M & D & tangential Pynchon

[Mark Kohut]

...MISC....tangential to Group Read.

''working on the line"..."working the line"...the Line in M & D and
the other morning General
Mattis officially tells the troops to....

."hold the line"

"Straighten up those lines!"----TRP passim....



On 1/19/18, 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?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
>
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