Thread by @RobinAChilds

Chocolate: Check
Tea: Check
Book I’ve Been Warned About: Check

This is the thread where I’ll post comments as I go. If you’d rather not go on this journey with me, now is the time to mute this tweet and all that may follow.

My pattern seeking brain is already fixating on how HOUSE is always in purple in the cover and interior fold (yes I read it I READ EVERYTHING). The fact that I’m wondering “IS THIS IMPORTANT SHOULD I NOTE THIS???” Probably does not bode well for me.

IT’S EVEN IN THE REVIEW QUOTES DON’T DO THIS TO ME BOOK MY DETAIL BRAIN IS SO HUNGRY I KEEP IT CAGED IN A BOX DON’T FEED IT DON’T ENCOURAGE IT THIS BEAST WILL CONSUME ALL IN REACH EVEN REASON

I AM UPSET AND AT SOME POINT I WILL BEGIN READING

Even the standard legalese is tweaked a little in the whole “this is a work of fiction” bit. Stating that things didn’t occur...”or are set in the future.” It’s not just an unreliable narrator it’s also an unreliable editor. How am I supposed to trust the editor notes after that?

It’s been ten minutes and I haven’t gotten past the foreword I’m in so much damn trouble

They are claiming the book didn’t contain the index. I was like “sure, I’ll go along with this charade that it didn’t have chapter 21, Appendix II/III, but the index? WHAT IS IN THE INDEX??”

...so I’ve skipped to the index.

And...I will be skimming this first.

Did you know that “ashamed” is used four separate times? Only four?

I am currently feeling far more than four ashamed worth.

“Affection” is twice the amount of “Affair” and “all” far outweighs “alone” so that’s nice. Quite a comfort.

Not feeling great about the 35 call outs for “ash” tho.

Oh hell. “Aggressor . . . DNE”

...

*goes to look up what DNE stands for as an acronym*

“Do not erase”
“Does Not Exist” (mathematical)
“Did/Do not enter”
“Do not engage”

NONE OF THESE ARE GOOD.

Ahahahaha there is a callout for every “and” you absolute delightful bastards I don’t know why this tickles me. Also what happened on page 155 - 156 to have no “AND”?

*checks*

Hmm. All seems quite above board, I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with anything on 155 - 156

I’ve learned a new word. That word is “amaurotic.” It means:

“Partial or total loss of sight, especially in the absense ofa gross lesion or injury.”

Isn’t that nice? Isn’t learning new words fun? One should invest in a word of the day calendar.

“Ambages” - Indirect ways or proceedings
“Anfractuosity” - a winding channel or course *especially* an intricate path or process (as of the mind)

YES. I GET IT. LIKE HOW I’M GOING ABOUT “READING” THIS BOOK. YOU DON’T HAVE TO CALL ME OUT LIKE THIS FFS INDEX GOD

Also DNE:
Arterial
Ballerina
Bandage
Buckles
Bundle
Buttress
Canine
Capricious (no shit)
Cartouche
Claps
Collagen
Condemn
Confuse
Custodian
Dazzle
Defenestration
Degueulasse
Detritus
Diner
Disclose
Discombobulating
Discintegrate

...but not Chad. We know EXACTLY where Chad is.

Fffffffffuuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu THIS COLOR VEXES ME. I AM VEXED. I AM HAPPY BUT ALSO I HATE IT.

AAAAAAUUUUGGGHGHHHHHHH

Oh good. Another color. And one is DNE.

Actually, no, this is good. I now associate red with a pleasant feeling. As long as it’s not blue. Horrible, horrible blue.

I have now finished the index.

But Cory has arrived home with food.

So I guess I’ll read this book some other time. Now that I’ve developed a crippling involuntary hostility towards blue.

...I’m also going to see if there was ever a non colored version. Or if this “Remastered full-color edition” is just YET ANOTHER LAYER OF LIES AND OBFUSCATION

I was ranting about the index and how there is no original version beyond this Remastered version and all Cory had to say was “You know this will only get worse when they DO reprint it, right?”

BECAUSE I AM MARRIED TO AN UNREPENTANT FIEND

“This is not for you” LIKE HELL IT’S NOT. This is BUILT to PRECISELY TORMENT people JUST LIKE ME. If you’d REALLY cared about warning me off, you would have buried this statement next to the ISBN on the copyright page YOU DISINGENUOUS SCOUNDREL

...well, ok, in the meta sense it’s obviously for a reader, but in the narrative sense it might not be. Like a personal diary. Since this is, as stated by those great and wonderful oh so helpful and reliable editors, a work of fiction and/or a recording of events yet to occur.

Will the Time Cops visit me in my home if I read this book for my temporal violations? Is this a Trials and Tribble-ations scenario I’m looking at? I would ask everyone who’s read before me, but I assume you’ve already been sworn to secrecy to prevent further damage to the future

I am trying to go to bed, but I had to confirm that chapter 21 exited. I needed to know the rules by which these Editors, who already I imagine to be personal adversaries, were playing. Or at least, the rules they want me to believe in. I found it, it’s real, everything’s fine.

Detail Brain wants to confirm all the index is accurate, but fortunately there are so many words it overloads Detail Brain’s buffer, shunting all actions into Apathy Processing. If the index had been shorter it would have been a problem.

Like, a couple pages? What a nightmare.

Appendix II is real. Appendix III is also real. I hate that one is on page 567 and the other is on 657 I HATE IT. 658 or 656 or 666 all would have been acceptable, but the same numbers in different configurations? It upsets me. The only thing that would have been worse is 765

Now that all Editor statements thus far have been confirmed, I may go to bed.

What a relief.

I can tell a lot about a book based on the illogical dream-brain functioning of my brain when I wake up a 2 am. While I was unconcerned about Whatever Lives In The Crawlspace and saw no figures looming over my bed, I was suspicious and paranoid. Which, honestly? An improvement

*shuffles to bathroom*
*finds nail clippers on the floor*
2 am Dream Brain: What does this mean? Is this a message? I didn’t put these here, did Cory? Is he plotting against me? Is there a stranger in my house? IS THIS SABOTAGE?”

*deep breath*
Y’all. I made it to the Introduction. Praise my incredible dedication and perseverance.

“No one ever really gets used to nightmares.” PREACH. PREAAAAAAACH!!!

The underline instead of an italic, the font...this is formatted the way a lot of editors want writers to submit manuscripts. I almost want to measure the margins. Narrator = an author? Screenwriter? The actual author is just messing with me? I’m seeing meaning in nothing?

Charles de Gaulle - “French army officer and statesman who led the French Resistance against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to reestablish democracy in France.“ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_d…

Also an airport, apparently. No fires prominent in either’s history. Although Terminal 2E apparently collapsed a bit back in 2004 and killed 4 people. Of course this remastered edition predates this. Since there weren’t any fires, I’m not counting it as a future event recording.

Ah. Apprentice at a tattoo shop.

But in Hollywood.

...I’m still betting there’s a secret screenwriter dream in there somewhere. Formatting don’t lie, even if narrators do.

Robin, this is Mostly Rational Management. Thumper is not a significant, meaningful portent.

Neither is the G-String.

We’re pretty sure. Like, 98% sure. We swear.

- The MRM

Old man was named Zampano huh?
*flips to title page*
Ah, ok, the “author” so the apprentice tattoo artist (holding out for screenwriter hopeful) with a crush on G-String Thumper must be Johnny Truant.

“Truant” (n)A student who stays away from school without leave or explanation

“Nom de guerre” An assumed name under which a person engages in combat or some other activity or enterprise.

If I have to shove new words into my brain until they stay there, so do you. Cory probably already knows all of these, but I only eat words. He is beyond that.

Who is this Lude individual, and how does he know so much about Zampano and Zampano’s cats? What’s your relationship to the deceased, eh Lude? EHHHHH??? You one of those extraverts I hear about, the ones that talk to people regularly? CONFESS LUDE! CONFESS!

First mangled body mentioned. Setting the tone early. Always a good policy. Let people know what they’re in for.

Man, can you imagine skipping the introduction?

...

Or the index?

“Ever see yourself doing something in the past and no matter how many times you remember it you still want to scream stop, somehow redirect the action, reorder the present?”

...like, how much time you got, Johnny? How much time?

So...did the gate glide open, Johnny, or did were those hinges “shrieking” as though entering “some ancient moss-eaten crypt”? I just want to get your story straight, Johnny. Wouldn’t want you to come across as an unreliable witness now. I’m an inconsistencies person, you see.

All these little details about a tube of chapstick is like when a DM accidentally goes hog wild describing something mundane and suddenly the players are like TELL ME ABOUT THE CHAIR!!!

“Deracinated” - torn up by the roots. Uprooted or displaced from one’s geographical or social environment.

This is a tasty word. I like it.

Nice rhythm in this description of the ink pronouncements. I can hear the beats in my head. And then “The thing became only a thing.
So I took it home.”

Delicious.

Oh Johnny. At first you were just describing Christmas time, but then you deteriorated very quickly Johnny and now here we are with blood and a gun and you’ve lost all your measuring tapes. Tsk.

At least you have a cup of tea. I find that does wonders.

Ok. Ok ok. Hold on. So this is the introduction for a book (that doesn’t exist) that is written about a film (that doesn’t exist) written by an author (who doesn’t exist), right? Do I have the full of it?

I suspect this is not the full of it.

When you look at Johnny, looking up people to verify they’re real, and then you look at yourself, who has been looking up people and words and hunting for XXI, and you realize that this is a warning. You could just READ the book. Just the book. You don’t have to do this.

