John Steinbeck - Sweet Thursday

Breeder’s Journal: Perhaps The Guernsey Breeder’s Journal, the oldest dairy breed magazine published by a U.S. breed organization.

Sterling North: Thomas Sterling North (1906–74), author of numerous books for adults and children, including the best seller So Dear to My Heart (1947).

The Little Flowers of Saint Mack: The Little Flowers of Saint Francis of Assisi, the name given to a classic collection of popular legends about the life of St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1256) and his early companions as they appeared to the Italian people at the beginning of the fourteenth century.

Suzy Binds the Cheese: An early step in the cheese-making process requires the addition of rennet (plant-or animal-derived substance that contains the enzyme rennin), which binds or coagulates milk.

“I love true things…”: Cf. Steinbeck’s appraisal of Ed Ricketts in “About Ed Ricketts” (1951): “He loved true things and believed in them” (p. XVI).

“Home Sweet Home”…“Harvest Moon”: “Home, Sweet Home” was composed in 1852 by Sir Henry Bishop (1786–1855) from an adaptation of Clari, or the Maid of Milan (1823) by American dramatist John Howard Payne (1791–1852); “Old Black Joe” was composed in 1860 by Stephen C. Foster (1826–64). The other two songs Steinbeck mentions here have resonance for the romantic plot of Sweet Thursday. Tell Taylor (1876–1937) wrote the words and melody of “Down by the Old Mill Stream” in 1910. Its chorus goes: “Down by the old mill stream where I first met you, / With your eyes of blue, dressed in gingham too, / It was there I knew that you loved me true, / You were sixteen, my village queen, by the old mill stream.” “Shine On, Harvest Moon,” a popular song written by entertainer Nora Bayes (1880–1928) and her husband, songwriter Jack Norworth (1879–1959), debuted in Florenz Ziegfeld’s Follies of 1908: “Shine on, shine on harvest moon / Up in the sky, / I ain’t had no lovin’ / Since January, February, June or July / Snow time ain’t no time to stay / Outdoors and spoon, / So shine on, shine on harvest moon, / For me and my gal.”

Jiggs and Maggie: Bringing Up Father, a comic strip created by George McManus (1884?–1954) that ran from 1913 to 2000, was often called “Jiggs and Maggie,” after its two main characters.

Sarajevo…Pearl Harbor: World War I was precipitated by the assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, on June 28, 1914, in Sarajevo. The roots of Europe’s entrance into World War II occurred on September 29, 1938, when Adolf Hitler orchestrated the Munich Agreement (signed by Germany, Italy, France, and Britain), which allowed the Third Reich to expand its control over the Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia. The Battle of Stalingrad, during which Soviet troops defeated the German Sixth Army and other Axis troops, began on August 21, 1942, and lasted over five months. On December 19, 1777, George Washington’s ragtag Continental Army entered their winter encampment at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where they remained for seven months while being rigorously retrained and reorganized. Japan’s surprise air attack on the United States’ Pacific naval fleet at Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, took place on December 7, 1941.

Down Beat: American magazine devoted to jazz. The publication was established in 1935 in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the “downbeat” in music, also called the “one beat.”

“Tío mio”: Spanish for “my uncle.”

Hediondo Cannery: Steinbeck’s joke: “hediondo” means “stinky” in Spanish.

Imp of the Row: Perhaps a comic and reductive echo of Edgar Allan Poe’s theory of human perverseness (“overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong’s sake”) sketched out in “The Imp of the Perverse” (1845).

tom -wallager: Slang term that means humdinger, whopper, etc.

Orient Express: The Orient Express, which connects Calais, France, on the English Channel, with Istanbul, Turkey, on the Black Sea, is one of the most legendary luxury trains in Europe, and a symbol of exotic adventure.

Webster F. Street Lay-Away Plan: An inside joke: The drink was named for Steinbeck’s former Stanford classmate and Monterey friend, attorney Webster “Toby” Street (1899–1984).

Seconal: Registered name of secobarbital, a barbiturate sedative that reduces anxiety by slowing down brain and nervous system activity. Supposedly available only by prescription.

Bohemia beer: Extensive research proves Doc’s assessment to be correct. Alcoholic haze that pervades this novel aside, there is something fitting about bohemian Doc preferring this aptly named brand of beer. Brewed exclusively in Mexico since 1900 and named for the beer-brewing region of Czechoslovakia, Bohemia is a smooth, medium-bodied pilsner-style beer with some pronounced hops flavor.

Buxtehude…Palestrina: Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637–1707) was a German-Danish organist and a highly regarded composer of the Baroque period. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (ca. 1525–94) was an influential Italian composer of Renaissance music.

Mozart’s Don Giovanni: Opera in two acts, based on the legend of Don Juan, with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91), and libretto in Italian by Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749–1838), first performed in Prague on October 29, 1787. At the opera’s end, Don Giovanni, unrepentant seducer, is visited by the ghost of a man he has murdered, and is offered the opportunity to save his soul. When he refuses, he is dragged to hell while he is still alive. The concluding chorus delivers the opera’s moral: “Thus do the wicked find their end, dying as they had lived.”

Giordano Bruno: Italian philosopher, priest, astronomer/ astrologer, and occultist. Bruno (1548–1600) is perhaps best known for his system of mnemonics and as an early proponent of the idea of extrasolar planets and extraterrestrial life. Burned at the stake as a heretic for his theological ideas, Bruno is seen by some as a martyr to the cause of free thought.

Olympus: At 9,570 feet high, Mount Olympus is Greece’s tallest mountain. In Greek mythology, it was considered the home of the pantheon of principal Greek deities, led by Zeus, king of the gods.

Armageddon: In the New Testament’s Book of Revelation (16:12–16), Armageddon is the site where forces of good and forces of evil assembled for an apocalyptic, climactic battle.

Tehuanos: Inhabitants, predominantly Zapotec Indians, of Tehuantepec, in Oaxaca, southeastern Mexico.

“Sandunga”: “La Sandunga,” unofficial regional anthem of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, was written by governor and military commander Máximo Ramón Ortiz (d. 1855). It is a sensual, graceful dance song that expresses the grief of a Tehuana (Zapotecan woman) over the death of her mother. The song moves from overwhelming sadness to a sense of acceptance of her loss.