Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 63: Line 140 (1122)

 Gusts of hot red light swept the grounds, reflecting brightly off desperately rolling eyeballs, as shadows darted everywhere, changing shape and size.

* * * * * * * * * *

It's like a living, life-sized version of the Michelson interferometer. The fire the source of the light. That light traveling across the grounds and reflected back in various directions by the eyes of the lunatics and their keepers. The shadows changing shape and size analogous to the fringe patterns detected by the refracted and split beams of light. As theorized by Merle earlier, each split beam from the light source becomes a different person, a different way of viewing the world. We get that literally in that the light splits away from itself via the eyes of various individuals, which also becomes a metaphoric expression of the relativistic idea of observing the same event from various points.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 63: Line 134 (1116)

 For Merle it had been a sort of directionless drift, what Mia Culpepper, who was devoted to astrology, called "void of course," which went on till mid-October, when there was a fire at the Newburgh asylum, where Merle happened to be that night, taking advantage of an inmates' dance to break out Roswell Bounce, who had offended a policeman by snapping his picture just as he emerged from the wrong sporting establishment.

* * * * * * * * * *

"For Merle it had been a sort of directionless drift"
Merle has reached the Gen-X portion of the program. Pynchon really accelerates the run through modernity into postmodernity in this section, a section purported to be about how Merle met Erlys but so far has concentrated on the Michelson-Morley experiment, Blinky Morgan, and the loss of Æther. Perhaps Pynchon's setting up the idea that "love at first sight" is just "discovering a new purpose." Love as the rudder of one's life. At least until Zombini the Mysterious dismantles your boat to leave you drifting in the current.

"Mia Culpepper"
One of the sisters Merle was "courting" at Nelly Lowry's brothel.

"devoted to astrology"
I can't help but read this as a flaw or a negative character trait of Mia Culpepper. But I guess astrology hasn't left her at loose ends or directionless so what do I know? Perhaps loyally believing in nonsense provides one with a more joyous life experience? You don't have to be constantly disappointed and let down by change if you hitch your ride to a belief that can't be disproven. Mia's love of astrology is not mentioned as backing for her coming statement so Pynchon must have placed it here as a referent to her character and mindset. I'm not an earnest person but I'm far less cynical than I once was, preferring to let people simmer in their beliefs without my added snarky commentary (at least in person! My blogs are testament to my lifelong pursuit of being a hater), so maybe I'm less apt to judge Mia as a ditz, more open to see her as optimistic, jovial, and just trying to retain some kind of control over the chaos of daily life.

"void of course"
Just another way of saying "directionless drift" but with the added stinging reference to the recent loss of Æther. While "directionless drift" hints at the quality of Æther filling the universe, "void of course" hints more at a vacuum. It's not that Merle doesn't just know where to go now or what to do; Merle simply has nothing moving or motivating him to even find a direction. He's currently a blank, a cypher. An analogy without a referent.

"which went on till mid-October"
I believe the Michelson-Morley experiment concluded in June or July so Merle's been lost for the entire summer. And he still hasn't met Erlys! Get to the story already!

"there was a fire at the Newburgh asylum, where Merle happened to be that night, taking advantage of an inmates' dance to break out Roswell Bounce"
Even directionless, Merle continues to break his Ætherist companions out of the asylum whenever they've been picked up by the police. I feel like Erlys should be coming into focus soon because the structure of this sentence indicates that Merle was about to find direction due to being at this place at this time. His funk is about to end. And probably not due to saving Roswell Bounce's hide.
    I'm going to ignore the idea of an inmates' dance at an insane asylum. I just don't currently have the bandwidth to imagine what that was like. Although, being that a fire broke out, I'm guessing my first impression that things would not go smoothly at an Insane Asylum Prom wasn't far off.

"Roswell Bounce, who had offended a policeman by snapping his picture just as he emerged from the wrong sporting establishment"
Pynchon has never had any blinders on when it came to what makes police tick. They're corrupt, violent, arrogant bastards who believe no limits to their powers exist other than their own desires. I've often said, "The only weapon you need to provoke a cop to violence is scorn," and here Pynchon gives us an example of the same. Roswell took a photo of a corrupt cop doing corruption and he was tossed in the insane asylum for it. I'm sure he was also served a fairly comprehensive beating as well.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 63: Lines 126-128 (1108-1110)

 "Taking a contrary view," said O. D. Chandrasekhar, who was here in Cleveland all the way from Bombay, India, and didn't say much, but when he did, nobody could figure out what he meant, "this null result may as easily be read as proving the existence of the Æther. Nothing is there, yet light travels. The absence of a light-bearing medium is the emptiness of what my religion calls akasa, which is the ground or basis of all that we imagine 'exists.'"

