MD - Chapter 10 - pp 98/99

Tue Feb 17 13:17:24 CST 2015

A few quick Obs:

> René Descartes viewed "the cosmos as a great time machine
> > operating according to fixed laws, a watch created and wound up by the
> > great watchmaker."[6]  **

The universe as a time machine?  I understand that Descartes meant 'clockwork', but other interpretations are fun to consider.  But to the point: We haven't really talked much about the time part of the equation(s) here.

Becky, you bring up a couple of things that have been clattering around in my head:

> And the times Dixon records are 3 to 4 seconds ahead of Mason’s and they try to come up with a correction - for “observational impatience,” (on the part of Dixon),  “Leonation” - the result of being born under the sign of Leo - impatience.  But Mason is a Taurus so what about Tauricity?”  too much caution? (this comes up again later in the book!) 

In this context, time is distance, yes?  So M & D have a parallax distance between them of 3 to 4 seconds.  One second of latitude is approx. 105 feet... why this particular distance?  Is earlier more Northerly, or the opposite?

Which watches were used for their watches?  Must've been precise, and portable enough...

> Now the narrator pulls back and the next 4 months fly by in a sentence to when the weather is “workable enough” to take our heroes to St. Helena.  
> Verified-  http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/medren/record.html?id=MEDREN_2486434
> 
> Post-climactic:   
> ** “After the Transit, Astronomers and Hosts walk about for Days in deep Stupor, like Rakes and Doxies after some great Catastrophe of the Passions.”  
> 
> A long paragraph delineating how the whole community goes through some changes - “Stupor,” “colorless Rectitude,” while they wait for weather signs from the “Bull’s Eye”  

I think you're right on with the post-climactic quality of those days after the Transit.  I also got a sort of impression that time was correcting itself for the pre-Transit stretching, so contracting on the other side.  I also got a whiff of The Magic Mountain here (though I don't quite get the notion that Pynchon would be so incessantly extra-textual, when he's got so many of his own words to deal with...) 

On Feb 17, 2015, at 9:35 AM, Becky Lindroos wrote:

> I don’t think I sent this: 
> 
> Chapter 10 - 
> P. 98 - 
> 
> **   “ketjap” (italicized in the book) -  this is mentioned several times in the book -  um - 6 according to a Kindle search.   “Ketjap" is the Dutch spelling of the Malay word for what became ketchup. 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/ketjap_manis
> http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketjap
> a recipe:   http://www.dvo.com/recipe_pages/grilln/Indonesian_Ketchup_-_Ketjap_Manis.php#.VNuDwkI-A_U
> 
> ** "chicken-Battery" -  ? (to keep chickens warm in cold weather?) 
> 
> **  "rattle watch" -  http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_rattle_watch
> The Rattle Watch was a group of colonists during the Dutch era who patrolled from sunset until dawn.  They carried weapons, lanterns and wooden rattles. The rattles made a very loud, distinctive sound and were used to warn farmers and colonists of threatening situations. -  In South Africa from 1652 per "Police Management in South Africa” 
> By William Fox at GoogleBooks:  
> http://tinyurl.com/lq9fcw3 
> 
> **  “Philosophical Transactions” By Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon  -  available at: 
> http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/58/274.full.pdf+html   (lots of computations)
> 
> **?  Did they start watching at midnight plus 12 minutes ?  And then sight Venus at 12:35 AM?  
> 
> ** Gregorian Reflector made by Mr. Short: 
> https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2012/06/21/reflecting-the-heavens/  
> 
> **    “Dixon remembers the Tale Emerson lov’d to tell, of Galileo…” 
> William Emerson - English Mathematician and teacher of Dixon? -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Emerson_(mathematician)  -  -  article mentions Mason & Dixon. - Also the astronomer John Bird (M&D page 12) 
> 
> “This, Dixon understands, is what Galileo was risking so much for, - this majestic Dawn Heresy.”  (I just like that line.) 
> 
> ** The three bodies sliding into a single Line.”   - Um … This Jesuit, this Corsican and this Chinaman” were riding in a great Coach - (or up to Bath) -  pgs. 15, 115.   As well as  “Now single up all lines,”  of AtD - but that was later in several ways.  
> 
> And the times Dixon records are 3 to 4 seconds ahead of Mason’s and they try to come up with a correction - for “observational impatience,” (on the part of Dixon),  “Leonation” - the result of being born under the sign of Leo - impatience.  But Mason is a Taurus so what about Tauricity?”  too much caution? (this comes up again later in the book!) 
> 
> ** Astrology in Mason & Dixon -  Otto would know about this - good paper! 
> http://www.ottosell.de/pynchon/m_d_astro.htm
> 
> **   18th century nautical spy-glass: 
> http://tinyurl.com/ln2bejs   (eBay) 
> 
> *********************************
> 
> p.  99  
> That must have been quite the Transit with everyone completely engrossed and Pynchon makes the whole thing almost explicitly sexual:  
> 
> “… and Els, - hum, - we may imagine what Els was up to, and what transpir’d just as the last of the Black Filament, holding the Planet to the Inner Limb of the Sun, gave way, and she dropped, at last, full onto that mottled bright Disk, dimmed by the Lenses to a  fierce Moon, that Eyes might bear.”  
> 
> Now the narrator pulls back and the next 4 months fly by in a sentence to when the weather is “workable enough” to take our heroes to St. Helena.  
> Verified-  http://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/medren/record.html?id=MEDREN_2486434
> 
> Post-climactic:   
> ** “After the Transit, Astronomers and Hosts walk about for Days in deep Stupor, like Rakes and Doxies after some great Catastrophe of the Passions.”  
> 
> A long paragraph delineating how the whole community goes through some changes - “Stupor,” “colorless Rectitude,” while they wait for weather signs from the “Bull’s Eye”  
> 
> 
> ** "Bull's Eye” - a cloud formation over the mountains indicating a squall - M&D are keeping track so they can get out of there. 
> "The Oxford English Dictionary confirms the definition provided in the text: "10. Naut. ‘A little dark cloud, reddish in the middle, chiefly appearing about the Cape of Good Hope’ (Chambers Cycl. Supp. 1753), supposed to portend a storm; hence the storm itself." The OED's usage sample relates the bull's eye to a tornado, thus, perhaps, explaining the fear of the girls on page 91.” 
> http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_9:_87-93
> tambien:  http://tinyurl.com/n39p5nu
> 
> ** "Ridottoes of Excess” 
> From the MD wiki:  
> http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_7:_58-76#Page_71
> 
> The ridotto was a space behind the theatres, much like a foyer, where visitors of all layers of society mingled and engaged in discussion, gambling, or other spirited forms of entertainment. Most visitors wore masks. It was the famous black and white bauta which made recognition virtually impossible. Started in Venice. 
> 
> In all of the approximately 20 ridotti of Venice, gambling was the main activity. Young aristocrats sold their military duty to poor souls in need of money. Servants, poets, flower girls, singers, merchants, foreign visitors, and dignitaries all passed through the ridotto. Casanova praised the beautiful women, playwright Goldoni found willing listeners to his fantastic stories in the ridotto. The painters Longhi, Guardi, and Tiepolo all found inspiration in the dark-lit establishments.
> ***
> 
> Becky -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

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