{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4854",
    "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": 4854,
    "subject": "Tracking Song and vizcacha, and misc.",
    "messages": 5,
    "voices": 4,
    "first": "2007-06-17T19:09:11+00:00",
    "last": "2007-06-18T00:49:30+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<39ed084f0706171209q542096d9hdd1d1e849927acee@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Matthew Groves",
        "address": "matthewalangroves at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2007-06-17T19:09:11+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Tracking Song and vizcacha, and misc.",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "vizcacha wrote:\nThanks, Matthew. It's \"Lebling,\" by the way, not \"Liebling.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Woops, sorry about that. Take \"Liebling\" as a sign of my affection. What\nsort of thing is a vizcacha, by the way?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "The epigraph has multiple meanings."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Well, that wouldn't be a first. So there is another layer there, or several\nlayers in one, as you observe. And you thing this all takes place on an\nasteroid? That would not be a first either. Can you expand on that at all?\nIt is obviously extremely small, but do asteroids have moons?\n\nOn another matter: If all the tribes carry weapons keyed to their \"totemic\"\nanimals, then what are we to make of Mantru's horned staff? I though perhaps\nhe might be a minotaur, particularly because he lives in a \"labyrinth.\" But\nin that case it seems like Mantru should be a lot bigger. And the\ndescription of the staff gives it insect qualities: it has \"a pair of\nslender and nearly parallel horns,\" it's metallic, and the horns are\n\"gracefully curved antennae.\" But what about the \"geometric designs\ninterspersed with faces\" on the shaft and the fine script on the antennae\nthat is \"of a form I felt certain I had never seen before.\"\n\nStill the correspondence among the words \"Min,\" \"Mantru,\" \"Minotaur,\" and\n\"King Minos\" is suggestive, and the epigraph from the Aeneid points in that\ngeneral direction also. And what would this say about the *winged man* at\nthe end!!! The winged man who is catching the *sun*!!! Any thoughts?\n\nThe winged man is from a bird tribe;\nThe winged man is a cherub, or an archangel;\nThe winged man is Great Raven;\nThe winged man is Icarus;\n\n...\n\nWolfe is a tricky bastard.\n\nMatt G."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<200706171534.57247.ddjones@riddlemaster.org>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Daniel D Jones",
        "address": "ddjones at riddlemaster.org"
      },
      "date": "2007-06-17T19:34:56+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Tracking Song and vizcacha, and misc.",
      "in_reply_to": "<39ed084f0706171209q542096d9hdd1d1e849927acee@mail.gmail.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On Sunday 17 June 2007 15:09, Matthew Groves wrote:\nvizcacha wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Thanks, Matthew. It's \"Lebling,\" by the way, not \"Liebling.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Woops, sorry about that. Take \"Liebling\" as a sign of my affection. What\nsort of thing is a vizcacha, by the way?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "The epigraph has multiple meanings."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Well, that wouldn't be a first. So there is another layer there, or several\nlayers in one, as you observe. And you thing this all takes place on an\nasteroid? That would not be a first either. Can you expand on that at all?\nIt is obviously extremely small, but do asteroids have moons?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Suppose an asteroid were in orbit around the earth?  Would a stone-age level \ninhabitant consider the Earth and Luna as two moons?  I'm not certain that it \nmakes sense to say that they're actually on an asteroid orbiting our Earth, \njust pointing out that the word \"moon\" might need to be taken rather loosely."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On another matter: If all the tribes carry weapons keyed to their \"totemic\"\nanimals, then what are we to make of Mantru's horned staff? I though\nperhaps he might be a minotaur, particularly because he lives in a\n\"labyrinth.\" But in that case it seems like Mantru should be a lot bigger.\nAnd the\ndescription of the staff gives it insect qualities: it has \"a pair of\nslender and nearly parallel horns,\" it's metallic, and the horns are\n\"gracefully curved antennae.\" But what about the \"geometric designs\ninterspersed with faces\" on the shaft and the fine script on the antennae\nthat is \"of a form I felt certain I had never seen before.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "It's been awhile since I read this story, but I was under the impression when \nI read it that Mantru's staff was an artifact (probably of the robot makers) \nand not something that he or his kind had constructed.  "
