What's with the colors

[ryanm]

Why is the word house written in blue? Or words with lines through them? And braille? Or about how the word minotaur appear in red when its not even written in red?

[demo]

in one interview and somewhere else i don't recall, the color blue (for house) might suggest the notion of the blue screen in movie making, that is the empty screen that film makers use to later edit in special effects.. this opens up the whole subtext about the book being a film or like a film... the blue screen is nothingness, the house is about nothingness, etc. it also suggests that the book itself and/or the house is like a blue screen... wherein we impress upon it all those things we either desire or even dislike... (which refers back to someone elses post about, "does the house's interior reflect the occupants feelings"... perhaps) some other INTERESTING ideas that go along with this is derek jarman's film "BLUE" which is simply a blue screen image you sit through for 90 minutes with some sound design behind it.. and also my favorite... in the footnote reference on page 133 (where it notes other books that are of similar story...) the footnote mentions the book "days between stations" by steve erickson... i read this book years ago.. it is a surreal story about a man obsessed with making a film and him using only natural light.. all through the book erickson makes reference to the color blue and the way that the film is blue, etc. these books that mzd has mentioned aren't just casual references.. i find them all (so far) to make a lot of sense... he's obviously done his homework.

demo

[lizzy]

...and let's not forget about Karen GREEN!

[dshepard]

... or Navidson -- "Navy" = navy blue?

[FallingQuarters]

Do not forget green or navy. So much inside the house has to do with blue. As I have mentioned in previous posts, numbers have a great deal to do with the book...as do colors.
Off the top of my head;
zampano's books were pale blue. navy's well dream has blue all over it. one of the keys is blue. blue and red make purple. (see A Note On this Edition: Full Color. Second Bullet.) the phrase out of the blue more than once.
regardless blue is a color whose hue is that of the clear sky. It is also the portion of the color spectrum lying between green and violet.
it also means depressing, intellectual, profane, risque...bruised.

less forget blue ink in quantity seems black, opaline, ashen, oily...yet blue.

what color is thumper?

i a m h e r e t o t a l k

[Cliff]

when you think about blue you might think that water is blue.
And if you ever read the book "The Color of Water" you'd know the color of water is god.

[Francis Glances]

Incidentally, I found a house in my copy that isn't in blue (or grey in the case of my uk paperback)

I'll try to find it again and give you a page number.

[xdontleaveyetx]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR> Off the top of my head;
zampano's books were pale blue. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

are you sure that zampano's books were pale BLUE? i seem to remember them being described only as pale... i may be wrong, please don't yell! images/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

[FallingQuarters]

A great day indeed.

I can never tell if people read what I write, let alone if they understand it.

I added the blue part for two reasons...first, everytime I read that section in the book the phrase pale books always makes me think blue. When I picture books that have been sitting in a refridgerator for a long time...the kind of pale I think of is a pale blue. Like when something fades to the point where it's almost white but not white...and it has this tinit of blue in it. The second reason I added it was to see what people thought about the mistake. Disinformation is everywherebeaware.

[xdontleaveyetx]

ooo alright good, i was just making sure i didnt miss an obviously vital detail... cuz when i heard the phrase "pale books" i automatically thought white, almost translucent... to each his own, i suppose

[dshepard]

Actually, if you think about it, the four colors red, yellow, blue and green reappear several times within the book. First, and most obviously, there's the text. Second, The four keys are those colors, and there's a Whalestoe Letter from April 5, 1986 talks about the colors of the pills Pelafina is supposed to take -- "madder, azure, celadon, gamboge." (red, blue, green, yellow) Within the NR, I know two of these colors occur -- Navy for blue and Karen for Green. Has anyone found names that represent red or yellow?
I've thought about the kids, but I don't think this pans out. Though daisies have yellow centers, their petals are white. Chad is not a collor as far as the American Heritage Dictionary is concerned.
Navidson's feet are infected with some skin condition that makes them red and his toenails yellow (p. 86); this disappears once he escapes the house. But feet don't equate to a person.

[Mr_Faust777]

Francis, in my copy of the red edition every word house is gray...

[SpecialSauce]

For me the Blue House is something that makes me immedeately think of the play House of Blue Leaves by Jon Guare. There are a few details that could be simi similar to the characterization in the play. For me at least the apperance of the word house is somehow reminiscent.

[lazysmurff]

i searched but was unable to find any names that coincided with the colors red or yellow, perhaps i just missed something but i feel that maybe these colors were left out for a reason? perhaps? in art we learn that the colors are divided into warm and cold colors. I find it interesting that both "green" and "Navy" are cold colors while red and yellow are warm colors. perhaps this is purely coincidence but the lack of warmth from colors could be another symbolic representation of the coldness of the place, both figurativly and literarly. the only warmth in any name that i can find or allude to is tom. Tom as in " tom cat" that is. it is a common mental picture of a warm cozy night sitting in fromt of the fire sipping hot chocolate witha cat nearby or even on your lap. but thats a strech, i may be totally off base, but hey, thats what i get out of it.

[koneko]

I think the emphasis on color in the book is significant. It brought to mind a number of things I've read and seen in the past. For instance, Plato considered color to be an 'ornament' that obstructs truth. He likened it to a drug (pharmakon) that acts as both a medicine and a poison.

In Hegel's Aesthetics, however, he writes that "shape, distance, boundaries, contours, in short all the spatial relations and differences of objects appearing in space, are produced in painting only by color ...It is incredible what color can really achieve in this way."

It also made me think of the Krzysztof Kieslowski trilogy, Red, White, and Blue,where the colors of each set the tone of the film and represented an ideal (liberty, fraternity, etc.) Other interesting uses of color in film include The Wizard of Oz,Pleasantville, Wings of Desire, Lost Highway, etc. where the changes from black and white to color (or vice versa) denote a change in conciousness, awareness, or different states of being.

In the specific example of HOL tho, I think that the reason colors were used is due to the vagueness associated with describing color. Color eludes language and culture - you cannot describe the experience of color. (We attempt to overcome this problem by applying some sort of logical order to color - the color wheel, the color spectrum.)

Wittgenstein highlighted this open-ended nature of describing color by stating that a color named at one point in time can be unrecognisable at another. Just like the different kinds of "pale" different readers interpreted...

[Scared_of_the_Dark]

i hhan'dt noticed the other colours, but blue is definately a common thread. I think it has to do with J's father, who was a pilot. I recall reading blue was important to him (the sky) and J associated blue with his dead father. (Ok, on the side, was it Navidson's dad or Johnny's that broke the car windshield with a thermos? Its not particually realted, but I can't remember.) To Jonny then, blue would be a signifigant colour and maybe there more to that, but I can't think. Also, I noticed there is great similarity in the colour adjectives used b Z and P. Mmost people don't use "celadon" or whatever etc. I thnk the outlandish unique adjectives are shared by them for a reason I haven't thought out yet. Gotta go, sort of distracted. I'll elaborate more , if anyone is interested , later. ( Again, excuse the doubled letters and odd spacing, my keyboard is nuts)

[Legz]

On the topic of colors, something else that I've noticed is that throughout the book the word color is spelled 'colour' but today I just noticed that it was spelled 'color' in one of the chapters. I don't know if this has any significance but I thought it was interesting.

Also, I have Poe's (Mark's sister) cd Haunted, and in the cd leaflet whenever the the color red is shown it's usualy in a picture with a female, and I believe the color blue is always placed with a male. I'm not 100% sure if thats correct I don't have the cd with me, but I'm pretty sure thats how it is.

[Jessie]

Your observation about the color/colour issue is intriguing.
The crazy index has page listings under both spellings which is as perplexing as it is interesting.
Everything I have found indicates that the subtle difference is merely in terms of what continent you happen to reside on.
All of my research indicates that COLOUR is the British way of spelling it while the u-less version was Websters dictionarys Americanized version.

It is interesting to note that when you type "colour" into variour search engines a number of bible references appear including this one.

"colour- The subject of colours holds an important place in the Scriptures. White occurs as the translation of various Hebrew words. It is applied to milk (Gen. 49:12), manna (Ex. 16:31), snow (Isa. 1:18), horses (Zech. 1:8), raiment (Eccl. 9:8). Another Hebrew word so rendered is applied to marble (Esther 1:6), and a cognate word to the lily (Cant. 2:16). A different term, meaning "dazzling," is applied to the countenance (Cant. 5:10). This colour was an emblem of purity and innocence (Mark 16:5; John 20:12; Rev. 19:8, 14), of joy (Eccl. 9:8), and also of victory (Zech. 6:3; Rev. 6:2). The hangings of the tabernacle court (Ex. 27:9; 38:9), the coats, mitres, bonnets, and breeches of the priests (Ex. 39:27,28), and the dress of the high priest on the day of Atonement (Lev. 16:4,32), were white. Black, applied to the hair (Lev. 13:31; Cant. 5:11), the complexion (Cant. 1:5), and to horses (Zech. 6:2,6). The word rendered "brown" in Gen. 30:32 (R.V., "black") means properly "scorched", i.e., the colour produced by the influence of the sun's rays. "Black" in Job 30:30 means dirty, blackened by sorrow and disease. The word is applied to a mourner's robes (Jer. 8:21; 14:2), to a clouded sky (1 Kings 18:45), to night (Micah 3:6; Jer. 4:28), and to a brook rendered turbid by melted snow (Job 6:16). It is used as symbolical of evil in Zech. 6:2, 6 and Rev. 6:5. It was the emblem of mourning, affliction, calamity (Jer. 14:2; Lam. 4:8; 5:10). Red, applied to blood (2 Kings 3;22), a heifer (Num. 19:2), pottage of lentils (Gen. 25:30), a horse (Zech. 1:8), wine (Prov. 23:31), the complexion (Gen. 25:25; Cant. 5:10). This colour is symbolical of bloodshed (Zech. 6:2; Rev. 6:4; 12:3). Purple, a colour obtained from the secretion of a species of shell-fish (the Murex trunculus) which was found in the Mediterranean, and particularly on the coasts of Phoenicia and Asia Minor. The colouring matter in each separate shell-fish amounted to only a single drop, and hence the great value of this dye. Robes of this colour were worn by kings (Judg. 8:26) and high officers (Esther 8:15). They were also worn by the wealthy and luxurious (Jer. 10:9; Ezek. 27:7; Luke 16:19; Rev. 17:4). With this colour was associated the idea of royalty and majesty (Judg. 8:26; Cant. 3:10; 7:5; Dan. 5:7, 16,29). Blue. This colour was also procured from a species of shell-fish, the chelzon of the Hebrews, and the Helix ianthina of modern naturalists. The tint was emblematic of the sky, the deep dark hue of the Eastern sky. This colour was used in the same way as purple. The ribbon and fringe of the Hebrew dress were of this colour (Num. 15:38). The loops of the curtains (Ex. 26:4), the lace of the high priest's breastplate, the robe of the ephod, and the lace on his mitre, were blue (Ex. 28:28, 31, 37). Scarlet, or Crimson. In Isa. 1:18 a Hebrew word is used which denotes the worm or grub whence this dye was procured. In Gen. 38:28,30, the word so rendered means "to shine," and expresses the brilliancy of the colour. The small parasitic insects from which this dye was obtained somewhat resembled the cochineal which is found in Eastern countries. It is called by naturalists Coccus ilics. The dye was procured from the female grub alone. The only natural object to which this colour is applied in Scripture is the lips, which are likened to a scarlet thread (Cant. 4:3). Scarlet robes were worn by the rich and luxurious (2 Sam. 1:24; Prov. 31:21; Jer. 4:30. Rev. 17:4). It was also the hue of the warrior's dress (Nah. 2:3; Isa. 9:5). The Phoenicians excelled in the art of dyeing this colour (2 Chr. 2:7). These four colours--white, purple, blue, and scarlet--were used in the textures of the tabernacle curtains (Ex. 26:1, 31, 36), and also in the high priest's ephod, girdle, and breastplate (Ex. 28:5, 6, 8, 15). Scarlet thread is mentioned in connection with the rites of cleansing the leper (Lev. 14:4, 6, 51) and of burning the red heifer (Num. 19:6). It was a crimson thread that Rahab was to bind on her window as a sign that she was to be saved alive (Josh. 2:18; 6:25) when the city of Jericho was taken. Vermilion, the red sulphuret of mercury, or cinnabar; a colour used for drawing the figures of idols on the walls of temples (Ezek. 23:14), or for decorating the walls and beams of houses (Jer. 22:14)"

[ March 24, 2002: Message edited by: Jessie ]

[hello?]

Interesting how minotaur and passages relating to the minotaur are in red; reminds me of certain editions of the King James Version of the Bible, where the words spoken by Jesus are in red. Which is even more interesting if you believe that Zampano represents God. Jesus is the minotaur. That's about the only connection I can make now. Oh yeah, and in some medieval manuscripts from the Bible, certain passages were illuminated in blue. The first passage from a book or chapter, I think.

[JustBen]

If you look closely, you should find that Zampano spells the word "colour" while Johnny spells it "color". I was hoping for something a little more complex than that, too.

Although it does make an interesting complement to the earlier observation about how subjective color can be.

[koneko]

In Australia the correct spelling is "colour." It isn't entirely incorrect to use the American spelling of 'color' though. (Ah, torn between the Queen's English and American cultural dominance ...)