...And then Johnny tells you about a book by Gavin Young that doesn’t exist, but what if it DOES exist? And you have to know. You have to know if Gavin Young wrote SHOTS IN THE DARK. You have to KNOW. (He didn’t. Everything is fine. It’s ok, I looked it up so you don’t have to.)

...but the Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXVIII do. You BASTARD. You absolute BASTARD.

THEY’RE THE HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST COAST. YOU BEAST. HOW DARE YOU. HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME???

archive.org/details/workso…

HOW DARE YOU NOT CALL OUT BANCROFT’S NAME IN THE INDEX SO I CAN FIND WHERE IT IS REFERENCED. HOW DARE YOU. WHERE IS THE BIBLIOGRAPHY? I KNOW YOU HAVE ONE. IT’S NOT LISTED IN THE TABLE OF CONTENTS BUT I KNOW IT’S LURKING IN THERE SOMEWHERE YOU ABSOLUTE BEAST. I WILL FIND YOU.

My heart rate is up JFC I’m actually mad I’m very mad at this book.

Ancient Lore in Midieval Latin Glossaries is real. I almost had a heart attack when I saw Amazon listing as published in 2010, but it’s ok, it’s a reprint.

A REAL reprint. From 1923. amazon.com/Ancient-mediev…

God. Anybody can edit Wikipedia. Someone could make up events whole cloth and post them on the internet like they were real to recursively fuck with people reading this book. Just to watch the world burn. Just to hurl the fragile minds of the already vulnerable into the abyss.

The 1973 Skylab “rebellion” was more of a collective “sick of work day” when three astronauts turned off radio communications so they could chill. From what I can tell this act has been overanalyzed into the ground.

I can relate my dudes. In your honor, I’m taking a break.

Me: So...I’ve been reading House of Leaves some more.
Cory: Have you? Or have you just been rooting around in the margins for hidden messages? Have you disassembled the book yet? Have you checked the spine??

Me: It’s a book. Just a book.
Cory: No. This is an ATTACK. This is WORD TERRORISM.

Having refreshed my tea and ruminated on the situation, I’ve decided that the reality of Bancroft’s XXVIII volume in MY universe is simply an indicator that this is set not in our world, but in Johnny’s world, in which Bancroft’s XXVIII is NOT part of reality.

They say “Trust, but Verify” but what if we just cut out all that verification business? What if we just embraced Johnny’s truth? Why dwell in such a miserable world of paranoia and suspicion? It will not help us anyway. The rest of the book will still be waiting for us.

What if we accept our good pal ol’ Johnny boy has done his due diligence, and is in fact 100% accurate in what is real, and not real, for his particular reality? Like how Cory told me it’s rude to ask his relatives what the sources are on their statements. Even propaganda-y ones.

What is reality, but our individual spheres of inconsistent perception? In fact, let us go a step further, and say that Zampano’s reality is ALSO true, even if it contradicts with Johnny’s.

Perhaps Zampano’s deracinated state refers to the reality in which he and his work reside, which is Johnny’s world, not theirs. Perhaps in Zampano’s original universe, Gavin Young did indeed write SHOTS IN THE DARK. Perhaps his accent is not accented at all in Zampano’s America.

It’s all real somewhere/when to someone. Nothing needs to be verified. I can simply accept the truth of the text, which after all is not true at all, but merely a work of fiction that foretells *a* future. Everyone is trustworthy! Everyone is doing their best.

Even the Editors.

Perhaps even this book itself is in a deracinated state. Wouldn’t that be fun? I think it would be fun. In some reality, those astronauts really gave Skylab WHAT FOR. Good on ya, you scallywags. Wreck up the place. That’s the ticket.

In other words: We’ve reached the part in the video game where my tolerance for my own harm avoidance ends and I realize I’ve been playing SOMA for two hours and haven’t left the apartment.

The engine wasn’t built to stack laundry or get trash into the trashcan, but god I tried

It’s been 12 hours and I still can’t believe what a jump scare this was. WTF.

*claps hands delightedly* Ah, I’m so pleased! Returning to the book after it broke my Detail Brain’s will & reshaped it to trust everything, the next set of paragraphs is dedicated to telling me to do exactly what I’d decided to do. “What’s real or isn’t real doesn’t matter here”

This is reminding me of how there was a point in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT where I went “OH MY GOD just KILL SOMEONE ALREADY” because I couldn’t take the agony of waiting anymore and felt like the author had crafted a situation that made me synch up with their protagonist.

I do feel, on occasion, that I am not well educated or intelligent enough to read this book, but that probably is my own insecurities talking. I am intelligent and educated, but I’m not omniscient, and that’s ok. Better to think of it as an opportunity to learn something new.

“Maginot Line” - 1930s defenses built by the French to deter invasion by Germany. Rendered pointless when Nazis just went into countries around them and invaded from those directions. Now a metaphor for expensive efforts that offer false sense of security en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_L…

Augh, what a lovely manipulation. I am delighted. This book breaks the Detail Brain, then gives it a cookie for coming to the decision to deactivate it, and then tells you that doing so is a “personal Marginot Line”

Listen, I can’t go back to Bibliography Hunting, ok book?

I need this pretense TO LIVE. I know it’s merely an illusion of control and safety and it’s RUDE to point it out. RUDE. Let me pretend I’m safe in peace.

After all, YOU’RE just a BOOK. What can YOU do?’

(...don’t taunt the Book, Robin. Are you crazy? WTF is wrong with you?)

Yes, please, Johnny, point out the subject I should fixate on: Sight.

No, you’re missing the point I SAID I MADE A DECISION, JOHNNY.

Or...wait, no, if I have to accept your reality, then SHOULD I fixate on what YOU fixate on? What were the terms of my agreement with myself?

My Maginot Line is being subverted faster than I anticipated.

He tells us of a lack of clocks (time, measurment) a lack of candles and bulbs (light’s potential, light’s absence) and now Detail Brain is muddled, for it was told to SHUT UP and now it’s told LOOK HERE and it’s afraid. Is this clue, or trap? Will it be punished if it pays heed?

Ah, but it’s too late, for even as I write this, it is clear it is already roused. Only now it is anxious, and will notice, and try not to notice, and feel shame for noticing, and perhaps even forget it has noticed.

But Detail Brain cannot help itself. It has too look.

I will not note these 7 names. I will not note them. I will not...oh, I could look them up in the Index NO. No I willl...hmm...

Maybe one.

Beatrice on 17. What’s the harm in looking? What’s the harm...

She’s in footnote 23. Jennifer Caps’ DELIAL, BEATERICE, AND DULCINEA (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Thumos Inc., 1996) which appears to be another book that doesn’t exist.

...Robin, you CANNOT do this to yourself. You CANNOT look up EVERY SOURCE and EVERY NAME we TALKED about this.

I will not even read the other names. I will protect myself from their influence. You cannot engage pattern seeking if you do not feed material into the gears of that overdeveloped engine. There are seven names and I care not for any. They may as well be Saturday through Sunday.

Johnny, none of these names are of lovers YOU FOOL and you said you RESEARCHED these false books I TRUSTED YOU. But I verified, I said I wouldn’t verify. Oh Johnny I’m sorry, you’re right, we all draw our Maginot Lines somewhere. They were lovers. Definitely lovers. We’ll agree.

...You WOULD draw your line THERE, you G-String Thumper obsessed goon.

Just wait until they find YOUR collection of leaves Johnny. What will your seven names be? Thumper, Bambi, Violet, Faline, Owl, Prince, & Mom?

You sick bastard.

...but I shouldn’t yuck your yum. It’s rude.

Graphomania: aka scribomania - an obsessive impulse to write. Can degenerating into a meaningless words/ nonsense (graphorrhea)

*looks at massive Tweet chain for an Index and Intro*

...nnnnot there yet? Not there yet.

Ughffbl the image of Zampano, a writer obsessed with writing who never finished anything and eventually went blind, is like...right up there with 1) Getting a genetically passed down degenerative brain disease and 2) Losing my hands, on the list of Robin’s Top 500 Fears

“Prolix — your word —“

It is most certainly NOT my word, don’t put this on ME Johnny.

...

Prolix: “Using or containing too many words. Tediously lengthy.”

Ok, NOW it’s my word. Proceed.

Man, I don’t sleep well *NOW* so if I did indeed, as you say, START sleeping well after this book, I would consider it an incredible boon. I am always in need of some quality R E A L S L E E P

Threatening that I’ll realize “things are not how you perceived them to be at all” is the wrong tact with me. Dude, I call that therapy & self-analysis. I’ve lit my own life on fire SO MANY TIMES and I’m not even 35 yet. I’m not scared of change, I’m scared of not changing ENOUGH

My man, realizing you’ve got blind spots unaligned with your principles does indeed suck, but how are you going to evolve as a person if you don’t educate yourself? We’ve got a lot of social programming. Sexism, racism, classism, ablelism? All real! Meritocracy is an illusion!

At some point you’ll have to reconcile your existence with the knowledge that you are a complicit participant in systems and structures too large for you to fully comprehend or solo fix. You’re not a sentinel or a saviour my dude.

...but I’m sure we’re not talking about that.

I’m sure we’re talking of a very literal darkness.

I’m sure the book will show me how pretentious and assumptive I’ve been to you Johnny.

Still...like, you’ve got some work to do man. We all do. Have you looked at the world lately? Yikes.

YIKES Johnny. YIKES.

I’ve finished the introduction.

Let’s take an aside from mad ramblings to talk about structure and tradition, because as unconventional a reading experience as I’ve had thus far, the set-up for whatever I’m about to read next follows such a classic structure for the genre.

At least, as I’ve seen thus far in my studies. At this point I would never consider myself an expert. Certainly a growing enthusiast. I feel I have not read enough or sufficiently widely, but since nobody can read everything we must make a reasonable cutoff SOMEWHERE.

