Difference between revisions of "Chapter 15"

Latest revision as of 17:13, 18 November 2025

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Billie The Brownie Xmas Ad

Billie the Brownie was a Milwaukee Christmas character created in the 1920s as part of Schuster’s Department Store holiday promotions. Inspired by Palmer Cox’s late‑19th‑century Brownies—whimsical figures that also lent their name to the Kodak Brownie camera—Billie became a fixture in parades, advertisements, and especially radio broadcasts. Beginning in 1931, Billie joined Santa Claus and Metik the Eskimo on WTMJ’s daily 15‑minute Christmas program, where they entertained children, read letters to Santa, and told holiday stories. The show’s popularity was immense—by 1947, more than 100,000 letters were received. Billie’s final broadcast aired on Christmas Eve, 1955, marking the end of the tradition.

In 1996, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel revived the character through “Beanie the Brownie,” presented as Billie’s son in a seasonal comic strip. Each year Beanie battled villains who threatened Christmas, continuing the blend of folklore, advertising, and mass‑media storytelling that defined Billie’s original appeal.

For more detail, see the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee entry.

Walter Winchell
Winchell (1897–1972) was a nationally famous American gossip columnist and radio commentator, known in the 1930s and 1940s for blending celebrity news with political commentary. His style blurred fact and rumor, creating a media persona so pervasive that he seemed almost fictional. The line in the novel highlights this tension between myth and reality, reflecting how mass‑media figures could feel larger than life to ordinary people while still exerting real influence.

Check and Double Check
Check and Double Check (1930) was the first and only feature film starring the radio comedy duo Amos ’n’ Andy (Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll), directed by Melville W. Brown. Released by RKO Pictures, the movie attempted to capitalize on the immense popularity of the Amos ’n’ Andy radio program, but is now remembered for its dated racial stereotypes and the use of white actors in blackface. The film’s title became a catchphrase associated with the show, and its appearance in the novel underscores the pervasive influence of early radio and film in American mass‑media culture.

Heinie und His Grenadiers
Heinie und His Grenadiers were a Milwaukee polka and novelty band active during the 1930s and 1940s, led by Henry “Heinie” Konkel. The group performed regularly on WTMJ radio and became known for their comic use of faux‑German accents, military costumes, and polka standards. Despite the name, the band members were not German; the “Grenadiers” persona was a humorous stage identity popular in Midwestern entertainment of the era. Their records, including “Honeymoon Polka” and “Die Dorfmusik,” were released on Decca and other labels, and postcards of the group circulated widely. Band member Valter Grebe later co‑founded Grebe’s Bakery with his wife Irene, linking the group’s history to one of Milwaukee’s enduring family‑owned businesses.

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the Saint
i.e. Santa Claus

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penny scale
These existed back then, exactly as described;

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Al, Benny, Chuck, deQuincy, and Edgeworth
"fictional names" of guys working at Wisebroad's Shoes

Zoomer
Hicks’ nickname “Zoomer” comes from Montezuma in the United States Marine Corps Hymn, whose opening lines are “From the Halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli.” Locals spin this into a joke about his wide feet, described as “Shoe’s a triple‑E.”

bringing out a fin
A five-dollar note is known colloquially as a fin, a fiver, half a sawbuck. A ten-dollar note is known colloquially as a ten-spot, a dixie, a sawbuck, or a tenner.

Shoe‑Store X‑Ray Machine
Alongside Harley‑Davidson motorcycles and the QWERTY keyboard layout, Milwaukee is also the birthplace of the shoe‑store X‑ray machine (see Shoe‑fitting fluoroscope). Developed in the 1920s, it was marketed as a scientific way to fit shoes, though later abandoned due to radiation concerns.
The reference to these inventions here seems atypical for Pynchon, as he doesn't often overtly state such "interesting facts".

Brannock Device
The classic metal foot-measuring instrument you’ve seen in shoe stores and, yep, it dates right back to the 1930s.

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Pinochle and Sheepshead games Both Pinochle and Sheepshead are old, very social trick-taking card games with deep German and Central European roots, and both were hugely popular in the American Midwest (especially Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois) during the 1920s–1940s.

what curlers call a bonspiel
A bonspiel (Scottish Gaelic bàn spèil, meaning “a fair play” or “a gathering for a game”) is a curling competition or meet, usually involving multiple teams and lasting several days.

guy with the auger
An auger is used to drill a hole in the ice, to allow you to drop a baited line to catch fish.

Friday-night supper ingredients
Prior to the 2nd Vatican Council (1960s), Catholics traditionally abstained from meat on Fridays, with fish being the default substitute. Today, abstinence from meat is still required on Fridays in Lent (including Good Friday), but outside Lent Catholics may choose another penitential practice.

Missouri Synod Lutheran
The Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, formally known as the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS), is a conservative, confessional branch of Lutheranism based in the United States. They believe that the Bible is the inspired and salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.