[Monte Rosen]

I'm surprised no one thinks the blue in house makes it seem like a hypertext link, which are often this same blue color. This makes the <font color=blue>house</font> a scathing critique of the internet. Follow one link to another, all leading to more empty content. One is soon lost in the labyrinthine trail of one's own choices, that you can only follow back because of the fishline trail of your bookmarks, which disappear as soon as you log off. There is no warmth, nourishment, or light therein, and nothing works for long. It consumes power with a negligible return and it is seemingly endless. You trust what you find there at your own risk, and what you're only going to find is a whole lot of nothing. Hmmm, starting to think that maybe all this posting may also be subject to the same critique. What was Keat's line:...full of sound and fury signifying nothing...?

[Scared_of_the_Dark]

Touche! I wonder that sometimes myself. But it still is fun!

[benzelbub]

that's interesting about the whole "colours" thing in the Jewish text (i'd be more articulate but i'm speed typing at work) posted earlier in this thread....perhaps there's a correlation betwwen that and the "windows" pages that are textually laid out like the the talmud (i think it's the talmud anyway)
ps if you don't know what i'm talking about i've posted more about it in the past

[Discordian]

Good point, Kingficher, about the hyperlinks. The interrelatedness of all the weird little connections of the book is a bit reminiscent of the net, and the book was originally published online...

As for that sound and fury quote, it comes from Shakespeare. It's in Macbeth's "out, brief candle" speech, after he learns Lady Macbeth is dead.

[adamL1313]

I think the reason "<font color="00bfff">house</font>" is always in blue is to interrupt the reading a little bit, to demonstrate that just as the word "<font color="00bfff">house</font>" does not fit in with the rest of the text, the <font color="00bfff">house</font> in the story does not fit in with anything else around us--it's different, unsettling.

[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: Adam L ]

[FallingQuarters]

Daisy

[Lillie]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Kingficher:
I'm surprised no one thinks the blue in house makes it seem like a hypertext link, which are often this same blue color. What was Keat's line:...full of sound and fury signifying nothing...?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The hyperlink theory has DeFiNiTELY been discussed before, use the 'search' engine and bring it up. I remember someone writing a lengthy and great post about it.

And isn't that line Shakespeare's?

[Rubble]

Chad

[girl2]

errr, a daisy is white with a yellow center!

errrrrrr, a chad is.... ummmmm..... dammit rubble, this is a hard one!

[Dana]

a Chad is a Florida election spoiler! Yaaaay!!!

[girl2]

oooh oooh daisy!

thumper has daisy sunglasses!

thumper is the same color as daisy?

[FallingQuarters]

Thumper. Doesn't the name Thumper ring any bells in the kids in the audience?

I believe Thumper is the rabbit in Bambi.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I also believe Thumper is blue.

And that she is in the color collage on the cover.

[FallingQuarters]

What color are Thumper's sunglasses?

What color is Thumper?

[girl2]

although i haven't seen bambi in a while, i can pretty solidly attest to thumper the bunny NOT being blue. sorry.

[FallingQuarters]

I was speaking about the rabbit in the collage on the cover of the book.

[hello?]

NO!! You meant the rabbit in Bambi!

And for the record, that rabbit was grey with a white chest.

He thumped. That's why they called him thumper.

[ June 26, 2002: Message edited by: hello? ]

[hello?]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Legz:
Also, I have Poe's (Mark's sister) cd Haunted, and in the cd leaflet whenever the the color red is shown it's usualy in a picture with a female, and I believe the color blue is always placed with a male. I'm not 100% sure if thats correct I don't have the cd with me, but I'm pretty sure thats how it is.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I've noticed that if you read only the words in red (in the Haunted leaflet), it forms a sentence. Except for "dead." Don't include that in the sentence.

[danial]

this is in reply to davy's post (3-7)
the colors for the flag of the country chad are blue yellew and red if tyhat helps any.

[fatwoul]

Re: The Colour of Thumper the Bunny
http://www.art.com/asp/sp-asp/_/NV--1_1846_7456_7457_7802/PD--10008709/SZ--3/posters.htm?XRFID=346898&TKID=6227374

[girl2]

awww, that movies so cute!

remember when bambi's mom dies? it still makes me cry everytime...

*sniffle*

fq, i am seeing no such bunny on the collage. i think you better make up your mind on this one before you send poor little girls like me on wild goose chases!

heh, i just said wild goose chase.

hey, chad is a country! the country has a flag! the flag has colors! i can't believe i didn't think of that, i was trying to figure out if the list of colors on the other thread was a switch from one flag to another (representing a move) but none of the flags had all the colors listed. but chad! ha! very clever, predictable! you're on top of things, dammit!

[fatwoul]

i know you have all already noticed this but i just wanted to say it since i have just this second read the stuff in the front of haunted. she talks about the blue house as if she means depression (i will paraphrase a little):

"...Bring me to The blind man who Lest you in his house of blue" - i don't know the significance of the B,T,L being capitals, unless perhaps POE subconsciously wanted a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich. however, it sounds like she is talking about depression in someway.

"...A house without that desire for communiation, would not look the way your house does today!" - said by her dad, this sounds like someone refusing to believe the depression his daughter is experiencing. when read in conjunction with:

"I've been in her house i've experienced her...her...HER MADNESS And i rejected the entire experience." seems to support this.

psycholgically, parents often have difficulty understanding depression in their children, more than a physical illness, because they assume that something they did must have caused the condition.

i have no clue of the situation in the danielewski family, so i don't imagine i am close, but what the hell, better to share with the group than lose the thought forever, eh endorphyne? images/smiles/icon_wink.gif

g'night people

[endorphyne]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by fatwoul:
"...Bring me to The blind man who Lest you in his house of blue" - i don't know the significance of the B,T,L being capitals, unless perhaps POE subconsciously wanted a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich. however, it sounds like she is talking about depression in someway.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

My guess on the letters would be that they're following line breaks, like in a poem.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by fatwoul:
"...A house without that desire for communiation, would not look the way your house does today!" - said by her dad, this sounds like someone refusing to believe the depression his daughter is experiencing. when read in conjunction with:

"I've been in her house i've experienced her...her...HER MADNESS And i rejected the entire experience." seems to support this.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Another way to look at it might be that the whole album is a communication to the spirit of her father, something she hasn't done in a great many years. The fact that he's dead now, and can no longer comminucate except with the words he used in life might be enough to drive anyone mad.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by fatwoul:
i have no clue of the situation in the danielewski family, so i don't imagine i am close, but what the hell, better to share with the group than lose the thought forever, eh endorphyne? images/smiles/icon_wink.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Absolutely. Thank you for sharing.

I don't know if this is of any interest, or if everyone is familiar with it already, but MZD tells an anecdote about the relationship between his father and sister.

Apparently, Tad had a party or some other type of gathering at their house once and had many of his friends over. Poe was about 7 or 8 (I can't remember what he said her age was), and he asked her to sing a song for his guests. She did so and, after she was finished, Tad proceeded to point out every error she had made in front of everybody in the room. He then told her to sing it again.

"And the sick part," says Mark, "is that it was better."

[ June 27, 2002: Message edited by: endorphyne ]

[fatwoul]

re: line breaks

er yeah. i knew that. maybe i should have read it out lout before i posted.

re: communication with Tad

indeed, but i think that either way (comm with daddy or depression) a similar message comes through: that it sometimes got her down, and that he was ocassional a bit on the control freak side!

hey francis - did you find the non-blue mention of house yet?

[fatwoul]

Its often difficult to know where amongst these threads to post a thought where it might be of greatest help (if any) to others.

I've observed a couple of other connections between red and blue, but since these ideas do not yet relate to any other colour, I have chosen to post them on the following thread instead, which is specific only to the relationship between red and blue:
http://www.houseofleaves.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000090

[Leigh-luu]

In regards to the struck passages:
A lot of attention has been paid to the fact that they are in red (on which I doubt I could shed more light than the elegant explanations already offered up), but not nearly as much has been paid to the fact that they are stuck. I imagine this is because the note on page 111 (2-color version) explicitly states that "Struck passages indicate what Zampanò tried to get rid of, but which I, with a little bit of turpentine and a good old magnifying glass managed to resurrect."
When I finished reading and examining everything I could about "House of Leaves" and wanted to read more of the like, I went back to a collection of stories I had read in an anthropology class with Roy Wagner at the University of Virginia (if anyone should ever have the opportunity to interact in any way with this man, I entreat you to do so. He is as well read and surreal as Zampanò himself.) The collection was "Labyrinths" by Jorge Luis Borges. In this collection is the story "The Garden of Forking Paths" which is listed amongst other "literary hauntings" in footnote 167 (p. 133 of the 2-color).
In my web-based investigations I have found the story often spoken of in reference to House of Leaves. This quote always appears: "...to no one did it occur that the book and the maze were one and the same thing." When I re-read the story, it seems clear that Zampanò is the reflection of Ts'ui Pên of which the story tells. But even more striking to me was the following passage:
"'In a riddle whose answer is chess, what is the only prohibited word?'
'...The word chess.'
'Precisely,...To omit a word always, to resort to inept metaphors and obvious periphrases, is perhaps the most emphatic way of stressing it.'"

And Zampanò always always always removed references to the myth of Minos and his Minotaur. Especially the oddly formatted footnote 123 in which he speculates about the Minotaur's true identity, and the maze as a "trope for repression."

(my apologies if this idea has already been circulated!

[Lillie]

For the search engine’s sake, I’m going to put in the word color. And colors. Even if I spell it with a u.
I’m quite positive the theory where both four colour-coded keys and Pelafina’s medication represent security has been brought up before.

I was having some index fun today (posted my bits on that in the right thread) and I came across more colour-security codes to confirm it (I think). Please tell me what you all make of it!

Of course, we start off on page 61, where the four dead bolts have been put on the door with four keys: red, yellow, green, and blue. This quite obviously represents Karen’s need for security in the house from the labyrinth in it.

Okay, now what about page 51?
“Each image carefully wrapped and coiled in colours of cinnabar, lemon, celadon and indigo.” I’m not sure what colours cinnabar and celadon are though. This is when Johnny was ranting about his boss.

There’s a multitude of colours on page 313.
The teeth drew madder and rose from each other’s throats. Tigers clawed Sunday red and indigo from celadon hills (this probably means celadon = green?). There’s the dragon with its emerald tail and ruby glare. “Happy blossom of heliotrope and gamboge.” (What colour is gamboge?)
Most likely representing the children’s need of security from the house, since right in the centre amidst all those colours is black (probably the house’s ‘colour’ despite the fact that it’s written in blue).

Of course there are Pelafina’s medications, a form of the institute’s “control”. Madder, azure, celadon, gamboge (pg 615).

And Johnny’s array of tattoo ink, “…midnight blue, cochineal to mauve, light doe, lilac, south sea green, maize…” before he feels something’s behind him out of the be-fucking-lue.

There’s plenty of discussions into the colour-like names. Green, Navy, Daisy etc but I don’t know that very well.

Here’s another one. Tom’s Story! Pg 253.
In A Little Bedtime Story For Tom, he mentions the colour red. And if you like, we can include brown too. There’s the bus story where the punk guy has green hair. When he next talks to Karen he wants lemon meringue. I can’t really find a blue… unless you want to count the numerous Navy mentions (yes, even in the bus story).
Tom pretty much tells us all his rubbish stories to build his own sense of security from Mr Monster.

There’s something on page 366 too but I can’t quite put my finger on it yet.

Johnny rants a lot from 296-300 and on page 300 there are some colours on it too (gold chain, neon green hair, red tears) and that could mean something.

I spotted hazel, blonde and red on page 11. Not significant?

On 376 Zampano ties his green index cards together with a yellow rubber band but that’s probably not of much significance either.

Ah. Here’s one I find slightly strange.
Last time I looked I couldn’t find the word ‘green’ on pg 16-17, 34, or 116. Even though those page numbers were listed in the index. Maybe I overlooked it or something. But I found ‘out of the blue’ on page 17, Amber in 34, a place called Red in 116. Since Amber and Red begin in caps, there’s an Emerald to accompany them on page 138. Is there blue, or a synonym for it with a capitalized first letter in any of the other pages indexed under ‘green’?

Speaking of ‘out of the blue’, I know that pops out a lot in the novel. Can’t spout page numbers because I didn’t write them down. It’s a figure of speech after all.

[girl2]

leigh-luu:

i think that the ideas you're talking about have been touched on many times, but for those of us who haven't read borges yet (damn us!), that was the most eloquent and clear explanation of his story and its relevance to house of leaves yet. i sincerely thank you for it. =]

we all know that the minotaur plays some sort of key to the book, and all the borges stuff only makes it more apparent. but how do we figure out what MZD is trying to get at? what is the riddle that has the answer "minotaur"?

will we ever know? i feel like giving up...


and i STILL think thumper's daisy sunglasses are important, whether fq does or not! so there! =]

[Lillie]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by FallingQuarters:
When I picture books that have been sitting in a refridgerator for a long time...the kind of pale I think of is a pale blue. Like when something fades to the point where it's almost white but not white...and it has this tinit of blue in it..<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well you know what's (confirmed to be) pale blue though? Their oriental rugs on page 9.

[ July 07, 2002: Message edited by: Lillie ]

[girl2]

but what do all the colors mean? we all know they're there, and it seems blatantly obvious they have to play a big part. what is that part? what is their message?

good work finding the colors lillie, i think it shows how important they are to the book, but i'm still confused as to WHY they're important. any ideas?

[Lillie]

I mentioned it... they seem to symbolize security, whether the need for or lack of or loss of etc. Some kind of affirmation of it.

[Pheadrus]

Possibly a direct and distict contrast between the External world and the world Inside the house that denied all colour? In conjunction with our external apperances of colour to the characters lack there of internally?

