Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 23: Line 29 (314)

 "Scientific exhibit here boys, latest improvements to the hypodermic syringe and its many uses!"

* * * * * * * * * *

I knew drugs were one of the Deadly Sins! If doing drugs is a sin that automatically damns you to Hell, what would the punishment for it in Hell be? Not getting to do drugs for eternity? Or doing too many drugs for eternity? Basically if you end any punishment with "for eternity," I'm totally up for it. Because at least that means I still exist! Unless the punishment is "not existing for eternity." But then I'm already prepared for that one! Even if the punishment is having your entrails pulled out of your anus by demon hands covered in stinging nettles for all eternity, I'd be pretty psyched about my ego continuing on. Good luck getting me down, Satan, when you're letting my ego continue on forever! The only way you can punish me in that case is by destroying my ego! And that wouldn't be all that bad anyway because, as I said, I'm already expecting that and, well, it would put an end to all those stinging nettles in my butthole.

Lindsay is probably right to be suspicious of the intent of some of these exhibits since I think the only reason hypodermic syringes existed in 1893 were to get morphine into the bloodstream.

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 23: Line 28 (313)

 "Exotic smoking practices around the world, of great anthropological value!"

* * * * * * * * * *

I bet if one of the local weed shops here in Portland would hire a pitchman to stand outside their business and yell shit like this, they'd make a killing! "Oh, really? Smoking this stuff will make me more worldly?!"

Although it's quite likely they'll get shut down by people angry about cultural appropriation. This city is all kinds of fucked up.

There's a pot shop up here called Electric Lettuce which is my favorite name for a pot shop. There's also a pot shop up here called Herb Stomper which is my least favorite name for a pot shop. You can't just decide, "Hey! 'Herb' rhymes with 'curb' that's a good pot pun!" I mean, you can but it doesn't make any sense. The initial phrase being punned on should have some kind of relation to weed. At least it should have some context other than complete and utter violence!

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 23: Line 27 (312)

 Pitchmen in their efforts at persuasion all but seized the ambulant youths by their lapels.

* * * * * * * * * *

One time I was in Tokyo and I was walking through the Shinjuku Kabukicho Red Light District which was similar to the district that Miles and Lindsay were walking through. A man standing outside of a red door called me over. Intrigued because I'm far less wary of temptation than Lindsay, I headed over to see what the man had to say. He said, "Do you speak Japanese?" I replied that I did not. He then said, with a leer, "Too bad for you!" I felt chagrined!

I later learned that most of the sex clubs, while not officially "Japanese Only," maintain an informal barrier to those who don't speak the language by refusing translations on written material and speaking only in Japanese. So why did that doorman call to me in English only so he could turn me away?! Because he was a jerk, that's why! If only he knew about my penchant for oral sex and all the yen that was burning a hole in my pocket!

No wait. I bet he absolutely knew those things! That was part of his little game! ARGH!

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 22: Line 26 (311)

 Pavilions here seemed almost to represent not nations of the world but Deadly Sins.

* * * * * * * * * *

Yes, to a white Christian steeped in the thoughts and morality of Western Civilization, sure.

"Oh look! Those natives fuck out of Christian wedlock! LUST!"

"That group from Equatorial regions there are naked and showing off their flaccid genitals that generally look larger than white flaccid genitals because their environment doesn't put them at risk of frostbite on their appendages! PRIDE! Oh, and more LUST, probably! Look at them dangle! Ooh la la!"

"Oh my! What are these people eating?! GLUTTONY!"

"Hey! Those guys are smoking something odd smelling and tripping balls! DRUGS!"

"Those women are doing topless cultural dances! BOOBIES!"

Fine. I admit it. I don't know all of the seven Deadly Sins.

