Mark Z Danielewski
Page 65
She hadn't hung up nor had I. The phone company had just caught up with their oversight and finally disconnected my line.
No more Thumper. No more dial tone. Not even a domed ceiling to carry a word.
LinkJust silence and all its consequences. 332"Not overly polished or artificial." — Ed.
333See Erik Von Jamlow's Summer's Salt (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 593.
[155]According to Melanie Proft Knightley in War's Children (New York: Zone Books, 1994), p. 110, a weak heart prevented Tom from getting drafted. Navidson had gone ahead and enlisted.
[156]This is clearly based on Kevin Carter's 1994 Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a vulture preying on a tiny Sudanese girl who collapsed on her way to a feeding center. Carter enjoyed many accolades for the shot but was also accused of gross insensitivity. The Florida St. Petersburg Times wrote: The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene." Regrettably constant exposure to violence and deprivation, coupled with an increased dependency on drugs exacted a high price. On July 27, 1994 Carter killed himself. — Ed.
[157]The actual sum is never made clear in the film. Tena Leeson estimates Navidson's contributions were anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. "The High Cost of Dating" by Tena Leeson. Radiogram, v. 13, n. 4, October 1994, p. 142.
[158]See Exhibit Three for all test results, including rubidium-87/strontium-87, potassium-40/argon-40, samarium- 147/neodymium-143 dating, as well as a complete set of reports on uranium-235 and -238 contents in lead isotopes.354
LinkI guess I'm hoping the weapons will make me feel better, grant me some kind of fucking control, especially if I sense the dullness inside me get too heavy and thick, warning me that something is again approaching, creeping slowly towards my room, no figment of my imagination either but as tangible as you I, never ceasing to scratch, fume and snort in awful rage, though still pausing outside my door, waiting, perhaps for a word or an order or some other kind of sign to at last initiate this violent and by now inevitable confrontation—always as full of wrath as I am full of fear. So far nothing, though I still take the Taurus and the Heckler Koch out of the trunk, load them, and just hang on the trigger. Sometimes for a few minutes. Sometimes for hours. Aiming at the door or the window or a ceiling corner cast in shadow. I even lie with them in bed, hiding under my sky blue sheets. Trying to sleep. Trying to dream if only so I can remember my dreams. At least I'm not defenseless now. At least I have that. A gun in each hand. Not afraid to shoot. Safety off.
355See Noda Vennard's "Frame Detail" delivered for The Symposium on The Cultural Effects of Nuclear Weaponry in the Twenty-First Century held at The Technical University of Denmark on October 19, 1996. Also see Matthew Coolidge's The Nevada Test Site:A Guide to America's Nuclear Proving Ground (Culver City, CA: The Center for Land Use Interpretation, 1996) as well as Matthew Coolidge's Nuclear Proving Grounds of the World, ed. Sarah Simons (Culver City, CA: The Center for Land Use Interpretation, 1998).
[160]"Whoever you are, go out into the evening,/ leaving your room, of which you know each bit;/ your house is the last before the infinite,/ whoever you are." As translated by C. F. Maclntyre. Rilke: Selected Poems (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1940), p. 21. — Ed.
[161]While bits and pieces of these readings still circulate, they have yet to appear anywhere in their entirety. Purportedly Random House intends to publish a complete volume, though the scheduled release is not until the fall of 2001.
[161]Norman Paarlberg, "The Explorer's Responsibility," National Geographic, v. 187. January 1995, p. 120-138.
[161]Quoted in Wilfred Bluffton's article "Hollow Dark" in The New York Times, December 16, 1907, p. 5:5. Also consider Esther Harlan James' "Crave The Cave: The Color of Obsession," Diss. Trinity College, 1996, p. 669, in which she describes her own addiction to The Navidson Record: "I never shook the feeling that the film, while visceral and involving, must pale in comparison to an actual, personal exploration of the house. Still, just as Navidson needed more and more of that endless dark, I too found myself feeling the same way about The Navidson Record. In fact as I write this now, I've already seen the film thirty-eight times and have no reason to believe I will stop going to see it."
[162] Lazlo Ferma's "See No Evil" in Film Comment, v. 29, September/ October 1993, p. 58.
[163]A. Ballard "The Apophatic Science Of Recollection (Following Nuance)" Ancient Greek, v. cvii, April
1995, p. 85.
[164]In "Shout Not, Doubt Not" published in Ewig-Weibliche ed. P. V. N. Gable (Wichita, Kansas: Joy land Press, 1995) Talbot Darden translates these lines simply as "Do not touch me. Do not read me. Do not see me. Do Not Me."
[165]Sorry. No clue.366
[166]Reminding me here, I mean that line about "a code to decipher", how the greatest love letters are always encoded for the one and not the many.
[167]Billy Reston interviewed by Anthony Sitney on "Evening Murmurs," KTWL, Boulder, Colorado, January 4, 1996.
[168]Personal interview with Purdham Huckler, February 17, 1995.
[169]Personal interview with Lindsay Gerknard, February 24, 1995.
Link37'Hector Llosa speaking at the L.A. Times Convention on Media Ethics on March 14, 1996.
[171]See Tokiko Dudek's "Harbingers of Hell and/or Hope" in Authentes Journal, Palomar College, September, 1995. p. 7. Also consider Larry Burrows who in the 1969 BBC film Beautiful Beautiful remarked: ". . . so often I wonder whether it is my right to capitalize, as I feel, so often, on the grief of others. But then I justify, in my own particular thoughts, by feeling that I can contribute a little to the understanding of what others are going through; then there is a reason for doing it."
[172]Caroline Fillopino's "Sex Equations" Granta, fall 1995. p. 45.
[173]During Exploration #5 Navidson had no illusion about what he would find there. While staring into those infernal halls, we can hear him mutter: "Lazarus is dead again."
[174]Sandy Beale's "No Horizon" in The New Criticism, v. 13, November 3, 1993. p. 49.
[175]Here then Jacob loses Esau and finds he is nothing without him. He is empty, lost and tumbling toward his own annihilation. But as Robert Hert poignantly asks in Esau and Jacob (BITTW Publications, 1969), p. 389: "What did God really know about brothers (or for that matter sisters)? He was after all an only child and before it all an equally lonely father."
[176]Interview with Billy Reston. KTWL, Boulder, Colorado, January 4, 1996.
[177]See pages 22-23.
[178]As such a great variety of written material outside of The Haven-Slocum Theory has been produced on the subject of Navidson's dreams, it seems imprudent not to at least mention here a few of the more popular ones: Calvin Yudofsky's "D-Sleep/S-Sleep Trauma: Differentiating Between Sleep Terror Disorder and Nightmare Disorder" in (N) REM (Bethel, Ohio: Besinnung Books, 1995); Ernest Y. Hartmann's Terrible Thoughts: The Psychology and Biology of Navidson's Nightmares (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1996); Susan Beck's "Imposition On The Hollow" published in the T.S. Eliot Journal v. 32, November 1994; chapter four in Oona Fanihdjarte's The Constancy of Carl Jung (Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995); Gordon Kearns, L. Kajita, and M.K. Totsuka's Ultrapure Water, the Super- Kamiokande Detector and Cherenkov Light (W.H. Freeman and Company, 1997); also see www-sk.icrr .u-tokyo.ac.jp/doc/sk/; and of course Tom Curie's essay "Thou Talk'st of nothing. True, I talk of dreams" (Mab Weekly, Celtic Publications, September 1993).
Link38'See Edouard Monod-Herzen's Principes de morphologie generate, vol. I (Paris: Gauthier-Villars. 1927), p. 119.
[180]For example, even today the Kitawans of the South Pacific view the spiral of the Nautilus Pompilius as the ultimate symbol of perfection.
