I am really enjoying the cultural references that Delillo makes in this book. Since they are rather recent and deal with material I am familiar with, it is much easier to relate. I find myself wanting to research the references rather than just blow them off as I tended to do while reading Gravity's Rainbow. Like "Cocksucker Blues," for instance, which is a real documentary about the Rolling Stone's 1972 tour. This is two years before the setting of this section of the book, which Acey comments on. The Stones deemed the content inappropriate and didn't want it to be released, but the director did, so it is only allowed to be shown when the director is physically present. It's also the name of a single that Mick Jagger released. Since "Cocksucker Blues" is the name of Part 4, I am interested to see the connection in the rest of the section.

I also want to mention the theme of luck in the novel thus far. Nick's obsession with Lucky Strikes, the taxi driver singing the Lucky Strikes jingle, Kara wearing a charm against bad luck, a number of characters suspicious of the number 13 (Eleanor, page 307:"The clock stopped at seventeen minutes past five in the morning. Five one seven, dear. Add the digits and you get thirteen.") Superstition is a mode of paranoia, so I can see the connection between superstition and the Cold War, but I'm interested to hear others' thoughts on this as well.

Another theme: latex. Latex gloves (Edgar keeps them tucked in her belt, and I remember a male character wearing them but I cannot remember who or find a page number), the large number of references to condoms (the condom shop, Brian buying his son a latex condom, describing folders as "condoms for reading matter" (320))

This passage on page 241 seems significant:
"At the same time Edgar force-fitted the gloves onto her hands and felt the ambivalence, the conflict. Safe, yes, scientifically shielded from organic menace. But also sinfully complicit with some process she only half understood, the force in the world, the array of systems that displaces religious faith with paranoia. It was in the milky-slick feel of these synthetic gloves, fear and distrust and unreason. And she felt masculinized as well, condomed ten times over--safe, yes, and maybe a little confused. But latex was necessary here. Protection against the spurt of blood or pus and the viral entities hidden within, submicroscopic parasites in their soviet socialist protein coats."

Superstition and latex are related in a way-- both replace "faith with paranoia," attempting to shield from fear or distrust. And the last sentence ties the idea back to the Cold War and the idea that "latex was necessary here"-- paranoia was necessary to protect against the "submicroscopic parasites in their soviet socialist protein coats." Distrust, like superstition or condoms, was necessary for our safety.