Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 63: Line 136 (1118)

 Lunatics and keepers alike ran around screaming.

* * * * * * * * * *

We are all the same (although the lunatics might be screaming about things other than the massive fire). Also, try to remember that many of the "lunatics" in this asylum are simply people placed here because the police didn't understand things they were saying or the police didn't like the way somebody disrespected their supposed authority or the police simply didn't like the way they looked. Sometimes crazy simply means acting, behaving, or believing in something outside of the cultural norms set by the civilization you're living in (as seen (and will probably be seen even more) through Pynchon's criticisms of imperialism, capitalism, and cultural obliteration throughout the novel).

So far, the only named examples of lunatics are Roswell Bounce and Ed Addle. We've seen that, at worst, they're Æther crackpots. So, as Pynchon said and I repeated, "lunatics and keepers alike".

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 63: Line 133 (1115)

 Somehow this escalated into a general free-for-all, in which furniture and glassware didn't come out much better than the human participants, a rare sort of behavior among Ætherists, but everybody had been feeling at loose ends lately.

* * * * * * * * * *

Being Pynchon, I'm surprised the eruption of a barroom brawl was handled so succinctly. I expected a tray of cream pies to have been rolled into the room just as somebody emptied a bin of banana peels onto the floor. Pynchon's never above a popular trope that modern audiences can easily recognize to regain their attention after wading through paragraphs of high-falutin' philosophical and scientific talk.

Here, we have rational, scientific-minded thinkers breaking into complete and utter violence. It could be commentary on how scientific disputes aren't usually as logical as we common people might think. Passions can erupt when some super smart ass jerk comes along and changes the whole rules of the game so eloquently that it can't be denied. What else can you do but bust them over the head with a whisky bottle?

This could also be one of Thomas Pynchon scant allusions to nuclear proliferation. I wouldn't bet on it but it could be there if you remember how Gravity's Rainbow was all about technology screwing over the masses so eloquently that they could be killed by it before they even knew they were in danger and yet the novel has exactly one scant mention of the atomic bomb. Just a mostly obliterated headling about Hiroshima being bombed. Mostly it's about how plastics got us here and not nuclear fission! That took place during World War II so this bit of Against the Day taking place in the late 19th Century, maybe the only way to allude to nuclear bombs is a barroom brawl between science-minded philosophers and the use of the word "escalated".

"everybody had been feeling at loose ends lately"
Here we return to the idea of loss of faith or, in general, simply loss itself. The peak elation of the people who gathered in Cleveland for the experiment that would prove the existence of Æther has dropped beyond the zero to the trough of disappointment. What they had come for had not been delivered and now they don't know what to do. The end of the world, so to speak, did not come about and now they had to pick up the pieces and find a new path. Loose ends. Feeling lost. A foundational belief about the way the universe worked has been destroyed. Here in the late 19th Century, these cracks and failing are beginning to happen more and more rapidly. Æther has just crashed out and burned. The Frontier's waning. Imperialism is turning back in on itself as the nationals of oppressed nations emigrate to their oppressor's homelands.
    Modern readers in the 21st Century can easily identify with the rapid collapse of seemingly foundational institutions. Feeling at loose ends no longer qualifies as a brief disruption in a long stretch of stability; it has become the stability itself.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 63: Line 132 (1114)

 "Unless," Ed pointed out, "it is God."

* * * * * * * * * *

Don't take what Ed says too seriously. He's addled, remember?

Except we probably should take what he says seriously since Pynchon wrote the dialogue and every line matters, remember? That's the whole premise of this Godforsaken blog!

As we've seen, physicists, especially in the first half of the 20th Century, had no problem using the term "God" when discussing basic universal scientific laws. They didn't mean it literally (I don't think! I hope not!); it was just shorthand for the foundational laws of physics and the way the universe works. Perhaps there was a nod or an allusion to the idea of a Creator in the idea that somebody made these rules. But for the most part, it's just an easy shorthand modelled on language and culture steeped in religious belief and allusion. It's like when I stub my toe on the coffee table. I don't scream, "Fucking Universe!" I scream, "Fucking Jesus Christ!" Okay, sometimes I'm even more vulgar than that. But I've never been religious in my life! I was raised as areligious as a person can be and yet I'm still coated in the slime of religious dogma and vocabulary!