[181]The original text:
Comment le petit escargot dans sa prison de pierre peut-il grandir? Voila une question naturelle, une question qui se pose naturellement. Nous n'aimons pas la faire, car elle
nous renvoie nos questions d'enfant. Cette question reste sans riponse pour I'abbe de Vallemont qui ajoute: "Dans la Nature on est rarement en pays de connaissance. II y a a chaque pas de quoi humilier et mortifier les Esprits superbes." Autrement dit, la coquille de l'escargot, la maison qui grandit la mesure de son hote est une merveille de 1'Univers. Et d'une maniere gdn^rale, conclut l'abb£ de Vallemont ([Abbe de Vallemont's Curiosites de la nature et de I'art sur la vegetation ou I'agriculture et le jardinage dans leur perfection, Paris, 1709, Ire Partie], p. 255), les coquillages sont "de sublimes sujets de contemplation pour l'esprit."
For a more modem treatment of shell growth see Geerat J. Vermeij's A Natural History of Shells (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). Chapter 3 "The Economics of Construction and Maintenance" deals directly with matters of calcification and the problems of dissolution, while chapter 1 "Shells and the Questions of Biology" considers the sense of the shell in a way that differs slightly from Vallemont's: "We can think of shells as houses. Construction, repair, and maintenance by the builder require energy and time, the same currencies used for such other life functions as feeding, locomotion, and reproduction. The energy and time invested in shells depend on the supply of raw materials, the labor costs of transforming these resources into a serviceable structure, and the functional demands placed on the shell ... The words "economics" and "ecology" are especially apt in this context, for both are derived from the Greek oikos, meaning house. In short, the questions of biology can be phrased in terms of supply and demand, benefits and costs, and innovation and regulation, all set against a backdrop of environment and history."
[182]I haven't corrected this typo because it seems to me less like an error of transcription and more like a revealing slip on Zampano's part, where a "parenthetical" mention of youth suddenly becomes a "parent- ethical" question about how to relate to youth.
[183]Rene Rouquier's La boule de verre (Paris: Seghers), p. 12.388
Link_______________________________________________________________________________________________________ 390
[185]Johanne Scefing's The Navidson Record, trans. Gertrude Rebsamen (Oslo Press, May 1996), p. 52.
[186]0f course as Patricia B. Nesselroade, M.D. noted in her widely regarded self-help book Tamper With This (Baltimore: Williams Wilkins, 1994), p. 687: "If one invests some interest in, for example, a tree and begins to form some thoughts about this tree and then writes these thoughts down, further examining the meanings that surface, allowing for unconscious associations to take place, writing all this down as well, until the subject of the tree branches off into the subject of the self, that person will enjoy immense psychological benefits."
[187]See L. B. Taylor, Jr.'s The Ghosts of Virginia (Progress Printing Co., Inc., 1993) For a more international look at hauntings consider E. T. Bennett's Apparitions Haunted Houses: A Survey of Evidence (London: Faber Faber, 1939); Commander R. T. Gould, R. N.'s Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts (1928); Walter F. Prince's The Psychic in the House (Boston: Boston Society for Psychical Research, 1926); and Suzy Smith's Haunted Houses for the Million (Bell Publishing Co., 1967).
[187]Consider the interesting mention in Rupert L. Everett's Gallantrie and Hardship in the Newfoundland
Link(London: Samson Sons Publishing Company, Inc., 1673), where a colonist remarked how "Warr in Fray sure was all tabled Balls, full with much Delight and of course strange Veering Spirit." 396Virginia State Park Report (Virginia State Press, v. 12, April 1975), p. 1,173.
[189]Personal interview with Laurence Tack, May 4, 1996.
[190]This sporadic "f" for "s" stuff mystifies me, 399 but I don't care anymore. I'm getting the fuck out of here. Good thing too, fince I'm also being evicted from my apartment for failure to pay. It took them all of January, February and moft of March to do it but here it is the end of March and if I'm not out by tomorrow, people will come for me. My plan's to leave tonight and take a southern route all the way to Virginia, where I hope to find that place, or at the very least find some piece of reality that's at the root of that place, which might in turn—I hope; I do, do hope—help me addrefs some of the awful havoc always tearing through me.
