Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000 — Chapter XI
Zampanò reads Will and Tom through the story of Jacob and Esau; the text reaches us in torn scraps.
A prison cell, a dungeon.
XI La poéte au cachot, débraillé, maladif, Roulant un manuscrit sous son pied convulsif, Mesure d’un regard que la terreur enflamme L’escalier de vertige ott s’abime son ame.
Untidy, with clothes open.
XI La poéte au cachot, débraillé, maladif, Roulant un manuscrit sous son pied convulsif, Mesure d’un regard que la terreur enflamme L’escalier de vertige ott s’abime son ame.
The empty ground between two enemy lines in a war; a place that belongs to nobody.
While Karen stayed home and Will Navidson headed for the front line, Tom spent two nights in no man’s land.
Too much love of oneself, with little care for others.
If both brothers paid the same price for their parents’ narcissism, Will relied on aggression to anchor the world while Tom passively accepted whatever the world — Charles Baudelaire?”
Baudelaire (1821–1867) was a French poet. The lines come from “Sur Le Tasse en prison d’Eugène Delacroix”, a poem in Les Fleurs du mal about a painting of the poet Torquato Tasso, locked in an asylum.
Johnny’s footnote 220 only guesses the meaning (“the terror of the staircase”). The Editors give Roy Campbell’s translation: a sick poet in his cell looks with terror at the “yawning stair” down which his spirit must fall. The chapter follows Tom alone at the top of the Spiral Staircase.
If both brothers paid the same price for their parents’ narcissism, Will relied on aggression to anchor the world while Tom passively accepted whatever the world — Charles Baudelaire?”
To show a quality strongly, as if it flows out.
He is soft, easy-going and exudes a kind of peacefulness.
Tom smokes marijuana to dull his pain. Zampanò compares his calm to the peace of Buddhist monks. A few pages later a critic calls it a “Zen-like” calm (Zen is a school of Buddhism based on meditation).
He is soft, easy-going and exudes a kind of peacefulness. typically reserved for Buddhist monks, 220Something about the terror of the staircase.??!
The Paris Review is a real American literary magazine. The author and her essay on Tom are invented. She sums up 53 interviews with Tom’s friends.
Anne Kligman’s essay on Tom is nearly poetic in its brevity.
A careful explanation of a text, especially of the Bible.
Will Navidson, on the other hand, is respected by thousands but “has neyer commanded the kind of gutlevel affection felt for his twin brother.”’222 A great deal of exegesis exists on the unique relationship between these two brothers.
An invented scholar and a 900-page invented book, from an invented “Hineini Press”. She reads Will and Tom as a modern Jacob and Esau.
The Hebrew words are real. Mi ata beni? means “Who are you, my son?”, Isaac’s question to his disguised son (Genesis 27:18). Hineni means “Here I am”. Yipparedu means “they shall be separated” (Genesis 25:23); the Editors translate it in footnote 223.
Though not the first to make the comparison, Eta Ruccalla’s treatment of Will & Tom as contemporary Esau & Jacob has become the academic standard.
The rights a person has by birth; in the Bible, the extra share and rank of the first son.
Ruccalla finds the biblical tale of twins wrestling over birthright and paternal blessing the ideal mirror in which to view Will & Tom, “who like Jacob and Esau sadly come to share the same conclusion— yipparedu,?3 "224 222\nne Kligman’s “The Short List” in Paris …
Of a father.
Ruccalla finds the biblical tale of twins wrestling over birthright and paternal blessing the ideal mirror in which to view Will & Tom, “who like Jacob and Esau sadly come to share the same conclusion— yipparedu,?3 "224 222\nne Kligman’s “The Short List” in Paris Review, spring, …
The Bible story of twin brothers. Esau, the hairy hunter, is born first; Jacob follows, holding his heel. Esau sells his birthright (the rights of the first son) for a bowl of stew. Later Jacob, helped by his mother Rebekah, puts goat skin on his hands and tricks his blind father Isaac into giving him the blessing meant for Esau.
Esau wants to kill Jacob, and Jacob runs away. Years later Jacob wrestles all night with a mysterious man, gets the name Israel, and the brothers meet again in peace. Johnny’s side note on p. 247 retells the same story in slang.
Ruccalla finds the biblical tale of twins wrestling over birthright and paternal blessing the ideal mirror in which to view Will & Tom, “who like Jacob and Esau sadly come to share the same conclusion— yipparedu,?3 "224 222\nne Kligman’s “The Short List” in Paris Review, spring, 1995, p.
Untidy, not combed or washed.
It probably should be noted that while Ruccalla equates Jacob with Navidson, “the clean-shaven intellectual aggressively claiming his birthright,” and Esau with Tom, “unkempt and slightly lethargic, lumbering through life like some obtuse water buffalo,” Nam Eurtton in her piece “All Accurate” in Panegyric, v.
Slow and without energy.
It probably should be noted that while Ruccalla equates Jacob with Navidson, “the clean-shaven intellectual aggressively claiming his birthright,” and Esau with Tom, “unkempt and slightly lethargic, lumbering through life like some obtuse water buffalo,” Nam Eurtton in her piece “All Accurate” in Panegyric, v.
