House of Leaves Recap 4 and 5/5: Build a Casket for My Tears: 98

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The trees are coming into leaf, like something almost being said.
The recent buds relax and spread. Their greenness is a
kind of grief. Is it that that they are born
again and we grow old? No? That they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new is written down in

(00:23):
rings of grain. Yet still the unresting castles thresh and
full grown thickness every May. Last year is dead. They
seem to say, begin afresh, afresh, afresh, Philip Larkin. In
this part of the journey, the last part of the review,

(00:46):
we again talk about trees, always trees, and always halways toes,
yes toes. Haunting is an affection, the book of common prayer,
the limits of sight, the nature of recording the past,
and the ghost on records in film is what we
see real? Is what we record real? What is what

(01:10):
we record? Ghost in the machine. We also go into
the explorations and Johnny's mother's disturbing letters in the collection
the Whales Tow Letters. Look at Toe time to find
some boundaries to this thing, all types of boundaries. This
is two episodes combined, the last two before we begin

(01:30):
a new one. It's section five, six and seven of
then Avidson Records Appendix to E and Appendix two E
Compared with the complete collection of these letters from Mother
the Whales Tow Letters. We also delve more deeply into
post companion soundtrack album, as song titles and lyrics are
referenced in the text and in its footnotes. In doing so,

(01:54):
we learn more about Pellatina and Johnny's history, or do
we And we learn more about Navvy and Karen, and
we learn more about their own disturbed boundaries. These roots
grow deep and disrupt foundations. Watch your step and mind
the gap. Welcome back to their rugby cupcakes and to

(02:16):
Ashtree Lane.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
Woe upon woe, not enough room for it all, and
yet there is room. It makes rooms rooms upon rooms
upon hundreds of rooms, full of indistinguishable remains. Pellafina, Heather, Livra,
Johnny's mother, and a letter to Johnny from her mental hospital. Hi,

(02:49):
this is Carla, and welcome back to there might be cupcakes,
And welcome back to the labyrinths of the Navidsen Record
and the expanding house at Ashtree Lane in Virginia. This
is the fourth episode in my ongoing Deep Dive series
on Mark z daniel Elski's horror novel House of leaves
if you've not listened to them. The episodes in order
are as follows sixty eight bone Chimes and Primitive Spiders

(03:13):
seventy or Godic seventy three, Tangerines to Apples a link
to their podchaser links in the show notes. When last
we left the family, Karen, the mother was screaming in
a closet that had inexplicably grown larger. We returned to
the family to an uneasy, emotional silence and dance around

(03:33):
the problems at hand and Ruler Navison continues to record
everything as planned, but the domestic togetherness that was a
goal for him giving up his photography career and joining
Karen and nesting bliss it has turned into this dance
of distance. Navidson is studiously filming his growing house and
Karen is cold to him and at arm's length with

(03:54):
the children. The title of this episode comes from both
Johnny's footnotes to the Navison Record and Pellapina's letters. Both
Johnny and his mother independently used something you can to
this phrase. Johnny and his expansive footnotes to the Navison
Record and Pellafina to her letters and her letters to
her son. For the mental hospital. We'll explore that shortly. Interestingly,

(04:16):
Johnny wrote no footnotes in his mother's letters. None, not
even to define her expansive and showy Greek mythology, references,
Latin phrases, use of Spanish, French, and even Old English.
Shout out to the House of Leaves subreddit for helping
me with the Old English translations. Again, more on that later.
I am again getting ahead of myself. House of Leaves

(04:38):
is circular, so I rather can't help myself. Everything's connected.
Johnny most likely did not annotate Pelafina's letters because of
their intensely emotional and psychological content. Again, I assume too
close to the bone to paraphrase Emily Dickinson. Pellafina, as
we shall see, was so singularly focused upon John. He

(05:00):
was her only source of happiness. He was her emotional barometer.
She struggled to maintain her sense of self outside of
her son. I can't imagine Johnny, in his supernatural and
emotional struggles with an Avidson record papers, being able to
footnote his mother's letters without coming apart himself. We shall
see why as we venture into Pellapina's personal labyrinth at

(05:21):
its proper time. If you are closely following along. This
is section five. The opening quote is from R. K.
Nayron Raju welcomed the intrusion, something to relieve the loneliness
of the place. Yes, the house on Ashtream Lane is
incredibly lonely and probably frightening right now, and fear of

(05:42):
the unknown can be truly lonely, and a deep intrusion
is coming. Nyron was an East Indian author, one of
the earliest writers of Indian literature and English who mentored
Graham Green, one of the foremost writers of relationships and
domestic dramas. He's the author of The Famous Night, The
End of the Affair, amongst others. So Karen screams then

(06:06):
an emotional silence on Navinson's tape. Over the next month,
we see his friend, the engineer Billy Reston, returns several
times from Uva, keep measuring the house, calling the house's
changing shape and growing a goddamn spatial rape, a theme
that will return in Pellapina's letters. Navinsent's brother Tom has

(06:26):
to return home in June. Billy gives him a ride
to Charlottesville so we can get Della's airport. Saying goodbye
to Tom is fraught and complicated for the first time
in the novel. Titles to the song's imposed companion album Haunted,
show up in the novel, emboldened in the text, one
directly and one obliquely. The first is the five and

(06:47):
a half minute hallway track eight on the record on
page sixty an Exploration B, which of course is referred
to as Exploration A. I'm saying it counts bear with
me on page sixty three, Track one on the album.
I first talked about Exploration A in the first episode
Bone Chimes some primitive spiders, but I will again here

(07:08):
because it fits into what we are directed to read
in the footnotes by the editor of the written EPs
and record. The song Exploration B Track one starts with
a ringing phone and continues, I thought you should know
Daddy died today. He closed his eyes and he left
here at twelve oh three. He sends his love. He

(07:30):
wants you to know he isn't holding a grudge, and
if you are, you should let go pick up pick
up please mom. Hello. It fits in this episode because
we will come to the death of Johnny's father and
well to his mother in a really big way, and

(07:51):
a grudge fits in you'll understand the grudge once we
dove into his mother's letters. And then there's five and
a half minute hallway track eight on the Haunted album quote,
I live at the end of a five and a
half minute hallway, but as far as I can see,
you are still miles from me in your doorway. And oh,

(08:11):
by the way, when the landlord came today, he measured everything.
I knew he'd get it wrong, but I just played
along because I was hoping he'd fix it all. But
there's only so far I can go. When you're living
in a hallway that keeps growing, I think to myself,
five more minutes and I'll be there inside your door.

(08:32):
But there's more to this story than I've been letting on.
There are words made of letters unwritten, and yes, I
forgive you for leading me on. You can think of
it like this when you can't resist. I'm in your hallway,
standing on a cliff, and just when I think I've
found the trick, I'm tumbling like an echo because there's

(08:53):
only so far I can go. When you're living in
a hallway that keeps growing, I think to myself, thirty
second and I'll be there. I think it bears repeating here,
since they could get confusing that the phrase the Navidsen
record refers to the compiled videotapes shot by will Navidson
in his home. Also the two videotapes of the two

(09:14):
explorations A and B that were passed around by people
and then became the urban legend of the house, and
this written compilation by first of Apano now Johnny Truant,
that have been also passed around. As I said, the
house is circular, perhaps spiral rather even widening circles unto itself,

(09:35):
always returning home, which brings us to the theme of
echoes in this section. Imagine an echo down that well
of a spiral of ideas of a house quote. It
is impossible to appreciate the importance of space and the
Navisen record without first taking into account the significance of echoes, which,

(09:56):
of course in House of Leaves leads us to literature
and myth. There are two versions of the myth of echo.
In the first, echo who's a mountain Nymph helps the
god zeus aka Jupiter make a sexual conquest by distracting
his wife harah Aka Juno with long winded conversations. Basically

(10:17):
Jupiter can get it on while echoes going blah blah
blah blah with his wife harah Aka. Juno punishes Echo
by fixing her voice so that she can only repeat
the last word that was spoken to her. Then Echo
falls in love with Narcissus, whose self obsession causes Echo

(10:40):
to lose herself until only her voice is left. Interestingly,
the woman who can only speak other's words, who can
only reflect others, falls in love with a man who
only loves himself, who falls in love with his own reflection.
This version is told in Avid's Metamorphoses. In the second
version of the Echo myth, the sexual god Pan falls

(11:04):
for Echo. She rejects him, and in response, he and
the men who work in the fields, whom Pan has
worked up into a frenzy, tear her apart quote, burying
all of her except her voice, a danta tamila her
still singing limbs. This version is told in the second

(11:27):
century Daphness and Chloe by the Greek poet Longest. Here
in the text of the book, instead of saying he
tore her to pieces, it says he tore her to pisces.
Put a pin in this. It shows up again in
a most interesting place. As he said, there's no accidents
in this book. I noticed that in the first myth

(11:50):
it's that of a father figure that of Zeus or Jupiter,
and the second is that of a sexual conquest figure
slash stalker. Both interestingly revolve around sexual jealousy, which will
show up again. Since Avid turns echo into shadows and forests,
his verse is applicable to this house of leaves quote.

