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

[jochen stremmel]

Don't mention it! I'm very grateful to Mike and to Dave, you and all the
others who chime in when Mike picks a quote to ask about words or a phrase
of that wonderful book (that's truly full of wonders). Each and every
question is worth to be asked – even the ones Mike answers himself. And
guess how many books could stand that test?

2015-03-01 15:31 GMT+01:00 Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com>:

> Thank you, Jochen! By the end of the paragraph I was in outdoor
> playgrounds -- actually went Googling this morning to learn whether
> baseball base-bags had ever been filled with glass beads! -- and entirely
> missed the marble/pinball connection.
>
> On Sun, Mar 1, 2015 at 8:56 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?
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
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