GRGR(9) Pointsman's dream

[stencil at bcn.net]

Date: Mon, 3 Feb 1997 14:57:55 PST
john m (MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu) is writing:

> the isolate self-alienated distance of that second person point of 
>view.  Just occurs to me--is the whiff of Mr. 3rd person Stencil I just got 
>a mirage, or might there be a link here?  Any thoughts on that thread? 
>Does Stencil ever have any dreams?

As memory serves, most of the longer Foreign Service passages in _V._
were episodes of reverie;  sharply-drawn centers, ambiguous
intoductions and exits.  Hardly dreamscapes, but not simple changes of
place.  It's hard to see an objection to the notion of Pointsman  as a
more sophisticated remolding of the old complacent complaisant
compliant client, seeking to use his use by Them in furtherance of his
own concerns, to pass in triumph through Stockholm, say.  
If you sought a cinematographic analogue for every effect in GR would
you not come close to these tense-shifts in _Occurrence at Owl Creek
Bridge_, in the anteclimactic run down the poplar avenue, Farquhar
seen flickering from half a dozen pov's?
Locally, 'stencil' predates _V._ and even Nigel Dennis;  has to do
with a fresh-from-small-stores shirt and a wiseass response to "Get a
stencil on them dungerhauls, kid." Everyone hated having the name on
display and shoepolish, like so many, many things, washes off.
And see the lovely c-words, crescendo, cruise, crescent.  Crush.