(12:13):
So she was turned away to hide her face, her lips,
her guilt among the trees, even the leaves, to haunt
caves of the forest, to feed her love on melancholy sorrow,
which sleepless turned her body to a shade, first pale
and wrinkled, then a sheet of air, then bones, which

(12:34):
some say turned to thin, worn rocks, And last her
voice remained vanished in forest fall, far from her usual
walks on hills and valleys. She's heard by all who
call her voice has life. Before we continue to listen
for echoes, something else is inserted. It seems odd, but

(12:58):
everything was done with purposness. Novel, so I will pay
purchase to it. Johnny quibbles about a don Quixote quote
in Spano's notes Spano compared two identical quotes and claims
a nuanced change in one of them one of the translations,
and Johnny points out how both of them are exactly
the same. Thanks to my duo lingo Spanish lessons, I

(13:22):
was able to translate it. Thank you, you cute greenowl.
Quote The Truth whose mother is history, emulator of time,
repository of actions, witness of the past, example and warning
of the present, warning of what is to come. This
is another heartbringer of reading Johnny's mother's words plus an

(13:44):
upcoming conversation between someone else and Johnny's mother about truth. Again,
we'll put a pin in this. Something is coming, which
is a major theme to this novel. Something big is
looming and coming. I find it interesting that the novel
in question is Don Quixote, the source of the word quixotic,
which means striving for visionary ideals, and the source of

(14:06):
the phrase tilting at windmills, which means to attack imaginary
enemies or to fruitless quests. Is the house an imaginary enemy?
Or is the Navisen record's power over someone's psyche or
a pelophonus hold over Johnny? Or is exploring the five
and a half minute hallway a fruitless quest. More about

(14:27):
echoes quote from Zuppano. Is impossible to appreciate the importance
of space in the Navidson record without first taking into
account the significance of echos. Think how much space is
required for an echo? Zupano explains this it's massive. Quote.
At sixty eight degrees fahrenheit, sound travels at approximately one

(14:49):
one hundred and thirty feet per second. A reflective surface
must stand at least fifty six and a half seen
a way in order for a person to detect the
doubling of her voice. In other words, to hear echo,
regardless of whether eyes are opened or closed, is to
have already seen a sizeable space. Myth makes echo the
subject of longing and desire. Physics makes echo the subjects

(15:12):
of distance and design. Where emotion and reason are concerned,
both claims are accurate, and where there is no echo,
there is no description of space or love. There is
only silence. Unquote. Please keep this quote in mind when
we talk about Johnny's mother. Distance, love, and echoing of words.
Echoes are emotional as well as literal, and distance is required. Interestingly,

(15:37):
graphamania is brought up in a footnote on page forty three.
Backtracking a little, I discussed hypographia in episode seventy year.
Godic graphymenia is a type of hypographia. The difference in
hypographia the compulsion to write in graphymania is that graphamenia
usually results in nonsense. People suffering from graphemenia write about themselves,

(16:00):
and the causes can be isolation, estrangement, insecurity, and the
desire to appear sophisticated. You will see all of these
in Johnny's Mother's Letters from the Asylum. Johnny, at this
point in the footnotes, describes a horrible, supernatural event that
he experiences at work at the tattoo parlor. Quote, everything
falls apart, story is heard, but not recalled. Letters to

(16:23):
words filling my head, fragmenting like artillery shells, shrapnel like syllables,
shrap cracked, traveling at murderous speed, tearing through it all
at a very, very bad, perhaps even irreparable way. We
then learn about Karen's phobia of open dark places, developed
inexplicably in childhood, and we see in this incident at

(16:45):
work that Johnny is developing it, perhaps from reading the
Navidsen record, absorbing it from the pages themselves simultaneously. In
the record, Navisen has promised Karen that he will not
enter the hallway that has appeared in their living room
wall possible door in their inside exterior wall, and yet
he does. Of course, he does anyway while Karen and

(17:08):
the children are asleep, and he gets lost in his
own home, and he hears growling growling. When he finally
stumbles back into his living room from his terrifying ordeal,
he finds his daughter Daisy. The record ends here with
a shaken Will tucking Daisy into bed and turning to

(17:28):
find Karen in the doorway, wanting to know what he's doing.
Here there is a footnote interjected by the editor directing
the reader to now read Appendix two D Johnny's Father's
Obituary and Appendix two E the letters written to Johnny
by his mother from the Institution, starting on page five
eighty four. So here we briefly leave the world of

(17:49):
the house and enter the world of Johnny Truant and
Pellefina Heather Libra, and it is just as terrifying and
has just as many corridors. First, Johnny's Father's Obituary, there
is an editor's note letting us know that, at Johnny's request,
all identifying factors have been removed, including his father's first

(18:10):
name and the actual day of his death. Pellefina, his mother,
calls his father Donnie in her letters, but it is
suggested that this has been changed as well. His father
was a pilot who was grounded due to injury, so
started driving trucks and died in a mac truck accident,
grounded flight like Icarus? Or am I so caught up
in the mythology written to this novel that I'm writing

(18:32):
my own footnotes now like Johnny and Zappano. It's a
scary thought. Then we go into Pellatina's letters. You can
explore them in two different ways. You can read them
as is in the appendix of the novel, or you
can buy the standalone collection The Whalestowe Letters, which contains
an introduction by the former information technologists from the Three

(18:54):
Attic Whalestone Institute who rescued them and compiled them, and
which contains eleven extra letters of Pellafina's which deepened the story.
I've got that linked in the show notes. The three
Attic Whalestowe Institute letters are dated from July twenty eighth,
nineteen eighty two to May third, nineteen eighty nine. Before

(19:15):
we delve into them, let me show the timeline I've
compiled for the story so far. I did so after
being curious about the overlap between pell Affina's last letters
and Johnny's finding the Navidson record and when the family
moved into the house, given some things Pellafina said.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
In her letters.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
So here's my compiled timeline up to our point in
the novel, including the extra information in the whale Stow
Letters Collection seventeen twenty. Ashtree Lane is quote unquote posedly
built in this year, according to the real nineteen eighty one. Again,
according to the realtor, a family wanted to build an

(19:52):
l extension, then moved out because they wanted something much smaller.
July nineteen eighty one. Father dies in a truck accident.
July twenty eighth, nineteen eighty two. Johnny's mother's Pellapina, her
first letter from three Attic Wales Stone Institute to Johnny,

(20:12):
approximately one year after Johnny's father died. May third, nineteen
eighty nine. Pellophina's last letter to Johnny May fourth, nineteen
eighty nine. Pellapinas suicide. May fifth, nineteen eighty nine. The
letter from whales Toe's director telling Johnny of Pellapina's death.

(20:34):
September nineteen eighty nine. Johnny retrieved one piece of jewelry
of Pelophinas from Whalestowe's Institute. October thirty one, nineteen ninety eight,
Johnny's introduction to the Navison Record. He found it in
Zappano's apartment. April nineteen ninety Will begins recording documentary videotapes
of his family and his house. The beginning of his

(20:55):
documentary project. June nineteen ninety the date of the two
Exploration VHS tapes, Exploration A and Exploration B. June twenty
first is Johnny's birthday. Nineteen ninety three, Mirramax purchased the
two Exploration videotapes and all of Navidson's documentary tapes, compiled

(21:16):
them and put them out as the documentary movie of
the Navidsen Record same year. The three attic Whalestowe Institute closed.
August six, two thousand, the date of Walden d Wyther's
compilation of Pellaphena's letters, with eleven extra letters included. Now
to the letters, Johnny's mother is in the instance, I'm

(21:39):
going to approach the letters the same way I'm approaching
the novel. I'm leaving so many details for you to discover. However,
there are some specific details I'm in to discuss for
the purpose of exploration and intrigue. I'm explicitly leaving out
why Pellafina was committed. I will only tell you that
Johnny's father and her husband had her committed. She was

(22:00):
involuntarily committed by her husband. I will leave those details
why to unfold for you. Another song for the Haunted
album comes up repeatedly in Pellapina's letters, Spanish Doll track fourteen.
Pellaffina refers often saving a Spanish doll in an attic.
Remember the mental hospital's name is the three attic Whalestowe quote.

