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 As the airship descended closer, Lew watched the open vehicle pull up inside the Halstead Street gate to discharge its passengers, and understood, with some perplexity, that it was an excursion group, in town for a tour among the killing-floors and sausage rooms, an instructive hour of throat-slashing, decapitation, skinning, gutting, and dismemberment—"Say, Mother, come have a look at these poor bastards!" following the stock in their sombre passage from arrival in rail cars, into the smells of shit and chemicals, old fat and tissue diseased, dying, and dead, and a rising background choir of animal terror and shouting in human languages few of them had heard before, till the moving chain brought in stately parade the hook-hung carcasses at last to the chilling-rooms.

* * * * * * * * * *

And here is "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show on its head." The stark opposite of an outside performance of skill and mettle, man against beast; a wild display of life lived to its fullest and, although fictional, at least a semblance of a fair fight. The animals at least somewhat an active participant in its eventual demise (not in the fictional representation of past events which the show portrays, of course!). But inside the dark of the Stockyards, it's the 1890s version of going to see the latest Saw movie. Perhaps the Stockyard is simply more truthful and to the point: this is how it ends so why bother with all the spectacle and theater? Although what's the point of life without spectacle and theater? Even for a cow? We need "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show" so that we aren't overwhelmed by existence's taint of shit and chemicals, full of disease and cries of animal terror as we're all railroaded down an ever narrowing chute to be paraded out in front of family and friends for one last look before the dirt rains down upon our bodies, erasing us from all human memory in one or two generations.

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 The Archduke had put in an appearance at the Austrian Pavilion, sat through Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show with a certain amount of impatience, and lingered at the Colorado Silver Camp exhibit, where, imagining that camps must necessarily include camp-followers, he proceeded to lead his entourage on a lively search after ladies of flagrant repute that would have taxed the abilities of even a seasoned spotter, let alone a greenhorn like Lew—running up and down and eventually out into the Midway, accosting amateur actors who had never been west of Joliet with untranslatable ravings in Viennese dialect and gesticulations which could easily be—well, were—taken the wrong way.

* * * * * * * * * *

I speculated that "learning about foreign people" was just innuendo for "fucking as many different ethnicities as possible." This line provides the evidence to back up my speculation.

"put in an appearance at the Austrian Pavilion"
This suggests that he dropped by only long enough to proclaim he was there. Ferdinand wasn't interested in doing a presser for Austria to the people of Chicago.

"sat through Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show with a certain amount of impatience"
Who could sit impatiently through a show purported to be this exciting?! That was a rhetorical question because the answer is "a really horny guy from out of country eager to put his dick in some Americans."

"lingered at the Colorado Silver Camp exhibit, where, imagining that camps must necessarily include camp-followers"
He lingered here because it was the first place Ferdinand suspected he could find some poontang. "Camp-followers" can mean many different things but the meaning that most matters here is "women providing sexual services." Ferdinand, being foreign, doesn't quite get the idea of the exhibits at this World's Fair. Or he simply assumes the Fair would be portraying the various exhibits as accurately as possible and where miners on the frontier go, so do women who can make money via sexual transactions. And even if they're just actors, actors like to get laid too! And what young American actress could pass up the opportunity to fuck a European Archduke? That's a rhetorical question too because the answer is probably "loads of them" but the more important point is that at least one of them is going to be some kind of star fucker.

"accosting amateur actors who had never been west of Joliet"
See? Actors! But these are probably the male actors pretending to be silver miners whom Ferdinand and his men will not stop bothering with questions in a foreign language while putting their index finger of their right hand through the circle made by their index finger and thumb of their left hand.

"gesticulations which could easily be—well, were—taken the wrong way"
The "finger in the hole" gesture probably garnered a lot of responses of "Oh, you want the fried doughnut cart just past the reindeer show up on the left!" That was a joke! The actual response was probably, "What do I look like? A fancy English author overflowing with bon mots?! Get your pick away from my dirt mine!"

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 29: Line 78-79 (450-451)

 "Tell us, Professor, how is your work coming along? What recent marvels emerging from the Sloane Laboratory?"

