AtdTDA: [38] p. 1069/70 An Adult Exchange of Views

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

>From the Pynchon wiki:

          Italo-Turkish War
          Over control of Libya, 1911-12, important precursor of 
          the Balkan Wars. An Italian flyer dropped history's first 
          aerial bomb on Turkish troops. See Italo-Turkish War.

Kit's kicking the tires on a small squadriglia of Bleriot monoplanes,
shot-up aeronautic veterans of the Italo-Turkish War, and
getting to be friendly with the ground-crew in Torino, thinking 
he could somehow draw Dally away from Clive, perhaps a 
flight would pull her back. Kit knows full well that he's 
being two-timed. It's not like we weren't warned, back on 1066 
Dally's whistling "J'ai Deux Amants". Dally's having her dalliance—
a "dinner engagement"—with Clive Crouchmas at the Cambio. . . .

          PW: the Cambio
          "The Ristorante del Cambio, known locally as 'the old lady'" 
          (ATD, p. 1073), is a famous restaurant in Turin, in operation 
          since 1757, where important politicians and generals have 
          dined. It is located at 2, Piazza Carignano, Turin. 
          (See also pages 1070 and 1073.)

. . . .there's a lovely dinner party at the Cambio on 1073.

Meanwhile, back on page 1069, at a bar on the Po:

          PW: I Murazzi
          The name given to a stretch of riverfront arcades on the west 
          bank of the Po in central Turin. They were originally boat-houses 
          and landing places, but eventually developed into discos and 
          bars and so became a center of Turin's nightlife. The name 
          comes from the stone embankment ("walls") that were built 
          along the Po in the nineteenth century to prevent flooding of the 
          city center.

Drinking buddy Renzo turns Kit on the the notion of being the 
engineer for an early and all-too-effective form of "Death From 
Above", a theme explored elsewhere, Vineland and Gravity's 
Rainbow in particular. Renzo speaks of "Una picchiata", the 
Italian for "a nosedive." Kit is getting seduced into creating one 
of the first dive-bombers; an early and rather pure expression
of the future as hell itself.