AtDDtA(16): The Navigation Room

[Dave Monroe]

   "Installed in the Navigation Room--a space so secret half the crew
didn't even know it was there much less how to get to it--was one of
the few Paramorphoscopes remaining in the world.
   "All paramorphoscopical activities about the Saksaul had been
placed in charge of a civilian passenger, Stilton Gaspereaux ..."
(AtD, Pt. III, p. 436)


"a space so secret half the crew didn't even know it was there much
less how to get to it"

Cf. ...

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1199


Paramorphoscopes

paramorphism

Structural alteration of a mineral without change of chemical composition.

http://bartleby.com/61/21/P0062100.html

The change of one mineral species to another, so as to involve a
change in physical characters without alteration of chemical
composition.

http://cancerweb.ncl.ac.uk/cgi-bin/omd?paramorphism

"'induced paramorphism,'" 114; "paramorphic distortions," 249; 435; 436 ...

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=P

A paramorphism (from Greek παρα, meaning "close together") is an
extension of the concept of catamorphism to deal with a form which
"eats its argument and keeps it too," as exemplified by the factorial
function.

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

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

AtD is itself a paramorphoscope; satire and science fiction typically
hold up a distorting mirror to the world in which they are written,
and present worlds "set to the side of the one we have taken". In the
end the correct paramorphic "mirror" shows the world clearly.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_243-272#Page_249

If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor
adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes
of fiction.

Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck.

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0607&msg=102374

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Against_the_Day

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Against_the_Day_description

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=121152


"a civilian passenger"

Civilian + passenger vs. military + crewmember.  Why?  Help!


Stilton Gaspereaux

Stilton

"Drink a pot of ale, eat a scoop of Stilton, every day, you will make
'old bones'." Nineteenth-century saying, Wymondham

Stilton was first made in the early 18th century in the midlands of
England. Specifically in and around the Melton Mowbray area. Stilton
takes its name from the village of Stilton (though no Stilton was ever
made there) ...

[...]

... true Stilton can only be made by authorised creameries operating
only in the three counties of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and
Derbyshire

http://www.stiltoncheese.com/UK/pr/history.cfm

http://www.stiltoncheese.com/

"antidraconical families as the Latimers, Wyvils, or Mowbrays" (M&D,
Ch. 60, p. 590)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9803&msg=25425

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0206&msg=67558

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

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

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

This site is intended to be a resource for residents, visitors, and
anyone with an interest in the village of Stilton, or the distinctive
blue-veined "King of Cheeses" which takes its name from the village,
or the ancient sport of Stilton Cheese Rolling.

http://www.stilton.org/

Cheese Rolling has become an annual event in Stilton and every May Day
hundreds of villagers and visitors make their way to the main street
to watch the teams battling for the honour of being called the
'Stilton Cheese Rolling Champions'.

http://www.stilton.org/about_rolling.html

"'Twas at the annual cheese-rolling at parish church in Randwick ..."
(M&D, Ch. 16, p. 167)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0111&msg=62719

Gaspereaux

The alewife (Alosa pseudoharengus) is a species of small shad. There
are anadromous and landlocked forms.... its common name is said to
come from comparison with a corpulent female tavernkeeper
("ale-wife"). In Atlantic Canada it is known as the gaspereau....

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

Common names for the alewife are gaspereau, river herring, sawbelly, or kiack.
Distribution

The alewife is found in rivers and lakes along the eastern coast of
North America, from Newfoundland to North Carolina ...

http://www.gov.ns.ca/fish/sportfishing/species/ale.shtml

The Banks of the Gasperaux

http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiBNKSGASP.html


"in the Inner Asian tradition of Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein"

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

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

Sven Hedin

Swedish explorer, especially of the Asian countries, and excavator of
ruins of ancient cities.

Hedin crossed Taklamakan desert in 1895 and found ruins of the sunken
city Dandan Oilik. Today he is a controversial figure because of his
complicated relations to nazism. Hitler was an admirer of his work.

Aurel Stein

Sir Marc Aurel Stein. Hungarian-born explorer later knighted as a
British citizen. Credited with the discovery, and arguably the
exploitation, of the Mogao Grottoes in China. A rock-carved repository
of ancient Buddhist texts and murals, the grottoes are known
collectively as 'The Cave of a Thousand Buddhas' and protected a copy
of the Mahayana Diamond sutra, acknowledged as the world's oldest
dated printed text.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_429-459#Page_436