[SSJRakasha]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lillie:

There’s a multitude of colours on page 313.
The teeth drew madder and rose from each other’s throats. Tigers clawed Sunday red and indigo from celadon hills (this probably means celadon = green?). There’s the dragon with its emerald tail and ruby glare. “Happy blossom of heliotrope and gamboge.” (What colour is gamboge?)
Most likely representing the children’s need of security from the house, since right in the centre amidst all those colours is black (probably the house’s ‘colour’ despite the fact that it’s written in blue).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

cadmium:
a silverish-blue metallic element-blue, silver

madder:
a flower-red

rose:
another flower, usually thought of as being-red

clover:
a plant (an interesting note: in the movie bambi, thumper says he only eats the clover blossoms because they taste better...) the leaves of which are green and the blossoms of which are usually white or sometimes red-green, white, or red

Sunday red:
in some calendars, sunday is always printed in-red

indigo:
a plant from which a blue dye is extracted-blue

celadon:
color used typically in pottery-green

emerald:
precious stone-green

ruby:
another precious stone-red

heliotrope:
a flower with a reddish-purple blossom-red, purple

gamboge:
gum resin-yellow

And now for something completely different:

FQ's mysterious blue rabbit is real...If you look at the collage on the inside front cover, to the left margin, inbetween the two measuring tapes, there is what looks to be two pieces of paper. if you look at it sideways you should be able to see the blue rabbit quite clearly...there is also what looks to be like a second blue rabbit on the paper underneath it...

that is all...

[Citizen Blue]

The 'Dictionary Of All Scriptures And Myths' Gramercy Books, states:
Blue :- The symbolic colour of the higher mental plane; also a symbol of the philosophic mind and intellect, as the higher mind (air)

I notice that there are many references made to architecture in HOL, and in Poe's album 'Haunted'.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the beginning, Navidson is obsessed by the fact that the dimension of the interior of the house is not quite the same as the outside of the house. He has the desire to acquire the "Blue-prints"-which could be thought to be an abstraction of the house. Now this may be stating the obvious; however, doesn't the whole idea of the extra room (understatement) sort of turn a so-called state of reality an abstraction. This brings up a very good question: Could the "universe", our universe be built upon such an abstraction?

But to go off the subject; speaking of Gramercy, has anyone here heard of a song called 'Gramercy Park' by a band called Deadsy? images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif

[destination713]

Just a thought along with the colours, Johnny's last name was truant, when a kid is truant from school (as referenced in HoL that Johnny was) the message is usually written in red when sent to the parents, also along with Johnny being red, he thinks a lot about blood and has visions of it, and all of the blood that went along with Gdnask (spelling?) man and that whole incident...the blood with the pekinese...you get the point, thus red is not such a warm and cosy colour (as said previously) but more dark, perhaps representing death, firery hell, perhaps even the devil??? Just a thought...also the "happy" yellow/golden pills that Johnny took in his fantisy, the other colours are all cool or prevoke a certain feeling of gloom, while the yellow (happy) is a fantasy just out of reach...the only people that seem happy at the end of it all are Navy, Karen and the kids, but that is still left some what up to assumption....sorry for my rant, just things going through my head... images/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[XrayCat20]

house is blue because it is the color of the light at the end of the novel the light that ultimatelly brought the Will and Karen closer togeather.

[Jessie]

The artistic nature of House Of Leaves is so succulent.
All this talk of blue and red reminds me of Picasso.

During the <font color="00bfff">Blue</font> Period"(1901-1904) Picasso prints depicted forlorn people painted in shades of blue. This color was an expression of the mournful and sorrowful feelings he felt due to the suicide of a very close friend. The subjects he chose to paint at this time included beggars, prostitutes and convicts."

http://www.ze-card.com/images/picasso/picasso66.jpg
"An old man sits with deep but empty eyes that have lost their light; the younger man seated adjacently holds the only possibility of visual communication. Even though the younger man can see and must translate the world around him for the blind man, his gaze is shallow. He stares directly out of the painting and seems complacent with his secular vision. The blind man, on the other hand, looks beyond the painting, presumably into a void that neither his companion nor the viewer can understand. His spindly toes and wrinkled face suggest an age that reaches beyond his real age; he possesses a wisdom that stems from his blindness, a theme that haunted Picasso during the Blue Period".

-That image and it's vivid description reminded me of Zampano and Johnnys relationship-

The "Blue Period" was triggered by the suicide of a close childhood friend named Casagemas. Picasso was deeply affected by this tragedy inspiring the following painting. He called it "La Vie."
http://store1.yimg.com/I/cmastore_1701_268300

"The composition in this painting is stilted, the space compressed, and the gestures are noticeably stiff. It seems to ask the question, is happiness really possible? We get a negative response as the nude couple on one side and the mother on the other seem to be denying the promise of love".

There are so many paintings from Picassos Blue Period whose parallels are just uncanny when admired through the windows of Marks house.
It is interesting to note that if you look up the word "dove" in the index, there is one entry and that is on page 260. Tom in an effort to conquer his fear is entertaining himself in child-like fashion by making shadow puppets on the wall. One of the shadows is of a dove.
One of Picassos most tender works from the Blue Period was
"Child with a Dove"
http://zona-pellucida.com/Images/picasso-childholdingdove-1901.jpg
"Here, the artist's tenderness manifests itself for the first time, in clear contrast with the spirit of sharp and satirical observation that characterized the street and café scenes. Was it the theme of childhood that led Picasso to discover this poetry of tenderness? Or was it the detail of the dove that awakened memories of his childhood, when he often watched his father painting pigeons?"

The Doves are interesting when you factor in the birds importance to Celtic Mythology. The Celtic connection to HOL has been actively discussed on hundreds of seperate threads. In the case of doves;

"Among many mythologies the dove appears as feminine symbol of soul, wisdom, re-birth and harmony. In the ancient world the concept of harmony was close to healing. Images of doves were offered to the Celtic healer -deities of thermal springs, multiple stone figures of doves were offered to the to the curative spirits presiding over shrines. Like ravens, doves were perceived as oracular birds, perhaps on account of their distinctive call. In classical iconography and mythology, doves were the attribute of Venus, goddess of love. Both dove and olive branch originally meant “The peace of the goddess".

...so that brings us to Picassos next period, the rose hue of which would complement the red letter edition of MZDs book very nicely, especially with the Rose Periods themes of
-artistic isolation
- Wandering existence and unstability of relationships
- A rootlessness from conventional society

"We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand."
- Pablo Picasso

To take the Picasso parallel one step further isn't it, at the very least, worth noting how closely House Of Leaves "lasagna approach" to multiple layers of meaty narrative seems to complement the artistic notion of CUBISM?

The key concept of Cubism is that the essence of objects can only be captured by showing it from multiple points of view simultaneously.

The Cubist style emphasized the flat, two-dimensional surface of the picture plane, rejecting the traditional techniques of perspective, foreshortening, modeling, and chiaroscuro and refuting time-honoured theories of art as the imitation of nature. Cubist painters were not bound to copying form, texture, colour, and space; instead, they presented a new reality in paintings that depicted radically fragmented objects, whose several sides were seen simultaneously.

ESSAY ON PICASSO/DELEUZE/CUBISM/RHIZOME (http://www.albany.edu/mottram/emmag1pj.html)

[ September 22, 2002: Message edited by: Jessie ]

I have continued to pursue this Picasso angle and recently read an essay which only serves to re-affirm my original hypothesis regarding the artists relevance to House Of Leaves
The piece is called The Suppression of Good Will it was by Eli Siegel. In it he describes good will as it pertains to Picassos work with minotaurs. For Picasso the minotaur was the representation of every man and his quest to be a better person.
"The chief thing man has suppressed so far is his good will. This, perhaps, is the largest matter in human history." And this "good will in man ... struggling to come forth" literally describes the yearning expressions of so many of Picasso's minotaurs.
This is so vivid when you approach Picassos minotaur as a parallel to Navidsons...his being represented by the haunting photo of Delial. http://www.aestheticrealism.org/News-ck.jpg

"Here, the minotaur lunges towards a young girl who holds flowers in one hand and a candle in the other. Upright and unafraid to look — the only figure in the print whose legs have one firm direction — she has the power to meet the minotaur because she has good will. She wants to see him, wants him to find his way into the light. She, with her guiding candle, and the onrushing minotaur in their great contrast complete one another. The arm of the beast seems to push away and yet go towards the light. The young girl, representing tenderness and the brave desire to see, and the bull-man with his raw power and the groping desire to see join in the continuous form of an arch. Two aspects of the self are joined and it is thrilling."-Chaim Koppelman

[ May 03, 2003: Message edited by: Jessie ]

[FallingQuarters]

C16H10N2O2

[hello?]

i never took chemistry. could you please explain?

[Alfalfa]

C16H10N2O2 is the essential coloring material of commercial indigo, from which it is obtained as a dark blue earthy powder, with a reddish luster.

[curtisblow]

..we are living in a time devoted to self-reflexive analysis, as is evident in everything from the scientist's realization that the experimenter is always already involved in and affecting that which is experimented upon to the critic's and historian's realization that the accounts they give are also inevitably accounts of themselves.
- Andrea Lunsford


Let the mind go a bit, and the blue tone begins to sweep and play over the entire body of the text.

Think of it constantly as self-reflex, of the book as sentient, as you are reading it, and the psychology of reading itself begins to slowly shift.. soon even the words printed as gray matter play out an illusion of blue, causing in the reader a sudden and surprising blink, a "blink" that begins the questioning of the reader's own position in the labyrinth of the house's narrative.

[Lillie]

when it comes to colour talk I love this thread. And FQ actually uses his own words here and there.

[medusa]

the braille may have something to do with Zampanò being blind.

[bartleby]

I find it interesting that no-one has mentioned the fact that hindu gods and goddesses are blue as a sign of not only wisdom but also thier divinity.

More to tack on to the "house is god" theory.

Also, I haven't read in this post the fact that it could just be a literal visaul aid, it was in fact a blue house.

But more significantly, the blue house occured well before Johnny came about, and how would a blind man know if it was blue or black. Much less destroy parts that he didn't like anymore.

Also it sets house apart from the rest of the book, you immediatly know there is more to the house then what it seems.

I find the dicotomy between the "calm" blue of house and the "angry" red of minotaur interesting. Especialy seeing as the minotaur is a minion of the house (IMHO), and the house is the true evil.

[FallingQuarters]

A labyrinth the minion of a minotaur.

[bartleby]

A labyrinth the minion of a minotaur.

No, I don't think that this is the case here. Zampano makes referances to the recent play where the Minotaur is really Minas's son.

The way I see it is you have 3 options here

1) The house is a trap to keep the minotaur in. The house was made by something (probally God) to trap evil (the minotaur). This buys into the house being a gatway to hell. The Minotaur, satan, was cast into the eternal darkness, by God. This vision of hell is bibically accurate, in the bible hell is beyond God's sight. A house so dark and ever shifting that even God cannot see through it..... (Hell being firey is a later addition, when rich folk(lack of a better term) saw that the poor outside of the city lived amongst the Trash fires, in a land of sulpher and brimstone. And of course those that are poor and of such low social stature must be unworthy of God's gaze, therefore to be in hell is to be permiated by fire. And don't quote lake of fire on my, that is Apokratha, NOT bible.)

2) The Minotaur was made by the house. This goes into the house being God/Satan theory. Which I know has been spelt out a million times.

3) The house is the Minotaur. but is seperated because the house is the Minotaur latent, the Minotaur is the house active. It is one and the same, the minotaur/house are 2 sides to the same coin.

Right now you're probally saying, "Why can't the house be made by the Minotaur?". A couple of reasons, all impiled, seeing as none of this is real....

First, the house is more than the minotaur. In the book charecters first interact (directly or indirectly) with the house, and then slowly is the minotaur formed for them/made aware of thier presance. Also when people are in the house, The Minotaur normally needs time to "find" them. If the house were the Minotaur's minion, all actions would be "reported" to the Minotaur. And most likely the Minotaur would be the first encountered, and the house would raditate around him. That is to say, the house would spread, not just on the inside, but to other Houses.

Second it is very possible to argue that the minotaur dosen't exist, even with precluding other "supernatural" answers. The guys went nutz-o and shot and stabed each other, and thought it was the Minotaur because it was dark. Johnny read to much into the claw marks in Zampano's house (he could of had a cat) and Johnny's encounters are attributed to drugs. If you can argue that Minotaur does not exist, it becomes hard to argue that the house exists to serve him.

Well, I'm done with that, if you want to refute, i'll come up with more.

[ianthebruce]

I have another crazy color connection question. On page 381, first paragraph, it says that "Navidson turns to the time telling tick of radioactive isotopes to deny the darkness eviscerating him from within." I notice that of all the radioactive isotopes mentioned in this chapter, cobalt (blue) is noteably absent. Why; when blue is omnipresent in the book?

[FallingQuarters]

p a g e 4 4 4
mments after
he has been
walking for a
while. "I ne
ver thought t
his labyrinth
would be a p
leasant thin
p a g e 4 4 5
g to return
to." Except
t the futhe
r he goes, t
he smaller t
he hallway

[Stencil]

Here's a few more associations with red, blue and purple.

