Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000 — Chapter VIII
The waiting at base camp, the knocking in the walls, and the “SOS” sequence; Johnny remembers Alaska.
To call someone to come.
Vill SOS ...A wireless code-signal summoning assistance in extreme distress, used esp.
By chance or free choice, not for a reason.
The letters are arbitrarily chosen as being easy to transmit and distinguish.
The epigraph is the dictionary definition of SOS, the Morse distress signal (· · · — — — · · ·). It cites a real book, G. G. Blake's History of Radio Telegraphy and Telephony (1926).
The letters mean nothing; they were chosen because they are easy to send and to recognize. The chapter shares its name with a film sequence called “SOS”.
Radio Telegr., 1926, 111-12). — The Oxford English Dictionary Billy Reston glides into frame, paying no attention to the equipment which Navidson over the last few weeks has been setting up in the living room, including though not limited to, three monitors, two …
A machine that plays and records tape.
… Reston glides into frame, paying no attention to the equipment which Navidson over the last few weeks has been setting up in the living room, including though not limited to, three monitors, two 3/4” decks, a VHS machine, a Quadra Mac, two Zip drives, an Epson colour printer, an old PC, at least six radio transmitters and receivers, heavy spools of electrical cord, video cable, one 16mm Arriflex, one …
3/4" decks are U-matic videotape machines, used in 1970s–90s TV work. The Macintosh Quadra was an Apple computer of the early 1990s. A Zip drive stored about 100 MB on a removable disk. The long list shows how the living room became a technical base.
… no attention to the equipment which Navidson over the last few weeks has been setting up in the living room, including though not limited to, three monitors, two 3/4” decks, a VHS machine, a Quadra Mac, two Zip drives, an Epson colour printer, an old PC, at least six radio transmitters and receivers, heavy spools of electrical cord, video cable, one 16mm Arriflex, one 16mm Bolex, a Minolta Super 8, …
Arriflex (by the German company Arri) and Bolex (Swiss) are professional 16mm film cameras. Super 8 is a small home-movie film format from 1965.
… 3/4” decks, a VHS machine, a Quadra Mac, two Zip drives, an Epson colour printer, an old PC, at least six radio transmitters and receivers, heavy spools of electrical cord, video cable, one 16mm Arriflex, one 16mm Bolex, a Minolta Super 8, as well as additional flashlights, flares, rope, fishing line (anything from braided Dacron to 40 lb multi-strand steel), boxes of extra batteries, assorted tools, compasses twitching to …
Dacron is a trade name for polyester fibre. Braided Dacron line is strong and does not stretch much.
… least six radio transmitters and receivers, heavy spools of electrical cord, video cable, one 16mm Arriflex, one 16mm Bolex, a Minolta Super 8, as well as additional flashlights, flares, rope, fishing line (anything from braided Dacron to 40 lb multi-strand steel), boxes of extra batteries, assorted tools, compasses twitching to the odd polarities in the house, and a broken megaphone, not to mention surrounding shelves already loaded with sample jars, …
The direction of a magnetic field (north or south).
… Bolex, a Minolta Super 8, as well as additional flashlights, flares, rope, fishing line (anything from braided Dacron to 40 lb multi-strand steel), boxes of extra batteries, assorted tools, compasses twitching to the odd polarities in the house, and a broken megaphone, not to mention surrounding shelves already loaded with sample jars, graphs, books, and even an old microscope.
A cone-shaped tube that makes the voice louder.
… as additional flashlights, flares, rope, fishing line (anything from braided Dacron to 40 lb multi-strand steel), boxes of extra batteries, assorted tools, compasses twitching to the odd polarities in the house, and a broken megaphone, not to mention surrounding shelves already loaded with sample jars, graphs, books, and even an old microscope.
A steady hiss that holds all sound frequencies, like radio static.
“We hear you fine, Billy” Holloway replies in a wash of white noise.
Of a film image: with visible small dots, not smooth.
In grainy 7298 (probably pushed one T-stop), Navidson captures this crippled man expertly maneuvering his wheelchair from radio to tape recorder to computer, his attention never wavering from the team’s progress.
7298 is the code of a Kodak 16mm high-speed colour negative film. To “push” film is to develop it longer so it records more in low light; the image gets more grain. A T-stop is a lens aperture step measured by the light that really passes through.
In grainy 7298 (probably pushed one T-stop), Navidson captures this crippled man expertly maneuvering his wheelchair from radio to tape recorder to computer, his attention never wavering from the team’s progress.
To develop film for longer, to make up for too little light.
In grainy 7298 (probably pushed one T-stop), Navidson captures this crippled man expertly maneuvering his wheelchair from radio to tape recorder to computer, his attention never wavering from the team’s progress.
A step of lens aperture measured by the light that really reaches the film.
In grainy 7298 (probably pushed one T-stop), Navidson captures this crippled man expertly maneuvering his wheelchair from radio to tape recorder to computer, his attention never wavering from the team’s progress.
To become weak or unsteady; to lose focus.
In grainy 7298 (probably pushed one T-stop), Navidson captures this crippled man expertly maneuvering his wheelchair from radio to tape recorder to computer, his attention never wavering from the team’s progress.
A thing that contrasts with another and so shows it more clearly.
By concentrating on Reston at the beginning of Exploration #4, Navidson provides a perfect counterpoint to the murky world Holloway navigates.
Dark and unclear.
By concentrating on Reston at the beginning of Exploration #4, Navidson provides a perfect counterpoint to the murky world Holloway navigates.
Johnny notes that Zampanò seems unsure if Exploration #4 is an expedition (base camp) or a war (command post).
Other directors might have intercut shots of the ‘Base Camp’ or ‘Command Post’!!° with Holloway’s tapes but Navidson refuses to view Exploration #4 in any other way except from Reston’s vantage point.
A place or position from which you see something.
Other directors might have intercut shots of the ‘Base Camp’ or ‘Command Post’!!° with Holloway’s tapes but Navidson refuses to view Exploration #4 in any other way except from Reston’s vantage point.
An invented film study, from an invented publisher (Tame An Essay Publications). Clary says Navidson makes the audience feel the waiting before it sees the dark.
As Frizell Clary writes, “Before personally permitting us the sight of such species of Cimmerian dark, Navidson wants us to experience, like he already has, a sequence dedicated solely to the much more revealing details of waiting.”!!!
In Homer's Odyssey the Cimmerians live at the edge of the world in a land the sun never lights. “Cimmerian” means very dark.
As Frizell Clary writes, “Before personally permitting us the sight of such species of Cimmerian dark, Navidson wants us to experience, like he already has, a sequence dedicated solely to the much more revealing details of waiting.”!!!
Very dark, like the land of the Cimmerians in Homer.
As Frizell Clary writes, “Before personally permitting us the sight of such species of Cimmerian dark, Navidson wants us to experience, like he already has, a sequence dedicated solely to the much more revealing details of waiting.”!!!
An invented book from a real publisher. Paredes says Navidson films Reston's wheelchair like a prison, to show his own frustration.
… writes, “Before personally permitting us the sight of such species of Cimmerian dark, Navidson wants us to experience, like he already has, a sequence dedicated solely to the much more revealing details of waiting.”!!! Naguib Paredes, however, goes one step further than Clary, passing over questions concerning the structure of anticipation in favor of a slightly different, but perhaps more acute analysis of Navidson’s strategy: “First and foremost, this restricted …
Sharp and clever; showing a precise understanding.
Naguib Paredes, however, goes one step further than Clary, passing over questions concerning the structure of anticipation in favor of a slightly different, but perhaps more acute analysis of Navidson’s strategy: “First and foremost, this restricted perspective subtly and somewhat cunningly allows Navidson to materialize his own feelings in Reston, a man with fearsome intelligence and energy but who is nonetheless—and …
In a clever way that hides the true aim.
… further than Clary, passing over questions concerning the structure of anticipation in favor of a slightly different, but perhaps more acute analysis of Navidson’s strategy: “First and foremost, this restricted perspective subtly and somewhat cunningly allows Navidson to materialize his own feelings in Reston, a man with fearsome intelligence and energy but who is nonetheless—and tragically I might add—physically handicapped.
Verdigris is the green coating that forms on old copper. The pile of seed shells is compared to a volcano rising on a tectonic plate in the Pacific: ordinary objects filmed as if they were epic.
Navidson reacts by focusing on a family of copper-verdigris coffee cups taking up residence on the floor like settlers on the range while nearby a pile of sunflower seed shells rises out of a bowl like a volcano born on some unseen plate …
The green coating that forms on copper or brass.
Navidson reacts by focusing on a family of copper-verdigris coffee cups taking up residence on the floor like settlers on the range while nearby a pile of sunflower seed shells rises out of a bowl like a volcano born on some unseen plate …
Ordinary; of every day.
