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227; the "Tree of Life" tattoo-ed on Eskimoff; 318; Wikipedia entry

169; "Kaffir" was used in English and Dutch, from the 16th century to the early 20th century as a blanket term for several different peoples of southern Africa. Outside this limited historical context, the word is used today only as a derogatory and offensive term of abuse; Wikipedia entry

846; in Constantinople

Kailash, Mt.
437; a mountain located in far western Tibet that over 22,000 feet. It is the world's most venerated holy place but also the least visited. The sacred site of four religions, fewer than a thousand people make pilgrimage to Kalish every year--the only way to get there is by all-terrain vehicle, and the journey takes weeks, as no planes, trains or buses travel in the region. Mythologically, Kalish is the Axis Mundi, the center and birth place of the world; Wikipedia entry

Kaiser Wilhelm (1859-1949)
367; William II or Wilhelm II (born Frederick William Albert Victor; German: Friedrich Wilhelm Albert Victor) was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling both the German Empire and Prussia from June 15, 1888 to November 9, 1918; hair pomade, 367; Wikipedia entry

709; goddess with a long and complex history in Hinduism (although sometimes presented in the West as dark and violent). Her earliest history as a figure of annihilation still has some influence, while more complex Tantric beliefs sometimes extend her role so far as to be the Ultimate Reality and Source of Being; Wikipedia entry

Kanun of Lekë Dukagjin
970; The most important of the hereditary codes of conduct that shape the inter-generational behavior of the rural Albanians that make up the overwhelming majority of the Kosovar population. The Kanun of Lek Dukagin probably emerged in the 15th Century but was not even written down until the 19th Century. The foundation of the Kanun is the concept of personal honor and at the center of its laws is the blood feud, a complicated system of vendettas aimed at obtaining satisfaction vis a vis punishment. There are four major offenses to personal honor under the Kanun:

  1. calling a man a liar in front of other men;
  2. insulting his wife;
  3. taking his weapons; and
  4. violating his hospitality.

These offenses are not paid for in property or by fines but by the spilling of blood or by a magnanimous pardon.

From Balkan Primer (X) - Blood Feuds, Kanuns, and American Policy

653; ancient code of conduct in Albania

897; model, along with Dally, for a sodomistic work by Arturo Naunt

630; an oasis city in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China; 631; 676; Kit's arrival in, 753; Wikipedia entry

Katie McDivott: 337; waitress in New York City restaurant, Schultz's Vegetarian Brauhaus, from Chillicothe, Ohio; aspiring actress, 338; 505;

Katie bar the door
8; 894; The phrase "Katie bar the door!" (also as "Katie bar the gate!"; sometimes written as Katy) is a very American exclamation, more common in the South than elsewhere, meaning that disaster impends—“watch out”, “get ready for trouble” or “a desperate situation is at hand”. From WorldWideWords.org; 894;

Keeley Cure
Devised by Leslie Keeley, this was a proprietary system of treatment for the alcohol and opium habits. The Keeley Cure was a forerunner of certain measures adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous. Relying heavily on injections of Bichloride of Gold (a chemical impossibility), it was so well-known in its day that several popular songs, such as an Irish comic song, entitled "The Keeley Cure," parodied it unmercifully. More on Wikipedia


Kennedy, John Fitzgerald
626; "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a citizen of Berlin") is a famous quotation from a June 26, 1963 speech of U.S. President John F. Kennedy in West Berlin. He was underlining the support of the United States for democratic West Germany shortly after the Soviet-supported Communist state of East Germany erected the Berlin Wall as a barrier to prevent movement between East and West. There is an urban myth that he should have said "Ich bin Berliner" ("I am from Berlin") and that by adding the article "ein" ("a"), he was a non-human Berliner; More about this at Wikipedia

Kensington Sid


Keuler, Fran
807; Yashmeen's landlady in Vienna

Khan, Genghis (Jenghiz)
439; in Nuovo Rialto; 772; 776;

Ogdai Khan
776; son of Genghis (Jenghiz);


Khäutsch, Colonel Max
47; a captain in the Trabants, and field chief of K&K Special Security, who had "proven himself useful at home as an assassin"; 679; in Vienna with Theign, 812; escape from Vienna, 830; in Sarajevo, 831;


772; "ancient kingdom of";

From Turpan I proceeded about 20 miles east to the ruins of the city of Gaochang, the southern capital of the ancient kingdom of Khocho. Shambhalists have long considered Khocho one of the main candidates for the historical kingdom of Shambhala where the Kalachakra was first composed and taught. Scholar of Indic religions Sir Charles Eliot opined as early as 1921 that, “This country [Shambhala] is seen only through a haze of myth: it may have been in India or it may have been somewhere in Central Asia, where Buddhism mingled with Turkish ideas.”
From Don Croner's Worldwide Wanders

Edwin Bernbaum, in the 2001 edition of The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas, writes that he finally visited Khocho in 1984:

“... I managed to travel to the heart of Central Asia, to the region most likely to have inspired the myth of Shambhala. There, in the Turfan Depression of western China, at the foot of the Tien Shan mountains, I visited the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Khocho or Gaochang, the most likely prototype for the hidden city itself. Gazing at the extensive walls spreading around me toward the distant mountains, I felt as thought I had come to a place of particular significance on my own journey exploring the many facets of the myth of Shambhala.” [1]

