{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/971",
    "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": 971,
    "subject": "Flying Saucers Rock and Roll",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-07-13T08:20:30+00:00",
    "last": "1998-07-13T08:20:30+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0016-0065@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan Parmenter",
        "address": "dan at lec.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-07-13T08:20:30+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Flying Saucers Rock and Roll",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "From: m.driussi at genie.com\nThe saucer, otoh, is just a time rover they are using to explore\nUrth.  They came in on the big ship Tzadkiel, after all.  (This idea\nof flying saucers as time machines from our future rather than space\nmachines from alien worlds is straight from Jacques Vallee, I\nbelieve.)"
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Thanks for reminding me about Vallee.  This idea is also given some\nink by Strieber, but he tends to avoid giving too much creedence to\nany one hypothesis (much to his credit).\n\nOkay, so the saucers are just time rovers, but I still like the idea\nof it being a specific instance of the future or present influencing\nthe past, and since this is one of the central points being made by\nthe incident with the Hierodules at Baldander's castle, it must be\nintentional.  More of Wolfe's magnificent riffing on \"standard\" skiffy\ndevices.\n\nAnother question about ships:\n\nHow does one sign on to the ship Tzadkiel?  Somehow the idea of\nHierodule pressgangs appeals to me; you don't sign on, they come and\nget you.  Gunnie and the other sailors are rather vague on this point,\nunless I've missed something.  Alternately, given the confusion\nbetween sea and star-going vessels and the fact that Wolfe tells us\nthat the basic qualifications (tolerance of long stretches of boredom\nand an ability to work with rope), perhaps the recruiters simply talk\nas if they're recruiting for Urthly ships and then get vague and wave\ntheir hands when asked about specifics.\n\nFinally, one last question about a particular sailor: I think we've\ntouched on this before, but I've become increasingly convinced in the\n\"how obvious\" sense that Jonas is based on Pinnochio.  Jonas = Jonah,\ni.e. someone swallowed by a whale - like Pinochio.  His father was a\ncraftsman and he desires to \"be whole\", much as Pinochio desires to be\na real little boy.\n\nI wonder if Wolfe is at all familiar with the work of the late\nJapanese cartoonist/animator Osamu Tezuka who touched on some\ninteresting variations on this theme in a couple of his\ncomics/animated series.  The most obvious of course is Tetsuwan Atom\n(Mighty Atom), or Astro Boy as he was called here, a robot boy built\nby a scientist to replace his own son who had been killed.  He is\nrejected by his father because he doesn't grow up like a real little\nboy.  A lesser-known Tezuka series is called \"Dororo\" about a\nPinochio-like wooden boy in ancient Japan who goes around beating the\ntar out of bad guys and is rewarded by gradually having his artificial\nparts replaced by living human ones.\n\nFor pictures, point your browser at:\n\nhttp://www.ilinx.co.jp/~takayama/manga/toreo/tezuka.html#5\n\nI have no diea if this is anything out of Japanese folklore or just\nsomething that Dr. Tezuka came up with as a variation on Pinochio (the\nlatter seems quite likely actually) and I doubt very much that Wolfe\nwas or is aware of these things (it's conceivable that he remembers\nAstro Boy from American television - anybody whose memory goes back\nthat far might also recall \"Kimba the White Lion\", another Tezuka\nproject that Disney ripped-off for \"The Lion King\").\n\nD"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}