Subject: (whorl) Re: Digest whorl.v008.n042

From: Alice Turner <al at interport.net>
Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 08:37:58 +0000

>Oh my.  "Two-headed **pho*"!  I love it!  Someone really needs to confront
>Wolfe with that one.

Huh? Can one of you explain?

-out-of-it alga-

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.moonmilk.com/whorl/

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From: Michael Straight <straight at email.unc.edu>
Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 08:53:26 +0000

> Huh? Can one of you explain?

Two-headed Zaphod (Beeblebrox), President of the entire Galaxy
(Universe?), but really just figure-heads for the dark and mysterious
actual rulers (is Typhon really a pawn of the Undines?).  From Douglas
Adams' _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ books.

And...in a spoiler for HHGTG...

Zaphod discovers that someone has messed with his brain to make him do
stuff he normally wouldn't and later discovers that someone was himself,
rewiring his own brains so he could become President without his real
motives being discovered.  It's not quite one head betraying the other,
but... 

-Rostrum

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From: Peter Westlake <peter at harlequin.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 11:57:44 +0000

>Huh? Can one of you explain?

Ty-pho-n or Za-pho-d Beeblebrox. Zaphod's starship "Heart of Gold" in the
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has a ship's computer called Eddy.

Of course, Typhon didn't start out in a starship in tBotNS, and I don't
know whether tBotNS or HHGG was published first. The _Whorl_ is long
after Eddy the computer, of course.

 -- Spectacled bear.

Peter Westlake, Harlequin Ltd, Barrington Hall, Barrington, Cambs CB2 5RG.

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From: Kieran Mullen <kieran at phyast.nhn.ou.edu>
Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 14:03:55 +0000

>
>Is there any special reason for the _Whorl_'s name?
>It doesn't seem like an obvious choice for a hollowed-out
>asteroid.

    I thought there were at least two reasons:

(1)  The resonance with the word "world".  Wolfe likes wordplay.

(2)  If you are living on the surface of a cylinder and look down it,
     far away it will look like a whirlpool (I think).  Does anyone
     know what the aspect ratio of the Whorl is?   

               Kieran Mullen