Cosmic’s Comments (group member since Jan 17, 2014)

Cosmic’s comments from the Breaking The Code To The Catcher In The Rye group.

I read this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qfza0...
Was one of Salinger's favorite movies.

Le Grande Illusion

I bet that the rules of the game is the reference to this movie. Salinger does name all the books and movies that his book references.

I love old movies better than new so keep passing them my way. I will let you know when I watch this one..

I found it on Amazon. I will make time for it this week.

Here is a good video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ogCc8...
This was one of my teachers.

Edward wrote: "God, this is interesting , even if not specifically about Holden's healthy disdain. I did not intend to start a competition with Matthew over the number of Ivy leaguers we had met. I suspect that i..."

Monti and I have met in the Most Overrated group. He has helped me polish my writing and appreciate the writing practice. I don't know why he needs to defame me. Who cares where I went to school? I am 50 years old.

I have never met anyone that had a Harvard Education or Yale. But I have heard a couple on TV. They just sounded like parrots that were repeating what they were told.

I do have a funny story to tell. One place that we lived we were friends with the business owner's son. He was wild and a huge alcoholic. We weren't like best friends but he respected my husband. One day he came in and showed him a ring that he inherited. No one in the family wanted the ring. The ring was a skull and bones ring.
Now before he had gotten this ring he had tried to get a loan from a bank. I wouldn't loan him to much money myself, and neither would the bank. But after getting the ring he tried again. This time they were falling all over themselves to give him some money.

This family made money making tents for WW2. They sold the business two weeks before the end of the war.

These are the kind of connections that you get.

But I also have a video to share with you.

Matthew wrote: "If you're going into a more technical career like engineering, the nuts and bolts of your learning are more important than the social connections.
..."

My son was not a good candidate for becoming a librarian. He didn't read until he was 14. It didn't hurt him at all A's he was doing college level electronic in first and second grade. He taught himself how to program computers by looking at other people's code and writing his own. His code was much more compact and my husband was very impressed. He did that before he could read. He learned to build computers when he was ten. He was writing web pages when he was 18.

Treating children linearly is not the way children learn. It holds them back.

My son went on to get his Technical, General and Extra ham licenses. He built a tv studo when he was 19. He of course was unschooled. He is still in the industry. He fixes people's computers. He enjoys learning. He is not reliant on a teacher to teach him, unless he asks the questions.

Edward wrote: "When you mentioned the number of hotels on Central Park South, I thought "transients." All of us? World leaders? This is getting into "Rules of the Game" territory, my all time favorite movie. PS. A slogan of the forgotten sixties was; "War is good business. Invest your son." ..."

Your slogan is so true.
I will have to check out your movie. I am kinda movie illiterate so appreciate suggestions.
I have also enjoyed your quotes from Bob Dylan. I listened to him and Marvin Gaye in 2005/06 on my walks. I was living in Bend, OR, one of the epicenter of the housing boom. It was crazy how much confidence people had. I thought about credit scores and how people were taught to value "grades" and numbers. They had everyone condition to pay attention to the right hand while they slipped in the left.

His dad owned the largest billboard business in the South. He didn't need education to get ahead. What he had was money and the ability to think out of the box (school). He went to McCallie Preparatory School.

I had a friend that taught at a preparatory school for girls. She would have girls come up to her and tell her to give her a passing grade or they would see to it she was fired because their father was so and so.

Those high schools are not as much about an education, although they are that too, but they are about forming relationships that will become connections in adulthood.

I didn't have an Ivy League education, but I was taught how to study the Bible in the Greek. It was this knowledge that I approached the Catcher in the Rye...because he created a pattern or code of words by repeating them in certain places. My father was a systems analysis, so I was familiar with logic and code as a language. I thought about the Code Breakers that were popular during WW2. After figuring out the carousel I started looking up everything in the book. I started reading the books that Salinger mentioned and found those relevant to the meaning of the book. Those books were not about mental illness or teenage angst.

