Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Chapter 12

2008-03-07T01:48:23Z

Infanttyrone: /* Page 236 */

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 218==
'''"up over the passes and out long desert arterials, out past the seed and feed houses and country music bars and Mexican joints with Happy Hours featuring 99 cent margaritas out of a hose, under the smog, the dribbling rain, the toxic lens of sky..."''' 
Mr. Pynchon, meet Mr. Chandler.

==Page 219==
'''"What an evening"''' 
Thanatoid Roast '84 is the "tenth annual get-together" -- which means there have been thanatoids since '75. So what happened in 1974-1975? Patty Hearst kidnapped by SLA. Nixon is impeached over Watergate, and resigns. Motion picture ratings system created. US Bicentenial celebration. Vietnam War ends; last 1,000 Americans evacuated from South Vietnam.

==Page 220==
'''"Willis Chunko"''' 
Nice name.

==Page 221==
'''"Kommandant Karl Bopp"''' 
Ditto.

'''"pacified territory"''' 
Growers discuss CAMP progress in Vietnam-like terms.

==Page 222==
'''"All right, you parrots, listen up!"''' 
Parrot sale and shared dreams: Magic realism, gorgeous and surreal; tropical colors and flashy imagery.

==Page 223==
'''"can't shit, can't get a hardon"''' 
The Thanatoid Roast rendered from Van Meter's POV; his paranoia is expressed in terms familiar from GR.

==Page 225==
'''"old-time Combo-Ork arrangements"''' 
There's that lingo again.

'''"rallentando"''' 
A typically obscure Pynchon word, this musical term means exactly the same as ritardando: played with decreasing pace. Perfect for the Thanatoid gig.

==Page 226==
'''"Larry Elasmo"''' 
Cool name. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticman Plasticman]? But what the fuck is he doing at the Thanatoid Roast? Pynchon is pushing the outside of the coincidence envelope.

Elasmo sequence. Mr. Pynchon, meet Mr. Kafka. This all seems boosted right out of The Trial. Here's Weed, another rebellious American child (like Frenesi), submitting to, or fascinated with, authority. "Because the Doctor says so..." turn your body over to coaches, boys with hardons. Go to the Draft Board Center and sit on the group W bench. Even rational, mathematical, radical Weed does what the dentist tells him to, even if it is manifestly senseless.

Among other questions worth asking: Who authorized Elasmo to issue these compulsory forms that require people to come to his office? And by what mysterious process does Weed's merely waiting around cause him to become confused and dispirited? Maybe the idea is simply to take Weed out of the picture at intervals, so Vond and Frenesi can talk and fuck. There's some hint (from Vond if not from Pynchon) that Weed is collaborating with Vond. If so, we'd expect at least a short scene showing that collaboration. The Elasmo sequence stands in the right position, and serves the same function -- but there's no hint whatsoever of Vond. Pretty weird.

'''"Dr Elasmo's video image had swept, had pixeldanced in"''' 
Image/raster TV techotalk. Pixels = the tiny dots that make up the Tube image.

Another possible explanation of the whole Dr. Larry's World of Discomfort sequence is implied by the passage "Somehow, in Weed's deathstunned memory, Dr. Elasmo's video image had swept, had pixeldanced in, to cover, mercifully, for something else..." Since his commercials were so ubiquitous on TV at the time, is it possible that Weed was doing something else, meeting someone in a bureaucratic building in the city-- meetings that left him feeling stunned, guilty, and sick at heart-- and he has recast and shot these memories as meetings with the faux-celebrity of Dr. Larry Elasmo?

==Page 227==
'''"Dr. Larry Elasmo, or a person wearing, like a coverall and veil, his ubiquitous screen image grainy, flickering at the edges..."''' 
So not only is the real Elasmo tracking Weed, his TV image is doing it too!

==Page 228==
'''"Ilse, the hygienist..."''' 
Naturally, the dental hygienist in Larry's World of Discomfort is none other than Ilse, the high-heeled Nazi heroine of sixties S&M porno flicks, e.g., Ilse, She-Wolf of the SS.

==Page 230==
'''"...adjusted the pulsing vacuum to meet his own quickening rhythm..."''' 
The scene of Rex adjusting Bruno's carburetors while masturbating in the intakes clearly harks back to certain intimate moments involving Rachel and her MG's gearshift lever in V.

'''"Trash the Xanthocroid"''' 
(See note, [[Chapter 10#Page 197|p. 197]].)

==Page 232==
'''"...smile and relax beneath some single low oak out on an impossible hillside..."''' 
Flashsideways (or some-even-stranger-ways) to an imaginary, 4th-dimensional picnic in which Rex, Weed, and Prairie "negotiate an agreeable version of history." This is an important little scene, since it's where the details of the murder are made explicit at last. Or are they? Note the "nearly" in "he nearly blew me away," which seems to suggest that maybe Weed is merely wounded? (It's just Pynchonian smoke; Weed really is killed.) This scene appears to be Rex's fantasy -- except how does he know about Prairie?

==Page 236==
'''"...he reached for the Tube, popped it on, fastened himself to the screen and began to feed."''' 
A great William Burroughs-style science-fictional, Tube/addictive image.

'''"It's takin his soul, man"''' 
Certain primitive (and not so primitive) tribes believe that when someone takes your photograph it steals your soul. Or maybe Howie means the Tube.
But of course Brock has said that Weed's soul is exactly what he wants.

'''"Culito Canyon"''' 
Spanish for "Little Ass Canyon."

==Page 237==
'''"...might make the Guinness Book someday..."''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_Book Guinness Book of Records], published regularly by the Irish brewery/distillery company, chronicles current achievements in urban sports like phone booth stuffing.

==Page 238==
'''"Famous worms of song"''' 
A play on "The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochle pinochle] on your snout," sung to Mozart/Haydn/whoever's requiem. A famous childhood song, right up there with "Great green gobs of greasy grimy monkeymeat," "Hitler he had just one big ball," and the tragic ballad "Found a Peanut." This is kind of a heavy Pynchon hit on Frenesi's knowledge of Weed's impending doom.

==Page 239==
'''Note the asterisk at the top of the page. How come? Pynchon hasn't needed no steenking asterisks before! Can those worms have thrown him so far off balance that he can't carry on without typographic help? (Actually, there is one earlier asterisk occurrence, at the bottom of [[Chapter 1#Page 8|page 8]]. Go figure.)

'''"ND-1 filters"''' 
ND = Neutral Density; the suffix digit tells how many f stops it reduces incoming light (or outgoing baby-blue intensity) without changing color values.

'''"Nixonian reaction...continued to...compromise...what may only in some fading memories ever have been a people's miracle, an army of loving friends..."''' 
Pynchon seems bitter over the ease with which the government (and its media, and its money) destroyed the ideal/idyll.

==Page 240==
'''"'therapy sessions,' Brock called them..."''' 
Brock seems connected with Elasmo. Does this mean that Weed has really turned? Or that Weed's sessions with the tooth-yanker are just Vond's "reality adjustments," in which Weed is somehow osmosified to believe in Brock's version of reality (in which only power counts, and resistance is futile)?

'''"Smith"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Wesson Smith and Wesson], the largest manufacturer of handguns in the United States.

==Page 241==
'''"24-frame-per-second truth"''' 
Hi, [[Chapter 8#Page 114|Jean-Luc Godard]]!

==Page 242==
'''"frogwork"''' 
Frogs are the knots in which ornate cords (like the ones on doormen's uniform coats) are tied. Similar to Buddhist "priest cords" sometimes used as hangings. Here, frogwork is an evocative metaphor for the intricate shadow cast by the tangle of overhead cables and trolley wires and a very apt one, you'll agree, if you've ever seen the rat's nest of wiring suspended above the street in San Francisco or San Diego.

==Page 244==
'''"the Arri and...a wind-up Bolex"''' 
Two small, light, quiet, highly portable 16mm movie cameras. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriflex Arriflex's] electric motor is powered by a battery pack; the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolex Bolex] is (like Pynchon says) spring-driven.

==Page 245==
'''"a battered old Auricon"''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP-16 Auricon] is another 16mm camera, also battery (or AC) powered, with the handy capability to record live sound right on the film.

==Page 246==
'''"the shirt cloth still burning around the blackly erupted exit, pale flames guttering out..."''' 
Sounds great, but while we're no forensic experts we'd guess that burns would be characteristic of the entry hole of a gunshot wound, not the exit.

==Page 247==
'''"a Mole-Richardson Series 700 generator ... legendary Eclairs ... Miller heads, Fastaxes ... Norwood Binary light meters"''' 
All deluxe loot from the CotS Film Arts Dept. The "legendary" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclair_%28camera%29 Eclairs] (there you go again, Mr. Pynchon!) are innovative French 16mm cameras, quieter (and producing a steadier image) than the Arri, Bolex or Auricon cameras mentioned above. The Miller fluid head goes on top of a camera tripod and allows very smooth pans.

'''"Blue Cheer concert"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Cheer Blue Cheer] was a popular "acid-rock" band of the time, named after one of underground chemist Stan Owsley's most popular (and potent) releases of LSD tablets. The tabs got their name because, in the charming flower-power style of the time, Owsley used to dye each new release a different color and the blue tinge of this batch reminded users of a well-known laundry detergent.

'''"7242"''' 
16mm Ektachrome EF reversal film, a medium fast (125 ASA) workhorse stock.

==Page 248==
'''"...a handful of persons [were] unaccounted for. In those days it was unthinkable that any North American agency would kill its own civilians and then lie about it.... Vond referred to it humorously as 'rapture.'"''' 
Rapture is a Biblical reference to the Day of Judgment, when the dead and the living will be taken to Heaven. Vond uses the term again, later, to describe winching Prairie up "into the sky" and abducting her ([[Chapter 15#Page 376|p. 376]]). Pynchon may have picked up the term from ''Job'', [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_heinlein Robert Heinlein's] last great fantasy novel.

'''"Fawning, gazing upward at the zipper of his fly, media toadies..."''' 
Here we see the "official" media, directed by the government, rewriting the Sixties on the spot. The only reporter to challenge Vond is dragged away.

'''"field-gray trucks"''' 
Feldgrau, that popular old Wehrmacht color!

==Page 249==
'''"tenebrous cool light"''' 
tenebrous = dark, gloomy.

'''"Federal Emergency Evacuation Route (FEER)"''' 
What a quintessentially Pynchonian idea, and what a powerful image, and what a great acronym!

==Page 250==
'''"ruins from Camelot"''' 
Little left from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kennedy Kennedy] presidency.

'''"the flagship of the 24fps motor pool, a '57 Chevy Nomad"''' 
Cool wheels, but not mentioned in the semi-extensive description of the 24fps vehicle collection on p. 194.

==Page 251==
'''"Virgil Ploce"''' 
Great name. And count on Pynchon to choose an anti-communist with an exploding cigar! Rumors about this supposedly-CIA-backed anti-Castro plot emerged after the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion Bay of Pigs invasion]. It's never been established whether the gambit was actually put into practice.

