{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/263",
    "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": 263,
    "subject": "How many acts?",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-11-22T08:15:15+00:00",
    "last": "1997-11-22T08:15:15+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0005-0400@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Charles Dye",
        "address": "raster at highfiber.com"
      },
      "date": "1997-11-22T08:15:15+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) How many acts?",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Mantis writes:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Re: the length of the play and the completeness of the drama we are\nshown.  First off, please count the number of times the stage\ndirection \"stage darkens\" appears--this traditionally indicates the\nend of one \"act\" and the beginning of the next \"act.\"  (The dramatic\nequivalent of chapters, I suppose.)  I count five, myself, but I also\nthink the play has been cut off: so six acts, at least."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "What always strikes me about this play (I guess I was reading Tom Swift\nwhen the teacher covered Persian creation myths) is a sort of pervasive\nShakespearean quality.  Characters are constantly entering and\ndeparting as the actors are recycled.  Comedy by mistaken identity,\nplus we get at least one fool who demonstrates his foolishness through\na torrent of clever wordplay.  And the ends of acts are marked by\nrhyming couplets.\n\nNot only are we missing the seventh act, but we can't be sure we've\nseen all of the sixth.  Look at the last line (Severian's, of course.)\nIt rhymes and it scans, but it's too short.  Lupine ambiguity ....\n\nraster at highfiber.com"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}