{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3435", "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": 3435, "subject": "Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "messages": 9, "voices": 1, "first": "2002-09-03T12:59:04+00:00", "last": "2002-09-03T12:59:10+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ian Lamont", "address": "ian_lamont at harvard.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-03T12:59:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:56 PM 8/23/02 -0400, you wrote:\nMessage-ID: <000901c24a69$721697e0$5ef9c518@robertbo>\nFrom: \"Robert Borski\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: (urth) The Coldhouse Prank\nDate: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 00:53:35 -0500\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nStone Ox writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Robert Borski argues quite eloquently that Ted Singer's father is the\nvictim\nin the coldhouse prank. I don't think this can be right, because the\nvictim\nlived in a boarding house, was locked in on Friday, and nobody noticed he\nwas\nmissing until he was discovered on Monday. If the victim had had a wife\nor\ngirlfriend, surely he would have been discovered sooner." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But look who imparts this information about the weekend tragedy and the\nboarding house connection: Dan French, who, not having been a factory\nemployee at the time, is simply repeating the sanitized version of the story\nas it's been spun down through the years and perhaps even through\nsemi-official channels, since there's been a coverup. (I do, however, and\nfor obvious reasons, like the notion that the victim died on Friday.) He\ndoesn't remember the name of the victim and is completly unaware there is an\neven more sinister side to the entire episode, with a lone person being\nresponsible for the victim's death. As Den also reminds us earlier, such\nstories have a way of becoming \"both faded and embroidered by time,\" which\nresults in a further blurring of the details. And lastly when Dan French\ntells the story of the sidhe, it deviates from the traditional in several\nrespects.\n\nIn other words I think there's plenty of reason to doubt his version of the\nstory.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n\n\n\n--\nFrom: matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMessage-ID: <80256C1E.004D99D7.00 at ldnmta01.guardian.co.uk>\nDate: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 14:42:15 +0100\nSubject: Re: (urth) PEACE: 3 Misses\nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\n\n\nOn 20/08/2002 06:08:34 Roy C. Lackey wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I can make nothing of \"Tyler\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Not having read Peace I have no idea if there's any relevance but the word\ncan mean door or gate keeper. Archaic and obsolete except in Masonic\nLodges where the additional meaning of keeping out the uninitiated applies\nand Tyler is a formal position. To tyle the lodge; bar the doors assured\nthat only the aurhorised are within.\n\nThe more prosaic meaning being a tiler, one who makes, provides or lays\n(roof) tiles. The \"i\" spelling is prfered to the \"y\" after about 1670\nalthough the \"y\" remains more common as a name.\n\nFrom that a cat that frequents roofs. A sneak-thief or burgular.\n\nObscurly; also a c17 shoplifter.\n\nIs that of any help?\n\n\nMatthew\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you \nafter I return on Labor Day.\n\nThanks,\n\nIan Lamont\nAssistant Web Site Manager\nHarvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office\n124 Mount Auburn Street\nCambridge, MA 02138\nTel: (617) 495-8183\nFax: (617) 495-0521" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ian Lamont", "address": "ian_lamont at harvard.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-03T12:59:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:57 PM 8/26/02 -0400, you wrote:\nMessage-ID: <004801c24cb7$be21af80$1f3dc6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>\nFrom: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: (urth) PEACE: 3 Misses\nDate: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 23:19:04 -0500\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nMatthew responding to me:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I can make nothing of \"Tyler\"." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Not having read Peace I have no idea if there's any relevance but the word\ncan mean door or gate keeper. Archaic and obsolete except in Masonic\nLodges where the additional meaning of keeping out the uninitiated applies\nand Tyler is a formal position. To tyle the lodge; bar the doors assured\nthat only the aurhorised are within." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So, Helen Birkhead Tyler yields . . .\n\ntorch + shininghead (?) + gate keeper(?)\n\nflame-topped gate keeper?\n\nLike the cherubim with flaming swords at the gates of Eden, guarding the way\nto the tree of life?\n\n-Roy\n\n\n--\nMessage-ID: <14C3784DB7932F458F3A929D779546400235D648 at smtexmb02.siebel.com>\nFrom: \"Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\" \nTo: \"'urth at urth.net'\" \nSubject: (urth) Coldhouse Banshee\nDate: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 09:27:00 -0700\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=iso-8859-1\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nGood heavens ... Stone Ox has brought up a marvellous correspondence,\nand then missed something that ... well, I guess it isn't obvious\nbecause I never saw it before either, but somehow it jumped out of\nhis posting at me:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Jack stays in the barn haunted by the banshee three nights." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "...as does the coldhouse prank victim (Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights).\n\nOkay, then: making the banshee story as abstract as possible... J\nwants very badly a treasure in F's possession. F dislikes / looks down\non J / regards J as a poor recipient for the treasure, but for some\nreason does not give an outright \"No.\" Instead, he sets J to spend three\nnights in a place which should kill him.\n\nNow, one of the things the embedded stories in PEACE seem to do is to\nprovide better or happier endings to some of the situations in Weer's\nlife. So I am moved to speculate that the Coldhouse Prank was not a\nprank at all, but a deliberat attempt to keep a \"real world\" (Weer's\nreality) J from acquiring something that a \"real world\" F did not want\nhim to have but could not deny him.\n\nTo those for whom the book is fresher in their minds than it is in\nmine, then: Do any possible real-world F's and J's come to mind? The\nmost obvious candidate for F would be Julius, who owns the barn /\ncoldhouse... is this even plausible? And if so, who would be J?\n\n(Is this another candidate for when Den \"really\" died?)\n\n--Blattid\n\n\n--\nMessage-Id: \nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"us-ascii\"\nDate: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 10:59:19 -0700\nTo: urth at urth.net\nFrom: Michael Andre-Driussi \nSubject: (urth) Coldhouse Den-die\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nBlattid, regarding the coldhouse prank death, wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "(Is this another candidate for when Den \"really\" died?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, er, yes and no.