Also, Ed's entirely serious, probably. If God has to be something, why not Æther, the thing that allows light to travel? It's right there in the third most read part of the Bible (i.e., the third line). Æther is an undetectable, unproveable answer to a question that can't be answered. Could God be represented any better? Plus, the great part about Ed's line is that Æther is discarded, forgotten, and unneeded in the 20th Century. So the analogy just keeps right on truckin'.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 63: Line 129 (1111)

 Everybody took a moment of silence, as if considering this.

* * * * * * * * * *

This feels like a "do not encourage nor insult him" tactic of the other Ætherists at the table. It could also just be general befuddlement and incomprehension of Chandrasekhar's argument being that they've merely heard it once while drinking in a probably noisy saloon while I had plenty of time to read and re-read the statement, hours, days, and months to contemplate it, and also the entire Internet at my fingertips to bolster my limited understanding of everything. I suppose the "as if" part of that statement clarifies exactly what's going on here.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 63: Lines 122-125 (1104-1107)

 "So with this Michelson-Morley result. We've all had a lot of faith invested. Now it looks like the Æther, whether it's moving or standing still, just doesn't exist. What do we do now?"

* * * * * * * * * *

"We've all had a lot of faith invested"
With so much discussion of scientists (and science loving nerds) having faith about scientific theories, I should probably give it more thought than I've done (or have I? I don't remember). Pynchon purposefully infuses several discussions about scientists having faith when that's exactly what scientists shouldn't be having about anything scientific. Faith should not be a part of the equation. Sure, I understand that theories in science and mathematical functions can work to explain something that's observed without actually proving how that observed thing actually functions. So there's a certain amount of "faith" that the theory or equation isn't just a tottering piece of shoddy scaffolding holding up the explanation for the end result. But Pynchon's playing a different game by constantly including the word. Roswell references religious thought for a reason in the previous paragraph. He's making a one-for-one comparison between religious faith and scientific faith, and the fallout for those not ready to abandon an idea when the idea proves faulty.
    The point I'm failing to get to is this: Pynchon isn't talking about one scientific idea (Æther) failing and how people will move on from the loss. He's explicitly discussing the death of God and religion in our civilization's growth. Every discovery about the way the universe works murders an old belief. Many of those "old beliefs" boil down to one simple answer for the unexplainable: God. But every time some unexplainable thing whose answer was God gets explained, it tilts the balance on the scales that maintain the existence of God. At some point, so many discoveries will be made that destroy yet another unexplainable thing, belief in God becomes nearly impossible. How many times does something whose answer was "God" need to be shown that there's an actual answer before the whole idea that God was ever an answer is just discarded? "Well, we'll never answer X so it must be God!" continues to fall to somebody eventually answering "X".

"just doesn't exist. What do we do now?"
And this is the modern (postmodern?) question. God is dead. What do we do now? Aside from celebrate, I mean!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 113 (1095)

 "Because Blinky emerged from invisibility, and the moment he reentered the world that contained Michelson and Morley, the experiment was fated to have a negative outcome, the Æther was doomed. . . ."

* * * * * * * * * *

I think somewhere along the way, I got Merle's theory a bit twisted. I was speculating that Æther would be dead if the experiment were a success and the beams were in phase. But, of course, Merle's theory was that Blinky being captured was tied to the discovery that Æther wasn't a concern in measuring the speed of light. But I have to allow for slight missteps being that I don't understand nearly enough of the minute details of this experiment. As a whole, I get what they're doing. But when I break it down into parts (like reading the Wikipedia entry on the Michelson interferometer), I simply come to a thorough understanding of the limits of my intelligence.
    That being said, we're back to Merle's simple theory: in some way, Blinky being captured is connected to the non-detection, and subsequent demise, of Æther. I don't understand it and probably never will which doesn't bode well for my understanding of the rest of the science and math of this novel. I'm already dreading the possible revelation that a reader must understand Quaternions to interpret the novel.

