AtDDtA(15): Walloping Wellesianism!

[Dave Monroe]

   "'Why, you insufferable little--'"
   "'Gentlemen,' Randolph frowningly grasping his abdomen, 'perhaps
you will find it possible to put off this no doubt fascinating
colloquy until a less public occasion.  And might I add, Mr.
Noseworth, that these constant attempts to strangle Suckling do our
public image little good.'"
   "Later that morning, together with Professor Vanderjuice, they
piled into a motorcar to pay a visit to thw municipal dump at the edge
of town, gray with perpetual smoke, its limits undefined,  "'Walloping
Wellesianism!' cried the Professor, 'it's just a whole junkyard full!'
 Up and down the steeply pitched sides of a ravine lay the picked-over
hulks of failed time machines--Chronoclipses, Asimov Transeculars,
Tempomorph Q-98s [...].... A strewn field of conjecture, superstition,
blind faith, and bad engineering, expressed in sheet aluminum,
vulcanite, Heusler's alloy, bonzoline, electrum, lignum vitae,
platinoid, magnalium, and packfong silver ...." (AtD, Pt. II, p. 409)


"'Why, you insufferable little--'"

http://www.snpp.com/guides/homer.file.html#strangle


"'Walloping Wellesianism!'"

http://www.bartleby.com/1000/

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

Typo, unless he means Orson. Should be Wellsianism. On page 412 the
term 'Wellsian optimism' was used.

Orson Wellesianism seems correct: The scene, an immense inventory of
discarded time machines, is reminiscent of the final scenes of Citizen
Kane which show Kane's enormous collection of objects in rows of
stacks extending seemingly to infinity.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_397-428#Page_409

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fhjlxTLO9p0

Cf. ...

http://fusionanomaly.net/starwarsphantommenace2001pod.jpg

http://fusionanomaly.net/2001.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EVA_Pod#Trivia

http://www.starwars.wikia.com/wiki/EVA_Pod


"the picked-over hulks of failed time machines"

Asimov Transecular
Interesting to find one of Isaac Asimov's time travel machines on the
pile of "picked-over hulks of failed time machines." Of course, it
would have to have been deposited there from some time in the future.

transecular
Trans, across, plus secular, ages or centuries (from Latin sæculum, an
age, a generation, 120 years; also yielding French siècle, a century).

Asimov
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), Russian born American biochemist and science
fiction writer.

[...]

Tempomorph
Tempo + morph = Time change

Q-98s
FM station? The weapon used by Loony Tunes character Marvin the
Martian is called the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator

Flow
Flow of Time.

vulcanite
Star Trek allusion? A kind of mineralized rubber.

A hard, readilly cut and polished rubber, obtained by vulcanizing
rubber with a large amount of sulfur or some sulfur compound under a
moderate heat (110-140 degree C), used in the manufacture of combs,
buttons, and for electric insulation.

Heusler's alloy
any of various alloys of manganese and other nonferromagnetic metals
that exhibit ferromagnetism. Named after Conrad Heuslet, 19th-century
German mining engineer and chemist.

bonzoline
Synthetic ivory, used to make billiard balls.

electrum
An alloy of gold and silver, presumably not the same as argentaurum.

lignum vitae
The very hard heavy wood of any of several tropical American guaiacum
trees. In Latin, literally "wood of life."

platinoid
An alloy of copper, nickel, tungsten and zinc, formerly used in elecric coils.

magnalium
Magnesium-aluminum alloy.

packfong silver
A Chinese alloy of nickel, zinc and copper, resembling German silver.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_397-428#Page_409