\n\nIf Weer is lying about his age at the time (invalidating the big anchor for\nthe current operating timeline), then the coldhouse death could be his own,\njust as he might be a dead boy next to his chemistry set.\n\n(And he would lie about his age ostensibly to distance himself from the\nprank if he was the perpetrator, too. In addition to lying about his age\nto avoid facing the fact that he himself died there.)\n\nBut if Weer is not lying about his age, and the victim's details are true,\nthen no, the death cannot be Weer's.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n--\nMessage-ID: <14C3784DB7932F458F3A929D779546400235D64E at smtexmb02.siebel.com>\nFrom: \"Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\" \nTo: \"'urth at urth.net'\" \nSubject: RE: (urth) Coldhouse Den-die\nDate: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 11:23:21 -0700\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=iso-8859-1\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Blattid, regarding the coldhouse prank death, wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "(Is this another candidate for when Den \"really\" died?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Well, er, yes and no.\n\nIf Weer is lying about his age at the time (invalidating the\nbig anchor for the current operating timeline), then the\ncoldhouse death could be his own, just as he might be a\ndead boy next to his chemistry set." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Which was in fact my point ... This is just a goof, really, but\nit's a stfnal idea that I've played with many time and never\ncome up with a good storyline for ... I've often had the idea\nof, well, if you can have multiple-sheaf futures, why not multiple-\nsheaf pasts? And then what if Alden, the Reasonably Friendly Ghost,\nactually has lived multiple versions of his life and died at\nseveral different points along the timeline ... — It would\ncertainly clear up (by making irrelevant) many of the\ninconsistencies in the storyline(s). So he died of a stroke, and\nhe died playing with his chemistry set, and he died in the\ncoldhouse prank ... Just a goof, as I said.\n\nBut I'm dead serious about the coldhouse == the barn.\n\n--Blattid\n\n\n--\nDate: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 18:27:21 +0000 (GMT)\nFrom: Josh Geller \nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: (urth) The Devil In A Forest and St. Olaf of Norway\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\n\nThe Devil In A Forest is perhaps a minor work, but an extremely\ninteresting one.\n\nThere's a hamlet in the woods, the woodcutters who are relics of a\nprevious stage of civilization, a bandit who is a woodcutter aristocrat, a\nwitch who knows the technology of the old civilization, megalithic ruins\nthat are 'not a town' etc.\n\nThis is one of the most valuable books for people trying to understand the\nold civilization of Europe.\n\nThere's a story about King Olaf the Holy of Norway. See, it was generally\nknown that he was a reincarnation of Olaf Geirstadtalf, who was buried in\nthe mound at Geirstadt. There had been a prophecy to the effect, he had\nOlaf G.'s sword that came out of the mound etc. The problem was that St.\nOlaf was occupied with the forcible Christianization of Norway, and it\nsort of looked bad that a Christian king should be an incarnate elf. So\nthey did a little stage play, where the King and some of his companions\n(who would also have been out of the mound, by the old way) went to Olaf\nG's mound on horseback and one of the companions asked the King if\nhe didn't remember when they had been there before, and St. Olaf answered\nthat it was not possible for a person to live more than once, because you\nlived once, died once and were resurrected once on the Last Day. Then he\nwas overcome with emotion and rode away, because (in my view) what he was\nsaying was so much at conflict with the reality.\n\nWolfe has a good grasp on all of this, as he shows in 'Devil' and also in\nthe Latro books.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n.\n\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you \nafter I return on Labor Day.\n\nThanks,\n\nIan Lamont\nAssistant Web Site Manager\nHarvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office\n124 Mount Auburn Street\nCambridge, MA 02138\nTel: (617) 495-8183\nFax: (617) 495-0521" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ian Lamont", "address": "ian_lamont at harvard.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-03T12:59:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:57 PM 9/1/02 -0400, you wrote:\nMessage-ID: <013101c25166$e9aa2070$d5456c42@akt>\nFrom: \"Alice K. Turner\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: FW: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth\nDate: Sat, 31 Aug 2002 23:23:06 -0400\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nhartshorn,\n\nYes, they (discussions, not discussers, necessarily--it remains to be seen)\nare this loony. Help us back to some semblance of sanity." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is it really possible that all the discussions on this list have been this\nloony, and it is only now I come back after some time away that I am able\nto\njudge them properly? :-)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-alga\n\n\n\n\n--\nMessage-ID: <20020901084122.65286.qmail at web40307.mail.yahoo.com>\nDate: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 09:41:22 +0100 (BST)\nFrom: Nicholas Gevers \nSubject: (urth) Newt's main referent\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nConsidering when EXODUS FROM THE LONG SUN was being\nwritten (1994-5), Councillor Newt has a pretty obvious\nreal-life referent: Newt Gingrich, elected Speaker of\nthe US House of Representatives after the unexpected\nRepublican congressional election victories of\nNovember 1994. From what we see of Newt, the\nresemblance is pretty profound...\n\n--Nick Gevers.\n\n__________________________________________________\nDo You Yahoo!?\nEverything you'll ever need on one web page\nfrom News and Sport to Email and Music Charts\nhttp://uk.my.yahoo.com\n\n--" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you \nafter I return on Labor Day.\n\nThanks,\n\nIan Lamont\nAssistant Web Site Manager\nHarvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office\n124 Mount Auburn Street\nCambridge, MA 02138\nTel: (617) 495-8183\nFax: (617) 495-0521" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ian Lamont", "address": "ian_lamont at harvard.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-03T12:59:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:57 PM 8/25/02 -0400, you wrote:\nFrom: StoneOx17 at aol.com\nMessage-ID: <122.160adf50.2a9a3b34 at aol.com>\nDate: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 09:52:52 EDT\nSubject: (urth) PEACE: the tale of the banshee\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"US-ASCII\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nHello,\n\nDespite all the effort spent analyzing many of the embedded stories in Peace,\nthere seems to have been relatively little written in this forum about the\nbanshee story. I think that the participants in this story can be identified\nwith some of the main characters in Peace, and that this story answers the\nquestion of \"what went wrong?\" with Wolfe's relationship to Margaret. Roy\nLackey gave much of the same answer to this question already, without relying\non the hints hidden in the banshee tale, in\nhttp://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0030/0104.html\nbut the banshee story fills in a few more of the details.\n\nMy identification in the story is:\nDen Weer is Jack,\nMargaret Lorn is Molly,\nCarl Lorn is Molly's father,\nJulian Smart is the banshee.\n\nLet's review the banshee story.\n\nMolly's father owns a big farm and Molly is his only child, so whoever\nmarries her inherits the farm. Jack and Molly are in love, but Molly's\nfather doesn't want Molly to marry Jack, \"because Jack had nothing to bring\nto the wedding but his own two hands and a smile.\"\n\nIn the \"what went wrong?\" speech, Weer says \"I was intelligent and\nindustrious; Margaret and I loved one another deeply.\" But when he comes\nback from college, the Depression has wiped out all of his fortune and made\njobs very hard to find. How is he to make a living?\n\nOne possibility would be for Weer to marry Margaret and move to the Lorn's\nfarm. The Lorns likely still have their farm, since they wouldn't have had\nlarge bank loans, because the farm has been in their family for years and\nCarl Lorn is naturally frugal. Even though the income from the farm has been\ngreatly reduced, they can at least grow enough food to feed themselves. It\nwould be reasonable for Weer to help on the farm if he is to marry Margaret;\nshe is the Lorn's only child, and so will inherit the farm. Later in the\nbook, the farmer delivering potatoes to the factory says \"When I was a boy,\nthere wasn't anything anybody could have that was better'n a farm. If a\ndoctor or a banker could marry a widow that had a good one, they'd stop what\nthey was doing and work it.\" This farmer is ten or twenty years older than\nWeer, but taking this and the banshee story together, I conclude that when\nWeer was about to graduate, he and Margaret proposed that they get married\nand that Den move out to the farm and help work it.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFrom the banshee story, we see that Carl Lorn didn't want Weer to marry\nMargaret. He disapproved of selling the egg, and he's tight with money\n(\"only Daddy never gets nothing at the store if he can find something else\nthat'll do\") so Weer has two strikes against him, being Olivia's nephew and\nbeing penniless. In the banshee story, Molly's father tells Jack he'd have\nto spend the whole night in the barn haunted by the banshee and not be thrown\nout; in Weer's real life, Carl probably told Weer that he wouldn't let\nMargaret marry him unless he could support her. So Weer has to take the job\nat the factory (the real-life parallel of the barn); unfortunately, the\ncoldhouse prank kills somebody, and Julius blackmails him into staying at the\nfactory until Julius dies. In this scenario, it doesn't even matter whether\nMargaret knows about the coldhouse prank. Weer can't marry her unless he\nfinds another job which pays better, and he can't leave this job because of\nJulius' blackmail. Eventually, Margaret gets fed up with Weer's inaction and\nmarries Mr. Price (whom we suspect, from his surname, has sufficient money).\n\nThere are some interesting differences between the banshees in Peace and the\nbanshees in Irish folklore. Looking on the web, it seems that in Irish\nfolklore, the banshee is a woman sidhe who wails before somebody is going to\ndie (and most important families have an associated banshee that predicts\ndeaths in that family). In some versions of the legend, if you catch the\nbanshee, she has to tell you who is going to die. However, she only\nforetells deaths, unlike Wolfe's banshee, who causes them. Note that Wolfe\nis playing off the folklore banshee: when his banshee is caught, she does\ntell Jack \"who's to be born,\" although one might suspect that she's lying out\nof spite.\n\nWolfe's banshees are ghosts (quite fittingly for Peace) who are \"the spirits\nof midwives that have killed the baby because someone gave gold to them to do\nit that it might not inherit.\" This gives grounds for identifying the\nbanshee as Julius: in\nhttp://urth.net/urth/archives/v0205/1043.txt.shtml,\nI speculated that Julius may have killed Mr. Tilly so as to inherit the carny\nbusiness, which, while not an exact parallel, is certainly similar.\n\nJack stays in the barn haunted by the banshee three nights. The first two\ntimes, the banshee forces him to speak the name of someone whom she later\nkills, first \"the meanest man [Jack] can think of, a man that robbed\neverybody and never gave poor folk a penny,\" and second, \"a real old lady\nthat was goin' to die anyway.\" The third time, he defeats the banshee. If\nwe identify the banshee with Julius, this is reminiscent of Weer's comment\nthat he recalls uncle Julius clearly \"only at three stages of his life.\" The\nfirst stage is when Julius tells the story of Mr. Tilly. The second stage is\nat aunt Olivia's funeral. And the last is when Julius is an old man and the\npresident. This seems a little strange, because Den lived with Julius for\nquite a while, and this period doesn't seem included in either of these\nstages. However, if we take these three stages as corresponding to the three\nnights in the banshee story, then we are led to suspect that Julius killed\nboth Mr. Tilly and Olivia for their inheritances. We know (since Wolfe has\nconfirmed it) that it was Peacock who actually ran Olivia over in his car,\nbut there are at least two reasons to suspect that Peacock might have\nconspired with Julius: first, Julius Smart and Professor Peacock were good\nfriends, and second, there's the mysterious letter from Peacock to Julius\nthat Weer is unable to read.\n\nIs there any more evidence for this correspondence between the banshee story\nand Weer's life? In the other stories in Peace that we know have parallels\n(the princess and her suitors, and the marid), there is a correspondence\nhidden in the characters' names. The link from Molly to Mary to Margaret\nseems obvious, but I don't see how to get from Jack to Den. Any ideas?\n\n- Stone Ox\n\n--" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you \nafter I return on Labor Day.\n\nThanks,\n\nIan Lamont\nAssistant Web Site Manager\nHarvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office\n124 Mount Auburn Street\nCambridge, MA 02138\nTel: (617) 495-8183\nFax: (617) 495-0521" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ian Lamont", "address": "ian_lamont at harvard.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-03T12:59:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 08:02 PM 8/28/02 -0400, you wrote:\nMessage-ID: <001501c24df5$84ab72b0$d5456c42@akt>\nFrom: \"Alice K. Turner\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\nDate: Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:13:45 -0400\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nCrush, have you met Robert Borski? You're both gifted with imagination plus,\nand should have much to discuss.\n\n-alga" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "For those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page\n(http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),\nI think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--\nFrom: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\nDate: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 08:52:51 -0500\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nThe nice comments I've received recently on my \"articlettes\" have surely\nturned my head.