ATDDTA (6) 160 - 161

[bekah]

ATDDTA (6)   160 - 161

The ghost theme is approached on these pages as well as a reference 
to Pynchon's piggies and with a musical allusion to some beefy brass 
- or brassy Beef?   And of course,  what is with Vaseline's name?


***************************
160: 2:  Cousin Dittany -(or Cretan Dittany,  as Mike observed)-

A classic type beauty as Dittany probably refers to the plant from 
Crete. The locals there also called it "eronda," or love,  for its 
aphrodisiac properties.    Popular in Minoan Crete and Ancient 
Greece, it was considered highly therapeutic plant. Hippocrates 
recommended it for stomach and digestive system diseases, rheumatism, 
arthritis and used it to regulate menses, to tone and heal. It was 
named after the mountain Dikty (Lassithiotika) where it teemed." 
<http://cretashop.gr/br/productsbr/diet/10_spices_br.htm>

There is also a European Dittany, sometimes called "False Dittany," 
which is unrelated to the variety on Crete. 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictamnus>



**********************************

160:9-33    "... an uneasy tenancy was still pursued within, perhaps 
by some collateral branch of Vibes ... it was unclear."


Ghosts are a regular motif in  Pynchon's works,  particularly when 
dealing with history.  Seems to me that ghosts in the home of the 
arch-capitalist would signify the deceased masses,  sacrificed to the 
new alchemy.  There was the ghost of Pierce Invararity with Oedipa as 
ghost-hunter in The Crying of Lot 49.    The Thanatoids  were present 
in  Vineland.   In Gravity's Rainbow there's the Rateneau  seance 
scene,  along with the dying Jews and Slothrop as a Berlin barroom 
apparition to Pig Bodine  (there's probably more,  I'm not so 
familiar).    Timothy Tox  and Rebekah (my namesake) appear  in Mason 
& Dixon.   And now ... in Against the Day,  the whole second floor of 
Scarsdale Vibe's Long Island mansion is full of them looking for 
something,  and there's a whole lot more ghosts to come in this book. 
(or maybe there's just one ghost there -  ???  -   Fleetwood will 
show up soon)

Ghosts mean different things in different places in the Pynchon 
oeuvre.  They can be the third part of a trinity (always the Holy 
Spirits)  but in this case  I think they are the victims of Vibe's 
blood sucking capitalism,  the victims of a Haymarket or Homestead 
strike-riot.    (There was a strike at a Rockefeller Coal facility in 
Colorado in 1914 where many strikers died and Rockefeller was blamed 
and "haunted"  - in a way - for years by those deaths.  See  Ludlow 
Massacres)

"... ghosts are, indeed, ideal figures to portray the return of 
historical traumas. The ghost is propelled or, more accurately, 
compelled from the past into the present, and bears a message, 
invariably of a crime. Yet, in another sense, the ghost does not bear 
the message; it is the message: a sign pointing back to a traumatic 
event and forcing that event, in a disguised or cryptic form, back 
into memory. The ghost is an urgent, intolerable reminder of trauma: 
in other words, a symptom. And it is usually a symptom not only of an 
individual crime, but also of an underlying social sickness which 
extends into the present.[8]" 
<http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/papers_berger.html>

**********************************

160: 37:  Kit thinks he hears a symphonic brass section announce 
(more music to trigger a memory? or to make something memorable?   or 
just for the music?)


**********************************
160:40
Edwarda Beef
Wife of Scarsdale and  mother of his 4  boys.   

Edward means "guardian of prosperity, guardian of the mists"
beef means meat from a cow  or an  argument  "what's your beef?" 
And then there's the old Burger King commercial,  "Where's the beef?"

**********************************
161: 4
Vaseline - Edwarda's maid
Vaseline, the multipurpose gel,  is mentioned in Vineland (31:10) 
regarding cameras but I can't see how that's relevant.   Interesting 
name.

