Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000 — Chapter IV
The uncanny closet, the measurements, and Tom’s arrival.
Diedrich Knickerbocker is the invented narrator and pen name of Washington Irving (1783–1859). The line “I don’t believe one half of it myself” comes from the postscript to “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820), where an old man doubts the ghost story he just heard.
IV Faith, sir, as to that matter, I don’t believe one half of it myself. — Diedrich Knickerbocker In early June of 1990, the Navidsons flew to Seattle for a wedding.
The Navidsons fly to Seattle for a wedding. When they return four days later, the house has changed.
IV Faith, sir, as to that matter, I don’t believe one half of it myself. — Diedrich Knickerbocker In early June of 1990, the Navidsons flew to Seattle for a wedding.
Not typical; unusual.
Quite the contrary, the horror was atypical.
Not aware of what happens around you.
Their children, Chad and Daisy, just run through it, playing, giggling, completely oblivious to the deeper implications.
About space and the position of things.
What took place amounts to a strange spatial violation which has already been described in a number of ways—namely surprising, unsettling, disturbing but most of all uncanny.
Strange in a way that makes you uneasy; familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
What took place amounts to a strange spatial violation which has already been described in a number of ways—namely surprising, unsettling, disturbing but most of all uncanny.
The key word of the chapter. Heim is German for “home”, so unheimlich means both “uncanny” and “un-homely”. Sigmund Freud wrote a famous essay on the word, “The Uncanny” (1919): the uncanny is something familiar that has become strange. Zampanò adds that the word, used as an adverb, also means “an awful lot of”.
In German the word for ‘uncanny’ is ‘unheimlich’ which Heidegger in his book Sein und Zeit thought worthy of some consideration: Daf die Angst als Grundbefindlichkeit in solcher Weise erschlieBt, dafiir ist weider die alltigliche Daseinsauslegung und Rede der unvoreingenommenste Beleg.
Footnote 33 is Johnny’s first attack of fear. He copies Heidegger, then at work he feels something behind him in an empty corridor. He asks you to try the same feeling as you read.
“Uncanny”; literally “un-homely”.
In German the word for ‘uncanny’ is ‘unheimlich’ which Heidegger in his book Sein und Zeit thought worthy of some consideration: Daf die Angst als Grundbefindlichkeit in solcher Weise erschlieBt, dafiir ist weider die alltigliche Daseinsauslegung und Rede der unvoreingenommenste Beleg.
Heidegger’s term for human existence: “being-there”.
… German the word for ‘uncanny’ is ‘unheimlich’ which Heidegger in his book Sein und Zeit thought worthy of some consideration: Daf die Angst als Grundbefindlichkeit in solcher Weise erschlieBt, dafiir ist weider die alltigliche Daseinsauslegung und Rede der unvoreingenommenste Beleg.
Heidegger (1889–1976) was a German philosopher. Being and Time (1927) is his main work. In this passage he says that in anxiety one feels unheimlich, “uncanny”, which also means “not-being-at-home”. The book quotes it in German first.
Nichts anderes meint die Rede von der »Unheimlichkeit.«32 32Declared Martin Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit (Frankfurt Am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1977), p.
John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson made the standard English translation of Being and Time (Harper & Row, 1962). Johnny copies it out and calls Heidegger a “former Nazi”: Heidegger joined the Nazi Party in 1933, when he became rector of Freiburg University.
250251,33 3and here’s the English, thanks to John Macquarrie and Edward Robinsons’ translation of Heidegger's Being and Time, Harper & Row, 1962, page 233.
Heidegger’s translators: “first of all, in the nearest way”.
Here the peculiar indefiniteness of that which Dasein finds itself alongside in anxiety, comes proximally to expression: the “nothing and nowhere”.
“Not-being-at-home.”
But here “uncanniness” also means “not-being-at home.” [das Nicht-zuhause-sein].
An old man.
Certainly this geezer must of gotten hung up on a pretty wicked rock habit to start spouting such nonsense.
An addiction to crack cocaine.
Certainly this geezer must of gotten hung up on a pretty wicked rock habit to start spouting such nonsense.
Secret, known to few, hard to understand.
It’s probably just a coincidence—I mean that there’s some kind of connection between my state of mind and The Navidson Record or even a few arcane sentences on existence penned by a former Nazi tweaking on who knows what.
To be high on drugs, nervous and jumpy.
