Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 65: Line 191 (1173)

 He parked the wagon out on a vacant patch in Murray Hill and set in to study the mysteries of light-portraiture as then understood, gathering information dip-fingered and without shame from everyplace he could, from Roswell Bounce to the Cleveland Library, which as Merle soon discovered had taken the revolutionary step some ten years before of opening up its stacks, so anybody could walk in and spend all day reading what they needed to know for whatever it was they had in mind to do.

* * * * * * * * * *

"He parked the wagon out on a vacant patch in Murray Hill"
Merle's isolating because what he's up to often gets one thrown into the local nuthatchery. The people the cops currently hate most in Cleveland are people who disrespect them, people who witness them doing crime, people super interested in science and light, loiterers, and foreigners. Merle fits into most of those categories so he needs to be careful. Especially since he's the guy who breaks everybody out of Newburgh. If he gets picked up, who's going to rescue him?

"study the mysteries of light-portraiture as then understood"
The year was 1887 or thereabouts so if you want to know exactly how well "light-portraiture" was understood, get thee to a set of Encyclopedia Britannica, I guess. Or just the L Volume? What was the last year Encyclopedia Britannica published an actual update to their set? How out of date must the final version of their encyclopedias be at this time? And how terrible are they online now? I bet they've incorporated AI into their site so you can't trust a thing it says. The thing about LLMs and AI as they're currently trained is they aggregate information from online sources. And a lot of them just scour any old thing. So you've got to assume the smartest an "AI" can be is of median intelligence. And anybody who's spent any time with more than themselves knows that other people are stupid idiots.
    Wait, what was I talking about? I suppose I could look up all that information on Encyclopedia Britannica but it sounds like boring research. It's not like I have a report due on the exploration of space.

"gathering information dip-fingered"
Stealing when he must! Although who's going to have information about light-portraiture in the area? Is Pynchon suggesting that Merle was ripping of Roswell Bounce?! Oh, yeah, he goes on to say that exactly. From Roswell and the Library!

"the Cleveland Library"
Merle states the Cleveland Library had just opened its stacks in the late 1870s and being that Pynchon wrote it, I'll take his word for it. Maybe Merle just doesn't know the local history. Maybe by "opening up its stacks", it means something more specific than just opening to the public and letting them wander around looking at the books on loan. Apparently public libraries were a fairly new idea for the 19th century! Before that, it was all private libraries and colleges and weird uncles driven to madness by strange, flesh-covered books from the Middle East.

"taken the revolutionary step some ten years before of opening up its stacks, so anybody could walk in and spend all day reading what they needed to know for whatever it was they had in mind to do"
Did Pynchon accept money from the Public Library lobby to insert this into his book? Sounds like he's trying to sell me on libraries! Ew!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 65: Line 190 (1172)

 Merle's all-night illumination prolonged itself into an inescapable glow that began to keep him awake.

* * * * * * * * * *

Recently, I read something by somebody about Thomas Pynchon saying that his individual sentences and written scenes were easily understood but it was the larger themes which caused all the problems. But I've just read this sentence about eighteen thousand times and I don't know what Pynchon is trying to tell me. Is it that Merle's obsession with learning about photography and light have begun to keep him up at all hours, being that "illumination" is a synonym for "knowledge" (as has been discussed by me ad nauseum)? Hmm, now that I ask that question, I think that's exactly what Pynchon is saying and using light terminology because it's a cute way to phrase it. Pynchon could have added a footnote to this line that just read, "Look how clever I am, you dumb illiterate douchebag! Ha ha! I'm smart! You're stupid! Suck it (and by 'it', I mean my penis, natch!)!"

"Merle's all-night illumination"
A metaphor, I suspect, for the idea of "cramming" for a big test with the added idea that Merle was burning a candle or lantern all night so that he could read, study, and experiment.

"prolonged itself into an inescapable glow"
The "prolonged" here is modifying the initial "all-night" meaning that Merle's cram session soon extended into the following days and weeks. He was unable to escape his need to learn more about light. The "inescapable glow" perhaps suggesting the will-o-the-wisp as metaphor for the knowledge of light Merle now obsessively pursues.

