{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2759",
    "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": 2759,
    "subject": "Gene Wolfe, levels of fame",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-08-03T13:50:54+00:00",
    "last": "2001-08-03T13:50:54+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0602@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-08-03T13:50:54+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Gene Wolfe, levels of fame",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I had a conversation with Gene Wolfe a few years ago now, and we got the\nimportant topic over with quickly and then just chatted about things that\nwere of more interest and more important in the bigger picture.\n\nHe has ridden a camel before.\n\nI don't remember right now how we got to camels, but I'm not straining\nmyself because the one topic I'm trying to tell you about today is \"levels\nof fame,\" and I do recollect how we got there.\n\nSome short time before the time we were talking, a Chicago area newspaper\nhad run a piece on him.  (That's a whole story in itself--like many things,\nit had a long lead time, and oddly enough I knew about it early on.  Well\nit seems odd to me, you probably think it quite natural.)  I asked him how\nit was received and he said it was good; he would be out watering the front\nlawn and some car going by would honk, and the smiling people waving, while\nhe looked up at them with a \"Who are you?\" expression.  Strangers at the\nmarket saying \"Hi Gene!\"  Stuff like that.\n\nSo then we were talking about levels of fame.  He said that Stephen King's\nlevel of fame is, or looks to be, something like a curse; he remembered\nwhen \"Steve\" used to come to conventions, and then some fans would camp on\nhis hotel door-step.  As his fame continued to rocket up, well . . . he\nstopped going to conventions.\n\nThus the \"King\" level is burdensome.\n\nBut now Anne McCaffrey, there's a level of fame!  Gene Wolfe told me about\nthe times he has seen lines of fans at conventions waiting to get books\nsigned (you've been there, you know what it is like), but the McCaffrey\nfans--grown women and men, fanning themselves in aggitation, murmuring\n\"Anne McCaffrey, Anne McCaffrey.\"  So revved up their faces flush, they\nburst into tears.\n\nGene Wolfe is really impressed with that.\n\nSo look, you: I'm not telling you what to do.  I'm just saying, when you go\nto the conventions, when you are waiting in the line for Gene Wolfe to sign\nyour copy of THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN, go ahead and let your enthusiasm\nshow.  Don't hold it in like some sort of stoic or ashamed fanboy: let your\neyes sparkle, hop with excitement, faint if you like, or burst into joyous\ntears when you reach the table.\n\nI'm talking to you, men.  (Of course women can do the same if they like.)\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}