It’s probably just a coincidence—I mean that there’s some kind of connection between my state of mind and The Navidson Record or even a few arcane sentences on existence penned by a former Nazi tweaking on who knows what.
Johnny works as an apprentice in a tattoo shop on Sunset Boulevard. He lists real tattoo tools: ink colours such as cochineal (a red dye made from insects), needles in groups (“#12 sharps”, a “fourteen round shader”), isopropyl alcohol and Benz-All disinfectant, an ultrasonic cleaner, and the “J” tattoo machine.
These days, I’m an apprentice at a tattoo shop on Sunset.
A deep red dye made from dried insects.
I just keep staring at all the ink we have, that wild variety of color, everything from rootbeer, midnight blue and cochineal to mauve, light doe, lilac, south sea green, maize, even pelican black, all lined up in these plastic caps, like tiny transparent thimbles—and needles too, my eyes catching on all those carefully preserved points …
A pale purple colour.
I just keep staring at all the ink we have, that wild variety of color, everything from rootbeer, midnight blue and cochineal to mauve, light doe, lilac, south sea green, maize, even pelican black, all lined up in these plastic caps, like tiny transparent thimbles—and needles too, my eyes catching on all those carefully preserved points and we …
To get worse.
I just keep staring at all the ink we have, that wild variety of color, everything from rootbeer, midnight blue and cochineal to mauve, light doe, lilac, south sea green, maize, even pelican black, all lined up in these plastic caps, like tiny transparent thimbles—and needles too, my eyes catching on all those carefully preserved points and we have hundreds, mostly #12 …
A small cap that protects the finger when you sew.
… that wild variety of color, everything from rootbeer, midnight blue and cochineal to mauve, light doe, lilac, south sea green, maize, even pelican black, all lined up in these plastic caps, like tiny transparent thimbles—and needles too, my eyes catching on all those carefully preserved points and we have hundreds, mostly #12 sharps, many singles, though plenty in two, three, four, five, six and seven needle groups, even a …
Solder is a soft metal melted to join metal parts; flux is a chemical that helps it flow.
The air in the Shop is admittedly thick with the steady smell of sweat, isopropyl alcohol, Benz-all, all that solution for the ultrasonic cleaner, even solder and flux, but that’s not it either.
A group of people who follow an important person.
My boss, a retinue of his friends, some new inductee who’s just put down $150 for a rose, keep up the chatter, pretty loud chatter too, though never quite enough to drown out the most important sound of …
A new member; here, a new customer.
My boss, a retinue of his friends, some new inductee who’s just put down $150 for a rose, keep up the chatter, pretty loud chatter too, though never quite enough to drown out the most important sound of all: the single, insistent buzz of …
The sick feeling when you stop taking a drug you depend on.
Instead I’m alone, running through a quick mental check list: food poisoning? (stomach’s fine) withdrawals?
Johnny checks if drugs can explain his attack. “Gak” is slang for cocaine, Ecstasy is the drug MDMA, and THC is the active chemical in cannabis.
Instead I’m alone, running through a quick mental check list: food poisoning? (stomach’s fine) withdrawals? (haven’t been on a gak or Ecstasy diet for several months, and while I didn’t smoke any pot this morning—my usual ritual—I know THC doesn’t create any lasting physical dependencies).
A sudden return of a past experience, for example of a drug trip.
Could still blame that on a blown fuse or some aberrant drug related flashback.
What you see at the sides, outside the centre of your look.
Now imagine just beyond your peripheral vision, maybe behind you, maybe to the side of you, maybe even in front of you, but right where you can’t see it, something is quietly closing in on you, so quiet in fact you …
The large vein in the neck.
Only this time as you start to exhale try to imagine how fast it will happen, how hard it’s gonna hit you, how many times it will stab your jugular with its teeth or are they nails?, don’t worry, that particular detail doesn’t matter, because before you have time to even process that you should be moving, you should be running, you should at …
A neck injury from a sudden jerk of the head.
I looked so fucking fast I should of ended up wearing one of those neck braces for whiplash.
Wet, cold and sticky.
My hands had gone all clammy.
Of the pupil of the eye: to become wider.
… instant caught sight of some tremendous beast crouched off in the shadows, muscles a twitch from firing its great mass forward, ragged claws slowly extending, digging into the linoleum, even as its eyes are dilating, beyond the point of reason, completely obliterating the iris, and by that widening fire, the glowing furnace of witness, a camera lucida, with me in silhouette, like some silly Hand shadow twitching about upside …
An optical device from 1807: a prism lets an artist see the subject and the paper at the same time and trace the image. Johnny uses it for the beast’s eye, a “furnace of witness” in which he sees himself. Camera Lucida (1980) is also Roland Barthes’s famous book on photography.
