Pages 845-876
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Contents
November 19th, YDAU - AFR on the Move
Page 845
gauche
from the French for "left" but here meaning "crude" or "socially unacceptable"
Gately Dreaming
Page 846
change their bags
i.e., their colostomy bags
leur rai pays
cf. note suprafor NOTRE RAI PAYS on page 222; this would be idiomatic French for "their home away from home" or "their colony" (Québec)
Page 847
the sort of body Gately's only ever seen with a staple in its navel
a centerfold nude in a magazine, such as Playboy
fifth post
You get the picture.
Taj
i.e., the Taj Mahal; Wikipedia
viscous
very thick
Page 848
Twister
see note supra for page 634
Page 849
Page 850
starkers
i.e., stark naked
Page 851
November 20th, YDAU; GAUDEAMUS IGITUR - Hal Narrates
Page 851
Gaudeamus Igitur
A traditional European graduation song that exhorts the listener to enjoy all that our brief lives have to offer--in particular, the recreations in which university undergraduates typically partake. The phrase comes from the opening Latin words of the lyric: "Let us rejoice therefore/
While we are young/After a pleasant youth/After a troublesome old age/The earth will have us."
Page 852
50 cm.
nearly 20 inches
A formula for the temporal relation...
To understand why Hal's insight is true, first take a look at the Trammel of Archimedes. Now imagine a system in which the two shuttles travel back and forth along their respective axes and flash each time they reach the ellipse before reversing direction. Both shuttles are confined to the ellipse, so that the shuttle on the major axis travels farther (and temporally longer) between its flashes than does its counterpart on the minor axis. There are two formulas for describing the ellipse, one for the major axis on the horizontal and the other for the major axis on the vertical.
conic sections
These are studied in advanced trigonometry; they are geometric shapes forced by passing a plane through a double-naped cone at different angles and observing the cross-sections, i.e., circles, ellipses (see note supra), parabolas, and hyperbolas.
Page 853
terre-batu
French for "beaten earth," this is a reference to French clay courts.
Ethiopian spear chuckers
Reference to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, when Mussolini's heavily armed and mechanized Italian invading forces took on Haile Selassi's Army of the Ethiopian Empire. Despite the fact that many of the Abyssinians were equipped with little more than spears or bows they managed to give the Italians a good run for their money, but against tanks and aerial bombardments of mustard gas the result was inevitable.
Page 854
Gately's Dreaming, cont.
Page 854
effulgence
shining brilliance
hulpil
probably a misspelling of "huipil," a traditional Mayan dress
Page 855
And Lo
the words used by Madame Psychosis to open her radio show (p. 184)
Page 856
huaraches
Mexican sandals, the "uppers" of which are made from woven strips of leather
B.U.M.
perhaps Boston University Multimedia - but more likely B.U.M. Equipment, a clothes manufacturer that can be read about here
St. Columbkill
this is actually spelled "St. Columbkille," one of the many names of St. Columba, who was also called "Colum Cille," meaning "dove of the church," and was one of the "Twelve Apostles of Ireland" who converted the native Irish - St. Columbkille Parish is a real Parish in Brighton, MA, as end note 348 mentions, the website of which is here.
Page 857
mush
a cornmeal porridge, similar to grits but thicker
w.o.m.
word of mouth
jimson
another name for loco weed
have to much to go on
this appears to be a misprint of "have too much to go on"
Page 859
Evel Knievel
Robert Craig "Evel" Knievel, Jr. (1938-2007), was an American motorcycle daredevil.
As God is my fucking witness...
echoing Scarlett O'Hara's climactic speech in the 1939 film "Gone with the Wind"
MCI/Billerica
the Massachusetts Correctional Institution in Billerica, a town about 20 miles northwest of Boston
Revere
another Massachusetts town, about five miles northeast of Boston, on the Bay; named for Paul Revere
Page 860
Nuckslaughter
i.e., killing a Canadian
Page 861
UPS
United Parcel Service
Route 45
U.S. Route 45 runs from US-98 in Mobile, Ala., to I-43/I-94 in Milwaukee. It passes through Kentucky.
Page 863
orchasm
i.e., orgasm; an interesting gaffe considering it incorporates "chasm," meaning "abyss"
Liebestod
German: love-death―this is the final aria sung by Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde; see note supra for page 756
Page 864
Hal's Narration, cont.