\n\nI do need to thank Blattid for correcting my grammar on the use of the word\n\"inhuma\". Having not read the Short Sun books yet, I see now that my usage\nwas wildly speculative. I've updated the Dionysus article and over the next\nfew days I'll search the other articles for similar mistakes (I'm probably\nstill using the word wrong). If anyone else has any technical comments, they\nwill surely receive a glad hand. :)\n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Dan'l Danehy-Oakes [mailto:ddanehy at siebel.com]\nSent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 5:36 PM\nTo: 'urth at urth.net'\nSubject: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\n\nFor those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page\n(http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),\nI think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion. I\ndefinitely don't agree with every conclusion he reaches (for example,\nI very much doubt that Incus is female, or that Hyacinth a male chem),\nbut, wow, there is some good good stuff here.\n --Blattid\n\n\n--\n\n\n\n\n--\nFrom: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\nDate: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 08:31:22 -0500\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Crush, have you met Robert Borski? You're both gifted with imagination\nplus,\nand should have much to discuss.\n-alga" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've never met Robert Borski, although I enjoyed his recent Peace article. I\nhaven't to my knowledge met anyone on this list, although it is my desire to\ngo to WorldCon one day and put a few faces to the names here.\n:-D\n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Alice K. Turner [mailto:aturner6 at nyc.rr.com]\nSent: Tuesday, August 27, 2002 1:14 PM\nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: Re: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "For those who haven't checked out Crush's Long Sun page\n(http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/),\nI think it ought to be required reading for Long Sun discussion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--\n\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you \nafter I return on Labor Day.\n\nThanks,\n\nIan Lamont\nAssistant Web Site Manager\nHarvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office\n124 Mount Auburn Street\nCambridge, MA 02138\nTel: (617) 495-8183\nFax: (617) 495-0521" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ian Lamont", "address": "ian_lamont at harvard.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-03T12:59:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:57 PM 8/30/02 -0400, you wrote:\nFrom: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth\nDate: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 09:31:57 -0500\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"us-ascii\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nThe following is my response to A. Bin Talal who contacted me off-list but\nhas offered of his own accord for my response to be posted on-list.\n------------------------------------------------------------------\nThanks so much for your comments.\n\nYou say:\nIn Thelxepeia's Mirrors you assert that Hyacinth is male chem, your\narguments for Hyacinth being a chem are very compelling, but do not explain\nhow she became Viron's top prostitute.\n\nResponse\nWell, the story is somewhat vague on exactly how that occurred. It probably\nbegan while she was sold by her (I'll refer to Hyacinth in the feminine)\nfather to be a housemaid. She was attractive and she began to make money for\nsexual favors. From there, she began to take on the necessary modifications\nto make even more money.\n\nYou say:\nThe other arguments about overpowering the pilot could be taken as clues she\nis not human but a chem, a chem female should be stronger then a human\n\nResponse\nTrue, and I consider her over-powering the pilot to be evidence that she is\nchem - not male. Actually, Marble DOES over-power Musk. This brings up a\npoint that I should segregate those arguments that Hyacinth is a MALE chem\nfrom those that show she is MERELY chem.\n\nYou say:\nThe arguments for her being a male are alas unsound, you seem to use\ncircular logic, she is a male because of 'thematic requirement'(which you\nassert there aren't any), the story about Apollo's lover and the church, but\nshe represent that theme because she is a male!! in short you assume she is\nmale, then conclude she is male, your conclusion is correct but you can't\ngeneralize it (I took a course on formal logic, never thinking I will be\nusing it.\n\nResponse\nI don't consider my arguments circular. I consider the story of Hyacinthus\nis to be a thematic *allowance* that she \"could\" reasonably be male but not\na requirement. If one accepts that Hyacinth is chem, then the concept of\nhomosexuality might just as reasonably be satisfied by Silk's stated\ndoppelganger relationship with Sgt. Sand (in Blood's house in Calde of the\nLong Sun). On the other hand, that would still not be homosexuality since\nchems are sexually divergent like bios. Still, Wolfe *could* have used Silks\n\"mentoring\" relationship with Horn on the airship to incorporate that aspect\nof the Apollo-Hyacinthus relationship - Wolfe does a lot of character\nsyncretism in the sub textual themes of the Long Sun (I haven't yet\npublished my essay on Silk and Auk playing duo roles as Hephaestus and as\nAristaeus, or how Mint, Marble, and Rose merge into the Myrtle-nymphs, but I\nwill after I finish reading Robert Graves' \"White Goddess.\")\n\nMy point is that while it \"fits\" for Hyacinth to be male, she doesn't NEED\nto be as IMO Incus NEEDS to be female because of the roll she plays\nregarding Quetzal (the demon-Dionysus) and the roll she plays in the\nAristaeus story (not that Incus particularly needs to be a female, but in\nthe sense that only a female could play those roles).\n\nThe most straight-forward clues that Hyacinth is male (there are weaker\nones) are the following:\n1. Hyacinth's statement:\n\"You know what I look like without all this [make-up and clothes]?...Like a\nboy, only with tits down to my waist.\"\n2. In the Silks conversation with Horn on the airship, discussing why he\ntried to kill himself, Silk talks about Marble's lie about being Moly and\nthe general plight of the chem population *due to the lack* of female chems.\nSilk further points out, \"Some male chems were artisans and farm laborers,\nfrom what I know of them, and a few were servants - butlers and so forth.\"\n3. In the same conversation, Horn also says that Hyacinth behaves physically\nweak and in a female-identifiable manner, because she wants Silk to be\nattracted to her. Just as the fierce lynx, Lion (a female with a male\nname-note that this is specifically pointed out) pretends to be kittenish\nwith Mucor.\n\nAgain, thank you so much for your interest, your arguments really made me\nthink..\n\n\n\n\n--\nFrom: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: RE: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\nDate: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 10:15:12 -0500\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nAfter checking my sources, here's my response to Robert Borski's questions\n(thanks again Mr. Borski):\nRobert Borski said\n\nAccording to you she's a chem. So does this mean that she fabricated the\nstory about her father being a head clerk at the Juzgado? (Newt by my\nreckoning.) And again, is she lying (or implanted with false memories) when\nshe tells Auk that her father is a \"pig's arse\"?\n\nMy response:\nNo and no. Actually Silk says that he went to meet him. I sure her father is\nNOT Newt. Newt is a commissioner at the Juzgado in charge of the Guard\nfinances. Hyacinth's father is a \"head clerk\" of the Fisc. Silk also met\nwith an \"officer\" of the Fisc while he was there. Clearly her father is well\ndown the chain of command. BTW: see the entry on Newt in \"Things of the Long\nSun\".