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☽ Notes and Errata

Endnote 3

cardioid
In geometry, a cardioid is a plane curve produced by tracing the path of a chosen point of a circle which rolls around a fixed circle. The cardioid shape of E.T.A. has one cusp, i.e., a point on the curve that is not smooth. The r referred to by the narrator here is the radius of the moving circle.

Übermensch
German for "superhuman"

Brandeis
Brandeis is a Jewish-founded university in Waltham, Mass., about nine miles west of Boston, named for Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941) the first Jewish Supreme Court justice.

Endnote 5

N.B.
abbreviation for Latin nota bene, i.e., "note well," stated before an important example or corollary point

Endnote 5a

nystagmus
involuntary eye movement

entrepôt
French for "warehouse," this is where foreign merchandise can be purchased duty-free

loquacity
talkativeness

Endnote 6

Halcion (still available in Canada, unbelievably, still)
It's also still available here, though the U.K. has banned it since 1991.

Endnote 7

bevelling
Here meaning "smoothed out" and misspelled, beveling is the making of 45º angles where perpendiculars meet.

Endnote 8

dickies
As a dickie is designed to give the appearance of wearing a tie, Wallace uses this word here to deal with drugs that mimic the effects of other drugs.

MMDA, DMA, DMMM, 2CB, para-DOT I-VI
You can read about MMDA here, DMA here, 2CB here, DOT here (apparently). DMMM appears to be made up.

CNS
central nervous system

gamma hydroxybutric acid
now more commonly known as GHB

DMZ/M.P.
DMZ is another made-up drug. M.P. refers to its street name, Madame Psychosis.

Endnote 8a

Muscimole
another mushroom-based hallucinogen, like psilocybin

DDMS
dibromododecenyl methylsulfimide

DMSO
dimethylsulfoxide

Endnote 12a

"...Continental Controlled Substances Act of Y.T.M.P., O.N.A.N.D.E.A.'s hierarchy of analgesics/antipyretics/axiolytics..."
There is no such act, obviously. Y.T.M.P. is Year of the Tucks Medicated Pad. The second acronym is Organization of North American Nations Drug Enforcement Agency. Analgesics are painkillers. Antipyretics are fever-reducing drugs, and anxiolytics are anxiety-reducing drugs.

Endnote 13

Quo Vadis
Latin: Where are you going? Famously asked of Jesus by Peter when the former was on his way to be crucified. See here. Also a novel and film by that name were made.

Endnote 17

datum
piece of information

Endnote 19

French: A person of terrible importance

Endnote 21

Q.v.
Latin abbreviation for quod vide ("which see"), used to direct a reader elsewhere in a book. Here we are directed to...

Endnote 23

U.S.D.D.
United States Department of Defense

Endnote 24 · JAMES O. INCANDENZA: A FILMOGRAPHY

Page 986

meniscus
a lens with a crescent-shaped section

soliloquized
spoken to oneself

incunabular
early stages of something

D W Griffith
Film Director whose films include 'Tolerance' and 'Birth of a Nation'; Wikipedia entry

Taka Limura
Japanese film maker - see article

Heliotrope
An arrangement of mirrors for reflecting sunlight from a distant point to an observation station.

Endnote 82

Bean
as in L.L. Bean, a privately-held mail-order and retail company based in Freeport, Maine, United States, specializing in clothing and outdoor recreation equipment.

Night Watch plaid
A pattern of plaid. See right.

Endnote 110 · Hal and Orin Discuss Québecois Politics

Page 1004

Hush Puppy
a brand name of shoes

squeegeed
cleaned with a squeegee

truncated
cut short

Page 1005

R&R
Rest and Relaxation

ex officio
Latin: by virtue of one's office

'The Yellow Rose (of Texas)'
Dickinson's poems can also be read to the meter of "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

falsetto
a man's voice when he pitches it falsely high to sound like a woman

riffling
turning pages quickly

Ample make this bed
The full poem is here.

Page 1006

quotidian
commonplace

Y.W.-Q.M.D.

pistil
that part of a flower that is analogous to the female reproductive organs

Sikorski
C.T. is probably comparing the bee (which flies) to an airplane (which also flies) produced by Sikorsky Aircraft.

paucity
scarcity

swotted
studied intensively

wakked
I have no idea.

unperspicous
not clearly expressed or presented

penultimate
second to last

whingeing
complaining (pronounced to rhyme with "jing")

xerophagy
eating of bread and water only

Endnote 110d

anti-sclerotic
tending to ward of hardening of tissues (as of arteries, here)

