In Person: Mark Danielewski and POE in Dallas - Books - The Austin Chronicle
When Pantheon sent Danielewski to Dallas on July 16 to discuss House of Leaves with his many fans in Dallas, it wasn’t exactly a typical discussion group. POE happened to be in Dallas opening for Depeche Mode and since her CD Haunted mines similar thematic territory as House of Leaves, she came to the discussion, too, though her participation wasn’t announced before the event. There was some fear that the mingling of Danielewski’s fans and POE’s fans would overwhelm the Fretz Park Branch of the Dallas Public Library, where the event was held in suburban Dallas.
House of Leaves has flourished in Dallas, and the reason, mostly, is Jessie Jessup, a popular deejay at 102.1 The Edge who has talked about the book repeatedly on the air and played POE’s song “Hey Pretty (Drive-By 2001 Mix),” which features a passage from House of Leaves. Han Cao, a 19-year-old student at the University of Texas at Dallas, was standing in line to get into the auditorium at the Fretz Park branch. “She just kept ranting about it,” Cao told me. “I heard her rant for like two months, and I was like, Shut up about the book! And then I said, Okay, I’ll read it.”
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Jessup also got to ask the last question, which involved Nietzsche and the heady observation that Danielewski and POE are “clearly both profound spirits.” “I would say that Nietzsche was a great trickster,” Danielewski said, after his sister had responded. “Because the fact is that everyone is a profound spirit and we all have masks. The question is just to see your mask clearly.”
Mark Danielewski and POE with Fretz Park Branch manager David Darnell (Photo By Jan Gifford)
This photo is incredible, and I need to know who took it, who still has the original. A search for “Jan Gifford Dallas” only turned up one woman who died in 2020. That could be her, I don’t know. Maybe a friend of the librarian. “Jan Gifford Austin” did not turn up any different results.
Found while cleaning up this very old post, into which I have added one of the photos I was able to find via the Wayback Machine, which I am willing to bet is from the above appearance.