AtDDtA(15): A Desktop Chaotically Littered

[Dave Monroe]

"... from behind a desktop chaotically littered with books, papers,
and (embarrassingly) outright refuse, such as orange peels, peach
pits, and cigar stubs, drifted in places to depths of two feet and
more ..." (AtD, Pt. II, p. 422)


"a desktop chaotically littered"

Cf. ...

"Tantivy's desk is neat, Slothrop's is an awful mess.  It hasn't been
cleaned down to the original wood surface since 1942.  Things have
fallen roughly into layers, over a base of bureaucratic smegma that
sifts steadily to the bottom, made up of millions of tiny red and
brown curls of rubber eraser, pencil shavings, dried tea or coffee
stains, traces of sugar and Household Milk, much cigarette ash, very
fine black debris picked and flung from typewriter ribbons,
decomposing library paste, broken aspirins ground to powder. Then
comes a scatter of paperclips, Zippo flints, rubber bands, staples,
cigarette butts and crumpled packs, stray matches, pins, nubs of pens,
stubs of pencils of all colors including the hard-to-get heliotrope
and raw umber, wooden coffee spoons, Thayer's Slippery Elm Throat
Lozenges sent by Slothrop's mother, Naline, all the way from
Massachusetts, bits of tape, string, chalk ... above that a layer of
forgotten memoranda [...]" (GR, Pt. I, p. 18)

U.s.w, et soforthiam, but do note that "bureacratic smegma," cf. Smegmo ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=120690

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=120697


"the sprightly Offenbach air 'Halls of Montezoo-HOO-ma!'"

A serious attempt to trace the tune of the Marines' Hymn to its source
is revealed in correspondence between Colonel A.S. McLemore, USMC, and
Walter F. Smith, second leader of the Marine Band. Colonel McLemore
wrote: "Major Richard Wallach, USMC, says that in 1878, when he was in
Paris, France, the aria to which the Marines' Hymn is now sung was a
very popular one." The name of the opera and a part of the chorus was
secured from Major Wallach and forwarded to Mr. Smith, who replied:
"Major Wallach is to be congratulated upon a wonderfully accurate
musical memory, for the aria of the Marine Hymn is certainly to be
found in the opera, 'Genevieve de Brabant'. . .The melody is not in
the exact form of the Marine Hymn, but is undoubtedly the aria from
which it was taken. I am informed, however, by one of the members of
the band, who has a Spanish wife, that the aria was one familiar to
her childhood and it may, therefore, be a Spanish folk song."

In a letter to Major Harold F. Wirgman, USMC, John Philip Sousa says:
"The melody of the 'Halls of Montezuma' is taken from Offenbach's
comic opera, 'Genevieve de Brabant' and is sung by two gendarmes." ...

http://www.marinecorps.com/node/154

Tradition holds that the words to the Marines' Hymn were written by a
Marine serving in Mexico. In truth, the author of the words remains
unknown. Colonel Albert S. McLemore and Walter F. Smith, Assistant
Band Director during the John Philip Sousa era, sought to trace the
melody to its origins. It was reported to Colonel McLemore that by
1878 the tune was very popular in Paris, originally appearing as an
aria in the Jacques Offenbach opera Genevieve de Brabant. John Philips
Sousa later confirmed this belief in a letter to Major Harold Wirgman,
USMC, stating "The melody of the 'Halls of Montezuma' is taken from
Offenbach's comic opera..."

http://www.usmcmuseum.org/Museum_LoreCorps.asp

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marines'_hymn

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.natlib.ihas.100010540/default.html


"with syrup-slow ease continuing his digression"

Cf. ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=120971

"to appearance the slow and amiable smile of the drug habitue, but in
fact an all but nihilistic dismissal of whatever the world might
present him" (p. 421)

... and, again, help!