Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000 — Chapter XIII
Chad's teacher, the days after the rescue attempt, and Navidson's return from the stairway.
Borges: “A slow shadow spreads over the prairie; but the act of naming it makes it a fiction of art, not a living creature.”
XIII The Minotaur3 Alarga en la pradera una pausada Sombra, pero ya el hecho de nombrarlo Y de conjecturar su circunstancia Lo hace ficcion del arte y no criatura Viviente de las que andan por la tierra.
Borges (1899–1986) was an Argentine writer of short stories, essays and poems about labyrinths, libraries, mirrors and invented books. The Spanish lines come from his poem “El otro tigre” (1960).
The Editors give Alastair Reid's translation: a slow shadow spreads over the prairie, but the act of naming it and guessing its nature turns it into a fiction, not a living creature. The epigraph asks whether a named monster is real or only words.
… en la pradera una pausada Sombra, pero ya el hecho de nombrarlo Y de conjecturar su circunstancia Lo hace ficcion del arte y no criatura Viviente de las que andan por la tierra. — Jorge Luis Borges?5> THE WAIT Teppet C.
Chad's third-grade teacher, and her memoir “as told to” Emily Lucy Gates (Russian Hill Press, 1996). Both are invented.
Her folksy voice gives an outside witness to the children's black-square drawings and to the scene in the kitchen. Sawatch Elementary, her school, is also invented.
… Sombra, pero ya el hecho de nombrarlo Y de conjecturar su circunstancia Lo hace ficcion del arte y no criatura Viviente de las que andan por la tierra. — Jorge Luis Borges?5> THE WAIT Teppet C. Brookes had seen plenty of children’s drawings in her life.
A bright yellow, orange or red paint pigment made with the metal cadmium.
The problem was that these wolves did not just stalk quietly through cadmium woods; their teeth drew madder and rose from each other’s throats.
A deep red dye made from the root of the madder plant.
The problem was that these wolves did not just stalk quietly through cadmium woods; their teeth drew madder and rose from each other’s throats.
A pale grey-green colour, named after a type of Chinese pottery glaze.
The tigers did not just sleep on clover; they clawed Sunday red and indigo from celadon hills.
A light purple colour, named after a flower.
And the dragon with its terrible emerald tail and ruby glare did not merely threaten; it incinerated everything around it with a happy blossom of heliotrope and gamboge.
A deep yellow pigment made from tree resin.
And the dragon with its terrible emerald tail and ruby glare did not merely threaten; it incinerated everything around it with a happy blossom of heliotrope and gamboge.
Moving around to attack and steal; raiding.
In the thin margins, Chad had added the marauding creatures.
A short, confused fight.
She knew Chad had recently moved to Virginia and had already been involved in several scuffles in the school playground.
In Greek myth the Minotaur is a monster, half man and half bull, kept by King Minos of Crete inside the labyrinth that Daedalus built.
The title is printed in red and struck through, with a footnote number that points back to Johnny's earlier Minotaur note. The book shows the word and also shows that someone tried to remove it.
Cadmium, madder, rose, indigo, celadon, heliotrope and gamboge are names of real paint pigments and colours. See the glossary.
The rich colours of the animals stand against the solid black square at the centre of the page.
A feeling of nervous fear or unease.
I don’t get fazed by much, but let me tell you just seeing those pictures gave me the willies.”256 Teppet C.
Have a look.
Willies or not, curiosity got the best of her: “Truth be told, I just had to take a gander at the place that had inspired those drawings.”257 During her lunch break, Brookes climbed into her Ford Bronco and made the fifteen minute drive to Ash Tree Lane.
A Ford sport-utility vehicle. Brookes drives it to Ash Tree Lane on her lunch break.
… or not, curiosity got the best of her: “Truth be told, I just had to take a gander at the place that had inspired those drawings.”257 During her lunch break, Brookes climbed into her Ford Bronco and made the fifteen minute drive to Ash Tree Lane.
Attractive in an old-fashioned way.
“I thought the house was nice and quaint on the outside.
A Polish-born French psychiatrist (1882–1950) who studied children's drawings of houses, including drawings by Jewish children who survived the Second World War.
The footnote sends the reader back to her earlier mention (footnote 212), where a child's drawn house shows the child's inner state.
38.258 258also refer back to footnote 212 dealing with Francoise Minkowska.
A concentrated essence of something.
Though I still have their drawings.”2 In some respects, the distillate of crayon and colour traced out by the hands of two children captures the awfulness at the heart of that house better than anything caught on film or tape, those shallow lines and imperfect …
Gently persuade someone to do something.
For a while Daisy and Chad try to coax their mother to even briefly abandon her post.
Psychology Today is a real popular psychology magazine. The writer and article are invented. Lew argues that Karen swaps one dependency (Navidson) for another (her children).
She leaves the radios and spends an hour tucking her children into bed. Dr. Lon Lew believes the house enabled Karen to slowly break down her reliance on Navidson, allowing her a greater and more permanent distance: “Her children’s fear coupled with their need for her further separated Karen from …
A Chinese practice of arranging buildings and objects to bring harmony and good fortune. Karen used Feng Shui objects (a tiger, marble horses, a vase) to make the house feel safe.
Here the children notice the objects are gone, and Karen boxes up the rest. Critics read the box as a step away from denial.
Then on Sunday evening, both children ask her what happened to all her Feng Shui objects.
PBS is the real American public television network. The programme is invented; its source for Brookes's tearful words.
We watch as they lead her from room to room, 260The Navidson Legacy” Winter’s Grave, PBS, September 8, 1996.
Make the sign of the cross on the body, as a Christian prayer or protection.
Grand Street was a real New York literary quarterly (1981–2004). The article is invented, and its date “fall 1195” is an obvious misprint for 1995.