\n\nThere's no reason that her father could not be a chemical person. And as\nSilk discovered in Nightside, a talus can be bribed. What would a talus do\nwith money? Marble explains in Exodus, \"The same thing anyone would do with\nmoney, dear\" So chems are not essentially different from bios when it comes\nto corrupt conduct. Is it so amazing that a chem parent would prostitute his\nchild for money when bios sometimes do it?\n\nActually, the well-flagged concept that chems and taluses can be corrupted\nfor money is sitting around in the story like an unfired gun in a play. I've\nfired it by tapping Hyacinth and her father as examples.\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n----------\nRobert Borski said\nAnd who is the woman described as her dead mother that Hyacinth sees at\nMainframe? Nettle seems to know her (I've theorized elsewhere she's Lime)\n\nMy response:\nThe woman was Hyacinth's mother. It is easier for me to imagine how chems\nwould \"go to Mainframe\" when they die than it is for me to see how it is\ndone with bios. As for Nettle knowing her that's an interesting question,\nbut unless her mother can be clearly identified with a bio female it doesn't\nchange anything. I'm curious about your \"Lime\" theory. I don't find it\nexplained in the Urth archives. In the archives I DID see you make a\nreference to a snide comment by Wolfe regarding Hyacinth's mother in a \"LS\nquestion list\" - what is this?\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n--\nRobert Borski said\nSimply put, are there really that many chems running around outside the\nmilitary and the religious orders, and are they as prone and subject to\ntoxic parenting as your average bios?\n\nMy response:\nWell there's not that many chems running around outside the military --\nrelatively. Marble is the only one I'm aware of in a religious order.\nNon-military chems are rare relative to when the Whorl left Urth, but they\nare not non-existent. No adults in Viron remarks on chems as if they'd never\nseen one before. I suppose if you or I were to walk the streets of Viron, we\nwould no doubt think we saw chems everywhere we looked.\n\n----------------------------------------------------------------------------\n--\nRobert Borski said\nSince you're speculating about someone whose life history does not end with\nSHORT SUN, you also need to read Wolfe's follow-up series because there's an\nevent in there that makes your theory even less tenable. I won't spoil it\nfor you; suffice it to say I don't think rust is the causative agent.\n\n\nI cannot express the pleasure I get from these e-mails.\n\n -- Crush\n\n\n\n\n--\nFrom: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: RE: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\nDate: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 10:35:29 -0500\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nI intended to clip the following Boski question from my response since I\nanswered it in my other recent posting. Failing to clip it makes it look\nlike I'm being sarcastic when that was NOT my intention.\n\n\nRobert Borski said\nSince you're speculating about someone whose life history does not end with\nSHORT SUN, you also need to read Wolfe's follow-up series because there's an\nevent in there that makes your theory even less tenable. I won't spoil it\nfor you; suffice it to say I don't think rust is the causative agent.\n\n\n\n\n\n--\nMessage-ID: <20020830203403.90592.qmail at web14410.mail.yahoo.com>\nDate: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 13:34:03 -0700 (PDT)\nFrom: Jerry Friedman \nSubject: Re: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\n--- James Wynn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The following is my response to A. Bin Talal who contacted me off-list\nbut\nhas offered of his own accord for my response to be posted on-list.\n------------------------------------------------------------------\nThanks so much for your comments." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "You say:\nThe other arguments about overpowering the pilot could be taken as clues\nshe\nis not human but a chem, a chem female should be stronger then a human\n\nResponse\nTrue, and I consider her over-powering the pilot to be evidence that she\nis\nchem - not male." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Why is that inconsistent with her being a healthy young human woman who\nhas experience at fighting? She takes the pilot by surprise, ramming her\nthumbs into her (the pilot's) eyes and kicking her knees until she falls\ndown. Seems quite reasonable to me. Silk thinks Hyacinth blinded the\npilot, but Chenille (I think) disagrees. This is evidence that Hyacinth\nis *not* a chem--someone with superhuman strength could (I imagine)\nobviously blind a person this way by breaking her eyeballs, and probably\nobviously cripple her knees as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Actually, Marble DOES over-power Musk. This brings up a\npoint that I should segregate those arguments that Hyacinth is a MALE\nchem\nfrom those that show she is MERELY chem." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Quite true.\n..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The most straight-forward clues that Hyacinth is male (there are weaker\nones) are the following:\n1. Hyacinth's statement:\n\"You know what I look like without all this [make-up and\nclothes]?...Like a\nboy, only with tits down to my waist.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "She doesn't mean she has a penis. Silk would have spotted that (and then\nwould have nicknamed Hyacinth \"Pinto\"). I don't think this comment is\nparticularly amazing for a slender young woman who has had a breast\nenhancement and tends to speak of her appearance deprecatingly.\nIncidentally, it brings up what I think is one of the stronger criticisms\nof your theory: would Silk really have sex with someone he knew was a\nchem, and if not, could he really be fooled?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "2. In the Silks conversation with Horn on the airship, discussing why he\ntried to kill himself, Silk talks about Marble's lie about being Moly\nand\nthe general plight of the chem population *due to the lack* of female\nchems.\nSilk further points out, \"Some male chems were artisans and farm\nlaborers,\nfrom what I know of them, and a few were servants - butlers and so\nforth.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't see this as a straightforward clue. In fact, I don't see it as\nevidence at all." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "3. In the same conversation, Horn also says that Hyacinth behaves\nphysically\nweak and in a female-identifiable manner, because she wants Silk to be\nattracted to her. Just as the fierce lynx, Lion (a female with a male\nname-note that this is specifically pointed out) pretends to be\nkittenish\nwith Mucor." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "This seems to be completely consistent with her being a tough young woman\nthanks to the life at Orchid's that Chenille describes.\n\nBy far the best clue I see that Hyacinth *could* be a chem is her name, as\nyou pointed out. But I see nothing to contradict the obvious\ninterpretation that she's a bio.\n\nSpeaking of Chenille and names, this seems like a good time to restate my\ntheory that Chenille, who has an ambiguous name, could be a chromosmal\nmale with testicular feminization syndrome (perhaps Tussah's failed\nattempt at a male heir?).