Parts 4[ ]6,[ ], 10 1[] centre on Holloway's reiteration of his identity. Part 3, however, is different. It only lasts four seconds. With eyes wide open, voice hoarse, lips split and bleeding, Hol[ ]y barks "I'm not alone." Part 5 fo[]lows up with, "There's something here. I'm sure of it now." Part 8 with: "It's following me. No, it's stalking me." And Part 9: "But it won't strike. It's just out there waiting. I don't know what for. But it's near now, waiting for me, waiting for something. I don't know why it doesn't [ ] Oh god . . . Holloway Roberts.

Menomonie, Wisconsin, [chambering a round in his rifle] Oh god[ J.'™ ²

It is interesting to compare Holloway's behavior to Tom's. Tom addressed his [ ]agon with sarcasm, referring to i[] as "Mr. Monster" while describing himself as unpalatable. Humor proved a p[]werful psychological sh[]e[]d. Holloway has his rifle but it proves the weaker of die two. Cold metal and gunpowder offer him ver[] little internal calm. Neverf ]less[

]

Of course, Part 13 or rather "Last" of The Holloway Tape initiates the largest and perhaps most popular debate surrounding The Navidson Record. Lantern C. Pitch a[]d Kadina Ashbeckie stand on opposite ends of the spectrum, one favoring an actual monster, the other opting for a rado[]al explan[]tion. Neither one, however, succeeds in [ ] a

definitive interpretation.

Last spring, Pitch in the Pelias Lecture Ser[]es announced: "Of course there's a beast! And I assure you our belief or disbelief makes very little difference to that thing!" ²⁹³ In American Photo (May 1996, p. 154) Kadina Ashbeckie wr[]te: "Death of light gives birth to a creature-darkness few can accept as pure[]absence. Thus despite rational object[]ons,

technology's failure is over[]un by the onslaught of myth." ²⁹⁴

[

]

Except the Vandal known as Myth always slaughters Reason if she falters. [ ] Myth is the tiger stalking the herd. Myth is Tom's

[ ]r. Monster. Myth is Hol[ ]y's beast. Myth is the Minotaur. ²⁹⁵ Myth is

Redwood. ²⁹⁹ And in Navidson's house that faceless black i[] many myths incarnate.

"Ce ne peut etre que la fin du monde, en avangant," Rimbaud dryly remarked. Suffice it to say, Holloway does not [ ]French for

his end. Instead he props up his []i[]eo camera, ignites a magnesium flare, and crosses the room to the far end, where he slumps in the corner to wait. Sometimes he mumbles [ ]hi[]self, sometimes he screams obscenities [

]to the void: "Bullshit! Bullshit! Just try and get me you motherfucker!" And then as the minutes creak by, his energy dips. "[ ] I don't want to die, this [ ]" words coming out

like a sigh—sad and lost. He lights another flare, tosses it toward the camera, then pushes the rifle against his chest and shoots himself. [ J Jill Ramsey Pelterlock wrote, "In that place, the absence of an end finally became his own end." ³⁰⁰

Unfortunately, Holloway is not entire[ ] s[ ]ssful. For exactly two minutes and 28 seconds he groans and twitches in his own blood, until fin[ ] he slip[] into shock and presumably death. ³⁰¹ Then for 46 seconds the

]302

^[1] Can't help thinking of old man Z here and those pipes in his head working overtime; alchemist to his own secret anguish; lost in an art of suffering. Though what exactly was the fire that burned him?

As I strain now to see past The Navidson Record, beyond this strange filigree of imperfection, the murmur of Zampano's thoughts, endlessly searching, reaching, but never quite concluding, barely even pausing, a ruin of pieces, gestures and quests, a compulsion brought on by— well that's precisely it, when I look past it all I only get an inkling of what tormented him. Though at least if the fire's invisible, the pain's not—mortal and guttural, torn out of him, day and night, week after week, month after month, until his throat's stripped and he can barely speak and he rarely sleeps. He tries to escape his invention but never succeeds because for whatever reason, he is compelled, day and night, week after week, month after month, to continue building the very thing responsible for his incarceration.

Though is that really right?