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swinging traffic at a bankruptcy sale
Moving stolen merchandise: fencing hot goods, or passing them along the chain (“He’s swinging traffic out the back door”).

o mio babbino caro
"O mio babbino caro" ("Oh my dear papa") is a beloved soprano aria from Giacomo Puccini’s 1918 opera Gianni Schicchi. It’s one of the most beautiful and frequently performed pieces in all opera repertoire — tender, lyrical, and heartbreakingly simple. The plot centers on a group of greedy relatives trying to alter a rich man’s will. Lauretta pleads with her father to help because she wants to marry her beloved, Rinuccio. Her line “O mio babbino caro” is both affectionate and manipulative — she’s tugging at her father’s heartstrings so he’ll agree to her marriage.

Bacciagaluppi
Perhaps this refers to Giuseppe Bacciagaluppi who, during World War II, Gwas a leader in the Italian Resistance who worked to rescue Allied prisoners of war. He served with the Committee of National Liberation (CLN) and was a friend of Ferruccio Parri, another significant figure in the Resistance. The records for Bacciagaluppi's efforts in saving over 1,500 POWs are preserved at the Istituto Parri in Milan. But this is a stretch, as I can't locate any crime figures with that name.

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Hope Twinkletoes ain't taking it too personally
Someone who's "twinkle-toes" moves lightly on their feet—such as a dancer, athlete, or boxer. But it could be used sarcastically toward men to suggest someone is overly delicate, fussy, or not rugged.

consorzio
Italian: consortium, outfit

scungilli
Italian: conch, sea snail

treb-bi la zuppa
Italian: thresh the soup but in this case it's separating the nitroglycerin from the soup, instead of the more common meaning of "thresh" which is to separate corn or wheat, eg, from the plant;

Vesti la giubba
“Vesti la giubba” (“Put on the costume”) is one of the most famous arias in all of opera — the heart-rending moment from Ruggero Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci (1892). It’s where comedy and tragedy collapse into one another.

Ba-ccia, galuppa
There is a real Italian surname Bacciagaluppi that dates back centuries, especially in Liguria and Lombardy, and it’s composed of two parts: Baccia (a variant of Bacchia or Bacio, “kiss”) and Galuppi (from galoppo, “gallop,” or from a personal name) So etymologically, “Bacciagaluppi” means something like: "He who kisses and runs" — or playfully, "kiss-and-gallop."

Dinah, is there anything finer
From the 1925 hit song "Dinah" by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young (lyrics), Harry Akst (music). It became an instant hit in both the jazz and dance-band worlds, recorded by everyone from Ethel Waters and Fats Waller to Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, and The Mills Brothers.

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box-blower
In this context, this might mean a thief or safe-cracker using explosives to “blow” a strongbox or safe. But a "box-blower" was also how folks referred to both radio announcers and crooners, meaning guys who blew hot air into that talking box (early slang for radios), i.e., radio personalities or studio singers. And "Dinah" was one of the first major hits of the radio era.

Edgewater Beach
In the early 20th century it was literally a beach — wide, sandy, and extending east toward Lake Michigan before landfill and the extension of Lake Shore Drive reshaped the shoreline. It symbolized elegant social life (tea dances, supper clubs, fashion shows), early radio culture (“from the beautiful Edgewater Beach Hotel...”), Chicago’s version of seaside luxury, and the optimism of pre-war urban resort living

it's a paradise over there
"there" being Italy, natch

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gabadost
A sort of mock-Italian slang meaning “a fancy guy,” “a hotshot,” or “somebody full of himself.”

Vuscenza
If someone is called “Vuscenza,” it usually means they’re a talker — loud, opinionated, always running their mouth.

lit up like Dearborn and Randolph
Dearborn and Randolph Streets intersect in Chicago’s Loop, a few blocks from the lake and right in the old theater and nightlife district. In the 1930s, it was lined with theaters, cabarets, and movie palaces, including the Garrick, the Oriental (now Nederlander), the Woods, and others, and surrounded by restaurants, cigar stores, dance halls, and hotels. It was brightly illuminated with electric signs, marquees, and "white way" lighting, much like Times Square in New York.

keepin shtum
Yiddish-meets-German expression meaning "keeping quiet," "sayin nuthin"

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Lindbergh's baby
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of Col. Charles Lindbergh and his wife, aviator and author Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was murdered after being abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home in New Jersey, United States. On May 12, the child's corpse was discovered by a truck driver by the side of a nearby road in adjacent Hopewell Township. This was very big news everywhere, Lindbergh having made, in 1927, the first nonstop flight from New York to Paris.

Overlooked Negative
Originally meant a photographic negative that had been missed, ignored, or misfiled during an investigation, often one that later turned out to contain crucial evidence. However, by the 1930s-40s, “overlooked negative” began appearing in detective fiction and police-procedural language more broadly, with a figurative meaning: a piece of evidence that was physically present but mentally disregarded, something “in plain sight” that the investigator didn’t think to examine closely.