AtDDtA(16): The Subarenaceous World--the blade view

Sat Aug 25 16:51:44 CDT 2007

Some interesting bits about how the boring machines work--the third and
fourth paragraphs have a bit of imagination and curiosity too..

Jun 18, 2007
Carl Molesworth

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2007 Reed Business Information, Inc. (US) 
By Carl Molesworth 

Writers are supposed to appreciate irony, so why am I not smiling after 
having watched the massive tunnel boring machine operated by Obayashi Corp. 
burst through the east side of Beacon Hill in Seattle last month during 
construction of Sound Transit's Link light rail project? 

Make no mistake about it. The TBM and its operators did a marvelous job, 
popping out of the hillside within an inch - ONE INCH! - of where it was 
supposed to be after a bore of 4,300 feet that took nearly a year and a 
half to complete. 

As you may recall, I reported from the tunnel in January 2006 when the TBM 
was starting its underground journey through Beacon Hill. But the 
frustrating part about that day was realizing it's impossible to actually 
see the cutterhead of a TBM while it's working, because it's pressed up 
against the earth that it's cutting. The only access to it is through the 
tunnel to the back of the machine. You can watch a computer screen that 
shows the operator what the cutterhead is doing, but you must rely on your 
imagination to show you what it looks like as the 21-foot-diameter rotating 
head grinds away at the solid wall of earth in front of it. 

Only when a TBM is about to complete a bore do you have a chance to get in 
front of it to witness the power of the cutterhead first hand. I was 
presented one of those rare opportunities on May 8. 

An e-mail message from Sound Transit the previous afternoon alerted me to 
the pending breakthrough and invited me to be at the tunnel's east portal 
on Beacon Hill by 7:30 a.m. to watch it. This is when the irony started to 
kick in. 

The purpose of Link light rail is to lure people out of their cars, which 
should help alleviate traffic congestion in the Seattle area. But as we 
wait for the service to start, Seattle's traffic problem continues to grow. 
I live about 70 miles north of the city, so I knew I would need to get 
going awfully early in order to reach the construction site soon enough to 
see the breakthrough. Surely, I thought, leaving by 5:45 would do it. 

Wrong. 

All it took was one driver crashing into a sign bridge on I-5 just north of 
Seattle to slow traffic to a crawl. As I sat there in my car, I watched 
7:30 and then 8 o'clock come and go on my watch. Not long after that I 
heard Sound Transit spokesman Geoff Patrick on the radio describing the 
terrific scene when the cutterhead broke though. 

I reached the portal about 8:30, just as the media crowd was dispersing, 
and snapped some pictures of the now-still cutterhead poking out of the 
hill. Then I got back in my car dejectedly and went on to my next stop. 
Later in the morning I got back on I-5 for my return trip and was held up 
again because repair crews had shut down all northbound lanes while they 
removed the damaged sign bridge from the earlier accident. 

It took a while, but I eventually got home in time to watch the TV news 
coverage of the TBM breaking through Beacon Hill. So I saw what I wanted to 
see, but just not in person. 

I guess I was lucky that the traffic tie-up didn't cause me to miss the TV 
report as well as the actual event. 

But then that would have been adding insult to irony. 

Article A165349887 

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Dave Monroe against.the.dave at gmail.com
Date: Sat, 25 Aug 2007 13:46:08 -0500
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: AtDDtA(16): The Subarenaceous World

   "On the futuristic frigate glided, through the subarenaceous world
..." (AtD, Pt. III, p. 435f.)

"On the futuristic frigate glided"

Cf. ...

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into
the past."

--F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925)

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f_scott/gatsby/

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?tab=1&pid=505494

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=120831

"the subarenaceous world"

Main Entry: arÂ·eÂ·naÂ·ceous
Pronunciation: "a-r&-'nA-sh&s
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin arenaceus, from arena
1 : resembling, made of, or containing sand or sandy particles
2 : growing in sandy places

http://m-w.com/dictionary/arenaceous

"exotically-shaped steering blades"

"Exotically-shaped" how?

Recall ...

"steering-vanes smoothly came into play, increasing the angle of
penetration" (p. 434)

"Such to the dead might appear the world of the living--charged with
information, with meaning, yet somehow always, just, terribly, beyond
that fateful limen where any lamp of comprehension might beam forth"

Uh ...