* * * * * * * * * *

"Chandrasekhar"
According to Wikipedia, "the name comes from the name of an incarnation of the Hindu god Shiva. In this form he married the god Parvati." But Shiva had over 10,000 names so that's probably meaningless. I have convinced myself it is meaningless so that I don't have to learn all about Shiva to provide some context to a man named after one of his incarnations. The literal meaning in Sanskrit of "chandra" is "moon" and "sekhar" is "crown". That's probably more to the point although what that point is is anybody else's guess because my guess might sound a bit insensitive: Chandrasekhar is king of the moon. Luna is the root word of lunacy. Chandrasekhar is the king of the insane. Which could be where Pynchon was going with this since Pynchon points out that whenever he speaks, nobody understands him. Plus "OD" is something that sometimes happens when you take too many drugs. But when you take just the right amount of drugs, you could sound crazy to sober people.

"Taking a contrary view"
You would think the view contrary to Roswell Bounce's view might be that discovering Æther doesn't exist doesn't leave them in a quandary about where to go next but leads them directly to where they should head. But you'd be wrong. Because O. D. here has decided that by proving Æther doesn't exist, Michelson and Morely have merely proved that it does.

"didn't say much, but when he did, nobody could figure out what he meant"
A few ways to interpret this description of old Chandrasekhar's explications of things.
    First, the things Chandrasekhar says are complete nonsense. He sounds crazy. He rambles and speculates in a non-logical manner.
    Second, he's much smarter than everybody else. His ruminations pass above the mental acuity of those listening to him. He is logical and rational in his thought but he is not comprehended by the drunk dimwits at his table.
    Third, Chandrasekhar comes from a foreign place, not just in geography but in ways of seeing, believing, and expressing the world. His Hindu background allows him to understand the world in a way that is so outside the thinking of the Americans at his table that they simply can't follow his train of thought. This, to me, seems the most logical. Partly because Pynchon is always interested in how imperialism silences views that fail to see the world in a Eurocentric way. But also because I read Chandrasekhar's contrary opinion, read the definition of "akasa", and my mind refused to understand it because it's clogged with Western European assumptions.

"this null result may as easily be read as proving the existence of the Æther"
I mean, it doesn't. But it also doesn't disprove the existence of Æther! It strongly suggested that Æther doesn't exist. The problem then, what with everybody still thinking light was merely another wave that needed a medium for its propagation across space, was that the experiment did not suggest another alternative. Many clung to the idea that it must still exist because their ideas on how light traveled were now untethered. They had no theory to explain it. So maybe, since light still travels somehow, the experiment, um, proved Æther existed? No, no. Let's hear O. D. out a little more for his explanation of how this contrary opinion makes sense.

"Nothing is there, yet light travels"
Right. This is the observation that has broken so many minds! So you either figure out how light travels without the Æther, or you cling to your quickly dying theory (as many scientists will do for another half century, even after Einstein was all, "Here's how it probably works and I didn't need to fudge any numbers with a non-existent, invisible space goo!"

"The absence of a light-bearing medium is the emptiness of what my religion calls akasa, which is the ground or basis of all that we imagine 'exists.'"
Ouch my brain.
    Before trying to untangle Chandrasekhar's comment, I'd like to return to an important part of the death of Æther theory that I've discussed somewhat previously: how and why special relativity usurped it and why that's important to this novel. One of the concerns with Æther and how light and matter traveled through it was determining a standard frame of reference. As a metaphor, we can view this as Western Civilization trying to force their view of things on everybody else. But special relativity posited that measurements differ based on the observer's velocity and position. Note that special relativity doesn't change the facts which the observer's observe: it just creates a different equation to determine equal outcomes from each different point of view. Again, metaphorically, we have different cultures viewing the same historic events but interpreting them in different ways, even if the event still just happened one specific way (if it could be seen by an unbiased neutral observer). Does that make sense? Because it needs to make sense because what we're about to delve into is Chandrasekhar's observation of the Michelson-Morley experiment from a relativistic non-Western point of view. Or should I say, my poor attempt to explicate it?
    Let's start slowly.

