{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6768",
    "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": 6768,
    "subject": "switching hands in Sorcerer's House and horses",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2018-01-05T20:38:34+00:00",
    "last": "2018-01-05T20:38:34+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<CAF1072z=3cMfsexUPFEn0v3xP3vgUUwD-fazQeVKxDxFbmUjUQ@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Marc Aramini",
        "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2018-01-05T20:38:34+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth)  switching hands in Sorcerer's House and horses",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I have been trying to work on all six remaining writeups at the same time\nbut each of them has special problems. I haven't used some of the resources\navailable but I trust my judgment.\n\nIn Sorcerer's House, Bax switches hands while writing three times (and one\nmore in the text where its metatextual value becomes clear: at the reading\nof the will where he \"proves\" he is Skotos's heir by being ambidextrous,\nand he says quite clearly that he can write two different things at once,\nand that it is a \"parlor trick\". Each time he switches hands it involves\none of Bax's tricks.) One is when he visits Martha Murrey, and IMMEDIATELY\nafterwards he asks if she ever bets on horse races. (when he hears\nAlexander Skotos is his benefactor, he thinks of Sandy Scott from Churchill\nDowns, where the Kentucky Derby horse races are held.) The first time he\ngoes to Lakeshore restaurant with Doris he orders the \"Lakeshore Hat Trick\"\n(one of the fish is smothered in Oriental sauces) - this is not a trick,\nbut is a triple feat in sports, in which three goals or three victories are\nattained (then, an impressed audience might donate money into a hat passed\naround).\n\nThe second time Bax switches hands is when he goes up to the attic and\nfinds the fox - another trick. The third time is the most mysterious moment\nin the text, at a point when the letters are shown out of optimal order.\nThis is after George is arrested, and his trip out with Doris in the car to\nLakeshore is not related the same to all of his penpals. He tells Sheldon\nhe had to shoot something, but before he even relates the trip out to\nLakeshore  he asks if Sheldon knows who Alexander Skotos and Mary King are,\nthough both are dead. He won't get to picking up the ghostly hitchhiker who\ndisappears, Mary King, until 50 pages later in a letter to Orizia, but he\ntells Millie a different story of a hitchhiker with no mention of Mary\nKing, on pages 180-182. Bax is telling Doris how after college but before\nprison he couldn't stand the jobs he had and was about broke  and when she\nasks, \"What did you do, Bax?\" he sees a spectral white horse running away.\nThis might be a water horse or kelpie (who are sometimes personified as\nbrutish humans like the rivermen that help him crush the werewolves in the\nfinal battle), but it might also be a call back to the accumulation of his\nwealth through horse betting or something illegal there. When he leaves the\ncar, the letter shifts to Ieuan visiting him, and Bax says, \"I recognized\nmyself at once.\" Though Ieuan pretends to be Emlyn and says he wants to\ntalk about the werewolf, Bax refuses to shake his hand because of his own\ntreachery and asks why he truly came, though no truth seems forthcoming.\nRight after this, Bax changes hands and goes back to his situation with\nDoris, as they pick up an older woman named Kiki. She repeats everything\nshe says (Hope you ain't hoping to be paid. Not hoping to be paid, are you?\n... Way home's never long. never a long way home.\") During this scene,\nwhich represents Bax's third (or fourth) trick, he sees himself and Doris\nby the \"absurd\" car from an external point of view. Kiki also says she sees\nsomeone: \"T'other one, he back there with you? You have t'other one in back\nthere, setting' with you in the dark? ... T'other's back there, setting' in\nthe dark, thinking' I can't see him. I kin see him back there, dark or no.\"\n(183).\n\nThe vampiric thing in the trunk might very well be referenced here as one\nof Bax's tricks, but the doubling of situations is strange. While there is\na Mary King's Close, far more interesting given the removal of context to\nthe introduction of Mary King 50 pages before she appears involves a Mary\nKing google search without context. The first person who appears is a six\ntime olympian equestrian. (try it).\n\nHowever, while his switching hands definitely tips us off to a trick that\nhe is about to pull off, there are still three things in the text that\nbother me (assuming he has the capital to hire actors to set his brother\nGeorge up or to embezzle money through the name Skotos before he is\narrested (Skotos died three years ago when Bax went to jail). One is \"the\nGreek\" and his torpedo assistant who plays with clotheslines in Shell's\nletter looking for Baxter Dunn. Another involves the scene when Bax first\nencounters the lycanthropic Lupine: she hands him Doris Griffin's keys with\na pink rabbit on them, then disappears. He meets up with a nameless\npassenger and offers the keys to her, but she says he has to drive. Then,\nhe picks up Doris Griffin on the side of the road - but supposedly his\npassenger, who must be Lupine (?) looked enough like her to offer the keys\nto her, at which point this character disappears. So three women picked up\nwith Doris, and two of them disappear. Any scene without George can be\nfabrication, but what is the significance of Lupine looking like Doris\nGriffin, seemingly? The ghost of Ted appears three times as well; once when\nBax fights off one of the (what I say are fictional) twins (that is merely\na reflection of Bax getting kicked by his brother, as Winkle is named after\na cat whose kittens George killed - he really has set this up to get even\nwith his brother), once when Doris leaves and decides to come back, and\nonce when Bax is walking hand in hand with someone right before the scene\nwith Lupine who can dismiss him.\n\nSo ... what is the hound of horror if not a werewolf? Orizia disbelieves\nMillie's version of the werewolf story and then charges Bax her maximum fee\n(for \"travel\") after telling him she won't charge him anything (i.e. - she\nis working for Bax at the end), so her mention of the dwarf can be\ndismissed as Bax's plan, but what of Doris' mention of Kiki in her letter?\nSo the things to explain: Kiki - Doris and the reflective properties of\nthat scene - whether the plain ring she gives Bax has powers of possession\nor lycanthropy - what is killing the women in the town (ghoul bear?) ...\nthe dwarf is based off of the Old Curiosity shop, as Bax himself says, in\nwhich Quilp's young attractive wife gets a better husband at the end - what\nBax hopes to do (for him, George is like the dwarf)."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}