(urth) Pike's ghost

[David Stockhoff]

On 11/30/2011 1:25 AM, Lee Berman wrote:
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>> Gerry has a point, however, in saying that Typhon did not have two penises.
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> The only point made by this observation is that this is meant as a work of art
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> not a photographic portrait.

No doubt about that.
> The two penises are clearly a reference to Typhon's
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> two heads (I think it might be auctorial error on WOlfe's part to give Pas two
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> heads, as we all know Typhon's two heads were a deeply kept secret). It may also
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> reflect the Typhon family's snake-like nature. Many snakes have two penises and
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> my impression from his work is that Wolfe's zoological knowledge is sufficient
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> for him to know this.

Interesting!
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>
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> Moreover, there are giant phallic images surrounding Typhon in the painting.
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> Campion renders them as trees (Trees as phallic symbols, is this of interest to
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> James and Marc? ;- )). So yes, this is a work of art.
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>
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> A work of art depicting Typhon on Urth. The connections to what we learn from
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> Severian are pretty hard to ignore. Should we really think that WOlfe used the
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> term "nursing an erection" twice in reference to the same (or a derived) character
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> by accident or happenstance, as Gerry is suggesting? Is Wolfe really so oblivious
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> to his own previous writing?

No one has suggested that Wolfe is oblivious, though perhaps you could 
read it from Gerry's post. But just because the painting seems to mix a 
parody of Pas with a truer depiction of Typhon does not tell us its 
provenance with any certainty. "Connections" are not always 
hard-wired---I have suggested irony as an explanation, because Wolfe 
uses irony and is always interested in our interpretations of the divine.

If a pornographer paints a truer picture of God than an official 
iconographer, so be it.
> The whorl during Silk's life does not have monarchs sitting on thrones.
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> The rulers of the Whorl are Caldes or Ayuntamientos or Generals who surely
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> would not be caught publicly masturbating as Severian tells us Typhon is willing
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> to do.
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> Pas is a computer program who, whenever he appeared, did so in a screen. I don't
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> think he was sitting in a throne, masturbating in his screen appearances. The
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> painting is clearly not inspired by anything occurring on the Whorl. Through the
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> Severian connection and Typhon's depicted status as a throne-sitting monarch, the
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> painting clearly depicts a scene from Urth.
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>
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> So, Gerry made a mistake here. No big deal. He is right about many things and has
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> no need to feel ashamed about this particular misreading. I don't even begrudge him
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> a bit of pride-salvaging if he would like to continue ignoring the reference to
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> Severian's Typhon encounter and instead argue that WOlfe put the painting into
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> his story to simply to add a splash of color and some gratuitous porn in a brothel.
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> Perhaps that really is how Gerry sees Wolfe as a author.
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>
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> But that's not really my business. I have no interest in "saving" people from wasting
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> their time with Gerry. He is surely a good guy at heart and I really don't want people
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> to ignore him. I no more want to "censor" him than he intends to censor the people who
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> post theories he doesn't like. Gerry and I are both highly appreciative of all the
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> contributions and contributors to this list. Thank you. Thank you all. From both of us. 		 	   		

You certainly don;t need to argue with Gerry through me. All I said was 
that Gerry had a point. Pas's two penises clearly derive from some 
misunderstanding of Typhon based on an understanding of Pas. Typhon was 
a parody of Pas who preceded Pas, because Pas was a *version* of Typhon.