Thomas Pynchon Wiki - User contributions [en]

Chapter 9

2009-07-13T04:08:39Z

PaulL: /* Page 147 */

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 130==
'''"Fresson process studio photograph"''' 
Photographic printing process that uses coal to produce paper prints with a unique luminosity and grain. Fresson printing produces an image that is characteristically diffused and subtle, reminiscent of the "pointillism" of Impressionist painting. The image is extremely stable; Fresson printing is considered the most archival of any color procedure in use today.

==Page 131==
'''"If you want real ninja product..."''' 
The whole sequence about hiring an assassin is pure cyberpunk schtick.

'''"The Vibrating Palm"''' 
This may be a subtle reference to the old joke-store "buzzer" or "shocker" -- and resonates nicely with the rubber scampi on the previous page.

'''"YakMaf"''' 
Yakuza/Mafia.

==Page 133==
'''"legendary in the dopers' community"''' 
Olympic Boulevard, in Los Angeles, is a major arterial road stretching from 4th Street on the western end of Santa Monica to East Los Angeles -- farther than Wilshire Boulevard and most other streets. Why is the gas station toilet legendary? And why would DL care anyway? All she needs to do is change into her disguise.

In his 2009 psychedelic noir novel ''Inherent Vice'', Pynchon mentions another legendary restroom near Los Angeles:

:"the notorious Oscar's, right across the border from Tijuana, where the toilets were seething round the clock with junkies new and old who'd just scored in Mexico, put the product inside rubber balloons and swallowed them, then crossed back into the U.S. to vomit them back up again." (p.37)

Because this restroom is right across the border, it's not the "legendary" toilet on Olympic Boulevard.

'''"baby-blue shadows..."''' 
Nice description and a precursor to the color of Frenesi's eyes.

==Page 134==
'''"beige hose, white underwear..."''' 
Pynchon's description of DL's Clark Kent outfits is surprisingly accurate, especially for a male. It's like giving the O-O (see note, [[Chapter_6#Page_79|p. 79]]) to a nice Midwestern girl, circa 1960.

==Page 135==
'''"She wasn't sure right away that being sold into white slavery would turn out to be at all beneficial as a career step..."''' 
The kidnap-and-auction sequence is good, fast-moving storytelling: breathless, tense, gripping, light on flashy effects. This is also familiar cyberpunk territory, especially the interview with Wayvone.

==Page 136==
'''"older gentlemen with fingertip deficiencies..."''' 
Yakuza who have screwed up, and demonstrated their remorse by cutting off a fingertip.

==Page 139==
'''"Ufa, mi tratt' a pesci in faccia..."''' 
Literally, "Oof, you've thrown a fish in my face!" It's an ominous Sicilian warning meaning, "You've insulted me most unpleasantly, treated me in the worst possible way!"

==Page 141==
'''"I knew it!"''' 
Prairie breaking into the seamless narrative is almost a Brechtian alienation effect. By now the story is moving so strongly that we've totally forgotten the "as-told-to" frame.

'''"How could [Frenesi] have ever gone near somebody like this Brock guy?"''' 
Good question. Pynchon never really answers it -- unless we accept the idea of Frenesi embodying America's fatal fascination with authority.

'''"what-is-reality exercises"''' 
Reminiscent of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.

'''"Ninja Death Touch calculator"''' 
This joke strikes another false note. The entire sub-plot revolving around the Vibrating Palm is broad comedy, of course, but this smart-ass gag is severely out-of-scale.

==Page 142==
'''"might as well stay home -- watch a Run Run Shaw movie!"''' 
Hong-Kong-based Run-Run Shaw produced the popular (and violent) Bruce Lee karate flicks, also lots of action-packed swords and sorcery adventures (like the ones that clearly inspired a lot of the DL and Takeshi sub-plot).

'''"yellow headlamps of the tech squads..."''' 
The scene in the Footprint is reminiscent of the monolith excavation on the moon in 2001. Also, most of the Japanese dialogue is phrased in Pynchon's unique, sounds-just-like-a-movie style.

'''"...the shadowy world conglomerate Chipco..."''' 
This imaginary entity (an echo, perhaps of the sinister YoYoDyne Corporation in The Crying of Lot 49) is presumably some Intel-like company whose microprocessor chips are sold world wide. No doubt the chips are designed to keep a covert watch on everything, and report back to Chipco -- similar to Byron the Bulb and his fellow gridmates in Gravity's Rainbow.

