Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Line 54 (159)

 The duo appeared to be making for a nearby patch of woods, now and then casting apprehensive looks upward at the enormous gasbag of the descending Inconvenience, quite as if it were some giant eyeball, perhaps that of Society itself, ever scrutinizing from above, in a spirit of constructive censure.

* * * * * * * * * *

It's lines like these that make me want to immediately re-read Mason & Dixon. But I must resist because I don't even have time for the all the projects I'm currently working on. Why must we eat and sleep? I could get so much more done! Or I'd just play more Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures. I'm currently working my way through The Temple of Elemental Evil.

I find it interesting (or informative?) that Pynchon conflates the airship with Society's shaming view, as if it were merely watching and judging, and yet this Society's judging eyeball also just dropped a bunch of sandbags on the couple, nearly killing them. It certainly puts the meaning behind Pynchon's phrase of "a spirit of constructive censure" into stark and scary relief, doesn't it?

The couple in this scene seem like wild animals, or proto-humans, running back to the wood in instinctual fear of their lives from the man-made machine descending upon them. It suggests a division in mankind, as if a time traveler had traveled back to amaze pre-civilized man with his gadgets, or a modern era traveler somehow wound up in the far flung post-apocalyptic future where science has all but been forgotten. What that has to do with this book, I don't know! Probably something about how science and technology change are lives in such drastic ways that they produce both fear and fascination in equal amounts.

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Line 53 (158)

 Close behind him came the female companion Blundell had remarked, carrying a bundle of ladies' apparel, though clad at the moment in little beyond a floral diadem of some sort, charmingly askew among masses of fair hair.

* * * * * * * * * *

I can't post the picture of what this woman looked like because she's naked and that would probably be considered pornography. I did post a picture of a naked lady by Valenti Angelo from the Richard Burton translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night but that wasn't really something a modern person would find titillating unless they were of the age where their bodies were just beginning to be titillated by things. Back in Burton's day, it couldn't even be published without breaking the law!

I could probably draw my interpretation of her but I don't have as much practice drawing crowns made of flowers as I have drawing ladies' boobies. I grew up in the late 70s/early 80s. Sometimes the only pornography you had was what you imagined a lady looked like without her apparel and then be able to draw it!

Is it sexist that we get a fully dressed man with all of his clothing described accurately and the woman is naked and doesn't even get her outfit described? Probably, right?!

Also, have we seen which Chum wasn't as eager as the others to get a glimpse of the naked lady? There are five of them so the odds are pretty good that one of them is gay. I bet it's not Lindsay because every reader probably already hates him and that wouldn't be a good look, Pynchon! It's probably Darby Suckling.

Oh! Is Lindsay's last name "Noseworth" because he's such a strong and worthy brown-noser? I bet it is!

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 13: Line 52 (157)

 Across the herbaceous nap below, in the declining light, among the brighter star-shapes of exploded ballast bags, running heedless, as across some earthly firmament, sped a stout gentleman in a Norfolk jacket and plus-fours, clutching a straw "skimmer" to the back of his head with one hand while with the other keeping balanced upon his shoulder a photographic camera and tripod.

* * * * * * * * * *

The first half of this sentence is just pure Pynchonian description of the space inhabited by the two tiny figures below the Inconvenience. The field they're running across is described as a kind of material where the herbs and plants are the raised texture. The field is rather dark due to the sun going down, making it look like a night sky filled with stars created by the sand bursting from the bags dropped at a great height. Pynchon creates a nice contrasting image of a celestial tableaux writ across the surface of the Earth.

Running across this alien surface is a photographer and his equipment.

This is pretty much what he looks like minus the hat and the golf club and the pipe and plus the camera and the tripod.

The straw "skimmer" is the hat you probably think it is. It's the hats Abbott and Costello's cartoon caricatures (among others) are wearing in the cartoon "Strolling Thru the Park." Also Mickey Mouse wears one in the Disney film, The Nifty Nineties while the song "Strolling Through the Park" plays. So basically if you're strolling through the park in the 1890s, you should be wearing a straw "skimmer" aka a boater and a whole lot of other AKAs (even though the song mentions a derby).

We'll learn more about this guy and what he has to do with being against the day or needing light against the night or something. You know, he's into photography which is all about light and dark! That's probably important!