COL 49 Chapter 4 Starters

[Patrick P. Lynch]

Sorry this is early, but I am off on holiday and may not have daily 
Internet Access.  As I have been watching the discussion, very little 
prompting of ideas is needed but I will pop my head in occasionally 
to make sure you all are not crawling all over the desks and goofing 
off in general.  Or, rather, since this is a Pynchon group, that you 
are doing precisely these things.

Major Events In Chapter 4 of COL 49:
* Oedipa meets up with Clayton "Bloody" Chiclitz, Stanley Kotecks, Zapf,
Mike Fallopian, Mr. Toth, and Genghis Cohen.
* She attends a Yoyodyne stockholders meeting and gets lost.
* Oedipa learns about the difference between "WASTE" and "W.A.S.T.E."
* She researches Trystero/Tristero and the bones in the lakes.
* She learns about the Nefastis Machine and Maxwell's Demon (entropy).
* She wonders whether she's a "sensitive."
* She connects the muted posthorn and Thurn and Taxis.
* U.S. Potsage shows up again.
* She drinks empathetic dandelion wine.

Summary in More Detail:
********(Grant) refers to help from J. Kerry Grant's "A Companion to 
The Crying of Lot 49"*******
After seeing "The Courier's Tragedy," Oedipa wants to know lots more 
about Tristero/Trystero, so she rereads Inverarity's will. She 
wonders whether Pierce left an "organized something" (nice oxymoron) 
for her to piece together and queries whether she should "bestow 
life" onto it.  She asks a crucial question: "Shall I project a 
world?"-reminiscent of Dribblette's planetarium (Grant) and T. S. 
Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (Do I dare to eat a 
peach?). She attends a Yoyodyne stockholders meeting to find everyone 
toeing the party line and spending most of the time singing 
party-line hymns and Glees. The proceedings are led by Mr. Clayton 
"Bloody" Chiclitz whose name is connected to a phrase "Do you want a 
mouthful of bloody chiclets?" a threat from the '50s (Grant) and the 
small white teeth-like candy gum Chiclets.  Also floating here is 
Chicle in Spanish: Gum.
Oedipa gets lost on Yoyodyne plant tour and waits for a rescue, but 
no one comes.  She isn't even noticed as gone (inference). Wandering, 
she happens on Dr. Stanley Kotecks who is working on a mysterious 
envelope, which may have Tristero connections but it is never clear. 
He is decoding a posthorn on the enveloped and notices she is lost. 
She wants to ask about the symbol, but she chooses not to do so. 
Kotecks asks whether she can influence the Board of Yoyodyne to allow 
scientists to hold their own patents ("drop their rules on patents"). 
Kotecks intimates that Teamwork is a sign of "gutlessness" and 
weakness on society as a whole.  Then he asks if she knows the 
Nefastis Machine while telling her that Nefastis is now residing in 
Berkeley.
The machine helps enact Clerk Maxwell's Demon that sorts out cooler 
molecules from hotter ones to change temperature in one of two 
compartments without doing any "work," thereby violating the Second 
law of Thermodynamics.
[Here are websites that develop Maxwell's Demon further:
http://www.chem.uci.edu/education/undergrad_pgm/applets/bounce/demon.htm, 
http://www.maxwellian.demon.co.uk/name.html, 
http://www.auburn.edu/~smith01/notes/maxdem.htm, 
http://www.1729.com/topics/maxwellsDemon.html, 
http://english.ttu.edu/kairos/3.1/coverweb/porush/Demon.html, 
http://www.bartleby.com/61/31/M0163150.html, 
http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~xerver/seminar2/node3.html, 
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22clerk+maxwell%22%2Bdemon, 
http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/entropy/col2.html]
Kotecks explains that a "sensitive" stares at a photo of Maxwell to 
operate the Nefastis Machine (and change the temperature of a chosen 
cylinder) and Oedipa wonders if she is a "sensitive." She also thinks 
she's walked into the presence of madness with Kotecks. She also 
connects this action as a sensitive with Dribblette's "Shall I 
project a world?" query in chapter 3. After suggesting she contact 
Nefastis, Kotecks slips in providing an address for Nefastis first 
placing him in San Francisco and then in Berkeley. Craftily, Oedipa 
asks whether his WASTE address is good and Kotecks corrects her that 
it is "W.A.S.T.E" but proffers no explanation for the acronym. This 
prompts Oedipa to wonder whether the envelope on which Kotecks was 
doodling was from Nefastis.  This suspicion is confirmed by Fallopian 
later.
After meeting up with Fallopian, Oedipa is subject to a lecture by 
Mike on the myth of the individual inventor and their signing over 
their rights to companies like Yoyodyne.  Metzger is also there and 
calls Fallopian so "right-wing that he's left-wing" and consequently 
he, Fallopian, is a Marxist. As they argue, Oedipa thinks she sees a 
