(urth) This week in Google alerts

Sergei SOLOVIEV soloviev at irit.fr
Fri Nov 4 12:11:23 PDT 2011


To me (IMHO) Gerry's inference looks much more convincing and closer to 
the text,
let's be fair. "Silver screen" is (or at least was in 70-es) a commonplace
speaking about the television. Moreover, the cathode ray tubes (when 
television used them)
contained silver

 >The phosphor viewing surface is formed from a continuous layer of a 
single material in >monochromatic CRTs, or is composed of individual 
dots of three different materials in color CRTs. >Zinc sulfide is a 
common phosphor material. The color is determined by adding a very small 
 >amount of material called an activator. Zinc sulfide with 0.01% silver 
activator emits a blue light. >When a 0.001% copper activator is used, 
it produces a green light. A 50/50 mixture of zinc sulfide >and cadmium 
sulfide with a 0.005% silver activator produces a yellow light. Red 
light can be >produced by adding silver or copper to zinc sulfide

Probably you don't remember that, but I think GW does, and it is a very 
fine reference
to the technology level in the Whorl.

Sergei

James Wynn wrote:
>
>> > So how does that explain the epithet Silver? It would seem Wolfe's
>> > Hound's (heh) explanation for "Silent Silk or Silver Silk" is 
>> lacking by
>> > 50% wouldn't you agree? Why did Wolfe even mention "Silver Silk"
>> > if he only meant the "silent" explantation to have significance?
>>
>> On 11/4/2011 1:01 PM, Gerry Quinn wrote:
>> The significance of Silver is obvious, surely? The full quote is:
>> ****************************************************
>> But Tartaros generally turns them black and speaks. Silk said he 
>> didn't speak
>> or make the window change at all, pretty often. He just looked on."
>> ****************************************************
>> In contrast to Tartaros, Silk leaves the windows the colour they are. 
>> Which is described the first time we see one as “luminous grey”. 
>> ‘Luminous Grey Silk’ lacks both poetry and alliteration; thus ‘Silver 
>> Silk’.
>>
>
> Oh. I thought your method relied SOLELY on the text. Now here you go 
> and draw connections based on cryptic word-smithing to derive intent 
> from the author. Based on your model, shouldn't we expect him to be 
> called "Gray Silk"? "graysilk" has a certain poetry does it not? 
> Silver Silk sounds like a comic book super hero.
>
> How does one cross the line between "drawing inferences from the text" 
> and "extending the text in a way that annoys"?
> Typically, the line is crossed when "he" does it, instead of "me".
>
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