I also knew kids and adults that had Ivy League education's. One went to school with Ted Turner. He told me that his class voted Ted Turner to be most likely to fail. I see him as a Holden character.

I don't know anyone that studied Greek in high school besides me. My father majored in math and had a minor in Greek. This is where I got my education from.

Personally I think school wasted my time.

Also on the duck:

Propaganda productions
As requested by the US Government, Walt Disney created a number of anti-German and anti-Japanese films for both the soldiers and the US public. He wanted to portray these countries and their leaders as manipulative without morals. A few of the films he produced were "Der Fuehrer's Face” (1942), “Education for Death - The Making of a Nazi” (1943), and “Commando Duck" (1944).[citation needed]

In “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” Donald Duck breaks down after experiencing a nightmare where he has to make do with eating ridiculous Nazi food rations (smell of bacon and eggs, coffee made with one bean, and a slice of stale bread) and experiences a day at a Nazi artillery factory. “Education for Death - The Making of a Nazi” was a wartime propaganda film that takes on the perspective of Hans, a young German boy. As the movie progresses and Hans is exposed to Hitler youth and the Nazi culture, his ability to value human life decreases. In “Commando Duck”, Donald, by himself, destroys an entire Japanese airbase.[citation needed]

Here is probably one of those movies that Holden didn't like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS2PQw...

Notice that he gets drafted, just like Salinger.

Edward wrote: "Thank you so much for the kind invitation. I am truly honored, no sarcasm. I apologize for taking so long to respond, but weird things are happening. I wrote a reply this morning and then Goodreads..."

Thank you for discussing this book with me. Your interest has caused me to reread my post and realize I left out something that I think is significant.

When you Google "ducks WW2" you get this reference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUKW

Now the Lagoon is located in "Central Park South". Or at least the one Holden is talking about.

In this area is the Grand Army Plaza.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_...

When I read about Holden trying to find the Lagoon I think he is reliving his war experience. I think that he is at the Grand Army Plaza.

This plaza was named after
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_o...
and it was the army that fought (and lost) the war's first major battle, the First Battle of Bull Run.

Here we have another "bull" connection.

I want to read about this before writing more.

I was just thinking about the Game Of Kings and how Jane kept all her Kings on the back row.

Any thoughts on this?

The Lake in Central Park


The 20-acre Lake is the largest of Central Park's naturalistic water bodies.

Park designers Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux created the Lake from a former swamp, for boating in the summer and ice-skating in the winter. In 2012 the Central Park Conservancy completed the comprehensive restoration of the Lake and its surrounding landscapes. With the water's edge having slowly crumbled and eroded through the years, (This just struck me as ironic in light of The Catcher in the Rye and our current state of affairs).

http://www.centralparknyc.org/things-...

Here is a conversation between the second cab driver and Holden.

"I kept wishing I could go home and shoot the bull for a while with old Phoebe. But finally, after I was riding a while, the cab driver and I sort of struck up a conversation. His name was Horwitz. He was a much better guy than the other driver I'd had. Anyway, I thought maybe he might know about the ducks.
"Hey, Horwitz," I said. "You ever pass by the lagoon in Central Park? Down by Central Park South?"
"The what?"
"The lagoon. That little lake, like, there. Where the ducks are. You know."
"Yeah, what about it?" "Well, you know the ducks that swim around in it? In the springtime and all? Do you happen to know where they go in the wintertime, by any chance?"
"Where who goes?"
"The ducks. Do you know, by any chance? I mean does somebody come around in a truck or something and take them away, or do they fly away by themselves--go south or something?"

He talks about shooting the bull with Phoebe and then repeats the word chance when he is talking about the ducks.

If the bull market was a vigorous market....wasn't this what Germany was before WW1?

I would like to know what your opinion is on the "ducks"?
Holden spends a great deal of time researching where the ducks at Central Park go. Ask first himself and then two different cab drivers.

Was he wondering where all ducks go? Or just the ducks in Central park? And not just all of Central Park but the lagoon down near Central Park South. I am not from NYC and was not familiar with this area of Central Park so i looked it up on Google.