\n...\n\nJerry Friedman\n\n__________________________________________________\nDo You Yahoo!?\nYahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes\nhttp://finance.yahoo.com\n\n--" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you \nafter I return on Labor Day.\n\nThanks,\n\nIan Lamont\nAssistant Web Site Manager\nHarvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office\n124 Mount Auburn Street\nCambridge, MA 02138\nTel: (617) 495-8183\nFax: (617) 495-0521" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ian Lamont", "address": "ian_lamont at harvard.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-03T12:59:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:59 PM 8/29/02 -0400, you wrote:\nMessage-ID: <000801c24ef0$d6dfbd60$ddf0c518@robertbo>\nFrom: \"Robert Borski\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\nDate: Wed, 28 Aug 2002 19:12:56 -0500\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Crush, have you met Robert Borski? You're both gifted with imagination\nplus,\nand should have much to discuss.\n-alga" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I've never met Robert Borski, although I enjoyed his recent Peace article." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I\nhaven't to my knowledge met anyone on this list, although it is my desire\nto\ngo to WorldCon one day and put a few faces to the names here.\n\n(Extending a right hand blithely across the aether.) How do you do, Crush!\n\nI've never met anyone on the list either, although Nigel Price and I talked\nabout getting together last spring; alas, while he was in the American\nMidwest, I was in Central Europe. That being said, however, I fear you've\nmisread alga's comments, which were intended not as a suggestion that you\nand I actually meet, but that your work, like mine, is neither valid nor\nsubstantive, but rather falls into the realm of \"fan fiction.\" Like me,\nyou've apparently been \"swimming with undines,\" thus your severe\nintellectual anoxia. Thank the stars she didn't call you my \"partner in\nflakiness,\" like she did Prion (aka Sean Whalen), who promptly left the list\nafter the tirade she leveled against him. And heaven forbid your work ever\nfind acceptance elsewhere; I fear the six essays I wrote on Wolfe that have\nbeen published by The New York Review of Science Fiction have forever\nsullied its reputation (obviously Ms. Turner's essays on John Crowley were\naccepted by an editorial cadre in much more command of its critical\nfaculties). In other words expect a certain amount of ridicule, scorn, and\nderision to your Long Sun exegeses by what is, thankfully, not a large\ncontingent on the list; if you're extremely unlucky, however, as I've been,\nexpect a fair amount of shrillness from you-know-who.\n\nPersonally, I applaud your efforts. I don't agree with many of your\nconclusions, but rather than take a cheap shot at what has obviously been a\nlabor of love, with a fair amount of scholarship (\"Those who have original\nthoughts, post; those who don't, carp\"), I thought I'd ask you a few\nquestions about your Hyacinth essay. According to you she's a chem. So does\nthis mean that she fabricated the story about her father being a head clerk\nat the Juzgado? (Newt by my reckoning.) And again, is she lying (or\nimplanted with false memories) when she tells Auk that her father is a\n\"pig's arse\"? And who is the woman described as her dead mother that\nHyacinth sees at Mainframe? Nettle seems to know her (I've theorized\nelsewhere she's Lime), but wouldn't she have to be a chem--as must be her\nfather? Simply put, are there really that many chems running around outside\nthe military and the religious orders, and are they as prone and subject to\ntoxic parenting as your average bios? Since you're speculating about someone\nwhose life history does not end with SHORT SUN, you also need to read\nWolfe's followup series because there's an event in there that makes your\ntheory even lesss tenable. I won't spoil it for you; suffice it to say I\ndon't think rust is the causitive agent.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n\n--\nFrom: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: RE: (urth) Crush's Page and Quetzal\nDate: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 18:05:38 -0500\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nRegarding essays at http://www.visualclick.com/~jwynn/GeneWolfe/LongSun/\n\nRobert Borski said:\nI fear you've misread alga's comments, which were intended not as a\nsuggestion that you and I actually meet, but that your work, like mine, is\nneither valid nor substantive...In other words expect a certain amount of\nridicule, scorn, and derision to your Long Sun exegeses...\n\nMy response:\nUnfortunately, I'm not so harassed by fraternal greetings and compliments\nthat I can afford to exegete them when they come my way. I'll presume until\ntextually proven otherwise that by \"imagination plus\" Alga meant merely\n\"...plus imagination\" rather than \"...plus something-else-not-so-wonderful.\"\nAs for receiving derision, I should HOPE to converse with someone who feels\nso strongly about the Long Sun series - that's why I published the essays on\na website. So deride away! It's up to the derider however to engage me\nenough to respond. I purpose that no shots will be \"cheap\", I'll do all I\ncan to see that they are hard won.\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\nRobert Borski said\nI thought I'd ask you a few questions about your Hyacinth essay.\n\nMy response:\nI'm working on a response to your questions, but I can't finish until can\ncheck my sources. Still I've received a couple emails offline on the\nchem-Hyacinth theory that follow the same tack, and I'd like to respond to\nthat \"tack\" first.\n\nFirst if people are responding off-list because they feel more comfortable\nfor some reason, yet *really* want to discuss some point, that's fine. But\nif someone responds off-list to keep from *humiliating* me, their concern is\nmisdirected. The purpose of this list, I would guess, is to exchange\nopinions.\n\nSecond, no matter WHAT one believes about Hyacinth, her impressive bosom is\nbursting with lies and slight-of-hands about her *true* nature. As I say in\n\"Thelxepeia's Mirrors,\" the Hyacinth citation is not really finished and\nwon't be until after I re-read the books. I currently ONLY cite the clues\nthat she IS a chem rather than explain the (IMO) mis-directions that she is\nNOT a chem. My conviction currently rests only on affirmative proofs. That's\nonly half the ballgame, I know.\n\nConsequently, while I think I allay certain general concerns like those Mr.\nBorski is asking. I can't really address specific problems like \"if Hyacinth\nis a chem, how does she cry? or \"then why is she CLAIM to be a junkie?\" or\n\"why does she stuff her face with nectarines?\"\n\nAt the end of Silk's discussion with Horn on the airship, Silk says of his\nreasons for trying to kill himself, \"Isn't it obvious [after all I've told\nyou]?\" Well it isn't \"obvious.\" It IS (to me at this point), however,\ninexorable. Still, I welcome all challenges to anything I've published on my\nsite, including this. Just understand that I can't answer\neverything.....yet.