{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/156",
    "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": 156,
    "subject": "Digest urth.v004.n002",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-08-15T19:02:02+00:00",
    "last": "1997-08-15T19:02:02+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0004-0240@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Peter Cash",
        "address": "cash at rsn.hp.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-08-15T19:02:02+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest urth.v004.n002",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Alga wrote:\nI have a reader's guide to Wolfe that mantis sent me, published in 1986 by\nJoan Gordon. She's very uneven, useless on \"Traveler's Song,\" much better on\n\"Seven American Nights,\" which obviously caught her fancy. And one thing she\nnotes, that I'll pass along, about playing Russian roulette with the\nacid-impregnated eggs:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "\"We know that he eats five of the six eggs: his mind may be altered further\non any one of these occasions, or on all, if all the eggs are tainted as the\none in the theater may have been. As for the sixth egg, Nadan believes that\nthe police may have searched his room and stolen it, but there is another\nexplanation. The sixth egg may have been the one containing the\nhallucinogen, and its effects may have caused him to lose a day. Our proof?\n'Seven American Nights' describes only six nights.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Holy Toledo! She's right! I sat down last night and methodically marked\nup the story and the egg-eating instances, and there are indeed only six\nnights and five eggs eaten! \n\nIt's somewhat problematic how Nadan could have lost a night, though. It\nhas to be after he ate the third egg (E3), for at that time all eggs\nwere still accounted for. He mentions eating E3 on the evening of the\n6th day (p. 370 of the new ORB edition), just before going out to dinner\nwith Ardis. Nadan writes of the loss of the egg on what is purportedly\nlate on the 6th night. (I will treat everything between one breakfast\nand another as a \"night\".) After noting the missing egg, Nadan goes on\nto record what happened on his date with Ardis. \n\nThus, if there is a hiatus--a missing night--it must have happened after\nhis date with Ardis, and before his recording of the events that took\nplace during the date. He must have returned to the hotel and eaten\nanother egg. If we assume that this was the psychedelic egg, he would\nthen have spent the next 24 hours wandering about in a trance, perhaps\nregaining consciousness at about the same time as the consumed the egg\non the previous day--and taken up the thread of his narratove where his\nmemory left off.\n\nThe problem with this scenario is that he had already eaten an egg that\nnight (night 5), and it would be against the rules of his little game of\nRussian Roulette to eat two eggs on the same night. By those rules, he\nshould not have eaten another egg until the following evening, as he\ndoes (early on the 6th evening). I suppose it's not impossible that he\nshould break his own rules, but why should we suppose he did? Especially\nafter his torrid date, which he would want to set down into writing as\nquickly as possible (as he appears to do).\n\nClearly, we are _supposed_ to think that the last egg (E5) was the\npsychedelic one. After taking this egg, Nadan writes of footsteps that\n\"jar the building like an earthquake\", of words that sound like thunder,\nof dead Ardis stepping out of the candle flame, and of a hairy face\ncoming through the window. These all sound like acid effects. But\nperhaps he perceives things this way because he has suffered an enormous\nshock and committed a terrible crime. Maybe something _is_ coming in the\nwindow?\n\nWhy does Gordon think that an egg was trifled with in the theater? Who\ndid it? The museum curator? Why would he? \n\nOn some other topics in \"Seven American Nights\":\n\n- The curator shows Nadan some samples of forged writing generated by a\nmachine possessed by the museum. Is this a hint that the notebook may\nhave been written by such a machine? \n\n- The 6th day is in fact Easter. Is this significant? Hmm. And this\nmeans he killed the monster on Good Friday.\n\n- Early on, Nadan makes the throwaway remark that \"...someone on the\nship may have administered some such drug to me\". What are we to make of\nthis? \n\n- Apparently, Nadan's reason for coming to America (the reason he claims\nto have expunged all traces of after finding the missing egg) has\nsomething to do with recovering some Persian miniatures. (After the\nkilling, he writes, \"I might seek to claim the minatures of our heritage\nafter all, and allow the guards to kill me.\") Could such a mission\njustify major skulduggery by agents unknown, such as slipping drugs to\nNadan on the ship or after the landed? \n\nHoping for some insights from you all,\n\nSgt. Rock"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}