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 The young woman directed a graceful kick which was not, however, altogether lacking in affection, and said, "I'm Chevrolette McAdoo, and mighty pleased to meet you fellows, even if you did nearly sandbag us into the beyond yesterday."

* * * * * * * * * *

Hopefully everybody has been lucky enough to be kicked flirtatiously by a young woman at some point in their lives, even if the woman's name is as crazy as Chevrolette McAdoo. If one were to translate the young woman's name from French and Irish to English, it would be something like "Little Goat Black Hound." 'McAdoo' is the anglicized spelling of the Irish 'Mac Conduibh.' It probably makes sense if you were some non-Irish guy asking for the Irish person's name and then scribbled down, to the best of your English or American ears, what you thought you had heard. Other ways 'Mac Conduibh' was anglicized: 'Cunniff' or 'McNiff.' So it really depended on how thick the accent was and how thick the non-Irish person recording the name they just heard.

Chevrolette is just a cute way to say Ms. McAdoo is horny like a little goat, I suspect. She definitely kicks like one. But why a black hound? Hounds are known for sniffing out rabbits. They were also known for crying all of the time and not being a good friend and also not catching rabbits, I guess? Maybe Elvis just didn't understand how to do metaphors.

You know what? Forget Elvis's description. He obviously didn't know anything about hound dogs. He's just all, "You cry all the time like a baying hound dog but my metaphor falls apart in all of the other ways which I should point out in the rest of the lyrics of this song."

I'm sure I'll find out why she's such a hound dog later!

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 "You bean-brain."

* * * * * * * * * *

When you can't think of some piece of knowledge which you know you know, it's called a "brain fart." "Bean-brain" is just the polite, Victorian era version of the same thing. Because, like every toddler knows, beans make you fart.
    How Pynchon knew that "bean-brain" was the Victorian era "brain fart" is all the proof I need that Pynchon is a time traveler and he writes all of his novels in the era where they're set. That's much easier for me to believe than imagining somebody actually does loads of research for their novel.
    No Victorian era lady would ever utter the word "fart." They probably pretended not to even know what a fart was although I bet they just filled the room with flatulence the moment they loosened up the corset. I bet undoing the tie on a corset just unleashed a torrent of loud farts as they were finally able to rush to freedom. Or maybe women simply died whenever they got gas because their stomachs couldn't expand. At least then they didn't have to be embarrassed when their body finally let one loose, I suppose.

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 "And my fair companion here is . . . give me a minute—"

* * * * * * * * * *

Some spirit messenger Blackbird Rideout turns out to be. He can't even remember the name of the naked lady he was photographing. Of course now that I remember she was naked, I completely understand. The subtext of this is probably something like the patriarchy can't even bother to acknowledge the agency of women or realize that they are individuals in their own right.
    Although you'll be more sympathetic to Merle's inability to remember her name once you learn what her wackydoodle name actually is.

"my fair companion"
Get it? It's a play on words! She's nice to look at and also she has accompanied him to the Fair!

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 The sportive lensman introduced himself as Merle Rideout.

* * * * * * * * * *

"sportive"
This description of him was garnered either from the style of dress described in the Chums' first encounter with him or because he must be "playful and lighthearted" to be out in the field photographing a naked woman while surrounded by descending balloons full of children. Either "sportive" or "filthily disgusting."

"lensman"
He's a photographer, Spellcheck. Is it that hard to understand? Spellcheck needs a common sense adapter.

"Merle Rideout"
To "ride out" something is to successfully survive some unstoppable catastrophe. As family names go, you couldn't get a better one that points to some amazing story from your ancestors' past. Although I'm sure the surname is meant to expressly describe something about Merle himself (although this is Pynchon so we might get a full chapter on Rideout's great-great-great-grandparents who endured some kind of invasion by unknown foreigners who cannibalized half of their village while they hid in barrels at the bottom of a well).
    A "merle" is a blackbird. Blackbirds are sometimes thought of as spirit messengers. If the boys of the Inconvenience are angels or ghosts, Merle could be their liaison with the "National Office." Obviously they don't know each other and are just meeting. I mean he could be an unwitting liaison, carrying a message he doesn't know he's to deliver. It's like giving a kid the name of Malachi Constant! He's just going to think it's a name but if he looks into it even a little bit, he might start believing he's some kind of grand messenger of God!
    Merle could also be thought of as a "spirit messenger" in that he's a photographer. He "captures" the spirits of people and the spirit of the times, locked in still images for all eternity. Perhaps his photographs "ride out" the finite moment in which they're created.

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 Strolling among the skyships next morning, beneath a circus sky which was slowly becoming crowded as craft of all sorts made their ascents, renewing acquaintance with many in whose company, for better or worse, they had shared adventures, the Chums were approached by a couple whom they were not slow to recognize as the same photographer and model they had inadvertently bombarded the previous evening.

* * * * * * * * * *

Miles and Lindsay's night at the Fair came to a conclusion between sections which means Pynchon wasn't interested at all in describing the events and exhibitions taking place in The White City at the center of the fairgrounds. The center isn't of concern here. Perhaps I'm getting a little bit closer at understanding the title. Perhaps the day is the center, the status quo, the considered norm. What we see in the day is what the light shines on, and what the light shines on, in a civilization, is curated by desires, beliefs, agendas, motivations, and selfish machinations of the people living in it. But that doesn't mean what happens in the shadows doesn't exist, or isn't important, or isn't equally as valid to those who live outside of that light.

"It's always night, or we wouldn't need light." The quote by Thelonious Monk which opened the novel. "It's always night." An observation by a man who lived in the shadow world, not because he chose to but because society chose it for him. And even when he thrived, they continued to try to stop him from thriving whenever a light was shone on him. His life mirrors every experience Black Americans have tried to explain to white Americans who just simply choose not to believe it. Because living in the daylight is an experience so divorced from those without light that it can hardly be comprehended. And much of the time, white Americans simply choose not to comprehend it when it's plain as day.

I'd be a fool to believe that I understand what this novel is about or where it's headed, thematically, after only reading twenty-five pages of boys' adventure novel. But what's the point of having a brain if you don't use it to think about what you're reading while you're reading it?

"the Chums"
Why "the Chums of Chance"? I haven't asked that question yet, have I? For a group of uniformed boys working by strict rules within a seemingly militaryesque organization, why identify with the word "chance"? Chance could mean "the occurrence and development of events in the absence of any obvious design." What does that say about their view of their 19th century world? We're throwing God right out of the picture with this nickname, are we not? I know they're using it to mean "do something despite its being dangerous or of uncertain outcome." But we have to acknowledge that Pynchon knows the alternate meanings of the word and what they, too, suggest about their name. So if the term chance suggests an "absence of any obvious design" as well as engaging in dangerous activities with uncertain outcomes, it's part of the text and part of the story.
    I think the "obvious" is doing most of the work in this case. God has been the "obvious" designer up until, well, about 1893, if I'm going to go all-in on Pynchon's story and themes. The Chums are living in an era where the "designs" are being discovered little by little and they've been discovered to be obvious in no way at all. That's the thing about science. People who don't really care much about learning and understanding the world around them, so wrapped up in their own gut instincts and personal anecdotes, always seem to think the world can be understood if you just have a modicum of common sense. But common sense implies obviousness; common sense allows for easy understanding of simple things and matters. Science is neither simple nor easily understood. Science often goes against everything our senses say the world should be. In a way, I see the phrase "absence of any obvious design" as a statement that puts God to rest and embraces science.

"approached by a couple"
It's been three sections of mostly the Chums so I'm looking forward to some new characters! Especially the naked lady!