Chapter 1: Section 7: Page 62: Line 108 (1090)

 Separated by a couple-three letters in name as if alphabetically double-refracted, you could say. . . .

* * * * * * * * * *

Let's not forget Merle's drunk while coming up with this theory lest we eviscerate him too harshly. But then I also shouldn't forget that Thomas Pynchon's books are historical fantasies where pretty much anything can be true. I already have no trouble believing that Lew Basnight can hop dimensions, traveling from one timeline to another, possibly even going from the real world to a work of fiction (as opposed to hopping from one fictional Chicago to another). I believe that Randolph St. Cosmo is an angel based on the character Orc from William Blake's America A Prophecy. I believe Pugnax, based on a cartoon character that doesn't yet exist in the novel's timeline, can read. Why shouldn't I also believe that Blinky Morgan and Edward Morley are the same person split in two by some kind of flesh double-refraction invention. Maybe Edward, as a small child, walked into a brick wall one day, diverting himself in one direction while Blinky bounced off at a perpendicular direction (or just came out through the other side?). This could explain why Blinky became a scofflaw and a thief because he found himself all alone and having to fend for himself at a young age. It's like that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where they find a clone of Riker stranded on a planet for years. A clone that, may I say, proves Barkley's theory correct that the Federation's teleportation system doesn't work as suspected; it's actually a suicide/cloning machine. It kills the real person and just creates a clone at the destination. How else can you explain a double-refracted William Riker creating Thomas Riker?

I will say the similar name minus the couple-three letters convinced me more than their pictures. That doesn't mean I'm gullible and easily convinced of bullshit; it just means the pictures look so dissimilar one to the other that the spelling of the names was a greater argument for the double-refraction. 

Chapter 1: Section 6: Page 51: Line 114 (908)

 Lew looked up, poker-faced.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now I'm going to have that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

"poker-faced"
Displaying no emotion. But displaying no emotion while understanding emotion. You can't just display no emotion like Data. A poker-face is meant to show the person across the table from you that you're hiding something, like joy at your hand or the pain of existence. But if you're Data, that's just your normal face. I suppose that works to your benefit in poker. Except Data doesn't know how to bluff so you don't have to read his face. If he's betting, he's betting the perfect amount for the risk of the hand he's currently holding. Data sucks at poker.

Chapter 1: Section 5: Page 36: Line 1 (583)

 The Chums of Chance could have been granted no more appropriate form of "ground-leave" than the Chicago Fair, as the great national celebration possessed the exact degree of fictitiousness to permit the boys access and agency.

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Have I gotten to the difficult sections of the book already?! I say "already" as if thirty-six pages in Gravity's Rainbow wasn't already tremendously difficult. I should be saying finally! Even on the most shallow, literal level, this sentence is boggling my mind. Why would the fictitiousness of the Fair permit the boys access and agency?

I suppose "the fictitiousness of the Fair" gives the boys access because they are young white boys in America treading freely among all the various populations and cultures that are presenting exhibits at the Fair. Would they, anywhere else, have easy and safe access to hoochie-coochie dancers, Reindeer Shows, Zulu warriors demonstrating their techniques for defeating the white man, Pygmy tribes partially ruined by missionaries, Wazaris displaying their skills at banditry, and Tarahumara Indians tripping on peyote? Their education on various cultures could be done at their own pace and without fear of intruding on indigenous people in their homes. And while fictitious, they might still be able to learn something of the majesty and pride of other peoples de-centered from American civilization. "Ground-leave" anywhere else in the world would have meant access was conditional, depending on where they were and what people lived there. But the Fair? Everybody was welcome if they merely had fifty extra cents in their pockets.

And what about their agency? Pretty much the same deal, I suppose! They were free in the fictional world of the Fair to go where they wanted at their leisure without fear of stumbling into adult rules and regulations, or local laws and customs. Since Pynchon has already done a number of Star Trek analogies in the series, the Fair was like the Chums visiting the Holodeck. They were ultimately always in control of their environment with almost certain built-in safety protocols within the Fair's walls.

On a less literal level, the boys themselves are fictional. So inserting them into a fictionalized Chicago's Fair that was already literally fictional gives them more freedom than if Pynchon had placed them within the constraints of a fully realized historical event. The Fair was as much fantasy as reality and if Pynchon wants to pretend there was basically a Donkey Show in the middle of the Fair, what harm is there in that?!

