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The Crying Of Lot 49
''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a novel by the American author Thomas Pynchon. It was published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. on April27, 1966. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-old feud between two mail distribution companies. One of these companies, Thurn and Taxis, actually existed; operating from 1806 to 1867, Thurn and Taxis was the first private firm to distribute postal mail. Like most of Pynchon's writing, ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is often described as postmodernist literature. ''Time'' magazine included the book in its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. Plot In the mid-1960s, Oedipa Maas lives a fairly comfortable life in a northern Californian village, despite her lackluster marriage with Mucho Maas, a rudderless radio jockey and ephebophile, and her sessions with Dr. Hilarius, an unhinged German psychotherapist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Pynchon
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), themes, including history, music, science, and mathematics. For ''Gravity's Rainbow'', Pynchon won the 1974 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. (With essays by Casey Hicks and Chad Post from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog. The mock acceptance speech by Irwin Corey is not reprinted by NBF.) He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American novelists. Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon served two years in the United States Navy and earned an English degree from Cornell University. After publishing several short stories in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he began composing the novels for which he is best known: ''V.'' (1963), ''The Crying of Lot 49'' (1966), and ''Gravity's Rainbow'' (1973). Rumors of a historical novel about Charles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Post Horn
The post horn is a valveless cylindrical brass instrument with a cupped mouthpiece. The instrument was used to signal the arrival or departure of a post rider or mail coach. It was used by postilions of the 18th and 19th centuries. Use and construction The post horn is sometimes confused with the coach horn, and even though the two types of horn served the same principal purpose, they differ in their physical appearance. The post horn has a cylindrical bore and was generally used on a coach pulled by two horses (technically referred to as "Tonga"); hence, it is sometimes also called the Tonga horn. The coach horn, on the other hand, has a conical bore and was used on a coach pulled by four horses (referred to as a "four-in-hand"). The post horn is no more than in length, whereas the coach horn can be up to long. The latter has more of a funnel-shaped bell, while the former's bell is trumpet-shaped. Post horns need not be straight but can be coiled—they have a smaller bore� ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Support Group
In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic. Members with the same issues can come together for sharing coping strategies, to feel more empowered and for a sense of community. The help may take the form of providing and evaluating relevant information, relating personal experiences, listening to and accepting others' experiences, providing sympathetic understanding and establishing social networks. A support group may also work to inform the public or engage in advocacy. History Formal support groups may appear to be a modern phenomenon, but they supplement traditional fraternal organizations such as Freemasonry in some respects, and may build on certain supportive functions (formerly) carried out in (extended) families. Other types of groups formed to support causes, including causes outside of themselves, are more often called '' advocacy groups' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gay Bar
A gay bar is a Bar (establishment), drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ+) clientele; the term ''gay'' is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBTQ+ communities. Gay bars once served as the centre of gay culture and were one of the few places people with homosexuality, same-sex orientations and gender-variant identities could openly socialize. Other names used to describe these establishments include ''boy bar'', ''girl bar'', ''gay club'', ''gay Public house, pub'', ''queer bar'', ''lesbian bar'', ''drag bar'', and ''Dyke (slang), dyke bar'', depending on the niche communities that they serve. With the advent of the Internet and an increasing acceptance of LGBTQ+ people across the Western world, the relevance of gay bars in the LGBTQ+ community has somewhat diminished. In areas without a gay bar, certain establishments may hold a gay night instead. History Gathering places favoured by hom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose. The Association of Bay Area Governments defines the Bay Area as including the nine counties that border the estuaries of San Francisco Bay, San Pablo Bay, and Suisun Bay: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties which are not officially part of the San Francisco Bay Area, such as the Central Coast counties of Santa Cruz, San Benito, and Monterey, or the Central Valley counties of San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus. The Bay Area is known for its natural beauty, prominent universities, technology companies, and affluence. The Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secret Society
A secret society is an organization about which the activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla warfare insurgencies, that hide their activities and memberships but maintain a public presence. Secret societies may be community-based or associated with colleges and universities. These societies exist in countries around the world. Definitions The exact qualifications for labeling a group a secret society are disputed, but definitions generally rely on the degree to which the organization insists on secrecy and might involve the retention and transmission of secret knowledge, the denial of membership or knowledge of the group, the creation of personal bonds between members of the organization, and the use of secret rites or rituals. Anthropology, Anthropologically and historically, secret societies have been dee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coat Of Arms