… ragged claws slowly extending, digging into the linoleum, even as its eyes are dilating, beyond the point of reason, completely obliterating the iris, and by that widening fire, the glowing furnace of witness, a camera lucida, with me in silhouette, like some silly Hand shadow twitching about upside down, is that right?, or am I getting confused?, either way registering at last the sign it must have been waiting for: …
“Light room”: an optical drawing aid with a prism.
… ragged claws slowly extending, digging into the linoleum, even as its eyes are dilating, beyond the point of reason, completely obliterating the iris, and by that widening fire, the glowing furnace of witness, a camera lucida, with me in silhouette, like some silly Hand shadow twitching about upside down, is that right?, or am I getting confused?, either way registering at last the sign it must have been waiting for: …
Shadow figures made with the hands in front of a light, such as a dog or a bird. Johnny imagines himself as one, small and upside down.
… as its eyes are dilating, beyond the point of reason, completely obliterating the iris, and by that widening fire, the glowing furnace of witness, a camera lucida, with me in silhouette, like some silly Hand shadow twitching about upside down, is that right?, or am I getting confused?, either way registering at last the sign it must have been waiting for: my own recognition of exactly what has been awaiting …
A small space set back in a wall.
… only a deserted corridor, or was it merely a recently deserted corridor?, this thing, whatever it had been, obviously beyond the grasp of my imagination or for that matter my emotions, having departed into alcoves of darkness, seeping into corners & floors, cracks & outlets, gone even to the walls.
Not straight; not right.
When I re-enter the Shop things are still askew but they at least seem manageable.
To talk loudly and complain.
I pick up before he can start yammering at me about my attitude.
A companion or follower.
He tells me he can guest list my boss and any cohorts I deem worthy.
A decorative strip of wood along the top or bottom of a wall.
However unlike other closets in the house, this one lacks outlets, sockets, switches, shelves, a rod on which to hang things, or even some decorative molding.
Hard to believe.
This seems ridiculous at first until one considers how the impact of such an implausible piece of reality could force anyone to question their own perceptions.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) was a German-language poet. In this poem Hermes leads Eurydice back from the underworld behind Orpheus. When Orpheus turns around, she does not know him and asks “Who?” (Wer?). Johnny cites the real translation by Stephen Mitchell (Vintage, 1989).
And for that matter, to quote Rilke, Wer?34 Navidson does check the Hi 8s but discovers that the motion sensors were never triggered.
“Who?”
And for that matter, to quote Rilke, Wer?34 Navidson does check the Hi 8s but discovers that the motion sensors were never triggered.
To leave out, so two parts join with no gap.
Virtually a week seamlessly elided, showing us the family as they depart from a house without that strange interior space present only to return a fraction of a second later to find it already in place, almost as if …
A loud, confused noise.
… though something in her movement or perfume is disturbingly familiar, though how familiar is impossible to tell because by the time I realize she’s someone I should know she’s already gone, deep into the din, beyond the bar, taking with her any chance of recognition.
A new, dark closet between the parents’ bedroom and the children’s bedroom, about five feet wide and four feet long. The Hi 8 cameras recorded nothing while the family was away.
That afternoon, two officers arrive, examine the closet and try to hide the fact that this has to be the weirdest call they have ever made.
The family dog (a Siberian husky) and cat. The children’s nightlight is the starship Enterprise from Star Trek, which “burns like some North Star”, a star that sailors used to find their way.
And so while Chad and Daisy sleep, we watch Karen and Will suffer through a restless night. Hillary, their one year old Siberian husky, and Mallory, their tabby cat, lie on either side of the 24” Sony television unperturbed by the new closet or the flicker from the tube or the drone …
Calm, not disturbed.
Hillary, their one year old Siberian husky, and Mallory, their tabby cat, lie on either side of the 24” Sony television unperturbed by the new closet or the flicker from the tube or the drone from the speakers—Letterman, new revelations regarding the Iran-Contra affair, reruns, the traffic of information assuring everyone that the rest of the …
A low, steady, dull sound.