"that began to keep him awake"
Awake because he's busy studying and experimenting but also "began to keep him awake" because he's become obsessed with the subject. He has found his hobbyhorse and he can't stop himself from riding.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Pages 64-65: Lines 188-189 (1170-1171)

 "Just what people have been noticing ever since the first sunburn," Roswell shrugged, "which is that light makes things change color. The professors call it 'photochemistry.'"

* * * * * * * * * *

I adore this bit from Roswell Bounce. Some writers might choose to make Roswell an expert on all things photography rather than just a kind of ignorant conspiracy theorist who understands the idea of how science gets to where it is by building upon the perceptions and discoveries of those who have come before while also being completely wrong about his facts. The idea that sunburn was noticed as light being able to make things change color is obviously laughable. It's like discovering that the first property of fire mankind noticed, which led them to experiment with it, was how it changes meat from pink to brown and black. "Oh hey! This fire over here makes things change color! Maybe we can someday use it in photography!" Sure, Roswell. A sunburn causes a Caucasian arm to turn pink or red. But nobody thought, "Hey! Light makes things change color! I've just discovered photochemistry!" Or, should I be more specific, and say, "Some really dumb scientists made really stupid initial conclusions but after a couple of experiments where half of them died of skin cancer, they realized the whole 'color changing bit' was a red herring!"

Look, maybe I'm wrong! Maybe people did assume light caused sunburns because it had color changing properties! I'm a modern man living in the 21st century and I'm incapable of believing that even men of the 19th Century believed stupid nonsense! But I trust Pynchon's just deep in the character of Roswell Bounce here, acting the expert when really he's just a regular guy who knows how to process photographs. Why should he care about the history of it all? He's just trying to sound smart to his new apprentice! We all know that sunburns aren't caused by light's ability to change the color of things! It's because of the tiny homunculi riding the particles along the UV rays that dig into your flesh like alien spirochetes. Duh!

"photochemistry"
At the time Roswell makes this statement, the scientific world only had one law of Photochemistry: light makes things change color. No, no! That was a joke! Ha ha! The law was Grotthuss-Draper Law, first proposed by Grotthuss in 1817 and later by Draper in 1842, totally independently and not at all in a plagiarized manner. I mean, how the hell do you get partial credit for coming up with a scientific law 25 years after somebody else came up with it? I'm sure he added some cool spin to it or something.
    The Grotthuss-Draper Law posits that systems can only be changed by light if the light is absorbed into the system. I guess in 1817 (and 1842!), that was a revelatory statement. People were probably trying to tan their mirrors and Grotthuss was all, "No, no! Mirrors don't absorb light, you idiot! You need, like, a plant or a person or, um, water? I don't know! Wait until 1842 and it'll all get worked out a little better!"

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 187 (1169)

 Even if it was only some conjuring trick, purely secular, he wanted to learn it.

* * * * * * * * * *

"only some conjuring trick"
I should quote the entire clause because the "even if" part is doing a substantial amount of loadbearing in supporting Merle's context for what I've quoted. Merle isn't accusing Roswell of performing a mere conjuring trick; he's expressing awe in that, even if it's some form of ocular legerdemain, it's brilliantly accomplished and he's been completely enthralled.

"purely secular"
It seems like a miracle but Merle knows it's science. But it's so close to magic that he can't quite bring himself to call it science. At best, it's a conjuring trick. At worst, it's magic. At the slimmest margin of possibility, it is a holy miracle. That's why the "even if". Because Merle's pretty sure it's a secular bit of sleight of hand but his senses are screaming that it's paranormal in nature. How could it be not?! An image was captured in time through the mere taming of light! Incredible first that light can be tamed at all. Doubly incredible that it can recreate slices of time exactly as they happened!

"he wanted to learn it"
Sheesh. Finally! Get to the photography so we can get to the real point of the story: how Merle met Erlys! This Shaggy Dog story has really gotten away from him! No wonder Dally has to keep asking him how they met. Merle never finds the point.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 186 (1168)

 He knew he sounded like some rube at the fair but couldn't help it.

