{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3666", "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": 3666, "subject": "Digest from urth@urth.net", "messages": 24, "voices": 15, "first": "2002-12-12T12:31:32+00:00", "last": "2003-08-09T02:30:15+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "jismulkstis", "address": "jismulkstis at att.net" }, "date": "2002-12-12T12:31:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry, \"Muskrat\" has already been taken.\n\nGranted, I don't write often, but I've\nposted twice using \"Muskrat\".\n\nI know this seems petty, but muskrats are\nspecial to me.\n\nHowever, if \"ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus\" is really your name,\n\"Muskrat\" is yours without any argument." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-Id: \nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"us-ascii\"\nDate: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 17:46:24 -0800\nTo: urth at urth.net\nFrom: Michael Andre-Driussi \nSubject: (urth) FLF: the four and who/what they are\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nCatharine Margaret Garth, aka Candy, is the massive (250+ pound) pale\nprostitute who wears white (a virginal color) which is sometimes (e.g., as\nshe is singing at the bar in the Consort hotel) mistaken for blue (blue and\nwhite being the colors of Mary, mother of Jesus, iirc). To escape from\nBelmont, the mental hospital, she has to put on the uniform of a black\nnurse (note the contrast); after which, since people assume she is a nurse,\nshe begins to act like one, and becomes a healer.\n\nThe witch in black (opposite to Candy's white), known as Madame Serpentina\nand Marie, uses her own strip-show seduction to manipulate Ozzie Barnes" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "early on in the novel, but despite all that she seems to be a virgin (the\ngypsy Pete says that King would kill her if she had a non-gypsy boyfriend,\nif I read the passage right, and this seems like a real threat rather than\nan exagerration). She is also dark skinned, as the black nurse points out.\n\nOsgood Myles Barnes. (Why do three of the four have hidden names beginning\nwith \"M\"? I heard that question 16 years ago and now I ask it myself.\nDoes it have to do with the fact that \"M\" is at the middle of the\nalphabet?) He talks about being Popeye, but it isn't until after Phil\nReeder, the crazy drunken sailor changes clothes with him at Belmont (and\nloses the glass eye) that he really becomes Popeye, complete with towering\nOlive Oyl (Robin Valor), Sweet Pea (Little Ozzie), and Bluto (Phil Reeder).\nIn addition to this, he is the magician Oz and a satyr.\n\nJames Stubb. Ozzie says his original name, \"Stubbe,\" means \"room.\" Which\ndoes not ring any bells for me, unless it points to \"Free as the" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "House/Country of Oz\" thread.\n\nThree of the characters have something about their eyes. Three of the\ncharacters have Freudian fixations which are psychological explanations of\ntheir vices/character imbalances (Candy's gluttony; Ozzy's lust; Stubb's\ninability to feel).\n\n EYES FIXATION OZ CHARACTER\nCandy na Oral Dorothy?\nWitch contact lenses na Ozma?\nOzzy glass eye Genital Wizard Oz\nStubb glasses Anal Tin Woodman?\n\nI wonder if Candy is \"normal girl of Earth\" Dorothy to the Witch's Ozma\n\"sorcerer-princess of Oz\"? I make the tentative link between Stubb and Tin\nWoodman mainly because I think Stubb's \"hard boiled\" persona shows his\ninability to feel (the Tin man's problem) as well as the slighter details:\nStubb vaguely suggests to me something cut (like the stump of a felled\ntree); Stubb is the one who retrieves the axe after the accident in front\nof Free's house.\n\n=City of Oz under seige=" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To fend off the demolition, each of the four does what he/she can. The\nwitch summons up a chthonic entity that stops the police from going around\nthe house to the back door (unless this is done by Free himself?), and so\nconfuses them that they break into the neighbor's house (Mrs. Baker's).\nCandy throws water, which first chases the cops away and then freezes on\nthe porch, turning it into a slippery trap; later she slicks herself up\nwith baby oil to inhibit their attempts to remove her from the house. Stubb\ntries calling all the politicians he knows, and this brings the tv news.\nBarnes is the one who calls in all the business men who mob Sergeant\nProudy, including: Mick Malloy (ex-cop, life insurance salesman); Steve\nMarshal (life insurance); Nate Glasser with P, E, G & D (investment\ncounselors); and Sim Sheppard (Florida real estate).\n\nNathanial Glasser is the one who wears blue-tinted spectacles (naturally).\nThis seems to be a clear pointer to the Emerald City of Oz, where everyone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "wears green spectacles. More specifically, it suggests the first man who\nis seen wearing these curious glasses: the Guardian of the Gates of Oz.\nAnd Nate Glasser is, in fact, a guardian of the portal of Free's house\n(pointing to \"Free as the House/City of Oz\").\n\nIn the first Oz book, the Army of Oz is a single soldier (wearing green\nspectacles). In the second book, iirc, Oz is overrun by an invading army,\na coalition of militants from each of the four member-states of Oz, and\nafter the Ozma restoration a more modern army of many generals and one\nprivate is established in Oz.\n\nThe fact that of the 100 or so businessmen there are four named suggests\ncomparison to the coalition army, and the fact that the Florida real estate\nsalesman has to wear beachcomber attire in winter shows that he represents\n\"the South,\" much as the coalition army is made up of members from North,\nSouth, East, and West, with the differences marked by a bit of color in\ntheir uniforms." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The fire axe which is used against the door of the house and later beans\nSergeant Proudy in the head, while it looks to be a normal axe, in the\nlandscape of Oz it can only belong to one figure: Nick Chopper, the Tin\nWoodman. (Not that Officer Williams, who was using the axe, is to be\nassociated with the Oz hero: as noted above, I begin to wonder if Jim Stubb\nis a version of Nick Chopper.)\n\nSo in FLF, the Oz elements emerge in such a way as to reinforce the notion\nthat Free's house is the land of Oz, or at least the Emerald City: only\nthis time the beseigers (cops and wrecking crew) are set apon by a\ncoalition army from four points of the compass (whereas in the second Oz\nbook the coalition army is laying seige to the city).\n\nAgain, I'm not an expert on Oz or Freud, so I stand by ready for\ncorrections on matters relating to either one or anything else.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 21:54:39 -0500\nFrom: William Ansley \nSubject: Re: (urth) Nicknames?\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMessage-id: \nMIME-version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed\nContent-transfer-encoding: 7BIT\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\"ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus\" wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Ummm...I just joined...are we supposed to be using Vironseque \nnicknames? Will my existing name do - it is that of an animal...\n\nIs there a digest available? I forgot to ask..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "First, welcome.\n\nI certainly do not speak in any official capacity for the list, but \nthere is no requirement to use a \"Vironesque\" nickname unless you \nwant to; I have never used one. Your existing name is perfect, \nactually. _Ondatra zibethicus_ or the Common Muskrat - you fit right \nin with Nutria and alga.\n\nThere is a archive of the list available at ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you want to subscribe to a digest version of the mailing list, \nsend an email to urth-request at urth.net with the text:\n\ndigest true\n\nas the only text in the body of the message.\n\nRanjit Bhatnagar, the very generous fellow who is responsible for the \nexistence of this list in the first place has prepared a summary of \nall you should need to know to participate in the Urth mailing list \nhere:\n\nhttp://www.urth.net/urth/join.txt\n\nThis should be the same info you get via email when you join the list.\n\nI am looking forward to hearing what you have to say. You can't be \nany crazier than the last few people who have joined the discussion. \n\n-- \n\nWilliam Ansley\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <040301c2a0c1$eafac330$a6c56596@ABTOSHIBA>\nFrom: \"Andrew Bollen\" \nTo: \nSubject: (urth) OT: Nigerian scams\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 14:03:41 +1100\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n\tcharset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nNot a Wolfean take on Nigerian \"4-1-9\" scams, but very damn funny\nnonetheless: Check out http://www.quatloos.com/brad-c/directory01.htm.\nRecord of a guy's counter-scamming of the scammers. \"The Porcine Princess\nChronicles\" and \"The Senator's Beach Pledge\" both highly recommended.\n\nQuatloos is a magnificent site devoted to chronicling and exposing all the\nvarious low-life scams going around - very useful if you have relatives or\nfriends about to quaff on some kind of snake oil.\n\nSlightly more Wolfean perhaps is\nhttp://www.quatloos.com/cm-omega/cm-omega.htm. Visions of the land of milk &\nhoney, millianarian yearnings, fundamentalism & dumb greed combined in one" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "of the most pathetic displays of human stupidity ever.\n\n- AB\n\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus\" \nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: Re: (urth) Nicknames?\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 04:15:32 +0000\nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; format=flowed\nMessage-ID: \nReply-To: urth at urth.net" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "First, welcome." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thank you." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Your existing name is perfect, actually. _Ondatra zibethicus_ or the \nCommon Muskrat - you fit right > in with Nutria and alga." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's the one! In honour of Deacon Mushrat from `Pogo'..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If you want to subscribe to a digest version of the mailing list, \nThis should be the same info you get via email when you join the list." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, thanks; I have now (hopefully) attended to this. I either didn't get \nor didn't notice the E-mail in question when I posted the preceeding \nmessage. I will try to poke around in the archives, time permitting." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say. You can't be any " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "crazier than the last few people who have joined the discussion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Many would disagree! (However, I suppose that's my cue for a tedious brief \nintroduction...) I can tell a hawk from a handsaw well enough when the wind \nis in some quadrants, but only on some days... I am an ageing, irritable \nrecluse in increasingly poor health, living in poverty with my young family \nin the Blue Mountains of Australia (which very nearly got burned a couple of \ndays ago in bushfires). I was introducted to `Shadow' in the mid-1980s by a \nfriend who mistook me for an intellectual, and I immediately realised that I \nhad encountered a uniquely significant fantasy author. I read `Shadow', I \nbelieve, in a single weekend session, and then immediately sought out the \nrest of the series. The rest, as they say is history. What more is there \nto say?\n\nOh, yes - I have kept in touch with the development of the Long Sun and \nShort Sun series, of course, as well as gathered everything else I can find. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " I hope that they _never_ attempt to film the Book of the New Sun, but I \ncan see in my mind's eye a deluxe anniversary hardback edition sumptuously \nand strikingly illustrated by Barry Moser's beautiful woodcuts...\n\nOther authors whom I particularly enjoy include (off the top of my head) \nAmbrose Bierce, James Branch Cabell, J. G. Ballard, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, \nAmit Chaudhuri, R. A. Lafferty, Alasdair Gray and Jonathan Carroll.\n\nLook forward to talking,\n\n->Zx<-\n\n_________________________________________________________________\nMSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* \nhttp://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <002f01c2a0cf$216b9bd0$d5456c42@akt>\nFrom: \"Alice K. Turner\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: (urth) Nicknames?\nDate: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 23:38:19 -0500\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n\tcharset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\nYou can use any name you like, but if you're going to be posting a lot that\nunwieldy sig is going to cause some annoyance.\n\n-alga" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Ummm...I just joined...are we supposed to be using Vironseque nicknames?\nWill my existing name do - it is that of an animal...\n\nIs there a digest available? I forgot to ask...\n\n->Zx<-\n\n____________________________________________________________\n\nThe proliferation of children who can reach the heights of computer\ncreation\nbrings to light a basic feature of the computer itself - it is\ninfantile...[t]he microcomputer is above all a game and is infantile. But\nit is also very dangerous. We need to know whether it does not also" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "'infantalize'.\n\n-Jacques Ellul, `The Technological Bluff'\n________________________________________________\n\nThe disciple Hui-K'e asked Bodhidharma, \"Please help me to quiet my mind.\"\nBodhidharma said, \"Bring me your mind so that I can quiet it.\" After a\nmoment Hui-K'e said, \"But I can't find my mind.\" \"There,\" said\nBodhidharma,\n\"I have now quieted your mind.\"\n\n-Charles Luk\n\n________________________________________________\n\nNothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.