Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Chapter 1

2019-11-09T12:43:47Z

Mojomoyo:

{{V PbP Top}}

9/1 - '''Benny Profane''' 
'''Benny''': Benny is slang for benzedrine, a trademarked amphetamine often prescribed for anxiety. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzedrine]. Also, ''bene'' [Latin] = "well-intentioned", observes Molly Hite.

'''Profane''': Since 1912, as defined in ''The Elementary Forms of Religious Life'' by the sociologist Emile Durkheim, 'profane' has had the social meaning of 'everything that is not sacred'. [https://science.jrank.org/pages/11185/Sacred-Profane--MILE-DURKHEIM.html/] 
"The division of the world into two domains, one containing all that is sacred and the other all that is profane—such is the distinctive trait of religious thought."--Durkheim (p. 34). [http://home.ku.edu.tr/~mbaker/cshs503/durkheimreligiouslife.pdf] 
Latin root: ''pro'' "in front of/before"; ''fanum'' "temple", i.e. not within the inner sanctum. Benny is "profane" compared to the almost mystical world of historical fiction Stencil (see below) moves through.

9/1 - '''Christmas Eve 1955''' 
The first time that the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) received a call concerning Santa's whereabouts. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa]
 
Pynchon worked on aspects of NORAD [later acronym] when he was at Boeing.

9/1 - '''Norfolk, Virginia''' 
Port city.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk%2C_Virginia/ wikipedia]
The city has a long history as a strategic military and transportation point. Norfolk is home to the Norfolk Naval Base, the world's largest naval base. Urban renewal, starting
in the 1970s included the demolition of many prominent city buildings, and large swaths of urban fabric including the East Main Street district (where the current civic complex is located), and where Benny starts yo-yoing. 

9/1 - '''his old tin can's''' 
His particular naval ship. The informal usage of "tin can" refers to a naval destroyer, notorious for relatively light armor.

9/1 - '''Sterno can''' 
Sterno Canned Heat is a fuel made from denatured and jellied alcohol. It is designed to be burned directly from its can.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterno/ wikipedia]

[[image:Packard-Patrician-1954.jpg|thumb|right|150px| 1954 Packard Patrician]]9/1 - '''54 Packard Patrician''' 
The Packard Patrician was an automobile built by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of Detroit, Michigan, from model years 1951 through the 1956 model. There was even an eight-passenger model.1958 was the last year of
Packard production.
The Packard had a high reputation for quality, for value that would last and Packards are highly-prized by collectors today.

10/2 - '''seaman deuce''' 
A seaman apprentice [seaman second class].

10/2 - '''like a yo-yo...maybe a year and a half''' 
"One year of those times [Fifties] was much like another...there was a lot of aimlessness going around". Introduction to ''Slow Learner'', p.14, by Thomas Pynchon.

10/2 - '''Drunken Sailors...Do With''' 
Lyrics to a sea shanty: "What shall we DO WITH a DRUNKEN SAILOR?"

Here, actually beginning on the first page, appears Pynchon's lifelong stylistic use of capitalization--for a certain kind of emphasis?, for a kind of reification?, and for much, much more certainly. It also has to do with Pynchon's preoccupation with Germanic history--in German, all nouns are capitalized. See Pynchon's 1997 novel, [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Mason & Dixon''] for the most extensive use of capitalization.

10/2 - '''one potential berserk...the glass breaks?''' 
Cf. Zoyd Wheeler's annual "act of televised insanity" in Pynchon's 1990 novel, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland ''Vineland'']

10/2 - '''SP''' 
Shore Patrol, the naval 'police'.

10/2 - '''Hey Rube''' 
Carnies'--circus folk--call to come together when in a dispute with townspeople. Reviewer, writer, Michael Moorcock, who published an early Pynchon story when he was a young magazine editor, has pointed to circuses as motifs in Pynchon, calling [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''], a massive "circus" novel.

10/2 - '''V''' 
This is the first appearance of the letter that is the title. It describes
ugly green mercury-vapor lamps. Not positive associations--to say the least-- in Pynchon's world. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''], passim, especially in the Telluride sections. The V of the lamps recedes to the east, usually a positive association in Pynchon, especially in intellectual connotations.

10/2 - '''doggo''' 
in hiding used chiefly in the phrase ''to lie doggo''

11/3 - '''Beatrice''' 
Probable allusion see 'all barmaids' coming up to Beatrice, [Beatrice Poltinari] guide through 'Paradise' of Dante's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_comedy/ ''The Divine Comedy''],
whom Dante loves.

11/3 - '''DesDiv 22''' 
Destroyer Division 22. Possible allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch22 ''Catch 22''] ?, another now-classic comic, famously anti-war, novel, published in 1961, but sections were published even earlier in magazines.

<div id="singleup"> 11/3 - '''single up all lines'''</div>
"Single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way. This phrase, used as either a nautical term or metaphorically appears in [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#single_up_all_lines ''The Crying of Lot 49'', p.31]; [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_488-491#single_up_all_lines ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.489]; [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_26:_257-265#Page_258 ''Mason & Dixon'', pp.258 and 260]; [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_3 ''Against the Day'', p.3]; and [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_8 ''Inherent Vice'', p. 119].

11/3 - '''N.O.B.''' 
Naval Operations Base. On 17 September, 1943, an accident occurred which bears a lot of resemblance to the potential accidents Pynchon describes in "Togetherness," written while at Boeing: "A NAS [Naval Station] ordnance department truck was pulling four trailers loaded with depth charges on the taxiway between NAS and the NOB piers. Each trailer was designed to carry four aerial depth charges. To save time, two additional charges were loaded on top of each trailer. Compounding the problem, the charges on top were not properly chained down. One of the charges slipped loose and became wedged between the trailer and the ground. The friction of being dragged against the road caused the charge to begin smoking." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_Norfolk Wikipedia]

11/3 - '''Ploy''' 
'ploi'..Function: noun 
Etymology: probably from employ..Date: 1722 
1 : ESCAPADE, FROLIC 
2 a : a tactic intended to embarrass or frustrate an opponent b : a devised or contrived move : STRATAGEM (a ploy to get her to open the door -- Robert B. Parker)

11/3 - '''Pentothal injection''' 
Known as truth serum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_thiopental Wikipedia]

12/4 '''Negro''' 
Negro is a racial term applied to people of Sub Saharan African origin; The word is now largely seen as archaic, usually neutral and, depending on the user, occasionally offensive. However, prior to the shift in the "lexicon" of American and worldwide classification of race and ethnicity in the late 1960s, the appellation was accepted as a normal formal term both by those of African descent as well as non-blacks. Negro means black in Spanish and Portuguese, and the Italian nero is similar (Latin: niger = "black").Wikipedia 
''V.'' is early sixties, before the word shift in the late sixties.

12/4 '''Dahoud''' 
"Dahoud" is the Arabic name for David.
Name of an inquisitive youth who tended to the camels in El-Jaziri. [?]

12/4 '''"life is the most precious possession you have?"..."without it, you'd be dead."''' 
The 'meaning' of life reduced to this? Somehow seems akin to Profane's yo-yoing, or later randomness. Satire of existentialism?

12/4 '''Lights Out''' 
lights out at 2200 (10:00 PM)---Navy Boot Camp.

12/4 '''snipes'''
A snipe is naval slang for a member of the engineering crew on a ship. Historically, there was always tension between snipes and the deck crew.
http://oldsnipe.com/SnipeBegin.html

12/4 - '''DesLant''' 
Destroyer Force, North Atlantic Fleet.

13/5 '''Mrs. Buffo'''...'''also named Beatrice''' 
A basso buffo, a comic bass, a staple of nearly every classic Italian comic opera.

13/5 '''dragon-embroidered kimono''' 
The Kimono (着物, Kimono? literally "something worn", i.e., "clothes") is the national costume of Japan. Originally kimono indicated all types of clothing, but it has come to mean specifically the full-length traditional garment worn by women, men, and children. Kimonos are T-shaped, straight-lined robes that fall to the ankle, with collars and full-length sleeves. The sleeves are commonly very wide at the wrist, as much as a half meter. Traditionally, on special occasions unmarried women wear kimonos (furisode) with extremely long sleeves that extend almost to the floor. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimonos 
Kimonos were originally worn only by the nobility.

After World War II, as Japan's economy gradually recovered, kimono became even more affordable and were produced in greater quantities. Europe and America fashion ideas affected the kimono designs and motifs. japanesekimono http://www.japanesekimono.com/kimono_history.htm

13/5 '''Seventh Fleet''' 
The United States 7th Fleet is a naval military formation based in Yokosuka, Japan, with units positioned near South Korea and Japan.

13/5 '''Dewey Gland''' 
Spelled "Dewy", it means moist, wet--from dew. "Dewy-eyed" means innocent, naive.-M-W Dictionary.
Musicians, often guitar and ukelele players, are positive characters in Pynchon's oeuvre. Since music is a great joy in Pynchon's world, musicians seem often to be his archetypal artist figures. See, as context, the myth of Orpheus,"the music of [whose] lyre was so beautiful that when he played, wild beasts were soothed, trees danced, and rivers stood still." http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/Orpheus

14/6 '''goat hole''' 
The goat is the naval mascot. 
Goat Locker - Chiefs' Quarters and Mess. The term originated during the era of wooden ships, when Chiefs were given charge of the milk goats on board. Nowadays more a term of respect for the age of its denizens.

14/6 '''wardroom''' 
wardroom n : military quarters for dining and recreation for officers of a warship. http://www.dict.die.net/wardroom

14/6 '''X.O.''' 
Executive Officer.

14/6 '''Pappy Hod''' 
pap·py2 (păp'ē)
n. Informal., pl. -pies.---
Father 
Of or resembling pap; mushy. 

hod n. A trough carried over the shoulder for transporting loads, as of bricks or mortar. A coal scuttle.
http://www.answers.com/topic/hod

14/6 '''boatswain''' 
n : a petty officer on a merchant ship who controls the work of other seamen ...
http://dict.die.net/boatswain/
More commonly written [and pronounced as] "bosun".

14/6 '''riggish''' 
wanton: said of Cleopatra whom the holy priests praise when she is riggish' (i.e. wanton) ... Anthony & Cleopatra, Shakespeare.

14/6 '''Pig Bodine''' 
Notice immaturity and other relevant meanings to simple 'pig'
1 a : a young domesticated swine not yet sexually mature; broadly : a wild or domestic swine.
3 : a dirty, gluttonous, or repulsive person.--Merriam-Webster Dictionary 

Pigs in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' [http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/extra/pigs.html]

See terrific ''Bodine'' entry at AtD wiki: [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_489-524#Page_517 Bodine]

15/8 '''jarhead(s)''' 
Marine Corps slang for a Marine, perhaps for the shape of the hat/helmet they wore.
The term was well-established by the fifties. Answers.com.

