Not P but Moby-Dick (100)

[Mark Kohut]

The mallet is LIKE a cork.....

On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 9:08 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The only problem is that you don't pound a glass harmonica, and there's no
> cork involved in it, as far as I can determine. The other possibility is
> that he was tuning the glass harmonica, but I don't know how that works
> either.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 12:06 PM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> tarred fiber. Oakum is a type of rope made of tarred fibre. It is
>> normally used to fill gaps. The main traditional use of oakum was in
>> shipbuilding. It was used for caulking, It was used to fill areas between
>> timbers in wooden vessels and the deck planking of iron and steel ships.
>>
>> I think it means that the wooden mallet is like a cork as it pounds down
>> the oakum caulking.      As the mallet pounds it is like playing a
>> harmonica.
>>
>> On Thu, Apr 4, 2024 at 10:52 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> From Chapter 127:
>>>
>>> He’s always under the Line—fiery hot, I tell ye! He’s looking this
>>> way—come, oakum; quick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork,
>>> and I’m the professor of musical glasses—tap, tap!”
>>>
>>> Is the "cork" here a stopper for a bottle, or is it something else? What
>>> does it have to do with musical glasses (glass harmonica)?
>>> --
>>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>>
>>