From: morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov (The Elmo of the Lamp)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.info
Subject: SANDMAN: Annotation 39
Summary: dull marco tale
Keywords: sandman annotation
Date: 14 Dec 92 06:36:47 GMT
Reply-To: morrow@physics.rice.edu
Followup-To: rec.arts.comics.misc
Organization: Scheherezade Stories Inc


	Since I'll be gone over the holidays, it's best if folks send me
corrections and additions directly via e-mail, so I won't miss posted 
comments.

                         The Annotated Sandman
    
               Edited and largely written by Greg Morrow
      
                        Issue 39:  "Soft Places"
                      Neil Gaiman and John Watkiss

                Second story in anthology _Convergences_
                  Not yet reprinted in any other form

Disclaimer:  Sandman and all related characters are copyrights and trademarks
of DC Comics Inc.  Sandman and this annotation are intended for mature
audiences only.

Notice:  Commentaries and additional information should go to
morrow@physics.rice.edu (Internet) or morrow@fnal.BITNET.  This material is
posted by the editor directly to rec.arts.comics and COMICS-L, and is licensed
to appear on Compu$erve and GEnie.  It is also available via anonymous ftp
from theory.lcs.mit.edu in pub/wald/sandman.  Please contact the editor if you 
see this material on any other forum.  Reproduction in any form without 
permission of the editor (as agent for the contributors) is forbidden.

Themes:  _Convergences_ is about storytelling, as is _Sandman_ overall.  In
particular, _Convergences_ tells tales where the storyteller becomes the 
story, and where reality intersects with story and with fantasy.  And, it
may be noted, dreams are where reality and fiction converge.
	A common thread among the stories is the intersection (or 
convergence) of characters with their own divergent lives.  Another is the 
passage from the familiar to the unfamiliar, as happens to the central 
character in each story.  Also, in each tale, the central character is not
a native to the Dreaming but visits a portion of it in the process of the
tale.  One may also note the role of time in each tale, encompassing some
aspect of the past, the present, and the future.
	In "Soft Places", Marco Polo travels into a soft place unfamiliar
to him, as he also travels from familiar Europe to unfamiliar Orient. 
Additionally, we note the convergence between story and storyteller as
Marco meets his biographer.  The present, such as it is in a soft place, is
the meeting between two past men and a future man.
	This issue, otherwise, is fairly soft in the thematic area.

Page 1 panel 1:  Anno Domini:  Year of Our Lord, Latin, usually represented 
as the more familiar A.D.
	Marco is Marco Polo (c.1254-1324, making him about 17), a Venetian
traveler, the first European to open up the trade routes to China.

Page 4 panel 4:  This is a folkloric visualization of the Sandman; can
anyone fling me some good refs?

Page 5 panel 3-6:  Some good quotes here, folks.  The "Paree" one is
familiar to me, but I've never known the name or origin.  The "railroad"
quote is, I think, a Depression-era song; the missing word at the end of
the quote is "dime".

Page 7 panel 1:  No refs on the Desert of Lop.

Page 7-8:  No refs on the quote, but presumably from an account of the
travels of Marco Polo.

Page 8 panel 3:  No refs on Rustichello of Pisa, but presumably the primary
biographer of Marco Polo.

Page 9 panel 6:  No refs on Shangtu.  Presumably a city in China, possibly
an obsolete name.

Page 10 panel 3:  This is Gilbert, aka Fiddler's Green, last seen in _The
Doll's House_.
	Panel 4:  Soft places:  Explained later.
	Panel 5:  Niccolo, Maffeo Polo:  No refs; presumably Marco's real
relations.
	Panel 6:  Beaujolais:  A fruity Burgundy wine, named after the
region in France where it is produced.  Tokay:  See Annotation 38; a sweet
wine from Tokay in Hungary.  Note the convergence of storytellers.

Page 11 panel 2:  Jelly babies:  A soft chewy candy native to the British
Isles.  The fourth incarnation of the Doctor on the British series _Doctor
Who_ always carried a bagful of jelly babies as a well-known trademark.
Gilbert, though patterned after G.K. Chesterton, has some points of
appearance and manner in common with the Doctor.
	Panel 5:  Gilbert is a place, not a person, though he occasionally
takes human form.
	Panel 6:  In the last issue we saw Dream sympathetic to romance; 
here we learn that he is engaged in a new one, though the reciprocant of 
his affection is as yet unnamed.

Page 12 panel 1:  Constantinople:  Named after the Emperor Constantine, the
former name of the Turkish city Istanbul.
	Panel 2:  Kublai Khan:  Grandson of Genghis Khan and expander of
his empire, and founder of the Mongol dynasty of China.
	Panel 5:  Gautama Buddha:  Indian religious leader and founder of
Buddhism.

Page 13 panel 2:  No refs on Saint Joseph of Copertino.  The Franciscan
order is an order of monks affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.
IQ of sixty:  Average IQ is by definition 100; sixty is in the
barely-educable range.  Self-mutilation:  Here, the practice of whipping
or otherwise physically tormenting oneself to drive away sinful thoughts.
	Panel 3:  Dominican:  Another order of Catholic priests.

Page 14 panel 4:  Consider "True World" in the context of last issue as
well as in the context of the confluence of reality and fantasy.

Page 16 panel 6:  No refs on ibn Battuta or Hwen Ts'ang.

Page 17 panel 4:  Still no refs on Taklamakan.  Turkik:  Probably Turkic, a
family of languages of Central-SE Asia.
	Panel 7:  For more on Fiddler's Green, see references in _The
Doll's House_ Annotations.

Page 20 panel 3:  This is the Dream of _Sandman_ #1-2, if we needed more
proof of the loops and whorls of time in a soft place.  We may note that
Gregory the Gargoyle found Dream in the "Shifting Zones" in _Sandman_ #2;
Dream's speech in panel 3-4 indicates that the Shifting Zones are the same
as the soft places.
	Panel 5:  Recall that Dream's appearance is most often dictated by
the expectations of the observer.

Release history:             
Version 1.0 released 13 Dec 92

Contributors include:
	Greg Lord Drizzan McElhatton (stu_glmcelha@vax1.acs.jmu.edu) caught
the reference to the Shifting Zones and explained jelly babies.
	The Theme Team consulted on the literary deconstruction of
_Convergences_, and consisted of:
		David Pautler (pautler@ils.nwu.edu)
		Lance Smith (lsmith@cs.umn.edu)
		Enrique Conty (jester@ihlpm.att.com)
		Chuck Jordan (jordan@castor.cs.uga.edu)
		Andrew Moran (andrew@cs.chalmers.se)
		Deborah Ginsberg (debg@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu)
		Robert A. Carlin (carlinra@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu)
		Soren Petersen (speterse@peruvian.utah.edu)
--
"I just don't believe in the basic concept that someone should make their      
whole career in public service."--Former Vice President (former senator, former
congressman, etc.) Dan Quayle                                                  
  
elmo (morrow@physics.rice.edu,morrow@fnal.fnal.gov)



--
-Brian V. Hughes
	     "If you could care less, then why don't you?"
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