* * * * * * * * * *

"sounded like some rube at the fair"
Merle's not insulting rural folk here; he's just pointing out that when you see something you've never seen before, and that thing is overwhelming and joyful in its very nature, you can't help but stand slack-jawed in front of its wonder. You want to see more of the lights. You want to ride the Ferris wheel one more time and gaze on the grandeur of the lands around you. You need one of those goldfish in the plastic baggie.

You want to glimpse the past come once more into view, clear and clean, like a scientific scrying glass parting the veils of time. You don't ask to see the trick again because you want to figure it out; you ask to see the trick again because you can hardly believe it happened the first time.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 185 (1167)

 "Do one more."

* * * * * * * * * *

The audience always wants to see another piece. In 2006, Pynchon probably knew he could do a couple more and was eager to please. But it's 2026 now! Is Shadow Ticket destined to be Pynchon's last processed photograph as we stand eagerly by with our pockets empty of silver?

Merle's request to Roswell sounds oddly like an order. It's the abrupt nature of a shortened sentence ending in an officious and emotionless period. But it's also possibly true that Merle feels a bit of power over Roswell, even if Merle is the apprentice in this situation, because Merle has recently given Roswell his freedom back. Plus Roswell may very well be insane and possibly should have stayed in Newburgh. His name is Roswell, after all. Pynchon wants us to understand that he's part conspiracy. But the "bounce" maybe means he always comes, somewhat, back to reality. Sort of like processing a photograph. You have to enter the negative space before you can clearly see reality on the final plate.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 184 (1166)

 Damn.

* * * * * * * * * *

Who is speaking this?! It's like the omniscient narrator has been invested in how much money Merle has. Oh, and also isn't omniscient since the narrator just found out Merle was broke and couldn't help cursing. The only other option, and probably the most logical, is that it's Merle's own internal monologue. As if Roswell mentioning the silver in his pocket got Merle to fish around in his pockets, realize there's nothing there, say, "Not lately," and think, "Damn." But it's still fucking weird. Really weird.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 183 (1165)

 "Not lately."

* * * * * * * * * *

Merle's broke. He's been in town without a real job while often visiting the brothel and going on drinking jags for too long. He no longer has silver, just deadbeat friends who keep getting picked up by the police and thrown in the loony bin.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 182 (1164)

 "Just like what's in your pocket."

* * * * * * * * * *

Is this Roswell expressing hope that Merle will be able to pay him for his tutelage? Not outright asking, of course, since Merle helped him escape the asylum and he kind of owes Merle. Or is this just more preparation for some silver themes upcoming? "Hey, reader! Did you know coins were made of silver? Do you know what coins are? You do know money has existed as an actual object for millennia, right? It's not just numbers in a computer!"

Maybe this is a reference to The Hobbit?

In reality, I should discuss this line and the two that follow it together. But I made the rules earlier and I'm sticking by them! Until I don't!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Lines 180-181 (1162-1163)

 "All right, all right. And you swear this is made of silver?"

* * * * * * * * * *

"All right, all right"
Obviously Thomas Pynchon had a specific actor in mind when casting for the Against the Day movie were scripted.

"you swear this is made of silver"
I'm not sure why Merle's so intent on making sure the photograph has a basis in silver. Is he having werewolf trouble? I suppose this is just more photography speak as Pynchon walks us through the literal process as well as the metaphor.

You can look up the entire process as I did right on the Internet! If you don't know what the Internet is then how are you reading this? Did some jerk print it up to make 'zines that he's now selling somewhere for profit? That rascal!

Oh, I did learn what the fixer in the hypo from earlier was for! The fixer causes the silver halides to lose their sensitivity to light (which is why this happens in a dark room) and thus fixing the photo in place before it gets exposed to more light and washed out. Then the "fixer" is removed by the water bath and left to dry. And then voulez-vous! You have a picture!

I wonder if the mention of silver is also to prepare us for Lew Basnight's move to Colorado and later discussions of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890?

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 179 (1161)

 "Photography, this is Merle, Merle—"

* * * * * * * * * *

It's a joke! Not a great joke. Like one of those jokes where our uncle says, "Working hard or hardly working?" Oh, a dad joke, I guess. Is that what they're called these days? My dad is a joke so I'm not familiar with the form.

