Revision as of 01:28, 19 November 2012

Editors: Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel. And please pay attention to formatting and grammar. Preview your changes before saving them. Thanks!

☽ November 7th, YDAU - Joelle goes to Molly Notkin's party

Page 219

MIT Seal

striated
marked with stripes or streaks

Cukor
George Dewey Cukor (1899-1983) was an American film director.

Murnau in Méliès's fiberglass lap
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (1888-1931) was a German expressionist filmmaker who later worked in Hollywood. He made the classic vampire film "Nosferatu" (1922). Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (1861-1938) was a French filmmaker, famous for the 1902 silent "A Trip to the Moon" (featured in Martin Scorsese's 2011 film "Hugo").

cummerbund
the band of fabric worn around the waist with a tuxedo

M.I.T.-crested
see right

Page 220

low-pH chemist
i.e., he worked with acids

piebald
having patches of black and white

G.W. Pabst
Georg Wilhelm Pabst (1885-1967) was a Bohemian-born Austrian filmmaker.

sorghum
a type of grain used in the production of molasses, alcholic beverages, and animal feed

tumefies
swells

sororal
another word for "sisterly"

sub-rosa
From the Latin "under the rose," this word means secretly held.

Page 221

sienna-glazed
glazed with an earth-based pigment

polyresin
a resin compound used to make figurines, among other things

staccato
in music, notes that are sounded in a detached and distinct manner

cataract
In the non-ophthalmic sense, this word means "waterfall."

Page 222

NOTRE RAI PAYS
perhaps idiomatic French (literally "our spoke [or ray] country") for "our home away from home," indicating Québec's colonial status with respect to motherland France

.473-liter
16 ounces, a pint

Big Red Soda Water
a real brand similar to cream soda, only red. This was originally only sold in Central/South Texas and Kentucky and is still popular in that region, though available elsewhere.

Chore Boy
a brand of scrubbing pads. The copper version of these pads can be used as a filter for smoking crack.

two-k. square
0.77 square miles

selvage
the finished edge of a piece of fabric, so done to prevent fraying

delimits
establishes the boundaries of

Page 223

Chronology of O.N.A.N.'s Revenue-Enhancing Subsidized Time™

Page 223

See Subsidized Time.

Endnote 78

G.F.R. Co.
perhaps Global Food Resources

Zanesville OH
a town 55 miles east of Columbus

Vienna VA
a suburb of Washington, D.C., about 15 miles due west of the city

Joelle, cont.

Page 223

Colonel Shaw and the MA 54th
Robert Gould Shaw was a Bostonian killed in the Civil War while commanding the all-black Massachusetts 54th Regiment. A relief sculpture memorial to him is located on Beacon Street (not Boylston Street) in front of the Massachusetts State House.

Page 225

tumbrel
a cart for hauling manure or for hauling victims to the guillotine during the French Revolution

imprecated
called down curses upon someone

Delphina
name of a beatified Catholic virgin

Endnote 79

Year of the Trial-Sized Dove Bar

Page 225 (cont'd)

Veedersburg, Indiana and Powell, Wyoming
Veedersburg is about 70 miles west-northest of Indianapolis; Powell is about 90 miles south of Billings, Mont.

parallax
This is "the difference between the view of an object as seen through the picture-taking lens of a camera and the view as seen through a separate viewfinder" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary).

Page 226

8-gram
a bit over a quarter of an ounce

wildly carbuncular wife
This is a reference to Nancy Witcher Astor, Viscountess Astor (1879-1964), wife of Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor.

P.M.U.K.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Lend-Lease
a program between the beginning of World War II and U.S. entry after the bombing of Pearl Harbor whereby the U.S. government provided materiel to Britain (and later the Soviets) in return for military bases

scopophobic
scopophobia is the morbid fear of being seen or stared at by others

he was indeed inebriated...while she...would tomorrow still be hideously and improbably deformed.
Many versions of this witty exchange between Winston Churchill and a woman have been propagated over the the years. It may or may not have actually occurred.

Helen P. Steeply's (putative) c.v.

Page 227

1.98 M., 104 KG., A.B., M.J.A.
1.98 meters is about 6'4" tall. 104 kg is around 230 lbs. She's enormous.

A.B. is the older Latin equivalent (Artium Baccalaureus or Artium Baccalaureatus) of B.A., i.e., Bachelor of Arts. M.J.A. is Master of Justice Administration.

Decade Magazine
probably not a real publication

Southwest Annual
probably not a real publication

Ladies Day
also not a real publication

Erythema AZ
not a real town, but erythema is a real disease

Joelle, cont.

Page 227

A.B.D.
"All But Dissertation," a term used to refer to people who have completed their doctoral studies with the exception of their dissertations.

