AtDTdA (9): 244

[Mark Kohut]

Pynchon and mirrors.....ATD, M & D....
  insights, connections, anyone?

Jasper <jasper.fidget at gmail.com> wrote:
  244 The Chums in Venice (continued)

Page 244:
smell of molten glass
Venice and neighboring Murano were a European center for glass making 
from the 14th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass#Europe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_glass

And mirrors:
"The molten glass was poured onto a special table and rolled out flat. 
After cooling, the plate glass was ground on large round tables by means 
of rotating cast iron discs and increasingly fine abrasive sands, and 
then polished using felt disks. The result of this 'plate pouring' 
process was flat glass with good optical transmission qualities. When 
coated on one side with a reflective, low melting metal, high-quality 
mirrors could be produced."
http://www.glassonline.com/infoserv/history.html

---

vomitoria
Places where drunk or bulimic Venetians could empty their stomachs. 
Kidding, it's a joke, I'm hilarious. "A vomitorium is actually an 
entirely unrelated architectural feature -- a passage situated below or 
behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre, an exit through which the 
crowds could 'spew out' at the end of a show."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vomitorium#Vomitorium

Or just a big gateway.

---

ragazza
Italian: girl.
*wiki*

---

Picardy thirds
The use of a major chord at the end of a musical section in a minor key. 
Miles seems just as moved by them as Lew. Cf p50

The gondolier is singing harmony with himself, or else Miles is 
imagining the accompaniment.
*wiki*

---

the Lido
Venice's Lido is an 11-mile (18 km) long sandbar, home to about 20,000 
residents, greatly augmented by the (mainly Italian) tourists who move 
in every summer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lido

---

"the so-called /Terre Perse/, or Lost Lands [...] a considerable 
undersea community of churches, shops, taverns, and palazzi for the 
picked bones and incomprehensible pursuits of the generations of 
Venetian dead"

Prefiguring Shambhala. See also the next note.

---

Sant 'Ariano
The Island of Bones: an occasional /ossario/ for Venice: a repository 
for bones unearthed and removed from Venice's main cemetery on the 
island of San Michele and from the various /campielli dei morti/ 
(literally "little fields of the dead": small cemeteries that were once 
scattered throughout the historic center of Venice).

"[A]ccording to Jan Morris in her book, /The World of Venice/, the 
remains of those whose relatives don't pony up maintenance fees are 
disinterred at San Michele after 12 years, and until the last half 
century or so, were shipped off to Sant' Ariano."

http://veniceblog.typepad.com/veniceblog/2003/11/sant_ariano_the.html

---

Ecco!
I have a pair of their shoes. The word means "Look!" or "Behold!"

---

"Isola degli Specchi, or, the Isle of Mirrors itself!"
"there's nothing down there but open water"
"Try looking /below/ the surface"

Mirrors under a mirror viewed through the lens of Scientific Officer 
Counterfly

--

"A mirror-works under the water"
Parallel to the glass-works nearby on land.

---

"With our accustomed grace," replied the skyship commander wearily
See p. 1085

---

stabilimento
Italian: establishment.
*wiki*

---

the embittered mascotte
See p. 3 where Darby is described as "both factotum and mascotte" -- but 
not (yet) embittered

---

twirling a finger beside his temple
American Sign Language for crazy. I couldn't find an etymology for it 
but since sign languages have been in use since the 17th century it's 
possible this gesture was in use in 1902.
http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/c/crazy.htm

---

the old man
Commanding officers and admirals of sailing vessels are often called 
"the old man". Again, the air-ship apparently parallels the sea-ship.

---

just gone bugs
Anachronism!:
bugs –adjective Slang.
crazy; insane.
[Origin: 1920–25; see bug1, -s3]
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=bugs&r=66

---

Rays, boys, rays
Rays of sunlight: an idealized narrow beam of light

See p. 252: energetic rays
See p. 258: Vibrational rays
See p. 445: Quaternian-ray weapons


 
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