{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6744", "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": 6744, "subject": "Short Story 159*: How I Got Three Zip Codes/Kid Sister", "messages": 3, "voices": 2, "first": "2015-04-28T03:49:28+00:00", "last": "2015-04-29T01:37:02+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-28T03:49:28+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 159*: How I Got Three Zip Codes/Kid Sister", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "#HOW I GOT THREE ZIP CODES AND KID SISTER/INTRODUCTION TO PHOENIX\n\n\"How I Got Three Zip Codes\" first appeared in *The Mammoth Book of Comic\nFantasy II* in 1999 and has not been collected.\n\n##Summary and Commentary\n\nIn much the same phantasmagoric style as the short story \"To The Dark Tower\nCame\", Wolfe employs his shifting semiotic symbolism in a far more playful\nautobiographical sketch - one which basically establishes his grandfather\nas a teller of tall tales and expresses Wolfe's disappointment with the\npost office, necessitating a PO Box, a house address, and an independent\nmail box at a Mail Boxes R Us type business, all while metafictionally\nplaying with the ideas going through Wolfe's mind to write an article\nencapsulating all of that which will actually sell.\n\nThe story begins, \"The sun was sinking slowly in the Gulf, having been\ntorpedoed by a Nazi sub.\" This sets the tone for the type of story Wolfe\nhas crafted - one in which the literal symbolic meaning is displayed but\nwhich also recreates a historic event - in this case, the sinking of a\nvessel named *Sun* by a Nazi U-boat, a historical war time event turned\ninto an absurd one of the setting sun actually being torpedoed. As they\nfish upon a pier and Wolfe imagines how to write the story that we are\nreading, his grandfather is with him, probably summoned up for his advice\non how to write something historical (a war time experience which may or\nmay not have involved the real wooden-legged grandfather of Gene Wolfe - a\ngrandfather who will not be identified as anything except \"the old man\"\nuntil almost the end of the story).\n\nHis grandfather tells him that there are three ways to start an article (or\ncatch a catfish), as he spits out his tobacco. Wolfe tries to block out the\ncries of the drowning sailors in his mind while his grandfather tells him\nthat he can hook an audience or purchasing editor like a frog, through the\ntop and bottom lip, using a dramatic event at the start. The grandfather\nextends the metaphor, saying that if the frog had a sinus condition, it\ncertainly couldn't breathe with its mouth pinned shut in that fashion, and\ngoes on to say, \"Some folks don't think. I seen a man down in Sonora got\nhis head cut clean off with a machete. This's in a saloon. A cantina, they\ncalls it.\" [A metaphor on the cusp of insulting a non-reflective audience].\n\nIn response to the incorrect tense of his grandfather's digression, Wolfe\ncomments he thought they were now sitting on a pier. The grandfather\ncontinues the story of the decapitation, with the head spinning around\ntrice and the body being unable to think (having no brains.) \"'Some people\nnever do,' I reminded him gently, still wondering how to begin this\narticle.\"\n\nThe grandfather continues that the headless body ran out in the street to\nthe next cantina, determined to spend its money and demanding a drink:\n\"Couldn't talk, a-course, didn't have no mouth, but ya could see from the\nexpression a its shirt buttons that wuz what it meant.\"\n\nThe body tried to drink its shot, but alas, had no mouth. Wolfe's\ngrandfather tried to tell it its head was back in the other cantina, but it\nhad no ears to hear. Wolfe responds:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"I see,\" I said. I had lost interest already, and was wondering what had\nbecome of the girl I had observed removing a yellow bathing suit behind the\ncreosote tree to my left. A girl like that, I mused ..." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[The creosote would be in the desert setting of border Mexico and the\nSouthwestern United States described by his grandfather, rather than on the\npier in Chicago ...]\n\nThe grandfather continues his [folk medicine?] advice: \"Put salt on it,\"\nthe old man told me. \"Don't ya lay it on no windowsill , neither, if'n ya\nsees no doctor. Did I say how that head *ate* ever' crumb a sawdust it\ncould reach? With its tongue, ya know?\" He goes on to describe how the body\npoured the shot in its shirt pocket and then fell down dead, as an example\nof drama sure to hook an audience, and perhaps even get *Reader's Digest*\non the line with this dramatic event as bait.\n\nAs day draws to a close, Wolfe traces the letters HOW I GOT THREE ZIP CODES\nin the dark, cloud-tossed sky. \"This wasn't in Mexico ... It was in\nChicago.\" His grandfather asks if one of his zip codes starts\n\"six-ought-six\", and the marginally non-sequitur (or perhaps simply\nsomewhat inscrutable) dialogue continues:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I shook my head. \"The little bubble in that gadget can't possibly tell you\nthat.\" [The most enigmatic statement in the text ... the grandfather's\nfishing pole, perhaps?]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Stop rattling' like that ... It's real destractin', but I'll have me a\npair a Genes anyhow.