Slow to understand; stupid.
It probably should be noted that while Ruccalla equates Jacob with Navidson, “the clean-shaven intellectual aggressively claiming his birthright,” and Esau with Tom, “unkempt and slightly lethargic, lumbering through life like some obtuse water buffalo,” Nam Eurtton in her piece “All Accurate” in Panegyric, v.
An invented critic and journal (a panegyric is a speech of high praise). Eurtton says the opposite of Ruccalla: Navidson, who “shoots” with a camera, is the hunter Esau, and calm Tom is Jacob.
… probably should be noted that while Ruccalla equates Jacob with Navidson, “the clean-shaven intellectual aggressively claiming his birthright,” and Esau with Tom, “unkempt and slightly lethargic, lumbering through life like some obtuse water buffalo,” Nam Eurtton in her piece “All Accurate” in Panegyric, v.
A speech or text of high praise.
… Jacob with Navidson, “the clean-shaven intellectual aggressively claiming his birthright,” and Esau with Tom, “unkempt and slightly lethargic, lumbering through life like some obtuse water buffalo,” Nam Eurtton in her piece “All Accurate” in Panegyric, v.
To peel off in thin layers.
As she says herself, “To adequately analyze the history of Esau and Jacob is to painstakingly exfoliate, layer by layer, the most delicate mille-feuille.”225 Of course it is also an act that could in the end deprive the reader of all taste for the subject.
French for “a thousand leaves”: a pastry made of many thin layers. Ruccalla says to study Esau and Jacob you must peel it layer by layer. The word also plays on the book’s title, House of Leaves.
As she says herself, “To adequately analyze the history of Esau and Jacob is to painstakingly exfoliate, layer by layer, the most delicate mille-feuille.”225 Of course it is also an act that could in the end deprive the reader of all taste for the subject.
“A thousand leaves”: a pastry of many thin layers.
As she says herself, “To adequately analyze the history of Esau and Jacob is to painstakingly exfoliate, layer by layer, the most delicate mille-feuille.”225 Of course it is also an act that could in the end deprive the reader of all taste for the subject.
To love someone very much and without criticism.
Daddy Isaac dotes on Esau because the kid always brings him venison.
The meat of a deer.
Daddy Isaac dotes on Esau because the kid always brings him venison.
A trick to deceive someone.
The ruse works and Isaac thinking the son before him is Esau blesses Jacob instead.
Hebrew words from Genesis 25:34: “and he ate, and drank, and rose up, and went his way, and despised” (the birthright). The five quick verbs show how lightly Esau gave his birthright away. Ruccalla names a chapter after them.
In the chapter entitled “Va-yachol, Va-yesht, Vayakom, Va-yelech, Va-yivaz” Ruccalla reevaluates the meaning of birthright by treating its significance as nothing more than226 226Wwhat follows here is hopelessly incomplete.
Johnny found a woman in Tel Aviv who once helped Zampanò with the Hebrew of this section. She says Zampanò dictated a brilliant study from memory, then tore the pages up; his fingers were bandaged and the scraps had blood on them. She hid the scraps in the trunk, and Johnny transcribes what is left.
Zampanò says the comparison works only if any two siblings can be compared to “Israel and his brother” (Jacob and Esau). Johnny asks if Zampanò had a brother or a son.
In the chapter entitled “Va-yachol, Va-yesht, Vayakom, Va-yelech, Va-yivaz” Ruccalla reevaluates the meaning of birthright by treating its significance as nothing more than226 226Wwhat follows here is hopelessly incomplete. Denise Neiman who is now married and lives in Tel Aviv claims to have worked on this section when it was intact.
Strange in a way that is hard to explain.
He possessed a pretty uncanny ability to recite verbatim almost anything he‘d read, and let me tell you, he‘d read alot.
In exactly the same words.
He possessed a pretty uncanny ability to recite verbatim almost anything he‘d read, and let me tell you, he‘d read alot.
A clever plan to get an advantage.
No birthright, all of ita misleading ploy, both brothers fools, and as for the comparison to the Navilson [sic] twins he suddenly claimed it was justifiable only if you could compare any pair of siblings to Israel and his brother.
“Thus”: the mistake was in the original text, not made by the copier.
No birthright, all of ita misleading ploy, both brothers fools, and as for the comparison to the Navilson [sic] twins he suddenly claimed it was justifiable only if you could compare any pair of siblings to Israel and his brother.
A strong envelope of light-brown paper.
“I stuffed all the crumpled bits into my pockets and later transferred them to a manila envelope which I placed at the bottom of that chest.
God tells the pregnant Rebekah that two nations are in her womb, and that “the elder shall serve the younger”. Yahweh is the Hebrew name of God.
The quote comes from the King James Bible. Zampanò calls God a user of irony here: he names an older and a younger child, and then they are born as twins.
PZZLZZZELZZEZALIZLEZZLZZILIZZZZ but the Lord Yahweh—that too oft accused literalist —instructs Rebekah in the subtler ways of language by using irony: And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be …
A person who takes words in their exact, literal meaning.
