bring attention to Bartók's status as a political exile. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartok Wikipedia Bartók][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerto_for_Orchestra_(Bart%C3%B3k)#Fourth_movement Wikipedia: Concerto][http://www.vheissu.info/art/art_eng_49_hollander.htm Hollander Essay]

:"Dry and disconsolate" are not facts but opinions, although the consensus opinion might be "facts". I think Pynchon described this work as it sounded to him (or his character).

:Hollander's reference to Bartók seems somewhat superficial. Most Hungarian listeners can identify the "serenade theme" in Movement Four as the chorus of a popular irredentist song, nostalgic enough as it was written after Hungary's dismemberment in the Treaty of Trianon (1920), when Transylvania was attached to Romania (see the reference to the "Transylvanian Consulate" on the following page). So even if not "dry", it definitely sounds "disconsolate", an expression of desperate homesickness. Musicologists cannot quite pin down why Bartók chose to paraphrase such a trivial song; the most recent theory is that by giving it a Romanian rhythmic twist, he expressed his nostalgia for the multicultural Greater Hungary thad had been lost forever. (Sorry but I can only give a Hungarian link; the excerpt from the musical sheet is at the bottom of the page: [http://www.muzsika.net/cikknezo.php3?cikk_id=2089 Bartók's Strange Nostalgia]. It was published by Rózsavölgyi & Co., ''not'' coincidentally.) I think the main theme here is intrusion rather than exile as the serenade tune is disrupted by the Shostakovichian "drunken gang".

a: 10, b: 1 - '''Jay Gould''' 
(1836 – 1892) Infamous American financier (known as the "Mephistopheles of Wall Street"), who became a leading American railroad builder and speculator in the mid 19th century. In 1869, the Fisk-Gould Scandal (also known as Black Friday) spread financial panic as a result of Gould and fellow financier James Fisk's efforts to corner the gold market. Further political scandals and unfair dealings have cemented his reputation (both throughout his life and during the century after his death) as one of the most unethical of the 19th century American robber barons. It is worth note that the bust of Jay Gould is the "only ikon in the house" of Pierce Inverarity, and that Oedipa expressed the fear that it (on a shelf over the bed) would "someday topple on them". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Gould Wikipedia: Gould][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Friday_%281869%29 Wikipedia: Black Friday]

<div id="warpe">a: 10, b: 2 - '''Warpe, Wistfull, Kubitschek and McMingus'''</div>
Law firm representing Pierce Inverarity.

:"Warpe," possible reference to the municipality of Warpe located in the district of Nienburg, in Lower Saxony, Germany (Germany and Nazism being referenced thoroughly in Chapter 1). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warpe Wikipedia]

:"Kubitschek" is possibly drawn from Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira (1902 - 1976), a Brazilian social reformer and 24th President of Brazil (1956 - 1961) who went into a self-imposed exile after a military coup d'état, which had later been claimed to have been taking as a preemptive measure to deter an "inevitable communist revolution" (the coup having been tacitly (and directly) assisted and supported by the United States government and the CIA)--this is another in a series of anecdotal references to "exile" as well as a potential comment on United States foreign policy. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juscelino_Kubitschek Wikipedia: Kubitschek][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_1964_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat Wikipedia: 1964 Brazilian Coup]

:"McMingus" is a probable nod toward Jazz legend Charles Mingus (1922 - 1979). Pynchon is a lifelong Jazz fan, making this unlikely to be a coincidence. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mingus Wikipedia]

:Pynchon's penchant for absurd, punning law firm names is continued in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=S#salitieri ''Gravity's Rainbow''] with Salitieri, Poore, Nash, De Brutus and Short.

In 1964 E.A. Pierce consolidated forces with Merrill Lynch thus creating Merrill, Lynch, Fenner, Pierce and Smith, an investment house that deployed Television Advertisement by the mid-sixties.

