AtDDtA(15): A Strange Magenta-and-Green Aura

Mon Aug 6 13:20:19 CDT 2007

"... the youngster was shaking violently now, his eyeballs, jittering
in their orbits, gone wild with fright.  Around the edges of this
form, a strange magenta-and-green aura had begun to flicker, as if
from a source somewhere behind him, growing more intense as he himself
faded from view, until seconds later nothing was left but a kind of
stain in the air where he had been, a warping of the light as through
ancient window-glass.  The bottle he had been holding having remained
behind, fell to the floor with a crash that seemed curiously
prolonged.
   "'Rats,' muttered Darby, watching its contents soak into the
sawdust, 'and I was hankering after a "slug" of that stuff.'" (AtD,
Pt. II, p. 409-10)

"a bottle of some reddish liquid"

Huh?  Help!

"magenta-and-green"

Clashing-colors motif. This combination appears in a bandana in
Gravity's Rainbow (Viking p. 69 line 14).
Life colors in Pynchon, it might be argued?, as is a bandana.
The clashing of (anarchic) life motif, maybe?
There's something else striking about magenta and green: In the field
of color mixing, these are complementary in the sense that magenta
results from filtering all the green out of white light and vice
versa. Green is an additive primary (red-green-blue), while magenta is
a subtractive primary (cyan-magenta-yellow). This does not hold for
some other AtD color schemes (red/indigo comes to mind, but there are
a dozen or so of these binary combinations).

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

color
"summer uniform of red-and-white striped blazer and trousers of
sky-blue," "'White City,'" "green," 3; "yellow," 9; "sepia," 10;
"eclipse green," 18; "vivid magenta," 26; "attractive little girl of
four or five with flaming red hair" (Dally), 27; "orange phosphate,"
47; "flowers in bells and clusters, purple and white or yellow as
butter," "red berries," 70; "Red Mountain Pass," 81; "colorless," 109;
"pale blue radiance," 115; Northern Lights' "heavenwide pulses of
color," 121; "red as a cursed ruby," "Blue Ivory," 125; "green ice,"
"sheer green walls of ice, the greenness nearest the water," "green
and yellow," "gray slatework," 127; "vivid cream," "Payne's gray and
Naples yellow," "an unfaded spectrum of tropical colors," 129;
"silver-gray," "sky was more neutral-density gray than blue,"
"shadowless green ... sea-green sea, the ice-green, glass-green sea,"
134; "seas more emerald," "pale grasses, failing by a visible margin
to be green," 137; "glowing a different primary color," "blue
chalk-dust," 140; ""various colors and intensities," "strange
yellowish green," 141; "yellowed glare," 142; "red Zouave-style hats
and trousers," "fire-reddened light," 145; "sombre brown landscapes of
north Canada," 149; "levels of gray," "color, not the fashionable
shades of daytime but blood reds, morgue yellows, poison greens,"
"accuracy of colors," 153; "an abstract array of moving multicolored
lights against a blue, somehow maritime, darkness," 154; "rust-red and
yellowish," 155; "rival school hues," 156; "'crimson' is cognate with
'worm,'" 157; 160; "colors of doubtful taste," "Scarsdale's in gray
tones, Edwarda's in mauve. Puce sometimes," 162; "screamin Red
threat," "a range of colors," 182; "red liquor," 196; "red adobe
towers," 198; "valley fog the same color as the snow," "luminous
shades of gray," 200; "country was so red that the sagebrush appeared
to float above it as in a stereopticon view, almost colorless, pale as
a cloud, luminous day and night," 209; "blue laws," 210; "disturbing
colors," "daytime blue," "aquamarine and mauve," 211; "dark, blood-red
wall," 214; "mossy greens," "the Order of the Golden Dawn;" 219;
"mauve," "pale blue", 226; "silver-streaked," 227; "'pinky,'" 233;
"queer purple liquid that Lew could swear was glowing,"," 234; "violet
dusk," "luminous green liquids," 235; "purple," "logwood," "vivid,
unmistakable turquoise," 236; "red-clay chimneys," "ancient
sepia...more optimistic red," 243; "'Purple Thanksgiving,'" "white and
red vini frizzanti," "'Red blood,'" 247; "pale blue albatross cloth,"
266; "Sloat was partial to the color green," "shade of green," "'never
could see green, bein a mauve man myself,'" "blood-red dirt," 269;
"vivid red," 297; "multicolored flashes of light," 322; "lighter
colors," 337; "aquamarine," 340; "suit of acid magenta and saffron"
342; Erlys? 347; "wine-colored plush," "orange Tiffany orchid brooches
vivid as flames," 348; "Congo violet" 349; "gray," "Red" (nickname for
Dally), "blindingly pomaded gray hair and a gigantic emerald ring on
his pinky," 350; "perfect black velvet and multicolored silk brocade,"
351; "Sunsets tended to be purple firestorms, with blinding orange
streaks running through," 364; "Madame Aubergine," "scarlet", 367;
"silver and lapis," 368; "the Red Onion," "the red-light district,"
371; "green volcanic islands," 372; "red-brown mountainside," 377;
"brown," 380; "silver," 381; "earth tones," 384; "indigo," 386; "red
bandannas," 390; "peculiar colors," 392; "whirling colors including
magenta, low-brilliancy turquoise, and a peculiarly pale, wriggling
violet," 394; "checked in indigo and custard yellow, topped off with
pearl-gray bowlers," 399; "bluish electric lights blooming," 401;
"violent blue sparks," 402; "color-coded tickets of identification,"
"patriotically colored Smegmo crock," "dark brown light," 408;
"reddish liquid," "magenta-and-green aura," 410; "apricot and
aquamarine," 412; "Chinese red and indigo," 418; "sunny verdigris
campus," "green mist of budding," "closely maintained white mustache
and gold teeth," "red sweatshirts bearing the golden crest of the
Academy," 421; "green fields," "moistly violet," 422; "'don't be blue,
pal,'" 424; "succession of colors," 434; "red-brown color," 439;
"unearthly green," 443; "shiny green suit," 445; "yellow,"
"lemon-white neon," "purple clover," 451; "biblically lurid
yellow-gray," 452; yellowish, 455; "red whiskey," 462; "blue
Excelsior," 464; heliotrope, 493; green, white and mauve, 501;
Coronation Red, 497; claret and blue, 503; indigoes and aquas, 526;
Chinese red, 526; blue, taupe, Chinese red, 532; "analine teal and a
bright though sour orange" 533; 537; pale violet, 544; taupe and
damaged rose, 551; 568; duck-green, 574; Jesus, 580; 584; 585;
orpiment yellow, scarlet vermilion, Nürnberg violet, 586; 608; Foley
Walker's suit, 619; 625; green and magenta, 633; 689; 715; 742; 795;
796; "seaweed-green suit" 833; "black that rests at the heart of all
color" 835; 846; "some shade of heliotrope" 867; primaries, 924;
fuschia, 1042; acid-yellow, 1073;

