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Authors: Mark Z. Danielewski
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Tom to realize they were better off just trying to keep clear of their father. (See Borowska’s interview published in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 27, 1992, D-3, column one.)]
Navidson’s mother was no better. She soon left them all to pursue a career as an actress and ended up living with a string of not so productive producers. Purportedly in her own words, all she ever wanted to do was “bring down the house.” Navidson’s father died of congestive heart failure but his mother just vanished. She was last seen in a Los Angeles bar smoking cigarettes and talking about moonlight and why you could find so much of it in Hollywood. Neither Will nor his twin brother Tom ever heard from her again. [24— A selection of personal interviews with Adam Zobol, Anthony Freed and Anastasia Culiman. September 8-11, 1994.]
Because the enormous narcissism of their parents deprived Will and Tom of suitable role models, both brothers learned to identify with absence. Consequently, even if something beneficial fortuitously entered their lives they immediately treated it as temporary. By the time they were teenagers they were already accustomed to a discontinuous lifestyle marked by constant threats of abandonment and the lack of any emotional stability. Unfortunately, “accustomed to” here is really synonymous with “damaged by.” [29—Rita Mistopolis M.D., in her book Black Heart, Blue Heart (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1984), p. 245, describes the seriousness of emotional deprivation: It is not difficult to understand how children who have suffered fn>m malnutrition or starvation need food and plenty of care if their bodies are to recover so they can go on to lead normal lives. If, however, the starvation is severe enough, the damage will be permanent and they will suffer physical impairments for the rest of their lives. Likewise, children who are deprived of emotional nurturing require care and love if their sense of security and self-confidence is to be restored. However, if love is minimal and abuse high, the damage will be permanent and the children will suffer emotional impairments for the rest of their lives.]
Perhaps one reason Navidson became so enamored with photography was the way it gave permanence to moments that were often so fleeting.
Nevertheless, not even ten thousand photographs can secure a world, and so while Navidson may have worked harder, taken greater risks and become increasingly more successful, he was ultimately misled in feeling that his labor could make up for the love he was deprived of as a child and the ultimate sense of security such love bestows.
For this reason, we should again revisit Navidson on his porch, his gaze fixed, his delicate fingers wrapped around a glass of lemonade. “I just thought it would be nice to see how people move into a place and start to inhabit it,” he calmly announces. “Settle in, maybe put down roots, interact, hopefully understand each other a little better. Personally, I just want to create a cozy little outpost for me and my family.” A pretty innocuous and laconic rumination and yet it contains one particularly nettlesome word.
By definition “outpost” means a base, military or other, which while safe inside functions principally to provide protection from hostile forces found on the outside. This has always seemed a bizarre word to choose to describe a small house in the Virginia countryside, [30—KeiIlor Ross in his article “Legal Zoning” for Atlantic Monthly, v. 278, September 1996, p. 43, does not wish to discount the possibility of irony: “After all Navidson has just moved from the extremely populated confines of New York City and is now only poking fun at the relative wilderness of this suburb.” Ross makes a good point, except for the fact that Navidson is a man who understands the meaning of outpost and his tone seems too straight forward to imply any kind of jest.] but it does shed
Navidson’s mother was no better. She soon left them all to pursue a career as an actress and ended up living with a string of not so productive producers. Purportedly in her own words, all she ever wanted to do was “bring down the house.” Navidson’s father died of congestive heart failure but his mother just vanished. She was last seen in a Los Angeles bar smoking cigarettes and talking about moonlight and why you could find so much of it in Hollywood. Neither Will nor his twin brother Tom ever heard from her again. [24— A selection of personal interviews with Adam Zobol, Anthony Freed and Anastasia Culiman. September 8-11, 1994.]
Because the enormous narcissism of their parents deprived Will and Tom of suitable role models, both brothers learned to identify with absence. Consequently, even if something beneficial fortuitously entered their lives they immediately treated it as temporary. By the time they were teenagers they were already accustomed to a discontinuous lifestyle marked by constant threats of abandonment and the lack of any emotional stability. Unfortunately, “accustomed to” here is really synonymous with “damaged by.” [29—Rita Mistopolis M.D., in her book Black Heart, Blue Heart (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1984), p. 245, describes the seriousness of emotional deprivation: It is not difficult to understand how children who have suffered fn>m malnutrition or starvation need food and plenty of care if their bodies are to recover so they can go on to lead normal lives. If, however, the starvation is severe enough, the damage will be permanent and they will suffer physical impairments for the rest of their lives. Likewise, children who are deprived of emotional nurturing require care and love if their sense of security and self-confidence is to be restored. However, if love is minimal and abuse high, the damage will be permanent and the children will suffer emotional impairments for the rest of their lives.]
Perhaps one reason Navidson became so enamored with photography was the way it gave permanence to moments that were often so fleeting.
Nevertheless, not even ten thousand photographs can secure a world, and so while Navidson may have worked harder, taken greater risks and become increasingly more successful, he was ultimately misled in feeling that his labor could make up for the love he was deprived of as a child and the ultimate sense of security such love bestows.
For this reason, we should again revisit Navidson on his porch, his gaze fixed, his delicate fingers wrapped around a glass of lemonade. “I just thought it would be nice to see how people move into a place and start to inhabit it,” he calmly announces. “Settle in, maybe put down roots, interact, hopefully understand each other a little better. Personally, I just want to create a cozy little outpost for me and my family.” A pretty innocuous and laconic rumination and yet it contains one particularly nettlesome word.
By definition “outpost” means a base, military or other, which while safe inside functions principally to provide protection from hostile forces found on the outside. This has always seemed a bizarre word to choose to describe a small house in the Virginia countryside, [30—KeiIlor Ross in his article “Legal Zoning” for Atlantic Monthly, v. 278, September 1996, p. 43, does not wish to discount the possibility of irony: “After all Navidson has just moved from the extremely populated confines of New York City and is now only poking fun at the relative wilderness of this suburb.” Ross makes a good point, except for the fact that Navidson is a man who understands the meaning of outpost and his tone seems too straight forward to imply any kind of jest.] but it does shed
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