Fictional boys in a fictional setting based on a real setting that was filled with exhibits which were inherently fictional. Does literature get any better than this?

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 34: Lines 189-190 (561-562)

 "Well in theory, I don't see any great obstacle. It's a simple phase inversion, though there may be non-linear phenomena of scale we cannot predict till we build a working Device—"

* * * * * * * * * *

"I don't see any great obstacle"
That's pretty much what I figured since I know so much about radio and I took calculus and physics in high school.
    Never mind what grade I got.

"It's a simple phase inversion"
I was going to brag some more about how I understand waves due to practically growing up on the beaches of Santa Cruz and seeing the phenomena of waves canceling each other out but then I thought about Star Trek and the transporters and I got super creeped out thinking about a Romulan device that could create a phase inversion transporter that would cancel out the person being beamed through space. I mean, in theory, that could work, right?!

"non-linear phenomena of scale"
I think this means once it's up and running, we could see unforeseen effects like giant earthquakes, random people's heads exploding, or Godzilla.

Chapter 1: Section 4: Page 31: Line 107 (479)

 On the way into the lobby, an elderly woman, respectably though not sumptuously dressed, approached him, crying, "If I were your mother I would have strangled you in your cradle."

* * * * * * * * * *

Holy shit. I thought I was being harsh with Scarsdale Vibe just on account of his name and his wealth! Apparently I was spot on! Good for you, soon to probably be dead woman!

This woman will probably never get a name but she's my favorite character in the book. Now I'm going to sound like my super nerdy friend whose favorite character in a popular movie franchise or television show always had to be some obscure character (at least obscure before the Internet made nothing obscure at all). So his favorite character in Star Wars was Wedge Antilles and his favorite character in Star Trek: The Next Generation was Reginald Barclay. This was also my friend who ruined Magic the Gathering for everybody by bringing the first stupid Scrye magazine into the house. Suddenly everybody had a monetary value for each of their cards and they refused to play for ante. It became less a game and more of an investment in a collector's pastime.

I wish somebody had said this to Donald Trump's face. Man, what a great line. "If I were your mother I would have strangled you in your cradle." The fucking shade of it. I'm in awe. Bravo, poor woman! Hoorah!

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 25: Line 77 (362)

 "That is between you and our National Office," Randolph supposed.

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If I'd previously read this book, I could explain what Randolph's National Office was, answering the only real question anybody might have about this line. But that's not the way I do things. I don't watch a movie in preparation of watching a movie, mainly so I can answer my Aunt's stupid questions every thirty seconds. I just consume the media I'm consuming and figure it out as I go, maybe not totally understanding it until I write about it or talk it out with a friend later. Currently, I don't really have anybody who wants to talk with me about Against the Day (certainly not at this excruciating pace). If you've stumbled on this blog to find out an answer to what Randolph's National Office is, you're out of luck here. I'm sure there's an Against the Day wiki somewhere online that can answer all of your questions in the most boring and matter of fact way. Which I've come to learn is the way most Internet denizens like their facts. If they get a whiff of hyperbole or facetiousness or whimsy, they . . . no, you know what? They'd never recognize it in this context. If it isn't a stupid meme that they've seen five hundred times before making fun of something somebody else loves, they simply read whimsy or facetiousness as plain old ignorance and stupidity. They only like finding a joke in a discussion that's supposed to be intelligent and rational so that they can completely miss the humor, take the whimsical statement literally, and tell the person who made the joke exactly how stupid they are.

Why am I even on the Internet? I hate this place so much! That's why I call it "Dad."

"National Office"
I should at least speculate, right?! The National Office is probably an agnostic or atheistic scientific organization making observations of the world so they can sit in a stuffy office and nod knowingly at the predictions they all make based on the data. Then they do nothing to change the world for the better because they're too busy sitting around seeing if their predictions come true so they can pat themselves on the back. Oh! Like this blog! That's what I'm really doing with this blog! Putting in writing how well I understood this book while I was reading it without any outside input about it!
    Oh, I also think the National Office is like the Federation in Star Trek. But instead of going where no man has gone before, they just fly around above where men have gone and keep a spying pervy eye on them.

Chapter 1: Section 3: Page 24: Line 58 (343)

 The detective agency he sought was located in a seedy block of the New Levee district, between a variety saloon and a manufacturer of exploding cigars.

