ATDTDA 762-763

grladams at teleport.com grladams at teleport.com
Wed Feb 27 16:05:30 CST 2008


For the "strange touring actor who will perform not in English but in a
strange tongue..." I see this image, it plays like his well read comic book
and that's because it is..

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


The Federation President, learning about the stones and the Diva, rigs a
contest for tickets to Fhloston Paradise, a spaceliner where the Diva will
be performing, and drafts Dallas back into the Federated Army to retrieve
the stones. 





Original Message:
-----------------
From: Mark Kohut markekohut at yahoo.com
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:55:48 -0800 (PST)
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Subject: Re: ATDTDA 762-763


This 'Asiatic Beerbohm Tree" reminds me of a vision like an Asiatic Wizard
of OZ......
  but, more accurately, did not Nostradamus "project' such a pan-asiatic
prophet/messianic/world leader figure?.............

Ya Sam <takoitov at hotmail.com> wrote:
  
ATDTDA 762

“poised between the worlds” Our beloved theme of the plurality of worlds.

“stands a visitor 
 a famous touring actor” Who?

“each, imprisoned in his own fear, is praying that it all be only theater”
Cf. “The Evacuation still proceeds, but it’s all theatre.”

“by the time his name is revealed” Yes, another beloved topic of ours,
Revelation or the Apocalypse. 

arrack-and-soda

arrack - strong spirits distilled chiefly in Asia from fermented fruits,
grains, or sugarcane. In the 19th cent., Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) became
quite noted for palm toddy arrack and in modern times, Indonesia makes the
best arrack. Other names for arrack are rack, raki, and arak.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-arrack.html

“the choiring clepsydras” Beautiful, itsn’t it?

ATDTDA 763

“a lucifer flared” With all the connotations of course.

to take flannel unknown idiom.

P&O steamer Pacific and Orient

“his assumed name stenciled onto it” Another nod to V.

“Nowadays, of course, it might as well all be on a Cook’s tour” Our beloved
theme of tourists and Baedeckerland.

“By the Edwardian standards” 

The Edwardian period or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom is the period
covering the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910.
The death of Queen Victoria, Empress of India in January 1901 and the
succession of her son, Edward, marked the start of a new century and the
end of the Victorian period. While Victoria had shunned society, Edward was
the leader of a fashionable elite which set a style influenced by the art
and fashions of continental Europe—perhaps because of the King's fondness
for travel. The era was marked by significant shifts in politics as
sections of society which had been largely excluded from wielding power in
the past, such as common labourers and women, became increasingly
politicised.[1]
The period is often extended beyond Edward's death in 1910 to include the
years up to the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, the start of World War
I in 1914, or even the end of the war in 1918. The war sealed the end of
the period as the Edwardian way of life, with its inherent imbalance of
wealth and power, became increasingly anachronistic in the eyes of a
population suffering in the face of war, and exposed to mass propaganda
decrying the injustice of class division.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwardian

The Mood of Edwardian High Society

It could be said that Edwardian Britain belonged to another age, almost
another world. The truth is that time plays havoc with the mind's
perception of things past. If our view of the Edwardian age is a distorted
one, in which we believe that life was one festive round of parties,
splendid banquets and extravagant clothes, then it may be that archive film
of the rich along with television serials such as 'Edward VII', 'The
Forsyte Saga', Upstairs Downstairs and 'Lillie' have played an important
part in reinforcing the myth of 'the golden age'. 
On the other hand, these serials have awakened a new interest in the era.
An abundance of factual books recounting the social history of the
Edwardian Era exist and they are revealing and always fascinating. 

http://www.fashion-era.com/the_mood_of_edwardian_society.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/homes/design/period_edwardian.shtml

“to establish relations with the Tungus living east of the Yenisei”

TUNGUSES, a widespread Asiatic people, forming a main branch of the Mongol
division of the Mongol-Tatar family. They are the Tung-hu of the Chinese,
probably a corrupt form of tonki or donki, that is, "men" or "people." The
Russian form Tungus, wrongly supposed to mean "lake people," appears to
occur first in the Dutch writer Massa (1612); but the race has been known
to the Russians ever since they reached the Yenisei. The Tungus domain,
covering many hundred thousand square miles in central and east Siberia and
in the Amur basin, stretches from the Yenisei eastwards to the Pacific,
where it occupies most of the seaboard between Korea and Kamchatka.
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Tunguses

What could be the ulteriour motives of establishing these relations?

“as the bergut flies”

Should be ‘berkut’. The Russian name for a golden eagle.
The Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) is one of the best known birds of prey
in the Northern Hemisphere. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family
Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from
many of the more heavily populated areas. It has a wingspan averaging over
2 m (7 ft) and up to 1m (3 ft) in body length.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Eagle

But also:

The S-25 Berkut (Russian: Ñ-25 «Áåðêóò»; "Berkut" means golden eagle in
English) is a surface-to-air guided missile, the first operational SAM in
the Soviet Union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-25_Berkut

The Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut (Russian: Ñó-47 Áåðêóò - Golden Eagle), also
designated S-32 and S-37 during initial development, is an experimental
supersonic jet fighter developed by Sukhoi Aviation Corporation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su-47

The Berkut 360 is tandem-seating two-seat homebuilt canard aircraft built
primarily of carbon fiber and fiberglass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkut_aircraft

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