This is what it says about that area on wiki:
"The portion of the street forming the southern boundary of Central Park from Columbus Circle at Eighth Avenue/Central Park West on the west to Grand Army Plaza at Fifth Avenue on the east is known as Central Park South. Entry into Central Park can be made at the Scholars' Gate at Fifth Avenue, the Artists' Gate at Sixth Avenue, the Artisans' Gate at Seventh Avenue, and the Merchants' Gate at Columbus Circle. Central Park South contains four famous upscale hotels: the Plaza Hotel, the Ritz-Carlton (Central Park), which is the flagship of the Ritz-Carlton chain, the Park Lane, and JW Marriott Essex House."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centra...

On page 121 Holden tells us about going to the museum. He is aware that the birds fly south for winter. I am sure some of the ducks are at the museum and are flying south. But he says, "but they all looked like they were really flying south, and if you bent your head down and sort of looked at them upside down, they looked in a bigger hurry."

Upside Down defined:
"with the top at the bottom and the bottom at the top : placed so that the end that should be at the top is at the bottom
Full Definition of UPSIDE DOWN

1: in such a way that the upper and the lower parts are reversed in position
2: in or into great disorder "
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictio...

What did you make of this different perspective?
Of course the taxi driver is mostly concerned about what happens to the fish that the ducks feed on. They are frozen. They can't just get up and move.

If the fish were assets or the economy and the ducks were wall street would that make more sense? Do we see wall street going after greener pastures either through war or through trade agreements?

It is interesting that when he talks about the ducks with Spencer that he is all saying over and over again "shooting the bull". Maybe in this case the pun is intended and the bull is Wall Street. Maybe when you are talking to a teacher that tells you life is just a game, you come to understand that Holden is very perceptive.

I personally see the world that Holden has been traveling through like an Odyssey. I don't know that Holden is crazy at all. I think the world he travels through as he narrates it is hostile to a boy as sensitive as Holden. Does he possibly suffer from PTSD? Well I am not a psychiatrist, but I could imagine that he does. Is this though, what was important for Salinger to tell us in his book? Is convincing us of Holden's state of mind what drove him to write the book? And if it is what is the point of the ducks? Why did he spend a lot of time thinking about them, interviewing people about where they went and then going to the lagoon and looking for them.

"my bike when I was a kid, but I had the most terrific trouble finding that lagoon that night. I knew right where it was--it was right near Central Park South and all--but I still couldn't find it. I must've been drunker than I thought. I kept walking and walking, and it kept getting darker and darker and spookier and spookier. I didn't see one person the whole time I was in the park. I'm just as glad. I probably would've jumped about a mile if I had. Then, finally, I found it. What it was, it was partly frozen and partly not frozen. But I didn't see any ducks around."

"I kept picturing her not knowing what to do with all my suits and athletic equipment and all. The only good thing, I knew she wouldn't let old Phoebe come to my goddam funeral because she was only a little kid. That was the only good part. Then I thought about the whole bunch of them sticking me in a goddam cemetery and all, with my name on this tombstone and all. Surrounded by dead guys. Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery."

This is a reference to OSS-en-burger in chapter 3 page 16.
"It was named after this guy Ossenburger that went to Pencey. He made a pot of dough in the undertaking business after he got out of Pencey. What he did, he started these undertaking parlors all over the country that you could get members of your family buried for about five bucks apiece. You should see old Ossenburger. He probably just shoves them in a sack and dumps them in the river."

It has been my belief that the Catcher in the Rye was written for the purpose of warning men, boys not to get involved in war. That the wars are a rouse for Wall Street and others to make money on.

Today I was studying Albert Cumas on wiki and ran across the phase "Phoney War".

There are 33 uses of the word phoney in the book The Catcher in the Rye

I have written about the first use here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Today I came across something I had not heard of, concerning WW2...
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney...

The term "Phoney War" was possibly coined by US Senator William Borah who stated, in September 1939: "There is something phoney about this war."[2]

General Siegfried Westphal stated, that if the French had attacked in force in September 1939 the German army "could only have held out for one or two weeks."[7]

At the Nuremberg Trials, German military commander Alfred Jodl said that "if we did not collapse already in the year 1939 that was due only to the fact that during the Polish campaign, the approximately 110 French and British divisions in the West were held completely inactive against the 23 German divisions."[6]

The Saar Offensive was a French attack into that region defended by the German 1st Army in the early stages of World War II. Its purpose was to assist Poland, which was then under attack. However, the assault was stopped after a few kilometres and the French forces withdrew.
A French offensive in the Rhine river valley area (Saar Offensive) started on 7 September, four days after France declared war on Germany.

On 12 September, the Anglo French Supreme War Council gathered for the first time at Abbeville. It was decided that all offensive actions were to be halted immediately as the French opted to fight a defensive war, forcing the Germans to come to them.

that the major offensive on the western front planned for 17–20 September had to be postponed. At the same time, French divisions were ordered to withdraw to their barracks along the Maginot Line.

The Phoney War had begun.

This is a great link and tool that I found tonight:

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/afd...

You will also find this informative but incomplete. For instance she fails to mention the song "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". But she does reference "Oh Marie". The lyrics are interesting in that they have the word 'window' in them. I am not sure the complete meaning of window. I think that part of the meaning is in David Copperfield and Uriah Heep. You also have a window when he tries to get a good Good-bye, and James Castle falls out of window.

Well this gives you something to think about.
Post any comments about this or other window references below.

Also we have started a Buddy Read on The Thirty-Nine Steps. This book is significant if you want to cipher the Catcher in the Rye.

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Old Selma Thurmer,
Page 3
"There were never many girls at all at the football games. Only seniors were allowed to bring girls with them. It was a terrible school, .....Old Selma Thurmer--she was the headmaster's daughter--..... She had a big nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the place, but you felt sort of sorry for her. What I liked about her, she didn't give you a lot of horse manure about what a great guy her father was. She probably knew what a phony slob he was."


Pencey Prep is an all boys school. Girls are not allowed except if a senior brings one to the game.

However the head master daughter Selma Thurmer sometimes showed up at the game.

The word "phoney" is mentioned in TCITR 33 times. I need to correct this it is actually 35 times. Snoop has it wrong.
I found this out here:
http://www.shmoop.com/catcher-in-the-...

I don't think this hurts my other connections but I just want to set that straight.
Now 33 immediately brings to mind a Master Mason. Thurmer was a head master.

So I looked up "Thurmer and masonic" and found this:

generally accepted that the rough ashlar refers to a rough hewn stone as brought from the quarries, which in olden times was cut one eighth to one sixteenth of an inch over the required finished measure. However, the meaning of the broached thurnel in the catechism is uncertain. It seems most likely to have been derived from the Scottish operative masons to whom broach meant to rough hew, or to groove or scarify. A broaching thurmal, >broaching thurmer or broaching turner was the chisel used to carry out broaching work. One form of the broaching thurmal is a narrow serrated chisel similar in many respects to the scutch, a cutting and dressing tool used by a bricklayer, probably is derived from the Old French escousser meaning to shake off. Thus the three immovable jewels referred to in the old catechisms of an apprentice logically symbolised the instructions he received for the work, represented by the trestle board; the tools he used to execute the work, represented by the broached thurmer; and his finished product, the rough ashlar. Another possible derivation of thurnel is as a variation of the French tournelle, which means a turret, because the word was in common use in England in various forms from about 1400 until at least the 1750s.

http://www.themasonictrowel.com/educa...


A Masonic trestle board is a design board for the Master Workman (Architect) to draw his plans and designs upon to give the workmen an outline of the work to be performed. In today's terms, we might call it a blueprint.

It is one of the 3 Movable jewels.
http://www.masonic-lodge-of-education...

Ashlar
In some Masonic groupings, which such societies term jurisdictions, ashlars are used as a symbolic metaphor for progress. As described in the explanation of the First Degree Tracing Board, in Emulation (and other) rituals the rough ashlar is a stone as taken directly from the quarry, and allegorically represents the Freemason prior to his initiation; a smooth ashlar (or "perfect ashlar") is a stone that has been smoothed and dressed by the experienced stonemason, and allegorically represents the Freemason who, through education and diligence, has learned the lessons of Freemasonry and who lives an upstanding life.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashlar

This paragraph mentions the fictional place called Agerstown. If you have not read my post on that you should read that now and I think this oath will make more sense in relation to TCITR.

To me this kinda worked in well with the description of Selma, when he says that "She had a big nose and her nails were all bitten down and bleedy-looking and she had on those damn falsies that point all over the place, but you felt sort of sorry for her. ".

I believe that this bra might also be known as a bullet bra.

So I looked up Selma and the most interesting link was this one, which is a masonic lodge named Selma.

http://ncmason.net/selma320/History.htm

"July 1876 - It was agreed that the lower rooms of the lodge building be used for school purposes for the year 1877. The lodge reserved the right to send children of Master Masons living within their jurisdiction to the school free if they were unable to pay tuition."

It is the name of a masonic lodge that founded a school in July 1888. This happens to be the same year that the fictional school Pencey Prep was founded.

This lodge was instrumental in laying the cornerstone on:

"November 1, 1923 – Brother H. T. Weldon represented Selma Lodge No. 320 at the laying of the cornerstone at the Washington Memorial in Alexandria, VA."

If we go to wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandr...

We find this:
Like the rest of Northern Virginia, as well as central Maryland, modern Alexandria has been shaped by its proximity to the nation's capital. It is largely populated by professionals working in the federal civil service, in the U.S. military, or for one of the many private companies which contract to provide services to the federal government. One of Alexandria's largest employers is the U.S. Department of Defense. Others include the Institute for Defense Analyses and the Center for Naval Analyses."

Holden says that he liked Selma Thurmer. I think it is because she knew what a phony her father was. I wonder if this also reflects back to that "crazy cannon" mentioned in the previous paragraph?

If we were to look up Our Founding FATHER we would see he was a mason:

"Such was Washington's character, that from almost the day he took his Masonic obligations until his death, he became the same man in private that he was in public. In Masonic terms, he remained "a just and upright Mason" and became a true Master Mason. Washington was, in Masonic terms, a “living stone” who became the cornerstone of American civilization. He remains the milestone others civilizations follow into liberty and equality. He is Freemasonry's “perfect ashlar” upon which countless Master Masons gauge their labors in their own Lodges and in their own communities."

http://www.gwmemorial.org/washingtonT...

Our American Revolution was fought because we wanted government with representation. We didn't have any voice in the British parliament, and they were taxing the colonies heavily. Well what does Washington do? He starts the Whisky Rebellion, which was taxation without representation. I love the book The Education of Little Tree where he describes what a hardship this was to people that only had a small plot of mountain land. They couldn't grow cotton. But they could grow a little corn and make it into moonshine, sale the whiskey and survive.
You would imagine that everybody in America was related to George Washington the way his lineage keep showing up in our presidents...as does the royal family in Britain. What is going on here? We are told in school that anybody can become president. And, we really believed it. It is part of the American dream.
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/all-...

In Dr. Thurmer HEAD MASTER post I give a better understanding of who founded the school Pencey Prep. Please read that post. Also it sheds more light on what it means to "MOLD them".

