BEER Ch. 3 The Deseret

[Dave Monroe]

"If there can be haunted houses, there can also be karmically
challenged apartment buildings, and the one they liked to spy on, The
Deseret, has always made The Dakota look like a Holiday Inn." (BE, Ch.
3, p. 27)


The Deseret

Boris Kachka, writing for New York Magazine, writes that this building
is "obviously the Apthorp". Although the Apthorp building does not
have turrents and gargoyles from pictures available, its courtyard
closely matches Pynchon's description of the Deseret. Kachka writes
that Pynchon himself lived in an apartment facing this building for
years.

http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/thomas-pynchon-bleeding-edge.html

The etymology of the term "deseret" begins in the LDS scripture Book
of Mormon, where the term is defined as honeybee, and used as an
industrious symbol along with a beehive by Mormon leader Brigham
Young.

http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_3#Page_27
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deseret_%28Book_of_Mormon%29

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgHxFNFWlZc
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092007/quotes?item=qt0444208
http://www.ldsfilm.com/movies/StarTrekIV.html


"helical fire escapes at each corner, turrets, balconies, gargoyles,
scaled and serpentine and fanged creatures in cast iron over the
entrances and coiled around the windows."

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


The Dakota

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

"John and Yoko farming beef/ Raising protein quota/ Sometimes they
make love and art/ Inside their Dakota"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUsQj_ha0zU
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dakota#In_popular_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dakota#Death_of_John_Lennon


Holiday Inn

"Let's go to a Holiday Innn/ And I will show you somethin'/ Let's go
to a Holiday Innn/ To a Holiday Innn and I'll show you somethin'""

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubCt9yb2z9g


"the unappeasable maw of the entranceway" (p. 28)

http://nymag.com/realestate/vu/2007/10/38348/


"Maxine and Heidi bought cheap binoculars"

Cf. "'Back when we used to surveil the windows across the street.'" (p. 26)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ez6dw3ywcc


"schemes to sneak in"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFollUtH108


"street Chanel bags"

http://www.chanel.com/en_US/fashion/products/handbags.html

These could be Chanel bags designed for casual use. "Street" fashion
is emerges not from studios, but from the grassroots, and is aimed at
youth culture. OR Pynchon might be saying that those Chanel bags are
knock-offs purchased on the street. It's ambiguous.

   It's the latter: a knockoff bag. Chanel bags start at a couple
grand. From the context it's made clear that the characters can't
afford them.

http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_3#Page_28


"When Irish eyes are not smiling"

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

"When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" is a song first published in 1912.

http://bleedingedge.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_3#Page_28


"the fitness craze of the eighties"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWz9VN40nCA


"'Which mob exactly, Heidi? And what difference does it make?'" (p. 29)

   "You one of those right wing nut outfits?" inquired the diplomatic Metzger.
   Fallopian twinkled. "They accuse us of being paranoids."
"They?" inquired Metzger, twinkling also.
"Us?" asked Oedipa.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon#The_Crying_of_Lot_49_.281966.29
http://books.google.com/books?id=QapJgNWilDoC&pg=PT90#v=onepage&q&f=false
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l