All Fall Down: Annotated

The following references to cultural and/or historical events or people in Eruption: All Fall Down occur during the novel.

Story Order

 * Page 12
 * "Better to stay quiet and be thought cynical ..." - This thought of Colin Ferguson's is a paraphrase of a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."


 * Page 23
 * Et tu, Brute - This line is uttered by Julius Caesar as he was assassinated in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar Act 3, scene 1.


 * Page 24
 * ... sit in a cubicle next to Dilbert - Dilbert is an American comic strip satirize workplace issues. Rob Ferguson is favorably comparing Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles' limited success to being an office worker.


 * Page 36
 * {Dr. Travis Suzuki} reminded {Louise Ferguson} of Mr. Sulu from Star Trek - Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. Mr. Sulu was a character from the original series and one of the first Asian characters portrayed in a positive light by an Asian actor.


 * Page 41
 * Craigslist - Craigslist is a classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, items wanted, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.


 * Page 43
 * monster.com - Monster.com is one of the largest employment websites in the world, owned and operated by Monster Worldwide, Inc.


 * Page 44
 * SAT - The SAT is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. It was first called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, then the Scholastic Assessment Test, but now SAT does not stand for anything.


 * Page 47
 * Holy Roman Empire - The Holy Roman Empire was a varying complex of lands that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.


 * Page 47
 * The Epic of Gilgamesh - The Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem from Mesopotamia, is amongst the earliest surviving works of literature.


 * Page 50
 * {Jackson, Wyoming} was as one with Pompeii and Herculaneum. - The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were Roman towns partially destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.


 * Page 53
 * ... had an almost Jetson kind of cool. - The Jetsons is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera. The Jetsons live in the year 2062 in a futuristic utopia (100 years in the future at the time of the show's debut) of elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions.


 * Page 59
 * Louise Ferguson felt as if she'd gone fifteen rounds with Mike Tyson ... - Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is a retired American professional boxer.


 * Page 64
 * And there, as Hamlet had said, was the rub ... - "There was the rub" comes from Hamlet's soliloquy from William Shakespeare's play of the same name Act 3, scene 1'''.


 * Page 69
 * ... cloth diapers and safety pins, right out of Ozzie and Harriet and The Lucy Show. - The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is an American sitcom, airing on ABC from October 3, 1952 through March 26, 1966. I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957.


 * Page 71
 * ... make himself a sandwich. ... Blondie ... Dagwood Bumstead - Blondie is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Chic Young. A running gag is the impossibly tall sandwiches made with a variety of meats, cheeses and condiments that Dagwood Bumstead (a character in the strip) fixes for himself.


 * Page 74
 * "Sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful child" - Quote from William Shakespeare's King Lear Act 1, scene 4. Patty incorrectly atributes it to the Bible.


 * Page 75
 * "the truth was out there" - This was a tagline in The X-Files, an American science fiction drama television series.


 * Page 81
 * "the times, they were a-changin" - The Times They Are a-Changin is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in January 1964 by Columbia Records.


 * Page 82
 * Not Thing One, and not Thing Two, either. ... The Cat in the Hat - The Cat in the Hat is a children's book by Dr. Seuss. Thing One and Thing Two are secondary characters from the story.


 * Page 98
 * Conan the Barbarian - Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films, television programs (cartoon and live-action), video games, role-playing games and other media.


 * Page 98
 * Currier and Ives - Currier and Ives was a successful American printmaking firm headed by Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888) and James Merritt Ives (1824–1895). Based in New York City from 1834–1907, the prolific firm produced prints from paintings by fine artists as black and white lithographs that were hand colored. The prints depicted a variety of images of American life, including winter scenes; horse-racing images; portraits of people; and pictures of ships, sporting events, patriotic and historical events.


 * Page 100
 * Justin made like Phil Collins... - Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist, and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist. One of Collins hit singles was "In the Air Tonight".


 * Page 103
 * ... the second winter of our discontent. - "Winter of our discontent" is the opening line from William Shakespeare's Richard III. It is also the title of John Steinbeck's last novel and using the Shakespeare quote as its source. It is unclear which Jim Farrell was quoting although in Richard it is used to signify the end of winter, the opposite of what Farrell meant.


 * Page 103
 * ... eating long pig so we don't starve - European explorers brought home stories of cannibalism from the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia, where human flesh was called long pig.


 * Page 103
 * ... caviar to the general. - Caviar to the general is a good thing unappreciated by the ignorant; the phrase is originally a quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet Act 2, scene 2.


 * Page 103
 * "If we don't hang together ..." - "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." is attributed to Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.


 * Page 104
 * Kilkenny Cats - The term Kilkenny cat refers to anyone who is a tenacious fighter. The origin of the term is now lost so there are many stories purporting to give the true meaning.


 * Page 105
 * bully pulpit - President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the White House as a "bully pulpit", by which he meant a terrific platform from which to advocate an agenda.


