Agrippina

She was the sister of the infamous debaucherous 1st century Roman emperor, Caligula, and mother of Nero, a murderous emperor. Agrippina was no stranger to debauchery and murder herself. There were multiple accusations of incest and homicide against her. It does seem probable that, at the very least, she killed her third husband, The Emperor Claudius (and her own uncle), so that Nero could be king. In the end, Nero had her killed. There are, of course, lots of inconsistencies in the story of her life. It was a long time ago. However, it is very clear that she was a truly ambitious woman and did not see a lot of lines she would not cross.

Appearance in the Novel:
Source(s):http://www.roman-emperors.org/aggieii.htm

"Let's Groove"

This is an Earth, Wind, and Fire song from the 1981 album Raise. A sample of the lyrics:

Move yourself and glide like a 747

lose yourself in the sky

among the clouds in the heavens

Let this groove, light up your fuse,

alright Let this groove,

If you would like to hear a sample check out www.last.fm/music/Earth+Wind+%2526+Fire/_/Let's+Groove

Needless to say, it is a little surreal to think of a bunch of very sincere high school boys singing this song in a library to Blue.

Appearance in the Novel:
Source(s):http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/thewaterboy/letsgroove.htm

Sunny von Bulow

She is an heiress that has been in a vegetative state for over 25 years. This comma is apparently the result of a bad reaction to an insulin shot. It is suspicious enough, however, that her husband was convicted of her attempted murder. His conviction was overturned though, which was the basis for the movie Reversal of Fortune. The implicated husband, Claus von Bulow, is actually her second husband. Her first husband was an Austrian prince.

Appearance in the Novel:
Source(s):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_von_Bülow

Anita Ekberg

Anita Ekberg was a former Miss Sweden, Miss Universe contestant, a minor movie star, and a popular pinup girl. She was most famous for her incredibly (and supposedly natural) physique. Her most famous role was in Felleni's La Dolce Vita. She dated some of the most sought after men of the 50's and 60's, and apparently her love life was the most interesting thing about her. She lives in Italy now.

Jade goes to the costume party dressed as Anita Ekberg in the movie La Dolce Vita. Blue says that she has a stuffed kitten duct taped to her head. Apparently, in the famous scene where Anita dances in Trevi Fountain, she has a kitten on her head. I have seen this movie, and I don't remember this. I guess that means I wasn't paying very close attention; that sounds difficult to forget.

Appearance in the Novel: 154
Source(s):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anita_Ekberg; http://www.amazon.com/Dolce-Vita-Marcello-Mastroianni/dp/6300208591

Leopold and Loeb

Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were two Chicago teens that kidnapped and murdered a fourteen year old boy in 1924. The two were very intelligent, wealthy boys in a sexual relationship. The motives for the murder are not completely clear, but it does seem that Loeb had always been fascinated by crime and wanted to commit the perfect crime. Leopold may have suggested that they commit the murder to please Loeb and bring the two closer together. They kidnapped and killed another well-off boy that they knew and attempted to get a ransom out of his parents before the body was discovered. The two were only implicated in the crime because Leopold had dropped his glasses near the body. They eventually confessed, (though they both maintained that the other one did the actual killing) and the "trial of the century" was the sentencing. They were spared the death penalty and given life in prison. Loeb was killed in prison in 1936, while Leopold spent 34 years behind bars, studying and working. He was eventually paroled and lived out the rest of his life as a professor in Puerto Rico. The famous litigator, Clarence Darrow defended the pair at their sentencing.

Appearance in the Novel: 160
Source(s):http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/leoploeb/leopold.htm

"Annabel Lee"

This is a poem by Edgar Allen Poe that describes the lost love of the narrator and his belief that she was stolen by jealous angels and returns to him in the form of moonlight. It is overall, terribly sappy and trite (as is much of Poe's poetry). The only reason I can figure that Blue associates this particular poem with Lu is that she is meant to be a Gothicly romantic character.

Interesting side note: Annabel Leigh is the character that supposedly spurs Humbert's obsession with "Nymphets" in Nabokov's Lolita. Pessl has said that Nabokov is one of her biggest literary influences. Given the point at which this reference appears in the text, there may be a connection. Check out Lolita if you want to know what it is.

