CoL49 (6) The Proclamation of 9th Frimaire, An III

[Dave Monroe]

".... over the next century and a half the paranoia recedes, as they
come to discover the secular Tristero.  Power, omnsicience, implacable
malice, attributes of what they'd thought to be a historical
principle, a Zeitgeist, are carried over to the now human enemy.  So
much that, by 1795, it is even suggested that Tristero has staged the
entire French Revolution, just for an excuse to issue the Proclamation
of 9th Frimaire, An III, ratifying the end of the Thurn and Taxis
postal monopoly in France and the Lowlands.
   "'Suggested by who, though,' said Oedipa. 'Did you read that someplace?'
   "'Wouldn't somebody have brought it up?' Bortz said. 'Maybe not.'"
(Lot 49, Ch. 6, p. 165)

http://www.nbu.bg/webs/amb/american/6/pynchon/lot6.htm
http://www.innternet.de/~peter.patti/thomaspynchon-thecryingoflot49.htm


9th Frimaire, An III = Saturday, November 29th, 1794

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar/Y3

Frimaire was the third month in the French Republican Calendar. The
month was named after the French word frimas, which means frost.

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

>From J. Kerry Grant, A Companion to The Crying of Lot 49 (Athens: U of
Georgia P, 1994):

"The Bulletin des lois de la Republique Francaise records only three
laws issued on that date, none of them regulating the postal service
in any way." (p. 129)

http://books.google.com/books?id=AXQHqUS_fqIC
http://www.ugapress.org/0820332070.html

Bulletin des lois de la République franc̜aise

http://books.google.com/books?id=nq0sAAAAYAAJ
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb32726274t/date1794.r=.langen

STILL working (years later ...) on traking down just what DID happen
that day, but, meanwhile, What about, say, Nov. 29th, 1963, "An III"
of the Kennedy Administration?

Executive Orders Disposition Tables
Lyndon B. Johnson - 1963

11129  Designating certain facilities of the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration and of the Department of Defense, in the State of
Florida, as the John F. Kennedy Space Center
Signed: November 29, 1963
Federal Register page and date: 28 FR 12787; December 3, 1963

11130  Appointing a commission to report upon the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy
Signed: November 29, 1963
Federal Register page and date: 28 FR 12789; December 3, 1963

http://www.nara.gov/fedreg/eo1963j.html

And, of course, from Charles Hollander, "Pynchon, JFK and the CIA:
Magic Eye Views of The Crying of Lot 49," Pynchon Notes 40-41
(Spring-Fall 1997), pp. 61-106:

"So The Crying of Lot is about Oedipa, her life, her loves, her mental
states, and her curious quest to decipher the estate of Pierce
Inverarity.  And, by allusion, it is also Pynchon's meditation on the
state of American affairs in the mid-sixties ....  And all these
meditations were triggered by the assassination of President Kennedy."
(pp. 100-1)

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=0108&msg=58993