(22:25):
This place feels so unfamiliar, and yet I know it well.
I think I used to belong here. But the only
way I can tell is that I miss you still
and I cannot find you here. You left me tattered
and torn, just like that Spanish doll. I went down
to the alleyway Sierra la Banita and found out you
were gone. Spanish doll snonca tiferis, as if you'd never

(22:49):
left you left, no word, no message. I still don't
know what went wrong. Spanish doll la grima tears, but no,
no matter where I go, I always seemed to return.
Spanish doll Buscami find me to where you left me.
Tattered and torn, Spanish doll. You so rompido mi musquina.

(23:11):
I am torn, my sweet doll. It's like that sweet
Spanish doll, a memory, gilded and red and gold, Spanish
doll del oro of gold, also pain, beauty, guarded and
never sold. Spanish doll Quadami protect me. I keep it
with me wherever I go, and I love you still,

(23:32):
no matter how a story will unfold. Spanish doll Rique
damie remember me, you know I always will. I have
part of you here in this souvenir, sweet Spanish doll.
Stranger in this world without you is all I can
ever be. All I know that's pure and clear. You
left it with me here and the souvenir, the sweet

(23:53):
Spanish doll. This part is spoken. I believe the voice
is Mark and Annie Danileski father. We hear of a
lovely daughter shot down in her mistaken flight, unaware yet
how her life will be affected by this experience, and
then a girl says, why is it a house of leaves?

(24:14):
Pellaffina's letters go from clear to delusional to clear again,
but I use the term clarity loosely. She's obsessed with
Johnny in a disturbing and emotionally incestual manner. He is
her only love, and he is perfect in her overly
effusive eyes. She's also completely impressed with herself. Remember what

(24:37):
I said about graphomania, about how graphomaniacs desire peer sophisticated.
As I mentioned, Pelafina's letters are also pretentious, full of
references to Greek mythology, Latin phrases as well as Spanish
and French phrases, and even Old English, and allusions to
relatively obscure book characters, and on and on. On the surface,

(25:00):
letters seemed to be written by an extremely well read intellectual.
Read them deeply for context, and they're frenetic and pretentious
and alarming. They made me really uncomfortable. Since there are
no accidents in this novel, her illusions must be examined.
I'll do some more deeply later. On page six thirty

(25:20):
of the novel, Pellaphena's letter refers back as an echo
of the past and the future to the supernatural incident
at Johnny's work that happens years later quote you did
more than what yourself On page six thirty one, Peloffhina
wrote a taunting, cruel letter to Johnny that explains why

(25:42):
he's calling himself Johnny Truant. I explored the implications of
this name in episode sixty eight Bone Chimes of Primitive Spighters.
Pellafina may be an unreliable narrator for many reasons, but
one more important thing to mention about Pellafina. She appears
to have premonitions about the house. In her less lucid states.

(26:02):
She speaks about rooms upon rooms, about corridors, as quoted
at the beginning of this episode, and about becoming a
tree at her master godic. Her text takes the shape
of hallways. Two themes that reappear in her letters along
with the Spanish doll are water and trees. Over and over.

(26:23):
Having absorbed the madness and now understanding why Johnny feels
stuck in his life. As I've discussed in episode sixty eight,
a tattoo assistant filling up ink cartridges and sweeping up
the shop, not dating anyone and with very few friends,
we return to the meat of the Navidson record and
the echoes of lies and compromises. Echoes in those very words,

(26:45):
lies and compromises, compromises and lies. Navidsen compromises by telling
Karen they'll turn the investigation of the five and a
half minute Hallway over to Billy Ruston and then move.
He lies by not telling Karen what happened always echoes Hallways,
and then in another echo, we learn that Karen is

(27:07):
not only similar to Johnny or Johnny is similar to
Karen developing her phobia, but Karen is also similar to Pellefina.
Both became peculiar in childhood, beginning to practice their smiles
in the mirror, which I find very eerie and reminds
me the horror novel Elizabeth by Ken Greenhall writing as
Jessica Hamilton, which I highly recommend, and I've linked in

(27:30):
the show notes, and I will link in the website
entry for this episode. Both are oddly controlled in this
manner and controlling, Both have an odd sense of self,
Both have a striking before and after in their lives,
and both are living in fear. Section six begins with
quotes about animals Ernest Becker's quote about how animals live

(27:52):
in a world without time quote unquote, but rather with
instincts and no knowledge of death. Christian Norberg Schultz quote
is about how man needs orientation to act and animals
do not. We learned that Hillary of the dog is
wary of people. At the end of Davis in the record, Mallory,
the tabby cat disappears with no reference from anyone in
the family. In a dated moment on the tapes August eleventh,

(28:15):
nineteen ninety one, week after Navy got lost, we have
footage of Hillary chasing Mallory into the five and a
half minute hallway, and then through the window we see
them both immediately appear in the backyard. The house's temporal
and spatial existence is apparently different for animals. Seeing their
names together struck me. I know those names, and then

(28:36):
it hit me. Hillary and Mallory were both explorers. Everything
is connected and nothing is an accident in the record,
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary nineteen nineteen two thousand and eight
from New Zealand was the first person to summit Mount Everest.
George Herbert Lee Mallory eighteen eighty six to nineteen twenty
four British was part of the first three person expedition

(28:58):
to Everest. And if you didn't know, explorers who die
on Mount Everest are left where they die because it's
unsafe to try to remove them, and then they are
used as landmarks for future climbers orange jacket, for example.
Think back to Johnny's mother's quote with which I opened
to the episodes. Hundreds of rooms full of indistinguishable remains,

(29:19):
echoes upon echoes of premonitions. Everything's connected. There's one more
animal reference in this section, quote kill Kenny Disappear. I
hunted this down and found that this is a reference
to an old and creepy limerick, which refers back to
Mallory's appearance. There were two cats that kill Kenny. Each

(29:40):
thought there was one cat too many. They fought and
they hit, and they scratched in the bit till accepting
their nails and the tips of their tails. Instead of
two cats, there weren't any. This section ends with two
luscious quotes. In the shadow of Unspoken Events and in
the glass of my memory, in the moonstream of my imagination.

(30:03):
I adore the language of this novel. I'm in love obviously,
I'm on the fourth episode of IT, Section seven begins
with a quote from Jack Lindon and Stable to Fire,
which is about a newcomer without imagination, an explorer completely
out of his debts, and then we are introduced to
the new Hallway Explorers. Holloway, Roberts and his assistants arrived

(30:26):
to the house on Hashtree Lane. Halloway is described as
looking like a conquistador. In my opinion, he's a professional.
Indiana Jones character. Navi told Billy all about exploration, a
told him he lied to Karen and sent him the
VHS tape of his getting lost. Billy Reston sent the
tape to Holloway, foreshadowing if you remember the first episode

(30:47):
Bone Chimes and Primitive Spiders, Holloway crying is on the
second tape that was passed around and made into the
documentary by Miramax. Holloway is also assumed, we discovered now
to be the first person to copy the expert AVHS
tape and pass it around to other people. Starting the
urban legend of the House, Halloway shows up at the

(31:08):
house with two employees, Jed Roberts and Kirby wax Hook.
Jed was a truck driver like Johnny's father before he
became an explorer. Now coincidences, Wax is an expert mountain
climber in cave Swonker relationships at this time continue to
be an awkward dance. Navvy and Karen are tense. We

(31:28):
learned about Karen's past infidelities. Halloway and Navidsen dislike each
other immediately. Wax is extremely extroverted and comes in hot
and hyper. Children are acting out. Then in the footnotes,
we learn about Johnny's infatuation, whom he calls Thumper for
her bunny tattoo. Familial tension, sexual tension all the way around,

(31:52):
and the professional explorations into the five and a half
minute hallway begin. We'll go into that hallway with them
and explore all the pins I've placed, such as pisces,
more about Pellapina's letters and how they fit in now,
including those old English passages that read it helped me translate,
And I'll go deeper into Haunted's lyrics and their significance.
Five songs fit directly into these sections. Later this week,

