{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/442", "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": 442, "subject": "Mellow yellow pharmicon (remember?!)", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "1998-03-25T19:46:50+00:00", "last": "1998-03-26T11:29:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice Turner", "address": "al at interport.net" }, "date": "1998-03-25T19:46:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Mellow yellow pharmicon (remember?!)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan,\n\nI lived in Bangkok for a time, and saw Buddhist monks in their saffron\nyellow robes daily. In daily life, at least among English-speakers (and\nTBOTNS is written in English), the terms were used interchangeably.\nCertainly no one referred to the robes as orange, and as they became well\nworn (monks are poor) they faded. It is far more likely that the robes refer\nback to Buddhism than to the odd American Hare Krishna cult.\n\n\nRostrum," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I wonder if there could be some difference attributable to Severian's\nmemory." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, of course, but by itself that just doesn't seem quite enough for her\npowerful presence.\n\nTony," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes. Jonas is a sailor, so it would be natural for him to regard a ship,\nor perhaps all space, as his home." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's not quite what I meant, as I was speculating about his home world,\nbut of course you are right, and I think he does exactly that." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I've always assumed that Jonas simply escapes to a -place- where he\ncan be repaired, rather than a time. (A place in our universe, that is,\nrather than some other.) One of the worlds of the Hierodules, perhaps,\nor some other planet that still has a viable technology." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That must be right. I know who could fix him up! Well, maybe Ossipago could,\nbut I was thinking of--oh, what is his name?--the talus-maker on the Whorl.\nYou know for sure *he's* going to turn up again--Silk's gonna need them Tall\nAsses." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Robert and Marie, too, could\nhave come from that place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think if they come from anywhere it's the past rather than a\nparallel Earth, since it's implied pretty strongly that the\nBotanical Gardens extend into Urth's past. But don't forget\nthat they may simply be \"chant-caught\" contempories of\nSeverian. I've always loved that scene for its tantalising ambiguity." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Me too. And for the old-movie quality. Yes, I agree with you. I was just\nscratching my head about Jonas, who certainly comes from the past, but not\nthat far into the past.\n\n\nChris," }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The autarch mentions he has a pharmacon *similar* to the alzabo, but not\nthe\nsame. No doubt it was much more effective to bring hundreds of\npersonalities\ninto another person." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, but Thecla's presence is very powerful long before Sev takes the\npharmacon. For me, it's just a little something that I wish Wolfe had\nbothered to clear up. Oh, well, let's just call it the Claw's influence.\n\n-alga-" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "C R Culver", "address": "crculver at aol.com" }, "date": "1998-03-26T02:32:36+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Mellow yellow pharmicon (remember?!)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It is far more likely that the robes refer back to Buddhism than to the odd\nAmerican Hare Krishna cult.<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Probably they go back to Buddhism. According to Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha\nmade his robes from the cloth strewn around the Ganges, funeral wrappings,\nmenstural napkins, and all that stuff. They were mostly saffron, I imagine.\nApply whatever symbolism you want from that to the BotNS, if you'd like.\nInterestingly enough, Mahayana is the vehicle of Buddhism in which the robes\nof the modern-day followers are *not* saffron, in my experience. Pure Land and\nZen robes are black." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jonas, who certainly comes from the past, but not that far into the past.<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Careful there. Jonas knew of Korea and the Korean language (he could tell\nKLS's nationality from his name), so he comes from a time not too remote from\nmodern Korea because a significant amount of linguistic drift has not\noccurred." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That must be right. I know who could fix him up! Well, maybe Ossipago could<" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ossipago and Sidero worry me. I wonder if they are relics from a past science,\nkept in repair but no longer made (like the fliers), or if they are still\nproduced. Do the Hierodules still have the ability to heal Jonas?\n\nChristopher R. Culver \nhttp://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-03-26T11:29:34+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Mellow yellow pharmicon (remember?!)", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Wed, 25 Mar 1998, Alice Turner wrote:\nI wonder if there could be some difference attributable to Severian's\nmemory." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, of course, but by itself that just doesn't seem quite enough for her\npowerful presence.\n\nChris,\nThe autarch mentions he has a pharmacon *similar* to the alzabo, but not\nthe\nsame. No doubt it was much more effective to bring hundreds of\npersonalities\ninto another person.\n\nYes, but Thecla's presence is very powerful long before Sev takes the\npharmacon. For me, it's just a little something that I wish Wolfe had\nbothered to clear up. Oh, well, let's just call it the Claw's influence." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It depends on how the drug works. And what it's like to have a memory\nlike Severian's. And whether you can draw a sharp line between memory\nand self.\n\nIf Severian's memory is more analogous to a perfect hard-drive, then I\nagree that simply having Thecla's \"files\" on his hard drive would not be\nsufficient to account for the way Severian seems to almost become\npart-Thecla.\n\nBut imagine instead that it's more like what Larry Niven describes in\n_World of Ptavvs_, where when a telepath reads a person's mind, the two\npersonalities struggle within the brain to deterine which is the \"host\"\nand which is the \"visitor,\" and if the visitor's personality is strong\nenough, the brain may end up convinced that the visitor is actually it's\nreal, host, personality, even after the telepathic link is broken. A poor\nand totally unjust description of Niven, but it's the best I can do. Read\nthe book instead, it's one of Niven's better ones, IMHO.\n\nAnyway, imagine that having a perfect memory is not just having\ninformation at hand, but having a greater degree of continuity with your\npast self--since you can remember exactly how you felt when you were six,\nand not just project back, you might even be able to get a sense of how\nyour six-year-old self would have thought/felt about current events. \n\nFor Vodalus, et. al., with their weaker version of the alzebo drug, they\nspend a few minutes where their memories and personality become intermixed\nwith Thecla, but then the experience becomes a memory, subject to\ndegredation, only imperfectly recalled. \n\nFor Severian, however, remembering the experience perfectly may be\nindistinguishable from having the experience. He doesn't just have\nThecla's files, he's got her \"operating system,\" and he doesn't just have\nit on a hard drive, accessible when he chooses, but always loaded in RAM. \n\nThe autarch alzebo drug is stronger, so the autarchs never quite forget,\n(or never quite stop having--is there a difference?) the experience of\ncommunion with earlier autarchs. \n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }