AtDtDA(28): A Presence Overhead

[Dave Monroe]

"After a bit, Lieutenant Prance thought he'd begun to detect a
presence overhead ..." (AtD, Pt. IV, p. 787)


"a high voice with a sot of tremolo to it"

Here the interaction between Prance and the Chums of Chance resembles
that between Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, and Dorothy Gale in
the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. After descending from the sky in a
pink bubble and encountering Dorothy in Munchkinland, Glinda asks "Are
you a good witch or a bad witch?" Dorothy replies that she's not a
witch at all, just as Randolph St. Cosmo replies that the Chums
"endeavor to be kind." Darby's reference to Bo Peep seems
Munchkinlandian too, as Glinda is a sort of shepherd to the Munchkins
themselves.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_768-791#Page_787

Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

http://www.halloween-online.com/games/halloween-party-games12.html
http://www.quizilla.com/users/whitewitch/quizzes/Are%20you%20a%20good%20witch%20or%20a%20bad%20witch?/


"'Are you kind deities? or wrathful deities?'"

A notable feature of Tibetan Buddhism is the emphasis on wrathful
deities, often alternative manifestations of normally peaceful
deities. True to their name, in Tibetan art, wrathful deities are
presented as fearsome, demonic beings adorned with human skulls.

Though these awesome, hair-raising images seem contradictory to
Buddhist ideals, they are not personifications of evil or demonic
forces. Rather they symbolize the dynamic activity of an enlightened
being, brought forth to tame negative or unsettling impulses in the
human mind. In addition to destroying the passions of the mind, the
purpose of gods is also to protect the faithful. The wrathful deities,
who symbolize the tremendous effort it takes to vanquish negativity,
especially perform this function.

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

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_768-791#Page_787


"what's it to you, Bo Peep?"

 Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep
 And doesn't know where to Þnd them ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Bo_Peep
http://www.shef.ac.uk/bibs/DJACcurrres/Postmodern2/Bo.html


Tengyur

The Tengyur or Tanjur (Wylie: Bstan-'gyur) ('Translation of
Treatises') is the Tibetan collection of commentaries to the Buddhist
teachings, or "Translated Treatises". The Beijing version covers 3,626
texts in 224 volumes, but numbers vary depending on the version.

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

The Tengyur Collection

http://www.asianclassics.org/release4/tengyur.html

The Nartang Tenjur, created in 1741-1742, with a supplementary volume
added after 1763....

http://tbrc.org/kb/tbrc-detail.xq;jsessionid=BDD4871E2B9BB049C15A23BFEE2E941E?RID=W22704

Cf. p. 766 ...

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_748-767#Page_766


'99 Château Lafite

http://www.cellarnotes.net/chateau_lafite_rothschild.htm
http://www.lafite.com/en/php/vins/7_2_1.php?id_chateau=29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_Lafite_Rothschild
http://lafite-collection.antique-wine.com/images/lafite/Lafite-1899-Imp-150px.jpg
http://www.evinite.fr/ch%C3%A2teau-lafite-rothschild-1899-p-1678.html?cPath=316_73_107_119


Note, by the way, that the two chapters (pp. 779-805) currently under
consideration include nigh unto all the major (and then some)
characters so far, ranging variously through all of the "story
clusters" identified by John Clute ...

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/books/column/sfw14197.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Against_the_Day#Writing_styles