==Page 252==
'''"primer cord"''' 
Pynchon makes a common error in this reference; he may only have heard it said, never seen it in writing. This stuff is actually called "Primacord" (a copyrighted name of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensign-Bickford_Company Ensign-Bickford Company]). It's useful stuff, serving not only as a primer, but as a conveniently cord-shaped explosive substance.

"the sudden light from behind, the unbearable sight in the mirror"''' 
An atomic explosion.

==Page 253==
'''"...becoming its harsh woven shadow..."''' 
Frenesi = light; DL = shadow; together = film. Also, of course, ones and zeros.

==Page 254==
'''"Hasta la proxima, querida mia"''' 
Spanish: "Until next time, my dear." The letter "Z" is, of course, the trademark of Zorro. This steamy scene seems virtually pointless; maybe Pynchon got horny while he was writing. "Perhaps...not unscented" indeed! ([[Chapter 8#Page 118|See also p. 118]], with the smell of DL's "pussy excitation.")

==Page 255==
'''"the subroutine Yukai na...a low-order limbic pleasure cycle that would loop over and over"''' 
Interesting use of computer programming lingo in the martial arts world.

'''"the rodent hour"''' 
Given the refs to Daffy and Bugs in the previous sentence, this might refer to the Mickey Mouse Club show on the Tube, but was that one hour or one half hour??

==Page 258==
'''"''A llover''"''' 
What a great meal! ''A llover'' is Spanish for, "It's about to rain," but it also refers to the fact that it's "all over" for the outdoor desayuno. Pynchon puns again.

==Page 259==
'''"powder to the people"''' 
Ouch! Punning on the slogan [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_to_the_people_%28slogan%29 "Power to the People"] which was a rallying cry of the Black Panthers, as well as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_to_the_People_%28song%29 a song by John Lennon].

'''"Feel like we were running around like little kids with toy weapons, like the camera really was some kind of gun, gave us that kind of power. Shit. How could we lose track like that, about what was real?"''' 
Frenesi has totally bought Vond's line about the powerlessness of film vs. a gun. (And that's how they got her. And us.)

'''"who'd we save"''' 
Yet another preterite reference, and one that harks back to Hector's speech on [[Chapter 3#Page 28|p. 28]].

'''"Purple Owsley"''' 
Another run of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley_Stanley Owsley's] high-grade color-coded LSD.

==Page 260==
'''"You know what happens when my pussy's runnin' the show."''' 
If this is Frenesi's only motivation for the series of betrayals (including her betrayal of herself) that lie at the heart of ''Vineland'', it's a thin reed on which to build a book. Unless we buy into Sister Rochelle's Eden parable in which Vond represents the snaky seductiveness of authority, and Frenesi stands for a postwar America that's eager to surrender its freedom. Indeed, Frenesi's enjoyment of bondage and discipline games, which free her of responsibility, makes a strong connection with all the S&M sequences in the book (see next note).

'''"behind the Thorazine curtain"''' 
Pynchon on a sadism kick. He does seem to have a weakness for this stuff, as many sequences in Gravity's Rainbow will attest.

'''"5 mg Stelazine plus 50 of Thorazine"''' 
Thorazine and Stelazine are antihallucinatory specifics, usually used to treat schizophrenics.

==Page 261==
'''"1,000-watt Mickey-Mole spot"''' 
An open face (lensless) focusing studio light from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole-Richardson Mole-Richardson company]. It rhymes, too.

==Page 263==
'''"out in the zodiac..."''' 
Vond is a Scorpio. What else?

'''"idiolalia"''' 
Pynchon loves these esoteric terms. It means a private language. Here starts the paranoia about 24fps'rs disappearing which echoes people disappearing from the computer ([[Chapter 6#Page 85|p. 85]]), and the Kahuna airplane ([[Chapter 5#Page 65|p. 65]]).

==Page 265==
'''"Why would he come after us?"''' 
Good question.

'''"The whole Reagan program..."''' 
Yeah! Go, Pynchon, go!

==Page 266==
'''Vond is "after Frenesi...to use her for some task."''' 
OK, what task?

'''"So the big bad Ninjamobile swept along on the great Ventura [Freeway]...above the heads of TV watchers, lovers under the overpasses, movies at malls letting out, bright gas-station oases in pure fluorescent spill...down the corridors of the surface streets, in nocturnal smog, the adobe air, the smell of distant fireworks, the spilled, the broken world."''' 
What a great paragraph! Yes, the cat can write -- rhyming verse and all: "flirters, deserters, wimps and pimps"

{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 12

2008-03-07T01:47:31Z

Infanttyrone: /* Page 226 */

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 218==
'''"up over the passes and out long desert arterials, out past the seed and feed houses and country music bars and Mexican joints with Happy Hours featuring 99 cent margaritas out of a hose, under the smog, the dribbling rain, the toxic lens of sky..."''' 
Mr. Pynchon, meet Mr. Chandler.

==Page 219==
'''"What an evening"''' 
Thanatoid Roast '84 is the "tenth annual get-together" -- which means there have been thanatoids since '75. So what happened in 1974-1975? Patty Hearst kidnapped by SLA. Nixon is impeached over Watergate, and resigns. Motion picture ratings system created. US Bicentenial celebration. Vietnam War ends; last 1,000 Americans evacuated from South Vietnam.

==Page 220==
'''"Willis Chunko"''' 
Nice name.

==Page 221==
'''"Kommandant Karl Bopp"''' 
Ditto.

'''"pacified territory"''' 
Growers discuss CAMP progress in Vietnam-like terms.

==Page 222==
'''"All right, you parrots, listen up!"''' 
Parrot sale and shared dreams: Magic realism, gorgeous and surreal; tropical colors and flashy imagery.

==Page 223==
'''"can't shit, can't get a hardon"''' 
The Thanatoid Roast rendered from Van Meter's POV; his paranoia is expressed in terms familiar from GR.

==Page 225==
'''"old-time Combo-Ork arrangements"''' 
There's that lingo again.

'''"rallentando"''' 
A typically obscure Pynchon word, this musical term means exactly the same as ritardando: played with decreasing pace. Perfect for the Thanatoid gig.

==Page 226==
'''"Larry Elasmo"''' 
Cool name. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticman Plasticman]? But what the fuck is he doing at the Thanatoid Roast? Pynchon is pushing the outside of the coincidence envelope.

Elasmo sequence. Mr. Pynchon, meet Mr. Kafka. This all seems boosted right out of The Trial. Here's Weed, another rebellious American child (like Frenesi), submitting to, or fascinated with, authority. "Because the Doctor says so..." turn your body over to coaches, boys with hardons. Go to the Draft Board Center and sit on the group W bench. Even rational, mathematical, radical Weed does what the dentist tells him to, even if it is manifestly senseless.

Among other questions worth asking: Who authorized Elasmo to issue these compulsory forms that require people to come to his office? And by what mysterious process does Weed's merely waiting around cause him to become confused and dispirited? Maybe the idea is simply to take Weed out of the picture at intervals, so Vond and Frenesi can talk and fuck. There's some hint (from Vond if not from Pynchon) that Weed is collaborating with Vond. If so, we'd expect at least a short scene showing that collaboration. The Elasmo sequence stands in the right position, and serves the same function -- but there's no hint whatsoever of Vond. Pretty weird.

'''"Dr Elasmo's video image had swept, had pixeldanced in"''' 
Image/raster TV techotalk. Pixels = the tiny dots that make up the Tube image.

Another possible explanation of the whole Dr. Larry's World of Discomfort sequence is implied by the passage "Somehow, in Weed's deathstunned memory, Dr. Elasmo's video image had swept, had pixeldanced in, to cover, mercifully, for something else..." Since his commercials were so ubiquitous on TV at the time, is it possible that Weed was doing something else, meeting someone in a bureaucratic building in the city-- meetings that left him feeling stunned, guilty, and sick at heart-- and he has recast and shot these memories as meetings with the faux-celebrity of Dr. Larry Elasmo?

==Page 227==
'''"Dr. Larry Elasmo, or a person wearing, like a coverall and veil, his ubiquitous screen image grainy, flickering at the edges..."''' 
So not only is the real Elasmo tracking Weed, his TV image is doing it too!

==Page 228==
'''"Ilse, the hygienist..."''' 
Naturally, the dental hygienist in Larry's World of Discomfort is none other than Ilse, the high-heeled Nazi heroine of sixties S&M porno flicks, e.g., Ilse, She-Wolf of the SS.

==Page 230==
'''"...adjusted the pulsing vacuum to meet his own quickening rhythm..."''' 
The scene of Rex adjusting Bruno's carburetors while masturbating in the intakes clearly harks back to certain intimate moments involving Rachel and her MG's gearshift lever in V.

'''"Trash the Xanthocroid"''' 
(See note, [[Chapter 10#Page 197|p. 197]].)

==Page 232==
'''"...smile and relax beneath some single low oak out on an impossible hillside..."''' 
Flashsideways (or some-even-stranger-ways) to an imaginary, 4th-dimensional picnic in which Rex, Weed, and Prairie "negotiate an agreeable version of history." This is an important little scene, since it's where the details of the murder are made explicit at last. Or are they? Note the "nearly" in "he nearly blew me away," which seems to suggest that maybe Weed is merely wounded? (It's just Pynchonian smoke; Weed really is killed.) This scene appears to be Rex's fantasy -- except how does he know about Prairie?

==Page 236==
'''"...he reached for the Tube, popped it on, fastened himself to the screen and began to feed."''' 
A great William Burroughs-style science-fictional, Tube/addictive image.

'''"It's takin his soul, man"''' 
Certain primitive (and not so primitive) tribes believe that when someone takes your photograph it steals your soul. Or maybe Howie means the Tube.

'''"Culito Canyon"''' 
Spanish for "Little Ass Canyon."

==Page 237==
'''"...might make the Guinness Book someday..."''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_Book Guinness Book of Records], published regularly by the Irish brewery/distillery company, chronicles current achievements in urban sports like phone booth stuffing.

==Page 238==
'''"Famous worms of song"''' 
A play on "The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinochle pinochle] on your snout," sung to Mozart/Haydn/whoever's requiem. A famous childhood song, right up there with "Great green gobs of greasy grimy monkeymeat," "Hitler he had just one big ball," and the tragic ballad "Found a Peanut." This is kind of a heavy Pynchon hit on Frenesi's knowledge of Weed's impending doom.

==Page 239==
'''Note the asterisk at the top of the page. How come? Pynchon hasn't needed no steenking asterisks before! Can those worms have thrown him so far off balance that he can't carry on without typographic help? (Actually, there is one earlier asterisk occurrence, at the bottom of [[Chapter 1#Page 8|page 8]]. Go figure.)

'''"ND-1 filters"''' 
ND = Neutral Density; the suffix digit tells how many f stops it reduces incoming light (or outgoing baby-blue intensity) without changing color values.

'''"Nixonian reaction...continued to...compromise...what may only in some fading memories ever have been a people's miracle, an army of loving friends..."''' 
Pynchon seems bitter over the ease with which the government (and its media, and its money) destroyed the ideal/idyll.

==Page 240==
'''"'therapy sessions,' Brock called them..."''' 
Brock seems connected with Elasmo. Does this mean that Weed has really turned? Or that Weed's sessions with the tooth-yanker are just Vond's "reality adjustments," in which Weed is somehow osmosified to believe in Brock's version of reality (in which only power counts, and resistance is futile)?

'''"Smith"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Wesson Smith and Wesson], the largest manufacturer of handguns in the United States.

==Page 241==
'''"24-frame-per-second truth"''' 
Hi, [[Chapter 8#Page 114|Jean-Luc Godard]]!

==Page 242==
'''"frogwork"''' 
Frogs are the knots in which ornate cords (like the ones on doormen's uniform coats) are tied. Similar to Buddhist "priest cords" sometimes used as hangings. Here, frogwork is an evocative metaphor for the intricate shadow cast by the tangle of overhead cables and trolley wires and a very apt one, you'll agree, if you've ever seen the rat's nest of wiring suspended above the street in San Francisco or San Diego.

==Page 244==
'''"the Arri and...a wind-up Bolex"''' 
Two small, light, quiet, highly portable 16mm movie cameras. The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arriflex Arriflex's] electric motor is powered by a battery pack; the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolex Bolex] is (like Pynchon says) spring-driven.

==Page 245==
'''"a battered old Auricon"''' 
The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP-16 Auricon] is another 16mm camera, also battery (or AC) powered, with the handy capability to record live sound right on the film.

==Page 246==
'''"the shirt cloth still burning around the blackly erupted exit, pale flames guttering out..."''' 
Sounds great, but while we're no forensic experts we'd guess that burns would be characteristic of the entry hole of a gunshot wound, not the exit.

==Page 247==
'''"a Mole-Richardson Series 700 generator ... legendary Eclairs ... Miller heads, Fastaxes ... Norwood Binary light meters"''' 
All deluxe loot from the CotS Film Arts Dept. The "legendary" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclair_%28camera%29 Eclairs] (there you go again, Mr. Pynchon!) are innovative French 16mm cameras, quieter (and producing a steadier image) than the Arri, Bolex or Auricon cameras mentioned above. The Miller fluid head goes on top of a camera tripod and allows very smooth pans.

'''"Blue Cheer concert"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Cheer Blue Cheer] was a popular "acid-rock" band of the time, named after one of underground chemist Stan Owsley's most popular (and potent) releases of LSD tablets. The tabs got their name because, in the charming flower-power style of the time, Owsley used to dye each new release a different color and the blue tinge of this batch reminded users of a well-known laundry detergent.

'''"7242"''' 
16mm Ektachrome EF reversal film, a medium fast (125 ASA) workhorse stock.

==Page 248==
'''"...a handful of persons [were] unaccounted for. In those days it was unthinkable that any North American agency would kill its own civilians and then lie about it.... Vond referred to it humorously as 'rapture.'"''' 
Rapture is a Biblical reference to the Day of Judgment, when the dead and the living will be taken to Heaven. Vond uses the term again, later, to describe winching Prairie up "into the sky" and abducting her ([[Chapter 15#Page 376|p. 376]]). Pynchon may have picked up the term from ''Job'', [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_heinlein Robert Heinlein's] last great fantasy novel.

'''"Fawning, gazing upward at the zipper of his fly, media toadies..."''' 
Here we see the "official" media, directed by the government, rewriting the Sixties on the spot. The only reporter to challenge Vond is dragged away.

'''"field-gray trucks"''' 
Feldgrau, that popular old Wehrmacht color!

==Page 249==
'''"tenebrous cool light"''' 
tenebrous = dark, gloomy.

'''"Federal Emergency Evacuation Route (FEER)"''' 
What a quintessentially Pynchonian idea, and what a powerful image, and what a great acronym!

==Page 250==
'''"ruins from Camelot"''' 
Little left from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kennedy Kennedy] presidency.

'''"the flagship of the 24fps motor pool, a '57 Chevy Nomad"''' 
Cool wheels, but not mentioned in the semi-extensive description of the 24fps vehicle collection on p. 194.

==Page 251==
'''"Virgil Ploce"''' 
Great name. And count on Pynchon to choose an anti-communist with an exploding cigar! Rumors about this supposedly-CIA-backed anti-Castro plot emerged after the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion Bay of Pigs invasion]. It's never been established whether the gambit was actually put into practice.

==Page 252==
'''"primer cord"''' 
Pynchon makes a common error in this reference; he may only have heard it said, never seen it in writing. This stuff is actually called "Primacord" (a copyrighted name of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensign-Bickford_Company Ensign-Bickford Company]). It's useful stuff, serving not only as a primer, but as a conveniently cord-shaped explosive substance.

"the sudden light from behind, the unbearable sight in the mirror"''' 
An atomic explosion.

==Page 253==
'''"...becoming its harsh woven shadow..."''' 
Frenesi = light; DL = shadow; together = film. Also, of course, ones and zeros.

==Page 254==
'''"Hasta la proxima, querida mia"''' 
Spanish: "Until next time, my dear." The letter "Z" is, of course, the trademark of Zorro. This steamy scene seems virtually pointless; maybe Pynchon got horny while he was writing. "Perhaps...not unscented" indeed! ([[Chapter 8#Page 118|See also p. 118]], with the smell of DL's "pussy excitation.")

==Page 255==
'''"the subroutine Yukai na...a low-order limbic pleasure cycle that would loop over and over"''' 
Interesting use of computer programming lingo in the martial arts world.

'''"the rodent hour"''' 
Given the refs to Daffy and Bugs in the previous sentence, this might refer to the Mickey Mouse Club show on the Tube, but was that one hour or one half hour??

==Page 258==
'''"''A llover''"''' 
What a great meal! ''A llover'' is Spanish for, "It's about to rain," but it also refers to the fact that it's "all over" for the outdoor desayuno. Pynchon puns again.

==Page 259==
'''"powder to the people"''' 
Ouch! Punning on the slogan [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_to_the_people_%28slogan%29 "Power to the People"] which was a rallying cry of the Black Panthers, as well as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_to_the_People_%28song%29 a song by John Lennon].

'''"Feel like we were running around like little kids with toy weapons, like the camera really was some kind of gun, gave us that kind of power. Shit. How could we lose track like that, about what was real?"''' 
Frenesi has totally bought Vond's line about the powerlessness of film vs. a gun. (And that's how they got her. And us.)

'''"who'd we save"''' 
Yet another preterite reference, and one that harks back to Hector's speech on [[Chapter 3#Page 28|p. 28]].

'''"Purple Owsley"''' 
Another run of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley_Stanley Owsley's] high-grade color-coded LSD.

==Page 260==
'''"You know what happens when my pussy's runnin' the show."''' 
If this is Frenesi's only motivation for the series of betrayals (including her betrayal of herself) that lie at the heart of ''Vineland'', it's a thin reed on which to build a book. Unless we buy into Sister Rochelle's Eden parable in which Vond represents the snaky seductiveness of authority, and Frenesi stands for a postwar America that's eager to surrender its freedom. Indeed, Frenesi's enjoyment of bondage and discipline games, which free her of responsibility, makes a strong connection with all the S&M sequences in the book (see next note).

'''"behind the Thorazine curtain"''' 
Pynchon on a sadism kick. He does seem to have a weakness for this stuff, as many sequences in Gravity's Rainbow will attest.

'''"5 mg Stelazine plus 50 of Thorazine"''' 
Thorazine and Stelazine are antihallucinatory specifics, usually used to treat schizophrenics.

==Page 261==
'''"1,000-watt Mickey-Mole spot"''' 
An open face (lensless) focusing studio light from the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mole-Richardson Mole-Richardson company]. It rhymes, too.

==Page 263==
'''"out in the zodiac..."''' 
Vond is a Scorpio. What else?

'''"idiolalia"''' 
Pynchon loves these esoteric terms. It means a private language. Here starts the paranoia about 24fps'rs disappearing which echoes people disappearing from the computer ([[Chapter 6#Page 85|p. 85]]), and the Kahuna airplane ([[Chapter 5#Page 65|p. 65]]).

==Page 265==
'''"Why would he come after us?"''' 
Good question.

'''"The whole Reagan program..."''' 
Yeah! Go, Pynchon, go!

==Page 266==
'''Vond is "after Frenesi...to use her for some task."''' 
OK, what task?

'''"So the big bad Ninjamobile swept along on the great Ventura [Freeway]...above the heads of TV watchers, lovers under the overpasses, movies at malls letting out, bright gas-station oases in pure fluorescent spill...down the corridors of the surface streets, in nocturnal smog, the adobe air, the smell of distant fireworks, the spilled, the broken world."''' 
What a great paragraph! Yes, the cat can write -- rhyming verse and all: "flirters, deserters, wimps and pimps"

{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 15

2008-03-07T01:35:23Z

Infanttyrone: /* Page 323 */

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 323==
'''"Soon toasters and toaster ovens, wood fires, RV kitchen microwaves--just-made coffee"'''" 
This bit, as well as the bar-b-queing later in the chapter, is a signature Pynchon passage; in spite of all the chaos and conflict in whichever book, humanity is anchored by big, communal feeds. See the infamous Banana Breakfast in "Gravity's Rainbow", the State Picnic (p. 1047) in "Against the Day." It's a great opportunity for Pynchon to make his lists, and while some critics have complained that his characters lack humanity, these picnics/parties are usually so evocative and warm it extends to and encompasses the individuals involved.

'''"branching invisible fractals of smell"''' 
The fractal is a fairly recent (and fashionable) mathematical concept. The property that makes a thing fractal is that it looks the same at any scale -- self-similarity over scale. For this to be true, the fractal object must be made of pieces that look like tiny versions of the whole, and these pieces must be made of similar looking, littler pieces...on to infinity. (The notion of "complications that might go on forever," [[#Page 381|p. 381]], is very Pynchonesque.) Computer graphics programs based on this principle can create complexities that increase as long as you care to wait. Pynchon's use of "fractal" here draws a great word-picture of crinkly, cartoon-like aroma waves tickling noses of all sizes. He's obviously been keeping up with his reading. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractals Wikipedia on Fractals...]

'''"Los Sombras"''' 
Spanish for "the shadows." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_shadows The Shadows] were an early-60s/pre-FabFour British instrumental quartet who were also the backing group for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Richard Cliff Richard]. They are apparently still working to this day.

==Page 324==
'''"Octomaniacs"''' 
players of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_eights crazy eights] card game.

'''"...portable TV sets bootlegged onto the cable..."''' 
Even the leftist/purist Traverse/Beckers are addicted to the Tube. Maybe that's how come they let Vond and his fascists take over.

==Page 325==
'''"Tokkata & Fuji"''' 
A pun on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toccata_and_Fugue_in_D_minor%2C_BWV_565 Toccata and Fugue]. Toccata (from Italian toccare, "to touch") is a virtuoso piece of classical music for a keyboard instrument or plucked string instrument featuring sections of virtuosic passagework, with or without imitative or fugal interludes, generally emphasizing the dexterity of the performer. A fugue is a type of contrapuntal composition or technique of composition for a fixed number of parts, normally referred to as "voices", irrespective of whether the work is vocal or instrumental.

'''"What was a Thanatoid, at the end of the long dread day, but memory?"''' 
The answer at last. Sort of.