"akasa"
Wikipedia has multiple definitions of ākāśa (or akasha) but I'll stick with the one that feels important in this context: how it's defined in Buddhist philosophy. I know, I know. Is Chandrasekhar Hindu or Buddhist? Does that matter? Am I the wrong person to discuss this? I can't answer two of those questions so we'll just ignore them all and plow ahead.
    Wikipedia states that ākāśa has two primary meanings (which I'll quote from the article below):
    The first meaning: "Spatiality: Ākāśa is defined as the absence that delimits forms. Like the empty space within a door frame, it is an emptiness that is shaped and defined by the material surrounding it." Light's ability to travel is like the door frame shaping the emptiness. The emptiness provides the passage; the door frame merely a sign that the passage exists. Nothing, in its way, can be something. And so the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment simply points to the passage which light uses to move through space.
    The second meaning: "Vast Space: Ākāśa is also described as the absence of obstruction . . . because it remains unchanged over time. In this sense, it is likened to the Western concept of ether—an immaterial, luminous fluid. . . ." So, what we'd expect. It is the same as Æther but, as in the first meaning, it is also nothing. A null result only proves it exists.

"the ground or basis of all that we imagine 'exists.'"
Here we get reference to the Hindu concept of "akasha": it is the "basis and essence of all things in the material world." But the word in this sentence that strikes me is "imagine" (with exists following in quotation marks also being important!). Here we sense one of the themes I've been discussing throughout: the general consensus of reality makes reality in the novel. How people imagine the way the world is is the way the world is. If it can be imagined, it exists. So even if an experiment proves that Æther doesn't exist in 1887, it doesn't mean it's dead and done for. People still believe in it, even if fewer and fewer will as time goes by. And again, speaking of faith, we see in this loss of faith in Æther the same loss of faith in God (as well as many other things which Pynchon will probably get to (and which I might be able to speak on if only I'd read this novel one time through before writing about it)).

There's probably more here that I'm not ferreting out (and probably a bunch of speculation that I got wrong) but I'll leave it at that for now.
    

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 117 (1099)

 As if it possessed the substance of an invention or a battle, the negative result took its place in the history of Cleveland, as another of the revealed mysteries of light.

* * * * * * * * * *

"history of Cleveland"
I just read* the Wikipedia page "History of Cleveland" and didn't find a single mention of the Michelson-Morley experiment which only proves that Thomas Pynchon knows more about everything important than anybody else in space and time.

* Pressed CTRL-F and searched for the number of times "Michelson" appeared in the text. It was 0.

"revealed mysteries of light"
Illumination reveals what has previously not been seen. So this is kind of a joke, I think. It might not be as funny a joke as "the history of Cleveland", but I thought it was pretty good.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 115 (1097)

 If the Æther was there, in motion or at rest, it was having no effect on the light it carried.

* * * * * * * * * *

At first you might think this statement was a bit redundant, after all that was said before. But it's crucial to the idea that the Michelson-Morley experiment did not prove that Æther doesn't exist; it just proved that it had no effect and, thus, it struck the blow that would eventually lead to its demise, at least in the eyes of all but the most religiously devoted to Æther.
    This declaration that Æther isn't needed to understand the speed of light or how it travels was foreshadowed by Merle Rideout and Heino Vanderjuice's earlier discussion about how Æther had become a matter of faith among many scientists, some being so devoted to the idea of it that they will try to keep it alive throughout the early half of the 20th Century, long after most scientists had put it in the bin. But most scientists decided, after this experiment, that even if it existed (again, it was not proven not to exist here), it simply wasn't a variable that mattered to the study of light. Thus it was subsequently disregarded. And, as such, in the universe of Against the Day, it suddenly ceased to be. It previously existed in the consciousness of the world, thus it was scene by aeronauts and others, affecting their travels in the sky, but would no longer be an issue. Disbelief causes a physical change in the phenomena of the universe.

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 For word was circulating that Michelson and Morley had found no difference in the speed of light coming, going, or sideways relative to the Earth speeding along in its orbit.