* * * * * * * * * *

Pynchon has already made a few references to Star Trek so I can't help reading this set-up as Randolph St. Cosmo on the holodeck searching for Picard's Dixon Hill office.

"New Levee district"
I don't know anything about Chicago in the 1890s but this may have been the Red Light district. It's right there in the description of the building surrounding the thing Randolph is searching for: drink to loosen up one's morals and exploding cigars to represent ejaculating penises.

"a variety saloon"
Unfamiliar with the adjective "variety" before the noun "saloon," I had to look this up. It just means "an evening of mixed plays." So this is like a McMenamins or an Alamo Drafthouse.

Chapter 1: Section 2: Page 18: Lines 142-144 (247-249)

 "W-wow! Your first command! That's champion!"

* * * * * * * * * *

Darby isn't afraid to compliment a woman on succeeding. He's the real champion! I mean, obviously Penny is the real champion having been promoted to Captain of her own ship and not refusing it for six years like a huge sucker, getting fatter and fatter and more bearded until nobody respected Riker at all anymore. But Darby can be sort of a champion for simply being a decent human being and not a typical man. Here's a chart of the decency of men:

Despicable                                   Average                               Decent                   Benevolent
<-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------->

See how the average man isn't decent like you would expect? You would expect the base line of being a decent human being would be the average state of a man. At least you might expect that if you had never met a man and were an alien from another planet. But after seeing how terribly men react to things like women succeeding, you'd have to realize that just being a decent person and celebrating that news makes you better than the average man! Also notice that "Average" is much closer to "Despicable" than "Benevolent."

I hope I don't get my man card confiscated for talking about men like this! But really, we mostly suck. And yet I still love myself! So confident! And delusional!

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 8: Line 78

 The Screw device soon accelerated the ship to a speed which, added to that of the wind from directly astern, made it nearly invisible from the ground.

* * * * * * * * * *

Oh yeah! Remember how we were, plotwise, actually aboard the Inconvenience headed to Chicago dealing with the wind change when that story about Chick Counterfly's origin began? Now Pynchon just drops us back in like nothing happened. It's not as confusing here because the story, so far, is relatively straightforward. But try to keep your head wrapped around the plot when Pynchon does shit like this in Gravity's Rainbow. Without any warning, Pynchon will drop you into a story about some guy being drugged for an experiment and it'll happen while you're still confused over the way the chapter started with some list of different ways the phrase "The Kenosha Kid" can be communicated to another person and then suddenly the character is in some club trying to fish his harmonica out of a toilet while worried about being ass-fucked by the bathroom attendant (who is also almost certainly Malcom X) so he climbs deeper into the system where he's flushed further down into some underwater city where there is only one of everything and he meets a cowboy and the cowboy's sidekick and I'd go on but I'm not sure I ever really found my way through to the other side. I just shrugged and went on to the next section hoping it would be less confusing!

This section helps clarify some of my questions about the people who had shit and piss randomly rain down on their heads and why they would just shrug and go about their lives by somehow getting over it and not hunting down the people who shit on them with a thirst for vengeance unknown by even God Himself. The airship was just too fast for people on the ground to see! That totally makes sense. I guess The Screw device gave the ship warp speed powers.

Remember that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where Picard and the crew of the Enterprise learned that warp travel was tearing down the fabric of the universe? And their solution was not to stop using warp drives but to cut their speed in half and then hope everybody else in the Federation (as well as their enemies) would follow their lead, thus doubling the amount of time before the fabric of the universe fell apart? That was a pretty good story to show how far mankind had gone that they're instantly willing to sort of but not really stop participating in actions that will destroy their home (in this case, the universe; in the allegorical point of the case, the Earth). It's painted as responsible but it also contains the germ of what makes humanity suck. The Federation is all, "Well, yes, warp drives are destroying the universe. But we really like warp drives and we pretty much need warp drives now and what? We're supposed to totally stop using them until we can come up with something different? That's crazy. We'll just use them a little bit for now." But then the Enterprise represents America (right?) so they still go faster than Warp Five whenever they feel they need to. "Oh, yeah, sure. We have limits on warp speed for environmental concerns that won't rear their ugly heads for thousands of years but right now, in this second, we really have to get Worf to some Klingon festival in twelve hours."