Dear Don (please post and if possible transmit to Pynchon List),

Without wishing to offend anyone, let me say that in some cases clutching at transliterated straws is what the French call "looking for noon at two o'clock". When Glenn Scheper (29 July 2003) consulted his new English-Russian dictionary, his thumb should have noticed that 1) the Russian word he has in mind for "crackling" etc. is "трещание", transliterated as "treshchanie", not, as he would have it, "treststanie". So much for the "three pillars and a tale" (cute but no cigar). And I would attribute little importance to oral and gastrointestinal nuances, and none to the schizoid connotation. Yes, I know it is easy to overdo things, and to get derailed without a thorough knowledge of context, especially with Ada.

With all best wishes,

DN