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Metzger''' 
Co-executor of Inverarity's will and signatory of the letter Oedipa receives in Chapter 1. Metzger is German for "butcher", and could also be a reference to Wolfgang Metzger (1899 - 1979), a german psychologist who served as one of the main representatives of Gestalt psychology, a theory that proposes that the operational principle of the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies; or, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This concept will recur later in the chapter, under the term "Triptych". Additionally, the introduction of Dr Hilarius, a German psychologist, will strengthen this association. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Metzger Wikipedia: Metzger][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestalt_psychology Wikipedia: Gestalt]. 
:One might add, in the Gestalt mode, that "Metzger" can evoke "regrets", wistfully if you like: how would it feel to find yourself called on, as Oedipa is, by the ghost of an old lover? 
:[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metzgerpost Metzgerpost] ("butcher post") was an early type of mail service in the western regions of the Holy Roman Empire, superseded by the Thurn und Taxis-dominated imperial system. 

Compare '''Meztger''' to [http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy/unfolding_self.html '''Ralph Metzner'''], co-author with [http://www.timothyleary.us/ '''Timothy Leary'''] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass '''Richard Alpert'''], also known as [http://www.ramdass.org/ '''Ram Dass'''], of [http://tinyurl.com/337xqe '''The Psychedelic Experience''']. 

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Kinneret-Among-The-Pines''' 
Fictional California town that Oedipa Maas resides in. Yam Kinneret (Sea of Kinnereth) is the modern Hebrew name for the Sea of Galilee, Israel's largest freshwater lake. Upon the shores of Galilee, much of the ministry of Christ was said to have occurred, among which include His Sermon on the Mount, as well as the miracles of His walking on water, calming a storm, and feeding the
multitude with five loaves of bread and two fish. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee Wikipedia]

:During the years Pynchon was working on 'The Crying of Lot 49, his College buddy Richard Farina lived in Carmel by the Sea.

a: 10, b: 2 - '''settecento''' 
Settecento is the Italian word for seven hundred, and is the standard Italian term for the 18th century (not the 17th century, but the years beginning with 17). It is used in English mostly to refer to art-historical and architectural movements and styles of that period. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settecento Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''variorum''' 
A work containing all known varients of a text whereby all variations and emendations are set side-by-side to track textual decisions. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variorum Wikipedia]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto''' 
Kazoos appear in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']. The title isn't as outlandish as it may seem; Vivaldi's concerti are often performed on instruments they were not written for. Example: [http://idrs.colorado.edu/Publications/DR/DR7.1/vivaldi.html concerto for two cellos] recast for bassoon trio. Cross referenced search of kazoos in the Gravity's Rainbow Wiki: [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Songs/Compositions ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=H ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=O ][http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Dope_in_Gravity%27s_Rainbow]

a: 10, b: 2 - '''Boyd Beaver''' 
Soloist for the Vivaldi Kazoo Concerto. "Boyd" might stem from the Gaelic word for "blond", while "Beaver" is a chiefly American slang term for female genitalia, possibly prompting the image of a blonde vagina playing a kazoo. One might also take "Boy", evoked by "Boyd", combined with the "female" beaver, and find the same gender-bending implied in Oedipa's name itself (or in a male author writing a female protagonist, or the Muse inspiring the poet). The name also bears an obvious resemblance to Zoyd Wheeler, the protagonist of ''Vineland'', though he played the keyboard.

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Wendell ("Mucho") Maas''' 
"Mucho más" is common Spanish phrase, meaning "much more." Mucho Maas reappears in ''Vineland''.

:''Maas'' is also Dutch for ''mesh'' and ''loophole'' (in the architectural and the figurative sense as well), which may be related to the book's treatement of webs or networks.

