Difference between revisions of "XYZ"

Latest revision as of 17:19, 9 May 2010

Y

Yellow Adversary
751; aka Fu Manchu, the character created by writer Sax Rohmer

Yellow James
295; operates sandwich wagon at Mittelwerk during US occupation; 304

The Ypres Salient is the area around Ypres in Belgium which was the scene of some of the most protracted and greuling trench warfare during World War I. Success was measured in feet and yards as tiny bits of land were captured, lost and recaptured throughout the war. Unit casualty rates were often extremely high; Pudding's triumph at, 77; 'the Salient', 234; smell of, 235

yeti
594; Bodine mistaken for "a seagoing version of the legendary yeti or abominable snowman"

Yolanda
603; blond "table dancer" at Putzi's

Youthful Folly
13; the name of the 4th hexagram in the Wilhlelm/Baynes translation of the I Ching (or Yi Jing).

Yrjö, King
119; "pretender but the true king [...] his lovely Hrisoula a step or two behind" in Mrs. Quoad's dream; Pynchon's 1964 short story, "The Secret Integration"

Yvonne
183; girl on beach, along with Françoise and Ghislaine, who is a dancer at the Casino Hermann Goering; 193 (named); 194; 204

Z

Zaxa
218; anglicized pronunciation of 'Sachsa'

Zehlendorf
371; location of checkpoint Slothrop must get past on way to Neubabelsberg

Zen Buddhism
koan, 454;

Zener cards
40; A deck of cards developed in the 1930s by Karl Zener to test subjects for psychic ability. Each card has a symbol on one side, such as a circle or star or wavy lines, which only the experimenter can see; the subject has to then intuit the symbol on the card as it is held up; as Zener-deck 78;

Zero
"try to bring events to Absolute Zero" 3; "a silent extinction beyond the zero" 85; in connection with Slothrop's deconditioning, 85; between waking & sleeping, 119; "each time has taken a little more of the Zero into herself" 150; "Absolute Comfort" 155; "as the pure light of the zero comes nearer" 159; Ideology of, 218; 223; "The German inflation. . .zeros strung end to end from here to Berlin." 258; Final Zero, 319-20; "zero at the top of the world" 340; 345; Enzian closest to, 404; "signal zero" 404; 406; 421; Ground Zero, 424; 451; "Zero up to Mach 6." 454; zeroing in, 521; Japanese Zeros (fighter planes), 672, 690, 692; "zero indifference" 714; See also nihilism; vacuum; Void

Zhdaev, Major
502; captures Springer at Peenemünde; 511-14

755; aka the "Adenoid"; night manager of Orpheus Theatre on Melrose Blvd. in LA; 37th President of the United States

32; George Kingsley Zipf (1902--1950) wrote Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort which was published in 1949. The Principle predicts that most people, most of the time, are turned back by modest hurdles that they know could be overcome, with effort. To be habitual, an action must be relatively effortless or carry a particularly large psychic reward. And in what constitutes a "large reward," opinions and motivations vary widely across individuals.

As Robert Heinlein wrote in Time Enough for Love: "The Principle of Least Effort: 'Progress doesn't come from early risers — progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things.'"

Discussion of Zipf on Pynchon List

Zippo
A brand of cigarette lighter; "Zippo flints" 18; "striking his faithful Zippo" 38; "Slothrop gives Schnorp a light from his Zippo" 332; "They light up off of Slothrop's faithful Zippo" 365; "I have a Zippo" 508; "hot from the flame of some joker's Zippo" 605; "the Zippo's ceremonial touch" 640; Zippo Page

Zone
281; occupied Germany after VE Day; no frontiers--no subdivisions, 293; interregnum - flow with it, 293; "No zones but the Zone" 333; 359; and Destiny, 362; guilt becoming a commodity, 453; "endless simulation" in, 489; "British G-5 occupy their own space and Zone" 519;

"It is a great frontierless streaming out here. Volksdeutsch from across the Oder, moved out by the Poles and headed for the camp at Rostock, Poles fleeing the Lublin regime, others going back home, the eyes of both parties, when they do meet, hooded behind cheekbones, eyes much older than what's forced them into moving, Estonians, Letts, and Lithuanians trekking north again, all their wintry wool in dark bundles, shoes in tatters, songs too hard to sing, talk pointless, Sudetens and East Prussians shuttling between Berlin and the DP camps in Mecklenburg, Czechs and Slovaks, Croats and Serbs, Tosks and Ghegs, Macedonians, Magyars, Vlachs, Circassians, Spaniols, Bulgars stirred and streaming over the surface of the Imperial cauldron [...]" 549

A Cheapskate's Guide to the Zone" 559; "one more overlay on" 620; 729 [MAP]

zootsuits
Waxwing's, 246; Los Angeles Zoot Suit Riots of 1943, 249; Zootsuit Zanies (Slothrop & Waxwing), 251; "rolling into town in his white zoot" 253; "an oversize zoot-suit pocket" 258; "zoot 'n' hat" 259; "So long zoot" 262; "zootsters" 385, 716; "Negro in a pearl-gray" 675; Bodine's "of unbelievable proportions" 710; 711; "feminine zootsuit effect" 735

376; Zorro is a fictional character created in 1919 by pulp writer Johnston McCulley. He has been featured in several books, films, television series, comics and other media. Zorro (Spanish for fox) is the secret identity of Don Diego de la Vega (originally Don Diego Vega), a nobleman and master living in the Spanish colonial era of California. The character has undergone changes through the years, but the typical image of him is a black-clad masked outlaw who defends the people of the land against tyrannical officials and other villains. Not only is he much too cunning and foxlike for the bumbling authorities to catch, but he delights in publicly humiliating those same foes.

Zouave
91; a member of a French infantry corps, originally of Algerian soldiers, distinguished for their physique, dash, and picturesque uniform of baggy trousers, short open jacket, sash, and tasseled cap; 112

Zwingli, Huldrych (1484-1531)
267; The most important reformer in the Swiss Protestant Reformation and the only major reformer of the 16th century whose movement did not evolve into a church. Like Martin Luther, he accepted the supreme authority of the Scriptures, but he applied it more rigorously and comprehensively to all doctrines and practices; See also Reformation

Zwitter
313; guidance expert; colleague of Glimpf's

Zwölfkinder
398; German: "twelve children"; kids' park in Nikolaikirche in No. Germany on Baltic coast; near Wismar & Lübeck (280 km from Peenemünde); first visit of Franz & Ilse in '39, met every August for 6 years; 419-22; last visit, 428-30; Slothrop passes by, 575; "a children's resort" 725; See also Pökler, Franz