PZZLZZZELZZEZALIZLEZZLZZILIZZZZ but the Lord Yahweh—that too oft accused literalist —instructs Rebekah in the subtler ways of language by using irony: And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; …
Known or understood by very few people.
This? Arcane, obtuse and way over-the-top wanna-be scholarship?
Slang: trying to be something without success.
Arcane, obtuse and way over-the-top wanna-be scholarship?
Zampanò gives Hebrew roots: Ya’akov is linked to akev, “heel”, because Jacob held Esau’s heel at birth. The name can also mean “he follows” or “he holds back”. Esau is linked to “hair”, because he was born hairy.
Some of the roots in the text are loose folk etymology, not strict scholarship.
Esau entered the world first; Jacob last.)
An invented author and book. Kashon says Holloway, bearded and a hunter, fits Esau better than Tom. The press name, “Maavar Yabbok”, is Hebrew for “the crossing of the Jabbok”, the river where Jacob wrestled.
279) At least Freed Kashon convincingly objects to Ruccalla’s comparison when he points out how really Holloway, not Tom, is the hairy one: “His beard, surly appearance, and even his profession as a hunter make Holloway the perfect Esau.
An invented scholar and book. “J” is the name scholars give to the Jahwist, one of the supposed authors of Genesis in the documentary hypothesis. Zampanò notes that Chalmer ignores Genesis 25:25–26, the birth scene.
The tension between Navidson and Holloway is also more on par with the tension between Jacob and _ his brother,”230 227Tobias Chalmer’s J's Ironic Postures (London University Press, 1954), p.
Norman J. Cohen is an American rabbi and professor of Midrash (Jewish Bible interpretation). His real book reads the family conflicts in Genesis as lessons for modern life.
Cohen’s Self, Struggle & Change: Family Conflict Stories in Genesis and Their Healing Insights for Our Lives (Woodstock, Vermont: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1995), p.
Robert Davidson was a Scottish Old Testament scholar. This real commentary is part of the Cambridge Bible Commentary series.
The quote in footnote 238 compares the story of Jacob wrestling with God to an old house with many additions, restored more than once.
PZZZZZZ 2222222222222 2222227 ‘ “...acunning hunter” “of the field” 238From the Robert Davidson commentary: “Jacob wrestled with an unidentified ‘man’ who turned out to be God, wrestled and lived to tell the tale.
Added to something, but not a main part.
V2ZZZLZELZLLELLL EL ELA LAZZZZIZZ Tom, however, never hid behind the adjunct meaning of a career.
The recovery method of Alcoholics Anonymous and similar groups, in twelve steps. Tom fought his alcoholism in such a program.
Nevertheless, in spite of a brutal struggle with alcoholism, Tom did manage to preserve his sense of humor, and in his twelve-step program, inspired many admirers who to this day speak highly of him.
No longer friendly with a family member; separated.
Of the hard times that enced the greatest grief during those eight years when he was estranged from his brother or in his words “when the old rug was pulled out from under old Tom.”
To give in to something stronger.
It is hardly a coincidence that during this period he succumbed to chemical dependencies, went on unemployment, and prematurely ended a_ budding relationship with a young schoolteacher.
The Village Voice was a real New York weekly paper. The writer and the article are invented. Brillant guesses that the brothers drifted apart when Chad was born.
… and Will, though it implies Tom envied Navy’s success and was increasingly dissatisfied with his own accomplishments.252 PZZZEZZ2ZEL ELL 22222222 2222722 In his article “Brothers In Arms No More” published in The Village Voice, Carlos Brillant observes that Tom and Will’s estrangement began with the birth of Chad: “While it’s complete speculation on my part, I wonder if the large amount of energy required to raise a family pulled Will’s …
Invented people whom Zampanò says he or others interviewed about Tom. Many of these footnotes now read only “Lost.”: Johnny could not save them.
Tom may have felt abandoned.”233 Annabelle Whitten echoes these sentiments when she points out how Tom occasionally referred to himself as “orphaned at the came his way, he experi- 232Personal interviews with Damion Searle, Annabelle Whitten and Isaac Hodge.
Hebrew for “and they struggled together” (Genesis 25:22), about the twins in Rebekah’s womb. The root means to crush or break. Zampanò says Will and Tom never fought like that.
To change into another form.
As Whitten states: “Tom’s desire to reacquire his lost parental figures transmuted Navidson into father and Karen into mother, thus offering one explanation why Tom frequently sought to reduce tension between both.”235 Of course as Nam Eurtton argued, “Why?
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. The line is from Beyond Good and Evil (1886), section 40. Zampanò: Jacob stole with a mask, Tom wears none, Will wears a camera.
But as Nietzsche wrote, “Every profound spirit needs a mask,”237 \WAL AANA NAAN AAAAAAAAR AA And_ yet, despite the triumph of Jacob’s ruse, he should have heeded this admonition: “Cursed be he that maketh the blind to …
A warning or firm advice.
