Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 27: Line 19 (391)

 "I'll certainly put in a good word," said Chevrolette.

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She's not going to put in a good word.

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 "I am only an amateur, of course," Miles, though long a member of the prestigious International Academy of Ukulelists, said modestly, "and get lost now and then. But if I promised to go back to the tonic and wait, do you think they'd let me come and sit in?"

* * * * * * * * * *

I thought by saying "go back to the tonic," Miles was saying something like "I'll give up my vices to get back into proper playing shape." But apparently a "tonic" is some kind of music terminology dealing with the primary scale or something. I don't know music or music lingo at all. Trying to understand music theory, to me, is like trying to understand a foreign language if the person trying to understand it doesn't actually care about it at all and is super lazy.
    It's weird that Miles is trying to land a guest gig with the band of a dancer at the Fair when he's already got a job flying around the world exploring strange new civilizations where no boy has gone before. Or maybe it's not weird? Is this how normal people engage in the world around them? They see an opportunity to take part in something they love to do and they simply ask a person involved if they can also be involved? Hunh. That makes sense! I suppose I managed to do this once or twice in my life. Like when I saw that guy selling LSD in the parking lot of The Grateful Dead concert and I simply went up to him and said, "I would like to buy some LSD too!" And also when I saw all those nerds playing Magic the Gathering in the back of the hobby store, I walked straight in and said, "I would like to participate in your nerd league posthaste!" I then complimented five of them on their fedoras and they were all, "Join us, good sir!" And I did!

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 27: Line 16 (388)

 "More of a medley, I believe, encompassing Hawaiian and Philippino motifs, and concluding with a very tasteful adaptation of Monsieur Saint-Saëns's wonderful 'Bacchanale,' as recently performed at the Paris Opera."

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This reads like a clue on how to read Gravity's Rainbow so that a reader might understand what's happening in the fourth part, "The Counterforce." But you have to replace "Hawaiian and Philippino motifs" with "German and British and American motifs" and replace "concluding with a very tasteful adaptation of Monsieur Saint-Saëns's wonderful 'Bacchanale'" with some other work which I can't name because I'm still having a lot of trouble with "The Counterforce." It might be something less high brow artsy and could simply be "concluding with a disgustingly lowbrow and hallucinogenic adaptation of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's 'Action Comics #1.'" I mean, a guy is shoved into a rocket and launched away from a world that seemed to be ending.

"tasteful adaptation of Monsieur Saint-Saëns's wonderful 'Bacchanale,'"
I just listened to this piece and now I'm picturing Pynchon listening to it and thinking, "I could see a woman practically stripping to this!" The opening movement and a few other movements within are evocative of "The Streets of Cairo," also known as the Snake Charmer's song, which became synonymous with belly dancing or the hoochie coochie. 

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 27: Line 15 (387)

 "And is it authentic native music?"

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What Miles is asking without knowing he's asking it because he's living in 1893 is, "Do you have native Hawaiians in your band or are you a cultural appropriating scum-bag?" Of course he would have been using the term "scum-bag" to mean "a bag used in the refining of sugar" and not in "a condom." Also people almost certainly weren't referring to other people as "scum-bags" in 1893. All of this is to say that this book was written in 2006 so Pynchon was probably hinting at the idea of whiteness appropriating foreign native arts and ideas as their own in the only way an 1893 kid could: being truly passionate about Hawaiian music and wanting to know if Miss McAdoo's band reproduced it authentically. This entire bit about ukuleles and a white woman dancing foreign dances is a continuation of Pynchon's examination of the Chicago World's Fair and how it treated non-white arts and cultures. They were things to be curious about and maybe admire on their own merits, divorced from the context of the culture which created them, because looking too deeply at the culture and the people and how these arts and creations came to the shores of the white men bring up too many questions with nearly only depressing answers.

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 27: Line 14 (386)

 "There are several ukulelists in my pit-band," said Miss McAdoo, "tenor, baritone, and soprano."

* * * * * * * * * *

I'm sorry but all of this talk about ukuleles has caused me to slit my wrists. I probably need medical attention. I hope neither the paramedics nor the ambulance driver are hipsters who can't stop themselves from taking their ukuleles to work but I am in Portland so there's only like a ten percent chance of that not happening.

"tenor, baritone, and soprano"
Thanks to Pynchon, I now know there are more variants of the ukulele than the standard soprano. It's possible somebody once tried to explain this to me but I simply heard them saying, "Blah blah blah blah blah." Like that Uber driver that one time I took Uber when my friend was in town and they had the ability to use a smart phone to coerce a person needing extra money to survive into being our designated driver and the guy's name was Brent and he had a ukulele in the car and he graciously invited us to play it if we wanted. Or maybe the barista at the local cafe who heard somebody say the word "ukulele" and then was all "Oh, you play too?" and, well, I can't tell you what was said after that because a high-pitched tonal note descended upon my skull for the next five minutes and my eyes went all white and cloudy and I might have gotten a message from a long dead ancestor. Or maybe somebody at my bank once mentioned it seeing as how their front window is covered in stickered words that are supposed to describe living in Portland and I'm pretty sure one of those words is "ukulele."

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 27: Line 13 (385)

 "I greatly admire the music of the region," said Miles, "the ukulele in particular."

* * * * * * * * * *

Miles is a fat, clumsy hipster who might also have epilepsy. He would have such a huge following on Instagram.

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 27: Line 12 (384)

 "I perform the Dance of Lava-Lava, the Volcano Goddess," she replied.

* * * * * * * * * *

I guess I have to imagine what that dance might be. It's probably a version of the Hula but with more audience casualties.

That was my polite society definition of the dance. My vulgar interpretation uses words like "eruptions" and "ruined" and "pants."

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 26: Line 11 (383)

 "You are an artiste, Miss McAdoo?"

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This is a thing writers do that I think should be done more often but constantly frustrates me: they don't attribute a line of dialogue to any speaker. Usually they do it because it should be obvious and nobody wants to read same speaking attribution over and over again. Sometimes they do it because they're Gertrude Stein and they just don't give a fuck. If I had to guess who was saying this, I'd say it was Chick Counterfly because he's the one who engaged with Merle and Chevrolette. But all the Chums of Chance are in the scene! This sounds like something Lindsay would say with a hint of disgust and judgment in his voice. Or it could be Randolph trying to change the tone a bit by lifting the discussion of Miss McAdoo's dancing from vulgar to cultural. But it's probably just Chick continuing to slather on the flattery.

"artiste"
You're an artist without an 'e' if you engage in activities that can be discussed in polite society. You're an artist with an 'e' if you're practically naked while doing your art. I'm pretty sure that's the standard definition. Comments for this post are turned off.