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 22: Line 25 (310)

 Temptation, much to Lindsay's chagrin, lurked at every step.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Chagrin" is an interesting word to use here. Pynchon could have used embarrassment as a near synonym, seeing as how Lindsay has that stick up his asterisk. But chagrin denotes that there's something more to Lindsay's being tempted, a quite large possibility of failure to resist, or the humiliation of having failed before. Perhaps Lindsay knows that, even though he's a rules monger, he has trouble resisting many of the things rules have been made to avoid. Like a Christian who believes the only reason people don't sin is because they fear Hell, Lindsay only resists debauchery and hedonism because somebody made rules against those things.

I suppose I didn't say anything new in that previous paragraph because I'm quite certain I've already called Lindsay a sociopath at least a dozen times.

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 22: Line 24 (309)

 Indian swamis levitated, Chinese boxers feinted, kicked, and threw one another to and fro.

* * * * * * * * * *

Just more examples of the cool cultural stuff going on off Midway. Off Midway is where all the cool and hip people went at the Chicago World's Fair. It's like if you went to New York and you were all, "Ugh. Who wants to go see fucking Cats or The Lion King?!" so instead you went to go see Hedwig and the Angry Inch or Urinetown.

* * * * * * * * * *

Reading up a bit on the Chicago World's Fair, it would seem what I've dubbed "off Midway" was pretty much just the Midway. The exhibitions of various cultures intermixed with concessions and other entertainments were simply placed along the Midway leading up to the building known as The White City which housed the exhibits of modern civilization. So it was built to feel sort of like a stroll through both the world and time. Although I'm sure Lindsay and Miles still walked through some sketchier, possibly non-sanctioned areas on their way to the Midway from their ticket booth at the gap in the fence.

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 22: Line 23 (308)

 Pygmies sang Christian hymns in the Pygmy dialect, Jewish klezmer ensembles filled the night with unearthly clarionet solos, Brazilian Indians allowed themselves to be swallowed by giant anacondas, only to climb out again, undigested and apparently with no discomfort to the snake.

* * * * * * * * * *

These are all examples of things the middle class whites were being protected from seeing by shunting them off the Midway and into the darker peripheral spaces. And maybe the restless Chicago cops were actually there to "bounce" the white people back to the Midway. Not in an effort to protect them from the foreign visitors or poor people or immigrants but to protect the status quo by keeping the "innocent" white majority from seeing the art and humanity of these other people. Seeing their plays about their own culture, or hearing their native languages raised in Christian hymns, or listening to their cultural music played on woodwinds, or seeing their amazing feats of nature and/or illusion (I mean, did they really get eaten by anacondas? Was that a thing?! I'd say it was commentary on that guy who tried to be eaten alive by an anaconda and failed but this book came out over ten years prior to that!) might actually force the middle class white people to consider these Others as fellow human beings rather than uncivilized animals that needed the White Man's law and order.

"Pygmies sang Christian hymns in the Pygmy dialect"
Aside from seeing this as a way for white people to see the humanity of the Pygmies, this is also obviously a terrible sin by missionaries. Yes, hearing a Christian hymn in another language would make the heart of a white Christian open to the Pygmies. But the fact that something like that would be needed is a travesty. Christianity has two tenets which make the world a more terrible place while supposedly espousing the opposite. It teaches people to be kind to their neighbor but also that you'll go to Hell if you don't accept Christ as your Lord and Savior. And so inhumane acts of brutality have been committed on Christian neighbors for two millennia in order to save them from Hell which, according to Christians, is an act of kindness toward their neighbors.

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 22: Line 22 (307)

 A Zulu theatrical company re-enacted the massacre of British troops at Isandhlwana.

* * * * * * * * * *

There's history that the Center doesn't generally recognize as history. A lot of that history concerns how the Center is often the baddie in international conflicts. Most of British history amounts to "We want that land and those resources and if you won't submit to our impossible demands, we'll have no choice but to use armed aggression to take them." And to get support for these aggressions, they simply Other the non-Centered people in ways that allow for popular support of murdering them and stealing their land and resources. "They're not civilized. They aren't making proper use of resources we could really use. They're overly aggressive and cannot live among us." But really the only argument the Centered people need to attempt to add another country to their Empire is this one: "They don't have modern weapons like us! They're practically begging us to destroy them!" That's just a variation on "Might makes right." But even "might makes right" doesn't tell the whole story because sometimes even with better weapons, you still get your ass handed to you by 20,000 Zulu warriors. And then you'd think if you believed in "might makes right," you'd have to step back and say, "Well, they sure did smite us with their might! I guess they're right! Better let them be!" But the British believed in "Continued might until they ultimately submit to our aggression and accept our laws and our authority makes right."

