{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3814", "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": 3814, "subject": "DOORS: Klamm, Green", "messages": 7, "voices": 5, "first": "2003-01-27T06:12:50+00:00", "last": "2003-02-03T16:44:04+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2003-01-27T06:12:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) DOORS: Klamm, Green", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Fanny's account of Lara being Klamm's \"stepdaughter\" wasn't true; that was\njust a popular cover story put out to satisfy public curiosity about why\nsuch a desirable young woman should be seen so much in the company of an old\nman. Green figured that out and told Klamm so, which Klamm admitted, in so\nmany words. (300) Klamm was never married; there was no ex-wife, or if there\nwas, that woman was Lara. The \"favorite student\" (141) the former wife was\nsaid to have been when Klamm was at the university, the wife, the ex-wife,\nthe stepdaughter, were all Lara at different stages of Klamm's life. She\nassumed different roles as he aged.\n\nKlamm had been Lara's lover when he was young man, when he was \"younger\nthan\" Green (301), who was about 35 at that point. Let's say that Klamm was\nher lover when he was in his twenties. How old is Klamm? Though still in\ngovernment service, he is described as a \"crag-faced old man\" with \"cheeks\npulled flaccidly downward by the weight of years\". (96) I think he's in his\nseventies. Like Green, Klamm was a Visitor. (302) So, for close to fifty\nyears Klamm had been living in the Otherworld; that had to be the case for\nhim to have worked his way up from a non-English speaking foreigner to a\nCabinet level position. No matter which of the time-rate ratios put forward\nrecently is used, that means that Klamm had to have crossed over from our\nworld 400 to 700 years ago! He was Lara's lover before Captain Billy. He\ncalled Green Herr K only because Green reminded him of himself when he was\nyoung.\n\nI think I can explain the confusion early in the book about the buck-toothed\ndoctor not seeming to know Green's name until prompted. The doctor wasn't\nlying either, later in the book, about having seen Green more times than he\nremembered. The day he came in looking for Lara was the first time Green had\nbeen to the clinic in some years. He had been there a number of times before\nyears ago, back when he had his breakdown after his mother died. The doctor\nrecognized him by sight, but couldn't remember his name until she correctly\nmistook his explanation of viridian as his name. Then she remembered.\n\nGreen didn't consciously remember having been to the clinic before because\nhe was suppressing the memory of having been a mental patient, because he\nthought such a man to be unworthy of Lara. He was right about Lara lying\nwhen she said that they had met at the doctor's office. She had picked him\nup in the park. (267-68) Remember the account he gave North of Lara: \"We've\nbeen living together for the past few days. With no job, Lara couldn't pay\nher rent.\" (40) If she had been a receptionist, then she had a job. Not\nhaving a job was just another lie she told to rationalize her living with\nhim for a while. She changed her hair and eye colors to muddle the issue.\n\nLara introduced Green to Klamm as her \"friend Adam K. Green\". (293) I don't\nknow where she got the \"Adam K.\" part, but I doubt that was his real name.\nIt was her half-hearted attempt to spare the feelings of her former lover by\ncalling a newer lover just a \"friend\". As Green himself told her, \"I think\nyou like _Billy_--like the name.\" (280) Herr Klamm was \"Adalwolf Wilhelm\nKlamm\". (293) The captain was \"William Hurst\". (278) She didn't want to rub\nit in Klamm's face that Green was another in a long line of Williams.\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Andre-Driussi", "address": "mantis at siriusfiction.com" }, "date": "2003-01-27T18:41:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) DOORS: Klamm, Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Once again I find my recent investigations put me on the same page with\nRoy. I agree with everything (Klamm is a visitor; Klamm is Lara's\nex-lover, and he isn't dead; Klamm is in his seventies) except a few points." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No matter which of the time-rate ratios put forward\nrecently is used, that means that Klamm had to have crossed over from our\nworld 400 to 700 years ago!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, because one of my timeflow plans involves a ratio reversal which, over\ntime (8 years, 10 years?), cancels out the differences. For instance,\nlet's say that in Otherworld Winter the ratio is 11:1 (11 e-days for 1\no-day) and in O-Spring the ratio is 14:1 (14 e-days for 1 o-day). This is\ngiven in the text. Now with simple symmetry, we could try O-Summer as 1:11\n(the \"opposite\" of O-Winter) and O-Autumn as 1:14." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "He was Lara's lover before Captain Billy. He\ncalled Green Herr K only because Green reminded him of himself when he was\nyoung." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think he was Lara's lover after Captain \"Blaze-Away Billy\" William Hurst.\n(It would be neat if we could find a text with Captain Billy in it . . . I\ntried the footnotes for FLASHMAN, but no luck there.)\n\nMORE ON KLAMM\n\nUsing Adam Stephanides's tip that Klamm comes from Kafka's THE CASTLE\n(thanks, Adam!), I poked around on the internet. Klamm is, in fact,\ninvolved in a love triangle with K.: Klamm's mistress is Frieda; Frieda\nbecomes attracted to K. and moves into his apartment; they become engaged\nto be married; K. catches his assistent \"playing\" with Frieda so he sends\nhim away; the assistent spies K. interviewing Frieda's rival, reports to\nFrieda, Frieda breaks off the engagement with K. and moves in with the\nassistant (whose name begins with \"J\"; which is funny because K. on the\ntelephone calls himself Joseph).\n\nSo anyway, on the Kafka track, Lara = Frieda. (And I think that the Castle\nitself = Overwood. Not to be the bummer here, but one scenario for the\nconclusion to THE CASTLE is that K., on his deathbed, finally gets\npermission to visit the Castle he has been trying to get to for the entire\nnovel.)\n\nTHE CASTLE was published in 1926, iirc, and that is where in time I posit\nthat Klamm crossed over. Captain Billy was sailing in the 19th century,\nsometime after 1840.\n\nGODDESS LOVER DATE\nCybele Attis ???\n | | |\nLa Belle Dame (a knight) medieval times\nLeucothea Fitzhugh William Hurst 1840+\n(L?) Frieda Wilhelm Klamm 1926\nLara Morgan \"Green\" 1984+\n\n(The alphabetic progression in the goddess's name from \"LF\" to \"LM\" is\nclear in the text. I'm not sure if \"LG,\" \"LH,\" \"LI,\" \"LJ,\" and \"LK\" are\nimplied between these two posts or not.)\n\nAnyway, looking at it this way we can see a pattern closer to the natural\nlife-span than 700 years for Klamm.\n\n(So far we've done a good job of keeping the Arthuriana out of the mix: we\ndeserve a prize of some kind! But now let us go ahead and say, yes, \"Lara\nMorgan\" is to \"Morgan la Fey\" as \"Overwood\" is to \"Avalon.\")\n\n(The connection between Captain Billy and Green: aside from his attraction\nto the desk, there is also Green's fantasy about writing the letter just\nprior to some sort of ship action [was that the Captain's death?], and long\nbefore this is the first few pages of the book, where Green fantasizes that\nhe is in a small boat at sea with Lara.)\n\nSOLAR HERO\nSince my timeflow pattern above may have tipped my hand, I might as well\ncome out with it: Green shows signs of being a solar hero. He was \"born\"\nin Otherworld in January (the old sun dies at the winter solstice, near the\nend of December).\n\nWilliam North is identified with the direction North, not only because of\nhis name but because when they are driving, Green notes the choice North\nmakes is North. North is the direction of ice and Winter; Winter is the\nopposite of Summer, when the Sun has travelled as far North as possible.\n(The Otherworld is in the grip of a Winter which seems like an ice-age to\nus, fwiw.)\n\nThe fight between North and Green thus becomes the seasonal battle between\nWinter and Summer, Darkness and Light, at the vernal equinox. The young\nsun has grown strong enough to do battle with the forces of darkness and\nemerge triumphant.\n\nI mentioned before that Graves has his own calendar, which Otherworld does\nnot seem to be following. But North might be following it: in his\nconfession he says he killed Applewood on January 21st (294). This date\nmight not ring any bells for our calendar senses, but it is the first day\nof the second lunar month in the Graves calendar: the month of Quickbeam\n(Rowan). Four months after this (i.e., the time of the boxing match) is\nthe deadly month of Hawthorn.