atdtda: 31 - pg 883/: Ziffer

[Mark Kohut]

I love the Melville & Zero layers anyway.....

Kai Frederik Lorentzen <lorentzen at hotmail.de> wrote:      .hmmessage P  {  margin:0px;  padding:0px  }  body.hmmessage  {  FONT-SIZE: 10pt;  FONT-FAMILY:Tahoma  }      
 
Bekah wrote:

    

  > 883. 6  Cyprian's undies are made of Venetian lace from Melville & Ziffer   ?  are these Italian providers? 
  > Melville is a Scottish or Irish name
  > Ziffer is a Jewish name - Spain, Poland, Turkey,  now Israel
   
   
  Ziffer is also a feminine German word:
   
  "ZIFFER: figure, numeral, number, digit; coefficient; (SCHRIFTZEICHEN) cipher;"
   
  A look into the telephone book ("Ziffer, Andrea --- Langenfelder Damm ... Ziffer, Hans --- Stahltwiete ...") shows
  that the name is in use here too. Don't know about these people's religion or ethno-cultural background. Etymologically,
  "Ziffer" goes back as far as the Old Indian word  "´súnya-" (empty) which then in Arabic became "sifr" (zero).
   
  "Venetian lace from Melville & Ziffer"?! Could it be that Pynchon is kinda mocking himself by trying to sell us 
  that he is giving with AtD the Great American Novel (cf. GR pp. 492ff: the name of Frau Gnahb can be read as
  a strange anagram of Ahab, crazy captains both they are) in a math-historical (Ziffer as coefficient!) pomo remix?
   
  (Well, probably not ... After I had written this mail so far, I seemed to remember something, did a quick Google
  research and came up with the following: 
   
  http://cgi.ebay.fr/catalogue-MELVILLE-ZIFFER-broderies-entredeux_W0QQitemZ220213126647QQihZ012QQcategoryZ89481QQcmdZViewItem
   
   
  So M&Z were French providers ... 
   
  "Melville & Ziffer
  54 Faubourg Saint Honoré à Paris
  modèles de: napperons, dentelles aux fuseaux, abat-jour en gros Venise ..."
   
  What? Nah, I did not have anything better to do :) 
   
  Kai      
     
   
   



       
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