Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Line 46 (151)

 From an instrument locker nearby, he produced a powerful spyglass, and trained it upon the objects of curiosity.

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A spyglass is a phallic object. Pynchon is obsessed with phallic objects. He has to be! He wrote an entire 800 page book about one of the biggest ever! So Miles sees a naked person and the first thing he does is reach for his spyglass. It's almost like I'm reading The Fermata!

Okay, it's nothing like that. But that book was all about masturbating when you're supposed to be writing so it's sort of the same thing. Also, I wonder how well that book plays today with the younger generations. There's a ton of non-consensual sex in that thing. I don't think stopping time to not get caught means you're not some kind of sex pest. But then, the book isn't meant to be taken literally anyway! Which is weird for literature, right?! Do those words have a common ancestor?

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Line 45 (150)

 "Well, they're running just lickety-split," Miles continued, "a-and say, one of them hasn't even got any clothes on, that's sure what it looks like all right!"

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Remember how we determined Miles Blundell is the lowbrow and vulgar part of Pynchon's imagination? Leave it up to him to notice the naked person!

Pynchon loves to use the stuttered expression of "and" a-and I have no idea why. Does it mean something or is he just trying to convey realistic speech patterns where lines don't always come out of people's mouths cleanly? I bet it's a secret message and there's an explicit reason for every time he uses it! I just don't know what that secret might be because nobody ever tells me their secrets or lets me join their shadow societies.

I bet Miles, being the vulgar aspect of Pynchon (and quite a plump aspect it is for reasons you'd understand if you read Gravity's Rainbow), uses the term "lickety-split" because it sounds so dirty. Obviously it isn't dirty in 1893 because in 1893, people didn't know you could put your tongue inside of a vagina. I mean, I'm sure lesbians did! But who were they going to tell the wonders of cunnilingus to other than other lesbians without getting tarred and feathered? Also, people in the Middle East and India knew this was a thing. And also some lovers of erotic material who were members of the Kama Shastra Society and were able to get their eyes on Richard Francis Burton's translation of The Kama Sutra. Other than that, nobody knew you could lick that split at all. NOBODY!

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Lines 42-44 (147-149)

 "Eh?" Randolph beginning to regain his air of phlegmatic competence. "How's that?"

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With the emergency at an end, Randolph straightens his uniform, slicks back his hair, and is ready to get his airship back on course.

In other words: after the bout of slapstick took control of the narrative, Pynchon composes himself and is ready to get back to the highbrow thematic qualities in which he started this chapter with all that talk about dark conjugates and daylit fictions and the working class being treated like cattle in a stockyard.

I placed these three sentences in one post because they could easily have been one line with the proper punctuation and also because I can't write an entire blog entry on "Eh?" or "How's that?"

No, no. That's not true. I'm positive I could. But it would probably wind up being a story about the first movie I ever remember seeing (Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown at a drive-in which I don't remember as much as I remember watching the beginning of Star Wars on another screen before having to turn around and watch the cartoon).

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Line 41 (146)

 "Dropping all those sandbags, I'll wager."

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Does the airship, Inconvenience, symbolize Pynchon's novels (particularly this one, since it's in it, ya know?)? And the crew of children his brain? Because his books are a bit of an inconvenience, wouldn't you say? Even if you love them, they're sort of obstacles to themselves standing in the way of the author's intended reason for being (I mean, they can, at times, be incomprehensible). They're also generally giant bloated airbags that most people think are too high above them to be noticed or appreciated. Perhaps the Chums of Chance are not just being his brain but separate aspects of his imagination and writing process. Sometimes they work together and, other times, they leave him frustrated to the point of paralysis. So is Randolph St. Cosmo Pynchon himself, trying to maintain control?

If this is true, Lindsay is the part of his brain writing all the smart stuff, reminding Randolph of all the good words he's learned over the years, and how to use them correctly. It's the part of his brain that nags at him with rules that might not apply but are still lodged and stuffed into his skull in an attempt to make these huge, sprawling stories comprehensible.

Miles Blundell is the slapstick. Chick Counterfly is the paranoia and rebellion against the status quo. Darby Suckling is the wonder and innocence.

And, of course, Pugnax is the audience. We've already figured that out!

The reason I bring all of this up is that "dropping sandbags" read to me as "dropping knowledge" which seemed like the kind of thing that would make people fear Pynchon's novels. And to keep that metaphor but twist it a bit, dropping the sandbags in order to keep the airship afloat would be like editing the novel by cutting out whole sections that would have made the work too unwieldy.

Anyway, I'd wager that's all true.