Housing experts call them “stigmatized properties.

The differences are minor, but nagging. Hoffman has “trickles of red” running from the keyholes. The book has “greenish black slime” that flows up the stairs and oozes out of the walls.


There are several versions of exactly what did happen, mainly a Good Housekeeping article


“The Amityville Horror” was the second-highest-grossing movie of 1979, behind “Kramer vs. Kramer,


“The house has been trouble in and out for a while,” she said.

in memoriam Eduardo Galeano /// thanks SW

1520: Brussels Durer

These things must be emanations from the sun, like the men and women who made them in the remote land they inhabit: helmets and girdles, feather fans, dresses, cloaks, hunting gear, a gold sun and a silver moon, a blowgun, and other weapons of such beauty that they seem made to revive their victims.
The greatest draftsman of all the ages does not tire of staring at them. This is part of the booty that Cortes seized from Moctezuma: the only pieces that were not melted into ingots. King Charles, newly seated on the Holy Empire's throne, is exhibiting to the public the trophies from his new bits of world.
Albrecht Durer doesn't know the Mexican poem that explains that the true artist finds pleasure in his work and talks with his heart, because he has one that isn't dead and eaten by ants. But seeing what he sees, Durer hears those words and finds that he is experiencing the greatest happiness of his half century of life.


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The Mexica (Aztec) king Motecuhzoma greeted Hernan Cortés in 1519 with gifts of gold, silver, and precious stones, including jewelry, ornaments, headpieces, disks, garments, shields, and helmets. Cortés sent the tribute to Charles V, king of Spain and emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, who placed them on exhibit in 1520. Albrecht Dürer viewed the exhibit in Brussels and extolled its beauty in his travel journal: 

At Brussels is a very splendid Townhall, large and covered with beautiful carved stonework, and it has a noble, open tower. . . . I saw the things which have been brought to the King from the new land of gold, a sun all of gold a whole fathom broad, and a moon all of silver of the same size, also two rooms full of armor of the people there, and all manner of wondrous weapons of theirs, harness and darts, very strange clothing, beds, and all kinds of wonderful objects of human use, much better worth seeing than prodigies [myths, fairy tales]. These things were all so precious that they are valued at 100,000 florins [guilders] All the days of my life I have seen nothing that rejoiced my heart so much as these things, for I saw amongst them wonderful works of art, and I marvelled at the subtle Ingenia of men in foreign lands. Indeed I cannot express all that I thought there.

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It is quite clear from the passage that Dürer’s admiration is of riches, curiosities, and craft. When he discusses Western “art” he uses different terms, such as proportion, or alludes to comparisons with antiquity. Contrary to usual interpretations, he doesn’t marvel at the “art” of the New World, he marvels at the “curiosities” and “craft.”
Yet by the eighteenth century what were “heathen idols” had become art. Europe was more secular and Mexico was less afraid of native religious revivals. When three Aztec sculptures came to light in the construction in the Zócalo of Mexico City in 1790, two were left visible and eventually moved to a new museum devoted to antiquity. The third, a colossal idol-like female figure, was reburied for some time for fear of its effect on the natives. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, it had found its place in the museum too. Plaster casts were made of the sculptures and exhibited in 1824 in London for a public eager to see exotic monuments. 
http://www.columbia.edu/~ep9/articles_thinking.html
 

a cloudburst of material possessions

Recto: from the clouds descends a rain of material possessions, which lie about on the earth below. On the clouds, to the left, something that could be a lion advances in profile to the right. Verso: six lines of household expenses and the fragment of a seventh, not by Leonardo.
www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/912698/a-cloudburst-of-material-possessions

Mmbul, Gaw, Fe' or Rai, Yar, and Reng

Two Chiefs of Yap Island Western Caroline Islands
with three perforated stones

Rai, or stone money, are large, circular stone disks carved out of limestone formed from aragonite and calcite crystals. Rai stones were mined in Palau and transported for use to the island of Yap. They have been used in trade by the locals and are described by some observers as a form of currency.
There are five major types of rai stone monies:Mmbul, Gaw, Fe' or Rai, Yar, and Reng.
The considered value of a specific stone is based on its size and craftsmanship and also on the history of the stone. If many people—or no one at all—died when the specific stone was transported, or a famous sailor brought it in, the value of the rai stone increases. Rai stones were and still are used in rare, important social transactions such as marriage, inheritance, political deals, sign of an alliance, ransom of the battle dead or, rarely, in exchange for food. Many of them are placed in front of meeting houses or along pathways.
Ownership is transferred without physically relocating the stones.
- See more at: http://www.maritimeheritage.org/ports/gilbertIslands.html#sthash.vEhsXQWS.dpuf