17/10 '''"Where we going," Profane said. "The way we're heading," said
Pig.''' 
Notice the tie-in with yo-yoing, immediacy and goallessness. Also notice that Profane's question is presented as a statement and Pig's answer is all part of the same paragraph. (Unlike almost all dialogue in novels.)

17/10 '''WAVE lieutenants''' 
WAVES, or "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service". In the decades since the last of the Yeomen left active duty, only a relatively small corps of Navy Nurses represented their gender in the Naval service, and they had never had formal officer status. Now, the Navy was preparing to accept not just a large number of enlisted women, as it had done during World War I, but female Commissioned Officers to supervise them. It was a development of lasting significance, notwithstanding the WAVES' name, which indicated that they would only be around during the wartime "Emergency". Department of the Navy historical bulletin.

17/10 '''Morris Teflon''' 
Teflon, patented in 1941 and trademarked in 1944 by the Dupont company == Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a synthetic fluoropolymer which finds numerous applications. PTFE has an extremely low coefficient of friction and is used as a non-stick coating for pans and other cookware. It is very non-reactive, and so is often used in containers and pipework for reactive and corrosive chemicals. Where used as a lubricant, PTFE significantly reduces friction, wear and energy consumption of machinery.

17/10 '''switchman''' 
switchman - a man who operates railroad switches. Pynchon does not like railroads. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''].

18/11 '''wire-brushed''' 
naval slang for a merciless chewing out.

18/11 - '''She taught them all a song. Learned from a para on French leave from the fighting in Algeria''' 
The song the paratrooper taught Paola is a French anti-war song, "Le Déserteur" ("The Deserter"), recorded in 1954 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Vian Boris Vian] and written by Vian and Harold Berg:

:Early tomorrow morning 
:I will shut my door 
:on these dead years 
:I will take to the road. 
:I will beg my way along 
:on the land and on the waves 
:the old and the new world ...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpLHRQV7sQ Have a listen & look]; [http://www.swans.com/library/art7/xxx071.html Lyrics (with a variation)]

18/11 '''Piraeus''' 
Piraeus is a city in the periphery of Attica, Greece, located to the south of the city of Athens. It is the capital of the Piraeus Prefecture and belongs to the Athens urban area. It was the port of the ancient city of Athens and it was chosen to serve as the modern port when Athens was re-founded in 1834. Piraeus is the largest port in Europe (and third largest in the world) in terms of passenger transportation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piraeus Wikikpedia]

19/12 '''F.L.N.''' 
The National Liberation Front (French: ''Front de Libération nationale'', hence FLN) is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on November 1, 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Front(Algeria) Wikipedia]

19/12 '''WAVY''' 
WAVY is the NBC affiliate serving the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, Virginia market.

19/12 '''Pat Boone''' 
A very popular 'smooth' singer of the 50s, famous for doing covers of African-American hit songs. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Boone Wikipedia]

19/12 '''"No", she said. "Meaning Yes"''' 
Foreshadowing of the chapter "In which Esther Gets a Nose Job."

19/12 '''Click, went Teflon's Leica''' 
Reminds of Pynchon's legendary aversion to being photographed. Although, as the narrator notes, "Outraged privacy was not so important; but the interruption had come just before the Big Moment."

20/13 '''Navy greatcoat''' 
Beautiful pictures from all sides here: [http://cgi.ebay.com/Mid-20th-Century-Royal-Navy-Captains-Greatcoat-VXE_W0QQitemZ110167682561QQihZ001QQcategoryZ586QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting Navy greatcoat]

20/13 '''topside''' 
the top portion of the outer surface of a ship on each side above the waterline

20/13 '''Madonna, he thought''' 
aka Mother Mary, aka the Virgin Mary, used blasphemously.

20/13 '''roads''' 
A sheltered body of water where vessels can safely anchor. Often an estuary on the approaches to a port.

<div id="inanimate">20/13 - '''inanimate'''</div>
52 uses of the word inanimate in ''V.''; 13 of animate. Thematic: Life vs. Non-Life/Death.

21/14 '''turn a corner in the street'''...'''where nothing else lived but himself''' 
As Benny did "rounding the corner' onto East Main [p.2]. Cf. animate/inanimate above.

21/14 '''mental eye''' 
Consciousness, of course; also a perceptual theory. A-and here is a use by Charles Dickens: "gilding with refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama is gone, perfectly gone,' said Mr Curdle." from ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby''.

Further reading again indicates that "mental eye" is an older use which has faded, being largely replaced by 'mind's eye".

Cf. '''Third eye''':The third eye (also known as the inner eye) is a metaphysical and esoteric concept referring in part to the ajna (brow) chakra in certain Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. It is also spoken of as the gate that leads within to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_eye Third eye]
Cf. third eye in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_119-148 ''Against the Day'', p. 125]

21/14 '''''Susanna Squaducci'', an Italian luxury liner''' 
Ex-''Scaffold'' sailors hold their 'reunion' here. See Pynchon's later
'linking' of a military ship and a luxury liner, the ''Stupendica'', in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']

:Susanna: name of a young woman who is the subject of a famous Biblical story
in the ''Book of Daniel''. Known as 'Susanna and/among the Elders', Susanna is viewed bathing by a group of elders and they attempt to blackmail her into performing sexual favors. There have been paintings and a poem by Wallace Stevens. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_%28Book_of_Daniel%29 Wikipedia]

:Squaducci: need an expert in Italian slang perhaps, but a related word seems to be: sgualdrina f. (pejorative) trollop, strumpet, harlot, tart. Squa(l)might add the negative meaning to whatever 'ducci' [pl. of duchess?] means, since 'drina' can be a girl's name and, in fact, was what young Queen Victoria was called. See ''Queen Victoria'' by Lytton Strachey.

Somehow the meanings seem to fit Pynchonian themes: from the sound, to the
Biblical sexual allusion (of saved purity) reduced to lack of such purity.

21/14 '''dancing the dirty boogie''' 
a voluptuous dance (with varying lyrics) originating within the African-American tradition. "The “Dirty Boogie,” which was made famous by another film, “Dirty Dancing.” As you may recall, this film takes place in the 1960’s in a small Catskill resort where a dance instructor taught a young seventeen year-old varius types of sexy dance moves: one being the “Dirty Boogie.” Of course there was a scene in the movie showing all the teenagers and young adults doing the “Dirty Boogie.” Many of the dance moves in the “Dirty Boogie,” resembled movements featured in the movie, “Lambada.” These movements were acting out sexual pleasure on the dance floor. The Rolling Stones do a "Dirty Boogie" on their ''Black & Blue'' album.

21/15 '''clown's motley''' 
Motley refers to the traditional costume of the Court jester or the Harlequin character in ''Commedia dell'arte''.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motley]

22/15 '''Rachel Owlglass''' 
"Rachel" means "ewe" in Hebrew; the name of Jacob's wife, who, after long infertility, gave birth to Joseph. "Owlglass" is the Anglicization of "Eulenspiegel"; Till Eulenspiegel was a trickster/fool in German folklore and protagonist of "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks", a tone poem by Richard Wagner. "Eule"="owl", "Spiegel"="mirror".

22/15 '''the Catskills''' 
Catskill Mountains, an area northwest of New York City, famous as a vacation resort area. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Mountains Wikipedia].

22/15 '''shakedown cruise''' 
Shakedown cruise is a nautical term in which the performance of a ship is tested. Shakedown cruises are also used to familiarize the ship's crew with operation of the craft. The term can also refer in a generic sense to the process of testing out any new technology or systems.

22/15 '''gee and haw''' 
To haw and gee To haw and gee about, to go from one thing to another without good reason; to have no settled purpose; to be irresolute or unstable. [Colloq.] Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

The phrase derives from "Hey and Go" - turn right and turn left, and was originally used in leading oxen and cattle by teamsters.[http://www.takeourword.com/TOW144/page2.html]

<div id="trocadero">22/15 - '''Schlozhauer's Trocadero'''</div>
The word ''trocadero'', which in Spanish means "place of barter" (from trocar: "to barter"), goes back to a fortified site near Cadiz, Spain, that was the stronghold of the Constititutionalists in the revolution of 1820 and that fell to the French in 1823. During the International Exhibition of 1878 an ornate palace was built to commemorate the French victory. "Trocadero" became a popular name for public places in Europe, one being the Trocadero Palace of Varieties in London, known as "The Troc," which opened as a music hall in 1882 on the corner of Shaftsbury Avenue and Windmill Street.

22/15 '''Liberty''' 
Liberty, New York: [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.797792,-74.742829&spn=0.10,0.10 Google Map]

22/15 '''fight Arabs in Israel''' 
Of the 950,000 estimated Arabs in Israel before Israel became a state in 1948, an estimated 156,000 remained after. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel Wikipedia]

23/16 '''Parris Island''' 
Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island is an 8,095 acre (32.9 km²) military installation near Beaufort, South Carolina, tasked with the training of enlisted Marines. Male recruits living east of the Mississippi River and female recruits from all over the USA report here to receive their initial training. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parris_Island Wikipedia]

23/16 '''Haganah''' 
The Haganah (Hebrew: "The Defense") was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948. [http://en.wikipedia.org.wiki/Haganah Wikipedia]

23/16 '''mezuzah''' 
A mezuzah (Hebrew: "doorpost") is a piece of parchment (usually contained in a decorative case) inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21). These verses comprise the Jewish prayer "Shema Yisrael," and begin with the phrase "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezuzah Wikipedia]

23/16 '''iceberg lettuce''' 
The Iceberg lettuce industry exploded during WWII as salads were seen as a real morale booster. After the war, its popularity continued as soldiers came home wanting the same assortment of fresh produce procured by the military. [http://www.taproduce.com/About/PressReleases07-4.html] California producers of iceberg lettuce were the targets of protests by Cesar Chavez's National Farm Workers Association, beginning in the very early sixties.

23/16 '''watercress''' 
The capital growing city of this leaf vegetable ''was'' Huntsville, Alabama until:
:"The city's transformation began with the arrival of Wernher von Braun, Hitler's chief missile designer, whose V-2 rocket terrorized London and other British cities. An SS major who headed rocket research at the Peenemunde complex, where slave laborers were starved, beaten, and worked to death, von Braun could have ended up in the docket at Nuremberg like other leading Nazis. But at war's end, the Pentagon was anxious to plumb German scientific know-how in order to improve America's weaponry. Under the top-secret Operation Paperclip, the Army smuggled von Braun and his team of 118 Peenemunde scientists out of Germany and brought them to the United States. After first going to a military base near El Paso, they were taken to Huntsville in 1950 and put to work at Redstone Arsenal." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsville%2C_Alabama]

23/16 '''Belgian Endive''' 
A leaf vegetable grown completely underground or indoors in the absence of sunlight, a process that prevents the leaves from turning green and opening up .

