The Annotated STATIONS OF THE TIDE (Part 2)
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theOuter Circle: The far regions of the Prosperan System. Allthe most dangerous research is conducted as far from population centers aspossible.
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Continent:There being onlyone continent, it needs no other name.
sparrowfish:The Great Wintermorph of what is, in the Great Summer, a rainbird.
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Witch Cults of Whitemarsh: The chapterheading was inspired by Margaret Murray’s The Witch-Cult in Western Europe andwas meant to suggest that the witch cults of the Tidewater are matriarchal instructure.
[themagic trick explained]: Thisis a change on the original Vanishing Bird Cage trick, which relied on theaudience not knowing that the dove inside the cage had been squashed when itcollapsed.
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LaserfieldAcademy: Like manyprivate academies, Laserfield is named after its location. Since the originaltechnology of the field, whether for communications or planetary defense, islong obsolete, it can be assumed that this is a very old name, from the earlydays of Miranda’s colonization.
elfinbone:Ivory, derivedfrom the German word “Elfinbein.” I had thought it an archaic word but recentlyI have seen it claimed that Jorge Luis Borges credited James Joyce with itscreation for Finnegans Wake. Either way, it is a charming word.
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CaptainBergier: This“scrawny-bearded poet,” edging into senility, is an avatar of Ezra Pound. This wasinspired the following lines from Bob Dylan’s “Destination Row:”
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain’s tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
LikePound, Captain Bergier has been driven to the edge of madness by his economic theoretics.
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Lightfoot:A small town inthe Virginia Tidewater, not far from Williamsburg.
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fleur-de-vie:“Flower of life,”the vagina.
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