For example, we’re introduced to the story via a narrator who:
1) is a witness
2) is a survivor
3) is irreparably changed
4) is unreliable
5) is morally compromised by a Christian sin (lust in this case, with a dash of pride)

This kind of figure shows up EVERYWHERE in the genre

The most recent (to me, at least. It was published in 1901) example is from LORD BEDEN’S MOTOR by J. B. Harris-Burland which you can find in the @Pseudopod_org archives here: pseudopod.org/2019/08/02/pse…

The narrator has many of the same qualities. Survivor, witnessed, changed, Etc

Then there’s the threatening object. The book, or perhaps better put, the project. Contained in words. A collection which itself is a threat. Although in this case we are invited to actually partake of the collection, rather than only seeing what happens to others exposed to it.

Althoug...THE NAVIDSON RECORD is a film where THE KING IN YELLOW (the play) was the 1895 equivalent. And as far as I can tell (which we must agree, is very prematurely) #HOUSE OF LEAVES is in many ways like THE KING IN YELLOW (collection of stories). Story written of story.

Even the figure of Zampano has such a classic feel. The vaguely displaced, wisened old man, keeper of horrible secrets that eventually overtake even him. One who both contains the entity tormenting him, and also passes it on, seems almost as eager to do so as he is afraid to.

In many ways the setup feels like such a traditional story wrapped up in a very modern package, and I find that contrast intriguing. Excited to read more...but for now...lunch and D&D call.

Can you believe for a day or two I forgot this book existed? Just...gone. Like a hole in my vision seared at just the right spot, where I could not see it directly in front of me. I got myself a cup of tea this afternoon and thought, “I feel like I should be reading...something?”

And then suddenly, there it was, on the dining room table right in front of my right hand. “Oh, of course! That’s right, I’d set some time aside for this in my schedule. I remember now. Ahahahaha how silly of me. How silly.”

So. Muss es sein?

Naturlich. Es ist hier.

Right out of the gate and Zampano gives me a word that we’ve been circling, but I’d not thought to connect to the process, which is the “authenticity.” Although granted, I usually associate that word with my own struggles with persona, and whether social masks are “real”

Is persona “real” & necessary to prevent my obliteration, like a skin formed over fragile material as it is bombarded by particles in my environment? Or is it a falsehood, a lie, and therefore immoral to employ, a disservice to any I might interact with, an act of social betrayal

...but we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about whether or not The Navidson Record exists, which we agreed is real for Zampano even if it’s not for Johnny, because all realities are real for someone.

Which is why I’m not verifying ANY of these footnotes.

Willpower.

I do appreciate it though, when an author carefully crafts a facade and then points out that you should question that facade even as they do their best to reinforce it. It’s Ligotti’s NOTES ON THE WRITING OF HORROR: A STORY all over again.

“Image has forsaken its once unimpeachable hold on the truth”

Hmm. Image as in sight (ie, I only believe what I can see with my own eyes) or image as in public image and perceptions (ie, I believe the carefully crafted image I’m presented with as reality, because it’s simpler)?

...the desire to look up Ash Tree Lane in the Florida Keys is almost painful and I might have to permit myself some leeway lest the skin across my shoulders detach and crawl away so that it may conduct its own Google search independent of my wishes.

I was wondering if this was one of those pop culture Things I just don’t have any awareness of, but it doesn’t look like it. Although the waters are somewhat muddied by people making art and music attached to Ash Tree Lane now, but I think the book predates rather than vice versa

It all feels so recursive. The text is describing a film that we’ll never see, but also itself. It’s a very fascinating way to tell us what it’s going to tell us, by speaking sideways. The setup already has been a mix of “gothic tale, contemporary urban folkmyth” and so on.

“One discovers disturbing sadness” oh yes my dear I am hungry. Please and thank you, several helpings, fill my plate up, scrape off that loathsome holiday cheer into the trash, it is too sweet and leaves a leaden nausea in the stomach.

Oh my god I hate the font change in the footnotes I HATE IT. I know it was done deliberately and it itches. UGH. I HATE IT.

DAMN YOU, EDITORS. WE HAD A TRUCE AND I DON’T CARE IF IT’S A LOGICAL CHOICE I AM FILLED WITH ANIMOSITY AND LOATHING AT YOU, MY ADVERSARIES.

Even I don’t understand why I have assigned such instinctive malice to these editors, who are also not real. They are a character in the book and on an animal level I distrust and despise them, with absolutely no justification that I can find.

They are. The Worst.

I feel that they deliver their Helpful Additions in ways specifically meant to gaslight me. Like a brother-in-law that says everything in such a backhand “polite” way that you’re left feeling crushed and judged and terrible about yourself, but you can never call him on his shit.

But perhaps I simply resent them because they are Editors, and I have a problem with authority.

...That I myself am a developmental editor is something we shall not get into.

That’s between me and my therapist.

...So “The Five and a Half Minute Hallway” was distributed as “VHS copies...passed around by hand” a technology invented in 1976. And Truant said Zampano “hadn’t seen a thing since the mid-fifties” due to blindness.

But sure. Let’s ride by this very detailed visual description.

...maybe in Zampano’s timeline, he didn’t go blind until well after VHS. Maybe he traveled back in time and that’s how this is all possible. Why do you have to reconcile this somehow Robin? Why can’t you just enjoy the nice book, hmm? HMM? Why must you interrogate EVERYTHING??

The commentary on how people are willing to present themselves as experts on something they haven’t actually seen...I know that this isn’t about social media, but damn can I not help but see crossovers in this type of behavior whenever there’s some scandal on here.

How willing people are to draw firm conclusions about events that in truth they have no damn idea about, just one person’s presentation vs another. To a degree that’s human, we need to build a narrative to know where we stand and FEEL on an issue, but it doesn’t make us informed.

Except for all of these wahys in which a person could creatively intrude on the crafting of a narrative, there is “virtually no room for creative intrusion.”

One can do A LOT with framing, editing, and sub-titles.

It was 1993 in YOUR timeline Johnny. You don’t know when it was for Zampano. Get your damn Courier font BS out of here.

...I was sent a message that it was good I have the full color version, and I was like, “No, there only was the full color version, no other version exists, I looked it up, why are you doing this to me??” But then I got scared and looked it up and it turns out:

There *WAS* a 2-color version, in paperback, and I feel physically ill at discovering this. I just needed to take an aside to tell you this, to warn you, because this book undermines your trust in friendships and publishers and life as a whole.

And *maybe* they made that paperback version as a cost saving measure, but I find it just as possible that they did it specifically to erode my personal sense of wellbeing 19 years later.

Even now I am wondering if that Amazon listing is staged somehow.

THIS version is paperback. Why? Why would you make multiple paperback versions? Why?? WHY??? WHAT RATIONAL EXPLANATION IS THERE FOR THIS?? WHY.

why tho

The “Remastered” full color one is listed as published March 1, 2000. It’s out of print and listed as (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition). And then the 2 color one, the one that’s in stock, that one’s published in March 7, 2000. I want the quantity numbers. I want them.

I want to blame these choices on capitalism. I want to know that they made two versions, because one was a limited run, and the other larger run was only 2 color for costs. I want to know why, the first time I looked this up, THE TWO COLOR ONE DIDN’T COME UP.

“This is not for you” no kidding it’s not. This is a pit. A trap. A weapon. Built specifically for Robin-type brains that can’t let things go & get scared easily that they don’t know if something’s real or not because they can’t ever remember anything and people shame them for it

Anyway.

I finished chapter 1.

I told Cory about the different versions I’ve found on Amazon listings. He said, “Once a person understands the means of controlling data on a platform, everything becomes a form of Wikipedia”

(There is another with an Unknown Binding listed with an 1800 date)

I can’t help but think of what an incredible achievement it was to write something in the days of AOL and dial-up modems which actively became WORSE as technology advanced. Which invites people to create things to further the mythological elements and spread them like a disease

Just noticed a little scrap of paper sticking out of the book. I did not see it before. I suspected for a moment that perhaps Cory was messing with me, but I don’t believe this is his handwriting. Which means it’s probably @MaxwellsDeamon?? I’d ask him, but don’t trust his answer

ANYWAY. WHAT A COMFORTING DISCOVERY TO START WITH. GUESS I SHOULD GET ANOTHER CHOCOLATE FOR THE ROAD.

Mary Shelley, you’ve got way more faith in the ultimate good of “The labours of men of genius” than I, and I don’t know how to feel about that.

All authors should be so lucky to have a reader that can see both what they wrote and what they INTENDED to write.

Of course, the difference between such insight and conspiracy theory would be hard to discern, I suspect.

I was just about to yell at the Editors for being pedantic and unhelpful illuminaries of the obvious, but then I realized it was Johnny’s font and like...no duh, my dude.

Why am I willing to give Johnny a pass and not the Editors?

Is it the patriarchy? Should I smash it?

Getting I.B. Flashbacks, where one starts essays with a dissenting viewpoint and then take it apart with other cited sources to show that while THAT old white guy said something WRONG, THESE five other old white guys AGREE with one’s thesis. Suck it Rosen! You don’t GET the TEXT.

Navidson’s stated intent:
The most artsy way to describe home videos, or an early vision of the film Boyhood?

Ah. Hello Chad. I heard of you in the index. So nice to meet you in person.

I confess...I thought you’d be more like Johnny.

It feels vaguely unfortunate that you are not.

Screw you, Editors. Making me look up new words just for your pretentious, nay, PROLIX footnotes.

Exegesis - critical explanation or interpretation of a text, especially of scripture.

