{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/683",
    "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": 683,
    "subject": "VRT's MOM; Celestine's Age; Musique du Soleil",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-05-29T15:59:35+00:00",
    "last": "1998-05-29T15:59:35+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0012-0019@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-05-29T15:59:35+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Re: VRT's MOM; Celestine's Age; Musique du Soleil",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "To Tony Ellis, re VRT's Mom:\n\nHey, I now think you're dead on about the woman in the cell next to\nVRT--she almost certainly must be his mother! Congratulations. Any chance\nyou think her name might be Three Faces? (Symbolically, like the Sphinx's\nman-riddle, she could wear a wild abo face in the morning, a domestic\nmother-wife face in the afternoon, and a distraught prisoner's face in the\nevening.) It'd also be nice if we could ascertain her eye color, to see if\nit's green like her son's (Victor specifically mentions this in his prison\nwritings, so I feel it's important).\n\nA few things still kinda bother me, however, and while I don't think they\ninvalidate your deductions, I wonder if you had any additional thoughts:\n\nHow is it that a poor abo girl like VRT's mother, who previously had to\nsettle for Trenchard and was, as you say, ill equipped for life in human\nsociety, managed to find her way over to Sainte Croix? After all, it's not\nlike hopping a freight train hobo-style. How would she pay her way across?\n(I envision a sort of interplanetary Concord, with rather steep\nprices--Marsch/VRT probably had university underwriting to help him.) And\nwhy would an illiterate backwoods girl even want to leave the planet of her\nbirth, her abo kin (including little Victor), and the only world she knows,\nand go to that strange big blue place in the sky? Also, wouldn't she need a\npassport of some kind--given the paranoia the government of Sainte Croix\nseems to be exhibiting, wouldn't they scrutinize the arrival of each new\nimmigrant? And wouldn't both planets document her coming and going, given\nthe tension between each? Marsch/VRT specifically mentions going through\ncustoms _and_ being questioned by the military police and _then_ being\nissued\nvisitors papers. (p. 198). Surely the same proceedures would be applied to\nher, as well would be questions about her financial means, especially if\nshe arrived dressed like the abo equivalent of Liza Doolittle ready to take\nin the big sights.  \n\nThese objections notwithstanding (and my problem with them may be more\nWolfeian than Ellisian), clearly I think you're onto something.\n\nNow then, back to an earlier argument. \n\nWhen we talk about ages of people in FIFTH HEAD, we need to take into\nconsideration not one important astronomical factor, but two: i.e., not\nonly are the years longer than ours (+42 days), but so is the daily\nperiodicity (hence Marsch's complaint about the \"too long days and\nstretched nights\" that he first experiences at Roncevaux). Depending on how\nlong you calculate the day, the Annese/Croixian year could be anywhere from\n67 to 100.5 _additional_ days longer than ours, depending on whether we go\nwith 28 or 30 hour days ( {the additional hours x 42 extra days}/24hrs.)\nThis translates in local year terms to one that may be anywhere from 109\ndays longer (67+ 42) to 142.5 days longer (42 +100.5). These extra days--.3\nto .4 of a Terran year--must then be factored into all attempts at figuring\nout ages. Celestine Etienne, at 28 years Croixian, would then be our\nequivalent of a 34.5 to 39 year old woman! These numbers also help resolve\na few other age-related difficulties I have, from Number Five's and VRT's\nmaturity at 18 and 20 years, respectively, to how Cassilla the slave girl\nis starting to look old at 21. But more importantly they help validate my\nearlier contention that Celestine Etienne is David's mother. David,\ndepending on how old you feel he is, would have born been to Celestine when\nshe was the equivalent of  16 to 18 years Terran. So given some of the\nother factors I mentioned in my earlier post, I still feel she's in the\nrunning for the mysterious lady in pink, the woman I believe is his mother.\n\nFinally then, some music to recommend while reading New Sun. For its\nbaroque, medieval pulse, Dances from Tersichore by Michael Praetorius (make\nsure it's recorded with period instruments, though); for its coloration and\nepic scale, Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky; and for its\nevocation of timelessness, Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis by Ralph\nVaugh Williams.\n\nPostpenultimately as well: CAVE CANEM can now be had from me in .txt form\nif your ISP can't handle .doc/Word 6.\n\nRobert Borski"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}