{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6356", "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": 6356, "subject": "fifth head owlet- wolf", "messages": 146, "voices": 8, "first": "2013-03-26T04:41:54+00:00", "last": "2013-04-12T13:16:43+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-26T04:41:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The opening quote, about the ivy tod being heavy with snow and the owlet whooping to a wolf below that eats the she wolf's young, has always seemed a bit ambiguous. The opening scene involves David making noises with the pan pipes. Is this like the owl whooping to the wolfe, number five, who will one day kill another wolfe as his own father has consumed his free life and taken the life of his originator? The only other mention of an owl is when maitre in VRT is called an owl. There are forty seven pan pipes and later the prisoner forty seven taps on the pipes to communicate with VRT. He is a political prisoner.\n\nDoes the wolf eat the young of its mother in the quote? (Number four and five et al continually consuming each other- they are wolfes) the quote is certainly not referring to the owl as the consumer of wolves, right?\n\nSent from my iPhone" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5152621E.5020802@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-03-27T03:06:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure owls don't eat wolves, even wolf \npups (though I suppose they could). I did a cursory search and didn't \nfind any discussion of wolves eating their or other wolves' young. But I \ndid find the following in the Medieval Bestiary (http://bestiary.ca):\n\nProstitutes are called she-wolves (/lupae/) because they lay waste their \nlover's riches.\n\nHuh. Tuck that away somewhere . . .\n\nAlso, Pan (of the pipes) is the master of wolves/werewolves." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 3/26/2013 12:41 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nThe opening quote, about the ivy tod being heavy with snow and the owlet whooping to a wolf below that eats the she wolf's young, has always seemed a bit ambiguous. The opening scene involves David making noises with the pan pipes. Is this like the owl whooping to the wolfe, number five, who will one day kill another wolfe as his own father has consumed his free life and taken the life of his originator? The only other mention of an owl is when maitre in VRT is called an owl. There are forty seven pan pipes and later the prisoner forty seven taps on the pipes to communicate with VRT. He is a political prisoner.\n\nDoes the wolf eat the young of its mother in the quote? (Number four and five et al continually consuming each other- they are wolfes) the quote is certainly not referring to the owl as the consumer of wolves, right?\n\nSent from my iPhone\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364358147.55376.YahooMailNeo@web124501.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-27T04:22:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Marc Aramini " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "T he opening quote, about the ivy tod being heavy with snow and the owlet \nwhooping to a wolf below that eats the she wolf's young, has always seemed a \nbit ambiguous." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It does bring Christianity in by means of the hermit, though." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The opening scene involves David making noises with the pan \npipes. Is this like the owl whooping to the wolfe, number five, who will one \nday kill another wolfe as his own father has consumed his free life and taken \nthe life of his originator? The only other mention of an owl is when maitre in \nVRT is called an owl. There are forty seven pan pipes and later the prisoner \nforty seven taps on the pipes to communicate with VRT. He is a political \nprisoner.\n\nDoes the wolf eat the young of its mother in the quote? (Number four and five \net al continually consuming each other- they are wolfes) the quote is certainly \nnot referring to the owl as the consumer of wolves, right?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think so. ?The OED says an \"owlet\" is \"especially a young or small owl\", though\nColeridge might have added the \"let\" just for the meter. ?Wolves had a reputation\nas cannibalistic.\n\nhttp://www.archive.org/stream/poetsbeastsseque00robi/poetsbeastsseque00robi_djvu.txt\n\n\nAlso as I see it, David is more the \"she-wolf's young\" than the Wolfe clones, since\n\nin some sense they aren't a woman's offspring.\n\nOn a tangent, in another poem Coleridge compared atheism to an owlet.\n\nhttp://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/637/\n\n\nJerry Friedman" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5152DE8F.4010202@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-03-27T11:57:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1364358147.55376.YahooMailNeo@web124501.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 3/27/2013 12:22 AM, Jerry Friedman wrote:\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nT he opening quote, about the ivy tod being heavy with snow and the owlet\nwhooping to a wolf below that eats the she wolf's young, has always seemed a\nbit ambiguous." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It does bring Christianity in by means of the hermit, though." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The opening scene involves David making noises with the pan\npipes. Is this like the owl whooping to the wolfe, number five, who will one\nday kill another wolfe as his own father has consumed his free life and taken\nthe life of his originator? The only other mention of an owl is when maitre in\nVRT is called an owl. There are forty seven pan pipes and later the prisoner\nforty seven taps on the pipes to communicate with VRT. He is a political\nprisoner.\n\nDoes the wolf eat the young of its mother in the quote? (Number four and five\net al continually consuming each other- they are wolfes) the quote is certainly\nnot referring to the owl as the consumer of wolves, right?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I think so. The OED says an \"owlet\" is \"especially a young or small owl\", though\nColeridge might have added the \"let\" just for the meter. Wolves had a reputation\nas cannibalistic.\n\nhttp://www.archive.org/stream/poetsbeastsseque00robi/poetsbeastsseque00robi_djvu.txt\n\n\nAlso as I see it, David is more the \"she-wolf's young\" than the Wolfe clones, since\n\nin some sense they aren't a woman's offspring.\n\nOn a tangent, in another poem Coleridge compared atheism to an owlet.\n\nhttp://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/637/\n\n \nJerry Friedman\n_______________________________________________" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Jerry\n\n From your excellent link:\n\n. . . it is punctually associated with that delightful fiction\nof the poets, the poetical owl. They are as thick as thieves,\nthese two creatures, and always \" on the patter \" together.\nIf you see Charley Bates coming up the street you may\nbe sure the Dodger is in the immediate neighbourhood.\nThe rascals converse in highwayman's slang.*\"The owlet\nwhoops to the wolf below.\"*The chances are they are\ndecoys for each other, and divide the spoils of the victims\nwhom they assassinate in company. Was there ever such an\nabominably comic partnership in crime --- owls and wolves !\n\nEveryone must read the entire section here on Bears vs Wolves. Wasn't \nthat a topic of speculation here some time ago? I forget the text, but I \nrecall general mystification as to why bears and wolves would be in \neternal opposition to one another.\n\nI note that there's no mention there of wolves eating their own young, \nbut rather of their eating human infants as well as \"laggards\" among the \npack. Close enough?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<66E6EFDC-BF16-44FD-9EBF-62F498426299@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-28T13:41:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<5152DE8F.4010202@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One more mention at least tangential to owl- at the start of \"a Story\" Sandwalker hunts the owl mouse and eats its young like shrimp and chews the seeds it has stored there, but more telling in this section is the concept that the sleeping place of the Hillmen moves and hides itself if it is not satisfied with the sacrifice a Hillman brings - thus Sandwalker leaves little bodies at night and sometimes they are gone in the morning. At least in the story, the sleeping place is essential to their long survival and can shun them or occasionally do something with their sacrifices to make it \"gone\" in the morning. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As previously commented in the discussion between Jerry and David:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I note that there's no mention there of wolves eating their own young, but rather of their eating human infants as well as \"laggards\" among the pack. Close enough?\n_______________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-28T13:44:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<66E6EFDC-BF16-44FD-9EBF-62F498426299@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This why it is called the land of shifting stones, I finally consciously recognize. \n\nIt also says on the third day that sleeping place is then gone forever and the unsuccessful hunter doomed. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 28, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nOne more mention at least tangential to owl- at the start of \"a Story\" Sandwalker hunts the owl mouse and eats its young like shrimp and chews the seeds it has stored there, but more telling in this section is the concept that the sleeping place of the Hillmen moves and hides itself if it is not satisfied with the sacrifice a Hillman brings - thus Sandwalker leaves little bodies at night and sometimes they are gone in the morning. At least in the story, the sleeping place is essential to their long survival and can shun them or occasionally do something with their sacrifices to make it \"gone\" in the morning. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "As previously commented in the discussion between Jerry and David:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I note that there's no mention there of wolves eating their own young, but rather of their eating human infants as well as \"laggards\" among the pack. Close enough?\n_______________________________\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2013-03-28T17:26:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote:\n...more telling in this section is the concept that the sleeping place\nof the Hillmen moves and hides itself if it is not satisfied with the\nsacrifice a Hillman brings - thus Sandwalker leaves little bodies at\nnight and sometimes they are gone in the morning." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don’t think this passage is about sacrifice to a magic sleeping\nplace. It’s just a poetic way of saying ?If you don’t provide food for\nthe the tribe, the tribe will move on without telling you.\n\n?[others] had come back to the sleeping place with hands empty and\nslack bellies, hoping for leavings and begging their mothers for\nbreasts now belonging to a younger child. These were dead. They had\nlearned the truth that the sleeping place is easily found by a\nfood-bringer, not hard for a full belly to find; but shifts and turns\nbefore hungry mouths until it is lost in the stones, and on the third\nempty day is gone forever. - A Story, 5HoC\n\nThe little bodies Sandwalker leaves at night are mice to keep the\nShadow Children from killing him while he sleeps, as one of the SCs\nconfirms:\n\n?Mice you left us while you came here, and now you would be repaid in\ndeer’s flesh. Dear mice indeed. We should have strangled you while you\nslept.\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364498522.43922.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-28T19:22:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Why on the third day without the sleeping place result in death/the sleeping place being gone forever? Also, any ideas about why the Shadow Children suddenly accept Sandwalker as a friend? they claim that were just playing with him in threatening to kill him, but it is at the point when something happens to his throat that he becomes one of their \"friends\" and their attitude shifts. Was it ingesting the seeds of the owl-mice that prompted this?\n\nThe end of that quote, the shifting and turning of the stones, does not seem like a tribe reaction.\n\n--- On Thu, 3/28/13, Tony Ellis wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Tony Ellis \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: urth at lists.urth.net\n\nI don’t think this passage is about sacrifice to a magic sleeping\nplace. It’s just a poetic way of saying ?If you don’t provide food for\nthe the tribe, the tribe will move on without telling you.\n\n?[others] had come back to the sleeping place with hands empty and\nslack bellies, hoping for leavings and begging their mothers for\nbreasts now belonging to a younger child. These were dead. They had\nlearned the truth that the sleeping place is easily found by a\nfood-bringer, not hard for a full belly to find; but shifts and turns\nbefore hungry mouths until it is lost in the stones, and on the third\nempty day is gone forever. - A Story, 5HoC\n\nThe little bodies Sandwalker leaves at night are mice to keep the\nShadow Children from killing him while he sleeps, as one of the SCs\nconfirms:\n\n?Mice you left us while you came here, and now you would be repaid in\ndeer’s flesh. Dear mice indeed. We should have strangled you while you\nslept.\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T11:26:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1364498522.43922.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote:\nWhy on the third day without the sleeping place result in death/the sleeping place being gone forever?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, it's not the third day without the sleeping place, it's the\nthird 'empty' day - the third day you come home emptyhanded. I imagine\nthat the first couple of times the tribe don't move so far away that\nthey can't be found - you're being given a hint to get your act\ntogether. On the third day either they clear off or they hide. At\nwhich point you're toast." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Also, any ideas about why the Shadow Children suddenly accept Sandwalker as a friend?\nthey claim that were just playing with him in threatening to kill him, but it is at the point\nwhen something happens to his throat that he becomes one of their \"friends\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What happens to Sandwalker's throat is that he chokes up when he sees\nhow sickly and pitiable the Shadow Children are, and has a little\nepiphany. The Old Wise One says \"Look, he weeps.\"\n\nAlmost in the same breath the OWO says \"quickly, sit, eat with us.\" It\nseems to me that when Sandwalker wept the OWO saw his humanity, and\ntook pity on him. And of course once Sandwalker has shared food he's a\nguest.\n\nIt's worth remembering too that the OWO is a construct of the SC's and\nSandwalker's minds. When Sandwalker wept, did that literally *make*\nthe OWO more compassionate? Perhaps." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The end of that quote, the shifting and turning of the stones, does not seem like a tribe reaction." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, that quote doesn't say the stones shift and turn. It says it the\nsleeping place does." } ] }, { "message_id": "<6661E591-86A0-4540-ABCC-F65953347778@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T12:55:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It says it is lost in the stones and that it shifts and turns. Metaphorical language or not? Perhaps related to the perceptual screen that hides st. Anne; the entire landscape is called the land of shifting stones. \n\nExcellent point on his empathy. Do you feel the shadow children and the construct the old wise one, called the group norm, becomes more confused about who was once human because the proportion at the end shifts to one shadow child and Sandwalker? where before he was ' more' certain of who came from the yellow star originally because there were more shadow children dominating the norm, should his assertion of who is human be more 'valid' with the larger percentage of shadow children? \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Mar 29, 2013, at 4:26 AM, Tony Ellis <" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The end of that quote, the shifting and turning of the stones, does not seem like a tribe reaction." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, that quote doesn't say the stones shift and turn. It says it the\nsleeping place does.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8F6C3DC9-F404-4C23-B879-826BA20DF068@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T13:04:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<6661E591-86A0-4540-ABCC-F65953347778@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Another image that has bothered me is the way Cedar Branches Waving , the mother, is described as deflated and empty after the births, and the way that lack of food and success in the hint is called empty days, coupled with the way seven girls waiting is so insistent that even though she has not eaten she still has milk as if it is what will decide her fate. \n\nEmpty and deflated just doesn't seem like typical birthing terms, nor an infant shooting out and stomping on the ground before anyone notices, not even entirely anthropomorphic. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T13:06:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<8F6C3DC9-F404-4C23-B879-826BA20DF068@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Success in the hunt, of course. \n I still think the scenery is not entirely without sentience. \nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 29, 2013, at 6:04 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAnother image that has bothered me is the way Cedar Branches Waving , the mother, is described as deflated and empty after the births, and the way that lack of food and success in the hint" } ] }, { "message_id": "<0808A0FC-9AA8-4BA5-A9C1-9A109E862E37@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T13:16:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One more thing - David stresses humanity relies on a descent from Adam , then qualifies this by saying descent from terrestrial stock at least. Something about the statement the statement by the that the shadow children, as i recall, were once long and lived in trees (or their roots)coupled with chewing the leaves with pink seed eggs they eat to become like God really struck me as a legitimate garden of Eden creation story echo - are these shadow children like the serpent or like man once he has eaten the fruit and become like God in his knowledge of good and evil?\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 29, 2013, at 6:06 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nSuccess in the hunt, of course. \nI still think the scenery is not entirely without sentience. \nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Mar 29, 2013, at 6:04 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Another image that has bothered me is the way Cedar Branches Waving , the mother, is described as deflated and empty after the births, and the way that lack of food and success in the hint\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T13:19:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<0808A0FC-9AA8-4BA5-A9C1-9A109E862E37@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And the story ends with one brother killing the other. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 29, 2013, at 6:16 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nOne more thing - David stresses humanity relies on a descent from Adam , then qualifies this by saying descent from terrestrial stock at least. Something about the statement the statement by the that the shadow children, as i recall, were once long and lived in trees (or their roots)coupled with chewing the leaves with pink seed eggs they eat to become like God really struck me as a legitimate garden of Eden creation story echo - are these shadow children like the serpent or like man once he has eaten the fruit and become like God in his knowledge of good and evil?\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn M" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8B89A29AC88F49AEB14C9CF431F0C893@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T13:28:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<6661E591-86A0-4540-ABCC-F65953347778@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Excellent point on his empathy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I also agree with Tony's analysis (though I'm not certain Sandwalker is yet \npart of the Group Norm at this time)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Do you feel the shadow children and the construct the old wise one, called\nthe group norm, becomes more confused about who was once human\nbecause the proportion at the end shifts to one shadow child and\nSandwalker? where before he was ' more' certain of who came from the\nyellow star originally because there were more shadow children dominating\nthe norm, should his assertion of who is human be more 'valid' with the\nlarger percentage of shadow children?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He makes this pretty clear in the passage starting \"Now I am half a man...\"\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364564567.10493.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T13:42:47+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<8B89A29AC88F49AEB14C9CF431F0C893@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Originally the Shadow Children were saying they were from earth, more or less. After the percentage shifts to a 1 to 1 ratio, they were saying they weren't sure if Sandwalker's people or the Shadow Children were \"human\". Did their uncertainty just come because the ratio shifted - I was asking, in other words, if their original claim was more valid than the second claim, that the Old Wise One had made a mistake and Sandwalker was of human stock. \n\n--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Gerry Quinn \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, March 29, 2013, 6:28 AM\n\n\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Excellent point on his empathy." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I also agree with Tony's analysis (though I'm not certain Sandwalker is yet part of the Group Norm at this time)." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Do you feel the shadow children and the construct the old wise one, called\nthe group norm, becomes more confused about who was once human\nbecause the proportion at the end shifts to one shadow child and\nSandwalker? where before he was ' more' certain of who came from the\nyellow star originally because there were more shadow children dominating\nthe norm, should his assertion of who is human be more 'valid' with the\nlarger percentage of shadow children?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "He makes this pretty clear in the passage starting \"Now I am half a man...\"\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "<87C49041EAE34B0BA70B45D9D9604828@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T14:39:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1364564567.10493.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Originally the Shadow Children were saying they were from earth,\nmore or less." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "After the percentage shifts to a 1 to 1 ratio, they were\nsaying they weren't sure if Sandwalker's people or the Shadow\nChildren were \"human\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. Even before that, with three Shadow Children left, the OWO becomes \nconfused because \"there are so many of you now and so few of us\".\n\nBut there's plenty of independent evidence. The Shadow Children know of \nthings that the Hillmen and Marshmen do not. They know of starcrossers and \nthe bending of spacetime; they can point out Sol in the sky." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Did their uncertainty just come because\nthe ratio shifted - I was asking, in other words, if their original\nclaim was more valid than the second claim, that the Old Wise\nOne had made a mistake and Sandwalker was of human stock." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What logic would there be in such a reversal? The whole concept of \nshape-shifting aborigines fails if the aborigines do not look like humans. \nEverything else we are told (such as the knowledge I noted above) has to be \nthrown out.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364571336.27242.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T15:35:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<87C49041EAE34B0BA70B45D9D9604828@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\n\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Originally the Shadow Children were saying they were from earth,\nmore or less." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "After the percentage shifts to a 1 to 1 ratio, they were\nsaying they weren't sure if Sandwalker's people or the Shadow\nChildren were \"human\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. Even before that, with three Shadow Children left, the OWO becomes confused because \"there are so many of you now and so few of us\".\n\nBut there's plenty of independent evidence. The Shadow Children know of things that the Hillmen and Marshmen do not. They know of starcrossers and the bending of spacetime; they can point out Sol in the sky." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Did their uncertainty just come because\nthe ratio shifted - I was asking, in other words, if their original\nclaim was more valid than the second claim, that the Old Wise\nOne had made a mistake and Sandwalker was of human stock." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What logic would there be in such a reversal? The whole concept of shape-shifting aborigines fails if the aborigines do not look like humans. Everything else we are told (such as the knowledge I noted above) has to be thrown out.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________\n\n\nYes, I think you are right. The only question then becomes, if the Shadow Children were once terrestrial, if Sandwalker is a completely distinct evolutionary tree (forgive the bad pun, mostly unintentional) from them, how can a human and non-terrestrially descended aborigine mate? VRT is pretty clearly half human before he selects mimicking a full human. He also dwells on Dollo's Law - that a species that evolved away from a trait won't get it back but would instead adopt? a new way of doing the same old thing. \n\nIf his group is descended from the \"Free People\"/Sandwalker's genetic stock, then the question of viable mating between his mother and M. R.Trenchard comes up. So if it is the Shadow Children who are of ancient Earthen stock, how can the Hill People/Marshmen mate with the supposed human of Irish extraction? \n\nOr are Hill People and Shadow Children just evolutionary branches of the same ancient peregrination?" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364571543.62236.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T15:39:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1364571336.27242.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "or conversely, I suppose, are there no more humans on St. Anne, though it seems clear Trenchard can make tools (I still don't understand that whole aboriginal tool replica stuff, but their handiness with knots and ropes really does remind me of the mites that rise on little strands of fabriic, get blown out to see, and form giant mats of material, then kill workers by getting in their lungs - from the verbiage, I think this little mite is a native of St. Croix. If it were of St. Anne, I would posit that its eggs were in the leaves that the natives chew).\n\n--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, March 29, 2013, 8:35 AM\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\n\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Originally the Shadow Children were saying they were from earth,\nmore or less." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "After the percentage shifts to a 1 to 1 ratio, they were\nsaying they weren't sure if Sandwalker's people or the Shadow\nChildren were \"human\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. Even before that, with three Shadow Children left, the OWO becomes confused because \"there are so many of you now and so few of us\".\n\nBut there's plenty of independent evidence. The Shadow Children know of things that the Hillmen and Marshmen do not. They know of starcrossers and the bending of spacetime; they can point out Sol in the sky." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Did their uncertainty just come because\nthe ratio shifted - I was asking, in other words, if their original\nclaim was more valid than the second claim, that the Old Wise\nOne had made a mistake and Sandwalker was of human stock." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What logic would there be in such a reversal? The whole concept of shape-shifting aborigines fails if the aborigines do not look like humans. Everything else we are told (such as the knowledge I noted above) has to be thrown out.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________\n\n\nYes, I think you are right. The only question then becomes, if the Shadow Children were once terrestrial, if Sandwalker is a completely distinct evolutionary tree (forgive the bad pun, mostly unintentional) from them, how can a human and non-terrestrially descended aborigine mate? VRT is pretty clearly half human before he selects mimicking a full human. He also dwells on Dollo's Law - that a species that evolved away from a trait won't get it back but would instead adopt? a new way of doing the same old thing. \n\nIf his group is descended from the \"Free People\"/Sandwalker's genetic stock, then the question of viable mating between his mother and M. R.Trenchard comes up. So if it is the Shadow Children who are of ancient Earthen stock, how can the Hill People/Marshmen mate with the supposed human of Irish extraction? \n\nOr are Hill People and Shadow Children just evolutionary branches of the same ancient peregrination?\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364571908.65963.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T15:45:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1364571336.27242.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I apologize, I can't spell this morning. Sea, fabric. I suppose I fancy the idea that the Shadow Children and Hill men are different because of a convergence of evolution rather than a divergence. (That the Hill People are something like ancient Shadow Children + native? St. Anne material, and that the Shadow Children are the degenerate remnants of man, instead of being two completely distinct species)\n\n--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, March 29, 2013, 8:39 AM\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nor conversely, I suppose, are there no more humans on St. Anne, though it seems clear Trenchard can make tools (I still don't understand that whole aboriginal tool replica stuff, but their handiness with knots and ropes really does remind me of the mites that rise on little strands of fabriic, get blown out to see, and form giant mats of material, then kill workers by getting in their lungs - from the verbiage, I think this little mite is a native of St. Croix. If it were of St. Anne, I would posit that its eggs were in the leaves that the natives chew).