\n\n-Democritos\n\n\n\n\n_________________________________________________________________\nThe new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*\nhttp://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <000a01c2a0e1$1c610000$f53cc6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>\nFrom: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \nTo: \"urth\" \nSubject: Re: (urth) FLF: the four and who/what they are\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 00:46:50 -0600\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n\tcharset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nmantis wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Catharine Margaret Garth, aka Candy, is the massive (250+ pound) pale\nprostitute who wears white (a virginal color) which is sometimes (e.g., as\nshe is singing at the bar in the Consort hotel) mistaken for blue (blue and\nwhite being the colors of Mary, mother of Jesus, iirc). To escape from\nBelmont, the mental hospital, she has to put on the uniform of a black\nnurse (note the contrast); after which, since people assume she is a nurse,\nshe begins to act like one, and becomes a healer." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I can't address the OZ stuff, so just a few notations. Pink is often" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mentioned in connection with Candy, especially her hands. She was wearing a\ngarish pink robe in the morning before she took Free to breakfast. She\nchanged into a pink sweater and black skirt. Her open-toed sandals were also\npink. FWIW." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I wonder if Candy is \"normal girl of Earth\" Dorothy to the Witch's Ozma\n\"sorcerer-princess of Oz\"? I make the tentative link between Stubb and Tin\nWoodman mainly because I think Stubb's \"hard boiled\" persona shows his\ninability to feel (the Tin man's problem) as well as the slighter details:\nStubb vaguely suggests to me something cut (like the stump of a felled\ntree); Stubb is the one who retrieves the axe after the accident in front\nof Free's house." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I took his name to be related to his height. As in stubby. The \"hard boiled\"\npersona is straight out of old books/movies. IIRC, at one point Stubb even\nrecalls one such movie role played by Robert Mitchum. I don't see Stubb as\nhard boiled; he just doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve. He is often" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "sympathetic to people, especially Candy.\n\nAs for assigning OZ roles: there is one point, near the end of chapter 14,\nwhen Candy and Barnes are together in the hotel lobby, before they have ever\ngone up to Serpentina's room. She had just spoken to Stubb on the house\nphone. She said **to** Barnes: \"Seventh floor, room seventy-seven, Ozzie.\nWe're off to see the wizard.\" So how can Barnes be the wizard? Only the\nwitch and Stubb were up in the room.\n\n-Roy\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 08:22:13 -0600\nSubject: (urth) OT: Leviathan 3\nFrom: Adam Stephanides \nTo: \nMessage-ID: \nMime-version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=\"US-ASCII\"\nContent-transfer-encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nI'm putting in a plug for this recent anthology, which is one of the best\noriginal fantasy-sf anthologies I've read. (Most of the stories are\noriginal; the few that aren't originally appeared in obscure places.) There\nare a number of well-known contributors: Moorcock, Stableford and Emshmiller\non the sf side and Remy de Goncourt, Theophile Gautier, and Rikki Ducournet\non the \"mainstream\" side. There are also some good pieces by less well-known\nwriters, including a twisted take on Oz by Stepan Chapman (author of The\nTroika). It's co-edited by Jeff VanderMeer (though he's not a contributor),\nand published by the Ministry of Whimsy (www.ministryofwhimsy.com), which" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "published the above-mentioned The Troika.\n\nMy excuse for discussing Leviathan 3 on this list is that many of the\nstories, though not all, revolve around books or libraries, and there is a\nsequence of Borges-inspired short stories running through the anthology\n(though these latter are actually among the weaker contributions).\n\n--Adam\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-Id: \nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"us-ascii\"\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 09:28:32 -0800\nTo: urth at urth.net\nFrom: Michael Andre-Driussi \nSubject: Re: (urth) FLF: the four and who/what they are\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nRoy wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I can't address the OZ stuff, so just a few notations. Pink is often\nmentioned in connection with Candy, especially her hands. She was wearing a\ngarish pink robe in the morning before she took Free to breakfast. She\nchanged into a pink sweater and black skirt. Her open-toed sandals were also\npink. FWIW." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Good points. I took the pinkness of her fingers as pointers to her pale\nskin color. Her pink and black clothes were worn, iirc, when she was \"off\nduty.\" In any event, I believe there are strong connections between Candy\nand the color white, just as there are links between the witch and black.\n\nRe Stubb, Roy wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I took his name to be related to his height. As in stubby." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sure, that's there. I didn't mean to exclude it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The \"hard boiled\"\npersona is straight out of old books/movies. IIRC, at one point Stubb even\nrecalls one such movie role played by Robert Mitchum." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Odd thing about that movie: I couldn't find it using the very useful\nInternet Movie Database. Sure, Robert Mitchum shows up, but there is no\nmovie listed with him and \"Linda Loring,\" in fact, iirc, there is no\nlisting for a \"Linda Loring\" at all.\n\nFrom the notes in FLF, one might think that \"Hellcats of the Navy\" is about\nNaval pilots. It is about a submarine.\n\nI will agree that my accuracy was off in writing that Stubb has an\ninability to feel: after all, I previously wrote that he was choleric! To\nammend it, I would say that Stubb wants to have a \"heart,\" that is, he\nshould have feelings of a more positive, sanguinary nature; and this\nwanting to have a heart is a tenuous link to the Tin Man (who wants to have\nall feelings)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "As for assigning OZ roles: there is one point, near the end of chapter 14,\nwhen Candy and Barnes are together in the hotel lobby, before they have ever\ngone up to Serpentina's room. She had just spoken to Stubb on the house\nphone. She said **to** Barnes: \"Seventh floor, room seventy-seven, Ozzie.\nWe're off to see the wizard.\" So how can Barnes be the wizard? Only the\nwitch and Stubb were up in the room." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There are several references to the movies (including that one reference to\n\"The Wiz\"). In the case you cite, I think the points are: the witch is a\nmagic user; they are going to see her. (If the musical had contained a\nsong about visiting Glinda, a trip which happens in the book, iirc, maybe\nthey would have used that song.) The same song is used again, when they\nhave escaped from Belmont, Little Ozzie sings it to the group (Little\nOzzie, Big Ozzie, Nimo, Stubb, and Candy) and I don't think they are really\ngoing to see a wizard at that point, at all. (But I do wonder at how this" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "group might map to Dorothy and her four companions, because Nimo seems to\npaint himself as the Scarecrow with his parody of the Scarecrow's song \"If\nI Only Had a Brain.\"\n\nDorothy: Candy\nScarecrow: Nimo the Clown\nTin Man: ?\nCowardly Lion:\nToto: ? )\n\nAs for Ozzie being the Wizard Oz (aside from the name, which is as obvious\nas stub = short). In the land of Oz there are two clear classes of magic:\nthere is real magic (practiced by the witches, Ozma, and others) and there\nis stage magic, i.e., fakery (practiced by Wizard Oz). While Ozzie's\nnovelties for sale are mainly pornographic items or toy puzzles, he does\nhave some of those \"practical joke\" tricks, like the sneezing powder that\ngoes off when Proudy grabs him (which causes him to sneeze and contributes\nto the accident with the axe: the axe-ident). This use of simple\ndime-store trickery is very much like Wizard Oz in DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD\nIN OZ.\n\nRe Ozma and Dorothy, I should point out the details of their hair: Ozma's" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "hair is, I believe, dark and long (down her back); Dorothy's hair, contrary\nto the movie, is blonde and shoulder-length (true, it is in long braids for\nthe first book, but once Ozma is introduced [book 2], Dorothy's hair is as\nI reported above, afaik). A nice physical match for the crowning glories\nof the witch and Candy.\n\nA word about Sgt. Proudy: he is villainous not because he serves the\neviction notice but because he is a corrupt cop -- he bullies money out of\nCandy and hits her. There seems to be more corruption in the 13th\nPrecinct: that other cop is getting money out of Barney the loan shark.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: RE: (urth) Nicknames?\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:33:06 -0600\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n\tcharset=\"us-ascii\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "\"ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus\" wrote:\n\nUmmm...I just joined...are we supposed to be using Vironseque\nnicknames? Will my existing name do - it is that of an animal..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "William Ansley [mailto:wansley at warwick.net] wrote:\nI certainly do not speak in any official capacity for the list, but\nthere is no requirement to use a \"Vironesque\" nickname unless you\nwant to; I have never used one. Your existing name is perfect,\nactually. _Ondatra zibethicus_ or the Common Muskrat - you fit right\nin with Nutria and alga." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say. You can't be\nany crazier than the last few people who have joined the discussion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush offers:\nI second William's optimism and if you want a Vironese nickname I can also\nsuggest that you merely shorten your last name to Zibeth or even Zibet which\nare other names for the civit cat.\n\nHeck you could even use \"Musk\" in that case which is also synonymous with\n\"civit\" (as president of the crazies, I felt obliged to offer that one ;-D).\n\n-- Crush\n\n\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <20021211190237.31521.qmail at web14401.mail.yahoo.com>\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:02:37 -0800 (PST)\nFrom: Jerry Friedman \nSubject: (urth) Two FLF details\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nI carelessly deleted a post that mentioned Linda Loring. She's a\ncharacter in at least two of Raymond Chandler's novels--Philip\nMarlowe is in love with her. Robert Mitchum played Marlowe in\n_The Big Sleep_ and _Farewell, My Lovely_, but Linda Loring isn't\nin those movies.\n\nThe IMDB appears to search only for real people, not characters.\n\nAlso, Unnamed City has a TV station called WROM (in Stubbs' \nquestioning of Mrs. Baker). The only TV station by that name that\nI could find is or more likely was in Rome, Georgia--which can't be\nthe setting of FLF, at least in our universe. Maybe a reference\nto a Rome that's more important to Wolfe?\n\n-- \nJerry Friedman" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "__________________________________________________\nDo you Yahoo!?\nYahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.\nhttp://mailplus.yahoo.com\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: RE: (urth) Two FLF details\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 13:48:01 -0600\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n\tcharset=\"us-ascii\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nActually IMDB **will** search for characters (just enter Philip Marlowe and\nyou'll see it is true). It appears no movie (listed there) used the\ncharacter or at least the name \"Linda Loring\".\n\n-- Crush\n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Jerry Friedman [mailto:jerry_friedman at yahoo.com]\nSent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 1:03 PM\nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: (urth) Two FLF details\n\nI carelessly deleted a post that mentioned Linda Loring. She's a\ncharacter in at least two of Raymond Chandler's novels--Philip\nMarlowe is in love with her. Robert Mitchum played Marlowe in\n_The Big Sleep_ and _Farewell, My Lovely_, but Linda Loring isn't\nin those movies." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The IMDB appears to search only for real people, not characters.\n\nAlso, Unnamed City has a TV station called WROM (in Stubbs'\nquestioning of Mrs. Baker). The only TV station by that name that\nI could find is or more likely was in Rome, Georgia--which can't be\nthe setting of FLF, at least in our universe. Maybe a reference\nto a Rome that's more important to Wolfe?\n\n--\nJerry Friedman\n\n__________________________________________________\nDo you Yahoo!?\nYahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.\nhttp://mailplus.yahoo.com\n\n--\n\n\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "MIME-Version: 1.0\nSubject: RE: (urth) Nicknames?\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 13:34:12 -0700\nMessage-ID: <11CFA5F21C19884E882246F39DBE4B1A0D744A at SDCEXMB01.corp.siebel.com>\nFrom: \"Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\" \nTo: urth at urth.net\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=us-ascii\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable\nReply-To: urth at urth.net" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Your existing name is perfect, actually. _Ondatra zibethicus_ or the\nCommon Muskrat - you fit right > in with Nutria and alga." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "=20\nThat's the one! In honour of Deacon Mushrat from `Pogo'..