{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1222",
    "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": 1222,
    "subject": "Laura/Madonna/Marlene Dietrich",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-10-22T08:53:47+00:00",
    "last": "1998-10-22T08:53:47+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0020-0090@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "John Bishop",
        "address": "jbishop at blkbrd.zko.dec.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-10-22T08:53:47+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Laura/Madonna/Marlene Dietrich",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Oh, I didn't mean to imply that Wolfe was thinking\nof Madonna--I was remarking on my failure to properly\nunderstand Laura until I could find a analogue in the\ncurrent world.\n\nThis is a problem with all fiction--readers must have\nsome way to understand what they read, and often it is\nby analogy with the already known (cognitive science\nimplies we start by trusting our mouth, then the hands,\nthen the eyes...ever enlarging circles of knowledge,\neach built on the one before).\n\nFor example, historian Colin McEvedy refers to Greek\n\"science\" of the classic era as a \"fad\"--a wildly popular\ndiversion with no significant consequence.  This makes its\nfailure to spark an industrial revolution understandable\nin a way which calling it \"science\" wouldn't.\n\nWolfe's interest in things sometimes far from my current\nexperience means that often it's hard for me to find the\ncurrent analogue.\n\nIs that clearer?\n\n\t-John"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}