Nice of you to preface that this exegesis was CRITICAL. Next you’ll ask me for my PIN number

Editors...Did you seriously make a footnote to reference your other footnotes?

*looks up footnote 67*

Oh, ok, so you’re referencing JOHNNY’S footnotes. That makes it sooooo much better.

GOD, just let me READ, you interfering, sanctimonious, superfluous collective third voice.

I can’t get over how simple the base story underneath is so far. I’m sure it spirals into complication, but it’s such a familiar premise. A family with 2 young kids. Parent relationship getting rocky. Fresh start with a new #house that seems fine, but we the reader know it’s not

The idea of living in a house where a parent has surveillance footage of every inch of their child’s life is thus far the most terrifying concept presented to me. No. Pass.

Amazon Ring cameras weren’t even around to get hacked yet, and it spooks me. geekwire.com/2019/amazons-r…

...in the event that something terrible happens to me, please don’t edit my vlogs into some sort of easily digestible homunculus narrative.

Just...just putting that out there. I want you to doubt all forms of faith and certainty at my funeral, not watch edited journal entries.

I know Johnny wants us to pay attention to sight and light and candles and time, but I’m far more interested in the use of sound. Or lack thereof. The silence that upsets Chad. The passing truck noises that catch Karen’s attention.

“Even if there is no sound, the weight of a hundred seconds always turns her head.”

Although, this IS as they are making candles, and we’re given a very specific reminder of time. So I guess we don’t have to ignore Johnny’s fixations entirely.

...not that we could if we wanted to, since we have a MULTI-PAGE FOOTNOTE FROM THE MAN HIMSELF, whining about a water heater and going on a rambling brag about the night he had. NOBODY CARES, JOHNNY, I’M READING ABOUT AN UNSPEAKABLE #HOUSE

Oh, this boy DEFINITELY wants to be a screenwriter. I’m sticking to my theory. Go for it, Johnny, I hear these days if you look the part, you don’t have to bother figuring out the boring bits, like crafting an ending.

They’d never let ME get away with it, but you’ll be fine.

Yeah, nothing gets ladies impressed with a fella like being told about how sad and inconsequential the whores you lived among were.

At least the Editors have SOME class and believability, Johnny.

I hate that Detail Brain is like:

“This rambling nonsense story? I bet you it’s significant. I bet you it is. Just you wait. You’ll be kicking yourself later, wishing you’d paid more attention to the puzzle pieces that would split this book wide open.”

The word you’re looking for is likely either metaphor or allegory, Johnny. You wanna be a writer, you figure it out.

Interesting admission from Johnny that he’s altering Zampano’s text. We don’t have any way of knowing what alterations he’s made unless, in the case of the “water” heater, he tells us.

IF ONLY SOMEONE COULD MARK JOHNNY’S CHANGES.

GEE, WHAT A USEFUL JOB FOR AN EDITOR TO DO, HUH?

My brain wants to believe that these two stories of two people in relation to each other is somehow connected. That Lude and Johnny, and Will and Karen, are somehow in the same state of needing each other, but being unable to communicate a codependent feeling.

...by god, somehow my brain will squeeze a weird gay romance in here, eh? It feels like a supremely bad idea to build a ship between the lines of a horror novel. Some vessels were not meant to sail, or even be drafted as blueprints.

The more I learn about Will Navidson’s editorial choices, the more I dislike him. While, granted, the public will inevitably find a way to hate on a film’s female characters, if the edit is such that it lends itself that way, it does call Will’s motives into question, no?

Lot of cold temperatures coming up. Johnny’s water heater, Karen’s middle of May night, my hands and fingers with their usual frigid digits, which Cory frequently declares “a defiance of physics” with their purpling color and visible veins and oh so cold, cold, skin.

God damn it. Why did I have to look at the first name of Zampano’s seven names? Damn it. Beatrice. Right next to Delial. No, no I can’t go back and look at the others. They’re Saturday through Sunday, in reverse, I swore this is what they were, I cannot go back there.

...

AUGH AND DELIAL ISN’T EVEN IN THE LIST OF SEVEN. WHY ARE YOU SO WEAK ROBIN? WHY??

“bucolic” is one of those words that sounds like something terrible in my head, but means something nice.

(relating to the pleasant aspects of the countryside and country life)

Thus endeth chapter 2

So one of the things I enjoy about the horror genre is I am reading two things whenever I consume a story.

I am reading the written narrative and I am also reading my reactions to that narrative.

And right now, in the early hours of the morning, I’ve been thinking of how contempt has entered the relationship.

And if I’m meant to feel contempt toward Johnny, and perhaps also Navidson, and definitely the Editors, for whom I also hold a deep loathing and suspicion.

Are they written to prompt such a response, or is this a case where, as the saying goes, the calls are coming from inside the house?

And where does moralistic misfortune factor in? Is this me distancing myself from my own empathy, or reflective of social programming?

It seems in vogue (but it may have always been so) to create stories with detestable characters. Not just flawed, but TERRIBLE and irredeemable people. Where there are no “good guys” only different flavors of monstrous. This is a cross-genre issue, but they’re concentrated here

As an aside, I’ve never read or watched GoT because people always tried to sell me on it by saying:

“Imagine the WORST people you can think of. And then you never know which one of them will die. It’s amazing.”

And wow, what a way to no-sell me on something.

I do not need a book to see the ramifications of detestable people in power, thanks. And them dying in spectacular ways doesn’t mean I can stop thinking of the generational damage they inflicted while in power.

ANYWAY.

The detestable protagonist is so common in horror that in my own flailing attempts at writing in the genre (on purpose, as opposed to accident, which is what I seem to do for many of you on a regular basis) I have often felt obligated to emphasize and exaggerate negative traits.

It is an obligation I am rethinking, because I think it reflects a cultural tendency we have to pretend that if we are prosperous, we are GOOD, and if bad things happen to people (OTHER people) it is because they deserve it.

They earned their poverty/illness/injury/failure through immoral behavior.

It definitely wasn’t a lack of generational wealth, or a systemic inequity, or any of those “supremacy” issues.

Nah, it was absolutely because THOSE people got what was coming to them, and WE are good.

Sometimes the worst things happen to the best people. Bad Luck is a bastard and it doesn’t care how kind you are, sometimes terrible things just happen. As for Good Fortune? Well, some people start in a position to be more resilient and fortunate in the first place.

And maybe it’s because of this social training, but maybe it’s also because we don’t want to hurt, and if on some level we can feel contempt for a character, we won’t mind if something horrible happens to them.

Maybe we’ll cheer those zombies and murderers on, because GOD those teens were annoying and dumb.

But what does that say about US? What does it say about our willingness to extend humanity to the foolish? The socially divergent? The wrong-religious? The minority? The imperfect?

I find it far scarier to look at the world and realize that you can do everything right, be the best person you can manage, hustle hustle hustle, and you still might not be enough.

You might have all the potential in the world, but never realize any of it.

Maybe it’s because you’re broken, and you’ll never get out of your own way enough to succeed.

Or maybe you’re just the wrong shape for the world.

And you’ll never know if it’s YOUR FAULT or not.

I don’t know. Is that scarier than believing that if you’re a failure, it’s because deep down you must be wicked, and therefore you deserve to disappear? That your moral imperfections will guarantee a life ended alone and destitute?

Which is worse? To be nothing and deserve it, or to be your best and fail anyway?

Do I feel contempt toward Johnny because he’s written this way? Or do I sense that something bad will happen to him, and it’s easier for me to sleep at night, because I’ve written him off?

...well.

I guess it’s NOT easy for me to sleep tonight, and this is what I’ve been chewing on.

So perhaps there is my answer.

...
...
You know what? Screw it, I’m gonna get some tea and read the next chapter. Get the last day of 2019 started in the most apropos way possible.

What a year.

Thank you for the Exodus translation, Editors, it’s the first helpful thing you’ve done all book.

...

*goes to verify that is, indeed, what Exodus 3.11 says*

(It is what Exodus 3.11 says)

Me to myself right now:

...of course, I can’t confirm that these are the words written here, on this page. Because this is not a language I can read. It could say anything. It could be a massive authorial joke on my behalf.

...

Robin, we need to get past the chapter flavor text, FFS.

The contrast between the Lange quote to start of Johnny’s notes + Exodus + Zampano’s question dovetails a little with what kept me up this morning. The “Why me?” Question, and the issue of whether or not it’s a matter of coincidence, God’s will, or bad luck.

Although...if we remove ourselves from the fiction, I’m afraid in your case, Johnny, it’s an unfortunate matter of metaphor, authorial sadism, and whatever other forces drive writers to inflict the things they do on the people they’ve written.

You were written to suffer.

“Beautiful women are always drawn to men they think will keep them beautiful” is one of those “you’re so close to getting it, but you can’t, because you’re still in the cave” kind of statements. But nah, Johnny, it’s probably because all FEmales are vapid playthings, right?

(It’s a DS9 morning. I don’t make the rules. Just you watch out, or it could also be a Klingon afternoon.)

Nooooo don’t tell me about your vague sunshine life goals Johnny, I don’t want to relate to you, not now, not when I’m sure in the next paragraph you will disappoint me.

(You’re together with Lude because you’re in love, Johnny. This is my new HoL headcanon, along with you secretly wanting to be a screenwriter in Hollywood. We’re turning this story right around and making it into a gay romance somehow. Everyone lives. Smiles all around.)

All these wok puns make me feel like I’m on the Kriscord. I sense the chill hand of Wight on my shoulder, whispering Ghoultide Horrors in my ear. Are you in my book, Wight? Are you here?

Whoof. The bit about people not actually waNting to know the real story, even as they want to know A story, hits real hard. People are morbidly interested in the tragedies of a person’s life, right up until the moment they know. Because knowing asks something of them.