Along with several other critics, Gail Kalt dwells on Karen’s choice of words during her conversation with Tom on the radio when she refers to Feng Shui as “some such shit.”
Take apart an idea or belief to see how it works.
Karen has begun to deconstruct her various mechanisms of denial.
A long narrow crack; here, a gap between two people.
She recognizes that the key to her misery lies in the still unexplored fissure between herself and Navidson.
Two invented doctoral theses (University of Tennessee, Indiana University). The book gives even small details of Karen's packing an academic source, which makes the film seem widely studied.
… Karen’s step away from denial is made more evident when right after her talk with Tom she gathers up any remaining items having to do with Feng Shui and throws them in a box. David N. Braer in his thesis “House Cleaning” notes how Karen not only adds to this collection the books already mentioned in Chapter V but also includes the Bible, several New Age manuals, her tarot cards, and …
Tarot cards are a deck used for fortune-telling; New Age manuals are popular spiritual self-help books. Karen puts every belief system she used for comfort into one box, together with a mirror.
Braer in his thesis “House Cleaning” notes how Karen not only adds to this collection the books already mentioned in Chapter V but also includes the Bible, several New Age manuals, her tarot cards, and strangest of all a small hand mirror.2°3 Then after depositing the box in the garage, she looks in on her children one more time, comforting them …
A wheeled stretcher for moving injured people.
She is in fact in the middle of frantically removing several winter coats and shoes from the foyer closet when Tom races out of the hallway, pushing the gurney in front of him, tears gushing from his eyes.
Zampanò says these two untitled sequences are hard to follow: poor focus, jarring cuts and a mixed-up time line. He argues that Navidson made the confusion on purpose.
He lists three invented books that try to rebuild the story: The Navidson Record: The Novelization, Thorton J. Cannon Jr.'s Action and Chronologies, and Esther Hartline's Thru Lines (Dutton is a real publisher).
265Many have complained that The Holloway Tape as well as the two untitled sequences frequently identified as “The Wait” and “The Evacuation” are incomprehensible.
Make a problem worse.
Poor resolution, focus, and sound (with the exception of the interviews shot afterward in 16mm) further exacerbate the difficulties posed by so many jarring cuts and a general chronological jumble.
A measure of how well a door or wall blocks sound.
Frantically, he slams the door and bolts all four locks, which no doubt thanks to the door’s acoustic rating actually seems to keep that terrible sound at bay.
Real anatomy of the shoulder. The coracoid process and the spine of the scapula are parts of the shoulder blade; the trapezius, deltoid and infraspinatus are shoulder muscles; the subclavian artery is the main artery to the arm. The medical detail makes the wound concrete.
There doctors discovered that fragments from the coracoid process and scapula spine had turned his trapezius, delta the narrative see The Navidson Record: The Novelization (Los Angeles: Goal Gothum Publication, 1994); Thorton J.
A small hook-shaped part of the shoulder blade.
There doctors discovered that fragments from the coracoid process and scapula spine had turned his trapezius, delta the narrative see The Navidson Record: The Novelization (Los Angeles: Goal Gothum Publication, 1994); Thorton J.
The shoulder blade.
There doctors discovered that fragments from the coracoid process and scapula spine had turned his trapezius, delta the narrative see The Navidson Record: The Novelization (Los Angeles: Goal Gothum Publication, 1994); Thorton J.
Muscles of the shoulder and upper back.
There doctors discovered that fragments from the coracoid process and scapula spine had turned his trapezius, delta the narrative see The Navidson Record: The Novelization (Los Angeles: Goal Gothum Publication, 1994); Thorton J.
Small sharp pieces thrown out by a bullet, bomb or shell.
Miraculously though, the bullet and bone shrapnel had only grazed the subclavian artery.
The large artery under the collarbone that carries blood to the arm.
Miraculously though, the bullet and bone shrapnel had only grazed the subclavian artery.
Mount Everest is the highest mountain on Earth. Its North Face is a hard route from the Tibetan side. The text says Wax will probably never climb it alone now.
Wax eventually recovered and after a long period of rehabilitation returned to a life of outdoor activities, even though it is doubtful he will ever climb Everest now let alone attempt to solo the North Face.
“All-points bulletin”: a police alert sent to all officers to look for a suspect.
As APBs went out, patrolmen began a statewide search which would ultimately last several weeks.
Monel is a strong nickel-copper alloy that resists corrosion. The explorers used Monel line to mark their way. Karen hands the end of a spool to the sheriff.
When the sheriff came over, Karen immediately dragged him over to the hallway, handed him a flashlight and the end of a spool of Monel fishing line.
Frightened, nervous.
He looked at her like she was nuts, but then I think he got a little spooked too.
The sheriff is invented. National Public Radio (NPR) is the real American public radio network. His two statements do not agree: on camera he says the house was searched; on the radio he admits a cold corridor that felt like “a gigantic grave”.
Right after the release of The Navidson Record, Sheriff Josiah Axnard was accosted by numerous reporters.
Real American magazines (news, film, general, climbing, men's fashion). The articles about Wax's recovery are invented. The spread of titles suggests the film became a big news story.
He confessed to 266See U.S. News & World Report, v.
A fast, strong or irregular heartbeat that one can feel.
… night Karen stays in the living room, crying off and on, leaving the hallway door open, even though, as she explains to Reston, standing a foot too close will cause her to experience heart palpitations and tremors.
Sleep.
Reston, however, badly in need of some shut eye almost immediately falls into a deep sleep on the couch.
A cigarette of marijuana.
After watching the paramedics take Wax away, we follow Tom’s retreat to the study where he manages to locate among his things the last bit of a joint.
