AtD translation: the ladies who work on the line

[Jochen Stremmel]

A-and if you want to know how "Butte" is spoken go to the first word of the
first chapter in Jon A. Jackson's (only not crime) novel Go By Go that I
recommend.

J

2018-01-19 16:02 GMT+01:00 Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>:

> Found it. Thanks all for replying.
>
> https://books.google.ca/books/about/Women_on_the_Line.html?id=dWPZygAACAAJ
>
> On Fri, Jan 19, 2018 at 9:58 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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?
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20180119/da18fe00/attachment.html>