{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3719", "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": 3719, "subject": "tease me?", "messages": 4, "voices": 4, "first": "2002-12-24T18:11:10+00:00", "last": "2002-12-28T22:41:42+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "maa32", "address": "maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu" }, "date": "2002-12-24T18:11:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) tease me?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just a brief comment. \nIt is obvious that Wolfe is teasing either myself or the member of the list \nwho confirmed that his statement was a jest. We can't say with any certainty \nwho Wolfe would be more likely to tease. Let's define my correspondence with \nWolfe in terms of how we speak to one another. I have not asked him any \nquestions about Short Sun since last January, when he declined to answer a \nwhole slew of them. I haven't talked about my interpretations to him since \nthen, because he says he doesn't like tromping out the definitive answer \nbecause it kills discussion and the magic of the work. I haven't mentioned my \nquestions for about a year. \nI sent him a Christmas card this year with a Spruce tree and a man with a \nstaff. I drew a little smiley face on the staff, and I put teeth in the \ntrees. Then I put a PS that said I liked the card because of the spruce and \nthe staff. Then I asked in my PPS if the narrator traveled through the short \nsun so that blue could be Urth. As far as I know, that's all Mr. Wolfe knows \nof my theories. I don't bombard him like I do the list. \nHis reply: \"I like the spruce and the staff, TOO\". On the back of the card: \n\"No, No, NO! Green is Urth.\"\n\nThe question - does he remember my conjecture from, no joke, a year ago? Why \nwould he tease me about it? Mostly we talk about books we've read in common \nand the daily grind of life - not his work, except for my copious praise of \nhis genius (and therefore I vicariously praise my own appreciative genius for \nhaving the sublime intellect to savor his work).\n\nMarc Aramini" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "matthew.malthouse", "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk" }, "date": "2002-12-27T10:59:28+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) tease me?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 24/12/2002 18:11:10 maa32 wrote:\nHis reply: \"I like the spruce and the staff, TOO\". On the back of the\ncard:\n\"No, No, NO! Green is Urth.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But Urth is not Ushas.\n\n\nMatthew" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2002-12-28T21:06:57+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) tease me?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 12/24/02 6:11 PM, maa32 at maa32 at dana.ucc.nau.edu wrote:\nJust a brief comment.\nIt is obvious that Wolfe is teasing either myself or the member of the list\nwho confirmed that his statement was a jest. We can't say with any certainty\nwho Wolfe would be more likely to tease." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[snip]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On the back of the card:\n\"No, No, NO! Green is Urth.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have no access to Wolfe's motives, of course, but my money is on Wolfe's\noriginal comment to you being the joke, for several reasons:\n\n1) While I don't believe Blue is Urth, I'll admit that there are several\ncorrespondences between Blue-Green and Urth-Lune which give the theory a\ncertain coloring of plausibility: the pair of a blue and a green planet, the\ngreen planet being lighter than the blue planet, the underwater city on\nBlue, the Scylla-Mother relationship. If the pairings are switched, none of\nthese correspondences apply, and the \"evidence\" you gave for Green being\nUrth seems quite weak to me.\n\n2) Conversely, all the objections to Blue = Urth apply just as well to Green\n= Urth. I realize you aren't convinced by any of them, but I for one find\nat least Wolfe's interview statement very hard to explain away.\n\n3) As you say, Wolfe doesn't like \"tromping out the definitive answer,\" so\nit would be uncharactistic of him to do so in this case. It seems more\nlikely to me that he would have assumed his answer was an obvious joke when\nit wasn't.\n\n4) If Wolfe is your friend, that makes it all the more likely that he would\n\"tease\" you a bit, and all the less likely that he would destroy your theory\nwith a one-sentence, minimally informative answer. And to follow up by\ntelling a third party that he'd deceived you when he actually hadn't would\nbe a deliberate act of malice at the expense of both you and the third\nparty." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The question - does he remember my conjecture from, no joke, a year ago? Why\nwould he tease me about it?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He wouldn't need to remember your whole elaborate conjecture. Your question\nmade it clear that you thought Blue was Urth (which may have reminded him of\nthe relevant portions of your earlier questions). And he's no doubt aware\nthat there are other people who think that Blue is Urth\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "2002-12-28T22:41:42+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) tease me?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Tue, 24 Dec 2002, maa32 wrote (Quoting Mean Gene):" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"No, No, NO! Green is Urth.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think this most likely means:\n\n1. A joke. Like if Tolkien, tired of being asked for the umpteenth time\nwhether The Ring represents The Bomb had replied, \"No, no, NO! Gollum\nrepresents the Atom Bomb.\"\n\nor\n\n2. Wolfe is saying that, of the two planets, Green, with its decaying\ncities and ancient horrors is more like Urth than Blue is. Like one might\nsay, if asked whether Severian is Aragorn, \"No, no, NO! Severian is\nGollum.\"\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }