Pages 60-71

V63.32-37 "Yardbird" Parker is finding out [ . . . ] Correspondent Igor Zabel offers the following addition to Weisenberger's note on this passage: "On one of Parker's CDs (Swedish Schnapps +), I found the passage which was quoted by Prof. Weisenburger after Max Harrison, but slightly different, and it is interesting because Parker directly mentions Cherokee: 'Well, that night, I was working over 'Cherokee' and, as I did, I found that by using the higher intervals of a chord as a melody line and backing them with appropriately related changes, I could play the thing I'd been hearing. I came alive.' The quotation is taken from 'Hear Me Talkin' To Ya'."

• V65.15 "Gobbler" Biddle

The Biddles are one of the leading families of Philadelphia, who sometimes vacationed in the Berkshires.

V65.16 Fu’s Folly Although, as Weisenburger notes, the character is named for Fu Manchu (who is an important reference for Pointsman later in the novel), it should be recalled that there was also a "Fu" who was a member of the Whole Sick Crew in V.

V65.33 Jack Kennedy Contrary to Weisenburger, Kennedy’s first book was titled Why England Slept (not "When").

• V68.01 Half an Ark’s better than none.

For Crutchfield, there is only one of everything, as opposed to two of every animal on Noah’s (whole) Ark. (And how much use is half an Ark in a flood, anyway?)

• V69.14 a bandana of the regulation magenta and green

The coal-tar colors of organic chemistry that resonate throughout the novel.

V69.16 Rancho Peligroso Evokes the Siege Perilous of the Arthurian Grail legend as well as Rancho Notorious, a 1952 Western directed by Fritz Lang and starring Marlene Dietrich. See note at V321.06-07