Please see update above

This is a quote from the Catcher Page 4:
"I forgot to tell you about that. They kicked me out. I wasn't supposed to come back after Christmas vacation on account of I was flunking four subjects and not applying myself and all. They gave me frequent warning to start applying myself--especially around midterms, when my parents came up for a conference with old Thurmer--but I didn't do it. So I got the ax. They give guys the ax quite frequently at Pencey. It has a very good academic rating, Pencey. It really does. Anyway, it was December and all, and it was cold as a witch's teat, especially on top of that stupid hill. I only had on my reversible and no gloves or anything. The week before that, somebody'd stolen my camel's-hair coat right out of my room, with my furlined gloves right in the pocket and all. Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these very wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has--I'm not kidding. Anyway, I kept standing next to that crazy cannon, looking down at the game and freezing my ass off. Only, I wasn't watching the game too much. What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad goodby, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse. I was lucky. All of a sudden I thought of something that helped make me know I was getting the hell out. I suddenly remembered this time, in around October, that I and Robert Tichener and Paul Campbell were chucking a football around, in front of the academic building. They were nice guys, especially Tichener. It was just before dinner and it was getting pretty dark out, but we kept chucking the ball around anyway. It kept getting darker and darker, and we could hardly see the ball any more, but we didn't want to stop doing what we were doing. Finally we had to. This teacher that taught biology, Mr. Zambesi, stuck his head out of this window in the academic building and told us to go back to the dorm and get ready for dinner. If I get a chance to remember that kind of stuff, I can get a good-by when I need one--at least, most of the time I can. As soon as I got it, I turned around and started running down the other side of the hill, toward old Spencer's house. He didn't live on the campus. He lived on Anthony Wayne Avenue"

There is not too much in the above that tells me how or what made him get a good bye. How about you? He mentions Tichner twice. So you look google that and the very first thing that comes up is this guy:

Edward B Titchener

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_B...

How does he relate to school?
But it is when Mr Zambezi sticks his head out the window.

Look up Zambezi you get this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zambezi

That doesn't look too interesting does it? Certainly doesn't give you one of those deep emotional soul wrenching moments right? What is the point?

You have to have read The 39 Steps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thir...

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/558/55...

This is from the book, The 39 Steps:
He smiled. 'That's all right. Don't let that interfere with your appetite. We can talk about these things after dinner.' I never ate a meal with greater relish, for I had had nothing all day but railway sandwiches. Sir Walter did me proud, for we drank a good champagne and had some uncommon fine port afterwards. It made me almost hysterical to be sitting there, waited on by a footman and a sleek butler, and remember that I had been living for three weeks like a brigand, with every man's hand against me. I told Sir Walter about tiger-fish in the Zambesi that bite off your fingers if you give them a chance, and we discussed sport up and down the globe, for he had hunted a bit in his day.

Not only does the above give you a clue about the gloves in his coat pocket but also about Allie's glove or the allies. (page 38 - 41)

Still don't get that good bye? Read the first chapter of the book The 39 Steps.

The Game Page2
I think that Holden sees games as being rigged by phoney. People may believe they are playing by the rules but they don't know the game is set up to have winners and losers. A casino, if you will.
"Anyway, it was the Saturday of the football game with Saxon Hall. The game with Saxon Hall was supposed to be a very big deal around Pencey. It was the last game of the year, and you were supposed to commit suicide or something if old Pencey didn't win. I remember around three o'clock that afternoon I was standing way the hell up on top of Thomsen Hill, right next to this crazy cannon that was in the Revolutionary War and all. You could see the whole field from there, and you could see the two teams bashing each other all over the place. You couldn't see the grandstand too hot, but you could hear them all yelling, deep and terrific on the Pencey side, because practically the whole school except me was there, and scrawny and faggy on the Saxon Hall side, because the visiting team hardly ever brought many people with them."

Holden makes football sound like a war you were suppose to sacrifice yourself for. So how is football like war?

"The theory and practice of war and football are divided into strategy and tactics, the division in the gridiron game being not as sharp as in battle, since on the gridiron one is at all times in contact with the enemy.
But while the strategy and tactics of football and warfare come closer and closer together the further they are followed, war and the game differ in the outset in certain fundamental elements that must always be kept in mind. And football, fortunately, is devoid of no end of the complications of the war game, such as the supply train, lines of communication, etc. A football game endures through one hour of actual play, a battle from dawn to darkness, with the possibilities of renewal on the morrow, and through several succeeding days. A consideration of the terrain in war presents many abstruse problems, such as the advantageous disposition of varying numbers of troops.

