{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6731", "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": 6731, "subject": "Short Story 210*: Last Drink Birdhead", "messages": 1, "voices": 1, "first": "2015-04-22T16:26:16+00:00", "last": "2015-04-22T16:26:16+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-22T16:26:16+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 210*: Last Drink Birdhead", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "LAST DRINK BIRDHEAD: GENE WOLFE\n\n\n Gene Wolfe's entry for the Jeff Vandermeer's *Last Drink Birdhead *appeared\nin 2009 and has not been collected elsewhere.\n\n\n SUMMARY:\n\n\n Originally designed to answer the challenge “Who or What is Last Drink\nBirdhead” He, she, or it, in 500 words or less proposed by Jeff\nVandermeer, Wolfe's entry in the volume begins with some background on\nDamon Knight's Milford Writers Conference.\n\nWolfe begins by claiming that bartenders are “the great modern models of\nprobity”, but that the modern mind has been made suspicious by government\npronouncements and network news broadcasts. He claims that we are\nfurthermore distrustful of anything avowed by a writer of fiction: “I am\none and I encounter the prejudice daily, particularly from my wife.”\n\nWolfe identifies the cocktail as a “forgotten” beverage and claims there\nwas a time, “not so remote as mead but almost as remote as bath-tub gin,\nwhen everyone over the age of ten drank cocktails.” He lists several, such\nas the Rob Roy and the Pink Lady, and claims he still harbors an affection\nfor the French Seventy-five, but no longer orders it, “and the reasons\nshould be obvious.” He goes on to ask “What bartender today can compound an\nUp in Mable's Room” What bartender would try (? rye whiskey, — gin, —\nhoney)? I've been writing a book about a pirate, but I give you my word\nthat I'll never sample the Yo Ho (equal parts rum, Captain Morgan's spiced\nrum, and apple brandy.)?\n\nWolfe goes on to say that Damon Knight ?(equal parts author, editor, and\ncritic)? always ordered a White Piano whenever he was asked what he wanted\nto drink before he had made up his mind. When the bartender claimed he\ndidn't know what it was, Damon would proclaim, “Well, I'm not about to\ndrink your first one!” before ordering whatever drink he had decided upon.\nGordon Dickson and Harry Harrison observed this, and Gordon told Wolfe\nabout the following prank they played on Knight.\n\nThey entered a bar before cocktail hour and ordered White Pianos, and when\nthe bartender confessed he didn't know how to make it, they told him it was\na drink of equal parts sloe gin and milk with a teaspoonful of sugar. They\ntipped him well and complemented the drink, repeating this process several\ntimes.\n\n“They took Damon to their favorite bar; and while he fooled around with the\nbobbing-head bird that had shared a last drink with the guy passed out in\nthe corner, Gordie ordered beer, and Harry wine. You can imagine the rest.\nThe moral of this little story is that we must never, ever deceive innocent\nbartenders. Or borrow other people's toys without asking. Providence will\naccord justice to them both.”\n\n\n COMMENTARY\n\n\n Until the last few paragraphs, this is a rather simple and uncomplicated\ntale. Stylistically it is interesting how Damon Knight is described just as\nWolfe describes the cocktails, with his ingredients in parenthesis after\nhis name. However, once again Wolfe-as-narrator steps in and leaves us\nhanging. How did Damon react when the bartender produced a drink which he\nknew to be fake? Did he explode after tasting the tart Sloe gin? Certainly\nhe must have. What did the passed out man do when he awoke to see Damon\nplaying with his bobbing-head bird? Clearly Wolfe saved the image of Last\nDrink Bird-Head for this denouement, yet we are left guessing as to how\nexactly justice was served. Did Damon assume that the bartender was\ndishonestly trying to fake his way through the drink, given the first line\nof the story, which labels them as the height of honesty? Is the toy Wolfe\nmentions a double entendre referencing Damon's tactic of buying time by\nshaming the bartender for his own amusement besides the simple bobble-head\nbird of the drunken man (who was probably awoken by the ruckus)?\n\nSloe gin is another forgotten cocktail in the vein of the others that Wolfe\nmentions. Sloes are ripe English berries which are fairly astringent and\nreputedly taste terrible. Sloe gin is supposed to be a very tart beverage,\nand one can imagine Damon's reaction in receiving a drink he knows to be of\nhis own invention to buy time as if it were real.\n\n\n UNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\n\n What does Sloe Gin taste like with milk and sugar? This might be one Wolfe\nquestion the brave can answer on their own.\n\n\n How true is this story?\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS:\n\n\n Occasionally, Gene inserts himself into his fiction and recasts simple\nlife events as narratives, such as in “Houston, 1943” and “How I Got Three\nZip Codes.” However, this is probably more essay than fiction, despite the\nWolfe tendency to leave us to create the ending. Damon Knight plays a\nnarrative role in Wolfe's Sherlock Holmes pastiche, “The Rubber Bend”, and\nhas always been listed as a huge influence for his role in both publishing\n*Orbit* and for giving Wolfe practical suggestions which actually improved\nhis stories, specifically in the structure of “Trip, Trap.” It was Knight\nwho grew Wolfe from a bean one night, after all." } ] } ] }