Considering the grand way these moments are photographed, it almost appears as if Navidson is trying through even the most quotidian objects and events to evoke for us some sense of Holloway’s epic progress.
To bring a feeling or image into the mind.
Considering the grand way these moments are photographed, it almost appears as if Navidson is trying through even the most quotidian objects and events to evoke for us some sense of Holloway’s epic progress.
Three invented critics with invented small-town publishers. Minamide says Navidson's images make him the necessary narrator; Pleak says they show his jealousy of Holloway; Roger-Court says they show the epic in ordinary things.
The three views disagree about the same few shots of coffee cups. Pleak's book title uses semiotics, the study of signs.
Edwin Minamide in Objects of a Thousand Facets (Bismark, North Dakota: Shive Stuart Press, 1994), p.
About signs and symbols and how they carry meaning.
Yuriy Pleak in Semiotic Rivalry (Casper, Wyoming: Hazard United, 1995), p.
A camera movement that turns from side to side.
105, disagrees, claiming Navidson’s lush colors and steady pans only reveal his competitiveness and bitterness toward Holloway: “He seeks to eclipse the team’s historical descent with his own limited art.”” Mace Roger-Court, however, finds In These Things I Find, Series #18 (Great Falls, …
To make something seem less important by being greater.
105, disagrees, claiming Navidson’s lush colors and steady pans only reveal his competitiveness and bitterness toward Holloway: “He seeks to eclipse the team’s historical descent with his own limited art.”” Mace Roger-Court, however, finds In These Things I Find, Series #18 (Great Falls, Montana: Ash Otter Range Press, 1995) that Navidson’s posture is highly instructive …
Always watching for danger.
But even as the days lose themselves in night and find themselves again come dawn only to drag on to yet more hours of lightless passage, Billy Reston remains vigilant.
An invented book from a real university press. Whitman praises Reston's calm belief in an impossible place.
As Navidson shows us, he never loses focus, rarely leaves his post, and constantly monitors the radios, never forgetting the peril Holloway and the team are in. Janice Whitman was right when she noted another extraordinary quality: “Aside from the natural force of his character, his exemplary intellect, and the constant show of concern for those participating in Exploration #4, what I’m still …
Very good; a model for others.
Janice Whitman was right when she noted another extraordinary quality: “Aside from the natural force of his character, his exemplary intellect, and the constant show of concern for those participating in Exploration #4, what I’m still most struck by is [Reston’s] matter of fact treatment of this twisting labyrinth extending into nowhere.
Confused and surprised.
He does not seem confounded by its impossibility or at all paralyzed by doubt.”!!6 Belief is one of Reston’s greatest strengths.
Zampanò says a falling electric power line crippled Reston in Hyderabad. Hyderabad is a large city in southern India.
Perhaps one overcast morning in Hyderabad, India he had stood rooted to the ground for one second too long because he did not really believe an electrical pole had fallen and an ugly lash of death was now whipping toward him.
Footnote 117 (pp. 99–100) is Johnny's. He found a handwritten correction in Zampanò's manuscript and keeps it, then writes a whole page about one swear word.
Expressing strong personal feeling, like a song or poem.
At least he would also never doubt again. of shells, the maze like way equipment and furniture are arranged, all reveal how the everyday can contain objects emblematic of what’s lyrical and what's epic in our lives.
Short and full of meaning.
… us how a sudden sense of the world, of who or where we are or even what we do not have can be found im even the most ordinary things.” 'l4scher Blootz in her pithy piece “Bedtime Stories” (Seattle Weekly, October 13, 1994, p, 37) claims the book Tom reads to Daisy is Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are.
Seattle Weekly was a real newspaper; Blootz's article and Hart's reply letter are invented. Where the Wild Things Are (1963) by Maurice Sendak is a real children's picture book: a boy sails to a land of monsters and comes home.
Hart cannot confirm the book from the film, but he likes the guess because it fits.
… the most ordinary things.” 'l4scher Blootz in her pithy piece “Bedtime Stories” (Seattle Weekly, October 13, 1994, p, 37) claims the book Tom reads to Daisy is Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are. Gene D. Hart in his letter entitled “A Blootz Bedtime Story” (Seartle Weekly, October 20, 1994, p.
Three invented writings on Chad's computer game. They name real things: Dungeons & Dragons (a role-playing game), Myst (a 1993 puzzle game about exploring a strange empty island), chess pieces, and the Macintosh-versus-Windows rivalry. The web address given for Slade is a real site, but for ocean data, not games.
