Reader's Guide to Vineland

p. 325 "Tokkata & Fuji" = Toccata and Fugue.
p. 325 "What was a Thanatoid, at the end of the long dread day, but memory?" The answer at last.
Sort of.
p. 325 "Bach's 'Wachet Auf': one of the best tunes ever to come out of Europe" It's Resurrection Day!
And weirdly enough, this does wake up the Thanatoids. Is Pynchon a smart-ass or what?
p. 325 "the peculiar band between 6200 and 7000 KHZ" Why peculiar?
p. 325 "false cities of gold" Pynchon playfully compares these mythical malls to the seven cities of
Cibola, which kept Coronado on the run so long.
p. 326 "The Noir Center Mall" The shops are puns on famous film noir titles: Bubble Indemnity =
Double Indemnity; Lounge Good Buy = The Long Goodbye; Mall Tease Flacon = The Maltese Falcon; The
Lady 'n' the Lox = Lady In the Lake.
p. 327 "Che, you're rilly evil" The relationship between Prairie and Che echoes that of Frenesi and DL.
p. 327 "Brent Musberger" was a TV sportscaster who got his biggest exposure when NBC covered the
1988 Olympics. NBC let him go in 1990. It made quite a media splash. He relates to the next line, and
Pynchon's theme about people who are observers rather than makers of reality.
p. 328 "Maybelline" What's the joke here? Maybelline eye makeup? Or the chase element in Chuck
Berry's song? Probably all of the above, plus a Pynchonian takeoff on Muzak (the "oboe-and-string rendition.")
See also "New Age mindbarf" on p. 330.
p. 329 "agoramania" = shopping frenzy.
p. 329 "Dwayna" Another cool name.
p. 330 "New Age mindbarf" Right on, Pynchon!
p. 332 "It's like they's programmed for it or somethin'" Fleur's comment on why gentlemen prefer
black and red underwear on "bad girls" is reminiscent of Pirate Prentiss' involuntary, ejaculatory response to a
certain photo, delivered to him via V2, in Gravity's Rainbow.
p. 332 "Night and Blood" Echoes of Katje and Pudding in Gravity's Rainbow (p. 232-233): "She waits
for him...white body and black uniform-of-the-night.... Lipstick...prevails like blood.... She is naked now, except
for a long sable cape and black boots with court heels. Her only jewelry is a silver ring with an artificial
ruby...an arrogant gout of blood..."
p. 333 "...Juvenile Hall badasses..." More badasses.
p. 333 "...conical black heaps smoked, glowed, flared here and there into visible fire..." The scene in
which Vond burns the 24fps footage is quite horrible -- and extremely important. By destroying 24fps' records
of the Sixties, he clears the way for his rewritten fascist version. With no evidence to prove him wrong, who
would dare to argue with "official" history?
p. 334 "a restored Vicky" = Victorian house.
p. 334 "not only dropping but also picking up, dribbling and scoring three-pointers..." Total
basketball metaphor for Hector's name dropping.
p. 337 Hollywood producers "Sid Liftoff" and "Ernie Triggerman" More cool names.
p. 337 "bizcochos" = Spanish for "biscuits, cookies."
p. 337 "lizard-skin etui" Etui = a four letter word made of odd letters, therefore useful to crossword
constructors, and meaning "small case." Pynchon does crossword puzzles? Maybe he just loves words.
p. 338 "arranged for Sid to work off the beef...[by making] an antidrug movie..." This plea-bargain
echoes a real deal cut by Godfather producer Robert Evans to avoid doing hard time on a cocaine bust. Evans
made several anti-drug spots for TV, as promised, but apparently (according to subsequent courtroom
testimony) he kept on using the stuff anyway.
p. 338 "Roy Ibble" Another cool name.
p. 339 "sudden monster surge of toilet flushing...and...cold air" A new Pynchonian fable: Dope
paranoia results in Hollywood fog bank.
p. 340 "Larry Talbot" = The Wolfman in those old Hollywood monster movies.
p. 342 "Sounds real natural to me." A math joke. 2.71828 is "e," the root of the series of "natural"
logarithms.
p. 342 "43'd" = half of 86'd. (See "octogenarihexation" on p. 186.) Being 43'd is like being a little pregnant.
p. 343-344 Song: "Es Posible." Music-biz schtick at the end makes it even funnier. Also hilarious: the