Zampanò collects every time a character calls the house a grave, coffin or catacomb. Reston's joke names the giant from the English fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk, who lives in a castle above the clouds.
Johnny (fn 268) adds that Zampanò also uses the word, and the Editors (fn 269) point to the Index.
He takes several deep breaths and then as 267Nor is that the first time the word “grave” appears in reference to the house in The Navidson Record.
Bourbon is American whiskey; Jack Daniel's is a famous Tennessee whiskey. Tom buys a whole case of bourbon and drinks through the wait.
Karen is getting ready to show Sheriff Axnard the hallway, he steals a sip of bourbon.?7° Regrettably, Tom fails to stop at a sip.
A bottle of liquor holding a fifth of a US gallon (about 750 ml).
A few hours later he has finished off the whole fifth as well as half a bottle of wine.
Covered, as if things were crawling over it.
Judging from the house footage, what seems to really push Tom over the edge that second day is when he reenters the house and finds Daisy —her forearms acrawl with strange scratches—swaying in front of the hallway screaming “Daddy!”
An invented essay in an invented collection (W. W. Norton is a real publisher). “The Program” is the twelve-step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous, and “a friend of Bill” is a code phrase for an AA member (after Bill W., a founder of AA).
The footnote is placed where Tom steals a sip of bourbon, so the title points at his drinking.
Tom 270See Harmon Frisch’s “Not Even Bill’s Acquaintance” Twenty Years In The Program ed.
A feeling of being sure.
Tom tries to shrug off the certitude that his brother is dead.
A well-known joke: cojones is Spanish slang for testicles, here those of the bull killed in the bullring. The second plate is small because “the bull does not lose every time”.
Tom tells it while he fears his brother is dead; the joke is about a fighter who did not win.
“There once was this guy who went to Madrid.
Cojones: slang for testicles. Señor: “sir”.
“Soon a plate arrived loaded with rice pilaf and two large meaty objects. ““*What’s this?’ he asked his waiter. “*Cojones, Senor.’
Lasting longer than expected or wanted.
Tom’s joke attempts to deflect some of the pain inherent in this protracted wait, but of course nothing can really diminish the growing knowledge that Navidson may have vanished for good.
Three invented critics read Karen's reaction to Navidson's return: she is ready to leave, she is more reserved, or she fears him. Miami University Press (Oxford, Ohio) and Chatfield College in St. Martin, Ohio are real places; the book and lecture are invented.
The three readings do not agree, which is typical of the book's critics.
Consider Anita Massine’s comments: Her initial embrace and happiness is not just about Navidson’s return.
Using few words; short and cold.
Navidson’s arrival means she can leave.?72 Or Garegin Thorndike Taylor’s response: Where previously Karen might have dissolved into tears and her typical clutching, this time she is clearly more reserved, even terse, relying on her smile for defense.?73 Or finally Professor Lyle Macdonough: The reason Karen cries out when Navidson wakes her has nothing to do with the inherent terror of that hallway or some other …
Nightmare.
… relying on her smile for defense.?73 Or finally Professor Lyle Macdonough: The reason Karen cries out when Navidson wakes her has nothing to do with the inherent terror of that hallway or some other cauchemar.
Control of one's mind as one wakes up (reins are the straps used to steer a horse).
Only once the reins of consciousness slip into place does she resort to expected modes of welcome.?”4 Karen clearly refuses to allow Navidson’s appearance to alter her plans.
Navidson's own account of his climb back up the stairs, from the interview filmed afterwards. He finds Holloway's pack, camera and rifle but no body.
He stops on the name “Delial” and calls the memory awful. The book has not explained this name yet.
275In the following excerpt from The Last Interview, Navidson sheds some more light on how he managed to emerge from those dark hollows: “I remember I had found Jed’s pack so I knew I was okay on water and food for a …
The burned pages: critics and a therapist's notes on Holloway, then the Holloway Tape. Johnny's longest footnote runs underneath.
In large amounts.
It's way too copious for cigarette tappings, and anyway Zampand didn’t smoke, Another small mystery to muse over, if you like, or just forget, which I recommend.
Made of hot ash, gas and rock thrown out by a volcano.
Though even I’m unable to follow my own advice, imagining instead gray ash floating down like snow everywhere, after the blast but still hours before that fabled avalanche of heat, the pyroclastic roar that will incinerate everything, even if for the time being—and there still is time .
Johnny imagines ash from a volcanic eruption, before the “pyroclastic” flow of burning gas and rock. He repeats a new motto: “Fly from the path.”
The footnote covers Lude's visit, a memory of Raymond, Johnny's fear that Zampanò's work has made him, and the gun he has bought.
There's only one choice and the brave make it. Fly from the path.
Beachwood Canyon is a real Hollywood neighbourhood under the Hollywood Sign. The party in “some castle” with drugs (X = ecstasy) and mead (honey wine) is Lude's usual lure.
Lude sees Johnny's black drawings of “empty rooms” and tells him to get rid of the thing.
Fly from the path. Lude dropped by a few nights ago.
Heroin.
Like my boss, he also assumed I was on smack.
A friendly way to address a man (from “horse”); Lude's name for Johnny.
“Throw it away, hoss” Lude said and started to cross to my desk for a closer look.
Marijuana.
Lude waved a bag of grass in front of me, said there was a party up Beachwood canyon, some castle loaded with hookers on X and a basement full of mead.
An old alcoholic drink made from honey and water.
Lude waved a bag of grass in front of me, said there was a party up Beachwood canyon, some castle loaded with hookers on X and a basement full of mead.
Burning, as in a sacrifice by fire.
Lude shrugged and blew out the flame, the immolating splash of brightness abruptly receding into a long gray thread climbing up to the ceiling before finally collapsing into invisible and untraceable corridors of chaos.