… blocked by Tom's arm and his whisper consistently evades the range of the microphone, That said I’m quite fond of Blootz’s claim, for whether she’s right or wrong, she is certainly appropriate.” '15See Corning Qureshy’s essay “D & D, Myst, and Other Future Paths” in MIND GAMES ed.
Johnny explains a sudden rude word in the text: Zampanò wrote it by hand over the typed words. Johnny also reports he is on probation at the Shop, and he cannot leave his flat easily.
164-171. '16Janice Whitman’s Red Cross Faith (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), p, 235, 'I~phough this chapter was originally typed, there were also a number of handwritten corrections.
A change or correction to a text.
As I’ve been doing my best to incorporate most of these amendments, I didn’t think it fair to suddenly exclude this one even if it did mean a pretty radical shift in tone.
An ancient Chinese board game for two players, with black and white stones on a grid. Navidson and Tom play it while they wait.
Nonsense.
pseudo-academic hogwash lurked a very passionate man who knew how important it was to say “fuck” now and then, and say it loud too, relish its syllabic sweetness, its immigrant pride, a great American epic word …
To enjoy something very much.
pseudo-academic hogwash lurked a very passionate man who knew how important it was to say “fuck” now and then, and say it loud too, relish its syllabic sweetness, its immigrant pride, a great American epic word really, starting at the lower lip, often the very front of the lower lip, before racing all the way to the back of …
Like a strong hit or blast.
… word really, starting at the lower lip, often the very front of the lower lip, before racing all the way to the back of the throat, where it finishes with a great blast, the concussive force of the K catching up then with the hush of the F already on its way, thus loading it with plenty of offense and edge and certainly ambiguity.
Covered completely; deeply involved.
… or use it, suited perfectly for hurling at the skies or at the world, or sometimes, if said just right, for uttering with enough love and fire, the woman beside you melts inside herself, immersed in all that word-heat.
To become suddenly very angry.
My boss flew off the handle.
A trial period: one more mistake and you lose your job.
Put me on probation.
The habit of arriving on time.
Unfortunately, I‘m not too hopeful about improving my punctuality.
From “pull yourself up by your bootstraps”: to improve your situation by your own effort, with no help.
The entrance hall of a house or building.
… describes the agony of the wait, whether a shot of Tom sleeping on the couch, Reston listening more and more intently to the nonsense coming over the radio, or Karen watching them from the foyer, for the first time smoking a cigarette inside the house.
A jump cut is an abrupt cut between two shots, so time seems to skip. Zampanò says the jump cuts increase as the family breaks apart.
Eventually the entire segment becomes a composition of strain. Jump cuts increase.
An abrupt cut in film that makes time seem to skip.
Eventually the entire segment becomes a composition of strain. Jump cuts increase.
The pattern is SOS in Morse code: three dots, three dashes, three dots.
It sounds exactly like someone rapping his knuckles against the wall: three quick knocks followed by three slow knocks, followed by three more quick knocks.
To bring back together into one whole.
Ironically enough, it is the call for assistance that eliminates the jump cuts and reintegrates everyone again into a single frame.
So silly that it makes you laugh.
Considering the circumstances, it does seem a little ludicrous for Karen to expecta man who has thrived his whole life under shell fire and napalm to turn his back on Holloway and go drink lemonade on the porch.
Navidson worked as a war photojournalist. Napalm is a burning jelly used in bombs, famous from the Vietnam War.
Considering the circumstances, it does seem a little ludicrous for Karen to expecta man who has thrived his whole life under shell fire and napalm to turn his back on Holloway and go drink lemonade on the porch.
A burning jelly used in bombs and flame weapons.
Considering the circumstances, it does seem a little ludicrous for Karen to expecta man who has thrived his whole life under shell fire and napalm to turn his back on Holloway and go drink lemonade on the porch.
A name Navidson says under his breath. The chapter does not explain who or what Delial is; the name stops Karen at once.
adding in a half-mumble:“ I waited too long with Delial.
Very hard, like a diamond; here, impossible to break into.
The name “Delial” and its adamantine mystery stops Karen cold.
A person or station that receives messages and passes them on.
If not, the plan is for Reston to go as far as the stairway where he will establish a camp and handle the radios, serving as a relay between the living room command post and Navidson and Tom who will continue on down the stairs.
Nikon is a Japanese camera maker. Metz was a German maker of strong flash units for professional photographers.
He also brings his 35mm Nikon equipped with a powerful Metz strobe, as well as the 16mm Arriflex, which Reston volunteers to carry in his lap.