Cf. ...

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

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

Main Entry: liÂ·men
Pronunciation: \ËlÄ«-mÉn\
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin limin-, limen transverse beam in a door frame,
threshold; probably akin to Latin limus transverse
Date: 1895

: threshold 3a

Main Entry: threshÂ·old
Pronunciation: \Ëthresh-ËhÅld, Ëthre-ËshÅld\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English thresshold, from Old English threscwald;
akin to Old Norse threskjoÌ¨ldr threshold, Old English threscan to
thresh
Date: before 12th century

[...]

3 a: the point at which a physiological or psychological effect begins
to be produced <has a high threshold for pain> b: a level, point, or
value above which something is true or will take place and below which
it is not or will not

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

"transmundane melody"

SYLLABICATION: transÂ·munÂ·dane
PRONUNCIATION: trnsmn-dn, trnz-, trns-mndn, trnz-
ADJECTIVE: Existing or extending beyond the physical world.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/22/T0322200.html

Sir, I run Hullabalooza's pageant of the transmundane --the freak
show, and I've been looking for a big fatso to shoot with a cannon.
I'd like very much for you to be that fatso.

http://www.snpp.com/episodes/3F21.html

"ancient horns fashioned from the thigh-bones of long departed priests"

Ganlin horn

Horn (musical instrument) made from human thigh bones and used by head
monks to call and exorcise evil spirits....

http://mongoluls.net/glossary.shtml#GlossG

For centuries, Ganlin horns had been used by head monks throughout
Mongolia to call, and exorcise, evil spirits (lkham). The horns, which
are about 18cm long and had to be kept hidden because of their powers,
are no longer used, but they continue to create controversy.

Mongolian Buddhists claim that in Tibet, the horn had to be made from
the left thigh bone of a sacrificed 18-year-old unmarried female
virgin, because the lkham (which is female) wouldn't respond to a call
using a bone from a male. However, in Mongolia, the bone was
apparently made from the thigh bone of (male) Buddhist monks who were
already dead.

http://danielroy.tripod.com/cgi-bin/alternate/mongolia/religion.html

The grizzled old Buddhist Wizard of Kalimpong specializes in freeing
the struggling spirits of the dying. This he accomplishes by sticking
a hollow tube down the dying man's throat to provide a spiritual exit;
at the same time the Wizard toots a horn made of a human thigh
bone....

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813965,00.html

"isn't that a ... watchtower of some sort?"

Cf., e.g., ...

"If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof
against its magic, what else?" (Lot 49, Ch. 1, p. 14)

"It shows a bolt of lightning striking a tall phallic structure, and
two figures, one wearing a crown, falling from it." (GR, Pt. IV, p.
747)

And recall, e.g., ...

"the Campanile in the piazza" (AtD, Pt. I, p. 256

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0705&msg=118670

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0705&msg=118747

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0705&msg=118962

"the Old Stearinery Bell Tower" (AtD, Pt. II, pp. 412-3)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=120773

And so see as welll...

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0705&msg=118674

"'Torriform inclusion'"

More likely from turris (Latin), torre (Spanish) or similar [...]
meaning "tower."

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_429-459#Page
_436

E.g., ...

Funerary customs adopted some innovations, most notably torriform
mausoleums (profusely decorated monoliths or columns), that
proliferated across southern Iberia.

http://www.allempires.com/article/index.php?q=ancient_iberia

"The whole trick down here's distinguishing man-made from God-Made"

Cf. ...

"Behind the hieroglyphic streets there would either be a transcendent
meaning, or only the earth....  Another mode of meaning behind the
obvious, or none." (Lot 49, p. 181)

http://www.innternet.de/~peter.patti/thomaspynchon-thecryingoflot49.htm

"a head for the extra dimension"

Cf. The Chums of Chance, F.I.C.O.T.T., the Trespassers ...

"Foundations, for example, become more like entryways"

Cf.. ...

"The glove is the female equivalent of the Hand of Glory, which
second-story men use to light their way into your home: a candle in a
dead man's hand ..." (GR, Pt. IV, p. 750)

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