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Gnomic Utterances. These are traditional, and are set at the head of each section of the Guidebook. The reason for them is lost in the mists of History. They are culled by the Management from a mighty collection of wise sayings probably compiled by a SAGE—probably called Ka’a Orto’o—some centuries before the Tour begins. The Rule is that no Utterance has anything whatsoever to do with the section it precedes. Nor, of course, has it anything to do with Gnomes.
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Date: 2009-03-02 10:20 pm (UTC)Even the story of the Harlan Ellison/Connie Willis situation, which required the Internet to spread, was still only available firsthand to people who were there. But the Internet allows authors and BNFs, just like the rest of us, to show their asses to everyone. Not just authors who have newspaper columns, but anybody with an Internet connection.
I wonder if what's actually changing is a way of looking at the relationship between the author and the fan? In the days before the Internet, most of the fans an author encountered would specifically be from that subgroup who have the money, time, and inclination to go to cons -- possibly a subgroup more inclined to the smiling and agreeing (and practically, a subgroup constrained in terms of race and class to something which is not at all IDIC). Now the Internet is making it easy for authors to interact with self-described fans from all kinds of demographics, fans they never would have met back in the old days, and we are all falling all over the place trying to work out the new rules.