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 Hershel holding out a banknote, "Reverse tip. Bring me a bottle of Old Gideon and some ice. If there's any change, keep it. Learn frugality. Begin to see the arrangement?"

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"Reverse tip"
This is practically the exact solution I came up with in the previous blog when I said, "When in Rome."

"Old Gideon"

"Begin to see the arrangement?"
Sure. You give Lew money and Lew does some chore for you. It sounds like a job. Did you just give Lew a job? Alcohol Fetcher. Not great pay but includes room and board! Or at least room.

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 "Hershel, I don't know how I'm supposed to tip you."

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Well, Lew, when in Rome!

I'm not sure if that was a joke or not. Is it a play on Romans giving blow jobs in exchange for goods and services? Because if that was a thing (I think that was a thing in the HBO series Rome), that could be the joke. And also if that is a historical fact, then I'm really giggling about Jesus saying, "Render unto Caesar what is Caesars." Because that's sort of like saying, "When in Rome!"
    But the problem is "When in Rome!" just means "Do things you normally wouldn't do when at home, as long as they're things that the locals commonly do, not suddenly become a serial killer or set buildings on fire." But I suppose because the Romans are practically interchangeable with the Greeks to morons like me, "When in Rome" just makes me think I should engage in sodomy when in Rome. Which is just a terrible thing to think, especially when I know for absolute fact that it's the Persians who were known for sodomy, according to one of Richard Francis Burton's endnotes in his translation of The Book of One Thousand Nights and a Night." The exact quote is offensive on many fronts but I'll quote it here so you know I'm only believing terrible things that famous people said a long time ago: "'Ghilman' are beautiful youths appointed to serve the True Believers in Paradise. The Koran says, 'Youths, which shall continue in their bloom for ever, shall go round about to attend them with goblets, and beakers, and a cup of flowing wine,' etc. Mohammad was an Arab (not a Persian, a born pederast) and he was too fond of women to be charged with love of boys: even Tristram Shandy knew that the two tastes are incompatible. But this and other passages in the Koran have given the Chevaliers de la Pallie a hint that the use of boys, like that of wine, here forbidden, will be permitted in Paradise."
     I mean, egad, amirite?! But he does mention Tristram Shandy so that's pretty postmodern, right?!

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 When the door swung open, Lew noted a bed, a chair, a table, a resonant absence of other furnishing which in different circumstances he would have called sorrowful, but which here he was able, in the instant, to recognize as perfect.

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"a resonant absence"
I suppose this could mean that the absence of furniture caused the room to echo. That's surely one possible interpretation of this usage. But, being that the absence of furniture made the room perfect in this instance, Pynchon could be using the adjective to mean "intensified and enriched by." So the spartan room goes from sorrowful and pathetic to somehow grand and illustrious due to the room's lack.
    But why would Lew view this as perfect? Is it because he's on a path to atonement and thus withholding luxuries and comforts seems to be a fitting means of living, for this "instant"? For reasons that are entirely clear to me but which I probably won't explicate any further, this setup brings to mind Samuel Beckett's Murphy. I don't need to explicate it any further because those familiar with Murphy are already picturing Lew sitting naked in the chair in the dark. Actually, the table is probably a bit overkill. I'd have tossed it down the elevator shaft.

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 More than once they were obliged to step out into refuse-filled corridors, negotiate iron ladders, cross dangerous catwalks not visible from the streets, only to reboard the fiendish conveyance at another of its stops, at times traveling not even vertically, until at last reaching a floor with a room somehow cantilevered out in the wind, autumnal today and unremitting, off Lake Michigan.

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Narrow is the way, and rickety and twisty and dangerous and inconceivable and impossible, which leadeth unto life in a precarious apartment buffeted by strong winds, and few there be that find it without Hershel's help.

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 Hershel had his own notions of elevator etiquette, trying to start conversations about national politics, labor unrest, even religious controversy, any of which it might take an ascent of hours, into lofty regions no high-iron pioneer had yet dared, even to begin to discuss.

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Hershel probably learned his elevator etiquette in non-electric elevators. People were probably trapped on those contraptions for at least twice as long as some men turned cranks or pulleys lifted weights or steam moved pistons to lift the cage. You could probably offend three or four people with Hershel's topics in a trip like that.

My favorite bit about topics that everybody claims should not be talked about is that we all know we're friends with terrible people and we just don't want to know exactly how terrible they are. So we declare a moratorium on talking politics or religion whenever we get a sizeable group together, knowing that the worst person in the room desperately wants to say the terrible things they believe and the other people just want to not know that person is worse than they already know they are.

Hershel is letting the reader know what topics will be discussed in this book. Topics that will take hours, or 1000 pages, to even begin to dissect.

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 The blue arcing from loosely dangling wires, whose woven insulation was frayed and thick with greasy dust, filled the little space with a strong smell of ozone.

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This might be an analogy about the role of technology in our civilization. Technology helps us avoid slightly exerting ourselves going up stairs at only the slight risk of death and disfigurement. There's probably a parable here about maintenance as well since that fits with Lew's story arc. He is the elevator sparking and stinking of ozone due to his lack of care regarding his reputation and his spirituality.

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 The two of them scarcely fit into the tiny electric elevator, which turned out to be more frightening than the worst carnival ride Lew had ever been on.

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If somebody were asked to devise a torture device that could be used against the maximum number of phobias, they'd be hard pressed to beat the elevator.