Hillary, their one year old Siberian husky, and Mallory, their tabby cat, lie on either side of the 24” Sony television unperturbed by the new closet or the flicker from the tube or the drone from the speakers—Letterman, new revelations regarding the Iran-Contra affair, reruns, the traffic of information assuring everyone that the rest of the world is still out there, continuing on as usual, even if two new …
David Letterman hosted a late-night talk show. The Iran–Contra affair was a US political scandal of the late 1980s: officials secretly sold arms to Iran and gave the money to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The TV sounds tell the family that the outside world goes on as usual.
… year old Siberian husky, and Mallory, their tabby cat, lie on either side of the 24” Sony television unperturbed by the new closet or the flicker from the tube or the drone from the speakers—Letterman, new revelations regarding the Iran-Contra affair, reruns, the traffic of information assuring everyone that the rest of the world is still out there, continuing on as usual, even if two new doors now stand …
The only plans of the house are from 1981, drawn when former owners asked the town for permission to build an ell, a wing at a right angle to the main building. The plans show a narrow crawl space between the two bedrooms.
The following day both Karen and Will pursue the most rational course: they acquire the architectural blueprints from their local real estate office.
A town committee that decides what may be built where.
As might have been expected, these blueprints are not actual building plans but were drawn up in 1981 when former owners sought permission from the town’s zoning board to construct an ell.
A wing added to a building at a right angle.
As might have been expected, these blueprints are not actual building plans but were drawn up in 1981 when former owners sought permission from the town’s zoning board to construct an ell.
A low empty space in a building, high enough only to crawl in.
Though the designs, as they appear on screen, do not show a room or closet, they do confirm the existence of a strange crawl space, roughly four feet wide, running between both bedrooms.?5 Alicia Rosenbaum, the real estate agent responsible for selling the Navidsons the house, gives the camera a bewildered shrug when Karen asks if she has any …
The local police officer who comes to see the new closet. He files a report and does not know what else to do.
As Sheriff Axnard says, “We'll file a report but other than that, well I don’t know what more we can do.
Real American brands of measuring tape. Zampanò names the exact tools to show how careful Navidson is. The result: the inside of the house is 1/4 inch wider than the outside.
Navidson repeatedly tacks back and forth from his 25’ Stanley Power Lock to the cold blue pages spread out on his bed, until he finally mutters aloud: “This better be a case gf bad math.”
Not fitting with what is around it.
An incongruous cut presents us with the title card: 4/4 Outside the house, Navidson climbs up a ladder to the second story.
A card with text shown on screen between film scenes.
An incongruous cut presents us with the title card: 4/4 Outside the house, Navidson climbs up a ladder to the second story.
One step of a ladder.
Wincing slightly at what we can assume is at least moderate pain, he reaches the top rung where using a 100’ Empire 35In Appendix II-A, Mr.
The Editors say that Johnny drew this floor plan on the back of an envelope, and that the sketch is in the appendix.
Wincing slightly at what we can assume is at least moderate pain, he reaches the top rung where using a 100’ Empire 35In Appendix II-A, Mr.
Pulled tight.
He double checks his work, makes sure the line is straight, level and taut and then marks it.
M. C. Escher (1898–1972) was a Dutch artist famous for impossible buildings, such as endless staircases. Zampanò says that an impossible space is easy to accept in a print, but not in your own house.
After all, it is not so large a problem when one can puzzle over an Escher print and then close the book.
In Genesis, Eve eats the fruit of the tree of knowledge (in tradition, an apple). Karen is “a reluctant Eve”: she refuses this knowledge about the house.
A reluctant Eve who prefers tangerines to apples.
Not discouraged.
“Stop drilling holes in my walls.” Undeterred, Navidson continues his quest, even though repeated attempts at measuring the house continue to reveal the quarter-inch anomaly.
Something that is different from what is normal or expected.
Undeterred, Navidson continues his quest, even though repeated attempts at measuring the house continue to reveal the quarter-inch anomaly.
A metal pointer on a roof that turns to show the wind direction.
Karen gets quieter and quieter, Navidson’s mood darkens, and responding like finely tuned weathervanes the children react to the change in parental weather by hiding in other parts of the house.
Harmful in a slow, hidden way.
Just as insidious poisons in the water table can take years before their effects are felt, the consequences of the impossible are likewise not so instantly apparent.
A normal morning: the newspaper and National Public Radio. The coffee rises above the rim of the cup and holds for a moment because of surface tension, a force on the surface of a liquid. Then it spills in a “Nile”, the great river of Egypt.