But on the non-joking side of this statement, Roswell infuses Photography with life and identity. As if Photography were a demi-god of great power. And also Roswell's chum and/or side piece.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 178 (1160)

 By the time the sun rose over Shaker Heights, Roswell Bounce had introduced Merle to photography.

* * * * * * * * * *

In other words, Merle had received the power of vision, the clarity of light, and the, um, maybe, ethical morality of a Shaker? I'm not sure about that last part. Merle has learned to see the world in a better, clearer light. His understanding of the world has changed. For the better, I believe. He has learned to take his time while studying the world developing around him. Roswell has granted him patience and the willingness to see, to study, the world surrounding him.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 177 (1159)

 So the night went on, spent mostly washing things in different solutions and then waiting for them to dry.

* * * * * * * * * *

I keep mentioning photography simply because that's the language with which Pynchon has chosen to discuss the actual problem. Here, night is history or civilization. History goes on. Society continues to bumble along. Washing things in different solutions is probably two-fold: trying to correct the problems we, as a society, care about and have the ability to solve; and "washing" away those with which the men in power don't want to deal. "Waiting for them to dry", of course, means observing if efforts were successful (either to fix the problem or hide/get everybody to ignore the problem).

Sometimes the "washing things" part of the equation, when it's people in power doing it, becomes "making up a problem" as the solution to whatever they're trying to hide, or whatever power they're trying to grab. So they go on and on and on about immigration and how terrible it is and make it into a problem in the eyes of scared, xenophobic morons. This has been part of the playbook for the entirety of civilization, this othering to control the masses. It has the added effect of causing problems that wouldn't exist without the "solution" and soon the new problems need a new "solution" that's even worse than the first "solution" that caused all the problems.

Also the main thing currently being washed and hoping to dry into forgetfulness, of course, is The Epstein Files. Surprisingly, the conspiracy theorists were right for once: it's pedos all the way down. Except the reason they were right isn't as surprising as one might think. If you're a pedo, you accuse other people of being pedos not just because you're projecting but because you think what you do and enjoy must be what other people also enjoy. So you figure that if you love CSAM, everybody else must love it too! So you accuse people you dislike of being into it. What you don't realize is that people not into CSAM (meaning, hopefully, most people?) is that they don't really think about it all that much until it's brought up by either some conspiracy theorist or their local priest gets nabbed for it.

What I never would have understood if all of this QAnon weirdness hadn't cropped up in the world was how much of a language and experience in the world these CSAM pedos shared. They knew what they were up to so figured everybody else was up to it too. But more so, whenever you hear about one of them getting caught, they have so much CSAM material. People don't usually know how to find that stuff and yet there are people all over the world networked into this marketplace. They speak a common language and live in a shared world. They also believe that world is the normal world! They are living in the negative and assuming the rest of us see it too. But, like Merle, most of the world has never seen it, never thought much about it, and certainly wouldn't have believed in how deep-rooted this shit is.

This idea that a person lives their life in such a way that they automatically assume other people live the same way brings to mind something slightly off-topic but maybe still having to do with "washing history". My theory is that Donald Trump believes the 2020 election was stolen for a number of reason. One of those reasons, a simple one, is that he doesn't understand how votes are counted and how Democratic majorities reside in large urban centers while Republican majorities are usually many, many rural localities. So when voting begins, if all votes come in at the same pace, one per minute per precinct, say, after one minute, a state with 9 strong Republican rural precincts and 1 strong Democratic population dense center, the vote would be 9 Republican to 1 Democrat. This would keep going: 18 to 2, 27 to 3, 36 to 4, and so on. It would look like a rout underway! But soon enough, the small rural populations would run out of votes while the large Democratic population center would just keep on, minute after minute, ticking up one vote after another. Right up until it overwhelms the other votes and takes over. Which would happen much later that night, possibly in a day or two. So a dumb person who doesn't understand anything, like, say, Donald Trump, would think something was fishy.

But! The more pressing reason I think Trump believes his opponent cheated is that he cheated as well. And if he cheated and still lost, obviously his opponent had to have cheated to win! But he obviously can't use that as his explanation: "How did Biden win if I cheated? Well, he must have also cheated!" So instead, he just proclaims, without any proof, that Biden cheated. Because he must have, right?