1)Reds and Blues were originally chariot teams in Byzantium that later became politcal factions there(cf. the favoured colours of notable two-party politcal systems (e.g. Britian (Labour+Conservatives)))
2)While blood in the vein is not actually blue, it appears to be when you look at certain parts of the body, most notably the wrists.
3)As has been mentioned, purple was especially associated with royalty in the ancient world, one example being the Roman Emperors. The Emperors who ended up with a nasty reputations (e.g. Nero, Domitian) were portrayed as being under the trall of powerful mothers, who schemed in order to potect their son's as well as their own position. Could this is in any way be linked to Pelafina or Truant?
4)If you paint a room totally in purple, anyone staying in it will go mad. Apparently.
5)"John Carpenter's From the Mouth of Madness". Not one of his best films, but very pertinent in this instance. In the film, an insurance investiagtor is sent to find a missing author whose horror novels send people mad. He finds the author, who has apparently written a book that opens the door to another dimension (or something) that lets demons and monsters into the world. The investigator has to take the finished manuscript back to the publishers. He burns the book. A new manuscript is delivered to the motel where he's staying. He burns that one, then gets a coach away from there. Relieved his finally escaped the author he has a quick nap. But, of course, when he wakes up the author is sitting next to him. The author says "Did I ever tell you my favourite colour is blue?". The investigator ACTUALLY wakes up, and realises it was just a dream. Then he realises that everything is in blue.

Also, the will-o-the-wisp is blue. It is mentioned twice, first by Truant during the Atrocity story and then Zampano (?) suggests that's what the blue light was. This is a fitting association to make, since the will-o-the-wisp is characterised as very elusive.

[ February 12, 2003: Message edited by: Stencil ]

[DanSRose]

That blood idea was mentioed before. There are two parts of the book where blood is made a particular focus of; the havoc after Exploration #4 and in Chapter XXI, in the cyanotic baby story, where in purple it starts as "what I'm rememberin now", crossed out.

By the way, what facts say the house or the minotaur are definitely good or evil? The minotaur, or Mr. Monster, never actually Do anything, except play clean up, play a sick sort of practical joke, or voyeur of type. All that and ruin a perfectly good hardwood floor. The house acts in relation to the emotions and beliefs of people in it, almost like, I don't know, an echo? The evacuation started out relatively calm, until high strung emotions got the house going. It fed off of emotions, protective ones in this case.

That can true if you take the Navidson Record literally, opposed to the other ideas that it was all made up by P., Z. JT., which is more than plausable (see the April 5, 1986 Whalestoe letter, 'Dear Zampano who did you lose?' for example). Zampano, or the NR's author, made a few odd slip-ups, like putting themselves in the House interacting with Reston (top of 320). The previously mentioned Whalestoe letter also names colors, madder, celadon, azure, gamboge (red, green, blue, yellow) as the colors that lock and condemn P. to her fate.

[DCIRevolutionChick04]

Just some thoughts:

If you aren't familiar with the minotaur story, the minotaur wasn't truly Minos's son. His wife just had a crush on a pretty bull. The peeps around his house (two of them being Dadylus and Icarus) talked bad about Minos because he let his wife become impregnated by a bull.

Ok, getting to the point, the minotaur was his shame. (he didn't come to love him untill later) The minotaur shamed Minos and it shamed his wife (Penelope? or was it Lesbos?) so he did the only sensable thing and hid his shame in a maze.

What point am I coming to? I believe shame to be at the center (not as in "the middle" but as in "the most important") of the house. To me it explains the growl... the shame coming up to taunt its victims.

Do I believe shame to be the only thing at the center? No. But this is just some of my thoughts.

What was at the center for the characters?
Navy: Delial
Karen: her rapist
and on and on and on.
Each of the characters had something to be shamed. (well most of them did, I am still lacking on Tom. He throws me off)

Like I said, these are only my thoughts, and hopefully they are semi-coherant.
I could be (and it is highly probable) totally and completely wrong.

[DCIRevolutionChick04]

oh yeah. Another point of all that rambling:
Why would Big Z "stike" those passages?

He has a shame too.

[Stencil]

The shame/growl thing is a great idea. Zampano himself implies the minotaur of myth is a trope for shame, but no one to my knowledge has made the connection with the growl.

As to the question of what shame the characters carry, I'd suggest Karen's is not her rape but her affairs. Tom's shame, I think (based on Tom's story) is that he couldn't help Navidson while he was in Vietnam (Tom was pronounced unfit to go). Shame could actually be in the center of that maze, and if so would add another level to the infinite shifting of the house, i.e. that the characters want to avoid facing shame.

The whole 'why did Zampano strikethrough the passages' has been done to death previously, but I can't be bothered to find the thread. However, one interesting result of those discussions was the suggestion that the lines were actually threads as in the fishing line used in the house, pointing to a clue. Also, if you haven't already, look at the shapes of all the struckthrough footnotes.

[theatergurl21]

has anyone ever thought about Frieda Kahlo? casa azul? hmmm blue house..... Kahlos images often showed her own suffering.

[prelinger]

some things that may or may not be of use to various people:

Johnny uses 'color,' usually, and Zampano uses 'colour'

Daisy has a red and gold dress.

page 366: So in the first black frame, what greets us is not sinister but blue: the strains of Charlie "Yardbird" Parker coaxing out of the darkness the precocious face of a seventeen year old Will Navidson.

Piece after piece of old Kodak film, jerky, over exposed, under exposed, usually grainy, yellow or overly red, coalesce to form a rare glimps of Navidson's childhood- nicht allzu glatt und gekuenstelt.^332 His father- drinking ice tea. His mother- a black and white headshot on the mantle. Tom- watering the lawn. Thier golden retriever, the archetype for all home movie dogs, frolicking in the sprinklers, pouncing on the pale green hose as if it were a python, barking at Tom, then at their father, even though as its jaws snap open and shut it is impossible to hear a bark- only Charlie Parker playing to the limits of his art, lost in rare delight.

page 368, the "dull-blue look of eyes which in the final seconds of life could still not muster enough strength to close."

Johnny has "sky blue" sheets on page 381

Pelafina complains about the attendants not changing her sheets every day on page 609, and the sheets are... blue.

[ashfayefloyd]

Hi everyone. This is my first post. I just read HoL for a class. Lucky me! The color thread is interesting. I don't think anyone has mentioned grey? It is noted several times in the index (re: the first closet, the dog, Karen's skin...), but it pops up other places in the text too. I seem to remember the walls of the passages being grey. There's something about grey spiders. I can't remember everywhere else. It seemed like a lot. When things are descibed as pale, like the books in the fridge, it makes me think of grey. What does it mean? My theory is that it represents an absence of some kind. Absence of color, most notably. Absence of warmth? Aging? Any thoughts?

[ May 04, 2003: Message edited by: afloyd ]

[fatwoul]

<font size=1><center><font color=757575>PEOPLE HAVE MENTIONED GREY.

[fatwoul]

<font size=1><center><font color=999999>LIKE PELAFINA'S INDECISION OVER THE SPELLING OF GREY, FOR EXAMPLE.

OR THE FACT THAT ZAMPANO WAS OLD.

[Stencil]

Some more suggestions from film.

'Three colours blue' This film charts the attempts of a woman to come to terms with the loss of her husband in a car crash. Sounds familiar? This was part of a trilogy in which the three colours of the French flag were used as starting points. The blue in this film was exploring 'freedom'.

'Blue' - A film in which people speak about their experience with AIDS. There are no visuals in this film, only sound. All that is on the screen is a blue screen.

[esmay_stg]

I know this might have been stated before, but reading through the useful threads, i noticed the comment by Francis about a house that was neither blue (or grey in those editions). I noticed this myself. Pg 708 House as in Random House publishing is in black type.

Of course this may be construed as out of the book, but it is within the 709 pages and every other house that i can find is blue (except in the photos in the exhibits) even on the cover and the comments on the opening page.

Again probably nothing. Maybe they added it in after and didn't want to bust out the blue ink again and didn't think any of us would be crazy enough to notice.

esmay_stg

K guys how bout a little help? How can I change my text color?????
thanks

[fatwoul]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by esmay_stg:
I know this might have been stated before, but reading through the useful threads, i noticed the comment by Francis about a house that was neither blue (or grey in those editions). I noticed this myself. Pg 708 House as in Random House publishing is in black type...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, it has been mentioned before, in threads such as this one (http://www.houseofleaves.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=001188).

The black house on page 708 is generally regarded as a typo, simply because it is not present in all editions - later editions this house is also corrected to be grey.

However, this is by no means a concrete argument for it being a genuine mistake, since the checkmark is also absent from my later UK/Eire edition. It has therefore also been suggested before that these subtle differences are, along with the blue house / grey house / red minotaur editions, a way of generating different interpretations of the book in different readers.

[shavo687]

what is color to a completely blind person? Zampano would only have descriptions of color and art and what they could symbolize, so different colors are basically just variation. Zampano could impose meanings upon the colors only as far as he could trust his worker-people or even as far as his trust for society. idk, its random i know but i didnt want to lose the inkling of a thought.

[ June 18, 2003: Message edited by: derek ]

[verismo]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by derek:
what is color to a completely blind person? Zampano would only have descriptions of color and art and what they could symbolize, so different colors are basically just variation. ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is belived that he was not born blind.

[shavo687]

ahh if he was not born blind that would help, i thought that he wasnt always blind, but i didnt have page numbers...

I wonder how long a human can hold on to the memory of a color

[JuggaloStatix]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by derek:
ahh if he was not born blind that would help, i thought that he wasnt always blind, but i didnt have page numbers...

I wonder how long a human can hold on to the memory of a color<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

memory...before i go any futher this is just an opinion and no way shape or form fact...memory i dont belive is ever lost...just pushed so far back that it doesnt seem to exist anymore... Remember the quote "Love of light written by the blind"...when was the last time you forgot something you truly loved?...and if you lose something you learn more apprecation from once haveing it rather than never haveing it all...so it would only make sense that Z loved every memory he ever had of sight...i mean dont we all have that one memory that just seems to stick out from childhood that doesnt really mean anything it's just...there...well what if all of your memorys are still up there in that nogin?...like mine...i remember exactly what happened on a thursday in march when i was five...not sure the exact date but i know it was a thursday cuz that was when my aunt would come and see me...that day i went to the store and got some toys like transformers...its weird but i remember it...or maybe im just crazy...

[fatwoul]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by derek:
ahh if he was not born blind that would help, i thought that he wasnt always blind, but i didnt have page numbers...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'll give you some damn page numbers:

<font size=4><font face=courier new>
"...The paramedics said there was nothing unusual, just the way it goes, eight some years and the inevitable kerplunk..."</font size></font face> (page xiii), establishing that Z was at least 80 years old by the reckoning of the paramedics (not to mention the 80 cats/years relationship from the previous page).

<font size=4><font face=courier new>
"...all this language of light, film and photography, and <u>he hadn't seen a thing since the mid fifties</u>.
He was blind as a bat..."</font size></font face> (page xxi), establishing that he had only been blind for the latter half of his life.

I don't mean to scold ayone, but if they missed clues to Z's age within the first 5 pages of the book, they really need to start reading the thing more closely. images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by derek:
...I wonder how long a human can hold on to the memory of a color<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am guessing a pretty long time, if they had been saluting a flag with red, white and blue in it for the first half of their life. images/smiles/icon_wink.gif

<font size=1>

[ June 19, 2003: Message edited by: fatwoul ]

[shavo687]

thank you. from now on i'll just read through the forums and study the words of the great masters.

and i read the first ten pages of the book in the store when i wasnt sure wether to buy it or not, so i didnt pay as much attenion as i should, please forgive my soul.

[fatwoul]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by derek:
...please forgive my soul.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would like to eat someone's soul. With chips and peas, like sole, but not. That would be cool. Eating a screaming soul with peas.

Makes me think of that painting by Goya:

<center> http://www.vampireofparis.com/Art/Saturn-devouring.jpg

"Saturn Devouring his Children"</center>

Or even better this little bit of fan homage by some random guy:

<center> http://www.agooart.com/parody/santa.jpg

"Santa Devouring the Children"</center>

That left me in stitches.

[Themnoria]

Daisies are Yellow. Navy is Blue and Karen is Green. Chad...must be red. Or maybe the house is red because it caused so many deaths.

[fatwoul]

In Cornwall, if something is unpleasant, or unclean, it is often called "chaddy".

I would therefore associate the name Chad with shitty drab colours.

But at the same time I had a Chad Valley drum when I was tiny, and that was rainbow coloured. images/smiles/icon_confused.gif

[fatwoul]

In Cornwall, if something is unpleasant, or unclean, it is often called "chaddy".

I would therefore associate the name Chad with shitty drab colours.

But at the same time I had a Chad Valley drum when I was tiny, and that was rainbow coloured. images/smiles/icon_confused.gif

[buscemi]

I like this chain of color comments, wanted to add something I didn't see.
The four main colors mentioned, red, green, blue, and yellow, are symbolic to Wiccans.
They represent the 4 elements, fire, earth, water and air. These elements are also seen as "guardians" or "watchtowers" in the circles they cast (which are spaces between the worlds). Basic symbolism of each element:

Fire (red): Masculine, sex, war, purification, action, spark of life
Earth (green): Feminine, ground, stablility, fertility, growth
Water (blue): Feminine, birth, mysteries, secrets, divinations
Air (yellow): Masculine, communication, logic, thought, solar

This makes some sense, Karen being the mother and "grounding" support for Navy, Red of the minotaur, a warring creature, and the struck out passages as purification (destroying completely), Blue for the house, secrets, etc. and Navidson had his own secrets too. Yellow is most associated with Light in the book; "yellow lamp" is a common phrase.

yggdrasil

[HOLgurl]

Didnt know where to post this, but I just ordered a new copy of HOL from Amazon.com. I had a 2nd edition where, there were 3 black "houses" On page 708, and two on the back cover (all of which were Random House's). This new copy, although it is still a 2nd edition, still has a black "house" on page 708, but the back covers were fixed. Also, on the back cover, the call outs are completely different. and there is a advertisment for POE, which wasnt on the first copy. Anyone else have this?