23/16 '''Abdul Sayid''' 
Abdul (also transliterated Abdel, `Abd al-, and other ways) means "servant of the", and is the first part of many Arabic names. It is combined with one of the 99 Names of God in the Qur'an to form a two-word Arabic theophoric name. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul] ''Sayid'' or ''Sayyid'' is an honorific title given to males who are thereby said to be descendants of the prophet Muhammed, founder of Islam.

24/17 '''pedestrian girls''' 
notice double meaning.

The 1913 edition of ''Webster's Dictionary'' seems to be, from this and other citations, one of Pynchon's major linguistic resources or, at least, gives some of the most resonant meanings from a Pynchon Perspective.

24/7 - '''drained-nervous''' 
With the hyphen, this shows another older archaic usage. Cf. Snow-shroud and the loss of hyphens between words above.

<div id="bravo">27/21 - '''a pimpled bravo'''</div>
A "bravo" is a villain, desperado; esp. a hired assassin

32/26 - '''Dewey, now astride a lifeline on the bridge, gave a bass string intro and began to sing Blue Suede Shoes, after Elvis Presley.''' 
A slight anachronism. We know the date is 1st January 1956. Carl Perkins wrote [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Suede_Shoes "Blues Suede Shoes"] in on 4/5 December 1955, and released the record on 1st January 1956. Elvis recorded it on 30th January 1956 and first played it on television on the 11th February. It was the first track on his first album, released March. So Dewey couldn’t have played "Blue Suede Shoes" after Elvis Presley.

An anachronism, but "after" here means "in the manner of".

37/32 - '''horniness''' 
a state of sexual excitement. Pynchon is the first citation in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' for use of this word in print, in ''V.''.

39/34 - '''screw where his navel should have been...''' 
The navel is where the umbilical cord attaches. When the boy unscrews it, his body falls apart. This is a repeated reference that bodily traits are passed on through genetics and the umbilical cord attaches you to a parent. If you try to undo it, you will undo yourself.

41/37 - '''Luis Aparicio''' 
Venezuelan major-league baseball player; American League Rookie of the year in 1956, playing for the Chicago White Sox.

42/38 - '''Geronimo broke off the song to say “Coño” and wobble his fingers.''' 
"Coño" is Spanish for "cunt"

43/39 - '''now [the alligators] moved big, blind albino, all over the sewer system...''' 
The urban legend of alligators living in the sewers of New York was given the some credence when, in the 1950s, Edward P. "Teddy" May, the superintendent of sewers in New York City, went down into the sewers to investigate and told a journalist that he'd seen "Alligators serenely paddling around in his sewers. The beam of his own flashlight had spotlighted alligators whose length, on the average, was about two feet. Some may have been longer." (''The World Beneath The City'', Robert Daley, 1959). However, Mr. May's credibility has been questioned and, in truth, the sewers are an environment inhospitable to alligators or caimons, and reports of their subterranean existence have been greatly exaggerated. [http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/the-book-behind-the-sewer-alligator-legend/ ''New York Times'' article about this...]

<div id="Zeitsuss">43/39 -'''Zeitsuss'''</div>
'Zeit' [German] = Time. "suss" = Sweet. Mr. Zeitsuss is head of the Alligator Patrol.

{{V PbP}}

Talk:Chapter 1

2019-11-08T21:22:20Z

Mojomoyo:

== Some guidelines to improve pages ==

This page and subsequent ones could be improved in a couple of ways:

* More exhaustive sources: for instance, in the first entry, the sentence "Also, ''bene'' [Latin] = "well-intentioned", observes Molly Hite." Who's Molly White? Where did she observed it?

* Update of dead links and cross-referencing of information: for instance, second entry, "Pynchon worked on aspects of NORAD [later acronym] when he was at Boeing." without source.

* Readibility: style uniformity when quoting texts, single words and links, for instance.

[[User:Mojomoyo|Mojomoyo]] ([[User talk:Mojomoyo|talk]]) 12:44, 8 November 2019 (PST)

Talk:Chapter 1

2019-11-08T21:18:20Z

Mojomoyo: added title

== Some guidelines to improve pages ==

This page and subsequent ones could be improved in a couple of ways:

- More exhaustive sources: for instance, in the first entry, the sentence "Also, ''bene'' [Latin] = "well-intentioned", observes Molly Hite." Who's Molly White? Where did she observed it?

- Update of dead links and cross-referencing of information: for instance, second entry, "Pynchon worked on aspects of NORAD [later acronym] when he was at Boeing." without source.

- Readibility: style uniformity when quoting texts, single words and links, for instance.

[[User:Mojomoyo|Mojomoyo]] ([[User talk:Mojomoyo|talk]]) 12:44, 8 November 2019 (PST)

Talk:Chapter 1

2019-11-08T20:46:07Z

Mojomoyo:

This page and subsequent ones could be improved in a couple of ways:

- More exhaustive sources: for instance, in the first entry, the sentence "Also, ''bene'' [Latin] = "well-intentioned", observes Molly Hite." Who's Molly White? Where did she observed it?

- Update of dead links and cross-referencing of information: for instance, second entry, "Pynchon worked on aspects of NORAD [later acronym] when he was at Boeing." without source.

- Readibility: style uniformity when quoting texts, single words and links, for instance.

[[User:Mojomoyo|Mojomoyo]] ([[User talk:Mojomoyo|talk]]) 12:44, 8 November 2019 (PST)

Talk:Chapter 1

2019-11-08T20:44:56Z

Mojomoyo:

This page and subsequent ones could be improve in a couple of ways:

- More exhaustive sources: for instance, in the first entry, the sentence "Also, ''bene'' [Latin] = "well-intentioned", observes Molly Hite." Who's Molly White? Where did she observed it?

- Update of dead links and cross-referencing of information: for instance, second entry, "Pynchon worked on aspects of NORAD [later acronym] when he was at Boeing." without source.

- Readibility: style uniformity when quoting texts, single words and links, for instance.

[[User:Mojomoyo|Mojomoyo]] ([[User talk:Mojomoyo|talk]]) 12:44, 8 November 2019 (PST)

Talk:Chapter 1

2019-11-08T20:43:23Z

Mojomoyo: Some problems

Chapter 1

2019-11-08T20:41:32Z

Mojomoyo: updating some links

{{V PbP Top}}

9/1 - '''Benny Profane''' 
'''Benny''': Benny is slang for benzedrine, a trademarked amphetamine often prescribed for anxiety. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzedrine]. Also, ''bene'' [Latin] = "well-intentioned", observes Molly Hite.

'''Profane''': Since 1912, as defined in ''The Elementary Forms of Religious Life'' by the sociologist Emile Durkheim, 'profane' has had the social meaning of 'everything that is not sacred'. [https://science.jrank.org/pages/11185/Sacred-Profane--MILE-DURKHEIM.html/] 
"The division of the world into two domains, one containing all that is sacred and the other all that is profane—such is the distinctive trait of religious thought."--Durkheim (p. 34).[http://home.ku.edu.tr/~mbaker/cshs503/durkheimreligiouslife.pdf] 
Latin root: ''pro'' "in front of/before"; ''fanum'' "temple", i.e. not within the inner sanctum. Benny is "profane" compared to the almost mystical world of historical fiction Stencil (see below) moves through.

9/1 - '''Christmas Eve 1955''' 
The first time that the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) received a call concerning Santa's whereabouts. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAD_Tracks_Santa]
 
Pynchon worked on aspects of NORAD [later acronym] when he was at Boeing.

9/1 - '''Norfolk, Virginia''' 
Port city.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk%2C_Virginia/ wikipedia]
The city has a long history as a strategic military and transportation point. Norfolk is home to the Norfolk Naval Base, the world's largest naval base. Urban renewal, starting
in the 1970s included the demolition of many prominent city buildings, and large swaths of urban fabric including the East Main Street district (where the current civic complex is located), and where Benny starts yo-yoing. 

9/1 - '''his old tin can's''' 
His particular naval ship. The informal usage of "tin can" refers to a naval destroyer, notorious for relatively light armor.

9/1 - '''Sterno can''' 
Sterno Canned Heat is a fuel made from denatured and jellied alcohol. It is designed to be burned directly from its can.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterno/ wikipedia]

[[image:Packard-Patrician-1954.jpg|thumb|right|150px| 1954 Packard Patrician]]9/1 - '''54 Packard Patrician''' 
The Packard Patrician was an automobile built by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of Detroit, Michigan, from model years 1951 through the 1956 model. There was even an eight-passenger model.1958 was the last year of
Packard production.
The Packard had a high reputation for quality, for value that would last and Packards are highly-prized by collectors today.

10/2 - '''seaman deuce''' 
A seaman apprentice [seaman second class].

10/2 - '''like a yo-yo...maybe a year and a half''' 
"One year of those times [Fifties] was much like another...there was a lot of aimlessness going around". Introduction to ''Slow Learner'', p.14, by Thomas Pynchon.

10/2 - '''Drunken Sailors...Do With''' 
Lyrics to a sea shanty: "What shall we DO WITH a DRUNKEN SAILOR?"

Here, actually beginning on the first page, appears Pynchon's lifelong stylistic use of capitalization--for a certain kind of emphasis?, for a kind of reification?, and for much, much more certainly. It also has to do with Pynchon's preoccupation with Germanic history--in German, all nouns are capitalized. See Pynchon's 1997 novel, [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Mason & Dixon''] for the most extensive use of capitalization.

10/2 - '''one potential berserk...the glass breaks?''' 
Cf. Zoyd Wheeler's annual "act of televised insanity" in Pynchon's 1990 novel, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland ''Vineland'']

10/2 - '''SP''' 
Shore Patrol, the naval 'police'.

10/2 - '''Hey Rube''' 
Carnies'--circus folk--call to come together when in a dispute with townspeople. Reviewer, writer, Michael Moorcock, who published an early Pynchon story when he was a young magazine editor, has pointed to circuses as motifs in Pynchon, calling [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''], a massive "circus" novel.

10/2 - '''V''' 
This is the first appearance of the letter that is the title. It describes
ugly green mercury-vapor lamps. Not positive associations--to say the least-- in Pynchon's world. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''], passim, especially in the Telluride sections. The V of the lamps recedes to the east, usually a positive association in Pynchon, especially in intellectual connotations.

10/2 - '''doggo''' 
in hiding used chiefly in the phrase ''to lie doggo''

11/3 - '''Beatrice''' 
Probable allusion see 'all barmaids' coming up to Beatrice, [Beatrice Poltinari] guide through 'Paradise' of Dante's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_comedy/ ''The Divine Comedy''],
whom Dante loves.

11/3 - '''DesDiv 22''' 
Destroyer Division 22. Possible allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch22 ''Catch 22''] ?, another now-classic comic, famously anti-war, novel, published in 1961, but sections were published even earlier in magazines.