:The near-likeness "mass" becomes an important word/concept in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' and, especially, ''Against The Day'', although the associative meanings do not seem to mesh.! [[User:MKOHUT|MKOHUT]] 13:42, 11 July 2007 (PDT)

:Note [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Traverse_Family_Tree '''Webb Traverse'''] in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page '''''Against the Day'''''] .

a: 11, b: 2 - '''Pachuco dialect''' 
Pachucos were Mexican American youth who developed their own subculture during the 1930s and 1940s in the Southwestern United States. They wore distinctive clothes (such as Zoot Suits) and spoke their own dialect (Caló). [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachuco Wikipedia] Zoot suits appear a few times in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

a: 11, b: 2 - '''chingas and maricones''' 
Spanish slang words. "Chingas" is a conjugation of the word "chingar" (slang for "to fuck"), translating "chingas" as "[you] fuck" (or, better, just a plural of "chinga"). "Maricones" refers to the term "maricón" (based on the word "marica" or "male homosexual") which is equivalent to the English insult "faggot".

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Lamont Cranston''' 
One identity adopted by The Shadow, a character of pulp fiction, radio shows, and comic books. Cranston was a wealthy young man about town. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow Wikipedia]

"The Shadow" first appeared on radio in 1930. The banking institution Pynchon & Company collapsed in 1931. The last words Oedipa hears from Pierce:
:"I heard that," Pierce said. "I think it's time Wendell Maas had a little visit from the Shadow."
were spoken a year before she received the letter from Warpe, Wistful, Kubitschek and McMingus.

a: 11, b: 3 - '''Commissioner Weston... Professor Quackenbush''' 
Police [http://www.angelfire.com/yt/Weston/ '''Commissioner Weston'''] was the [http://theshadowfan.com/theshadowfan/past-shadow/movies/the-shadow-serial-1940/ '''Shadow's'''] friend and running mate. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028772/ '''Professor Quackenbush'''] is most likely a reference to Dr. Quackenbush from[http://www.evl.uic.edu/pape/Marx/films/posters/DayAtTheRaces2.jpg '''Day at the Races'''].

a: 13, b: 4 - '''Mucho shaved his ... throw them further off''' 
All of the references in this section refer to the stereotypical (often Italian) used car salesman with greased back hair, a very short mustache, and huge lapels on his suit.

[[Image:jacklemmon.jpg|90px|thumb|left|Jack Lemmon and his hair in the 60s]]a: 13, b: 4 - '''used only water, combing it like Jack Lemmon''' 
American actor (1925-2001). He became a favorite actor of director Billy Wilder, starring in his films ''Some Like It Hot'', ''The Apartment'' and others. Wilder felt Lemmon had a natural tendency toward overacting that had to be tempered; the Wilder biography ''Nobody's Perfect'' quotes the director as saying: "Lemmon, I would describe him as a ham, a fine ham, and with ham you have to trim a little fat." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_lemmon Wikipedia]

a: 13, b: 4 - '''creampuff''' 
A very well maintained used car. 

a: 16, b: 7 - '''Dr. Hilarius, her shrink or psychotherapist''' 
[[Image:Hilarius.jpg|right|thumb|St. Hilarius|150px]]According to the Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Hilarius '''Pope Saint Hilarius'''] was Pope of the Roman Catholic Church from 461 to February 28, 468). He was canonized as a saint after his death. The Sardinian archdeacon of Rome, Hilarius was elected bishop of Rome probably November 17, 461, and was consecrated November 19, 461 and died on February 28 (?), 468.

As archdeacon under Pope Leo I he fought vigorously for the rights of the Roman See and vigorously opposed the condemnation of Flavian of Constantinople at the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 to settle the question of Eutyches. According to a letter to the Empress Pulcheria, collected among the letter of Leo I, Hilarus apologizes for not delivering to her the pope's letter after the synod. . . .

