3rd Cue's a Charm?

Greg Jenkins · 19 Jan 2009, 15:24 · from 2009-January.txt.gz

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From: grsjenkins at yahoo.com (Greg Jenkins)
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 07:24:56 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) 3rd Cue's a Charm?
Message-ID: <955372.96863.qm at web34403.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Steven wrote:
>>A second customer has entered the room.  It's she, not BB1, who wants
>>to 'think sexy.'  BB1 has taken an inventory of her mind.  There's no
>>sex change in the BBs.  The nsymr is the first customer.

There's a lot compressed into that sentence.  Here it is....

>Another customer pushed past him as he spoke, and the first bowling ball,
>after an inventory of her mind that required only a fraction of a second,
>began -- as the new customer would later phrase it herself -- to "think
>sexy."

I was reading it (incorrectly, I'm now convinced) as:

>...after an inventory of BB1's mind that required...

But you're pointing out that it says:

>NC pushed past nsymr as nsymr spoke, and BB1, after an inventory of NC's
>mind that required only a fraction of a second, began -- as NC would
>later phrase it herself -- to "think sexy."

Okay, no sex change.

But wow, what a whopper of a compression job.  In the space of one Wolfian sentence we learn: 

1) there are customers to BB1 (BB1 provides some "service")
2) the service seems to be the granting of an ability (to customers) to limit or change perception of sensory cues
3) BB1 also has the ability to inventory (read?) customers' minds
4) such an inventory takes BB1 only a moment
5) the NC has a desire to see objects and situations as "sexy"
6) the NC will later be granted this ability (limitation)

Whew.  Good thing Wolfe let us off the hook with only those things in mind.

As for the title being encapsulated as such, I believe someone else
refuted Borski's original idea and pointed out that perhaps it was at
least partially a convenience or a literary trick.  I think it also
serves as a wakeup call and helps us realize that as readers we're
unconsciously filtering sensory cues.  Initially some people (at least I
did) will glance over the odd opening and dismiss it as a simple oddity,
or suspect a typo.  After re-reading the story, it becomes an example of
how we chose the cues we wanted to see and let the others go un-noticed.

(BTW I really don't mean to be bashing Mr. Borski.  I think he's great and
own a copy of SOLAR LABYRINTH.)

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