<div id="singleup"> 11/3 - '''single up all lines'''</div>
"Single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way. This phrase, used as either a nautical term or metaphorically appears in [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#single_up_all_lines ''The Crying of Lot 49'', p.31]; [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_488-491#single_up_all_lines ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.489]; [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_26:_257-265#Page_258 ''Mason & Dixon'', pp.258 and 260]; [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_3 ''Against the Day'', p.3]; and [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_8 ''Inherent Vice'', p. 119].

11/3 - '''N.O.B.''' 
Naval Operations Base. On 17 September, 1943, an accident occurred which bears a lot of resemblance to the potential accidents Pynchon describes in "Togetherness," written while at Boeing: "A NAS [Naval Station] ordnance department truck was pulling four trailers loaded with depth charges on the taxiway between NAS and the NOB piers. Each trailer was designed to carry four aerial depth charges. To save time, two additional charges were loaded on top of each trailer. Compounding the problem, the charges on top were not properly chained down. One of the charges slipped loose and became wedged between the trailer and the ground. The friction of being dragged against the road caused the charge to begin smoking." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_Norfolk Wikipedia]

11/3 - '''Ploy''' 
'ploi'..Function: noun 
Etymology: probably from employ..Date: 1722 
1 : ESCAPADE, FROLIC 
2 a : a tactic intended to embarrass or frustrate an opponent b : a devised or contrived move : STRATAGEM (a ploy to get her to open the door -- Robert B. Parker)

11/3 - '''Pentothal injection''' 
Known as truth serum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_thiopental Wikipedia]

12/4 '''Negro''' 
Negro is a racial term applied to people of Sub Saharan African origin; The word is now largely seen as archaic, usually neutral and, depending on the user, occasionally offensive. However, prior to the shift in the "lexicon" of American and worldwide classification of race and ethnicity in the late 1960s, the appellation was accepted as a normal formal term both by those of African descent as well as non-blacks. Negro means black in Spanish and Portuguese, and the Italian nero is similar (Latin: niger = "black").Wikipedia 
''V.'' is early sixties, before the word shift in the late sixties.

12/4 '''Dahoud''' 
"Dahoud" is the Arabic name for David.
Name of an inquisitive youth who tended to the camels in El-Jaziri. [?]

12/4 '''"life is the most precious possession you have?"..."without it, you'd be dead."''' 
The 'meaning' of life reduced to this? Somehow seems akin to Profane's yo-yoing, or later randomness. Satire of existentialism?

12/4 '''Lights Out''' 
lights out at 2200 (10:00 PM)---Navy Boot Camp.

12/4 '''snipes'''
A snipe is naval slang for a member of the engineering crew on a ship. Historically, there was always tension between snipes and the deck crew.
http://oldsnipe.com/SnipeBegin.html

12/4 - '''DesLant''' 
Destroyer Force, North Atlantic Fleet.

13/5 '''Mrs. Buffo'''...'''also named Beatrice''' 
A basso buffo, a comic bass, a staple of nearly every classic Italian comic opera.

13/5 '''dragon-embroidered kimono''' 
The Kimono (着物, Kimono? literally "something worn", i.e., "clothes") is the national costume of Japan. Originally kimono indicated all types of clothing, but it has come to mean specifically the full-length traditional garment worn by women, men, and children. Kimonos are T-shaped, straight-lined robes that fall to the ankle, with collars and full-length sleeves. The sleeves are commonly very wide at the wrist, as much as a half meter. Traditionally, on special occasions unmarried women wear kimonos (furisode) with extremely long sleeves that extend almost to the floor. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimonos 
Kimonos were originally worn only by the nobility.

After World War II, as Japan's economy gradually recovered, kimono became even more affordable and were produced in greater quantities. Europe and America fashion ideas affected the kimono designs and motifs. japanesekimono http://www.japanesekimono.com/kimono_history.htm

13/5 '''Seventh Fleet''' 
The United States 7th Fleet is a naval military formation based in Yokosuka, Japan, with units positioned near South Korea and Japan.

13/5 '''Dewey Gland''' 
Spelled "Dewy", it means moist, wet--from dew. "Dewy-eyed" means innocent, naive.-M-W Dictionary.
Musicians, often guitar and ukelele players, are positive characters in Pynchon's oeuvre. Since music is a great joy in Pynchon's world, musicians seem often to be his archetypal artist figures. See, as context, the myth of Orpheus,"the music of [whose] lyre was so beautiful that when he played, wild beasts were soothed, trees danced, and rivers stood still." http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/Orpheus

14/6 '''goat hole''' 
The goat is the naval mascot. 
Goat Locker - Chiefs' Quarters and Mess. The term originated during the era of wooden ships, when Chiefs were given charge of the milk goats on board. Nowadays more a term of respect for the age of its denizens.

14/6 '''wardroom''' 
wardroom n : military quarters for dining and recreation for officers of a warship. http://www.dict.die.net/wardroom

14/6 '''X.O.''' 
Executive Officer.

14/6 '''Pappy Hod''' 
pap·py2 (păp'ē)
n. Informal., pl. -pies.---
Father 
Of or resembling pap; mushy. 

hod n. A trough carried over the shoulder for transporting loads, as of bricks or mortar. A coal scuttle.
http://www.answers.com/topic/hod

14/6 '''boatswain''' 
n : a petty officer on a merchant ship who controls the work of other seamen ...
http://dict.die.net/boatswain/
More commonly written [and pronounced as] "bosun".

14/6 '''riggish''' 
wanton: said of Cleopatra whom the holy priests praise when she is riggish' (i.e. wanton) ... Anthony & Cleopatra, Shakespeare.

14/6 '''Pig Bodine''' 
Notice immaturity and other relevant meanings to simple 'pig'
1 a : a young domesticated swine not yet sexually mature; broadly : a wild or domestic swine.
3 : a dirty, gluttonous, or repulsive person.--Merriam-Webster Dictionary 

Pigs in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' [http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/extra/pigs.html]

See terrific ''Bodine'' entry at AtD wiki: [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_489-524#Page_517 Bodine]

15/8 '''jarhead(s)''' 
Marine Corps slang for a Marine, perhaps for the shape of the hat/helmet they wore.
The term was well-established by the fifties. Answers.com.

17/10 '''"Where we going," Profane said. "The way we're heading," said
Pig.''' 
Notice the tie-in with yo-yoing, immediacy and goallessness. Also notice that Profane's question is presented as a statement and Pig's answer is all part of the same paragraph. (Unlike almost all dialogue in novels.)

17/10 '''WAVE lieutenants''' 
WAVES, or "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service". In the decades since the last of the Yeomen left active duty, only a relatively small corps of Navy Nurses represented their gender in the Naval service, and they had never had formal officer status. Now, the Navy was preparing to accept not just a large number of enlisted women, as it had done during World War I, but female Commissioned Officers to supervise them. It was a development of lasting significance, notwithstanding the WAVES' name, which indicated that they would only be around during the wartime "Emergency". Department of the Navy historical bulletin.

17/10 '''Morris Teflon''' 
Teflon, patented in 1941 and trademarked in 1944 by the Dupont company == Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a synthetic fluoropolymer which finds numerous applications. PTFE has an extremely low coefficient of friction and is used as a non-stick coating for pans and other cookware. It is very non-reactive, and so is often used in containers and pipework for reactive and corrosive chemicals. Where used as a lubricant, PTFE significantly reduces friction, wear and energy consumption of machinery.

17/10 '''switchman''' 
switchman - a man who operates railroad switches. Pynchon does not like railroads. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''].

18/11 '''wire-brushed''' 
naval slang for a merciless chewing out.

18/11 - '''She taught them all a song. Learned from a para on French leave from the fighting in Algeria''' 
The song the paratrooper taught Paola is a French anti-war song, "Le Déserteur" ("The Deserter"), recorded in 1954 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Vian Boris Vian] and written by Vian and Harold Berg:

:Early tomorrow morning 
:I will shut my door 
:on these dead years 
:I will take to the road. 
:I will beg my way along 
:on the land and on the waves 
:the old and the new world ...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpLHRQV7sQ Have a listen & look]; [http://www.swans.com/library/art7/xxx071.html Lyrics (with a variation)]

18/11 '''Piraeus''' 
Piraeus is a city in the periphery of Attica, Greece, located to the south of the city of Athens. It is the capital of the Piraeus Prefecture and belongs to the Athens urban area. It was the port of the ancient city of Athens and it was chosen to serve as the modern port when Athens was re-founded in 1834. Piraeus is the largest port in Europe (and third largest in the world) in terms of passenger transportation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piraeus Wikikpedia]

19/12 '''F.L.N.''' 
The National Liberation Front (French: ''Front de Libération nationale'', hence FLN) is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on November 1, 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Front(Algeria) Wikipedia]

19/12 '''WAVY''' 
WAVY is the NBC affiliate serving the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, Virginia market.

19/12 '''Pat Boone''' 
A very popular 'smooth' singer of the 50s, famous for doing covers of African-American hit songs. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Boone Wikipedia]

19/12 '''"No", she said. "Meaning Yes"''' 
Foreshadowing of the chapter "In which Esther Gets a Nose Job."

19/12 '''Click, went Teflon's Leica''' 
Reminds of Pynchon's legendary aversion to being photographed. Although, as the narrator notes, "Outraged privacy was not so important; but the interruption had come just before the Big Moment."

20/13 '''Navy greatcoat''' 
Beautiful pictures from all sides here: [http://cgi.ebay.com/Mid-20th-Century-Royal-Navy-Captains-Greatcoat-VXE_W0QQitemZ110167682561QQihZ001QQcategoryZ586QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting Navy greatcoat]

20/13 '''topside''' 
the top portion of the outer surface of a ship on each side above the waterline

20/13 '''Madonna, he thought''' 
aka Mother Mary, aka the Virgin Mary, used blasphemously.

20/13 '''roads''' 
A sheltered body of water where vessels can safely anchor. Often an estuary on the approaches to a port.

<div id="inanimate">20/13 - '''inanimate'''</div>
52 uses of the word inanimate in ''V.''; 13 of animate. Thematic: Life vs. Non-Life/Death.

21/14 '''turn a corner in the street'''...'''where nothing else lived but himself''' 
As Benny did "rounding the corner' onto East Main [p.2]. Cf. animate/inanimate above.

21/14 '''mental eye''' 
Consciousness, of course; also a perceptual theory. A-and here is a use by Charles Dickens: "gilding with refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama is gone, perfectly gone,' said Mr Curdle." from ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby''.

Further reading again indicates that "mental eye" is an older use which has faded, being largely replaced by 'mind's eye".