'''"Bach's 'Wachet Auf': one of the best tunes ever to come out of Europe"''' 
It's Resurrection Day! And weirdly enough, this does wake up the Thanatoids. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachet_auf'' Wachet Auf''] (German: "Sleepers Awake") is a cantata written in 1731 by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach Johann Sebastian Bach].

'''"the peculiar band between 6200 and 7000 KHZ"''' 
Why peculiar? The FCC has designated the frequencies 6200-7000 KHz for "various fixed and mobile services; maritime and aeronautical." Pirate radio (unlicensed broadcasting of FM radio, AM radio, or shortwave signals over a significant coverage area that could be picked up by listeners. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio]) broadcasts between the shortwave frequencies of 6300 and 7000 KHZ. From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_radio_in_North_America Wikipedia]:
:In the USA pirate radio is frequently, but not always associated with anarchism which considers governmental spectrum regulatory schemes as favoring the interests of large corporations. Therefore, some anarchists consider pirate radio transmissions to be a challenge to that authority.

'''"false cities of gold"''' 
Pynchon playfully compares these mythical malls to the seven cities of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quivira_and_Cíbola Cibola], which kept [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_V%C3%A1squez_de_Coronado Coronado] on the run so long.

==Page 326==
'''"The Noir Center Mall"''' 
The shops are puns on famous film noir titles: "Bubble Indemnity" = ''Double Indemnity''; "Lounge Good Buy" = ''The Long Goodbye''; "Mall Tease Flacon" = ''The Maltese Falcon''; "The Lady 'n' the Lox" = ''Lady In the Lake''.

==Page 327==
'''"Che, you're rilly evil"''' 
The relationship between Prairie and Che echoes that of Frenesi and DL.

'''"Brent Musberger"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Musburger Brent Musburger] (b. 1939) (the name is misspelled in ''Vineland'') is a TV sportscaster, most famous throughout the 1970s and '80s as the face and voice of CBS Sports. His signature phrase was "YOU are looking LIVE!!! at...(insert city or venue name here)" This was always delivered with maximum enthusiasm, no matter the event. When CBS let him go it created something of a media splash; he quickly resurfaced at ABC. He relates to the next line, and Pynchon's theme about people who are observers rather than makers of reality.

==Page 328==
'''"Maybelline"''' 
What's the joke here? Maybelline eye makeup? Or the chase element in [http://www.chuckberry.com/ Chuck Berry's] song? Probably all of the above, plus a Pynchonian takeoff on Muzak (the "oboe-and-string rendition.") Although a good rockin' tune, Berry's "Maybelline" doesn't have much of a melody, so the idea of an instrumental version, particularly for oboe and strings, seems absurd. See also "New Age mindbarf" on [[#Page 330|p. 330]]. [ [http://www.chuckberry.com/music/lyrics/maybellene.htm Lyrics to ''Maybelline''...] ]

==Page 329==
'''"agoramania"''' 
shopping frenzy.

'''"Dwayna"''' 
Another cool name.

==Page 330==
'''"New Age mindbarf"''' 
Pynchon's opinion of the New Age Movement which trended toward the spiritual, the organic and the Politically Correct, and spawned mostly trite philosophies and trite music.

==Page 332==
'''"It's like they's programmed for it or somethin'"''' 
Fleur's comment on why gentlemen prefer black and red underwear on "bad girls" is reminiscent of Pirate Prentiss' involuntary, ejaculatory response to a certain photo, delivered to him via V2, in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

'''"Night and Blood"''' 
Echoes of Katje and Pudding in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_226-236#Page_232 ''Gravity's Rainbow'' - p.232-233]: "She waits for him...white body and black uniform-of-the-night.... Lipstick...prevails like blood.... She is naked now, except for a long sable cape and black boots with court heels. Her only jewelry is a silver ring with an artificial ruby...an arrogant gout of blood..."

==Page 333==
'''"...Juvenile Hall badasses..."''' 
More badasses.

"...conical black heaps smoked, glowed, flared here and there into visible fire..." 
The scene in which Vond burns the 24fps footage is quite horrible -- and extremely important. By destroying 24fps' records of the Sixties, he clears the way for his rewritten fascist version. With no evidence to prove him wrong, who would dare to argue with "official" history?

==Page 334==
'''"a restored Vicky"''' 
Victorian house. The San Francisco Bay Area and surrounding areas has many Victorian-era homes.

'''"not only dropping but also picking up, dribbling and scoring three-pointers..."''' 
Total basketball metaphor for Hector's name dropping.

==Page 337==
'''"Miraculous Medal"''' 
The Miraculous Medal makes an appearance in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=M#miraculous-medal ''Gravity's Rainbow''] and in [http://v.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Miraculous_Medal ''V.'']

'''"Ernie Triggerman, and his partner, Sid Liftoff"''' 
More cool names.

'''"bizcochos"''' 
Spanish for "biscuits, cookies."

'''"lizard-skin etui"''' 
Etui = a four letter word made of odd letters, therefore useful to crossword constructors, and meaning "small case." Pynchon does crossword puzzles? Maybe he just loves words.

==Page 338==
'''"arranged for Sid to work off the beef...[by making] an antidrug movie..."''' 
This plea-bargain echoes a real deal cut by ''Godfather'' producer [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Evans_%28film_producer%29 Robert Evans] to avoid doing hard time on a cocaine bust. Evans made several anti-drug spots for TV, as promised, but apparently (according to subsequent courtroom testimony) he kept on using the stuff anyway.

'''"Roy Ibble"''' 
Yet another cool name.

==Page 339==
'''"sudden monster surge of toilet flushing...and...cold air"''' 
A new Pynchonian fable: Dope paranoia results in Hollywood fog bank.

==Page 340==
'''"Larry Talbot"''' 
Actor Larry Talbot played the starring role in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_talbot The Wolfman films] of the 1940s.

==Page 342==
'''"Sounds real natural to me."''' 
A math joke. 2.71828 is "e," the root of the series of "natural" logarithms.

'''"43'd"''' 
half of 86'd. (See "octogenarihexation" on [[Chapter 9#Page 186|p. 186]].) Being 43'd is like being a little pregnant.

==Page 343==
'''Song: "Es Posible."''' 
Music-biz schtick at the end makes it even funnier. Also hilarious: the pre-Castro Cuban theme park, Holiday For Fascists.

==Page 344==
'''"board fading"''' 
fading slowly and smoothly, as if via a volume slider on a recording studio control board.

==Page 345==
'''"Tubal fantasies...pushing their propaganda message that cops-are-only-human...turning agents of government repression into sympathetic heroes. Nobody thought it was peculiar anymore, no more than the routine violations of constitutional rights...now absorbed into...American expectations."''' 
Good points, all, but isn't it a bit out of character for Frenesi the Betrayer, the biggest cop lover in the novel, to be fronting these thoughts for Pynchon? What's happening here, we think, is that Pynchon is starting to set up Frenesi for her rehabilitation as part of the big Happy Ending.

==Page 346==
'''"the Meese Police"''' 
Reagan's DOJ (Department of Justice) head, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Meese Edwin Meese].

==Page 347==
'''"Mad Dog Vond"''' 
Echoes [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Bogart Humphrey Bogart] as Mad Dog Roy Earle in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Sierra_%28film%29 ''High Sierra']'. But Vond really is crazy.

'''"Since '81, kids were coming in all on their own askin about careers..."''' 
Too true, too sad, and it undercuts the Happy Ending rather seriously (at least as a pointer to the real world.)

==Page 348==
'''"in the movie of his life story"''' 
A not-quite-made-up film.

==Page 349==
'''Vond is "waitin' for somethin'."''' 
OK, but what? Reluctantly we must point out that none of Pynchon's many explanations bear close examination. (See footnote to the plot synopsis, Chapter 4.)

==Page 350==
'''"the pink slip to his heart"''' 
A pink slip is a title of ownership for a car. Before the days of automobile titles, the portion of a California car registration that conveyed ownership was colored pink. Hence the brag in the Beach Boys' "Little Deuce Coupe" about "I got the pink slip, daddy!" (meaning, "I'm holding the paperwork required to stake the LDC on a streetlight drag race, so whatchu waitin' for, dude?")

==Page 351==
'''"Pretend there's a frame around [your parents], pretend they're a show you're watching..."''' 
Once again, TV is America's common reference point.

'''"'Uh-oh,' said Frenesi."''' 
Frenesi refuses to cross the airport picket line. This is a bit on the too-little-too-late side for a professional class-traitor, but it's also quite believable.

==Page 352==
'''"the bowl haircut, etc."''' 
Another reference to The Three Stooges ... Moe's bowl haircut.

'''"all 'em deeply personal li'l ones and zeros got changed to somebody else's"''' 
Roy Ibble, Flash's former handler, explains the computer file deletions, and carries on Pynchon's binary metaphor.

==Page 353==
'''"Please, no more..."''' 
Ibble crumbles in the face of Flash's anger. This is the only the first in a series of auspicious (but highly improbable) turns of the plot. The Hollywood Happy Ending is beginning.

"REX-84" 
Short for Reagan's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_84 Readiness Exercise 1984], a plan by the United States federal government to test their ability to detain large numbers of American citizens in case of massive civil unrest or national emergency.

==Page 354==
'''"...Midol America..."''' 
Another low Pynchon pun ("middle-America") referring to the popular brand of menstrual medicine.

'''"...the destined losers whose only redemption would have to come through their usefulness to the State law-enforcement apparatus, which was calling itself 'America,' though somebody must have known better."''' 
This describes Frenesi and Flash, though it could also describe the larger preterite population of the novel. "...law enforcement apparatus...calling itself America..." underscores Pynchon's cold fury at the process via which Frenesi/America falls for the lies of the fascists.

==Page 355==
'''"Triglyph Productions"''' 
Triglyph = three (you-name-em) letters, like ABC, NBC, CBS, etc.

'''"Panaflex"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panaflex Panaflex] was an innovative 35mm studio camera, made by Panavision, Inc. It's the world standard, used for everything from wide-screen epics to deodorant commercials. It makes a nice contrast with all the "underground" Arris and Auricons.

'''"The Bryant Gumbel Story"''' 
TV personality of the same generation as [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Musburger Brent Musburger]. Gumbel began as a sportscaster, then became a "Today Show" host, and is now doing sports on HBO.

==Page 356==
'''"...one slip of the tongue..."''' 
Arguably the worst joke in any of Pynchon's novels. Gross!

'''"How to get an Italian Woman Pregnant."''' 
Two versions of this joke:

:'''Q:''' How do you get an Italian woman pregnant? '''A:''' And they say the Italians are stupid!

:'''Q:''' How do you get an Italian woman pregnant? '''A:''' Fuck her.

==Page 358==
'''"Starting with a small used trailer..."''' 
This brief flashback telling the story of Zoyd's house includes a typically Pynchon-esque fable about "prehistoric" (and mythical) 5/8-inch plumbing fittings.

'''"full scale kvetchathon"''' 
''kvetch'' = Yiddish for complaint. Hence, a kvetchathon is a marathon bitch session among Van Meter's legendarily bickering family.