[ThE_sLeEpLeSs_OnE]

I have the same book. I get the feeling that the black was meant to be in there, because that's a pretty big mistake to make if it was another misprint. Personally I agree with sleepless's idea about the house going dormant (see DNE post)

[malakite]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by HOLgurl:
Didnt know where to post this, but I just ordered a new copy of HOL from Amazon.com. I had a 2nd edition where, there were 3 black "houses" On page 708, and two on the back cover (all of which were Random House's). This new copy, although it is still a 2nd edition, still has a black "house" on page 708, but the back covers were fixed. Also, on the back cover, the call outs are completely different. and there is a advertisment for POE, which wasnt on the first copy. Anyone else have this?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

actually, there are three other instances of house in black. they are on page 550. i know, its a black and white picture, but if they were blue, they would appear grey, not black. now since this is presumably a peice of zamp's original manuscript(if it could be called that), i think that it is evidence that house was made blue by johnny. why? who knows. but i bet it has something to do with his parents.

[RasinGirrl]

buscemi,

thanks for posting that. i was wondering why i didn't see any mention of wicca/witchraft & the colors.

that was a pretty good basic explanation. also, the colors and elements also relate to compass directions.

air = north = yellow
earth = east = green
fire = south = red
water = west = blue

(some traditions vary on colors & directions)

i just got my book back from my bosses and wasn't planning on reading it again but here i am sucked in again...

[ThomasJ]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by HOLgurl:
blah blah blah...on the back cover, the call outs are completely different. and there is a advertisment for POE, which wasnt on the first copy. Anyone else have this?...blah blah blah<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<font face="Arial">I have both.

Every time I see the title to this thread, I think:
Just what's with those gosh-darn colors, anyway?!

[Jenius]

Feng Shui? anyone? (http://www.qi-whiz.com/color.html)

(edit images/smiles/icon_smile.gif By the way Yin Lun's Interpretation of red is fame, maybe representing Holloway's early conquest for it and blue represents knowledge, Navidson's exploits guarantees this aspect, Yellow turns warning, maybe as a general reference on that door. And Green Represents Family i.e. Karen.

[ November 27, 2003: Message edited by: My own self ]

[ November 27, 2003: Message edited by: My own self ]

[Stencil]

Blue has a connection to sex too: of course you have blue movies, but also the Chinese painted their whorehouses blue. If you swear, you are sometimes described as "turning the air blue"

Also, in publishing, passages that were to be cut out of a finished work (on grounds of obscenity perhaps, or just being shit) are marked with a blue pencil. This might connect with red for the struck passages; red being the colour most often used by tutors marking essays (or was it just my tutors).

People who are colourblind usually have the main part of the trouble distinguishing shades of blue and red.

[fourwalledsavior]

ok so this is my first post, so cut me some slack.

i finished this book in about 4 days. I've not shot through a book this fast in a long time. I've got a copy sitting in front of me.

pg. 563:
Little solace comes
to those who grieve
when thoughts keep drifting
as walls keep shifting
and this great blue world of ours
seems a house of leaves

moments before the wind.

-----

it hasn't been mentioned yet, i don't think.

Also of note - in the Pelican Poems (which I believe must've been written by Truant)

Future pens
and wars with weathered knights
the drumming thunder
the azured lights
rising in these eyes

---

azure = blue

-------

also, leaves are green. when they fall, they can be yellow or red - which when put together form another color leaves may turn - orange.

which brings me to another point that hasn't been brought up yet (at least in this thread, which is the only one i've read)

red, yellow, and blue are all primary colors. (which makes no sense to me just yet in context, but might as well be noted.)

-----

there's more i wanted to write... things about the locks and whatnot. But my sisters have a basketball game and as i'm rarely home, I should go watch it.

I'll try to write more later.

I apologize if this is horribly sporadic and uncomprehensive.

[fearful_syzygy]

Welcome aboard, 'savior.
Some threads you might want to check out inlude the following:

Poiple (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1665)
The Obvious (http://houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2180)
of Leaves (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1838)

A list of useful threads for those new to this site (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2135)

And finally:
SEARCH FUNCTION (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2295) ;)

[Jenius]

Undoubtly savior, thanks for the post added to the mighty house of leaves.

[boyceterous]

Here's another idea:
So we've all heard of ROY G BIV as the colors of the rainbow: for red, green, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. If green is for Karen and indigo is for Navy, then blue would be the color in between.

Yes?

[papersails]

it's almost 2am and i can't sleep, so i thought i may as well share with you some excerpts from taken from derek jarman's (http://www.evanizer.com/articles/blue.html)chroma, that i'm reading at the moment. i don't know whether any of this is at all relevant, but right now i'm tired and it doesn't particularly matter. it's a sad and beautiful book:

purple passage (http://www.hyperdictionary.com/dictionary/purple+passage)

imperial purple marching out of antiquity. priceless tyrian purple.

my mother used to say in her youth if one had tresses bound in purple that was a great adornment - but for the girl whose hair is yellower than a torch it is better to dress in chaplets of blooming flowers. (sappho, greek lyrical poetry)

purple is gay and bright whenever the rays of the sun are weak and shady. (aristotle)

purple shrouds the blackest heart. the imperial family wrapped their newborn children in purple - born in the purple.

desdemona's handkerchief was purple in verdi's otello.

cleopatra's barge...
burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold,
purple the sails, and so perfumed that
the winds were love-sick with them.

lady grey, megalomaniac, vicereine of india, had an obsession for imperial purple. not only did she wear it, but she had purple tablecloths at her reception, purple sweet wrappers and even purple flowers.

in japan if you're purple, you're purple with envy, not green. but purple is also an expression for being gay, the blue of men and the red of women combine to make queer purple.

the lack of oxygen turns me purple. i lie in my hospital bed, short of breath.

purple is verbose, the purple passage. angry, purple passion overblown. purple in the face.

nero dressed in purple, the household in red.

if anger is red then rage is purple.

as nero torched rome his face turned purple.

purple was manufactured on the shores of the sea of tyre... tyrian purple. it was extracted in minute quantities from a shell, murex, and cloth was boiled with dye and exposed to the morning sun on the seashore, turning it into the most costly product in antiquity. it's manufacture was controlled by the imperial family in the collegium tinctorium under the auspices of melcath the phoenician god. as no example of purple cloth remains from antiquity, we do not know what it looked like.

was it the colour of the scottish highland, beyond the known world, or the inky flowers of the anenome - the flower of the wind? the murex, a mollusc, contained a little cyst that was broken - discharging a white fluid. thousands of shells were needed for a few grams. by the eighth century the colour went out of fashion.

we are suspicious of purple, it has a hollow bombast. it is the colour of hendrix, purple haze, deep purple. prince's excess - dangerous. the purple hearts that took us through the sober nights of the sixties

aristotle:
the sea has a purple tinge when
the waves rise at an angle
and are consequently in shadow

the purple emperor embraces the purple orchid. the emperor is rare, it is attracted to rotting meat.

plums, grapes and figs and aubergine all purple - but the most mysterious purple are the shoots of the crambe maritima which push through the shingle in march at dungeness, before forming a blue green

the red cabbage is purple

the purple amethyst, my birth stone - 31 january, under the sign of aquarius.

[pwhite]

Thanks I enjoyed reading that.



aristotle:
the sea has a purple tinge when
the waves rise at an angle
and are consequently in shadow


Wow, you (or Jarman, I'm not sure) can make even Aristotle sound like a poet. No mean feat!

Let's not forget the prime pre-eminent poetic practitioner of purple passages (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=15593#15593) (Q.H.F.)

[papersails]

yes, i finished chroma last night and it was an enjoyable read (i'd love to take credit, but it was all jarman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Jarman) i'm afraid). i found that he offered an overall feel for each colour, rather than just the usual cultural symbolism that you usually get from books on the subject.

and thanks for the link, that's great.

[madprofessor100]

If I remember correctly, at the beginning of the book Johnny said (I think Lude told him this) that Zampano had a bit of an accent, which could explain why Zampano used the british spelling of colour.

[fearful_syzygy]

Yes, apparently, he sounds like this (http://mzd.rocksmyworld.com/media/06.Exploration_A...Amazed.mp3).

The interesting thing is when he doesn't use British spelling though...

[keysersoze]

Yes, apparently, he sounds like this (http://mzd.rocksmyworld.com/media/06.Exploration_A...Amazed.mp3).

The interesting thing is when he doesn't use British spelling though...

where did that come from syz-y? Is he talking to someone, he makes some commentary between lines, like "ya" between breeaths and sentences.

and do British people pronounce A, as "Ah", as in exploration "Ah". Me combuzzed ](*,) :?:

[fearful_syzygy]

where did that come from syz-y? Is he talking to someone, he makes some commentary between lines, like "ya" between breeaths and sentences.

Exploration Z (http://mzd.rocksmyworld.com/), or course! Or pp. 56-57 and 63-64, if you prefer.
:roll:

[keysersoze]

ohhhh sorry. but what kind of accent is he speaking in? i don't think it's British cause i never heard British people talk before.

[fearful_syzygy]

I think that's Danielewski's all-purpose European accent, to be honest.

And what the hell do you mean you've never heard British people talk before? :shock: :-s

[pwhite]

Why do septics always talk about the "British" accent? Is that supposed to encompass Welsh, Scottish, English and...whatever godforsaken dialect they speak in Norn Iron?

Obviously when they talk about the 'British' accent, they're usually thinking of the clipped tones of Received English. I have no problem with the term 'English accent' being used to describe this (despite the fact that Geordie, Brum, West Country and Scouse accents have very little in common with it), since we tend to use 'American accent' to cover the whole range of accents from Noo Yoik to Valley Girl to Deep South. But 'British accent'? Gimme a break!

[pwhite]

ohhhh sorry. but what kind of accent is he speaking in? i don't think it's British cause i never heard British people talk before.

I'm no expert, but it sounds quite like Alsatian to me. Perhaps le_theope could confirm/deny?

[fatwoul]

...But 'British accent'? Gimme a break!

Does British also include the colonies? Because that would include the BVI and Gibraltar. Step back a little, and it would also include India, Australia and large parts of Africa. Back one more step and it would include the US of Eh?

So when a doodle talks about the "British" accent, he/she could just as easily be talking about their dad.

US of Eh? I like that. I'm going to write that one down.

[*o*]

<center>... (http://houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3825)</center>

[fearful_syzygy]

John B. was right (but then he often is) in saying that reading Moby-Dick (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1440) "after having read HoL is to enter a textual hall of mirrors/echo chamber."

I'm only halfway through at the moment, but one passage in particular struck me as relevant, namely Chapter 42: The Whiteness of The Whale, which I think is also worth quoting at some length (prolix tends to be his word, too).


It was the whiteness of the whale that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all these chapters might be naught.

Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own,
[...there follows a very long list of positive connotations of white...]
there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.

This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds.
[...]
With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness, it might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that the irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing together two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true; yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified terror.
(For the whole text, you could do worse than to visit Project Gutenberg (http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/lookup?num=2701))

It seems to me that The Whiteness of The Whale has the same ineffable quality as The Blueness of The House. And whilst blue in itself is usually quite a positive, albeit cold, colour, when conjoined with this mysterious and terrifying house, seemingly for no specific reason, it only serves to heighten the aura of fear and uncertainty which surrounds it.

That same chapter also includes the following paragraph, which I thought might have some bearing upon a different part of HoL:


Bethink thee of the albatross (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1914), whence come those clouds of spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's great, unflattering laureate, Nature.
[...]
I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never with such emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl.

[Stencil]

(Though this really should be in John B's thread (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1440) about Moby Dick, I'll include it here 'cause it's about colour)

The idea I got from "The Whiteness of the Whale" was that white became so terrifying because of it's clash with evil: the whale, like the sea and the polar bear doesn't know of the evil of it's action (though Ishmael/Ahab both wish it would, so it would be culpable for it's evil): it just acts. The whiteness, with it's connoctations of innocence, terrifies in these circumstances because it implies: there's no reason to it, no justice. The whiteness of the whale destroys innocence, in a way.

Of course, I'm only half-way through, so I may find something that changes my mind.

[eponine13]

and this great blue world of ours
seems a house of leaves

moments before the wind

[<ED>]

in colour therapy, blue is the colour associated with communication, it's power center(charka) is located in the throat. also, blue is used to relieve headaches or allergies.

red is the charka located in the groin and is associated with primitive instincts.

furthermore, karen could like green because she is reaching for love (the charka is beside the heart). green is used to promote self-love and confidence.

oh, also, black is associated with change, which is very interesting

[John B.]

I'm not a mathematician, and I can't find if this has been discussed before in the fora, so my apologies in advance for ignorance and possible duplication:
While listening to NPR this morning, I heard a story about a computer having checked another computer's proof for the Four-Color Theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_color_theorem). The story's point is that we've reached the stage where, for certain math problems, only computers are able to check the problems that only computers can solve; my reason for including it here are two fold: 1) it immediately reminded me of the 4 different-colored keys used by the Navidson gang to secure the door that leads into the bowels of the house, because 2) as the Wikipedia article indicates, Mr. Guthrie postulated this theorem as he was coloring in a map of the counties in England and discovered that he needed only four colors to do the job. Perhaps relevant, perhaps not: Guthrie never set out to prove his theorem--that didn't happen till the 70's, when it became the first proof for a theorem provided by a computer.
True: coloring in a map is not QUITE the same thing as solving a labyrinth, but both have in common the solving of a spatial problem.

