{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/1637",
    "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": 1637,
    "subject": "Digest urth.v027.n002",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1999-05-20T14:55:40+00:00",
    "last": "1999-05-20T14:55:40+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0027-0007@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Parmenter",
        "address": "dan at lec.com"
      },
      "date": "1999-05-20T14:55:40+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest urth.v027.n002",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "From: Geoff Alex Cohen <gac at cs.duke.edu>\nUltan has an assistant, Cyby, who is described as: \"...a stocky, very \nerect man of forty or so with a flat, pale face.\" and  \"Cyby had a high \nsquare forehead, from which his graying hair was in retreat. It made his \nface seem small and a trifle babyish...\"\n\nNow, this is a fairly decent description of Wolfe, especially in 1980.\nAlso, the symbolism of Cyby as apprentice to Ultan implying Wolfe\nseeing himself as the apprentice to Borges is too good to be an\naccident."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've often wondered if Cyby was based on anyone.  For a while I was\nconvinced that he was based on Norman Thomas DiGiovanni, the\ncontroversial Borges translator.  The one photo of him I'd seen seemed\nto fit Wolfe's description of Cyby, but it's not exactly a detailed\ndescription.  Wolfe is quite bald and was by then, but that hardly\ndisproves your hypothesis.\n\nLex Shellac"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}