I live at the end of a 5 and 1/2 minute hallway[1]“Five & 1/2 Minute Hallway” is arguably the center piece of the 2000 album Haunted, by Poe (AKA Ann Danielewski). Certainly the track–about a mysterious long, dark hallway that … Continue reading
But as far as I can see you are still miles from me[2]Poe had previously arisen out of the same mid-’90s female Alt-Rock milieu that produced the likes of Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and Alanis Morisette. Her 1995 debut album Hello yielded a couple of … Continue reading
In your doorway
And oh by the way
When the landlord came today
He measured everything
I knew he’d get it wrong[3]I have no idea what their sibling relationship is nowadays; for whatever it’s worth, they both became one-hit-wonders in the end: Mark has never been to capitalize and build-off his … Continue reading
But I just played along
Cause I was hoping that he would fix it all
But there’s only so far I can go[4]Which is a shame, because, a couple clunkers aside (the cringey “Walk the Walk” and “Hey Pretty” were embarrassingly-naked stabs at becoming Top 40 hits), Haunted is a … Continue reading
When you’re living in a hallway that keeps growing[5]Both Ann and Mark, you see, are the children of the Polish-born film-maker Ted Danielewski, who was a Professor of Theatre and Film Studies at Brigham Young University from 1975-1989 of all places … Continue reading
I think to myself
5 more minutes and I’ll be there
Inside your door
But there’s more to this story[6]Now, there are no direct allusions to their Mormon-adjacent upbringing in the album itself (unlike, say, the Nauvoo allusions in Only Revolutions, as detailed in the link up top in the first … Continue reading
Than I’ve been letting on
There are words made of letters
Unwritten
And yes I forgive you[7]Yet the album is also ultimately about a familial reconciliation–and there’s nothing more LDS than that. The thrilling penultimate track “Amazed” for example ends with the … Continue reading
For leading me on
You can think of it like this
When you can’t resist
I’m in your hallway standing on a cliff
And just when I think I’ve found the trick
I’m tumbling
Like an echo
‘Cause there’s only so far I can go
When you’re living in a hallway that keeps growing
I think to myself
30 seconds and I’ll be there
References
| ↑1 | “Five & 1/2 Minute Hallway” is arguably the center piece of the 2000 album Haunted, by Poe (AKA Ann Danielewski). Certainly the track–about a mysterious long, dark hallway that appears in the backyard door of the house on Ash Tree Lane, presaging the labyrinthine depths of that mysteriously haunted house that is somehow bigger on the inside than the outside–is the CD’s most direct allusion to the 2000 novel House of Leaves, by Poe’s brother Mark Danielewski. Haunted entire in fact was intended as the tie-in album to House of Leaves, as a way to help promote and boost her brother’s nascent literary career with her own Pop celebrity. |
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| ↑2 | Poe had previously arisen out of the same mid-’90s female Alt-Rock milieu that produced the likes of Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and Alanis Morisette. Her 1995 debut album Hello yielded a couple of bona fide MTV hits in its title-track and “Trigger Happy Jack,” and garnered a mainstream cult-following. But alas, she was never able to quite build off that initial success like her peers did; Haunted in fact was the commercial flop that killed off her career for all intents and purposes, got her dropped from her label, and she never had a chance to record a third album. Her star fell while Mark’s rose, as House of Leaves went on to become a national best-seller, independent of her last CD. |
| ↑3 | I have no idea what their sibling relationship is nowadays; for whatever it’s worth, they both became one-hit-wonders in the end: Mark has never been to capitalize and build-off his debut’s initial popularity, either; his 2006 follow-up Only Revolutions only got a National Book Award nod as a sort of belated recognition for House of Leaves (as tends to be the case with most literary awards), with not even a fraction of the same cult-following; while the expansive, 27-planned-volumes of 2014’s The Familiar got canceled after only volume 5 due to poor sales. Ann meanwhile is likely to only be remembered nowadays by an aging cohort of Gen Xers with nostalgic memories of her videos on ’90s MTV, and by Millennial fanboys who only listen to Haunted while re-reading House of Leaves for the umpteenth time. |
| ↑4 | Which is a shame, because, a couple clunkers aside (the cringey “Walk the Walk” and “Hey Pretty” were embarrassingly-naked stabs at becoming Top 40 hits), Haunted is a fantastic album, irrespective of its intertextuality with House of Leaves. Indeed, the true beating heart of Haunted isn’t its tie-ins to House of Leaves at all, but her complex relationship with her late-father, whose voice recordings are inserted into the finales of each song, often being used as the lead-in to the next track. |
| ↑5 | Both Ann and Mark, you see, are the children of the Polish-born film-maker Ted Danielewski, who was a Professor of Theatre and Film Studies at Brigham Young University from 1975-1989 of all places (before then moving on to USC, where he finished his career and eventually passed away in 1993). That is, although Ann and Mark were most certainly never LDS themselves (they were at least culturally Polish-Catholic), nevertheless Ann and Mark still came of age in Mormonism’s cultural epicenter. (Incidentally, Mark’s newest novel Tom’s Crossing debuts at the end of this month and apparently takes place in Utah directly for once, but that must remain a discussion for another day). |
| ↑6 | Now, there are no direct allusions to their Mormon-adjacent upbringing in the album itself (unlike, say, the Nauvoo allusions in Only Revolutions, as detailed in the link up top in the first paragraph). Nevertheless, there are moments on the album that still can’t help but allude to her stifling upbringing in ways that might resonate with anyone raised in the Utah Valley, viz: the defiantly crude “Not a Virgin,” for example, is definitely a song that could only be written by someone who finds themselves in a sexually puritanical environment. Likewise, the song “Control” is also definitely intended to be a declaration of independence against not only a purportedly-controlling father, but a purportedly-controlling local culture, as well. |
| ↑7 | Yet the album is also ultimately about a familial reconciliation–and there’s nothing more LDS than that. The thrilling penultimate track “Amazed” for example ends with the line, “The voice of my father still loud as before/it used to scare me but not anymore…”; while the true finale “If You Were Here” is unapologetically sentimental in her yearning for her dead father. The album entire is not about a tie-in novel at all, but about completing the grieving the process, and in that sense deserves to be much more highly regarded than it has been. It is an album that understands better than perhaps many actual members of the Church do, that the core of our baptismal covenants really is to “mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort…” |