171; also known as: Diatomaceous earth, DE, diatomite, diahydro, Kieselgur and Celite; a porous silica-containing earth, mixed with nitroglycerine into dynamite in proportions that leaves an essentially dry and granular material, producing a solid that is resistant to shock but readily explodable by heat or sudden impact. Also used in tooth-paste and polishes, as insecticide and a main ingredient for certain kinds of cat-litter etc. Wikipedia Entry

Kieselguhr Kid

171; "notorious dynamiter of the San Juans"; Dynamite, a blasting explosive, was invented in 1867 by Alfred P. Nobel by mixing nitroglycerin with kieselguhr; Webb Traverse?, 214; 361; 370; Frank Traverse, 382;

Note also the connection with a Gravity's Rainbow identity, probably a pseudonym/alternate identity for Tyrone Slothrop, the "Kenosha Kid."

Kimura, Mr. Shunkichi
29; 318; translated Tsurigane into English, 532; 567;

Kindred, Deuce
193; hired by mine owners to kill Webb Traverse; 260; 267; weds Lake Traverse; 395; on the move with Lake, 472; The 'K' in Philip K. Dick's name stands for Kindred; in Los Angeles, 1052

Kindred, Hope
473; Deuce's sister;

49; Famous Restaurant at 105-107 Adams St.;

Kipling, Rudyard (1895-1936)
227; "The Great Game"; a British author and poet, born in India, and best known today for his children's books, his poems, and his many short stories; "The Great Game," a term usually attributed to Arthur Conolly, was used to describe the rivalry and strategic conflict between the British Empire and the Tsarist Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. Kipling popularized the term in his novel Kim. Wikipedia entry

Who is Kim? Kim (Kimball O'Hara) is the orphaned son of an Irish soldier and a poor white mother who have both died in poverty. Kim is a white boy, but Kim is culturally and psychologically an Indian native. Kim’s identity shifts between sahib and native. The two components of Kim's mind - English and Indian - are regarded as “separate” sides of [his] head” and not a unified identity but a dual identity.

348; "Saturday night in..."; likely not a reference to an original pynchonwiki envisioner, David Kipen, "Kipperville" is most likely a reference to the story Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton, wherein Mike and promises to dig the cellar for Popperville's new town hall in one day using his steam shovel Mary Anne. The citizens from Kipperville and other nearby towns all come to watch. Read the Amazon description; 895;

830; encounters Misha and Grisha in a bar "across the river near the Careva Ulica, in Der Lila Stern"

765; 770; horses, 775; According to recent historical findings, Kyrgyz history dates back to 201 BC. The early Kyrgyz lived in the upper Yenisey River valley, central Siberia. The discovery of the Pazyryk and Tashtyk cultures show them as a blend of Turkic and Iranian nomadic tribes. The Khirgiz are present in Gravity's Rainbow. Wikipedia entry

Klein, Felix (1849-1925)
324; German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, function theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory. His 1872 Erlangen Program, classifying geometries by their underlying symmetry groups, was a hugely influential synthesis of much of the mathematics of the day. He was appointed lecturer at Göttingen in early 1871; 565; 593; 632; Wikipedia entry

Klopski, Vangya
Prokladka's "A.D.C. or lichnyi adiutant"

Knott, Professor
531; from the Imperial University of Japan

Kolchak, Admiral Aleksandr Vasiliyevich (1874-1920)
1027; relocation of his government from Omsk; a Russian naval commander and later head of part of the anti-Bolshevik White forces during the Russian Civil War. Wikipedia entry

1013; at tent city in Ludlow

Kovalevskaia, Sofia
500; Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya (also known as Sonia Kovalevsky) (1850-1891) was the first major Russian female mathematician and a student of Karl Weierstrass in Berlin. In 1884, she was appointed professor at Stockholm University, the third woman in Europe to become a professor; 601; Wikipedia entry

506; Indonesian island group where a volcano erupted in 1883, the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history; Wikipedia entry

Kronecker, Leopold
593; "sinister influence of..."; "the positive integers were created by God, and all else is the work of man" 593; Wikipedia entry

Kropotkin, Prince Peter (Pyotr) Alexeyevich (1842-1921)
373; Kropotkin was one of Russia's foremost anarchists and one of the first advocates of anarchist communism: the model of society he advocated for most of his life was that of a communalist society free from central government. Wikipedia entry

969; Albanian bitch companion of Pugnax; aboard the Inconvenience, 1019;

Ku Klux Klan ("KKK")
7; the name of a number of past and present fraternal organizations in the United States that have advocated white supremacy, anti-Semitism, racism, anti-Catholicism, homophobia, and nativism; 178; Wikipedia entry

715; 716; Austrian

704; simple or qualified... From the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica: "Kuppelei is a penal offence. Simple Kuppelei include (1) harbouring prostitutes for the purpose of pursuing their trade, (2) procuration, (3) having any connexion with the traffic - penalty, three to six months' imprisonment; qualified Kuppelei is (1) procuration of innocent persons (equivalent to use of false pretences), (2) procuration by parents, guardians, &c. - penalty, one to five years. The police regulations and procedure (in Austria) are similar to those in Germany, but less strict. In all these countries a special service of police is employed."


  1. The Way to Shambhala: A Search for the Mythical Kingdom Beyond the Himalayas, Shambhala; 1st Shambh edition (December 11, 2001)
Against the Day Alpha Guide
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