Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 8: Line 77

 And Chick Counterfly, for better or worse, had remained. . . .

* * * * * * * * * *

Did you know I'm also discussing Gravity's Rainbow and Vonnegut's Player Piano over on my sister blog, Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea? That's also where I discuss comic books when I'm in the mood. But lately I haven't been in the mood because I've been reading more serious things where most of the characters don't wear form fitting outfits that show everything and nothing all at the same time. I mean, Booster Gold has some incredible abs and pecs and the other muscles but you can't see one wrinkle of his cock. You can't even see he has a cock! Or balls! He's just a Ken doll. That's the most unrealistic thing about comic books. Even in that scene in Good Omens when Jon Hamm as Gabriel is jogging in sweat pants, you can see his massive cock! I'm assuming it's massive when it's erect because he's just so damned confident! You don't attain that kind of confidence as a male without having a penis that shouts, "I could do porn if I wasn't so good looking!"

I just realized this would have been a good entry for another sonnet! The best entries for sonnets are the self-explanatory short ones with just the right amount of subtext to infuse the stanzas with a point and an eventual turn or summation. I could probably have made quite a bit of subtext out of that "for better or worse" part, especially with my theory that the Chums of Chance are undead monsters forced to roam the skies for eternity, like those Ghost Riders that country folk sometimes sing about. That's the "for worse" part! The "for better" part is that they might be angels or just ghosts trying to make the world a better place to redeem them for their past crimes after which they can move on to Heaven. But if that were the case, wouldn't the airship be called Purgatory instead of Inconvenience? Although Purgatory was created to be a kind of inconvenience.

Now that I've guessed Pynchon's airship is Purgatory, is he going to change tactics and instead make it some old rich guy's institute running paranormal experiments on reality instead?!

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 8: Line 76

 In time, however, the ominously cloaked rustics, perhaps in superstitious fear of that very machinery, had dispersed to their homes and haunts.

* * * * * * * * * *

What Pynchon is saying here is that racist bigots are superstitious hicks who might not just live in houses but also haunts. The definition for a haunt is "a place frequented by a specified person or group of people" such as a Country Club or a Whites Only Restroom. Notice that Pynchon doesn't remark on their economic fears or their nice and engaging qualities which they only show to other people who look, act, and think like them. Also, the use of "superstitious fear" in regards to a strange piece of scientific equipment can also be extrapolated to how they view other things they aren't familiar with, like people of other races or, probably, cats & spiders.

Take that, racists trying to read Pynchon! Do you think that's a thing or do you think racists only read Nietzsche and then only those curated by his sister, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche? Also I'm curious about the things they would brag about reading and not the things that would automatically out them as bigots and racists. 

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 8: Line 75

 It had been a night of sleepless precaution lest sparks from the torches of the mob drift anywhere near the hydrogen-generating apparatus and devastation result.

* * * * * * * * * *

If I knew a guy and I was all, "I sure could use a torch later," and he whipped me up a torch, I would totally suspect he was a racist jerk. Also why would I need a torch later? Is it the end times and part of Judgment Day that wasn't encoded in Revelations was that batteries would stop working and also I was too lazy to use my hand crank flashlight? But that's kind of the point! If a guy knows how to make a torch that isn't just trying to light the end of a dry branch with a Zippo, he's got some fucking secrets that maybe I don't want to know about.

Although at this point in history, I'm fairly confident that nearly all Republicans know how to make torches. No wait! I take that back. Nearly nobody knows how to make torches anymore which is why all those racists trying to save statues of Confederate officers went to Lowe's and bought out all the tiki torches.

Can you imagine somebody trying to save statues of Confederate officers using the excuse that destroying them is destroying history without knowing the actual history of why those statues were erected and when? The nerve of some racist asshole telling everybody that these statues tell some kind of historical story that isn't just "a bunch of scared white assholes decided to erect these statues in the face of civil rights movements as a means to intimidate Black Americans." Confederate officer statues are the sculpture equivalent of a dog pissing on a tree. History? More like pisstory!

Yes. You really nailed the landing on this entry, Me!

No wait! I forgot to discuss the line! Um, well, you see, all the Chums were nervous not just because the KKK, a bunch of villainous violent thugs, were surrounding their encampment but also because they had torches and the most famous thing about hydrogen is that it likes to react with oxygen especially around fire because it's an, um, oxidizer or something. So this line is meant to make the readers think of the Hindenburg and then to think "Oh the humanity" which leads them to thinking about humanity and how the Chums of Chance probably aren't human at all but angels or ghosts or aliens and also a dog.

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 8: Lines 73-74

 "There is nothing further to discuss—this fellow is to be granted asylum and, if he wishes, provisional membership in our Unit. There certainly remains to him no future down here."

* * * * * * * * * *

Randolph St. Cosmo comes to Chick's rescue because Randolph St. Cosmo is the name of an angel. Which suggests, especially since there's now no future for Chick "down here," that the Chums of Chance have more in common with Moore's Dead Dead Gang than I first thought. Is it possible the Chums of Chance are not supposed to interfere because they're ghosts and/or angels? I know us modern idiots have all been convinced by popular entertainment that all angels and ghosts do is intervene in our mortal affairs! But in 1893, I'm pretty sure all angels and ghosts were concerned with was making sure nobody sees anything sexually enticing.

