{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3529", "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": 3529, "subject": "PEACE: visiting the doctors", "messages": 2, "voices": 1, "first": "2002-10-30T06:20:59+00:00", "last": "2002-10-30T17:12:29+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-10-30T06:20:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) PEACE: visiting the doctors", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "William Ansley wrote:\nThe Orb paperback edition also reads \"underweight.\" If this version\nis correct, then Weer is always skinny, which would seem to throw at\nleast a small monkey wrench into your\ntime-splice-at-the-doctors-office theory. That is, if we have a\n\"thin, prosperous\" Weer rather than a \"fat, prosperous\" Weer, then\nthere is less evidence that we have jumped from the Weer of one time\nto the Weer of another. At the very least, we have lost a convenient\nmarker." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Thank both editions that we still have \"Sherry, who is sixteen now\"! And\nall those weird antics with nurse repeatedly coming into the examining room\nand telling Weer to take his clothes off.\n\nOkay, here are some notes, paragraph by paragraph (at first, but skipping\nmore as it goes and the chunks become bigger):\n\n[AD 2274] The elm tree...\n This morning...\n When I... (a memory of 1927 that remains a memory)\n My little fire...\n Sometimes I walk...\n I consult...\n[1973] I stand... (president)\n[1953] ...Sherry, who is sixteen now...\n Sherry turns...\n I go to...\n You are thin...\n Yes, you...\n Strip to...\n I undress...\n[1963] ...I have stopped carrying it (the knife: new president)\n[2274] I stand, holding (in the fireplace room)\n[1963] It is quite...\n Sit down, for...\n Mr. Weer--\n There's not a...\n But I can't...\n I dress again (splice w/ nurse)\n I want to...\n[1953] Mr. Weer!\n[1963] Doctor, for a stroke...\n You promised me... (second paragraph of section 3)\n[1919] Yes, Mrs. Weer? (Dr. Black, first and last time, end of section 3)\n[1963] And now this... (first line section 4)\n Your reactions to... (begin section 5)\n\n\nAnother bit, not directly doctor face-to-face, but about the timeframe:\n\"[the island], at about the time I imagined myself visiting Dr. Van Ness,\nto harbor a hermit called Crazy Pete\" seems to peg the \"I asked for help\nwith my future stroke\" episode to circa 1963.\n\nI have a creeping sense that Dr. Van Ness did not see Weer after Weer's\nfirst, non-fatal stroke -- that Dr. V was himself dead or retired by that\nyear of 1973 -- and Weer's stroke doctor is some new guy he doesn't know\nand can't remember his name (and Weer's memory is getting shakey enough at\nthat point that he isn't tracking who has died, or maybe he never knew that\nDr. V died or retired). For Weer's second stroke he wants a trusted doctor\nto talk to, hence his attempts to talk to Dr. V.\n\nI also wonder at this detail: one of the last things Dr. V says is \"Could\nyou come back this afternoon,\" but the whole trippy doctor's office thread\nstarted very specifically at 1:30 pm (first few pages of the book). It was\nalready afternoon when they started. If the doctor was in the same\ntimeframe, he would probably say \"later this afternoon\" or \"this evening,\"\nbut as it stands it seems as though Dr. V's interview with Weer has\nhappened in the morning hours.\n\nSince I'm not advocating time travel, I cannot help but wonder if Weer's\nattempt to warn Dr. Black, which was received as if he was Cassandra,\ndidn't in fact get back to Bobby, who received it as some kind of weird\nthreat . . . which prompted the fight on the stairs. (Standard time travel\ntrap.)\n\n(And the doctor's office is in Blaine's old bank building, right? Hmmm, I\nwonder if there's an angle there.)\n\n=mantis=" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2002-10-30T17:12:29+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) PEACE: visiting the doctors", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oops, correction!" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Since I'm not advocating time travel, I cannot help but wonder if Weer's\nattempt to warn Dr. Black, which was received as if he was Cassandra,\ndidn't in fact get back to Bobby, who received it as some kind of weird\nthreat . . . which prompted the fight on the stairs. (Standard time travel\ntrap.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I =am= advocating time travel! That was a slip of the keypad.\n\nMy textual reference here is the fact that when Bobby arrives at Weer's\nparty he is already presented in a belligerent mode, and we never get any\nbackstory as to why this is the case.\n\nMore on this one:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I also wonder at this detail: one of the last things Dr. V says is \"Could\nyou come back this afternoon,\" but the whole trippy doctor's office thread\nstarted very specifically at 1:30 pm (first few pages of the book). It was\nalready afternoon when they started. If the doctor was in the same\ntimeframe, he would probably say \"later this afternoon\" or \"this evening,\"\nbut as it stands it seems as though Dr. V's interview with Weer has\nhappened in the morning hours." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I toy with the notion that we have been given the doctor thread out of\nsequence: that Weer walking in at 1:30 is Weer going to his afternoon\nappointment. (Which would make it 1963 when he is walking in.) And then\nthe other 1963 material we see is from earlier that same day.\n\nIf this mental breakdown was for outside observers a single episode that\nhappened for a few hours one morning in 1963, then it is not too difficult\nto imagine a sheepish Weer going to the afternoon appointment now normal\nagain (his \"possession\" is past), and everybody can chalk it up to\noverwork.\n\nIn any event, according to the slippery text, Weer went from the doctor's\noffice to the factory and there started reading the letter from Charlie\nTurner. Again, this points to a specific time circa 1963, and it seems to\nrule out the Doris letter as being a mundane cause of the mental breakdown\n(since it comes after the episode at the doctor's office). So the\nbreakdown would seem to have happened between the time of Charlie's visit\nand the arrival of Charlie's letter.\n\nThe time-slippage continues, however; and where Weer once thought he was in\nthe memory mansion casting his mind back, now he seems enmeshed in the\nmundane timeline but with thoughts that it is all an illusion. He rings\nthe buzzer for Miss Birkhead in 1963 (the day of his brief mental\nbreakdown) and 1974's Miss Hadow answers (the day of his death).\n\n=mantis=" } ] } ] }