But as Nietzsche wrote, “Every profound spirit needs a mask,”237 \WAL AANA NAAN AAAAAAAAR AA And_ yet, despite the triumph of Jacob’s ruse, he should have heeded this admonition: “Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way” (Deuteronomy 27:18).
“Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way”: one of the curses in the fifth book of the Bible. Zampanò applies it to Jacob, who deceived his blind father.
… a mask,”237 \WAL AANA NAAN AAAAAAAAR AA And_ yet, despite the triumph of Jacob’s ruse, he should have heeded this admonition: “Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way” (Deuteronomy 27:18).
An invented book from an invented “Hesed Press” (hesed is Hebrew for loving-kindness). Zampanò notes a “typo”: the text writes “Annie” for the Hebrew ani, “I am”, Jacob’s lie to his blind father.
2370f some note is the strange typo which appears in the Aaron Stern text: “But the blind Isaac repeated his question, ‘Are you really my son Esau?’
In the torn section, the mathematical sign “≠” (“is not equal to”) stands alone between two fragments. It may mark the difference between the brothers.
251 forced to wrestle for the rest of his life with this question of self-worth.238 Navidson different.239 was no VPZZZZZZZ2Z 2222222222222 2E2E2L a P2ZZEZZLE22 22222222222 222222 “To me, Tom seemed an incredibly peaceful man.
In a way that is very fine and high in quality.
Plain, decent but most of all peaceful.”240 PZZZZZZ2ZZ222222222 22222222272 Here Ruccalla’s analysis unexpectedly rereads the meaning of Esau’s lost inheritance, sublimely uncovering an unspoken history, veiled in irony and blankness, yet still describing how one brother could not have succeeded without the other.
In Genesis 4, Cain kills his brother Abel. When God asks where Abel is, Cain answers, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Zampanò says Esau, unlike Cain, did protect his brother.
… Here Ruccalla’s analysis unexpectedly rereads the meaning of Esau’s lost inheritance, sublimely uncovering an unspoken history, veiled in irony and blankness, yet still describing how one brother could not have succeeded without the other. Cain may not have been his brother’s keeper but Esau certainly was?4!
Genesis 25:27 describes Esau as “a cunning hunter, a man of the field” and Jacob as “a plain man, dwelling in tents”.
Zampanò gives the wrong verse, Johnny corrects him with another wrong verse (fn 243, “Wrong.”), and the Editors give the right one (fn 244). Three layers of notes correct each other.
Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) was the great scholar of Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah). The book is his real The Messianic Idea in Judaism (1971).
Jacob Frank (1726–1791) was a Polish Jewish leader who said he was the Messiah. He taught that his followers must “come to Esau”, pass through an abyss of destruction, before redemption. Atzilut (“emanation”) is the highest of the four worlds of Kabbalah.
“plain man, dwelling in tents.”"242 PLLZZZZE2ZZ2 222222222702 Z2Z227222 This then is the meaning of Esau PLZZZELZ 2222222222222 220 2727% As Scholem writes: “Frank’s ultimate vision of the future was based upon the still unrevealed laws of the Torah of atzilut which he promised his disciples would take effect once they had ‘come to Esau,’ that …
“Emanation”: in Kabbalah, the highest of the four worlds.
… PLLZZZZE2ZZ2 222222222702 Z2Z227222 This then is the meaning of Esau PLZZZELZ 2222222222222 220 2727% As Scholem writes: “Frank’s ultimate vision of the future was based upon the still unrevealed laws of the Torah of atzilut which he promised his disciples would take effect once they had ‘come to Esau,’ that is, when the passage through the ‘abyss’ with its unmitigated destruction and negation was finally accomplished.”245 PELZZAZAZ22 20220222220 272272 …
Complete, total; not made less bad.
… upon the still unrevealed laws of the Torah of atzilut which he promised his disciples would take effect once they had ‘come to Esau,’ that is, when the passage through the ‘abyss’ with its unmitigated destruction and negation was finally accomplished.”245 PELZZAZAZ22 20220222220 272272 But as a_ great Hasidic maxim reminds us: “The Messiah will not come until the tears of Esau have ceased.”"246 VEZZZZZ22 2202222222222 22222 and so …
Of Hasidism, a Jewish religious movement from 18th-century Eastern Europe.
… disciples would take effect once they had ‘come to Esau,’ that is, when the passage through the ‘abyss’ with its unmitigated destruction and negation was finally accomplished.”245 PELZZAZAZ22 20220222220 272272 But as a_ great Hasidic maxim reminds us: “The Messiah will not come until the tears of Esau have ceased.”"246 VEZZZZZ22 2202222222222 22222 and so returns to Tom and Will Navidson, divided by experience, endowed with different talents and …
A short saying that states a rule or truth.
… would take effect once they had ‘come to Esau,’ that is, when the passage through the ‘abyss’ with its unmitigated destruction and negation was finally accomplished.”245 PELZZAZAZ22 20220222220 272272 But as a_ great Hasidic maxim reminds us: “The Messiah will not come until the tears of Esau have ceased.”"246 VEZZZZZ22 2202222222222 22222 and so returns to Tom and Will Navidson, divided by experience, endowed with different talents and disposi242See …
A real saying in Jewish tradition, found in Hasidic teaching and linked to the Zohar. It means the wrong done to Esau must be healed before the world can be redeemed.
… once they had ‘come to Esau,’ that is, when the passage through the ‘abyss’ with its unmitigated destruction and negation was finally accomplished.”245 PELZZAZAZ22 20220222220 272272 But as a_ great Hasidic maxim reminds us: “The Messiah will not come until the tears of Esau have ceased.”"246 VEZZZZZ22 2202222222222 22222 and so returns to Tom and Will Navidson, divided by experience, endowed with different talents and disposi242See Genesis 27:24243 23wrong.
Old word for nothing.
252 tions, yet still brothers and “naught without the other.”
The staff of the god Hermes, with two snakes wound around it. In America it is often used as a symbol of medicine. Ruccalla uses the two snakes as an image of two brothers joined for ever.
As Ruccalla states in her concluding chapter: “While the differences are there, like the serpents of the Caduceus, these two brothers have always been and always will be inextricably intertwined; and just like the Caduceus, their shared history creates a meaning and that meaning is health.”247 PZZZZ202ELA EL EL EEE ZAALALLZZ By …
In a way that cannot be separated.
As Ruccalla states in her concluding chapter: “While the differences are there, like the serpents of the Caduceus, these two brothers have always been and always will be inextricably intertwined; and just like the Caduceus, their shared history creates a meaning and that meaning is health.”247 PZZZZ202ELA EL EL EEE ZAALALLZZ By the end of the first night, Tom has begun to feel …
A small animal known for fighting snakes and watching them closely. The quote says Tom chews on boredom like a dog on a bone and watches fear like a mongoose.
Remaining by the radio, “{[Tom] gnaws on boredom like a dog gnawing on a bone while all the time eyeing fear like a mongoose.”248 Fortunately for us, some trace of this struggle survives on his Hi 8 where Tom recorded an eclectic, sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre history of thoughts passing away in the atrocity of that darkness.
Made from many different kinds of things.
… boredom like a dog gnawing on a bone while all the time eyeing fear like a mongoose.”248 Fortunately for us, some trace of this struggle survives on his Hi 8 where Tom recorded an eclectic, sometimes funny, sometimes bizarre history of thoughts passing away in the atrocity of that darkness.
The transcript of Tom’s tape, Johnny’s long footnote on November and the Pekinese, and Zampanò’s short analysis.
A transcript of Tom’s Hi 8 tape at the top of the staircase: radio talk with Navidson and Karen, and jokes and stories he tells to a “Mr. Monster” in the dark.
Tom’s Story [Transcript] Day 1: 10:38 [Outside Tom’s tent; breath frosting in the air] Who am I kidding?
To wait hidden, often with bad intent.
In fact, I bet they’re here right now. Lurking.
Informal: frightened.
You a little spooked?
A large marijuana cigarette (joint).
Tom: Lighting up a fat one.
A pun in the style of the comedy sketch “Who’s on First?”. The watt is the unit of electric power, named after the engineer James Watt; so Watt “autographs lightbulbs”.
Tom: Watt.
Extremely frightened.
I’m cold, I’m scared shitless, and I feel like I’m about to be eaten alive at any moment.
A type of plastic. Tom jokes that fast-food milkshakes are made of it.
… you’re there and you're planning to eat me and there’s nothing I can do about that, but I should warn you I’ve lived for years on fast food, greasy fries, more than a few polyurethane shakes.
An old joke: the brave captain wears a red shirt so his men cannot see his blood. When he sees ten ships he asks for his brown trousers, because he is so scared he will soil them.
A junior officer in a navy.
evening everyone was sitting around, resting, and taking care of their wounds, when an ensign asked the captain why he always put on his red shirt before battle.
At once, with no pause.
Eventually the punker gets pretty unnerved and blurts out: “Hey man, didn’t you do anything crazy when you were young?” Without missing a beat, the old man replies: 256
A tropical bird with bright feathers; here the punk with feathers and colored hair.
“Yeah when I was in the Navy, I got drunk one night in Singapore and had sex with a Bird of Paradise.
A building where monks or nuns live.
Day 2: 14:11 [Inside tent] A monk joins an abbey ready to dedicate his life to copying ancient books by hand.
An old joke. The monks copied copies for centuries; the original rule said “celebrate”, not “celibate” (no sex). A copying error became a law. It is also a joke about copies of texts, like this book.
He’s concerned that all the monks have been copying from copies made from still more copies.
A pun: an oration is a formal speech, expectoration is coughing up and spitting.
Day 2: 15:29 [Outside tent; smoking a joint; coughing; coughing again] Did you expect oration Mr.
A formal public speech.
Day 2: 15:29 [Outside tent; smoking a joint; coughing; coughing again] Did you expect oration Mr.
Coughing up mucus and spitting it out.
Or maybe just a little expectoration?
Strong hunger after smoking marijuana.