Vaseline in   _Vineland_  31:10
Hector to Zoyd:     "I used to worry about you, Zoyd, but I see I can 
rest easy now the Vaseline of youth has been cleared fromy our life's 
lens by the mild detergent solution of time in its passing... . " 

  Was Zoyd's  youth the reason for his blurred,  idealistic vision in 
the way that vaseline on the lens blurs the image in a photo ?   

Does this have anything to do with the Vibes?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_jelly>

Edwarda  leaves Scarsdale and children to live in Greenwich Village 
townhouse next door to Scarsdale's brother R. Wilshire Vibe and 
become a diva.

**********************************
161: 6
Elsie de Wolfe does the decoration on Edwarda's town house.   Elsie 
de Wolfe, the first professional US Interior Decorator,  was actually 
Anti-Victorian preferring chinz and mauve.   She worked for Charles 
and Adelaide Frick among others.

The sites <http://www.glbtq.com/arts/wolfe_e.html> and
<http://www.vintagedesigns.com/rev/dewolfe/>
have  photos which pretty well show how the Fricks or Edwarda Vibe 
would have lived after Elsie decorated.  Chinz and open space is the 
order of the day.

**********************************
161.7    R. Wilshire Vibe,  Scarsdale's brother and Eduarda's next 
door neighbor,  spends his fortune on "ballet girls" and the 
companies they worked for.

The name Wilshire evokes riches because of one H. Gaylord Wilshire 
(1861 - 1927) who made his fortunes in California after moving from 
Ohio.   He was involved in real estate development, farming and gold 
mining.    Wilshire Boulevard was named by him.

Ballet in NY goes back to 1790s.
<http://www.michaelminn.net/andros/index.php?beginnings_of_american_ballet>


**********************************

167:12  
Fictional operettas:   "Roscoe Conkling,"  "Princess of the 
Badlands,"  and  "Mischief in Mexico"
Actual operettas of 1900:  "Babes in Toyland," "The Red Mill," and 
"Mlle. Modiste." 

  Roscoe Conkling was a very real New York  "Republican machine" 
congressman who was rumored to be a part of the  Garfield 
assassination. 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Conkling#Relationship_with_Chester_Arthur> 

**********************************
161:18  
Edwarda  continues to do social duty for Scarsdale while in residence 
in Greenwich Village  and lands the part of bandida Consuelo (the 
female bandit,  Consuelo)  in Wilshire's "Mischief in Mexico."

**********************************
161: 34 (piggies)
Edwarda Vibe's on-stage fame grows and she co-stars with Tubby the 
"ill-behaved" pig who gets all the laughs to her straight-man.

** Pynchon's  ancestral connection goes back to  William and John 
Pynchon,  justices in the Massachusetts Bay colony, who kept a 
"unique diary" from 1639 to 1702.   This work included personal court 
related material as well as information about life in the colony at 
the times.  Pigs are mentioned frequently because they were stolen a 
lot.  (lol)

** TRP started including them in his books in one way or another 
since  he introduced  "Pig Bodine"  in "Low-lands"  (now in "Slow 
Learner").

** Pig references in Gravity's Rainbow: 
<http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/extra/pigs.html>

  **  'Pig' Bodine the male person is also mentioned in "V," and  "GR" 
while an ancestor appears in Mason & Dixon.  Tubby appears to be a 
new creature.

  **  The pig becomes the emblem of Slothrop  and as such it has a 
number of values - fertility symbol, scapegoat,
anti-dog, and ultimately, hero.

** The pig as symbol of the life force appears first in relation to 
the Herero culture. The aardvark (Dutch for "earthpig") is the 
fertility symbol of the Hereros and the emblem of those who oppose 
the racial suicide faction,
the "empty ones."  <http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-28047908.html>

**********************************

161:35 "laying pipe"
in relation to playing the straight man on stage - Edwarda feeds,  or 
lays pipe for, Tubby  so that he can be funny.

**********************************