I find it very interesting how often Johnny reminds us that he will make shit up, and then tells us a story designed to make him sympathetic, and then *I* am the asshole for being like, “Yeah, but did you REALLY lose your parents at a young age or are you just bullshitting?”

Johnny: I will absolutely lie about personal tragedy

Also Johnny: My backstory is super tragic tho, like Shakespearean tragic, oh man, so sad, pity me, this poor wretch, and stuff.

Hey! All that time in the index really paid off, I don’t need to look up “Amaurotic” now, I already know what it means. How about that? This is like one of them YA books that teach you words as you go, putting it in a sentence and all. Much learning. Very educational.

...this whole chapter is dedicated to debating effectively the source of misfortune (and casting aspersions on those that make puns) and I can’t tell if I was thinking my earlier thoughts because I was written to, or if my brain just bounces in a similar way as the writer’s.

These sassy Editors. Dang. First they diss Pollit’s puns, do a neg compliment, and finish with “Unfortunately almost everything he concludes is wrong.”

Like, wow y’all. That’s the ivory tower scholarly equivalent of this:

JFC this house has “approximately .37 owners every year, most of whom were traumatized in some way” AND YET PEOPLE KEEP SELLING IT.

It turns out the TRUE horror was the real estate market.

Won’t SOMEBODY burn that place down and attempt an insurance fraud scheme?? It’s the humane thing to do!!

Anytime anybody uses the phrase “extraordinary talents” my hackles go up. Zampano art thou a fanboy? Hast thou dehumanized thine subject? Dost thou elevate a mortal man to godhood, place them on the pedestal of thine projections?

Hast thou hungered for the statue’s destruction?

Lot of nice little echoes, even though the presentation splits them so we don’t have a direct adjacent reading experience. Johnny just told us of his Tragic Shakespearean Past, but now Zampano tells us of Navidson’s but a page later (although not a page later as it is read)

There is something about making a single word blue in every instance it appears that elevates it from throw away statement to dire portent. Navidson’s mother wanted to “bring down the #house” BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN???? WHO SAYS A PHRASE LIKE THAT WITHOUT IT HAVING MEANING???

If we find out Johnny has a twin brother, and these “coincidental” similarities between hinm and Will stack too high, I will be very upset.

Like, almost Appendix II being on page 567 and Appendix III being on 657 upset.

UGH it just ITCHES and I HATE IT.

“Unfortunately ‘accustomed to’ here is really synonymous with ‘damaged by’”

UGH why you coming at me like this, book?

The footnote for that is even worse. It is such a constant battle to become MORE than one’s trauma. To worry that it can never be overcome, that it will win in the end. To fight with the fact that ignoring it does not remove it, but in acknowledging it do we become it?

How does one make peace with the damage? How does one incorporate such magnificent hurts into the weave of one’s identity without it overtaking it? How can one practice new ways of doing and thinking and living without reinforcing the warped weft that’s already established?

Do we one day overcome, elevate into a stronger, more whole person?

Or do we just slowly turn into an accretion of scars and tissue damage, the first set from others, the second from ourselves?

“He was ultimately misled in feeling that his labor could make up for the love he was deprived of as a child and the ultimate sense of security such love bestows”

I just realized that I’d mistaken Zampano’s footnotes for the Editor footnotes, and thus I’d like to take back any nice thing I ever said about the Editors thus far.

Provided I said anything nice about them at all.

I just want that clear.

The conclusion to “Why Navidson?” is an interesting one, because the first time I read it, I felt Zampano meant his trauma enabled Navidson to return. The second time, I thought he meant his skills.

...This progression of thought says too much about me.

This is something I always found interesting about Broodhollow, and now I’m wondering if I just read what I wanted to see. A way to make fear and anxiety worth something. To say “I am familiar with this personal hell, and thus am better equipped to endure it.”

But are we? Or are we just more fragile, and want to pretend otherwise? Want to tell ourselves that the damage serves a purpose, can even be a source of strength, instead of something that will cripple us for the rest of our lives?

Well. Today is off to...a cheery start.

Thus endeth chapter 3.

My feelings on #House of Leaves thus far is that it is less a book and more a tall shag carpet heavily seeded with thumb tacks.

Does anyone else get super particular about selecting the right bookmark? This one is from Humanescent, a @NotSoSuperPub collection from @jnyemb. I chose it in the hopes that it will offer me some measure of protection.

The description of the intrusion on the #house makes me think of the unsettled feeling I had when, as a kid, we left for a trip and returned to a home more or less the same, but with candy wrappers left discarded in various places throughout. Nothing missing, something added.

I wish my German was still good enough to read this paragraph directly, thus freeing me from Editorial assistance and Johnny’s suspect Courier font.

...damn that blue Nichtzu-#haus-e-sein. I do appreciate it’s only on the correct portion of the noun and does not inlcude the e.

Apparently SEIN UND ZEIT (Being and Time) was a Big Deal in philosophy circles. (I had to look it up to confirm it is real because we’re back on that self-destructive train) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being_and…

That authenticity word coming up again (from the wiki link above) “From there he raises the problem of ‘authenticity,’ that is, the potentiality or otherwise for mortal Dasein to exist fully enough that it might actually understand being.” I feel I ought to read SEIN UND ZEIT.

Given the amount of thought I pour into fretting over how anyone can know anything or anyone because we’re so wrapped up in our own filters for all input that how can we possibly say with any confidence that we know anything outside (or even inside) our own system at all??

The idea of a person being tossed into a set of possibilities and then working to assume one of those possibilities...hmm. I don’t know how I feel about that. My brain is pinging again to my own wrestling with persona, but I don’t think that’s precisely what’s meant here.

I feel people build many selves for many situations. Are they realizing more than one possibility in that effort, or simply becoming the single self that has access to the different masks specifically built to serve & survive their social needs? Is each mask “authentic” in a way?

Reading Johnny’s reaction the the passage is making me think about how thin and displaced my sense of self is this time of year. I’ve been really doing a good job of staying more present this year, although at times it’s felt like hanging by a pinky finger over a pit.

And I’ve noticed a lot of strange experiences and thoughts as a result. Feelings of being in multiple places or occupying multiple locations at once. What my friend described as the outcome of the combination of “trauma brain” with a catalyzing agent.

A small example: Visiting a friend’s house I saw she had a washcloth. My brain became convinced it was MY washcloth in MY house RIGHT NOW. Every time I looked at it I felt as if I was in my house AND simultaneously in hers. As though there was a 2nd me elsewhere at the same time.

Like a very visceral, very present deja vu, where it’s not the past you feel like you’re repeating in the present, but a second present being overlaid.

The real kicker is I’m not sure I’ve ever owned a washcloth like that, and I’m a little scared to go looking for it.

Ohhhhh boy, he’s getting really into the needles at his work. Hmm. HMM. Let’s just look up how many time needles come up in the index...

Only 3. Thank god.

It’s weird because Johnny is describing these particular thoughts about things attacking/killing him, or things outside his perception, or shortness of breath, or darkening spaces, and I have trouble investing in the fear of them, because I’ve had that stuff since I was a kid.

I can see how terrifying it would be to suddenly acquire those experiences as an adult though. My contempt for Johnny is rapidly turning into sorrow. When I was a child, no therapy, no perspective, I thought the end of the world was coming and God wanted me to be ready.

Now I just see all of those experiences as maladaptive coping mechanisms. Their uptick usually a symptom, a warning sign of something I need to pay attention to. I can see how horrible it would be to get them all at once. How that might prompt a person to go looking for answers.

I feel that I’m being asked to invest in a supernatural element, but all I can do is feel sadness for someone coming unraveled, and looking in the wrong place for an anchor.

“I hope it doesn’t matter.
I have a terrifying feeling it does”

This sums up 83% of my Detail Brain’s experience with this book so far. The remaining portion is it winning the fight on whether or not it’s allowed to look things up.

It’s funny how certain images spark strong reactions for many people. The door leading to the small room seems to be one. I know I have my own strong feelings towards such a location. In my case, that’s where the fire started, and 15 minutes became a life or death difference.

There is a certain type of horror reading experience, wherein something bothers me, but in such a delighted way, that I experience it the same way I experience the scent of a steak being grilled when I am hungry. Ravenous, even.

Appendix II-A is, in this way, delicious.

However, even as I salivate and my stomach churns over these so called floor plans, I must say that these FUCKING. EDITORS. ARE. THE. WORST.

Is that what Mr. Truant provided? Hmm? A floor plan?? Is that what a floor plan looks like to you people? HMM? Are you stupid or do you know better, oh Editors? Are you just shrugging, claiming helplessness? “That’s what he called them!” you protest, and give no warning.

Ah. Measuring tapes in the Navidson timeline make their first appearance.

...

I have a sudden desire to burn every measuring tape in my house, so that future Detail Brain doesn’t get any stupid ideas.

This bit about the size of the outside and the inside of the house is giving me relativity class flashbacks. There was a homework problem about a 12 foot Space Truck moving at a fraction of c toward a garage (with garage attendant) that was only 11 feet long. Could it fit?

To solve the problem you had to treat the two disparate distances as a constant and then see what speed was perceived by both the driver and the garage attendant. If both perceived the truck moving slower than c (speed of light) then the answer was yes, it could fit.

So...obviously the outside of the house and the inside of the house are just traveling at some fraction of the speed of light, and it happens to have the two observers in each location necessary to solve the problem. Right?

(It doesn’t work that way.)

(If you've heard me rant about this math problem before it's because I resented it deeply in college and still hold a grudge against it to this day)

“In this case a very old soul. A very old riddle.”