* * * * * * * * * *

This is one of those nice "Science Without Math" statements that we can all use from time to most-of-the-time. It simply sums up the experiment without getting in the weeds of the details (although the details are what make this whole Blinky Morgan and Edward Morley are the same person theory interesting). What was the experiment about? It was about measuring the speed of light in several different directions to see if the movement of the Earth changed the speed. A change would indicate that the light was moving through something which was also traveling at those speeds. It should be faster going in the direction of the Earth while slowing down going perpendicular to that direction (or against it, obvs!). Who needs to know how it's done? How the light from one source is split into different beams and bounced in different directions to eventually arrive at the same destination? And how arriving at the same destination in phase (since light was suspected to be simply a wave as sound (which is why is was suspected that it needed a medium to travel through)) would indicate that direction didn't hamper its speed. Only if each beam arrived out of phase would there be an indication that the movement and inertia of the Earth would be affecting it. And that out-of-phase bit was what made Merle's theory into a lengthy philosophical sidebar that Pynchon has spent an awful lot of time on. Which he doesn't do with all of his strange little tales so it must have been especially important to the overall themes of the novel. I suspect it backs up the idea that Lew has been split from another Earth to find himself on one where he has become a pariah among those he once knew and loved. But then I could be biased because that was my initial impression of my first reading of the Lew Basnight sections.

Maybe as Mark Z. Danielewski says in his new novel, Tom's Crossing, in the section where the mortician does the autopsy on Russell's body, I need to uninstall my initial bias of Lew's possible dimension hopping. Or, if I want to remain loyal to Thomas Pynchon here, I need to get beyond the zero to rid myself of not just the bias but the idea of the bias too. I think. Remember how not smart I am? I still have trouble with the idea of "Beyond the Zero"!

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 112 (1094)

 In late June, just about when Michelson and Morley were making their final observations, Blinky Morgan was apprehended in Alpena, Michigan, a resort town built on the site of an Indian graveyard.

* * * * * * * * * *

Even while Pynchon is finishing up the conclusion of Merle's theory with the knowledge that as the experiment was concluding and Æther was taking the first wound that would prove fatal, Blinky was captured (possibly proving that theory correct), he takes the time to remind everybody that one of the main themes of this novel is the rampant imperialism of white Europeans (and by obvious extension, being that they're a subclass of "white European", Americans). What better way to point out how shitty the Americans treated the indigenous population than by focusing on this one single aspect of the "resort town": it was previously an Indian graveyard.
    I think this is where my college professors would write a little note on my paper saying "EXPAND" but how much more can I say? Do I have to point out how a town based on vacation and luxury and relaxation is nearly the exact spiritual opposite of sacred burial grounds? That Pynchon has evoked an image of tourists walking around carefree without an important thought in their heads atop the corpses of the native Americans? Am I to assume that people reading whatever I write are dunderheaded nincompoops?! Hmm, I do that every day when I'm out and about in society, why shouldn't I do it while I'm writing?! Maybe my teachers had a point!

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 107 (1089)

 Professor Edward Morley and Charles "Blinky" Morgan were one and the same person!

* * * * * * * * * *

The important thing to remember here is that Merle Rideout is drunk.

Charles "Blinky" Morgan

Professor Edward Morley

I'm as sober as I usually am on a Saturday afternoon and I can almost see what Merle's talking about just via looks (Merle will have more reasons for his conclusion). If I were drunk (or quickly heading toward that state), I think I could also dismiss all the obvious differences in the look of these two, like length of hair, head shape, super different noses, mustache bushiness, chin and subsequent dimples, and eye size (just to mention a few. If I keep going, I might have to recant on my claim that I might think they look alike if I were drunk). If I were a modern face-blind person, I might even think these two pictures were practically the same person! But even Merle must have better reasons for deciding these two old timey guys were the same person.
    Oh! Is Pynchon telling us Merle is face-blind?!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 106 (1088)

 It was so obvious!

* * * * * * * * * *

You're killing me here, Pynchon! Where are your meaty sentences that go on for multiple paragraphs or pages? Stop exposing the weakness of this entire project with lines that can't really be explicated outside of the context of the rest of the work!
    *sigh* Fine. Let's talk about the single word in this sentence that matters.

