{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/113", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 113, "subject": "Ernie Cotha", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "1997-07-22T22:02:00+00:00", "last": "1997-07-22T23:53:18+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "m.driussi", "address": "m.driussi at genie.com" }, "date": "1997-07-22T22:02:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Ernie Cotha", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Reply: Item #5064841 from URTH at LISTS.BEST.COM@INET#\n\nMore about \"The Changeling\":\n\nErnie Cotha is the character who picks up the narrator while\nhitchhiking. He also appears in the fourth grade picture, standing\nin front of Peter Palmieri, who has taken Pete Palmer's place. Ernie\nis thus Pete's age but doesn't seem to have been in the army.\n\nOTOH, Golgotha =does= appear in the story, since the Peter Pan island\nhas a knobby hill on it where narrator and Paul find Peter and three\nboys, whose wooden swords with cross-pieces are stuck in the ground\nand nobody moves to get them. I.e., there are three, maybe four\ncrosses stuck in the sand on top of the hill. FWIW.\n\nIf Peter Pan looks eight years old in 1964, then his year of birth\nwould be 1956. Papa is worried that he will leave the Palmieris soon\nsince the family fiction is becoming unsustainable--Mama has to claim\nto have given birth to Peter when she was in her fifties, now.\n\nMaria plays the role of Wendy to Peter's Pan. When Pete Palmer hit\nMaria with a rock, it was Peter who attacked him, perhaps setting\nmany things in motion.\n\nIf Peter Pan has determined that it is time to change families, it\nmight be that he is going to set himself up as the son of crazy\nPete--we can imagine the townsfolk saying, \"Little Pete looks just\nlike his dad at that age--look at this fourth grade photo from 1944.\"\n(Shades of \"Suzanne Delage,\" oooo . . . ) As a final bit of revenge.\n\nThese dates make me wonder if the Wolfe short \"Houston, 1943\" has any\nbearing on this? (In anthology TROPICAL CHILLS, fwiw.)\n\nIs it significant that when Peter Pan first shows up in the Palmieri\nhouse he sleeps on an \"army\" cot? It certainly presages Pete\nPalmer's stint in the army. If Pete was in the army and in Korea\nbefore the war, he must have joined when he was younger than sixteen.\n\nTIMELINE (revised)\n 1931 -- Maria Palmieri born in Chicago; birth of US soldiers who\nwill be eighteen years old as Korean War begins.\n 1932 -- Palmieris move to Cassonsville, where 8 year old Peter\nappears and warps reality around him.\n 1935 -- fourth grade class of 1944 born (kindergarten for most\nat age five, fourth grade for most at age nine); narrator Pete\nborn in Cassonsville?\n 1939 -- Peter is Maria's twin brother.\n 1940 -- Paul Palmieri born in Cassonsville. \n 1944 -- fourth grade photo (in spring); Pete wrestles with\neternally eight-years-old Peter Palmieri over fate of a frog (and\nPete had hit Maria with a rock); Pete and family leave\nCassonsville (change names?) (in summer).\n 1945 -- fire burned old newspapers.\n 1948 -- \n 1949 -- Pete's father dies in Buffalo while Pete in army in\nKorea before war, teaching demolitions. Pete would be age\nfourteen?\n 1950 -- Korean War begins. Pete would be age fifteen.\n 1953 -- War ends. POW exchange, Pete refuses and goes to China\nwhere he works in a textile mill. Birth year of Paul Palmieri's\n1954 Chevy, which he will rebuild himself (just as Pete Palmer is\nbuilt and rebuilt).\n 1956 -- \n 1959 -- Pete back in US, faces court martial.\n 1964 -- out of US prison, Pete (changes name?) goes to\nCassonsville. Pete would be age twenty-nine. \n\nThe eight year marks are there because every eight years Peter Pan\nhas to shift things a little. Also \"twins\" and \"one mortal/one\nimmortal\" go very well with \"eight years,\" according to Robert Graves\nat least. Sacred king/tanist stuff, tied to sun/moon cycles of\neclipse. Since it seems likely that Pete has finally been usurped\nby the fourth cycle, I wanted to plot the other ones and see if\nanything might show up. Pete's father's death =might= be a year\nearlier than my guess--this would line it up. Year 1956 =might= be\nthe point when commie Pete changes his mind again and begins attempts\nto return to USA.\n\n(FWIW and if anybody couldn't tell, this really =is= one of my\nfavorite stories!)\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jim Jordan", "address": "jbjordan at gnt.net" }, "date": "1997-07-22T23:53:18+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Ernie Cotha", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\tIn terms of my other post, which suggests that \"The Changeling\" is largely\nabout the Catholic Church, perhaps Ernie Cotha is supposed to be a Polish\nname, to go with the Italian Palmieris. Maybe someone can improve on that.\nI grew up in the South, and so am not super familiar with names like\n\"Cotha\" and where they might point.\n\nNutria" } ] } ] }