'''"gigantic animal footprint"''' 
Godzilla's size is pretty well known, and this (as we shall see) sauroid footprint is too large to be that of the big G. However, Godzilla is a product of Japanese movie model technology of the fifties, so who knows what the eighties might bring?

'''"Wawazume Life & Non-Life"''' 
Is this a joke? And what kind? Maybe they insure things other than lives. Maybe Thanatoids get "non-life" insurance. Or it could just be a satirically "tactful" Japanese way of referring to death.

==Page 143==
'''"By the time...gods of the sky."''' 
Note that this immensely long and complicated sentence takes up more than half the page!

==Page 145==
'''"Singapore Sling"''' 
A frivolous cocktail with a pleasant flavor and a lethal punch: the signature drink of the bar at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, a British colony taken by the Japanese in WWII. Conceivably, Minoru might have been stationed there, and picked up a liking for this tourist syrup.

==Page 146==
'''"Chuck, the world's most invisible robot"''' 
Like the fastest draw in the West. Want to see it again?

'''"some planet-wide struggle had been going on for years"''' 
More Pynchonian paranoia.

'''"the Himalayan caper"''' 
Story is written in mock Le Carre shorthand. Here (as elsewhere) Pynchon penetrates to the essence of a genre and gives us a few masterly strokes that evoke the same effect as an entire novel by a lesser writer.

'''"Semtex"''' 
For many years, Semtex has been the plastic explosive of choice for sophisticated aircraft bombers and other terrorists.

'''"pirate ships of the stratosphere"''' 
Presumably, they mount attacks like the one on the Kahuna flight.

==Page 147==
'''"Kutsushita-san!"''' 
lit. "Mr. Socks!"

'''"We called you the Kid."''' 
As in, "I never did the Kenosha Kid?" (See Gravity's Rainbow, p. 60.)

'''"disco music coming out the club doors"''' 
Cyberpunk atmosphere.

==Page 148==
'''"The Yak Doc Workshop"''' 
This may be a riff on Doc Yak, a comic book character.

'''"Takeshi...saw Vond...and thought...it was himself..."''' 
Vond and Takeshi look alike. Does this, as they say, signify? Takeshi as anti-Vond? It's hard to imagine a dark Japanese and a light Caucasian looking alike, but anyway, there's one for each of the tomatoes: an adjuster (insurance or karma, ma'am?) for DL, and a badass for Frenesi.

'''"''gaijin''"''' 
Japanese for foreigner, stranger, outsider.

==Page 149==
'''"Found a cab"''' 
Once again Prairie startles us by breaking into the gripping flashback narrative, but this time the present-tense Takeshi breaks in with her, having just arrived at the SKA retreat. Very cinematic. Takeshi moves instantaneously from past to present, a double-exposure match-dissolve effect.

'''"Moe!"''' 
The first of several references to [http://en.wikipedia.org/Three_stooges The Three Stooges], a nothing-if-not-preterite comedy trio specializing in crude, cruel slapstick.

'''"fingering its smooth rigid contours"''' 
The mock-porno is cute.

==Page 151==
'''"I couldn't see shit."''' 
DL mistakes Takeshi for Vond because of her fuzzy contact lenses. This mistaken-identity riff is worthy of Shakespeare at his most far-fetched and funny.

'''"Eeoo!"''' 
Flash! Pynchon's ear fails! This just isn't as close to the Valspeak expression of disgust as we expect from our boy. The transliteration needs a little more "u" or something.

==Page 153==
'''"Fuckin' Vond. He's the Roadrunner."''' 
Yes, he is.

==Page 154==
'''"Licensed DOM's"''' 
Doctor of Medicine?

==Page 155==
'''"Ninjette Coffee Mess"''' 
Navspeak. In the military, particularly the Navy, coffee mess is a little area where the coffee maker, cups, etc. are kept.

==Page 156==
'''"dorai kuriiningu"''' 
"dry cleaner" More Jive Japlish.

'''"perchloroethylene"''' 
A highly toxic chemical often used for cleaning movie film.

==Page 157==
'''"Not a bar, Fumimota-san."''' 
Silly joke, nicely placed.

==Page 158==
'''"Evoex"''' 
The etymology of this new tranquilizer is clearly from the bacchanalian ejaculation (and crossword puzzle word) "evoe!"

==Page 159==
'''"Michiko Yomama"''' 
A nasty pun, based on the black insult, "Yo' mama!" Let your guard down for a second, and the guy slips in one of these every time.

==Page 160==
'''"Nukey"''' 
Orgasm and atomic detonation meet in one of Pynchon's most awful/wonderful puns (nuke = nookey).

