STetc ch 16 - a farewell to April (part deux)(a)

[Cagliostro_the_Impossible]

"April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain."


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On Saturday, October 10th, 2026 at 11:53 PM, Michael Bailey via Pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

> (from part 1: "Children on shore drifting asleep beneath the roofs passing in the moonlight, distant polka and Lindy-hop music stealing into their early dreams, plus the occasional ballad such as the one Hicks is crooning into April's ear." (p119) - contrast with AtD Chums over the Stockyards scene, "...the effluvia of butchery unremitting, into which the buildings of the leagues of city lying downwind retreated, like children into sleep which bringeth not reprieve from the day." (p 19 in Nook edition) — Whoops, my mistake, the AtD passage is a simile: it's the *buildings* which are retreating (like children) into sleep which bringeth not reprieve from the day. There's a pretty reasonable leap to imagining the disturbed & insufficient sleep of child laborers here, so I guess it's that which I want to contrast with the pleasant slumbers of the fortunate children drifting off to the strains of distant polka and Lindy-hop music from the SS Christopher Columbus.)
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> (also left over from part 1: (p120) - "Hicks with a tremble in his voice she has never yet mistaken for anything but strategic...." Is he really that hard-boiled? April thinks so: she calls him a "ten-minute egg." (p121))
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> Part 2: the main concourse at Union Station (Chicago) https://www.architecture.org/online-resources/buildings-of-chicago/union-station
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> Taxi-war veterans, Yellow, Checker, and Parmalee
> Yellow's still around
> Checker maybe some places? They used to make their own cars or something, didn't they?
> Parmelee - huh? Started with horses in the 1850s by Frank Parmelee (worked his way up from stagecoach driver), sold in 1903 to a consortium led by Marshall Fields (an actual dude...), then to Yellow Cab, went public in 1929 (timing!), then Checker Cab in 1930 acquired a controlling interest but kept the operation running as Parmelee until like 1971, carries on as Continental Airport Express
> https://americanbusinesshistory.org/moving-through-chicago-the-parmelee-transportation-story/
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> "Over the years, customers included Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Calvin Coolidge.  Parmelee also served the wealthy and top celebrities.  Anyone who travelled from the cities of the northeast to those of the west and California travelled with Parmelee.  Famous stage actress Sarah Bernhardt took forty large trunks on her national tours, each requiring two strong men to carry.  The volume of baggage carried by the company declined when women started wearing fewer petticoats and less clothing in general."
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>