I think the main point here is this: Merle Rideout expressly states my theory of Lew Basnight (and possibly my theory that the world physically changes based on the discoveries made by science). If Blinky has returned to a world with Michelson and Morley, that must mean he was previously in a world without them or there experiment. A world where Æther continued to be the driving force behind the movement of light through space. Possibly an Earth with a hollow center. Or a universe where Martians lived on the moon. A place where boy angels fly about the world in a balloon with a perpetual energy machine.  A place where a man can live without any knowledge of the sin he committed in another dimension.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 111 (1093)

 "Yes yes but suppose, suppose when they split that light beam, that one half of it is Michelson's and the other is his partner Morley's, which turns out to be the half that comes back with the phases perfectly matched up—but under slightly different conditions, alternative axioms, there could be another pair that don't match up, see, in fact millions of pairs, that sometimes you could blame it on the Æther, sure, but other cases maybe the light goes someplace else, takes a detour and that's why it shows up late and out of phase, because it went where Blinky was when he was invisible, and—"

* * * * * * * * * *

When I signed up for Philosophy of Science my first year at Portland State University in 1989, this was the kind of shit I thought we would be discussing. I had yet to realize that I was more into literature than science so you'd have to forgive the naïve moron I was at seventeen. Instead, I was introduced to the world of "guys who think they're way fucking smarter than they really are". I met Cynical Dude Who Doesn't Trust Any Information Because He's Too Smart To Be Fooled and Devil's Advocate Dude Who Doesn't Need Evidence To Bolster His Anti-Arguments Against Everybody Else's Obviously Poorly Thought Out Conclusions and Smirking Asshat Who's Barely Capable Of An Intelligent Thought But Speaks As If His Words Should Be Worshiped and Philosophy Boils Down To Nothing Is Real So Why Even Bother Man. My contribution to the class was dropping it two weeks later. The moment that probably broke me was when Cynical Dude (or was it Why Even Bother Man?) pointed out we can't even believe that what we see on the other side of the window of our class on the third floor is real and I did not say, and it took a great effort to not say this, "Why don't you jump out the window and find out?"

I told that story to avoid actually thinking about Merle's conclusion. But if this One Line at a Time project is going to make any headway, I guess I have to just start diving in and burning out my brain stem.

"suppose when they split that light beam"
The experiment hasn't happened yet. This is Merle speculating on what will happen when they conduct it.

"one half of it is Michelson's and the other is his partner Morley's"
We're barely a fifth of the way through Merle's thought and he's already beginning to lose me. Why did he bring Michelson into it? I thought the split beam was part Morley and part Blinky? But now Merle's telling us the two halves of the split beam each represent a different experimenter? According to Merle's theory, Morley's beam comes back with the phases perfectly lined up. But perfectly lined up with what? Wouldn't that be Michelson's half of the beam? Am I missing that aside from the light splitting into two different beams, the source light also continues as a third beam? I've been staring at the diagram of the Michelson Interferometer and reading the text describing how it works for three times as long as the amount of time it took me to realize I wasn't going to comprehend it.
    But fine. We'll try to understand this as best we can, like a kid in a Science Without Math class. I mean, why bother at all if you have to leave the understanding of the basic foundation of it out? is what I always thought. But here I am, the dumb kid trying his best at partial comprehension!
    Merle's theory then: the bifurcated beam will match up perfectly at the destination. Then it's proved Æther doesn't exist. That would make it Michelson's beam. But, of course, since the experiment has yet to be run, there's the other possibility.

"but under slightly different conditions, alternative axioms, there could be another pair that don't match up"
Okay, sure. The conditions of the experiment might wind up proving the existence of Æther. The beams will not match up. This is Morley's beam. This is the beam that suggests one possibility can result in two outcomes. This becomes a philosophical discussion now on destiny versus divided timelines, free will versus predestination. A stable, ordered universe versus an unstable and chaotic one.

"in fact millions of pairs, that sometimes you could blame it on the Æther, sure"
See? This is sounding like the choices one makes across their lifetime. Millions of choices. Free will versus predestination. Æther versus non-Æther. But is there another possible and strangely paranormal idea rattling around in Merle's mind? If the beams go out of phase by the time they reach their destination, perhaps it isn't just because of the Æther? Perhaps the other reason is something we've seen earlier with Lew Basnight?

"other cases maybe the light goes someplace else, takes a detour and that's why it shows up late and out of phase"
In other words, the light doesn't get slowed down by the Æther and the Earth's movement and all that other stuff that the experiment is trying to prove. Perhaps the light has actually taken a detour through some other dimension, only to wind up late and out of phase and uncertain as to what sin has caused it to become a pariah? Or the light has begun as a scientist, gone out of reality, and come back as a fur thief, allowing for the scientist to remain being that the beam of light was split?

