GRGR 1,2 fascinated with the phantasmagoria

[Cometman]

Lewis Carroll issued a series of poems collectively entitled
"phantasmagoria"  // Pynchon did use the word "Victorian": "elegant
Victorian cross section resembling the profile of a chess knight
conceived fancifully but not vulgarly so" p 12, line 33-34
Lewis Carroll was a Victorian.

no hits on "phantasmagoria" from searching the p-list archive

anyway, the phantasmagoria (I'm trying to picture this) is rushing
towards the screen (the movie screen on which the audiences are
watching Pirate's song and dance) -- and is being borne on little
tracks "of" a Victorian cross section etc etc...

now then -- tracks imply a wheeled conveyance traveling over them.  The
way I read this and see it, if you take a section of railroad track and
look at it longitudinally, you see like an "I" shape.  The I would be a
very curvy one.  

The theater would have to spring for this extra effect, but remember
3-d, and weren't there some disaster movies where they set the seats up
to shake at proper moments?

Anyway, the cross section of the tracks carrying Pirate's
phantasmagoria, instead of being an I shape, is a chess knight.  If
it's in profile, then the sides aren't symmetrical - one side of the
track has the nose and the other has the mane.  but presumably there's
a prehensile groove somewhere up top to retain the wheels.  

"little tracks of an elegant Victorian cross section", 

Playing with the meaning of the word "of", like bending a note on the
harmonica - but the notes should be bent, not broken. 
How about "of" as short for "made of" or "showing": a dress of the
finest silk, hair of gold, cheek of tan

If the cross section DOESN'T belong to the tracks, then what is it?  Is
it some kind of substructure for the tracks?  The phantasmagoria is
overhead, the tracks are under it, and if there is something under the
tracks, then our heads may be in danger from it.

What's dawning on me is "here's the train again from 1,1."
I don't think I can do justice to the way that impresses me...

but, okay, having the good fortune to be able to enjoy an entertainment
such as a novel or a movie, we are for the moment outside the
vicissitudes of history; but there are constant reminders rushing in
and out overhead - either rolling on tracks which have a cross section
reminiscent of a chess knight, OR rolling on tracks which are part of a
greater structure incorporating a cross section looking like a chess
knight.  It becomes clear that Pirate is only a knight - maybe the
structure seen in cross section is him.

oh, for the love of Borgesius, then the fricking theater we are
watching it in might be the...nah, too pat   (-;

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If you took Pirate, put him in the 18th century, and wrote a
straightforward picaresque novel about him, you'd get a darn good book,
like the Jack subplot of the recent Neal Stevenson trilogy...
(but Pynch pwns him too with M & D)
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