{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1397",
    "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": 1397,
    "subject": "Zoetics",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "1999-02-26T13:37:31+00:00",
    "last": "1999-02-26T19:14:56+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0016@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Parmenter",
        "address": "dan at lec.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-02-26T13:37:31+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Zoetics",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "From: CRCulver at aol.com\nThe Salamander, according to ancient Greek belief, could survive in fire.\nJorge Luis Borges, in _El Libro de Seres Imaginarios_ (The Book of Imaginary\nBeings), wrote an article on the Salamander and Wolfe took it, like many of\nBorges' creatures (Baldanders, etc.) for the BotNS."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "But my point was this: Kevin Maroney put forth the following hypothesis:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "(Remember that most/all of the animal species of Urth except humans were\ndriven extinct at some point in the past, and the animals present in the\nBook are alien replacements which approximate the original species.\nDestriers aren't horses, they're alien horse-like beings."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "So the idea here is:\n\nAlzabo - replacement for hyenas (I have my doubts about this, but...)\nDestrier - replacement for horses\n\nNow you'll notice that by this hypothesis the replacement animals do\nnot have the same names as the originals.  What then, are we to make\nof references in the text to animals that *do* have the original\nnames, e.g. dogs.  I suggested that according to the Wolfean Naming\nConvention (put forth in CASTLE OF THE OTTER I believe) of \"everything\nis exactly what it says it is\" and so perhaps, if the text refers to a\n\"dog\" we should assume that this is indeed a dog (a rather large\none).  Now, given these observations, what then are we to make of the\nSalamander being called a Salamander?  Obviously it's not a Salamander\nas we know it, rather it seems to partake of the \"mythic\" or Borgesian\nSalamander.  This observation suggests that perhaps the Wolfean Naming\nConvention, at least as I have applied it, may not actually hold, at\nleast not in the strict sense that I am suggesting here.\n\nSo the basic question then is this: what animals other than humans (if\nany) are still around?  We are told that the Beast-Handlers take a sow\nin marriage (though I have argued in the past that this might just be\na misinterpretation by the uneductated people of Severian's time of\nthe term \"animal husbandry\"), and so what is this sow?\n\nD"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0017@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Kevin J. Maroney",
        "address": "kmaroney at crossover.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-02-26T19:14:56+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) Zoetics",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0024-0016@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "At 01:37 PM 2/26/99 -0800, you wrote:\nAlzabo - replacement for hyenas (I have my doubts about this, but...)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Wolfe has explicitly stated that the Alzabo was the replacement for the\nhyena because it was an animal that laughed. I don't remember if this was\nin _Castle of the Otter_ or in some other work. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "I suggested that according to the Wolfean Naming\nConvention (put forth in CASTLE OF THE OTTER I believe) of \"everything\nis exactly what it says it is\" and so perhaps, if the text refers to a\n\"dog\" we should assume that this is indeed a dog (a rather large\none).  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Difficult question: Are the rats in the library actually \"writing\", or is\nthis a metaphor? If the former, they are no longer terrestrial rats; if the\nlatter, \"everything is exactly what it says it is\" doesn't hold. \n\n\nWombat, a.k.a. Kevin Maroney kmaroney at crossover.com\nKitchen Staff Supervisor, New York Review of Science Fiction\nhttp://ebbs.english.vt.edu/olp/nyrsf/nyrsf.html"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}