Page 1006 (cont'd)

maunder
to talk incoherently or aimlessly

Solecism
nonstandard or incorrect grammatical usage

and c.
et cetera

Page 1007

20 X 25 centimeter
very close to 8" x 10"

Jethro Bodine
a character on the television show The Beverly Hillbillies

proviso
a clause, usually in a document, making a stipulation or qualification

"...isn't even iambic, much less quatrameter/trimeter..."
This is to say that the poetry of Dickinson is not in iambic pentameter, also known as verse. This is the style of poetry Shakespeare is written in ("Now is the winter of our discontent") -- ten syllables, and five iambs (feet, or beats) per line (thus pentameter). Quatrameter/trimeter would be the rhythm scheme of "Yellow Rose of Texas" and "Marry Had a Little Lamb."

dink
a synonym for a drop shot, which in tennis is a light tap just over the net

Page 1008

obverse
the more conspicuous of two possible choices

seraphic
like an angel

lascivious
appealing to sexual tastes

mesmerized
hypnotized

skitter
to move rapidly along a surface

knight-errant
a knight on a quest to prove his chivalry

Page 1009

Ainsi
French: so to speak

breviary
a prayer and hymn book

"Kitchens and heat..."
which is to say, if you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen

Page 1010

Gloeckner
German for "ringer," taking that in either of the meanings it has in English

3-kilo
a little over 7.25 pounds

Snuff
chewing tobacco

Andover
as in Philips Academy Andover, alma mater of both presidents Bush

"Dickinson's about as Transcendalist as Poe."
which is to say, not at all

Page 1011

R.C.M.P.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy (1901-1967) was an American singer and movie star. As far as what he looked like, see right.

Droll
whimsically comic

Page 1012

nanomicroscopy
the looking at extremely small things (nano- being the prefix for "one-billionth") through a microscope

Thevet
This is probably a reference to André de Thevet (1502-1590), a French priest and explorer. Though never in Canada, he relied on French-Canadian explorers' work for his own voyages to South America.

"...the 5 on the French Achievement boards..."
The highest possible score on the French Advanced Placement Exam (for which one can receive college credit) is 5.

Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (1740-1795), was the Scottish biographer of Samuel Johnson.

E cup
a very large breast size

acuity
acuteness of perception

in utero
in the womb

thalidomide
a drug developed to treat morning sickness in pregnant women that ended up causing babies to be born missing limbs

Condé Nast
one of the largest magazine publishers in the country, owned by Advance Publications (the Newhouse family) and founded by Condé Montrose Nast (1873-1942), an American publisher

deform
here meaning simply "to spoil"

persona
a fictional identity created for a person, narrator in a book, etc.

du
French: of the (masculine)

Page 1013

Meech Lake
a lake in Gatineau Park, near Chelsea, Québec

Parizeau
This is probably Jacques Parizeau (born 1930), a former Premier of Québec and proponent of Québecois sovereignty.

Charlottetown
the capital of the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island

Crétien assassination
This is probably a misspelling of the surname of Joseph Jacques Jean Chrétien (born 1934), Prime Minister of Canada from 1993 to 2003.

Francophonic
French-speaking

Acadian Zionism
Acadia is the traditional name for what is now (in part) eastern Québec. Zionism is used here as a synonym for nationalism, rather than with its specific Jewish connotations

Toujours
French: always

"On ne parle d'Anglais ici."
French: English is not spoken here

Ottawa
the capital of Canada

"Permettez Nous Partir, Permettez Nous Être."
French: Allow us to leave, allow us to be.

Winnipeg
the capital of Canadian province of Manitoba

flux
frequent change

appalled
dismayed

UV-booth
UV standing for ultraviolet (as in light), this is probably a tanning booth.

Page 1014

"Nous v. La Plupart Toujours"
French: Us versus the majority always

Lesotho
a kingdom of southern Africa, existing as an enclave entirely within the Republic of South Africa

SOUTHAF
This is the Union of South Africa, which was formed in 1910 as a British colony and tried to annex Lesotho to it. Because of the imposition of apartheid laws in S. Africa, the annexation failed.

antebellum
before the war, here the U.S. Civil War

Endnote 110h

Gallic
French

Page 1014 (cont'd)

Anglophone
English-speaking

Plains of Abraham
a reference to the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, part of the French and Indian Wars, which ended in a decisive British victory of the French

Endnote 110i

'La Guerre des Britanniques et des Sauvages'
French: The War of the British and the Savages

Ticonderoga
a reference to the Battle of Carillon, fought at Fort Ticonderoga

Page 1014 (cont'd)

Booty
treasure taken from a defeated party

1759
On September 13, 1759, Québec fell to the British.

NAFTA
North American Free Trade Agreement

Rubensian
The word more often used is "Rubenesque," but this refers to the women in paintings by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the Flemish artist. His women tended to be plump.

retardate
more often used as a noun, offensively referring to a retarded person

rapacious
ravenous

Page 1015

lissome
supple

Rubensophile
See above, Rubensian.

gulag
a reference to the GULAG prison system of the Soviet Union

'ce pas?
French elision of "n'est-ce pas?" i.e., "right?"

