Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 33: Lines 162-164 (534-536)

 "Lately he's been keeping those ideas pretty much to himself, like he's finally learned how much they might be worth. Seen that happen enough, Lord knows. This big parade of modern inventions, all spirited march tunes, public going ooh and aah, but someplace lurking just out of sight is always some lawyer or accountant, beating the 2/4 like clockwork and runnin the show."

* * * * * * * * * *

"like he's finally learned how much they might be worth"
See?! Loss of innocence! I knew S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders wouldn't steer me wrong! It's as if the Professor had found this new type of game that used cards which you purchased in packs with random cards inside. And when you play a game, you bet one of your cards against one of your opponent's cards. Whoever wins gets to keep both cards. And nobody even considered that maybe some of these cards might actually be worth more money than the entire pack was purchased for so nobody really cared much about losing this card or winning that one. But then some jerk whom you thought was your friend suddenly showed up with a magazine whose main reason for being published was to list the different values of all of these cards. And now suddenly Cheryl doesn't want to play for ante because she might lose her Shivan Dragon. Well la dee fucking dah, Cheryl! I guess we'll all just stop having fun then! And thanks a lot, Stephen, for bringing that stupid magazine into our midst! I haven't enjoyed anything since that day in the early 90s! Why even bother going on?! Nothing gold can stay!

"Seen that happen enough, Lord knows"
Me too! Remember that story I've told before and then just now about how fucking Stephen ruined Magic the Gathering for us?!

"This big parade of modern inventions"
This is one of the themes of this book! Look at how all of these modern inventions changed the landscape of our lives at the end of the 19th century! See how we reacted to them! See how they foreshadow the ultimate invention of the 20th century which isn't Magic the Gathering but nuclear weapons!
    Another theme is "See how, by trying to center the story around themselves, Europeans destabilized the center, bringing the entire world into themselves and changing themselves drastically while trying to outwardly control the rest of the world." The imperialist drive to control and dominate the world simply caused soldiers, refugees, and immigrants to bring back to the homeland all of the cultures the imperialists were trying to control and make more British (or whatever, depending on the European country. It's just easy to speak of Britain since they were the empire on which the sun never set or whatever) thus irrevocably changing British life forever, many times in the ways the imperialism was initially meant to prevent. The dumbies.

"beating the 2/4"
This means a beat of two quarter notes per bar. A quarter note is also known as a crotchet. The alternate definition for crotchet is "a perverse or unfounded belief or notion." I first learned that word from Gravity's Rainbow. It, along with Tristram Shandy's "hobbyhorse," are two of my favorite words to describe other people's arguments and motivations.

"like clockwork"
Clockwork plays a large part in Mason & Dixon! So think up something intellectual that compares the two novels here, email it to me, and I'll replace this sentence with that, taking full credit for it.

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 28: Lines 59-62 (431-434)

 "Admiration noted—and you might examine little Dahlia here, who's the spit of her Ma, fulminate me if she ain't, fact if you're ramblin by some ten, twelve years hence, why ride on over, have another look, make an offer, no price too small or too insulting I wouldn't consider. Or if you're willing to wait, take an option now to buy, got her on special, today and tomorrow only, dollar ninety-eight takes her away, heartbreakin smile and all. Yehp—there, lookit, just like 'at. Throw you in an extra bonnet, I'm a reasonable sort, 'n' the minute she blows that sweet-sixteenth birthday candle out, why she's on them rails, express to wherever you be."

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"fulminate me if she ain't"
I just profess my ire that Pynchon isn't making my brain work too hard and then he brings fulmination into the picture! Yes, yes. Merle is using it here to mean "express vehement protest" (as Lindsay did earlier. Lindsay fulminated Merle). But "fulminate" is totally a Gravity's Rainbow word. Unless it's a later Against the Day word when we get to the chapter with the explosives. Fulminate salts are friction sensitive explosives. That's probably why the word means "vehement protest." Because the person is exploding in anger. Heck, maybe Merle is actually using fulminate to mean "blow me up if I'm lying!" It's 1893! People probably expected to be blown up if they ever wronged somebody.

