AtDTDA: 19 l'heure vertigineuse [529]

[bekah]

Thanks Robin!

This is just a note to say I'm still here but swamped at work.   I 
have kept up with the reading and am somewhat ahead (my second 
reading and I'm listening along on an audible version with Dick Hill 
narrating - great stuff - I listen to some sections over and over 
while playing mindless computer games or mindlessly doing doing 
laundry and dishes, weeding and deck swabbing.)   I'll try to have 
something to say this week or next - whenever.

The tornado efforts in my ND home town are going well - it will take 
years to recover from an F4 tornado though!   The grandbaby is 
thriving.   My mom comes back to CA this weekend and I'm going up to 
ND for Christmas.

Bekah



At 7:05 PM +0000 10/9/07, robinlandseadel at comcast.net wrote:
>Short-skirted Fatou suggests something from the picric family.
>
>The Pynchonwiki tells us:
>
>           picric family
>           The explosive picric acid (2,4,6-trinitrophenol) and its 
>derivatives.
>           For picric acid, BrugËre's powder and Designolle's powder
>
>http://tinyurl.com/27p68h
>
>There's also a link to this Britannica article:
>
>           PICRIC ACID, or TRINITROPHENOL, C6H2  .OHï (NO2)3
>           [I'2'4'6], an explosive and dyestuff formed by the action of
>           concentrated nitric acid on indigo, aniline, resins, silk, wool,
>           leather, &c . It is the final product of the direct nitration of
>           phenol, and is usually prepared by the nitration of the mixture
>           of phenol sulphonic acids obtained by heating phenol with
>           concentrated sulphuric acid (E . Eisenmann and A . Arche,
>           Fag. pat., 4539 (1888) . It may also be obtained by oxidizing
>           the symmetrical trinitrobenzene with potassium p . 352) . It
>           crystallizes from water in yellow plates melting at 122.50 C.,
>           which sublime on careful heating, but explode when rapidly
>           heated . It is poisonous and possesses a bitter taste. . . .
>
>http://tinyurl.com/2pqcxw
>
>The idea of picric acid being both a dye and an explosiveócyclomite,
>anyone?óintrigues as well for all-those colors drawn out of the Earth
>from coal tars In GR. Not to mention:
>
>           . . . .forms of mayonaisseówhose color schemes ran to indigos
>           and aquas, often quite vivid, actually . . .
>           pg. 526
>
>"l'heure vertigineuse'óthe green hour, though [as the pw points out]:
>
>           Green Hour and l'heure vertigineuse
>           Absinthe-drinking time. The liqueur is green. In French, l'heure
>           verte, so vertigineuse (vertiginous, causing dizziness) is a pun
>           on the word for "green."
>
>Back to the Digue:
>
>           The Green Hour often stretched on till midnight.
>           "Or, as we like to say, l'heure vertigineuse."
>
>We first encounter Rocco & Pino, a melancholic/choleric combo, a twining
>of opposites not unlike Mason & Dixon, plotting the assassination of King
>Leopold, planning to blow up his yacht with their manned torpedo.
>
>From the Chumps of Choice Blog:
>
>           Joining forces with Young Congo are a pair of comical "Italian naval
>           renegades, Rocco and Pino, who had stolen from the Whitehead
>           works in Fiume the highly secret plans for a low-speed manned
>           torpedo, which they intended to assemble here in Belgium and go
>           after King Leopold's royal yacht." I assumed this was more fiction,
>           but it turns out the Englishman Robert Whitehead (1823-1905) was
>           real and he did have factories in Trieste and Fiume where the first
>           torpedo was invented.
>
>http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.com/search?q=Policarpe