Kyrie's violent boyfriend from earlier footnotes. Johnny calls him Gdansk Man (Gdańsk is a Polish port city). Lude warns that he is back in town.
He knew Gdansk Man was the least of my worries but I guess he wanted to help.
Ecstasy (MDMA), a party drug.
Raymond is the foster father, a former Marine, who beat Johnny. Johnny remembers running from him into the stairwell of a chimney-sweep shop, “Gallow & Sons”.
“Cannon fodder” means soldiers seen as expendable. Johnny learns that fear can be useful, and plans his escape with lies and flattery.
Raymond still hit me, an open handed slap to my left ear, pain answering the deafening quiet that followed, a distant thump then as my forehead skidded into the concrete wall.
A Zippo is a classic American metal lighter. Johnny compares Lude drawing it to a gunfighter drawing a .44 revolver in a western film, where the hero wears a white hat and the villain wears black.
Johnny notes that he himself is dressed in black. Lude's lighter is an offer, not a challenge: burn it.
I use Lude’s Zippo to light another candle, the flame revealing what I'd missed before, on the front, etched in chrome, the all red melancholy King of Hearts—did Lude have any idea what he was really suggesting I …
Soldiers treated as expendable; people who are used up without care.
He was trying to sound like one of his western heroes, doling out profound advice, telling me how I was only “cannon fodder” though he pronounced it like “father” and in a way that seemed to imply he was really referring to himself.
Clever, sly deception.
I started to befriend guile, doped Raymond with compliments and self-deprecating stories.
An old friend Johnny mentions here for the first time. Johnny himself admits the reader has not heard of him before.
Not all complex problems have easy solutions; so says Science (so warns Science); and so Trenton once warned me, both of us swilling beer in that idling hunk of rust and gold known simply as the Truck; but that had been in another time when there was still a truck …
Strong, good-quality writing paper.
After all, I'm its source, the one who feeds it, nurses it back to health—but not life, I fear—bones of bond paper, transfusions of ink, genetic encryption in xerox; monstrous, maybe inaccurate correlates, but nonetheless there.
Feeling that the world is not real (derealization) or that one is not oneself (depersonalization).
A moment comes where suddenly everything seems impossibly far and confused, my sense of self derealized & depersonalized, the disorientation so severe I actually believe—and let me tell you it is an intensely strange instance of belief—that this terrible sense of relatedness to Zampano’s work implies something that just can’t …
Wide open, like a mouth open in surprise.
… has created me; not me unto it, but now it unto me, where I am nothing more than the Matter of some other voice, intruding through the folds of what even now lies there agape, possessing me with histories I should never recognize as my own; inventing me, defining me, directing me until finally every association I can claim as my own—from Raymond to Thumper, Kyrie to Ashley, all …
Johnny describes the pile of papers as a body he keeps alive with ink and xerox, with no “heaven sent blast of electricity”. This echoes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818), where a maker brings a body to life.
He then turns the idea around and fears that the work has created him.
Rude and without respect.
One of the most excniciating and impudent works on the subject was written by Jeremy Flint.
An invented book that Zampanò calls speculative and badly written, but which quotes documents found nowhere else. Flint argues that Holloway's suicidal urges had to turn into murder.
One of the most excniciating and impudent works on the subject was written by Jeremy Flint.
Deserving strong blame.
Regrettably this reprehensible concoction of speculation, fantasy, and repellent prose, also incl[ Jes or refers to primary documents not available anywhere else.
An invented young psychiatrist who treated Holloway for depression. Her notes list his expeditions and two stories: Elizabeth, his first love, and the doe he shot by mistake while hunting with his father.
The Xs in her notes are ink, not burning (fn 279). Footnote 281 points back to an earlier note about beginners and experts.
Through hard work, luck, or theft, Flint managed to [ ] across some of the notes and summations made by psychiatrist Nancy Tobe who for a br[ _]f period treated Holloway for [ ] depression: Spiders prepare a grave.
In a standard deck the King of Hearts seems to push a sword into his own head, so card players call him the “suicide king”. Johnny asks if Lude knew what he suggested with it.
I use Lude’s Zippo to light another candle, the flame revealing what I'd missed before, on the front, etched in chrome, the all red melancholy King of Hearts—did Lude have any idea what he was really suggesting I do?—imagining then not one flame but a multitude, a million orange and blue tears cremating the body, this labor, and in that sudden burst …
Bury again.
There’s only one choice now: finish what Zampand himself failed to finish. Re-inter this thing in a binding tomb.
Martin B. Retting was a real gun shop in Culver City, a city inside Los Angeles County. The Heckler & Koch USP is a German semi-automatic pistol; .45 ACP is its cartridge. Johnny has bought one and hides it in the trunk.
Make it only a book, and if that doesn’t help... retrieve what I’ve been hiding in the trunk, something I ordered three weeks ago and finally picked up today, purchased in Culver city at Martin B. Retting (11029 Washington Blvd)—one Heckler & Koch USP .45 ACP, kept for that moment when I'm certain nothing's left.
A large pistol cartridge (Automatic Colt Pistol).
Retting (11029 Washington Blvd)—one Heckler & Koch USP .45 ACP, kept for that moment when I'm certain nothing's left.
“Thus”: marks that an error in a quote is in the original.
However, Tobe’s typed summation following the first session offers a few [ ]details concerning Holloway’s life: “Despite his own achievement [sic] which range from Scuba Diving expeditions in the G[ ]Aqaba, leading climbers up _ the Matterhom, organizing numerous [ ] as.
The list of Holloway's achievements: diving in the Gulf of Aqaba (the northern tip of the Red Sea), leading climbers on the Matterhorn (a famous Alpine peak), and polar expeditions.