Anyway, Fuck Trump. Fuck ICE. Fuck Republicans. Read a book, you violent dimwits!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Lines 173-176 (1155-1158)

 "It's a negative. When we print this, it'll all flip back to normal. First we have to fix it. Reach me that bottle of hypo there."

* * * * * * * *

"It's a negative"
Yeah, Merle already figured that out. It's evil! It's the opposite! It's light's dark side! Oh, wait, yeah, um, so Merle just learned the technical term. Right. Okay.

"flip back to normal"
As if it's so easy for those trapped in their madness to return to "normality". There's a reason why this first photograph that Merle lays his eyes on is of the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum. It's one of those metaphors or analogies. While Merle has physically been helping inmates escape (presumably because they didn't actually belong there and were just dumped their by lazy and/or angry cops), the truth is that it's much harder, impossible even. How do you flip a lunatic back to sanity? Perhaps Pynchon hints, through the taking of a photograph of these inmates, that the way to help them back, to flip them to normal, is to actually see them. To listen to them. To understand them. Simply locking them away for the good of "decent citizens" who don't want to be irritated or annoyed, who don't want to pay the high cost of caring, as Pynchon once said in another book. Insane asylums are a symptom of a society that only has room enough for a narrow scope of thinking.

"First we have to fix it"
I guess this is photography lingo for developing a photo but we know Pynchon's actually talking about society. First we must see the problem. Then we can fix the problem.

"Reach me that bottle of hypo"
Or we can drug it into senselessness so we don't have to think about it at all.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Lines 171-172 (1153-1154)

 "What is it? They look like spirits, or haunts or something?

* * * * * * * * * *

"What is it?"
Much has been said through the years about Merle's reaction to this photograph. Daniel Sweetgrass and his friend, Joan Thompson, as well as even Thor Jessennvolk often discussed his reaction when they'd meet two weekends out of every year in a cozy cabin in Aspen. "It was like he was looking into another world, as if light's ability to showcase reality had been twisted to expose something dark and sinister beneath when seen through this miraculous middleman known as photography," said Joan as she sipped her cocoa around a raft of tiny marshmallows. "A glass darkly, one might suppose," murmured Thor sitting on the floor against the couch as Daniel, legs tucked up underneath him on the couch behind, casually stroked Thor's hair. Decades later, after Daniel and Joan both in the ground for some years, Thor would lament, "There were times when we felt like we were trying to see that world, experience the shock and intensity of Merle's first experience with a photographic negative. Like we knew the world wasn't truly as good as we all pretended it should be."

Sorry! I recently read Danielewski's Tom's Crossing and it must have infected my frontal lobe. Although writing just that small paragraph, I can see why Danielewski was so enamored with the narrative motif. I can't promise I won't do that again!

"spirits, or haunts"
The negative, in a way, captures the true essence of these suppose mad men locked inside the low-tier prison of a mental asylum. Wiping away individuality, the halls of the asylum become haunted by the figures shuffling about, screaming, terrified, bored, lost. Visitors, doctors, security, and staff lose the ability to distinguish one person over another. They are simply the spirits of those lost to reality. They have become the negatives of the "sane" people who remain outside the asylum's grounds.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 170 (1152)

 As if light had been witched somehow into its opposite. . . .

* * * * * * * * * *

"witched somehow"
See? Black Magic! Maybe I shouldn't have been so down on my explication earlier when I felt I was rambling about nonsense. But I wasn't! Merle confirms it here! Something evil has made its way into this photograph.
    I'm not saying witches are evil! I'm saying that at the time Merle was reacting to this negative photographic plate, he would have been using the idea of something being witched as definitely not good at all and probably sinister and certainly Satan loving! He's the jerk who can't see a witch as having been persecuted and Wicca good and love the Earth and women power and I'll be over here.

"light" "its opposite"
Also remember, Me, to write something smart about light and the opposite of light (which I think is dark although it could be heavy) so that people reading this in the future don't think I'm just a stupid dolt who knows a few pop culture references. Let me put a sticky note on my computer monitor to remind me to get back to this. That should do it! Infallible plan!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 169 (1151)

 The sky behind the tall, jagged roofline was nearly black, windows that should have been light-colored were dark.

