AtDDtA1: Pugnax

[David Morris]

On 1/23/07, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> "Ever since the Chums, during a confidential assignment in Our Nation's Capital (see The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit), had rescued Pugnax, then but a pup, from a furious encounter in the shadow of the Wasjington Monument between rival packs of the District's wild dogs ..." (AtD, Pt. I, p. 5)
>
>
> The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit
> The wild dogs equal both political parties?

Seems likely.

> Pugnax and the crew pee over the gondola. These "lavatorial assaults" from the sky,which no one can "begin to try to record, much less coordinate reports of" seem to be an allusion to the V-2 rockets which are linked to Slothrop's erections in Gravity's Rainbow. That is, pee from the sky is "folklore, superstition, or perhaps...the religious" in ATD compared to rockets screaming across the sky and the destruction in GR.

These allusions seem a stretch.  As I mentioned earlier, the
"Inconvenience" is a sort of anti-public toilet, which is exactly what
it becomes when the Chums pee over the side, "lavatorial assaults."
If one thinks of a "public convenience" as being the remedy from
having the general public urinate/defecate whenever they please in the
public realm (Toilet Anarchy? - You'd get arrested for this at Mardi
Gras in N.O.).  The Chums are by no means Anarchists, but they live
their lives literally "above it all," a possible commentary on the
ideals of anarchism.   Still, even they aren't free of a network that
controls them, and not wholly by their own consent.  Yet they
obviously prefer that arrangement to life on the ground.  And they are
themselves in a world of Fiction, no matter how accurate are the
Dime-Novel accounts of their adventures.  [BTW, I love it that some
commentators have begun the call the invasion of Iraq "Bush's Iraq
Adventure."]

And related to the above-it-all-ness of the Chums, don't their
adventures often result in catastrophes' for the occupants of the
places they visit, while they float happily away?

> [Evil Halfwit] May also refer to President Bush

This seems very likely.  I don't think anyone considered Nixon a
Halfwit, but MANY think of Bush this way.

David Morris