AtDtDA23: Damned Ladies' Gathering Spots

[Dave Monroe]

"Just what kind of weapons jobber would pick a place like this to meet
in?  It appeared to be another of these damned ladies' gathering spots
..." (AtD, Pt. III, p. 644)


Union Depot

http://www.elpasotexas.gov/sunmetro/sunhis.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Depot_(El_Paso)

El Paso's Union Depot Passenger Station was built in 1905. The Depot
was the first passenger train station to be built in the United States
specifically for international railway traffic. It is located at San
Francisco Ave downtown El Paso very close to the US-Mexico border.
There is a rumor around in El Paso that Pancho Villa used the Depot's
bell tower as a lookout for the attack of Juárez during the Mexican
Revolution (1910-1920). The Depot now is listed in the National
Register of Historic Commission.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_644-677#Page_644

"The Mexicans laughed at his mustache and called him Pancho Villa."

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9610&msg=7420
http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/agordon/pynchon.htm


El Paso

http://www.elpasotexas.gov/default.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Paso,_Texas


"the Law and Order League"

Law and Order Leagues

http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?coll=moa&root=/moa/cent/cent0026/&tif=00958.TIF&view=50&frames=1

1889: Nov. 8, the Law and Order League has served notice that it will
no longer tolerate public gambling. Nov. 13, more than 300 El Pasoans
gather to denounce the Law and Order League.

http://www.epscene.com/monthlyhistory.html#anchor98531

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

http://www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/24/burges.htm


the Chamizal

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

1895: Nov. 14, the Chamizal controversy gets its start when Pedro I.
Garcia files suit in the Juarez Primary Court of Claims for the return
of 7.82 acres of El Paso. The Rio Grande for years had eroded south
into Mexico, putting portions of Garcia's land on the U.S. side of the
river.

http://www.epscene.com/monthlyhistory.html#anchor98531

It was a disputed parcel of land between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad
Juárez, Chihuahua. The dispute was caused by the differences between
the bed of the Rio Grande as surveyed in 1852 and the present channel
of the river. The river shifted south continually between 1852 and
1868 with the most radical shift in 1864. As a result, the newly
exposed land, about 600 acres, came to be known in Spanish as El
Chamizal, from chamiza, the name of a species of wild cane or reed.
The final resolution of the dispute came about only in 1963.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_644-677#Page_644


"windows you could always jump out of"

Cf. ...

"'Who's front window you doing it to this year?'" (VL, Ch. 1, p. 4)


"E.B. Soltera--Regeneration Equipment"

Soltera is Spanish: spinster. Estrella Briggs, Unmarried.

In chemical technology "regeneration" means taking a spent product out
of the system and cleaning it up for reuse.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_644-677#Page_644


"unstained white dresses ... pure white hats"

whiteness
stressed motif. Cf. alabaster temples at the Columbian Exposition.Cf.
whiteness in GR.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_644-677#Page_644

Cf. ...

Weissmann, Captain/Major/Lieutent [sic]
German: "white man"; aka Blicero, aka Dominus Blicero, aka Capt. Blicero ...

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/b.html#blicero
http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/w.html#weissmann

"the fabled 'White City' [...] alabaster temples of commerce and
industry" (AtD, Pt. I, p. 3)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114269

Cf. ...

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For ye are like
unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are
within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." --Matthew
23:37

http://bible.cc/matthew/23-27.htm

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/conrad/pva52.html

And see as well, esp., ...

Dyer, Richard.  "White."  The Matter of Images:
    Essays on Representations.  London: Routledge, 1993.  141-63

__________.  White.  New York: Routledge, 1997.

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0105&msg=55316
http://www.routledge.com/shopping_cart/products/product_detail.asp?sku=&isbn=9780415095372

Batchelor, David.  Chromophobia.  London: Reaktion, 2000.

http://books.google.com/books?id=QSu0aLKfdukC
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/164842.ctl