AtDDtA(16): "Now Light all Cruising-Lamps"

[Dave Monroe]

   "'Now light all cruising-lamps,' ordered Captain Toadflax.  As the
searchlight filaments, fashioned of a secret alloy, became heated to
the correct operating temperature and wave-length, the view beneath
the dunes, blurry at first but soon adjusted, sprang vividly to life.
   "It as little resembled the upper-world view of the desert as the
depths of an ocean do its own surface...." (AtD, Pt. III, p. 434 f.)


"'Now light all cruising-lamps'"

Cf. ...

"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light." (AtD, Epigraph)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114238

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Epigraph


filaments

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


"the upper-world view"

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

Vs. ...

   "Among the herbaceous nap below, in the declining light, among the
brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast-bags, running heedless, as
across some earthly firmament ..." (AtD, Pt. I, Ch. 2, p. 13)

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

http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-16

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114423


"what might have been some beetle species"

E.g., ...

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

http://www.insects.org/ced2/beetles_rel_sym.html



"dark shapes ... showing now and then as as flash"

Cf. ...

"White faces, like diseased blooms, bobbed along in the dark" (V., Ch.
9, Sec. i, p. 244)

"The men inside the auction room wore black mohair and had pale, cruel
faces." (Lot 49, Ch. 6, p. 183)

Cf. ...

Ezra Pound, "In the Station of the Metro" (1913)

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough

http://www.library.utoronto.ca/utel/rp/poems/pound3.html

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0103&msg=54053

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0109&msg=59200

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114376


"bright as unsheathed steel"

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

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=520


"long-time Inner Asian sand-dogs"

http://www.zenithpress.com/Store/ProductDetails_11901.ncm

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/may2005/a051105la1.html


"the Deep Blavatsky"

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

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_219-242#Page_219

Cf. ...

http://www.biglebowskidvd.com/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/


"an instrument he can't avoid tending to"

http://www.startrek.com/imageuploads/200303/tos-066-spock-at-his-station-t/320x240.jpg

http://www.megomuseum.com/custom/mikefarence/LibraryComputer.jpg


lubbers

Main Entry: lub·ber
Pronunciation: 'l&-b&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English lobre, lobur
1 : a big clumsy fellow
2 : a clumsy seaman

Main Entry: land·lub·ber
Pronunciation: -"l&-b&r
Function: noun
: LANDSMAN 2 <clumsy landlubbers learning to sail>

Main Entry: lands·man
Pronunciation: 'lan(d)z-m&n
Function: noun
1 : a fellow countryman
2 : a person who lives on the land; especially : one who knows little
or nothing of the sea or seamanship

http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary

As above, so below ...