In other words, Chick has just been lynched by the KKK so now he must carry on in the sky with the other poor wandering souls. But he doesn't know it yet! That's why he's a provisional member. He won't actually be a real Chum of Chance until he faces and accepts his terrestrial death.

Later we'll see that the Chums of Chance do age but I think that's just something ghosts and angels can do. They can appear to be any age they choose and the Chums of Chance probably choose to age albeit slower than living humans. That's probably why their adventures can span such a great space of time and they're still seen as lads. Randolph probably stopped aging at 18 and the others are slowly aging toward that, the aging process growing ever slower so that they never actually reach and then pass the age of the captain.

This sentence says none of that. But—and this is major Coast to Coast AM logic—if it caused me to think it, maybe it actually is there? At least I didn't write another sonnet!

Although what would a project like that look like? If I were to write one sonnet for every line in this book?! Man, don't tempt me, me!

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 8: Line 72

 "Noseworth, for mercy's sake!" cried Randolph St. Cosmo, who had been glancing anxiously out at the robed and hooded figures at the perimeter of the camp, the blazing torches they carried lighting each fold and wrinkle of their rude drapery with almost theatrical precision and casting weird shadows among the tupelo, cypress, and hickory.

* * * * * * * * * *

Anybody who has ever carried a torch while with at least one other person also carrying a torch was either chasing down a living monster, LARPing, or being a huge racist. You're declaring something quite specific when you go out in public with a bunch of other people and carry torches. It's a kind of intimidation that doesn't warrant the President of the United States declaring you might be "very good people." Unless, of course, what he meant to say was, "You're one of the kinds of people I like and I admire what you're doing."

But going out in a mob and carrying torches is the kind of thing you can do without consequence in a society that refuses to understand the things they don't want to understand. There's an American history of torchbearers which can only be ignored if you choose to ignore it and choosing to ignore it is as clear a message as carrying torches in a mob in public.

Pynchon paints an unavoidable picture of who these people are in this line. The theatrical precision shows they know what they're doing; they've choreographed the intimidation and terror. The torch-based lighting throws up disorienting and strange shadows, making them appear larger and more monstrous while also highlighting their anonymity by playing across the folds and wrinkles of their "rude drapery." These people are a menace. It's the whole point of it. To menace and to intimidate and to suppress the freedom of movement of those they despise for no logical reason at all.

And Randolph makes sure Lindsay knows this is no time for a lesson on language. These KKK, these despicable men, have close ties with (and often are they themselves) local people of power. They can get away with whatever they want. The Chums are in a dangerous situation and so is this boy Chick. The Prime Directive, or, um, "Charter" be damned; morality and humanity trump it. They must help the boy.

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 8: Line 71

 "In polite discourse," Lindsay hastened to correct him, "'isn't' is preferable to 'ain't.'"

* * * * * * * * * *

"In polite discourse," Lindsay corrected
Him, "'Isn't' is preferable to 'ain't,'"
Directed at one suspected of taint.
But grammar advice needs be rejected
By one, faint, pursued by unrespected
Supremacists protected by hoods. Plaint-
ive cries, by no saint, at men who would paint
Him up in tar and feathers collected.

There's a time and a place for pedantic
Turns of phrase but when someone's being chased
By men of evil intent, you can stick
Your Goddamned saccharine laced romantic
Notion of language as a pure and chaste
Idea up your arrogant man dick.

Chapter 1: Section 1: Page 8: Line 70

 "When they're after a fellow, legal ain't got nothing to do with it—it's run, Yankee, run, and Katie bar the door."

* * * * * * * * * *

Sorry for that last entry. It couldn't be helped. Literally, it couldn't be. My brain just took over and what are my fingers supposed to do? Not type what my brain wants them to type? 90s kids would get it.

See? I don't know why I just typed that either! I mean, I know why I typed it! Because my brain told my hands to type it. But why did my brain ask my hands to type that?! It's a mystery! The only person who knows how brains work is that guy at the end of Pi. At least I hope or else . . . oh my God. What was that movie about?! What fucking happened at the end?!

Okay, never mind! I'm back now! I shook my head really fast and am going to finish this while my brain is rattled and distracted.

This is the first time I've heard the phrase "Katie bar the door." That's probably because I grew up in California where our colloquial phrases are things like "Dude!" and "As if!" and "Go home, valleys!" At first I thought it was one of those phrases that Pynchon dug up that had only been used in a short period of time between 1898 and 1895. But it seems to still be in use, mostly in the southern states of the U.S. It's easy enough to understand in context. "Trouble is coming so somebody, preferably a young lass named Katie, should bar the fucking door!"

Oh, in California, "fucking" is also one of our colloquial phrases.

Chick makes a valid point with his "legal ain't got nothing to do with it" statement. And he's right, by gum (not a Californian colloquialism)! How many times do Kirk and Picard forgo the Prime Directive when one of their crew is in danger? Probably a lot although I never kept track. And, yes, Chick isn't a crew member on the Inconvenience. But he's still making an important distinction: is obeying the letter of the law more important than saving a life? Some police think disregarding the law is as important as taking a life! Oh uh. I think my brain has come unrattled.