==Page 161==
'''"technically dead"''' 
Since Takeshi lives without fear, this makes him a perfect samurai, and echoes the idea on p. 29 about how a samurai is always prepared to die.

==Page 162==
'''"Just Like a William Powell"''' 
Echoes "Like a Meat Loaf" (p. 363), and, of course, Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues."

==Page 163==
'''"Which reminds me, about your PX bill..."''' 
If you had any doubts about the samurai/ninjette subplot being for laughs, this page should convince you.

==Page 164==
'''"Puncutron"''' 
An imaginary therapeutic device whose name suggests an infernal combination of eastern medicine (acupuncture) and high-energy western technology (cyclotron). There's a bit of "punk" in there, too.

'''"Detractors included...managed to keep."''' 
A silly sentence, written in painful mock-German syntax for no discernible reason.

'''"Taiwanese Healthy Brain Aerobics"''' 
More foolishness, this time mixed with music. The selection of tapes for Puncutron listening includes The All-Regimental Bagpipes play Prime Time Favorites (the Tube again!), and perhaps Pynchon's best judgmental title: The Chipmunks Sing Marvin Hamlisch.

==Page 166==
'''"...men convinced us that we were the natural administrators of this thing 'morality'..."''' 
Sister Rochelle's feminist Eden parable suggests an interesting modern scenario: Frenesi = Eve, DL = Lilith, Vond = Serpent. This would help explain Frenesi/America's irresistible attraction for the authoritarian Vond.

==Page 167==
'''"The Ordeal of the Thousand Broadway Show Tunes"''' 
Transcendental malarkey.

'''"YOUR MAMA EATS, how can we resist?"''' 
Aggro dining.

==Page 169==
'''"Cheapsat"''' 
Preterite communications personified.

==Page 170==
'''"Like Death, Only Different."''' 
While this is a nice definition of the "oid" suffix, it begs the question of exactly what Thanatoid's are.

'''"But we watch a lot of Tube"''' 
Thanatoids watch lots of TV, trying to advance further into the condition of death. This makes them Reaganite kids? Couch potatoes? Embittered hippies? Everyone in America? Anyway, advancing further into the condition of death is only a restatement of the law of entropy, which may mean that everyone in the universe is a Thanatoid.

==Page 171==
'''"checking the edges of the frame."''' 
Does this mean Takeshi's in a film? Or is Pynchon just grabbing a handy cinema term?

'''"go the opposite way! Back to life!"''' 
This anti-entropic movement makes Takeshi a great hero, a symbol of intelligence (the only truly anti-entropic entity), the life force.

==Page 172==
'''"Shade"''' 
(as in Shade Creek) = ghost.

'''"thick fluids in flexible containers"''' 
i.e., scumbags

'''"The Woodbine Motel"''' 
Harks back, perchance, to the 1870's, the Union Pacific railroad scandal, and the Credit Mobilier. When one party was asked, under oath, where the money was, he replied that it had "gone where the woodbine twineth."

'''"The Zero Inn"''' 
Very thanatoid, preterite and Zoyd-like. Also another zero.

==Page 173==
'''Thanatoids are "victims of karmic imbalances unanswered blows, unredeemed suffering..."''' 
So are the Thanatoids victims of the Seventies? Or another version of the preterites in Gravity's Rainbow? Maybe they're just over-determined ghosts of some sort. This description is similar to the kind of thing that psychics talk about when they're trying to make your poltergeists go away; it's the unresolved baggage that keeps the ghosties on the move, and out of wherever they belong. Remember, too, that Shade Creek is "a psychic jumping-off town" where the Thanatoids wait "for the data necessary to pursue their needs and aims (i.e., ghostlike revenge) among the still living..." ([[#Page 171|p. 171]])

'''"Although the streets were irregular and steeply pitched..."''' 
The description is an attempt to capture the effect of an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher M.C. Escher] drawing or perhaps the Expressionist sets in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligari ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari''] [1920].

==Page 174==
'''Thanatoids are injured by "what was done to them."''' 
Here they seem like left-over hippies, Vietnam vets, America's victims. Preterites who want revenge.

'''"The amount of memory on a chip doubles every year and a half!"''' 
Sounds like a variant on Moore's Law, that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

==Page 175==
'''"Karmic adjustment"''' 
Well, yes, it's a nice progression from insurance adjustment, but what does Takeshi actually do? Prairie is still wondering on page 192, and DL never lets on. In any case, it looks like these Thanatoids are dead California yuppies; a resource to be exploited by preterite tradesmen.