"It"
Ha ha! Just kidding! Although let's clarify "it", at least. "It" here is a pronoun representing the noun "the thing that connects Blinky Morgan to the Michelson-Morley experiment".

"obvious"
The Merriam-Webster definition of obvious is "easily discovered, seen, or understood". I suppose the obviousness of a thought that takes some time (and loads of alcohol) to reveal itself might seem like a paradox because how is it obvious if it wasn't seen from the first? But the concept of something being "obvious" yet unseen until later stems from the archaic definition of it: "being in the way or in front". "How did you not notice that thing that was right in front of your eyes the entire time? The thing was archaically obvious but you didn't notice it." The word is less about something that is easily recognized from the start and more about where the thing lies (in your way; directly ahead) and yet the person still missed it. The word thusly indicates a lack of perception in the person not noticing the thing in front of them. Merle missed the connection not because it was subtle and hard to see but because his perception was off. He was a poor observer. He lacked the light needed to illuminate the night and thus the thing staring him in the face.

Don't worry! I think Merle's revelation is about to be explained in the next sentence! Hold on to your guppies!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 104 (1086)

 One day Merle had seen the astonishing truth of the case, though admittedly he had been most of the night working his way from one Whiskey Hill saloon to the next, drinking.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Merle had seen the astonishing truth of the case"
This makes it sound like Pynchon's going to explain exactly the connection Merle saw between Blinky Morgan and the Michelson-Morley experiment. Nobody would blame you for rubbing your hands together, pulling your pants down to your upper thighs, pumping the lotion bottle three or four times, and getting ready for the money shot reveal. And while I, sitting here with my pants half off, don't know for sure if there's going to be a reveal because I'm reading this long ass book one sentence at a time (probably due to some early childhood brain injury), I'm hesitant to start pumping lotion into my hand because I quickly noticed the conjunction "though" which is how a grammarian shouts, "Before you begin fondling your nether regions in anticipation of universal truth revealed and/or boobies, take a second to regard the framework of the first clause by studying this second clause!"

"though admittedly he had been most of the night working his way from one Whiskey Hill saloon to the next, drinking"
See? Merle was drunk when he had this revelation so take it with several grains of salt on the rim of your tequila shot. Do teetotalers understand how truly overwhelming revelation can be when one is in an altered state? I feel like the reaction to revelation while you're sober reduces itself to a nod of the head as it's swiftly incorporated into your understanding of life and the universe around you. In an altered state, revelation becomes truly religious. The immenseness of the revelation multiplies by the grandeur of the altered state. A drunk might be, as Merle here, astonished, a pothead flabbergasted, while somebody on mushrooms or LSD might trepan themselves to let out the massive truth flow freely from their blown mind. I may not have trepanned myself but I regularly had mind blowing revelations about severely mundane things while on mushrooms or LSD which thought about later sober just made me shake my head and laugh. I'm glad I never started a cult about how the number three connects everything and triangles are the perfect shape, or how some VCRs' pause button would pause the show but then to unpause the show, you'd have to press it again instead of play. Even though, you know, the button's purpose was to PAUSE, not to UNPAUSE!

"Whiskey Hill"
Whenever I research Cleveland to read about Whiskey Hill, I just get modern mentions of Whiskey Island. I'm assuming this is the same place but things have changed due to climate change!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Line 98 (1080)

 Each of Blinky's eyes, according to press accounts, saw the world differently, the left one having undergone an obscure trauma, either from a premature detonation during a box job or from a naval howitzer while fighting in the Rebellion.

* * * * * * * * * *

Not sure how Merle could tell this from Blinky's picture although I'm sure one eye must have been covered in a white film. Maybe the picture Merle is talking about which would be the picture Thomas Pynchon saw was the picture in my last blog post. And if you go by that picture, one eye is in the light and the other is recessed in darkness. Along with the rumors that Blinky's eye sees the world differently, Merle could have then come to the conclusion, skin covered in goose flesh, that Blinky somehow was seeing the world in a way that would prove the Michelson-Morley experiment a complete failure.
    The idea that Blinky's eyes saw the world in different ways finally reveals that my speculation was probably correct in that the "principle" is that of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Here we get the most compact and literal example of that theory: a man whose two eyes themselves act as separate observers, each seeing the same world but from different positions and perspectives.