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Wolfe is a tricky bastard."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Grass is green.  The sky is blue.  :-)"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<1051.67.142.130.42.1182109436.squirrel@brunians.org>",
      "from": {
        "name": "brunians at brunians.org",
        "address": "brunians at brunians.org"
      },
      "date": "2007-06-17T19:43:56+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Tracking Song and vizcacha, and misc.",
      "in_reply_to": "<39ed084f0706171209q542096d9hdd1d1e849927acee@mail.gmail.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "vizcacha wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Thanks, Matthew. It's \"Lebling,\" by the way, not \"Liebling.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Woops, sorry about that. Take \"Liebling\" as a sign of my affection. What\nsort of thing is a vizcacha, by the way?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I was going to say, I *loved* 'Springtime for Hitler'.\n\n\n\n."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<4675CBC8.8040500@hyraxes.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dave Lebling",
        "address": "dlebling at hyraxes.com"
      },
      "date": "2007-06-18T00:03:20+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Tracking Song and vizcacha, and misc.",
      "in_reply_to": "<39ed084f0706171209q542096d9hdd1d1e849927acee@mail.gmail.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Matthew Groves wrote:\nvizcacha wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Thanks, Matthew. It's \"Lebling,\" by the way, not \"Liebling.\""
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Woops, sorry about that. Take \"Liebling\" as a sign of my affection. What\nsort of thing is a vizcacha, by the way?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Vizcacha is usually (but not always) spelled \"viscacha,\" and it's a \nsmall rabbit-like rodent native to South America; it's closely related \nto the chinchilla. Given the far future South American setting of New \nSun and the South American culture of Long Sun (which prompted all the \nanimal and plant nicknames), I thought it fit.\n\nHere's the Wikipedia article, with a decent photo: \nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vizcacha"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "The epigraph has multiple meanings."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Well, that wouldn't be a first. So there is another layer there, or \nseveral\nlayers in one, as you observe. And you thing this all takes place on an\nasteroid? That would not be a first either. Can you expand on that at \nall?\nIt is obviously extremely small, but do asteroids have moons?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Some asteroids do indeed have moons. Check the archives for discussion \nof the size of the setting for \"Tracking Song.\" The Great Sleigh \ncircumnavigates it in two weeks (by my memory here), going at a rather \nsedate speed. I suppose it could be a moon, but I think asteroids with \nmoons are more common than moons with moons.\n\nDave Lebling, aka vizcacha"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<200706172049.30155.ddjones@riddlemaster.org>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Daniel D Jones",
        "address": "ddjones at riddlemaster.org"
      },
      "date": "2007-06-18T00:49:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Tracking Song and vizcacha, and misc.",
      "in_reply_to": "<4675CBC8.8040500@hyraxes.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "On Sunday 17 June 2007 20:03, Dave Lebling wrote:\nWell, that wouldn't be a first. So there is another layer there, or\nseveral\nlayers in one, as you observe. And you thing this all takes place on an\nasteroid? That would not be a first either. Can you expand on that at\nall?\nIt is obviously extremely small, but do asteroids have moons?"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Some asteroids do indeed have moons. Check the archives for discussion\nof the size of the setting for \"Tracking Song.\" The Great Sleigh\ncircumnavigates it in two weeks (by my memory here), going at a rather\nsedate speed. I suppose it could be a moon, but I think asteroids with\nmoons are more common than moons with moons."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "How big would an asteroid have to be to maintain an atmosphere?  Could one of \nsufficient size be circumnavigated in two weeks at \"rather sedate speeds?\"  \n(It's possible that Wolfe simply took poetic license, of course.)"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}