'''"interesting work with airplanes"''' 
So, during World War II Takeshi was a kamikaze hence the same Takeshi who's in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']! (See Viking edition, [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_674-700 page 690]) This brings up an interesting, though peripheral issue: As a Kamikaze, Takeshi flew a Zero. A-and there's a reference on [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_663-673 page 672] (of ''GR'') to "Zeros bearing comrades away," reminding us of those human lives as binary code in God's PC. As noted, there are lots of other "zero" reverences (that's a pun, not a typo) in ''Vineland''.

==Page 176==
'''"Domo komarimashita!"''' 
Japanese for "Thanks a lot!" or "You're welcome."

==Page 178==
'''"Interpersonal Programming and the Problem Towee"''' 
Pynchon definitely has an attitude on this kind of California stuff. He also seems to have a grudge against Mercedes drivers.

'''"Sounds like the team I bet on last week."''' 
Vato gets to make the bad pun this time. This is a great montage of the growing relationship between Vato, Blood, Takeshi, and DL.

==Page 179==
'''"Vato wanted it to be a sitcom."''' 
Another example of how deeply TV has invaded our thoughts.

==Page 180==
'''"I'm Chip! I'm Dale!"''' 
A sly comparison of chipmunks: Disney's cartoonic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_%27n_Dale Chip 'n Dale] v. Bagdasarian's sonic Alvin, Simon, and Theodore ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chipmunks "Alvin and the Chipmunks"]).

==Page 186==
'''"octogenarihexation"''' 
86'd = thrown out, usually in reference to a drinking establishment. [[Chapter_15#Page_342|See also 43'd, p.342...]]

'''"Yuroks"''' 
The native American Yurok tribe lives along the lower 36 miles of the Klamath River, and along the California coast from Wilson Creek to Trinidad Bay. This may provide a clue to the location of Vineland County. Being Indians, the Yuroks are, naturally, preterite in the Pynchon universe. The woge (note lower case) seem to be Yurok thanatoids, therefore ultra-preterite.

==Page 187==
'''"Bernard Herrmann"''' 
The famous film composer, whose credits include, among many other great picture soundtracks, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock's] classics [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_%281960_film%29 ''Psycho''] [1960] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_%28film%29 ''Vertigo'' [1958].

'''"A Toyota in the treetops"''' 
Is this a tip of the hat to the boat in the tree in Marquez's famous novel of magic realism, ''One Hundred Years of Solitude''?

'''"...vanish unaccountably between Shade Creek and the V & B pound, as Thanatoid units...had been known to do..."''' 
Vanishing Thanatoid cars may push the envelope of fantasy a bit too far. And yet, and yet... They wind up in the tops of trees, you see. It's kind of like 'toon cars: 'toons can drive real cars, real people can drive 'toon cars. Plus, it sets up (much later) the disappearance of Vond's ride in Chapter 15.

==Page 188==
'''Sate..."''' 
A totally abrupt scene-change to Takeshi's, a literary jump cut.

'''"Weed Atman"''' 
Another great name. Weed = marijuana. Also perhaps, an echo of Steven Weed, abandoned boyfriend of heiress Patty Hearst, which raises a very faint reverberation of Frenesi as Patty-in-reverse. Atman = Hindu for breath, the principle of life, the World Soul.

'''"Prairie was hearing this, in her turn, from DL..."''' 
Prairie breaks into the narrative, bouncing us unexpectedly back to the present. These abrupt break-ins by Prairie are fun.

==Page 189==
'''"Variety Loaves...not, as once supposed, safely dead but no, only, queerly, sleeping..."''' 
Thanatoid lunch meat!

==Page 190==
'''"Me gotta go"''' 
A line from Richard Berry's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie "Louie Louie], made famous by the Kingsmen."

==Page 191==
'''"FFAR"''' 
Folding Fin Aircraft Rocket Launcher, a rather nasty device attached to Apache helicopters around about the time Pynchon was writing Vineland.

'''"Kick Out the Jambs"''' 
Definitely a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MC_5 the MC 5] tune "Kick Out the Jams." But is "jambs" a typo or a pun?
{{Vineland PbP}}

Chapter 9

2009-07-13T04:03:36Z

PaulL: /* Page 174 */

{{Vineland PbP Text}}

==Page 130==
'''"Fresson process studio photograph"''' 
Photographic printing process that uses coal to produce paper prints with a unique luminosity and grain. Fresson printing produces an image that is characteristically diffused and subtle, reminiscent of the "pointillism" of Impressionist painting. The image is extremely stable; Fresson printing is considered the most archival of any color procedure in use today.

