MDMD from Dinn's Ch. 41 notes

[Doug Millison]

from
http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9712&msg=22312&sort=date



422.5 `Weather-gage' gage is apparently a US variant of gauge. Sh OED
lists `have or keep the weather gauge of' as be windward of, fig get
the better of. On a side note, Pynchon also uses gage in GR for
marijuana (in the Red Malcolm scene) and I always presumed this was a
corruption of ganja or ganga, but no, it is listed under gage, LME,
var of gauge, 1 A quart pot, long rare or obs LME, 2 A pipe; a pipeful
(orig. of tobacco, now chiefly of marijuana), hence, marijuana, slang
L17. That's L17 slang, foax! and no doubt the contents of the pipe
changed some time before GW started growing and selling his crop in
the M18.

422.10 `Spielers' Anglicized plural of German `player' (as in Mabuse,
Der . . .)

422.14 `If a sailor may kill a Bully over sixpence, then what
disproportionate mischief, including Global War, may not attend the
safekeeping of fortunes of millions of pounds Sterling. And there is
plenty of evidence that the mischief is so disproportionate. Lovely
also how Pynchon follows up this line with a reversion to his card
game metaphor `Happen they all reach a point where they can't trust
their luck any more . . . ? So they cheat.' (422.20) Business as
usual?

423.6 `hey? right out of G. Rex's purse it came' G Rex being King
George.

424.3 `"Moments of inertia,--" "Have 'em all the time.--" -- estimated
Mass,--" "the Priest having enjoyed a merry night before?"' Groooan
for the first joke. Can anyone explain the second? Is this some pun on
estimate (hasty mated, say)?

425.8 `Oh Ruddier than the Cherry' Aria from Handel's Acis and Galatea
of c 1720.

425.35 `Professor Voam, Philosophical Operator' Philosophical
Operator?? Craaaazeee name, craaaazeee guy!

426.24 `"You'd be flatter'n a Griddle Cake" "Excuse me,-- to what End?
Gazing at it, as it fries? saying Oh you're so Circular . . . your
Airr-Bubbles, they're so intriguing,--" "*Than*, *than*"' Took me a
few parse errors before I realizes that Voam's intended `flatter than'
is read by Mason as `flattering'.

426.3 `Torpedo' cf MDMD(3) 77.10, MDMD(8) 235.25. In this case it must
mean electric eel (cf 426.30)

427.5 `Yet supposing Progress Westward were a Journey, returning unto
Innocence,-- approaching, as a Limit, the innocence fo the Animals
with whom these Folk must inter-act upon a daily basis,--' Supposing
indeed. Any comments?

427.9 `"Rural Electrification," the Professor sighs. "Seed-Bed of the
unforeseen"' Tell it to Lenin.

427.11 `Dixon emerging coprophagously a-grin' the famous shit-eating,
number 32 in a series of 60.

427.13 `the Slave who spoke to Dixon earlier' earlier being 419.25
where he meets the `pretty Bondmaiden' and it is Austra from the Cape.
cf also 431.5.

427.18 `Love-Jobbers' Presumably dealers in female flesh, Love being
an ironic choice of qualifier.


427.21 `in payment of a Debt forever unexplain'd to me' Perhaps Austra
incurred this debt by failing to lure Charles into fathering a child
by her. Oh Complicity! Oh Complexity!

427.32 `a glamorous International Life it's proving to be for her too,
so far at least. Who says Slavery's so terrible, hey?' Is this just
really heavy irony? Or are we being narrated to by Wade? Thing is,
Wade hasn't even appeared since he entered the wood at the start of
the story. The story up to here could only be known to the Revd via
M&D. And anyway, all references to Wade have been in the 3rd
person. So who said this?

427.36 `the Lads now encounter a Dutch Rifle with a Five-Pointed Star
upon its Cheek-Piece, inverted [. . .] A Polaris of Evil.' Polaris?
Another cover reference to the 1960s? Polaris is the latin for the
pole star, so this rifle is something around which other evil
revolves.

428.17 `Ev'ry Farmer here has a Rifle by him, 'tis a Primary Tool,
much as an Ax or a Plow . . . ?' Plus ca change.

428.19 `Surrounded upon all sides, Night and Day, by the American Mob,
ev'ry blessed one of them packing Firearms' *The* Mob?

428.25 `Patch-Box' A patch is a piece of greased cloth or leather used
as wadding for a rifle ball or to clean the bore, M19. No relevant
sense for patch box, but the sense listed is interesting. patch-box,
Hist a usu highly decorated box for holding patches for the face, a
patch being, Hist a small piece of black silk worn for adornment in
the C17th and C18th. Adornment, eh? Rather than, say, for covering up
pox soresand scars? A variation on the first sense sounds right but is
anachronistic, still I'll go for it. Unless anyone can come up with a
more modern interpretation of patch-box for a Polaris.

428.26 `finials' cf MDMD(8) 237.13

428.28 `Piercings' Norelevant sense in Sh OED. Any gun experts know
what these are.

429.3 `a Forest Weapon' match'd to a single Prey, heavier than a
Squirrel, not quite so heavy as a Deer . . .' about the weight of a
man, say? Is that maybe why, in which case, evil polarises around this
rifle?

429.22 `the very Insignia of the Devil' The `two points up' (429.20)
being his horns.

429.30 `But that small Devices [. . .] may command out-siz'd Effects'
like the Tub, or even that sixpence (422.14).

430.20 `You don't know what I see back in this Country. Bribes,
Impersonations, Land Fraud, Scalp-stealing, Ginseng Diversion' The
latter being a references to drugs, no? And this in the 60s?

430.30 `Mr LeSpark, as he will come to tell the Tale, declines back
into the Couch' If this is how LeSpark will come to tell the tale,
then who is telling it now? An dwhat did he really do? Spill the beans
on our thieving friends or let them get away with the Tub? And why has
`Wicks' interposed this tale of a Tub, anyway?

431.7 `Fancied me, as you must have seen. Not at all like the old
Austra, who couldn't abide me . . .' Of course, she might have had
better reason to avoid Mason at the Cape.

431.23 `Mr Linnaeus hath decided 'tis no Eel, neither, but a Gymnotus'
for Linnaeus cf MDMD(11) 321.15.

431.27 `Si', si', cari~no' My sp dictionary list carin~o as affection
or tenderness, although it looks like it is intended as a diminutive
of caro, meaning dear. n.b. in Mex/S Amer Spanish it is listed as
meaning gift. Is Voam's (or P's) Spanich lacking or do I need a new
dictionary?

432.20 `una Criatura Ci'clica, asi eres' lit, `a cyclic creature, so
you are'.

432.22 `". . . and Sheriff Thickley",-- cheers at the local
reference,--' it appears we have shifted scene to Voam's show with the
crowd responding to mention of a local name (cf 433.1)

432.31 `far off E-do' Edo is the old name for Tokyo, in use in the
1760s.

433.4 `Stocking unmatch'd in Colours incompatible, such as purple and
green' Acid-green and magenta, perhaps?

433.11 `I can see it'll take a lot to shock a crowd like this!"
Another lovely groaner.

434.23 `the emergence from the great Shade outside the sens'd World of
the Other' A Jekyll and Hide Torpedo. Is this build up and release of
electrical energy is symbolic in some way? cf also 434.30 in this
regard.

434.30 `as is lately discover'd, the Needle's Deflection followeth,
like Feli'pe, a Diurnal cycle . . .' What is this daily magnetic cycle
and how `lately' was it discovered?