Difference between revisions of "B"

Latest revision as of 01:18, 19 March 2024

baccalà
379 (as plural, baccale); Italian: dried and salted cod fish

Bad Priest
306; lives in an old villa past Sliema in Malta; children "assigned the Bad Priest no opposite number" 339; disassembly, 341-44; "girls he advised to become nuns [...] boys he told to find strength in — and be like — the rock of their island" 340; glass eye in the shape of a clock, 388; See also V.

64; the first Baedeker guidebook ^[1] was published in 1839; Baedeker land, 70, 71; 74; 78; 89; Visitor's Guide, 159; 190; distrust of "South" 229 ("soiled South" - 75); Karl Baedeker of Leipzig, 408; 475; pencil-sharpener salesman who had seen every territory in the country and could give you interesting information on any city," 35

Bakunin, Mikhail (1814-1876)
405; Russian anarchist who believed that communism, with its "withering away of the state," was an essential step toward anarchism

"on the fourth limb from the top there is a red balloon [golden-screwdriver dream]," 40; "a sturdy green balloon with a great Z printed on it [Fergus' way of indicating consciousness]" 56; "The sunburned face bobbed like a balloon," 65; "Up goes the balloon [slang: war, action, etc. had begun]," 67; Yusef's love of, 67; "A balloon-girl." 67; "Soon he was daydreaming again of balloons." 68; "So the balloon's gone up," 232; "the balloon had gone up", 308; "slow as a balloon," 329; "the most bouyant balloon-girl," 331; "fire-balloon," 335; "gay balloon-lungs," 343; V. "handed swords, balloons and colored handkerchiefs to Ugo Medichevole, a minor magician," 388; "The jolly, jolly balloon [...] Going up" 434; "leery like any Maltese of the Balloon's least bobbing," 448; 474; "Wasn't she the same balloon-girl who'd seduced him on a leather couch," 488; See also Cher Ballon; hothouse

band-pass filter
436; an electronic circuit or device that blocks certain frequencies of a signal, allowing frequencies above and below the band to pass through

Barkhausen, Heinrich Georg (1881-1956)
230; German physicist who taught at Technische Hochschule in Dresden; discovered sferics during WWI

Bartholomew
119; rat in Fairing's Parish

Basilisco
379; cop in Profane's old neighborhood

Basilisk, Maynard
419; "escapee from Devil's Island [...] on route to Vassa [...] to teach beekeeping" at party in Washington, DC

Bastard File
12/4; Ploy uses one to file his teeth.

Batignolles, Le
401; where Porcépic lives

Battista (1901-1973)
353; Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar was president of Cuba 1940-44; 1952-59; he ruled as dictator until his overthrow by Fidel Castro in January 1959.

Bay of Biscay
388; bay in the Mediterranean between France and Spain

Beatrice
11; barmaid at Sailor's Grave; Etymology

Belinda Sue
130; subject of hillbilly tune; she ran off with an "itinerant propeller salesman"

Bella Gigogin, La
477; song sung by rollickers in the street in Valletta

Bellevue
362; psychiatric hospital in New York City; 364; 416

Ben-Gurion, David (1886-1973)
225; prime minister of Israel 1949-53, 1955-63

Benguela Current
266; brings wind and sand to harbor in Südwest; 274

Berg-Damaras
245; Südwest tribe; they were serfs of the Hottentots and Hereros and lived in the mountainous regions

Bergomask, Oley
217; of Anthroresearch Associates; 284

Beukes, Tim
232; Bondelswaartz leader in Südwest during uprising of 1922

bierhalle
88; north of the Ezbekiyeh Gardens in Cairo

226; "the century's master cabal"; See also paranoia

Bight of Benin
271; bay in Gulf of Guinea on west coast of Africa

178; Botticelli painting coveted by Mantissa; 209; 212; Birth of Venus

Bismarck, Otto (1815-1898)
239; first chancellor of the German Empire 1871-90

Bizerte
459; Tunisian port on the Mediterranean

Black Maria
31; Navy slang for paddy wagon

Black Mass
167; a sacrilegious mass in which the Devil, rather than God, is invoked, with various obscene rights; 394; 398; 401; 402; acolytes, 402; Host, 403; 413

bluejackets
16; Navy enlisted men

Board of Inquiry
191; looked into Godolphin/Vheissu matter; 197; 491

Bobbsey Twins, The
436; Dahoud and Leroy Tongue ("the midget storekeeper") in Valletta, as cops; the Bobbsey Twins were the title characters of a series of children's novels published, under the pen name Laura Lee Hope, from 1904 to 1992;