'''"kit conversions"''' 
The parts required to convert legal, semi-automatic rifles to full (and illegal) automatic operation are often available in kit form. The kits themselves are not illegal, but they become illegal if installed in non-registered weapons.

==Page 359==
'''"Antinomian"''' 
One who holds that moral law is not binding on Christians. Therefore, as mentioned below, "They believe whatever they do, it's cool with Jesus..." Perhaps Antinomianism is the really extreme flavor of preterite and elect doctrine. So extreme, in fact, that in most circles it's a heresy.

'''"motocross"''' 
A cycle race over rough terrain, often desert. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motocross Wikipedia]

'''"May your life be full of lawyers"''' 
Supposedly, the "heavy-dutiest" Mexican curse.

==Page 360==
'''Zoyd's lawyer's voice "suggested Saturday morning more than prime time"''' 
That is, it reminded one of a cartoon character. Lessee, would it be a Smurf or a chipmunk?

'''"What about 'innocent until proven guilty'?" "That was another planet, think they used to call it America, long time ago, before the gutting of the Fourth Amendment. You were automatically guilty the minute they found that marijuana growing on your land."''' 
Pynchon is obviously deeply pissed by this shit (as well he might be); it makes a powerful point in his argument that Big Brother and the Fascists have won. "Another planet" echoes the allegorical conversation between Zoyd and Vond on p. 300.

'''"Y-You mean...life isn't Vegas?"''' 
A very funny line, though (in context) rather ominous as well.

==Page 361==
'''"the Grand Canyon"''' 
A lot of detail is packed into a few sentences. Looks like Pynchon has been there, too.

"Tex Weiner" 
Actor Tex Weiner was on ''General Hospital'' with Sally Kirkland. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Hospital ''General Hospital''] is the longest-running ABC Daytime American soap opera broadcast on the American Broadcasting Company television network

'''"...fooled once again by the uniform..."''' 
So Frenesi comes by her weakness for sadistic uniformed cops genetically, via Sasha? Or is this something about how opposites need and create each other?

'''"Weww -- it's oow rubbish i'n'i'?"''' 
Well, it's all rubbish, isn't it? Pynchon's fabulous ear again.

==Page 362==
'''"off the scale"''' 
Techno rap, meaning too great to measure, pins the meter, etc.

'''"Did they scream?"''' 
A cheap, if effective, trick: Pynchon switches POV (narrators) in mid-scene, giving the tale to producer Sid, and twists the knife by making him playfully reluctant to part with details, so Zuniga has to beg.

'''"Too bad we can't use it."''' 
Christ! Have we been watching Zuniga's damn movie all this time? Directed by Frenesi???

'''"Kissing a young pale melon, under a golden pregnant lallapalooza of a moon."''' 
Sasha's dream is sweet and surreal, but it seems insufficiently motivated. Would she really forgive Frenesi so easily?

==Page 363==
'''"Holocaust Pixels.'''" 
Cool name for a rock band -- and another TV reference. ([[Chapter 12#Page_226|See note, p. 226.]])

Song: "Like a Meat Loaf." 
Great song! Also the Return of the Thanatoid Lunch Meat. Also an echo of Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues."

'''The Thanatoids are "acting rowdier than DL or Takeshi had ever seen them."''' 
The only reverberation of the big flap that sent the karmic adjustment duo racing off for Shade Creek in the last episode. The Happy Ending rolls on.

==Page 364==
'''"...just a couple o' clicks..."''' 
Clicks = kilometers.

'''"Bardo"''' 
Bardo is the after-death realm in the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibetan_book_of_the_dead ''Tibetan Book of the Dead'']. The trick is to avoid rebirth, but most people fuck up and let themselves be trapped in a new life. Weed tells of looking for a just-fertilized egg in which to be reborn, "seeking out men and women in the act of sex...in a...smoke-tarnished district of sex shows and porno theaters." [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Brothers The Mitchell Brothers] atmosphere is cute. In Tibet a lama keeps whispering the instructions in your dead ear so you don't make these little boo-boos ("couldn't find 'em, time ran out"). Pynchon implies that it's those with "too much still on [their minds]," i.e., unfinished business, that can't quite get permanently dead.

==Page 365==
'''"But what if I am the payback? If your account is zeroed out at last?"''' 
Weed's response to Prairie's offer is a little inconclusive, but note the zero.

'''"Thanatoids dream, though not always when we think we do--"''' 
Weed's dream is extremely powerful and the image is quite writerly. Is the coroner he's looking for "to reveal to the world at last my murder, my murderers" really Pynchon? Are the "companions" who keep trying to find this coroner the readers of Vineland? Faithful hippies? Those who refuse to buy the rewritten version of the Sixties? All of the above? Prairie says it's DL & Takeshi, Weed thinks maybe it's his parents. It might even be the Pisk sisters.

==Page 366==
'''"It was all for love... It was political... A rebel cop... The orders of a repressive regime..."''' 
Pynchon seems aware that his readers (the "companions") may be confused.

'''Prairie and Weed "soon to become an item"''' 
This is the real happy ending, suggesting that young kids may seek out the truth about the Sixties. (And not just the clothes!)

'''"Prairie would show him secrets of pachinko..."''' 
But how did she learn them? From DL? Pachinko is a Japanese gaming device used for amusement and prizes and is related to pinball machines. Although originally strictly mechanical, modern pachinko machines are a cross between a pinball machine and a video slot machine.

==Page 367==
'''"the Traverse-Becker wingding"''' 
Nice image, suggesting the continuity of the Left although making it a picnic is surely some dark irony. (At least it's not a dinner party.)

'''"Octomaniacs"''' 
again, players of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_eights crazy eights].

'''"the Mother situation"''' 
Nice cinematic touch, superimposing Frenesi and the Mother of Doom (the Queen of Spades).

'''"with Sasha was a woman about forty, who had been a girl in a movie..."''' 
The reunion of Prairie and Frenesi, which has motivated Prairie, and haunted Frenesi, throughout most of the book, is tossed off distressingly quickly, but with at least this one great line.

'''"Commere lemme check those dimples, yes there, they are..."''' 
Sasha's agonizing grandma act is way out of character. We hope! Still, "it's her way of trying to help" ([[#Page 368|p. 368]]).

==Page 368==
You'd think Pynchon would devote a little more ink to the reunion of Frenesi and Prairie, but in fact Frenesi seems to be in the process of fading out here (much as Vond will do in a few pages).

==Page 369==
'''"pasta dishes and grilled tofu contributed by younger elements"''' 
Hello, Becker/Traverse yuppies!

'''"Secret retributions are always restoring the level..."''' 
This marvelous quote from Emerson is deeply optimistic, and goes a long way toward buying off the Happy Ending. Contrasts nicely with Lombroso's "misoneism," the negative feedback loop by which society resists change.

'''"Ask Crocker 'Bud' Scantling"''' 
The Happy Ending continues, as we learn of Crocker 'Bud' Scantling's karmic payoff under the wheels of a chip truck.

==Page 370==
'''"Lux Unlimited"''' 
A lux is a unit of luminosity equal to 1 candela sterradian per square meter. Drop that into your next bar room argument.

'''"Take care of your dead, or they'll take care of you."''' 
Confirmation of what the Thanatoids really are ([[#Page 325|see p. 325]]). Also a nice restatement of Santayana's famous quote about "Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it (or retake the course)."

'''"Say, Jim"''' 
The title of this made-up half-hour sitcom (a black version of ''Star Trek'') is a reference both to Bones' habitual conversational opening to Captain James Kirk, and to Afro-American slang in which "Jim" is an all-purpose (and generally negative, being short for [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws "Jim Crow"]) form of address. This is also another digital gag (white becoming black = zero becoming one).

'''"Zoyd and Flash went off looking for beer"''' 
Flash surfaces. No point, really, except for the overall reconciliation Pynchon is forcing on the book.

'''"Robert Musil"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Musil Robert Musil] was an Austrian novelist (1880-1942), whose Proustian style was marked by subtle psychological analysis. His works include ''Young Torles'' and ''The Man Without Qualities''.

==Page 371==
'''"...talking back to the tube..."''' 
The Beckers and Traverses are politically hip, shown by their talking back, and their suspicion that the "prefascist twilight" is really just "the light...coming from millions of Tubes all showing the same bright colored shadows..." TV as the true opiate of the masses -- or, as the NY commies used to say, "de messes."

==Page 372==
Zoyd feels sorry for Flash, the "unfortunate sucker" who's still with Frenesi; he sees "the need behind the desperado lamps" (eyes). Nice phrase, nice rendition of the healing power of time and distance, and a sweet way to take leave of Zoyd, who seems to have found some peaceful place to rest at least for the moment.

==Page 373==
'''"Minute the tube got hold of you folks, that was it..."''' 
The kid (who speaks for Pynchon, of course) is right. It's funny how so few of us saw the future, fought the Tube. McLuhan was right too, but we only thought we knew what he was talking about.

'''"gold-handled chainsaw"''' 
Sheriff Willis Chunko's celebrated anti-pot weapon takes us full circle from/to Zoyd's ladylike purse-sized model in [[Chapter 1|Chapter 1]].

'''"monster Mopars dialed and eager"''' 
Mopar = the parts division of Chrysler Motors = (here) engines. Dialed = souped up. This is at least the second "dialed" reference in Vineland. It's hot-rod talk, and means more or less the same as the now old-fashioned "blue-printed." The dials refer to a machinist's dial indicators, used to bring once-stock engines into more-than-perfect condition and tune.

==Page 374==
'''"speeding after moonset"''' 
Like in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunder_Road ''Thunder Road''] [1958], the great [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mitchum Robert Mitchum] bootlegging thriller.

'''"quaquaversal beard"''' 
"Quaquaversal" is a geological term meaning "turned or pointing in every direction." It's a good description for a wiry beard.

'''"...go find [Vond] and cancel his series for him..."''' 
Another TV referent.

'''"found it easier now to make out...her own...face"''' 
Now that Prairie has met Frenesi she can see her own face more clearly in Zoyd's. That is, she's not Vond's daughter. More Happy Ending.

==Page 375==
'''"...down out of [the helicopter], hooked by harness and cable to the mother ship above, came Brock Vond..."''' Is Vond's deus ex machina appearance to Prairie a dream? It could be; she was asleep. Then again, "Brock, whom his colleagues were calling 'Death From Slightly Above,' had been out [practicing]." And remember the Madwoman In the Attic ([[Chapter 13#Page 274|p. 274]]).

'''"more recaps on this subject than Mark C. Bloome"''' 
Bloome was the owner of a chain of popular tire stores in southern California, the Mark C. Bloome Tire Company.

'''"The original plan had been to go in..., come down vertical, grab her, and winch back up and out--"''' 
Why does Vond want to abduct Prairie? Lust? Pure evil? This is never adequately explained. There's a bit of chat in [[Chapter 14]] discussing Vond's interest in Prairie, but it's not developed any further.

==Page 376==
'''"The key is rapture."''' 
Earlier Vond explained the disappearance of the CotS students the same way. ([[Chapter 12#Page 248|See note, p. 248.]])

