{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/whorl/470", "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": 470, "subject": "Name of the _Whorl_", "messages": 4, "voices": 2, "first": "1998-05-14T09:56:56+00:00", "last": "1998-05-15T11:59:54+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Westlake", "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-05-14T11:26:17+00:00", "subject": "(whorl) Name of the _Whorl_", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Is there any special reason for the _Whorl_'s name?\nIt doesn't seem like an obvious choice for a hollowed-out\nasteroid.\n\nThe only idea I have about this is so infinitely improbable\nthat I really hope someone will tell me it can't be true ...\nit's a starship run by computers, so I wonder if it's related\nto the ship's computer with the very similar name in a series\nalmost, but not quite, entirely unlike Wolfe? On a ship owned\nby the two-headed **pho*?\n\nWas Silk making a really hot cup of tea when Pike's ghost appeared?\n\n -- Spectacled Bear, aghast at finding how well this hangs\n together, except for the Cup of Tea, which was a Joke." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-05-14T09:56:56+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Name of the _Whorl_", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Thu, 14 May 1998, Peter Westlake wrote:\nIs there any special reason for the _Whorl_'s name?\nIt doesn't seem like an obvious choice for a hollowed-out\nasteroid." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "For the travelers, Starcrosser is their whole World, but since it spins,\nthey call it the Whorl.\n \nThere are lots of passages where people use the same syntax as if they\nwere going to say \"world\" but say \"whorl\" instead. Stuff like, \"She's the\nmost beautiful woman in the whole Whorl!\" or \"Unlike Pas and Scylla and\nthe other gods, the Outsider exists outside the Whorl.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "The only idea I have about this is so infinitely improbable\nthat I really hope someone will tell me it can't be true ...\nit's a starship run by computers, so I wonder if it's related\nto the ship's computer with the very similar name in a series\nalmost, but not quite, entirely unlike Wolfe? On a ship owned\nby the two-headed **pho*?" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Oh my. \"Two-headed **pho*\"! I love it! Someone really needs to confront\nWolfe with that one.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Peter Westlake", "address": "peter at harlequin.co.uk" }, "date": "1998-05-15T11:59:54+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Name of the _Whorl_", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "At 09:56 1998-05-14 -0400, Rostrum wrote:\n\n\nOn Thu, 14 May 1998, Peter Westlake wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Is there any special reason for the _Whorl_'s name?\nIt doesn't seem like an obvious choice for a hollowed-out\nasteroid." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For the travelers, Starcrosser is their whole World, but since it spins,\nthey call it the Whorl.\n\nThere are lots of passages where people use the same syntax as if they\nwere going to say \"world\" but say \"whorl\" instead. Stuff like, \"She's the\nmost beautiful woman in the whole Whorl!\" or \"Unlike Pas and Scylla and\nthe other gods, the Outsider exists outside the Whorl.\"" }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "That's a natural confusion arising from the name, though, surely?\nI wondered why the ship had been called \"Whorl\" in the first place.\nOf course, you get whorls of cloud around a typhoon. Maybe that's\nit: an offshoot of Typhon and his empire.\n\n Spectacled bear." } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Michael Straight", "address": "straight at email.unc.edu" }, "date": "1998-05-15T09:18:19+00:00", "subject": "Re: (whorl) Name of the _Whorl_", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, 15 May 1998, Peter Westlake wrote:\nAt 09:56 1998-05-14 -0400, Rostrum wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "On Thu, 14 May 1998, Peter Westlake wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "Is there any special reason for the _Whorl_'s name?\nIt doesn't seem like an obvious choice for a hollowed-out\nasteroid." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "For the travelers, Starcrosser is their whole World, but since it spins,\nthey call it the Whorl.\n\nThere are lots of passages where people use the same syntax as if they\nwere going to say \"world\" but say \"whorl\" instead. Stuff like, \"She's the\nmost beautiful woman in the whole Whorl!\" or \"Unlike Pas and Scylla and\nthe other gods, the Outsider exists outside the Whorl.\"" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "That's a natural confusion arising from the name, though, surely?\nI wondered why the ship had been called \"Whorl\" in the first place.\nOf course, you get whorls of cloud around a typhoon. Maybe that's\nit: an offshoot of Typhon and his empire." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Hmm. Maybe I was answering the question \"Why did Wolfe name it 'Whorl'\nthan why did Typhon name it 'Whorl'. But maybe not. Typhon knew he was\ncreating an artificial world, complete with artificial societies and\nreligions, and it whorls around, so thus 'Whorl'.\n\n-Rostrum" } ] } ] }