"obscure trauma"
The literal reading of this line indicates that the actual story of the eye's trauma is unknown to all but Blinky. But this can also be read as a trauma caused by darkness. Meaning, you know, no light since light's super important to this book. Illumination can be read as knowledge as well. In other words, the trauma has hidden knowledge from the eye, leaving it in darkness, a metaphor for the current times not being able to yet see the reality of the physical universe.

"premature detonation during a box job"
I'm not sure what this means but I assume it means robbing a box car on a train or a bank vault. I suspect Pynchon chose the two examples of how the eye went for specific reasons but, again, I can only speculate. Could Blinky's vision of the unknown principle (seeing prematurely in a way he shouldn't) caused by a premature detonation be a hint at how the atomic bomb was made possible by Einstein's theory? According to how I'm perceiving history in this novel, I mean that literally. The atomic bomb would not exist until a new way of viewing the universe came into view and not Einstein's theory was especially needed for an atomic bomb.

"naval howitzer while fighting in the Rebellion"
We don't get a mention as to what side of the Rebellion Blinky fought on. But that doesn't matter. Pynchon simply takes the opportunity to remind the reader of the historical context of this story: just mere decades ago, a bunch of racists rose up to try to maintain ownership of Black Americans. Sure, some moronic imbeciles who are stupid love to claim the Rebellion was started for States Rights. But you know which right they wanted their own say in, yeah? Slavery, dumb-dumb.
    Anyway, maybe this can be seen as Black versus White or, in other words, Dark versus Light (both in the color of the skin of the people at the center of the dispute and also the "dark" idea of keeping slaves versus the "light" of emancipation).

Double anyway, Blinky loses his eye through some sort of violent means and changes the way he sees the world forever. Rebellion. Detonation. Trauma. Look, Pynchon will get less subtle and metaphorical about these things once Lew gets to Colorado!

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 "But you've seen his picture in the papers."

* * * * * * * * * *

I have not.

No wait! I have! Here he is!

Merle's bringing up his photograph as a defense to how he must be connected to the Michelson-Morley experiment. Maybe I'm daft but I don't understand his argument. Hopefully he'll elaborate!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Line 94 (1076)

 Not that one would cause the other, exactly, but that both would be different utterances of the same principle.

* * * * * * * * * *

What would that principle be? If the end of Æther can be seen as a shifting paradigm, a death of some traditional belief, a frontier, of sorts, then that means Merle sees the capture of Blinky in a similar manner. Is that it? The death of some kind of innocence? The end of some kind of freedom? The loss of a frontier? A massive times they are a'changin' moment?

I know those speculations aren't actually principles but things that happen when a principle falters or is radically altered. But then what is Merle talking about? Is the failure of the Michelson-Morley experiment an utterance of the new principle that science just hasn't figured out yet? That seems plausible. That the failure of the experiment leading to the death of Æther is an utterance of Einstein's theory of relativity (specifically that the speed of light in a vacuum is the same for all observers regardless of the motion of observers or light source) becoming a major understanding of reality, as this very experiment influenced Einstein's experimentation on the theory.

Let's assume that's the utterance: the failure of the experiment was because the universe was vastly different than the one where Æther was needed for light to travel. That means Blinky being capture also, somehow, expresses a post-Æther reality based on Einstein's future theory. Both events portend the future reality by their outcomes.

But how does the capture of a fur-stealing criminal have anything to do with physics? With the speed or transmission of light? With special or general relativity? I could just wimp out and suggest that the utterance is that truth will eventually come out. Criminals found and captured; Æther discovered as a fraud. But that's way too simple, right? Plus, once again, it's sidestepping the idea that Blinky's capture is an expression of Einstein's Theory of Relativity (special or general? I don't know!).

Perhaps the relativistic aspect of Blinky Morgan's case should be looked at. Does it have something to do with observers and how they see the event? The common man sees Blinky as an anti-hero, perhaps hoping he evades the law even though they accept he and his gang committed the crime while the police see it differently. Blinky's capture is an expression of how different people can see the same event in different ways, depending on their "motion" (motion here simply meaning, I don't know, class? Politics? Economic level?).

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 61: Line 92 (1074)

 Somehow Merle got the idea in his head that the Michelson-Morley experiment and the Blinky Morgan manhunt were connected.