* * * * * * * * * *

Remember the beginning of the television show Tales from the Darkside? It simply showed some normal natural scenes with some really creepy Casio keyboard music playing. Then some deep voiced guy was all, "Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real but not as brightly lit. A dark side." Then the image flips and BAM! we're viewing everything as its negative. Man, that used to terrify me as a kid. And I was twelve when that show first aired!

Well that feeling is what Merle's feeling right now. Getting his first glimpse of a negative world, a dark side. He might as well be twelve (or younger!) while experiencing this because unlike twelve year old me, Merle has no idea what a negative even is. What he's seeing can only be described as a dark version of the well-lit world he knows, an evil version, probably! And making it even creepier is that it's of the unheimlich place they've all been tossed into a few times that summer, the Newburgh Asylum. And even creepier yet, the slipped-from-reality inmates staring strangely out at him.

I just watched the opening to Tales from the Darkside to transcribe what the man said during it and I broke out into gooseflesh even now! At not even close to twelve!

You know what other intro scared the hell out of me as a kid (much younger than twelve, to be fair)? Doctor Who! That fricking music, man! Chills!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 168 (1150)

 The whites of their eyes were dark gray.

* * * * * * * * * *

Creepy! Are you creeped out yet? Like Merle, you should be but I'm not sure why. Merle went from watching a miracle appear before his eyes to suddenly feeling weirded out by the whole thing. I guess it's a human reaction to witnessing the unknowable? Is this a commentary on scientific ignorance? How everything which you've never witnessed prior, or know nothing about, can seem so mysterious as to be proof of God or proof of ultimate Evil? Has Merle shifted from the belief that he was witnessing a miracle to now witnessing black magic?

Also, is this dramatic irony? We know he's looking at a negative but Merle would have no reason to know or believe or even understand how film development works. Common sense, that affliction of the ignorant and stupid which they believe to be the mightiest power of all minds, would simply think that a developed photo would come out looking exactly like the object the camera took a snapshot of. Why would the light and shadow be inverted? But scientific knowledge is complicated, you Common Sense worshiping buffoons! It's also scary, I guess, which is why we have so many movies like The Gods Must Be Crazy where "primitive" people react to modern technology or scientific experiments as if they're the most intense magic they've ever witnessed.

Oh! Also a negative would be like viewing the evil, dark side of existence! So that's got to be pretty creepy for Merle too.

I'm not happy about this entry. You probably shouldn't read it. I think I might be sick.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 167 (1149)

 Something was wrong with the faces.

* * * * * * * * * *

It's weird reading a paragraph by Thomas Pynchon that actually has multiple sentences. The usual way is multiple pages that just have one sentence. I'm exaggerating! But I still think he's creating this pace on purpose by using so many short sentences. He's slowing down the narration to mimic the time it takes for the photograph to appear on the clear plates. It's a process. It's discovery. None of that's meant to be fast or easy. And again, he's not just talking about developing photos. He's talking about reading. And not just reading but comprehension. The patience it takes to try to understand what the artist is trying to portray. And sometimes the faces are wrong. Not because of the fault of the writer; not because of the fault of the reader. It's the fault of a disconnect between the two, a mistake in communication. Sometimes what is being said is inverted by the reader because the writer thinks the reader will understand the subtlety, or the parody, the satire or the exaggeration. But the reader will take it literally. They will view the negative as the final work.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 166 (1148)

 Merle peered uneasily.

* * * * * * * * * *

Look, I really am doing this blog one line at a time. If I knew this line was next, I would have saved the unheimlich stuff for this entry! Just pretend you read it here and let's move on.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 165 (1147)

 It happened to be the Newburgh asylum, with two or three inmates standing in the foreground, staring.

* * * * * * * * * *

The picture that suddenly appears to Merle, the picture that he describes as "clearer than real", is of the place in Cleveland where reality is the least clear. Nobody can say what the two or three inmates were staring at when this photo was taken, and nobody can absolutely sure that they weren't staring back at Merle himself.
    What Merle is questioning with the development of these photographs how reality works and so the first picture he observes coming into being like magic, out of the pale Invisible, is of a place where reality is not only questioned but denied, disbelieved, unstable, un-understood.