From:http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0559...

If you look up Thomsen you will find Fred Thomsen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Tho... He was coach
"In 1933, Thomsen's Razorbacks had the best record in the Southwest Conference, but Arkansas had to forfeit their first conference championship because Thomsen played Heinie Schleuter, an ineligible athlete." If you read Ring Lardner, (page 18) who Holden says it's his favorite writer, you will see that Lardner likes to write satire about the corruption of professional sports.

Holden goes to Spencer's house and lies when he agrees with Spencer that "life is a game that must be played according to the rules." But Holden's real thoughts are, "Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right--I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game" Page 8

On page 4, he says that he is up on that stupid hill referring to Thomsen Hill. "I only had on my reversible and no gloves or anything. The week before that, somebody'd stolen my camel's-hair coat right out of my room, with my furlined gloves right in the pocket and all. Pencey was full of crooks. Quite a few guys came from these very wealthy families, but it was full of crooks anyway. The more expensive a school is, the more crooks it has--I'm not kidding. Anyway, I kept standing next to that crazy cannon, looking down at the game and freezing my ass off. Only, I wasn't watching the game too much."

Saxon Hall is the name of the visiting team. I thought this was interesting in light of WW1 and WW2:

House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (German: Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) is a German dynasty, the line of the Saxon House of Wettin that ruled the Ernestine duchies including the duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of...

The House of Windsor is the royal house of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V by royal proclamation on 17 July 1917, when he changed the name of the British Royal Family from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (a branch of the House of Wettin) to the English Windsor, due to the anti-German sentiment in the British Empire during World War I.[1] The most prominent member of the House of Windsor is its head, Queen Elizabeth II, who is the reigning monarch of 16 Commonwealth realms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of...

All the sudden England is distancing herself from Germany.

I wonder if the "crazy cannon" has anything to do with The Revolutionary War. Well sure it does but what do you think it is in light of WW2? Do you think it is crazy because of how we became allies of England, when we fought a revolution against them. Or is it crazy how many presidents are related to the House of Windsor? What is going on at this game?

I think this is enough to ponder for right now. If you can find other places in the book that you think talks about life being a game but not necessarily an honest or fair game please leave a comment.

The Catcher in the RyeJ.D. SalingerI Hate The Movies
Holden says that he hates movies, on page four; and yet he takes Phoebe to see The 39 Steps by Alfred Hitchcock, ten times. This makes this movie an important movie to watch.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3YIwEy1-FG4

It is an important movie to watch in order to Break The Code of why he hates movies and why he would never allow his books to be made into a movie.
Here is a review of the film by wiki

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_39_S...

Here is quote from page 67:
"Her favorite is The 39 Steps, though, with Robert Donat. She knows the whole goddam movie by heart, because I've taken her to see it about ten times. When old Donat comes up to this Scotch farmhouse, for instance, when he's running away from the cops and all, Phoebe'll say right out loud in the movie--right when the Scotch guy in the picture says it--"Can you eat the herring?" She knows all the talk by heart. And when this professor in the picture, that's really a German spy, sticks up his little finger with part of the middle joint missing, to show Robert Donat, old Phoebe beats him to it--she holds up her little finger at me in the dark, right in front of my face."

There are two places that the question "Can you eat herring?"

The first place is when the lady agent named Annabel Smith asks Mr. Hannay if he had heard of the 39 Steps. He laughs and answers, "What, the book?" "Never mind, but what you are laughing at is true".

These two met at the "MUSIC HALL", which you can read as the movie opens and pans across the screen. It is not Radio Music Hall that is referred to in The Catcher In The Rye, but we will be coming back to this in a future discussion.

I would really like to give people a chance to watch this movie for themselves before I divulge any more clues.

So watch it and feel free to add comments.