To operate or be in charge of equipment.
Karen unhappily takes over the task of manning the radios.
A rhythm; a regular pattern of beats.
At the same time he was mapping out the personal and domestic tensions escalating in the house, Navidson was also editing the footage in accordance to a very specific cadence.
Film Quarterly is a real film journal. Wheelston finds that the “SOS” sequence is edited in groups of three short and three long shots, like the Morse signal.
M.O.S. is a film term for a shot recorded with no sound; the letters also look like SOS.
At the same time he was mapping out the personal and domestic tensions escalating in the house, Navidson was also editing the footage in accordance to a very specific cadence. Tasha K. Wheelston was the first to discover this carefully created structure: At first I thought I was seeing things but after I watched SOS more carefully I realized it was true: Navidson had not just filmed …
A long shot (wide shot) shows a whole scene from far away. Wheelston's “long” shots are long in two ways: in time and in distance.
He begins with three quick angles of Reston, followed by three long shots of the living room (and these are in fact just that — long shots taken from the foyer), followed again by three short shots and so on.
A film shot taken from far away that shows the whole scene.
He begins with three quick angles of Reston, followed by three long shots of the living room (and these are in fact just that — long shots taken from the foyer), followed again by three short shots and so on.
A lack of harmony; a clash.
Thus while representing the emergency signal sent by Holloway's team, Navidson also uses the dissonance implicit in his home-bound wait—the impatience, frustration, and increasing familial alienation—to figuratively and now literally send out his own cry for help.
The feeling of being cut off from others.
Thus while representing the emergency signal sent by Holloway's team, Navidson also uses the dissonance implicit in his home-bound wait—the impatience, frustration, and increasing familial alienation—to figuratively and now literally send out his own cry for help.
Not in the real sense of the words; as an image.
Thus while representing the emergency signal sent by Holloway's team, Navidson also uses the dissonance implicit in his home-bound wait—the impatience, frustration, and increasing familial alienation—to figuratively and now literally send out his own cry for help.
A sudden dive or fall into something.
The irony comes when we realize that Navidson fashioned this piece long after the Holloway disaster occurred but before he made his last plunge into that place.
So great that it makes you unable to think.
Obscene twelve hour days cradled in the arms of stupefying beauty, Tents on the beach, out there on the Homer Spit, making me, not to mention the rest of us, honorary spit rats.
The Homer Spit is a long, narrow strip of land in the sea at Homer, Alaska, with fish-processing plants and a beach where seasonal workers camp. Johnny says he worked in a fish cannery there at about thirteen, with a false age.
Obscene twelve hour days cradled in the arms of stupefying beauty, Tents on the beach, out there on the Homer Spit, making me, not to mention the rest of us, honorary spit rats.
A long narrow strip of land that goes out into the sea.
Obscene twelve hour days cradled in the arms of stupefying beauty, Tents on the beach, out there on the Homer Spit, making me, not to mention the rest of us, honorary spit rats.
The page shows Morse dots and dashes that stop after S and O, then “(or)” and the word “SO?”. The broken signal becomes a bitter question: so what?
Footnote 119 (pp. 103–106) is Johnny's. The word “So?” takes him back to a summer in Alaska, and then forward to a dinner with Thumper.
Putting two different things side by side.
An awful juxtaposition of fish bones & can-grime and the stench of too many aching lives & ragged fingers set against an unreachable and ever present beyond, a life-taking wind, more pure than even glacier water.
The bald eagle is the national bird of the USA and is common in Alaska, where it often eats scraps at docks. Halibut is a large flat sea fish; its “cheeks” are a prized cut.
And just as some water is too cold to drink, that air was almost. too bright to breathe, raking in over ten thousand teeth of range pine, while bald eagles soared the days away like gods, even if they scavenged the mornings like rats, hopping around on gut-wet docks with the sea at their backs always calling out like a blue-black taste of something …
To search for and eat waste food.
… is too cold to drink, that air was almost. too bright to breathe, raking in over ten thousand teeth of range pine, while bald eagles soared the days away like gods, even if they scavenged the mornings like rats, hopping around on gut-wet docks with the sea at their backs always calling out like a blue-black taste of something more.
A large flat sea fish.