pattern in things, especially connecting Wells Fargo couriers 
attacked by bandits in black with those in the Fangoso Lagoon. (She 
discovered these on a historical marker on Lake Inverarity.)  She 
connects Niccolo's "T-t-t-tŠ." from "Courier's Tragedy" with 
"crosses" or "Ts" worn by Wells Fargo-attacking bandits.
Oedipa travels to Zapf's bookstore to get another copy of CT, only to 
discover a hardback version called "Plays of Ford, Webster, Fourneur, 
and Wharfinger," from which "Jacobean Revenge Plays" may have got CT. 
She wants to ask more of Zapf, but does "first of many demurs' 
(though the earlier demur to Kotecks seems to precede this).  She 
continues to research Trystero/Tristero and wants to get copy of 
original book so she decides to go to Berkeley, where it was 
published.  This is when she happens on the historical marker 
(mentioned earlier) and decides to give her information "order, 
create constellations." Off of Lake Inverarity, she visits 
Vesperhaven House (created by Pierce when he set up Yoyodyne) where 
she meets Mr. Toth (91) who discusses his dream of his 91-year-old 
grandfather (as old as he is) and his (Grandfather's) experience with 
the Pony Express. Believing she is "sensitized" to this information ( 
IS she acting within a Nefastis Machine as we read?), Oedipa listens 
carefully. She asks whether the Grandfather fought desperadoes (hint: 
Tristero's bandits?), but Toth says that his grandfather fought both 
real and imagined Indians, killing some. He then relates a dream of 
Porky Pig and the black-clad anarchists and elaborated on grandfather 
killing Indians and their burning bones to wear boneblack on their 
faces.  He shows her a posthorn ring taken from them.  Sunlight 
shines on them (epiphany?). (Cartoon may be "The Blow Out" according 
to Winston, cited in Grant.)  She says "My God!" and Toth says he 
feels close to him.  Oedipa asks "your grandfather," but Toth 
clarifies he feels close to God.
Returning to Fallopian, Oedipa asks about Wells Fargo and the Pony 
Express, but Mike cannot answer, saying he only knows about dark 
adversaries. She ponders whether there is a "tenuousŠ long white 
hair, over a century long," connection between the old men. 
Fallopian dismisses this a women's thought and she continues on her 
way to research CT.  She contacts Genghis Cohen, eminent philatelist 
from L.A., who has called her because of some irregularities. In 
Cohen's slovenly room (with his eclectic, fly-opened attire), she is 
given dandelion wine (with dandelions from a now-defunct cemetery) as 
Cohen goes over the problems with the stamps.  Due to an 
epileptic-like gift for predicting oncoming seizures/events, Oedipa 
believes she will make connections between Cohen's irregularities and 
her other information.  She realizes though that this is uncertain 
and she will never know for sure.
Cohen shows her similar irregularities and she sees the posthorn 
watermark.  He tells her that this is the coat of arms for Thurn and 
Taxis and identifies that they are working with private couriers. 
She recalls the line from CT: "And Tacit lies the gold once-knotted 
horn." Noting the mute on the horn, Oedipa tells herself that this is 
an anti-Thurn and Taxis symbol.  Cohen notes that these are 
counterfeit stamps, and this may make them more valuable.  You can 
sell an "honest forgery" for a lot (oxymoron).  He also reveals a 
U.S. Potsage mistake and she internally connects this to Much Maas' 
letter.  Confirming similar mistakes on a Lincoln 1954 stamp, Cohen 
asserts that "they" are still active. Oedipa asks whether they should 
tell the government; to which Cohen claims it's not their business. 
She asks him about W.A.S.T.E. and he appears lost (Is he lyingŠ about 
everything?). 
Cohen tells her about the dandelion wine responding to spring and a 
fantastic passage follows about the dandelions in the wind acting as 
if their home cemetery -with no East San Narcisco freeway-and bones 
could rest in peace, and nourish dead dandelions.  Final line: "As if 
the dead really do persist, even in a bottle of wine."

Some questions:
Are there connections between all these things?
Is Oedipa sensitive because she wants to be? Does she have some kind 
of disease like epilepsy that makes her see connections?
Are these random events or are they somehow orchestrated?
What do we do (thanks to Grant) with the feminine references to 
Fallopian, Kotecks, Fallopian's dismissal of Women Thoughts?
What is Pynchon doing with all the texts within texts and no real 
sources elements? (I.e., CT-->Jacobean Revenge Plays--> Plays of 
Ford, Webster, Fourneur, and Wharfinger; posthorn 
watermarks-->stamps-->POTSMARK?)
Talk amongst yourselvesŠ

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Lynch (padraig at well.com and padraig at mediaone.net)
"Is it the water or the wave?"  John Fowles, -The Magus-