\n\n\n--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, March 29, 2013, 8:35 AM\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\n\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Originally the Shadow Children were saying they were from earth,\nmore or less." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "After the percentage shifts to a 1 to 1 ratio, they were\nsaying they weren't sure if Sandwalker's people or the Shadow\nChildren were \"human\"." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. Even before that, with three Shadow Children left, the OWO becomes confused because \"there are so many of you now and so few of us\".\n\nBut there's plenty of independent evidence. The Shadow Children know of things that the Hillmen and Marshmen do not. They know of starcrossers and the bending of spacetime; they can point out Sol in the sky." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Did their uncertainty just come because\nthe ratio shifted - I was asking, in other words, if their original\nclaim was more valid than the second claim, that the Old Wise\nOne had made a mistake and Sandwalker was of human stock." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "What logic would there be in such a reversal? The whole concept of shape-shifting aborigines fails if the aborigines do not look like humans. Everything else we are told (such as the knowledge I noted above) has to be thrown out.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________\n\n\nYes, I think you are right. The only question then becomes, if the Shadow Children were once terrestrial, if Sandwalker is a completely distinct evolutionary tree (forgive the bad pun, mostly unintentional) from them, how can a human and non-terrestrially descended aborigine mate? VRT is pretty clearly half human before he selects mimicking a full human. He also dwells on Dollo's Law - that a species that evolved away from a trait won't get it back but would instead adopt? a new way of doing the same old thing. \n\nIf his group is descended from the \"Free People\"/Sandwalker's genetic stock, then the question of viable mating between his mother and M. R.Trenchard comes up. So if it is the Shadow Children who are of ancient Earthen stock, how can the Hill People/Marshmen mate with the supposed human of Irish extraction? \n\nOr are Hill People and Shadow Children just evolutionary branches of the same ancient peregrination?\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5074B70B946844458B894C4C0ACCD02C@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T16:13:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1364571336.27242.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, I think you are right. The only question then becomes, if the Shadow\nChildren were once terrestrial, if Sandwalker is a completely distinct\nevolutionary tree (forgive the bad pun, mostly unintentional) from them,\nhow can a human and non-terrestrially descended aborigine mate?\nVRT is pretty clearly half human before he selects mimicking a full human.\nHe also dwells on Dollo's Law - that a species that evolved away from a\ntrait won't get it back but would instead adopt a new way of doing the\nsame old thing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think we know that VRT is half-human. It is a wise child that knows \nhis father.\n\nSince this is science fantasy, I would not necessarily assume that it is \nimpossible for humans and abos to have issue, unlikely as it might be \nbiologically. But we don't have to believe it (even if VRT himself does).\n\nThe Dollo's Law reference is a bit vague, I cannot read too much from it.\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364574462.74175.YahooMailClassic@web160703.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T16:27:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<5074B70B946844458B894C4C0ACCD02C@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, the Dollo's law reference is just saying that humans could theoretically evolve to become like abos, (lose the ability to work with their hands) and then have to find another way to use tools (not just start using their hands like that again) but still be more or less descended from something that could have once used their hands- I guess it's a little metaphorical plea for his continuing/innate humanity as well - \"just because I can't use these tools does not mean I'm not human, too, I just have to adapt back a different way\" in paraphrase, perhaps.\n\n--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Gerry Quinn \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, March 29, 2013, 9:13 AM\n\n\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, I think you are right. The only question then becomes, if the Shadow\nChildren were once terrestrial, if Sandwalker is a completely distinct\nevolutionary tree (forgive the bad pun, mostly unintentional) from them,\nhow can a human and non-terrestrially descended aborigine mate?\nVRT is pretty clearly half human before he selects mimicking a full human.\nHe also dwells on Dollo's Law - that a species that evolved away from a\ntrait won't get it back but would instead adopt? a new way of doing the\nsame old thing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't think we know that VRT is half-human. It is a wise child that knows his father.\n\nSince this is science fantasy, I would not necessarily assume that it is impossible for humans and abos to have issue, unlikely as it might be biologically. But we don't have to believe it (even if VRT himself does).\n\nThe Dollo's Law reference is a bit vague, I cannot read too much from it.\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-29T18:10:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head priest/cinderwalker", "in_reply_to": "<1364574462.74175.YahooMailClassic@web160703.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Really quickly, two refracted images I wanted to explore- when Flying Feet is drowned in Sandwalker's dream: he says he would pretend to be still and then arise, but Eastwind defeats this subterfuge. Of course his fear and discomfort at the scene presages his destiny of a watery drowning , but he also sees the mysterious priest in the cave rise up and through blood resurrect the skull of an otter, so that flesh grows back onto it and it swims again. \n\nSeems like the method cinder walker uses to create another woman from an arm, or perhaps even number five's doubling of chromosomes in an egg cell and initiating viable development and growth. I would wager the priest's ability is at least theoretically related to the translation of simple chemical sequences into a living organism.\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 29, 2013, at 9:27 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\nWell, the Dollo's law reference is just saying that humans could theoretically evolve to become like abos, (lose the ability to work with their hands) and then have to find another way to use tools (not just start using their hands like that again) but still be more or less descended from something that could have once used their hands- I guess it's a little metaphorical plea for his continuing/innate humanity as well - \"just because I can't use these tools does not mean I'm not human, too, I just have to adapt back a different way\" in paraphrase, perhaps.\n\n--- On Fri, 3/29/13, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nFrom: Gerry Quinn \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Friday, March 29, 2013, 9:13 AM\n\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yes, I think you are right. The only question then becomes, if the Shadow\nChildren were once terrestrial, if Sandwalker is a completely distinct\nevolutionary tree (forgive the bad pun, mostly unintentional) from them,\nhow can a human and non-terrestrially descended aborigine mate?\nVRT is pretty clearly half human before he selects mimicking a full human.\nHe also dwells on Dollo's Law - that a species that evolved away from a\ntrait won't get it back but would instead adopt a new way of doing the\nsame old thing." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think we know that VRT is half-human. It is a wise child that knows his father.\n\nSince this is science fantasy, I would not necessarily assume that it is impossible for humans and abos to have issue, unlikely as it might be biologically. But we don't have to believe it (even if VRT himself does).\n\nThe Dollo's Law reference is a bit vague, I cannot read too much from it.\n\n- Gerry Quinn \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T02:43:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<5074B70B946844458B894C4C0ACCD02C@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Gerry Quinn" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't think we know that VRT is half-human. It is a wise child that \nknows his father." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "'A Story' (written by VRT), indicates that the abos recognise only the \nfemale genetic line:\n\n***********************************\n\n\"[You] resemble BloodyFinger\"\n\n\"His mother's mother and my mother's were probably sisters or something\"\n\n**********************************\n\nOne interpretation, perhaps a tad postmodern for SF, is that this relates to \nVictor's childhood - his 'father' may have traded his mother as a whore, so \neven if human he would not know his genetic father, and this is reflected in \nthe gloss he puts on abo sexual theory. However, I think this is the wrong \nsort of fifty pound theory to be hanging on anything.\n\nIt is not unreasonable to assume that the abos (I mean Hillmen and Marshmen) \nreproduce as we do and either wilfully or ignorantly ignore the male genetic \nstrand. One could also speculate that their reproductive system is \notherwise, though I still don't really find a direct influence of trees very \nplausible. Still, there are a few other lines that might point that way - \n\"mostly we were long and lived between the roots of trees\" is one, and \nanother is the mysterious \"old wood\" phrase of Monsieur Culot's deceased \nfather. Has anyone figured out what exact French phrase could be being \nreferenced here?\n\nAll in all, I tend to think of these issues as unknown and not really \nimportant. The genetic heritage of a shapeshifter is less significant than \nthat of a human [of course this can be tied to the resonances with Earthly \ncolonisation]. Essentially, I don't like to make the machine too \ncomplicated. The book is not a puzzle with a precise solution. Certain \nparts of the picture are precise; others would require further research, in \na parallel universe in which the book were continued.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<3B214B9C-19A8-4CB2-A7F3-9E90274685A7@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T02:51:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also don't forget the little quote in a story that says children are engendered by the trees of Sandwalker's home but not the orange tree he sees at the source of the stream \" he spoke to the tree when he reached it, but it did not reply and he felt that whatever power dwelt in the lonely oasis trees of his own land was absent here ... That this tree spoke to the unseen no more than him, engendering no babes in women.\" I just feel like that is not metaphorical. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 29, 2013, at 7:43 PM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Gerry Quinn" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I don't think we know that VRT is half-human. It is a wise child that knows his father." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "'A Story' (written by VRT), indicates that the abos recognise only the female genetic line:\n\n***********************************\n\n\"[You] resemble BloodyFinger\"\n\n\"His mother's mother and my mother's were probably sisters or something\"\n\n**********************************\n\nOne interpretation, perhaps a tad postmodern for SF, is that this relates to Victor's childhood - his 'father' may have traded his mother as a whore, so even if human he would not know his genetic father, and this is reflected in the gloss he puts on abo sexual theory. However, I think this is the wrong sort of fifty pound theory to be hanging on anything.\n\nIt is not unreasonable to assume that the abos (I mean Hillmen and Marshmen) reproduce as we do and either wilfully or ignorantly ignore the male genetic strand. One could also speculate that their reproductive system is otherwise, though I still don't really find a direct influence of trees very plausible. Still, there are a few other lines that might point that way - \"mostly we were long and lived between the roots of trees\" is one, and another is the mysterious \"old wood\" phrase of Monsieur Culot's deceased father. Has anyone figured out what exact French phrase could be being referenced here?\n\nAll in all, I tend to think of these issues as unknown and not really important. The genetic heritage of a shapeshifter is less significant than that of a human [of course this can be tied to the resonances with Earthly colonisation]. Essentially, I don't like to make the machine too complicated. The book is not a puzzle with a precise solution. Certain parts of the picture are precise; others would require further research, in a parallel universe in which the book were continued.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Tony Ellis", "address": "tonyellis69 at btopenworld.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T10:59:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<3B214B9C-19A8-4CB2-A7F3-9E90274685A7@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote:\nthe entire landscape is called the land of shifting stones." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually, it's called the country of *sliding* stones, unless my copy\nof 5HoC has a typo. Which doesn't have quite the same connotations,\nnor map as easily to the 'shifting' of the sleeping place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Do you feel the shadow children and the construct the old wise one, called the\ngroup norm, becomes more confused about who was once human because the\nproportion at the end shifts to one shadow child and Sandwalker?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No, very much the opposite. The Old Wise One is confused to begin\nwith, because then it is mostly composed of the thoughts of shadow\nchildren, who are egotistical, delusional little stoners. When the\nratio goes down to 1:1 he's clear-headed and remembers that \"we were\nalways here.\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5156D732.2040002@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-03-30T12:14:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<3B214B9C-19A8-4CB2-A7F3-9E90274685A7@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You have to wonder how far to take Dollo's Law. The focus of the \ndiscussion naturally is on hands and thumbs. But what if it is sexual \nreproduction itself that is lost and re-evolved?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 3/29/2013 10:51 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAlso don't forget the little quote in a story that says children are engendered by the trees of Sandwalker's home but not the orange tree he sees at the source of the stream \" he spoke to the tree when he reached it, but it did not reply and he felt that whatever power dwelt in the lonely oasis trees of his own land was absent here ... That this tree spoke to the unseen no more than him, engendering no babes in women.\" I just feel like that is not metaphorical.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Mar 29, 2013, at 7:43 PM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: Gerry Quinn" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I don't think we know that VRT is half-human. It is a wise child that knows his father." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "'A Story' (written by VRT), indicates that the abos recognise only the female genetic line:\n\n***********************************\n\n\"[You] resemble BloodyFinger\"\n\n\"His mother's mother and my mother's were probably sisters or something\"\n\n**********************************\n\nOne interpretation, perhaps a tad postmodern for SF, is that this relates to Victor's childhood - his 'father' may have traded his mother as a whore, so even if human he would not know his genetic father, and this is reflected in the gloss he puts on abo sexual theory. However, I think this is the wrong sort of fifty pound theory to be hanging on anything.\n\nIt is not unreasonable to assume that the abos (I mean Hillmen and Marshmen) reproduce as we do and either wilfully or ignorantly ignore the male genetic strand. One could also speculate that their reproductive system is otherwise, though I still don't really find a direct influence of trees very plausible. Still, there are a few other lines that might point that way - \"mostly we were long and lived between the roots of trees\" is one, and another is the mysterious \"old wood\" phrase of Monsieur Culot's deceased father. Has anyone figured out what exact French phrase could be being referenced here?\n\nAll in all, I tend to think of these issues as unknown and not really important. The genetic heritage of a shapeshifter is less significant than that of a human [of course this can be tied to the resonances with Earthly colonisation]. Essentially, I don't like to make the machine too complicated. The book is not a puzzle with a precise solution. Certain parts of the picture are precise; others would require further research, in a parallel universe in which the book were continued.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<9A96A4FA-2B1B-4F84-8EC4-F8587BC2FDDA@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T12:26:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is kind of the stuff I was hoping for, thanks, Tony. Because of the \"fruit of the knowledge of good and evil\" connotations of those seeds (\"then he is like God\"), I don't view them as just regular hallucinogens. The shadow children are affecting the perceptions of those outside the planet, not jus their own. The idea of the river talking or singing to the stars and somehow writing instructions for God never struck me as delusional hubris, with all the other Adam and Eve imagery in that section, culminating in fratricide and a dissolution of the barrier around their world.\n\nI think the old wise one is confused at the end because Sandwalker sees himself as a \"proper\" man and now that the ratio has shifted the group self perception has changed. The hill people are definitely more like primitive humans than the shadow children are but I thought this was the irony of the work. Exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping to have on this. \n\nI still think their sleeping places are related to the \"power\" found in certain vegetation there. The dreaming columns in the first stories eventually become a mortuary or burial plot, with the dates of all number fives deaths on the ground, but it is the focal point for eastwind and Sandwalker to be each other in dreams. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 3:59 AM, Tony Ellis wrote:\nActually, it's called the country of *sliding* stones, unless my copy\nof 5HoC has a typo. Which doesn't have quite the same connotations,\nnor map as easily to the 'shifting' of the sleeping place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Do you feel the shadow children and the construct the old wise one, called the\ngroup norm, becomes more confused about who was once human because the\nproportion at the end shifts to one shadow child and Sandwalker?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, very much the opposite. The Old Wise One is confused to begin\nwith, because then it is mostly composed of the thoughts of shadow\nchildren, who are egotistical, delusional little stoners. When the\nratio goes down to 1:1 he's clear-headed and remembers that \"we were" } ] }, { "message_id": "<64BEBF98-4DE2-4EF5-807A-41609E4CD5C6@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T12:33:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<5156D732.2040002@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One more thing - after Sandwalker digs up the honey and the the hive to feed Seven girls waiting, her belly is described as round like a melon, and he says dont lean on him too much or he will split. Then later his sleeping place is described as a place where bushes could be planted. Do they need to plant somehow to rest? \n\nSome of the imagery associated with them is decidedly not human, if we take that splitting when full comment as anything like a real admonishment rather than a joke. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 5:14 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nYou have to wonder how far to take Dollo's Law. The focus of the discussion naturally is on hands and thumbs. But what if it is sexual reproduction itself that is lost and re-evolved?\n\nOn 3/29/2013 10:51 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Also don't forget the little quote in a story that says children are engendered by the trees of Sandwalker's home but not the orange tree he sees at the source of the stream \" he spoke to the tree when he reached it, but it did not reply and he felt that whatever power dwelt in the lonely oasis trees of his own land was absent here ... That this tree spoke to the unseen no more than him, engendering no babes in women.\" " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T12:44:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "There is a whole conversation about shapechangers and sandwalker's people near the tale end of A Story, page127 in my copy, where the old wise one remembers the names of Atlantis and Gondwanaland and Sandwalker remembers that his mother had told him a story of how their appearance had been stolen - though perhaps the shadow children are just picking up psychic noise from the heavens, I feel like they are not that confused until the ratio shifts in favor of someone who thinks himself already a man and their knowledge no longer has enough weight to sway his subjective self perceptions from dominating the group norm ( the frame tale is already kind of swayed to his perspective even though it is third person)\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 3:59 AM, Tony Ellis wrote:\nMarc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "the entire landscape is called the land of shifting stones." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Actually, it's called the country of *sliding* stones, unless my copy\nof 5HoC has a typo. Which doesn't have quite the same connotations,\nnor map as easily to the 'shifting' of the sleeping place." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Do you feel the shadow children and the construct the old wise one, called the\ngroup norm, becomes more confused about who was once human because the\nproportion at the end shifts to one shadow child and Sandwalker?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, very much the opposite. The Old Wise One is confused to begin\nwith, because then it is mostly composed of the thoughts of shadow\nchildren, who are egotistical, delusional little stoners. When the\nratio goes down to 1:1 he's clear-headed and remembers that \"we were\nalways here.\"\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T12:58:31+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<64BEBF98-4DE2-4EF5-807A-41609E4CD5C6@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also, there is one more bit of planting imagery in the pit at the end. Cedar branches waving says that there was a time when Sandwalker did not sleep near her and she would get up and check on him, right after the dirt at the bottom of the pit gives way and he is almost completely buried, but pulled out by his friends. The Shadow children say , \"we did not know. In the future unsleeping eyes will watch you\". Has he been resting in the ground to sleep — (he has a vision of being a naked worm of consciousness after he crouches and \" stretches\" himself.) did they not know that he needed to plant and became helpless during his sleep cycle? \n\nI think the sleep cycle might involve something like putting down roots. Maybe I am crazy. In any case, he almost gets sucked down in that pit by the shifting dirt. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 5:33 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nOne more thing - after Sandwalker digs up the honey and the the hive to feed Seven girls waiting, her belly is described as round like a melon, and he says dont lean on him too much or he will split. Then later his sleeping place is described as a place where bushes could be planted. Do they need to plant somehow to rest? \n\nSome of the imagery associated with them is decidedly not human, if we take that splitting when full comment as anything like a real admonishment rather than a joke. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Mar 30, 2013, at 5:14 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "You have to wonder how far to take Dollo's Law. The focus of the discussion naturally is on hands and thumbs. But what if it is sexual reproduction itself that is lost and re-evolved?\n\nOn 3/29/2013 10:51 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Also don't forget the little quote in a story that says children are engendered by the trees of Sandwalker's home but not the orange tree he sees at the source of the stream \" he spoke to the tree when he reached it, but it did not reply and he felt that whatever power dwelt in the lonely oasis trees of his own land was absent here ... That this tree spoke to the unseen no more than him, engendering no babes in women.\" " } ] }, { "message_id": "<7D734F9F-B25D-488E-B243-81C46850977A@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T13:07:23+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<64BEBF98-4DE2-4EF5-807A-41609E4CD5C6@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also, the shadow children vomit their \"wives\" when they are \"white\" - the maggots that grow from the pink egg seeds in the leaves ( compare with the street of maggots in fifth head's opening story) \n\nReproduction has really stagnated and transformed on these two planets. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 5:14 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "You have to wonder how far to take Dollo's Law. The focus of the discussion naturally is on hands and thumbs. But what if it is sexual reproduction itself that is lost and re-evolved?\n\nO" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5DE47DC7-C27F-4673-BB08-CF2B0A143110@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T13:13:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<64BEBF98-4DE2-4EF5-807A-41609E4CD5C6@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Now I think there is some \"Peritonitis\" type imagery going on with the perceptions of the shadow children - they have abandoned their normal ambitions to be the \"god\" and environment of these little eggs and maggots that might need them now to complete their life cycle. What do they grow into? How much perception comes from the maggots, how much from the more anthropomorphic shadow children?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 5:33 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nOne more thing - after Sandwalker digs up the honey and the the hive to feed Seven girls waiting, her belly is described as round like a melon, and he says dont lean on him too much or he will split. Then later his sleeping place is described as a place where bushes could be planted. Do they need to plant somehow to rest? \n\nSome of the imagery associated with them is decidedly not human, if we take that splitting when full comment as anything like a real admonishment rather than a joke. \n\nSent from my " } ] }, { "message_id": "<0FED0AB0-E2BB-4E3C-BF1C-EB44036C0C9E@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T13:32:22+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<5DE47DC7-C27F-4673-BB08-CF2B0A143110@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sorry, I will slow down now that I have finally wrapped my head around some of the weirder quotes. I think the pertinent feature is on page 138 of A story where the old wise one talks of a star faring species that was influenced by a people that used their hands only to take. They were influenced by those individuals and went on, greater than before, before crashing into the water of st Anne - \"the singing shape slipped steaming into the sea.\"\n\nThis quote kind of casts doubt on any actual human presence on st Anne- ancient starfaring shadow children imitating primitive man, then crashing on st Anne and being imitated by the shape shifting populace, a copy of a copy until real men show up. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5EC0740673F94E7AA248127100B9D40B@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T14:44:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<0FED0AB0-E2BB-4E3C-BF1C-EB44036C0C9E@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Sorry, I will slow down now that I have finally wrapped my head around\nsome of the weirder quotes. I think the pertinent feature is on page 138\nof A story where the old wise one talks of a star faring species that was\ninfluenced by a people that used their hands only to take. They were\ninfluenced by those individuals and went on, greater than before, before\n crashing into the water of st Anne - \"the singing shape slipped steaming\n into the sea.\"\n\nThis quote kind of casts doubt on any actual human presence on st Anne-\n ancient starfaring shadow children imitating primitive man, then\ncrashing on st Anne and being imitated by the shape shifting populace,\na copy of a copy until real men show up." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Humans are a species, and the passage says the second species \"came among\" \nthe first. Those are the only two species that need be involved. It was \ntheir mind-songs that were amplified by the interaction, becoming \"greater \nthan before\". The bad poetry of the OWO demonstrates this - the starcrosser \ntechnology involving a splashdown in the sea is exactly the same as is used \nby humans throughout the three novellas.\n\nIt is only reiterating what we are told elsewhere. English-speaking \ncolonists land (splash down, if you prefer), causing the transformation both \nof the indigenes (impressed by the colonists' power, they transform into \nwhat seem like men) and also the colonists (with their new-found telepathic \npowers, influenced by the indigenes and the drug they found, they shield the \nplanets from external view in order to keep them for themselves, and \nultimately become the Shadow Children).\n\nAt the end of 'A Story', the twin planets become visible, and passing French \nships land. The French colonise the 'newly-discovered' planets, and are \nlater ousted by English speakers (presumably the planets are in a stellar \nzone largely colonised by them).\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<162D70EDCF5447239CC05E24ADBEC096@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T14:48:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Tony Ellis" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Marc Aramini wrote:\nDo you feel the shadow children and the construct the old wise one, \ncalled the\ngroup norm, becomes more confused about who was once human because the\nproportion at the end shifts to one shadow child and Sandwalker?