(32:15):
as I begin celebrating the fifth anniversary of the podcast.
Thank you for listening these five years. Thank you for
understanding how my health is interfered with it so often.
Thank you for sharing. Join the Patreon, join the new substack,
communicating on social media, buying books through Audible and my
links on the website, and leaving reviews thanks to my

(32:36):
podcast review service. I know that my average rating across
all podcasters such as Spotify, Audible, Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, and
cast box four point nine out of five. I can't
ask for more than that. I'm overwhelmed and humbled by that.
I love all of you. Thank you for letting me
talk about books and history and language and the weird

(32:58):
and fun connections my odd brain may for all these
years finding cupcakes for all of us. So I leave
you hanging for a couple of days with two tense children,
three explorers, a UVA engineer, an emotionally unavailable and frightened life,
and a documentary maker husband with his camera running, all
standing in front of an open door in a completely

(33:19):
dark hallway. That should not be last time I left
you with a scream. This time I leave you with
tension and mountaineering equipment in a suburban living room, cartoons
on the television, and carabineers and glowsticks on the carpet
and a beckoning doorway up dark. This is Carla. Before

(33:46):
we start episode eighty one, I want to apologize. You're
going to hear some popping and clicking. I was very
upset when I went to edit and heard this poppy
and clicking. I edited out as much as I could,
but some of it is embedded in my voice itself.
Apparently either my mic or my mic court is dying

(34:10):
after five years, so it is time to buy new
equipment pronto, which I will be doing. Please bear with
me this episode. I apologize. I hope you enjoy it anyway.
It's probably much more minor than it feels like to me.
It's always worse when it's you, much more critical ear

(34:30):
So please enjoy this fifth episode in the House of
Leaf series and my fifth anniversary episode. Happy anniversary to
us the already foreseen disillusion of the Self and the

(34:55):
spirit of the Dark and the Spirit of the Staircase.
Johnny Truant's footnotes to the Navidson record. I don't really
think it's a hallway at all. Poe from Amazed from
the Companion Haunted album. This is Carla, welcome back to

(35:19):
There might be cupcakes on my fifth anniversary. Whoo, and
welcome back to my series on Mark Z Daniel Alski's
House of Leaf's horror novel. This is the fifth episode
in the series. The link to the podchaser list of
the episodes, which I'm updating as I go, is in
the show notes. You can stream the episodes directly from

(35:40):
that link in order. When last we left Navi, Karen,
Chad and Daisy, there was an uneasy silence in the
family and the Explorers had arrived with Billy Ruston, Holloway
Roberts and his assistants Introverted Jed and Wide Open Wax.
You know I love names, and there are no accidents

(36:00):
in this novel. Kirby Hook's name nickname Wax isn't explained,
but my first association with that word is Vinyl records.
I grew up with a jew box in my home
and a dad that collected records, especially one hit Wonders.
You know, this story is all about fathers and came
about because of the death of Mark and Annie's father,

(36:22):
and everything's connected. I learned from Dad that fifties and
early sixties djys, especially the extremely influential Alan Freed, called
records wax stax a wax aproposbe with nothing. Freed is
often credited for quinning the phrase rock and roll, So
wax is an important medium for recording data for playback

(36:43):
and archiving, just like Navi's video recording of his family
for documentary purposes, and now of recording the mysterious changes
to his house. Of course, it's also the medium used
to create candles for light to illuminate the darkness, both
practically of the hallway and allegorically of knowledge fight back.

(37:04):
The night always echoes hallways, so when we left them wax, Jed,
Navvy and Bill are preparing equipment for the first exploration
to the five and a half minute Hallway. Section seven
begins with a gun, Holloway's rifle, which is Navi's, Bill's,
and Tom's introduction to him. A forty eight year old

(37:24):
conquistador with a large beard, large boots, and a weatherby
three hundred magnum standing in the front yard of ash
Tree Lane. Billy Reston had met Holloway at a symposium
for explorers four years earlier, where Holloway had given a
talk on solving problems caused by limitations of current equipment.
A week after Billy sent Holloway the Exploration AVHS tape.

(37:48):
He arrived with Jed and Wax. Tarren commences flirting with
the men, bringing them beers and letting them lighter cigarettes.
I want to apologize. You're going to hear some knocking.
My dogs, Arlow and Toby have learned how to rock
my door and therefore knock on it, and they would
like to come in, but they can't come in because

(38:10):
Toby is a puppy, and Toby and Arlow wrestle, So
there's going to be some creepy sounding knocking throughout this episode.
I apologize because if I put up a baby gate
to keep them further away from my door, Toby will
just holler the joys of having a six months old

(38:30):
in the house. Sorry, I guess I'll just add some
creepy ambiance. Sorry, welcome to my world. If you go
to my TikTok, there's a video that's got the sound
of the two of them wrestling. Anyway, back to the
Ashtree Lane, Garen commences flirting with the men, bringing them

(38:51):
beers and letting them let her cigarettes. Navy speaks his
anger with all of them into his high eight camera.
Then we switch in theme to one of Navy's only
vulnera moments other than anger, when he films himself medicating
his quote rotten feet. Bear with me, this is important.
I know it's gross, but it's important. His feet are
swollen and red, and every tonnell is cracked, yellow and

(39:14):
out of kilter. As Navi says to the camera quote
perpetuated by a nasty fungus. Two decades worth of doctor's
finally ended up calling st r s s. The fact
that Navidsen inserted this here speaks to the stress and
lack of intimacy caused by Karen's infidelities. The theme of
infidelity continues with Johnny's parents and with Johnny's crush Thumper.

(39:38):
In the footnotes, this seems a strange thing for me
to mention, but toes come up as a motif. Keep
in mind the name of the mental hospital, the three
attic Wales Toe Institute. In Pellaphina's first letter to Johnny,
dated June twenty eighth, nineteen eighty two. It's page three
in the collection and page five eighty seven in the novel.

(40:00):
Pellapina writes Johnny in her typical, too intimate manner about
his foster family. Remember your mother loves you despite her
crumbling biology. Also remember love inhabits more than just the
heart and mind. If need be, it can take shelter
in a big toe. Is this her terrible prescience and

(40:21):
apparent connection to the house again, if love can live
in toes? Navi and Karen's lack of trust distance while
he was a famous photographer and her infidelities during the
same would then explain his twenty years of damaged toes,
a damaged foundation, damaged tree roots, and she mentioned a
big toe on that section of tape. Navi carefully attends

(40:45):
to the worst of the worst with medication what he
calls his light fantastic toe, his big toe. Also, during
Johnny's frightening paranormal experience in the tattoo shop's basement where
he falls down the stage, he hurts himself very badly,
but when his bossy and their employees check on him
and ask if he's okay, he says, I think I

(41:08):
just stubbed my toe. One of the wonderful folks in
the House of Leaf subreddit who have been helping me
with the most obscure references and my rusty grad school
research skills mentioned today that they'd read that the idea
of the house came to Daniel Awski when he stubbed
his toe. Our feet are our roots if you think
of us as trees. Look for bodily references, especially related

(41:32):
to perception throughout the novel, especially those related to, as
I just said, sorry, perception much more subtle than Zupano's blindness.
For example, one that the subreddit helped me with was
the zoangnules of Zen. I couldn't find it anywhere, and
it turns out my aunor correct was forcing Zen into Zion,

(41:53):
which I find a little eerie. Everything's connected. I'm going
to quote the helpful user with the some username keep
user name right here, quote zaniles of zen or lens.
Zanials slash ciliary zonules slash zanular fiber fibers, et cetera.
Are part of the system of the eye that controls accommodation.

