{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3414",
    "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": 3414,
    "subject": "PEACE: the Coldhouse unicorn",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-08-20T19:36:48+00:00",
    "last": "2002-08-20T19:36:48+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0208-1580@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-08-20T19:36:48+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) PEACE: the Coldhouse unicorn",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "If we are considering Charlie Turner as a \"unicorn\" then we might also\nconsider the ghost of the coldhouse prank as one, too.\n\nThis immediately makes a lot of sense, really: since we are told that the\nmotive of Dan French in telling the tale to the reporter is to distract the\nreporter from his \"muckraking\" goal.  The coldhouse prank, as it is used,\nis literally a red herring used by one character against another!  Motive:\nto keep the reporter from getting information truly damaging to the company\nand/or morale.  Method: a wild goose chase (which itself finds a funny echo\nin the story of the Sidhe that French tells Weer).\n\nWeer might not have been the culprit, after all -- in fact, the whole thing\ncould be just an urban legend, an event which never really happened yet is\nspoken of enough that employees are familiar with it.\n\nOver the years we have spent a lot of time trying to figure out the Weer\nangle of the coldhouse prank (motive, timing, etc.), and in doing so we may\nhave been as misled as the reporter, if the ghost is another unicorn.\n\nQuick switch back to the sepia photos:  part of the problem is a\ntime-splice, right?  Because Weer expects his secretary to answer his\nsummons and is surprised by this strange woman, it is as though he thought\nhe was at the point in time when he had just received the letter and photos\nfrom Charlie Turner, when actually it is much later . . . perhaps later\nenough that the photos, formerly fresh, are now clearly aged, and his\nsecretary has been replaced.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}