GR translation: as little finger sweat-cams off M-1 operating handle

[Dave Monroe]

chuckle
verb chuck·le \ˈchə-kəl\
intransitive verb

1:  to laugh inwardly or quietly

2:  to make a continuous gentle sound resembling suppressed mirth <the
clear bright water chuckled over gravel — B. A. Williams>

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chuckle

On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 7:56 AM, jochen stremmel <jstremmel at gmail.com> wrote:
> Didn't you play with glass marbles – they came in bags if I remember
> correctly? (Bigfooted bassett hounds – those I never saw before my 14th
> year, I think.)
>
> 2015-03-01 13:00 GMT+01:00 Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>:
>>
>> I'm 99% certain I had never seen "cam" used as a verb before reading that
>> line 42 years ago. i had (have) barely enough mechanical savvy to grasp that
>> a cam (n.) is shaped to turn rotating or linear motion of one part into a
>> specific path for another. I certainly had no image at all of an M-1 rifle
>> mechanism opened for inspection.
>>
>> But I had tinkered with things that required several fingers to hold
>> several parts in place at once.  Spring-loaded parts had occasionally
>> snapped down on a fingertip. And sweaty fingers slip on oiled metal. Until
>> you asked, I didn't wonder how I'd understood that line without pausing.
>> Language, the brain, and Pynchon dancing at their best.
>>
>> Now, "bags of chuckling glass"... *that* gives me trouble.
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 1:20 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> V584.5-19   If Katspiel had enough energy to leave the sun’s field
>>> forever, then it has left these kind round beings in eternal exile, with no
>>> chance of ever being gathered back home, doomed to masquerade as ball
>>> bearings, as steelies in a thousand marble games—to know the great thumbs of
>>> Keokuk and Puyallup, Oyster Bay, Inglewood—Danny D’Allesandro and Elmer
>>> Ferguson, Peewee Brennan and Flash Womack . . . where are they now? where do
>>> you think? they all got drafted, some are dead on Iwo, some gangrenous in
>>> the snow in the forest of Arden, and their thumbs, first rifle inspection in
>>> Basic, GI’d, driven deep back into childhood as little finger sweat-cams off
>>> M-1 operating handle, thumb pushing down follower still deep in breech, bolt
>>> sshhOCK! whacks thumb oh shit yes it hurts and good-by to another unbeatable
>>> and legendary thumb, gone for good back to the summer dust, bags of
>>> chuckling glass, bigfooted basset hounds, smell of steel playground slides
>>> heating in the sun),
>>>
>>> What does "sweat-cams" mean?
>>
>>
>
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l