* * * * * * * * * *

"Sloane Laboratory"
The Sloane Laboratory at (or near? Associated with?) Yale University where Professor Heino Vanderjuice does his professering.

The original Sloane Laboratory. Currently the site of Jonathan Edwards College. Which is also Yale somehow? I truly don't understand these American-trying-to-be-British college communities and campuses.

I couldn't think of a college name that would turn me off more than Jonathan Edwards College. Maybe Buffalo Bill College (whether it was named after the fictional serial killer or the football team)?

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 From somewhere ahead too dark to see came music from a small orchestra, unusually syncopated, which grew louder, till they could make out a small outdoor dance-floor, all but unlit, where couples were dancing, and about which crowds were streaming densely everywhere, among odors of beer, garlic, tobacco smoke, inexpensive perfume, and, from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, somewhere up ahead, the unmistakable scent of massed livestock.

* * * * * * * * * *

My initial reaction to the boys' first experience of the Fair is that of a rodeo during Oktoberfest at the Gilroy Garlic Festival.

"somewhere ahead too dark to see"
This is a strange way to begin the boys' journey into the Chicago World's Fair, seeing as how the entire thing is known for its electric light displays. But it makes sense seeing as how the boys seemingly came through a hole in the fence manned by some anarchic entrepreneur taking advantage of a loophole in the capitalist system. They would not have entered on a broad well-lighted street leading them into the heart of the experience. They would have entered in the dark, behind the displays and the shops and the exhibits, having to make their way to the lighted part of the world and the controlled, maintained part of the experience.

"a small orchestra, unusually syncopated"
I tried to read the Wikipedia entry on syncopation but realized early on that I would never understand it. Music, music notation, music terminology, and music theory will always remain a foreign language to me and I'm terrible with languages. I don't even do English that well. I'm not tone deaf or anything! I can do Karaoke reasonably well (depending on the song and singer. I'll sing Indigo Girls or Concrete Blonde even though I know I can't do them justice. But I also don't shit all over them, seeing as how familiar I am with them. But I could never sing, say, a Van Halen song with Sammy Hagar because I just can't do what he's doing. And he's a way worse singer than Johnette or Amy or Emily!) but tell me there's a key change in a song and I'm like, "What? Is there? What is that? Maybe I heard it? I don't know!" If I'm singing a song where two singers are singing harmony, the Non-Certified Wife has told me that I'll often slip back and forth between the two harmonies. I don't even know enough to figure out how to stop from doing that!
    Anyways, I can state the definition of syncopation but it's absolutely meaningless to me. I suppose somebody could explain it to me while giving me audible examples of what it is and I might understand it at the moment. But forget retaining that knowledge! It might accidentally drive out some of my memories of the first time different women put their hands down the front of my pants!

"a small outdoor dance-floor, all but unlit, where couples were dancing"
Since the electric lights are part of the thrill of the Fair, the only reason for this dance floor to be "all but unlit" is so that couples can grind their private parts together while pretending to be doing not that in a socially acceptable and traditional activity. I think "syncopated" also means "a beat that helps people fuck."

"Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show"

I'm sure mentioning Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show is somehow important to the themes in Against the Day but being as how this is my first reading of it, I'm currently ignorant on what those themes might be. I will say that it's probably an example of liminal spaces! Once again, we experience a blurry point in time where there's a significant boundary between the past and the future. "The frontier has gone," proclaimed Frederick Turner at the Chicago's World Fair. What was once an authentic experience was now simply a "historic" entertainment told through the voice of the white men who experienced it, even if that white man were employing Native Americans. From a time when Native Americans had agency in their lives, they were now no more than exhibits of the idea of what white men thought they were. In a way, Buffalo Bill's show, begun in 1883 and bankrupt in 1913, is the thirty year boundary between the frontier and the modern era, from authenticity to simulacrum, from a group of people acting out of personal investment and agency to groups of people acting the stereotypes of others.

"the unmistakable scent of massed livestock"
I'm sure a lot of people from the Midwest understand this smell. I only truly learned of this smell, having grown up in California, in my early twenties when I visited my friend Doom Bunny while he was in college at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. Pee-yew!