"it went where Blinky was when he was invisible"
In other words, Blinky hasn't constantly existed because Morley is the true self of the duo. Blinky is the split that goes in and out of reality based on the light's trajectory when sent through crystal. Of course, Blinky hasn't actually ever been invisible. That's just Merle's theory to explain why the cops have yet to catch him coming and going from his girl's brothel even though bribery explains the matter much easier.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 110 (1092)

 "No, no couldn't be, Blinky's a natty dresser, whereas Professor Morley's attire is said to exhibit a certain tendency to the informal. . . ."

* * * * * * * * * *

Ed Addle's on the right track trying to disprove Merle's theory which lacks any evidence other than two guys have bushy mustaches. But to attack their difference on the way they dress? Is he getting at yet another aspect that resonates between the two figures? How does one come to terms with these divergent theories, one which states they're, according to Merle, so obviously the same person and the other, according to Ed, that they differ in so many (or just one: the way they dress) ways? Could this be a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde allusion? The scientist and the violent criminal are one and the same, the two halves of the human condition, one light ray split into two parallel beams. Ed's argument that they can't be separate people because they dress so differently could hardly be said to be a literal argument that would hold any scientific water. So it must be figurative: they dress differently only because they represent different halves of the whole. Blinky's vulgar nature must be hidden behind fancy dress while the scientist cannot be bothered with appearance, too focused within the workings of the mind.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 109 (1091)

 "And they've both of 'em got long shaggy hair and big red mustaches—"

* * * * * * * * * *

Look, I saw pictures of these guys and even their hair and mustaches weren't really similar. If the only things you need for two people to practically be twins is the length of hair and the color of their mustaches, you've got a minor cognitive disorder. Face-blind Merle confirmed.

But since Pynchon is spending so much time on this theory, I suppose I'm convinced. I don't need any more proof than that Pynchon has turned it into a little dramatic scene between Merle and Ed.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Lines 102-103 (1084-1085)

 "There you go. An asymmetry with respect to light anyway."

* * * * * * * * * *

"An asymmetry with respect to light anyway"
Ed Addle simply repeats what Merle explained the press reported about Blinky's eyes. Yeah, jerko. He sees two different things with each eye. Asymmetrical, you might say.

I think it's the asymmetry of the two separated beams of light from the same source was what Michelson and Morley were looking for to prove the existence of Æther. The light split in two perpendicular directions but measured across the same distance should result in two asymmetric wavelengths if Æther exists. The double-refraction of the light (but not resulting in parallel beams due to the use of mirrors) coming back together would cause the beam to intensify or dim depending on if the wavelengths "interfered" with each other (hence the name interferometer!).

Ed's "with respect to light" bit might also just be him conceding that, sure, he can imagine Blinky seeing the world this way but it's only in regards to the way Blinky's eyes receive light at different times or wavelengths. In other words, it has nothing to do with Æther. So there you go, Merle. Big deal.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 101 (1083)

 "A double-refractor, for that matter."

* * * * * * * * * *

An interferometer splits light from a single source and then has them converge on a detector. A double-refractor polarizes the light to create two beams in parallel. So Merle's example is subtly different in that Blinky's seeing the same light but refracted to different wavelengths. I'll admit (again): I don't think I'm smart enough to understand the difference.

But what I am smart enough to understand is that Merle Rideout is getting into photography (or soon will, anyway) so he sees Blinky as a photographic or telescopic lens while Ed Addle sees him as just another tool to discover his beloved Æther.

Are their two viewpoints another example of the Theory of Relativity and how two observers can view the same events in different ways? Man, I'm really simplifying one of the most amazing scientific leaps of logic and experimentation of the 20th Century! I should probably just stick to playing video games.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 100 (1082)

 "A walking interferometer, as you'd say," suggested Ed Addle.

* * * * * * * * * *

"interferometer"
Merriam-Webster's definition: "an apparatus that utilizes the interference of waves (as of light) for precise determinations (as of distance or wavelength)". The interferometer was the device used in the Michelson-Morley experiment to determine if the movement of the Earth caused a change in the speed of light as it moved through the theoretical Æther. Ed's suggesting that Blinky now has the same sort of ability. He can see distortions in space-time because each eye sees the same light from the same source but from two separate perspectives.

A Michelson interferometer invented by Albert Abraham Michelson in 1887.