\n\nThis seasonal theme is not the pattern associated with Attis, but with his\nother forms Adonis (Aphrodite vs. Persephone), Tammuz (Ishtar vs.\nEreshkigal), and Osiris (Isis vs. Set). In these myths, Winter is\nexplained as the goddess in mourning and Summer is the goddess happy with\nthe return of her lover.\n\nAnyway, North pulls his guns and tries to kill Klamm, according to one\nperspective. This is the traditional \"golden bough\" scenario, where the\nnew comer tries to kill the old priest in order to become the new priest.\nBut North is a bit flummoxed by the recent revelation that Lara knows Green\nand Green loves Lara, so he shoots at Green and ends up being killed\nhimself.\n\nBACK TO KLAMM\nKlamm's reward for Green is all the cryptic knowledge he reveals and a safe\nplace in the \"temple\": I think he is saying that Green should settle in\nwith Fanny and then maybe later the goddess will visit him. But no, even\nwhile Green is not going to kill his predecessor (atonement with the\nfather? breaking with the bloodrites of the past?), still Green is not\ngoing to fall for that \"bait and switch\" routine -- he leaves the temple to\ngo to the Forbidden Zone, the land of the goddess. To me this looks like\nthe choice between a long safe life (like Klamm has had?) or a short\nglorious-like-the-Sun life.\n\nSELF-MUTILATION\nThere are several cases of Otherworld cultural tidbits that wash over to\nEarth: the seductress parade, the bridegroom in black (198), and perhaps\neven the genital mutilation that Attis is famous for (280), because it\nwould seem that self-castration would be a method for O-men to avoid coital\ndeath.\n\n(The file on North mentions that he is a self-mutilator, fwiw.)\n\n=mantis=\n\nP.S. Some hurt Lexicons up for auction on eBay." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2003-01-29T15:02:02+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) DOORS: Klamm, Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 1/27/03 12:41 PM, Michael Andre-Driussi at mantis at siriusfiction.com\nwrote:\nI think he was Lara's lover after Captain \"Blaze-Away Billy\" William Hurst.\n(It would be neat if we could find a text with Captain Billy in it . . . I\ntried the footnotes for FLASHMAN, but no luck there.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Captain Billy's Whiz Bang? This was a popular American humor magazine\nof the 1920s and 1930s, though far less sophisticated than the New Yorker;\nsee http://www.compedit.com/whiz_bang.htm if you're interested. Actually,\nfor Wolfe to have deliberately inserted the allusion to CBWB seems like the\nsort of \"joke\" Wolfe would enjoy." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Using Adam Stephanides's tip that Klamm comes from Kafka's THE CASTLE\n(thanks, Adam!)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Incidentally, I've been rereading THE CASTLE, and I wasn't quite correct\nwhen I said that there are no indications that Klamm took any interest in\nK.'s welfare. K. receives two letters from Klamm in which Klamm claims to\ntake a personal interest in him. OTOH, in one scene Klamm goes out of his\nway to avoid meeting K. face-to-face, and K. is repeatedly told that such a\nmeeting is impossible." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "(And I think that the Castle\nitself = Overwood. Not to be the bummer here, but one scenario for the\nconclusion to THE CASTLE is that K., on his deathbed, finally gets\npermission to visit the Castle he has been trying to get to for the entire\nnovel.)" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Iirc, Max Brod (Kafka's friend and literary executor, though now regarded as\nan unreliable interpreter of Kafka) said that K. on his deathbed was to\nreceive permission, not to visit the Castle, but to settle in the village.\nOther similarities between THE CASTLE and TAD: in both, the main character\ngoes to a strange place and tries to establish himself there, and in both,\nthis \"establishment\" is linked to a woman. OTOH, in TAD Green wants to get\nestablished to be near Lara; while in THE CASTLE K. seems to value his\nrelationship with Frieda primarily because he thinks it will help him get\nestablished. Also, the \"twitter of bird-like voices, the voices of Japanese\nchildren, or of music boxes tuned to speak\" (42-3) that Green hears when he\nphones his apartment is very similar to what K. hears on the phone line to\nthe Castle." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "THE CASTLE was published in 1926, iirc, and that is where in time I posit\nthat Klamm crossed over." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's right; but Kafka abandoned work on it in 1922, which might be another\npossible date. (It was published, unfinished, after his death.)\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2003-01-31T16:36:12+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) DOORS: Klamm, Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Adam wrote ..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Captain Billy's Whiz Bang? This was a popular American \nhumor magazine of the 1920s and 1930s, though far less \nsophisticated than the New Yorker; see \nhttp://www.compedit.com/whiz_bang.htm if you're interested. \nActually, for Wolfe to have deliberately inserted the \nallusion to CBWB seems like the sort of \"joke\" Wolfe would enjoy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Aside from the well-known \"The Music Man\" reference, there's\nanother thing that might be of interest ... a subtle joke \nknown to some comix fans, perpetrated by C.C. Beck and the\nDell comix group back in the '50s, when they created CAPTAIN\nMarvel. BILLY Batson, in the pages of WHIZ Comics, would say \nthe magic word \"Shazam!\" to become the Captain with a bolt\nof lightning that usually included the sound effect: BANG.\n\nYes, Beck confirmed years ago that this was deliberate..." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Adam Stephanides", "address": "adamsteph at earthlink.net" }, "date": "2003-02-01T05:07:15+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) DOORS: Klamm, Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "on 1/31/03 10:36 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at ddanehy at siebel.com wrote:\nAside from the well-known \"The Music Man\" reference, there's\nanother thing that might be of interest ... a subtle joke\nknown to some comix fans, perpetrated by C.C. Beck and the\nDell comix group back in the '50s, when they created CAPTAIN\nMarvel. BILLY Batson, in the pages of WHIZ Comics, would say\nthe magic word \"Shazam!\" to become the Captain with a bolt\nof lightning that usually included the sound effect: BANG.\n\nYes, Beck confirmed years ago that this was deliberate..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Neat! I'm a fan of Beck's Captain Marvel, but I never noticed that.\n\nActually, Captain Marvel was published not by Dell, but by Fawcett -- which\ngot its start with Captain Billy's Whiz Bang; Capt. Wilford H. Fawcett was\nthe original \"Captain Billy.\" So the joke has more of a point than you\nthought.\n\n--Adam" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tami Whitehead", "address": "razorkittee at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2003-02-01T05:53:16+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) DOORS: Klamm, Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hang on True Believers, \nMake mine Marvel!!\n\nYour intrepid razorkittee\nTami" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "--- Adam Stephanides wrote:\non 1/31/03 10:36 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes at\nddanehy at siebel.com wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Aside from the well-known \"The Music Man\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "reference, there's\nanother thing that might be of interest ... a\nsubtle joke\nknown to some comix fans, perpetrated by C.C. Beck\nand the\nDell comix group back in the '50s, when they\ncreated CAPTAIN\nMarvel. BILLY Batson, in the pages of WHIZ Comics,\nwould say\nthe magic word \"Shazam!\" to become the Captain\nwith a bolt\nof lightning that usually included the sound\neffect: BANG." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yes, Beck confirmed years ago that this was\ndeliberate..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Neat! I'm a fan of Beck's Captain Marvel, but I\nnever noticed that.\n\nActually, Captain Marvel was published not by Dell,\nbut by Fawcett -- which\ngot its start with Captain Billy's Whiz Bang; Capt.\nWilford H. Fawcett was\nthe original \"Captain Billy.\" So the joke has more\nof a point than you\nthought.