Morning means orange juice, The New York Times, NPR, a squabble over the children’s right to eat sugared cereal.
A small, noisy argument.
Morning means orange juice, The New York Times, NPR, a squabble over the children’s right to eat sugared cereal.
Small advertisements in a newspaper.
We watch Karen scan the classifieds as Navidson toys with his coffee.
The force at the surface of a liquid that makes it act like a thin skin.
It holds—a bulge of coffee arcing tragically over china, preserved by the physics of surface tension, rhyme to some unspeakable magic, though as everyone knows, coffee miracles never last long.
To go slowly, following a winding path.
caffeine wending past glass and politics until there is nothing more than a brown blot on the morning paper.*6 When Navidson looks up Karen is watching him.
Twins from two separate eggs, not identical.
Tom is Will Navidson’s fraternal twin brother.
Friendly and easy to talk to.
He is an affable, overweight giant of a man who has an innate ability to amuse.
Present from birth; natural.
He is an affable, overweight giant of a man who has an innate ability to amuse.
Here: a sofa bed (a hide-a-bed).
“That means you’re family” Karen says happily, leading the way to Navidson’s study where she has already set out clean towels and made up the hideaway.
Johnny says that he could cut Zampanò’s long passage about the coffee, but he will not. He lists the old man’s lost things: betel nuts, a shotgun marked RLB, a white rose bud. Betel nut is a seed chewed as a mild stimulant in Asia.
What’s gained in economy doesn’t really seem to make up for what you lose of Zampand, the old man himself, coming a little more into focus, especially where digressions like these are concerned.
To take something for yourself without permission.
… days I’m struck by the fact that everything Zampano had is really gone, including the bowl of betel nuts left on his mantle or the battered shotgun bearing the initials RLB under his bed—Flaze appropriated that goody; the shotgun, not the bed—or even the curiously preserved bud of a white rose hidden in the drawer of his nightstand.
Annoying.
The way I figure it, if there’s something you find irksome—go ahead and skip it.
Tilted, at an angle.
His wandering passages are staying, along with all his oddly canted phrases and even some warped bits in the plot.
Will’s fraternal (non-identical) twin brother. He builds houses in Lowell, Massachusetts. The two brothers have hardly spoken in eight years.
An old mill city in Massachusetts, where Tom lives and works.
Count on Will Navidson to call Lowell, Massachusetts.
A Cowley level is a surveyor’s level, a small telescope on a tripod that sets a level line of sight. A “keystone chase” recalls the Keystone Cops, the silly chases in silent comedies of the 1910s.
Instead of addressing any interpersonal issues, we find them both huddled over a Cowley level mirror transit, alternately taking turns peering across the house, the line of sight floating a few feet above the floor, occasionally interrupted when Hillary or Mallory in some keystone chase race around the children’s …
A surveyor’s instrument for measuring angles and levels.
Instead of addressing any interpersonal issues, we find them both huddled over a Cowley level mirror transit, alternately taking turns peering across the house, the line of sight floating a few feet above the floor, occasionally interrupted when Hillary or Mallory in some keystone chase race around the children’s beds.
“A friend of Bill W.” is a code phrase for a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, from its co-founder Bill Wilson. Tom says he has not drunk alcohol for over two years.
“Hey, at least I’m an acquaintance of Bill’s now” Tom finally says, exhaling a thin stream of smoke.
Understood only by a small group of experts.
Navidson works out every day, devours volumes of esoteric criticism, and constantly attaches the world around him to one thing: photography.
That no one can deny.
One incontrovertible fact stands in their way: the exterior measurement must equal the internal measurement.
Making something less serious; here, a factor that could explain the error.
The problem must lie with their measuring techniques or with some unseen mitigating factor: air temperature, mis-calibrated instruments, warped floors, something, anything.
Maclean’s is a real Canadian magazine; Conte and his article are invented. Martin Gardner (1914–2010) really wrote the “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981, and he wrote about vanishing-area puzzles, in which a figure seems to lose a square when you rearrange its pieces.
Also see Martin Gardner’s “The Vanishing Area Paradox” which appeared in his “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific America, May 1961.
The University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where Navidson’s friend Billy Reston teaches engineering.
Early the following morming, both brothers head off for Charlottesville.
An invented essay on Karen and her friend Audrie building a bookshelf. Skourja says children love riddles with answers, while adults face riddles without answers. The press is named for the Sphinx, the monster of Greek myth who killed travellers who could not answer her riddle.
