Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Pages 674-700

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==Page 674==
674.10 '''a City of the Future''' 
Evokes, again, the opening images of Lang’s ''Metropolis''. See [[Pages 482-488#Page 482|482.25]].

'''Travel here gets complicated -- a system of buildings that move, by right angles, along the grooves of the Raketen-Stadt's street-grid. You can also raise or lower the building itself, a dozen floors per second, to desired heights or levels underground, like a submarine skipper with his periscope'''... 
This imagery was appropriated for the set designs and special effects of the 1998 film
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/combined Dark City].http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_674-700&action=edit&section=1
Editing Pages 674-700 (section) - Thomas Pynchon Wiki | Gravity's Rainbow

==Page 675==
'''Marcel''' 
It's possible that Marcel signifies the great French novelist Marcel Proust in some way:

:"Am I positive that Marcel indicates Proust? No. But there's a lot of circumstantial evidence: he's named "Marcel," he's French, he's a genius. These three facts alone in a vacuum would point strongly to Marcel Proust. But Pynchon also gives Marcel shiny black hair, links him with the 19th century, and portrays him as extremely long-winded." - Erik Ketzan, [https://www.pynchon.net/owap/article/view/30 Pynchon Nods: Proust in Gravity’s Rainbow]

'''Myrtle Miraculous...Maximilian...Marcel''' 

The 3 Ms in this Fantastic 4 could allude to the Minnesota-based, multinational conglomerate [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M 3M]. Founded in the early 1900s, the company (formerly known as the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company) was run by one William L. McKNIGHT from 1929 to 1949 and expanded worldwide in the 1950s (to the UK, Germany and others). In the late '60s and early '70s, 3M published a line of board games that were marketed to adults. These games with simple rules but complex game play were ancestors of the German "Eurogames," and included [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ploy_(board_game) Ploy], a space-age strategy game, which is considered to be one of the better chess variations.

==Page 676==
675.33 '''at best they manage to emerge...''' 
The description of decisions emerging from a chaos of competing forces echoes Pynchon's letter to Jules Siegel in 1965, [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=The_World_is_at_Fault The World is at Fault], in which Pynchon describes the journey of our souls through "whatever obsolescenses, bigotries, theories of education workable and un, parental wisdom or lack of it, happen to get in its more or less (random) pilgrimage..."

==Page 682==
682.18 '''Ho-zay''' 
Another of Nalline’s transliterations: "Jose," for Joseph.

==Page 684==
[[image:william-bendix.jpg|thumb|William Bendix in ''Lifeboat''|150px|right]]684.31-32 '''William Bendix''' 
An appropriate supporting role for Bendix would be his part in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_(film) Hitchcock’s ''Lifeboat''] (1944), in which he plays a lindy-hopping sailor whose leg has to be amputated.

==Page 685==
685.7 '''his finest sacramental kif''' 
''Webster's Third International Dictionary'' defines kif, which is a variant of kef, a "smoking material (as hashish) that produces a state of dreamy tranquility."

685.21-22 '''"My Prelude to a Kiss," "Tenement Symphony"''' 
The former song (actually titled just "Prelude to a Kiss") is a 1945 composition by Duke Ellington with Irving Gordon and Irving Mills; the latter was composed by Hal Borne, with words by Sid Kullen and Roy Golden, and sung by Tony Martin in the 1941 Marx Brothers movie ''The Big Store''.

685.26 '''sexcrime fantasy''' 
The term "sexcrime" was invented as a Newspeak word by George Orwell in 1984. It refers to sex used for pleasure instead of simple procreation, an offense in the totalitarian state of the book.

685.28 '''MY DOPER’S CADENZA''' 
The ''New World Dictionary'' defines "cadenza" as "an elaborate, often improvised musical passage by played by an unaccompanied instrument in a concerto, usually near the end of the first movement."

==Page 688==
[[image:fay-wray2.jpg|thumb|Fay Wray|120px|right]]688.36-37 '''Fay Wray . . . in her screentest scene with Robert Armstrong''' 
Ann Darrow’s (Fay Wray) screentest is only peripherally "erotic mugging." She is instructed by Carl Denham (played by Armstrong) to look up and react in fear (in anticipation of her first actual view of King Kong, of whom she knows nothing yet). She is so caught up in her performance that she actually faints. It is this scene that Jessica mimics with Roger earlier in the novel.

==Page 689==
689.26 '''a round black iron anarchist bomb''' 
Another reference to the Porky Pig cartoon "The Blow-Out." The Mad Bomber puts such a device, along with a lot of other explosives, into an alarm clock rigged to explode.

==Page 691==
691.34-35 '''Paranoid . . . For The Day!''' 
The TV game show [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_for_a_Day ''Queen for a Day''] debuted as a radio show in 1945 with host Jack Bailey.

==Page 693==
'''MB DRO ROSHI'''
When discussing GR, the writer Alan Moore recalled this sequence as "the whole point of the novel... It’s just this bit of burnt paper that, if you put it together, talks about America dropping the atom bomb on Hiroshima. Which is of course, the end of the V bomb, which has been made obsolete. Gravity’s got a new rainbow." [http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/12/alan-moore-dodgem-logic/3/ source]. 