Homburg Hat

Homburg
A homburg is a stiff felt hat characterized by a single dent running down the center of the crown and a brim fixed in a tight, upwards curl. It is superficially similar to the trilby or fedora; trilbys and fedoras, however, have soft, "snappable" brims and can have various designs "pinched" into the crown, whereas the shape of a homburg is fixed. (see right) Wikipedia

Wiesbaden
a city of Germany above 25 miles west of Frankfurt (Main)

Y.T.S.D.B.

Page 228

the A.M.'s interruptus
Presumably this means the end of the morning, although the only common English usage of "interruptus" is in the Latin phrase coitus interrruptus, i.e., "pulling out." (See the Consummation of the Levirates.)

The A.M.'s interruptus could refer to her "quitting" her drug use that morning.

Maya Deren
Born Eleanora Derenkowsky, Maya Deren (1917-1961) was a Ukrainian-born American director [1].

Page 229

glycine
one of the 20 amino acids found in proteins

Rutherford Keck and Crosby Baum
These both seem to be invented people....

Smothergill
...as does this...

Miriam Prickett
...and this.

Y.D.A.U.

Franciscan bald spot
The Orders of Friars Minor were known to shave the tops of their heads in medieval and early modern times.

Page 230

paps
breasts or nipples

diphthong
In linguistics, a diphthong is a vowel combination involving a smooth transition from one vowel to another. English has three diphthongs: /ay/ as in "papaya," /oy/ as in "boy," and /au/ as in "Bauhaus." Technically "beautiful" doesn't have a diphthong.

febrile
feverish

scopophiliac
sexually attracted to pornography [ummm, let's get right with the scopophilia/-phobia, y'all—Merriam-Webster Medical online says "a desire to look at sexually stimulating scenes especially as a substitute for actual sexual participation"]

Y.T.S.D.B.

Boaz
the name of cities in both Alabama and West Virginia

Page 231

Vogelsong
"Vogel" = German for "bird", i.e. something like: bird song ("song" is not German)

Emerson College
a college in Boston

ectoplasm
the supposed emanation of the soul from the body; here used as a metaphor for vomit

afflatus
gas

dithers
behaves in a nervous or agitated way

jaundice
yellowing of the skin caused by liver disease

b & w
black and white

Bouvier
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's maiden surname

f-stop
This is "the ratio of the focal length (f)) of a lens or lens system to the effective diameter of its aperture" (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition).

Berliner
Technically, it's called the Berliner Pfannkuchen (doughnut).

Page 232

Ich bein ein Berliner
Bein is the wrong word. It's a noun in German and means "leg". The first-person singular of sein ("to be") is bin. Still, the wrong spelling may be related to Kennedy's wrong pronounciation of this sentence. And yes, it's true "Berliner" is a German word for a special kind of pastry. [You find a quite interesting episode related to this topic in Pychon's "Against the Day"...]

TA
Teaching Assistant

À du nous avons foi au poison
French (roughly): We have faith in poison

Eve Plumb
She played Jan Brady on The Brady Bunch.

Henderson
Florence Henderson, who played Carol Brady

Davis
Ann B. Davis, who played Alice, the maid

Peter
the middle son, played by Christopher Knight

Greg
the eldest son, played by Barry Williams

De gustibus non est disputandum
Latin: There's no accounting for taste (literally, "tastes are not disputable")

Eisenstein and Kurosawa and Michaux
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898-1948) was a Latvian-born Russian-Jewish filmmaker, famous for his film Battleship Potemkin. Akira Kurosawa (1910-1998) was perhaps the most prominent Japanese filmmaker of the twentieth century. Oscar Micheaux (1893-1951) was an African-American filmmaker whose ouevre can be viewed here.

draw a bead
slang for taking aim at a target with a rifle

ten m.
Ten meters is equal to 32.8 feet.

Page 233

Heideggerian
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a prominent twentieth-century German philosopher and proponent of existentialism.

a priori
From the Latin for "from what comes first," these are assumptions made before observations are made.

wraith
another word for "ghost"

labile
unstable

The Incision
I could locate no film by this name.

qua
From the Latin ablative case of the word for "who," this word means "in the character of capacity of."

dopamine
a neurotransmitter, primarily responsible for movement and cognition

blinis
Russian crepes

tartines
a type of French open-faced sandwich

sweetbreads
thymus gland or pancreas of young animals (calf or lamb)

glacé
French for "iced"

Morris Mini
another name for the Morris Minor

ipecac
derived from the ipecacuanha plant, a syrup produced to induce vomiting

clapper
the tongue of a bell

Dishmaster
see Subsidized Time

Makavajev
Born in 1932, Dusan Makavejev (probably misspelled) is a Yugoslavian-born film director.

