Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 49: Line 93 (886)

 The company began to sing, from the Workers' Own Songbook, though mostly without aid of the text, choral selections including Hubert Parry's recent setting of Blake's "Jerusalem," taken not unreasonably as a great anticapitalist anthem disguised as a choir piece, with a slight adjustment to the last line—"In this our green and pleasant land."

* * * * * * * * * *

"Workers' Own Songbook"
When I search for this on the Internet, I only get referred back to Against the Day. So I'm going to assume this is a fiction on Pynchon's part. And maybe this fiction will help me to understand the enormous error in the second half of this sentence.

"Hubert Parry's recent setting of Blake's 'Jerusalem,'"
This setting of Blake's "Jerusalem" to music is super recent in 1893 because he didn't actually do it until 1916. But that fact seems way too easy for Pynchon to have missed. He's placed so many other subtle clues to how to read a scene or why certain words were used for the time to suddenly place a quite specific moment in time twenty-three years too early. Perhaps this is why he places it inside a fictional book of songs taken up by Unionizers and Socialists. Perhaps he saw the historical path of the song and Parry's love and hate for having written it and decided it was a good metaphor for his 1893 story about workers fighting for their rights in the century after the Industrial Revolution.
    You see, Parry's song was written for a Fight for Right campaign. The Fight for Right Movement was a patriotic movement to bolster failing morale among the British people in the advent of the terrible death toll of the first World War. Parry began to find the super patriotic fervor of the Fight for Right Movement distasteful and withdrew his support of the movement which seemed implicit due to his writing of the music for "Jerusalem" for the Fight for Right campaign. It even seemed like he might withdraw the music entirely from general use. But then he was approached by the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies for its use at Suffrage events, eventually asking to make it the Women Voters' Hymn. Parry was delighted to see his music used for a good and joyful cause, even giving the copyright over to the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies.

So you can see how Parry and the history of the song make it a perfect song for the oppressed and downtrodden. So do we forgive Pynchon for this anachronistic error because it fits the theme?

Or do we chalk this up to a reference to Doctor Who seeing as, according to Wikipedia, "An extract was heard in the 2013 Doctor Who episode 'The Crimson Horror' although that story was set in 1893, i.e., before Parry's arrangement." Against the Day is set in 1893! So this is probably Pynchon commenting on the show's error and not an error of his own, right? Or it's Pynchon's way of incorporating Doctor Who into the Against the Day universe, seeing as how Doctor Who messed up time by bringing Parry's musical version of "Jerusalem" back to 1893!
    I know Against the Day was written in 2006 and that Doctor Who episode was from 2013! But that's just more time travel shenanigans!

"Blake's 'Jerusalem,'"
I've mentioned multiple times how this book has reminded me in various ways of Alan Moore's Jerusalem and now we have Pynchon mentioning the poem here. I've also theorized that Randolph St. Cosmo might be reminiscent of Blake's character Orc from America a Prophecy written exactly 100 years before this story.
    But more to the point, Blake's "Jerusalem" can be seen less as a patriotic call to make England great but as a call to the masses to forsake and throw down the system which keeps us from experiencing heaven on Earth. Throw down the dark Satanic mills and lift up your golden bow fit with the arrows of your desire. Grab up your spear and ride your chariot of fire into battle. He basically calls for revolution. Which makes it perfect then to subvert via patriotic propaganda. "Oh, no, no, no! This isn't calling for reform at all! This poem is about, um, making England Great Again! Pish posh now! Off you go to die in the trenches! God bless us!"

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 49: Line 92 (885)

 There was an Italian with an accordion.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Italian represents the immigrant classes being exploited by the rich and powerful. The accordion represents the pushback against elitist and costly musical instruments. The popularity of the accordion exploded in Italy in the mid-1800s. I don't know when the dancing monkey was added.

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 49: Line 91 (884)

 Women in surprising numbers, bearing the marks of their trades, scars from the blades of the meatpacking floors, squints from needlework carried past the borderlands of sleep in clockless bad light, women in head-scarves, crocheted fascinators, extravagantly flowered hats, no hats at all, women just looking to put their feet up after too many hours of lifting, fetching, walking the jobless avenues, bearing the insults of the day . . .

* * * * * * * * * *

This feels like Pynchon trying to write The Grapes of Wrath in one sentence. Maybe it also helps if you remember the previous sentence (or was that last sentence just part of this sentence?!) about the men folk being so beat down by their own failure to provide that they do less work than the women? More the sullen part than the flatulent part, is what I'm getting at.

This sentence feels like a poem I probably read in my Modern Poetry class in college where I was taught that women were human beings and not just objects. I'd say I probably knew that already but that would sound like I was bragging. Although I had seen and understood Boxing Helena, so, you know. Smart cookie, this one!