Day 2: 15:49 [Outside tent] Tom: Hey, uh, Karen, I’ve got a bit of the munchies going on here.
A light sweet food of whipped egg white and sugar, often on a lemon pie.
Is there any lemon meringue left?
A patch of hard, thick skin.
His feet were covered in calluses.
Tom’s sad story about a poor man whose feet lose their calluses in donated Nike shoes. The title plays on the old pair “love and death”.
I call that particular story “Love, Death & Nike.”
Dopey is one of the Seven Dwarfs in Disney’s Snow White (1937). The dirty joke is that a nun in her black and white clothes looks like a penguin.
Day 2: 16:42 [Outside tent] The seven dwarves went to the Vatican and when the Pope answered the door, Dopey stepped forward: “Your Excellency,” he said.
To laugh quietly and nervously.
Behind Dopey, the six dwarves started to titter.
Building workers: a framer builds the wood frame of a house, a welder joins metal, a form builder makes moulds for concrete.
A framer?
Tom makes animal shadows with his hands in front of a lamp, an old form of entertainment. “A wascawwy wabbit” is how the cartoon hunter Elmer Fudd says “rascally rabbit” about Bugs Bunny.
Monster looks like a frog, a little gribbbb-it frog when suddenly oooooh, little frog has becomea...uh... piglet. [By carefully positioning his halogen lamp, Tom is able to cast hand shadows on the back wall of his tent.
A collection of wild animals.
He conjures up a whole menagerie of creatures.
Tom calls it an old Sunday-school joke. It is also the riddle of the gravediggers in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act 5, Scene 1): the houses a grave-maker builds “last till doomsday”.
Able to change.
… ]*’ 4~aking into account Chapter Six, only Tom's creatures, born out of the absence of light, shaped with his bare hands, seem able to exist in that place, though all of them are as mutable as letters, as permanent as fame, a strange little bestiary lamenting nothing, instructing no one, revealing the outline of lives really only visible to the imagination.
A medieval book that describes real and imaginary animals.
… out of the absence of light, shaped with his bare hands, seem able to exist in that place, though all of them are as mutable as letters, as permanent as fame, a strange little bestiary lamenting nothing, instructing no one, revealing the outline of lives really only visible to the imagination.
Johnny works at a tattoo shop; Thumper is a woman who works there. A biker talks about the “permanence” of tattoo ink, and Johnny breaks down. Thumper sends him home.
Which may have had something to do with my outburst at the Shop today.
A visitor; also a ghost.
Everyone was there, Thumper, my boss, the usual visitants, along with some depraved biker who was in the middle of getting an octopus carved into his deltoid.
The thick muscle at the top of the arm, over the shoulder.
Everyone was there, Thumper, my boss, the usual visitants, along with some depraved biker who was in the middle of getting an octopus carved into his deltoid.
To talk for a long time about unimportant things.
He kept blathering on about the permanence of ink which I guess really got to me because I started howling, and loud too—real loud—spit sputtering off my lips, snot shooting out of my nose.
Slang: crazy.
“Are you fucking loopy, man?”
Johnny says Tom’s shadow animals are the only creatures that seem to live in the house, and he recalls Chapter VI and the pets. He calls them a “bestiary”, a medieval book of animals.
Noah’s ark is the boat in Genesis that saves the animals from the flood. Johnny says the shadow animals have no ark: the dark takes them all.
Thumper came to my rescue, quickly escorting me outside and ordering me to take the day off: “I don’t know what you're getting messed up in Johnny but it’s fucking you up bad."
Informal: mad enough to be officially declared insane.
Unfortunately, there was no guestion in my mind that she would think I was certifiable if I started rattling on about animals and Hand shadows, mutable as letters, as permanent as fame, a strange be— aww fuck, the hell with the rest.
All Souls’ Day (2 November) is the Christian day to pray for the dead. Johnny’s November of drugs and parties starts on that day. Lude is Johnny’s friend from earlier chapters.
“Novem” is Latin for nine: November was the ninth month of the old Roman year. Johnny plays on the word (“Novem nine and all mine”, later “Novem ovum”, ovum = egg).
It happened last December, a month before I’d ever heard of Zampand, on the tail end of what had proved to be a rather dramatic November, All Souls Day commencing with Lude’s acquisition of a great deal of Ecstasy, a portion of which he sold to me at bulk rate.
A friendly way to address a man (from “horse”).
… of what had proved to be a rather dramatic November, All Souls Day commencing with Lude’s acquisition of a great deal of Ecstasy, a portion of which he sold to me at bulk rate. “Hoss, this is our pass to paradise,” Lude had told me, and of course he was right.
Bel Air and Malibu are rich areas of Los Angeles. Raves are all-night dance parties. Concertina wire is coiled razor wire used in war; Johnny compares the velvet ropes at club doors to it, and the pills to the grenades that blow it apart.
Lude led the way, zipping from club to bar, crashing Bel Air fétes, desert raves and any after hours open house Malibu mansion madness we could find out about.
With great energy and devotion.