Perhaps the more mathematically-savvy among us can comment usefully on either the theorem or its ((im)possible) application to HoL?

[MoleculaRR]

I'm no math guy, but is this a "computers only" theorem because it simply requires an iteration of the premise approaching infinity? In other words, do you just have to try it out a whole bunch of times?

I don't have much to add, but it's interesting that county maps seem to be relevant for all kinds of discourse (http://www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html).

Also, the idea of iteration seems relevant to this forum. If you conceive of HoL as a series of problems with potentially ambiguous solutions, then this forum is a way of trying out every conceivable solution. Also, like the theorem, the "trying out" is also a test verified against that which does the testing. It's not like we're asking MZD if we got it right, so our collective attention is something like the computing thing. Maybe. This is a really broad analogy, of course.

[Ellimist]

in 3 dimensions, there are an infinite number of surrounding point particles (infinitesimally sized).

that is compared to 4 colors for maps, 4 colored keys... etc...

[po-m]

Hiya,
I looked up a few random things on Google(oy!) And came across one useful thing, which actually affects me to this day. There was a page that said certain words cue your brain functions to work in certain ways. Example: if you input certain combinations of numbers into a computer, it will cause it to crash--like a virus. The human brain works the same way. MZD puts house in blue to trigger certain thoughts. Indeed, once I started the book, I would see house out of the corner of my eye and it wouldn't be there. I also connected the word with the word ghost every time I came across it. :idea: Now, every time someone mentions "house", I think back to the book, which may have happened anyway, but since that article, it seems more significant. Something to think about.

[Opaline]

Just finished reading the book after a marathon of three days. Free association heaven this sort of thing, but it did occur to me that Ash Tree Lane may have a connection to the color of the house. Ash trees are known by their differing colors. In part I know this because four years ago we had to replace a dead oak and the arborist recommended a Purple Ash. Yes, there are Blue Ash trees. Known as Blue because earlier European settlers used the bark to make blue dye (Ink?). There are also Black Ash, White Ash, Green Ash, and Red Ash trees. Their seeds are known as keys and the seed pods are called samara (anyone see The Ring?). Also what is really weird--and this is true--in autumn, ash trees lose all their leaves at the same time. I've sat at the window and watched it happen. On some internal signal, the tree just lets go of all the leaves at once. It goes from fully foliaged to bare branched in less than an hour. So at the end when the monster ashen maze just dissolves? It reminded me of watching my ash tree give up its lovely dark purple leaves.

if you want more info on ash trees (and yes, this gives you the norse myth as well): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ash_tree

[OriginalIdea]

Fricken sweet! What a lovely first post! Thank you very much.

And welcome to the forum.

Actually this is really interesting; we have another reason why <font color=0000ff>h</font><font color=0000ff>ouse</font> is blue.

The Obvious (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2180)

[Opaline]

Well, thanks for the frickin lovely welcome. :wink:

Also--and forgive me is this has been addressed elsewhere--but the two (that I can think of) references to Blue Sky(e) Caves? One a typo in a poem and the other the mention of the the discovery of the caverns they called Blue Sky. Well what makes the sky over earth blue? That's one of the first questions kids ask, one of the first mysteries we become aware of. The sky is blue because the complexity of the atmosphere causes light to refract in such a way that all but blue light is absorbed. Blue light plays a huge factor in the book so perhaps the house is blue because the atmosphere in that house/labyrinth/book is so damn complex it refracts light just like the sky.

Like I said, free association heaven.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Hello, all!

First post here from a Belgian enthousiast.

Just two things that strike me:

* This is already stated a thousand times, I know, but: the reason why the House is written in blue, is in my opinion referring to a blue screen in film, as MZD himself hinted at in an interview...

* Not yet seen in the threads about color/colour, or overlooked:

Maybe the reason why the Minotaur is in red, is because of the way Johnny fysically treated the sentences with the word 'Minotaur' in: he tried to make them legible again with turpentine. Treating ink with turpentine gives it a light-brownish/reddish tint.

See you around. I'll give more opinions/rantings when I read the whole Forum through, rest assured ;)

IZ.

[Super Carneiro]

Have you noticed that independent of the conclusion we achiev, it is allways an empty one? There will never be any assurance in this subject, much less in the question about the colors (or colours?) of the people. We can go further and further into this discution without never geting to a point

I will repeat to those who didn't get it yet:

We can go further and further into this discution without never geting to a point

Isn't that familiar?

[fearful_syzygy]

Isn't that familiar?

m hm.

Welcome aboard. (You too Izzy).

[FallingQuarters]

Roy G. Biv (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color)

[Izzy HaveMercy]

I will repeat to those who didn't get it yet:

We can go further and further into this discution without never geting to a point

Isn't that familiar?

At least it keeps people off the streets ;)

IZ.

[sutrix]

At least you could've mixed the letters instead of just running them backwards, FQ. Losing your touch, y'know.

[fearful_syzygy]

At least you could've mixed the letters instead of just running them backwards, FQ. Losing your touch, y'know.
Wait, I thought it was RGB. Or is that not what you mean?

[sutrix]

At least you could've mixed the letters instead of just running them backwards, FQ. Losing your touch, y'know.
Wait, I thought it was RGB. Or is that not what you mean?

Yeah, in a way, but I don't like the way he only wrote VIBGYOR in reverse, he could've at least written Riv G. Boy, or something to throw us off track.

[Super Carneiro]

Thank you very much for the worm welcome.
Here I hope to find some of the answers to the gaps in my und-
Erstunding of the book.
Reading it wasn't very dificult, but surely I
Encountered many troubles interpretating it, since my mother language

Is

Not English, but Portuguease (I am from Brasil!).
On the other hand, there isn't, in any part of the book, any kind of a more complicated English.

Pacience, though, is a requirement to the fully decodification of it's meaning,
Or whatever the POINT of the book is. The colours are a perfect example of the
Intrincated puzzle the book represents. Unfortunately, my edition didn't had the red coloured words.
Now, if you could please tell me wich other words had diferent aperance
That my edition might be in lack I would entirely apreciate.

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Thank you very much for the worm welcome.
Here I hope to find some of the answers to the gaps in my und-
Erstunding of the book.
Reading it wasn't very dificult, but surely I
Encountered many troubles interpretating it, since my mother language

Is

Not English, but Portuguease (I am from Brasil!).
On the other hand, there isn't, in any part of the book, any kind of a more complicated English.

Pacience, though, is a requirement to the fully decodification of it's meaning,
Or whatever the POINT of the book is. The colours are a perfect example of the
Intrincated puzzle the book represents. Unfortunately, my edition didn't had the red coloured words.
Now, if you could please tell me wich other words had diferent aperance
That my edition might be in lack I would entirely apreciate.

Surely the book had a deep impact on you.

You even start to write

In

the same

w a y

:twisted:

IZ.

[Super Carneiro]

Maybe the book didn't had the same impact on you as it had on me,

you didn't even noticed!

[Izzy HaveMercy]

Maybe the book didn't had the same impact on you as it had on me,

you didn't even noticed!

I got your point, if that is what you mean ;)

IZ.

[ana]

blue is also the color of the hyperliks on Internet. don't you think the comparison between HOl and internet could be very interesting?

[fatwoul]

blue is also the color of the hyperliks on Internet. don't you think the comparison between HOl and internet could be very interesting?

Yeah... (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forum/showthread.php?p=24644#post24644)

[gazefromspace]

Minatour may be a metaphor for nightmares. Also the writer deals a lot with the subconcious, so I believe Minatour may be in red because it is the most stressing to your brain. I'll have to do more resarch but it may also have somthing to do with memory.

[katatonic]

Yes. Do research. Start with a dictionary, or any other spelling resource you may find helpful.

[Davinche]

Yea, Gaze if you dont spel correctley knowbody will take you seriesly and youll get a coment like the above 1. The blck writin dont help much ether.

[Zsabre]

Interesting how Minotaur and passages relating to the Minotaur are in red; reminds me of certain editions of the King James Version of the Bible, where the words spoken by Jesus are in red. Which is even more interesting if you believe that Zampano represents God. Jesus is the Minotaur. That's about the only connection I can make now. Oh yeah, and in some medieval manuscripts from the Bible, certain passages were illuminated in blue. The first passage from a book or chapter, I think.

In Modern day Jewish High-Holidays prayerbooks, there are passages in red that are only to be read if the high holidays happen to occur on the sabbath day; Jewish holidays are on a lunar calendar, and as such are not always on the same day every year.

Though i doubt this was in any way used by MZD, it's something to keep in mind.

[Voodoo Chile]

While this doesn't concern the colors of House or Minotaur, it does pertain to the general wtf's with the colors theme. I've been catologing a lot of references to colors, mainly the standard thematic red yellow green blue, using the index and listing page numbers, looking for connections and similarities, and, like usual, I found something odd

Unless its there and i haven't been able to locate it, the index refers to ,on page 144, the colors black grey and gold, if there are more i haven't seen them yet, While searching for the references on this page i was unable to come up with any of these three. Although the page contains a large colored in black square.

Some other oddities ive noticed based on the order in which adjectives of color appear on pages

on pages 270 271 and 384, throughout the page Navy appears three times.

on pages 468 and 562 red black red are the colors mentioned, in that order on the page

Also, since i'm on this tangent a post on thie thread a while ago... pg. 3? maybe?
Ah. Here’s one I find slightly strange.
Last time I looked I couldn’t find the word ‘green’ on pg 16-17, 34, or 116. Even though those page numbers were listed in the index. Maybe I overlooked it or something. But I found ‘out of the blue’ on page 17, Amber in 34, a place called Red in 116. Since Amber and Red begin in caps, there’s an Emerald to accompany them on page 138. Is there blue, or a synonym for it with a capitalized first letter in any of the other pages indexed under ‘green’?

Speaking of ‘out of the blue’, I know that pops out a lot in the novel. Can’t spout page numbers because I didn’t write them down. It’s a figure of speech after all.
green does appear on all of these pages.
Navy is synonymous to blue and capitalized.

"Out of the blue" appears at pages. 52 297 346 365 404(blue? error 404?) 476 512 i know there are more, but my "cataloguing" efforts have not been completed yet.

Also Lemon Meringue pie pages 258 320 588

Alrighty well i hope some of that is relevant and not all deranged products of a burnt out brain

[ScrapCatFriday]

Okay, I have been all over the forum looking for the best place to put this, and even with the search function, this is the best place I can find. If you know of a better one, a link would be very appreciated.
That said...
Has anyone else linked the colors of the four keys and locks Tom installs on the hallway door to the four Guardians God put in place to guard Eden after casting Adam and Eve out? In this and other religions and ceremonial magic, these Guardians are generally angels or elementals, and have four corresponding colors... blue, red, green, and yellow.

[fearful_syzygy]

Certainly that would be tremendously significant given the equation of the House with paradise (see Appendix C (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3534), p. 550).

However, it might be helpful if you provided some sort of reference to these four colour-coded guardians of Eden, since traditionally it's just Uriel who stands guard there with a flaming sword, and I was unable to find any reference to four guardians through Google. Which is not to say that there isn't a tradition which places four guardians around Eden; it just means I'd [we'd] appreciate it if you cited a source or two.

[Parasol]

So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
The cherubim have four faces (a lion, an ox, an eagle, and a man) and four wings, but I couldn't find any reference to those colours.
Sorry, I'm too drunk to elaborate.

[ScrapCatFriday]

I wish I hadn't just loaned my book out, I had it all written in there. The angels are generally thought to be (and I hope I remember this right) Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel and Michael, although there are many who name other angels to these posts, so to try to answer exactly which ones is kind of impossible. Here are a few things I can find on the web. Some of the the links refer only to the angels, some to the colors as well, and so on.

http://www.helpmewithbiblestudy.org/20s/a_gen.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_angels
http://www.revealer.com/cherubim.htm
http://www.the-atlantic-paranormal-society.com/angelology/society.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samael
http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v263/__show_article/_a000263-000001.htm
http://www.ascension-research.org/angels.html
http://faeriekeeper.net/cherubs3.htm

To list just a few. I believe Paradise Lost also covers this, I know many of you have read that.

Now here are a few which link to the colors (which can also be found in some books on Wicca or ceremonial magic):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchtower_(magic)
http://www.experiencefestival.com/watchtowers
http://crypt.eldritchs.com/wicca/thequarters.html
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/spiritwolf/guardians_and_elements.htm
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/dirtywatchtowersecrets.htm
http://www.witchs-brew.org/dictionary/g.html
http://www.rollanet.org/~mdoc/pagan/color.elements.html

Is that helpful?

