Date: Fri, 9 Aug 2002 15:24:52 -0700
From: Michael Andre-Driussi 
Subject: Re: (urth) sepia man as Tilly?

Robert Borski wrote:
>The three relatives of Tilly's who want Smart to take over the pharmacy may
>be Mrs. Mason, Candy, and Arline (though the latter two must be very young),
>and the giant in the photo is not Tom Lavine but "little" Rodney (the bed
>may be a childhood keepsake or else he simply grew out of it fast).

Yes, this was my other creepy thought: that the three relatives of Tilly
might be hereby revealed.

I had not quite made the Rodney-as-giant connection, but that is possible,
too, in which case, though, Doris is not "of Tilly" but a prospective bride
of Tilly's heir (not "hair," if Charlie is really Rodney, which I've often
wondered), and we might expect the focus of the story to have been on the
giant rather than on Doris.

> Tilly
>probably never married "Mrs. Mason" so therefore her two children are
>illegitimate. (This would explain why the carnies don't believe there's a
>real Mr. Mason. ) But as for Tilly being the father of Doris by yet another
>relationship/marriage, I find this less credible. According to the timeline,
>Tilly dies somewhere around 1924, which would make Doris about 39 when
>Charlie Turner shows up. It also makes the ages of Candy and Arline--if
>they're Tilly's daughters--probably even older--another glitch in the
>theory.
>
>And still to be answered is why Charlie Turner sends a 40 year old photo of
>Tilly and giant to D. Weer, as well as why the photo of Candy looks
>similarly aged.

Both of these timeline paradoxes are "solved" if Charlie is a time-traveler
from the past, like the ghost of Christmas past in "A Christmas Carol."  In
PEACE terms, this =may= mean that Charlie Turner died and really is a
ghost, and his visit of Weer is an example of a haunting from the past (as
opposed to a haunting from the future), but I'm not going that far, yet,
I'm just looking at Charlie as being a time-traveler who does =not= know
the history of things, he has to go back to the past, live through events,
and then move to the future to report what happened.

Now as to why the ghost of carnies past would visit Weer on the same day
that he is visited by the spirit of factory present and the lady of future
grave-trees, well that is a puzzler, unless it is exactly that pattern
derived from "A Christmas Carol."

I've got to find a copy of "A Christmas Carol" if I'm going to keep going
on like this.   Maybe there's one online?

=mantis=


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