My headcanon theory that Zampano is deracinated from his original time/reality only increases with statements like this, Johnny. You shouldn’t encourage me.

Although I appreciate the idea that an author’s errors are their soul.

I continue to appreciate how the book’s fictional contents reflect the reader experience. The obsession with details. The inability to reconcile real with not real in the tiny little inconsistencies, which a mind like mine cannot help but worry like a sore inside the mouth.

That the house is not, in fact, off by 1/4, but 5/16th. That the measurement methods must surely be wrong.

I think about how I have looked up how many versions of this book there are twice. How sometimes I want to look it up again, because I got different answers each time.

I also appreciate how the author builds dread, and does so in two (or, if we count the nefarious machinations of The Editors, three) simultaneous narratives. Each hints at how things are going to get bad, but not exactly how, just suggestions of the vector.

Johnny’s disjointed and out of time notes. Zampano’s inclusion of commentaries that have seen the whole record and reference future violence and destruction that we the reader have yet to witness first hand. The Editors pointing us to “floor plans” (you monsters)

Johnny translates “When in doubt, friend, do nothing,” but it looks like this phrase is applied in a variety of disciplines with various nuances. Instead of “do nothing” is also “leave it out” (for data anomalies or journalistic concerns) as well as “reject it”

The closest english idiom equivalent is “better safe than sorry” although as with any attempt to equate idioms, I suspect there are sentiments lost.

When your footnotes have footnotes, you know you’re in a bad way.

Are you jealous, Lude? I think you’re jealous. My shipping goggles say you’re jealous, and I’ve chosen that reality over yours. You’re not even real, Lude. I can do what I want.

Don’t look at me like that, Lude.

Oof Johnny. Grief is bubbling up and eating you alive and I wish you’d get some real help before it drowns you and dissolves your bones.

What a comforting incomplete footnote about a man ki [redacted] part missing.

We shall note your name, Fred de Stabenrath, lest it become relevant later.

“Fucked” seems an odd word for common use in 1954, but hey, I don’t speak French.

I find it internally entertaining that after all my talk of c, the device that uses light to measure the house is the one that, the first time, resolves the discrepancy.

Heck of a place to end the chapter though. Who knew a wall and a bookshelf could feel so foreboding?

To maintain tradition:

Thus endeth chapter 4.

*staring at ceiling chasing sleep*
How much of my reactions to Johnny are due not to his characterization, but the degree I am willing to extend empathy to myself at the time of reading?

...

Also, I found that twin washcloth.

Dang it. Was thinking about Tarot and the significance of numbers and needed to see if there were 21 chapters in this thing and now I have gone and spoiled something and there goes my ship. Trapped in a bury your gays trope of my own making. That's what wishful thinking gets you.

SO. Before we get into it. The last time I couldn’t sleep after this book I was thinking about how much this book reminded me of Tarot. Specifically the transition between chapter 4 & 5, because that’s a transition between structured thought and the intuitive leap.

Both use pattern hacking, utilizing the brain’s desire to create patterns from disparate information, to achieve certain effects. With Tarot it’s for self-reflection, growth, self-help, and with #House of Leaves it’s to drive you into a self-destructive spiral of verification

And I started pattern making between these two things and realized that Tarot has 21 Major Arcana (+ 0 The Fool) and had the memory of this book having 21 chapters, because of the claim at the start, saying 21 was added at the end.

So. I had to verify. It does. +Johnny’s Intro

Is that on purpose? Is the creator a Tarot fan? Could somehow these be themed? PROBABLY NOT. Am I, a Tarot fan with somewhat obsessive pattern seeking behaviors, going to decide in my head canon (along with Johnny being a screenwriter hopeful and Ludohnny OTP 4evr)? Yes. Yes I am

(We need to work on that ship name. Lude and Johnny don’t give a ton of options here. Luonny? Johde? No, these are all terrible. I am currently accepting suggestions for my doomed ship name.)

BUT SERIOUSLY it’s so perfect.
0 The Fool - Johnny’s intro
I The Magician - The Navidson Record itself
II The High Priestess - How the Record is actually 2 Films. Contrasts. Choices made.
III The Empress - Nurturing, or a lack thereof, shaped each character (Inverted perhaps)

IV Emperor - Structures. Structure of the house in a physical way, but also in how each person is building structures, social or otherwise, to cope. The chapter ends on a disruption of those structures.

And now, we reach V. Which I always think of as the Challenge Card.

5s in almost every deck are full of conflict. Inciting incidents. People falling to infighting, butting heads, turning on each other, having to face difficult questions. The Hierophant’s domain, where rational thought cannot bridge the gap, and faith and intuition are required.

Where we must abandon previous methodology and take a risk, a leap of faith.

So. We’ll see if these mad pattern seekings hold up to what the contents deliver.

Let us begin.

Ooh echoes is the topic we’re introduced with. In a writing sense, this book is strong it its use of echoes (we’ve touched on how there are echoes between the two separate narratives going on in the footnotes vs the book itself) although this is not an echo type under discussion.

God. This book. This book is such a “Hey, this is how I’m writing this book. Have you picked up on that? I’ll shove it under your nose. I’ll tell you straight up. Do you see it yet? Good. Now that I’ve established a pattern, I will destroy it” and I both love and rage at it.

I hate that my brain is like “is pisces a typo or not? In this book? Impossible. Surely it means something.”

And then I check, and it DOES mean something, but I still don’t know if it was or was not a typo. DAMN YOU BOOK. What does being torn into a zodiac sign mean??

Pisces myth isn’t about Pan and Echo, it’s about Aphrodite and Eros turning into fish to escape Typhon.

UGHHHHHH BOOK WHY YOU DO THIS TO ME

No way it’s a typo. It’s not a clue, either, it’s a bear trap. And it’s all over my leg, there’s blood all over. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pisces_(a…

OH NO THERE’S ANOTHER ONE. MY OTHER LEG! I NEEDED IT!

Why a plus sign inside a circle, not a number? Why that? What is its significance, is this some convention I do not know? But I can’t find any information on what it could be in a literary sense.

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/⊕

WHERE IS 47?? WHERE THE FUCK IS IT JOHNNY YOU DIDN’T TAG IT IN THE TEXT. YOU JUST STUFFED IT IN THERE BETWEEN ⊕ AND 48. HAVE SOME GODDAMN RESPECT FOR CONVENTION.

Or are you making up your own? Is ⊕ to indicate your conversion of Zampano’s translations, Johnny?

*flips forward*

...
...
...No, Johnny just chose to use astrological symbols for everything I guess.

I hate you so much Johnny. I am filled with a visceral loathing for you in this moment and I would make it into a cord and strangle you with it, were such things possible.

So ⊕ really is for Earth. But it could also just be a meaningless notation, a way to say A-Z, or 1 - infinity, but with planets! Isn’t that fun!

I’m just...gonna lay down on these bear traps now. Please gather my scraps once the room stops jumping.

Christ, we haven’t even gotten to the end of the first page yet and my internal brain blood looks like I asked Herschell Gordon Lewis and Jackson Pollock and to handle my mind palace’s interior decorating.

I just got this text from my very excellent friend. I am thus weaving him into our spiral into lost places, where we shall live forever and never be found.

I case you were curious, this is what real friendship looks like.

*deep sigh*

Ok. I’m gonna get out a list of planetary symbols. Let’s see what order Johnny’s putting these.

So we go from earth to Pluto. Sure. That makes sense. Why not. WHY NOT JOHNNY.

Pluto, underworld, hades. Discovered 1906, named suggested by an 11-year-old school girl. Gained some traction because the person who found the planetoid and chose the symbol for it had initials P.L.

...I thought for a bit that the symbols might be in the alchemical sense, but the PL symbol for Pluto is pretty exclusive-to-modern (1900s on) usage.

THANK GOD FOR SMALL FAVORS. Kill that ambiguity. KILL IT DEAD.

GOD DAMN EDITORS AND THEIR - JUST - EXISTENCE. Inserting themselves in footnote 49 to reference 51 to translate a portion of 49, jumping right over Johnny’s footnote 50, which isn’t called out anywhere it’s just slapped in. THIS IS ANARCHY. THIS IS LITERARY ANARCHY.

I’m getting so muddled, stretched thin on this cross-referencing, and it feels by design. If perhaps I should be so turned around that I should no longer jump and start at this quote, footnote 51, which speaks of time. Past, present, future. Warning to the future. Yes.

I have bad news. I am a terrible friend. I just let him walk in here. How could I do that?

My contrition comes too late. I do not deserve you Matt. There will be no lessened madness. It is only the latter. Only exponential growth. Someday you will read this and know the truth of my deception.

A correction:

I found Johnny’s 50 footnote. Johnny is a good boy. Very law abiding. It’s right on the end of footnote 49. I was hasty in my assessment of his anarchistic nature.

Perhaps due to his use of astrological symbols. Not to blame that victim, or anything.

Bastard.

This book is calling me out again, leading me in circles, feeding my obsessive tendencies, stoking my loathing of Johnny, then shoving in my face how we’re no different, he’s here arguing the color of brown and the translations of Spanish fragments AND WE’RE NO DIFFERENT HE AND I

Yes dear friend, our Maginot Lines have failed us spectacularly. Do you recall how I said I would not look things up? I’d simply accept them. How laughable! But in one belief you are wrong, Johnny. You’re not alone in hostile territory. You brought us with you, you monster.

And soon, Matt will be here too. Just as I was brought here, by @MaxwellsDeamon. Because we’re all such good friends.

Why wouldn’t we want to share this experience?

Such. Good. Friends.