Thus as Will and Tom set out to find an answer, two old friends put an enigma on hold, stir up some vodka tonics, and enjoy the rhythm of working with brackets and pine. Edith Skourja has written an impressive forty page essay entitled Riddles Without on this one episode.
A fierce attack; a great flood of something.
And so riddles comfort the child’s mind which spins wildly before the onslaught of so much information and so many subsequent questions.
A statement or situation that seems impossible because it contradicts itself.
They do not have answers and are often called enigmas or paradoxes.
The history and origin of a word.
The Old English r@delse_ means “opinion, conjure” which is related to the Old English r@don “to interpret” in turn belonging to the same etymological history of “read.”
Skourja links “riddle” to Old English rædan, “to interpret”, which also gave “read”. That part is correct. Her chain from Latin reri and Greek arariskein to “reason” and Latin arma (weapons) is partly real and partly stretched, so reason and weapons become siblings.
The Old English r@delse_ means “opinion, conjure” which is related to the Old English r@don “to interpret” in turn belonging to the same etymological history of “read.”
To use something, often as a last choice.
As we all know, both reason and weapons will eventually be resorted to.
To include something inside a larger thing.
And though irony eventually subsumes this moment, for now at least it remains uncommented upon and thus wholly innocent.
A real journal, an invented article. Adeltine calls Karen’s bookshelf “denial”. “Riddle me this” is the catchphrase of the Riddler in Batman.
Lessons from a library.** Skourja’s analysis, especially concerning the inherent innocence of Karen’s project, sheds some light on the value of patience. Walter Joseph Adeltine argues that Skourja forms a dishonest partnership with the shelf building segment: “Riddle me this—Riddle me that—Is all elegant crap.
To act in a clumsy, confused way.
What Adeltine himself denies is the need to face some problems with patience, to wait instead of bumble, or as Tolstoy wrote: “Dans le doute, mon cher .
Leo Tolstoy’s novel (1869) has many passages in French, the language of the Russian upper class. “Dans le doute, mon cher … abstiens-toi” means “When in doubt, my dear, do nothing.” Johnny says a woman named Amber translated it.
What Adeltine himself denies is the need to face some problems with patience, to wait instead of bumble, or as Tolstoy wrote: “Dans le doute, mon cher .
“When in doubt, my dear, do nothing.”
What Adeltine himself denies is the need to face some problems with patience, to wait instead of bumble, or as Tolstoy wrote: “Dans le doute, mon cher .
Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) wrote this great history in six volumes. Zampanò compares his walks before writing to Karen’s work on the shelf.
Karen’s shelf building serves the same purpose as Gibbon’'s retreats outside.
Virgil: “Then all of Troy seemed to me to sink into flames.”
Of course not knowing hardly prevents the approaching chaos. Tum vero omne mihi visum considere in ignis Ilium: Delenda est Carthago.™!
“Carthage must be destroyed.” Cato the Elder, a Roman senator, ended his speeches with this demand. Rome destroyed Carthage in 146 BC.
Tum vero omne mihi visum considere in ignis Ilium: Delenda est Carthago.™!
Footnote 41 starts with Latin and ends far away: Johnny meets Amber, one of Zampanò’s readers, and the night leads him to a memory of his father.
“Carthage must be destroyed.”
Tum vero omne mihi visum considere in ignis Ilium: Delenda est Carthago.™!
A young woman who read Tolstoy to Zampanò. She tells Johnny that he bragged that he never went to high school and that he said “you’re all my children”.
A girl named Amber Rightacre suggested it might have something to do with the destruction of Carthage.’* She’s the one who translated and sourced the previous Tolstoy phrase.
“Then in fact all of Troy seemed to me to sink into flames.” Aeneas tells how he watched Troy burn on the night the Greeks took the city.
“In an effort to keep the translations as literal as possible, both Latin phrases read as follows: “Then in fact all of Troy seemed to me to sink into flames” (Aeneid II, 624) and “Carthage must be destroyed.”
Left over.
Maybe I just got a little creative with a residual hangover or a stupid head rush?
A second meaning of “riddle”: a coarse sieve, and “to riddle” is to pass gravel or grain through it. Johnny uses the word for his work on Zampanò’s papers.
