'Entropy' Pynchon's Gematria, part 1

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p.85 ('Entropy'): 

"But for three days now, despite the changeful weather, 
the mercury had stayed at 37 degrees Fahrenheit. Leery 
at omens of apocalypse, Callisto shifted beneath the covers. 
His fingers pressed the bird more firmly, as if needing some 
pulsing or suffering assurance of an early break in the temperature."

p.18 (CL 49, Perennial Library, '90):

"His theory being that a face is symmetrical like a Rorschach
blot, tells a story like a TAT picture, excites a response like
a suggested word, so why not. He claimed to have once cured a
case of hysterical blindness with his number 37, the 'Fu-Manchu.'"

p.13 ('Intro'):

"For instance, I chose 37 degrees Fahrenheit for an equilibrium
point because 37 degrees Celsius is the temperature of the
human body. Cute, huh?"

There is a backdoor out of "the shallowness of my understanding" as
the Introduction puts it, but it's esoteric and based on sleight of hand- as
are all gematria; sort of a secret escape hatch, in the style of Varo. Of 
course, there's a good chance that at the far end of any of our theories- 
creationism, evolution, deconstruction, super-strings, you name it, sleight 
of hand is required, or at least the skill of Tenebrae, to finally stitch any 
of 
them together. "A delightful lapse of orthodoxy" gematria is. The hasidic
rebs like to throw out gematria to the delighted children at the end of 
sabbat, 
like Count Drugula, cape billowing, tossing hits of acid to the greatful 
freaks 
following in his wake.

Anyway, I'm not sure that I can "cure a case of hysterical blindness with
his number 37," like Dr. Hilarius, but some might yet see. Consider this:

First some icing- Water, H2O, is one of the very few entities in the known
universe that EXPANDS on cooling. It does this for technical reasons, but
push come to shove, the very bottom line is is that the water molecules
are trapped in- their pointy headed roles- between the 1st and 2nd laws of
thermodynamics, and, as it cools, like most matter, it contracts until just
about 37 degrees, when, unlike most matter, in order to adhere to 1 and 2, 
it begins to expand, until freezing occurs. "So what?" you might say, "a 
few burst pipes, cracked macadam in winter, what's the big deal?" 

The big deal Is Is that without this idiosyncratic behavior (group effect) of
water molecules, ice and icebergs would rest on the bottom of ponds and 
oceans- they would freeze from the bottom up- and there's a good chance
that life on earth- I'll spare you the technical details- would not exist. 
Which 
would make thinking, as well as story reading, pretty rare.

Okay..."What else?" Follow closely:

(continued)