==Page 131==
'''"If you want real ninja product..."''' 
The whole sequence about hiring an assassin is pure cyberpunk schtick.

'''"The Vibrating Palm"''' 
This may be a subtle reference to the old joke-store "buzzer" or "shocker" -- and resonates nicely with the rubber scampi on the previous page.

'''"YakMaf"''' 
Yakuza/Mafia.

==Page 133==
'''"legendary in the dopers' community"''' 
Olympic Boulevard, in Los Angeles, is a major arterial road stretching from 4th Street on the western end of Santa Monica to East Los Angeles -- farther than Wilshire Boulevard and most other streets. Why is the gas station toilet legendary? And why would DL care anyway? All she needs to do is change into her disguise.

In his 2009 psychedelic noir novel ''Inherent Vice'', Pynchon mentions another legendary restroom near Los Angeles:

:"the notorious Oscar's, right across the border from Tijuana, where the toilets were seething round the clock with junkies new and old who'd just scored in Mexico, put the product inside rubber balloons and swallowed them, then crossed back into the U.S. to vomit them back up again." (p.37)

Because this restroom is right across the border, it's not the "legendary" toilet on Olympic Boulevard.

'''"baby-blue shadows..."''' 
Nice description and a precursor to the color of Frenesi's eyes.

==Page 134==
'''"beige hose, white underwear..."''' 
Pynchon's description of DL's Clark Kent outfits is surprisingly accurate, especially for a male. It's like giving the O-O (see note, [[Chapter_6#Page_79|p. 79]]) to a nice Midwestern girl, circa 1960.

==Page 135==
'''"She wasn't sure right away that being sold into white slavery would turn out to be at all beneficial as a career step..."''' 
The kidnap-and-auction sequence is good, fast-moving storytelling: breathless, tense, gripping, light on flashy effects. This is also familiar cyberpunk territory, especially the interview with Wayvone.

==Page 136==
'''"older gentlemen with fingertip deficiencies..."''' 
Yakuza who have screwed up, and demonstrated their remorse by cutting off a fingertip.

==Page 139==
'''"Ufa, mi tratt' a pesci in faccia..."''' 
Literally, "Oof, you've thrown a fish in my face!" It's an ominous Sicilian warning meaning, "You've insulted me most unpleasantly, treated me in the worst possible way!"

==Page 141==
'''"I knew it!"''' 
Prairie breaking into the seamless narrative is almost a Brechtian alienation effect. By now the story is moving so strongly that we've totally forgotten the "as-told-to" frame.

'''"How could [Frenesi] have ever gone near somebody like this Brock guy?"''' 
Good question. Pynchon never really answers it -- unless we accept the idea of Frenesi embodying America's fatal fascination with authority.

'''"what-is-reality exercises"''' 
Reminiscent of science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.

'''"Ninja Death Touch calculator"''' 
This joke strikes another false note. The entire sub-plot revolving around the Vibrating Palm is broad comedy, of course, but this smart-ass gag is severely out-of-scale.

==Page 142==
'''"might as well stay home -- watch a Run Run Shaw movie!"''' 
Hong-Kong-based Run-Run Shaw produced the popular (and violent) Bruce Lee karate flicks, also lots of action-packed swords and sorcery adventures (like the ones that clearly inspired a lot of the DL and Takeshi sub-plot).

'''"yellow headlamps of the tech squads..."''' 
The scene in the Footprint is reminiscent of the monolith excavation on the moon in 2001. Also, most of the Japanese dialogue is phrased in Pynchon's unique, sounds-just-like-a-movie style.

'''"...the shadowy world conglomerate Chipco..."''' 
This imaginary entity (an echo, perhaps of the sinister YoYoDyne Corporation in The Crying of Lot 49) is presumably some Intel-like company whose microprocessor chips are sold world wide. No doubt the chips are designed to keep a covert watch on everything, and report back to Chipco -- similar to Byron the Bulb and his fellow gridmates in Gravity's Rainbow.

'''"gigantic animal footprint"''' 
Godzilla's size is pretty well known, and this (as we shall see) sauroid footprint is too large to be that of the big G. However, Godzilla is a product of Japanese movie model technology of the fifties, so who knows what the eighties might bring?