"if you're ramblin by some ten, twelve years hence"
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
Because I refused to purchase a five year old girl as my future bride.

"make an offer, no price too small or too insulting"
Was it okay to sell your child in the late 1800s? I suppose children were more property than autonomous beings. I'm starting to suspect that Merle really does give Dally corn liquor on a regular basis. This guy is the definition of uncouth! And also maybe the definition of sex slaver!

"the minute she blows that sweet-sixteenth birthday candle out, why she's on them rails, express to wherever you be"
This reminds me of all the weird perverts who keep track of young actresses' birthdates so they can, um, legally say the perverse things in public that they've been saying in private for way too many years. I think the poor Olsen twins suffered from this nonsense quite a bit. I only mention the Olsen twins because it seemed so egregious. "You mean you can't wait to talk about fucking the baby from Full House? What is wrong with you?" is a conversation I never had but I'm sure many friends of pervs did. I only mention that I only mention the Olsen twins because I'm sure all young female actresses have to deal with this shit.

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 12: Line 26 (131)

 With a loud twang that may as well have been the Crack of Doom, the line around his foot was yanked free of its attachment to the Main Valve, though not before pulling beyond its elastic limit the spring meant to restore it to a safely-closed position.

* * * * * * * * * *

The "Crack of Doom" is an obvious reference to Tolkien who was born just a year previous in 1892. Okay, maybe not. But it could be, seeing that it's capitalized, a reference to William Minto's 1886 science fiction novel. No wait! It definitely definitely is a reference to Robert Cromie's 1885 science fiction novel, The Crack of Doom which "explores the dangers of unfettered scientific experimentation" (quote from the Google Book description). The book is set in the year 2000 and is best known for being the first science fiction work to contemplate the end of the world through nuclear Armageddon. The antagonist is also super evil because he's a feminist. So maybe Robert Cromie was also the first incel? The synopsis of the story I read also states that along with feminism, the antagonist is motivated by "other unacceptable beliefs." I wonder if any of them are labor union oriented?

Aside from tying this book into the post-modern world of nuclear annihilation through the casual connective tissue of referencing a 19th Century science fiction novel to describe the snapping of a rope, the part about the spring being pulled beyond its elastic limit and thus not being able to restore itself to its normative and acceptable and safe settings should probably be focused on for thematic reasons. I don't know what those thematic reasons are, exactly, because I haven't read the book. But I'm sure they're a reference to regular, common folk being driven well past their breaking point, so much so that they never truly right themselves again. Like Frost's "Birches" after some boy has been swinging them! Or were the ones that never truly righted themselves the ones bowed down by snow and nature? You know what? It doesn't matter because I got to reference "Birches" (a poem I once parodied as "Bitches" (Oh, you want to read that now, do you? Well, you'll have to ask for it).

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 11: Line 13 (118)

 "Say, it just got tangled up, Professor," declared Miles, plucking ineffectually at the coils of hemp, which only grew more snarled as his efforts continued.

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Is Miles the slapstick comedy relief or is he the Antichrist? I suppose he could be both and wouldn't that be an entertaining way for the world to end. Robert Frost didn't give us that choice. What good is his poetry if he can't throw in the possible death of the world by comic apocalypse?

I must say, I like Miles even more now, seeing as his attitude is laid back and unconcerned even when the ship is practically crashing to the ground. He begins with "Say" as if he just bumped into a casual acquaintance on the street and means to talk about the weather a bit. He uses the passive voice about the hemp rope, as if he isn't the one who screwed the pooch. Although now that I get to the part where he's "plucking ineffectually," I'm starting to see Miles as severely depressed and not just chill.

But we probably still have miles to go before he weeps.