Chapter 6

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a private op
A private investigator or detective

Doc Holliday cocktail
Old Overton rye + Nehi peach soda + a half jigger of absinthe. Nehi Peach soda has been around for about a century, first introduced in 1924 by the Chero-Cola Company. It was part of a successful line of fruit-flavored drinks.

a number of corrals in Tombstone, there was the Mighty Fantastic Corral...
A bit of Pynchonian humor as the only famous corral in Tombstone, Arizona, is the O.K. Corral, site of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October 26, 1881. The famous, but brief, shootout occurred between the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Clanton-McLaury gang, resulting in three deaths. Wikipedia. Here, Pynchon imagines other corrals in the area trying to brand themselves as better than O.K.

oat cuisine
And still more wordplay, this one on the haute cuisine, French for "high cuisine," a sophisticated style of French cooking characterized by meticulous preparation, high-quality ingredients, and elaborate presentation.

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Curly Bill Brocius (ca. 1845-1882
William "Curly Bill" Brocius was an American gunslinger, cattle rustler and member of the Clanton or Cowboy outlaw gang in the Cochise County area of what was then Arizona Territory during the late 1870s and early 1880s. He was killed by Wyatt Earp during a shootout at Iron Springs, Arizona. Wikipedia

an ex-Mrs. Lew Basnight
Indeed, in Against the Day (2006), Lew's "young wife" Troth leaves him.

the ol’ Chief
In the 1930s, the "ol' Chief" likely refers to either the original Chief or the more luxurious Super Chief, both premium, all-Pullman passenger trains of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (Santa Fe) that ran between Chicago and Los Angeles.

dancin’ the Pinkertonian
"Dancing the Pinkertonian" refers to a scene in some versions of the opera “Madame Butterfly” that depicts a fantasy sequence. It is not a formal dance style. The term comes from the opera's male lead, Lt. Pinkerton, whose actions lead to the tragedy of the title character, Cio-Cio San. The Pinkertonian dance is a theatrical, not literal, expression of the character's conflicted state. It does not refer to a genuine folk or ballroom dance. In some stagings of the opera, the "Pinkertonian" dance is interpreted in the following ways: (1) A conflicted fantasy: In a dream sequence, Cio-Cio San has a fantasy of her life in America with Pinkerton. She dances with a real partner, but in her mind, she is with Pinkerton, who appears as a ghostlike figure; (2) A "shadow-partnering": As Cio-Cio San is being courted by Prince Yamadori, a different version of Pinkerton appears as a "shadow-partner," and the two dance, revealing her inner longing for the American lieutenant.

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metaphysical detectives
There is indeed such a genre. Metaphysical detectives are characters in a literary subgenre of detective fiction that moves beyond typical crime-solving to explore deeper philosophical questions about reality, consciousness, and existence, often subverting traditional narrative structures and offering unresolved, ambiguous endings instead of neat solutions. These detectives delve into the fundamental mysteries of being, rather than just the mystery plot, forcing readers to question events and the nature of truth itself, and may even incorporate self-reflective elements to comment on the process of writing and interpretation.

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