Date: Tue, 17 Dec 2002 16:34:37 -0700
From: maa32 
Subject: (urth) apologies

I really must apologize for my post yesterday.  Wolfe only told me because, I 
am sure, some of my ideas were close and there was one big one that really 
bugged him - but I was doing a good job arguing it anyway, so he had to set me 
straight.
I didn't mean to offend anyone.  I should have sat on the information until I 
had Wolfe's permission to make it public, but I was very, very passionate 
about the Urth is Blue theory, because I believed in it 99.9%.  I suppose I 
will go about procuring that permission and post his exact words as soon as I 
get it, but in the mean time I will respond to the speculation that has 
already arisen, and I really think we should encourage more, because Wolfe 
himself has said that there is nothing left to talk about when the author 
comes out and says the final word:

Nutria, I am sure that the passage with the missionaries in the garden was of 
prime importance, I don't know how related it may be to the one "fact" I know 
- I can only speculate like everyone else, but I think that is important.  As 
far as I know, no dimensional inversion has gone on in Short Sun, but I could 
be wrong.

Tami, I have already proposed a mechanism for the evolution of the green man: 
plant life hybridized with human life and produced an animal with chloroplasts 
(with access to the corridors of time, I think).  I have proposed that he is 
the descendant of the Vanished People - a haploid generation to their diploid 
(or more) one. I think people normally die when trees eat them, but that 
something special happened with Horn and maybe Silk that allowed them to 
survive, but added the ability to feed autotrophically in some small amount, a 
trait which may be shared with other people in the near future of the text 
since the neighbors made a deal with Horn to "return".  While I can draw some 
inferences, Mr. Wolfe has neither denied nor confirmed this mechanism, and it 
remains my own idea, open to debate like any other concept flying around on 
the list.

Just remember that people bring in outside comments and interviews all the 
time to defeat others ideas.  I truly am sorry, but let me just say that there 
was some reason that Mr. Wolfe set me straight.  I wasn't trying to hoard 
information - I would never have posted to the list again in that case, and 
smirked from around the corner.  I was trying to comment on an idea that we 
have argued a WHOLE LOT that had been nixed by the author of the work.  
Indeed, I have half a mind to say that perhaps we should all ignore it and 
take a New Critical approach, saying that "he changed his mind and it doesn't 
affect the work of art." The other half of me, of course, believes that the 
author always has authority ... but I would never, ever, ever have 
relinquished the Blue is Urth theory without a word from Wolfe himself.  I was 
really devastated to be WRONG.  I hope you can understand that - it was my 
baby, just like the Horn in Babbie thing - which I am firmly convinced of from 
my own reading.  I think I was close - closer than he thought we would get so 
soon - and that was enough for Wolfe to help me out a little.
Marc Aramini



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