* * * * * * * * * *

Merriam-Webster defines synchronicity is defined as "the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (such as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality —used especially in the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung". If I were an editor at Merriam-Webster, I don't think I'd have allowed the "especially psychic events" addition to the definition. It only confuses a thing with the paranormal. It feels like projecting Biblical reasoning into scientific theories. It feels like they're leading their audience to view it in a supernatural way.
    One of my all-time favorite songs is "Synchronicity II" by The Police, a song that really helped me to come to terms with the idea of synchronicity being two events that weren't related. For a long time, I simply felt that the events that cause the synchronicity had to be tied together somehow. But The Police song does it right: two entirely separate but eerily similar events happening at the same time. The song contains two narratives: the main narrative of an angry man waking, heading to work, and coming back home; and the rising of a monster from the bottom of a lake, surfacing, and approaching the door of a cabin on the shore. Each event explains the other. I particularly like the middle verse where the man walks unhindered through the picket line and doesn't stop to wonder why. It's because he's seething and angry and everybody sees he's about to explode. And also how he's become impotent from the anger and frustration and humiliation of his work and home life.
    Anyway, I bring all this up because Merle's having one of those moments between the experiment and Blinky Morgan. The two events are not connected but they're both creating quite the hullabaloo in Cleveland. Merle can't help but feel that they're entangled in some way (quantumly, perhaps?).
    I wonder if I should understand quaternions by now? Is it time to read some massive scientific essays until my brains leak out of my butthole? I hope not!

I'm not going to speculate why Merle thinks this because I couldn't come up with anything and also we'll probably find out in a line or two!

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 59: Line 56 (1038)

 Some claimed that light had a consciousness and personality and could even be chatted with, often revealing its deeper secrets to those who approached it in the right way.

**********

"Some"
This line convinced me Pynchon's "some" are the ones rounded up in the asylum which makes sense because this is the same paragraph that began explaining what the cop meant by "Newburgh."

While this line sounds like Pynchon is describing some woo woo séance hoodoo mumbo jumbo, a less cynical reading could simply see it as a way of describing what scientists do. Obviously they don't think light has a consciousness and a personality and is eager for a quick chat over a nice tea. But it does have, as a stand-in for those things, intrinsic properties which can only be learned via controlled experiments and careful observations (or chats!). The Michelson-Morley experiment itself is one of these chats trying to get light to reveal one specific secret dealing with how it travels through a vacuum as a wave. Light will have nothing to say on the matter of Æther which will be a statement of a kind anyway, leading to further discoveries once scientists have decided that the inclusion of Æther in the movement of light is a dead end.

Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 59: Line 54 (1036)

 They were talking about the Northern Ohio Insane Asylum, a few miles southeast of town, in which currently were lodged some of the more troublesome of the scientific cranks Cleveland these days had been filling up rapidly with, enthusiasts from everywhere in the nation and abroad for that matter, eager to bathe in the radiance of the celebrated Æther-drift experiment in progress out at Case.

**********

"Northern Ohio Insane Asylum"
Pynchon being generous here and explaining one of his references for those weirdos who don't keep the Internet at hand while reading a Pynchon book.

"currently were lodged some of the more troublesome of the scientific cranks"
Holy heck how troublesome can these science fanatics be?! Feels more like maybe a few nerds stood out from the crowd too much and these bully cops decided to give them a brief incarceration instead of a wedgie. I suppose this experiment has become some kind of a spring break for science nerds. Sort of like how at the beginning of the book, the World's Columbian Exposition was spring break for ballooning enthusiasts. That's where the kids met Merle and his penchant for photographing naked ladies!

"eager to bathe in the radiance of the celebrated Æther-drift experiment"
This is a pun. Bathe in the radiance of a light experiment.

"Æther-drift experiment"
The Michelson-Morley Experiment was supposed to prove the existence of Æther through how light moved through it while traveling in different directions. It was theorized that the Æther would drift based on its interaction with the movement of the Earth. This should have caused light to move at differing speeds when moving in perpendicular directions. It did not. But this failed experiment was possibly the beginning of moving the world into special relativity. So that's probably why it's so important to the beginning of this novel. Special relativity will probably be important towards the end of the novel which sucks because I'll finally have to try to understand what all that's about. I'm sure it's more than just "light moves at a constant velocity no matter what which means time has to be the changing variable! Wacky!"