With all that being the case, and with the understanding that the British Empire definitely were the bad guys for centuries, you can see why people like the Zulu would celebrate a moment in their history where they succeeded against the bastards. I use the term "bastard" as in "Those guys are right dirty bastards." But in The Boomer Bible's "The Book of Others," it's used as in "those poor bastards who constantly got it in the neck by the Chosen Nations." Here's an excerpt from The Boomer Bible, one of my favorite books:

"The black Africans never had a chance.
2 The Watusi and the Zulus and the thousands of tribes who lived in the jungles and the savanna didn't want to rule the world,
3 Or build monuments of stone,
4 Or giant cities,
5 Or anything else.
6 They wanted to be left alone,
7 To live their own way,
8 Which didn't have anything to do with being Christian,
9 Or earning plantation wages,
10 Or being enslaved on some plantation on a different continent,
11 But the Chosen Nations came to Africa anyway,
12 And brought all their great civilized gifts,
13 Including Christianity,
14 And whips and chains,
15 And terrible weapons,
16 And slave ships,
17 And colonial governments,
18 And armies,
19 And wars,
20 And lies,
21 And more white people than you can shake a pointed stick at.
22 Poor bastards."

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 22: Line 21 (306)

 Armed "bouncers," drawn from the ranks of the Chicago police, patrolled the shadows restlessly.

* * * * * * * * * *

You might think the word "bouncers" was in quotes because it was being used euphemistically, as if the police weren't really "bouncers" but more probably "murder enthusiasts." But you'd be slightly wrong (only slightly because police are and always have been "murder enthusiasts"). The reason it's in quotes is because it only lately, in the late 19th century, gained the connotation of being a person who chucks people out of establishments. Apparently it was made popular by Horatio Alger whom we all know as the bootstraps guy.

Pynchon pulls no punches when writing about the brutality and bloodlustiness of police. Time and time again in Gravity's Rainbow, he portrays them as violent thugs more interested in smashing skulls than law and order. And he wasn't alone! Police have had a terrible reputation in America for decades. It's just that there are a certain type of people (we'll call them "racists") who support the police no matter what because they love seeing minorities and poor people beaten and murdered. It makes them feel like their Blu-ray players are safe and secure within their triple-locked and alarmed house inside their fenced neighborhood. Your Blu-ray player can never be too safe, you know!

We all knew in the 60s and 70s that police were brutal scolds who were just hanging around trying to disrupt every good time. But in the 80s, something began to change. We were told, over and over again, that drugs were bad and there was a war on drugs and the only people who could save us from drugs were cops and the DARE program. But this one sentence by Pynchon is way more accurate than all the pro-cop television and cops are your friends Presidential Fitness programs of the 80s (don't try to untangle that statement; it's mostly just me still bristling at the Presidential Fitness program which has nothing to do with policing. For some reason, us fat kids were almost as horrible Conservative specters as crack addicts, welfare mothers, and Willie Horton): Chicago police, armed and ready for trouble, patrol restlessly. They're restless to use their arms!

The lie has always been that people become police out of a sense of duty to protect their community. They become police so they can legally beat and murder people whom they think should be beaten and murdered. Law and order never actually comes into the equation.

Oh yeah! One important aspect of this I initially overlooked was how the police are patrolling the darker, less white area of the Fair. Of course they are. Because it's about intimidation of the powerless. If they patrolled the area full of middle class whites, they couldn't beat whomever they wanted to beat. Middle class white people love police brutality when the right people are targeted but they hate the police even looking at themselves suspiciously. How dare they!