[Davinche]

Also the four cherubims are the four animals that are on the world card in a tarot deck. Although the man can sometimes be considered a woman. Also at the centre of the world card is a woman with a red scarf(?) hanging from here, she is considered the opposite to the hanging man. You can read about the world card here (http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/world.shtml).
http://thealchemicalegg.com/World.jpg

[ScrapCatFriday]

With a fresher mind, I ran more searches. Please keep in mind that the angels are referred to differently depending on who is speaking, some citing them (the four I previously named) as Cherubim, some as Seraphim, and some as Archangels, but most agree on Cherubim and Archangels.
First, more on there being multiple angels (sorry if any of these are repeats, I don't think any are)…
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p> </o:p>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_angels “The Cherubim (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherubim) (singular "Cherub")…Cherubim guard Eden and the throne of God….Some insist that archangels aren't a separate order but that the traditional Catholic archangels (Michael (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_%28archangel%29), Raphael (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_%28archangel%29), Gabriel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_%28archangel%29) and sometimes Uriel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uriel_%28archangel%29)) are either cherubim or seraphim in addition to being archangels.”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
<o:p></o:p>http://goldencupcafe.tripod.com/html/heirarchy_of_angels.html “God sent them to guard Eden after the expulsion of Adam and Eve: "After He drove the man out, He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life" (Genesis :24).”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
http://www.mts.net/~warreno/hierarchy.html (http://www.mts.net/~warreno/hierarchy.html) “These are the Warrior Angels, who guard <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:City w:st="on">Eden</st1:City></st1:place>. Cherubim prevent mankind from returning to the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3).”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Angel (http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Angel) “There are the cherubim (http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Cherubim) who guard Eden (http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Eden).”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
http://www.chosen.moonfruit.com/thecherubicorder/4518686983 “Genesis 3:24 mentions their role as being guardians of the garden of Eden, saying "He drove man out, and east of the garden of Eden He stationed cherubim with a flaming, whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life." (Holman Christian Standard Bible) This passage describes the first duty that was given to the Cherubic Order. They were the front line defenders of the garden of Eden. Since then they have had many duties, but this was their first assignment.”<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
And now more on the color relations to them…<o:p></o:p>
http://realmagick.com/articles/25/2225.html A table of correspondences<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
http://elswet.50megs.com/elemental/ a couple of tables<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
http://www.thewhitegoddess.co.uk/elements/correspondences.html yet another table<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~adamndeb/Elements.htm guess what? A table. heehee

So, what do you think?<o:p></o:p>
<o:p> </o:p>

[Davinche]

What is with the incorrect spelling of the word key on page 61?
"He grips the red kye and tries it again."
Oh, and yes Scrapy very interesting, but can you put it all together?

[fearful_syzygy]

What is with the incorrect spelling of the word key on page 61?
Yeah, "what is up with that?" (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forum/showthread.php?t=953), to quote John B.

[John B.]

Also the four cherubims are the four animals that are on the world card in a tarot deck. Although the man can sometimes be considered a woman. Also at the centre of the world card is a woman with a red scarf(?) hanging from here, she is considered the opposite to the hanging man. You can read about the world card here (http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/learn/meanings/world.shtml).
http://thealchemicalegg.com/World.jpg[/URL]

You might also want to see [url=http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Soae2kBwpdQJ:www.conceptionabbey.or g/Basilica/Angels/evangelist.htm+Gospel+writer+symbolized+by+lion&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4&client=firefox-a]this (http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://www.worldtarotnetwork.com/images/James%2520The%2520World%2520Card.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.worldtarotnetwork.com/&h=789&w=576&sz=170&hl=en&sig2=IIk6LvcdH0lIs1581MMFEw&start=13&tbnid=bOs7zoRlLBn8WM:&tbnh=143&tbnw=104&ei=ddqlRb7_IMuIJL-SlPQJ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dworld%2Bcard%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%2 6lr%3D%26sa%3DG).

[ScrapCatFriday]

Oh, and yes Scrapy very interesting, but can you put it all together?

I can put it together with what the book means to me as a whole. Unfortunately, I know if I walk down that road people will ask how I came to the conclusions I did, and that was (and still is) a rather painful personal experience I'd rather not get into in a forum. I'll happily continue to leave my puzzle pieces for others to fit into their own interpretations, though.

[ScrapCatFriday]

What is with the incorrect spelling of the word key on page 61?
"He grips the red kye and tries it again."

Well, this is kind of interesting.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=j>"Kye free download. A pacman like game where you must collect all diamonds and avoid monsters and traps" http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Games/Arcade_Style_Games/Kye.html</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

[fearful_syzygy]

pacmen 116-117

[ScrapCatFriday]

I can put it together with what the book means to me as a whole. Unfortunately, I know if I walk down that road people will ask how I came to the conclusions I did, and that was (and still is) a rather painful personal experience I'd rather not get into in a forum. I'll happily continue to leave my puzzle pieces for others to fit into their own interpretations, though.

Hmmm, what does it say about someone when they quote themselves?

In any event, I did decide to touch upon what it means to me as a whole a little, because I keep running into a position that demands that either 1)I eventually do, 2)I drop little pieces I find and end up sounding like a cryptic loon, or 3)I can't post on half of what I want to.
http://www.houseofleaves.com/forum/showthread.php?p=88528#post88528

[Slow Dog Noodle]

Quoting yourself is one thing, but doing so in a post in which you then link to another post you've made is just over the top.

[ScrapCatFriday]

Yeah, sorry about that. I can be a dork fairly often. :tongue:

[Davinche]

Bummmmmmmmp.
Oh and Purple is the lucky color for Pisces.

[murasamune]

what about ares ?
whats my lucky colour?

[juxtapolemic]

I'd guess Red. Bloody Mintoaurish Red.

[murasamune]

thats way better than purple anyday

[Snoopy]

Check this out, covers pretty much everything I think...

http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/publications/philament/issue2_Critique_Brick.htm#ednref20

[Aijuan Gradlini]

Some more suggestions from film.

'Three colours blue' This film charts the attempts of a woman to come to terms with the loss of her husband in a car crash. Sounds familiar? This was part of a trilogy in which the three colours of the French flag were used as starting points. The blue in this film was exploring 'freedom'.

'Blue' - A film in which people speak about their experience with AIDS. There are no visuals in this film, only sound. All that is on the screen is a blue screen.

The Blue one.. You should remember that some part of the Navidson record was completely black screen, with only Navy speaking.

I apology if this has been noticed before.

[sutrix]

My mom was reading an old copy of the Bhagavad Gita a few hours ago--gifted to my grandfather by his father's friend.

The book is printed in three colors. Red, black and blue. When I asked her why, here's what she said: the Bhagavad Gita was written three times in all. The oldest bits are colored red in the book. Certain bits were added to the text later on, which are colored black in the book. And there were a few more additions made to the text, which are colored blue. So, on some pages you have red followed by black followed by blue verses, and so on.

Compare this with HoL: the <font color=#CC0C36>Minotaur</font> bits in red--does that suggest that they were written before the rest of the book? Or simply that the <font color=#CC0C36>Minotaur</font> is older than anything else in there? The Navidson Record and much of the book comes next; written after the <font color=#CC0C36>Minotaur</font> bits.

And that single word, <font color=#0C5FF0>House</font>, in blue. Does it suggest that the <font color=#0C5FF0>House</font> comes after the <font color=#CC0C36>Minotaur</font>, after the rest of the book, after the Navidson Record itself?

I once suggested (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3799&highlight=screenplay) that perhaps the book did not begin as a book, but was the result of a botched screenplay idea. What if the <font color=#0C5FF0>House</font> did not begin as a <font color=#0C5FF0>House</font>, but was the result of the book?

I don't have a camera handy, or I'd upload pictures. The Bhagavad Gita looks lovely in red, black and blue.

[heartbreak]

sutrix, this is an excellent theory.

Perhaps, like Johnny, we can never find proof that the Navidson Record of the house existed, but then the house becomes an entity within our minds. The result of us reading the book like you said.

Or something like that...

[JeffTheDragon]

when you think about blue you might think that water is blue.
And if you ever read the book "The Color of Water" you'd know the color of water is god.

that's actually pretty interesting.

[FallingQuarters]

Together Chad and Daisy fill a glass from the sink. Wax, however, is far too weak to sit up let alone drink. They end up dribbling small drops of water on his cracked lips.

A few seconds later there is a loud banging on the front door. Reston wheels over and opens it. He expects to see the paramedics but finds instead a woman in her late 40s with almost perfectly grey hair. Chad and Daisy retreat to the staircase. They too step in the blood, their feet leaving red imprints on the floor.

[FallingQuarters]

full of gold leaf, opal or intricately carved pieces of jade

[beanmarine101]

On Sutrix's theory of House coming after the Minotaur (hence the blue), you could also take it as a theory of Johnny editing the text. What if, and this is a pretty crusty theory, but House is in blue, because the word wasn't there at all initially? What would've been there, shit if I know. But we all can see that Johnny edits the text fairly liberally, so what if the House never really existed? However, the presence of a living room, etc. easily offset that theory.

Also, on the topic of colors, I just wanted to point out something that's probably been mentioned, but I'll bring it up anyways. First of all, Delial is an echo of Delilah(the spellings are different, but by removing the h, "delila" sounds pretty much like "delial"). So there's a double meaning of Delilah, one being the ironic meaning "a temptress" which this girl certainly was not. The other is the flower. Note that Navidson names his daughter Daisy. Would this make Daisy some kind of "second try" at what he failed with Delial? And if Delial is an echo of Delilah, where'd he get the idea for Delilah, and at what point did it echo (mentally or physically)?

I apologize for not tying that in colorwise. The only thing I can think of is that there's some sort of "generation" of color. By which I mean, Delial was a color of a previous generation, and in the next generation, Daisy took over as that color. Again, a crusty theory.

[le jamie]

Has anyone read Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution by Berlin and Kay (1969)?

It is a very interesting study about color terms in different languages. Not all languages have the same amount of words for colors. However, there is a fairly strict pattern as to which colors a language will have names for if they have a certain number of terms. Here is the order that color terms are almost always acquired in:

black, white (all languages have these two), red, green, yellow, blue, brown, purple, pink, orange and gray

I don't know if this has any significance, but I thought it was interesting, given the first four terms acquired... as well as the last.

[silja]

page 52: she smiled and handed me her bright pink flip-flops & white Adidas sweats.
I know white isn't one color (but many!!), but it's there though.

[modiFIed]

I just saw this and hadn't realized FQ had been by as recently as August.

What up FQ?

[xaer0mancer]

I've just read this topic and it suprised me that no one has mentioned red or blue shift yet.

Red shift is caused by an object moving away from the observer, causing an increase in wave length (and thus drop in frequency.) Blue shift is the reverse.


It is intersting to note this phenomenon is very much like the discussion of how an echo will imply a space of a certain size, red / blue shift implies a movement of a certain scale. A movement away from the Minotaur and into the House...

[modiFIed]

Silly rabbit - everything (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1394&highlight=red+shift)'s been mentioned here.

[bakudan]

I don't have a camera handy, or I'd upload pictures. The Bhagavad Gita looks lovely in red, black and blue.

please do

[noevilstar]

In Australia the correct spelling is "colour." It isn't entirely incorrect to use the American spelling of 'color' though. (Ah, torn between the Queen's English and American cultural dominance ...)
This has prob been covered somewhere..but I can't find it. Indeed Pelafina and Zampano use the english Colour and centre, whereas, Johnny T prefers the american equals color, and center...This may provide insight into potential whose whos...

[fearful_syzygy]

So much for blue being an Internet colour (http://blog.prospectblogs.com/2008/01/21/what-you-cant-see/).

[heartbreak]

So much for blue being an Internet colour (http://blog.prospectblogs.com/2008/01/21/what-you-cant-see/).

Thats interesting. Cool link.

[modiFIed]

This colour, he believed, had a quality close to pure space, and he associated it with immaterial values beyond what can be seen or touched. He described it as ‘a Blue in itself, disengaged from all functional justification’.

mmmmmm....pure space disengaged from functional justification

If that's not HOLy, I don't know what is.

[noevilstar]

any one read <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2319830/"> "Romance of Astree and Celadon </a> ??? <a href="http://www.tufts.edu/~ehenein/portail.html#english"> l'astree </a> by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor&#233;_d'Urf&#233;"> Honore d'Urfe </a>

"<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celadon_(color)"> Celadon</a> and indigo...(dragons)" pg51 Johnny Truant- describing Tattoo ideas
"the clawed ... indigo from celadon hills...(dragons)" pg313 - explanation of childrens drawings (TNR)
"Madder, azure, celadon, gamboge" pg. 615 Pelafina's colorful explanation of the pills she is given

Celadon does make it through all three after all

[Christian_1987]

This is so wierd I had to register onto this forum just to let you know about it. Maybe I'm just paranoid and I get freaked out by coincidences.

I listen to the radio at night because I don't like silence and dark together - so I totally know where this book is coming from. Anyway I was reading this thread when the presenter on the talk show I'm listening to (Clive Bull on LBC - its a London station) started randomly discussing the meaning of the colour blue.

Aside from the fact that his name, 'Bull' is more than remotely linked with the 'Minotour' subthread, its a pretty wierd coincidence.

Anyway he was talking with some guy about how blue is a colour that very rarely appears in nature (apart from one or two very obvious exceptions). Perhaps the 'blue' represents an abhoration of nature somehow (they were talking about the the colour blue in modern technology; bluetooth, blu-ray, etc.)

Now that I think of it, isn't the sky's colour an effect of the nitrates in the atmosphere mainly generated by the respiration of carbon-based life forms (as well as plants - hey there's a 'leaves' connection).

Anyway don't ask me about that, I'm not a biologist or a chemist.

Personally I think that the colouring of the word 'house' serves little more purpose than to freak you out. If it was not highlighted you would barely notice it; it is after all a rather mundane word. However in the book, the concepts of 'house' and 'home' take on darker meanings - the highlighting serves as a constant reminder of this.

I suppose Danielweski has more integrity than to constantly highlight the word 'house' in red. That might look like a bit of a cliche I think. Although it works for the minotaur passage because it takes the reader by surprise.

Sorry, that was a long post. I'm new to this forum, I think it's really cool.

