This isn't developed enough or even necessarily important enough to qualify as a theory, but I was thinking about Johnny's father and realized, they clipped his wings, and he died. I mean, it wasn't the clipping of the wings that killed him per se, but nor was it the melting of Icarus's wings that killed him; it was crashing to the sea below. And like Icarus, he dearly loved flying.
Yet another little link to the labyrinth, I guess.
my therapist is gonna get so fuckin' tired of House Of Leaves.
Full disclosure, I'm asking about this because of House Of Leaves.
I've tried studying a bit about the various Abrahamic religions, coming from outside them as I do, but one thing I've become aware of is how much the framing can matter, so much more than text. A book I'm reading talks more than a bit about Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca and Esau, particularly about Esau's birthright. I'm fairly certain the author is coming from a Jewish perspective on these characters, though few of the characters in the book are Jewish themselves, but as an outsider I don't know how almost anyone is taught to speak about these characters. What cultural assumptions am I intended to come in with, whether or not they're intended to be challenged by it? Does it vary considerably, or are there some pretty broadly accepted feelings and teachings about these figures metatextually? Obviously there's the scriptures themselves, but that tells me almost nothing. I assume this is covered in the Talmud, but (again as an outsider to all this) I don't know how much of what's written in the Talmud enters into common discourse on these figures.
(And my glance just now at the Midrash was somewhat dizzying, that looks really dense. "@_@ )
I'm spending more time talking about this book than I am reading it, but I'm digesting a lot every step of the way. (We also have an apartment approximately as well-illuminated as Johnny's, so it's hard to find the time to read.)
Iunno, the way she's thinking about him, talking about him, the short film she made about the House, about him. In the context of both the immediate trauma of their circumstances and the generational trauma from both their families, it reminds me of how very, very much I love my wife. I wouldn't dare to try to sum her up, but if I had to write her a love letter now -- and perhaps I should -- I could hardly do a better job than Karen does with that short film.
There may be a lot more that I haven't seen yet. Still, that was an impression I've come away with. It erases nothing he's been through, nothing she's been through, nothing their kids or their siblings have been through, nothing he's seen, but in the midst of horrific tragedy, she makes this beautiful little tribute to him.
How his obsession with the house plays into the way his work had always been about people, about the human individuals and experiences seen in his photography, I don't claim to know yet. I'm trying to keep my guesses at a minimum.
I hope this sequence helps Johnny.
cw for abstract discussion of suicide in the latter paragraphs and the song
>!So... Tom just retreated from the stairs, and that's where I left off before I had to get up, take my meds, and take a breather.!<
>!The shadow puppets, the Pekinese dog. They make me think of Catch-22, of Snowden's Secret. I haven't read that book in about thirteen years, but I think about it a lot. I also thought of chapter 13 of A Scanner Darkly, where Donna goes into her self-justification, talking about Tony Amsterdam's door wreathed in sparks beyond which a nighttime scene, and about how it takes the utmost wisdom to use injustice to further justice. Even now that feels like dodging responsibility to me. I've never been religious, and am not inclined to believe there was ever a time, or layer of reality, where things meshed and worked and were right.!<
Coming at it from outside Abrahamic religions, I have to look up every little thing, and am more likely to think of Shakespeare references ("There is no darkness but ignorance") than of Isaac's blindness, even after it's directly referenced. I don't really know how any of the followers of those religions actually (and differently) see messianic figures, error/sin/misstep, the world itself, scripture, Jacob, Esau, Isaac, Abraham, G-d, or for that matter quaaludes.
It took me a while, but eventually I did figure out what the pervading feeling of this novel, esp. re: Johnny Truant, felt most like to me.
Vic Chesnutt [1] adapted a Stevie Smith poem to song, a poem that I'm reasonably certain was about suicide. So, y'know, CW for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p994EMYQpPE
Lyrics:
>!Nobody heard him, the dead man, !<
>!But still he lay moaning:!<
>!I was much further out than you thought !<
>!And not waving but drowning.!<
>!Poor chap, he always loved larking!<
>!And now he’s dead!<
>!It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, !<
>!They said.!<
>!Oh, no no no, it was too cold always !<
>!(Still the dead one lay moaning) !<
>!I was much too far out all my life !<
>!And not waving but drowning.!<
I get the same emotion from the shadow puppets, the one night stands, and whatever it is that haunts and follows Johnny Truant.
>!I'm just gonna set aside for now the tentative conclusion that Zampanò was literally Jacob. There is so much to unpack there that I hardly know where to begin, mostly because I grew up an atheist in a new age neopagan household and was too autistic to completely absorb the vibes in our society, so a lot of Abrahamic religion, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or other, is understood by me only in a very vague academic manner, like I was trying to figure out which of somewhat varied anatomical models best fits the particular frog I'm trying to identify by its entrails.!<
And also there's a lot to talk about re: the Navidson Record, which is implicitly not a real thing, if (if) it's Zampanò using allegory to talk about *gestures vaguely around* everything. Especially re: Tom and <unnamed redacted presence>. I do not yet feel qualified to talk about that either.
So yeah, that's about where I'm at. But at least I'm starting to understand why this book has not brought me terror, but only occasional bouts of uncontrolled sobbing.
Footnote:
It's a kid-sized bike, the seat fully extended, light blue frame and black seat, and it was stolen from the Hiron's on 18th between about 19:30 and 19:50 probably. We're gonna do what we can, we don't know the serial number, but any advice?
Two in one. I need to set up a base here in case I wanna get some eggs.
Sometimes, your opponent's moves are based on their own agility. Sometimes, their damage is based on your pet's agility. This is the first time I personally have seen fauna that has SCS stats.
One problem (other than this not being in Euclid): That middle move does damage boosted byyyyyyy its own agility, which is, we've established, terrible. I'll see what I can do about that in post-training mutations and such.
But I'm actually very much serious about this. A pet who nerfs an opponent's agility-targeting move without losing out on the other two stats could be very useful in some battles.
Training them would still be a freaking headache, of course
Anyway, I won't post every CCC I see, just this one because I wanna remember these coordinates anyway.
In case you were tired of finding S-class pets with only S-class stats, I thought I would offer something equally unusual: This awful piece of crap. This terrible beast. This trash. You're welcome. I'm sure folks will be flocking to Marvelle Froesson in the Umerairie system in the Hilbert Dimension to grab up every last one of these utter losers.
So, I didn't scum hard enough and now none of my party members happen to have both Rhythm Sense and Perfect Pitch.
I'm trying to get the missing talent on Iria.
Can I literally just enter the Perform and just hammer away at Trumpet 1, or do I need to switch between two compositions, or do I need to leave the menu to try again? If so, how far need I exit? All the way to the map?
To be clear, I'm playing the SNES version mostly because playing Playstation games on my phone emulator seems dubious. It can handle SNES. There's enough screen real estate for the buttons.