(42:15):
Stimulation or relaxation of accommodation causes the ciliary muscle in
the eye to contract a relax This will either relax
or tighten the zaniles that are attached to both the
lens and the ciliary muscle, which in turn will allow
the lens that sits behind the iris to either thicken
or flatten. This changes the refractive power of the lens,
which clears or focuses the retinal image. The use of

(42:38):
the word amorrotic fits well with this theme, as it's
frequently used to describe vision loss, such as impatients with
amurosis fusac fe gack f gak yes fugax aka transient
vision loss. Also of note, the zangiles of the eye

(42:58):
can be weakened or actually nap due to trauma. Unquote,
and here's Johnny's relevant notes. This is the quote while
before me, my amurotic guide laughs actually cackles, is more
like it lost in his own litany of inside jokes,
completely out of his head, out of focus, to zannils

(43:19):
of zen, among other things, having snapped long ago like
piano wires. It's unclear if he's speaking about the entity
he encounters in the tattoo shop, about Zippano for introducing
him to the Navidson record, or both. I'm so grateful
for these red edit folks, for they also reminded me
of one of Pelafino's intellectual references. When I didn't think

(43:40):
I was gonna mention, but it fits. She brings up
the Vedas and her letters to Johnny. They are the
oldest Hindu scriptures written in Sanskrit, and they have an
emphasis on what is heard opposed to what is remembered
more sensory input. Think back to the growling that navitz
And heard when he got lost in the five and

(44:01):
a half minute hallway from the last episode. Think about
the five and a half minute hallway, which defies time, physics,
and scientific measurements. Do you trust what you remember or
what you perceive? Johnny made another bodily reference to this section,
so I'll just insert it here as we're talking about
perception and physiology and sensory input. Quote fictive tooth improv

(44:28):
I thought that was intriguing enough to save and mention.
So what is called Expiration Number one begins from the
living room and ash Tree Lane using fishing line like
the myths of Ariann and the Labyrinth Day, Dallas was
hired by the King of Minos to build the labyrinths
to house the monster. Sorry, that's Toby, he can hear

(44:52):
Mama's voice. Where are we? Dadellas was hired by the
King of Minos to build the labyrinth to house the
mid monster, the Minotaur, and he had outsmarted in himself
building a labyrinth. He literally painted himself into a corner
that Dallas could barely escape it himself. Arianne, known as
by the Romans as Prosperina, was put in charge of

(45:15):
the labyrinths by her father, King Minos, where youths were
sacrificed to her monstrous half brother, the Minotaur, for either
Poseidon the god of the Sea, ari Anthena, the goddess
of wisdom, depending on the source of the myth. One year,
the handsome Thesis was one of the fourteen youths, seven
girls and seven boys to be sacrificed. Arianne defied her

(45:37):
father so many father themes here to say theosis, by
giving him a sword and a ball of thread so
he could slay the monster then find his way back
out of the maze. The story is depicted in Homer's Odyssey,
and as I say, everything is connected. The etymology of
the Greek word used for Arianne's string is clue sew,

(46:01):
which is our source for the English word clue. I
love that so much. I geeked out really hard when
I found that out. So our explorers gather their equipment
for their first exploration. Their clue two miles of their
fishing line and lights. Jed Wax and Holloway hear the

(46:22):
growling as well the growling Navvy heard when they return
on tape. We watch everyone watch their HI eight exploration tapes,
and we see them and possibly turned left and left
and left and left again. When they run out of line,
out of clues, they film the ceiling at least two

(46:42):
hundred feet above them, an opposing wall at least fifteen
hundred feet away. The walls continued to shift. Exploration two
the next day, now four spools of fishing line eight
miles worth, plus flares, plus neon markers for riding on
walls and floors. This last eight hours, the three find

(47:07):
the staircase two hundred feet plus in diameter, which spirals
down into nothingness. Sit with that distance in a moment,
and think back to what's needed for an echo that
we talked about in episode Eddy. Two hundred feet is
more than half the lance of a football field. Also,

(47:30):
I don't know if this is a cheeky clue left
for the intrepid, but I did the math and two
hundred feet is sixty six point sixty six sixty sixty
seven yards the yardage of the beasts. I love it.
The team drops flares down the staircase and do not

(47:52):
hear them hit the bottom, too vast to hear the
echo because the sheer magnitude of the hall in its darkness,
the camera is struggling to capture its faithfully. Quote. The
camera is impotent within the house and quote. In order
to have a third dimension, depth cues are required. Only

(48:12):
knowledge illuminates that bottomless place, disclosing the deep ultimately absent
in all the tapes, and still these strange carte de visits.
Interesting choice of phrase. A carte de visite is a
Victorian custom. It's a business card like card with one's
name engraped upon it that you would leave on a
silver tray, either inside the front door or with a

(48:33):
servant if the person you'd come to see were not available,
to let them know you'd been there. It's like the
Navison record tapes are their messages of visitation to the house.
That's an eerie thought. I'll pause here and recommend media,
as I always do. If you're enjoying this agoraphobic car,

(48:55):
I have more for you. I am agoraphobiic. It's an
in the sense that I fear being too far from safety,
and I think that comes with being chronically ill and disabled.
I'm doing the mass on these expirations. Number two is
eight hours. That means they went four hours in, so
there were four hours away from Bell, Tom, Karen and
Navvy in first Aid and the rest of the world,

(49:19):
and the walls may have kept changing, which is a
lyric in Haunted, one of the songs on Poe's album.
The movies and books that have allowed me to push
these same buttons safely have been The Descent one and two,
which your brilliant cla cave exploring horror spelunking just frightens

(49:39):
me so much. The first one has an all female cast,
which is just fabulous. Twenty twenty one to the Deep House,
which is an underwater haunted house. Trust me, I know
that sounds weird, but one of the last shots had
me shook for a little while. An HG. Well's classic
Journey to the Center of the Earth narrated by the

(50:00):
sublime Tim Curry. Tim Curry can narrate an audio book.
Let me tell you you can get it and keep
it for free with a free trial of Audible by
using the Audible link in the show notes. I listened
to this in the car while working while driving from
worksite to worksite with the sun, nice sunlit day, and

(50:20):
I was near panicking doing the math. No, don't go
one more day inward, that's another day of supplies you
don't have on another in the dark. I thought I
was gonna have to pull the car over. I'm being honest.
I'm a little embarrassed by that, but it's true. And
the last one, of course, which I've mentioned in the
series before, is the blair Witch Project. Not being able

(50:42):
to test trust time and physics is terrifying to me,
and so I love the blair Witch universe. All of
these are linked in the show notes. So I digress
as I've been digressing for five years now. My mind
is always making connections, always never stops. It's why a podcast.
If you're new here, welcome to my mind. Always that

(51:05):
goes hallways. So the three are going into the five
and a half minute hallway again for exploration number three.
They are gone for twenty hours this time, and a blare,
which event happens either the house is growing or time
has slipped They spend seven hours walking down the spiral

(51:27):
staircase and it takes them eleven hours to return. Everyone
is behaving out of character. Tom and Billy are still
crashing at the house even though Life and Responsibilities call.
The September semester has started. Daisy is being clinging and
picking up scabs on her wrist. Chad is avoiding the

(51:50):
house and gets into a fight at school. Karen has
become obsessed with punctue, with putting things in the house
in just the right place in order to claim order,
and then she discovers that compasses do not work inside
the house. Expiration number four, The three are planning to
go inside for five nights. This time, I wouldn't Holloway

(52:17):
takes his rifle for the first time, worried about the growling.
Communication has become problem. Transmission into the hallway is extremely difficult.
In getting worse, communication is breaking down in other ways.
When Aviy reviews the tapes and we end section seven,
he sees Karen kiss someone, but we are told forebodingly

(52:39):
that soon that will not matter because the house. Backtracking
to Johnny's footnotes around the time of the expirations, we
come to a new song from Poe's Haunted album, Hey Pretty,
and this is the last song on the album, the
Hey Pretty Drive By two thousand and one mix. There
are two versions of hay Pretty on the album, the
originalist track ten. This remix is track eighteen. Poet sings

(53:03):
and Mark reads part of Johnny's footnote here over the music.
Johnny meets a girl named Kyrie and has an intense,
dangerous and impersonal sexual encounter with her over looking la
in her car. The quote ending the interlude in the
song that harkens back to Johnny's mother's graphamania, especially her
use of Old English, is two bad. Dark languages rarely survive.