 * Page 110
 * ... might not be true, it was definietly truthy. - "Truthy" derives from truth +‎ -y. First attested in early 19th century; reintroduced into modern use by Stephen Colbert in 2005 as truthiness and means "the quality of seeming to be true, even if this contradicts evidence or rational thought".


 * Page 114
 * Tom Clancy - Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War. Clancy is one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on a first printing in the 1990s.


 * Page 114
 * Bill Gates - William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people.


 * Pages 114-115
 * "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." - These are the last lines from the song "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the English rock band The Who.


 * Page 115
 * Animal Farm - Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union.


 * Page 115
 * 1984 - Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984) is an English dystopian novel by George Orwell, written in 1948 and published in 1949. The main character, Winston Smith lives in a post-civil war United Kingdom ruled by the English Socialism (Ingsoc) Movement.


 * Page 118
 * He had a half pint of Southern Comfort ... - Southern Comfort is an American liqueur made from neutral spirits with fruit, spice and whiskey flavorings. Although the original product contained whiskey, the current formula for Southern Comfort only contains whiskey-tasting flavoring rather than actual whiskey.


 * Page 118
 * ... collection of Mad Magazine pieces ... - Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952.


 * Page 121
 * ... cubicle ... straight out of Dilbertland. - Dilbert is an American comic strip satirize workplace issues. Bryce Miller viewed his office space at the Department of Water and Power as being similar to the caricature in Dilbert.


 * Page 121
 * ... hard at it in the Skinner box ... - An operant conditioning chamber (also known as the Skinner box) is a laboratory apparatus used in the experimental analysis of behavior to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. It is used to study both operant conditioning and classical conditioning.


 * Page 122
 * Theocritus meets the supervolcano - Theocritus, the creator of Ancient Greece bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC. Bryce Miller enjoyed writing poetry in this style.


 * Page 122
 * toe-to-toe with the Donald - Donald John Trump, Sr. (born June 14, 1946) is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He was No. 17 on the 2011 Forbes Celebrity 100 list.


 * Page 124
 * ... out of a Grant Wood painting. - Grant DeVolson Wood (February 13, 1891 – February 12, 1942) was an American painter, born four miles east of Anamosa, Iowa. He is best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest, particularly the painting American Gothic, an iconic image of the 20th century.


 * Page 128
 * something from a Mad Max movie. - The Mad Max franchise is based on a series of futuristic films, taking place in the "Mad Max Universe". The series has had a lasting influence on apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction ever since.


 * Page 128
 * "Arma virumque camo" ... It's from Vergil - Publius Vergilius Maro usually called Virgil or Vergil in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues (or Bucolics), the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid.

Contemporary Figures and Things

 * Tom Clancy - Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War. Clancy is one of only three authors to have sold two million copies on a first printing in the 1990s.


 * Justin made like Phil Collins... - Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist, and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist. One of Collins hit singles was "In the Air Tonight".


 * Craigslist - Craigslist is a classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, items wanted, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.


 * Bill Gates - William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people.


 * Justin made like Phil Collins... - Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist, and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist. One of Collins hit singles was "In the Air Tonight".


 * monster.com - Monster.com is one of the largest employment websites in the world, owned and operated by Monster Worldwide, Inc.


 * SAT - The SAT is a standardized test for college admissions in the United States. It was first called the Scholastic Aptitude Test, then the Scholastic Assessment Test, but now SAT does not stand for anything.


 * ... hard at it in the Skinner box ... - An operant conditioning chamber (also known as the Skinner box) is a laboratory apparatus used in the experimental analysis of behavior to study animal behavior. The operant conditioning chamber was created by B. F. Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. It is used to study both operant conditioning and classical conditioning.


 * He had a half pint of Southern Comfort ... - Southern Comfort is an American liqueur made from neutral spirits with fruit, spice and whiskey flavorings. Although the original product contained whiskey, the current formula for Southern Comfort only contains whiskey-tasting flavoring rather than actual whiskey.


 * toe-to-toe with the Donald - Donald John Trump, Sr. (born June 14, 1946) is an American business magnate, television personality and author. He was No. 17 on the 2011 Forbes Celebrity 100 list.


 * Louise Ferguson felt as if she'd gone fifteen rounds with Mike Tyson ... - Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is a retired American professional boxer.

Fictional Works

 * Animal Farm - Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell the book reflects events leading up to the Russian Revolution of 1917, and then on into the Stalin era in the Soviet Union.


 * ... make himself a sandwich. ... Blondie ... Dagwood Bumstead - Blondie is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Chic Young. A running gag is the impossibly tall sandwiches made with a variety of meats, cheeses and condiments that Dagwood Bumstead (a character in the strip) fixes for himself.


 * Not Thing One, and not Thing Two, either. ... The Cat in the Hat - The Cat in the Hat is a children's book by Dr. Seuss. Thing One and Thing Two are secondary characters from the story.


 * Conan the Barbarian - Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films, television programs (cartoon and live-action), video games, role-playing games and other media.


 * Currier and Ives - Currier and Ives was a successful American printmaking firm headed by Nathaniel Currier (1813–1888) and James Merritt Ives (1824–1895). Based in New York City from 1834–1907, the prolific firm produced prints from paintings by fine artists as black and white lithographs that were hand colored. The prints depicted a variety of images of American life, including winter scenes; horse-racing images; portraits of people; and pictures of ships, sporting events, patriotic and historical events.


 * ... sit in a cubicle next to Dilbert - Dilbert is an American comic strip satirize workplace issues. Rob Ferguson is favorably comparing Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles' limited success to being an office worker. Also, Bryce Miller viewed his office space at the Department of Water and Power as being similar to the caricature in Dilbert (i.e. Dilbertland).


 * The Epic of Gilgamesh - The Epic of Gilgamesh, an epic poem from Mesopotamia, is amongst the earliest surviving works of literature.


 * ... had an almost Jetson kind of cool. - The Jetsons is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera. The Jetsons live in the year 2062 in a futuristic utopia (100 years in the future at the time of the show's debut) of elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions.


 * ... cloth diapers and safety pins, right out of Ozzie and Harriet and The Lucy Show. - I Love Lucy is an American television sitcom starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The black-and-white series originally ran from October 15, 1951, to May 6, 1957.


 * ... collection of Mad Magazine pieces ... - Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952.


 * 1984 - Nineteen Eighty-Four (or 1984) is an English dystopian novel by George Orwell, written in 1948 and published in 1949. The main character, Winston Smith lives in a post-civil war United Kingdom ruled by the English Socialism (Ingsoc) Movement.


 * ... cloth diapers and safety pins, right out of Ozzie and Harriet and The Lucy Show. - The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet is an American sitcom, airing on ABC from October 3, 1952 through March 26, 1966.


 * {Dr. Travis Suzuki} reminded {Louise Ferguson} of Mr. Sulu from Star Trek - Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. Mr. Sulu was a character from the original series and one of the first Asian characters portrayed in a positive light by an Asian actor.


 * Not Thing One, and not Thing Two, either. ... The Cat in the Hat - The Cat in the Hat is a children's book by Dr. Seuss. Thing One and Thing Two are secondary characters from the story.


 * "the times, they were a-changin'" - The Times They Are a-Changin is the third studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released in January 1964 by Columbia Records.


 * ... might not be true, it was definietly truthy. - "Truthy" derives from truth +‎ -y. First attested in early 19th century; reintroduced into modern use by Stephen Colbert in 2005 as truthiness and means "the quality of seeming to be true, even if this contradicts evidence or rational thought".

Historical Figures and Things

 * bully pulpit - President Theodore Roosevelt referred to the White House as a "bully pulpit", by which he meant a terrific platform from which to advocate an agenda.


 * Holy Roman Empire - The Holy Roman Empire was a varying complex of lands that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.


 * Kilkenny Cats - The term Kilkenny cat refers to anyone who is a tenacious fighter. The origin of the term is now lost so there are many stories purporting to give the true meaning.


 * ... eating long pig so we don't starve - European explorers brought home stories of cannibalism from the Marquesas Islands of Polynesia, where human flesh was called long pig.


 * {Jackson, Wyoming} was as one with Pompeii and Herculaneum. - The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum were Roman towns partially destroyed and buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.


 * Theocritus meets the supervolcano - Theocritus, the creator of Ancient Greece bucolic poetry, flourished in the 3rd century BC. Bryce Miller enjoyed writing poetry in this style.

Quotes

 * "Better to stay quiet and be thought cynical ..." - This thought of Colin Ferguson's is a paraphrase of a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."


 * ...caviar to the general. - Caviar to the general is a good thing unappreciated by the ignorant; the phrase is originally a quotation from Shakespeare's Hamlet Act 2, scene 2.


 * "Et tu, Brute" - This line is uttered by Julius Caesar as he was assassinated in William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar Act 3, scene 1.


 * "If we don't hang together ..." - "We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." is attributed to Benjamin Franklin at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.


 * "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss." - These are the last lines from the song "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the English rock band The Who.


 * "Sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful child" - Quote from William Shakespeare's King Lear Act 1, scene 4. Patty incorrectly atributes it to the Bible.


 * And there, as Hamlet had said, was the rub ... - "There was the rub" comes from Hamlet's soliloquy from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet Act 3, scene 1'''.


 * "the truth was out there" - This was a tagline in The X-Files, an American science fiction drama television series.


 * ... the second winter of our discontent. - "Winter of our discontent" is the opening line from William Shakespeare's Richard III. It is also the title of John Steinbeck's last novel and using the Shakespeare quote as its source. It is unclear which Jim Farrell was quoting although in Richard it is used to signify the end of winter, the opposite of what Farrell meant.