ATDTDA pr 347 i, j, and k smokefoot

[mikebailey at speakeasy.net]

there's no reason to think of Triangle Shirtwaist
at this juncture, is there?

It's interesting, the reference to Jachin and Boaz,
and that Dally's friend Katie knows the Masonic 
lore; and it opens out onto the notion of doormen
(another Pynchonian door into real life - I'm
flattering myself that I must be the anti-Wood,
because these details that oppress him so delight me;
who's not stood before one door or another and
felt daunted or not daunted, but anyway known scrutiny?)

but that's not the passage that grabbed me here.
It's the one on 347 that goes "...back and downward
into an underlit chill where conversation did not exist
either because it was forbidden or because there was 
too much work to be done, grimy pipes hanging
from corroded brackets ran along the ceilings,
the smell of cleaning and dyeing solvents and steam
from pressers' irons pervaded all the space,
workers slipped by silent as wraiths, shadowy doorways 
led to crowded rooms full of women at sewing machines 
who did not look up from their work except with
apprehension when they felt the supervisor draw close."

true, Dally glimpsed her mom just a second ago,
and that was cool, and I'm getting that now,
but the (Triangle Shirtwaist) back rooms were the grabber 
1st time thru.  (Just like the first time in a 
history course when the section guy focussed on
demographic history, the non-"playas", the way
life was for most people and not the ponces 
in their ruffs and silks - a thrill, like,
yes, this is something I would like to know
more about.)

so from the bottom of 347 I can work back
to 345 - "the size of the place was not
due to whims of grandiosity but rather dictated
by a need for enough floor-area to keep rigorously
set a veil separating two separate worlds"
etc etc & another "damned list":
"cash-girls, furnace-stokers, parcel-wrappers,
shipping clerks, needlewomen, feather-workers,
liveried messengers, sweepers and dusters and
runners of errands of all sorts"