… ]details concerning Holloway’s life: “Despite his own achievement [sic] which range from Scuba Diving expeditions in the G[ ]Aqaba, leading climbers up _ the Matterhom, organizing numerous [ ] as. well as expeditions to the North and South Pole, Holloway feels inadequate and suffers from acute and chronic depression.
A female deer; a male deer.
In another series of notes Tobe describes Holloway’s first love: “At seventeen, he met a young woman named Eliz{|beth who he described to me as ‘Beautiful like a doe.
The crosshairs in a rifle scope.
I took my time, centered the reticule, let out my breath, squeezed slowly, and listened to that round as it cracked across the valley.
Expressing disapproval or contempt.
At this point Flint’s analysis heads into a fairly pejorative and unoriginal analysis of vi[Jlence.
Quick and not thorough.
However since Flint is not the only one to make this association, it is worth at least a cursory gl[ Jnce.
An isolation or sensory-deprivation tank is a dark, silent tank of body-warm salt water, developed by John C. Lilly in the 1950s. Without outside input the mind starts to make its own images.
Flint uses it to say that Holloway projected himself onto the empty walls.
In many ways, Navidson’s house functions like an immense isolation tank.
A dark, soundproof tank of warm salt water used to cut off the senses.
In many ways, Navidson’s house functions like an immense isolation tank.
Stekel (1868–1940) was an Austrian psychoanalyst and early follower of Freud. At the 1910 meeting of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society on suicide he said that no one kills himself who did not want to kill another, or wish another's death.
In 1910 at [ ] conference in Vienna, Wilhelm Stekel cla[]med [ ] “no one killed himself unless he[Jeither wanted to kill another person []r 2831bXXXXKXXXXSuiXXXXXXXXXXX [ ] XXXXXXxx284 284Tnked out as well as burned.
Make a problem or feeling worse by adding to it.
Real sources. Dan Buie and John Maltsberger were American psychiatrists who wrote on suicide risk (1983). Ned Cassem was a Harvard psychiatrist; the Guide (1988), edited by Armand M. Nicholi Jr., is a real textbook.
The quote names two drives behind suicide: murderous hate and an urgent need to escape pain.
wished a[Jother’s death”285 [ 1983 Buie and Maltzberger described s[ Jcide[ resulting from “two types of imperative impulses: murder{]us hate and an ur[Jent need to es[]ape suff[]ring.”286 Robert Jean Cam Jell sums up t[Je psych[]dynamics of suic[ ]s as fol{ …
An old term for depression that starts in middle or late life.
In involutional depressions and in the depr[ Jed type of manic[]depressive psychosis, the following dynamic elements are of] ]n clearly operative: the d[ Jessed patient loses the object that he depends upon for narcissistic s[ —Jlies; in …
Attention and love from others that support a person's self-esteem.
In involutional depressions and in the depr[ Jed type of manic[]depressive psychosis, the following dynamic elements are of] ]n clearly operative: the d[ Jessed patient loses the object that he depends upon for narcissistic s[ —Jlies; in an atte[ Jt to force the object’s return, he regre[ Jes to the oral stage and inc[ |porates (swallows up) the object, t[]us regressively identi[ Jing with the object: the sadism …
In Freud's theory, the baby's first stage, when pleasure centres on the mouth.
… are of] ]n clearly operative: the d[ Jessed patient loses the object that he depends upon for narcissistic s[ —Jlies; in an atte[ Jt to force the object’s return, he regre[ Jes to the oral stage and inc[ |porates (swallows up) the object, t[]us regressively identi[ Jing with the object: the sadism originally directed against the desert| |objectis tallen up by the patient's sup{ |goand is directed against the incorporated …
Take another person inside the mind, as if swallowing them.
… stage and inc[ |porates (swallows up) the object, t[]us regressively identi[ Jing with the object: the sadism originally directed against the desert| |objectis tallen up by the patient's sup{ |goand is directed against the incorporated object, w{ Jh now lodges wit[ |n the ego; suicide oc{ |s, not so much as an attempt on the ego’s part to esc[\pe the inexorable demands of the superego, but rather as a{ …
Impossible to stop or change.
… the patient's sup{ |goand is directed against the incorporated object, w{ Jh now lodges wit[ |n the ego; suicide oc{ |s, not so much as an attempt on the ego’s part to esc[\pe the inexorable demands of the superego, but rather as a{ jenraged attack on the in{ Jorated object in retaliation [Jor its having dese[| Jd the pati[ | in the first place.?87 [It{, Js added f[]r em[ …
In Freud's model: the ego is the conscious self; the superego is the inner judge or conscience.
… is directed against the incorporated object, w{ Jh now lodges wit[ |n the ego; suicide oc{ |s, not so much as an attempt on the ego’s part to esc[\pe the inexorable demands of the superego, but rather as a{ jenraged attack on the in{ Jorated object in retaliation [Jor its having dese[| Jd the pati[ | in the first place.?87 [It{, Js added f[]r em[ Jasis] Of course the …
A real reference book (Oxford University Press, 5th edition 1981). The long quote uses Freudian terms: the depressed patient “swallows up” a lost loved one, and the anger meant for that person turns against the self.
The quote also mentions that suicide rates fell in countries fighting in World War II. See the glossary for the technical terms.
287Robert Jf Jn Campbell, M.D[ | Psychiatric Dictionary (Oxfo{]d Univ[ Jity Press, 1981) [ ] 608[]
An old term for bipolar disorder: swings between high and low moods.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher. In Beyond Good and Evil (1886, aphorism 157) he wrote that the thought of suicide is a great consolation that helps one through many a bad night. Navidson quotes it.
But as Nietzsche said, ‘The t{Jought of suicide is a consolation.
