smoke-puffs - definition and meaning

Mon May 20 09:49:54 CDT 2013

Or he might have been winging it from a Navy patch:

http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m6SSspk01AI_nteqr9nUeNQ.jpg

It can be tempting to overthink this. We know TRP is really, really good at
finding and embedding Baedeker details of time and place, and I enjoy "Aha,
so THAT's where it came from!" as much as anyone. But that doesn't rule out
(1) error, (2) stretching to fit, or (3) making shit up.     

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Rev'd Seventy-Six
Sent: Monday, May 20, 2013 5:55 AM
To: Mike Jing
Cc: Markekohut; pynchon -l
Subject: Re: smoke-puffs - definition and meaning

I always read it as military insignia connoting an ordnance division, i.e.:
http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/ImageProxy.ashx?n=1
<http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/ImageProxy.ashx?n=1&t=150&id=13080>
&t=150&id=13080

or:
http://www.usarmypatches.com/Collect/Ordnance/Ord%20Bde%20%20%2059-a%20.gif

On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 10:43 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

Well, Slothrop heard "Sounds of carousing, of voices distinctly unbalanced,
come welling up, reverberating off of the concrete."  There was no mention
of gunfire of any kind.  If there was gunfire, Slothrop probably would not
want to go down there.  There was some gunfire later, when he was chased,
but that was a different story.

On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 9:45 PM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

Isn't the phrase the indication that shots, stuff has happened and this is
the proof, residue, ongoing diss? I don't have my copy to check more of the
scene but P's Impressionism about the scene is what I remember....

Sent from my iPad

On May 19, 2013, at 9:31 PM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

Ordnance refers to all kinds of military "stuff"....take Morris's bombs as
real not insignia....

I see an image of soldiers with smoke surrounding.....the smoke of war....

But I dunno....I just can't imagine any ' smoke puffs" that are metaphoric
or symbol insignias

That would work here....

Sent from my iPad

On May 19, 2013, at 6:28 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

Right.  But if they were real, shots must have just been fired, a lot of
them even, which does not seem to be the case here.

On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 6:11 PM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

Maybe. But to me then they wouldn't be Ordnance smoke-puffs....

Sent from my iPad

On May 19, 2013, at 5:53 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

It has just occurred to me that it could be the "beer fumes" from the beers
they are holding, puffs of water vapour that looks like smoke.

On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 5:36 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

Thanks for taking the time to respond. That certainly is an interesting
argument.  And I don't pretend to understand Pynchon better than anybody
here, or anywhere, for that matter.  That's why I was asking in the first
place.  In any case, this further complicates things.

So are you suggesting these are actual puffs of smoke from weapons
discharge, or some metaphorical smoke-puffs acquired through the handling of
ordnance?  Or something else entirely that I am not aware of?

On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 10:16 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

Actually, bored from my work editing, I am taking a break to pile on despite
the estimable opinions of others, including yourself. 

I think that thinking of so,etching involving insignias is what occurs to
many--most--readers in this scene. It is the word " sleeve" perhaps...

But then read it again and, maybe, yet again. Think of Pynchon's verbal
precision, in all his work 

(Except, even I, great fanboy, will admit it flags  a bit in Against the
Day) but especially think of the precision of every word in Gravity's
Rainbow. 

Ask yourself, Why, why would Pynchon, with military and weapons use meanings
to the wonderfully compressed phrase Ordnance smoke-puffs be vaguely---that
is key here; you said yourself you could find nothing as symbol, especially
over a couple armies that " smoke puffs

Might refer to symbolically. Pynchon, like Shakespeare---learned to be
precise with every perspective and metaphor. 

And I ask further, from someone who knows almost nothing about military
insignia---purposely

Rejected that romanticising of war---( and I'm not even going to Wikipedia
for this) ---but aren't they, one cannot help learning, full of bars, lines,
angles, Predator birds like Eagles, stars, etc...

All of that angled linearity which Pynchon knows shows the narrowing of the
curved, wavy, modulating, human folkways. such as natural boundaries,
human-made paths and, in some natural way the curls of smoke? 

anyway, I will bet there are almost no symbols on soldiers' uniforms much
like " smoke-puffs""

Sent from my iPad

On May 19, 2013, at 3:50 AM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

Well, seems clear to me that many/ most are all also the same kind of
flickering smoke from military discharges....see esp My Early
Life...shrapnel, etc...

I think your logical concern that there are all kind of different insignia
coupled with the impossibility of them all flickering, to me rules  out that
meaning.

So, I'll stop.

Sent from my iPad

On May 19, 2013, at 1:40 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

Well, I did see those.  But it seems clear to me that Pychon is not talking
about the same thing as the others.

On Sat, May 18, 2013 at 9:27 PM, Markekohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:

See some examples here...

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
Date: May 18, 2013, 9:24:03 PM EDT
To: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
Subject: smoke-puffs - definition and meaning

http://www.wordnik.com/words/smoke-puffs

Sent from my iPad

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