\" [Are they here referring to Levi's 606 jeans? Or the\nU-606 German sub? Though of course this is also playing on Wolfe's genetic\nancestry and name]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I waited for him to add on rye toast and hold the mayo. He did not." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Didn't ya shake your head like that before, back there 'bout a page?\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[snapping himself from his fantasy of the girl and the creosote, no doubt]." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"I don't think so,\" I said." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Mebbe that wuz a real snake, then. Better have another drink.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe says that he was going to describe how he got three zip codes, \"Sweet\nOne Oh Three in Lake Zurich, Illinois\" [Ste. 103, obviously - the puns are\ngetting overwhelming]. Wolfe asks how editors and catfish are truly alike,\nsince \"editors have scales of payment, while catfish have no scales at all.\nHow do you resolve the contradiction?\"\n\nThe grandfather asks how much Leah is paying Wolfe for the article, and\nWolfe says that he stands corrected [by implication, the scales of payment\nbeing so low they might as well not exist].\n\nWolfe says that his zip codes are 60011, 60011, and 60047 (two from\nBarrington, one from Lake Zurich). He notes that their sum is 180,068, and\nwhen his grandfather asks their product, he says that his calculator can't\nexpress a number that large without using logarithms [but would be\n216,244,865,825,170 - it occurs to me that I am a pedant].\n\n\"I tol' yer ma ya wouldn't be normal. How 'bout the cube root?\"\n\nWolfe responds, 6023 and 2/3rds, and the grandfather asks if people could\nwrite to him at that zip code.\n\n\"I don't see why not.\" The grandfather asks the average, and Wolfe says\nthat it is the same number [the product of the three numbers and the\nproduct of the average three times is the same number, at least to 7\nsignificant figures].\n\nWolfe says the numbers are large and differ by small amounts, implying the\ncube root can be estimated as the average, but the grandfather asks him to\nwrite them down for him. \"I moistened my forefinger (receiving a poignant\nreminder of the nightcrawler with which I had baited my hook earlier) and\nwrote them out on the salt-rimmed boards.\"\n\nHis grandfather says those numbers aren't so large compared to the \"three\"\nup in the sky which must be a half mile high and six long \"if'n it's a\ninch.\"\n\nThe grandfather says maybe Wolfe has seen bigger numbers over in\nSwitzerland, but Wolfe says the 60047 zip code is over in Lake Zurich [the\nword play of which Wolfe is so fond, doing much the same thing with Paris,\nTexas and Paris, France in \"At The Point of Capricorn.\"]\n\nWolfe says people don't use the United States Mail much anymore. The\nmetafictional dialogue below highlights Wolfe's new mailing address in Lake\nZurich, selected for its superior convenience and hours of operation:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Whar do they stick their stamps then?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Don't tempt me like that, Grandfather [Where the sun doesn't shine, of\ncourse ...] Mailing's too easy, I suppose. There are mail boxes on every\ncorner, post offices everywhere, and so on.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Always closed, though.\" The old man scratched the ankle of his wooden leg\nreflectively." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"I suppose that may be the reason. Our post office in Barrington opens at\nnine-forty-five and closes at four-thirty, and at noon Saturday. Naturally\nit's closed all day Sunday and on every conceivable and inconceivable\nholiday.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"That isn't no way to catch a catfish!\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"I know. That's why I waited until this page.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"That place over to Switzerland -?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Mail Boxes She's Us. It's open a lot more, and the guy there gave me a\nkey to the front door, as well as the key to Sweet 103.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Ya mean box, don't ya, boy?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Yes, but you have to saw *sweet*, it's a tradition. Write me at 830 West" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Main, Sweet 103. Or send me packages O.O.P.S., Fed X -\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"That one a them monster books or always readin'?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"Close enough. But the rest are worse, really.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe goes on to describe how an editor in England was going to send a\nmanuscript via \"International Soup-Or-Swift\" which should have been in his\nhands in six hours. A week later \"Soup-or-Swift\" said they didn't deliver\nto his area (for Wolfe lives northwest of Chicago, and his manuscript was\nin an office on the far south side of Chicago - in Kentucky.)\n\nHis grandfather suggests that he could have the mail come to his house at\n60010, but Wolfe says:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"I've had packages left next door and down the block and a whole lot one\nstreet over. ... I'm not through yet. In fact, I'm not anywhere close to\nit. I've had packages left in cars in my driveway. Half a dozen wedding\npresents were left in our garage and found before the wedding only by\naccident. An envelope containing ten thousand dollars in cheques was left\non the stoop in the rain.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The old man was no longer listening. Shading his eyes to scan the\nlightless horizon, he muttered, \"Ya think mebbe some of them solar sailors\ngot off in the lifeboats?\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I doubt it. That's a Leslie Fish album. ... I'd better be getting home.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "[Leslie Fish is a filk musician - a musical genre tied to the SF and\nFantasy fandom - and her 1977 album was titled *Solar Sailors*]" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Looking down into the dark and swirling waters of the bay, the old man\ngrunted, \"Huh! Which 'un, boy?\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "##Unanswered questions\n\nWhile it is clear that despite all the dialogue, Wolfe's grandfather is\nstill considering a Zip Code primarily as a place to live, there are at\nleast two interactions that are difficult. Why would the grandfather ask\nif one of the zip codes starts with 606? What gadget and bubble is Wolfe\ntalking about here? Is this related to Levi jeans or a german submarine, or\ncompletely different, like a 606 spincast fishing pole?\n\nWhen the grandfather looks up at the \"gull-smeared\" sky and says there is a\nhuge three there, is he simply talking about a cloud, the setting sun, or\nis this some kind of literal invocation of the trinity, the \"big three\" in\nthe sky?\n\nWhat kind of advice is the grandfather providing when he says to put salt\non \"it\" if he doesn't see a doctor, but not to put \"it\" on a windowsill? Is\nthis a priapic erection from thinking of the girl or some other folk\nremedy? [Or am I the perverted one, rather than Wolfe?]\n\n##Kid Sister and Further Autobiographical Family Information\n\nIn \"Kid Sister\", autobiographical tales of encounters with the paranormal\nare described by various authors of fantasy and horror. Wolfe's\ncontribution begins with a story of driving his mother shortly before her\ndeath from Virginia Beach to Logan, Ohio, where she had lived with Wolfe's\nfather from his retirement until his death in 1973. However, he begins with\na description of his mother and her family which will reveal why I combined\nthese very different accounts:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When I trace my mother to the end of memory, I find a beautiful young\nwoman bending over the little bed she has made for me on a sat in a railway\nchaircar. Her eyes are blue, and a strand of auburn hair peeps from under\nher cloche. A friend of mine jokes about \"sharp nosed English redheads\"; I\nheard her use the phrase for years before it struck me that my mother had\nbeen one." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We were going from New Jersey to North Carolina, supposedly to visit her\nfamily but in fact to visit her father. As if by magic we were there, and\nhe was an old man who sat on the porch grasping the cane with which he\nthreatened me each time I came too near, a large old man with a jug of corn\nwhiskey beside him and a wooden leg stretched stiffly before him. I admired\nhim for the pit dog chained to a tree across the road and the fighting\ncocks cooped behind the house; I did not know then that he had begun life\nas a sailor, or that he had fought Indians and Mexican bandits as a\ncavalryman, or that he had been a circus performer." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Nor did I know that he was a hard and violent man who had lost his leg\nwhen a gang of workmen he bossed had tried to murder him; or that he beat\nhis wife and all but one of his children. The one he never struck had been" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Mary, his favorite. Mary was my mother." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We returned home and he died. Because her father had favored her, my\nmother was not well liked by her numerous brothers and sisters. For her and\nfor me, her family virtually ceased to exist for about fifty years." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "This, then, is the basis for the man in \"How I Got Three Zip Codes\", an\nautobiographical sketch involving an article about mail and perhaps a Nazi\nsubmarine sinking the sun (but just to get an editor's or reader's\nattention) in which Wolfe tries to summon the memory of his grandfather for\nhelp and advice in its composition, who proves as ornery in spirit as in\nlife.\n\nKid Sister goes on to describe Wolfe's father's funeral and the subsequent\nrequest after several months that he assist his mother in moving, and he\nincludes this information:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "When she was a young woman courted by many young men, it had been\ncustomary for such suitors to bring candy or flowers. When they went home,\nshe had quietly put the boxes of candy beside the bed of her younger\nsister, Emily. ... Emily had invited her sister to live with her." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe's wife Rosemary drives Wolfe's mother in a different vehicle and,\nseparated, Wolfe arrives at his aunt's house alone - an aunt he instantly\nrecognizes because she looks exactly like his mother (but talked like Carol\nChanning). Within a year, his aunt Emily dies, and he goes to Virginia\nBeach to haul his mother's belongings back to Logan, Ohio. The man who\nrents him the U-Haul does not seem to know how to hook up the trailer very\nwell, but Wolfe proceeds anyway. At the house of his deceased Aunt Emily,\nhis mother tells him that Wolfe will be forced to sleep in his aunt's bed:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I lugged my suitcase in, and found the bedspread stiff with blood. Emily\nhad lain on it, my mother explained, and the chemotherapy treatments that\nhad not cured her cancer had given her hives. She had scratched them raw." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe attempts to read a biography of Zelda Fitzgerald to fall asleep, but\nthe bedside lamp will not light up. He sees that the 100 watt lightbulb in\nit has burnt out, seemingly too powerful for such a small lamp. In the\nmorning his mother reveals that Emily had kept that lamp switched on all\nnight, every night." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "I thought about that as we drove away - the frilly little bedside lamp\nthat had kept Death at bay, and Death's coming quietly through the night\nwhen the little lamp's brilliant light failed at last." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "During their car journey through the mountains, the dark, and the snow,\nWolfe tells his mother of a man he knows who was complaining of his new\ncar, because the doors would not open from the inside, save for the\ndriver's door. The man had to go outside and manually open every door to\nlet people out.\n\nWhen they stop at a gas station, his mother's door will not open, something\nwhich had never happened before. Wolfe reaches across to try and open it,\npounding on it with his greater strength." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "We looked at each other. And then - very slowly - looked into the back\nseat. There was nothing to see there and nothing to hear, no shadowy\nfigure, no ghostly laughter. But the sensation was overwhelming: a third\nperson was sitting there, an impish passenger who found our efforts with\nthe door very amusing indeed." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Wolfe gets out to open his mother's door with the key from the outside.\nWolfe notes that that was almost the end of it, save that the U-Haul\nattendant at Logan comments that the way the trailer is hooked up, he\nshouldn't have been able to get ten miles.\n\nThus \"Kid Sister\" gives us a glimpse of not only Wolfe's family, but of his\nbelief in the supernatural: that what was perhaps his mother's sister was\nsomehow there, preventing an accident or tragedy on the road, but still\nexerting some strange influence on reality even after her death.\n\nIn his introduction to Brain Hopkins's short story collection *Phoenix*,\nWolfe relates much the same story in a more highly stylized fashion. Wolfe\nbegins his intro by stating, \"[Brian Hopkins] is a better writer than I am,\nand I hate him for that. Everybody who writes ought to write just as well\nas he or she can, unless it's better than me. In which case, they ought to\ntone it down. I've told Brian this, but he doesn't listen. I hate him for\nthat.\"\n\nHe goes on to tell that Brian is \"horror-haunted\", and proceeds to tell his\nown \"true ghost story.\"\n\n\"I won't get into the actual ghost (yes, there was one and I could name\nher), because the actual ghost was nowhere near as horrifying as the\nbeginning had led Me to expect. Actual ghosts, you see, can surprise us as\nwell as horrify us.\" Wolfe tells the same story, referring to himself as Me\nthroughout, of going to visit his Aunt and her later death, precipitating\nWolfe's retrieval of his mother. Throwing the bloody covers on the floor\nand trying to turn on the lamp, Wolfe says, \"Me had, you see, tumbled into\na Brain Hopkins story. Me just didn't know it. Things like that happen.\nClose your eyes and look up, and you may see the person writing it.\" In the\nmorning, Wolfe has the same conversation with his mother, and the\nintroduction claims, \"The friendly woman who talked like Carol Channing had\nbeen horror-haunted, you see. She had known that It was out there in the\ndark, and in the dark It would come for her. That small and frilly lamp had\nbeen her sentinel, keeping It away all night, every night. But in the end,\nthe bulb had burned out; and It had come for her.\"\n\n##Connection with other works\n\n\"How I Got Three Zip Codes\" shows how strange Wolfe can make\nautobiographical information - something as simple as an article expressing\ndissatisfaction with the postal service (which were his real mailing zip\ncodes at one time, when he lived in Barrington) becomes a truly bizarre\ntall tale, headless bar hopping body and sun sinking Nazi submarine\nincluded, resembling something like a Lafferty story, though it is perhaps\nthe character of his boisterous grandfather that brings that idea to the\nforefront. It is conceivable that the wooden leg of his grandfather has\nbeen echoed in Wolfe's fiction multiple times.