AtDDtA(15): A Particularly Low and Disreputable Haunt

[Dave Monroe]

   "The boys found their way down West Symmes Street and into the Ball
in Hand, which proved a particularly low and disreputable haunt.
Renegade carnival girls, some with Pygmy boyfriends escaped from the
St. Louis Fair, danced, with a scandalous flourishing of petticoats,
on the tabletops. A troupe of Polish comedians, each armed with his
personal giant kilebasa sausage, ran about trading blows from these
objects, principally to the head, with untiring vivacity.  Negro
quartets sang old favorites in seventh-chord harmonies.  Faro and
fantan were available in back rooms." (AtD, Pt. II, p. 410)


Cf., e.g., ...

Suck Hour

13; the hour in the Sailor's Grave bar when the boys get to suck the
tit-shaped beer taps;

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/v/alpha/s.html

"Everyone is kind of aroused ...." (GR, Pt. III, p. 467)

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/zak_smith/467.htm


West Symmes Street, The Ball in Hand

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=120714


"Pygmy boyfriends escaped from the St. Louis Fair"

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

http://www.concentric.net/~pvb/otabenga.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5787947

St. Louis Fair
1904.

Also "Pygmy boyfriends escaped from the St. Louis Fair" - in the book
Ota Benga, about a pygmy who appeared in the St. Louis Fair, there is
a reference to pygmies escaping from their exhibit and disappearing
into neighborhoods of St. Louis, never to be found

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_397-428#Page_410

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition, informally known as The Saint Louis
World's Fair, was a World's Fair held in the U.S. city of St. Louis,
Missouri, in 1904. The Fair celebrated the centennial of the Louisiana
Purchase (delayed one year). It opened April 30, 1904, and closed
December 1 the same year

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

Think for a moment about the world of 1904. The Wright Brothers'
famous flight at Kitty Hawk occurred the previous year.
Gasoline-powered automobiles, motion pictures, and the "wonder drug"
aspirin were introduced to the public only 10 years before. Electric
lighting and telephones were less than 25 years old, and still a
novelty only read about by most Americans. Food was stored in ice
boxes, and the horse-drawn ice wagon was a familiar site.

But from Opening Day - April 30, 1904 - to the closing ceremonies on
December 1st of that same year, the St. Louis World's Fair played host
to nearly 20 million visitors, who witnessed the public debut of air
conditioning, were able to ice skate throughout the entire summer, and
spoke by wireless telegraph to cities 1500 mile away. In addition,
they could "see the world": from the Tyrolean Alps to the jungles of
the Philippines; from the gardens of Japan to the holy sites of
Jerusalem; from Southwestern pueblos to Eskimo villages. And all
within the 1240 acres of the fair....

http://www.bitwise.net/~ken-bill/fair.htm

Meet Me at the Fair (1953)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046059/


"a scandalous flourishing of petticoats"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can-can


"giant kielbasa sausage"

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

http://www.klements.com/racing_sausages/index2.html

http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/mil/fan_forum/racing_sausages.jsp

http://milwaukee.brewers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060727&content_id=1578614&vkey=news_mil&fext=.jsp&c_id=mil

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=153981

http://www2.jsonline.com/multimedia/multiplayer.asp?id=2714

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=sausage+race


"trading blows from these objects"

Dammit, there's a scene from GR I want to find here.  Help!


"old favorites in seventh-chord harmonies"

... the "harmonic seventh" (the 7:4 pitch ratio), sometimes called a
"blue note", used by singers, through note bending on guitars, and on
other instruments not restricted to equal temperament. A well-known
example of the harmonic seventh chord is the ending of the modern
addition to the song "Happy Birthday to You", with the words "and many
more!" The harmony on the word "more" is typically sung as a harmonic
seventh chord

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

In jazz and blues, blue notes are notes sung or played at a lower
pitch than those of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically
the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among
performers. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations
from the tonic but still with the blue-note feeling.

The blue notes correspond approximately to the flattened third,
flattened fifth, and flattened seventh scale degrees, although they
approximate non-equal tempered pitches found in African work songs;
specifically, the flatted seventh may often be a justly tuned minor
seventh. These blue notes are what turns a major scale into the blues
scale. The same transformation of notes transforms the minor scale
into the minor blues scale, as heard in songs such as "Why Don't You
Do Right?".

The blues scale is used in almost all twelve-bar and eight-bar blues,
but it is also used in blues ballads and in conventional popular songs
with a "blue" feeling, such as Harold Arlen's "Stormy Weather".

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

And see as well, e.g., ...

http://musictheoryresources.com/members/FA_seventh_chords.htm


"Faro and fantan"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faro_(card_game)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan-Tan