Here's a quote from the Michelson interferometer Wikipedia page that sort of sums up why Pynchon's concentrating on this event at the beginning of the book, much like he began with the Columbus Exposition in Chicago because it signaled the end of the Frontier and the advancement of electricity:

"The null result of that experiment essentially disproved the existence of such an Æther, leading eventually to the special theory of relativity and the revolution in physics at the beginning of the twentieth century."

Thomas Pynchon has carefully chosen this time and place as the beginning of not just a new century but an entirely new world brought on by a new understanding and perspective, a changed observation, of that world.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Line 91 (1073)

 By which point uniformed guards were approaching at a clip you could call moderate.

* * * * * * * * * *

"uniformed guards were approaching"
The guards of the Newburgh asylum. Ed Addle might know how light travels through the Æther but he apparently has no understanding of how sound travels through the air. Some employees at the asylum might not care about losing a patient or two but I've seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest so I know the guards would rather have one more patient to beat on than less work.

"at a clip you could call moderate"
This is a pace chosen to indicate that the guards aren't curiously investigating the sounds but excitedly moving toward a victim of their future violence. They're excited for what's about to come! One might argue with my characterization of the "uniformed guards" as overly critical but have you read Pynchon's other novels? Pynchon agrees with me: cops and guards are violent bastards who love violence for the sake of violence.

Proof that Asylum staff love to beat the shit out of inmates courtesy of another fictional source, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #3 (by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle).

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Lines 89-90 (1071-1072)

 "Shh! Will you just—"

* * * * * * * * * *

"Shh!"
Instead of mocking the amount of time this project would take me, why couldn't Redditors have simply said, "What a dumb project. You know one of the lines you'll have to explicate is simply 'Shh!'?" They could have saved me so much time by simply pointing out that Pynchon couldn't have possibly meant for the reader to think critically about each line both in and out of the context of the entire text if some of his lines were just one word responses to other characters. Fucking jerks.
    Although this line could mean something on its own if I stretch the limits of my academic imagination! When somebody shushes you, they want you to listen. They want you to hear what's being said. This is just a reminder to shut out all the noise and really listen deeply to the words Pynchon is saying. Like, say, each word individually, maybe! Is that where I went wrong?! Should this blog be One Word at a Time?!
    Ha ha! I was just kidding! I might be stupid but I'm not "your mom" stupid!

"Will you just—"
Merle's simply trying to get Ed Addle to shut the fuck up for once in his stinking life. Which is maybe a good time to ignore this line and talk about Ed Addle. He's Pynchon's prime example of the Æther fandom. One of the non-academic Everymen who come to their theories through non-scientific means. While speaking, they're the smartest guy in the saloon and they can't stand a guy like Roswell Bounce who pipes up to ask them to show their work. These kinds of losers proliferate in Tech Bro and have turned Twitter into a rancid mess (not that I'm on Twitter anymore but I hear things). They're now the sort of guys who spend hours every day discussing their genius with ChatGPT because ChatGPT's number one line of programming is to fellate the user. They're the kind of person who make society better when they're tossed into an insane asylum because most of their "genius" is delusional thinking. But, when you get right down to it, they shouldn't be locked away. They should be hanged.
    Ha ha! I was just kidding! I might be violent but I'm not "your mom" violent!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Lines 87-88 (1069-1070)

 "Free! Free as a bird!"

* * * * * * * * * *

Ed again. Squawking his fool bird head off just outside the asylum gates.

Is it interesting that birds are the animals that we most think of as free yet they're the ones we cage the most? Is that because human beings are envious and bitter jerks? Or is it not interesting and I'm just trying to get to the end of this sub-section as quickly as possible while refusing to figure out why these lines are so important to the overall text and themes? Was I crazy to "single up all lines"?! Or just too free? Maybe I need some discipline and meaning in my life so I stop doing shit like this. I've been doing this kind of thing for so long that I had a Geocities page where I wrote about whatever I was reading. Whew boy! Good thing that's lost now!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Line 86 (1068)

 "Ed, they'll hear you, try not to holler quite so—"

* * * * * * * * * *

When I said I'd read ahead after the last sentence, what I meant was I glanced ahead without actually parsing it very well because why would I do extra work by parsing future sentences when I'll just need to parse them again when I'm writing the blog entry? So now that I'm paying more attention, I understand that Merle has just helped Ed Addle to escape and Ed, having just possibly slipped through the gap cut in the wire fence around the asylum, begins to shout in exuberant joy that he's escaped. And Merle, here, is simply pointing out that maybe wait until they're snugly set up in the Oil Well Saloon or lounging on a chaise lounge at Nelly's before wildly celebrating.
    And, once again, this little drama has simply materialized out of thin air after Pynchon mentioned that Merle sometimes helps inmates escape the asylum. Not confusing at all, Pynchon!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Line 85 (1067)

 "Escaped!"