'''"Her tits, master--"''' 
Roscoe becomes Dwight Frye, Vampire Vond's Renfield. ("Rats, master, you promised me rats...")

'''Vond glows "unusually white."''' 
More evidence that he's a vampire. (A-and remember, he sleeps with his eyes open!)

'''"Some white male far away must have wakened from a dream."''' 
Reagan? Meese? Nixon? The white male God of the Calvinists?

'''"Brock...now being winched back up..."''' 
Film running backward through the projector. The image is great, but there's something troublesome here. If the novel represents the real world (as we must assume it does, or it would be no more than an empty divertissement), what "real" event in 1984 informs Vond's withdrawal and defeat?

==Page 377==
'''"Asshole, they're all together, one surgical strike..."''' 
Vond is ready to wipe out everyone Frenesi, Flash, Zoyd, Justin, maybe even Prairie just as (presumably) he wiped their computer files earlier.

'''"...[Vond] was gone, following his penis--"''' 
A reprise of the lyrics from "Like a Meat Loaf" (#Page 363|p. 363]]): "Well we followed our dicks just a couple o' clicks...")

'''Alexi appears in the clearing, carrying "an old acoustic guitar with Cyrillic stenciling on it, as if he'd been prepared to use it as a weapon."''' 
Like American political folkie [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woody_Guthrie Woody Guthrie's] guitar, on which the folksinger wrote "This machine kills fascists."

'''"The Movie at Nine"''' 
Pynchon gets into a great male-folksy description of a basketball movie the most developed of any of his synthetic made-for-TV flicks. An elect white team (the Celtics) Vs. a preterite black team (the Lakers). Obviously Pynchon is a Lakers fan. It's a story of great courage, and it sets up Vato and Blood for their "rescue" of the newly Thanatoidized Vond. Vond's car disappears (the way thanatoid vehicles do), and we get a Yurok tale by Vato, implying that by coming to Vineland Brock got too close to the land of the dead (Shade Creek). Maybe that's what woke the Thanatoids up? But by then, V&B Tow is conducting Vond across the River Styxx.

==Page 378==
'''"Time to lock and load, Blood."''' 
Lock and load = ArmySpeak for "saddle up." Specifically, it means lock on the safety of your firearm and load a live round into the chamber, leaving the weapon armed and ready to fire but safe to carry. (The standard 'Nam response was "Cocked and locked!" meaning "Ready when you are.")

'''"It had been an unusual sort of car..."''' 
Vond's chopper turns into an (underpowered) car, which then disappears itself. Vond's power is fading out and he is too. Cool image, but same problem as above. Did Vond (that is, the totalitarian power freaks he fronts for) fade out in 1984? And if not, isn't it a cheat that he does so in the novel?

==Page 380==
'''"crankless"''' 
That is, without amphetamines.

'''"...she and Takeshi finally renegotiated the no-sex clause..."''' 
Happy Ending continues. "Whooee!" says DL.

==Page 381==
"a fractal halo of complications"Typical Pynchon light-and-color show -- and the second use of the "fractal" buzzword. (It occurs on [[#Page 323|page 323]], as well.) Are neural networks next?

==Page 382==
'''"an ivory fescue"''' 
Fescue = a teacher's pointer of high quality.

'''"When the Earth was still a paradise, long, long ago..."''' 
Sister Rochelle's allegory about Hell and Earth may explain a bit about Thanatoids, if you wish to read it that way.

==Page 383==
'''"faceless predators"''' 
This paragraph reads like Pynchon checked his outline, noticed two loose ends (the Kahuna hijack and the monster-stomped laboratory) and tied them up as quickly and crudely as possible. Sloppy work.

'''"despite every Karmic Adjustment resource brought to bear so far"''' 
This provides another motivation for DL & Takeshi's "business" venture.

'''"the night of no white diamonds or even chicken crank"''' 
Chicken crank = the speed Takeshi has been trying to score in the form of chicken feed. There are a number of other references to Takeshi's habitual speed use, not the least of which is his epic journey eastward to the SKA and Puncutron.

'''"the foreign magician and his blond tomato assistant"''' 
Takeshi and DL, of course.

==Page 384==
'''"Russian Johnny B. Goode"''' 
No happy-ending complete without Chuck Berry! Or does he mean "Back In the USSR?" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_B._Goode "Johnny B. Goode"] is a seminal 1958 rock and roll song by Chuck Berry, ranked by ''Rolling Stone'' as the seventh greatest song ever on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. [http://www.lyricsdepot.com/chuck-berry/johnny-b-goode.html Lyrics...]

'''"You can come back...take me any place..."''' 
Prairie longs for Vond to come back and abuse her. It must be her genetic predilection for the uniform. Or, perhaps the desire to find out what was heavy enough to make her mom split. It's a bit sick, but maybe Pynchon knows his characters (and the human character) better than we do. ("Every woman adores a fascist / The boot in the face, the brute / Brute heart of a brute like you." "Daddy," [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_plath Sylvia Plath]) In any case, Pynchon "saves" it by having Desmond return. When it comes to preterite, what can out-pret a girl's dog?

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Chapter 6

2008-03-07T01:04:32Z

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{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 68==
'''"a pale humid Sun Belt city whose almost-familiar name would soon enough be denied to civilian eyes by federal marker pens"''' 
That is, censored in Frenesi's Freedom-of-Information file. This marker-pen image recurs later, too. One gets the feeling that Pynchon has, at one time or another, worked with such files -- or looked at his own.

==Page 70==
'''"once you get that specialist's code..."''' 
Frenesi has the specialist's code for sexual betrayal. Cold.

==Page 71==
'''"a zombie at her back"''' 
Frenesi's past. Embodied, we shall see later, by the Thanatoid Weed.

'''"full-auto qualified"''' 
More military usage. Technically, this means qualified in automatic-fire weaponry, but the meaning here seems more like: empowered, into her own.

'''"When the sixties were over...a world based on the one and zero of life and death..."''' 
A moving section, extremely fine writing, and the first appearance of Pynchon's powerful binary metaphor -- which rolls on to the end of the chapter, and indeed, throughout the book. Actually, it first appeared near the end of [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49'']: "For it was now like walking among matrices of a great digital computer, the zeros and ones twinned above.... Ones and Zeros. So did the couples arrange themselves...[for example,] either an accommodation reached...with the Angel of Death, or only death and the daily, tedious preparations for it. Another mode of meaning behind the obvious, or none."

==Page 74==
'''gaffer''' 
The movie electrician who sets up the stage lights for filming; probably a member of IBEW (IATSE local 40),

==Page 75==
'''"all over the jukeboxes..."''' 
Pynchon makes a rare departure from his usual devil-may-care style to explain one of his weird names. Frenesi's parents named her after the popular [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artie_Shaw Artie Shaw] swing tune.

'''"Her father, Jess Traverse, trying to organize loggers in Vineland..."''' 
Frenesi, and thus Prairie, are descendants of the Traverse clan, the arguably central protagonists of Pynchon's "Against the Day". For more detail see the Traverse entry in the "Against the Day" wiki.
On the following page Pynchon relays the meeting of Jess and Eula Becker, Sasha's mother. However on p.1076 of AtD the adolescent Jess brings home a homework assignment from a Mr. Becker, an essay on "What It Means To Be An American." "It means do what they tell you and take what they give you and don't go on strike or their soldiers will shoot you down." It came back with a big A+ on it. "Mr. Becker was at the Cour d'Alene back in the olden days.
Guess I forgot to mention that."
AtD leaves the Traverse clan in what is implied to be northwestern Washington state.

'''"Crocker 'Bud' Scantling"''' 
An appropriate name for a logging goon, since a scantling is, among other things, a small wooden beam, or a small timber. As Pynchon tells the tale, Scantling was hired by "big timber" (the Employers Association), to help eradicate the "timber beast" (the IWW). Scantling's first name may be a reference to Charles Crocker, a 19th Century California tycoon who made a fortune building the Union Pacific Railroad.

'''"the Employer's Association"''' 
of the State of Washington was the anti-wobbly arm of the Lumber Trust. In April, 1918, its hired thugs raided the IWW headquarters in Centralia, Washington -- leading, inevitably, to yet another massacre in Centralia during the Armistice Day parade, November 11, 1919.

'''"...a local attorney for the damned, sure no George Vandeveer..."''' 
George F. Vanderveer (either Pynchon, his editor, or his typesetter has misspelled the name) was a prominent Seattle attorney in the 'teens, popularly known as "counsel for the damned." In 1917 Vanderveer successfully defended IWW members in the legal free-for-all following a series of violent confrontations in Washington state in which Wobblies were slugged, kidnapped, shot, hanged, tarred and feathered, driven out of town -- and, when all else failed, jailed and charged with treason for endangering the war effort.

Subsequently Vanderveer became chief counsel for the IWW, and in 1918 headed the defense of 101 Wobblies against bogus charges of sabotage, and conspiracy to obstruct the war. The trial lasted five months; it was the longest criminal trial ever held in the United States to that date. Despite Vanderveer's best efforts, all 101 defendants were found guilty, and given long sentences by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (later the first Commissioner of Baseball). This was the beginning of the end for the IWW, although it lingered long enough to contribute to the events described in this chapter, and remained technically active well into the sixties.

==Page 76==
'''"Wobblies, sneered at by property owners..."''' 
Wobblies = members of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wobblies IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World]. And definitely preterite.

'''"bindlestiff life"''' 
Hobolike. Bindle = bundle, usually a hobo's clothes and stuff, rolled up in bedroll. Hence, "Bindlestiff" = hobo, a stiff with a bindle, but sometimes a thief who will stiff you of your bindle. Note: [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B#bindlestiffs Bindlestiffs of the Blue in ''Against the Day'']

'''"One Big Union"''' 
Often confused with the IWW, this was actually an earlier labor movement that led to the formation of the IWW. First seen around the turn of the century, it was supposed to be organized along industrial, rather than trade lines. The Lumber Trust, which controlled the authorities in the area, called this movement "The Timber Beast," and did its best to eradicate it. Nonetheless, in the early 'teens it took hold among Northwest loggers, most of whom eventually joined the IWW.

'''"Joe Hill"''' 
(1882 - 1915) was a Swedish emigrant who arrived in the US in 1901, and fought in the Mexican revolution before becoming an IWW organizer in California in 1912. A songwriter as well as a soldier of fortune, he is credited as the author of many labor union songs, including Casey Jones (The Union Scab), The Preacher and the Slave, Rebel Girl, Pie In the Sky When You Die, and many others. In 1915, Hill was framed on a murder charge, and executed by firing squad, in Utah. Whether in spite of, or because of, his murder, he went on to become a legendary labor hero, inspiring countless thousands of working men and women. Hill's life fully justifies his legend.

'''"piss on through"''' 
As opposed to "pass on through." Nice bit of local/period usage -- unless it's a typo.

'''"the City"''' 
There's only one: San Francisco. Pynchon's flawless idiomatic usage reveals him to have spent at least some time in the Bay Area.

==Page 77==
'''"a rip-roaring union town..."''' 
Excellent details of pre-war labor history in San Francisco.

