AtDTDA: [38] 1080 The Lord, over lunch

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

Remember that Lord Overlunch was last cited giving a weekend 
party at Bananas, their sumptuous Oxfordshire manor:

http://www.manorfarm-wantage.co.uk/

          DALLY HAPPENED TO MEET Lew Basnight at a weekend party at
          Bananas, the sumptuous Oxfords hire manor of Lord and Lady
          Overlunch. . . .

          . . . .There were T.W.I.T. in attendance tonight, for these days there 
          were T.W.I.T. everywhere, as if something fateful were in progress 
          that made their attendance indispensable. Dally had recently had a 
          Tarot reading done, Earl's Court, nothing fancy, nothing swell, the 
          same reading a shopgirl might pay sixpence for, so when Lew 
          explained what kind of detective he was, she at least knew her 
          way around the twenty-two Major Arcana. 

          "You're one of these T.W.I.T. folks?" 
          AtD, p. 900

The echos with The Crying of Lot 49 are tremendous:

          Next day, with the courage you find you have when there is nothing
          more to lose, she got in touch with C. Morris Schrift, and inquired 
          after his mysterious client. 

          "He decided to attend the auction in person," was all Schrift would 
          tell her. "You might run into him there." She might. 

          The auction was duly held, on a Sunday afternoon, in perhaps 
          the oldest building in San Narciso, dating from before World War 
          II. Oedipa arrived a few minutes early, alone, and in a cold lobby 
          of gleaming redwood floorboards and the smell of wax and paper, 
          she met Genghis Cohen, who looked genuinely embarrassed. 

          "Please don't call it a conflict of interests," he drawled earnestly. 
          "There were some lovely Mozambique triangles I couldn't quite 
          resist. May I ask if you've come to bid, Miz Maas." 

          "No," said Oedipa, "I'm only being a busybody." 

          "We're in luck. Loren Passerine, the finest auctioneer in the 
          West, will be crying today." 

          "Will be what?" 

          "We say an auctioneer 'cries' a sale," Cohen said. 
          The Crying of Lot 49. p. 151 perennial classics ed.

           "Excuse me, but you were in Shambhala." He handed Kit 
           the glass and indicated one stamp in particular, whose 
           finely-etched vignette showed a marketplace with a number 
           of human figures, Bactrian camels and horses beneath a 
           lurid sun-and-clouds effect in the sky. 

           "I like to look at these all carefully with the loupe at least once 
           a week, and today I noticed something different about this 
           ten-dirhan design, and wondered if possibly someone, some 
           rival, had crept in here while I was out and substituted a variant. 
           But of course I found the change immediately, the one face that 
           was missing, your own, I know it well by now, it is, if you don't 
           mind my saying so, the face of an old acquaintance .... " 

           "But I wasn't ... " 

           "Well, well. A twin, perhaps." 

           Lord Overlunch was in town for the Ferrary sale, a major event 
           in the history of the stamp-collecting hobby, at least for a look 
           if not a bid on the Swedish three-skilling yellow. 

           "And to hunt up a few old faces, don't you know. Since the Spanish 
            Lady passed through, close enough to feel the breeze from her 
           gown, and try not to make out the face behind the black mantilla, 
           one grows compulsive, I fear, about who's aboveground and 
           who below." 

           "And how'd I get here again?" 

           "It's the way people reappear these days. The trains are not always 
           running. The switches are not always thrown the right way." 
           He looked at his watch. 
           AtD, P. 1080

           One day Cohen called to tell her that the final 
           arrangements had been made to auction off 
           Inverarity's stamp collection. The Tristero 
           "forgeries" were to be sold, as lot 49. "And 
           something rather disturbing, Miz Maas. A new 
           book bidder has appeared on the scene, whom 
           neither I nor any of the firms in the area have 
           heard of before. That hardly ever happens." 

           "A what?" 

           Cohen explained how there were floor bidders, 
           who would attend the auction in person, and book 
           bidders, who would send in their bids by mail. These 
           bids would be entered in a special book by the auction 
           firm, hence the name. There would be, as was customary, 
           no public disclosure of persons for whom "the book" 
           would be bidding. 

           "Then how do you know he's a stranger?" 

           "Word gets around. He's being super-secretive working 
           through an agent, C. Morris Schrift, a very reputable, good 
           man. Morris was in touch with the auctioneers yesterday to 
           tell them his client wanted to examine our forgeries, lot 49, 
           in advance. Normally there's no objection if they know who 
           wants to see the lot, and if he's willing to pay all the postage 
           and insurance, and get everything back inside of 24 hours. 
           But Morris got quite mysterious about the whole thing, wouldn't 
           tell his client's name or anything else about him. Except that 
           as far as Morris knew, he was an outsider. So being a 
           conservative house, naturally, they apologized and said no." 

           "What do you think?" said Oedipa, already knowing pretty much. 

           "That our mysterious bidder may be from Tristero," Cohen said. 
           "And saw the description of the lot in the auction catalogue. 
           And wants to keep evidence that Tristero exists out of unauthorized 
           hands. I wonder what kind of a price they'll offer." 

           The Crying of Lot 49, pgs. 144. 145 perennial classics ed.

I guess it's only fair to note that Gengis Cohen got warped from
Grand Cohen, Nicholas Nookshaft's title as Head of T.W.I.T. and a 
pre-existing term for an Order of elect priests in kabbalistic tradition:

           What made the Elus Cohen distinct from the masonic 
           organizations it drew its membership from, was it emphasis 
           on ceremonial magic, or theurqy, for the 'Reintegration' of 
           humanity. . . .

           . . . .The Order of Elect Priests was divided into three principle 
           parts, completed by the secret grade of "Reau+Croix". The first 
           group was composed of those who went through the first three 
           degrees of Craft Masonry, with a complementary degree following; 
           the second group contained the 'Porch Degrees" of Cohen-
           Apprentice, Fellow-Cohen, and Master Cohen; the third group 
           was the Temple Degrees of: Grand Master Elect Cohen, Grand
           Architect of Chevalier (Knight) d'Orient, and Grand Elu de Zorobabel.

http://www.hermetic.com/stavish/essays/kabbalah-hermetic.html

And that Against the Day is on a different time track than 
The Crying of Lot 49:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBwvBFz5tDo