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No, very much the opposite. The Old Wise One is confused to begin\nwith, because then it is mostly composed of the thoughts of shadow\nchildren, who are egotistical, delusional little stoners. When the\nratio goes down to 1:1 he's clear-headed and remembers that \"we were\nalways here.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Because at 1:1 (and surrounded also by many indigenes) \"we\" for the Group \nNorm means mostly indigenes. Before, it did not.\n\nThe Shadow Children are egotistical, but not to my mind delusional in the \nordinary sense. All our knowledge comes from them.\n\nIf you don't believe the information we get from them, how do you interpret \nthe history of Saint Anne?\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "<26BCE6BD-EDF6-413F-B7C4-DCC026380D29@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T14:49:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<5EC0740673F94E7AA248127100B9D40B@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But the star faring species in this passage did not use their hands. I think this is the ancient occurrence of interacting with humanity confused by a later interaction on another world - thus, the confusion when talking about when they came, either very long ago or very recently. \n\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 7:44 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Sorry, I will slow down now that I have finally wrapped my head around\nsome of the weirder quotes. I think the pertinent feature is on page 138\nof A story where the old wise one talks of a star faring species that was\ninfluenced by a people that used their hands only to take. They were\ninfluenced by those individuals and went on, greater than before, before\ncrashing into the water of st Anne - \"the singing shape slipped steaming\ninto the sea.\"\n\nThis quote kind of casts doubt on any actual human presence on st Anne-\nancient starfaring shadow children imitating primitive man, then\ncrashing on st Anne and being imitated by the shape shifting populace,\na copy of a copy until real men show up." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Humans are a species, and the passage says the second species \"came among\" the first. Those are the only two species that need be involved. It was their mind-songs that were amplified by the interaction, becoming \"greater than before\". The bad poetry of the OWO demonstrates this - the starcrosser technology involving a splashdown in the sea is exactly the same as is used by humans throughout the three novellas.\n\nIt is only reiterating what we are told elsewhere. English-speaking colonists land (splash down, if you prefer), causing the transformation both of the indigenes (impressed by the colonists' power, they transform into what seem like men) and also the colonists (with their new-found telepathic powers, influenced by the indigenes and the drug they found, they shield the planets from external view in order to keep them for themselves, and ultimately become the Shadow Children).\n\nAt the end of 'A Story', the twin planets become visible, and passing French ships land. The French colonise the 'newly-discovered' planets, and are later ousted by English speakers (presumably the planets are in a stellar zone largely colonised by them).\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<9D758D72-10F3-4AF8-A8E3-5F372C1C1715@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T14:53:06+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<5EC0740673F94E7AA248127100B9D40B@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And the copy of a copy resonates pretty well with number five being a copy of a copy. Also, the talk of engineering relaxation at the end of the first story- solving by repeated approximations. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 7:44 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Sorry, I will slow down now that I have finally wrapped my head around\nsome of the weirder quotes. I think the pertinent feature is on page 138\nof A story where the old wise one talks of a star faring species that was\ninfluenced by a people that used their hands only to take. They were\ninfluenced by those individuals and went on, greater than before, before\ncrashing into the water of st Anne - \"the singing shape slipped steaming\ninto the sea.\"\n\nThis quote kind of casts doubt on any actual human presence on st Anne-\nancient starfaring shadow children imitating primitive man, then\ncrashing on st Anne and being imitated by the shape shifting populace,\na copy of a copy until real men show up." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Humans are a species, and the passage says the second species \"came among\" the first. Those are the only two species that need be involved. It was their mind-songs that were amplified by the interaction, becoming \"greater than before\". The bad poetry of the OWO demonstrates this - the starcrosser technology involving a splashdown in the sea is exactly the same as is used by humans throughout the three novellas.\n\nIt is only reiterating what we are told elsewhere. English-speaking colonists land (splash down, if you prefer), causing the transformation both of the indigenes (impressed by the colonists' power, they transform into what seem like men) and also the colonists (with their new-found telepathic powers, influenced by the indigenes and the drug they found, they shield the planets from external view in order to keep them for themselves, and ultimately become the Shadow Children).\n\nAt the end of 'A Story', the twin planets become visible, and passing French ships land. The French colonise the 'newly-discovered' planets, and are later ousted by English speakers (presumably the planets are in a stellar zone largely colonised by them).\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T14:57:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<162D70EDCF5447239CC05E24ADBEC096@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also, Gerry, I wanted to reiterate these are the kinds of discussions I envisioned when I started the short story project. Thank you for your input, and Tony, too. The difference is with a short story I could think of everything in it multiple times before I wrote, the longer work of early Wolfe has way too many permutations and patterns to encompass in one summation. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 7:48 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Tony Ellis\nMarc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Do you feel the shadow children and the construct the old wise one, > called the\ngroup norm, becomes more confused about who was once human because the\nproportion at the end shifts to one shadow child and Sandwalker?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "No, very much the opposite. The Old Wise One is confused to begin\nwith, because then it is mostly composed of the thoughts of shadow\nchildren, who are egotistical, delusional little stoners. When the\nratio goes down to 1:1 he's clear-headed and remembers that \"we were\nalways here.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Because at 1:1 (and surrounded also by many indigenes) \"we\" for the Group Norm means mostly indigenes. Before, it did not.\n\nThe Shadow Children are egotistical, but not to my mind delusional in the ordinary sense. All our knowledge comes from them.\n\nIf you don't believe the information we get from them, how do you interpret the history of Saint Anne?\n\n- Gerry Quinn \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T15:08:11+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<26BCE6BD-EDF6-413F-B7C4-DCC026380D29@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But the star faring species in this passage did not use their hands." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Read it again. It was the first people - the shape changers - who did not \nuse them. Not the second people who came among them.\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "<23CE1688-A00C-4148-9027-055200183B0B@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T15:26:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Once there was a people using their hands (first) ... Only to take. There came another (second) who crossed from star to star. Then it was found that the first ... Sent them (the second) out again greater greater greater than before.\n\nFirst, ancient people who use hands to take. Second, starfaring shadow children who come to st. Anne and get all confused and influence in turn the aborigines. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 8:08 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But the star faring species in this passage did not use their hands." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Read it again. It was the first people - the shape changers - who did not use them. Not the second people who came among them.\n\n- Gerry Quinn \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8B74A0C4-47A0-4848-AD72-D27B9793DDE9@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T15:29:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "The them pronoun is ambiguous in reference to the songs of the second people. In any case, the second people are changed by the first, who do use their hands to take. No reference is made if the second people use their hands or not, I don't think. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 8:08 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "But the star faring species in this passage did not use their hands." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Read it again. It was the first people - the shape changers - who did not use them. Not the second people who came among them.\n\n- Gerry Quinn \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<7C0EBC32-1C37-4A38-A975-4CFE75818E94@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T15:40:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<8B74A0C4-47A0-4848-AD72-D27B9793DDE9@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Can the object of a preposition be replaced by a pronoun? Sure. I think Wolfe intentionally uses ambiguous pronouns that way a lot. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 8:29 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nThe them pronoun is ambiguous in reference to the songs of the second people. In any case, the second people are changed by the first, who do use their hands to take. No reference is made if the second people use their hands or not, I don't think. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Mar 30, 2013, at 8:08 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "But the star faring species in this passage did not use their hands." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Read it again. It was the first people - the shape changers - who did not use them. Not the second people who came among them.\n\n- Gerry Quinn \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<8644DABA-4F22-459B-839D-7222764E688B@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-03-30T17:04:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<7C0EBC32-1C37-4A38-A975-4CFE75818E94@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I become increasingly certain that most mysteries in Wolfe are engineering or mechanistic in their set up. If that relaxation principle is at all written into the text, the somewhat contorted quote highlights it. It implies non usage by stating usage, it has ambiguous antecedents, and at the end out speaker is not certain of who is who because it is a conflation of two different events. \n\nSo my theory of relaxation- primitive man emulated by ancestors of shadow children, shadow children imitated by the free people in a different world, then finally real people show up and another approximation may or may not be made that is indistinguishable from the \" real\" people/solution if Veil's hypothesis is true and Trenchard and the people of frenchman's landing are perfectly adapted Abos, an the other Abos are still not approximating humanity in any way. Trenchard the father is a man, whether he resulted from human stock or is last in a series of approximations. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mar 30, 2013, at 8:40 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nCan the object of a preposition be replaced by a pronoun? Sure. I think Wolfe intentionally uses ambiguous pronouns that way a lot. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Mar 30, 2013, at 8:29 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "The them pronoun is ambiguous in reference to the songs of the second people. In any case, the second people are changed by the first, who do use their hands to take. No reference is made if the second people use their hands or not, I don't think. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Mar 30, 2013, at 8:08 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "But the star faring species in this passage did not use their hands." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Read it again. It was the first people - the shape changers - who did not use them. Not the second people who came among them.\n\n- Gerry Quinn \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-01T13:55:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<8644DABA-4F22-459B-839D-7222764E688B@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I guess I am now very interested in the life cycles of the various creatures on st. Anne. I find it no coincidence that one of the streets on st. Croix is named after maggots. VRT says \" shadow children of course come to steal by evening, riding up in the bubbles and the foam from the springs- then my mother would not let me go out from beneath her hair\" what kind of creature could ride up in bubbles and springs? Microscopic larvae or mites? Is this hair like a child nestled between roots? \n\nAlso in an interview, Marsch asks what VRT has seen with him and he says, \"birds and animals and trees living, and the shadow children\" a few lines before VRT breaks down in years. Marsch assumes the shadow children are the stars, but when he goes out he steps over \"huge worms, luminous but of the livid color of a dead man's lips, writhe underfoot at night. \". Do the shadow children have a larval stage before they metamorphose? \n\nThose leaves with pink seed eggs that the shadow children spit their white wives out of, and Sandwalker's dream that he is a naked worm of consciousness with his body vanished when he is almost swallowed by the other eye - perhaps the association with the shadow children has prompted that vision. larval stages will change drastically in the adult form. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<515A1A91.3070701@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-01T23:38:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Could it be that the maggots and mites and hair are a kind of very \nWolfean joke? Could the novel be interpreted on a completely different \nlevel involving human bodies as entire worlds?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/1/2013 9:55 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nI guess I am now very interested in the life cycles of the various creatures on st. Anne. I find it no coincidence that one of the streets on st. Croix is named after maggots. VRT says \" shadow children of course come to steal by evening, riding up in the bubbles and the foam from the springs- then my mother would not let me go out from beneath her hair\" what kind of creature could ride up in bubbles and springs? Microscopic larvae or mites? Is this hair like a child nestled between roots?\n\nAlso in an interview, Marsch asks what VRT has seen with him and he says, \"birds and animals and trees living, and the shadow children\" a few lines before VRT breaks down in years. Marsch assumes the shadow children are the stars, but when he goes out he steps over \"huge worms, luminous but of the livid color of a dead man's lips, writhe underfoot at night. \". Do the shadow children have a larval stage before they metamorphose?\n\nThose leaves with pink seed eggs that the shadow children spit their white wives out of, and Sandwalker's dream that he is a naked worm of consciousness with his body vanished when he is almost swallowed by the other eye - perhaps the association with the shadow children has prompted that vision. larval stages will change drastically in the adult form.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<45659F22-A33C-4A9B-BC21-B099D3BA7F7F@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-01T23:47:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<515A1A91.3070701@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, there is the hand of port mimizon, the eye and other eye on st. Anne, and the odd scene when seven girls waiting picks a blue fruit off a tree and it is called st. Croix, but I don't think this imagery can work in anything except \"a story\", peritonitis style. Could it possibly be that allegorical, anthropomorphizing little mites and roots? I doubt it, all meaning would implode a bit. \n\nThe doubled pupil of the buck Marsch shoots is weird, though. Why is it doubled? In the middle of meiosis? \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 1, 2013, at 4:38 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nCould it be that the maggots and mites and hair are a kind of very Wolfean joke? Could the novel be interpreted on a completely different level involving human bodies as entire worlds?\n\nOn 4/1/2013 9:55 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I guess I am now very interested in the life cycles of the various creatures on st. Anne. I find it no coincidence that one of the streets on st. Croix is named after maggots. VRT says \" shadow children of course come to steal by evening, riding up in the bubbles and the foam from the springs- then my mother would not let me go out from beneath her hair\" what kind of creature could ride up in bubbles and springs? Microscopic larvae or mites? Is this hair like a child nestled between roots?\n\nAlso in an interview, Marsch asks what VRT has seen with him and he says, \"birds and animals and trees living, and the shadow children\" a few lines before VRT breaks down in years. Marsch assumes the shadow children are the stars, but when he goes out he steps over \"huge worms, luminous but of the livid color of a dead man's lips, writhe underfoot at night. \". Do the shadow children have a larval stage before they metamorphose?\n\nThose leaves with pink seed eggs that the shadow children spit their white wives out of, and Sandwalker's dream that he is a naked worm of consciousness with his body vanished when he is almost swallowed by the other eye - perhaps the association with the shadow children has prompted that vision. larval stages will change drastically in the adult form.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-01T23:51:42+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<45659F22-A33C-4A9B-BC21-B099D3BA7F7F@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I also think it interesting that sol in the fighting lizard is a different constellation than the shadow children in the sky. Perhaps their space faring nature is mental - they sang out to the stars and received an answering call. This seems to jive somewhat with the star walkers, like last voice, who take off from \" the eye\" (not the other eye)" } ] }, { "message_id": "<515A2725.8010502@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-02T00:32:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<45659F22-A33C-4A9B-BC21-B099D3BA7F7F@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Peritonitis, exactly. It need not have any meaning. It only needs to be \nan organizing principle.\n\nYour mention of fruit reminds me that the yeast that converts grapes to \nwine grows on the skin of the grape. Other fruits as well." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/1/2013 7:47 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nWell, there is the hand of port mimizon, the eye and other eye on st. Anne, and the odd scene when seven girls waiting picks a blue fruit off a tree and it is called st. Croix, but I don't think this imagery can work in anything except \"a story\", peritonitis style. Could it possibly be that allegorical, anthropomorphizing little mites and roots? I doubt it, all meaning would implode a bit.\n\nThe doubled pupil of the buck Marsch shoots is weird, though. Why is it doubled? In the middle of meiosis?\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 1, 2013, at 4:38 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Could it be that the maggots and mites and hair are a kind of very Wolfean joke? Could the novel be interpreted on a completely different level involving human bodies as entire worlds?\n\nOn 4/1/2013 9:55 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I guess I am now very interested in the life cycles of the various creatures on st. Anne. I find it no coincidence that one of the streets on st. Croix is named after maggots. VRT says \" shadow children of course come to steal by evening, riding up in the bubbles and the foam from the springs- then my mother would not let me go out from beneath her hair\" what kind of creature could ride up in bubbles and springs? Microscopic larvae or mites? Is this hair like a child nestled between roots?\n\nAlso in an interview, Marsch asks what VRT has seen with him and he says, \"birds and animals and trees living, and the shadow children\" a few lines before VRT breaks down in years. Marsch assumes the shadow children are the stars, but when he goes out he steps over \"huge worms, luminous but of the livid color of a dead man's lips, writhe underfoot at night. \". Do the shadow children have a larval stage before they metamorphose?\n\nThose leaves with pink seed eggs that the shadow children spit their white wives out of, and Sandwalker's dream that he is a naked worm of consciousness with his body vanished when he is almost swallowed by the other eye - perhaps the association with the shadow children has prompted that vision. larval stages will change drastically in the adult form.\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365998CAE3546DD85FD736F67D45A9D@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T10:23:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<515A2725.8010502@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Peritonitis, exactly. It need not have any meaning. It only needs to be an \norganizing principle." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "An organising principle must organise. What is organised by this storm of \nputative connections? [And 'odd' things that are not really odd at all? \nCan't a hungry girl falling asleep under a tree dream of a planet seen \nthrough the branches as a giant fruit?]\n\n5HOC is not Peritonitis, in which there is an explicit disconnect between \nthe description of the protagonist as a humanoid hero and as a microbe, \nwhich the reader is invited to make of what he will.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<515ACC11.9080506@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-02T12:16:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365998CAE3546DD85FD736F67D45A9D@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, Gerry. An organizing principle must organize. You and Marc have \nbeen going back and forth about evolution/devolution and genetic \nstagnation and copies of copies and hosts and parasites (e.g., when one \nspecies infiltrates another) and what happens when vastly different \nspecies/minds meet one another, and you can't even make a broad guess at \nwhat it is that a \"skin\" joke might organize in this case? When Wolfe \nwrites the same ideas over and over, repeating the same themes at wildly \nvarying scales?\n\nI'm proposing, without attempting to work it out very far because I \nhaven't read the novellas in years, an explanation for a few odd \ndescriptions that nothing else that has been brought up so far seems to \nexplain. The proposal is based solidly on what Wolfe has done in the past.\n\nThat kind of post is what this forum is for, and at least partly what \nMarc's let's-see-what-sticks posts have been meant to inspire. I can't \nmake sense of it myself, and neither can you. This forum is not just for \nstomping on anything you don't like. If you don't see something, just \nsay you don't see it.\n\nFor all we know, the mites are the true, animating planetary \nintelligence, at least when they have bodies to infest. They'd be small \nenough to ride bubbles." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/2/2013 6:23 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\nFrom: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Peritonitis, exactly. It need not have any meaning. It only needs to \nbe an organizing principle." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "An organising principle must organise. What is organised by this \nstorm of putative connections? [And 'odd' things that are not really \nodd at all? Can't a hungry girl falling asleep under a tree dream of a \nplanet seen through the branches as a giant fruit?]\n\n5HOC is not Peritonitis, in which there is an explicit disconnect \nbetween the description of the protagonist as a humanoid hero and as a \nmicrobe, which the reader is invited to make of what he will.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T13:01:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<515ACC11.9080506@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And the manner in which the shadow children \"ride\" the marsh men by attacking and holding their eyes and the doubled pupil of the thing Marsch shoots and the pits being the eye and other eye, as well as the statement that the star walker goes out one \" eye\" pit and into the \"other eye\" sure seems like it is an eye infection that leads to parasitic infection.\n\nFinally!!!!!!!\n\nSo when the shadow children clothe themselves in glory, they are gestating in flesh. Any metaphors for eating their host? Wow. \n\n\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 5:16 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nYes, Gerry. An organizing principle must organize. You and Marc have been going back and forth about evolution/devolution and genetic stagnation and copies of copies and hosts and parasites (e.g., when one species infiltrates another) and what happens when vastly different species/minds meet one another, and you can't even make a broad guess at what it is that a \"skin\" joke might organize in this case? When Wolfe writes the same ideas over and over, repeating the same themes at wildly varying scales?\n\nI'm proposing, without attempting to work it out very far because I haven't read the novellas in years, an explanation for a few odd descriptions that nothing else that has been brought up so far seems to explain. The proposal is based solidly on what Wolfe has done in the past.\n\nThat kind of post is what this forum is for, and at least partly what Marc's let's-see-what-sticks posts have been meant to inspire. I can't make sense of it myself, and neither can you. This forum is not just for stomping on anything you don't like. If you don't see something, just say you don't see it.\n\nFor all we know, the mites are the true, animating planetary intelligence, at least when they have bodies to infest. They'd be small enough to ride bubbles.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 6:23 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Peritonitis, exactly. It need not have any meaning. It only needs to be an organizing principle." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "An organising principle must organise. What is organised by this storm of putative connections? [And 'odd' things that are not really odd at all? Can't a hungry girl falling asleep under a tree dream of a planet seen through the branches as a giant fruit?]\n\n5HOC is not Peritonitis, in which there is an explicit disconnect between the description of the protagonist as a humanoid hero and as a microbe, which the reader is invited to make of what he will.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<2E2DEEC0-E78D-48F9-AC76-7D29F4E16CA5@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T13:02:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<515ACC11.9080506@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 5:16 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nYes, Gerry. An organizing principle must organize. You and Marc have been going back and forth about evolution/devolution and genetic stagnation and copies of copies and hosts and parasites (e.g., when one species infiltrates another) and what happens when vastly different species/minds meet one another, and you can't even make a broad guess at what it is that a \"skin\" joke might organize in this case? When Wolfe writes the same ideas over and over, repeating the same themes at wildly varying scales?\n\nI'm proposing, without attempting to work it out very far because I haven't read the novellas in years, an explanation for a few odd descriptions that nothing else that has been brought up so far seems to explain. The proposal is based solidly on what Wolfe has done in the past.\n\nThat kind of post is what this forum is for, and at least partly what Marc's let's-see-what-sticks posts have been meant to inspire. I can't make sense of it myself, and neither can you. This forum is not just for stomping on anything you don't like. If you don't see something, just say you don't see it.\n\nFor all we know, the mites are the true, animating planetary intelligence, at least when they have bodies to infest. They'd be small enough to ride bubbles.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 6:23 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Peritonitis, exactly. It need not have any meaning. It only needs to be an organizing principle." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "An organising principle must organise. What is organised by this storm of putative connections? [And 'odd' things that are not really odd at all? Can't a hungry girl falling asleep under a tree dream of a planet seen through the branches as a giant fruit?]\n\n5HOC is not Peritonitis, in which there is an explicit disconnect between the description of the protagonist as a humanoid hero and as a microbe, which the reader is invited to make of what he will.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<515AD739.4000201@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-02T13:03:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Eyelash mites?\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demodex" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/2/2013 9:01 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAnd the manner in which the shadow children \"ride\" the marsh men by attacking and holding their eyes and the doubled pupil of the thing Marsch shoots and the pits being the eye and other eye, as well as the statement that the star walker goes out one \" eye\" pit and into the \"other eye\" sure seems like it is an eye infection that leads to parasitic infection.\n\nFinally!!!!!!!\n\nSo when the shadow children clothe themselves in glory, they are gestating in flesh. Any metaphors for eating their host? Wow.