Cf. '''Third eye''':The third eye (also known as the inner eye) is a metaphysical and esoteric concept referring in part to the ajna (brow) chakra in certain Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. It is also spoken of as the gate that leads within to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_eye Third eye]
Cf. third eye in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_119-148 ''Against the Day'', p. 125]

21/14 '''''Susanna Squaducci'', an Italian luxury liner''' 
Ex-''Scaffold'' sailors hold their 'reunion' here. See Pynchon's later
'linking' of a military ship and a luxury liner, the ''Stupendica'', in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']

:Susanna: name of a young woman who is the subject of a famous Biblical story
in the ''Book of Daniel''. Known as 'Susanna and/among the Elders', Susanna is viewed bathing by a group of elders and they attempt to blackmail her into performing sexual favors. There have been paintings and a poem by Wallace Stevens. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_%28Book_of_Daniel%29 Wikipedia]

:Squaducci: need an expert in Italian slang perhaps, but a related word seems to be: sgualdrina f. (pejorative) trollop, strumpet, harlot, tart. Squa(l)might add the negative meaning to whatever 'ducci' [pl. of duchess?] means, since 'drina' can be a girl's name and, in fact, was what young Queen Victoria was called. See ''Queen Victoria'' by Lytton Strachey.

Somehow the meanings seem to fit Pynchonian themes: from the sound, to the
Biblical sexual allusion (of saved purity) reduced to lack of such purity.

21/14 '''dancing the dirty boogie''' 
a voluptuous dance (with varying lyrics) originating within the African-American tradition. "The “Dirty Boogie,” which was made famous by another film, “Dirty Dancing.” As you may recall, this film takes place in the 1960’s in a small Catskill resort where a dance instructor taught a young seventeen year-old varius types of sexy dance moves: one being the “Dirty Boogie.” Of course there was a scene in the movie showing all the teenagers and young adults doing the “Dirty Boogie.” Many of the dance moves in the “Dirty Boogie,” resembled movements featured in the movie, “Lambada.” These movements were acting out sexual pleasure on the dance floor. The Rolling Stones do a "Dirty Boogie" on their ''Black & Blue'' album.

21/15 '''clown's motley''' 
Motley refers to the traditional costume of the Court jester or the Harlequin character in ''Commedia dell'arte''.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motley]

22/15 '''Rachel Owlglass''' 
"Rachel" means "ewe" in Hebrew; the name of Jacob's wife, who, after long infertility, gave birth to Joseph. "Owlglass" is the Anglicization of "Eulenspiegel"; Till Eulenspiegel was a trickster/fool in German folklore and protagonist of "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks", a tone poem by Richard Wagner. "Eule"="owl", "Spiegel"="mirror".

22/15 '''the Catskills''' 
Catskill Mountains, an area northwest of New York City, famous as a vacation resort area. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Mountains Wikipedia].

22/15 '''shakedown cruise''' 
Shakedown cruise is a nautical term in which the performance of a ship is tested. Shakedown cruises are also used to familiarize the ship's crew with operation of the craft. The term can also refer in a generic sense to the process of testing out any new technology or systems.

22/15 '''gee and haw''' 
To haw and gee To haw and gee about, to go from one thing to another without good reason; to have no settled purpose; to be irresolute or unstable. [Colloq.] Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

The phrase derives from "Hey and Go" - turn right and turn left, and was originally used in leading oxen and cattle by teamsters.[http://www.takeourword.com/TOW144/page2.html]

<div id="trocadero">22/15 - '''Schlozhauer's Trocadero'''</div>
The word ''trocadero'', which in Spanish means "place of barter" (from trocar: "to barter"), goes back to a fortified site near Cadiz, Spain, that was the stronghold of the Constititutionalists in the revolution of 1820 and that fell to the French in 1823. During the International Exhibition of 1878 an ornate palace was built to commemorate the French victory. "Trocadero" became a popular name for public places in Europe, one being the Trocadero Palace of Varieties in London, known as "The Troc," which opened as a music hall in 1882 on the corner of Shaftsbury Avenue and Windmill Street.

22/15 '''Liberty''' 
Liberty, New York: [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.797792,-74.742829&spn=0.10,0.10 Google Map]

22/15 '''fight Arabs in Israel''' 
Of the 950,000 estimated Arabs in Israel before Israel became a state in 1948, an estimated 156,000 remained after. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel Wikipedia]

23/16 '''Parris Island''' 
Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island is an 8,095 acre (32.9 km²) military installation near Beaufort, South Carolina, tasked with the training of enlisted Marines. Male recruits living east of the Mississippi River and female recruits from all over the USA report here to receive their initial training. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parris_Island Wikipedia]

23/16 '''Haganah''' 
The Haganah (Hebrew: "The Defense") was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948. [http://en.wikipedia.org.wiki/Haganah Wikipedia]

23/16 '''mezuzah''' 
A mezuzah (Hebrew: "doorpost") is a piece of parchment (usually contained in a decorative case) inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21). These verses comprise the Jewish prayer "Shema Yisrael," and begin with the phrase "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezuzah Wikipedia]

23/16 '''iceberg lettuce''' 
The Iceberg lettuce industry exploded during WWII as salads were seen as a real morale booster. After the war, its popularity continued as soldiers came home wanting the same assortment of fresh produce procured by the military. [http://www.taproduce.com/About/PressReleases07-4.html] California producers of iceberg lettuce were the targets of protests by Cesar Chavez's National Farm Workers Association, beginning in the very early sixties.

23/16 '''watercress''' 
The capital growing city of this leaf vegetable ''was'' Huntsville, Alabama until:
:"The city's transformation began with the arrival of Wernher von Braun, Hitler's chief missile designer, whose V-2 rocket terrorized London and other British cities. An SS major who headed rocket research at the Peenemunde complex, where slave laborers were starved, beaten, and worked to death, von Braun could have ended up in the docket at Nuremberg like other leading Nazis. But at war's end, the Pentagon was anxious to plumb German scientific know-how in order to improve America's weaponry. Under the top-secret Operation Paperclip, the Army smuggled von Braun and his team of 118 Peenemunde scientists out of Germany and brought them to the United States. After first going to a military base near El Paso, they were taken to Huntsville in 1950 and put to work at Redstone Arsenal." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsville%2C_Alabama]

23/16 '''Belgian Endive''' 
A leaf vegetable grown completely underground or indoors in the absence of sunlight, a process that prevents the leaves from turning green and opening up .

23/16 '''Abdul Sayid''' 
Abdul (also transliterated Abdel, `Abd al-, and other ways) means "servant of the", and is the first part of many Arabic names. It is combined with one of the 99 Names of God in the Qur'an to form a two-word Arabic theophoric name. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul] ''Sayid'' or ''Sayyid'' is an honorific title given to males who are thereby said to be descendants of the prophet Muhammed, founder of Islam.

24/17 '''pedestrian girls''' 
notice double meaning.

The 1913 edition of ''Webster's Dictionary'' seems to be, from this and other citations, one of Pynchon's major linguistic resources or, at least, gives some of the most resonant meanings from a Pynchon Perspective.

24/7 - '''drained-nervous''' 
With the hyphen, this shows another older archaic usage. Cf. Snow-shroud and the loss of hyphens between words above.

<div id="bravo">27/21 - '''a pimpled bravo'''</div>
A "bravo" is a villain, desperado; esp. a hired assassin

32/26 - '''Dewey, now astride a lifeline on the bridge, gave a bass string intro and began to sing Blue Suede Shoes, after Elvis Presley.''' 
A slight anachronism. We know the date is 1st January 1956. Carl Perkins wrote [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Suede_Shoes "Blues Suede Shoes"] in on 4/5 December 1955, and released the record on 1st January 1956. Elvis recorded it on 30th January 1956 and first played it on television on the 11th February. It was the first track on his first album, released March. So Dewey couldn’t have played "Blue Suede Shoes" after Elvis Presley.

An anachronism, but "after" here means "in the manner of".

37/32 - '''horniness''' 
a state of sexual excitement. Pynchon is the first citation in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' for use of this word in print, in ''V.''.

39/34 - '''screw where his navel should have been...''' 
The navel is where the umbilical cord attaches. When the boy unscrews it, his body falls apart. This is a repeated reference that bodily traits are passed on through genetics and the umbilical cord attaches you to a parent. If you try to undo it, you will undo yourself.

41/37 - '''Luis Aparicio''' 
Venezuelan major-league baseball player; American League Rookie of the year in 1956, playing for the Chicago White Sox.

42/38 - '''Geronimo broke off the song to say “Coño” and wobble his fingers.''' 
"Coño" is Spanish for "cunt"

43/39 - '''now [the alligators] moved big, blind albino, all over the sewer system...''' 
The urban legend of alligators living in the sewers of New York was given the some credence when, in the 1950s, Edward P. "Teddy" May, the superintendent of sewers in New York City, went down into the sewers to investigate and told a journalist that he'd seen "Alligators serenely paddling around in his sewers. The beam of his own flashlight had spotlighted alligators whose length, on the average, was about two feet. Some may have been longer." (''The World Beneath The City'', Robert Daley, 1959). However, Mr. May's credibility has been questioned and, in truth, the sewers are an environment inhospitable to alligators or caimons, and reports of their subterranean existence have been greatly exaggerated. [http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/the-book-behind-the-sewer-alligator-legend/ ''New York Times'' article about this...]

<div id="Zeitsuss">43/39 -'''Zeitsuss'''</div>
'Zeit' [German] = Time. "suss" = Sweet. Mr. Zeitsuss is head of the Alligator Patrol.

{{V PbP}}

Chapter 1

2019-11-08T20:10:51Z

Mojomoyo: stylizing text, info correction (Benzedrine wasn't discovered serendipitously nor in 1954, at least according to the source provided)

{{V PbP Top}}

9/1 - '''Benny Profane''' 
'''Benny''': Benny is slang for benzedrine, a trademarked amphetamine often prescribed for anxiety. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benzedrine]. Also, ''bene'' [Latin] = "well-intentioned", observes Molly Hite.

'''Profane''': Since 1912, as defined in ''The Elementary Forms of Religious Life'' by the sociologist Emile Durkheim, 'profane' has had the social meaning of 'everything that is not sacred'. 
"The division of the world into two domains, one containing all that is sacred and the other all that is profane—such is the distinctive trait of religious thought."--Durkheim (p. 34).[http://science.jrank.org/pages/11185/Sacred-Profane--MILE-DURKHEIM.html/''Science Encyclopedia: History of Ideas'', Vol. 5] 
Latin root: ''pro'' "in front of/before"; ''fanum'' "temple", i.e. not within the inner sanctum. Benny is "profane" compared to the almost mystical world of historical fiction Stencil (see below) moves through.

9/1 - '''Christmas Eve 1955''' 
The first time that the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) received a call concerning Santa's whereabouts. [http://www.classbrain.com/artholiday/publish/tracking_santa.shtml]
 
Pynchon worked on aspects of NORAD [later acronym] when he was at Boeing.

9/1 - '''Norfolk, Virginia''' 
Port city.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk%2C_Virginia/ wikipedia]
The city has a long history as a strategic military and transportation point. Norfolk is home to the Norfolk Naval Base, the world's largest naval base. Urban renewal, starting
in the 1970s included the demolition of many prominent city buildings, and large swaths of urban fabric including the East Main Street district (where the current civic complex is located), and where Benny starts yo-yoing. 