Spiru-Tein
a high-protein energy drink distributed, in powered form, in cans
guilloche
Hal is referring to an ornamental molding of the kind shown below.
parabolic dusting of snow and snow swirling in funnels and eddies
Hal (or Wallace) is on a kind of annular jag with all this talk of ellipses, conic sections, parabolas, funnels and eddies, and even the guilloche pattern.
lee side
nautical term meaning the side facing away from the wind
Page 865
ablutions
ritualistic washings of the body
11-18-EST0456
November 18, Eastern Standard Time, 04:56 a.m. (Despite the fact that it's apparently November 20th. Whether this is an error or not is unclear.)
furriners
dialect pronunciation of "foreigners"
Page 866
Mount Auburn
probably the Mount Auburn Club in Watertown, Mass.
F.A.A.
Federal Aviation Administration
skirling
shrieking; playing of bagpipes
Page 867
duck blind
a shelter for concealing duck hunters
Winchester double-aughts
Winchester 00 shotguns file shells with 7-9 pellets of nominal diameter of 0.33" (8.4 mm).
raisin-debt
raison d'être, French: reason for being
"We got him..."
Obviously, the point of Stice's unfunny joke is that the statistical average of the first two shots would yield a shot that hit the duck.
Page 868
confected
candied or covered in sugar
Schacht heard that joke down at the Cranial place
"Schacht interns twice a week for a root-specialist over at the National Cranio-Facial Pain Foundation", Cf. Page 267
medials
i.e., medians
Page 869
brang
Stice's solecism for "brought"
Page 870
hyper-v'd
hyperventilated
cantilevered
having a "projecting structure, such as a beam, that is supported at one end and carries a load at the other end or along its length" (American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)
Telekiniption
i.e., telekinesis
Parabnormal
another good one
occlusive
descriptive of a bandage that closes a wound and keeps it from air
Page 871
Subhadronic
making up the parts of the parts of an atom; very, very small; hadrons are particles made up of quarks, mainly baryons -- protons and neutrons, made of three quarks -- and mesons -- made of two quarks, so subhadronic particles may be quarks
Moët
Moët & Chandon is a French champagne manufacturer
parotitic
having the mumps
half a meter
about 1.64 feet
dermis
skin
Page 872
tacit
unspoken
Page 873
Endnote 352
betel-nut extract
This extract causes the teeth and gums to be stained red
internecine
destructive to both sides (of a conflict, esp. within an organization)
Page 873 (cont'd)
naïf
a naive male
dessicated
dried up
S.-B. I.Q.
'Stanford-Binet Intelligence Quotient
Submoronic-to-Moronic
At one time, the term "moron" was used to describe a person who tested with an IQ of 50-69; "submoronic" by this reckoning would either be an "imbecile" (with an IQ of 20-49) or an "idiot" (with an IQ below 20). These terms came to be considered offensive and fell from use in the psychological community.
Year of the Perdue Wonderchicken
sinecure
an office requiring little or no work
Ba'hai
a misspelling of Bahá'í, a Middle-Eastern faith
Page 874
hypomanic
not quite manic, but close
co-eval of venereal interface
"Co-eval" can have the more specific meaning of "contemporary," i.e., having the same age (date of origin) or duration, but Kenkle is using periphrasis to say "equivalent of sex."
Endnote 353
Roxbury and Mattapan
In fact, the Orange line continues through Roxbury to terminate at Forest Hills (on the south end of the line); the Red line goes to Mattapan (via transfer at Ashmont). Some branches of the Green line have stops in Brighton, the stand-in for Enfield in the novel.
joss
luck
Page 874
fireman's carry
to carry someone by draping them over your shoulder
Noh-style
in the style of Noh (alternative romanization: "Nou"), which is the highly stylized, elaborately costumed classical drama of Japan
hawked
spit
nihil
Latin: nothing
Page 875
Good prince Hal
Falstaff addresses the future King Henry V in this manner in Act II, scene ii, of I Henry IV.
athe[-]ling
Anglo-Saxon prince or royal heir
cachinated
misspelling of cachinnated, i.e., laughed loudly
compadre
Spanish term for "friend"
Page 876