Note also that 'roshi' is Japanese for 'teacher': Rōshi (老師?) (Chinese pinyin: Lǎoshī; Sanskrit: ṛṣi) is a Japanese honorific title used in Zen Buddhism that literally means "old teacher" or "elder master" and sometimes denotes a person who gives spiritual guidance to a Zen sangha or congregation.(Wikipedia)

==Page 695==
695.25-28 '''Dungannon, Virginia . . . or Ellis, Kansas.''' 
[[Weisenburger's Companion to Gravity's Rainbow|Weisenburger]]’s usual attention to geographical detail fails here. He does not find these towns on the borders of time zones in 1988 because the zones had been changed, shifting to the west, in the previous decades. All of the towns Pynchon names were on the borders of time zones in 1945 (and Murdo and Apalachicola still are). Kenosha itself borders Lake Michigan through which the Eastern-Central Time Zone border runs.

==Page 697==
'''American Hotchkisses are the guns that raked through the unarmed Indians at Wounded Knee.'''
Wounded Knee massacre was the last major armed conflict between the Dakota Sioux and the United States, subsequently described as a "massacre" by General Nelson A. Miles in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

On December 29, 1890, five hundred troops of the U.S. 7th Cavalry, supported by four Hotchkiss guns (a lightweight artillery piece capable of rapid fire), surrounded an encampment of Miniconjou Sioux (Lakota) and Hunkpapa Sioux (Lakota)[2] with orders to escort them to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. The commander of the 7th had been ordered to disarm the Lakota before proceeding and placed his men in too close proximity to the Dakota, alarming them. Shooting broke out near the end of the disarmament, and accounts differ regarding who fired first and why.

By the time it was over, 25 troopers and 300 Dakota Sioux lay dead, including men, women, and children.

[[Pages 734-760#Page 752|Also, see note for p. 752]]; [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre Wikipedia entry for Wounded Knee Massacre]
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Pages 397-433

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==Page 398==
[[image:hansel-gretel.jpg|thumb|''Hansel and Gretel''|100px|right]]'''dog with the saucer eyes . . . beard of the goat on the bridge . . . the troll below . . . plastic witch . . . Hansel . . . Gretel''' 
Features at Zwolfkinder, all evoking children’s fairy tales: "The Tinder Box," the Billy Goats Gruff, Hansel and Gretel.

'''398:29 Zwölfkinder '''
"Twelve Children" - the name evokes Jacob's twelve sons (and the daughter who is not one of the official twelve). This pattern is self-consciously repeated in the Grimms' tale [http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm009.html "The Twelve Brothers"], where the boys are to die if their mother gives birth to a girl. 

The camp, which is also a quasi-town, may be modelled after Theresienstadt, the Jewish town/Lager set up by the Nazis in what is now the Czech Republic. This is suggested by themes like transit, phoney children's paradise, as well as the large orchestra, or the number 60,000 (the number of those who "passed through" Zwölfkinder as well the population of Theresienstadt at its peak). It also recalls another totalitarian institution, that of the communist "children's towns" (large, town-like, somewhat militarized holiday camps for Young Pioneers), whose prototype was [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artek_(camp) Artek] in the Soviet Union. ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsches_Jungvolk Deutsches Jungvolk] also had its summer camps.)

Further, consider Argentina's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_the_Children Republic of Children], a city proportioned for children, which was created under Juan Peron's regime and opened in 1951.

==Page 402==
'''The Spree''' 
A river, not a canal, that runs through Berlin.

'''who would eat an apple in the street''' 
A phrase of German/Yiddish origin, suggesting a poor person of no breeding.

==Page 403==
[[image:kyudo-target.jpg|thumb|Zen Target|150px|right]]'''Zen bow and roll of pressed straw''' 
Archery is a sport often associated with Zen discipline in Japan, where it is known as ''kyūdō''. Many archers practice ''kyūdō'' as a sport, with marksmanship being paramount. However, the goal most devotees of kyūdō seek is ''seisha seichu'', "correct shooting is correct hitting". The archer seeks not to hit a target but (according to some sources) to become one with the arrow as it flies, as Fahringer advocates becoming "one with the Rocket." One of the earliest introductions of ''kyūdō'' in the west was by a German, Eugen Herrigel, who studied Zen and archery in Japan in the 1930s. His ''Zen in the Art of Archery'' (1953) remains a classic in its field. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyudo Wikipedia entry]

'''bodhisattva''' 
In Mahayana Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a "Buddhist saint," one who has nearly attained nirvana but delays it in order to aid others. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhisattva Wikipedia entry]

==Page 404==
'''In the name of the cathode, the anode, and the holy grid?''' 
Weisenberger (2006) incorrectly identifies these as components of an electrolytic cell connected to a power grid. Instead they refer to the 3 parts of the triode vacuum tube mentioned a few lines earlier. Electrons flowing from the cathode to the anode have to pass through a charged screen or grid. A slight amount of charge on the grid can have a big effect on the current flowing between the cathode and the anode. Thus the triode is a simple amplification device, since a small signal charging the grid controls a large flow of current. It is, btw, an analogue and not a digital device.

