{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2596",
    "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": 2596,
    "subject": "John Crowley committee, re: ES: why?",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2001-04-21T17:52:30+00:00",
    "last": "2001-04-22T22:03:33+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0328@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at sirius.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-21T17:52:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) John Crowley committee, re: ES: why?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Adam wrote about ENGINE SUMMER, including this bit:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "The other clues fit in with the suspicion aroused by this one.  Near the\nstart of the fifth facet of the second crystal, Rush asks \"Do you know this\nstory better than I do?\" and the angel replies: \"Go on.  It's not for my\nsake you tell it.\"  At first this seems to have an obvious meaning: Rush\ntells the story for the sake of the city of angels as a whole.  But on\nfurther thought, this doesn't really work.  If the angel knows Rush's story,\nthen so does the city.  If the angel is talking about how _this_ Rush will\ntell the story, then she doesn't know this either.  So for who else's sake\ncould Rush be telling the story?  In light of the preceding clue, I submit\nthat the answer is Rush himself; and ultimately Rush's host, who will thus\nbe able to prolong his \"possession\" by Rush."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "There is also the obvious metafictional answer: it is not for the angels,\nnor their city, but only for the reader of ENGINE SUMMER.  This ties in\nwith the large and complex \"reader/text\" mode (where Rush is like a text\nand the recording angel is like a reader; and they are all fictions in a\nstory, trying to work out another story, for a reader who is above and\nbeyond them).  Unfortunately this has a side-effect of implicating the real\nreader with the torture.\n\n\"Why are you torturing me?\"\n\n\"To entertain the reader.  Look, it is working--she smiles!\"\n\n=mantis=\n\nSirius Fiction\nCatalog and errata sheet at http://www.sirius.com/~mantis/"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0332@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Adam Stephanides",
        "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-04-22T22:03:33+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: (urth) John Crowley committee, re: ES: why?",
      "in_reply_to": "<urth-v0030-0328@digest.urth.net>",
      "reply_link": "subject",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Hello, Michael:\n\nYou seem to have sent two posts to the urth list, identical in text, but one\nwith the above subject line and the other with the subject line \"Re: ENGINE\nSUMMER: why?\"  Did you accidentally send out the wrong post?  I would like\nto hear more about this \"John Crowley committee\"!\n\n--Adam"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}