Appearance in the Novel: 136
Source(s):http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/works/poetry/annabel.html

Christabel

"Christabel" is an unfinished poem by Samuel Coleridge. It is about a young woman, whose mother died giving birth to her, who finds a distressed woman named Geraldine in the woods at night. The woman claims to have been kidnapped from her home. Christabel takes her home with her and lets her spend the night in her bed. Then it appears that Geraldine puts a spell on Christabel and Christabel is unsure whether she has spent a "sinful" night. When she introduces Geraldine to her father the next morning, her father is appalled by her story of kidnapping and vows to make the bad guys pay. At some point the "spell" wears off of Christabel, and she begs her father to throw Geraldine out of the house. Her father is now enthralled and is very unhappy with this suggestion. The poem ends here, and there is a really fantastical ending that has been written by another poet who claimed to have known what Coleridge was going to do with it.

It is really interesting that Blue makes a point of saying that she doesn't sign the note she leaves for her dad "Love, Christabel." At first I thought this meant that she usually signs things that way (and that probably is what it means) but now that I have read the poem, this is a really strange reference to make. If she is Christabel then the reference is really ominous. Especially if you see Geraldine as Hannah. This is just one of many references that seems harmless and meaningless at first, but when you know the source material, it gets dark.

Appearance in the Novel: 85
Source(s): http://etext.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Christabel.html

Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire was a 19th century French poet and literary critic known for his appreciation of decadence. He believed that "vice is natural in that it is selfish, while virtue is artificial because we must restrain our natural impulses in order to be good" (Liukkonen, www.kirjasto.sci.fi). Several of his poems were banned in France for nearly 100 years, and he was fined for obscenity. His name is often used to suggest depravity and vice. Baudelaire's criticism called for art to recognize and depict the beauty in the dark corners of life, and his views became and remain very influential.

Blue's father's statement, "It's enough to make you give up on Baudelaire", means that his belief that most people are boring contradicts Baudelaire's belief that vice is everywhere, and he finds this depressing. He prefers Baudelaire's way of looking at the world.

Appearance in the Novel: 105
Source(s): http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/baudelai.htm; http://www.veinotte.com/baudelaire/#top

Gloriana

Gloriana is the titular character from Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene. It was published during the 1590's and was a contemporary of Shakespeare's plays. The character of Gloriana is meant to represent Queen Elizabeth I, the monarch at the time. The positive portrayal of Queen Elizabeth won Spenser a lifetime salary from the state. The whole poem is an allegory based on Arthurian legend, and the different characters presented are meant to represent different virtues.

Blue's reference to the character is meant to evoke the romantic nature of the poem. Whenever she and her father discuss the poem, she wishes she had a romantic beauty of the sort that is memorialized in art and literature.

Appearance in the Novel: 91
Source(s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faerie_Queene; and the full text at http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/fqintro.html

El Dorado

Means "Golden Man" and is a myth based on the supposed coronation rites of a certain South American nation during the 16th century. The ceremony involved covering the new ruler in gold dust and sending him on a raft out into the middle of a lake where he would sacrifice gold and jewels to his god by throwing them into a lake. The stories of this ritual grew into a myth of a "golden city" that many explorers searched for and never found in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Now, the name El Dorado is used to represent any place where people hope to get rich quick or any grand thing or idea that someone might spend their life searching for.

In the book, Blue refers to Zach as El Dorado, clearly because he is something of a "golden boy" and also because, before she fell in with the Bluebloods, he would have been her "grand thing".

Appearance in the Novel: 129
Source(s):http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado

Comden and Green

This is Betty Comden and Adolph Green. They were one of the most successfull song writing pairs is musical comedy. They wrote some of the most famous movie and stage musicals including On the Town and Singing in the Rain. They were not married (to each other, they were married to other people) but they wrote together everyday, for decades. Both Comden and Green passed away in the last five years.