Whatever the truth is, I’ve been spending more and more time riddling through Zampand'’s bits—riddling also means sifting; as in passing corn, gravel or cinders through a coarse sieve; a certain coed taught me that.
A tool with a net or holes to separate small parts from large ones.
Whatever the truth is, I’ve been spending more and more time riddling through Zampand'’s bits—riddling also means sifting; as in passing corn, gravel or cinders through a coarse sieve; a certain coed taught me that.
Old slang for a female college student.
Whatever the truth is, I’ve been spending more and more time riddling through Zampand'’s bits—riddling also means sifting; as in passing corn, gravel or cinders through a coarse sieve; a certain coed taught me that.
A short, wise saying.
Not only have I found journals packed with bibliographies and snaking etymologies and strange little, I don’t know what you'd call them, aphorisms???
A sudden moment of deep understanding.
Not only have I found journals packed with bibliographies and snaking etymologies and strange little, I don’t know what you'd call them, aphorisms??? epiphanies???, I also came across this notepad crammed with names and telephone numbers.
To walk slowly and easily.
After a few more drinks, we ambled over to the Viper.
The Viper Room is a well-known club on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. Sunset Plaza is a shopping street nearby.
After a few more drinks, we ambled over to the Viper.
That you cannot perceive or see.
When I eventually got around to asking Amber to describe Zampano, she just called him “imperceivable and alone, though not I think so lonely.”
A sign of the zodiac. Amber answers “Do you believe in ghosts?” with her star sign.
“I'm a Virgo, what about you?”
A dark brown colour (a pigment made from soot).
… approved of my play in the way he himself had always laughed and played, always laughing, surrendering to its ease, especially when he soared in great updrafts of light, burning off distant plateaus of bistre & sage, throwing him up like an angel, high above the red earth, deep into the sparkling blank, the tender sky that never once let him down, preserving his attachment to youth, propriety and …
Correct, decent behaviour.
… of bistre & sage, throwing him up like an angel, high above the red earth, deep into the sparkling blank, the tender sky that never once let him down, preserving his attachment to youth, propriety and kindness, his plane almost, but never quite, outracing his whoops of joy, trailing him in his sudden turn to the wind, followed then by a near vertical climb up to the angles of …
A deep sharing of feeling.
… near vertical climb up to the angles of the sun, and I was barely eight and still with him and yes, that was the thought that flickered madly through me, a brief instant of communion, possessing me with warmth and ageless ease, causing me to smile again and relax as if memory alone could lift the heart like the wind lifts a wing, and so I renewed my kisses …
Johnny remembers his father flying a small plane when Johnny was eight. Then a second memory comes: the truck accident, the newspaper photo, and a ten-year-old boy who traced it with his fingers.
… alone see, even if it is only in half-tone, the ink, all of it, over and over again, finally gathered on his delicate finger tips, as if by tracing the picture printed in the newspaper, he could in some way retract the details of death, smooth away the cab where the man he saw and loved like a god, agonized and died with no word of his own, illegible …
To carry and develop inside, as a baby grows in the womb.
She remains watchful and willing to let the bizarre dimensions of her house gestate within her.
The most typical example of something.
In this respect, Karen acts as the quintessential gatherer.
To search for food.
She keeps close to the homestead and while she may not forage for berries and mushrooms she does accumulate tiny bits of sense.
Reston is an engineer and Navidson’s old friend. They met when Navidson photographed him running from a falling high-voltage wire near Hyderabad, India. Reston lost the use of his legs and uses a wheelchair.
They select weapons (tools; reason) and they track their prey (a solution). Billy Reston is the one they hope will help them achieve their goal.
Rough and unfriendly in voice or manner.
He is a gruff man, frequently caustic and more like a drill sergeant than a tenured professor.
Sharp and bitter in speech.
He is a gruff man, frequently caustic and more like a drill sergeant than a tenured professor.
Of a professor: with a permanent position.
He is a gruff man, frequently caustic and more like a drill sergeant than a tenured professor.
A person who cannot move the legs and lower body.
He is also a paraplegic who has spent almost half his life in an aluminum wheelchair.
Loud noise.
The piece was supposed to capture the clamor of industry outside of Hyderabad.
In Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book (1894), the mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi kills the two cobras Nag and Nagaina. Reston calls Navidson “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi with a Nikon”.
The wood had instantly splintered, tearing in half one of the power cables which descended toward the helpless Billy Reston, spitting sparks, and lashing the air like Nag or Nagaina.43 threw up in the sink and Amber chuckled a little and kissed me a little more, but in a way that told me it was time to leave.