Two Chiefs of Yap Island Western Caroline Islands 
with three perforated stones

Rai, or stone money, are large, circular stone disks carved out of limestone formed from aragonite and calcite crystals. Rai stones were mined in Palau and transported for use to the island of Yap. They have been used in trade by the locals and are described by some observers as a form of currency.
There are five major types of rai stone monies: Mmbul, Gaw, Fe' or Rai, Yar, and Reng.
The considered value of a specific stone is based on its size and craftsmanship and also on the history of the stone. If many people—or no one at all—died when the specific stone was transported, or a famous sailor brought it in, the value of the rai stone increases. Rai stones were and still are used in rare, important social transactions such as marriage, inheritance, political deals, sign of an alliance, ransom of the battle dead or, rarely, in exchange for food. Many of them are placed in front of meeting houses or along pathways.
Ownership is transferred without physically relocating the stones.

http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/HistoryTechnology/pdf_hi/SSHT-0023.pdf

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Island Money, by Michael F. Bryan: 
Consider the case of the Irish American David O’Keefe from Savannah, Georgia, who, after being shipwrecked on Yap in the late nineteenth century, returned to the island with a sailing vessel and proceeded to import a large number of stones in return for a bounty of Yapese copra (coconut meat). The arrival of O’Keefe (and other Western traders) increased the number and size of the stones being brought back to the island, and by one accounting, Yap stones went from being “very rare” in 1840 to being plentiful—more than 13,000 were to be found on the island by 1929. No longer restricted by shell tools and canoes, the largest stones arriving grew from four feet in diameter to the colossal 12-foot stones that are now a part of monetary folklore. Yet the great infusion of stones did not inflate away their value. Since the stones of Captain O’Keefe were obviously more easily obtained, they traded on the island at an appropriately reduced value relative to the older stones gotten at much greater cost. In essence, O’Keefe and other Westerners were bringing in large numbers of “debased” stones that could easily be identified by the Yapese.

The following portion of the history of the stone money is agreed upon.

a. Urun and Tamangiro, from Af Village, in Tamil Munici- pality, went to the Palau Islands and obtained three pieces of stone money. They gave the larger piece to the people of Af Village. By agreement between them, Urun retained one of the smaller ones and Tamangiro the other smaller one. The piece in question in this action is the one retained by Urun in this division.

b. Urun's house burned down and the people of Af Village helped him rebuild it. In payment of this assistance, Urun gave the stone money now in question to the people of Af Village.

c. During a "tarn" celebration given by Af Village, the people of Dechumui Village put on a dance about people going on a trip and, in appreciation for this dance, the people of Af Village gave the stone money in question, among other things, to the people of Dechumur Village and the stone money was removed to Dechumur Village and remained there until about January 15, 1960.

d. Some people from Dechumur Village made a trip to Palau and brought more stone money of various sizes. The piece brought in on this trip by Tamag was the same size as that given by Af Village to Dechumur Village, and this piece brought in by Tamag was given to Af Village and the piece now in question given to Tamag in exchange for the one he brought in.

e. Tamag gave the piece now in question to his brother Fazagol when the latter was about to build a house. Fazagol gave this stone money to Puguu in payment for some tin roofing for the house.

f.    On or about January 15, 1960, the defendant Pong, with a group of men gathered by him, removed the stone money in question from Dechumur Village over the protests of the plaintiff Choo who was present during part of the removal, protested that the stone money belonged to him, and told them not to remove it. Later, on Pong's authorization, the stone money was shipped to the Money Museum of the National Bank of Detroit, Michigan, in accordance with the agreement of sale with Pong under which he received $125.00 for the stone money.

usufruct

polish yer hexayurt

On Tuesday November 3d, and the tenth of his sicknesse, he became worse than before, all his former accidents encreasing exceedingly, his boundings being turned into convulsions, his raving and benumbing becoming greater, the fever more violent; where upon bleeding was agiane proposed by Doctor Mayerne and the favourers thereof, who still affirmed that he did mislike the too sparing proceeding with his Highnesse; alledging, that in this case of extremity, they must, if they meane to save his life, proceed in the cure, as though it were to some meane person, forgetting him to be a Prince whom they now had in hand, otherwise he said, for ought he saw, because he was a Prince he must die, but if he were a meane person he might be saved. This day for the easing of the extreme paine of his head, the hair was shaved away, and the pigeons and cupping glasses applied to lessen and draw away the humour and that superfluous blood from the head, which he endured with wonderfull and admirable patience, as though he had beene insensible of paine; yet all without any good, save perhaps for some small seeming hope of comfort for the present. Now began the pilots who guided this frail barque of his Highnesse’s body almost to despaire to escape the ensuing tempests; some of whose lookes did now more than ever discourage the rest. For this night he became very weake, the fever augmenting, the raving becoming worse than ever, in which he began to tosse and tumble, to sing in his sleepe, proffering to have leaped out of bed, gathering the sheets together, the convulsions being more violent.

...in order to leave the reader no other way out than the way in... Lacan / Ecrits / Five / The agency of the letter..

dispossession / nemeton

When the early saints intruded on the silent haunts of the earth-spirits in wood or mountain solitude, the earth-spirits arose to resist the invasion. They attacked St. Botulf fiercely when he desired to pitch his cell in their quiet retreats, crying out: a long time have we possessed this spot, and we had hoped to dwell in it forever. Why, cruel Botulf, dost thou forcibly drive us from our haunts?

Eleanor Hull / Folklore of the British Isles / Methuen / 1928 / p87