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 49: Line 90 (883)

 Unemployed men from out of town, exhausted, unbathed, flatulent, sullen . . . collegians having a look in at possibilities for hell-raising . . . 

* * * * * * * * * *

The dichotomy between those who have lived under the brutal working conditions of the current capitalist system and those with privilege who have yet to (and probably never will). The unemployed men unable to even clean themselves up for this meeting, probably itinerant from looking for work, hoping to hear viable ways to effect change. The privileged young just looking for a good reason to smash a window or pelt a cop with a rock. Being that the meeting is about anarchy, I don't think you can have one side without the other.

Oh, and you also get those looking to infiltrate the group so that they can do as much harm to the group's public image as possible. Cops lighting stores on fire during protests to blame it on the protesters. Detectives memorizing faces and names of people to be hunted down later when some strike goes awry and the cops turn it violent. Nate's hoping Lew will be one of these guys, I'm sure. I'm hoping Lew learns a little bit about compassion.

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 49: Line 89 (882)

 The crowd—Lew had been expecting only a handful of malcontents—was numerous, after a while in fact spilling into the street.

* * * * * * * * * *

Pynchon gives us the reality of the situation and Lew's expectation of it which are, of course, at odds with each other. Because Lew, who mentioned he's checked out on the subject of—I don't know—politics or social justice or anarchy or labor movements, has really only been hearing the propaganda fed to him by Nate and his coworkers. The message he's been getting is that most people are happy with current working conditions and the only people making trouble are people who want to make trouble. Anarchy is a perfect buzzword because it means they have no agenda, they have no ideals, they have no concern for the lives of everyday people. They just want to destroy things for destruction's sake. And if this is an anarchy meeting, why would there be anybody here except a few dangerous loonies with dynamite strapped to their chest?

But the crowd spilling into the streets is evidence that something isn't right. There's a major undercurrent of discontent that the powerful and the elites choose to hide from those citizens who are relatively comfortable. They only hear about the violence and then choose to be against anybody who would use violence to change an oppressive system. They think, "I'm doing okay. So why couldn't these poor people make the same decisions I made? They must have chosen to not be doing okay." The people who choose peace over justice are the biggest impediment to justice. Nothing, at all, has changed.

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 49: Line 88 (881)

 Up on the stage now was a lectern flanked by a pair of gas lamps with Welsbach mantles, at which stood a tall individual in workmen's overalls, identified presently as the traveling Anarchist preacher the Reverend Moss Gatlin.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Welsbach mantles"
Prior to the invention of the gas mantle, lamps were lit with open flames which were not the most efficient means to light an area. A gas mantle is that cloth mesh which covers the flame in something like a Coleman lantern. It's basically fabric infused with metals, soft before use but becomes brittle after the first use. The metals become incandescent while the mesh covering keeps the flame low.
    The point being that a gas mantle both controls and amplifies light in a simple, safe, and effective way. It's a stepping stone between fire and electricity as light sources. And its inventor, Carl Auer von Welsbach, created several other lighting innovations, such as the metal-filament light bulb and the lighting flint, still used in cigarette lighters today. Seeing as how light and man's use of technology to control (and often destroy) his environment are pertinent themes to the book, I thought dropping the name "Welsbach" was important.

"in workmen's overalls"
The Reverend obviously wants to come across as just one of the common Joes in the work force.

"traveling Anarchist preacher"
I wouldn't mind having this job description.

"Reverend Moss Gatlin"
The "Reverend" adds an air of moral authority to his title. "Moss" represents how his words and ideas will grow on you. "Gatlin" is reminiscent of "Gatling" which probably means his words come rapid fire and are dangerous. I'm certain his beliefs will be quite scary to the status quo. His words are weapons to be used for battle. This isn't going to be a peaceful sermon, I suppose.

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 49: Line 87 (880)

 At first Lew took it for a church—something about the echoes, the smell—though in fact, on weekends anyway, it was a small variety theater.

* * * * * * * * * *

"the smell"
Here's Pynchon writing about the smells of a church in Gravity's Rainbow:

"The old church smells of spilled wine, American sweat, and recently burned cordite, but these are raw newer intrusions that haven't done away with the prevailing Catholic odor—incense, wax, centuries of mild bleating from the lips of the flock."

"took it for a church" "in fact . . . it was a small variety theater"
What is a church except a place to perform acts of faith in front of your neighbors to convince them that you're a holy and righteous person? What is a theater but a place to worship and venerate the human condition? Both contain at least one actor performing for an audience. Both require a strong willingness to suspend disbelief to work (yes, I'm saying that "faith" is a synonym for "suspension of disbelief"). Both are also a place of strong convictions and grand ideas being communicated to the masses. Both perfect places to educate workers on what their rights should be within a capitalist system that purports to believe everybody is free and equal.