Nothing about the job itself could have kept you there, hour upon hour upon even more hours, bent to the bench, steaming over the dead, gouging for halibut cheeks, slabs of salmon, enduring countless mosquito bites, even bee stings—my strange fortune—and always in the ruin of so many curses from the Filipinos, the White Trash, the Blacks, the Haitians, a low grade-grumbling …
Johnny tells of a fishing boat that sank in a storm; the coast guard came late, and a young Haitian worker drowned. The captain's only answer to everything was “So?”, and Johnny learned the word from him.
For me it was the word “So?” And I learned it the hard way, in fact right at the very start of that summer.
The main body of a ship.
Well, we hadn‘t been gone for more than a few hours when a storm suddenly came up, split the seams and filled the hull with water.
To bend low in fear.
Fortunately we had a life raft to cower in and almost everyone survived.
To cut or dig out with a sharp tool.
Sunset Boulevard is a main street through Hollywood and Los Angeles. Johnny and Thumper eat at a small Thai restaurant near it.
We kept talking and walked a little longer and then on a whim decided to get some Thai food at a small place on the north side of Sunset.
A small group of trained people.
… all kinds of imaginings, which I really didn’t have time for because the moment we sat down, she started telling me about some new guy she was seeing, a trainer or something for a cadre of wanna-be never-be boxers.
Free to say and do what you feel, without shyness.
One of the reasons I like Thumper is because she’s so open and uninhabited, I mean uninhibited, about everything.
Women from Johnny's stories, some from earlier footnotes (Kyrie in Chapter VII) and one, Ashley, he does not know. He tells Thumper about them to make her laugh.
She laughed over that one, When our food arrived, I began telling her about Clara English, another story altogether, Christina & Amber, Kyrie, Lucy and even the Ashley I have no clue about, which also made her laugh.
Small-minded; caring about unimportant things.
I didn’t want to get all petty with her, even though secretly I did want.
Suddenly and without warning.
… sex, flirt with her that way, make up some insane stories, maybe even elaborate on the Alaska thing, make her laugh some more, all of which was fine and good until for some reason, out of the blue, I changed the plan and started to tell her about Zampand and the trunk and my crazy attacks.
When you look back at a past event.
And you know the more I talked the more I felt some of the pain and panic inside me ease up a notch. In retrospect it was pretty weird.
Bent or twisted; not straight or correct.
… maybe even intruding, then disappearing again; sometimes pale, sometimes bleeding, sometimes rough, sometimes textureless; frequently angry, frightened, sorry, fragile or desperate, communicated in moments of motion, smell and sound, more often than not in skewed grammar, a mad rush broken up by eidetic recollections, another type of signal I suppose, once stitched into the simplest cries for help flung high above the rust and circling kites or radioed when …
An eidetic memory is a very exact, almost photographic memory. “Here Come Dots” returns to the Morse theme: Johnny sees his own story as a set of cries for help, some of which he still does not explain.
… sometimes bleeding, sometimes rough, sometimes textureless; frequently angry, frightened, sorry, fragile or desperate, communicated in moments of motion, smell and sound, more often than not in skewed grammar, a mad rush broken up by eidetic recollections, another type of signal I suppose, once stitched into the simplest cries for help flung high above the rust and circling kites or radioed when the Gulf waters of Alaska finally swept over and …
Of memory: very clear and exact, like a photograph.
… sometimes bleeding, sometimes rough, sometimes textureless; frequently angry, frightened, sorry, fragile or desperate, communicated in moments of motion, smell and sound, more often than not in skewed grammar, a mad rush broken up by eidetic recollections, another type of signal I suppose, once stitched into the simplest cries for help flung high above the rust and circling kites or radioed when the Gulf waters of Alaska finally swept over …
The Gulf of Alaska is the part of the Pacific Ocean south of Alaska, where the boat sank. Kites here are birds of prey.
… than not in skewed grammar, a mad rush broken up by eidetic recollections, another type of signal I suppose, once stitched into the simplest cries for help flung high above the rust and circling kites or radioed when the Gulf waters of Alaska finally swept over and buried the deck for good—Here Come Dots .
A word with the same sound or spelling as another word but a different meaning.
… finally swept over and buried the deck for good—Here Come Dots . . .—or even carried to a stranger place where letters let alone visits never register, swallowed whole and echoless, in a German homonym for the whispered Word, taken, lost, gone, until there’s nothing left to examine there either, let alone explore, all of which fractured in my head, even if it was hardly present in the words …
The wish to hurt someone.
She was just looking straight at me, and without any malice either.
To cry loudly with short breaths.
My chest hurt and I felt funny all over, having no idea what it was, this root or the feeling, until I suddenly realized I was going to start sobbing.