Page 234

Shiny Prize, Kentucky
not a real town

1.7 meters tall
a little over 5'6"

48 kilograms
about 106 pounds (This makes her about 15-30 pounds below her ideal weight.)

phalloneurotic
a portmanteau of phallus and neurotic, probably intended to mean a mental disorder involving obsession with one's penis, or perhaps with penes more generally; uncertain as to which "phalloneurotic" New Yorker this refers

EZ-Widers
a brand of cigarette rolling papers

Cyrillic
employing the Cyrillic alphabet, as with Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian, etc.

mollified
softened in feeling and temper

soft rock's grim dental association
which is to say, it's the kind of music you'd hear in a dentist's office

Kinski as Paganini
Klaus Kinski (1926-1991), Danzig-born German-American actor, played Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840), the Italian violinist and composer, in his final film, Kinski Paganini.

Léaud as Doinel
Jean-Pierre Léaud (born 1944), a French actor, played the fictional character Antoine Doinel in five films.

Peterson's The Lead Shoes
An 18-minute film by Sidney Peterson (1949), preceded by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's great The Red Shoes(1948) with Moira Shearer. (Cf. the color in the title of the fictitious monograph in endnote 81.)

pomander
This is "a mixture of aromatic substances, often in the form of a ball, formerly carried on the person as a supposed guard against infection but now placed in closets, dressers, etc." (Random House Unabridged Dictionary).

Page 235

dicky
impaired

bathetic
appealing to bathos, i.e., insincere pathos (emotion)

neat bourbon
bourbon without ice

Vittoria
a reference to Santa Maria della Vittoria, where the mentioned work by Bernini hangs

recumbent
reclining

Gleem
a brand of toothpaste

NoCoat scraper
Presumably refers to NoCoat LinguaScrapers (tongue scrapers) mentioned on Page 151.

NeGram
a brand name of nalidixic acid, used to treat urinary tract infections

depilatory
for removal of hair

Monostat
brand name of a treatment for vaginal yeast infections

Parapectolin
a mixture of kaolinite and pectin, used to treat diarrhea

Page 236

Kodachrome
a brand name of camera film

Reynolds Wrap
a brand name of aluminum foil

baking soda
Joelle is making crack, as opposed to 'freebase cocaine' which requires ether. Crack production is procedurally distinct (and safer) from that of purer 'freebase cocaine,' but the freebase products are the same: the baking soda serves to free the cocaine base from the pure cocaine hydrochloride. Both methods produce crystals that can be smoked. The production method of Joelle's earlier "home made freebase cocaine" is uncertain, but conventional terminology suggests she makes the ether-based variety at home.

C knob
the knob for cold water

Page 237

Paducah
a city in Kentucky about 175 miles southeast of St. Louis, Mo.

Qantas
an airline serving Australia and New Zealand

Page 238

fillips
a sharp tap

mâché
French for "chewed" indicating here bits and pieces of the material. e.g., papier mâché

S.O.P.
Standard Operating Procedure

imperial
a case for luggage

"...darkness dance on the face of the deep..."
a play on Genesis 1:2

"...that skull fragment out of the Hamlet graveyard scene..."
i.e., "infinite jest"

Mad Stork
the nickname for former NFL linebacker Ted Hendricks

Page 239

banal
hackneyed or trite

Prettiest G.O.A.T.
Though G.O.A.T. stands here for "Girl Of All Time," it's an oxymoron, because "goat" is a slang term for an ugly person.

slew-footed
with the foot turned on the axis of the ankle

Page 240

white- party-noise
which is to say random noise generated by the party outside the bedroom

'We've Only Just Begun'
a song by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols first recorded by the Carpenters in 1970

mercuric red
red as the color made by MercuroChrome

☽ - Enfield, MA

Page 240

Note: Most of these places exist but there is no such town (anymore) as Enfield, Mass.

Dicalced
Apparently there is a misspelling. The correct term would be Discalced Carmelites, which means they go barefoot or wear sandals.

Page 241

RCC
Roman Catholic Church

les trebuchets noirs
French: the black catapults

5 km
about 3.1 miles

brachiform
in the shape of an arm

75 hectares
almost 900,000 square yards

palisades
fences

guano
feces, particularly of birds or bats

four-km.
almost 2.5 miles

coaxial
having common axes

Page 242

Ø's
This could refer to all the zeros in the presumably large number of amps in the warning signs, but it may also refer (in plural) to the internationally recognized graphic prohibition sign, i.e., the No symbol, although the graphic incorporates a red circle with a backslash (from top left to bottom right, rather than bottom left to top right), as for the zero symbol. The numerical symbol incorporates the forward slash to distinguish it from the capital letter O.

