{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4057", "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": 4057, "subject": "Where have you read something very like this before?", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2003-07-01T00:29:38+00:00", "last": "2003-07-03T12:41:31+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2003-07-01T00:29:38+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Where have you read something very like this before?", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Ah, America! Every image of it from the films is true, I thought to myself\nas my oily-featured driver sped through amber lights and babbled maniacally\ninto his radio. The familiar smell (for this was my third visit) of a place\nnear the airport called Queens came to my nose. Which queen, or queens, were\nreferred to, however, no one could say. Power and greed and grand\nMachiavellian scheming filled the very air along the avenue we travelled\non--Jackson Avenue, I think it was, no doubt named after the famous American\npop star possibly born nearby. Ferret-eyed mafiosi, underaged prostitutes,\nneighborhood drug runners, confidence tricksters, and dreary lumpen nobodies\nswarmed at every crossing and roundabout. Lying back on the odoriferous\nupholstery, I drank in the teeming totality through every pore.\"\n\n --Ian Frazier, Shouts &\nMurmurs, The New Yorker, July 7\n\nShouts & Murmurs is the regular weekly short satire department of The New\nYorker, and Ian Frazier is a prolific and excellent writer. The above is the\nfirst paragraph of the new one, and, trust me, it gets better. Those of you\nwho pick up the reference (which seems pitch-perfect, though I'm sure it's a\ncoincidence) might want to pick up the issue, or at least skim through the\nshort piece at a newsstand.\n\n-alga" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Roy C. Lackey", "address": "rclackey at stic.net" }, "date": "2003-07-02T04:01:30+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Where have you read something very like this before?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "alga quoted and wrote:\n\"Ah, America! Every image of it from the films is true, I thought to myself\nas my oily-featured driver sped through amber lights and babbled maniacally\ninto his radio. The familiar smell (for this was my third visit) of a place\nnear the airport called Queens came to my nose. Which queen, or queens,\nwere\nreferred to, however, no one could say. Power and greed and grand\nMachiavellian scheming filled the very air along the avenue we travelled\non--Jackson Avenue, I think it was, no doubt named after the famous\nAmerican\npop star possibly born nearby. Ferret-eyed mafiosi, underaged prostitutes,\nneighborhood drug runners, confidence tricksters, and dreary lumpen\nnobodies\nswarmed at every crossing and roundabout. Lying back on the odoriferous\nupholstery, I drank in the teeming totality through every pore.\"\n\n --Ian Frazier, Shouts\n&\nMurmurs, The New Yorker, July 7\n\nShouts & Murmurs is the regular weekly short satire department of The New\nYorker, and Ian Frazier is a prolific and excellent writer. The above is\nthe\nfirst paragraph of the new one, and, trust me, it gets better. Those of you\nwho pick up the reference (which seems pitch-perfect, though I'm sure it's\na\ncoincidence) might want to pick up the issue, or at least skim through the\nshort piece at a newsstand." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Okay, I'll bite. It must be coincidence, because a nod to a Wolfe story in a\nmagazine like that would go unnoticed. Who among it's readers would ever\nhave read 7AN--besides you?\n\n-Roy" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2003-07-03T12:41:31+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Where have you read something very like this before?", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "----- Original Message -----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: \"Roy C. Lackey\" \nTo: \"urth\" \nSent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 12:01 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) Where have you read something very like this before?\nalga quoted and wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Ah, America! Every image of it from the films is true, I thought to\nmyself\nas my oily-featured driver sped through amber lights and babbled\nmaniacally\ninto his radio. The familiar smell (for this was my third visit) of a\nplace\nnear the airport called Queens came to my nose. Which queen, or queens,\nwere\nreferred to, however, no one could say. Power and greed and grand\nMachiavellian scheming filled the very air along the avenue we travelled\non--Jackson Avenue, I think it was, no doubt named after the famous\nAmerican\npop star possibly born nearby. Ferret-eyed mafiosi, underaged\nprostitutes,\nneighborhood drug runners, confidence tricksters, and dreary lumpen\nnobodies\nswarmed at every crossing and roundabout. Lying back on the odoriferous\nupholstery, I drank in the teeming totality through every pore.\"\n\n --Ian Frazier,\nShouts\n&\nMurmurs, The New Yorker, July 7\n\nShouts & Murmurs is the regular weekly short satire department of The New\nYorker, and Ian Frazier is a prolific and excellent writer. The above is\nthe\nfirst paragraph of the new one, and, trust me, it gets better. Those of\nyou\nwho pick up the reference (which seems pitch-perfect, though I'm sure\nit's\na\ncoincidence) might want to pick up the issue, or at least skim through\nthe\nshort piece at a newsstand." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Okay, I'll bite. It must be coincidence, because a nod to a Wolfe story in\na\nmagazine like that would go unnoticed. Who among it's readers would ever\nhave read 7AN--besides you?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Both the tone and the stance throughout this short piece parallel \"Seven\nAmerican Nights.\" Frazier is perfectly capable of having read Wolfe. (For\nmany years, the regular sf columnist for the NY Times has been the New\nYorker editor Gerald Jonas, and New Yorker contributors--and readers--are an\neclectic lot.) However, I think that both writers are borrowing from a\nthird, the New Yorker satirist S.J. Perelman. Perelman has been dead for\nsome time, and never achieved the iconic status of Thurber or E.B. White,\nbut he was popular and prolific, and both Frazier and Wolfe surely read him;\nhe would have been of the generation just ahead of Wolfe's own. 7AN is\nsomething of a stylistic departure for Wolfe and I'm guessing a Perelman\ninfluence.\n\n-alga" } ] } ] }