{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2414",
    "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": 2414,
    "subject": "PEACE: Olivia's house expanded?",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2000-10-22T17:05:15+00:00",
    "last": "2000-10-25T01:36:11+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0043@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-22T17:05:15+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PEACE: Olivia's house expanded?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Roy wrote"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "He describes his aunt's house as having \"rambling walls that never ran\nstraight for more than one room at a stretch\" (p.40), and in his\nmuseum-roomed house there is \"the smaller of the halls, the crooked one\"\n(p.135), and \"Down the corridor and through my aunt Olivia's solarium\"\n(p.79). There is a flower garden on one side of the room he wakes up in on\nthe first page, as there was on one side of his aunt's house. Could it be?\nHis memory mansion superimposed on the house where he was living for much of\nthe time period covered by the book? Where he in fact heard his aunt's voice\nsaying \"Den, darling, are you awake in there?\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Crafty Roy seems to be saying that the memory mansion was begun on the\ngrounds and form of Olivia's house.  Outrageous!  And yet, here is another\nstrange detail that may back him up: one of the only other mentions of elm\ntrees in the book tells us that elms are along the street in front of\nOlivia's house.\n\nOr sneaky Roy might be saying that the memory palace (i.e., a purely\ncerebral construction) has its mneumonic foundation in Olivia's house.\n\nFWIW, Olivia's house is on the same block as John Weer's house, but across\nthe alley (and thus on a different street).  Since many of the streets have\ntree names, does this mean that Olivia's house is on \"Elm Street\" (which is\nnot one of the given street names) and the other streets have their name\ntrees along them, too?\n\nBack to memory mansion: the implication is that Den died and was buried in\nthe yard of his mansion, right?  (If we want to cling to the literal\ninterpretation and avoid the yawning chasm of pure solipsism.)  Like Elvis,\netc.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0049@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Roy C. Lackey",
        "address": "rclackey at stic.net"
      },
      "date": "2000-10-25T01:36:11+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re:PEACE: Olivia's house expanded?",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0043@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "mantis wrote:\n\n<<Crafty Roy seems to be saying that the memory mansion was begun on the\ngrounds and form of Olivia's house.  Outrageous!>>\n\n<<Or sneaky Roy might be saying that the memory palace (i.e., a purely\ncerebral construction) has its mneumonic foundation in Olivia's house.>>\n\n    Or both. If Wolfe himself maintained that the museum-roomed house did\nnot in fact exist, but was a supernatural or mental aberration, then it\nwould seem that not even he had any clear-cut idea of its structure. Still\n(and I'm not really invested in this notion), Den was rich and he had to\nlive _somewhere_. The remark to Lois about the house in town he wanted to\nown leads me to Olivia's old house; there just aren't any other candidates,\nunless it be the unmentioned home of Julius Smart, who also had to be living\n_somewhere_, and it wasn't Olivia's house, because that was already the town\nlibrary.  And there was at least one other room from her house in his memory\nmansion, the one with the Napoleon figure. And we agree that not all of the\ndescribed rooms ever actually existed (e.g., the Persian room).\n\n    Then there are the nitty-gritty details few here like to belabor, such\nthat at the time of Den's imaginary visit to Dr. Van Ness, where he sought\nmedical advice for his non-existent stroke, Den was then new to the\npresidency, yet the doctor advised him to exercise in his \"large garden\". I\ndon't think the huge house that is implied by the memory mansion, complete\nwith flower garden, could have been built in the time available.\n\n<<Back to memory mansion: the implication is that Den died and was buried in\nthe yard of his mansion, right?  (If we want to cling to the literal\ninterpretation and avoid the yawning chasm of pure solipsism.)  Like\nElvis,etc.>>\n\n    Could be. The elm tree _was_  just outside his window, and was to be\nplanted on his grave.\n\nRoy"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}