A.D.E.
one of ATSHCME's Air-Displacement Effectuators

November 5th, YDAU - Hal and Orin discuss Himself's suicide

Page 242

Endnote 82

Endnote 82

Page 243

caroms
rebounds

1100 meters
a little over 3,600 feet

Superstition mountains
a real range east of Phoenix

precipice
a cliff with a vertical face

propitiate
to conciliate, appease or make peace with someone, particularly a god or spirit

apotropaic barn-signs
Hex signs commonly seen in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, ostensibly intended to ward off evil, but now probably used more as a decorative element

Popogatapec
probably a reference to Popocatépetl

Ahts of Vancouver
another name for the Nuu-chah-nulth, the indigenous peoples of Vancouver Island, Canada

Micturation
urination

Page 244

200-kilo
about 441 pounds

apposite
pertinent

Page 245

decamp
to depart secretly

domino-mask
This is "a large, hooded cloak with a mask covering the eyes, worn at masquerades" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary).

lacuna
a missing part

frothy biblical saw
a trifling or empty biblical proverb

Page 246

rodneys
obviously some kind of impulse buy: cigarettes

refracted
bent or twisted by a change in medium. An optics term, so this is an oblique reference to filming.

Cardinal Stadium
The Arizona Cardinals now play in the University of Phoenix Stadium.

Page 247

Royal Victoria
This is the name of one of the docks of east London, but probably not what's being referred to here. Victoria is also the capital of British Columbia, and an island in the Pacific off the B.C. coast. The Royal Victoria College was a women's college created as part of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec.

Page 248

Rog and Wilc,O.
"Roger Wilco, Orin" - Roger Wilco is a radio communication meaning Roger - "I received your message./" and Wilco - "I will comply."

'20 for 28 is what, 65%?'
It's a little over 71%.

Page 249

telemachry
Maybe not the word Hal was looking for, but Telemachus was a monk who tried to stop the Roman gladiator fights and told the Romans to stop worshiping false idols instead of Christ. He was stoned to death, though his death is sometimes said to have ended the Gladiatorial games. So, "telemachry" could be interpreted to be trust in a higher power.

telemetry
the transmission of something automatically and at a distance -- here, Hal's toenails to the wastebasket

Page 250

asphyxuated
There's no clear reason for Orin's mispronunciation of asphyxiated. Perhaps he's combining asphyxia and evacuated.

Page 251

magnitron
a misspelling of "magnetron," which is "a two-element vacuum tube in which the flow of electrons is under the influence of an external magnetic field, used to generate extremely short radio waves" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary).

kg.s.cm.
kilograms per square centimeter, as a measurement of pressure, like pounds per square inch

Page 252

synclinal
sloping downward from opposite directions to meet in a common point or line

Adriatic
the sea between the west coast of Italy and the Balkan peninsula

Page 253

StairMaster
a brand name of exercise machines

Kübler-Ross, Hinton
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, M.D. (1926-2004) was a Swiss-born American psychiatrist and specialist on death and dying. John Hinton is a British contemporary expert in the field.

Kastenbaum and Kastenbaum
Robert J. Kastenbaum is another prominent scholar in the field of death and dying. I can't find another person by that name, so perhaps Hal is referring to multiple volumes by the same Kastenbaum.

Elizabeth Harper Neeld's Seven Choices: Taking the Steps to New Life After Losing Someone You Love
A real book, it's actually 343 pages. (The 1997 edition is 343 pages, but an earlier publishing may have been 352.)

Wyclif and 14th-century langue-d'oc French
John Wyclif was a 14th century English theologian. He made the first translation of the Bible into English, thus his importance to etymology in general. Langue d'oc is another name for the Occitan language. The OED actually dates the word's (acceptance) earliest usage to 1596 by Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice.

Hindi
a national language of India and one of the most widely spoken

Gila monster
a venomous lizard native to the Southwest U.S. and Mexico, known for its tenacious bite

hypertensive
having high blood pressure

Page 254

Leaves of Grass
the most famous volume of poetry by Walt Whitman

Page 255

unfazable
incapable of being disturbed

paroxysmic
characteristic of an outburst of violent emotion

Page 256

half a meter
about 1.64 feet

Page 257

dewlaps
loose flesh as under the jaw of a cow

"...when Luke removes his high-tech targeting helmet..."
Hal is referring to a scene from Star Wars; Luke is Luke Skywalker.

coccyges
plural of coccyx, i.e., the tailbone

Page 258

jonquil-yellow
another name for the flower known as the narcissus or daffodil