{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1416",
    "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": 1416,
    "subject": "The Wonderful Hierogrammate of Oz",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-03-05T17:36:49+00:00",
    "last": "1999-03-05T17:36:49+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0024-0043@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Mitchell A. Bailey",
        "address": "mab at lindau.net"
      },
      "date": "1999-03-05T17:36:49+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) The Wonderful Hierogrammate of Oz",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hey guys. Having devoured Robert Borski’s _Fifth Head of Cerberus_ site\nand communicating with him re it, he suggested I check out this list.\nI’ve been reading the archives (..through the arch to the other end of\nthe big room and down the back stairs into the hidden door to Master\nUltan’s lightless study in the nethermost stack...) and lurking around\nup to now. I must say your discussions have already vastly augmented my\nappreciation of Wolfe.\n\nAnyway, to my point: There was a recent line of discussion about\nallusions to “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” in _The Eyeflash Miracles_\n(which thus far I haven’t read). That pricked my ears up because I had\nthought I detected a more subtle allusion in _Urth of the New Sun_, the\nchapter entitled “The Captain”:\n\n“...we halted before great doors...These...swung slowly and ponderously\nopen of themselves, revealing a long vista of marmoreal arches- each at\nleast a hundred cubits high- down which played such light as was never\nbefore seen upon any world that circled a star, light silver, gold, and\nberylline [light blue-green] by turns...\nThe doors shut behind us with a crash...”\n\nIsn’t that a pretty fair description of the entry to the Wizard’s\nhallway leading to his audience chamber in the movie? The endless\nmarmoreal arches (some dictionary entries for “marmoreal”  include an\nillustration very like the scene from “Oz”) and their unreal lighting of\ncourse was provided by the studio’s backdrop-painters.\n\n“...Gunnie and the remaining hands recoiled in fear at all this and had\nto be driven through the doorway...”\n\nThe Cowardly Lion’s reluctance to enter the hall!"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}