9/1 - '''his old tin can's''' 
His particular naval ship. The informal usage of "tin can" refers to a naval destroyer, notorious for relatively light armor.

9/1 - '''Sterno can''' 
Sterno Canned Heat is a fuel made from denatured and jellied alcohol. It is designed to be burned directly from its can.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterno/ wikipedia]

[[image:Packard-Patrician-1954.jpg|thumb|right|150px| 1954 Packard Patrician]]9/1 - '''54 Packard Patrician''' 
The Packard Patrician was an automobile built by the Studebaker-Packard Corporation of Detroit, Michigan, from model years 1951 through the 1956 model. There was even an eight-passenger model.1958 was the last year of
Packard production.
The Packard had a high reputation for quality, for value that would last and Packards are highly-prized by collectors today.

10/2 - '''seaman deuce''' 
A seaman apprentice [seaman second class].

10/2 - '''like a yo-yo...maybe a year and a half''' 
"One year of those times [Fifties] was much like another...there was a lot of aimlessness going around". Introduction to ''Slow Learner'', p.14, by Thomas Pynchon.

10/2 - '''Drunken Sailors...Do With''' 
Lyrics to a sea shanty: "What shall we DO WITH a DRUNKEN SAILOR?"

Here, actually beginning on the first page, appears Pynchon's lifelong stylistic use of capitalization--for a certain kind of emphasis?, for a kind of reification?, and for much, much more certainly. It also has to do with Pynchon's preoccupation with Germanic history--in German, all nouns are capitalized. See Pynchon's 1997 novel, [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Mason & Dixon''] for the most extensive use of capitalization.

10/2 - '''one potential berserk...the glass breaks?''' 
Cf. Zoyd Wheeler's annual "act of televised insanity" in Pynchon's 1990 novel, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vineland ''Vineland'']

10/2 - '''SP''' 
Shore Patrol, the naval 'police'.

10/2 - '''Hey Rube''' 
Carnies'--circus folk--call to come together when in a dispute with townspeople. Reviewer, writer, Michael Moorcock, who published an early Pynchon story when he was a young magazine editor, has pointed to circuses as motifs in Pynchon, calling [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''], a massive "circus" novel.

10/2 - '''V''' 
This is the first appearance of the letter that is the title. It describes
ugly green mercury-vapor lamps. Not positive associations--to say the least-- in Pynchon's world. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''], passim, especially in the Telluride sections. The V of the lamps recedes to the east, usually a positive association in Pynchon, especially in intellectual connotations.

10/2 - '''doggo''' 
in hiding used chiefly in the phrase ''to lie doggo''

11/3 - '''Beatrice''' 
Probable allusion see 'all barmaids' coming up to Beatrice, [Beatrice Poltinari] guide through 'Paradise' of Dante's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_comedy/ ''The Divine Comedy''],
whom Dante loves.

11/3 - '''DesDiv 22''' 
Destroyer Division 22. Possible allusion to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch22 ''Catch 22''] ?, another now-classic comic, famously anti-war, novel, published in 1961, but sections were published even earlier in magazines.

<div id="singleup"> 11/3 - '''single up all lines'''</div>
"Single up all lines" is a common nautical term. Ships are docked with lines doubled -- that is, with two sets of ropes or chains holding the vessel to the dock. To "single up all lines" is to remove the redundant second lines in preparation to make way. This phrase, used as either a nautical term or metaphorically appears in [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_2#single_up_all_lines ''The Crying of Lot 49'', p.31]; [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_488-491#single_up_all_lines ''Gravity's Rainbow'', p.489]; [http://masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_26:_257-265#Page_258 ''Mason & Dixon'', pp.258 and 260]; [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_1-25#Page_3 ''Against the Day'', p.3]; and [http://inherent-vice.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_8 ''Inherent Vice'', p. 119].

11/3 - '''N.O.B.''' 
Naval Operations Base. On 17 September, 1943, an accident occurred which bears a lot of resemblance to the potential accidents Pynchon describes in "Togetherness," written while at Boeing: "A NAS [Naval Station] ordnance department truck was pulling four trailers loaded with depth charges on the taxiway between NAS and the NOB piers. Each trailer was designed to carry four aerial depth charges. To save time, two additional charges were loaded on top of each trailer. Compounding the problem, the charges on top were not properly chained down. One of the charges slipped loose and became wedged between the trailer and the ground. The friction of being dragged against the road caused the charge to begin smoking." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_Norfolk Wikipedia]

11/3 - '''Ploy''' 
'ploi'..Function: noun 
Etymology: probably from employ..Date: 1722 
1 : ESCAPADE, FROLIC 
2 a : a tactic intended to embarrass or frustrate an opponent b : a devised or contrived move : STRATAGEM (a ploy to get her to open the door -- Robert B. Parker)

11/3 - '''Pentothal injection''' 
Known as truth serum. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_thiopental Wikipedia]

12/4 '''Negro''' 
Negro is a racial term applied to people of Sub Saharan African origin; The word is now largely seen as archaic, usually neutral and, depending on the user, occasionally offensive. However, prior to the shift in the "lexicon" of American and worldwide classification of race and ethnicity in the late 1960s, the appellation was accepted as a normal formal term both by those of African descent as well as non-blacks. Negro means black in Spanish and Portuguese, and the Italian nero is similar (Latin: niger = "black").Wikipedia 
''V.'' is early sixties, before the word shift in the late sixties.

12/4 '''Dahoud''' 
"Dahoud" is the Arabic name for David.
Name of an inquisitive youth who tended to the camels in El-Jaziri. [?]

12/4 '''"life is the most precious possession you have?"..."without it, you'd be dead."''' 
The 'meaning' of life reduced to this? Somehow seems akin to Profane's yo-yoing, or later randomness. Satire of existentialism?

12/4 '''Lights Out''' 
lights out at 2200 (10:00 PM)---Navy Boot Camp.

12/4 '''snipes'''
A snipe is naval slang for a member of the engineering crew on a ship. Historically, there was always tension between snipes and the deck crew.
http://oldsnipe.com/SnipeBegin.html

12/4 - '''DesLant''' 
Destroyer Force, North Atlantic Fleet.

13/5 '''Mrs. Buffo'''...'''also named Beatrice''' 
A basso buffo, a comic bass, a staple of nearly every classic Italian comic opera.

13/5 '''dragon-embroidered kimono''' 
The Kimono (着物, Kimono? literally "something worn", i.e., "clothes") is the national costume of Japan. Originally kimono indicated all types of clothing, but it has come to mean specifically the full-length traditional garment worn by women, men, and children. Kimonos are T-shaped, straight-lined robes that fall to the ankle, with collars and full-length sleeves. The sleeves are commonly very wide at the wrist, as much as a half meter. Traditionally, on special occasions unmarried women wear kimonos (furisode) with extremely long sleeves that extend almost to the floor. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimonos 
Kimonos were originally worn only by the nobility.

After World War II, as Japan's economy gradually recovered, kimono became even more affordable and were produced in greater quantities. Europe and America fashion ideas affected the kimono designs and motifs. japanesekimono http://www.japanesekimono.com/kimono_history.htm

13/5 '''Seventh Fleet''' 
The United States 7th Fleet is a naval military formation based in Yokosuka, Japan, with units positioned near South Korea and Japan.

13/5 '''Dewey Gland''' 
Spelled "Dewy", it means moist, wet--from dew. "Dewy-eyed" means innocent, naive.-M-W Dictionary.
Musicians, often guitar and ukelele players, are positive characters in Pynchon's oeuvre. Since music is a great joy in Pynchon's world, musicians seem often to be his archetypal artist figures. See, as context, the myth of Orpheus,"the music of [whose] lyre was so beautiful that when he played, wild beasts were soothed, trees danced, and rivers stood still." http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/Orpheus

14/6 '''goat hole''' 
The goat is the naval mascot. 
Goat Locker - Chiefs' Quarters and Mess. The term originated during the era of wooden ships, when Chiefs were given charge of the milk goats on board. Nowadays more a term of respect for the age of its denizens.

14/6 '''wardroom''' 
wardroom n : military quarters for dining and recreation for officers of a warship. http://www.dict.die.net/wardroom

14/6 '''X.O.''' 
Executive Officer.

14/6 '''Pappy Hod''' 
pap·py2 (păp'ē)
n. Informal., pl. -pies.---
Father 
Of or resembling pap; mushy. 

hod n. A trough carried over the shoulder for transporting loads, as of bricks or mortar. A coal scuttle.
http://www.answers.com/topic/hod

14/6 '''boatswain''' 
n : a petty officer on a merchant ship who controls the work of other seamen ...
http://dict.die.net/boatswain/
More commonly written [and pronounced as] "bosun".

14/6 '''riggish''' 
wanton: said of Cleopatra whom the holy priests praise when she is riggish' (i.e. wanton) ... Anthony & Cleopatra, Shakespeare.

14/6 '''Pig Bodine''' 
Notice immaturity and other relevant meanings to simple 'pig'
1 a : a young domesticated swine not yet sexually mature; broadly : a wild or domestic swine.
3 : a dirty, gluttonous, or repulsive person.--Merriam-Webster Dictionary 

Pigs in ''Gravity's Rainbow'' [http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/extra/pigs.html]

See terrific ''Bodine'' entry at AtD wiki: [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_489-524#Page_517 Bodine]

15/8 '''jarhead(s)''' 
Marine Corps slang for a Marine, perhaps for the shape of the hat/helmet they wore.
The term was well-established by the fifties. Answers.com.

17/10 '''"Where we going," Profane said. "The way we're heading," said
Pig.''' 
Notice the tie-in with yo-yoing, immediacy and goallessness. Also notice that Profane's question is presented as a statement and Pig's answer is all part of the same paragraph. (Unlike almost all dialogue in novels.)

17/10 '''WAVE lieutenants''' 
WAVES, or "Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service". In the decades since the last of the Yeomen left active duty, only a relatively small corps of Navy Nurses represented their gender in the Naval service, and they had never had formal officer status. Now, the Navy was preparing to accept not just a large number of enlisted women, as it had done during World War I, but female Commissioned Officers to supervise them. It was a development of lasting significance, notwithstanding the WAVES' name, which indicated that they would only be around during the wartime "Emergency". Department of the Navy historical bulletin.

17/10 '''Morris Teflon''' 
Teflon, patented in 1941 and trademarked in 1944 by the Dupont company == Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), a synthetic fluoropolymer which finds numerous applications. PTFE has an extremely low coefficient of friction and is used as a non-stick coating for pans and other cookware. It is very non-reactive, and so is often used in containers and pipework for reactive and corrosive chemicals. Where used as a lubricant, PTFE significantly reduces friction, wear and energy consumption of machinery.

17/10 '''switchman''' 
switchman - a man who operates railroad switches. Pynchon does not like railroads. See [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day''].

18/11 '''wire-brushed''' 
naval slang for a merciless chewing out.

18/11 - '''She taught them all a song. Learned from a para on French leave from the fighting in Algeria''' 
The song the paratrooper taught Paola is a French anti-war song, "Le Déserteur" ("The Deserter"), recorded in 1954 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Vian Boris Vian] and written by Vian and Harold Berg:

:Early tomorrow morning 
:I will shut my door 
:on these dead years 
:I will take to the road. 
:I will beg my way along 
:on the land and on the waves 
:the old and the new world ...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYpLHRQV7sQ Have a listen & look]; [http://www.swans.com/library/art7/xxx071.html Lyrics (with a variation)]

18/11 '''Piraeus''' 
Piraeus is a city in the periphery of Attica, Greece, located to the south of the city of Athens. It is the capital of the Piraeus Prefecture and belongs to the Athens urban area. It was the port of the ancient city of Athens and it was chosen to serve as the modern port when Athens was re-founded in 1834. Piraeus is the largest port in Europe (and third largest in the world) in terms of passenger transportation. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piraeus Wikikpedia]

19/12 '''F.L.N.''' 
The National Liberation Front (French: ''Front de Libération nationale'', hence FLN) is a socialist political party in Algeria. It was set up on November 1, 1954 as a merger of other smaller groups, to obtain independence for Algeria from France. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Front(Algeria) Wikipedia]

19/12 '''WAVY''' 
WAVY is the NBC affiliate serving the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News, Virginia market.

19/12 '''Pat Boone''' 
A very popular 'smooth' singer of the 50s, famous for doing covers of African-American hit songs. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Boone Wikipedia]

19/12 '''"No", she said. "Meaning Yes"''' 
Foreshadowing of the chapter "In which Esther Gets a Nose Job."

19/12 '''Click, went Teflon's Leica''' 
Reminds of Pynchon's legendary aversion to being photographed. Although, as the narrator notes, "Outraged privacy was not so important; but the interruption had come just before the Big Moment."

20/13 '''Navy greatcoat''' 
Beautiful pictures from all sides here: [http://cgi.ebay.com/Mid-20th-Century-Royal-Navy-Captains-Greatcoat-VXE_W0QQitemZ110167682561QQihZ001QQcategoryZ586QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting Navy greatcoat]

20/13 '''topside''' 
the top portion of the outer surface of a ship on each side above the waterline

20/13 '''Madonna, he thought''' 
aka Mother Mary, aka the Virgin Mary, used blasphemously.

20/13 '''roads''' 
A sheltered body of water where vessels can safely anchor. Often an estuary on the approaches to a port.

<div id="inanimate">20/13 - '''inanimate'''</div>
52 uses of the word inanimate in ''V.''; 13 of animate. Thematic: Life vs. Non-Life/Death.

21/14 '''turn a corner in the street'''...'''where nothing else lived but himself''' 
As Benny did "rounding the corner' onto East Main [p.2]. Cf. animate/inanimate above.

21/14 '''mental eye''' 
Consciousness, of course; also a perceptual theory. A-and here is a use by Charles Dickens: "gilding with refulgent light our dreamy moments, and laying open a new and magic world before the mental eye, the drama is gone, perfectly gone,' said Mr Curdle." from ''The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby''.

Further reading again indicates that "mental eye" is an older use which has faded, being largely replaced by 'mind's eye".

Cf. '''Third eye''':The third eye (also known as the inner eye) is a metaphysical and esoteric concept referring in part to the ajna (brow) chakra in certain Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. It is also spoken of as the gate that leads within to inner realms and spaces of higher consciousness. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_eye Third eye]
Cf. third eye in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=ATD_119-148 ''Against the Day'', p. 125]

21/14 '''''Susanna Squaducci'', an Italian luxury liner''' 
Ex-''Scaffold'' sailors hold their 'reunion' here. See Pynchon's later
'linking' of a military ship and a luxury liner, the ''Stupendica'', in [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Against the Day'']

:Susanna: name of a young woman who is the subject of a famous Biblical story
in the ''Book of Daniel''. Known as 'Susanna and/among the Elders', Susanna is viewed bathing by a group of elders and they attempt to blackmail her into performing sexual favors. There have been paintings and a poem by Wallace Stevens. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_%28Book_of_Daniel%29 Wikipedia]

:Squaducci: need an expert in Italian slang perhaps, but a related word seems to be: sgualdrina f. (pejorative) trollop, strumpet, harlot, tart. Squa(l)might add the negative meaning to whatever 'ducci' [pl. of duchess?] means, since 'drina' can be a girl's name and, in fact, was what young Queen Victoria was called. See ''Queen Victoria'' by Lytton Strachey.

Somehow the meanings seem to fit Pynchonian themes: from the sound, to the
Biblical sexual allusion (of saved purity) reduced to lack of such purity.

21/14 '''dancing the dirty boogie''' 
a voluptuous dance (with varying lyrics) originating within the African-American tradition. "The “Dirty Boogie,” which was made famous by another film, “Dirty Dancing.” As you may recall, this film takes place in the 1960’s in a small Catskill resort where a dance instructor taught a young seventeen year-old varius types of sexy dance moves: one being the “Dirty Boogie.” Of course there was a scene in the movie showing all the teenagers and young adults doing the “Dirty Boogie.” Many of the dance moves in the “Dirty Boogie,” resembled movements featured in the movie, “Lambada.” These movements were acting out sexual pleasure on the dance floor. The Rolling Stones do a "Dirty Boogie" on their ''Black & Blue'' album.

21/15 '''clown's motley''' 
Motley refers to the traditional costume of the Court jester or the Harlequin character in ''Commedia dell'arte''.[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motley]

22/15 '''Rachel Owlglass''' 
"Rachel" means "ewe" in Hebrew; the name of Jacob's wife, who, after long infertility, gave birth to Joseph. "Owlglass" is the Anglicization of "Eulenspiegel"; Till Eulenspiegel was a trickster/fool in German folklore and protagonist of "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks", a tone poem by Richard Wagner. "Eule"="owl", "Spiegel"="mirror".

22/15 '''the Catskills''' 
Catskill Mountains, an area northwest of New York City, famous as a vacation resort area. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catskill_Mountains Wikipedia].

22/15 '''shakedown cruise''' 
Shakedown cruise is a nautical term in which the performance of a ship is tested. Shakedown cruises are also used to familiarize the ship's crew with operation of the craft. The term can also refer in a generic sense to the process of testing out any new technology or systems.

22/15 '''gee and haw''' 
To haw and gee To haw and gee about, to go from one thing to another without good reason; to have no settled purpose; to be irresolute or unstable. [Colloq.] Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.

The phrase derives from "Hey and Go" - turn right and turn left, and was originally used in leading oxen and cattle by teamsters.[http://www.takeourword.com/TOW144/page2.html]

<div id="trocadero">22/15 - '''Schlozhauer's Trocadero'''</div>
The word ''trocadero'', which in Spanish means "place of barter" (from trocar: "to barter"), goes back to a fortified site near Cadiz, Spain, that was the stronghold of the Constititutionalists in the revolution of 1820 and that fell to the French in 1823. During the International Exhibition of 1878 an ornate palace was built to commemorate the French victory. "Trocadero" became a popular name for public places in Europe, one being the Trocadero Palace of Varieties in London, known as "The Troc," which opened as a music hall in 1882 on the corner of Shaftsbury Avenue and Windmill Street.

22/15 '''Liberty''' 
Liberty, New York: [http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=41.797792,-74.742829&spn=0.10,0.10 Google Map]

22/15 '''fight Arabs in Israel''' 
Of the 950,000 estimated Arabs in Israel before Israel became a state in 1948, an estimated 156,000 remained after. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel Wikipedia]

23/16 '''Parris Island''' 
Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island is an 8,095 acre (32.9 km²) military installation near Beaufort, South Carolina, tasked with the training of enlisted Marines. Male recruits living east of the Mississippi River and female recruits from all over the USA report here to receive their initial training. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parris_Island Wikipedia]

23/16 '''Haganah''' 
The Haganah (Hebrew: "The Defense") was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948. [http://en.wikipedia.org.wiki/Haganah Wikipedia]

23/16 '''mezuzah''' 
A mezuzah (Hebrew: "doorpost") is a piece of parchment (usually contained in a decorative case) inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21). These verses comprise the Jewish prayer "Shema Yisrael," and begin with the phrase "Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is One." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mezuzah Wikipedia]

23/16 '''iceberg lettuce''' 
The Iceberg lettuce industry exploded during WWII as salads were seen as a real morale booster. After the war, its popularity continued as soldiers came home wanting the same assortment of fresh produce procured by the military. [http://www.taproduce.com/About/PressReleases07-4.html] California producers of iceberg lettuce were the targets of protests by Cesar Chavez's National Farm Workers Association, beginning in the very early sixties.

23/16 '''watercress''' 
The capital growing city of this leaf vegetable ''was'' Huntsville, Alabama until:
:"The city's transformation began with the arrival of Wernher von Braun, Hitler's chief missile designer, whose V-2 rocket terrorized London and other British cities. An SS major who headed rocket research at the Peenemunde complex, where slave laborers were starved, beaten, and worked to death, von Braun could have ended up in the docket at Nuremberg like other leading Nazis. But at war's end, the Pentagon was anxious to plumb German scientific know-how in order to improve America's weaponry. Under the top-secret Operation Paperclip, the Army smuggled von Braun and his team of 118 Peenemunde scientists out of Germany and brought them to the United States. After first going to a military base near El Paso, they were taken to Huntsville in 1950 and put to work at Redstone Arsenal." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsville%2C_Alabama]

23/16 '''Belgian Endive''' 
A leaf vegetable grown completely underground or indoors in the absence of sunlight, a process that prevents the leaves from turning green and opening up .

23/16 '''Abdul Sayid''' 
Abdul (also transliterated Abdel, `Abd al-, and other ways) means "servant of the", and is the first part of many Arabic names. It is combined with one of the 99 Names of God in the Qur'an to form a two-word Arabic theophoric name. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul] ''Sayid'' or ''Sayyid'' is an honorific title given to males who are thereby said to be descendants of the prophet Muhammed, founder of Islam.

24/17 '''pedestrian girls''' 
notice double meaning.

The 1913 edition of ''Webster's Dictionary'' seems to be, from this and other citations, one of Pynchon's major linguistic resources or, at least, gives some of the most resonant meanings from a Pynchon Perspective.

24/7 - '''drained-nervous''' 
With the hyphen, this shows another older archaic usage. Cf. Snow-shroud and the loss of hyphens between words above.

<div id="bravo">27/21 - '''a pimpled bravo'''</div>
A "bravo" is a villain, desperado; esp. a hired assassin

32/26 - '''Dewey, now astride a lifeline on the bridge, gave a bass string intro and began to sing Blue Suede Shoes, after Elvis Presley.''' 
A slight anachronism. We know the date is 1st January 1956. Carl Perkins wrote [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Suede_Shoes "Blues Suede Shoes"] in on 4/5 December 1955, and released the record on 1st January 1956. Elvis recorded it on 30th January 1956 and first played it on television on the 11th February. It was the first track on his first album, released March. So Dewey couldn’t have played "Blue Suede Shoes" after Elvis Presley.

An anachronism, but "after" here means "in the manner of".

37/32 - '''horniness''' 
a state of sexual excitement. Pynchon is the first citation in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' for use of this word in print, in ''V.''.

39/34 - '''screw where his navel should have been...''' 
The navel is where the umbilical cord attaches. When the boy unscrews it, his body falls apart. This is a repeated reference that bodily traits are passed on through genetics and the umbilical cord attaches you to a parent. If you try to undo it, you will undo yourself.

41/37 - '''Luis Aparicio''' 
Venezuelan major-league baseball player; American League Rookie of the year in 1956, playing for the Chicago White Sox.

42/38 - '''Geronimo broke off the song to say “Coño” and wobble his fingers.''' 
"Coño" is Spanish for "cunt"

43/39 - '''now [the alligators] moved big, blind albino, all over the sewer system...''' 
The urban legend of alligators living in the sewers of New York was given the some credence when, in the 1950s, Edward P. "Teddy" May, the superintendent of sewers in New York City, went down into the sewers to investigate and told a journalist that he'd seen "Alligators serenely paddling around in his sewers. The beam of his own flashlight had spotlighted alligators whose length, on the average, was about two feet. Some may have been longer." (''The World Beneath The City'', Robert Daley, 1959). However, Mr. May's credibility has been questioned and, in truth, the sewers are an environment inhospitable to alligators or caimons, and reports of their subterranean existence have been greatly exaggerated. [http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/the-book-behind-the-sewer-alligator-legend/ ''New York Times'' article about this...]

<div id="Zeitsuss">43/39 -'''Zeitsuss'''</div>
'Zeit' [German] = Time. "suss" = Sweet. Mr. Zeitsuss is head of the Alligator Patrol.

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Chapter 2

2019-11-08T20:04:58Z

Mojomoyo: punctuation, spelling

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44/39 - '''X''' 
"...the Xs of the grating in the middle of the mall." An X is formed by sticking two Vs together (one upside down).

45/39 '''Shale Schoenmaker''' 
'Shale', as in the rock [derived from Sanskrit]. "Schoen"="beautiful", in Upper German. Thus, this plastic surgeon is a "cold, hard(hearted) beauty-maker".

45/40 '''Brauhaus music''' 
"Brauhaus"="brewery/pub"; German beer-drinking music. Together with the Germantown location, and the surgeon's name, this is an ominous atmosphere for a clinic specializing in rhinoplasty for primarily Jewish girls, just ten years after WWII.

52/48 '''Stencil''' 
A stencil produces an image by allowing the passage of pigment through openings in its own structure.
Young Stencil searches for the meaning of "V."; he produces an image of V. by accepting some data and rejecting others, so the result must be not a totality but a projection of his own mindset.

<div id="Born in 1901, the year Victoria died">52/48 - '''Born in 1901, the year Victoria died'''</div>

Stencil was born the year Queen Victoria of England died.

<div id="random movements">55/51 - '''His random movements'''</div>
Kind of opposite of a yo-yo's movements. 
But just as goalless, perhaps?

<div id="mixolydian">56/52 - '''Fergus Mixolydian'''</div>
In music terminology, the mixolydian mode is a major scale with a flatted, aka minor or (appropriate to "the laziest living creature in New York") "lazy" seventh degree. The mixolydian is also the fifth mode-in the key of C major, the fifth note of the major scale is G, so if you play a scale from G to G, but keep the key signature of C major, you have Mixolydian(all white keys on the piano). It is labeled with the Roman Numeral V in music theory, and usually resolves to the tonic key, or I(C in the example). The movement from I to _ (often IV; ii in jazz)to V and back to I is, simply stated, the basis of Western music harmony. Schoenberg later dismantles this with the creation of serialism, where all notes are treated democratically.

Fergus is man-strength or virility. Fergus Mixolydian could also be a reference to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_Ferguson Maynard Ferguson], jazz trumpet player and leader of the Birdland Dream Band in 1956 who lived for some time with Timothy Leary. Pynchon references Birdland in his 1959 short story "The Small Rain."

<div id="schoenberg">57/53 - '''Schoenberg's quartets'''</div>

Arnold Schoenberg devised serialism, a new approach to organizing musical notes that doesn't rely on the diatonic scale (with its whole and half steps giving certain notes prominance over other notes and creating tonal polarization). According to strict serialism, all twelve notes of the chromatic scale are used, arranged in rows, and each note in the row must be played in order. Thus, all the notes have equal weight, and by analogy serialism can be seen as entropic in that it moves from the asymmetry of tonal polarization towards symmetry and equality of notes. As Gustav Schlabone says in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''] about another German who pushed the envelope, "[Beethoven] represents the German dialectic, the incorporation of more and more notes into the scale, culminating with dodecaphonic democracy, where all the notes get an equal hearing." ([http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_433-447 p. 440]) If one played all the Schoenberg quartets (as the WSC does at their party), beginning with the D major string quartet (1897) and ending with String Quartet No. 4 (1936), a progression from lower to higher entropy would be traced.

<div id="v-note">58/55 - '''the V-Note'''</div>

Definitely a nod to the great jazz club, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Spot The Five Spot], located at the corner of Cooper Square and St. Mark's Place, in New York City a very small club, where the tables were very close to each other and to the small stage where the musicians performed. Artists performing at the original Five Spot included [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk] (who played at the club when it premiered at its new location in 1957), [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornette_Coleman Ornette Coleman] (In November 1959, he brought his pianoless quartet [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Cherry_%28jazz%29 Don Cherry] on cornet, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Haden Charlie Haden] on bass, drummer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Higgins Billy Higgins] for a controversial six-week stay playing his white plastic alto sax!), [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mingus Charles Mingus] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Taylor Cecil Taylor]. There was also, in Manhattan, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_Note_Club The Half Note], a jazz club located at the corner of Hudson & Spring Streets, known for its showcasing of up-and-coming jazz musicians in the 1950's and 60's.

"V Note" is a clever and Pynchonesque! name choice for a jazz club in ''V.''. Both "V Note" and "Five Spot" are slang for a five dollar bill (or five-pound note), plus "V" connects to the novel's title, plus "V" represents the fifth degree of the musical scale (the "G" note in the key of "C"), plus a pointer to [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Note_Records Blue Note Records], one of the most renowned jazz labels, whose artists included Ornette Coleman. One of the great pleasures of reading Pynchon is parsing these many, um, multivalences.

<div id="McClintic Sphere">59/55 - '''McClintic Sphere'''</div>
Not sure about "McClintic" (perhaps an old school or Navy buddy of Pynchon's it happens), but Sphere likely references the legendary and groundbreaking jazz pianist and composer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk] (1917-1982). Also, in the beat/jazz parlance of the day, where cube or square denoted someone not hip to jazz and current beat culture happenings, "Sphere" would denote the opposite someone in The Know. On this topic, also read: [[Is Sphere Monk?]]

[http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198509/ornette-coleman Excellent ''Atlantic'' article on Ornette Coleman]

59/55 - '''He blew a hand-carved ivory alto saxophone''' 
Likely a nod to Ornette Coleman, who played a white plastic alto saxophone. When he premiered his pianoless quartet at [[#v-note|The Five Spot]] in Manhattan in 1959, shocked the jazz world with his extremely "free" approach to jazz harmony, structure and improvisation. And, indeed, he played with a sound "like nothing any of them had heard before" (''V.'', p.59):

:Even from the beginning of Coleman's career, his music and playing were in many ways unorthodox. His approach to harmony and chord progression was far less rigid than that of swing or bebop performers; he was increasingly interested in playing what he heard rather than fitting it into predetermined chorus-structures and harmonies. His raw, highly vocalized sound and penchant for playing "in the cracks" of the scale led many Los Angeles jazz musicians to regard Coleman's playing as out-of-tune; he sometimes had difficulty finding like-minded musicians with whom to perform. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornette_Coleman]

Also notice that ivory "is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory]. This may not only be a reference to dentistry, which appears a number of times in ''V.'', but unlike normal saxes, which are made of inanimate metal, an ivory sax (however fictitious) is carved from something that was once animate.

59/56 - '''The group on the stand had no piano...''' 
Reinforces the connection between Ornette Coleman and McClinic Sphere. Whereas, during this period, piano was a standard component of the jazz ensemble, Sphere's quartet, like Coleman's, has no piano. Where McClintic has his "natural horn" player, Ornette's other horn player, Don Cherry, played a "pocket trumpet," a scaled-down version of the instrument not typically associated with jazz (like that "natural horn"!), but through which he established his own distinctive style and timbral quality.

59/56 - '''a boy he had found in the Ozarks who blew a natural horn in F''' 
Between the years 1936 and 1937, after his embarrassing attempts to solo at several Kansas City jam sessions, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_parker Charlie ("Yardbird" or "Bird") Parker] (1920-1955) traveled to the Ozarks to work with the bands of Ernie Daniels, George E. Lee and "Professor" Buster Smith. In the Ozarks, Parker spent long hours woodshedding honing his technique. He took all of Count Basie's records, from which he learned all the Lester Young saxophone solos. At the end of this marathon woodshedding session, Parker reemerged as a mature player to be reckoned with.

A "Natural" horn is what all horns were before valves were invented. Their available pitches were limited to the natural overtone series, hence the term "natural" horn. You could obtain a few other pitches by moving the hand around in the bell, but that resulted in noticable changes in timbre. So a natural horn in a jazz ensemble would be quite something!

60/56 - '''There were people around, mostly those who wrote for ''Downbeat'' magazine or the liners of LP records, who seemed to feel he played disregarding chord changes completely''' 

In [http://www.downbeat.com/ Down Beat], George Hoefer described the reactions of the audience at a special press preview of Ornette Coleman's quartet the Five Spot in 1959: "Some walked in and out before they could finish a drink, some sat mesmerized by the sound, others talked constantly to their neighbors at the table or argued with drink in hand at the bar." [http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/198509/ornette-coleman]

"liners of LP records" refers to the notes on the back of LP ("long-playing") records, talking about what's on the record and how great it is.

60/57 - '''He plays all the notes Bird missed...''' 
Reinforces the connection between Ornette Coleman and McClintic Sphere. Coleman, as noted above, had a penchant "for playing 'in the cracks' of the scale," which led to many musicians thinking he was playing out of tune.
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