ATDTDA (14) p 399

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

Drawing to a close, the Iceland Spar section
has shown major changes to the whole cast of
characters.  Death for Webb, marriage for Lake
and Deuce, fugitive status for Reef, gunman/anarchist
lifestyle for Frank, cataclysmic bad results for
the Vormance expedition.  Even Vibe himself
has turned from the pursuit of wealth to
dealing death, causing his loyal sidekick Foley
Walker to contemplate discords among the voices in 
his head.


And now, the Chums are making their
descent into the Underworld, tasting the
forbidden fruit, losing, to some extent,
their innocence.
 I don't think it's too much of a stretch
to say this is in accord with everyone else's
activities in this section.


The Pynchonwiki answers pretty much all of the
factual questions I came up with:


indigo... yellow
Clashing-colors motif.
(like some of the suits
in the Dick Tracy comic strip, in the
Sunday (color) funny papers?)

dicer
A hat [2], perhaps of the style now known as 
"baseball cap"[3].

opopanax and vervain
Two fragrant, medicinal substances derived from 
flowering plants. They bloom yellow and violet, 
respectively. Wikipedia pages for opopanax and for vervain.

Though Wikipedia prefers the spelling opoponax, 
the OED suggests Pynchon's. 

contrabass saxophone
A spectacular piece of hardware, somewhat 
taller than the person playing it. Pitched 
in E-flat—if you are keeping track—two octaves 
below the alto sax.

slide cornet
A brass instrument with the voice of a 
cornet but using a slide instead of valves. 
Very, very rare.

mandola
An eight-stringed instrument shaped like a 
mandolin but tuned the same as a viola. It is 
originally an Irish instrument.

"tin pan" piano
A reference to New York's Tin Pan Alley. 
Probably, the tag means to indicate that the 
piano was out of tune or sounded 'cacophonous'.

anchored by . . . piano
It's hard to imagine the sound of the ensemble: 
big reedy bass, lots of rhythm from the mandola, 
the abandoned wailing of the cornet, fuzzy arpeggios 
on the piano. Like a children's Fourth of July parade, 
plus hallucinogens.

houris
According to the OED, a "nymph of the Muslim 
Paradise. Hence applied allusively to a voluptuously 
beautiful woman." According to the American Heritage 
Dictionary, "houris" is the plural of 'houri', as defined above.

Darby
Over 21yo, if he's aged.