Anbesol
a brand name of benzocaine used for tooth pain

flanges
Orin probably means to say "phalanges."

Rue Sherbrooke
a road in Montreal

St. Jean-Baptiste Day
another name for la fête nationale du Québec

anaerobic
thriving without oxygen

Page 1016

weedy
scrawny; Hal is probably using it to mean "thin," as in a line of argumentation

Brazilian Nuevo Contras
These would be "new" contras, the old ones having been U.S.-funded anti-communist guerrillas in Nicaragua in the 1980s.

'The Noie Störkrafts? Shining Path's? The Belgian CCC's?
Noie Störkraft is Swedish "New Great Power"; it does not appear to be a new organization, though Störkraft is the name of a skinhead band from Sweden. The Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso in Spanish) is the Communist Party of Peru, which has waged guerrilla warfare against the Peruvian government since 1980. CCC is a French acronym for Communist Combatant Cells; they were eliminated as a terrorist group in 1986.

Ez-ed-Dean-el-Qassan
an alternate spelling of a Palestinian militant group affiliated with Hamas

P.E.T.A.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

wobbled shrieking figure in the Munch lithograph
See right.

Page 1017

subjoin
to append to the end of something

attendant
consequent or concomitant

cloracne
probably a misspelling of chloracne

olfactory hallucinations
hallucinations wherein one smells things that aren't there

machete
a large cleaver-like cutting tool

Infant-depredations
preying on babies

phenols
another name for carbolic acid

Fundy
probably a reference to the Bay of Fundy

straw-and-camel
i.e., the straw that broke the camel's back

Page 1018

Docksider
a type of boat shoe

full-toll
i.e., it takes its full toll on you

Constantine
perhaps Constantine I, by tradition first Christian emperor of Rome

merde
French for "shit"

cartographic
having to do with maps

parliamentary wigs
Canadian MPs don't wear wigs, though barristers (lawyers) and judges do.

Page 1019

bone of dissension
Orin means "bone of contention."

desmirched
probably a malapropism, although it could mean "to un-besmirch"

re-gerrymandered
To gerrymander is to divide an area into electoral districts favorable to one party over another.

Cuibono
more properly cui bono, Latin for "who benefits?"

swivet
a state of nervous excitement

D-bases
databases

falcate
to curve like a sickle

Albertan ultra-rightists
There is a tradition of separatism in Alberta.

Duluth
a town in Minnesota and home to Bob Dylan, on Lake Superior about 150 miles north of the Twin Cities

Page 1020

Vichified
i.e., as Vichy France, which was a puppet government to the Nazis

Anschluss
German for "annexation," it most often refers to Nazi Germany's annexation of Austria in 1938.

mayhi
Orin seems to be using this term as a plural of "mayhem."

P.Q.s
members of the Parti Québecois

P.M.
Prime Minister (of Canada)

aller, partir
French: to go, to leave

Page 1021

hapless
here meaning haphazard

botulizing
infecting with botulism

jaunty
smartly trim

toggle
a type of switch

anapestic
An anapest is a three-syllable word where the emphasis is one last syllable. "Anapest" is an anapest.

Page 1022

Endnote 145 · Found Drama

An invented, non-existent faux-academic style of film on which James O. Incandenza lectured and received artistic grants, created to lampoon the academic film theory community. Found Drama was not captured on film; rather, Incandenza and close friends "got out a Boston metro phone book and tore a White Pages page out at random and thumbtacked it to the wall and then [Incandenza] would throw a dart at it from across the room. ... And the name it hit becomes the subject of the Found Drama. And whatever happens to the protagonist with the name you hit with the dart for ... the next hour and a half is the Drama."

Page 1026

Y.D.A.U.

Page 1027

ne pas à la mode
French: not in style

New Wave
When this term is used w/r/t Himself's work, it is probably referring to French New Wave, although there were several other "New Waves" in film.

Dick
I'm unable to identify whether this person is real or not.

art-gesture films
apparently a created genre

isness
i.e., being

stasis
inactivity caused by equal opposing forces

tenure-jockeys
i.e., junior faculty at universities who are on tenure track

Orthochromatic
According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, this word means "representing correctly the relations of colors as found in a subject; isochromatic."

retrogradism
This neologism would seem to have the sense of the study or condition of moving backward.

McLean Hospital
a real psychiatric hospital in Belmont, Mass., about eight miles west-northwest of Boston

Duquette at M.I.T.
There is no such person at M.I.T.

Posener
There is no such person at Brandeis.

Page 1028

Page 1035

Endnote 211

suborn
to bribe or induce someone to commit a crime or misdeed

Endnote 234 · Excerpts From Orin's Interview With Moment

Page 1038

Rafferty
Terrence Rafferty was a film critic for the New Yorker magazine.

NPR
National Public Radio

Page 1039

dun
make repeated demands on

Madison Avenue
the street in New York famous for its advertising firms

traversion
Orin probably means "introversion."

T-square
a drafting tool

Page 1040

Prussian
here used to mean "very strict"

schizogenic
produced or formed by fission

pathogenic
capable of producing disease

Page 1041

antidote
Orin means "anecdote."

Quelquechose
French: something

Page 1042

pièce
as in "pièce de resistance," the punchline or main point

Page 1043

four horsemen
as in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation

BPL
Boston Public Library

Endnote 269 · Steeply-Bain Correspondence

Page 1047

'After my own parents were horribly killed on the Jamaica Way commuter road one morning in the freak crash of a radio traffic-report helicopter . . .'

Lateral Alice Moore was handicapped when the news helicopter she flew in crashed onto a high way. It could have been the same accident as the one Bain's referring to here.

J.O.I.
James O. Incandenza

guile
insidious cunning

larval
immature in its kind

codpieces
a pouch at the crotch of tight-fitting breeches, popular during the Renaissance

Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was a British poet whose work had themes of homosexuality and sadomasochism.

prenominate
aforementioned

apposite
relevant

Page 1048

fairly high-sodium way
i.e., with a grain (or more) of salt

purposive
serving some purpose

cross-sectioned cow
Cornell University apparently has a cow whose stomachs you can see in action.

anaclitic
denoting psychologic dependence

Page 1049

prevarication
lying

"...as if from the Rose Garden..."
like the President of the U.S. answering a question from a reporter

mendacious
untruthful

monilial
having to do with vaginal yeast infection

S. Johnson
probably a reference to Dr. Samuel Johnson, the lexicographer

Page 1050

Steeples
Bain has become to get Steeply's name wrong.

Steeley
ditto

ACOAs
Adult Children of Alcoholics

AlaTeens
a support group for teenage children of alcoholics

ACONAs
Adult Children of Narcotics Anonymous

ACOGs
ACOG is most commonly the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, but in this context it probably stands for Adult Children of Gamblers.

aspic
meat jelly

profligate
extravagant

loquacious
very talkative

Page 1051

Starkly
Bain gets Steeply's name wrong yet again.

univocal
unambiguous

furcated
branching or forking

albatross
a burden, from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Starksaddle
another mistake with Steeply's name

perspicuous
clearly expressed

Page 1052

multivalent
having various meanings

Bainbridge
This isn't even close to Steeply's name.

Endnote 304 · The Train Game

Page 1055

McGee-like chaos
An overflowing closet was a running gag on the old-time radio show "Fibber McGee and Molly." (Wikipedia)

smelling a rat in the woodpile
Rats often use woodpiles as cover for their burrows.[1]

B.P.L. ArchFax database search
Possibly: Boston Public Library Archival Facsimiles.

Page 1056

QUOI?
WHAT?

Sudetenlandization
Wikipedia - Sudetenland

G. T. Day, M.S.
Geoffrey Day, of Ennet House?

Page 1057

vishnu
Vishnu is the preserver/maintainer god of the Hindu Trimurti.[2]

dasein
Being, existence.[3]

Page 1058

geatalt
Misprint of gestalt.

municipal fluoridation
i.e. tap water fluoridation

Page 1059

les passages a niveau de voie ferree
the level crossings of railway line

Page 1060

Bernard Wayne
Most likely John "N.R." Wayne's brother.

Endnote 321 · Hal's DMZ Dream

Page 1063

Rise Over Run
The rise (amount the line increases) of a line divided over the run (length of the line) give you the slope of the line, which is also equal in calculus to the first derivative.

tangent
This concept is explained here.