\n\n--Adam\n\n\n-- \nhttp://www.urth.net/\nTo unsubscribe: send \"unsubscribe\" to" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "urth-request at urth.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com" }, "date": "2003-02-03T16:44:04+00:00", "subject": "RE: (urth) DOORS: Klamm, Green", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Adam S wrote:\nActually, Captain Marvel was published not by Dell, but by \nFawcett -- which got its start with Captain Billy's Whiz \nBang; Capt. Wilford H. Fawcett was the original \"Captain \nBilly.\" So the joke has more of a point than you thought." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oops ... and I even knew that. If I recall correctly, when \nDetective Comics Comics began publishing revisionist tales \nof the Big Red Cheese, in the late '70s, they memorialized \nthe original publisher by placing his adventures in \"Fawcett \nCity.\"\n\nThe rest of this note is kind of a reply to Razorkittee's\n\"Make Mine Marvel!\"\n\nWhile I was always more a fan of DC's comics than those of\nMarvel-in-the-Stan-Lee sense, the whole Captain Marvel \nbusiness remains kind of a sore spot after fifty years ...\nfor those who don't know, DC sued Fawcett, claiming that\nCaptain Marvel was too similar to their leading trademark\ncharacter, Superman, and succeeded in putting Fawcett out\nof the comic business completely. However, Marvel is not\nentirely innocent here either ...\n\nIn the 60 and early 70s, two comics companies came up \nwith new characters by the name of Captain Marvel. \n\nOne of these, if I recall correctly, and I'm sure someone\nwill correct me if I'm wrong, was Dell, whose Captain\nMarvel character had the particularly weird power of \nsplitting his body up into separate parts, which would \nthen act independently to beat up the bad guys. His only\nresemblance to CM-Classic was the shouting of a magic\nword -- \"Split!\" rather than \"Shazam!\" -- to activate\nhis power.\n\nThe other was Marvel, who created Mar-Vell, a Kree \nwarrior who eventually became a defender of Earth. \nIn the '70s, he became the exclusive property, as it\nwere, of Jim Starlin, who used him as the first foil \nfor one of the great comics villains, Thanos, who\nsought to gain the love of Death* by presenting her\nwith the Universe as a gift.\n\n-----\n* Not Neil Gaiman's Death, a much simpler and more,\n well, elemental non-character.\n-----\n\nCaptain Mar-Vell eventually achieved the interesting\ndistinction of being one of only two Marvel characters\nwhose death was so important to the \"meaning\" of the\nMarvel universe that they have vowed never to bring\nhim back: he died of cancer, and nothing the super-\nscience of the various Marvel genius characters could\ndo could save him. Like Ben Parker, whose death taught\nhis nephew Peter that \"With Great Power Comes Great\nResponsibility,\" Mar-Vell's death was hammered on to\nshow that Super-Heroism Has Serious Consequences.\n\nThe Marvel group eventually created another character\nwith the CM name (incidentally, they'd also created\na rather pointless \"Ms Marvel,\" during a period when \nthey seemed to be creating cross-sex versions of many \nof their major characters [Spider-Woman, She-Hulk,\netc.] as some kind of trademark-protection deal), a\nblack woman from New Orleans who can turn into a beam\nof light.\n\nBut anyway, about Marvel and the Big Red Cheese.\n\nThere was a British knockoff of the character, who\nwent by the name Marvelman. I have not been able\nto verify the following: Marvelman was created by\nFawcett's British partners to continue the series\nwith the serial numbers scraped off, when Fawcett\nceased publication. Marvelman eventually ceased\npublication in the early '60s.\n\nWhat is clearly true is that in the late '70s, one \nof Britain's hot young comix writers, Alan Moore \n(WATCHMEN, V FOR VENDETTA, FROM HELL, etc.) began\npublishing a radical new version of Marvelman, an\nexamination of the superhero as either god or\nuebermensch or ... well ... _something_. It's one\nof his finest pieces of work, and when he stopped\nwriting it, Neil Gaiman took it over and into yet\nanother radical direction. \n\nANYway, Marvel successfully forced them to change\nthe name. So if you want to find out what Alan \nMoore did with the basic concepts of the Captain\n(\"Shazam!\") Marvel character, you need to look for\nback issues of MIRACLEMAN." } ] } ] }