When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.
Literature and Book-Related
- Rabbit drinking tea (1.6) and Red Queen's Race (1.83) are references to Alice in Wonderland
- (Rudyard) Kipling (7.16) and Ezra Pound (7.18) are dead poets
- Bollingen and Pulitzer Prizes (8.30)
- American Poetry Association (10.40)
- Fahrenheit 451 (12.94)
- Egan soccer (14.133) is a reference to science fiction author Greg Egan's "quantum soccer"
- The Mysterious Stranger (14.145) is a reference to Mark Twain's last novel
- The American Library Association (15.86)
- Dr. Seuss (15.135)
- Das Kapital (15.144) is Karl Marx's giant tome on economics
- Terry Pratchett (15.148) is a fantasy author
- Tolkien (15.228) is a fantasy author, who wrote a bunch of awesome books
- H. P. Lovecraft (18.1) is a, well, sort of a horror author
- Wicked Witch of the West (28.38) is from The Wizard of Oz
- Tines and Zones of Thought (30.4) are from Vernor Vinge's own works
- Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" (35.25)
- "Monkey's paw" (35.47) is a reference to an old horror story where people make wishes that come horribly true
Art and Culture-Related
- Marcel Duchamp's nude (1.10) is a reference to the painting "Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2"
- Parc Güell (1.10) and La Sagrada Familia (1.9) are landmarks in Barcelona
- Groundlings (7.3) is a reference to the less wealthy theater-goers who would stand on the ground
- SpielbergRowling (7.50) apparently means that director Steven Spielberg and writer J.K. Rowling have joined to form a company (maybe?)
- Russian dolls (8.109) refers to Russian nesting dolls
- La Marseillaise (11.50) is the French national anthem
- The Economist (15.51) is a magazine
- (M.C.) Escher (15.141) is a great and trippy illustrator
- SCA (15.228) is the Society for Creative Anachronism
- "What's it to ya, Doc?" (20.217) is close to Bugs Bunny's "What's up, Doc?" phrase
- Bollywood (20.227) is the Indian film industry
- Beethoven's EU anthem (33.92) is from Beethoven's 9th Symphony
- Keystone Kops (27.61) is a silent movie comedy group of incompetent cops
Libraries
- The Geisel Library (11.43)
- The British Museum and Library (15.58)
Miscellaneous
- Montjuïc (1.76) is a fortress
- Camp Pendleton (2.24) is a real Marine base
- Hitlerian (9.49) is a reference to some guy named Hitler
- DARPA (17.25) is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Tanks at Tiananmen (29.50) is a reference to the 1989 Chinese protests
- Mauna Loa (32.55) is a Hawaiian volcano