{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4004", "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": 4004, "subject": "Well use a thaddle, thilly!", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-05-13T12:37:33+00:00", "last": "2003-05-14T01:51:31+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigel.aprice at virgin.net" }, "date": "2003-05-13T12:37:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Well use a thaddle, thilly!", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I thought that the \"The Tree is my Hat\" barrel was empty, but it turns out\nthat there are just a few more last dry scrapings to be got out. Here goes.\n\nThe shark is a hammer-head. In some mythologies, for example Norse, the\nthunder god makes thunder by hitting an anvil with a hammer. At the end of\nWolfe's story, the shark disappears into a thunder-head. This juxtaposition\nof hammer and thunder made me listen again to see if any of the significant\nmeetings between Baden and Hanga take place on a Thursday (\"Thor's Day\"),\nbut although we get dates from Baden's journal, we don't get days. Without\nknowing the year in which the story is set, this doesn't get us anywhere.\nI'm not sure what it would add, anyway, but it was an interesting detail...\n\nThanks to Josha and Mournings Glory for further particulars on the medicinal\nuse of arsenic.\n\nIt did occur to me when I was transcribing the end of the story last night\nthat Wolfe's interest in the dramatic use of the last words of people on\naircraft before they crash might well have been prompted by Patrick\nO'Leary's references to the subject in both his short story \"23 Skidoo\" and\nhis wonderful novel _The Impossible Bird_. In both instances, Patrick has\nsomeone play the tape from an aircraft's \"black box\" flight recorder which\nrecords the crew's last words before a crash. It's interesting to compare\nPatrick's dialogue with Wolfe's monologue. Here's the end of the \"recording\"\nused in \"23 Skidoo\":" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Wait!\"\n\"No!\"\n\"God!\"\n\"No!\"\n\"F**K!\"\n\"God!\"\n\"NOOO!\"\nA pause)\"\nA whisper. \"Mom, I love you.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"(Silence)\"\n\nOK, not an exact match, but some slight similarities? Remember that Wolfe\ncontributed an introduction to _Other Voices, Other Doors_, the anthology in\nwhich \"23 Skidoo\" appears, and has certainly read and referred to _The\nImpossible Bird_.\n\nFinally...\n\nOne of my many old started-then-abandoned messages to the list collated\nprevious references on the list to TTimH. I found the message lying\nabandoned in my Drafts folder and had another look at it. As well as\nquotations from John Barach (Thu, 21 Mar 2002 15:12:58 -0700), Michael\nAndre-Driussi (Thu, 16 Sep 1999 13:42:48), and the already quoted comments\nfrom Robert Borski (Sun, 28 Apr 2002 13:52:15 -0500), there was also this\ncontribution from Roy C. Lackey (Mon, 27 Sep 1999 21:17:11)..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "From a local reviewer--Michael Barrett--\nof the anthology _999_ in the _San Antonio\nExpress-News_, Sunday, September 26, 1999:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "'\"The Tree Is My Hat\" by Gene Wolfe, better\nknown as a science fiction writer -- A vivid\nPolynesian island tale about a man with a\ndebilitating disease and the ghost or dwarf or\nsomething-or-other who befriends him as a blood\nbrother. Full of strange, unexplained details\nthat one feels must mean more than Wolfe is\ntelling us.'\n\nYeah, sounds like Wolfe." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I should have left it at that, shouldn't I?\n\nI think that that really is it. All that remains now is to see whether I can\ndrag myself through finishing my uncompleted essays on \"The Death of Doctor\nIsland\" and \"Tracking Song\"...not to mention my paper on TBotNS for\nJonathan...\n\nNigel\n\nPS A while back, Jonathan Laidlow wrote..." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "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!" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Guilty as charged, M'lud.\n\n(Did you see that brilliant documentary about Richard Thompson on BBC 4\nrecently? I've just been watching a tape someone lent me. Was that just a\ndrop-D tuning on \"Vincent Black Lightning 1953\" or was he using DAGDAD?\nOoops, sorry, Ranjit! Forgot myself there for a moment.)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "How can we let him continue in this list?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "By an appeal to grace rather than law, I suspect." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Alright 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": "What about *writing* it??? I've recently discovered that there are\ncontributors to the Urth list who are official published *writers* of Star\nWars stories. Compared with that, merely reading the stuff seems a pretty\nmild offence..." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Che Monro", "address": "flirt at technologist.com" }, "date": "2003-05-14T01:51:31+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Well use a thaddle, thilly!", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "What about *writing* it??? I've recently discovered that there are\ncontributors to the Urth list who are official published *writers* of Star\nWars stories. Compared with that, merely reading the stuff seems a pretty\nmild offence..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "*Giggles* I have written Pern fiction.\n\nCh=E9 Franz Joseph Monro -- http://www.chemonro.com\nche at chemonro.com -- flirt at technologist.com" } ] } ] }