'''"Wawazume Life & Non-Life"''' 
Is this a joke? And what kind? Maybe they insure things other than lives. Maybe Thanatoids get "non-life" insurance. Or it could just be a satirically "tactful" Japanese way of referring to death.

==Page 143==
'''"By the time...gods of the sky."''' 
Note that this immensely long and complicated sentence takes up more than half the page!

==Page 145==
'''"Singapore Sling"''' 
A frivolous cocktail with a pleasant flavor and a lethal punch: the signature drink of the bar at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, a British colony taken by the Japanese in WWII. Conceivably, Minoru might have been stationed there, and picked up a liking for this tourist syrup.

==Page 146==
'''"Chuck, the world's most invisible robot"''' 
Like the fastest draw in the West. Want to see it again?

'''"some planet-wide struggle had been going on for years"''' 
More Pynchonian paranoia.

'''"the Himalayan caper"''' 
Story is written in mock Le Carre shorthand. Here (as elsewhere) Pynchon penetrates to the essence of a genre and gives us a few masterly strokes that evoke the same effect as an entire novel by a lesser writer.

'''"Semtex"''' 
For many years, Semtex has been the plastic explosive of choice for sophisticated aircraft bombers and other terrorists.

'''"pirate ships of the stratosphere"''' 
Presumably, they mount attacks like the one on the Kahuna flight.

==Page 147==
'''"We called you the Kid."''' 
As in, "I never did the Kenosha Kid?" (See Gravity's Rainbow, p. 60.)

'''"disco music coming out the club doors"''' 
Cyberpunk atmosphere.

==Page 148==
'''"The Yak Doc Workshop"''' 
This may be a riff on Doc Yak, a comic book character.

'''"Takeshi...saw Vond...and thought...it was himself..."''' 
Vond and Takeshi look alike. Does this, as they say, signify? Takeshi as anti-Vond? It's hard to imagine a dark Japanese and a light Caucasian looking alike, but anyway, there's one for each of the tomatoes: an adjuster (insurance or karma, ma'am?) for DL, and a badass for Frenesi.

'''"''gaijin''"''' 
Japanese for foreigner, stranger, outsider.

==Page 149==
'''"Found a cab"''' 
Once again Prairie startles us by breaking into the gripping flashback narrative, but this time the present-tense Takeshi breaks in with her, having just arrived at the SKA retreat. Very cinematic. Takeshi moves instantaneously from past to present, a double-exposure match-dissolve effect.

'''"Moe!"''' 
The first of several references to [http://en.wikipedia.org/Three_stooges The Three Stooges], a nothing-if-not-preterite comedy trio specializing in crude, cruel slapstick.

'''"fingering its smooth rigid contours"''' 
The mock-porno is cute.

==Page 151==
'''"I couldn't see shit."''' 
DL mistakes Takeshi for Vond because of her fuzzy contact lenses. This mistaken-identity riff is worthy of Shakespeare at his most far-fetched and funny.

'''"Eeoo!"''' 
Flash! Pynchon's ear fails! This just isn't as close to the Valspeak expression of disgust as we expect from our boy. The transliteration needs a little more "u" or something.

==Page 153==
'''"Fuckin' Vond. He's the Roadrunner."''' 
Yes, he is.

==Page 154==
'''"Licensed DOM's"''' 
Doctor of Medicine?

==Page 155==
'''"Ninjette Coffee Mess"''' 
Navspeak. In the military, particularly the Navy, coffee mess is a little area where the coffee maker, cups, etc. are kept.

==Page 156==
'''"dorai kuriiningu"''' 
"dry cleaner" More Jive Japlish.

'''"perchloroethylene"''' 
A highly toxic chemical often used for cleaning movie film.

==Page 157==
'''"Not a bar, Fumimota-san."''' 
Silly joke, nicely placed.

==Page 158==
'''"Evoex"''' 
The etymology of this new tranquilizer is clearly from the bacchanalian ejaculation (and crossword puzzle word) "evoe!"

==Page 159==
'''"Michiko Yomama"''' 
A nasty pun, based on the black insult, "Yo' mama!" Let your guard down for a second, and the guy slips in one of these every time.

==Page 160==
'''"Nukey"''' 
Orgasm and atomic detonation meet in one of Pynchon's most awful/wonderful puns (nuke = nookey).

==Page 161==
'''"technically dead"''' 
Since Takeshi lives without fear, this makes him a perfect samurai, and echoes the idea on p. 29 about how a samurai is always prepared to die.

==Page 162==
'''"Just Like a William Powell"''' 
Echoes "Like a Meat Loaf" (p. 363), and, of course, Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues."

==Page 163==
'''"Which reminds me, about your PX bill..."''' 
If you had any doubts about the samurai/ninjette subplot being for laughs, this page should convince you.

==Page 164==
'''"Puncutron"''' 
An imaginary therapeutic device whose name suggests an infernal combination of eastern medicine (acupuncture) and high-energy western technology (cyclotron). There's a bit of "punk" in there, too.

'''"Detractors included...managed to keep."''' 
A silly sentence, written in painful mock-German syntax for no discernible reason.

'''"Taiwanese Healthy Brain Aerobics"''' 
More foolishness, this time mixed with music. The selection of tapes for Puncutron listening includes The All-Regimental Bagpipes play Prime Time Favorites (the Tube again!), and perhaps Pynchon's best judgmental title: The Chipmunks Sing Marvin Hamlisch.

==Page 166==
'''"...men convinced us that we were the natural administrators of this thing 'morality'..."''' 
Sister Rochelle's feminist Eden parable suggests an interesting modern scenario: Frenesi = Eve, DL = Lilith, Vond = Serpent. This would help explain Frenesi/America's irresistible attraction for the authoritarian Vond.

==Page 167==
'''"The Ordeal of the Thousand Broadway Show Tunes"''' 
Transcendental malarkey.

'''"YOUR MAMA EATS, how can we resist?"''' 
Aggro dining.

==Page 169==
'''"Cheapsat"''' 
Preterite communications personified.

==Page 170==
'''"Like Death, Only Different."''' 
While this is a nice definition of the "oid" suffix, it begs the question of exactly what Thanatoid's are.

'''"But we watch a lot of Tube"''' 
Thanatoids watch lots of TV, trying to advance further into the condition of death. This makes them Reaganite kids? Couch potatoes? Embittered hippies? Everyone in America? Anyway, advancing further into the condition of death is only a restatement of the law of entropy, which may mean that everyone in the universe is a Thanatoid.

==Page 171==
'''"checking the edges of the frame."''' 
Does this mean Takeshi's in a film? Or is Pynchon just grabbing a handy cinema term?

'''"go the opposite way! Back to life!"''' 
This anti-entropic movement makes Takeshi a great hero, a symbol of intelligence (the only truly anti-entropic entity), the life force.

==Page 172==
'''"Shade"''' 
(as in Shade Creek) = ghost.

'''"thick fluids in flexible containers"''' 
i.e., scumbags

'''"The Woodbine Motel"''' 
Harks back, perchance, to the 1870's, the Union Pacific railroad scandal, and the Credit Mobilier. When one party was asked, under oath, where the money was, he replied that it had "gone where the woodbine twineth."

'''"The Zero Inn"''' 
Very thanatoid, preterite and Zoyd-like. Also another zero.

==Page 173==
'''Thanatoids are "victims of karmic imbalances unanswered blows, unredeemed suffering..."''' 
So are the Thanatoids victims of the Seventies? Or another version of the preterites in Gravity's Rainbow? Maybe they're just over-determined ghosts of some sort. This description is similar to the kind of thing that psychics talk about when they're trying to make your poltergeists go away; it's the unresolved baggage that keeps the ghosties on the move, and out of wherever they belong. Remember, too, that Shade Creek is "a psychic jumping-off town" where the Thanatoids wait "for the data necessary to pursue their needs and aims (i.e., ghostlike revenge) among the still living..." ([[#Page 171|p. 171]])

'''"Although the streets were irregular and steeply pitched..."''' 
The description is an attempt to capture the effect of an [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher M.C. Escher] drawing or perhaps the Expressionist sets in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caligari ''The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari''] [1920].

==Page 174==
'''Thanatoids are injured by "what was done to them."''' 
Here they seem like left-over hippies, Vietnam vets, America's victims. Preterites who want revenge.

'''"The amount of memory on a chip doubles every year and a half!"''' 
Sounds like a variant on Moore's Law, that the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law

==Page 175==
'''"Karmic adjustment"''' 
Well, yes, it's a nice progression from insurance adjustment, but what does Takeshi actually do? Prairie is still wondering on page 192, and DL never lets on. In any case, it looks like these Thanatoids are dead California yuppies; a resource to be exploited by preterite tradesmen.

'''"interesting work with airplanes"''' 
So, during World War II Takeshi was a kamikaze hence the same Takeshi who's in [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow'']! (See Viking edition, [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_674-700 page 690]) This brings up an interesting, though peripheral issue: As a Kamikaze, Takeshi flew a Zero. A-and there's a reference on [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Pages_663-673 page 672] (of ''GR'') to "Zeros bearing comrades away," reminding us of those human lives as binary code in God's PC. As noted, there are lots of other "zero" reverences (that's a pun, not a typo) in ''Vineland''.

