{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5913",
    "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": 5913,
    "subject": "Vines Redux",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2011-01-17T05:24:10+00:00",
    "last": "2011-01-17T05:24:10+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<SNT123-W424E3822A4A67BCECAAE01CFF40@phx.gbl>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Lee Berman",
        "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2011-01-17T05:24:10+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Vines Redux",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I've been meaning to post on this for a while but I kept forgetting.\n \nI remembered what I think is a gnostic sort of reference from the very\nfirst pages of 5HoC, though I don't know how Wolfe could have expected \nanyone to get it based on itself, alone.\n \nOn Number Five and David's bedroom window we have an iron shutter shaped \ninto the boughs of a willow. The willow tree is a potent pagan symbol\nof watery domains and their mystic connection to the moon. (perhaps related, \nwillow extract [aspirin] has long been considered a remedy for menstrual \npains).\n \nThis shutter is overgrown with \"silver trumpet vine\" something I am unable\nto find reference to as a real plant (though there are other sorts of \ntrumpet vine). A silver trumpet has a very specific association with the\narchangel Gabriel. Gabriel is a very important gnostic figure (Muslim also), \nhighly associated with the moon and water and tides and menstruation\n(Gabriel is often described, as are many angels, as androgynous; Tilda Swinton\nwas SO perfect as the androgynous angel in the movie Constantine).\nhttp://ultrasweet.tumblr.com/post/2554359489/one-of-the-most-gorgeous-scene-in-constantine\n \n \n \nSo, anyway, the hollow stems of the silver trumpet vine were snapped off by David and \nfashioned into a series of \"panpipes\" (no grapes necessary to make the \nDionysus connection, I hope). \n \nMaybe the concept of a \"demiurge\" was trying to be invoked or something like that.\nI could never have gotten it without the benefit of hindsight but perhaps Wolfe\nthought some of his readers, as well versed in pagan mythology as he, could get it.\nI dunno.\n \nGabriel is invoked as the first character in Dr. Talos' Play. The silver trumpet is\nactually very important in eschatology as seven seals are broken, seven trumpets are\nblown, etc. as the apocalyptic heralds of the end of the world.  WOlfe is coy enough to \nnot repeat the mention of the \"silver trumpet\" in Talos' play, instead mentioning it\nonly parenthetically as Gabriel \"flourishing the clarion which is his badge of office\".\n \n(I've been trying to connect the Seven Seals with the numbers on the Seal of Pas but with \nno luck so far; symbols of the 12 Tribes of Israel the 144,000, protected by the Sixth\nseal as Whorl body storage notation was a possibility for a while but..well..as reported,\nno luck so far in decoding).\n \nI'm not as familiar with some of Wolfe's other work to know if such pagan, gnostic, \nRevelationy type stuff is to be found in all his work but if others know of such I'd\nbe very interested.\n\n \n  \t\t \t   \t\t  "
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}