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ah, bravo! Another appreciator of the great American humorists --=20\nmine own nom du Viron coming indirectly from Don Marquis, I salute\nyou, sah.\n\n\n--Blattid\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <000e01c2a15c$1d770e00$093ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>\nFrom: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \nTo: \"urth\" \nSubject: (urth) FLF: The planes\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 15:27:25 -0600\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n\tcharset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nThere are some problems with both the _High Country_ and the B-17 that I\ncan't resolve. At the end of the book Free tells the four boarders that\nthere are two ways to leave the _High Country_, either the gizmo or the\nB-17. Use of the gizmo entails time-travel; the B-17 doesn't. There is no\ndoubt that when the four were put aboard the B-17 it was January 1983. Free\nalso makes reference to the fact that the year on board the _High Country_\nis the same as the year on the ground, or 1983. There is also no doubt that\nthe B-17 came from the W.W. II era, as did the crew. The crew's lack of\ncontemporary knowledge, their clothing, and their artifacts (guns," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "cigarettes) all point to the 1940s. Okay, but the problem is, how did the\nB-17 get from 1942 to 1982?\n\nJudging from the backdoor of Free's house, use of a gizmo involves passage\nthrough some sort of field in order for the person/object to be transported\nthrough time. In other words, when the gizmo on _High Country_ was used,\nneither the plane itself nor the other persons/objects on it were\ntransported. The _High Country_ got to 1982 the hard way, by flying\ncontinuously for forty years. When the B-17 appeared in November 1982, how\ndid it get there?\n\nImprobable as it may seem, the duffel-coated Whitten in 1982 seems to be\ntotally ignorant of the fact that the _High Country_, in that year, is\ncompletely abandoned and has been for many years. In fact, judging from the\ndates on papers the four found, and the globe which still showed many former\ncolonies as still being colonies, and the natural decay of fabrics and other\nitems, the plane seems to have been abandoned since the war years. After" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "all, once the first use of the gizmo to travel to 1952 was successful, the\noriginal purpose for building the _High Country_ no longer mattered. All the\nfuture history books showed that the government powers were not and never\nhad been threatened. There was no reason for the powerful men to stay on the\nplane, so they didn't. The only purpose the plane then had was as a future\nstaging platform for the gizmo. The OSS wanted to go into the future to get\na jump on future gadgetry that might be useful to them in their operations.\n1982 was the year they chose to travel to and set up a base of operations,\nwhich is when and why Whitten bought the Flying Carpet. The orders that\nWhitten thought came from 'on high' didn't come from the plane, they were\nplanted by his future self, after he deserted.\n\nAt least, that's how I see it. But I can't explain the B-17.\n\n-Roy\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-Id: \nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"us-ascii\"\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 15:01:09 -0800\nTo: urth at urth.net\nFrom: Michael Andre-Driussi \nSubject: Re: (urth) FLF: The planes\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nRoy wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "There are some problems with both the _High Country_ and the B-17 that I\ncan't resolve. At the end of the book Free tells the four boarders that\nthere are two ways to leave the _High Country_, either the gizmo or the\nB-17. Use of the gizmo entails time-travel; the B-17 doesn't. There is no\ndoubt that when the four were put aboard the B-17 it was January 1983. Free\nalso makes reference to the fact that the year on board the _High Country_\nis the same as the year on the ground, or 1983. There is also no doubt that\nthe B-17 came from the W.W. II era, as did the crew. The crew's lack of\ncontemporary knowledge, their clothing, and their artifacts (guns," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "cigarettes) all point to the 1940s. Okay, but the problem is, how did the\nB-17 get from 1942 to 1982?\n\nJudging from the backdoor of Free's house, use of a gizmo involves passage\nthrough some sort of field in order for the person/object to be transported\nthrough time. In other words, when the gizmo on _High Country_ was used,\nneither the plane itself nor the other persons/objects on it were\ntransported. The _High Country_ got to 1982 the hard way, by flying\ncontinuously for forty years. When the B-17 appeared in November 1982, how\ndid it get there?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When Buck Whitten brought his team from August 20, 1942 to November 5,\n1982, they came in the B-17.\n\nPresumably the gizmo on High Country can be set to project outside of the\nHigh Country as well as in a doorway (in the High Country or in Free's\nhouse). The B-17 then flies through the sky-door and into 1982.\n\n\"On the other hand, if _High Country_ or some successor . . . was still" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "flying and we wanted to take something big home [to 1942], we could do that\nin the plane\" (ch. 59, 392).\n\nThus the HC gizmo can make a plane-size door, the little gizmo can make a\nman-size door.\n\nI hope this resolves your initial problem so we can move onto the next:\nwhat is the perspective from the flight-crew of the B-17? That is, those\ntwo guys (one Army, one Navy) seem to have had some experience in flying\nthrough time, and yet they have not lived in the 1980s, or if they have\nthey have not known it. If they are the original crew who flew in with\nBuck, then maybe they flew back to 1942 . . . otherwise they have been\nliving in 1982 for a couple of months (November 5 to January 22), under\nwraps by Buck & Co. (so they would not know they were in the 80s), but\nduring which time they would use up their Camel cigarettes and matches.\n\nThat is (and maybe this is just a refinement of your original problem): the\nB-17 seems to have come directly from 1942 specifically for this one" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mission, and to have gone back to 1942 right after. But this is not a\nproblem if the 1982 High Country gizmo is set to \"outdoor\" sky-door mode\nand the target year of 1942.\n\nThe reason this one plane and crew must be used for =all= traffic to and\nfrom High Country is plain.\n\nI note that the plane left after it dropped off the four. It might have\ngone back to 1942 (lessen the chance of time-contamination) or it might\nhave landed back in 1982 for simple refueling prior to going up again to\nget Ozzie Barnes, the one of the four who did not go through the indoor\ngizmo portal.\n\nAlso note: the three who went through the gizmo on High Country did not\nteleport to Free's house--instead they would have found themselves in the\nabandoned High Country of whatever year the gizmo is set to, and have to be\nferried down to the surface via B-17.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2002-12-12T15:51:56+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Personally, I always preferred the original Amerind name, \"musquash\".\n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: jismulkstis at att.net [mailto:jismulkstis at att.net]\nSent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 6:32 AM\nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: (urth) Re: Digest from urth at urth.net\n\nSorry, \"Muskrat\" has already been taken.\n\nGranted, I don't write often, but I've\nposted twice using \"Muskrat\".\n\nI know this seems petty, but muskrats are\nspecial to me.\n\nHowever, if \"ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus\" is really your name,\n\"Muskrat\" is yours without any argument." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-Id: \nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"us-ascii\"\nDate: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 17:46:24 -0800\nTo: urth at urth.net\nFrom: Michael Andre-Driussi \nSubject: (urth) FLF: the four and who/what they are\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nCatharine Margaret Garth, aka Candy, is the massive (250+ pound) pale\nprostitute who wears white (a virginal color) which is sometimes (e.g., as\nshe is singing at the bar in the Consort hotel) mistaken for blue (blue\nand\nwhite being the colors of Mary, mother of Jesus, iirc). To escape from\nBelmont, the mental hospital, she has to put on the uniform of a black\nnurse (note the contrast); after which, since people assume she is a\nnurse,\nshe begins to act like one, and becomes a healer.\n\nThe witch in black (opposite to Candy's white), known as Madame Serpentina\nand Marie, uses her own strip-show seduction to manipulate Ozzie Barnes" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "early on in the novel, but despite all that she seems to be a virgin (the\ngypsy Pete says that King would kill her if she had a non-gypsy boyfriend,\nif I read the passage right, and this seems like a real threat rather than\nan exagerration). She is also dark skinned, as the black nurse points\nout.\n\nOsgood Myles Barnes. (Why do three of the four have hidden names\nbeginning\nwith \"M\"? I heard that question 16 years ago and now I ask it myself.\nDoes it have to do with the fact that \"M\" is at the middle of the\nalphabet?) He talks about being Popeye, but it isn't until after Phil\nReeder, the crazy drunken sailor changes clothes with him at Belmont (and\nloses the glass eye) that he really becomes Popeye, complete with towering\nOlive Oyl (Robin Valor), Sweet Pea (Little Ozzie), and Bluto (Phil\nReeder).\nIn addition to this, he is the magician Oz and a satyr.\n\nJames Stubb. Ozzie says his original name, \"Stubbe,\" means \"room.\" Which\ndoes not ring any bells for me, unless it points to \"Free as the" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "House/Country of Oz\" thread.\n\nThree of the characters have something about their eyes. Three of the\ncharacters have Freudian fixations which are psychological explanations of\ntheir vices/character imbalances (Candy's gluttony; Ozzy's lust; Stubb's\ninability to feel).\n\n EYES FIXATION OZ CHARACTER\nCandy na Oral Dorothy?\nWitch contact lenses na Ozma?\nOzzy glass eye Genital Wizard Oz\nStubb glasses Anal Tin Woodman?\n\nI wonder if Candy is \"normal girl of Earth\" Dorothy to the Witch's Ozma\n\"sorcerer-princess of Oz\"? I make the tentative link between Stubb and\nTin\nWoodman mainly because I think Stubb's \"hard boiled\" persona shows his\ninability to feel (the Tin man's problem) as well as the slighter details:\nStubb vaguely suggests to me something cut (like the stump of a felled\ntree); Stubb is the one who retrieves the axe after the accident in front\nof Free's house.\n\n=City of Oz under seige=" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "To fend off the demolition, each of the four does what he/she can. The\nwitch summons up a chthonic entity that stops the police from going around\nthe house to the back door (unless this is done by Free himself?), and so\nconfuses them that they break into the neighbor's house (Mrs. Baker's).\nCandy throws water, which first chases the cops away and then freezes on\nthe porch, turning it into a slippery trap; later she slicks herself up\nwith baby oil to inhibit their attempts to remove her from the house." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Stubb" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "tries calling all the politicians he knows, and this brings the tv news.\nBarnes is the one who calls in all the business men who mob Sergeant\nProudy, including: Mick Malloy (ex-cop, life insurance salesman); Steve\nMarshal (life insurance); Nate Glasser with P, E, G & D (investment\ncounselors); and Sim Sheppard (Florida real estate).\n\nNathanial Glasser is the one who wears blue-tinted spectacles (naturally).\nThis seems to be a clear pointer to the Emerald City of Oz, where everyone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "wears green spectacles. More specifically, it suggests the first man who\nis seen wearing these curious glasses: the Guardian of the Gates of Oz.\nAnd Nate Glasser is, in fact, a guardian of the portal of Free's house\n(pointing to \"Free as the House/City of Oz\").\n\nIn the first Oz book, the Army of Oz is a single soldier (wearing green\nspectacles). In the second book, iirc, Oz is overrun by an invading army,\na coalition of militants from each of the four member-states of Oz, and\nafter the Ozma restoration a more modern army of many generals and one\nprivate is established in Oz.\n\nThe fact that of the 100 or so businessmen there are four named suggests\ncomparison to the coalition army, and the fact that the Florida real\nestate\nsalesman has to wear beachcomber attire in winter shows that he represents\n\"the South,\" much as the coalition army is made up of members from North,\nSouth, East, and West, with the differences marked by a bit of color in\ntheir uniforms." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The fire axe which is used against the door of the house and later beans\nSergeant Proudy in the head, while it looks to be a normal axe, in the\nlandscape of Oz it can only belong to one figure: Nick Chopper, the Tin\nWoodman. (Not that Officer Williams, who was using the axe, is to be\nassociated with the Oz hero: as noted above, I begin to wonder if Jim\nStubb\nis a version of Nick Chopper.)\n\nSo in FLF, the Oz elements emerge in such a way as to reinforce the notion\nthat Free's house is the land of Oz, or at least the Emerald City: only\nthis time the beseigers (cops and wrecking crew) are set apon by a\ncoalition army from four points of the compass (whereas in the second Oz\nbook the coalition army is laying seige to the city).\n\nAgain, I'm not an expert on Oz or Freud, so I stand by ready for\ncorrections on matters relating to either one or anything else.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 21:54:39 -0500\nFrom: William Ansley \nSubject: Re: (urth) Nicknames?