==Page 176==
'''"Domo komarimashita!"''' 
Japanese for "Thanks a lot!" or "You're welcome."

==Page 178==
'''"Interpersonal Programming and the Problem Towee"''' 
Pynchon definitely has an attitude on this kind of California stuff. He also seems to have a grudge against Mercedes drivers.

'''"Sounds like the team I bet on last week."''' 
Vato gets to make the bad pun this time. This is a great montage of the growing relationship between Vato, Blood, Takeshi, and DL.

==Page 179==
'''"Vato wanted it to be a sitcom."''' 
Another example of how deeply TV has invaded our thoughts.

==Page 180==
'''"I'm Chip! I'm Dale!"''' 
A sly comparison of chipmunks: Disney's cartoonic [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chip_%27n_Dale Chip 'n Dale] v. Bagdasarian's sonic Alvin, Simon, and Theodore ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chipmunks "Alvin and the Chipmunks"]).

==Page 186==
'''"octogenarihexation"''' 
86'd = thrown out, usually in reference to a drinking establishment. [[Chapter_15#Page_342|See also 43'd, p.342...]]

'''"Yuroks"''' 
The native American Yurok tribe lives along the lower 36 miles of the Klamath River, and along the California coast from Wilson Creek to Trinidad Bay. This may provide a clue to the location of Vineland County. Being Indians, the Yuroks are, naturally, preterite in the Pynchon universe. The woge (note lower case) seem to be Yurok thanatoids, therefore ultra-preterite.

==Page 187==
'''"Bernard Herrmann"''' 
The famous film composer, whose credits include, among many other great picture soundtracks, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_hitchcock Alfred Hitchcock's] classics [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_%281960_film%29 ''Psycho''] [1960] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertigo_%28film%29 ''Vertigo'' [1958].

'''"A Toyota in the treetops"''' 
Is this a tip of the hat to the boat in the tree in Marquez's famous novel of magic realism, ''One Hundred Years of Solitude''?

'''"...vanish unaccountably between Shade Creek and the V & B pound, as Thanatoid units...had been known to do..."''' 
Vanishing Thanatoid cars may push the envelope of fantasy a bit too far. And yet, and yet... They wind up in the tops of trees, you see. It's kind of like 'toon cars: 'toons can drive real cars, real people can drive 'toon cars. Plus, it sets up (much later) the disappearance of Vond's ride in Chapter 15.

==Page 188==
'''Sate..."''' 
A totally abrupt scene-change to Takeshi's, a literary jump cut.

'''"Weed Atman"''' 
Another great name. Weed = marijuana. Also perhaps, an echo of Steven Weed, abandoned boyfriend of heiress Patty Hearst, which raises a very faint reverberation of Frenesi as Patty-in-reverse. Atman = Hindu for breath, the principle of life, the World Soul.

'''"Prairie was hearing this, in her turn, from DL..."''' 
Prairie breaks into the narrative, bouncing us unexpectedly back to the present. These abrupt break-ins by Prairie are fun.

==Page 189==
'''"Variety Loaves...not, as once supposed, safely dead but no, only, queerly, sleeping..."''' 
Thanatoid lunch meat!

==Page 190==
'''"Me gotta go"''' 
A line from Richard Berry's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louie_Louie "Louie Louie], made famous by the Kingsmen."

==Page 191==
'''"FFAR"''' 
Folding Fin Aircraft Rocket Launcher, a rather nasty device attached to Apache helicopters around about the time Pynchon was writing Vineland.

'''"Kick Out the Jambs"''' 
Definitely a reference to the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MC_5 the MC 5] tune "Kick Out the Jams." But is "jambs" a typo or a pun?
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Chapter 12

2009-07-13T03:52:49Z

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==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==
'''"Pale blue unmarked little planes appeared, on days of VFR unlimited nearly invisible against the sky, flown by a private vigilante squadron of student antidrug activists..."''' 
Cf. [[Chapter_1#Page 3|p.3]] ("squadron of blue jays stomping around on the roof...").

'''"Kommandant Karl Bopp"''' 
Another great name.

'''"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 [http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/ ''Gravity's Rainbow''].

==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.

'''"Howie'd kill them again"''' 
Surely should be "Howie'd kick them again".

==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}}