An invented interview. It is the source of the “SUBJECT / COMMENT” record of Navidson's thoughts about suicide.
It can get one through many a bad night.’” (See Dr. Hetterman Stone’s Confidential: An In| |view With Karen Green 19[ Navidson often viewed his achievements with disdain, considered his direction vague, and frequently assumed his desires would [Jever be met by life [Jo matter how f[ …
Robert Hughes (1938–2012) was an Australian art critic for Time magazine. The phrase about Navidson is invented.
… his eye and film to bring meaning to virt{ J everything he e[Jcount[ Jed, and though he paid the high price of lost interaction, he frequently conceived beautiful instances worthy of our time; what Robert Hughes famously referred to[ ] “Navidson’s little windows of light.”
The M-60 is an American machine gun. The 1st Cavalry Division fought in Vietnam, and “Rock Island East” was a huge enemy supply cache it found in Cambodia in May 1970. The Bronze Star is a US medal for bravery.
Navidson sent his medal and a photo of his first kill to President Richard Nixon in protest. Many veterans returned their medals against the war in 1971.
He was manning an M-60 with the 1St cay[ Jy at Rock Island East where he would eventually receive a Bronze 332
An invented book (Times Books is a real publisher). Enderheart answers Flint by comparing Holloway with Navidson, who also thinks about suicide but turned his despair into art.
I shot both of [ Jem. [Long pause] Half a canteen of water’s all I’ve left. [Another 288Rosemary End[ Jart’s How Have You Who Loved Ever Loved A Next Time? (New York: Times Books, 19[ ] p.
An armoured military vehicle that transports soldiers.
Star for saving the I[]ves of two [ ] soldiers he dra[]ged from a burning personnel carrier.
A journalist who tells news stories with photographs.
Despite the radically differ[|nt behavior pattern{] demonst[]ated by the hunter from Me[ ]mo[ ], Wi[ sin and the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Jin the house, The Hollow[ | Tape revealed that e[]ther one could just as easily have been devo[]r[]d in the same way, The gli[ ]se rescued from that t{ Jr[ ]b{Jle [lark warned that …
Bachelard (1884–1962) was a French philosopher. The Poetics of Space (1958) studies houses, corners, drawers and nests as images of inner life.
The quote on the tape's opening card: the dreamer in his corner wiped out the world, one object at a time, in a detailed daydream. Footnote 289 gives the French original.
Ove[]view: * The opening card displays a quote from Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space: “The dreamer in his corner wrote off the world in a detailed daydream that destroyed, one by one, all the objects in the world.””289 * There are thirteen parts.
Janson is a real old-style typeface named after Anton Janson, a Dutch printer who worked in Leipzig. Historians later showed it was cut by the Hungarian Miklós Kis. Zampanò notes the typeface of Navidson's title cards.
The typeface is the same Janson as issued by Anton Janson in Leipzig between 1660 and 1687.
Grey or partly grey (of hair or beard); rough-looking.
Who can forget Holloway’s grizzled features as he []urns the camera on hi[]self?
The French original of the Bachelard quote: the dreamer in his corner wiped out the world in a detailed daydream.
1432-1436). *89L¢ réveur, dans son coin, a rayé le monde en une réverie minutieuse qui détruit un & un tous les objets du monde.
Menomonie is a real small city in Wisconsin, Holloway's birthplace. U. Mass. is the University of Massachusetts. Holloway repeats these facts on tape like a mantra to hold on to who he is.
“Born in Menomonie, Wil Jn.
Floyd Collins was a Kentucky caver who was trapped by a rock in Sand Cave in January 1925. Rescuers could not free him and he died after about two weeks; newspapers and radio followed the story daily.
In his delirium he talked of angels in chariots and of chicken sandwiches. Zampanò compares his suffering with Holloway's.
Despite Holloway’s undeniable guilt, not since Floyd Collins became trapped in the Kentucky Sand Cave back in 1925 has there been such a terrible instance of suffering.
A very narrow passage in a cave.
Despite the efforts of many men to free him from the squeeze, Collins never saw the light of day again.
A word or phrase repeated to calm or focus the mind.
Repeatin[] his identity seems the only mantra[ —_Joffers any consolation: “Holloway Roberts.
A regular movement back and forth.
Regrettably, the limited amount of light, the [ Juality of tape, not to mention the constant oscillation between sharp and blurry (compliments of the Hi 8’s automatic focus)[] barely c[ Jure Holloway’s bearded face let [ Jone anything else—not to imply that there exists an ‘else’.
An invented book and an invented hunters' chant: the hunter runs from his fear, then tracks it, kills it and eats it. Hoyle says Holloway lacked any such training in fear.
291Tn the epil[]gue of her bo[]k Fear Mantras (Cambridge: Harvard Un[ ]ress, 1995) Alicia Hoyle disc[ ]ses Hollow[]y’s I[]ck of fear training: “He didn[]t even pos[Jes[] the ancient Hak-Kin-Dak man[]ra” (p.
Zampanò lists the monsters of the story as forms of myth: the tiger in Tom's bedtime stories, the “Mr. Monster” Tom joked to in the dark, Holloway's beast. The line “Myth is the Minotaur” is struck through. “Redwood” is a name the text gives here without explanation.
Parts 4[ ]6,[ ],10 & 1[] centre on Holloway’s reiteration of his identity.
Load a cartridge into the firing chamber of a gun.
Menomonie, Wisconsin. [chambering a round in his rifle] Oh god[_].’2% It is interesting to compare Holloway’s behavior to Tom’s.
Red, struck-out footnotes about the Minotaur. An invented critic, Chiclitz, reads the maze as a place to hide shame, and asks if the Minotaur was a son locked away by a father. Kym Pale (invented; Buzz magazine) says Navidson did not build the labyrinth, he only found it.