Differentiation
the process by which one determines the first derivative of a mathematical function

inexorably
relentlessly

covers
a recording or performance of a song that was first recorded or made popular by somebody else

Page 1064

Digestive-Flora
bacteria that live in the intestine and aid in digestion

Verdun Protestant Hospital
now called Douglas Mental Health Institute

tu-sais-qué
really bad French for "you know what"

Human Hatchet
i.e., Axford

impotence
Probably means impetus

Blue Flames
apparently some sort of drug

Page 1065

O₂
oxygen

Jiminy Cricket
a character from Pinocchio

Endnote 324 · John Wayne loses it

Page 1066

moon
to spend time idly

camphonated
more like "camphorated," i.e., contained camphor

Endnote 324a

loamy
consisting of rich, arable soil

Y.T.M.P.

Page 1066 (cont'd)

whorl
a circular arrangement

funiculi
plural of "funiculus," i.e., part of the spinal cord

Page 1067

gonions
the outer points on either side of the lower jaw at which the jawbone angles upward

uncolloped
having no fat

latissimal
referring to the lattissimus dorsi muscles

profligate
wasteful

Nordicular
i.e., Nordic, which is to say blond-haired and blue-eyed

armamentarium
an arsenal, particularly used by physicians to refer to drugs or treatments

callow
immature; inexperienced

entrepôt
a place for storing and dispensing goods

dinkle
a euphemism for "penis"

Page 1068

welching
swindling by not paying a debt or wager

three-setter
a tennis game ending in three sets, rather than five, because one player has gone up 3 to 0

cavalier
disdainful; unceremonious

burr
here used to mean "irritant"

Page 1069

canvas restraint-wrap
straitjacket

catgut
This is "a strong cord made by twisting the dried intestines of animals, as sheep, used in stringing musical instruments and tennis rackets, for surgical sutures, etc." (Random House Unabridged Dictionary).

"...his late great Da's..."
Clearly Pemulis has no idea that his brother was molested by their father.

rheumy
full of thin mucous

Page 1070

Bedouins
certain Arabs of the deserts of Arabia and the Levant

buggered
being on the receiving end of anal sex

b/w
Black and white

J. Gleason
Jackie Gleason (1916-1987) was one of the great comic actors of the 20th century.

Zoltan
actually a Hungarian name, which means "ruler"

cretinous
stupid

Page 1071

Endnote 324f

Orly
one of the airports serving Paris

Page 1071 (cont'd)

redoubted
formidable

Modus Tollens
a Latin logical term, meaning, roughly, "the means of denying"

Nucleic acids
DNA and RNA

A and G, T and C
adenine and guanine, thymine and cytosine, the compounds that make up DNA

When the boulder's slipped all the way back to the bottom
a reference to the myth of Sisyphus

When the headless are blaming
a reference to If, by Rudyard Kipling: "If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you"

Csíkszentmihályi
The name may be taken from Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (born 1934), a prominent Hungarian-American psychologist. His son Christopher is on the faculty at MIT.

lemma
a proven statement used as a step in a mathematical proof

Boardman MN
a town about 40 miles west-northwest of the Twin Cities

Page 1072

"Leap like a knight of faith . . ."

A reference to Soren Kierkegaard's knight of faith. Kierkegaard, a theologian and philosopher, didn't think there could be any logical justification for believing in God. Instead the believer is required to take a leap of faith, so called because he (the believer) has no evidence for his convictions and thus must always, on some rational level, doubt them. In fact to Kierkegaard doubt defines faith, because if there were no doubt no leap of faith would be required in the first place, much like it doesn't require a leap of faith for you to believe you're actually reading this wikipedia entry right now, or that I'm not an alien sub rosa manipulating your mind for my own purposes.

"...Peano, Leibniz, Hilbert..."
Giuseppe Peano (1858-1932) was an Italian mathematician. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) was a German polymath and one of the creators of calculus. David Hilbert (1862-1943) was a German mathematician.

"...Fourier, Gauss, LaPlace, Rickey..."
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830) was a French mathematician and physicist. Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) was a German mathematician. Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (1749-1827) was a French mathematician and astronomer. Rickey would seem to refer to V. Frederick Rickey, though he is contemporary while the other named men are not.

"...Wiener, Reimann, Frege, Green..."
Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) was an American mathematician. Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866) was a German mathematician. Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (1848-1925) was a German mathematician and logician. Green is probably George Green (1793-1841), English mathematician and physicist.

Endnote 332 · DeLint slays the Peemster

Page 1073

jury-rigged
a corruption of "jerry-rigged" (a pejorative term about Germans), which basically means rigged in a makeshift, ad hod manner

Page 1074

nictitater
the word meant here is probably "nictitate," which means to wink - so, in other words, a "wink" of stupidity-film on Watson's eyes, or just a hint

castigations
criticisms; reprimands

Page 1075

loupes
eyepiece magnifying glasses used by jewellers

"may the road rise up to meet you..."
part of an old Irish blessing

Page 1076

incubus
a male demon that seduces female humans