McClintic Sphere: So I learn

[Mark Kohut]

that Stanley Edgar Hyman said in 1964 that Sphere, although name-checked for T. 
Monk,
had a band in the nvel that was like Ornette Coleman's..............

And, I read in passing and CANNOT FIND IT now---need one of those scanner pens 
to pick
up from my misc. reading---that some linguist sez the Maltese language is Arabic 
in its roots!??
Is that accepted? True? Could TRP have known that then?   

Or, does it even matter? 

And I remember Mehemet, is it, coming into Malta, right?

(when i read the word Mehmet I thought of Ishmael---only in the way that Pynchon 
might be alluding and
incorporating Melville's genius at inclusiveness into his fiction.I still have 
little sense--someone had to point out Ishmael's name
to me when i was already old---of Arab names)