The text is shaped like a picture and is partly burned. Johnny (fn 298) says Zampanò tried to delete the Minotaur theme and Johnny kept it.
Never{ _ Jless[ ] Of course, Part 13 or rather “Last” of The Holloway Tape initiates the largest and perhaps most popular debate surrounding The Navidson Record.
Two invented critics at opposite ends of the debate over the last part of the tape. Pitch (Pelias Lecture Series; Incarnation Of Spirit Things) says there is a real beast. Ashbeckie (in the real magazines American Photo and The Nation) says the “creature” is only the absence of light, filled in by myth.
Never{ _ Jless[ ] Of course, Part 13 or rather “Last” of The Holloway Tape initiates the largest and perhaps most popular debate surrounding The Navidson Record. Lantern C. Pitch a[]d Kadina Ashbeckie stand on opposite ends of the spectrum, one favoring an actual monster, the other opting for a ratio[Jal explan{]tion.
A member of a Germanic people who sacked Rome in 455; here, a destroyer.
Thus despite rational object[Jons, technology’s failure is over[]un by the onslaught of myth.”2% ] Except the Vandal known as Myth always slaughters Reason if she falters.
Two real film magazines with invented articles. Barnholt claims Part 12 of the tape was filmed by a second camera; Willis says only some prints show this. The debate raises the question of digital editing.
Myths+he-Minotaur295 Myth is 292Collette Barnholt (American Cinematographer, [ Jber 2, [ ] 49) has argued that the existence of Part 12 is an impossibility, claiming the framing and lighting, though only slightly different from earlier and later parts, indicate the presence …
An ancient tale: the slave Androcles pulls a thorn from a lion's paw, and later the lion spares him in the arena. The note warns that love alone does not make you Androcles; the creature does not know you.
)?97 226Palef j-allusiontothetif ]-here[ 23 97 See-Kyen Palo-s-“Navidson-and-the Lion” Buze+ [ ]ber 99] -p{ ]—Alse+evisit feces 28whether you've noticed or not—and if you have, well bully for you —Zampans has attempted to systematically eradicate the “Minotaur” theme throughout The Navidson Record.
Johnny says Zampanò tried to remove every trace of the Minotaur, and that he, Johnny, restored it. He hints at a disturbing coincidence he found. Footnote 299 (the Editors) sends the reader to Appendix B.
… 226Palef j-allusiontothetif ]-here[ 23 97 See-Kyen Palo-s-“Navidson-and-the Lion” Buze+ [ ]ber 99] -p{ ]—Alse+evisit feces 28whether you've noticed or not—and if you have, well bully for you —Zampans has attempted to systematically eradicate the “Minotaur” theme throughout The Navidson Record.
These are Victor Frankenstein's words to his creature in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). The note puts him in a line of fathers who reject their sons, next to “St. Mark's god” (in Mark's gospel Jesus cries that God has forsaken him).
A misreading or misunderstanding (also an old legal term for hiding a crime).
A real 1993 “shockumentary” video of real deaths. The struck-out note tells the reader to revisit it, next to Holloway's filmed death.
For exactly two minutes and 28 seconds he groans and twitches in his own blood, until fin[ ] he slip[] into shock and presumably death.3°!
Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891), French poet. The line ends his prose poem “Enfance IV” in Illuminations: “It can only be the end of the world, going forward.” Zampanò notes that Holloway does not meet his end with French elegance.
“Ce ne peut étre que la fin du monde, en avancant,” Rimbaud dryly remarked.
A flare that burns magnesium with a very bright white light.
Instead he props up his []i{Jeo camera, ignites a magnesium flare, and crosses the room to the far end, where he slumps in the corner to wait.
An invented critic in a partly burned St. Paul newspaper. Her line: the absence of an end became Holloway's own end.
300Ji11 Raf Jy [ Jt{ Jock’s “No Kindness” St.
In Greek legend Perilaus built for the tyrant Phalaris of Akragas a hollow bronze bull. A victim was roasted inside, and pipes in the head turned the screams into music; Phalaris tested it first on Perilaus.
The struck-out note cites an invented book comparing this to Chad hearing Holloway's death through the house (see p. 320).
Consi ate eS Laveuaoe of Torture {New York: St Moartin’s Drece 1995)- p—)3-where-he likens Chad’: eynerience toa 0) + : Se as 7 - = ++ t J those of Raman’s listenina to-Perilaus' devilish chamber: “Thic unycual work of art wae a life cige replica me : AA = +t +: Ze-ep {= efabull cast in solid brass.
“It can only be the end of the world, going forward.” (Rimbaud)
Johnny takes up the brazen bull: Zampanò was trapped in the thing he kept building. Then Johnny sees himself inside the burning brass bull and asks who is playing the music now.
He quotes a line, “Thou sees me not old man, but I know thee well”, and says he does not know who said it.
A dangerous, moving glacier on the Everest climbing route, where ice blocks shift without warning. Zampanò offers it as a natural explanation for the growl: a peculiar physics, not a beast.
Was it made by a be[ ] or jus[] a[Jother reconfig[]ration of that absurd space; like the Khumbu Icefall; product of [Jome peculiar physics?
The struck-out note says “creature” is a clumsy word and links it to Greek koros, “surfeit”. In Greek, Koros is the personified idea of excess; the word “creature” in fact comes from Latin creatura, a created thing. The note says the thing is not half man, half bull.
303, Creature is admitt edlyal ] pointed[]not-halfman/halfbull_{ ] something other forever inhabiting| ] readable ] -erue ne .
Hollander (1929–2013) was an American poet and critic. The quote says it would destroy us to see the huge shape of our being, and something mercifully offers us “issue and oblivion”.