(53:28):
The footnote starts on page eighty seven. In the novel,
Johnny actually hooked up with Kirie because he told Lude
he needed a German translator for the nabitson record. If
the name sounds familiar, Kirie is Greek for Lord. In
the Book of Common Prayer i'm Episcopian, there is a
prayer called the Kyrie Elaison used in services Kyrie Elaison,

(53:51):
Christie Laison kreielaison Lord, have mercy, christ have mercy, Lord,
have mercy. No coincidences in this novel especially with that
reference it's dark languages. Here's the original version's lyrics, those
references to what we've been discussing all along. Well, it's
three a m. I'm out here, drive in again through

(54:14):
the wicked, winding streets of my world. I take a
wrong turn, break it, but I'm too far gone. I've
got a siren on my tail, and that's not the
fine I'm looking for. I see a stairway, so I
follow it down into the belly of a whale, where
my secrets echo all around. You know me now, But
to do better than that, you've got to follow me. Boy,

(54:35):
I'm trying to show you where I'm at. Hey, pretty,
don't you want to take a ride with me through
my world? Hey? Pretty, don't you want to kick and
slide with me through my world? Well, I've got a
mind through full of wicked designs. I've got a non
stop hole in my head imagination. I can't forget. I'm
a sole architect. I built the shadows here, I built

(54:57):
the growl and the voice. I fear. You know me now,
But to do better than that, you've got to follow me. Boy,
I'm trying to show you where I'm at. Hey, pretty,
don't you want to take a ride with me through
my world? Hey? Pretty, don't you want to kick and
slide with me through my world? Hey? Pretty, my pretty
baby rocket through my world? Hey? Now, can't you feel

(55:17):
me longing? Hey? Now me, you get the gist of
the song. Now, Hey, pretty, don't you want to take
a ride with me? Since we're driving, let's take a
sharp left back to the whales tow As I said
in episode eighty, Rooms Full of Indistinguishable Remains, I'm not
going to spoil the three Attic Walester letters for you.
I'm taking the same tactic as I'm taking with a novel,

(55:40):
talking through it and exploring it, believing so much for
you to discover. Right now, I'm going to look at
the standalone book of letters compared to the letters compiled
by either the editor or Johnny. It's unclear to me
an appendix to eat. Okay, here we go. This collection
of letters is the same as the appendix, with eleven

(56:01):
additional letters added. We learned from this collection that Pellaphena's
letters were rescued when the Three Attic Whalestowe Institute closed
by Walden d Wertha. We learned from this collection that
Pellafina's letters were rescued when the three attic Whalestowe Institute
closed by Walden D. Wertha, the former records director of

(56:22):
the institute, now living in Charlottesville, where Billy Ruston lives
and works at the University of Virginia. The collection in
his introduction to it, is dated August six, two thousand.
Here are the eleven additional letters that are not included
in Appendix two E, and a little detail about each.
One March ninth, nineteen eighty three, the first psychotic letter

(56:47):
and the first cybertext letter aka the first letter written
er godically. Two June twenty fourth, nineteen eighty four. Grandiose
declarations for Johnny's birthday and creepy flirting with him. Three
November sixth, nineteen eighty four. Quote my frayed brain weave.

(57:07):
Four November ninth, nineteen eighty five, psychotic and ergdic with
a fascinating quote, perhaps hearkening back to the song Spanish Doll.
Do you dream of Spain and wrap your designs and
shades of red? Five March seventeenth, nineteen eighty six. Quote
void to the distant clear to me from these last

(57:30):
two letters that Johnny's mother is in some way in
love with him. Six January sixth, nineteen eighty seven. Johnny
is nothing without her. This letter is our godic cybertext
and signed P instead of Mommy. Seven February fourteenth, nineteen
eighty eight, or Godic cybertext. She draws a corridor with

(57:52):
question marks. You can see this one on the podcast Instagram.
There might be cupcakes and it's on page fifty of
the collection. Eight February twenty third, nineteen eighty eight, she
speaks of a haunted home. Art to chokes and the
sea again. Nine March eighteenth, nineteen eighty eight. To me,

(58:16):
this reads like a spell to bind a liar from
lying any further. It reminds me of the white ribbon
binding spell from the Craft. It's on page fifty seven
of the collection. Ten December twenty third, nineteen eighty eight.
A letter of intense self pity You're all I have
with veiled threats of suicide. Eleven December twenty fourth, nineteen

(58:39):
eighty eight. She talks about blindness, becausipano, about being a tree,
and it's one of the only letters the entire collection
that she did not sign at all. The dates of
all the letters go from July twenty eighth, nineteen eighty two,
one year after her husband and Johnny's bothered death, to

(58:59):
May third, nineteen eighty nine. Before I continue with this compendium,
I want to use this to update my compiled timeline
from episode eighty. Here we Go seventeen twenty. Ash Tree
Lane is quote unquote supposedly built in this year, according
to the realtor nineteen eighty one. Again, according to the realtor,

(59:20):
a family wanted to build an L extension to enlarge
the house. Then they moved out because they wanted something
much smaller. July nineteen eighty one, Johnny's father died in
a truck accident. July twenty eighth, nineteen eighty two, Johnny's
mother of Pellapina's first letter from three Adic Wellstone Institute
to Johnny March ninth, nineteen eighty three, The first psychotic

(59:43):
letter from Pellafina to Johnny and the first cybertext letter
aka the first letter written er godically June twenty fourth,
nineteen eighty four and November sixth, nineteen eighty four. Two
extra disturbed letters from Pellafina November ninth, nineteen eighty five
pellaphena letter stitting quote, do you dream of Spain? March seventeen,

(01:00:07):
nineteen eighty six, Void to the Distant Letter January sixth,
nineteen eighty seven. Johnny is nothing without her February fourteenth,
nineteen eighty eight. A corridor made of question marks February
twenty third, nineteen eighty eight. A haunted home, artichokes in
the Sea. March eighteenth, nineteen eighty eight. A spell to

(01:00:31):
bind a liar December twenty third, nineteen eighty eight. You're
all I have with bailed threats of suicide December twenty fourth,
nineteen eighty eight. Talks about blindness and about being a tree.
May third, nineteen eighty nine. Her last letter to Johnny
May fourth, nineteen eighty nine. Pellaphine is death. May fifth,

(01:00:55):
nineteen eighty nine. Letter from Wales Stowe's director telling Johnny
of pelippine death September nineteen eighty nine. Johnny retrieved one
piece of Joys of Pellafinas from Wales Tow Institute. October
thirty one, nineteen ninety eight. Johnny's introduction to the Navidsen Record.
He found it in Zappano's apartment April nineteen ninety, will

(01:01:19):
begins recording documentary videotapes of his family and his house.
The beginning of his documentary project June nineteen ninety The
date of the two exploration videotapes A and B. June
twenty first is Johnny's birthday, nineteen ninety three. Three years later,
Merrimax purchased the two exploration videotapes and all of Navidson's

(01:01:41):
documentary tapes, compiled them and put them out as the
movie The Navidsen Record same year. The Three Attic wales
Tow Institute closed August six, two thousand, the date of
Walton d with wythrass compilation of Pellafina's letters with eleven
extra letters included. So who was Walden? You know why

(01:02:02):
his name was chosen? Walde Pine was a treat in
Massachusetts chosen by philosopher and writer Henry David Threau to
get closer to nature, closer to himself, and to find peace.
Walden and Pellaphina's one important conversation took place in nature
on the pretty grounds of the three Attic Walestowe Institute.
Waldend Wythra has deep and complex feelings about Pellafina, even

(01:02:26):
though he admits he only spoke to her four times
in total. Remember he was not a mental health a professional,
but only in charge of records management. I assume, in
light of his intense feelings attachment to her, that he
abused his position and read her confidential files. Boundaries are
a major theme in House of Leaves. An example of

(01:02:47):
this is his dedication to her of the compilation of
her letters in French Le jules sand avon tous demye
excuse my pronunciation, quote the days go away, you stay.
Note he used the informal and affectionate version of you
and French two rather than boo. It's so odd this

(01:03:08):
connection between a record's clerk, a man who organizes and
works with facts, and a floridly psychotic woman who is
obsessed with her son, has no friends and talks about
being a tree. Was he seduced by her words, by
her pretentious Graphamania Waldough was at the institute for three
years of pelophina stay and four years after she died.

(01:03:29):
As I said, they only spoke four times in total.
From what I know of my time as a therapist
and a mental health case manager, they had really no
appropriate reason to speak at all. His reason for archiving
and publishing her letters is given as quote. The effects
of the mad are considered as best furniture. He lamented
that the lives of the hospitalized mentally I'll get lost

(01:03:51):
and become ephemera, which is also a theme of House
of Leaves. I'm not going to go through all the
Pelafina's hypergraphic slash pretentious literary life English references because I
want to leave many of them for you to discover
and look up for yourself. I will list French, Spanish, Latin,
and Old English translations on the website entry for this
episode as a resource. Again. Shout out to the House

(01:04:14):
of Leaves subreddit for the Old English translations, which I'll
approach in a moment. Gold continues to be mentioned and
played with his puns and plays on echoes in different
languages since it sounds similar. For example, in Italian and Spanish,
Tellefino refers to Johnny as Bambino d oro child from Gold,
which is an echo of a common phrase child from God.

