Chapter 10

Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.

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Page 155

"Soul Gidget"
These lyrics have some similarities with "Shaft" by Isaac Hayes:

Who's the black private dick

That's a sex machine to all the chicks?

Shaft!

Who is the man

That would risk his neck for his brother man?

Shaft!

signifyin on your mama
"Signifyin" is a verbal strategy employed in the African-American culture. The idea was developed most fully in Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s book The Signifying Monkey. Signifyin indicates a kind of play or trickster technique.

Pink's
Pink's bills itself as "Hot Dogs to the Stars." It's been in the Hollywood area since 1939.

Page 160

"Desafinado"
A bossa nova-style song written by Jobim. Stan Getz's version was a hit in 1962. The title translates as "off key" or "out of tune."

I can sure relate to that lyric, man
And here are the lyrics to "It Never Entered My Mind":

I don't care if there's powder on my nose.

I don't care if my hairdo is in place.

I've lost the very meaning of repose.

I never put a mudpack on my face.

Oh, who'd have thought

that I'd walk in the daze now?

I never go to shows at night,

but just to matinees now.

I see the show

and home I go.

Once I laughed when I heard you saying

that I'd be playing solitaire,

uneasy in my easy chair.

It never entered my mind.

Once you told me I was mistaken,

that I'd awaken with the sun

and order orange juice for one.

It never entered my mind.

You have what I lack myself

and now I even have to scratch my back myself.

Once you warned me that if you scorned me

I'd sing the maiden's prayer again

and wish that you where there again

to get into my hair again.

It never entered my mind.