{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/1305",
    "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": "whorl",
  "thread": {
    "id": 1305,
    "subject": "Pajarocu",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-03-29T20:49:06+00:00",
    "last": "2001-03-29T20:49:06+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<whorl-v0012-0514@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at charter.net"
      },
      "date": "2001-03-29T20:49:06+00:00",
      "subject": "(whorl) Pajarocu",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Some random thoughts about Pajarocu, the phantom town.\n\nThe name apparently derives from pajarraco, Spanish for 'mysterious bird'\n(pàjaro = bird), which ties in with Wijzer's little fable about the\npajarocu, which \"has never been painted and nobody him can see.\" Wolfe may\nalso be attempting to link Pajarocu, where the inhumi roam with impunity,\nwith Quetzal, the \"mysterious bird\" of the LONG SUN series. Pajarocu is\nmysterious because it is not permanently sited, being, in essence, Platonic\nand portable and difficult to find (more below).\n\nSeveral reasons have been advanced previously for why the citizens of\nPajarocu are not preyed upon by the inhumi. (I still love the beer theory!)\nHere are three more, plus a modification, that I don't think have been\nsuggested:\n\n1) When Horn finally does manage to find the phantom city, he notes the\npresence of \"colossal images of Hierax, Tartaros, and the rest, called by\noutlandish sobriquets and the objects of strange, cruel veneration.\" Given\nthat the people of Pajarocu seem like the Whorlish equivalents of\nMesoamericans, I immediately wondered if they practiced human sacrifice, the\nway the Aztecs did--this perhaps being the \"strange, cruel veneration\" that\nHorn mentions, with Xipe Totec and Tlazolteotl (among others) being the\naforesaid sobriquets. The sacrificial victims, or their blood, could then be\ngiven to the inhumi in exchange for freedom from predation. Unfortunately,\nthere seems to be little evidence of or for this, at least in the narrative\nthat Horn tells.\n\n2) The citizens of Pajarocu suffer terribly from thyroid disease. At least\nthat's how I'm interpreting the following passage: \"There is a disease among\nthem that causes the throat to swell. At first I believed it a disease of\nwomen only, because the first few sufferers I saw were all women, but\nHe-hold-fire had it, as did various other men.\" The physical disfigurement\ninvolved may be enough to scare the inhumi off, as might the collateral\nthyroxine deficiency, if iodine is a necessary inhumi nutrient. Sounds to me\nlike a Gahan Wilson or a Farside outtake, with the sauve Count Dracula about\nto take a love bite out of a potential victim, only to discover a monstrous\ngoiter.\n\n3) According to Horn, the phantom city of Pajarocu goes elsewhere when \"the\nstreets are badly fouled or the river rises.\" This ties in with my theory\nthat the inhumi are able to breed in the sewers of Blue. Jahlee claims that\nthe necessary nutrients aren't present, but I believe she's lying; human\nexcrement is eaten by all sorts of animals, and is rich in bilirubin\ndiglucuronide, which the inhumi might actually favor because of its heme\nmoiety. Somehow or other the Pajarocuans may have intuited that the inhumi\ncan breed in foul conditions, and this is why they decamp every time the\nsewage level builds up, or the river (which may be the local lavoratory)\nfloods over; possibly they've even threatened to share the knowledge with\nthe rest of Blue's colonists, resulting in a kind of truce between the two.\nYou don't drink our blood; we don't spread the knowledge about your breeding\ngrounds. Note the achievement of civil engineer Inclito, who brags about\ndesigning better sewers; plus factor in the lesson Horn is supposed to have\nlearned by cleaning the Great Sewer on Green, and it all begins to connect.\n\n4) Then again, perhaps beer IS the answer: if you drink enough of it, as the\nPajarocuans apparently do, maybe you just don't realize there are giant\nflying leeches sucking away your life's essence or you think they're\nimaginary, like double-trunked, carnation-colored pachyderms.\n\nRobert Borski\n\n\n*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}