\n\n\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 5:16 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yes, Gerry. An organizing principle must organize. You and Marc have been going back and forth about evolution/devolution and genetic stagnation and copies of copies and hosts and parasites (e.g., when one species infiltrates another) and what happens when vastly different species/minds meet one another, and you can't even make a broad guess at what it is that a \"skin\" joke might organize in this case? When Wolfe writes the same ideas over and over, repeating the same themes at wildly varying scales?\n\nI'm proposing, without attempting to work it out very far because I haven't read the novellas in years, an explanation for a few odd descriptions that nothing else that has been brought up so far seems to explain. The proposal is based solidly on what Wolfe has done in the past.\n\nThat kind of post is what this forum is for, and at least partly what Marc's let's-see-what-sticks posts have been meant to inspire. I can't make sense of it myself, and neither can you. This forum is not just for stomping on anything you don't like. If you don't see something, just say you don't see it.\n\nFor all we know, the mites are the true, animating planetary intelligence, at least when they have bodies to infest. They'd be small enough to ride bubbles.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 6:23 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "From: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Peritonitis, exactly. It need not have any meaning. It only needs to be an organizing principle." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "An organising principle must organise. What is organised by this storm of putative connections? [And 'odd' things that are not really odd at all? Can't a hungry girl falling asleep under a tree dream of a planet seen through the branches as a giant fruit?]\n\n5HOC is not Peritonitis, in which there is an explicit disconnect between the description of the protagonist as a humanoid hero and as a microbe, which the reader is invited to make of what he will.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<515AD75D.20903@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-02T13:04:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<2E2DEEC0-E78D-48F9-AC76-7D29F4E16CA5@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "A pun. Of course." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/2/2013 9:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAnd them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 5:16 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Yes, Gerry. An organizing principle must organize. You and Marc have been going back and forth about evolution/devolution and genetic stagnation and copies of copies and hosts and parasites (e.g., when one species infiltrates another) and what happens when vastly different species/minds meet one another, and you can't even make a broad guess at what it is that a \"skin\" joke might organize in this case? When Wolfe writes the same ideas over and over, repeating the same themes at wildly varying scales?\n\nI'm proposing, without attempting to work it out very far because I haven't read the novellas in years, an explanation for a few odd descriptions that nothing else that has been brought up so far seems to explain. The proposal is based solidly on what Wolfe has done in the past.\n\nThat kind of post is what this forum is for, and at least partly what Marc's let's-see-what-sticks posts have been meant to inspire. I can't make sense of it myself, and neither can you. This forum is not just for stomping on anything you don't like. If you don't see something, just say you don't see it.\n\nFor all we know, the mites are the true, animating planetary intelligence, at least when they have bodies to infest. They'd be small enough to ride bubbles.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 6:23 AM, Gerry Quinn wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "From: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Peritonitis, exactly. It need not have any meaning. It only needs to be an organizing principle." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "An organising principle must organise. What is organised by this storm of putative connections? [And 'odd' things that are not really odd at all? Can't a hungry girl falling asleep under a tree dream of a planet seen through the branches as a giant fruit?]\n\n5HOC is not Peritonitis, in which there is an explicit disconnect between the description of the protagonist as a humanoid hero and as a microbe, which the reader is invited to make of what he will.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<9EAEF0DA-3C98-48C8-97EC-9C5D3DF583A5@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T13:08:18+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<2E2DEEC0-E78D-48F9-AC76-7D29F4E16CA5@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And the tiny things that swim in the blood that switch the perspectives of Sandwalker and eastwind further point to this. \n\nI still think the adult form is a transformed larva, though, but neat stuff in both species life cycles going on here for sure. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAnd them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man. \n\nSent from my iPhone" } ] }, { "message_id": "<515ADAD3.3070801@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-02T13:19:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<9EAEF0DA-3C98-48C8-97EC-9C5D3DF583A5@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good.\n\nI also note that this novella is called \"A Story\" and need not be \"real\" \nto the degree the others are. Its perspective is basically \nimpossible---godlike, if you will, or authorial---and you can read it \nlike a Wolfean gloss on the other two novellas, that happens to be \nattached to a character/author." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/2/2013 9:08 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAnd the tiny things that swim in the blood that switch the perspectives of Sandwalker and eastwind further point to this.\n\nI still think the adult form is a transformed larva, though, but neat stuff in both species life cycles going on here for sure.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man.\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<051A3DA0-866C-4892-829B-3D6F2423455F@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T13:41:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<515ADAD3.3070801@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And then there are little comments like, don't ask me how big children are. I wonder if anybody except gene has ever really \"gotten\" this work for sure. So tricksy. His symbolism is simultaneously the subtlest and at the same time the most heavy handed and pervasive in science fiction. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 6:19 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:\nGood.\n\nI also note that this novella is called \"A Story\" and need not be \"real\" to the degree the others are. Its perspective is basically impossible---godlike, if you will, or authorial---and you can read it like a Wolfean gloss on the other two novellas, that happens to be attached to a character/author.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 9:08 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And the tiny things that swim in the blood that switch the perspectives of Sandwalker and eastwind further point to this.\n\nI still think the adult form is a transformed larva, though, but neat stuff in both species life cycles going on here for sure.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "And them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<823E1972-AFDC-46CD-8CB4-019EDEE3F484@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T13:48:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<051A3DA0-866C-4892-829B-3D6F2423455F@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In regards to the quote on page 138 that Gerry and I looked at, in which the first species uses their hands only for food and the second is space faring, (no mention of hands) I now fancy that spacefaring on one level is airborne, though I still think it is a double event combined in one confused passage. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAnd then there are little comments like, don't ask me how big children are. I wonder if anybody except gene has ever really \"gotten\" this work for sure. So tricksy. His symbolism is simultaneously the subtlest and at the same time the most heavy handed and pervasive in science fiction. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:19 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Good.\n\nI also note that this novella is called \"A Story\" and need not be \"real\" to the degree the others are. Its perspective is basically impossible---godlike, if you will, or authorial---and you can read it like a Wolfean gloss on the other two novellas, that happens to be attached to a character/author.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 9:08 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "And the tiny things that swim in the blood that switch the perspectives of Sandwalker and eastwind further point to this.\n\nI still think the adult form is a transformed larva, though, but neat stuff in both species life cycles going on here for sure.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "And them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<79CF9C31-9D7C-4044-9AD3-23A4C121C220@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T14:00:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<823E1972-AFDC-46CD-8CB4-019EDEE3F484@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "As I noted from the foot imagery it is the brother Sandwalker who dies in a story and eastwind who lives, thinking he is Sandwalker. The airborne one survives. The aborigine drowns in the river, as VRT disappears in it. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 6:48 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nIn regards to the quote on page 138 that Gerry and I looked at, in which the first species uses their hands only for food and the second is space faring, (no mention of hands) I now fancy that spacefaring on one level is airborne, though I still think it is a double event combined in one confused passage. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And then there are little comments like, don't ask me how big children are. I wonder if anybody except gene has ever really \"gotten\" this work for sure. So tricksy. His symbolism is simultaneously the subtlest and at the same time the most heavy handed and pervasive in science fiction. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:19 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Good.\n\nI also note that this novella is called \"A Story\" and need not be \"real\" to the degree the others are. Its perspective is basically impossible---godlike, if you will, or authorial---and you can read it like a Wolfean gloss on the other two novellas, that happens to be attached to a character/author.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 9:08 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "And the tiny things that swim in the blood that switch the perspectives of Sandwalker and eastwind further point to this.\n\nI still think the adult form is a transformed larva, though, but neat stuff in both species life cycles going on here for sure.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "And them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<55FF22D0-9140-43E6-A5F3-91B5664F2CD7@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T14:04:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<79CF9C31-9D7C-4044-9AD3-23A4C121C220@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Last post for a while - then at that point the shadow child says even he doesn't know who is who at the culmination of a story. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 7:00 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAs I noted from the foot imagery it is the brother Sandwalker who dies in a story and eastwind who lives, thinking he is Sandwalker. The airborne one survives. The aborigine drowns in the river, as VRT disappears in it. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:48 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "In regards to the quote on page 138 that Gerry and I looked at, in which the first species uses their hands only for food and the second is space faring, (no mention of hands) I now fancy that spacefaring on one level is airborne, though I still think it is a double event combined in one confused passage. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "And then there are little comments like, don't ask me how big children are. I wonder if anybody except gene has ever really \"gotten\" this work for sure. So tricksy. His symbolism is simultaneously the subtlest and at the same time the most heavy handed and pervasive in science fiction. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:19 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Good.\n\nI also note that this novella is called \"A Story\" and need not be \"real\" to the degree the others are. Its perspective is basically impossible---godlike, if you will, or authorial---and you can read it like a Wolfean gloss on the other two novellas, that happens to be attached to a character/author.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 9:08 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "And the tiny things that swim in the blood that switch the perspectives of Sandwalker and eastwind further point to this.\n\nI still think the adult form is a transformed larva, though, but neat stuff in both species life cycles going on here for sure.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 6, "text": "And them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T14:04:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<79CF9C31-9D7C-4044-9AD3-23A4C121C220@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "John vector Marsch \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 7:00 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAs I noted from the foot imagery it is the brother Sandwalker who dies in a story and eastwind who lives, thinking he is Sandwalker. The airborne one survives. The aborigine drowns in the river, as VRT disappears in it. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:48 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "In regards to the quote on page 138 that Gerry and I looked at, in which the first species uses their hands only for food and the second is space faring, (no mention of hands) I now fancy that spacefaring on one level is airborne, though I still think it is a double event combined in one confused passage. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "And then there are little comments like, don't ask me how big children are. I wonder if anybody except gene has ever really \"gotten\" this work for sure. So tricksy. His symbolism is simultaneously the subtlest and at the same time the most heavy handed and pervasive in science fiction. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:19 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "Good.\n\nI also note that this novella is called \"A Story\" and need not be \"real\" to the degree the others are. Its perspective is basically impossible---godlike, if you will, or authorial---and you can read it like a Wolfean gloss on the other two novellas, that happens to be attached to a character/author.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 9:08 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "And the tiny things that swim in the blood that switch the perspectives of Sandwalker and eastwind further point to this.\n\nI still think the adult form is a transformed larva, though, but neat stuff in both species life cycles going on here for sure.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 6, "text": "And them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364911877.74494.YahooMailNeo@web84504.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-02T14:11:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<051A3DA0-866C-4892-829B-3D6F2423455F@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes. And Gerry had a point when he said Wolfe's characters also use metaphor and it can get confusing---which is the subtle use and which the heavy one? Which metaphors are limited and which run deep? Another way to put it is that Wolfe's narrators use metaphor too. \n\nIs it possible that \"Marsch's\" story is essentially a light but pointed fantasy written by a humanoid alien---that instead of, say, fairies and talking animals as a common literary wellspring, he thinks of mites, etc. (\"Write what you know,\" right?) \n\nI guess I'm just cautioning against taking the story literally, though it is obviously packed with clues and information. Wolfe is so light-handed with the serious stuff; it's the fairy stuff where he applies his heaviest hand. If my guess is right, where we might write, \"And the land was ever green as springtime,\" or \"The giant had seven eyes!\" whatever Marsch is might write, \"And the eye-pit was suddenly flooded with the salty sea,\" or \"The beast had two huge staring eyes!\" And then, though these too would be clues of a sort, they should be understood as furniture, not truth. Good luck sorting the two . . ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 9:41 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\n\nAnd then there are little comments like, don't ask me how big children are. I wonder if anybody except gene has ever really \"gotten\" this work for sure. So tricksy. His symbolism is simultaneously the subtlest and at the same time the most heavy handed and pervasive in science fiction. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:19 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Good.\n\nI also note that this novella is called \"A Story\" and need not be \"real\" to the degree the others are. Its perspective is basically impossible---godlike, if you will, or authorial---and you can read it like a Wolfean gloss on the other two novellas, that happens to be attached to a character/author.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 9:08 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "And the tiny things that swim in the blood that switch the perspectives of Sandwalker and eastwind further point to this.\n\nI still think the adult form is a transformed larva, though, but neat stuff in both species life cycles going on here for sure.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "And them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1364912224.69477.YahooMailNeo@web84501.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-02T14:17:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Along those lines, check out variance reduction techniques: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variance_reduction\n\nMind, blown." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Tuesday, April 2, 2013 10:04 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\n\nJohn vector Marsch \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 7:00 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "As I noted from the foot imagery it is the brother Sandwalker who dies in a story and eastwind who lives, thinking he is Sandwalker. The airborne one survives. The aborigine drowns in the river, as VRT disappears in it. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:48 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "In regards to the quote on page 138 that Gerry and I looked at, in which the first species uses their hands only for food and the second is space faring, (no mention of hands) I now fancy that spacefaring on one level is airborne, though I still think it is a double event combined in one confused passage. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:41 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 4, "text": "And then there are little comments like, don't ask me how big children are. I wonder if anybody except gene has ever really \"gotten\" this work for sure. So tricksy. His symbolism is simultaneously the subtlest and at the same time the most heavy handed and pervasive in science fiction. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:19 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 5, "text": "Good.\n\nI also note that this novella is called \"A Story\" and need not be \"real\" to the degree the others are. Its perspective is basically impossible---godlike, if you will, or authorial---and you can read it like a Wolfean gloss on the other two novellas, that happens to be attached to a character/author.\n\nOn 4/2/2013 9:08 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 6, "text": "And the tiny things that swim in the blood that switch the perspectives of Sandwalker and eastwind further point to this.\n\nI still think the adult form is a transformed larva, though, but neat stuff in both species life cycles going on here for sure.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 6:02 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 7, "text": "And them riding the marsh men through the eyes finally makes sense of that connection - the shadow child takes the Marsch man.\n\nSent from my iPhone\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T14:20:59+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<79CF9C31-9D7C-4044-9AD3-23A4C121C220@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "As I noted from the foot imagery it is the brother Sandwalker who\ndies in a story and eastwind who lives, thinking he is Sandwalker." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Sandwalker kicked Eastwind's feet so that he fell into the water.\"\n\nThe *drug* (remember, that plant they chew) that swam in the Shadow Child's \nmouth went into Eastwind's veins, and he became - or would given time have \nbecome - responsive to the hypnotic suggestion that he was Sandwalker. Had \nhe spoken, he might have answered the question of whether Sandwalker should \nkill him. Sandwalker did not wait, and killed him anyway.\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T14:37:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I explained all my reasons that Sandwalker is the one that dies already. Eastwind got bit and the survivors arm hurts also eastwind says earlier you will die before me but live in dreams\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 7:20 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "As I noted from the foot imagery it is the brother Sandwalker who\ndies in a story and eastwind who lives, thinking he is Sandwalker." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Sandwalker kicked Eastwind's feet so that he fell into the water.\"\n\nThe *drug* (remember, that plant they chew) that swam in the Shadow Child's mouth went into Eastwind's veins, and he became - or would given time have become - responsive to the hypnotic suggestion that he was Sandwalker. Had he spoken, he might have answered the question of whether Sandwalker should kill him. Sandwalker did not wait, and killed him anyway.\n\n- Gerry Quinn \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T14:41:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And Sandwalker dreams of drowning and twelve walker says eastwind met the French landers\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 7:37 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nI explained all my reasons that Sandwalker is the one that dies already. Eastwind got bit and the survivors arm hurts also eastwind says earlier you will die before me but live in dreams\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 7:20 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "As I noted from the foot imagery it is the brother Sandwalker who\ndies in a story and eastwind who lives, thinking he is Sandwalker." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"Sandwalker kicked Eastwind's feet so that he fell into the water.\"\n\nThe *drug* (remember, that plant they chew) that swam in the Shadow Child's mouth went into Eastwind's veins, and he became - or would given time have become - responsive to the hypnotic suggestion that he was Sandwalker. Had he spoken, he might have answered the question of whether Sandwalker should kill him. Sandwalker did not wait, and killed him anyway.\n\n- Gerry Quinn \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<988124DA-B746-4580-9CEA-DEC73AC8216C@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T15:05:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I am pretty adamant about Eastwind surviving but not knowing who he is. That is the key point. Also, metaphorically his lack of testes but still being called an ancestor of Trenchard (12 walker) only allows one reproductive option - that option open to viruses and parasites - appropriating the reproductive mechanism of another to complete the life cycle. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 7:41 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAnd Sandwalker dreams of drowning and twelve walker says eastwind met the French landers\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 7:37 AM, Marc Aramini ", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T15:13:21+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<988124DA-B746-4580-9CEA-DEC73AC8216C@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I do view eastwind as a metaphor, however. Not sure how closely these two species are biologically, but I see eastwind as a symbol of airborne propagation even though he is not a shadow child. I recognize the difference between their life cycles, I simply see him as an aboriginal symbol of who lives on as Marsch- the at one time airborne shadow child rather than the walking aborigine.\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 8:05 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nI am pretty adamant about Eastwind surviving but not knowing who he is. That is the key point. Also, metaphorically his lack of testes but still being called an ancestor of Trenchard (12 walker) only allows one reproductive option - that option open to viruses and parasites - appropriating the reproductive mechanism of another to complete the life cycle. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 7:41 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And Sandwalker dreams of drowning and twelve walker says eastwind met the French landers\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 2, 2013, at 7:37 AM, Marc Aramini ", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-02T23:38:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<707B3F4B-64B7-4FF0-945E-1A15342419DB@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And of course microscopic infection explains the \"prophylactic\" removal of saliva as our officer in the third novella cleans up. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<083B457F-FFD9-4BF0-B684-13C69CB1D8DF@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-03T04:30:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1D8AD59E-3123-43C7-96E8-AD7E9D62081E@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "When Marsch first shows up in the first novella his skin is described as so pasty white as to almost be a deformity - definitely like those white larva.\n\nAlso, he makes a big deal about none of the houses on st croix being younger than 140 years old. I am looking for the date the records of the landing on st Anne were destroyed in the fusing of st. Dizier, but I was certain I read about something 130 years ago on st Anne. \n\nOh yes, the average age if the 402 trees in the circle was 127 years, but I need to find when they were cut down so thoroughly, as they might have been destroyed at any time as far as I can remember. \n\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 2, 2013, at 4:38 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nAnd of course microscopic infection explains the \"prophylactic\" removal of saliva as our officer in the third novella cleans up. \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365001365.28634.YahooMailClassic@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-03T15:02:45+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "<083B457F-FFD9-4BF0-B684-13C69CB1D8DF@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In an interview, Marsch claims that aboriginal culture is not paleolithic (first stone tools appearing) but rather the preceding stage, dendritic, or even predendritic.\n\nWell, there is no dendritic stage. It is a branching of neurons, and in particular, branching like a tree. It means of a branching form, arborescent.\n\nSome anthropologist Marsch is." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365001879.50318.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-03T15:11:19+00:00", "subject": "(urth) port mimizon, department of the hand", "in_reply_to": "<1365001365.28634.YahooMailClassic@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Also of note is that Port Mimizon is in the departement de la main, or the hand or principal. It is between a thumb and finger, if I recall. Interesting that a text that hinges so much on the use of hands and their disuse or adaptation would have the hand as a place name. \n\nStill dwelling on the fact that there are almost no buildings newer than 140 years old in Port Mimizon and that there are less people than 140 years ago and that the records that burned at St. Dizier, while that resonates with the burning of the real French city in the 18th century, also echoes the latin desidero - desire. Has human desire, and therefore natural reproduction, burned out? " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365005224.19305.YahooMailNeo@web84505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-03T16:07:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) port mimizon, department of the hand", "in_reply_to": "<1365001879.50318.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is Wolfe evoking masturbation? (hand, desire)" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Wednesday, April 3, 2013 11:11 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) port mimizon, department of the hand\n\n\nAlso of note is that Port Mimizon is in the departement de la main, or the hand or principal. It is between a thumb and finger, if I recall. Interesting that a text that hinges so much on the use of hands and their disuse or adaptation would have the hand as a place name. \n\nStill dwelling on the fact that there are almost no buildings newer than 140 years old in Port Mimizon and that there are less people than 140 years ago and that the records that burned at St. Dizier, while that resonates with the burning of the real French city in the 18th century, also echoes the latin desidero - desire. Has human desire, and therefore natural reproduction, burned out? \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<515CA6F9.2040504@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-03T22:02:33+00:00", "subject": "(urth) port mimizon, department of the hand", "in_reply_to": "<1365005224.19305.YahooMailNeo@web84505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And sterility. I forgot sterility." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/3/2013 12:07 PM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nIs Wolfe evoking masturbation? (hand, desire)\n\n\n ------------------------------------------------------------------------\n *From:* Marc Aramini \n *To:* The Urth Mailing List \n *Sent:* Wednesday, April 3, 2013 11:11 AM\n *Subject:* Re: (urth) port mimizon, department of the hand\n\n Also of note is that Port Mimizon is in the departement de la\n main, or the hand or principal. It is between a thumb and finger,\n if I recall. Interesting that a text that hinges so much on the\n use of hands and their disuse or adaptation would have the hand as\n a place name.