Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Line 40 (145)

 "Well, we certainly scared those chaps down there, Professor," commented Miles, gazing over the side.

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At least somebody was scared, you insouciant narcoleptic buffoon!

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Line 39 (144)

 Above him, Darby, with a triumphant "Hurrah!" succeeded in closing the valve, and the huge airship accordingly slackened in its downward hurtling to a velocity no more ominous than that of a leaf in autumn.

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The use of the word "hurrah" was most popular in the 1860s with a second wave of popularity (although not quite as popular) in the 1890s. So Darby chooses the right expression to celebrate his success in closing the valve.

I hope with the mention of the leaf on the wind, Darby isn't about to get pierced through the chest in the next line.

Anyway, with the closing of the valve, the slapstick scene of the crashing airship has ended. Oh! Was this a parody of Airplane!? Probably!

I should begin a section for the stupid readers that begins after the main section of my discussion. It would look something like this:

"Pynchon compares the descending airship to a leaf in autumn because autumn is the time of year when the leaves fall from their trees. Unless you're in Australia and then it's when the leaves grow back on the trees. That's because the Earth isn't flat, you idiots. Geez!"

I bet if you surprised a Flat Earther at some point when nobody was arguing about the Earth and you were all, "DRAW A PICTURE OF THE EARTH! QUICK!", I bet they'd draw it round. But then you'd say, "A-ha! You don't actually think it's flat!" And then they'd show you the two-dimensional paper they drew the Earth on and say, "Touché!" (because they're dumb) But then you'd be all, "Oh really? Then why does your dumb round two-dimensional Earth only have three unrecognizable continents on it! I mean, you don't have to explain to me why they're unrecognizable. I get it. You suck at geography, what with being so stupid and all. Where are the other continents?!" Then they'd probably draw them on the back side of the paper and you'd wind up in a huge discussion about why the Chinese don't fall off the world and you'll want to kill yourself when the person replies, "Chinese Magna-Lock Boot Technology. Duh!"

Chapter 1: Section 2: Pages 12-13: Line 38 (143)

 This irony was lost, however, on Chick as well as its object, who, having at last somehow regained his feet, now went stumbling with serene insouciance over to the rail, apparently to have a look at the scenery.

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No wonder Randolph St. Cosmo is losing his shit! The ship is still hurtling to the ground and just because his leg is free from the rope, Miles seems no more worried than a bloke who hadn't just been called fat after causing the airship he's on to crash toward the ground. The ship should be renamed from Inconvenience to Insouciance. I guess Miles is happy because, like Chick, he simply didn't get the fat joke.

I have to look up the definition of "irony" because was Lindsay's statement ironic or was it just a highbrow insult? Now that I've looked it up and listened to Alanis Morrissette's song, I still don't know. I guess the irony is that Miles Blundell can actually easily fit into the parachute's harness. Is that irony?!

No, no! Don't answer that. Discussions of things that are and aren't ironic are the most boring discussions. I'm sorry I even brought it up! I'm just going to get a marker and scratch out "irony" in my copy of Against the Day and write in "sick burn".

There. Now it won't bother me when I re-read it.

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 12: Line 37 (142)

 "No, Counterfly, I think not, there scarcely being time—moreover, the complexities that would attend rigging Blundell in the necessary paraphernalia would tax the topological genius of Herr Riemann himself."

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This is the math nerd Lindsay Noseworth is referring to:

Bernhard Reimann is basically the guy who came up with the first rigorous definition of the integral of a function on an interval. Eighteen year old me probably would have understood that but forty-nine year old me hasn't done a calculus problem in thirty-one years. I mean, sure, I get the gist of it! But not to the point that I'm going to explain it worse than 99% of the other people explaining it on the Internet. You're on the Internet! If you care, go look it up on the Math Nerd Wiki.

The point of (sort of) explaining who Herr Rimann is (aside from that anybody reading a blog about Pynchon's writing expects the person to explain all the references. But you can find better places for that too!) is to show my appreciation for Lindsay Noseworth's fat joke. If you're going to call some guy fat, it would be crass to simply say, "Blundell's too fat for the parachute rig!" It's much classier to say, "Figuring out how to get all that blubber into all these straps would tax even one of the foremost minds on figuring out the area of Blundell's oddly shaped, curved, and warped body!"

Bravo, Lindsay! If I had a rose, I'd throw it at the wall right now while pretending my wall is Lindsay and then I'd finger bang it.