AtD translation: the ladies who work on the line

[Mark Kohut]

I third Jamie's suggestion. I think Pynchon extended the meaning of
"working on the line"--a factory line is where THIS exact phrase comes
from, it seems, with such a phrase and concept as 'the chorus line".

>From the kitchen use etymology (which might also go back to naval
origins), the phrase is "working the line" since the workers ARE the
line itself not just working a manufacturing assembly line.

On 1/19/18, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Jamie's suggestion sounds right to me because of the grouping with whiskey
> and gambling, although I've never heard "on the line" in connection with
> what Western pulps and 'Gunsmoke' delicately called "dance-hall girls."
>
> I Googled Cripple Creek's history of gold mining and labor conflict,
> thinking there might have been some stage of processing with workers lined
> up along an ore sluice or conveyor belt, but no luck there.
>
> On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 9:05 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I'm thinking the kitchen in a restaurant, as in "line cook", but I'm not
>> sure if there's any other meaning I'm not aware of.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 8:34 AM, Jamie McKittrick <jamiemckit at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> At risk? Soldiers lay their lives on the line. Women of certain
>>> professions lay their asses on the line with each new client. Oftentimes
>>> literally. It may be referring to production lines but they came later
>>> on.
>>>
>>> On 19 January 2018 at 08:39, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> P86.3-14   In the broken and soon-enough-interrupted dreams close to
>>>> dawn in particular, Webb would find himself standing at some divide,
>>>> facing
>>>> west into a great flow of promise, something like wind, something
>>>> like light, free of the damaged hopes and pestilent smoke east of
>>>> here—sacrificial smoke, maybe, but not ascending to Heaven, only high
>>>> enough to be breathed in, to sicken and cut short countless lives, to
>>>> change the color of the daylight and deny to walkers of the night the
>>>> stars
>>>> they remembered from younger times. He would wake to the day and its
>>>> dread.
>>>> The trail back to that high place and the luminous promise did not run
>>>> by
>>>> way of Cripple, though Cripple would have to serve, hopes corroded to
>>>> fragments—overnight whiskey, daughters of slaves, rigged faro games,
>>>> the
>>>> ladies who work on the line.
>>>>
>>>> What does "work on the line" mean here?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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