\n Still dwelling on the fact that there are almost no buildings\n newer than 140 years old in Port Mimizon and that there are less\n people than 140 years ago and that the records that burned at St.\n Dizier, while that resonates with the burning of the real French\n city in the 18th century, also echoes the latin desidero -\n desire. Has human desire, and therefore natural reproduction,\n burned out?\n\n\n _______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<976B892783C945FE91087B32721208C1@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-03T22:20:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) port mimizon, department of the hand", "in_reply_to": "<515CA6F9.2040504@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "All this free association seems to neglect that we are told at the outset \nthat children are extraordinarily cheap in Port Mimizon.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\nFrom: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And sterility. I forgot sterility." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Marc Aramini mailto:marcaramini at yahoo.com\nStill dwelling on the fact that there are almost no buildings newer\nthan 140 years old in Port Mimizon and that there are less people\nthan 140 years ago and that the records that burned at St. Dizier,\nwhile that resonates with the burning of the real French city in the\n18th century, also echoes the latin desidero - desire. Has human\ndesire, and therefore natural reproduction, burned out?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gwern Branwen", "address": "gwern at gwern.net" }, "date": "2013-04-03T22:39:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) port mimizon, department of the hand", "in_reply_to": "<976B892783C945FE91087B32721208C1@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 6:20 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nAll this free association seems to neglect that we are told at the outset\nthat children are extraordinarily cheap in Port Mimizon." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Low prices could be due either to oversupply *or* lack of demand. I do not\nrecall anything in 5HOC indicating that people are procreating so much that\nthey cannot afford their children and are desperately selling them off to\navoid starvation." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "gwern\nhttp://www.gwern.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "<515CB2FF.3040109@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-03T22:53:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) port mimizon, department of the hand", "in_reply_to": "<976B892783C945FE91087B32721208C1@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perhaps. OTOH, there is the traditional distinction between desire and \nlust. Abundant procreation need not signify desire. Cloning itself is \nprocreation without either one. \"Dizier\" may point more to spiritual \nstagnation---/that /kind of desire.\n\nThe fact that humans are for sale at all seems more salient than their \nprice. If Mimizon is in a balanced demographic stasis, neither growing \nnor shrinking, no one would really need either an extra mouth or another \npair of hands. Mass slavery is usually associated with excess population \n(cities captured and razed) or colonization (plantation system, gold and \nsilver mines). Neither condition seems to hold here." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/3/2013 6:20 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\nAll this free association seems to neglect that we are told at the \noutset that children are extraordinarily cheap in Port Mimizon.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\nFrom: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "And sterility. I forgot sterility." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Marc Aramini mailto:marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Still dwelling on the fact that there are almost no buildings newer\nthan 140 years old in Port Mimizon and that there are less people\nthan 140 years ago and that the records that burned at St. Dizier,\nwhile that resonates with the burning of the real French city in the\n18th century, also echoes the latin desidero - desire. Has human\ndesire, and therefore natural reproduction, burned out?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365029811.76607.YahooMailNeo@web124505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-03T22:56:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "<1365001365.28634.YahooMailClassic@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I took that to mean that their culture is based on trees (and wood and vines?) rather than stone.\n\nJerry Friedman" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Wednesday, April 3, 2013 9:02 AM\nSubject: (urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures\n\nIn an interview, Marsch claims that aboriginal culture is not paleolithic (first stone tools appearing) but rather the preceding stage, dendritic, or even predendritic. \n\nWell, there is no dendritic stage. It is a branching of neurons, and in particular, branching like a tree. It means of a branching form, arborescent. \n\nSome anthropologist Marsch is. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<8B7273D1-79CA-4336-848C-9C6C7A2FA6B1@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-03T23:10:05+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "<1365029811.76607.YahooMailNeo@web124505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course it is. Lots of ways. So my book end summation is a mature maggot sits in jail and pretends to be a man replaced by a half tree aborigine. Sounds like cliffs at its finest. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 3, 2013, at 3:56 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:\nI took that to mean that their culture is based on trees (and wood and vines?) rather than stone.\n \nJerry Friedman\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Wednesday, April 3, 2013 9:02 AM\nSubject: (urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures\nIn an interview, Marsch claims that aboriginal culture is not paleolithic (first stone tools appearing) but rather the preceding stage, dendritic, or even predendritic.\n \nWell, there is no dendritic stage. It is a branching of neurons, and in particular, branching like a tree. It means of a branching form, arborescent.\n \nSome anthropologist Marsch is.\n \n " } ] }, { "message_id": "<515CBB85.90906@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-03T23:30:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "<1365029811.76607.YahooMailNeo@web124505.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's true, but Marc's observation is that Wolfe made it up. Maybe \nthere should be such a designation, and maybe it would be especially \nappropriate for the two planets, but either way it's a fabrication. And \neither Marsch was a giant among anthropologists as the guy who coined \nthis new term, or he's full of sh*t.\n\nI am not sure we can ever really say which it is, but plainly Wolfe is \npulling our legs. /Either way. /It reminds me of the W/Vernor Vinge \nerror---one of those revealing mistakes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/3/2013 6:56 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:\nI took that to mean that their culture is based on trees (and wood and \nvines?) rather than stone.\nJerry Friedman\n\n *From:* Marc Aramini \n *To:* The Urth Mailing List \n *Sent:* Wednesday, April 3, 2013 9:02 AM\n *Subject:* (urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures\n In an interview, Marsch claims that aboriginal culture is not\n paleolithic (first stone tools appearing) but rather the preceding\n stage, dendritic, or even predendritic.\n Well, there is no dendritic stage. It is a branching of neurons,\n and in particular, branching like a tree. It means of a branching\n form, arborescent.\n Some anthropologist Marsch is." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-03T23:48:57+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "<515CBB85.90906@verizon.net>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's true, but Marc's observation is that Wolfe made it up. Maybe\nthere should be such a designation, and maybe it would be especially\n appropriate for the two planets, but either way it's a fabrication. And\neither Marsch was a giant among anthropologists as the guy who\n coined this new term, or he's full of sh*t.\n\nI am not sure we can ever really say which it is, but plainly Wolfe is\npulling our legs. Either way. It reminds me of the W/Vernor Vinge\nerror---one of those revealing mistakes." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It may be that sometime between now and the twenty-ninth century or \nwhenever, such a term will come into use, perhaps with regard to wood and \nforest based cultures.\n\nObviously the idea of stages/ages is a somewhat arbitrary taxonomy in any \ncase; they are probably among the most 'socially constructed' of all \nscientific terms.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-03T23:55:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course with trees grabbing for the falling VRT with their roots and trees traveling around in the third novella \" trees that have travel\", I don't see why it isn't a dendritic culture entirely. A culture of trees. I don't know why some are so resistant to the ubiquity of sentient trees in Wolfe. Can't under them once you notice it. That's anthropomorphizing to a whole new level. \n\nCesar branches are waving. Also, many pink butterflies (as a symbol) might come from a little larval stage associated with pink- the eggs those shadow children chew before they spit out their white \"wives.\" Notice the pasty white almost deformed flesh of Marsch when he shows up. He is a maggot. Man is like a god when he fosters these beasts inside him for he engenders further life and needs no wife to do so, as the shadow children say, in paraphrase. \n\n\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 3, 2013, at 4:48 PM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: David Stockhoff" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "That's true, but Marc's observation is that Wolfe made it up. Maybe\nthere should be such a designation, and maybe it would be especially\nappropriate for the two planets, but either way it's a fabrication. And\neither Marsch was a giant among anthropologists as the guy who\ncoined this new term, or he's full of sh*t.\n\nI am not sure we can ever really say which it is, but plainly Wolfe is\npulling our legs. Either way. It reminds me of the W/Vernor Vinge\nerror---one of those revealing mistakes." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It may be that sometime between now and the twenty-ninth century or whenever, such a term will come into use, perhaps with regard to wood and forest based cultures.\n\nObviously the idea of stages/ages is a somewhat arbitrary taxonomy in any case; they are probably among the most 'socially constructed' of all scientific terms.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<3508C250-E2DD-488C-A40C-7179ACB93649@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-03T23:57:40+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That is, can't unsee them. (Trees doing weird stuff like getting jealous and engendering life). Still not used to this fancy phone and its auto correct. Sorry for all the typos. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<3750E3C0-EDE4-461A-9DE7-264CBA1C0060@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-04T01:20:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No dia 04/04/2013, ?s 00:48, \"Gerry Quinn\" escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "It may be that sometime between now and the twenty-ninth century or whenever, such a term will come into use, perhaps with regard to wood and forest based cultures.\n\nObviously the idea of stages/ages is a somewhat arbitrary taxonomy in any case; they are probably among the most 'socially constructed' of all scientific terms." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I don't know about that. It sounds very plausible that human cultures remained mostly static until some invention came along, then moving to a different plateau. That's why terms like 'Iron Age' mean different times in different places. If anything, I find them much more objective than Antiquity, Classical Antiquity, Middle Ages. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<515CD6B8.6060208@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-04T01:26:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "<3750E3C0-EDE4-461A-9DE7-264CBA1C0060@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I agree. For all we know, there were ages of all sorts of other things, \nlike Organized Religion, Wooden Computers, and continentwide governments \nled by wise old hags. But all we really have to go by is tools: stone, \nbronze, iron, steel. And pottery and architecture and burial sites. \nThese are inadequate but quite real. Wolfe's teasing hints about \nGondwanaland fit right in." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/3/2013 9:20 PM, Ant?nio Pedro Marques wrote:\nNo dia 04/04/2013, ?s 00:48, \"Gerry Quinn\" escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It may be that sometime between now and the twenty-ninth century or whenever, such a term will come into use, perhaps with regard to wood and forest based cultures.\n\nObviously the idea of stages/ages is a somewhat arbitrary taxonomy in any case; they are probably among the most 'socially constructed' of all scientific terms." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't know about that. It sounds very plausible that human cultures remained mostly static until some invention came along, then moving to a different plateau. That's why terms like 'Iron Age' mean different times in different places. If anything, I find them much more objective than Antiquity, Classical Antiquity, Middle Ages.\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-04T01:28:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "<3508C250-E2DD-488C-A40C-7179ACB93649@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No dia 04/04/2013, ?s 00:57, Marc Aramini escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That is, can't unsee them. (Trees doing weird stuff like getting jealous and engendering life). Still not used to this fancy phone and its auto correct. Sorry for all the typos. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "ObJerry: Interesting, I thought Marc was really using 'under' as a verb, to mean 'put away, forget', as an alternative to the usual 'unsee'.\n\nObMarc: iOS user here, with 7 languages. You won't get used to it. It's broken. But how else to write its and automatically get it's? And the damned thing usually guesses the correct one." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-04T13:34:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) paleolithic, dendritic, and predendritic cultures", "in_reply_to": "<3750E3C0-EDE4-461A-9DE7-264CBA1C0060@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Ant?nio Pedro Marques\n\n\nNo dia 04/04/2013, ?s 00:48, \"Gerry Quinn\" escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "It may be that sometime between now and the twenty-ninth century or \nwhenever\n, such a term will come into use, perhaps with regard to wood and forest \nbased cultures.\n\nObviously the idea of stages/ages is a somewhat arbitrary taxonomy in\nany case; they are probably among the most 'socially constructed' of all \nscientific terms." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I don't know about that. It sounds very plausible that human cultures \nremained\nmostly static until some invention came along, then moving to a different \nplateau.\nThat's why terms like 'Iron Age' mean different times in different places. \nIf\nanything, I find them much more objective than Antiquity, Classical \nAntiquity,\nMiddle Ages. www.urth.net" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I suspect it might sound less plausible if you were there!\n\nI agree that the 'historical' ages are worse in this regard than the \n'technological' ages - indeed I was thinking particularly of the Middle \nAges, which some folk place the start of around 300 AD, and some much later.\n\nWolfe has mentioned 'cycles' (which presumably involve ages) before in the \ncontext of New Sun. So I don't think he has anything against the idea \nanyway. The above is just me grumbling about them.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-08T18:26:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<083B457F-FFD9-4BF0-B684-13C69CB1D8DF@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: So my theory of relaxation- primitive man emulated by ancestors of shadow children, shadow >children imitated by the free people in a different world, then finally real people show up and another >approximation may or may not be made that is indistinguishable from the \" real\" people/solution if >Veil's hypothesis is true and Trenchard and the people of frenchman's landing are perfectly adapted >Abos, an the other Abos are still not approximating humanity in any way. Trenchard the father is a man, >whether he resulted from human stock or is last in a series of approximations. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Relaxation\". I like this engineering perspective on the problem. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<789E3D62-2167-4082-9CF5-08C18D42C7FE@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-09T02:43:44+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Just had a little thought if Marsch was a shadow child. The ending lines of the first novella. \" she had the child with her. Someday they'll want us.\" \n\nIf this is the shadow child, perhaps they are getting ready to take or be everyone on st. Anne. Just a thought on a weird pronoun shift there- from the child to they- and shadow children say things like \" I, for five\"...\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Apr 8, 2013, at 11:26 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nMarc Aramini: So my theory of relaxation- primitive man emulated by ancestors of shadow children, shadow >children imitated by the free people in a different world, then finally real people show up and another >approximation may or may not be made that is indistinguishable from the \" real\" people/solution if >Veil's hypothesis is true and Trenchard and the people of frenchman's landing are perfectly adapted >Abos, an the other Abos are still not approximating humanity in any way. Trenchard the father is a man, >whether he resulted from human stock or is last in a series of approximations." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Relaxation\". I like this engineering perspective on the problem. \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<9AD3841F-81E8-4F79-AD96-6068726F6E85@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-09T02:48:27+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Holy crap the mother of cedar branches waving plants her daughter after the birth so that the sun drenched sand energies get to her on the second page of \"a story\", brushing the sunny sand over her feet and digging deep enough to get nutrient sand over her legs. I knew it. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Apr 8, 2013, at 11:26 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nMarc Aramini: So my theory of relaxation- primitive man emulated by ancestors of shadow children, shadow >children imitated by the free people in a different world, then finally real people show up and another >approximation may or may not be made that is indistinguishable from the \" real\" people/solution if >Veil's hypothesis is true and Trenchard and the people of frenchman's landing are perfectly adapted >Abos, an the other Abos are still not approximating humanity in any way. Trenchard the father is a man, >whether he resulted from human stock or is last in a series of approximations." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Relaxation\". I like this engineering perspective on the problem. \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T13:28:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<9AD3841F-81E8-4F79-AD96-6068726F6E85@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: Holy crap the mother of cedar branches waving plants her daughter after \nthe birth so that the sun drenched sand energies get to her on the second page of \"a story\"\nbrushing the sunny sand over her feet and digging deep enough to get nutrient sand over her legs. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Good catch, Marc. It fits in with your \"relaxation model\" The abos being a closer approximation to earth humans than shadow children, so what came before shadow children?\n\nAs the Old Wise One remembers- \"We were mostly long, and lived in holes between the roots of trees\". \n\nCould suggest a plant-like origin or perhaps fungi is a better analogy as this species leans toward the parasitic rather than primary producer niche.\n\nSpeaking of parasites, this certainly does seem to be echoed in Inhumi evolution. There is the suggestion that before they were the parasitic reptilians (who reproduce amphibiously) they had a parasitic vine existence. Had you considered your relaxation model to help us understand Inhumi also? \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T13:42:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: Just had a little thought if Marsch was a shadow child. The ending lines of the first >novella. \" she had the child with her. Someday they'll want us.\" If this is the shadow child, perhaps >they are getting ready to take or be everyone on st. Anne. Just a thought on a weird pronoun shift >there- from the child to they- and shadow children say things like \" I, for five\"..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've found that line to be among the most haunting in SF since I first read it as a teen, in the novella.\n\nHowever I take the opposite interpretation. I find the pronoun \"us\" to mean Number Five, being cloned over and over, as a plural being. As he matured and became his father he started to think of himself in the plural that way. Perhaps that is the more obvious interpretation?\n\nI hold to it because of what I think is the deeper theme of 5HoC which is about adaptation and evolution and competition. I've always understood Number Five's dream about the ship which cannot set sail until it is untied from the dock as a cloning metaphor. With the novella 5HoC, Wolfe is saying cloning is a dead end because it doesn't provide a mechanism for adaptation and evolution.\n\nSo in the full novel, what better way to contrast this theme by pitting cloning against a species which is superhuman in its ability to adapt and evolve. I suspect Number Five and his collective cloned family may be the only true humans left on both planets. Earthman Dr Marsch was human on his first visit to the mansion but not on his return. I see Number Five (plural) as the last gasp of a species on the verge of extinction. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365603086.59646.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T14:11:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, the context of the first novella, written first, would of course not have the shadow child interpretation available in that last line - it would have to be a retrofit, though through months rather than years. Definitely he wrote 5HOC first and shared it with some individuals who convinced him to write more, I am just not sure if it was published before that expansion or if he was writing the others contiguously.\n\nI agree, the name Many Pink Butterflies indicates there are a whole lot of pink \"transformed\" individual, and a street name like rue d'asticot (street of maggots/larva) would be consistent with that (no new houses have been built in Port Mimizon for 140 years, and their birth rate is down. Number 4 (or so I assume) has cloned over 50 failed versions of himself.\n\nDespite the aborigine/vanished person arboreal overlap, I think the mechanism of imitation is somewhat different. The shadow children invade and replicate, the aborigines mimic or metamorphose, but the inhumi drink blood and they and more particularly their offspring are created - I think the vanished people too create things from blood they have tasted, and that the parasite species gained that ability from \"leeching\" it off those trees that eat trees to become inhumi.\n\nThe problem with the Green Man is his sharp little teeth, and the problem with the Trees is that they eat each other, and probably more ... disturbing.\n\n--- On Wed, 4/10/13, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Lee Berman \nSubject: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"urth at urth.net\" \nDate: Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 6:42 AM\nMarc Aramini: Just had a little thought if Marsch was a shadow child. The ending lines of the first >novella. \" she had the child with her. Someday they'll want us.\" If this is the shadow child, perhaps >they are getting ready to take or be everyone on st. Anne. — Just a thought on a weird pronoun shift >there- from the child to they- and shadow children say things like \" I, for five\"..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I've found that line to be among the most haunting in SF since I first read it as a teen, in the novella.\n\nHowever I take the opposite interpretation. I find the pronoun \"us\" to mean Number Five, being cloned over and over, as a plural being. As he matured and became his father he started to think of himself in the plural that way. Perhaps that is the more obvious interpretation?\n\nI hold to it because of what I think is the deeper theme of 5HoC which is about adaptation and evolution and competition. I've always understood Number Five's dream about the ship which cannot set sail until it is untied from the dock as a cloning metaphor. With the novella 5HoC, Wolfe is saying cloning is a dead end because it doesn't provide a mechanism for adaptation and evolution.\n\nSo in the full novel, what better way to contrast this theme by pitting cloning against a species which is superhuman in its ability to adapt and evolve. I suspect Number Five and his collective cloned family may be the only true humans left on both planets. Earthman Dr Marsch was human on his first visit to the mansion but not on his return. I see Number Five (plural) as the last gasp of a species on the verge of extinction. ??? ???????? ?????? ??? ? " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gwern Branwen", "address": "gwern at gwern.net" }, "date": "2013-04-10T14:22:07+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 9:28 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nAs the Old Wise One remembers- \"We were mostly long, and lived in holes between the roots of trees\".\n\nCould suggest a plant-like origin or perhaps fungi is a better analogy as this species leans toward the parasitic rather than primary producer niche." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It sounds much more like a maggot or worm origin to me." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "gwern\nhttp://www.gwern.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T15:22:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365603086.59646.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree, the name Many Pink Butterflies indicates there are a whole lot\nof pink \"transformed\" individual, and a street name like rue d'asticot\n(street of maggots/larva) would be consistent with that (no new houses\nhave been built in Port Mimizon for 140 years, and their birth rate is \ndown.\nNumber 4 (or so I assume) has cloned over 50 failed versions of himself." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "*Mary* Pink Butterflies. All the female children of the Hillmen are named \nMary, I would guess, as all the males are named John, although the name is \ncommonly elided. And her mother explains why she is called Pink Butterflies \nalso; it is because of her little hands waving.\n\nCan somebody explain why Wolfe would have written a story and embedded \nrandomly within it a bunch of highly obscure cryptic clues about how a race \nof apparently humanoid aliens are somehow really trees, or maggots, or \nwhatever? Especially when he actually *tells* us the secret history of \ntheir origin as part of the storyline?\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365607945.49133.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T15:32:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh Gerry - because he is cryptic by nature. Notice that no mention is made of that second space faring race using their hands at all. \n\nGene is an engineer who loves mysteries, science fiction, and symbols that stand for \"something other\" than what they are. He is also a dualist.\n\nHe is smart enough to know that God is absent from our every day experience but still believe in a structure or pattern of creation that points to an objective solution. \n\nIf you don't think all the consistent imagery points to anything deeper, that's fine, but you have to ignore a whole lot of literal statements that are all consistent to avoid that elided bit of what symbolism is - something that stands for something else, sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. Believe it or not occasionally authors have hinted at something that is not overtly stated.\n\nWhether I am always right is another matter, but to deny that Wolfe can write about one thing, drop allusions, and imply something else is a bit intentionally ignoring his ambiguity. Wolfe's interview said Marsch was a shadow child. Marsch is bitten by the cat. How else does he become a shadow child if not through that infection? \n\n\n--- On Wed, 4/10/13, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Gerry Quinn \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 8:22 AM\n\n\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree, the name Many Pink Butterflies indicates there are a whole lot\nof pink \"transformed\" individual, and a street name like rue d'asticot\n(street of maggots/larva) would be consistent with that (no new houses\nhave been built in Port Mimizon for 140 years, and their birth rate is down.\nNumber 4 (or so I assume) has cloned over 50 failed versions of himself." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "*Mary* Pink Butterflies. All the female children of the Hillmen are named Mary, I would guess, as all the males are named John, although the name is commonly elided. And her mother explains why she is called Pink Butterflies also; it is because of her little hands waving.\n\nCan somebody explain why Wolfe would have written a story and embedded randomly within it a bunch of highly obscure cryptic clues about how a race of apparently humanoid aliens are somehow really trees, or maggots, or whatever? Especially when he actually *tells* us the secret history of their origin as part of the storyline?\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365608233.39810.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T15:37:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365607945.49133.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How about this mystery then? \"Sandwalker\" is the name used to identify the one who survives. Later, Eastwind is said by Trenchard to meet the French landers. — You have to use other details to reconcile this ambiguity, or you have to accept it is a paradox that can never be explained. It isn't a paradox, with the arm that hurts, the foot imagery, the statement by Eastwind that \"you will die but live as a man in your dreams\" in paraphrase (even though, yes sure, he could be talking about the fact that he is going to kill him soon - it can be true for his intention and for what actually happens in an engineered STORY to serve the theme and provide interpretational direction.)