GRGR 31 Shit'n'Shinola

[jbor]

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>From: KXX4493553 at aol.com

> << Shining is just another word for cleaning, waxing and polishing.  >>
>  The German word for "Polishing" is "polieren", but normally we say "Schuhe
> wichsen". But "wichsen" also means masturbating. And "Wichser" means "jerk"
> (says my dictionary).
> But thanks for the hint of the racial background of "shoe shine boy" and
> "shit & Shinola".
> kwp

What about the "Schein-Aula" (Seeming-Hall?) connection which Pynchon posits
as another aspect of Saure's misunderstanding of the phrase. I'm a little
lost on the bit that starts "As for Shinola, we pass to universitarians ...
Pokler ... Mondaugen ... Fibel ... Achtfaden" at the bottom of 687 to the
inside of the blue "planetarium" at the top of 688 where Pynchon (filtering
Saure's thoughts still perhaps?) asks:

    ... Will it begin above us? Down *there*? Behind us? *In the middle of
    the air*? And how soon?

I think there might be a connection here with the "old theatre" metaphor at
the end of the novel, the "it" here also being the forthcoming nuclear
apocalypse, which will be just as final for Germans as for Americans? A
notion that Hollywood movie myths are propaganda of the same calibre as the
Nazi vision of an Aryan super-race?

best