Fwd: ATDTDA (14) Job's tears link // pg 397

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/plapr99.htm

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P 397 - "the boys had set up camp in Central Park"
so from Venice they come to Nueva York

Pynchonwiki notes:

syntonic wireless
syn·ton·ic (sĭn-tŏn'ĭk) adj.
Psychology.
Characterized by a high degree of emotional
responsiveness to the environment.
Electricity.
Of or relating to two oscillating circuits
having the same resonant frequency. [From
Greek suntonos, high-strung, intense, attuned,
from sunteinein, to draw tight : sun-, syn- +
teinein, to stretch.]

street-Arab
a homeless boy who has been abandoned
and roams the streets. wordnet.

some koindt of a sailboat pitchuhv on it
The reverse of the coin (next entry)
shows Columbus' flagship Santa Maria
(the obverse has the navigator's portrait).

Columbian Half-Dollar
The 1892 Columbian Exposition half dollar
was the first commemorative coin authorized by Congress. [1]

"ten yeeuhz ago"
Places this action in or around 1903.

ever since I realized that the chapter with
Webb blowing up the train took place AFTER the
(later-in-the-book) chapter with Kit and Tesla,
I've thought the chronology is worth looking into.

Haven't done it yet, though.


"Well we are their proletariat, ain't we," 
snarled Darby, "the fools that do their
'dirty work' for next to nothing?  and if they're 
too good for our *work*, then they're sure's
'heck' too good for us."

I can't resist the temptation to generalize
out from this in several directions:

1st) "messages from Hierarchy" - in a 
hierarchical organization, 
the locus of planning recedes from the locus
of operations; and entails something akin to
religious faith if those in the field are going
to continue operations

2nd) "signed, when at all, only with a 
carefully cryptic number" - which does
raise the question, how do the Chums know
the messages are genuine?  

3rd) What would happen if the Chums refused
a commission - are they surveilled?  Would
the Hierarchy know if they pretended not to
notice one of the "rocks through windows"?

4th) can you really camp in Central Park?
In a world where ballooning clubs took off,
there might be a landing field there...

5th) Darby referring to the Chums as "proletaria[ns]"
raises an interesting point.  
To the extent that the military,
and paramilitary offshoots such as the Chums, consider
themselves as adjunct to the dominant class, they are
the executive arm of the plutes.
However, didn't unionization occur in some countries
among the military?  If armies and secret services
were unionized, and the unions themselves owned 
a measure of allegiance to other unions worldwide, 
considering themselves class brothers and sisters
to other workers, wouldn't that create a shift 
in the locus of control?  An interesting shift?

There's been some weeping & wailing, in fact,
about the missed opportunity for French and
German trade unions to've stopped WWI,
the French having failed to convince the 
German unionists to join in a crippling strike.

Still, the fact that it was even a possibility
is pretty significant.