In quick succession we jump to Mars (Ares, god of war, alchemical iron, male) and then to Mercury (Hermes, messenger god, quicksilver) to Moon (Artemis, huntress, silver) though quite a decorated version of the symbol, not just a simple crescent. This one has a face.

Now Jupiter (Zeus, king of the gods, tin) and then just to spit in my eye, after I said this Johnny fellow was a good boy, an infinity symbol, ouroboros, Lemniscate, the concept first written of by Archimedes, though some say Galileo. Thought perhaps to resemble omega ω

Though the very next one is also Omega, just its upper case, and I see what you’re trying to do here Johnny, you’re trying to break me, or perhaps this is the work of The Editors. Yes. That seems like something they would do. Their slick fingers are all over this ill work.

Though to tie this to the work of the Heirophant, his presence marks the need to cease leaning on logical thought, where a person is broken such that they seek no longer the reasoning of humans, but the revelations of God. We are stretched Johnny, stretched on the color of brown.

These Editors. These EDITORS. Do they counter or add with their footnote 54? Are they completing a quote or providing an alternate translation? Oh how I hate them. They are wicked, these Editors. They are fiends. Enemies. Note them. Note their notations. We are forever at odds.

And we’re speaking of Divine Inspirations and Detail Brain is now fixed in its theory, in its invented pattern of probably coincidences, but now it wishes to inhabit a world where it is right and cares not for what is. A place of head canons and Things That Are Neat.

Hierophant

“We are only god’s echoes and god is Narcissus”

“With the mere understanding that it was received, listened to, or as the text explicityly states ‘heard.’ What the passage occludes, no doubt on purpose, is how such an understanding might be obtained.”

Yes. See? Intuition.

Our attention is brought back to the passage multiple times, after a flurry of passages, but the author of this bear trapped room has made special effort for us to pause here, with not just one footnote, but two. Johnny’s to say it is familiar, The Editors to say it is unknown.

“Why did god create a dual universe?
So he might say,
Be *not* like me. I am alone.”

Dual universes you say? Oh, I do not think it so few as simply two, my deracinated companions. This, too, is of Head Canon, which calcifies even now into a sick certainty of which I wholly doubt

Circle with a dot at the center, this time not in Johnny (The Editor’s?) footnotes, but Zampano’s own text. The Sun. Gold. Center of the universe, but only after the world ceased to be flat, and a man was fed poison for the preaching of it, but before we saw how small we were.

Seeing a discussion of sound for use in measurement reminds me of how I used to process SODAR data to determine wind speed and direction on sites, back in my Wind Resource Analysis days. More expensive than a MET tower, but less to filter in the data.

I liked the filtering tho.

I never thought to have nostalgia for MET tower data.

On a visceral level I dislike the revision of our Sound + Time equation from Acoustic Light to Acoustic Touch, because it means that it is closer to my skin.

You know, I forgot until Johnny mentions it in footnote (if such a word applies) 62 that Zampano was blind. It puts all this talk of echoes into another perspective.

Oh! And to circle back, that familiar quote, I wonder if it resembles the prayer/curse of footnote 50?

Yes, good, tell me about Lude, I’m ready to read in some more codependent and deeply unhealthy “romance” into your life, Johnny, give me all those dirty deets, deflect us away from this echoing ramble and enfold us softly within your mundane lies.

Tsk. No, this sorrow will not do, I came to this footnote for ROMANCE damn it Johnny. Put away your wounds, I’ve no taste for them now that I’ve attributed your Mercurial taste in footnote notation to the interference of Editors.

All this talk of silver (moon) and gold (sun) takes on additional echoes I don’t like. They didn’t have to be here, but they are here, because choices were made in the footnotes. Choices that give no information, I am certain, but are brambles. A mound of fishhooks. Traps.

The purpose is not to inform, for the Editors do not take pleasure in informing us of anything. They feast on our doubt and our distraction. They intrude not with what it useful, but with what will disturb and distress. Their work is that of the sadist, nothing more.

Johnny, get some help, you need to deal with your father’s death. Hiding an old grief in metaphor is not enough to cure you of it. Trust me, I know.

Though it does help.

This book. The one paragraph framing Johnny’s footnote meltdown speaks of rising frequencies in enclosed spaces, much like the enclosed space of Johnny’s own mind. The poor man. So filled with resonant frequencies.

...
...
I will not get out my Physics III notes. I will not get out my Physics III notes. I will NOT get out my Physics III notes.

I am capable of resisting the pull of these equations. That world is dead to me, I burned it, I burned it along with so many other bridges.

Its resurrection is reserved for the preservation of Calculus in the event of Armageddon. And for drow magical physics tattoos. THOSE ARE THE ONLY EXCEPTIONS. Such are the rules by which that box is bound, and it shall not be opened for you, Book. Not for you.

Technically Zampano, if any of those three dimensions equal infinity, then f will equal...well, no, not zero. Something divided by infinity is not zero. It approximates zero. Approaches it. Effectively is it, but not quite. There is a difference.

Come into MY house.

Wait. Wait wait wait. Ok. So in this equation we have c divided by 2 times the square root of the sum of various things divided by L, W, H, all of which are squared. So if any of those equalled infinity you’d have, for example, (n/infinity) squared. Effectively squaring almost 0.

So almost 0 squared + almost 0 squared + almost 0 squared. Then the square root of almost 0. Times two. Then c divided by almost 0. That doesn’t equal 0, that equals effectively infinity (or undefined) as anything divided by zero is infinity/undefined. (Or approaching it)

Am I reading that right? I feel so turned around by these footnotes. Yes. Yes that’s right. God, have I forgotten all I knew about math? Perhaps I am NOT in my house. Perhaps I have become arrogant.

I am mathematically upset.

Or am I reading the notation wrong? Is it actually (c/2) * {square root of (sum of all that stuff)? In which case, my previous statement about approaching zero stands.

Damn it, now I have to look up if this is a real equation, so I know the proper way it should be written out.

OKAY here it is. It’s an acoustics thing. Standing waves. proaudioencyclopedia.com/acoustical-fun…

THANK GOD WE GOT THAT CLEARED UP. Found a bear trap I hadn’t set off yet. Rolled around in it real good. Whoo. Really needed to tear up my midsection, I feel like I hadn’t gotten enough of my innards spread over the floor, but now it’s covered.

Ahahahhahahahahahhah OHOHOHOHOHO GOD YOU THINK YOU’RE FUNNY DON’T YOU BOOK. DON’T YOU??? Yes, “the interior of the #house exceeds the exterior not by 1/4” but by 5/16”” YES GO TO HELL BOOK.

Just mashing those not-quite-same numbers together. I was willing to think the page numbers for the Appendices were mere coincidence, something that would rub my particular sensibilities wrong, but no, now you’re doing it on purpose, just rasping sand in my bear trap wounds.

Repetitions of colors. Silver gold blue yellow. The chapter is about echoes and Johnny’s words are full of them. Motorcycle at the bottom of a pool. Motorcycle in his fantasy. Sun and moon, gold and silver, yellow and blue, lemon and indigo.

Do planets have color associations?

Pff what am I saying. Of course they do. Getting any one source to agree on what colors go where, of course, is impossible.

Wait. Rahu? Wasn’t the quote at the start...?

No, no that was Raju, oh, they got you now Robin. They got you jumping at letters. There’s no hope left.

In your fantasy about evading a forest fire with this woman you’re infatuated with and yet haven’t given a name to, you get caught up in thinking about how the motorcyle you’re on is a Triumph, the one LUDE would want? Hmm? HMMMMMMM?

Johnny, you’re lecturing me on appreciating romance in one paragraph and admitting you still don’t know her name in the next. But you know the name of the motorcycle Lude would like to ride. Get your shit together man.

I submit to the Jury that Lude sounds jealous. Jury? What say you? Yes, I agree, guilty, guilty, guilty. Let us listen to the echoes of the Head Canon chamber.

I thought the chapter ended on page 54, but it doesn’t. I cannot continue. It is somehow 3pm and I require sustenance for the husk. We must leave our ritual at an ellipses, thus endeth...at a chapter number divided by infinity.

It’s a new day, a new cup of tea, and my hand is in the cone of shame (still) so to save one part of me from myself I will sacrifice another part of myself and finish this chapter.

Here we go. P 55.

Which really does feel like a chapter break, it has a big letter & everything

Remember back in December, where the MRM was like “Thumper? G String? That’s not important” and now here she is again, on the back of Lude’s Ideal Motorcycle, and furthermore we’re talking about sound, and what if it’s G as in a musical note? A frequency? WHAT IF IT ALL MATTERS?

What if you were WRONG, eh MRM? What about THAT? What if your interference, your shackling, your forced domination over the Detail Brain holds no sway here? Hmm? HMM? We’ll see, oooooh we’ll see. Vindication may at last be at hand! A reckoning! Hmm! HMM!

https://twitter.com/RobinAChilds/status/1205641616121155584

Footnote 67 reminds me of every single person that tried to talk me out of every single thing I’ve ever tried to do because it didn’t flow with conventional wisdom. And either I’ll die knowing they were right, or I’ll figure out something somewhere and know they were wrong.

Or I guess maybe option three, I’ll transcend the idea that there is a true right or wrong because life is not so simple as that and the concept of success means something different to everyone. It is a nice thought that on my deathbed I could give myself Success as a concept.

...Robin, maybe don’t wait that long, ey? Maybe learn how to let yourself feel even the tiniest sense of satisfaction BEFORE your last breath? Cool. Thanks. Yeah. Work on that. More. Than you do. I know, I know, it’s hard, yes. It’ll be easier in the summer. Probably.

Navidson and Karen are just SOOOOOO Five of Swords right now.