\n\nThird, as to my need to read the Short Sun, I guess I will have to read this\none if only to have the credentials to discuss Hyacinth. But I've paid\nenough attention to the Urth list discussion to know she's dies and there is\nsome ambiguity as to how. This is not a spoiler for me because:\nSince Silk and Hyacinth are Apollo and Hyacinthus -- and there is more\nreason than just her name to suggest they are - it is necessary that Silk\nwill directly cause her death - the only question is how.\n\nI'm inclined to disbelieve, though obviously without evidence, that the\nmanner of her death insists that she's bio since every person whose brought\nthis up, felt the need to supply other (less persuasive?) proofs. Unless\nthere is blood all over the walls, it's hard to imagine that it will present\nin more difficult puzzle than why does she produce snot when she cries and\nwhy is her breath warm.\n\nDoes the event in question take place in \"On Blue's Waters?\" I do have that\none already.\n\nCuriously, I kind of expected my other (I thought) controversial theory,\nthat Incus is a woman, to provoke at least as many challenges as Hyacinth's.\nI feel much on much better ground to defend it. Then again, perhaps I *have*\ndefended it better since no one has yet offered a detailed challenge on\nthat.\n\nA sole-proprietor in flakiness,\n-- Crush\n\n\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you \nafter I return on Labor Day.\n\nThanks,\n\nIan Lamont\nAssistant Web Site Manager\nHarvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office\n124 Mount Auburn Street\nCambridge, MA 02138\nTel: (617) 495-8183\nFax: (617) 495-0521" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ian Lamont", "address": "ian_lamont at harvard.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-03T12:59:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:57 PM 9/2/02 -0400, you wrote:\nMessage-ID: <019e01c2521c$941cea00$d5456c42@akt>\nFrom: \"Alice K. Turner\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: (urth) Newt's main referent\nDate: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 21:03:41 -0400\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nGood call, Nick. Some major convention (WorldCon, I guess) was held in, I\nthink, Atlanta in the 80s and Newt, for reasons that I think had to do with\nBruce Sterling, was the banquet speaker. Though I'm not much of a\nconventioneer, I attended this (my parents lived in Atlanta) as a friend of\nLucius Shepard, and, though I never met him there, I'm pretty sure Wolfe was\non hand. I'd only barely heard of Gingrich at that point. But, among the\nmore politicially minded, there was much furor, and a contingent, including\nLucius (but not me), ostentatiously walked out of the banquet as Gingrich\nwas introduced. Can't remember much about the speech or the evening\notherwise except that both were boring--but that you expect. Gingrich seemed\nmore menacing later, but that was the explicit SF connection. (Sorry to be\nso vague on particulars, but I've sort of accidentally attended a few\nconventions or parts of them; the only ones I remember well are those I'd\nplanned in advance, and this was a last-minute thing--if it wasn't Atlanta I\napologize, but it was somewhere else I just happened to be for other\nreasons.)\n\n-alga" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Considering when EXODUS FROM THE LONG SUN was being\nwritten (1994-5), Councillor Newt has a pretty obvious\nreal-life referent: Newt Gingrich, elected Speaker of\nthe US House of Representatives after the unexpected\nRepublican congressional election victories of\nNovember 1994. From what we see of Newt, the\nresemblance is pretty profound...\n\n--Nick Gevers.\n\n__________________________________________________\nDo You Yahoo!?\nEverything you'll ever need on one web page\nfrom News and Sport to Email and Music Charts\nhttp://uk.my.yahoo.com\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--\nDate: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 01:16:54 -0400 (EDT)\nFrom: Michael Straight \nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: Re: (urth) Newt's main referent\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nOn Sun, 1 Sep 2002, Alice K. Turner wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Good call, Nick. Some major convention (WorldCon, I guess) was held in, I\nthink, Atlanta in the 80s and Newt, for reasons that I think had to do with\nBruce Sterling, was the banquet speaker." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, at the time, Newt was one of the most famous science-fiction writers\nin America (along with William Shatner and, arguably, Stephen King).\n\n-Rostrum\n\n\n\n--\nDate: Mon, 02 Sep 2002 01:29:43 -0700\nFrom: maa32 \nSubject: (urth) male hyacinth\nSender: maa32 \nTo: urth at urth.net\nMessage-id: <3D737498 at webmail.nau.edu>\nMIME-version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1\nContent-transfer-encoding: 7BIT\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nA couple months ago I posted on the evidence for a male hyacinth, and I was\ntaken aback to discover that someone else thought that up independently - it\nwas kind of a joke. Let me briefly go over why I thought so: right before\nSilk meets Hyacinth for the first time, he finds all kinds of statues of boy\ntoys for the gods: Ganymede and Catamitus, both boy lovers that I normally\nassociate with Musk. But Hyacinthus is the same kind of mythic figure: male\nlover of Apollo, stricken dead by the jealous wind. But instead of Musk, he\nimmediately meets Hyacinth, who has fake breasts. Then later, in Calde of \nthe\nLong Sun ,Patera Quetzal, when Silk claims that he slept with a woman, \nsays he\ndoesn't believe that his augur has done that. It sounds like nothing, but\nWolfe has a ton of those double entendres in his work. I'm just surprised\nthat someone else came up with the same thematic idea - the evidence isn't as\nsketchy as the evidence that suggest that Patera Pike is Blood's father, but\nit's pretty sketchy. I don't see the chem part as convincing, but I think\nHyacinth could certainly be an ex-male who had a little transformation \nenacted\nand it explains the sterility of Silk's relationship.\nI don't know how seriously to take these things, really. Not as seriously as\na take a lot of the other stuff I post.\nMarc Aramini\n\n\n\n--\nFrom: matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMessage-ID: <80256C28.0036FA7B.00 at ldnmta01.guardian.co.uk>\nDate: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 10:34:24 +0100\nSubject: Re: FW: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth\nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\n\n\nOn 31/08/2002 19:24:14 Andy Robertson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is it really possible that all the discussions on this list have been\nthis\nloony, and it is only now I come back after some time away that I am able\nto\njudge them properly? :-)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "A break does provide one with perspective, does it not? ;-)\n\nMatthew\n\n\n\n--\nMessage-ID: <007301c25251$02914a60$f3919ed9@abcomcus>\nFrom: \"Andy Robertson\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: FW: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth\nDate: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 08:18:54 +0100\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nAh well, I love it anyway. But the idea that Hyacinth is a transsexual bio\ndoes seem slightly more probable, I confess: though I really see no need for\nit.