'''"the General strike of '34"''' 
The surprisingly successful San Francisco General Strike of July, 1934, was initiated by Harry Bridges' Longshoremen's Union, along with a number of other unionized maritime workers. Jack London wrote about it in his story, "South O' the Slot." Although the authorities eventually succeeded in putting it down, some of the strikers' demands were actually met. As a result, "strike fever" spread throughout the US, especially in the coal mining, and textile industries, and among agricultural workers. Pynchon lists some of the west coast agricultural strikes.

'''"standing midwatch guard"''' 
Midwatch is a Naval term, probably an abbreviation of "midnight watch" since the midwatch (also known as the "balls to four") is the stint between midnight and 4 AM. It's followed by the dogwatch (4 AM to 8 AM).

'''"Tom Mooney"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mooney Thomas J. Mooney] was a famous jailed radical, for whom thousands of picket signs ("Free Tom Mooney") were carried by thousands of lefties during the twenties and thirties. In 1915, Mooney was the foremost labor radical in San Francisco. He was solidly against the United Railroads of San Francisco, which in turn put its money behind Charles M. Fickert, a leader of the "crush the unions" drive. On July 22, 1916, Fickert framed Mooney by staging a homicidal dynamite blast on Market Street. Ten people were killed; Mooney (and Warren K. Billings) were held in prison until 1939, when they were pardoned by California Governor Culbert L. Olson.

'''"Campaign for Culber Olson in '38"''' 
Another typo/misspelling. This must be the lawyer, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culbert_L._Olson Culbert L. Olson], who eventually freed Tom Mooney.

==Page 78==
'''"Oh, the joints were jumping those nights..."''' 
Pynchon does a great job of capturing the wartime atmosphere in San Francisco, with a cute ref to Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast.

'''"Wild and rowdy like the Clark Gable movie."''' 
That's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_%28film%29 ''San Francisco''] [1936].

'''Eddie Enrico and his Hong Kong Hotshots''' 
Some readers believe that Pynchon’s creation of Eddie Enrico and his Hong Kong Hotshots is a reference to Earl Mac Rauch’s 1984 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Buckaroo_Banzai_Across_the_8th_Dimension ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension''] (which itself contains references to [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49'']) — and in which Buckaroo Banzai plays in a band called the Hong Kong Cavaliers. Your call.

:There is also the famous Enrico's Sidewalk Cafe in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, home of the beats. Around since 1959, it garnered a cameo as a boho rendezvous spot in the 1968 San Francisco film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullitt ''Bullitt''] starring Steve McQueen.

'''"Ramón Raquello...with the news from Mars"''' 
Fictional bandleader and fictional event, both created by Orson Welles’ Mercury Players for the famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast on 30 Oct 1938.

==Page 79==
'''"Chinese references in those days [were] code for opium products"''' 
A fascinating (and typically Pynchonian) inside "period" tip.

'''"ork"''' 
Pynchon uses this obscure bit of (presumably) forties slang, meaning orchestra, at least twice in Vineland. We've never run across it in any of our period reading or listening. However, in Kovacsland, a biography of Ernie Kovacs, author Diana Rico makes reference to Kovacs' habit of "creating a special language" in a column he wrote, briefly, for a newspaper called the Trentonian. ["Special language" = "idiolalia." See note on p. 263. A paranoid would connect these, but we'll pass.] To illustrate her point, she notes Kovacs' habitual use of the word "orks," meaning orchestras. Now Kovacs was writing in 1946, so there are two intriguing possibilities: 1) Rico is wrong; Kovacs didn't make up the term, he picked it up from hearing it used, thereby verifying Pynchon's correct use of it. Or, 2), Kovacs did invent the term, and Pynchon picked it up from reading one of Kovacs' columns.

'''"telegraphing the chord changes"''' 
Only musicians think about these details; another hint of Pynchon's musical predilections.

'''"gave her the O-O"''' 
O-O = the once-over. But the way it looks on the page also suggests "the big eye," or in this case, two of 'em.

==Page 80==
'''"long-hull Sumner-class destroyer"''' 
More Navy stuff, unlikely to be found in newspaper archives.

'''"Friends of Hub's had sold out friends of Sasha's..."''' 
Extremely accurate rendition of left-wing bitterness, with nice joke ("nobody talks") to cap it.

==Page 82==
'''"You want to see a hot set?....see that? Shook all over? That's scab carpentry..."''' 
Presumably the paint on the scab construction hadn't dried yet either. This is great, authentic-sounding slang.

'''"You want to see a hot set...some scab local the IA set up..."''' 
IA is short for IATSE – the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees. Originally a theatrical union for stagehands and set decorators, it expanded into Hollywood and the up-and-coming motion picture industry in the 1920s. In the early 1930s, the union was taken over by the Chicago crime syndicate headed by Frank Nitti — Al Capone’s successor. Throughout the '30s and '40s (and, some say, even today) IA was a so-called "sweetheart" union—meaning that it existed primarily to protect the studios from labor unrest. During those years IA paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to the mob. During the CSU strikes of 1945-1947 (see note, p. 289) "company" unions were formed by IA leaders for the express purpose of breaking the strikes. "Hot" was a term the far more radical CSU (Conference of Studio Unions) used to refer to sleazy sets constructed by these "scab" IA unions.

'''"loud birds...were attracted..."''' 
Not even birds can resist TV; it charms them out of the trees.

==Page 83==
'''"Believing that the rays coming out of the TV screen would act as a broom to sweep the room clear of all spirits, Frenesi now popped the Tube on and checked the listings."''' 
So we learn two more notable Tube Facts: TV has supernatural powers; and it sweeps out good, as well as bad spirits.

'''"Let the grim feminist rave..."''' 
Frenesi's fetish for men-in-uniform manifests itself in masturbatory fantasies featuring Ponch and Jon from CHiPs. This scene marks the return from Frenesi's flashback to her parent's history and her childhood.

'''"Sasha believed her daughter had 'gotten' this uniform fetish from her...a helpless turn toward images of authority..."''' 
Authority = God = election to Calvinist salvation. Pynchon's attitude towards authority in this context is pretty well spelled out in DL's angry-ironic monologue on schoolrooms (p.128): "...better just hand [your body] over to those who are qualified, doctors, and lab technicians and by extension coaches, employers, boys with hardons, so forth..."

==Page 85==
'''"a lot of people we know -- they ain't on the computer anymore. Just -- gone."''' 
Paranoia strikes deep, except this time it isn't just paranoia. This echoes the passengers vanishing from the Kahuna Airlines plane in Chapter 5, and foreshadows the "handful of persons unaccounted for" (p. 248) after Trasero County events to be revealed presently. It seems that Vond (or certain "unrelenting forces" that may, or may not, be connected with Vond) have been "disappearing" people for some time.

==Page 87==
'''Long Bihn Jail''' 
Long Bihn was the principal US military prison in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Located in Saigon, and best known as "The LBJ" by the troops, it housed US military personnel who had crossed to the dark side.

'''"...a kind of alien-invasion game in which Flash launched complaints of different sizes at different speeds and Frenesi tried to deflect or neutralize them..."''' 
A marital argument is described with a Space Invaders simile. Very telling, very clever.

==Page 90==
'''"Jasonic"''' 
From Jason, the main character in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th_%28film%29 ''Friday the 13th''] [1980].

'''"alphanumeric"''' 
letters and numbers, like a typewriter keyboard.

'''"It would take eight human lives and deaths just to form one character..."''' 
Computer reference: eight bits, each of which can be either a one or a zero, make one byte (or alphanumeric character).

'''"We are digits in God's computer...and the only thing we're good for, to be dead or to be living, is the only thing He sees. What we cry, what we contend for, in our world of toil and blood, it all lies beneath the notice of the hacker we call God."''' 
The life-and-death-as-ones-and-zeros conceit is concluded. A beautiful, elegant, unbearable idea. The phrase "toil and blood" may be a tip of the hat to Bob Dylan (the same words occur in "Shelter From the Storm"), or it may simply be a reference to Winston Churchill's famous WW II speech.

{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 6

2008-03-07T01:01:23Z

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{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 68==
'''"a pale humid Sun Belt city whose almost-familiar name would soon enough be denied to civilian eyes by federal marker pens"''' 
That is, censored in Frenesi's Freedom-of-Information file. This marker-pen image recurs later, too. One gets the feeling that Pynchon has, at one time or another, worked with such files -- or looked at his own.

==Page 70==
'''"once you get that specialist's code..."''' 
Frenesi has the specialist's code for sexual betrayal. Cold.

==Page 71==
'''"a zombie at her back"''' 
Frenesi's past. Embodied, we shall see later, by the Thanatoid Weed.

'''"full-auto qualified"''' 
More military usage. Technically, this means qualified in automatic-fire weaponry, but the meaning here seems more like: empowered, into her own.

'''"When the sixties were over...a world based on the one and zero of life and death..."''' 
A moving section, extremely fine writing, and the first appearance of Pynchon's powerful binary metaphor -- which rolls on to the end of the chapter, and indeed, throughout the book. Actually, it first appeared near the end of [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49'']: "For it was now like walking among matrices of a great digital computer, the zeros and ones twinned above.... Ones and Zeros. So did the couples arrange themselves...[for example,] either an accommodation reached...with the Angel of Death, or only death and the daily, tedious preparations for it. Another mode of meaning behind the obvious, or none."

==Page 74==
'''gaffer''' 
The movie electrician who sets up the stage lights for filming; probably a member of IBEW (IATSE local 40),

==Page 75==
'''"all over the jukeboxes..."''' 
Pynchon makes a rare departure from his usual devil-may-care style to explain one of his weird names. Frenesi's parents named her after the popular [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artie_Shaw Artie Shaw] swing tune.

'''"Her father, Jess Traverse, trying to organize loggers in Vineland..."''' 
Frenesi, and thus Prairie, are descendants of the Traverse clan, the arguably central protagonists of Pynchon's "Against the Day". For more detail see the Traverse entry in the "Against the Day" wiki.
On the following page Pynchon relays the meeting of Jess and Eula Becker, Sasha's mother. However on p.1076 of AtD the adolescent Jess brings home a homework assignment from a Mr. Becker, an essay on "What It Means To Be An American."
It means do what they tell you and take what they give you and don't go on strike or their soldiers will shoot you down. It came back with a big A+ on it. Mr. Becker was at the Cour d'Alene back in the olden days. Guess I forgot to mention that.
AtD leaves the Traverse clan in what is implied to be northwestern Washington state.

'''"Crocker 'Bud' Scantling"''' 
An appropriate name for a logging goon, since a scantling is, among other things, a small wooden beam, or a small timber. As Pynchon tells the tale, Scantling was hired by "big timber" (the Employers Association), to help eradicate the "timber beast" (the IWW). Scantling's first name may be a reference to Charles Crocker, a 19th Century California tycoon who made a fortune building the Union Pacific Railroad.

'''"the Employer's Association"''' 
of the State of Washington was the anti-wobbly arm of the Lumber Trust. In April, 1918, its hired thugs raided the IWW headquarters in Centralia, Washington -- leading, inevitably, to yet another massacre in Centralia during the Armistice Day parade, November 11, 1919.

