{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3608",
    "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": 3608,
    "subject": "Venus of PEACE",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2002-11-25T21:19:18+00:00",
    "last": "2002-11-25T21:19:18+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0211-2240@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi",
        "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com"
      },
      "date": "2002-11-25T21:19:18+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Venus of PEACE",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Back on the PEACE channel, I've probably mentioned this a time or two, but\nmy conviction seems to be growing.  All the threads about forgery and\nstatues and people being statues (add a little NIGHTLIFE OF THE GODS,\nmaybe) find an intersection/crystalization in at least one spot.\n\nWhen Gold is talking about Venus of Melos, which he claims is a forgery\n(and there does seem to be rumor of this, or the possibility of it, in the\nreal world), he says the armless statue became \"a secret erotic stimulant\nfor a whole generation of little boys--all over the world.  Many men retain\na lifelong interest in the things that stirred them as children.\"\n\nSo okay, at an initial level, Gold is showing how a fake Venus took on the\nreal power of a Venus: an object of focus for \"Love\" of the varieties that\nVenus is known for.\n\nBut Gold's second sentence seems more specific to the text.  Granted, he is\nsaying that the young Venusian acolytes remain faithful to her, as per the\nlevel I described above.  But he also seems to be saying that there are men\nof that generation who would love an armless woman if they met one.\n\nWhich brings us to Janet Turner, aka Cleo the Seal Girl.  Again, since I'm\nsure I've linked her to Venus of Melos before, that weirdness of her being\npossibly a fake freak (just as the statue is said to be a fake); the strong\nsuggestion that she was also a Venusian prostitute (that many men would be\npowerfully attracted to her).\n\nThis would make \"dog boy\" Charlie Turner into Cupid.  Which seems absurd at\nfirst blush, but then the pandering thread of his Doris letter takes hold.\nEek!  Charlie Turner is shooting \"love arrows\" at Weer!\n\nBack up again.  We have often wondered who Charlie's father is, and we have\nposited Julius Smart among others.  Yet these things go together: a man of\na certain generation older than Weer (Smart) meets an armless woman (or\ncreates her ala Pygmalion: don't forget, Pygmalion carved a statue of\nAphrodite, and that goddess brought it to life; the resulting woman, some\ngive her name as Galatea, bore him a son!) and finds her very attractive.\n\nWould he then poison his wife?  Or was she a victim of his attempts to\nremake her into something more like Venus?\n\nIn any event, the possibility remains that Charlie could be Smart's son,\nand as such, the true heir to the Smart empire.\n\nBut mainly: Janet is Venus, and Charlie is Cupid. In one common tradition,\nCupid is the son of Aphrodite by Zeus or Ares or Hermes.  The best match\nfor Smart would be Hermes, the god of the alchemists as well as liars,\ntricksters, and thieves.\n\n=mantis="
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}