Annotations - Absolute Beginners 1: Soldier Girl

Another reference-heavy piece here, so here's the annotated version:
The titles are taken from 2 songs, by Bowie and the Polyphonic Spree respectively. I especially like the fact that for their third album, the PS are ditching the robes in favour of army fatigues, a fact I only discovered while preparing to write part 2. And I figure that Blue will eventually come to Absolutely love Fliss. I've taken the liberty of having her blonde in this piece, but that can change from chapter to chapter as easily as, well, ANY woman can change her hair colour... For now though, think Patsy Kensit in the movie of the same name, Twiggy in 1967 and Claire Danes in the Mod Squad movie, dressed in Israeli army cast offs.
"We can swim like the dolphins, be kings and queens, or even be ourselves, for eternity." This is a VERY loose paraphrasing of the lyrics to Bowie's Heroes. I think the concept fits well with the overall idea of this trilogy of bits - We all have massive untapped potential. Fliss, Monk and Ari just figure out how to use theirs.
Matus: Don Juan Matus, the (allegedly fake) Nagual who coached Carlos Castaneda in various esoteric Mayan magics. Nagual (pronounced Na'wal) can be taken to mean both teacher and the totality of existence. Tonal, used in a couple of paragraphs, means both student and the single closed reality in which the uninitiated are bound to spend their lives. This man may or may not be the same Matus from the Castaneda books, but as there are questions as to whether he ever actually existed, I think we can leave it hanging and get away with it; It's never really pointed out anyway. There's also another meaning for Nagual - An evil shapeshifter, like a Mayan werewolf.
...slapped him harshly between the shoulder blades: The creed taught to Castaneda states that we are beings of lumious energy fibres which extend from a point between our shoulders to about an arm's length behind us, anchoring us to this Tonal/reality. By displacing it, we can refix our point of reference wherever we wish, inhabiting other minds and bodies in this realm or any others (which seems to explain a lot of the weird stuff in Donnie Darko, now that I think about it).
...his legs twitching like a dreaming dog... This echoes the scene in Ghost Town and uses the same phrasing, hopefully suggesting that what happens to Mark in that piece is more than just a mind rape - He actually sees the past as another reality.
...there are many dark actors playing games : A phrase used by Dr David Kelly in one of his final emails on the day of his alleged suicide, which has been seen as a key piece of evidence for foul play. Using it here prefigures some later developments, as well as suggesting that one of our characters killed the Doc...
...A humble Earthworm: I'm not sure there's even a connection here myself, but after I'd written this, I realised that in Dr Bloodmoney, the consciousness of the psychic foetus Bill is temporarily trapped in a worm, and I think Hoppy Harrington winds up in there permanently at the end of the book. No big reference, just an interesting aside.
This one will always have trouble with his appetite : Obviously, with his prodigious drug-taking in later days...
cihuapilli: The Nahuatl word for Princess. I think there may be more history with Matus and Fliss than we may ever get to see. Or not - It might just be an old lecher's term of affection.
Wax on, wax off : Please tell me I don't have to annotate that?
Christa Paffgen : Another icy blonde bombshell, better known to most of the world as Nico, of Velvet Underground and Chelsea Girl fame.
Fata Morgana : Another name for Morgan Le Fay, half-sister to, sometime nemesis and occasional ally of King Arthur Pendragon, star pupil of Merlin and latterly taken as a feminist icon for her role in the Grail legends. No real reason for Ari taking that particular pseudonym, but a handy reference to drop now in case we ever choose to hit the Grail cycle for other resonances.