{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4132",
    "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": 4132,
    "subject": "minutiae and Robert&Marie",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2003-07-29T14:47:32+00:00",
    "last": "2003-07-29T14:47:32+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0307-3815@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "James Wynn",
        "address": "crushtv at hotpop.com"
      },
      "date": "2003-07-29T14:47:32+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) minutiae and Robert&Marie",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Josh Geller says:\nI put the whole [Delany/Baldanders theory] forward as much as a wry comment\non the wrangling over minutiae which, in my opinion, badly infests this list\nat the possible expense of serious discussion as for any other reason.\n\nCrush says:\nWhat but minutiae would one expect from a list devoted to the works of a\nsingle, relatively [unjustly] obscure writer? Secondly, since I'd rather\navoid personally directed comments right now, I'll only say that people with\nglass posts should not throw stones.\n;-)\n\nFinally, although I intended to offer this theory only after I had read\ntheir son's biography of their lives, I'd like to move the subject away from\nreligion, politics, and the Culture War and back to minutiae. That is, I am\npretty sure now who were Robert and Marie whom Severian met in the Garden.\nThey are Robert and Mary Moffat. A review of the archives reveals that Alga\nsuggested this years ago in a burst of free-associative imagination that\nwould be a credit even to me.\n\nRobert and Marie were the parents-in-law of David Livingston. Robert was a\ngardener before he became a missionary to South Africa. A Scotsman, his\npronunciation of \"Mary\" was probably indiscrimate from \"Marie\". He went to\nAfrica with the declared desire to plant a Garden for God there. During a\nserious drought, the local chieftan hired a \"rain-maker\", who after repeated\nunsuccess, declared that the white missionaries were driving the rain away.\nThe rain-maker rallied the local people in a mob against them. How it turned\nout was that Robert faced the mob, declared his reason for being there, and\nthe mob broke up.\n\nSince Moffat died in the 1880s, I would say the plane Severian sees is from\nanother time -- that he is moving further and further back in time as he\nwalks through the Garden.\n\nAs I say, I expect to draw this connection better after reading their\nbiography (and getting my copy of tSotT back).\n\n-- Crush"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}