Appearance in the Novel: 48
Source(s):http://www.musicweb-international.com/encyclopaedia/c/C205.HTM

Sal Mineo

Sal Mineo became a major star when he played Plato, the best friend of James Dean's character in Rebel Without a Cause. Though Plato is not openly gay in the film, Mineo's portrayal of the character is often credited as the first gay teenager in film. After Rebel, Mineo became a huge star, often playing tough juvenile delinquints (nicknamed "the switchblade kid" and eventually more serious roles. His popularity wained in his mid to late twenties and he had fewer and fewer jobs. He received very good reviews for his last job, playing a bi-sexual burglar in a play in San Francisco and LA. He was murdered after a rehearsal on the day I was born. He was 37 years old.

Appearance in the Novel: 66
Source(s): http://www.crimemagazine.com/salmineo.htm, http://www.salmineo.com/

Cloud Cuckoo Land

This is the most common translation of "Nepheloccygia" which was the city the main characters of The Birds build in the sky. The Birds is a play by Aristophanes, the great satirical playwright of Ancient Greece. It was presented in the play competition of 414 B.C., though it did not win first prize. The play is about a couple of guys who are fed up with the bickering around them on earth, so they go to the birds and suggest building a city in the sky between the gods and earth. The idea is that they can then intercept all interaction between the gods and the people and therefore usurp the power of the gods. The goal is to build a Utopia where everything is the way they want it. The phrase is used to refer to any elaborate or extravagant plan to make things perfect that has no relationship to reality-a fantasy.

Appearance in the Novel: 45
Source(s): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_cuckoo_land; http://www.theatredatabase.com/ancient/aristophanes_008.html

"Yes, Virginia. There is a Santa Claus."

This is the famous line from an editorial printed in the New York Sun in 1897. The editorial was a response written by Francis P. Church to a letter that an eight year old girl had written the newspaper asking if there really was a Santa Claus. His response was so popular that it was reprinted in the paper every December until the paper shut down in 1949. The editorial itself has stayed popular and your will frequently hear the "Yes, Virgina" line quoted. Though in this "skeptical age", I usually hear it quoted sarcastically.

If you look at how it is used in the Novel, Blue seems to be suggesting that her father is using an excessively earnest and sincere attitude to fool someone.

Appearance in the novel: 63

Source(s): http://beebo.org/smackerels/yes-virginia.html

Mary and Percy Bysshe

This was Percy and Mary Shelly, famous nineteenth century British poet and novelist respectively. They were a married couple. Percy wrote Alastor, Adonais, The Revolt of Islam, Prometheus Unbound. Mary wrote Frankenstein. They were both vegetarians.

Side note: The fact that our author, Ms. Pessl, chose to omit their last names in her reference is really pretentious.

(page 32 in Calamity)

Destry Rides Again

This is a 1930's western. The plot is that the Bad guy, Kent, kills the sheriff because he is about to bust him for cheating in a poker game where he won a lot of the town's cattle. Then he schemes to get the town drunk appointed sheriff so he won't have any more trouble. But he doesn't realize that the town drunk used to work for a famous lawman.

(Page 11 of Calamity)

Charles Kuralt

Charles Kuralt was a well respected and famous journalist with CBS evening news. He died in 1997 and was burried on the University of North Carolina campus. There was a contraversy two years after he died because it was discovered that he had a "second family" in Montana with a woman he had been in an extramarital affair with for decades.

"Forgiving Charles Kuralt" USA Today Article

(Page 8 in Calamity)

Captain Queeg

Captain Queeg is a character from a 1950's novel and film, The Cain Mutiny. In the beginning he is a tough submarine commander. He eventually becomes more and more crazy and endangers his crew. There is a often referenced scene from the story where Queeg becomes obsessed with finding some missing strawberries.

(page 7 of Calamity)

Welcome

Welcome

Welcome to Intro to Literature! Your class blog is where you will build your Cultural Reference Log. In this space you will write descriptions of unfamiliar cultural references you come across in the course readings. You can also upload images and URLs to help you define and clarify the references you find. The class will have access to each other's blogs to compare the information you gather and your interpretation of it. You may want to build a personal profile of your own cultural interests to accompany your blog. Keep in mind that this is an academic endeavor and that you should approach the material in your blog as such. In other words, be respectful and only post appropriate information.

Have Fun!
Prof. Buckman