the straight dope

this, from last week's issue of the Reader. seemed relevant. i promise, something substantive in the near future...

[this is from a Straight Dope article detailing what happened to the accusers of witches]

More recently, Helen Duncan was arrested during World War II after holding a seance where she claimed the spirit of a sailor from HMS Barham told her his ship had been sunk. Problem was, the Barham's sinking was then still a military secret, and authorities feared Duncan might reveal details about the impending D-Day invasion, presumably also obtained from supernatural sources. She was tried under the Witchcraft Act of 1735 and sentenced to nine months in jail. Although the act was repealed in 1951, the UK has refused to grant Duncan a posthumous pardon. With that ol' devil you never know.

i'm slow.

i just bought the book. 15 minutes ago.

i have looked up no words.
i have yet to find typos.
i have read only the "Beyond the Zero" epigraph.

am i the only one on page 3?

the typo i alluded to

page 6 of my edition

the para that begins "Pirate in the lavatory starts pissing..." in the second sentence, "not that this works to well" should be, I believe, "not that this works too well." (referring to hiding his cigarette pocket)

anyone else have this error?

sweet creepin' jesus in the bananas,

words I've already had to look up

naphtha
mullioned
dacoits
sanjak
preterition

and i'm only on page 25 of a sept 1976 edition.

i do think i have found a typo, though. ("to" instead of "too")

whee!

Time to gather your arse up off the floor, (have a bana-na)

So this is a cookbook we're reading, right? All this talk of bananas is making me hungry...

from my pal Mariella:

INGREDIENTS:
2 cups sifted flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, separated
1 1/2 cups milk
5 tablespoons melted shortening
1 banana, thinly sliced

PREPARATION:
Mix and sift dry ingredients. Combine beaten egg yolks, milk, melted
shortening and; add to dry ingredients, beating until smooth. Stir in
sliced banana. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour or spoon batter
into each section of a hot waffle iron.
Cook banana waffles until crispy and browned.
Banana waffles recipe serves 6.

and from the internets:

Ginger Banana Waffles
Banana Sour Cream Waffles
Banana Nut Pancakes with Lemon Sauce
Kanai Banana Pancakes
Souffleed Banana Rum Pancakes
With Buttered Rum Sauce
Banana Pancakes With Caramen-Banana Syrup
Banana Syrup
Banana Bread
More Banana Bread
Banana Vanilla Mead
...and if that isn't enough...

hmm... I think there's a menu for the first potluck in there somewhere...

familiar theme

oops, i haven't started reading yet, but I have been diligently spending hours every day on the internet. I feel comfortable sharing this because I doubt my shame is particular to me. But, unlike all of you, I have typed "Thomas Pynchon" into Google once or twice. Here are some links that came up. Uh, and some that didn't. If anybody finds a Classic Comic version of the book, let me know!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=tiCmTn0s7oY

I'm avoiding summaries (although some of these ahead do have short plot synopses), since I'm assuming they're all written by postliterarycybertheorists. Seriously, the first one I found (on a .edu server) was about Pynchon's prophecies of cyberspace. And since I've recently started living by the Code of Hasty Generalization, I can only infer that anything else I might find would be a BA thesis paper as well.

Thankfully, wikipedia's got everything!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity%27s_Rainbow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pynchon

It's even got these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_crib
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tunnel_Company

I've been looking for someone who deals in indexed and cross-referenced Pynchon-related trading cards, but in the meantime these dudes have searchable databases. Years ago, when I tried to slog through with Slothrop, the exponential expansion of the character pool left me scratching my head and reshelving the book. This time, I've got the internet on my side.
http://www.hyperarts.com/pynchon/gravity/index.html
http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

All right, don't forget to eat, sleep, and go to work.