[charlydetroit]

I definitely feel that the blue color serves to disrupt the continuity of the reading process. Every time my eye hit that word, the sound of the voice inside my head dropped an octave. I also remember an amazing optical illusion only involving blue and black. I think it was a black square on a blue background. As you move the picture in front of you back and forth, the square seems to float around with the picture. So anyway, this was totally happening to me when I was reading footnote 144, though maybe because I was reading it at 3 in the morning totally freaked out, but the words were totally swimming around. Freaky.

After posting, i found that I had read ! page of 7. I now am returning to finish my endeavour.

[Nympholepsia]

First of all, "Hi." I'm new to both the forum and the book, and really can't believe I missed knowing about it before now.

I know this thread is old and dead, and hasn't been posted in for seven months, but I thought it might be better to post here than start a new one, since this was linked in the 'collection of useful threads', which I've been reading extensively.

I know that the whole 'House / hyperlink' issue has been covered a million and one times by everyone and their grandmother, but I was thinking about a slightly different dimension of that, relating to color.

Blue - Red - Purple

Before fancy CSS and color changes and customized HTML tags were commonplace, hyperlinks came in three primary colors. Blue, red, and purple.

Blue was for links you had not yet clicked, for pages you had not yet visited. New links, to new places.

When clicked, a link (referred to as an 'active link') would turn red for a few moments. A link became active when you clicked it, but changed to 'visited' once the page that it led to was loaded.

A visited link, one you have previously clicked / gone to before, showed up in purple.

This all probably adds up to a whole wad of nothing, but I thought it couldn't hurt to mention.

(I really really did search for any mention of this, and couldn't find it among the many House = hyperlink connection posts. If this has been discussed previously, please enlighten me?)

There was also something nifty about the color spectrum and light that I was reading about, but I haven't had the chance to see if it was mentioned before. If I don't see it after checking, I'll come back to it.

[heartbreak]

Welcome to the site Ny. Thats an interesting idea. I don't think I've ever read it before. Although, fearful has a much vaster knowledge of what has been posted then I do. He has a thread called Directory Inquiries (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5101) where he will help search for stuff people post in there. Not saying you have to use it, but its very helpful. I for one don't mind resurrection of dead threads. I think its helpful in remembering what information is out there on the book, and what others have thought.

[fearful_syzygy]

As you say, the 'house as hyperlink' is as old as the hills, but I can't seem to find any reference to the colours of visited and/or active links around here. It does seem obvious though, but it's entirely possible no-one's ever explicitly said it.

Anyway, so does this mean that struck passages are 'active' and 'what I'm remembering now' is being revisited? Makes a sort of sense, especially the latter implication.

[On a Map of Swirling Cord]

Blue is the color of blood before it is touched with oxygen, red afterwards.

Yves Klein, as I learnt in an art history lecture, once promoted an art show to showcase his ultimate blue. The crowds arrived only to find the gallery empty with white walls. Everyone who attended the show was given a drink that made them urinate blue for days.

[On a Map of Swirling Cord]

Yves Klein, like the prostitute killer, painted with the human body.

Image search-

Untitled, Anthropometry, c.1960 (ANT100)

Of course, in Klein blue.

[Norkhat]

-Violet

Violet may be the color of my face, this being my first entry in this endless forum.
But having read this seventh page thru the search engine
I know this is no dead-end
and that what is written here will be read someday.

At the very first reading I felt the numerous blue and the singular violet

Yes, blue has a biblical as well as a cybernetical color.

Once upon a time, when we used the internet for the very first time
and I was a child
we came across a word or a sentence written in blue
(writ on water, anyone ?) and we wondered what it could mean and clicked it
and found ourselves somewhere else

over the rainbow, why not. Our first jump in the cyberspace.

This blue singles out House of Leaves in any shelf, in any Library,
as a book in colors and motion, in hue of shadows
compared to many a black and white, "still-life" book.

Hard to ever come back from that contamination of pages by a typographical code,
which gives us a specific and indicible sensation at each occurence
through reading
and especially through flipping (to flip the pages of HoL is an experience in itself)

a sensation of hidden meaning, a dose/shot of cryptos
because, very simply, a word written in black or blue do not refer to the same referee at all.




Now violet, on the old familial macintosh
mean You have been here, this is a familiar road.


I just received Only Revolution by the mail
and that’s what i Read :

YOU WERE THERE.




So...
Out of the House, into the Revolutions ?
Out of the blue, literally.

Reading House of Leaves over and over until into Violet turns all this Blue...

[Norkhat]

goddamn ! and I who thought everybody put manually H.o.u.s.e in blue
(and i pictured veteran poster strenuously singling out any occurence of the word house in their post).

It's magical really. Keep up the good work
I've read in those pages many a fabulous hint
sometime lost at the corner of a sentence
which set me on a new tone, a new track

a cyberpunk "salon de lecture"
where the books pulses and grows...

[heartbreak]

Welcome to the site Norkhat.

The blue hyperlink/violet visited link connection was actually posted about five or six posts back in this thread.

There is tons of information on this site, if you are willing to do a little reading. Hopefully you can find something we haven't seen before. That would be great.

[Norkhat]

Yes, I saw that !
I just wanted to write down that "I was there"-thing somewhere.
And yes, I spend some hours passing through huge discussion and/or arguement.
But then I decided to go back to House Of Leaves
(especially after reading sceptically that some 14 year old teenager read it 2/3 times in 2/3 weeks !)

It's like being a new pupil in class, you're dying to raise your hand and intervene, but you should carefully think about what you're going to tackle
-an in-depth reading of the Pelican Poem
-a link between blindness, reading HoL by sunlight until it's impossible to make out letters, the Cecity of Zampano and the darkness surrounding Navidson after his last match.( Homer taught us that much, Blind people don't see but they can be the best story tellers ever.). that and the black square p145 : how we could be afraid of a entire black page. and how all the level of typographical density are explored.


but before raising the hand, there is much work to do.

But just to be done here, there are so much quotations and references in HoL, it is such a "world" of words that everybody seems to connect to itself in a very intimate way.

Well, this forum proved shockingly useful when I read about the Dien Ben Phu Issue :
my grand father jumped over Dien Ben Phu and I've been hearing of Hughette and Isabelle throughout all my Childhood, talk about a revelation : I recall the tale of captivity of my grand pa, the wounded, the sick, the blind.
And most of all the nightmares.

Also, that street where the last of the Pelican Poem is supposed to have been written,
that's my street name and I live in Paris.

Talk about a written/cyber/wovenweb built to trap its readers !

Yes, english is a foreign language, so forgive some errors, and correct me whenever !

Norkhat.

[noevilstar]

Purple Prose

Doesn't look like anyone has cited anything about purple prose as defined in literary criticism. Purple passages/prose are "passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in a prose so overly extravagent, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself... Modern critics use "purple prose" to refer to any writing that is undermined by its overstylized and formulaic nature."
Sourced from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose">Wiki</a>

Hard to say exactly what the term might imply. Of course the <del>what I'm remembering now</del> is maybe the best place to start. Emerging in the final pages of Johnny's last chapter, presented as a string of journal entries. Arguably part of Johnny's d&#233;nouement or eucatastrophe. The story in Flagstaff would be the archetypal choice, but its presentation is off set in the text(why, I have always wondered?), occurring contextually before the climax of Johnny's narrative, but historically around a year later.


I'm sorry. I have nothing left.

Except this story, <del>what I'm remembering now</del>, too long from the surface of any dawn, the one Doc told me when I was up in Seattle.

And perhaps the purple text here is in a sense Mark's ( or Walden's) literary critique of Johnny's use of purple prose. Looking back a few pages, we find Johnny's story about the doctors from Seattle. These entries are an example of purple prose. His sudden and unbelievable character change sticks out and makes the reader aware that they are on the verge of some event, be it a realization, an ending, etc... Johnny almost seems to be attempting to make up some happy ending and then admits it was all false and gives up on the story. Really all Johnny's potential endings are all candidates of being defined 'purple prose': Seattle, Flagstaff, and the mother and baby story.

Perhaps the use of the purple text was used by Mark as an ironic gesture, marking his difficulty in ending Johnny's narrative without a formulaic eucatastrophe.

Whether or not the term purple prose influenced the choice of the color for Pelafina is up for grabs. The Whalestoe Letters could certainly be defined as ornate, flowery, extravagant. TWL's primary mode of persuasion is pathos. Not only is the writing itself 'purple,' but the inclusion of such extensive indexed epistolary documents would also be defined 'purple.'

[On a Map of Swirling Cord]

Wow, very cool, people.

So, put both of those concepts into the minimal use of purple.

As in:

You {the reader} have read Purple yarns (stories, legends) and this is not -hence the erasure- is not one that plays out like the usual flowery sheite that does not have such compelling loose ends.

Maybe I should rephrase that.

And, of course, the House is blue because it's one of those places we have yet to visit. I hope it is that and less Klein-oriented. Welcome to the forum, Norkat. Finally got around to reading some of your words and they indicate a wonderful addition to the company, here.

Your eloquence has me convinced that you are practiced in the art of public address and, if not already, you should be a currator or orator in a University. Keep it comin', Frenchie!

[Norkhat]

This is the sweetest thing ever. Thanks so much.
I remember being terrified at this first post, and now approaching the ... 30th
I feel I've been here forever.
Only to be amazed at the age of certain threads. Not older than me but damn ! Where was I in 2002 !

These forums have been an incredible help
and it's such a pleasure to post, because HoL and O.R. are made to make you think,
discuss, confront.

And feel, feer, dream....

[heartbreak]

Color : 24 bit RGB

<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">Blue</FONT> : 0 0 255


<FONT COLOR="#FF0000">Red</FONT> : 255 0 0 (pg 255 "Bring me my red shirt!")


<FONT COLOR="#00FF00">Green</FONT> : 0 255 0


<FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">Yellow</FONT> : 255 255 0


<FONT COLOR="#FF00FF">Fuchsia</FONT> : 255 0 255



<FONT COLOR="#000080">Navy</FONT> : 0 0 128 and hexadecimal #000080 (128 is one quarter of the pages in TNR which was written by Zampano who died when he was about 80)


<FONT COLOR="#800080">Purple</FONT> : 128 0 128



<FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">White</FONT> : 255 255 255


<FONT COLOR="#808080">Gray</FONT> : 128 128 128 and hexadecimal #808080 (Ashen walls. 128 divided by 80 is 1.6 (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forum/showthread.php?p=95648#post95648))


<FONT COLOR="#000000">Black</FONT> : 0 0 0

[John B.]

Color : 24 bit RGB

<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">Blue</FONT> : 0 0 255


<FONT COLOR="#FF0000">Red</FONT> : 255 0 0 (pg 255 "Bring me my red shirt!")


<FONT COLOR="#00FF00">Green</FONT> : 0 255 0


<FONT COLOR="#FFFF00">Yellow</FONT> : 255 255 0


<FONT COLOR="#FF00FF">Fuchsia</FONT> : 255 0 255



<FONT COLOR="#000080">Navy</FONT> : 0 0 128 and hexadecimal #000080 (128 is one quarter of the pages in TNR which was written by Zampano who died when he was about 80)


<FONT COLOR="#800080">Purple</FONT> : 128 0 128



<FONT COLOR="#FFFFFF">White</FONT> : 255 255 255


<FONT COLOR="#808080">Gray</FONT> : 128 128 128 and hexadecimal #808080 (Ashen walls. 128 divided by 80 is 1.6 (http://www.houseofleaves.com/forum/showthread.php?p=95648#post95648))


<FONT COLOR="#000000">Black</FONT> : 0 0 0

All this would seem to stray in the direction of "intentional," no? Good stuff, sir.

On the other hand, I note the time stamp . . .

[heartbreak]

Yeah, woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.

[Oceandocks22]

well it's 2011 and I'm looking through these. I just started reading this book. Some people here are mentioning the possibilities for why house is in blue, and it's hilarious. I mean, talk about splitting hairs. Danielewski is a genius, but a lot of people on here and looking mary in the tortilla hahaha

[Ellimist]

Hello and welcome to the forums!

Please note that we do not use spoiler tags here, so read at your own risk until you finish the book.

So, do you have any ideas/conclusions as to the reason for house being blue?

[Mary Elizabeth Borden]

A great day indeed.

I can never tell if people read what I write, let alone if they understand it.

I added the blue part for two reasons...first, everytime I read that section in the book the phrase pale books always makes me think blue. When I picture books that have been sitting in a refridgerator for a long time...the kind of pale I think of is a pale blue. Like when something fades to the point where it's almost white but not white...and it has this tinit of blue in it. The second reason I added it was to see what people thought about the mistake. Disinformation is everywherebeaware.


No page number off the top of my head, but...

"“Scars are the paler pain of survival received unwillingly and displayed in the language of injury.”

Not entirely connected to the pale blue books mentioned, just something I was reminded of when reading it.

[noevilstar]

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=jim+jarmusch+blue+red+authenticity&um=1&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&biw=1721&bih=1162&tbm=isch&tbnid=paHF24nn7vsGZM:&imgrefurl=http://luxurystudies.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html&docid=PXcJd2u5vVHj6M&imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PWvC_lzGoP4/TZJZi-cfWqI/AAAAAAAAQz8/B905Ms1ZGpU/s1600/1.png&w=656&h=753&ei=ORYiT5bhKuPr0gGA4dXPCA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=342&sig=103553364523178424104&page=1&tbnh=130&tbnw=113&start=0&ndsp=67&ved=1t:429,r:23,s:0&tx=49&ty=22