Remarkably, no matter how zealously guarded these events were—velvet ropes as impossible to transcend as concertina wire without a hand grenade—the pills were our hand grenades.
A play on the “Bower of Bliss”, a garden of pleasure and temptation in Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590), which the hero destroys. On p. 264 Johnny says his bower is now full of weeds and thorns.
And so it happened that that month—Novem nine and all mine November—Lude disappeared into his own bower of bentdom, while I wandered off and promptly found my own.
A shady, pleasant place in a garden; in poetry, a private room or place of love.
And so it happened that that month—Novem nine and all mine November—Lude disappeared into his own bower of bentdom, while I wandered off and promptly found my own.
Very large; amazing.
Not too long afterwards, Lude made a great show of sharing with me his official and most prodigious tally for that month.
A count or record of a number.
Not too long afterwards, Lude made a great show of sharing with me his official and most prodigious tally for that month.
A tight necklace worn close around the neck.
Leather choker.
A sex act that involves urine.
Surprised him with a golden shower.
A party or celebration.
Lude’s record of his sexual partners for one month, which Johnny copied down. It names real Los Angeles places and brands: USC (a university), NordicTrack (an exercise machine), The Pleasure Chest (a sex shop), The Gap (a clothes shop), O’Neill wetsuits, neoprene (wetsuit rubber) and Russian roulette (a game of chance with a loaded gun).
The list is sexually explicit. It sets up the “List Revisited” on p. 265.
Now though when I look at Lude’s list I don't see what I wrote down back then.
To cause a reaction or an answer.
Note: This section also elicited several e-mails: Lude was such a jerk and a shitty fuck.
Both people in a situation share the blame.
I mean if it wasn't his blood, whose was it? — Natalie May 30, 1999 Hey kids, it takes two to tango.
A note says this section “elicited several e-mails”, dated 1999: women write about Lude, and one asks about Johnny. It suggests an earlier version of Johnny’s text was already read by others. “It takes two to tango” is an English saying: both people share the blame.
The Playboy Mansion was Hugh Hefner’s house in Los Angeles, famous for parties; a centerfold is the nude model in the middle of the magazine. Crazy Girls was a strip club in Hollywood.
She'd been spending alot of time at the Playboy Mansion.
To move quickly and lightly across a surface.
I could hear the buttons skitter across her floor, By midnight she was saying she loved me.
One night with Clara English ends when she tells Johnny she was raped. Afterwards Johnny rewrites Lude’s list with the pain he now imagines behind each name. He says these notes are “made up”, born from his memory of Clara.
“Postils” (p. 265) are notes written in a margin: he asks the reader to add his own.
And then I hooked up with Clara English.
A steady low humming sound.
Plenty of drinks, the buzz happy thrum of our newly ingested X-ray vision, lap dances for both of us at Crazy Girls, and then back to her place for a whole lot of fucking, only there wasn’t that much fucking before …
A sudden movement or habit a person cannot control; here, hidden emotional wounds.
… back to her place for a whole lot of fucking, only there wasn’t that much fucking before there were a whole lot more hesitations and even tears set off by a series of interior tics I couldn’t see.
Leather pieces beside a horse’s eyes so it sees only forward; not seeing what one does not want to see.
Should have left the blinders on.
A court order that forbids a person to come near someone.
Tonya — An ex- and a restraining order.
A note written in the margin of a text.
No doubt your postils will be happier than mine, though if they are, you clearly don’t know what the fuck you're talking about.
The Opium Den was a club in Hollywood. Pantera was an American heavy-metal band. A cosmopolitan is a vodka cocktail. Vine Street is a main street in Hollywood.
A 10 PM call and an hour later he was dragging me to the Opium Den, into the harangue of voices and amplified rhythms, all of it mixing, on ice, with a combination of cheap bourbon and better bourbon, though surprisingly little talk or smiles; feast to famine; or was …
A long, loud, aggressive speech; here, a loud noise of voices.
A 10 PM call and an hour later he was dragging me to the Opium Den, into the harangue of voices and amplified rhythms, all of it mixing, on ice, with a combination of cheap bourbon and better bourbon, though surprisingly little talk or smiles; feast to famine; or was it the other …
A dead human body, especially one used in medicine.
A petite figure, platinum hair, way too much eyeliner, nails as long as kitchen knives and lips stuffed with god knows how many layers of tissue collected from the ass of some cadaver.
Containing salt water.
We're talking DDDD, entire seas sacrificed to fill those saline sacks, Red Sea on the left, the Dead Sea on the right.
Johnny jokes about the woman’s saline breast implants: “Red Sea on the left, the Dead Sea on the right”. Later (p. 267) he calls her seas “dark, red, dead”.
We're talking DDDD, entire seas sacrificed to fill those saline sacks, Red Sea on the left, the Dead Sea on the right.
To insert something between other parts.
After a good twenty minutes of talk, talk interpolated with countless conversation ends, huge uncomfortable gaps where I always expected her to cough and excuse herself which for whatever reason she never did, waiting for me to continue our conversation—could anyone call that …
A man who controls who goes in and out of a club.
