tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post6598562411371168245..comments2023-07-05T03:51:31.577-04:00Comments on I WANT A DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF THE THING: Who invented Wotto metal: Otto Wotto or Joe Spade?trawlermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-81635466239963549832015-05-12T16:37:26.926-04:002015-05-12T16:37:26.926-04:00Daniel, I hereby accuse you of being a leaping lov...Daniel, I hereby accuse you of being a leaping lover of alliteration.<br />Kevin Cheekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-85026573091915458352015-05-01T16:46:40.419-04:002015-05-01T16:46:40.419-04:00Such a cool concatenation of connections!
I immed...Such a cool concatenation of connections!<br /><br />I immediately thought of the multiple worlds/narrations explanation that Drew mentions. Especially having recently read Dan Knight's essay on the multiple endings of the Argo Cycle in Feast of Laughter 2. Daniel Otto Jack Petersenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07278782665152906956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-4751646035595327832015-05-01T07:23:08.547-04:002015-05-01T07:23:08.547-04:00Chasing down another of Lafferty's pulp sf inv...Chasing down another of Lafferty's pulp sf inventions, there are off-hand mentions of Voxo in "Maybe Jones and the City" and "Pleasures and Palaces" and my favorite one, from "Royal Licorice":<br /><br />"Flambeau La Flesche the zoom-zoom girl had zoomed to the top of everything with electronic swiftness. She was on Live; she was on 2-D, 3-D, and 4-D (you have to be smarter than hell to even know how to watch 4-; only Mensa members are allowed to apply for tickets to see it); she was on Voxo; she was in five simultaneous musical comedies; she was on Vodvil and Sound in the Round; she was in the Old Time Electric Theatre; and she was big in Metranome. Already she looked like a shoo-in to take the Nobel Prize in the Centerfold Division. Few were the media in which she had not quickly become outstanding."trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-86960898991288776572015-05-01T07:12:41.654-04:002015-05-01T07:12:41.654-04:00Kevin, there were many giggles yesterday as I atte...Kevin, there were many giggles yesterday as I attempted to say "Wo'o" in front of my family.<br /><br />Drew, yes, both are very good suggestions. Thank you!<br /><br />It'd be interesting to know if there are any other Wotto mentions in any of the other novels. For completeness' sake, here's the other mention of Wotto metal from Serpent's Egg (actually the more memorable quote and the one that flashed in my mind as I read "Hog-Belly" yesterday).<br /><br />------<br /><br />"I am not a little tin girl. I am, about 88 percent of me, a little wotto metal girl. But I bet an ignorant midas like yourself doesn't even know what wotto metal is."<br />"How do you think I got to be a midas, you clanking urchin? the great inventor of wotto metal, Otto Wotto himself, was my maternal grandfather. I tell you that the wotto metal mine, if I may call it that, has paid out better than all the gold mines in the last thousand years."trawlermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05540909996117280033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-53336405346612061582015-04-30T23:46:57.352-04:002015-04-30T23:46:57.352-04:00A couple other possibilities, since I think Laffer...A couple other possibilities, since I think Lafferty *does* care very much about consistency, though not perhaps in the sense that most writers would mean it:<br /><br />1) Lafferty is making fun of pulp SF, where substances like wotto metal get "invented" all the time, in all sorts of different circumstances, to fill whatever technological gaps the story has.<br /><br />2) Otto Wotto is Joe Spade, and vice versa, in different recensions or crosscuts of the multiplicity of worlds.drewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16041903590665426891noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9092255328391459954.post-21759264980607316492015-04-30T20:54:38.084-04:002015-04-30T20:54:38.084-04:00The realist in me says that in "Hog Belly Hon...The realist in me says that in "Hog Belly Honey," Joe Spade invented Wotto Metal, while in <i>Serpent's Egg</i>, Otto Wotto (or Daniel's Scottish cousin, O'o Wo'o) invented it, and that Lafferty cared much less about consistency than about the sound of his language.<br /><br />The rabid Lafferty fan in me (roughly 99.718%) says that you are very right, "Wotto" is fun to say--"Wo'o" slightly more so.<br />Kevin Cheekhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17615258563790520320noreply@blogger.com