AtDDtA(15): Into the Next Dimension

[Dave Monroe]

"... the boys meanwhile prepared for deaprture with feelings of
regret, unable to escape a suspicion that somewhere in the bustle of
lectures, exhibits, picnics, and socials they had missed something
essential, which might never be recovered, even by way of a working
time machine.
   "'It was about flight,' Miles, temporarily lapsing into English,
theorized, 'flight into the next dimension.  We were always going to
be at the mercy of Time, as much as any civilian "groundhog."  We went
from  two dimensions, infant's floor-space, out into town- and
map-space, ever toddling our way into the third dimension, till as
Chums recruits we could take the fateful leap skyward ... and now,
after these years of sky-roving, maybe some of us are ready to step
'sidewise' once more, into the next dimension--into Time--our fate,
our lord, our destroyer.'
   "'Thanks a lot, Bug-brains,' Darby said.  'What's for lunch?'"
(AtD, Pt. II, p. 427)


"they had missed something essential"

What?  Help!


"lapsing into English"

Huh?  From what?  Why?  Help!


"from two dimensions, infant's floor-space ..."

Cf. (?) ...

"What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and
two-footed and three-footed?" --Apollodorus, House of Oedipus III.5.7

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~loxias/sphinx.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus#Later_additions

http://www.theoi.com/Ther/Sphinx.html

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG3290


"'sidewise'"

How so?  A la the Marching Academy Harmonica Band?  Or ...?  Help!

Cf. (?) ...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0111&msg=62858

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0405&msg=90546


"Bug-brains," "Bug brains"

http://www.biologic.com.au/bugbrain/

http://www.animalbehavioronline.com/insectbrains.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_(Starship_Troopers)#Castes_of_bugs


"'Can't say till pigs fly, can we?'"

Lindsay = pig. "When (or until) pigs fly" = never.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_397-428#Page_427

Ironically ...

Main Entry: suck·ling
Pronunciation: \ˈsə-kliŋ\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English suklyng, from suken to suck
Date: 13th century
: a young unweaned animal

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary


"the X.O."

Executive Order

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


"anything they can't control is too much like skylarking for those
autocratic bastards"

Main Entry: skylark
Function: intransitive verb
Date: 1809
1 : to run up and down the rigging of a ship in sport
2 : frolic, sport
— sky·lark·er noun

http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/

Recall. ...

"...  the ease with which this high-spirited crew were apt to find
pretexts for skylarking." (AtD, Pt.I, p. 4)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114390

Thanks again, Paul, I neglected to mention that one, apparently ...


"Oh compose yourself, Mrs. Grundy"

Mrs. Grundy

NOUN: A person who is too much concerned with being proper, modest, or
righteous: bluenose, prude, puritan, Victorian. Informal : old maid.
See SEX.

http://www.bartleby.com/62/79/M1007900.html

Mrs. Grundy is an imaginary English character who typifies the
censorship enacted in everyday life by conventional opinion. She first
appears (but never onstage) in Thomas Morton's play Speed the Plough
(produced 1798), in which one character, Dame Ashfield, continually
worries about what her neighbour Mrs. Grundy will say of each
development.

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9038251/Mrs-Grundy

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

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

Cf. ...

"Grundyesque screaming" (AtD, Pt. II, p. 303)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0706&msg=119667

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0706&msg=119695

"... the Sisters pursued lives of exceptional, though antinomian,
purity.  They went on as before with all the drug and alcohol abuse,
violence symbolic and real, sexual practices upon which Mrs. Grundy
has been known to frown, and an unqualified hatred of authority at all
levels ..." (VL, Ch. 15, p. 358)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0405&msg=90884

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0405&msg=90900

As well as ...

"... a thing good Mrs Grundy, as the law stands, was terribly down on
though not for the reason they thought ..." --James Joyce, Ulysses,
Ep. 16, "Eumaeus" (1922)

http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~rac101/concord/texts/ulysses/ulysses16.html

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/j/joyce/james/j8u/section16.html

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0706&msg=119747

Thanks as always, Keith ...


"'Tsar-like, yet clearly illegitimate'"

Like many lofty titles, e.g. Mogul, Tsar or Czar has been used as a
metaphor for positions of high authority, in English since 1866
(referring to U.S. President Andrew Johnson), with a connotation of
dictatorial powers and style, fitting since "Autocrat" was an official
title of the Russian Emperor (informally referred to as 'the Tsar').

This use is not limited to statesmen, e.g. 'drug czar' for the head of
the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. agency against illegal
narcotics, or "terrorism czar" for a Presidential advisor on terrorism
policy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar#Metaphorical_uses


"'Oh.  Oh, well ...'"

Why did Lindsay's "face drain rapidly of its color"?  Why now "taken
somewhat aback"?


"the newly legalistic Darby"

Yes, Darby is now Legal Counsel.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_397-428#Page_427