==Page 405==
'''good company at Herr Halliger’s Inn''' 
Note the echo of the title of von Goll’s perverse film.

==Page 411==
'''411.16 Atlantes''' 
An [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_(architecture) Atlas] or Atlant (named after the Greek mythological figure which it it represents) is a column, pillar, or pilaster in the shape of a man, who bears the weight on his head or shoulders. It was a popular element in continental Beaux-Arts architecture (that is, in Kekulé's time.)

==Page 412==
'''"I lost my heart in Heidelberg"''' 
Although [[Weisenburger's Companion to Gravity's Rainbow|Weisenburger]] asserts that the song derives from Tony Bennet’s recording "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," there are more likely origins. The title suggests the lyrics to "I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen" (see note at V134.27) or "Avalon" ("I found my love in Avalon") by Al Jolson and Vincent Rose. In addition, the lyric suggests Sigmund Romberg’s venerable operetta ''The Student Prince'', about the heir to a throne who falls in love with a barmaid in the university town. The show also features the song "Gaudeamus Igitur" (V432.13).

:Igor Zabel offers a more a concrete reference: "I lost my heart in Heidelberg": a popular German song from the twenties: "Ich hab' mein Herz in Heidelberg verloren". The song was written for a musical of the same name by German composer Fred Raymond. [[I Lost My Heart in Heidelberg|Read the lyrics...]]

==Page 413==
'''"once, only once"''' 
What Rilke poem is this?
*Rilke sometimes (often?) addresses the reader with "you" ("Weren’t you always distracted by expectation, as if every event announced a beloved? - ''Duino Elegies''), which Pynchon does often in these surrounding pages.

==Page 421==
'''Juch-heiereasas-sa! O-tempo-tempora!''' 
From the song "Ein lustger Musikante marschierte am Nil" by Emmanuel Geibel (1815-1884). [http://ingeb.org/Lieder/einlustg.html German words and midi music]

==Page 422==
'''love something like the persistence of vision''' 
"The notion of 'persistence of vision' seems to have been appropriated from psychology". From Herbert's essay below. 
The term "persistence of vision" is still in popular use, and fits Pynchon’s (and Pokler’s) needs well in this context.

The phrase "persistence of vision:" has long been misapplied to explanations of how the spectator perceives motion from the sequential flashing of still images on film. The term which usually refers to the positive afterimage retained by the retina of the eye has been rejected by psychologists and students of perception as imprecise and misleading. The illusion of motion is actually a much more complicated process, involving several elements of cognition. A very good synopsis of the problems with the term by Stephen Herbert is available [http://www.grand-illusions.com/percept.htm here].

==Page 425==
'''425.24ff you go and sit exactly on the target...one is safest at the center of the target area''' 

Major-General Dr. Walter Dornberger, head of Peenemünde rocket development and von Braun's superior, actually made this suggestion when the airburst problem resisted solution: "the bull's eye is the safest spot on the map." Instead of sending a sacrificial underling such as Pokler to do the sitting, Dornberger and von Braun, to their credit, sat their own personal asses down on the target. They did this every day for about a week. On the very last rocket observed from the target, von Braun
:"was standing in an open field [and]... beheld the rocket coming out of the blue sky." To his horror, he realized it was pointed straight at them [Dornberger, v.B] -- it would be a direct hit. "I threw myself down to the ground, but a moment later a terrific explosion hurled me high into the air. I landed in a ditch and noted with some amazement that I...had not suffered as much as a scratch." quoted in Neufeld, ''Von Braun'', p.181.

'''425.32-33 Ground Zero''' 
Another, apparently ironic, anachronism (or anatopism). The term [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_zero Ground Zero], originally the hypocenter of an atomic bomb explosion, was coined by participants of the Manhattan Project, after the test stand at Trinity Site. It had, of course, no equivalent in pre-1945 German military slang. But the starting point in time for the Pökler detour is preceded by the first nuclear explosion, as the Trinity device was tested on July 16, 1945, the opening day of the Potsdam Conference.

==Page 429==
'''429.5 searchlights... in Wismar and in Lübeck''' 
That would locate Zwölfkinder in present-day Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, near the Bay of Lübeck, and also between the bright and dark aspects of the continental tradition. Lübeck, apart from being vitctimized in the raid which is prominent in "Beyond the Zero", was Thomas Mann's city, while Wismar is the port where Nosferatu embarks for England.

==Page 432==
'''"Gaudeumus igitur"''' 
Igor Zabel elaborates further on Weisenburger's note:

:"The song is a symbol of the university (as such) and its anthem (e.g., it is sometimes performed at ceremonial occasions). The mentioning here refers to the "feeling of graduation". ''Gaudeamus igitur'' is traditionally sung by the students of the final class of Gymnasium (i.e., university students to-be) as they celebrate their graduation."

'''Obersturmbannfuehrer''' 
A rank in the SS, which corresponds to the Lieutenant Colonel.

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