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

69.14 a bandana of the regulation magenta and green
The coal-tar colors of organic chemistry that resonate throughout the novel.
Coal tar colors? Coal tar is a brown or black liquid of high viscosity,
Pynchon seems to associate positive things with these colors--see
Against the Day particularly--as he does with bandanas.

http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_60-71

Lüneburg Heath

Site of Blicero's last stand/final madness where the S-gerät 00000 is
fired; ... "The Heath grows green and magenta in all directions," 749

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/l.html

http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=L

4.12.5 "The Last Green and Magenta", p749.

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

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/gr/grams.html

http://members.aol.com/russillosm/grsummary.html

The last green and magenta means it's spring, and the Horse is
sacrificed in a political act....

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_grsumm.html

And from N. Katherine Hayles and Mary B. Eiser, "Coloring Gravity's
Rainbow,"  Pynchon Notes 16   (Spring 1985): 3-24 ...

   "Slothrop's identification with purple and green may indicate that
he is being transformed into a projected image, because these colors
habitually occur in relatuion to filmed or hallucinated images.... the
purple/green pairing indicates that Slothrop, like a cinematic image,
is receding from us through increasing layers of mediation." (p. 17)

http://www.ham.muohio.edu/~krafftjm/pn/pn016.pdf

Cf. "as if from a source somewhere behind him ..." ...

Hm.  "Reddish liquid."  What color is motion picture film developer?
But feel free, everybody, to add more magenta/green examples ...