A coat of arms is a heraldry, heraldic communication design, visual design on an escutcheon (heraldry), escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the last two being outer garments), originating in Europe. The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full achievement (heraldry), heraldic achievement, which in its whole consists of a shield, supporters, a crest (heraldry), crest, and a motto. A coat of arms is traditionally unique to the armiger (e.g. an individual person, family, state, organization, school or corporation). The term "coat of arms" itself, describing in modern times just the heraldic design, originates from the description of the entire medieval chainmail "surcoat" garment used in combat or preparation for the latter. Roll of arms, Rolls of arms are collections of many coats of arms, and since the early Modern Age centuries, they have been a source of information for public showing and tracing the membership of a nobility, noble family, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Watermarks
A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations in the paper. Watermarks have been used on postage stamps, currency, and other government documents to discourage counterfeiting. There are two main ways of producing watermarks in paper; the ''dandy roll process'', and the more complex ''cylinder mould process''. Watermarks vary greatly in their visibility; while some are obvious on casual inspection, others require some study to pick out. Various aids have been developed, such as ''watermark fluid'' that wets the paper without damaging it. A watermark is very useful in the examination of paper because it can be used for dating documents and artworks, identifying sizes, mill trademarks and locations, and determining the quality of a sheet of paper. The word is also used for digital prac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Revenge Play
The revenge tragedy, or revenge play, is a dramatic genre in which the protagonist seeks revenge for an imagined or actual injury. The term ''revenge tragedy'' was first introduced in 1900 by A. H. Thorndike to label a class of plays written in the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean eras (circa 1580s to 1620s).Kerrigan, John. ''Revenge Tragedy: Aeschylus to Armageddon''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1996. Print. Origins Most scholars argue that the revenge tragedies of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries stemmed from Roman tragedy, in particular, Seneca's ''Thyestes.''Bowers, Fredson Theyer. Elizabethan Revenge Tragedy: 1587–1642. Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith. 1959. Print. p. 41. Seneca's tragedies followed three main themes: the inconsistency of fortune ('' Troades''), stories of crime and the evils of murder (''Thyestes''), and plays in which poverty, chastity and simplicity are celebrated ('' Hippolytus''). In ''Thyestes'', Seneca portrayed the evil repercussi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacobean Era
The Jacobean era was the period in English and Scotland, Scottish history that coincides with the reign of James VI and I, James VI of Scotland who also inherited the crown of England in 1603 as James I. The Jacobean era succeeds the Elizabethan era and precedes the Caroline era. The term "Jacobean" is often used for the distinctive styles of Jacobean architecture, visual arts, decorative arts, and English_literature#Jacobean_period_(1603%E2%80%931625), literature which characterized that period. The word "Jacobean" is derived from Neo-Latin ''Jacobaeus'' from ''Jacobus'', the Ecclesiastical Latin form of the English name James (name), James. James as King of England The practical if not formal Union of the Crowns, unification of England and Scotland under one ruler was an important shift of order for both nations, and would shape their existence to the present day. Another development of crucial significance was the foundation of the first British colonies on the North Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, called charcoal burning, often by forming a charcoal kiln, the heat is supplied by burning part of the starting material itself, with a limited supply of oxygen. The material can also be heated in a closed retort. Modern charcoal briquettes used for outdoor cooking may contain many other additives, e.g. coal. The early history of wood charcoal production spans ancient times, rooted in the abundance of wood in various regions. The process typically involves stacking wood billets to form a conical pile, allowing air to enter through openings at the bottom, and igniting the pile gradually. Charcoal burners, skilled professionals tasked with managing the delicate operation, often lived in isolation to tend their wood piles . Throughout histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilising all resources in pursuit of total war. Tanks in World War II, Tanks and Air warfare of World War II, aircraft played major roles, enabling the strategic bombing of cities and delivery of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, first and only nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II is the List of wars by death toll, deadliest conflict in history, causing World War II casualties, the death of 70 to 85 million people, more than half of whom were civilians. Millions died in genocides, including the Holocaust, and by massacres, starvation, and disease. After the Allied victory, Allied-occupied Germany, Germany, Allied-occupied Austria, Austria, Occupation of Japan, Japan, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