\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMessage-id: \nMIME-version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed\nContent-transfer-encoding: 7BIT\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\"ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus\" wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Ummm...I just joined...are we supposed to be using Vironseque\nnicknames? Will my existing name do - it is that of an animal...\n\nIs there a digest available? I forgot to ask..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "First, welcome.\n\nI certainly do not speak in any official capacity for the list, but\nthere is no requirement to use a \"Vironesque\" nickname unless you\nwant to; I have never used one. Your existing name is perfect,\nactually. _Ondatra zibethicus_ or the Common Muskrat - you fit right\nin with Nutria and alga.\n\nThere is a archive of the list available at ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you want to subscribe to a digest version of the mailing list,\nsend an email to urth-request at urth.net with the text:\n\ndigest true\n\nas the only text in the body of the message.\n\nRanjit Bhatnagar, the very generous fellow who is responsible for the\nexistence of this list in the first place has prepared a summary of\nall you should need to know to participate in the Urth mailing list\nhere:\n\nhttp://www.urth.net/urth/join.txt\n\nThis should be the same info you get via email when you join the list.\n\nI am looking forward to hearing what you have to say. You can't be\nany crazier than the last few people who have joined the discussion.\n\n--\n\nWilliam Ansley\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <040301c2a0c1$eafac330$a6c56596@ABTOSHIBA>\nFrom: \"Andrew Bollen\" \nTo: \nSubject: (urth) OT: Nigerian scams\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 14:03:41 +1100\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nNot a Wolfean take on Nigerian \"4-1-9\" scams, but very damn funny\nnonetheless: Check out http://www.quatloos.com/brad-c/directory01.htm.\nRecord of a guy's counter-scamming of the scammers. \"The Porcine Princess\nChronicles\" and \"The Senator's Beach Pledge\" both highly recommended.\n\nQuatloos is a magnificent site devoted to chronicling and exposing all the\nvarious low-life scams going around - very useful if you have relatives or\nfriends about to quaff on some kind of snake oil.\n\nSlightly more Wolfean perhaps is\nhttp://www.quatloos.com/cm-omega/cm-omega.htm. Visions of the land of milk\n&\nhoney, millianarian yearnings, fundamentalism & dumb greed combined in one" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "of the most pathetic displays of human stupidity ever.\n\n- AB\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus\" \nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: Re: (urth) Nicknames?\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 04:15:32 +0000\nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; format=flowed\nMessage-ID: \nReply-To: urth at urth.net" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "First, welcome." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Thank you." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Your existing name is perfect, actually. _Ondatra zibethicus_ or the\nCommon Muskrat - you fit right > in with Nutria and alga." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's the one! In honour of Deacon Mushrat from `Pogo'..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If you want to subscribe to a digest version of the mailing list, \nThis should be the same info you get via email when you join the list." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, thanks; I have now (hopefully) attended to this. I either didn't get\nor didn't notice the E-mail in question when I posted the preceeding\nmessage. I will try to poke around in the archives, time permitting." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say. You can't be any" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "crazier than the last few people who have joined the discussion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Many would disagree! (However, I suppose that's my cue for a tedious\nbrief\nintroduction...) I can tell a hawk from a handsaw well enough when the\nwind\nis in some quadrants, but only on some days... I am an ageing, irritable\nrecluse in increasingly poor health, living in poverty with my young\nfamily\nin the Blue Mountains of Australia (which very nearly got burned a couple\nof\ndays ago in bushfires). I was introducted to `Shadow' in the mid-1980s by\na\nfriend who mistook me for an intellectual, and I immediately realised that\nI\nhad encountered a uniquely significant fantasy author. I read `Shadow', I\nbelieve, in a single weekend session, and then immediately sought out the\nrest of the series. The rest, as they say is history. What more is there\nto say?\n\nOh, yes - I have kept in touch with the development of the Long Sun and\nShort Sun series, of course, as well as gathered everything else I can\nfind." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": " I hope that they _never_ attempt to film the Book of the New Sun, but I\ncan see in my mind's eye a deluxe anniversary hardback edition sumptuously\nand strikingly illustrated by Barry Moser's beautiful woodcuts...\n\nOther authors whom I particularly enjoy include (off the top of my head)\nAmbrose Bierce, James Branch Cabell, J. G. Ballard, Louis-Ferdinand\nCeline,\nAmit Chaudhuri, R. A. Lafferty, Alasdair Gray and Jonathan Carroll.\n\nLook forward to talking,\n\n->Zx<-\n\n_________________________________________________________________\nMSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*\nhttp://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <002f01c2a0cf$216b9bd0$d5456c42@akt>\nFrom: \"Alice K. Turner\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: (urth) Nicknames?\nDate: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 23:38:19 -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\n\nYou can use any name you like, but if you're going to be posting a lot\nthat\nunwieldy sig is going to cause some annoyance.\n\n-alga" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Ummm...I just joined...are we supposed to be using Vironseque nicknames?\nWill my existing name do - it is that of an animal...\n\nIs there a digest available? I forgot to ask...\n\n->Zx<-\n\n____________________________________________________________\n\nThe proliferation of children who can reach the heights of computer\ncreation\nbrings to light a basic feature of the computer itself - it is\ninfantile...[t]he microcomputer is above all a game and is infantile." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "it is also very dangerous. We need to know whether it does not also" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "'infantalize'.\n\n-Jacques Ellul, `The Technological Bluff'\n________________________________________________\n\nThe disciple Hui-K'e asked Bodhidharma, \"Please help me to quiet my\nmind.\"\nBodhidharma said, \"Bring me your mind so that I can quiet it.\" After a\nmoment Hui-K'e said, \"But I can't find my mind.\" \"There,\" said\nBodhidharma,\n\"I have now quieted your mind.\"\n\n-Charles Luk\n\n________________________________________________\n\nNothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.\n\n-Democritos\n\n\n\n\n_________________________________________________________________\nThe new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE*\nhttp://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <000a01c2a0e1$1c610000$f53cc6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>\nFrom: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \nTo: \"urth\" \nSubject: Re: (urth) FLF: the four and who/what they are\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 00:46:50 -0600\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nmantis wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Catharine Margaret Garth, aka Candy, is the massive (250+ pound) pale\nprostitute who wears white (a virginal color) which is sometimes (e.g.,\nas\nshe is singing at the bar in the Consort hotel) mistaken for blue (blue\nand\nwhite being the colors of Mary, mother of Jesus, iirc). To escape from\nBelmont, the mental hospital, she has to put on the uniform of a black\nnurse (note the contrast); after which, since people assume she is a\nnurse,\nshe begins to act like one, and becomes a healer." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I can't address the OZ stuff, so just a few notations. Pink is often" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mentioned in connection with Candy, especially her hands. She was wearing\na\ngarish pink robe in the morning before she took Free to breakfast. She\nchanged into a pink sweater and black skirt. Her open-toed sandals were\nalso\npink. FWIW." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I wonder if Candy is \"normal girl of Earth\" Dorothy to the Witch's Ozma\n\"sorcerer-princess of Oz\"? I make the tentative link between Stubb and\nTin\nWoodman mainly because I think Stubb's \"hard boiled\" persona shows his\ninability to feel (the Tin man's problem) as well as the slighter\ndetails:\nStubb vaguely suggests to me something cut (like the stump of a felled\ntree); Stubb is the one who retrieves the axe after the accident in front\nof Free's house." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I took his name to be related to his height. As in stubby. The \"hard\nboiled\"\npersona is straight out of old books/movies. IIRC, at one point Stubb even\nrecalls one such movie role played by Robert Mitchum. I don't see Stubb as\nhard boiled; he just doesn't wear his emotions on his sleeve. He is often" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "sympathetic to people, especially Candy.\n\nAs for assigning OZ roles: there is one point, near the end of chapter 14,\nwhen Candy and Barnes are together in the hotel lobby, before they have\never\ngone up to Serpentina's room. She had just spoken to Stubb on the house\nphone. She said **to** Barnes: \"Seventh floor, room seventy-seven, Ozzie.\nWe're off to see the wizard.\" So how can Barnes be the wizard? Only the\nwitch and Stubb were up in the room.\n\n-Roy\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 08:22:13 -0600\nSubject: (urth) OT: Leviathan 3\nFrom: Adam Stephanides \nTo: \nMessage-ID: \nMime-version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=\"US-ASCII\"\nContent-transfer-encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nI'm putting in a plug for this recent anthology, which is one of the best\noriginal fantasy-sf anthologies I've read. (Most of the stories are\noriginal; the few that aren't originally appeared in obscure places.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "are a number of well-known contributors: Moorcock, Stableford and\nEmshmiller\non the sf side and Remy de Goncourt, Theophile Gautier, and Rikki\nDucournet\non the \"mainstream\" side. There are also some good pieces by less\nwell-known\nwriters, including a twisted take on Oz by Stepan Chapman (author of The\nTroika). It's co-edited by Jeff VanderMeer (though he's not a\ncontributor),\nand published by the Ministry of Whimsy (www.ministryofwhimsy.com), which" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "published the above-mentioned The Troika.\n\nMy excuse for discussing Leviathan 3 on this list is that many of the\nstories, though not all, revolve around books or libraries, and there is a\nsequence of Borges-inspired short stories running through the anthology\n(though these latter are actually among the weaker contributions).\n\n--Adam\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-Id: \nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"us-ascii\"\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 09:28:32 -0800\nTo: urth at urth.net\nFrom: Michael Andre-Driussi \nSubject: Re: (urth) FLF: the four and who/what they are\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nRoy wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I can't address the OZ stuff, so just a few notations. Pink is often\nmentioned in connection with Candy, especially her hands. She was wearing\na\ngarish pink robe in the morning before she took Free to breakfast. She\nchanged into a pink sweater and black skirt. Her open-toed sandals were\nalso\npink. FWIW." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Good points. I took the pinkness of her fingers as pointers to her pale\nskin color. Her pink and black clothes were worn, iirc, when she was \"off\nduty.\" In any event, I believe there are strong connections between Candy\nand the color white, just as there are links between the witch and black.\n\nRe Stubb, Roy wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I took his name to be related to his height. As in stubby." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sure, that's there. I didn't mean to exclude it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The \"hard boiled\"\npersona is straight out of old books/movies. IIRC, at one point Stubb\neven\nrecalls one such movie role played by Robert Mitchum." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Odd thing about that movie: I couldn't find it using the very useful\nInternet Movie Database. Sure, Robert Mitchum shows up, but there is no\nmovie listed with him and \"Linda Loring,\" in fact, iirc, there is no\nlisting for a \"Linda Loring\" at all.\n\nFrom the notes in FLF, one might think that \"Hellcats of the Navy\" is\nabout\nNaval pilots. It is about a submarine.\n\nI will agree that my accuracy was off in writing that Stubb has an\ninability to feel: after all, I previously wrote that he was choleric! To\nammend it, I would say that Stubb wants to have a \"heart,\" that is, he\nshould have feelings of a more positive, sanguinary nature; and this\nwanting to have a heart is a tenuous link to the Tin Man (who wants to\nhave\nall feelings)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "As for assigning OZ roles: there is one point, near the end of chapter\n14,\nwhen Candy and Barnes are together in the hotel lobby, before they have\never\ngone up to Serpentina's room. She had just spoken to Stubb on the house\nphone. She said **to** Barnes: \"Seventh floor, room seventy-seven, Ozzie.\nWe're off to see the wizard.\" So how can Barnes be the wizard? Only the\nwitch and Stubb were up in the room." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "There are several references to the movies (including that one reference\nto\n\"The Wiz\"). In the case you cite, I think the points are: the witch is a\nmagic user; they are going to see her. (If the musical had contained a\nsong about visiting Glinda, a trip which happens in the book, iirc, maybe\nthey would have used that song.) The same song is used again, when they\nhave escaped from Belmont, Little Ozzie sings it to the group (Little\nOzzie, Big Ozzie, Nimo, Stubb, and Candy) and I don't think they are\nreally\ngoing to see a wizard at that point, at all. (But I do wonder at how this" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "group might map to Dorothy and her four companions, because Nimo seems to\npaint himself as the Scarecrow with his parody of the Scarecrow's song \"If\nI Only Had a Brain.\"\n\nDorothy: Candy\nScarecrow: Nimo the Clown\nTin Man: ?\nCowardly Lion:\nToto: ? )\n\nAs for Ozzie being the Wizard Oz (aside from the name, which is as obvious\nas stub = short). In the land of Oz there are two clear classes of magic:\nthere is real magic (practiced by the witches, Ozma, and others) and there\nis stage magic, i.e., fakery (practiced by Wizard Oz). While Ozzie's\nnovelties for sale are mainly pornographic items or toy puzzles, he does\nhave some of those \"practical joke\" tricks, like the sneezing powder that\ngoes off when Proudy grabs him (which causes him to sneeze and contributes\nto the accident with the axe: the axe-ident). This use of simple\ndime-store trickery is very much like Wizard Oz in DOROTHY AND THE WIZARD\nIN OZ.\n\nRe Ozma and Dorothy, I should point out the details of their hair: Ozma's" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "hair is, I believe, dark and long (down her back); Dorothy's hair,\ncontrary\nto the movie, is blonde and shoulder-length (true, it is in long braids\nfor\nthe first book, but once Ozma is introduced [book 2], Dorothy's hair is as\nI reported above, afaik). A nice physical match for the crowning glories\nof the witch and Candy.\n\nA word about Sgt. Proudy: he is villainous not because he serves the\neviction notice but because he is a corrupt cop -- he bullies money out\nof\nCandy and hits her. There seems to be more corruption in the 13th\nPrecinct: that other cop is getting money out of Barney the loan shark.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: RE: (urth) Nicknames?\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:33:06 -0600\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"us-ascii\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "\"ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus\" wrote:\n\nUmmm...I just joined...are we supposed to be using Vironseque\nnicknames? Will my existing name do - it is that of an animal..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "William Ansley [mailto:wansley at warwick.net] wrote:\nI certainly do not speak in any official capacity for the list, but\nthere is no requirement to use a \"Vironesque\" nickname unless you\nwant to; I have never used one. Your existing name is perfect,\nactually. _Ondatra zibethicus_ or the Common Muskrat - you fit right\nin with Nutria and alga." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I am looking forward to hearing what you have to say. You can't be\nany crazier than the last few people who have joined the discussion." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Crush offers:\nI second William's optimism and if you want a Vironese nickname I can\nalso\nsuggest that you merely shorten your last name to Zibeth or even Zibet\nwhich\nare other names for the civit cat.\n\nHeck you could even use \"Musk\" in that case which is also synonymous with\n\"civit\" (as president of the crazies, I felt obliged to offer that one\n;-D).\n\n-- Crush\n\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <20021211190237.31521.qmail at web14401.mail.yahoo.com>\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 11:02:37 -0800 (PST)\nFrom: Jerry Friedman \nSubject: (urth) Two FLF details\nTo: urth at urth.net\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nI carelessly deleted a post that mentioned Linda Loring. She's a\ncharacter in at least two of Raymond Chandler's novels--Philip\nMarlowe is in love with her. Robert Mitchum played Marlowe in\n_The Big Sleep_ and _Farewell, My Lovely_, but Linda Loring isn't\nin those movies.\n\nThe IMDB appears to search only for real people, not characters.\n\nAlso, Unnamed City has a TV station called WROM (in Stubbs'\nquestioning of Mrs. Baker). The only TV station by that name that\nI could find is or more likely was in Rome, Georgia--which can't be\nthe setting of FLF, at least in our universe. Maybe a reference\nto a Rome that's more important to Wolfe?\n\n--\nJerry Friedman" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "__________________________________________________\nDo you Yahoo!?\nYahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.\nhttp://mailplus.yahoo.com\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"James Wynn\" \nTo: \nSubject: RE: (urth) Two FLF details\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 13:48:01 -0600\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\nActually IMDB **will** search for characters (just enter Philip Marlowe\nand\nyou'll see it is true). It appears no movie (listed there) used the\ncharacter or at least the name \"Linda Loring\".\n\n-- Crush\n\n-----Original Message-----\nFrom: Jerry Friedman [mailto:jerry_friedman at yahoo.com]\nSent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 1:03 PM\nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: (urth) Two FLF details\n\nI carelessly deleted a post that mentioned Linda Loring. She's a\ncharacter in at least two of Raymond Chandler's novels--Philip\nMarlowe is in love with her. Robert Mitchum played Marlowe in\n_The Big Sleep_ and _Farewell, My Lovely_, but Linda Loring isn't\nin those movies." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The IMDB appears to search only for real people, not characters.\n\nAlso, Unnamed City has a TV station called WROM (in Stubbs'\nquestioning of Mrs. Baker). The only TV station by that name that\nI could find is or more likely was in Rome, Georgia--which can't be\nthe setting of FLF, at least in our universe. Maybe a reference\nto a Rome that's more important to Wolfe?\n\n--\nJerry Friedman\n\n__________________________________________________\nDo you Yahoo!?\nYahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.\nhttp://mailplus.yahoo.com\n\n--\n\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "MIME-Version: 1.0\nSubject: RE: (urth) Nicknames?\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 13:34:12 -0700\nMessage-ID:" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "<11CFA5F21C19884E882246F39DBE4B1A0D744A at SDCEXMB01.corp.siebel.com>" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\" \nTo: urth at urth.net\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=us-ascii\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable\nReply-To: urth at urth.net" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Your existing name is perfect, actually. _Ondatra zibethicus_ or the\nCommon Muskrat - you fit right > in with Nutria and alga." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "=20\nThat's the one! In honour of Deacon Mushrat from `Pogo'..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ah, bravo! Another appreciator of the great American humorists --=20\nmine own nom du Viron coming indirectly from Don Marquis, I salute\nyou, sah.\n\n\n--Blattid\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <000e01c2a15c$1d770e00$093ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>\nFrom: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \nTo: \"urth\" \nSubject: (urth) FLF: The planes\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 15:27:25 -0600\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n charset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nThere are some problems with both the _High Country_ and the B-17 that I\ncan't resolve. At the end of the book Free tells the four boarders that\nthere are two ways to leave the _High Country_, either the gizmo or the\nB-17. Use of the gizmo entails time-travel; the B-17 doesn't. There is no\ndoubt that when the four were put aboard the B-17 it was January 1983." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Free" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "also makes reference to the fact that the year on board the _High Country_\nis the same as the year on the ground, or 1983. There is also no doubt\nthat\nthe B-17 came from the W.W. II era, as did the crew. The crew's lack of\ncontemporary knowledge, their clothing, and their artifacts (guns," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "cigarettes) all point to the 1940s. Okay, but the problem is, how did the\nB-17 get from 1942 to 1982?\n\nJudging from the backdoor of Free's house, use of a gizmo involves passage\nthrough some sort of field in order for the person/object to be\ntransported\nthrough time. In other words, when the gizmo on _High Country_ was used,\nneither the plane itself nor the other persons/objects on it were\ntransported. The _High Country_ got to 1982 the hard way, by flying\ncontinuously for forty years. When the B-17 appeared in November 1982, how\ndid it get there?\n\nImprobable as it may seem, the duffel-coated Whitten in 1982 seems to be\ntotally ignorant of the fact that the _High Country_, in that year, is\ncompletely abandoned and has been for many years. In fact, judging from\nthe\ndates on papers the four found, and the globe which still showed many\nformer\ncolonies as still being colonies, and the natural decay of fabrics and\nother\nitems, the plane seems to have been abandoned since the war years. After" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "all, once the first use of the gizmo to travel to 1952 was successful, the\noriginal purpose for building the _High Country_ no longer mattered. All\nthe\nfuture history books showed that the government powers were not and never\nhad been threatened. There was no reason for the powerful men to stay on\nthe\nplane, so they didn't. The only purpose the plane then had was as a future\nstaging platform for the gizmo. The OSS wanted to go into the future to\nget\na jump on future gadgetry that might be useful to them in their\noperations.\n1982 was the year they chose to travel to and set up a base of operations,\nwhich is when and why Whitten bought the Flying Carpet. The orders that\nWhitten thought came from 'on high' didn't come from the plane, they were\nplanted by his future self, after he deserted.\n\nAt least, that's how I see it. But I can't explain the B-17.\n\n-Roy\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-Id: \nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=\"us-ascii\"\nDate: Wed, 11 Dec 2002 15:01:09 -0800\nTo: urth at urth.net\nFrom: Michael Andre-Driussi \nSubject: Re: (urth) FLF: The planes\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nRoy wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "There are some problems with both the _High Country_ and the B-17 that I\ncan't resolve. At the end of the book Free tells the four boarders that\nthere are two ways to leave the _High Country_, either the gizmo or the\nB-17. Use of the gizmo entails time-travel; the B-17 doesn't. There is no\ndoubt that when the four were put aboard the B-17 it was January 1983." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Free" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "also makes reference to the fact that the year on board the _High\nCountry_\nis the same as the year on the ground, or 1983. There is also no doubt\nthat\nthe B-17 came from the W.W. II era, as did the crew. The crew's lack of\ncontemporary knowledge, their clothing, and their artifacts (guns," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "cigarettes) all point to the 1940s. Okay, but the problem is, how did the\nB-17 get from 1942 to 1982?\n\nJudging from the backdoor of Free's house, use of a gizmo involves\npassage\nthrough some sort of field in order for the person/object to be\ntransported\nthrough time. In other words, when the gizmo on _High Country_ was used,\nneither the plane itself nor the other persons/objects on it were\ntransported. The _High Country_ got to 1982 the hard way, by flying\ncontinuously for forty years. When the B-17 appeared in November 1982,\nhow\ndid it get there?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When Buck Whitten brought his team from August 20, 1942 to November 5,\n1982, they came in the B-17.\n\nPresumably the gizmo on High Country can be set to project outside of the\nHigh Country as well as in a doorway (in the High Country or in Free's\nhouse). The B-17 then flies through the sky-door and into 1982.\n\n\"On the other hand, if _High Country_ or some successor . . . was still" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "flying and we wanted to take something big home [to 1942], we could do\nthat\nin the plane\" (ch. 59, 392).\n\nThus the HC gizmo can make a plane-size door, the little gizmo can make a\nman-size door.\n\nI hope this resolves your initial problem so we can move onto the next:\nwhat is the perspective from the flight-crew of the B-17? That is, those\ntwo guys (one Army, one Navy) seem to have had some experience in flying\nthrough time, and yet they have not lived in the 1980s, or if they have\nthey have not known it. If they are the original crew who flew in with\nBuck, then maybe they flew back to 1942 . . . otherwise they have been\nliving in 1982 for a couple of months (November 5 to January 22), under\nwraps by Buck & Co. (so they would not know they were in the 80s), but\nduring which time they would use up their Camel cigarettes and matches.\n\nThat is (and maybe this is just a refinement of your original problem):" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "the" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "B-17 seems to have come directly from 1942 specifically for this one" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "mission, and to have gone back to 1942 right after. But this is not a\nproblem if the 1982 High Country gizmo is set to \"outdoor\" sky-door mode\nand the target year of 1942.\n\nThe reason this one plane and crew must be used for =all= traffic to and\nfrom High Country is plain.