303, Creature is admitt edlyal ] pointed[]not-halfman/halfbull_{ ] something other forever inhabiting| ] readable ] -erue ne . ] ' As John Hollander [ ] “It would annihilate us all to see/ The huge shape of our being; mercifully/[ ] offers us issue and oblivion” thus echoing one more time, though not for the last time, [ …
Too much of something.
About being and existence: what is real.
The family packs to leave in a storm, and the house attacks.
Unpleasant and off-putting; here, rough and ugly.
Not only has he bolted the four locks on the hallway door, he has gleefully established a rebarbative barricade out of a bureau, china cabinet, and a couple of chairs, crowning his work with the basinet from the foyer.
A medieval steel helmet with a rounded or pointed top.
… only has he bolted the four locks on the hallway door, he has gleefully established a rebarbative barricade out of a bureau, china cabinet, and a couple of chairs, crowning his work with the basinet from the foyer.
An invented critic reads Tom's barricade as a stage set: cabinet as backdrop, chairs as wings, the basinet (a medieval helmet) as the set. The World of Interiors is a real British design magazine; Neetz is invented.
Whether a coincidence or not, Cassady Roulet has gone to great lengths to illustrate how Tom's creation resembles a theatre: Note how the china cabinet serves as a backdrop, the opposing chairs as wings, the bureau, of course, providing the stage, …
A strong defensive point of a fortress.
Furthermore the basinet in the context of the approaching performance has been radically altered from its previous meaning as bastion or strong hold or safe.
Give up a position or claim.
It inherently abdicates all pretense of significance.3°5 Karen appreciates Tom's work on this last line of defense, but she is most touched by the way he comically clicks his heals and presents her with the Jendlessly[] in …
Johnny notes that Zampanò called this sequence “The Evacuation” in footnote 265, and compares it to his earlier waffling over “base camp” and “command post”.
… ever unfolding []nd yet never opening sequence, ] lost on stone trails [ 364T've no decent explanation why Zampand calls this section “The Escape” when in footnote 265 he refers to it as “The Evacuation.”
In Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear an old king, rejected by his daughters, rages on a heath in a great storm. Neetz imagines the stage is set for Lear because of the October storm outside.
Tom offers a clownish salute, winning a smile from both Chad and Daisy who are still somewhat disoriented from having been awakened at five in the morning and dragged out into the storm.
A short period of too much drinking or eating.
“Now is not the time to go on a binge.”
Dean Martin (1917–1995), American singer and actor, famous for a stage persona of a happy drunk. The joke: you are not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on.
Tom takes a quick glance at himself, then shakes his head: “Navy, you know what Dean Martin said?”
Moving from side to side unsteadily, as a drunk person walks.
“It’s always there for you,” Navidson answers, his own cheeks suddenly flushing with emotion as he helps his weaving brother to the kitchen.
Coming with no warning.
Slowly the noise gathers itself, growing louder and louder, getting closer and closer, something unheralded and unfamiliar contained in its gain, evolving into a new and already misconstrued sort of menace.
An invented conceptual artist on an invented Cleveland radio show. He says this is the first time the house acts physically on people and objects.
Patrick Morning Show, KRAD, Cleveland, Ohio, October 1, 1996.
A machine with a falling blade used to cut off heads.
The door frame came down like a_ guillotine.
A firm hold or grip.
J barely managed to reach the door frame and get enough of a purchase to hang on.
A name for plays of the 1950s and 1960s (Beckett, Ionesco) in which people act in a world without meaning. Zampanò uses it for Tom's stage-like barricade falling into the void.
Thus the devouring of one theatre of the absurd leads to another.
A real newspaper, an invented theatre critic. His advice: “a quick exit, stage left” and a cab to the airport.
And as is true in both cases, no amount of monologue, costume, or wit can defer the insistent gravity of that void, As theatre critic Tony K. Rich once remarked: “The only option is a quick exit, stage left, and I’d also advise a cab to the airport.”307 The exit, however, is not so easily achieved.
A stage direction: leave the stage to the left; here, a joke for “run away”.
Rich once remarked: “The only option is a quick exit, stage left, and I’d also advise a cab to the airport.”307 The exit, however, is not so easily achieved.
A steep wall of ice on Lhotse, the mountain next to Everest, on the standard Everest route. Navidson compares the tilted floor to it.
The floor was steeper than the Lhotse Face, dropping right off into that familiar chill.
Said too easily, without serious thought.
Those last words in particular may sound a bit glib, especially coming from such an esteemed photographer.
7-Eleven is a chain of convenience stores. Zampanò compares the fixed Hi 8 cameras to cheap security cameras that cannot follow the action.
The entire sequence covering the escape from the house is reminiscent of something taken off of a cheap surveillance system in a local bank or 7-Eleven.
Very steep.
Without a word, he sweeps her up in his arms and races back down to the first floor, avoiding the precipitous drop into the living room—the way Navidson had gone—by dashing instead toward the rear of the house.
Equal in size or degree; matching.
Only the after-effects create an image commensurate with the shutter like speed with which those walls snapped shut and shattered all the fingers in both of Tom’s outstretched hands.
Quick to notice and understand things.
But there is another possibility: Navidson refuses to abandon the more perspicacious portion of his audience, By relying on Reston as the sole narrative voice, he subtly draws attention once again to the question of inadequacies in representation, no matter the medium, no matter how flawless.
Zampanò notes that Reston narrates events he did not see, based on Navidson's memory. He counts four steps from Tom's hurt to Reston's words and concludes that representation does not replace; it only gives distance.
Here in particular, he mockingly emphasizes the fallen nature of any history by purposefully concocting an absurd number of generations.