? :\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 8:32 AM\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOh Gerry - because he is cryptic by nature. Notice that no mention is made of that second space faring race using their hands at all. \n\nGene is an engineer who loves mysteries, science fiction, and symbols that stand for \"something other\" than what they are. He is also a dualist.\n\nHe is smart enough to know that God is absent from our every day experience but still believe in a structure or pattern of creation that points to an objective solution. \n\nIf you don't think all the consistent imagery points to anything deeper, that's fine, but you have to ignore a whole lot of literal statements that are all consistent to avoid that elided bit of what symbolism is - something that stands for something else, sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. Believe it or not occasionally authors have hinted at something that is not overtly stated.\n\nWhether I am always right is another matter, but to deny that Wolfe can write about one thing, drop allusions, and imply something else is a bit intentionally ignoring his ambiguity. Wolfe's interview said Marsch was a shadow child. Marsch is bitten by the cat. How else does he become a shadow child if not through that infection? \n\n\n--- On Wed, 4/10/13, Gerry Quinn wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Gerry Quinn \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Wednesday, April 10, 2013, 8:22 AM\n\n\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I agree, the name Many Pink Butterflies indicates there are a whole lot\nof pink \"transformed\" individual, and a street name like rue d'asticot\n(street of maggots/larva) would be consistent with that (no new houses\nhave been built in Port Mimizon for 140 years, and their birth rate is down.\nNumber 4 (or so I assume) has cloned over 50 failed versions of himself." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "*Mary* Pink Butterflies. All the female children of the Hillmen are named Mary, I would guess, as all the males are named John, although the name is commonly elided. And her mother explains why she is called Pink Butterflies also; it is because of her little hands waving.\n\nCan somebody explain why Wolfe would have written a story and embedded randomly within it a bunch of highly obscure cryptic clues about how a race of apparently humanoid aliens are somehow really trees, or maggots, or whatever? Especially when he actually *tells* us the secret history of their origin as part of the storyline?\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T15:37:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365608233.39810.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gwern Branwen: It sounds much more like a maggot or worm origin to me." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sure, and that origin for Shadow Children has been suggested. But we are trying to work\nwithin Marc's plant-origin theme, at least I am. To its credit, this theme does appear to be \nrecurring across Wolfe's work; a thirty year arc from 5HoC to Short Sun." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: Despite the aborigine/vanished person arboreal overlap, I think the mechanism of imitation >is somewhat different. The shadow children invade and replicate, the aborigines mimic or metamorphose, >but the inhumi drink blood and they and more particularly their offspring are created - I think the >vanished people too create things from blood they have tasted, and that the parasite species gained that >ability from \"leeching\" it off those trees that eat trees to become inhumi." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hm. My impression was that all the serious negativity found in the Neighbors was a product of their \nencounter with the Inhumi (or whatever they initially were) on Green. Also, I'd say the Inhumi borrow from abos in being parasitic shapeshifters while the Neighbors borrow from shadow children in being plural and somewhat ethereal beings. However I don't think the Neighbors became plural and ethereal until after they went to Green and got infiltrated and corrupted and needed to find a (spiritual?)\nmeans of escape.\n\nOn a general note, I think there is a basic dichotomy of nature which Wolfe may have a sense of- plants (and blue-green algae) are the only non-parasitic species on earth (if we exclude methanogens). All the other kingdoms, animals, fungi, protozoans and bacteria can be considered parasitic. feeding on plants\nor members of the other kingdoms. I think most would agree that Gene Wolfe displays a general disgust with parasitic behavior in his writing. Thus I find a certain nobility in his non-parasitic trees and in the Neighbors who are thematically linked to these trees." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The problem with the Green Man is his sharp little teeth, and the problem with the Trees is that they >eat each other, and probably more ... disturbing." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I have to agree. The Green Man is made deliberately disturbing. I'll add his laugh. Why would Wolfe make our best option for our future selves to be so disturbing?\n\nI never studied botany much but the more I learn, the more I find striking examples of the physical, chemical and genetic warfare that plants engage in against each other as well as the other kingdoms. Perhaps the aggressive nature of the trees on Blue/Green is meant to reflect that.\n\nI'm not sure what to make of all that ambiguity. Perhaps it is simply a reflection of the premise that there are no clear, unambiguous truths to be found, either in nature or in Gene Wolfe's work. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365608809.91774.YahooMailNeo@web84502.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-10T15:46:49+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365603086.59646.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 10:11 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\n\n\n\n\nThe problem with the Green Man is his sharp little teeth, and the problem with the Trees is that they eat each other, and probably more ... disturbing. \n\n\nIt occurs to me that Wolfe seems generally to at least accept the notion of valor and honor in combat. Taking no more than what you need to perform your function seems to fit his idea of a good king. Predation, both literally between species and metaphorically within a species, fits perfectly. It's gluttony that is a problem, because it twists what is good and necessary. And cannibalism is gluttony if there is proper food to eat.\n\nIs it cannibalism if you're a tree and you eat a tree from another tribe? Or if you eat a member of another sentient species? Wolfe seems to sit gleefully on that fence." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365609080.63262.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T15:51:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- On Wed, 4/10/13, Lee Berman wrote:\n\n\n\n\nHm. My impression was that all the serious negativity found in the Neighbors was a product of their \nencounter with the Inhumi (or whatever they initially were) on Green. Also, I'd say the Inhumi borrow from abos in being parasitic shapeshifters while the Neighbors borrow from shadow children in being plural and somewhat ethereal beings. However I don't think the Neighbors became plural and ethereal until after they went to Green and got infiltrated and corrupted and needed to find a (spiritual?)\nmeans of escape....\n\nI'm not sure what to make of all that ambiguity. Perhaps it is simply a reflection of the premise that there are no clear, unambiguous truths to be found, either in nature or in Gene Wolfe's work. ??? ???????? ?????? ??? ? " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365609673.75133.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T16:01:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365609080.63262.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And in a novel with a street named after larva or maggots in French, how can we ignore a name like pink butterflies, when butterflies are a symbol of a larval stage that transforms? Are you quite serious in stating that it is ONLY the waving of hands and that there is absolutely positively no other connotation to what a butterfly IS? Later the name that is forgotten by Sandwalker to refer to the Shadow Children is Swan -?also notorious for a beautiful, majestic?adult stage and a homely duckling stage.\n\nSo ... metamorphosis is out? Just waving hands? Do you believe that symbols are real? A cigar is ALWAYS just a cigar?" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gwern Branwen", "address": "gwern at gwern.net" }, "date": "2013-04-10T16:06:55+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 11:37 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nSure, and that origin for Shadow Children has been suggested. But we are trying to work\nwithin Marc's plant-origin theme, at least I am. To its credit, this theme does appear to be\nrecurring across Wolfe's work; a thirty year arc from 5HoC to Short Sun." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But it can work. There are commensal worms, and mutualistic worms.\nThey may not be as famous as the partnership between nitrogen-fixing\nbacteria and plant roots, but they exist. We all know of earthworms,\nand in a broader sense, worms can help the plant ecosystem by breaking\ndown things (eg. borers and dead wood)." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "gwern\nhttp://www.gwern.net" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T16:31:00+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: Can somebody explain why Wolfe would have written a story and embedded \nrandomly within it a bunch of highly obscure cryptic clues about how a race \nof apparently humanoid aliens are somehow really trees, or maggots, or \nwhatever? Especially when he actually *tells* us the secret history of \ntheir origin as part of the storyline?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This is such a polite and well-worded question, I certainly want to take a shot at \nanswering.\n\nFirst, Marc's explanation about Wolfe being a cryptic writer is a good one. We have \nthree tools for understanding the world, 1. what we see/perceive, 2. what we are told\nby others, and 3. our own internal intuitive leaps which sometimes transcend what our \nsenses tell us to bring us a higher truth. (of course they often mislead us also).\n\nMany people find pleasure in the process of an intuitive leap of faith and when they\nfind an author like Gene Wolfe who seems to invite and even require such leaps, of course \nsuch leaps will seem like the \"better\" answer than the alternate concrete answer which, as \nGerry notes, Wolfe literally \"tells us\".\n\nBut \"many\" is not \"all\". There are some people who do not like intuitive leaps of faith. In \nfact, often such people devote their lives to opposing and questioning such leaps. This serves \na very vital function in society, since there are so many false, erroneous and even harmful \nleaps of faith that certain people make. I think Gerry may be one of those who instinctively \noppose leaps of faith, and as I've always said, I consider him a very valuable part of\nthis community and the world in general. Roy used to serve a similar function here.\n\nIn this 5HoC case, Gerry's pragmatic answer, the SF trope about humans crash landing\non a planet is the story we are first told and thus is the most appealing to him. I assume \nadditional vague evidence such as Shadow Children originating beneath tree roots is considered\nirrelevant or even deliberately misleading fluff to be ignored.\n\nI find it interesting that in another example, Gerry prefers the more fantastical answer\nto the hidden, mundane practical answer. I'm speaking of whether the Inhumi can fly in the\nvoid between planets. For Gerry, that is the story we are \"told\" and other evidence is thus to\nbe dismissed. He prefers the cool story about Inhumi space flight and it is easy to see why.\n\nFor me, the intuitive leap to be made comes from the fact that we never see Inhumi do anything \nclose to flying through space and the physical impossibility of the task (including achieving\nescape velocity). What we do know is that Inhumi are inherently liars. When we know that \ninhumi have travelled through space, it is always through deception, disguise and hitching a ride\non spacecraft. It is a boring answer, but for me, being intuitive, it works better.\n\nSo, again, Wolfe provides us with two answers. On spelled out and the other only achievable\nthrough an intuitive leap connecting various bits of seemingly unrelated data. The answer\neach person chooses has more to do with their own personality and preferences than anything\nobjectively found in Wolfe's work. And there is definite value to be found in both approaches. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<2BB3D4D068974BCE9CC6DE4F0CFD58F2@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T17:10:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365607945.49133.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Oh Gerry - because he is cryptic by nature. Notice that no mention is \nmade of that\nsecond space faring race using their hands at all." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No need to mention it, because they are clearly intended to refer to humans, \nthe ancestors of the Shadow Children. And even if they hadn't been, they \nbuilt starcrossers. And even if they hadn't done that, they are placed in \njuxtaposition to the first people (the Saint Anne indigenes) who did not use \ntheir hands.\n\nYou can't use Wolfe's supposed crypticism in a circular fashion to ignore \nall that has gone before and keep tunnelling into deeper and deeper layers \nof alleged symbolism. Which you never come out of. First it's trees, then \nit's maggots, and somehow these concepts are seen as supporting each other \ninstead of being quite contradictory. How does that work?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If you don't think all the consistent imagery points to anything deeper, \nthat's fine,\nbut you have to ignore a whole lot of literal statements that are all \nconsistent to\navoid that elided bit of what symbolism is - something that stands for \nsomething\nelse, sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. Believe it or not \noccasionally\nauthors have hinted at something that is not overtly stated." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In my opinion you are reading all manner of symbolism into occasional words \nor phrases, and had the words been different you could probably have found a \nway to read the same symbolism from them.\n\n***********************************************\n\"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!\"\nNo answer.\nThe old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the\nroom; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or\nnever looked _through_ them for so small a thing as a boy; they were\nher state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for \"style,\" not\nservice--she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.\nShe looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but\nstill loud enough for the furniture to hear:\n***********************************************\nIf I were to grab at any conceivable literal or metaphoric interpretation, I \ncould conclude that Tom is a cat, that Aunt Polly has X-Ray eyes, and that \nthat the furniture is sentient. And that's just the first paragraph of Tom \nSawyer, which I selected at random." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Whether I am always right is another matter, but to deny that Wolfe can \nwrite about\none thing, drop allusions, and imply something else is a bit intentionally \nignoring his\nambiguity. Wolfe's interview said Marsch was a shadow child. Marsch is \nbitten by\nthe cat. How else does he become a shadow child if not through that \ninfection?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Actually what Wolfe said was that a Shadow Child replaced Marsch (in my \nopinion it's fairly clear that he misspoke here and meant an abo). So why \nwould Marsch need to be bitten?\n\nMaybe VRT ate him. Or maybe he died - perhaps from the bite - and only then \ndid VRT start imitating him. On the basis of the Old Wise One's story, it \nseems unlikely that the person being copied needs to die, but if the \nindigene wants to take his place in society, it is obviously convenient if \nhe does.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T17:22:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365609673.75133.YahooMailClassic@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And in a novel with a street named after larva or maggots in French, how \ncan\nwe ignore a name like pink butterflies, when butterflies are a symbol of a \nlarval\nstage that transforms? Are you quite serious in stating that it is ONLY \nthe\nwaving of hands and that there is absolutely positively no other \nconnotation to\nwhat a butterfly IS?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, I'm pretty sure of that. Because metamorphosis symbology makes no \nsense in the particular context and it's not marked in any way." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Later the name that is forgotten by Sandwalker to refer to\nthe Shadow Children is Swan - also notorious for a beautiful, majestic \nadult\nstage and a homely duckling stage." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which isn't metamorphosis. And it's the name of an animal that's mentioned \nonce in no particular context. How do you know it's not all about things \nwith long necks?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "So ... metamorphosis is out? Just waving hands? Do you believe that \nsymbols\nare real? A cigar is ALWAYS just a cigar?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Two things:\n\n(1) A word in a book is more often not a symbol than it is a symbol. To \nmake it a symbol we require supporting evidence and not just other words of \nthe same kind.\n\n(2) Symbols have a function, and it is not to describe an alien biology.\n\nActually, three things:\n\n(3) Symbols in Wolfe simply are not this cryptic. Look at Number Five's \nship dream. That's symbolic, and Wolfe hammers it in if anything. Should \nwe look for clues in the exact configuration of the decks, or should we take \nit as a whole for what it manifestly stands for, and which is in fact \nexplained?\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<83E80818-3069-4453-8A0F-833FAB7E783A@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T17:26:54+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<2BB3D4D068974BCE9CC6DE4F0CFD58F2@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "You assume the author is wrong when it is convenient to your surface reading. Maggots are the early stages, trees the matured metamorphosed possibly \"ghostly\" lifecycle, thus predendritic. \n\n\nAssuming the author is wrong in an interview is the reason you and I can not have meaningful discourse past a certain point and must always simply agree to disagree.\n\nSpacefaring can imply being airborne. Two events can be described in one passage characterized by mass confusion. \n\n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 10, 2013, at 10:10 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Oh Gerry - because he is cryptic by nature. Notice that no mention is made of that\nsecond space faring race using their hands at all." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "No need to mention it, because they are clearly intended to refer to humans, the ancestors of the Shadow Children. And even if they hadn't been, they built starcrossers. And even if they hadn't done that, they are placed in juxtaposition to the first people (the Saint Anne indigenes) who did not use their hands.\n\nYou can't use Wolfe's supposed crypticism in a circular fashion to ignore all that has gone before and keep tunnelling into deeper and deeper layers of alleged symbolism. Which you never come out of. First it's trees, then it's maggots, and somehow these concepts are seen as supporting each other instead of being quite contradictory. How does that work?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If you don't think all the consistent imagery points to anything deeper, that's fine,\nbut you have to ignore a whole lot of literal statements that are all consistent to\navoid that elided bit of what symbolism is - something that stands for something\nelse, sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. Believe it or not occasionally\nauthors have hinted at something that is not overtly stated." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "In my opinion you are reading all manner of symbolism into occasional words or phrases, and had the words been different you could probably have found a way to read the same symbolism from them.\n\n***********************************************\n\"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!\"\nNo answer.\nThe old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the\nroom; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or\nnever looked _through_ them for so small a thing as a boy; they were\nher state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for \"style,\" not\nservice--she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.\nShe looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but\nstill loud enough for the furniture to hear:\n***********************************************\nIf I were to grab at any conceivable literal or metaphoric interpretation, I could conclude that Tom is a cat, that Aunt Polly has X-Ray eyes, and that that the furniture is sentient. And that's just the first paragraph of Tom Sawyer, which I selected at random." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Whether I am always right is another matter, but to deny that Wolfe can write about\none thing, drop allusions, and imply something else is a bit intentionally ignoring his\nambiguity. Wolfe's interview said Marsch was a shadow child. Marsch is bitten by\nthe cat. How else does he become a shadow child if not through that infection?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Actually what Wolfe said was that a Shadow Child replaced Marsch (in my opinion it's fairly clear that he misspoke here and meant an abo). So why would Marsch need to be bitten?\n\nMaybe VRT ate him. Or maybe he died - perhaps from the bite - and only then did VRT start imitating him. On the basis of the Old Wise One's story, it seems unlikely that the person being copied needs to die, but if the indigene wants to take his place in society, it is obviously convenient if he does.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365615316.81253.YahooMailClassic@web160702.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T17:35:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<83E80818-3069-4453-8A0F-833FAB7E783A@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And yes, Wolfe does kind of repeat the same imagery over and over, his symbolism is not a one off. SandWALKER'S feet always dropping down to the ground, described as sure footed, dropping down from a high to a low place. He is described by his feet at least four times, possibly more. How many other characters have their feet even mentioned? His character is associated with feet. Do feet every play a role in the action? YES, in two pivotal scenes, they do.\n\nI do not approach the text with preconceptions, I read it and look for patterns. If there are no patterns, I do not comment on them. Thus I can't make anything of trees or feet in The Changeling, but I certainly can figure out that Peter Palmer was born in 1931." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365617060.68078.YahooMailClassic@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T18:04:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365615316.81253.YahooMailClassic@web160702.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "One last comment to Gerry and I will let it drop - to me, Wolfe's scientific mind creates patterns and repeated phenomena that lead to hypothesis - it is repeatable phenomena that lets us draw scientific conclusions. It is never one thing to me - these trees are greeted, respond back, (“or not, but the lack of a response is commented upon), engender children, say that they are the parent of a child in dreams, a tree sticks out a root to save an aboriginal falling ... trees \"have travel\", aborigines appear as old wood ... and that is just a pattern I am making up?” It's all in my head? In almost every dream sequence there is either a big circle of columns or a circle of trees, and the idea that \"people\" who die will live on in dreams is at least tangentially presented at least once in A Story. Cedar Branches Waving has her feet covered with sun enriched soil, Sandwalker lies in the sun to regain his strength before continuing his hunt ...\n\nGerry, are you seriously saying that I am creating those patterns from scratch? That it is all exclusively in my head? You can't do this stuff with Hamlet or Sturgeon or To Kill a Mockingbird, any attempt for me to do that would be pathetic. The text would never support it. You said there is no reference to any tree mating, but I pulled out a quote that Pink Butterflies was the daughter of a tree ... did i distort the text? perhaps I did not take the literal, it's just a dream, it means nothing approach, but it IS in the text, clear as day." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365619272.82141.YahooMailNeo@web84502.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-10T18:41:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365609080.63262.YahooMailClassic@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 11:51 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPeople, no matter what they become, will still have free will. I am of the opinion that the trees and the lianas are all that is left of man, echoes of him in a time when he has changed so much as to be no longer human, but instead \"vanished people\". Both species are good or bad because they are people, who are good and bad both, though one is more debased and further from a transcendental truth - the parasites - though both are ultimately descended from man and his \"climbing up the tree\" referenced by Quetzal - he just hasn't climbed down yet.\n\n\nAlong the lines of my Wolfean thought experiment about Eden: one solution is for beings to become incorporeal so that they do not need to process calories. This is of course an SF cliche; a version of it can be seen in the race Severian postulates who ascended to a higher plane, as well as the vanishing Neighbors. \n\nWhat happens to the parasites of a super-evolved species? Do they evolve too? Think of head and crotch lice, which evolved into separate species when human body hair almost disappeared. Think also of dogs, which had already evolved to understand speech by the time we started building structures with out hands. If we become gods, will our parasites become dragons? Will dogs and cats become humans in our place?\n\nIs \"climbing up the tree\" actually climbing back up the tree? Is ascension also return? Consider the humans Severian describes who have lobotomies and go back to the forest. I always took that as a pulpy aside---but I think it's actually a key idea for Wolfe. \n\nOur ancestors lived in trees before they were remotely human, and evolved like any animal. Long after they took to the ground, they began to acquire animal servants. There's a period of at least 50,000 years during which all domesticated crops and animals appeared. The biblical Eden featured human \"mastery\" of all the animals but I find that model no more workable than vegetarian lions; instead, our environment adapted to us. As Wolfe observes in Island of Doctor Death ..., we like when the world responds to our thoughts and emotions. But conscious human control is a nightmare." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-10T19:29:37+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365619272.82141.YahooMailNeo@web84502.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: Gerry, are you seriously saying that I am creating \nthose patterns from scratch? That it is all exclusively in my head? \nYou can't do this stuff with Hamlet or Sturgeon or To Kill a Mockingbird, \nany attempt for me to do that would be pathetic. The text would never \nsupport it." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "But Gerry has suggested that Gene Wolfe and Mark Twain should be read and understood\nin the same manner.(Twain did dabble a bit in SF). So, should they?\n\nI think that is the more essential question which must be answered before any \nfurther discussion of Wolfe may be pursued. Marc, if Gerry finds complete\nequality and congruence in understanding the work of Wolfe and Twain, it means you\ntwo are speaking different languages. Heck you guys might even be of different species. \nI don't see how any meaningful communication is possible.\n\nPersonally, I don't find much value in intuition or leaps of faith in the real world, \nas I live my life (with the exceptions of family relationships and playing music). So, \nin a way, I think I get where Gerry is coming from. \n\nBut when it comes to art and fiction, I find intuition and leaps of faith are necessary to\nunderstand the work of most surrealists, authors such as Proust, Joyce and Wolfe and movie-\nmakers such as Bergman, Lynch and Aronofsky. But that's just me. If Gerry can find value in\nGene Wolfe's work without the need to grasp disguised or confusing symbolism, then more power\nto him. Perhaps Wolfe writes intentionally for both his Gerry- and his Marc-type audience. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365622656.17138.YahooMailNeo@web84502.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-10T19:37:36+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<2BB3D4D068974BCE9CC6DE4F0CFD58F2@Rover>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Gerry Quinn \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 1:10 PM\nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf\n\n\n\n\n***********************************************\n\"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!\"\nNo answer.\nThe old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the\nroom; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or\nnever looked _through_ them for so small a thing as a boy; they were\nher state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for \"style,\" not\nservice--she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.\nShe looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but\nstill loud enough for the furniture to hear:\n***********************************************\nIf" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " I were to grab at any conceivable literal or metaphoric interpretation,\n I could conclude that Tom is a cat, that Aunt Polly has X-Ray eyes, and\n that that the furniture is sentient. And that's just the first \nparagraph of Tom Sawyer, which I selected at random." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Plainly Aunt Polly is a robot." } ] }, { "message_id": "<0A716BCC-C26F-46E9-A2E1-A72310D452D4@gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "António Pedro Marques", "address": "entonio at gmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T01:38:32+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No dia 10/04/2013, ?s 17:06, Gwern Branwen escreveu:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 at 11:37 AM, Lee Berman wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Sure, and that origin for Shadow Children has been suggested. But we are trying to work\nwithin Marc's plant-origin theme, at least I am. To its credit, this theme does appear to be\nrecurring across Wolfe's work; a thirty year arc from 5HoC to Short Sun." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "But it can work. There are commensal worms, and mutualistic worms.\nThey may not be as famous as the partnership between nitrogen-fixing\nbacteria and plant roots, but they exist. We all know of earthworms,\nand in a broader sense, worms can help the plant ecosystem by breaking\ndown things (eg. borers and dead wood)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And there are the Giant Tube Worms who live solely on what the chemautotrophic bacteria inside them produce.... Hmmmm........" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T02:25:41+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<0A716BCC-C26F-46E9-A2E1-A72310D452D4@gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I just had to say, my 1981 ace printing of fifth head says \"the girl is many pink butterflies\" on page 99. Typo or not 8 don't know. Changed to Mary later? " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T02:45:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Which reminds me of two other infamous textual variations in wolfe. The omnibus of long sun changes Horn's first person declaration from and I came in the room to and then Horn came in the room in Exodus. Also in Different versions of Peace the narrator is either twenty or more pounds underweight or overweight. Underweight works thematically but overweight could be misleading. Unfortunate. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 10, 2013, at 7:25 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nI just had to say, my 1981 ace printing of fifth head says \"the girl is many pink butterflies\" on page 99. Typo or not 8 don't know. Changed to Mary later? \n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<2410D150-DD6B-4E05-A2DA-65BA5A19A23E@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T02:47:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe was mad about the shift to third person when I told him about it, and did not know of the change. That was years ago, though. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 10, 2013, at 7:45 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nWhich reminds me of two other infamous textual variations in wolfe. The omnibus of long sun changes Horn's first person declaration from and I came in the room to and then Horn came in the room in Exodus. Also in Different versions of Peace the narrator is either twenty or more pounds underweight or overweight. Underweight works thematically but overweight could be misleading. Unfortunate. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 10, 2013, at 7:25 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I just had to say, my 1981 ace printing of fifth head says \"the girl is many pink butterflies\" on page 99. Typo or not 8 don't know. Changed to Mary later? \n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T10:33:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I just had to say, my 1981 ace printing of fifth head says \"the girl\nis many pink butterflies\" on page 99. Typo or not 8 don't know.\nChanged to Mary later?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If it is lower-case it has to be a typo, or rather a misinterpretation by \nthe proofreader, I think.\n\nI have the Gollancz SF Masterworks edition; it is still page 99 but \ndefinitely \"Mary\".\n\n- Gerry Quinn " } ] }, { "message_id": "<55295183391C497B8B3DD8DCCB6ECD72@Rover>", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T10:50:56+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365622656.17138.YahooMailNeo@web84502.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: DAVID STOCKHOFF" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "From: Gerry Quinn " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "***********************************************\n\"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!\"\nNo answer.\nThe old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the\nroom; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or\nnever looked _through_ them for so small a thing as a boy; they were\nher state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for \"style,\" not\nservice--she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well.\nShe looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but\nstill loud enough for the furniture to hear:\n***********************************************" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "If I were to grab at any conceivable literal or metaphoric \ninterpretation, I could\nconclude that Tom is a cat, that Aunt Polly has X-Ray eyes, and that \nthat the\nfurniture is sentient. And that's just the first paragraph of Tom \nSawyer, which\nI selected at random." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Plainly Aunt Polly is a robot." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I only remember Tom Sawyer vaguely, but one abiding memory is that of Injun \nJoe who was trapped in a collapsed mine and survived for a time eating \ncandles.\n\nObviously Twain is cleverly letting the careless reader imagine that 'Injun' \nstands for 'Indian' when in fact the character is really 'Engine' Joe. In \nthe mine he discovers he can continue to operate on any hydrocarbon fuel.\n\nI would guess that Twain planned a sequel in which Joe bursts forth from the \nearth, takes Polly as his chem bride, and initiates an era of mechanical \nrule. Sadly his publisher must have nixed this ground-breaking steampunk \nconcept, and Twain was forced to change direction. All we see in \nHuckleberry Finn is an escaped slave named Jim standing in as a thin \nmetaphor for the oppressed Mechanoids of the previous book.\n\nAh, the power of an organising principle ;-)\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T11:30:04+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365615316.81253.YahooMailClassic@web160702.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "And yes, Wolfe does kind of repeat the same imagery over and over, his \nsymbolism\n is not a one off. SandWALKER'S feet always dropping down to the ground, \ndescribed\n as sure footed, dropping down from a high to a low place. He is \ndescribed by his feet\nat least four times, possibly more. How many other characters have their \nfeet even\n mentioned? His character is associated with feet. Do feet every play a \nrole in the\n action? YES, in two pivotal scenes, they do." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Maybe abos feet are more significant because their hands don't work so well. \nHe's the viewpoint character throughout; it's not unnatural that most foot \nreferences are to him. And you've elsewhere cited references to the legs of \nothers.\n\nBut that's not really the point. Assume Sandwalker's feet have some \nsignificance to be determined. We know they are similar to human feet, as \nhe thinks of the French landing party as men like him, only clothed. Do you \nnot think this is somewhat antithetical to the notion that Sandwalker is \nsomehow a tree, or a maggot?\n\nIt seems to me that you are invoking a huge multiverse of interpretations \nand symbols, imbuing just about every word or phrase with deep hidden \nmeanings. And these 'meanings' are largely contradictory - which means \nsurely, that most of them at least must be incorrect. The whole is \njustified with appeals to Wolfe's crypticism - but this is circular, because \nWolfe is not at all as cryptic as some people make out if the more bizarre \ninterpretations are excluded.\n\nI would say in Wolfe there is typically a surface narrative, and a secret \nhistory (as with most science fiction). On top of this there is a symbolic \nstructure not intended to be taken as literal truth for the most part, \nexcept that he often adds a fourth 'theological' level in which the symbolic \nstructure can 'leak' to some degree into the first two levels (though I do \nnot think this level is yet present in 5HOC). Added to the mix are stories \ntold by characters, and characters who sometimes use metaphor.\n\nWhen I say 'symbolic' I mean all stuff that is not part of the 'hard \nphysical reality' of the narrative, with or without external references; so, \nfor example, it includes 5HOC as a thought experiment in colonisation etc.\n\nThe problem with some kinds of interpretation, to my mind, is that the \n'symbolic leakage' I alluded to encourages people to look for it everywhere, \nand with this kind of stuff false positives are easy to find. The \nsubversion of realism only works when realism is permitted to support it. \nReify symbols and allusions everywhere, and the whole thing collapses into a \nsludge where everything means everything and therefore nothing means \nanything. We ask the question to ask the question. Never works.\n\nSo if you want to show that abos are trees, or that feet are the key, or \nwhatever, fine, but you have to distinguish what levels you mean it on and \nshow how it works in a consistent interpretational structure. If you think \nfeet are important, you have to show how they work with trees or maggots. \nIt's not enough to say that because of a few words or phrases *with natural \ninterpretations* here and there, all those things are true at once and \nsomehow nobody in the story notices.\n\nAnyway, that is what I think.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T11:38:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Antonio Pedro Marques: And there are the Giant Tube Worms who live solely on what \nthe chemautotrophic bacteria inside them produce.... Hmmmm........" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hey, I take free license to simplify my posts for clarity, avoiding clutter and\nephemera but in my OP I did mention methanogens. I demand credit for that ;- ).\n\nAnyway, my impression of the Old Wise One's description of the earthy roots of the \nShadow Children was that a parasitic or at least detrivoric origin was being presented.\nThe lifestyle of the Shadow Children and Abos (esp. their poor tool use) supports the \nconnection for me, as does the deteriorization of the human civilization on the twin\nplanets. \n\nI presume once the last humans (Number Five's family?) have been replaced and the buildings\nand intrastructure of both planets has crumbled after a couple thousand years that the \nnative beings will devolve back to root-dwelling organisms until they manage to call down\nanother starcrosser of some species or another. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<560272D0-482D-4569-BF0F-6C79366A3A93@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T12:16:51+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No it is uppercase I am just a sloppy typer with my phone. Could be a typo though. I will look at the original hardback but I suppose the later versions should be more definitive unless some editor changed it without Wolfe's knowledge. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 11, 2013, at 3:33 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I just had to say, my 1981 ace printing of fifth head says \"the girl\nis many pink butterflies\" on page 99. Typo or not 8 don't know.\nChanged to Mary later?" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "If it is lower-case it has to be a typo, or rather a misinterpretation by the proofreader, I think.\n\nI have the Gollancz SF Masterworks edition; it is still page 99 but definitely \"Mary\".\n\n- Gerry Quinn \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<2C59B237-0DAE-4F66-9805-9E86981172DA@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T12:28:10+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Your post has some good points that are well laid out, but I will only say that to me, a shape shifting or metamorphic species could very well have multiple stages to its life cycle, especially since the text confronts evolution, anti evolution, and animal mimicry. A maggot can have no wings in the larval stage and then have them, so a \"fantasy\" maggot could very well develop other features like a barklike carapace in a later stage of its life. Keep in mind both the shadow child and Sandwalker are confused about which of them was \"long\" and lived in the roots of trees. Some animals have larval stages. Do these aboriginals? The anthropomorphized back story presented in a story indicates no, the subtext indicates yes, in my opinion. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 11, 2013, at 4:30 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:\n\n\nFrom:\n\nMaybe abos feet are more significant because their hands don't work so well. He's the viewpoint character throughout; it's not unnatural that most foot references are to him. And you've elsewhere cited references to the legs of others.\n\nBut that's not really the point. Assume Sandwalker's feet have some significance to be determined. We know they are similar to human feet, as he thinks of the French landing party as men like him, only clothed. Do you not think this is somewhat antithetical to the notion that Sandwalker is somehow a tree, or a maggot?\n\nIt seems to me that you are invoking a huge multiverse of interpretations and symbols, imbuing just about every word or phrase with deep hidden meanings. And these 'meanings' are largely contradictory - which means surely, that most of them at least must be incorrect. The whole is justified with appeals to Wolfe's crypticism - but this is circular, because Wolfe is not at all as cryptic as some people make out if the more bizarre interpretations are excluded.\n\nI would say in Wolfe there is typically a surface narrative, and a secret history (as with most science fiction). On top of this there is a symbolic structure not intended to be taken as literal truth for the most part, except that he often adds a fourth 'theological' level in which the symbolic structure can 'leak' to some degree into the first two levels (though I do not think this level is yet present in 5HOC). Added to the mix are stories told by characters, and characters who sometimes use metaphor.\n\nWhen I say 'symbolic' I mean all stuff that is not part of the 'hard physical reality' of the narrative, with or without external references; so, for example, it includes 5HOC as a thought experiment in colonisation etc.\n\nThe problem with some kinds of interpretation, to my mind, is that the 'symbolic leakage' I alluded to encourages people to look for it everywhere, and with this kind of stuff false positives are easy to find. The subversion of realism only works when realism is permitted to support it. Reify symbols and allusions everywhere, and the whole thing collapses into a sludge where everything means everything and therefore nothing means anything. We ask the question to ask the question. Never works.\n\nSo if you want to show that abos are trees, or that feet are the key, or whatever, fine, but you have to distinguish what levels you mean it on and show how it works in a consistent interpretational structure. If you think feet are important, you have to show how they work with trees or maggots. It's not enough to say that because of a few words or phrases *with natural interpretations* here and there, all those things are true at once and somehow nobody in the story notices.\n\nAnyway, that is what I think.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1A59957D-BAA0-49F4-8C5B-C046CCFEEB52@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T12:31:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<2C59B237-0DAE-4F66-9805-9E86981172DA@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And the narrative thrust of both mimicking aboriginal and possibly, according to the interview, replacing empathic shadow child, would be to convince others of their humanity in any way possible, including anthropomorphizing their origin. That is effective mimicry. \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 11, 2013, at 5:28 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nYour post has some good points that are well laid out, but I will only say that to me, a shape shifting or metamorphic species could very well have multiple stages to its life cycle, especially since the text confronts evolution, anti evolution, and animal mimicry. A maggot can have no wings in the larval stage and then have them, so a \"fantasy\" maggot could very well develop other features like a barklike carapace in a later stage of its life. Keep in mind both the shadow child and Sandwalker are confused about which of them was \"long\" and lived in the roots of trees. Some animals have larval stages. Do these aboriginals? The anthropomorphized back story presented in a story indicates no, the subtext indicates yes, in my opinion. \n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 11, 2013, at 4:30 AM, \"Gerry Quinn\" wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From:\n\nMaybe abos feet are more significant because their hands don't work so well. He's the viewpoint character throughout; it's not unnatural that most foot references are to him. And you've elsewhere cited references to the legs of others.\n\nBut that's not really the point. Assume Sandwalker's feet have some significance to be determined. We know they are similar to human feet, as he thinks of the French landing party as men like him, only clothed. Do you not think this is somewhat antithetical to the notion that Sandwalker is somehow a tree, or a maggot?\n\nIt seems to me that you are invoking a huge multiverse of interpretations and symbols, imbuing just about every word or phrase with deep hidden meanings. And these 'meanings' are largely contradictory - which means surely, that most of them at least must be incorrect. The whole is justified with appeals to Wolfe's crypticism - but this is circular, because Wolfe is not at all as cryptic as some people make out if the more bizarre interpretations are excluded.\n\nI would say in Wolfe there is typically a surface narrative, and a secret history (as with most science fiction). On top of this there is a symbolic structure not intended to be taken as literal truth for the most part, except that he often adds a fourth 'theological' level in which the symbolic structure can 'leak' to some degree into the first two levels (though I do not think this level is yet present in 5HOC). Added to the mix are stories told by characters, and characters who sometimes use metaphor.\n\nWhen I say 'symbolic' I mean all stuff that is not part of the 'hard physical reality' of the narrative, with or without external references; so, for example, it includes 5HOC as a thought experiment in colonisation etc.\n\nThe problem with some kinds of interpretation, to my mind, is that the 'symbolic leakage' I alluded to encourages people to look for it everywhere, and with this kind of stuff false positives are easy to find. The subversion of realism only works when realism is permitted to support it. Reify symbols and allusions everywhere, and the whole thing collapses into a sludge where everything means everything and therefore nothing means anything. We ask the question to ask the question. Never works.\n\nSo if you want to show that abos are trees, or that feet are the key, or whatever, fine, but you have to distinguish what levels you mean it on and show how it works in a consistent interpretational structure. If you think feet are important, you have to show how they work with trees or maggots. It's not enough to say that because of a few words or phrases *with natural interpretations* here and there, all those things are true at once and somehow nobody in the story notices.\n\nAnyway, that is what I think.\n\n- Gerry Quinn\n\n\n\n\n\n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T12:42:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1A59957D-BAA0-49F4-8C5B-C046CCFEEB52@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: We know they are similar to human feet, as \nhe thinks of the French landing party as men like him, only clothed. Do you \nnot think this is somewhat antithetical to the notion that Sandwalker is \nsomehow a tree, or a maggot?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "No more than an arch-angelic being like Tzadkiel previously having the form of a\nhirsute dwarf and a furry, limbless blob of flesh. Or Inhumi morphing from parasitic\nvines to amphibious swamp dwellers to flying reptiles to a human form that other humans\nfind difficult to detect.\n\nAdaptation and evolution can be considered biological skills and humans are better at\nit than most other species on earth. Gene WOlfe uses SF to present alien races which \nare superhuman in their abilities. It is a recurring theme you'd have to deliberately\nignore if you were to miss it.\n\nI think there is an allegorical nature to the theme. Within our human society. Surely\nhuman criminal, con-men, parasite types can be stereotyped as more chameleonic and clever\nthan the dependable, honest workman." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The whole is justified with appeals to Wolfe's crypticism - but this is circular, because \nWolfe is not at all as cryptic as some people make out if the more bizarre \ninterpretations are excluded." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Of course, Gerry. But your own perceptions are similarly circular. Wolfe is considered cryptic\nby those who see cryptic puzzles in his work. You do not see these cryptic puzzles so you do\nnot consider him a cryptic author. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I would say in Wolfe there is typically a surface narrative, and a secret \nhistory (as with most science fiction). On top of this there is a symbolic \nstructure not intended to be taken as literal truth for the most part, \nexcept that he often adds a fourth 'theological' level in which the symbolic \nstructure can 'leak' to some degree into the first two levels." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I'd agree. In fact I have made similar posts in the past." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The problem with some kinds of interpretation, to my mind, is that the \n'symbolic leakage' I alluded to encourages people to look for it everywhere, \nand with this kind of stuff false positives are easy to find...Anyway, that is what I think." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Your viewpoint is as valid as anyone's. But to say \"people look for it everywhere\" is overstating \nthe case for rhetorical effect. I think \"vigilance\" is a better descriptor for my own process. \nMarc's recent posts suggest a similar process. Nobody (nobody here, anyway) reads Wolfe with the\nword-for-word purpose of extracting puzzles and their solutions. We read Wolfe for enjoyment and\noccassionally a certain puzzle and perhaps solution jumps out at us. Gerry, the same thing has\nhappened to you. And naturally your own insights make sense to you but may not make sense to others.\n\nThe rub comes with the use of the phrase \"false positive\". This implies there is some sort of \nscientific testing process for fiction and we know that isn't the case. If the idea of \"peer\nreview\" is being invoked that's okay, but the word \"peer\" implies equality. No one person's \nopinion is better than another. We may be peers but nobody has been appointed judge or other\nauthority. \n\nPerhaps there is the intent of sounding a clarion call to urge the majority to rise up and denounce \nthe ideas which go too far and should be considered wrong? In the middle of its history, this board primarily served that purpose and the atmosphere was heavy and oppressive. I prefer the early and the\nrecent history of this board where the atmosphere is one of a light and open sharing of ideas. I suppose each contributor will continue to try to influence the direction of discussion toward the\nmanner they prefer. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T12:54:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini: And the narrative thrust of both mimicking aboriginal and possibly,\naccording to the interview, replacing empathic shadow child, would be to convince \nothers of their humanity in any way possible, including anthropomorphizing their \norigin. That is effective mimicry. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Yes, I think this crystalizes Wolfe's intent for 5HoC, with the provision that part\nanthropomorphizing their origin is truly forgetting their non-human origin. Though,\nas Aunt Jeanine's lesson teaches us, the shapeshifter can evolve to perfect mimickry\nwith one limitation- their evolution requires they must retain their shapeshifting \nability. (they can't remove it and give it to a salt goose, heh).\n\nThat's why I suggested in the other post that eventually, these parasite/detrivores will \nexhaust the resources of their human hosts and devolve back into what they once \nwere. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<78BFB91C-AAD6-4358-8B1E-B0000A3AE58A@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T13:07:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "On Apr 11, 2013, at 5:42 AM, Lee Berman " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The rub comes with the use of the phrase \"false positive\". This implies there is some sort of \nscientific testing process for fiction and we know that isn't the case. If the idea of \"peer\nreview\" is being invoked that's okay, but the word \"peer\" implies equality. No one person's \nopinion is better than another. We may be peers but nobody has been appointed judge or other" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I really enjoyed your post Lee; just had to comment on this part. \nI would love to agree with this egalitarian view, with all the speculation I do, but I do still believe in actual misprision. ;) \n\nI have the feeling that Gerry and I can both be absolutists. Conclusions that are non-repeatable observations are usually only correct in the most unintentional and relativistic way. A student who is convinced Hamlet's father must be an alien who later replaces Horatio would have an immense burden of proof to maintain that misprision. I would not say his insights would equal a Shakespearian scholars. The problem is that at least some think that is what I am doing to Wolfe's text, when he really is an intentionally structural symbolist. \n\nI never bought into the death of the author when that author was a unique genius of subtlety. I just maintain Wolfe loves puzzles and will always be an engineer. He follows patterns as well- identity and personal motive occluding objective narration, with enough hints about the subjectivity (usually) to achieve an objective situation.\n\nThis is why There are Doors, Castleview, and An Evil Guest are challenging for me - limited third person omniscient viewpoint is hard to delineate a subjective bias since narration is unfettered by any character's knowledge or bias, in theory. \"A story\" would have been difficult as well if we didn't know who wrote it. " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365697193.225.YahooMailNeo@web84501.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-11T16:19:53+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Unless they lose that ability, due to not using it per Dollo's Law, and are stuck as humans. Ordinary evolution could still occur, but they would henceforth evolve as humans would, more or less.\n\nI like your idea, but mine points to successful mimicry while invoking a dozen angels/fairies/mermaids/robots-becoming-mortal tropes. Not to mention that imitation is the path to improvement (see Wolfe, G.).\n\nBesides, if we can become angels and angels can become us, we can become animals and animals can become us." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Lee Berman \nTo: \"urth at urth.net\" \nSent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 8:54 AM\nSubject: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Marc Aramini: And the narrative thrust of both mimicking aboriginal and possibly,\naccording to the interview, replacing empathic shadow child, would be to convince \nothers of their humanity in any way possible, including anthropomorphizing their \norigin. That is effective mimicry. " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, I think this crystalizes Wolfe's intent for 5HoC, with the provision that part\nanthropomorphizing their origin is truly forgetting their non-human origin. Though,\nas Aunt Jeanine's lesson teaches us, the shapeshifter can evolve to perfect mimickry\nwith one limitation- their evolution requires they must retain their shapeshifting \nability. (they can't remove it and give it to a salt goose, heh).\n\nThat's why I suggested in the other post that eventually, these parasite/detrivores will \nexhaust the resources of their human hosts and devolve back into what they once \nwere. ??? ??? ??? ? ??? ??? ? \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<54D448E6-4C3B-41C7-80D2-6A718DF7360B@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T16:29:50+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<1365697193.225.YahooMailNeo@web84501.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Sent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 11, 2013, at 9:19 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\nUnless they lose that ability, due to not using it per Dollo's Law, and are stuck as humans. Ordinary evolution could still occur, but they would henceforth evolve as humans would, more or less.\n\nI like your idea, but mine points to successful mimicry while invoking a dozen angels/fairies/mermaids/robots-becoming-mortal tropes. Not to mention that imitation is the path to improvement (see Wolfe, G.).\n\nBesides, if we can become angels and angels can become us, we can become animals and animals can become us." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I still fancy there is something in the Chanticleer type story in which the Angels are still infinitely far from the increate and only guess what he desires from their lofty heights. \n\nThus powers we cannot comprehend but may one day approach are still somehow far below that source.\n\nI have increasingly viewed Severian's salvation as negative, despite all his rhetorical \"imagine if the conciliator were dressed up at such a party and nobody realized it\" moments. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T16:33:15+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "<54D448E6-4C3B-41C7-80D2-6A718DF7360B@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "How is that for being a spin doctor? Hey, four people left on ushas, believe it or not everybody dying is all good ;) don't believe me? Read this narrative!! \n\nSent from my iPhone" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 11, 2013, at 9:29 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n\nSent from my iPhone\n\nOn Apr 11, 2013, at 9:19 AM, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Unless they lose that ability, due to not using it per Dollo's Law, and are stuck as humans. Ordinary evolution could still occur, but they would henceforth evolve as humans would, more or less.\n\nI like your idea, but mine points to successful mimicry while invoking a dozen angels/fairies/mermaids/robots-becoming-mortal tropes. Not to mention that imitation is the path to improvement (see Wolfe, G.).\n\nBesides, if we can become angels and angels can become us, we can become animals and animals can become us." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I still fancy there is something in the Chanticleer type story in which the Angels are still infinitely far from the increate and only guess what he desires from their lofty heights. \n\nThus powers we cannot comprehend but may one day approach are still somehow far below that source.\n\nI have increasingly viewed Severian's salvation as negative, despite all his rhetorical \"imagine if the conciliator were dressed up at such a party and nobody realized it\" moments. \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365704341.31443.YahooMailNeo@web84502.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-11T18:19:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<78BFB91C-AAD6-4358-8B1E-B0000A3AE58A@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 9:07 AM\nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf?\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOn Apr 11, 2013, at 5:42 AM, Lee Berman " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I never bought into the death of the author when that author was a unique genius of subtlety. I just maintain Wolfe loves puzzles and will always be an engineer. He follows patterns as well- identity and personal motive occluding objective narration, with enough hints about the subjectivity (usually) to achieve an objective situation.\n\n\n\n\nAgreed.\n\nHowever, I want to repeat Gerry's point about internal consistency. When we interpret a work as containing 1+ practically independent stories with only a few solid points of contact with the \"obvious\" story (no matter how many \"soft\" points there may be when the work is held up to the light at a certain angle), internal consistency is just about all you have. Even when there are preexisting narratives (along the lines of Odysseus the a basis for Ulysses), internal consistency is needed. Not just dogged uniformity, or else Aunt Polly would indeed be a robot---because everyone would be a robot.\n\nHere, I'd like to see some clarification of trees vs maggots, keeping in mind that we don't have word for \"dendrilarvae,\" just as we don't have a word for \"parasitic herpevines.\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Gerry Quinn", "address": "gerry at bindweed.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T18:25:39+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From: Lee Berman" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "And the narrative thrust of both mimicking aboriginal and possibly,\naccording to the interview, replacing empathic shadow child, would be to \nconvince\nothers of their humanity in any way possible, including \nanthropomorphizing their\norigin. That is effective mimicry." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Yes, I think this crystalizes Wolfe's intent for 5HoC, with the provision \nthat part\nanthropomorphizing their origin is truly forgetting their non-human \norigin. Though,\nas Aunt Jeanine's lesson teaches us, the shapeshifter can evolve to \nperfect mimickry\nwith one limitation- their evolution requires they must retain their \nshapeshifting\nability. (they can't remove it and give it to a salt goose, heh)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I still see a problem with this. Perhaps the expression 'false \npositive' is not greatly suited to literary criticism, but we can come up \nwith measures based on the net contribution of a given interpretation to the \ncomplexity and coherence of a work. Does the interpretation make it a good \nstory?\n\nConsider the theory that 'A Story' is an anthropomorphisation of the origin \nof abos whose origin is really quite different. Since we apparently cannot \nreally decide from the clues within whether the creatures are really more \nlike trees or maggots, it cannot be said to work particularly well in terms \nof telling us about their lifecycle. It does add a new storyline, in which \nVRT constructs this artificial tale, presumably for his own benefit, as we \nnever hear of him attempting to publish it. But look how much it subtracts! \nThe second third of 5HOC becomes largely meaningless, a fairy tale spun \nsimply for the purpose of lying - with, if we are lucky, a few clues hidden \nin repeated motifs. But even these clues are obviously not telling us very \nmuch that is specific.\n\nI believe we agreed some time ago that Wolfe is a modernist, but not a \npostmodernist. Would he have any interest in producing such an extreme \nmetafictional confection? I do not believe so. And even if 5HOC had been \nwritten by John Barth, I would still interpret it the same way. The secret \nhistory outlined in the second book is just more complex, consistent and \ncomplete than the 'fake story' interpretation.\n\nIndeed, if I were to treat 'A Story' as fake, I would sooner go all the way \nand toss out the abos altogether! Perhaps the whole abo origin story is the \nconcoction of a troubled, partially disabled human boy with an outcast for a \nfather and a whore for a mother. Abos exist in 5HOC only as myths related \nto a probably extinct and possibly non-existent native species. That \nactually works better for me than the meta-SF alternative. But, as I said \nbefore, I don't believe this either. 5HOC is an SF story and should be \ninterpreted in SF terms. And 'A Story' works in SF terms, with an alien \nworld and a mystery solved, better than it works in any other terms.\n\n- Gerry Quinn" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365706021.45495.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T18:47:01+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365704341.31443.YahooMailNeo@web84502.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "--- On Thu, 4/11/13, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\n\nFrom: DAVID STOCKHOFF \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf?\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, April 11, 2013, 11:19 AM\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAgreed.\n\nHowever, I want to repeat Gerry's point about internal consistency. When we interpret a work as containing 1+ practically independent stories with only a few solid points of contact with the \"obvious\" story (no matter how many \"soft\" points there may be when the work is held up to the light at a certain angle), internal consistency is just about all you have. Even when there are preexisting narratives (along the lines of Odysseus the a basis for Ulysses), internal consistency is needed. Not just dogged uniformity, or else Aunt Polly would indeed be a robot---because everyone would be a robot.\n\nHere, I'd like to see some clarification of trees vs maggots, keeping in mind that we don't have word for \"dendrilarvae,\" just as we don't have a word for \"parasitic herpevines.\"\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----\n\n\n\nwe have a metamorphic alien species - one extremely prone to mimicry. It is perfectly normal that they would have multiple stages in their lifecycle. I didn't make maggots up out of the air, either - it is an organizing factor in Port Mimizon thanks to the french superstructure. — Remembering that one was once long and lived in tree roots is certainly indicative of being, in either evolution or individually, something very like a larval formlessness. Perhaps many of the old school ones lived their life cycle and in their adult version latched onto a vegetative model: becoming trees after the metamorphosis. Others latched onto sentient beings. It is not clear whether all are predendritic or that was simply the most pervasive life form, wherein they emulated their habitat upon maturity (or if it is simply a husk). \n\nNothing inconsistent with a larval form transforming into something else as an adulte, or indeed anything else if they are mimics, as they most assuredly are. Indeed, imitation is the theme of the book, if anything is." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365706409.901.YahooMailClassic@web160702.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T18:53:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365706021.45495.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And the other theme is that successful mimicry involves erasing consciously erasing one's origins in favor of a fabulated story to make the mimicry \"valid\". I don't see any thematic inconsistency with the cryptic nature of the life cycle of the aboriginals. \"Marsch\" wants to fit in and it is well documented that the shadow children become confused by their mental \"norming\" process, confusing self with other. How much more confusing to an unfocussed telepath when aboriginals have mimicked man successfully, to then be part of a group with a human and an aborigine imitating a human? " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365706580.9479.YahooMailNeo@web84503.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-11T18:56:20+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365706021.45495.YahooMailClassic@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Perhaps we are dealing with a \"phylogeny recapitulates (or predicts) ontogeny\" story in which a sort of caterpillar-to-butterfly story is an emblem of evolutionary advancement. It seems clear that the adaptation of extreme mimicry allows the metamorphosis of an undeveloped individual into an advanced species over an extremely short time. Perhaps VRT remembers his own childhood as a worm." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:47 PM\nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf?\n\n\n\n\n\n--- On Thu, 4/11/13, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "From: DAVID STOCKHOFF \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf?\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, April 11, 2013, 11:19 AM\n\n\n\n\n\nAgreed.\n\nHowever, I want to repeat Gerry's point about internal consistency. When we interpret a work as containing 1+ practically independent stories with only a few solid points of contact with the \"obvious\" story (no matter how many \"soft\" points there may be when the work is held up to the light at a certain angle), internal consistency is just about all you have. Even when there are preexisting narratives (along the lines of Odysseus the a basis for Ulysses), internal consistency is needed. Not just dogged uniformity, or else Aunt Polly would indeed be a robot---because everyone would be a robot.\n\nHere, I'd like to see some clarification of trees vs maggots, keeping in mind that we don't have word for \"dendrilarvae,\" just as we don't have a word for \"parasitic herpevines.\"\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "we have a metamorphic alien species - one extremely prone to mimicry. It is perfectly normal that they would have multiple stages in their lifecycle. I didn't make maggots up out of the air, either - it is an organizing factor in Port Mimizon thanks to the french superstructure. — Remembering that one was once long and lived in tree roots is certainly indicative of being, in either evolution or individually, something very like a larval formlessness. Perhaps many of the old school ones lived their life cycle and in their adult version latched onto a vegetative model: becoming trees after the metamorphosis. Others latched onto sentient beings. It is not clear whether all are predendritic or that was simply the most pervasive life form, wherein they emulated their habitat upon maturity (or if it is simply a husk). \n\nNothing inconsistent with a larval form transforming into something else as an adulte, or indeed anything else if they are mimics, as they most assuredly are. Indeed, imitation is the theme of the book, if anything is. \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365706683.20851.YahooMailClassic@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T18:58:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365706580.9479.YahooMailNeo@web84503.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "And sandwalker actually dreams of being a wormlike being at one point. I do think phylogeny recapitualting ontogeny is a very valid theme that shed light on House of Ancestors as well.\n\n--- On Thu, 4/11/13, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\n\nFrom: DAVID STOCKHOFF \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf?\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, April 11, 2013, 11:56 AM\n\n\n\n\nPerhaps we are dealing with a \"phylogeny recapitulates (or predicts) ontogeny\" story in which a sort of caterpillar-to-butterfly story is an emblem of evolutionary advancement. It seems clear that the adaptation of extreme mimicry allows the metamorphosis of an undeveloped individual into an advanced species over an extremely short time. Perhaps VRT remembers his own childhood as a worm.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:47 PM\nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf?\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n--- On Thu, 4/11/13, DAVID STOCKHOFF wrote:\n\n\nFrom: DAVID STOCKHOFF \nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf?\nTo: \"The Urth Mailing List\" \nDate: Thursday, April 11, 2013, 11:19 AM\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAgreed.\n\nHowever, I want to repeat Gerry's point about internal consistency. When we interpret a work as containing 1+ practically independent stories with only a few solid points of contact with the \"obvious\" story (no matter how many \"soft\" points there may be when the work is held up to the light at a certain angle), internal consistency is just about all you have. Even when there are preexisting narratives (along the lines of Odysseus the a basis for Ulysses), internal consistency is needed. Not just dogged uniformity, or else Aunt Polly would indeed be a robot---because everyone would be a robot.\n\nHere, I'd like to see some clarification of trees vs maggots, keeping in mind that we don't have word for \"dendrilarvae,\" just as we don't have a word for \"parasitic herpevines.\"\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----\n\n\n\nwe have a metamorphic alien species - one extremely prone to mimicry. It is perfectly normal that they would have multiple stages in their lifecycle. I didn't make maggots up out of the air, either - it is an organizing factor in Port Mimizon thanks to the french superstructure. — Remembering that one was once long and lived in tree roots is certainly indicative of being, in either evolution or individually, something very like a larval formlessness. Perhaps many of the old school ones lived their life cycle and in their adult version latched onto a vegetative model: becoming trees after the metamorphosis. Others latched onto sentient beings. It is not clear whether all are predendritic or that was simply the most pervasive life form, wherein they emulated their habitat upon maturity (or if it is simply a husk). \n\nNothing inconsistent with a larval form transforming into something else as an adulte, or indeed anything else if they are mimics, as they most assuredly are. Indeed, imitation is the theme of the book, if anything is.\n\n\n\n-----Inline Attachment Follows-----" } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365706923.83498.YahooMailNeo@web84501.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-11T19:02:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365706409.901.YahooMailClassic@web160702.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It sounds true that for animal who has become human to really feel human, it must forget being an animal. I don't recall that being a problem for chems, interestingly, although their memories do play trick on them." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Marc Aramini \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 2:53 PM\nSubject: Re: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf?\n\n\n\nAnd the other theme is that successful mimicry involves erasing consciously erasing one's origins in favor of a fabulated story to make the mimicry \"valid\". I don't see any thematic inconsistency with the cryptic nature of the life cycle of the aboriginals. \"Marsch\" wants to fit in and it is well documented that the shadow children become confused by their mental \"norming\" process, confusing self with other. How much more confusing to an unfocussed telepath when aboriginals have mimicked man successfully, to then be part of a group with a human and an aborigine imitating a human? \n_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T20:12:14+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365706923.83498.YahooMailNeo@web84501.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: Unless they lose that ability, due to not using it per Dollo's \nLaw, and are stuck as humans. Ordinary evolution could still occur, but they would\nhenceforth evolve as humans would, more or less." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ack! Not the dreaded Dollo's Law. I think I had that out with Gerry a few years ago.\n\nAnyway, that was Aunt Jeanine's point. If a shapeshifter could and did evolve \nmimicry so perfectly as to lose their shapeshifting ability, they would be\nhuman and the shapeshifting ability lost.\n\nFor me, the implication of 5HoC is that the natives of the twin planets are eons\nold in their existence. They are currently human in form but likely have taken\ndifferent forms in their history as different races were drawn to their planet. \nDollo's Law (an archaic theory which is being disproven more and more as genetic\nscience progresses) could not have allowed shadow/children/abos to lose their \nshape-shifting ability or they would have lost it long ago." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I like your idea, but mine points to successful mimicry while invoking a dozen >angels/fairies/mermaids/robots-becoming-mortal tropes. Not to mention that imitation \nis the path to >improvement " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I see little hope that the pseudo-human residents we find in 5HoC will evolve to\nthe point of being industrious, productive humans. But I allow that is a debateable\npoint.\n\nBut for me, Urth, Blue and Green and even The Whorl are more hopeful \nplaces than Ste. Anne and St. Croix. I found 5HoC to be such a dark and dismal\nread I almost didn't want to read any further Wolfe. Apologies for my cheery \noutlook on life. But I think science and Gene Wolfe have both progressed in positivity \nin outlook since the 70's.\n\nI see the association with higher beings and improvement depicted in Wolfe's later work\nbut not in 5HoC. That place is falling apart with no hint of a Severian or Silk arising \nto lead them to a higher plane. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365712432.80338.YahooMailNeo@web84501.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "DAVID STOCKHOFF", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-11T20:33:52+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\nFrom: Lee Berman \nTo: \"urth at urth.net\" \nSent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 4:12 PM\nSubject: (urth) fifth head owlet- wolf?\n\n\n\nFor me, the implication of 5HoC is that the natives of the twin planets are eons\nold in their existence. They are currently human in form but likely have taken\ndifferent forms in their history as different races were drawn to their planet. \nDollo's Law (an archaic theory which is being disproven more and more as genetic\nscience progresses) could not have allowed shadow/children/abos to lose their \nshape-shifting ability or they would have lost it long ago." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "I like your idea, but mine points to successful mimicry while invoking a dozen >angels/fairies/mermaids/robots-becoming-mortal tropes. Not to mention that imitation \nis the path to >improvement " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I see little hope that the pseudo-human residents we find in 5HoC will evolve to\nthe point of being industrious, productive humans. But I allow that is a debateable\npoint.\n\nBut for me, Urth, Blue and Green and even The Whorl are more hopeful \nplaces than Ste. Anne and St. Croix. I found 5HoC to be such a dark and dismal\nread I almost didn't want to read any further Wolfe. Apologies for my cheery \noutlook on life. But I think science and Gene Wolfe have both progressed in positivity \nin outlook since the 70's.\n\nI see the association with higher beings and improvement depicted in Wolfe's later work\nbut not in 5HoC. That place is falling apart with no hint of a Severian or Silk arising \nto lead them to a higher plane. ??? ??? ??? ? ??? ??? ? \n\n\n---I don't see what those points have to do with one another, or rather, why they have to point in that direction. I agree that the theme of 5HC seems to be staleness and stasis. But so what, then, if the changelings of the twin planets are worthless as humans? I would expect nothing less. What angel would even want to uplift them? " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T20:37:12+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365712432.80338.YahooMailNeo@web84501.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Gerry Quinn: Well, I still see a problem with this. Perhaps the expression 'false \npositive' is not greatly suited to literary criticism, but we can come up \nwith measures based on the net contribution of a given interpretation to the \ncomplexity and coherence of a work. Does the interpretation make it a good \nstory?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I feel your pain, Gerry (I suspect Marc does also on the other side of the fence).\nAre you familiar with the movie Annie Hall, where Woody Allen is able to pull\nMarshall McLuhan from behind a movie poster to settle a debate about his work in\na theater queue.\n\nWoody ends the scene by commenting, \"If life was only like this!\". But we all know \nit isn't. Perhaps we suffer even more in the world of a tight-lipped author like\nGene Wolfe. You want \"complexity and coherence\" and a \"good story\" to be the \ncriteria by which we judge fiction but there simply are no acknowledged, impartial \njudges of such qualities that I know of." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "5HOC is an SF story and should be interpreted in SF terms. And 'A Story' works in \nSF terms, with an alien world and a mystery solved, better than it works in any other \nterms." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "In my opinion there is the horror element also to be considered in Wolfe's work. It is\na matter of opinion, but for me, the nastiness of the space-faring human population of \n5HoC was replaced by a much deeper sense of horror as I suddenly realized toward the \nend of V.R.T that I was the only human surrounded by planet of aliens who only look and \nact human. Brrrr. Much more chilling than a story about french astronauts. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<1365713268.7653.YahooMailNeo@web124504.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Jerry Friedman", "address": "jerry_friedman at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T20:47:48+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"Industrious\" and \"productive\" are interesting words to use there. Wolfe has used weak pseduo-human parasites who live by their deceptive abilities as figures of horror in 5HoC and BotSS, and maybe TWK (the?Aelfr, though they're not that horrible). Is there political and economic significance in this?\n\nJerry Friedman" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "________________________________\n\nFrom: Lee Berman severiansola at hotmail.com\nI see little hope that the pseudo-human residents we find in 5HoC will evolve to\nthe point of being industrious, productive humans. But I allow that is a debateable\npoint." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T21:03:46+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365713268.7653.YahooMailNeo@web124504.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "David Stockhoff: ---I don't see what those points have to do with one another,\nor rather, why they have to point in that direction. I agree that the theme of 5HC \nseems to be staleness and stasis. But so what, then, if the changelings of the twin \nplanets are worthless as humans? I would expect nothing less. What angel would even \nwant to uplift them?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "? Well...then it sounds like we are in agreement. The worlds of 5HoC are like Urth\nbut without a Severian, or B, F and O or Tzadkiel or Yesod. Degenerating with no\nhope of reprieve.\n\nI still think Gene Wolfe's worldview showed increased positivity from his writing in\nthe 70's as it progressed to the present. We could argue that it was a reflection of\nhis continued rise to prominence and acclaim. Or his movement from the dreary world of\nmechanical engineering to the artistic heights of being a successful author. \nOr we could hypothesize about his increasing belief in the uplifting power of angels.\nOr maybe all of them. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-11T21:09:09+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏‏", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Jerry Friedman: \"Industrious\" and \"productive\" are interesting words to use there. \nWolfe has used weak pseduo-human parasites who live by their deceptive abilities as \nfigures of horror in 5HoC and BotSS, and maybe TWK (the Aelfr, though they're not \nthat horrible). Is there political and economic significance in this?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I truly think so.\n\nFurthermore, given the conflation of Horn's children with the inhumi in Short Sun, I\nthink Wolfe takes the human principle of anti-parisitism and demonstrates the ambiguity\nof feelings which occur when such parasitism finds a place in one's own family.\n\nAnd I do think there is some veiled autobiography going on there. \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<516727EC.4030508@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-11T21:15:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<1365713268.7653.YahooMailNeo@web124504.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "It's a fair question. I think it's fairly normal, however, to be \nconcerned about freeloaders and/or (de)motivation when imagining the \nideal society. Once you assume that you know what the best people are \nlike, the worst people become clearer.\n\nA related question is whether fairies are bumbling simpletons who can't \ntie a knot, or work with iron, or brave warriors of preternatural skill. \nOr both (or else one set are changelings, or hobbits). I guess it \ndepends on the purpose you have for them." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/11/2013 4:47 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:\n\"Industrious\" and \"productive\" are interesting words to use there. Wolfe has used weak pseduo-human parasites who live by their deceptive abilities as figures of horror in 5HoC and BotSS, and maybe TWK (the Aelfr, though they're not that horrible). Is there political and economic significance in this?\n \nJerry Friedman\n " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "________________________________\n\nFrom: Lee Berman severiansola at hotmail.com\nI see little hope that the pseudo-human residents we find in 5HoC will evolve to\nthe point of being industrious, productive humans. But I allow that is a debateable\npoint." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "_______________________________________________" } ] }, { "message_id": "<887A89DC-9996-40FF-9E41-8D48A8A1A951@yahoo.com>", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at yahoo.com" }, "date": "2013-04-12T02:53:26+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "If one is not in favor of the maggots explanation, rue d'asticot might perhaps be another allusion to a \"mythical street\" in London named Grub Street. Which was renamed Milton Street and might then jive doubly with that hell imagery of 666 saltimbaque, but I still like the maggots. " } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Lee Berman", "address": "severiansola at hotmail.com" }, "date": "2013-04-12T12:01:13+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "<887A89DC-9996-40FF-9E41-8D48A8A1A951@yahoo.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Marc Aramini- If one is not in favor of the maggots explanation, \nrue d'asticot might perhaps be another allusion to a \"mythical street\" \nin London named Grub Street. Which was renamed Milton Street and might \nthen jive doubly with that hell imagery of 666 saltimbaque, but I still \nlike the maggots. " }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Your mind works in amazing ways to see these connections. I am tempted to\nthink ascribing so much meaning to street names might be stretching credibility\nof understanding Wolfe's intentions, then I remember Iubar St. in BotNS, Sun\nStreet in Long Sun and other examples and I have to conclude, as usual, that\nMarc might be right.\n\nSo \"asticot\" means maggot, hm. Goes along with the general sense of decay we\nget in 5HoC. Seems to thematically jibe with the weirdness of Apheta refering \nto herself and her kind as the larvae of the Hierarchs.\n\nJust made me think of Hethor's slug which is pretty grub/larva like. Any chance\nWolfe intended us to think it could metamorphosize into a very large, winged being?\nAlso, we have Mother Pyrexia who was said to resemble one of the creatures you'd\nfind in rotten wood, after she'd been sealed into her house for a while (though \nthat might rather be a reference to a salamander). \t\t \t \t\t " } ] }, { "message_id": "<5168093B.1070408@verizon.net>", "from": { "name": "David Stockhoff", "address": "dstockhoff at verizon.net" }, "date": "2013-04-12T13:16:43+00:00", "subject": "(urth) fifth head owlet- wolf‏", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On 4/12/2013 8:01 AM, Lee Berman wrote:\nMarc Aramini- If one is not in favor of the maggots explanation,\nrue d'asticot might perhaps be another allusion to a \"mythical street\"\nin London named Grub Street. Which was renamed Milton Street and might\nthen jive doubly with that hell imagery of 666 saltimbaque, but I still\nlike the maggots." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Your mind works in amazing ways to see these connections. I am tempted to\nthink ascribing so much meaning to street names might be stretching credibility\nof understanding Wolfe's intentions, then I remember Iubar St. in BotNS, Sun\nStreet in Long Sun and other examples and I have to conclude, as usual, that\nMarc might be right.\n\nSo \"asticot\" means maggot, hm. Goes along with the general sense of decay we\nget in 5HoC. Seems to thematically jibe with the weirdness of Apheta refering\nto herself and her kind as the larvae of the Hierarchs.\n\nJust made me think of Hethor's slug which is pretty grub/larva like. Any chance\nWolfe intended us to think it could metamorphosize into a very large, winged being?\nAlso, we have Mother Pyrexia who was said to resemble one of the creatures you'd\nfind in rotten wood, after she'd been sealed into her house for a while (though\nthat might rather be a reference to a salamander)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I love the joke of grubs being replaced (gentrified!) by Milton. As far \nas I can tell no one knows why, but the name does seem to come from the \nword for \"larva.\" Talk about an upgrade.\n\nThere's no question that Wolfe is fascinated by evolution-as-design. But \nit's not enough to ooh and ah over eyeballs: evolution is systemic \nchange, and parasites/detritivores/bacteria are all part of the system.\n\nI almost mentioned Apheta myself. Larvae are a key concept, since they \nindicate change/immaturity/nonspecialization/potential.\n\nI still don't understand the Pyrexia reference, but fire/heat is \ncertainly involved in the interpretation since the word means \"fever.\"" } ] } ] }