GR: baize fields and paper gaming

[Michael Bailey]

no single web gleaning strikes me as exactly "spot on" but there are
several which, en masse, seem to evoke appropriate notions:


blue baize -
a) cloth often used on pool tables (more often green, but not always:
http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/pub-of-the-week-blog/review-toolangi-tavern/20090801-e4yl.html
-- "The deck is through the main area and is home to a blue baize
billiard table.")

b) cloth used inside a gun case
http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/12-gauge-bonehill-boxlock-ejector-double-barrel-s
"Canvas covered trunk case with blue baize interior."

c) cloth for a (naval?) uniform
http://www.firthness.com/fanfiction/uniformly-charming/FWC/two.htm
The dark blue baize of his uniform was absorbing the heat and becoming
uncomfortable.

d) covering for a bulletin board:
http://bristolthrall.blogspot.com/
"On the Captain’s walls hung several prints, each appearing to depict
a naval engagement. There were numerous model ships and, bizarrely it
seemed to Stephane, a submarine in a bottle. A row of service medals
was pinned to a blue baize board above the mantel and any number of
photographs, most now faded and indistinct, lined up beneath like a
roll call of the dear departed."

e) winding sheet:
http://www.sip.illinois.edu/people/rromero/alamo.htm
". . . Manzanet and his companions were joyfully and kindly received
and shown every consideration. The Governor, or Chief, of the Tejas
Indians one day asked Manzanet for some blue baize in which to bury
his grandmother when she died.

"Manzanet asked him why he desired it blue. The Chief replied that it
was because a beautiful woman who had come often to visit their tribe
and whom they reverenced wore blue, and they wished to be like her on
passing to the other world … she had promised them teachers, and now
that Manzanet and his companions had come, the "high priest" or
medicine man of the tribe had told them that these were the true
teachers who had been expected."





On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 10:24 PM, Mike Jing <mikezjing at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Pg 14, Line 15-19
> "Into the dossier it goes, and eventually the Firm, in Their tireless
> search for negotiable skills, will summon him under Whitehall, to
> observe him in his trances across the blue baize fields and the
> terrible paper gaming, his eyes rolled back into his head reading old,
> glyptic old graffiti on his own sockets...."
>
> I too am mystified by this.  A search in the archive yields:
>
> Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 19:35:10 -0800 (PST)
> From: Cometman <cometman_98@[omitted]>
> Subject: GRGR 1,2 correction / blue baize
> To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
>
> maybe there's a blue baize blotter or something on the evaluator's
> desk, covered with lots of paperwork. It's "under Whitehall" so these
> would be secret offices...and the paperwork would be terrible,
> concerned as it would be with The Great Game
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game)
>
> Could it be a table covered in blue baize with miniature military models
> made of paper and used for war games?  Anyone has further insight into this?
>
>



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