Shrink is a shortened form of headshrinker, which is 50s slang. The OED cites 'shrink' in this text of 1966, as the first recorded written use of it as a slang term. Which must be why Pynchon defined it in the text.

a: 17, b: 8 - '''LSD-25, mescaline, psilocybin''' 
These hallucinogenic drugs are also mentioned in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']. LSD gets a special mention as an agent of spiritual awareness in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland ''Vineland'']. See notes for [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_6 "She Loves You"] on page a: 143, b: 117 of CoL49 wiki, where Mucho Maas is expressing ideas about psychedelics concordant with the writings of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley Aldous Huxley]. Peyote's magical potential is rendered on pages 392-394 of Against the Day, in wholy favorable terms, with the connection of divinatory powers and envisioning agents such as [http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-405965/Native-American-Church ''Hikuli''] displayed in a very favorable light.

It remains an open question as to whether and to what extent Pynchon took or was influenced by them. ([http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Smoking_Dope_with_Thomas_Pynchon "whether"?])

a: ?, b:8 - '''lapses from orthodoxy''' 
Orthodox Freudian psychotherapy involved the therapist literally trying not to impose himself at all on the patient. That's why the therapist is often shown sitting behind the patient. The goal is to be a blank canvas and have the patient paint his problems on the therapist, thereby bringing them into consciousness.

[[Image:rorschach1.jpg|150px|thumb|right|The first of the ten cards in the Rorschach inkblot test]]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''Rorschach blot''' 
The Rorschach inkblot test (Pronounced roar-shock) is a method of psychological evaluation. Psychologists use this test to try to examine the personality characteristics and emotional functioning of their patients. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorschach_inkblot_test Wikipedia]

[[Image:rorschachcomic1.png|thumb|150px|right|Rorschach, a comic book character in ''Watchmen'']]
a: 18, b: 8 - '''a face is symmetrical like a Rorschach blot''' 
In the graphic novel, ''Watchmen'', written by Alan Moore, there is a character named Rorschach who wears a mask with a Rorscach blot on the front. Moore is a self-professed Pynchon fan: he referenced [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V. ''V.''] in ''V for Vendetta'' and has mentioned [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] in interview. It is possible, not to say probable, that Moore was inspired by this line.

a: 18, b: 8 - '''TAT picture''' 
The TAT is popularly known as the picture interpretation technique because it uses a standard series of 31 provocative yet ambiguous pictures about which the subject must tell a story. It was developed by American psychologists in the 1930s. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thematic_Apperception_Test Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Fu-Manchu''' 
Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional character, an evil genius of Chinese origin, first featured in a series of novels by Birmingham author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the 20th century. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Manchu Wikipedia]

a: 18, b: 9 - '''Perry Mason''' 
Perry Mason is a fictional defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner. Mason was portrayed by Raymond Burr in a television series which ran on CBS from 1957 to 1966. The typical plot involves Perry Mason unmasking the actual murderer in a final dramatic courtroom showdown. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Mason Wikipedia]

a: 19, b: 9 - '''''The Profession v. Perry Mason...''''' 
Roseman may be trying to undermine Perry Mason by arguing that the dramatic courtroom twists in the TV show are actually uncommon in the American legal system.

[[Image:remediosvaro.jpg|thumb|175px|''Bornando el manto terrestre'', 1961|left]]
a: 21, b: 11 - '''Bornando el Manto Terrestre''' 
Remedios Varo (1908 - 1963) was a surrealist painter. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedios_Varo Wikipedia]

Bill Brown [http://www.notbored.org/crying.html notes] that "Pynchon saw Bordando el Manto Terrestre when, as part of the first full retrospective of the painter's work, it was displayed at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in 1964, a year after her death at the age of 55. Painted in 1961, el Manto (oil on masonite, roughly 40 by 48 inches) is the central panel in an autobiographical triptych. It is possible that Pynchon, writing ''Lot 49'' in 1965, recalled the painting from memory or incomplete notes, and not with a reproduction of it set in front of him. He gets a lot wrong."

[[image:bubble-shades.jpg|thumb|Bubble Shades|120px|right]]
a:21, b:11 - '''she wore dark green bubble shades''' 
This is the sixties, after all...

{{CL49 PbP}}