I’M SORRY. HOLD ON. KAREN’S INTO TAROT CARDS. FUCK.

Oh, tease me with that unseen card, you bastard tome. I want to see it. I NEED THIS. Exploiting the cross sections of my interests UGH GOD I HATE YOU

If we get to see that card ever and it turns out to be the Hierophant I am going to lose my damn mind.

More...so...I mean. More of it. Whatever’s left, it’s going in the woodchipper.

I will not do math. I will not make calculations. I will not delve into the significance of fifty-six and a half feet, you can’t make me. I won’t. I assume it has something to do with echo generation and prevention. Oh! I can Head Canon it! Yes, that’s what it means, I’m sure now

I feel like Johnny’s footnote 58 is to draw our attention back to page 4 not for the discrepancy of the door’s location, but to the muddy dart gun in the rose bushes. Considering we just were introduced to the origin of those dart guns, and what they mean to the children.

I mean 68. Footnote 68. Ahahahaha. 58 is something The Editor’s wrote, so it’s garbage.

In my experience, book, society doesn’t wait as long as 15 to kill most of its girls. It does its best to smother their dreams and wrap them in mirrors by age 11. Earlier if it can.

Must mold them into participants. How else will we get them to police themselves?

The invasion of Karen’s privacy and the dissection of her psychological profiles rankles me. Navidson is a tragic genius, a dark prodigy, a tortured visionary.

Karen is a specimen. A vain woman, with trauma we’re entitled to.

But perhaps I’m projecting. Maybe I’m just bitter.

I don’t know. Are they being treated differently, or am I just reading it that way?

Although “WOMEN WHO CAN’T LOVE: WHEN A WOMAN’S FEAR MAKES HER RUN FROM COMMITMENT AND WHAT A SMART MAN CAN DO ABOUT IT” sounds pretty damn patronizing to me.

Women are more than their ability to provide sex and offspring. They are more than the beauty of their smile. They are more than their vanity, a vanity that is in itself a survival mechanism, because the world defines them by their ability to provide sex and offspring and smiles.

Would the smile be less tragic to you, less sad, if it were not beautiful? If a woman is not pleasing to your eye, does the meaning behind her ugly smile not bother you so much? Ah, the wilted flower, this we can mourn. Who cares for the rough bark of the felled twisted tree?

The worst part is I’m mad and I’m trying to gaslight myself out of being mad. “Oh, Robin, you probably missed the point. You probably don’t see the genius of what’s being conveyed. You’re too sensitive, you’re reading into it all wrong, you’re just not smart enough to get it.”

It could be both, me.

Maybe it is a purposeful commentary on something you SHOULD be mad about. Maybe it’s not.

I don’t have to find justification in the text for how I feel. I can just be mad. I don’t need a dossier of evidence to make it permissible in the Court of Existence

Referring to the opinions of a female author as revealing “a rather tedious mind” is not helping my already tender rage. Ooooh there is a cauldron in my belly and I fed it 20 years of anger and bolted on the lid, but the fire burns beneath it still. WARNING CAUSTIC CONTENTS

Looks like we’re taking green off the menu of acceptable colors. The keys are red (Index, Minotaur), blue (#House), yellow (lemon, gold, sun) and now green. Fare thee well, green. You were probably undermined earlier, I just only noticed now.

...I hope I get to keep purple.

I hate it when they change up symbols for the footnotes.

What does that symbol even mean? It’s not Greek, planetary, alchemical.

I don’t know why I go looking for these. The information doesn’t even have a use for me, it just itches to see an inconsistency and not know.

Yes, Navy, the danger of this physics-defying space, this thing YOUR FRIEND AND EXPERT calls “a goddamn spatial rape” is allllll just your wife’s irrational fears and anxieties. Women. So selfish, not to support you, get in the way with their silly EMOTIONS. Amirite?

I read horror stories to feel negative emotions in relatively safe spaces and if it wasn’t obvious IT IS WORKING.

No big deal. An impossible space. What a stupid thing to fight about. So IRRATIONAL to be concerned about something that shouldn’t be able to exist as we understand corporeal existence. GEEZ. So sensitive.

Like, I get the desire to explore, but also admit it’s risky and stupid.

It’s okay to be stupid, just be honest about it. Be frank about your chances of getting through it. Don’t be a dick about other people reasonably choosing the “I’d Like To Live Longer” option.

Just...get a divorce. Honestly. Find somebody who wants to explore with you.

Find somebody willing to jump into the Thing You Don’t Understand. Go be happy and/or stretched beyond what your tiny insignificant meat brain has evolved to understand. Consent is important when courting self-destruction.

Consent is important for...just about everything, really

Another “This is what to expect” line, comparing the quality of the footage between different people. Like a logic puzzle. Roberts, Navidson, Karen, & Tom enter the #house. Navidson’s footage never shakes. Roberts’ tapes are unwatchable. Karen won’t have sex with Navy. If Tom ru-

I ain’t gonna even read these names. I am just gonna skip over all of them. You can’t catch me. Saturday through Sunday.

Ugh. The description of this place within the house makes my brain produce partial memories of a similar place, but with my shitty memory I can’t tell if it was a childhood memory and that’s why it’s broken, or it’s from a dream. Blugh. Maybe just the feeling itself, collectively

Maybe it’s just mashing all memories of underground dark lost places together. Every cave, every dark long hallway, every spooky basement, every frightening stairway. And pretending the memories are consecutive. That sounds like something my brain would do to me.

Glghk. Every so often I get caught up in wondering if worse things than I remember have happened to me, but I just boxed them up somewhere and don’t know. I was taught so early to doubt my memory, and my short term is so bad, maybe it’s C-PTSD, maybe something else.

Taught so much that what I remember and what “really” happened weren’t the same. What if I am just an invention? A collection of fantasies?

The profound power of “He really did say that,” is something I cannot convey to someone who hasn’t learned this type of doubt.

This book’s coming for my purple. If I scratch it out every time it appears, will I get to keep it?

Let us experiment.

The Editors suggest to understand “Mr. Truant” better I should read his father’s obituary in Appendix II-D & the letters by his mother, but out of sheer bull-headed spite I’m not going to until I get to them later.

On some level, I feel this is one of those lost nose perogatives

“Always” could also be a way to refer to the infinite. Like a ring. Or an ouroboros lemniscate.

Thus endeth chapter V.

Adding notes to my future self about VI: The Lovers, so I’m ready for chapter VI. Because I always struggle to remember what the heck this card is even about, since it’s KINDA what you’d think, but not really. The Lovers is about polarities, the tension and communication between.

It is about discernment, separation of parts, delineation into binaries that simultaneously acknowledges the falsehood of those binaries, because while the card does depict the masculine and the feminine, it also features the blessing of a third entity, the Angel, The Self.

If there is no tension between, there is nothing to balance, nothing to integrate. You cannot make whole something that is already complete.

Huh. The Lovers card is actually a great card for Horror. That push and pull, the fascination with and repulsion from simultaneously.

Communication also is separated here, in that sound must have an origin, a medium to transmit, and a receiver. Considering how much of chapter V was about echoes, this feels relevant.

Of course, I could see patterns in anything so by confirmation bias relevance is everywhere.

On the one hand I think we often anthropomorphize animals and project human responses onto them. On the other hand, I think humans tend toward appalling arogance and like to think themselves superior to animals because secretly they fear that there is very little separating us.

I went looking for footnote 79 and turned the page to find ENDNOTES and those are NOT endnotes. The decent into literary anarchy continues. I see how it is. THERE ARE NO RULES OF WRITTEN CONVENTION HERE. ABANDON HOPE, YE SCHOLARS, YOUR LAWS HOLD NO SWAY HERE AMONG THESE WORDS.

I mean...”strange how the #house won’t support the presence of animals” is A conclusion you could draw. You could also conclude the hallway has many exits. We already know it contains many halls and doors, and we don’t even know where even a single one of them terminates.

*shakes fist at the arrogance of humanity*

Oooh, animals are lesser, simpler, purer, baser creatures than we, the elevated beings, the possessor of souls and awareness, what a BURDEN to be man, ohhh, what a torment, these thoughts.

For all we know, dogs are like: You’re a good boy and one day you’ll figure out how to get your head out of your butt (I keep sniffing for it, but so far, no, it’s still there) and just chill out a little. I wish I could tell you the secrets of the universe, but your nose is dull

Okay. Let’s have a look at this “Endnote” from Johnny. Buckle in for another Thumper fixated rant while meanwhile Lude’s just RIGHT THERE waiting for you to catch a clue, Johnny.

Or maybe you’re both in denial. That would be SO you two.

I think a lot about that Margaret Atwood quote — “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Johnny’s making me think about it now.

Interesting what it highlights of fragility. How fragile is woman, omnipresent victim? How fragile is man, that it only takes a laugh to destroy him? How strong is woman, persisting despite mortal terror every day? How strong is man, facing so little consequence for his violence?

Golly Gee check out Dickens over here, that sentence almost a page long. Simmer down with the semicolons my dude.

I find it interesting how lyrical Johnny’s more stream of consciousness writing is. He takes on an entirely different voice, word choice, rhythm. Is it truly still Johnny writing, or is the other him, the dumb horny idiot him, the one with curt sentences, a pretense?

Nice mostly blank page to isolate those final sentences. The mechanical crafting part of my mind wonders if the stream of consciousness ramble was mostly in service of allowing this formatting to exist. Extended as long as needed to let the break hit in just the right place.

Thus endeth Chapter VI.

I could stretch the contents to match The Lover’s card, but I feel it would be an intellectual exercise more than a true comparison, and the previous frenzy of my pattern seeking has faded. I think Karen’s Tarot was introduced more to paint her as New Age