Of a truck and trailer: folded into a V shape in a crash.
… what my high briefly withheld; the covering memory permanently hitched to everything preceding it and so prohibiting all of it, those memories, the good ones, no matter how different, how blissful, eclipsed by the jack-knifed trailer across the highway, the tractor truck lodged in the stony ditch off the shoulder, oily smoke billowing up into the night, and hardly deterred by the pin prick drizzle, the fire itself crawling …
A newspaper picture printed as many small dots.
… windshield struck from within, each jagged line telling the story of a broken heart which no ten year old boy should ever have to recollect let alone see, even if it is only in half-tone, the ink, all of it, over and over again, finally gathered on his delicate finger tips, as if by tracing the picture printed in the newspaper, he could in some way retract the details …
Shaped or moving like a snake.
That serpentine shape surrounds him, moving much too fast for any last ditch effort at escape.
A final attempt, made when everything else failed.
That serpentine shape surrounds him, moving much too fast for any last ditch effort at escape.
French: “The bets are placed”, the croupier’s call in roulette, followed by English slang. The rest of footnote 44 is covered with x’s; Johnny says a dark spill of ink hid five lines. April 1954 falls in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the battle whose strongpoint names appeared in the Introduction.
As Fred de Stabenrath remarked in April 1954, “Les jeux sont fait.
“The bets are placed” (roulette).
As Fred de Stabenrath remarked in April 1954, “Les jeux sont fait.
Nikon is a Japanese camera maker. Leica is a German maker of cameras and optical instruments, including laser distance meters. Reston lends these tools to prove the tape measures were wrong.
Rikki-Tikki-Tavi with a Nikon.”
Not working correctly.
I’d have to check out Tom's stuff myself but I’m willing to bet university money there’s something a little outta whack with it.
A false reason given to hide the real one.
“I almost wonder if I got tangled up in all this measuring stuff just so I'd have some pretext to call you.”
Tom’s dirty joke ends with “Don’t look down.” The two brothers laugh together for the first time in years.
This time, Tom breaks the silence: “Did you hear the one about the guy on the tightrope?”
A deep narrow valley with steep sides.
There was this twenty-five year old guy walking a tightrope across a deep river gorge while half way around the world another twenty-five year old guy was getting a blow job from a seventy year old woman, but get this, at the exact same moment both men were thinking …
To damage badly.
And thus as one storm begins to ravage the Virginias, another one just as easily dissipates and vanishes in a flood of bad jokes and old stories.
To disappear slowly.
And thus as one storm begins to ravage the Virginias, another one just as easily dissipates and vanishes in a flood of bad jokes and old stories.
A difference, a lack of equality.
When confronting the spatial disparity in the house, Karen set her mind on familiar things while Navidson went in search of a solution.
That cannot be made to agree.
Paradox, after all, is two irreconcilable truths.
A result, often a complicated one.
But children do not know the laws of the world well enough yet to fear the ramifications of the irreconcilable.
Very basic, from the earliest stage of life.
There are certainly no primal associations with spatial anomalies.
Innocent, open and trusting.
Similar to the ingenuous opening sequence of The Navidson Record, seeing these two giddy children romp around is an equally unsettling experience, perhaps because their state of naiveté is so appealing to us, even seductive, offering such a …
Lack of experience; a simple, trusting nature.
Similar to the ingenuous opening sequence of The Navidson Record, seeing these two giddy children romp around is an equally unsettling experience, perhaps because their state of naiveté is so appealing to us, even seductive, offering such a simple resolution to an enigma.
Confusing, puzzling.
When they then turn their attention to the Leica meter it is nearly impossible not to at last expect some kind of resolution to this confounding problem.
A Class 2 laser is a low-power visible laser, safe because the eye blinks. Film cameras run at 24 frames per second, the standard speed of sound film.
In fact Tom’s crossed fingers as the Class 2 laser finally fires a tiny red dot across the width of the house manages to succinctly represent our own sympathies.
Clearly and in few words.
In fact Tom’s crossed fingers as the Class 2 laser finally fires a tiny red dot across the width of the house manages to succinctly represent our own sympathies.
To adjust a measuring instrument so it is accurate.
As the results are not immediate, we wait along with the whole family as the internal computer calibrates the dimension.
A difference between two things that should be the same.
It appears the discrepancy has finally been eliminated.