GR translation: the plaid, hunched-up leaky handful inside
Mike Weaver
mike.weaver at zen.co.uk
Thu Oct 31 12:18:04 CDT 2013
Leaky as in tearful - not literally crying but depressed and miserable
maybe?
Or is it a reference to the shoe grease keeping the wet out of their
busted and leaky footwear?
Or both and more...
On 31/10/2013 04:19, Mike Jing wrote:
> Thanks, Jochen. The use of the word "leaky" is interesting. Anyone
> else has something to add?
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 4:27 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com
> <mailto:jstremmel at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> A great passage again, a great paragraph. The "plaid, hunched-up leaky
> handful inside" might be plaid-clad bowed customers at the lunchwagon
> counter between them, and the pit, could it be something else than the
> great pit with the holding capacity for all the lindy-hopping millions
> of WWII?
>
> 2013/10/23 Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
> <mailto:gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>>:
> > Also, what is "the pit" in "watched you lindy-hop into the pit
> by millions"?
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 12:10 AM, Mike Jing
> <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com <mailto:gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> V471.29-472.3 Lost, again and again, past poor dambusted
> and drowned
> >> Becket, up and down the rut-brown slopes, the hayrakes rusting
> in the
> >> afternoon, the sky purple-gray, dark as chewed gum, the mist
> starting to
> >> make white dashes in the air, aimed earthward a quarter, a half
> inch . . .
> >> she looked at him once, of course he still remembers, from down
> at the end
> >> of a lunchwagon counter, grill smoke working onto the windows
> patient as
> >> shoe grease against the rain for the plaid, hunched-up leaky
> handful inside,
> >> off the jukebox a quick twinkle in the bleat of a trombone, a
> reed section,
> >> planting swing notes precisely into the groove between silent
> midpoint and
> >> next beat, jumping it pah (hm) pah (hm) pah so exactly in the
> groove that
> >> you knew it was ahead but felt it was behind, both of you, at
> both ends of
> >> the counter, could feel it, feel your age delivered into a new
> kind of time
> >> that may have allowed you to miss the rest, the graceless
> expectations of
> >> old men who watched, in bifocal and mucus indifference, watched you
> >> lindy-hop into the pit by millions, as many millions as
> necessary. . . .
> >>
> >> What are "the plaid, hunched-up leaky handful inside" exactly?
> >
> >
>
>
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