AtDDtA(15): The Now-Famous Yearly Candlebrow Conferences

Mon Aug 6 04:27:08 CDT 2007

   "The now-famous yearly Candlebrow Conferences, like the institution
itself, were subsidized out of the vast fortune of Mr. Gideon
Candlebrow of Grossdale, Illinois ..." (AtD, Pt. II, p. 406)

Candlebrow

What is a "candlebrow"? Consider those phallic ex voti candles offered
up to St. Cosmo. The head of the candle-phallus, brow shaped, sits
atop the cylindrical candle-shaft and is, metaphorically, the candle's
brow. And, natch, Gideon Candlebrow made the bucks necessary to fund
Candlebrow U. with the miracle product "Smegmo," the "Messiah of
kitchen fats" — and we all know what smegma is...

Pynchon consistently calls it Candlebrow U. — instead of simply
Candlebrow or Candlebrow University — because the letter's shape, like
the inverted-vagina shape of the Tetractys, echoes its phallic
connotation. Pynchon similarly emphasizes the phallic by using "Dick"
Counterfly (with the quotes) instead of simply Dick.

Or, heck, maybe it's just Pynchon's oblique way of saying "fuck you"...

And, of course, this is all connected with how that Randy St. Cosmo
got his name...

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=C

Ex voti isernia

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Image:Ex-voti-isernia.jpg

St. Cosmo

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=St._Cosmo

Gideon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon

The name Gideon means "Destroyer", "Mighty warrior" or "Feller (of trees)".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_%28Bible%29

Gideon or Gedeon (Hebrew "hewer"), also called JEROBAAL (Judges 6:32;
7:1; etc.), and JERUBESHETH (2 Samuel 11:21, in the Hebrew text).

Gideon was one of the Greater Judges of Israel....

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06402c.htm

Judges 6 - 8

http://www.newadvent.org/bible/jdg006.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/bible/jdg007.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/bible/jdg008.htm

Gideons International

http://www.gideons.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideons_International

Grossdale, Illinois

Brookfield (formerly Grossdale, Illinois) is a village located in Cook
County, Illinois, 13 miles west of Chicago, Illinois.... It is home to
the world famous Brookfield Zoo

http://www.illinois.com/city.php?cityFips=1708576

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brookfield,_Illinois

December 1, 1888. Samuel Eberly Gross, a lawyer turned real estate
investor from Chicago, begins buying large parcels of farm, prairie,
and woods along both sides of the track about 13 miles west of the
city. He immediately begins planning to divide the area into streets
and lots, and drafts a complex plan for a village with affordable
housing for working class families.

June 15, 1889. Gross opens "Grossdale" and begins offering lots for sale....

[...]

November 7, 1893. Early residents vote to incorporate Grossdale, the
official date of the founding of what is now Brookfield.

January 2, 1894. The first Village Board meets.

1905. Grossdale's name is changed to Brookfield.

http://www.villageofbrookfield.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7B07D7E10A-43F5-40AB-9220-7EC59B6E0BDF%7D

"the great Lard Scandal of the '80s"

406; there actually was a lard scandal during the Taft Administration,
in 1912; 1887 saw the introduction of the Margarine Act in Great
Britain, which required margarine to be labeled as such. This was in
response to the adulteration of butter by oleomargarine (made from
animal fats).

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=L

History of Margarine

[...]

1870

Margarine was created by a Frenchman from Provence, France --
Hippolyte Mège-Mouriez -- in response to an offer by the Emperor Louis
Napoleon III for the production of a satisfactory substitute for
butter. To formulate his entry, Mège-Mouriez used margaric acid, a
fatty acid component isolated in 1813 by Michael Chevreul and named
because of the lustrous pearly drops that reminded him of the Greek
word for pearl -- margarites. From this word, Mège-Mouriez coined the
name margarine for his invention that claimed the Emperor's prize.

[...]

1877

State laws requiring identification of margarine were passed in New
York and Maryland as the dairy industry began to feel the impact of
this rapidly growing product

[...]

1885

When a court voided a ban on margarine in New York, dairy militants
turned their attention to Washington, resulting in Congressional
passage of the Margarine Act of 1886. The Act imposed a tax of two
cents per pound on margarine and required expensive licenses for
manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of margarine....

http://www.margarine.org/historyofmargarine.html

In 1869 Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France offered a prize to anyone
who could make a satisfactory substitute for butter, suitable for use
by the armed forces and the lower classes. French chemist Hippolyte
Mège-Mouriés invented a substance he called oleomargarine, the name of
which became shortened to the trade name "Margarine." ...

[...]

>From that time on, two main trends would dominate the margarine
industry: on one hand a series of refinements and improvements to the
product and its manufacture, and on the other a long and bitter
struggle with the dairy industry, which defended itself from the
margarine industry with vigor. As early as 1877 the first U.S. states
had passed laws to restrict the sale and labelling of margarine. By
the mid-1880s the United States federal government had introduced a
tax of two cents per pound, and devotees needed an expensive license
to make or sell the product. Individual states began to require the
clear labelling of margarine, banning passing it off as real butter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine

WILLIAM H TAFT
AMERICAN HERO OR INSANE DESPOTIC RULER?

[...]

After the infamous Lard Scandal of 1912, Taft's reelection was called
into question despite a moving speech to the American people asking
for their forgiveness. "I was under the mistaken impression that lard
was lard no matter what animal it came from. I apologize to all who
partook of our hobo lard, it was an unfair position you were placed
in. Still, you have to admit they were delicious for a bunch of old
lay bouts and drifters..."

http://www.helpfulresearch.com/taft.html

Hm ...

"an already debased national cuisine"

E.g., ...

http://foner.www.media.mit.edu/people/foner/Fun/gravity.html

Hm ...

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/jokespuns.htm

http://www.vheissu.info/art/art_eng_jokes_hollander.htm

"a Christmas-pudding controversy"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_pudding

http://www.britainexpress.com/articles/Food/christmas-pudding.htm

Hm ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_pudding_model