'''"...a local attorney for the damned, sure no George Vandeveer..."''' 
George F. Vanderveer (either Pynchon, his editor, or his typesetter has misspelled the name) was a prominent Seattle attorney in the 'teens, popularly known as "counsel for the damned." In 1917 Vanderveer successfully defended IWW members in the legal free-for-all following a series of violent confrontations in Washington state in which Wobblies were slugged, kidnapped, shot, hanged, tarred and feathered, driven out of town -- and, when all else failed, jailed and charged with treason for endangering the war effort.

Subsequently Vanderveer became chief counsel for the IWW, and in 1918 headed the defense of 101 Wobblies against bogus charges of sabotage, and conspiracy to obstruct the war. The trial lasted five months; it was the longest criminal trial ever held in the United States to that date. Despite Vanderveer's best efforts, all 101 defendants were found guilty, and given long sentences by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis (later the first Commissioner of Baseball). This was the beginning of the end for the IWW, although it lingered long enough to contribute to the events described in this chapter, and remained technically active well into the sixties.

==Page 76==
'''"Wobblies, sneered at by property owners..."''' 
Wobblies = members of the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wobblies IWW, the Industrial Workers of the World]. And definitely preterite.

'''"bindlestiff life"''' 
Hobolike. Bindle = bundle, usually a hobo's clothes and stuff, rolled up in bedroll. Hence, "Bindlestiff" = hobo, a stiff with a bindle, but sometimes a thief who will stiff you of your bindle. Note: [http://against-the-day.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=B#bindlestiffs Bindlestiffs of the Blue in ''Against the Day'']

'''"One Big Union"''' 
Often confused with the IWW, this was actually an earlier labor movement that led to the formation of the IWW. First seen around the turn of the century, it was supposed to be organized along industrial, rather than trade lines. The Lumber Trust, which controlled the authorities in the area, called this movement "The Timber Beast," and did its best to eradicate it. Nonetheless, in the early 'teens it took hold among Northwest loggers, most of whom eventually joined the IWW.

'''"Joe Hill"''' 
(1882 - 1915) was a Swedish emigrant who arrived in the US in 1901, and fought in the Mexican revolution before becoming an IWW organizer in California in 1912. A songwriter as well as a soldier of fortune, he is credited as the author of many labor union songs, including Casey Jones (The Union Scab), The Preacher and the Slave, Rebel Girl, Pie In the Sky When You Die, and many others. In 1915, Hill was framed on a murder charge, and executed by firing squad, in Utah. Whether in spite of, or because of, his murder, he went on to become a legendary labor hero, inspiring countless thousands of working men and women. Hill's life fully justifies his legend.

'''"piss on through"''' 
As opposed to "pass on through." Nice bit of local/period usage -- unless it's a typo.

'''"the City"''' 
There's only one: San Francisco. Pynchon's flawless idiomatic usage reveals him to have spent at least some time in the Bay Area.

==Page 77==
'''"a rip-roaring union town..."''' 
Excellent details of pre-war labor history in San Francisco.

'''"the General strike of '34"''' 
The surprisingly successful San Francisco General Strike of July, 1934, was initiated by Harry Bridges' Longshoremen's Union, along with a number of other unionized maritime workers. Jack London wrote about it in his story, "South O' the Slot." Although the authorities eventually succeeded in putting it down, some of the strikers' demands were actually met. As a result, "strike fever" spread throughout the US, especially in the coal mining, and textile industries, and among agricultural workers. Pynchon lists some of the west coast agricultural strikes.

'''"standing midwatch guard"''' 
Midwatch is a Naval term, probably an abbreviation of "midnight watch" since the midwatch (also known as the "balls to four") is the stint between midnight and 4 AM. It's followed by the dogwatch (4 AM to 8 AM).

'''"Tom Mooney"''' 
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mooney Thomas J. Mooney] was a famous jailed radical, for whom thousands of picket signs ("Free Tom Mooney") were carried by thousands of lefties during the twenties and thirties. In 1915, Mooney was the foremost labor radical in San Francisco. He was solidly against the United Railroads of San Francisco, which in turn put its money behind Charles M. Fickert, a leader of the "crush the unions" drive. On July 22, 1916, Fickert framed Mooney by staging a homicidal dynamite blast on Market Street. Ten people were killed; Mooney (and Warren K. Billings) were held in prison until 1939, when they were pardoned by California Governor Culbert L. Olson.

'''"Campaign for Culber Olson in '38"''' 
Another typo/misspelling. This must be the lawyer, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culbert_L._Olson Culbert L. Olson], who eventually freed Tom Mooney.

==Page 78==
'''"Oh, the joints were jumping those nights..."''' 
Pynchon does a great job of capturing the wartime atmosphere in San Francisco, with a cute ref to Orson Welles' War of the Worlds radio broadcast.

'''"Wild and rowdy like the Clark Gable movie."''' 
That's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_%28film%29 ''San Francisco''] [1936].

'''Eddie Enrico and his Hong Kong Hotshots''' 
Some readers believe that Pynchon’s creation of Eddie Enrico and his Hong Kong Hotshots is a reference to Earl Mac Rauch’s 1984 film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Buckaroo_Banzai_Across_the_8th_Dimension ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension''] (which itself contains references to [http://cl49.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''The Crying of Lot 49'']) — and in which Buckaroo Banzai plays in a band called the Hong Kong Cavaliers. Your call.

:There is also the famous Enrico's Sidewalk Cafe in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, home of the beats. Around since 1959, it garnered a cameo as a boho rendezvous spot in the 1968 San Francisco film [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullitt ''Bullitt''] starring Steve McQueen.

'''"Ramón Raquello...with the news from Mars"''' 
Fictional bandleader and fictional event, both created by Orson Welles’ Mercury Players for the famous War of the Worlds radio broadcast on 30 Oct 1938.

==Page 79==
'''"Chinese references in those days [were] code for opium products"''' 
A fascinating (and typically Pynchonian) inside "period" tip.

'''"ork"''' 
Pynchon uses this obscure bit of (presumably) forties slang, meaning orchestra, at least twice in Vineland. We've never run across it in any of our period reading or listening. However, in Kovacsland, a biography of Ernie Kovacs, author Diana Rico makes reference to Kovacs' habit of "creating a special language" in a column he wrote, briefly, for a newspaper called the Trentonian. ["Special language" = "idiolalia." See note on p. 263. A paranoid would connect these, but we'll pass.] To illustrate her point, she notes Kovacs' habitual use of the word "orks," meaning orchestras. Now Kovacs was writing in 1946, so there are two intriguing possibilities: 1) Rico is wrong; Kovacs didn't make up the term, he picked it up from hearing it used, thereby verifying Pynchon's correct use of it. Or, 2), Kovacs did invent the term, and Pynchon picked it up from reading one of Kovacs' columns.

'''"telegraphing the chord changes"''' 
Only musicians think about these details; another hint of Pynchon's musical predilections.

'''"gave her the O-O"''' 
O-O = the once-over. But the way it looks on the page also suggests "the big eye," or in this case, two of 'em.

==Page 80==
'''"long-hull Sumner-class destroyer"''' 
More Navy stuff, unlikely to be found in newspaper archives.

'''"Friends of Hub's had sold out friends of Sasha's..."''' 
Extremely accurate rendition of left-wing bitterness, with nice joke ("nobody talks") to cap it.

==Page 82==
'''"You want to see a hot set?....see that? Shook all over? That's scab carpentry..."''' 
Presumably the paint on the scab construction hadn't dried yet either. This is great, authentic-sounding slang.

'''"You want to see a hot set...some scab local the IA set up..."''' 
IA is short for IATSE – the International Alliance of Theatrical and Stage Employees. Originally a theatrical union for stagehands and set decorators, it expanded into Hollywood and the up-and-coming motion picture industry in the 1920s. In the early 1930s, the union was taken over by the Chicago crime syndicate headed by Frank Nitti — Al Capone’s successor. Throughout the '30s and '40s (and, some say, even today) IA was a so-called "sweetheart" union—meaning that it existed primarily to protect the studios from labor unrest. During those years IA paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to the mob. During the CSU strikes of 1945-1947 (see note, p. 289) "company" unions were formed by IA leaders for the express purpose of breaking the strikes. "Hot" was a term the far more radical CSU (Conference of Studio Unions) used to refer to sleazy sets constructed by these "scab" IA unions.

'''"loud birds...were attracted..."''' 
Not even birds can resist TV; it charms them out of the trees.

==Page 83==
'''"Believing that the rays coming out of the TV screen would act as a broom to sweep the room clear of all spirits, Frenesi now popped the Tube on and checked the listings."''' 
So we learn two more notable Tube Facts: TV has supernatural powers; and it sweeps out good, as well as bad spirits.

'''"Let the grim feminist rave..."''' 
Frenesi's fetish for men-in-uniform manifests itself in masturbatory fantasies featuring Ponch and Jon from CHiPs. This scene marks the return from Frenesi's flashback to her parent's history and her childhood.

'''"Sasha believed her daughter had 'gotten' this uniform fetish from her...a helpless turn toward images of authority..."''' 
Authority = God = election to Calvinist salvation. Pynchon's attitude towards authority in this context is pretty well spelled out in DL's angry-ironic monologue on schoolrooms (p.128): "...better just hand [your body] over to those who are qualified, doctors, and lab technicians and by extension coaches, employers, boys with hardons, so forth..."

==Page 85==
'''"a lot of people we know -- they ain't on the computer anymore. Just -- gone."''' 
Paranoia strikes deep, except this time it isn't just paranoia. This echoes the passengers vanishing from the Kahuna Airlines plane in Chapter 5, and foreshadows the "handful of persons unaccounted for" (p. 248) after Trasero County events to be revealed presently. It seems that Vond (or certain "unrelenting forces" that may, or may not, be connected with Vond) have been "disappearing" people for some time.

==Page 87==
'''Long Bihn Jail''' 
Long Bihn was the principal US military prison in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Located in Saigon, and best known as "The LBJ" by the troops, it housed US military personnel who had crossed to the dark side.

'''"...a kind of alien-invasion game in which Flash launched complaints of different sizes at different speeds and Frenesi tried to deflect or neutralize them..."''' 
A marital argument is described with a Space Invaders simile. Very telling, very clever.

==Page 90==
'''"Jasonic"''' 
From Jason, the main character in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th_%28film%29 ''Friday the 13th''] [1980].

'''"alphanumeric"''' 
letters and numbers, like a typewriter keyboard.

'''"It would take eight human lives and deaths just to form one character..."''' 
Computer reference: eight bits, each of which can be either a one or a zero, make one byte (or alphanumeric character).

'''"We are digits in God's computer...and the only thing we're good for, to be dead or to be living, is the only thing He sees. What we cry, what we contend for, in our world of toil and blood, it all lies beneath the notice of the hacker we call God."''' 
The life-and-death-as-ones-and-zeros conceit is concluded. A beautiful, elegant, unbearable idea. The phrase "toil and blood" may be a tip of the hat to Bob Dylan (the same words occur in "Shelter From the Storm"), or it may simply be a reference to Winston Churchill's famous WW II speech.

{{Vineland PbP}}