\n\n hartshorn\n\n\n\n----- Original Message -----\nFrom: \nTo: \nSent: Monday, September 02, 2002 10:34 AM\nSubject: Re: FW: (urth) FW: Elucidations of the Long Sun:Hyacinth" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 31/08/2002 19:24:14 Andy Robertson wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Is it really possible that all the discussions on this list have been\nthis\nloony, and it is only now I come back after some time away that I am able\nto\njudge them properly? :-)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "A break does provide one with perspective, does it not? ;-)\n\nMatthew" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--\nFrom: matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMessage-ID: <80256C28.0038FC81.00 at ldnmta01.guardian.co.uk>\nDate: Mon, 2 Sep 2002 10:56:20 +0100\nSubject: Re: (urth) male hyacinth\nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\n\n\nOn 02/09/2002 09:29:43 maa32 wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "A couple months ago I posted on the evidence for a male hyacinth, and I\nwas\ntaken aback to discover that someone else thought that up independently -\nit\nwas kind of a joke. Let me briefly go over why I thought so: right\nbefore\nSilk meets Hyacinth for the first time, he finds all kinds of statues of\nboy\ntoys for the gods: Ganymede and Catamitus, both boy lovers that I\nnormally\nassociate with Musk. But Hyacinthus is the same kind of mythic figure:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "male\nlover of Apollo, stricken dead by the jealous wind. But instead of Musk,\nhe\nimmediately meets Hyacinth, who has fake breasts.\n\nI too the statuary, Hyacinth's potential androgeny etc as re-inforcement\nof Musk's character and lifestyle. I'm far from convinced that - even\nwith Wolfe's infamous multi-layered work - there's any need to see more to\nit than that.\n\nIf one posits that Hyacinth is ex-male, male , chem male or female one has\nto answer what purpose it serves. More what purpose would it serve to\nhave Silk fall in love with such a being. That would seem contrary to\nWolfe's normal path in such matters and would require explanation.\n\nMatthew\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you \nafter I return on Labor Day.\n\nThanks,\n\nIan Lamont\nAssistant Web Site Manager\nHarvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office\n124 Mount Auburn Street\nCambridge, MA 02138\nTel: (617) 495-8183\nFax: (617) 495-0521" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ian Lamont", "address": "ian_lamont at harvard.edu" }, "date": "2002-09-03T12:59:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Out of the office (was Re: Digest from urth@urth.net)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 07:56 PM 8/24/02 -0400, you wrote:\nDate: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 17:29:10 -0700\nFrom: maa32 \nSubject: (urth) coldhouse\nSender: maa32 \nTo: urth at urth.net\nMessage-id: <3D683069 at webmail.nau.edu>\nMIME-version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1\nContent-transfer-encoding: 7BIT\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nI had always assumed that the victim in the coldhouse prank was Sherry Gold's\nbrother, who was not on the best of terms with his parents and wanted to move\nout (as I recall from a readiing a few years ago - or was he already \nliving in\na boardinghouse?) Perhaps he confronted Weer about his sister after \ngetting a\njob there (he was looking for a job, right?) and then Weer took the\nopportunity to play a convenient prank on him. Of course, I need to read\nPeace again. Just my two cents. At least Gold has motive to get close to\nWeer, and Weer has reason to get rid of Sherry's brother.\nMarc Aramini\n\n\n\n--\nMessage-Id: \nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"us-ascii\"\nDate: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 18:30:24 -0700\nTo: urth at urth.net\nFrom: Michael Andre-Driussi \nSubject: Re: (urth) coldhouse\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nMarc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I had always assumed that the victim in the coldhouse prank was Sherry \nGold's\nbrother, who was not on the best of terms with his parents and wanted to \nmove\nout (as I recall from a readiing a few years ago - or was he already\nliving in\na boardinghouse?)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The coldhouse prank was in 1938.\n\nWeer met Sherry around 1954.\n\nSherry was only just born at the time of the prank (1954 - 16 = 1938).\nWhich is rather weird, come to think of it.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\nSirius Fiction\nbooklets on Gene Wolfe, John Crowley\n29 copies of \"Snake's-hands\" until OP!\nhttp://www.siriusfiction.com/\n\n\n\n--\nFrom: StoneOx17 at aol.com\nMessage-ID: \nDate: Fri, 23 Aug 2002 21:54:07 EDT\nSubject: Re: (urth) The Coldhouse Prank\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"US-ASCII\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nIn a message dated 8/23/2002 7:57:25 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Robert Borski\nwrites:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Stone Ox writes:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Robert Borski argues quite eloquently that Ted Singer's father is the\nvictim\nin the coldhouse prank. I don't think this can be right, because the\nvictim\nlived in a boarding house, was locked in on Friday, and nobody \nnoticed he\nwas\nmissing until he was discovered on Monday. If the victim had had a wife\nor\ngirlfriend, surely he would have been discovered sooner." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But look who imparts this information about the weekend tragedy and the\nboarding house connection: Dan French, who, not having been a factory\nemployee at the time, is simply repeating the sanitized version of the \nstory\nas it's been spun down through the years and perhaps even through\nsemi-official channels, since there's been a coverup. (I do, however, and\nfor obvious reasons, like the notion that the victim died on Friday.) He\ndoesn't remember the name of the victim and is completly unaware there \nis an\neven more sinister side to the entire episode, with a lone person being\nresponsible for the victim's death. As Den also reminds us earlier, such\nstories have a way of becoming \"both faded and embroidered by time,\" which\nresults in a further blurring of the details. And lastly when Dan French\ntells the story of the sidhe, it deviates from the traditional in several\nrespects." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "In other words I think there's plenty of reason to doubt his version of the\nstory." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When Dan French is telling the story of the sidhe, it's an embedded story,\nand Wolfe has changed, or invented, many (if not all) of the embedded\nstories, so as to shed light on events in the book. On the other hand, if we\nbelieve that Weer was the perpetrator of the coldhouse prank, I'd consider it\npart of Weer's own life story, and I'm much more reluctant to believe that\nWolfe is altering the details here. But this relates to the whole unicorn\ndebate, which I think we could argue about for eternity.\nI just had the thought that maybe part of the reason there's been so much\ndiscussion about Mr. Tilly's story and Doris's story is that it's not clear\nwhether they should be counted as embedded stories or not.\n\n-Stone Ox\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am on vacation during the last week of August. I will get back to you \nafter I return on Labor Day.\n\nThanks,\n\nIan Lamont\nAssistant Web Site Manager\nHarvard Alumni Affairs and Development Office\n124 Mount Auburn Street\nCambridge, MA 02138\nTel: (617) 495-8183\nFax: (617) 495-0521" } ] } ] }