\n\n##Resources\n\n-Wolfe, Gene. \"How I Got Three Zip Codes\". *The Mammoth Book of Comic\nFantasy II, ed. Mike Ashley. New York: Carrol and Graf Publishers, 1999.\nPrint.\n\n-Wolfe, Gene. \"Introduction\". *Phoenix*, Brian A. Hopkins. Terradan Press,\n2013. Print.\n\n-Wolfe, Gene. \"Kid Sister\". *Dancing with the Dark*. New York: Carroll and\nGraf Publishers, 1999. Print." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "David Duffy", "address": "david.duffy at qimr.edu.au" }, "date": "2015-04-29T01:32:29+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 159*: How I Got Three Zip Codes/Kid Sister", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Mon, 27 Apr 2015, Marc Aramini wrote:\n#HOW I GOT THREE ZIP CODES AND KID SISTER/INTRODUCTION TO PHOENIX\n\n\"How I Got Three Zip Codes\" first appeared in *The Mammoth Book of Comic\nFantasy II* in 1999 and has not been collected.\n\nWolfe says that his zip codes are 60011, 60011, and 60047 (two from\n\"I tol' yer ma ya wouldn't be normal. How 'bout the cube root?\"\n\nWolfe responds, 6023 and 2/3rds, and the grandfather asks if people could\nwrite to him at that zip code." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Missing a zero: 60022.9976012393064119998" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "\"I don't see why not.\" The grandfather asks the average, and Wolfe says\nthat it is the same number [the product of the three numbers and the\nproduct of the average three times is the same number, at least to 7\nsignificant figures]." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "ie 60023\n\nRE: Sighting at Twin Mounds\n\nI thought it might also allude to Lovecraft (and Bishop) _The Mound_:\n\n\"I had gone into Oklahoma to track down and correlate one of the many \nghost tales which were current among the white settlers, but which had strong \nIndian corroboration...\n\n\"The tale, outwardly, was an extremely naive and simple one, and centred \nin a huge, lone mound or small hill that rose above the plain about a third \nof a mile west of the village a mound which some thought a product of \nNature, but which others believed to be a burial-place or ceremonial dais \nconstructed by prehistoric tribes. This mound, the villagers said, was \nconstantly haunted by, two Indian figures which appeared in alternation; \nan old man who paced back and forth along the top from dawn till dusk, \nregardless of the weather and with only brief intervals of disappearance, \nand a squaw who took his place at night with a blue-flamed torch that \nglimmered quite continuously till morning. When the moon was bright the \nsquaw?s peculiar figure could be seen fairly plainly, and over half the \nvillagers agreed that the apparition was headless...\n\n\"The blue light!?the blue light!... muttered the object, 'always down \nthere'\"" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-29T01:37:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 159*: How I Got Three Zip Codes/Kid Sister", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I need to fix that section ... it is 60010, 60011, and 60047. Wrote too\nmuch in one day. 60023 and 2/3" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Apr 28, 2015 6:32 PM, \"David Duffy\" wrote:\nOn Mon, 27 Apr 2015, Marc Aramini wrote:\n\n #HOW I GOT THREE ZIP CODES AND KID SISTER/INTRODUCTION TO PHOENIX" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "\"How I Got Three Zip Codes\" first appeared in *The Mammoth Book of Comic\nFantasy II* in 1999 and has not been collected.\n\nWolfe says that his zip codes are 60011, 60011, and 60047 (two from\n\"I tol' yer ma ya wouldn't be normal. How 'bout the cube root?\"\n\nWolfe responds, 6023 and 2/3rds, and the grandfather asks if people could\nwrite to him at that zip code." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Missing a zero: 60022.9976012393064119998\n\n \"I don't see why not.\" The grandfather asks the average, and Wolfe says\nthat it is the same number [the product of the three numbers and the\nproduct of the average three times is the same number, at least to 7\nsignificant figures]." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "ie 60023\n\nRE: Sighting at Twin Mounds\n\nI thought it might also allude to Lovecraft (and Bishop) _The Mound_:\n\n\"I had gone into Oklahoma to track down and correlate one of the many\nghost tales which were current among the white settlers, but which had\nstrong Indian corroboration...\n\n\"The tale, outwardly, was an extremely naive and simple one, and centred\nin a huge, lone mound or small hill that rose above the plain about a third\nof a mile west of the village a mound which some thought a product of\nNature, but which others believed to be a burial-place or ceremonial dais\nconstructed by prehistoric tribes. This mound, the villagers said, was\nconstantly haunted by, two Indian figures which appeared in alternation; an\nold man who paced back and forth along the top from dawn till dusk,\nregardless of the weather and with only brief intervals of disappearance,\nand a squaw who took his place at night with a blue-flamed torch that\nglimmered quite continuously till morning. When the moon was bright the\nsquaw?s peculiar figure could be seen fairly plainly, and over half the\nvillagers agreed that the apparition was headless...\n\n\"The blue light!?the blue light!... muttered the object, 'always down\nthere'\"\n_______________________________________________" } ] } ] }