What this sentence screams at me, in German, of course, is "unheimlich". It's uncanny. It's strange. It's a photo of the most un-home-like place you can be, a place that you must call home although you do not want to. Different from a prison in that the inmates, presumably, can not even know why they're here. And the inmates staring out from it makes them feel trapped, as they are in the photo. They are not looking back. They are not merely looking out. They are staring. They are longing. They are not home.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 164 (1146)

 Come in out of the pale Invisible, down into this otherwise explainable world, clearer than real.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sometimes I can't help thinking of Pynchon's other works where reading a line from, well, any other of Pynchon's works. That's why I'm sad that can't read everything by him after first reading everything by him. I mean, I can but not in the way I want. I don't want to have to read everything twice! That's ludicrous! The point I want to make which needed me to preface it with the preceding sentences was that this line reminded me of a V-2 rocket. And even though the ghosts of all of my college teachers are screaming, "Expand your thought!", into my head right now, I won't.

Merle's experience of developing photographs speaks of something beyond what can be known (again, more Gravity's Rainbow shouting in my brain with all that stuff with the medium and speaking with the dead). As if the photo developing on the plate weren't a scientific process that can be understood and replicated and instead is simple magic produced by the correct ritual movements and ingredients.

This section that seems to concern Merle having a pseudo-religious experience concerning light (especially when he's just spent the last few months living with, speaking with, and drinking with light worshipers) had me thinking about one of the basic reasons (among myriad reasons) that I cannot believe in God. It simply comes down to adding another link to a chain of the unknowable. I do not understand why matter exists. In my head, I can think of the universe as beginning at the Big Bang and then, well, I don't know. Unknowable. A question mark. What I don't need to do is add another link to that chain by saying, "Before the Big Bang, God. He created it. But where did God come from? Unknowable." See? How does adding God to that chain clarify anything? Sure, for some reason, people seem to accept God as infinite. But if you have to accept something as infinite to explain reality, why do you have to invent the God step? God is an anomaly in the system. You can explain it all right up to the moment before the Big Bang and then suddenly you're going to introduce something unexplainable which doesn't even play by the universe's rules? I just don't see the point. God can climb back into the pale Invisible and stay there for all I care. "Down into this otherwise explainable world" writes Pynchon. Otherwise explainable. As if the unexplained is something that will remain unexplained for all time. The reason postmodernism exists is because too many questions were answered (and also too many atrocities were committed by answering so many questions!) and the answer, "God," just stopped cutting even the blandest mustard.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 163 (1145)

 Come from nothing.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sure, sure. Come from "nothing". If we regard light as nothing then this statement makes sense. And isn't that the essence of the religious experience? If we disregard, or remain ignorant, of the things which cause the thing to happen, then we witness God at work. We see a miracle. We see the rabbit appear from an empty hat and we gasp and yell, "Praise God!" We see an endless supply of handkerchiefs come from the robes of the Bishop and we shout, "Hallelujah!" We see the sun disappear in the middle of the day and we cower in fear and repent our sins.
    Or we don't and we realize that the only thing to come from nothing is nothing. There's always an explanation. Unless you're Soy Rakelson in 1988 and you're trying to show all of your friends how stupid they are by not believing in God with a bunch of tricks you learned from C. S. Lewis. Although, really, his biggest trick was "Nothing comes from nothing! Therefore, God!" which is what I've been trying to explain away with the same trick! Soy could just never get a handle on the whole "Nothing comes from nothing, therefore something we just currently don't understand about reality." It's weird to go straight to God when you don't know the answer to something since God works differently than every other answer we have to questions. Our answers always play by reality's rules. And if we don't know the rules yet, we figure we'll learn them at some point. But God is like playing The Game of Life and when you need to pay your taxes, you just grab some money out of the Monopoly box.

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 And Merle saw the image appear.

* * * * * * * * * *

Out of nothing, something. Merle's having a religious experience now. The Ur religious experience. The Creation Myth. We know Merle's suffering from a religious experience because he becomes completely wrapped up in photography after this moment. I used the word "suffering" because who needs a religious experience? It's more pain than it's worth. It's like getting arthritis but for your consciousness. And, yes, this is science and it can all be explained so as religious experiences go, it's pretty crap. I would have simply said this was a moment of true wonder for Merle or that he was stunned into amazement. But that's not what Pynchon's going for here. He wants us to witness Merle witnesses the profound, visualizing a miracle of the 19th Century.