(01:04:36):
By the bye, I looked up the meaning of the
name john because of course I did, and it means
God is gracious. He was golden to her, but in
the most inappropriate manner. She speaks of him to him
as if is very poor shine, and he is the
only person in her life other than the director of
the institute, Anne Walden, but he's never spoken of in

(01:04:58):
her letters at all. Oddly enough, Pelophina speaks of Johnny's
letters and visits as if they are in love. She
fuses of one letter that it made her feel like
a schoolgirl in nethought you Like I said, I'm not
going to go through all of Pelophina's graphamenic redfaces, but
this one struck me. Giving her apparent prescience at the

(01:05:20):
house on ash Tree Lane, she mentioned Clytemstra, the wife
of Agamennon, sister of Helen of Troy. Clytemstra murdered Agamennon
and Cassandra, and that's what caught my eye. Cassandra and
Greek mythology was known as a teller of the future
who was not believed to the detriment of all. Clytemstra

(01:05:43):
was eventually killed by her son or Estrees, her son
by Agamennon. These stories are told in our pronunciation Acculesses
or Orchestra ha ha ha, or Sta that's it or Sta,
and Euripides I pined Gina and Alice and in that

(01:06:09):
unrelated good stuff that you loved me for. The two
thousand and seven horror movie The Killer of a Sacred
Deer starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, was based upon
that Rudipity's play, which I'm not going to try to repronounce.
Five years of delightful digressions and that horror movie is
something to watch. Let me tell you it's it's definitely

(01:06:31):
a one time or what did I just see that
was really interesting? I back to Pellapina and her disturbing digressions.
Let's get away from mine. Walden, the information director that
compiled Pellapina's letters, described an interaction with her that could
be considered highly inappropriate given his job. They basically had
a small picnic on the grounds of the mental institution

(01:06:54):
one of the four times that they spoke. Pelifina, after
grilling him about details of his life, asked him about
the words he lived by. He told her it was
Galileo's truth is all as he says, especially in the
face of adversity. She profusely agreed, even though she does
play with the truth. And yet that is not what

(01:07:15):
Walden said. To her in Latin. What he said was
and yet it moves, which is what Galileo supposedly said
when forced to recant his statement that the earth rotates
around the sun by the church, and yet the house moves.
Is there still truth? In one letter to his mother,
Johnny had referred to himself as a changeling. A changeling

(01:07:38):
in fairy law is a child at the fay exchanged
for another in infancy. So he was trying to express
how out of place he feels in his family and
maybe explicitly with his mother. Her only response to this
serious statement is to praise his vocabulary and say that
his father would not have understood that word, completely, dismissing

(01:07:59):
his feeling and demeaning his father in the process. Whew. Interestingly,
two archaic meanings of the word changeling are turncoat and imbecile.
I just want to put a pin in that with
Johnny calling himself a traitor to his families, calling himself
stupid because he's struggling with skull, and taunting his mother's
grandiosity and graphomania with this use of the word without

(01:08:23):
a return to a deliberate typo that occurs twice in
the novel so far, Pisces were torn to pieces. It
showed up in the story of Echo and Pan, within
the main story and within Pellaphena's letters September seventh, nineteen
eighty four. Because both references so far return to women
refer to women, I researched Piss's women here we Go.

(01:08:46):
Pisces is a water sign, which is important given whales
and Pellaffina's repeated references to the sea. Pisce's women are
extremely emotional and get stuck in bad moods. They dwell
in sadness. Once they're sad, they hold grudges. They rarely
live in the present, dwelling on the past or dreaming
about the future. They would rather live in a dream

(01:09:07):
world than the real world. They're quite creative and nurturing.
Their loved ones are everything to them. Pisce's women love
hard and want to spend every moment with their loved one.
They're extremely sensitive and if you're dating them, you might
need to check with it in with them every single
day or they're worry Please don't be offended. Piscey's listeners.

(01:09:27):
I'm a Piscey's Moon myself and I picked the specific
items that sounded the most like Echo and Pellaffina. Now
we turn to the pin I left last episode. The
engineer Billy Restin's calling the house changing shape and growing
a goddamn spatial rape. This echoes something from Pellafina's letters,

(01:09:49):
something she wrote in code for Johnny. The letter is
dated May eighth, nineteen eighty seven, and I'm not going
to read it for you because I want to leave
the code for you to decipher. It's simple. It's the
first letter of each word. I do want to point
out that there's a second code hidden within the first.

(01:10:09):
The pel Affina does not tell Johnny to decode. Look
at the random capital letters within words and write them out.
They spell something as well. Have fun. I will tell
you that within this letter, Pelafina claims, for this time
only in all your letters, that staff of the whale

(01:10:31):
Stow are raping her. Interestingly, in this letter she uses
the phrase bag of bones. I did check and Stephen
King's Bag of Bones was published in nineteen ninety eight,
two years before this novel was published, so this may
be the reference to that novel about a haunted house
and secrets underwater. We shall see one more of pell

(01:10:55):
Affina's grandiose ilusions for now well two actually twice. She
writes to Johnny, her teenage son, who is struggling with
abusive foster parents and new schools and an overbearing mother
and the death of his father in Old English. I
bet that made him feel mothered and taken care of
and nurtured. I was able to translate the French and

(01:11:18):
the Spanish and the Latin. Thank you due lingo, you
cute little greenow. But I was completely stumped by the
Old English. So I turned to the kind folks at
the House of Leaves Supreddit. I got a response within
minutes from the wonderful user. Cacti Blossom December twenty fourth,
nineteen eighty three is a quote from the poem. The

(01:11:41):
seafarer quote great is the fear of the Lord before
which the world stands still, a reference to time slippage.
Perhaps the context is that Pellapina is praising Johnny forgetting
of fights at school, calling him a Viking warrior. Elsewhere
tells him not to fight because she is anything if

(01:12:03):
not a consistent, healthy parent. The translation I then found
online for this and the other poem is from Rutgers
University by doctor Aaron Hostetter, which is a name ken
to my married name Hofstellar synchronicities in Twilight language is
teams with his novel. I won't read the whole thing,
but some of it is definitely of note, especially how

(01:12:25):
the sea keeps coming up, plus measuring whales and plush,
measuring whales and relationships and trusting people. I won't read
the whole thing, but some of it is definitely of note,
especially how the sea keeps coming up, plush, measuring whales
and relationships and trusting people. Quote, I can relate the

(01:12:47):
reality a song about myself, go on about the going,
how I intol sometimes often endured desperate days, bitter breast
cares have I abided, explored in a boat many sorrowful
plays the terrible tossing of waves, where the narrow night
watch often sees me at the stem of the ship
when it crashes upon the cliffs, oppressed by chills? Were

(01:13:10):
my feet bound up by frost with cold chains? When
these sorrow's side hot about the heart, hunger tearing within
the sea, wearied mind. He does not know this fact
which dwells most merrily on dry land. How I, wretchedly
sorrowful lived a winter on the ice cold sea, upon
the tracks of exile, deprived of friendly kinsmen, no sheltering

(01:13:31):
kinsfolk could comfort this impover's spirit. Therefore they come crashing
now the thoughts of my heart, whether I should test
out the profound streams, the tossing of salty waves, my
mind's desire, reminding me at every moment my spirit to outventure,
that I should seek the homes of strange peoples far
from here. Therefore, now my mind departs outside. Its thought

(01:13:53):
locks my heart's inside. With the ocean tide across the
whale's domain, departing broadly the corners of the earth. It
comes to me gluttonous and greedy, the lone winged kens
wetting the heart without warning onto the deadly way along
surface of the waters. Nor can the flesh home, when
the life is lost, swallow down sweetness, nor suffer sorrow,

(01:14:17):
nor stir its hands, nor think with its mind. Although
one's brother may wish to strew the grave with gold,
for its sibling to bury beside the dead many treasures
that he would wish him to have, that gold cannot
comfort him. The soul filled with sins which he had
hid before. Now while he was alive from the terror
of God Mighty is the fear of the Measurer. Therefore

(01:14:38):
the earth shall be changed. He established the unrelenting ground,
the corners of the earth and over heaven. Foolish is
he who dreads not the Lord. His death come unexpected,
Blessed as he lives humbly, his reward comes in heaven.
The Measurer endows the heart in him because he believes
in its power. Man must steer a strong mind and

(01:14:59):
hold it firm. We assured among humanity clean in his ways.
Outcomes are stronger the Measurer Mighty still than the thoughts
of any man. Let us consider where we shall possess
our home, and then think about how we may come
there again. And then we shall strive also, so that
we may be allowed to do so into these internal beatudes.

