AtDtDA(28): Conversation in Clear

[Dave Monroe]

   "'You just had a whole conversation in clear?'
   "'Clear?  What is "clear"?'
   "'Not encrypted,' clarified Miles Blundell.
   "'No need! Nobody else is listening!  This is 'wireless'!  New
invention!'" (AtD, Pt. IV, p. 795)


clear

In data communications, cleartext is the form of a message or data
which is in a form that is immediately comprehensible to a human being
without additional processing....

In particular, it implies that this message is transferred or stored
without cryptographic protection. The phrases, "in clear" and "in the
clear" are equivalent....

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


"wireless"

In 1893, Nikola Tesla, in America, first demonstrated the feasibility
of wireless communications. Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor,
was one of the first to develop commercial workable radio
communication. It is supposed that he sent and received his first
radio signal in Italy in 1895....

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


"'Not even Russian Army does that!'"

And it cost them dearly in 1914 when intercepted "clear" radio traffic
helped the Germans crush them at the Battle of Tannenberg.

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_792-820#Page_795

... Hoffmann received new intercepts from the Russian radio.
Rennenkampf was going to continue the next day's march due west,
ignoring Samsonov, just as Hoffmann had hoped. No matter the outcome
of the next few day's battle, the Russian First Army would not be a
serious concern. A second intercept of Samsonov's own plans made it
clear that he would continue his march northwest, having concluded
that the Germans would continue to retreat in front of Tannenberg.

Ludendorff and Hindenburg were skeptical that the intercepts were
real, finding it hard to believe even one commander would send his
communications in the clear, let alone two.  Nevertheless they were
eventually convinced they were indeed real, and the plans were put
into action....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_Battle_of_Tannenberg#Opening_moves
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_Battle_of_Tannenberg

In her book The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman suggests the Russians
sent their marching orders in clear not because they felt the Germans
could not decipher them, but because they felt the Russians could not,
and commanders were afraid orders would go unheeded if that happened.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1914_Battle_of_Tannenberg#cite_note-0


"the Earth they thought they knew"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_history ?


"formerly unmarked Siberian forest"

Cf., e.g., ...

"... unshaped freedom being rationalized into movement only in
straight lines and at right angles and a progressive reduction of
choices, until the final turn through the final gate that led to the
killing-floor."  (AtD, Pt. I, Ch. 2, p. 10)

http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114381

"Ev'rywhere else on earth, Boundaries follow Nature ... To mark a
right Line upon the Earth is to inflict ... a sword-slash, a long,
perfect scar, impossible for any who live out here the year 'round to
see as other than hateful Assault. How can it pass unanswer'd?" (M&D,
p. 542)

Et soforthiam ...


"a great aerial flotilla"

Cf. ...

   "Since that morning, before the first light, a gay, picnic-going
throng of aeromaniacs of one sort and another had been continuing all
day now to vol-a-voile in ..."  (AtD, Pt. I, Ch. 2, p. 14)

http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114440


"each borne by a different envelope"

E.g., ...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Early_flight_02561u.jpg


"the arc of the Earth's shadow advancing"

Cf. ...

Brocken
329; mountain 20 miles NW of Mittelwerke in the Harz Mountains;
"plexus of German evil"; place where God-shadows
("Brockengespenstphänomen" - p.331) occur at sunrise, 330; specter,
759

http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/alpha/b.html
http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B


"an earthbound constellation of red and green running-lights"

http://youtube.com/watch?v=coTApGbXwoI
http://www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/closeencountersofthethirdkind/

Cf., e.g., ...

"a strange magenta-and-green aura" (AtD, Pt. II, p. 409)

http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=120718

An enigma. The ordinary way of analyzing it: Make a model, say a
flashlight, an orange and a toothpick mooring line with a raisin
balloon at the top. As the orange rotates toward the east and the
flashlight appears to set in the west, what gets dark first? The base
of the toothpick, the shadow progressing upward. But the text says the
raisin does, the shadow arc moving downward.

It's very curious that immediately following this apparently
topsy-turvy paragraph Miles says "As above, so below." Significant?

http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_792-820#Page_796
http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Talk:ATD_792-820


"'As above,' remarked Miles Blundell, 'so below'"

Cf., e.g., ...

"as across some earthly firmament" (AtD, Pt. I, p. 13)

http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0701&msg=114423

"the upper-world view" (AtD, Pt. III, p. 434)

http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0708&msg=121150

"'Another case of, "As above, so below."'" (M&D, Ch. 50, pp. 487-8)

http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0205&msg=66784

Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek schema of seeing the same
patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos....

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

The idea indicated by the couple, Macrocosm-Microcosm, is the belief
that there exists between the universe and the individual human being
an identity both anatomical and psychical....

http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv3-16

This phrase comes from the beginning of The Emerald Tablet and
embraces the entire system of traditional and modern magic which was
inscribed upon the tablet in cryptic wording by Hermes Trismegistus.
The significance of this phrase is that it is believed to hold the key
to all mysteries. All systems of magic are claimed to function by this
formula. "'That which is above is the same as that which is
below'...Macrocosmos is the same as microcosmos ..." ....

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/below_above.html
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/e/emerald_tablet_the.html