BOC
See British Officers' Club

14; AWOL former shipmate of Profane's on USS Scaffold; voyeur, 17; looking for Paola, 129; 217; "The Green Door. One night Dolores, Veronica, Justine, Sharon, Cindy Lou, Geraldine and Irvine decide to hold an orgy." 218; wants Paola, 221; 283; Whole Sick Crew party, 287; 352; "life is the most precious possession you have." (see also p. 12), 361; attempted rape of Paola, 370; Pig also figures prominently in Gravity's Rainbow; Pig's ancestor, Fender-Belly Bodine, shows up in Mason & Dixon, and, perhaps, his father or uncle, O.I.C. Bodine makes an appearance in Against the Day.

Boeblich
88; owner of bierhalle north of Ezbekiyeh Garden in Cairo

Bofors
309; British anti-aircraft (a/a) guns; 317; 328-29

231; aka "Bondel" - rebel Hottentots in Südwest - led by Abraham Christian, their chief; Read on...</a>

55; Egyptologist and father of H. Stencil's acquaintance; acts as Wrens' guide in Alexandria and environs; murdered Porpentine (did he?), 93-94; "A certain Porpentine, one of his father's colleagues, had been murdered in Egypt under the duello by Eric Bongo-Shaftsbury, the father of the man who owned this apartment." 63; aka "Hugh" (?), 74; "He saw a flicker of communication between [Bongo Shaftsbury and Lepsius]" 75; "Odd: neither Porpentine nor Bongo-Shaftsbury spoke. Each had bent a close eye on his own man, keeping expressionless." 75; "An electro-mechanical doll," 80; "Humanity is something to destroy." 81

Bongo-Shaftsbury, Hugh
55; son of Eric; 74

Boone, Pat (b. 1934)
19; "white-bread" American popstar in 50s. Made tunes by rockers (often black artists) palatable to white audiences; Gene Vincent's "Be Bop A Lula" is an example; 418; 420; Wikipedia

Bop Kings
144; street gang in New York City and rivals of the Playboys

BOQ
269; Bachelor Officers' Quarters; 305

464; According to Baedeker, one of the Three Cities "Opposite Valletta, on the three central creeks of the Grand Harbour [...] also called Vittoriosa since the great Turkish siege"; Map of Malta

Borgo di Greci
175; street in Florence

Borracho
202; member of Figli d'Machiavelli in Florence

201; Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli ("little barrel") was an Italian painter of the Florentine school during the Early Renaissance (Quattrocento). Less than a hundred years later, this movement, under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, was characterized by Giorgio Vasari as a "golden age", a thought, suitably enough, he expressed at the head of his Vita of Botticelli. His posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting, and The Birth of Venus and Primavera rank now among the most familiar masterpieces of Florentine art; 212; See also Birth of Venus

Boulevard Haussmann
394; in Paris

Brad
58; frat on periphery of Whole Sick Crew with whom Esther flirts

Breguet
97; French reconnaisance plane built in 1914 and used in World War I

Brennessel cabaret
241; mentioned by Weissman to Mondaugen as being in Munich in Schwabing quarter

Brindisi
75; Italian port city where Lepsius has been before turning up in Cairo

Bristol Fighters
97; WWI British fighter plane

431

128; a Brodie is a suicidal leap, named after Steve Brodie, an American newsboy who, in 1886, claimed to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge; 436

Brunelleschi, Filippo (1377-1446)
201; Italian architect, goldsmith and sculptor. Main claim to fame is the dome of the Florence Cathedral (Duomo) erected between 1420 and 1461

Buffo, Beatrice
11; barmaid at Sailor's Grave

Bung
116; foreman of rat patrol in New York City sewers; 139

Butte
412; in Paris

References

1. ↑ Baedeker, Karl, The Mediterranean, published by Karl Baedeker, Leipzig, 1911:

   From Slow Learner:

   "If [...] you believe that nothing is original, and that all writers 'borrow' from 'sources,' there still remains the question of credit lines or acknowledgements. It wasn't till 'Under the Rose' (1959) that I could bring myself, even indirectly, to credit guidebook eponym Karl Baedeker, whose guide to Egypt for 1899 was the major 'source' for the story.

   [...]

   "Loot the Baedeker I did, all the details of a time and place I had never been to, right down to the names of the diplomatic corps." (p.17)

   "[...] The old Baedeker trick again." (p.21)

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