(01:15:22):
The second is from the letter dated September seventh, nineteen
eighty four. The quote is from the poem The Battle
of Maldon. To quote Cacti blossom. There are a couple
of rough translations out there that they carry the same sentiment.
I wrote it as courage must be the firmer heart,
the boulder spirit. The greater the more our force diminishes,
but I also found it translated as thoughts shall be harder,

(01:15:44):
heart the keener, and mood the more as our Mte lessons.
This is a ballad of a Viking battle. In this letter,
she tells him not to fight, and yet quotes from
this battle, Pellephina is confounding and exhausting. A song that
I mentioned but didn't explore last episode is Spanish Doll

(01:16:04):
track fourteen on Pose Haunted album. I did read the
lyrics in episode eighty. Not only does Pellafina repeatedly mention
a Spanish doll in an attic, other phrases in this
song are repeated in her letters, such as why did
you leave me here? And You'll always be here with me?
The last stanzas of the song sound like both Pellafina

(01:16:25):
and Karen both also needy, inappropriately hyperflirtatious and controlling. Both
practice their smile in a mirror as a child, as
I mentioned in the last episode. Then there's five and
a half minute hallway track eight. I also read those
lyrics in the last episode. It sounds to me like
it is both written in Karen and pellafina'sok point of view.

(01:16:47):
Plus it speaks of letters Unwritten, which refs is Pellafina.
The reasons I believe this song is in their voices
are control issues, intimacy issues, distance as a metaphor communication
including echoes, time, which goes back to the idea of
animals versus humans in the house. The reference to letters

(01:17:07):
unwritten refers to both a note in the beginning of
the Whalestow Letters collection that some of Pellapina's letters may
never have been sent to Johnny, which is unclear. Also,
we see in her letters that she repeatedly became confused
about Johnny's letters. Pellifina also made several references, as I've
said before, to Halways in her letters to Johnny. Then

(01:17:28):
we returned to Exploration B again track when the album
is short phone call to mother announcing father's death and
asking for a release of grudges. Remember what I said
about Piscey's women. Now we know that Pellafina was notified
of Johnny's father's death while hospitalized in Whale's Tow, the
grudge can refer to why she's committed. I'll leave that
for you to discover. Now we come to two more

(01:17:51):
songs that have come up in our reading. Dear Johnny
and Lemon Meraye. Dear Johnny's track eleven and is quite short.
The lyrics are as follows, Johnny, Dear, don't be afraid.
I will keep your secrets safe. Bring me to the
blind man who lost you in his House of Blue.
Pellaffina A references blindness in her letters. And remember what

(01:18:12):
I said earlier about all the biological references in this
novel to perception and senses. Of course, the direct reference
is ze Bano. The creepy inference is that Pellaphina had
pressing its about Zapano. We know from my timeline that
she died before Johnny was introduced in an ancid record
as well, Johnny keeps a lot of secrets that aren't
technically necessary. So much detail obscured from his father's obituary,

(01:18:36):
even the date of publication in the newspaper. As for
the House of Blue, remember back to the first episode
sixty eight when I talked about all the different versions
of the novel. In all color editions of the novel,
every single time the word house appears, it's blue. One
more song from Poe's album is referenced so far in
Our House of Leaves journey Lemon Meringue track thirteen. Here

(01:18:59):
are the lyric. Hold on, you gotta wait just a minute.
See the cookie jar. I've got my hand caught in it.
Just let me try to explain. You know, I've been
a good girl, but I've hit a limit. I know
there's not a lot of logic in it. But my
life's been feeling to me like lemon. Sometimes it tastes
so bitter like lemon. I gotta make it sweeter. Stop

(01:19:19):
right there before I get bitter. There's got to be
a way to make it sweeter a little more like
lemon merangue. So the other day, well, I found me
a lover, had a little hustle under the covers. It
was delicious to me. Can't you see me there daydreaming
of our future? Painted such your pretty picture, but my
prints he never got back to me? Like lemon, sometimes

(01:19:40):
it tastes so bitter like lemon. I just gotta make
it sweeter. Stop right there before I get bitter. There's
got to be a way to make it sweeter a
little more like lemon merangue. And then Mark and Annie's
father is speaking. It is November sixth and we are
in Madrid, Spain. It is a very special day, and
to celebrate it, Annie will sing a song. Now I

(01:20:01):
know there are no coinciences in this novel, so I
checked the date November sixth against the eleven omitted letters
and the Whalestow letters, and there is one November sixth letter,
nineteen eighty four. It's the echo rooms upon rooms letter
that I use for the title of episode eighty. Everything
is connected in Pelipina's November seventh, nineteen eighty two letter.

(01:20:25):
Pelapini uses Lemon meringue pie as a reference to mothering
and being mothered, and she continues to mention lemons in
her letters, talking about wanting lemons and art of chokes
over and over to Johnny, and don't forget Lemon's grand trees. Finally,
I hear Karen and the sexual dalliance Stanza. I want
to mention two more things about Pelopina's letters. She makes

(01:20:48):
a mention of Victoria Lucas. That was Sylvia Plas's pen
name for the Bell Jar, her fictionalized autobiography about her
mental illness to hospitalization. There's also a lovely pun in
the letter to find Johnny of Pelopina's death. The director
mistypes her last name le Febra. I don't think I'm
pronouncing that ride. It's l I E V R e

(01:21:11):
as libra, which is French for book. I love that
I leave you this time with Johnny's words of warning
and fear about the Nabinson Record at the end of
section six, quote I'm afraid it is hungry, it is immortal, worse,

(01:21:33):
it knows nothing of whim. Thank you for continuing this
journey into the House of Leecia universe with me, and
thank you for continuing this five year journey with me.
On this my five year anniversary. In April twenty eighth,
twenty seventeen, I published my first episode, Poe and Carlyn Cupcakes,

(01:21:55):
Nice to meet You. I was so nervous that I
actually wrote my brief pauses into the script that I
didn't talked too fast. I really did, which I know
I do when I'm anxious. I really did. My first
scrip had pause, brief pause, very brief pause written, and
I told my story, explain the story of Cupcake, and
read some Poe for you for the first time in
many and I thank you for With every download and

(01:22:18):
every share in comment on social media, my confidence grew
and my desire to tell stories and share my writing
was encouraged even further, I'm humbled by my audience's attention
and love. Thank you, Thank you, five years worth of
thank you. I've outlined my celebratory plans for this anniversary
and detailed for paid substack and Patroon subscribers. Basically, I'm

(01:22:41):
going to revisit my first five years worth of episodes
in order as appropriate and update them so as example,
for first, afresh on my first episode to reintroduce everybody
and update to who I am and who what the
podcast is, and then episode two perhaps more of my
Bondy mommy story of that novel, and our company update

(01:23:03):
I want Casey, Anthony Orr family have been up to
since twenty seventeen and so on. This should be a
fun expiration in celebration as well. I'll be continuing this
House to Leave series and beginning my deep dive series
into exploring Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an ounce onde
my substack. The link to my substack is in my
show notes. Please join my substack. Join Patreon for ad

(01:23:26):
free episodes and PDFs of episode scripts and more, and
check out my new freehoror discussion and promotion forum at
theremightbecupcakes dot com slash Horror. I have a lot of
horror author friends that are gonna join once convention and
bosinning season is settles down and they can sit in
front of their computers again. So happy anniversary to there

(01:23:46):
might be cupcakes, to me and to all of us.
Please stay with me for the next five years for
more reading, storytelling, and finding upcakes. Today feels like a
birthday of sorts for me. I'm going to go buy
myself a new podcast shirt from Society six once I'm
all done with this episode, just for the celebration of it.
One more fun thing for my anniversary. On these sections

(01:24:08):
of House of Leaves and When is Upono's footnotes. On
page ninety one, there's a shout out to my grad
school alma mater, Boston University. Go Boston Terriers. It's the
little things. I love you all. Happy anniversary.

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