[191]The exact location of the house has been subject to a great deal of speculation. Many feel it belongs somewhere in the environs of Richmond. However Ray X. Lawlor, English professor emeritus at the University of Virginia, places Ash Tree Lane "closer to California Crossroads. Certainly not far from
LinkColonial Williamsburg and the original Jamestown colony. South of Lake Powell but most assuredly northwest of Bacons Castle." See Lawlor's "Which Side of the James?" in Zyzzyva, fall 1996, p. 187. ^Lucinda S. Hausmaninger's "Oh Say Can You See" in The Richmond Lag Zine, v. 119, April 1995, p. 33.
[193]Lucinda S. Hausmaninger's "The Navy Navel" in San Clemente Prang Vibe, v. 4, winter 1996, p. vii.
Link^Ibid., p. viii.
[195]See Appendix C. — Ed.
Link^Cora Minehart's Recovery: Methods and Manner with an introduction by Patricia B. Nesselroade (New York: AMACOM Books, 1994), p. 11.
[197]See Darren Meen's Gathered God (New York: Hyperion, 1995) and Lynn Rembold's Stations of Eleven (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996).
[198]LesterT. Ochs' Smile (Middletown, CT: University Press of New England/ Wesleyan University Press, 1996), p. 87-91.
[199]The Reston Interview.
Link4"Personal interview with Timothy K. Thuan, August 29, 1996.
[201]See Cassandra Rissman LaRue's The Architecture of Art (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1971), p. 139 where she defines her frequently touted "seven stages to accomplishment":
[202]Rouhollah W. Leffler's "Art Times" in Sight and Sound, November 1996, p. 39.
[203]Susan Sontag's On Photography: The Revised Edition (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), p. 394.
[204] Ignis fatuus? ["Foolish Fire. Will of the wisp [1608]." — Ed.]*
[205]Hanan Jabara's "Hearing Things." Acoustic Lens, v. xxxii, n. 8, 1994. p. 78-84.
[206]Carlos Ellsberg's "The Solipsistic Seance." Ouija, v. ix, n. 4, December, 1996. p. 45.
[207]Though it may be obvious, recent studies carried out by Merlecker and Finch finally confirmed the "high
probability" that the "star" Navidson caught on film was none other than Karen's halogen. See Bob
Merlecker and Bob Finch's "Starlight, Starbright, First Flashlight I See Tonight." Byte, v. 20, August,
1995. p. 34.
[208]Donna Tartt's "Please, Please, Please Me." Spin, December 1996, p. 137.
[209]Guyon Keller's "The Importance of Seeing Clearly" in Cineaste, v. xxii, n. 1, p. 36-37.
[209]Missing. — Ed.
[210]Massel Laughton's "Comb and Brush" in Z, v. xiii, n. 4, 1994, p. 501. A Daphne Kaplan's The Courage to Withstand (Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press, 1996), p. iii.
[211]Missing. — Ed.
[212]Missing. — Ed.
Link43'See Appendix II-C. — Ed.
[214]Presumably "Original" indicates an entry written in Zampano's own hand, while "A" "B" "C" etc., etc. indicate entries written by someone else. — Ed.
[215]"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing." — Ed.
[216]"Through all windows, I see only infinity." — Ed.
[217]"A book is a vast cemetery where for the most part one can no longer read the faded names on the tombstones." — Ed.
[218]"We must speak also of the labyrinths, the most astonishing work of human riches, but not, as one might think, fictitious." — Ed.
[219]"By as much as our might may diminish, we will harden our minds, fill our hearts, and increase our courage." — Ed.
LinkM9"Love is not consolation, it is light." — Ed.
[221]"Whoever has no house now, will never have one." — Ed.
Table of Contents
Introduction........................................................................................
Credits......................................................
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