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 "Why, you will destroy us all!"

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These are prophetic words from Randolph St. Cosmo, right? Miles Blundell, destroyer of worlds.

If not, this is just a moment where we see even Randolph St. Cosmo can lose his composure when the possible destruction of his ship and the death of his crew might be at hand.

This would have been a good time for Pynchon to throw in a purposeful typo so that Randolph exclaimed, "Why, you will destory us all!" I've always loved that destroy looked so much like and visually suggests "de-story" because what better way to describe our destruction than the removal of our story itself?

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 "Blundell, what in Heaven's name!" Randolph exclaimed.

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Exactly the kind of expletive an angel would use! I've got you figured out, Mr. Saint Cosmo!

Unless Randolph's an orc because if you make an anagram of his name (including the full word "saint" and not just the St.), you get "LOST ORC ON A DAMN SHIP." Or maybe "DAMN ORC ON A LOST SHIP!"

No wait! What if we look toward William Blake's America A Prophecy wherein the character Orc is seen as a Luciferian character. In other words, damned, or an angel expelled from (perhaps an all-too-earthly?) heaven! According to Wikipedia—because did you think I actually had this Blake stuff in my head? I barely have that poem about the tiger with laser eyes still up there! Although, thanks to Moore's Jerusalem, I've now heard Blake's poem, "Jerusalem," in song quite a few times (the best time being by Jo Brand on Taskmaster)—Orc is described as a "Lover of Wild Rebellion, and Transgressor of God's Law" and he "symbolizes the spirit of rebellion and freedom." At one point, he "emerges from creative fires to challenge the forces of imperialism" (that was also a quote from the Wiki page about the character Orc).

This all fits in with one of the main themes in Against the Day, right?! Anarchy and rebellion against the empire of the United States of America! America A Prophecy saw print in 1793 so exactly 100 years prior to the start of this book. Coincidence?! Um, probably? But maybe not!

Am I going to have to read up on Blake to understand this book the way I should have read up on Blake to understand Alan Moore's Jerusalem? Although I probably should have read more Joyce for that one too! The characteristics and story of Orc as summarized in the Wikipedia entry on him parallel a lot of the ideas I've seen so far in the first chapter of this book. What's also weird is there were times while reading the first chapter that I felt Pynchon's text was in dialogue with Moore's text, so much so that I had to re-check the publication date on Jerusalem. And as I knew but couldn't remember for sure, Jerusalem had been published nearly a decade after Against the Day. But if both books are heavily referencing themes from some of Blake's mystical and strange writings, wouldn't it seem like they were in dialogue? Oh, and they're also probably in dialogue thanks to James Joyce! But that's a reading for me for another decade!

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 Indeed, the well-meaning but far from dextrous Miles Blundell had somehow contrived to wrap the pull-rope leading to the valve mechanism around his foot, and could be seen moving that extremity to and fro, a bewildered look on his wide, honest face, in hopes that the spring-loaded valve would thus, somehow, close again—for it had already allowed an enormous quantity of hydrogen gas to escape the envelope in a sudden rush, causing the ship to plummet toward the lakeside like a toy dropped by some cosmic urchin.

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Pure slapstick with maybe a hint of comic book culture at the end. Because that image of a cosmic urchin sending a toy airship crashing down to the surface of Earth just appeared in my mind as a Jack Kirby piece in all its 4-color glory. I could also picture it as Steve Ditko art but when the term "cosmic" is used, my mind first sticks Kirby art in there.

Miles Blundell is the blunderer. He's the Curly or the Costello who just can't help screwing up physical labor. I'd also include Stan Laurel but he's skinny and an anomaly to the trope; usually it's the overweight guy who everybody automatically believes is a clumsy oaf. From my own experience being a fat kid in junior high, let me tell you, you'll never see a more shocked look on a kid's face than when the fat kid makes a crazily athletic baseball play when he was, somehow, allowed to play infield instead of being stuck out in right field.

I never understood why it was assumed the fat kid couldn't play infield. It's fucking baseball. You barely move at all! The fat kid's kryptonite was running for long periods not short bursts to catch a passing ball! I totally understood why I was always the goalie in soccer. I probably begged for it! Fuck all that running!

If this scene were on a television show, it would be backed by the most annoying laugh track.