Also this is still about writing! The writer does all stuff with mixing the big words and dumping them onto a plate (page!) so that readers can see the story.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 161 (1143)

 "Now watch."

* * * * * * * * * *

Boobies.

*drools in my drool cup*

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 160 (1142)

 Stirring it all in a beaker, he put the plate in a developing tray and poured the mixture over it.

* * * * * * * * * *

If I ever write a novel that involves a scene that relies heavily on science, I'm not going to research how it's done at all. I'm just going to write, "Then the scientist mixed the mumblemumble up with the hydrogen . . . other stuff . . . and poured it in the thing that made it work." If my editor gets upset, I'll just point him to this scene and be all, "It was good enough for Pynchon!" Then I'll immediately run out of the room so I don't have to hear his logical and rational reasons for how Pynchon made his scene work by having the viewpoint be from a person who doesn't understand what he's watching so it shouldn't all make sense. But then I'll scream from down the hall as I wait for my escape elevator, "WELL MY SCENE IS FROM MY POINT OF VIEW AND I DON'T KNOW SHIT! CHECKMATE, BITCH!"

Um, I think this scene is more stuff about the alchemy of writing! Pynchon pointing out that writing is like photography. You think of a scene and do some mumbo-jumbo science and/or magic to develop that scene into the image you want the reader to imagine in their head. Then the reader either pictures that scene or has to re-read the scene because they suddenly realize they were just picturing boobies in their head for the last half a page. Don't you hate when you do that? Man, sometimes I even do that while looking at boobies in Playboy! Then I'm all, "Man! Now I have to flip back and re-look at all those boobies because I was picturing so many other boobies!"

Man, now I have a craving for boobies.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 64: Line 159 (1141)

 Started measuring out liquids from two or three different bottles, keeping up a sort of patter meantime, hardly any of which Merle could follow—"Pyrogallic, mumblemumble citric, potassium bromide . . . ammonia . . ."

* * * * * * * * * *

Sometimes Pynchon is just writing about the effort it takes to read what he's written. And then he ends in an ellipsis in a closed quotation mark without adding a period outside the quotation mark to indicate the sentence is over and it's time to move on. But when you do move on as if the sentence were continuing outside of the quotation mark, the next sentence begins with a capital letter so, apparently, the sentence did end?
    I'm not an expert on punctuation or grammar or writing or the English language (being that it's my native language, I don't have to actually know anything about it. That's how native languages work! You're just an amateur speaker your entire life unless you actually take some time to learn about it) so I'm probably just mixed up because of those reasons. I'm sure Pynchon did everything exactly correct here. Especially in his use of an em dash and the word "mumblemumble". Perfect! No complaints!

"keeping up a sort of patter meantime"
That's Pynchon. Keeping up a sort of patter for 1100 pages.

"hardly any of which Merle could follow"
Merle's us trying to read those 1100 pages and constantly saying, "Duh?" while scratching our heads and asses. I try to keep a drool cup next to me while I read Pynchon so I can discreetly hide my idiotic shame when I'm done by dumping it down the toilet instead of wearing my "incomprehension drool" on my chin and shirt. That's a free tip for other readers!

"Pyrogallic"
I'm not going to look this word up because I'm pretty sure it means an arsonist from France.

"citric"
Like a lime or an orange or that comedian, Citric the Entertainer.

"potassium bromide"
This pair of words has both "ass" and "bro" in them so you might think it has something to do with a Fraternity. In actuality, it's used to treat epilepsy in dogs. Which is weird because where did the epileptic dog come from and what's it doing in the dark room? Oh wait! It's also used in developing photos as it "improves differentiation between exposed and unexposed crystals of silver halide, and thus reduces fog" according to Stephen Anchell and Bill Troop in their fascinating book, The Film Developing Cookbook (which I did not read. I just got the quote from Wikipedia).

"ammonia"
This is also part of the magic solution which creates photos from light stained on glass. Oh, did I not mention that another thing I'm not an expert in is science and photography?