AtDDtA(15): Even if What You Say's True

[Dave Monroe]

   "A strange electrical drone overtook and blurred Mr. Ace's voice
for an instant.  'The nzzt Chums-of-Chance?  You are not aware that
each of your mission assignments is intended to prevent some attempt
of our own to enter your time-regime?'

[...]

   "'All this is sure news to me,' said Chick.  'And even if what you
say's true, how could we be of any use to you?'
   "His great eyes seemed luminous with pity.  'We might ask you to
accept a commission from us now and then--though, regrettably, with no
more detailed explanation than you currently receive from your own
Hierarchy.'" (AtD, Pt. II, p. 415ff.)


"nzzt," "ZZnrrt"

Cf. ...

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

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sKbE6SWV1sE

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2GDgL0lva38


"even if what you say's true"

Who IS Mr. Ace?  What IS and ISN'T true here?  Help!


"'irreversible processes,'" "'Lower entropy'"

http://www.2ndlaw.com/

http://www.entropylaw.com/

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

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/entropy/index.html

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/slowlearner/entropy.html

Vanderbeke, Dirk.  "N Tropes for Entropy in Pynchon's Early Works."
    Pynchon Notes 46–49 (2003): 35-59.

http://www.ham.muohio.edu/~krafftjm/pncumbib.html#V

http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/slslindex.html


"'like Sqaunto and the Pilgrims'"

Squanto (Tisquantum) was one of the two Native American Indians
(Samoset being the other) that assisted the Pilgrims during their
first winter in the New World.

Ironic (although Chick means it sincerely) since in this case the
Chums of C are "Squanto" and their strange interlocutors from another
dimension are the pilgrims. Chick innocently suggests that the
strangers from the future just want help (as, like the pilgrims, they
have just arrived and are low on supplies, so to speak). It is implied
that just as the Indian's helping the pilgrims was re-payed with
disease, genocide and war, the payback the Chums reap for helping
these visitors from another dimension may not be what they expect.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_397-428#Page_416

Squanto

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


"It's our innocence'"

"The innocence of the creatures is in inverse proportion to the
immorality of the Master." (GR, Pt. I, p. 241)

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

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

Speculation about the motives of people who come from the future
claiming to need something from the past. It is a common fallacy in
all ages to think back to the past as a 'golden age' and an age of
'innocence'. Lindsay elaborates further down the page: "[I]magine
them... so fallen, so corrupted, that we — even we — seem to them pure
as lambs. And their own time so terrible that it's sent them
desperately back...." Think also of the kind of 'golden age' rhetoric
often employed by certain politicians.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_397-428#Page_416


"'a sort of Moral Drill'"

"You may never get to touch the Master, but you can tickle his
creatures." (GR, p. 237)

"If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to
worry about answers." (GR, p. 351)

"You hide, they seek."  (GR, p. 267)


"'So either way,' said Darby, 'we're totally--'"

"Paranoids are not paranoids (Proverb 5) because they're paranoid, but
because they keep putting themselves, fucking idiots, deliberately
into paranoid situations." (GR, p. 292)

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

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