From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" <ddanehy@siebel.com>
Subject: RE: (whorl) Re: Heads; Scylla; Four Eyes
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 07:53:27 

> >Also: I'm still waiting for someone to explain Babbie's
> >spectacles. No takers?

> It's a joke!

What them guys said. Sometime I think I'll have to do a miniarticle
on Lupine humor -- there's a LOT of it, but it's usually subtle and
often goes unnoticed until the fifth or so reading. (This kind of
"analysis" can bring it out sooner, tho'.) 

Wolfe's humor reminds me, more than a little, of the subtler death 
jokes in the ALICE books, as when Alice, falling down the rabbit
hole, remarks that "after a fall like this, I shall think nothing
of a tumble down the stairs. In fact, if I fell off the roof, I
should say nothing at all" -- to which the narrator adds, "Which 
was probably true; or as when, being advised by Humpty-Dumpty that
she should have stopped (aging) at six, she remarks "One can't,
you know," and Humpty-Dumpty: "One can't, perhaps, but I daresay
with the right help you could have managed it." [All quotes by
memory & probably misworded but accurate as to intent.]

Anyway, that sort of thing, where you don't necessarily catch
it on the first or even third reading but suddenly it hits you
WHAM and you find yourself giggling embarassingly.

> Bluvian creatures (thanks Blattid)

Well, it was that or "Bluish," and that's already taken by the
arch-enemies of Pepperland.


> *Yes, I will provide a reference for this scene, if anyone
> asks me to.

Okay, I'm asking.

--Dan'l


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