Really? hmmmm?”—on and on like that until finally, after twenty minutes, the club started closing down and bouncers began herding people towards the exits.
A woman who calls herself Johnnie (also “Sled” and “Rachel”) takes a lost Pekinese dog from Johnny, promising it a good home. Minutes later she throws it out of her truck window and kills it. Johnny cannot even give the dog a name.
The Pekingese is a small Chinese breed with a flat face and big eyes. The “San Fernando Valley” (“the valley”) is the suburb area north of Hollywood.
As we waited for the light to change, she told me her name was Johnnie, though some people called her Sled, though her real name was Rachel.
To speak in a soft, loving voice.
“Oh my poor baby” Johnnie cooed, those cold and indifferent spaces in our talk suddenly full of affection and concern, though the notes seemed wrong, not dissonant or flat or played at an improper tempo, just wrong, the melody somehow …
Of sounds that clash and do not go well together.
“Oh my poor baby” Johnnie cooed, those cold and indifferent spaces in our talk suddenly full of affection and concern, though the notes seemed wrong, not dissonant or flat or played at an improper tempo, just wrong, the melody somehow robbed of itself, meaning not another melody 266
Of music with no key or tonal centre.
“No way,” she said, growing increasingly more emphatic and insistent, even if all this was spoken in that strange melody, not exactly atonal, I don’t know, just wrong.
To give in after refusing at first.
So despite my instincts I relented.
A painting on wet plaster on a wall; here, a thick layer of make-up.
Or maybe it was her, the salt full breasts, the deformed mouth, the fresco of makeup, her entire figure so perfect(ly grotesque) and all at the age of twenty-four, or so she had told me, though she probably was closer to six thousand years old, Something about her …
Johnny’s word: the state of being a stray, with no home.
Maybe it was that Pekinese pup, hungry and abandoned, suddenly rescued, suddenly with hope; a projection of myself? my own place in the way of straydom?
Like glass; the vitreous jelly is the clear gel inside the eye.
… pouring out of its pug nose, re-found not too far from my front door, that very same night, lying next to a car with half its head caved in, an eye broken and oozing vitreous jelly, tongue caught (and partially severed) in its snapped jaws.
A place where lost dogs are kept.
… couldn’t feel anything either, shock alone possessing me, depriving me of any emotional meaning, finally leaving me in a mad debate over what to do with the body: bury it, take it to the pound, throw the thing in a garbage can.
Feng shui is a Chinese practice that arranges objects in a house to improve the flow of energy. Karen placed crystals, frogs, goldfish and dragons around the house, and now they are gone.
Radio (Karen): All my Feng Shui— Oh Christ, this whole thing doesn’t make any sense.
A Chinese practice of arranging objects to improve energy (see References).
Radio (Karen): All my Feng Shui— Oh Christ, this whole thing doesn’t make any sense.
To annoy.
I’ve been shitting in a corner and pissing on a wall for two days. [Getting louder] Doesn’t that irk you a little, Mr.
Not choosing carefully; taking everything.
Turtles, shit, it doesn’t matter to you. [Loud again ] Indiscriminate bastard!
To try to vomit.
Makes me wanna retch.
From the famous Christmas poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (“’Twas the Night Before Christmas”, 1823). Tom plays on it: “stir crazy” means crazy from being shut in.
Day 3S: 00:49 [Outside tent; reaching into his ziploc bag for the last joint] And all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse.
Crazy or nervous from being shut in one place too long.
Just Tom, poor ol’ Tom, who was doing plenty of stirring around this house until finally he went stir crazy wishing there was a creature any creature—even a mouse.
To move back suddenly in fear or disgust.
Tom recoils.
An oval shape.
Tom looks up and sees the circular shape of the stairwell bend into an ellipse before snapping back to a circle again.
A line of Nietzsche. Zampanò uses it to say that Navidson edited Tom’s Story months later, and that later events changed the way he cut it.
As Nietzsche wrote, “It is our future that lays down the law of our today.”
Laughter and happiness.
All throughout Tom’s Story, Navidson tenderly focuses on Tom’s mirth and his ability to play in the halls of hell, those dolorous mansions of Isolation, Fear, and Doubt.
Very sad; full of pain.
All throughout Tom’s Story, Navidson tenderly focuses on Tom’s mirth and his ability to play in the halls of hell, those dolorous mansions of Isolation, Fear, and Doubt.
Failing; going down, like a ship that fills with water.
He captures his brother trying to help Karen and him with their foundering relationship, and he reveals Tom’s surprising strength in the face of such utter darkness and cold.
A carefully planned scene in a film or book.
This is a labor of love, a set piece sibling to Karen’s short film on Navidson.
Zampanò calls Tom’s Story a “set piece sibling” to the short film Karen made about Navidson, a film discussed earlier in the book. Both are portraits of a brother or partner made with love.
This is a labor of love, a set piece sibling to Karen’s short film on Navidson.
Filled through every part.
Perhaps because Tom’s antics are so amusing and so completely permeated with warmth, we could easily miss how hand shadows, an abundance of bad jokes and the birth of “Mr.