GR translation: standing in for the rest of the tip

[Monte Davis]

Tip: carny (traveling carnival) slang for the crowd on the midway, before
they’ve been persuaded to buy tickets. The same argot as  “mark” (someone to
be cheated) and “shill” (a carny confederate pretending to be just another
face in  the tip)

 

“..who may be” could be hanging from “Enzian,” “shill,” or “tip.” I favor
the third:  i.e., Ombindi is selling something that the Hereros may not be
buying, with Enzian – his affiliation uncertain – caught in between.  

 

From: owner-pynchon-l at waste.org [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On Behalf
Of Mike Jing
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2013 3:20 PM
To: Pynchon Mailing List
Subject: GR translation: standing in for the rest of the tip

 

P325.6-19   But I’m S.O.S., yes well actually this goes on, verse after
verse, for quite some time. In its complete version it represents a pretty
fair renunciation of the things of the world. The trouble with it is that by
Gödel’s Theorem there is bound to be some item around that one has omitted
from the list, and such an item is not easy to think of off the top of one’s
head, so that what one does most likely is go back over the whole thing,
meantime correcting mistakes and inevitable repetitions, and putting in new
items that will surely have occurred to one, and— well, it’s easy to see
that the “suicide” of the title might have to be postponed indefinitely!
          Conversations between Ombindi and Enzian these days are thus a
series of commercial messages, with Enzian not so much mark as unwilling
shill, standing in for the rest of the tip, who may be listening and maybe
not.

What is the meaning of the word "tip" here?  And who is the "who" in "who
may be listening and maybe not"?

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