<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:times new roman,new york,times,serif;font-size:12pt">I'm sure I've read that 666 is a hint that the Gene Wolfes, having egotistically cut themselves off from humanity by cloning, could become the Beast. The author's use of his own name suggests that he and everyone have this evil potential. And yes, maybe that some acts are evil regardless of intent.<br><br>I believe this, and I'd thought it was widely believed, but maybe I generalized from one reader to all.<br><br>If I'd been alert enough when that guy asked for interview questions, my first suggestion would have been how Wolfe feels about cloning now that it is or may soon be possible, and in light of the possibility that Chris in <span style="font-style: italic;">Pirate Freedom</span> was cloned. (My next suggestion would have been about torture.)<br><div><br></div><div
style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;">Jerry Friedman is sure that "saltimbanque", meaning "clown", couldn't possibly be a clown-clone pun, because that would be beneath Wolfe. Not.<br><br><div style="font-family: times new roman,new york,times,serif; font-size: 12pt;"><font face="Tahoma" size="2"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> DAVID STOCKHOFF <dstockhoff@verizon.net><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> The Urth Mailing List <urth@lists.urth.net><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Mon, January 3, 2011 11:21:39 AM<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) a false coin<br></font><br>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td style="font: inherit;" valign="top">How would you see that? Perhaps you are thinking of the author as acrobat or mountebank (that is, a hint that Wolfe is playing the trickster), but it could also mean that the existence of true evil is false: evil is a performance. <div><br></div><div>or is evil in the act and not the intent? that might be overthinking.<br><br>--- On <b>Mon, 1/3/11, Lee Berman <i><severiansola@hotmail.com></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: Lee Berman <severiansola@hotmail.com><br>Subject: (urth) a false coin<br>To: urth@lists.urth.net<br>Date: Monday, January 3, 2011, 12:31 PM<br><br><div class="plainMail"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: monospace; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;">[p.s. David, I was reminded of an addition to our discussion of
"Author as Demiurge": Gene Wolfe's<br style="line-height: 1.2em; outline-style: none;">home address on St. Croix is 666 Saltimbanque St.- the Satanic Performer]</span></div></blockquote></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div></div>
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