* * * * * * * * * *

I believe, cheating and looking ahead at the next few lines, this was said by Ed Addle who Merle just recently helped escape Newburgh. I did not skip any lines, I assure you, no matter how much it seems like I skipped some lines. It's just how Pynchon writes! He'll be writing some bit of linear mundanity that you've convinced yourself you're following like a grade-A Mensa member (although your anxiety keeps piping up insisting that if it seems so easy to understand, you must be missing something) and then BLAMMO! Pynchon switches camera angles while spinning you around five times and kicking you in the nethers. At that point, you stagger forward trying to piece together the narrative to the best of your ability. He does this so well in Gravity's Rainbow that I had to re-read pages and pages of text once I realized the narrative had returned to the present while I thought we were still in a flashback. And being a reasonable person who wants to make sure the time I spent reading something while I could have been having sex wasn't entirely wasted, and even though I understood everything I read, I would have to go back and re-read the entire passage until I understood where I missed the move from flashback back to the present. Or from hallucination to reality. Or from story about a sentient light bulb to the light bulb not being sentient anymore.
    This bit in Against the Day isn't exactly that. It's just Pynchon writing, "Sometimes Merle had to help inmates escape. Now I'll just go into an example of the aftermath of Merle having helped somebody escape. And it would be boring to explain what I'm doing so I'll just do it and the reader can figure it out themselves. Or not. What do I care? They already paid for my fat-ass book!"

Getting ahead of this line a bit, as I noted, Ed Addle says it. But I don't know if it's Ed who has escaped or if Ed is exclaiming, "Escaped!", because Merle just brought an escapee into the Oil Well Saloon, or, even, if it matters at all. Reading a few lines further ahead, I'm sure it's Ed. Besides, Ed's name is "Addle" which means "confused". Seems the type to get thrown into Newburgh!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 60: Line 74 (1056)

 "If there was a reliable light-meter," said Roswell, "it might make a difference to know about how the light was being transmitted, is all."

* * * * * * * * * *

Here we see where Roswell's priorities lie. He's a photographer. A light-meter measures the intensity of light and photographers use them to determine the correct length of the exposure when taking a photograph. Roswell has no stake in whether or not Æther exists. He'd just like scientists to know for sure so that they could develop a superior light-meter.

At this moment in the story, Merle Rideout has not discovered his passion for photography. But he's here at this table in this saloon listening to some regulars discuss light. He's obviously going to be drawn to the cool and cynical photographer rather than the hyper-focused nerd making up shit on the fly to hold court over the others. What's happening here has nothing to actually do with Æther. We're learning the secret origin of Merle's hobbyhorse. You know! Photographing naked ladies!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 60: Line 73 (1055)

 "Is this just your usual wet-blanket talk, or do you really want to know?"

* * * * * * * * * *

As I speculated before Ed became guarded, Roswell Bounce could have meant the question in two ways: innocent amazement of the fact or cynical skepticism of Ed Addle's bloviating explanation of humidity within Æther. Ed knows Roswell better than I do (having just met him a paragraph ago) so he has experience of Roswell's participation in these discussions as being "wet-blanket talk." Characterizing Roswell this way gives the reader insight into Roswell's reaction seeing that he's a "person who spoils other people's fun by failing to join in with or by disapproving of their activities."

Of course Ed could, if he wasn't just blowing turds out of his mouth, just answer the question simply by saying, "Yes, of course there is a U.S. Bureau for this information!" But since he chooses not to say that, we have to assume he's trying to deflect the critical question and turn everybody against Roswell.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 60: Line 72 (1054)

 Ed became guarded.

* * * * * * * * * *

Guarded. As in to protect. Like a person who stands before a structure looking to keep people out. Possibly a gate. A gate-keeper. In this case, Ed senses somebody outside the community looking to bring doubt onto the premises. His premises (as in both his territory and his suppositions).