\n\nI note that the plane left after it dropped off the four. It might have\ngone back to 1942 (lessen the chance of time-contamination) or it might\nhave landed back in 1982 for simple refueling prior to going up again to\nget Ozzie Barnes, the one of the four who did not go through the indoor\ngizmo portal.\n\nAlso note: the three who went through the gizmo on High Country did not\nteleport to Free's house--instead they would have found themselves in the\nabandoned High Country of whatever year the gizmo is set to, and have to\nbe\nferried down to the surface via B-17.\n\n=mantis=\n\n\n\n--" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2002-12-12T20:35:18+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sorry, \"Muskrat\" has already been taken.\n=20\nGranted, I don't write often, but I've\nposted twice using \"Muskrat\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't see any reason we can't have a \"Muskrat\" and\na \"Zibethicus.\"=20" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "jismulkstis", "address": "jismulkstis at att.net" }, "date": "2002-12-13T12:15:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I see I included the original post with \nyesterday's message, causing a hassle for \neveryone.\n\nMy sincere apologies to all and it won't\nhappen again." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigel.a.price at virgin.net" }, "date": "2002-12-17T23:57:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) RE: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "(Nigel, delurking for a second time in a day in response to some of the\nhurtful comments that have been made about Marc in recent postings.)\n\nOh come on, chaps!\n\nAs for what GW would think of anyone sharing what he wrote, well, who knows?\nBut he strikes me as a tough old bird, a wise and wily mid-westerner, well\nversed in the ways of the world. An engineer who has worked for a\nmulti-national company, an author who has been in business for several\ndecades, a family man who has brought up children....No, if he's been and\ndone all that and not only survived but prospered, I can't see that he's\ngoing to be upset by *anything* Marc or anyone else does or says here.\n\nAnd when have any of the interviews that GW has given over the years\ndestroyed our debate or given privileged status to the interviewees? Never!\nA thousand questions remain, and we continue to read and wonder, post to the\nlist and ponder.\n\nI love these discussions, even when I've nothing to contribute, or no time\nto say what I might, but let's not make it personal!\n\nNigel (about to step back into the Corridors of Time and disappear again for\na while)" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "davidd at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2003-01-20T02:09:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Roy wrote:\nAnother datapoint is Laura Nomos (nomos means \"a lawed one,\" i.e., a\nlawyer!) and her fur coat in storage for 26 months (169). This suggests\n790 (days) / 8.25 (O-time multiple) = 96 days (3 months). (I don't know,\nbut wouldn't storage be usually for longer than that? Maybe not: maybe\nstorage is only for Summer?)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Not having read TAD, are we perhaps talking lunar months here?" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "| David Duffy (MBBS PhD) ,-_|\\\n| email: davidD at qimr.edu.au ph: INT+61+7+3362-0217 fax: -0101 / *\n| Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research \\_,-._/\n| 300 Herston Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia GPG 4D0B994A v \n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "davidd at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2003-01-21T03:01:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Three points:\n\ninstead of CMF, how about TSF (theological speculative fiction)\n\nWRT the end of _TAD_, Horn in _OBW_ muses that if he returned to life with\nNettle on The Lizard, one night he might walk out and go out to sea to\nnever return, and later that dying on the rocks trying to approach a siren\nmight be the culmination of his life (is it misogynist to have a \nfemale character who leads men to their deaths and then eats them?). And \nare there Greek demigods who had so much dealing with demons? I am \nstrongly reminded of Chinese folk stories (and Monkey...and _Lord of \nLight_).\n\nArete -- I like fishspine, but I thought we (:)) had decided it pretty \nclearly refers to the classical (ie pre-Christian) virtues. \n\nDavid Duffy." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "James Wynn", "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com" }, "date": "2003-01-21T14:52:51+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "David Duffy reminds us:\nArete -- I like fishspine, but I thought we (:)) had decided it pretty\nclearly refers to the classical (ie pre-Christian) virtues.\n\n\nCrush opines:\nI presumed both titles had double meanings:\n\nMist = Fog = Memory/History\n\nArete = Mountains = the virtues of a soldier" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "davidd at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2003-01-22T01:14:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Fernando Q. Gouvea wrote: \nWhat is \"Malicapata\"? An Otherworld disease, or something else?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Hmmm... a \"capon\" is a castrated male chicken, from a Latin root that means\n\"to cut\", I think. So \"badly cut\"?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course, he could have just meant a headache ;) or depression.\n\nGoogling gave:\n\nhttp://www.angelfire.com/ri/tucker/gender/eunuchs/terms.html\n\n The method of striking or crushing is apparent in such words as the \n Latin capo, 'capon,' from the Greek kopto, 'strike,' and the Greek \n thlasiae, thlibiae, 'eunuch,' from thlao, 'crush,' and the Sanskrit\n vadhri, 'eunuch,' from vadh, 'strike.' Cutting is shown in the \n Latin castro, 'castrate,' from root kes, in the Sanskrit sas, \n\n In classical times the varieties of eunuchs were as follows: (1)\n Castrati, clean-cut--both penis and testicles. (2) Spadones, whose\n testicles only are removed by a process of dragging. (3) Thlibiae,\n whose testicles are bruised and crushed, the seminal glands being \n thus permanently injured--chiefly applied in the case of the very\n young. \n\n [Priests of Cybele are 2 IIRC]\n\n\nand rather resonantly, \n\nKuefler, Mathew The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and \nChristian Ideology in Late Antiquity.\n\n\"The question of masculinity formed a key part of the intellectual life\nof late antiquity and was crucial to the development of Christian \nsociety. This idea is at the heart of Mathew Kuefler's new book, which\nrevisits the Roman Empire during the third and fifth centuries of the \ncommon era. Kuefler argues that the collapse of the Roman army, an \nincreasingly autocratic government, and growing restrictions on the\ntraditional rights of men within marriage and sexuality all led to an\nendemic crisis in masculinity: men of Roman aristocracy, who had \nalways felt themselves to be soldiers, statesmen, and the heads of\nhouseholds, became, by their own definition, unmanly. \n\n\"The cultural and demographic success of Christianity during this epoch\nlay in the ability of its leaders to recognize and respond to this \ncrisis. Drawing on the tradition of gender ambiguity in early \nChristian teachings, which included Jesus's exhortation that his\nfollowers \"make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of\nheaven,\" Christian writers and thinkers crafted a new masculine ideal,\none that took advantage of the changing social realities in Rome, \ninverted the Roman model of manliness, and helped solidify Christian \nideology by reinstating the masculinity of its adherents.\" \n\nwhile Nutria declaimed:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I, Nutria, will tell you. It's the scene at the end of the book, which \nhints that the helots were massacred by their Spartan owners, immediately \nafter the Spartans freed them for helping fight in the battle. Which they \nwere. But it's far from clear in the book what is going on. There are even \nmissing pages!\nBet I'm right. Anyway, that's the one that stumped me the most." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you (a smiley is probably in\norder). \n\nDoes anyone feel like comparing and contrasting Latro with the hero\nLeonard of the movie _Memento_? One might be the latter's interest in\nemotional (via Pavlovian conditioning) unconscious memory (FWIW the\nstory idea is said to come from _One Hundred Years of Solitude_)\n\nDavid Duffy." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Timothy Reilly", "address": "treilly at ozemail.com.au" }, "date": "2003-04-10T23:12:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Re favourite quotes, mine is from Shadow (I think) - the sea being \"as fetid\nand fecund as a woman's groin\". Wolfe must have liked it too, because it\ngets a repeat in Urth (again, IIRC).\n\nTim" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Steve Case", "address": "scase at olivet.edu" }, "date": "2003-04-13T06:28:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) RE: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey guys, I need some help. I won a poetry contest and got a $50 gift\ncertificate to Barnes & Noble. I bought Chapterhouse: Dune and ordered\na Radiohead CD. (That information was irrelevant.) The point is that I\nstill have $30 to spend on books, and I can't decide on what to buy. I\nwant to find another author like Gene Wolfe; I want to buy a book no\none's ever heard of that is incredibly good. So I'm coming to you. I\nknow lots of Wolfe-like authors have been discussed on the list before.\nTell me what book I should buy. (And by something like Wolfe I mean\nsomething well-written, thought-provoking, brilliant, and relatively\nclean.) If anyone can steer me in the right direction, it's you.\n \n Thanks,\n -Steve\n \n " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Malco", "address": "nastler at yahoo.dk" }, "date": "2003-04-14T10:22:25+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) RE: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Lanark by Alasdair Gray\n\n --- Steve Case skrev: > Hey guys,\nI need some help. I" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "want to find another author like Gene Wolfe; I want\nto buy a book no\none's ever heard of that is incredibly good. So I'm\ncoming to you. I\nknow lots of Wolfe-like authors have been discussed\non the list before.\nTell me what book I should buy. (And by something\nlike Wolfe I mean\nsomething well-written, thought-provoking,\nbrilliant, and relatively\nclean.) If anyone can steer me in the right\ndirection, it's you.\n \n Thanks,\n -Steve" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yahoo! Mail (http://dk.mail.yahoo.com) - Gratis: 6 MB lagerplads, spamfilter og virusscan" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Timothy Reilly", "address": "treilly at ozemail.com.au" }, "date": "2003-04-16T23:51:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Re Nabokov, I also greatly regret that I do not enjoy his prose as much as\nI'd like, given he is so admired by Wolfe, Martin Amis and other writers I\ngreatly admire. Lolita I finished, but have had false starts on others (I\nmay try again with Pale Fire now).\n\nThe problem for me with Nabokov is that the personality revealed by the\nprose always sounds like such a wanker, if you'll all pardon the phrase. A\nnatural aristocrat so proud of his verbal skills and convinced of his\nunquestionable superiority that any genuine human feeling seems buried.\nKingsley and Martin Amis had an argument along these lines about Lolita\n(recounted in the latter's autobiographical Experience), with the former\nessentially saying that Humbert's ultimate passage of regret near the end of\nthe novel was just a smokescreen to make it appear Nabokov really cares,\nwhen he doesn't. I confess I agree.\n\nTim" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Jonathan Laidlow", "address": "ultan01 at yahoo.co.uk" }, "date": "2003-04-20T20:21:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "While currently in my \"I have no brain and I must\nscream\" phase I would just like level the charges at\nPrice: folky *and* hippy!\n\nHow can we let him continue in this list?\n\nAlright alright, we contain multitudes and all that,\nI'll go back to the (for shame!) Star Wars novel I'm\ncurrently reading, and we'll forget I ever edited a GW\nwebsite.... Do I get expelled for enjoying reading\npulp fiction?\n\nJonathan\nwww.ultan.co.uk" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "jismulkstis", "address": "jismulkstis at att.net" }, "date": "2003-04-21T14:06:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In reply to my mail, Dave Rolsky recommends\nFeersum Endjinn for those who wish to try Iain M. Banks.\n\nA word of warning: about a quarter of that book is written \nphonetically (Feerum Endjinn = Fearsome Engine). I found that\nthis interfered with my enjoyment, just as having to decode\nPig's dialog in Return to the Whorl did. There's a stylistic\nsimilarity for you.\n\nI recommend Excession or Look to Windward for an intro to Banks.\nUse of Weapons is also very solid, but I thought the ending \ncame somewhat out of the blue. Excession is thoughtful space\nopera with the best twist on the Climactic Space Battle I've \never seen. Look to Windward is about, among other things, why \none should bother staying alive.\n\nI can illustrate one stylistic difference between Banks and Wolfe\nby noting that I doubt Mr. Wolfe would ever have one of his characters\nrefer to another as a \"tentacled scumbag fuckwit\".\n\nMuskrat" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <006401c305c5$ff6a0420$d5456c42@akt>\nFrom: \"Alice K. Turner\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: (urth) Moorcock\nDate: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 12:17:24 -0400\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n\tcharset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\nFrom Dan'l. quoting somebody:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "(As an aside, did anyone ever write worse about sex than Heinlein." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yep. Asimov. But not _much_ worse." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "My wife still won't believe that anyone could call nipples \"those\ntwin spiggots of desire\" or claim that one woman's \"nipples went\nspung\")." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "These are classic, aren't they ... Up there with \"five minutes of\nsquelching noise.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Wrong. No one ever, ever, including hack porn writers, EVER, EVER wrote\nworse sex than Heinlein. With possibly the momentary exception of a\nlong-forgotten 9-day wonder of the 60s or 70s called -The Harrad\nExperiment-. And I am something of an expert here. I should probably say," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "for members of this group, that IMO Sturgeon wrote bad sex too, though not,\nby leagues, in the same abysmal class.\n\n-alga\n\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"ArchD'Ikon Zibethicus\" \nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: (urth) Gray, Wolfe, Heinlein\nDate: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 02:12:34 +0000\nMime-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; format=flowed\nMessage-ID: \nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\nMalco:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But the text does give the impression that\nan alternative was at least possible and that it\ndepended largely on Lanarks actions." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But Nastler _intended_ Lanark to fail...you might recall that Nastler \ndescribed the sort of success which Lanark fantasised about when he accepted \nthe gig - people listen to him at the council, his speech sets profound \nreforms in place, he returns in triumph to a saved Unthank and is reunited \nwith a chastened and finally appreciative Rima...and then says that he is \nnot going to provide Lanark with anything of the sort, because \"[i]f I give \nyou an ending like that I will be like ten thousand other cheap " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "illusionists! I would be as bad as the late H. G. Wells! I would be worse \nthan Goethe. Nobody who knows a thing about life or politics will believe \nme for a minute.\" (p. 492)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "All of these things echo with Severians story" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's right...and it clarifies one of the commonalities I would point out \nbetween the fictions of Mr. Gray and Mr. Wolfe; their 'heros' fail, blunder, \nare confused and fail to understand important things. Perhaps this humanity \nis a part of their attraction..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And you are _spot on_ about Sludden/Blair… *g*" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "...glad I'm not the only one who sees it that way...we just _call_ him \nSludden in my family...\n\n\nAllan:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I can think of few who are further from Gene Wolfe's view of the world \nthan Alasdair Gray, brilliant though he is;" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I wonder...is it actually possible to ascribe a world-view to either author \nwhen both have produced such diverse works?\n\nIf you mean politico-religious outlooks, well certainly they're different, " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "but not necessarily as vastly as some might think." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "All of these writers produce intelligent complex fictions but if there >is \na difference between them and Wolfe, I would say that they all >write books \nwhich are character driven, whereas Wolfe's books possibly >use the \ncharacters to promote or act out his ideas." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jonathan Carroll? I wonder...I have the greatest admiration for Mr. \nCarroll's work, but if we are to draw a dichotomy between character and idea \nI'd have to say that I've always thought of him as a novelist of ideas \nrather than character." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "This could be why I have lost some of my admiration for Wolfe's recent \nwork, and I would agree with Alga about his more recent short stories, \nsome of which seem lacking in content and obscure for the\nsake of obscurity. I still have enormous admiration for the man, but \nsometimes it makes more sense if you just say what you mean." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I can't judge the recent short stories, but ever since reading someone's " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "statement on this list that Mr. Wolfe is not at his best in the short story \nformat, I've been winding up to take mild exception, mostly on the strength \nof 'Forlesen', which I personally think is one of the most memorable 'SF' \nshort stories I've read...it's actually one of the few that I _do_ remember \nat all.\n\nI don't think that Mr. Wolfe obfuscates for the mere love of mystery, or at \nleast right up to the Short Sun series, which is the last I've read. And I \nbelieve that some of the enjoyment of reading him comes from the mysteries \nand ambiguities...which are a decided incentive to re-reading...and \nspeculation...and, as the discussions on this list show, the mysteries seem \nto have a purpose, and sometimes even admit of explanation...\n\n\nBlattid:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It's entirely possible, and I suspect even likely, that Isangoma, Robert, \nand Marie are actually citizens of the Commonwealth who wandered in and \nwere caught in this way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Actually, I've suddenly entirely re-visioned the Botanic Gardens in my mind \n... In other words, Father Inire has built (for whose amusement?) a theme \npark, a sort of posthistorical Walt Disney World with living \naudioanimatrons." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "...precisely...caught and reprogrammed according to the best information \navailable at the time, which _was_ the movies and/or the books of the 20th \nCentury...of which perhaps a handful survived in the Library...they took the \npeople from one source, and the fauna from another...millions of years have \npassed since then, even the continents have changed...how are they gonna \nknow what went where?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "(The horror! The horror!)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well...the autarchy plays pretty rough as it is...and one presumes that the \nexhibits have their meals supplied regularly...which doesn't always happen \nin Nessus proper..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Like every SF/F writer from the 1950s on, Moorcock uses (consciously or \nnot) rhetorical techniques and moves invented or improved by Heinlein to " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "establish the nature of his discursive pseudo-realities." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_Every_ SF/F writer?\n\nBallard?\n\nLeGuin?\n\nBurroughs?\n\netc." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " My wife still won't believe that anyone could call nipples \"those twin \nspiggots of desire\" or claim that one woman's \"nipples went spung\")." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "These are classic, aren't they ... Up there with \"five minutes of \nsquelching noise.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "..not to mention having one of his supposedly 'sexually liberated' \ncharacters declare, in 'Stranger in a Strange Land', \"[n]ine times out of \nten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault.\" (p. 281, NEL pbk, 1976)\n\nI was trying to read the book with all due sympathy after quarreling \nseverely with my mother-in-law, who takes the work as gospel, but it fell \nfrom my hands at this point, never to rise again...\n\n...presumably Mr. Heinlein has never been raped himself...I daresay he would \nfeel quite differently about the matter if so...but at least I now " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "understand why Charles Manson adapted the book as his bible...he even called \nhis son Michael Valentine Manson...\n\n(ducks to avoid return fire from water-brethren...)\n\n\nChris:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "something that I find a little disturbing in Wolfe's novels- the >frequency \nof rape committed by his protagonists or major characters." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "...see above...perhaps it (sometimes) takes a female writer to present rape \nas a disgusting and humiliating experience with no symbolic or redemptive \nvalue...Le Guin does it rather well...\n\n*\n\nWhat a gloomy note to end on...how about this, instead: Happy Easter to \nthose who believe!\n\n->Zx<-\n\n\n\n_________________________________________________________________\nMSN Instant Messenger now available on Australian mobile phones. Go to \nhttp://ninemsn.com.au/mobilecentral/hotmail_messenger.asp\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <001801c30628$d732e040$2f3ec6d8 at rclackey.stic.net>\nFrom: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \nTo: \"urth\" \nSubject: Re: (urth) Moorcock\nDate: Fri, 18 Apr 2003 23:04:49 -0500\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n\tcharset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nDan'l quoted and wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Mike would be deeply insulted to be compared in any way to Heinlein," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That's a pity, because to refuse such comparison is essentially to\ninsist on situating himself outside the SF/F genre entirely; RAH is,\nso to speak, the elephant in the room. Like every SF/F writer from\nthe 1950s on, Moorcock uses (consciously or not) rhetorical techniques\nand moves invented or improved by Heinlein to establish the nature of\nhis discursive pseudo-realities." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Amen! I don't think I've ever been so entirely in agreement with Dan'l about\nanything so much as his eloquent defense of a man who shouldn't need\ndefending." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Perhaps the most conspicuous instance of Heinlein in Wolfe is \"The Last\nThrilling Wonder Story\". From my first reading of it to today, I have always\nthought that Wolfe was making some sort of dig at Heinlein -- putting him\ndown in some way -- that I've never been comfortable with. Maybe it's just\nme.\n\n-Roy\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 02:56:51 -0500 (CDT)\nFrom: Dave Rolsky \nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: Re: (urth) Recommended authors\nMessage-ID: \nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nOn Sun, 2 Mar 2003 jismulkstis at att.net wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I strongly recommend Iain M. Banks Culture novels:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "While stylistically unlike Gene Wolfe, Iain M. Banks writes\nnovels about the moral ambiguity that comes with wielding" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Ok, this thread is ancient but the general topic is still being discussed\nso ...\n\nActually, I do think Iain Banks and Wolfe have some stylistic\nsimilarities, primarily in that both seem to enjoy setting complicated,\nelaborate sets of clues while playing with your head. Banks seems to do\nthis more through formal structures, as in Feersum Endjinn (probably my\nfavorite Banks novel), where he rigidly alternates chapters in cycles of" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "four, one for each narrating character, each of whom has a distinct voice.\nThe trick in the book is figuring out the timeline of each character,\nbecause it's not purely sequential.\n\nHe also does some fun timeline tricks in Use of Weapons.\n\n\n-dave\n\n/*===========> House Absolute Consulting\nwww.houseabsolute.com\n============*/\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Message-ID: <002701c3065f$d98c0d80$0d866f83 at emma.cam.ac.uk>\nFrom: \"Ed Cooke\" \nTo: \nSubject: Re: (urth) Other authors\nDate: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 11:38:40 +0100\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain;\n\tcharset=\"iso-8859-1\"\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nGood to see Goethe and Iain M. Banks cropping up in this thread. To complete\nthe triangle, I've always assumed Banks took the title of 'Against A Dark\nBackground' from the following passage of Goethe:\n\n\"Spring had come in all its glory. An untimely storm that had been looming\nall day thundered down from the mountains, rain swept across the landscape,\nthe sun returned and a rainbow shone forth from the greyness. Wilhelm rode\ntowards it and was deeply moved. \"Oh!\" he said to himself. \"Do life's most\nbeautiful colours only make themselves clear to us against a dark\nbackground? Must raindrops fall for our delight? A clear day is no different" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "from a cloudy one, if we look at it unmoved, and what can move us but the\nsilent hope that our hearts' natural inclination will not go unrequited? We\nare moved by the account of a good deed, the contemplation of an aesthetic\nobject; they make us feel as though we are not complete strangers here, and\ngive us intimations of a homeland towards which our highest and innermost\nfeelings impatiently strive.\" --'Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre', Bk VII Ch I\n\nTBotNS is the best Bildungsroman I've ever read, mainly because it ends\nsatisfactorily. Wieland spent thirty years rewriting his 'Agathon',\neventually resorting to a further argument between the eponymous hero and\nthe Sophist Hippias in the afterlife, and Goethe churned out a sequel in his\ndotage that loaded the characters with so much symbolism that no-one could\nreally care about them anymore; but Wolfe ties up enough loose ends for a\nsense of closure but not so many as to preclude another two novel cycles.\nBravo!\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 08:42:47 -0500\nSubject: Re: (urth) Re Other Authors\nFrom: Adam Stephanides \nTo: \nMessage-ID: \nMime-version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=\"US-ASCII\"\nContent-transfer-encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\non 4/17/03 12:33 PM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at katbarx at hotmail.com wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"How the Whip Came\nBack\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yuck; this may be my least favorite Wolfe story, with its combination of\nmisogyny and heavy-handed satire. I do like the bit about \"her Louis XIV\nsecretary, Sal,\" though." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "One thing I look for in fiction, and which Wolfe provides\nin abundance, is a sense that the problems it wrestles with are\nproblems relevant to the world that is the case, while the problems\nin Moorcock's fiction seem to be relevant only to Moorcock's\nimagined worlds -- a problem he shares with, for example, some of\nHeinlein's lesser work." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've never been able to get into Moorcock, apart from \"Flux,\" but my impulse\nwould be to disagree with this. My impression is that Moorcock uses\ndeliberately unreal characters to comment on real problems.\n\nI've only read a little Ian Watson, and didn't like him, but there is a\nsuperficial similarity between him and Wolfe. They're both \"cerebral\" and\n\"literary\" authors, though my memory of Watson is that his stuff really is\nempty of emotion. Incidentally, I once read an article by Watson\ncriticizing SotT because the protagonist was a torturer; something about\nmaking it seem that torturers weren't really so bad, iirc (but don't quote\nme).\n\n--Adam \n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 08:51:46 -0500\nSubject: Re: (urth) Short Story collections\nFrom: Adam Stephanides \nTo: \nMessage-ID: \nMime-version: 1.0\nContent-type: text/plain; charset=\"US-ASCII\"\nContent-transfer-encoding: 7bit\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nGoing back to Terry's original question, on 4/14/03 8:43 AM, Terry Lago at\ntlago at chass.utoronto.ca wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Can any of you enlighten me about the various short story collections of\nWolfe? How would you rank them and which ones have overlap in content? I was\nlooking for _Castle of Days_ recently and stumbled upon _Endangered\nSpecies_, and I imagine I should have just picked it up, but didn't know\nwhat would be inside (of course that's part of the pleasure of a Wolfe book\nI guess, right?)\n\nCan any of you enlighten me?\n\n(I guess the reason I'm wary is because I generally don't like short" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "stories. I usually prefer novels and there are only a handful of authors\nwhose short fiction I enjoy...though I would be surprised if Wolfe didn't\nalso turn out to be one of these. Still...I always hum and ha before picking\nup a short story collection.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Confining myself to the five major-publisher collections, which are _The\nIsland of Dr. Death..._, _Castle of Days_, _Endangered Species_, _Storeys\nfrom the Old Hotel_, and _Strange Travellers_ (_Gene Wolfe's Book of Days_\nis completely reprinted in _Castle_), I'd say the first of these has several\nessential stories, the second has one essential story (\"Forlesen\") and a\ngreat deal of filler, and the others don't have any essential stories,\nthough there's certainly a lot of enjoyment to be gained from them. I'd\ndefinitely start with _Island_, which every Wolfe fan should have read (it's\nthe material collected here, along with 5HC, that originally brought Wolfe\nto prominence). After that it doesn't much matter, although _Strange" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Travellers_ is probably the most solid of the remaining collections, in the\nsense of having the fewest throwaway stories. And none of these five\noverlap at all, iirc.\n\nSeveral small-press collections have appeared, though I don't know if any\nare still in print. The only one of these I've seen is _Bibliomania_, which\nis fun, but lightweight, and should definitely come after the five\ncollections above.\n\nHope this helps,\n\nAdam\n\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Richard Horton \nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: Re: (urth) Re Other Authors\nDate: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 13:14:58 -0500\nMessage-ID: <1f43avche006hvfnoaq2s81o04pvbgeqlv at 4ax.com>\nMIME-Version: 1.0\nContent-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii\nContent-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\nOn Fri, 18 Apr 2003 08:06:59 +0100, you wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "No, that was me bought that. Liege and Leaf\n\nFAIRPORT CONVENTION are a bunch of '70s Electric Folkies. Some overlap > with\nThe Strawbs, but \"music for hippies\" doesn't cut it." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And their guitarist was Richard Thompson, very possibly the finest\nguitarist (in the rock/pop idiom) of our time.\n\nDefinitely not \"music for hippies\". Fine stuff, actually.\n\n-- \nRich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard.horton at sff.net\nHome Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton\nAlso visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online > (http://www.tangentonline.com)\n\n-- " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 14:24:44 -0400\nMessage-Id: <200304191824.OAA005.07 at localhost.colby.edu>\nFrom: \"Fernando Q. Gouvea\" \nTo: urth at urth.net\nSubject: Re: (urth) Short Story collections\nReply-To: urth at urth.net\n\n\nI've been following this discussion with some interest, because I do like\nmany of Wolfe's short stories. They are a very diverse bunch of stories, of\ncourse, with the novellas at one end of the spectrum and stories that are\nlittle more than jeux d'esprit at the other. Still, here's my take on the\nvarious collections:\n\nThe Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories includes\nseveral essential stories and several others that are fun but light. The\nbest, I think are the title story, \"The Death of Doctor Island\", \"The\nEyeflash Miracles\", \"Tracking Song\", and \"Seven American Nights\". In\naddition, I have a soft spot for \"La Befana\". Finally, there's \"The Toy\nTheater\", which I think is just brilliant, an elegantly cut gem that ends" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "up making a significant point about whether it's worthwhile to sacrifice\none's life for one's craft.\n\nCastle of Days includes the short stories that originally appeared in Gene\nWolfe's Book of Days. As several people have pointed out, \"Forlesen\" is an\namazing story. I also like \"Beautyland\" (which has since lost some of its\npower because it was too correct), \"How I Lost the Second World War and\nHelped Turn Back the German Invasion\" (this one seems not to get much\nrespect, but I still think it's great fun), and \"The War Beneath the\nTree\". Castle of Days also includes \"The Castle of the Otter\", a collection\nof secondary pieces about the Book of the New Sun, of which the best, I\nthink, is \"These Are the Jokes\" (which is brilliant).\n\nEndangered Species includes several stories that stand out for me,\nincluding \"The Cabin on the Coast\", \"In the House of Gingerbread\", \"When I\nWas Ming the Merciless\", and \"The Detective of Dreams\". Several others are" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "at least interesting: \"The Last Thrilling Wonder Story\", and the two \"The\nWoman Who Loved\" stories. Pound for pound, this is probably the weakest of\nthe collections.\n\nStoreys From the Old Hotel, though meant as a kind of collection of less\nsignificant stories, actually contains several that I think are among his\nbest: \"Westwind\", \"Parkroads\", \"A Solar Labyrinth\", \"Cherry Jubilee\", and\n(I'm sure choosing this one will annoy people) \"In Looking-Glass Castle\".\n\nIn Strange Travelers, there are several strange stories that I haven't\ncompletely processed yet. Still, \"No Planets Strike\" seems very fine to me,\n\"And When They Appear\" is disturbing but well done, \"Ziggurat\" is again\ndisturbing but packs a punch, and \"Counting Cats on Zanzibar\" is very\ngood. \"Bed and Breakfast\" is fun but minor. Some of the others I'm not sure\nwhat to do with yet.\n\nThat's quite a good bunch of stories, I think, of many different types and\nstyles. Perhaps not as good as the very best sf short story writers, but" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "pretty close.\n\nFernando\n\n-- \n\nFernando Q. Gouvea \nDepartment of Mathematics Editor, FOCUS and MAA Online\nColby College Mathematical Association of America\nWaterville, ME 04901 http://www.maa.org\nfqgouvea at colby.edu \n=============================\n\nGenua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way\nthat couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government.\n -- Local-body politics explained\n Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad\n\n\n\n-- " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "jismulkstis", "address": "jismulkstis at att.net" }, "date": "2003-04-21T16:53:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just saw that my earlier reply included all of the original message. \nPlease accept my apologies. \n\nAgain.\n\nMuskrat" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2003-04-22T07:29:56+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 20/04/2003 21:21:31 ?iso-8859-1?q?Jonathan=20Laidlow?= wrote:\nAlright alright, we contain multitudes and all that,\nI'll go back to the (for shame!) Star Wars novel I'm\ncurrently reading, and we'll forget I ever edited a GW\nwebsite.... Do I get expelled for enjoying reading\npulp fiction?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No. But you'd be safer characterizing it as the painful burden of\nscholarly research...\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2003-04-22T07:40:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 21/04/2003 15:06:37 jismulkstis wrote:\nI recommend Excession or Look to Windward for an intro to Banks.\nUse of Weapons is also very solid, but I thought the ending\ncame somewhat out of the blue. Excession is thoughtful space\nopera with the best twist on the Climactic Space Battle I've\never seen. Look to Windward is about, among other things, why\none should bother staying alive." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "My own opinion is that Banks would be better read in publication order,\ncertainly the Culture books.\n\nFor example \"Look to Windward\" stands well enough alone but does better\nfor having read \"Consider Phlebus\" first.\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Thomas Bitterman", "address": "tom at bitterman.net" }, "date": "2003-04-25T23:25:10+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 21/04/2003 15:06:37 jismulkstis wrote:\nI recommend Excession or Look to Windward for an intro to Banks.\nUse of Weapons is also very solid, but I thought the ending\ncame somewhat out of the blue." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "An interesting comparison could be made between Severian and\nZakalwe. They're both men who've done terrible things in their\npast and are journeying toward some form of redemption. The\nmajor difference, and this goes to a major difference between\nthe authors, is the agency of the characters. Spoilers ahead.\n\nSeverian is constantly buffeted by events: he's kicked out of\nthe guildhouse, Agia pushes him around, he gets caught up in\nthe war, backs into being the Autarch, and so on. His main\ndecisions are moral: how to react, what to fight for and\nagainst. He's neither a pilgrim nor a penitent - personal\naction is ineffective as a moral instrument.\n\nZakalwe is a man of action. Action, in the form of what he\nunderstands as good works, meant for self-atonement and to earn\nthe forgiveness of others. The Culture is a world where human\naction is efficacious - although Zakalwe is not forgiven (at\nthe time the novel depicts) his attempt to earn forgiveness\nis not portrayed negatively, nor is it implied that he is\nlaboring in vain.\n\nTom" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "PMorris33", "address": "pmorris33 at aol.com" }, "date": "2003-04-27T06:54:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When will \"Soldier Of Sidon\" be released?\n\nPippen" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "PMorris33", "address": "pmorris33 at aol.com" }, "date": "2003-07-21T05:07:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I apologize to the other readers if this question seems off topic. \n\nWhat are the publication dates for Wolfe's forthcoming work? I depend on \nAmazon for my information. I'm particularly interested in the next volume of \nthe Latro series" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Joel Priddy", "address": "mossmail at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2003-07-27T16:25:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If the Bay Area workshop is a success, I'd love to\nparticipate in a Chicago or East Coast version.\n\nrelurking,\n\ncephalothorax" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Ron Crown", "address": "crownrw at slu.edu" }, "date": "2003-08-07T14:32:30+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Subject:\nRe: (urth) Cybele, with bluebonnets\nFrom:\n\"Dan'l Danehy-Oakes\" \nDate:\nWed, 06 Aug 2003 08:51:25 -0700\nTo:\nurth at urth.net\n\n\nH'mmm. I'll have to look for this. Harness's THE ROSE is, imio, one of the\nabsolutely indispensible books of the stfnal heritage." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And far superior to Harness' much-touted Paradox Men (aka Flight into \nYesterday) which to my mind, is too \"Van Vogtian\" (not ir-rational but \nnon-rational).\n\nRon Crown" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Richard Horton", "address": "rrhorton at prodigy.net" }, "date": "2003-08-09T02:30:15+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Re: Digest from urth@urth.net", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, 07 Aug 2003 09:32:30 -0500, you wrote:\nAnd far superior to Harness' much-touted Paradox Men (aka Flight into \nYesterday) which to my mind, is too \"Van Vogtian\" (not ir-rational but \nnon-rational)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "_The Rose_ is wonderful, but it's at least as irrational or\nnon-rational as _The Paradox Men_." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Rich Horton | Stable Email: mailto://richard.horton at sff.net\nHome Page: http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton\nAlso visit SF Site (http://www.sfsite.com) and Tangent Online (http://www.tangentonline.com)\n\n-- " } ] } ] }